A Rock in the Baltic
A Rock in the Baltic by Robert Barr, 1906 _________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER I THE INCIDENT AT THE BANK IN the public room of the Sixth National Bank at Bar Harbor in Maine, Lieutenant Alan Drummond, H.M.S. "Consternation," stood aside to give precedence to a lady. The Lieutenant had visited the bank for the purpose of changing several crisp white Bank of England notes into the currency of the country he was then visiting. The lady did not appear to notice either his courtesy or his presence, and this was the more remarkable since Drummond was a young man sufficiently conspicuous even in a crowd, and he and she were, at that moment, the only customers in the bank. He was tall, well-knit and stalwart, blond as a Scandinavian, with dark blue eyes which he sometimes said jocularly were the colors of his university. He had been slowly approaching the cashier's window with the easy movement of a man never in a hurry,
"Oh, I say," frowned Barton, "I do feel awfully badly about your going
away off to a place like that to live! Really!" he stammered.
"We're going--Thursday," said little Eve Edgarton.
"THURSDAY?" cried Barton. For some inexplainable reason the whole idea
struck him suddenly as offensive, distinctly offensive, as if Fate,
the impatient waiter, had snatched away a yet untasted plate.
"Why--why, Eve!" he protested, "why, we're only just beginning to get
acquainted."
"Yes, I know it," mused little Eve Edgarton.
"Why--if we'd have had half a chance--" began Barton, and then didn't
know at all how to finish it. "Why, you're so plucky--and so odd--and
so interesting!" he began all over again. "Oh, of course, I'm an awful
duffer and all that! But if we'd had half a chance, I say, you and I
would have been great pals in another fortnight!"
"Even so," murmured little Eve Edgarton, "there are yet--fifty-two
hours before I go."
"What are fifty-two hours?" laughed Barton.
Listlessly like a wilting flower little Eve Edgarton slid down a
trifle farther into her pillows. "If you'd have an early supper," she
A Rock in the Baltic by Robert Barr, 1906 _________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER I THE INCIDENT AT THE BANK IN the public room of the Sixth National Bank at Bar Harbor in Maine, Lieutenant Alan Drummond, H.M.S. "Consternation," stood aside to give precedence to a lady. The Lieutenant had visited the bank for the purpose of changing several crisp white Bank of England notes into the currency of the country he was then visiting. The lady did not appear to notice either his courtesy or his presence, and this was the more remarkable since Drummond was a young man sufficiently conspicuous even in a crowd, and he and she were, at that moment, the only customers in the bank. He was tall, well-knit and stalwart, blond as a Scandinavian, with dark blue eyes which he sometimes said jocularly were the colors of his university. He had been slowly approaching the cashier's window with the easy movement of a man never in a hurry,