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diff --git a/43702-0.txt b/43702-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b763be5 --- /dev/null +++ b/43702-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9305 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43702 *** + +[Illustration: Book Cover] + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +_The_ ADVENTURES _of_ + +A MODEST MAN + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +Works of Robert W. Chambers + + * * * * * + + + The Adventures of a Modest Man + Ailsa Paige + The Danger Mark + Special Messenger + The Firing Line + The Younger Set + The Fighting Chance + Some Ladies in Haste + The Tree of Heaven + The Tracer of Lost Persons + A Young Man in a Hurry + Lorraine + Maids of Paradise + Ashes of Empire + The Red Republic + Outsiders + The Green Mouse + Iole + The Reckoning + The Maid-at-Arms + Cardigan + The Haunts of Men + The Mystery of Choice + The Cambric Mask + The Maker of Moons + The King in Yellow + In Search of the Unknown + The Conspirators + A King and a Few Dukes + In the Quarter + + * * * * * + +For Children + + Garden-Land + Forest-Land + River-Land + Mountain-Land + Orchard-Land + Outdoorland + Hide and Seek in Forest-Land + + + + +[Illustration] + +COPYRIGHT, 1900, 1911, BY +ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + + * * * * * + +Copyright, 1904, by Harper & Brothers +Copyright, 1904, 1905, 1910, by The Curtis Publishing Company + + + + +_The_ ADVENTURES _of_ +A MODEST MAN + +_By_ ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + + +[Illustration] + + +ILLUSTRATED BY +EDMUND FREDERICK + + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY +NEW YORK AND LONDON: MCMXI + + + + +[Illustration: "'I realised that I was going to kiss her if she didn't +move.... And--she didn't.'"--[Page 276.]] + + + + +TO +MR. AND MRS. C. WHEATON VAUGHAN + + + This volume packed with bric-à-brac + I offer you with my affection,-- + The story halts, the rhymes are slack-- + Poor stuff to add to your collection. + Gems you possess from ages back: + It is the modern junk you lack. + + We three once moused through marble halls, + Immersed in Art and deep dejection, + Mid golden thrones and choir-stalls + And gems beyond my recollection-- + Yet soft!--my memory recalls + Red labels pasted on the walls! + + And so, perhaps, _my_ bric-à-brac + May pass the test of your inspection; + Perhaps you will not send it back, + But place it--if you've no objection-- + Under some nick-nack laden rack + Where platters dangle on a tack. + + So if you'll take this book from me + And hide it in your cupboards laden + Beside some Dresden filigree + And frivolously fetching maiden-- + Who knows?--that Dresden maid may see + My book--and read it through pardie! + + R. W. C. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + + "Senilis stultitia quae deliratio appellari + solet, senum levium est, non omnium." + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + I. CONCERNING TWO GENTLEMEN FROM LONG ISLAND, DESTINY, AND A + POT OF BLACK PAINT 1 + II. A CHAPTER DEPICTING A RATHER GARRULOUS REUNION 14 + III. TROUBLE FOR TWO 25 + IV. WHEREIN A MODEST MAN IS BULLIED AND A LITERARY MAN + PRACTICES STYLE 42 + V. DREAMLAND 58 + VI. SOUL AND BODY 74 + VII. THE BITER, THE BITTEN, AND THE UN-BITTEN 85 + VIII. A MATTER OF PRONUNCIATION 98 + IX. FATE 104 + X. CHANCE 117 + XI. DESTINY 129 + XII. IN WHICH A MODEST MAN MAUNDERS 143 + XIII. A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE 154 + XIV. A STATE OF MIND 168 + XV. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM 181 + XVI. THE SIMPLEST SOLUTION OF AN ANCIENT PROBLEM 194 + XVII. SHOWING HOW IT IS POSSIBLE FOR ANY MAN TO MAKE OF + HIMSELF A CHUMP 208 + XVIII. THE MASTER KNOT OF HUMAN FATE 221 + XIX. THE TIME AND THE PLACE 234 + XX. DOWN THE SEINE 242 + XXI. IN A BELGIAN GARDEN 269 + XXII. A YOUTHFUL PATRIOT 287 + XXIII. ON THE WALL 292 + XXIV. A JOURNEY TO THE MOON 303 + XXV. THE ARMY OF PARIS 316 + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +LIST OF +ILLUSTRATIONS + + FACING + PAGE + "'I realised that I was going to kiss her if she didn't + move.... And--she didn't'" _Frontispiece_ + "'Give up my dead!' she whispered. 'Give up my dead!'" 40 + "Christmas Eve she knelt, crying, before the pedestal" 80 + "'Only one person in the world can ever matter to me--now'" 140 + "Beyond, rocking wildly in a gilded boat, sat two people and a + placid swan" 190 + "'I--I don't know,' she stammered; 'my shoe seems tied to yours'" 214 + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +AN INADVERTENT POEM + + + _There is a little flow-urr_ + _In our yard it does grow_ + _Where many a happy hou-urr_ + _I watch our rooster crow;_ + _While clothes hang on the clothes-line_ + _And plowing has began_ + --_And the name they call this lit-tul vine_ + _Is just "Old Man."_ + + _Old Man, Old Man_ + _A-growing in our yard,_ + _Every spring a-coming up_ + _While yet the ground is har-rrd;_ + _Pottering 'round the chickens' pan,_ + _Creeping low and slow,_ + _And why they call it Old Man_ + _I never asked to know._ + _I never want to know._ + + _Crawling through the chick-weed,_ + _Dragging through the quack,_ + _Pussly, tansy, tick-weed_ + _Almost break his back._ + _Catnip, cockle, dock prevent_ + _His travelling all they can,_ + _But still he goes the ways he's went,_ + _Poor Old Man!_ + + _Old Man, Old Man,_ + _What's the use of you?_ + _No one wants to see you, like_ + _As if you hadn't grew._ + _You ain't no good to nothing_ + _So far as I can see,_ + _Unless some maiden fair will sing_ + _These lines I've wrote to thee._ + _And sing 'em soft to me._ + + _Some maiden fa-hair_ + _With_ { _ra-haven_ } _hair_ + { _go-holden_ } + _Will si-hing this so-hong_ + _To me-hee-ee!_ + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER I + +CONCERNING TWO GENTLEMEN FROM LONG ISLAND, DESTINY, AND A POT OF BLACK +PAINT + + +"Hello, old man!" he began. + +"Gillian," I said, "don't call me 'Old Man.' At twenty, it flattered me; +at thirty, it was all right; at forty, I suspected _double entendre_; +and now I don't like it." + +"Of course, if you feel that way," he protested, smiling. + +"Well, I do, dammit!"--the last a German phrase. I am rather strong on +languages. + +Now another thing that is irritating-- I've got ahead of my story, +partly, perhaps, because I hesitate to come to the point. + +For I have a certain delicacy in admitting that my second visit abroad, +after twenty years, was due to a pig. So now that the secret is out--the +pig also--I'll begin properly. + + * * * * * + +I purchased the porker at a Long Island cattle show; why, I don't know, +except that my neighbor, Gillian Schuyler Van Dieman, put me up to it. + +We are an inoffensive community maintaining a hunt club and the +traditions of a by-gone generation. To the latter our children refuse to +subscribe. + +Our houses are what are popularly known as "fine old Colonial mansions." +They were built recently. So was the pig. You see, I can never get away +from that pig, although--but the paradox might injure the story. It has +sufficiently injured me--the pig and the story, both. + +The architecture of the pig was a kind of degenerate Chippendale, +modified by Louis XVI and traces of Bavarian baroque. And his squeal +resembled the atmospheric preliminaries for a Texas norther. + +Van Dieman said I ought to buy him. I bought him. My men built him a +chaste bower to leeward of an edifice dedicated to cows. + +Here I sometimes came to contemplate him while my horse was being +saddled. + +That particular morning, when Van Dieman saluted me so suspiciously at +the country club, I had been gazing at the pig. + +And now, as we settled down to our morning game of chess, I said: + +"Van, that pig of mine seems to be in nowise remarkable. Why the devil +do you suppose I bought him?" + +"How do I know?" + +"You ought to. You suggested that I buy him. Why did you?" + +"To see whether you would." + +I said rather warmly: "Did you think me weak-minded enough to do +whatever you suggested?" + +"The fact remains that you did," he said calmly, pushing the king's +knight to queen's bishop six. + +"Did what?" I snapped. + +"What you didn't really want to do." + +"Buy the pig?" + +"Exactly." + +I thought a moment, took a pawn with satisfaction, considered. + +"Van," I said, "why do you suppose I bought that pig?" + +"_Ennui._" + +"A man doesn't buy pigs to escape from _ennui_!" + +"You can't predict what a man will do to escape it," he said, smiling. +"The trouble with you is that you're been here too long; you're in a +rut; you're gone stale. Year in, year out, you do the same things in the +same way, rise at the same time, retire at the same hour, see the same +people, drive, motor, ride, potter about your lawns and gardens, come +here to the club--and it's enough to petrify anybody's intellect." + +"Do you mean to say that _mine_----" + +"Partly. Don't get mad. No man who lives year after year in a Long +Island community could escape it. What you need is to go abroad. What +you require is a good dose of Paris." + +"For twenty odd years I have avoided Paris," I said, restlessly. "Why +should I go back there?" + +"Haven't you been there in twenty years?" + +"No." + +"Why?" + +"Well, for one thing, to avoid meeting the entire United States." + +"All right," said Van Dieman, "if you want to become an old uncle +foozle, continue to take root in Long Island." He announced mate in two +moves. After I had silently conceded it, he leaned back in his chair and +lighted a cigarette. + +"It's my opinion," he said, "that you've already gone too stale to take +care of your own pig." + +Even years of intimacy scarcely justified this. + +"When the day comes," said I, "that I find myself no longer competent to +look after my own affairs, I'll take your advice and get out of Long +Island." + +He looked up with a smile. "Suppose somebody stole that pig, for +instance." + +"They couldn't." + +"Suppose they did, under your very nose." + +"If anything happens to that pig," I said--"anything untoward, due to +any negligence or stupidity of mine, I'll admit that I need waking +up.... Now get that pig if you can!" + +"Will you promise to go to Paris for a jolly little jaunt if anything +does happen to your pig?" he asked. + +"Why the devil do _you_ want _me_ to go to Paris?" + +"Do you good, intellectually." + +Then I got mad. + +"Van," I said, "if anybody can get that pig away from me, I'll do +anything you suggest for the next six months." + +"_À nous deux, alors!_" he said. He speaks French too fast for me to +translate. It's a foolish way to talk a foreign language. But he has +never yet been able to put it over me. + +"_À la guerre comme à la guerre_," I replied carelessly. It's a phrase +one can use in reply to any remark that was ever uttered in French. I +use it constantly. + + * * * * * + +That afternoon I went and took a good look at my pig. Later, as I was +walking on the main street of Oyster Bay, a man touched his hat and +asked me for a job. Instantly it occurred to me to hire him as night +watchman for the pig. He had excellent references, and his countenance +expressed a capacity for honest and faithful service. That night before +I went to bed, I walked around to the sty. My man was there on duty. + +"That," thought I, "will hold Van Dieman for a while." + +When my daughters had retired and all the servants were abed, I did a +thing I have not done in years--not since I was a freshman at Harvard: I +sat up with my pipe and an unexpurged translation of Henry James until +nearly eleven o'clock. However, by midnight I was asleep. + +It was full starlight when I awoke and jumped softly out of bed. +Somebody was tapping at the front door. I put on a dressing-gown and +slippers and waited; but no servants were aroused by the persistent +rapping. + +After a moment I went to the window, raised it gently and looked out. A +farmer with a lantern stood below. + +"Say, squire," he said, when he beheld my head, "I guess I'll have to +ask for help. I'm on my way to market and my pig broke loose and I can't +ketch him nohow." + +"Hush!" I whispered; "I'll come down." + +Very cautiously I unbarred the front door and stepped out into the +lovely April starlight. In the road beyond my hedge stood a farm-wagon +containing an empty crate. Near it moved the farmer, and just beyond his +outstretched hands sported a playful pig. He was a black pig. Mine was +white. Besides I went around to the pen and saw, in the darkness, my +Oyster Bay retainer still on guard. So, it being a genuine case, I +returned to the road. + +The farmer's dilemma touched me. What in the world was so utterly +hopeless to pursue, unaided, as a coy pig at midnight. + +"If you will just stand there, squire, and sorter spread out your +skirts, I'll git him in a jiffy," said the panting farmer. + +I did as I was bidden. The farmer approached; the pig pranced between +his legs. + +"By gum!" exclaimed the protected of Ceres. + +But, after half an hour, the pig became over-confident, and the tiller +of phosphites seized him and bore him, shrieking, to the wooden crate in +the wagon, there depositing him, fastening the door, and climbing into +his seat with warm thanks to me for my aid. + +I told the Brother to the Ox that he was welcome. Then, with heart +serenely warmed by brotherly love and a knowledge of my own +condescension, I retired to sleep soundly until Higgins came to shave me +at eight o'clock next morning. + +"Beg pardon, sir," said Higgins, stirring his lather as I returned from +the bath to submit my chin to his razor--"beg pardon, sir, but--but the +pig, sir----" + +"What pig?" I asked sharply. Had Higgins beheld me pursuing that +midnight porker? And if he had, was he going to tell about it? + +"What pig, sir? Why, THE pig, sir." + +"I do not understand you, Higgins," I said coldly. + +"Beg pardon, sir, but Miss Alida asked me to tell you, that the pig----" + +"WHAT PIG?" I repeated exasperated. + +"Why--why--OURS, sir." + +I turned to stare at him. "MY pig?" I asked. + +"Yes, sir--he's gone, sir----" + +"Gone!" I thundered. + +"Stolen, sir, out o' the pen last night." + +Stunned, I could only stare at Higgins. Stolen? My pig? Last night? + +"Some one," said Higgins, "went and opened that lovely fancy sty, sir; +and the pig he bolted. It takes a handy thief to stop and steal a pig, +sir. There must ha' been two on 'em to catch that pig!" + +"Where's that miserable ruffian I hired to watch the sty?" I demanded +hotly. + +"He has gone back to work for Mr. Van Dieman, sir. His hands was all +over black paint, and I see him a-wipin' of 'em onto your white picket +fence." + +The calmness of despair came over me. I saw it, now. I had been called +out of bed to help catch my own pig. For nearly half an hour I had +dodged about there in front of my own house, too stupid to suspect, too +stupid even to recognize my own pig in the disguised and capricious +porker shying and caracolling about in the moonlight. Good heavens! Van +Dieman was right. A man who helps to steal his own pig is fit for +nothing but Paris or a sanitarium. + +"Shave me speedily, Higgins," I said. "I am not very well, and it is +difficult for me to preserve sufficient composure to sit still. And, +Higgins, it is not at all necessary for you to refer to that pig +hereafter. You understand? Very well. Go to the telephone and call up +the Cunard office." + +Presently I was in communication with Bowling Green. + +That morning in the breakfast-room, when I had kissed my daughter Alida, +aged eighteen, and my daughter Dulcima, aged nineteen, the younger said: +"Papa, do you know that our pig has been stolen?" + +"Alida," I replied, "I myself disposed of him"--which was the dreadful +truth. + +"You sold him?" asked Dulcima in surprise. + +"N--not exactly. These grape-fruit are too sour!" + +"You gave him away?" inquired Alida. + +"Yes--after a fashion. Is this the same coffee we have been using? It +has a peculiar----" + +"Who did you give him to?" persisted my younger child. + +"A--man." + +"What man?" + +"Nobody you know, child." + +"But----" + +"Stop!" said I firmly. "It is a subject too complicated to discuss." + +"Oh, pooh!" said Dulcima; "everybody discusses everything in Oyster Bay. +And besides I want to know----" + +"About the pig!" broke in Alida. + +"And that man to whom you gave the pig----" + +"Alida," said I, with misleading mildness, "how would you like to go to +Paris?" + +"Oh! papa----" + +"And you, Dulcima?" + +"Darling papa!" + +"When?" cried Alida. + +"Wednesday," I replied with false urbanity. + +"Oh! The darling!" they cried in rapture, and made toward me. + +"Wait!" I said with a hideous smile. "We have not yet left Sandy Hook! +And I solemnly promise you both that if either of you ever again ask me +one question concerning that pig--nay, if you so much as look askance at +me over the breakfast bacon--neither you nor I will ever leave Sandy +Hook alive!" + +They have kept their promises--or I should never have trodden the deck +of the _S. S. Cambodia_, the pride of the great Cunard Line, with my +daughter Dulcima on one side and my daughter Alida on the other side of +me, and my old friend Van Dieman waving me adieu from a crowded pier, +where hundreds of handkerchiefs flutter in the breeze. + +"_Au revoir et bon voyage!_" he called up to me. + +"_Toujours la politesse_," I muttered, nodding sagely. + +"That was a funny reply to make, papa," said Dulcima. + +"Not at all," I replied, with animation; "to know a language is to know +when to use its idioms." They both looked a little blank, but continued +to wave their handkerchiefs. + +"_À bien-tôt!_" called Alida softly, as the towering black sides of the +steamer slipped along the wooden wharf. + +Van Dieman raised his hat on the pier below, and answered: "_À bien-tôt? +C'est la mort, jusqu'à bien-tôt! Donc, vîve la vie, Mademoiselle!_" + +"There is no necessity in chattering like a Frenchman when you talk +French," I observed to Alida. "Could you make out what Van Dieman said +to you?" + +"Y--yes," she admitted, with a slight blush. + +I glanced at Dulcima. There was a mischievous light in her blue eyes. + +"Pooh!" I thought; "Van Dieman is forty if he's a day." + +While the ship slid on past Castle William and poked her nose toward the +forts at the Narrows, I watched the distant pier which we had left. It +was still black with people, moving like ants. And, as I looked, I +muttered ever: "Pooh! Van Dieman's forty. There's nothing in it, nothing +in it, nothing whatever." + +Off Fort Hamilton I noticed that Alida had a tear in one of her brown +eyes. "There's nothing in it," I repeated obstinately. + +Off Sandy Hook we ran into a sea-storm. In a few minutes many of the +passengers went below; in a few more minutes the remainder of the +passengers went below; and I was on the way below with my daughter Alida +on one arm and my daughter Dulcima on the other. + +"There is nothing in it," I reflected, as the ship shuddered, pitched, +and we involuntarily began running down a toboggan slide, taking little +timorous steps. Then the deck flew up and caught the soles of our shoes +before we were ready to put our feet down. "Alida," I said, "do you feel +bored?" + +There was no mistaking the tears in her eyes now. "There's nothing in +it. There's nothing in anything," I muttered faintly. And I was right as +far as it concerned the passengers on the pitching _Cambodia_. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER II + +A CHAPTER DEPICTING A RATHER GARRULOUS REUNION + + +The second day we ran out of the storm. I remember on that day that I +wore a rather doggy suit of gray--a trifle too doggy for a man of my +years. In my button-hole reposed a white carnation, and as I strolled +into the smoking-room I was humming under my breath an air from "Miss +Helyet"--a thing I had not thought of in twenty years. + +"Well, upon my word!" exclaimed a man who looked up from his novel as I +entered the doorway. "Gad! You haven't changed in twenty years!--except +that your moustache is----" + +"Sure! And my temples, Williams! Besides, I have two grown-up daughters +aboard! How are you, anyway, you Latin Quarter come-back?" + +We settled ourselves, hands still warmly clasped. + +"You're not going back to Paris?" I asked. + +"Why, man, I live there." + +"By George, so you do! I forgot." + +There was a silence--that smiling, retrospective silence which ends +inevitably in a sigh not entirely painful. + +"Are any of the old men left there?" I asked. + +"Some." + +"I--I suppose the city has changed a lot. Men who've been over since, +say so." + +"It hasn't changed, radically." + +"Hasn't it, Williams?" I asked wistfully. + +"No. The old café is exactly the same. The Luxembourg Quarter will seem +familiar to you----" + +"I'm not going there," I said hastily. + +He smiled; I could see him doing it, askance. But my features remained +dignified and my attitude detached. + +"I wonder," I began carelessly, "whether----" + +"She got married," he said casually; "I'm glad. She was a sweet little +thing." + +"She was exceedingly charming," I said, selecting a cigar. "And the +other?" + +"Which?" + +"I forget her name." + +"Oh, you mean Delancy's?" + +"Yes." + +"I don't know whatever became of her," he said. + +"Whatever became of Delancy?" + +"Oh, he did what we all usually do--he came back, married, and spent the +better part of his life in trying to keep his daughter from marrying +that young Harroll." + +"Sir Peter's son?" + +"Yes. I was a guest at the Delancy's at the time, and I nearly died. +Harroll confided in me, Catharine Delancy confided in me, John Delancy +told me his woes. It's an amusing story. Do you want to hear it?" + +"Go ahead," I said. "My sympathies are already with Delancy. I've a pair +of daughters myself, and I'm trying to shoo away every sort of man and +keep 'em for myself a little longer." + +Williams smiled: + +"Well, you listen to what those two did to John Delancy. It was some." + +I lit my cigar; he lit his; and I settled back, looking at him +attentively as he began with a wave of his gloved hand, a story of +peculiar interest to a man with two unusually attractive daughters: + + * * * * * + +Now, although Harroll had been refused a dozen times--not by Miss +Delancy, but by her father--the young man's naturally optimistic spirits +suffered only temporary depression; and a few evenings later he asked +for her again, making it a bakers' dozen--an uncanny record. + +"No," said Mr. Delancy. + +"Won't you let me have her when I become tenth vice-president of the +Half-Moon Title Guarantee and Trust----" + +"No, I won't." + +"When will you let me try for her?" + +There was no reply. + +"Well, sir," said the young man cheerfully, "there must be some way, of +course." + +"Really, Jim, I don't see what way," said Mr. Delancy, without emotion. +"I don't want you for a son-in-law, and I'm not going to have you. +That's one of the reasons I allow you the run of the house. My daughter +sees too much of you to care for you. It's a theory of my own, and a +good one, too." + +"Why don't you want me for a son-in-law?" asked the young man, for the +hundredth time. + +"Can you give me one single reason why I should want you?" asked Mr. +Delancy wearily. + +Harroll stood buried in meditation for a few moments. "No," he said, "I +can't recall any important reasons at the moment." + +"I can supply you with one--your sense of honor--but it doesn't count in +this case, because you wouldn't be in my house if you didn't have any." + +Harroll looked at the fire. + +"I've told you a hundred times that when my little girl marries, she +marries one of her own kind. I don't like Englishmen. And that is all +there is to it, Jim." + +"Don't you like me?" + +"I'm not infatuated with you." + +"Well," said Harroll, slowly pacing the rug in front of the fire, "it's +curious, isn't it?--but, do you know, I think that I am going to marry +Catharine one of these days?" + +"Oh, I think not," replied Mr. Delancy amiably. "And perhaps this is a +good opportunity to say good-by for a while. You know we go to Palm +Beach to-morrow?" + +"Catharine told me," said the young man, placidly. "So I've wired for +quarters at The Breakers--for two weeks." + +The two men smiled at one another. + +"You take your vacation late," said Mr. Delancy. + +"Not too late, I trust." + +"You think you can afford Palm Beach, Jim?" + +"No; but I'm going." + +Mr. Delancy rose and stood thoughtfully twirling his monocle by the +string. Then he threw away his cigar, concealed a yawn, and glanced +gravely at the clock on the mantel. + +"May I go in and say good-night to Catharine, sir?" asked young Harroll. + +Mr. Delancy looked bored, but nodded civilly enough. + +"And, Jim," he drawled, as the young man started toward the +drawing-room, "I wouldn't go to Palm Beach if I were you." + +"Yes, you would, sir--if you were I." + +"Young man," said Mr. Delancy, mildly, "I'm damned if I have you for a +son-in-law! Good-night." + +They shook hands. Harroll walked into the drawing-room and found it +empty. The music-room, however, was lighted, and Catharine Delancy sat +tucked up in a deep window-seat, studying a map of southern Florida and +feeding bonbons to an enormous white Persian cat. + +"Jim," she said, raising her dark eyes as he sauntered up, "you and +father have lately fallen into the disreputable habit of sitting behind +closed doors and gossiping. You have done it thirteen times in three +months. Don't be such pigs; scandal, like other pleasures, was meant to +be shared." + +At a gesture of invitation he seated himself beside her and lifted the +Persian pussy to his lap. + +"Well," she inquired, "are you really going with us?" + +"I can't go when you do, but I'm going to The Breakers for a week or +two--solely to keep an eye on your behavior." + +"That is jolly!" she said, flushing with pleasure. "Was father pleased +when you told him?" + +"He didn't say he was pleased." + +"He is always reticent," she said, quickly. "But won't it be too jolly +for words! We'll travel miles and miles together in bicycle-chairs, and +we'll yacht and bathe and ride and golf, and catch amber-jack and +sharks, and--you'll persuade father to let me gamble just once at the +club--won't you?" + +"Not much! Where did you hear that sort of talk, Catharine?" + +"Don't tweak Omar's tail and I'll tell you--there! you've done it again, +and I won't tell you." + +He fell to stroking the cat's fur, gazing the while into space with an +absent eye that piqued her curiosity. For a year now he had acquired +that trick of suddenly detaching himself from earth and gazing +speculatively toward heaven, lost in a revery far from flattering to the +ignored onlooker. And now he was doing it again under her very nose. +What was he thinking about? He seemed, all at once, a thousand miles +removed from her. Where were his thoughts? + +Touched in her _amour propre_, she quietly resumed the map of southern +Florida; but even the rustle of the paper did not disturb his +self-centred and provoking meditation. + +She looked at him, looked at the map, considered him again, and finally +watched him. + +Suddenly, for the first time in her life, she thought him dangerously +attractive. Surprised and interested, she regarded him in this new +light, impersonally for the moment. So far away had he apparently +drifted in his meditation that it seemed to her as though she were +observing a stranger--a most interesting and most unusual young man. + +He turned and looked her straight in the eyes. + +Twenty-two, and her first season half over, and to be caught blushing +like a school-girl! + +There was no constraint; her self-possession cooled her cheeks--and he +was not looking at her, after all: he was looking through her, at +something his fancy focused far, far beyond her. + +Never had she thought any man half as attractive as this old friend in a +new light--this handsome, well-built, careless young fellow absorbed in +thoughts which excluded her. No doubt he was so habituated to herself in +all her moods that nothing except the friendliest indifference could +ever---- + +To her consternation another tint of warm color slowly spread over neck +and cheek. He rose at the same moment, dropped the cat back among the +cushions, and smiling down at her, held out his hand. She took it, met +his eyes with an effort; but what message she divined in them Heaven +alone knows, for all at once her heart stood still and a strange thrill +left her fingers nerveless in his hand. + +He was saying slowly, "Then I shall see you at Palm Beach next week?" + +"Yes.... You will come, won't you?" + +"Yes, I will come." + +"But if you--change your mind?" + +"I never change. May I write you?" + +"Good-night.... You may write me if you wish." + +"I will write, every day--if you don't mind." + +"No--I don't mind," she said thoughtfully. + +She withdrew her hand and stood perfectly still as he left the room. She +heard a servant open the door, she heard Harroll's quick step echo on +the stoop, then the door closed. + +A second later Mr. Delancy in the library was aroused from complacent +meditation by the swish of a silken skirt, and glancing up, beheld a +tall, prettily formed girl looking at him with a sober and rather +colorless face. + +"Father," she said, "I'm in love with Jim Harroll!" + +Mr. Delancy groped for his monocle, screwed it into his left eye, and +examined his daughter. + +"It's true, and I thought I'd better tell you," she said. + +"Yes," he agreed, "it's as well to let me know. Ah--er--when and how did +it occur?" + +"I don't know, father. I was feeding Omar bonbons and looking over the +map of South Florida, and thinking about nothing in particular, when Jim +came in. He said he was going to Palm Beach, and I said, 'How jolly!' +and he sat down and picked up Omar, and--I don't know how it was, but I +began to think him very attractive, and the first thing I +knew--it--happened!" + +"Oh! So that's the way it happened?" + +"I think it was, father." + +"No doubt you'll outgrow it." + +"Do you think so?" + +"I haven't a doubt of it, little daughter." + +"I have." + +Mr. Delancy dropped his monocle and looked at the fire. The fire was all +right. + +"Do you--do you suppose that Jim is--does--thinks--knows----" + +"I never speculate on what Jim is, does, thinks, or knows," said her +father, thoughtfully, stirring the embers and spoiling a perfectly good +fire. When he looked up again she had gone. + +"One theory smashed!" observed Mr. Delancy. "I'll try another, with +separation as the main ingredient." + +He sat down before the fire and lighted a fresh cigar, which wasn't good +for him. + +"Must avoid making a martyr of Jim or there will be trouble," he mused. +"There remains another way--make a martyr of myself." + +He sat swinging his monocle around his forefinger, gazing vacantly at +the pattern the shadows cast across the hearth. + +"Avalon!" he said, abruptly. "Avalon! The 'back-to-nature' business, +'grass-cure' and all. It can't harm either Catharine or me, I fancy--or +any other pair of donkeys!" + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER III + +TROUBLE FOR TWO + + +_A Note Found by Young Harroll on his Dresser the Evening of his Arrival +at Palm Beach._ + + "11.30 A.M. + + "DEAR JIM--Everything is spoiled, after all! Father's failing health + has suddenly become a serious matter, and we are going to try the + 'nature cure,' or whatever they call it, at Avalon Island. I had no + idea he was really ill. Evidently he is alarmed, for we have only + been here six days, and in a few minutes we are to start for + Avalon. Isn't it perfectly horrid? And to think that you are + coming this evening and expecting to find us here! + + "Father says you can't come to Avalon; that only invalids are + received (I didn't know I was one, but it seems I'm to take the + treatment, too!), and he says that nobody is received for less + than a month's treatment, so I suppose that bars you even if you + were self-sacrificing enough to endure a 'nature cure' for the + pleasure of spending two weeks with [_me_, crossed out] us. + + "I'm actually on the verge of tears when I think of all we had + planned to do together! And there's my maid at the door, knocking. + Good-by. You will write, won't you? + + "CATHARINE DELANCY." + + * * * * * + +_Mr. James Harroll to Miss Catharine Delancy, Avalon, Balboa County, +Florida._ + + "HOLY CROSS LIGHT, FEBRUARY 15. + + "DEAR CATHARINE--Your father was right: they refuse to take me at + Avalon. As soon as I found your note I telegraphed to Avalon for + accommodations. It seems Avalon is an island, and they have to wait + for the steamers to carry telegrams over from the mainland. So the + reply has just reached me that they won't take me for less than a + month; and my limit from business is two weeks or give up my + position with your father. + + "Yesterday I came out here to Holy Cross Spring to shoot ducks. + I'd scarcely begun shooting, at dawn, when along came a couple of + men through the fog, rowing like the mischief plump into my + decoys, and I shouted out, 'What the deuce are you about?' and + they begged my pardon, and said they had thought the point + unoccupied, and that the fog was thicker than several + things--which was true. + + "So I invited them into the blind to--oh, the usual ceremony--and + they came, and they turned out to be Jack Selden--the chap I told + you about who was so decent to me in Paris--and his guide. + + "So we had--ceremonies--several of them--and Selden stayed to + shoot with me over my decoys, and our bag was fifty-three, all big + duck except fifteen bluebills. + + "Selden is a godsend to me. We're going to stay out here to-night + at the lighthouse, and shoot all to-morrow if it doesn't blow too + hard. It's blowing great guns now. I'm here in the lighthouse, + writing in the glow of a lamp in the keeper's living-room, with + his good little wife sewing by the fire and a half-dozen of his + kids tumbling about on the floor. It's a pretty sight; I love + children and firesides and that sort of thing. They've got hold of + Selden now, and are making him tell stories of adventure. He's + been all over the world, and is perfectly crazy to get married. + Says he would prefer a widow with yellow hair and blue eyes. Do + you know any? He's a nice chap." + + "Catharine, I wish I were in Avalon. They could put me in a + strait-jacket and I wouldn't care as long as [_you were_, crossed + out] I could be with [_you_, crossed out] your father and you in + Avalon. + + "It's growing late, and Selden and I should be on the + ducking-grounds to-morrow before dawn. The keeper's wife says it + will blow too hard, but Selden only smiles. He's a cool one, and + if he has the nerve to go out I'll go, too. + + "With sincere regards to your father and every wish for his speedy + recovery, I remain + + "Yours faithfully, + "JAMES HARROLL." + + * * * * * + +_Lines Scribbled on the Leaf of a Note-book and Found in a Bottle in the +Pocket of an old Shooting-coat a Year Later._ + + "ATLANTIC OCEAN, + "MILES SOUTH OF HOLY CROSS LIGHT, + "FEBRUARY 16. + + "CATHARINE--I think this is the end. Selden and I have been blown + out to sea in a rowboat, and it's leaking. I only want to say + good-by. Telegraph Selden's mother, Lenox, Massachusetts. I have + nobody to notify. Good-by. + + "JAMES HARROLL." + + * * * * * + +_Telegram to James Harroll, Received and Opened by the Keeper while +Search-boats Were still Out after Mr. Harroll and Mr. Selden, Two Days +Missing._ + + "JAMES HARROLL, HOLY CROSS LIGHT, FLORIDA, EAST COAST: + + "Don't run any risks. Be careful for our sakes. Terrible storm on + the coast reported here. Wire me that you are safe. + + "CATHARINE DELANCY, + "Avalon, Florida." + + * * * * * + +_Telegrams Addressed to Young Harroll, and Opened by the Keeper of the +Lighthouse after the Search-boats Had Returned._ + +No. 1. + + "Why don't you telegraph us? Your silence and the reports of the + storm alarm us. Reply at once. + + "CATHARINE." + +No. 2. + + "Wire Catharine, Jim. You surely were not ass enough to go out in + such a storm. + + "S. DELANCY." + +No. 3. + + "For pity's sake telegraph to me that you are safe. I cannot sleep. + + "CATHARINE." + + * * * * * + +_Telegram to Miss Catharine Delancy, Avalon, Florida._ + + "HOLY CROSS LIGHT. + + "MISS CATHARINE DELANCY: + + "Rowboat containing Mr. Harroll and Mr. Selden blown out to sea. + Search-boats returned without finding any trace of them. + + "CASWELL, _Keeper_." + + * * * * * + +_Telegram from Mr. Delancy to Keeper of Holy Cross Light._ + + "CASWELL: + + "Charter a fast ocean-going tug and as many launches as necessary. + Don't give up the search. Spare no expense. Check mailed to you + to-day. + + "I will give ten thousand dollars to the man who rescues James + Harroll. You may draw on me for any amount necessary. Keep me + constantly informed of your progress by wire. + + "STEPHEN DELANCY." + + * * * * * + +In from the open sea drifted the castaways, the sun rising in tropic +splendor behind them, before them a far strip of snowy surf edging green +shores. + +Selden sat in the bow, bailing; Harroll dug vigorously into the Atlantic +with both oars; a heavy flood-tide was doing the rest. Presently Selden +picked up the ducking-glass and examined the shore. + +Harroll rested his oars, took a pull at the mineral water, and sighed +deeply. "Except for the scare and the confounded leak it's been rather +amusing, hasn't it?" he said. + +"It's all right.... Hope you didn't set that farewell message afloat." + +"What message?" + +"Oh--I thought I saw you scribbling in your notebook and----" + +"And what?" + +"And stick the leaf into the bottle of gun-oil. If I was mistaken, +kindly give me my bottle of gun-oil." + +"Pooh!" said Harroll. "The storm was magnificent. Can't a man jot down +impressions? Open a can of sardines, will you? And pass me the bread, +you idiot!" + +Selden constructed a sandwich and passed it aft. "When we near those +ducks," he said, "we'd better give them a broadside--our larder's +getting low. I'll load for us both." + +He fished about among the cartridge-sacks for some dry shells, loaded +the guns, and laid them ready. + +"Bluebills," observed Harroll, as the boat drew near. "How tame they +are! Look, Selden! It would be murder to shoot." + +The boat, drifting rapidly, passed in among the raft of ducks; here and +there a glistening silver-breasted bird paddled lazily out of the way, +but the bulk of the flock floated serenely on either side, riding the +swell, bright golden eyes fearlessly observing the intruders. + +"Oh, a man can't shoot at things that act like that!" exclaimed Selden +petulantly. "Shoo! Shoo--o!" he cried, waving his gun in hopes that a +scurry and rise might justify assassination. But the birds only watched +him in perfect confidence. The boat drove on; the young men sat staring +across the waves, guns idly balanced across their knees. Presently +Harroll finished his sandwich and resumed the oars. + +"Better bail some more," he said. "What are you looking at?"--for +Selden, using the ducking-glass, had begun to chuckle. + +"Well, upon my word!" he said slowly--"of all luck! Where do you suppose +we are?" + +"Well, where the devil are we?" + +"Off Avalon!" + +"Avalon!" repeated Harroll, stupidly. "Why, man, it's a hundred miles +south of Holy Cross!" + +"Well, we've made it, I tell you. I can see one of their dinky little +temples shining among the trees. Hark! There go the bells ringing for +meditation!" + +A mellow chime came across the water. + +"It can't be Avalon," repeated Harroll, not daring to hope for such +fortune. "What do you know about Avalon, anyway?" + +"What I've heard." + +"What's that?" + +"Why, it's a resort for played-out people who've gone the pace. When a +girl dances herself into the fidgets, or a Newport matron goes to +pieces, or a Wall Street man begins to talk to himself, hither they +toddle. It's the fashionable round-up for smashed nerves and +wibbly-wobbly intellects--a sort of "back-to-nature" enterprise run by a +"doctor." He makes 'em all wear garments cut in the style of the humble +bed-sheet, and then he turns 'em out to grass; and they may roll on it +or frisk on it or eat it if they like. Incidentally, I believe, they're +obliged to wallow in the ocean several times a day, run races afoot, +chuck the classic discus, go barefooted and sandal-shod, wear wreaths of +flowers instead of hats, meditate in silence when the temple bells +ring, eat grain and fruit and drink milk, and pay enormous bills to the +quack who runs the place. It must be a merry life, Harroll. No tobacco, +no billiards, no bridge. And hit the downy at nine-thirty by the +curfew!" + +"Good Lord!" muttered Harroll. + +"That's Avalon," repeated Selden. "And we're almost there. Look sharp! +Stand by for a ducking! This surf means trouble ahead!" + +It certainly did; the boat soared skyward on the crest of the swell; a +smashing roller hurled it into the surf, smothering craft and crew in +hissing foam. A second later two heads appeared, and two half-suffocated +young men floundered up the beach and dropped, dripping and speechless, +on the sand. + +They lay inert for a while, salt water oozing at every pore. Harroll was +the first to sit up. + +"Right?" he inquired. + +"All right. Where's the boat?" + +"Ashore below us." He rose, dripping, and made off toward the battered +boat, which lay in the shoals, heeled over. Selden followed; together +they dragged the wreck up high and dry; then they sat down on the sand, +eying one another. + +"It's a fine day," said Selden, with a vacant grin. He rolled over on +his back, clutching handfuls of hot sand. "Isn't this immense?" he +said. "My! how nice and dry and solid everything is! Roll on your back, +Harroll! You'll enjoy it more that way." + +But Harroll got up and began dragging the guns and cartridge-sacks from +the boat. + +"I've some friends here," he said briefly. "Come on." + +"Are your friends hospitably inclined to the shipwrecked? I'm about +ready to be killed with hospitality," observed Selden, shouldering gun +and sack and slopping along in his wet boots. + +They entered a thicket of sweet-bay and palmetto, breast-high, and +forced a path through toward a bit of vivid green lawn, which gave +underfoot like velvet. + +"There's a patient now--in his toga," said Selden, in a low voice. +"Better hit him with a piteous tale of shipwreck, hadn't we?" + +The patient was seated on a carved bench of marble under the shade of a +live oak. His attitude suggested _ennui_; he yawned at intervals; at +intervals he dug in the turf with idle bare toes. + +"The back of that gentleman's head," said Harroll, "resembles the back +of a head I know." + +"Oh! One of those friends you mentioned?" + +"Well--I never saw him in toga and sandals, wearing a wreath of flowers +on his head. Let's take a front view." + +The squeaky, sloppy sound of Selden's hip boots aroused the gentleman in +the toga from his attitude of bored meditation. + +"How do you do, sir?" said Harroll, blandly, "I thought I'd come to +Avalon." + +The old gentleman fumbled in his toga, found a monocle, screwed it +firmly into his eye, and inspected Harroll from head to heel. + +"You're rather wet, Jim," he said, steadying his voice. + +Harroll admitted it. "This is my old friend, Jack Selden--the Lenox +Seldens, you know, sir." And, to Selden, he reverently named Mr. +Delancy. + +"How do?" said Mr. Delancy. "You're wet, too." + +There was a silence. Mr. Delancy executed a facial contortion which +released the monocle. Then he touched his faded eyes with the hem of his +handkerchief. The lashes and furrowed cheeks were moist. + +"You're so devilish abrupt, Jim," he said. "Did you get any telegrams +from us?" + +"Telegrams? No, sir. When?" + +"No matter," said Mr. Delancy. + +Another silence, and Harroll said: "Fact is, sir, we were blown out to +sea, and that's how we came here. I fancy Selden wouldn't mind an +invitation to dinner and a chance to dry his clothes." + +Selden smiled hopefully and modestly as Mr. Delancy surveyed him. + +"Pray accept my hospitality, gentlemen," said Mr. Delancy, with a grim +smile. "I've been ass enough to take a villa in this forsaken place. The +food I have to offer you might be relished by squirrels, perhaps; the +clothing resembles my own, and can be furnished you by the simple +process of removing the sheets from your beds." + +He rose, flung the flap of his toga over one shoulder, and passed his +arm through Harroll's. + +"Don't you like it here?" asked Harroll. + +"_Like_ it!" repeated Mr. Delancy. + +"But--why did you come?" + +"I came," said Mr. Delancy slowly, "because I desired to be rid of you." + +Selden instinctively fell back out of earshot. Harroll reddened. + +"I thought your theory was----" + +"You smashed that theory--now you've shattered this--you and Catharine +between you." + +Harroll looked thoughtfully at Selden, who stood watching two pretty +girls playing handball on the green. + +"Young man," said Mr. Delancy, "do you realize what I've been through in +one week? I have been obliged to wear this unspeakable garment, I've +been obliged to endure every species of tomfoolery, I've been fed on +bird seed, deprived of cigars, and sent to bed at half past nine. And +I'm as sound in limb and body as you are. And all because I desired to +be rid of you. I had two theories! both are smashed. I refuse to +entertain any more theories concerning anything!" + +Harroll laughed; then his attention became concentrated on the exquisite +landscape, where amid green foliage white villas of Georgia marble +glimmered, buried in blossoming thickets of oleander, wistaria, and +Cherokee roses--where through the trees a placid lake lay reflecting the +violet sky--where fallow-deer wandered, lipping young maple buds--where +beneath a pergola heavily draped with golden jasmine a white-robed +figure moved in the shade--a still, sunny world of green and gold and +violet exhaling incense under a cloudless sky. + +"I would like to see Catharine," he said, slowly, "with your +permission--and in view of the fate of the theories." + +"Jim," said Mr. Delancy, "you are doubtless unconscious of the trouble +you have created in my family." + +"Trouble, sir?" repeated the young man, flushing up. + +"Trouble for two. My daughter and I believed you drowned." + +Harroll stood perfectly still. Mr. Delancy took a step or two forward, +turned, and came back across the lawn. "She is sitting under that +pergola yonder, looking out to sea, and I'm afraid she's crying her eyes +out for something she wants. It's probably not good for her, either. +But--such as it is--she may have it." + +The two men looked at one another steadily. + +"I'm rather glad you were not drowned," said Mr. Delancy, "but I'm not +infatuated with you." + +They shook hands solemnly, then Mr. Delancy walked over and joined +Selden, who appeared to be fascinated by an attractive girl in Greek +robes and sandals who was playing handball on the green. + +"Young man," said Mr. Delancy, "there's always trouble for two in this +world. That young woman with yellow hair and violet eyes who is playing +handball with her sister, and who appears to hypnotize you, is here to +recuperate from the loss of an elderly husband." + +"A widow with yellow hair and blue eyes!" murmured Selden, entranced. + +"Precisely. Your train, however, leaves to-night--unless you mean to +remain here on a diet of bird-seed." + +Selden smiled absently. Bird-seed had no terror for him. + +"Besides," he said, "I'm rather good at handball." + +A moment later he looked around, presumably for Harroll. That young man +was already half-way to the jasmine-covered arbor, where a young girl +sat, dry-eyed, deathly pale, staring out to sea. + +The sea was blue and smiling; the soft thunder of the surf came up to +her. She heard the gulls mewing in the sky and the hum of bees in the +wind-stirred blossoms; she saw a crested osprey plunge into the shallows +and a great tarpon fling its mass of silver into the sun. Paroquets +gleaming like living jewels rustled and preened in the china-trees; +black and gold butterflies, covered with pollen, crawled over and over +the massed orange bloom. Ah, the mask of youth that the sly world wore +to mock her! Ah, the living lie of the sky, and the false, smooth sea +fawning at her feet! + +Little persuasive breezes came whispering, plucking at the white hem of +her robe to curry favor; the ingratiating surf purred, blinking with a +million iridescent bubbles. The smug smile of nature appalled her; its +hypocrisy sickened her; and she bent her dark eyes fiercely on the sea +and clinched her little hands. + +[Illustration: "'Give up my dead!' she whispered. 'Give up my dead!'"] + +"Give up my dead!" she whispered. "Give up my dead!" + +"Catharine!" + +Dazed, she rose to her sandalled feet, the white folds of her robe +falling straight and slim. + +"Catharine!" + +Her voiceless lips repeated his name; she swayed, steadying herself by +the arm around her waist. + +Then trouble for two began. + + * * * * * + +As Williams ended, I looked at him with indignation. + +"As far as I can see," I said, "you are acting as attorney for the +defense. That's a fine story to tell a father of two attractive +daughters. You needn't repeat it to them." + +"But it happened, old man----" + +"Don't call me 'old man,' either. I'll explain to you why." And I did, +peevishly. + +After that I saw less of Williams, from choice. He has a literary way +with him in telling a story--and I didn't wish Alida and Dulcima to +sympathize with young Harroll and that little ninny, Catharine Delancy. +So I kept clear of Williams until we arrived in Paris. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER IV + +WHEREIN A MODEST MAN IS BULLIED AND A LITERARY MAN PRACTICES STYLE + + +"What was your first impression of Paris, Mr. Van Twiller?" inquired the +young man from East Boston, as I was lighting my cigar in the corridor +of the Hôtel des Michetons after breakfast. + +"The first thing I noticed," said I, "was the entire United States +walking down the Boulevard des Italiens." + +"And your second impression, sir?" he asked somewhat uncertainly. + +"The entire United States walking back again." He lighted a cigarette +and tried to appear cheerful. He knew I possessed two daughters. A man +in possession of such knowledge will endure much. + +Presently the stout young man from Chicago came up to request a light +for his cigar. "See Paris and die, eh?" he observed with odious +affability. + +"I doubt that the city can be as unhealthy as that," I said coldly. + +Defeated, he joined forces with the young man from East Boston, and they +retired to the terrace to sit and hate me. + +My daughter Alida, my daughter Dulcima, and I spent our first day in +Paris "_ong voitoor_" as the denizen of East Boston informed me later. + +"What is your first impression, Alida?" I asked, as our taxi rolled +smoothly down the Avenue de l'Opera. + +"Paris? An enormous blossom carved out of stone!--a huge architectural +Renaissance rose with white stone petals!" + +I looked at my pretty daughter with pride. + +"That is what Mr. Van Dieman says," she added conscientiously. + +My enthusiasm cooled at once. + +"Van Dieman exaggerates," I said. "Dulcima, what do you find to +characterize Paris?" + +"The gowns!" she cried. "Oh, papa! did you see that girl driving past +just now?" + +I opened my guidebook in silence. I _had_ seen her. + +The sunshine flooded everything; the scent of flowers filled the soft +air; the city was a garden, sweet with green leaves, embroidered with +green grass--a garden, too, in architecture, carved out in silvery gray +foliage of stone. The streets are as smooth and clean as a steamer's +deck, with little clear rivulets running in gutters that seem as +inviting as country brooks. It did not resemble Manhattan. + +Paris! + +Paris is a big city full of red-legged soldiers. + +Paris is a forest of pink and white chestnut blossoms under which the +inhabitants sit without their hats. + +Paris is a collection of vistas; at the end of every vista is a misty +masterpiece of architecture; on the summit of every _monument_ is a +masterpiece of sculpture. + +Paris is a city of several millions of inhabitants, every inhabitant +holding both hands out to you for a tip. + +Paris is a park, smothered in foliage, under which asphalted streets +lead to Paradise. + +Paris is a sanitarium so skillfully conducted that nobody can tell the +patients from the physicians; and all the inmates are firmly convinced +that the outside world is mad. + +I looked back at the gilded mass of the Opera--that great pile of stone +set lightly there as the toe of a ballet-girl's satin slipper---- + +"What are you thinking, papa?" asked Alida. + +"Nothing," I said hastily, amazed at my own frivolity. "Notice," said I, +"the exquisite harmony of the sky-line. Here in Paris the Government +regulates the height of buildings. Nothing inharmonious can be built; +the selfishness and indifference of private ownership which in New York +erects skyscrapers around our loveliest architectural remains, the City +Hall, would not be tolerated here, where artistic _ensemble_ is as +necessary to people as the bread they eat." + +"Dear me, where have I read that?" exclaimed Alida innocently. + +I said nothing more. + +We were now passing through that wing of the Louvre which faces the +Carousal, and we turned sharply to the right under the little arc, and +straight past the Tuileries Gardens, all blooming with tulips and +hyacinths, past the quaint weather-stained statues of an epoch as dead +as its own sculptors, past the long arcades of the Rivoli, under which +human spiders lurk for the tourist of Cook, and out into the Place de la +Concorde--the finest square in the world. + +The sun glittered on the brass inlaid base on which towered the +monolyth. The splashing of the great fountains filled the air with a +fresh sweet sound. Round us, in a vast circle, sat the "Cities of +France," with "Strasburg" smothered in crêpe and funeral wreaths, each +still stone figure crowned with battlemented crowns and bearing the +carved symbols of their ancient power on time-indented escutcheons, all +of stone. + +The fresh wet pavement blazed in the sunshine; men wheeled handcarts +filled with violets or piled high with yellow jonquils and silvery +hyacinths. + +Violet, white, and yellow--these are the colors which Paris wears in +springtime, twined in her chaplet of tender green. + +I said this aloud to Dulcima, who replied that they were wearing blue in +Paris this spring, and that she would like to know how soon we were +going to the dressmakers. + +Now at last we were rolling up the Champs Elysées, with the Arc de +Triomphe, a bridge of pearl at the end of the finest vista in the world. +Past us galloped gay cavalry officers, out for a morning canter in the +Bois de Boulogne; past us whizzed automobiles of every hue, shape and +species. + +Past us, too, trotted shoals of people well diluted by our fellow +countrymen, yet a truly Parisian crowd for all that. Hundreds of +uniforms dotted the throngs; cuirassiers in short blue stable jackets, +sabres hooked under their left elbows, little _piou-piou_ lads, in baggy +red trousers and shakos bound with yellow; hussars jingling along, +wearing jackets of robin's-egg blue faced with white; chasseurs à +Cheval, wearing turquoise blue braided with black; then came the priests +in black, well groomed as jackdaws in April; policemen in sombre +uniforms, wearing sword bayonets; gendarmes off duty--for the Republican +Guard takes the place of the Gendarmerie within the walls of Paris; +smart officers from the Fontainebleau artillery school, in cherry-red +and black; Saint-Cyr soldiers in crude blues and reds, with the blue +shako smothered under plumes; then Sisters, in their dark habits and +white coifs, with sweet, serene faces looking out on the sinful world +they spend their lives in praying for. + +"Dulcima," I said, "what particular characteristic strikes you when you +watch these passing throngs of women?" + +"Their necks; every Parisienne is a beauty from behind--such exquisite +necks and hair." + +"Their ankles," added Alida innocently; "they are the best-shod women in +the world!" + +I had noticed something of the sort; in fact, there is no escape for a +man's eyes in Paris. Look where he will, he is bound to bring up against +two neat little shoes trotting along demurely about their own frivolous +business. One cannot help wondering what that business may be or where +those little polished shoes are going so lightly, tap! tap! across the +polished asphalt. And there are thousands on thousands of such shoes, +passing, repassing, twinkling everywhere, exquisite, shapely, gay little +shoes of Paris, pattering through boulevard and avenue, square, and +street until the whole city takes the cadence, keeping time, day and +night, to the little tripping feet of the Parisienne--bless her, heart +and sole! + +"Of what are you thinking, papa?" asked Alida. + +"Nothing, child, nothing," I muttered. + +We left our taxi and mounted to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. The +world around us was bathed in a delicate haze; silver-gray and emerald +the view stretched on every side from the great Basilica on Montmârtre +to the silent Fortress of Mont-Valerien; from the vast dome of the +Pantheon, springing up like a silver bubble in the sky, to the dull +golden dome of the Invalides, and the dome of the Val-de-Grâce. + +Spite of the Sainte Chapel, with its gilded lace-work, spite of the +bizarre Tour Saint-Jacques, spite of the lean monster raised by Monsieur +Eiffel, straddling the vase Esplanade in the west, the solid twin towers +of Nôtre-Dame dominated the spreading city by their sheer +majesty--dominated Saint-Sulpice, dominated the Trocadero, dominated +even the Pantheon. + +"From those towers," said I, "Quasimodo looked down and saw the slim +body of Esmeralda hanging on the gibbet." + +"What became of her goat?" asked Alida, who was fond of pets. + +"That reminds me," began Dulcima, "that now we are safely in Paris we +might be allowed to ask papa about that----" + +"There is a steamer which sails for New York to-morrow," I said calmly. +"Any mention of that pig will ensure us staterooms in half an hour." + +Considerably subdued, the girls meekly opened their Baedekers and +patronized the view, while I lighted a cigar and mused. + +It was my second cigar that morning. Certainly I was a changed man--but +was it a change for the better? Within me I felt something stirring--I +knew not what. + +It was that long-buried germ of gayety, that latent uncultivated and +embryotic germ which lies dormant in all Anglo-Saxons; and usually dies +dormant or is drowned in solitary cocktails at a solemn club. + +Certainly I was changing. Van Dieman was right. Doubtless any change +could not be the worse for a man who has not sufficient intelligence to +take care of his own pig. + +"There is," said Dulcima, referring to her guidebook, "a café near here +in the Bois de Boulogne, called the Café des Fleurs de Chine. I should +so love to breakfast at a Chinese café." + +"With chopsticks!" added Alida, soulfully clasping her gloved hands. + +"Your Café Chinois is doubtless a rendezvous for Apaches," I said, "but +we'll try it if you wish." + +I am wondering, now, just what sort of a place that café is, set like a +jewel among the green trees of the Bois. I know it is expensive, but not +very expensive; I know, also, that the dainty young persons who sipped +mint on the terrace appeared to disregard certain conventionalities +which I had been led to believe were never disregarded in France. + +The safest way was to pretend a grave abstraction when their bright eyes +wandered toward one; and I did this, without exactly knowing why I did. + +"I wish," said I to Dulcima, "that Van Dieman were here. He understands +all this surface life one sees in the parks and streets." + +"Do you really wish that Mr. Van Dieman were here?" asked Alida, softly +coloring. + +I looked at her gravely. + +"Because," she said, "I believe he is coming about the middle of May." + +"Oh, he is, is he?" I said, without enthusiasm. "Well, we shall +doubtless be in the Rhine by the middle of May." + +"My gowns couldn't be finished until June any way," said Dulcima, laying +her gloved fingers on Alida's chair. + +So they were allies, then. + +"I didn't know you had ordered any gowns," I said superciliously. + +"I haven't--yet," she said coolly. + +"Neither have I," began Alida; but I refused to hear any more. + +"When you are at your modistes you may talk gowns until you faint away," +said I; "but now let us try to take an intelligent interest in this +famous and ancient capital of European civilization and liberty----" + +"Did you notice that girl's gown?" motioned Alida to Dulcima. + +I also looked. But it was not the beauty of the gown that I found so +remarkable. + +"I wonder," thought I--"but no matter. I wish that idiot Van Dieman were +here." + + * * * * * + +That evening, after my daughters had retired, I determined to sit up +later than I ought to. The reckless ideas which Paris inspired in me, +alarmed me now and then. But I was game. + +So I seated myself in the moonlit court of the hotel and lighted an +unwise cigar and ordered what concerns nobody except the man who +swallowed it, and, crossing my legs, looked amiably around. + +Williams sat at the next table. + +"Hello, old sport," he said affably. + +"Williams," I said, "guess who I was thinking about a moment ago." + +"A girl?" + +"No, of course not. I was thinking of Jim Landon. What ever became of +him?" + +"Jim? Oh, he's all right." + +"Successful?" + +"Very. You ought to have heard of him over there; but I suppose you +don't keep up with art news." + +"No," I admitted, ashamed--"it's rather difficult to keep up with +anything on Long Island. Does Jim Landon live here?" + +"In Normandy, with his wife." + +"Oh, he got married. Was it that wealthy St. Louis girl who----" + +"No; she married into the British Peerage. No, Landon didn't do anything +of that sort. Quite the contrary." + +"He--he didn't marry his model, did he?" + +"Yes--in a way." + +"In a way?" + +Williams summoned a waiter who shifted his equipment to my table. + +"It's rather an unusual story," he said. "Would you care to hear it?" + +"Does it portray, with your well known literary skill, the confusion of +a parent?" I inquired cautiously. "If it does, don't tell it." + +"It doesn't." + +"Oh. Nobody puts it all over the old man?" + +"No, not in this particular instance. Shall I begin?" + +"Shoot," I said. + +He began with his usual graceful gesture: + + * * * * * + +Landon was dead broke. + +As it had not been convenient for him to breakfast that morning, he was +irritable. The mockery of handsome hangings and antique furniture in the +outer studio increased his irritation as he walked through it into the +rough, inner workshop, which was hung with dusty casts and dreary with +clay and plaster. + +Here Ellis found him, an hour later, smoking a cigarette to deceive his +appetite, and sulkily wetting down the clay bust of a sheep-faced old +lady--an order of the post-mortem variety which he was executing from a +gruesome photograph. + +"How," inquired Ellis, "is the coy Muse treating you these palmy, balmy +days?" + +Landon swore and squirted a spongeful of water over the old lady's side +curls. + +"My! my! As bad as that?" commented Ellis, raising his eyebrows. "I +thought you expected to be paid for that tombstone." + +"Man, I've been eating, drinking, and sleeping on that tombstone all +winter. Last night I gnawed off the 'Hic Jacet' and washed it down with +the date. There's nothing left." + +"You've--ah--breakfasted, dear friend?" + +"That's all right----" + +"_Have_ you?" + +"No. But there's a man from Fourth Avenue coming to buy some of that +superfluous magnificence in the show studio. Besides, I'll be paid for +this old lady in a day or two-- Where are you going?" + +"Out," said Ellis, briefly. + +Landon, left alone, threw a bit of wet clay at the doorknob, stood +irresolutely, first on one foot, then on the other; then with a hearty +scowl at the sheep-faced old lady washed her complacent face with a +dripping sponge. + + * * * * * + +"Williams!" I interrupted violently, "how do you know all those +details?" + +"My Lord, man!" he retorted; "I write for a living. I've got to know +them." + +"Go on, then," I said. + +He went on: + + * * * * * + +A few moments later Ellis came in with rolls, milk and fruit. + +"That's very decent of you," said Landon, but the other cut him short, +excitedly. + +"Jim, who is the divinity I just met in your hallway? Yours?" + +"What divinity?" + +"Her hair," said Ellis, a little wildly, "is the color of Tuscan gold; +her eyes, ultra marine; and the skin of her is just pure snow with a +brushful of carmine across the lips--and the Great Sculptor Himself must +have moulded her body----" + +Landon shrugged and buttered a roll. "You let her alone," he said. + +"Reveal to me instantly her name, titles, and quality!" shouted Ellis, +unsheathing a Japanese sword. + +"Her name," said Landon, "is O'Connor; her quality is that of a +shopgirl. She is motherless and alone, and inhabits a kennel across the +hall. Don't make eyes at her. She'll probably believe whatever the first +gentlemanly blackguard tells her." + +Ellis said: "Why may I not--in a delicately detached and gayly +impersonal, yet delightfully and evasively irrational manner, calculated +to deceive nobody----" + +"That would sound very funny in the Latin Quarter. This is New York." He +rose, frowning. Presently he picked up the sponge. "Better let a lonely +heart alone, unless you're in earnest," he said, and flung the sponge +back into a bucket of water, dried his hands, and looked around. + +"Have you sold any pictures yet?" + +"Not one. I thought I had a Copper King nailed to the easel, but Fate +separated us on a clinch and he got away and disappeared behind the bars +of his safe deposit. How goes the market with you?" + +"Dead. I can live on my furniture for a while." + +"I thought you were going in on that competition for the Department of +Peace at Washington." + +"I am, if I have enough money left to hire a model." + +Ellis rose, twirled his walking-stick meditatively, glanced at his +carefully brushed hat, and placed it gravely on his head. + +"Soon," he said cheerfully, "it will be time for straw hats. But where +I'm going to get one I don't know. Poverty used to be considered funny +in the Quarter; but it's no idle jest in this town. Well--I'll let your +best girl alone, Jim, if you feel that way about it." + +They laughed and shook hands. + +In the corridor Ellis looked hard at the closed door opposite, and his +volatile heart gave a tortured thump; he twirled his stick and sauntered +out into Stuyvesant Square. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER V + +DREAMLAND + + +As winter faded into spring the first tracery of green fringed the +branches in Stuyvesant Square. The municipal authorities decorated the +grass with tulips and later with geraniums. Later still, cannas and +foliage plants were planted, over which two fountains spurted aqua +Crotonis. + +But in spite of tasteless horticulture it is a quaint old square, a +little sad and shabby, perhaps, yet mercifully green inside its two +iron-railed parallelograms. Above the great sycamores and elms the +truncated towers of St. George's brood heavily; along the short, leafy +reach of Rutherford Place an old-time Quaker meeting-house keeps gentle +vigil; northward, aged mansions peer at the square through time-dimmed +windows; south, above the Sisters of The Assumption, a painted Virgin +clasps her stone hands and looks down on the little children of the +poor. + +Along the east side of the square runs Livingston Place; behind it an +elevated railroad roars; in front lies the square, shabby, unkempt, but +lovely always, when night lends to it her mystery. For at night the +trees loom gigantic; lights sparkle over lawn and fountain; the +illuminated dial of St. George's hangs yellow as a harvest moon above +the foliage; and the pleasant bell sounds from the towers, changing, for +a moment, the streets' incessant monotone to a harmony. + +Into this square went Landon; oftener, as the summer grew hotter and +work grew scarcer. + +Once, at the close of a scorching afternoon, his pretty neighbour from +across the corridor came slowly into the square and rested for a few +moments on the same bench he occupied. + +So lovely and fresh and sweet she seemed in the early dusk that he, for +an instant, was tempted from his parched loneliness to speak to her; but +before he could bring himself to it she turned, recognized him, rose and +went back to the house without a second glance. + +"We've been neighbours for a year," he thought, "and she has never been +civil enough to look at me yet--and I've been too civil to look at her. +I was an ass." + +He was wrong; she had looked at him often, when unafraid that his eyes +might surprise her. + +He was amusingly wrong. Waking, she remembered him; during the long day +she thought of him; at night, when she returned from business, the +radiance from his studio lamp streaming through the transom had for her +all the thrilling fascination that a lighted shop window, at Christmas, +has for a lonesome child passing in darkness. + +From the dim monotony of her own life she had, at times, caught glimpses +through his open door of splendours scarcely guessed. In her eyes an +enchanted world lay just beyond his studio's threshold; a bright, warm, +mellow wonderland, indistinct in the golden lamplight, where only a +detail here and there half revealed a figured tapestry or carved +foliation--perhaps some soft miracle of ancient Eastern weaving on the +floor, perhaps a mysterious marble shape veiled in ruddy shadow--enough +to set her youthful imagination on fire, enough to check her breath and +start the pulses racing as she turned the key in her own door and +reëntered the white dusk of her own life once more. + +The three most important events of her brief career had occurred within +the twelvemonth--her mother's death, her coming here to live--and love. +That also had happened. But she did not call it love; it did not occur +to her to consider him in any possible, tangible relation to herself. + +She never even expected to know him, to speak to him, or that he could +possibly care to speak to her. As far as the east is from the west, so +far apart were their two worlds. For them the gusty corridor was wider +than interstellar voids; she had not even a thought that a miracle might +bridge the infinite from her tiny world to his, which seemed to her so +bright and splendid; she had never advanced farther than the happiness +of lying still after the day's work, and thinking, innocently, of what +she knew about him and what she timidly divined. + +At such times, stretched across her bed, the backs of her hands resting +on her closed lids, she pondered on that alluring wonderland, his +studio--of the mystery that so fittingly surrounded his artist's life. +She saw him always amid the tints and hues of ancient textiles, +sometimes dreaming, sometimes achieving with fiery inspiration--but +precisely how or what he achieved remained to her part of his mystery. +She cherished only the confused vision of the youth of him, and its +glorious energy and wisdom. + +He could be very human, too, she thought; and often the smile curved her +lips and cheeks at the recollection of the noisy gayety coming in gusts +through his transom on those nights when his friends were gathered +there--laughter and song--the incense of tobacco drifting into her own +white room from the corridor. She loved it; the odor seemed spicy with a +delicate hint of sweet-brier, and she opened her transom wider to let it +in. + +Usually she fell asleep, the distant uproar of gayety lulling her into +happier slumbers. And for days and nights afterward its recollection +made life easier and pleasanter, as though she lived with amusing +memories of events in which she herself had participated. + +All day long, in a fashionable dry-goods shop, she sold cobweb finery +and frail, intimate, lacy stuffs to very fine ladies, who usually drew a +surprised breath at her beauty, and sometimes dealt with her as though +they were dealing with one of their own caste. + +At night, tired, she looked forward to her return, when, behind her own +closed door, she could rest or read a little, or lie still and think of +Landon. But even in the daring magic of waking dreams she had scarcely +ventured any acquaintance with him; in dreamland they were as yet only +just aware of one another. He had lately--oh, breathless and audacious +imagination of hers!--smiled at her in the corridors of dreamland; and +she had been a good many days trying to decide what she was going to do +about it. In her phantom world matters were going well with her. + +Meanwhile, except for the stupefying heat, the actual world was also +going well with her. She had saved a little money, enough to give her +ten days of luxury and fresh air when the time came. She needed it; the +city had been hard on her. Yet the pleasure of going was not unmixed; +for, as the day of her release drew nearer, she realized how, within the +year, he had, in her dreams, insensibly become to her a part of her real +life, and that she would miss him sorely. Which gave her courage to +hasten their acquaintance in dreamland; and so it came about that he +spoke to her one night as she lay dreaming, awake on her pillow; and she +felt her cheeks burn in the dark as though it had all been real. + +Yet he was very gentle with her in dreamland--quite wonderful--indeed, +all that the most stilted vision of a young girl could desire. + +Less unquiet, now that they knew each other, she looked forward to the +real separation with comparative resignation. + +Then came that unexpected episode when she seated herself on the same +bench with him, unintentionally braving him in the flesh. + +All that night she thought about it in consternation--piteously +explaining it to him in dreamland. He understood--in dreamland--but did +he understand in real life? Would he think she had meant to give him a +chance to speak--horror of crimson dismay! Would he think her absurd to +leave so abruptly when he caught her eye? And oh, she cared so much what +he might think, so much more than she supposed she dared care! + +All day long it made her miserable as she moved listlessly behind the +counter; at night the heated pavements almost stunned her as she walked +home to save the pennies. + +She saw no light in his studio as she slipped through the corridor into +her stifling room. Later, she bathed and dressed in a thinner gown, but +it, also, was in black, in memory of her mother, and seemed to sere her +body. The room grew hotter; she went out to the passage; no light +threatened her from his transom, so she ventured to leave her door open. + +But even this brought no relief; the heat became unendurable; and she +rose at last, pinned on her big black hat of straw, and went out into +the dusk. + +Through the gates of the square she saw the poor surging into the park. +The police had opened the scant bits of lawn to them. Men, women, +children, lay half-naked on the grass, fighting for breath. And, after +a little while, she crossed the street and went in among them. + +The splash of the fountain was refreshing. She wandered at random, past +the illuminated façade of the Lying-in Hospital, past the painted +Virgin, then crossed Second Avenue, entered the gates again, and turned +aimlessly by the second fountain. There seemed to be no resting-place +for her on the crowded benches. + +Beyond the fountain a shadowy sycamore stood in the centre of a strip of +lawn. She went toward it, hesitated, glancing at the motionless, +recumbent figures near by, then ventured to seat herself on the grass +and lean back against the tree. Presently, she unpinned her hat, lifted +a white face to the night, and closed her eyes. + +How long she sat there she did not know when again she opened her tired +lids. + +A figure stood near her. For a moment she confused dream and reality and +smiled at him; then sat up, rigid, breathless, as the figure stirred and +came forward. + +She remembered attempting to rise, remembered nothing else very +distinctly--not even his first words, though his voice was gentle and +pleasant, just as it was in dreamland. + +"Do you mind my speaking to you?" he was asking now. + +"No," she said faintly. + +He raised his head and looked out across the feverish city, passing one +thin hand across his eyes. Then, with a slight movement of his +shoulders, he seated himself on the ground at her feet. + +"We have been neighbours so long," he said, "that I thought perhaps I +might dare to speak to you to-night. My name is Landon--James Landon. I +think I know your last name." + +"O'Connor--Ellie O'Connor--Eleanor, I mean," she added, unafraid. A +curious peace seemed to possess her at the sound of his voice. There was +a stillness in it that reassured. + +The silence between them was ringed with the distant roar of the city. +He looked around him at the shadowy forms flung across bench and lawn; +his absent glance swept the surrounding walls of masonry and iron, all +a-glitter with tiny, lighted windows. Overhead a tarnished moon looked +down into the vast trap where five million souls lay caught, gasping for +air--he among the others--and this young girl beside him--trapped, +helpless, foredoomed. The city had got them all! But he sat up the +straighter, giving the same slightly-impatient shake to his shoulders. + +"I came," he said, "to ask you one or two questions--if I may." + +"Ask them," she answered, as in a dream. + +"Then--you go to business, do you not?" + +"Yes." + +He nodded: "And now I'm going to venture another question which may +sound impertinent, but I do not mean it so. May I?" + +"Yes," she said in a low, hushed voice, as though a clearer tone might +break some spell. + +"It is about your salary. I do not suppose it is very large." + +"My wages? Shall I tell you?" she asked, so innocently that he flushed +up. + +"No, no!--I merely wish to--to find out from you whether you might care +to take a chance of increasing your salary." + +"I don't think I know what you mean," she said, looking at him. + +"I know you don't," he said, patiently; "let me begin a little farther +back. I am a sculptor. You know, of course, what that is----" + +"Yes. I am educated." She even found courage to smile at him. + +His answering smile covered both confusion and surprise; then perplexity +etched a crease between his brows. + +"That makes it rather harder for me"--he hesitated--"or easier; I don't +know which." + +"What makes it harder?" she asked. + +"Your being--I don't know--different--from what I imagined----" + +"Educated?" + +"Y-yes----" + +She laughed deliciously in her new-born confidence. + +"What is it you wish to ask?" + +"I'll tell you," he said. "I need a model--and I'm too poor to pay for +one. I've pledged everything in my studio. A chance has come to me. It's +only a chance, however. But I can't take it because I cannot afford a +model." + +There was a silence; then she inquired what he meant by a model. And he +told her--not everything, not clearly. + +"You mean that you wish me to sit for my portrait in marble?" + +"There are two figures to be executed for the new Department of Peace in +Washington," he explained, "and they are to be called 'Soul' and 'Body.' +Six sculptors have been invited to compete. I am one. We have a year +before us." + +She remained silent. + +"It is perfectly apparent, of course, that you are exquis--admirably +fitted"--he stammered under her direct gaze, then went on; "I scarcely +dared dream of such a model even if I had the means to afford--" He +could get no further. + +"Are you really poor?" she asked in gentle wonder. + +"At present--yes." + +"I never dreamed it," she said. "I thought--otherwise." + +"Oh, it is nothing; some day things will come out right. Only--I have a +chance now--if you--if you would help me.... I _could_ win with you; I +know it. And if I do win--with your aid--I will double your present +salary. And that is what I've come here to say. Is that fair?" + +He waited, watching her intently. She had dropped her eyes, sitting +there very silent at the foot of the tree, cradling the big straw hat in +her lap. + +"Whatever you decide to be fair--" he began again, but she looked up +wistfully. + +"I was not thinking of that," she said; "I was only--sorry." + +"Sorry?" + +"That you are poor." + +He misunderstood her. "I know; I wish I could offer you something beside +a chance----" + +"Oh-h," she whispered, but so low that he heard only a long, indrawn +breath. + +She sat motionless, eyes on the grass. When again she lifted them their +pure beauty held him. + +"What is it you wish?" she asked. "That I should be your model for +the--this prize which you desire to strive for?" + +"Yes; for that." + +"How can I? I work all day." + +"I could use you at night and on Saturday afternoons, and all day +Sunday. And--have you had your yearly vacation?" + +She drew a quietly tired breath. "No," she said. + +"Then--I will give you two hundred dollars extra for those ten days," he +went on eagerly--so eagerly that he forgot the contingency on which hung +any payment at all. As for her, payment was not even in her thoughts. + +Through the deep, sweet content which came to her with the chance of +serving him, ran an undercurrent of confused pain that he could so +blindly misunderstand her. If she thought at all of the amazing +possibility of such a fortune as he offered, she knew that she would not +accept it from him. But this, and the pain of his misunderstanding, +scarcely stirred the current of a strange, new happiness that flowed +through every vein. + +"Do you think I could really help you?" + +"If you will." His voice trembled. + +"Are you sure--quite sure? If you are--I will do what you wish." + +He sprang up buoyant, transfigured. + +"If I win it will be _you_!" he said. "Could you come into the studio a +moment? I'll show you the two sketches I have made for 'Soul' and +'Body'." + +On the prospect of a chance--the chance that had come at last--he was +completely forgetting that she must be prepared to comprehend what he +required of her; he forgot that she could know nothing of a sculptor's +ways and methods of production. On the way to the studio, however, he +tardily remembered, and it rather scared him. + +"Do you know any painters or sculptors?" he asked, keeping impatient +pace beside her. + +"I know a woman who makes casts of hands and arms," she said shyly. "She +stopped me in the street once and asked permission to cast my hands. +Would you call her a sculptor?" + +"N--well, perhaps she may be. We sculptors often use casts of the human +body." He plunged into it more frankly: "You know, of course, that to +become a sculptor or a painter, one has to model and paint from living +people." + +"Yes," she said, undisturbed. + +"And," he continued, "it would be impossible for a sculptor to produce +the beautiful marbles you have seen--er--around--unless he could pose a +living model to copy from." + +An unquiet little pulse began to beat in her breast; she looked up at +him, but he was smiling so amiably that she smiled, too. + +Mortally afraid of frightening her, he could not exactly estimate how +much she divined of what was to be required of her. + +He continued patiently: "Unless a student dissects he can never become a +surgeon. It is the same with us; our inspiration and originality must be +founded on a solid study of the human body. That is why we must always +have before us as perfect a living model as we can find." + +"Do--do you think--" she stopped, pink and confused. + +"I think," he said, quietly impersonal, "that, speaking as a sculptor, +you are as perfect and as beautiful a model as ever the old Greek +masters saw, alive or in their dreams." + +"I--did not--know it," she faltered, thrilling from head to foot. + +They entered the corridor together. Her breath came faster as he +unlocked his door and, turning up a lamp, invited her to enter. + +At last in the magic world! And with _him_! + +Figured tapestries hung from the golden mystery of the ceiling; ancient +dyes glowed in the soft rugs under foot; the mellow light glimmered on +dull foliations. She stood still, looking about her as in a trance. + +"All this I will buy back again with your help," he said, laughingly; +but his unsteady voice betrayed the tension to which he was keyed. A +slow excitement was gaining on her, too. + +"I will redeem all these things, never fear," he said, gayly. + +"Oh--if you only can.... It is too cruel to take such things from you." + +The emotion in her eyes and voice surprised him for one troubled moment. +Then the selfishness of the artist ignored all else save the work and +the opportunity. + +"You _will_ help me, won't you?" he asked. "It is a promise?" + +"Yes--I will." + +"Is it a _promise_?" + +"Yes," she said, wondering. + +"Then please sit here. I will bring the sketches. They merely represent +my first idea; they are done without a living model." He was off, +lighting a match as he hastened. A tapestry fell back into place; she +lifted her blue eyes to the faded figures of saints and seraphim +stirring when the fabric moved. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER VI + +SOUL AND BODY + + +As in a blessed vision, doubting the reality of it all, she sat looking +upward until his step on some outer floor aroused her to the wondrous +reality. + +He came, holding two clay figures. The first was an exquisite winged +shape, standing with delicate limbs parallel, arms extended, palms +outward. The head was lifted a little, poised exquisitely on the perfect +neck. Its loveliness thrilled her. + +"Is it an angel?" she asked, innocently. + +"No.... I thought you understood--this is only a sketch I made. And this +is the other." And he placed on a table the second figure, a smooth, +youthful, sensuous shape, looking aside and down at her own white +fingers playing with her hair. + +"Is it Eve?" she inquired, wondering. + +"These," he said slowly, "are the first two sketches, done without a +model, for my two figures 'Soul' and 'Body'." + +She looked at him, not comprehending. + +"I--I must have a _living_ model--for these," he stammered. "Didn't you +understand? I want _you_ to work from." + +From brow to throat the scarlet stain deepened and spread. She turned, +laid one small hand on the back of the chair, faltered, sank onto it, +covering her face. + +"I thought you understood," he repeated stupidly. "Forgive me--I thought +you understood what sort of help I needed." He dropped on one knee +beside her. "I am so sorry. Try to reason a little. You--you must know I +meant no offense--that I never could wish to offend you. Look at me, +please; I am not that sort of a man. Can't you realize how desperate I +was--how I dared hazard the chance that you might help me?" + +She rose, her face still covered. + +"_Can't_ you comprehend?" he pleaded, "that I meant no offense?" + +"Y-yes. Let me go." + +"Can you forgive me?" + +"I--yes." + +"And you cannot--help me?" + +"H-help you?... Oh, no, no, no!" She broke down, sobbing in the chair, +her golden head buried in her arms. + +Confused, miserable, he watched her. Already the old helpless feeling +had come surging back, that there was to be no chance for him in the +world, no hope of all he had dared to believe in, no future. Watching +her he felt his own courage falling with her tears, his own will +drooping as she drooped there--slender and white in her thin, black +gown. + +Again he spoke, for the moment forgetting himself. + +"Don't cry, because there is nothing to cry about. You know I did not +mean to hurt you; I know that you would help me if you could. Isn't it +true?" + +"Y-yes," she sobbed. + +"It was only a sculptor who asked you, not a man at all. You understand +what I mean?--only a poor devil of a sculptor, carried away by the +glamour of a chance for better fortune that seemed to open before him +for a moment. So you must not feel distressed or sensitive or +ashamed----" + +She sat up, wet eyed, cheeks aflame. + +"I am thinking of _you_!" she cried, almost fiercely, "not of myself; +and you don't understand! Do you think I would cry over myself? I--it is +because I cannot help _you_!" + +He found no words to answer as she rose and moved toward the door. She +crossed the threshold, turned and looked at him. Then she entered her +own doorway. + + * * * * * + +And the world went badly for her that night, and, after that, day and +night, the world went badly. + +Always the confusion of shame and dread returned to burn her; but that +was the least; for in the long hours, lying amid the fragments of her +shattered dreams, the knowledge that he needed her and that she could +not respond, overwhelmed her. + +The house, the corridor, her room became unendurable; she desired to +go--anywhere--and try to forget. But she could not; she could not leave, +she could not forget, she could not go to him and offer the only aid he +desired, she could not forgive herself. + +In vain, in vain, white with the agony of courage, she strove to teach +herself that she was nothing, her body nothing, that the cost was +nothing, compared to the terrible importance of his necessity. She knew +in her heart that she could have died for him; but--but--her courage +could go no further. + +In terrible silence she walked her room, thinking of him as one in +peril, as one ruined for lack of the aid she withheld. Sometimes she +passed hours on her knees, tearless, wordless; sometimes sheerest fear +set her creeping to the door to peer out, dreading lest his closed door +concealed a tragedy. + +And always, burning like twin gray flames before her eyes, she saw the +figures he had made, 'Soul' and 'Body.' Every detail remained clear; +their terrible beauty haunted her. Night after night, rigid on her bed's +edge, she stretched her bared, white arms, staring at them, then flung +them hopelessly across her eyes, whispering, "I cannot--O God--I +cannot--even for him." + +And there came a day--a Saturday--when the silence of the house, of her +room, the silence in her soul, became insupportable. + +All day she walked in the icy, roaring streets, driving herself forward +toward the phantom of forgetfulness which fled before her like her +shadow. And at the edge of noon she found herself--where she knew she +must come one day--seeking the woman who made plaster casts of hands and +arms and shapely feet. + +For a little while they talked together. The woman surprised, smiling +sometimes, but always very gentle; the girl flushed, stammering, +distressed in forming her naïve questions. + +Yes, it could be done; it had been done. But it was a long process; it +must be executed in sections, then set together limb by limb, for there +were many difficulties--and it was not pleasant to endure, even +sometimes painful. + +"I do not mind the pain," said the girl. "Will it scar me?" + +"No, not that.... But, another thing; it would be expensive." + +"I have my vacation money, and a little more." She named the sum +timidly. + +Yes, it was enough. And when could she come for the first casts to be +taken? + +She was ready now. + +A little later, turning a lovely, flushed face over her bare shoulder: +"One figure stood like this," and, after a pause, "the other this +way.... If you make them from me, can a sculptor work from life casts +such as these?" + +A sculptor could. + +About dusk she crept home, trembling in every nerve. Her vacation had +begun. + +She had been promoted to a position as expert lace buyer, which +permitted larger liberty. From choice she had taken no vacation during +the summer. Now her vacation, which she requested for December, lasted +ten days; and at the end of it her last penny had been spent, but in a +manner so wonderful, so strange, that no maid ever dreamed such things +might be. + +[Illustration: "Christmas Eve she knelt, crying, before the pedestal."] + +And on the last evening of it, which was Christmas Eve, she knelt, +crying, before two pedestals from which rose her body and soul as white +as death. + +An hour later the snowy twins stood in his empty studio, swathed in +their corpse-white winding-sheets--unstained cerements, sealing beneath +their folds her dead pride, dead hope--all that was delicate and +intimate and subtle and sweet--slain and in cerements, for his sake. + +And now she must go before he returned. Her small trunk was ready; her +small account settled. With strangely weak and unsteady hands she stood +before the glass knotting her veil. + +Since that night together last summer she had not spoken to him, merely +returning his low greeting in the corridor with a silent little +inclination of her head. But, although she had had no speech with him, +she had learned that he was teaching at the League now, and she knew his +hours and his movements well enough to time her own by them. + +He was not due for another hour; she looked out into the snowy darkness, +drawing on her gloves and buttoning the scant fur collar close about her +throat. + +The old janitor came to say good-by. + +"An' God be with you, miss, this Christmas Eve"--taking the coin +irresolutely, but pocketing it for fear of hurting her. + +His fingers, numbed and aged, fumbling in the pocket encountered another +object. + +"Musha, thin, I'm afther forgettin' phwat I'm here f'r to tell ye, +miss," he rambled on. "Misther Landon wishes ye f'r to know that he do +be lavin' the house"--the old man moistened his lips in an effort to +remember with all the elegance required of him--"an' Misther Landon is +wishful f'r to say a genteel good luck to ye, miss." + +The girl shook her head. + +"Tell Mr. Landon good-by for me, Patrick. Say--from me--God bless +him.... Will you remember?... And a--a happy Christmas." + +"I will, Miss." + +She touched her eyes with her handkerchief hastily, and held out her +hand to the old man. + +"I think that is all," she whispered. + +She was mistaken; the janitor was holding out a note to her. + +"In case ye found it onconvaynient f'r to see Misther Landon, I was to +projooce the letter, Miss." + +She took it; a shiver passed over her. + +When the old man had shambled off down the passage she reëntered her +room, held the envelope a moment close under the lighted lamp, then +nervously tore it wide. + +"_You will read this in case you refuse to say good-by to me. But I +only wanted to offer you a little gift at Christmastide--not in +reparation, for I meant no injury--but in deepest respect for you. And +so I ask you once more to wait for me. Will you?_" + +Minute after minute she sat there, dumb, confused, nerves at the +breaking point, her heart and soul crying out for him. Then the memory +of what was awaiting him in his studio choked her with fright. She +sprang to her feet, and at the same moment the outer gate clanged. + +Terror froze her; then she remembered that it was too early for him; it +must be the expressman for her trunk. And she went to the door and +opened it. + +"Oh-h!" she breathed, shrinking back; but Landon had seen his letter in +her hand, and he followed her into the room. + +He was paler than she: his voice was failing him, too, as he laid his +gift on the bare table--only a little book, prettily bound. + +"Will you take it?" he asked in a colorless voice; but she could not +answer, could not move. + +"I wish you a happy Christmas," he whispered. "Good-by." + +She strove to meet his eyes, strove to speak, lifted her slim hand to +stay him. It fell, strength spent, in both of his. + +Suddenly Time went all wrong, reeling off centuries in seconds. And +through the endless interstellar space that stretched between her world +and his she heard his voice bridging it: "I love you--I love you +dearly.... Once more I am the beggar--a beggar at Christmastide, asking +your mercy--asking more, your love. Dear, is it plain this time? Is all +clear, dearest among women?" + +She looked up into his eyes; his hands tightened over hers. + +"Can you love me?" he said. + +"Yes," answered her eyes and the fragrant mouth assented, quivering +under his lips. + +Then, without will or effort of her own, from very far away, her voice +stole back to her faintly. + +"Is all this true? I have dreamed so long--so long--of loving you----" + +He drew her closer; she laid both hands against his coat and hid her +face between them. + +He whispered: + +"It was your unselfishness, your sweetness, and--_you_--all of +you--yes--your beauty--the loveliness of you, too! I could not put it +from me; I knew that night that I loved you--and to-day they said you +were going--so I came with my Christmas gift--the sorry, sorry +gift--myself----" + +"Ah!" she whispered, clinging closer. "And what of my gift--my twin +gifts--there, in your studio! Oh, you don't know, you don't know----" + +"Dearest!" + +"No--you can never know how much easier it had been for me to die than +to love--as I have loved a man this day." + + * * * * * + +"Confound you, Williams," I said, blinking. + +But he did not hear me, sitting there in a literary revery, mentally +repolishing the carefully considered paragraphs with which he had just +regaled me. + +"Williams?" + +"What?" + +"So--they're living in Normandy." + +"Who?" + +"Jim Landon and that girl, dammit!" I said, crossly. + +"Yes--oh, yes, of course. Children--bunches of 'em--and all that." + +"Williams?" + +"What?" + +"_Was_ she so pretty?" + +"Certainly," he said, absently. "Don't bother me now; I've got an idea +for another story." + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER VII + +THE BITER, THE BITTEN, AND THE UN-BITTEN + + +"Mais tout le monde," began the chasseur of the Hôtel des +Michetons--"mais, monsieur, tout le grand monde----" + +"Exactly," said I, complacently. "Le grand monde means the great world; +and," I added, "the world is a planet of no unusual magnitude, inhabited +by bipeds whose entire existence is passed in attempting to get +something for nothing." + +The chasseur of the Hôtel des Michetons bowed, doubtfully. + +"You request me," I continued, "not to forget you when I go away. Why +should I not forget you? Are you historical, are you antique, are you +rococo, are you a Rosacrucian?" + +The chasseur, amiably perplexed, twirled his gold-banded cap between his +fingers. + +"Have you," I asked, "ever done one solitary thing for me besides +touching your expensive cap?" + +The chasseur touched his cap, smiled, and hopefully held out his large +empty hand. + +"Go to the devil," I said gently; "it is not for what you have done but +for what you have not done that I give you this silver piece," and I +paid the tribute which I despised myself for paying. Still, his gay +smile and prompt salute are certainly worth something to see, but what +their precise value may be you can only determine when, on returning to +New York, you hear a gripman curse a woman for crossing the sacred +tracks of the Metropolitan Street Railroad Company. So, with my daughter +Dulcima and my daughter Alida, and with a wagon-load of baggage, I left +the gorgeously gilded Hôtel des Michetons--for these three reasons: + +Number one: it was full of Americans. + +Number two: that entire section of Paris resembled a slice of the +Waldorf-Astoria. + +Number three: I wanted to be rid of the New York _Herald_. Surely +somewhere in Paris there existed French newspapers, French people, and +French speech. I meant to discover them or write and complain to the +_Outlook_. + +The new hotel I had selected was called the Hôtel de l'Univers. I had +noticed it while wandering out of the Luxembourg Gardens. It appeared to +be a well situated, modest, clean hotel, and not only thoroughly +respectable--which the great gilded Hôtel des Michetons was not--but +also typically and thoroughly French. So I took an apartment on the +first floor and laid my plans to dine out every evening with my +daughters. + +They were naturally not favourably impressed with the Hôtel de +l'Univers, but I insisted on trying it for a week, desiring that my +daughters should have at least a brief experience in a typical French +hotel. + +On the third day of our stay my daughters asked me why the guests at the +Hôtel de l'Univers all appeared to be afflicted in one way or another. I +myself had noticed that many of the guests wore court-plaster on hands +and faces, and some even had their hands bandaged in slings. + +I thought, too, that the passers-by in the street eyed the modest hotel +with an interest somewhat out of proportion to its importance. But I set +that down to French alertness and inbred curiosity, and dismissed the +subject from my mind. The hotel was pretty clean and highly +respectable. Titled names were not wanting among the guests, and the +perfect courtesy of the proprietor, his servants, and of the guests was +most refreshing after the carelessness and bad manners of the crowds at +the Hôtel des Michetons. + +"Can it be possible?" said Alida, as we three strolled out of our hotel +into the Boulevard St. Michel. + +"What?" I asked. + +"That we are in the Latin Quarter? Why this boulevard is beautiful, and +I had always pictured the Latin Quarter as very dreadful." + +"It's the inhabitants that are dreadful," said I with a shudder as a +black-eyed young girl, in passing, gave me an amused and exceedingly +saucy smile. + +The "Quarter!" It is beautiful--one of the most beautiful portions of +Paris. The Luxembourg Gardens are the centre and heart of the Latin +Quarter--these ancient gardens, with their groves of swaying chestnuts +all in bloom, quaint weather-beaten statues in a grim semicircle looking +out over the flowering almonds on the terrace to the great blue basin of +the fountain where toy yachts battle with waves almost an inch high. + +Here the big drab-colored pigeons strut and coo in the sunshine, here +the carp splash in the mossy fountain of Marie de Medici, here come the +nursemaids with their squalling charges, to sit on the marble benches +and coquette with the red-trousered soldiers, who are the proper and +natural prey of all nursemaids in all climes. + +"What is that banging and squeaking?" asked Alida, as we entered the +foliage of the southern terrace. "Not Punch and Judy--oh, I haven't seen +Punch since I was centuries younger! Do let us go, papa!" + +Around the painted puppet box children sat, open-mouthed. Back of them +crowded parents and nurses and pretty girls and gay young officers, +while, from the pulpit, Punch held forth amid screams of infantile +delight, or banged his friends with his stick in the same old fashion +that delighted us all--centuries since. + +"Such a handsome officer," said Alida under her breath. + +The officer in question, a dragoon, was looking at Dulcima in that +slightly mischievous yet well-bred manner peculiar to European officers. + +Dulcima did not appear to observe him. + +"Why--why, that is Monsieur de Barsac, who came over on our ship!" said +Alida, plucking me by the sleeve. "Don't you remember how nice he was +when we were so--so sea--miserable? You really ought to bow to him, +papa. If you don't, I will." + +I looked at the dragoon and caught his eye--such a bright, intelligent, +mischievous eye!--and I could not avoid bowing. + +Up he came, sword clanking, white-gloved hand glued to the polished +visor of his crimson cap, and--the girls were delighted. + +Now what do you suppose that Frenchman did? He gave up his entire day to +showing us the beauties of the Rive Gauche. + +Under his generous guidance my daughters saw what few tourists see +intelligently--the New Sorbonne, with its magnificent mural decorations +by Puvis de Chavannes; we saw the great white-domed Observatory, piled +up in the sky like an Eastern temple, and the beautiful old palace of +the Luxembourg. Also, we beheld the Republican Guards, _à cheval_, +marching out of their barracks on the Rue de Tournon; and a splendid +glittering company of cavalry they were, with their silver helmets, +orange-red facings, white gauntlets, and high, polished boots--the +picked men of all the French forces, as far as physique is concerned. + +In the late afternoon haze the dome of the Pantheon, towering over the +Latin Quarter, turned to purest cobalt in the sky. Under its majestic +shadow the Boulevard St. Michel ran all green and gold with gas-jets +already lighted in lamps and restaurants and the scores of students' +cafés which line the main artery of the "Quartier Latin." + +"I wish," said Alida, "that it were perfectly proper for us to walk +along those terraces." + +Captain de Barsac appeared extremely doubtful, but entirely at our +disposal. + +"You know what our students are, monsieur," he said, twisting his short +blond moustache; "however--if monsieur wishes----?" + +So, with my daughters in the centre, and Captain de Barsac and myself +thrown out in strong flanking parties, we began our march. + +The famous cafés of the Latin Quarter were all ablaze with electricity +and gas and colored incandescent globes. On the terraces hundreds of +tables and chairs stood, occupied by students in every imaginable +civilian costume, although the straight-brimmed stovepipe and the +_béret_ appeared to be the favorite headgear. At least a third of the +throng was made up of military students from the Polytechnic, from +Fontainebleau, and from Saint-Cyr. Set in the crowded terraces like +bunches of blossoms were chattering groups of girls--bright-eyed, +vivacious, beribboned and befrilled young persons, sipping the +petit-verre or Amer-Picon, gossiping, babbling, laughing like dainty +exotic birds. To and fro sped the bald-headed, white-aproned waiters, +balancing trays full of glasses brimming with red and blue and amber +liquids. + +Here was the Café d'Harcourt, all a-glitter, with music playing +somewhere inside--the favorite resort of the medical students from the +Sorbonne, according to Captain de Barsac. Here was the Café de la +Source, with its cascade of falling water and its miniature mill-wheel +turning under a crimson glow of light; here was the famous Café +Vachette, celebrated as the centre of all Latin Quarter mischief; and, +opposite to it, blazed the lights of the "CAFÉ DES BLEAUS," so called +because haunted almost exclusively by artillery officers from the great +school of Fontainebleau. + +Up the boulevard and down the boulevard moved the big double-decked +tram-cars, horns sounding incessantly; cabs dashed up to the cafés, +deposited their loads of students or pretty women, then darted away +toward the river, their lamps shining like stars. + +It was truly a fairy scene, with the electric lights playing on the +foliage of the trees, turning the warm tender green of the chestnut +leaves to a wonderful pale bluish tint, and etching the pavements +underfoot with exquisite Chinese shadows. + +"It is a shame that this lovely scene should not be entirely +respectable," said Alida, resentfully. + +"Vice," murmured de Barsac to me, "could not exist unless it were made +attractive." + +As far as the surface of the life before us was concerned, there was +nothing visible to shock anybody; and, under escort, there is no earthly +reason why decent women of any age should not enjoy the spectacle of the +"BOUL' MICH." on a night in springtime. + +An innocent woman, married or unmarried, ought not to detect anything +unpleasant in the St. Michel district; but, alas! what is known as +"Smart Society" is so preternaturally wise in these piping times o' +wisdom, that the child is not only truly the father of the man, but also +his instructor and interpreter--to that same man's astonishment and +horror. It may always have been so--even before the days when our +theatres were first licensed to instruct our children in object lessons +of the seven deadly sins--but I cannot recollect the time when, as a +youngster, I was tolerantly familiar with the scenes now nightly offered +to our children through the courtesy of our New York theatre managers. + +Slowly we turned to retrace our steps, strolling up the boulevard +through the fragrant May evening, until we came to the gilded railing +which encircles the Luxembourg Gardens from the School of Mines to the +Palais-du-Sénat. + +Here Captain De Barsac took leave of us with all the delightful and +engaging courtesy of a well-bred Frenchman; and he seemed to be grateful +for the privilege of showing us about over a district as tiresomely +familiar to him as his own barracks. + +I could do no less than ask him to call on us, though his devotion to +Dulcima both on shipboard and here made me a trifle wary. + +"We are stopping," said I, "at the Hôtel de l'Univers----" + +He started and gazed at me so earnestly that I asked him why he did so. + +"The--the Hôtel de l'Univers?" he repeated, looking from me to Dulcima +and from Dulcima to Alida. + +"Is it not respectable?" I demanded, somewhat alarmed. + +"--But--but perfectly, monsieur. It is, of course, the very best hotel +of _that_ kind----" + +"_What_ kind?" I asked. + +"Why--for the purpose. Ah, monsieur, I had no idea that you came to +Paris for _that_. I am so sorry, so deeply grieved to hear it. But of +course all will be well----" + +He stopped and gazed earnestly at Dulcima. + +"It is not--not _you_, mademoiselle, is it?" + +My children and I stared at each other in consternation. + +"What in heaven's name is the matter with that hotel?" I asked. + +Captain de Barsac looked startled. + +"Is there anything wrong with the guests there?" asked Dulcima, faintly. + +"No--oh, no--only, of course, they are all under treatment----" + +"Under treatment!" I cried nervously. "For what!!!" + +"Is it possible," muttered the captain, "that you went to that hotel not +knowing? Did you not notice anything peculiar about the guests there?" + +"They all seem to wear court-plaster or carry their arms in slings," +faltered Dulcima. + +"And they come from all over the world--Russia, Belgium, Spain," +murmured Alida nervously. "What do they want?" + +"Thank heaven!" cried De Barsac, radiantly; "then you are not there for +the treatment!" + +"Treatment for what?" I groaned. + +"Hydrophobia!" + +I wound my arms around my shrinking children. + +"It is the hotel where all the best people go who come to Paris for +Pasteur's treatment," he said, trying to look grave; but Dulcima threw +back her pretty head and burst into an uncontrollable gale of laughter; +and there we stood on the sidewalk, laughing and laughing while passing +students grinned in sympathy and a cloaked policeman on the corner +smiled discreetly and rubbed his chin. + +That evening, after my progeny were safely asleep, casting a furtive +glance around me I slunk off to my old café--the Café Jaune. I hadn't +been there in over twenty years; I passed among crowded tables, skulked +through the entrance, and slid into my old corner as though I had never +missed an evening there. + +They brought me a Bock. As I lifted the icy glass to my lips, over the +foam I beheld Williams, smiling. + +"Eh bien, mon vieux?" he said, pleasantly. + +"By gad, Williams, this seems natural--especially with you sitting +next." + +"It sure does," he said. + +I pointed toward a leather settee. "Archie used to sit over there with +his best girl. Do you remember? And that was Dillon's seat--and Smithy +and Palmyre--Oh, Lord!--And Seabury always had that other corner."... I +paused, lost in happy reminiscences. "What has become of Jack Seabury?" +I inquired. + +"The usual." + +"Married?" + +"Oh, very much." + +"Where does he live." + +"In Philadelphia." + +I mused for a while. + +"So he's married, too," I said, thoughtfully. "Well--it's a funny life, +isn't it, Williams." + +"I've never seen a funnier. Seabury's marriage was funny too--I mean his +courtship." + +I looked up at Williams, suspiciously. + +"Is this one of your professional literary stories?" + +"It's a true one. What's the harm in my enveloping it in a professional +glamour?" + +"None," I said, resignedly; "go ahead." + +"All right, mon vieux." + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER VIII + +A MATTER OF PRONUNCIATION + + +This is a story of the Mystic Three--Fate, Chance, and Destiny; and what +happens to people who trifle with them. + +It begins with a young man running after a train. He had to run. + +The connection at Westport Junction was normally a close one, but now, +even before the incoming train had entirely stopped, the local on the +other line began to move out, while the engineers of the two +locomotives, leaning from their cab windows, exchanged sooty grins. It +was none of their business--this squabble between the two roads which +was making the term, "Junction," as applied to Westport, a snare and a +derision. + +So the roads squabbled, and young Seabury ran. Other passengers ran, +too, amid the gibes of newsboys and the patronizing applause of station +loafers. + +He heard them; he also heard squeaks emitted by females whose highest +speed was a dignified and scuttering waddle. Meanwhile he was running, +and running hard through the falling snow; the ice under foot did not +aid him; his overcoat and suit-case handicapped him; the passengers on +the moving train smiled at him behind frosty windows. + +One very thin man smoking a cigar rubbed his thumb on the pane in order +to see better; he was laughing, and Seabury wished him evil. + +There were only two cars, and the last one was already rolling by him. +And at one of the windows of this car he saw a pretty girl in chinchilla +furs watching him curiously. Then she also smiled. + +It may have been the frank amusement of a pretty woman, and it may have +been the sorrowful apathy of a red-nosed brakeman tying the loose end of +the signal rope on the rear platform; doubtless one or the other spurred +him to a desperate flying leap which landed him and his suit-case on the +rear platform of the last car. And there he stuck, too mad to speak, +until a whirlwind of snow and cinders drove him to shelter inside. + +The choice of cars was limited to a combination baggage and smoker and a +more fragrant passenger coach. He selected a place in the latter across +the aisle from the attractive girl in chinchilla furs who had smiled at +his misfortunes--not very maliciously. Now, as he seated himself, she +glanced up at him without the slightest visible interest, and returned +to her study of the winter landscape. + +The car was hot; he was hot. Burning thoughts concerning the insolence +of railroads made him hotter; the knowledge that he had furnished +amusement for the passengers of two trains did not cool him. + +Meanwhile everybody in the car had become tired of staring at him; a +little boy across the aisle giggled his last giggle; several men resumed +their newspapers; a shopgirl remembered her gum and began chewing it +again. + +A large mottled man with a damp moustache, seated opposite him, said: +"Vell, Mister, you runned pooty quvick alretty py dot Vestport train!" + +"It seems to me," observed Seabury, touching his heated face with his +handkerchief, "that the public ought to do something." + +"Yaw; der bublic it runs," said the large man, resuming his eyeglasses +and holding his newspaper nearer to the window in the fading light. + +Seabury smiled to himself and ventured to glance across the aisle in +time to see the dawning smile in the blue eyes of his neighbor die out +instantly as he turned. It was the second smile he had extinguished +since his appearance aboard the train. + +The conductor, a fat, unbuttoned, untidy official, wearing spectacles +and a walrus moustache, came straddling down the aisle. He looked over +the tops of his spectacles at Seabury doubtfully. + +"I managed to jump aboard," explained the young man, smiling. + +"Tickuts!" returned the conductor without interest. + +"I haven't a ticket; I'll pay----" + +"Sure," said the conductor; "vere you ged owid?" + +"What?" + +"Vere do you ged _owid_?" + +"Oh, where do I get _out_? I'm going to Beverly----" + +"Peverly? Sefenty-vive cends." + +"Not to Peverly, to Beverly----" + +"Yaw, Peverly----" + +"No, no; Beverly! not Peverly----" + +"Aind I said Peverly alretty? Sefenty-vive----" + +"Look here; there's a Beverly and a Peverly on this line, and I don't +want to go to Peverly and I do want to go to Beverly----" + +"You go py Peverly und you don'd go py Beverly alretty! Sure! +Sefenty-vive ce----" + +The young man cast an exasperated glance across the aisle in time to +catch a glimpse of two deliciously blue eyes suffused with mirth. And +instantly, as before, the mirth died out. As an extinguisher of smiles +he was a success, anyway; and he turned again to the placid conductor +who was in the act of punching a ticket. + +"Wait! Hold on! Don't do that until I get this matter straight! Now, do +you understand where I wish to go?" + +"You go py Peverly----" + +"No, Beverly! Beverly! _Beverly_," he repeated in patiently studied +accents. + +The large mottled man with the damp moustache looked up gravely over his +newspaper: "Yaw, der gonductor he also says Peverly." + +"But Peverly isn't Beverly----" + +"Aind I said it blenty enough dimes?" demanded the conductor, becoming +irritable. + +"But you haven't said it right yet!" insisted Seabury. + +The conductor was growing madder and madder. "Peverly! Peverly!! +_Peverly!!!_ In Gottes Himmel, don'd you English yet alretty +understandt? Sefenty-vive cends! Und"--here he jammed a seat check into +the rattling windows-sill--"Und ven I sez Peverly it iss Peverly, und +ven I sez Beverly it iss Beverly, und ven I sez sefenty-vive cends so +iss it sefenty-vi----" + +Seabury thrust three silver quarters at him; it was impossible to pursue +the subject; madness lay in that direction. And when the affronted +conductor, mumbling muffled indignation, had straddled off down the +aisle, the young man took a cautious glance at the check in the +window-sill. But on it was printed only, "Please show this to the +conductor," so he got no satisfaction there. He had mislaid his +time-table, too, and the large mottled man opposite had none, and began +an endless and patient explanation which naturally resulted in nothing, +as his labials were similar to the conductor's; even more so. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER IX + +FATE + + +Turning to the man behind him Seabury attempted to extract a little +information, and the man was very affable and anxious to be of help, but +all he could do was to nod and utter Teutonic gutturals through a bushy +beard with a deep, buzzing sound, and Seabury sank back, beaten and +dejected. + +"Good Lord!" he muttered to himself, "is the entire Fatherland +travelling on this accursed car! I--I've half a mind----" + +He stole a doubtful sidelong glance at his blue-eyed neighbor across the +aisle, but she was looking out of her own window this time, her cheeks +buried in the fur of her chinchilla muff. + +"And after all," he reflected, "if I ask her, she might turn out to be +of the same nationality." But it was not exactly that which prevented +him. + +The train was slowing down; sundry hoarse toots from the locomotive +indicated a station somewhere in the vicinity. + +"Plue Pirt Lake! Change heraus für Bleasant Falley!" shouted the +conductor, opening the forward door. He lingered long enough to glare +balefully at Seabury, then, as nobody apparently cared either to get out +at Blue Bird Lake or change for Pleasant Valley, he slammed the door and +jerked the signal rope; the locomotive emitted a scornful Teutonic +grunt; the train moved forward into the deepening twilight of the +December night. + +The snow was now falling more heavily--it was light enough to see +that--a fine gray powder sifting down out of obscurity, blowing past the +windows in misty streamers. + +The bulky man opposite breathed on the pane, rubbed it with a thumb like +a pincushion, and peered out. + +"Der next station iss Beverly," he said. + +"The next is Peverly?" + +"No, der next iss _B_everly; und der nextest iss Peverly. + +"Then, if I am going to Beverly, I get out at the next station, don't +I?" stammered the perplexed young fellow, trying to be polite. + +The man became peevish. "Nun, wass ist es?" he growled. "I dell you +Peverly und you say Beverly. Don'd I know vat it iss I say alretty?" + +"Yes--but _I_ don't----" + +"Also, you ged owid vere you tam blease!" retorted the incensed +passenger, and resumed his newspaper, hunching himself around to present +nothing to Seabury except a vast expanse of neck and shoulder. + +Seabury, painfully embarrassed, let it go at that. Probably the poor man +_had_ managed to enunciate the name of the station properly; no doubt +the next stop was Beverly, after all. He was due there at 6.17. He +looked at his watch. It was a quarter past six already. The next stop +_must_ be Beverly--supposing the train to be on time. + +And already the guttural warning of the locomotive sounded from the +darkness ahead; already he sensed the gritting resistance of the brakes. + +Permitting himself a farewell and perfectly inoffensive glance across +the aisle, he perceived her of the blue eyes and chinchilla furs +preparing for departure; and, what he had not before noticed, her maid +in the seat behind her, gathering a dainty satchel, umbrella, and +suit-case marked C. G. + +So she was going to Beverly, too! He hoped she might be bound for the +Christmas Eve frolic at the Austins'. It was perfectly possible--in +fact, probable. + +He was a young man whose optimism colored his personal wishes so vividly +that sometimes what he desired became presently, in his imagination, a +charming and delightful probability. And already his misgivings +concerning the proper name of the next station had vanished. He _wanted_ +Beverly to be the next station, and already it was, for him. Also, he +had quite made up his mind that she of the chinchillas was bound for the +Austins'. + +A cynical blast from the locomotive; a jerking pull of brakes, and, from +the forward smoker, entered the fat conductor. + +"Beverly! Beverly!" he shouted. + +So he, too, had managed to master his _P's_ and _B's_, concluded the +young man, smiling to himself as he rose, invested himself with his +heavy coat, and picked up his suit-case. + +The young lady of the chinchillas had already left the car, followed by +her maid, before he stepped into the aisle ready for departure. + +A shadow of misgiving fell upon him when, glancing politely at his +fellow-passenger, he encountered only a huge sneer, and concluded that +the nod of courtesy was superfluous. + +Also he hesitated as he passed the fat conductor, who was glaring at +him, mouth agape--hesitated a moment only, then, realizing the dreadful +possibilities of reopening the subject, swallowed his question in +silence. + +"It's _got_ to be Beverly, now," he thought, making his way to the snowy +platform and looking about him for some sign of a conveyance which might +be destined for him. There were several sleighs and depot-wagons +there--a number of footmen bustling about in furs. + +"I'll just glance at the name of the station to be sure," he thought to +himself, peering up through the thickly descending snow where the name +of the station ought to be. And, as he stepped out to get a good view, +he backed into a fur-robed footman, who touched his hat in hasty +apology. + +"Oh, Bailey! Is that you?" said Seabury, relieved to encounter one of +Mrs. Austin's men. + +"Yes, sir. Mr. Seabury, sir! Were you expected----?" + +"Certainly," nodded the young man gayly, abandoning his suit-case to the +footman and following him to a big depot-sleigh. + +And there, sure enough, was his lady of the chinchillas, nestling under +the robes to her pretty chin, and her maid on the box with the +coachman--a strangely fat coachman--no doubt a new one to replace old +Martin. + +When Seabury came up the young lady turned and looked at him, and he +took off his hat politely, and she acknowledged his presence very +gravely and he seated himself decorously, and the footman swung to the +rumble. + +Then the chiming silver sleigh-bells rang out through the snow, the +magnificent pair of plumed horses swung around the circle under the +bleared lights of the station and away they speeded into snowy darkness. + +A decent interval of silence elapsed before he considered himself at +liberty to use a traveller's privilege. Then he said something +sufficiently commonplace to permit her the choice of conversing or +remaining silent. She hesitated; she had never been particularly wedded +to silence. Besides, she was scarcely twenty--much too young to be +wedded to anything. So she said something, with perfect composure, which +left the choice to him. And his choice was obvious. + +"I have no idea how far it is; have you?" he asked. + +"Yes," she said coolly. + +"This is a jolly sleigh," he continued with unimpaired cheerfulness. + +She thought it comfortable. And for a while the conversation clung so +closely around the sleigh that it might have been run over had not he +dragged it into another path. + +"Isn't it amazing how indifferent railroads are to the convenience of +their passengers?" + +She turned her blue eyes on him; there was the faintest glimmer in their +depths. + +"I know you saw me running after that train," he said, laughingly +attempting to break the ice. + +"I?" + +"Certainly. And it amused you, I think." + +She raised her eyebrows a trifle. "What is there amusing about that?" + +"But you _did_ smile--at least I thought so." + +Evidently she had no comment to offer. She _was_ hard to talk to. But he +tried again. + +"The fact is, I never expected to catch your--that train. It was only +when I saw--saw"--he floundered on the verge of saying "you," but veered +off hastily--"when I saw that brakeman's expression of tired contempt, I +simply sailed through the air like a--a--like a--one of those--er you +know----" + +"Do you mean kangaroos?" she ventured so listlessly that the quick flush +of chagrin on his face died out again; because it was quite impossible +that such infantine coldness and candour could be secretly trifling with +his dignity. + +"It was a long jump," he concluded gayly, "but I did some jumping at +Harvard and I made it and managed to hold on." + +"You were very fortunate," she said, smiling for the first time. + +And, looking at her, he thought he was; and he admitted it so blandly +that he overdid the part. But he didn't know that. + +"I fancy," he continued, "that everybody on that train except you and I +were Germans. Such a type as sat opposite me----" + +"Which car were you in?" she asked simply. + +"Why--in your car----" + +"In _my_ car?" + +"Why--er--yes," he explained; "you were sitting across the aisle, you +know." + +"Was I?" she asked with pleasant surprise; "across the aisle from you?" + +He grew red; he had certainly supposed that she had noticed him enough +to identify him again. Evidently she had not. Mistakes like that are +annoying. Every man instinctively supposes himself enough of an entity +to be noticed by a pretty woman. + +"I had no end of trouble of finding out where Beverly was," he said +after a minute. + +"Oh! And how did you find out?" + +"I didn't until I backed into Bailey, yonder.... Do you know that I had +a curious sort of presentiment that I should find you in this sleigh?" + +"That is strange," she said. "When did you have it?" + +"In the car--long before you got off." + +She thought it most remarkable--rather listlessly. + +"Those things happen, you know," he went on; "like thinking of a person +you don't expect to see, and looking up and suddenly seeing that very +person walking along." + +"How does that resemble your case?" she asked. + +It didn't. He realised it even before he began to try to explain the +similarity. It really didn't matter one way or the other; it was nothing +to turn red about, but he was turning. Somehow or other she managed to +say things that never permitted that easy, graceful flow of language +which characterised him in his normal state. Somehow or other, he felt +that he was not doing himself justice. He could converse well enough +with people as a rule. Something in that topsy-turvy and maddeningly +foolish colloquy with those Germans must have twisted his tongue or +unbalanced his logic. + +"As a matter of fact," he said, "there's no similarity between the two +cases except the basic idea of premonition." + +She had been watching him disentangle himself with bright eyes in which +something was sparkling--perhaps sympathy and perhaps not. It may have +been the glimmer of malice. Perhaps she thought him just a trifle too +ornamental--for he certainly was a very good-looking youth--perhaps +something in the entire episode appealed to her sense of mischief. +Probably even she herself could not explain just why she had thought it +funny to see him running for his train, and later entangling himself in +a futile word-fest with the conductor and the large mottled man. + +"So," she said thoughtfully, "you were obsessed by a premonition." + +"Not--er--exactly obsessed," he said suspiciously. Then his face +cleared. How could anybody be suspicious of such sweetly inquiring +frankness? "You see," he admitted, "that I--well, I rather hoped you +would be going to the Austins'." + +"The _Austins'_!" she repeated. + +"Yes. I--I couldn't help speculating----" + +"About me?" she asked. "Why should you?" + +"I--there was no reason, of course, only I k-kept seeing you without +trying to----" + +"Me?" + +"Certainly. I couldn't help seeing you, could I?" + +"Not if you were looking at me," she murmured, pressing her muff to her +face. Perhaps she was cold. + +Again it occurred to him that there was something foolish in her reply. +Certainly she was a little difficult to talk to. But then she was +young--very young and--close enough to being a beauty to excuse herself +from any overstrenuous claim to intellectuality. + +"Yes," he said kindly and patiently, "I did see you, and I did hope that +you were going to the Austins'. And then I bumped into somebody and +there you were. I don't mean," as she raised her pretty eyebrows--"mean +that you were Bailey. Good Lord, _what_ is the matter with my tongue!" +he said, flushing with annoyance. "I don't talk this way usually." + +"Don't you?" she managed to whisper behind her muff. + +"No, I don't. That conductor's jargon seems to have inoculated me. You +will probably not believe it, but I _can_ talk the English tongue +sometimes----" + +She was laughing now--a clear, delicious, irrepressible little peal that +rang sweetly in the frosty air, harmonising with the chiming +sleigh-bells. And he laughed, too, still uncomfortably flushed. + +"Do you think it would help if we began all over again?" she asked, +looking wickedly at him over her muff. "Let me see--you had an obsession +which turned into a premonition that bumped Bailey and you found it +wasn't Bailey at all, but a stranger in chinchillas who was going +to--_where_ did you say she was going? Oh, to the Austins'! _That_ is +clear, isn't it?" + +"About as clear as anything that's happened to me to-night," he said. + +"A snowy night does make a difference," she reflected. + +"A--a difference?" + +"Yes--doesn't it?" she asked innocently. + +"I--in _what_?" + +"In clearness. Things are clearer by daylight?" + +"I don't see--I--exactly how--as a matter of fact I don't follow you at +all," he said desperately. "You say things--and they sound all +right--but somehow my answers seem queer. _Do_ you suppose that German +conversation has mentally twisted me?" + +Her eyes above the fluffy fur of her muff were bright as stars, but she +did not laugh. + +"Suppose," she said, demurely, "that _you_ choose a subject of +conversation and try to make sense of it. If you _are_ mentally twisted +it will be good practice." + +"And you will--you won't say things--I mean things not germane to the +subject?" + +"Did you say German?" + +"No, germane." + +"Oh! Have _I_ been irrelevant, too?" + +"Well, you mixed up mental clarity with snowy nights. Of course it was a +little joke--I saw that soon enough; I'd have seen it at once, only I +_am_ rather upset and nervous after that German experience." + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER X + +CHANCE + + +She considered him with guileless eyes. He was _too_ good-looking, too +attractive, too young, and far too much pleased with himself. That was +the impression he gave her. And, as he was, in addition, plainly one of +her own sort, a man she was likely to meet anywhere--a well-bred, +well-mannered and agreeable young fellow, probably a recent +undergraduate, which might account for his really inoffensive +breeziness--she felt perfectly at ease with him and safe enough to +continue imprudently her mischief. + +"If you are going to begin at the beginning," she said, "perhaps it +might steady your nerves to repeat your own name very slowly and +distinctly. Physicians recommend it sometimes," she added seriously. + +"My name is John Seabury," he said, laughing. "Am I lucid?" + +"Lucid so far," she said gravely. "I knew a Lily Seabury----" + +"My sister. She's in Paris." + +"Yes, I knew that, too," mused the girl, looking at him in a different +light--different in this way that his credentials were now +unquestionable, and she could be as mischievous as she pleased with the +minimum of imprudence. + +"Do you ever take the advice of physicians," he asked naïvely, "about +repeating names?" + +"Seldom," she said. "I don't require the treatment." + +"I was only wondering----" + +"You were wondering what C. G. stood for on my satchel? I will be very +glad to tell you, Mr. Seabury. _C_ stands for Cecil, and _G_ for Gay; +Cecil Gay. Is that lucid?" + +"Cecil!" he said; "that's a man's name." + +"How rude! It is _my_ name. Now, do you think your mental calibre +requires any more re-boring?" + +"Oh, you know about calibres and things. Do you shoot? I _can_ talk +about dogs and guns. Listen to me, Miss Gay." The subject shifted from +shooting to fishing, and from hunting to driving four-in-hand, and +eventually came back to the horses and the quaint depot-sleigh which was +whirling them so swiftly toward their destination. + +"Jack Austin and I were in Paris," he observed. + +"Oh--recently?" + +"Last year." + +"I thought so." + +"Why?" he asked. + +"Oh, I suppose it was one of those obsessed premonitions----" + +"You are laughing at me, Miss Gay." + +"Am I? Why?" + +"Why? How on earth is a man to know why? _I_ don't know why you do it, +but you do--all the time." + +"Not _all_ the time, Mr. Seabury, because I don't know you well enough." + +"But you know my sister!" + +"Yes. She is a dear." + +"Won't that introduce me? And, besides, you know Jack Austin----" + +"No, I don't." + +"Isn't that odd?" he said. "You don't know Jack Austin and I don't know +Mrs. Austin. It was nice of her to ask me. They say she is one of the +best ever." + +"It was certainly nice of her to ask you," said the girl, eyes +brightening over her muff. + +"I was in Europe when they were married," he said. "I suppose you were +there." + +"No, I wasn't. That sounds rather strange, doesn't it?" + +"Why, yes, rather!" he replied, looking up at her in his boyish, +perplexed way. And for a moment her heart failed her; he _was_ nice, but +also he was a living temptation. Never before in all her brief life had +she been tempted to do to anybody what she was doing to him. She had +often been imprudent in a circumspect way--conventionally unconventional +at times--even a little daring. At sheer audacity she had drawn the +line, and now the impulse to cross that line had been too much for her. +But even she did not know exactly why temptation had overcome her. + +There was something that she ought to tell him--and tell him at once. +Yet, after all, it was really already too late to tell him--had been too +late from the first. Fate, Chance and Destiny, the Mystic Three, +disguised, as usual, one as a German conductor; one as a large mottled +man; the other as a furry footman had been bumped by Seabury and jeered +at by a girl wearing dark blue eyes and chinchillas. And now the +affronted Three were taking exclusive charge of John Seabury and Cecil +Gay. She was partly aware of this; she did not feel inclined to +interfere where interference could do no good. And that being the case, +why not extract amusement from matters as they stood? Alas, it is not +well to laugh at the Mystic Three! But Cecil Gay didn't know that. You +see, even _she_ didn't know everything. + + * * * * * + +"You will like Jack Austin," he asserted. + +"Really?" + +"I'm willing to bet----" + +"Oh, wait till we know one another officially before we begin to make +wagers.... Still, I might, perhaps safely wager that I shall not find +your friend Jack Austin very agreeable to-night." + +So they settled the terms of the wager; cigarettes versus the inevitable +bonbons. + +"Everybody likes Jack Austin on sight," he said triumphantly, "so you +may as well send the cigarettes when you are ready;" and he mentioned +the brand. + +"You will never smoke those cigarettes," she mused aloud, looking +dreamily at him, her muff pressed alongside of her pretty cheek. "Tell +me, Mr. Seabury, are you vindictive?" + +"Not very." + +"Revengeful?" + +"Well--no, I don't think so," he replied. "Why?" + +"I'm much relieved," she said, simply. + +"Why?" + +"Because I've done a dreadful thing--perfectly dreadful." + +"To me?" + +She nodded. + +Perplexed and curious, he attempted to learn what she meant, but she +parried everything smiling. And now, the faster the horses sped, the +faster her pulses beat, and the more uncertain and repentant she became +until her uncertainty increased to a miniature panic, and, thoroughly +scared, she relapsed into a silence from which he found it beyond his +powers to lure her. + +For already a bright light was streaming out toward them from somewhere +ahead. In its rays the falling snow turned golden, every separate flake +distinct as they passed a great gate with the lodge beside it and went +spinning away along a splendid wooded avenue and then straight up toward +a great house, every window ablaze with light. + +John Seabury jumped out and offered his aid to Cecil Gay as several +servants appeared under the porte-cochère. + +"I had no idea that Jack Austin lived so splendidly," he whispered to +Miss Gay, as they entered the big hall. + +But she was past speech now--a thoroughly scared girl; and she lost no +time in following a maid into the elevator, whither Seabury presently +followed her in tow of a man-servant. + +"Luxury! Great Scott," thought Seabury. "This dubbing a palace a cottage +is the worse sort of affectation, and I'll tell Jack Austin so, too." + +The elevator stopped; the doors clicked open; Seabury turned smilingly +to Cecil Gay, but she hurried past him, crimson-cheeked, head bent, and +he followed his pilot to his room. + +"Dinner is hannounced at 'awf awfter height, sir," announced the man +with dignity. + +"Thank you," said Seabury, watching a valet do sleight-of-hand tricks +with the contents of his suit-case. And when he was alone he hopped +nimbly out of his apparel and into a bath and out again in a high state +of excitement, talking to himself all the while he was dressing. + +"Good old Jack! The Mrs. must have had the means to do this sort of +thing so well. I'm delighted!--de--lighted!... If ever a man deserved +affluence, it's Jack Austin! It suits him. It will do him good. It +becomes him.... Plucky fellow to go on grinding at the law!... Only +thing to do, of course--decent thing to do--self-respect and all +that.... But, by jingo!"--he looked about him as he stood buttoning his +collar. "Hah!" stepping to the wall and examining a picture--"Great +Jenkins!--why, here's a real Fortuny--in a _bedroom_!" + +He cared for good pictures, and he stood before the exquisite aquarelle +as long as he dared. Then, glancing at his watch, he completed his +toilet, opened his door, and, scorning the lift, fled blithely down the +great staircase on pleasing bent--and on being pleased. + +A big drawing-room, charmingly lighted, and gay already with the chatter +and laughter of a very jolly throng--this is what confronted him as a +servant offered him a tray containing cards. + +"I don't see my name here," he said, examining the slim envelopes. + +"Beg pardon, sir--what name, sir?" + +"Mr. Seabury." + +The servant looked and Seabury looked in vain. + +"An oversight," commented the young fellow, coolly. "I'll ask Mrs. +Austin about it." And he walked in, and, singling out the hostess, +advanced with smiling confidence, thinking to himself: "She _is_ pretty; +Jack's right. But--but, by George!--she looks like Cecil Gay!" + +His hostess received him very charmingly, saying that it was so good of +him to come; and he said it was so good of her to have asked him, and +then they said several similar things. He spoke of Jack--mentioning him +and continuing to another subject; and she smiled a trifle uncertainly. +Her smile was still more vague and uncertain when he laughingly +mentioned the dinner-cards; and she said it was a vexing oversight and +would be immediately arranged--glancing rather sharply at an amiable +gentleman standing near her. And this amiable gentleman came up to +Seabury and shook hands very cordially, and said several agreeable +things to which Seabury responded, until new arrivals separated him from +his hostess and the amiable gentleman, and he fell back and glanced +about him. And, after a little while an odd expression came into his +eyes; he stood very still; a slight flush slowly spread over his face +which had grown firmer. In a few moments the color went as it had come, +slowly; the faint glitter died out in his eyes. + +There were several people he knew among the guests; he nodded quietly to +young Van Guilder, to Brimwell and others, then crossed to speak to +Catherine Hyland and Dorothy Minster. He was very agreeable, but a +little distrait. He seemed to have something on his mind. + +Meanwhile his hostess was saying to her husband: "Who _is_ that, Jim?" +And her husband said: "You can search me. Didn't you ask him?" And his +wife responded: "He's talking to nearly everybody. It's curious, isn't +it?" Here she was interrupted by the flushed entrance of her unmarried +sister, Cecil Gay. + +Meanwhile, Seabury was saying coolly: "I haven't seen Jack yet." + +"Jack?" repeated Dorothy Minster. "Which Jack?" + +"Jack Austin." + +"Oh," said Miss Minster, who did not know him; "is he to be here?" + +But Seabury only smiled vaguely. His mind, his eyes, his attention were +fixed upon a vision of loveliness in the foreground--a charmingly +flushed young girl who knew everybody and was evidently a tremendous +favorite, judging from the gay greetings, the little volleys of +laughter, and the animated stirring of groups among which she passed. + +Watching her, quite oblivious to his surroundings, the servant at his +elbow was obliged to cough discreetly half a dozen times and repeat "Beg +pardon, sir," before he turned to notice the silver salver extended. + +"Oh--thank you," he said, picking up an envelope directed, "Mr. +Seabury," and opening it. Then a trifle surprised but smiling, he turned +to find the girl whose name was written on the card. She was speaking to +the hostess and the amiable man who had first greeted him. And this is +what he didn't hear as he watched her, waiting grimly for a chance at +her: + +"Cecil! _Who_ is that very young man?" + +"Betty, how should _I_ know----" + +"Look here, Cis," from the amiable gentleman; "this is some of your +deviltry----" + +"Oh, _thank_ you, Jim!" + +"Yes, it is. Who is he and where did you rope him?" + +"Jim!" + +"Cecil! What nonsense is this?" demanded her hostess and elder sister. +"How did he get here and who is he?" + +"I did _not_ bring him, Betty. He simply came?" + +"How?" + +"In the depot-sleigh, of course----" + +"With _you_?" + +"Certainly. He wanted to come. He _would_ come! I couldn't turn him out, +could I--after he climbed in?" + +Host and hostess glared at their flushed and defiant relative, who tried +to look saucy, but only looked scared. "_He_ doesn't know he's made a +mistake," she faltered; "and there's no need to tell him yet--is +there?... I put my name down on his card; he'll take me in.... Jim, +don't, for Heaven's sake, say anything if he calls Betty Mrs. Austin. +Oh, Jim, be decent, please! I _was_ a fool to do it; I don't know what +possessed me! Wait until to-morrow before you say anything! Besides, he +may be furious! Please wait until I'm out of the house. He'll breakfast +late, I hope; and I promise you I'll be up early and off by the seven +o'clock train----" + +"In Heaven's name, who _is_ he?" broke in the amiable man so fiercely +that Cecil jumped. + +"He's only Lily Seabury's brother," she said, meekly, "and he thinks +he's at the Austins'--and he might as well be, because he knows half the +people here, and I've simply _got_ to keep him out of their way so that +nobody can tell him where he is. Oh, Betty--I've spoiled my own +Christmas fun, and his, too! _Is_ there any way to get him to the +Austins' now?' + +"The Jack Austins' of Beverly!" exclaimed her sister, incredulously. "Of +course not!" + +"And you _let_ him think he was on his way there?" demanded her +brother-in-law. "Well--you--are--the--limit!" + +"So is _he_," murmured the abashed maid, slinking back to give place to +a new and last arrival. Then she turned her guilty face in a sort of +panic of premonition. She was a true prophetess; Seabury had seen his +chance and was coming. And _that's_ what comes of mocking the Mystic +Three and cutting capers before High Heaven. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER XI + +DESTINY + + +He had taken her in and was apparently climbing rapidly through the +seven Heavens of rapture--having arrived as far as the third unchecked +and without mishap. It is not probable that she kept pace with him: she +had other things to think of. + +Dinner was served at small tables; and it required all her will, all her +limited experience, every atom of her intelligence, to keep him from +talking about things that meant exposure for her. Never apparently had +he been so flattered by any individual girl's attention; she was gay, +witty, audacious, charming, leading and carrying every theme to a +scintillating conclusion. + +The other four people at their table he had not before met--she had seen +to that--and it proved to be a very jolly group, and there was a steady, +gay tumult of voices around it, swept by little gusts of laughter; and +he knew perfectly well that he had never had such a good time as he was +having--had never been so clever, so interesting, so quick with his wit, +so amusing. He had never seen such a girl as had been allotted to +him--never! Besides, something else had nerved him to do his best. And +he was doing it. + +"It's a curious thing," he said, with that odd new smile of his, "what a +resemblance there is between you and Mrs. Austin." + +"What Mrs. Austin?" began the girl opposite; but got no further, for +Cecil Gay was appealing to him to act as arbiter in a disputed Bridge +question; and he did so with nice discrimination and a logical +explanation which tided matters over that time. But it was a close call; +and the color had not all returned to Cecil's cheeks when he finished, +with great credit to his own reputation as a Bridge expert. + +But the very deuce seemed to possess him to talk on subjects from which +she strove to lead him. + +These are the other breaks he made, and as far as he got with each +break--stopped neatly every time in time: + +"Curious I haven't seen Jack Aus----" + +"Mrs. Austin _does_ resemble----" + +"This is the first time I have ever been in Bev----" + +And each time she managed to repair the break unnoticed. But it was +telling on her; she couldn't last another round--she knew that. Only the +figurative bell could save her now. And she could almost _hear_ it as +her sister rose. + +Saved! But--but--_what_ might some of these men say to him if he +lingered here for coffee and cigarettes? + +"You won't, will you?" she said desperately, as all rose. + +"Won't--what?" he asked. + +"Stay--_long_." + +He rapidly made his way from the third into the fourth Heaven. She +watched him. + +"No, indeed," he said under his breath. + +She lingered, fascinated by her own peril. _Could_ she get him away at +once? + +"I--I wonder, Mr. Seabury, what you would think if I--if I suggested +that you smoke--smoke--on the stairs--now--with me?" + +He hastily scrambled out of the fourth Heaven into the fifth. She saw +him do it. + +"I'd rather smoke there than anywhere in the world----" + +"Quick, then! Saunter over to the door--stroll about a little first--no, +don't do even that!--I--I mean--you'd better hurry. _Please!_" She cast +a rapid look about her; she could not linger another moment. Then, +concentrating all the sweetness and audacity in her, and turning to him, +she gave him one last look. It was sufficient to send him in one wild, +flying leap from the fifth Heaven plump into the sixth. The sixth Heaven +was on the stairs; and his legs carried him thither at a slow and +indifferent saunter, though it required every scrap of his self-control +to prevent his legs from breaking into a triumphant trot. Yet all the +while that odd smile flickered, went out, and flickered in his eyes. + +She was there, very fluffy, very brilliant, and flustered and adorable, +the light from the sconces playing over her bare arms and shoulders and +spinning all sorts of aureoles around her bright hair. Hah! She had him +alone now. She was safe; she could breathe again. And he might harp on +the Austins all he chose. Let him! + +"No, _I_ can't have cigarettes," she explained, "because it isn't good +for my voice. I'm supposed to possess a voice, you know." + +"It's about the sweetest voice I ever heard," he said so sincerely that +the bright tint in her cheeks deepened. + +"That is nicer than a compliment," she said, looking at him with a +little laugh of pleasure. He nodded, watching the smoke rings drifting +through the hall. + +"Do you know something?" he said. + +"Not very much. What?" + +"If I were a great matrimonial prize----" + +"You are, aren't you?" + +"_If_ I was," he continued, ignoring her, "like a king or a grand +duke----" + +"Exactly." + +"I'd invite a grand competition for my hand and heart----" + +"We'd all go, Mr. Seabury----" + +"----And then I'd stroll about among them all----" + +"Certainly--among the competing millions." + +"Among the millions--blindfolded----" + +"Blinfo----" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +"----Blindfolded!" he repeated with emphasis. "I would choose a +_voice_!--before everything else in the world." + +"Oh," she said, rather faintly. + +"A voice," he mused, looking hard at the end of his cigarette which had +gone out: and the odd smile began to flicker in his eyes again. + +Mischief prompting, she began: "I wonder what chance I should have in +your competition? First prize I couldn't aspire to, but--there would be +a sort of booby prize--wouldn't there, Mr. Seabury?" + +"There would be only one prize----" + +"Oh!" + +"And that would be the booby prize; the prize booby." And he smiled his +odd smile and laid his hand rather gracefully over his heart. "You have +won him, Miss Gay." + +She looked at him prepared to laugh, but, curiously enough, there was +less of the booby about him as she saw him there than she had +expected--a tall, clean-cut, attractive young fellow, with a well-shaped +head and nice ears--a man, not a boy, after all--pleasant, amiably +self-possessed, and of her own sort, as far as breeding showed. + +Gone was the indescribably indefinite suggestion of _too_ good looks, of +latent self-sufficiency. He no longer struck her as being pleased with +himself, of being a shade--just a shade--too sure of himself. A change, +certainly; and to his advantage. Kindness, sympathy, recognition make +wonderful changes in some people. + +"I'll tell you what I'd do if I were queen, and"--she glanced at him--"a +matrimonial prize.... Shall I?" + +"Why be both?" he asked. + +"That rings hollow, Mr. Seabury, after your tribute to my voice!... +Suppose I were queen. _I'd_ hold a caucus, too. Please say you'd come." + +"Oh, I am already there!" + +"_That_ won't help you; it isn't first come, first served at _my_ +caucus!... So, suppose millions of suitors were all sitting around +twisting their fingers in abashed hopeful silence." + +"Exactly." + +"_What_ do you think I'd do, Mr. Seabury?" + +"Run. _I_ should." + +"No; I should make them a speech--a long one--oh, dreadfully long and +wearisome. I should talk and talk and talk, and repeat myself, and pile +platitude on platitude, and maunder on and on and on. And about +luncheon-time I should have a delicious repast served me, and I'd +continue my speech as I ate. And after that I'd ramble on and on until +dinner-time. And I should dine magnificently up there on the dais, and, +between courses, I'd continue my speech----" + +"You'd choose the last man to go to sleep," he said simply. + +"_How_ did you guess it!" she exclaimed, vexed. "I--it's too bad for you +to know _everything_, Mr. Seabury." + +"I thought you were convinced that I didn't know _anything_?" he said, +looking up at her. His voice was quiet--too quiet; his face grave, +unsmiling, firm. + +"I? Mr. Seabury, I don't understand you." + +He folded his hands and rested his chin on the knuckles. "But I +understand you, Miss Gay. Tell me"--the odd smile flickered and went +out--"_Tell me, in whose house am I?_" + +Sheer shame paralyzed her; wave on wave of it crimsoned her to the hair. +She sat there in deathly silence; he coolly lighted another cigarette, +dropped one elbow on his knee, propping his chin in his open palm. + +"I'm curious to know--if you don't mind," he added pleasantly. + +"Oh--h!" she breathed, covering her eyes suddenly with both hands. She +pressed the lids for a moment steadily, then her hands fell to her lap, +and she faced him, cheeks aflame. + +"I--I have no excuse," she stammered--"nothing to say for myself ... +except I did not understand what a--a common--dreadful--insulting thing +I was doing----" + +He waited; then: "I am not angry, Miss Gay." + +"N-not angry? You are! You must be! It was too mean--too +contemptible----" + +"Please don't. Besides, I took possession of your sleigh. Bailey did the +business for me. I didn't know he had left the Austins, of course." + +She looked up quickly; there was a dimness in her eyes, partly from +earnestness; "I did not know you had made a mistake until you spoke of +the Austins," she said. "And then something whispered to me not to tell +you--to let you go on--something possessed me to commit this folly----" + +"Oh, no; _I_ committed it. Besides, we were more than half-way here, +were we not?" + +"Ye-yes." + +"And there's only one more train for Beverly, and I couldn't possibly +have made that, even if we had turned back!" + +"Y-yes. Mr. Seabury, _are_ you trying to defend me?" + +"You need no defense. You were involved through no fault of your own in +a rather ridiculous situation. And you simply, and like a philosopher, +extracted what amusement there was in it." + +"Mr. Seabury! You shall not be so--so generous. I have cut a wretchedly +undignified figure----" + +"You couldn't!" + +"I could--I have--I'm doing it!" + +"You are doing something else, Miss Gay." + +"W-what?" + +"Making it very, very hard for me to go." + +"But you can't go! You mustn't! Do you think I'd let you go--_now_? Not +if the Austins lived next door! I mean it, Mr. Seabury. I--I simply must +make amends--all I can----" + +"Amends? You have." + +"I? How?" + +"By being here with me." + +"Th-that is--is very sweet of you, Mr. Seabury, but I--but they--but +you--Oh! I don't know what I'm trying to say, except that I like +you--_they_ will like you--and everybody knows Lily Seabury. Please, +please forgive----" + +"I'm going to telephone to Beverly.... Will you wait--_here_?" + +"Ye-yes. Wh-what are you going to telephone? You can't go, you know. +Please don't try--will you?" + +"No," he said, looking down at her. + +Things were happening swiftly--everything was happening in an +instant--life, youth, time, all were whirling and spinning around her in +bewildering rapidity; and her pulses, too, leaping responsive, drummed +cadence to her throbbing brain. + +She saw him mount the stairs and disappear--no doubt to his room, for +there was a telephone there. Then, before she realized the lapse of +time, he was back again, seating himself quietly beside her on the broad +stair. + +"Shall I tell you what I am going to do?" he said after a silence +through which the confused sense of rushing unreality had held her mute. + +"Wh-what are you going to do?" + +"Walk to Beverly." + +"Mr. Seabury! You promised----" + +"Did I?" + +"You did! It is snowing terribly.... It is miles and miles and the snow +is already too deep. Besides, do you think I--we would let you _walk_! +But you shall not go--and there are horses enough, too! No, no, no! I--I +wish you would let me try to make up _something_ to you--if I--all that +I can possibly make up." + +"At the end of the hall above there's a window," he said slowly. "Prove +to me that the snow is too deep." + +"Prove it?" She sprang up, gathering her silken skirts and was on the +landing above before he could rise. + +He found her, smiling, triumphant, beside the big casement at the end of +the hallway. + +"Now are you convinced?" she said. "Just look at the snowdrifts. Are you +satisfied?" + +"No," he said, quietly--too quietly by far. She looked up at him, a +quick protest framed on her red lips. Something--perhaps the odd glimmer +in his eyes--committed her to silence. From silence the stillness grew +into tension; and again the rushing sense of unreality surged over them +both, leaving their senses swimming. + +"There is only one thing in the world I care for now," he said. + +"Ye-yes." + +"And that is to have you think well of me." + +"I--I do." + +"--And each day--think better of me." + +"I--will--probably----" + +"And in the end----" + +She neither stirred nor turned her eyes. + +"--In the end--_Listen_ to me." + +"I am wi-willing to." + +[Illustration: "'Only one person in the world can ever matter to +me--now.'"] + +"Because it will be then as it is now; as it was when even I didn't know +it--as it must be always, for me. Only one person in the world can ever +matter to me--now.... There's no escape from it for me." + +"Do--do you wish to--escape?" + +"Cecil!" he said under his breath. + + * * * * * + +"They're dancing, below," she said leaning over the gallery, one soft +white hand on the polished rail, the other abandoned to +him--carelessly--as though she were quite unconscious where it lay. + +"They are dancing," she repeated, turning toward him--which brought them +face to face, both her hands resting listlessly in his. + +A silence, then: + +"Do you know," she said, "that this is a very serious matter?" + +"I know." + +"And that it's probably one of those dreadful, terrible and sudden +strokes of Fate?" + +"I know." + +"And that--that it serves me right?" + +He was smiling; and she smiled back at him, the starry beauty of her +eyes dimming a trifle. + +"You say that you have chosen a 'Voice,'" she said; "and--do you think +that you would be the last man to go to sleep?" + +"The very last." + +"Then--I suppose I must make my choice.... I will ... some day.... And, +are you going to dance with me?" + +He raised her hands, joining them together between his; and she watched +him gravely, a tremor touching her lips. In silence their hands fell +apart; he stepped nearer; she lifted her head a little--a very +little--closing her lids; he bent and kissed her lips, very lightly. + +That was all; they opened their eyes upon one another, somewhat dazed. A +bell, very far off, was sounding faintly through the falling +snow--faintly, persistently, the first bell for Christmas morning. + +Then she took the edges of her silken gown between thumb and forefinger, +and slowly, very slowly, sank low with flushed cheeks, sweeping him an +old-time curtsey. + +"I--I wish you a Merry Christmas," she said.... "And thank you for +_your_ wish.... And you may take me down, now"--rising to her slim and +lovely height--"and I think we had better dance as hard as we can and +try to forget what our families are likely to think of what we've +done.... Don't you?" + +"Yes," he said seriously, "I do." + + * * * * * + +"And _that's_ what comes of running after trains, and talking to fat +conductors, and wearing chinchilla furs, and flouting the Mystic Three!" +added Williams throwing away his cigar. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER XII + +IN WHICH A MODEST MAN MAUNDERS + + +"In my opinion," said I, "a man who comes to see Paris in three months is +a fool, and kin to that celebrated ass who circum-perambulated the globe +in eighty days. See all, see nothing. A man might camp a lifetime in the +Louvre and learn little about it before he left for Père Lachaise. Yet +here comes the United States in a gigantic "_mônome_" to see the city in +three weeks, when three years is too short a time in which to appreciate +the Carnavalet Museum alone! I'm going home." + +"Oh, papa!" said Alida. + +"Yes, I am," I snapped. "I'd rather be tried and convicted in Oyster Bay +on the charge of stealing my own pig than confess I had 'seen Paris' in +three months." + +We had driven out to the Trocadero that day, and were now comfortably +seated in the tower of that somewhat shabby "palace," for the purpose of +obtaining a bird's eye view of the "Rive Droite" or right bank of the +Seine. + +Elegant, modern, spotless, the Rive Droite spread out at our feet, +silver-gray squares of Renaissance architecture inlaid with the delicate +green of parks, circles, squares, and those endless double and quadruple +lines of trees which make Paris slums more attractive than Fifth Avenue. +Far as the eye could see stretched the exquisite monotony of the Rive +Droite, discreetly and artistically broken by domes and spires of +uncatalogued "monuments," in virgin territory, unknown and unsuspected +to those spiritual vandals whose hordes raged through the boulevards, +waving ten thousand blood-red Baedekers at the paralyzed Parisians. + +"Well," said I, "now that we have 'seen' the Rive Droite, let's cast a +bird's-eye glance over Europe and Asia and go back to the hotel for +luncheon." + +My sarcasm was lost on my daughters because they had moved out of +earshot. Alida was looking through a telescope held for her by a friend +of Captain de Barsac, an officer of artillery named Captain Vicômte +Torchon de Cluny. He was all over scarlet and black and gold; when he +walked his sabre made noises, and his ringing spurs reminded me of the +sound of sleigh-bells in Oyster Bay. + +My daughter Dulcima was observing the fortress of Mont-Valerien through +a tiny pair of jewelled opera-glasses, held for her by Captain de +Barsac. It was astonishing to see how tirelessly De Barsac held those +opera-glasses, which must have weighed at least an ounce. But French +officers are inured to hardships and fatigue. + +"Is _that_ a fortress?" asked Dulcima ironically. "I see nothing but +some low stone houses." + +"Next to Gibraltar," said De Barsac, "it is the most powerful fortress +in the world, mademoiselle. It garrisons thousands of men; its stores +are enormous; it dominates not only Paris, but all France." + +"But where are the cannon?" asked Dulcima. + +"Ah--exactly--where? That is what other nations pay millions to find +out--and cannot. Will you take my word for it that there are one or two +cannon there--and permit me to avoid particulars?" + +"You might tell me where just one little unimportant cannon is?" said my +daughter, with the naïve curiosity which amuses the opposite and still +more curious sex. + +"And endanger France?" asked De Barsac, with owl-like solemnity. + +"Thank you," pouted Dulcima, perfectly aware that he was laughing. + +Their voices became low, and relapsed into that buzzing murmur which +always defeats its own ends by arousing parental vigilance. + +"Let us visit the aquarium," said I in a distinct and disagreeable +voice. Doubtless the "voice from the wilderness" was gratuitously +unwelcome to Messieurs De Barsac and Torchon de Cluny, but they appeared +to welcome the idea with a conciliatory alacrity noticeable in young men +when intruded upon by the parent of pretty daughters. Dear me, how fond +they appeared to be of me; what delightful information they volunteered +concerning the Trocadero, the Alexander Bridge, the Champ de Mars. + + * * * * * + +The aquarium of the Trocadero is underground. To reach it you simply +walk down a hole in France and find yourself under the earth, listening +to the silvery prattle of a little brook which runs over its bed of +pebbles _above your head_, pouring down little waterfalls into endless +basins of glass which line the damp arcades as far as you can see. The +arcades themselves are dim, the tanks, set in the solid rock, are +illuminated from above by holes in the ground, through which pours the +yellow sunshine of France. + +Looking upward through the glass faces of the tanks you can see the +surface of the water with bubbles afloat, you can see the waterfall +tumbling in; you can catch glimpses of green grass and bushes, and a bit +of blue sky. + +Into the tanks fall insects from the world above, and the fish sail up +to the surface and lazily suck in the hapless fly or spider that tumbles +onto the surface of the water. + +It is a fresh-water aquarium. All the fresh-water fish of France are +represented here by fine specimens--pike, barbels, tench, dace, perch, +gudgeons, sea-trout, salmon, brown-trout, and that lovely delicate +trout-like fish called _l'Ombre de Chevallier_. What it is I do not +know, but it resembles our beautiful American brook-trout in shape and +marking; and is probably a hybrid, cultivated by these clever French +specialists in fish-propagation. + +Coming to a long crystal-clear tank, I touched the glass with my +finger-tip, and a slender, delicate fish, colored like mother-of-pearl, +slowly turned to stare at me. + +"This," said I, "is that aristocrat of the waters called the 'Grayling.' +Notice its huge dorsal fin, its tender and diminutive mouth. It takes a +fly like a trout, but the angler who would bring it to net must work +gently and patiently, else the tender mouth tears and the fish is lost. +Is it not the most beautiful of all fishes? + + "'Here and there a lusty trout; + Here and there a Grayling--' + +"Ah, Tennyson knew. And that reminds me, Alida," I continued, preparing +to recount a personal adventure with a grayling in Austria--"that +reminds me----" + +I turned around to find I had been addressing the empty and somewhat +humid atmosphere. My daughter Alida stood some distance away, gazing +absently at a tank full of small fry; and Captain Vicômte Torchon de +Cluny stood beside her, talking. Perhaps he was explaining the habits of +the fish in the tank. + +My daughter Dulcima and Captain de Barsac I beheld far down the arcades, +strolling along without the faintest pretence of looking at anything but +each other. + +"Very well," thought I to myself, "this aquarium is exactly the place I +expect to avoid in future--" And I cheerfully joined my daughters as +though they and their escorts had long missed me. + +Now, of course, they all expressed an enthusiastic desire to visit +every tank and hear me explain the nature of their contents; but it was +too late. + +"No," said I, "it is damp enough here to float all the fishes in the +Seine. And besides, as we are to 'see' the Rive Droite, we should +hasten, so that we may have at least half an hour to devote to the +remainder of France." + +From the bowels of the earth we emerged into the sunshine, to partake of +an exceedingly modest luncheon in the Trocadero restaurant, under the +great waterfall. + +Across the river a regiment of red-legged infantry marched, drums and +bugles sounding. + +"All that territory over there," said De Barsac, "is given up to +barracks. It is an entire quarter of the city, occupied almost +exclusively by the military. There the streets run between miles of +monotonous barracks, through miles of arid parade grounds, where all day +long the _piou-pious_ drill in the dust; where the cavalry exercise; +where the field-artillery go clanking along the dreary streets toward +their own exercise ground beyond the Usine de Gaz. All day long that +quarter of the city echoes with drums beating and trumpets sounding, and +the trample of passing cavalry, and the clank and rattle of cannon. +Truly, in the midst of peace we prepare for--something else--we +French." + +"It is strange," said I, "that you have time to be the greatest +sculptors, architects, and painters in the world." + +"In France, monsieur, we never lack time. It is only in America that you +corner time and dispense it at a profit." + +"Time," said I, "is at once our most valuable and valueless commodity. +Our millionaires seldom have sufficient time to avoid indigestion. Yet, +although time is apparently so precious, there are among us men who +spend it in reading the New York _Herald_ editorials. I myself am often +short of time, yet I take a Long Island newspaper and sometimes even +read it." + +We had been walking through the gardens, while speaking, toward a large +crowd of people which had collected along the river. In the centre of +the crowd stood a taxicab, on the box of which danced the cabby, +gesticulating. + +When we arrived at the scene of disturbance the first person I saw +distinctly was our acquaintance, the young man from East Boston, +hatless, dishevelled, all over dust, in the grasp of two agents de +police. + +"He has been run over by a taxi," observed De Barsac. "They are going to +arrest him." + +"Well, why don't they do it?" I said, indignantly, supposing that De +Barsac meant the chauffeur was to be arrested. + +"They have done so." + +"No, they haven't! They are holding the man who has been run over!" + +"Exactly. He has been run over and they are arresting him." + +"Who?" I demanded, bewildered. + +"Why, the man who has been run over!" + +"But why, in Heaven's name!" + +"Why? Because he allowed himself to be run over!" + +"What!" I cried. "They arrest the man who has been run over, and not the +man who ran over him?" + +"It is the law," said De Barsac, coolly. + +"Do you mean to tell me that the _runner_ is left free, while the +_runnee_ is arrested?" I asked in deadly calmness, reducing my question +to legal and laconic language impossible to misinterpret. + +"Exactly. The person who permits a vehicle to run over him in defiance +of the French law, which says that nobody ought to let himself be run +over, is liable to arrest, imprisonment, and fine--unless, of course, so +badly injured that recovery is impossible." + +Now at last I understood the Dreyfus Affaire. Now I began to comprehend +the laws of the Bandarlog. Now I could follow the subtle logic of the +philosophy embodied in "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the +Looking-Glass!" + +This was the country for me! Why, certainly; these people here could +understand a man who was guilty of stealing his own pig. + +"I think I should like to live in Paris again," I said to my daughters; +then I approached the young man from East Boston and bade him cheer up. + +He was not hurt; he was only rumpled and dusty and hopping mad. + +"I shall pay their darned fine," he said. "Then I'm going to hire a cab +and drive it myself, and hunt up that cabman who ran over me, by Judas!" + + * * * * * + +That night I met Williams at the Café Jaune by previous and crafty +agreement; and it certainly was nice to be together after all these +years in the same old seats in the same café, and discuss the days that +we never could live again--and wouldn't want to if we could--alas! + +The talk fell on Ellis and Jones, and immediately I perceived that +Williams had skillfully steered the conversation toward those two young +men--and I knew devilish well he had a story to tell me about them. + +So I cut short his side-stepping and circling, and told him to be about +it as I wanted to devote one or two hours that night to a matter which I +had recently neglected--Sleep. + +"That Jones," he said, "was a funny fellow. He and Ellis didn't meet +over here; Ellis was before his time. But they became excellent friends +under rather unusual circumstances. + +"Ellis, you know, was always getting some trout fishing when he was over +here. He was a good deal of a general sportsman. As for Jones--well, you +remember that he had no use for anything more strenuous than a motor +tour." + +"I remember," I said. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER XIII + +A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE + + +Well, then, the way that Ellis and Jones met each other--and several +other things--was this. It chanced to be in the northern forests, I +believe--both were fishing, neither knew the other nor was even aware of +their mutual proximity. + +Then the wind changed abruptly, blowing now from the south; and with the +change of wind Ellis fancied that he smelled green wood burning. A few +minutes later he was sure of it; he stood knee-deep in the stream +sniffing uneasily, then he lifted his trout-rod, reeled in his line, and +waded silently shoreward, his keen nose twitching. + +Ah! There it was--that misty bluish bloom belting a clump of hemlocks. +And the acrid odor grew, impregnating the filtered forest air. He +listened, restless eyes searching. The noise of the stream filled his +ears; he tightened the straps of his pack, shortened his trout rod, +leaving line and cast on, and crawled up the ravine, shoulder-deep in +fragrant undergrowth, until the dull clash of flashing spray and the +tumult of the falls were almost lost in the leafy depths behind. + +Ranker, stronger, came the pungent odor of smoke; halting to listen he +heard the hissing whisper of green wood afire; then, crawling up over an +enormous boulder, he saw, just beyond and below, a man in tweeds, +squatting on his haunches, and attempting to toss a flapjack over a +badly constructed camp-fire. + +The two young men caught sight of one another at the same instant; +alert, mistrustful, each stared at the other in questioning silence +while the first instinct of unpleasant surprise lasted. + +"How are you?" said the man, cautiously. + +"Good-morning," replied Ellis. "When the wind turned I scented your fire +down the stream. Thought I'd see what was burning." + +"Are you up here fishing?" inquired he of the tweeds. + +"Yes; came here by canoe to the forks below. I am out for a week by +myself. The Caranay water is my old-time trail.... Looks like a storm, +doesn't it?" + +"Anything doing with the trout?" + +"Not much; two in the falls pool that come an ounce short of the pound. +I should be glad to divide--if you are shy on trout." + +Again they regarded one another carefully. + +"My name," said the man by the fire, "is Jones--but that can't be helped +now. So if you'll overlook such matters I'll be glad of a trout if you +can spare one." + +"My name is Ellis; help yourself." + +The man by the fire glanced at the burnt flapjack, scraped it free from +the pan, tossed it into the bushes, and straightened to his full height. + +"Come into camp, Mr. Ellis," he said, politely. The freemasonry of caste +operates very quickly in the wilderness; Ellis slid down the boulder on +the re-enforced seat of his knickerbockers, landing, with hob-nailed +shoes foremost, almost at the edge of the fire. Then he laid his rod +aside, slipped the pack to the ground, unslung his creel, and, fishing +out a handkerchief, mopped his sunburnt countenance. + +"Anything else you're short of, Mr. Jones?" he asked, pleasantly. "I'm +just in from the settlements, and I can let you have a pinch of almost +anything." + +"Have you plenty of salt?" inquired Jones, wistfully. + +"Plenty; isn't there anything else? Bacon? Sugar?" + +"Matches?" + +Ellis looked at him keenly; good woodsmen don't run short of matches; +good woodsmen don't build such fires. + +"Certainly," he said. "Did you have an accident?" + +"No--that is, several boxes got wet, and I've been obliged to sit around +this confounded fire for fear it might go out--didn't dare fish very far +from it." + +He looked gloomily around, rubbed his forehead as though trying to +recollect something, and finally sat down on a log. + +"Fact is," he said, "I don't know very much about the woods. Do you? +Everything's gone wrong; I tore my canoe in the Ledge Rapids yesterday. +I'm in a fix." + +Ellis laughed; and his laugh was so pleasant, so entirely without +offence, that young Jones laughed, too, for a while, then checked +himself to adjust his eyeglasses, which his mirth had displaced. + +"Can you cook?" he asked, so seriously that Ellis only nodded, still +laughing. + +"Then, for Heaven's love, would you, when you cook your own breakfast +over that fire, cook enough for two?" + +"Why, man, I believe you're hungry," said Ellis, sharply. + +"Hungry? Well, I don't know whether you would call it exactly hunger, +because I have eaten several things which I cooked. I ought not to be +hungry; I tried to toss a flapjack, but it got stuck to the pan. Fact +is, I'm a rotten cook, and I guess it's simply that I'm half starved for +a decent meal." + +"Why, see here," said Ellis, rising to his feet, "I can fix up something +pretty quick if you like." + +"I _do_ like. Yonder is my cornmeal, coffee, some damp sugar, flour, and +what's left of the pork. You see I left it in a corner of the lean-to, +and while I was asleep a porcupine got busy with it; then I hung it on a +tree, and some more porcupines invited their relatives, and they all +climbed up and nearly finished it. Did you suppose that a porcupine +could climb a tree?" + +"I've heard so," said Ellis, gravely, busy with the stores which he was +unrolling from his own blanket. The guilelessness of this stray brother +appalled him. Here was a babe in the woods. A new sort of babe, too, +for, in the experience of Ellis, the incompetent woodsman is ever the +loudest-mouthed, the tyro, the most conceited. But this forest-squatting +innocent not only knew nothing of the elements of woodcraft, but had +called a stranger's attention to his ignorance with a simplicity that +silenced mirth, forestalled contempt, and aroused a curious respect for +the unfortunate. + +"He is no liar, anyway," thought Ellis, placing a back-log, mending the +fire, emptying the coffee pot, and settling the kettle to boil. And +while he went about culinary matters with a method born of habit, Jones +watched him, aided when he saw a chance; and they chatted on most +animatedly together as the preparations for breakfast advanced. + +"The very first day I arrived in the woods," said Jones, "I fell into +the stream and got most of my matches wet. I've had a devil of a time +since." + +"It's a good idea to keep reserve matches in a water-tight glass +bottle," observed Ellis, carelessly, and without appearing to instruct +anybody about anything. + +"I'll remember that. What is a good way to keep pork from porcupines?" + +Ellis mentioned several popular methods, stirred the batter, shoved a +hot plate nearer the ashes, and presently began the manufacture of +flapjacks. + +"Don't you toss 'em?" inquired Jones, watching the process intently. + +"Oh, they can be tossed--like this! But it is easier for me to turn them +with a knife--like this. I have an idea that they toss flapjacks less +often in the woods than they do in fiction." + +"I gathered my idea from a book," said Jones, bitterly; "it told how to +build a fire without matches. Some day I shall destroy the author." + +Presently Jones remarked in a low, intense voice: "Oh, the fragrance of +that coffee and bacon!" which was all he said, but its significance was +pathetically unmistakable. + +"Pitch in, man," urged Ellis, looking back over his shoulder. "I'll be +with you in a second." But when his tower of browned and smoking +flapjacks was ready, and he came over to the log, he found that his +host, being his host, had waited. That settled his convictions +concerning Jones; and that was doubtless why, inside of half an hour, he +found himself calling him Jones and not Mr. Jones, and Jones calling him +Ellis. They were a pair of well knit, clean-limbed young men, throat and +face burnt deeply by wind and sun. Jones did not have much hair; Ellis's +was thick and short, and wavy at the temples. They were agreeable to +look at. + +"Have another batch of flapjacks?" inquired Ellis, persuasively. + +Jones groaned with satisfaction at the prospect, and applied himself to +a crisp trout garnished with bacon. + +"I've tried and tried," he said, "but I cannot catch any trout. When I +found that I could not I was horrified, Ellis, because, you see, I had +supposed that the forest and stream were going to furnish me with +subsistence. Nature hasn't done a thing to me since I've tried to shake +hands with her." + +"I wonder," said Ellis, "why you came into the woods alone?" + +Jones coyly pounced upon another flapjack, folded it neatly and inserted +one end of it into his mouth. This he chewed reflectively; and when it +had vanished according to Fletcher, he said: + +"If I tell you why I came here I'll begin to get angry. This breakfast +is too heavenly to spoil. Pass the bacon and help yourself." + +Ellis, however, had already satisfied his hunger. He set the kettle on +the coals again, dumped into it cup and plate and fork, wiped his +sheath-knife carefully, and, curling up at the foot of a hemlock, +lighted his pipe, returning the flaming branch to the back-log. + +Jones munched on; smile after smile spread placidly over his youthful +face, dislodging his eyeglasses every time. He resumed them, and ate +flapjacks. + +"The first time my canoe upset," he said, "I lost my book of artificial +flies. I brought a box of angle-worms with me, too, but they fell into +the stream the second time I upset. So I have been trying to snare one +of those big trout under the ledge below----" + +Ellis's horrified glance cut him short; he shrugged his shoulders. + +"My friend, I know it's dead low-down, but it was a matter of pure +hunger with me. At all events, it's just as well that I caught nothing; +I couldn't have cooked it if I had." + +He sighed at the last flapjack, decided he did not require it, and +settling down with his back against the log blissfully lighted his pipe. + +For ten minutes they smoked without speaking, dreamily gazing at the +blue sky through the trees. Friendly little forest birds came around, +dropping from twig to branch; two chipmunks crept into the case of eggs +to fill their pouched chops with the oats that the eggs were packed in. +The young men watched them lazily. + +"The simpler life is the true existence," commented Ellis, drawing a +long, deep breath. + +"What the devil is the simpler life?" demanded Jones, with so much +energy that the chipmunks raced away in mad abandon, and the flock of +black-capped birds scattered to neigbouring branches, remarking in +unison, "_Chick-a-dee-dee-dee_." + +"Why, you're leading the simpler life now," said Ellis, laughing, "are +you not?" + +"Am I? No, I'm not. I'm not leading a simple life; I'm leading a +pace-killing, nerve-racking, complex one. I tell you, Ellis, that it has +taken just one week in the woods to reveal to me the complexity of +simplicity!" + +"Oh, you don't like the life?" + +"I like it all right, but it's too complex. Listen to me. You asked me +why anybody ever let me escape into the woods. I'll tell you.... You're +a New Yorker, are you not?" + +Ellis nodded. + +"All right. First look on this picture: I live in the Sixties, near +enough to the Park to see it. It's green, and I like it. Besides, there +are geraniums and other posies in my back yard, and I can see them when +the laundress isn't too busy with the clothes-line. So much for the +_mise en scène_; me in a twenty-by-one-hundred house, perfectly +contented; Park a stone's toss west, back yard a few feet north. My +habits? Simple enough to draw tears from a lambkin! I breakfast at +nine--an egg, fruit, coffee and--I hate to admit it--the _Sun_. At +eleven I go down-town to see if there's anything doing. There never is, +so I smoke one cigar with my partner and then we lunch together. I then +walk uptown--_walk_, mind you. At the club I look at the ticker, or out +of the window. Later I play cowboy or billiards for an hour. I take one +cocktail--_one_, if you please. I converse." He waved his pipe; Ellis +nodded solemnly. + +"Then," continued Jones, "what do I do?" + +"I don't know," replied Ellis. + +"I'll tell you. I call a cab--one taxi, or one hansom, as the state of +the weather may suggest--I drive through the Park, pleasantly aware of +the verdure, the squirrels, and the babies; I arrive at my home; I mount +to the library and there I select from my limited collection some +accursed book I've always heard of but have never read--not fiction, but +something stupefying and worth while. This I read for exactly one hour. +I then need a drink. I then dress; and if I'm dining out, out I go--if +not, I dine at home. Twice a week I attend the theatre, but I neutralise +that by doing penance at the opera every Monday during the season.... +There, Ellis, is the story of a simple life! Look on _that_ picture. Now +look on _this_: Me in the backwoods, fly-bitten, smoke-choked, a +half-charred flapjack in my fist, a porcupine-gnawed rind of pork on a +stick, attempting to broil the same at a fire, the smoke of which blinds +me. Me, again, belly down, peering hungrily over the bank of a stream, +attempting to snatch a trout with a bare hook, my glasses slipping off +repeatedly, the spectre of starvation scourging on me. Me, once more, +frantic with indigestion and mosquitoes, lurking under a blanket, the +root of a tree bruising my backbone; me in the morning, done up, shaving +in icy water and cutting my chin; me, half shaved, searching for a scrap +of nourishment, gauntly prowling among cold and greasy fry-pans! Ellis! +_Which_ is the simpler life, in Heaven's name?" + +Ellis's laughter was the laughter of a woodsman, full, infectious, but +almost noiseless. The birds came back and teetered on adjacent twigs, +cheeping in friendly unison; a chipmunk, chops distended, popped up from +the case of eggs like a striped jack-in-a-box, not at all afraid of a +man who laughed that way. + +"_How_ did you ever come into the woods?" he asked at length. + +"Lunatic friends and fool books persuaded me I was missing something. I +read all about how to tell a woodcock from a peacock; how to dig holes +in the ground and raise little pea vines, and how to make two blades of +grass grow where the laundress had set a devastating shoe. Then I tired +of it. But friends urged me on, and one idiot said that I looked like +the victim of a rare disease and gave me a shotgun--whether to shoot +myself or the dicky birds I'm not perfectly certain yet. Besides, as I +have a perfect hatred of taking life, I had no temptation to shoot +guides in Maine or niggers in South Carolina, where the quail come from. +Still, I was awake to the new idea. I read more books on bats and +woodchucks; I smelled every flower I saw; I tried to keep up," he said, +earnestly; "by Heaven, I did my best! And now, look at me! Nature hands +me the frozen mitt!" + +Ellis could only laugh, cradling his knees in his clasped and sun-tanned +hands. + +"I am fond of Nature; I admire the geraniums in my backyard," continued +Jones, excitedly. "I like a simple life, too; but I don't wish to pursue +a live thing and eat it for my dinner. The idea is perfectly obnoxious +to me. I like flowers on a table or in the Park, but I don't want to +know their names, or the names of the creatures that buzz and crawl over +them, or the names of the birds that feed on the buzzy things! I don't; +I know I don't, and I won't! Nature has strung me; I shall knock Nature +hereafter. This is all for mine. I'll lock up and leave the key of the +fields to the next Come-on lured into the good green goods by that most +accomplished steerer, Mrs. Nature. I've got my gilt brick, Ellis--I'm +going home to buy a card to hang over my desk; and on it will be the +wisest words ever written: + + "'Who's Loony Now?'" + +"But, my dear fellow----" + +"No, you don't. You're an accomplice of this Nature dame; I can tell by +the way you cook and catch trout and keep your matches in bottles. One +large and brilliant brick is enough for one New York man. The asphalt +for mine--and a Turkish bath." + +After a grinning silence, Ellis arose, stretched, tapped his pipe +against a tree trunk, and sauntered over to where his rod lay. "Come on; +I'll guarantee you a trout in the first reach," he said, affably, +slipping ferrule into socket, disentangling the cast and setting the +line free. + +So they strolled off toward the long amber reach which lay a few yards +below the camp, Jones explaining that he didn't wish to take life from +anything except a mosquito. + +"We've got to eat; we'd better stock up while we can, because it's going +to rain," observed Ellis. + +"Going to rain? How do you know?" + +"I smell it. Besides, look there--yonder above the mountains. Do you see +the sky behind the Golden Dome?" + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER XIV + +A STATE OF MIND + + +Up the narrow valley, over the unbroken sweep of treetops, arose tumbled +peaks; and above the Golden Dome, pushing straight upward into the +flawless blue of heaven, towered a cloud, its inky convolutions edged +with silver. + +Jones inspected the thunderhead with disapproval; Ellis offered his rod, +and, being refused, began some clever casting, the artistic beauty of +which was lost upon Jones. + +One trout only investigated the red-and-white fly; and, that fish safely +creeled, Ellis turned to his companion: + +"Three years ago, when I last came here, this reach was more prolific. +But there's a pool above that I'll warrant. Shall we move?" + +As they passed on upstream Jones said: "There's no pool above, only a +rapid." + +"You're in error," said Ellis, confidently. "I've known every pool on +the Caranay for years." + +"But there is no pool above--unless you mean to trespass." + +"Trespass!" repeated Ellis, aghast. "_Trespass_ in the free Caranay +forests! You--you don't mean to say that any preserve has been +established on the Caranay! I haven't been here for three years.... _Do_ +you?" + +"Look there," said Jones, pointing to a high fence of netted wire which +rose above the undergrowth and cut the banks of the stream in two with a +barrier eight feet high; "that's what stopped me. There's their +home-designed trespass notice hanging to the fence. Read it; it's worth +perusal." + +Speechless, but still incredulous, Ellis strode to the barrier and +looked up. And this is what he read printed in mincing "Art Nouveau" +type upon a swinging zinc sign fashioned to imitate something or other +which was no doubt very precious: + + OYEZ! + + Ye simple livers of ye simpler life have raised thys barrier + against ye World, ye Flesh and ye Devyl. Turn back in Peace and + leave us to our Nunnery. + + YE MAIDS AND DAMES OF VASSAR. + +"What the devil is that nonsense?" demanded Ellis hoarsely. + +"Explained on our next tree," remarked Jones, wiping his eyeglasses +indifferently. + +An ordinary trespass notice printed on white linen was nailed to the +flank of a great pine; and, below this, a special warning, done in red +on a white board: + + NOTICE! + + This property belongs to the Vassar College Summer School. + Fishing, shooting, trapping, the felling of trees, the picking of + wild flowers, and every form of trespass, being strictly + forbidden, all violators of this ordinance under the law will be + prosecuted. One hundred dollars reward is offered for evidence + leading to the detection and conviction of any trespasser upon + this property. + + THE DIRECTORS OF THE VASSAR SUMMER SCHOOL. + +"Well?" inquired Jones, as Ellis stood motionless, staring at the sign. +The latter slowly turned an enraged visage toward his companion. + +"What are you going to do?" repeated Jones, curiously. + +"Do? I'm going to fish the Caranay. Come on." + +"Trespass on Vassar?" asked Jones. + +"I'm going to fish the Caranay, my old and favorite and beloved +stream," retorted Ellis, doggedly. "Do you suppose a dinky zinc +sign in this forest can stop me? Come on, Jones. I'll show you a +trout worth tossing this Caranay Belle to." And he looped on a +silver-and-salmon-tinted fly and waded out into the rapids. + +Jones lighted his pipe and followed him, giving his views of several +matters in a voice pitched above the whispering rush of the ripples: + +"That's all very well, Ellis, but suppose we are pinched and fined? A +nice place, these forests, for a simple liver to lead a simple life in! +Simple life! What? And some of these writers define the 'simple life' as +merely a 'state of mind.' That's right, too; I was in a state of mind +until I met you, let me tell you! They're perfectly correct; it is a +state of mind." + +He muttered to himself, casting an anxious eye on the thundercloud which +stretched almost to the zenith over the Golden Dome and shadowed Lynx +Peak like a pall. + +"Rain, too," he commented, wading in Ellis's wake. "There's a most +devilish look about that cloud. I wish I were a woodchuck--or a shiner, +or an earnest young thing from Vassar. What are we to do if pinched with +the goods on us, Ellis?" + +The other laughed a disagreeable laugh and splashed forward. + +"Because," continued Jones, wiping the spray from his glasses, "the +woods yonder may be teeming with these same young things from Vassar. +Old 'uns, too--there's a faculty for that Summer School. You can never +tell what a member of a ladies' Summer School faculty would do to you. I +dare say they might run after you and frisk you for a kiss--out here in +the backwoods." + +"Do you know anything about this absurd Summer School?" asked Ellis, +halting to wait for his companion. + +"Only what the newspapers print." + +"And what's that? I've not noticed anything about it." + +"Why, they all tell about the scope of the Vassar Summer School. It's +founded"--and he grinned maliciously--"on the simple life." + +"How?" snapped Ellis, clambering up out of the water to the flat, sandy +shore of an exquisite pool some forty rods in length. + +"Why, this way: The Vassar undergraduates, who formerly, after +commencement, scattered into all the complexities of a silly, +unprofitable, good old summer time, now have a chance to acquire +simplicity and a taste for the rudimentary pleasures and pursuits they +have overlooked in their twentieth-century gallop after the complex." + +Ellis sullenly freed his line and glanced up at the clouds. It was +already raining on the Golden Dome. + +"So," continued Jones, "the Summer School took to the woods along with +the rest of the simple-minded. I hear they have a library; doubtless it +contains the _Outlook_ and the Rollo books. They have courses in the +earlier and simpler languages--the dead 'uns--Sanskrit, Greek, Latin; +English, too, before it grew pin-feathers. They have a grand-stand built +of logs out yonder where the mosquito hummeth; and some trees and a pond +which they call a theatre devoted to the portrayal of the great +primitive and simple passions and emotions. They have also dammed up the +stream to make a real lake when they give tank-dramas like Lohengrin and +the Rheingold; and the papers say they have a pair of live swans hitched +to a boat--that is, a yellow reporter swears they have, but he was +discovered taking snapshots at some Rhine-wine daughters, and hustled +out of the woods----" + +He paused to watch Ellis hook and play and presently land a splendid +trout weighing close to two pounds. + +"It's an outrage, an infernal outrage, for such people to dam the +Caranay and invade this God-given forest with their unspeakable tin +signs!" said Ellis, casting again. + +"But they're only looking for a simpler life--just like you." + +Ellis said something. + +"That," replied Jones, "is a simple and ancient word expressing tersely +one of the simplest and most primitive passions. You know, the simple +life is merely a "state of mind"; you're acquiring it; I recognize the +symptoms." + +Ellis made another observation, more or less mandatory. + +"Yes, that is a locality purely mythical, according to our later +exponents of theology; therefore I cannot accept the suggestion to go +there----" + +"Confound it!" exclaimed Ellis, laughing, as he landed a trout, "let up +on your joking. I'm mad all through, and it's beginning to rain. When +that thunder comes nearer it will end the fishing, too. Look at Lynx +Peak! Did you see that play of lightning? There's a corker of a storm +brewing. I hope," he added, savagely, "it will carry away their +confounded dam and their ridiculous lake. The nerve of women to dam a +trout stream like the Caranay.... What was that you said?" + +"I said," hissed Jones in a weird whisper, "that there are two girls +standing behind us and taking our pictures with a kodak! Don't look +around, man! They'll snap-shoot us for evidence!" + +But the caution was too late; Ellis had turned. There came a click of a +kodak shutter; Jones turned in spite of himself; another click sounded. + +"Stang!" breathed Jones as two young girls stepped from the shelter of a +juniper brush and calmly confronted the astonished trespassers. + +"I am very sorry to trouble you," said the taller one severely, "but +this is private property." + +Ellis took off his cap; Jones did the same. + +"I saw your signs," said Ellis, pleasantly. Jones whispered to him: "The +taller one is a corker!" and Ellis replied under his breath: "The other +is attractive, too." + +"You admit that you deliberately trespassed?" inquired the shorter girl +very gravely. + +"Not upon you--only upon what you call your property," said Ellis, +gaily. "You see, we really need the trout in our business--which is to +keep soul and body on friendly terms." + +No answering smile touched the pretty grey eyes fixed on his. She said +gravely: "I am very sorry that this has happened." + +"We're sorry, too," smiled Jones, "although we can scarcely regret the +charming accident which permits us----" + +But it wouldn't do; the taller girl stared at him coldly from a pair of +ornamental brown eyes. + +Presently she said: "We students are supposed to report cases like this. +If you have deliberately chosen to test the law governing the protection +of private property no doubt our Summer School authorities will be +willing to gratify you before a proper tribunal.... May I ask your +names?" She drew a notebook from the pocket of her kilted skirt, +standing gracefully with pencil poised, dark eyes focused upon Jones. +And, as she waited, the thunder boomed behind the Golden Dome. + +"It's going to rain cats and dogs," said Jones, anxiously "and you +haven't an umbrella----" + +The dark-eyed girl gazed at him scornfully. "Do you refuse your name?" + +"No--oh, not at all!" said Jones hastily; "my name is Jones----" + +The scorn deepened. "And--is this Mr. Smith?" she inquired, looking at +Ellis. + +"My name _is_ Jones," said Jones so earnestly that his glasses fell off. +"And what's worse, it's John Jones." + +Something in his eye engaged her attention--perhaps the unwinking +innocence of it. She wrote "John Jones" on her pad, noted his town +address, and turned to Ellis, who was looking fixedly, but not +offensively, at the girl with the expressive grey eyes. + +"If you have a pad I'll surrender to you," he said, amiably. "There is +glory enough for all here, as our admiral once remarked." + +The grey eyes glimmered; a quiver touched the scarlet mouth. But a crash +of nearer thunder whitened the smile on her lips. + +"Helen, I'm going!" she said hastily to her of the brown eyes. + +"That storm," said Ellis calmly, "has a long way to travel before it +strikes the Caranay valley." He pointed with his rod, tracing in the sky +the route of the crowding clouds. "Every storm that hatches behind the +Golden Dome swings south along the Black Water first, then curves and +comes around by the west and sweeps the Caranay. You have plenty of time +to take my name." + +"But--but the play? I was thinking of the play," she said, looking +anxiously at the brown eyes, which were raised to the sky in silent +misgiving. + +"If you don't mind my saying so," said Ellis, "there is ample time for +your outdoor theatricals--if you mean that. You need not look for that +storm on the upper Caranay before late this afternoon. Even then it may +break behind the mountains and you may see no rain--only a flood in the +river." + +"Do you really think so?" she asked. + +"I do; I can almost answer for it. You see, the Caranay has been my +haunt for many years, and I know almost to a certainty what is likely to +happen here." + +"That is jolly!" she exclaimed, greatly relieved. "Helen, I really think +we should be starting----" + +But Helen, pencil poised, gazed obdurately at Ellis out of brown eyes +which were scarcely fashioned for such impartial and inexorable work. + +"If your name is not Smith I should be very glad to note it," she said. + +So he laughed and told her who he was and where he lived; and she wrote +it down, somewhat shakily. + +"Of course," she said, "you cannot be the _artist_--James Lowell Ellis, +_the_ artist--the great----" + +She hesitated; brown eyes and grey eyes, very wide now, were +concentrated on him. Jones, too, stared, and Ellis laughed. + +"_Are_ you?" blurted out Jones. "Great Heaven! I never supposed----" + +Ellis joined in a quartet of silence, then laughed again, a short, +embarrassed laugh. + +"You _don't_ look like anything famous, you know," said Jones +reproachfully. "Why didn't you tell me who you are? Why, man, I own two +of your pictures!" + +To brown-eyes, known so far as "Helen," Ellis said: "We painters are a +bad lot, you see--but don't let that prejudice you against Mr. Jones; he +really doesn't know me very well. Besides, I dragged him into this +villainy; didn't I, Jones? You didn't want to trespass, you know." + +"Oh, come!" said Jones; "I own two of your pictures--the Amourette and +the Corrida. That ought to convict me of almost anything." + +Grey-eyes said: "We--my father--has the Espagnolita, Mr. Ellis." She +blushed when she finished. + +"Why, then, you must be Miss Sandys!" said Ellis quickly. "Mr. Kenneth +Sandys owns that picture." + +The brown eyes, which had widened, then sparkled, then softened as +matters developed, now became uncompromisingly beautiful. + +"I am dreadfully sorry," she said, looking at her notebook. "I trust +that the school authorities may not press matters." Then she raised her +eyes to see what Jones's expression might resemble. It resembled +absolutely nothing. + +After a silence Miss Sandys said: "Do you think Helen, that we are--that +we ought to report this----" + +"Yes, Molly, I do." + +"I'm only an architect; fine me, but spare my friend, Ellis," said +Jones far too playfully to placate the brown-eyed Helen. She returned +his glance with a scrutiny devoid of expression. The thunder boomed +along the flanks of Lynx Peak. + +"We--we are very sorry," whispered Miss Sandys. + +"I am, too," replied Ellis--not meaning anything concerning his legal +predicament. + +Brown-eyes looked at Jones; there was a little inclination of her pretty +head as she passed them. A moment later the two young men stood alone, +caps in hand, gazing fixedly into the gathering dimness of Caranay +forest. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER XV + +FLOTSAM AND JETSAM + + +"Ellis," said Jones, earnestly, as they climbed to the camp and stood +gazing at the whitening ashes of their fire, "the simple life is a state +of mind. I'm in it, now. And--do you know, Ellis, that--I--I could learn +to like it?" + +Ellis prodded the back-log, and tossed on some dry sticks. + +"Great Heaven!" breathed Jones, "did you ever see such eyes, Ellis?" + +"The grey ones? They're very noticeable----" + +"I meant--well, let it go at that. Here be two of us have lost a +thousand shillings to-day." + +"And the ladies were not in buckram," rejoined Ellis, starting a blaze. +"Jones, can you prepare trout for the pan with the aid of a knife? Here, +rub salt in 'em--and leave all but two in that big tin--dry, mind, then +cover it and sink it in the spring, or something furry will come nosing +and clawing at it. I'll have things ready by the time you're back." + +"About our canoes," began Jones. "I've daubed mine with white lead, but +I cut it up badly. Hadn't we better attend to them before the storm +breaks?" + +"Get yours into camp. I'll fetch mine; it's cached just below the forks. +This storm may tear things." + +A quarter of an hour later two vigorous young men swung into camp, +lowered the canoes from their heads and shoulders, carried the strapped +kits, poles and paddles into the lean-to, and turned the light crafts +bottom up as flanking shelters to headquarters. + +"No use fishing; that thunder is spoiling the Caranay," muttered Ellis, +moving about and setting the camp in order. "This is a fine lean-to," he +added; "it's big enough for a regiment." + +"I told you I was an architect," said Jones, surveying the open-faced +shanty with pride. "I had nothing else to do, so I spent the time in +making this. I'm a corker on the classic. Shall I take an axe and cut +some wood in the Ionic or Doric style?" + +Ellis, squatting among the provisions, busily bringing order out of +chaos, told him what sort of wood to cut; and an hour later, when the +echoing thwacks of the axe ceased and Jones came in loaded with +firewood, the camp was in order; hambones, stale bedding, tin cans, the +heads and spinal processes of trout had been removed, dishes polished, +towels washed and drying, and a pleasant aroma of balsam tips mingled +with the spicy scent of the fire. + +"Whew!" said Jones, sniffing; "it smells pleasant now." + +"Your camp," observed Ellis, "had all the fragrance of a dog-fox in +March. How heavy the air is. Listen to that thunder! There's the deuce +to pay on the upper waters of the Caranay by this time." + +"Do you think we'll get it?" + +"Not the rain and wind; the electrical storms usually swing off, +following the Big Oswaya. But we may have a flood." He arose and picked +up his rod. "The thunder has probably blanked me, but if you'll tend +camp I'll try to pick up some fish in a binnikill I know of where the +trout are habituated to the roar of the fork falls. We may need every +fish we can get if the flood proves a bad one." + +Jones said it would suit him perfectly to sit still. He curled up close +enough to the fire for comfort as well as æsthetic pleasure, removed his +eyeglasses, fished out a flask of aromatic mosquito ointment, and +solemnly began a facial toilet, in the manner of a comfortable house cat +anointing her countenance with one paw. + +"Ellis," he said, blinking up at that young man very amiably, "it would +be agreeable to see a little more of--of Miss Sandys; wouldn't it? And +the other----" + +"We could easily do that." + +"Eh? How?" + +"By engaging an attorney to defend ourselves in court," said Ellis +grimly. + +"Pooh! You don't suppose that brown-eyed girl----" + +"Yes, I do! _She_ means mischief. If it had rested with the other----" + +"You're mistaken," said Jones, warmly. "I am perfectly persuaded that if +I had had half an hour's playful conversation with the brown-eyed +one----" + +"You tried playfulness and fell down," observed Ellis, coldly. "If I +could have spoken to Miss Sandys----" + +"What! A girl with steel-grey eyes like two poniards? A lot of mercy she +would show us! My dear fellow, trust in the brown eye every time! The +warm, humane, brown eye--the emotional, the melting, the tender +brown----" + +"Don't trust it! Didn't she kodak twice? You and I are now in her +Rogues' Gallery. Besides, didn't she take notes on her pad? I never +observed anything humane in brown eyes." + +Jones polished his nose with the mosquito salve. + +"How do you know what she wanted my picture for?" he asked, annoyed. +"Perhaps she means to keep it for herself--if that grey-eyed one lets +her alone----" + +"Let the grey-eyed one alone yourself," retorted Ellis, warmly. + +"You'd better, too. Any expert in human character can tell you which of +those girls means mischief." + +"If you think you're an expert--" began Ellis, irritated, then stopped +short. Jones followed his eyes. + +"Look at that stream," said Ellis, dropping his rod against the lean-to. +"There's been a cloudburst in the mountains. There's no rain here, but +_look_ at that stream! Yellow and bank-full! Hark! Hear the falls. I +have an idea the woods will be awash below us in an hour." + +They descended to the ledge which an hour ago had overhung the stream. +Now the water was level with it, lapping over it, rising perceptibly in +the few seconds they stood there. Alders and willows along the banks, +almost covered, staggered in the discolored water; drift of all sorts +came tumbling past, rotten branches, piles of brush afloat, ferns and +shrubs uprooted; the torrent was thick with flakes of bark and forest +mould and green-leaved twigs torn from the stream-side. + +From the lower reaches a deer came galloping toward the ridges; a fox +stole furtively into the open, hesitated, and slunk off up the valley. + +And now the shallow gorge began to roar under the rising flood; tumbling +castles of piled-up foam whirled into view; the amber waves washed +through the fringing beech growth, slopping into hollows, setting the +dead leaves afloat. A sucking sound filled the woods; millions of tiny +bubbles purred in the shallow overflow; here and there dead branches +stirred, swung and floated. + +"Our camp is going to be an island pretty soon," observed Ellis; "just +look at----" + +But Jones caught him by the arm. "_What_ is that?" he demanded shakily. +"Are there things like that in these woods?" + +At the same instant Ellis caught sight of something in midstream bearing +down on them in a smother of foam--an enormous lizard-like creature +floundering throat-deep in the flood. + +"What is it, Ellis? Look! It's got a tail ten feet long! Great Heaven, +look at it!" + +"I see it," said Ellis, hoarsely. "I never saw such a thing----" + +"It's opening its jaws!" gasped Jones. + +Ellis, a trifle white around the cheekbones, stared in frozen silence at +the fearsome creature as it swept down on them. A crested wave rolled +it over; four fearsome claws waved in the air; then the creature righted +itself and swung in toward the bank. + +"Upon my word!" stammered Ellis; "it's part of their theatrical +property. Lord! how real it looked out yonder. I knew it couldn't be +alive, but--Jones, see how my hands are shaking. Would you believe a man +could be rattled like that?" + +"Believe it? I should say I could! Look at the thing wabbling there in +the shallows as though it were trying to move its flippers! _Look_ at +it, Ellis; see how it seems to wriggle and paddle----" + +The words froze on his lips; the immense creature was moving; the scaled +claws churned the shallows; a spasm shook the head; the jaws gaped. + +"Help!" said a very sweet and frightened voice. + +Ellis got hold of one claw, Jones the other, almost before they +comprehended--certainly before, deep in the scaly creature's maw, they +discovered the frightened but lovely features of the grey-eyed girl who +had snap-shot them. + +"Please pull," she said; "I can't swim in _this_!" + +Almost hysterically they soothed her as they tugged and steered the +thing into the flooded forest. + +"Mr. Ellis--please--_please_ don't pull quite so hard," she called out. + +"Oh, did I hurt you?" he cried so tenderly that, even in the shock of +emotions, Jones was ashamed of him. + +"No, you don't hurt me, Mr. Ellis; I'm all right inside here, but +I--I--you must not pull this papier-mâché dragon to pieces----" + +"What do I care for the dragon if you are in danger?" cried Ellis, +excitedly. + +But it was a frightened and vexed voice that answered almost tearfully: +"If you pull too hard on the pasteboard legs something dreadful may +happen. I--this dragon is--is about the only clothing I have on!" + +Ellis dropped the flipper, seized it again, and gazed into the scared +eyes of Jones. + +"For Heaven's sake, go easy," he hissed, "or the thing will come apart!" + +Jones, in a cold perspiration, stood knee-deep in the flood, not daring +to touch the flipper again. + +"You help here," he whispered, hoarsely. "If she stands up, now, you can +support her to camp, can't you?" + +Ellis bent over and looked into the gaping jaws of Fafnir the Dragon. + +"Miss Sandys," he said seriously, "do you think you could get on your +hind--on your feet?" + +The legs of the monster splashed, groping for the bottom; Ellis passed +his arm around the scaly body; Fafnir arose, rather wabbly, and took +one dripping step forward. + +[Illustration: "Beyond, rocking wildly in a gilded boat, sat two people +and a placid swan."] + +"I fancy we can manage it now, Jones," said Ellis, cheerfully, turning +around; but Jones did not answer; he was running away, dashing and +splashing down the flooded forest. Beyond, rocking wildly in a gilded +boat, sat two people and a placid swan. + +"Good Lord!" faltered Ellis, as the dragon turned with a little shriek. +"Is the whole Summer School being washed away?" + +"No," she said excitedly, "but the dam broke. Helen and Professor Rawson +tried to save the swan-boat--we were giving tableaux from "Lohengrin" +and "The Rheingold"--and--oh! oh! oh! such a torrent came! Helen--there +she is in armour--Helen tried to paddle the boat, but the swans pulled +the other way, and they flapped so wildly that Helen called for help. +Then one of the Rhine-maidens--Professor Rawson--waded in and got +aboard, but the paddle broke and they were adrift. Then one of those +horrid swans got loose, and everybody screamed, and the water rose +higher and higher, and nobody helped anybody, so, so--as I swim well, I +jumped in without waiting to undress--you see I had been acting the +dragon, Fafnir, and I went in just as I was; but the papier-mâché dragon +kept turning turtle with me, and first I knew I was being spun around +like a top." + +There was a silence; they stood watching Jones scrambling after the +swan-boat, which had come to grief in shallow water. Professor Rawson, +the Rhine-maiden, gave one raucous and perfunctory shriek as Jones +floundered alongside--for the garb of the normal Rhine-daughter is +scanty, and Professor Rawson's costume, as well as her maidenly +physique, was almost anything except redundant. + +As for Helen, sometime known as brown-eyes, she rose to her slim height, +all glittering in tin armour, and gave Jones a smile of heavenly +gratitude that shot him through and through his Norfolk jacket. + +"Don't look!" said Professor Rawson, in a voice which, between the +emotions of recent terror and present bashfulness, had dwindled to a +squeak. "Don't look; I'm going to jump." And jump she did, taking to the +water with a trifle less grace than the ordinary Rhine-maiden. + +There was a spattering splash, a smothered squawk which may have been +emitted by the swan, and the next moment Professor Rawson was churning +toward dry land, her wreath of artificial seaweed over one eye, her +spectacles glittering amid her dank tresses. + +Jones looked up at brown-eyes balancing in the bow of the painted boat. + +"I can get you ashore quite dry--if you don't mind," he said. + +She considered the water; she considered Jones; she looked carefully at +the wallowing Rhine-daughter. + +"Are you sure you can?" she asked. + +"Perfectly certain," breathed Jones. + +"I am rather heavy----" + +The infatuated man laughed. + +"Well, then, I'll carry the swan," she said calmly; and, seizing that +dignified and astonished bird, she walked demurely off the prow of the +gaudy boat into the arms of Jones. + +To Ellis and the grey-eyed dragon, and to Professor Rawson, who had +crawled to a dry spot on the ridge, there was a dreadful fascination in +watching that swaying pyramid of Jones, Lohengrin, and swan tottering +landward, knee-deep through the flood. The pyramid swayed dangerously at +times; but the girl in the tin armour clasped Jones around the neck and +clung to the off leg of the swan, and Jones staggered on, half-strangled +by the arm and buffeted by the flapping bird, until his oozing shoes +struck dry land. + +"Hurrah!" cried Ellis, his enthusiasm breaking out after an agonizing +moment of suspense; and Miss Sandys, forgetting her plight, waved her +lizard claws and hailed rescuer and rescued with a clear-voiced cheer as +they came up excited and breathless, hustling before them the outraged +swan, who waddled furiously forward, craning its neck and snapping. + +"_What is that?_" muttered Jones aside to Ellis as the dragon and +Lohengrin embraced hysterically. He glanced toward the Rhine-maiden, who +was hiding behind a tree. + +"Rhine wine with the cork pulled," replied Ellis, gravely. "Go up to +camp and get her your poncho. I'll do what I can to make things +comfortable in camp." + +The girl in armour was saying, "You poor, brave dear! How perfectly +splendid it was of you to plunge into the flood with all that pasteboard +dragon-skin tied to you--like Horatius at the bridge. Molly, I'm simply +overcome at your bravery!" + +And all the while she was saying this, Molly Sandys was saying: "Helen, +how did you ever dare to try to save the boat, with those horrid swans +flapping and nipping at you every second! It was the most courageous +thing I ever heard of, and I simply revere you, Helen Gay!" + +Jones, returning from camp with his poncho, said: "There's a jolly fire +in camp and plenty of provisions;" and sidled toward the tree behind +which Professor Rawson was attempting to prevent several yards of +cheese cloth from adhering too closely to her outline. + +"Go away!" said that spinster, severely, peering out at him with a +visage terminating in a length of swan-like neck which might have been +attractive if feathered. + +"I'm only bringing you a poncho," said Jones, blushing. + +Ellis heard a smothered giggle behind him, but when he turned Molly +Sandys had shrunk into her dragon-skin, and Helen Gay had lowered the +vizor of her helmet. + +"I think we had better go to the camp-fire," he said gravely. "It's only +a step." + +"We think so, too," they said. "Thank you for asking us, Mr. Ellis." + +So Ellis led the way; after him slopped the dragon, its scaled tail +dragging sticks and dead leaves in its wake; next waddled the swan, +perforce, prodded forward by the brown-eyed maid in her tin armor. +Professor Rawson, mercifully disguised in a rubber poncho, under which +her thin shins twinkled, came in the rear, gallantly conducted by Jones +in oozing shoes. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE SIMPLEST SOLUTION OF AN ANCIENT PROBLEM + + +In the silence befitting such an extraordinary occasion the company +formed a circle about the camp-fire. + +Presently Professor Rawson looked sharply at the damp dragon. "Child!" +she exclaimed, "you ought to take that off this instant!" + +"But--but I haven't very much on," protested Molly Sandys with a shiver. +"I'm only dressed as a--a page." + +"It can't be helped," retorted the professor with decision; "that dragon +is nothing but soaking pulp except where the tail is on fire!" + +Ellis hastily set his foot on the sparks, just as Molly Sandys jumped. +There was a tearing, ripping sound, a stifled scream, and three-quarters +of a page in blue satin and lisle thread, wearing the head and shoulders +of a dragon, shrank down behind Professor Rawson's poncho-draped figure. + +"Here's my poncho," cried Ellis, hastily; "I am awfully sorry I ripped +your gown--I mean your pasteboard tail--but you switched it into the +fire and it was burning." + +"Have you something for me?" inquired Miss Gay, coloring, but calm; "I'm +not very comfortable, either." + +Jones's enraptured eyes lingered on the slim shape in mail; he hated to +do it, but he brought a Navajo blanket and draped in it the most +distractingly pretty figure his rather nearsighted eyes had ever +encountered. + +"There," explained Ellis, courteously, "is the shanty. I've hung a +blanket over it. Jones and I will sleep here by the fire." + +"Sleep!" faltered Molly Sandys. "I think we ought to be starting----" + +"The forests are flooded; we can't get you back to the Summer School +to-night," said Ellis. + +Professor Rawson shuddered. "Do you mean that we are cut off from +civilization entirely?" she asked. + +"Look!" replied Ellis. + +The ridge on which the camp lay had become an island; below it roared a +spreading flood under a column of mist and spray; all about them the +water soused and washed through the forest; below them from the forks +came the pounding thunder of the falls. + +"There's nothing to be alarmed at, of course," he said, looking at Molly +Sandys. + +The grey eyes looked back into his. "Isn't there, really?" she asked. + +"Isn't there?" questioned Miss Gray's brown eyes of Jones's pleasant, +nearsighted ones. + +"No," signalled the orbs of Jones through his mud-spattered eyeglasses. + +"I'm hungry," observed Professor Rawson in a patient but plaintive +voice, like the note of a widowed guinea-hen. + +So they all sat down on the soft pine-needles, while Ellis began his +culinary sleight-of-hand; and in due time trout were frying merrily, +bacon sputtered, ash-cakes and coffee exhaled agreeable odors, and +mounds of diaphanous flapjacks tottered in hot and steaming fragrance on +either flank. + +There were but two plates; Jones constructed bark platters for Professor +Rawson, Ellis and himself; Helen Gay shared knife and fork with Jones; +Molly Sandys condescended to do the same for Ellis; Professor Rawson had +a set of those articles to herself. + +And there, in the pleasant glow of the fire, Molly Sandys, cross-legged +beside Ellis, drank out of his tin cup and ate his flapjacks; and Helen +Gay said shyly that never had she tasted such a banquet as this forest +fare washed down with bumpers of icy, aromatic spring water. As for +Professor Rawson, she lifted the hem of her poncho and discreetly dried +that portion of the Rhine-maiden's clothing which needed it; and while +she sizzled contentedly, she ate flapjack on flapjack, and trout after +trout, until merriment grew within her and she laughed when the younger +people laughed, and felt a delightful thrill of recklessness tingling +the soles of her stockings. And why not? + +"It's a very simple matter, after all," declared Jones; "it's nothing +but a state of mind. I thought I was leading a simple life before I came +here, but I wasn't. Why? Merely because I was _not_ in a state of mind. +But"--and here he looked full at Helen Gay--"but no sooner had I begun +to appreciate the charm of the forest"--she blushed vividly "no sooner +had I realised what these awful solitudes might contain, than, +instantly, I found myself in a state of mind. Then, and then only, I +understood what heavenly perfection might be included in that frayed and +frazzled phrase, 'The Simple Life.'" + +"I understood it long ago," said Ellis, dreamily. + +"Did you?" asked Molly Sandys. + +"Yes--long ago--about six hours ago"--he lowered his voice, for Molly +Sandys had turned her head away from the firelight toward the cooler +shadow of the forest. + +"What happened," she asked, carelessly, "six hours ago?" + +"I first saw you." + +"No," she said calmly; "I first saw you and took your picture!" She +spoke coolly enough, but her color was bright. + +"Ah, but before that shutter clicked, convicting me of a misdemeanor, +your picture had found a place----" + +"Mr. Ellis!" + +"Please let me----" + +"No!" + +"Please----" + +A silence. + +"Then you must speak lower," she said, "and pretend to be watching the +stream." + +Professor Rawson gleefully scraped her plate and snuggled up in her +poncho. She was very happy. When she could eat no more she asked Jones +what his theory might be concerning Wagner's influence on Richard +Strauss, and Jones said he liked waltzes, but didn't know that the man +who wrote The Simple Life had anything to do with that sort of thing. +And Professor Rawson laughed and laughed, and quoted a Greek proverb; +and presently arose and went into the shanty, dropping the blanket +behind her. + +"Don't sit up late!" she called sleepily. + +"Oh, _no_!" came the breathless duet. + +"And don't forget to feed the swan!" + +"Oh, _no_!" + +A few minutes later a gentle, mellow, muffled monotone vibrated in the +evening air. It was the swan-song of Professor Rawson. + +Ellis laid fresh logs on the blaze, lighted a cigarette, and returned to +his seat beside Molly Sandys, who sat, swathed in her poncho, leaning +back against the base of a huge pine. + +"Jones _is_ right," he said; "the simple life--the older and simpler +emotions, the primal desire--_is_ a state of mind." + +Molly Sandys was silent. + +"And a state of--heart." + +Miss Sandys raised her eyebrows. + +"Why be insincere?" persisted Ellis. + +"I'm not!" + +"No--no--I didn't mean you. I meant everybody----" + +"I'm somebody----" + +"Indeed you _are_!"--much too warmly; and Molly Sandys looked up at the +evening star. + +"The simple life," said Ellis, "is an existence replete with sincerity. +Impulse may play a pretty part in it; the capacity for the enjoyment of +simple things grows out of impulse; and impulse is a child's reasoning. +Therefore, impulse, being unsullied, unaffected in its source, is to be +respected, cherished, guided into a higher development, so that it may +become a sweet reasonableness, an unerring philosophy. Am I right, Miss +Sandys?" + +"I think you are." + +"Well, then, following out my theorem logically, what is a man to do +when, without an instant's warning, he finds himself----" + +There was a pause, a long one. + +"Finds himself where?" asked Molly Sandys. + +"In love." + +"I--I don't know," she said, faintly. "Doesn't the simple life teach him +what is--is proper--on such brief acquaintance----" + +"_I_ didn't say the acquaintance was brief. I only said the love was +sudden." + +"Oh--then I--I don't know----" + +"M-Mo-Mi-M-M----" + +He wanted to say "Molly," and he didn't want to say "Miss Sandys," and +he couldn't keep his mouth shut, so that was the phonetic result--a +muttering monotone which embarrassed them both and maddened him till he +stammered out: "The moment I saw you I--I can't help it; it's the +simplest thing to do, anyhow--to tell you----" + +"Me!" + +"You, M-M-Mo-Mi-M----" He couldn't say it. + +"Try," she whispered, stifling with laughter. + +"Molly!" Like a cork from a popgun came the adored yet dreaded name. + +Molly turned scarlet as Miss Gay and Jones looked up in pure amazement +from the farther side of the camp-fire. + +"_Don't_ you know how to make love?" she whispered in a fierce little +voice; "_don't_ you? If you don't I am going off to bed." + +"Molly!" That was better--in fact, it was so low that she could scarcely +hear him. But she said: "Doesn't Helen Gay look charming in her tin +armour? She _is_ the dearest, sweetest girl, Mr. Ellis. She's my cousin. +Do you think her pretty?" + +"Do you know," whispered Ellis, "that I am in dead earnest?" + +"Why, I--I hope so." + +"Then tell me what chance I stand. I am in love; it came awfully +quickly, as quickly as you snapped that kodak--but it has come to +stay----" + +"But I am not in--love. + +"That is why I speak. I can't endure it to let you go--Heaven knows +where----" + +"Only to New York," she said, demurely, and, in a low voice, she named +the street and the number. "In an interval of sanity you shall have an +opportunity to reflect on what you have said to me, Mr. Ellis. Being +a--a painter--and a rather famous one--for so young a man--you are, no +doubt, impulsive--in love with love--_not_ with a girl you met six hours +ago." + +"But if I _am_ in love with her?" + +"We will argue that question another time." + +"In New York?" + +She looked at him, a gay smile curving her lips. Suddenly the clear, +grey eyes filled; a soft, impulsive hand touched his for an instant, +then dropped. + +"Be careful," she said, unsteadily; "so far, I also have only been in +love with love." + +Stunned by the rush of emotion he rose to his feet as she rose, eye +meeting eye in audacious silence. + +Then she was gone, leaving him there--gone like a flash into the +camp-hut; he saw the blanket twitching where she had passed behind it; +he heard the muffled swan-song of her blanket-mate; he turned his +enchanted eyes upon Jones. Jones, his elbows on the ground, chin on his +palms, was looking up into the rapt face of Helen Gay, who sat by the +fire, her mailed knees gathered up in her slim hands, the reflection of +the blaze playing scarlet over her glittering tin armour. + +"Why may I not call you Helen?" he was saying. + +"Why should you, Mr. Jones?" + +The infatuated pair were oblivious of him. _Should_ he sneeze? No; his +own case was too recent; their attitude fascinated him; he sat down +softly to see how it was done. + +"If--some day--I might be fortunate enough to call you more than +Helen----" + +"Mr. Jones!" + +"I can't help it; I love you so--so undauntedly that I have got to tell +you _something_ about it! You don't mind, do you?" + +"But I _do_ mind." + +"Very much?" + +Ellis thought: "Is _that_ the way a man looks when he says things like +that?" He shuddered, then a tremor of happiness seized him. Molly Sandys +had emerged from the hut. + +Passing the fire, she came straight to Ellis. "It's horrid in there. +Don't you hear her? It's muffled, I know, because she's taken the swan +to bed with her, and it's asleep, too, and acting as though Professor +Rawson's head were a nest-egg. I am not sleepy; I--I believe I shall sit +up by this delightful fire all night. Make me a nest of blankets." + +Jones and Helen were looking across the fire at them in silence; Ellis +unrolled some blankets, made a nest at the foot of the pine full in the +fire-glow. Swathed to her smooth white throat, Molly sank into them. + +"Now," she said, innocently, "we can talk. Helen! Ask Mr. Jones to make +some coffee. Oh, _thank_ you, Mr. Jones! Isn't this perfectly delicious! +So simple, so primitive, so sincere"--she looked at Ellis--"so jolly. If +the simple life is only a state of mind I can understand how easy it is +to follow it to sheerest happiness." And in a low voice, to Ellis: "Can +_you_ find happiness in it, too?" + +Across the fire Helen called softly to them: "Do you want some toasted +cheese, too? Mr. Jones knows how to make it." + +A little later, Jones, toasting bread and cheese, heard a sweet voice +softly begin the Swan-Song. It was Helen. Molly's lovely, velvet voice +joined in; Ellis cautiously tried his barytone; Jones wisely remained +mute, and the cheese sizzled a discreet tremolo. It was indeed the +swan-song of the heart-whole and fancy-free--the swan-song of the +unawakened. For the old order of things was passing away--had passed. +And with the moon mounting in silvered splendor over the forest, the +newer order of life--the simpler, the sweeter--became so plain to them +that they secretly wondered, as they ate their toast and cheese, how +they could have lived so long, endured so long, the old and dull +complexity of a life through the eventless days of which their hearts +had never quickened to the oldest, the most primitive, the simplest of +appeals. + +And so, there, under the burnished moon, soberly sharing their toasted +cheese, the muffled swan-song of the incubating maiden thrilling their +enraptured ears, began for them that state of mind in the inviolate +mystery of which the passion for the simpler life is hatched. + +"If we only had a banjo!" sighed Helen. + +"I have a jew's-harp," ventured Jones. "I am not very musical, but every +creature likes to emit some sort of melody." + +Ellis laughed. + +"Why not?" asked Helen Gay, quickly; "after all, what simpler instrument +can you wish for?" And she laughed at Jones in a way that left him +light-headed. + +So there, in the moonlight and the shadows of the primeval pines, +Jones--simplest of men with simplest of names--produced the simplest of +all musical instruments, and, looking once into the beautiful eyes of +Helen, quietly began the simplest of all melodies--the Spanish Fandango. + +And for these four the simple life began. + + * * * * * + +I waited for a few moments, but Williams seemed to consider that there +was nothing more to add. So I said: + +"Did they marry those two girls?" + +He glanced at me in a preoccupied manner without apparently +understanding. + +"Did they marry 'em?" I repeated, impatiently. + +"What? Oh, yes, of course." + +"Then why didn't you say so?" + +"I didn't have to say so. Didn't you notice the form in which I ended?" + +"What's that got to do with it? You're not telling me a short story, +you're telling me what really happened. And what really happens never +ends artistically." + +"It does when I tell it," he said, with a self-satisfied smile. "Let +Fate do its worst; let old man Destiny get in his work; let Chance fix +up things to suit herself. I wait until that trio finishes, then _I_ +step in and tell the truth in my own way. And, by gad! when I get +through, Fate, Chance, and Destiny set up a yell of impotent fury and +Truth looks at herself in the mirror in delighted astonishment, amazed +to discover in herself attractions which she never suspected." + +"In other words," said I, "Fate no longer has the final say-so." + +"Not while the short-story writer exists," he grinned. "It's up to him. +Fate slaps your face midway in a pretty romance. All right. But when I +make a record of the matter I pick, choose, sort, re-assort my box of +words, and when things are going too rapidly I wink at Fate with my +tongue in my cheek and round up everybody so amiably that nobody knows +exactly what did happen--and nobody even stops to think because +everybody has already finished the matter in their own minds to their +own satisfaction." + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER XVII + +SHOWING HOW IT IS POSSIBLE FOR ANY MAN TO MAKE OF HIMSELF A CHUMP + + +After a while I repeated: "They _did_ marry, didn't they?" + +"What do _you_ think?" + +"I'm perfectly certain they did." + +"Well, then, what more do you want?" he laughed. + +"Another of your reminiscences disguised as fiction," I said, tinkling +my spoon on the edge of my tumbler to attract the waiter. + +"Two more," I said, lighting a caporal cigarette, the penetrating aroma +of which drifted lazily through forgotten years, drawing memory with it +in its fragrant back-draught. + +"Do you remember Seabury's brother?" he asked. + +"Beaux Arts? Certainly. Architect, wasn't he?" + +"Yes, but he came into a lot of money and started for home to hit a +siding." + +"Little chump," I said; "I remember him. There was a promising architect +spoiled." + +"Oh, I don't know. He is doing a lot to his money." + +"Good?" + +"Of course. Otherwise I should have said that his money is doing a lot +to him." + +"Cut out these fine shades and go back to galley-proof," I said, +sullenly. "What about him, anyway?" + +Williams said, slowly: "A thing happened to that man which had no right +to happen anywhere except in a musical comedy. But," he shrugged his +shoulders, "everybody's lives are really full of equally grotesque +episodes. The trouble is that the world is too serious to discover any +absurdity in itself. We writers have to do that for it. For example, +there was Seabury's brother. Trouble began the moment he saw her." + +"Saw who?" I interrupted. + +"Saw her! Shut up!" + +I did so. He continued: + + * * * * * + +They encountered one another under the electric lights in the wooden +labyrinth which forms the ferry terminal of the Sixth Avenue Elevated +Railroad, she hastening one way, he hurrying the opposite. There was +ample room for them to pass each other; it may have been because she was +unusually pretty, it may have been his absent-mindedness, but he made +one of those mistakes which everybody makes once in a lifetime: he +turned to the left, realised what he was doing, wheeled hastily to the +right--as she, too, turned--only to meet her face to face, politely +dodge, meet again, lose his head and begin a heart-breaking +contra-dance, until, vexed and bewildered, she stood perfectly still, +and he, redder than she, took the opportunity to slink past her and +escape. + +"Hey!" said a sarcastic voice, as, blinded with chagrin, he found +himself attempting to force a locked wooden gate. "You want to go the +other way, unless you're hunting for the third rail." + +"No, I don't," he said, wrathfully; "I want to go uptown." + +"That's what I said; you want to go the other way, even if you don't +know where you want to go," yawned the gateman disdainfully. + +Seabury collected his scattered wits and gazed about him. Being a New +Yorker, and acquainted with the terminal labyrinth, he very quickly +discovered his error, and, gripping suit-case and golf-bag more firmly, +he turned and retraced his steps at the natural speed of a good New +Yorker, which is a sort of a meaningless lope. + +Jammed into the familiar ticket line, he peered ahead through the yellow +glare of light and saw the charming girl with whom he had danced his +foolish contra-dance just receiving her ticket from the boxed automaton. +Also, to his satisfaction, he observed her disappear through the +turnstile into the crush surging forward alongside of the cars, and, +when he presently deposited his own ticket in the chopper's box, he had +no more expectation of ever again seeing her than he had of doing +something again to annoy and embarrass her. + +But even in Manhattan Destiny works overtime, and Fate gets busy in a +manner that no man knoweth; and so, personally though invisibly +conducted, Seabury lugged his suit-case and golf-bag aboard a train, +threaded his way into a stuffy car and took the only empty seat +remaining; and a few seconds later, glancing casually at his right-hand +neighbour, he blushed to find himself squeezed into a seat beside his +unusually attractive partner in the recent contra-dance. + +That she had already seen him, the calm indifference in her blue eyes, +the poise of her flushed face, were evidence conclusive. + +He shrank back, giving her all the room he could, set his bag of +golf-clubs between his knees, and looked innocent. First, as all New +Yorkers do, he read the line of advertisements opposite with the usual +personal sense of resentment; then he carelessly scanned the people +across the aisle. As usual, they resembled everybody he had never +particularly noticed; he fished out the evening paper, remembered that +he had read it on the ferryboat, stuck it into his golf-bag, and +contemplated the battered ends of his golf-clubs. + +Station after station flashed yellow lamps along the line of car +windows; passengers went and passengers took their places; in one of the +streets below he caught a glimpse of a fire engine vomiting sparks and +black smoke; in another an ambulance with a squalid assemblage crowded +around a policeman who was emerging from a drug store. + +He had pretty nearly succeeded in forgetting the girl and his +mortification; he cast a calmly casual glance over his well-fitting +trousers and shoes. The edge of a shoe-lace lay exposed, and he +leisurely remedied this untidy accident, leaning over and tying the lace +securely with a double knot. + +Fourteenth, Eighteenth, Twenty-third, ran the stations. He gathered his +golf-bag instinctively and sat alert, prepared to rise and leave the car +with dignity. + +"Twenty-eighth!" It was his station. Just as he rose the attractive girl +beside him sprang up, and at the same instant his right leg was jerked +from under him and he sat down in his seat with violence. Before he +comprehended what had happened, the girl, with a startled exclamation, +fell back into her seat, and he felt a spasmodic wrench at his foot +again. + +Astonished, he struggled to rise once more, but something held him--his +foot seemed to be caught; and as he turned he encountered her bewildered +face and felt another desperate tug which brought him abruptly into his +seat again. + +"What on earth is the matter?" he asked. + +[Illustration: "'I--I don't know,' she stammered; 'my shoe seems tied to +yours.'"] + +"I--I don't know," she stammered; "my shoe seems to be tied to yours." + +"Tied!" he cried, bending down in a panic, "wasn't that _my_ shoe-lace?" +His golf-bag fell, he seized it and set it against the seat between +them. "Hold it a moment," he groaned. "I tied your shoe-lace to mine!" + +"_You_ tied it!" she repeated, furiously. + +"I saw a shoe-lace--I thought it was mine--I tied it fast--in a +d-d-double knot----" + +"Untie it at once!" she said, crimson to the roots of her hair. + +"Great Heavens, madam! I didn't mean to do it! I'll fix it in a +moment----" + +"Don't," she whispered, fiercely; "the people opposite are looking at +us! Do you wish to hold us both up to ridicule?" He straightened up, +thoroughly flurried. + +"But--this is my station--" he began. + +"It is mine, too. I'd rather sit here all night than have those people +see you untie your shoe from mine! How--how _could_ you----" + +"I've explained that I didn't mean to do it," he returned, dropping into +the breathless undertone in which she spoke. "Happening to glance down, +I saw a shoe-lace end and thought my shoe was untied----" + +She looked at him scornfully. + +"And I tied it tight, that's all. I'm horribly mortified; this is the +second time I've appeared to disadvantage----" + +"People in New York usually turn to the right; even horses----" + +"I doubt," he said, "that you can make me feel much worse than I feel +now, but it's a sort of a horrible relief to know what a fool you think +me." + +She said nothing, sitting there, cooling her hot face in the breeze +from the forward door; he, numb with chagrin, stole an apprehensive +glance at the passengers opposite. Nobody appeared to have observed +their plight, and he ventured to say so in a low voice. + +"Are you certain?" she asked, her own voice not quite steady. + +"Perfectly. Look! Nobody is eying our feet." + +Her own small feet were well tucked up under her gown; she instinctively +drew them further in; he felt a little tug; they both coloured +furiously. + +"This is simply unspeakable," she said, looking straight ahead of her +through two bright tears of mortification. + +"Suppose," he whispered, "you edge your foot a trifle this way--I think +I can cut the knot with my penknife--" He glanced about him stealthily. +"Shall I try?" + +"Not now. Wait until those people go." + +"But some of them may live in Harlem." + +"I--I can't help it. Do you suppose I'm going to let you lean over +before all those people and try to untie our shoes?" + +"Do you mean to sit here until they're all gone?" he asked, appalled. + +"I do. Terrible as the situation is, we've got to conceal it." + +"Even if some of them go to the end of the line?" + +"I don't care!" She turned on him with a hint of that pretty fierceness +again. "Do you know what you've done? You've affronted and mortified me +and humiliated me beyond endurance. I have a guest to dine with me: I +shall not arrive before midnight!" + +"Do you suppose," he said miserably, "that anything you say can add to +my degradation? Can't you imagine how a man must feel who first of all +makes a four-footed fool of himself before the most attractive girl +he----" + +"Don't say that!" she cried, hotly. + +"Yes, I will! You are! And I dodged and tumbled about like a headless +chicken and ran into the wrong gate. I wish I'd climbed out on the third +rail! And then, when I hoped I'd never see you again, I found myself +beside you, and--Good Heavens! I lost no time in beginning my capers +again and doing the most abandoned deed a man ever accomplished on +earth!" + +She appeared to be absorbed in contemplation of a breakfast-food +advertisement; her color was still high; at times she worried her under +lip with her white teeth, but her breath rose and fell under the fluffy +bosom of her gown with more regularity, and the two bright tears in her +eyes had dried unshed. Wrath may have dried them. + +"I wish it were possible," he said very humbly, "for you to see the +humour----" + +"Humour!" she repeated, menacingly. + +"No--I didn't mean that, I meant the--the----" + +"You did! You meant the humour of the situation. I will answer you. I do +_not_ see the humour of it!" + +"You are quite right," he admitted, looking furtively at the edge of her +gown which concealed his right foot. "It is, as you say, simply ghastly +to be tied together by the feet. Don't you suppose I could--without +awakening suspicion--cut the--the laces with a penknife?" + +"I beg you will attempt nothing whatever until this car is empty." + +"Certainly," he said. "I will do anything in the world I can to spare +you." + +She did not reply, and he sat there nervously balanced on the edge of +his seat, watching the lights of Harlem flash into view below. He had +been hungry; he was no longer. Appetite had been succeeded by a gnawing +anxiety. Again and again warm waves of shame overwhelmed him, +alternating with a sort of wild-eyed pity for the young girl who sat so +rigidly beside him, face averted. Once a mad desire to laugh seized him; +he wondered whether it might be a premonition of hysteria, and +shuddered. It did not seem as though he could possibly endure it +another second to be tied by the foot to this silently suffering and +lovely companion. + +"Do you think," he said, hoarsely, "at the next station that if we rose +together--and kept step----" + +She shook her head. + +"A--a sort of lock-step," he explained, timidly. + +"I would if I thought it possible," she replied under her breath; "but I +dare not. Suppose you should miss step! You are likely to do anything if +it's only sufficiently foolish." + +"You could take my arm and pretend you are my lame sister," he ventured. + +"Suppose the train started. Suppose, by any one of a thousand possible +accidents, you should become panic-stricken. What sort of a spectacle +would we furnish the passengers of this car? No! No! No! The worst of it +is almost over. My guest is there--astounded at my absence. Before I am +even half-way back to Twenty-eighth Street she will have become +sufficiently affronted to leave the house. I might as well go on to the +end of the road." She turned toward him hastily: "Where is the end of +this road?" + +"Somewhere in the Bronx, I believe," he said, vaguely. + +"That is hours from Twenty-eighth Street, isn't it?" + +"I believe so." + +The train whirled on; stations were far between, now. He sat so silent, +so utterly broken and downcast, that after a long while she turned to +him with a hint of softness in her stern reserve. + +"Of course," she said, "I do not suppose you deliberately intended to +tie our feet together. I am not absurd. But the astonishment, the horror +of finding what you had done exasperated me for a moment. I'm cool +enough now; besides, it is perfectly plain that you are the sort of man +one is--is accustomed to know." + +"I hope not!" he said, devoutly. + +"Oh, I mean--" She hesitated, and the glimmer of a smile touched her +eyes, instantly extinguished, however. + +"I understand," he said. "You mean that it's lucky your shoe-laces are +tied to the shoe-lace of a man of your own sort. I hope to Heaven you +may find a little comfort in that." + +"I do," she said, with the uncertain violet light in her eyes again. +"It's bad enough, goodness knows, but I--I am very sure you did not +mean----" + +"You are perfectly right; I mean well, as they say of all chumps. And +the worst of it is," he added, wildly, "I never before knew that I was +a chump! I never before saw any symptoms. Would you believe me, I never +in all my life have been such an idiot as I was in those first few +minutes that I crossed your path. How on earth to account for it; how to +explain, to ask pardon, to--to ever forget it! As long as I live I shall +wake at night with the dreadful chagrin burning my ears off. Isn't it +the limit? And I--I shouldn't have felt so crushed if it had been +anybody excepting you----" + +"I do not understand," she said gravely. + +"I do," he muttered. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE MASTER KNOT OF HUMAN FATE + + +The conversation dropped there: she gazed thoughtfully out upon the +Teutonic magnificence of One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street by +gaslight; he, arms folded, relapsed into bitter contemplation of the +breakfast-food. So immersed he became in the picture of an unctuous +little boy stuffing himself to repletion under the admiring smirk of a +benevolent parent that he forgot his manacles, and attempting to stretch +his cramped leg, returned to his senses in a hurry. + +"I think," she suggested, quietly, "that, if you care to stretch, I +wouldn't mind it, either. Can you do it discreetly?" + +"I'll try," he said in a whisper. "Shall I count three?" + +She nodded. + +"One, two, three," he counted, and they cautiously stretched their legs. + +"I now know how the Siamese twins felt," he said, sullenly. "No wonder +they died young." + +She laughed--a curious, little laugh which was one of the most agreeable +sounds he had ever heard. + +"I take it for granted," he said, "that you will always cherish for me a +wholesome and natural hatred." + +"I shall never see you again," she replied, simply. + +That silenced him for a while; he fished about in his intellect to find +mitigating circumstances. There was none that he knew of. + +"Suppose--under pleasanter auspices, we should some day meet?" he +suggested. + +"We never shall." + +"How do you know?" + +"It is scarcely worth while speculating upon such an improbability," she +said, coldly. + +"But--suppose----" + +She turned toward him. "You desire to know what my attitude would be +toward you?" + +"Yes, I do." + +"It would be one of absolutely amiable indifference--if you really wish +to know," she said so sweetly that he was quite sure his entire body +shrank at least an inch. + +"By the way," she added, "the last passenger has left this car." + +"By Jove!" he exclaimed, sitting bolt upright. "Now's our time. Would +you mind----" + +"With the very greatest pleasure," she said, quickly; "please count one, +two, three." + +He counted; there came a discreet movement, and from under the hem of +her gown there appeared a dainty shoe, accompanied by a larger masculine +companion. He bent down, his fingers seemed to be all thumbs, and he +grew redder and redder. + +"Perhaps I can do it," she said, stripping off her gloves and bending +over. A stray tendril of bright hair brushed his cheek as their heads +almost came together. + +"Goodness, what a dreadful knot!" she breathed, her smooth fingers busy. +The perfume of her hair, her gloves, her gown thrilled him; he looked at +her face, now flushed with effort; his eyes fell on her delicate hands, +her distractingly pretty foot, in its small, polished shoe. + +"Patience," she said, calmly; "this knot must give way----" + +"If it doesn't----" + +"Madness lies that way," she breathed. "Wait! Don't dare to move your +foot!" + +"We are approaching a station; shall I cut it?" he asked. + +"No--wait! I think I have solved it. There!" she cried with a breathless +laugh. "We are free!" + +There was not an instant to lose, for the train had already stopped; +they arose with one accord and hurried out into the silvery Harlem +moonlight--which does not, perhaps, differ from normal moonlight, +although it seemed to him to do astonishing tricks with her hair and +figure there on the deserted platform, turning her into the loveliest +and most unreal creature he had ever seen in all his life. + +"There ought to be a train pretty soon," he said cheerfully. + +She did not answer. + +"Do you mind my speaking to you now that we are----" + +"Untethered?" she said with a sudden little flurry of laughter. "Oh, no; +why should I care what happens to me now, after taking a railroad +journey tied to the shoe-strings of an absent-minded stranger?" + +"Please don't speak so--so heartlessly----" + +"Heartlessly? What have hearts to do with this evening's lunacy?" she +asked, coolly. + +He had an idea, an instinctive premonition, but it was no explanation to +offer her. + +Far away up the track the starlike headlight of a train glittered: he +called her attention to it, and she nodded. Neither spoke for a long +while; the headlight grew larger and yellower; the vicious little train +came whizzing in, slowed, halted with a jolt. He put her aboard and +followed into a car absolutely empty save for themselves. When they had +gravely seated themselves side by side she looked around at him and said +without particular severity: "I can see no reason for our going back +together; can you?" + +"Yes," he answered with such inoffensive and guileless conviction that +she was silent. + +He went on presently: "Monstrous as my stupidity is, monumental ass as I +must appear to you, I am, as a matter of fact, rather a decent +fellow--the sort of man a girl need not flay alive to punish." + +"I do not desire to punish you. I do not expect to know you----" + +"Do you mean 'expect,' or 'desire'?" + +"I mean both, if you insist." There was a sudden glimmer in her clear +eyes that warned him; but he went on: + +"I beg you to give me a chance to prove myself not such a clown as you +think me." + +"But I don't think about you at all!" she explained. + +"Won't you give me a chance?" + +"How?" + +"Somebody you--we both know--I mean to say----" + +"You mean, will I sit here and compare notes with you to find out +whether we both know Tom, Dick, and Harry? No, I will not." + +"I mean--so that--if you don't mind--somebody can vouch for me----" + +"No," she said, decisively. + +"I mean--I would be so grateful--and I admire you tremendously----" + +"Please do not say that." + +"No--I won't, of course; I don't admire anybody very much, and I didn't +dream of being offensive--only--I--now that I've known you----" + +"You don't know me," she observed, icily. + +"No, of course, I don't know you at all; I'm only talking to you----" + +"A nice comment upon us both," she observed; "could anything be more +pitifully common?" + +"But being tied together, how could we avoid talking about it?" he +pleaded. "When you're tied up like that to a person, it's per--permitted +to speak, you know----" + +"We talked entirely too much," she said with decision. "Now we are not +tied at all, and I do not see what decent excuse we can have for +conversing about anything.... Do you?" + +"Yes, I do." + +"What excuse?" she asked. + +"Well, for one thing, a sense of humour. A nice spectacle we should be, +you in one otherwise empty car, I in another, bored to death----" + +"Do you think," she said, impatiently, "that I require anybody's society +to save myself from _ennui_?" + +"No--but I require----" + +"That is impertinent!" + +"I didn't mean to be; you must know that!" he said. + +She looked out of the window. + +"I wonder," he began in a cheerful and speculative tone, taking courage +from her silence--"I wonder whether you know----" + +"I will not discuss people I know with you," she said. + +"Then let us discuss people I know," he rejoined, amiably. + +"Please don't." + +"Please let me----" + +"No." + +"Are you never going to forgive me?" he asked. + +"I shall forget," she said, meaningly. + +"Me?" + +"Certainly." + +"Please don't----" + +"You are always lingering dangerously close to the border of +impertinence," she said. "I do not wish to be rude or ungracious. I have +been unpardonably annoyed, and--when I consider my present false +situation--I am annoyed still more. Let me be unmistakably clear and +concise; I do not feel any--anger--toward you; I have no feeling +whatever toward you; and I do not ever expect to see you again. Let it +rest so. I will drop you my best curtsey when you lift your hat to me at +Twenty-ninth Street. Can a guilty man ask more?" + +"Your punishment is severe," he said, flushing. + +"My punishment? Who am I punishing, if you please?" + +"Me." + +"What folly! I entertain no human emotions toward you; I have no desire +to punish you. How could I punish you--if I wished to?" + +"By doing what you are doing." + +"And what is that?" she asked rather softly. + +"Denying me any hope of ever knowing you." + +"You are unfair," she said, biting her lip. "I do not deny you that +'hope,' as you choose to call it. Consider a moment. Had you merely seen +me on the train you could not have either hoped or even desired ever to +know me. Suppose for a moment--" she flushed, but her voice was cool and +composed "suppose you were attracted to me--thought me agreeable to look +at? You surely would never have dreamed of speaking to me and asking +such a thing. Why, then, should you take unfair advantage of an accident +and ask it now? You have no right to--nor have I to accord you what you +say you desire." + +She spoke very sweetly, meeting his eyes without hesitation. + +"May I reply to you?" he asked soberly. + +"Yes--if you wish." + +"You will not take it as an affront?" + +"Not--not if--" She looked at him. "No," she said. + +"Then this is my reply: Wherever I might have seen you I should +instantly have desired to know you. That desire would have caused you no +inquietude; I should have remained near you without offense, perfectly +certain in my own mind that somehow and somewhere I must manage to know +you; and to that end--always without offense, and without your +knowledge--I should have left the train when you did, satisfied myself +where you lived, and then I should have scoured the city, and moved +heaven and earth to find the proper person who might properly ask your +permission to receive me. That is what I should have done if I had +remained thirty seconds in the same car with you.... Are you offended?" + +"No," she said. + +They journeyed on for some time, saying nothing; she, young face bent, +sensitive lips adroop, perhaps considering what he said; he, cradling +his golf-sticks, trying to keep his eyes off her and succeeding very +badly. + +"I wonder what your name is?" she said, looking up at him. + +"James Seabury," he replied so quickly that it was almost pathetic. + +She mused, frowning a little: "Where have I heard your name?" she asked +with an absent-minded glance at him. + +"Oh--er--around, I suppose," he suggested, vaguely. + +"But I have heard it. Are you famous?" + +"Oh, no," he said quickly. "I'm an architect, or ought to be. Fact is, +I'm so confoundedly busy golfing and sailing and fishing and shooting +and hunting that I have very little time for business." + +"What a confession!" she exclaimed, laughing outright; and the beauty +that transfigured her took his breath away. But her laughter was brief, +her eyes grew more serious than ever: "So you are not in business?" + +"No." + +"I am employed," she said calmly, looking at him. + +"Are you?" he said, astonished. + +"So, you see," she added gaily, "I should have very little time to see +anybody----" + +"You mean me?" + +"Yes, you, for example." + +"You don't work all the while, do you?" he asked. + +"Usually." + +"All the time?" + +"I dine--at intervals." + +"That's the very thing!" he said with enthusiasm. + +She looked at him gravely. + +"Don't you see," he went on, "as soon as you'll let me know you my +sister will call, and then you'll call, and then my sister will +invite----" + +She was suddenly laughing again--a curious laugh, quite free and +unguarded. + +"Of course, you'll tell your sister how we met," she suggested; "she'll +be so anxious to know me when she hears all about it." + +"Do you suppose," he said coolly, "that I don't know one of my own sort +whenever or however I happen to meet her?" + +"Men cannot always tell; I grant you women seldom fail in placing one +another at first glance; but men rarely possess that instinct.... +Besides, I tell you I am employed." + +"What of it? Even if you wore the exceedingly ornamental uniform of a +parlor-maid it could not worry me." + +"Do you think your sister would hasten to call on a saleswoman at +Blumenshine's?" she asked carelessly. + +"Nobody wants her to," he retorted, amused. + +"Or on a parlor-maid--for example?" + +"Let her see you first; you can't shock her after that.... Are you?" he +inquired gently--so gently, so pleasantly, that she gave him a swift +look that set his heart galloping. + +"Do you really desire to know me?" she asked. But before he could answer +she sprang up, saying: "Good gracious! This is Twenty-eighth Street! It +seems impossible!" + +He could not believe it, either, but he fled after her, suit-case and +golf-bag swinging; the gates slammed, they descended the stairs and +emerged on Twenty-eighth Street. "I live on Twenty-ninth Street," she +said; "shall we say good-bye here?" + +"I should think not!" he replied with a scornful decision that amazed +her, but, curiously enough, did not offend her. They walked up +Twenty-eighth Street to Fifth Avenue, crossed, turned north under the +white flare of electricity, then entered Twenty-ninth Street slowly, +side by side, saying nothing. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE TIME AND THE PLACE + + +She halted at the portal of an old-fashioned house which had been turned +into an apartment hotel--a great brownstone mansion set back from the +street. A severely respectable porter in livery appeared and bowed to +her, but when his apoplectic eyes encountered Seabury's his shaven jaw +dropped and a curious spasm appeared to affect his knees. + +She did not notice it; she turned to Seabury and, looking him straight +in the face, held out her hand. + +"Good-night," she said. "Be chivalrous enough to find out who I +am--without sacrificing me.... You--you have not displeased me." + +He took her hand, held it a moment, then released it. + +"I live here," he said calmly. + +A trifle disconcerted, she searched his face. "That is curious," she +said uneasily. + +"Oh, not very. I have bachelor apartments here; I've been away from town +for three months. Here is my pass-key," he added, laughing, and to the +strangely paralyzed porter he tossed his luggage with a nod and a +pleasant: "You didn't expect me for another month, William, did you?" + +"That explains it," she said smiling, a tint of excitement in her pretty +cheeks. "I've been here only for a day or two." + +They were entering now, side by side; he followed her into the elevator. +The little red-haired boy, all over freckles and gilt buttons, who +presided within the cage, gaped in a sort of stupor when he saw Seabury. + +"Well, Tommy," inquired that young gentleman, "what's the matter?" + +"What floor?" stammered Tommy, gazing wildly from one to the other. + +"The usual one, in my case," said Seabury, surprised. + +"The usual one, in my case," said the girl, looking curiously at the +agitated lad. The cage shot up to the third floor; they both rose, and +he handed her out. Before either could turn the elevator hurriedly +dropped, leaving them standing there together. Then, to the +consternation of Seabury, the girl quietly rang at one of the only two +apartments on the floor, and the next instant a rather smart-looking +English maid opened the door. + +Seabury stared; he turned and examined the corridor; he saw the number +on the door of the elevator shaft; he saw the number over the door. + +"There seems to be," he began slowly, "something alarming the matter +with me to-night. I suppose--I suppose it's approaching dementia, but do +you know that I have a delusion that this apartment is mine?" + +"Yours!" faltered the girl, turning pale. + +"Well--it was once--before I left town. Either that or incipient lunacy +explains my hallucination." + +The maid stood at the door gazing at him in undisguised astonishment. +Her pretty mistress looked at her, looked at Seabury, turned and cast an +agitated glance along the corridor--just in time to catch a glimpse of +the curly black whiskers and the white and ghastly face of the +proprietor peering at them around the corner. Whiskers and pallor +instantly vanished. She looked at Seabury. + +"Please come in a moment, Mr. Seabury," she said calmly. He followed her +into the familiar room decorated with his own furniture, and lined with +his own books, hung with his own pictures. At a gesture from her he +seated himself in his own armchair; she sat limply in a chair facing +him. + +"Are these your rooms?" she asked unsteadily. + +"I thought so, once. Probably there's something the matter with me." + +"You did not desire to rent them furnished during your absence?" + +"Not that I know of." + +"And you have returned a month before they expected you, and I--oh, this +is infamous!" she cried, clenching her white hands. "How dared that +wretched man rent this place to me? How dared he!" + +A long and stunning silence fell upon them--participated in by the +British maid. + +Then Seabury began to laugh. He looked at the maid, he looked at her +angry and very lovely young mistress, looked at the tables littered with +typewriters and stationery, he caught sight of his own dining-room with +the little table laid for two. His gayety disconcerted her--he rose, +paced the room and returned. + +"It seems my landlord has tried to turn a thrifty penny by leasing you +my rooms!" he said, soberly. "Is that it?" + +She was close to tears, controlling her voice and keeping her +self-possession with a visible effort. "I--I am treasurer and secretary +for the new wing to--to St. Berold's Hospital," she managed to say. +"We--the women interested, needed an office--we employ several +typewriters, and--oh, goodness! What on earth will your sister think!" + +"My sister? Why, she's at Seal Harbor----" + +"Your sister was there visiting my mother. I came on to town to see our +architects; I wired her to come. She--she was to dine with me here +to-night! Sherry was notified!" + +"My sister?" + +"Certainly. What on earth did she think when she found me installed in +your rooms? And that's bad enough, but I invited her to dine and go over +the hospital matters--she's one of the vice presidents--and then--then +you tied our feet together and it's--what time is it?" she demanded of +her maid. + +"It is midnight, mem," replied the maid in sepulchral tones. + +"Is that man from Sherry's still there?" + +"He is, mem." + +Her mistress laid her charming head in her hands and covered her +agreeable features with a handkerchief of delicate and rather valuable +lace. + +The silence at last was broken by Seabury addressing the maid: "Is that +dinner spoiled?" + +"Quite, sir." + +Her mistress looked up hastily: "Mr. Seabury, you are not going to----" + +"Yes, I am; this is the time and the place!" And he rose with decision +and walked straight to the kitchen, where a stony-faced individual sat +amid the culinary ruins, a statue of despair. + +"What I want you to do," said Seabury, "is to fix up a salad and some of +the cold duck, and attend to the champagne. Meanwhile I think I'll go +downstairs; I have an engagement to kill a man." + +However, a moment later he thought better of it; _she_ was standing by +the mirror--his own mirror--touching her eyes with her lace handkerchief +and patting her hair with the prettiest, whitest hands. + +"Kill him? Never: I'll canonize him!" muttered Seabury, enchanted. +Behind him he heard the clink of glass and china, the pleasant sound of +ice. She heard it, too, and turned. + +"Of all the audacity!" she said in a low voice, looking at him under her +level brows. But there was something in her eyes that gave him +courage--and in his that gave her courage.... Besides, they were +dreadfully hungry. + + * * * * * + +"You refuse to tell me?" + +"I do," she said. "If you have not wit enough to find out my name +without betraying me to your sister you do not deserve to know my +name--or me." + +It was nearly two o'clock, they had risen, and the gay little flowery +table remained between them; the salad and duck were all gone. But the +froth purred in their frail glasses, breaking musically in the +candle-lit silence. + +"Will you tell me your name before I go?" + +"I will not." Her bright eyes and fair young face defied him. + +"Very well; as soon as I learn it I shall be more generous--for I have +something to tell you; and I'll do it, too!" + +"Are you sure you will?" she asked, flushing up. + +"Yes, I am sure." + +"I may not care to hear what you have to say, Mr. Seabury." + +They regarded one another intently, curiously. Presently her slender +hand fell as by accident on the stem of her wine-glass; he lifted his +glass: very, very slowly. She raised hers, looking at him over it. + +"To--what I shall tell you--when I learn your name!" he said, +deliberately. + +Faint fire burned in her cheeks; her eyes fell, then were slowly raised +to his; in silence, still looking at one another, they drank the toast. + + * * * * * + +"Dammit!" I said, impatiently, "is that all?" + +"Yes," he said, "that will be about all. I'm going home to bed." + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER XX + +DOWN THE SEINE + + +My daughter Alida and my daughter Dulcima had gone to drive with the +United States Ambassador and his daughter that morning, leaving me at +the Hôtel with instructions as to my behaviour in their absence, and +injunctions not to let myself be run over by any cab, omnibus, +automobile, or bicycle whatever. + +Considerably impressed by their solicitude, I retired to the +smoking-room, believing myself safe there from any form of vehicular +peril. But the young man from Chicago sauntered in and took a seat close +beside me, with benevolent intentions toward relieving my isolation. + +I preferred any species of juggernaut to his rough riding over the +English language, so I left him murkily enveloped in the fumes of his +own cigar and sauntered out into the street. + +The sky was cloudless; the air was purest balm. Through fresh clean +streets I wandered under the cool shadows of flowering chestnuts, and +presently found myself on the quay near the Pont des Arts, leaning over +and looking at the river slipping past between its walls of granite. + +In a solemn row below me sat some two dozen fishermen dozing over their +sport. Their long white bamboo poles sagged, their red and white +quill-floats bobbed serenely on the tide. Truly here was a company of +those fabled Lotus-eaters, steeped in slumber; a dreamy, passionless +band of brothers drowsing in the sunshine. + +Looking east along the grey stone quays I could see hundreds and +hundreds of others, slumbering over their fishpoles; looking west, the +scenery was similar. + +"The fishing must be good here," I observed to an aged man, leaning on +the quay-wall beside me. + +"_Comme ça_," he said. + +I leaned there lazily, waiting to see the first fish caught. I am an +angler myself, and understand patience; but when I had waited an hour by +my watch I looked suspiciously at the aged man beside me. He was asleep, +so I touched him. + +He roused himself without resentment. "Have you," said I, sarcastically, +"ever seen better fishing than this, in the Seine?" + +"Yes," he said; "I once saw a fish caught." + +"And when was that?" I asked. + +"That," said the aged man, "was in 1853." + +I strolled down to the lower quay, smoking. As I passed the row of +anglers I looked at them closely. They all were asleep. + +Just above was anchored one of those floating _lavoirs_ in which the +washerwomen of Paris congregate to beat your linen into rags with flat +wooden paddles, and soap the rags snow-white at the cost of a few +pennies. + +The soapsuds from the washing floated off among the lines of the +slumbering fishermen. Perhaps that was one reason why the fish were +absent from the scenery. On the other hand, however, I was given to +understand that a large sewer emptied into the river near the Pont des +Arts, and that the fishing was best in such choice spots. Still +something certainly was wrong somewhere, for either the sewer and the +soapsuds had killed the fish, or they had all migrated up the sewer on +an inland and subterranean picnic to meet the elite among the rats of +Paris, and spend the balance of the day. + +The river was alive with little white saucy steamboats, rushing up and +down the Seine with the speed of torpedo craft. There was a boat-landing +within a few paces of where I stood, so, when a boat came along and +stopped to discharge a few passengers, I stepped aboard, bound for +almost anywhere, and not over-anxious to get there too quickly. Neither +did I care to learn my own destination, and when the ticket agent in +naval uniform came along to inquire where I might be going, I told him +to sell me a pink ticket because it looked pretty. As all Frenchmen +believe that all Americans are a little mad, my request, far from +surprising the ticket agent, simply confirmed his national theory; and +he gave me my ticket very kindly, with an air of protection such as one +involuntarily assumes toward children and invalids. + +"You are going to Saint Cloud," he said. "I'll tell you when to get off +the boat." + +"Thank you," said I. + +"You ought to be going the other way," he added. + +"Why?" I asked. + +"Because Charenton lies the other way," he replied, politely, and passed +on to sell his tickets. + +Now I had forgotten much concerning Paris in my twenty years of absence. + +There was a pretty girl sitting on the bench beside me, with elbows +resting on the railing behind. I glanced at her. She was smiling. + +"Pardon, madame," said I, knowing enough to flatter her, though she had +"mademoiselle" written all over her complexion of peaches and +cream--"pardon, madame, but may I, a stranger, venture to address you +for a word of information?" + +"You may, monsieur," she said, with a smile which showed an edge of +white teeth under her scarlet lips. + +"Then, if you please, where is Charenton?" + +"Up the river," she replied, smiling still. + +"And what," said I, "is the principal feature of the town of Charenton?" + +"The Lunatic Asylum, monsieur." + +I thanked her and looked the other way. + +Our boat was now flying past the Louvre. Above in the streets I could +see cabs and carriages passing, and the heads and shoulders of people +walking on the endless stone terraces. Below, along the river bank, our +boat passed between an almost unbroken double line of dozing fishermen. + +Now we shot out from the ranks of _lavoirs_ and bathhouses, and darted +on past the Champ de Mars; past the ugly sprawling Eiffel Tower, past +the twin towers of the Trocadero, and out under the huge stone viaduct +of the Point du Jour. + +Here the banks of the river were green and inviting. Cafés, pretty +suburban dance-houses, restaurants, and tiny hotels lined the shores. I +read on the signs such names as "The Angler's Retreat," "At the Great +Gudgeon," "The Fisherman's Paradise," and I saw sign-boards advertising +fishing, and boats to let. + +"I should think," said I, turning to my pretty neighbor, "that it would +pay to remove these fisherman's signs to Charenton." + +"Why?" she asked. + +"Because," said I, "nobody except a Charentonian would ever believe that +any fish inhabit this river." + +"Saint Cloud! Saint Cloud!" called out the ticket-agent as the boat +swung in to a little wooden floating pier on the left bank of the river. + +The ticket-agent carefully assisted me over the bridge to the +landing-dock, and I whispered to him that I was the Duke of Flatbush and +would be glad to receive him any day in Prospect Park. + +Then, made merry at my own wit, I strolled off up the steps that led to +the bank above. + +There, perched high above the river, I found a most delightful little +rustic restaurant where I at once ordered luncheon served for me on the +terrace, in the open air. + +The bald waiter sped softly away to deliver my order, and I sipped an +Amer-Picon, and bared my head to the warm breeze which swept up the +river from distant meadows deep in clover. + +There appeared to be few people on the terrace. One young girl, however, +whom I had seen on the boat, I noticed particularly because she seemed +to be noticing me. Then, fearing that my stare might be misunderstood, I +turned away and soon forgot her when the bald waiter returned with an +omelet, bread and butter, radishes and a flask of white wine. + +Such an omelet! such wine! such butter! and the breeze from the west +blowing sweet as perfume from a nectarine, and the green trees waving +and whispering, and the blessed yellow sunshine over all---- + +"Pardon, monsieur." + +I turned. It was my pretty little Parisienne of the steamboat, seated at +the next small table, demurely chipping an egg. + +"I beg _your_ pardon," said I, hastily, for the leg of my chair was +pinning her gown to the ground. + +"It is nothing," she said brightly, with a mischievous glance under her +eyes. + +"My child," said I, "it was very stupid of me, and I am certainly old +enough to know better." + +"Doubtless, monsieur; and yet you do not appear to be very, very old." + +"I am very aged," said I--"almost forty-five." And I smiled a +retrospective smile, watching the bubbles breaking in my wine-glass. + +Memory began to work, deftly, among the debris of past years. I saw +myself a student of eighteen, gayly promenading Paris with my tutor, +living a monotonous colourless life in a city of which I knew nothing +and saw nothing save through the windows of my English pension or in the +featureless streets of the American quarter, under escort of my tutor +and my asthmatic aunt, Miss Janet Van Twiller. + +That year spent in Paris, to "acquire the language" in a house where +nothing but English was spoken, had still a vague, tender charm for me, +because in that year I was young. I grew older when I shook the tutor, +side-stepped my aunt, and moved across the river. + +Once, only once, had the placid serenity of that year been broken. It +was one day--a day like this in spring--when, for some reason, even now +utterly unknown to me, I deliberately walked out of the house alone in +defiance of my tutor and my aunt, and wandered all day long through +unknown squares and parks and streets intoxicated with my own freedom. +And I remember, that day--which was the twin of this--sitting on the +terrace of a tiny café in the Latin Quarter, I drifted into idle +conversation with a demure little maid who was sipping a red syrup out +of a tall thin glass. + +Twenty-seven years ago! And here I was again, in the scented spring +sunshine, with the same west wind whispering of youth and freedom, and +my heart not a day older. + +"My child," said I to the little maid, "twenty-seven years ago you drank +pink strawberry syrup in a tall iced glass." + +"I do not understand you, monsieur," she faltered. + +"You cannot, mademoiselle. I am drinking to the memory of my dead +youth." + +And I touched my lips to the glass. + +"I wonder," she said, under her breath, "what I am to do with the rest +of the day?" + +"I could have told you," said I--"twenty-seven years ago." + +"Perhaps you could tell me better now?" she said, innocently. + +I looked out into the east where the gold dome of the Tomb rose +glimmering through a pale-blue haze. "Under that dome lies an Emperor in +his crypt of porphyry," said I. "Deeper than his dust, bedded in its +stiff shroud of gold, lies my dead youth, sleeping forever in the heart +of this fair young world of spring." + +I touched my glass idly, then lifted it. + +"Yet," said I, "the pale sunshine of winter lies not unkindly on snow +and ice, sometimes. I drink to your youth and beauty, my child." + +"Is that all?" she asked, wonder-eyed. + +I thought a moment: "No, not all. Williams isn't the only autocratic +interpreter of Fate, Chance, and Destiny." + +"Williams!" she repeated, perplexed. + +"You don't know him. He writes stories for a living. But he'll never +write the story I might very easily tell you in the sunshine here." + +After a pause she said: "Are you going to?" + +"I think I will," I said. And my eyes fixed smiling upon the sunny +horizon, I began: + + * * * * * + +Now, part of this story is to be vague as a mirrored face at dusk; and +part is to be as precise as the reflection of green trees in the glass +of the stream; and all is to be as capricious as the flight of that +wonderful butterfly of the South which is called Ajax by the reverent, +and The White Devil by the profane. Incidentally, it is the story of +Jones and the Dryad. + +The profession of Jones was derided by the world at large. He collected +butterflies; and it may be imagined what the American public thought of +him when they did not think he was demented. But a large, +over-nourished and blasé millionaire, wearied of collecting pigeon-blood +rubies, first editions and Rembrandts, through sheer _ennui_ one day +commissioned Jones to gather for him the most magnificent and complete +collection of American butterflies that could possibly be secured--not +only single perfect specimens of the two sexes in each species, but +series on series of every kind, showing local varieties, seasonal +variations in size and colour, strange examples of albinism and +polymorphic phenomena--in fact, this large, benevolent and intellectual +capitalist wanted something which nobody else had, so he selected Jones +and damned the expense. Nobody else had Jones: that pleased him; Jones +was to secure specimens that nobody else had: and that would be doubly +gratifying. Therefore he provided Jones with a five-year contract, an +agreeable salary, turned him loose on a suspicious nation, and went back +to hunt up safe investments for an income the size of which had begun to +annoy him. + + * * * * * + +"This part of the story is clear enough, is it not, my child?" + +"Are _you_ Jones?" + +"Don't ask questions," I said, seriously. + +"The few delirious capers cut by Jones subsequent to the signing of the +contract consisted of a debauch at the Astor Library, a mad evening +with seven aged gentlemen at the Entomological Society, and the purchase +of a ticket to Florida. This last spasm was his undoing; he went for +butterflies, and the first thing he did was to trip over the maliciously +extended foot of Fate and fall plump into the open arms of Destiny. And +in a week he was playing golf. This part is sufficiently vague, I hope. +Is it?" + +She said it was; so I continued: + + * * * * * + +The Dryad, with her sleeves rolled up above her pretty elbows, was +preparing to assault a golf ball; Jones regarded the proceedings with +that inscrutable expression which, no doubt, is bestowed upon certain +creatures as a weapon for self-protection. + +"Don't talk to me while I'm driving," said the Dryad. + +"No," said Jones. + +"Don't even say 'no'!" insisted the Dryad. + +A sharp thwack shattered the silence; the golf ball sailed away toward +the fifth green, landing in a gully. "Oh, bother!" exclaimed the Dryad, +petulantly, as the small black caddie pattered forward, irons rattling +in his quiver. "Now, Mr. Jones, it is up to you"--doubtless a +classically mythological form of admonition common to Dryads but now +obsolete. + +The Dryad, receiving no reply, looked around and beheld Jones, net +poised, advancing on tiptoe across the green. + +"What is it--a snake?" inquired the Dryad in an unsteady voice. + +"It is The White Devil!" whispered Jones. + +The Dryad's skirts were short enough as it was, but she hastily picked +them up. She had a right to. "Does it bite?" she whispered, looking +carefully around in the grass. But all she could see was a strangely +beautiful butterfly settled on a blue wild blossom which swayed gently +in the wind on the edge of the jungle. So she dropped her skirts. She +had a right to. + +Now, within a few moments of the hour when Jones had first laid eyes on +her, and she on Jones, he had confided to her his family history, his +ambitions, his ethical convictions, and his theories concerning the four +known forms of the exquisite Ajax butterfly of Florida. She had been +young enough to listen without yawning--which places her age somewhere +close to eighteen. Besides, she had remembered almost everything that +Jones had said, which confirms a diagnosis of her disease. There could +be no doubt about it; the Dryad was afflicted with extreme Youth, for +she now recognized the butterfly from the eulogy of Jones, and her +innocent heart began a steady tattoo upon her ribs as Jones, on tiptoe, +crept nearer and nearer, net outstretched. + +The moment was solemn; breathless, hatless, bare-armed, the Dryad +advanced, skirts spread as though to shoo chickens. + +"Don't," whispered Jones. + +But the damage had been accomplished; Ajax jerked his pearl and ashen +banded wings, shot with the fiery crimson bar, flashed into the air, and +was gone like the last glimmer of a fading sun-spot. + +"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" cried the Dryad, clasping her highly ornamental +hands; "what on earth will you think of my stupidity?" + +"Nothing," said Jones, resolutely, swallowing hard and gazing at the +tangled jungle. + +"It was too stupid," insisted the Dryad; and, as the silence of Jones +assented, she added, "but it is not very nice of you to say so." + +"Why, I didn't," cried Jones. + +"You did," said the Dryad, tears of vexation in her blue eyes. "And to +pay for your discourtesy you shall make me a silk net and I shall give +up golf and spend my entire time in hunting for White Devils, to make +amends." + +The suggested penance appeared to attract Jones. + +"Give up golf--which I am perfectly mad about," repeated the Dryad, +"just because you were horrid when I tried to help you." + +"That will be delightful," said Jones, naïvely. "We will hunt Ajax +together--all day, every day----" + +"Oh, I shall catch--something--the first time I try," observed the +Dryad, airily. She teed up a practice ball, hit it a vicious whack, +followed its flight with narrowing blue eyes, and, turning placidly upon +Jones, smiled a dangerous smile. + +"If I don't catch an Ajax before you do I'll forfeit anything you +please," she said. + +"I'll take it," said Jones. + +"But," cried the Dryad, "what do you offer against it?" + +"Whatever I ask from you," he said, deliberately. + +"You are somewhat vague, Mr. Jones." + +"I won't be when I win." + +"Tell me what you want--if you win!" + +"What? With this caddie hanging around and listening?" The Dryad, +wide-eyed and flushed, regarded him in amazement. + +Jones picked up a pinch of wet sand from the box, moulded it with great +care into a tiny truncated cone, set it on the tee, set his ball on top +of it, whipped the air persuasively with his driver once or twice, and, +settling himself into the attitude popularly attributed to the Colossus +of Rhodes, hit the ball for the longest, cleanest drive he had ever +perpetrated. + +"Dryad," he said, politely, "it is now up to you." + + * * * * * + +Of all the exquisite creatures that float through the winter sunshine of +the semi-tropics this is the most exquisite and spirituelle. Long, +slender, swallow-tailed wings, tinted with pearl and primrose, crossed +with ashy stripes and double-barred with glowing crimson--this is the +shy, forest-haunting creature that the Dryad sought to snare, and sought +in vain. + +Sometimes, standing on the long, white shell roads, where myriads of +glittering dragon-flies sailed, far away a pale flash would catch the +sun for an instant; and "Ready! Look out!" would cry the Dryad. Vanity! +Swifter than a swallow the Ajax passed, a pearly blurr against the glare +of the white road; swish! swish! the silken nets swung in vain. + +"Oh, bother," sighed the Dryad. + +Again, in the dim corridors of the forest, where tall palms clustered +and green live oaks spread transparent shadows across palmetto thickets, +far in some sunlit glade a tiny wing-flash would bring the Dryad's +forest cry: "Quick! Oh, quick!" But the woodland ghost was gone. + +"Oh, bother, bother!" sighed the Dryad. "There are flowers--the +sparkleberry is in blossom--there is bloom on the China tree, but this +phantom never stops! Can nothing stop it?" + +Day after day, guarding the long, white road, the Dryad saw the phantom +pass--always flying north; day after day in the dim forest, the +hurrying, pale-winged, tireless creatures fled away, darting always +along some fixed yet invisible aërial path. Nothing lured them, neither +the perfumed clusters of the China-berry, nor the white forest flowers; +nothing checked them, neither the woven curtain of creepers across the +forest barrier, nor the jungle walled with palms. + +To the net of the Dryad and of Jones had fallen half a thousand jewelled +victims; the exquisite bronzed Berenice, the velvet and yellow +Palamedes, the great orange-winged creatures brilliant as lighted +lanterns. But in the gemmed symmetry of the casket the opalescent heart +was missing; and the Dryad, uncomforted, haunted the woodlands, roaming +in defiance of the turquoise-tinted lizards and the possible serpent +whose mouth is lined with snow-white membranes--prowling in contempt of +that coiled horror that lies waiting, S shaped, a mass of matted grey +and velvet diamond pattern from which two lidless eyes glitter +unwinking. + +"How on earth did anybody ever catch an Ajax?" inquired the Dryad at +the close of one fruitless, bootless day's pursuit. + +"I suppose," said Jones, "that every year or so the Ajax alights." That +was irony. + +"On what?" insisted the Dryad. + +"Oh, on--something," said Jones, vaguely. "Butterflies are, no doubt, +like the human species; flowers tempt some butterflies, mud-puddles +attract others. One or the other will attract our Ajax some day." + +That night Jones, with book open upon his knees, sat in the lamplight of +the great veranda and read tales of Ajax to the Dryad; how that, in the +tropics, Ajax assumes four forms, masquerading as Floridensis in winter +and as Telamonides in summer, and how he wears the exquisite livery of +Marcellus, too, and even assumes, according to a gentleman named Walsh, +a fourth form. Beautiful pictures of Ajax illumined the page where were +also engraved the signs of Mars and of Venus. The Dryad looked at these; +Jones looked at her; the rest of the hotel looked at them. Jones read +on. + +Sleepy-eyed the Dryad listened; outside in the burnished moonlight the +whippoorwill's spirit call challenged the star-set silence; and far away +in the blue night she heard the deep breathing of the sea. Presently the +Dryad slept in her rocking-chair, curved wrist propping her head; Jones +was chagrined. He need not have been, for the Dryad was dreaming of him. + + * * * * * + +There came a day late in April when, knee deep in palmetto scrub, the +Dryad and Jones stood leaning upon their nets and scanning the +wilderness for the swift-winged forest phantom they had sought so long. +Ajax was on the wing; glimpse after glimpse they had of him, a pale +shadow in the sun, a misty spot in the shadow, then nothing but miles of +palmetto scrub and the pink stems of tall pines. + +Suddenly an Ajax darted into the sunny glade where they stood, and a +ragged, faded brother Ajax fluttered up from the ground and, Ajax-like, +defied the living lightning. + +Wing beating wing they closed in battle, whirling round and round one +another above the palmetto thicket. The ragged and battered butterfly +won, the other darted away with the speed of a panic-stricken jacksnipe, +and his shabby opponent quietly settled down on a sun-warmed twig. + +Then it was that inspiration seized the Dryad: "Mr. Jones, you trick +wild ducks into gunshot range by setting painted wooden ducks afloat +close to the shore where you lie hidden. Catch that ragged Ajax, place +him upon a leaf, and who knows?" + +Decoy a butterfly? Decoy the forest phantom drunk with the exhilaration +of his own mad flight! It was the invention of a new sport. + +Scarcely appearing to move at all, so cautious was his progress, Jones +slowly drew near the basking and battle-tattered creature that had once +been Ajax. There was a swift drop of the silken net, a flutter, and all +was over. In the palm of Jones's hand, dead, lay the faded and torn +insect with scarce a vestige of former beauty on the motionless wings. + +Doubting, yet stirred to hope, he placed the dead butterfly on a +palmetto frond, wings expanded to catch the sun; and then, standing +within easy net-stroke, the excited Dryad and Jones strained their eyes +to catch the first far glimpse of Ajax in the wilderness. + +What was that distant flash of light? A dragon-fly sailing? There it is +again! And there again! Nearer, nearer, following the same invisible +aërial path. + +"Quick!" whispered the Dryad. A magnificent Ajax flashed across the +glade, turned an acute angle in mid-air, and in an instant hung hovering +over the lifeless insect on the palm leaf. + +Swish-h! A wild fluttering in the net, a soft cry of excitement from the +Dryad, and there, dead, in the palm of the hand of Jones, lay the first +perfect specimen, exquisite, flawless, beautiful beyond words. + +Before the Dryad could place the lovely creature in safety another Ajax +darted into the glade, sheered straight for the decoy, and the next +instant was fluttering, a netted captive. + +Then the excitement grew; again and again Ajax appeared in the vicinity; +and the tension only increased as the forest phantom, unseeing or +unheeding the decoy, darted on in a mad ecstasy of flight. + +No hunter, crouched in the reeds, could find keener excitement watching +near his decoys than the Dryad found that April day, motionless, almost +breathless, scanning the forest depths for the misty-winged phantom of +the tropic wilderness. One in six turned to the decoy; there were long, +silent intervals of waiting and of strained expectancy; there were false +alarms as a distant drifting dragon-fly glimmered in the sun; but one by +one the swift-winged victims dashed at the decoy and were taken in their +strength and pride and all their unsullied beauty. And when the sport of +that April morning was over, and when Denis, the Ethiopian, turned the +horses' heads homeward, Ajax Floridensis, Ajax Marcellus and Ajax +Telamonides were no longer mysteries to the Dryad and to Jones. + +But there was a deeper mystery to solve before returning to the vast +caravansary across the river; and while they hesitated to attack it, I, +mademoiselle, having met and defeated Ajax in fair and open trial of +cunning and of wit, think fit to throw a ray of modern light upon this +archaic tale. + +It is true that Ajax, of the family of Papilio, rivals the wind in +flight, and seldom, in spring and summer, deigns to alight. Yet I have +seen Ajax Telamonides alight in the middle of the roadway, and, netting +him, have found him fresh from the chrysalis, and therefore weak and +inexperienced. Ajax Floridensis I have taken with a net as he feasted on +the bunches of white sparkleberry on the edge of the jungle. + +Rarely have I seen Ajax seduced by the wild phlox blossoms, but I have +sometimes caught him sipping there. + +As for the decoy, I have used it and taken with it scores and scores of +Ajax butterflies which otherwise I could not have hoped to capture. This +is not all; the great Tiger Swallowtail of the orange groves can be +decoyed by a dead comrade of either sex; so, too, can the royal, +velvet-robed Palamedes butterfly; and when the imperial Turnus sails +high among the magnolias' topmost branches, a pebble cast into the air +near him will sometimes bring him fluttering down, following the stone +as it falls to the ground. These three butterflies, however, are +generally easily decoyed, and all love flowers. Yet, in experimenting +with decoys, I have never seen an Ajax decoy to any dead butterfly +except an Ajax; and the dead butterfly may be of either sex, and as +battered as you please. + +It is supposed by some that butterflies can distinguish colour and form +at no greater distance than five feet; and experiments in decoying +appear to bear out this theory. Butterflies decoy to their own species, +even to faded and imperfect ones. + +Of half a dozen specimens set out on leaves and twigs, among which were +Papilio Palamedes, Cresphontes, and Turnus, Ajax decoyed only to an +imperfect and faded Ajax, and finally, when among that brilliant array +of specimens a single upper wing of a dead Ajax was placed on a broad +leaf, Ajax came to it, ignoring the other perfect specimens. + +Yet Ajax will fight in single combat with any live butterfly, and so +will Palamedes, Turnus, and Cresphontes. + +If a female Luna moth is placed in a cage of mosquito netting and hung +out of the window at night she is almost certain to attract all the male +Luna moths in the neighbourhood before morning. In this case, as it is +in the case of the other moths of the same group, it is the odor that +attracts. + +But in the case of a dead Ajax butterfly it appears to be colour even +more than form; and it can scarcely be odor, because the Ajax +butterflies of both sexes decoy to a dead and dried butterfly of either +sex. With this abstruse observation, mademoiselle, I, personally, retire +into the jungle to peep out at a passing vehicle driven by an Ethiopian +known as Denis, and containing two young people of sexes diametrically +opposed. And I am pleasantly conscious that I can no longer conceal +their identity from you, mademoiselle. + +"No," she said, "I know who they are. Please continue about them." + +So I smiled and continued: + +"And after all these weeks, during which I have so faithfully +accompanied you, are you actually going to insist that I lost my bet?" +asked the Dryad in a low voice. + +"But you didn't, did you?" said the pitiless Jones. + +"I let you catch the first Ajax. I might have prevented you; I might +have even caught it myself!" + +"But you didn't, did you?" said the pitiless Jones. + +"Because," continued the Dryad, flushing, "I was generous enough to +think only of capturing the butterflies, while all the time it appears +_you_ were thinking of something else. How sordid!" she added, +scornfully. + +"You admit I won the bet?" persisted that meanest of men. + +"I admit nothing, Mr. Jones." + +"Didn't I win the bet?" + +Silence. + +"Didn't I----" + +"Goodness, yes!" cried the Dryad. "Now what are you going to do about +it?" + +"You said," observed Jones, "that you would forfeit anything I desired. +Didn't you?" + +The Dryad looked at him, then looked away. + +"Didn't you?" + +Silence. + +"Di----" + +"Yes, I did." + +"Then I am to ask what I desire?" + +No answer. + +"So," continued Jones in a low voice, "I do ask it." + +Still no answer. + +"Will you----" + +"Mr. Jones," she said, turning a face toward him on which was written +utter consternation. + +"Will you," continued Jones, "permit me to name the first new butterfly +that I capture, after you?" + +Her eyes widened. + +"Is--is _that_ all you desire?" she faltered. Suddenly her eyes filled. + +"Absolutely all," said Jones simply--"to name a new species of butterfly +after my wife----" + +However, that was the simplest part of the whole matter; the trouble was +all ahead, waiting for them on the veranda--two hundred pounds of +wealthy trouble sitting in a rocking-chair, tatting, and keeping tabs +upon the great clock and upon the trolley cars as they arrived in +decorous procession from the golf links. + + * * * * * + +There was a long, long silence. + +"Is--is that all?" inquired my little neighbour. + +"Can't you guess the rest?" + +But she only sighed, looking down at the lace handkerchief which she had +been absently twisting in her lap. + +"You know," said I, "what keys unlock the meaning of all stories?" + +She nodded. + +"The keys of The Past," I said. + +She sighed, looking down into her smooth little empty hands: + +"I threw them away, long ago," she said. "For me there remains only one +more door. And that unlocks of itself." + +And we sat there, thinking, through the still summer afternoon. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER XXI + +IN A BELGIAN GARDEN + + +That evening I found Williams curled up in his corner at the Café Jaune. + +"You are sun-burned," he said, inspecting me. + +"A little. I've been in Florida." + +"What?" + +"With the ghosts of years ago. But it seemed very realistic to me as I +sat in the sun and recalled it. Possibly it was even real enough to +sun-burn me a little." + +He eyed me with considerable chagrin. Perhaps he thought that he had the +monopoly of poetic fancies. It was most agreeable to me to touch him +up. They're a jealous bunch, those whittlers of fact into fiction. + +However, he brightened as he drew a letter from his pocket: + +"You remember Kingsbury, of course?" he asked. + +"Perfectly." + +"And his friend Smith?" + +"Certainly." + +"I've a letter here from Kingsbury. He expects to be in Paris this +autumn." + +"I'd like to see him," said I, "but I'm going home before Autumn." + +"Haven't you seen him in all these years?" + +"Not once." + +"And you never heard----" + +"Oh, go on, Williams, and tell your story. I'm perfectly willing to +listen. Cut out all that coy business and tear off a few page-proofs. +Besides," I added, maliciously, "I know how it's done, now." + +"_How_ do you know?" + +"Because I did a little in that line myself this afternoon. Let me tell +you something; there isn't a profession in all the world which can be so +easily and quickly acquired as yours. Therefore pin no more orders and +ribbons and stars and medals on yourself. The only difference between +you and your public is that they have no time to practice your +profession in addition to their own." + +Which took him down a peg or two, until we both took down another peg or +two. But when I called the waiter and ordered a third, he became more +cheerful. + +"You're a jollier," he said, "aren't you?" + +"I did a little this afternoon. Go on about Kingsbury and Smithy. After +all, Williams, you really do it much better than I." + +Which mollified him amazingly, and he began with a brisk confidence in +his powers of narration: + + * * * * * + +When Kingsbury had finished his course at the University of Paris, there +appeared to be little or nothing further in the way of human knowledge +for him to acquire. However, on the chance of disinterring a fragment or +two of amorphous information which he might find use for in his +projected book, The Economy of Marriage, he allowed himself another year +of travel, taking the precaution to invite Smith--the flippancy of Smith +being calculated to neutralise any over-intellectual activity in +himself. + +He needed a rest; he had had the world on his hands too long--ever since +his twentieth year. Smith was the man to give him mental repose. There +was no use attempting to discuss social economy with Smith, or of +interesting that trivial and inert mind in race suicide. Smith was +flippant. Often and often Kingsbury thought: "How can he have passed +through The University of Paris and remained flippant?" But neither +Sorbonne nor Pantheon produced marked effect upon Smith, and although it +is true that Paris horridly appealed to him, in the remainder of Europe +he found nothing better to do than to unpack his trout-rod and make for +the nearest puddle wherever they found themselves, whether in the Alps, +the Tyrol, the Vosges, or the forests of Belgium, where they at present +occupied a stucco-covered villa with servants, stables, hot-houses, and +a likely trout stream for Smith to dabble in, at a sum per month so +ridiculously reasonable that I shall not mention it for fear of +depopulating my native land. + +Besides, they had the youthful and widowed Countess of Semois for their +neighbour. + +And so it came about that, in this leafy, sunny land of cream and honey, +one very lovely morning, young Kingsbury, booted and spurred and still +flushed from his early gallop through the soft wood-roads of the forest, +found Smith at breakfast under the grape-arbour, immersed in a popular +novel and a bowl of strawberries. + +"Hello," said Smith, politely, pushing the fruit across the table. "The +berries are fine; I took a corking trout an hour ago; we'll have it +directly." + +"I saw the Countess," said Kingsbury, carelessly unbuttoning his gloves +as he stood there. + +"Oh, you did? Well, which one is the Countess, the girl with the dark +hair, or that stunning red-haired beauty?" + +"How could I tell? I couldn't ride up and ask, could I? They were +driving, as usual. The King was out, too; I wish he'd wear a decent +hat." + +"With the moral welfare of two hemispheres on your hands, you ought not +to feel responsible for the King's derby," observed Smith. + +Any exaggeration of fact always perplexed Kingsbury. He flattened out +his gloves, stuck his riding-crop into his left boot, and looked at +Smith through his monocle. + +"For all the talk about the King," he said, "the peasantry salute him as +reverently as though he were their father." + +To which Smith, in his flippancy, replied: + + "The children for their monarch pray, + Each buxom lass and laddie; + A thousand reasons good have they + To call the King their daddy." + +Kingsbury retired to make his toilet; returned presently smelling less +of the stables, seated himself, drowned a dozen luscious strawberries +in cream, tasted one, and cast a patronising eye upon the trout, which +had been prepared à la Meunière. + +"Corker, isn't he?" observed Smith, contemplating the fish with +pardonable pride. "He's poached, I regret to inform you." + +"Poached?" + +"Oh, not like an egg; I mean that I took him in private waters. It was a +disgusting case of poaching." + +"What on earth did you do that for?" + +"Now, I'll explain that in a minute. You know where our stream flows +under the arch in the wall which separates our grounds from the park +next door? Well, I was casting away on our side, never thinking of +mischief, when, flip! flop! spatter! splash! and, if you please, right +under the water-arch in the wall this scandalous trout jumped. Of +course, I put it to him good and plenty, but the criminal creature, on +purpose to tempt me, backed off down stream and clean through the arch +into our neighbour's water. + +"'Is it poaching if I go over after him?' thought I. And, Kingsbury, do +you know I had no time to debate that moral question, because, before I +could reply to myself, I found myself hoisting a ladder to the top of +the wall and lowering it on the other side--there are no steps on the +other side. And what do you think? Before I could rouse myself with the +cry of 'Trespasser! Help!' I found myself climbing down into the park +and casting a fly with sinful accuracy. + +"'Is it right?' I asked myself in an agony of doubt. But, alas, +Kingsbury, before I had a ghost of a chance to answer myself in the +negative I had hooked that trout fast; and there was the deuce to pay, +for I'd forgotten my landing-net!" + +He shook his head, helped Kingsbury to a portion of the trout, and +refilled his own cup. "Isn't it awful," he said. + +"It's on a par with most of your performances," observed the other, +coldly. "I suppose you continued your foolish conduct with that girl, +too." + +"What girl?" + +"And I suppose you kissed her again! Did you?" + +"Kiss a girl?" stammered Smith. "Where have you been prowling?" + +"Along the boundary wall on my side, if you want to know. A week ago I +chanced to be out by moonlight, and I saw you kiss her, Smith, across +the top of the park wall. It is your proper rôle, of course, to deny it, +but let me tell you that I think it's a pretty undignified business of +yours, kissing the Countess of Semois's servants----" + +"What the deuce----" + +"Well, _who_ was it you kissed over the top of the wall, then?" + +"I don't know," said Smith, sullenly. + +"You don't know! It wasn't the Countess, was it?" + +"Of course it wasn't the Countess. I tell you I don't know who it was." + +"Nonsense!" + +"No, it isn't. What happened was this: I climbed up the niches to sit on +the wall by moonlight and watch the trout jump; and just as my head +cleared the wall the head of a girl came up on the other side--right +against the moon, so it was just a shadow--a sort of silhouette. It was +an agreeable silhouette; I couldn't really see her features." + +"That was no reason for kissing them, was it?" + +"No--oh, not at all. The way _that_ came about was most extraordinary. +You see, we were both amazed to find our two noses so close together, +and I said--something foolish--and she laughed--the prettiest, +disconcerted little laugh, and that moon was there, and suddenly, to my +astonishment, I realised that I was going to kiss her if she didn't +move.... And--she didn't." + +"You mean to say----" + +"Yes, I do; I haven't the faintest notion who it was I kissed. It +couldn't have been the Countess, because I've neither fought any duels +nor have I been arrested. I refuse to believe it could have been the +cook, because there was something about that kiss indescribably +aromatic--and, Kingsbury, she didn't say a word--she scarcely breathed. +Now a cook would have screamed, you know----" + +"I _don't_ know," interrupted Kingsbury. + +"No, no, of course--neither do I." + +"Idiot!" said Kingsbury wrathfully. "Suppose it _had_ been the Countess! +Think of the consequences! Keep away from that wall and don't attempt to +ape the depravity of a morally sick continent. You shocked me in Paris; +you're mortifying me here. If you think I'm going to be identified with +your ragged morals you are mistaken." + +"That's right; don't stand for 'em. I've been reading novels, and I need +a jar from an intelligence absolutely devoid of imagination." + +"You'll get it if you don't behave yourself," said Kingsbury +complacently. "The Countess of Semois probably knows who we are, and ten +to one we'll meet her at that charity bazar at Semois-les-Bains this +afternoon." + +"I'm not going," said Smith, breaking an egg. + +"Not going? You said you would go. Our Ambassador will be there, and we +can meet the Countess if we want to." + +"I don't want to. Suppose, after all, I had kissed _her_! No, I'm not +going, I tell you." + +"Very well; that's your own affair," observed the other, serenely +occupied with the trout. "Perhaps you're right, too; perhaps the happy +scullion whom you honoured may have complained about you to her +mistress." + +Smith sullenly tinkled the bell for more toast; a doll-faced maid in cap +and apron brought it. + +"Probably," said Kingsbury in English, "_that_ is the species you +fondled----" + +Smith opened his novel and pretended to read; Kingsbury picked up the +morning paper, propped it against a carafe, sipped his coffee, and +inspected the headlines through his single eyeglass. For a few minutes +peace and order hovered over the American breakfast; the men were young +and in excellent appetite; the fragrance of the flowers was not too +intrusive; discreet breezes stirred the leaves; and well-behaved little +birds sang judiciously in several surrounding bushes. + +As Kingsbury's eyes wandered over the paper, gradually focussing up a +small paragraph, a frown began to gather on his youthful features. + +"Here's a nice business!" he said, disgusted. + +Smith looked up indifferently. "Well, what is it?" he asked, and then, +seeing the expression on his friend's face, added: "Oh, I'll bet I +know!" + +"This," said Kingsbury, paying him no attention, "is simply sickening." + +"A young life bartered for a coronet?" inquired Smith, blandly. + +"Yes. Isn't it shameful? What on earth are our women thinking of? Are +you aware, Smith, that over ninety-seven and three tenths per cent of +such marriages are unhappy? Are you? Why, I could sit here and give you +statistics----" + +"Don't, all the same." + +"Statistics that would shock even you. And I say solemnly, that I, as an +American, as a humanitarian, as a student of social economics----" + +"Help! Help!" complained Smith, addressing the butter. + +"Social economics," repeated the other, firmly, "as a patriot, a man, +and a future father, I am astounded at the women of my native land! Race +suicide is not alone what menaces us; it is the exportation of our +finest and most vigorous stock to upbuild a bloodless and alien +aristocracy at our expense." + +Smith reached for the toast-rack. + +"And if there's one thing that irritates me," continued Kingsbury, "it's +the spectacle of wholesome American girls marrying titles. Every time +they do it I get madder, too. Short-sighted people like you shrug their +shoulders, but I tell you, Smith, it's a terrible menace to our country. +Beauty, virtue, wealth, all are being drawn away from America into the +aristocratic purlieus of England and the Continent." + +"Then I think you ought to see about it at once," said Smith, presenting +himself with another slice of toast. + +Kingsbury applied marmalade to a muffin and flattened out the newspaper. + +"I tell you what," he said, "some American ought to give them a dose of +their own medicine." + +"How?" + +"By coming over here and marrying a few of their titled women." + +Smith sipped his coffee, keeping his novel open with the other hand: "We +do that sort of thing very frequently in literature, I notice. There's +an American doing it now in this novel. I've read lots of novels like +it, too." He laid his head on one side, musing. "As far as I can +calculate from the romantic literature I have absorbed, I should say +that we Americans have already carried off practically all of the +available titled beauties of Europe." + +"My friend," said Kingsbury, coldly, "do you realise that I am serious?" + +"About what?" + +"About this scandalous chase after titles. In the book on which I am now +engaged I am embodying the following economic propositions: For every +good, sweet, wholesome American girl taken from America to bolster up a +degenerate title, we men of America ought to see to it that a physically +sound and titled young woman be imported and married to one of us." + +"Why a titled one?" + +"So that Europe shall feel it the more keenly," replied Kingsbury +sternly. "I've often pondered the matter. If only one American could be +found sufficiently self-sacrificing to step forward and set the example +by doing it, I am convinced, Smith, that the tardy wheels of justice +would begin to revolve and rouse a nation too long imposed upon." + +"Why don't you do something in that way yourself? There's a fine +physical specimen of the Belgian nobility in the villa next door." + +"I don't know her," said Kingsbury, turning a delicate shell pink. + +"You will when you go to the bazar. Stop fiddling with that newspaper +and answer me like a man." + +But Kingsbury only reopened the newspaper and blandly scanned the +columns. Presently he began muttering aloud as he skimmed paragraph +after paragraph; but his mutterings were ignored by Smith, who, +coffee-cup in hand, was again buried in his novel. + +"I've a mind to try it," repeated Kingsbury in a higher key. "It is the +duty of every decent American to improve his own race. If we want +physical perfection in anything don't we select the best type +obtainable? Why don't we do it in marrying? I tell you, Smith, this is +the time for individual courage, honesty and decency. Our duty is clear; +we must meet the impoverishment, which these titled marriages threaten, +with a restless counter-raid into the enemy's country. When a European +takes from us one of our best, let us take from Europe her best, health +for health, wealth for wealth, title for title! By Heaven, Smith, I'm +going to write a volume on this." + +"Oh, you're going to _write_ about it." + +"I am." + +"And then what?" asked Smith taking the newspaper from Kingsbury and +opening it. + +"What then? Why--why, some of us ought to give our country an example. +I'm willing to do it--when I have time----" + +"Here's your chance, then," urged Smith, studying the society column. +"Here's all about the charity bazar at Semois-les-Bains this afternoon. +The Countess sells dolls there. Our Ambassador will be on hand, and you +can meet her easily enough. The rest," he added, politely, "will, of +course, be easy." + +Kingsbury lighted a cigar, leaned back in his chair, and flung one +booted leg over the other. + +"If I were not here in Belgium for a rest--" he began. + +"You are--but not alone for bodily and mental repose. Think how it would +rest your conscience to offset that marriage which has irritated you by +marrying the Countess of Semois--by presenting to your surprised and +admiring country a superb and titled wife for patriotic purposes." + +"I don't know which she is," retorted Kingsbury, intensely annoyed. "If +she's the tall girl with dark hair and lots colour I could manage to +fall in love easily enough. I may add, Smith, that you have an +extraordinary way of messing up the English language." + +He arose, walking out toward the gate, where the smiling little postman +came trotting up to meet him, fishing out a dozen letters and papers. + +"Letters from home, Smith," he observed, strolling back to the arbour. +"Here's one for you"--he laid it beside Smith's plate--"and here's one +from my sister--I'll just glance at it if you'll excuse me." He opened +it and read placidly for a few moments. Then, of a sudden a terrible +change came into his face; he hastily clapped his monocle to his eye, +glared at the written page, set his teeth, and crumpled it furiously in +his hand. + +"Smith," he said, hoarsely, "my sister writes that she's engaged to +marry an--an Englishman!" + +"What of it?" inquired Smith. + +"What of it? I tell you my sister--my _sister_--_my_ sister--is going to +marry a British title!" + +"She's probably in love, isn't she? What's the harm----" + +"Harm?" + +For a full minute Kingsbury stood petrified, glaring at space, then he +cast his cigar violently among the roses. + +"I have a mind," he said, "to get into a top hat and frock coat and +drive to Semois-les-Bains.... You say she sells dolls?" + +"She's due to sell 'em, according to the morning paper." + +For a few moments more Kingsbury paced the lawn; colour, due to wrath or +rising excitement, touched his smooth, handsome face, deepening the mask +of tan. He was good to look upon, and one of the most earnest young men +the gods had ever slighted. + +"You think I'm all theory, don't you?" he said, nervously. "You shrug +those flippant shoulders of yours when I tell you what course an +American who honors his country should pursue. Now I'll prove to you +whether or not I'm sincere. I am deliberately going to marry the +Countess of Semois; and this afternoon I shall take the necessary +measures to fall in love with her. That," he added, excitedly, "can be +accomplished if she is the dark-haired girl we've seen driving." + +"Now, I don't suppose you really intend to do such a----" + +"Yes, I do! It sounds preposterous, but it's logical. I'm going to +practice what I expect to spend my life in preaching; that's all. Not +that I want to marry just now--I don't; it's inconvenient. I don't want +to fall in love, I don't want to marry, I don't want to have a dozen +children," he said, irritably; "but I'm going to, Smith! I'm going to, +for the sake of my country. Pro patria et gloria!" + +"Right away?" + +"What rot you talk, sometimes! But I'm ready to make my words mean +something; I'm ready to marry the Countess of Semois. There is no +possible room for doubt; any man can marry any woman he wants to; that +is my absolute conviction. Anyhow, I shall ask her." + +"As soon as you meet her?" + +"Certainly not. I expect to take several days about it----" + +"Why employ several days in sweet dissembling?" + +"Confound it, I'm not going to dissemble! I'm going to let her know that +I admire her the moment I meet her. I'm going to tell her about my +theory of scientific marriages. If she is sensible--if she is the woman +America requires--if she is the dark-haired girl--she'll understand." He +turned squarely on Smith: "As for you, if you were the sort of American +that you ought to be you would pick out some ornamental and wholesome +young Belgian aristocrat and marry her in the shortest time that decency +permits! That's what you'd do if you had a scintilla of patriotism in +your lazy make-up!" + +"No, I wouldn't----" + +"You would! Look at yourself--a great, hulking, wealthy, idle young man, +who stands around in puddles catching fish while Europe runs off our +loveliest women under your bovine nose. Shame on you! Have you no desire +to be up and doing?" + +"Oh, of course," said Smith, unruffled; "if several passion-smitten +duchesses should climb over the big wall yonder and chase me into the +garden----" + +Kingsbury swung on his spurred heels and strode into the house. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER XXII + +A YOUTHFUL PATRIOT + + +Smith sauntered out to the terrace, looked at the sky, sniffed the +roses, and sat down in the shadow of a cherry tree, cocking his feet up +and resting his novel on his knees. Several hours later, aroused by the +mellow clash of harness and noise of wheels, he looked out over the +terrace wall just in time to catch a glimpse of the victoria of his +neighbour, gold and green livery, strawberry roans, flashing wheels and +all; and quite alone under her brilliant sunshade, the dark-haired girl +whom Kingsbury had decided to marry as soon as he could arrange to fall +in love with her. + +"I fancy she's the Countess, all right," mused Smith; "but, to me, the +girl with red hair is vastly--more--more alluring----" + +The sound of wheels again broke the thread of his sleepy meditation; +their dog-cart was at the gate; and presently he perceived Kingsbury, +hatted and gloved to perfection, get in, take the reins from the +coachman, loop his whip, assume the posture popularly attributed to +pupils of Howlett, and go whirling away through the lazy sunshine of a +perfect Belgian afternoon. + +"The beast has lunched without me," muttered Smith, yawning and looking +at his watch. Then he got up, stretched, tinkled the bell, and when the +doll-faced maid arrived, requested an omelet à la Semois and a bottle of +claret. + +He got it in due time, absorbed it lazily, casting a weatherwise eye on +the sky at intervals with a view to afternoon fishing; but the sun was +too bright; besides, his book had become interesting in a somewhat +maudlin fashion, inasmuch as the lovers must come to a clinch in the +next chapter or not at all. + +"You can't tell in modern novels," he muttered; "a girl has a way of +side-stepping just as the bell rings: but the main guy ought to make +good within the next page or two. If he doesn't he's a dub!" + +With which comment he sought his hammock for an hour's needed repose; +but he had slumbered longer than that when he found himself sitting bolt +upright, the telephone bell ringing in his ears. + +Comfortably awake now, he slid from the hammock, and, entering the +house, stepped into the smoking-room. + +"Hello!" he said, unhooking the receiver. + +Kingsbury's voice replied: "I'm here in Semois-les-Bains, at the charity +bazar. Can you distinguish what I say?" + +"Perfectly, my Romeo! Proceed." + +"I'm in a fix. Our Ambassador didn't come, and I don't know anybody to +take me over and present me." + +"Buy a doll, idiot!" + +"Confound it, I've already bought ten! That doesn't give me the +privilege of doing anything but buying ten more. She's busy; about five +million people are crowding around her." + +"Buy every doll she has! Put her out of business, man! Then if you can't +fix it somehow you're a cuckoo. Is the Countess the dark-haired girl?" + +"Certainly." + +"How do you know?" + +"Isn't she here selling dolls? Didn't the paper say she was going to?" + +"Yes--but hadn't you better find out for certain before you----" + +"I am certain; anyway, I don't care. Smith, she is the most +radiantly----" + +"All right; ring off----" + +"Wait! I wanted to tell you that she has the prettiest way of smiling +every time I buy a doll. And then, while she wraps up the infernal thing +in ribbons and tissue we chat a little. I'd like to murder our +Ambassador! Do you think that if I bought her entire stock----" + +"Yes, I do!" + +"What do you think?" + +"What you do." + +"But I don't think anything at all. I am asking you----" + +"Try it, anyhow." + +"All right. Hold the wire, Smith. I'll report progress----" + +"What! Stand here and wait----" + +"Don't be selfish. I'll return in a moment." + +The "moment" stretched into a buzzing, crackling half hour, punctuated +by impatient inquiries from Central. Suddenly an excited: "Hello, +Smith!" + +"Hello, you infernal----" + +"I've done it! I've bought every doll! She's the sweetest thing; I told +her I had a plan for endowing a ward in any old hospital she might name, +and she thinks we ought to talk it over, so I'm going to sit out on the +terrace with her--Smith!" + +"What?" + +"Oh, I thought you'd gone! I only wanted to say that she is far, far +lovelier than I had supposed. I can't wait here talking with you any +longer. Good-by!" + +"Is she the Countess?" shouted Smith incredulously. But Kingsbury had +rung off. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER XXIII + +ON THE WALL + + +Smith retired to his room to bathe, clothed himself in snowy linen and +fresh tennis flannels, and descended again, book under his arm, to +saunter forth through heavy tangles of cinnamon-tinted Flemish roses and +great sweet-scented peonies, musing on love and fate. + +"Kingsbury and his theories! The Countess of Semois will think him +crazy. She'll think us both crazy! And I am not sure that we're not; +youth is madness; half the world is lunatic! Take me, for example; I +never did a more unexpected thing than kissing that shadow across the +wall. I don't know why, I don't know how, but I did it; and I am out of +jail yet. Certainly it must have been the cook. Oh, Heavens! If cooks +kiss that way, what, _what_ must the indiscretion of a Countess +resemble?... She _did_ kiss back.... At least there was a soft, +tremulous, perfumed flutter--a hint of delicate counter-pressure----" + +But he had arrived at the wall by that time. + +"How like a woodland paradise!" he murmured sentimentally, youthful face +upraised to the trees. "How sweet the zephyr! How softly sing the +dicky-birds! I wonder--I wonder--" But what it was that perplexed him he +did not say; he stood eying the top of the wall as the furtive turkey +eyes its selected roost before coyly hopping thither. + +"What's the use? If I see her I'll only take fright and skulk homeward. +Why do I return again and again to the scene of guilt? Is it Countess or +cook that draws me, or some one less exalted in the culinary confine? +Why, why should love get busy with me? Is this the price I pay for that +guileless kiss? Am I to be forever 'it' in love's gay game of tag?" + +He ascended the steplike niche in the wall, peeped fearfully over into +his neighbour's chasse. Tree and tangle slept in the golden light of +afternoon; a cock-pheasant strutted out of a thicket, surveyed the +solitude with brilliant eyes, and strutted back again; a baby rabbit +frisked across the carrefour into the ferny warren beyond; and "Bubble, +bubble, flowed the stream, like an old song through a dream." + +Sprawling there flat on top of the sun-warmed stucco wall, white +sunlight barring the pages of his book, he lifted his head to listen. +There was a leafy stirring somewhere, perhaps the pheasant rustling in +the underbrush. The sing-song of the stream threaded the silence; and as +he listened it seemed to grow louder, filling the woods with low, +harmonious sounds. In the shallows he heard laughter; in the pouring +waterfalls, echoes like wind-blown voices calling. Small grey and +saffron tinted birds, passing from twig to twig, peered at him +fearlessly; a heavy green lizard vanished between the stones with an +iridescent wriggle. Suddenly a branch snapped and the underbrush +crackled. + +"Probably a deer," thought Smith, turning to look. Close inspection of +the thicket revealed nothing; he dropped his chin on his hands, crossed +his legs, and opened his book. + +The book was about one of those Americans who trouble the peace of mind +of Princesses; and this was the place to read it, here in the enchanted +stillness of the ancient Belgian forest, here where the sunshine spread +its net on fretted waters, where lost pools glimmered with azure when +the breeze stirred overhead--here where his neighbor was a Countess and +some one in her household wore a mass of gold-red hair Greek +fashion--and Aphrodite was not whiter of neck nor bluer eyed than she. + +The romance that he read was designed to be thickly satisfying to +American readers, for it described a typical American so accurately that +Smith did not recognize the type. Until he had been enlightened by +fiction he never imagined Americans were so attractive to exotic +nobility. So he read on, gratified, cloyed, wondering how the Princess, +although she happened to be encumbered with a husband, could stand for +anything but ultimate surrender to the Stars and Stripes; and trustfully +leaving it to another to see that it was done morally. + +Hypnotized by the approaching crisis, he had begun already to finger the +next page, when a slight crash in the bushes close by and the swish of +parting foliage startled him from romance to reality. + +But he had looked up too late; to slink away was impossible; to move was +to reveal himself. It was _she_! And she was not ten feet distant. + +One thing was certain: whether or not she was the shadowy partner of his +kiss, she could not be the Countess, because she was fishing, +unattended, hatless, the sleeves of her shirtwaist rolled up above her +white elbows, a book and a short landing-net tucked under her left arm. +Countesses don't go fishing unattended; gillies carry things. Besides, +the Countess of Semois was in Semois-les-Bains selling dolls to +Kingsbury. + +The sun glowed on her splendid red hair; she switched the slender rod +about rather awkwardly, and every time the cast of flies became +entangled in a nodding willow she set her red lips tight and with an +impatient "_Mais, c'est trop bête! Mais, c'est vraiment trop_----" + +It was evident that she had not seen him where he lay on the wall; the +chances were she would pass on--indeed her back was already toward +him--when the unexpected happened: a trout leaped for a gnat and fell +back into the pool with a resounding splash, sending ring on ring of +sunny wavelets toward the shore. + +"Ah! _Te voilà!_" she said aloud, swinging her line free for a cast. + +Smith saw what was coming and tried to dodge, but the silk line whistled +on the back-cast, and the next moment his cap was snatched from his head +and deposited some twenty feet out in the centre of the pool. + +The amazement of the fair angler was equal to his own as she looked +hastily back over her shoulder and discovered him on the wall. + +There is usually something undignified about a man whose hat has been +knocked off; to laugh is as fatal as to show irritation; and Smith did +neither, but quietly dropped over to her side of the wall, saying, "I'm +awfully sorry I spoiled your cast. Don't mind the cap; that trout was a +big one, and he may rise again." + +He had spoken in English, and she answered in very pretty English: "I am +so sorry--could I help you to recover your hat?" + +"Thank you; if you would let me take your rod a moment." + +"Willingly, monsieur." + +She handed him the rod; he loosened the line, measured the distance with +practiced eye, turned to look behind him, and, seeing there was scant +room for a long back-cast, began sending loop after loop of silken line +forward across the water, using the Spey method, of which none except an +expert is master. + +The first cast struck half-way, but in line; the next, still in line, +slipped over the cap, but failed to hook. Then, as he recovered, there +was a boiling rush in the water, a flash of pink and silver, and the rod +staggered. + +"I--I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed aghast; "I have hooked your trout!" + +"Play him," she said quickly. The elfin shriek of the reel answered; he +gave the fish every ounce the quivering rod could spare, the great trout +surged deeply, swerved, circled and bored slowly upstream. + +"This fish is magnificent," said Smith, guiltily. "You really must take +the rod----" + +"I shall not, indeed." + +"But this is not fair!" + +"It is perfectly fair, monsieur--and a wonderful lesson in angling to +me. Oh, I beg you to be careful! There is a sunken tree limb beyond!" + +Her cheeks were the colour of wild roses, her blue eyes burned like +stars. + +"He's down; I can't stir him," said Smith. "He's down like a salmon!" + +She linked her hands behind her back. "What is to be done?" she asked +calmly. + +"If you would gather a handful of those pebbles and throw one at a time +into the pool where he is lying----" + +Before he finished speaking she had knelt, filled her palms with golden +gravel, and stood ready at the water's edge. + +"Now?" she nodded, inquiringly. + +"Yes, one at a time; try to hit him." + +The first pebble produced no effect; neither did the second, nor yet the +third. + +"Throw a handful at him," he suggested, and braced himself for the +result. A spray of gravel fell; the great fish sulked motionless. + +"There's a way--" began Smith, feeling in his pockets for his key-ring. +It was not there. + +"Could I be of any use?" she asked, looking up at Smith very +guilelessly. + +"Why, if I had something--a key-ring or anything that I could hang over +the taut line--something that would slide down and jog him gently----" + +"A hairpin?" she asked. + +"I'm afraid it's too light." + +She reflected a moment; her bent forefinger brushed her velvet lips. +Then she began to unfasten a long gold pin at her throat. + +"Oh, not that!" exclaimed Smith, anxiously. "It might slip off." + +"It can't; there's a safety clasp. Anyway, we must have that trout!" + +"But I could not permit----" + +"It is I who permit myself, monsieur." + +"No, no, it is too generous of you----" + +"Please!" She held the pin toward him; he shook his head; she hesitated, +then with a quick movement she snapped the clasp over the taut line and +sent it spinning toward the invisible fish. + +He saw the gold glimmer become a spark under water, die out in dusky +depths; then came a rushing upheaval of spray, a flash, the rod quivered +to the reel-plate, and the fight began in fury. The rod was so slim, so +light--scarce three ounces--that he could but stand on the defensive at +first. Little by little the struggle became give and take, then +imperceptibly he forced the issue, steadily, delicately, for the tackle +was gossamer, and he fought for the safety of the golden clasp as well +as for his honour as an angler. + +"Do you know how to net a trout?" he asked presently. She came and stood +at his shoulder, net poised, blue eyes intent upon the circling fish. + +"I place it behind him, do I not?" she asked coolly. + +"Yes--when I give the word----" + +One more swerve, a half circle sheering homeward, nearer, nearer---- + +A moment later the huge trout lay on the moss; iridescent tints played +over its broad surface, shimmering hues deepened, waxing, warning; the +spots glowed like rubies set in bronze. + +Kneeling there, left hand resting on the rod, Smith looked up at her +over his shoulder; but all she said was: "Ah, the poor, brave thing! The +gallant fish! This is wrong--all wrong. I wish we had not taken a life +we cannot give again." + +"Shall I put the trout back madame?" + +She looked at him surprised. + +"Would you?" she asked incredulously. + +"If you desire it." + +"But it is your fish." + +"It is yours, madame." + +"Will it live? Oh, try to make it live!" + +He lifted the beautiful fish in both hands, and, walking to the water's +edge, laid it in the stream. For a while it floated there, gold and +silver belly turned to the sky, gills slowly inflating and collapsing. +Presently a fin stirred; the spasmodic movement of the gill-covers +ceased, and the breathing grew quiet and steady. Smith touched the +pectoral fins; the fish strove to turn over; he steadied the dorsal fin, +then the caudal, righting the fish. Slowly, very slowly, the great trout +moved off, farther, farther, sinking into cool, refreshing depths; there +was a dull glitter under the water, a shadow gliding, then nothing +except the green obscurity of the pool criss-crossed with surface +sunshine. + +When Smith turned around the girl was pensively regarding the water. His +cap had stranded on a shoal almost at his feet; he recovered it, wrung +the drops from it, and stood twirling it thoughtfully in the sunlight. + +"I've ruined it, haven't I?" she asked. + +"Oh, no; it's a shooting-cap. Like Tartarin, I shall probably ventilate +it later in true Midi fashion." + +She laughed; then, with the flushed composure of uneasiness: "Thank you +for a lesson in angling. I have learned a great deal--enough at least +to know that I shall not care to destroy life, even in a fish." + +"That is as it should be," he replied coolly. "Men find little charm in +women who kill." + +"That is scarcely in accord with the English novels I read--and I read +many," she said laughing. + +"It is true, nevertheless. Saint Hubert save us from the woman who can +watch the spark of life fade out in the eye of any living thing." + +"Are you not a little eccentric, monsieur?" + +"If you say so. Eccentricity is the full-blown blossom of mediocrity." + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER XXIV + +A JOURNEY TO THE MOON + + +There was a silence so politely indifferent on her part that he felt it +to be the signal for his dismissal. And he took his leave with a +formality so attractive, and a good humour so informal, that before she +meant to she had spoken again--a phrase politely meaningless in itself, +yet--if he chose to take it so--acting as a stay of execution. + +"I was wondering," he said, amiably, "how I was going to climb back over +the wall." + +A sudden caprice tinged with malice dawned in the most guileless of +smiles as she raised her eyes to his: + +"You forgot your ladder this time, didn't you?" + +Would he ever stop getting redder? His ears were afire, and felt +enormous. + +"I am afraid you misunderstood me," she said, and her smile became +pitilessly sweet. "I am quite sure a distinguished foreign angler could +scarcely condescend to notice trespass signs in a half-ruined old +park----" + +His crimson distress softened her, perhaps, for she hesitated, then +added impulsively: "I did not mean it, monsieur; I have gone too +far----" + +"No, you have not gone too far," he said. "I've disgraced myself and +deserve no mercy." + +"You are mistaken; the trout may have come from your side of the +wall----" + +"It did, but that is a miserable excuse. Nothing can palliate my +conduct. It's a curious thing," he added, bitterly, "that a fellow who +is decent enough at home immediately begins to do things in Europe." + +"What things, monsieur?" + +"Ill-bred things; I might as well say it. Theoretically, poaching is +romantic; practically, it's a misdemeanor--the old conflict between +realism and romance, madame--as typified by a book I am at present +reading--a copy of the same book which I notice you are now carrying +under your arm." + +She glanced at him, curious, irresolute, waiting for him to continue. +And as he did not, but stood moodily twirling his cap like a sulky +schoolboy, she leaned back against a tree, saying: "You are very severe +on romance, monsieur." + +"You are very lenient with reality, madame." + +"How do you know? I may be far more angry with you than you suspect. +Indeed, every time I have seen you on the wall--" she hesitated, paling +a trifle. She had made a mistake, unless he was more stupid than she +dared hope. + +"But until this morning I had done nothing to anger you?" he said, +looking up sharply. Her features wore the indifference of perfect +repose; his latent alarm subsided. She had made no mistake in his +stupidity. + +And now, perfectly conscious of the irregularity of the proceedings, +perhaps a trifle exhilarated by it, she permitted curiosity to stir +behind the curtain, ready for the proper cue. + +"Of course," he said, colouring, "I know you perfectly well by +sight----" + +"And I you, monsieur--perfectly well. One notices strangers, +particularly when reading so frequently about them in romance. This +book"--she opened it leisurely and examined an illustration--"appears to +describe the American quite perfectly. So, having read so much about +Americans, I was a trifle curious to see one." + +He did not know what to say; her youthful face was so innocent that +suspicion subsided. + +"That American you are reading about is merely a phantom of romance," he +said honestly. "His type, if he ever did exist, would become such a +public nuisance in Europe that the police would take charge of +him--after a few kings and dukes had finished thrashing him." + +"I do not believe you," she said, with a hint of surprise and defiance. +"Besides, if it were true, what sense is there in destroying the +pleasure of illusion? Romance is at least amusing; reality alone is a +sorry scarecrow clothed in the faded rags of dreams. Do you think you do +well to destroy the tinted film of romance through which every woman +ever born gazes at man--and pardons him because the rainbow dims her +vision?" + +She leaned back against the silver birch once more and laid her white +hand flat on the open pages of the book: + +"Monsieur, if life were truly like this, fewer tears would fall from +women's eyes--eyes which man, in his wisdom, takes pains to clear--to +his own destruction!" + +She struck the book a light blow, smiling up at him: + +"Here in these pages are spring and youth eternal--blue skies and roses, +love and love and love unending, and once more love, and the world's +young heart afire! Close the book and what remains?" She closed the +covers very gently. "What remains?" she asked, raising her blue eyes to +him. + +"You remain, madame." + +She flushed with displeasure. + +"And yet," he said, smiling, "if the hero of that book replied as I have +you would have smiled. That is the false light the moon of romance sheds +in competition with the living sun." He shrugged his broad shoulders, +laughing: "The contrast between the heroine of that romance and you +proves which is the lovelier, reality or romance----" + +She bit her lips and looked at him narrowly, the high colour pulsating +and dying in her cheeks. Under cover of the very shield that should have +protected her he was using weapons which she herself had sanctioned--the +impalpable weapons of romance. + +Dusk, too, had already laid its bloom on hill and forest and had spun a +haze along the stream--dusk, the accomplice of all the dim, jewelled +forms that people the tinted shadows of romance. Why--if he had +displeased her--did she not dismiss him? It is not with a question that +a woman gives a man his congé. + +"Why do you speak as you do?" she asked, gravely. "Why, merely because +you are clever, do you twist words into compliments. We are scarcely on +such a footing, monsieur." + +"What I said I meant," he replied, slowly. + +"Have I accorded you permission to say or mean?" + +"No; that is the fashion of romance--a pretty one. But in life, +sometimes, a man's heart beats out the words his lips deliver untricked +with verbal tinsel." + +Again she coloured, but met his eyes steadily enough. + +"This is all wrong," she said; "you know it; I know it. If, in the woman +standing here alone with you, I scarcely recognise myself, you, +monsieur, will fail to remember her--if chance wills it that we meet +again." + +"My memory," he said in a low voice, "is controlled by your mind. What +you forget I cannot recall." + +She said, impulsively, "A gallant man speaks as you speak--in agreeable +books of fiction as in reality. Oh, monsieur"--and she laughed a pretty, +troubled laugh--"how can you expect me now to disbelieve in my Americans +of romance?" + +She had scarcely meant to say just that; she did not realise exactly +what she had said until she read it in his face--read it, saw that he +did not mean to misunderstand her, and, in the nervous flood of relief, +stretched out her hand to him. He took it, laid his lips to the fragrant +fingers, and relinquished it. Meanwhile his heart was choking him like +the clutch of justice. + +"Good-by," she said, her outstretched hand suspended as he had released +it, then slowly falling. A moment's silence; the glow faded from the +sky, and from her face, too; then suddenly the blue eyes glimmered with +purest malice: + +"Having neglected to bring your ladder this time, monsieur, pray accept +the use of mine." And she pointed to a rustic ladder lying half-buried +in the weedy tangle behind him. + +He gave himself a moment to steady his voice: "I supposed there was a +ladder here--somewhere," he said, quietly. + +"Oh! And why did you suppose--" She spoke too hurriedly, and she began +again, pleasantly indifferent: "The foresters use a ladder for pruning, +not for climbing walls." + +He strolled over to the thicket, lifted the light ladder, and set it +against the wall. When he had done this he stepped back, examining the +effect attentively; then, as though not satisfied, shifted it a trifle, +surveyed the result, moved it again, dissatisfied. + +"Let me see," he mused aloud, "I want to place it exactly where it was +that night--" He looked back at her interrogatively. "Was it about where +I have placed it?" + +Her face was inscrutable. + +"Or," he continued, thoughtfully, "was it an inch or two this way? I +could tell exactly if the moon were up. Still"--he considered the ladder +attentively--"I might be able to fix it with some accuracy if you would +help me. Will you?" + +"I do not understand," she said. + +"Oh, it is nothing--still, if you wouldn't mind aiding me to settle a +matter that interests me--would you?" + +"With pleasure, monsieur," she said, indifferently. "What shall I do?" + +So he mounted the ladder, crossed the wall, and stood on a stone niche +on his side, looking down at the ladder. "Now," he said, "if you would +be so amiable, madame, as to stand on the ladder for one moment you +could aid me immensely." + +"Mount that ladder, monsieur?" + +She caught his eyes fixed on her; for just an instant she hesitated, +then met them steadily enough; indeed, a growing and innocent curiosity +widened her gaze, and she smiled and lifted her pretty shoulders--just a +trifle, and her skirts a trifle, too; and, with a grace that made him +tremble, she mounted the ladder, step by step, until her head and +shoulders were on a level with his own across the wall. + +"And now?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. + +"The moon," he said, unsteadily, "ought to be about--there!" + +"Where?" She turned her eyes inquiringly skyward. + +But his heart had him by the throat again, and he was past all speech. + +"Well, monsieur?" She waited in sweetest patience. Presently: "Have you +finished your astronomical calculations? And may I descend?" He tried to +speak, but was so long about it that she said very kindly: "You are +trying to locate the moon, are you not?" + +"No, madame--only a shadow." + +"A shadow, monsieur?"--laughing. + +"A shadow--a silhouette." + +"Of what?" + +"Of a--a woman's head against the moon." + +"Monsieur, for a realist you are astonishingly romantic. Oh, you see I +was right! You do belong in a book." + +"You, also," he said, scarcely recognising his own voice. "Men--in +books--do well to risk all for one word, one glance from you; men--in +books--do well to die for you, who reign without a peer in all +romance----" + +"Monsieur," she faltered. + +But he had found his voice--or one something like it--and he said: "You +are right to rebuke me; romance is the shadow, life the substance; and +_you_ live; and as long as you live, living men must love you; as I love +you, Countess of Semois." + +"Oh," she breathed, tremulously, "oh,--you think _that_? You think _I_ +am the Countess of Semois? And _that_ is why----" + +For a moment her wide eyes hardened, then flashed brilliant with tears. + +"Is that your romance, monsieur?--the romance of a Countess! Is your +declaration for mistress or servant?--for the Countess or for her +secretary--who sometimes makes her gowns, too? Ah, the sorry romance! +Your declaration deserved an audience more fitting----" + +"My declaration was made a week ago! The moon and you were audience +enough. I love you." + +"Monsieur, I--I beg you to release my hand----" + +"No; you must listen--for the veil of romance is rent and we are face to +face in the living world! Do you think a real man cares what title you +wear, if you but wear his name? Countess that you are _not_--if you say +you are not--but woman that you _are_, is there anything in Heaven or +earth that can make love _more_ than love? Veil your beautiful true eyes +with romance, and answer me; look with clear, untroubled eyes upon +throbbing, pulsating life; and answer me! Love is no more, no less, +than love. I ask for yours; I gave you mine a week ago--in our first +kiss." + +Her face was white as a flower; the level beauty of her eyes set him +trembling. + +"Give me one chance," he breathed. "I am not mad enough to hope that the +lightning struck us both at a single flash. Give me, in your charity, a +chance--a little aid where I stand stunned, blinded, alone--you who can +still see clearly!" + +She did not stir or speak or cease to watch him from unwavering eyes; he +leaned forward, drawing her inert hands together between his own; but +she freed them, shivering. + +"Will you not say one word to me?" he faltered. + +"Three, monsieur." Her eyes closed, she covered them with her slender +hands: "I--love--you." + + * * * * * + +Before the moon appeared she had taken leave of him, her hot, young face +pressed to his, striving to say something for which she found no words. +In tremulous silence she turned in his arms, unclasping his hands and +yielding her own in fragrant adieu. + +"Do you not know, oh, most wonderful of lovers--do you not know?" her +eyes were saying, but her lips were motionless; she waited, reluctant, +trembling. No, he could not understand--he did not care, and the +knowledge of it suffused her very soul with a radiance that transfigured +her. + +So she left him, the promise of the moon silvering the trees. And he +stood there on the wall, watching the lights break out in the windows of +her house--stood there while his soul drifted above the world of moonlit +shadow floating at his feet. + +"Smith!" + +Half aroused, he turned and looked down. The moonlight glimmered on +Kingsbury's single eyeglass. After a moment his senses returned; he +descended to the ground and peered at Kingsbury, rubbing his eyes. + +With one accord they started toward the house, moving slowly, shoulder +to shoulder. + +"Not that I personally care," began Kingsbury. "I am sorry only on +account of my country. I was, perhaps, precipitate; but I purchased one +hundred and seven dolls of Mademoiselle Plessis--her private +secretary----" + +"What!" + +"With whom," continued Kingsbury, thoughtfully, "I am agreeably in love. +Such matters, Smith, cannot be wholly controlled by a sense of duty to +one's country. Beauty and rank seldom coincide except in fiction. It +appears"--he removed his single eyeglass, polished it with his +handkerchief, replaced it, and examined the moon--"it appears," he +continued blandly, "that it is the Countess of Semois who is--ah--so to +speak, afflicted with red hair.... The moon--ahem--is preternaturally +bright this evening, Smith." + +After a moment Smith halted and turned, raising his steady eyes to that +pale mirror of living fire above the forest. + +"Well," began Kingsbury, irritably, "can't you say something?" + +"Nothing more than I have said to her already--though she were Empress +of the World!" murmured Smith, staring fixedly at the moon. + +"Empress of _what_? I do not follow you." + +"No," said Smith, dreamily, "you must not try to. It is a long journey +to the summer moon--a long, long journey. I started when I was a child; +I reached it a week ago; I returned to-night. And do you know what I +discovered there? Why, man, I discovered the veil of Isis, and I looked +behind it. And what do you suppose I found? A child, Kingsbury, a winged +child, who laughingly handed me the keys of Eden! What do you think of +that?" + +But Smith had taken too many liberties with the English language, and +Kingsbury was far too mad to speak. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE ARMY OF PARIS + + +I was smoking peacefully in the conservatory of the hotel, when a +bellboy brought me the card of Captain le Vicômte de Cluny. + +In due time Monsieur the Viscount himself appeared, elegant, graceful, +smart; black and scarlet uniform glittering with triple-gold arabesques +on sleeve and Képi, spurs chiming with every step. + +We chatted amiably for a few moments; then the Captain, standing very +erect and stiff, made me a beautiful bow and delivered the following +remarkable question: + +"Monsieur Van Twillaire, I am come to-day according to the American +custom, to beg your permission to pay my addresses to mademoiselle, +your daughter." + +I inhaled the smoke of my cigarette in my astonishment. That was bad for +me. After a silence I asked: + +"Which daughter?" + +"Mademoiselle Dulcima, monsieur." + +After another silence I said: + +"I will give you an answer to-morrow at this hour." + +We bowed to each other, solemnly shook hands, and parted. + +I was smoking restlessly in the conservatory of the hotel when a bellboy +brought me the card of Captain le Vicômte de Barsac. + +In due time the Vicômte himself appeared, elegant, graceful, smart; +black, scarlet, and white uniform glittering with triple-gold arabesques +on sleeve and Képi, spurs chiming with every step. + +We chatted amiably for a few moments; then the Captain, standing very +erect and stiff, made me a beautiful bow and delivered the following +remarkable question: + +"Monsieur Van Twillaire, I am come to-day according to the American +custom, to beg your permission to pay my addresses to mademoiselle, your +daughter." + +I dropped my cigarette into the empty fireplace. + +"Which daughter?" I asked, coldly. + +"Mademoiselle Dulcima, monsieur." + +After a silence I said: + +"I will give you an answer to-morrow at this hour." + +We bowed to each other, solemnly shook hands, and parted. + +I was smoking violently in the conservatory of the hotel, when a bellboy +brought me a card of my old friend, Gillian Van Dieman. + +In due time Van Dieman appeared, radiant, smiling, faultlessly groomed. + +"Well," said I, "it's about time you came over from Long Island, isn't +it? My daughters expected you last week." + +"I know," he said, smiling; "I couldn't get away, Peter. Didn't Alida +explain?" + +"Explain what?" I asked. + +"About our engagement." + +In my amazement I swallowed some smoke that was not wholesome for me. + +"Didn't she tell you she is engaged to marry me?" he asked, laughing. + +After a long silence, in which I thought of many things, including the +formal offers of Captains de Barsac and Torchon de Cluny, I said I had +not heard of it, and added sarcastically that I hoped both he and Alida +would pardon my ignorance on any matters which concerned myself. + +"Didn't you know that Alida came over here to buy her trousseau?" he +inquired coolly. + +I did not, and I said so. + +"Didn't you know about the little plot that she and I laid to get you to +bring her to Paris?" he persisted, much amused. + +I glared at him. + +"Why, Peter," he said, "when you declared to me in the clubhouse that +nothing could get you to Paris unless, through your own stupidity, +something happened to your pig----" + +I turned on him as red as a beet. + +"I know you stole that pig, Van!" + +"Yes," he muttered guiltily. + +"Then," said I earnestly, "for God's sake let it rest where it is, and +marry Alida whenever you like!" + +"With your blessing, Peter?" asked Van Dieman, solemnly. + +"With my blessing--dammit!" + +We shook hands in silence. + +"Where is Alida?" he asked presently. + +"In her room, surrounded by thousands of dressmakers, hatmakers, +mantua-makers, furriers, experts in shoes, lingerie, jewelry, and other +inexpensive trifles," said I with satisfaction. + +But the infatuated man never winced. + +"_You_ will attend to that sort of thing in the future," I remarked. + +The reckless man grinned in unfeigned delight. + +"Come," said I, wearily, "Alida is in for all day with her trousseau. +I've a cab at the door; come on! I was going out to watch the parade at +Longchamps. Now you've got to go with me and tell me something about +this temperamental French army that seems more numerous in Paris than +the civilians." + +"What do you want to see soldiers for?" he objected. + +"Because," said I, "I had some slight experience with the army this +morning just before you arrived; and I want to take a bird's-eye view of +the whole affair." + +"But I----" + +"Oh, we'll return for dinner and then you can see Alida," I added. "But +only in my company. You see we are in France, Van, and she is the _jeune +fille_ of romance." + +"Fudge!" he muttered, following me out to the cab. + +"We will drive by the Pont Neuf," he suggested. "You know the proverb?" + +"No," said I; "what proverb?" + +"The bridegroom who passes by the Pont Neuf will always meet a priest, a +soldier, and a white horse. The priest will bless his marriage, the +soldier will defend it, the white horse will bear his burdens through +life." + +As a matter of fact, passing the Pont Neuf, we did see a priest, a +soldier, and a white horse. But it is a rare thing not to meet this +combination on the largest, longest, oldest, and busiest bridge in +Paris. All three mascots are as common in Paris as are English sparrows +in the Bois de Boulogne. + +I bought a book on the quay, then re-entered the taxi and directed the +driver to take us to the race-course at Longchamps. + +Our way led up the Champs Elysées, and, while we whirled along, Van +Dieman very kindly told me as much about the French army as I now write, +and for the accuracy of which I refer to my future son-in-law. + +There are, in permanent garrison in Paris, about thirty thousand troops +stationed. This does not include the famous Republican Guard corps, +which is in reality a sort of municipal gendarmerie, composed of several +battalions of infantry, several squadrons of gorgeous cavalry, and a +world-famous band, which corresponds in functions to our own Marine Band +at Washington. + +The barracks of the regular troops are scattered about the city, and +occupy strategic positions as the armouries of our National Guard are +supposed to do. All palaces, museums of importance, and government +buildings are guarded day and night by infantry. The cavalry guard only +their own barracks; the marines, engineers, and artillery the same. + +At night the infantry and cavalry of the Republican Guard post sentinels +at all theatres, balls, and public functions. In front of the Opera only +are the cavalry mounted on their horses, except when public functions +occur at the Elysées or the Hôtel de Ville. + +In the dozen great fortresses that surround the walls of Paris, +thousands of fortress artillery are stationed. In the suburbs and +outlying villages artillery and regiments of heavy and light +cavalry have their permanent barracks--dragoons, cuirassiers, +chasseurs-à-cheval, field batteries, and mounted batteries. At Saint +Cloud are dragoons and remount troopers; at Versailles the engineers and +cuirassiers rule the region; and the entire Department of the Seine is +patrolled by gendarmes, mounted and on foot. + +When we reached the beautiful meadow of Longchamps, with its grand-stand +covered with waving flags and the sunshine glowing on thousands of +brilliant parasols, we left the taxi, and found a place on what a New +Yorker would call "the bleachers." The bleachers were covered with +pretty women, so we were not in bad company. As for the great central +stand, where the President of the Republic sat surrounded by shoals of +brilliant officers, it was a mass of colour from flagstaff to pelouse. + +The band of the Republican Guards was thundering out one of Sousa's +marches; the vast green plain glittered with masses of troops. Suddenly +three cannon-shots followed one another in quick order; the band ended +its march with a long double roll of drums; the Minister of War had +arrived. + +"They're coming," said Van Dieman. "Look! Here come the Saint-Cyrians. +They lead the march one year, and the Polytechnic leads it the next. But +I wish they could see West Point--just once." + +The cadets from Saint-Cyr came marching past, solid ranks of scarlet, +blue, and silver. They marched pretty well; they ride better, I am told. +After them came the Polytechnic, in black and red and gold, the queer +cocked hats of the cadets forming a quaint contrast to the toy soldier +headgear of the Saint-Cyr soldiers. Following came battalion after +battalion of engineers in sombre uniforms of red and dark blue, then a +bizarre battalion of Turcos or Algerian Riflemen in turbans and pale +blue Turkish uniforms, then a company of Zouaves in scarlet and white +and blue, then some special corps which was not very remarkable for +anything except the bad fit of its clothing. + +After them marched solid columns of line infantry, great endless masses +of dull red and blue, passing steadily until the eye wearied of the +monotony. + +Trumpets were sounding now; and suddenly, the superb French artillery +passed at a trot, battery after battery, the six guns and six caissons +of each in mathematically perfect alignment, all the gunners mounted, +and not a man sitting on limber or caisson. + +In my excitement I rose and joined the roar of cheers which greeted the +artillerymen as battery after battery passed, six guns abreast. + +"Sit down," said Van Dieman, laughing. "Look! Here come the cavalry!" + +In two long double ranks, ten thousand horsemen were galloping +diagonally across the plain--Hussars in pale robin's-egg blue and black +and scarlet, Chasseurs-à-cheval in light blue and silver tunics, +Dragoons armed with long lances from which fluttered a forest of +red-and-white pennons, Cuirassiers cased in steel helmets and +corselets--all coming at a gallop, sweeping on with the earth shaking +under the thunder of forty thousand horses' hoofs, faster, faster, +while in the excitement the vast throng of spectators leaped up on the +benches to see. + +There was a rumble, a rolling shock, a blast from a hundred trumpets. +"Halt!" + +Then, with the sound of the rushing of an ocean, ten thousand swords +swept from their steel scabbards, and a thundering cheer shook the very +sky: "VIVE LA RÉPUBLIC!" + + * * * * * + +That evening we dined together at the Hôtel--Alida, Dulcima, Van Dieman, +and I. + +Alida wore a new ring set with a brilliant that matched her shining, +happy eyes. I hoped Van Dieman might appear foolish and ill at ease, but +he did not. + +"There is," said he, "a certain rare brand of champagne in the secret +cellars of this famous café. It is pink as a rose in colour, and drier +than a British cigar. It is the only wine, except the Czar's Tokay, fit +to drink to the happiness of the only perfect woman in the world." + +"And her equally perfect sister, father and fiancé," said I. "So pray +order this wonderful wine, Van, and let me note the brand; for I very +much fear that we shall need another bottle at no distant date." + +"Why?" asked Dulcima, colouring to her hair. + +"Because," said I, "the French army is expected to encamp to-morrow +before this hotel." + +"Cavalry or artillery?" she asked faintly. + +"Both," said I; "so let us thank Heaven that we escape the infantry, at +least. Alida, my dear, your health, happiness, and long, long life!" + +We drank the toast standing. + +[Illustration] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Adventures of a Modest Man, by +Robert W. Chambers + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43702 *** |