CHAPTER II
At length Mrs. Van Stuyler, being a woman of large experience and somesocial deftness, recognised that a change of subject was the easiest wayof retreat out of a rather difficult situation. So she put her cup down,leant back in her chair, and, looking straight into Lord Redgrave'seyes, she said with purely feminine irrelevance:
"I suppose you know, Lord Redgrave, that, when we left, the machinewhich we call in America Manhood Suffrage--which, of course, simplymeans the selection of a government by counting noses which may or maynot have brains above them--was what some of our orators would call infull blast. If you are going to New York after Washington, as you saidon the boat, we might find it a rather inconvenient time to arrive. Thewhole place will be chaos, you know; because when the citizen of theUnited States begins electioneering, New York is not a very nice placeto stop in except for people who want excitement, and so if you willexcuse me putting the question so directly, I should like to know whatyou just do mean to do----"
Lord Redgrave saw that she was going to add "with us," but before he hadtime to say anything, Miss Zaidie turned round, walked deliberatelytowards her chair, sat down, poured herself out a fresh cup of coffee,added the milk and sugar with deliberation, and then after a preliminarysip said, with her cup poised half-way between her dainty lips and thetable:
"Mrs. Van, I've got an idea. I suppose it's inherited, for dear old Pophad plenty. Anyhow we may as well get back to common-sense subjects. Nowlook here," she went on, switching an absolutely convincing glancestraight into her host's eyes, "my father may have been a dreamer, butstill he was a Sound Money man. He believed in honest dealings. Hedidn't believe in borrowing a hundred dollars gold and paying back infifty dollars silver. What's your opinion, Lord Redgrave; you don't dothat sort of thing in England, do you? Uncle Russell is a Sound Moneyman too. He's got too much gold locked up to want silver for it."
"My dear Zaidie," said Mrs. Van Stuyler, "what _have_ democratic andrepublican politics and bimetalism got to do with----"
"With a trip in this wonderful vessel which Pop told me years ago couldgo up to the stars if it ever was made? Why just this, Lord Redgrave isan Englishman and too rich to believe in anything but sound money, so isUncle Russell, and there you have it, or should have."
"I think I see what you mean, Miss Rennick," said their host, leaningback in his chair and folding his hands behind his head, as steamboattravellers are wont to do when seas are smooth and skies are blue. "The_Astronef_ might come down like a vision from the clouds and preach theGospel of Gold in electric rays of silver through the commonplace mediumof the Morse Code. How's that for poetry and practice?"
"I quite agree with his lordship as regards the practice," said Mrs. VanStuyler, talking somewhat rudely across him to Zaidie. "It would be anexcellent use to put this wonderful invention to. And then, I am surehis lordship would land us in Central Park, so that we could go to yourUncle's house right away."
"No, no, I'm afraid I must ask you to excuse me there, Mrs. VanStuyler," said Redgrave, with a change of tone which Miss Zaidieappreciated with a swiftly veiled glance. "You see, I have placed myselfbeyond the law. I have, as you have been good enough to intimate,abducted--to put it brutally--two ladies from the deck of an Atlanticliner. Further, in doing so I have selfishly spoiled the prospects ofone of the ladies. But, seriously, I really must go to Washingtonfirst----"
"I think, Lord Redgrave," interrupted Mrs. Van Stuyler, ignoring thelast unfinished sentence and assuming her best Knickerbocker dignity,"if you will forgive me saying so, that that is scarcely a subject fordiscussion here."
"And if that's so," interrupted Miss Zaidie, "the less we say about itthe better. What I wanted to say was this. We all want the Republicansin, at least all of us that have much to lose. Now, if Lord Redgrave wasto use this wonderful air-ship of his on the right side--why therewouldn't be any standing against it."
"I must say that until just now I had hardly contemplated turning the_Astronef_ into an electioneering machine. Still, I admit that she mightbe made use of in a good cause, only I hope----"
"That we shan't want you to paste her over with election bills, eh?--orstart handbill-snowstorms from the deck--or kidnap Croker and Bryan justas you did us, for instance?"
"If I could, I'm quite sure that I shouldn't have as pleasant guests asI have now on board the _Astronef_. What do you think, Mrs. VanStuyler?"
"My dear Lord Redgrave," she replied, "that would be quite impossible.The idea of being shut up in a ship like this which can soar not onlyfrom earth, but beyond the clouds, with people who would find out yourbest secrets and then perhaps shoot you so as to be the only possessorsof them--well, that would be foolishness indeed."
"Why, certainly it would," said Zaidie; "the only use you could have forpeople like that would be to take them up above the clouds and drop themout. But suppose we--I mean Lord Redgrave--took the _Astronef_ down overNew York and signalled messages from the sky at night with asearchlight----"
"Good," said their host, getting up from his deck-chair and stretchinghimself up straight, looking the while at Miss Zaidie's averted profile."That's gorgeously good! We might even turn the election. I'm for soundmoney all the time, if I may be permitted to speak American."
"English is quite good enough for us, Lord Redgrave," said Miss Zaidie alittle stiffly. "We may have improved on the old language a bit, stillwe understand it, and--well, we can forgive its shortcomings. But thatisn't quite to the point."
"It seems to me," said Mrs. Van Stuyler, "that we are getting nearly asfar from the original subject as we are from the _St. Louis_. May I ask,Zaidie, what you really propose to do?"
"_Do_ is not for us to say," said Miss Zaidie, looking straight up tothe glass roof of the deck-chamber. "You see, Mrs. Van, we're not freeagents. We are not even first-class passengers who have paid their fareson a contract ticket which is supposed to get them there."
"If you'll pardon me saying so," said Lord Redgrave, stopping his walkup and down the deck, "that is not quite the case. To put it in the mostbrutally material form, it is quite true that I have kidnapped you twoladies and taken you beyond the reach of earthly law. But there isanother law, one which would bind a gentleman even if he were beyond thelimits of the Solar System, and so if you wish to be landed either inWashington or New York it shall be done. You shall be put down within acarriage drive of your own residence, or of Mr. Russell Rennick's. Iwill myself see you to his door, and there we may say goodbye, and Iwill take my trip through the Solar System alone."
There was another pause after this, a pause pregnant with the fate oftwo lives. They looked at each other--Mrs. Van Stuyler at Zaidie, Zaidieat Lord Redgrave, and he at Mrs. Van Stuyler again. It was a kind ofthree-cornered duel of eyes, and the eyes said a good deal more thancommon human speech could have done.
Then Lord Redgrave, in answer to the last glance from Zaidie's eyes,said slowly and deliberately:
"I don't want to take any undue advantage, but I think I am justified inmaking one condition. Of course I can take you beyond the limits of theworld that we know, and to other worlds that we know little or nothingof. At least I could do so if I were not bound by law as strong asgravitation itself; but now, as I said before, I just ask whether or notmy guests or, if you think it suits the circumstances better, myprisoners, shall be released unconditionally wherever they choose to belanded."
He paused for a moment and then, looking straight into Zaidie's eyes, headded:
"The one condition I make is that the vote shall be unanimous."
"Under the circumstances, Lord Redgrave," said Mrs. Van Stuyler, risingfrom her seat and walking towards him with all the dignity that wouldhave been hers in her own drawing-room, "there can only be one answer tothat. Your guests or your prisoners, as you choose to call them, must bereleased unconditionally."
Lord Redgrave heard these words as a man might hear words in a dream.Zaidie had risen too. They were looking into each other's eyes, and manyunspoke
n words were passing between them. There was a little silence,and then, to Mrs. Van Stuyler's unutterable horror, Zaidie said, withjust the suspicion of a gasp in her voice:
"There's one dissentient. We are prisoners, and I guess I'd bettersurrender at discretion."
The next moment her captor's arm was round her waist, and Mrs. VanStuyler, with her twitching fingers linked behind her back, and her noseat an angle of sixty degrees, was staring away through the blueimmensity, dumbly wondering what on earth or under heaven was going tohappen next.