A Damsel in Distress

The psychological effect of such a state of things is not difficult

to realize. Take a man of naturally quixotic temperament, a man of

chivalrous instincts and a feeling for romance, and cut him off for

five years from the exercise of those qualities, and you get an

accumulated store of foolishness only comparable to an escape of

gas in a sealed room or a cellarful of dynamite. A flicker of a

match, and there is an explosion.

This girl's tempestuous irruption into his life had supplied flame

for George. Her bright eyes, looking into his, had touched off the

spiritual trinitrotoluol which he had been storing up for so long.

Up in the air in a million pieces had gone the prudence and

self-restraint of a lifetime. And here he was, as desperately in

love as any troubadour of the Middle Ages.

It was not till he had finished shaving and was testing the

temperature of his bath with a shrinking toe that the realization

came over him in a wave that, though he might be in love, the

fairway of love was dotted with more bunkers than any golf course

he had ever played on in his life. In the first place, he did not

know the girl's name. In the second place, it seemed practically

impossible that he would ever see her again. Even in the midst of

his optimism George could not deny that these facts might

reasonably be considered in the nature of obstacles. He went back

into his bedroom, and sat on the bed. This thing wanted thinking

over.

He was not depressed--only a little thoughtful. His faith in his

luck sustained him. He was, he realized, in the position of a man

who has made a supreme drive from the tee, and finds his ball near

the green but in a cuppy lie. He had gained much; it now remained

for him to push his success to the happy conclusion. The driver of

Luck must be replaced by the spoon--or, possibly, the niblick--of

Ingenuity. To fail now, to allow this girl to pass out of his life

merely because he did not know who she was or where she was, would

stamp him a feeble adventurer. A fellow could not expect Luck to

do everything for him. He must supplement its assistance with his

own efforts.

What had he to go on? Well, nothing much, if it came to that,

except the knowledge that she lived some two hours by train out of

London, and that her journey started from Waterloo Station. What

would Sherlock Holmes have done? Concentrated thought supplied no

answer to the question; and it was at this point that the cheery

optimism with which he had begun the day left George and gave place

to a grey gloom. A dreadful phrase, haunting in its pathos, crept

into his mind. "Ships that pass in the night!" It might easily turn

out that way. Indeed, thinking over the affair in all its aspects

as he dried himself after his tub, George could not see how it

could possibly turn out any other way.