he might go out to them.He did so, and as he drew near he heard Roderick's high-pitched voice ringing behind the shrubbery.
In a moment, emerging, he found Miss Garland leaning against a tree, with her cousin before her talking with great emphasis.
He asked pardon for interrupting them, and said he wished only to bid her good-by.She gave him her hand and he made her his bow in silence.
"Don't forget," he said to Roderick, as he turned away.
"And don't, in this company, repent of your bargain.""I shall not let him," said Miss Garland, with something very like gayety."I shall see that he is punctual.He must go!
I owe you an apology for having doubted that he ought to."And in spite of the dusk Rowland could see that she had an even finer smile than he had supposed.
Roderick was punctual, eagerly punctual, and they went.
Rowland for several days was occupied with material cares, and lost sight of his sentimental perplexities.
But they only slumbered, and they were sharply awakened.
The weather was fine, and the two young men always sat together upon deck late into the evening.One night, toward the last, they were at the stern of the great ship, watching her grind the solid blackness of the ocean into phosphorescent foam.
They talked on these occasions of everything conceivable, and had the air of having no secrets from each other.
But it was on Roderick's conscience that this air belied him, and he was too frank by nature, moreover, for permanent reticence on any point.
"I must tell you something," he said at last."I should like you to know it, and you will be so glad to know it.Besides, it 's only a question of time; three months hence, probably, you would have guessed it.
I am engaged to Mary Garland."
Rowland sat staring; though the sea was calm, it seemed to him that the ship gave a great dizzying lurch.But in a moment he contrived to answer coherently: "Engaged to Miss Garland!
I never supposed--I never imagined"--
"That I was in love with her?" Roderick interrupted.
"Neither did I, until this last fortnight.But you came and put me into such ridiculous good-humor that I felt an extraordinary desire to tell some woman that I adored her.Miss Garland is a magnificent girl; you know her too little to do her justice.
I have been quietly learning to know her, these past three months, and have been falling in love with her without being conscious of it.
It appeared, when I spoke to her, that she had a kindness for me.
So the thing was settled.I must of course make some money before we can marry.It 's rather droll, certainly, to engage one's self to a girl whom one is going to leave the next day, for years.We shall be condemned, for some time to come, to do a terrible deal of abstract thinking about each other.
But I wanted her blessing on my career and I could not help asking for it.Unless a man is unnaturally selfish he needs to work for some one else than himself, and I am sure I shall run a smoother and swifter course for knowing that that fine creature is waiting, at Northampton, for news of my greatness.
If ever I am a dull companion and over-addicted to moping, remember in justice to me that I am in love and that my sweetheart is five thousand miles away."Rowland listened to all this with a sort of feeling that fortune had played him an elaborately-devised trick.
It had lured him out into mid-ocean and smoothed the sea and stilled the winds and given him a singularly sympathetic comrade, and then it had turned and delivered him a thumping blow in mid-chest."Yes," he said, after an attempt at the usual formal congratulation, "you certainly ought to do better--with Miss Garland waiting for you at Northampton."Roderick, now that he had broken ground, was eloquent and rung a hundred changes on the assurance that he was a very happy man.
Then at last, suddenly, his climax was a yawn, and he declared that he must go to bed.Rowland let him go alone, and sat there late, between sea and sky.