CHAPTER I
The situation was one which was absolutely without parallel in all thehistory of courtship from the days of Mother Eve to those of Miss LillaZaidie Rennick. The nearest approach to it would have been theold-fashioned Tartar custom which made it lawful for a man to steal hisbest girl, if he could get her first, fling her across his horse'scrupper and ride away with her to his tent.
But to the shocked senses of Mrs. Van Stuyler the present adventureappeared a great deal more terrible than that. Both Zaidie and herselfhad sprung to their feet as soon as the upward rush of the _Astronef_had slackened and they were released from their seats. They looked downthrough the glass walls of what may be called the hurricane deck-chamberof the _Astronef_, and saw below them a snowy sea of clouds justcrimsoned by the rising sun.
In this cloud-sea, which spread like a wide-meshed veil between them andthe earth, there were great irregular rifts which looked as big ascontinents on a map. These had a blue-grey background, or it might bemore correct to say under-ground, and in the midst of one of these theysaw a little black speck which after a moment or two took the shape of alittle toy ship, and presently they recognised it as theeleven-thousand-ton liner which a few moments ago had been their oceanhome.
Mrs. Van Stuyler was shaking in every muscle, afflicted by a sort of St.Vitus' dance induced by physical fear and outraged propriety. Quiteapart from these, however, she experienced a third sensation which madefor a nameless inquietude. She was a woman of the world, well versed inmost of its ways, and she fully recognised that that single bound fromthe bridge-rail of the _St. Louis_ to the other side of the clouds hadalready carried her and her charge beyond the pale of human law.
The same thought, mingled with other feelings, half of wonder and halfof re-awakened tenderness, was just then uppermost in Miss Zaidie'smind. It was quite obvious that the man who could create and controlsuch a marvellous vehicle as this could, morally as well as physically,lift himself beyond the reach of the conventions which civilised societyhad instituted for its own protection and government.
He could do with them exactly as he pleased. They were utterly at hismercy. He might carry them away to some unexplored spot on one of thecontinents, or to some unknown island in the midst of the wide Pacific.He might even transport them into the midst of the awful solitudes whichsurround the Poles. He could give them the choice between doing as hewished, submitting unconditionally to his will, or committing suicide bystarvation.
They had not even the option of jumping out, for they did not know howto open the sliding doors; and even if they had done, what femininenerves could have faced a leap into that awful gulf which lay belowthem, a two-thousand-foot dive through the clouds into the waters of thewintry Atlantic?
They looked at each other in speechless, dazed amazement. Far away belowthem on the other side of the clouds the _St. Louis_ was steamingeastward, and with her were going the last hopes of the coronet whichwas to be the matrimonial equivalent of Miss Zaidie's beauty and RussellRennick's millions.
They were no longer of the world. Its laws could no longer protect them.Anything might happen, and that anything depended absolutely on the willof the lord and master of the extraordinary vessel which, for thepresent, was their only world.
"My dearest Zaidie," Mrs. Van Stuyler gasped, when she at lengthrecovered the power of articulate speech, "what an entirely too awfulthing this is! Why, it's abduction and nothing less. Indeed it's worse,for he's taken us clean off the earth, and there's no more chance ofrescue than if he took us to one of those planets he said he could goto. If I didn't feel a great responsibility for you, dear, I believe Ishould faint."
By this time Miss Zaidie had recovered a good deal of her usualcomposure. The excitement of the upward rush, and what was left of themomentary physical fear, had flushed her cheeks and lighted her eyes.Even Mrs. Van Stuyler thought her looking, if possible, more beautifulthan she had done under the most favourable of terrestrialcircumstances. There was a something else too, which she didn'taltogether like to see, a sort of resignation to her fate which, in ayoung lady situated as she was then, Mrs. Van Stuyler considered to bedistinctly improper.
"It is rather startling, isn't it?" she said, with hardly a trace ofemotion in her voice; "but I have no doubt that everything will be allright in the end."
"Everything all right, my dear Zaidie! What on earth, or I might sayunder heaven, do you mean?"
"I mean," replied Zaidie even more composedly than before, and also witha little tightening of her lips, "that Lord Redgrave is the owner ofthis vessel, and that therefore it is quite impossible that anything outof the way could happen to us--I mean anything more out of the way thanthis wonderful jump from the sea to the sky has been, unless, of course,Lord Redgrave is going to take us for a voyage among the stars."
"Zaidie Rennick!" said Mrs. Van Stuyler, bridling up into her mostfrigid dignity, "I am more than surprised to hear you talk in such astrain. Perfectly safe, indeed! Has it not struck you that we areabsolutely at this man's--this Lord Redgrave's, mercy, that he can takeus where he likes, and treat us just as he pleases?"
"My dear Mrs. Van," replied Zaidie, dropping back into her familiar formof address, but speaking even more frigidly than her chaperon had done,"you seem to forget that, however extraordinary our situation may bejust now, we are in the care of an English gentleman. Lord Redgrave wasa friend of my father's, the only man who believed in his ideals, theonly man who realised them, the only man----"
"That you were ever in love with, eh?" said Mrs. Van Stuyler with a snapin her voice. "Is that so? Ah, I begin to see something now."
"And I think, if you possess your soul in patience, you will seesomething more before long," snapped Miss Zaidie in reply. Then shestopped abruptly and the flush on her cheek deepened, for at that momentLord Redgrave came up the companion way from the lower deck carrying abig silver tray with a coffee pot, three cups and saucers, a rack oftoast, and a couple of plates of bread and butter and cake.
Just then a sort of social miracle happened. The fact was that Mrs. VanStuyler had never before had her early coffee brought to her by a peerof the British Realm. She thought it a little humiliating afterwards,but for the moment all sorts of conventional barriers seemed to meltaway. After all she was a woman, and some years ago she had been a youngone. Lord Redgrave was an almost perfect specimen of English manhood inits early prime. He was one of the richest peers in England, and he wasbringing her her coffee. As she said afterwards, she wilted, and shecouldn't help it.
"I'm afraid I have kept you waiting a long time for your coffee,ladies," said Redgrave, as he balanced the tray on one hand and drew awicker table towards them with the other. "You see there are only two ofus on board this craft, and as my engineer is navigating the ship, Ihave to attend to the domestic arrangements."
Mrs. Van Stuyler looked at him in the silence of mental paralysis. MissZaidie frowned, smiled, and then began to laugh.
"Well, of all the cold-blooded English ways of putting things----" shebegan.
"I beg your pardon?" said Lord Redgrave as he put the tray down on thetable.
"What Miss Rennick means, Lord Redgrave," interrupted Mrs. Van Stuyler,struggling out of her paralytic condition, "and what I, too, should liketo say, is that under the circumstances----"
"You think that I am not as penitent as I ought to be. Is that so?" saidRedgrave, with a glance and a smile mostly directed towards Miss Zaidie."Well, to tell you the truth," he went on, "I am not a bit penitent. Onthe contrary, I am very glad to have been able to assist the Fates asfar as I have done."
"Assist the Fates!" gasped Mrs. Van Stuyler, helping herself shakinglyto sugar, while Miss Zaidie folded a gossamer slice of bread and butterand began to eat it; "I think, Lord Redgrave, that if you knew _all_ thecircumstances, you would say that you were working against them."
"My dear Mrs. Van Stuyler," he replied, as he filled his own coffee cup,"I quite agree with you as to certain fates, but the Fates which I meanar
e the ones which, with good or bad reason, I think are working on myside. Besides, I _do_ know all the circumstances, or at least the mostimportant of them. That knowledge is, in fact, my principal excuse forbringing you so unceremoniously above the clouds."
As he said this he took a sideway glance at Miss Zaidie. She dropped hereyelids and went on eating her bread and butter; but there was a littledeepening of the flush on her cheeks which was to him as the first flushof sunrise to a benighted wanderer.
There was a rather awkward silence after this. Miss Zaidie stirred thecoffee in her cup with a dainty Queen Anne spoon, and seemed toconcentrate the whole of her attention upon the operation. Then Mrs. VanStuyler took a sip out of her cup and said:
"But really, Lord Redgrave, I feel that I must ask you whether you thinkthat what you have done during the last few minutes (which already, Iassure you, seem hours to me) is--well, quite in accordance withthe--what shall I say--ah, the rules that we have been accustomed tolive under?"
Lord Redgrave looked at Miss Zaidie again. She didn't even raise hereyelids, only a very slight tremor of her hand as she raised her cup toher lips told that she was even listening. He took courage from thissign, and replied:
"My dear Mrs. Van Stuyler, the only answer that I can make to that justnow is to remind you that, by the sanction of ages, everything issupposed to be fair under two sets of circumstances, and, whatever ishappening on the earth down yonder, we, I think, are not at war."
The next moment Miss Zaidie's eyelids lifted a little. There was atremor about her lips almost too faint to be perceptible, and theslightest possible tinge of colour crept upwards towards her eyes. Sheput her cup down and got up, walked towards the glass walls of thedeck-chamber, and looked out over the cloud-scape.
The shortness of her steamer skirt made it possible for Lord Redgraveand Mrs. Van Stuyler to see that the sole of her right boot was swingingup and down on the heel ever so slightly. They came simultaneously tothe conclusion that if she had been alone she would have stamped, andstamped pretty hard. Possibly also she would have said things to herselfand the surrounding silence. This seemed probable from the almostequally imperceptible motion of her shapely shoulders.
Mrs. Van Stuyler recognised in a moment that her charge was gettingangry. She knew by experience that Miss Zaidie possessed a very properspirit of her own, and that it was just as well not to push matters toofar. She further recognised that the circumstances were extraordinary,not to say equivocal, and that she herself occupied a distinctlypeculiar position.
She had accepted the charge of Miss Zaidie from her Uncle Russell for aconsideration counted partly by social advantages and partly by dollars.In the most perfect innocence she had permitted not only her charge butherself to be abducted--for, after all, that was what it came to--fromthe deck of an American liner, and carried, not only beyond the clouds,but also beyond the reach of human law, both criminal and conventional.
Inwardly she was simply fuming with rage. As she said afterwards, shefelt just like a bottled volcano which would like to go off and daren't.
About two minutes of somewhat surcharged silence passed. Mrs. VanStuyler sipped her coffee in ostentatiously small sips. Lord Redgravetook his in slower and longer ones, and helped himself to bread andbutter. Miss Zaidie appeared perfectly contented with her contemplationof the clouds.