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

that's awfully jolly. One of the finest fellows I've met in ten years. Now, the lady said she was acquainted with him, so if I don't wheedle an introduction out of him, it will show that a man at a dinner and a man in a bank are two different individuals. You were looking for plots; so there is mine laid bare to you. It's an introduction, not gold, I'm conspiring for."

The cashier had nothing further to say. When they entered the bank together he saw the clerks all busily at work, and knew that no startling event had happened during his absence. The girl had gone direct to the manager's room, and thither the young men followed her. The bank manager was standing at his desk, trying to preserve a severe financial cast of countenance, which the twinkle in his eyes belied. The girl, also standing, had evidently been giving him a rapid sketch of what had occurred, but now fell into silence when accuser and accomplice appeared.

The advent of the Englishman was a godsend to the manager. He was too courteous a gentleman to laugh in the face of a lady who very seriously was relating a set of incidents which appealed to his sense of humor, so the coming of the Lieutenant enabled him to switch off his mirth on another subject, and in reply to the officer's cordial "Good-morning, Mr. Morton," he replied:

"Why, Lieutenant, I'm delighted to see you. That was a very jolly song you sang for us last night: I'll never forget it. What do you call it? Whittington Fair?" And he laughed outright, as at a genial recollection.

The Lieutenant blushed red as a girl, and stammered:

"Really, Mr. Morton, you know, that's not according to the rules of evidence. When a fellow comes up for trial, previous convictions are never allowed to be mentioned till after the sentence. Whiddicomb Fair should not be held against me in the present crisis."

The manager chuckled gleefully. The cashier, when he saw how the land lay, had quietly withdrawn, closing the door behind him.

"Well, Lieutenant, I think I must have this incident cabled to Europe," said Morton, "so the effete nations of your continent may know that a plain bank cashier isn't afraid to tackle the British navy. Indeed, Mr. Drummond, if you read history, you will learn that this is a dangerous coast for your warships. It seems rather inhospitable that a guest of our town cannot pick all the gold he wants out of a bank, but a cashier has necessarily somewhat narrow views on the subject. I was just about to apologize to Miss Amhurst, who is a valued client of ours, when you came in, and I hope, Miss Amhurst"-- he continued gravely, turning to the girl-- "that you will excuse us for the inconvenience to which you have been put."

"Oh, it does not matter in the least," replied the young woman, with nevertheless a sigh of relief. "It was all my own fault in so carelessly leaving the money. Some time, when less in a hurry than I am at the present moment, I will tell you how I came to make the blunder."

Meanwhile the manager caught and interpreted correctly an imploring look from the Lieutenant.

"Before you go, Miss Amhurst, will you permit me to introduce to you my friend, Lieutenant Drummond, of H.M.S. 'Consternation.'"

This ritual to convention being performed, the expression on the girl's face showed the renewal of her anxiety to be gone, and as she turned to the door, the officer sprang forward and opened it for her. If the manager expected the young man to return, he was disappointed, for Drummond threw over his shoulder the hasty remark:

"I will see you at the Club this evening," whereupon the genial Morton, finding himself deserted, sat down in his swivel chair and laughed quietly to himself.

There was the slightest possible shade of annoyance on the girl's face as the sailor walked beside her from the door of the manager's room, through the public portion of the bank to the exit, and the young man noticing this, became momentarily tongue-tied, but nevertheless persisted, with a certain awkward doggedness which was not going to allow so slight a hint that his further attendance was unnecessary, to baffle him. He did not speak until they had passed down the stone steps to the pavement, and then his utterance began with a half-embarrassed stammer, as if the shadow of displeasure demanded justification on his part.

"You-- you see, Miss Amhurst, we have been properly introduced."

For the first time he heard the girl laugh, just a little, and the sound was very musical to him.

"The introduction was of the slightest," she said. "I cannot claim even an acquaintance with Mr. Morton, although I did so in the presence of his persistent subordinate. I have met the manager of the bank but once before, and that for a few moments only, when he showed me where to sign my name in a big book."

"Nevertheless," urged Drummond, "I shall defend the validity of that introduction against all comers. The head of a bank is a most important man in every country, and his commendation is really very much sought after."

"You appear to possess it. He complimented your singing, you know," and there was a roguish twinkle in the girl's eye as she glanced up sideways at him, while a smile came to her lips as she saw the color again mount to his cheeks. She had never before met a man who blushed, and she could not help regarding him rather as a big boy than a person to be taken seriously. His stammer became more pronounced.

"I-- I think you are laughing at me, Miss Amhurst, and indeed I don't wonder at it, and I-- I am afraid you consider me even more persistent than the cashier. But I did want to tell you how sorry I am to have caused you annoyance."

"Oh, you have not done so," replied the girl quickly. "As I said before, it was all my own fault in the beginning."

"No, I shouldn't have taken the gold. I should have come up with you, and told you that it still awaited you in the bank, and now I beg your permission to walk down the street with you, because if any one were looking at us from these windows, and saw us pursued by a bareheaded man with a revolver, they will now, on looking out again, learn that it is all right, and may even come to regard the revolver and the hatless one as an optical delusion."

Again the girl laughed.

"I am quite unknown in Bar Harbor, having fewer acquaintances than even a stranger like yourself, therefore so far as I am concerned it does not in the least matter whether any one saw us or not. We shall walk together, then, as far as the spot where the cashier overtook us, and this will give me an opportunity of explaining, if not of excusing, my leaving the money on the counter. I am sure my conduct must have appeared inexplicable both to you and the cashier, although, of course, you would be too polite to say so."

"I assure you, Miss Amhurst--"

"I know what you would say," she interrupted, with a vivacity which had not heretofore characterized her, "but, you see, the distance to the corner is short, and, as I am in a hurry, if you don't wish my story to be continued in our next--"

"Ah, if there is to be a next--" murmured the young man so fervently that it was now the turn of color to redden her cheeks.

"I am talking heedlessly," she said quickly. "What I want to say is this: I have never had much money. Quite recently I inherited what had been accumulated by a relative whom I never knew. It seemed so incredible, so strange-- well, it seems incredible and strange yet-- and I have been expecting to wake and find it all a dream. Indeed, when you overtook me at this spot where we now stand, I feared you had come to tell me it was a mistake; to hurl me from the clouds to the hard earth again."

"But it was just the reverse of that," he cried eagerly. "Just the reverse, remember. I came to confirm your dream, and you received from my hand the first of your fortune."

"Yes," she admitted, her eyes fixed on the sidewalk.

"I see how it was," he continued enthusiastically. "I suppose you had never drawn a check before."

"Never," she conceded.

"And this was merely a test. You set up your dream against the hard common sense of a bank, which has no dreams. You were to transform your vision into the actual, or find it vanish. When the commonplace cashier passed forth the coin, their jingle said to you, 'The supposed phantasy is real,' but the gold pieces themselves at that supreme moment meant no more to you than so many worthless counters, so you turned your back upon them."

She looked up at him, her eyes, though moist, illumined with pleasure inspired by the sympathy in his tones rather than the import of his words. The girl's life heretofore had been as scant of kindness as of cash, and there was a deep sincerity in his voice which was as refreshing to her lonesome heart as it was new to her experience. This man was not so stupid as he had pretended to be. He had accurately divined the inner meaning of what had happened. She had forgotten the necessity for haste which had been so importunate a few minutes before.

"You must be a mind-reader," she said.

"No, I am not at all a clever person," he laughed. "Indeed, as I told you, I am always blundering into trouble, and making things uncomfortable for my friends. I regret to say I am rather under a cloud just now in the service, and I have been called upon to endure the frown of my superiors."

"Why, what has happened?" she asked. After their temporary halt at the corner where they had been overtaken, they now strolled along together like old friends, her prohibition out of mind.

"Well, you see, I was temporarily in command of the cruiser coming down the Baltic, and passing an island rock a few miles away, I thought it would be a good opportunity to test a new gun that had been put aboard when we left England. The sea was very calm, and the rock most temptsome. Of course I knew it was Russian territory, but who could have imagined that such a point in space was inhabited by anything else than sea-gulls."

"What!" cried the girl, looking up at him with new interest. "You don't mean to say you are the officer that Russia demanded from England, and England refused to give up?"

"Oh, England could not give me up, of course, but she apologized, and assured Russia she had no evil intent. Still, anything that sets the diplomatists at work is frowned upon, and the man who does an act which his government is forced to disclaim becomes unpopular with his superiors."

"I read about it in the papers at the time. Didn't the rock fire back at you?"

"Yes, it did, and no one could have been more surprised than I when I saw the answering puff of smoke."

"How came a cannon to be there?"

"Nobody knows. I suppose that rock in the Baltic is a