They returned to Mr. Westgate's office in a carriage, with their luggage, very punctually; but it must be reluctantly recorded that, this time, he kept them waiting so long that they felt themselves missing the steamer, and were deterred only by an amiable modesty from dispensing with his attendance and starting on a hasty scramble to the wharf.
But when at last he appeared, and the carriage plunged into the purlieus of Broadway, they jolted and jostled to such good purpose that they reached the huge white vessel while the bell for departure was still ringing and the absorption of passengers still active.
It was indeed, as Mr. Westgate had said, a big boat, and his leadership in the innumerable and interminable corridors and cabins, with which he seemed perfectly acquainted, and of which anyone and everyone appeared to have the entree, was very grateful to the slightly bewildered voyagers.
He showed them their stateroom--a spacious apartment, embellished with gas lamps, mirrors en pied, and sculptured furniture--and then, long after they had been intimately convinced that the steamer was in motion and launched upon the unknown stream that they were about to navigate, he bade them a sociable farewell.
"Well, goodbye, Lord Lambeth," he said; "goodbye, Mr. Percy Beaumont.
I hope you'll have a good time. Just let them do what they want with you.
I'll come down by-and-by and look after you."The young Englishmen emerged from their cabin and amused themselves with wandering about the immense labyrinthine steamer, which struck them as an extraordinary mixture of a ship and a hotel.
It was densely crowded with passengers, the larger number of whom appeared to be ladies and very young children;and in the big saloons, ornamented in white and gold, which followed each other in surprising succession, beneath the swinging gaslight, and among the small side passages where the Negro domestics of both sexes assembled with an air of philosophic leisure, everyone was moving to and fro and exchanging loud and familiar observations.
Eventually, at the instance of a discriminating black, our young men went and had some "supper" in a wonderful place arranged like a theater, where, in a gilded gallery, upon which little boxes appeared to open, a large orchestra was playing operatic selections, and, below, people were handing about bills of fare, as if they had been programs.
All this was sufficiently curious; but the agreeable thing, later, was to sit out on one of the great white decks of the steamer, in the warm breezy darkness, and, in the vague starlight, to make out the line of low, mysterious coast. The young Englishmen tried American cigars--those of Mr. Westgate--and talked together as they usually talked, with many odd silences, lapses of logic, and incongruities of transition;like people who have grown old together and learned to supply each other's missing phrases; or, more especially, like people thoroughly conscious of a common point of view, so that a style of conversation superficially lacking in finish might suffice for reference to a fund of associations in the light of which everything was all right.
"We really seem to be going out to sea," Percy Beaumont observed.
"Upon my word, we are going back to England. He has shipped us off again.
I call that 'real mean.'"
"I suppose it's all right," said Lord Lambeth. "I want to see those pretty girls at Newport. You know, he told us the place was an island;and aren't all islands in the sea?"
"Well," resumed the elder traveler after a while, "if his house is as good as his cigars, we shall do very well.""He seems a very good fellow," said Lord Lambeth, as if this idea had just occurred to him.
"I say, we had better remain at the inn," rejoined his companion presently.
"I don't think I like the way he spoke of his house. I don't like stopping in the house with such a tremendous lot of women.""Oh, I don't mind," said Lord Lambeth. And then they smoked a while in silence. "Fancy his thinking we do no work in England!"the young man resumed.
"I daresay he didn't really think so," said Percy Beaumont.
"Well, I guess they don't know much about England over here!"declared Lord Lambeth humorously. And then there was another long pause.
"He was devilish civil," observed the young nobleman.
"Nothing, certainly, could have been more civil," rejoined his companion.
"Littledale said his wife was great fun," said Lord Lambeth.
"Whose wife--Littledale's?"
"This American's--Mrs. Westgate. What's his name? J.L."Beaumont was silent a moment. "What was fun to Littledale,"he said at last, rather sententiously, "may be death to us.""What do you mean by that?" asked his kinsman. "I am as good a man as Littledale.""My dear boy, I hope you won't begin to flirt," said Percy Beaumont.
"I don't care. I daresay I shan't begin.""With a married woman, if she's bent upon it, it's all very well,"Beaumont expounded. "But our friend mentioned a young lady--a sister, a sister-in-law. For God's sake, don't get entangled with her!""How do you mean entangled?"
"Depend upon it she will try to hook you.""Oh, bother!" said Lord Lambeth.
"American girls are very clever," urged his companion.
"So much the better," the young man declared.
"I fancy they are always up to some game of that sort," Beaumont continued.
"They can't be worse than they are in England," said Lord Lambeth judicially.
"Ah, but in England," replied Beaumont, "you have got your natural protectors. You have got your mother and sisters.""My mother and sisters--" began the young nobleman with a certain energy.
But he stopped in time, puffing at his cigar.
"Your mother spoke to me about it, with tears in her eyes,"said Percy Beaumont. "She said she felt very nervous.
I promised to keep you out of mischief."
"You had better take care of yourself," said the object of maternal and ducal solicitude.