The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection. Glyn Elinor

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СКАЧАТЬ woman so much themselves as because they think it is "dam cheek" (forgive me, Mamma) for any other man to dare to look at _their_ belongings? Now American men don't seem jealous at all; they are so kind they are thinking of the woman's pleasure, not their own. Really, I am sure in the long run they must be far nicer to live with--not a tenth part as vain as Englishmen.

      The most jolly looking, jet-black old nigger in white duck livery brought us our coffee in the morning. His face is a full moon of laughter. No one could feel gloomy if he were near, and his voice, like a little child's, is as sweet as a bird, and such delightful phrasing. He has been with the Senator for fifteen years and couldn't live "way from de car." His name is Marcus Aurelius, and I am sure he is just as great a philosopher as the Emperor was.

      The girls have known him since they were babies, of course, and it is such fun to hear him talking to them, a mixture of authority, worshipping affection, and familiarity, which I believe only old niggers can have.

      "A pretty sight to see dem tree young ladies as happy as birds in dar nests;" we heard him telling Gaston just outside, when he met on his way to the bath (there are two lovely bath-rooms).

      So Gaston said he was sure the coffee-pot was heavy and he could not hold so many plates, and he would with pleasure help him with our breakfast. But Tom, who joined them, said Marcus Aurelius must not set fire to tinder, and that he was the only one of the party who could be considered suitable to be morning waiter, being my cousin and a married man. We were so entertained beyond the open door, and were quite surprised at Gaston's silence, until we saw his face reflected in the looking glass, where he had been gazing at us all the time through the crack! What a mercy on a picnic of this kind that we all look so lovely in bed! We felt it our duty to scream, and then Marcus Aurelius shut the door. Are you fearfully shocked at my being so schoolgirlish, Mamma? Don't be, I shall get old directly I get back home, and it is all the infectious gaiety of these dear merry girls.

      Everybody was ready for breakfast, and we had rather a squash to get seated, and had to be very near. Mr. Renour was next me, and he is simply delightful in a party; and the friend, Octavia says, is exactly her affair, as she is past thirty, and he is a charming boy of twenty-two.

      There is a nigger cook and he makes such lovely corn cakes and rolls and agreeable breakfast dishes, and we were all so hungry.

      Mr. Renour had been down to this other place on business, and there waited to board us sooner.

      The country seemed to grow more desolate and grim as we went on. After breakfast we sat outside in the observation car together, and he told me all about it, and the way they prospect to find the ore. And everything one hears makes one respect their pluck and endurance more. He asked me to call him Nelson; he said Mr. Renour was so "kinder stiff" and he wasn't used to it, so I did, but the good taste which characterizes everything about him made him never suggest he should be familiar with me. He was just as gentle and dear as anyone could be, and seemed to be trying to efface the remembrance in my mind that he had ever rather made love to me.

      Life had always been so kind to him, he said, even though from a child he had always had to work so hard. He said the Senator was the biggest man he had ever seen (meaning by that the biggest soul), and it was owing to his help and encouragement and splendid advice, that he had been able to stand out against the other sharks who wanted to get the shares of his mine when at one moment he was a "bit shaky"; and now all was well, and he would soon be many times a millionaire. Then I asked him what he would do with it, and he said, "I'll just make those nearest to me happy and then those further off; and then I'll set my brains to devise some scheme to benefit my country; and p'r'aps you'd help me," he said. "You great ladies in England think so much of the poor and suffering. I don't want just to put my name on big charities; p'r'aps you'd suggest something which could be of value?"

      His whole face is so fine and open, Mamma, and his lithe, sinewy figure reminds me of the Ludovici Mars; not quite so slender as Harry and Tom, but just as strong, and those balanced lines of rugged strength are quite as beautiful. I wonder what one of the meaty Easterners would look beside him, if they could both have nothing on and be made in bronze!

      "I think I'd like to marry an English girl," he said at last. "Our women are very beautiful and very smart, but yours have a tenderness which appeals to me. I could do with a mighty lot of love when once I took one for my own." Then he said he had always kept his ideal of a woman, and when he found her she should have him, "body and heart and soul." And think, Mamma, what a fortunate woman she would be, wouldn't she?

      He is quite different here to in France or on the boat; he has a quiet dignity and ease, and that perfect calm of a man of the world on his own ground. I think there must be something Irish about him, too, for he has a strain of sentiment and melancholy which can come directly after his most brilliant burst of spirits. We stayed there talking for about an hour undisturbed, and then the Senator opened the door and joined us.

      "You are as quiet as mice, my children," he said, "what have you been doing?"

      And Nelson looked up at him, his eyes full of mist.

      "Just dreamin'," he said. "All on a bright spring morning."

      And now I must stop, Mamma, for this must be posted at the next station to catch the mail.

      Your affectionate daughter,

      ELIZABETH.

      OSAGES CITY

      THE GRAND HOTEL, OSAGES CITY, _Wednesday._

      Dearest Mamma,--We arrived here last night and I am still enjoying myself more than I can say, and just after I wrote yesterday such an interesting thing happened. At lunch the Senator told us about a strange character who abides in these parts--an almost outlaw who has done such wild things and gets his money from heaven knows where. He is supposed to have murdered several men, and every incredible story fit for pirates of the Spanish Main has been tacked on to him--only of the land, not the sea. He is called "Ruby Mine Bill;" isn't that a nice name! And no one cares to "run up against him," because he is such a wonderful shot and does not hesitate to practise a little when things annoy him.

      Octavia and I said we simply longed to see him, and Nelson, who had been talking to Lola (I have not said much of Lola, because she is really so in love with her husband she is not a great deal of use to other people), joined in the conversation, and said he had heard "Ruby-Mine-Bill" was expected in the town he (Nelson) had joined us at, and it was possible we might meet him at the next station where the trains would pass each other. We were thrilled, and crowded into the observation veranda as we got near, on the chance of catching a glimpse of him. We drew up on a rough track; it is a sort of junction with several lines, and the train from Osages was drawn up on the one farthest off, and both the Senator and Nelson exclaimed, because on its observation car there he was.

      They shouted out, "Say, Bill, is that you?" And from among the four or five men who were leaning over the balcony one who looked like a respectable country piano tuner, or a plumber out for Sunday, called out, "You bet!" and began to come down the steps.

      "Move along, Bill, and be introduced to some English ladies," the Senator said; so with an easy slogging stride he came over, and the Senator presented him to us. He had a moustache and was most mild looking and about thirty-four. He was dressed in ordinary clothes, with a bowler hat, only no waistcoat, and a great leather belt round his waist. He expressed himself as proud to meet us, and when he heard I was married, too, his eyebrows went up in the most comic way. "Guess they pair in the kid pens over there," he said! He was standing below us on the track, with his hands in both his trouser СКАЧАТЬ