Love Insurance/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
JOURNEYS END IN—TAXI BILLS
NO matter how swiftly your train has sped through the Carolinas and Georgia, when it crosses the line into Florida a wasting languor overtakes it. Then it hesitates, sighs and creeps across the flat yellow landscape like an aged alligator. Now and again it stops completely in the midst of nothing, as who should say: "You came down to see the South, didn't you? Well, look about you."
The Palm Beach Special on which Mr. Minot rode was no exception to this rule. It entered Florida and a state of innocuous desuetude at one and the same time. After a tremendous struggle, it gasped its way into Jacksonville about nine o'clock of the Monday morning following. Reluctant as Romeo in his famous exit from Juliet's boudoir, it got out of Jacksonville an hour later. And San Marco was just two hours away, according to that excellent book of light fiction so widely read in the South—the time-table.
It seemed to Dick Minot that he had been looking out of a car window for a couple of eternities. Save for the diversion at Jacksonville, nothing had happened to brighten that long and wearisome journey. He wanted, now, to glance across the car aisle toward the diversion at Jacksonville. Yet it hardly seemed polite—so soon. Wherefore he continued to gaze out at the monotonous landscape.
For half a mile the train served its masters. Then, with a pathetic groan, it paused. Still Mr. Minot gazed out the window. He gazed so long that he saw a family of razor-backs, passed a quarter of a mile back, catch up with the train and trot scornfully by. After that he kept his eyes on the live oaks and evergreens, to whose topmost branches hung gray moss like whiskers on a western senator.
Then he could stand it no longer. He turned and looked upon the diversion at Jacksonville. Gentlemen of the jury—she was beautiful. The custodian of a library of books on sociology could have seen that with half an astigmatic eye. Her copper-colored hair flashed alluringly in that sunny car; the curve of her cheek would have created a sensation in the neighborhood where burning Sappho loved and sang. Dick Minot's heart beat faster, repeating the performance it had staged when she boarded the train at Jacksonville.
Beautiful, yes—but she fidgeted. She had fidgeted madly in the station at Jacksonville during that hour's wait; now even more madly she bounced about on that plush seat. She opened and shut magazines, she straightened her pleasant little hat, she gazed in agony out the window. Beauty such as hers should have been framed in a serene and haughty dignity. Hers happened to be framed in a frenzy of fidget.
In its infinite wisdom, the train saw fit to start again. With a sigh of relief, the girl sank bade upon her seat of torture. Mr. Minot turned again to the uneventful landscape. More yellow sand, more bearded oaks and evergreens. And in a moment, the family of razor-backs, plodding along beside the track with a determined demeanor that said as plainly as words: "You may go ahead—but we shall see what we shall see."
Excellent train, it seemed fairly to fly. For a little while. Then another stop. Beauty wildly anxious on the seat of ancient plush. Another start—a stop—and a worried but musical voice in Dick Minot's ear:
"I beg your pardon—but what should you say are this train's chances for reaching San Marco by one o'clock?"
Minot turned. Brown eyes and troubled ones looked into his. A dimple twitched beside an adorable mouth. Fortunate Florida, peopled with girls like this.
"I should say," smiled Mr. Minot, "about the same as those of the famous little snowball that strayed far from home."
"Oh—you're right!" Why would she fidget so? "And I'm in a frightfully uncomfortable position. I simply must reach San Marco for luncheon at one. I must!" She clenched her small hands. "It's the most important luncheon of my life. What shall I do?"
Mr. Minot glanced at his watch.
"It is now twenty minutes of twelve," he said. "My advice to you is to order lunch on the train."
"It was so foolish of me," cried the girl. "I ran up to Jacksonville in a friend's motor to do a little shopping. I should have known better. I'm always doing things like this."
And she looked at Dick Minot accusingly, as though it were he who always put her up to them.
"I'm awfully sorry, really," Minot said. He felt quite uncomfortable about it.
"And can't you suggest anything?"—pleadingly, almost tearfully.
"Not at this moment. I'll try, though. Look!" He pointed out the window. "That family of razor-backs has caught up with us four times already."
"What abominable service," the girl cried. "But—aren't they cunning? The little ones, I mean."
And she stood looking out with a wonderful tenderness in her eyes, which, considering the small creatures upon which it was lavished, was almost ludicrous.
"Off again," cried Minot.
And they were. The girl sat nervously on the edge of her seat, with the expression of one who meant to keep the train going by mental suggestion. Five cheerful minutes passed in rapid transit. And then—another abrupt stop.
"Almost like a football game," said Minot blithely to the distressed lady across the aisle. "Third down—five yards to go. Oh, by jove, there's a town on my side."
"Not a trace of a town on mine," she replied.
"It's the dreariest, saddest town I ever saw," Minot remarked. "So of course its name is Sunbeam. And look—what do you see—there beside the station!"
"An automobile!" the girl cried.
"Well, an automobile's ancestor, at any rate," laughed Minot. "Vintage of 1905. Say—I have a suggestion now. If the chauffeur thinks he can get you—I mean, us—to San Marco by one o'clock, shall we—"
But the girl was already on her way.
"Come on!" Her eyes were bright with excitement. "We—oh, dear—the old train's started again."
"No matter—I'll stop it!" Minot reached for the bell cord.
"But do you dare—can't you be arrested?"
"Too late—I've done it. Let me help you with those magazines. Quick! This way."
On the platform they met an irate conductor, red and puffing.
"Say—who stopped this train?" he bellowed.
"I don't know—who usually stops it?" Minot replied, and he and the girl slid by the uniform to the safety of Sunbeam.
The lean, lank, weary native who lolled beside the passé automobile was startled speechless for a moment by the sight of two such attractive visitors in his unattractive town. Then he remembered.
"Want a taxi, mister?" he inquired. "Take you up to the Sunbeam House for a quarter apiece—"
"Yes, we do want a taxi—" Minot began.
"To San Marco," cried the girl breathlessly. "Can you get us there by one o'clock?"
"To—to—say, lady," stammered the rustic chauffeur. "That train you just got off of is going to San Marco."
"Oh, no, it isn't," Minot explained. "We know better. It's going out into the country to lie down under a shade tree and rest."
"The train is too slow," said the girl. "I must be in San Marco before one o'clock. Can you get me—us—there by then? Speak quickly, please."
The effect of this request on the chauffeur was to induce even greater confusion.
"T — to — to San Marco," he stumbled. "W—well, say, that's a new one on me. Never had this car out o' Sunbeam yet."
"Please—please!" the girl pleaded.
"Lady," said the chauffeur, "I'd do anything I could, within reason—"
"Can you get us to San Marco by one o'clock?" she demanded.
"I ain't no prophet, lady." A humorous gleam came into his eye. "But ever since I got this car I been feelin' sort o' reckless. If you say so, I'll bid all my family and friends good-by, and we'll take a chance on San Marco together."
"That's the spirit," laughed Minot. "But forget the family and friends."
He placed his baggage in the front of the car, and helped the girl into the tonneau. With a show of speed, the countryman went around to the front of the car and began to crank.
He continued to crank with agonized face. In the course of a few minutes, sounds of a terrific disturbance came from inside the car. Still, like a hurdy-gurdy musician, the man cranked.
"I say," Minot inquired, "has your machine got the Sextette from Lucia?"
"Well, there's been a lot of things wrong with it," the man replied, "but I don't think it's had that yet."
The girl laughed, and such a laugh, Dick Minot was sure, had never been heard in Sunbeam before. At that moment the driver leaped to his seat, breathing hard, and had it out with the wheel.
"Exeunt, laughingly, from Sunbeam," said Minot in the girl's ear.
The car rolled asthmatically from the little settlement, and out into the sand and heat of a narrow road.
"Eight miles to San Marco," said the driver out of the corner of his mouth. "Sit tight. I'm going to let her out some."
Again Dick Minot glanced at the girl beside him. Fate was in a jovial mood to-day to grant him this odd ride in the company of one so charming! He could not have told what she wore, but he knew she was all in white, and he realized the wisdom of white on a girl who had, in her hair and eyes, colors to delight the most exacting. About her clung a perfume never captured in a bottle; her chin was the chin of a girl with a sense of humor; her eyes sparkled with the thrill of their adventure together. And the dimple, in repose now, became the champion dimple of the world.
Minot tried to think of some sprightly remark, but his usually agile tongue remained silent. What was the matter with him? Why should this girl seem different, somehow, from all the other girls he had ever met? When he looked into her eyes a flood of memories—a little sad—of all the happy times he had ever known overwhelmed him. Memories of a starlit sea—the red and white awnings of a yacht—the wind whispering through the trees on a hillside—an orchestra playing in the distance—memories of old, and happy, far-off things—of times when he was even younger, even more in love with life. Why should this be? He wondered.
And the girl, looking at him, wondered, too—was he suddenly bereft of his tongue?
"I haven't asked you the conventional question?" she said at last. "How do you like Florida?"
"It's wonderful, isn't it?" Minot replied, coming to with a start. "I can speak of it even more enthusiastically than any of the railroad folders do. And yet, it's only recent—my discovery of its charms."
"Really?"
"Yes. When I was surveying it on that stop-watch of a train, my impression of it was quite unfavorable. It seemed so monotonous. I told myself nothing exciting could ever happen here."
"And—something has happened?"
"Yes—something certainly has happened."
She blushed a little at his tone. Young men usually proposed to her the first time they saw her. Why shouldn't she blush—a little?
"Something very fine," Minot went on. "And I am surely very grateful to fate—"
"Would you mind looking at your watch—please?"
"Certainly. A quarter after twelve. As I was saying—"
"Do you think we can make it?"
"I am sure of it"
"You see, it is so very important. I want so very much to be there by one o'clock."
"And I want you to."
"I wonder—if you really knew—"
"Knew what?"
"Nothing. I wish you would, please—but you just did look at your watch, didn't you?"
They rattled on down that road that was so sandy, so uninteresting, so lonely, with only a garage advertisement here and there to suggest a world outside. Suddenly the driver ventured a word over his shoulder.
"Don't worry, lady," he said. "We'll get there sure."
And even as he spoke the car gave a roar of rage and came to a dead stop.
"Oh, dear—what is it now?" cried the girl.
"Acts like the train," commented Minot.
The driver got out and surveyed the car without enthusiasm.
"I wonder what she's up to now?" he remarked. "Fifteen years I drove horses, which are supposed to have brains, but this machine can think of things to do to me that the meanest horse never could."
"You promised, driver," pleaded the girl. "We must reach San Marco on time. Mr.—er—your watch?"
"Twenty-five past twelve," smiled Minot.
The native descended to the dust and slid under the car. In a moment he emerged, triumphant.
"All O. K." he announced. "Don't you worry, lady. It's San Marco or bust"
"If only something doesn't bust," Minot said.
Again they were plowing through the sand. The girl sat anxiously on the edge of the seat, her cheeks flaming, her eyes alight Minot watched her. And suddenly all the happy, sad little memories melted into a golden glow—the glow of being alive—on this lonesome road—with her! Then suddenly he knew! This was the one girl, the girl of all the world, the girl he should love while the memory of her lasted, which would be until the eyes that looked upon her now were dust. A great exultation swept through him—
"What did you mean," he asked, "when you said you were always doing things like this?"
"I meant," she answered, "that I'm a silly little fool. Oh, if you could know me well—" and her eyes seemed to question the future—"you'd see for yourself. Never looking ahead to calculate the consequences. It's the old story of fools rushing in—"
"You mean of angels rushing in, don't you? I never was good at old saws, but—"
"And once more, please—your watch?"
"Twenty minutes of one."
"Oh, dear—can we"—
A wild whoop from the driver interrupted.
"San Marco," he cried, pointing to where red towers rose above the green of the country. "It paid to take a chance with me. I sure did let her out. Where do you want to go, lady?"
"The Hotel de la Pax," said the girl, and with a sigh of deep relief, sank back upon the cushions.
"And Salvator won," quoted Mr. Minot with a laugh.
"How can I ever thank you?" the girl asked.
"Don't try," said Minot. "That is—I mean—try, if you will, please."
"It meant so very much to me—"
"No—you'd better not, after all. It makes me feel guilty. For I did nothing that doesn't come under the head of glorious privilege. A chance to serve you! Why, I'd travel to the ends of the earth for that."
"But—it was good of you. You can hardly realize all it meant to me to reach this hotel by one o'clock. Perhaps I ought to tell you—"
"It doesn't matter," Minot replied. "That you have reached here is my reward." His cheeks burned; his heart sang. Here was the one girl, and he built castles in Spain with lightening strokes. She should be his. She must be. Before him life stretched, glorious, with her at his side—
"I think I will tell you," the girl was saying. "This is to be the most important luncheon of my life because—"
"Yes?" smiled Mr. Minot
"Because it is the one at which I am going to announce my engagement!"
Minot's heart stopped beating. A hundred castles in Spain came tumbling about his ears, and the roar of their falling deafened him. He put out his hand blindly to open the door, for he realized that the car had come to a stop.
"Let me help you, please," he said dully.
And even as he spoke a horrible possibility swept into his heart and overwhelmed him.
"I—I beg your pardon," he stammered, "but would you mind telling me one thing?"
"Of course not. But I really must fly—"
"The name of—the happy man."
"Why—Allan, Lord Harrowby. Thank you so much—and good-by."
She was gone now—gone amid the palms of that gorgeous hotel courtyard. And out of the roar that enveloped him Minot heard a voice:
"Thirty-five dollars, mister."
So promptly did he pay this grievous overcharge that the chauffeur asked hopefully:
"Now could I take you anywhere, sir?"
"Yes," said Minot bitterly. "Take me back to New York."
"Well—if I had a new front tire I might try it."
Two eager black boys were moving inside with Minot's bags, and he followed. As he passed the fountain tinkling gaily in the courtyard:
"What was it I promised Thacker?" he said to himself. "'Miss Cynthia Meyrick changes her mind only over my dead body.' Ah, well—the good die young."