A New Sensation. Albert Ross
and was going south to escape February and March, which are usually injurious to persons affected by that complaint in the Eastern States.
I learned from the agent that the "Madiana" was filling up rapidly, and that there were now no entire staterooms unoccupied, except two or three containing four berths. Mr. Wesson had no choice but to share the room of some one who was already on the list, and at the time I came in he was making natural inquiries as to the other passengers, in the hope of selecting a congenial roommate. The agent told him what he could about those whom he had personally seen, but the information was necessarily meagre.
"It may not seem specially important," remarked Mr. Wesson, in an affable manner, to me, "who occupies the other berth, for a few weeks on a steamer, but I happened on one occasion to get a very disagreeable companion, and ever since I have tried to use caution. I should have entered my name earlier, and thus have secured an entire room, as you have done, but I waited a long time before deciding whether to come this way or another. Now, I am just a little too late to get a room by myself, unless I wish to pay three fares for one person, which candidly I do not feel like doing."
I suggested that unless the boat was very much crowded, which I did not anticipate, an arrangement for a change of cabin could doubtless be made in case the first one proved unbearable. With the remark that this was true, Mr. Wesson decided to take the remaining berth in a room not far from mine, in the after part of the ship, which had the advantage of being removed from all the smells of the cook's galley, as well as the dumping of ashes, which often annoys people quartered amidships at a very early hour in the morning.
I asked the agent for a list of the passengers, so far as he was able to give them, desiring to see if there were any names of people who knew me, and devoutly hoping there were none. Mr. Wesson and I went over them together, and made a simultaneous announcement that the entire lot were strangers to us.
They had come from the West, the North, the South, hardly any from New York, and only one from Boston, a strange thing when every traveller knows that Bostonians rival Chicagoans in being found in all sorts of places.
"I often think," said Mr. Wesson, with a smile, "of the odd fate that brings fifty or hundred people together on a steamer, where neither sees a single familiar face except those he has brought with him; and before the voyage is ended the miniature world is like the larger one outside, with its strong likes and dislikes, its petty jealousies, its small talk, its gauging of character and capacity. Give me a month at sea with a man, and I think I can figure him up pretty well."
I agreed with him to a great extent, but remarked that there was always the disadvantage that the "man" might "figure us up" at the same time. I said further that I had found some most delightful companions on board ship who had proved insufferable bores when encountered later on terra firma.
"Your extra berth is reserved still," said a clerk, coming forward and addressing me, "the one in the opposite stateroom. I don't wish to hasten you, but the list is filling up very fast."
"You won't have to wait but a day or two more, I think," was my reply. "Hold it till Saturday, unless you hear from me. Perhaps I may be able to tell you positively to-morrow."
"If the lady is willing to have another share the room with her," he said, "I have an application that I can fill at once. A very pleasant young woman, too, if I may be allowed to judge. She is to be accompanied by her uncle, and as he is not entirely well he is anxious to have her as near him as possible."
I answered that I must ask a little delay before deciding that question. I told him I had three cousins, and as I could not yet say which would go I could not tell whether she would consent to share her cabin with another person. If I could arrange it, I would gladly do so.
"You are to have a travelling companion, then," remarked Mr. Wesson. "Excuse me for saying I envy you. Mrs. Wesson expected to go with me, but the doctor has forbidden it. She is quite frail, and he fears the seasickness she is almost sure to have. I made a canvass of my female relations that are eligible, and one after another found reasons for declining. I am not used to travelling alone, and I don't fancy it in the least. One of the pleasantest things in visiting foreign parts is to have some one along to share the pleasures."
As we parted he asked me if I would exchange cards, and I readily did so. I already felt better acquainted with him that I am with some men whom I have known for months.
"If you find you are to bunk with a specially ugly customer," I said, in parting, "take my other berth. You can keep it for an 'anchor to windward,' as our distinguished statesman from Maine might have said. I don't think you and I will quarrel."
He thanked me profusely, and it was plain that the suggestion was the very one he would have made himself, had he felt warranted in doing so. He mentioned that he would be at the Imperial for several days and asked me, if I found it convenient, to dine with him there some evening before he returned to Boston; which I told him I would try to do.
It was now lunch-time and I thought with exultation of the closeness of the hour when I might call at the lodging of Miss Marjorie May on Forty-fifth Street, and see the lady whom I had already surrounded with the most charming attributes of which a young and impulsive mind could conceive. That I might be disappointed I had also thought, in a vague way, but I had little apprehension on that score.
I went over to the club, and partook of a light repast. Then I looked at my watch and found that, if I walked slowly, I need not reach the number at which I was to call before two o'clock.
But I did not walk slowly. It still lacked ten minutes of the hour when I found myself in front of the residence. I took a turn down Seventh Avenue, and through Forty-fourth Street, to dispose of the remaining minutes. Then, with my heart beating in a way that Dr. Chambers would not have approved—and for which I could give no sensible reason—I climbed the tall steps and rang the bell.
A colored servant answered, after what seemed ages, and when I asked if Miss May was in, invited me to walk into the parlor. She then requested my card, and I had nearly given it to her, when I recollected that it was not my intention to reveal my true name, at this stage.
I said I had forgotten my card case and that she need only say it was the gentleman from the Herald.
During the next ten minutes I did my best to compose my nerves, for I dreaded exhibiting their shaky condition to one in whose presence I would need all my firmness. The room was darkened, and I could see the objects in it but dimly, while the windows, being tightly curtained, afforded me no relief in that direction.
"Why does she not come?" I said to myself, over and over. "If she wanted the situation for which she wrote, a little more celerity of movement would be becoming."
I rose and walked up and down the room. The minutes lengthened horribly. I grew almost angry at the delay and had half a mind to drop the whole business, when I heard a low voice at the door, and saw the outlines of a graceful young form.
"I am Miss May," said a bright voice, that I liked instantly. "If you don't mind coming up stairs I think we can see each other better."
Mind coming up stairs! I would have climbed to the top of the World Building, never minding the elevator.
"Certainly," I responded, and I followed her up two long flights, and into a front chamber, where in the bright light I saw her distinctly for the first time.
The reader will expect—certainly the feminine reader—a description of the sight that met my eyes, and how can I give it? A relation of that sort always seems to me but a modified version of the record of a prisoner at a police station, where he is put under a measuring machine, stood on scales and pumped as to his ancestry and previous record as a criminal.
The impression made on me at that moment by Miss May was wholly general. She was not handsome, in the ordinary acceptation of that term, but very engaging. Her smile put me much at my ease.
I could have told you no more, had you met me that evening. All that I knew or cared to know, before I had taken the chair to which she motioned me, was that out of the million women in Greater New York, I would choose