BEAUTY IN DISTRESS
"Can you tell me where I can get some ice? Can you sell me some ice?" cried the lady excitedly, when she was still some yards distant from Cleggett.
"Ice?" The request was so unusual that Cleggett was not certain that he had understood.
"Yes, ice! Ice!" There was no mistaking the genuine character of her eagerness; if she had been begging for her life she could not have been more in earnest."Don't tell me that you have none on your boat.Don't tell me that!Don't tell me that!"And suddenly, like a woman who has borne all that she can bear, she burst undisguisedly into a paroxysm of weeping.Cleggett, stirred by her beauty and her trouble, stepped nearer to her, for she swayed with her emotion as if she were about to fall.Impulsively she put a hand on his arm, and the Pomeranian, dropped unceremoniously to the ground, sprang at Cleggett snarling and snapping as if sure he were the author of the lady's misfortunes.
"You will think I am mad," said the lady, endeavoring to control her tears, "but I MUST have ice.Don't tell me that you have no ice!""My dear lady," said Cleggett, unconsciously clasping, in his anxiety to reassure her, the hand that she had laid upon his arm, "I have ice--you shall have all the ice you want!""Oh," she murmured, leaning towards him, "you cannot know--"But the rest was lost in an incoherent babble, and with a deep sigh she fell lax into Cleggett's arms.The reaction from despair had been too much for her; it had come too suddenly; at the first word of reassurance, atthe first ray of dawning hope, she had fainted.High-strung natures, intrepid in the face of danger, are apt to such collapses in the moment of deliverance; and, whatever the nature of the lady's trouble, Cleggett gained from her swoon a sharp sense of its intensity.
Cleggett was not used to having beautiful women faint and fall into his arms, and he was too much of a gentleman to hold one there a single moment longer than was absolutely necessary.He turned his head rather helplessly towards the vehicle in which the lady had arrived.To his consternation and surprise it had turned around and the chauffeur was in the act of starting back towards Fairport.But he had left behind him a large zinc bucket with a cover on it, a long unpainted, oblong box, and two steamer trunks; on the oblong box sat a short, squat young man in an attitude of deep dejection.
"Hi there! Stop!" cried Cleggett to the chauffeur.That person stopped his machine.He did more.He arose in the seat, applied his thumb to his nose, and vigorously and vivaciously waggled his outspread fingers at Cleggett in a gesture, derisive and inelegant, that is older than the pyramids.Then he started his machine again and made all speed in the direction of Fairport.
"I say, you, come here!" Cleggett called to the squat young man."Can't you see that the lady's fainted?"The squat young man, thus exhorted, sadly approached."Can't you see the lady has fainted?" repeated Cleggett.
"Skoits often does," said the squat young man, looking over the situation in a detached, judicial manner.He spoke out of the left corner of his mouth in a hoarse voice, without moving the right side of his face at all, and he seemed to feel that the responsibility of the situation was Cleggett's.
"But, don't you know her?Didn't you come here with her?"The squat young man appeared to debate some moral issue inwardly for a moment.And then, speaking this time out of the right corner of his mouth, which was now nearer Cleggett, without disturbing the left half ofhis face, he pointed towards the oblong box and murmured huskily: "That's my job." He went and sat down on the box again.
Without more ado Cleggett lifted the lady and bore her onto the JasperB.She was a heavy burden, but Cleggett declined the assistance of Cap'n Abernethy and George the Greek, who had come tardily out of the forecastle and now offered their assistance.
"Get a bottle of wine," he told Yosh, as he passed the Japanese on the deck, "and then make some tea."Cleggett laid the lady on a couch in the cabin, and then lighted a lamp, as it got dark early in these quarters.While he waited for Yoshahira Kuroki and the wine, he looked at her.In her appealing helplessness she looked even more beautiful than she had at first.She was a blonde, with eyebrows and lashes darker than her hair; and, even in her swoon, Cleggett could see that she was of the thin-skinned, high-colored type.Her eyes, as he had seen before she swooned, were of a deep, dark violet color.She was no chit of a girl, but a mature woman, tall and splendid in the noble fullness of her contours.The high nose spoke of love of activity and energy of character.The full mouth indicated warmth of heart; the chin was of that sort which we have been taught to associate with determination.
The Japanese brought the wine, and Cleggett poured a few spoonfuls down the lady's throat.Presently she sighed and stirred and began to show signs of returning animation.
The Pomeranian, which had followed them into the cabin, and which now lay whimpering at her feet, also seemed to feel that she was awakening, and, crawling higher, began to lick one of her hands.
"Make some tea, Yosh," said Cleggett."What is it?"This last was addressed to the lady herself.Her eyes had opened for a fleeting instant as Cleggett spoke to the Japanese, and her lips had moved.Cleggett bent his head nearer, while Yosh picked up the dog, which violently objected, and asked again: "What is it?""Orange pekoe, please," the lady murmured, dreamily.
And then she sat up with a start, struggled to recover herself, and looked about her wildly.
"Where am I?" she cried."What has happened?" She passed her hand across her brow, frowning.
"You fainted, madam," said Cleggett.
