The George Barr McCutcheon MEGAPACK ®. George Barr McCutcheon

clanging of bells broke upon his ears and he knew that the great ship was about to depart. Mechanically, disconsolately he walked out and paced the broad, crowded wharf. All was excitement. There was the rush of people, the shouts, the cheers, the puffing of tugs, the churning of water, and the Kaiser Wilhelm was off on its long voyage. Half-heartedly, miserably and in a dazed condition he found a place in the front row along the rail. There were tears in his eyes, tears of anger, shame and mortification. She had played with him!

      Moodily he watched the crowd of voyagers hanging over the rails of the moving leviathan of the deep. A faint smile of irony came to his lips. This was the boat on which his heart was to have been freighted from native shores. The craft was sailing, but it was not carrying the cargo that he had, in very good faith, consigned to Graustark. His heart was certainly not on board the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse.

      Gloomily his disappointed eyes swept along the rail of the big steamer, half interested in spite of themselves. Twice they passed a certain point on the forward deck, unconscious of a force that was attracting them in that direction. The third time he allowed them to settle for an instant on the group of faces and figures and then stray off to other parts of the ship. Some strange power drew them again to the forward deck, and this time he was startled into an intent stare. Could he believe those eyes? Surely that was her figure at the rail—there between the two young women who were waving their handkerchiefs so frantically. His heart began to jump up and down, wildly, doubtingly, impatiently. Why could not that face be turned toward the wharf as the others were? There was the blue coat but not the blue cap. A jaunty sailor hat sat where the never-to-be-forgotten cap had perched. The change was slight, but it was sufficient to throw him into the most feverish state of uncertainty. An insane desire to shout a command to this strange young woman came over him.

      The ship was slowly opening a gap between herself and the wharf, and he knew that in a few moments recognition would be impossible. Just as he was losing hope and was ready to groan with despair, the face beneath the sailor hat was turned squarely in his direction. A glaze obscured his eyes, a numbness attacked his brain. It was Miss Guggenslocker!

      Why was her name omitted from the passenger list? That question was the first to whirl through his addled brain. He forgot the questionings, forgot everything a moment later, for, to his amazement and delight and discomfiture, he saw that she was peering intently at him. A pair of big glasses was leveled at him for a second and then lowered. He plainly saw the smile on her face, and the fluttering cambric in her hand. She had seen him, after all,—had caught him in a silly exhibition of weakness. Her last impression of him, then, was to be one of which he could not feel proud. While his heart burned with shame, it could not have been suspected from the appearance of his face. His eyes were dancing, his mouth was wide open with joy, his lips were quivering with a suppressed shout, his cheeks were flushed and his whole aspect bespoke ecstacy. He waved his hat and then his handkerchief, obtaining from her vigorous and unrestrained signs of approbation. Her face was wreathed in smiles as she leaned far over the rail, the picture of animated pleasure.

      Making sure that her uncle and aunt were not visible, he boldly placed his fingers to his lips and wafted a kiss out over the water!

      “Now she’ll crush me,” he cried to himself, regretting the rash act and praying that she had not observed it.

      Her handkerchief ceased fluttering in an instant, and, with sinking heart, he realized that she had observed. There was a moment of indecision on the part of the fair one going out to sea, and then the little finger tips of both hands went to her lips and his kiss came back to him!

      The people near him were surprised to hear a wild yell from his lips and then to see him wave his hat so madly that there was some danger of its being knocked to pieces against the railing or upon the persons of those who stood too close to escape the whirling consequences. So unexpected had been her reception of what he considered a calamitous indiscretion that he was to be pardoned for the ebullition of relief and joy that followed. Had she drawn a revolver and fired angrily at him he could not have been more astounded. But, to actually throw a kiss to him—to meet his imprudence in the same spirit that had inspired it! Too much to believe! In the midst of his elation, however, there came a reminder that she did not expect to see him again, that she was playing with him, that it was a merry jest and not a heartache that filled her bosom at the parting.

      While he was still waving his handkerchief, debating savagely and joyously the wisdom of the act, she became a part of the distant color scheme; the blue figure faded and blended into the general tone and could no longer be distinguished. She was gone, but she had tossed him a kiss from lips that he should always see. As he turned away from the water he found himself wondering if there had been tears in her eyes, but the probability was so remote that he laughed foolishly and aloud A couple of girls heard the laugh and giggled in sympathy, but he turned a scowling face upon them and disappeared in the throng.

      Uppermost in his bewildered mind was the question: Why is she not in the passenger list? Acting on a sudden impulse, he again sought out the clerk in charge and made a most thorough inspection. There was no Guggenslocker among the names. As a last resort h asked:

      “They could not have sailed under an assumed name, could they?”

      “I can’t say as to that. Where are they going?”

      “Graustark.”

      But the young man shook his head slowly, Lorry’s shaking in unconscious accord.

      “Are you sure that you saw the young lady on board?”

      “Well, rather!” exclaimed Lorry, emphatically.

      “I was going to say there are a lot of Italian and German singers on the ship, and you might have been mistaken. But since you are so positive, it seems very strange that your friends are not on the list.”

      So Lorry went away discouraged and with a vague fear that she might have been a prima donna whose real name was Guggenslocker but whose stage name was something more euphonious. He instantly put away the thought and the fear. She was certainly not an opera singer—impossible! He drove back to his hotel, and made preparations for his return to Washington. Glancing casually over the register he came to the name that had been haunting him—Guggenslocker! There were the names, “Caspar Guggenslocker and four, Graustark.” Without hesitation he began to question the clerk.

      “They sailed on the Kaiser Wilhelm today;” said that worthy. “That’s all I know about them. They came yesterday and left today.”

      Mr. Grenfall Lorry returned to Washington as in a dream—a fairy dream. The air of mystery that had grown from the first was now an impenetrable wall, the top of which his curiosity could not scale. Even his fancy, his imagination, served him not. There was but one point on which he was satisfied: he was in love. His own condition was no mystery.

      Several weeks later he went to New York to question the Captain of the Wilhelm, hoping to clear away the clouds satisfactorily. To his amazement, the captain said there had been no Guggenslockers on board nor had there been persons answering the description, so far as he could tell.

      Through the long hot summer he worked, and worried, and wondered. In the first, he did little that was satisfactory to himself or to his uncle; in the second, he did so much that he was advised by his physician to take a rest; in the last, he indulged himself so extensively that it had become unbearable. He must know all about her? But how?

      The early months of autumn found him pale and tired and indifferent alike to work and play. Ha found no pleasure in the society that had known him as a lion. Women bored him; men annoyed him; the play suffocated him; the tiresome club was ruining his temper; the whole world was going wrong. The doctor told him he was approaching nervous prostration; his mother’s anxious eyes could no longer be denied, so he realized grimly that there was but one course left open to him.

      He suggested it to the doctor, to his mother and to his uncle, and they agreed with him. It involved Europe.

      Having fully decided again to cross the sea, his spirits revived. He became more cheerful, took an interest in things that were going on, and, by the time the Kaiser Wilhelm sailed in September, was the picture of health