Chapter 9 - Page 2

wedding. It is YOU
who refuse. And then you turn upon me like this! Admit that you are
unreasonable."

"My dear Hubert, have I ever denied that I was a woman?"

"Besides," I went on, ignoring her delicious smile, "I don't intend to
FOLLOW you. I expect, on the contrary, to find myself beside you. When
I know where you are going, I shall accidentally turn up on the same
steamer. Accidents WILL happen. Nobody can prevent coincidences from
occurring. You may marry me, or you may not; but if you don't marry
me, you can't expect to curtail my liberty of action, can you? You had
better know the worst at once; if you won't take me, you must count upon
finding me at your elbow all the world over--till the moment comes when
you choose to accept me."

"Dear Hubert, I am ruining your life!"

"An excellent reason, then, for taking my advice, and marrying me
instantly! But you wander from the question. Where are you going? That
is the issue now before the house. You persist in evading it."

She smiled, and came back to earth. "Oh, if you MUST know, to India, by
the east coast, changing steamers at Aden."

"Extraordinary!" I cried. "Do you know, Hilda, as luck will have it, _I_
also shall be on my way to Bombay by the very same steamer!"

"But you don't know what steamer it is?"

"No matter. That only makes the coincidence all the odder. Whatever the
name of the ship may be, when you get on board, I have a presentiment
that you will be surprised to find me there."

She looked up at me with a gathering film in her eyes. "Hubert, you are
irrepressible!"

"I am, my dear child; so you may as well spare yourself the needless
trouble of trying to repress me."

If you rub a piece of iron on a loadstone, it becomes magnetic. So, I
think, I must have begun to acquire some part of Hilda's own prophetic
strain; for, sure enough, a few weeks later, we both of us found
ourselves on the German East African steamer Kaiser Wilhelm, on our way
to Aden--exactly as I had predicted. Which goes to prove that there is
really something after all in presentiments!

"Since you persist in accompanying me," Hilda said to me, as we sat in
our chairs on deck the first evening out, "I see what I must do. I
must invent some plausible and ostensible reason for our travelling
together."

"We are not travelling together," I answered. "We are travelling by
the same steamer; that is all--exactly like the rest of our
fellow-passengers. I decline to be dragged into this imaginary
partnership."

"Now do be serious, Hubert!