VII.

Even Dorothy was disposed to believe that unless some peculiarly favorable combination of circ.u.mstances presented itself as a basis for her intelligent manipulation her strong desire for a yacht voyage must remain ungratified; for, now that his liver was decidedly the larger part of him, Mr. Port had a fairly catlike dread of the sea. To be sure, Dorothy's character was a resolute one, and her staying powers were quite remarkable; but in the matter of venturing his bilious body upon the ocean she discovered that her uncle--although now reduced to a fairly satisfactory state of submission in other respects--had a large and powerful will of his own.

Fortune, however, favors the resolute even more decidedly than she favors the brave. This fact Dorothy comprehended thoroughly, and uniformly acted upon. Each time that even a remote possibility of a yacht cruise presented itself she instantly brought her batteries to bear; and, with a nice understanding of her uncle's intellectual peculiarities, she each time treated the matter as though it never before had been discussed.

Therefore it was that when Miss Lee's eyes were gladdened one day--just as she and her uncle were about to begin their lunch on the shady veranda of the Casino--by the sight of a trim schooner yacht sliding down the wind from the direction of Newport, the subject of the cruise was revived with a suddenness and point that Mr. Port found highly disconcerting. The yacht rounded to off the Casino, and the sound of a plunge and a clanking chain floated across the water as her anchor went overboard.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The yacht rounded to off the Casino 060]

"Oh, isn't she a beauty!" exclaimed Dorothy, with enthusiasm. "Now, Uncle Hutchinson, her owner is coming ash.o.r.e--they have just brought the gig round to the gangway--and if you don't know him you must get somebody to introduce you to him; and then you must introduce him to me; and then he will ask us to go on a cruise; and of course we will go, and have just the loveliest time in the world. I haven't been on board a yacht for nearly five years (just look at the gig: don't the men pull splendidly?)--not since that nice little Lord Alderhone took poor dear mamma and me up to Norway. We did have such a good time! Poor dear mamma, of course, was desperately sick--she always was horribly sea-sick, you know; but I'm never sea-sick the least bit, and it was perfectly delightful. Look, Uncle Hutchinson, they've made the dock, and now he's coming right up here. What a handsome man he is, and how well he looks in his club uniform! It seems to me I've seen him somewhere. Do you know him, Uncle Hutchinson?"

A serious difficulty under which Mr. Port labored in his dealings with his niece was his inability--due to his Philadelphia habit of mind--to keep up with the exceptionally rapid flow of her ideas. On the present occasion, while he still was engaged in consideration of the irrational proposition that he should court the desperate misery that attends a bilious man at sea by as good as asking to be taken on a yacht voyage, he suddenly found his ideas twisted off into another direction by the reference to his sister's sufferings on a similar occasion in the past; and before he could frame in words the reproof that he was disposed to administer to Dorothy for what he probably would have styled her heartlessness, he found his thoughts shunted to yet another track by a direct question. It is within the bounds of possibility that Miss Lee had arrived at a just estimate of her relative's intellectual peculiarities, and that she even sometimes framed her discourses with a view to taking advantage of them.

The direct question being the simplest section of Dorothy's complex utterance, Mr. Port abandoned his intended remonstrance and reproof and proceeded to answer it. "Yes," he said, "I know him. It's Van Rensselaer Livingstone. His cousin, Van Ruy-ter Livingstone, married your cousin Grace--Grace Winthrop, you know. He's a great scamp--this one, I mean; gambles, and that sort of thing, I'm told, and drinks, and--and various things. I shall have to speak to him if he sees me, I suppose; but of course I shall not introduce him to you."

"Mr. Van Rensselaer Livingstone! Why so it is! How perfectly delightful!

I know him very well, Uncle Hutchinson. He was in Nice the last winter we were there; and he broke the bank at Monaco; and he played that perfectly absurd trick on little Prince Sporetti: cut off his little black mustache when Prince Sporetti was--was not exactly sober, you know, and gummed on a great red mustache instead of it; and then, before the prince was quite himself again, took him to Lady Orrasby's ball. All Nice was in a perfect roar over it. And they had a duel afterwards, and Mr. Livingstone--he is a wonderful shot--instead of hurting the little prince, just shot away the tip of his left ear as nicely as possible.

Oh, he is a delightful man--and here he comes." And Dorothy, half rising from her chair, and paying no more attention to Mr. Port's kicks under the table than she did to his smothered verbal remonstrances, extended her well-shaped white hand in the most cordial manner, and in the most cordial tone exclaimed:

"Won't you speak to me in English, Mr. Livingstone? We talked French, I think it was, the last time we met. And how is your friend Prince Sporetti? Has his ear grown out again? You know my uncle, I think?

Mr. Hutchinson Port."

Livingstone took the proffered hand with even more cordiality than it was given, and then extended his own to Mr. Port--who seemed much less inclined to shake it than to bite it.

"I think that we are justified in regarding ourselves as relations now, Miss Lee, since our cousins have married each other, you know. Quite a romance, wasn't it? And how very jolly it is to meet you here--when I thought that you certainly were in Switzerland or Norway, or even over in that new place that people are going to in Roumania! I flatter myself that I always have rather a knack of falling on my feet, but, by Jove, I'm doing it more than usual this morning!"

Miss Lee seemed to be entirely unaware of the fact that her uncle was looking like an animated thunder-cloud. "It is just like a bit out of a delightful novel," was her encouraging response. "A long, low, black schooner suddenly coming in from the seaward and anchoring close off sh.o.r.e, and the hero landing in a little boat just in time to slay the villain and rescue the beautiful bride. Of course I'm the beautiful bride, but my uncle is not a villain, but the very best of guardians--by-the-way, I don't think that you know that poor dear mamma is dead, Mr. Livingstone? Yes, she died only a week or two after you left us. So you see you must be very nice to the villain--and you can begin your kind treatment of him by having lunch with him and with me too. Uncle Hutchinson was _so_ pleased when he saw you come ash.o.r.e. He said that we certainly must capture you, and he sent a man to bring some hot soup for you at once--here it is now." And so it was, for Dorothy herself very thoughtfully had given the order that she now modestly attributed to her uncle.

And so in less than ten minutes from the moment when Mr. Port had informed Dorothy that Van Rensselaer Livingstone was a very objectionable person whom he desired to avoid, and whose introduction to her was not even to be thought of, they all three were lunching together in what to the casual observer seemed to be the most amicable manner possible.

VIII.

"I've run over to look up Mrs. Rattleton," said Livingstone, as he discussed with evident relish the _filet_ that Mr. Port charitably hoped would choke him. "Very likely you haven't met her, for she's only just got here. But you'll like her, I know, for she's ever so jolly. She's promised to play propriety for me in a party that we want to make up aboard the yacht. The squadron won't get down from New York for a week yet, and I've come up ahead of it so that we can have a cruise to the Shoals and back before the races. Of course, Miss Lee, you won't fly in the face of Fate, after this providential meeting, by refusing to join our party; at least if you do you will make me wretched to the end of my days. And we will try to make you comfortable on board, sir," he added, politely, turning to Mr. Port. "I have a tolerably fair cook, and ice isn't the only thing in the ice-chest, I a.s.sure you."

"How very kind you are, Mr. Livingstone," Dorothy hastened to say, in order to head off her uncle's inevitable refusal. "Of course we will go, with the greatest possible pleasure. It is very odd how things fall out sometimes. Now only this morning I was begging Uncle Hutchinson to take me off yachting, and he was saying how much he enjoyed being at sea, and how he really thought that if it wasn't for his age--wasn't it absurd of him to talk about his age? He is not old at all, the dear!--he would have a yacht of his own. And almost before the words are fairly out of our mouths here you drop from the clouds, or are cast up by the sea, it's all the same thing, and give us both just what we have been longing for. At least, Uncle Hutchinson pretended to be longing for it only in case he could be young enough to enjoy it; but if he doesn't think he's young now, I'd like to know what he'll call himself when he's fifty!"

And then, facing around sharply upon her uncle, Dorothy concluded: "The idea of pretending that _you_ are too old to go yachting! Really, Uncle Hutchinson, I am ashamed of you!"

As has been intimated, if there was any one subject upon which Mr. Port was especially sensitive, it was the subject of his age. As the parish register of St. Peter's all too plainly proved, he never would see sixty again; but this awkward record was in an out-of-the-way place, and the agreeable fiction that he advanced in various indirect ways to the effect that he was a trifle turned of forty-seven was not likely to be officially contradicted. And it is not impossible, so tenacious was he upon this point, that had the official proof been produced, he would have denied its authenticity. For it was Mr. Port's firm determination still to figure before the world as a youngish, middle-aged man.

To say that Miss Lee deliberately set herself to playing upon this weakness of her guardian's, possibly, remotely possibly, would be doing her injustice. But the fact is obvious that she succeeded by her cleverly turned discourse in landing her esteemed relative fairly between the horns of an exceedingly awkward dilemma: either Mr. Port must accept the invitation and be horribly ill, or he must reject it, and so throw over his pretensions to elderly youth.

For a moment the unhappy gentleman hung in the wind, and Dorothy regretted that she had not made her statement of the case still stronger. Indeed, she was about to supplement it by a remark to the effect that people never thought of giving up yachting until they were turned of sixty, when, to her relief, her uncle slowly filled away on the right tack. His acceptance was expressed in highly ungracious terms; but, as has been said, Dorothy never troubled herself about forms, provided she compa.s.sed results. The moment that he had uttered the fatal words, Mr. Port fell to cursing himself in his own mind for being such a fool; but the same reason that had impelled him to give his consent withheld him from retracting it. He knew that he was going to be desperately miserable; but, at least, n.o.body could say that he was old.

"I'm ever so much obliged to you, Miss Lee, and to you too, Mr. Port,"

said Livingstone. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go and hunt up Mrs. Rattle-ton, and tell her what a splendid raise I've made, and help her organize the rest of the party. We shall have only two more. It's a bore to have more than six people on board a yacht. I don't know why it is, I'm sure, but if you have more than six they always get to fighting.

Queer, isn't it?"

"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Port. "Mrs. Rattleton? May I ask if this is the Mrs. Rattleton from New York who was here last season, the one whose bathing costume was so--so very eccentric, and about whom there was so much very disagreeable talk?"

"Mrs. Rattleton _is_ from New York, and she _was_ here last season,"

Livingstone answered. "But I can't say that I remember anything eccentric in her bathing costume, except that it was exceedingly becoming; and I certainly never heard any disagreeable talk about her.

There may have been such talk about her, but perhaps it was thought just as well not to have it in my presence. Mrs. Rattleton is my cousin, Mr.

Port--she was a Van Twiller, you know. Do you happen to remember any of the things that were said about her, and who said them?" Livingstone spoke with extreme courtesy; but there was something in his tone that caused Mr. Port suddenly to think of the tip of Prince Sporetti's left ear, and that led him to reply hurriedly, and by no means lucidly:

"Certainly--no--yes--that is to say, I can't exactly remember anything in particular. I'm sure I was led to believe from what was said that she was a very charming woman. No, I don't remember at all."

"Ah, perhaps it is just as well," Livingstone replied, gravely. "But how lucky!" he added; "there she is now. Everybody is at the Casino about this time of day, I fancy. May I bring her over and present her to you, Miss Lee?"

"Of course you may, Mr. Livingstone. I shall be delighted to meet her.

And if she is to matronize me, the sooner that I begin to get accustomed to her severities the better."

And then Mr. Hutchinson Port suffered a fresh pang of misery when the presentation was accomplished and he was forced to say approximately pleasant things to a lady whose decidedly ballet-like attire in the surf--or, to be precise, on the beach above high-water-mark, where, for some occult reason, she usually saw fit to do the most of her bathing--joined to the exceeding celerity of her conduct generally, had marked her during the preceding season as the conspicuous centre of one phase of life at the Pier. Nor was Mr. Port's lot made happier as he listened to the brisk discussion that ensued in regard to the organization of the yachting party, and found that its two remaining members were to be drawn, as was only natural, from the eminently meteoric set to which Mrs. Rattleton belonged.

Had time been given Mr. Port for consideration it is probable that he would have collected his mental forces sufficiently to have enabled him to lodge a remonstrance; he might even--though this is doubtful, for Dorothy's voting power was vigorous--have accomplished a veto. But projects in which Mrs. Rattleton was concerned never went slowly; and in the present case the necessity for getting back in time for the races really compelled haste. And so it came to pa.s.s that not until the _Fleetwings_ was off the Brenton's Reef light-ship, with her nose pointed well up into the north-east, was there framed in Mr. Port's slow-moving mind a suitable line of argument upon which to base a peremptory refusal to go upon the expedition--and by that time he was so excruciatingly ill in his own cabin that coherent utterance and converse with his kind were alike impossible.

So far as Mr. Port was concerned the ensuing six days made up an epoch in his life that can only be described as an agonized blank. And when--as it seemed to him many ages later--the _Fleetwings_ once more cast anchor off Narragansett Pier, and he stepped shakily from the schooner's gig to the Casino dock, the usual plumpness and ruddiness of his face had given place to a yellow leanness, and his weight had been reduced by very nearly twenty pounds. The cruise had been a flying one, or he never would have finished it. After the first six hours he would have landed on a desert island cheerfully--and it is not impossible that a hint from Dorothy as to her uncle's probable movements should a harbor be made had induced Livingstone to give the land a wide berth.

Dorothy came ash.o.r.e blooming. "You don't know, Uncle Hutchinson,"

she said, "what a perfectly lovely time I've had"--and this cheerful a.s.sertion was the literal truth, for Mr. Port had entered his cabin before the yacht had crossed the line between Beaver Tail and Point Judith, and had not emerged from it until the anchor went overboard.

"And you don't know," Miss Lee went on with effusion, "how grateful your angel is to you for helping her to have such a delightful cruise. I'm sorry that you haven't been very well, Uncle Hutchinson; but I know that you will be all the better for it. Poor dear mamma, you know, was bilious too, and going to sea always made her wretched; but she used to be wonderfully well always when she got on sh.o.r.e again. And you'll be wonderfully well too, you dear; and that will be your reward for helping your angel to have such a perfectly delightful time."

Mr. Port made no reply to this address, for his condition of collapse was too complete to permit him to give form in words to the thoughts of rage and resentment which were burning in the depths of his injured soul. Without a word to one single member of the party, he climbed heavily into a carriage and was driven directly to his hotel--while Dorothy, still under the chaperonage of Mrs. Rattleton, gayly joined the pleasant little lunch-party at the Casino with which the yacht voyage came to an end.

IX.

During the ensuing week, a considerable portion of which Mr. Port pa.s.sed in the privacy of his own room, the relations between Miss Lee and her guardian were characterized by a chill formality that was ominous of a coming storm. In point of fact, Mr. Port was waiting only until he should fully regain his strength in order to try conclusions with Dorothy once and for all--and he was most highly resolved that in the impending battle royal he should not suffer defeat. So far, he had gone down in each encounter with his spirited antagonist because the tactics employed against him were of an unfamiliar sort. But he was beginning to get the hang of these tactics now; and he also had got what in fighting parlance would have been styled his second wind. As he thought of the wrongs which had been heaped upon him, rage filled his breast; and the strong determination slowly shaped itself within him that to the finesse of the enemy he would oppose a solid front of brute force.

Astuteness was not the least marked of Miss Lee's many charming characteristics, and although her guardian gave no outward sign of his belligerent intentions, she felt an inward conviction that a decisive trial of strength between them was at hand. Five or six years earlier she had engaged in a trial of this nature with her mother, and had emerged from it victorious. In that case, feminine weakness had yielded to feminine strength. But now the gloomy thought a.s.sailed her that her uncle, while closely resembling her mother in the matter of his liver, had in the depths of his torpid nature a substratum of brutal masculine resolution against which, should it fairly be set in array, she might battle in vain. And the upshot of her meditations was the conviction that her only chance of success lay in avoiding a battle by a radical change of base.

An easy way, as she perceived, to effect such a change of base was to marry Van Rensselaer Livingstone. Indeed, his proposal, a couple of days after the yacht voyage ended, came so opportunely that she almost was surprised into accepting it out of hand. But Dorothy was too well balanced a young person to do anything hastily, even to get herself out of a tight place; and while she held Livingstone's proposal under advis.e.m.e.nt--as a line of retreat kept open for use in case of urgent necessity--she welcomed it less for the possibilities of a safer position that it offered than for those which it suggested to her fertile mind.

Marriage, she decided, was the only way by which she could score a final victory over her uncle, and at the same time spike his guns; but it did not necessarily follow that her marriage must be with Livingstone.

Indeed, as her coolly intelligent mind perceived, marrying an unmanageable young man in order to be free of an unmanageable old one would be simply walking out of the frying-pan into the fire--and that was not at all the resolution of her difficulties that Dorothy sought.

The plan that now began to shape itself in her mind was one by which both fire and frying-pan would be successfully avoided; and as the more that she examined into it the more desirable it appeared to her, she lost no time in carrying it into effect--whereby, in less than three days' time, she sent Mr. Van Rensselaer Livingstone away in such a rage that he put to sea in the very face of a threatening north-easter, and in a much shorter period she caused her uncle seriously to doubt the evidence of his own senses.

At the end of his week of retirement, Mr. Port found himself in the hale condition of a bilious giant refreshed with blue-pills. He looked a little thinner than when he had started upon his ill-starred cruise, and his usual ruddiness was not as yet fully restored; but he was in capital condition, and a good deal more than ready for Miss Lee to come on.

He could not very well, in the nature of the case, start an offensive campaign; but at the very first suggestion on Dorothy's part of the slightest desire to engage again in any of the various forms of frivolous amus.e.m.e.nt by which she had made his life a burden to him, he was all loaded and primed to go off with a bang that he believed would settle her.

And, such is the perversity of human nature, Mr. Port presently became not a little annoyed by Dorothy's failure to supply the spark that was to touch him off. In fact, her conduct was bewilderingly strange.

She drew away from the lively circle of which Mrs. Rattleton was the animated centre and voluntarily a.s.sociated herself with the elderly and very respectable Philadelphians whoso acquaintance she previously had so emphatically declined. Still further to Mr. Port's astonishment, the lady and gentleman especially singled out by Miss Lee as most in accord with her newly-acquired tastes were the severe Mrs. Logan Rittenhouse and that lady's staid brother, Mr. Pennington Brown.