Читать книгу As It Was in the Beginning - Philip Verrill Mighels - Страница 4

Grenville was not the type to be readily excited, yet a glow of exceptional brilliance shone in his eyes as he met the searching gaze of his friend, and wondered if Fenton could be jesting.

That he had made no reply whatsoever to Fenton's proposition he failed to realize till Gerald spoke again.

"Well, Sid," demanded that impetuous lieutenant of finance, "gone dumb? Perhaps I haven't made it plain," and he particularized on his fingers. "You get an ocean trip of eight or ten weeks' duration, tropic sun at its best, leisurely business without a fleck of bother, absolute rest, good provender, thorough recuperation, your entire expenses cheerfully paid, vast service rendered to me, no time lost on your equilibrator, time for countless new inventions to sprout in your fertile brain—and the unutterable joy of escaping this abominable climate, practically at once!"

Grenville's smile, still brightly boyish, despite the many reverses and hardships of his six and twenty years, came creeping to his eyes. His wan face suggested a tint of color.

"Don't wake me up for a moment, Fen," he answered. "I haven't dreamed anything like it for years."

"Dreamed?" repeated Fenton, resuming his interrupted pacing up and down the rug, where the firelight reddened his profile. "Does that mean you like it?—you'll go?"

"Would Cinderella go to a ball?" replied the still incredulous Grenville, half seriously. "What's the joker, old chap? What is the worst that could happen at the midnight stroke of twelve?"

Fenton came at once and laid his hands on the broad, bony shoulders of his friend.

"Have I ever played a joker with you yet?" said he. "Never mind the apology. I forgive you. I understand the compliment. Proposal sounds too good to be true, and all that sort of rubbish. The fact is, old man, I want you to go to Canton, China, and bring home my affianced bride. That's absolutely all there is to the business. You need the change and voyage; I haven't the time to go out there and fetch her myself. Elaine is alone in that heathenish country, miserably heartsick over her uncle's sudden death. She wishes to return at once. I can't let the poor girl come alone. I've no one in the world but you I'd care to send—and there you are."

The glow departed from Grenville's eyes. His doubts of any proposition with a woman in the case lurked deep in his level gaze. His face became once more the rugged mask with which he had so long confronted a world persistently gray. The smile he summoned to his lips was more quizzical than mirthful.

"It sounds perfectly simple," he replied. "But—you know there are several tales, recorded in prose and verse, of kings who have sent a trusted messenger on precisely such an errand. The joker somehow managed to get into play."

"Just so," agreed Fenton, readily. "Three or four times in a thousand cases the girl and the—er—messenger rather thoughtlessly—well, a complication arises. The percentage, however, is excessively low. We'll consider that a negligible possibility. You see, I know both you and Elaine, and I am not a king. The question is—will you go?"

Grenville was always amused by Fenton's arguments.

"I have seen no statistics on the subject," he admitted. "In this particular instance you think there is not the slightest danger?"

"Of finding in old Sid a modern Launcelot?" Fenton turned his friend about till both of them faced down the length of the room. "Well," he added, "to be sure——"

Grenville's quick glance had sped to the massive mirror, ten feet away, where both himself and Fenton were reflected from heels to crown. He comprehended in a glance the ill-clothed, thin, ungainly figure he presented: his big hands hanging loosely down, his face too ruggedly modeled, too sallow for attractiveness, his hair too rebellious for order.

A Launcelot indeed! The irony of the situation struck home to his sense of humor.

"Have a look," continued Fenton, his nervous glance indifferent to his own athletic fitness, the perfect grooming of his person, the grace and elegance of his tailoring. "Do you discern anything of the disloyal ambassador in that hard-worked friend and comrade of my happiest years?" His eyes gleamed irresistibly. "You see, old chap, you have trusted an invention of perhaps incalculable worth to my honor, and must leave both your fame and possible fortune in my keeping while you are long away."

"Yes, but——"

"I know, exactly. This is the sort of thing you and I have always done by one another. I had no thought of refusing your trust in me, and so—I have booked your passage for Wednesday."

He turned again to the mantel and began to fill his pipe.

Grenville pivoted slowly and rubbed the corner of his jaw.

"You have—booked my passage—for Wednesday?"

Fenton nodded. "Elaine is quite desolate and lonely. You need immediate sunshine and warmth, and can do no good remaining here. Fine day all round for starting, Wednesday, and no boat sailing sooner. There are one thousand dollars in that wad by the statue of Anubis, for your outfit and incidental cash."

Grenville glanced mechanically at the dog-headed god of the ancient Egyptians, apparently guarding the money towards which Fenton had waved a careless gesture.

"One thou——"

"If it isn't enough, draw on my bankers for more," interrupted Fenton, puffing at his calabash industriously. "I have written Elaine so fully you'll have nothing to explain."

"By George!" said Grenville, more aggressively, "I like your nerve—the way you'd plunge me into trouble! Do you think I'm a mere senseless rack of wires and bones because I'm not my usual self? What's to prevent me from falling head over heels—— What's the rest of her name—Elaine what? And you probably have her photograph somewhere among your possessions."

"Her full name," Fenton answered, moving to the desk beside the mirror, "is Elaine Lytton—twenty-one this month. We've known each other seven years." He returned, extending a small-sized photograph. "Fine girl. That's her picture. Good likeness—sent me last winter from China."

Grenville studied the photograph superficially. He used it to tap on the table as he once more faced his host.

"About as I expected," he announced with his customary candor. "Nice-looking girl—nothing extra, perhaps, but nice enough. Now tell me how any healthy male friend of yours can guarantee not to fall in love with Elaine, on a long, lazy trip through the tropics," and he cast the picture from him towards the lamp.

Fenton relighted his pipe. "Well, suppose he did commit the folly you describe, what then?"

"What then?" echoed Grenville, incredulously. "By the long, curved lashes of Juno's eyes, if I were the man you'd certainly see what then!"

"All right," said the imperturbable Fenton. "I accept your conditions, fully, and about your outfit I'd suggest——"

"Hold on!" interrupted Grenville. "I haven't accepted your commission, much as the trip——"

"The trip!" said Fenton. "Ah! that's the point! I insist on your making the trip, you see, and taking the rest. Fetching Elaine from China is merely incidental—only don't forget her completely and come back here empty-handed." He sat down to wrestle with his pipe.

Grenville looked at him amusedly.

"Now, see here," he said, "don't you make the slightest mistake, you confident old idiot. If I should just happen to fancy Elaine, I wouldn't give you twenty cents in Mexican money for your chances at the wedding bells and trimmings."

"Then you'll go!" Fenton suddenly exploded, springing to his feet. "Come on, that's settled—shake."

But Grenville retreated from the outstretched hand, a queer smile playing on his features.

"Hang your infernal self-conceit," he answered; "you don't think I could win her if I tried."

"I don't believe you'll try."

"That isn't the point. I might. If I loved her I would, you can bet your final shoe peg! Your proposition isn't fair—subjecting a man, and a friend at that, to possible temptation, all kinds of treachery, and a war between love and duty. Rot that kind of duty! I want you to know that if I take the trip and happen to fall in this muddle with your girl, I'm going to pitch your infernal old duty game overboard in less than two seconds and go in and win her, if I can!"

"Well, what's all the row about, after that?" inquired Fenton as before. "Haven't I said I accept your challenge? Go out there and fetch her, that's all. As for the rest—win her, if you can!"

"I don't say I'll try to win the girl. I may not like her for a cent."

"Then why all this futile argument and waste of valuable time?"

"But I may—confound your egotistic nerve, and your insistence! And I warn you, Fen, I mean every word, in case——"

"I understand—I understand you fully, without repetition," Fenton once more interrupted. "For Heaven's sake, give me your hand, old man, and cease firing."

"You meant it, then—no strings on the proposition?"

"Not a string—absolutely not a string."

A strange new thrill of pleasure crept into Grenville's being, warming his thin, anæmic pulses suddenly, as he met Fenton's gaze and once more permitted his thoughts to dwell on all the proposal embraced. Since Fenton refused to be worried concerning himself and the girl who supplied the motive for the trip, then why should he consider it further? Elaine was, in fact, swiftly fading from his reflections.

All his nature yearned towards the tropic seas. All his overwrought frame and substance ached for the long, lazy days of indolence, rest, and recuperation that alone could restore him to himself. He had always longed for precisely this excursion to the far-off edge of the sphere. His faculties leaped to the new-made possibility of a contact with the ancient world, heretofore so wholly inaccessible.

Already new color had come to his face and a new blaze of fire to his eyes. Privations and toil, those two unsparing allies that had made such inroads on his health and strength, seemed fading harmlessly away. The prospect was far too alluring to be resisted. There was no good reason in the world for refusing this favor to a friend.

The brightness of face that had ever made him so lovable, came unbidden, there in the glow.

"I suppose I'll have to go," he presently admitted, "if it's only to win your girl."

"Shake," said Fenton; and they shook.