"Miss Milbrey--you and I--there's always been something between us--something different from what is between most people. We've never talked straight out since I came to New York--I'll be sorry, perhaps, for saying as much as I am saying, after awhile--but we may not talk again at all--I'm afraid you may misunderstand me--but I must say it--I should like to go away knowing you would have no friendship,--no intimacy whatever with that woman."

"I promise you I shall not, Mr. Bines; they can row if they like."

"And yet it doesn't seem fair to have you promise as if it were a consideration for _me_, because I've no right to ask it. But if I felt sure that you took my word quite as if I were a stranger, and relied upon it enough to have no communication or intercourse of any sort whatsoever with her, it would be a great satisfaction to me."

"I shall not meet her again. And--thank you!" There was a slight unsteadiness once in her voice, and he could almost have sworn her eyes showed that old brave wistfulness.

"--and quite as if you were a stranger."

"Thank you! and, Miss Milbrey?"

"Yes?"

"Your brother may become entangled in some way with this woman."

"It's entirely possible."

Her voice was cool and even again.

"He might even marry her."

"She has money, I believe; he might indeed."

"Always money!" he thought; then aloud:

"If you find he means to, Miss Milbrey, do anything you can to prevent it. It wouldn't do at all, you know."

"Thank you, Mr. Bines; I shall remember."

"I--I think that's all--and I'm sorry we're not--our families are not to be friends any more."

She smiled rather painfully, with an obvious effort to be conventional.

"_So_ sorry! Good-bye!"

He looked after her as she drove off. She sat erect, her head straight to the front, her trim shoulders erect, and the whip grasped firmly. He stood motionless until the fat pony had jolted sleepily around the corner.

"Bines, old boy!" he said to himself, "you nearly _made_ one of yourself there. I didn't know you had such ready capabilities for being an a.s.s."

CHAPTER XXVI.

A Hot Day in New York, with News of an Interesting Marriage

At five o'clock that day the prow of the _Viluca_ cut the waters of Newport harbour around Goat Island, and pointed for New York.

"Now is your time," said Mrs. Drelmer to Mauburn. "I'm sure the girl likes you, and this row with the Milbreys has cut off any chance that cub had. Why not propose to her to-night?"

"I _have_ seemed to be getting on," answered Mauburn. "But wait a bit.

There's that confounded girl over there. No telling what she'll do. She might knock things on the head any moment."

"All the more reason for prompt action, and there couldn't very well be anything to hurt you."

"By Jove! that's so; there couldn't, very well, could there? I'll take your advice."

And so it befell that Mauburn and Miss Bines sat late on deck that night, and under the witchery of a moon that must long since have become hardened to the spectacle, the old, old story was told, to the accompaniment of the engine's m.u.f.fled throb, and the soft purring of the silver waters as they slipped by the boat and blended with the creamy track astern. So little variation was there in the time-worn tale, and in the maid's reception of it, that neither need here be told of in detail.

Nor were the proceedings next morning less tamely orthodox. Mrs. Bines managed to forget her relationship of elder sister to the poor long enough to behave as a mother ought when the heart of her daughter has been given into a true-love's keeping. Percival deported himself cordially.

"I'm really glad to hear it," he said to Mauburn. "I'm sure you'll make sis as good a husband as she'll make you a wife; and that's very good, indeed. Let's fracture a cold quart to the future Lady Ca.s.selthorpe."

"And to the future Lord Ca.s.selthorpe!" added Mrs. Drelmer, who was warmly enthusiastic.

"Such a brilliant match," she murmured to Percival, when they had touched gla.s.ses in the after-cabin. "I know more than one New York girl who'd have jumped at the chance."

"We'll try to bear our honours modestly," he answered her.

The yacht lay at her anchorage in the East River. Percival made preparations to go ash.o.r.e with his mother.

"Stay here with the turtle-doves," he said to Mrs. Drelmer, "far enough off, of course, to let them coo, and I'll be back with any people I can pick up for a cruise."

"Trust me to contract the visual and aural infirmities of the ideal chaperone," was Mrs. Drelmer's cheerful response. "And if you should run across that poor dear of a husband of mine, tell him not to slave himself to death for his thoughtless b.u.t.terfly of a wife, who toils not, neither does she spin. Tell him," she added, "that I'm playing dragon to this engaged couple. It will cheer up the poor dear."

The city was a fiery furnace. But its prisoners were not exempt from its heat, like certain holy ones of old. On the dock where Percival and his mother landed was a listless throng of them, gasping for the faint little breezes that now and then blew in from the water. A worn woman with unkempt hair, her waist flung open at the neck, sat in a spot of shade, and soothed a baby already grown too weak to be fretful. Mrs.

Bines spoke to her, while Percival bought a morning paper from a tiny newsboy, who held his complete attire under one arm, his papers under the other, and his pennies in his mouth, keeping meantime a shifty side-glance on the policeman a block away, who might be expected to interfere with his contemplated plunge.

"That poor soul's been there all night," said Mrs. Bines. "She's afraid her baby's going to die; and yet she was so cheerful and polite about it, and when I gave her some money the poor thing blushed. I told her to bring the baby down to the floating hospital to-morrow, but I mistrust it won't be alive, and--oh, there's an ambulance backed up to the sidewalk; see what the matter is."

As Percival pushed through the outer edge of the crowd, a battered wreck of a man past middle age was being lifted into the ambulance. His eyes were closed, his face a dead, chalky white, and his body hung limp.

"Sunstroke?" asked Percival.

The overworked ambulance surgeon, who seemed himself to be in need of help, looked up.

"Nope; this is a case of plain starvation. I'm nearer sunstroke myself than he is--not a wink of sleep for two nights now. Fifty-two runs since yesterday at this time, and the bell still ringing. Gee! but it's hot. This lad won't ever care about the weather again, though," he concluded, jumping on to the rear step and grasping the rails on either side while the driver clanged his gong and started off.

"Was it sunstroke?" asked Mrs. Bines.

"Man with stomach trouble," answered her son, shortly.

"They're so careless about what they eat this hot weather," Mrs. Bines began, as they walked toward a carriage; "all sorts of heavy foods and green fruit--"

"Well, if you must know, this one had been careless enough not to eat anything at all. He was starved."

"Oh, dear! What a place! here people are starving, and look at us! Why, we wasted enough from breakfast to feed a small family. It isn't right.

They never would allow such a thing in Montana City."