The Man on the Box | Page 6

was breathing in the gale with all the joy of
living, filling her healthy lungs with it as that rare daughter of the
Cyprian Isle might have done as she sprang that morn from the jeweled
Mediterranean spray, that beggar's brooch of Neptune's.
Warburton's heart hadn't thrilled so since the day when he first donned
cadet gray. There was scarce any room for her to pass between his chair
and the rail; and this knowledge filled the rascal with exultation. Nearer
and nearer she came. He drew in his breath sharply as the corner of his
foot-rest (aided by the sly wind) caught her raincoat.
"I beg your pardon!" he said, sitting up.
She quickly released her coat, smiled faintly, and passed on.
Sometimes the most lasting impressions are those which are printed
most lightly on the memory. Mr. Robert says that he never will forget
that first smile. And he didn't even know her name then.
I was about to engage your attention with a description of the villain,
but on second thought I have decided that it would be rather unfair. For
at that moment he was at a disadvantage. Nature was punishing him for
a few shortcomings. The steward that night informed Warburton, in
answer to his inquiries, that he, the villain, was dreadfully seasick, and
was begging him, the steward, to scuttle the ship and have done with it.
I have my doubts regarding this. Mr. Robert is inclined to flippancy at
times. It wasn't seasickness; and after all is said and done, it is putting it
harshly to call this man a villain. I recant. True villainy is always based
upon selfishness. Remember this, my wise ones.
Warburton was somewhat subdued when he learned that the suffering
gentleman was her father.
"What did you say the name was?" he asked innocently. Until now he
hadn't had the courage to put the question to any one, or to prowl
around the purser's books.

"Annesley; Colonel Annesley and daughter," answered the
unsuspecting steward.
Warburton knew nothing then of the mental tragedy going on behind
the colonel's state-room door. How should he have known? On the
contrary, he believed that the father of such a girl must be a most
knightly and courtly gentleman. He was, in all outward appearance.
There had been a time, not long since, when he had been knightly and
courtly in all things.
Surrounding every upright man there is a mire, and if he step not wisely,
he is lost. There is no coming back; step by step he must go on and on,
till he vanishes and a bubble rises over where he but lately stood. That
he misstepped innocently does not matter; mire and evil have neither
pity nor reason. To spend what is not ours and then to try to recover it,
to hide the guilty step: this is futility. From the alpha men have made
this step; to the omega they will make it, with the same unchanging
futility. After all, it is money. Money is the root of all evil; let him
laugh who will, in his heart of hearts he knows it.
Money! Have you never heard that siren call to you, call seductively
from her ragged isle, where lurk the reefs of greed and selfishness?
Money! What has this siren not to offer? Power, ease, glory, luxury;
aye, I had almost said love! But, no; love is the gift of God, money is
the invention of man: all the good, all the evil, in the heart of this great
humanity.

III
THE ADVENTURE BEGINS
It was only when the ship was less than a day's journey off Sandy Hook
that the colonel came on deck, once more to resume his interest in
human affairs. How the girl hovered about him! She tucked the shawl
more snugly around his feet; she arranged and rearranged the pillows
back of his head; she fed him from a bowl of soup; she read from some

favorite book; she smoothed the furrowed brow; she stilled the long,
white, nervous fingers with her own small, firm, brown ones; she was
mother and daughter in one. Wherever she moved, the parent eye
followed her, and there lay in its deeps a strange mixture of fear, and
trouble, and questioning love. All the while he drummed ceaselessly on
the arms of his chair.
And Mr. Robert, watching all these things from afar, Mr. Robert sighed
dolorously. The residue air in his lungs was renewed more frequently
than nature originally intended it should be. Love has its beneficences
as well as its pangs, only they are not wholly appreciable by the
recipient. For what is better than a good pair of lungs constantly filled
and refilled with pure air? Mr. Robert even felt a twinge of