A Rock in the Baltic by Robert Barr (free romance novels TXT) 📖

the fog.

"Why, you poor girl, what's the matter with you? Are you sitting down to drudgery again? You've forgotten the fortune!"

"Are-- are you back already?" cried Dorothy, somewhat wildly.

"Already! Why, bless me, I've been away an hour and a quarter. You dear girl, you've been asleep and in slavery again!"

"I think I was," admitted Dorothy with a sigh.


CHAPTER VI


FROM SEA TO MOUNTAIN

THREE days later the North Atlantic squadron of the British Navy sailed down the coast from Halifax, did not even pause at Bar Harbor, but sent a wireless telegram to the "Consternation," which pulled up anchor and joined the fleet outside, and so the war-ships departed for another port.

Katherine stood by the broad window in the sewing room in her favorite attitude, her head sideways against the pane, her eyes languidly gazing upon the Bay, fingers drumming this time a very slow march on the window sill. Dorothy sat in a rocking-chair, reading a letter for the second time. There had been silence in the room for some minutes, accentuated rather than broken by the quiet drumming of the girl's fingers on the window sill. Finally Katherine breathed a deep sigh and murmured to herself:


"'Far called our Navy fades away,
On dune and headland sinks the fire.
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.'


I wonder if I've got the lines right," she whispered to herself. She had forgotten there was anyone else in the room, and was quite startled when Dorothy spoke.

"Kate, that's a solemn change, from Gilbert to Kipling. I always judge your mood by your quotations. Has life suddenly become too serious for 'Pinafore' or the 'Mikado'?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Katherine, without turning round. "They are humorous all, and so each furnishes something suitable for the saddened mind. Wisdom comes through understanding your alphabet properly. For instance, first there was Gilbert, and that gave us G; then came Kipling, and he gave us K; thus we get an algebraic formula, G.K., which are the initials of Chesterton, a still later arrival, and as the mind increases in despondency it sinks lower and lower down the alphabet until it comes to S, and thus we have Barn-yard Shaw, an improvement on the Kail-yard school, who takes the O pshaw view of life. And relaxing hold of him I sink deeper until I come to W-- W. W. Jacobs-- how I wish he wrote poetry! He should be the humorist of all sailors, and perhaps some time he will desert barges for battleships. Then I shall read him with increased enjoyment."

"I wouldn't give Mark Twain for the lot," commented Dorothy with decision.

"Mark Twain isn't yours to give, my dear. He belongs to me also. You've forgotten that comparisons are odious. Our metier is not to compare, but to take what pleases us from each.


'How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower.


Watts. You see, I'm still down among the W's. Oh, Dorothy, how can you sit there so placidly when the 'Consternation' has just faded from sight? Selfish creature!


'Oh, give me tears for others' woes
And patience for mine own.'


I don't know who wrote that, but you have no tears for others' woes, merely greeting them with ribald laughter," for Dorothy, with the well-read letter in her hand, was making the rafters ring with her merriment, something that had never before happened during her long tenancy of that room. Kate turned her head slowly round, and the expression on her face was half-indignant, half-humorous, while her eyes were uncertain weather prophets, and gave equal indication of sunshine or rain.

"Why, Katherine, you look like a tragedy queen, rather than the spirit of comedy! Is it really a case of 'Tit-willow, tit-willow, tit-willow'? You see, I'm a-rescuing you from the bottom of the alphabet, and bringing you up to the Gilbert plane, where I am more accustomed to you, and understand you better. Is this despondency due to the departure of the 'Consternation,' and the fact that she carries away with her Jack Lamont, blacksmith?"

The long sigh terminated in a woeful "yes."

"The ship that has gone out with him we call she. If he had eloped with a real she, then wearing the willow, or singing it, however futile, might be understandable. As it is I see nothing in the situation to call for a sigh."

"That is because you are a hardened sinner, Dorothy. You have no heart, or at least if you have, it is untouched, and therefore you cannot understand. If that note in your hand were a love missive, instead of a letter from your lawyers, you would be more human, Dorothy."

The hand which held the paper crumpled it up slightly as Katherine spoke.

"Business letters are quite necessary, and belong to the world we live in," said Dorothy, a glow of brighter color suffusing her cheeks. "Surely your acquaintance with Mr. Lamont is of the shortest."

"He has called upon me every day since the night of the ball," maintained Katherine stoutly.

"Well, that's only three times."

"Only three! How you talk! One would think you had never been schooled in mathematics. Why, three is a magic figure. You can do plenty of amazing things with it. Don't you know that three is a numeral of love?"

"I thought two was the number," chimed Dorothy, with heartless mirth.

"Three," said Katherine taking one last look at the empty horizon, then seating herself in front of her friend, "three is a recurring decimal. It goes on and on and on forever, and if you write it for a thousand years you are still as far from the end as when you began. It will carry you round the world and back again, and never diminish. It is the mathematical emblem of the nature of true love."

"Is it so serious as all that, Kate, or are you just fooling again?" asked Dorothy, more soberly than heretofore. "Has he spoken to you?"

"Spoken? He has done nothing but speak, and I have listened-- oh, so intently, and with such deep understanding. He has never before met such a woman as I, and has frankly told me so."

"I am very glad he appreciates you, dear."

"Yes, you see, Dorothy, I am really much deeper than the ordinary woman. Who, for instance, could find such a beautiful love simile from a book of arithmetic costing twenty-five cents, as I have unearthed from decimal fractions? With that example in mind how can you doubt that other volumes of college learning reveal to me their inner meaning? John presented to me, as he said good-by, a beautifully bound copy of that celebrated text-book, 'Saunders' Analytical Chemistry,' with particularly tender passages marked in pencil, by his own dear hand."

Rather bewildered, for Kate's expression was one of pathos, unrelieved by any gleam of humor, Dorothy nevertheless laughed, although the laugh brought no echo from Katherine.

"And did you give him a volume of Browning in return?"

"No, I didn't. How can you be so unsympathetic? Is it impossible for you to comprehend the unseen link that binds John and me? I rummaged the book store until I found a charming little edition of 'Marshall's Geologist's Pocket Companion,' covered with beautiful brown limp Russia leather-- I thought the Russia binding was so inspirational-- with a sweet little clasp that keeps it closed-- typical of our hands at parting. On the fly-leaf I wrote: 'To J. L., in remembrance of many interesting conversations with his friend, K. K.' It only needed another K to be emblematic and political, a reminiscence of the olden times, when you people of the South, Dorothy, were making it hot for us deserving folks in the North. I hadn't time to go through the book very thoroughly, but I found many references to limestone, which I marked, and one particularly choice bit of English relating to the dissolution and re-consolidation of various minerals I drew a parallelogram around in red ink. A friend of mine in a motor launch was good enough to take the little parcel direct to the 'Consternation,' and I have no doubt that at this moment Jack is perusing it, and perhaps thinking of the giver. I hope it's up-to-date, and that he had not previously bought a copy."

"You don't mean to say, Kate, that your conversation was entirely about geology?"

"Certainly not. How could you have become imbued with an idea so absurd? We had many delightful dalliances down the romantic groves of chemistry, heart-to-heart talks on metallurgy, and once-- ah, shall I ever forget it-- while the dusk gently enfolded us, and I gazed into those bright, speaking, intelligent eyes of his as he bent nearer and nearer; while his low, sonorous voice in well-chosen words pictured to me the promise which fortified cement holds out to the world; that is, ignorant person, Portland cement strengthened by ribs of steel; and I sat listening breathless as his glowing phrases prophesied the future of this combination."

Katherine closed her eyes, rocked gently back and forth, and crooned, almost inaudibly:


"'When you gang awa, Jimmie,
Faur across the sea, laddie,
When ye gang to Russian lands
What will ye send to me, laddie?'


I know what I shall get. It will probably be a newly discovered recipe for the compounding of cement which will do away with the necessity of steel strengthening."

"Kate, dear, you are overdoing it. It is quite right that woman should be a mystery to man, but she should not aspire to become a mystery to her sister woman. Are you just making fun, or is there something in all this more serious than your words imply?"

"Like the steel strengthening in the cement, it may be there, but you can't see it, and you can't touch it, but it makes-- oh, such a difference to the slab. Heigho, Dorothy, let us forsake these hard-headed subjects, and turn to something human. What have your lawyers been bothering you about? No trouble over the money, is there?"

Dorothy shook her head.

"No. Of course, there are various matters they have to consult me about, and get my consent to this project or the other."

"Read the letter. Perhaps my mathematical mind can be of assistance to you."

Dorothy had concealed the letter, and did not now produce it.

"It is with reference to your assistance, and your continued assistance, that I wish to speak to you. Let us follow the example of the cement and the steel, and form a compact. In one respect I am going to imitate the 'Consternation.' I leave Bar Harbor next week."

Katherine sat up in her chair, and her eyes opened wide.

"What's the matter with Bar Harbor?" she asked.

"You can answer that question better than I, Kate. The Kempt family are not visitors, but live here all the year round. What do you think is the matter with Bar Harbor?"

"I confess it's a little dull in the winter time, and