"Here."
"Yes. But what are you going to say to your parents when you write?
They suppose you are on your way to Paris."
She nodded, looking at him thoughtfully.
"By the way," he added, "is your trunk on board the Lusitania?"
"Yes."
"That won't do! Have you the check for it?"
"Yes, in my purse."
"We've got to get that trunk off the ship," he said. "There's only one
sure way. I'd better go down now, to the pier. Where's your steamer
ticket?"
"I--I have both tickets and both checks in my bag. He--let me have
the p-pleasure of carrying them----" Again her voice broke childishly,
but the threatened emotion was strangled and resolutely choked back.
"Give me the tickets and checks," he said. "I'll go down to the dock
now."
She drew out the papers, sat holding them for a few moments without
relinquishing them. Then she raised her eyes to his, and a bright
flush stained her face: "Why should I not go to Paris by myself?" she demanded.
"You mean now? On this ship?"
"Yes. Why not? I have enough money to go there and study, haven't I?"
"Yes. But----"
"Why not!" she repeated feverishly, her grey eyes sparkling. "I have
three thousand dollars; I can't go back to Brookhollow and disgrace
them. What does it matter where I go?"
"It would be all right," he said, "if you'd ever had any
experience----"
"Experience! What do you call what I've had today!" She exclaimed
excitedly. "To lose in a single day my mother, my home--to go through
in this city what I have gone through--what I am going through now--is
not that enough experience? Isn't it?"
He said: "You've had a rotten awakening, Rue--a perfectly devilish experience.
Only--you've never travelled alone----" Suddenly it occurred to him
that his lively friend, the Princess Mistchenka, was sailing on the
Lusitania; and he remained silent, uncertain, looking with vague
misgivings at this girl in the armchair opposite--this thin, unformed,
inexperienced child who had attained neither mental nor physical
maturity.
"I think," he said at length, "that I told you I had a friend sailing
on the Lusitania tomorrow."
She remembered and nodded.
"But wait a moment," he added. "How do you know that this--this fellow
Brandes will not attempt to sail on her, also----" Something checked
him, for in the girl's golden-grey eyes he saw a flame glimmer;
something almost terrible came into the child's still gaze; and
slowly died out like the afterglow of lightning.