Elusive Isabel, by Jacques Futrelle by Unknown (good short books .TXT) 📗

telegram if I like?” demanded the prince sharply.

“No, nor a note, nor a letter, nor may you speak to any one,” Mr. Grimm informed him quietly.

“Why, it’s an outrage!” flamed the prince.

“It depends altogether on the view-point, your Highness,” said Mr. Grimm courteously. “If you will pardon me I might suggest that it is needless to attract attention by your present attitude. You may—I say you may—compel me to humiliate you.” The prince glared at him angrily. “I mean handcuff you,” Mr. Grimm added gratuitously.

“Handcuff me?”

“I shouldn’t hesitate, your Highness, if it was necessary.”

After a moment Miss Thorne signified her readiness, and they started out. At the door Mr. Grimm stopped and turned back to the desk, as if struck by some sudden thought, leaving them together.

“Oh, Miss Thorne left a message for some one,” Mr. Grimm was saying to the clerk. “She’s decided it is unnecessary.” He turned and glanced toward her, and the clerk’s eyes followed his. “Please give it to me.”

It was passed over without comment. It was a sealed envelope addressed to Mr. Charles Winthrop Rankin. Mr. Grimm glanced at the superscription, tore the envelope into bits and dropped it into a basket. A minute later he was assisting Miss Thorne and the prince into an automobile that was waiting in front. As the car moved away two other automobiles appeared from corners near-by and trailed along behind to the station. There a private compartment-car was in readiness for them.

It was a long, dreary ride—a ride of utter silence save for the roar and clatter of the moving train. Mr. Grimm, vigilant, implacable, sat at ease; Miss Thorne, resigned to the inevitable, whatever it might be, studied the calm, quiet face from beneath drooping lids; and the prince, sullen, scowling, nervously wriggled in his seat. Philadelphia was passed, and Trenton, and then the dawn began to break through the night. It was quite light when they rolled into Jersey City.

“I’m sorry for all the inconvenience I have caused,” Mr. Grimm apologized to Miss Thorne as he assisted her to alight. “You must be exhausted.”

“If it were only that!” she replied, with a slight smile. “And is it too early to ask where we are going?”

The prince turned quickly at the question.

“We take the Lusitania for Liverpool at ten o’clock,” said Mr. Grimm obligingly. “Meanwhile let’s get some coffee and a bite to eat.”

“Are you going to make the trip with us?” asked the prince.

Mr. Grimm shrugged his shoulders.

Weary and spiritless they went aboard the boat, and a little while later they steamed out into the stream and threaded their way down the bay. Miss Thorne stood at the rail gazing back upon the city they were leaving. Mr. Grimm stood beside her; the prince, still sullen, still scowling, sat a dozen feet away.

“This is a wonderful thing you have done, Mr. Grimm,” said Miss Thorne at last.

“Thank you,” he said simply. “It was a destructive thing that you intended to do. Did you ever see a more marvelous thing than that?” and he indicated the sky-line of New York. “It’s the most marvelous bit of mechanism in the world; the dynamo of the western hemisphere. You would have destroyed it, because in the world-war that would have been the first point of attack.”

She raised her eyebrows, but was silent.

“Somehow,” he went on after a moment, “I could never associate a woman with destructiveness, with wars and with violence.”

“That is an unjust way of saying it,” she interposed. And then, musingly: “Isn’t it odd that you and I—standing here by the rail—have, in a way, held the destinies of the whole great earth in our hands? And now your remark makes me feel that you alone have stood for peace and the general good, and I for destruction and evil.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Mr. Grimm said quickly. “You have done your duty as you saw it, and—”

“Failed!” she interrupted.

“And I have done my duty as I saw it.”

“And won!” she added. She smiled a little sadly. “I think, perhaps you and I might have been excellent friends if it had not been for all this.”

“I know we should have,” said Mr. Grimm, almost eagerly. “I wonder if you will ever forgive me for—for—?”

“Forgive you?” she repeated. “There is nothing to forgive. One must do one’s duty. But I wish it could have been otherwise.”

The Statue of Liberty slid by, and Governor’s Island and Fort Hamilton; then, in the distance, Sandy Hook light came into view.

“I’m going to leave you here,” said Mr. Grimm, and for the first time there was a tense, strained note in his voice.

Miss Thorne’s blue-gray eyes had grown mistily thoughtful; the words startled her a little and she turned to face him.

“It may be that you and I shall never meet again,” Mr. Grimm went on.

“We will meet again,” she said gravely. “When and where I don’t know, but it will come.”

“And perhaps then we may be friends?” He was pleading now.

“Why, we are friends now, aren’t we?” she asked, and again the smile curled her scarlet lips. “Surely we are friends, aren’t we?”

“We are,” he declared positively.

As they started forward a revenue cutter which had been hovering about Sandy Hook put toward them, flying some signal at her masthead. Slowly the great boat on which they stood crept along, then the clang of a bell in the engine-room brought her to a standstill, and the revenue cutter came alongside.

“I leave you here,” Mr. Grimm said again. “It’s good-by.”

“Good-by,” she said softly. “Good-by, till we meet once more.”

She extended both hands impulsively and he stood for an instant staring into the limpid gray eyes, then, turning, went below. From the revenue cutter he waved a hand at her as the great Lusitania, moving again, sped on her way. The prince joined Miss Thorne at the rail. The scowl was still on his face.

“And now what?” he demanded abruptly. “This man has treated us as if we were a pair of children.”

“He’s a wonderful