“I had no idea it was so far,” said Marguerite, looking out of the cab window at the crowded and dirty thoroughfare.
“It’s a good mile farther yet,” replied Mrs. Willard. “I shall have just that much more of your society.”
“It looks to me,” said Marguerite, with a short laugh, as the cab came suddenly to a halt—“it looks to me as if you were likely to have more than that of it; for we are in an apparently inextricable, immovable mixture of trucks, horse-cars, and incompetent policemen, and nothing short of a miracle will get us a mile farther along in twenty minutes.”
“I do believe you are right,” said Mrs. Willard, looking at her watch anxiously. “What will you do if you miss the steamer?”
“Escape a horrid fate,” laughed Marguerite, gayly.
“Poor Mr. Harley—why, it will upset his whole story,” said Mrs. Willard.
“And save his reputation,” said Marguerite. “It wouldn’t have been real, that story,” she added. “In the first place, Balderstone couldn’t write a story that would fascinate me; he could never acquire a baleful influence over me; and, finally, I never should marry Robert Osborne under any circumstances. He’s not at all the style of man I admire. I’m willing to go along and let Mr. Harley try to work it out his way, but he will give it up as a bad idea before long—if I catch the steamer; and if I don’t, then he’ll have to modify the story. That modified, I’m willing to be his heroine.”
“But your aunt and the twins—they must be aboard by this time. They will be worried to death about you,” suggested Mrs. Willard.
“For a few moments—but Aunt Emma wanted to go, and she and the rest of them will have a good time, I’ve no doubt,” replied Miss Andrews, calmly; and here Stuart Harley’s heroine actually chuckled. “And maybe Mr. Harley can make a match between Aunt Emma and Osborne, which will suit the publishers and please the American girl,” she said, gleefully. “I almost hope we do miss it.”
And miss it they did, as I have already told you, by three minutes. As the cab entered the broad pier, the great steamer moved slowly but surely out into the stream, and Mrs. Willard and Mr. Harley’s heroine were just in time to see Mrs. Corwin wildly waving her parasol at the captain on the bridge, beseeching him in agonized tones to go back just for a moment, while two separate and distinct twins, one male and one female, peered over the rail, weeping bitterly. Incidentally mention may be made of two young men, Balderstone and Osborne, who sat chatting gayly together in the smoking-room.