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diff --git a/37528.txt b/37528.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3ee9a8a --- /dev/null +++ b/37528.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8810 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Quick Action, by Robert W. Chambers + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Quick Action + +Author: Robert W. Chambers + +Illustrator: Edmund Frederick + +Release Date: September 25, 2011 [EBook #37528] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUICK ACTION *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Matthew Wheaton and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + QUICK ACTION + + [Illustration: "'Are you preaching?' asked Athalie, raising her eyes + from the Green God."] + + + + + QUICK ACTION + + _By_ + + ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + + + ILLUSTRATED BY + + EDMUND FREDERICK + + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + NEW YORK AND LONDON: MCMXIV + + + COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY + + ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + + Copyright, 1913, by Harper's Bazaar, Inc. + Copyright, 1914, by The Star Co. + + Printed in the United States of America + + + TO + PENELOPE SEARS + DEBUTANTE + + _To rhyme your name + With something lovely, fresh and young, + And sing the same + In measures heretofore unsung, + Is far beyond me, I'm afraid; + I'll not attempt it, dearest maid._ + + _No, not in verse, + Synthetic, stately, classic, chaste, + Shall I rehearse-- + Although in perfectly good taste-- + A catalogue of every grace + That you inherit from your race._ + + _Gracious and kind, + The gods your beauty gave to you, + And with a mind + These same kind gods endowed you, too; + That charming union is, I fear, + Somewhat uncommon on this sphere._ + + _I have no doubt + That scores of poets chant your fame; + No doubt, about + A million suitors press their claim; + And fashion, elegance and wit + Are at your feet inclined to sit._ + + _Penelope, + The fire-light flickers to and fro: + In you I see + The winsome child I used to know-- + My little Maiden of Romance + Still whirling in your Shadow Dance._ + + _Though woman-grown, + To my unreconciled surprise + I gladly own + The same light lies within your eyes-- + The same sweet candour which beguiled + Your rhymster when you were a child._ + + _And so I come, + With limping verse to you again, + Amid the hum + Of that young world wherein you reign-- + Only a moment to appear + And say: "Your rhymster loves you, dear."_ + + _R. W. C._ + + + + +PREFACE + + +Always animated by a desire to contribute in a small way toward +scientific investigation, the author offers this humble volume to a more +serious audience than he has so far ventured to address. + +For all those who have outgrown the superficial amusement of mere +fiction this volume, replete with purpose, is written in hopes that it +may stimulate students to original research in certain obscure realms of +science, the borderlands of which, hitherto, have been scarcely crossed. + +There is perhaps no division of science as important, none so little +understood, as the science of Crystal Gazing. + +A vast field of individual research opens before the earnest, patient, +and sober minded investigator who shall study the subject and discover +those occult laws which govern the intimate relations between crystals, +playing cards, cigarettes, soiled pink wrappers, and the Police. + + + Amor nihil est celerius! + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + "'Are you preaching?' asked Athalie, raising her eyes from the + green god" + + "They inspected each other, apparently bereft of the power of + speech" + + "The magnificent realism of it fascinated the Lady Alene" + + "'I am in possession of the dog and you merely claim + possession'" + + + + +QUICK ACTION + + + + +I + +There was a new crescent moon in the west which, with the star above it, +made an agreeable oriental combination. + +In the haze over bay and river enough rose and purple remained to veil +the awakening glitter of the monstrous city sprawling supine between +river, sound, and sea. And its incessant monotone pulsated, groaning, +dying, ceaseless, interminable in the light-shot depths of its darkening +streets. + +The sky-drawing-room windows of the Countess Athalie were all wide open, +but the only light in the room came from a crystal sphere poised on a +tripod. It had the quality and lustre of moon-light, and we had never +been able to find out its source, for no electric wires were visible, +and one could move the tripod about the room. + +The crystal sphere itself appeared to be luminous, yet it remained +perfectly transparent, whatever the source of its silvery +phosphorescence. + +At any rate, it was the only light in the room except the dulled glimmer +of our cigarettes, and its mild, mysterious light enabled us to see one +another as through a glass darkly. + +There were a number of men there that evening. I don't remember, now, +who they all were. Some had dined early; others, during the evening, +strolled away into the city to dine somewhere or other, drifting back +afterward for coffee and sweetmeats and cigarettes in the +sky-drawing-room of the Countess Athalie. + +As usual the girl was curled up by the open window among her silken +cushions, one smooth little gem-laden hand playing with the green jade +god, her still dark eyes, which slanted a little, fixed dreamily upon +infinite distance--or so it always seemed to us. + +Through the rusty and corrugated arabesques of the iron balcony she +could see, if she chose, the yellow flare where Sixth Avenue crossed +the shabby street to the eastward. Beyond that, and parallel, a brighter +glow marked Broadway. Further east street lamps stretched away into +converging perspective, which vanished to a point in the faint nebular +radiance above the East River. + +All this the Countess Athalie could see if she chose. Perhaps she did +see it. We never seemed to know just what she was looking at even when +she turned her dark eyes on us or on her crystal sphere cradled upon its +slender tripod. + +But the sphere seemed to understand, for sometimes, under her still +gaze, it clouded magnificently like a black opal--another thing we never +understood, and therefore made light of. + +"They have placed policemen before several houses on this street," +remarked the Countess Athalie. + +Stafford, tall and slim in his evening dress, relieved her of her coffee +cup. + +"Has anybody bothered you?" he asked. + +"Not yet." + +Young Duane picked up a pack of cards at his elbow and shuffled them, +languidly. + +"Where is the Ace of Diamonds, Athalie?" he asked. + +"Any card you try to draw will be the Ace of Diamonds," replied the girl +indifferently. + +"Can't I escape drawing it?" + +"No." + +We all turned and looked at Duane. He quickly spread the pack, +fan-shaped, backs up. After a moment's choosing he drew a card, looked +at it, held it up for us to see. It was the Ace of Diamonds. + +"Would you mind trying that again, Athalie?" I asked. And Duane replaced +the card and shuffled the pack. + +"But it's gone, now," said the girl. + +"I replaced it in the pack," explained Duane. + +"No, you gave it to me," she said. + +We all smiled. Duane searched through the pack in his hands, once, +twice; then he laughed. The girl held up one empty hand. Then, somehow +or other, there was the Ace of Diamonds between her delicate little +thumb and forefinger. + +She held it a moment or two for our inspection; then, curving her wrist, +sent it scaling out into the darkness. It soared away above the street, +tipped up, and describing an aerial ellipse, returned straight to the +balcony where she caught it in her fingers. + +Twice she did this; but the third time, high in the air, the card burst +into violet flame and vanished. + +"That," remarked Stafford, "is one thing which I wish to learn how to +do." + +"Two hundred dollars," said the Countess Athalie, "--in two lessons; +also, your word of honour." + +"Monday," nodded Stafford, taking out a note-book and making a +memorandum, "--at five in the afternoon." + +"Monday and Wednesday at five," said the girl, lighting a cigarette and +gazing dreamily at nothing. + +From somewhere in the room came a voice. + +"Did they ever catch that crook, Athalie?" + +"Which?" + +"The Fifty-ninth Street safe-blower?" + +"Yes." + +"Did _you_ find him?" + +She nodded. + +"How? In your crystal?" I asked. + +"Yes, he was there." + +"It's odd," mused Duane, "that you can never do anything of advantage to +yourself by gazing into your crystal." + +"It's the invariable limit to clairvoyance," she remarked. + +"A sort of penalty for being super-gifted," added Stafford. + +"Perhaps.... We can't help ourselves." + +"It's too bad," I volunteered. + +"Oh, I don't care," she said, with a slight shrug of her pretty +shoulders. + +"Come," said somebody, teasingly, "wouldn't you like to know how soon +you are going to fall in love, and with whom?" + +She laughed, dropped her cigarette into a silver bowl, stretched her +arms above her head, straightened her slender figure, turned her head +and looked at us. + +"No," she said, "I do not wish to know. Light is swift; Thought is +swifter; but Love is the swiftest thing in Life, and if it is now +travelling toward me, it will strike me soon enough to suit me." + +Stafford leaned forward and arranged the cushions for her; she sank back +among them, her dark eyes still on us. + +"Hours are slow," she said; "years are slower, but the slowest thing in +Life is Love. If it is now travelling toward me, it will reach me soon +enough to suit me." + +"I," said Duane, "prefer quick action, O Athalie, the Beautiful!" + +"Athalie, lovely and incomparable," said Stafford, "I, also, prefer +quick action." + +"Play _Scheherazade_ for us, Athalie," I said, "else we slay you with +our compliments." + +A voice or two from distant corners repeated the menace. A match flared +and a fresh cigarette glowed faintly. + +Somebody brought the tripod with its crystal sphere and set it down in +the middle of the room. Its mild rays fell on the marble basin of the +tiny fountain,--Duane's offering. The goldfish which I had given her +were floating there fast asleep. + +When we had placed sweetmeats and cigarettes convenient for her, we all, +in turn, with circumstance and ceremony, bent over her left hand where +it rested listlessly among the cushions, saluting the emerald on her +third finger with our lips. + +Then the dim circle closed around her, nearer. + +"Of all the visions which have passed before your eyes within the depths +of that crystal globe," said Duane, "--of all the histories of men and +women which, unsuspected by them, you have witnessed, seated here in +this silent, silk-hung place, we desire to hear only those in which Fate +has been swiftest, Opportunity a loosened arrow, Destiny a flash of +lightning." + +"But the victims of quick action must be nameless, except as I choose to +mask them," she said, looking dreamily into her crystal. + +After a moment's silence Duane said in a low voice: + +"Does anybody notice the odour of orange blossoms?" + +We all noticed the fragrance. + +"I seem to catch a whiff of the sea, also," ventured Stafford. "Am I +right?" + +"Yes," she nodded, "you will notice the odour of the semi-tropics, even +if you miss the point of everything I tell you." + +"In other words," said I, "we are but a material bunch, Athalie, and may +be addressed and amused only through our physical senses. Very well: +transpose from the spiritual for us if you please a little story of +quick action which has happened here in the crystal under your matchless +eyes!" + + + + +II + + +With her silver tongs she selected a sweetmeat. When it had melted in +her sweeter mouth, she lighted a cigarette, saluted us with a gay little +gesture and smilingly began: + +"Don't ask me how I know what these people said; that is _my_ concern, +not yours. Don't ask me how I know what unspoken thoughts animated these +people; that is _my_ affair. Nor how I seem to be perfectly acquainted +with their past histories; for _that_ is part of my profession." + +"And still the wonder grew," commented the novelist tritely, "that one +small head could carry all she knew!" + +"Why," asked Stafford, "do you refuse to reveal your secret? Do you no +longer trust us, Athalie?" + +She answered: "_Comment pretendons-nous qu'un autre garde notre secret, +si nous n'avons pas pu le garder nous-meme?_" + +Nobody replied. + +"Now," she said, laughingly, "I will tell you all that I know about the +_Orange Puppy_." + + * * * * * + +Plans for her first debut began before her birth. When it became +reasonably certain that she was destined to decorate the earth, she was +entered on the waiting lists of two schools--The Dinglenook School for +Boys, and The Idlebrook Institute for Young Ladies--her parents taking +no chances, but playing both ends coming and going. + +When ultimately she made her first earthly appearance, and it was +apparent that she was destined to embellish the planet in the guise of a +girl, the process of grooming her for her second debut, some eighteen +years in the future, began. She lived in sanitary and sterilized +seclusion, eating by the ounce, sleeping through accurately measured +minutes, every atom of her anatomy inspected daily, every pore of her +skin explored, every garment she wore weighed, every respiration, pulse +beat, and fluctuation of bodily temperature carefully noted and +discussed. + +When she appeared her hair was black. After she shed this, it came in +red; when she was eight her hair was coppery, lashes black, eyes blue, +and her skin snow and wild-strawberry tints in agreeably delicate +nuances. Several millions were set aside to grow up with her and for +her. Also, the list of foreign and aristocratic babyhood was scanned and +several dozen possibilities checked off--the list running from the +progeny of down-and-out monarchs with a sporting chance for a crown, to +the more solid infant aristocracy of Britain. + +At the age of nine, the only symptom of intellect that had yet appeared +in her was a superbly developed temper. That year she eluded a governess +and two trained nurses in the park, and was discovered playing with some +unsterilized children near the duck-pond, both hands full of slime and +pollywogs. + +It was the only crack in the routine through which she ever crawled. +Lessons daily in riding, driving, dancing, fencing, gymnastics, squash, +tennis, skating, plugged every avenue of escape between morning school +and evening sleep, after a mental bath in sterilized literature. Once, +out of the window she saw a fire. This event, with several runaways on +the bridle-path, included the sensations of her life up to her release +from special instructors, and her entry into Idlebrook Institute. + +Here she did all she could to misbehave in a blind and instinctive +fashion, but opportunities were pitiably few; and by the time she had +graduated, honest deviltry seemed to have been starved out of her; and a +half year's finishing abroad apparently eliminated it, leaving only a +half-confused desire to be let alone. But solitude was the luxury always +denied her. + +Unlike the usual debutante, who is a social veteran two years before her +presentation, and who at eighteen lacks no experience except +intellectual, Miss Cassillis had become neither a judge of champagne nor +an expert in the various cabaret steps popular at country houses and the +more exclusive dives. + +"Mother," she said calmly, on her eighteenth birthday, "do you know that +I am known among my associates as a dead one?" At which that fat and +hard-eyed matron laughed, surveying her symmetrical daughter with grim +content. + +"Let me tell you something," she said. "America, socially, is only one +vast cabaret, mostly consisting of performers. The spectators are few. +You're one. Conditions are reversed across the water; the audience is +in the majority.... How do you like young Willowmere?" + +The girl replied that she liked Lord Willowmere. She might have added +that she was prepared to like anything in trousers that would give her a +few hours off. + +"Do you think," said her mother, "you can be trusted to play in the +social cabaret all next winter, and then marry Willowmere?" + +Said Cecil: "I am perfectly ready to marry anybody before luncheon, if +you will let me." + +"I do not wish you to feel _that_ way." + +"Mother, I _do_! All I want is to be let alone long enough to learn +something for myself." + +"What do you not know? What have you _not_ learned? What accomplishment +do you lack, little daughter? What is it you wish?" + +The girl glanced out of the window. A young and extremely well-built man +went striding down the avenue about his business. He looked a little +like a man she had seen playing ball on the Harvard team a year ago. She +sighed unconsciously. + +"I've learned about everything there is to learn, I suppose.... +Except--where do men go when they walk so busily about their business?" + +"Down town," said her mother, laughing. + +"What do they do there?" + +"A million things concerning millions." + +"But I don't see how there's anything left for them to do after their +education is completed. What is there left for me to do, except to marry +and have a few children?" + +"What do you want to do?" + +"Nothing.... I'd like to have something to do which would make me look +busy and make me walk rather fast--like that young man who was hurrying +down town all by himself. Then I'd like to be let alone while I'm busy +with my own affairs." + +"When you marry Willowmere you'll be busy enough." She might have added: +"And lonely enough." + +"I'll be occupied in telling others how to busy themselves with my +affairs. But there won't be anything for _me_ to do, will there?" + +"Yes, dear child; it will be one steady fight to better a good position. +It will afford you constant exercise." + +The tall young girl bit her lip and shook her pretty head in silence. +She felt instinctively that she knew how to do that. But that was not +the exercise she wanted. She looked out into the February sunshine and +saw the blue shadows on the snow and the sidewalks dark and wet, and +the little gutter arabs throwing snow-balls, and a yellow pup barking +blissfully. And, apropos of nothing at all, she suddenly remembered how +she had run away when she was nine; and a rush of blind desire surged +within her. What it meant she did not know, did not trouble to consider, +but it stirred her until the soft fire burned in her cheeks, and left +her twisting her white fingers, lips parted, staring across the wintry +park into the blue tracery of trees. To Miss Cassillis adolescence came +late. + +They sang _Le Donne Curiose_ at the opera that evening; she sat in her +father's box; numbers of youthful, sleek-headed, white-shirted young men +came between the acts. She talked to all with the ardor of the young and +unsatisfied; and, mentally and spiritually still unsatisfied, buried in +fur, she was whirled back through snowy streets to the great grey +mansion of her nativity, and the silence of her white-hung chamber. + +All through February the preparatory regime continued, with preliminary +canters at theatre and opera, informal party practice, and trial +dinners. Always she gave herself completely to every moment with a +wistful and unquenched faith, eager novice in her quest of what was +lacking in her life; ardent enthusiast in her restless searching for +the remedy. And, unsatisfied, lingering mentally by the door of Chance, +lest she miss somewhere the magic that satisfies and quiets--lest the +gates of Opportunity swing open after she had turned away--reluctantly +she returned to the companionship of her own solitary mind and +undeveloped soul, and sat down to starve with them in spirit, wondering +wherein might lie the reason for this new hunger that assailed her, mind +and body. + +She ran up her private flag the next winter, amid a thousand other gay +and flaunting colours breaking out all over town. The newspapers roared +a salute to the wealthiest debutante; and an enthusiastic press, not yet +housebroken but agile with much exercise in leaping and fawning, leaped +now about the debutante's slippers, grinning, slavering and panting. +Later, led by instinct and its Celebrated Nose, it bounded toward young +Lord Willowmere, jumped and fawned about him, slightly soiling him, +until in midwinter the engagement it had announced was corroborated, and +a million shop-girls and old women were in a furor. + +He was a ruddy-faced young man who wore his bowler hat toward the back +of his head, a small, pointed moustache, and who walked always as +though he were shod in riding boots. + +He would have made a healthy studgroom for any gentleman's stable. +Person and intellect were always thoroughly scrubbed as with +saddle-soap. Had he been able to afford it, his stables would have been +second to none in England. + +Soon he would be able to afford it. + +To his intimates, including his fiancee, he was known as "Stirrups." All +day long he was in the saddle or on the box, every evening at the +Cataract Club or at a cabaret. Between times he called upon Miss +Cassillis--usually finding her out. When he found her not at home, he +called elsewhere, very casually. + +Two continents were deeply stirred over the impending alliance. + + + + +III + + +Young Jones, in wildest Florida, had never heard of it or of her, or of +her income. His own fortune amounted to six hundred dollars, and he had +been born in Brooklyn, and what his salary might be only he and the +Smithsonian Institution knew. + +He was an industrious young man, no better than you or I, accepting +thankfully every opportunity for mischief which the Dead Lake region +afforded. No opportunities of that kind ever presenting themselves in +that region, he went once a month to Miami in the _Orange Puppy_, and +drank too many swizzles and so forth, et cetera. + +Having accomplished this, he returned to the wharf, put the _Orange +Puppy_ into commission, hoisted sail, and squared away for Matanzas +Inlet, finding himself too weak-minded to go home by a more direct +route. + +He had been on his monthly pilgrimage to Miami, and was homeward bound +noisily, using his auxiliary power so that silence should not descend +upon him too abruptly. He had been, for half an hour now, immersed in a +species of solitaire known as The Idiot's Delight, when he caught +himself cheating himself, and indignantly scattered the pack to the four +winds--three of which, however, were not blowing. One card, the deuce of +hearts, fluttered seaward like a white butterfly. Beyond it he caught +sight of another white speck, shining like a gull's breast. + +It was a big yacht steaming in from the open sea; and her bill of lading +included Miss Cassillis and Willowmere. But Jones could not know that. +So he merely blinked at the distant _Chihuahua_, yawned, flipped the +last card overboard, and swung the _Orange Puppy_ into the inlet, which +brimmed rather peacefully, the tide being nearly at flood. + +Far away on the deck of the _Chihuahua_ the quick-fire racket of Jones's +auxiliary was amazingly audible. Miss Cassillis, from her deck-chair, +could see the _Orange Puppy_, a fleck of glimmering white across a +sapphire sea. How was she to divine that one Delancy Jones was aboard of +her? All she saw when the two boats came near each other was a noisy +little craft progressing toward the lagoon, emitting an earsplitting +racket; and a tall, lank young man clad in flannels lounging at the +tiller and smoking a cigarette. + +Around her on the snowy deck were disposed the guests of her parents, +mostly corpulent, swizzles at every elbow, gracefully relaxing after a +morning devoted to arduous idleness. The Victor on deck, which had +furnished the incentive to her turkey-trotting with Lord Willowmere, was +still exuding a syncopated melody. Across the water, Jones heard it and +stood looking at the great yacht as the _Orange Puppy_ kicked her way +through the intensely blue water under an azure sky. + +Willowmere lounged over to the rail and gazed wearily at the sand dunes +and palmettos. Presently Miss Cassillis slipped from her deck-chair to +her white-shod feet, and walked over to where he stood. He said +something about the possibilities of "havin' a bit of shootin'," with a +vague wave of his highly-coloured hand toward the palmetto forests +beyond the lagoon. + +If the girl heard him she made no comment. After a while, as the +distance between the _Chihuahua_ and the _Orange Puppy_ lengthened, she +levelled her sea glasses at the latter craft, and found that the young +man at the helm was also examining her through his binoculars. + +While she inspected him, several unrelated ideas passed through her +head; she thought he was very much sunburned and that his hatless head +was attractive, with its short yellow hair crisped by the sun. Without +any particular reason, apparently, she recollected a young man she had +seen the winter before, striding down the wintry avenue about his +business. He might have been this young man for all she knew. Like the +other, this one wore yellow hair. Then, with no logic in the sequence of +her thoughts, suddenly the memory of how she had run away when she was +nine years old set her pulses beating, filling her heart with the +strange, wistful, thrilling, overwhelming longing which she had supposed +would never again assail her, now that she was engaged to be married. +And once more the soft fire burned in her cheeks. + +"Stirrups," she said, scarcely knowing what she was saying, "I don't +think I'll marry you after all. It's just occurred to me." + +"Oh, I say!" protested Willowmere languidly, never for a moment +mistrusting that the point of her remark was buried in some species of +American humour. He always submitted to American humour. There was +nothing else to do, except to understand it. + +"Stirrups, dear?" + +"What?" + +"You're very pink and healthy, aren't you?" + +He shrugged his accustomed shrug of resignation. + +"Oh, I say--come, now----" he murmured, lighting a cigarette. + +"What a horrid smash there would be if I didn't make good, wouldn't +there, Stirrups?" She mused, her blue eyes resting on him, too coldly. + +"Rather," he replied, comfortably settling his arms on the rail. + +"It might happen, you know. Suppose I fell overboard?" + +"Fish you out, ducky." + +"Suppose I--ran away?" + +"Ow." + +"What would you do, Stirrups? Why, you'd go back to town and try to +pick another winner. Wouldn't you?" + +He laughed. + +"Naturally that is what you would do, isn't it?" She considered him +curiously for a moment, then smiled. "How funny!" she said, almost +breathlessly. + +"Rather," he murmured, and flicked his cigarette overboard. + +The _Orange Puppy_ had disappeared beyond the thicket of palmettos +across the point. The air was very warm and still. + +Her father waddled forward presently, wearing the impressive summer +regalia of a commodore in the Siwanois Yacht Club. His daughter's blue +eyes rested on the portly waistline of her parent--then on his fluffy +chop-whiskers. A vacant, hunted look came into her eyes. + +"Father," she said almost listlessly, "I'm going to run away again." + +"When do you start?" inquired that facetious man. + +"Now, I think. What is there over there?"--turning her face again toward +the distant lagoon, with its endless forests of water-oak, cedar, and +palmetto. + +"Over there," said her father, "reside several species of snakes and +alligators. Also other reptiles, a number of birds, and animals, and +much microbic mud." + +She bit her lip. "I see," she said, nodding. + +Willowmere said: "We should find some shootin' along the lagoon. Look at +the ducks." + +Mr. Cassillis yawned; he had eaten too heavily of duck to be interested. +Very thoughtfully he presented himself with a cigar, turned it over and +over between his soft fingers, and yawned again. Then, nodding solemnly +as though in emphasis of a profound idea of which he had just been +happily delivered, he waddled slowly back along the deck. + +His daughter looked after him until he disappeared; gazed around her at +the dawdling assortment of guests aboard, then lifted her quiet eyes to +Willowmere. + +"Ducky," she said, "I can't stand it. I'm going to run away." + +"Come on, then," he said, linking his arm in hers. + +The Victor still exuded the Tango. + +She hesitated. Then freeing herself: + +"Oh, not with you, Stirrups! I wish to go away somewhere entirely alone. +Could you understand?" she added wistfully. + +He stifled a yawn. American humour bored him excessively. + +"You'll be back in a day or two?" he inquired. And laughed violently +when the subtlety of his own wit struck him. + +"In a day or two or not at all. Good-bye, Stirrups." + +"Bye." + +The sun blazed on her coppery hair and on the white skin that never +burned, as she walked slowly across the yacht's deck and disappeared +below. + +While she was writing in her cabin, the _Chihuahua_ dropped her anchors. +Miss Cassillis listened to the piping, the thud of feet on deck, the +rattle and distant sound of voices. Then she continued her note: + + I merely desire to run away. I don't know why, Mother, dear. + But the longing to bolt has been incubating for many years. And + now it's too strong to resist. I don't quite understand how it + came to a crisis on deck just now, but I looked at Stirrups, + whose skin is too pink, and at Father, who had lunched too + sumptuously, and at the people on deck, all digesting in a + row--and then at the green woods on shore, and the strip of + white where a fairy surf was piling up foam into magic castles + and snowy battlements, ephemeral, exquisite. And all at once + it came over me that I must go. + + Don't be alarmed. I shall provision a deck canoe, take a tent, + some rugs and books, and paddle into that lagoon. If you will + just let me alone for two or three days, I promise I'll return + safe and sound, and satisfied. For something has got to be done + in regard to that longing of mine. But really, I think that if + you and Father _won't_ understand, and if you send snooping + people after me, I won't come back at all, and I'll never marry + Stirrups. Please understand me, Mother, dear. + + CECIL. + +This effusion she pinned to her pillow, then rang for the steward and +ordered the canoe to be brought alongside, provisioned for a three days' +shooting trip. + +So open, frank, and guileless were her orders that nobody who took them +suspected anything unusual; and in the full heat and glare of the +afternoon siesta, when parents, fiance, and assorted guests were all +asleep and in full process of digestion and the crew of the _Chihuahua_ +was drowsing from stem to stern, a brace of sailors innocently connived +at her escape, aided her into the canoe, and, doubting nothing, watched +her paddle away through the inlet, and into the distant lagoon, which +lay sparkling in golden and turquoise tints, set with palms like a +stupid picture in a child's geography. + +Later, the _Chihuahua_ fired a frantic gun. Later still, two boats left +the yacht, commanded respectively by one angry parent and one fiance, +profoundly bored. + + + + +IV + + +When Miss Cassillis heard the gun, it sounded very far away. But it +irritated as well as scared her. She pushed the canoe energetically +through a screen of foliage overhanging the bank of the lagoon, it being +merely her immediate instinct to hide herself. + +To her surprise and pleasure, she discovered herself in a narrow, deep +lead, which had been entirely concealed by the leaves, and which wound +away through an illimitable vista of reeds, widening as she paddled +forward, until it seemed like a glassy river bordered by live-oak, +water-oak, pine, and palmetto, curving out into a flat and endless land +of forests. + +Here was liberty at last! No pursuit need now be feared, for the +entrance to this paradise which she had forced by a chance impulse +could never be suspected by parent or fiance. + +A little breeze blew her hair and loosened it; silently her paddle +dipped, swept astern in a swirl of bubbles, flashed dripping, and dipped +again. + +Ahead of her a snake-bird slipped from a dead branch into the water; a +cormorant perched on the whitened skeleton of a mango, made hideous +efforts to swallow a mullet before her approach disorganized his +manoeuvres. + +So silently the canoe stole along that the fat alligators, dozing in the +saw-grass, dozed on until she stirred them purposely with a low tap of +her paddle against the thwarts; then they rose, great lumbering bodies +propped high on squatty legs, waddled swiftly to the bank's edge, and +slid headlong into the water. + +Everywhere dragon-flies glittered over the saw-grass; wild ducks with +golden eyes and heads like balls of brown plush swam leisurely out of +the way; a few mallard, pretending to be frightened, splashed and +clattered into flight, the sunlight jewelling the emerald heads of the +drakes. + +"Wonderful, wonderful," her heart was singing to itself, while her +enchanted eyes missed nothing--neither the feebly flying and strangely +shaped, velvety black butterflies, the narrow wings of which were +striped with violent yellow; nor the metallic blue and crestless jays +that sat on saplings, watching her; nor the pelicans fishing with +nature's orange and iridescent net in the shallows; nor the tall, +slate-blue birds that marched in dignified retreat through the sedge, +picking up their stilt-like legs with the precision of German +foot-soldiers on parade. + +These and other phenomena made her drop her paddle at intervals and clap +her hands softly in an ecstasy beyond mere exclamation. How restfully +green was the world; how limpid the water; how royally blue the heavens! +Listening, she could hear the soft stirring of palmetto fronds in the +forests; the celestial song of a little bird that sat on a sparkle-berry +bush, its delicate long-curved bill tilted skyward. Then the deep note +of splendour flashed across the scheme of sound and colour as a crimson +cardinal alighted near her, crest erect. + +But more wonderful than all was that at last, after eighteen years, she +was utterly alone; and liberty was showering its inestimable gifts upon +her in breathless prodigality--liberty to see with her own eyes and +judge with her own senses; liberty to linger capriciously amid mental +fancies, to move on impulsively to others; liberty to reflect unurged +and unrestricted; liberty to choose, to reject, to ignore. + +[Illustration: "They inspected each other, apparently bereft of the +power of speech."] + +Now and then a brilliant swimming snake filled her with interest and +curiosity. Once, on a flat, low bush, she saw a dull, heavy, +blunt-bodied serpent lying asleep in the sun like an old and swollen +section of rubber hose. But when she ventured to touch the bush with her +paddle, the snake reared high and yawned at her with jaws which seemed +to be lined in white satin. Which fortunately made her uneasy, and she +meddled no more with the Little Death of the southern swamps. + +She was now passing very close to the edge of the "hammock," where +palmettos overhung the water; and as the cool, dim woodlands seemed to +invite her, she looked about her leisurely for an agreeable landing +place. There were plenty to choose from; and she selected a little sandy +point under a red cedar tree, drove her canoe upon it, and calmly +stepped ashore. And found herself looking into the countenance of Jones. + +For a full minute they inspected each other, apparently bereft of the +power of speech. + +She said, finally: "About a year ago last February, did you happen to +walk down Fifth Avenue--very busily? Did you?" + +It took him an appreciable time to concentrate for mental retrospection. + +"Yes," he said, "I did." + +"You were going down town, weren't you?" + +"Yes." + +"On business?" + +"Yes," he said, bewildered. + +"I wonder," she said timidly, "if you would tell me what that business +was? Do you mind? Because, really, I don't mean to be impertinent." + +He made an effort to reflect. It was difficult to reflect and to keep +his eyes on her but also it is impolite to converse with anybody and +look elsewhere. This he had been taught at his mother's knee--and +sometimes over it. + +"My business down town," he said very slowly, "was with an officer of +the Smithsonian Institution who had come on from Washington to see +something which I had brought with me from Florida." + +"Would you mind telling me what it was you brought with you from +Florida?" she asked wistfully. + +"No. It was malaria." + +"What!" + +"It was malaria," he repeated politely. + +"I--I don't see how you could--could show it to him," she murmured, +perplexed. + +"Well, I'll tell you how I showed it to him. I made a little incision in +my skin with a lancet; he made a smear or two----" + +"A--what?" + +"A smear--he put a few drops of my blood on some glass plates." + +"Why?" + +"To examine them under the microscope." + +"Why?" + +"So that he might determine what particular kind of malaria I had +brought back with me." + +"Did he find out?" she asked, deeply interested. + +"Yes," said Jones, displaying mild symptoms of enthusiasm, "he +discovered that I was fairly swarming with a perfectly new and +undescribed species of bacillus. That bacillus," he added, with modest +diffidence, "is now named after me." + +She looked at him very earnestly, dropped her blue eyes, raised them +again after a moment: + +"It must be--pleasant--to give one's name to a bacillus." + +"It is an agreeable and exciting privilege. When I look into the culture +tubes I feel an intimate relationship with those bacilli which I have +never felt for any human being." + +"You--you are a----" she hesitated, with a slight but charming colour in +her cheeks, "a naturalist, I presume?" And she added hastily, "No doubt +you are a famous one, and my question must sound ignorant and absurd to +you. But as I do not know your name----" + +"It is Jones," he said gloomily, "--and I am not famous." + +"Mine is Cecil Cassillis; and neither am I," she said. "But I thought +when naturalists gave their names to butterflies and microbes that +everything concerned immediately became celebrated." + +Jones smiled; and she thought his expression very attractive. + +"No," he said, "fame crowns the man who, celebrated only for his wealth, +names hotels, tug-boats, and art galleries after himself. Thus are +Immortals made." + +She laughed, standing there gracefully as a boy, her hands resting on +her narrow hips. She laughed again. A tug-boat, a hotel, and a cigar +were named after her father. + +"Fame is an extraordinary thing," she said. "But liberty is still more +wonderful, isn't it?" + +"Liberty is only comparative," he said, smiling. "There is really no +such thing as absolute freedom." + +"_You_ have all the freedom you desire, haven't you?" + +"Well--I enjoy the only approach to absolute liberty I ever heard of." + +"What kind of liberty is that?" + +"Freedom to think as I please, no matter what I'm obliged to do." + +"But you do what you please, too, don't you?" + +"Oh, no!" he said smiling. "The man was never born who did what he +pleased." + +"Why not? You choose your own work, don't you?" + +"Yes. But once the liberty of choice is exercised, freedom ends. I +choose my profession. There my liberty ends, because instantly I am +enslaved by the conditions which make my choice a profession." + +She was deeply interested. A mossy log lay near them; she seated herself +to listen, her elbow on her knee, and her chin cupped in her hand. But +Jones became silent. + +"Were you not in that funny little boat that passed the inlet about +three hours ago?" she asked. + +"The _Orange Puppy_? Yes." + +"What an odd name for a boat--the _Orange Puppy_!" + +"An orange puppy," he explained, "is the name given in the Florida +orange groves to the caterpillar of a large swallow-tail butterfly, +which feeds on orange leaves. The butterfly it turns into is known to +entomologists as _Papilio cresphontes_ and _Papilio thoas_. The latter +is a misnomer." + +She gazed upon this young man in undisguised admiration. + +"Once," she said, "when I was nine years old, I ran away from a +governess and two trained nurses. They found me with both hands full of +muddy pollywogs. It has nothing to do with what you are saying, but I +thought I'd tell you." + +He insisted that the episode she recalled was most interesting and +unusual, considered purely as a human document. + +"Would you tell me what you are doing down here in these forests?" she +asked, "--as we are discussing human documents." + +"Yes," he said. "I am investigating several thousand small caterpillars +which are feeding on the scrub-palmetto." + +"Is that your _business_?" + +"Exactly. If you will remain very still for a moment and listen very +intently you can hear the noise which these caterpillars make while +they are eating." + +She thought of the _Chihuahua_, and it occurred to her that she had +rather tired of seeing things eat. However, except in Europe, she had +never _heard_ things eat. So she listened. + +He said: "These caterpillars are in their third moult--that is, they +have changed their skin three times since emerging from the egg--and are +now busily chewing the immature fruit of the scrub-palmetto. You can +hear them very plainly." + +She sat silent, spellbound; and presently in the woodland stillness, all +around her she heard the delicate and continuous sound--the steady, +sustained noise of thousands of tiny jaws, all crunching, all busily +working together. And when she realized what the elfin rustle really +meant, she turned her delighted and grateful eyes on Jones. And the +beauty of them made him exceedingly thoughtful. + +"Will you explain to me," she whispered, "why you are studying these +caterpillars, Mr. Jones?" + +"Because they are spreading out over the forests. Until recently this +particular species of caterpillar, and the pretty little moth into which +it ultimately turns, were entirely confined to a narrow strip of +jungle, only a few miles long, lying on the Halifax River. Nowhere else +in all the world could these little creatures be found. But recently +they have been reported from the Dead Lake country. So the Smithsonian +Institution sent me down here to study them, and find out whither they +were spreading, and whether any natural parasitic enemies had yet +appeared to check them." + +She gazed at him, fascinated. + +"Have any appeared?" she asked, under her breath. + +"I have not yet found a single creature that preys upon them." + +"Isn't it a very arduous and difficult task to watch these thousands of +little caterpillars all day long?" + +"It is quite impossible for me to do it thoroughly all alone." + +"Would you like to have me help you?" she asked innocently. + +Which rather bowled him over, but he said: + +"I'd b-b-be d-d-delighted--only you haven't time, have you?" + +"I have three days. I've brought a tent, you see, and everything +necessary--rugs, magazines, blankets, toilet articles, bon-bons, +books--everything, in fact, to last three days.... I wonder how that +tent is put up. Do you know?" + +He went over to the canoe and gazed at the tent. + +"I think I could pitch it for you," he said. + +"Oh, thanks so much! May I help you? I think I'll put it here on this +pretty stretch of white sand by the water's edge." + +"I'm afraid that wouldn't do," he said, gravely. + +"Why?" + +"Because the lagoon is tidal. You'd be awash sooner or later." + +"I see. Well, then, anywhere in the woods will do----" + +"Not _anywhere_," he said, smiling. "High water leaves few dry places in +this forest; in fact--I'm afraid that my shack is perched on the only +spot which is absolutely dry at all times. It is a shell mound--the only +one in the Dead Lake region." + +"Isn't there room for my tent beside yours?" she asked, a trifle +anxiously. + +"Y-es," he said, in a voice as matter of fact as her own. "How many will +there be in your party?" + +"In my _party_! Why, only myself," she said, with smiling animation. + +"Oh, I see!" But he didn't. + +They lugged the tent back among the trees to the low shell mound, where +in the centre of a ring of pines and evergreen oaks his open-faced shack +stood, thatched with palmetto fans. She gazed upon the wash drying on +the line, upon a brace of dead ducks hanging from the eaves, upon the +smoky kettle and the ashes of the fire. Purest delight sparkled in her +blue eyes. + +Erecting her silk tent with practiced hands, he said carelessly: + +"In case you cared to send any word to the yacht----" + +"Did I say that I came from the yacht?" she asked; and her straight +eyebrows bent a trifle inward. + +"Didn't you?" + +"Will you promise me something, Mr. Jones?" + +The things he was prepared to promise her choked him for a second, but +when he regained control of his vocal powers he said, very pleasantly, +that he would gladly promise her anything. + +"Then don't ask me where I came from. Let me stay three days. Then I'll +go very quietly away, and never trouble you again. Is it a promise?" + +"Yes," he said, not looking at her. His face had become very serious; +she noticed it--and how well his head was set on his shoulders, and how +his clipped hair was burned to the color of crisp hay. + +"You were Harvard, of course," she said, unthinkingly. + +"Yes." He mentioned the year. + +"Not crew?" + +"No." + +"Baseball?" + +"'Varsity pitcher," he nodded, surprised. + +"Then this is the third time I've seen you.... I wonder what it is about +you----" She remained silent, watching him burying her water bottles in +the cool marl. + +When all was in order, he smiled, made her a little formal bow, and +evinced a disposition to retire and leave her in possession. + +"I thought we were going to work at once!" she said uneasily. "I am +quite ready." And, as he did not seem to comprehend, "I was going to +help you to examine the little caterpillars, one by one; and the minute +I saw anything trying to bite them I was going to call you. Didn't you +understand?" she added wistfully. + +"That will be fine!" he said, with an enthusiasm very poorly +controlled. + +"You will show me where the little creatures are hiding, won't you?" + +"Indeed I will! Here they are, all about us!" He made a sweeping gesture +over the low undergrowth of scrub-palmetto; and the next moment: + +"I see them!" she exclaimed, delighted. "Oh, what funny, scrubby, busy +little creatures! They are everywhere--_everywhere_! Why, there seem to +be thousands and thousands of them! And all are eating the tiny green +bunches of fruit!" + +They bent together over a group of feeding larvae; he handed her a pocket +microscope like his own; and, enchanted, she studied the tiny things +while he briefly described their various stages of development from the +little eggs to the pretty, pearl-tinted moth so charmingly striped with +delicate, brown lines--a rare prize in the cabinet of any collector. + + + + +V + + +Through the golden forest light of afternoon, they moved from shrub to +shrub; and he taught her to be on the watch for any possible foes of the +neat and busy little caterpillars, warning her to watch for birds, +spiders, beetles, ichneumon flies, possibly squirrels or even hornets. +She nodded her comprehension; he went one way, she the other. For nearly +ten minutes they remained separated, and it seemed ages to one of them +anyway. + +But the caterpillars appeared to be immune. Nothing whatever interfered +with them; wandering beetles left them unmolested; no birds even noticed +them; no gauzy-winged and parasitic flies investigated them. + +"Mr. Jones!" she called. + +He was at her side in an instant. + +"I only wanted to know where you were," she said happily. + +The sun hung red over the lagoon when they sauntered back to camp. She +went into her tent with a cheerful nod to him, which said: + +"I've had a splendid time, and I'll rejoin you in a few moments." + +When she emerged in fresh white flannels, she found him writing in a +blank-book. + +"I wonder if I might see?" she said. "If it's scientific, I mean." + +"It is, entirely." + +So she seated herself on the ground beside him, and read over his +shoulder the entries he was making in his field book concerning the +day's doings. When he had finished his entry, she said: + +"You have not mentioned my coming to you, and how we looked for +ichneumon flies together." + +"I----" He was silent. + +She added timidly: "I know I count for absolutely nothing in the +important experiences of a naturalist, but--I did look very hard for +ichneumon flies. Couldn't you write in your field book that I tried very +hard to help you?" + +He wrote gravely: + +"Miss Cassillis most generously volunteered her invaluable aid, and +spared no effort to discover any possible foe that might prove to be +parasitic upon these larvae. But so far without success." + +"Thank you," she said, in a very low voice. And after a short silence: +"It was not mere vanity, Mr. Jones. Do you understand?" + +"I know it was not vanity, even if I do not entirely understand." + +"Shall I tell you?" + +"Please." + +"It was the first thing that I have ever been permitted to do all by +myself. It meant so much to me.... And I wished to have a little record +of it--even if you think it is of no scientific importance." + +"It is of more importance than----" But he managed to stop himself, +slightly startled. She had lifted her head from the pages of the field +book to look at him. When his voice failed, and while the red burned +brilliantly in his ears, she resumed her perusal of his journal, +gravely. After a while, though she turned the pages as if she were +really reading, he concluded that her mind was elsewhere. It was. + +Presently he rose, mended the fire, filled the kettle, and unhooked the +brace of wild ducks from the eaves where they swung, and marched off +with them toward the water. + +When he returned, the ducks were plucked and split for broiling. He +found her seated as he had left her, dreaming awake, idle hands folded +on the pages of his open field book. + +For dinner they had broiled mallard, coffee, ash-cakes, and bon-bons. +After it she smoked a cigarette with him. + +Later she informed him that it was her first, and that she liked it, and +requested another. + +"Don't," he said, smiling. + +"Why?" + +"It spoils a girl's voice, ultimately." + +"But it's very agreeable." + +"Will you promise not to?" he asked, lightly. + +Suddenly her blue eyes became serious. + +"Yes," she said, "if you wish." + +The woods grew darker. Far across the lagoon a tiger-owl woke up and +began to yelp like a half-strangled hobgoblin. + +She sat silent for a little while, then very quietly and frankly put her +hand on Jones's. It was shaking. + +"I am afraid of that sound," she said calmly. + +"It is only a big owl," he reassured her, retaining her hand. + +"Is that what it is? How _very_ dark the woods are! I had no idea that +there could be such utter darkness. I am not sure that I care for it." + +"There is nothing to harm you in these woods." + +"No bears and wolves and panthers?" + +"There are a few--and all very anxious to keep away from anything +human." + +"Are you sure?" + +"Absolutely." + +"Do you mind if I leave my hand where it is?" + +It appeared that he had no insurmountable objections. + +After the seventh tiger-owl had awakened and the inky blackness quivered +with the witch-like shouting and hellish tumult, he felt her shoulder +pressing against his. And bending to look into her face saw that all the +colour in it had fled. + +"You mustn't be frightened," he said earnestly. + +"But I am. I'm sorry.... I'll try to accustom myself to it.... The +darkness is a--a trifle terrifying--isn't it?" + +"It's beautiful, too," he said, looking up at the firelit foliage +overhead. She looked up also, her slender throat glimmering rosy in the +embers' glare. After a moment she nodded: + +"It _is_ wonderful.... If I only had a little time to accustom myself to +it I am sure I should love it.... Oh! What was that very loud splash +out there in the dark?" + +"A big fish playing in the lagoon; or perhaps wild ducks feeding." + +After a few minutes he felt her soft hand tighten within his. + +"It sounds as though some great creature were prowling around our fire," +she whispered. "Do you hear its stealthy tread?" + +"Noises in the forest are exaggerated," he said carelessly. "It may be a +squirrel or some little furry creature out hunting for his supper. +Please don't be afraid." + +"Then it _isn't_ a bear?" + +"No, dear," he said, so naturally and unthinkingly that for a full +second neither realised the awful break of Delancy Jones. + +When they did they said nothing about it. But it was some time before +speech was resumed. She was the first to recover. Perhaps the +demoralisation was largely his. It usually is that way. + +She said: "This has been the most perfect day of my entire life. I'm +even glad I am a little scared. It is delicious to be a trifle afraid. +But I'm not, now--very much.... Is there any established hour for +bedtime in the woods?" + +"Inclination sounds the hour." + +"Isn't that wonderful!" she sighed, her eyes on the fire. "Inclination +rules in the forest.... And here I am." + +The firelight on her copper-tinted hair masked her lovely eyes in a soft +shadow. Her shoulder stirred rhythmically as she breathed. + +"And here you live all alone," she mused, half to herself.... "I once +saw you pitch a game against Yale.... And the next time I saw you +walking very busily down Fifth Avenue.... And now--you are--here.... +That is wonderful.... Everything seems to be wonderful in this place.... +Wh-what _is_ that flapping noise, please?" + +"Two herons fighting in the sedge." + +"You know everything.... That is the most wonderful of all. And yet you +say you are not famous?" + +"Nobody ever heard of me outside the Smithsonian." + +"But--you _must_ become famous. To-morrow I shall look very hard for an +ichneumon fly for you----" + +"But your discovery will make _you_ famous, Miss Cassillis----" + +"Why--why, it's for _you_ that I am going to search so hard! Did you +suppose I would dream of claiming any of the glory!" + +He said, striving to speak coolly: + +"It is very generous and sweet of you.... And, after all, I hardly +suppose that you need any added lustre or any additional happiness in a +life which must be so full, so complete, and so care-free." + +She was silent for a while, then: + +"Is _your_ life then so full of care, Mr. Jones?" + +"Oh, no," he said; "I get on somehow." + +"Tell me," she insisted. + +"What am I to tell you?" + +"Why it is that your life is care-ridden." + +"But it isn't----" + +"Tell me!" + +He said, gaily enough: "To labour for others is sometimes a little +irksome.... I am not discontented.... Only, if I had means--if I had +barely sufficient--there are so many fascinating and exciting lines of +independent research to follow--to make a name in----" He broke off with +a light laugh, leaned forward and laid another log on the fire. + +"You can not afford it?" she asked, in a low voice; and for the moment +astonishment ruled her to discover that this very perfect specimen of +intelligent and gifted manhood was struggling under such an amazingly +trifling disadvantage. Only from reading and from hearsay had she been +even vaguely acquainted with the existence of poverty. + +"No," he said pleasantly, "I can not yet afford myself the happiness of +independent research." + +"When will you be able to afford it?" + +Neither were embarrassed; he looked thoughtfully into the fire; and for +a while she watched him in his brown study. + +"Will it be soon?" she asked, under her breath. + +"No, dear." + +That time a full minute intervened before either realised how he had +answered. And both remained exceedingly still until she said calmly: + +"I thought you were the very ideal embodiment of personal liberty. And +now I find that wretched and petty and ignoble circumstances fetter even +such a man as you are. It--it is--is heartbreaking." + +"It won't last forever," he said, controlling his voice. + +"But the years are going--the best years, Mr. Jones. And your life's +work beckons you. And you are equipped for it, and you can not take it!" + +"Some day----" But he could say no more then, with her hand tightening +in his. + +"To--to rise superior to circumstances--that is god-like, isn't it?" she +said. + +"Yes." He laughed. "But on six hundred dollars a year a man can't rise +very high above circumstances." + +The shock left her silent. Any gown of hers cost more than that. Then +the awfulness of it all rose before her in its true and hideous +proportions. And there was nothing for her to do about it, nothing, +absolutely nothing, except to endure the degradation of her wealth and +remember that the merest tithe of it could have made this man beside her +immortally famous--if, perhaps, no more wonderful than he already was in +her eyes. + +Was there no way to aid him? She could look for ichneumon flies in the +morning. And on the morning after that. And the next morning she would +say good-bye and go away forever--out of this enchanted forest, out of +his life, back to the _Chihuahua_, and to her guests who ate often and +digested all day long--back to her father, her mother--back to +Stirrups---- + +He felt her hand close on his convulsively, and turned to encounter her +flushed and determined face. + +"You like me, don't you?" she said. + +"Yes." After a moment he said: "Yes--absolutely." + +"Do you like me enough to--to let me help you in your research work--to +be patient enough to teach me a little until I catch up with you?... So +we can go on together?... I know I am presumptuous--perhaps +importunate--but I thought--somehow--if you did like me well enough--it +would be--very agreeable----" + +"It would be!... And I--like you enough for--anything. But you could not +remain here----" + +"I don't mean here." + +"Where, then?" + +"Where?" She looked vaguely about her in the firelight. "Why, +everywhere. Wherever you go to make your researches." + +"Dear, I would go to Ceylon if I could." + +"I also," she said. + +He turned a little pale, looking at her in silence. She said calmly: +"What would you do in Ceylon?" + +"Study the unknown life-histories of the rarer Ornithoptera." + +She knew no more than a kitten what he meant. But she wanted to know, +and, moreover, was perfectly capable of comprehending. + +"Whatever you desire to study," she said, "would prove delightful to +me.... If you want me. Do you?" + +"Want you!" Then he bit his lip. + +"Don't you? Tell me frankly if you don't. But I think, somehow, you +would not make a mistake if you did want me. I really am intelligent. I +didn't know it until I talked with you. Now, I know it. But I have never +been able to give expression to it or cultivate it.... And, somehow, I +know I would not be a drag on you--if you would teach me a little in the +beginning." + +He said: "What can I teach _you_, Cecil? Not the heavenly frankness that +you already use so sweetly. Not the smiling and serene nobility which +carries your head so daintily and so fearlessly. Not the calm purity of +thought, nor the serene goodness of mind that has graciously included a +poor devil like me in your broad and generous sympathies----" + +"Please!" she faltered, flushing. "I am not what you say--though to hear +you say such things is a great happiness--a pleasure--very intense--and +wonderful--and new. But I am nothing, _nothing_--unless I should become +useful to you. I _could_ amount to something--with--you----" She checked +herself; looked at him as though a trifle frightened. "Unless," she +added with an effort, "you are in love with somebody else. I didn't +think of that. _Are_ you?" + +"No," he said. "Are you?" + +"No.... I have never been in love.... This is the nearest I have come to +it." + +"And I." + +She smiled faintly. + +"If we----" + +"Oh, yes," he said, calmly, "if we are to pass the balance of our +existence in combined research, it would be rather necessary for us to +marry." + +"Do you mind?" + +"On the contrary. Do you?" + +"Not in the least. Do you really mean it? It wouldn't be disagreeable, +would it? You are above marrying for mere sentiment, aren't you? +Because, somehow, I seem to know you like me.... And it would be death +for me--a mental death--to go back now to--to Stirrups----" + +"Where?" + +"To--why do you ask? Couldn't you take me on faith?" + +He said, unsteadily: "If you rose up out of the silvery lagoon, just +born from the starlight and the mist, I would take you." + +"You--you are a poet, too," she faltered. "You seem to be about +everything desirable." + +"I'm only a man very, very deep in--love." + +"In love!... I thought----" + +"Ah, but you need think no more. You _know_ now, Cecil." + +She remained silent, thinking for a long while. Then, very quietly: + +"Yes, I know.... It is that way with me also. For I no sooner find my +liberty than I lose it--in the same moment--to you. We must never again +be separated.... Do you feel as I do?" + +"Absolutely.... But it must be so." + +"Why?" she asked, troubled. + +"For one thing, I shall have to work harder now." + +"Why?" + +"Don't you know we can not marry on what I have?" + +"Oh! Is _that_ the reason?" She laughed, sprang lightly to her feet, +stood looking down at him. He got up, slowly. + +"I bring you," she said, "six hundred dollars a year. And a _little_ +more. Which sweeps away that obstacle. Doesn't it?" + +"I could not ask you to live on that----" + +"I can live on what you live on! I should wish to. It would make me +utterly and supremely happy." + +Her flushed, young face confronted his as she took a short, eager step +toward him. + +"I am not making love to you," she said, "--at least, I don't think I +am. All I desire is to help--to give you myself--my youth, energy, +ambition, intelligence--and what I have--which is of no use to me unless +it is useful to you. Won't you take these things from me?" + +"Do you give me your heart, too, Cecil?" + +She smiled faintly, knowing now that she had already given it. She did +not answer, but her under lip trembled, and she caught it between her +teeth as he took her hands and kissed them in silence. + + + + +VI + + +"Miami is not very far, is it?" she asked, as she sprang aboard the +_Orange Puppy_. + +"Not very, dear." + +"We could get a license immediately, couldn't we?" + +"I think so." + +"And then it will not take us very long to get married, will it?" + +"Not very." + +"What a wonderful night!" she murmured, looking up at the stars. She +turned toward the shore. "What a wonderful place for a honeymoon!... +And we can continue business, too, and watch our caterpillars all day +long! Oh, it is all too wonderful, wonderful!" She kissed her hand to +the unseen camp. "We will be back to-morrow!" she called softly. Then a +sudden thought struck her. "You never can get the _Orange Puppy_ through +that narrow lead, can you?" + +"Oh, there is an easier way out," he said, taking the tiller as the sail +filled. + +Her head dropped back against his knees. Now and then her lips moved, +murmuring in sheerest happiness the thoughts that drifted through her +enchanted mind. + +"I wonder when it began," she whispered, "--at the ball-game--or on +Fifth Avenue--or when I saw you here? It seems to me as if I always had +been in love with you." + +Outside in the ocean, the breeze stiffened and the perfume was tinged +with salt. + +Lying back against his knees, her eyes fixed dreamily on the stars, she +murmured: + +"Stirrups _will_ be surprised." + +"What are you talking about down there all by yourself?" he whispered, +bending over her. + +She looked up into his eyes. Suddenly her own filled; and she put up +both arms, linking them around his neck. + +And so the _Orange Puppy_ sailed away into the viewless, formless, +starry mystery of all romance. + + * * * * * + +After a silence the young novelist, who had been poking the goldfish, +said slowly: "That's pretty poor fiction, Athalie, but, as a matter of +simple fact and inartistic truth, recording sentimental celerity, it +stands unequalled." + +"Straight facts make poor fiction," remarked Duane. + +"It all depends on who makes the fiction out of them," I ventured. + +"Not always," said Athalie. "There are facts which when straightly told +are far stranger than fiction. I noticed a case of that sort in my +crystal last winter." And to the youthful novelist she said: "Don't try +to guess who the people were if I tell it, will you?" + +"No," he promised. + +"Please fix my cushions," she said to nobody in particular. And after +the stampede was over she selected another cigarette, thoughtfully, but +did not light it. + + + + +VII + + +"You are queer folk, you writers of fiction," she mused aloud. "No +monarch ordained of God takes himself more seriously; no actor lives +more absolutely in a world made out of his imagination." + +She lighted her cigarette: "You often speak of your most 'important' +book,--as though any fiction ever written were important. Painters speak +of their most important pictures; sculptors, composers, creative +creatures of every species employ the adjective. And it is all very +silly. Facts only can be characterised as important; figments of the +creative imagination are as unimportant----" she blew a dainty ring of +smoke toward the crystal globe--"as that! '_Tout ce qu'ont fait les +hommes, les hommes peuvent le detruire. Il n'y a de caracteres +ineffacables que ceux qu' imprime la nature._' There has never been but +one important author." + +I said smilingly: "To quote the gentleman you think important enough to +quote, Athalie, '_Tout est bien sortant des mains de l'Auteur des +choses: tout degenere entre les mains de l'homme_.'" + +Said the novelist simply: "Imagination alone makes facts important. +'_Cette superbe puissance, ennemie de la raison!_'" + +"O Athalie," whispered Duane, "night-blooming, exquisite blossom of the +arid municipal desert, recount for us these facts which you possess and +which, in your delightful opinion, are stranger than fiction, and more +important." + +And Athalie, choosing another sweetmeat, looked at us until it had +dissolved in her fragrant mouth. Then she spoke very gravely, while her +dark eyes laughed at us: + + * * * * * + +When young Lord Willowmere's fiancee ran away from him and married +Delancy Jones, that bereaved nobleman experienced a certain portion of +the universal shock which this social seismic disturbance spread far and +wide over two hemispheres. + +That such a girl should marry beneath her naturally disgusted everybody. +So both Jones and his wife were properly damned. + +England read its morning paper, shrugged its derision, and remarked that +nobody ought to be surprised at anything that happened in the States. +"The States" swallowed the rebuke and squirmed. + +Now, among the sturdy yeomanry, gentry, and nobility of those same +British and impressive Isles there was an earnest gentleman whose ample +waist and means and scholarly tastes inclined him to a sedentary life of +research. The study of human nature in its various native and exotic +phases had for forty years obsessed his insular intellect. Philologist, +anthropologist, calm philosopher, and benignant observer, this +gentleman, who had never visited the United States, determined to do so +now. For, he reasoned--and very properly--a country where such a thing +could happen to a British nobleman and a Peer of the Realm must be worth +exploring, and its curious inhabitants merited, perhaps, the +impersonally judicial inspection of an F. R. B. A. whose gigantic work +on the folk manners of the world had now reached its twentieth volume, +without as yet including the United States. So he determined to devote +several chapters in the forthcoming and twenty-first volume to the +recent colonies of Great Britain. + +Now, when the Duke of Pillchester concluded to do anything, that thing +was invariably and thoroughly done. And so, before it entirely realised +the honour in store for it, the United States was buttoning its collar, +tying its white tie, and rushing down stairs to open its front door to +the Duke of Pillchester, the Duchess of Pillchester, and the Lady Alene +Innesly, their youthful and ornamental daughter. + +For a number of months after its arrival, the Ducal party inspected the +Yankee continent through a lens made for purposes of scientific +investigation only. The massed wealth of the nation met their Graces in +solid divisions of social worth. The shock was mutual. + +Then the massed poverty of the continent was exhibited, leaving the +poverty indifferent and slightly bored, and the Ducal party taking +notes. + +It was his Grace's determination to study the folk-ways of Americans; +and what the Duke wished the Duchess dutifully desired. The Lady Alene +Innesly, however, was dragged most reluctantly from function to +function, from palace to purlieu, from theatre to cathedral, from Coney +Island to Newport. She was "havin' a rotten time." + +All day long she had nothing to look at but an overdressed and alien +race whose voices distressed her; day after day she had nothing to say +except, "How d'y do," and "Mother, shall we have tea?" Week after week +she had nothing to think of except the bare, unkempt ugliness of the +cities she saw; the raw waste and sordid uglification of what once had +been matchless natural resources; dirty rivers, ruined woodlands, flimsy +buildings, ignorant architecture. The ostentatious and wretched hotels +depressed her; the poor railroads and bad manners disgusted her. + +Listless, uninterested, Britishly enduring what she could not escape, +the little Lady Alene had made not the slightest effort to mitigate the +circumstances of her temporary fate. She was civilly incurious +concerning the people she met; their social customs, amusements, +pastimes, duties, various species of business or of leisure interested +her not a whit. All the men looked alike to her; all the women were +over-gowned, tiresomely pretty, and might learn one day how to behave +themselves after they had found out how to make their voices behave. + +Meanwhile, requiring summer clothing--tweeds and shooting boots being +not what the climate seemed to require in July--she discovered with +languid surprise that for the first time in her limited life she was +well gowned. A few moments afterward another surprise faintly thrilled +her, for, chancing to glance at herself after a Yankee hairdresser had +finished her hair, she discovered to her astonishment that she was +pretty. + +For several days this fact preyed upon her mind, alternately troubling +and fascinating her. There were several men at home who would certainly +sit up; Willowmere among others. + +As for considering her newly discovered beauty any advantage in America, +the idea had not entered her mind. Why should it? All the men looked +alike; all wore sleek hair, hats on the backs of their heads, clothing +that fitted like a coster's trousers. She had absolutely no use for +them, and properly. + +However, she continued to cultivate her beauty and to adorn it with +Yankee clothing and headgear befitting; which filled up considerable +time during the day, leaving her fewer empty hours to fill with tea and +three-volumed novels from the British Isles. + +Now, it had never occurred to the Lady Alene Innesly to read anything +except British fact and fiction. She had never been sufficiently +interested even to open an American book. Why should she, as long as the +three props of her national literature endured intact--curates, tea, and +thoroughbred horses? + +But there came a time during the ensuing winter when the last of the +three-volumed novels had been assimilated, the last serious tome +digested; and there stretched out before her a bookless prospect which +presently began to dismay her with the aridness of its perspective. + +The catastrophe occurred while the Ducal party was investigating the +strange folk-customs of those Americans who gathered during the winter +in gigantic Florida hotels and lived there, uncomfortably lodged, vilely +fed, and shamelessly robbed, while third-rate orchestras play cabaret +music and enervating breezes stir the cabbage-palmettos till they rustle +like bath-room rubber plants. + +It was a bad place and a bad time of year for a young and British girl +to be deprived of her native and soporific fiction; for the livelier and +Frenchier of British novelists were self-denied her, because somebody +had said they were not unlike Americans. + +Now she was, in the uncouth vernacular of the country, up against it +for fair! She didn't know what it was called, but she realised how it +felt to be against something. + +Three days she endured it, dozing in her room, half awake when the +sea-breeze rattled the Venetian blinds, or the niggers were noisy at +baseball. + +On the fourth day she arose, went to the window, gazed disgustedly out +over the tawdry villas of Verbena Inlet, then rang for her maid. + +"Bunn," she said, "here are three sovereigns. You will please buy for me +one specimen of every book on sale in the corridor of this hotel. And, +Bunn!----" + +"Yes, my lady." + +"What was it you were eating the other day?" + +"Chewing-gum, my lady." + +"Is it--agreeable?" + +"Yes, my lady." + +"Is it nourishing?" + +"No, my lady. It is not intended to be eaten; it is to be chewed." + +"Then one does not swallow it when one supposes it to be sufficiently +masticated?" + +"No, my lady." + +"What does one do with it?" + +"Beg pardon, my lady--one spits it out." + +"Ow," said the girl. + + + + +VIII + + +She was lying on the bed when a relay of servants staggered in bearing +gaudy piles of the most recent and popular novels, and placed them in +tottering profusion upon the adjacent furniture. + +The Lady Alene turned her head where it lay lazily pillowed on her left +arm, and glanced indifferently at the multi-coloured battlement of +books. The majority of the covers were embellished with the heads of +young women, all endowed with vaudeville-like beauty--it having been +discovered by intelligent publishers that a girl's head on any book +sells it. + +On some covers were displayed coloured pictures of handsome and athletic +American young men, usually kissing beautiful young ladies who wore +crowns, ermines, and foreign orders over dinner dresses. Sometimes, +however, they were kicking Kings. That seemed rather odd to the Lady +Alene, and she sat up on the bed and reached out her hand. It +encountered a book on which rested a small, oblong package. She took +book and package. On the pink wrapper of the latter she read this verse: + + Why are my teeth so white and bright? + Because I chew with all my might + The gum that fills me with delight + And keeps me healthy day and night. + Five cents. + +The Lady Alene's unaccustomed fingers became occupied with the pink +wrapper. Presently she withdrew from it a thin and brittle object, +examined it, and gravely placed it in her mouth. + +For a while the perplexed and apprehensive expression remained upon her +face, but it faded gradually, and after a few minutes her lovely +features settled into an expression resembling contentment. And, +delicately, discreetly, at leisurely intervals, her fresh, sweet lips +moved as though she were murmuring a prayer. + +All that afternoon she perused the first American novel she had ever +read. And the cumulative effect of the fiction upon her literal mind was +amazing as she turned page after page, and, gradually gathering mental +and nervous speed, dashed from one chapter, bang! into another, only to +be occultly adjured to "take the car ahead"--which she now did quite +naturally, and on the run. + +Never, never had she imagined such things could be! Always heretofore, +to her, fiction had been a strict reflection of actuality in which a +dull imagination was licensed to walk about if it kept off the grass. +And it always did in the only novels to which she had been accustomed. + +But good heavens! Here was a realism at work in these pages so +astonishing yet so convincing, so subtle yet so natural, so matter of +fact yet so astoundingly new to her that the book she was reading was +already changing the entire complexion of the Yankee continent for her. + +It had to do with a young, penniless, and athletic American who went to +Europe, tipped a king off his throne, pushed a few dukes, counts, and +barons out of the way, reorganized the army, and went home taking with +him a beautiful and exclusive princess with honest intentions. + +The inhabitants of several villages wept at his departure; the abashed +nobility made unsuccessful attempts to shoot him; otherwise the trip to +the Cunard Line pier was uneventful, and diplomatic circles paid no +attention to the incident. + +When the Lady Alene finished the story her oval face ached; but this was +no time to consider aches. So with a charming abandon she relieved her +pretty teeth of the morceau, replaced it with another, helped herself to +a second novel, settled back on her pillow, and opened the enchanted +pages. + +And zip! Instantly she became acquainted with another athletic and +penniless American who was raising the devil in the Balkans. + +Never in her life had she dreamed that any nation contained such +fearless, fascinating, resourceful, epigrammatic, and desirable young +men! And here she was in the very midst of them, and never had realised +it until now. + +Where were they? All around her, no doubt. When, a few days later, she +had read some baker's dozen novels, and in each one of them had +discovered similar athletic, penniless, and omniscient American young +men, her opinion was confirmed, and she could no longer doubt that, like +the fiction of her own country, the romances of American novelists must +have a substantial foundation in solid fact. + +There could be no use in quibbling. The situation had become exciting. +Her youthful imagination was now fired; her Saxon blood thoroughly +stirred. She knew perfectly well that there were in her own country no +young men like these she had read about--not a man-jack among them who +would ever dream of dashing about the world cuffing the ears of +reprehensible monarchs, meting out condign punishment to refractory +nobility, reconstructing governments and states and armies, and escaping +with a princess every time. + +Not that she actually believed that such episodes were of common +occurrence. Young as she was she knew better. But somehow it seemed very +clear to her that a race of writers who were so unanimous on the subject +and a nation which so complacently read of these events without denying +their plausibility, must within itself harbour germs and seeds of +romance and reckless deeds which no doubt had produced a number of young +men thoroughly capable of doing a few of the exciting things she had +read about. + +Now she regretted she had not noticed the men she had met; now she was +indeed sorry she had not at least taken pains to learn to distinguish +them one from the other. She wished that she had investigated this +reckless, chivalrous, energetic, and distinguishing trait of the +American young man. + +It seemed odd, too, that Pa-_pa_ had never investigated it; that +Ma-_ma_ had never appeared to notice it. + +She mentioned it at dinner carelessly, in the midst of a natural and +British silence. Neither parent enlightened her. One said, "Fancy!" And +the other said, "Ow." + +And so, as both parents departed the following morning to investigate +the tarpon fishing at Miami, the little Lady Alene made private +preparations to investigate and closely observe the astonishing, +reckless, and romantic tendencies of the American young man. Her tour of +discovery she scheduled for five o'clock that afternoon. + +Just how these investigations were to be accomplished she did not see +very clearly. She had carefully refrained from knowing anybody in the +hotel. So how to go about it she did not know; but she knew enough after +luncheon to have her hair done by somebody besides her maid, selected +the most American gown in her repertoire, took a sunshade hitherto +disdained, and glanced in the mirror at a picture in white, with gold +hair, violet eyes, and a skin of snow and roses. + +Further she did not know how to equip herself, except by going out doors +at five o'clock. And at five o'clock she went. + +From the tennis courts young men and girls looked at her. On the golf +links youth turned to observe her slim and dainty progress. She was +stared at from porch and veranda, from dock and deck, from garden and +walk and orange grove and hedge of scarlet hibiscus. + +From every shop window in the village, folk looked out at her; from +automobile, wheeled chair, bicycle, and horse-drawn vehicle she was +inspected. But she knew nobody; not one bright nod greeted her; not one +straw hat was lifted; not one nigger grinned. She knew nobody. And, +alas! everybody knew her. A cold wave seemed to have settled over +Verbena Inlet. + +Yet her father was not unpopular, nor was her mother either; and +although they asked too many questions, their perfectly impersonal and +scientific mission in Verbena Inlet was understood. + +But the Lady Alene Innesly was not understood, although her indifference +was noted and her exclusiveness amusedly resented. However, nobody +interfered with her or her seclusion. The fact that she desired to know +nobody had been very quickly accepted. Youth and the world at Verbena +Inlet went on without her; the sun continued to rise and set as usual; +and the nigger waiters played baseball. + +She stood watching them now for a few minutes, her parasol tilted over +her lovely shoulders. Tiring of this, she sauntered on, having not the +slightest idea where she was going, but very calmly she made up her mind +to speak to the first agreeable looking young man she encountered, as +none of them seemed at all inclined to speak to her. + +Under her arm she had tucked a novel written by one Smith. She had read +it half through. The story concerned a young and athletic and penniless +man from Michigan and a Balkan Princess. She had read as far as the +first love scene. The young man from Michigan was still kissing the +Princess when she left off reading. And her imagination was still on +fire. + +She had wandered down to the lagoon without finding anybody sufficiently +attractive to speak to. The water was blue and pretty and very inviting. +So she hired a motor-boat, seated herself in the stern, and dabbled her +fingers in the water as the engineer took her whizzing across the lagoon +and out into the azure waste, headed straight for the distant silvery +inlet. + + + + +IX + + +She read, gazed at the gulls and wild ducks, placed a bit of gum between +her rose-leaf lips, read a little, glanced up to mark the majestic +flight of eight pelicans, sighed discreetly, savoured the gum, deposited +it in a cunning corner adjacent to her left and snowy cheek, and spoke +to the boatman. + +"Did you ever read this book?" she asked. + +"Me! No, ma'am." + +"It is very interesting. Do you read much?" + +"No, ma'am." + +"This is a very extraordinary book," she said. "I strongly advise you to +read it." + +The boatman glanced ironically at the scarlet bound volume which bore +the portrait of a pretty girl on its covers. + +"Is it that book by John Smith they're sellin' so many of down to the +hotel?" he inquired slowly. + +"I believe it was written by one Smith," she said, turning over the +volume to look. "Yes, John Smith is the author's name. No doubt he is +very famous in America." + +"He lives down here in winter." + +"Really!" she exclaimed with considerable animation. + +"Oh, yes. I take him shooting and fishing. He has a shack on the Inlet +Point." + +"Where?" + +"Over there, where them gulls is flying." + +The girl looked earnestly at the point. All she saw were snowy dunes and +wild grasses and seabirds whirling. + +"He writes them books over there," remarked the boatman. + +"How extremely interesting!" + +"They say he makes a world o' money by it. He's rich as mud." + +"Really!" + +"Yaas'm. I often seen him a settin' onto a camp chair out beyond them +dunes a-writing pieces like billy-bedam. Yes'm." + +"Do you think he is there now?" she asked with a slight catch in her +breath. + +"Well, we kin soon find out----" He swung the tiller; the little boat +rushed in a seething circle toward the point, veered westward, then +south. + +"Yaas'm," said the boatman presently. "Mr. Smith he's reclinin' out +there onto his stummick. I guess he's just a thinkin'. He thinks more'n +five million niggers, he does. Gor-a-mighty! _I_ never see such a man +for thinkin'! He jest lies onto his stummick an' studies an' ruminates +like billy-bedam. Yaas'm. Would you want I should land you so's you can +take a peek at him?" + +"Might I?" + +"Sure, Miss. Go up over them dunes and take a peek at him. He won't +mind. Ten to nothin' he won't even see ye." + +There was a little dock built of coquina. A power boat, a sloop, several +row-boats, and a canoe lay there, riding the little, limpid, +azure-tinted wavelets. Under their keels swam gar-pike, their fins and +backs also shimmering with blue and turquoise green. + +Lady Alene rose; her boatman aided her, and she sprang lightly to the +coquina dock and walked straight over the low dune in front of her. + +There was nothing whatever in sight except beach-grapes and scrubby +tufts of palmetto, and flocks of grey, long-legged, long-billed birds +running to avoid her. But they did not run very fast or very far, and +she saw them at a little distance loitering, with many a bright and +apparently friendly glance at her. + +There was another dune in front. She mounted it. Straight ahead of her, +perhaps half a mile distant, stood a whitewashed bungalow under a +cluster of palms and palmettos. + +From where she stood she could see a cove--merely a tiny crescent of +sand edged by a thin blade of cobalt water, and curtained by the +palmetto forest. And on this little crescent beach, in the shade of the +palms, a young man lay at full length, very intent upon his occupation, +which was, apparently, to dig holes in the sand with a child's toy +shovel. + +He was clad in white flannels; beside him she noticed a red tin pail, +such as children use for gathering shells. Near this stood two +camp-chairs, one of which was piled with pads of yellow paper and a few +books. She thought his legs very eloquent. Sometimes they lay in +picturesque repose, crossed behind him; at other moments they waved in +the air or sprawled widely, appearing to express the varying emotions +which possessed his deep absorption in the occult task under his nose. + +"Now, what in the world can he be doing?" thought Lady Alene Innesly, +watching him. And she remained motionless on top of the dune for ten +minutes to find out. He continued to sprawl and dig holes in the sand. + +Learning nothing, and her interest increasing inversely, she began to +walk toward him. It was her disposition to investigate whatever +interested her. Already she was conscious of a deep interest in his +legs. + +From time to time low dunes intervened to hide the little cove, but +always when she crossed them, pushing her way through fragrant thickets +of sweet bay and sparkle-berry shrub, cove and occupant came into view +again. And his legs continued to wave. The nearer she drew the less she +comprehended the nature of his occupation, and the more she decided to +find out what he could be about, lying there flat on his stomach and +digging and patting the sand. + +Also her naturally calm and British heart was beating irregularly and +fast, because she realised the fact that she was approaching the +vicinity of one of those American young men who did things in books that +she never dreamed could be done anywhere. Nay--under her arm was a novel +written by this very man, in which the hero was still kissing a Balkan +Princess, page 169. And it occurred to her vaguely that her own good +taste and modesty ought to make an end of such a situation; and that she +ought to finish the page quickly and turn to the next chapter to relieve +the pressure on the Princess. + +Confused a trifle by a haunting sense of her own responsibility, by the +actual imminence of such an author, and by her intense curiosity +concerning what he was now doing, she walked across the dunes down +through little valleys all golden with the flowers of a flat, spreading +vine. The blossoms were larger and lovelier than the largest golden +portulacca, but she scarcely noticed their beauty as she resolutely +approached the cove, moving forward under the cool shadow of the border +forest. + +He did not seem to be aware of her approach, even when she came up and +stood by the camp-chairs, parasol tilted, looking down at him with +grave, lilac-blue eyes. + +But she did not look at him as much as she gazed at what he was doing. +And what he was doing appeared perfectly clear to her now. + +With the aid of his toy shovel, his little red pail, and several +assorted shells, he had constructed out of sand a walled city. Houses, +streets, squares, market place, covered ways, curtain, keep, tower, +turret, crenelated battlement, all were there. A driftwood drawbridge +bridged the moat, guarded by lead soldiers in Boznovian uniform. + +And lead soldiers were everywhere in the miniature city; the keep +bristled with their bayonets; squads of them marched through street and +square; they sat at dinner in the market place; their cannon winked and +blinked in the westering sun on every battlement. + +And after a little while she discovered two lead figures which were not +military; a civilian wearing a bowler hat; a feminine figure wearing a +crown and ermines. The one stood on the edge of the moat outside the +drawbridge: the other, in crown and ermines, was apparently observing +him of the bowler hat from the top of a soldier-infested tower. + +It was plain enough to her now. This amazing young man was working out +in concrete detail some incident of an unwritten novel. And the +magnificent realism of it fascinated the Lady Alene. Genius only +possesses such a capacity for detail. + +Without even arousing young Smith from his absorbed preoccupation, she +seated herself on the unincumbered camp-chair, laid her book on her +knees, rested both elbows on it, propped her chin on both clasped hands, +and watched the proceedings. + +The lead figure in the bowler hat seemed to be in a bad way. Several +dozen Boznovian soldiers were aiming an assortment of firearms at him; +cavalry were coming at a gallop, too, not to mention a three-gun battery +on a dead run. + +The problem seemed to be how, in the face of such a situation, was the +lead gentleman in the bowler hat to get away, much less penetrate the +city? + +Flight seemed hopeless, but presently Smith picked him up, marched him +along the edge of the moat, and gave him a shove into it. + +"He's swimming," said Smith, aloud to himself. "Bang! Bang! But they +don't hit him.... Yes, they do; they graze his shoulder. It is the only +wound possible to polite fiction. There is consequently a streak of red +in the water. Bang--bang--bang! Crack--crack! The cavalry empty their +pistols. Boom! A field piece opens---- Where the devil is that +battery----" + +[Illustration: "The magnificent realism of it fascinated the Lady +Alene."] + +Smith reached over, drew horses, cannoniers, gun and caisson over the +drawbridge, galloped them along the moat, halted, unlimbered, trained +the guns on the bowler hatted swimmer, and remarked, "Boom!" + +"The shell," he murmured with satisfaction, "missed him and blew up in +the casemates. Did it kill anybody? No; that interferes with the +action.... He dives, swims under water to an ancient drain." Smith stuck +a peg where the supposed drain emptied into the moat. + +"That drain," continued Smith thoughtfully, "connects with the royal +residence.... Where's that Princess? Can she see him dive into it? Or +does she merely suspect he is making for it? Or--or--doesn't she know +anything about it?" + +"She doesn't know anything about it!" exclaimed Lady Alene Innesly. The +tint of excitement glowed in her cheeks. Her lilac-tinted eyes burned +with a soft, blue fire. + + + + +X + + +Slowly as a partly paralysed crab, Smith raised himself to a sitting +posture and looked over his shoulder into the loveliest face that he had +ever beheld, except on the paper wrappers of his own books. + +"I'm sorry," said the Lady Alene. "Shouldn't I have spoken?" + +The smoke and turmoil of battle still confused Smith's brain; +visualisation of wall and tower and crowns and ermines made the Lady +Alene's fresh, wholesome beauty very unreal to him for a moment or two. + +When his eyes found their focus and his mind returned to actuality, he +climbed to his feet, hat in hand, and made his manners to her. Then, +tumbling books and pads from the other camp-chair, he reseated himself +with a half smiling, half shamed glance at her, and a "May I?" to which +she responded, "Please! And might I talk to you for a few moments?" + +Smith shot a keen glance at the book on her knees. Resignation and pride +altered his features, but when again he looked at the Lady Alene he +experienced a pleasure in his resignation which hitherto no curious +tourist, no enterprising reporter had ever aroused. Smilingly he +composed himself for the impending interview. + +"Until now," said the girl earnestly, "I think I have not been entirely +convinced by your novels. Somehow or other I could not bring myself to +comprehend the amazing realism of your plots. But now I understand the +basis of great and fundamental truth on which you build so plausibly +your splendid novels of love and life." + +"What?" said Smith. + +"To see you," she continued, "constructing the scenes of which later you +are to write, has been a wonderful revelation to me. It has been a +privilege the importance of which I can scarcely estimate. Your devotion +to the details of your art, your endless patience, your almost austere +absorption in truth and realism, have not only astounded me but have +entirely convinced me. The greatest thing in the world is Truth. _Now_ I +realise it!" + +She made a pretty gesture of enthusiasm: + +"What a wonderful nation of young men is yours, Mr. Smith! What +qualities! What fearlessness--initiative--idealism--daring--! What +invention, what recklessness, what romance----" + +Her voice failed her; she sat with lips parted, a soft glow in her +cheeks, gazing upon Smith with fascinated eyes. And Smith gazed back at +her without a word. + +"I don't believe," she said, "that in all England there exists a single +man capable even of conceiving the career for which so many young +Americans seem to be equipped." + +After a moment Smith said very quietly: + +"I am sorry, but do you know I don't quite understand you?" + +"I mean," she said, "that you Americans have a capacity for conceiving, +understanding, and performing everything you write about." + +"Why do you think so?" asked Smith, a trifle red. + +"Because if Englishmen could understand and do such things, our +novelists would write about them. They never write about them. But you +Americans do. You write thousands of most delightful novels about young +men who do things unheard of, undreamed of, in England. Therefore, it is +very clear to me that you Americans are quite capable of doing what you +write about, and what your readers so ardently admire." + +"I see," said Smith calmly. His ear-tips still burned. + +"No doubt," said the girl, "many of the astonishing things you Americans +write about are really done. Many astounding episodes in fiction are of +not uncommon occurrence in real life." + +"What kind of episodes?" asked Smith gravely. + +"Why, any of them you write about. They all are astonishing enough. For +example, your young men do not seem to know what fear is." + +"No," said Smith, "they don't." + +"And when they love," said the girl, "nothing can stop them." + +"Nothing." + +"Nothing!" she repeated, the soft glow coming into her cheeks again. +"--Nothing! Neither rank nor wealth nor political considerations nor +family prejudices, nor even the military!" + +Smith bit his lip in silence. He had heard of irony; never had he +dreamed it could be so crushing: he had heard of sarcasm; but the quiet +sarcasm of this unknown young girl was annihilating him. Critics had +carved him in his time; but the fine mincemeat which this pretty +stranger was making of him promised to leave nothing more either to +carve or to roast. + +"Do you mind my talking to you?" she asked, noting the strained +expression of his features. + +"No," he said, "go ahead." + +"Because if I am tiring you----" + +He said he was not tired. + +"--or if it bores you to discuss your art with a foreigner who so truly +admires it----" + +He shot a glance at her, then forced a laugh. + +"I am not offended," he said. "What paper do you represent?" + +"I?" she said, bewildered. + +"Yes. You are a newspaper woman, are you not?" + +"Do you mean a reporter?" + +"Naturally." + +"No," she said very seriously, "I am not a reporter. What an odd idea!" + +"Do you think it odd?" + +"Why, yes. Do not many admirers of your works express their pleasure in +them to you?" + +He studied her lovely face coolly and in detail--the dainty arch of the +questioning eyebrows, the sensitive curve of the mouth, the clear, sweet +eyes. Could it be possible that such candour masked irony? Could all +this be the very essence of the art of acting, concealing the most +murderous sarcasm ever dreamed of by a terrified author? + +And suddenly his face went red all over, and he understood that the +essence of this young girl was a candour so utterly free of +self-consciousness--a frankness so absolutely truthful, that the +simplicity of her had been a miracle too exquisite for him to +comprehend. + +"You _do_ like what I write!" he exclaimed. + +Her blue eyes widened: "Of course I do," she said, amazed. "Didn't you +understand me?" + +"No," he said, cooling his burning face in the rising sea-wind. "I +thought you were laughing at me." + +"I'm sorry if I was stupid," she said. + +"_I_ was stupid." + +"You!" She laughed a little. + +The sinking sun peered through the palm forest behind them and flung a +beam of blinding light at her. + +"Am I interrupting your work, Mr. Smith? I mean, I know I am, but----" + +"Please don't go away." + +"Thank you.... I have noticed what agreeable manners you Americans have +in novels. Naturally you are even more kindly and polite in real life." + +"Have you met many Americans?" + +"No, only you. In the beginning I did not feel interested in Americans." + +"Why?" + +"The young men all seemed to resemble one another," she said frankly, +"like Chinese. But now that I really know an American I am intensely +interested." + +"You notice no Mongolian monotony in me?" he inquired gravely. + +"Oh, no----" She coloured; then discovering that he was laughing, she +laughed, too, rather faintly. + +"That was a joke, wasn't it?" she said. + +"Yes, that was a joke." + +"Because," she said, "there is no Mongolian uniformity about _you_. On +the contrary, you remind me in every way of one of your own heroes." + +"Oh, really now!" he protested; but she insisted with serious +enthusiasm. + +"You are the counterpart of the hero in this book," she repeated, +resting one hand lightly on the volume under her elbow. "You wear white +flannels, you are tall, well built, straight, with very regular +features and a fasci---- a smile," she corrected herself calmly, "which +one naturally associates with your features." + +"Also," she continued, "your voice is cultivated and modulated with just +enough of the American accent to make it piquantly agreeable. And what +you say is fasci---- is well expressed and interesting. Therefore, as I +have said, to me you resemble one of your own heroes." + +There was enough hot colour in his face to make it boyishly bashful. + +"And you appear to be as modest as one of your own heroes," she added, +studying him. "That is truly delightful." + +"But really, I am nothing like any of my heroes," he explained, terribly +embarrassed. + +"Why do you say that, Mr. Smith?" + +"Because it's true. I don't even resemble 'em superficially." + +She made a quick, graceful gesture: "Why do you say that, when here you +are before me, the exact and exciting counterpart of the reckless and +fasci---- the reckless and interesting men you write about?" + +He said nothing. She closed the parasol and considered him in silence +for a moment or two. Then: + +"And I have no doubt that you are capable of doing the very things that +your heroes do so adroitly and so charmingly." + +"What, for example?" he asked, reddening to his temples. + +"Reconstructing armies, for instance." + +"Filibustering?" + +"Is that what it is called?" + +"It's called that in the countries south of the United States." + +"Well, would you not be capable of overturning a government and of +reconstructing the army, Mr. Smith?" + +"Capable?" + +"Yes." + +"Well," he said cautiously, "if it was the thing I wanted to do, perhaps +I might have a try at it." + +"I knew it," she exclaimed triumphantly. + +"But," he explained, "I never desired to overturn any government." + +"You probably have never seen any that you thought worth while +overturning." + +Her confident rejoinder perplexed him and he remained silent. + +"Also," she continued, still more confidently, "I am certain that if you +were in love, no obstacles would prove too great for you to surmount. +Would they?" + +"Really," he said, "I don't know. I'm not very enterprising." + +"That is the answer of a delightfully modest man. Your own hero would +return me such an answer, Mr. Smith. But I--and your heroine +also--understand you--I mean your hero." + +"Do you?" he asked gravely. + +"Certainly. I, as well as your heroine, understand that no obstacles +could check you if you loved her--neither political considerations, +diplomatic exigencies, family prejudices, nor her own rank, no matter +what it might be. Is not that true?" + +Eager, enthusiastic, impersonally but warmly interested, she leaned a +little toward him, intent on his reply. + +He looked into the lovely, flushed face in silence for a while. Then: + +"Yes," he said, "it is true. If I loved, nothing could check me +except----" he shrugged. + +"Death?" She nodded, fascinated. + +He nodded. He had meant to say the police. + +She said exultantly: "I knew it, Mr. Smith! I was certain that you are +the living embodiment of your own heroes! The moment I set eyes on you +playing in the sand with your lead soldiers, I was sure of it!" + +Thrilled, she considered him, her soft eyes brilliant with undisguised +admiration. + +"I wish I could actually _see_ it!" she said under her breath. + +"See what?" + +"See you, in real life, as one of your own heroes--doing some of the +things they do so cleverly, so winningly--careless of convention, +reckless of consequences, oblivious to all considerations except only +the affair in hand. That," she said excitedly, "would be glorious, and +well worth a trip to the States!" + +"How far," he asked, "have you read in that book of mine?" + +"In this book?" She opened it, impulsively, ran over the pages, +hesitated, stopped. + +"He was--was kissing the Balkan Princess," she said. "I left them--_in +statu quo_." + +"I see.... Did he do _that_ well?" + +"I--suppose so." + +"Have you no opinion?" + +"I think he did it--very--thoroughly, Mr. Smith." + +"It ought to be done thoroughly if done at all," he said reflectively. + +"Otherwise," she nodded, "it would be offensive." + +"To the reader?" + +"To her, too. Wouldn't it?" + +"You know better than I." + +"No, I don't know. A nice girl can not imagine herself being +kissed--except under very extraordinary circumstances, and by a very +extraordinary man.... Such a man as you have drawn in this book." + +"Had you been that Balkan Princess, what would you have done?" he asked, +rather pale. + +"I?" she said, startled. + +"Yes, you." + +She sat considering, blue eyes lost in candid reverie. Then the faintest +smile curved her lips; she looked up at Smith with winning simplicity. + +"In your story, Mr. Smith, does the Balkan Princess return his kiss?" + +"Not in that chapter." + +"I think I would have returned it--in that--chapter." Then, for the +first time, she blushed. + +The naive avowal set the heart and intellect of Mr. Smith afire. But he +only dropped his well-shaped head and didn't look at her. Which was +rather nice of him. + +"Romance," he said after a moment or two, "is all well enough. But real +life is stranger than fiction." + +"Not in the British Isles," she said with decision. "It _is_ tea and +curates and kennels and stables--as our writers depict it." + +"No, you are mistaken! Everywhere it is stranger than fiction," he +insisted--"more surprising, more charming, more wonderful. Even here in +America--here in Florida--here on this tiny point of sand jutting into +the Atlantic, life is more beautiful, more miraculous than any fiction +ever written." + +"Why do you say that?" she asked. + +"I am afraid I can't tell you why I say it." + +"Why can't you tell me?" + +"Only in books could what I might have to tell you be logically +told--and listened to----" + +"Only in books? But books in America reflect actual life," she said. +"Therefore, you can tell me what you have to tell. Can't you?" + +"Can I?" he asked. + +"Yes...." Far in the inmost recesses of her calm and maiden heart +something stirred, and her breath ceased for a second.... Innocent, not +comprehending why her breath missed, she looked at him with the +question still in her blue eyes. + +"Shall I tell you why real life is stranger than fiction?" he asked +unsteadily. + +"Tell me--yes--if----" + +"It is stranger," he said, "because it is often more headlong and +romantic. Shall we take ourselves, for example?" + +"You and me?" + +"Yes. To illustrate what I mean." + +She inclined her head, her eyes fixed on his. + +"Very well," he said. "Even in the most skillfully constructed +story--supposing that you and I were hero and heroine--no author would +have the impudence to make us avow our love within a few minutes of our +first meeting." + +"No," she said. + +"In the first chapter," he continued, "certain known methods of +construction are usually followed. Time is essential--the lapse of time. +How to handle it cleverly is a novelist's business. But even the most +skillful novelist would scarcely dare make me, for example, tell you +that I am in love with you. Would he?" + +"No," she said. + +"And in real life, even if a man does fall in love so suddenly, he does +not usually say so, does he?" he asked. + +"No," she said. + +"But he _does_ fall in love sometimes more suddenly than in fiction. And +occasionally he declares himself. In real life this actually happens. +And _that_ is stranger than any fiction. Isn't it?" + +"Yes," she said. + +"One kind of fiction," he continued very unsteadily, "is that in which, +when he falls in love--he doesn't say so--I mean in such a case as +ours--supposing I had already fallen in love with you. I could not say +so to you. No man could say it to any girl. He remains mute. He observes +very formally every convention. He smiles, hat in hand, as the girl +passes out of his life forever.... Doesn't he? And that is one kind of +fiction--the tragic kind." + +She had been looking down at the book in her lap. After a moment she +lifted her troubled eyes to his. + +"I do--not know what men do--in real life," she said. "What would they +do in the--_other_ kind of fiction?" + +"In the other kind of fiction there would be another chapter." + +"Yes.... You mean that for us there is only this one chapter." + +"Only one chapter." + +"Or--might it not be called a short story, Mr. Smith?" + +"Yes--one kind of short story." + +"Which kind?" + +"The kind that ends unhappily." + +"But this one is not going to end unhappily, is it?" + +"You are about to walk out of the story when it ends." + +"Yes--but----" She bit her lip, flushed and perplexed, already +dreadfully confused between the personal and the impersonal--between +fact and fancy. + +"You see," he said, "the short story which deals with--love--can end +only as ours is going to end--or the contrary." + +"How is ours going to end?" she asked with candid curiosity. + +"It must be constructed very carefully," he said, "because this is +realism." + +"You must be very skillful, too," she said. "I do not see how you are to +avoid----" + +"What?" + +"A--an--unhappy--ending." + +He looked gravely at his sand castle. "No," he said, "I don't see how it +can be avoided." + +After a long silence she murmured, half to herself: + +"Still, this is America--after all." + +He shrugged, still studying his sand castle. + +"I wish I had somebody to help me work it out," he said, half to +himself. + +"A collaborator?" + +"Yes." + +"I'm so sorry that I could not be useful." + +"Would you try?" + +"What is the use? I am utterly unskilled and inexperienced." + +"I'd be very glad to have you try," he repeated. + + + + +XI + + +After a moment she rose, went over and knelt down in the sand before the +miniature city, studying the situation. All she could see of the lead +hero in the bowler hat were his legs protruding from the drain. + +"Is this battery of artillery still shelling him?" she inquired, looking +over her shoulder at Smith. + +He went over and dropped on his knees beside her. + +"You see," he explained, "our hero is still under water." + +"All this time!" she exclaimed in consternation. "He'll drown, won't +he?" + +"He'll drown unless he can crawl into that drain." + +"Then he must crawl into it immediately," she said with decision. + +So he of the bowler was marched along a series of pegs indicating the +subterranean drain, and set down in the court of the castle. + +"Good heavens!" exclaimed the Lady Alene. "We can't leave him here! They +will know him by his bowler hat!" + +"No," said Smith gloomily, "we can't leave him here. But what can we do? +If he runs out they'll fire at him by platoons." + +"_Couldn't_ they miss him?" pleaded the girl. + +"I'm afraid not. He has already lived through several showers of +bullets." + +"But he can't die _here_!--here under the very eyes of the Princess!" +she insisted. + +"Then," said Smith, "the Princess will have to pull him through. It's up +to her now." + +The girl knelt there in excited silence, studying the problem intently. + +It was bad business. The battlements bristled with bayonets; outside, +cavalry, infantry, artillery were massed to destroy the gentleman in the +bowler hat. + +Presently the flush deepened on the girl's cheeks; she took the bowler +hat between her gloved fingers and set its owner in the middle of the +moat again. + +"Doesn't he crawl into the drain?" asked Smith anxiously. + +"No. But the soldiers in the castle think he does. So," she continued +with animation, "the brutal commander rushes downstairs, seizes a +candle, and enters the drain from the castle court with about a thousand +soldiers!" + +"But----" + +"With about ten thousand soldiers!" she repeated firmly. "And no +sooner--_no sooner_--does their brutal and cowardly commander enter that +drain with his lighted candle than the Princess runs downstairs, seizes +a hatchet, severs the gas main with a single blow, and pokes the end of +the pipe into the drain!" + +"B-but----" stammered Smith, "I think----" + +"Oh, _please_ wait! You don't understand what is coming." + +"_What_ is coming?" ventured Smith timidly, instinctively closing both +ears with his fingers. + +"Bang!" said Lady Alene triumphantly. And struck the city of sand with +her small, gloved hand. + +After a silence, still kneeling there, they turned and looked at each +other through the red sunset light. + +"The explosion of gas killed them both," said Smith, in an awed voice. + +"No." + +"What?" + +"No. The explosion killed everybody in the city except those two young +lovers," she said. + +"But why?" + +"Because!" + +"By what logic----" + +"I desire it to be so, Mr. Smith." And she picked up the bowler hat and +the Princess and calmly set them side by side amid the ruins. + +After a moment Smith reached over and turned the two lead figures so +that they faced each other. + +There was a long silence. The red sunset light faded from the sand. + +Then, very slowly, the girl reached out, took the bowler hat between her +small thumb and forefinger, and gently inclined the gentleman forward at +the slightest of perceptible angles. + +After a moment Smith inclined him still farther forward. Then, with +infinite precaution, he tipped forward the Princess, so that between her +lips and the lips of the bowler hat only the width of a grass blade +remained. + +The Lady Alene looked up at him over her left shoulder, hesitated, +looked at bowler hat and at the Princess. Then, supporting her weight on +one hand, with the other she merely touched the Princess--delicately--so +that not even a blade of grass could have been slipped between their +painted lips. + +She was a trifle pale as she sank back on her knees in the sand. Smith +was paler. + +After both her gloved hands had rested across his palm for five full +minutes, his fingers closed over them, tightly, and he leaned forward a +little. She, too, swayed forward a trifle. Her eyes were closed when he +kissed her. + +Now, whatever misgivings and afterthoughts the Lady Alene Innesly may +have had, she was nevertheless certain that to resist Smith was to fight +against the stars in their courses. For not only was she in the toils of +an American, but more hopeless still, an American who chronicled the +most daring and headlong idiosyncrasies of the sort of young men of whom +he was very certainly an irresistible example. + +To her there was something Shakespearean about the relentless sequence +of events since the moment when she had first succumbed to the small, +oblong pink package, and her first American novel. + +And, thinking Shakespeareanly as she stood in the purple evening light, +with his arm clasping her waist, she looked up at him from her charming +abstraction: + +"'If 'twere done,'" she murmured, "'when 'tis done, then 'twere well it +were done quickly.'" And then, gazing deep into his eyes, a noble idiom +of her adopted country fell from her lips: + +"Dearest," she said, "my father won't do a thing to you." + +And so she ran away with him to Miami where the authorities, civil and +religious, are accustomed to quick action. + +It was only fifty miles by train, and preliminary telephoning did the +rest. + +The big chartered launch that left for Verbena Inlet next morning poked +its nose out of the rainbow mist into the full glory of the rising sun. +Her golden head lay on his shoulder. + +Sideways, with delicious indolence, she glanced at a small boat which +they were passing close aboard. A fat gentleman, a fat lady, and a +boatman occupied the boat. The fat gentleman was fast to a tarpon. + +Up out of the dazzling Atlantic shot three hundred pounds of quivering +silver. Splash! + +"Why, Dad!" exclaimed the girl. + +Her father and mother looked over their shoulders at her in wooden +amazement. + +"We are married----" called out their pretty daughter across the sunlit +water. "I will tell you all about it when you land your fish. Look +sharp, Dad! Mind your reel!" + +"Who is that damned rascal?" demanded the Duke. + +"My husband, Dad! Don't let him get away!--the fish, I mean. Put the +drag on! Check!" + +Said his Grace of Pillchester in a voice of mellow thunder: + +"If I were not fast to my first tarpon----" + +"Reel in!" cried Smith sharply, "reel or you lose him!" + +The Duke reeled with all the abandon of a squirrel in a wheel. + +"Dearest," said Mrs. John Smith to her petrified mother, "we will see +you soon at Verbena. And _don't_ let Dad over-play that fish. He always +over-plays a salmon, you know." + +The Duchess folded her fat hands and watched her departing offspring +until the chartered launch was a speck on the horizon. Then she looked +at her husband. + +"Fancy!" she said. + +"Nevertheless," remarked the youthful novelist, coldly, "there is +nothing on earth as ignoble as a best-seller." + +"I wonder," ventured Duane, "whether you know which books actually do +sell the best." + +"Or which books of bygone days were the best-sellers?" + +"Some among them are still best-sellers," added Athalie. + +"A truly important book----" began the novelist, but Athalie interrupted +him: + +"O solemn child," she said, "write on!--and thank the gods for their +important gifts to you of hand and mind! So that you keep tired eyes +awake that otherwise would droop to brood on pain or sorrow you have +done well; and what you have written to this end will come nearer being +important than anything you ever write." + +"True, by the nine muses!" exclaimed Stafford with emphasis. Athalie +glanced at him out of sweetly humourous eyes. + +"There is a tenth muse," she said. "Did you never hear of her?" + +"Never! Where did you discover her, Athalie?" + +"Where I discover many, many things, my friend." + +"In your crystal?" I said. She nodded slowly while the sweetmeat was +dissolving in her mouth. + +Through the summer silence a bell here and there in the dusky city +sounded the hour. + +"The tenth muse," she repeated, "and I believe there are other sisters, +also. Many a star is suspected before its unseen existence is proven.... +Please--a glass of water?" + + + + +XII + + +She sipped the water pensively as we all returned to our places. Then, +placing the partly empty glass beside her jar of sweetmeats, she opened +her incomparable lips. + + * * * * * + +It is a fine thing when a young man, born to travel the speedway of +luxury, voluntarily leaves it to hew out a pathway for himself through +life. Brown thought so, too. And at twenty-four he resolutely graduated +from Harvard, stepped out into the world, and looked about him very +sternly. + +All was not well with the world. Brown knew it. He was there to correct +whatever was wrong. And he had chosen Good Literature as the vehicle for +self expression. + +Now, the nine sister goddesses are born flirts; and every one of them +immediately glanced sideways at Brown, who was a nice young man with +modesty, principles, and a deep and reverent belief in Good Literature. + +The nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne seemed very attractive to him +until the tenth and most recent addition to the Olympian family +sauntered by with a flirt of her narrow skirt--the jade! + +One glance into the starry blue wells of her baby eyes bowled him over. +Henceforth she was to be his steady--Thalomene, a casual daughter of +Zeus, and muse of all that is sacredly obvious in the literature of +modern realism. + +From early infancy Brown's had been a career of richest promise. His +mother's desk was full of his earlier impressions of life. He had, in +course of time, edited his school paper, his college paper; and, as an +undergraduate, he had appeared in the contributor's columns of various +periodicals. + +His was not only a wealthy but a cultivated lineage as well. The love of +literature was born in him. + +To love literature is all right in its way; to love it too well is to +mistake the appreciative for the creative genius. Reverence and devotion +are no equipment for creative authorship. It is not enough to have +something to say about what other people have said. And the inspiration +which comes from what others have done is never the true one. But Brown +didn't know these things. They were not revealed unto him at Harvard; no +inward instinct made them plain to him. + +He began by foregathering with authors. Many, many authors foregather, +from various causes--tradition, inclination, general shiftlessness. When +they do that they produce a sort of serum called literary atmosphere, +which is said to be delightful. And so Brown found it. However, there +are authors who seem to be too busy with their profession to foregather +and exhale atmosphere. But these are doubtless either literary hacks or +the degraded producers of best-sellers. They are not authors, either; +they are merely writers. + +Now, in all the world there is only one thing funnier than an author; +and that is a number of them. But Brown didn't know that, either. + +All authors are reformers. Said one of them to Brown in the Empyrean +Club: + +"When an author in his own heart ceases to be a reformer he begins to be +a menace!" + +It was a fine sentiment, and Brown wrote it in his note-book. +Afterward, the more he analyzed it the less it seemed to mean. + +Another author informed him that the proper study for man is man. He'd +heard that before, but the repetition steeled his resolve. And his +resolve was to reproduce in literature exactly what he observed about +him; nothing more, nothing less. + +There was to be no concession to imagination, none to convention, none +to that insidious form of human weakness known as good taste. As for +art, Brown already knew what Art really was. + +There was art enough for anybody in sheer truth, enough in the realism +made up of photographic detail, recorded uncompromisingly in ordered +processional sequence. After all, there was really no beauty in the +world except the beauty of absolute truth. All other alleged beauty was +only some form of weakness. Thus Brown, after inhaling literary +atmosphere. + +Like the majority of young men, Brown realised that only a man, and a +perfectly fearless, honest, and unprejudiced one, was properly equipped +to study woman and tell the entire truth about her in literature. + +So he began his first great novel--"The Unquiet Sex"--and he made heavy +weather of it that autumn--what with contributing to the literary +atmosphere every afternoon and evening at various clubs and cafes--not +to mention the social purlieus into which he ventured with the immortal +lustre already phosphorescent on his brow. Which left him little time +for mere writing. It is hard to be an author and a writer, too. + +The proper study for man being woman, Brown studied her solemnly and +earnestly. He studied his mother and his sisters, boring them to the +verge of distraction; he attempted to dissect the motives which governed +the behaviour of assorted feminine relatives, scaring several of the +more aged and timorous, agitating others, and infuriating one or +two--until his father ordered him to desist. + +House-maids, parlour-maids, ladies'-maids, waitresses, all fought very +shy of him; for true to his art, he had cast convention aside and had +striven to fathom the souls and discover the hidden motives imbedded in +Milesian, Scandinavian and Briton. + +"The thing for me to do," said Brown rather bitterly to his father, "is +to go out into the world and investigate far and wide." + +"Investigate what?" asked his father. + +"Woman!" said Brown sturdily. + +"There's only one trouble about that." + +"What's that?" + +"Woman," said his father, "is likely to do the investigating. This +household knows more about you than you do about it." + +Brown smiled. So did his father. + +"Son," said the latter, "what have you learned about women without +knowing anything about them?" + +"Nothing, naturally," said Brown. + +"Then you will never have anything more than _that_ to say about them," +remarked Brown senior. + +"Why not?" + +"Because the only thing possible for a man to say about them is what his +imagination dictates. He'll never learn any more concerning women than +that." + +"Imagination is not literature," said Brown junior, with polite +toleration. + +"Imagination is often the truer truth," said the old gentleman. + +"Father, that is rot." + +"Yes, my son--and it is almost Good Literature, too. Go ahead, shake us +if you like. But, if you do, you'll come back married." + + + + +XIII + + +So Brown, who was nourishing a theory, shook his family and, requiring +mental solitude to develop his idea, he went to Verbena Inlet. Not to +the enormous and expensive caravansary swarming with wealth, ennui, +envy, and fashion; not even to its sister hotel similarly infested. But +to West Verbena, where for a mile along the white shell road modest +hotels, boarding houses, and cottages nestled behind mosquito screens +under the dingy cabbage-palmettos. + +Here was stranded the winter driftwood from the North--that peculiar +flotsam and jetsam which summered in similar resorts in the North, +rocked in rocking chairs on dreary rural verandas, congregated at the +village post-office, awaited its men folk every week-end from the filthy +and sweltering metropolis. + +It was at a shabby but pretentious hostelry called the Villa Hibiscus +that Brown took up his quarters. Several rusty cabbage-palmettos waved +above the whitish, sandy soil surrounding it; one or two discouraged +orange trees fruited despondently near the veranda. And the place +swarmed with human beings from all over the United States, lured from +inclement climes, into the land of the orange and the palm--wistfully +seeking in the land of advertised perpetual sunshine what the restless +world has never yet discovered anywhere--surcease from care, from +longing, from the unkindliness of its fellow seekers. + +Dowdiness filled the veranda rocking chairs; unlovely hands were folded; +faded eyes gazed vacantly at the white road, at the oranges; enviously +at the flashing wheels and fluttering lingerie from the great Hotel +Verbena. + +Womanhood was there in all its ages and average phases; infancy, youth, +middle age, age--all were there in the rusty villas and hotels ranged +for a mile along the smooth shell road. + +The region, thought Brown to himself, was rich in material. And the +reflection helped him somewhat with his dinner, which needed a fillip or +two. + +In his faultless dinner jacket he sauntered out after the evening meal; +and the idea which possessed and even thrilled him aided him to forget +what he had eaten. + +The lagoon glimmered mysteriously in the starlight; the royal palms +bordering it rustled high in the night breeze from the sea. Perfume from +oleander hedges smote softly the olfactories of Brown; the southern +whip-poor-wills' hurried whisper thrilled the darkness with a deeper +mystery. + +Here was the place to study woman. There could be no doubt about that. +Here, untrammelled, uninterrupted, unvexed by the jarring of the world, +he could place his model, turn her loose, and observe her. + +To concentrate all his powers of analytical observation upon a single +specimen of woman was his plan. Painters and sculptors used models. He +meant to use one, too. + +It would be simple. First, he must discover what he wanted. This +accomplished, he had decided to make a plain business proposition to +her. She was to go about her own affairs and her pleasure without +embarrassment or self-consciousness--behave naturally; do whatever it +pleased her to do. But he was to be permitted to observe her, follow +her, make what notes he chose; and, as a resume of each day, they were +to meet in some quiet spot in order that he might question her as he +chose, concerning whatever interested him, or whatever in her movements +or behaviour had seemed to him involved or inexplicable. + +Thus and thus only, he had decided, could light be shed upon the +mysterious twilight veiling the inner woman! Thus only might carefully +concealed motives be detected, cause and effect co-ordinated, the very +source of all feminine logic, reason, and emotion be laid bare and +dissected at leisure. + +Never had anybody written such a novel as he would be equipped to write. +The ultimate word concerning woman was about to be written. + +Inwardly excited, outwardly calm, he had seated himself on the coquina +wall which ran along the lagoon under the Royal Palms. He was about to +study his subject as the great masters studied, coolly, impersonally, +with clear and merciless intelligence, setting down with calm simplicity +nothing except facts. + +All that was worthy and unworthy should be recorded--the good with the +evil--nothing should be too ephemeral, too minute, to escape his +searching analysis. + +And all the while, though Brown was not aware of it, the memory of a +face he had seen in the dining-room grew vaguely and faded, waxing and +waning alternately, like a phantom illustration accompanying his +thoughts. + +As for the model he should choose to study, she ought to be thoroughly +feminine, he thought; young, probably blonde, well formed, not very +deeply experienced, and with every human capacity for good and bad +alike. + +He would approach her frankly, tell her what he required, offer her the +pay of an artist's model, three dollars a day; and, if she accepted, she +could have her head and do what she liked. All that concerned him was to +make his observations and record them. + +In the blue starlight people passed and re-passed like ghosts along the +shell-road--the white summer gowns of young girls were constantly +appearing in the dusk, taking vague shape, vanishing. On the lagoon, a +guitar sounded very far away. The suave scent of oleander grew sweeter. + +Spectral groups passed in clinging lingerie; here and there a ghost +lingered to lean over the coquina wall, her lost gaze faintly accented +by some level star. One of these, a slender young thing, paused near to +Brown, resting gracefully against the wall. + +All around her the whip-poor-wills were calling breathlessly; the +perfume of oleander grew sweeter. + +As for the girl herself, she resembled the tenth muse. Brown had never +attempted to visualise his mistress; it had been enough for him that she +was Thalomene, daughter of Zeus, and divinely fair. + +But now, as he recognised the face he had noticed that evening in the +dining-room, somehow he thought of his muse for the first time, +concretely. Perhaps because the girl by the coquina wall was young, +slim, golden haired, and Greek. + +His impulse, without bothering to reason, was to hop from the wall and +go over to where she was standing. + +She looked around calmly as he approached, gave him a little nod in +recognition of his lifted hat. + +"I'm John Brown, 4th," he said. "I'm stopping at the Villa Hibiscus. Do +you mind my saying so?" + +"No, I don't mind," she said. + +"There is a vast amount of nonsense in formality and convention," said +Brown. "If you don't mind ignoring such details, I have something +important to say to you." + +She looked at him unsmilingly. Probably it was the starlight in her +eyes that made them glimmer as though with hidden laughter. + +"I am," said Brown, pleasantly, "an author." + +"Really," she said. + +"When I say that I am an author," continued Brown seriously, "I mean in +the higher sense." + +"Oh. What is the higher sense, Mr. Brown?" she asked. + +"The higher sense does not necessarily imply authorship. I do not mean +that I am a mere writer. I have written very little." + +"Oh," she said. + +"Very little," repeated Brown combatively. "You will look in vain among +the crowded counters piled high with contemporary fiction for anything +from my pen." + +"Then perhaps I had better not look," she said so simply that Brown was +a trifle disappointed in her. + +"Some day, however," he said, "you may search, and, perhaps, not wholly +in vain." + +"Oh, you are writing a book!" + +"Yes," he said, "I am, so to speak, at work on a novel." + +"Might one, with discretion, make further inquiry concerning your novel, +Mr. Brown?" + +"_You_ may." + +"Thank you," she said, apparently a trifle disconcerted by the privilege +so promptly granted. + +"_You_ may," repeated Brown. "Shall I explain why?" + +"Please." + +"You will not mistake me, I am sure. Will you?" + +She turned her pretty face toward him. + +"I don't think so," she said after a moment. The starlight was meddling +with her eyes again. + + + + +XIV + + +So Brown told her about his theory; how he desired to employ a model, +how he desired to study her; what were his ideas of the terms suitable. + +He talked fluently, earnestly, and agreeably; and his pretty audience +listened with so much apparent intelligence and good taste that her very +attitude subtly exhilarated Brown, until he became slightly aware that +he was expressing himself eloquently. + +He had, it seemed, much to say concerning the profession and practice of +good literature. It seemed, too, that he knew a great deal about it, +both theoretically and practically. His esteem and reverence for it were +unmistakable; his enthusiasm worthy of his courage. + +He talked for a long while, partly about literature, partly about +himself. And he was at intervals a trifle surprised that he had so much +to say, and wondered at the valuable accumulations of which he was +unburdening himself with such vast content. + +The girl had turned her back to the lagoon and stood leaning against the +coquina wall, facing him, her slender hands resting on the coping. + +Never had he had such a listener. At the clubs and cafes other literary +men always wanted to talk. But here under the great southern stars +nobody interrupted the limpid flow of his long dammed eloquence. And he +ended leisurely, as he had begun, yet auto-intoxicated, thrillingly +conscious of the spell which he had laid upon himself, upon his young +listener--conscious, too, of the spell that the soft air and the perfume +and the stars had spun over a world grown suddenly and incredibly lovely +and young. + +She said in a low voice: "I need the money very much.... And I don't +mind your studying me." + +"Do you really mean it?" he exclaimed, enchanted. + +"Yes. But there is one trouble." + +"What is it?" he asked apprehensively. + +"I _must_ have my mornings to myself." + +He said: "Under the terms I must be permitted to ask you any questions I +choose. You understand that, don't you?" + +"Yes," she said. + +"Then--why must you have your mornings to yourself?" + +"I have work to do." + +"What work? What are you?" + +She flushed a trifle, then, accepting the rules of the game, smiled at +Brown. + +"I am a school-teacher," she said. "Ill health from overwork drove me +South to convalesce. I am trying to support myself here by working in +the mornings." + +"I am sorry," he said gently. Then, aware of his concession to a very +human weakness, he added with businesslike decision: "What is the nature +of your morning's work?" + +"I--write," she admitted. + +"Stories?" + +"Yes." + +"Fiction?" + +"Anything, Mr. Brown. I send notes to fashion papers, concerning the +costumes at the Hotel Verbena; I write for various household papers +special articles which would not interest you at all. I write little +stories for the women's and children's columns in various newspapers. +You see what I do is not literature, and could not interest you." + +"If you are to act for me in the capacity of a model," he said firmly, +"I am absolutely bound to study every phase of you, every minutest +detail." + +"Oh." + +"Not one minute of the day must pass without my observing you," he said. +"Unless you are broad-minded enough to comprehend me you may think my +close and unremitting observation impertinent." + +"You don't mean to be impertinent, I am sure," she faltered, already +surprised, apprehensive, and abashed by the prospect. + +"Of course I don't mean to be impertinent," he said smilingly, "but all +great observers pursue their studies unremittingly day and night----" + +"_You_ couldn't do _that_!" she exclaimed. + +"No," he admitted, troubled, "that would not be feasible. You require, +of course, a certain amount of slumber." + +"Naturally," she said. + +"I ought," he said thoughtfully, "to study that phase of you, also." + +"What phase, Mr. Brown?" + +"When you are sleeping." + +"But that is impossible!" + +"Convention," he said disdainfully, "makes it so. A literary student is +fettered. + +"But it is perfectly possible for you to imagine what I look like when +I'm asleep, Mr. Brown." + +"Imagination is to play no part in my literary work," he said coldly. +"What I set down are facts." + +"But is that art?" + +"There is more art in facts than there are facts in art," he said. + +"I don't quite know what you mean." + +He didn't, either, when he came to analyse what he had said; and he +turned very red and admitted it. + +"I mean to be honest and truthful," he said. "What I just said sounded +clever, but meant nothing. I admit it. I mean to be perfectly pitiless +with myself. Anything tainted with imagination; anything hinting of +romance; any weak concession to prejudice, convention, good taste, I +refuse to be guilty of. Realism is what I aim at; raw facts, however +unpleasant!" + +"I don't believe you will find anything very unpleasant about me," she +said. + +"No, I don't think I shall. But I mean to detect every imperfection, +every weakness, every secret vanity, every unworthy impulse. That is why +I desire to study you so implacably. Are you willing to submit?" + +She bit her lip and looked thoughtfully at the stars. + +"You know," she said, "that while it may be all very well for you to say +'anything for art's sake,' _I_ can't say it. I can't _do_ it, either." + +"Why not?" + +"Because I can't. You know perfectly well that you can't follow me about +taking notes _every_ minute of the twenty-four hours." + +He said very earnestly: "Sir John Lubbock sat up day and night, never +taking his eyes off the little colony of ants which he had under +observation in a glass box!" + +"Do you propose to sit up day and night to keep me under observation?" +she asked, flushed and astounded. + +"Not at first. But as my studies advance, and you become accustomed to +the perfectly respectful but coldly impersonal nature of my +observations, your mind, I trust, will become so broadened that you will +find nothing objectionable in what at first might scare you. An artist's +model, for example----" + +"But I am not an artist's model!" she exclaimed, with a slight shiver. + +"To be a proper model at all," he said, "you must concede all for art, +and remain sublimely unconscious of self. _You_ do not matter. _I_ do +not matter. Only my work counts. And that must be honest, truthful, +accurate, minute, exact--a perfect record of a woman's mind and +personality." + +For a few moments they both remained silent. And after a little the +starlight began to play tricks with her eyes again, so that they seemed +sparkling with hidden laughter. But her face was grave. + +She said: "I really do need the money. I will do what I can.... And if +in spite of my courage I ever shrink--our contract shall terminate at +once." + +"And what shall I do then?" inquired Brown. + +The starlight glimmered in her eyes. She said very gravely: + +"In case the demands of your realism and your art are too much for my +courage, Mr. Brown--you will have to find another model to study." + +"But another model might prove as conventional as you!" + +"In that case," she said, while her sensitive lower lip trembled, and +the starlight in her eyes grew softly brilliant, "in that case, Mr. +Brown, I am afraid that there would be only one course to pursue with +that _other_ model." + +"What course is that?" he asked, deeply interested. + +"I'm afraid you'd have to marry her." + +"Good Lord!" he said. "I can't marry every girl I mean to study!" + +"Oh! Do you mean to study very many?" + +"I have my entire life and career before me." + +"Yes. That is true. But--women are much alike. One model, thoroughly +studied, might serve for them all--with a little imagination." + +"I have no use for imagination in fiction," said Brown firmly. After a +moment's silence, he added: "Is it settled, then?" + +"About our--contract?" + +"Yes." + +She considered for a long while, then, looking up, she nodded. + +"That's fine!" exclaimed Brown, with enthusiasm. + +They walked back to the Villa Hibiscus together, slowly, through the +blue starlight. Brown asked her name, and she told him. + +"No," he said gaily, "your name is Thalomene, and you are the tenth +muse. For truly I think I have never before been so thoroughly inspired +by a talk with anyone." + +She laughed. He had done almost all the talking. And he continued it, +very happily, as by common consent they seated themselves on the +veranda. + + + + +XV + + +The inhabitants of the Villa Hibiscus retired. But Brown talked on, +quite unconscious that the low-voiced questions and softly modulated +replies were magic which incited him to a perfect ecstasy of +self-revelation. + +Perhaps he thought he was studying her--for the compact by mutual +consent was already in force--and certainly his eyes were constantly +upon her, taking, as no doubt he supposed, a cold and impersonal measure +of her symmetry. Calmly, and with utter detachment, he measured her +slender waist, her soft little hands; noting the fresh, sweet lips, the +clear, prettily shaped eyes, the delicate throat, the perfect little +Greek head with its thick, golden hair. + +And all the while he held forth about literature and its true purpose; +about what art really is; about his own art, his own literature, and +his own self. + +And the girl was really fascinated. + +She had seen, at a distance, such men. When Brown had named himself to +her, she had recognised the name with awe, as a fashionable and wealthy +name known to Gotham. + +Yet, had Brown known it, neither his eloquence nor his theories, nor his +aims, were what fascinated her. But it was his boyish enthusiasm, his +boyish intolerance, his immaturity, his happy certainty of the +importance of what concerned himself. + +He was so much a boy, so much a man, such a candid, unreasonable, eager, +selfish, impulsive, portentous, and delightfully illogical mixture of +boy and man that the combination fascinated every atom of womanhood in +her--and at moments as the night wore on, she found herself listening +perilously close to the very point of sympathy. + +He appeared to pay no heed to the flight of time. The big stars frosted +Heaven; the lagoon was silvered by them; night winds stirred the orange +bloom; oleanders exhaled a bewitching perfume. + +As he lay there in his rocking chair beside her, it seemed to him that +he had known her intimately for years--so wonderfully does the charm of +self-revelation act upon human reason. For she had said almost nothing +about herself. Yet, it was becoming plainer to him every moment that +never in all his life had he known any woman as he already knew this +young girl. + +"It is wonderful," he said, lying back in his chair and looking up at +the stars, "how subtle is sympathy, and how I recognise yours. I think I +understand you perfectly already." + +"Do you?" she said. + +"Yes, I feel sure I do. Somehow, I know that secretly and in your own +heart you are in full tide of sympathy with me and with my life's work." + +"I thought you had no imagination," she said. + +"I haven't. Do you mean that I only imagine that you are in sympathy +with me?" + +"No," she said. "I am." + +After a few moments she laughed deliciously. He never knew why. Nor was +she ever perfectly sure why she had laughed, though they discussed the +matter very gravely. + +A new youth seemed to have invaded her, an exquisite sense of lightness, +of power. Vaguely she was conscious of ability, of a wonderful and +undreamed of capacity. Within her heart she seemed to feel the subtle +stir of a new courage, a certainty of the future, of indefinable but +splendid things. + +The manuscript of the novel which she had sent North two weeks ago +seemed to her a winged thing soaring to certain victory in the empyrean. +Suddenly, by some magic, doubt, fear, distress, were allayed--and it was +like surcease from a steady pain, with all the blessed and heavenly +languor relaxing her mind and body. + +And all the while Brown talked on. + +Lying there in her chair she listened to him while the thoughts in her +eased mind moved in delicate accompaniment. + +Somehow she understood that never in her life had she been so +happy--with this boy babbling beside her, and her own thoughts +responding almost tenderly to his youth, his inconsistencies, to the +arrogance typical of his sex. He was _so_ wrong!--so far from the track, +so utterly astray, so pitiably confident! Who but she should know, who +had worked and studied and failed and searched, always _writing_, +however--which is the only way in the world to learn how to write--or to +learn that there is no use in writing. + +Her hand lay along the flat arm of her rocking-chair; and once, when he +had earnestly sustained a perfectly untenable theory concerning success +in literature, unconsciously she laid her fresh, smooth hand on his arm +in impulsive protest. + +"No," she said, "don't think that way. You are quite wrong. That is the +road to failure!" + +It was her first expression of disagreement, and he looked at her +amazed. + +"I am afraid you think I don't know anything about real literature and +realism," she said, "but I do know a little." + +"Every man must work out his salvation in his own way," he insisted, +still surprised at her dissent. + +"Yes, but one should be equipped by long practice in the art before +definitely choosing one's final course." + +"I am practiced." + +"I don't mean theoretically," she murmured. + +He laughed: "Oh, you mean mere writing," he said, gaily confident. +"That, according to my theory, is not necessary to real experience. +Literature is something loftier." + +In her feminine heart every instinct of womanhood was aroused--pity for +the youth of him, sympathy for his obtuseness, solicitude for his +obstinacy, tenderness for the fascinating combination of boy and man, +which might call itself by any name it chose--even "author"--and go +blundering along without a helping hand amid shrugs and smiles to a goal +marked "Failure." + +"I wonder," she said almost timidly, "whether you could ever listen to +me." + +"Always," he said, bending nearer to see her expression. Which having +seen, he perhaps forgot to note in his little booklet, for he continued +to look at her. + +"I haven't very much to say," she said. "Only--to learn any art or trade +or profession it is necessary to work at it unremittingly. But to +discuss it never helped anybody." + +"My dear child," he said, "I know that what you say was the old idea. +But," he shrugged, "I do not agree with it." + +"I am so sorry," she said. + +"Sorry? Why are you sorry?" + +"I don't know.... Perhaps because I like you." + +It was not very much to say--not a very significant declaration; but the +simplicity and sweetness of it--her voice--the head bent a little in the +starlight--all fixed Brown's attention. He sat very still there in the +luminous dusk of the white veranda; the dew dripped steadily like rain; +the lagoon glittered. + +Then, subtly, taking Brown unawares, his most treacherous enemy crept +upon him with a stealth incredible, and, before Brown knew it, was in +full possession of his brain. The enemy was Imagination. + +Minute after minute slipped away in the scented dusk, and found Brown's +position unchanged, where he lay in his chair looking at her. + +The girl also was very silent. + +With what wonderful attributes his enemy, Imagination, was busily +endowing the girl beside him in the starlight, there is no knowing. His +muse was Thalomene, slim daughter of Zeus; and whether she was really +still on Olympus or here beside him he scarcely knew, so perfectly did +this young girl inspire him, so exquisitely did she fill the bill. + +"It is odd," he said, after a long while, "that merely a few hours with +you should inspire me more than I have ever been inspired in all my +life." + +"That," she said unsteadily, "is your imagination." + +At the hateful word, imagination, Brown seemed to awake from the spell. +Then he sat up straight, rather abruptly. + +"The thing to do," he said, still confused by his awakening, "is to +consider you impersonally and make notes of everything." And he fumbled +for pencil and note-book, and, rising, stepped across to the front door, +where a light was burning. + +Standing under it he resolutely composed his thoughts; but to save his +life he could remember nothing of which to make a memorandum. + +This worried him, and finally alarmed him. And so long did he stand +there, note-book open, pencil poised, and a sickly expression of dismay +imprinted upon his otherwise agreeable features, that the girl rose at +last from her chair, glanced in through the door at him, and then came +forward. + +"What is the matter?" she asked. + +"The matter is," said Brown, "that I don't seem to have anything to +write about." + +"You are tired," she said. "I think we both are a little tired." + +"_I_ am not. Anyway, I have something to write about now. Wait a moment +till I make a note of how you walk--the easy, graceful, flowing motion, +so exquisitely light and----" + +"But _I_ don't walk like that!" she said, laughing. + +"--Graciously as a youthful goddess," muttered Brown, scribbling away +busily in his note-book. "Tell me; what motive had you just now in +rising and coming to ask me what was the matter--with such a sweetly +apprehensive expression in your eyes?" + +"My--my motive?" she repeated, astonished. + +"Yes. You had one, hadn't you?" + +"Why--I don't know. You looked worried; so I came." + +"The motive," said Brown, "was feminine solicitude--an emotion natural +to nice women. Thank you." And he made a note of it. + +"But motives and emotions are different things," she said timidly. "I +had no motive for coming to ask you why you seemed troubled." + +"Wasn't your motive to learn why?" + +"Y-yes, I suppose so." + +He laid his head on one side and inspected her critically. + +"And if anything had been amiss with me you would have been sorry, +wouldn't you?" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +"Why? Because--one is sorry when a friend--when anyone----" + +"I _am_ your friend," he said. "So why not say it?" + +"And I am yours--if you wish," she said. + +"Yes, I do." He began to write: "It's rather odd how friendship begins. +We both seem to want to be friends." And to her he said: "How does it +make you feel--the idea of our being friends? What emotions does it +arouse in you?" + +She looked at him in sorrowful surprise. "I thought it was real +friendship you meant," she murmured, "not the sort to make a note +about." + +"But I've got to make notes of everything. Don't you see? Certainly our +friendship is real enough--but I've got to study it minutely and make +notes concerning it. It's necessary to make records of everything--how +you walk, stand, speak, look, how you go upstairs----" + +"I am going now," she said. + +He followed, scribbling furiously; and it is difficult to go upstairs, +watch a lady go upstairs, and write about the way she does it all at the +same time. + +"Good-night," she said, opening her door. + +"Good-night," he said, absently, and so intent on his scribbling that he +followed her through the door into her room. + + + + +XVI + + +"She goes upstairs as though she were floating up," he wrote, with +enthusiasm; "her lovely figure, poised on tip-toe, seems to soar upward, +ascending as naturally and gracefully as the immortals ascended the +golden stairs of Jacob----" + +In full flood of his treacherous imagination he seated himself on a +chair beside her bed, rested the note-book on his knees, and scribbled +madly, utterly oblivious to her. And it was only when he had finished, +for sheer lack of material, that he recollected himself, looked up, saw +how she had shrunk away from him against the wall--how the scarlet had +dyed her face to her temples. + +"Why--why do you come--into my bedroom?" she faltered. "Does our +friendship count for no more than that with you?" + +"What?" he said, bewildered. + +"That you do what you have no right to do. Art--art is _not_ enough +to--to--excuse--disrespect----" + +Suddenly the tears sprang to her eyes, and she covered her flushed face +with both hands. + +For a moment Brown stood petrified. Then a deeper flush than hers +settled heavily over his features. + +"I'm sorry," he said. + +She made no response. + +"I didn't mean to hurt you. I _do_ respect you," he said. + +No response. + +Brown gazed at her, gazed at his note-book. + +Then he hurled the note-book across the room and walked over to her as +she lifted her lovely head, startled and tearful. + +"You are right," he said, swallowing nothing very desperately. "You can +not be studied this way. Will you--marry me?" + +"What!" + +"Will you marry me?" + +"Why?" she gasped. + +"Because I--want to study you." + +"No!" she said, looking him straight in the eyes. + +Brown thought hard for a full minute. + +"Would you marry me because I love you?" he asked timidly. + +The question seemed to be more than she could answer. Besides, the tears +sprang to her blue eyes again, and her under lip began to tremble, and +she covered her face with both hands. Which made it impossible for him +to kiss her. + +"Isn't it wonderful?" he said earnestly, trembling from head to foot. +"Isn't it wonderful, dear?" + +"Yes," she whispered. The word, uttered against his shoulder, was +stifled. He bent his head nearer, murmuring: + +"Thalomene--Thalomene--embodiment of Truth! How wonderful it is to me +that at last I find in you that absolute Truth I worship." + +"I am--the embodiment--of your--imagination," she said. "But you will +never, never believe it--most adorable of boys--dearest--dearest of +men." + +And, lifting her stately and divine young head, she looked innocently at +Brown while he imprinted his first and most chaste kiss upon the fresh, +sweet lips of the tenth muse, Thalomene, daughter of Zeus. + + * * * * * + +"Athalie," said the youthful novelist more in sorrow than in anger, +"you are making game of everything I hold most important." + +"Provide yourself with newer and truer gods, dear child," said the girl, +laughing. "After you've worshipped them long enough somebody will also +poke fun at them. Whereupon, if you are fortunate enough to be one of +those who continues to mature until he matures himself into the +Ewigkeit, you will instantly quit those same over-mauled and worn out +gods for newer and truer ones." + +"And so on indefinitely," I added. + +"In literature," began the novelist, "the great masters must stand as +parents for us in our first infantile steps----" + +"No," said the girl, "all worthy aspirants enter the field of literature +as orphans. Opportunity and Fates alone stand for them _in loco +parentis_. And the child of these is known as Destiny." + +"No cubist could beat that, Athalie," remarked Duane. "I'm ashamed of +you--or proud--I don't know which." + +"Dear child," she said, "you will never know the true inwardness of any +sentiment you entertain concerning me until I explain it to you." + +"Smitten again hip and thigh," said Stafford. "Fair lady, I am far too +wary to tell you what I think of the art of incoherence as practised +occasionally by the prettiest Priestess in the Temple." + +Athalie looked at me as the sweetmeat melted on her tongue. + +"You promised me a dog," she remarked. + +"I've picked him out. He'll be weaned in another week." + +"What species of pup is he?" inquired Duane. + +"An Iceland terrier," I answered. "They use them for digging out walrus +and seals." + +"Thank you," said Duane pleasantly. + +"After all," observed the girl, lifting her glass of water, "it does not +concern Mr. Duane what sort of a dog you have chosen for me." + +She sipped it leisurely, looking over the delicate crystal rim at Duane. + +"You are young," she said. "'_L'enfance est le sommeil de la raison._'" + +"How would you like to have an Angora kitten?" he asked, reddening +slightly. + +"But infancy," she added, "is always adorable.... I think I might like a +white one with blue eyes." + +"Puppies, kittens, children," remarked Stafford--"they're all tolerable +while they're young." + +"All of these," said the girl softly, "I should like to have." + +And she gazed inquiringly at the crystal. But it could tell her nothing +of herself or of her hopes. She turned and looked out into the dark +city, a trifle wearily, it seemed to me. + + + + +XVII + + +After a silence, she lay back among her cushions and glanced at us with +a faint smile. + +"One day last winter," she said, "after the last client had gone and +office hours were over, I sat here thinking, wondering what in the world +could be worse for a girl than to have no parents.... And I happened to +glance into my crystal, and saw there an incident beginning to evolve +that cheered me up, because it was a parody on my more morbid train of +thought. After all, the same Chance that gives a child to its parents +gives the parents to that child. You may think this is Tupper," she +added, "but it is Athalie. And that being the case, nobody will laugh." + +Nobody did laugh. + +"Thank you," she said sweetly. "Now I will tell you what I saw in my +crystal when I happened to be feeling unusually alone in the world." And +with a pretty nod to us, collectively, she began. + + * * * * * + +The bulk of the cargo and a few bodies were coming ashore at the eastern +end of the island, and that is where the throngs were--people from the +Light House, fishermen from the inlet, and hundreds of winter tourists +from St. Augustine, in white flannels and summer gowns, all attracted to +Ibis Island by the grewsome spectacle of the wreck. + +The West Indian hurricane had done its terrific business and had gone, +leaving a turquoise sky untroubled by a cloud, and a sea of snow and +cobalt. + +Nothing living had been washed ashore from the wreck. As for the brig, +she had vanished--if there had been anything left of her to disappear +except the wreckage, human and otherwise, that had come tumbling ashore +through the surf all night long. + +So young Gray, seeing that there was nothing for him to do, and not +caring for the spectacle at the eastern end of the island, turned on his +heel and walked west through thickets of sweet bay, palmetto, and +beach-grape. + +He wore the lightest weight solaro, with a helmet and close-fitting +puttees of the same. Two straps crossed his breast, the one supporting a +well filled haversack, the other a water bottle. Except for fire arms he +was equipped for darkest Africa, or for anything else on earth--at least +he supposed so. He was wrong; he was not equipped for what he was about +to encounter on Ibis Island. + +It happened in this manner: traversing the seaward dunes, because the +beach no longer afforded him even a narrow margin for a footing, +shoulder deep in a tangle of beach-grapes, he chanced to glance at the +little sandy cove which he was skirting, and saw there an empty fruit +crate tumbling in the smother of foam, and a very small setter puppy +clinging to it frantically, with every claw clutching, and his drenched +tail between his legs. + +Even while Gray was forcing his eager way through the tangle, he was +aware of somebody else moving forward through the high scrub just west +of him; and as he sprang out onto the beach and laid his hand on the +stranded fruit crate, another hand, slimmer and whiter than his, fell +on the crate as he dragged it out of the foamy shallows and up across +the dry sand, just as a tremendous roller smashed into clouds of foam +behind it. + +"I beg your pardon," said a breathless voice at his elbow, "but I think +I saw this little dog first." + +Gray already was reaching for the shivering little thing, but two other +hands deprived him of the puppy; and he looked up, impatient and +annoyed, into the excited brown eyes of a young girl. + +She had taken the dripping, clawing little creature to her breast, where +it shivered and moaned and whined, shoving its cold nose up under her +chin. + +"I beg your pardon," said Gray, firmly, "but I am really very certain +that I first discovered that dog." + +"I am sorry you think so," she said, clasping the creature all the +tighter. + +"I _do_ think so," insisted Gray. "I _know_ it!" + +"I am very sorry," she repeated. Over the puppy's shivering back her +brown eyes gazed upon Gray. They were very pretty, but hostile. + +"There can be no question about the ownership of this pup," persisted +Gray. "Of course, I am sorry if you really think you discovered the +dog. Because you didn't." + +"I _did_ discover him," she said, calmly. + +"I beg your pardon. I was walking through the beach-grapes----" + +"I beg yours! I also was crossing the sweet-bay scrub when I happened to +glance down at the cove and saw this poor little dog in the water." + +"That is exactly what _I_ did! I happened to glance down, and there I +saw this little dog. Instantly I sprang----" + +"So did I!--I _beg_ your pardon for interrupting you!" + +"I was merely explaining that I first saw the dog, and next I noticed +you. But first of all I saw the dog." + +"That is the exact sequence in my own observations," she rejoined +calmly. "First of all I saw the dog in the water, then I heard a crash +in the bush, and saw something floundering about in the tangle." + +"And," continued Gray, much annoyed by her persistency, "no sooner had I +caught hold of the crate than _you_ came up and laid _your_ hand on it, +also. You surely must remember that I had my hand on the crate before +you did!" + +"I am very sorry you think so. The contrary was the case. _I_ took firm +hold of the crate, and then you aided me to draw it up out of the +water." + +"It is extraordinary," he said, "how mistaken you are concerning the +actual sequence of events. Not that I doubt for a moment that you really +suppose you discovered the dog. Probably you were a little excited----" + +"I was perfectly cool. Possibly _you_ were a trifle excited." + +"Not in the least," he retorted with calm exasperation. "I never become +agitated." + +The puppy continued to shiver and drive its nose up under the girl's +chin. + +"Poor little thing! Poor little shipwrecked baby!" she crooned. And, to +Gray: "I don't know why this puppy should be so cold. The water is warm +enough." + +"Put it in the hot sand," he said. "We can rub it dry." + +She hesitated, flushing perhaps at her own suspicions; but nevertheless +she said: + +"You would not attempt to take it if I put it down, would you?" + +"I don't intend to snatch it," he said with dignity. "_Men_ don't +snatch." + +So they went inland a few paces where the sand was hot and loose and +deep; and there they knelt down and put the puppy on the sand. + +[Illustration: "'I am in possession of the dog and you merely claim +possession.'"] + +"Scrub him thoroughly," she suggested, pouring heaping handfuls of hot, +silvery sand over the little creature. + +Gray did likewise, and together they rubbed and scrubbed and rolled the +puppy about until the dog began to roll on his back all by himself, +twisting and wriggling and waving his big, padded paws. + +"What he wants is water," asserted Gray, unstrapping his haversack and +bottle. From the one he produced an aluminum pannikin; from the other he +filled it with water. The puppy drank it all while Gray and the +brown-eyed girl looked on intently. + +Then Gray produced some beef sandwiches, and the famished little +creature leaped and whirled and danced as Gray fed him cautiously, bit +by bit. + +"Do you think that is perfectly fair?" asked the girl gravely. + +"Fair?" repeated Gray guiltily. + +"Yes. Who first feeds a strange dog is recognised as the reigning +authority." + +"Very well, you may feed him, too. But that does not alter the facts in +the case." + +"The facts," said the girl, taking a sandwich from Gray, "are that I am +in possession of the dog and you merely claim possession." + +They fed him alternately and in silence--until their opinion became +unanimous that it was dangerous, for the present, to feed him any more. + +The puppy begged and pleaded and cajoled and danced--a most appealing +and bewitching little creature, silvery white and blue-ticked, with a +tiny tan point over each eye and a black and tan saddle. + +"Lavarack," observed Gray. + +"English," she nodded. + +It wagged not only its little, whippy tail, but in doing so wriggled its +entire hind quarters, showing no preference for either of its rescuers, +but bestowing winning and engaging favours impartially. + +The girl could endure it no longer, but snatched the puppy to her with a +soft little cry, and cuddled it tight. Gray looked on gloomily. Then, +when she released it, he took it and caressed it in masculine fashion. +There was no discernible difference in its affectionate responses. + +After the dog had lavished enthusiasm and affection on its saviours to +the point of physical exhaustion, it curled up on the hot sand between +them. At first, when they moved or spoke, the little, silky head was +quickly lifted, and the brown eyes turned alertly from one to the other +of the two beings most beloved on earth. But presently only the whippy +tail stirred in recognition of their voices. And finally the little dog +slept in the hot sunshine. + + + + +XVIII + + +For a long while, seated on either side of the slumbering puppy, they +remained silent, in fascinated contemplation of what they had rescued. + +Finally Gray said slowly: "It may seem odd to you that I should be so +firm and uncompromising concerning my right to a very small dog which +may be duplicated in the North for a few dollars." + +She lifted her brown eyes to his, then let them fall again on the dog. + +"The reason is this," said Gray. "The native dogs I dislike intensely. +Dogs imported from the North soon die in this region. But this little +pup was evidently born on shipboard and on tropical seas. I think he's +very likely to survive the climate. And as I am obliged to reside here +for a while, and as I am to live all alone, this pup is a godsend to +me." + +The girl, still resting her eyes on the sleeping puppy, said very +quietly: + +"I do not desire to appear selfish, but a girl is twice as lonely as a +man. And as I fortunately first discovered the dog it seems to me +absolutely right and just that I should keep him." + +Gray sat pouring sand through his fingers and casting an occasional +oblique glance at the girl. She was not sunburned, so she must be a +recent arrival. She spoke with a northern accent, which determined her +origin. + +_What_ was she doing down here on this absurd island? Why didn't she go +back to St. Augustine where she belonged? + +"You know," he said craftily, "I can buy a very nice little dog indeed +for you in St. Augustine." + +"I am not stopping in St. Augustine. Besides, there are only horrid +little lap-dogs there." + +"Don't you like lap-dogs--Pomms, Pekinese, Maltese?" he inquired +persuasively. + +"No." + +"You are unlike the majority of girls then. What sort of dog do you +like?" + +"Setters," she explained with decision. + +And as he bit his lip in annoyed silence she added: + +"Setter puppies are what I adore." + +"I'm sorry," he said bluntly. + +She added, not heeding his observation: "I am mad about setter puppies, +particularly English setter puppies. And when I try to realise that I +discovered a shipwrecked one all by myself, and rescued it, I can +scarcely believe in such an adorable miracle." + +It was on the tip of his tongue to offer to purchase the pup, but a +quick glance at the girl checked him. She was evidently perfectly +sincere, and the quality of her was unmistakable. + +Already, within these few minutes, her skin had begun to burn a delicate +rose tint from the sun's fierce reflection on the white sands. Her hair +was a splendid golden brown, her eyes darker, or perhaps the long, dark +lashes made them seem so. She was daintily and prettily made, head, +throat, shoulders, and limbs; she wore a summer gown so waistless and +limp that it conformed to the corsetless fashions in vogue, making +evident here and there the contours of her slim and supple figure. + +From the tip of her white shoe to the tip of her hat she was the futile +and exquisite essence of Gotham. + +Gray realised it because he lived there himself. But he could not +understand where all her determination and obstinacy came from, for she +seemed so young and inexperienced, and there was about her a childish +dewiness of eye and lip that suggested a blossom's fragrance. + +She was very lovely; and that was all very well in its way, but Gray had +come down there on stern business, and how long his business might last, +and how long he was to inhabit a palmetto bungalow above the coquina +quarry he did not know. The coquina quarry was as hot as the infernal +pit. Also, snakes frequented it. + +No black servant--promised him faithfully in St. Augustine the day +before--had yet arrived. A few supplies had been sent over from St. +Augustine, and he was camping in his little house of logs, along with +wood-ticks, blue lizards, white ants, gophers, hornets, and several +chestnut-colored scorpions. + +"I wouldn't mind yielding the dog to you," he admitted, "if I were not +so horribly lonely on this miserable island. When evening comes, _you_ +will go back to luxury and comfort somewhere or other, with dinner +awaiting you and servants to do everything, and a nice bed to retire to. +That's a pleasant picture, isn't it?" + +"Very," she replied, with a slight shrug. + +"Now," he said, "please gaze mentally upon this other picture. _I_ am +obliged to go back to a shack haunted by every species of creature that +this wretched island harbours. + +"There will be no dinner for me except what I can scoop out of a tin; no +servants to do one bally thing for me; no bed. + +"Listen attentively," he continued, becoming slightly dramatic as he +remembered more clearly the horrors of the preceding night--his first on +Ibis Island. "I shall go into that devilish bungalow and look around +like a scared dog, standing very carefully in the exact centre of the +room. And what will be the first object that my unwilling eyes +encounter? A scorpion! Perhaps two, crawling out from the Spanish moss +with which the chinks of that miserable abode are stuffed. I shall slay +it--or _them_--as the case may be. Then a blue-tailed lizard will frisk +over the ceiling--or perhaps one of those big, heavy ones with blunt, +red heads. Doubtless at that same instant I shall discover a wood-tick +advancing up one of my trousers' legs. Spiders will begin to move across +the walls. Perhaps a snake or two will then develop from some shadowy +corner." + +He waved his arm impressively and pointed at the sleeping puppy. + +"Under such circumstances," he said pathetically, "would you care to +deprive me of this little companion sent by Providence for me to rescue +out of the sea?" + +She, too, had been steadily pouring sand between her white fingers +during the moving recital of his woes. Now she looked up, controlling a +shudder. + +"Your circumstances, with all their attendant horrors, are my own," she +began. "I, also, since last night, inhabit a picturesque but most horrid +bungalow not very far from here; and every one of the creatures you +describe, and several others also, inhabit it with me. Do you wonder I +want _some_ companionship? Do you wonder that I am inclined to cling to +this little dog--whether or not it may seem ill bred and selfish to +you?" + +He said: "I suppose all the houses in this latitude harbour tarantulas, +centipedes, and similar things, but you must remember that you do not +live alone as I do----" + +"Yes, I do!" + +"What?" + +"Certainly. I engaged two black servants in St. Augustine, but they have +not arrived, and I was obliged to remain all alone in that frightful +place last night." + +"That's very odd," he said uneasily. "Where _is_ this bungalow of +yours?" + +She started to speak, checked herself as at a sudden and unpleasant +thought, looked up at him searchingly; and found his steel-grey eyes as +searchingly fixed on her. + +"Where is _your_ bungalow?" she asked, watching him intently. + +"Mine is situated at the west end of a coquina quarry. Where is yours?" + +"Mine," she answered unsteadily but defiantly, "is situated on the +eastern edge of a coquina quarry." + +"Why did _you_ choose a quarry bungalow?" + +"Why did _you_ choose one?" + +"Because the coquina quarry happens to belong to me." + +"The quarry," she retorted, "belongs to _me_." + +He was almost too disgusted to speak, but he contrived to say, quietly +and civilly: + +"You are Constance Leslie, are you not?" + +"Yes.... You are Johnson Gray?" + +"Yes, I am," he answered, checking his exasperation and forcing a smile. +"It's rather odd, isn't it--rather unfortunate, I'm afraid." + +"It _is_ unfortunate for you, Mr. Gray," she returned firmly. "I'm +sorry--really sorry that this long journey is in vain." + +"So am I," he said, with lips compressed. + +For a few moments they sat very still, not looking at each other. + +Presently he said: "It was a fool of a will. He was a most disagreeable +old man." + +"_I_ never saw him." + +"Nor I. They say he was a terror. But he had a sense of humour--a grim +and acrid one--the cynic's idea of wit. No doubt he enjoyed it. No doubt +he is enjoying this very scene between you and me--if he's anywhere +within sight or hearing----" + +"Don't say that!" she exclaimed, almost violently. "It is horrible +enough on this island without hinting of ghosts." + +"Ghosts? Of course there are ghosts. But I'd rather have my bungalow +full of 'em than full of scorpions." + +"We differ," she said coldly. + +Silence fell again, and again was broken by Gray. + +"Certainly the old fellow had a sense of humour," he insisted; "the will +he left was one huge joke on every relative who had expectations. +Imagine all that buzzard family of his who got nothing to amount to +anything; and all those distant relatives who expected nothing and got +almost everything!" + +"Do you think that was humourous?" + +"Yes; don't you? And I think what he did about you and me was really +very funny. Don't you?" + +"Why is it funny for a very horrid old man to make a will full of grim +jokes and jests, and take that occasion to tell everybody exactly what +he thinks of everybody?" + +"He said nothing disagreeable about _us_ that I recollect," remarked +Gray, laughing. + +Pouring sand between her fingers, she said: + +"I remember very well how he mentioned us. He said that he had never +seen either one of us, and was glad of it. He said that as I was an +orphan with no money, and that as you were similarly situated, and that +as neither you nor I had brains enough to ever make any, he would leave +his coquina quarry to that one of us who had brains enough to get here +first and stake the claim. Do you call that an agreeable manner of +making a bequest?" + +Gray laughed easily: "_I_ don't care what he thought about my +intellectual capacity." + +"I suppose that I don't either. And anyway the bequest may be valuable." + +"There is no doubt about that," said Gray. + +She let her brown eyes rest thoughtfully on the ocean. + +"I think," she said, "that I shall dispose of it at once." + +"The dog?" he asked politely. + +Her pretty, hostile eyes met his: + +"The quarry," she replied calmly. + +"Good Lord!" he exclaimed. "Do you think also that _you_ arrived at the +quarry before I arrived?" + +"You will find my stake with its written notice sticking in the sand on +the eastern edge of the quarry, about a hundred yards south of my +bungalow!" + +"_My_ notice is very carefully staked on the western edge of the quarry +about the same distance from my bungalow," he said. "I placed it there +yesterday evening." + +"I also placed my notice there yesterday evening!" + +"By what train did you come?" + +"By the Verbena Special. It arrived at St. Augustine yesterday at four +o'clock in the afternoon." + +"_I_ also came on that train." + +"I," she said, "waited in St. Augustine only long enough to telephone +for servants, and then I jumped into a victoria and drove over the +causeway to the eastern end of the quarry." + +"I did exactly the same," he insisted, "only I drove to the western end +of the quarry. What time did you set your notice?" + +"I don't know exactly. It was just about dusk." + +"It was just about dusk when I drove in _my_ stake!" + +After a moment's idling in the sand with her slim fingers, she looked up +at him a trifle pale. + +"I suppose this means a lawsuit." + +"I'm afraid it does." + +"I'm sorry. If I wasn't in such desperate need of money----" But she +said no more, and he also remained silent for a while. Then: + +"I shall write to my attorney to come down," he said soberly. "You had +better do the same this evening." + +She nodded. + +"It's got to be settled, of course," he continued; "because I'm too poor +to concede the quarry to you." + +"It is that way with me also. I do not like to appear so selfish to +you, but what am I to do, Mr. Gray?" + +"What am _I_ to do? I honestly believe that I staked the quarry before +you did.... And my financial situation does not permit me to relinquish +my claim on the quarry." + +"What a horrid will that was!" she exclaimed, the quick tears of +vexation springing into her brown eyes. "If you knew how hard I've +worked, Mr. Gray--all these years having nothing that other girls +have--being obliged to work my way through college, and then take a +position as governess--and just as it seemed that relief was in +sight--_you_ come into sight!--you!--and you even try to take away my +little dog--the only thing I--I ever really cared for since I have--have +been alone in the world----" + +Gray sprang up nervously: "I'm sorry--terribly sorry for you! You may +keep the dog anyway." + +She had turned away her face sharply as the quick tears started. Now she +looked around at him in unfeigned surprise. + +"But--what will _you_ do?" + +"Oh, I can stand being alone. I don't mind. There's no doubt about it; +you must have the dog----" He glanced down at the little creature and +caught his breath sharply as the puppy opened one eye and wagged its +absurd tail feebly. + +The girl rose lightly and gracefully from the sand, refusing his +assistance, and stood looking down at the puppy. The little thing was on +its clumsy feet, wagging and wriggling with happiness, and gazing up +adoringly from Gray to Constance Leslie. + +The girl looked at the dog, then at Gray. + +"It--it seems too cruel," she said. "I can't bear to take him away from +you." + +"Oh, that's all right. I'll get on very well alone." + +"You are generous. You are very generous. But after the way you +expressed yourself concerning the dog, I don't feel that I can possibly +take him." + +"You really must. I don't blame you at all for falling in love with him. +Besides, one adores what one rescues, above everything in the world." + +"But--but I thought that you thought _you_ had rescued him?" she +faltered. + +"It was a close call. I think perhaps that you arrived just a fraction +of a second sooner than I did." + +"Do you really? Or do you say that to be kind? Besides, I am not at all +sure. It is perfectly possible--even, perhaps, probable that you saw +him before I did." + +"No, I don't think so. I think he's your dog, Miss Leslie. I surrender +all claim to him----" + +"No! I can not permit you to do such a thing! Forgive me. I was excited +and a little vexed.... I know you would be very unhappy if I took the +little thing----" + +"Please take him. I do love him already, but that is why it gives me a +p-p-peculiar pleasure to relinquish all claims in y-your favour." + +"Thank you. It is--is charming of you--exceedingly nice of you--but how +can I accept such a real sacrifice?... You would be perfectly wretched +to-night without him." + +"So would you, Miss Leslie." + +"I shall be wretched anyway. So it doesn't really matter." + +"It _does_ matter! If this little dog can alleviate your unhappiness in +the slightest degree, I insist most firmly that you take him!" + +The girl stood irresolute, lifted her brown eyes to his, lowered them, +and gazed longingly at the puppy. + +"Do you suppose he will follow me?" + +"Try!" + +So she walked one way and Gray started in the opposite direction, and +the bewildered puppy, who at first supposed it was all in play, dashed +from one back to the other, until the widening distance between them +perplexed and finally began to trouble him. + +Nevertheless, he continued to run back and forth from Gray to Constance +Leslie as long as his rather wavering legs held out. Then, unable to +decide, he stood panting midway between them, whining at moments, until, +unable to understand or endure the spectacle of his two best beloveds +vanishing in opposite directions, he put up his nose and howled. + +Then both best beloveds came back running, and Constance snatched him to +her breast and covered him with caresses. + +"What on earth are we to do?" she said in consternation. "We nearly +broke his heart that time." + +"_I_ don't know what to do," he admitted, much perplexed. "This pup +seems to be impartial in his new-born affections." + +"I thought," she said, with an admirable effort at self-denial, "that he +rather showed a preference for _you_!" + +"Why?" + +"Because when he was sitting there howling his little heart out, he +seemed to look toward you a little oftener than he gazed in my +direction." + +Gray rose nobly to the self-effacing level of his generous adversary: + +"No, the balance was, if anything, in your favour. I'm very certain that +he will be happier with you. T-take him!" + +The girl buried her pretty face in the puppy's coat as though it had +been a fluffy muff. + +"What a pity," she said, in a muffled voice, "that he is compelled to +make a choice. It will break his heart; I know it will. He is too +young." + +"He'll very soon forget me, once he is alone with you in your bungalow." + +The girl shook her head and stood caressing the puppy. The soft, white +hand, resting on the dog's head, fascinated Gray. + +"Perhaps," he ventured, "I had better walk as far as your bungalow with +you.... It may spare the dog a certain amount of superficial anguish." + +She nodded, dreamy-eyed there in the sunshine. And of what she might be +thinking he could form no idea. + + + + +XIX + + +He fell into step beside her, and they walked up from the little cover +through the beach-grapes and out among the scrubby dunes, where in the +heated silence the perfume of sweet-bay and pines mingled with the odour +of the sea. + +Everywhere the great sulphur-coloured butterflies were flying, making +gorgeous combinations with the smaller, orange butterflies and the +great, velvet-winged Palamedes swallow-tail. + +Lizards frisked and raced away before them, emerald tinted, green with +sky-blue tails, grey and red; the little gophers scurried into their +burrows along the tangled hammock's edges. Over the palm-trees' feathery +crests sailed a black vulture, its palmated wing-tips spread like inky +fingers against the blue. Somewhere in the saw-grass a bittern boomed +and boomed; and the seagulls' clamour rang incessantly above the thunder +of the surf. + +"I wonder," she murmured, "whether my sunburn makes me drowsy." + +"It's the climate. You'll feel sleepy for a week before you are +acclimated," he said.... "Why don't you put down the puppy and let him +follow?" + +She did so; and the little creature frisked and leaped and padded +joyously about among the bayberry bushes, already possessed with the +canine determination to investigate all the alluring smells in the +world, and miss none of them. + +After a little while they arrived at the bungalow which Constance had +chosen. The girl pushed open the unlocked door; the puppy pranced in +like a diminutive hobby-horse, flushed a big lizard, and went into fits +of excitement till the solitary cabin rang with his treble barking. + +They watched him through the doorway, laughingly; then Gray looked at +the claim notice stuck upright in the sand. Presently he walked to the +edge of the coquina quarry and looked down into it. + +Thousands of dollars' worth of the shell deposit lay already exposed. +There were great strata of it; ledges, shelves, vast masses in every +direction. The quarry had been worked very little, and that little had +been accomplished stupidly. Either in the rough, or merely as lumps of +conglomerate for crushing, the coquina in sight alone was very, very +valuable. There could be no doubt of that. + +Also, he understood that the strata deposited there continued at least +for half a mile to the westward, where his own bungalow marked its +probable termination. + +He turned after a few minutes' inspection, and walked slowly back to +where Constance was standing by the open door. A slight constraint, +amounting almost to embarrassment, ensued for a few minutes, but the +puppy dissipated it when he leaped at a butterfly, fell on his nose with +a thump, and howled dismally until reassured by his anxious +foster-parents, who caught him up and generously passed him to each +other, petting him vigourously. + +Twice Gray said good-bye to Constance Leslie and started to go on toward +his own bungalow, but the puppy invariably began a frantic series of +circles embracing them both, and he had to come back to keep the dog +from the demoralisation of utter exhaustion. + +"You know," he said, "this is going to be awkward. I believe that dog +thinks we are mar--thinks we are sister and brother. Don't you?" + +She replied with a slight flush on her fair face, that the dog +undoubtedly cherished some such idea. + +"Take him inside," said Gray firmly. "Then I'll beat it." + +So she took the puppy inside and closed the door, with a smiling nod of +adieu to Gray. But he had not gone very far when he heard her clear, far +call; and, turning, saw her beckon frantically. + +Back he came at top speed. + +"Oh, dear," she exclaimed. "Oh, dear! He's tearing 'round and 'round the +room moaning and whining and barking. I'm very certain he will have fits +if you don't speak to him." + +Gray opened the door cautiously, and the little dog came out, projected +like a bolt from a catapult, fairly flinging his quivering little body +into Gray's arms. + +The reunion was elaborate and mutually satisfying. Constance furtively +touched her brown eyes with a corner of her handkerchief. + +"What on earth are we to do?" she asked, unfeignedly affected. "I would +give him to you in a minute if you think he would be contented without +me." + +"We can try it." + +So Constance started westward, across the dunes, and Gray went into the +bungalow with the dog. But it required only a second or two to convince +him that it wouldn't do, and he opened the door and called frantically +to Constance. + +"There is no use in trying that sort of thing," he admitted, when +Constance hastened back to a touching reunion with the imprisoned dog. +"Strategy is our only hope. I'll sit here on the threshold with you, and +as soon as he goes to sleep I'll slink away." + +So side by side they seated themselves on the sandy threshold of the +bungalow, and the little dog, happy and contented, curled up on the +floor of the room, tucked his blunt muzzle into his flank, and took a +series of naps with one eye always open. He was young, but suspicion had +already done its demoralising work with him, and he intended to keep at +least one eye on his best beloveds. + +She in her fresh and clinging gown, with the first delicate sunmask +tinting her unaccustomed skin, sat silent and distrait, her idle fingers +linked in her lap. And, glancing askance at her now and then, the droop +of her under lip seemed to him pathetic, like that of a tired child in +trouble. + +When he was not looking at her he was immersed in perplexed cogitation. +The ownership of the dog he had already settled in his mind; the +ownership of the quarry he had supposed he had settled. + +Therefore, why was he so troubled about it? Why was he so worried about +her, wondering what she would do in the matter? + +The only solution left seemed to lie in a recourse to the +law--unless--unless---- + +But he couldn't--he simply couldn't, merely for a sentimental impulse, +give up to a stranger what he honestly considered an inheritance. That +would be carrying sentimentalism too far. + +And yet--and yet! He needed the inheritance desperately. Matters +financial had gone all wrong with him. How _could_ he turn his back on +offered salvation just because a youthful and pretty girl also required +a financial lift in a cold-blooded and calculating world? + +And yet--and yet! He would sleep over it, of course. But he honestly saw +no prospect of changing his opinion concerning the ownership of the +quarry. + +As he sat there biting a stem of sweet-bay and listening to the +cardinals piping from the forest, he looked down into the heated coquina +pit. + +A snake was coiled up on one of the ledges, basking. + +"Miss Leslie!" + +She lifted her head and straightened her drooping shoulders, looking at +him from eyes made drowsy and beautiful by the tropic heat. + +"I only wanted to say," he began gravely, "that it is not safe for you +to go into the quarry alone--in case you had any such intention." + +"Why?" + +"There are snakes there. Do you see that one? Well, he's harmless, I +think--a king-snake, if I am not mistaken. But it's a good place for +rattlers." + +"Then you should be careful, too." + +"Oh, I'm careful enough, but you might not know when to be on your +guard. This island is a snaky one. It's famous for its diamond-back +rattlers and the size of them. Their fangs are an inch long, and it +usually means death to be struck by one of them." + +The girl nodded thoughtfully. + +He said with a new anxiety: "As a matter of fact, you really ought not +to be down here all alone." + +"I know it. But it meant a race for ownership, and I had to come at a +minute's notice." + +"You should have brought a maid." + +"My dear Mr. Gray, I have no maid." + +"Oh, I forgot," he muttered--"but, somehow, you _look_ as though you +had been born to several." + +"I am the daughter of a very poor professor." + +He fidgetted with his sweet-bay twig, considering the aromatic leaves +with a troubled and concentrated scowl. + +"You know," he said, "this wretched island is celebrated for its +unpleasant fauna. Scorpions and wood-ticks are numerous. The sting of +the one is horribly painful, and might be dangerous; the villainous +habits of the other might throw you into a fever." + +"But what can I do?" she inquired calmly. + +"There are other kinds of snakes, too," he went on with increasing +solicitude for this girl for whom, suddenly, he began to consider +himself responsible. "There's a vicious snake called a moccasin; and he +won't get out of your way or warn you. And there's a wicked little +serpent with rings of black, scarlet, and yellow around his body. He +pretends to be harmless, but if he gets your finger into his mouth he'll +chew it full of a venom which is precisely the same sort of venom as +that of the deadly East Indian cobra." + +"But--what can I do?" she repeated pitifully. "If I go to St. Augustine +and leave you here in possession, it might invalidate my claim." + +He was silent, knowing no more about the law than did she, and afraid to +deny her tentative assertion. + +"If it lay with me," he said, "I'd call a truce until you could go to +St. Augustine and return again with the proper people to look out for +you." + +"Even if you were kind enough to do that, I could not afford even a +servant under present--and unexpected--conditions." + +"Why?" + +"Because it has suddenly developed that I shall be obliged to engage a +lawyer. And I had not expected that." + +He reddened to his hair but said nothing. After a while the girl looked +over her shoulder. The puppy slept, this time with both eyes closed. + +When she turned again to Gray, he nodded his comprehension and rose to +his feet cautiously. + +"I'm going to take a walk on the beach and think this thing all out," he +whispered, taking the slim, half-offered hand in adieu. "Don't go out in +the scrub after sun-down. Rattlers move then. Don't go near any swamp; +moccasins are the colour of sun-baked mud, and you can't see them. Don't +touch any pretty little snake marked scarlet, black, and yellow----" + +"How absurd!" she whispered. "As though I were likely to fondle snakes!" + +"I'm terribly worried about you," he insisted, retaining her hand. + +"Please don't be." + +"How can I help it--what with these bungalows full of scorpions and----" + +"Yours is, too," she said anxiously. "You will be very careful, won't +you?" + +"Yes, of course.... I'm--I'm uncertain about you. That's what is +troubling me----" + +"Please don't bother about me. I've had to look out for myself for +years." + +"Have you?" he said, almost tenderly. Then he drew a quick, determined +breath. + +"You'll be careful, won't you?" + +"Yes." + +"Are you armed?" + +"I have a shot-gun inside." + +"That's all right. Don't open your door to any stranger.... You know I +simply hate to leave you alone this way----" + +"But I have the dog," she reminded him, with a pretty flush of +gratitude. + +He had retained her hand longer than the easiest convention required or +permitted. So he released it, hesitated, then with a visible effort he +turned on his heel and strode away westward across the scrub. + +The sun hung low behind the tall, parti-coloured shaft of the Light +House, towering smooth and round high above the forest. + +He looked up at Ibis Light, at the circling buzzards above it, then +walked on, scarcely knowing where he was going, until he walked into the +door of his own bungalow, and several large spiders scattered into +flight across the floor. + +"There's no use," he said aloud to an audience of lizards clinging to +the silvery bark of the log-room. "I can't take that quarry. I can't do +it--whether it belongs to me or not. _How_ can a big, strong, lumbering +young man do a thing like that? No. No. _No!_" + +He picked up a pencil and a sheet of paper: + +"Oh, Lord! I really do need the money, but I can't do it." + +And he wrote: + + DEAR MISS LESLIE: + + You arrived on the scene before I did. I am now convinced of + this. I shall not dispute the ownership of the quarry. It is + yours. This statement over my signature is your guarantee that + I shall never interfere with your title to the coquina quarry + on Ibis Island. + + So now I've got to return to New York and go to work. I'm going + across to Augustine in a few moments; and while I'm there I'll + engage a white woman as companion for you, and a white servant, + and have them drive over at once so they will reach your + bungalow before evening. With undisputed title to the quarry, + you can easily afford their wages. + + Good-bye. I wish you every happiness and success. Please give + my love to the dog. + + Yours very truly, + JOHNSON GRAY. + +"It's the only way out of it," he muttered. "I'll leave it with her and +bolt before she reads it. There is nothing else to do, absolutely +nothing." + +As he came out of his cabin, the sun hung low and red above the palm +forest, and a few bats were already flying like tiny black devils above +the scrub. + +There was a strip of beach near his cabin, and he went down to it and +began to tramp up and down with a vague idea of composing himself so +that he might accomplish what he had to do gracefully, gaily, and with +no suspicion of striking an attitude for gods and men to admire his +moral resignation and his heroic renunciation. + +No; he'd do the thing lightly, smilingly, determined that she should not +think that it was a sacrifice. No; she must believe that a sense of +fairness alone moved him to an honest recognition of her claims. He must +make it plain to her that he really believed she had arrived at the +quarry before he had. + +And so he meant to leave her the letter, say good-bye, and go. + +When this was all settled in his mind he looked at the ocean very +soberly, then turned his back on the Atlantic and walked back to his +cabin to gather up his effects. + +As he approached the closed door a desolate howl from the interior +greeted him: he sprang to the door and flung it open; and the puppy +rushed into his arms. + +Then, pinned to the scorpion-infested wall, he saw a sheet of writing, +and he read: + + DEAR MR. GRAY: + + He woke up and howled for you. It was too tragic for me. I love + him but I give him to you. I give the quarry to you, also. + Under the circumstances it would be impossible for me to enjoy + it, even if the law awarded it to me. Nobody could ever really + know which one of us first arrived and staked the claim. No + doubt you did. + + I am sorry I came into your life and made trouble for you and + for the puppy. + + So I leave you in peaceful possession. It really is a happiness + for me to do it. + + I am going North at once. Good-bye; and please give my love to + the dog. Poor little darling, he thought we both stood _in loco + parentis_. But he'll get over his grief for me. + + Yours truly, + CONSTANCE LESLIE. + +The puppy at his feet was howling uncomforted for the best beloved who +was so strangely missing from the delightful combination which he had so +joyously accepted _in loco parentis_. + + + + +XX + + +Gray gathered the dog into his arms and strode swiftly out into the +sunshot, purple light of early evening. + +"What a girl!" he muttered to himself. "What a girl! What a corking +specimen of her sex!" + +Presently he came in sight of her, and the puppy scrambled violently +until set down. Then he bolted for Constance Leslie, and it was only +when the little thing leaped frantically upon her that she turned with a +soft, breathless little cry. And saw Gray coming toward her out of the +rose and golden sunset. + +Neither spoke as he came up and looked into her brown eyes and saw the +traces of tears there still. The puppy leaped deliriously about them. +And for a long while her slim hands lay limply in his. He looked at the +ocean; she at the darkening forest. + +And after a little while he drew the note from his pocket. + +"I had written this when I found yours," he said. And he held it for her +while she read it, bending nearer in the dim, rosy light. + +After she read it she took it from him gently, folded it, and slipped it +into the bosom of her gown. + +Neither said anything. One of her hands still remained in his, +listlessly at first--then the fingers crisped as his other arm encircled +her. + +They were both gazing vaguely at the ocean now. Presently they moved +slowly toward it through the fragrant dusk. Her hair, loosened a little, +brushed his sunburned cheek. + +And around them gambolled the wise little dog, no longer apprehensive, +but unutterably content with what the God of all good little doggies had +so mercifully sent to him _in loco parentis_. + + * * * * * + +"That," said the novelist, "is another slice of fact which would never +do for fiction. Besides I once read a story somewhere or other about a +dog bringing two people together." + +"The theme," I observed, "is thousands of years old." + +"That's the trouble with all truth," nodded Duane. "It's old as Time +itself, and needs a new suit of clothes every time it is exhibited to +instruct people." + +"What with new manners, new fashions, new dances, and the moral +levelling itself gradually to the level of the unmoral," said Stafford, +"nobody on the street would turn around to look at the naked truth in +these days." + +"Truth must be fashionably gowned to attract," I admitted. + +"We of the eccentric nobility understand that," said the little Countess +Athalie, glancing out of the window; and to me she added: "Lean over and +see whether they have stationed a policeman in front of the Princess +Zimbamzim's residence." + +I went out on the balcony and glanced down the block. "Yes," I said. + +"Poor old Princess," murmured the girl. "She detests moving." + +"All frauds do," remarked Duane. + +"She isn't a fraud," said Athalie quietly. + +Our silence indicated our surprise. After a few moments the girl added: + +"Whatever else she may be she is not a fraud in her profession. I think +I had better give you an example of her professional probity. It +interested me considerably as I followed it in my crystal. She knew all +the while that I was watching her as well as the very people she herself +was watching; and once or twice she looked up at me out of my crystal +and grinned." + +"Can she see us now?" I inquired uneasily. + +"No." + +"Why not?" asked Duane. + +"I shall not tell you why." + +"Not that I care whether she sees me or not," he added. + +"Do you care, Harry, whether I see you occasionally in my crystal?" +smiled Athalie. + +Duane flushed brightly and reminded her that she was too honourable to +follow the movements of her personal friends unless requested to do so +by them. + +"That is quite true," rejoined the girl, simply. "But once I saw you +when I did not mean to." + +"Well?" he demanded, redder still. + +"You were merely asleep in your own bed," she said, laughing and +accepting a lighted match from me. Then as the fragrant thread of smoke +twisted in ghostly ringlets across her smooth young cheeks she settled +back among her cushions. + + + + +XXI + + +"This," she said, "will acquaint you in a measure with the +trustworthiness of the Princess Zimbamzim. And, if the policeman in +front of her house could hear what I am going to tell you, he'd never +remain there while his legs had power to run away with him." + + * * * * * + +They met by accident on Madison Square, and shook hands for the first +time in many years. High in the Metropolitan Tower the chimes celebrated +the occasion by sounding the half hour. + +"It seems incredible," exclaimed George Z. Green, "that you could have +become so famous! You never displayed any remarkable ability in school." + +"I never displayed any ability at all. But you did," said Williams +admiringly. "How beautifully you used to write your name on the +blackboard! How neat and scholarly you were in everything." + +"I know it," said Green gloomily. "And _you_ flunked in almost +everything." + +"In everything," admitted Williams, deeply mortified. + +"And yet," said Green, "here we are at thirty odd; and I'm merely a +broker, and--_look_ what _you_ are! Why, I can't go anywhere but I find +one of your novels staring me in the face. I've been in Borneo: they're +there! They're in Australia and China and Patagonia. Why the devil do +you suppose people buy the stories you write?" + +"I'm sure I don't know," said Williams modestly. + +"I don't know either, though I read them myself sometimes--I don't know +why. They're all very well in their way--if you care for that sort of +book--but the things you tell about, Williams, never could have +happened. I'm not knocking you; I'm a realist, that's all. And when I +read a short story by you in which a young man sees a pretty girl, and +begins to talk to her without being introduced to her, and then +marries her before luncheon--and finds he's married a Balkan +Princess--good-night! I just wonder why people stand for your books; +that's all." + +"So do I," said Williams, much embarrassed. "I wouldn't stand for them +myself." + +"Why," continued Green warmly, "I read a story of yours in some magazine +the other day, in which a young man sees a pretty girl for the first +time in his life and is married to her inside of three quarters of an +hour! And I ask _you_, Williams, how you would feel after spending +fifteen cents on such a story?" + +"I'm terribly sorry, old man," murmured Williams. "Here's your +fifteen--if you like----" + +"Dammit," said Green indignantly, "it isn't that they're not readable +stories! I had fifteen cents' worth all right. But it makes a man sore +to see what happens to the young men in your stories--and all the queens +they collect--and then to go about town and never see anything of that +sort!" + +"There are millions of pretty girls in town," ventured Williams. "I +don't think I exaggerate in that respect." + +"But they'd call an officer if young men in real life behaved as they +do in your stories. As a matter of fact and record, there's no more +romance in New York than there is in the annual meeting of the British +Academy of Ancient Assyrian Inscriptions. And you know it, Williams!" + +"I think it depends on the individual man," said Williams timidly. + +"How?" + +"If there's any romance in a man himself, he's apt to find the world +rather full of it." + +"Do you mean to say there isn't any romance in me?" demanded George Z. +Green hotly. + +"I don't know, George. Is there?" + +"Plenty. Pl-en-ty! I'm always looking for romance. I look for it when I +go down town to business; I look for it when I go home. Do I find it? +No! Nothing ever happens to me. Nothing beautiful and wealthy beyond the +dreams of avarice ever tries to pick me up. Explain _that_!" + +Williams, much abashed, ventured no explanation. + +"And to think," continued Green, "that you, my old school friend, should +become a celebrity merely by writing such stories! Why, you're as +celebrated as any brand of breakfast food!" + +"You don't have to read my books, you know," protested Williams mildly. + +"I don't have to--I know it. But I do. Everybody does. And nobody knows +why. So, meeting you again after all these unromantic years, I thought +I'd just ask you whether by any chance you happen to know of any +particular section of the city where a plain, everyday broker might make +a hit with the sort of girl you write about. Do you?" + +"Any section of this city is romantic enough--if you only approach it in +the proper spirit," asserted Williams. + +"You mean if my attitude toward romance is correct I'm likely to +encounter it almost anywhere?" + +"That is my theory," admitted Williams bashfully. + +"Oh! Well, what _is_ the proper attitude? Take me, for example. I've +just been to the bank. I carry, at this moment, rather a large sum of +money in my inside overcoat pocket. My purpose in drawing it was to blow +it. Now, tell me how to blow it romantically." + +"How can I tell you such a thing, George----" + +"It's your business. You tell people such things in books. Now, tell me, +face to face, man to man, how to get thoroughly mixed up in the sort of +romance you write--the kind of romance that has made William McWilliam +Williams famous!" + +"I'm sorry----" + +"What! You won't! You admit that what you write is bunk? You confess +that you don't know where there are any stray queens with whom I might +become happily entangled within the next fifteen minutes?" + +"I admit no such thing," said Williams with dignity. "If your attitude +is correct, in ten minutes you can be up against anything on earth!" + +"Where?" + +"Anywhere!" + +"Very well! Here we are on Madison Square. There's Admiral Farragut; +there's the Marble Tower. Do you mean that if I walk from this spot for +ten minutes--no matter in what direction--I'll walk straight into +Romance up to my neck?" + +"If your attitude is correct, yes. But you've got to know the elements +of Romance when you see them." + +"What are the elements of Romance? What do they resemble?" demanded +George Z. Green. + +Williams said, in a low, impressive voice: + +"Anything that seems to you unusual is very likely to be an element in a +possible romance. If you see anything extraordinary during the next ten +minutes, follow it up. And ninety-nine chances in a hundred it will lead +you into complications. Interfering with other people's business usually +does," he added pleasantly. + +"But," said Green, "suppose during the next ten minutes, or twenty +minutes, or the next twenty-four hours I _don't_ see anything unusual." + +"It will be your own fault if you don't. The Unusual is occurring all +about us, every second. A trained eye can always see it." + +"But suppose the Unusual doesn't occur for the next ten minutes," +insisted Green, exasperated. "Suppose the Unusual is taking a vacation? +It would be just my luck." + +"Then," said Williams, "you will have to imagine that everything you see +is unusual. Or else," he added blandly, "you yourself will have to start +something. _That_ is where the creative mind comes in. When there's +nothing doing it starts something." + +"Does it ever get arrested?" inquired Green ironically. "The creative +mind! Sure! _That's_ where all this bally romance is!--in the creative +mind. I knew it. Good-bye." + +They shook hands; Williams went down town. + + + + +XXII + + +This picture is not concerned with his destination. Or even whether he +ever got there. + +But it is very directly concerned with George Z. Green, and the +direction he took when he parted from his old school friend. + +As he walked up town he said to himself, "Bunk!" several times. After a +few moments he fished out his watch. + +"I know I'm an ass," he said to himself, "but I'll take a chance. I'll +give myself exactly ten minutes to continue making an ass of myself. And +if I see the faintest symptom of Romance--if I notice anything at all +peculiar and unusual in any person or any thing during the next ten +minutes, I won't let it get away--believe _me_!" + +He walked up Broadway instead of Fifth Avenue. After a block or two he +turned west at hazard, crossed Sixth Avenue and continued. + +He was walking in one of the upper Twenties--he had not particularly +noticed which. Commercial houses nearly filled the street, although a +few old-time residences of brownstone still remained. Once well-to-do +and comfortable homes, they had degenerated into chop sueys, boarding +houses, the abodes of music publishers, artificial flower makers, and +mediums. + +It was now a shabby, unkempt street, and Green already was considering +it a hopeless hunting ground, and had even turned to retrace his steps +toward Sixth Avenue, when the door of a neighbouring house opened and +down the shabby, brownstone stoop came hurrying an exceedingly pretty +girl. + +Now, the unusual part of the incident lay in the incongruity of the +street and the girl. For the street and the house out of which she +emerged so hastily were mean and ignoble; but the girl herself fairly +radiated upper Fifth Avenue from the perfectly appointed and expensive +simplicity of hat and gown to the obviously aristocratic and dainty +face and figure. + +"Is _she_ a symptom?" thought Green to himself. "Is _she_ an element? +That is sure a rotten looking joint she came out of." + +Moved by a sudden and unusual impulse of intelligence, he ran up the +brownstone stoop and read the dirty white card pasted on the facade +above the door bell. + + THE PRINCESS ZIMBAMZIM + TRANCE MEDIUM. FORTUNES. + +Taken aback, he looked after the pretty girl who was now hurrying up the +street as though the devil were at her dainty heels. + +Could _she_ be the Princess Zimbamzim? Common sense rejected the idea, +as did the sudden jerk of soiled lace curtains at the parlour window, +and the apparition of a fat lady in a dingy, pink tea-gown. _That_ must +be the Princess Zimbamzim and the pretty girl had ventured into these +purlieus to consult her. Why? + +"This _is_ certainly a symptom of romance!" thought the young man +excitedly. And he started after the pretty girl at a Fifth Avenue amble. + +He overtook and passed her at Sixth Avenue, and managed to glance at her +without being offensive. To his consternation, she was touching her +tear-stained eyes with her handkerchief. She did not notice him. + +What could be the matter? With what mystery was he already in touch? + +Tremendously interested he fell back a few paces and lighted a +cigarette, allowing her to pass him; then he followed her. Never before +in his life had he done such a scandalous thing. + +On Broadway she hailed a taxi, got into it, and sped uptown. There was +another taxi available; Green took it and gave the driver a five dollar +tip to keep the first taxi in view. + +Which was very easy, for it soon stopped at a handsome apartment house +on Park Avenue; the girl sprang out, and entered the building almost +running. + +For a moment George Z. Green thought that all was lost. But the taxi she +had taken remained, evidently waiting for her; and sure enough, in a few +minutes out she came, hurrying, enveloped in a rough tweed travelling +coat and carrying a little satchel. Slam! went the door of her taxi; and +away she sped, and Green after her in his taxi. + +Again the chase proved to be very short. Her taxi stopped at the +Pennsylvania Station; out she sprang, paid the driver, and hurried +straight for the station restaurant, Green following at a fashionable +lope. + +She took a small table by a window; Green took the next one. It was not +because she noticed him and found his gaze offensive, but because she +felt a draught that she rose and took the table behind Green, exactly +where he could not see her unless he twisted his neck into attitudes +unseemly. + +He wouldn't do such things, being really a rather nice young man; and it +was too late for him to change his table without attracting her +attention, because the waiter already had brought him whatever he had +ordered for tea--muffins, buns, crumpets--he neither knew nor cared. + +So he ate them with jam, which he detested; and drank his tea and +listened with all his ears for the slightest movement behind him which +might indicate that she was leaving. + +Only once did he permit himself to turn around, under pretense of +looking for a waiter; and he saw two blue eyes still brilliant with +unshed tears and a very lovely but unhappy mouth all ready to quiver +over its toast and marmalade. + +What on earth could be the matter with that girl? What terrible tragedy +could it be that was still continuing to mar her eyes and twitch her +sensitive, red lips? + +Green, sipping his tea, trembled pleasantly all over as he realised that +at last he was setting his foot upon the very threshold of Romance. And +he determined to cross that threshold if neither good manners, good +taste, nor the police interfered. + +And what a wonderful girl for his leading lady! What eyes! What hair! +What lovely little hands, with the gloves hastily rolled up from the +wrist! Why should she be unhappy? He'd like to knock the block off any +man who---- + +Green came to himself with a thrill of happiness: her pretty voice was +sounding in exquisite modulations behind him as she asked the waiter for +m-more m-marmalade. + +In a sort of trance, Green demolished bun after bun. Normally, he +loathed the indigestible. After what had seemed to him an interminable +length of time, he ventured to turn around again in pretense of calling +a waiter. + +Her chair was empty! + +At first he thought she had disappeared past all hope of recovery; but +the next instant he caught sight of her hastening out toward the ticket +boxes. + +Flinging a five-dollar bill on the table, he hastily invited the waiter +to keep the change; sprang to his feet, and turned to seize his +overcoat. It was gone from the hook where he had hung it just behind +him. + +Astonished, he glanced at the disappearing girl, and saw his overcoat +over her arm. For a moment he supposed that she had mistaken it for her +own ulster, but no! She was wearing her own coat, too. + +A cold and sickening sensation assailed the pit of Green's stomach. Was +it not a mistake, after all? Was this lovely young girl a professional +criminal? Had she or some of her band observed Green coming out of the +bank and thrusting a fat wallet into the inside pocket of his overcoat? + +He was walking now, as fast as he was thinking, keeping the girl in view +amid the throngs passing through the vast rotunda. + +When she stopped at a ticket booth he entered the brass railed space +behind her. + +She did not appear to know exactly where she was going, for she seemed +by turns distrait and agitated; and he heard her ask the ticket agent +when the next train left for the extreme South. + +Learning that it left in a few minutes, and finding that she could +secure a stateroom, she took it, paid for it, and hastily left without a +glance behind her at Green. + +Meanwhile Green had very calmly slipped one hand into the breast pocket +of his own overcoat, where it trailed loosely over her left arm, meaning +to extract his wallet without anybody observing him. The wallet was not +there. He was greatly inclined to run after her, but he didn't. He +watched her depart, then: + +"Is there another stateroom left on the Verbena Special?" he inquired of +the ticket agent, coolly enough. + +"One. Do you wish it?" + +"Yes." + +The ticket agent made out the coupons and shoved the loose change under +the grille, saying: + +"Better hurry, sir. You've less than a minute." + +He ran for his train and managed to swing aboard just as the coloured +porters were closing the vestibules and the train was in motion. + +A trifle bewildered at what he had done, and by the rapidity with which +he had done it, he sank down in the vacant observation car to collect +his thoughts. + +He was on board the Verbena Special--the southern train-de-luxe--bound +for Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Palm Beach, Verbena Inlet, or Miami--or +for Nassau, Cuba, and the remainder of the West Indies--just as he +chose. + +He had no other luggage than a walking-stick. Even his overcoat was in +possession of somebody else. That was the situation that now faced +George Z. Green. + +But as the train emerged from the river tube, and he realised all this, +he grew calmer; and the calmer he grew the happier he grew. + +He was no longer on the threshold of Romance; he had crossed it, and +already he was being whirled away blindly into the Unusual and the +Unknown! + +Exultingly he gazed out of the windows upon the uninspiring scenery of +New Jersey. A wonderful sense of physical lightness and mental freedom +took delightful possession of him. Opportunity had not beckoned him in +vain. Chance had glanced sideways at him, and he had recognised the +pretty flirt. His was certainly some brain! + +And now, still clinging to the skirts of Chance, he was being whisked +away, pell mell, headlong toward Destiny, in the trail of a slender, +strange young girl who had swiped his overcoat and who seemed +continually inclined to tears. + +The incident of the overcoat no longer troubled him. That garment of his +was not unlike the rough travelling coat she herself wore. And it might +have been natural to her, in her distress of mind and very evident +emotion, to have seized it by mistake and made off with it, forgetting +that she still wore her own. + +Of course it was a mistake pure and simple. He had only to look at the +girl and understand that. One glance at her sweet, highbred features was +sufficient to exonerate her as a purloiner of gentlemen's garments. + +Green crossed his legs, folded his arms, and reflected. The overcoat was +another and most important element in this nascent Romance. + +The difficulty lay in knowing how to use the overcoat to advantage in +furthering and further complicating a situation already delightful. + +Of course he could do the obvious: he could approach her and take off +his hat and do the well-bred and civil and explain to her the mistake. + +But suppose she merely said: "I'm sorry," handed over his coat, and +continued to read her magazine. That would end it. And it mustn't end +until he found out why she had emerged with tears in her beautiful eyes +from the abode of the Princess Zimbamzim. + +Besides, he was sure of getting his coat, his wallet, and its contents. +His name and address were in the wallet; also both were sewed inside the +inner pocket of the overcoat. + +What would ultimately happen would be this: sooner or later she'd come +to, wake up, dry her pretty eyes, look about, and find that she had +_two_ overcoats in her possession. + +It would probably distress her dreadfully, particularly when she +discovered the wallet and the money. But, wherever she was going, as +soon as she reached there she'd send overcoat and money back to his +address--doubtless with a pretty and contrite note of regret. + +Yes, but that wouldn't do! What good would the overcoat and the money be +to him, if he were South and she shipped them North? And yet he was +afraid to risk an abrupt ending to his Romance by explaining to her the +mistake. + +No; he'd merely follow her for the present. He couldn't help it very +well, being aboard the same train. So it would not be difficult to keep +his eye on her as well as his overcoat, and think out at his leisure how +best to tend, guard, cherish, and nourish the delicate and unopened bud +of Romance. + +Meanwhile, there were other matters he must consider; so he wrote out a +telegram to Washington ordering certain necessary articles to be brought +aboard the Verbena Special on its arrival there. The porter took charge +of it. + +That night at dinner he looked for the girl in vain. She did not enter +the dining-car while he was there. Haunting the corridors afterward he +saw no sign of her anywhere until, having received his necessaries in a +brand new travelling satchel, and on his way to his stateroom, he caught +a glimpse of her, pale and agitated, in conversation with the porter at +her partly opened door. + +She did not even glance at him as he entered his stateroom, but he could +not avoid hearing what she was saying because her enunciation was so +exquisitely distinct. + +"Porter," she said in her low, sweet voice, "I have, somehow, made a +very dreadful mistake somewhere. I have a man's overcoat here which does +not belong to me. The cloth is exactly like the cloth of my own +travelling ulster, and I must have forgotten that I had mine on when I +took this." + +"Ain't de gemman abohd de Speshul, Miss?" inquired the porter. + +"I'm afraid not. I'm certain that I must have taken it in the station +restaurant and brought it aboard the train." + +"Ain't nuff'n in de pockets, is dey?" asked the porter. + +"Yes; there's a wallet strapped with a rubber band. I didn't feel at +liberty to open it. But I suppose I ought to in order to find out the +owner's name if possible." + +"De gemman's name ain't sewed inside de pocket, is it, Miss?" + +"I didn't look," she said. + +So the porter took the coat, turned it inside out, explored the inside +pocket, found the label, and read: + + "Snipps Brothers: December, 1913. George Z. Green." + +A stifled exclamation from the girl checked him. Green also protruded +his head cautiously from his own doorway. + +The girl, standing partly in the aisle, was now leaning limply against +the door-sill, her hand pressed convulsively to her breast, her face +white and frightened. + +"Is you ill, Miss?" asked the porter anxiously. + +"I--no. Z--what name was that you read?" + +"George Z. Green, Miss----" + +"It--it _can't_ be! Look again! It can't be!" + +Her face was ashen to the lips; she closed her eyes for a second, +swayed; then her hand clutched the door-sill; she straightened up with +an effort and opened her eyes, which now seemed dilated by some powerful +emotion. + +"Let me see that name!" she said, controlling her voice with an obvious +effort. + +The porter turned the pocket inside out for her inspection. There it +was: + + "George Z. Green: 1008-1/2 Fifth Avenue, New York." + +"If you knows de gemman, Miss," suggested the porter, "you all kin take +dishere garmint back yo'se'f when you comes No'th." + +"Thank you.... Then--I won't trouble you.... I'll--I'll ta-t-take it +back myself--when I go North." + +"I kin ship it if you wishes, Miss." + +She said excitedly: "If you ship it from somewhere South, he--Mr. +Green--would see where it came from by the parcels postmark on the +express tag--wouldn't he?" + +"Yaas, Miss." + +"Then I don't want you to ship it! I'll do it myself.... _How_ can I +ship it without giving Mr. Green a clue--" she shuddered, "--a clue to +my whereabouts?" + +"Does you know de gemman, Miss?" + +"No!" she said, with another shudder,--"and I do not wish to. I--I +particularly do not wish ever to know him--or even to see him. And above +all I do not wish Mr. Green to come South and investigate the +circumstances concerning this overcoat. He might take it into his head +to do such a thing. It--it's horrible enough that I have--that I +actually have in my possession the overcoat of the very man on whose +account I left New York at ten minutes' notice----" + +Her pretty voice broke and her eyes filled. + +"You--you don't understand, porter," she added, almost hysterically, +"but my possession of this overcoat--of all the billions and billions of +overcoats in all the world--is a t-terrible and astounding b-blow to +me!" + +"Is--is you afeard o' dishere overcoat, Miss?" inquired the astonished +darkey. + +"Yes!" she said. "Yes, I am! I'm horribly afraid of that overcoat! +I--I'd like to throw it from the train window, but I--I can't do that, +of course! It would be stealing----" + +Her voice broke again with nervous tears: + +"I d-don't want the coat! And I can't throw it away! And if it's shipped +to him from the South he may come down here and investigate. He's in New +York now. That's why I am on my way South! I--I want him to remain in +New York until--until all--d-danger is over. And by the first of April +it will be over. And then I'll come North--and bring him his coat----" + +The bewildered darkey stared at her and at the coat which she had +unconsciously clutched to her breast. + +"Do you think," she said, "that M-Mr. Green will _need_ the coat this +winter? Do you suppose anything would happen to him if he doesn't have +it for a while--pneumonia or anything? Oh!" she exclaimed in a quivering +voice, "I wish he and his overcoat were at the South Pole!" + +Green withdrew his head and pressed both palms to his temples. Could he +trust his ears? Was he going mad? Holding his dizzy head in both hands +he heard the girl say that she herself would attend to shipping the +coat; heard the perplexed darkey take his leave and go; heard her +stateroom door close. + +Seated in his stateroom he gazed vacantly at the couch opposite, so +completely bewildered with his first over-dose of Romance that his brain +seemed to spin like a frantic squirrel in a wheel, and his thoughts +knocked and jumbled against each other until it truly seemed to him that +all his senses were fizzling out like wet firecrackers. + +What on earth had he ever done to inspire such horror in the mind of +this young girl? + +What terrible injury had he committed against her or hers that the very +sound of his name terrified her--the mere sight of his overcoat left +her almost hysterical? + +Helplessly, half stupefied, he cast about in his wrecked mind to +discover any memory or record of any injury done to anybody during his +particularly blameless career on earth. + +In school he had punched the noses of several schoolmates, and had been +similarly smitten in return. That was the extent of physical injury ever +done to anybody. + +Of grave moral wrong he knew he was guiltless. True, he had frequently +skinned the assembly at convivial poker parties. But also he had often +opened jacks only to be mercilessly deprived of them amid the unfeeling +and brutal laughter of his companions. No, he was not guilty of criminal +gambling. + +Had he ever done a wrong to anybody in business? Never. His firm's name +was the symbol for probity. + +He dashed his hands to his brow distractedly. What in Heaven's name +_had_ he done to fill the very soul of this young girl with fear and +loathing? What in the name of a merciful Providence had he, George Z. +Green, banker and broker, ever done to drive this young and innocent +girl out of the City of New York! + +To collect and marshal his disordered thoughts was difficult but he +accomplished it with the aid of cigarettes. To a commonplace intellect +there is no aid like a cigarette. + +At first he was inclined to believe that the girl had merely mistaken +him for another man with a similar name. George Z. Green was not an +unusual name. + +But his address in town was also written inside his coat pocket; and she +had read it. Therefore, it was painfully evident to him that her +detestation and fear was for him. + +What on earth had inspired such an attitude of mind toward himself in a +girl he had seen for the first time that afternoon? He could not +imagine. And another strange feature of the affair was that she had not +particularly noticed him. Therefore, if she entertained such a horror of +him, why had she not exhibited some trace of it when he was in her +vicinity? + +Certainly she had not exhibited it by crying. He exonerated himself on +that score, for she had been on the verge of tears when he first beheld +her hurrying out of the parlours of the Princess Zimbamzim. + +It gradually became plain to him that, although there could be no doubt +that this girl was afraid of him, and cordially disliked him, yet +strangely enough, she did not know him by sight. + +Consequently, her attitude must be inspired by something she had heard +concerning him. What? + +He puffed his cigarette and groaned. As far as he could remember, he had +never harmed a fly. + + + + +XXIII + + +That night he turned in, greatly depressed. Bad dreams assailed his +slumbers--menacing ones like the visions that annoyed _Eugene Aram_. + +And every time he awoke and sat up in his bunk, shaken by the swaying +car, he realised that Romance had also its tragic phases--a sample of +which he was now enduring. And yet, miserable as he was, a horrid sort +of joy neutralised the misery when he recollected that it _was_ Romance, +after all, and that he, George Z. Green, was in it up to his neck. + +A grey morning--a wet and pallid sky lowering over the brown North +Carolina fields--this was his waking view from his tumbled bunk. + +Neither his toilet nor his breakfast dispelled the gloom; certainly the +speeding landscape did not. + +He sat grimly in the observation car, reviewing a dispiriting landscape +set with swamps, razorbacks, buzzards, and niggers. + +Luncheon aided him very little. _She_ had not appeared at all. Either +her own misery and fright were starving her to death or she preferred to +take her meals in her stateroom. He hoped fervently the latter might be +the case; that murder might not be added to whatever else he evidently +was suspected of committing. + +Like the ticket he had seen her purchase, his own ticket took him as far +as Ormond. Of course he could go on if she did. She could go to the West +Indies and ultimately to Brazil. So could he. They were on the main +travelled road to almost anywhere. + +Nevertheless, he was on the watch at St. Augustine; and when he saw her +come forth hastily and get into a bus emblazoned with the name and +escutcheon of the Hotel Royal Orchid, he got in also. + +The bus was full. Glancing at the other occupants of the bus, she +included him in her brief review, and to his great relief he saw her +incurious blue eyes pass calmly to the next countenance. + +A dreadful, almost hysterical impulse assailed him to suddenly rise and +say: "I am George Z. Green!"--merely to observe the cataclysmic effect +on her. + +But it did not seem so funny to him on after thoughts, for the chances +appeared to be that she could not survive the shock. Which scared him; +and he looked about nervously for fear somebody who knew him might be +among the passengers, and might address him by name. + +In due time the contents of the bus trooped into the vast corridors of +the Hotel Royal Orchid. One by one they registered; and on the ledger +Green read her name with palpitating heart--Miss Marie Wiltz and Maid. +And heard her say to the clerk that her maid had been delayed and would +arrive on the next train. + +It never occurred to this unimaginative man to sign any name but his own +to the register that was shoved toward him. Which perfectly proves his +guilelessness and goodness. + +He went to his room, cleansed from his person the stains of travel, and, +having no outer clothes to change to, smoked a cigarette and gazed +moodily from the window. + +Now, his window gave on the drive-encircled fountain before the front +entrance to the hotel; and, as he was standing there immersed in tobacco +smoke and gloom, he was astonished to see the girl herself come out +hastily, travelling satchel in hand, and spring lightly into a cab. It +was one of those victorias which are stationed for hire in front of such +southern hotels; he could see her perfectly plainly; saw the darkey +coachman flourish his whip; saw the vehicle roll away. + +The next instant he seized his new satchel, swept his brand new toilet +articles into it, snapped it, picked up hat and cane, and dashed down +stairs to the desk. + +Here he paid his bill, ran out, and leaped into a waiting victoria. + +"Where did that other cab drive?" he demanded breathlessly to his negro +coachman. "Didn't you hear what the young lady said to her driver?" + +"Yaas, suh. De young lady done say she's in a pow'ful hurry, suh. She +'low she gotta git to Ormond." + +"Ormond! There's no train!" + +"Milk-train, suh." + +"What! Is she going to Ormond on a milk-train?" + +"Yaas, suh." + +"All right, then. Drive me to the station." + +It was not very far. She was standing alone on the deserted platform, +her bag at her feet, his overcoat lying across it. Her head was bent, +and she did not notice him at first. Never had he seen a youthful figure +so exquisitely eloquent of despair. + +The milk-train was about an hour overdue, which would make it about due +in the South. Green seated himself on a wooden bench and folded his +hands over the silver crook of his walking-stick. The situation was now +perfectly clear to him. She had come down from her room, and had seen +his name on the register, had been seized by a terrible panic, and had +fled. + +Had he been alone and unobserved, he might have attempted to knock his +brains out with his walking-stick. He desired to, earnestly, when he +realised what an ass he had been to sign the register. + +She had begun to pace the platform, nervously, halting and leaning +forward from time to time to scan impatiently the long, glittering +perspective of the metals. + +It had begun to grow dusk. Lanterns on switches and semaphores flashed +out red, green, blue, white, stringing their jewelled sparks far away +into the distance. + +To and fro she paced the empty platform, passing and repassing him. And +he began to notice presently that she looked at him rather intently each +time. + +He wondered whether she suspected his identity. Guiltless of anything +that he could remember having done, nevertheless he shivered guiltily +every time she glanced at him. + +Then the unexpected happened; and he fairly shook in his shoes as she +marched deliberately up to him. + +"I beg your pardon," she said in a very sweet and anxious voice, "but +might I ask if you happen to be going to Ormond?" + +He was on his feet, hat in hand, by this time; his heart and pulses +badly stampeded; but he managed to answer calmly that he was going to +Ormond. + +"There is only a milk-train, I understand," she said. + +"So I understand." + +"Do you think there will be any difficulty in my obtaining permission to +travel on it? The station-master says that permission is not given to +ladies unaccompanied." + +She looked at him almost imploringly. + +"I really must go on that train," she said in a low voice. "It is +desperately necessary. Could you--could you manage to arrange it for me? +I would be so grateful!--so deeply grateful!" + +"I'll do what I can," said that unimaginative man. "Probably bribery can +fix it----" + +"There might be--if--if--you would be willing--if you didn't object--I +know it sounds very strange--but my case is so desperate----" She +checked herself, flushing a delicate pink. And he waited. + +Then, very resolutely she looked up at him: + +"Would you--could you p-pretend that I am--am--your sister?" + +"Certainly," he said. An immense happiness seized him. He was not only +up to his neck in Romance. It was already over his head, and he was out +of his depth, and swimming. + +"Certainly," he repeated quietly, controlling his joy by a supreme +effort. "That would be the simplest way out of it, after all." + +She said earnestly, almost solemnly: "If you will do this generous thing +for--for a stranger--in very deep perplexity and trouble--that stranger +will remain in your debt while life lasts!" + +She had not intended to be dramatic; she may not have thought she was; +but the tears again glimmered in her lovely eyes, and the situation +seemed tense enough to George Z. Green. + +Moreover, he felt that complications already were arising--complications +which he had often read of and sometimes dreamed of. Because, as he +stood there in the southern dusk, looking at this slim, young girl, he +began to realise that never before in all his life had he gazed upon +anything half as beautiful. + +Very far away a locomotive whistled: they both turned, and saw the +distant headlight glittering on the horizon like a tiny star. + +"W-would it be best for us to t-take your name or mine--in case they ask +us?" she stammered, flushing deeply. + +"Perhaps," he said pleasantly, "you might be more likely to remember +yours in an emergency." + +"I think so," she said naively; "it is rather difficult for me to +deceive anybody. My name is Marie Wiltz." + +"Then I am Mr. Wiltz, your brother, for an hour or two." + +"If you please," she murmured. + +It had been on the tip of his tongue to add, "Mr. George Z. Wiltz," but +he managed to check himself. + +The great, lumbering train came rolling in; the station agent looked +very sharply through his spectacles at Miss Wiltz when he saw her with +Green, but being a Southerner, he gallantly assumed that it was all +right. + +One of the train crew placed two wooden chairs for them in the partly +empty baggage car; and there they sat, side by side, while the big, +heavy milk cans were loaded aboard, and a few parcels shoved into their +car. Then the locomotive tooted leisurely; there came a jolt, a resonant +clash; and the train was under way. + + + + +XXIV + + +For a while the baggage master fussed about the car, sorting out +packages for Ormond; then, courteously inquiring whether he could do +anything for them, and learning that he could not, he went forward into +his own den, leaving Marie Wiltz and George Z. Green alone in a baggage +car dimly illumined by a small and smoky lamp. + +Being well-bred young people, they broke the tension of the situation +gracefully and naturally, pretending to find it amusing to travel in a +milk train to a fashionable southern resort. + +And now that the train was actually under way and speeding southward +through the night, her relief from anxiety was very plain to him. He +could see her relax; see the frightened and hunted look in her eyes die +out, the natural and delicious colour return to her cheeks. + +As they conversed with amiable circumspection and pleasant formality, he +looked at her whenever he dared without seeming to be impertinent; and +he discovered that the face she had worn since he had first seen her was +not her natural expression; that her features in repose or in fearless +animation were winning and almost gay. + +She had a delightful mouth, sweet and humourous; a delicate nose and +chin, and two very blue and beautiful eyes that looked at him at moments +so confidently, so engagingly, that the knowledge of what her expression +would be if she knew who he was smote him at moments, chilling his very +marrow. + +What an astonishing situation! How he would have scorned a short story +with such a situation in it! And he thought of Williams--poor old +Williams!--and mentally begged his pardon. + +For he understood now that real life was far stranger than fiction. He +realised at last that Romance loitered ever around the corner; that +Opportunity was always gently nudging one's elbow. + +There lay his overcoat on the floor, trailing over her satchel. He +looked at it so fixedly that she noticed the direction of his gaze, +glanced down, blushed furiously. + +"It may seem odd to you that I am travelling with a man's overcoat," she +said, "but it will seem odder yet when I tell you that I don't know how +I came by it." + +"That _is_ odd," he admitted smilingly. "To whom does it belong?" + +Her features betrayed the complicated emotions that successively +possessed her--perplexity, anxiety, bashfulness. + +After a moment she said in a low voice: "You have done so much for me +already--you have been so exceedingly nice to me--that I hesitate to ask +of you anything more----" + +"Please ask!" he urged. "It will be really a happiness for me to serve +you." + +Surprised at his earnestness and the unembarrassed warmth of his reply, +she looked up at him gratefully after a moment. + +"Would you," she said, "take charge of that overcoat for me and send it +back to its owner?" + +He laughed nervously: "Is _that_ all? Why, of course I shall! I'll +guarantee that it is restored to its rightful owner if you wish." + +"Will you? If you do _that_----" she drew a long, sighing breath, "it +will be a relief to me--such a wonderful relief!" She clasped her gloved +hands tightly on her knee, smiled at him breathlessly. + +"I don't suppose you will ever know what you have done for me. I could +never adequately express my deep, deep gratitude to you----" + +"But--I am doing nothing except shipping back an overcoat----" + +"Ah--if you only knew what you really are doing for me! You are helping +me in the direst hour of need I ever knew. You are aiding me to regain +control over my own destiny! You are standing by me in the nick of time, +sheltering me, encouraging me, giving me a moment's respite until I can +become mistress of my own fate once more." + +The girl had ended with a warmth, earnestness and emotion which she +seemed to be unable to control. Evidently she had been very much shaken, +and in the blessed relief from the strain the reaction was gathering +intensity. + +They sat in silence for a few moments; then she looked up, nervously +twisting her gloved fingers. + +"I am sorry," she said in a low voice, "not to exhibit reticence and +proper self-control before a--a stranger.... But I--I have been--rather +badly--frightened." + +"Nothing need frighten you now," he said. + +"I thought so, too. I thought that as soon as I left New York it would +be all right. But--but the first thing I saw in my stateroom was _that_ +overcoat! And the next thing that occurred was--was almost--stupefying. +Until I boarded this milk-train, I think I must have been almost +irresponsible from sheer fright." + +"What frightened you?" he asked, trembling internally. + +"I--I can't tell you. It would do no good. You could not help me." + +"Yet you say I have already aided you." + +"Yes.... That is true.... And you _will_ send that overcoat back, won't +you?" + +"Yes," he said. "To remember it, I'd better put it on, I think." + +The southern night had turned chilly, and he was glad to bundle into his +own overcoat again. + +"From where will you ship it?" she asked anxiously. + +"From Ormond----" + +"Please don't!" + +"Why?" + +"Because," she said desperately, "the owner of that coat might trace it +to Ormond and--and come down there." + +"Where is he?" + +She paled and clasped her hands tighter: + +"I--I thought--I had every reason to believe that he was in New York. +B-but he isn't. He is in St. Augustine!" + +"You evidently don't wish to meet him." + +"No--oh, no, I don't wish to meet him--ever!" + +"Oh. Am I to understand that this--this _fellow_," he said fiercely, "is +_following_ you?" + +"I don't know--oh, I really don't know," she said, her blue eyes wide +with apprehension. "All I know is that I do not desire to see him--or to +have him see me.... He _must_ not see me; it must not be--it _shall_ not +be! I--it's a very terrible thing;--I don't know exactly what I'm--I'm +fighting against--because it's--it's simply too dreadful----" + +Emotion checked her, and for a moment she covered her eyes with her +gloved hands, sitting in silence. + +"Can't I help you?" he asked gently. + +She dropped her hands and stared at him. + +"I don't know. Do you think you could? It all seems so--like a bad +dream. I'll have to tell you about it if you are to help me--won't I?" + +"If you think it best," he said with an inward quiver. + +"That's it. I don't know whether it _is_ best to ask your advice. Yet, I +don't know exactly what else to do," she added in a bewildered way, +passing one hand slowly over her eyes. "Shall I tell you?" + +"Perhaps you'd better." + +"I think I will!... I--I left New York in a panic at a few moments' +notice. I thought I'd go to Ormond and hide there for a while, and then, +if--if matters looked threatening, I could go to Miami and take a +steamer for the West Indies, and from there--if necessary--I could go to +Brazil----" + +"But _why_?" he demanded, secretly terrified at his own question. + +She looked at him blankly a moment: "Oh; I forgot. It--it all began +without any warning; and instantly I began to run away." + +"From what?" + +"From--from the owner of that overcoat!" + +"Who is he?" + +"His name," she said resolutely, "is George Z. Green. And I am running +away from him.... And I am afraid you'll think it very odd when I tell +you that although I am running away from him I do not know him, and I +have never seen him." + +"Wh-what is the matter with him?" inquired Green, with a sickly attempt +at smiling. + +"He wants to marry me!" she exclaimed indignantly. "_That_ is what is +the matter with him." + +"Are you sure?" he asked, astounded. + +"Perfectly. And the oddest thing of all is that I do not think he has +ever seen me--or ever even heard of me." + +"But how can----" + +"I'll tell you. I must tell you now, anyway. It began the evening before +I left New York. I--I live alone--with a companion--having no parents. I +gave a dinner dance the evening before I--I ran away;--there was music, +too; professional dancers;--a crystal-gazing fortune teller--and a lot +of people--loads of them." + +She drew a short, quick breath, and shook her pretty head. + +"Everybody's been talking about the Princess Zimbamzim this winter. So I +had her there.... She--she is uncanny--positively terrifying. A dozen +women were scared almost ill when they came out of her curtained corner. + +"And--and then she demanded me.... I had no belief in such things.... I +went into that curtained corner, never for one moment dreaming that what +she might say would matter anything to me.... In ten minutes she had me +scared and trembling like a leaf.... I didn't want to stay; I wanted to +go. I--couldn't, somehow. My limbs were stiff--I couldn't control +them--I couldn't get up! All my will power--was--was paralysed!" + +The girl's colour had fled; she looked at Green with wide eyes dark with +the memory of fear. + +"She told me to come to her for an hour's crystal gazing the following +afternoon. I--I didn't _want_ to go. But I couldn't seem to keep away. + +"Then a terrible thing happened. I--I looked into that crystal and I saw +there--saw with my own eyes--_myself_ being married to a--a perfectly +strange man! I saw myself as clearly as in a looking glass;--but I could +see only his back. He--he wore an overcoat--like that one I gave to you +to send back. Think of it! Married to a man who was wearing an +_overcoat_! + +"And there was a clergyman who looked sleepy, and--and two strangers as +witnesses--and there was I--_I!_--getting married to this man.... And +the terrible thing about it was that I looked at him as though I--I +l-loved him----" + +Her emotions overcame her for a moment, but she swallowed desperately, +lifted her head, and forced herself to continue: + +"Then the Princess Zimbamzim began to laugh, very horridly: and I asked +her, furiously, who that man was. And she said: 'His name seems to be +George Z. Green; he is a banker and broker; and he lives at 1008-1/2 +Fifth Avenue.' + +"'Am _I_ marrying him?' I cried. 'Am _I_ marrying a strange broker who +wears an overcoat at the ceremony?' + +"And she laughed her horrid laugh again and said: 'You certainly are, +Miss Wiltz. You can not escape it. It is your destiny.' + +"'When am I to do it?' I demanded, trembling with fright and +indignation. And she told me that it was certain to occur within either +three months or three days.... And--can you imagine my n-natural +feelings of horror--and repugnance? Can you not now understand the panic +that seized me--when there, all the time in the crystal, I could +actually see myself doing what that dreadful woman prophesied?" + +"I don't blame you for running," he said, stunned. + +"I do not blame myself. I ran. I fled, distracted, from that terrible +house! I left word for my maid to pack and follow me to Ormond. I caught +the first train I could catch. For the next three months I propose to +continue my flight if--if necessary. And I fear it will be necessary." + +"Finding his overcoat in your stateroom must have been a dreadful shock +to you," he said, pityingly. + +"Imagine! But when, not an hour ago, I saw his name on the register at +the Hotel Royal Orchid--_directly under my name!_--can you--oh, can you +imagine my utter terror?" + +Her voice broke and she leaned up against the side of the car, so white, +so quivering, so utterly demoralised by fear, that, alarmed, he took her +trembling hands firmly in his. + +"You mustn't give way," he said. "This won't do. You must show courage." + +"How can I show courage when I'm f-frightened?" + +"You must not be frightened, because--because I am going to stand by +you. I am going to stand by you very firmly. I am going to see this +matter through." + +"Are you? It is so--so kind of you--so good--so generous.... Because +it's uncanny enough to frighten even a man. You see we don't know what +we're fighting. We're threatened by--by the occult! By unseen +f-forces.... _How_ could that man be in St. Augustine?" + +He drew a long breath. "I am going to tell you something.... May I?" + +She turned in silence to look at him. Something in his eyes disturbed +her, and he felt her little, gloved hands tighten spasmodically within +his own. + +"It isn't anything to frighten you," he said. "It may even relieve you. +Shall I tell you?" + +Her lips formed a voiceless word of consent. + +"Then I'll tell you.... I know George Z. Green." + +"W-what?" + +"I know him very well. He is--is an exceedingly--er--nice fellow." + +"But I don't care! I'm not going to marry him!... Am I? Do you think I +am?" + +And she fell a-trembling so violently that, alarmed, he drew her to his +shoulder, soothing her like a child, explaining that in the twentieth +century no girl was going to marry anybody against her will. + +Like a child she cowered against him, her hands tightening within his. +The car swayed and rattled on its clanging trucks; the feeble lamp +glimmered. + +"If I thought," she said, "that George Z. Green was destined to marry me +under such outrageous and humiliating circumstances, I--I believe I +would marry the first decent man I encountered--merely to confound the +Princess Zimbamzim--and every wicked crystal-gazer in the world! I--I +simply hate them!" + +He said: "Then you believe in them." + +"How can I help it? Look at me! Look at me here, in full light--asking +protection of you!... And I don't care! I--think I am becoming more +angry than--than frightened. I think it is your kindness that has given +me courage. Somehow, I feel safe with you. I am sure that I can rely on +you; can't I?" + +"Yes," he said miserably. + +"I was very sure I could when I saw you sitting there on the platform +before the milk-train came in.... I don't know how it was--I was not +afraid to speak to you.... Something about you made me confident.... I +said to myself, 'He is _good_! I _know_ it!' And so I spoke to you." + +Conscience was tearing him inwardly to shreds, as the fox tore the +Spartan. How could he pose as the sort of man she believed him to be, +and endure the self-contempt now almost overwhelming him? + +"I--I'm not good," he blurted out, miserably. + +She turned and looked at him seriously for a moment. Then, for the first +time aware of his arm encircling her, and her hands in his, she +flushed brightly and freed herself, straightening up in her little +wooden chair. + +"You need not tell me that," she said. "I _know_ you _are_ good." + +"As a m-matter of f-fact," he stammered. "I'm a scoundrel!" + +"What?" + +"I can't bear to have you know it--b-but I am!" + +"_How_ can you say that?--when you've been so perfectly sweet to me?" +she exclaimed. + +And after a moment's silence she laughed deliciously. + +"Only to look at you is enough," she said, "for a girl to feel absolute +confidence in you." + +"Do you feel that?" + +"I?... Yes.... Yes, I do. I would trust you without hesitation. I have +trusted you, have I not? And after all, it is not so strange. You are +the sort of man to whom I am accustomed. We are both of the same sort." + +"No," he said gloomily, "I'm really a pariah." + +"You! Why do you say such things, after you have been so--perfectly +charming to a frightened girl?" + +"I'm a pariah," he repeated. "I'm a social outcast! I--I know it, now." +And he leaned his head wearily on both palms. + +The girl looked at him in consternation. + +"Are _you_ unhappy?" she asked. + +"Wretched." + +"Oh," she said softly, "I didn't know that.... I am so sorry.... And to +think that you took all _my_ troubles on your shoulders, too,--burdened +with your own! I--I _knew_ you were that kind of man," she added warmly. + +He only shook his head, face buried in his hands. + +"I am _so_ sorry," she repeated gently. "Would it help you if you told +me?" + +He did not answer. + +"Because," she said sweetly, "it would make me very happy if I could be +of even the very slightest use to you!" + +No response. + +"Because you have been so kind." + +No response. + +"--And so p-pleasant and c-cordial and----" + +No response. + +She looked at the young fellow who sat there with head bowed in his +hands; and her blue eyes grew wistful. + +"Are you in physical pain?" + +"Mental," he said in a muffled voice. + +"I am sorry. Don't you believe that I am?" she asked pitifully. + +"You would not be sorry if you knew why I am suffering," he muttered. + +"How _can_ you say that?" she exclaimed warmly. "Do you think I am +ungrateful? Do you think I am insensible to delicate and generous +emotions? Do you suppose I could ever forget what you have done for me?" + +"Suppose," he said in a muffled voice, "I turned out to be a--a +villain?" + +"You couldn't!" + +"Suppose it were true that I am one?" + +She said, with the warmth of total inexperience with villains, "What you +have been to me is only what concerns me. You have been good, generous, +noble! And I--like you." + +"You must not like me." + +"I _do_! I do like you! I shall continue to do so--always----" + +"You can not!" + +"What? Indeed I can! I like you very much. I defy you to prevent me!" + +"I don't want to prevent you--but you mustn't do it." + +She sat silent for a moment. Then her lip trembled. + +"Why may I not like you?" she asked unsteadily. + +"I am not worth it." + +He didn't know it, but he had given her the most fascinating answer that +a man can give a young girl. + +"If you are not worth it," she said tremulously, "you can become so." + +"No, I never can." + +"Why do you say that? No matter what a man has done--a young man--such +as you--he can become worthy again of a girl's friendship--if he wishes +to." + +"I never could become worthy of yours." + +"Why? What have you done? I don't care anyway. If you--if you want +my--my friendship you can have it." + +"No," he groaned, "I am sunk too low to even dream of it! You don't +know--you don't know what you're saying. I am beyond the pale!" + +He clutched his temples and shuddered. For a moment she gazed at him +piteously, then her timid hand touched his arm. + +"I can't bear to see you in despair," she faltered, "--you who have been +so good to me. Please don't be unhappy--because--I want you to be +happy----" + +"I can never be that." + +"Why?" + +"Because--I am in love!" + +"What?" + +"With a girl who--hates me." + +"Oh," she said faintly. Then the surprise in her eyes faded vaguely into +wistfulness, and into something almost tender as she gazed at his bowed +head. + +"Any girl," she said, scarcely knowing what she was saying, "who could +not love such a man as you is an absolutely negligible quantity." + +His hands fell from his face and he sat up. + +"Could _you_?" + +"What?" she said, not understanding. + +"Could you do what--what I--mentioned just now?" + +She looked curiously at him for a moment, not comprehending. Suddenly a +rose flush stained her face. + +"I don't think you mean to say that to me," she said quietly. + +"Yes," he said, "I do mean to say it.... Because, since I first saw you, +I have--have dared to--to be in love with you." + +"With _me_! We--you have not known me an hour!" + +"I have known you three days." + +"What?" + +"_I_ am George Z. Green!" + + + + +XXV + + +Minute after minute throbbed in silence, timed by the loud rhythm of the +roaring wheels. He did not dare lift his head to look at her, though her +stillness scared him. Awful and grotesque thoughts assailed him. He +wondered whether she had survived the blow--and like an assassin he +dared not look to see what he had done, but crouched there, overwhelmed +with misery such as he never dreamed that a human heart could endure. + +A century seemed to have passed before, far ahead, the locomotive +whistled warningly for the Ormond station. + +He understood what it meant, and clutched his temples, striving to +gather courage sufficient to lift his head and face her blazing +contempt--or her insensible and inanimate but beautiful young form lying +in a merciful faint on the floor of the baggage car. + +And at last he lifted his head. + +She had risen and was standing by the locked side doors, touching her +eye-lashes with her handkerchief. + +When he rose, the train was slowing down. Presently the baggage master +came in, yawning; the side doors were unbolted and flung back as the car +glided along a high, wooden platform. + +They were standing side by side now; she did not look at him, but when +the car stopped she laid her hand lightly on his arm. + +Trembling in every fibre, he drew the little, gloved hand through his +arm and aided her to descend. + +"Are you unhappy?" he whispered tremulously. + +"No.... What are we to do?" + +"Am I to say?" + +"Yes," she said faintly. + +"Shall I register as your brother?" + +She blushed and looked at him in a lovely and distressed way. + +"What _are_ we to do?" she faltered. + +They entered the main hall of the great hotel at that moment, and she +turned to look around her. + +"Oh!" she exclaimed, clutching his arm. "Do you see that man? Do you +_see_ him?" + +"Which man--dearest?----" + +"_That_ one over there! That is the clergyman I saw in the crystal. Oh, +dear! Oh, dear! Is it going to come true right away?" + +"I think it is," he said. "Are you afraid?" + +She drew a deep, shuddering breath, lifted her eyes to his: + +"N-no," she said. + +Ten minutes later it was being done around the corner of the great +veranda, where nobody was. The moon glimmered on the Halifax; the +palmettos sighed in the chilly sea-wind; the still, night air was +scented with orange bloom and the odour of the sea. + +He wore his overcoat, and he used the plain, gold band which had +decorated his little finger. The clergyman was brief and businesslike; +the two clerks made dignified witnesses. + +When it was done, and they were left alone, standing on the moonlit +veranda, he said: + +"Shall we send a present to the Princess Zimbamzim?" + +"Yes.... A beautiful one." + +He drew her to him; she laid both hands on his shoulders. When he +kissed her, her face was cold and white as marble. + +"Are you afraid?" he whispered. + +The marble flushed pink. + +"No," she said. + + * * * * * + +"That," said Stafford, "was certainly quick action. Ten minutes is a +pretty short time for Fate to begin business." + +"Fate," remarked Duane, "once got busy with me inside of ten seconds." +He looked at Athalie. + +"_Ut solent poetae_," she rejoined, calmly. + +I said: "_Verba placent et vox, et quod corrumpere non est; Quoque minor +spes est, hoc magis ille cupit_." + +In a low voice Duane replied to me, looking at her: "_Vera incessu +patuit Dea_." + +Slowly the girl blushed, lowering her dark eyes to the green jade god +resting in the rosy palm of her left hand. + +"Physician, cure thyself," muttered Stafford, slowly twisting a +cigarette to shreds in his nervous hands. + +I rose, walked over to the small marble fountain and looked down at the +sleeping goldfish. Here and there from the dusky magnificence of their +colour a single scale glittered like a living spark under water. + +"Are you preaching to them?" asked Athalie, raising her eyes from the +green god in her palm. + +"No matter where a man turns his eyes," said I, "they may not long +remain undisturbed by the vision of gold. I was not preaching, Athalie; +I was reflecting upon my poverty." + +"It is an incurable ailment," said somebody; "the millionaire knows it; +the gods themselves suffered from it. From the bleaching carcass of the +peon to the mausoleum of the emperor, the world's highway winds through +its victims' graves." + +"Athalie," said I, "is it possible for you to look into your crystal and +discover hidden treasure?" + +"Not for my own benefit." + +"For others?" + +"I have done it." + +"Could you locate a few millions for us?" inquired the novelist. + +"Yes, widely distributed among you. Your right hand is heavy as gold; +your brain jingles with it." + +"I do not write for money," he said bluntly. + +"That is why," she said, smiling and placing a sweetmeat between her +lips. + +I had the privilege of lighting a match for her. + + + + +XXVI + + +When the tip of her cigarette glowed rosy in the pearl-tinted gloom, the +shadowy circle at her feet drew a little nearer. + +"This is the story of Valdez," she said. "Listen attentively, you who +hunger!" + + * * * * * + +On the first day it rained torrents; the light was very dull in the +galleries; fashion kept away. Only a few monomaniacs braved the weather, +left dripping mackintoshes and umbrellas in the coat room, and spent the +dull March morning in mousing about among the priceless treasures on +view to those who had cards of admission. The sale was to take place +three days later. Heikem was the auctioneer. + +The collection to be disposed of was the celebrated library of Professor +Octavo de Folio--a small one; but it was composed almost exclusively of +rarities. A million and a half had been refused by the heirs, who +preferred to take chances at auction. + +And there were Caxtons, first edition Shakespeares, illuminated +manuscripts, volumes printed privately for various kings and queens, +bound sketch books containing exquisite aquarelles and chalk drawings by +Bargue, Fortuny, Drouais, Boucher, John Downman; there were autographed +monographs in manuscript; priceless order books of revolutionary +generals, private diaries kept by men and women celebrated and notorious +the world over. + +But the heirs apparently preferred yachts and automobiles. + +The library was displayed in locked glass cases, an attendant seated by +each case, armed with a key and discretionary powers. + +From where James White sat beside his particular case, he had a view of +the next case and of the young girl seated beside it. + +She was very pretty. No doubt, being out of a job, like himself, she +was glad to take this temporary position. She was so pretty she made his +head ache. Or it might have been the ventilation. + +It rained furiously; a steady roar on the glass roof overhead filled the +long and almost empty gallery of Mr. Heikem, the celebrated auctioneer, +with a monotone as dull and incessant as the business voice of that +great man. + +Here and there a spectacled old gentleman nosed his way from case to +case, making at intervals cabalistic pencil marks on the margin of his +catalogue--which specimen of compiled literature alone cost five +dollars. + +It was a very dull day for James White, and also, apparently, for the +pretty girl in charge of the adjoining case. Nobody even asked either of +them to unlock the cases; and it began to appear to young White that the +books and manuscripts confided to his charge were not by any means the +_chefs-d'oeuvre_ of the collection. + +They were a dingy looking lot of books, anyway. He glanced over the +private list furnished him, read the titles, histories and pedigrees of +the volumes, stifled a yawn, fidgetted in his chair, stared at the +rain-battered glass roof overhead, mused lightly upon his misfortunes, +shrugged his broad shoulders, and glanced at the girl across the aisle. + +She also was reading her private list. It seemed to bore her. + +He looked at her as long as decency permitted, then gazed elsewhere. She +was exceedingly pretty in her way, red haired, white skinned; and her +eyes seemed to be a very lovely Sevres blue. Except in porcelain he +thought he had never seen anything as dainty. He knew perfectly well +that he could very easily fall in love with her. Also he knew he'd never +have the opportunity. + +Duller and duller grew the light; louder roared the March rain. Even +monomaniacs no longer came into the galleries, and the half dozen who +had arrived left by luncheon time. + +When it was White's turn to go out to lunch, he went to Childs' and +returned in half an hour. Then the girl across the aisle went +out--probably to a similar and sumptuous banquet. She came back very +shortly, reseated herself, and glanced around the empty galleries. + +There seemed to be absolutely nothing for anybody to do, except to sit +there and listen to the rain. + +White pondered on his late failure in affairs. Recently out of Yale, and +more recently still established in business, he had gone down in the +general slump, lacking sufficient capital to tide him over. His +settlement with his creditors left him with fifteen hundred dollars. He +was now waiting for an opportunity to invest it in an enterprise. He +believed in enterprises. Also, he was firmly convinced that Opportunity +knocked no more than once in a lifetime, and he was always cocking his +ear to catch the first timid rap. It was knocking then but he did not +hear it, for it was no louder than the gentle beating of his red-haired +neighbour's heart. + +But Opportunity is a jolly jade. She knocks every little while--but one +must possess good hearing. + +Having nothing better to do as he sat there, White drifted into mental +speculation--that being the only sort available. + +He dreamed of buying a lot in New York for fifteen hundred dollars and +selling it a few years later for fifty thousand. He had a well developed +imagination; wonderful were the lucky strikes he made in these day +dreams; marvellous the financial returns. He was a very Napoleon of +finance when he was dozing. Many are. + +The girl across the aisle also seemed to be immersed in day dreams. Her +Sevres blue eyes had become vague; her listless little hands lay in her +lap unstirring. She was pleasant to look at. + +After an hour or so it was plain to White that she had had enough of her +dreams. She sighed very gently, straightened up in her chair, looked at +the rain-swept roof, patted a yawn into modest suppression, and gazed +about her with speculative and engaging eyes. + +Then, as though driven to desperation, she turned, looked into the glass +case beside her for a few minutes, and then, fitting her key to the +door, opened it, selected a volume at hazard, and composed herself to +read. + +For a while White watched her lazily, but presently with more interest, +as her features gradually grew more animated and her attention seemed to +be concentrated on the book. + +As the minutes passed it became plain to White that the girl found the +dingy little volume exceedingly interesting. And after a while she +appeared to be completely absorbed in it; her blue eyes were rivetted on +the pages; her face was flushed, her sensitive lips expressive of the +emotion that seemed to be possessing her more and more. + +White wondered what this book might be which she found so breathlessly +interesting. It was small, dingy, bound in warped covers of old +leather, and anything but beautiful. And by and by he caught a glimpse +of the title--"The Journal of Pedro Valdez." + +The title, somehow, seemed to be familiar to him; he glanced into his +own case, and after a few minutes' searching he caught sight of another +copy of the same book, dingy, soiled, leather-bound, unlovely. + +He looked over his private list until he found it. And this is what he +read concerning it: + + _Valdez, Pedro--Journal of. Translated by Thomas Bangs, of + Philadelphia, in 1760. With map. Two copies, much worn and + damaged by water. Several pages missing from each book._ + + Pedro Valdez was a soldier of fortune serving with Cortez in + Mexico and with De Soto in Florida. Nothing more is known of + him, except that he perished somewhere in the semi-tropical + forests of America. + + Thomas Bangs, an Englishman, pretended to have discovered and + translated the journal kept by Valdez. After the journal had + been translated--if, indeed, such a document ever really + existed--Bangs pretended that it was accidentally destroyed. + + Bangs' translation and map are considered to be works of pure + imagination. They were published from manuscript after the + death of the author. + + Bangs died in St. Augustine of yellow fever, about 1760-61, + while preparing for an exploring expedition into the Florida + wilderness. + +Mildly edified, White glanced again at the girl across the aisle, and +was surprised to see how her interest in the volume had altered her +features. Tense, breathless, utterly absorbed in the book, she bent over +the faded print, leaning close, for the sickly light that filtered +through the glass roof scarcely illumined the yellow pages at all. + +The curiosity of White was now aroused; he opened the glass case beside +him, fished out his copy of the book, opened it, and began to read. + +For the first few minutes his interest was anything but deep: he read +the well-known pages where Bangs recounts how he discovered the journal +of Valdez--and it sounded exceedingly fishy--a rather poorly written +fairy-tale done by a man with little invention and less imagination, so +worn out, hackneyed and trite were the incidents, so obvious the +coincidences. + +White shrugged his shoulders and turned from the preface to what +purported to be the translation. + +Almost immediately it struck him that this part of the book was not +written by the same man. Here was fluency, elegance of expression, +ease, the simplicity of a soldier who had something to say and but a +short time in which to say it. Even the apparent clumsiness of the +translation had not deformed the work. + +Little by little the young man became intensely interested, then +absorbed. And after a while the colour came into his face; he glanced +nervously around him; suppressed excitement made his hands unsteady as +he unfolded the enclosed map. + +From time to time he referred to the map as he read; the rain roared on +the glass roof; the light grew dimmer and dimmer. + +At five o'clock the galleries closed for the day. And that evening, +sitting in his hall-bedroom, White made up his mind that he must buy +"The Journal of Valdez" if it took every penny that remained to him. + +The next day was fair and cold; fashion graced the Octavo de Folio +exhibition; White had no time to re-read any passages or to re-examine +the map, because people were continually asking to see and handle the +books in his case. + +Across the aisle he noticed that his pretty neighbour was similarly +occupied. And he was rather glad, because he felt, vaguely, that it was +just as well she did not occupy her time in reading "The Journal of +Valdez." Girls usually have imagination. The book might stir her up as +it had stirred him. And to no purpose. + +Also, he was glad that nobody asked to look at the Valdez copy in his +own case. He didn't want people to look at it. There were reasons--among +others, he wanted to buy it himself. He meant to if fifteen hundred +dollars would buy it. + +White had not the remotest idea what the book might bring at auction. He +dared not inquire whether the volume was a rare one, dreading even to +call the attention of his fellow employees to it. A word _might_ arouse +their curiosity. + +All day long he attended to his duties there, and at five he went home, +highly excited, determined to arrive at the galleries next morning in +time enough to read the book a little before the first of the public +came. + +And he did get there very early. The only other employee who had arrived +before him was the red-haired girl. She sat by her case reading "The +Journal of Valdez." Once she looked up at him with calm, clear, +intelligent eyes. He did not see her; he hastily unlocked his case and +drew out the coveted book. Then he sat down and began to devour it. And +so utterly and instantly was he lost amid those yellow, time-faded +pages that he did not even glance across the aisle at his ornamental +neighbour. If he had looked he would have noticed that she also was +buried in "The Journal of Valdez." And it might have made him a trifle +uneasy to see her look from her book to him and from him to the volume +he was perusing so excitedly. + +It being the last day that the library was to be on view before the +sale, fashion and monomania rubbed elbows in the Heikem Galleries, +crowding the well known salons morning and afternoon. And all day long +White and his neighbour across the aisle were busy taking out books and +manuscripts for inspection, so that they had no time for luncheon, and +less for Valdez. + +And that night they were paid off and dismissed; and the auctioneer and +his corps of assistants took charge. + +The sale took place the following morning and afternoon. White drew from +the bank his fifteen hundred dollars, breakfasted on bread and milk, and +went to the galleries more excited than he had ever been before in his +long life of twenty-three years. And that is some time. + +It was a long shot at Fortune he meant to take--a really desperate +chance. One throw would settle it--win or lose. And the idea scared him +badly, and he was trembling a little when he took his seat amid the +perfumed gowns of fashion and the white whiskers of high finance, and +the shabby vestments of monomania. + +Once or twice he wondered whether he was crazy. Yet, every throb of his +fast-beating heart seemed to summon him to do and dare; and he felt, +without even attempting to explain the feeling to himself, that now at +last Opportunity was loudly rapping at his door, and that if he did not +let her in he would regret it as long as he lived. + +As he glanced fearfully about him he caught sight of his pretty +neighbour who had held sway across the aisle. So she, too, had come to +watch the sale! Probably for the excitement of hearing an auctioneer +talk in thousands. + +He was a little surprised, nevertheless, for she did not look +bookish--nor even intellectual enough to mar her prettiness. Yet, +wherever she went she would look adorable. He understood that, now. + +It was a day of alarms for him, of fears, shocks, and frights +innumerable. With terror he heard the auctioneer talking in terms of +thousands; with horror he witnessed the bids on certain books advance by +thousands at a clip. Five thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand were +bid, seen, raised, called, hiked, until his head spun and despair +seized him. + +What did he know about Valdez? Either volume might bring fifty thousand +dollars for all he knew. Had he fifty thousand he felt, somehow, that he +would have bid it to the last penny for the book. And he came to the +conclusion that he was really crazy. Yet there he sat, glued to his +chair, listening, shuddering, teeth alternately chattering or grimly +locked, while the very air seemed to reek of millions, and the incessant +gabble of the auctioneer drove him almost out of his wits. + +Nearer and nearer approached the catalogued numbers of the two copies of +Valdez; pale and desperate he sat there, his heart almost suffocating +him as the moment drew near. And now the time had come; now the +celebrated Mr. Heikem began his suave preliminary chatter; now he was +asking confidently for a bid. + +A silence ensued--and whether it was the silence of awe at the priceless +treasure or the silence of indifference White did not know. But after +the auctioneer had again asked for a bid he found his voice and offered +ten dollars. His ears were scarlet when he did it. + +"Fifteen," said a sweet but tremulous voice not far from White, and he +looked around in astonishment. It was his red-haired vis-a-vis. + +"Twenty!" he retorted, still labouring under his astonishment. + +"Twenty-five!" came the same sweet voice. + +There was a silence. No other voices said anything. Evidently nobody +wanted Valdez except himself and his red-haired neighbour. + +"Thirty!" he called out at the psychological moment. + +The girl turned in her chair and looked at him. She seemed to be +unusually pale. + +"Thirty-five!" she said, still gazing at White in a frightened sort of +way. + +"Forty," he said; rose at the same moment and walked over to where the +girl was sitting. + +She looked up at him as he bent over her chair; both were very serious. + +"You and I are the only two people bidding," he said. "There are two +copies of the book. Don't bid against me and you can buy in the other +one for next to nothing--judging from the course this one is taking." + +"Very well," she said quietly. + +A moment later the first copy of Valdez was knocked down to James White. +An indifferent audience paid little attention to the transaction. + +Two minutes later the second copy fell to Miss Jean Sandys for five +dollars--there being no other bidder. + +White had already left the galleries. Lingering at the entrance he saw +Miss Sandys pass him, and he lifted his hat. The slightest inclination +of her pretty head acknowledged it. The next moment they were lost to +each other's view in the crowded street. + +Clutching his battered book to his chest, not even daring to drop it +into his overcoat for fear of pickpockets, the young fellow started up +Broadway at a swinging pace which presently brought him to the offices +of the Florida Spanish Grants Company; and here, at his request, he was +ushered into a private room; a map of Seminole County spread on the +highly polished table before him, and a suave gentleman placed at his +disposal. + +"Florida," volunteered the suave gentleman, "is the land of perpetual +sunshine--the land of milk and honey, as it were, the land of the +orange----" + +"One moment, please," said White. + +"Sir?" + +They looked at each other for a second or two, then White smiled: + +"I don't want dope," he said pleasantly, "I merely want a few facts--if +your company deals in them." + +"Florida," began the suave gentleman, watching the effect of his words, +"is the garden of the world." Then he stopped, discouraged, for White +was grinning at him. + +"It won't do," said White amiably. + +"No?" queried the suave gentleman, the ghost of a grin on his own smooth +countenance. + +"No, it won't do. Now, if you will restrain your very natural enthusiasm +and let me ask a few questions----" + +"Go ahead," said the suave gentleman, whose name was Munsell. "But I +don't believe we have anything to suit you in Seminole County." + +"Oh, I don't know," returned White coolly, "is it _all_ under water?" + +"There are a few shell mounds. The highest is nearly ten inches above +water. We call them hills." + +"I might wish to acquire one of those mountain ranges," remarked White +seriously. + +After a moment they both laughed. + +"Are you in the game yourself?" inquired Mr. Munsell. + +"Well, my game is a trifle different." + +"Oh. Do you care to be more explicit?" + +White shook his head: + +"No; what's the use? But I'll say this: it isn't the 'Perpetual Sunshine +and Orange Grove' game, or how to become a millionaire in three years." + +"No?" grinned Munsell, lifting his expressive eyebrows. + +White bent over the map for a few moments. + +"Here," he said carelessly, "is the Spanish Causeway and the Coakachee +River. It's all swamp and jungle, I suppose--although I see you have it +plotted into orange groves, truck gardens, pineapple plantations, and +villas." + +Munsell made a last but hopeless effort. "Some day," he began, with +dignity--but White's calm wink discouraged further attempts. Then the +young man tapped with his pencil lots numbered from 200 to 210, slowly, +going over them again for emphasis. + +"Are those what you want?" asked Munsell. + +"Those are what I want." + +"All right. Only I can't give you 210." + +"Why not?" + +"Yesterday a party took a strip along the Causeway including half of 210 +up to 220." + +"Can't I get all of 210?" + +"I'll ask the party. Where can I address you?" + +White stood up. "Have everything ready Tuesday. I'll be in with the +cash." + + + + +XXVII + + +And on Tuesday he kept his word and the land was his for a few hundred +dollars--all except the half of Lot No. 210, which it appeared the +"party" declined to sell, refusing to consider any profit whatever. + +"It's like a woman," remarked Munsell. + +"Is your 'party' a woman?" + +"Yes. I guess she's into some game or other, too. Say, what is this +Seminole County game, Mr. White?--if you don't mind my asking, now that +you have taken title to your--h'm!--orange grove." + +"Why do you think there is any particular game afoot?" inquired the +young man curiously. + +"Oh, come! _You_ know what you're buying. And that young lady knew, too. +You've both bought a few acres of cypress swamp and you know it. What do +you think is in it?" + +"Snakes," said White coolly. + +"Oh, _I_ know," said Munsell. "You think there's marl and phosphoric +rock." + +"And isn't there?" asked White innocently. + +"How should _I_ know?" replied Munsell as innocently; the inference +being that he knew perfectly well that there was nothing worth +purchasing in the Causeway swamp. + +But when White went away he was a trifle worried, and he wondered +uneasily why anybody else at that particular time should happen to +invest in swampy real estate along the Spanish Causeway. + +He knew the Spanish Causeway. In youthful and prosperous days, when his +parents were alive, they had once wintered at Verbena Inlet. + +And on several occasions he had been taken on excursions to the +so-called Spanish Causeway--a dike-shaped path, partly ruined, made of +marl and shell, which traversed the endless swamps of Seminole County, +and was supposed to have been built by De Soto and his Spaniards. + +But whoever built it, Spaniard, Seminole, or the prehistoric people +antedating both, there it still was, a ruined remnant of highway +penetrating the otherwise impassable swamps. + +For miles across the wilderness of cypress, palmetto, oak, and depthless +mud it stretched--a crumbling but dry runway for deer, panther, bear, +black wolf, and Seminole. And excursion parties from the great hotels at +Verbena often picnicked at its intersection with the forest road, but +ventured no farther along the dismal, forbidding, and snake-infested +ridge which ran anywhere between six inches and six feet above the level +of the evil-looking marsh flanking it on either side. + +In the care-free days of school, of affluence, and of youth, White had +been taken to gaze upon this alleged relic of Spanish glory. He now +remembered it very clearly. + +And that night, aboard the luxurious Verbena Special, he lay in his bunk +and dreamed dreams awake, which almost overwhelmed him with their +magnificence. But when he slept his dreams were uneasy, interspersed +with vague visions of women who came in regiments through flowering +jungles to drive him out of his own property. It was a horrid sort of +nightmare, for they pelted him with iron-bound copies of Valdez, +knocking him almost senseless into the mud. And it seemed to him that he +might have perished there had not his little red-haired neighbour +extended a slender, helping hand in the nick of time. + +Dreaming of her he awoke, still shaking with the experience. And all +that day he read in his book and pored over the map attached to it, +until the locomotive whistled for St. Augustine, and he was obliged to +disembark for the night. + +However, next morning he was on his way to Verbena, the train flying +through a steady whirlwind of driving sand. And everywhere in the +sunshine stretched the flat-woods, magnificently green--endless miles of +pine and oak and palmetto, set with brilliant glades of vast, flat +fields of wild phlox over which butterflies hovered. + +At Verbena Station he disembarked with his luggage, which consisted of a +complete tropical camping outfit, tinned food, shot-gun, rifle, rods, +spade, shovel, pick, crow. In his hand he carried an innocent looking +satchel, gingerly. It contained dynamite in sticks, and the means to +explode it safely. + +To a hackman he said: "I'm not going to any hotel. What I want is a +wagon, a team of mules, and a driver to take me and my outfit to +Coakachee Creek on the Spanish Causeway. Can you fix it for me?" + +The hackman said he could. And in half an hour he drove up in his mule +wagon to the deserted station, where White sat all alone amid his +mountainous paraphernalia. + +When the wagon had been loaded, and they had been driving through the +woods for nearly half an hour in silence, the driver's curiosity got the +better of him, and he ventured to enquire of White why everybody was +going to the Spanish Causeway. + +Which question startled the young man very disagreeably until he learned +that "everybody" merely meant himself and one other person taken thither +by the same driver the day before. + +Further, he learned that this person was a woman from the North, +completely equipped for camping as was he. Which made him more uneasy +than ever, for he of course identified her with Mr. Munsell's client, +whose land, including half of Lot 210, adjoined his own. Who she might +be and why she had come down here to Seminole County he could not +imagine, because Munsell had intimated that she knew what she was +buying. + +No doubt she meant to play a similar game to Munsell's, and had come +down to take a look at her villainous property before advertising +possibilities of perpetual sunshine. + +Yet, why had she brought a camping outfit? Ordinary land swindlers +remained comfortably aloof from the worthless property they advertised. +What was she intending to do there? + +Instead of a swindler was she, perhaps, the swindlee? Had she bought +the property in good faith? Didn't she know it was under water? Had she +come down here with her pitiful camping equipment prepared to rough it +and set out orange trees? Poor thing! + +"Was she all alone?" he inquired of his cracker driver. + +"Yaas, suh." + +"Poor thing. Did she seem young and inexperienced?" + +"Yaas, suh--'scusin she all has right smart o' red ha'r." + +"What?" exclaimed White excitedly. "You say she is young, and that she +seemed inexperienced, except for her red hair!" + +"Yaas, suh. She all has a right smart hank of red ha'r on her haid. I +ain't never knowed nobody with red ha'r what ain't had a heap mo' +'sperience than the mostest." + +"D-d-did you say that you drove her over to the Spanish Causeway +yesterday?" stammered the dismayed young man. + +"Yaas, suh." + +Horrified thoughts filled his mind. For there could be scarcely any +doubt that this intruder was his red-haired neighbour across the aisle +at the library sale. + +No doubt at all that he already crossed her trail at Munsell's agency. +Also, she had bid in one of the only two copies of Valdez. + +First he had seen her reading it with every symptom of profound +interest. Then she had gone to the sale and bid in one of the copies. +Then he had heard from Munsell about a woman who had bought land along +the Causeway the day before he had made his own purchase. + +And now once more he had struck her swift, direct trail, only to learn +that she was still one day in advance of him! + +In his mental panic he remembered that his title was secure. That +thought comforted him for a few moments, until he began to wonder +whether the land he had acquired was really sufficient to cover a +certain section of perhaps half an acre along the Causeway. + +According to his calculations he had given himself ample margin in every +direction, for the spot he desired to control ought to lie somewhere +about midway between Lot 200 and Lot 210. + +Had he miscalculated? Had _she_ miscalculated? Why had she purchased +that strip from half of Lot 210 to Lot 220? + +There could be only one answer: this clever and astoundingly +enterprising young girl had read Valdez, had decided to take a chance, +had proved her sporting spirit by backing her judgment, and had started +straight as an arrow for the terrifying territory in question. + +Hers had been first choice of Mr. Munsell's lots; she had deliberately +chosen the numbers from half of 210 to 220. She was perfectly ignorant +that he, White, had any serious intentions in Seminole County. +Therefore, it had been her judgment, based on calculations from the +Valdez map, that half of Lot 210 and the intervening territory including +Lot 220, would be ample for her to control a certain spot--the very spot +which he himself expected to control. + +Either he or she had miscalculated. Which? + +Dreadfully worried, he sat in silence beside his taciturn driver, gazing +at the flanking forest through which the white road wound. + +The only habitation they passed was fruit-drying ranch No. 7, in the +wilderness--just this one sunny oasis in the solemn half-light of the +woods. + +White did not remember the road, although when a child he must have +traversed it to the Causeway. Nor when he came in sight of the Causeway +did he recognise it, where it ran through a glade of high, silvery +grass set sparsely with tall palmettos. + +But here it was, and the cracker turned his mules into it, swinging +sharply to the left along Coakachee Creek and proceeding for about two +miles, where a shell mound enabled him to turn his team. + +A wagon could proceed no farther because the crumbling Causeway narrowed +to a foot-path beyond. So here they unloaded; the cracker rested his +mules for a while, then said a brief good-bye to White and shook the +reins. + +When he had driven out of sight, White started to drag his tent and +tent-poles along the dike top toward his own property, which ought to +lie just ahead--somewhere near the curve that the Causeway made a +hundred yards beyond. For he had discovered a weather-beaten shingle +nailed to a water-oak, where he had disembarked his luggage; and on it +were the remains of the painted number 198. + +Lugging tent and poles, he started along the Causeway, keeping a +respectful eye out for snakes. So intent was he on avoiding the playful +attentions of rattler or moccasin that it was only when he almost ran +into it that he discovered another tent pitched directly in his path. + +Of course he had expected to find her encamped there on the Causeway, +but he was surprised, nevertheless, and his tent-poles fell, clattering. + +A second later the flap of her tent was pushed aside, and his red-haired +neighbour of the galleries stepped out, plainly startled. + + + + +XXVIII + + +She seemed to be still more startled when she saw him: her blue eyes +dilated; the colour which had ebbed came back, suffusing her pretty +features. But when she recognised him, fear, dismay, astonishment, and +anxiety blended in swift confusion, leaving her silent, crimson, rooted +to the spot. + +White took off his hat and walked up to where she stood. + +"I'm sorry, Miss Sandys," he said. "Only a few hours ago did I learn who +it was camping here on the Causeway. And--I'm afraid I know why you are +here.... Because the same reason that brought you started me the next +day." + +She had recovered her composure. She said very gravely: + +"I wondered when I saw you reading Valdez whether, by any possibility, +you might think of coming here. And when you bought the other copy I was +still more afraid.... But I had already secured an option on my lots." + +"I know it," he said, chagrined. + +"Were you," she inquired, "the client of Mr. Munsell who tried to buy +from me the other half of Lot 210?" + +"Yes." + +"I wondered. But of course I would not sell it. What lots have you +bought?" + +"I took No. 200 to the northern half of No. 210." + +"Why?" she asked, surprised. + +"Because," he said, reddening, "my calculations tell me that this gives +me ample margin." + +She looked at him in calm disapproval, shaking her head; but her blue +eyes softened. + +"I'm sorry," she said. "You have miscalculated, Mr. White. The spot lies +somewhere within the plot numbered from half of 210 to 220." + +"I am very much afraid that _you_ have miscalculated, Miss Sandys. I did +not even attempt to purchase your plot--except half of 210." + +"Nor did I even consider _your_ plot, Mr. White," she said sorrowfully, +"and I had my choice. Really I am very sorry for you, but you have made +a complete miscalculation." + +"I don't see how I could. I worked it out from the Valdez map." + +"So did I." + +She had the volume under her arm; he had his in his pocket. + +"Let me show you," he began, drawing it out and opening it. "Would you +mind looking at the map for a moment?" + +Her dainty head a trifle on one side, she looked over his shoulder as he +unfolded the map for her. + +"Here," he said, plucking a dead grass stem and tracing the Causeway on +the map, "here lie my lots--including, as you see, the spot marked by +Valdez with a Maltese cross.... I'm sorry; but how in the world could +you have made your mistake?" + +He turned to glance at the girl and saw her amazement and misunderstood +it. + +"It's too bad," he added, feeling profoundly sorry for her. + +"Do you know," she said in a voice quivering with emotion, "that a very +terrible thing has happened to us?" + +"To _us_?" + +"To _both_ of us. I--we--oh, please look at my map! It is--it is +different from yours!" + +With nervous fingers she opened the book, spread out the map, and held +it under his horrified eyes. + +"Do you see!" she exclaimed. "According to _this_ map, my lots include +the Maltese cross of Valdez! I--I--p-please excuse me----" She turned +abruptly and entered her tent; but he had caught the glimmer of sudden +tears in her eyes and had seen the pitiful lips trembling. + +On his own account he was sufficiently scared; now it flashed upon him +that this plucky young thing had probably spent her last penny on the +chance that Bangs had told the truth about "The Journal of Pedro +Valdez." + +That the two maps differed was a staggering blow to him; and his knees +seemed rather weak at the moment, so he sat down on his unpacked tent +and dropped his face in his palms. + +Lord, what a mess! His last cent was invested; hers, too, no doubt. He +hadn't even railroad fare North. Probably she hadn't either. + +He had gambled and lost. There was scarcely a chance that he had not +lost. And the same fearful odds were against her. + +"The poor little thing!" he muttered, staring at her tent. And after a +moment he sprang to his feet and walked over to it. The flap was open; +she sat inside on a camp-chair, her red head in her arms, doubled over +in an attitude of tragic despair. + +"Miss Sandys?" + +She looked up hastily, the quick colour dyeing her pale cheeks, her +long, black lashes glimmering with tears. + +"Do you mind talking it over with me?" he asked. + +"N-no." + +"May I come in?" + +"P-please." + +He seated himself cross-legged on the threshold. + +"There's only one thing to do," he said, "and that is to go ahead. We +must go ahead. Of course the hazard is against us. Let us face the +chance that Bangs was only a clever romancer. Well, we've already +discounted that. Then let us face the discrepancy in our two maps. It's +bad, I'll admit. It almost knocks the last atom of confidence out of me. +It has floored you. But you must not take the count. You must get up." + +He paused, looking around him with troubled eyes; then somehow the sight +of her pathetic figure--the soft, helpless youth of her--suddenly +seemed to prop up his back-bone. + +"Miss Sandys, I am going to stand by you anyway! I suppose, like myself, +you have invested your last dollar in this business?" + +"Y-yes." + +He glanced at the pick, shovel and spade in the corner of her tent, then +at her hands. + +"Who," he asked politely, "was going to wield these?" + +She let her eyes rest on the massive implements of honest toil, then +looked confusedly at him. + +"I was." + +"Did you ever try to dig with any of these things?" + +"N-no. But if I _had_ to do it I knew I could." + +He said, pleasantly: "You have all kinds of courage. Did you bring a +shot-gun?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you know how to load and fire it?" + +"The clerk in the shop instructed me." + +"You are the pluckiest girl I ever laid eyes on.... You camped here all +alone last night, I suppose?" + +"Yes." + +"How about it?" he asked, smilingly. "Were you afraid?" + +She coloured, cast a swift glance at him, saw that his attitude was +perfectly respectful and sympathetic, and said: + +"Yes, I was horribly afraid." + +"Did anything annoy you?" + +"S-something bellowed out there in the swamp----" She shuddered +unaffectedly at the recollection. + +"A bull-alligator," he remarked. + +"What?" + +"Yes," he nodded, "it is terrifying, but they let you alone. I once +heard one bellow on the Tomoka when I was a boy." + +After a while she said with tremulous lips: + +"There seem to be snakes here, too." + +"Didn't you expect any?" + +"Mr. Munsell said there were not any." + +"Did he?" + +"Not," she explained resolutely, "that the presence of snakes would have +deterred me. They frighten me terribly, but--I would have come just the +same." + +"You are sheer pluck," he said. + +"I don't know.... I am very poor.... There seemed to be a chance.... I +took it----" Tears sprang to her eyes again, and she brushed them away +impatiently. + +"Yes," she said, "the only way is to go on, as you say, Mr. White. +Everything in the world that I have is invested here." + +"It is the same with me," he admitted dejectedly. + +They looked at each other curiously for a moment. + +"Isn't it strange?" she murmured. + +"Strange as 'The Journal of Valdez.'... I have an idea. I wonder what +you might think of it." + +She waited; he reflected for another moment, then, smiling: + +"This is a perfectly rotten place for you," he said. "You could not do +manual labour here in this swamp under a nearly vertical sun and keep +your health for twenty-four hours. I've been in Trinidad. I know a +little about the tropics and semi-tropics. Suppose you and I form a +company?" + +"What?" + +"Call it the Valdez Company, or the Association of the Maltese Cross," +he continued cheerfully. "You will do the cooking, washing, housekeeping +for two tents, and the mending. I will do the digging and the +dynamiting. And we'll go ahead doggedly, and face this thing and see it +through to the last ditch. What do you think of it? Your claim as +plotted out is no more, no less, valuable than mine. Both claims may be +worthless. The chances are that they are absolutely valueless. But there +_is_ a chance, too, that we might win out. Shall we try it together?" + +She did not answer. + +"And," he continued, "if the Maltese cross happens to be included within +my claim, I share equally with you. If it chances to lie within your +claim, perhaps I might ask a third----" + +"Mr. White!" + +"Yes?" + +"You will take _two_ thirds!" + +"What?" + +"_Two_ thirds," she repeated firmly, "because your heavier labour +entitles you to that proportion!" + +"My dear Miss Sandys, you are unworldly and inexperienced in your +generosity----" + +"So are you! The idea of your modestly venturing to ask a _third_! And +offering me a _half_ if the Maltese cross lie inside your own territory! +That is not the way to do business, Mr. White!" + +She had become so earnest in her admonition, so charmingly emphatic, +that he smiled in spite of himself. + +She flushed, noticing this, and said: "Altruism is a luxury in business +matters; selfishness of the justifiable sort a necessity. Who will look +out for your interests if you do not?" + +"_You_ seem to be doing it." + +Her colour deepened: "I am only suggesting that you do not make a +foolish bargain with me." + +"Which proves," he said, "that you are not much better at business than +am I. Otherwise you'd have taken me up." + +"I'm a very good business woman," she insisted, warmly, "but I'm too +much of the other kind of woman to be unfair!" + +"Commercially," he said, "we both are sadly behind the times. To-day the +world is eliminating its appendix; to-morrow it will be operated on for +another obsolete and annoying appendage. I mean its conscience," he +added, so seriously that for a moment her own gravity remained +unaltered. Then, like a faint ray of sunlight, across her face the smile +glimmered. It was a winning smile, fresh and unspoiled as the lips it +touched. + +"You _will_ take half--won't you?" she asked. + +"Yes, I will. Is it a bargain?" + +"If you care to make it so, Mr. White." + +He said he did, and they shook hands very formally. Then he went out +and pitched his tent beside hers, set it in order, lugged up the +remainder of his equipment, buried the jars of spring water, and, +entering his tent, changed to flannel shirt, sun-helmet, and khaki. + + + + +XXIX + + +A little later he called to her: she emerged from her tent, and together +they sat down on the edge of the Causeway, with the two maps spread over +their knees. + +That both maps very accurately represented the topography of the +immediate vicinity there could be no doubt; the only discrepancy seemed +to lie in the situation of the Maltese cross. On White's map the cross +fell well within his half of Lot 210; in Jean Sandys' map it was +situated between her half of 210 and 220. + +Plot it out as they might, using Mr. Munsell's diagram, the result was +always the same; and after a while they gave up the useless attempt to +reconcile the differences in the two maps. + +From where they were sitting together on the Causeway's edge, they were +facing due west. At their feet rippled the clear, deep waters of the +swamp, lapping against the base of the Causeway like transparent little +waves in a northern lake. A slight current disclosed the channel where +it flowed out of the north western edges of the swamp, which was set +with tall cypress trees, their flaring bases like silvery pyramids deep +set in the shining ooze. + +East of them the Coakachee flowed through thickets of saw-grass and +green brier, between a forest of oak, pine, and cedar, bordered on the +western side by palm and palmetto--all exactly as drawn in the map of +Pedro Valdez. + +The afternoon was cloudless and warm; an exquisite scent of blossoms +came from the forest when a light breeze rippled the water. Somewhere in +those green and tangled depths jasmine hung its fairy gold from arching +branches, and wild oranges were in bloom. At intervals, when the breeze +set from the east, the heavenly fragrance of magnolia grew more +pronounced. + +After a little searching he discovered the huge tree, far towering above +oak and pine and palm, set with lustrous clusters, ivory and palest +gold, exhaling incense. + +"Wonderful," she said under her breath, when he pointed it out to her. +"This enchanted land is one endless miracle to me." + +"You have never before been in the South?" + +"I have been nowhere." + +"Oh. I thought perhaps when you were a child----" + +"We were too poor. My mother taught piano." + +"I see," he said gravely. + +"I had no childhood," she said. "After the public school, it was the +book section in department stores.... They let me go last week. That is +how I came to be in the Heikem galleries." + +He clasped his hands around one knee and looked out across the +semi-tropical landscape. + +Orange-coloured butterflies with wings like lighted lanterns fluttered +along the edges of the flowering shrubs; a lovely purplish-black one +with four large, white polka dots on his wings flitted persistently +about them. + +Over the sun-baked Causeway blue-tailed lizards raced and chased each +other, frisking up tree trunks, flashing across branches: a snowy heron +rose like some winged thing from Heaven, and floated away into the +silvery light. And like living jewels the gorgeous wood-ducks glided in +and out where the water sparkled among the cypress trees. + +"Think," he said, "of those men in armour toiling through these swamps +under a vertical sun! Think of them, starved, haggard, fever racked, +staggering toward their El Dorado!--their steel mail scorching their +bodies, the briers and poison-grass festering their flesh; moccasin, +rattler, and copperhead menacing them with death at every step; the +poisoned arrows of the Indians whizzing from every glade!" + +"Blood and gold," she nodded, "and the deathless bravery of avarice! +That was Spain. And it inflamed the sunset of Spanish glory." + +He mused for a while: "To think of De Soto being here--_here_ on this +very spot!--here on this ancient Causeway, amid these forests!--towering +in his armour! His plated mail must have made a burning hell for his +body!" + +She looked down at the cool, blue water at her feet. He, too, gazed at +it, curiously. For a few feet the depths were visible, then a +translucent gloom, glimmering with emerald lights, obscured further +penetration of his vision. Deep down in that water was what they +sought--if it truly existed at all. + +After a few moments' silence he rose, drew the hunting-knife at his +belt, severed a tall, swamp-maple sapling, trimmed it, and, returning to +the water's edge, deliberately sounded the channel. He could not touch +bottom there, or even at the base of the Causeway. + +"Miss Sandys," he said, "there is plenty of room for such a structure as +the Maltese cross is supposed to mark." + +"I wonder," she murmured. + +"Oh, there's room enough," he repeated, with an uneasy laugh. "Suppose +we begin operations!" + +"When?" + +"Now!" + +She looked up at him, flushed and smiling: + +"It is going to take weeks and weeks, isn't it?" + +"I thought so before I came down here. But--I don't see why we shouldn't +blow a hole through this Causeway in a few minutes." + +"What!" + +She rose to her feet, slightly excited, not understanding. + +"I could set off enough dynamite right here," he said, stamping his heel +into the white dust, "--enough dynamite to open up that channel into the +Coakachee. Why don't I do it?" + +Pink with excitement she said breathlessly: "Did you bring _dynamite_?" + +"Didn't _you_?" + +"I--I never even thought of it. F-fire crackers frighten me. I thought +it would be all I could do to fire off my shot-gun." And she bit her lip +with vexation. + +"Why," he said, "it would take a gang of men a week to cut through this +Causeway, besides building a coffer-dam." He looked at her curiously. +"How did _you_ expect to begin operations all alone?" + +"I--I expected to dig." + +He looked at her delicate little hands: + +"You meant to dig your way through with pick and shovel?" + +"Yes--if it took a year." + +"And how did you expect to construct your coffer-dam?" + +"I didn't know about a coffer-dam," she admitted, blushing. After a +moment she lifted her pretty, distressed eyes to his: "I--I had no +knowledge--only courage," she said.... "And I needed money." + +A responsive flush of sympathy and pity passed over him; she was so +plucky, so adorably helpless. Even now he knew she was unconscious of +the peril into which her confidence and folly had led her--a peril +averted only by the mere accident of his own arrival. + +He said lightly: "Shall we try to solve this thing now? Shall we take a +chance, set our charges, and blow a hole in this Causeway big enough to +drain that water off in an hour?" + +"Could you do _that_?" she exclaimed, delighted. + +"I think so." + +"Then tell me what to do to help you." + +He turned toward her, hesitated, controlling the impulsive reply. + +"To help me," he said, smilingly, "please keep away from the dynamite." + +"Oh, I will," she nodded seriously. "What else am I to do?" + +"Would you mind preparing dinner?" + +She looked up at him a little shyly: "No.... And I am very glad that I +am not to dine alone." + +"So am I," he said. "And I am very glad that it is with _you_ I am to +dine." + +"You never even looked at me in the galleries," she said. + +"Then--how could I know you were reading Valdez if I never looked at +you?" + +"Oh, you may have looked at the _book_ I was reading." + +"I did," he said, "--and at the hands that held it." + +"Never dreaming that they meant to wield a pick-axe," she laughed, "and +encompass your discomfiture. But after all they did neither the one nor +the other; did they?" + +He looked at the smooth little hands cupped in the shallow pockets of +her white flannel Norfolk. They fascinated him. + +"To think," he said, half to himself, "--to think of those hands +wielding a pick-axe!" + +She smiled, head slightly on one side, and bent, contemplating her right +hand. + +"You know," she said, "I certainly would have done it." + +"You would have been crippled in an hour." + +Her head went up, but she was still smiling as she said: "I'd have gone +through with it--somehow." + +"Yes," he said slowly. "I believe you would." + +"Not," she added, blushing, "that I mean to vaunt myself or my +courage----" + +"No: I understand. You are not that kind.... It's rather extraordinary +how well I--I _think_ I know you already." + +"Perhaps you _do_ know me--already." + +"I really believe I do." + +"It's very likely. I am just what I seem to be. There is no mystery +about me. I am what I appear to be." + +"You are also very direct." + +"Yes. It's my nature to be direct. I am not a bit politic or diplomatic +or circuitous." + +"So I noticed," he said smilingly, "when you discussed finance with me. +You were not a bit politic." + +She smiled, too, a little embarrassed: "How could I be anything but +frank in return for your very unworldly generosity?" she said. "Because +what you offered _was_ unworldly. Anyway, I should have been direct with +you; I knew what I wanted; I knew what you wanted. All I had to do was +to make up my mind. And I did so." + +"Did you make up your mind about me, also?" + +"Yes, about you, also." + +They both smiled. + +She was so straight and slender and pretty in her white flannels and +white outing hat--her attitude so confident, so charmingly determined, +that she seemed to him even younger than she really was--a delightful, +illogical, fresh and fearless school-girl, translated by some flash of +magic from her school hither, and set down unruffled and unstartled upon +her light, white-shod feet. + +Even now it amazed him to realise that she really understood nothing of +the lonely perils lately confronting her in this desolate place. + +For if there were nothing actually to fear from the wild beasts of the +region, _that which the beasts themselves feared_ might have confronted +her at any moment. He shuddered as he thought of it. + +And what would she have done if suddenly clutched by fever? What would +she have done if a white-mouthed moccasin had struck her ankle--or if it +had been the diamond-set Death himself? + +"You don't mind my speaking plainly, do you?" he said bluntly. + +"Why, no, of course not." She looked at him inquiringly. + +"Don't stray far away from me, will you?" + +"What?" + +"Don't wander away by yourself, out of sight, while we are engaged in +this business." + +She looked serious and perplexed for a moment, then turned a delicate +pink and began to laugh in a pretty, embarrassed way. + +"Are you afraid I'll get into mischief? Do you know it is very kind of +you to feel that way?... And rather unexpected--in a man who--sat for +three days across the aisle from me--and never even looked in my +direction. Tell me, what am I to be afraid of in this place?" + +"There are snakes about," he said with emphasis. + +"Oh, yes; I've seen some swimming." + +"There are four poisonous species among them," he continued. "That's one +of the reasons for your keeping near me." + +She nodded, a trifle awed. + +"So you will, won't you?" + +"Yes," she said, taking his words so literally that, when they turned to +walk toward the tents, she came up close beside him, naively as a child, +and laid one hand on his sleeve as they started back across the +Causeway. + +"Suppose either one of us is bitten?" she asked after a silence. + +"I have lancets, tourniquets, and anti-venom in my tent." + +Her smooth hand tightened a little on his arm. She had not realised that +the danger was more than a vague possibility. + +"You have spring water, of course," he said. + +"No.... I boiled a little from the swamp before I drank it." + +He turned to her sternly and drew her arm through his with an +unconscious movement of protection. + +"Are you sure that water was properly boiled--_thoroughly_ boiled?" he +demanded. + +"It bubbled." + +"Listen to me! Hereafter when you are thirsty you will use my spring +water. Is that understood?" + +"Yes.... And thank you." + +"You don't want to get break-bone fever, do you?" + +"No-o!" she said hastily. "I will do everything you wish." + +"I'll hang your hammock for you," he said. "Always look in your shoes +for scorpions and spiders before you put them on. Never step over a +fallen log before you first look on the other side. Rattlers lie there. +Never go near a swamp without looking for moccasins. + +"Don't let the direct sunlight fall on your bare head; don't eat fruit +for a week; don't ever go to sleep unless you have a blanket on. You +won't do any of these things, will you?" he inquired anxiously, almost +tenderly. + +"I promise. And I never dreamed that there was anything to apprehend +except alligators!" she said, tightening her arm around his own. + +"Alligators won't bother you--unless you run across a big one in the +woods. Then keep clear of him." + +"I will!" she said earnestly. + +"And don't sit about on old logs or lean against trees." + +"Why? Lizards?" + +"Oh, they're not harmful. But wood-ticks might give you a miserable week +or two." + +"Oh, dear, oh, dear," she murmured, "I am so glad you came here!" And +quite innocently she pressed his arm. She did it because she was +grateful. She had a very direct way with her. + + + + +XXX + + +When they came to their tents he went into hers, slung her hammock +properly, shook a scorpion out of her slippers, and set his heel on it; +drove a non-poisonous but noisy puff-adder from under her foot-rug, the +creature hissing like a boiling kettle and distending its grey and black +neck. + +Terrified but outwardly calm, she stood beside him, now clutching his +arm very closely; and at last her tent was in order, the last spider and +lizard hustled out, the oil cook-stove burning, the tinned goods ready, +the aluminum batterie-de-cuisine ranged at her elbow. + +"I wonder," he said, hesitating, "whether I dare leave you long enough +to go and dig some holes with a crow-bar." + +"Why, of course!" she said. "You can't have me tagging at your heels +every minute, you know." + +He laughed: "It's _I_ who do the tagging." + +"It isn't disagreeable," she said shyly. + +"I don't mean to dog every step you take," he continued, "but now, when +you are out of my sight, I--I can't help feeling a trifle anxious." + +"But you mustn't feel responsible for me. I came down here on my own +initiative. I certainly deserve whatever happens to me. Don't I?" + +"What comfort would that be to me if anything unpleasant did happen to +you?" + +"Why," she asked frankly, "should you feel as responsible for my welfare +as that? After all, I am only a stranger, you know." + +He said: "Do you really feel like a stranger? Do you really feel that I +am one?" + +She considered the proposition for a few moments. + +"No," she said, "I don't. And perhaps it is natural for us to take a +friendly interest in each other." + +"It comes perfectly natural to me to take a v-very v-vivid interest in +you," he said. "What with snakes and scorpions and wood-ticks and +unboiled water and the actinic rays of the sun, I can't very well help +worrying about you. After all," he added lucidly, "you're a girl, you +know." + +She admitted the accusation with a smile so sweet that there could be no +doubt of her sex. + +"However," she said, "you should entertain no apprehensions concerning +me. I have none concerning you. I think you know your business." + +"Of course," he said, going into his tent and returning loaded with +crow-bar, pick-axe, dynamite, battery, and wires. + +She laid aside the aluminum cooking-utensils with which she had been +fussing and rose from her knees as he passed her with a pleasant nod of +_au revoir_. + +"You'll be careful with that dynamite, won't you?" she said anxiously. +"You know it goes off at all sorts of unexpected moments." + +"I think I understand how to handle it," he reassured her. + +"Are you quite certain?" + +"Oh, yes. But perhaps you'd better not come any nearer----" + +"Mr. White!" + +"What!" + +"It _is_ dangerous! I don't like to have you go away alone with that +dynamite. You make me very anxious." + +"You needn't be. If--in the very remote event of anything going +wrong--now don't forget what I say!--but in case of an accident to me, +you'll be all right if you start back to Verbena at once--instantly--and +take the right-hand road----" + +"Mr. _White_!" + +"Yes?" + +"I was _not_ thinking of myself! I was concerned about _you_!" + +"Me?--_personally_?" + +"Of course! You say you have me on your mind. Do you think I am devoid +of human feeling?" + +"Were you--really--thinking about _me_?" he repeated slowly. "That was +very nice of you.... I didn't quite understand.... I'll be careful with +the dynamite." + +"Perhaps I'd better go with you," she suggested irresolutely. + +"Why?" + +"I could hold a green umbrella over you while you are digging holes. You +yourself say that the sun is dangerous." + +"My sun-helmet makes it all right," he said, deeply touched. + +"You won't take it off, will you?" + +"No." + +"And you'll look all around you for snakes before you take the next +step, won't you?" she insisted. + +He promised, thrilled by her frank solicitude. + +A little way up the path he paused, looked around, and saw her standing +there looking after him. + +"You're sure you'll be all right?" he called back to her. + +"Yes. Are you sure _you_ will be?" + +"Oh, yes!" + +They made two quick gestures of adieu, and he resumed the path. +Presently he turned again. She was still standing there looking after +him. They made two gestures of farewell and he resumed the path. After a +while he looked back. She--but what's the use! + +When he came to the spot marked for destruction, he laid down his +paraphernalia, seized the crow-bar, and began to dig, scarcely conscious +of what he was about because he had become so deeply absorbed in other +things--in _an_-other thing--a human one with red hair and otherwise +divinely endowed. + +The swift onset of this heavenly emotion was making him giddy--or +perhaps it was unaccustomed manual labor under a semi-tropical sun. + +Anyway he went about his work blindly but vigorously, seeing nothing of +the surrounding landscape or of the immediate ground into which he +rammed his crow-bar, so constantly did the charming vision of her +piquant features shut out all else. + +And all the time he was worrying, too. He thought of snakes biting her +distractingly pretty ankles; he thought of wood-ticks and of her snowy +neck; of scorpions and of the delicate little hands. + +How on earth was he ever going to endure the strain if already, in these +few hours, his anxiety about her welfare was assuming such deep and +portentous proportions! How was he going to stand the worry until she +was safe in the snakeless, tickless North again! + +She couldn't remain here! She must go North. His mind seemed already +tottering under its new and constantly increasing load of +responsibility; and he dug away fiercely with his bar, making twice as +many holes as he had meant to. + +For he had suddenly determined to be done with the job and get her into +some safe place, and he meant to set off a charge of dynamite that +would do the business without fail. + +Charging and tamping the holes, he used caution, even in spite of his +increasing impatience to return and see how she was; arguing very justly +with himself that if he blew himself up he couldn't very well learn how +she was. + +So he attached the wires very carefully, made his connections, picked up +the big reel and the remainder of his tools, and walked toward the +distant tents, unreeling his wire as he moved along. + +She was making soup, but she heard the jangle of his equipment, sprang +to her feet, and ran out to meet him. + +He let fall everything and held out both hands. In them she laid her +own. + +"I'm so glad to see you!" he said warmly. "I'm so thankful that you're +all right!" + +"I'm so glad you came back," she said frankly. "I have been most uneasy +about you." + +"I've been very anxious, too," he said. Then, drawing an unfeigned sigh +of relief: "It does seem good to get back again!" He had been away +nearly half an hour. + +She examined the wire and the battery gingerly, asking him innumerable +questions about it. + +"Do you suppose," she ended, "that it will be safe for you to set off +the charge from this camp?" + +"Oh, perfectly," he nodded. + +"Of course," she said, half to herself, "we'll both be blown up if it +isn't safe. And that is _something_!" + +And she came up very close when he said he was ready to fire, and laid +her hand on his arm. The hand was steady enough. But when he glanced at +her he saw how white she had become. + +"Why, Jean!" he said gently. "Are you frightened?" + +"No.... I won't mind it if I may stand rather near you." And she closed +her eyes and placed both hands over her ears. + +"Do you think I'd fire this charge," he demanded warmly, "if there was +the slightest possible danger to _you_? Take down your hands and +listen." + +Her closed eyelids quivered: "We'll both--there won't be anything left +of either of us if anything does happen," she said tremulously. "I am +not afraid.... Only tell me when to close my ears." + +"Do you really think there is danger?" + +"I don't know." + +He looked at her standing there, pale, plucky, eyes tightly shut, her +pretty fingers resting lightly on her ears. + +He said: "Would you think me crazy if I tell you something?" + +"W-What?" + +"Would you think me insane, Jean?" + +"I don't think I would." + +"You wouldn't consider me utterly mad?" + +"N-no." + +"No--_what_?" + +"No, I wouldn't consider you mad----" + +"No--_what_?" he persisted. + +And after a moment her pallor was tinted with a delicate rose. + +"No--_what_?" he insisted again. + +"No--Jim," she answered under breath. + +"Then--close your ears, Jean, dear." + +She closed them; his arm encircled her waist. She bore it nobly. + +"You may fire when you are ready--James!" she said faintly. + +A thunder-clap answered her; the Causeway seemed to spring up under +their feet; the world reeled. + +Presently she heard his voice sounding calmly: "Are you all right, +Jean?" + +"Yes.... I was thinking of you--as long as I could think at all. I was +ready to go--anywhere--with you." + +"I have been ready for that," he said unsteadily, "from the moment I +heard your voice. But it is--is wonderful of _you_!" + +She opened her blue eyes, dreamily looking up into his. Then the colour +surged into her face. + +"If--if you had spoken to me across the aisle," she said, "it would have +begun even sooner, I think.... Because I can't imagine myself +not--caring for you." + +He took her into his arms: + +"Don't worry," he said, "I'll make a place for you in the world, even if +that Maltese cross means nothing." + +She looked into his eyes fearlessly: "I know you will," she said. + +Then he kissed her and she put both arms around his neck and offered her +fresh, young lips again. + + + + +XXXI + + +Toward sunset he came to, partially, passed his hand across his +enchanted eyes, and rose from the hammock beside her. + +"Dearest," he said, "that swamp ought to be partly drained by this time. +Suppose we walk over before dinner and take a look?" + +Still confused by the sweetness of her dream, she sat up, and he drew +her to her feet, where she stood twisting up her beautiful hair, half +smiling, shy, adorable. + +Then together they walked slowly out along the Causeway, so absorbed in +each other that already they had forgotten the explosion, and even the +Maltese cross itself. + +It was only when they were halted by the great gap in the Causeway that +Jean Sandys glanced to the left, over a vast bed of shining mud, where +before blue wavelets had lapped the base of the Causeway. + +Then her vaguely smiling eyes flew wide open; she caught her lover's arm +in an excited clasp. + +"O Jim!" she exclaimed. "Look! Look! It is true! It is true! _Look_ at +the bed of the lake!" + +They stood trembling and staring at the low, squat, windowless coquina +house, reeking with the silt of centuries, crawling with stranded water +creatures. + +The stones that had blocked the door had fallen before the shock of the +dynamite. + +"Good God!" he whispered. "_Do you see what is inside?_" + +But Jean Sandys, calmly looking untold wealth in its glittering face, +sighed, smiled, and turned her blue gaze on her lover, finding in his +eyes the only miracle that now had power to hold her undivided +attention. + +For it is that way with some girls. + + * * * * * + +But the novelist, unable to endure a dose of his own technique, could no +longer control his impatience: + +"What in God's name was there in that stone house!" he burst out. + +"Oh, Lord!" muttered Stafford, "it is two hours after midnight." + +He rose, bent over the girl's hand, and kissed the emerald on the third +finger. + +Figure after figure, tall, shadowy, leisurely followed his example, +while her little hand lay listlessly on the silken cushions and her +dreaming eyes seemed to see nobody. + +Duane and I remained for a while seated, then in silence,--which Athalie +finally broke for us: + +"Patience," she said, "is the art of hoping.... Good-night." + +I rose; she looked up at me, lifted her slim arm and placed the palm of +her hand against my lips. + +And so I took my leave; thinking. + + + +-------------------------------------------------+ + | Novels by Robert W. Chambers | + | | + | Quick Action The Business of Life | + | Blue-Bird Weather The Gay Rebellion | + | Japonette The Streets of Ascalon | + | The Adventures of a The Common Law | + | Modest Man Ailsa Paige | + | The Danger Mark The Green Mouse | + | Special Messenger Iole | + | The Firing Line The Reckoning | + | The Younger Set The Maid-at-Arms | + | The Fighting Chance Cardigan | + | Some Ladies in Haste The Haunts of Men | + | The Tree of Heaven The Mystery of Choice | + | The Tracer of Lost The Cambric Mask | + | Persons The Maker of Moons | + | A Young Man in a The King in Yellow | + | Hurry In Search of the Unknown | + | Lorraine | + | Maids of Paradise The Conspirators | + | Ashes of Empire A King and a Few | + | The Red Republic Dukes | + | Outsiders In the Quarter | + +-------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Quick Action, by Robert W. 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