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Active Service, a novel by Stephen Crane |
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CHAPTER 26 |
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_ CHAPTER XXVI. IF the professor and Mrs. Wainwright had descended sooner to a lower floor of the hotel, they would have found reigning there a form of anarchy. The students were in a smoking room which was also an entrance hall to the dining room, and because there was in the middle of this apartment a fountain containing gold fish, they had been moved to license and sin. They had all been tubbed and polished and brushed and dressed until they were exuberantly beyond themselves. The proprietor of the hotel brought in his dignity and showed it to them, but they minded it no more than if he had been only a common man. He drew himself to his height and looked gravely at them and they jovially said: " Hello, Whiskers." American college students are notorious in their country for their inclination to scoff at robed and crowned authority, and, far from being awed by the dignity of the hotel-keeper, they were delighted with it. It was something with which to sport. With immeasurable impudence, they copied his attitude, and, standing before him, made comic speeches, always alluding with blinding vividness to his beard. His exit disappointed them. He had not remained long under fire. They felt that they could have interested themselves with him an entire evening. " Come back, Whiskers! Oh, come back! " Out in the main hall he made a ges. ture of despair to some of his gaping minions and then fled to seclusion. A formidable majority then decided that Coke was a gold fish, and that therefore his proper place was in the fountain. They carried him to it while he strug. gled madly. This quiet room with its crimson rugs and gilded mirrors seemed suddenly to have become an important apartment in hell. There being as yet no traffic in the dining room, the waiters were all at liberty to come to the open doors, where they stood as men turned to stone. To them, it was no less than incendiarism. Coke, standing with one foot on the floor and the other on the bottom of the shallow fountain, blas- phemed his comrades in a low tone, but with inten- tion. He was certainly desirous of lifting his foot out of the water, but it seemed that all movement to that end would have to wait until he had successfully ex- pressed his opinions. In the meantime, there was heard slow footsteps and the rustle of skirts, and then some people entered the smoking room on their way to dine. Coke took his foot hastily out of the fountain. The faces of the men of the arriving party went blank, and they turned their cold and pebbly eyes straight to the front, while the ladies, after little ex. pressions of alarm, looked As if they wanted to run. In fact, the whole crowd rather bolted from this ex- traordinary scene. " There, now," said Coke bitterly to his companions. "You see? We looked like little schoolboys-" " Oh, never mind, old man," said Peter Tounley. "We'll forgive you, although you did embarrass us. But, above everything, don't drip. Whatever you do, don't drip." The students took this question of dripping and played upon it until they would have made quite insane anybody but another student. They worked it into all manner of forms, and hacked and haggled at Coke until he was driven to his room to seek other apparel. " Be sure and change both legs," they told him. " Remember you can't change one leg without changing both legs." After Coke's departure, the United States minister entered the room, and instantly they were subdued. It was not his lofty station-that affected them. There are probably few stations that would have at all af- fectedthem. They became subdued because they un- feignedly liked the United States minister. They, were suddenly a group of well-bred, correctly attired young men who had not put Coke's foot in the fountain. Nor had they desecrated the majesty of the hotelkeeper. "Well, I am delighted," said the minister, laughing as he shook hands with them all. " I was not sure I would ever see you again. You are not to be trusted, and, good boys as you are, I'll be glad to see you once and forever over the boundary of my jurisdiction. Leave Greece, you vagabonds. However, I am truly delighted to see you all safe." " Thank you, sir," they said. " How in the world did you get out of it? You must be remarkable chaps. I thought you were in a hopeless position. I wired and cabled everywhere I could, but I could find out nothing." " A correspondent," said Peter Tounley. " I don't know if you have met him. His name is Coleman. He found us." " Coleman ? " asked the minister, quickly. " Yes, sir. He found us and brought us out safely." " Well, glory be to Coleman," exclaimed the min- ister, after a long sigh of surprise. " Glory be to Cole- man! I never thought he could do it." The students were alert immediately. "Why, did you know about it, sir? Did he tell you he was coming after us ? " "Of course. He came tome here in Athens. and asked where you were. I told him you were in a peck of trouble. He acted quietly and somewhat queerly,. and said that he would try to look you up. He said you were friends of his. I warned him against trying it. Yes, I said it was impossible, I had no idea that he would really carry the thing out. But didn't he tell you anything about this himself?" " No, sir ' " answered Peter Tounley. " He never said much about it. I think he usually contended that it was mainly an accident." " It was no accident," said the minister, sharply. "When a man starts out to do a thing and does it, you can't say it is an accident." " I didn't say so, sir," said Peter Tounley diffidently. " Quite true, quite true ! You didn't, but-this Coleman must be a man! " " We think so, sir," said be who was called Billie. " He certainly brought us through in style." " But how did he manage it? " cried the minister, keenly interested. " How did he do it ? " " It is hard to say, sir. But he did it. He met us in the dead of night out near Nikopolis-" "Near Nikopolis?" "Yes, sir. And he hid us in a forest while a fight was going on, and then in the morning he brought us inside the Greek lines. Oh, there is a lot to tell-" Whereupon they told it, or as much as they could of it. In the end, the minister said: " Well, where are the professor and Mrs. Wainwright ? I want you all to dine with me to-night. I am dining in the public room, but you won't mind that after Epirus." " They should be down now, sir," answered a Student. People were now coming rapidly to dinner and presently the professor and Mrs. Wainwright appeared. The old man looked haggard and white. He accepted the minister's warm greeting with a strained pathetic smile. " Thank you. We are glad to return safely." Once at dinner the minister launched immediately into the subject of Coleman. " He must be altogether a most remarkable man. When he told me, very quietly, that he was going to try to rescue you, I frankly warned him against any such attempt. I thought he would merely add one more to a party of suffering people. But the. boys tell- me that he did actually rescue you." "Yes, he did," said the professor. " It was a very gallant performance, and we are very grateful." "Of course," spoke Mrs. Wainwright, "we might have rescued ourselves. We were on the right road, and all we had to do was to keep going on." " Yes, but I understand-" said the minister. " I understand he took you into a wood to protect you from that fight, and generally protected you from all, kinds of trouble. It seems wonderful to me, not so much because it was done as because it was done by the man who, some time ago, calmy announced to me that he was going to do it. Extraordinary." "Of course," said Mrs. Wainwright. " Oh, of course." "And where is he now? " asked the minister suddenly. "Has he now left you to the mercies of civilisation ? " There was a moment's curious stillness, and then Mrs. Wainwright used that high voice which-the students believed-could only come to her when she was about to say something peculiarly destructive to the sensibilities. " Oh, of course, Mr. Coleman rendered us a great service, but in his private character he is not a man whom we exactly care to associate with." " Indeed" said the minister staring. Then he hastily addressed the students. " Well, isn't this a comic war? Did you ever imagine war could be like this ? " The professor remained looking at his wife with an air of stupefaction, as if she had opened up to him visions of imbecility of which he had not even dreamed. The students loyally began to chatter at the minister. " Yes, sir, it is a queer war. After all their bragging, it is funny to hear that they are running away with such agility. We thought, of course, of the old Greek wars." Later, the minister asked them all to his rooms for coffee and cigarettes, but the professor and Mrs. Wainwright apologetically retired to their own quarters. The minister and the students made clouds of smoke, through which sang the eloquent descriptions of late adventures. The minister had spent days of listening to questions from the State Department at Washington as to the whereabouts of the Wainwright party. "I suppose you know that you,are very prominent people in, the United States just now ? Your pictures must have been in all the papers, and there must have been columns printed about you. My life here was made almost insupportable by your friends, who consist, I should think, of about half the population of the country. Of course they laid regular siege to the de. partment. I am angry at Coleman for only one thing. When he cabled the news of your rescue to his news. paper from Arta, he should have also wired me, if only to relieve my failing mind. My first news of your escape was from Washington-think of that." "Coleman had us all on his hands at Arta," said Peter Tounley. " He was a fairly busy man." " I suppose so," said the minister. " By the way," he asked bluntly, "what is wrong with him? What did Mrs. Wainwright mean? " They were silent for a time, but it seemed plain to him that it was not evidence that his question had demoralised them. They seemed to be deliberating upon the form of answer. Ultimately Peter Tounley coughed behind his hand. " You see, sir," he began, " there is-well, there is a woman in the case. Not that anybody would care to speak of it excepting to you. But that is what is the cause of things, and then, you see, Mrs. Wainwright is-well-" He hesitated a moment and then completed his sentence in the ingenuous profanity of his age and condition. " She is rather an extraordinary old bird." " But who is the woman ? "Why, it is Nora Blaick, the actress." "Oh," cried the minister, enlightened. " Her Why, I saw her here. She was very beautiful, but she seemed harmless enough. She was somewhat-er- confident, perhaps, but she did not alarm me. She called upon me, and I confess I-why, she seemed charming." " She's sweet on little Rufus. That's the point," said an oracular voice. " Oh," cried the host, suddenly. " I remember. She asked me where he was. She said she had heard he was in Greece, and I told her he had gone knight- erranting off after you people. I remember now. I suppose she posted after him up to Arta, eh ? " " That's it. And so she asked you where he was? " Yes." " Why, that old flamingo-Mrs. Wainwright insists that it was a rendezvous." Every one exchanged glances and laughed a little. " And did you see any actual fighting ? " asked the minister. " No. We only beard it-" Afterward, as they were trooping up to their rooms, Peter Tounley spoke musingly. " Well, it looks to me now as if Old Mother Wainwright was just a bad-minded old hen." " Oh, I don't know. How is one going to tell what the truth is ? " " At any rate, we are sure now that Coleman had nothing to do with Nora's debut in Epirus." They had talked much of Coleman, but in their tones there always had been a note of indifference or carelessness. This matter, which to some people was as vital and fundamental as existence, remained to others who knew of it only a harmless detail of life, with no terrible powers, and its significance had faded greatly when had ended the close associat.ions of the late adventure. After dinner the professor had gone directly to his daughter's room. Apparently she had not moved. He knelt by the bedside again and took one of her hands. She was not weeping. She looked at him and smiled through the darkness. " Daddy, I would like to die," she said. " I think-yes-I would like to die." For a long time the old man was silent, but he arose at last with a definite abruptness and said hoarsely " Wait! " Mrs. Wainwright was standing before her mirror with her elbows thrust out at angles above her head, while her fingers moved in a disarrangement of 'her hair. In the glass she saw a reflection of her husband coming from Marjory's room, and his face was set with some kind of alarming purpose. She turned to watch him actually, but he walked toward the door into the corridor and did not in any wise heed her. " Harrison! " she called. " Where are you going? " He turned a troubled face upon her, and, as if she had hailed him in his sleep, he vacantly said: "What ? " "Where are you going?" she demanded with increasing trepidation. He dropped heavily into a chair. "Going?" he repeated. She was angry. "Yes! Going? Where are you going? " "I am going-" he answered, "I am going to see Rufus Coleman." Mrs. Wainwright gave voice to a muffled scream. " Not about Marjory ? " "Yes," he said, "about Marjory." It was now Mrs. Wainwright's turn to look at her husband with an air of stupefaction as if he had opened up to her visions of imbecility of which she had not even dreamed. " About Marjory!" she gurgled. Then suddenly her wrath flamed out. "Well, upon my word, Harrison Wainwright, you are, of all men in the world, the most silly and stupid. You are absolutely beyond belief. Of all projects! And what do you think Marjory would have to say of it if she knew it ? I suppose you think she would like it ? Why, I tell you she would keep her right hand in the fire until it was burned off before she would allow you to do such a thing." " She must never know it," responded the professor, in dull misery. " Then think of yourself! Think of the shame of it! The shame of it ! " The professor raised his eyes for an ironical glance at his wife. " Oh I have thought of the shame of it!" " And you'll accomplish nothing," cried Mrs. Wain- wright. " You'll accomplish nothing. He'll only laugh at you." " If he laughs at me, he will laugh at nothing but a poor, weak, unworldly old man. It is my duty to go." Mrs. Wainwright opened her mouth as if she was about to shriek. After choking a moment she said: " Your duty? Your duty to go and bend the knee to that man? Yourduty?" "'It is my duty to go,"' he repeated humbly. "If I can find even one chance for my daughter's happi- ness in a personal sacrifice. He can do no more than he can do no more than make me a little sadder." His wife evidently understood his humility as a tribute to her arguments and a clear indication that she had fatally undermined his original intention. " Oh, he would have made you sadder," she quoth grimly. "No fear! Why, it was the most insane idea I ever heard of." The professor arose wearily. " Well, I must be going to this work. It is a thing to have ended quickly." There was something almost biblical in his manner. " Harrison! " burst out his wife in amazed lamenta- tion. You are not really going to do it? Not really!" " I am going to do it," he answered. " Well, there! " ejaculated Mrs. Wainwright to the heavens. She was, so to speak, prostrate. " Well, there! " As the professor passed out of the door she cried beseechingly but futilely after him. " Harrison." In a mechanical way she turned then back to the mirror and resumed the disarrangement of her hair. She ad- dressed her image. " Well, of all stupid creatures under the sun, men are the very worst! " And her image said this to her even as she informed it, and afterward they stared at each other in a profound and tragic reception and acceptance of this great truth. Presently she began to consider the advisability of going to Marjdry with the whole story. Really, Harrison must not be allowed to go on blundering until the whole world heard that Marjory was trying to break her heart over that common scamp of a Coleman. It seemed to be about time for her, Mrs. Wainwright, to come into the situation and mend matters. _ |
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