Americans -- Europe -- Fiction; Cape Cod (Mass.) -- Fiction
She sang no more, probably because she saw that the “fog-horn” annoyed
me, but her manner was just as strange and her nervous energy as
pronounced. I began to doubt if my surmise, that her excitement and
exaltation were due to the anticipation of an early return to Bayport,
was a correct one. I began to thing there must be some other course and
to speculate concerning it. And I, too, grew a bit excited.
“Hephzy,” I said, suddenly, “where did you go when you went out this
morning? What sort of 'errands' were those of yours?”
She was folding my ties, her back toward me, and she answered without
turning.
“Oh, I had some odds and ends of things to do,” she said. “This plaid
necktie of yours is gettin' pretty shabby, Hosy. I guess you can't
wear it again. There! I mustn't stop to talk. I've got my own things to
pack.”
She hurried to her own room and I asked no more questions just then.
But I was more suspicious than ever. I remembered a question of hers
the previous evening and I believed.... But, if she had gone to the
Continental and seen Herbert Bayliss, what could he have told her to
make her happy?
We took the train for Calais and crossed the Channel to Dover. This time
the eccentric strip of water was as calm as a pond at sunset. No jumpy,
white-capped billows, no flying spray, no seasick passengers. Tarpaulins
were a drag on the market.
“I wouldn't believe,” declared Hephzy, “that this lookin'-glass was
the same as that churned-up tub of suds we slopped through before. It
doesn't trickle down one's neck now, does it, Hosy. A 'nahsty' cross-in'
comin' and a smooth one comin' back. I wonder if that's a sign.”
“Oh, don't talk about signs, Hephzy,” I pleaded, wearily. “You'll begin
to dream again, I suppose, pretty soon.”
“No, I won't. I think you and I have stopped dreamin', Hosy. Maybe we're
just wakin' up, same as I told you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Mean? Oh, I guess I didn't mean anything. Good-by, old France! You're a
lovely country and a lively one, but I sha'n't cry at sayin' good-by to
you this time. And there's England dead ahead. Won't it seem good to
be where they talk instead of jabber! I sha'n't have to navigate by the
'one-two-three' chart over there.”
Dover, a flying trip through the customs, the train again, an English
dinner in an English restaurant car--not a “wagon bed,” as Hephzy said,
exultantly--and then London.
We took a cab to the hotel, not Bancroft's this time, but a modern
downtown hostelry where there were at least as many Americans as
English. In our rooms I would have cross-questioned Hephzy, but she
would not be questioned, declaring that she was tired and sleepy. I was
tired, also, but not sleepy. I was almost as excited as she seemed to
be by this time. I was sure she had learned something that morning in
Paris, something which pleased her greatly. What that something might
be I could not imagine; but I believed she had learned it from Herbert
Bayliss.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account