“Mr. Hatteras,” he said severely, “pray what does this mean? How is it that I find you in this undignified position with my daughter?”
“Mr. Wetherell,” I answered, “I can see that an explanation is due to you. Just before you came up I was courageous enough to tell your daughter that I loved her. She has been generous enough to inform me that she returns my affection. And now the best course for me to pursue is to ask your permission to make her my wife.”
“You presume, sir, upon the service you rendered my daughter in Sydney. I did not think you would follow it up in this fashion.”
“Your daughter is free to love whom she pleases, I take it,” I said, my temper, fanned by the tone he adopted, getting a little the better of my judgment. “She has been good enough to promise to marry me—if I can obtain your permission. Have you any objection to raise?”
“Only one, and that one is insuperable! Understand me, I forbid it once and for all! In every particular—without hope of change—I forbid it!”
“As you must see it is a matter which affects the happiness of two lives, I feel sure you will be good enough to tell me your reasons?”
“I must decline any discussion on the matter at all. You have my answer, I forbid it!”
“This is to be final, then? I am to understand that you are not to be brought to change your mind by any actions of mine?”
“No, sir, I am not! What I have said is irrevocable. The idea is not to be thought of for a moment. And while I am on this subject let me tell you that your conduct towards my daughter on board this ship has been very distasteful to me. I have the honour to wish you a very good evening.”
“Stay, Mr. Wetherell,” I said, as he turned to go. “You have been kind enough to favour me with your views. Now I will give you mine. Your daughter loves me. I am an honest and an industrious man, and I love her with my whole heart and soul. I tell you now, and though you decline to treat me with proper fairness, I give you warning that I intend to marry her if she will still have me—with your consent or without it!”
“You are insolent, sir.”
“I assure you I have no desire to be. I endeavour to remember that you are her father, though I must own you lack her sense of what is fair and right.”
“I will not discuss the question any further with you. You know my absolute decision. Good night!”
“Good night!”
With anger and happiness struggling in my breast for the mastery, I paced that deck for hours. My heart swelled with joy at the knowledge that my darling loved me, but it sank like lead when I considered the difficulties which threatened us if her father persisted in his present determination. At last, just as eight bells was striking (twelve o’clock), I went below to my cabin. My fellow-passenger was fast asleep—a fact which I was grateful for when I discovered propped against my bottle-rack a tiny envelope with my name inscribed upon it. Tearing it open I read the following:
“My Own Dearest—
“My father has just informed me of his interview with you. I cannot understand it or ascribe a reason for it. But whatever happens, remember that I will be your wife, and the wife of no other. May God bless and keep you always.
With such a letter under my pillow, can it be doubted that my dreams were good? How little I guessed the accumulation of troubles to which this little unpleasantness with Mr. Wetherell was destined to be the prelude!
II
London
Now that I come to think the matter out, I don’t know that I could give you any definite idea of what my first impressions of London were. One thing at least is certain, I had never had experience of anything approaching such a city before, and, between ourselves, I can’t say that I ever want to again. The constant rush and roar of traffic, the crowds of people jostling each other on the pavements, the happiness and the misery, the riches and the poverty, all mixed up together in one jumble, like good and bad fruit in a basket, fairly took my breath away; and when I went down, that first afternoon, and saw the Park in all its summer glory, my amazement may be better imagined than described.
I could have watched the carriages, horsemen, and promenaders for hours on end without any sense of weariness. And when a bystander, seeing that I was a stranger, took compassion upon my ignorance and condescended to point out to me the various celebrities present, my pleasure was complete. There certainly is no place like London for show and glitter, I’ll grant you that; but all the same I’d no more think of taking up my permanent abode in it than I’d try to cross the Atlantic in a Chinese sampan.
Having before I left Sydney been recommended to a quiet hotel in a neighbourhood near the Strand, convenient both for sightseeing and business, I had my luggage conveyed thither, and prepared to make myself comfortable for a time. Every day I waited eagerly for a letter from my sweetheart, the more impatiently because its non-arrival convinced me that they had not yet arrived in London. As it turned out, they had delayed their departure from Naples for two days, and had spent another three in Florence, two in Rome, and a day and a half in Paris.
One morning, however, my faithful watch over the letter rack, which was already becoming a standing joke in the
