Title: The Firing Line
Author: Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William), 1865-1933
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Firing Line" ***


[Illustration: "She faced him, white as death, looking at him
blindly."]


                         THE

                     FIRING LINE


                          BY

                  ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

AUTHOR OF "THE FIGHTING CHANCE," "THE YOUNGER SET," ETC.

         D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK, 1908



                         TO

                  MARGERY CHAMBERS



CONTENTS


     CHAPTER I.--A SKIRMISH

     CHAPTER II.--A LANDING

     CHAPTER III.--AN ADVANCE

     CHAPTER IV.--RECONNAISSANCE

     CHAPTER V.--A FLANK MOVEMENT

     CHAPTER VI.--ARMISTICE

     CHAPTER VII.--A CHANGE OF BASE

     CHAPTER VIII.--MANOEUVERING

     CHAPTER IX.--THE INVASION

     CHAPTER X.--TERRA INCOGNITA

     CHAPTER XI.--PATHFINDERS

     CHAPTER XII.--THE ALLIED FORCES

     CHAPTER XIII.--THE SILENT PARTNERS

     CHAPTER XIV.--STRATEGY

     CHAPTER XV.--UNDER FIRE

     CHAPTER XVI.--AN ULTIMATUM

     CHAPTER XVII.--ECHOES

     CHAPTER XVIII.--PERIL

     CHAPTER XIX.--THE LINE OF BATTLE

     CHAPTER XX.--A NEW ENEMY

     CHAPTER XXI.--REINFORCEMENTS

     CHAPTER XXII.--THE ROLL CALL

     CHAPTER XXIII.--A CAPITULATION

     CHAPTER XXIV.--THE SCHOOL OF THE RECRUIT

     CHAPTER XXV.--A CONFERENCE

     CHAPTER XXVI.--SEALED INSTRUCTIONS

     CHAPTER XXVII.--MALCOURT LISTENS

     CHAPTER XXVIII.--HAMIL IS SILENT

     CHAPTER XXIX.--CALYPSO'S GIFT



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


     "She faced him, white as death, looking at him blindly"

     "So he sat there and told her all about his commission"

     "Never had he tasted such a heavenly banquet"

     "Examining the pile of plans, reports, and blue-prints"

     "She walked a few paces toward the house, halted, and looked
     back audaciously"

     "Then fell prone, head buried in her tumbled hair"

     "'You can't go!' he said"

     "And locked in his embrace, she lifted her lips to his"



CHAPTER I

A SKIRMISH


As the wind veered and grew cooler a ribbon of haze appeared above the
Gulf-stream.

Young Hamil, resting on his oars, gazed absently into the creeping mist.
Under it the ocean sparkled with subdued brilliancy; through it,
shoreward, green palms and palmettos turned silvery; and, as the fog
spread, the sea-pier, the vast white hotel, bathing-house, cottage,
pavilion, faded to phantoms tinted with rose and pearl.

Leaning there on his oars, he could still make out the distant sands
flecked with the colours of sunshades and bathing-skirts; the breeze
dried his hair and limbs, but his swimming-shirt and trunks still
dripped salt water.

Inshore a dory of the beach guard drifted along the outer line of
breakers beyond which the more adventurous bathers were diving from an
anchored raft. Still farther out moving dots indicated the progress of
hardier swimmers; one in particular, a girl capped with a brilliant red
kerchief, seemed to be already nearer to Hamil than to the shore.

It was all very new and interesting to him--the shore with its spectral
palms and giant caravansary, the misty, opalescent sea where a white
steam-yacht lay anchored north of him--the _Ariani_--from which he had
come, and on board of which the others were still doubtless
asleep--Portlaw, Malcourt, and Wayward. And at thought of the others he
yawned and moistened his lips, still feverish from last night's
unwisdom; and leaning forward on his oars, sat brooding, cradled by the
flowing motion of the sea.

The wind was still drawing into the north; he felt it, never strong, but
always a little cooler, in his hair and on his wet swimming-shirt. The
flat cloud along the Gulf-stream spread thickly coastward, and after a
little while the ghosts of things terrestrial disappeared.

All around him, now, blankness--save for the gray silhouette of the
_Ariani_. A colourless canopy surrounded him, centred by a tiny pool of
ocean. Overhead through the vanishing blue, hundreds of wild duck were
stringing out to sea; under his tent of fog the tarnished silver of the
water formed a floor smoothly unquiet.

Sounds from the land, hitherto unheard, now came strangely distinct; the
cries of bathers, laughter, the muffled shock of the surf, doubled and
redoubled along the sands; the barking of a dog at the water's edge.
Clear and near sounded the ship's bell on the _Ariani_; a moment's
rattle of block and tackle, a dull call, answered; and silence. Through
which, without a sound, swept a great bird with scarce a beat of its
spread wings; and behind it, another, and, at exact intervals another
and another in impressive processional, sailing majestically through the
fog; white pelicans winging inland to the lagoons.

A few minutes later the wind, which had become fitful, suddenly grew
warm. All around him now the mist was dissolving into a thin golden
rain; the land-breeze freshened, blowing through distant jasmine
thickets and orange groves, and a soft fragrance stole out over the sea.

As the sun broke through in misty splendour, the young man, brooding on
his oars, closed his eyes; and at the same instant his boat careened
violently, almost capsizing as a slender wet shape clambered aboard and
dropped into the bows. As the boat heeled under the shock Hamil had
instinctively flung his whole weight against the starboard gunwale. Now
he recovered his oars and his balance at the same time, and, as he swung
half around, his unceremonious visitor struggled to sit upright, still
fighting for breath.

"I beg your pardon," she managed to say; "may I rest here? I am--" She
stopped short; a flash of sudden recognition came into her
eyes--flickered, and faded. It was evident to him that, for a moment,
she thought she had met him before.

"Of course you may stay here," he said, inclined to laugh.

She settled down, stretching slightly backward as though to give her
lungs fuller play. In a little while her breathing grew more regular;
her eyes closed for a moment, then opened thoughtfully, skyward.

Hamil's curious and half-amused gaze rested on her as he resumed the
oars. But when he turned his back and headed the boat shoreward a quick
protest checked him, and oars at rest, he turned again, looking
inquiringly at her over his shoulder.

"I am only rowing you back to the beach," he said.

"Don't row me in; I am perfectly able to swim back."

"No doubt," he returned drily, "but haven't you played tag with Death
sufficiently for one day?"

"Death?" She dismissed the grotesque suggestion with a shrug, then
straightened up, breathing freely and deeply. "It is an easy swim," she
remarked, occupied with her wet hair under the knotted scarlet; "the fog
confused me; that was all."

"And how long could you have kept afloat if the fog had not lifted?" he
inquired with gentle sarcasm. To which, adroitly adjusting hair and
kerchief, she made no answer. So he added: "There is supposed to be a
difference between mature courage and the fool-hardiness of the
unfledged--"

"What?"

The quick close-clipped question cutting his own words silenced him.
And, as he made no reply, she continued to twist the red kerchief around
her hair, and to knot it securely, her doubtful glance returning once or
twice to his amused face.

When all had been made fast and secure she rested one arm on the gunwale
and dropped the other across her knees, relaxing in every muscle a
moment before departure. And, somehow, to Hamil, the unconscious grace
of the attitude suggested the "Resting Hermes"--that sculptured
concentration of suspended motion.

"You had better not go just yet," he said, pointing seaward.

She also had been watching the same thing that he was now looking at, a
thin haze which again became apparent over the Gulf-stream.

"Do you think it will thicken?" she asked.

"I don't know; you had a close call last time--"

"There was no danger."

"I think there was danger enough; you were apparently headed straight
out to sea--"

"I heard a ship's bell and swam toward it, and when the fog lifted I
found you."

"Why didn't you swim toward the shore? You could hear the surf--and a
dog barking."

"I"--she turned pink with annoyance--"I suppose I was a trifle tired--if
you insist. I realised that I had lost my bearings; that was all. Then I
heard a ship's bell.... Then the mist lifted and I saw you--but I've
explained all that before. _Look_ at that exasperating fog!"

Vexation silenced her; she sat restless for a few seconds, then:

"What do you think I had better do?"

"I think you had better try to endure me for a few minutes longer. I'm
safer than the fog."

But his amusement left her unresponsive, plainly occupied with her own
ideas.

Again the tent of vapour stretched its magic folds above the boat and
around it; again the shoreward shapes faded to phantoms and disappeared.

He spoke again once or twice, but her brief replies did not encourage
him. At first, he concluded that her inattention and indifference must
be due to self-consciousness; then, slightly annoyed, he decided they
were not. And, very gradually, he began to realise that the
unconventional, always so attractive to the casual young man, did not
interest her at all, even enough to be aware of it or of him.

This cool unconsciousness of self, of him, of a situation which to any
wholesome masculine mind contained the germs of humour, romance, and all
sorts of amusing possibilities, began to be a little irksome to him. And
still her aloofness amused him, too.

"Do you know of any decorous reason why we should not talk to each
other occasionally during this fog?" he asked.

She turned her head, considered him inattentively, then turned it away
again.

"No," she said indifferently; "what did you desire to say?"

Resting on his oars, the unrequited smile still forlornly edging his
lips, he looked at his visitor, who was staring into the fog, lost in
her own reflections; and never a glimmer in her eyes, never a quiver of
lid or lash betrayed any consciousness of his gaze or even of his
presence. And he continued to inspect her with increasing annoyance.

The smooth skin, the vivid lips slightly upcurled, the straight delicate
nose, the cheeks so smoothly rounded where the dark thick lashes swept
their bloom as she looked downward at the water--all this was abstractly
beautiful; very lovely, too, the full column of the neck, and the
rounded arms guiltless of sunburn or tan.

So unusually white were both neck and arms that Hamil ventured to speak
of it, politely, asking her if this was not her first swim that season.

Voice and question roused her from abstraction; she turned toward him,
then glanced down at her unstained skin.

"My first swim?" she repeated; "oh, you mean my arms? No, I never burn;
they change very little." Straightening up she sat looking across the
boat at him without visible interest at first, then doubtfully, as
though in an effort to say something polite.

"I am really very grateful to you for letting me sit here. Please don't
feel obliged to amuse me during this annoying fog."

"Thank you; you _are_ rather difficult to talk to. But I don't mind
trying at judicious intervals," he said, laughing.

She considered him askance. "If you wish to row in, do so. I did not
mean to keep you here at sea--"

"Oh, I belong out here; I'm from the _Ariani_ yonder; you heard her bell
in the fog. We came from Nassau last night.... Have you ever been to
Nassau?"

The girl nodded listlessly and glanced at the white yacht, now becoming
visible through the thinning mist. Somewhere above in the viewless void
an aura grew and spread into a blinding glory; and all around, once
more, the fog turned into floating golden vapour shot with rain.

The girl placed both hands on the gunwales as though preparing to rise.

"Not yet!" said Hamil sharply.

"I beg your pardon?"--looking up surprised, still poised lightly on both
palms as though checked at the instant of rising into swift aërial
flight--so light, so buoyant she appeared.

"Don't go overboard," he repeated.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm going to row you in."

"I wish to swim; I prefer it."

"I am only going to take you to the float--"

"But I don't care to have you. I am perfectly able to swim in--"

"I know you are," he said, swinging clear around in his seat to face
her, "but I put it in the form of a request; will you be kind enough to
let me row you part way to the float? This fog is not ended."

She opened her lips to protest; indeed, for a moment it looked as if she
were going overboard without further argument; then perhaps some
belated idea of civility due him for the hospitality of his boat
restrained her.

"You understand, of course, that I am quite able to swim in," she said.

"Yes; may I now row you part way? The fog is closing in again."

She yielded with a pretty indifference, none the less charming because
there was no flattery in it for him. He now sat facing her, pushing his
oars through the water; and she stole a curious glance at his
features--slightly sullen for the moment--noticing his well-set,
well-shaped head and good shoulders.

That fugitive glance confirmed the impression of recognition in her
mind. He was what she had expected in breeding and physique--the type
usually to be met with where the world can afford to take its leisure.

As he was not looking at her she ventured to continue her inspection,
leaning back, and dropping her bare arm alongside, to trail her fingers
through the sunlit water.

"Have we not rowed far enough?" she asked presently. "This fog is
apparently going to last forever."

"Like your silence," he said gaily.

Raising her eyes in displeasure she met his own frankly amused.

"Shall I tell you," he asked, "exactly why I insisted on rowing you in?
I'm afraid"--he glanced at her with the quick smile breaking again on
his lips--"I'm afraid you don't care whether I tell you or not. Do you?"

"If you ask me--I really don't," she said. "And, by the way, do you know
that if you turned around properly and faced the stern you could make
better progress with your oars?"

"By 'better' do you mean _quicker_ progress?" he asked, so naïvely that
she concluded he was a trifle stupid. The best-looking ones were usually
stupid.

"Yes, of course," she said, impatient. "It's all very well to push a
punt across a mill-pond that way, but it's not treating the Atlantic
with very much respect."

"_You_ were not particularly respectful toward the Atlantic Ocean when
you started to swim across it."

But again the echo of amusement in his voice found no response in her
unsmiling silence.

He thought to himself: "Is she a prude, or merely stupid! The pity of
it!--with her eyes of a thinking goddess!--and no ideas behind them!
What she understands is the commonplace. Let us offer her the obvious."

And, aloud, fatuously: "This is a rarely beautiful scene--"

"What?" crisply.

And feeling mildly wicked he continued:

--"Soft skies, a sea of Ionian azure; one might almost expect to see a
triareme heading up yonder out of the south, festooned with the golden
fleece. This is just the sort of a scene for a triareme; don't you think
so?"

Her reply was the slightest possible nod.

He looked at her meanly amused:

"It's really very classical," he said, "like the voyage of Ulysses; I,
Ulysses, you the water nymph Calypso, drifting in that golden ship of
Romance--"

"Calypso was a _land_ nymph," she observed, absently, "if accuracy
interests you as much as your monologue."

Checked and surprised, he began to laugh at his own discomfiture; and
she, elbow on the gunwale, small hand cupping her chin, watched him with
an expressionless directness that very soon extinguished his amusement
and left him awkward in the silence.

"I've tried my very best to be civil and agreeable," he said after a
moment. "Is it really such an effort for you to talk to a man?"

"Not if I am interested," she said quietly.

He felt that his ears were growing red; she noticed it, too, and added:
"I do not mean to be _too_ rude; and I am quite sure you do not either."

"Of course not," he said; "only I couldn't help seeing the humour of
romance in our ocean encounter. I think anybody would--except you--"

"What?"

The crisp, quick question which, with her, usually seemed like an
exclamation, always startled him into temporary silence; then he began
more carefully:

"There was one chance in a million of your finding my boat in the fog.
If you hadn't found it--" He shook his head. "And so I wish you might
recognise in our encounter something amusing, humourous"--he looked
cautiously at her--"even mildly romantic--ah--enough to--to--"

"To what?"

"Why--to say--to do something characteristically--ah--"

"What?"

"--Human!" he ventured--quite prepared to see her rise wrathfully and go
overboard.

Instead she remained motionless, those clear, disconcerting eyes fixed
steadily on him. Once or twice he thought that her upper lip quivered;
that some delicate demon of laughter was trying to look out at him under
the lashes; but not a lid twitched; the vivid lips rested gravely upon
each other. After a silence she said:

"What is it, _human_, that you expect me to do? Flirt with you?"

"Good Lord, no!" he said, stampeded.

She was now paying him the compliment of her full attention; he felt the
dubious flattery, although it slightly scared him.

"Why is it," she asked, "that a man is eternally occupied in thinking
about the effect he produces on woman--whether or not he knows her--that
seems to make no difference at all? Why is it?"

He turned redder; she sat curled up, nursing both ankles, and
contemplating him with impersonal and searching curiosity.

"Tell me," she said; "is there any earthly reason why you and I should
be interested in each other--enough, I mean, to make any effort toward
civility beyond the bounds of ordinary convention?"

He did not answer.

"Because," she added, "if there is not, any such effort on your part
borders rather closely on the offensive. And I am quite sure you do not
intend that."

He was indignant now, but utterly incapable of retort.

"Is there anything romantic in it because a chance swimmer rests a few
moments in somebody's boat?" she asked. "Is that chance swimmer
superhuman or inhuman or ultra-human because she is not consciously,
and simperingly, preoccupied with the fact that there happens to be a
man in her vicinity?"

"Good heavens!" he broke out, "do you think I'm that sort of noodle--"

"But I _don't_ think about you at all," she interrupted; "there is not a
thought that I have which concerns you as an individual. My homily is
delivered in the abstract. Can't you--in the abstract--understand
_that_?--even if you are a bit doubtful concerning the seven deadly
conventions?"

He rested on his oars, tingling all over with wrath and surprise.

"And now," she said quietly, "I think it time to go. The sun is almost
shining, you see, and the beauty of the scene is too obvious for even
you to miss."

"May I express an opinion before you depart?"

"If it is not a very long or very dissenting opinion."

"Then it's this: two normal and wholesome people--man and a woman, can
_not_ meet, either conventionally or unconventionally, without
expressing some atom of interest in one another as individuals. I say
two--perfectly--normal--people--"

"But it has just happened!" she insisted, preparing to rise.

"No, it has not happened."

"Really. You speak for yourself of course--"

"Yes, I do. I _am_ interested; I'd be stupid if I were not. Besides, I
understand conventions as well as you do--"

"You don't observe them--"

"I don't worship them!"

She said coolly: "Women should be ritualists. It is safer."

"It is not necessary in this case. I haven't the slightest hope of
making this incident a foundation for another; I haven't the least idea
that I shall ever see you again. But for me to pretend an imbecile
indifference to you or to the situation would be a more absurd example
of self-consciousness than even you have charged me with."

Wrath and surprise in her turn widened her eyes; he held up his hand:
"One moment; I have not finished. May I go on?"

And, as she said nothing, he resumed: "During the few minutes we have
been accidentally thrown together, I have not seen a quiver of human
humour in you. _There_ is the self-consciousness--the absorbed
preoccupation with appearances."

"What is there humourous in the situation?" she demanded, very pink.

"Good Lord! What is there humourous in any situation if you don't make
it so?"

"I am not a humourist," she said.

She sat in the bows, one closed hand propping her chin; and sometimes
her clear eyes, harboring lightning, wandered toward him, sometimes
toward the shore.

"Suppose you continue to row," she said at last. "I'm doing you the
honour of thinking about what you've said."

He resumed the oars, still sitting facing her, and pushed the boat
slowly forward; and, as they continued their progress in silence, her
brooding glance wavered, at intervals, between him and the coast.

"Haven't you _any_ normal human curiosity concerning me?" he asked so
boyishly that, for a second, again from her eyes, two gay little demons
seemed to peer out and laugh at him.

But her lips were expressionless, and she only said: "I have no
curiosity. Is that criminally abnormal?"

"Yes; if it is true. Is it?"

"I suppose it is too unflattering a truth for you to believe." She
checked herself, looked up at him, hesitated. "It is _not_ absolutely
true. It was at first. I am normally interested now. If you knew more
about me you would very easily understand my lack of interest in people
I pass; the habit of not permitting myself to be interested--the
necessity of it. The art of indifference is far more easily acquired
than the art of forgetting."

"But surely," he said, "it can cost you no effort to forget me."

"No, of course not." She looked at him, unsmiling: "It was the acquired
habit of indifference in me which you mistook for--I think you mistook
it for stupidity. Many do. Did you?"

But the guilty amusement on his face answered her; she watched him
silently for a while.

"You are quite right in one way," she said; "an unconventional encounter
like this has no significance--not enough to dignify it with any effort
toward indifference. But until I began to reprove man in the abstract, I
really had not very much interest in you as an individual."

And, as he said nothing: "I might better have been in the beginning what
you call 'human'--found the situation mildly amusing--and it
_is_--though you don't know it! But"--she hesitated--"the acquired
instinct operated automatically. I wish I had been more--human; I can
be." She raised her eyes; and in them glimmered her first smile, faint,
yet so charming a revelation that the surprise of it held him
motionless at his oars.

"Have I paid the tribute you claim?" she asked. "If I have, may I not go
overboard at my convenience?"

He did not answer. She laid both arms along the gunwales once more,
balancing herself to rise.

"We are near enough now," she said, "and the fog is quite gone. May I
thank you and depart without further arousing you to psychological
philosophy?"

"If you must," he said; "but I'd rather row you in."

"If I must? Do you expect to paddle me around Cape Horn?" And she rose
and stepped lightly onto the bow, maintaining her balance without effort
while the boat pitched, fearless, confident, swaying there between sky
and sea.

"Good-bye," she said, gravely nodding at him.

"Good-bye, Calypso!"

She joined her finger tips above her head, preliminary to a plunge. Then
she looked down at him over her shoulder.

"I _told_ you that Calypso was a _land_ nymph."

"I can't help it; fabled Calypso you must remain to me."

"Oh; am I to remain--anything--to you--for the next five minutes?"

"Do you think I could forget you?"

"I don't think so--for five minutes. Your satisfied vanity will retain
me for so long--until it becomes hungry again. And--but read the history
of Ulysses--carefully. However, it _was_ nice of you--not to name
yourself and expect a response from me. I'm afraid--I'm afraid it is
going to take me almost five minutes to forget you--I mean your boat of
course. Good-bye!"

Before he could speak again she went overboard, rose swimming with
effortless grace. After a dozen strokes or so she turned on one side,
glancing back at him. Later, almost among the breakers, she raised one
arm in airy signal, but whether to him or to somebody on the raft he did
not know.

For five minutes--the allotted five--he lay on his oars watching the
sands. At moments he fancied he could still distinguish her, but the
distance was great, and there were many scarlet head-dresses among the
bathers ashore and afloat.

And after a while he settled back on his oars, cast a last glance
astern, and pulled for the _Ariani_, aboard of which Portlaw was already
bellowing at him through an enormous megaphone.

Malcourt, who looked much younger than he really was, appeared on the
after deck, strolling about with a telescope tucked up under one arm,
both hands in his trousers pockets; and, as Hamil pulled under the
stern, he leaned over the rail: "Hello, Hamil! Any trade with the
natives in prospect? How far will a pint of beads go with the lady
aborigines?"

"Better ask at the Beach Club," replied Hamil, laughing; "I say,
Malcourt, I've had a corking swim out yonder--"

"Go in deep?" inquired Malcourt guilelessly.

"Deep? It's forty fathoms off the reef."

"I didn't mean the water," murmured Malcourt.



CHAPTER II

A LANDING


The _Ariani_ was to sail that evening, her destination being Miami and
the West Coast where Portlaw desired to do some tarpon fishing and
Wayward had railroad interests. Malcourt, always in a receptive
attitude, was quite ready to go anywhere when invited. Otherwise he
preferred a remunerative attention to business.

Hamil, however, though with the gay company aboard, was not of them; he
had business at Palm Beach; his luggage had already been sent ashore;
and now, prepared to follow, he stood a little apart from the others on
the moonlit deck, making his adieux to the master of the _Ariani_.

"It's been perfectly stunning--this cruise," he said. "It was kind of
you, Wayward; I don't know how to tell you how kind--but your boat's a
corker and you are another--"

"Do you like this sort of thing?" asked Wayward grimly.

"Like it? It's only a part of your ordinary lives--yours and Portlaw's;
so you are not quite fitted to understand. But, Wayward, I've been in
heavy harness. You have been doing this sort of heavenly thing--how many
years?"

"Too many. Tell me; you've really made good this last year, haven't you,
Garry?"

Hamil nodded. "I had to."

He laid his hand on the older man's arm. "Why do you know," he said,
"when they gave me that first commission for the little park at Hampton
Hills--thanks to you--I hadn't five dollars in all the world."

Wayward stood looking at him through his spectacles, absently pulling at
his moustache, which was already partly gray.

"Garry," he said in his deep, pleasant voice that was however never very
clear, "Portlaw tells me that you are to do his place. Then there are
the new parks in Richmond Borough, and this enormous commission down
here among the snakes and jungles. Well--God bless you. You're
twenty-five and busy. I'm forty-five and"--he looked drearily into the
younger man's eyes--"burnt out," he said with his mirthless laugh--"and
still drenching the embers with the same stuff that set 'em ablaze....
Good-bye, Garry. Your boat's alongside. My compliments to your aunt."

At the gangway the younger man bade adieu to Malcourt and Portlaw,
laughing as the latter indignantly requested to know why Hamil wasted
his time attending to business.

Malcourt drew him aside:

"So you're going to rig up a big park and snake preserve for Neville
Cardross?"

"I'm going to try, Louis. You know the family, I believe, don't you?"

Malcourt gazed placidly at him. "Very well indeed," he replied
deliberately. "They're a, good, domestic, mother-pin-a-rose-on-me sort
of family.... I'm a sort of distant cousin--run of the house and
privilege of kissing the girls--not now, but once. I'm going to stay
there when we get back from Miami."

"You didn't tell me that?" observed Hamil, surprised.

"No," said Malcourt carelessly, "I didn't know it myself. Just made up
my mind to do it. Saves hotel expenses. Well--your cockle-shell is
waiting. Give my regards to the family--particularly to Shiela." He
looked curiously at Hamil; "particularly to Shiela," he repeated; but
Hamil missed the expression of his eyes in the dusk.

"Are you really going to throw us over like this?" demanded Portlaw as
the young men turned back together across the deck.

"Got to do it," said Hamil cheerfully, offering his hand in adieu.

"Don't plead necessity," insisted Portlaw. "You've just landed old man
Cardross, and you've got the Richmond parks, and you're going to sting
me for more than I'm worth. Why on earth do you cut and run this way?"

"No man in his proper senses really knows why he does anything.
Seriously, Portlaw, my party is ended--"

"Destiny gave Ulysses a proud party that lasted ten years; wasn't it
ten, Malcourt?" demanded Portlaw. "Stay with us, son; you've nine years
and eleven months of being a naughty boy coming to you--including a few
Circes and grand slams--"

"He's met his Circe," cut in Malcourt, leaning languidly over the rail;
"she's wearing a scarlet handkerchief this season--"

Portlaw, laughing fatly, nodded. "Louis discovered your Circe through
the glasses climbing into your boat--"

"What a busy little beast you are, Malcourt," observed Hamil, annoyed,
glancing down at the small boat alongside.

"'Beast' is good! You mean the mere sight of her transformed Louis into
the classic shote," added Portlaw, laughing louder as Hamil, still
smiling through his annoyance, went over the side. And a moment later
the gig shot away into the star-set darkness.

From the bridge Wayward wearily watched it through his night glasses;
Malcourt, slim and graceful, sat on the rail and looked out into the
Southern dusk, an unlighted cigarette between his lips.

"That kills our four at Bridge," grumbled Portlaw, leaning heavily
beside him. "We'll have to play Klondike and Preference now, or call in
the ship's cat.... Hello, is that you, Jim?" as Wayward came aft,
limping a trifle as he did at certain times.

"That girl had a good figure--through the glasses. I couldn't make out
her face; it was probably the limit; combinations are rare," mused
Malcourt. "And then--the fog came! It was like one of those low-down
classical tricks of Jupiter when caught philandering."

Portlaw laughed till his bulky body shook. "The Olympian fog was
wasted," he said; "John Garret Hamil 3d still preserves his nursery
illusions."

"He's lucky," remarked Wayward, staring into the gloom.

"But not fortunate," added Malcourt; "there's a difference between luck
and fortune. Read the French classics."

Wayward growled; Malcourt, who always took a malicious amusement in
stirring him up, grinned at him sideways.

"No man is fit for decent society until he's lost all his illusions," he
said, "particularly concerning women."

"Some of us have been fools enough to lose our illusions," retorted
Wayward sharply, "but you never had any, Malcourt; and that's no
compliment from me to you."

Portlaw chuckled. "We never lose illusions; we mislay 'em," he
suggested; "and then we are pretty careful to mislay only that
particular illusion which inconveniences us." He jerked his heavy head
in Malcourt's direction. "Nobody clings more frantically to illusions
than your unbaked cynic; Louis, you're not nearly such a devil of a
fellow as you imagine you are."

Malcourt smiled easily and looked out over the waves.

"Cynicism is old-fashioned," he said; "dogma is up to date. Credo! I
believe in a personal devil, virtuous maidens in bowers, and rosewood
furniture. As for illusions I cherish as many as you do!" He turned with
subtle impudence to Wayward. "And the world is littered with the
shattered fragments."

"It's littered with pups, too," observed Wayward, turning on his heel.
And he walked away, limping, his white mess jacket a pale spot in the
gloom.

Malcourt looked after him; an edge of teeth glimmering beneath his full
upper lip.

"It might be more logical if he'd cut out his alcohol before he starts
in as a gouty marine missionary," he observed. "Last night he sat there
looking like a superannuated cavalry colonel in spectacles, neuritis
twitching his entire left side, unable to light his own cigar; and there
he sat and rambled on and on about innate purity and American
womanhood."

He turned abruptly as a steward stepped up bearing a decanter and tray
of glasses.

Portlaw helped himself, grumbling under his breath that he meant to cut
out this sort of thing and set Wayward an example.

Malcourt lifted his glass gaily:

"Our wives and sweethearts; may they never meet!"

They set back their empty glasses; Portlaw started to move away, still
muttering about the folly of self-indulgence; but the other detained
him.

"Wayward took it out of me in 'Preference' this morning while Garry was
out courting. I'd better liquidate to-night, hadn't I, Billy?"

"Certainly," said Portlaw.

The other shook his head. "I'll get it all back at Miami, of course. In
the mean time--if you don't mind letting me have enough to square
things--"

Portlaw hesitated, balancing his bulk uneasily first on one foot, then
the other.

"I don't mind; no; only--"

"Only what?" asked Malcourt. "I told you I couldn't afford to play cards
on this trip, but you insisted."

"Certainly, certainly! I expected to consider you as--as--"

"I'm your general manager and I'm ready at all times to earn my salary.
If you think it best to take me away from the estate for a junketing
trip and make me play cards you can do it of course; but if you think
I'm here to throw my money overboard I'm going back to-morrow!"

"Nonsense," said Portlaw; "you're not going back. There's nothing doing
in winter up there that requires your personal attention--"

"It's a bad winter for the deer--I ought to be there now--"

"Well, can't Blake and O'Connor attend to that?"

"Yes, I suppose they can. But I'm not going to waste the winter and my
salary in the semi-tropics just because you want me to--"

"O Lord!" said Portlaw, "what are you kicking about? Have I ever--"

"You force me to be plain-spoken; you never seem to understand that if
you insist on my playing the wealthy do-nothing that you've got to keep
me going. And I tell you frankly, Billy, I'm tired of it."

"Oh, don't flatten your ears and show your teeth," protested Portlaw
amiably. "I only supposed you had enough--with such a salary--to give
yourself a little rope on a trip like this, considering you've nobody
but yourself to look out for, and that _I_ do that and pay you heavily
for the privilege"--his voice had become a mumble--"and all you do is to
take vacations in New York or sit on a horse and watch an army of men
plant trout and pheasants, and cut out ripe timber--O hell!"

"_What_ did you say?"

Portlaw became good-humouredly matter of fact: "I _said_ 'hell,'
Louis--which meant, 'what's the use of squabbling.' It also means that
you are going to have what you require as a matter of course; so come on
down to my state-room and let us figure it up before Jim Wayward begins
to turn restless and limp toward the card-room."

As they turned and strolled forward, Malcourt nudged him:

"Look at the fireworks over Lake Worth," he said; "probably Palm Beach's
welcome to her new and beardless prophet."

"It's one of their cheap Venetian fêtes," muttered Portlaw. "I know 'em;
they're rather amusing. If we weren't sailing in an hour we'd go. No
doubt Hamil's in it already; probably Cardross put him next to a bunch
of dreams and he's right in it at this very moment."

"With the girl in the red handkerchief," added Malcourt. "I wish we had
time."

"I believe I've seen that girl somewhere," mused Portlaw.

"Perhaps you have; there are all kinds at Palm Beach, even yours, and,"
he added with his easy impudence, "I expect to preserve my notions
concerning every one of them. Ho! Look at that sheaf of sky-rockets,
Billy! Zip! Whir-r! Bang! Great is Diana of the Ephesians!--bless her
heart!"

"Going up like Garret Hamil's illusions," said Portlaw, sentimentally.
"I wonder if he sees 'em and considers the moral they are writing across
the stars. O slush! Life is like a stomach; if you fill it too full it
hurts you. What about _that_ epigram, Louis? What about it?"

The other's dark, graceful head was turned toward the fiery fête on
shore, and his busy thoughts were with that lithe, dripping figure he
had seen through the sea-glasses, climbing into a distant boat. For the
figure reminded him of a girl he had known very well when the world was
younger; and the memory was not wholly agreeable.



CHAPTER III

AN ADVANCE


Hamil stood under the cocoanut palms at the lake's edge and watched the
lagoon where thousands of coloured lanterns moved on crafts, invisible
except when revealed in the glare of the rushing rockets.

Lamps glittered everywhere; electric lights were doubly festooned along
the sea wall, drooping creeper-like from palm to palmetto, from
flowering hibiscus to sprawling banyan, from dainty china-berry to
grotesque screw-pine tree, shedding strange witch-lights over masses of
blossoms, tropical and semi-tropical. Through which the fine-spun spray
of fountains drifted, and the great mousy dusk-moths darted through the
bars of light with the glimmering bullet-flight of summer meteors.

And everywhere hung the scent of orange bloom and the more subtle
perfume of white and yellow jasmine floated through the trees from
gardens or distant hammocks, combining in one intoxicating aroma, spiced
always with the savour of the sea.

Hamil was aware of considerable noise, more or less musical, afloat and
ashore; a pretentious orchestra played third-rate music under the hotel
colonnade; melody arose from the lantern-lit lake, with clamourous
mandolins and young voices singing; and over all hung the confused
murmur of unseen throngs, harmonious, capricious; laughter, voice
answering voice, and the distant shouts as brilliantly festooned boats
hailed and were hailed across the water.

Hamil passed on to the left through crowded gardens, pressing his way
slowly where all around him lantern-lit faces appeared from the dusk and
vanished again into it; where the rustle of summer gowns sweeping the
shaven lawns of Bermuda grass sounded like a breeze in the leaves.

Sometimes out of the dusk all tremulous with tinted light the rainbow
ray of a jewel flashed in his eyes--or sometimes he caught the glint of
eyes above the jewel--a passing view of a fair face, a moment's
encountering glance, and, maybe, a smile just as the shadows falling
turned the garden's brightness to a mystery peopled with phantoms.

Out along the shell road he sauntered, Whitehall rising from tropic
gardens on his right, on his left endless gardens again, and white
villas stretching away into the starlight; on, under the leaning
coco-palms along quays and low walls of coquina where the lagoon lay
under the silvery southern planets.

After a little he discovered that he had left the bulk of the throng
behind, though in front of him and behind, the road was still dotted
with white-clad groups strolling or resting on the sea-wall.

Far out on the lake the elfin pageant continued, but now he could
scarcely hear the music; the far cries and the hiss of the rockets came
softly as the whizzing of velvet-winged moths around orange blossoms.

The January night was magnificent; he could scarcely comprehend that
this languid world of sea and palm, of heavy odour and slow breezes, was
his own land still. Under the spell the Occident vanished; it was the
Orient--all this dreamy mirage, these dim white walls, this
spice-haunted dusk, the water inlaid with stars, the fairy foliage, the
dew drumming in the stillness like the sound of goblin tattooing.

Never before had he seen this enchanted Southern land which had always
been as much a part of his mother-land as Northern hill and Western
plain--as much his as the roaring dissonance of Broadway, or the icy
silence of the tundras, or the vast tranquil seas of corn rippling mile
on mile under the harvest moon of Illinois.

He halted, unquiet in the strangeness of it all, restless under its
exotic beauty, conscious of the languor stealing over him--the
premonition of a physical relaxation that he had never before
known--that he instinctively mistrusted.

People in groups passed and repassed along the lagoon wall where,
already curiously tired, he had halted beside an old bronze cannon--some
ancient Spanish piece, if he could judge by the arms and arabesques
covering the breech, dimly visible in the rays of a Chinese lantern.

Beyond was a private dock where two rakish power-boats lay, receiving
their cargo of young men and girls--all very animated and gay under the
gaudy electric lanterns strung fore and aft rainbow fashion.

He seated himself on the cannon, lingering until both boats cleared for
the carnival, rushing out into the darkness like streaks of
multi-coloured flame; then his lassitude increasing, he rose and
sauntered toward the hotel which loomed like a white mountain afire
above the dark masses of tropic trees. And again the press of the throng
hemmed him in among the palms and fountains and hedges of crimson
hibiscus; again the dusk grew gay with voices and the singing overtone
of violins; again the suffocating scent of blossoms, too sweet and
penetrating for the unacclimated, filtered through and through him, till
his breath came unevenly, and the thick odours stirred in him strange
senses of expectation, quickening with his pulses to a sudden prophecy.

And at the same instant he saw the girl of whom he had been thinking.

She was on the edge of a group of half a dozen or more men in evening
dress, and women in filmy white--already close to him--so near that the
frail stuff of her skirt brushed him, and the subtle, fresh aroma of her
seemed to touch his cheek like a breath as she passed.

"Calypso," he whispered, scarcely conscious that he spoke aloud.

A swift turn of her head, eyes that looked blankly into his, and she had
passed.

A sudden realisation of his bad manners left his ears tingling. What on
earth had prompted him to speak? What momentary relaxation had permitted
him an affront to a young girl whose attitude toward him that morning
had been so admirable?

Chagrined, he turned back to seek some circling path through the dense
crowd ahead; and was aware, in the darkness, of a shadowy figure
entering the jasmine arbour. And though his eyes were still confused by
the lantern light he knew her again in the dusk.

As they passed she said under her breath: "That was ill-bred. I am
disappointed."

He wheeled in his tracks; she turned to confront him for an instant.

"I'm just a plain beast," he said. "You won't forgive me of course."

"You had no right to say what you did. You said 'Calypso'--and I ought
not to have heard you.... But I did.... Tell me; if I am too generous to
suspect you of intentional impertinence, you are now too chastened to
suspect that I came back to give you this chance. That is quite true,
isn't it?"

"Of course. You _are_ generous and--it's simply fine of you to overlook
it."

"I don't know whether I intend to overlook it; I was surprised and
disappointed; but I _did_ desire to give you another chance. And I was
so afraid you'd be rude enough to take it that--I spoke first. That was
logical. Oh, I know what I'm doing--and it's particularly common of
me--being who I am--"

She paused, meeting his gaze deliberately.

"You don't know who I am. Do you?"

"No," he said. "I don't deserve to. But I'll be miserable until I do."

After a moment: "And you are not going to ask me--because, once, I said
that it was nice of you not to?"

The hint of mockery in her voice edged his lips with a smile, but he
shook his head. "No, I won't ask you that," he said. "I've been beastly
enough for one day."

"Don't you care to know?"

"Of course I care to know."

"Yet, exercising all your marvellous masculine self-control, you nobly
refuse to ask?"

"I'm afraid to," he said, laughing; "I'm horribly afraid of you."

She considered him with clear, unsmiling eyes.

"Coward!" she said calmly.

He nodded his head, laughing still. "I know it; I almost lost you by
saying 'Calypso' a moment ago and I'm taking no more risks."

"Am I to infer that you expect to recover me after this?"

And, as he made no answer: "You dare not admit that you hope to see me
again. You _are_ horribly afraid of me--even if I have defied convention
and your opinions and have graciously overlooked your impertinence. In
spite of all this you are still afraid of me. Are you?"

"Yes," he said; "as much as I naturally ought to be."

"_That_ is nice of you. There's only one kind of a girl of whom men are
really afraid.... And now I don't exactly know what to do about
you--being, myself, as guilty and horrid as you have been."

She regarded him contemplatively, her hands joined behind her back.

"Exactly what to do about you I don't know," she repeated, leisurely
inspecting him. "Shall I tell you something? I am not afraid to; I am
not a bit cowardly about it either. Shall I?"

"If you dare," he said, smiling and uncertain.

"Very well, then; I rather like you, Mr. Hamil."

"You _are_ a trump!" he blurted out, reddening with surprise.

"Are you astonished that I know you?"

"I don't see how you found out--"

"Found out! What perfectly revolting vanity! Do you suppose that the
moment I left you I rushed home and began to make happy and incoherent
inquiries? Mr. Hamil, you disappoint me every time you speak--and also
every time you don't."

"I seem to be doomed."

"You are. You can't help it. Tell me--as inoffensively as possible--are
you here to begin your work?"

"M-my work?"

"Yes, on the Cardross estate--"

"You have heard of that!" he exclaimed, surprised.

"Y-es--" negligently. "Petty gossip circulates here. A cracker at West
Palm Beach built a new chicken coop, and we all heard of it. Tell me, do
you still desire to see me again?"

"I do--to pay a revengeful debt or two."

"Oh! I have offended you? Pay me now, if you please, and let us end this
indiscretion."

"You will let me see you again, won't you?"

"Why? Mr. Hamil."

"Because I--I _must_!"

"Oh! You are becoming emphatic. So I am going.... And I've half a mind
to take you back and present you to my family.... Only it wouldn't do
for _me_; any other girl perhaps might dare--under the circumstances;
but _I_ can't--and that's all I'll tell you."

Hamil, standing straight and tall, straw hat tucked under one arm, bent
toward her with the formality and engaging deference natural to him.

"You have been very merciful to me; only a girl of your caste could
afford to. Will you forgive my speaking to you as I did?--when I said
'Calypso!' I have no excuse; I don't know why I did. I'm even sorrier
for myself than for you."

"I _was_ hurt.... Then I supposed that you did not mean it.
Besides"--she looked up with her rare smile--"I knew you, Mr. Hamil, in
the boat this morning. I haven't really been very dreadful."

"You knew even _then_?"

"Yes, I did. The Palm Beach News published your picture a week ago; and
I read all about the very remarkable landscape architect who was coming
to turn the Cardross jungle into a most wonderful Paradise."

"You knew me all that time?"

"All of it, Mr. Hamil."

"From the moment you climbed into my boat?"

"Practically. Of course I did not look at you very closely at first....
Does that annoy you? It seems to ... or something does, for even in the
dusk I can see your ever-ready blush--"

"I don't know why you pretend to think me such a fool," he protested,
laughing; "you seemed to take that for granted from the very first."

"Why not? You persistently talked to me when you didn't know me--you're
doing it now for that matter!--and you began by telling me that I was
fool-hardy, not really courageous in the decent sense of the word, and
that I was a self-conscious stick and a horribly inhuman and unnatural
object generally--and all because I wouldn't flirt with you--"

His quick laughter interrupted her. She ventured to laugh a little
too--a very little; and that was the charm of her to him--the
clear-eyed, delicate gravity not lightly transformed. But when her
laughter came, it came as such a surprisingly lovely revelation that it
left him charmed and silent.

"I wonder," she said, "if you can be amusing--except when you don't mean
to be."

"If you'll give me a chance to try--"

"Perhaps. I was hardly fair to you in that boat."

"If you knew me in the boat this morning, why did you not say so?"

"Could I admit that I knew you without first pretending I didn't? Hasn't
every woman a Heaven-given right to travel in a circle as the shortest
distance between two points?"

"Certainly; only--"

She shook her head slowly. "There's no use in my telling you who I am,
now, considering that I can't very well escape exposure in the near
future. That might verge on effrontery--and it's horrid enough to be
here with you--in spite of several thousand people tramping about within
elbow touch.... Which reminds me that my own party is probably hunting
for me.... Such a crowd, you know, and so easy to become separated. What
do you suppose they'd think if they suspected the truth?... And the
worst of it is that I cannot afford to do a thing of this sort.... You
don't understand; but you may some day--partly. And then perhaps you'll
think this matter all over and come to a totally different conclusion
concerning my overlooking your recent rudeness and--and my consenting to
speak to you."

"You don't believe for one moment that I could mistake it--"

"It depends upon what sort of a man you really are.... I don't know. I
give you the benefit of all doubts."

She stood silent, looking him candidly in the eyes, then with a gesture
and the slightest shrug, she turned away toward the white road outside.
He was at her elbow in two steps.

"Oh, yes--the irony of formality."

She nodded. "Good night, then, Mr. Hamil. If circumstances permitted it
would have been delightful--this putting off the cloak of convention and
donning motley for a little unconventional misbehaviour with you....
But as it is, it worries me--slightly--as much as the episode and your
opinion are worth."

"I am wondering," he said, "why this little tincture of bitterness
flavours what you say to me?"

"Because I've misbehaved; and so have you. Anyway, now that it's done,
there's scarcely anything I could do to make the situation more flagrant
or less flippant--"

"You don't really think--"

"Certainly. After all is said and done, we _don't_ know each other; here
we are, shamelessly sauntering side by side under the jasmine,
Paul-and-Virginia-like, exchanging subtleties blindfolded. You are you;
I am I; formally, millions of miles apart--temporarily and informally
close together, paralleling each other's course through life for the
span of half an hour--here under the Southern stars.... O Ulysses, truly
that island was inhabited by one, Calypso; but your thrall is to be
briefer than your prototype's. See, now; here is the road; and I release
you to that not impossible she--"

"There is none--"

"There will be. You are very young. Good-bye."

"The confusing part of it to me," he said, smiling, "is to _see_ you
so--so physically youthful with even a hint of almost childish
immaturity!--and then to _hear_ you as you _are_--witty, experienced,
nicely cynical, maturely sure of yourself and--"

"You think me experienced?"

"Yes."

"Sure of myself?"

"Of course; with your cool, amused poise, your absolute
self-possession--and the half-disdainful sword-play of your wit--at my
expense--"

She halted beside the sea-wall, adorably mocking in her exaggerated
gravity.

"At your expense?" she repeated. "Why not? You have cost me something."

"You said--"

"I know what I said: I said that we might become friends. But even so,
you have already cost me something. Tell me"--he began to listen for
this little trick of speech--"how many men do you know who would not
misunderstand what I have done this evening? And--do _you_ understand
it, Mr. Hamil?"

"I think--"

"If you do you are cleverer than I," she said almost listlessly, moving
on again under the royal palms.

"Do you mean that--"

"Yes; that I myself don't entirely understand it. Here, under this
Southern sun, we of the North are in danger of acquiring a sort of
insouciant directness almost primitive. There comes, after a while, a
certain mental as well as physical luxury in relaxation of rule and
precept, permitting us a simplicity which sometimes, I think, becomes
something less harmless. There _is_ luxury in letting go of that live
wire which keeps us all keyed to one conventional monotone in the North.
I let go--for a moment--to-night. _You_ let go when you said 'Calypso.'
You couldn't have said it in New York; I couldn't have heard you,
there.... Alas, Ulysses, I should not have heard you anywhere. But I
did; and I answered.... Say good night to me, now; won't you? We have
not been very wicked, I think."

She offered her hand; smooth and cool it lay for a second in his.

"I can't let you return alone," he ventured.

"If you please, how am I to explain you to--the others?"

And as he said nothing:

"If I were--different--I'd simply tell them the truth. I could afford
to. Besides we'll all know you before very long. Then we'll see--oh,
yes, both of us--whether we have been foolishly wise to become
companions in our indiscretion, or--otherwise.... And don't worry about
my home-arrival. That's my lawn--there where that enormous rubber-banyan
tree straddles across the stars.... Is it not quaint--the tangle of
shrubbery all over jasmine?--and those are royal poincianas, if you
please--and there's a great garden beyond and most delectable orange
groves where you and I and the family and Alonzo will wander and eat
pine-oranges and king-oranges and mandarins and--oh, well! Are you going
to call on Mr. Cardross to-morrow?"

"Yes," he said, "I'll have to see Mr. Cardross at once. And after that,
what am I to do to meet you?"

"I will consider the matter," she said; and bending slightly toward him:
"Am I to be disappointed in you? I don't know, and you can't tell me."
Then, impulsively: "Be generous to me. You are right; I am not very old,
yet. Be nice to me in your thoughts. I have never before done such a
thing as this: I never could again. It is not very dreadful--is it? Will
you think nicely of me?"

He said gaily: "Now you speak as you look, not like a world-worn woman
of thirty wearing the soft, fresh mask of nineteen."

"You have not answered me," she said quietly.

"Answered you, Calypso?"

"Yes; I ask you to be very gentle and fastidious with me in your
thoughts; not even to call me Calypso--in your thoughts."

"What you ask I had given you the first moment we met."

"Then you _may_ call me Calypso--in your thoughts."

"Calypso," he pleaded, "won't you tell me where to find you?"

"Yes; in the house of--Mr. Cardross. This is his house."

She turned and stepped onto the lawn. A mass of scarlet hibiscus hid
her, then she reappeared, a pale shape in the dusk of the
oleander-bordered path.

He listened; the perfume of the oleanders enveloped him; high under the
stars the fronds of a royal palm hung motionless. Then, through the
stillness, very far away, he heard the southern ocean murmuring in its
slumber under a million stars.



CHAPTER IV

RECONNAISSANCE


Hamil awoke early: long before breakfast he was shaved, dressed, and
hungry; but in the hotel late rising appeared to be fashionable, and
through the bewildering maze of halls and corridors nobody was yet astir
except a few children and their maids.

So he sauntered about the acres of floor space from rotunda to music
room, from desk to sun parlour, through the endless carpeted tunnel
leading to the station, and back again, taking his bearings in this
wilderness of runways so profusely embowered with palms and furniture.

In one wide corridor, lined like a street with shops, clerks were
rearranging show windows; and Hamil strolled from the jewellers to the
brilliant but dubious display of an Armenian rug dealer; from a New York
milliner's exhibition, where one or two blond, sleepy-eyed young women
moved languidly about, to an exasperating show of shells, curiosities,
and local photographs which quenched further curiosity.

However, beyond the shops, at the distant end of an Axminster vista
flanked by cabbage-palms and masterpieces from Grand Rapids, he saw
sunshine and the green tops of trees; and he made toward the oasis,
coming out along a white colonnade overlooking the hotel gardens.

It was early enough for any ambitious bird to sing, but there were few
song-birds in the gardens--a palm warbler or two, and a pair of subdued
mocking-birds not inclined to be tuneful. Everywhere, however, purple
and bronze grackle appeared, flying or walking busily over the lawns,
sunlight striking the rainbow hackle on their necks, and their
pale-yellow or bright-orange eyes staring boldly at the gardeners who
dawdled about the flowery labyrinths with watering-can and jointed hose.
And from every shrub and tree came the mildly unpleasant calling of the
grackle, and the blackbirds along the lagoon answered with their own
unmusical "Co-ca-_chee_!--Co-ca-chee-e!"

Somehow, to Hamil, the sunshine seemed to reveal more petty defects in
this semi-tropical landscape than he could have divined the night before
under the unblemished magic of the stars. For the grass was not real
grass, but only that sparse, bunchy, sun-crisped substitute from
Bermuda; here and there wind-battered palmetto fronds hung burnt and
bronzed; and the vast hotel, which through the darkness he had seen
piled up above the trees in cliff-like beauty against the stars, was
actually remarkable only for its size and lack of architectural
interest.

He began to wonder whether the inhabitants of its thousand rooms, aware
of the pitiless clarity of this semi-tropical morning sunlight, shunned
it lest it reveal unsuspected defects in those pretty lantern-lit faces
of which he had had glimpses in the gardens' enchanted dusk the night
before. However, the sunshine seemed to render the little children only
the lovelier, and he sat on the railing, his back against a pillar,
watching them racing about with their nurses, until the breakfast hour
at last came around and found him at table, no longer hungry.

A stream of old ladies and gentlemen continued toddling into the
breakfast rooms where an acre or two of tables, like a profuse crop of
mushrooms, disturbed the monotony of the hotel interior with a monotony
still more pronounced. However, there was hazy sunshine in the place and
a glimpse of blessed green outside, and the leisurely negroes brought
him fruit which was almost as good as the New York winter markets
afforded, and his breakfast amused him mildly.

The people, too, amused him--so many dozens of old ladies and gentlemen,
all so remarkably alike in a common absence of distinguishing traits--a
sort of homogeneous, expressionless similarity which was rather amazing
as they doubtless had gathered there from all sections of the Republic.

But the children were delightful, and all over the vast room he could
distinguish their fresh little faces like tufts of flowers set in a
waste of dusty stubble, and amid the culinary clatter their clear, gay
little voices broke through cheerfully at moments, grateful as the
morning chatter of sparrows in early spring.

When Hamil left his table he halted to ask an imposing head-waiter
whether Miss Palliser might be expected to breakfast, and was informed
that she breakfasted and lunched in her rooms and dined always in the
café.

So he stopped at the desk and sent up his card.

A number of young people evidently equipped for the golf links now
pervaded hall and corridor; others, elaborately veiled for motoring,
stopped at the desk for letters on their way into the outer sunshine.

A row of rather silent but important-looking gentlemen, morning cigars
afire, gradually formed ranks in arm-chairs under the colonnade; people
passing and repassing began to greet each other with more vivacity;
veranda and foyer became almost animated as the crowd increased. And now
a demure bride or two emerged in all the radiance of perfect love and
raiment, squired by _him_, braving the searching sunshine with
confidence in her beauty, her plumage, and a kindly planet; and, in
pitiful contrast, here and there some waxen-faced invalid, wheeled by a
trained nurse, in cap and cuffs, through sunless halls into the clear
sea air, to lie motionless, with leaden lids scarcely parted, in the
glory of a perfect day.

A gentleman, rotund of abdomen, wearing a stubby red moustache, screwed
a cigar firmly into the off corner of his mouth and, after looking
aggressively at Hamil for fully half a minute, said:

"Southern Pacific sold off at the close."

"Indeed," said Hamil.

"It's like picking daisies," said the gentleman impressively. And, after
a pause, during which he continued to survey the younger man: "What
name?" he inquired, as though Hamil had been persistently attempting to
inform him.

Hamil told him good-naturedly.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hamil. My name is Rawley--probably the name is
familiar to you?--Ambrose Rawley"--he coughed--"by profession a
botanist."

Hamil smiled, recognising in the name the most outrageously expensive of
New York florists who had made a fortune in cut flowers.

"Have a drink?" persisted Mr. Rawley. "No? Too early for you? Well,
let's get a couple of niggers and wheel-chairs."

But Hamil declined with the easy good-humour which characterised him;
and a few moments later, learning at the office that his aunt would
receive him, followed his negro guide through endless carpeted
labyrinths and was ushered by a maid into a sunny reception-room.

"Garry!--you dear boy!" exclaimed his amazingly youthful aunt, holding
out both arms to him from the door of her bedroom, partly ajar.
"No--don't come near me; I'm not even in complete negligée yet, but I
will be in one minute when Titine fastens me up and makes the most of my
scanty locks--" She looked out at him with a laugh and gave her head a
little jerk forward, and her splendid chestnut hair came tumbling down
in the sunshine.

"You're prettier than ever," said her nephew; "they'll take us for bride
and groom as usual. I say, Constance, I suppose they've followed you
down here."

"Who, Garry,"--very innocently.

"The faithful three, Colonel Vetchen, Cuyp, and old--I mean the
gracefully mature Courtlandt Classon. Are they here?"

"I believe so, dear," admitted his aunt demurely. "And, Garry, so is
Virginia Suydam."

"Really," he said, suddenly subdued as his aunt who was forty and looked
twenty-five came forward in her pretty chamber-gown, and placed two firm
white arms around him and kissed him squarely and with vigour.

"You dear!" she said; "you certainly are the best-looking boy in all
Florida. When did you come? Is Jim Wayward's yacht here still? And why
didn't he come to see me?"

"The _Ariani_ sailed for Miami last night after I landed. I left my
card, but the office people rang and rang and could get no answer--"

"I was in bed! How stupid of me! I retired early because Virginia and I
had been dissipating shamefully all the week and my aged bones required
a rest.... And now tell me all about this new commission of yours. I
have met the Cardross family; everybody at Palm Beach is talking about
the magnificent park Mr. Cardross is planning; and your picture has
appeared in the local paper, and I've told everybody you're quite
wonderful, and everybody now is informing everybody else that you're
quite wonderful!"

His very gay aunt lay back in her great soft chair, pushing with both
fair hands the masses of chestnut hair from her forehead, and smiling at
him out of her golden brown eyes--the jolliest, frankest of eyes--the
sort even women trust instinctively at first glimpse.

So he sat there and told her all about his commission and how this man,
Neville Cardross, whom he had never even seen, had written to him and
asked him to make the most splendid park in America around the Cardross
villa, and had invited him to be his guest during his stay in Florida.

"They evidently are nice people from the way Mr. Cardross writes," he
said. "You say you know them, Constance?"

"I've met them several times--the way you meet people here. They have a
villa--rather imposing in an exotic fashion. Why, yes, Garry, they _are_
nice; dreadfully wealthy, tremendously popular. Mrs. Carrick, the
married daughter, is very agreeable; her mother is amiable and
dreadfully stout. Then there's a boy of your age--Gray Cardross--a
well-mannered youth who drives motors, and whom Mr. Classon calls a
'speed-mad cub.' Then there is Cecile Cardross--a débutante of last
winter, and then--" Miss Palliser hesitated, crossed one knee over the
other, and sat gently swinging her slippered foot and looking at her
nephew.

"Does that conclude the list of the Cardross family?" he asked.

"N-no. There remains the beauty of the family, Shiela." She continued to
survey him with smiling intentness, and went on slowly:

"Shiela Cardross; _the_ girl here. People are quite mad about her, I
assure you. My dear, every man at Palm Beach tags after her; rows of
callow youths sit and gaze at her very footprints in the sand when she
crosses the beach; she turns masculine heads to the verge of permanent
dislocation. No guilty man escapes; even Courtlandt Classon is
meditating treachery to me, and Mr. Cuyp has long been wavering and
Gussie Vetchen too! the wretch!... We poor women try hard to like
her--but, Garry, _is_ it human to love such a girl?"

"It's divine, Constance, so you'll like her."

"Oh, yes; thank you. Well, I do; I don't know her well, but I'm inclined
to like her--in a way.... There's something else, though." She
considered her handsome nephew steadily. "You are to be a guest there
while this work of yours is in hand?"

"Yes--I believe so."

"Then, dear, without the slightest unworthy impulse or the faintest
trace of malice, I wish to put you on your guard. It's horrid, but I
must."

"On my guard!" he repeated.

[Illustration: "So he sat there and told her all about his commission."]

"Yes--forearm you, Garry. Shiela Cardross is a rather bewildering
beauty. She is French convent-bred, clever and cultivated and extremely
talented. Besides that she has every fashionable grace and
accomplishment at the ends of her pretty fingers--and she has a way with
her--a way of looking at you--which is pure murder to the average man.
And beside that she is very simple and sweet to everybody. As an
assassin of hearts she's equipped to slay yours, Garry."

"Well?" he inquired, laughing. And added: "Let her slay. Why not?"

"This, dear. And you who know me will acquit me of any ignoble motive if
I say that she is not your social equal, Garry."

"What! I thought you said--"

"Yes--about the others. But it is not the same with Shiela Cardross.
I--it seems cruel to say it--but it is for your sake--to effectually
forestall any possible accident--that I am going to tell you that this
very lovely girl, Shiela, is an adopted child, not a daughter. That
exceedingly horrid old gossip, Mrs. Van Dieman, told me that the girl
was a foundling taken by Mr. and Mrs. Cardross from the Staten Island
asylum. And I'm afraid Mrs. Van Dieman knows what she's talking about
because she founded and still supports the asylum."

Hamil looked gravely across at his aunt. "The poor little girl," he said
slowly. "Lord, but that's tough! and tougher still to have Mrs. Van
Dieman taking the trouble to spread the news. Can't you shut her up?"

"It _is_ tough, Garret. I suppose they all are dreadfully sensitive
about it. I begged Mrs. Van Dieman to keep her own counsel. But she
won't. And you know, dear, that it would make no difference to me in my
relations with the girl--except that"--she hesitated, smiling--"she is
_not_ good enough for you, Garry, and so, if you catch the prevailing
contagion, and fall a victim, you have been inoculated now and will
have the malady lightly."

"My frivolous and fascinating aunt," he said, "have you ever known me to
catch any prevailing--"

"O Garret! You know you have!--dozens of times--"

"I've been civilly attentive to several girls--"

"I wish to goodness you'd marry Virginia Suydam; but you won't."

"Virginia!" he repeated, astonished.

"Yes, I do; I wish you were safely and suitably married. I'm worried,
Garry; you are becoming too good-looking not to get into some horrid
complication--as poor Jim Wayward did; and now he's done for, finished!
Oh, I wish I didn't feel so responsible for you. And I _wish_ you
weren't going to the Cardrosses' to live for months!"

He leaned forward, laughing, and took his aunt's slim hands between his
own sunburned fists. "You cunning little thing," he said, "if you talk
that way I'll marry you off to one of the faithful three; you and
Virginia too. Lord, do you think I'm down here to cut capers when I've
enough hard work ahead to drive a dozen men crazy for a year? As for
your beautiful Miss Cardross--why I saw a girl in a boat--not long
ago--who really was a beauty. I mean to find her, some day; and that
_is_ something for you to worry about!"

"Garry! _Tell_ me!"

But he rose, still laughing, and saluted Miss Palliser's hands.

"If you and Virginia have nothing better on I'll dine with you at eight.
Yes? No?"

"Of course. Where are you going now?"

"To report to Mr. Cardross--and brave beauty in its bower," he added
mischievously. "I'll doubtless be bowled over first shot and come around
for a dinner and a blessing at eight this evening."

"Don't joke about it," she said as they rose together and stood for a
moment at the window looking down into the flowering gardens.

"Is it not a jolly scene?" she added--"the fountain against the green,
and the flowers and the sunshine everywhere, and all those light summer
gowns outdoors in January, and--" She checked herself and laid her hand
on his arm; "Garry, do you see that girl in the wheel-chair!--the one
just turning into the gardens!"

He had already seen her. Suddenly his heart stood still in dread of what
his aunt was about to say. He knew already somehow that she was going to
say it, yet when she spoke the tiny shock came just the same.

"That," said his aunt, "is Shiela Cardross. Is she not too lovely for
words?"

"Yes," he said, "she is very beautiful."

For a while they stood together there at the window, then he said
good-bye in a rather subdued manner which made his aunt laugh that
jolly, clear laugh which never appealed to him in vain.

"You're not mortally stricken already at your first view of her, are
you?" she asked.

"Not mortally," he said.

"Then fall a victim and recover quickly. And _don't_ let me sit here too
long without seeing you; will you?"

She went to the door with him, one arm linked in his, brown eyes bright
with her pride and confidence in him--in this tall, wholesome,
clean-built boy, already on the verge of distinction in his rather
unusual profession. And she saw in him all the strength and engaging
good looks of his dead father, and all the clear and lovable sincerity
of his mother--her only sister--now also dead.

"You _will_ come to see me sometimes--won't you, Garry?" she repeated
wistfully.

"Of course I will. Give my love to Virginia and my amused regards to the
faithful three."

And so they parted, he to saunter down into the cool gardens on his way
to call on Mr. Cardross; she to pace the floor, excited by his arrival,
her heart beating with happiness, pride, solicitude for the young fellow
who was like brother and son to her--this handsome, affectionate,
generous boy who had steadily from the very first declined to accept one
penny of her comfortable little fortune lest she be deprived of the
least luxury or convenience, and who had doggedly educated and prepared
himself, and contrived to live within the scanty means he had inherited.

And now at last the boy saw success ahead, and Miss Palliser was happy,
dreaming brilliant dreams for him, conjuring vague splendours for the
future--success unbounded, honours, the esteem of all good men; this,
for her boy. And--if it must be--love, in its season--with the
inevitable separation and a slow dissolution of an intimacy which had
held for her all she desired in life--his companionship, his happiness,
his fortune; this also she dreamed for his sake. Yes--knowing she could
not always keep him, and that it must come inexorably, she dreamed of
love for him--and marriage.

And, as she stood now by the sunny window, idly intent on her vision,
without warning the face of Shiela Cardross glimmered through the dream,
growing clearer, distinct in every curve and tint of its exquisite
perfection; and she stared at the mental vision, evoking it with all
the imagination of her inner consciousness, unquiet yet curious,
striving to look into the phantom's eyes--clear, direct eyes which she
remembered; and a thrill of foreboding touched her, lest the boy she
loved might find in the sweetness of these clear eyes a peril not
lightly overcome.

"She is so unusually beautiful," said Miss Palliser aloud, unconscious
that she had spoken. And she added, wondering, "God knows what blood is
in her veins to form a body so divine."



CHAPTER V

A FLANK MOVEMENT


Young Hamil, moving thoughtfully along through the gardens, caught a
glimpse of a group under the palms which halted him for an instant, then
brought him forward, hat off, hand cordially outstretched.

"Awf'lly glad to see you, Virginia; this is very jolly; hello, Cuyp! How
are you, Colonel Vetchen--oh! how do you do, Mr. Classon!" as the latter
came trotting down the path, twirling a limber walking-stick.

"How-dee-do! How-dee-do!" piped Courtlandt Classon, with a rickety
abandon almost paternal; and, replying literally, Hamil admitted his
excellent physical condition.

Virginia Suydam, reclining in her basket chair, very picturesque in a
broad hat, smiled at him out of her peculiar bluish-green eyes, while
Courtlandt Classon fussed and fussed and patted his shoulder; an old
beau who had toddled about Manhattan in the days when the town was gay
below Bleecker Street, when brownstone was for the rich alone, when the
family horses wore their tails long and a proud Ethiope held the reins,
when Saratoga was the goal of fashion, and old General Jan
Van-der-Duynck pronounced his own name "Wonnerdink," with profane
accompaniment.

They were all most affable--Van Tassel Cuyp with the automatic nervous
snicker that deepened the furrows from nostril to mouth, a tall
stoop-shouldered man of scant forty with the high colour, long, nervous
nose, and dull eye of Dutch descent; and Colonel Augustus Magnelius
Pietrus Vetchen, scion of an illustrious line whose ancestors had been
colonial governors and judges before the British flag floated from the
New Amsterdam fort. His daughter was the celebrated beauty, Mrs. Tom
O'Hara. She had married O'Hara and so many incredible millions that
people insisted that was why Colonel Vetchen's eyebrows expressed the
acute slant of perpetual astonishment.

So they were all cordial, for was he not related to the late General
Garret Suydam and, therefore, distantly to them all? And these men who
took themselves and their lineage so seriously, took Hamil seriously;
and he often attempted to appreciate it seriously, but his sense of
humour was too strong. They were all good people, kindly and harmless
snobs; and when he had made his adieux under the shadow of the white
portico, he lingered a moment to observe the obsolete gallantry with
which Mr. Classon and Colonel Vetchen wafted Virginia up the steps.

Cuyp lingered to venture a heavy pleasantry or two which distorted his
long nose into a series of white-ridged wrinkles, then he ambled away
and disappeared within the abode of that divinity who shapes our ends,
the manicure; and Hamil turned once more toward the gardens.

The hour was still early; of course too unconventional to leave cards on
the Cardross family, even too early for a business visit; but he thought
he would stroll past the villa, the white walls of which he had dimly
seen the evening before. Besides his Calypso was there. Alas! for
Calypso. Yet his heart tuned up a trifle as he thought of seeing her so
soon again.

And so, a somewhat pensive but wholly attractive and self-confident
young opportunist in white flannels, he sauntered through the hotel
gardens and out along the dazzling shell-road.

No need for him to make inquiries of passing negroes; no need to ask
where the House of Cardross might be found; for although he had seen it
only by starlight, and the white sunshine now transformed everything
under its unfamiliar glare, he remembered his way, étape by étape, from
the foliated iron grille of Whitehall to the ancient cannon bedded in
rusting trunnions; and from that mass of Spanish bronze, southward under
the tall palms, past hedges of vermilion hibiscus and perfumed oleander,
past villa after villa embowered in purple, white, and crimson flowering
vines, and far away inland along the snowy road until, at the turn, a
gigantic banyan tree sprawled across the sky and the lilac-odour of
china-berry in bloom stole subtly through the aromatic confusion, pure,
sweet, refreshing in all its exquisite integrity.

"Calypso's own fragrance," he thought to himself--remembering the
intimate perfume of her hair and gown as she passed so near to him in
the lantern light when he had spoken without discretion.

And suddenly the reminiscent humour faded from his eyes and mouth as he
remembered what his aunt had said of this young girl; and, halting in
his tracks, he recalled what she herself had said; that the harmless
liberties another girl might venture to take with informality, armoured
in an assurance above common convention, she could not venture. And now
he knew why.... She had expected him to learn that she was an adopted
daughter; in the light of his new knowledge he understood that. No doubt
it was generally known. But the child had not expected him to know more
than that; and, her own knowledge of the hopeless truth, plainly enough,
was the key to that note of bitterness which he had detected at times,
and even spoken of--that curious maturity forced by unhappy
self-knowledge, that apathetic indifference stirred at moments to a
quick sensitive alertness almost resembling self-defence. She was aware
of her own story; that was certain. And the acid of that knowledge was
etching the designs of character upon a physical adolescence unprepared
for such biting reaction.

He was sorry he knew it, feeling ashamed of his own guiltless invasion
of the girl's privacy.

The only reparation possible was to forget it. Like an honourable
card-player who inadvertently sees his opponent's cards, he must play
his hand exactly as he would have in the beginning. And that, he
believed, would be perfectly simple.

Reassured he looked across the lawns toward the Cardross villa, a big
house of coquina cement, very beautiful in its pseudo-Spanish
architecture, red-tiled roofs, cool patias, arcades, and courts; the
formality of terrace, wall, and fountain charmingly disguised under a
riot of bloom and foliage.

The house stood farther away than he had imagined, for here the public
road ended abruptly in a winding hammock-trail, and to the east the
private drive of marl ran between high gates of wrought iron swung wide
between carved coquina pillars.

And the house itself was very much larger than he had imagined; the
starlight had illuminated only a small portion of its white façade,
tricking him; for this was almost a palace--one of those fine
vigorously designed mansions, so imposing in simplicity, nicknamed by
smug humility--a "cottage," or "villa."

"By jingo, it's noble!" he exclaimed, the exotic dignity of the house
dawning on him by degrees as he moved forward and the southern ocean
sprang into view, turquoise and amethyst inlaid streak on streak to the
still horizon.

"What a chance!" he repeated under his breath; "what a chance for the
noblest park ever softened into formality! And the untouched forests
beyond!--and the lagoons!--and the dunes to the east--and the sea! Lord,
Lord," he whispered with unconscious reverence, "what an Eden!"

One of the white-haired, black-skinned children of men--though the point
is locally disputed--looked up from the grass where he squatted
gathering ripe fruit under a sapodilla tree; and to an inquiry:

"Yaas-suh, yaas-suh; Mistuh Cahdhoss in de pomelo g'ove, suh, feedin'
mud-cat to de wile-puss."

"Doing _what_?"

"Feedin' mud-fish to de wile-cat, de wile lynx-cat, suh." The aged negro
rose, hat doffed, juicy traces of forbidden sapodillas on his face which
he naïvely removed with the back of the blackest and most grotesquely
wrinkled hand Hamil had ever seen.

"Yaas-suh; 'scusin' de 'gator, wile-cat love de mud-fish mostest; yaas,
suh. Ole torm-cat he fish de crick lak he was no 'count Seminole
trash--"

"One moment, uncle," interrupted Hamil, smiling; "is that the pomelo
grove? And is that gentleman yonder Mr. Cardross?"

"Yaas-suh."

He stood silent a moment thoughtfully watching the distant figure
through the vista of green leaves, white blossoms, and great clusters of
fruit hanging like globes of palest gold in the sun.

"I think," he said absently, "that I'll step over and speak to Mr.
Cardross.... Thank you, uncle.... What kind of fruit is that you're
gathering?"

"Sappydilla, suh."

Hamil laughed; he had heard that a darky would barter 'possum, ham-bone,
and soul immortal for a ripe sapodilla; he had also once, much farther
northward, seen the distressing spectacle of Savannah negroes loading a
freight car with watermelons; and it struck him now that it was equally
rash to commission this aged uncle on any such business as the gathering
of sapodillas for family consumption.

The rolling, moist, and guileless eye of the old man whose slightly
pained expression made it plain that he divined exactly what Hamil had
been thinking, set the young man laughing outright.

"Don't worry, uncle," he said; "they're not my sapodillas"; and he
walked toward the pomelo grove, the old man, a picture of outraged
innocence, looking after him, thoughtlessly biting into an enormous and
juicy specimen of the forbidden fruit as he looked.

There was a high fence of woven wire around the grove; through scented
vistas, spotted with sunshine, fruit and blossoms hung together amid
tender foliage of glossy green; palms and palmettos stood with broad
drooping fronds here and there among the citrus trees, and the brown
woody litter which covered the ground was all starred with fallen
flowers.

The gate was open, and as Hamil stepped in he met a well-built, active
man in white flannels coming out; and both halted abruptly.

"I am looking for Mr. Cardross," said the younger man.

"I am Mr. Cardross."

Hamil nodded. "I mean that I am looking for Mr. Cardross, senior--"

"I am Mr. Cardross, senior."

Hamil gazed at this active gentleman who could scarcely be the father of
married children; and yet, as he looked, the crisp, thick hair, the
clear sun-bronzed skin which had misled him might after all belong to
that type of young-old men less common in America than in England. And
Hamil also realised that his hair was silvered, not blond, and that
neither the hands nor the eyes of this man were the hands and eyes of
youth.

"I am Garret Hamil," he said.

"I recognise you perfectly. I supposed you older--until my daughter
showed me your picture in the _News_ two weeks ago!"

"I supposed _you_ older--until this minute."

"I _am_!"

Looking squarely into each other's faces they laughed and shook hands.

"When did you come, Mr. Hamil?"

"Last night from Nassau."

"Where are you stopping?"

Hamil told him.

"Your rooms are ready here. It's very good of you to come to see me at
once--"

"It's very good of you to want me--"

"Want you, man alive! Of course I want you! I'm all on edge over this
landscape scheme; I've done nothing since we arrived from the North but
ride over and over the place--and I've not half covered it yet. That's
the way we'll begin work, isn't it? Knock about together and get a
general idea of the country; isn't that the best way?"

"Yes, certainly--"

"I thought so. The way to learn a country is to ride over it, fish over
it, shoot over it, sail around it, camp in it--that's my notion of
thoroughly understanding a region. If you're going to improve it you've
got to care something about it--begin to like it--find pleasure in it,
understand it. Isn't that true, Mr. Hamil?"

"Yes--in a measure--"

"Of course it's true," repeated Cardross with his quick engaging laugh;
"if a man doesn't care for a thing he's not fitted to alter or modify
it. I've often thought that those old French landscape men must have
dearly loved the country they made so beautiful--loved it
intelligently--for they left so much wild beauty edging the formality of
their creations. Do you happen to remember the Chasse at Versailles? And
that's what I want here! You don't mind my instructing you in your own
profession, do you?"

They both laughed again, apparently qualified to understand one another.

Cardross said: "I'm glad you're young; I'm glad you've come. This is
going to be the pleasantest winter of my life. There isn't anything I'd
rather do than just this kind of thing--if you'll let me tag after you
and talk about it. You don't mind, do you?"

"No, I don't," said Hamil sincerely.

"We'll probably have rows," suggested Cardross; "I may want vistas and
terraces and fountains where they ought not to be."

"Oh, no, you won't," replied Hamil, laughing; "you'll understand things
when I give reasons."

"That's what I want--reasons. If anybody would only give me
reasons!--but nobody does. Listen; will you come up to the house with me
and meet my family? And then you'll lunch with them--I've a business
luncheon at the club--unfortunately--but I'll come back. Meanwhile
there'll be somebody to show you about, or you can run out to the Inlet
in one of the motor-boats if you like, or do anything you like that may
amuse you; the main thing is for you to be amused, to find this place
agreeable, to like this kind of country, to like us. _Then_ you can do
good work, Mr. Hamil."

A grinning negro shuffled up and closed the gate as they left the grove
together and started across the lawn. Cardross, cordial in his quick,
vigorous manner, strolled with his hands in his coat pockets, planting
each white-shod foot firmly as he walked, frequently turning head and
shoulders squarely toward his companion when speaking.

He must have been over fifty; he did not appear forty; still, on closer
and more detailed inspection Hamil understood how much his alert,
well-made figure had to do with the first impression of youth. Yet his
expression had nothing in it of that shadow which falls with
years--nothing to show to the world that he had once taken the world by
the throat and wrung a fortune out of it--nothing of the hard gravity or
the underlying sadness of almost ruthless success, and the
responsibility for it.

Yet, from the first, Hamil had been aware of all that was behind this
unstudied frankness, this friendly vigour. There was a man, there--every
inch a man, but exactly of what sort the younger man had not yet
decided.

       *       *       *       *       *

A faded and very stout lady, gowned with elaborate simplicity, yet
somehow suggesting well-bred untidiness, rolled toward them, propelled
in a wheeled-chair by a black servant.

"Dear," said Mr. Cardross, "this is Mr. Hamil." And Mrs. Cardross
offered him her chubby hand and said a little more than he expected.
Then, to her husband, languidly:

"They're playing tennis, Neville. If Mr. Hamil would care to play there
are tennis-shoes belonging to Gray and Acton."

"Thank you, Mrs. Cardross," said Hamil, "but, as a matter of fact, I am
not yet acclimated."

"You feel a little sleepy?" drawled Mrs. Cardross, maternally
solicitous; "everybody does for the first few days." And to her husband:
"Jessie and Cecile are playing; Shiela must be somewhere about--You will
lunch with us, Mr. Hamil? There's to be a tennis luncheon under the
oaks--we'd really like to have you if you can stay."

Hamil accepted as simply as the invitation was given; Mrs. Cardross
exchanged a few words with her husband in that perfectly natural drawl
which at first might have been mistaken for languid affectation; then
she smiled at Hamil and turned around in her basket chair, parasol
tilted, and the black boy began slowly pedalling her away across the
lawn.

"We'll step over to the tennis-courts," said Cardross, replacing the
straw hat which he had removed to salute his wife; "they're having a
sort of scratch-tournament I believe--my daughters and some other young
people. I think you'll find the courts rather pretty."

The grounds were certainly quaint; spaces for four white marl courts had
been cleared, hewn out of the solid jungle which walled them in with a
noble living growth of live oak, cedar, magnolia, and palmetto. And on
these courts a very gay company of young people in white were playing or
applauding the players while the snowy balls flew across the nets and
the resonant blows of the bats rang out.

And first Mr. Cardross presented Hamil to his handsome married daughter,
Mrs. Acton Carrick, a jolly, freckled, young matron who showed her teeth
when she smiled and shook hands like her father; and then he was made
known to the youngest daughter, Cecile Cardross, small, plump, and
sun-tanned, with ruddy hair and mischief in every feature.

There was, also, a willowy Miss Staines and a blond Miss Anan, and a
very young Mr. Anan--a brother--and a grave and gaunt Mr. Gatewood and a
stout Mr. Ellison, and a number of others less easy to remember.

"This wholesale introduction business is always perplexing," observed
Cardross; "but they'll all remember you, and after a time you'll begin
to distinguish them from the shrubbery. No"--as Mrs. Carrick asked Hamil
if he cared to play--"he would rather look on this time, Jessie. Go
ahead; we are not interrupting you; where is Shiela--"

And Hamil, chancing to turn, saw her, tennis-bat tucked under one bare
arm, emerging from the jungle path; and at the same instant she caught
sight of him. Both little chalked shoes stood stockstill--for a second
only--then she came forward, leisurely, continuing to eat the ripe
guava with which she had been occupied.

Cardross, advancing, said: "This is Mr. Hamil, dearest; and," to the
young man: "My daughter Shiela."

She nodded politely.

"Now I've got to go, Shiela," continued Cardross. "Hamil, you'll amuse
yourself, won't you, until I return after luncheon? Shiela, Mr. Hamil
doesn't care to play tennis; so if you'll find out what he does care to
do--" He saluted the young people gaily and started across the lawn
where a very black boy with a chair stood ready to convey him to the
village and across the railroad tracks to that demure little
flower-embowered cottage the interior of which presents such an amazing
contrast to the exterior.



CHAPTER VI

ARMISTICE


The young girl beside him had finished her guava, and now, idly swinging
her tennis-bat, stood watching the games in the sunken courts below.

"Please don't consider me a burden," he said. "I would be very glad to
sit here and watch you play."

"I have been playing, thank you."

"But you won't let me interfere with anything that--"

"No, Mr. Hamil, I won't let you interfere--with anything."

She stood swinging her bat, apparently preoccupied with her own
thoughts--like a very grave goddess, he thought, glancing at her
askance--a very young goddess, immersed in celestial reverie far beyond
mortal comprehension.

"Do you like guavas?" she inquired. And, closing her own question: "But
you had better not until you are acclimated. Do you feel _very_ sleepy,
Mr. Hamil?"

"No, I don't," he said.

"Oh! You ought to conform to tradition. There's a particularly alluring
hammock on the veranda."

"To get rid of me is it necessary to make me take a nap?" he protested.

"So you refuse to go to sleep?"

"I certainly do."

She sighed and tucked the tennis-bat under her left arm. "Come," she
said, moving forward, "my father will ask me what I have done to amuse
you, and I had better hunt up something to tell him about. You'll want
to see the groves of course--"

"Yes, but I'm not going to drag you about with me--"

"Come," she repeated; and as he stood his ground obstinately:
"Please?"--with a rising inflection hinting at command.

"Why on earth don't you play tennis and let me sit and watch you?" he
asked, joining and keeping step with her.

"Why do you ask a woman for reasons, Mr. Hamil?"

"It's too bad to spoil your morning--"

"I know it; so in revenge I'm going to spoil yours. Our trip is called
'Seeing Florida,' so you must listen to your guide very attentively.
This is a pomelo grove--thank you," to the negro who opened the
gate--"here you see blossoms and ripe fruit together on the same tree. A
few palmettos have been planted here for various agricultural reasons.
This is a camphor bush"--touching it with her bat--"the leaves when
crushed in the palm exhale a delightful fragr--"

"Calypso!"

She turned toward him with coldest composure. "_That_ never happened,
Mr. Hamil."

"No," he said, "it never did."

A slight colour remained in his face; hers was cool enough.

"Did you think it happened?" she asked. He shook his head. "No," he
repeated seriously, "I know that it never happened."

She said: "If you are quite sure it never happened, there is no harm in
pretending it did.... What was it you called me?"

"I could never remember, Miss Cardross--unless you tell me."

"Then I'll tell you--if you are quite sure you don't remember. You
called me 'Calypso.'"

And looking up he surprised the rare laughter in her eyes.

"You are rather nice after all," she said, "or is it only that I have
you under such rigid discipline? But it was very bad taste in you to
recall so crudely what never occurred--until I gave you the liberty to
do it. Don't you think so?"

"Yes, I do," he said. "I've made two exhibitions of myself since I knew
you--"

"_One_, Mr. Hamil. Please recollect that I am scarcely supposed to know
how many exhibitions of yourself you may have made before we were
formally presented."

She stood still under a tree which drooped like a leaf-tufted umbrella,
and she said, swinging her racket: "You will always have me at a
disadvantage. Do you know it?"

"That is utterly impossible!"

"Is it? Do you mean it?"

"I do with all my heart--"

"Thank you; but do you mean it with all your logical intelligence, too?"

"Yes, of course I do."

She stood, head partly averted, one hand caressing the smooth,
pale-yellow fruit which hung in heavy clusters around her. And all
around her, too, the delicate white blossoms poured out fragrance, and
the giant swallow-tail butterflies in gold and black fluttered and
floated among the blossoms or clung to them as though stupefied by their
heavy sweetness.

"I wish we had begun--differently," she mused.

"I don't wish it."

She said, turning on him almost fiercely: "You persisted in talking to
me in the boat; you contrived to make yourself interesting without being
offensive--I don't know how you managed it! And then--last night--I was
not myself.... And then--_that_ happened!"

"Could anything more innocent have happened?"

"Something far more dignified could have happened when I heard you say
'Calypso.'" She shrugged her shoulders. "It's done; we've misbehaved;
and you will have to be dreadfully careful. You will, won't you? And yet
I shall certainly hate you heartily if you make any difference between
me and other women. Oh, dear!--Oh, dear! The whole situation is just
unimportant enough to be irritating. Mr. Hamil, I don't think I care for
you very much."

And as he looked at her with a troubled smile, she added:

"You must not take that declaration _too_ literally. Can you
forget--various things?"

"I don't want to, Miss Cardross. Listen: nobody could be more sweet,
more simple, more natural than the girl I spoke to--I dreamed that I
talked with--last night. I don't want to forget that night, or that
girl. Must I?"

"Are you, in your inmost thoughts, fastidious in thinking of that girl?
Is there any reservation, any hesitation?"

He said, meeting her eyes: "She is easily the nicest girl I ever
met--the very nicest. Do you think that I might have her for a friend?"

"Do you mean this girl, Calypso?"

"Yes."

"Then I think that she will return to you the exact measure of
friendship that you offer her.... Because, Mr. Hamil, she is after all
not very old in years, and a little sensitive and impressionable."

He thought to himself: "She is a rather curious mixture of impulse and
reason; of shyness and audacity; of composure and timidity; of courage
and cowardice and experience. But there is in her no treachery; nothing
mentally unwholesome."

They stood silent a moment smiling at each other rather seriously; then
her smooth hand slid from his, and she drew a light breath.

"What a relief!" she said.

"What?"

"To know you are the kind of man I knew you were. That sounds rather
Irish, doesn't it?..." And under her breath--"perhaps it is. God knows!"
Her face grew very grave for a moment, then, as she turned and looked at
him, the shadow fell.

"Do you know--it was absurd of course--but I could scarcely sleep last
night for sheer dread of your coming to-day. And yet I knew what sort of
a man you must be; and this morning"--she shook her head--"I couldn't
endure any breakfast, and I usually endure lots; so I took a spin down
the lake in my chair. When I saw you just now I was trying to brace up
on a guava. Listen to me: I am hungry!"

"You poor little thing--"

"Sympathy satisfies sentiment but appetite prefers oranges. Shall we eat
oranges together and become friendly and messy? Are you even _that_ kind
of a man? Oh, then if you really are, there's a mixed grove just
beyond."

So together, shoulder to shoulder, keeping step, they passed through the
new grove with its enormous pendent bunches of grape-fruit, and into a
second grove where limes and mandarins hung among clusters of lemons and
oranges; where kum-quat bushes stood stiffly, studded with egg-shaped,
orange-tinted fruit; where tangerines, grape-fruit, and king-oranges
grew upon the same tree, and the deep scarlet of ripe Japanese
persimmons and the huge tattered fronds of banana trees formed a riotous
background.

"This tree!" she indicated briefly, reaching up; and her hand was white
even among the milky orange bloom--he noticed that as he bent down a
laden bough for her.

"Pine-oranges," she said, "the most delicious of all. I'll pick and you
hold the branch. And please get me a few tangerines--those
blood-tangerines up there.... Thank you; and two Japanese
persimmons--and two more for yourself.... Have you a knife? Very well;
now, break a fan from that saw-palmetto and sweep a place for me on the
ground--that way. And now please look very carefully to see if there are
any spiders. No spiders? No scorpions? No wood-ticks? Are you sure?"

"There _may_ be a bandersnatch," he said doubtfully, dusting the ground
with his palmetto fan.

She laughed and seated herself on the ground, drew down her short white
tennis-skirt as far as it would go over her slim ankles, looked up at
him confidently, holding out her hand for his knife.

"We are going to be delightfully messy in a moment," she said; "let me
show you how they prepare an orange in Florida. This is for you--you
must take it.... And this is for me. The rind is all gone, you see. Now,
Ulysses. This is the magic moment!"

And without further ceremony her little teeth met in the dripping golden
pulp; and in another moment Hamil was imitating her.

They appeared to be sufficiently hungry; the brilliant rind, crinkling,
fell away in golden corkscrews from orange after orange, and still they
ate on, chattering away together between oranges.

"Isn't this primitive luxury, Mr. Hamil? We ought to wear our
bathing-clothes.... Don't dare take my largest king-orange! Yes--you may
have it;--I won't take it.... Are you being amused? My father said that
you were to be amused. What in the world are you staring at?"

"That!" said Hamil, eyes widening. "What on earth--"

"Oh, that's nothing--that is our watchman. We have to employ somebody to
watch our groves, you know, or all the negroes in Florida would be
banqueting here. So we have that watchman yonder--"

"But it's a _bird_!" insisted Hamil, "a big gray, long-legged, five-foot
bird with a scarlet head!"

"Of course," said the girl serenely; "it's a crane. His name is Alonzo;
he's four feet high; and he's horridly savage. If you came in here
without father or me or some of the workmen who know him, Alonzo would
begin to dance at you, flapping his wings, every plume erect; and if you
didn't run he'd attack you. That big, dagger-like bill of his is an
atrocious weapon."

The crane resembled a round-shouldered, thin-legged old gentleman with
his hands tucked under his coat-tails; and as he came up, tiptoeing and
peering slyly at Hamil out of two bright evil-looking eyes, the girl
raised her arm and threw a kum-quat at him so accurately that the bird
veered off with a huge hop of grieved astonishment.

"Alonzo! Go away this instant!" she commanded. And to Hamil: "He's
disgustingly treacherous; he'll sidle up behind you if he can. Give me
that palmetto fan."

But the bird saw her rise, and hastily retreated to the farther edge of
the grove, where presently they saw him pretending to hunt snails and
lizards as innocently as though premeditated human assassination was
farthest from his thoughts.

There was a fountain with a coquina basin in the grove; and here they
washed the orange juice from their hands and dried them on their
handkerchiefs.

"Would you like to see Tommy Tiger?" she asked. "I'm taming him."

"Very much," he said politely.

"Well, he's in there somewhere," pointing to a section of bushy jungle
edging the grove and around which was a high heavy fence of closely
woven buffalo wire. "Here, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy!" she called, in her
fresh young voice that, at times, broke deliciously in a childish
grace-note.

At first Hamil could see nothing in the tangle of brier and
saw-palmetto, but after a while he became aware of a wild-cat, tufted
ears flattenend, standing in the shadow of a striped bush and looking
at him out of the greenest eyes he had ever beheld.

"Pretty Tom," said the girl caressingly. "Tommy, come and let Shiela
scratch his ears."

And the lynx, disdainfully shifting its blank green gaze from Hamil,
hoisted an absurd stub of a tail and began rubbing its lavishly
whiskered jowl against the bush. Nearer and nearer sidled the lithe
grayish animal, cautiously the girl advanced, until the cat was rubbing
cheek and flank against the woven-wire fence. Then, with infinite
precaution, she extended her hand, touched the flat fierce head, and
slowly began to rub it.

"Don't!" said Hamil, stepping forward; and at the sound of his voice and
step the cat whirled and struck, and the girl sprang back, white to the
lips.

For a moment she said nothing, then looked up at Hamil beside her, as
pale as she.

"I am not hurt," she said, "only startled."

"I should not have spoken," he faltered. "What an ass I am!"

"It is all right; I ought to have cautioned you about moving or
speaking. I thought you understood--but please don't look that way, Mr.
Hamil. It was not your fault and I am not hurt. Which teaches me a
lesson, I hope. What is the moral?--don't attempt to caress the
impossible?--or something similarly senseless," she added gaily. And
turning on the crouching lynx: "Bad Tommy! Wicked, treacherous,
_bad_--no! _Poor_ old Tom! You are quite right. I'd do the same if I
were trapped and anybody tried to patronize me. I know how you
feel--yes, I do, Tommy Tiger. And I'll tell old Jonas to give you lots
and lots of delicious mud-fish for your dinner to-night--yes, I will, my
friend. Also some lavender to roll on.... Mr. Hamil, you are still
unusually colourless. Were you really afraid?"

"Horribly."

"Oh, the wire is too strong for him to break out," she observed coolly.

"I was not afraid of that," he retorted, reddening.

She turned toward him, smilingly remorseful.

"I know it! I say such things--I don't know why. You will learn how to
take them, won't you?"

They walked on, passing through grove after grove, Alonzo tiptoeing
after them, and when, as a matter of precaution from time to time,
Shiela looked back, the bird pretended not to see them until they passed
the last gate and locked it. Then the great crane, half flying, half
running, charged at the closed gate, dancing and bounding about; and
long after they were out of sight Alonzo's discordant metallic shrieks
rang out in baffled fury from among the trees.

They had come into a wide smooth roadway flanked by walks shaded by
quadruple rows of palms. Oleander and hibiscus hedges ran on either side
as far as the eye could see, and long brilliant flower-beds stretched
away into gorgeous perspective.

"This is stunning," he said, staring about him.

"It is our road to the ocean, about two miles long," she explained. "My
father designed it; do you really like it?"

"Yes, I do," he said sincerely; "and I scarcely understand why Mr.
Cardross has called me into consultation if this is the way he can do
things."

"That is generous of you. Father will be very proud and happy when I
tell him."

They were leaning over the rail of a stone bridge together; the clear
stream below wound through thickets of mangrove, bamboo, and flowering
vines all a-flutter with butterflies; a school of fish stemmed the
current with winnowing fins; myriads of brown and gold dragon-flies
darted overhead.

"It's fairyland--the only proper setting for you after all," he said.

Resting one elbow on the stone parapet, her cheek in the hollow of her
hand, she watched the smile brightening in his face, but responded only
faintly to it.

"Some day," she said, "when we have blown the froth and sparkle from our
scarcely tasted cup of acquaintance, you will talk to me of serious
things sometimes--will you not?"

"Why--yes," he said, surprised.

"I mean--as you would to a man. You will find me capable of
understanding you. You once said to me, in a boat, that no two normal
people of opposite sex can meet without experiencing more or less
wholesome interest in one another. Didn't you say that? Very well, then;
I now admit my normal interest in you--untinged by sentiment. Don't
disappoint me."

He said whimsically: "I'm not intellectual; I don't know very much about
anything except my profession."

"Then talk to me about it. Goodness! Don't I deserve it? Is a girl to
violate precept and instinct on an ill-considered impulse only to find
the man in the case was not worth it? And how do you know what else I
violated--merely to be kind. I must have been mad to do it!"

He flushed up so vividly that she winced, then added quickly: "I didn't
mean that, Mr. Hamil; I knew you were worth it when I did it."

"The worst of it is that I am not," he said. "I'm like everybody who has
been through college and chooses a profession for love of it. I do know
something about that profession; outside of it, the least I can say for
myself is that I care about everything that goes on in this very jolly
world. Curiosity has led me about by the nose. The result is a series of
acquired smatterings."

She regarded him intently with that clear gaze he found so refreshing--a
direct, fearless scrutiny which straightened her eyebrows to a
fascinating level and always made him think of a pagan marble, with
delicately chiselled, upcurled lips, and white brow youthfully grave.

"Did you study abroad?"

"Yes--not long enough."

She seemed rather astonished at this. Amused, he rested both elbows on
the parapet, looking at her from between the strong, lean hands that
framed his face.

"It was droll--the way I managed to scurry like a jack-rabbit through
school and college on nothing a year. I was obliged to hurry
post-graduate courses and Europe and such agreeable things. Otherwise I
would probably be more interesting to you--"

"You are sufficiently interesting," she said, flushing up at his wilful
misinterpretation.

And, as he laughed easily:

"The horrid thing about it is that you _are_ interesting and you know
it. All I asked of you was to be seriously interesting to
me--occasionally; and instead you are rude--"

"Rude!"

"Yes, you are!--pretending that I was disappointed in you because you
hadn't dawdled around Europe for years in the wake of an education. You
are, apparently, just about the average sort of man one meets--yet I
kicked over several conventions for the sake of exchanging a few
premature words with you, knowing all the while I was to meet you later.
It certainly was not for your beaux yeux; I am not sentimental!" she
added fiercely. "And it was not because you are a celebrity--you are not
one yet, you know. Something in you certainly appealed to something
reckless in me; yet I did not really feel very sinful when I let you
speak to me; and, even in the boat, I admit frankly that I enjoyed every
word that we spoke--though I didn't appear to, did I?"

"No, you didn't," he said.

She smiled, watching him, chin on hand.

"I wonder how you'll like this place," she mused. "It's gay--in a way.
There are things to do every moment if you let people rob you of your
time--dances, carnivals, races, gambling, suppers. There's the
Fortnightly Club, and various charities too, and dinners and teas and
all sorts of things to do outdoors on land and on water. Are you fond of
shooting?"

"Very. I _can_ do that pretty well."

"So can I. We'll go with my father and Gray. Gray is my brother; you'll
meet him at luncheon. What time is it?"

He looked at his watch. "Eleven--a little after."

"We're missing the bathing. Everybody splashes about the pool or the
ocean at this hour. Then everybody sits on the veranda of _The Breakers_
and drinks things and gossips until luncheon. Rather intellectual, isn't
it?"

"Sufficiently," he replied lazily.

She leaned over the parapet, standing on the tips of her white shoes and
looked down at the school of fish. Presently she pointed to a snake
swimming against the current.

"A moccasin?" he asked.

"No, only a water snake. They call everything moccasins down here, but
real moccasins are not very common."

"And rattlesnakes?"

"Scarcer still. You hear stories, but--" She shrugged her shoulders. "Of
course when we are quail shooting it's well to look where you step, but
there are more snakes in the latitude of Saint Augustine than there are
here. When father and I are shooting we never think anything about them.
I'm more afraid of those horrid wood-ticks. Listen; shall we go
camping?"

"But I have work on hand," he said dejectedly.

"That is part of your work. Father said so. Anyway I know he means to
camp with you somewhere in the hammock, and if Gray goes I go too."

"Calypso," he said, "do you know what I've been hearing about you? I've
heard that you are the most assiduously run-after girl at Palm Beach.
And if you are, what on earth will the legions of the adoring say when
you take to the jungle?"

"Who said that about me?" she asked, smiling adorably.

"Is it true?"

"I am--liked. Who said it?"

"You don't mean to say," he continued perversely, "that I have
monopolised the reigning beauty of Palm Beach for an entire morning."

"Yes, you have and it is high time you understood it. _Who_ said this to
_you_?"

"Well--I gathered the fact--"

"Who?"

"My aunt--Miss Palliser."

"Do you know," said Shiela Cardross slowly, "that Miss Palliser has
been exceedingly nice to me? But her friend, Miss Suydam, is not very
civil."

"I'm awfully sorry," he said.

"I could tell you that it mattered nothing," she said, looking straight
at him; "and that would be an untruth. I know that many people disregard
such things--many are indifferent to the opinion of others, or say they
are. I never have been; I want everybody to like me--even people I have
not the slightest interest in--people I do not even know--I want them
all to like me. For I must tell you, Mr. Hamil, that when anybody
dislikes me, and I know it, I am just as unhappy about it as though I
cared for them."

"It's absurd for anybody not to like you!" he said.

"Well, do you know it really is absurd--if they only knew how willing I
am to like everybody.... I was inclined to like Miss Suydam."

Hamil remained silent.

The girl added: "One does not absolutely disregard the displeasure of
such people."

"They didn't some years ago when there were no shops on Fifth Avenue and
gentlemen wore side-whiskers," said Hamil, smiling.

Shiela Cardross shrugged. "I'm sorry; I was inclined to like her. She
misses more than I do because we are a jolly and amusing family. It's
curious how much energy is wasted disliking people. Who is Miss Suydam?"

"She's a sort of a relative. I have always known her. I'm sorry she was
rude. She is sometimes."

They said no more about her or about his aunt; and presently they moved
on again, luncheon being imminent.

"You will like my sister, Mrs. Carrick," said Shiela tranquilly. "You
know her husband, Acton, don't you? He's at Miami fishing."

"Oh, yes; I've met him at the club. He's very agreeable."

"He _is_ jolly. And Jessie--Mrs. Carrick--is the best fun in the world.
And you are sure to like my little sister Cecile; every man adores her,
and you'll do it, too--yes, I mean sentimentally--until she laughs you
out of it."

"Like yourself, Calypso, I'm not inclined to sentiment," he said.

"You can't help it with Cecile. Wait! Then there are others to lunch
with us--Marjorie Staines--very popular with men, and Stephanie
Anan--you studied with her uncle, Winslow Anan, didn't you?"

"Yes, indeed!" he exclaimed warmly, "but how did you--"

"Oh, I knew it; I know lots about you, you see.... Then there is Phil
Gatewood--a perfectly splendid fellow, and Alex Anan--a dear boy, ready
to adore any girl who looks sideways at him.... I don't remember who
else is to lunch with us, except my brother Gray. Look, Mr. Hamil!
They've actually sat down to luncheon without waiting for us! What
horrid incivility! Could your watch have been wrong?--or have we been
too deeply absorbed?"

"I can speak for one of us," he said, as they came out upon the lawn in
full view of the table which was spread under the most beautiful
live-oaks he had ever seen.

       *       *       *       *       *

Everybody was very friendly. Gray Cardross, a nice-looking boy who wore
spectacles, collected butterflies, and did not look like a "speed-mad
cub," took Hamil to the house, whither Shiela had already retired for
an ante-prandial toilet; but there is no dust in that part of the world,
and his preparations were quickly made.

"Awfully glad you came," repeated young Cardross with all the excessive
cordiality of the young and unspoiled. "Father has been checking off the
days on the calendar since your letter saying you were coming by way of
Nassau. The Governor is dying to begin operations on that jungle yonder.
When we camp I'm going--and probably Shiela is--she began clamoring to
go two weeks ago. We all had an idea that you were a rather feeble old
gentleman--like Mr. Anan--until Shiela brought us the picture they
published of you in the paper two weeks ago; and she said immediately
that if you were young enough to camp she was old enough to go too.
She's a good shot, Mr. Hamil, and she won't interfere with your
professional duties--"

"I should think not!" said Hamil cordially; "but--as for my
camping--there's really almost nothing left for me to do except to
familiarise myself with the character of your wilderness. Your father
tells me he has the surveys and contour maps all ready. As a matter of
fact I really could begin the office work at once--"

"For Heaven's sake don't do that! and don't say it!" exclaimed the young
fellow in dismay. "Father and Shiela and I are counting on this trip.
There's a butterfly or two I want to get at Ruffle Lake. Don't you think
it extremely necessary that you go over the entire territory?--become
thoroughly saturated with the atmosphere and--"

"Malaria?" suggested Hamil, laughing. "Of course, seriously, it will be
simply fine. And perhaps it is the best thing to do for a while. Please
don't mistake me; I _want_ to do it; I--I've never before had a
vacation like this. It's like a trip into paradise from the sordid
horror of Broadway. Only," he added slowly as they left the house and
started toward the luncheon party under the live-oaks, "I should like to
have your father know that I am ready to give him every moment of my
time."

"That's what he wants--and so do I," said young Cardross.... "Hello!
Here's Shiela back before us! I'd like to sit near enough to talk to
you, but Shiela is between us. I'll tell you after luncheon what we
propose to do on this trip."

A white servant seated Hamil on Mrs. Cardross's right; and for a while
that languid but friendly lady drawled amiable trivialities to him,
propounding the tritest questions with an air of pleased profundity,
replying to his observations with harmlessly complacent platitudes--a
good woman, every inch of her--one who had never known an unkindly act
or word in the circle of her own family--one who had always been
accustomed to honor, deference, and affection--of whom nothing more had
ever been demanded than the affections of a good wife and a good mother.

Being very, very stout, and elaborately upholstered, a shady hammock
couch suited her best; and as she was eternally dieting and was too
stout to sit comfortably, she never remained very long at table.

Gray escorted her houseward in the midst of the festivities. She nodded
a gracious apology to all, entered her wheel-chair, and was rolled
heavily away for her daily siesta.

       *       *       *       *       *

Everybody appeared to be friendly to him, even cordial. Mrs. Acton
Carrick talked to him in her pretty, decisive, animated manner, a
feminine reflection of her father's characteristic energy and frankness.

Her younger sister, Cecile, possessed a drawl like her mother's.
Petite, distractingly pretty, Hamil recognised immediately her
attraction--experienced it, amused himself by yielding to it as he
exchanged conventionally preliminary observations with her across the
table.

Men, on first acquaintance, were usually very easily captivated, for she
had not only all the general attraction of being young, feminine, and
unusually ornamental, but she also possessed numberless individualities
like a rapid fire of incarnations, which since she was sixteen had kept
many a young man, good and true, madly guessing which was the real
Cecile. And yet all the various and assorted Ceciles seemed equally
desirable, susceptible, and eternally on the verge of being rounded up
and captured; that was the worst of it; and no young man she had ever
known had wholly relinquished hope. For even in the graceful act of
side-stepping the smitten, the girl's eyes and lips seemed unconsciously
to unite in a gay little unspoken promise--"This serial story is to be
continued in our next--perhaps."

As for the other people at the table Hamil began to distinguish one from
another by degrees; the fair-haired Anans, sister and brother, who spoke
of their celebrated uncle, Winslow Anan, and his predictions concerning
Hamil as his legitimate successor; Marjorie Staines, willowy, active,
fresh as a stem of white jasmine, and inconsequent as a very restless
bird; Philip Gatewood, grave, thin, prematurely saddened by the
responsibility of a vast inheritance, consumed by a desire for an
artistic career, looking at the world with his owlish eyes through the
prismatic colors of a set palette.

There were others there whom as yet he had been unable to
differentiate; smiling, well-mannered, affable people who chattered with
more or less intimacy among themselves as though accustomed to meeting
one another year after year in this winter rendezvous. And everywhere he
felt the easy, informal friendliness and goodwill of these young people.

"Are you being amused?" asked Shiela beside him. "My father's orders,
you know," she added demurely.

They stood up as Mrs. Carrick rose and left the table followed by the
others; and he looked at Shiela expecting her to imitate her sister's
example. As she did not, he waited beside her, his cigarette unlighted.

Presently she bent over the table, extended her arm, and lifted a small
burning lamp of silver toward him; and, thanking her, he lighted his
cigarette.

"Siesta?" she asked.

"No; I feel fairly normal."

"That's abnormal in Florida. But if you really don't feel sleepy--if you
really don't--we'll get the _Gracilis_--our fastest motor-boat--and run
down to the Beach Club and get father. Shall we--just you and I?"

"And the engineer?"

"I'll run the _Gracilis_ if you will steer," she said quietly.

"I'll do whichever you wish, Calypso, steer or run things."

She looked up with that quick smile which seemed to transfigure her into
something a little more than mortal.

"Why in the world have I ever been afraid of you?" she said. "Will you
come? I think our galley is in commission.... Once I told you that
Calypso was a land-nymph. But--time changes us all, you know--and as
nobody reads the classics any longer nobody will perceive the
anachronism."

"Except ourselves."

"Except ourselves, Ulysses; and we'll forgive each other." She took a
step out from the shadow of the oaks' foliage into the white sunlight
and turned, looking back at him.

And he followed, as did his heroic namesake in the golden noon of the
age of fable.

As they came in sight of the sea he halted.

"That's curious!" he exclaimed; "there is the _Ariani_ again!"

"The yacht you came on?"

"Yes. I wonder if there's been an accident. She cleared for Miami last
night."

They stood looking at the white steamer for a moment.

"I hope everything's all right with the _Ariani_" he murmured; then
turned to the girl beside him.

"By the way I have a message for you from a man on board; I forgot to
deliver it."

"A message for _me_?"

"From a very ornamental young man who desired to be particularly
remembered to Shiela Cardross until he could pay his respects in person.
Can you guess?"

For a moment she looked at him with a tremor of curiosity and amusement
edging her lips.

"Louis Malcourt," he said, smiling; and turned again to the sea.

A sudden, still, inward fright seized her; the curious soundless crash
of her own senses followed--as though all within had given way.

She had known many, many such moments; one was upon her now, the
clutching terror of it seeming to stiffen the very soul within her.

"I hope all's well with the _Ariani_" he repeated under his breath,
staring at the sea.

Miss Cardross said nothing.



CHAPTER VII

A CHANGE OF BASE


February, the gayest winter month on the East Coast, found the winter
resorts already overcrowded. Relays and consignments of fashion arrived
and departed on every train; the permanent winter colony, composed of
those who owned or rented villas and those who remained for the three
months at either of the great hotels, had started the season vigorously.
Dances, dinners, lawn fêtes, entertainments for local churches and
charities left little time for anything except the routine of the
bathing-hour, the noon gathering at "The Breakers," and tea during the
concert.

Every day beach, pier, and swimming-pool were thronged; every day the
white motor-cars rushed southward to Miami, and the swift power-boats
sped northward to the Inlet; and the house-boat rendezvous rang with the
gay laughter of pretty women, and the restaurant of the Beach Club
flashed with their jewels.

Dozens of villas had begun their series of house-parties; attractive
girls held court everywhere--under coco-palm and hibiscus, along the
beach, on the snowy decks of yachts; agreeable girls fished from the
pier, pervaded bazaars for charity, sauntered, bare of elbow and throat,
across the sandy links; adorable girls appeared everywhere, on veranda,
in canoes, in wheel-chairs, in the surf and out of it--everywhere youth
and beauty decorated the sun-drenched landscape. And Hamil thought that
he had never before beheld so many ornamental women together in any one
place except in his native city; certainly, nowhere had he ever
encountered such a heterogeneous mixture of all the shades, nuances,
tints, hues, and grades which enter into the warp and weft of the
American social fabric; and he noticed some colours that do not enter
into that fabric at all.

East, West, North, and South sent types of those worthy citizens who
upheld local social structures; the brilliant migrants were there
also--samples of the gay, wealthy, over-accented floating population of
great cities--the rich and homeless and restless--those who lived and
had their social being in the gorgeous and expensive hotels; who had
neither firesides nor taxes nor fixed social obligations to worry them,
nor any of the trying civic or routine duties devolving upon permanent
inhabitants--the jewelled throngers of the horse-shows and motor-shows,
and theatres, and night restaurants--the people, in fact, who make
ocean-liners, high prices, and the metropolis possible, and the name of
their country blinked at abroad. For it is not your native New Yorker
who supports the continual fête from the Bronx to the sea and carries it
over-seas for a Parisian summer.

Then, too, the truly good were there--the sturdy, respectable, and
sometimes dowdy good; also the intellectuals--for ten expensive days at
a time--for it is a deplorable fact that the unworthy frivolous
monopolise all the money in the world! And there, too, were
excursionists from East and West and North and South, tired,
leaden-eyed, uncomfortable, eating luncheons on private lawns, trooping
to see some trained alligators in a muddy pool, resting by roadsides
and dunes in the apathy of repletion, the sucked orange suspended to
follow with narrowing eyes the progress of some imported hat or gown.

And the bad were there; not the very, very bad perhaps; but the
doubtful; over-jewelled, over-tinted of lip and brow and cheek, with
shoes too shapely and waists too small and hair too bright and wavy,
and--but dusty alpaca and false front cannot do absolute justice to a
pearl collar and a gown of lace; and tired, toil-dimmed eyes may make
mistakes, especially as it is already a tradition that America goes to
Palm Beach to cut up shindies, or watch others do it.

So they were all there, the irreproachable, the amusing, the inevitable,
the intellectual, the good, and the bad, the onduléd, and the scant of
hair.

And, belonging to one or more of these divisions, Portlaw, Wayward, and
Malcourt were there--had been there, now, for several weeks, the latter
as a guest at the Cardross villa. For the demon of caprice had seized on
Wayward, and half-way to Miami he had turned back for no reason under
the sun apparently--though Constance Palliser had been very glad to see
him after so many years.

The month had made a new man of Hamil. For one thing he had become more
or less acclimated; he no longer desired to sleep several times a day,
he could now assimilate guavas without disaster, and walk about without
acquiring headaches or deluging himself in perspiration. For another he
was enchanted with his work and with Shiela Cardross, and with the
entire Cardross family.

The month had been a busy one for him. When he was not in the saddle
with Neville Cardross the work in the new office and draughting-room
required his close attention. Already affairs were moving briskly; he
had leased a cottage for his office work; draughtsmen had arrived and
were fully occupied, half a dozen contractors appeared on the spot, also
a forester and assistants, and a surveyor and staff. And the energetic
Mr. Cardross, also, was enjoying every minute of his life.

Hamil's plan for the great main park with its terraces, miles of shell
and marl drives, its lakes, bridges, arbours, pools, shelters, canals,
fully satisfied Cardross. Hamil's engineers were still occupied with the
drainage problem, but a happy solution was now in sight. Woodcutters had
already begun work on the great central forest avenue stretching
straight away for four miles between green jungles topped by giant oaks,
magnolias, and palmettos; lesser drives and chair trails were being
planned, blazed, and traced out; sample coquina concrete blocks had been
delivered, and a rickety narrow-gauge railroad was now being installed
with spidery branches reaching out through the monotonous flat woods and
creeping around the boundaries where a nine-foot game-proof fence of
woven buffalo wire was being erected on cypress posts by hundreds of
negroes. Around this went a telephone and telegraph wire connected with
the house and the gamekeeper's lodges.

Beyond the vast park lay an unbroken wilderness. This had already been
surveyed and there remained nothing to do except to pierce it with a
wide main trail and erect a few patrol camps of palmetto logs within
convenient reach of the duck-haunted lagoons.

And now toward the end of the month, as contractor after contractor
arrived with gangs of negroes and were swallowed up in the distant
woodlands, the interest in the Cardross household became acute. From
the front entrance of the house guests and family could see the great
avenue which was being cleared through the forest--could see the vista
growing hour by hour as the huge trees swayed, bent, and came crashing
earthward. Far away the noise of the felling sounded, softened by
distance; snowy jets of steam puffed up above the trees, the panting of
a toy locomotive came on the breeze, the mean, crescendo whine of a
saw-mill.

"It's the only way to do things," said Cardross again and again; "make
up your mind quickly that you want to do them, then do them quickly. I
have no patience with a man who'll dawdle about a bit of property for
years and finally start to improve it with a pot of geraniums after he's
too old to enjoy anything except gruel. When I plant a tree I don't
plant a sapling; I get a machine and four horses and a dozen men and I
put in a full-grown tree so that I can sit under it next day if I wish
to and not spend thirty years waiting for it to grow. Isn't that the way
to do things, Hamil?"

Hamil said yes. It was certainly the way to accomplish things--the
modern millionaire's way; but the majority of people had to do a little
waiting before they could enjoy their vine and fig-tree.

Cardross sat down beside his wife, who was reading in a hammock chair,
and gazed at the new vista through a pair of field-glasses.

"Gad, Hamil!" he said with considerable feeling, "I hate to see a noble
tree go down; it's like murder to me. But it's the only thing to do,
isn't it? The French understand the value of magnificent distances. What
a glorious vista that will make, four miles straight away walled in by
deathless green, and the blue lagoon sparkling at the end of the
perspective! I love it, I tell you. I love it!"

"It will be very fine," said Hamil. His voice sounded a trifle tired. He
had ridden many miles since sunrise. There was marl on his
riding-breeches.

Cardross continued to examine the work in progress through his
binoculars. Presently he said:

"You've been overdoing it, haven't you, Hamil? My wife says so."

"Overdoing it?" repeated the young man, not understanding. "Overdoing
what?"

"I mean you've a touch of malaria; you've been working a little too
hard."

"He has indeed," drawled Mrs. Cardross, laying aside her novel; and,
placidly ignoring Hamil's protests: "Neville, you drag him about through
those dreadful swamps before he is acclimated, and you keep him up half
the night talking plans and making sketches. He is too young to work
like that."

Hamil turned red; but it was impossible to resent or mistake the kindly
solicitude of this very large and leisurely lady whose steadily
increasing motherly interest in him had at times tried his dignity in
that very lively family.

That he was already a successful young man with a metropolitan
reputation made little or no impression upon her. He was young, alone,
and she liked him better and better every day until that liking arrived
at the point where his physical welfare began to preoccupy her. So she
sent maids to his room with nourishing broths at odd and unexpected
moments, and she presented him with so many boxes of quinine that their
disposal became a problem until Shiela took them off his hands and
replaced them in her mother's medicine chest, whence, in due time, they
returned again as gifts to Hamil.

"Dear Mrs. Cardross," he said, taking a vacant chair beside her hammock,
"I really am perfectly well and perfectly acclimated, and I enjoy every
moment of the day whether here as your guest or in the saddle with your
husband or in the office over the plans--"

"But you are always at work!" she drawled; "we never see you."

"But that's why I am here," he insisted, smiling.

"Neville," she interrupted calmly; "no boy of his age ought to kill
himself. Listen to me; when Neville and I were married we had very
little, and he began by laying his plans to work every moment. But we
had an understanding," she added blandly; "I explained that I did not
intend to grow old with a wreck of a man. Now you may see the result of
our understanding," nodding toward her amazingly youthful husband.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" observed Cardross, still looking through his
field-glasses. "There's a baby-show next week and I'll enter if you
like, my dear."

Mrs. Cardross smiled and took Hamil's hand flat between her fair, pudgy
palms.

"We want you here," she said kindly, "_not_ because it is a matter of
convenience, but because we like you. Be a little more amiable, Mr.
Hamil; you never give us a moment during the day or after dinner. You
haven't been to a dance yet; you never go to the beach, you never motor
or sail or golf. Don't you like my children?"

"Like them! I adore them," he said, laughing, "but how can--"

"I'm going to take him camping," observed Cardross, interrupting. "I
want some duck-shooting; don't you, Hamil?"

"Of course I do, but--"

"Then we start this week for the woods--"

"I won't let you," interposed his wife; "you'll talk that boy to death
with your plans and surveys!"

"No, I'll promise to talk shooting every moment, and do a little of it,
too. What do you say, Hamil? Gray will go with us. Are you game?"

"I'd love to, but I promised Malcourt that--"

"Oh, nonsense! Louis can wait for you to go North and lay out Mr.
Portlaw's park. I've the first call on you; I've got you for the winter
here--"

"But Portlaw says--"

"Oh, bother Mr. Portlaw! We'll take him along, too, if he can tear
himself away from the Beach Club long enough to try less dangerous
game."

Since Malcourt's arrival he and Portlaw had joyously waded into whatever
gaiety offered, neck-deep; Portlaw had attached himself to the Club with
all the deliberation of a born gourmet and a hopeless gambler; Malcourt
roamed society and its suburbs, drifting from set to set and from
coterie to coterie, always an opportunist, catholic in his tastes,
tolerant of anything where pretty women were inclined to be amiable. And
they often were so inclined.

For his own curiosity he even asked to be presented to the redoubtable
Mrs. Van Dieman, and he returned at intervals to that austere
conservatory of current gossip and colonial tradition partly because it
was policy, socially, partly because, curiously enough, the somewhat
transparent charms of Virginia Suydam, whom he usually met there,
interested him--enough to make him remember a provocative glance from
her slow eyes--very slow, deeply lidded eyes, washed with the tint of
the sea when it is less blue than green. And the curious side of it was
that Malcourt and Virginia had met before, and he had completely
forgotten. It was difficult to tell whether she had.

He usually remembered women who looked at him like that, tucking them
away in his mental list to be investigated later. He had quite a little
list in his mental archives of women, wedded and otherwise, who
interested him agreeably or otherwise. Neither Mrs. Carrick nor Cecile
was on that list. Shiela Cardross was--and had been for two years.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hamil, sitting on the terrace beside Mrs. Cardross, became very busy
with his note-book as soon as that languid lady resumed her book.

"If you're going to import wild boar from Germany," he said to Cardross,
"you'll have to fence in some ten miles square--a hundred square
miles!--or they'll take to the Everglades."

"I'm going to," returned that gentleman calmly. "I wish you'd ask
McKenna to figure it out. I'll supply the cypress of course."

Hamil leaned forward, a little thrilled with the colossal scheme. He
never could become quite accustomed to the vast scale on which Cardross
undertook things.

"That will make a corking preserve," he said. "What do you suppose is in
there now?"

"Some bears and deer, a few lynx, perhaps one or two panthers. The boar
will hold their own--if they can stand the summer--and I'm sure they
can. The alligators, no doubt, will get some of their young when they
breed. I shall start with a hundred couple when you're ready for them.
What are you going to do this afternoon?"

"Office work," replied Hamil, rising and looking at his marl-stained
puttees and spurs. Then he straightened up and smiled at Mrs. Cardross,
who was gently shaking her head, saying:

"The young people are at the bathing-beach; I wish you'd take a chair
and go down there--to please me, Mr. Hamil."

"Come, Hamil," added Cardross airily, "take a few days off--on yourself.
You've one thing yet to learn: it's only the unsuccessful who are too
busy to play."

"But what I'm doing is play," remonstrated the young man
good-humouredly. "Well--I'll go to the beach, then." He looked at the
steam-jets above the forest, fumbled with his note-book, caught the eye
of Mrs. Cardross, put away the book, and took his leave laughingly.

"We go duck-shooting to-morrow," called out Cardross after him.

Hamil halted in the doorway to protest, but the elder man waved him
away; and he went to his room to change riding-clothes for flannels and
sponge the reek of horse and leather from his person.

       *       *       *       *       *

The beach was all ablaze with the brilliant colours of sunshades, hats,
and bathing-skirts. Hamil lost no time in getting into his
swimming-suit; and, as he emerged, tall, cleanly built, his compact
figure deeply tanned where exposed, Portlaw, waddling briskly toward the
ocean, greeted him with the traditional: "Come on! it's fine!" and
informed him furthermore that "everybody" was there.



CHAPTER VIII

MANOEUVERING


Everybody seemed to be there, either splashing about in the Atlantic or
playing ball on the beach or congregated along the sands observant of
the jolly, riotous scene sparkling under the magnificence of a cloudless
sky.

Hamil nodded to a few people as he sauntered toward the surf; he stopped
and spoke to his aunt and Colonel Vetchen, who informed him that
Virginia and Cuyp were somewhere together chastely embracing the ocean;
he nodded to old Classon who was toddling along the wet sands in a
costume which revealed considerable stomach; he saw Malcourt, knee-deep,
hovering around Shiela, yet missing nothing of what went on around him,
particularly wherever the swing of a bathing-skirt caught his quick,
handsome eyes.

Then Cecile stretched out an inviting hand to him from the water and he
caught it, and together they hurled themselves head first into the surf,
swimming side by side out to the raft.

"It's nice to see you again," said the girl. "Are you going to be
agreeable now and go about with us? There's a luncheon at two--your fair
friend Virginia Suydam has asked us, much to our surprise--but after
that I'm quite free if you've anything to propose."

She looked up at him, pink and fresh as a wet rose, balanced there on
the edge of the rocking raft.

"Anything to propose?" he repeated; "I don't know; there's scarcely
anything I wouldn't propose to you. So you're going to Virginia's
luncheon?"

"_I_ am; Shiela won't." She frowned. "It's just as it was two years ago
when Louis Malcourt tagged after her every second. It's stupid, but we
can't count on them any more."

"Does--does Malcourt--"

"Tag after Shiela? Haven't you seen it? You've been too busy to notice.
I wish you wouldn't work every minute. There was the jolliest sort of a
dance at the O'Haras' last night--while you were fast asleep. I know you
were because old Jonas told mother you had fallen asleep in your chair
with your head among a pile of blue-prints. On my way to the dance I
wanted to go in and tie one of Shiela's cunning little lace morning caps
under your chin, but Jessie wouldn't go with me. They're perfectly sweet
and madly fashionable--these little Louis XVI caps. I'll show you one
some day."

For a few moments the girl rattled on capriciously, swinging her
stockinged legs in the smooth green swells that rose above her knees
along the raft's edge; and he sat silent beside her, half-listening,
half-preoccupied, his eyes instinctively searching the water's edge
beyond.

"I--hadn't noticed that Louis Malcourt was so devoted to your sister,"
he said.

Cecile looked up quickly, but detected only amiable indifference in the
young fellow's face.

"They're-always together; _elle s'affiche à la fin_!" she said
impatiently. "Shiela was only eighteen before; she's twenty now, and
old enough to know whether she wants to marry a man like that or not."

Hamil glanced around at her incredulously. "Marry Malcourt?"

But Cecile went on headlong in the wake of her own ideas.

"He's a sort of a relative; we've always known him. He and Gray used to
go camping in Maine and he often spent months in our house. But for two
years now, he's been comparatively busy--he's Mr. Portlaw's manager, you
know, and we've seen nothing of him--which was quite agreeable to me."

Hamil rose, unquiet. "I thought _you_ were rather impressed by Shiela,"
continued the girl. "I really did think so, Mr. Hamil."

"Your sister predicted that I'd lose my heart and senses to _you_" said
Hamil, laughing and reseating himself beside her.

"Have you?"

"Of course I have. Who could help it?"

The girl considered him smilingly.

"You're the nicest of men," she said. "If you hadn't been so busy I'm
certain we'd have had a desperate affair. But--as it is--and it makes me
perfectly furious--I have only the most ridiculously commonplace and
comfortable affection for you--the sort which prompts mother to send you
quinine and talcum powder--"

Balanced there side by side they fell to laughing.

"Sentiment? Yes," she said; "but oh! it's the kind that offers
witch-hazel and hot-water bottles to the best beloved! Mr. Hamil, why
can't we flirt comfortably like sensibly frivolous people!"

"I wish we could, Cecile."

"I wish so, too, Garret. No, that's too formal--Garry! There, that ends
our chances!"

"You're the jolliest family I ever knew," he said. "You can scarcely
understand how pleasant it has been for me to camp on the edges of your
fireside and feel the home-warmth a little--now and then--"

"Why do you remain so aloof then?"

"I don't mean to. But my heart is in this business of your father's--the
more deeply in because of his kindness--and your mother's--and for all
your sakes. You know I can scarcely realise it--I've been with you only
a month, and yet you've done so much for me--received me so simply, so
cordially--that the friendship seems to be of years instead of hours."

"That is the trouble," sighed Cecile; "you and I never had a chance to
be frivolous; I'm no more self-conscious with you than I am with Gray.
Tell me, why was Virginia Suydam so horrid to us at first?"

Hamil reddened. "You mustn't ask me to criticise my own kin," he said.

"No," she said, "you couldn't do that.... And Miss Suydam has been more
civil recently. It's a mean, low, and suspicious thing to say, but I
suppose it's because--but I don't think I'll say it after all."

"It's nicer not to," said Hamil. They both knew perfectly well that
Virginia's advances were anything but disinterested. For, alas! even the
men of her own entourage were now gravitating toward the Cardross
family; Van Tassel Cuyp was continually wrinkling his nose and fixing
his dead-blue eyes in that direction; little Colonel Vetchen circled
busily round and round that centre of attraction, even Courtlandt
Classon evinced an inclination to toddle that way. Besides Louis
Malcourt had arrived; and Virginia had never quite forgotten Malcourt
who had made one at a house party in the Adirondacks some years since,
although even when he again encountered her, Malcourt had retained no
memory of the slim, pallid girl who had for a week been his fellow-guest
at Portlaw's huge camp on Luckless Lake.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Virginia Suydam is rather an isolated girl," said Hamil thoughtfully.
"She lives alone; and it is not very gay for a woman alone in the world;
not the happiest sort of life.... Virginia has always been very friendly
to me--always. I hope you will find her amusing."

"I'm going to her luncheon," said Cecile calmly. "It's quite too absurd
for her to feel any more doubt about us socially than we feel about her.
That is why I am going. Shall we swim?"

He rose; she clasped his offered hand and sprang to her feet, ready for
the water again. But at that instant Malcourt's dark, handsome head
appeared on the crest of a surge close by, and the next moment that
young gentleman scrambled aboard the raft, breathing heavily.

"Hello, Cecile!" he gasped; "Hello, Hamil! Shiela thought it must be
you, but I was sceptical. Whew! That isn't much of a swim; I must be out
of condition--"

"Late hours, cards, and highballs," observed Cecile scornfully. "You're
horridly smooth and fat, Louis."

Malcourt turned to Hamil.

"Glad to see you've emerged from your shell at last. The rumour is that
you're working too hard."

"There's no similar rumour concerning you," observed Cecile, who had
never made any pretence of liking Malcourt. "Please swim out to sea, if
you've nothing more interesting to tell us. I've just managed to decoy
Mr. Hamil here and I'd like to converse with him in peace."

Malcourt, arms folded, balanced himself easily on the raft's pitching
edge and glanced at her with that amiably bored expression
characteristic of him when rebuffed by a woman. On such occasions his
eyes resembled the half-closed orbs of a teased but patient cat; and
Cecile had once told him so.

"There's a pretty rumour afloat concerning your last night's performance
at the Beach Club," said the girl disdainfully. "A boy like you, making
himself conspicuous by his gambling!"

Malcourt winced, but as the girl had apparently heard nothing to his
discredit except about his gambling, he ventured an intelligent sidelong
glance at Hamil.

The latter looked at him inquiringly; Malcourt laughed.

"You haven't been to the Beach Club yet, have you, Hamil? I'll get you a
card if you like."

Cecile, furious, turned her back and went head first into the sea.

"Come on," said Hamil briefly, and followed her. Malcourt took to the
water leisurely, going out of his way to jeer at and splash Portlaw, who
was labouring like a grampus inshore; then he circled within observation
distance of several pretty girls, displayed his qualities as a swimmer
for their benefit, and finally struck out shoreward.

When he emerged from the surf he looked about for Shiela. She was
already half-way to the beach, walking with Cecile and Hamil toward the
pavilion; and, starting across the shallows to overtake her, he
suddenly came face to face with Virginia Suydam.

She was moving hip-deep out through the seething tide, slim, graceful, a
slight flush tinting the usual delicate pallor of her cheeks. Gussie
Vetchen bobbed nimbly about in the vicinity, very busy trying to look at
everybody and keep his balance at the same time. Miss Palliser was
talking to Cuyp.

As Malcourt waded past, he and Miss Suydam exchanged a pleasantly formal
greeting; and, for the second time, something in her casual gaze--the
steadiness of her pretty green-tinted eyes, perhaps--perhaps their
singular colour--interested him.

"You did not ask _me_ to your luncheon," he said gaily, as he passed her
through the foam.

"No, only petticoats, Mr. Malcourt. I am sorry that your--fiancée isn't
coming."

He halted, perfectly aware of the deliberate and insolent indiscretion
of her reply. Every line of her supple figure accented the listless,
disdainful intention. As he remained motionless she turned, bent
gracefully and laid her palms flat on the surface of the water, then
looked idly over her shoulder at him.

He waded back close to her, she watching him advance without apparent
interest--but watching him nevertheless.

"Have you heard that anybody and myself are supposed to be engaged?" he
asked.

"No," she replied coolly; "have you?"

A dark flush mantled his face and he choked.

For a moment they stood so; her brows were raised a trifle.

"Well?" she asked at last. "Have I made you _very_ angry, Mr. Malcourt?"
She waded out a step or two toward the surf, facing it. The rollers
breaking just beyond made her foothold precarious; twice she nearly lost
her balance; the third time he caught her hand to steady her and held it
as they faced the surges, swaying together.

She did not look again at him. They stood for a while unsteadily, her
hand in his grasp.

"Why on earth did you say such a thing to me?" he asked.

"I don't--know," she said simply; "I really don't, Mr. Malcourt."

And it was true; for their slight acquaintance warranted neither
badinage nor effrontery; and she did not understand the sudden impulse
toward provocation, unless it might be her contempt for Shiela Cardross.
And that was the doing of Mrs. Van Dieman.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking up at him, and after a moment, down at
their clasped hands. "Are we going to swim out, Mr. Malcourt?--or shall
we continue to pose as newly married for the benefit of the East Coast?"

"We'll sit in the sands," he said. "We'll probably find a lot of things
to say to each other." But he dropped her fingers--gently.

"Unless you care to join your--care to join Miss Cardross."

Even while she spoke she remained calmly amazed at the commonness of her
own speech, the astonishing surface streak of unsuspected vulgarity
which she was naïvely exhibiting to this man.

Vetchen came noisily splashing up to join them, but he found neither of
them very attentive to him as they walked slowly to the beach and up to
the dry, hot sand.

Virginia curled up in the sand; Malcourt extended himself full length at
her feet, clasped fingers supporting his head, smooth, sun-browned legs
crossed behind him; and he looked like a handsome and rather sulky boy
lying there, kicking up his heels insouciantly or stretching luxuriously
in the sun.

Vetchen, who had followed, began an interminable story on the usual
theme of his daughter, Mrs. Tom O'Hara, illustrating her beauty, her
importance, and the incidental importance of himself; and it was with
profound surprise and deep offence that he discovered that neither
Malcourt nor Miss Suydam were listening. Indeed, in brief undertones,
they had been carrying on a guarded conversation of their own all the
while; and presently little Vetchen took his leave with a hauteur quite
lost on those who had so unconsciously affronted him.

"Of course it is very civil of you to say you remember me," Virginia was
saying, "but I am perfectly aware you do not."

Malcourt insisted that he recalled their meeting at Portlaw's Adirondack
camp on Luckless Lake two years before, cudgelling his brains at the
same time to recollect seeing Virginia there and striving to remember
some corroborative incident. But all he could really recall was a young
and unhappily married woman to whom he had made violent love--and it was
even an effort for him to remember her name.

"How desperately you try!" observed Virginia, leisurely constructing a
little rampart of sand between them. "Listen to me, Mr. Malcourt"--she
raised her eyes, and again the hint of provocation in them preoccupied
him--"I remembered you, and I have sometimes hoped we might meet again.
Is that amends for the very bad taste I displayed in speaking of your
engagement before it has been announced?"

"I am not engaged--to be married," he said deliberately.

She looked at him steadily, and he sustained the strain of the gaze in
his own untroubled fashion.

"You are not engaged?"

"No."

She straightened up, resting her weight on one bare arm, then leisurely
laid her length on the burning sands and, face framed between her
fingers, considered him in silence.

In her attitude, in her very conversation with this man there was, for
her, a certain sense of abandonment; a mental renouncing of all that had
hitherto characterised her in her relations with an always formal world;
as though that were necessary to meet him on his own level.

Never before had she encountered the temptation, the opportunity, or the
person where the impulse to discard convention, conviction, training,
had so irresistibly presented itself. Nor could she understand it now;
yet she was aware, instinctively, that she was on the verge of the
temptation and the opportunity; that there existed a subtle something in
this man, in herself, that tempted to conventional relaxation. In all
her repressed, regulated, and self-suppressed career, all that had ever
been in her of latent daring, of feminine audacity, of caprice, of
perverse provocation, stirred in her now, quickening with the slightest
acceleration of her pulses.

Apparently a man of her own caste, yet she had never been so obscurely
stirred by a man of her own caste--had never instinctively divined in
other men the streak which this man, from the first interchange of
words, had brought out in her.

Aware of his attraction, hazily convinced that she had no confidence in
him, the curious temptation persisted and grew; and she felt very young
and very guilty like a small child consenting to parley with another
child whose society has been forbidden. And it seemed to her that
somehow she had already demeaned herself by the tentative toward a
common understanding with an intellect and principles of a grade
inferior to her own.

"That was a very pretty woman you were so devoted to in the
Adirondacks," she said.

He recalled the incident with a pleasant frankness which left her
unconvinced.

Suddenly it came over her that she had had enough of him--more than was
good for her, and she sat up straight, primly retying her neckerchief.

"To-morrow?" he was saying, too civilly; but on her way to the pavilion
she could not remember what she had replied, or how she had rid herself
of him.

Inside the pavilion she saw Hamil and Shiela Cardross, already dressed,
watching the lively occupants of the swimming-pool; and she exchanged a
handshake with the former and a formal nod with the latter.

"Garret, your aunt is worrying because somebody told her that there are
snakes in the district where you are at work. Come in some evening and
reassure her." And to Shiela: "So sorry you cannot come to my luncheon,
Miss Cardross.--You _are_ Miss Cardross, aren't you? I've been told
otherwise."

Hamil looked up, pale and astounded; but Shiela answered, undisturbed:

"My sister Cecile is the younger; yes, I am Miss Cardross."

And Hamil realised there had been two ways of interpreting Virginia's
question, and he reddened, suddenly appalled at his own knowledge and at
his hasty and gross conclusions.

If Shiela noticed the quick changes in his face she did not appear to,
nor the curious glance that Virginia cast at him.

"_So_ sorry," said Miss Suydam again, "for if you are going to be so
much engaged to-day you will no doubt also miss the tea for that pretty
Mrs. Ascott."

"No," said Shiela, "I wouldn't think of missing that." And carelessly to
Hamil: "As you and I have nothing on hand to-day, I'll take you over to
meet Mrs. Ascott if you like."

Which was a notice to Virginia that Miss Cardross had declined her
luncheon from deliberate disinclination.

Hamil, vaguely conscious that all was not as agreeable as the surface of
things indicated, said cordially that he'd be very glad to go anywhere
with Shiela to meet anybody, adding to Virginia that he'd heard of Mrs.
Ascott but could not remember when or where.

"Probably you've heard of her often enough from Louis Malcourt," said
Virginia. "He and I were just recalling his frenzied devotion to her in
the Adirondacks; that," she added smilingly to Shiela, "was before Mrs.
Ascott got her divorce from her miserable little French count and
resumed her own name. She was the most engaging creature when Mr.
Malcourt and I met her two years ago."

Shiela, who had been listening with head partly averted and grave eyes
following the antics of the divers in the pool, turned slowly and
encountered Virginia's smile with a straight, cold gaze of utter
distrust.

Nothing was said for a moment; then Virginia spoke smilingly again to
Hamil concerning his aunt's uneasiness, turned toward Shiela, exchanged
formal adieux with her, and walked on toward her dressing-room and
shower. Hamil and Miss Cardross turned the other way.

When Shiela was seated in her double wheel-chair with Hamil beside her,
she looked up through her veil unsmiling into his serious face.

"Did you notice anything particularly impertinent in Miss Suydam's
question?" she asked quietly.

"What question?"

"When she asked me whether I was Miss Cardross."

The slow colour again burned his bronzed skin. He made no reply, nor did
she await any after a silent consideration of his troubled face.

"Where did you hear about me?" she asked.

She had partly turned in her seat, resting both gloved hands on the
crook of her folded sunshade, and leaning a little toward him.

"Don't ask me," he said; "whatever I heard I heard unwillingly--"

"You _have_ heard?"

He did not answer.

The remainder of the journey was passed in silence. On the road they met
Mrs. Cardross and Jessie Carrick driving to a luncheon; later, Gray
passed in his motor with his father.

"I have an idea that you and I are to lunch alone," said Hamil as they
reached the house; and so it turned out, for Malcourt was going off
with Portlaw somewhere and Cecile was dressing for Virginia's luncheon.

"Did you care to go with me to the Ascott-O'Hara function?" asked
Shiela, pausing on the terrace. Her voice was listless, her face devoid
of animation.

"I don't care where I go if I may go with you," he said, with a new
accent of intention in his voice which did not escape her.

She went slowly up the stairs untying her long veil as she mounted.
Cecile in a bewildering hat and gown emerged upon the terrace before
Shiela reappeared, and found Hamil perched upon the coquina balustrade,
poring over a pocketful of blue-prints; and she said very sweetly:
"Good-bye, my elder brother. Will you promise to take the best of care
of our little sister Shiela while I'm away?"

"The very best," he said, sliding feet foremost to the terrace.
"Heavens, Cecile, you certainly are bewitching in those clothes!"

"It is what they were built for, brother," she said serenely. "Good-bye;
we won't shake hands on account of my gloves.... Do be nice to Shiela.
She isn't very gay these days--I don't know why. I believe she has
rather missed you."

Hamil tucked her into her chair, the darky pedalled off; then the young
man returned to the terrace where presently a table for two was brought
and luncheon announced as Shiela Cardross appeared.

Hamil displayed the healthy and undiscriminating appetite of a man who
is too busy mentally and physically to notice what he eats and drinks;
Shiela touched nothing except fruit. She lighted his cigarette for him
before the coffee, and took one herself, turning it thoughtfully over
and over between her delicately shaped fingers; but at a glance of
inquiry from him:

"No, I don't," she said; "it burns my tongue. Besides I may some day
require it as a novelty to distract me--so I'll wait."

She rose a moment later, and stood, distrait, looking out across the
sunlit world. He at her elbow, head bent, idly watched the smoke curling
upward from his cigarette.

Presently, as though moved by a common impulse, they turned together,
slowly traversed the terrace and the long pergola all crimson and white
with bougainvillia and jasmine, and entered the jungle road beyond the
courts where carved seats of coquina glimmered at intervals along the
avenue of oaks and palmettos and where stone-edged pools reflected the
golden green dusk of the semi-tropical foliage above.

On the edge of one of these basins the girl seated herself; without her
hat and gloves and in a gown which exposed throat and neck she always
looked younger and more slender to him, the delicate modelling of the
neck and its whiteness was accentuated by the silky growth of the brown
hair which close to the nape and brow was softly blond like a child's.

The frail, amber-tinted little dragon-flies of the South came hovering
over the lotus bloom that edged the basin; long, narrow-shaped
butterflies whose velvet-black wings were barred with brilliant stripes
of canary yellow fluttered across the forest aisle; now and then a giant
papilio sailed high under the arched foliage on tiger-striped wings of
chrome and black, or a superb butterfly in pearl white and malachite
green came flitting about the sparkle-berry bloom.

The girl nodded toward it. "That is a scarce butterfly here," she said.
"Gray would be excited. I wish we had his net here."

"It is the _Victorina_, isn't it?" he asked, watching the handsome,
nervous-winged creature which did not seem inclined to settle on the
white flowers.

"Yes, the _Victorina steneles_. Are you interested?"

"The generation I grew up with collected," he said. "I remember my
cabinet, and some of the names. But I never saw any fellows of this sort
in the North."

"Your memory is good?"

"Yes," he said, "for what I care about"--he looked up at her--"for those
I care about my memory is good, I never forget kindness--nor confidence
given--nor a fault forgiven."

She bent forward, elbows on knees, chin propped on both linked hands.

"Do you understand now," she said, "why I could not afford the
informality of our first meeting? What you have heard about me explains
why I can scarcely afford to discard convention, does it not, Mr.
Hamil?"

She went on, her white fingers now framing her face and softly indenting
the flushed skin:

"I don't know who has talked to you, or what you have heard; but I knew
by your expression--there at the swimming-pool--that you had heard
enough to embarrass you and--and hurt me very, very keenly."

"Calypso!" he broke out impulsively; but she shook her head. "Let _me_
tell you if it must be told, Mr. Hamil.... Father and mother are
dreadfully sensitive; I have only known about it for two years; two
years ago they told me--had to tell me.... Well--it still seems hazy and
incredible.... I was educated in a French convent--if you know what that
means. All my life I have been guarded--sheltered from knowledge of
evil; I am still unprepared to comprehend--... And I am still very
ignorant; I know that.... So you see how it was with me; a girl awakened
to such self-knowledge cannot grasp it entirely--cannot wholly convince
herself except at moments--at night. Sometimes--when a crisis
threatens--and one has lain awake long in the dark--"

She gathered her knees in her arms and stared at the patch of sunlight
that lay across the hem of her gown, leaving her feet shod in gold.

"I don't know how much difference it really makes to the world. I
suppose I shall learn--if people are to discuss me. How much difference
does it make, Mr. Hamil?"

"It makes none to me--"

"The world extends beyond your pleasant comradeship," she said. "How
does the world regard a woman of no origin--whose very name is a
charity--"

"Shiela!"

"W-what?" she said, trying to smile; and then slowly laid her head in
her hands, covering her face.

She had given way, very silently, for as he bent close to her he felt
the tearful aroma of her uneven breath--the feverish flush on cheek and
hand, the almost imperceptible tremor of her slender body--rather close
to him now.

When she had regained her composure, and her voice was under command,
she straightened up, face averted.

"You are quite perfect, Mr. Hamil; you have not hurt me with one
misguided and well-intended word. That is exactly as it should be
between us--must always be."

"Of course," he said slowly.

She nodded, still looking away from him. "Let us each enjoy our own
griefs unmolested. You have yours?"

"No, Shiela, I haven't any griefs."

"Come to me when you have; I shall not humiliate you with words to shame
your intelligence and my own. If you suffer you suffer; but it is well
to be near a friend--not _too_ near, Mr. Hamil."

"Not too near," he repeated.

"No; that is unendurable. The counter-irritant to grief is sanity, not
emotion. When a woman is a little frightened the presence of the
unafraid is what steadies her."

She looked over her shoulder into the water, reached down, broke off a
blossom of wild hyacinth, and, turning, drew it through the button-hole
of his coat.

"You certainly are very sweet to me," she said quietly. And, laughing a
little: "The entire family adores you with pills--and I've now decorated
you with the lovely curse of our Southern rivers. But--there are no such
things as weeds; a weed is only a miracle in the wrong place....
Well--shall we walk and moralise or remain here and make cat-cradle
conversation?... You are looking at me very solemnly."

"I was thinking--"

"What?"

"That, perhaps, I never before knew a girl as well as I know you."

"Not even Miss Suydam?"

"Lord, no! I never dreamed of knowing her--I mean her real self. You
understand, she and I have always taken each other for granted--never
with any genuine intimacy."

"Oh! And--this--ours--is genuine intimacy?"

"Is it not?"

For a moment her teeth worried the bright velvet of her lip, then
meeting his gaze:

"I mean to be--honest--with you," she said with a tremor in her voice;
but her regard wavered under his. "I mean to be," she repeated so low he
scarcely heard her. Then with a sudden animation a little strained:
"When this winter has become a memory let it be a happy one for you and
me. And by the same token you and I had better think about dressing. You
don't mind, do you, if I take you to meet Mrs. Ascott?--she was Countess
de Caldelis; it's taken her years to secure her divorce."

Hamil remembered the little dough-faced, shrimp-limbed count when he
first came over with the object of permitting somebody to support him
indefinitely so that later, in France, he could in turn support his
mistresses in the style to which they earnestly desired to become
accustomed.

And now the American girl who had been a countess was back, a little
wiser, a little harder, and more cynical, with some of the bloom rubbed
off, yet much of her superficial beauty remaining.

"Alida Ascott," murmured Shiela. "Jessie was a bridesmaid. Poor little
girl!--I'm glad she's free. There were no children," she said, looking
up at Hamil; "in that case a decent girl is justified! Don't you think
so?"

"Yes, I do," he said, smiling; "I'm not one of those who believe that
such separations threaten us with social disintegration."

"Nor I. Almost every normal woman desires to live decently. She has a
right to. All young girls are ignorant. If they begin with a dreadful
but innocent mistake does the safety of society require of them the
horror of lifelong degradation? Then the safety of such a society is not
worth the sacrifice. That is my opinion."

"That settles a long-vexed problem," he said, laughing at her
earnestness.

But she looked at him, unsmiling, while he spoke, hands clasped in her
lap, the fingers twisting and tightening till the rose-tinted nails
whitened.

       *       *       *       *       *

Men have only a vague idea of women's ignorance; how naturally they are
inclined to respond to a man; how the dominating egotism of a man and
his confident professions and his demands confuse them; how deeply his
appeals for his own happiness stir them to pity.... They have heard of
love--and they do not know. If they ever dream of it it is not what they
have imagined when a man suddenly comes crashing through the barriers of
friendship and stuns them with an incoherent recital of his own desires.
And yet, in spite of the shock, it is with them instinctive to be kind.
No woman can endure an appeal unmoved; except for them there would be no
beggars; their charity is not a creed: it is the essence of them, the
beginning of all things for them--and the end.

       *       *       *       *       *

The bantering smile had died out in Hamil's face; he sat very still,
interested, disturbed, and then wondering when his eyes caught the
restless manoeuvres of the little hands, constantly in motion,
interlacing, eloquent of the tension of self-suppression.

       *       *       *       *       *

He thought: "It is a cowardly thing for an egotist with an egotist's
early and lively knowledge of the world and of himself to come
clamouring to a girl for charity. It _is_ true that almost any man can
make a young girl think she loves him if he is selfish enough to do it.
Is her ignorance a fault? All her training deprecates any acquisition of
worldly knowledge: it is not for her: her value is in her ignorance.
Then when she naturally makes some revolting mistake and attempts to
escape to decency and freedom once more there is a hue and a cry from
good folk and clergy. Divorce? It is a good thing--as the last resort.
And a woman need feel no responsibility for the sort of society that
would deprive a woman of the last refuge she has!"

He raised his eyes, curiously, in time to intercept hers.

"So--you did not know me after all, it seems," she said with a faint
smile. "You never suspected in me a _Vierge Rouge_, militant, champion
of her downtrodden sex, haranguing whomsoever would pay her the fee of
his attention. Did you?"

And as he made no reply: "Your inference is that I have had some unhappy
love affair--some perilously close escape from--unhappy matrimony." She
shrugged. "As though a girl could plead only a cause which concerned
herself.... Tell me what you are thinking?"

She had risen, and he stood up before her, fascinated.

"Tell me!" she insisted; "I shall not let you go until you do!"

"I was thinking about you."

"Please don't!... Are you doing it yet?" closely confronting him, hands
behind her.

"Yes, I am," he said, unable to keep his eyes from her, all her beauty
and youth and freshness troubling him, closing in upon him like subtle
fragrance in the golden forest dusk.

"Are you still thinking about me?"

"Yes."

The rare sweet laughter edged her lips, for an instant; then something
in his eyes checked her. Colour and laughter died out, leaving a pale
confused smile; and the straight gaze wavered, grew less direct, yet
lost not a shade of his expression which also had changed.

Neither spoke; and after a moment they turned away, walking not very
near together toward the house.

The sunshine and the open somehow brought relief and the delicate
constraint between them relaxed as they sauntered slowly into the house
where Shiela presently went away to dress for the Ascott function, and
Hamil sat down on the veranda for a while, then retired to undertake the
embellishment of his own person.



CHAPTER IX

THE INVASION


They went together in a double chair, spinning noiselessly over the
shell road which wound through oleander and hibiscus hedges. Great
orange and sulphur-tinted butterflies kept pace with them as they
travelled swiftly southward; the long, slim shadows of palms gridironed
the sunny road, for the sun was in the west, and already a bird here and
there had ventured on a note or two as prelude to the evening song, and
over the ocean wild ducks were rising in clouds, swinging and drifting
and settling again as though in short rehearsal for their sunset flight.

"Your hostess is Mrs. Tom O'Hara," said the girl; "when you have enough
of it look at me and I'll understand. And if you try to hide in a corner
with some soulful girl I'll look at you--if it bores me too much. So
don't sit still with an infatuated smile, as Cecile does, when she sees
that I wish to make my adieux."

"I'm so likely to," he said, "when escape means that I'll have you to
myself again."

There was a trifle more significance in the unconsidered speech than he
had intended. The girl looked absently straight in front of her; he sat
motionless, uncomfortable at his own words, but too wise to attempt to
modify them by more words.

Other chairs passed them now along the road--there were nods of
recognition, gay salutes, an intimate word or two as the light-wheeled
vehicles flashed past; and in a moment more the tall coquina gate posts
and iron grille of Mrs. Tom O'Hara's villa, Tsana Lahni, glimmered under
an avenue of superb royal palms.

The avenue was crowded with the slender-wheeled basket-bodied chairs gay
with the plumage of pretty women; the scene on the lawns beyond was
charming where an orange and white pavilion was pitched against the
intense green of the foliage, and the pelouse was all dotted and
streaked with vivid colours of sunshades and gowns.

"Ulysses among the sirens," she whispered as they made their way toward
their hostess, exchanging recognition with people everywhere in the
throngs. "Here they are--all of them--and there's Miss Suydam,--too
unconscious of us. How hath the House of Hamil fallen!--"

"If you talk that way I won't leave you for one second while we're
here!" he said under his breath.

"Nonsense; it only hurts me, not my pride. And half a cup of unforbidden
tea will drown the memory of that insolence--"

She bent forward with smiling composure to shake hands with Mrs. Tom
O'Hara, a tall, olive-tinted, black-haired beauty; presented Hamil to
his hostess, and left him planted, to exchange impulsive amenities with
little Mrs. Ascott.

Mrs. Tom O'Hara, a delicate living Gainsborough in black and white, was
probably the handsomest woman in the South. She dressed with that
perfection of simplicity which only a few can afford; she wore only a
single jewel at a time, but the gem was always matchless.

Warm-hearted, generous, and restless, she loved the character of Lady
Bountiful; and, naïvely convinced of her own unassailable supremacy,
played very picturesquely the rôle of graciousness and patronage to the
tenants of her great estates and of her social and intellectual world
alike. Hence, although she went where many of her less fashionable
guests might not have been asked to go, she herself paid self-confident
homage to intellect as she understood it, and in her own house her
entourage was as mixed as her notions of a "salon" permitted.

She was gracious to Hamil on account of his aunt, his profession, and
himself. Also her instinct was to be nice to everybody. As hostess she
had but a moment to accord him, but during that moment she contrived to
speak reassuringly of the Suydam genealogy, the art of landscape
architecture, and impart a little special knowledge from her
inexhaustible reserve, informing him that the name of her villa, Tsa-na
Lah-ni, was Seminole, and meant "Yellow Butterfly." And then she passed
him sweetly along into a crush of bright-eyed young things who attempted
to pour tea into him and be agreeable in various artless ways; and
presently he found himself in a back-water where fashion and intellect
were conscientiously doing their best to mix. But the mixture was a thin
solution--thinner than Swizzles and Caravan, and the experience of the
very young girl beside him who talked herself out in thirty seconds from
pure nervousness and remained eternally grateful to him for giving her a
kindly opportunity to escape to cover among the feather-brained and
frivolous.

Then, close to him, a girl spoke of the "purple perfume of petunias,"
and a man used the phrases, "body politic," and "the gaiety of
nations."

So he knew he was among the elect, redundant, and truly precious. A
chinless young man turned to him and said:

"There is nobody to-day who writes as Bernard Haw writes."

"Does anybody want to?" asked Hamil pleasantly.

"You mean that this is an age of trumpery romance?" demanded a heavy
gentleman in dull disdain. "William Dean has erased all romance from
modern life with one smear of his honest thumb!"

"The honest thumb that persistently and patiently rubs the scales from
sapphire and golden wings in order to be certain that the vination of
the Ornithoptera is still underneath, is not the digit of inspiration,"
suggested Hamil.

The disciple turned a dull brick-colour; but he betrayed neither his
master nor himself.

"What, in God's name," he asked heavily, "is an ornithoptera?"

A very thin author, who had been listening and twisting himself into a
number of shapes, thrust his neck forward into the arena and considered
Hamil with the pale grimace of challenge.

"Henry Haynes?" he inquired--"your appreciation in one phrase, Mr.
Hamil."

"In a Henry Haynes phrase?" asked Hamil good-humouredly.

"The same old calumny?" said the thin author, writhing almost off his
chair.

"I'm afraid so; and the remedy a daily dose of verbifuge--until he gets
back to the suffocated fount of inspiration. I am very sorry if I seem
to differ from everybody, but everybody seems to differ from me, so I
can't help it."

A Swami, unctuous and fat, and furious at the lack of feminine
attention, said something suavely outrageous about modern women. He was
immediately surrounded by several mature examples who adored to be
safely smitten by the gelatinous and esoteric.

A little flabby, featureless, but very fashionable portrait painter
muttered to Hamil: "Orient and Occident! the molluskular and the
muscular. Mr. Hamil, do you realise _what_ the Occident is?"

"Geographically?" inquired Hamil wearily.

"No, symbolically. It is that!" explained the painter, doubling his
meagre biceps and punching at the infinite, with a flattened thumb.
"That," he repeated, "is America. Do you comprehend?"

The wan young girl who had spoken of the purple perfume of petunias said
that _she_ understood. It may be that she did; she reviewed literature
for the _Tribune_.

Harried and restless, Hamil looked for Shiela and saw Portlaw, very hot
and uncomfortable in his best raiment, shooting his cuffs and looking
dully about for some avenue of escape; and Hamil, exasperated with
purple perfumes and thumbs, meanly snared him and left him to confront a
rather ample and demonstrative young girl who believed that all human
thought was precious--even sinful thought--of which she knew as much as
a newly hatched caterpillar. However, Portlaw was able to enlighten her
if he cared to.

Again and again Hamil, wandering in circles, looked across the
wilderness of women's hats at Shiela Cardross, but a dozen men
surrounded her, and among them he noticed the graceful figure of
Malcourt directly in front of her, blocking any signal he might have
given.

Somebody was saying something about Mrs. Ascott. He recollected that he
hadn't met her; so he found somebody to present him.

"And _you_ are the man?" exclaimed Mrs. Ascott softly, considering him
with her head on one side. "Shiela Cardross wrote to me in New York
about you, but I've wanted to inspect you for my own information."

"Are you doing it now?" he asked, amused.

"It's done! Do you imagine you are complex? I've heard various tales
about you from three sources, to-day; from an old friend, Louis
Malcourt--from another, Virginia Suydam--and steadily during the last
month--including to-day--from Shiela Cardross. But I couldn't find a
true verdict until the accused appeared personally before me. Tell me,
Mr. Hamil, do you plead guilty to being as amiable as the somewhat
contradictory evidence indicates?"

"Parole me in custody of this court and let me convince your Honor,"
said Hamil, looking into the captivatingly cool and humourous face
upturned to his.

Mrs. Ascott was small, and finely moulded; something of the miniature
grande dame in porcelain. The poise of her head, the lifted chin, every
detail in the polished and delicately tinted surface reflected cool
experience of the world and of men. Yet the eyes were young, and there
was no hardness in them, and the mouth seemed curiously unfashioned for
worldly badinage--a very wistful, full-lipped mouth that must have been
disciplined in some sad school to lose its cheerfulness in repose.

"I am wondering," she said, "why Mr. Portlaw does not come and talk to
me. We are neighbors in the country, you know; I live at Pride's Fall. I
don't think it's particularly civil of him to avoid me."

"I can't imagine anybody, including Portlaw, avoiding you," he said.

"We were such good friends--I don't know--he behaved very badly to me
last autumn."

They chatted together for a moment or two in the same inconsequential
vein, then, other people being presented, she nodded an amiable
dismissal; and, as he stepped aside, held out her hand.

"There are a lot of things I'd like to ask you some day; one is about a
park for me at Pride's Fall--oh, the tiniest sort of a park, only it
should be quite formal in all its miniature details. Will you let Shiela
bring you for a little conference? _Soon_?"

He promised and took his leave, elated at the chances of a new
commission, hunting through the constantly arriving and departing
throngs for Shiela. And presently he encountered his aunt.

"You certainly do neglect me," she said with her engaging and care-free
laugh. "Where have you been for a week?"

"In the flat-woods. And, by the way, don't worry about any snakes.
Virginia said you were anxious."

"Nonsense," said his aunt, amused, "Virginia is trying to plague you! I
said nothing about snakes to her."

"Didn't you say there were snakes in my district?"

"No. I _did_ say there were _girls_ in your district, but it didn't
worry me."

His face was so serious that the smile died out on her own.

"Why, Garret," she said, "surely you are not offended, are you?"

"Not with you--Virginia has apparently taken her cue from that
unspeakable Mrs. Van Dieman, and is acting like the deuce toward Shiela
Cardross. Couldn't you find an opportunity to discourage that sort of
behaviour? It's astonishingly underbred."

His aunt's eyelids flickered as she regarded him.

"Come to see me to-night and explain a little more fully what Virginia
has done, dear. Colonel Vetchen is hunting for me and I'm going to let
him find me now. Why don't you come back with us if you are not looking
for anybody in particular."

"I'm looking for Shiela Cardross," he said.

"Oh, she's over there on the terrace holding her fascinating court--with
Louis Malcourt at her heels as usual."

"I didn't know that Malcourt was usually at her heels," he said almost
irritably. It was the second time he had heard that comment, and he
found it unaccountably distasteful.

His aunt looked up, smiling.

"Can't we dine together, Garry?"

"Yes."

"Thank you, dear"--faintly ironical. "So now if you'll go I'll reveal
myself to Gussie Vetchen. Stand aside, my condescending friend."

He said, smiling: "You're the prettiest revelation here. I'll be at the
hotel at eight."

And with that they parted just as the happy little Vetchen, catching
sight of them, came bustling up with all the fuss and demonstration of a
long-lost terrier.

A few minutes later Hamil found Shiela Cardross surrounded by her
inevitable entourage--a jolly, animated circle hemming her in with
Malcourt at her left and Van Tassel Cuyp on her right; and he halted on
the circle's edge to look and listen, glancing askance at Malcourt with
a curiosity unaccustomed.

That young man with his well-made graceful figure, his dark hair and
vivid tints, had never particularly impressed Hamil. He had accepted him
at his face value, lacking the interest to appraise him; and the
acquaintance had always been as casual and agreeable as mutual
good-humour permitted. But now Malcourt, as a type, attracted his
attention; and for a moment he contrasted this rather florid example
with the specimens of young men around him. Then he looked at Shiela
Cardross. Her delicately noble head was bent a trifle as she listened
with the others to Malcourt's fluent humour; and it remained so, though
at moments she lifted her eyes in that straight, questioning gaze which
left the brows level.

And now she was replying to Malcourt; and Hamil watched her and listened
to her with newer interest, noting the poise, the subtle reserve under
the gayest provocation of badinage--the melody of her rare laughter,
the unaffected sweetness of her voice, and its satisfying
sincerity--satisfying as the clear regard from her lifted eyes.

Small wonder men were attracted; Hamil could understand what drew
them--the instinctive recognition of a fibre finer and a metal purer
than was often found under the surface of such loveliness.

And now, as he watched her, the merriment broke out again around her,
and she laughed, lifting her face to his in all its youthfully
bewildering beauty, and saw him standing near her for the first time.

Without apparent reason a dull colour rose to his face; and, as though
answering fire with fire, her fainter signal in response tinted lip and
cheek.

It was scarcely the signal agreed upon for their departure; and for a
moment longer, amid the laughing tumult, she sat looking at him as
though confused. Malcourt bent forward saying something to her, but she
rose while he was speaking, as though she had not heard him; and Hamil
walked through the circle to where she stood. A number of very young men
looked around at him with hostile eyes; Malcourt's brows lifted a
trifle; then he shot an ironical glance at Shiela and, as the circle
about her disintegrated, sauntered up, bland, debonair, to accept his
congé.

His bow, a shade exaggerated, and the narrowed mockery of his eyes
escaped her; and even what he said made no impression as she stood,
brightly inattentive, looking across the little throng at Hamil. And
Malcourt's smile became flickering and uncertain when she left the
terrace with Hamil, moving very slowly side by side across the lawn.

"Such lots of pretty women," commented Shiela. "Have you been passably
amused?"

"Passably," he replied in a slightly sullen tone.

"Oh, only passably? I rather hoped that unawakened heart of yours might
be aroused to-day."

"It has been."

"_Not_ Mrs. Ascott!" she exclaimed, halting.

"Not Mrs. Ascott."

"Mrs. Tom O'Hara! Is it? Every man promptly goes to smash when Mrs. Tom
looks sideways."

"O Lord!" he said with a shrug.

"That is not nice of you, Mr. Hamil. If it is not with her you have
fallen in love there is a more civil way of denying it."

"Did you take what I said seriously?" he asked--"about falling in love?"

"Were you not serious?"

"I could be if you were," he said in a tone which slightly startled
her. She looked up at him questioningly; he said:

"I've had a stupid time without you. The little I've seen of you has
spoiled other women for me. And I've just found it out. Do you mind my
saying so?"

"Are you not a little over-emphatic in your loyalty to me? I like it,
but not at the expense of others, please."

They moved on together, slowly and in step. His head was bent, face
sullen and uncomfortably flushed. Again she felt the curiously
unaccountable glow in her own cheeks responding in pink fire once more;
and annoyed and confused she halted and looked up at him with that frank
confidence characteristic of her.

"Something has gone wrong," she said. "Tell me."

"I will. I'm telling myself now." She laughed, stole a glance at him,
then her face fell.

"I certainly don't know what you mean, and I'm not very sure that you
know."

She was right; he did not yet know. Strange, swift pulses were beating
in temple and throat; strange tumults and confusion were threatening his
common sense, paralyzing will-power. A slow, resistless intoxication had
enveloped him, through which instinctively persisted one warning ray of
reason. In the light of that single ray he strove to think clearly. They
walked to the pavilion together, he silent, sombre-eyed, taking a
mechanical leave of his hostess, fulfilling conventions while scarcely
aware of the routine or of the people around him; she composed, sweet,
conventionally faultless--and a trifle pale as they turned away together
across the lawn.

When they took their places side by side in the chair she was saying
something perfunctory concerning the fête and Mrs. Ascott. And as he
offered no comment: "Don't you think her very charming and sincere....
Are you listening to me, Mr. Hamil?"

"Yes," he said. "Everybody was very jolly. Yes, indeed."

"And--the girl who adores the purple perfume of petunias?" she asked
mischievously. "I think that same purple perfume has made you drowsy, my
uncivil friend."

He turned. "Oh, you heard _that_?"

"Yes; I thought it best to keep a sisterly eye on you."

He forced a smile.

"You were very much amused, I suppose--to see me sitting
bras-dessus-bras-dessous with the high-browed and precious."

"Not amused; no. I was worried; you appeared to be so hopelessly
captivated by her of the purple perfumery. Still, knowing you to be a
man normally innocent of sentiment, I hoped for Mrs. Ascott and the
best."

"Did I once tell you that there was no sentiment in me, Calypso? I
believe I did."

"You certainly did, brother," she replied with cheerful satisfaction.

"Well, I--"

"--And," she interrupted calmly, "I believed you. I am particularly
happy now in believing you." A pause--and she glanced at him. "In fact,
speaking seriously, it is the nicest thing about you--the most
attractive to me, I think." She looked sideways at him, "Because, there
is no more sentiment in me than there is in you.... Which is, of course,
very agreeable--to us both."

He said nothing more; the chair sped on homeward. Above them the sky was
salmon-colour; patches of late sunlight burned red on the tree trunks;
over the lagoon against the slowly kindling west clouds of wild-fowl
whirled, swung, and spread out into endless lengthening streaks like
drifting bands of smoke.

From time to time the girl cast a furtive glance toward him; but he was
looking straight ahead with a darkly set face; and an ache, dull,
scarcely perceptible, grew in her heart as they flew on along the
glimmering road.

"Of what are you thinking, brother?" she asked persuasively.

"Of something I am going to do; as soon as I reach home; I mean _your_
home."

"I wish it were yours, too," she said, smiling frankly; "you are such a
safe, sound, satisfactory substitute for another brother." ... And as he
made no response: "What is this thing which you are going to do when you
reach home?"

"I am going to ask your mother a question."

Unquiet she turned toward him, but his face was doggedly set forward as
the chair circled through the gates and swept up to the terrace.

He sprang out; and as he aided her to descend she felt his hand
trembling under hers. A blind thrill of premonition halted her; then she
bit her lip, turned, and mounted the steps with him. At the door he
stood aside for her to pass; but again she paused and turned to Hamil,
irresolute, confused, not even daring to analyse what sheer instinct was
clamouring; what intuition was reading even now in his face, what her
ears divined in his unsteady voice uttering some commonplace to thank
her for the day spent with him.

"What is it that you are going to say to my mother?" she asked again.

And at the same instant she knew from his eyes--gazing into them in
dread and dismay.

"Don't!" she said breathlessly; "I cannot let--" The mounting wave of
colour swept her: "Don't go to her!--don't ask such a--a thing. I am--"

She faltered, looking up at him with terrified eyes, and laid one hand
on his arm.

The frightened wordless appeal stunned him as they stood there,
confronting one another. Suddenly hope came surging up within her; her
hand fell from his arm; she lifted her eyes in flushed silence--only to
find hopeless confirmation of all she dreaded in his set and colourless
face.

"Mr. Hamil," she said tremulously, "I never dreamed--"

"No, you didn't. I did. It is all right, Shiela."

"Oh--I--I never, never dreamed of it!"--shocked and pitifully
incredulous still.

"I know you didn't. Don't worry." His voice was very gentle, but he was
not looking at her.

"Is it my--fault, Mr. Hamil?"

"Your fault?" he repeated, surprised. "What have _you_ done?"

"I--don't know."

He stood gazing absently out into the flaming west; and, speaking as
though unaware: "From the first--I realise it now--even from the first
moment when you sprang into my life out of the fog and the sea--Shiela!
Shiela!--I--"

"Don't!" she whispered, "don't say it." She swayed back against the
wall; her hand covered her eyes an instant--and dropped helpless,
hopeless.

They faced each other.

"Believe that I am--sorry," she whispered. "Will you believe it? I did
not know; I did not dream of it."

His face changed as though something within him was being darkly
aroused.

"After all," he said, "no man ever lived who could kill hope."

"There is no hope to kill--"

"No chance, Shiela?"

"There has never been any chance--" She was trembling; he took both her
hands. They were ice cold.

He straightened up, squaring his shoulders. "This won't do," he said.
"I'm not going to distress you--frighten you again." The smile he forced
was certainly a credit to him.

"Shiela, you'd love me if you could, wouldn't you?"

"Y-yes," with a shiver.

"Then it's all right and you mustn't worry.... Can't we get back to the
old footing again?"

"N-no; it's gone."

"Then we'll find even firmer ground."

"Yes--firmer ground, Mr. Hamil."

He released her chilled hands, swung around, and took a thoughtful step
or two.

"Firmer, safer ground," he repeated. "Once you said to me, 'Let us each
enjoy our own griefs unmolested.'" He laughed. "Didn't you say
that--years ago?"

"Yes."

"And I replied--years ago--that I had no griefs to enjoy. Didn't I?
Well, then, if this is grief, Shiela, I wouldn't exchange it for another
man's happiness. So, if you please, I'll follow your advice and enjoy
it in my own fashion.... Shiela, you don't smile very often, but I wish
you would now."

But the ghost of a smile left her pallor unchanged. She moved toward the
stairs, wearily, stopped and turned.

"It cannot end this way," she said; "I want you to know how--to know--to
know that I--am--sensible of w-what honour you have done me. Wait! I--I
can't let you think that I--do not--care, Mr. Hamil. Believe that I
do!--oh, deeply. And forgive me--" She stretched out one hand. He took
it, holding it between both of his for a moment, lightly.

"Is all clear between us, Calypso dear?"

"It will be--when I have courage to tell you."

"Then all's well with the world--if it's still under-foot--or somewhere
in the vicinity. I'll find it again; you'll be good enough to point it
out to me, Shiela.... I've an engagement to improve a few square miles
of it.... That's what I need--plenty of work--don't I, Shiela?"

The clear mellow horn of a motor sounded from the twilit lawn; the
others were arriving. He dropped her hand; she gathered her filmy skirts
and swiftly mounted the great stairs, leaving him to greet her father
and Gray on the terrace.

"Hello, Hamil!" called out Cardross, senior, from the lawn, "are you
game for a crack at the ducks to-morrow? My men report Ruffle Lake full
of coots and blue-bills, and there'll be bigger duck in the West
Lagoons."

"I'm going too," said Gray, "also Shiela if she wants to--and four
guides and that Seminole, Little Tiger."

Hamil glanced restlessly at the forest where his work lay. And he needed
it now. But he said pleasantly, "I'll go if you say so."

"Of course I say so," exclaimed Cardross heartily. "Gray, does Louis
Malcourt still wish to go?"

"He spoke of it last week."

"Well, if he hasn't changed his rather volatile mind telephone for
Adams, We'll require a guide apiece. And he can have that buckskin
horse; and tell him to pick out his own gun." And to Hamil, cordially:
"Shiela and Louis and Gray will probably wander about together and you
and I will do the real shooting. But Shiela is a shot--if she chooses.
Gray would rather capture a scarce jungle butterfly. Hello, here's Louis
now! Are you glad we're going at last?"

"Very," replied Hamil as Malcourt strolled up and airily signified his
intention of making one of the party. But as soon as he learned that
they might remain away three days or more he laughingly demurred.

The four men lingered for a few minutes in the hall discussing guns,
dogs, and guides; then Hamil mounted the stairs, and Malcourt went with
him, talking all the while in that easy, fluent, amusing manner which,
if he chose, could be as agreeably graceful as every attitude and
movement of his lithe body. His voice, too, had that engagingly
caressing quality characteristic of him when in good-humour; he really
had little to say to Hamil, but being on such excellent terms with
himself he said a great deal about nothing in particular; and as he
persistently lingered by Hamil's door the latter invited him in.

There Malcourt lit a cigarette, seated lazily astride a chair, arms
folded across the back, aimlessly humourous in recounting his adventures
at the Ascott function, while Hamil stood with his back to the
darkening window, twisting his unlighted cigarette into minute shreds
and waiting for him to go.

"Rather jolly to meet Miss Suydam again," observed Malcourt. "We were
great friends at Portlaw's camp together two years ago. I believe that
you and Miss Suydam are cousins after a fashion."

"After a fashion, I believe."

"She's tremendously attractive, Hamil."

"What? Oh, yes, very."

"Evidently no sentiment lost between you," laughed the other.

"No, of course not; no sentiment."

Malcourt said carelessly: "I'm riding with Miss Suydam to-morrow. That's
one reason I'm not going on this duck-hunt."

Hamil nodded.

"Another reason," he continued, intent on the glowing end of his
cigarette, "is that I'm rather fortunate at the Club just now--and I
don't care to disturb any run of luck that seems inclined to drift my
way. Would you give your luck the double cross?"

"I suppose not," said Hamil vaguely--"if I ever had any."

"That's the way I feel. And it's all kinds of luck that's chasing me.
_All_ kinds, Hamil. One kind, for example, wears hair that matches my
cuff-links. Odd, isn't it?" he added, examining the golden links with a
smile.

Hamil nodded inattentively.

"I am about seven thousand dollars ahead on the other sort of luck,"
observed Malcourt. "If it holds to-night I'll inaugurate a killing that
will astonish the brothers B. yonder. By the way, now that you have
your club ticket why don't you use it?--one way or another."

"Perhaps," replied Hamil listlessly.

A few minutes later Malcourt, becoming bored, genially took his leave;
and Hamil turned on an electric jet and began to undo his collar and
tie.

He was in no hurry; at times he suspended operations to pace aimlessly
to and fro; and after a while, half undressed, he dropped into an
arm-chair, clinched hands supporting his temples.

Presently he said aloud to himself: "It's absolutely impossible. It
can't happen this way. How can it?"

His heavy pulse answered the question; a tense strain, irksome as an
ache, dragged steadily at something within him which resisted; dulling
reason and thought.

For a long time he sat there inert, listening for the sound of her voice
which echoed at moments through the stunned silence within him. And at
last he stumbled to his feet like a stricken man on the firing line,
stupefied that the thing had happened to _him_; and stood unsteadily,
looking around. Then he went heavily about his dressing.

Later, when he was ready to leave his room, he heard Malcourt walking
through the corridor outside--a leisurely and lightly stepping Malcourt,
whistling a lively air. And, when Malcourt had passed came Cecile
rustling from the western corridor, gay, quick-stepping, her enchanting
laughter passing through the corridor like a fresh breeze as she joined
Mrs. Carrick on the stairs. Then silence; and he opened his door. And
Shiela Cardross, passing noiselessly, turned at the sound.

His face must have been easy to read for her own promptly lost its
colour, and with an involuntary recoil she stepped back against the
wall, staring at him in pallid silence.

"What is the matter?" he asked, scarcely recognising his own voice. And
striving to shake off the unreality of it all with a laugh: "You look
like some pretty ghost from dreamland--with your white gown and arms and
face. Shall we descend into the waking world together?"

They stood for a moment motionless, looking straight at one another;
then the smile died out on his face, but he still strove to speak
lightly, using effort, like a man with a dream dark upon him: "I am
waiting for your pretty ghostship."

Her lips moved in reply; no sound came from them.

"Are you afraid of me?" he said.

"Yes."

"Of _me_, Shiela?"

"Of us both. You don't know--you don't know!"

"Know what, Shiela?"

"What I am--what I have done. And I've got to tell you." Her mouth
quivered suddenly, and she faced him fighting for self-control. "I've
got to tell you. Things cannot be left in this way between us. I thought
they could, but they can't."

He crossed the corridor, slowly; she straightened up at his approach,
white, rigid, breathless.

"What is it that has frightened you?" he said.

"What you--said--to me."

"That I love you?"

"Yes; that."

"Why should it frighten you?"

"Must I tell you?"

"If it will help you."

"I am past help. But it will end you're caring for me. And from making
me--care--for you. I must do it; this cannot go on--"

"Shiela!"

She faced him, white as death, looking at him blindly.

"I am trying to think of you--because you love me--"

Fright chilled her blood, killing pulse and colour. "I am trying to be
kind--because I care for you--and we must end this before it ends us....
Listen to my miserable, pitiful, little secret, Mr. Hamil. I--I have--I
am not--free."

"Not _free_!"

"I was married two years ago--when I was eighteen years old. Three
people in the world know it: you, I, and--the man I married."

"Married!" he repeated, stupefied.

She looked at him steadily a moment.

"I think your love has been done to death, Mr. Hamil. My own danger was
greater than you knew; but it was for your sake--because you loved me.
Good night."

Stunned, he saw her pass him and descend the stairs, stood for a space
alone, then scarce knowing what he did he went down into the great
living-room to take his leave of the family gathered there before dinner
had been announced. They all seemed to be there; he was indifferently
conscious of hearing his own words like a man who listens to an
unfamiliar voice in a distant room.

The rapid soundless night ride to the hotel seemed unreal; the lights in
the café, the noise and movement, the pretty face of his aunt with the
pink reflection from the candle shades on her cheeks--all seemed as
unconvincing as himself and this thing that he could not grasp--could
not understand--could not realise had befallen him--and her.

If Miss Palliser was sensible of any change in him or his voice or
manner she did not betray it. Wayward came over to speak to them,
limping very slightly, tall, straight, ruddy, the gray silvering his
temples and edging his moustache.

And after a while Hamil found himself sitting silent, a partly burnt
cigar between his fingers, watching Wayward and his youthful aunt in
half-intimate, half-formal badinage, elbow to elbow on the cloth. For
they had known one another a long time, and through many phases of Fate
and Destiny.

"That little Cardross girl is playing the devil with the callow
hereabout," Wayward said; "Malcourt, house-broken, runs to heel with the
rest. And when I see her I feel like joining the pack. Only--I was never
broken, you know--"

"She is a real beauty," said Miss Palliser warmly; "I don't see why you
don't enlist, James."

"I may at that. Garry, are you also involved?"

Hamil said, "Yes--yes, of course," and smiled meaninglessly at Wayward.

For a fraction of a second his aunt hesitated, then said: "Garry is
naturally among the devoted--when he's not dog-tired from a day in the
cypress-swamps. Have you been out to see the work, James? Oh, you should
go; everybody goes; it's one of the things to do here. And I'm very
proud when I hear people say, 'There's that brilliant young fellow,
Hamil,' or, in a tone which expresses profound respect, 'Hamil designed
it, you know'; and I smile and think, 'That's my boy Garry!' James, it
is a very comfortable sensation for an old lady to experience." And she
looked at Wayward out of her lovely golden eyes, sweet as a maid of
twenty.

Wayward smiled, then absently bent his gaze on his wine-glass, lying
back in his chair. Through his spectacles his eyes seemed very intent on
the frail crystal stem of his glass.

"What are you going to do for the rest of the winter?" she asked,
watching him.

"What I am doing," he replied with smiling bitterness. "The _Ariani_ is
yonder when I can't stand the shore.... What else is there for me to
do--until I snuff out!"

"Build that house you were going to build--when we were rather younger,
Jim."

"I did; and it fell," he said quietly; but, as though she had not heard.
"--Build that house," she repeated, "and line it with books--the kind of
books that were written and read before the machine-made sort supplanted
them. One picture to a room--do you remember, Jim?--or two if you find
it better; the kind men painted before Rembrandt died.... Do you
remember your plan?--the plans you drew for me to look at in our front
parlour--when New York houses had parlours? You were twenty and I
fourteen.... Garry, yonder, was not.... And the rugs, you
recollect?--one or two in a room, Shiraz, Ispahan--nothing as obvious as
Sehna and Saraband--nothing but Moresque and pure Persian--and one
agedly perfect gem of Asia Minor, and one Tekke, so old and flawless
that only the pigeon-blood fire remained under the violet bloom.... Do
you remember?"

Wayward's shoulders straightened with a jerk. For twenty years he had
not remembered these things; and she had not only remembered but was now
reciting the strange, quaint, resurrected words in their forgotten
sequence; the words he had uttered as he--or what he had once been--sat
in the old-time parlour in the mellow half light of faded brocades and
rosewood, repeating to a child the programme of his future. Lofty aim
and high ideal, the cultivated endeavour of good citizenship, loyalty to
aspiration, courage, self-respect, and the noble living of life; they
had also spoken of these things together--there in the golden gloom of
the old-time parlour when she was fourteen and he master of his fate and
twenty.

But there came into his life a brilliant woman who stayed a year and
left his name a mockery: Malcourt's only sister, now Lady Tressilvain,
doubtfully conspicuous with her loutish British husband, among those
continentals where titles serve rather to obscure than enlighten
inquiry.

The wretched affair dragged its full offensive length through the
international press; leaving him with his divorce signed and a future
endurable only when his senses had been sufficiently drugged. In sober
intervals he now had neuritis and a limp to distract his mind; also his
former brother-in-law with professions of esteem and respect and a
tendency to borrow. And drunk or sober he had the _Ariani_. But the
house that Youth had built in the tinted obscurity of an old New York
parlour--no, he didn't have that; and even memory of it were wellnigh
gone had not Constance Palliser spoken from the shadows of the past.

He lifted his glass unsteadily and replaced it. Then slowly he raised
his head and looked full at Constance Palliser.

"It's too late," he said; "but I wish I had known that you remembered."

"Would you have built it, Jim?"

He looked at her again, then shook his head: "For whom am I to build,
Constance?"

She leaned forward, glancing at the unconscious Hamil, then dropped her
voice: "Build it for the Boy that Was, Jim."

"A headstone would be fitter--and less expensive."

"I am not asking you to build in memory of the dead. The Boy who Was is
only asleep. If you could let him wake, suddenly, in that house--"

A clear flush of surprise stained his skin to the hair. It had been many
years since a woman had hinted at any belief in him.

"Don't you know that I couldn't endure the four walls of a house,
Constance?"

"You have not tried this house."

"Men--such men as I--cannot go back to the House of Youth."

"Try, Jim."

His hand was shaking as he lifted it to adjust his spectacles; and
impulsively she laid her hand on his twitching arm:

"Jim, build it!--and see what happens."

"I cannot."

"Build it. You will not be alone and sad in it if you remember the boy
and the child in the parlour. They--they will be good company--if you
wish."

He rested his elbows on the table, head bent between his sea-burned
hands.

"If I could only, only do something," she whispered. "The boy has merely
been asleep, Jim. I have always known it. But it has taken many years
for me to bring myself to this moment."

"Do you think a man can come back through such wreckage and mire--do you
think he wants to come back? What do you know about it?--with your white
skin and bright hair--and that child's mouth of yours--What do you know
about it?"

"Once you were the oracle, Jim. May I not have my turn?"

"Yes--but what in God's name do you care?"

"Will you build?"

He looked at her dumbly, hopelessly; then his arm twitched and he
relieved the wrist from the weight of his head, sitting upright, his
eyes still bent on her.

"Because--in that old parlour--the child expected it of the boy," she
said. "And expects it yet."

Hamil, who, chair pushed back, had been listlessly watching the
orchestra, roused himself and turned to his aunt and Wayward.

"You want to go, Garry?" said Constance calmly. "I'll walk a little with
James before I compose my aged bones to slumber.... Good night, dear.
Will you come again soon?"

He said he would and took his leave of them in the long corridor,
traversing it without noticing which direction he took until, awaking
from abstraction, he found himself at the head of a flight of steps and
saw the portico of the railroad station below him and the signal lamps,
green and red and white, burning between the glistening rails.

Without much caring where he went, but not desiring to retrace his steps
over half a mile or so of carpet, he went out into the open air and
along the picket fence toward the lake front.

As he came to the track crossing he glanced across at the Beach Club
where lights sparkled discreetly amid a tropical thicket and flowers
lay in pale carpets under the stars.

Portlaw had sent him a member's card; he took it out now and scanned it
with faint curiosity. His name was written on the round-cornered brown
card signed by a "vice-president" and a "secretary," under the engraved
notice: "To be shown when requested."

But when he ascended the winding walk among the palms and orange
blossoms, this "suicide's tag," as Malcourt called it, was not demanded
of him at the door.

The restaurant seemed to be gay and rather noisy, the women vivacious,
sometimes beautiful, and often respectable. A reek of cigarette smoke,
wine, and orange blossoms hung about the corridors; the tiny glittering
rotunda with its gaming-tables in a circle was thronged.

He watched them lose and win and lose again. Under the soft tumult of
voices the cool tones of the house attachés sounded monotonously, the
ball rattled, the wheels spun. But curiosity had already died out within
him; gain, loss, chance, Fate--and the tense white concentration of the
man beside him no longer interested him; nor did a sweet-faced young
girl in the corridor who looked a second too long at him; nor the
handsome over-flushed youth who was with her and who cried out in loud
recognition: "Gad, Hamil; why didn't you tell me you were coming?
There's somebody here who wants to meet you, but Portlaw's got
her--somewhere. You'll take supper with us anyway! We'll find you a fair
impenitent."

Hamil stared at him coolly. He was on no such terms with Malcourt, drunk
or sober. But everybody was Malcourt's friend just then, and he went on
recklessly:

"You've got to stay; hasn't he, Dolly?--Oh, I forgot--Miss Wilming, Mr.
Hamil, who's doing the new park, you know. All kinds of genius buzzes in
his head--roulette wheels buzz in mine. Hamil, you remember Miss Wilming
in the 'Motor Girl.' She was one of the acetylenes. Come on; we'll all
light up later. Make him come, Dolly."

Hamil turned to speak to her. She seemed to be, at a casual glance, the
sort of young girl who usually has a mother somewhere within ear-shot.
Upon inspection, however, her bright hair was a little too perfectly
rippled, and her mouth a trifle fuller and redder than a normal
circulation might account for. But there remained in the eyes something
as yet unquenched. And looking at her, he felt a sense of impatience and
regret that the delicate youth of her should be wasted in the flare and
shadow of the lesser world--burning to a spectre here on the crumbling
edge of things--here with Malcourt leering at her through the disordered
brilliancy of that false dawn which heralds only night.

They spoke together, smilingly formal. He had quietly turned his back on
Malcourt.

She hoped he would remain and join them; and her as yet unspoiled voice
clashed with her tinted lips and hair.

He was sorry--politely so--thanking her with the natural and unconscious
gentleness so agreeable to all women. And as in his manner there was not
the slightest hint of that half-amused, half-cynical freedom
characteristic of the worldly wise whom she was now accustoming herself
to meet, she looked up at him with a faint flush of appreciation.

Malcourt all the while was pulling Hamil by the elbow and talking on at
random almost boisterously, checking himself at intervals to exchange
familiar greetings with new-comers passing the crowded corridor. His
face was puffy and red; so were his lips; and there seemed to be a shiny
quality to hair and skin prophetic of future coarsening toward a type,
individuals of which swarmed like sleek flies around the gaming-tables
beyond.

As Hamil glanced from the young girl to Malcourt, who was still noisily
importuning him, a sudden contempt for the man arose within him. So
unreasoningly abrupt was the sensation of absolute distrust and dislike
that it cut his leave-taking to a curt word of refusal, and he turned on
his heel.

"What's the matter with you? Aren't you coming with us?" asked Malcourt,
reddening.

"No," said Hamil. "Good-bye, Miss Wilming. Thank you for asking me."

She held out her hand, uncertainly; he took it with a manner so gentle
and considerate that she ventured, hesitatingly, something about seeing
him again. To which he replied, pleasantly conventional, and started
toward the door.

"See here, Hamil," said Malcourt sharply, "is there any reason for your
sudden and deliberate rudeness to me?"

"Is there any reason for your sudden and deliberate familiarity with
me?" retorted Hamil in a low voice. "You're drunk!"

Malcourt's visage crimsoned: "O hell!" he said, "if your morals are as
lofty as your mincing manners--"

Hamil stared him into silence, hesitated, then passed in front of him
and out of the door.

Vicious with irritation, Malcourt laid his hand on the girl's arm: "Take
it from me, Dolly, that's the sort of citizen who'll sneak around to
call on your sort Saturday evenings."

She flushed painfully, but said nothing. "As for me," added Malcourt, "I
don't think I've quite finished with this nice young man."

But Dolly Wilming stood silent, head bent, slender fingers worrying her
lips, which seemed inclined to quiver.



CHAPTER X

TERRA INCOGNITA


The camp-wagon and led horses left before daylight with two of the
Cracker guides, Bulow and Carter; but it was an hour after sunrise when
Cardross, senior, Gray, Shiela, Hamil, and the head guide, Eudo Stent,
rode out of the _patio_ into the dewy beauty of a February morning.

The lagoon was pink; so was the white town on its western shore; in the
east, ocean and sky were one vast rosy-rayed glory. Few birds sang.

Through the intense stillness of early morning the little cavalcade made
a startling clatter on the shell highway; but the rattle of hoofs was
soon deadened in the sand of a broad country road curving south through
dune and hammock along the lake shore.

Dew still dropped in great splashes from pine and palm; dew powdered the
sparkle-berry bushes and lay like a tiny lake of quicksilver in the
hollow of every broad palmetto frond; and all around them earth and
grass and shrub exhaled the scented freshness of a dew-washed world.

On the still surface of the lake, tinted with palest rose and primrose,
the wild ducks floated, darkly silhouetted against the water or, hoping
for crumbs, paddled shoreward, inquiringly peering up at the riders with
little eyes of brightest gold.

"Blue-bills," said Cardross to Hamil; "nobody shoots them on the lake;
they're as tame as barnyard waterfowl. Yet, the instant these same ducks
leave this lagoon where they know they're protected they become as wild
and wary and as difficult to get a shot at as any other wild-fowl."

Shiela, riding ahead with Gray, tossed bits of bread into the water; and
the little blue-bill ducks came swimming in scores, keeping up with the
horses so fearlessly and persistently that the girl turned in her saddle
and looked back at her father in delight.

"I'm certainly as gifted as the Pied Piper, dad! If they follow me to
Ruffle Lake I won't permit a shot to be fired."

While she spoke she kept her eyes on her father. Except for a brief good
morning at breakfast she had neither looked at nor spoken to Hamil,
making no noticeable effort to avoid him, but succeeded in doing it
nevertheless.

Like her father and brother and Hamil she was mounted on an unornamental
but wiry Tallahassee horse; and she rode cross-saddle, wearing knee-coat
and kilts of kahkee and brown leather puttees strapped from under the
kneecap to the ankle. Like the others, too, she carried a small shotgun
in a saddle boot, and in the web loops across her breast glimmered the
metal rims of a dozen cartridges. A brilliant handkerchief knotted
loosely around her bare white throat, and a broad Panama turned up in
front and resolutely pulled down behind to defy sunstroke, completed a
most bewilderingly charming picture, which moved even her father to
admiring comment.

"Only," he added, "look before you step over a log when you're afoot.
The fangs of a big diamond-back are three-quarters of an inch long, my
dear, and they'll go through leather as a needle goes through cambric."

"Thanks, dad--and here endeth the usual lesson."

Cardross said to Hamil: "One scarcely knows what to think about the
snakes here. The records of the entire Union show few deaths in a year,
and yet there's no scarcity of rattlers, copperheads, and moccasins in
this Republic of ours. I know a man, an ornithologist, who for twelve
years has wandered about the Florida woods and never saw a rattler. And
yet, the other night a Northern man, a cottager, lighted his cigar after
dinner and stepped off his veranda on to a rattler."

"Was he bitten?"

"Yes. He died in two hours." Cardross shrugged and gathered up his
bridle. "Personally I have no fear; leggings won't help much; besides, a
good-sized snake can strike one's hand as it swings; but our cracker
guides go everywhere in thin cotton trousers and the Seminoles are
barelegged. One hears often enough of escapes, yet very rarely of
anybody being bitten. One of my grove guards was struck by a moccasin
last winter. He was an awfully sick nigger for a while, but he got over
it."

"That's cheerful," said Hamil, laughing.

"Oh, you might as well know. There are plenty of wiseacres who'll tell
you that nobody's in danger at these East Coast resorts, and the hotel
people will swear solemnly there isn't a serpent in the State; but there
are, Hamil, and plenty of them. I've seen rattlers strike without
rattling; and moccasins are ugly brutes that won't get out of the way
for you and that give no warning when they strike; and all quail hunters
in the flat-woods know how their pointers and setters are killed, and
every farmer knows that the best watchmen he can have is a flock of
guinea-fowl or turkeys or a few hogs loose. The _fact_ is that deadly
snakes are not rare in many localities; the _wonder_ is that scarcely a
death is reported in a year. How many niggers die, I don't know; but I
know enough, when I'm in the woods or fields, to look every time before
I put my foot upon the ground."

"How can you see in the jungle?"

"You've _got_ to see. Besides, rattlers are on the edge of thickets, not
inside. They've got to have an open space to strike the small furry
creatures which they live on. Moccasins affect mud--_look_ there!"

Both horses shyed; in front Shiela's mount was behaving badly, but even
while she was mastering him she tried at the same time to extract her
shotgun from the leather boot. Stent rode up and drew it out for her;
Hamil saw her break and load, swing in the saddle, and gaze straight
into an evil-looking bog all set with ancient cypress knees and the
undulating snaky roots of palmettos.

"A perfectly enormous one, dad!" she called back.

"Wait!" said Cardross; "I want Hamil to see." And to Hamil: "Ride
forward; you ought to know what the ugly brutes look like!"

As he drew bridle at Shiela's left the girl, still intent, pointed in
silence; but he looked in vain for the snake, mistaking every palmetto
root for a serpent, until she leaned forward and told him to sight along
her extended arm. Then he saw a dull gray fold without any glitter to
it, draped motionless over a palmetto root, and so like the root that he
could scarcely believe it anything else.

"That?"

"Yes. It's as thick as a man's arm."

"Is it a moccasin?"

"It is; a cotton-mouth."

The guide drawled: "Ah reckon he's asleep, Miss Cahdhoss. Ah'll make him
rare up 'f yew say so."

"Make him rear up," suggested Gray. "And stand clear, Hamil, because
Shiela must shoot quick if he slides for the water."

The men backed their nervously snorting horses, giving her room; Stent
dismounted, picked up a pig-nut, and threw it accurately. Instantly the
fat mud-coloured fold slipped over the root and a head appeared rising
straight out of the coils up into the air--a flat and rather small head
on a horribly swollen body, stump-tailed, disgusting. The head was
looking at them, stretched high, fully a third of the creature in the
air. Then, soundlessly, the wide-slitted mouth opened; and Hamil saw its
silky white lining.

"Moccasins stand their ground," said the girl, raising her gun. The shot
crashed out; the snake collapsed. For fully a minute they watched; not a
fold even quivered.

"Struck by lightning," said Gray; "the buzzards will get him." And he
drew a folding butterfly net from his saddle boot, affixed ring and
gauze bag, and cantered forward briskly in the wake of a great velvety
black butterfly which was sailing under the live-oaks above his head.

His father, wishing to talk to Eudo Stent, rode ahead with the guide,
leaving Shiela and Hamil to follow.

The latter reined in and waited while the girl leisurely returned the
fowling-piece to its holster. Then, together, they walked their horses
forward, wading the "branch" which flowed clear as a trout stream out
of the swamp on their right.

"It looks drinkable," he said.

"It is, for Crackers; but there's fever in it for you, Mr. Hamil....
Look at Gray! He's missed his butterfly. But it's a rather common
one--the black form of the tiger swallow-tail. Just see those
zebra-striped butterflies darting like lightning over the palmetto
scrub! Gray and I could never catch them until one day we found a ragged
one that couldn't fly and we placed it on a leaf; and every time one of
those butterflies came our way it paused in its flight for a second and
hovered over the ragged one. And that's how Gray and I caught the swift
Ajax butterflies for his collection!... I've helped him considerably, if
you please; I brought him the mysterious Echo moth from Ormond, and a
wonderful little hornet moth from Jupiter Inlet."

She was rattling on almost feverishly, never looking at him, restless in
her saddle, shifting bridle, adjusting stirrups, gun-case, knotting and
reknotting her neckerchief, all with that desperate attempt at composure
which betrays the courage that summons it.

"Shiela, dear!"

"What!" she said, startled into flushed surprise.

"Look at me."

She turned in her saddle, the colour deepening and waning on her white
skin from neck to temples; and sustained his gaze to the limit of
endurance. Then again in her ears sounded the soft crash of her senses;
he swung wide in his stirrups, looking recklessly into her eyes. A
delicate sense of intoxication stilled all speech between them for a
moment. Then, head bowed, eyes fixed on her bridle hand, the other hand,
ungloved, lying hotly unresponsive in his, she rode slowly forward at
his side. Face to face with all the mad unasked questions of destiny and
fate and chance still before her--all the cold problems of truth and
honour still to be discussed with that stirring, painful pulse in her
heart which she had known as conscience--silently, head bent, she rode
into the west with the man she must send away.

Far to the north-east, above a sentinel pine which marks the outskirts
of the flat-woods, streaks like smoke drifted in the sky--the wild-fowl
leaving the lagoons. On the Lantana Road they drew bridle at a sign from
her; then she wheeled her horse and sat silent in her saddle, staring
into the western wilderness.

The character of the country had changed while they had been advancing
along this white sandy road edged with jungle; for now west and south
the Florida wilderness stretched away, the strange "Flat-woods,"
deceptively open, almost park-like in their monotony where, as far as
the eye could see, glade after glade, edged by the stately vivid green
pines, opened invitingly into other glades through endlessly charming
perspective. At every step one was prepared to come upon some handsome
mansion centring this park--some bridge spanning the shallow crystal
streams that ran out of jasmine thickets--some fine driveway curving
through the open woods. But this was the wilderness, uninhabited,
unplotted. No dwelling stood within its vistas; no road led out or in;
no bridge curved over the silently moving waters. West and south-west
into the unknown must he go who follows the lure of those peaceful,
sunny glades where there are no hills, no valleys, nothing save trees
and trees and trees again, and shallow streams with jungle edging them,
and lonely lakes set with cypress, and sunny clearings, never made by
human hands, where last year's grass, shoulder-high, silvers under the
white sun of the South.

Half a hundred miles westward lay the great inland lake; south-west, the
Everglades. The Hillsboro trail ran south-west between the upper and
lower chain of lakes, over Little Fish Crossing, along the old
Government trail, and over the Loxahatchi. Westward no trail lay save
those blind signs of the Seminoles across the wastes of open timber and
endless stretches of lagoon and saw-grass which is called the
Everglades.

On the edge of the road where Hamil sat his horse was an old pump--the
last indication of civilisation. He dismounted and tried it, filling his
cup with clear sparkling water, neither hot nor cold, and walking
through the sand offered it to Shiela Cardross.

"Osceola's font," she nodded, returning from her abstraction; "thank
you, I am thirsty." And she drained the cup at her leisure, pausing at
moments to look into the west as though the wilderness had already laid
its spell upon her.

Then she looked down at Hamil beside her, handing him the cup.

"_In-nah-cahpoor?_" she asked softly; and as he looked up puzzled and
smiling: "I asked you, in Seminole, what is the price I have to pay for
your cup of water?"

"A little love," he said quietly--"a very little, Shiela."

"I see!--like this water, neither warm nor cold: _nac-ey-tai?_--what do
you call it?--oh, yes, sisterly affection." She looked down at him with
a forced smile. "_Uncah_" she said, "which in Seminole means 'yes' to
your demand.... You don't mind if I relapse into the lake dialect
occasionally--do you?--especially when I'm afraid to say it in English."
And, gaining confidence, she smiled at him, the faintest hint of
tenderness in her eyes. "Neither warm nor cold--_Haiee-Kasapi_!--like
this Indian well, Mr. Hamil; but, like it, very faithful--even when in
the arid days to come you turn to drink from sweeter springs."

"Shiela!"

"Oh, no--no!" she breathed, releasing her hands; "you interrupt me; I
was thinking _ist-ahmah-mahhen_--which way we must go. Listen; we leave
the road yonder where Gray's green butterfly net is bobbing above the
dead grass: _in-e-gitskah?_--can't you see it? And there are dad and
Stent riding in line with that outpost pine--_ho-paiee_! Mount, my
cavalier. And"--in a lower voice--"perhaps you also may hear that voice
in the wilderness which cried once to the unwise."

As they rode girth-high through the grass the first enchanting glade
opened before them, flanked by palmettos and pines. Gray was galloping
about in the woods among swarms of yellow and brown butterflies,
swishing his net like a polo mallet, and drawing bridle every now and
then to examine some specimen and drop it into the cyanide jar which
bulged from his pocket.

"I got a lot of those dog's-head fellows!" he called out to Shiela as
she came past with Hamil. "You remember that the white ants got at my
other specimens before I could mount them."

"I remember," said Shiela; "don't ride too hard in the sun, dear." But
Gray saw something ahead and shook out his bridle, and soon left them in
the rear once more, riding through endless glades of green where there
was no sound except the creak of leather and the continuous popping of
those small pods on the seeds of which quail feed.

"I thought there were no end of gorgeous flowers in the semi-tropics,"
he said, "but there's almost nothing here except green."

She laughed. "The concentration of bloom in Northern hothouses deceives
people. The semi-tropics and the tropics are almost monotonously green
except where cultivated gardens exist. There are no masses of flowers
anywhere; even the great brilliant blossoms make no show because they
are widely scattered. You notice them when you happen to come across
them in the woods, they are so brilliant and so rare."

"Are there no fruits--those delectable fruits one reads about?"

"There are bitter wild oranges, sour guavas, eatable beach-grapes and
papaws. If you're fond of wild cassava and can prepare it so it won't
poison you, you can make an eatable paste. If you like oily cabbage, the
top of any palmetto will furnish it. But, my poor friend, there's little
here to tempt one's appetite or satisfy one's aesthetic hunger for
flowers. Our Northern meadows are far more gorgeous from June to
October; and our wild fruits are far more delicious than what one finds
growing wild in the tropics."

"But bananas, cocoa-nuts, oranges--"

"All cultivated!"

"Persimmons, mulberries--"

"All cultivated when eatable. Everything palatable in this country is
cultivated."

He laughed dejectedly, then, again insistent: "But there _are_ plenty of
wild flowering trees!--magnolia, poinciana, china-berry--"

"All set out by mere man," she smiled--"except the magnolias and
dog-wood. No, Mr. Hamil, the riotous tropical bloom one reads about is
confined to people's gardens. When you come upon jasmine or an orchid in
the woods you notice the colour at once in the green monotony. But think
how many acres of blue and white and gold one passes in the North with
scarcely a glance! The South is beautiful too, in its way; but it is not
that way. Yet I care for it even more, perhaps, than I do for the
North--"

The calm, even tenor of the speech between them was reassuring her,
although it was solving no problems which, deep in her breast, she knew
lay latent, ready to quicken at any instant.

All that awaited to be solved; all that threatened between her and her
heart and conscience, now lay within her, quiescent for the moment. And
it was from moment to moment now that she was living, blindly evading,
resolutely putting off what must come after that relentless
self-examination which was still before her.

The transport wagon was now in sight ahead; and Bulow, one of the
guides, had released a brace of setters, casting them out among the open
pines.

Away raced the belled dogs, jingling into the saw-scrub; and Shiela
nodded to him to prepare for a shot as she drew her own gun from its
boot and loaded, eyes still following the distant dogs.

To and fro raced the setters, tails low, noses up, wheeling, checking,
quartering, cutting up acres and acres--a stirring sight!--and more
stirring still when the blue-ticked dog, catching the body-scent, slowed
down, flag whipping madly, and began to crawl into the wind.

"You and Shiela!" called out Cardross as they trotted up, guns resting
on their thighs. "Gray and I'll pick up the singles."

The girl sprang to the ground, gun poised; Hamil followed her, and they
walked across the sandy open where scarcely a tuft of dead grass
bristled. It seemed impossible that any living creature bigger than an
ant could conceal itself on that bare, arid sand stretch, but the ticked
dog was standing rigid, nose pointing almost between his forefeet, and
the red dog was backing him, tail like a ramrod, right forefoot doubled,
jaws a-slaver.

The girl glanced sideways at Hamil mischievously.

"What are we shooting for, Mr. Hamil?"

"Anything you wish," he said, "but it's yours anyway--all I can give. I
suppose I'm going to miss."

"No; you mustn't. If you're out of practice remember to let them get
well away. And I won't shoot a match with you this time. Shall I flush?"

"I'll put them up. Are you ready?"

"Quite, thank you."

He stepped up beside the ticked dog, halted, took one more step
beyond--whir-r-r! and the startled air was filled with wings; and crack!
crack! crack-crack! spoke the smokeless powder.

Two quail stopped in mid-air and pitched downward.

"O Lord!" said Hamil, "they're not my birds. Shiela, how _could_ you do
such a thing under my very nose and in sight of your relatives and three
unfeeling guides!"

"You poor boy'" she said, watching the bevy as he picked up the curious,
dark, little Florida quail and displayed them. Then, having marked, she
quietly signalled the dogs forward.

"I'm not going," he said; "I've performed sufficiently."

She was not quite sure how much of disappointment lay under his
pretence, and rather shyly she suggested that he redeem himself. Gray
and his father were walking toward one dog who was now standing; two
quail flushed and both fell.

"Come," she said, laying her hand lightly on his arm; "Ticky is pointing
and I _will_ have you redeem yourself."

So they went forward, shoulder to shoulder; and three birds jumped and
two fell.

"Bravo!" she exclaimed radiantly; "I knew my cavalier after all!"

"You held your fire," he said accusingly.

"Ye-s."

"Why?"

"Because--if you--" She raised her eyes half serious, half mockingly:
"Do you think I care for--anything--at your expense?"

A thrill passed through him. "Do you think I mind if you are the better
of us, you generous girl?"

"I am not a better shot; I really am not.... Look at these birds--both
cocks. Are they not funny--these quaint little black quail of the
semi-tropics? We'll need all we can get, too. But now that you are your
resistless self again I shall cease to dread the alternative of
starvation or a resort to alligator tail."

So with a gay exchange of badinage they took their turns when the dogs
rounded up singles; and sometimes he missed shamefully, and sometimes he
performed with credit, but she never amended his misses nor did more
than match his successes, and he thought that in all his life he had
never witnessed more faultless field courtesy than this young girl
instinctively displayed. Nothing in the world could have touched him
more keenly or convinced him more thoroughly. For it is on the firing
line that character shows; a person is what he is in the field--even
though he sometimes neglects to live up to it in less vital moments.

Generous and quick in her applause, sensitive under his failures, cool
in difficulties, yielding instantly the slightest advantage to him,
holding her fire when singles rose or where there could be the slightest
doubt--that was his shooting companion under the white noon sun that
day. He noticed, too, her sweetness with the dogs, her quick
encouragement when work was well done, her brief rebuke when the red
dog, galloping recklessly down wind, jumped a ground-rattler and came
within a hair's breadth of being bitten.

"The little devil!" said Hamil, looking down at the twisting reptile
which he had killed with a palmetto stem. "Why, Shiela, he has no
rattles at all."

"No, only a button. Dig a hole and bury the head. Fangs are always fangs
whether their owner is dead or alive."

So Hamil scooped out a trench with his hunting-knife and they buried the
little ground-rattler while both dogs looked on, growling.

Cardross and Gray had remounted; Bulow cast out a brace of pointers for
them, and they were already far away. Presently the distant crack of
their guns announced that fresh bevies had been found beyond the branch.

The guide, Carter, rode out, bringing Shiela and Hamil their horses and
relieving the latter's pockets of a dozen birds; announcing a halt for
luncheon at the same time in a voice softly neglectful of _I's_ and
_R's_, and musical with aspirates.

As they followed him slowly toward the wagon which stood half a mile
away under a group of noble pines, Hamil began in a low voice:

"I've got to say this, Shiela: I never saw more perfect sportsmanship
than yours; and, if only for that, I love you with all my heart."

"What a boyish thing to say!" But she coloured deliciously.

"You don't care whether I love you--that way, do you?" he asked
hopefully.

"N-no."

"Then--I can wait."

She turned toward him, confused.

"Wait?" she repeated.

"Yes--wait; all my life, if it must be."

"There is nothing to wait for. Don't say such things to me. I--it's
difficult enough for me now--to think what to do--You will not speak to
me again that way, will you? Because, if you do, I must send you
away.... And that will be--hard."

"Once," he said, "you spoke about men--how they come crashing through
the barriers of friendship. Am I like that?"

She hesitated, looked at him.

"There were no barriers."

"No barriers!"

"None--to keep you out. I should have seen to it; I should have been
prepared; but you came so naturally into my friendship--inside the
barriers--that I opened my eyes and found you there--and remembered, too
late, alas--"

"Too late?"

"Too late to shut you out. And you frightened me last night; I tried to
tell you--for your own sake; I was terrified, and I told you what I have
never before told a living soul--that dreadful, hopeless, nightmare
thing--to drive you out of my--my regard--and me from yours."

His face whitened a little under its tan, but the flat jaw muscles
tightened doggedly.

"I don't understand--yet," he said. "And when you tell me--for you will
tell me sooner or later--it will not change me."

"It _must_!"

He shook his head.

She said in desperation: "You cannot care for me too much because you
know that I am--not free."

"Cannot?" He laughed mirthlessly. "I _am_ caring for you--loving
you--every second more and more."

"That is dishonourable," she faltered.

"Why?"

"You _know_!"

"Yes. But if it does not change me how can I help it?"

"You can help making me care for _you_!"

His heart was racing now; every vein ran fiery riot.

"Is there a chance of _that_, Shiela?"

She did not answer, but the tragedy in her slowly lifted eyes appalled
him. Then a rushing confusion of happiness and pain almost stupefied
him.

"You must not be afraid," he managed to say while the pulse hammered in
his throat, and the tumult of his senses deadened his voice to a
whisper.

"I am afraid."

They were near the wagon now; both dismounted under the pines while
Bulow came forward to picket their horses. On their way together among
the trees she looked up at him almost piteously: "You must go if you
talk to me again like this. I could not endure very much of it."

"I don't know what I am going to do," he said in the same curiously
deadened voice. "You must tell me more."

"I cannot. I am--uncertain of myself. I can't think clearly when
we--when you speak to me--this way. Couldn't you go North before
I--before my unhappiness becomes too real--too hard?--couldn't you go
before it is too late--and leave me my peace of mind, my common sense!"

He looked around at her. "Yes," he said, "I will go if there is no
decent chance for us; and if it is not too late."

"I have my common senses still left. It is not too late."

There was a silence. "I will go," he said very quietly.

"W-when?"

"The day we return."

"Can you leave your work?"

"Yes. Halloran knows."

"And--you _will_ go?"

"Yes, if you wish it."

Another silence. Then she shook her head, not looking at him.

"There is no use in going--now."

"Why?"

"Because--because I do not wish it." Her eyes fell lower; she drew a
long, unsteady breath. "And because it is too late," she said. "You
should have gone before I ever knew you--if I was to be spared my peace
of mind."

Gray came galloping back through the woods, followed by his father and
Eudo Stent. They were rather excited, having found signs of turkey along
the mud of a distant branch; and, as they all gathered around a cold
luncheon spread beside the wagon, a lively discussion began concerning
the relative chances of "roosting" and "yelping."

Hamil talked as in a dream, scarcely conscious that he was speaking and
laughing a great deal. A heavenly sort of intoxication possessed him; a
paradise of divine unrealities seemed to surround him--Shiela, the
clustering pines, the strange white sunlight, the depthless splendour of
the unshadowed blue above.

He heard vaguely the voices of the others, Cardross, senior, rallying
Gray on his shooting, Gray replying in kind, the soft Southern voices of
the guides at their own repast by the picket line, the stir and whisk
and crunch of horses nuzzling their feed.

Specks moved in the dome of heaven--buzzards. Below, through the woods,
myriads of robins were flying about, migrants from the North.

Gray displayed his butterflies; nothing uncommon, except a black and
green one seldom found north of Miami--but they all bent over the lovely
fragile creatures, admiring the silver-spangled Dione butterflies, the
great velvety black Turnus; and Shiela, with the point of a dry pine
needle, traced for Hamil the grotesque dog's head on the fore wings of
those lemon-tinted butterflies which haunt the Florida flat-woods.

"He'd never win at a bench-show," observed her father, lighting his
pipe--an out-of-door luxury he clung to. "Shiela, you little minx, what
makes you look so unusually pretty? Probably that wild-west rig of
yours. Hamil, I hope you gave her a few points on grassing a bird. She's
altogether too conceited. Do you know, once, while we were picking up
singles, a razor-back boar charged us--or more probably the dogs, which
were standing, poor devils. And upon my word I was so rattled that I did
the worst thing possible--I tried to kick the dogs loose. Of course they
went all to pieces, and I don't know how it might have fared with us if
my little daughter had not calmly bowled over that boar at three paces
from my shin-bones!"

"Dad exaggerates," observed the girl with heightened colour, then
ventured a glance at Hamil which set his heart galloping; and her own
responded to the tender pride and admiration in his eyes.

There was more discussion concerning "roosting" versus "yelping" with
dire designs upon the huge wild turkey-cock whose tracks Gray had
discovered in the mud along the branch where their camp was to be
pitched.

Seven hens and youthful gobblers accompanied this patriarch according to
Eudo Stent's calculations, and Bulow thought that the Seminole might
know the location of the roost; probably deep in some uninviting swamp.

But there was plenty of time to decide what to do when they reached
camp; and half an hour later they started, wagon and all, wheels bumping
over the exposed tree roots which infinitely bored the well-behaved
dogs, squatting forward, heads in a row, every nose twitching at the
subtle forest odours that only a dog could detect.

Once they emitted short and quickly stifled yelps as a 'possum climbed
leisurely into a small tree and turned to inspect the strange procession
which was invading his wilderness. And Shiela and Hamil, riding behind
the wagon, laughed like children.

Once they passed under a heronry--a rather odoriferous patch of dead
cypress and pines, where the enormous nests bulged in the stark
tree-tops; and once, as they rode out into a particularly park-like and
velvety glade, five deer looked up, and then deliberately started to
trot across.

"We need that venison!" exclaimed Gray, motioning for his gun which was
in the wagon. Shiela spurred forward, launching her mount into a gallop;
Hamil's horse followed on a dead run, he tugging madly at the buck-shot
shell in his web belt; and away they tore to head the deer. In vain! for
the agile herd bounded past far out of shell-range and went crashing on
through the jungle of the branch; and Shiela reined in and turned her
flushed face to Hamil with a laugh of sheer delight.

"Glorious sight, wasn't it?" said Hamil. "I'm rather glad they got clear
of us."

"So am I. There was no chance, but I always try."

"So shall I," he said--"whether there is a chance or not."

She looked up quickly, reading his meaning. Then she bent over the gun
that she was breaking, extracted the shells, looped them, and returned
the weapon to its holster.

Behind them her father and brother jeered at them for their failure,
Gray being particularly offensive in ascribing their fiasco to bad
riding and buck-fever.

A little later Shiela's horse almost unseated her, leaping aside and
into the jungle as an enormous black snake coiled close in front.

"Don't shoot!" she cried out to Hamil, mastering her horse and forcing
him past the big, handsome, harmless reptile; "nobody shoots black
snakes or buzzards here. Slip your gun back quickly or Gray will
torment you."

However, Gray had seen, and kept up a running fire of sarcastic comment
which made Hamil laugh and Shiela indignant.

And so they rode along through the rich afternoon sunshine, now under
the clustered pines, now across glades where wild doves sprang up into
clattering flight displaying the four white feathers, or pretty little
ground doves ran fearlessly between the horses' legs.

Here and there a crimson cardinal, crest lifted, sat singing deliciously
on some green bough; now and then a summer tanager dropped like a live
coal into the deeper jungle. Great shiny blue, crestless jays flitted
over the scrub; shy black and white and chestnut chewinks flirted into
sight and out again among the heaps of dead brush; red-bellied
woodpeckers, sticking to the tree trunks, turned their heads calmly;
gray lizards, big, ugly red-headed lizards, swift slender lizards with
blue tails raced across the dry leaves or up tree trunks, making even
more fuss and clatter than the noisy cinnamon-tinted thrashers in the
underbrush.

Every step into the unknown was a new happiness; there was no silence
there for those who could hear, no solitude for those who could see. And
he was riding into it with a young companion who saw and heard and loved
and understood it all. Nothing escaped her; no frail air plant trailing
from the high water oaks, no school of tiny bass in the shallows where
their horses splashed through, no gopher burrow, no foot imprint of the
little wild things which haunt the water's edge in forests.

Her eyes missed nothing; her dainty close-set ears heard all--the short,
dry note of a chewink, the sweet, wholesome song of the cardinal, the
thrilling cries of native jays and woodpeckers, the heavenly outpoured
melody of the Florida wren, perched on some tiptop stem, throat swelling
under the long, delicate, upturned bill.

Void of self-consciousness, sweetly candid in her wisdom, sharing her
lore with him as naturally as she listened to his, small wonder that to
him the wilderness was paradise, and she with her soft full voice, a
native guide. For all around them lay an enchanted world as young as
they--the world is never older than the young!--and they "had eyes and
they saw; ears had they and they heard"--but not the dead echoes of that
warning voice, alas! calling through the ancient wilderness of fable.



CHAPTER XI

PATHFINDERS


Considerably impressed by her knowledge he was careful not to embarrass
her by saying so too seriously.

"For a frivolous and fashionable girl who dances cotillions, drives
four, plays polo, and reviews her serious adorers by regiments, you're
rather perplexing," he said. "Of course you don't suppose that I really
believe all you say about these beasts and birds and butterflies."

"What has disturbed your credulity?" she laughed.

"Well, that rabbit which crossed ahead, for one thing. You promptly
called it a marsh rabbit!"

"_Lepus palustris_" she nodded, delighted.

"By all means," he retorted, pretending offensive scepticism, "but why a
_marsh_ rabbit?"

"Because, monsieur, its tail was brown, not white. Didn't you notice
that?"

"Oh, it's all very well for you to talk that way, but I've another
grievance. All these holes in the sand you call gopher burrows
sometimes, sometimes salamander holes. And I saw a thing like a rat run
into one of them and a thing like a turtle run into another and I think
I've got you now--"

Her delightful laughter made the forest silence musical.

"You poor boy! No wonder your faith is strained. The Crackers call the
gopher a salamander, and they also call the land turtle a gopher. Their
burrows are alike and usually in the same neighbourhood."

"Well, what I want to know is where you had time to learn all this?" he
persisted.

"From my tame Seminole, if you please."

"Your Seminole!"

"Yes, indeed, my dear, barelegged, be-turbaned Seminole, Little Tiger. I
am now twenty, Mr. Hamil; for ten years every winter he has been with us
on our expeditions. A week before we start Eudo Stent goes to the
north-west edge of the Everglades, and makes smoke talk until he gets a
brief answer somewhere on the horizon. And always, when we arrive in
camp, a Seminole fire is burning under a kettle and before it sits my
Little Tiger wearing a new turban and blinking through the smoke haze
like a tree-lynx lost in thought."

"Do you mean that this aboriginal admirer of yours has already come out
of the Everglades to meet you at your camp?"

"Surely he is there, waiting at this moment," she said. "I'd as soon
doubt the stars in their courses as the Seminole, Coacochee. And you
will see very soon, now, because we are within a mile of camp."

"Within a mile!" he scoffed. "How do you know? For the last two hours
these woods and glades have all looked precisely alike to me. There's no
trail, no blaze, no hills, no valleys, no change in vegetation, not the
slightest sign that I can discover to warrant any conclusion concerning
our whereabouts!"

She threw back her head and laughed deliciously.

"My pale-face brother," she said, "do you see that shell mound?"

"Is that hump of rubbish a shell mound?" he demanded scornfully.

"It certainly is; did you expect a pyramid? Well, then, that is the
first sign, and it means that we are very near camp.... And can you not
smell cedar smoke?"

"Not a whiff!" he said indignantly.

"Can't you even _see_ it?"

"Where in Heaven's name, Shiela?"

Her arm slanted upward across his saddle: "That pine belt is _too_ blue;
do you notice it now? That is smoke, my obstinate friend."

"It's more probably swamp mist; I think you're only a pretty
counterfeit!" he said, laughing as he caught the volatile aroma of
burning cedar. But he wouldn't admit that she knew where she was, even
when she triumphantly pointed out the bleached skull of an alligator
nailed to an ungainly black-jack. So they rode on, knee to knee, he
teasing her about her pretended woodcraft, she bantering him; but in his
lively skirmishes and her disdainful retorts there was always now an
undertone which they both already had begun to detect and listen for:
the unconscious note of tenderness sounding at moments through the
fresh, quick laughter and gayest badinage.

But under all her gaiety, at moments, too, the dull alarm sounded in her
breast; vague warning lest her heart be drifting into deeper currents
where perils lay uncharted and unknown.

With every intimate and silent throb of warning she shivered,
responsive, masking her growing uncertainty with words. And all the
while, deep in her unfolding soul, she was afraid, afraid. Not of this
man; not of herself as she had been yesterday. She was afraid of the
unknown in her, yet unrevealed, quickening with instincts the parentage
of which she knew nothing. What might be these instincts of inheritance,
how ominous their power, their trend, she did not know; from whom
inherited she could never, never know. Would engrafted and acquired
instincts aid her; would training control this unknown heritage from a
father and a mother whose very existences must always remain without
concrete meaning to her?

Since that dreadful day two years ago when a word spoken inadvertently,
perhaps maliciously, by Mrs. Van Dieman, made it necessary that she be
told the truth; since the dazed horror of that revelation when, beside
herself with grief and shame, she had turned blindly to herself for
help; and, childish impulse answering, had hurled her into folly
unutterable, she had, far in the unlighted crypt of her young soul,
feared this unknown sleeping self, its unfolded intelligence, its
passions unawakened.

Through many a night, wet-eyed in darkness, she had wondered whose blood
it was that flowed so warmly in her veins; what inherited capacity for
good and evil her soul and body held; whose eyes she had; whose hair,
and skin, and hands, and who in the vast blank world had given colour to
these eyes, this skin and hair, and shaped her fingers, her mouth, her
limbs, the delicate rose-tinted nails whitening in the clinched palm as
she lay there on her bed at night awake.

The darkness was her answer.

And thinking of these things she sighed unconsciously.

"What is it, Shiela?" he asked.

"Nothing; I don't know--the old pain, I suppose."

"Pain?" he repeated anxiously.

"No; only apprehension. You know, don't you? Well, then, it is nothing;
don't ask me." And, noting the quick change in his face--"No, no; it is
not what you think. How quickly you are hurt! My apprehension is not
about you; it concerns myself. And it is quite groundless. I know what I
must do; I _know_!" she repeated bitterly. "And there will always be a
straight path to the end; clear and straight, until I go out as nameless
as I came in to all this.... Don't touch my hand, please.... I'm trying
to think.... I can't, if we are in contact.... And you don't know who
you are touching; and I can't tell you. Only two in all the world, if
they are alive, could tell you. And they never will tell you--or tell
me--why they left me here alone."

With a little shiver she released her hand, looking straight ahead of
her for a few moments, then, unconsciously up into the blue overhead.

"I shall love you always," he said. "Right or wrong, always. Remember
that, too, when you think of these things."

She turned as though slowly aroused from abstraction, then shook her
head.

"It's very brave and boyish of you to be loyal--"

"You speak to me as though I were not years older than you!"

"I can't help it; I am old, old, sometimes, and tired of an isolation no
one can break for me."

"If you loved me--"

"How _can_ I? You _know_ I cannot!"

"Are you afraid to love me?"

She blushed crimson, saying: "If I--if such a misfortune--"

"Such a misfortune as your loving me?"

"Yes; if it came, I would never, never admit it! Why do you say these
things to me? Won't you understand? I've tried so hard--so hard to warn
you!" The colour flamed in her cheeks; a sort of sweet anger possessed
her.

"Must I tell you more than I have told before you can comprehend the
utter impossibility of any--love--between us?"

His hand fell over hers and held it crushed.

"Tell me no more," he said, "until you can tell me that you dare to
love!"

"What do you mean? Do you mean that a girl does not do a dishonourable
thing because she dares not?--a sinful thing because she's afraid? If it
were only that--" She smiled, breathless. "It is not fear. It is that a
girl _can_ not love where love is forbidden."

"And you believe that?"

"Believe it!"--in astonishment.

"Yes; do you believe it?"

She had never before questioned it. Dazed by his impatience, dismayed,
she affirmed it again, mechanically. And the first doubt entered as she
spoke, confusing her, awakening a swarm of little latent ideas and
misgivings, stirring memories of half-uttered sentences checked at her
entrance into a room, veiled allusions, words, nods, that she remembered
but had never understood. And, somehow, his question seemed a key to
this cipher, innocently retained in the unseen brain-cells, stored up
without suspicion--almost without curiosity.

For all her recent eloquence upon unhappiness and divorce, it came to
her now in some still subtle manner, that she had been speaking
concerning things in the world of which she knew nothing. And one of
them, perhaps, was love.

Then every instinct within her revolted, all her innate delicacy, all
the fastidious purity recoiled before the menace of his question. Love!
Was it possible? Was this that she already felt, _love_? Could such
treachery to herself, such treason to training and instinct arise within
her and she not know it?

Panic-stricken she raised her head; and at sight of him a blind impulse
to finish with him possessed her--to crush out that menace--end it for
ever--open his eyes to the inexorable truth.

"Lean nearer," she said quietly. Every vestige of blood had left her
face.

"Listen to me. Two years ago I was told that I am a common foundling.
Under the shock of that--disclosure--I ruined my life for ever.... Don't
speak! I mean to check that ruin where it ended--lest it spread
to--others. Do you understand?"

"No," he said doggedly.

She drew a steady breath. "Then I'll tell you more if I must. I ruined
my life for ever two years ago!... I must have been quite out of my
senses--they had told me that morning, very tenderly and pitifully--what
you already know. I--it was--unbearable. The world crashed down around
me--horror, agonized false pride, sheer terror for the future--"

She choked slightly, but went on:

"I was only eighteen. I wanted to die. I meant to leave my home at any
rate. Oh, I know my reasoning was madness, the thought of their
charity--the very word itself as my mind formed it--drove me almost
insane. I might have known it was love, not charity, that held me so
safely in their hearts. But when a blow falls and reason goes--how can
a girl reason?"

She looked down at her bridle hand.

"There was a man," she said in a low voice; "he was only a boy then."

Hamil's face hardened.

"Until he asked me I never supposed any man could ever want to marry me.
I took it for granted.... He was Gray's friend; I had always known
him.... He had been silly sometimes. He asked me to marry him. Then he
asked me again.

"I was a débutante that winter, and we were rehearsing some theatricals
for charity which I had to go through with.... And he asked me to marry
him. I told him what I was and he still wished it."

Hamil bent nearer from his saddle, face tense and colourless.

"I don't know exactly what I thought; I had a dim notion of escaping
from the disgrace of being nameless. It was the mad clutch of the
engulfed at anything.... Not with any definite view--partly from fright,
partly I think for the sake of those who had been kind to a--a
foundling; some senseless idea that it was my duty to relieve them of a
squalid burden--" She shook her head vaguely: "I don't know exactly--I
don't know."

"You married him."

"Yes--I believe so."

"Don't you _know_?"

"Oh, yes," she said wearily, "I know what I did. It was that."

And after he had waited for her in silence for fully a minute she said
in a low voice:

"I was very lonely, very, very tired; he urged me; I had been crying. I
have seldom cried since. It is curious, isn't it? I can feel the tears
in my eyes at night sometimes. But they never fall."

She passed her gloved hand slowly across her forehead and eyes.

"I--married him. At first I did not know what to do; did not realise,
understand. I scarcely do yet. I had supposed I was to go to mother and
dad and tell them that I had a name in the world--that all was well with
me at last. But I could not credit it myself; the boy--I had known him
always--went and came in our house as freely as Gray. And I could not
convince myself that the thing that had happened was serious--had really
occurred."

"How did it occur?"

"I will tell you exactly. We were walking home, all of us, along Fifth
Avenue, that winter afternoon. The avenue was gay and densely crowded;
and I remember the furs I wore and the western sunset crimsoning the
cross-streets, and the early dusk--and Jessie ahead with Cecile and the
dogs. And then he said that now was the time, for he was going back to
college that same day, and would not return before Easter--and he urged
it, and hurried me--and--I couldn't think; and I went with him, west, I
believe--yes, the sky was red over the river--west, two blocks, or
more.... There was a parsonage. It lasted only a few minutes.... We took
the elevated to Fifty-ninth Street and hurried east, almost running.
They had just reached the Park and had not yet missed us.... And that is
all."

"All?"

"Yes," she said, raising her pale face to his. "What more is there?"

"The--man."

"He was as frightened as I," she said simply, "and he went back to
college that same evening. And when I had become still more frightened
and a little saner I wrote asking him if it was really true. It was.
There seemed to be nothing to do; I had no money, nor had he. And there
was no love--because I could not endure even his touch or suffer the
least sentiment from him when he came back at Easter. He was a boy and
silly. He annoyed me. I don't know why he persisted so; and finally I
became thoroughly exasperated.... We did not part on very friendly
terms; and I think that was why he did not return to us from college
when he graduated. A man offered him a position, and he went away to try
to make a place for himself in the world. And after he had gone, somehow
the very mention of his name began to chill me. You see nobody knew. The
deception became a shame to me, then a dull horror. But, little by
little, not seeing him, and being young, after a year the unreality of
it all grew stronger, and it seemed as though I were awaking from a
nightmare, among familiar things once more.... And for a year it has
been so, though at night, sometimes, I still lie awake. But I have been
contented--until--_you_ came.... Now you know it all."

"All?"

"Every word. And now you understand why I cannot care for you, or you
for me."

He said in a deadened voice: "There is a law that deals with that sort
of man--"

"What are you saying?" she faltered.

"That you cannot remain bound! Its monstrous. There is a law--"

"I cannot disgrace dad!" she said. "There is no chance that way! I'd
rather die than have him know--have mother know--and Jessie and Cecile
and Gray! Didn't you understand that?"

"You must tell them nevertheless, and they must help you."

"Help me?"

"To free yourself--"

Flushed with anger and disdain she drew bridle and faced him.

"If _this_ is the sort of friendship you bring me, what is your love
worth?" she asked almost fiercely. "And--I cared for you--cared for the
man I believed you to be; bared my heart to you--wrung every secret from
it--thinking you understood! And you turn on me counselling the law,
divorce, horrors unthinkable!--because you say you _love_ me!... And I
tell you that if I loved you--dearly--blindly--I could not endure to
free myself at the expense of pain--to them--even for your sake! They
took me, nameless, as I was--a--a foundling. If they ever learn what I
have done I shall ask their pardon on my knees, and accept life with the
man I married. But if they never learn I shall remain with them--always.
You have asked me what chance you have. Now you know! It is useless to
love me. I cared enough for you to try to kill what you call love last
night. I cared enough to-day to strip my heart naked for you--to show
you there was no chance. If I have done right or wrong I do not
know--but I did it for your sake."

His face reddened painfully, but as he offered no reply she put her
horse in motion and rode on, proud little head averted. For a few
minutes neither he nor she spoke, their horses pacing neck and neck
through the forest. At last he said: "You are right, Shiela; I am not
worth it. Forgive me."

She turned, eyes level and fearless. Suddenly her mouth quivered.

"Forgive _me_," she said impulsively; "you are worth more than I dare
give you. Love me in your own fashion. I wish it. And I will care for
you very faithfully in mine."

They were very young, very hopeless, deeply impressed with one another,
and quite inexperienced enough to trust each other. She leaned from her
saddle and laid her slim bare hands in both of his, lifting her gaze
bravely to his--a little dim of eye and still tremulous of lip. And he
looked back, love's tragedy dawning in his gaze, yet forcing the smile
that the very young employ as a defiance to destiny and an artistic
insult in the face of Fate; that Fate which looks back so placid and
unmoved.

"Can you forgive me, Shiela?"

"Look at me?" she whispered.

       *       *       *       *       *

A few moments later she hastily disengaged her hand.

"There seems to be a fire, yonder," he said; "and somebody seated before
it; your Seminole, I think. By Jove, Shiela, he's certainly
picturesque!"

A sullen-eyed Indian rose as they rode up, his turban brilliant in the
declining sunshine, his fringed leggings softly luminous as woven cloth
of gold.

"He--a--mah, Coacochee!" said the girl in friendly greeting. "It is good
to see you, Little Tiger. The people of the East salute the Uchee
Seminoles."

The Indian answered briefly and with dignity, then stood impassive, not
noticing Hamil.

"Mr. Hamil," she said, "this is my old friend Coacochee or Little Tiger;
an Okichobi Seminole of the Clan of the Wind; a brave hunter and an
upright man."

"Sommus-Kala-ne-sha-ma-lin," said the Indian quietly; and the girl
interpreted: "He says, 'Good wishes to the white man.'"

Hamil dismounted, turned and lifted Shiela from her saddle, then walked
straight to the Seminole and offered his hand. The Indian grasped it in
silence.

"I wish well to Little Tiger, a Seminole and a brave hunter," said Hamil
pleasantly.

The red hand and the white hand tightened and fell apart.

A moment later Gray came galloping up with Eudo Stent.

"How are you, Coacochee!" he called out; "glad to see you again! We saw
the pine tops blue a mile back."

To which the Seminole replied with composure in terse English. But for
Mr. Cardross, when he arrived, there was a shade less reserve in the
Indian's greeting, and there was no mistaking the friendship between
them.

"Why did you speak to him in his own tongue?" asked Hamil of Shiela as
they strolled together toward the palmetto-thatched, open-face camp
fronting on Ruffle Lake.

"He takes it as a compliment," she said. "Besides he taught me."

"It's a pretty courtesy," said Hamil, "but you always do everything more
graciously than anybody else in the world."

"I am afraid you are biassed."

"Can any man who knows you remain non-partisan?--even your red Seminole
yonder?"

"I am proud of that conquest," she said gaily. "Do you know anything
about the Seminoles? No? Well, then, let me inform you that a Seminole
rarely speaks to a white man except when trading at the posts. They are
a very proud people; they consider themselves still unconquered, still
in a state of rebellion against the United States."

"What!" exclaimed Hamil, astonished.

"Yes, indeed. All these years of peace they consider only as an armed
truce. They are proud, reticent, sensitive, suspicious people; and there
are few cases on record where any such thing as friendship has existed
between a Seminole and a white man. This is a genuine case; Coacochee is
really devoted to dad."

The guides and the wagon had now arrived; camp was already in the
confusion and bustle of unloading equipage and supplies; picket lines
were established, water-jars buried, blankets spread, guns, ammunition,
rods, and saddles ranged in their proper places.

Carter unsheathed his heavy cane-knife and cut palmetto fans for
rethatching where required; Eudo Stent looked after the horses; Bulow's
axe rang among the fragrant red cedars; the Indian squatted gravely
before a characteristic Seminole fire built of logs, radiating like the
spokes of a cart-wheel from the centre which was a hub of glowing coals.
And whenever it was necessary he simply shoved the burning log-ends
toward the centre where kettles were already boiling and sweet potatoes
lay amid the white ashes, and a dozen wild ducks, split and skewered and
basted with pork, were exhaling a matchless fragrance.

Table-legs, bench-legs, and the bases of all culinary furniture, like
the body of the camp, were made out of palmetto logs driven into the
ground to support cedar planks for the tops.

And it was seated at one of these tables, under the giant oaks, pines,
and palmettos, that Shiela and Hamil ate their first camp-repast
together, with Gray and his father opposite.

Never had he tasted such a heavenly banquet, never had he dreamed of
such delicacies. Eudo Stent brought panfuls of fried bass, still
sizzling under the crisp bacon; and great panniers woven of green
palmetto, piled high with smoking sweet potatoes all dusty from the
ashes; and pots of coffee and tea, steaming and aromatic.

Then came broiled mallard duck, still crackling from the coals, and
coonti bread, and a cold salad of palm cabbage, nut-flavored,
delectable. Then in the thermos-jugs were spring water and a light
German vintage to mix with it. And after everything, fresh oranges in a
nest of Spanish moss.

Red sunlight struck through the forest, bronzing bark and foliage;
sombre patches of shade passed and repassed across the table--the
shadows of black vultures soaring low above the camp smoke. The waters
of the lake burned gold.

As yet the approach of sunset had not stirred the water-fowl to
restlessness; dark streaks on the lake gleamed white at moments as some
string of swimming ducks turned and the light glinted on throat and
breast. Herons stood in the shallows; a bittern, squawking, rose from
the saw-grass, circled, and pitched downward again.

[Illustration: "Never had he tasted such a heavenly banquet."]

"This is a peaceful place," said Cardross, narrowing eyes watching
the lake through the haze of his pipe. "I almost hate to disturb it with
a gun-shot; but if we stay here we've got to eat." And, turning toward
the guides' table where they lounged over their after-dinner pipes:
"Coacochee, my little daughter has never shot a wild turkey. Do you
think she had better try this evening or go after the big duck?"

"Pen-ni-chah," said the Seminole quietly.

"He says, 'turkey-gobbler,'" whispered Shiela to Hamil; "'pen-nit-kee'
is the word for _hen_ turkey. Oh, I _hope_ I have a chance. You'll pair
with me, won't you?"

"Of course."

Cardross, listening, smiled. "Is it yelping or roosting, Little Tiger?"

"Roost um pen-ni-chah, aw-tee-tus-chee. I-hoo-es-chay."

"He says that we can roost them by and by and that we ought to start
now," whispered the girl, slightly excited. "Dad, Mr. Hamil has never
shot a wild turkey--"

"Neither have I," observed her father humourously.

"Oh, I forgot! Well, then--why can't we all--"

"Not much! No sitting in swamps for me, but a good, clean, and easy boat
in the saw-grass. Gray, are you going after ducks with me or are you
going to sit with one hopeful girl, one credulous white man, and one
determined red man on a shell heap in a bog and yawn till moonrise?
Ducks? Sure! Well, then, we'd better be about it, my son."

The guides rose laughing, and went about their duties, Carter and Bulow
to clean up camp, Eudo Stent with Cardross, senior and junior, carrying
guns and shell cases down to the landing where the boats lay; and
Shiela and Hamil to mount the two fresh led-horses and follow the
Seminole into the forest.

"Shame on your laziness, dad!" said Shiela, as Cardross looked after her
in pretended pity; "anybody can shoot ducks from a boat, but it takes
real hunters to stalk turkeys! I suppose Eudo loads for you and Gray
pulls the triggers!"

"The turkey you get will be a water-turkey," observed Cardross; "or a
fragrant buzzard. Hamil, I'm sorry for you. I've tried that sort of
thing myself when younger. I'm still turkeyless but wiser."

"You'd better bring Eudo and let us help you to retrieve yourself!"
called back Shiela.

But he refused scornfully, and she waved them adieu; then, settling in
her stirrups, turned smilingly to Hamil who brought his horse alongside.

"Dad is probably right; there's not much chance for us this way. But if
there is a chance Little Tiger will see that we get it. Anyway, you can
try the ducks in the morning. You don't mind, do you?"

He tried to be prudent in his reply.



CHAPTER XII

THE ALLIED FORCES


Through the glades the sun poured like a red searchlight, and they
advanced in the wake of their own enormous shadows lengthening
grotesquely with every stride. Tree trunks and underbrush seemed afire
in the kindling glory; the stream ran molten.

Then of a sudden the red radiance died out; the forest turned ashy; the
sun had set; and on the wings of silence already the swift southern dusk
was settling over lake and forest. A far and pallid star came out in the
west; a cat-owl howled.

At the edge of an evil-looking cypress "branch" they dismounted, drew
gun from saddle-boot, and loaded in silence while the Indian tethered
the horses.

Then through the thickening twilight they followed the Seminole in file,
Hamil bringing up the rear.

Little Tiger had left turban, plume, and leggings in camp; the
scalp-lock bobbed on his head, bronzed feet and legs were bare; and,
noiseless as a cypress shadow in the moonlight, he seemed part of it
all, harmonious as a wild thing in its protective tints.

A narrow tongue of dry land scarcely three inches above the swamp level
was the trail they followed. All around tall cypress trees, strangely
buttressed at the base, rose pillar-like into obscurity as though
supporting the canopy of dusk. The goblin howling of the big cat-owl
pulsated through the silence; strange gleams and flashes stirred the
surface of the bog. Once, close ahead, a great white bird, winged like
an angel, rose in spectral silence through the twilight.

"Did you see!" she breathed, partly turning her head.

"Good heavens, yes! What was it; the archangel Michael?"

"Only a snowy heron."

The Seminole had halted and laid his hand flat on the dead leaves under
a gigantic water-oak.

"A-po-kes-chay," he whispered; and Shiela translated close to Hamil's
ear: "He says that we must all sit down here--" A sudden crackle in the
darkness stilled her voice.

"Im-po-kit-chkaw?" she asked. "Did you hear that? No-ka-tee; what is
it?"

"Deer walk," nodded the Seminole; "sun gone down; moon come. Bimeby
roost um turkey. Li-kus-chay! No sound."

Shiela settled quietly on the poncho among the dead leaves, resting her
back against the huge tree trunk. Hamil warily sank into position beside
her; the Indian stood for a while, head raised, apparently gazing at the
tree-tops, then, walking noiselessly forward a dozen yards, squatted.

Shiela opened the conversation presently by whispering that they must
not speak.

And the conversation continued, fitfully in ghostly whispers, lips
scarcely stirring close to one another's ears.

As for the swamp, it was less reticent, and began to wake up all around
them in the darkness. Strange creaks and quacks and croaks broke out,
sudden snappings of twigs, a scurry among dead leaves, a splash in the
water, the far whir of wings. There were no insect noises, no resonant
voices of bull-frogs; weird squeaks arose at intervals, the murmuring
complaint of water-fowl, guttural quack of duck and bittern--a vague
stirring everywhere of wild things settling to rest or awaking. There
were things moving in the unseen ooze, too, leaving sudden sinuous
trails in the dim but growing lustre that whitened above the
trees--probably turtles, perhaps snakes.

She leaned almost imperceptibly toward him, and he moved his shoulder
close to hers.

"You are not nervous, Shiela?"

"Indeed I am."

"Why on earth did you come?"

"I don't know. The idea of snakes in darkness always worries me....
Once, waking in camp, reaching out through the darkness for the
water-bottle, I laid my hand on an exceedingly chilly snake. It was a
harmless one, but I nearly died.... And here I am back again. Believe
me, _no_ burnt child ever dreaded the fire enough to keep away from it.
I'm a coward, but not enough of a one to practise prudence."

He laughed silently. "You brave little thing! Every moment I am learning
more and more how adorable you are--"

"Do men adore folly?"

"Your kind of folly. Are you cold?"

"No; only foolish. There's some sort of live creature moving rather
close to me--hush! Don't you hear it?"

But whatever it was it went its uncanny way in darkness and left them
listening, her small hand remaining loosely in his.

"What on earth is the matter now, Shiela?" he whispered, feeling her
trembling.

"Nothing. They say a snake won't strike you if you hold your breath. Its
nonsense, but I was trying it.... What is that ring I feel on your
hand?"

"A signet; my father's." He removed it from his little finger, tried it
on all of hers.

"Is it too large?"

"It's a little loose.... You don't wish me to wear it, do you?... Your
_father's_? I'd rather not.... Do you really wish it? Well, then--for a
day--if you ask me."

Her ringed hand settled unconsciously into his again; she leaned back
against the tree, and he rested his head beside hers.

"Are you afraid of wood-ticks, Mr. Hamil? I am, horribly. We're inviting
all kinds of disaster--but isn't it delicious! Look at that whitish
light above the trees. When the moon outlines the roosting-tree we'll
know whether our labour is lost. But I wouldn't have missed it for all
the mallard on Ruffle Lake. Would you? Are you contented?"

"Where you are is contentment, Shiela."

"How nice of you! But there is always that sweet, old-fashioned, boyish
streak in you which shows true colour when I test you. Do you know, at
times, you seem absurdly young to me."

"That's a pleasant thing to say."

Their shoulders were in contact; she was laughing without a sound.

"At times," she said, "you are almost what young girls call cunning!"

"By heavens!" he began indignantly, but she stilled his jerk of
resentment with a quick pressure.

"Lie still! For goodness' sake don't make the leaves rustle, silly! If
there's a flock of turkeys in any of those cypress tops, you may be sure
that every separate bird is now looking straight in our direction.... I
won't torment you any more; I dare not. Little Tiger turned around; did
you notice? He'd probably like to scalp us both."

But the Indian had resumed his motionless study of the darkness,
squatted on his haunches as immobile as a dead stump.

Hamil whispered: "Such a chance to make love to you! You dare not move.
And you deserve it for tormenting me."

"If you did such a thing--"

"Yes?"

"Such a thing as that--"

"Yes?"

"But you wouldn't."

"Why, Shiela, I'm doing it every minute of my life!"

"Now?"

"Of course. It goes on always. I couldn't prevent it any more than I
could stop my pulses. It just continues with every heart-beat, every
breath, every word, every silence--"

"Mr. Hamil!"

"Yes?"

"That _does_ sound like it--a little; and you must stop!"

"Of course I'll stop saying things, but _that_ doesn't stop with my
silence. It simply goes on and on increasing every--"

"Try silence," she said.

Motionless, shoulder to shoulder, the pulsing moments passed. Every
muscle tense, she sat there for a while, fearful that he could hear her
heart beating. Her palm, doubled in his, seemed to burn. Then little by
little a subtle relaxation stole over her; dreamy-eyed she sank back and
looked into the darkness. A sense of delicious well-being possessed her,
enmeshing thought in hazy lethargy, quieting pulse and mind.

Through it she heard his voice faintly; her own seemed unreal when she
answered.

He said: "Speaking of love; there is only one thing possible for me,
Shiela--to go on loving you. I can't kill hope, though there seems to be
none. But there's no use in saying so to myself for it is one of those
things no man believes. He may grow tired of hoping, and, saying there
is none, live on. But neither he nor Fate can destroy hope any more than
he can annihilate his soul. He may change in his heart. That he cannot
control. When love goes no man can stay its going."

"Do you think yours will go?"

"No. That is a lover's answer."

"What is a sane man's answer?"

"Ask some sane man, Shiela."

"I would rather believe you."

"Does it make you happy?"

"Yes."

"You wish me to love you?"

"Yes."

"You would love me--a little--if you could?"

She closed her eyes.

"Would you?" he asked again.

"Yes."

"But you cannot."

She said, dreamily: "I don't know. That is a dreadful answer to make.
But I don't know what is in me. I don't know what I am capable of
doing. I wish I knew; I wish I could tell you."

"Do you know what I think, Shiela?"

"What?"

"It's curious--but since I have known you--and about your birth--the
idea took shape and persisted--that--that--"

"What?" she asked.

"That, partly perhaps because of your physical beauty, and because of
your mind and its intelligence and generosity, you embodied something of
that type which this nation is developing."

"That is curious," she said softly.

"Yes; but you give me that impression, as though in you were the lovely
justification of these generations of welding together alien and native
to make a national type, spiritual, intelligent, wholesome,
beautiful.... And I've fallen into the habit of thinking of you in that
way--as thoroughly human, thoroughly feminine, heir to the best that is
human, and to its temptations too; yet, somehow, instinctively finding
the right way in life, the true way through doubt and stress.... Like
the Land itself--with perhaps the blood of many nations in your
veins.... I don't know exactly what I'm trying to say--"

"_I_ know."

"Yes," he whispered, "you do know that all I have said is only a longer
way of saying that I love you."

"Through stress and doubt," she murmured, "you think I will find the
way?--with perhaps the blood of many nations in my veins, with all their
transmitted emotions, desires, passions for my inheritance?... It is my
only heritage. They did not even leave me a name; only a capacity for
every human error, with no knowledge of what particular inherited
failing I am to contend with when temptation comes. Do you wonder I am
sometimes lonely and afraid?"

"You darling!" he said under his breath.

"Hush; that is forbidden. You know perfectly well it is. _Are_ you
laughing? That is very horrid of you when I'm trying _so_ hard not to
listen when you use forbidden words to me. But I heard you once when I
should not have heard you. Does that seem centuries ago? Alas for us
both, Ulysses, when I heard your voice calling me under the Southern
stars! Would you ever have spoken if you knew what you know now?"

"I would have told you the truth sooner."

"Told me what truth?"

"That I love you, Calypso."

"You always answer like a boy! Ah, well I--if you knew how easily a girl
believes such answers!"

He bent his head, raising her bare fingers to his lips. A tiny shock
passed through them both; she released her hand and buried it in the
folds of her kilt.

There was a pale flare of moonlight behind the forest; trunks and
branches were becoming more distinct. A few moments later the Indian,
bending low, came creeping back without a sound, and straightened up in
the fathomless shadow of the oak, motioning Shiela and Hamil to rise.

"Choo-lee," he motioned with his lips; "Ko-la-pa-kin!"

Lips close to Hamil's ear she whispered: "He says that there are seven
in that pine. Can you see them?"

He strained his eyes in vain; she had already found them and now stood
close to his shoulder, whispering the direction.

"I can't make them out," he said. "Don't wait for me, but take your
chance at once."

"Do you think I would do that?"

"You _must_! You have never shot a turkey--"

"Hush, silly. What pleasure would there be in it without you? Try to see
them; look carefully. All those dark furry blotches against the sky are
pine leaves, but the round shadowy lumps are turkeys; one is quite
clearly silhouetted, now; even to his tail--"

"I believe I _do_ see!" murmured Hamil. "By Jove, yes! Shiela, you're an
angel to be so patient."

"I'll take the top bird," she whispered. "Are you ready? We must be
quick."

"Ready," he motioned.

Then in the dim light one of the shadowy bunches rose abruptly, standing
motionless on the branch, craning a long neck into the moonlight.

"Fire!" she whispered; and four red flashes in pairs split the gloom
wide open for a second. Then roaring darkness closed about them.

Instantly the forest resounded with the thunderous racket of heavy wings
as the flock burst into flight, clattering away through leafy obscurity;
but under the uproar of shot and clapping wings sounded the thud and
splash of something heavy crashing earthward; and the Indian, springing
from root to tussock, vanished into the shadows.

"Two down!" said the girl, unsteadily. "Oh, I am so thankful that you
got yours!"

They exchanged excited handclasps of mutual congratulation. Then he
said:

"Shiela, you dear generous girl, I don't believe I hit anything, but
I'll bet that you got a turkey with each barrel!"

"Foolish boy! Of course you grassed your bird! It wasn't a wing shot,
but we took what fate sent us. Nobody can choose conditions on the
firing line. We did our best, I think."

"Wise little Shiela! Her philosophy is as fascinating as it is sound!"
He looked at her half smiling, partly serious. "You and I are on life's
firing line, you know."

"Are we?"

"And under the lively fusillade of circumstances."

"Are we?"

He said: "It will show us up as we are.... I am afraid for us both."

"If you are--don't tell me."

"It is best to know the truth. We've got to stay on the firing line
anyway. We might as well know that we are not very sure of ourselves. If
the fear of God doesn't help us it will end us. But--" He walked up to
her and took both her hands frankly. "We'll try to be good soldiers;
won't we?"

"Yes."

"And good comrades--even if we can't be more?"

"Yes."

"And help each other under fire?"

"Yes."

"You make me very happy," he said simply; and turned to the Seminole who
was emerging from obscurity, shoulders buried under a mass of bronzed
feathers from which dangled two grotesque heads.

One was a gobbler--a magnificent patriarch; and Shiela with a little cry
of delight turned to Hamil: "That's yours! I congratulate you with all
my heart!"

"No, no!" he protested, "the gobbler fell to you--"

"It is _yours_!" she repeated firmly; "mine is this handsome, plump
hen--"

"I _won't_ claim that magnificent gobbler! Little Tiger, didn't Miss
Cardross shoot this bird?"

"Gobbler top bird," nodded the Seminole proudly.

"You fired at the top bird, Shiela! That settles it! I'm perfectly
delighted over this. Little Tiger, you stalked them beautifully; but how
on earth you ever managed to roost them in the dark I can't make out!"

"See um same like tiger," nodded the pleased Seminole. And, to Shiela:
"Pen-na-waw-suc-chai! I-hoo-es-chai." And he lighted his lantern.

"He says that the turkeys are all gone and that we had better go too,
Mr. Hamil. What a perfect beauty that gobbler is! I'd much rather have
him mounted than eat him. Perhaps we can do both. Eudo skins very
skilfully and there's plenty of salt in camp. Look at that mist!"

And so, chattering away in highest spirits they fell into file behind
the Seminole and his lantern, who, in the thickening fog, looked like
some slim luminous forest-phantom with great misty wings atrail from
either shoulder.

Treading the narrow way in each other's footsteps they heard, far in the
darkness, the gruesome tumult of owls. Once the Indian's lantern flashed
on a snake which rose quickly from compact coils, hissing and distending
its neck; but for all its formidable appearance and loud, defiant
hissing the Indian picked up a palmetto fan and contemptuously tossed
the reptile aside into the bog.

"It's only a noisy puff-adder," said Shiela, who had retreated very
close against Hamil, "but, oh, I don't love them even when they are
harmless." And rather thoughtfully she disengaged herself from the
sheltering arm of that all too sympathetic young man, and went forward,
shivering a little as the hiss of the enraged adder broke out from the
uncongenial mud where he had unwillingly landed.

And so they came to their horses through a white mist which had
thickened so rapidly that the Indian's lantern was now only an
iridescent star ringed with rainbows. And when they had been riding for
twenty minutes Little Tiger halted them with lifted lantern and said
quietly:

"Chi-ho-ches-chee!"

"Wh-at!" exclaimed the girl, incredulous.

"What did he say?" asked Hamil.

"He says that he is lost!"

Hamil stared around in dismay; a dense white wall shut out everything;
the Indian's lantern at ten paces was invisible; he could scarcely see
Shiela unless she rode close enough to touch his elbow.

"Catch um camp," observed Little Tiger calmly. "Loose bridle! Bimeby
catch um camp. One horse lead. No be scared."

So Hamil dismounted and handed his bridle to the Indian; then Shiela
cast her own bridle loose across the pommel, and touching her horse with
both heels, rode forward, hands in her jacket pockets. And Hamil walked
beside her, one arm on the cantle.

Into blank obscurity the horse moved, bearing to the left--a direction
which seemed entirely wrong.

"Catch um camp," came the Indian's amused voice through the mist from
somewhere close behind.

"It doesn't seem to me that this is the right direction," ventured
Shiela doubtfully. "Isn't it absurd? Where are you, Mr. Hamil? Come
closer and keep in touch with my stirrup. I found you in a fog and I
really don't want to lose you in one."

She dropped one arm so that her hand rested lightly on his shoulder.

"This is not the first mist we've been through together," he said,
laughing.

"I was thinking of that, too. They say the gods arrive and go in a mist.
Don't go."

They moved on in silence, the horse stepping confidently into the
crowding fog. Once Hamil stumbled over a root and Shiela's hand slipped
around his neck, tightening a moment. He straightened up; but her hand
slid back to his coat sleeve, resting so lightly that he could scarce
feel the touch.

Then the horse stumbled, this time over the tongue of the camp wagon.
Little Tiger was right; the horse had brought them back.

Hamil turned; Shiela swung one leg across the pommel and slipped from
her saddle into his arms.

"Have you been happy, Shiela?"

"You know I have.... But--you must release me."

"Perfectly happy?"

"Ah, yes. Don't you know I have?" ... And in a low voice: "Release me
now--for both our sakes."

She did not struggle nor did he retain her by perceptible force.

"Won't you release me?"

"Must I?"

"I thought you promised to help me--on the firing line?" She forced a
little laugh, resting both her hands on his wrists against her waist.
"You said," she added with an effort at lightness, "that we are under
heavy fire now."

"The fire of circumstances?"

"The cross-fire--of temptation.... Help me."

His arms fell; neither moved. Then a pale spark grew in the mist,
brighter, redder, and, side by side, they walked toward it.

"What luck!" cried Gray, lifting a blazing palmetto fan above his head.
"We got ten mallard and a sprig! Where's your game? We heard you shoot
four times!"

Shiela laughed as the Seminole loomed up in the incandescent haze of the
camp fire, buried in plumage.

"Dad! Dad! Where are you? Mr. Hamil has shot a magnificent wild turkey!"

"Well, upon my word!" exclaimed Cardross, emerging from his section;
"the luck of the dub is proverbial! Hamil, what the deuce do you mean by
it? That's what' I want to know! O Lord! _Look_ at that gobbler! Shiela,
did you let this young man wipe both your eyes?"

"Mine? Oh, I almost forgot. You see I shot one of them."

"Which?"

"It happened to be the gobbler," she said. "It was a mere chance in the
dark.... And--if my section is ready, dad--I'm a little tired, I think.
Good night, everybody; good night, Mr. Hamil--and thank you for taking
care of me."

       *       *       *       *       *

Cardross, enveloped in blankets, glanced at Hamil.

"Did you ever know anybody so quick to give credit to others? It's worth
something to hear anybody speak in that fashion."

"That is why I did not interrupt," said Hamil.

Cardross looked down at the dying coals, then directly at the silent
young fellow--a long, keen glance; then his gaze fell again on the
Seminole fire.

"Good night, sir," said Hamil at last.

"Good night, my boy," replied the older man very quietly.



CHAPTER XIII

THE SILENT PARTNERS


Late one evening toward the end of the week a somewhat battered camping
party, laden with plump, fluffy bunches of quail, and plumper strings of
duck, wind-scorched, sun-burnt, brier-torn and trail-worn, re-entered
the _patio_ of the Cardross villa, and made straight for shower-bath,
witch-hazel, fresh pyjamas, and bed.

In vain Jessie Carrick, Cecile, and their mother camped around Shiela's
bed after the tray was removed, and Shiela's flushed face, innocent as
usual of sunburn, lay among the pillows, framed by the brown-gold lustre
of her hair.

"We had _such_ a good time, mother; Mr. Hamil shot a turkey," she said
sleepily. "Mr. Hamil--Mr. H-a-m-i-l"--A series of little pink yawns, a
smile, a faint sigh terminated consciousness as she relaxed into slumber
as placid as her first cradle sleep. So motionless she lay, bare arms
wound around the pillow, that they could scarcely detect her breathing
save when the bow of pale-blue ribbon stirred on her bosom.

"The darling!" whispered Mrs. Carrick; "look at that brier mark across
her wrist!--our poor little worn-out colleen!"

"She was not too far gone to mention Garret Hamil," observed Cecile.

Mrs. Cardross looked silently at Cecile, then at the girl on the bed who
had called her mother. After a moment she bent with difficulty and
kissed the brier-torn wrist, wondering perhaps whether by chance a
deeper wound lay hidden beneath the lace-veiled, childish breast.

"Little daughter--little daughter!" she murmured close to the small
unheeding ear. Cecile waited, a smile half tender, half amused curving
her parted lips; then she glanced curiously at Mrs. Carrick. But that
young matron, ignoring the enfant terrible, calmly tucked her arm under
her mother's; Cecile, immersed in speculative thought, followed them
from the room; a maid extinguished the lights.

In an hour the Villa Cardross was silent and dark, save that, in the
moonlight which struck through the panes of Malcourt's room, an unquiet
shadow moved from window to window, looking out into the mystery of
night.

       *       *       *       *       *

The late morning sun flung a golden net across Malcourt's bed; he lay
asleep, dark hair in handsome disorder, dark eyes sealed--too young to
wear that bruised, loose mask so soon with the swollen shadows under lid
and lip. Yet, in his unconscious features there was now a certain
simplicity almost engaging, which awake, he seemed to lack; as though
latent somewhere within him were qualities which chance might germinate
into nobler growth. But chance, alone, is a poor gardener.

Hamil passing the corridor as the valet, carrying a tray, opened
Malcourt's door, glanced in at him; and Malcourt awoke at the same
moment, and sat bolt upright.

"Hello, Hamil!" he nodded sleepily, "come in, old fellow!" And, to the
valet: "No breakfast for me, thank you--except grape-fruit!--unless
you've brought me a cuckootail? Yes? No? Stung! Never mind; just hand me
a cigarette and take away the tray. It's a case of being a very naughty
boy, Hamil. How are you anyway, and what did you shoot?"

Hamil greeted him briefly, but did not seem inclined to enter or
converse.

Malcourt yawned, glanced at the grape-fruit, then affably at Hamil.

"I say," he began, "hope you'll overlook my rotten behaviour last time
we met. I'd been dining at random, and I'm usually a brute when I do
that."

"Oh, it's all right," said Hamil, looking at the row of tiny Chinese
idols on the mantel.

"No rancour?"

"No. Only--why do you do it, Malcourt?"

"Why do I do which? The wheel or the lady?"

"Oh, the whole bally business? It isn't as if you were lonely and put to
it. There are plenty of attractive girls about, and anybody will take
you on at Bridge. Of course it's none of my affair--but we came
unpleasantly close to a quarrel--which is my only excuse."

Malcourt looked at him thoughtfully. "Hamil, do you know, I've always
liked you a damn sight better than you've liked me."

Hamil said, laughing outright: "I never saw very much of you to like or
dislike."

Malcourt smiled, stretched his limbs lazily, and lighted a cigarette.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "you think I'm worse than I am, but I
_know_ you are worse than you think, because I couldn't even secretly
feel friendly toward a prig. You've had a less battered career than I;
you are, in consequence, less selfish, less ruthless, less cynical
concerning traditions and illusions. You've something left to stick to;
I haven't. You are a little less intelligent than I, and therefore
possess more natural courage and credulity. Outside of these things we
are more or less alike, Hamil. Hope you don't mind my essay on man."

"No," said Hamil, vastly amused.

"The trouble with me," continued Malcourt, "is that I possess a streak
of scientific curiosity that you lack; which is my eternal undoing and
keeps me poor and ignobly busy. I ought to have leisure; the world
should see to it that I have sufficient leisure and means to pursue my
studies in the interest of social economy. Take one of my favourite
experiments, for example. I see a little ball rattling around in a
wheel. Where will that ball stop? You, being less intellectual than I,
don't care where it stops. _I_ do. Instantly my scientific curiosity is
aroused; I reason logically; I evolve an opinion; I back that opinion;
and I remain busy and poor. I see a pretty woman. Is she responsive or
unresponsive to intelligently expressed sentiment? I don't know. _You_
don't care. _I_ do. My curiosity is piqued. She becomes to me an
abstract question which scientific experiment alone can elucidate--"

Hamil, leaning on the footboard of the bed, laughed and straightened up.

"All right, Malcourt, if you think it worth while--"

"What pursuit, if you please, is worthier than logical and scientific
investigations?"

"Make a lot of honest money and marry some nice girl and have horses and
dogs and a bully home and kids. Look here, as Wayward says, you're not
the devilish sort you pretend to be. You're too young for one thing. I
never knew you to do a deliberately ungenerous act--"

"Like most rascals I'm liable to sentimental generosity in streaks?
Thanks. But, somehow, I'm so damned intelligent that I can never give
myself any credit for relapsing into traditional virtues. Impulse is
often my executive officer; and if I were only stupid I'd take great
comfort out of it."

Hamil walked toward the door, stopping on the threshold to say: "Well,
I'll tell you one thing, Malcourt; I've often disliked you at times; but
I don't now. And I don't exactly know why."

"I do."

"Why?"

"Oh, because you've forgiven me. Also--you think I've a better side."

"Haven't you?"

"My son," said Malcourt, "if somebody'll prove it to me I might sleep
better. Just at present I'm ready for anything truly criminal. There was
a killing at the Club all right. I assumed the rôle of the defunct. Now
I haven't any money; I've overdrawn my balance and my salary; Portlaw is
bilious, peevish, unapproachable. If I asked you for a loan I'd only
fall a victim again to my insatiable scientific curiosity. So I'll just
lie here and browse on cigarettes and grape-fruit until something
happens--"

"If you need any money--"

"I told you that we are more or less alike," nodded Malcourt. "Your
offer is partly traditional, partly impulsive, altogether
ill-considered, and does your intelligence no credit!"

Hamil laughed.

"All the same it's an offer," he said, "and it stands. I'm glad I know
you better, Malcourt. I'll be sorry instead of complacently disgusted if
you never pan out; but I'll bet you do, some time."

Malcourt looked up.

"I'm ass enough to be much obliged," he said. "And now, before you go,
what the devil did you shoot in the woods?"

"Miss Cardross got a gobbler--about the biggest bird I ever saw. Eudo
Stent skinned it and Mr. Cardross is going to have it set up in New
York. It's a wonderful--"

"Didn't _you_ shoot anything?"

"Oh, I assassinated a few harmless birds," said Hamil absently; and
walked out into the corridor. "I've got to go over a lot of accumulated
letters and things," he called back. "See you later, Malcourt."

There was a mass of mail, bills, plans, and office reports for him lying
on the hall table. He gathered these up and hastened down the stairway.

On the terrace below he found Mrs. Cardross, and stopped to tell her
what a splendid trip they had, and how beautifully Shiela had shot.

"You did rather well yourself," drawled Mrs. Cardross, with a bland
smile. "Shiela says so."

"Oh, yes, but my shooting doesn't compare with Shiela's. I never knew
such a girl; I never believed they existed--"

"They are rare," nodded the matron. "I am glad everybody finds my little
daughter so admirable in the field."

"Beyond comparison in the field and everywhere," said Hamil, with a
cordiality so laboriously frank that Mrs. Cardross raised her eyes--an
instant only--then continued sorting the skeins of silk in her
voluminous lap.

Shiela appeared in sight among the roses across the lawn; and, as Mr.
Cardross came out on the terrace to light his after-breakfast cigar,
Hamil disappeared in the direction of the garden where Shiela now stood
under the bougainvillia, leisurely biting into a sapodilla.

Mrs. Cardross nodded to her white-linen-clad husband, who looked very
handsome with the silvered hair at his temples accentuating the clear,
deep tan of his face.

"You are burnt, Neville. Did you and the children have a good time?"

"A good time! Well, just about the best in my life--except when I'm with
you. Too bad you couldn't have been there. Shiela shoots like a demon.
You ought to have seen her among the quail, and later, in the saw-grass,
pulling down mallard and duskies from the sky-high overhead range! I
tell you, Amy, she's the cleverest, sweetest, cleanest sportsman I ever
saw afield. Gray, of course, stopped his birds very well. He has a lot
of butterflies to show you, and--'longicorns,' I believe he calls those
beetles with enormous feelers. Little Tiger is a treasure; Eudo and the
others did well--"

"And Mr. Hamil?" drawled his wife.

"I _like_ him. It's a verdict, dear. You were quite right; he _is_ a
nice boy--rather a lovable boy. I've discovered no cloven hoof about
him. He doesn't shoot particularly well, but his field manners are
faultless."

His wife, always elaborately upholstered, sat in her wide reclining
chair, plump, jewelled fingers busy with a silk necktie for Hamil, her
pretty blue eyes raised at intervals to scan her husband's animated
features.

"Does Gray like him as much as ever, Neville?"

"O Lord, Gray adores him, and I like him, and you knit neckties for him,
and Jessie doses him, and Cecile quotes him--"

"And Shiela?"

"Oh, Shiela seems to like him," said Cardross genially. His wife raised
her eyes, then calmly scrutinized her knitting.

"And Mr. Hamil?"

"What about him, dear?"

"Does he seem to like Shiela?"

Her husband glanced musingly out over the lawn where, in their white
flannels, Shiela and Hamil were now seated together under a brilliant
Japanese lawn umbrella, examining the pile of plans, reports and
blue-prints which had accumulated in Hamil's office since his absence.

"He--seems to like her," nodded Cardross, "I'm sure he does. Why not?"

"They were together a good deal, you said last night."

"Yes; but either Gray or I or one of the guides--"

"Of course. Then you don't think--"

Cardross waited and finally looked up. "What, dear?"

"That there is anything more than a sensible friendship--"

"Between Shiela and Garret Hamil?"

"Yes; we were not discussing the Emperor of China."

Cardross laughed and glanced sideways at the lawn umbrella.

"I--don't--know."

His wife raised her brows but not her head.

"Why, Neville?"

"Why what?"

"Your apparent doubt as to the significance of their friendship."

"Dear--I don't know much about those things."

His wife waited.

"Hamil is so nice to everybody; and I've not noticed how he is with
other young girls," continued her husband restlessly. "He does seem to
tag after Shiela.... Once or twice I thought--or it seemed to me--or
rather--"

His wife waited.

"Well, he seemed rather impressed by her field qualities," concluded
Cardross weakly.

His wife waited.

Her husband lit a cigar very carefully: "That's all I noticed, dear."

Mrs. Cardross laid the narrow bit of woven blue silk on her knee and
smoothed it reflectively.

"Neville!"

"Yes, dear."

"I wonder whether Mr. Hamil has heard."

Her husband did not misunderstand. "I think it likely. That old
harridan--"

"_Please_, Neville!"

"Well, then, Mrs. Van Dieman has talked ever since you and Shiela sat on
the aspirations of her impossible son."

"You think Mr. Hamil knows?"

"Why not? Everybody does, thanks to that venomous old lady and her limit
of an offspring."

"And in spite of that you think Mr. Hamil might be seriously impressed?"

"Why not?" repeated Cardross. "She's the sweetest, cleanest-cut
sportsman--"

[Illustration: "Examining the pile of plans, reports, and
blue-prints."]

"Dear, a field-trial is not what we are discussing."

"No, of course. But those things count with a man. And besides,
admitting that the story is all over Palm Beach and New York by this
time, is there a more popular girl here than our little Shiela? Look at
the men--troops of 'em! Alex Anan knew when he tried his luck. You had
to tell Mr. Cuyp, but Shiela was obliged to turn him down after all. It
certainly has not intimidated anybody. Do you remember two years ago how
persistent Louis Malcourt was until you squelched him?"

"Yes; but he didn't know the truth then. He acts sometimes as though he
knew it now. I don't think he would ask Shiela again. And, Neville, if
Mr. Hamil does not know, and if you think there is the slightest chance
of Shiela becoming interested in him, he ought to be told--indirectly.
Unhappiness for both might lie in his ignorance."

"Shiela would tell him before he--"

"Of course. But--it might then be too late for her--if he prove less of
a man than we think him! He comes from a family whose connections have
always thought a great deal of themselves--in the narrower sense; a
family not immune from prejudice. His aunt, Miss Palliser, is very
amiable; but, dear, we must not make the mistake that she could consider
Shiela good enough for her nephew. One need not be a snob to hesitate
under the pitiful circumstances."

"If I know Hamil, he'll ask little advice from his relatives--"

"But he will receive plenty, Neville."

Cardross shrugged. "Then it's up to him, Amy."

"Exactly. But do you wish to have our little Shiela in a position where
her declared lover hesitates? And so I say, Neville, that it is better
for her that Mr. Hamil should know the truth in ample time to reconsider
any sentiment before he utters it. It is only fair to him and to Shiela.
That is all."

"Why do you say all this now, dearest? Have you thought--"

"Yes, a little. The child is fond of him. I did think she once cared for
Louis--as a young girl cares for a boy. But we couldn't permit her to
take any chances, poor fellow!--his family record is sadly against him.
No; we did right, Neville. And now, at the first sign, we must do right
again between Shiela and this very lovable boy who is making your park
for you."

"Of course," said Cardross absently, "but the man who hesitates because
of what he learns about Shiela isn't worth enlightening." He looked out
across the lawn. "I hope it happens," he said. "And, by the way, dear,
I've got to go to town."

"O Neville!"

"Don't worry; I'm not going to contract pneumonia--"

"When are you going?"

"To-morrow, I think."

"Is it anything that bothers you?"

"No, nothing in particular. I have a letter from Acton. There seems to
be some uncertainty developing in one or two business quarters. I
thought I'd see for myself."

"Are you worrying?"

"About what?"

"About the Shoshone Securities Company?"

"Not exactly worrying."

She shook her head, but said nothing more.

During February the work on the Cardross estate developed sufficiently
to become intensely interesting to the family. A vast circular sunken
garden, bewitchingly formal, and flanked by a beautiful terrace and
balus trade of coquina, was approaching completion between the house and
an arm of the lagoon. The stone bridge over the water remained
unfinished, but already, across it, miles of the wide forest avenue
stretched straight away, set at intervals by carrefours centred with
fountain basins from which already tall sparkling columns of water
tumbled up into the sunshine.

But still the steam jets puffed up above the green tree-tops; and the
sickening whine of the saw-mill, and the rumble of traction engines over
rough new roads of shell, and the far racket of chisel and hammer on
wood and stone continued from daylight till dark.

Every day brought to Hamil new questions, new delays, vexations of
lighting, problems of piping and drainage. Contractors and
sub-contractors beset him; draughtsmen fairly buried him under tons of
drawings and blue-prints. All of which was as nothing compared to the
labour squabbles and endless petty entanglements which arose from
personal jealousy or political vindictiveness, peppered with dark hints
of peonage, threats, demands, and whispers of graft.

The leasing of convict labour for the more distant road work also
worried him, but the sheriffs of Dade and Volusia were pillars of
strength and comfort to him in perplexity--lean, soft-spoken, hawk-faced
gentlemen, gentle and incorruptible, who settled scuffles with a glance,
and local riots with a deadly drawl of warning which carried conviction
like a bullet to the "bad" nigger of the blue-gum variety, as well as to
the brutish white autocrat of the turpentine camps.

That the work progressed so swiftly was wonderful, even with the
unlimited means of Neville Cardross to back his demands for haste. And
it might have been impossible to produce any such results in so short a
period had there not been contractors in the vicinity who were
accustomed to handle vast enterprises on short notice. Some of these
men, fortunately for Hamil, had been temporarily released from sections
of the great Key West Line construction; and these contractors with
their men and materials were immediately available for the labour in
hand.

So all though February work was rushed forward; and March found the
sunken garden in bloom, stone-edged pools full of lotus and lilies,
orange trees blossoming in a magnificent sweep around the balustrade of
the terrace, and, beyond, the graceful stone bridge, passable but not
quite completed. Neither were the great systems of pools, fountains,
tanks, and lakes completed by any means, but here and there foaming jets
trembled and glittered in the sunlight, and here and there placid
reaches, crystal clear, reflected the blue above.

As for Palm Beach, visitors and natives had watched with liveliest
interest the development of the great Cardross park. In the height of
the season visits to the scene of operations were made functions;
tourists and residents gathered in swarms and took tea and luncheon
under the magnificent live-oaks of the hammock.

Mrs. Cardross herself gave a number of lawn fêtes with the kindly
intention of doing practical good to Hamil, the success of whose
profession was so vitally dependent upon the approval and personal
interest of wealth and fashion and idleness.

Shiela constantly tormented him about these functions for his benefit,
suggesting that he attire himself in a sloppy velvet jacket and let his
hair grow and his necktie flow. She pretended to prepare placards
advertising Hamil's popular parks for poor people at cut rates,
including wooden horses and a barrel-organ.

"An idea of mine," she suggested, glancing up from the writing-pad on
her knees, "is to trim a dozen alligators with electric lights and turn
them loose in our lake. There's current enough in the canal to keep the
lights going, isn't there, Mr. Hamil? Incandescent alligators would make
Luna Park look like a bog full of fireflies--"

"O Shiela, let him alone," protested Mrs. Carrick. "For all you know Mr.
Hamil may be dreadfully sensitive."

"I'll let him alone if he'll let his beard grow horrid and silky and
permit us to address him as Cher maître--"

"I won't insist on that if you'll call me by my first name," said Hamil
mischievously.

"I never will," returned the girl. Always when he suggested it, the
faint pink of annoyed embarrassment tinted Shiela's cheeks. And now
everybody in the family rallied her on the subject, for they all had
come to call him Garry by this time.

"Don't I always say 'Shiela' to you?" he insisted.

"Yes, you do and nobody was consulted. I informed my mother, but she
doesn't seem to resent it. So I am obliged to. Besides I don't like your
first name."

Mrs. Cardross laughed gently over her embroidery; Malcourt, who was
reading the stock column in the _News_, turned and looked curiously at
Hamil, then at Shiela. Then catching Mrs. Carrick's eye:

"Portlaw is rather worried over the market," he said. "I think he's
going North in a day or two."

"Why, Louis!" exclaimed Mrs. Cardross; "then you will be going, too, I
suppose."

"His ways are my ways," nodded Malcourt. "I've been here too long
anyway," he added in a lower voice, folding the paper absently across
his knees. He glanced once more at Shiela, but she had returned to her
letter writing.

Everybody spoke of his going in tones of civil regret--everybody except
Shiela, who had not even looked at him. Cecile's observations were
plainly perfunctory, but she made them nevertheless, for she had begun
to take the same feminine interest in Malcourt that everybody was now
taking in view of his very pronounced attentions to Virginia Suydam.

All the world may not love a lover, but all the world watches him. And a
great many pairs of bright eyes and many more pairs of faded ones were
curiously following the manoeuvres of Louis Malcourt and Virginia
Suydam.

Very little of what these two people did escaped the social Argus at
Palm Beach--their promenades on the verandas of the two great hotels,
their appearance on the links and tennis-courts together, their daily
encounter at the bathing-hour, their inevitable meeting and pairing on
lawn, in ballroom, afloat, ashore, wherever young people gathered under
the whip of light social obligations or in pursuit of pleasure.

And they were discussed. She being older than he, and very wealthy, the
veranda discussions were not always amiable; but nobody said anything
very bitter because Virginia was in a position to be socially respected
and the majority of people rather liked Malcourt. Besides there was
just enough whispering concerning his performances at the Club and the
company he kept there to pique the friendly curiosity of a number of
fashionable young matrons who are always prepossessed in favour of a man
at whom convention might possibly one day glance askance.

So everybody at Palm Beach was at least aware of the affair. Hamil had
heard of it from his pretty aunt, and had been thoroughly questioned. It
was very evident that Miss Palliser viewed the proceedings with dismay
for she also consulted Wayward, and finally, during the confidential
retiring-hour, chose the right moment to extract something definite from
Virginia.

But that pale and pretty spinster was too fluently responsive, admitting
that perhaps she had been seeing a little too much of Malcourt,
protesting it to be accidental, agreeing with Constance Palliser that
more discretion should be exercised, and promising it with a short,
flushed laugh.

And the next morning she rode to the Inlet with Malcourt, swam with him
to the raft, and danced with him until dawn at "The Breakers."

       *       *       *       *       *

Mrs. Cardross and Jessie Carrick bent over their embroidery; Shiela
continued her letter writing with Gray's stylographic pen; Hamil, booted
and spurred, both pockets stuffed with plans, paced the terrace waiting
for his horse to be brought around; Malcourt had carried himself and his
newspaper to the farther end of the terrace, and now stood leaning over
the balustrade, an unlighted cigarette between his lips.

"I suppose you'll go to Luckless Lake," observed Hamil, pausing beside
Malcourt in his walk.

"Yes. There's plenty to do. We stripped ten thousand trout in October,
and we're putting in German boar this spring."

"I should think your occupation would be fascinating."

"Yes? It's lonely, too, until Portlaw's camp parties begin. I get an
overdose of nature at times. There's nobody of my own ilk there except
our Yale and Cornell foresters. In winter it's deadly, Hamil, deadly! I
don't shoot, you know; it's deathly enough as it is."

"I don't believe I'd find it so."

"You think not, but you would. That white solitude may be good medicine
for some, but it makes me furious after a while, and I often wish that
the woods and the deer and the fish and I myself and the whole devilish
outfit were under the North Pole and frozen solid! But I can't afford to
pick and choose. If I looked about for something else to do I don't
believe anybody would want me. Portlaw pays me more than I'm worth as a
Harvard post-graduate. And if that is an asset it's my only one."

Hamil, surprised at his bitterness, looked at him with troubled eyes.
Then his eyes wandered to Shiela, who had now taken up her embroidery.

"I can't help it," said Malcourt impatiently; "I like cities and people.
I always liked people. I never had enough of people. I never had any
society as a boy; and, Hamil, you can't imagine how I longed for it. It
would have been well for me to have had it. There was never any in my
own home; there was never anything in my home life but painful memories
of domestic trouble and financial stress. I was for a while asked to the
homes of schoolmates, but could offer no hospitality in return.
Sensitiveness and humiliation have strained the better qualities out of
me. I've been bruised dry."

He leaned on his elbows, hands clasped, looking out into the sunlight
where myriads of brilliant butterflies were fluttering over the carpet
of white phlox.

"Hamil," he said, "whatever is harsh, aggressive, cynical, mean,
sneering, selfish in me has been externally acquired. You scrape even a
spineless mollusc too long with a pin, and the irritation produces a
defensive crust. I began boy-like by being so damned credulous and
impulsive and affectionate and tender-hearted that even my kid sister
laughed at me; and she was only three years older than I. Then followed
that period of social loneliness, the longing for the companionship of
boys and girls--girls particularly, in spite of agonies of shyness and
the awakening terrors of shame when the domestic troubles ended in an
earthquake which gave me to my father and Helen to my mother, and a
scandal to the newspapers.... O hell! I'm talking like an autobiography!
Don't go, if you can stand it for a moment longer; I'm never likely to
do it again."

Hamil, silent and uncomfortable, stood stiffly upright, gloved hands
resting on the balustrade behind him. Malcourt continued to stare at the
orange-and-yellow butterflies dancing over the snowy beds of blossoms.

"In college it was the same," he said. "I had few friends--and no home
to return to after--my father-died." He hesitated as though listening.
Whenever he spoke of his father, which was seldom, he seemed to assume
that curious listening attitude; as though the man, dead by his own
hand, could hear him....

"Wayward saw me through. I've paid him back what he spent on me. You
know his story; everybody does. I like him and sponge on him. We
irritate each other; I'm a beast to resent his sharpness. But he's not
right when he says I never had any illusions.... I had--and have.... I
do beastly things, too.... Some men will do anything to crush out the
last quiver of pride in them.... And the worst is that, mangled, torn,
mine still palpitates--like one of your wretched, bloody quail gaping on
its back! By God! At least, I couldn't do _that_!--_Kill_ for
pleasure!--as better men than I do. And better women, too!... What am I
talking about? I've done worse than that on impulse--meaning well, like
other fools."

Malcourt's face had become drawn, sallow, almost sneering; but in the
slow gaze he turned on Hamil was that blank hopelessness which no man
can encounter and remember unmoved.

"Malcourt," he said, "you're morbid. Men like you; women like you--So do
I--now--"

"It's too late. I needed that sort of thing when I was younger. Kindness
arouses my suspicion now. Toleration is what it really is. I have no
money, no social position here--or abroad; only a thoroughly discredited
name in two hemispheres. It took several generations for the Malcourts
to go to the devil; but I fancy we'll all arrive on time. What a
reunion! I hate the idea of family parties, even in hell."

He straightened up gracefully and lighted his cigarette; then the easy
smile twitched his dry lips again and he nodded mockingly at Hamil:

"Count on my friendship, Hamil; it's so valuable. It has already quite
ruined one person's life, and will no doubt damage others before I
flicker out."

"What do you mean, Malcourt?"

"What I say, old fellow. With the best intentions toward self-sacrifice
I usually do irreparable damage to the objects of my regard. Beware my
friendship, Hamil. There's no luck in it or me.... But I do like you."

He laughed and sauntered off into the house as Hamil's horse was brought
around; and Hamil, traversing the terrace, mounted under a running fire
of badinage from Shiela and Cecile who had just come from the
tennis-courts to attempt some hated embroidery for the charity fair then
impending.

So he rode away to his duties in the forest, leaving a placid
sewing-circle on the terrace. From which circle, presently, Shiela
silently detached herself, arms encumbered with her writing materials
and silks. Strolling aimlessly along the balustrade for a while,
watching the bees scrambling in the scarlet trumpet-flowers, she
wandered into the house and through to the cool patio.

For some days, now, after Hamil's daily departure, it had happened that
an almost unendurable restlessness akin to suspense took possession of
her; a distaste and impatience of people and their voices, and the
routine of the commonplace.

To occupy herself in idleness was an effort; she had no desire to. She
had recently acquired the hammock habit, lying for hours in the coolness
of the patio, making no effort to think, listening to the splash of the
fountain, her book or magazine open across her breast. When people came
she picked up the book and scanned its pages; sometimes she made
pretence of sleeping.

But that morning, Malcourt, errant, found her reading in her hammock.
Expecting him to pass his way as usual, she nodded with civil
indifference, and continued her reading.

"I want to ask you something," he said, "if I may interrupt you."

"What is it, Louis?"

"May I draw up a chair?"

"Why--if you wish. Is there anything I can do for you? "--closing her
book.

"Is there anything I can do for _you_, Shiela?"

A tinge of colour came into her cheeks.

"Thank you," she said in curt negation.

"Are you quite sure?"

"Quite. What do you mean?"

"There is one thing I might do for your sake," he smiled--"blow my bally
brains out."

She said in a low contemptuous voice: "Better resort to that for your
own sake than do what you are doing to Miss Suydam."

"What am I doing to Miss Suydam?"

"Making love to her."

He sat, eyes idly following the slight swaying motion of her hammock,
the smile still edging his lips.

"Don't worry about Miss Suydam," he said; "she can take care of herself.
What I want to say is this: Once out of mistaken motives--which nobody,
including yourself, would ever credit--I gave you all I had to give--my
name.... It's not much of a name; but I thought you could use it. I was
even fool enough to think--other things. And as usual I succeeded in
injuring where I meant only kindness. Can you believe that?"

"I--think you meant it kindly," she said under her breath. "It was my
fault, Louis. I do not blame you, if you really cared for me. I've told
you so before."

"Yes, but I was ass enough to think _you_ cared for _me_."

She lay in her hammock, looking at him across the crimson-fringed
border.

"There are two ways out of it," he said; "one is divorce. Have you
changed your mind?"

"What is the other?" she asked coldly.

"That--if you could ever learn to care for me--we might try--" He
stopped short.

For two years he had not ventured such a thing to her. The quick, bright
anger warned him from her eyes. But she said quietly: "You know that is
utterly impossible."

"Is it impossible. Shiela?"

"Absolutely. And a trifle offensive."

He said pleasantly: "I was afraid so, but I wanted to be sure. I did not
mean to offend you. People change and mature in two years.... I suppose
you are as angrily impatient of sentiment in a man as you were then."

"I cannot endure it--"

Her voice died out and she blushed furiously as the memory of Hamil
flashed in her mind.

"Shiela," he said quietly, "now and then there's a streak of misguided
decency in me. It cropped out that winter day when I did what I did. And
I suppose it's cropping up now when I ask you, for your own sake, to get
rid of me and give yourself a chance."

"How?"

"Legally."

"I cannot, and you know it."

"You are wrong. Do you think for one moment that your father and mother
would accept the wretched sacrifice you are making of your life if they
knew--"

"The old arguments again," she said impatiently.

"There is a _new_ argument," said Malcourt, staring at her.

"What new argument?"

"Hamil."

Then the vivid colour surged anew from neck to hair, and she rose in the
hammock, bewildered, burning, incensed.

"If it were true," she stammered, leaning on one arm, "do you think me
capable of disgracing my own people?"

"The disgrace will be mine and yours. Is not Hamil worth it?"

"No man is worth any wrong I do to my own family!"

"You are wronging more people than your own, Shiela--"

"It is not true!" she said breathlessly. "There is a nobler happiness
than one secured at the expense of selfishness and ingratitude. I tell
you, as long as I live, I will not have them know or suffer because of
my disgraceful escapade with you! You probably meant well; I must have
been crazy, I think. But we've got to endure the consequences. If
there's unhappiness and pain to be borne, we've got to bear it--we
alone--"

"And Hamil. All three of us."

She looked at him desperately; read in his cool gaze that she could not
deceive him, and remained silent.

"What about Hamil's unhappiness?" repeated Malcourt slowly.

"If--if he has any, he requires no instruction how to bear it."

Malcourt nodded, then, with a weary smile: "I do not plead with you for
my own chance of happiness. Yet, you owe me something, Shiela."

"What?"

"The right to face the world under true colours. You owe me that."

She whitened to the lips. "I know it."

"Suppose I ask for that right?"

"I have always told you that, if you demanded it, I would take your name
openly."

"Yes; but now you admit that you love Hamil."

"Love! Love!" she repeated, exasperated. "What has that got to do with
it? I know what the law of obligation is. You meant to be generous to me
and you ruined your own life. If your future career requires me to
publicly assume your name and a place in your household, I've told you
that I'll pay that debt."

"Very well. When will you pay it?"

She blanched pitifully.

"When you insist, Louis."

"Do you mean you would go out there to the terrace, _now_!--and tell
your mother what you've done?"

"Yes, if I must," she answered faintly.

"In other words, because you think you're in my debt, you stand ready to
acknowledge, on demand, what I gave you--my name?"

Her lips moved in affirmation, but deep in her sickened eyes he saw
terror unspeakable.

"Well," he said, looking away from her, "don't worry, Shiela. I'm not
asking that of you; in fact I don't want it. That's not very
complimentary, but it ought to relieve you.... I'm horribly sorry about
Hamil; I like him; I'd like to do something for him. But if I attempted
anything it would turn out all wrong.... As for you--well, you are
plucky. Poor little girl! I wish I could help you out--short of a
journey to eternity. And perhaps I'll take that before very long," he
added gaily; "I smoke too many cigarettes. Cheer up, Shiela, and send me
a few thousand for Easter."

He rose, gracefully as always, picked up the book from where it lay
tumbled in the netting of the hammock, glanced casually through a page
or two.

Still scanning the print, he said:

"I wanted to give you a chance; I'm going North in a day or two. It
isn't likely we'll meet again very soon.... So I thought I'd speak....
And, if at any time you change your ideas--I won't oppose it."

"Thank you, Louis."

He was running over the pages rapidly now, the same unchanging smile
edging his lips.

"The unexpected sometimes happens, Shiela--particularly when it's
expected. There are ways and ways--particularly when one is tired--too
tired to lie awake and listen any longer, or resist.... My father used
to say that anybody who could use an anæsthetic was the equal of any
graduate physician--"

"Louis! What do you mean?"

But his head was bent again in that curious attitude of listening; and
after a moment he made an almost imperceptible gesture of acquiescence,
and turned to her with the old, easy, half-impudent, half-challenging
air.

"Gray has a butterfly in his collection which shows four distinct forms.
Once people thought these forms were distinct species; now they know
they all are the same species of butterfly in various suits of
disguise--just as you might persuade yourself that unhappiness and
happiness are radically different. But some people find satisfaction in
being unhappy, and some find it in being happy; and as it's all only the
gratification of that imperious egotism we call conscience, the specific
form of all is simply ethical selfishness."

He laughed unrestrainedly at his own will-o'-the-wisp philosophy,
looking very handsome and care-free there where the noon sun slanted
across the white arcade all thick with golden jasmine bloom.

And Shiela, too intelligent to mistake him, smiled a little at his gay
perversity.

       *       *       *       *       *

He met Portlaw, later, at the Beach Club for luncheon; and, as the
latter looked particularly fat, warm, and worried, Malcourt's perverse
humour remained in the ascendant, and he tormented Portlaw until that
badgered gentleman emitted a bellow of exasperation.

"What on earth's the matter?" asked Malcourt in pretended astonishment.
"I thought I was being funny."

"Funny! Does a man want to be prodded with wit at his own expense when
the market is getting funnier every hour--at his expense? Go and look at
the tape if you want to know why I don't enjoy either your wit or this
accursed luncheon."

"What's happening, Portlaw?"

"I wish you'd tell me."

"Muck-raking?"

"Partly, I suppose."

"Administration?"

"People say so. I don't believe it. There's a rotten lot of gambling
going on. How do I know what's the matter?"

"Perhaps there isn't anything the matter, old fellow."

"Well, there is. I can sniff it 'way down here. And I'm going home to
walk about and listen and sniff some more. Sag, sag, sag!--that's what
the market has been doing for months. Yet, if I sell it short, it
rallies on me and I'm chased to cover. I go long and the thing sags like
the panties on that French count, yonder.... Who's the blond girl with
him?"

"Hope springs eternal in the human beast," observed Malcourt. "Hope is a
bird, Porty, old chap--"

"Hope is a squab," growled Portlaw, swallowing vast quantities of
claret, "all squashy and full of pin-feathers. That's what hope is. It
needs a thorough roasting, and it's getting it."

"Exquisite metaphor," mused Malcourt, gazing affably at the rather blond
girl who crumbled her bread and looked occasionally and blankly at him,
occasionally and affectionately at the French count, her escort, who was
consuming lobster with characteristic Gallic thoroughness and abandon.

"The world," quoted Malcourt, "is so full of a number of things. You're
one of 'em, Portlaw; I'm several.... Well, if you're going North I'd
better begin to get ready."

"What have you got to do?"

"One or two friends of mine who preside in the Temple of Chance yonder.
Oh, don't assume that babyish pout! I've won enough back to keep going
for the balance of the time we remain."

Portlaw, pleased and relieved, finished his claret.

"You've a few ladies to take leave of, also," he said briskly.

"Really, Portlaw!"--in gentle admonition.

"Haw! Haw!" roared Portlaw, startling the entire café; "you'd better get
busy. There'll be a run on the bank. There'll be a waiting line before
Malcourt & Co. opens for business, each fair penitent with her little
I.O.U. to be cashed! Haw! Haw! Sad dog! Bad dog! The many-sided
Malcourt! Come on; I've got a motor across the--"

"And I've an appointment with several superfluous people and a girl,"
said Malcourt drily. Then he glanced at the blond companion of the count
who continued crumbling bread between her brilliantly ringed fingers as
though she had never before seen Louis Malcourt. The price of diamonds
varies. Sometimes it is merely fastidious observance of convention and a
sensitive escort. It all depends on the world one inhabits; it does
indeed.



CHAPTER XIV

STRATEGY


An hour or two later that afternoon Wayward and Constance Palliser,
Gussie Vetchen, and Livingston Cuyp gazed with variously mingled
sentiments upon the torpid saurians belonging to one Alligator Joe in an
enclosure rather remote from the hotel.

Vetchen bestowed largess upon the small, freckled boy attendant; and his
distinguished disapproval upon the largest lady-crocodile which, with
interlocked but grinning jaws, slumbered under a vertical sun in
monochromatic majesty.

"One perpetual and gigantic simper," he said, disgusted.

"Rather undignified for a thing as big as that to lay eggs like a hen,"
observed Cuyp, not intending to be funny.

Wayward and Miss Palliser had wandered off together to inspect the
pumps. Vetchen, always inquisitive, had discovered a coy manatee in one
tank, and was all for poking it with his walking-stick until he saw its
preposterous countenance emerge from the water.

"Great heavens," he faltered, "it looks like a Dutch ancestor of
Cuyp's!"

Cuyp, intensely annoyed, glanced at his watch.

"Where the mischief did Miss Suydam and Malcourt go?" he asked Wayward.
"I say, Miss Palliser, you don't want to wait here any longer, do you?"

"They're somewhere in the labyrinth," said Wayward. "Their chair went
that way, didn't it, boy?"

"Yeth, thir," said the small and freckled attendant.

So the party descended the wooden incline to where their sleepy black
chairmen lay on the grass, waiting; and presently the two double chairs
wheeled away toward that amusing maze of jungle pathways cut through the
impenetrable hammock, and popularly known as the labyrinth.

But Miss Suydam and Mr. Malcourt were not in the labyrinth. At that very
moment they were slowly strolling along the eastern dunes where the vast
solitude of sky and sea seemed to depress even the single white-headed
eagle standing on the wet beach, head and tail adroop, motionless,
fish-gorged. No other living thing was in sight except the slim, blue
dragon-flies, ceaselessly darting among the beach-grapes; nothing else
stirred except those two figures on the dunes, moving slowly, heads bent
as though considering the advisability of every step in the breaking
sands. There was a fixed smile on the girl's lips, but her eyes were
mirthless, almost vacant.

"So you've decided to go?" she said.

"Portlaw decides that sort of thing for me."

"It's a case of necessity?"

Malcourt answered lightly: "He intends to go. Who can stop a fat and
determined man? Besides, the season is over; in two weeks there will be
nobody left except the indigenous nigger, the buzzards, and a few
cast-off summer garments--"

"And a few cast-off winter memories," she said. "You will not take any
away with you, will you?"

"Do you mean clothes?"

"Memories."

"I'll take some."

"Which?"

"All those concerning you."

"Thank you, Louis." They had got that far. And a trifle farther, for her
hand, swinging next his, encountered it and their fingers remained
interlocked. But there was no change of expression in her pretty, pale
face as, head bent, shoulder to shoulder with him, she moved
thoughtfully onward along the dunes, the fixed smile stamped on her
lips.

"What are you going to do with your memories?" she asked. "Pigeon-hole
and label them? Or fling them, like your winter repentance, in the Fire
of Spring?"

"What are you going to do with yours, Virginia?"

"Nothing. They are not disturbing enough to destroy. Besides, unlike
yours, they are my first memories of indiscretions, and they are too new
to forget easily, too incredible yet to hurt. A woman is seldom hurt by
what she cannot understand."

He passed one arm around her supple waist; they halted; he turned her
toward him.

"What is it you don't understand?"

"This."

"My kissing you? Like this?"

She neither avoided nor returned the caress, looking at him out of
impenetrable eyes more green than blue like the deep sea under changing
skies.

"Is this what you don't understand, Virginia?"

"Yes; that--and your moderation."

His smile changed, but it was still a smile.

"Nor I," he said. "Like our friend, Warren Hastings, I am astonished.
But there our resemblance ends."

The eagle on the wet sands ruffled, shook his silvery hackles, and
looked around at them. Then, head low and thrust forward, he hulked
slowly toward the remains of the dead fish from which but now he had
retired in the disgust of satiation.

Meanwhile Malcourt and Miss Suydam were walking cautiously forward
again, selecting every footstep as though treading on the crumbling
edges of an abyss.

"It's rather stupid that I never suspected it," she said, musing aloud.

"Suspected what?"

"The existence of this other woman called Virginia Suydam. And I might
have been mercifully ignorant of her until I died, if you had not looked
at me and seen us both at once."

"We all are that way."

"Not all women, Louis. Have you found them so? You need not answer.
There is in you, sometimes, a flash of infernal chivalry; do you know
it? I can forgive you a great deal for it; even for discovering that
other and not very staid person, so easily schooled, easily taught to
respond; so easily thrilled, easily beguiled, easily caressed. Why, with
her head falling back on your shoulder so readily, and her lips so
lightly persuaded, one can scarcely believe her to have been untaught
through all these years of dry convention and routine, or unaware of
that depravity, latent, which it took your unerring faith and skill to
discover and develop."

"How far have I developed it?"

She bent her delicate head: "I believe I have already admitted your
moderation."

He shivered, walking forward without looking at her for a pace or two,
then halted.

"Would you marry me?" he asked.

"I had rather not. You know it."

"Why?--once again."

"Because of my strange respect for that other woman that I am--or was."

"Which always makes me regret my--moderation," he said, wincing under
the lash of her words. "But I'm not considering you! I'm considering the
peace of mind of that other woman--not yours!" He took her in his arms,
none too gently. "Not yours. I'd show no mercy to _you_\ There is only
one kind of mercy you'd understand. Look into my eyes and admit it."

"Yes," she said.

"But your other self understands!"

"Why don't you destroy her?"

"And let her die in her contempt for me? You ask too
much--Virginia-that-I-know. If that other Virginia-that-I-don't-know
loved me, I'd kill _this_ one, not the other!"

"Do you care for that one, Louis?"

"What answer shall I make?"

"The best you can without lying."

"Then"--and being in his arms their eyes were close--"then I think I
could love her if I had a chance. I don't know. I can deny myself. They
say that is the beginning. But I seldom do--very seldom. And that is the
best answer I can give, and the truest."

"Thank you.... And so you are going to leave me?"

"I am going North. Yes."

"What am I to do?"

"Return to your other self and forget me."

"Thank you again.... Do you know, Louis, that you have never once by
hint or by look or by silence suggested that it was I who deliberately
offered you the first provocation? That is another flicker of that
infernal chivalry of yours."

"Does your other self approve?" he said, laughing.

"My other self is watching us both very closely, Louis. I--I wish,
sometimes, she were dead! Louis! Louis! as I am now, here in your arms,
I thought I had descended sufficiently to meet you on your own plane.
But--you seem higher up--at moments.... And now, when you are going, you
tell my other self to call in the creature we let loose together, for it
will have no longer any counterpart to caress.... Louis! I _do_ love
you; how can I let you go! Can you tell me? What am I to do? There are
times--there are moments when I cannot endure it--the thought of losing
the disgrace of your lips--your arms--the sound of your voice. Don't go
and leave me like this--don't go--"

Miss Suydam's head fell. She was crying.

       *       *       *       *       *

The eagle on the wet beach, one yellow talon firmly planted on its
offal, tore strip after strip from the quivering mass. The sun etched
his tinted shadow on the sand.

When the tears of Miss Suydam had been appropriately dried, they turned
and retraced their steps very slowly, her head resting against his
shoulder, his arm around her thin waist, her own hand hanging loosely,
trailing the big straw hat and floating veil.

They spoke very seldom--very, very seldom. Malcourt was too busy
thinking; Virginia too stunned to realise that, it was, now, her other
austere self, bewildered, humiliated, desperate, which was walking amid
the solitude of sky and sea with Louis Malcourt, there beneath the
splendour of the westering sun.

The eagle, undisturbed, tore at the dead thing on the beach, one yellow
talon embedded in the offal.


Their black chair-boy lay asleep under a thicket of Spanish bayonet.

"Arise, O Ethiope, and make ready unto us a chariot!" said Malcourt
pleasantly; and he guided Virginia into her seat while the fat darky
climbed up behind, rubbing slumber from his rolling and enormous eyes.

Half-way through the labyrinth they met Miss Palliser and Wayward.

"Where on earth have you been?" asked Virginia, so candidly that
Wayward, taken aback, began excuses. But Constance Palliser's cheeks
turned pink; and remained so during her silent ride home with Wayward.

Lately the world had not been spinning to suit the taste of Constance
Palliser. For one thing Wayward was morose. Besides he appeared
physically ill. She shrank from asking herself the reason; she might
better have asked him for her peace of mind.

Another matter: Virginia, the circumspect, the caste-bound, the
intolerant, the emotionless, was displaying the astounding symptoms
peculiar to the minx! And she had neither the excuse of ignorance nor of
extreme youth. Virginia was a mature maiden, calmly cognisant of the
world, and coolly alive to the doubtful phases of that planet. And why
on earth she chose to affiche herself with a man like Malcourt,
Constance could not comprehend.

And another thing worried the pretty spinster--the comings, goings, and
occult doings of her nephew with the most distractingly lovely and
utterly impossible girl that fate ever designed to harass the soul of
any young man's aunt.

That Hamil was already in love with Shiela Cardross had become painfully
plainer to her every time she saw him. True, others were in love with
Miss Cardross; that state of mind and heart seemed to be chronic at Palm
Beach. Gussie Vetchen openly admitted his distinguished consideration,
and Courtlandt Classon toddled busily about Shiela's court, and even the
forlorn Cuyp had become disgustingly unfaithful and no longer wrinkled
his long Dutch nose into a series of white corrugations when Wayward
took Miss Palliser away from him. Alas! the entire male world seemed to
trot in the wake of this sweet-eyed young Circe, emitting appealingly
gentle and propitiating grunts.

"The very deuce is in that girl!" thought Constance, exasperated; "and
the sooner Garry goes North the better. He's madly unhappy over her....
Fascinating little thing! _I_ can't blame him too much--except that he
evidently realises he can't marry such a person--"

The chair rolled into the hotel grounds under the arch of jasmine. The
orchestra was playing in the colonnade; tea had been served under the
cocoa-nut palms; pretty faces and gay toilets glimmered familiarly as
the chair swept along the edge of the throng.

"Tell the chair-boy that we'll tea here, Jim," said Miss Palliser,
catching sight of her nephew and the guilty Circe under whose gentle
thrall Hamil was now boldly imbibing a swizzle.

So Wayward nodded to the charioteer, the chair halted, and he and
Constance disembarked and advanced across the grass to exchange
amenities with friends and acquaintances. Which formalities always
fretted Wayward, and he stood about, morose and ungracious, while
Constance floated prettily here and there, and at last turned with
nicely prepared surprise to encounter Shiela and Hamil seated just
behind her.

The younger girl, rising, met her more than half-way with gloved hand
frankly offered; Wayward turned to Hamil in subdued relief.

"Lord! I've been looking at those confounded alligators and listening to
Vetchen's and Cuyp's twaddle! Constance wouldn't talk; and I'm quite
unfit for print. What's that in your glass, Garry?"

"A swizzle--"

"Anything in it except lime-juice and buzz?"

"Yes--"

"Then I won't have one. Constance! Are you drinking tea?"

"Do you want some?" she asked, surprised.

"Yes, I do--if you can give me some without asking how many lumps I
take--like the inevitable heroine in a British work of fiction--"

"Jim, what a bear you are to-day!" And to Shiela, who was laughing: "He
snapped and growled at Gussie Vetchen and he glared and glowered at
Livingston Cuyp, and he's scarcely vouchsafed a word to me this
afternoon except the civility you have just heard. Jim, I _will_ ask you
how many lumps--"

"O Lord! Britain triumphant! Two--I think; ten if you wish,
Constance--or none at all. Miss Cardross, you wouldn't say such things
to me, would you?"

"Don't answer him," interposed Constance; "if you do you'll take him
away, and I haven't another man left! Why are you such a dreadful
devastator, Miss Cardross?... Here's your tea, James. Please turn around
and occupy yourself with my nephew; I'd like a chance to talk to Miss
Cardross."

The girl had seated herself beside Miss Palliser, and, as Wayward moved
over to the other table, she gave him a perverse glance, so humourous
and so wholly adorable that Constance Palliser yielded to the charm with
an amused sigh of resignation.

"My dear," she said, "Miss Suydam and I are going North very soon, and
we are coming to see your mother at the first opportunity."

"Mother expects you," said the girl simply. "I did not know that she
knew Miss Suydam--or cared to."

Something in the gentle indifference of the words sent the conscious
blood pulsing into Miss Palliser's cheeks. Then she said frankly:

"Has Virginia been rude to you?"

"Yes--a little."

"Unpardonably?"

"N-no. I always can pardon."

"You dear!" said Constance impulsively. "Listen; Virginia does snippy
things at times. I don't know why and she doesn't either. I know she's
sorry she was rude to you, but she seems to think her rudeness too
utterly unpardonable. May I tell her it isn't?"

"If you please," said Shiela quietly.

Miss Palliser looked at her, then, succumbing, took her hand in hers.

"No wonder people like you, Miss Cardross."

"Do _you_?"

"How could I escape the popular craze?" laughed Miss Palliser, a trifle
embarrassed.

"That is not an answer," returned Shiela, the smile on her red lips
faintly wistful. And Constance surrendered completely.

"You sweet, cunning thing," she said, "I do like you. You are perfectly
adorable, for one reason; for the other, there is something--a nameless
something about you--"

"Quite--nameless," said the girl under her breath.

A little flash of mist confused Miss Palliser's eyesight for a moment;
her senses warned her, but her heart was calling.

"Dear," she said, "I could love you very easily."

Shiela looked her straight in the eyes.

"What you give I can return; no more, no less--"

But already Constance Palliser had lifted the girl's smooth hand to her
lips, murmuring: "Pride! pride! It is the last refuge for social
failures, Shiela. And you are too wise to enter there, too sweet and
wholesome to remain. Leave us our obsolete pride, child; God knows we
need something in compensation for all that you possess."

Later they sipped their tea together. "I always wanted you to like me,"
said the girl. Her glance wandered toward Hamil so unconsciously that
Constance caught her breath. But the spell was on her still; she, too,
looked at Hamil; admonition, prejudice, inculcated precept, wavered
hazily.

"Because I care so much for Mr. Hamil," continued the girl innocently.

For one instant, in her inmost intelligence, Miss Palliser fiercely
questioned that innocence; then, convinced, looked questioningly at the
girl beside her. So questioningly that Shiela answered:

"What?"--as though the elder woman had spoken.

"I don't know, dear.... Is there anything you--you cared to ask me?--say
to me?--tell me?--perhaps--"

"About what?"

So fearless and sweet and true the gaze that met her own that Constance
hesitated.

"About Mr. Hamil?"

The girl looked at her; understood her; and the colour mounted to her
temples.

"No," she said slowly, "there is nothing to tell anybody.... There never
will be."

"I wish there were, child." Certainly Constance must have gone quite mad
under the spell, for she had Shiela's soft hands in hers again, and was
pressing them close between her palms, repeating: "I am sorry; I am,
indeed. The boy certainly cares for you; he has told me so a thousand
times without uttering a word. I have known it for weeks--feared it.
_Now_ I wish it. I am sorry."

"Mr. Hamil--understands--" faltered Shiela; "I--I care so much for
him--so much more than for any other man; but not in the way you--you
are kind enough to--wish--"

"_Does_ he understand?"

"Y-yes. I think so. I think we understand each other--thoroughly.
But"--she blushed vividly--"I--did not dream that _you_ supposed--"

Miss Palliser looked at her searchingly.

"--But--it has made me very happy to believe that you consider
me--acceptable."

"Dearest child, it is evident that _we_ are the unacceptable ones--"

"Please don't say that--or think it. It is absurd--in one sense.... Are
we to be friends in town? Is that what you mean?"

"Indeed we are, if you will."

Miss Cardross nodded and withdrew her hands as Virginia and Malcourt
came into view across the lawn.

Constance, following her glance, saw, and signalled silent invitation;
Malcourt sauntered up, paid his respects airily, and joined Hamil and
Wayward; Virginia spoke in a low voice to Constance, then, leaning on
the back of her chair, looked at Shiela as inoffensively as she knew
how. She said:

"I am very sorry for my rudeness to you. Can you forgive me, Miss
Cardross?"

"Yes.... Won't you have some tea?"

Her direct simplicity left Virginia rather taken aback. Perhaps she
expected some lack of composure in the girl, perhaps a more prolix
acceptance of honourable amends; but this terse and serene amiability
almost suggested indifference; and Virginia seated herself, not quite
knowing how she liked it.


Afterward she said to Miss Palliser:

"Did you ever see such self-possession, my dear? You know I might pardon
my maid in exactly the same tone and manner."

"But you wouldn't ask your maid to tea, would you?" said Constance,
gently amused.

"I might, if I could afford to," she nodded listlessly. "I believe that
girl could do it without disturbing her Own self-respect or losing caste
below stairs or above. As for the Van Dieman--just common cat,
Constance."

Miss Palliser laughed. "Shiela Cardross refused the Van Dieman son and
heir--if you think that might be an explanation of the cattishness."

"Really?" asked Virginia, without interest. "Where did you hear that
gossip?"

"From our vixenish tabby herself. The thin and vindictive are usually
without a real sense of humour. I rather suspected young Jan Van
Dieman's discomfiture. He left, you know, just after Garret arrived,"
she added demurely.

Virginia raised her eyes at the complacent inference; but even curiosity
seemed to have died out in her, and she only said, languidly:

"You think she cares for Garret? And you approve?"

"I think I'd approve if she did. Does that astonish you?"

"Not very much."

Virginia seemed to have lost all spirit. She laughed rarely, nowadays.
She was paler, too, than usual--paler than was ornamental; and pallor
suited her rather fragile features, too. Also she had become curiously
considerate of other people's feelings--rather subdued; less ready in
her criticisms; gentler in judgments. All of which symptoms Constance
had already noted with incredulity and alarm.

"Where did you and Louis Malcourt go this afternoon?" she asked,
unpegging her hair.

"Out to the beach. There was nothing there except sky and water, and a
filthy eagle dining on a dead fish."

Miss Palliser waited, sitting before her dresser; but as Virginia
offered no further information she shook out the splendid masses of her
chestnut hair and, leaning forward, examined her features in the mirror
with minute attention.

"It's strange," she murmured, half to herself, "how ill Jim Wayward has
been looking recently. I can't account for it."

"I can, dear," said Virginia gently.

Constance turned in surprise.

"How?"

"Mr. Malcourt says that he is practising self-denial. It hurts, you
know."

"What!" exclaimed Constance, flushing up.

"I said that it hurts."

"Such a slur as that harms Louis Malcourt--not Mr. Wayward!" returned
Constance hotly.

Virginia repeated: "It hurts--to kill desire. It hurts even before habit
is acquired ... they say. Louis Malcourt says so. And if that is
true--can you wonder that poor Mr. Wayward looks like death? I speak in
all sympathy and kindness--as did Mr. Malcourt."

So _that_ was it! Constance stared at her own fair face in the mirror,
and deep into the pained brown eyes reflected there. The eyes suddenly
dimmed and the parted mouth quivered.

So that was the dreadful trouble!--the explanation of the recent change
in him--the deep lines of pain from the wing of the pinched nostril--the
haunted gaze, the long, restless silences, the forced humour and its
bitter flavour tainting voice and word!

And she had believed--feared with a certainty almost hopeless--that it
was his old vice, slowly, inexorably transforming what was left of the
man she had known so long and cared for so loyally through all these
strange, confusing years.

From the mirror the oval of her own fresh unravaged face, framed in the
burnished brown of her hair, confronted her like a wraith of the past;
and, dreaming there, wide-eyed, expressionless, she seemed to see again
the old-time parlour set with rosewood; and the faded roses in the
carpet; and, through the half-drawn curtains, spring sunlight falling on
a boy and a little girl.

Virginia, partly dressed for dinner, rose and went to the window, frail
restless hands clasped behind her back, and stood there gazing out at
the fading daylight. Perhaps the close of day made her melancholy; for
there were traces of tears on her lashes; perhaps it suggested the
approaching end of a dream so bright and strange that, at times, a dull
pang of dread stilled her heart--checking for a moment its heavy
beating.

Light died in the room; the panes turned silvery, then darker as the
swift Southern night fell over sea, lagoon, and forest.

Far away in the wastes of dune and jungle the sweet flute-like tremolo
of an owl broke out, prolonged infinitely. From the dark garden below, a
widow-bird called breathlessly, its ghostly cry, now a far whisper in
the night, now close at hand, husky, hurried, startling amid the
shadows. And, whir! whir-r-r! thud! came the great soft night-moths
against the window screens where sprays of silvery jasmine clung,
perfuming all the night.

Still Constance sat before the mirror which was now invisible in the
dusk, bare elbows on the dresser's edge, face framed in her hands over
which the thick hair rippled. And, in the darkness, her brown eyes
closed--perhaps that they might behold more clearly the phantoms of the
past together there in an old-time parlour, where the golden radiance
of suns long dead still lingered, warming the faded roses on the floor.

And after a long while her maid came with a card; and she straightened
up in her chair, gathered the filmy robe of lace, and, rising, pressed
the electric switch. But Virginia had returned to her own room to bathe
her eyelids and pace the floor until she cared to face the outer world
once more and, for another hour or two, deceive it.



CHAPTER XV

UNDER FIRE


Meanwhile Constance dressed hastily, abetted by the clever maid; for
Wayward was below, invited to dine with them. Malcourt also was due for
dinner, and, as usual, late.

In fact, he was at that moment leisurely tying his white neckwear in his
bed-chamber at Villa Cardross. And sometimes he whistled, tentatively,
as though absorbed in mentally following an elusive air; sometimes he
resumed a lighted cigarette which lay across the gilded stomach of a
Chinese joss, sending a thin, high thread of smoke to the ceiling. He
had begun his collection with one small idol; there were now nineteen,
and all hideous.

"The deuce! the deuce!" he murmured, rejecting the tie and trying
another one; "and all the things I've got to do this blessed night!...
Console the afflicted--three of them; dine with one, get to "The
Breakers" and spoon with another--get to the Club and sup with
another!--the deuce! the deuce! the--"

He hummed a bar or two of a new waltz, took a puff at his cigarette,
winked affably at the idol, put on his coat, and without a second glance
at the glass went out whistling a lively tune.

Hamil, dressed for dinner, but looking rather worn and fatigued, passed
him in the hall.

"You've evidently had a hard day," said Malcourt; "you resemble the last
run of sea-weed. Is everybody dining at this hour?"

"I dined early with Mrs. Cardross. Mrs. Carrick has taken Shiela and
Cecile to that dinner dance at the O'Haras'. It's the last of the
season. I thought you might be going later."

"Are you?"

"No; I'm rather tired."

"I'm tired, too. Hang it! I'm always tired--but only of Bibi. Quand
même! Good night.... I'll probably reappear with the dicky-birds. Leave
your key under that yellow rose-bush, will you? I can't stop to hunt up
mine. And tell them not to bar and chain the door; that's a good
fellow."

Hamil nodded and resumed his journey to his bedroom. There he
transferred a disorderly heap of letters, plans, contracts, and
blue-prints from his bed to a table, threw a travelling rug over the
bed, lay down on it, and lighted a cigar, closing his eyes for a moment.
Then he opened them wearily.

He did not intend to sleep; there was work waiting for him; that was why
he left the electric bulbs burning as safeguard against slumber.

For a while he smoked, flat on his back; his cigar went out twice and he
relighted it. The third time he was deciding whether or not to set fire
to it again--he remembered that--and remembered nothing more, except the
haunted dreams in which he followed _her_, through sad and endless
forests, gray in deepening twilight, where he could neither see her face
nor reach her side, nor utter the cry which strained in his throat....
On, on, endlessly struggling onward in the thickening darkness, year
after year, the sky a lowering horror, the forest, no longer silent, a
twisting, stupefying confusion of sound, growing, increasing, breaking
into a hellish clamour!--

Upright on his bed he realised that somebody was knocking; and he slid
to the floor, still stupid and scarcely convinced.

"Mrs. Carrick's compliments, and is Mr. Hamil quite well bein' as the
lights is burnin' an' past two o'clock, sir?" said the maid at the door.

"Past _two_! O Lord! Please thank Mrs. Carrick, and say that I am going
to do a little work, and that I am perfectly well."

He closed the door and looked around him in despair: "All that stuff to
verify and O.K.! What an infernal ass I am! By the nineteen little
josses in Malcourt's bedroom I'm so many kinds of a fool that I hate to
count up beyond the dozen!"

Stretching and yawning alternately he eyed the mass of papers with
increasing repugnance; but later a cold sponge across his eyes revived
him sufficiently to sit down and inspect the first document. Then he
opened the ink-well, picked up a pen, and began.

For half an hour he sat there, now refreshed and keenly absorbed in his
work. Once the stairs outside creaked, and he raised his head, listening
absently, then returned to the task before him with a sigh.

All his windows were open; the warm night air was saturated with the
odour of Bermuda lilies. Once or twice he laid down his pen and stared
out into the darkness as a subtler perfume grew on the breeze--the far
fragrance of china-berry in bloom; Calypso's breath!

Then, in the silence, the heavy throb of his heart unnerved his hand,
rendering his pen unsteady as he signed each rendered bill: "O.K. for
$----," and affixed his signature, "John Garret Hamil, Architect."

The aroma of the lilies hung heavy in the room, penetrating as the scent
of Malcourt's spiced Chinese gums afire and bubbling. And he thought
again of Malcourt's nineteen little josses which he lugged about with
him everywhere from some occult whim, and in whose gilt-bronze laps he
sometimes burned cigarettes, sometimes a tiny globule of aromatic gum,
pretending it propitiated the malice-brooding gods.

And, thinking of Malcourt, suddenly he remembered the door-key. Malcourt
could not get in without it. And the doors were barred and chained.

Slipping the key into his pocket he opened his door, and, treading
quietly through the silent house, descended to the great hall. With
infinite precaution he fumbled for the chains; they were dangling loose.
Somebody, too, had drawn the heavy bars, but the door itself was locked.

So he cautiously unlocked it, and holding the key in his hand, let
himself out on the terrace.

And at the same moment a shadowy figure turned in the starlight to
confront him.

"Shiela!"

"Is that you, Mr. Hamil?"

"Yes. What on earth are you--"

"Hush! What are _you_ doing down here?"

"Louis Malcourt is out. I forgot to leave a key for him under the yellow
rose--"

"Under the rose--and yellow at that! The mysteries of the Rosicrucians
pale into insignificance beside the lurid rites of Mr. Malcourt and Mr.
Hamil--under the yellow rose! Proceed, my fearsome adept, and perform
the occult deed!"

Hamil descended the terrace to the new garden, hung the key to a brier
under the fragrant mass of flowers, and glanced up at Shiela, who, arms
on the balustrade above him, was looking down at the proceedings.

"Is the dread deed done?" she whispered.

"If you don't believe it come down and see."

"I? Come down? At _two_ in the morning?"

"It's half-past two."

"Oh," she said, "if it's half-past two I might think of coming down for
a moment--to look at my roses.... Thank you, Mr. Hamil, I can see my way
very clearly. I can usually see my own way clearly--without the aid of
your too readily offered hand.... Did you ever dream of such an
exquisitely hot night! That means rain, doesn't it?--with so many
fragrances mingling? The odour of lilies predominates, and I think some
jasmine is in the inland wind, but my roses are very sweet if you only
bend down to them. A rose is always worth stooping for."

She leaned over the yellow blossoms, slender, spirit-white in the
starlight, and brushed her fresh young face with the silken petals.

"So sweet," she said; "lean down and worship my young roses, you
unappreciative man!"

For a few minutes she strolled along the paths of the new garden he had
built, bending capriciously here and there to savour some perfect
blossom. The night was growing warmer; the sea breeze had died out, and
a hot wind blew languidly from the west.

"You know," she said, looking back at him over her shoulder, "I don't
want to go to bed."

"Neither do I, and I'm not going."

"But I'm going.... I wonder why I don't want to? Listen! Once--after I
was a protoplasm and a micro-organism, and a mollusc, and other things,
I probably was a predatory animal--nice and sleek with velvet feet and
shining incandescent eyes--and very, very predatory.... That's doubtless
why I often feel so deliciously awake at night--with a tameless longing
to prowl under the moon.... And I think I'd better go in, now."

"Nonsense," he said, "I'm not going to bed yet."

"Oh! And what difference might that make to me? You are horridly
conceited; do you know it?"

"Please stay, Calypso. It's too hot to sleep."

"No; star-prowling is contrary to civilized custom."

"But every soul in the house is sound asleep--"

"I should hope so! And you and I have no business to be out here."

"Do little observances of that sort count with you and me?"

"They don't," she said, shaking her head, "but they ought to. I _want_
to stay. There is no real reason why I shouldn't--except the absurd fear
of being caught unawares. Perhaps, perhaps I might stay for ten more
minutes.... Oh, the divine beauty of it all! How hot it is!--the splash
of the fountains seems to cool things a little--and those jagged,
silvery reflections of the stars, deep, deep in the pool there.... Did
you see that fish swirl to the surface? Hark! What was that queer
sound?"

"Some night bird crying in the marshes. It will rain to-morrow; the wind
is blowing from the hammock; that's why it's hot to-night; can you
detect the odour of wild sweet-bay?"

"Yes--at moments. And I can just hear the surf--calling, calling
'Calypso!' as you called me once.... I _must_ go, now."

"To the sea or the house?" he asked, laughing.

She walked a few paces toward the house, halted, and looked back
audaciously.

"I'd go to the sea--only I'm afraid I'd be found out.... Isn't it all
too stupid! Where convention is needless and one's wish is so harmless
why should a girl turn coward at the fear of somebody discovering how
innocently happy she is trying to be with a man!... It makes me very
impatient at times." ... She turned, hesitated, stepped nearer and
looked him in the face, daringly perverse.

"I want to go with you!... Have we not passed through enough together to
deserve this little unconventional happiness?" She was breathing more
quickly. "I _will_ go with you if you wish."

"To the sea?"

"Yes. It is only a half mile by the hammock path. The servants are awake
at six. Really, the night is too superb to waste--alone. But we must get
back in time, if I go with you."

"Have you a key?"

"Yes, here in my gloves"--stripping them from her bare arms. "Can you
put them into your pocket with the key?... And I'll pin up my skirt to
get it out of the way.... What? Do you think it's a pretty gown? I did
not think you noticed it. I've danced it to rags.... And will you take
this fan, please? No, I'll wear the wrap--it's only cobweb weight."

She had now pinned up her gown to walking-skirt length; her slim feet
were sheathed in silken dancing gear; and she bent over to survey them,
then glanced doubtfully at Hamil, who shook his head.

"Never mind," she said resolutely; "only we can't walk far on the beach;
I could never keep them on in the dune sands. Are you ready, O my
tempter?"

Like a pair of guilty ghosts they crossed the shadowy garden, skirted
the dark orange groves, and instead of entering the broad palm-lined way
that led straight east for two miles to the sea, they turned into the
sinuous hammock path which, curving south, cut off nearly a mile and a
half.

"It's rather dark," she said.

They walked for a few minutes in silence; and, at first, she could not
understand why he insisted on leading, because the path was wide enough
for both.

"I _will_ not proceed in this absurd manner," she said at last--"like an
Indian and his faithful squaw. Why on earth do you--"

And it flashed across her at the same instant.

"Is _that_ why?"--imperiously abrupt.

"What?" he asked, halting.

She passed her arm through his, not gently, but her laughing voice was
very friendly:

"If we jump a snake in the dark, my friend, we jump him _together_! It's
like you, but your friend Shiela won't permit it."

"Oh, it's only a conventional precaution--"

"Yes? Well, we'll take chances together.... Suppose--by the wildest and
weirdest stretch of a highly coloured imagination you jumped a rattler?"

"Nonsense--"

"_Suppose_ you did?"

He said, sobered: "It would be horribly awkward for you to explain. I
forgot about--"

[Illustration: "She walked a few paces toward the house, halted, and
looked back audaciously."]

"Do you think I meant _that_! Do you think I'd care what people might
say about our being here together? I--I'd _want_ them to know it!
What would I care--about--anything--then!"

Through the scorn in her voice he detected the awakened emotion; and,
responsive, his pulse quickened, beating hard and heavy in throat and
breast.

"I had almost forgotten," he said, "that we might dare look at things
that way.... It all has been so--hopeless--lately--"

"What?... Yes, I understand."

"Do you?--my trying to let you alone--trying to think differently--to
ignore all that has been said?"

"Yes.... This is no time to bring up such things." Her uneven breathing
was perceptible to him as she moved by his side through the darkness,
her arm resting on his.

No, this was no time to bring up such things. They knew it. And she, who
in the confidence of her youth had dared to trust her unknown self,
listened now to the startled beating of her heart at the first hint of
peril.

"I wish I had not come," she said.

He did not ask her why.

"You are very silent--you have been so for days," she added; then, too
late, knew that once more her tongue had betrayed her. "Don't answer
me," she whispered.

"Why not?"

"Because what I say is folly.... I--I must ask you to release my
hands.... You know it is only because I think it safer for--us; don't
you?"

"What threatens _you_. Calypso?"

"Nothing.... I told you once that I am afraid--even in daylight. Ask
yourself what I fear here under the stars with you."

"You fear _me_?"--managing to laugh.

"No; I dread your ally--my unknown self--in arms eternally to fight for
you," she answered with forced gaiety. "Shall we kill her to-night? She
deserves no consideration at our hands."

"Dear--"

"Hush! That is not the countersign on the firing line. Besides it is
treachery, because to say that word is aiding, abetting, and giving
information and comfort to our enemies. Our enemies, remember, are our
other and stealthy selves." Her voice broke unsteadily. "I am trying so
hard," she breathed, "but I cannot think clearly unless you help me.
There is mutiny threatening somewhere."

"I have tried, too," he said.

"I know you have. Do you suppose I have been untouched by your
consideration for me all these long days--your quiet cheerfulness--your
dear unselfishness--the forbidden word!--but what synonym am I to
use?... Oh, I know, I know what you are doing, thinking,
feeling--believe me--believe me, I know! And--it is what you must do, of
course. But--if you only did not show it so plainly--the effort--the
strain--the hurt--"

"Do I show it?" he asked, chagrined. "I did not know that."

"Only to me--because I know. And I remember how young you were--that
first day. Your whole expression has changed.... And I know why.... At
times it scarcely seems that I can bear it--when I see your mouth
laughing at the world and your eyes without mirth--dead--and the youth
in you so altered, so quenched, so--forgive me!--so useless--"

"To what better use could I devote it, Shiela?"

"Oh, you don't know!--you don't know!--You are free; there are other
women, other hopes--try to understand what freedom means!"

"It means--_you,_, Shiela."

She fell silent; then:

"Wherever I turn, whatever I say--all paths and words lead back again to
you and me. I should not have come."

The hard, hammering pulse in his throat made it difficult for him to
speak; but he managed to force an unsteady laugh; "Shiela, there is only
one way for me, now--to fire and fall back. I've got to go up to
Portlaw's camp anyhow--"

"And after that?"

"Mrs. Ascott wants a miniature Versailles. I'll show you the rough
sketches--"

"And after that?"

"I've one or two promises--"

"And afterward?"

"Nothing."

"You will never--see me--again. Is that what 'nothing' means?"

They walked on in silence. The path had now become palely illumined; the
sound of the surf was very near. Another step or two and they stood on
the forest's edge.

A spectral ocean stretched away under the stars; ghostly rollers
thundered along the sands. North and south dunes glimmered; and the hot
fragrance of sweet-bay mingled with the mounting savour of the sea.

She looked at the sea, the stars, blindly, lips apart, teeth closed, her
arm still resting on his.

"Nothing," she repeated under her breath; "that was the best answer....
Don't touch my hand!... I was mad to come here.... How close and hot it
is! What is that new odour--so fresh and sweet--"

"China-berry in bloom--"

"Is it?"

"I'm not sure; once I thought it was--you; the fragrance of your hair
and breath--Calypso."

"When did you think that?"

"Our first night together."

She said: "I think this is our last."

He stood for a while, motionless; slowly raised his head and looked
straight into her eyes; took her in his arms; holding her loosely.

White of cheek and lip, rigid, her eyes met his in breathless suspense.
Fear widened them; her hands tightened on his wrists behind her.

"Will you love me?"

"No!" she gasped.

"Is there no chance?"

"No!"

Her heart was running riot; every pulse in rebellion. A cloud possessed
her senses, through which her eyes fought desperately for sight.

"Give me a memory--to carry through the years," he said unsteadily.

"No."

"Not one?"

"No!"

"To help us endure?"

Suddenly she turned in his arms, covering her eyes with both hands.

"Take--what--you wish--" she panted.

He touched one slim rigid finger after another, but they clung fast to
the pallid face. Time and space reeled through silence. Then slowly,
lids still sealed with desperate white hands, her head sank backward.

Untaught, her lips yielded coldly; but the body, stunned, swayed toward
him as he released her; and, his arm supporting her, they turned blindly
toward the path. Without power, without will, passive, dependent on his
strength, her trembling knees almost failed her. She seemed unconscious
of his lips on her cheek, on her hair--of her cold hands crushed in his,
of the words he uttered--senseless, broken phrases, questions to which
her silence answered and her closed lids acquiesced. If love was what he
was asking for, why did he ask? He had his will of her lips, her hair,
her slim fragrant hands; and now of her tears--for the lashes were wet
and the mouth trembled. Her mind was slowly awaking to pain.

With it, far within her in unknown depths, something else stirred,
stilling her swelling heart. Then every vein in her grew warm; and the
quick tears sprang to her eyes.

"Dearest--dearest--" he whispered. Through the dim star-pallor she
turned toward him, halted, passing her finger-tips across her lashes.

"After all," she said, "it was too late. If there is any sin in loving
you it happened long ago--not to-night.... It began from the--the
beginning. Does the touch of your lips make me any worse?... But I am
not afraid--if you wish it--now that I know I always loved you."

"Shiela! Shiela, little sweetheart--"

"I love you so--I love you so," she said. "I cannot help it any more
than I could in dreams--any more than I could when we met in the sea and
the fog.... Should I lie to myself and you? I know I can never have you
for mine; I know--I know. But if you will be near me when you can--if
you will only be near--sometimes--"

She pressed both his hands close between hers.

"Dear--can you give up your freedom for a girl you cannot have?"

"I did so long since."

She bent and laid her lips on his hands, gravely.

"I must say something--that disturbs me a little. May I? Then, there are
perils--warnings--veiled hints.... They mean nothing definite to me....
Should I be wiser?... It is difficult to say--senseless--showing my
ignorance, but I thought if there were perils that I should know
about--that could possibly concern me, now, you would tell me,
somehow--in time--"

For a moment the revelation of her faith and innocence--the disclosure
of how strange and lost she felt in the overwhelming catastrophe of
forbidden love--how ignorant, how alone, left him without a word to
utter.

She said, still looking down at his hands held between her own:

"A girl who has done what I have done, loses her bearings.... I don't
know yet how desperately bad I am. However, one thing remains
clear--only one--that no harm could come to--my family--even if I have
given myself to you. And when I did it, only the cowardly idea that I
was wronging myself persisted. If that is my only sin--you are worth it.
And if I committed worse--I am not repentant. But--dear, what you have
done to me has so utterly changed me that--things that I never before
heeded or comprehended trouble me. Yesterday I could not have
understood what to-night I have done. So, if there lies any unknown
peril in to-morrow, or the days to come--if you love me you will tell
me.... Yet I cannot believe in it. Dearly as I love you I would not
raise one finger to comfort you at _their_ expense. I would not go away
with you; I would not seek my freedom for your sake. If there is in my
love anything base or selfish I am not conscious of it. I cannot marry
you; I can only live on, loving you. What danger can there be in that
for you and me?"

"None," he said.

She sighed happily, lifted her eyes, yielded to his arms, sighing her
heart out, lips against his.

Somewhere in the forest a bird awoke singing like a soul in Paradise.



CHAPTER XVI

AN ULTIMATUM


With the beginning of March the end of the so-called social season,
south of Jupiter Light, is close at hand. First, the great winter hotels
close; then, one by one, doors and gates of villa and cottage are
locked, bright awnings and lawn shades furled and laid away, blinds
bolted, flags lowered. All summer long villa and caravansary alike stand
sealed and silent amid their gardens, blazing under the pale fierce
splendour of an unclouded sky; tenantless, save where, beside opened
doors of quarters, black recumbent figures sprawl asleep, shiny faces
fairly sizzling in the rays of a vertical sun.

The row of shops facing the gardens, the white streets, quay, pier,
wharf are deserted and silent. Rarely a human being passes; the sands
are abandoned except by some stray beach-comber; only at the station
remains any sign of life where trains are being loaded for the North, or
roll in across the long draw-bridge, steaming south to that magic port
from which the white P. and O. steamers sail away into regions of
eternal sunshine.

So passes Palm Beach into its long summer sleep; and the haunts of men
are desolate. But it is otherwise with the Wild.

Night and the March moon awake the winter-dormant wilderness from the
white man's deadening spell. Now, unrestrained, the sound of negro
singing floats inland on the sea-wind from inlet, bar, and glassy-still
lagoon; great, cumbersome, shadowy things lumber down to tidewater--huge
turtles on egg-laying intent. In the dune-hammock the black bear,
crab-hungry, awakes from his December sleep and claws the palmetto
fruit; the bay lynx steals beachward; a dozen little deaths hatch from
the diamond-back, alive; and the mean gray fox uncurls and scratches
ticks, grinning, red-gummed, at the moon.

Edging the Everglades, flat-flanked panthers prowl, ears and tail-tips
twitching; doe and buck listen from the cypress shades; the razor-back
clatters his tusks, and his dull and furry ears stand forward and his
dull eyes redden. Then the silver mullet leap in the moonlight, and the
tiger-owl floats soundlessly to his plunging perch, and his daring
yellow glare flashes even when an otter splashes or a tiny fawn stirs.

And very, very far away, under the stars, rolls the dull bull-bellow of
the 'gator, labouring, lumbering, clawing across the saw-grass seas; and
all the little striped pigs run, bucking madly, to their dangerous and
silent dam who listens, rigid, horny nose aquiver in the wind.

So wakes the Wild when the white men turn northward under the March
moon; and, as though released from the same occult restraint, tree and
shrub break out at last into riotous florescence: swamp maple sets the
cypress shade afire; the cassava lights its orange elf-lamps; dogwood
snows in the woods; every magnolia is set with great white chalices
divinely scented, and the Royal Poinciana crowns itself with cardinal
magnificence.

All day long brilliant butterflies hover on great curved wings over the
jungle edge; all day long the cock-quail whistles from wall and hedge,
and the crestless jays, sapphire winged, flit across the dunes.
Red-bellied woodpeckers gossip in live-oak, sweet-gum, and ancient palm;
gray squirrels chatter from pine to bitter-nut; the iridescent little
ground-doves, mated for life, run fearlessly under foot or leap up into
snapping flight with a flash of saffron-tinted wings. Under the
mangroves the pink ajajas preen and wade; and the white ibis walks the
woods like a little absent-minded ghost buried in unearthly reverie.

Truly when madam closes her Villa Tillandsia, and when Coquina Court is
bereft of mistress and household--butler, footman, maid, and flunky; and
when Tsa-na Lah-ni is abandoned by its handsome chatelaine, and the
corridors of the vast hotels are dark, it is fashion, not common sense
that stirs the flock of gaily gregarious immigrants into premature
northern flight; for they go, alas! just as the southland clothes itself
in beauty, and are already gone when the Poinciana opens, leaving
Paradise to blossom for the lesser brothers of the woodland and the
dark-skinned children of the sun.

       *       *       *       *       *

The toddling Moses of the Exodus, as usual, was Courtlandt Classon; the
ornamental Miriam, Mrs. O'Hara; and the children of the preferred stock
started North with cymbals and with dances, making a joyful noise, and
camping en route at Ormond--vastly more beautiful than the
fashion-infested coral reef from which they started--at Saint Augustine,
on corporate compulsion, at the great inns of Hampton, Hot Springs, and
Old Point, for fashion's sake--taking their falling temperature by
degrees--as though any tropic could compare with the scorching
suffocation of Manhattan town.

Before the Beach Club closed certain species of humanity left in a body,
including a number of the unfledged, and one or two pretty opportunists.
Portlaw went, also Malcourt.

It required impudence, optimism, and executive ability for Malcourt to
make his separate adieux and render impartial justice on each occasion.

There was a girl at "The Breakers" who was rather apt to slop over, so
that interview was timed for noon, when the sun dries up everything very
quickly, including such by-products as tears.

Then there was Miss Suydani to ride with at five o'clock on the beach,
where the chain of destruction linked mullet and osprey and ended with
the robber eagle--and Malcourt--if he chose.

But here there were no tears for the westering sun to dry, only
strangely quenched eyes, more green than blue, for Malcourt to study,
furtively; only the pale oval of a face to examine, curiously, and not
too cynically; and a mouth, somewhat colourless, to reassure without
conviction--also without self-conviction. This was all--except a pair of
slim, clinging hands to release when the time came, using
discretion--and some amiable firmness if required.

They were discussing the passing of the old régime, for lack of a safer
theme; and he had spoken flippantly of the decadence of the old
families--his arm around her and her pale cheek against his shoulder.

She listened rather absently; her heart was very full and she was
thinking of other matters. But as he continued she answered at length,
hesitating, using phrases as trite and quaintly stilted as the theme
itself, gently defending the old names he sneered at. And in her words
he savoured a certain old-time flavour of primness and pride--a vaguely
delicate hint of resentment, which it amused him to excite. Pacing the
dunes with her waist enlaced, he said, to incite retort:

"The old families are done for. Decadent in morals, in physique, mean
mentally and spiritually, they are even worse off than respectfully
cherished ruins, because they are out of fashion; they and their dingy
dwellings. Our house is on the market; I'd be glad to see it sold only
Tressilvain will get half."

"In you," she said, "there seems to be other things, besides reverence,
which are out of fashion."

He continued, smilingly: "As the old mansions disappear, Virginia, so
disintegrate those families whose ancestors gave names to the old lanes
of New Amsterdam. I reverence neither the one nor the other. Good
riddance! The fit alone survive."

"I still survive, if you please."

"Proving the rule, dear. But, yourself excepted, look at the few of us
who chance to be here in the South. Look at Courtlandt Classon,
intellectually destitute! Cuyp, a mental brother to the ox; and Vetchen
to the ass; and Mrs. Van Dieman to somebody's maidservant--that old
harridan with all the patrician distinction of a Dame des Halles--"

"Please, Louis!"

"Dear, I am right. Even Constance Palliser, still physically superb, but
mentally morbid--in love with what once was Wayward--with the ghost she
raised in her dead girlhood, there on the edge of yesterday--"

"Louis! Louis! And _you_! What were you yesterday? What are you
to-day?"

"What do I care what I was and am?--Dutch, British, burgher, or
cavalier?--What the deuce do I care, my dear? The Malcourts are rotten;
everybody knows it. Tressilvain is worse; my sister says so. As I told
you, the old families are done for--all except yours--"

"I am the last of mine, Louis."

"The last and best--"

"Are you laughing?"

"No; you are the only human one I've ever heard of among your race--the
sweetest, soundest, best--"

"I?... What you say is too terrible to laugh at. I--guilty in
mind--unsound--contaminated--"

"Temporarily. I'm going to-night. Time and absence are the great
antiseptics. When the corrupt cause disappears the effect follows. Cheer
up, dear; I take the night train."

But she only pressed her pale face closer to his shoulder. Their
interlocked shadows, huge, fantastic, streamed across the eastern dunes
as they moved slowly on together.

"Louis!"

"Yes?"

She could not say it. Close to the breaking point, she was ready now to
give up to him more than he might care for--the only shred left which
she had shrunk from letting him think was within his reach for the
asking--her name.

Pride, prejudice, had died out in the fierce outbreak of a heart
amazingly out of place in the body of one who bore her name.

Generations of her kinsmen, close and remote, had lived in the close
confines of narrow circles--narrow, bloodless, dull folk, almost all
distantly related--and they had lived and mated among themselves,
coldly defiant of that great law which dooms the over-cultivated and
inbred to folly and extinction.

Somewhere, far back along the race-line, some mongrel ancestor had begun
life with a heart; and, unsuspected, that obsolete organ had now
reappeared in her, irritating, confusing, amazing, and finally
stupefying her with its misunderstood pulsations.

At first, like a wounded creature, consciousness of its presence turned
her restless, almost vicious. Then from cynicism to incredulity she had
passed the bitter way to passion, and the shamed recoil from it; to
recklessness, and the contempt for it, and so through sorrow and
humility to love--if it were love to endure the evil in this man and to
believe in the good which he had never yet revealed to her save in a
half-cynical, half-amused content that matters rest in _statu quo_.

"The trouble with us," mused Malcourt, lazily switching the fragrant
beach-grapes with his riding-crop, "is inbreeding. Yes, that's it. And
we know what it brings to kings and kine alike. Tressilvain is half-mad,
I think. And we are used up and out of date.... The lusty, jewelled
bacchantes who now haunt the inner temple kindle the social flames with
newer names than ours. Few of us count; the lumbering British or Dutch
cattle our race was bred from, even in these brief generations, have
become decadent and barren; we are even passing from a fashion which we
have neither intellect to sustain nor courage to dictate to. It's the
raw West that is to be our Nemesis, I think.... 'Mix corpuscles or you
die!'--that's what I read as I run--I mean, saunter; the Malcourts never
run, except to seed. My, what phosphorescent perversion! One might
almost mistake it for philosophy.... But it's only the brilliancy of
decay, Virginia; and it's about time that the last Malcourt stepped down
and out of the scheme of things. My sister is older, but I don't mind
going first--even if it is bad manners."

"Is that why you have never asked me to marry you?" she said, white as a
ghost.

Startled to silence he walked on beside her. She had pressed her pallid
face against his shoulder again; one thin hand crushed her gloves and
riding-crop into her hip, the other, doubled, left in the palm pale
imprints of her fingers.

"Is _that_ the reason?" she repeated.

"No, dear."

"Is it because you do not care for me--enough?"

"Partly. But that is easily remedied."

"Or"--with bent head--"because you think too--lightly--of me--"

"No! That's a lie anyway."

"A--a lie?"

"Yes. You lie to yourself if you think that! You are _not_ that sort.
You are not, and you never were and never could be. Don't you suppose I
know?"--almost with a sneer: "I won't have it--nor would you! It is you,
not I, who have controlled this situation; and if you don't realise it I
do. I never doubted you even when you prattled to me of moderation. _I_
know that you were not named with your name in mockery, or in vain."

Dumb, thrilled, understanding in a blind way what this man had said,
dismayed to find safety amid the elements of destruction, a sudden
belief in herself--in him, too, began to flicker. "Had the still small
flame been relighted for her? Had it never entirely died?"

"If--you will have me, Louis," she whispered.

"I don't love you. I'm rather nearer than I ever have been just now. But
I am not in love."

"Could you ever--"

"Yes."

"Then--why--"

"I'll tell you why, some day. Not now."

They had come to where their horses were tied. He put her up, adjusted
boot-strap and skirt, then swung gracefully aboard his own pie-faced
Tallahassee nag, wheeling into the path beside her.

"The world," observed Malcourt, using his favourite quotation, "is _so_
full of a number of things--like you and me and that coral snake
yonder.... It's very hard to make a coral snake bite you; but it's death
if you succeed.... Whack that nag if he plunges! Lord, what a nose for
sarpints horses have! Hamil was telling me--by the way, there's nothing
degenerate about our distant cousin, John Garret Hamil; but he's not
pure pedigree. However, I'd advise him to marry into some fresh, new
strain--"

"He seems likely to," said Virginia.

After a moment Malcourt looked around at her curiously.

"Do you mean Shiela Cardross?"

"Obviously."

"You think it safe?"--mockingly.

"I wouldn't care if I were a man."

"Oh! I didn't suppose that a Suydam could approve of her."

"I do now--with envy.... You are right about the West. Do you know that
it seems to me as though in that girl all sections of the land were
merged, as though the freshest blood of all nations flowing through the
land had centred and mingled to produce that type of physical
perfection! It is a curious idea--isn't it, Louis?--to imagine that the
brightest, wholesomest, freshest blood of the nations within this nation
has combined to produce such a type! Suppose it were so. After all is it
not worth dispensing with a few worn names to look out at the world
through those fearless magnificent eyes of hers--to walk the world with
such limbs and such a body? Did you ever see such self-possession, such
superb capacity for good and evil, such quality and texture!... Oh, yes,
I am quite crazy about her--like everybody and John Garret Hamil,
third."

"Is he?"

She laughed. "Do you doubt it?"

Malcourt drew bridle, fished for his case, and lighted a cigarette; then
he spurred forward again, alert, intent, head partly turned in that
curious attitude of listening, though Virginia was riding now in pensive
silence.

"Louis," she said at last, "what is it you hear when you seem to listen
that way. It's uncanny."

"I'll tell _you_," he said. "My father had a very pleasant, persuasive
voice.... I was fond of him.... And sometimes I still argue with him--in
the old humourous fashion--"

"What?"--with a shiver.

"In the old amusing way," continued Malcourt quietly. "Sometimes he
makes suggestions to me--curious suggestions--easy ways out of
trouble--and I listen--as you noticed."

The girl looked at him, reined up closer, and bent forward, looking him
intently in the eyes.

"Well, dear?" inquired Malcourt, with a smile.

But she only straightened up in her saddle, a chill creeping in her
veins.

A few moments later he suggested that they gallop. He was obliged to,
for he had other interviews awaiting him. Also Portlaw, in a vile humour
with the little gods of high and low finance.

       *       *       *       *       *

One of these interviews occurred after his final evening adieux to the
Cardross family and to Hamil. Shiela drove him to the hotel in Gray's
motor, slowly, when they were out of sight, at Malcourt's request.

"I wanted to give you another chance," he said. "I'm a little more
selfish, this time--because, if I had a decent opportunity I think I'd
try to fall in love with somebody or other--"

She flushed painfully, looking straight ahead over the steering-wheel
along the blinding path of the acetylenes.

"I am very sorry," she said, "because I had--had almost concluded to
tell them--everything."

"What!" he asked, aghast.

Her eyes were steadily fixed on the fan-shaped radiance ahead which
played fantastically along the silvery avenue of palms and swept the
white road with a glitter like moonlight streaming over snow.

"You mean you are ready for your freedom, Shiela?"

"No."

"_What_ do you mean?"

"That--it may be best--best--to tell them ... and face what is left of
life, together."

"You and I?"

"Yes."

He sat beside her, dumb, incredulous, nimble wits searching for
reasons. What was he to reckon with in this sudden, calm suggestion of a
martyrdom with him? A whim? Some occult caprice?--or a quarrel with
Hamil? Was she wearied of the deception? Or distrustful of herself, in
her new love for Hamil, lest she be tempted to free herself after all?
Was she already at that point where, desperate, benefits forgot,
wavering between infatuation and loyalty, she turned, dismayed, to the
only course which must crush temptation for ever?

"Is that it?" he asked.

"What?" Her lips moved, forming the word without sound.

"Is it because you are so sorely tempted to free yourself at their
expense?"

"Partly."

"You poor child!"

"No child now, Louis.... I have thought too deeply, too clearly. There
is no childhood left in me. I _know_ things.... You will help me, won't
you--if I find I need you?"

"Need _me_, Shiela?"

"I may," she said excitedly; "you can't tell; and I don't know. It is
all so confused. I thought I knew myself but I seem to have just
discovered a devil looking back at me out of my own reflected eyes from
my own mirror!"

"What an exaggerated little thing you are!" he said, forcing a laugh.

"Am I? It must be part of me then. I tell you, since that day they told
me what I am, I have wondered what else I might be. I don't know, but
I'm watching. There are changes--omens, sinister enough to frighten
me--"

"Are you turning morbid?"

"I don't know, Louis. Am I? How can I tell? Whom am I to ask? I _could_
ask my own mother if I had one--even if it hurt her. Mothers are made
for pain--as we young girls are. Miserable, wretched, deceitful,
frightened as I am I _could_ tell her--tell her all.... The longing to
have her, to tell her has become almost--almost unendurable--lately....
I have so much need of her.... You don't know the desolation of it--and
the fear! I beg your pardon for talking this way. It's over now. You see
I am quite calm."

"Can't you confide in your--other mother--"

"I have no right. She did not bear me."

"It is the same as though you were her own; she feels so--"

"She cannot feel so! Nor can I. If I could I would take my fears and
sorrows and my sins to her. I could take them to my own mother, for both
our sakes; I cannot, to her, for my own sake alone. And never can."

"Then--I don't understand! You have just suggested telling her about
ourselves, haven't you?"

"Yes. But not that it has been a horror--a mistake. If I tell her--if I
think it necessary--best--to tell them, I--it will be done with mask
still on--cheerfully--asking pardon with a smile--I do not lack that
kind of courage. I can do that--if I must."

"There will be a new ceremony?"

"If they wish.... I can't--can't talk of it yet, unless I'm driven to
it--"

He looked quietly around at her. "What drives you, Shiela?"

Her eyes remained resolutely fixed on the road ahead, but her cheeks
were flaming; and he turned his gaze elsewhere, thoughtful, chary of
speech, until at last the lights of the station twinkled in the north.

Then he said, carelessly friendly: "I'll just say this: that, being of
no legitimate use to anybody, if you find any use for me, you merely
need to say so."

"Thank you, Louis."

"No; I thank you! It's a new sensation--to be of legitimate use to
anybody. Really, I'm much obliged."

"Don't speak so bitterly--"

"Not at all. Short of being celestially translated and sinlessly
melodious on my pianola up aloft, I had no hope of ever being useful to
you and Hamil--"

She turned a miserable and colourless face to his and he ceased,
startled at the tragedy in such young eyes.

Then he burst out impulsively: "Oh, why don't you cut and run with him!
Why, you little ninny, if I loved anybody like that I'd not worry over
the morals of it!"

"What!" she gasped.

"Not I! Make a nunnery out of me if you must; clutch at me for
sanctuary, if you want to; I'll stand for it! But if you'll listen to me
you'll give up romantic martyrdom and sackcloth, put on your best frock,
smile on Hamil, and go and ask your mother for a bright, shiny,
brand-new divorce."

Revolted, incensed, eyes brilliant with anger, she sat speechless and
rigid, clutching the steering-wheel as he nimbly descended to the
platform.

"Good-bye, Shiela," he said with a haggard smile. "I meant well--as
usual."

Something about him as he stood there alone in the lamp's white radiance
stilled her anger by degrees.

"Good-bye," she said with an effort.

He nodded, replaced his hat, and turned away.

"Good-bye, Louis," she said more gently.

He retraced his steps, and stood beside the motor, hat off. She bent
forward, generous, as always, and extended her hand.

"What you said to me hurt," she said. "Do you think it would not be easy
for me to persuade myself? I believe in divorce with all my heart and
soul and intelligence. I _know_ it is right and just. But not for me....
Louis--how can I do this thing to them? How can I go to them and
disclose myself as a common creature of common origin and primitive
impulse, showing the crack in the gay gilding and veneer they have
laboured to cover me with?... I cannot.... I could endure the disgrace
myself; I cannot disgrace them. Think of the ridicule they would suffer
if it became known that for two years I had been married, and now wanted
a public divorce? No! No! There is nothing to do, nothing to hope
for.... If it is--advisable--I will tell them, and take your name
openly.... I am so uncertain, so frightened at moments--so perplexed.
There is no one to tell me what to do.... And, believe me, I am sorry
for you--I am deeply, deeply sorry! Good-bye."

"And I for you," he said. "Good-bye."

She sat in her car, waiting, until the train started.



CHAPTER XVII

ECHOES


Some minutes later, on the northward speeding train, he left Portlaw
playing solitaire in their own compartment, and, crossing the swaying
corridor, entered the state-room opposite. Miss Wilming was there,
reading a novel, an enormous bunch of roses, a box of bonbons, and a
tiny kitten on the table before her. The kitten was so young that it was
shaky on its legs, and it wore very wide eyes and a blue bow.

"Hello, Dolly," he said pleasantly. She answered rather faintly.

"What a voice--like the peep of an infant sparrow! Are you worrying?"

"A little."

"You needn't be. Alphonse will make a noise, of course, but you needn't
mind that. The main thing in life is to know what you want to do and do
it. Which I've never yet done in my life. Zut! Zut!!--as our late Count
Alphonse might say. And he'll say other remarks when he finds you've
gone, Dolly." And Malcourt, who was a mimic, shrugged and raised his
arms in Gallic appeal to the gods of wrath, until he mouthed his face
into a startling resemblance to that of the bereft nobleman.

Then he laughed a little--not very heartily; then, in a more familiar
rôle, he sat down opposite the girl and held up one finger of admonition
and consolation.

"The main thing, Dolly, was to get clear of him--and all that silly
business. Yes? No? Bon!... And now everything is cleared up between us,
and I've told you what I'd do--if you really wanted a chance. I believe
in chances for people."

The girl, who was young, buried her delicate face in the roses and
looked at him. The kitten, balanced on tiny, wavering legs, stared hard
at him, too. He looked from girl to kitten, conscious of the
resemblance, and managed to smother a smile.

"You said," he repeated severely, "that you wanted a chance. I told you
what I could and would do; see that you live and dress decently, stand
for your musical, dramatic, athletic, and terpsichorean education and
drilling--but not for one atom of nonsense. Is that clear?"

She nodded.

"Not one break; not one escapade, Dolly. It's up to you."

"I know it."

"All right, then. What's passed doesn't count. You start in and see what
you can do. They say they drag one about by the hair at those dramatic
schools. If they do, you've got to let 'em. Anyway, things ought to come
easier to you than to some, for you've got a corking education, and you
don't drink sloe-gin, and you don't smoke."

"And I _can_ cook," added the girl gravely, looking at her childish
ringless hands. The rings and a number of other details had been left
behind addressed to the count.

"The trouble will be," said Malcourt, "that you will miss the
brightness and frivolity of things. That kitten won't compensate."

"Do you think so? I haven't had very much of anything--even kittens,"
she said, picking up the soft ball of fur and holding it under her chin.

"You missed the frivolous in life even before you had it. You'll miss it
again, too."

"But I've had it now."

"That doesn't count. The capacity for frivolity is always there. You are
reconciled just now to other things; that man is a beast all right. Oh,
yes; this is reaction, Dolly. The idea is to hang on to this
conservatism when it becomes stupid and irksome; when you're tired and
discouraged, and when you want to be amused and be in bright, attractive
places; and when you're lonesome--"

"Lonesome?"

"Certainly you'll be lonesome if you're good."

"Am I not to see you?"

"I'll be in the backwoods working for a living--"

"Yes, but when you come to New York?"

"Sure thing."

"Often?"

"As often as it's advisable," he said pleasantly. "I want you to make
friends at school; I want you to have lots of them. A bachelor girl has
got to have 'em.... It's on your account and theirs that I don't intend
to have anybody make any mistake about me.... Therefore, I'll come to
see you when you've a friend or two present. It's fairer to you. _Now_
do you understand me, Dolly?"

"Yes."

"Is it agreeable?"

"Y-es." And, flushing: "But I did not mistake you, Louis; and there is
no reason not to come, even if I am alone."

He laughed, lighted a cigarette, and stroked the kitten.

"It's an amusing experiment, anyway," he said.

"Have you never tried it before?"

"Oh, yes, several times."

"Were the several times successes?"

"Not one!" he said, laughing. "It's up to you, Dolly, to prove me a
bigger ass than I have been yet--or the reverse."

"It lies with me?" she asked.

"Certainly. Have I ever made love to you?"

"No."

"Ever even kissed you?"

"No."

"Ever been a brute?"

"No.... You are not very careful in speaking to me sometimes. Once--at
the Club--when Mr. Hamil--"

"I _was_ brutal. I know it. Do you want my respect?"

"Y-es."

"Earn it," he said drily.

The girl leaned back in her corner, flushed, silent, thoughtful; and
sometimes her eyes were fixed on vacancy, sometimes on him where he sat
in the opposite seat staring out into the blurred darkness at the red
eye of the beacon on Jupiter Light which turned flaring, turned again,
dwindling to a spark, and went out.

"Of what are you thinking?" she asked, noticing his frown.

He did not reply; he was thinking of Shiela Cardross. And, frowning, he
picked up the kitten, very gently, and flattered it until it purred.

"It's about as big as a minute," said the girl, softly touching the tiny
head.

"There _are_ minutes as big as elephants, too," he said, amused. "Nice
pussy!" The kitten, concurring in these sentiments, purred with
pleasure.

A little later he sauntered back to his own compartment, and, taking out
a memorandum, made some figures.

"Is that girl aboard?" asked Portlaw, looking up from the table, his fat
hands full of cards.

"Yes, I believe so."

"Well, that's a deuce of a thing to do."

"What?"--absently.

"What! Why, to travel about the country with the nucleus of a theatrical
troupe on your hands--"

"She wanted another chance. Few get it."

"Very well, son, if you think you can afford to endow a home for the
frivolously erring!--And the chances are she'll turn on you and
scratch."

"Yes--the chances favour that."

"She won't understand it; that sort never understands decency in a man."

"Do you think it might damage my reputation to be misunderstood?"
sneered Malcourt. "I've taken a notion to give her a chance and I'm
going to do it."

Portlaw spread out his first row of cards. "You know what everybody will
think, I suppose."

Malcourt yawned.

Presently Portlaw began in a babyish-irritated voice: "I've buried the
deuce and trey of diamonds, and blocked myself--"

"Oh, _shut_ up!" said Malcourt, who was hastily scribbling a letter to
Virginia Suydam.

He did not post it, however, until he reached New York, being very
forgetful and busy in taking money away from the exasperated Portlaw
through the medium of double dummy. Also he had a girl, a kitten, and
other details to look after, and several matters to think over. So
Virginia's letter waited.

       *       *       *       *       *

Virginia waited, too. She had several headaches to keep inquiring
friends at a distance, for her eyes were inclined to redness in those
days, and she developed a pronounced taste for the solitude of the
chapel and churchly things.

So when at length the letter arrived, Miss Suydam evaded Constance and
made for the beach; for it was her natural instinct to be alone with
Malcourt, and the instinct unconsciously included even his memory.

Her maid was packing; Constance Palliser's maid was also up to her chin
in lingerie, and Constance hovered in the vicinity. So there was no
privacy there, and that was the reason Virginia evaded them,
side-stepped Gussie Vetchen at the desk, eluded old Classon in the palm
room, and fled like a ghost through the empty corridors as though the
deuce were at her heels instead of in her heart.

The heart of Virginia was cutting up. Alone in the corridors she
furtively glanced at the letter, kissed the edge of the envelope, rolled
and tucked it away in her glove, and continued her flight in search of
solitude.

The vast hotel seemed lonely enough, but it evidently was too populous
to suit Miss Suydam. Yet few guests remained, and the larger caravansary
was scheduled to close in another day or two, the residue population to
be transferred to "The Breakers."

The day was piping hot but magnificent; corridor, piazza, colonnade, and
garden were empty of life, except for a listless negro servant dawdling
here and there. Virginia managed to find a wheel-chair under the
colonnade and a fat black boy at the control to propel it; and with her
letter hidden in her glove, and her heart racing, she seated herself,
parasol tilted, chin in the air, and the chair rolled noiselessly away
through the dazzling sunshine of the gardens.

On the beach some barelegged children were wading in the surf's bubbling
ebb, hunting for king-crabs; an old black mammy, wearing apron and
scarlet turban, sat luxuriously in the burning sand watching her
thin-legged charges, and cooking the "misery" out of her aged bones.
Virginia could see nobody else, except a distant swimmer beyond the
raft, capped with a scarlet kerchief. This was not solitude, but it must
do.

So she dismissed her chair-boy and strolled out under the pier. And, as
nobody was there to interrupt her she sat down in the sand and opened
her letter with fingers that seemed absurdly helpless and unsteady.

"On the train near Jupiter Light," it was headed; and presently
continued:

   "I am trying to be unselfishly honest with you to see how it
   feels. First--about my loving anybody. I never have; I have on
   several occasions been prepared to bestow heart and hand--been
   capable of doing it--and something happened every time. On one of
   these receptive occasions the thing that happened put me
   permanently out of business. I'll tell you about that later.

   "What I want to say is that the reason I don't love you is not
   because I can't, but because I won't! You don't understand that.
   Let me try to explain. I've always had the capacity for really
   loving some woman. I was more or less lonely and shy as a child
   and had few playmates--very few girls of my age. I adored those I
   knew--but--well, I was not considered to be a very desirable
   playmate by those parents who knew the Malcourt history.

   "One family was nice to me--some of them. I usually cared a great
   deal for anybody who was nice to me.

   "The point of all this biography is that I'm usually somewhat
   absurdly touched by the friendship of an attractive woman of my
   own sort--or, rather, of the sort I might have been. That is my
   attitude toward you; you are amiable to me; I like you.

   "Now, why am I not in love with you? I've told you that it's
   because I will not let myself be in love with you. Why?

   "Dear--it's just because you _have_ been nice to me. Do you
   understand? No, you don't. Then--to go back to what I spoke of--I
   am not free to marry. I am married. Now you know. And there's no
   way out of it that I can see.

   "If I were in love with you I'd simply take you. I am only your
   friend--and I can't do you that injury. Curious, isn't it, how
   such a blackguard as I am can be so fastidious!

   "But that's the truth. And that, too, may explain a number of
   other matters.

   "So you see how it is, dear. The world _is_ full of a number of
   things. One of them signs himself your friend,

                                           "LOUIS MALCOURT."

Virginia's eyes remained on the written page long after she had finished
reading. They closed once or twice, opened again, blue-green,
expressionless. Looking aloft after a while she tried to comprehend that
the sky was still overhead; but it seemed to be a tricky, unsteady,
unfamiliar sky, wavering, crawling across space like the wrinkled sea
beneath it. Confused, she turned, peering about; the beach, too, was
becoming unstable; and, through the sudden rushing darkness that
obscured things, she tried to rise, then dropped full length along the
sand.

A few seconds later--or perhaps minutes, or perhaps hours--she found
herself seated perfectly conscious, mechanically drying the sea-water
from her wet face; while beside her knelt a red-capped figure in wet
bathing-dress, both hands brimming with sea-water which ran slowly
between the delicate fingers and fell, sparkling.

"Do you feel better?" asked Shiela gently.

"Yes," she said, perfectly conscious and vaguely surprised. Presently
she looked down at her skirts, groped about, turned, searching with
outstretched fingers. Then her eyes fell on the letter. It lay on the
sand beside her sunshade, carefully weighted with a shell.

Neither she nor the girl beside her spoke. Virginia adjusted her hat and
veil, sat motionless for a few moments, then picked up the water-stained
letter and, rolling it, placed it in her wet glove. A slow flame burned
in her pallid cheeks; her eyes remained downcast.

Shiela said with quick sympathy: "I never fainted in my life. Is it
painful?"

"No--it's only rather horrid.... I had been walking in the sun. It is
very hot on the beach, I think; don't you?"

"Very," said the girl gravely.

Virginia, head still bent, was touching her wet lace waist with her
wetter gloves.

"It was very good of you," she said, in a low voice--"and quite stupid
of me."

Shiela straightened to her full height and stood gravely watching the
sea-water trickle from her joined palms. When the last shining drop had
fallen she looked questioningly at Miss Suydam.

"I'm a little tired, that is all," said Virginia. She rose rather
unsteadily and took advantage of Shiela's firm young arm, which, as they
progressed, finally slipped around Miss Suydam's waist.

Very slowly they crossed the burning sands together, scarcely exchanging
a word until they reached the Cardross pavilion.

"If you'll wait until I have my shower I'll take you back in my chair,"
said Shiela. "Come into my own dressing-room; there's a lounge."

Virginia, white and haggard, seated herself, leaning back languidly
against the wall and closing her heavy eyes. They opened again when
Shiela came back from the shower, knotting in the girdle of her snowy
bath-robe, and seated herself while her maid unloosed the thick hair and
rubbed it till the brown-gold lustre came out like little gleams of
sunlight, and the ends of the burnished tresses crisped and curled up on
the smooth shoulders of snow and rose.

Virginia's lips began to quiver; she was fairly flinching now under the
pitiless contrast, fascinated yet shrinking from the splendid young
creature before her, resting there aglow in all the vigourous beauty of
untainted health.

And from the mirror reflected, the clear eyes smiled back at her,
seeming to sear her very soul with their untarnished loveliness.

"Suppose you come and lunch with me?" said Shiela. "I happen to be quite
alone. My maid is very glad to do anything for you. Will you come?"

"Yes," said Virginia faintly.

An hour later they had luncheon together in the jasmine arbour; and
after that Virginia lay in the hammock under the orange-trees, very
still, very tired, glad of the silence, and of the soft cool hand which
covered hers so lightly, and, at rare intervals, pressed hers more
lightly still.

Shiela, elbow on knee, one arm across the hammock's edge, chin cupped in
her other palm, sat staring at vacancy beside the hammock where Virginia
lay. And sometimes her partly doubled fingers indented her red lower
lip, sometimes they half framed the oval face, as she sat lost in
thought beside the hammock where Virginia lay so pale and still.

Musing there in the dappled light, already linked together by that
subtle sympathy which lies in silence and in a common need of it, they
scarcely stirred save when Shiela's fingers closed almost imperceptibly
on Virginia's hand, and Virginia's eyelids quivered in vague response.

In youth, sadness and silence are near akin. That was the only kinship
they could claim--this slim, pale scion of a worn-out line, and the
nameless, parentless girl beside her. This kinship was their only
bond--unadmitted, uncomprehended by themselves; kinship in love, and the
sadness of it; in love, and the loneliness of it; love--and the long
hours of waiting; night, and the tears of it.

The sun hung low behind the scented orange grove before Virginia moved,
laying her thin cheek on Shiela's hand.

"Did you see--that letter--in the sand?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"The writing--you knew it?... Answer me, Shiela."

"Yes, I knew it."

Virginia lay very still for a while, then covered her face with both
hands.

"Oh, my dear, my dear!" breathed Shiela, bending close beside her.

Virginia lay motionless for a moment, then uncovered her face.

"It is strange," she said, in a colourless, almost inaudible voice. "You
see I am simply helpless--dependent on your mercy.... Because a woman
does not faint over--nothing."

The deep distress in Shiela's eyes held her silent for a space. She
looked back at her, then her brooding gaze shifted to the laden branches
overhead, to the leafy vistas beyond, to the ground where the golden
fruit lay burning in the red, level rays of the western sun.

"I did not know he was married," she said vacantly.

Swift anger burned in Shiela's cheeks.

"He was a coward not to tell you--"

"He was honourable about it," said Virginia, in the same monotonous
voice. "Do you think I am shameless to admit it? Perhaps I am, but it is
fairer to him. As you know this much, you should know the truth. And the
truth is that he has never said he loved me."

Her face had become pinched and ghastly, but her mouth never quivered
under this final humiliation.

"Did you ever look upon a more brazen and defenceless woman--" she
began--and then very quietly and tearlessly broke down in Shiela's
tender arms, face hidden on the young girl's breast.

And Shiela's heart responded passionately; but all she could find to say
was: "Dear--I know--indeed, indeed I know--believe me I know and
understand!" And all she could do was to gather the humbled woman into
her arms until, her grief dry-spent, Virginia raised her head and looked
at Shiela with strange, quenched, tearless eyes.

"We women are very helpless, very ignorant," she said, "even the worst
of us. And I doubt if in all our lives we are capable of the harm that
one man refrains from doing for an hour.... And that, I think, is our
only compensation.... What theirs may be I do not know.... Dear, I am
perfectly able to go, now.... I think I see your mother coming."

They walked together to the terrace where Mrs. Cardross had just arrived
in the motor; and Shiela, herself shaken, wondered at the serene poise
with which Virginia sustained ten minutes of commonplaces and then made
her final adieux, saying that she was leaving on the morning train.

"May we not see each other in town?" she added amiably; and, to Shiela:
"You will let me know when you come North? I shall miss you until you
come."

Mrs. Cardross sent her back in the motor, a trifle surprised at any
intimacy between Shiela and Virginia. She asked a frank question or two
and then retired to write to Mrs. Carrick, who, uneasy, had at last gone
North to find out what financial troubles were keeping both her husband
and her father so long away from this southland that they loved so well.

Hamil, who was to leave for the North with his aunt and Virginia early
next morning, returned from the forest about sundown, reeking as usual
of the saddle, and rested a moment against the terrace balustrade
watching Mrs. Cardross and Shiela over their tea.

"That boy is actually ill," said the sympathetic matron. "Why don't you
give him some tea, Shiela? Or would you rather have a little wine and a
biscuit, Garret--?"

"And a few pills," added Shiela gravely. "I found a box of odds and
ends--powders, pills, tablets, which he might as well finish--"

"Shiela! Garret is _ill!_"

Hamil, busy with his Madeira and biscuit, laughed. He could not realise
he was on the eve of leaving, nor could Shiela.

"Never," said he to the anxious lady, "have I felt better in my life;
and I'm sure it is due to your medicines. It's all very well for Shiela
to laugh at quinine; mosquitoes don't sting her. But I'd probably be an
item in one of those phosphate beds by this time if you hadn't taken
care of me."

Shiela laughed; Hamil in excellent humour went off to dress. Everybody
seemed to be in particularly good spirits that evening, but later, after
dinner, Gray spoke complainingly of the continued absence of his father.

"As for Acton Carrick, he's the limit," added Gray disgustedly. "He
hasn't been here this winter except for a day or two, and then he took
the train from Miami straight through to New York. I say, Hamil, you'll
look him up and write us about him, won't you?"

Shiela looked at Hamil.

"Do you understand anything about financial troubles?" she asked in a
bantering voice.

"I've had some experience with my own," he said.

"Well, then, what is the matter with the market?"

"Shall I whisper it?"

"If you are prepared to rhyme it. I dare you!"

It was the rule of the house that anybody was privileged to whisper at
table provided they put what they had to communicate into rhyme.

So he thought busily a moment, then leaned over very gravely and
whispered close to her ear:

    "Tis money makes the market go;
    When money's high the market's low;
    When money's low the market's right,
    And speculators sleep at night.
    But, dear, there is another mart,
    Where ticks the ticker called my heart;
    And there exhaustless funds await,
    To back my bankrupt trust in Fate;
    For you will find, as I have found,
    The old, old logic yet is sound,
    And love still makes the world go round."

"I always knew it," said Shiela contemptuously.

"Knew what, dear?" asked her mother, amused.

"That Mr. Hamil writes those sickening mottoes for Christmas crackers."

"There are pretty ones in them--sometimes," said Cecile, reminiscently
spearing a big red strawberry which resembled the popular and
conventional conception of a fat human heart.

Gray, still serious, said: "Unless we are outside of the danger zone I
think father ought to teach me something about business."

"If we blow up," observed Cecile, "I'll do clever monologues and support
everybody. I'd like that. And Shiela already writes poetry--"

"Nonsense!" said Shiela, very pink.

"Shiela! You do!"

"I did in school--" turning pinker under Hamil's tormenting gaze.

"And you do yet! I found an attempt on the floor--in your flowing
penmanship," continued the pitiless younger sister. "What is there to
blush about? Of course Phil and I were not low enough to read it, but
I'll bet it was about somebody we all know! Do you want to bet--Garry?"

"Cecile!" said her mother mildly.

"Yes, mother--I forgot that I'm not allowed to bet, but if I was--"

Shiela, exasperated, looked at her mother, who shook her head and rose
from the table, taking Hamil's arm.

"You little imp!" breathed Shiela fiercely to Cecile, "if you plague me
again I'll inform Mr. Hamil of what happened to you this morning."

"I don't care; Garry is part of the family," retorted Cecile, flushed
but defiant and not exactly daring to add: "or will be soon." Then she
put both arms around Shiela, and holding her imprisoned:

"_Are_ you in love?--you darling!" she whispered persuasively. "Oh,
don't commit yourself if you feel _that_ way!... And, O Shiela, you
should have seen Phil Gatewood following me in love-smitten hops when I
wouldn't listen! My dear, the creature managed to plant both feet on my
gown as I fled, and the parquet is _so_ slippery and the gown so flimsy
and, oh, there was a dreadful ripping sound and we both went down--"

Shiela was laughing now, holding her sister's gesticulating hands, as
she rattled on excitedly:

"I got to my feet in a blaze of fury, holding my gown on with both
hands--"

"Cissy!"

"And he gave one horror-stricken look and ran--"

Swaying there together in the deserted dining-room, they gave way to
uncontrolled laughter. Laughter rang out from the living-room, too,
where Gray was informing Mrs. Cardross and Hamil of the untoward climax
to a spring-time wooing; and when Shiela and Cecile came in the latter
looked suspiciously at Hamil, requesting to know the reason of his
mirth.

"Somebody will have to whisper it to you in rhyme," said Hamil; "it's
not fit for prose, Cissy."

Mrs. Cardross retired early. Gray went for a spin in his motor. Cecile,
mischievously persuaded that Hamil desired to have Shiela to himself for
half an hour, stifled her yawns and bedward inclinations and remained
primly near them until Gray returned.

Then the four played innocuous Bridge whist until Cecile's yawns could
no longer be disguised; and finally Gray rose in disgust when she
ignored the heart-convention and led him an unlovely spade.

"How many kinds of a chump can you be in one day?" asked her wrathful
brother.

"Pons longa, vita brevis," observed Hamil, intensely amused. "Don't sit
on her, Gray."

"O dear! O dear!" said Cecile calmly, "I'd rather be stepped on again
than sat on like that!"

"You're a sweet little thing anyway," said Hamil, "even if you do fall
down in Bridge as well as otherwise--"

"Shiela! You told Garret!"

"Cunning child," said Hamil; "make her dance the baby-dance, Shiela!"
And he and her sister and brother seized her unwilling hands and
compelled her to turn round and round, while they chanted in unison:

    "Cissy's Bridge is falling down,
                      Falling down,
                      Falling down,
    Cissy's gown is falling down,
                       My
                         Fair
                            Lady!"

"Garry, stop it!... It's only an excuse to hold Shiela's hand--"

But Shiela recited very gravely:

    "Father's in Manhattan town,
      Hunting up our money;
    Philip's in the music-room,
      Calling Cis his honey;
    Cissy's sprinting through the hall,
      Trying to be funny--"

"I _won't_ dance!" cried Cecile. But they sang insultingly:

    "Rock-a-by Cissy!
      Philip _will_ slop!
    Cissy is angry,
      For Philip won't stop."

    "If dresses are stepped upon,
    Something will fall,
    Down will come petticoat, Cissy, and all!"

"O Garry, how _can_ you!"

"Because you've been too gay lately; you're marked for discipline, young
lady!"

"Who told you? Shiela?--and it _was_ my newest, dearest, duck of a
gown!... The situation was perfectly horrid, too. What elephants men
are!"

"You know, I'd accept him if I were you--just to teach him the value of
gowns," suggested Hamil.

But Shiela said seriously: "Phil Gatewood is a nice boy. We all knew
that he was going to ask you. You acted like a ninny, Cis."

"With my gown half off!--what would _you_ have done?" demanded the girl
hotly.

"Destroyed him," admitted Shiela, "in one way or another, dear. And now
I am going to bed--if everybody has had enough of Cissy's Bridge--"

"Me for the hay," observed Gray emphatically.

So they all went up the stairway together, lingering a few moments on
the landing to say good night.

Cecile retired first, bewailing the humiliation of not having a maid of
her own and requesting Shiela to send hers as she was too sleepy to
undress.

Gray caught sight of a moth fluttering around the electric lights and
made considerable noise securing the specimen. After which he also
retired, cyanide jar containing the victim tucked under his arm.



CHAPTER XVIII

PERIL


Shelia, standing by the lamplit table and resting one slim hand on the
edge of it, waited for Hamil to give the signal for separation.

Instead he said: "Are you really sleepy?"

"No."

"Then--"

"I dare not--to-night."

"For any particular reason?"

"For a thousand.... One is that I simply can't believe you are really
going North to-morrow. Why do you?" She had asked it nearly a thousand
times.

"I've got to begin Portlaw's park; and, besides, my work here is over--"

"Is that all you care about me? Oh, you are truly like the real Ulysses:

    "Now toils the hero, trees on trees o'erthrown
    Fall crackling round him, and the forests groan!"

Do you remember, in the Odyssey, when poor Calypso begs him to remain?

    "Thus spoke Calypso to her god-like guest:
    'This shows thee, friend, by old experience taught,
      And learn'd in all the wiles of human thought,
    How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!
    Thus wilt thou leave me? Are we thus to part?
    Is Portlaw's Park the passion of thy heart?'"

Laughing, he answered in the Grecian verse:

    "Whatever the gods shall destine me to bear,
    'Tis mine to master with a constant mind;
    Inured to peril, to the worst resigned,
    Still I can suffer; their high will be done."

From the soft oval of her face the smile faded, but her voice was still
carelessly gay:

"And so he went away. But, concerning his nymph, Calypso, further Homer
sayeth not. Yet--in the immortal verse it chanced to be he, not she, who
was--married.... And I think I'll retire now--if you have nothing more
agreeable to say to me--"

"I have; in the garden--"

"No, I dare not risk it to-night. The guards are about--"

"It is my last night here--"

"We will see each other very soon in New York. And I'll be up in the
morning to drive you to the station--"

"But, Shiela, dear--"

"There was a bad nigger hanging around the groves last night and our
patrols are out.... No, it's too risky. Besides--"

"Besides--what?"

"I've been thinking."

He said, tenderly impatient:

"You little witch of Ogygia, come into the _patio_ then, and do your
thinking and let me make love to you."

But she would not raise her eyes, standing there in the rose lamplight,
the perverse smile still edging her lips.

"Calypso," he repeated persuasively.

"No.... Besides, I have nothing to offer you, Ulysses.... You remember
what the real Calypso offered the real Ulysses if he'd remain with her
in Ogygia?"

"Eternal youth and love?" He bent over the table, moving his hand to
cover hers where it rested in the lamplight. "You have given me eternity
in love already," he said.

"Have I?" But she would not lift her eyes.... "Then why make love to me
if you have it ready-made for you?"

"Will you come?"

And she, quoting the Odyssey again:

    "Swear, then, thou mean'st not what my soul forebodes;
    Swear by the solemn oath that binds the gods!"

And in turn he quoted:

    "Loved and adored, O goddess as thou art,
    Forgive the weakness of a human heart."

But she said with gay audacity, "I have nothing to forgive you--yet."

"Are you challenging me? Because I am likely to take you into my arms at
any moment if you are."

"Not _here_--Garry!"--looking up in quick concern, for his recklessness
at times dismayed her. Considering him doubtfully she made up her mind
that she was safe, and her little chin went up in defiance.

"The hammock's in the _patio_," he said.

"There's moonlight there, too. No, thank you--with Cissy wakeful and
her windows commanding every nook!... Besides--as I told you, I've been
thinking."

"And what have you concluded?"

Delicate straight nose in the air, eyebrows arched in airy disdain, she
stood preoccupied with some little inward train of thought that
alternately made grave and gay the upcurled corners of her lips.

"About this question of--ah--love-making--" dropping her eyes in
pretence of humility.

"It is no longer a question, you know."

She would _not_ look up; her lashes seemed to rest on the bloom of the
rounded cheek as though the lids were shut, but there came from the
shadows between the lids a faint glimmer; and he thought of that first
day when from her lifted gaze a thousand gay little demons seemed to
laugh at him.

"I've been thinking," she remarked, "that this question of making love
to me should be seriously discussed."

"That's what I've been asking you to do in the _patio_--"

"I've been thinking, with deep but rather tardy concern, that it is not
the best policy for me to be--courted--any more."

She glanced up; her entire expression had suddenly altered to a gravity
unmistakable.

"What has happened?" he asked.

"Can _you_ tell _me_? I ask you, Garry, what has happened?"

"I don't understand--"

"Nor I.... Because that little fool you kissed--so many, many centuries
ago--is not this disillusioned woman who is standing here!... May I be a
little bit serious with you?"

"Of course," he said, amused; "come out on the east balcony and tell me
what troubles you."

She considered him, smilingly suspicious of his alacrity.

"I don't think we had better go to the balcony." "Shiela, can't you ever
get over being ashamed when I make love to you?"

"I don't want to get over it, Garry."

"Are you still afraid to let me love you?"

Her mouth curved gravely as a perplexed child's; she looked down at the
table where his sun-burnt hand now lay lightly across hers.

"I wished to speak to you about myself--if, somehow you could help me to
say what--what is very difficult for a girl to say to a man--even when
she loves him.... I don't think I can say it, but I'll try."

"Then if you'll come to the balcony--"

"No, I can't trust you--or myself--unless we promise each other."

"Have I got to do that again?"

"Yes, if I am to go with you. I promise! Do you?"

"If I must," he said with very bad grace--so ungraciously in fact that
as they passed from the eastern corridor on to the Spanish balcony she
forgot her own promise and slipped her hand into his in half-humourous,
half-tender propitiation.

"Are you going to be disagreeable to me, Garry?"

"You darling!" he said; and, laughing, yet secretly dismayed at her own
perversion, she hurriedly untwisted her fingers from his and made a new
and fervid promise to replace the one just broken.

The moonlight was magnificent, silvering forest, dune, and chaparral.
Far to the east a thin straight gleam revealed the sea.

She seated herself under the wall, lying back against it; he lay
extended on the marble shelf beside her, studying the moonlight on her
face.

"What was it you had to tell me, Shiela? Remember I am going in the
morning."

"I've turned cowardly; I cannot tell you.... Perhaps later.... Look at
the Seminole moon, Garry. They have such a pretty name for it in
March--Tau-sau-tchusi--'Little Spring Moon'! And in May they call it the
'Mulberry Moon'--Kee-hassi, and in November it is a charming
name--Hee-wu-li--'Falling Leaf Moon'!--and August is Hyothlucco--'Big
Ripening Moon.' ... Garry, this moonlight is filling my veins with
quicksilver. I feel very restless, very heathenish." ... She cast a
slanting side-glance at him, lips parting with soundless laughter; and
in the witchery of the moon she seemed exquisitely unreal, head tipped
back, slender throat and shoulders snow-white in the magic lustre that
enveloped them.

Resting one bare arm on the marble she turned, chin on shoulder, looking
mischievously down at him, lovely, fresh, perfect as the Cherokee roses
that spread their creamy, flawless beauty across the wall behind her.

Imperceptibly her expression changed to soft friendliness, to
tenderness, to a hint of deeper emotion; and her lids drooped a little,
then opened gravely under the quick caress of his eyes; and very gently
she moved her head from side to side as reminder and refusal.

"Another man's wife," she said deliberately.... "Thy neighbour's
wife.... That's what we've done!"

Like a cut of a whip her words brought him upright to confront her, his
blood tingling on the quick edge of anger.

For always, deep within him, lay that impotent anger latent; always his
ignorance of this man haunted him like the aftermath of an ugly dream.
But of the man himself she had never spoken since that first day in the
wilderness. And then she had not named him.

Her face had grown very serious, but her eyes remained unfathomable
under his angry gaze.

"Is there any reason to raise that spectre between us?" he demanded.

"Dear, has it ever been laid?" she asked sorrowfully.

The muscles in his cheeks tightened and his eyes narrowed unpleasantly.
Only the one feature saved the man from sullen commonness in his
suppressed anger--and that was his boyish mouth, clean, sweet, nobly
moulded, giving the lie to the baffled brutality gleaming in the eyes.
And the spark died out as it had come, subdued, extinguished when he
could no longer sustain the quiet surprise of her regard.

"How very, very young you are after all," she said gently. "Come nearer.
Lift your sulky, wicked head. Now ask my pardon for not understanding."

"I ask it.... But when you speak of him--"

"Hush. He is only a shadow to you--scarcely more to me. He must remain
so. Do you not understand that I wish him to remain a shadow to you--a
thing without substance--without a name?"

He bent his head, nodding almost imperceptibly.

"Garry?"

He looked up in response.

"There is something else--if I could only say it.... I might if you
would close your eyes." ... She hesitated, half-fearful, then drew his
head down on her knees, daintily, using her finger-tips only in the
operation.

"Are you listening to what I am trying to tell you?"

"Yes, very intently."

"Then--it's about my being afraid--of love.... Are you listening?... It
is very difficult for me to say this.... It is about my being afraid....
I used to be when I did not know enough to be. And now, Garry, when I am
less ignorant than I was--when I have divined enough of my unknown self
to be afraid--dearest, I am not."

She bent gently above the boyish head lying face downward on her
knees--waited timidly for some response, touched his hair.

"I am listening," he nodded.

She said: "My will to deny you, my courage to control myself seem to be
waning. I love you so; and it is becoming so much worse, such a blind,
unreasoning love.... And--do you think it will grow so much worse that I
could be capable of anything ignoble? Do you think I might be mad enough
to beg my freedom? I--I don't know where it is leading me, dear. Do you?
It is that which bewilders me--that I should love you so--that I should
not be afraid to love you so.... Hush, dear! Don't speak--for I shall
never be able to tell you this if you speak, or look at me. And I want
to ask you a question. May I? And will you keep your eyes covered?"

"Yes."

"Then--there are memories which burn my cheeks--hush!--I do not regret
them.... Only, what am I changing into that I am capable of
forgetting--everything--in the happiness of consenting to things I never
dreamed of--like this"--bending and laying her lips softly against his
cheek.... "That was wrong; it ought to frighten me. But it does not."

He turned, looking up into the flushed young face and drew it closer
till their cheeks touched.

"Don't look at me! Why do you let me drift like this? It is madness--to
give up to each other the way we do--"

"I wish we could give up the world for each other."

"I wish so too. I would--except for the others. Do you suppose I'd
hesitate if it were not for them?"

They looked at each other with a new and subtler audacity.

"You see," she said with a wistful smile, "_this_ is not Shiela Cardross
who sits here smiling into those brown eyes of yours. I think I died
before you ever saw me; and out of the sea and the mist that day some
changeling crept into your boat for your soul's undoing. Do you remember
in Ingoldsby--'The cidevant daughter of the old Plantagenet line '?"

They laughed like children.

"Do you think our love-tempted souls are in any peril?" he asked
lightly.

The question arrested her mirth so suddenly that he thought she must
have misunderstood.

"What is it, Shiela?" he inquired, surprised.

"Garry--will you tell me something--if you can?... Then, what does it
mean, the saying--'souls lost through love'? Does it mean what we have
done?--because I am married? Would people think our souls lost--if they
knew?"

"No, you blessed child!"

"Well, how can--"

"It's a lie anyway," he said. "Nothing is lost through love. It is
something very different they mean."

"Yes," she said calmly, "something quite inconceivable, like 'Faust' and
'The Scarlet Letter,' ... I _thought_ that was what they meant!"

Brooding over him, silent, pensive, clear eyes fearlessly meeting his,
she drifted into guiltless retrospection.

"After all," she said, "except for letting everybody know that we belong
to each other this is practically like marriage. Look at that honeymoon
up there, Garry.... If, somehow, they could think we are engaged, and
would let us alone for the rest of our lives, it would not matter....
Except I should like to have a house alone with you."

And she stooped, resting her cheek lightly against his, eyes vaguely
sweet in the moonlight.

"I love you so," she murmured, as though to herself, "and there seems no
end to it. It is such a hopeless sequence when yesterday's love becomes
to-day's adoration and to-morrow's worship. What am I to do? What is the
use of saying I am not free to love you, when I do?" She smiled
dreamily. "I was silly enough to think it impossible once. Do you
remember?"

"You darling!" he whispered, adoring her innocence. Then as he lay, head
cradled on her knees, looking up at her, all unbidden, a vision of the
future in its sharp-cut ominous desolation flashed into his vision--the
world without her!--the endless stretch of time--youth with no meaning,
effort wasted, attainment without desire, loneliness, arid, terrible
days unending.

"It is too--too senseless!" he breathed, stumbling to his feet as the
vague, scarcely formulated horror of it suddenly turned keen and bit
into him as he began to realise for the first time something of what it
threatened.

"What is it, Garry?" she asked in gentle concern, as he stood looking
darkly at her. "Is it time to go? You are tired, I know." She rose and
opened the great glass doors. "You poor tired boy," she whispered,
waiting for him. And as he did not stir: "What is the matter, Garry?"

"Nothing. I am trying to understand that our winter is ended."

She nodded. "Mother and Gray and Cecile and I go North in April.... I
wish we might stay through May--that is, if you--" She looked at him in
silent consternation. "Where will _you_ be!"

He said in a sullen voice: "That is what I was thinking of--our
separation.... Do you realise that it is almost here?"

"No," she said faintly, "I cannot."

He moved forward, opening the glass doors wider; she laid one hand on
his arm as though to guide herself; but the eastern corridors were
bright with moonlight, every corner illuminated.

They were very silent until they turned into the south corridor and
reached her door; and there he suddenly gave way to his passionate
resentment, breaking out like a spoiled boy:

"Shiela, I tell you it's going to be unendurable! There must be some way
out, some chance for us.... I _don't_ mean to ask you to do what
is--what you consider dishonourable. You wouldn't do it anyway, whether
or not I asked you--"

"But don't ask me," she said, turning very white. "I don't know what I
am capable of if I should ever see you suffer!"

"You _couldn't_ do it!" he repeated; "it isn't in you to take your
happiness at their expense, is it? You say you know how they would feel;
I don't. But if you're asking for an annulment--"

"What? Do you mean divorce?"

"No.... That is--different--"

"But what--"

"You dear," he said, suddenly gentle, "you have never been a--wife; and
you don't know it."

"Garry, are you mad?"

"Shiela, dear, some day will you very quietly ask some woman the
difference between divorce and annulment?"

"Y-yes, if you wish.... Is it something you mayn't tell me, Garry?"

"Yes.... I don't know! You sometimes make me feel as though I could tell
you anything.... Of course I couldn't ... you darling!" He stepped
nearer. "You are so good and sweet, so utterly beyond evil, or the
vaguest thought of it--"

"Garry--I am _not_! And you know it!"

He only laughed at her.

"You _don't_ think I am a horrid sort of saint, do you?"

"No, not the horrid sort--"

"Garry! How can you say such things when I'm half ready now to run away
with you!"

The sudden hint of fire in her face and voice, and something new in her
eyes, sobered him.

"Now do you know what I am?" she said, breathing unevenly and watching
him. "Only one thing keeps me respectable. I'd go with you; I'd live in
rags to be with you. I ask nothing in the world or of the world except
you. You could make me what you pleased, mould me--mar me, I
believe--and I would be the happiest woman who ever loved. _That_ is
your saint!"

Flushed with her swift emotion, she stood a minute facing him, then laid
her hand on the door knob behind her, still looking him in the eyes.
Behind her the door slowly swung open under the pressure.

His own self-control was fast going; he dared not trust himself to speak
lest he break down and beg for the only chance that her loyalty to
others forbade her to take. But the new and deeper emotion which she had
betrayed had awakened the ever-kindling impatience in him, and now,
afire, he stood looking desperately on all he must for ever lose, till
the suffering seemed unendurable in the checked violence of his revolt.

"Good night," she whispered sorrowfully, as the shadow deepened on his
altered face.

"Are you going!"

"Yes.... And, somehow I feel that perhaps it is better not to--kiss me
to-night. When I see you--this way--Garry, I could find it in me to do
anything--almost.... Good night."

Watching him, she waited in silence for a while, then turned slowly and
lighted the tiny night-lamp on the table beside her bed.

When she returned to the open door there was no light in the hall. She
heard him moving somewhere in the distance.

"Where are you, Garry?"

He came back slowly through the dim corridor.

"Were you going without a word to me?" she asked.

He came nearer and leaned against the doorway.

"You are quite right," he said sullenly. "I've been a fool to let us
drift in this way. I don't know where we're headed for, and it's time I
did."

"What do you mean?"--in soft consternation.

"That there is no hope left for us--and that we are both pretty young,
both in love, both close to desperation. At times I tell you I feel like
a cornered beast--feel like showing my teeth at the world--like tearing
you from it at any cost. I'd do it, too, if it were not for your father
and mother. You and I could stand it."

"I would let you do it--if it were not for them," she said.

They looked at one another, both pale.

"Would you give up the whole moral show for me?" he demanded.

"Yes."

"You'd get a first-rate scoundrel."

"I wouldn't care if it were you."

"There's one thing," he said with a bluntness bordering on brutality,
"all this is changing me into a man unfit to touch you. I warn you."

"What!"

"I tell you not to trust me!" he said almost savagely. "With heart and
soul and body on fire for you--mad for you--I'm not to be trusted!"

"And I?" she faltered, deadly pale.

"You don't know what you're saying!" he said violently.

"I--I begin to think I do.... Garry--Garry--I am learning very fast!...
How can I let you go!"

"The idea is," he said grimly, "for me to go before I go insane.... And
never again to touch you--"

"Why?"

"Peril!" he said. "I'm just a plain blackguard, Shiela."

"Would it change you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Not to touch me, not to kiss me. Could you go on always just loving
me?... Because if you could not--through the years that are coming--I--I
had rather take the risk--with you--than lose you."

He stood, head bent, not trusting himself to speak or look at her.

"Good-night," she said timidly.

He straightened up, stared at her, and turned on his heel, saying good
night in a low voice.

"Garry!"

"Good-night," he muttered, passing on.

Her heart was beating so violently that she pressed her hand to it,
leaning against the door sill.

"Garry!" she faltered, stretching out the other hand to him in the
darkness, "I--I do not care about the--risk--if you care to--kiss me--"

He swung round from the shadows to the dimly lighted sill; crossed it.
For a moment they looked into one another's eyes; then, blinded, she
swayed imperceptibly toward him, sighing as his arms tightened and her
own crept up around his neck.

She yielded, resigning lips, and lids, and throat, and fragrant hair,
and each slim finger in caress unending.

Conscious of nothing save that body and soul were safe in his beloved
keeping, she turned to him in all the passion of a guiltless love,
whispering her adoration, her faith, her trust, her worship of the man
who held her; then, adrift once more, the breathless magic overwhelmed
her; and she drew him to her, closer, desperately, hiding her head on
his breast.

"Take me away, Garry," she stammered--"take me with you. There is no
use--no use fighting it back. I shall die if you leave me.... Will you
take me? I--will be--everything that--that you would have me--that you
might wish for--in--in a--wife--"

She was crying now, crying her heart out, her face crushed against his
shoulder, clinging to him convulsively.

"Will you take me, Garry? What am I without you? I cannot give you up! I
will not.... Nobody can ask that of me--How can they ask that of me?--to
give you up--to let you go out of my little world for ever--to turn from
you, refuse you!... What a punishment for one instant's folly! If they
knew they would not let me suffer this way!--They would want me to tell
them--"

His dry lips unclosed. "Then _tell_ them!" he tried to say, but the
words were without sound; and, in the crisis of temptation, at the very
instant of yielding, suddenly he knew, somehow, that he would not yield.

It came to him calmly, without surprise or shock, this stupid certainty
of himself. And at the same moment the crisis was passing, leaving him
stunned, impassive, half senseless as the resurgent passion battered at
his will power, to wreck and undo it--deafening, imperative, wave on
wave, in vain.

The thing to do was to hold on. One of them was adrift; the other dared
not let go; he seemed to realise it, somehow. Odd bits of phrases,
old-fashioned sayings, maxims long obsolete came to him without reason
or sequence--"Greater love hath no man--no man--no man--" and "As ye do
unto the least of these "--odd bits of phrases, old-fashioned sayings,
maxims, alas! long obsolete, long buried with the wisdom of the dead.

He held her still locked in his arms. From time to time, unconsciously,
as her hot grief spent itself, he bent his head, laying his face against
hers, while his haggard, perplexed gaze wandered about the room.

In the dimness the snowy bed loomed beside them; pink roses patterned
curtain and wall; the tiny night-light threw a roseate glow across her
gown. In the fresh, sweet stillness of the room there was no sound or
stir save their uneven breathing.

Very gently he lifted one of her hands and looked at it almost
curiously--this small white hand so innocently smooth--as unblemished as
a child's--this unsullied little hand that for an instant seemed to be
slowly relaxing its grasp on the white simplicity around her--here in
this dim, fresh, fragrant world of hers, called, intimately, her room.

And here where night and morning had so long held sacred all that he
cared for upon earth--here in the white symbol of the world--her
room--he gave himself again to her, without a word, without hope,
knowing the end of all was near for them.

But it was she, not he, who must make the sign that ended all. And,
after a long, long time, as she made no sign:

"Dearest," he breathed, "I know now that you will never go with me--for
your father's sake."

That was premature, for she only clung the closer. He waited cautiously,
every instinct alert, his head close to hers. And at last the hot
fragrance of her tears announced the beginning of the end.

"Shiela?"

A stifled sound from his shoulder where her head lay buried.

"Choose now," he said.

No answer.

"Choose."

She cowered in his arms. He looked at the little hand once more, no
longer limp but clenched against his breast. And he knew that the end
was close at hand, and he spoke again, forcing her to her victory.

"Dearest, you must choose--"

"Garry!"

"Between those others--and me--"

She shrank out of his arms, turned with a sob, swayed, and sank on her
knees beside the bed, burying her head in her crossed arms.

This was her answer; and with it he went away into the darkness,
reeling, groping, while every pulse in him hammered ironic salutation to
the victor who had loved too well to win. And in his whirling brain
sounded the mocking repetition of his own words: "Nothing is lost
through love! Nothing is lost--nothing--nothing!"--flouting, taunting
him who had lost love itself there on the firing line, for a comrade's
sake.

His room was palely luminous with the lustre of the night. On the mantel
squatted a little wizened and gilded god peering and leering at him
through the shadows--Malcourt's parting gift--the ugliest of the
nineteen.

"For," said Malcourt--"there ought to be only eighteen by rights--unless
further complications arise; and this really belongs to you, anyway."

So he left the thing on Hamil's mantel, although the latter had no idea
what Malcourt meant, or why he made the parting offering.

Now he stood there staring at it like a man whose senses waver, and who
fixes some object to steady nerve and brain.

Far in the night the voice of the ocean stirred the silence--the ocean
which had given her to him that day in the golden age of fable when life
and the world were young together, and love wore a laughing mask.

He listened; all the night was sighing with the sigh of the surf; and
the breeze in the trees mourned; and the lustre died out in thickening
darkness as he stood there, listening.

Then all around him through the hushed obscurity a vague murmur grew,
accentless, sad, interminable; and through the monotone of the falling
rain he heard the ocean very far away washing the body of a young world
dead to him for ever.

       *       *       *       *       *

Crouched low beside her bed, face quivering in her arms, she heard, in
the stillness, the call of the sea--that enchanted sea which had given
him to her that day, when Time and the World were young together in the
blessed age of dreams.

And she heard the far complaint of the surf, breaking unsatisfied; and a
strange wind flowing through the trees; then silence, suspense; and the
world's dark void slowly filling with the dreadful monotone of the rain.

       *       *       *       *       *

Storm after storm of agony and doubt swept her; she prayed convulsively,
at random, reiterating incoherence in blind, frightened repetition till
the stupefying sequence lost all meaning.

Exhausted, half-senseless, her hands still clung together, her
tear-swollen lips still moved to form his name, asking God's mercy on
them both. But the end had come.

[Illustration: "Then fell prone, head buried in her tumbled hair."]

Yes, the end; she knew it now--understood what had happened, what must
be. And, knowing, she heard the sea-rain whispering their judgment,
and the winds repeating it across the wastes.

She raised her head, dumb, rigid, listening, and stared through the
shaking window into obscurity. Lightning flickered along the rim of the
world--a pallid threat above the sea--the sea which had given them to
one another and left them stranded in each other's arms there on the
crumbling edges of destruction.

Her strained eyes divined, her straining senses comprehended; she
cringed lower, aghast, swaying under the menace, then fell prone, head
buried in her tumbled hair.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the morning he left for the North and Portlaw's camp. Gray drove him
to the station; Cecile, in distractingly pretty negligee waved him
audacious adieu from her window.

"Shiela seems to be ill," explained Gray, as the motor car shot out into
the haze of early morning. "She asked me to say good-bye for her.... I
say, Hamil, you're looking rather ill yourself. This climate is sure to
get a white man sooner or later, if he remains too long. But the North
will put you into condition. You're going straight to Portlaw's camp on
Luckless Lake?"

"Yes," said Hamil listlessly.

"Well, we'll be in New York in a week or two. You'll surely look us up
when you're in town, won't you? And write me a line about Acton and
father--won't you?"

"Surely," nodded Hamil absently.

And they sped on, the vast distorted shadow of the car racing beside
them to the station.



CHAPTER XIX

THE LINE OF BATTLE


Portlaw's camp in the southern foot-hills of the Adirondacks was as much
a real camp as the pretentious constructions at Newport are real
cottages. A modesty, akin to smugness, designates them all with
Heep-like humbleness under a nomenclature now tolerated through usage;
and, from the photographs sent him, Hamil was very much disgusted to
find a big, handsome two-story house, solidly constructed of timber and
native stone, dominating a clearing in the woods, and distantly flanked
by the superintendent's pretty cottage, the guides' quarters, stables,
kennels, coach-houses, and hothouses with various auxiliary buildings
still farther away within the sombre circle of the surrounding pines.

To this aggravation of elaborate structures Portlaw, in a spasm of
modesty, had given the name of "Camp Chickadee"; and now he wanted to
stultify the remainder of his domain with concrete terraces, bridges,
lodges, and Gothic towers in various and pleasing stages of ruin.

So Hamil's problem presented itself as one of those annoyingly simple
ones, entirely dependent upon Portlaw and good taste; and Portlaw had
none.

He had, however, some thirty thousand acres of woods and streams and
lakes fenced in with a twelve-foot barrier of cattle-proof wire--partly
a noble virgin wilderness unmarred by man-trails; partly composed of
lovely second growth scarcely scarred by that, vile spoor which is the
price Nature pays for the white-hided invaders who walk erect, when not
too drunk, and who foul and smear and stain and desolate water and earth
and air around them.

Why Portlaw desired to cut his wilderness into a mincing replica of some
emasculated British royal forest nobody seemed able to explain. While at
Palm Beach he had made two sage observations to Hamil concerning the
sacredness of trees; one was that there are no trees in a Scotch deer
forest, which proved to his satisfaction that trees are unnecessary; the
other embodied his memories of seeing a herd of calf-like fallow deer
decorating the grass under the handsome oaks and beeches of some British
nobleman's park.

Why Portlaw concerned himself at all with his wild, out-world domain was
a mystery, too; for he admitted that he spent almost all day playing
cards indoors or contriving with his cook some new and succulent
experiment in the gastronomical field.

Sometimes he cast a leaden eye outdoors when his dogs were exercised
from the kennel; rarely, and always unwillingly, he followed Malcourt to
the hatchery to watch the stripping, or to the exotic pheasantry to
inspect the breeding of birds entirely out of place in such a climate.

He did like to see a fat deer; the fatter the better; he was accustomed,
too, to poke his thumb into the dead plumage of a plump grouse when
Malcourt's men laid out the braces, on which he himself never drew
trigger; and which interested him only when on the table.

He wanted plenty of game and fish on the place for that reason; he
wanted his guests to shoot and fish for that reason, too. Otherwise he
cared nothing for his deer, his grouse, and his trout. And why he
suddenly had been bitten with a mania for "improving" the flawless
wilderness about him, even Malcourt did not know.

Hamil, therefore, was prepared for a simple yet difficult problem--to do
as little harm to the place as possible, and to appease Portlaw at the
same time, and curb his meddlesome and iconoclastic proclivities.

Spring had begun early in the North; shallow snows were fading from the
black forest soil along the streams' edges, and from the pebbled shores
of every little lake; already the soft ice was afloat on pool and pond;
muskrats swam; the eggs of the woodcock were beginning their chilly
incubation; and in one sheltered spring-hole behind the greenhouse
Malcourt discovered a solemn frog afloat. It takes only a single frog to
make the spring-time.

That week the trailing fragrance of arbutus hung over wet hollows along
the hills; and at night, high in the starlight, the thrilling clangour
of wild geese rang out--the truest sky-music of the North among all the
magic folk-songs of the wild.

The anchor-ice let go and went out early, and a few pioneer trout jumped
that week; the cock-grouse, magnificent in his exquisite puffed ruff,
paced the black-wet drumming log, and the hollow woodlands throbbed all
day with his fairy drumming.

On hard-wood ridges every sugar-bush ran sap; the aroma from fire and
kettle sweetened the air; a few battered, hibernating butterflies
crawled out of cracks and crannies and sat on the sap-pans sunning
their scarlet-banded wings.

And out of the hot South into the fading silver of this chill Northern
forest-world came Hamil, sunburned, sombre-eyed, silent.

Malcourt met him at Pride's Fall with a buckboard and a pair of
half-broken little Morgans; and away they tore into the woods,
scrambling uphill, plunging downhill, running away most of the time to
the secret satisfaction of Malcourt, who cared particularly for what was
unsafe in life.

He looked sideways at Hamil once or twice, and, a trifle disappointed
that the pace seemed to suit him, let the little horses out.

"Bad thing to meet a logging team," he observed.

"Yes," said Hamil absently. So Malcourt let the horses run away when
they cared to; they needed it and he enjoyed it. Besides there were
never any logging teams on that road.

Malcourt inquired politely concerning the Villa Cardross and its
occupants; Hamil answered in generalities.

"You've finished there, then!"

"Practically. I may go down in the autumn to look it over once more."

"Is Cardross going to put in the Schwarzwald pigs?"

"Yes; they're ordered."

"Portlaw wants some here. I'd give ten dollars, poor as I am, if I could
get Portlaw out in the snow and fully occupied with an irritated boar."

"Under such circumstances one goes up a tree?" inquired Hamil, smiling.

"One does if one is not too fat and can shed snowshoes fast enough.
Otherwise one keeps on shooting one's 45-70. By the way, you were in New
York for a day or two. How's the market?"

"Sagging."

"Money?"

"Scarce. I saw Mr. Cardross and Acton Carrick. Nobody seems enthusiastic
over the prospect. While there are no loans being called there are few
being made. I heard rumours of course; a number of banks and trust
companies are getting themselves whispered about. Outside of that I
don't know, Malcourt, because I haven't much money and what I have is on
deposit with the Shoshone Securities Company pending a chance for some
safe and attractive investment."

"That's Cardross, Carrick & Co."

"Yes." And as they whirled into the clearing and the big, handsome house
came into view he smiled: "Is this Camp Chickadee?"

"Yes, and yonder's my cottage on Luckless Lake--a nice name," added
Malcourt, "but Portlaw says it's safer to leave the name as it stands
than to provoke the gods with boastful optimism by changing it to Lucky
Lake. Oh, it's a gay region; Lake Desolation lies just beyond that spur;
Lake Eternity east of us; Little Scalp Lake west--a fine bunch of names
for a landscape in hell; but Portlaw won't change them. West and south
the wet bones of the Sacandaga lie; and south-east you're up against the
Great Vlaie and Frenchman's Creek and Sir William's remains from Guy
Park on the Mohawk to the Fish House and all that bally Revolutionary
tommy-rot." And as he blandly drew in his horses beside the porch: "Look
who's here! Who but our rotund friend and lover of all things fat, lord
of the manor of Chickadee-dee-dee which he has taught the neighbouring
dicky-birds, who sit around the house, to repeat aloud in honour of--"

"For Heaven's sake, Louis! How are you, Hamil?" grunted Portlaw,
extending a heavily cushioned, highly coloured hand of welcome.

Hamil and Malcourt descended; a groom blanketed the horses and took them
to the stables; and Portlaw, with a large gesture of impatient
hospitality, led the way into a great, warm living-room, snug, deeply
and softly padded, and in which the fragrance of burning birch-logs and
simmering toddy blended agreeably in the sunshine.

"For luncheon," began Portlaw with animation, "we're going to try a new
sauce on that pair of black ducks they brought in--"

"In violation of the laws of game and decency," observed Malcourt,
shedding his fur coat and unstrapping the mail-satchel from Pride's
Fall.

"_Shut_ up, Louis! Can't a man eat the things that come into his own
property?" And he continued unfolding to Hamil his luncheon programme
while, with a silver toddy-stick, heirloom from bibulous generations of
Portlaws, he stirred the steaming concoction which, he explained, had
been constructed after the great Sir William's own receipt.

"You've never tried a Molly Brant toddy? Man alive, you've wasted your
youth," he insisted, genuinely grieved. "Well, wise men, chiefs, and
sachems, here's more hair on your scalp-locks, and a fat buck to every
bow!"

Malcourt picked up his glass. "_Choh_" he said maliciously; but Portlaw
did not understand the irony in the Seminole salutation of The Black
Drink; and the impudent toast was swallowed without suspicion.

Then Hamil's luggage arrived, and he went away to inspect his quarters,
prepare for luncheon, and exchange his attire for forest dress. For he
meant to lose no time in the waste corners of the earth when Gotham town
might any day suddenly bloom like Eden with the one young blossom that
he loved.

There was not much for him in Eden now--little enough except to be in
her vicinity, near her at times, at intervals with her long enough to
exchange a word or two under the smooth mask of convention which leaves
even the eyes brightly expressionless.

Never again to touch her hand save under the formal laws sanctioned by
usage; never again to wake with the intimate fragrance of her memory on
his lips; never again to wait for the scented dusk to give them to each
other--to hear her frail gown's rustle on the terrace, her footfall in
the midnight corridor, her far, sweet hail to him from the surf, her
soft laughter under the roses on the moon-lit balcony.

That--all of it--was forever ended. But he believed that the pallid
northern phantom of the past was still left to him; supposed that now,
at least, they might miserably consider themselves beyond peril.

But what man supposes of woman is vain imagining; and in that shadowy
neutral ground which lies between martyrdom and sin no maid dwells for
very long before she crosses one frontier or the other.

When he descended the stairs once more he found Portlaw, surrounded by
the contents of the mail-sack, and in a very bad temper, while Malcourt
stood warming his back at the blazing birch-logs, and gazing rather
stupidly at a folded telegram in his hands.

"Well, Hamil--damn it all! What do you think of that!" demanded Portlaw,
turning to Hamil as he entered the room; and unheeding Malcourt's
instinctive gesture of caution which he gave, not comprehending why he
gave it, Portlaw went on, fairly pouting out his irritation:

"In that bally mail-sack which Louis brought in from Pride's Fall
there's a telegram from your friend, Neville Cardross; and why the devil
he wants Louis to come to New York on the jump--"

"I have a small balance at the Shoshone Trust," said Malcourt. "Do you
suppose there's anything queer about the company?"

Hamil shook his head, looking curiously at Malcourt.

"Well, what on earth do you think Cardross wants with you?" demanded
Portlaw. "Read that telegram again."

Again Malcourt's instinct seemed to warn him to silence. All the same,
with a glance at Hamil, he unfolded the bit of yellow paper and read:

   "LOUIS MALCOURT,
      "Superintendent Luckless Lake,
          "Adirondacks.

   "Your presence is required at my office in the Shoshone
   Securities Building on a matter of most serious and instant
   importance. Telegraph what train you can catch. Mr. Carrick will
   meet you on the train at Albany.

                                              "NEVILLE CARDROSS.
   "Answer Paid."

"Well, what the devil does it mean?" demanded Portlaw peevishly. "I
can't spare you now. How can I? Here's Hamil all ready for you to take
him about and show him what I want to have done--"

"I wonder what it means," mused Malcourt. "Maybe there's something wrong
with the Tressilvain end of the family. The Shoshone Securities people
manage her investments here--"

"The way to do is to wire and find out," grumbled Portlaw, leading the
way to the luncheon table as a servant announced that function.

For it was certainly a function with Portlaw; all eating was more or
less of a ceremony, and dinner rose to the dignity of a rite.

"I can't imagine what that telegram--"

"Forget it!" snapped Portlaw; "do you want to infect my luncheon? When a
man lunches he ought to give his entire mind to it. Talk about your lost
arts!--the art of eating scarcely survives at all. Find it again and you
revive that other lost art of prandial conversation. Digestion's not
possible without conversation. Hamil, you look at your claret in a funny
way."

"I was admiring the colour where the sun strikes through," said the
latter, amused.

"Oh! I thought you were remembering that claret is temporarily
unfashionable. That's part of the degeneracy of the times. There never
was and never will be any wine to equal it when it has the body of a
Burgundy and the bouquet of wild-grape blossoms. Louis," cocking his
heavy red face and considering a morsel of duck, "what is your opinion
concerning the proper mélange for that plumcot salad dressing?"

"They say," said Malcourt gravely, "that when it's mixed, a current of
electricity passed through it gives it a most astonishing flavour--"

"What!"

"So they say at the Stuyvesant Club."

Portlaw's eyes bulged; Hamil had to bend his head low over his plate,
but Malcourt's bland impudence remained unperturbed.

"Good God!" muttered Portlaw; "Hamil, did you ever hear of passing
electricity through a salad dressing composed of olive oil, astragon,
Arequipa pepper, salt, Samara mustard, essence of anchovy, chives,
distilled fresh mushrooms, truffles pickled in 1840 port--_did_ you?"

"No," said Hamil, "I never did."

For a while silence settled upon the table while Portlaw struggled to
digest mentally the gastronomic suggestion offered by Malcourt.

"I could send to town for a battery," he said hesitatingly; "or--there's
my own electric plant--"

Malcourt yawned. There was not much fun in exploiting such a man.
Besides, Hamil had turned uncomfortable, evidently considering it the
worst of taste on Malcourt's part.

"What am I to do about that telegram?" he asked, lighting a cigarette.

Portlaw, immersed in sauce and the electrical problem, adjusted his mind
with an effort to this other and less amusing question.

"Wire for particulars and sit tight," advised Portlaw. "We've just three
now for 'Preference,' and if you go kiting off to town Hamil and I will
be forced into double dummy, and that's a horrible mental strain on a
man--isn't it, Hamil?"

"I _could_ use the long-distance telephone," said Malcourt pensively.

"Well, for the love of Mike go and do it!" shouted Portlaw, "and let me
try to enjoy this Andelys cheese."

So Malcourt sauntered out through the billiard-room, leaving an aromatic
trail of cigarette smoke in his wake; and he closed all the intervening
doors--why, he himself could not have explained.

He was absent a long time. Portlaw had terminated the table ceremony,
and now, ensconced among a dozen fat cushions by the fire, a plump cigar
burning fragrantly between his curiously clean-cut and sharply chiselled
lips, he sat enthroned, majestically digesting; and his face of a Greek
hero, marred by heavy flesh, had become almost somnolent in its
expression of well-being and corporeal contentment.

"I don't know what I'd do without Louis," he said sleepily. "He keeps my
men hustling, he answers for everything on the bally place, he's so
infernally clever that he amuses me and my guests, he's on the job every
minute. It would be devilishly unpleasant for me if I lost him.... And
I'm always afraid of it.... There are usually a lot of receptive girls
making large eyes at him.... My only safety is that they are so
many--and so easy.... If Cardross hadn't signed that telegram I'd bet my
_bottes-sauvage_ it concerned some entanglement."

Hamil lay back in his chair and studied the forest through the leaded
casement. Sometimes he thought of Portlaw's perverse determination to
spoil the magnificent simplicity of the place with exotic effects lugged
in by the ears; sometimes he wondered what Mr. Cardross could have to
say to Malcourt--what matter of such urgent importance could possibly
concern those two men.

And, thinking, he thought of Shiela--and of their last moments together;
thought of her as he had left her, crouched there on her knees beside
the bed, her face and head buried in her crossed arms.

Portlaw was nodding drowsily over his cigar; the April sunshine streamed
into the room through every leaded pane, inlaying the floor with glowing
diamonds; dogs barked from the distant kennels; cocks were crowing from
the farm. Outside the window he saw how the lilac's dully varnished buds
had swollen and where the prophecy of snow-drop and crocus under the
buckthorn hedge might be fulfilled on the morrow. Already over the
green-brown, soaking grass one or two pioneer grackle were walking
busily about; and somewhere in a near tree the first robin chirked and
chirped and fussed in its loud and familiar fashion, only partly pleased
to find himself in the gray thaw of the scarcely comfortable North once
more.

Portlaw looked up dully: "Those robins come up here and fatten on our
fruit, and a fool law forbids us to shoot 'em. Robin pie," he added, "is
not to be despised, but a sentimental legislature is the limit....
Sentiment always did bore me.... How do you feel after your luncheon?"

"All right," said Hamil, smiling. "I'd like to start out as soon as
Malcourt comes back."

"Oh, don't begin that sort of thing the moment you get here!" protested
Portlaw. "My heavens, man! there's no hurry. Can't you smoke a cigar and
play a card or two--"

"You know I've other commissions--"

"Oh, of course; but I hoped you'd have time to take it easy. I've
looked forward to having you here--so has Malcourt; he thinks you're
about right, you know. And he makes damn few friends among men--"

The door opened and Malcourt entered slowly, almost noiselessly. There
was not a vestige of colour in his face, nor of expression as he crossed
the room for a match and relighted his cigarette.

"Well?" inquired Portlaw, "did you get Cardross on the wire?"

"Yes."

Malcourt stood motionless, hands in his pockets, the cigarette smoke
curling up blue in the sunshine.

"I've got to go," he said.

"What for?" demanded Portlaw, then sulkily begged pardon and pouted his
dissatisfaction in silence.

"When do you go, Malcourt?" asked Hamil, still wondering.

"Now." He lifted his head but looked across at Portlaw. "I've telephoned
the stable, and called up Pride's Fall to flag the five-thirty express,"
he said.

Portlaw was growing madder and madder.

"Would you mind telling me when you expect to be back?" he inquired
ill-temperedly.

"I don't know yet."

"Don't know!" burst out Portlaw; "hell's bells!"

Malcourt shook his head.

Portlaw profanely requested information as to how the place was to be
kept going. Malcourt was patient with him to the verge of indifference.

"There's nothing to blow up about. Hastings is competent to manage
things--"

"That conceited pup!"

"Hastings understands," repeated Malcourt, in a listless voice. "I've
always counted on Alexander Hastings for any emergency. He knows things,
and he's capable.... Only don't be brusque. He doesn't understand you as
I do ... and he's fully your equal--fully--in every way--and then
some--" The weariness in his tone was close to a sneer; he dropped his
cigarette into the fire and began to roll another.

"Louis," said Portlaw, frightened.

"Well?"

"What the devil is the meaning of all this? You _are_ coming back,
aren't you?"

Malcourt continued to roll his cigarette, but after a while he spoiled
it and began to construct another.

"_Are_ you, Louis?"

"What?"

"Coming back here--soon?"

"If I--if it's the thing to do. I don't know yet. You mustn't press the
matter now."

"You think there's a chance that you won't come back at _all_!"
exclaimed Portlaw, aghast.

Malcourt's cigarette fell to pieces in his fingers.

"I'll come if I can, Billy. I tell you to let me alone.... I don't know
where I am coming out--yet."

"If it's money you need, you know perfectly well--"

But Malcourt shook his head. From the moment of his entrance he had kept
his face carefully averted from Hamil's view; had neither looked at him
nor spoken except in monosyllabic answer to a single question.

The rattle of the buckboard on the wet gravel drive brought Portlaw to
his feet. A servant appeared with Malcourt's suit-case and overcoat.

"There's a trunk to follow; Williams is to pack what I need....
Good-bye, Billy. I wouldn't go if I didn't have to."

Portlaw took his offered hand as though dazed.

"You'll come back, of course," he said, "in a couple of days--or a week
if you like--but you'll be back, of course. You know if there's anything
the matter with your salary just say so. I always meant you should feel
perfectly free to fix your salary to suit yourself. Only be sure to come
back in a week, won't you?"

"Good-bye," said Malcourt in a low voice. "I'd like to talk to Hamil--if
he can give me a few moments."

Bareheaded, Hamil stepped out into the clear, crisp, April sunshine
where the buckboard stood on the gravel.

The strong outdoor light emphasized Malcourt's excessive pallor, and the
hand he offered Hamil was icy. Then his nervous grasp relaxed; he drew
on his dog-pelt driving gloves and buttoned the fur coat to the throat.

"I want you--to--to remember--remember that I always liked you," he said
with an effort, in curious contrast to his habitual fluency. "You won't
believe it--some day. But it is true.... Perhaps I'll prove it, yet....
My father used to say that everything except death had been proven; and
there remained, therefore, only one event of any sporting interest to
the world.... He was a very interesting man--my father. He did not
believe in death.... And I do not.... This sloughing off of the material
integument seems to me purely a matter of the mechanical routine of
evolution, a natural process in further and inevitable development, not
a finality to individualism!... Fertilisation, gestation, the hatching,
growth, the episodic deliverance from encasing matter which is called
death, seem to me only the first few basic steps in the sequences of an
endless metamorphosis.... My father thought so. His was a very fine
mind--_is_ a finer mind still.... Will you understand me if I say that
we often communicate with each other--my father and I?"

"Communicate?" repeated Hamil.

"Often."

Hamil said slowly: "I don't think I understand."

Malcourt looked at him, the ever-latent mockery flickering in his eyes;
then, by degrees, his head bent forward in the old half-cunning,
half-wistful attitude as though listening. A vague smile touched the
pallor of his face, and he presently looked up with something of his old
debonair impudence.

"The truly good are always so interested in creating hell for the
wicked," he said, "that sometimes the good get into the pit themselves
just to see how hot it really is. And find the wicked have never been
there.... Hamil, the hopelessly wicked--and there are few of them who
are not mentally irresponsible--never go to hell because they wouldn't
mind it if they did. It's the good who are hell's architects and often
its tenants.... I'm speaking of all prisoners of conscience. The wicked
have none."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"There's always an exit from one of these temporary little pits of
torment," he said; "when one finds it too oppressive in the shade....
When one obtains a proper perspective, and retains one's sense of
humour, and enough of conscience to understand the crime of losing
time.... And when, in correct perspective, one realises the fictitious
value of that temporary phase called the human unit, and when one cuts
free from the absurd dogma concerning the dignity and the sanctity of
that human unit.... I'm keeping you from your cigar and arm-chair and
from Portlaw.... A good, kindly gossip, who fed my belly and filled my
purse and loved me for the cards I played. I'm a yellow pup to mock him.
I'm a pup anyhow.... But, Hamil, there is, in the worst pup, one streak
not all yellow. And the very worst are capable of one friendship. You
may not believe this some day. But it is true.... Good-bye."

"Is there anything, Malcourt--"

"Nothing you can do for me. Perhaps something I can do for you--" And,
laughing, "I'll consult my father; he's not very definite on that point
yet."

So Malcourt swung aboard the wagon, nodded again to Hamil, waved a
pleasant adieu to Portlaw at the window, and was gone in a shower of wet
gravel and mud.

And all that day Portlaw fussed and fumed and pouted about the house,
tormenting Hamil with questions and speculations concerning the going of
Malcourt, which for a while struck Hamil merely as selfish ebullitions;
but later it came to him by degrees that this rich, selfish, over-fed,
over-pampered, and revoltingly idle landowner, whose sole mental and
physical resources were confined to the dinner and card tables, had been
capable of a genuine friendship for Malcourt. Self-centred, cautious to
the verge of meanness in everything which did not directly concern his
own comfort and well-being, he, nevertheless, was totally dependent upon
his friends for a full enjoyment of his two amusements; for he hated to
dine alone and he loathed solitaire.

Therefore, in spending money to make his house and grounds attractive
to his friends, he was ministering, as always, to himself; and when he
first took Malcourt for his superintendent he did so from purely selfish
motives and at a beggarly stipend.

And now, in the two years of his official tenure, Malcourt already
completely dominated him, often bullied him, criticised him to his face,
betrayed no illusions concerning the absolute self-interest which
dictated Portlaw's policy in all things, coolly fixed and regulated all
salaries, including his own, and, in short, matched Portlaw's
undisguised selfishness with a cynicism so sparkling and so frankly
ruthless that Portlaw gradually formed for him a real attachment.

There was no indiscriminate generosity in that attachment; he never
voluntarily increased Malcourt's salary or decreased his
responsibilities; he got out of his superintendent every bit of labour
and every bit of amusement he could at the lowest price Malcourt would
take; yet, in spite of that he really cared for Malcourt; he secretly
admired his intellectual equipment; feared it, too; and the younger
man's capacity for dissipation made him an invaluable companion when
Portlaw emerged from his camp in November and waddled forth upon his
annual hunt for happiness.

Something of this Hamil learned through the indiscriminate volubility of
his host who, when his feelings had been injured, was amusingly naive
for such a self-centred person.

"That damn Louis," he confided to Hamil over their after-dinner cigars,
"has kept me guessing ever since he took command here. Half the time I
don't understand what he's talking about even when I know he's making
fun of me; but, Hamil, you have no idea how I miss him."

And on another occasion a week later, while laboriously poring over some
rough plans laid out for him by Hamil:

"Louis agrees with you about this improvement business. He's dead
against my building Rhine-castle ruins on the crags, and he had the
impudence to inform me that I had a cheap mind. By God, Hamil, I can't
see anything cheap in trying to spend a quarter of a million in
decorating this infernal monotony of trees; can you?"

And Hamil, for the first time in many a day, lay back in his arm-chair
and laughed with all his heart.

He had hard work in weaning Portlaw from his Rhine castles, for the
other invariably met his objections by quoting in awful German:

    "Hast du das Schloss gesehen--
    Das hohe Schloss am Meer?"

--pronounced precisely as though the words were English. Which laudable
effort toward intellectual and artistic uplift Hamil never laughed at;
and there ensued always the most astonishing _causerie_ concerning art
that two men in a wilderness ever engaged in.

Young Hastings, a Yale academic and forestry graduate, did fairly well
in Malcourt's place, and was doing better every day. For one thing he
knew much more about practical forestry and the fish and game problems
than did Malcourt, who was a better organiser than executive.

He began by dumping out into a worthless and landlocked bass-pond every
brown trout in the hatchery. He then drew off the water in the
brown-trout ponds, sent in men with seines and shotguns, and finally,
with dynamite, purged the free waters of the brown danger for good and
all.

"When Malcourt comes back," observed Portlaw, "you'll have to answer for
all this."

"I won't be questioned," said Hastings, smiling.

"Oh! And what do you propose to do next?"

"If I had the money you think of spending on ruined castles "--very
respectfully--"I'd build a wall in place of that mesh-wire fence."

"Why?" asked Portlaw.

"The wire deceives the grouse when they come driving headlong through
the woods. My men pick up dozens of dead grouse and woodcock along the
fence. If it were a wall they'd go over it. As it is, if I had my way,
I'd restock with Western ruffed-grouse; cut out that pheasantry
altogether, and try to breed our own native game-bird--"

"What! You can't breed ruffed-grouse in captivity!"

"I've done it, sir," said young Hastings modestly.

That night, over the plans, Portlaw voiced his distrust of Hastings and
mourned aloud for Malcourt.

"That infernal Louis," he complained, waving his fat cigar, "hasn't
written one line to me in a week! What the deuce is he doing down there
in town? I won't stand it! The ice is out and Wayward and Cuyp and
Vetchen are coming up for the fishing; and Mrs. Ascott, perhaps, is
coming, and Miss Palliser, and, I hope, Miss Suydam; that makes our
eight for Bridge, you see, with you and me. If Louis were here I'd have
three others--but I can't ask anybody else until I know."

"Perhaps you'll get a telegram when the buckboard returns from Pride's
Fall," said Hamil quietly. He, too, had been waiting for a letter that
had not come. Days were lengthening into weeks since his departure from
the South; and the letter he taught himself to expect had never come.

That she would write sooner or later he had dared believe at first; and
then, as day after day passed, belief faded into hope; and now the
colours of hope were fading into the gray tension of suspense.

He had written her every day, cheerful, amusing letters of current
commonplaces which now made up his life. In them was not one hint of
love--no echo of former intimacy, nothing of sadness, or regret, only a
friendly sequence of messages, of inquiries, of details recounting the
events of the days as they dawned and faded through the silvery promise
of spring in the chill of the Northern hills.

Every morning and evening the fleet little Morgans came tearing in from
Pride's Fall with the big leather mail-bag, which bore Portlaw's
initials in metal, bulging with letters, newspapers, magazines for
Portlaw; and now and then a slim envelope for him from his aunt, or
letters, bearing the Palm Beach post-mark, from contractors on the
Cardross estate, or from his own superintendent. But that was all.

His days were passed afoot in the forested hills, along lonely little
lakes, following dashing trout-brooks or studying the United States
Geological Survey maps which were not always accurate in minor details
of contour, and sometimes made a mockery of the lesser water-courses,
involving him and his surveyors in endless complications.

Sometimes, toward evening, if the weather was mild, he and Portlaw took
their rods for a cast on Painted Creek--a noble trout stream which took
its name from the dropping autumn glory of the sugar-bush where the
water passed close to the house. There lithe, wild trout struck
tigerishly at the flies and fought like demons, boring Portlaw
intensely, who preferred to haul in a prospective dinner without waste
of energy, and be about the matter of a new sauce with his cook.



CHAPTER XX

A NEW ENEMY


One evening in April, returning with a few brace of trout, they found
the mail-bag awaiting them on the hall table; and Portlaw distributed
the contents, proclaiming, as usual, his expectation of a letter from
Malcourt.

There was none. And, too peevish and disappointed to even open the
heterogeneous mass of letters and newspapers, he slumped sulkily in his
chair, feet on the fender, biting into his extinct cigar.

"That devilish Louis," he said, "has been away for several of the most
accursedly lonely weeks I ever spent.... No reflection on you,
Hamil--Oh, I beg your pardon; I didn't see you were busy--"

Hamil had not even heard him. He was busy--very busy with a
letter--dozens of sheets of a single letter, closely written, smeared in
places--the letter that had come at last!

In the fading light he bent low over the pages. Later a servant lighted
the lamps; later still Portlaw went into the library, drew out a book
bound in crushed levant, pushed an electric button, and sat down. The
book bound so admirably in crushed levant was a cook-book; the bell he
rang summoned his cook.

In the lamplit living-room the younger man bent over the letter that had
come at last. It was dated early in April; had been written at Palm
Beach, carried to New York, but had only been consigned to the mails
within thirty-six hours:

   "I have had all your letters--but no courage to answer. Now you
   will write no more.

   "Dear--this, my first letter to you, is also my last. I know now
   what the condemned feel who write in the hour of death.

   "When you went away on Thursday I could not leave my room to say
   good-bye to you. Gray came and knocked, but I was not fit to be
   seen. If I hadn't looked so dreadfully I wouldn't have minded
   being ill. You know that a little illness would not have kept me
   from coming to say good-bye to you.

   "So you went away, all alone with Gray. I remained in bed that
   day with the room darkened. Mother and Cecile were troubled but
   could not bring themselves to believe that my collapse was due to
   your going. It was not logical, you know, as we all expected to
   see you in a week or two in New York.

   "So they had Dr. Vernam, and I took what he prescribed, and
   nobody attached any undue importance to the matter. So I was left
   to myself, and I lay and thought out what I had to do.

   "Dear--I knew there was only one thing to do; I knew whither my
   love--our love--was carrying me--faster and faster--spite of all
   I'd said. _Said_! What are words beside such love as ours? What
   would be my affection for dad and mother beside my love for you?
   Would your loyalty and your dear self-denial continue to help me
   when they only make me love you more intensely?

   "There is only one thing clear in all this pitiful confusion;
   I--whom they took and made their child--cannot sacrifice them!
   And yet I _would_!--oh, Garry!--I would for you. There was no
   safety for me at all as long as there was the slightest chance to
   sacrifice everything--everybody--and give myself to you.

   "Listen! On the second day after you left I was sitting with
   mother and Cecile on the terrace. We were quietly discussing the
   closing of the house and other harmless domestic matters. All at
   once there swept over me such a terrible sense of desolation that
   I think I lost my mind; for the next thing I knew I was standing
   in my own room, dressed for travelling--with a hand-bag in my
   hand.

   "It was my maid knocking that brought me to my senses: I had been
   going away to find you; that was all I could realise. And I sank
   on my bed, trembling; and presently fell into the grief-stricken
   lethargy which is all I know now of sleep.

   "But when I woke to face the dreadful day again, I knew the time
   had come. And I went to mother that evening and told her.

   "But, Garry, there is never to be any escape from deception, it
   seems; I had to make her think I _wanted_ to acknowledge and take
   up life with my husband. My life is to be a living lie!...

   "As I expected, mother was shocked and grieved beyond words--and,
   dearest, they are bitterly disappointed; they all had hoped it
   would be _you_.

   "She says there must positively be another ceremony. I don't know
   how dad will take it--but mother is so good, so certain of his
   forgiving me.

   "It wrings my heart--the silent astonishment of Cecile and
   Gray--and their trying to make the best of it, and mother,
   smiling for my sake, tender, forgiving, solicitous, and deep
   under all bitterly disappointed. Oh, well--she can bear that
   better than disgrace.

   "I've been crying over this letter; that's what all this blotting
   means.

   "Now I can never see you again; never touch your hand, never look
   into those brown eyes again--Garry! Garry!--never while life
   lasts.

   "I ask forgiveness for all the harm my love has done to you, for
   all the pain it has caused you, for the unhappiness that, please
   God, will not endure with you too long.

   "I have tried to pray that the pain will not last too long for
   you; I will try to pray that you may love another woman and
   forget all this unhappiness.

   "Think of me as one who died, loving you. I cling to this paper
   as though it were your hand. But--

   "Dearest--dearest--Good-by.

                                               "SHIELA CARDROSS."

When Portlaw came in from his culinary conference he found Hamil
scattering the black ashes of a letter among the cinders.

"Well, we're going to try an old English receipt on those trout," he
began cheerfully--and stopped short at sight of Hamil's face.

"What's the matter?" he asked bluntly.

"Nothing."

Hamil returned to his chair and picked up a book; Portlaw looked at him
for a moment, then, perplexed, sorted his mail and began to open the
envelopes.

"Bills, bills," he muttered, "appeals for some confounded foundlings'
hospital--all the eternal junk my flesh is heir to--and a letter from a
lawyer--let them sue!--and a--a--hey! what the devil--what the--"

Portlaw was on his feet, startled eyes fairly protruding as he scanned
incredulously the engraved card between his pudgy fingers.

"O Lord!" he bellowed; "it's all up! The entire bally business has gone
up! That pup of a Louis!--Oh, there's no use!--Look here, Hamil! I tell
you I can't believe it, I can't, and I won't--_Look_ what that fool card
says!"

And Hamil's stunned gaze fell on the engraved card:

"Mr. and Mrs. Neville Cardross have the honour of announcing the
marriage of their daughter Shiela to Mr. Louis Malcourt."

The date and place followed.

Portlaw was making considerable noise over the matter, running about
distractedly with little, short, waddling steps. Occasionally he aimed a
kick at a stuffed arm-chair, which did not hurt his foot too much.

It was some time before he calmed enough to pout and fume and protest in
his usual manner, appealing alternately to Heaven as witness and to
Hamil for corroboration that he had been outrageously used.

"Now, who the devil could suspect him of such intention!" wailed poor
Portlaw. "God knows, he was casual with the sex. There have been dozens
of them, Hamil, literally dozens in every port!--from Mamie and Stella
up to Gladys and Ethelberta! Yes, he was Harry to some and Reginald to
others--high, low--and the game, Hamil--the game amused him; but so help
me kings and aces! I never looked for this--never so help me; and I
thought him as safe with the Vere-de-Veres as he was with the Pudding
Sisters, Farina and Tapioca! And now"--passionately displaying the
engraved card--"look who's here!... O pip! What's the use."

Dinner modified his grief; hope bubbled in the Burgundy, simmered in the
soup, grew out of gravy like the sturdy, eternal weed she is, parasitic
in the human breast.

"He's probably married a million or so," suggested Portlaw, mollified
under the seductive appeal of a fruit salad dressed with a mixture
containing nearly a hundred different ingredients. "If he has I don't
see why he shouldn't build a camp next to mine. I'll give him the
land--if he doesn't care to pay for it," he added cautiously. "Don't say
anything to him about it, Hamil. After all, why shouldn't he pay for the
land?... But if he doesn't want to--between you and me--I'll come within
appreciable distance of almost giving him what land he needs.... O gee!
O fizz! That damn Louis!... And I'm wondering--about several matters--"

After dinner Portlaw settled down by the fire, cigar lighted, and began
to compose a letter to Malcourt, embodying his vivid ideas concerning a
new house near his own for the bridal pair.

Hamil went out into the fresh April night. The young grass was wet under
the stars; a delicate fragrance of new buds filled the air.

He had been walking for a long time, when the first far hint of thunder
broke the forest silence. Later lightning began to quiver through the
darkness; a wind awaking overhead whispered prophecy, wailed it,
foreboding; then slowly the woods filled with the roar of the rain.

He was moving on, blindly, at random, conscious only of the necessity of
motion. Where the underbrush halted him he sheered off into the open
timber, feeling his way, falling sometimes, lying where he fell for a
while till the scourge of necessity lashed him into motion again.

About midnight the rain increased to a deluge, slackened fitfully, and
died out in a light rattle of thunder; star after star broke out through
the dainty vapours overhead; the trees sighed and grew quiet. For a
while drumming drops from the branches filled the silence with a musical
tattoo, then there remained no sound save, far away in the darkness, the
muffled roar of some brook, brimming bank-high with the April rain. And
Hamil, soaked, exhausted, and believing he could sleep, went back to the
house. Toward morning sleep came.

He awoke restless and depressed; and the next morning he was not well;
and not quite as well the next, remaining in his room with a headache,
pestered by Portlaw and retinues of servants bearing delicacies on
trays.

He had developed a cold, not a very bad one, and on the third day he
resumed his duties in the woods with Phelps and Baker, the surveyors,
and young Hastings.

The dull, stupid physical depression hung on to him; so did his cold;
and he found breathing difficult at night. The weather had turned very
raw and harsh, culminating in a flurry of snow.

Then one morning he appeared at breakfast looking so ghastly that
Portlaw became alarmed. It seemed to be rather late for that; Hamil's
face was already turning a dreadful bluish white under his host's
astonished gaze, and as the first chill seized him he rose from the
table, reeling.

"I--I am sorry, Portlaw," he tried to say.

"What on earth have you got?" asked Portlaw in a panic; but Hamil could
not speak.

They got him to the gardener's cottage as a precautionary measure, and
telephoned to Utica for trained nurses, and to Pride's Fall for a
doctor. Meanwhile, Hamil, in bed, was fast becoming mentally
irresponsible as the infection spread, involving both lungs, and the
fever in his veins blazed into a conflagration. That is one way that
pneumonia begins; but it ought not to have made such brutally quick work
of a young, healthy, and care-free man. There was not much chance for
him by the next morning, and less the following night when the oxygen
tanks arrived.

Portlaw, profoundly shocked and still too stunned by the swiftness of
the calamity to credit a tragic outcome, spent the day in a heavily
bewildered condition, wandering, between meals, from his house to the
cottage where Hamil lay, and back again to the telephone.

He had physicians in consultation from Utica and Albany; he had nurses
and oxygen; he had Miss Palliser on the telephone, first in New York,
then at Albany, and finally at Pride's Fall, to tell her that Hamil was
alive.

She arrived after midnight with Wayward. Hamil was still breathing--if
it could be called by that name.

Toward dawn a long-distance call summoned Portlaw: Malcourt was on the
end of the wire.

"Is Hamil ill up at your place?"

"He is," said Portlaw curtly.

"Very ill?"

"Very."

"How ill?"

"Well, he's not dead."

"Portlaw, is he dying?"

"They don't know yet."

"What is the sickness?"

"Pneumonia. I wish to heaven you were here!" he burst out, unable to
suppress his smouldering irritation any longer.

"I was going to ask you if you wanted me--"

"You needn't ask such a fool question. Your house is here for you and
the servants are eating their heads off. I haven't had your resignation
and I don't expect it while we're in trouble.... Mrs. Malcourt will come
with you, of course."

"Hold the wire."

Portlaw held it for a few minutes, then:

"Mr. Portlaw?"--scarcely audible.

"Is that you, Mrs. Malcourt?"

"Yes.... Is Mr. Hamil going to die?"

"We don't know, Mrs. Malcourt. We are doing all we can. It came
suddenly; we were caught unprepared--"

"Suddenly, you say?"

"Yes, it hit him like a bullet. He ought to have broken the journey
northward; he was not well when he arrived, but I never for a moment
thought--"

"Mr. Portlaw--please!"

"Yes?"

"Is there a chance for him?"

"The doctors refuse to say so."

"Do they say there is _no_ chance?"

"They haven't said that, Mrs. Malcourt. I think--"

"Please, Mr. Portlaw!"

"Yes, madam!"

"Will you listen very carefully, please?"

"Certainly--"

"Mr. Malcourt and I are leaving on the 10.20. You will please consult
your time-table and keep us informed at the following stations--have you
a pencil to write them down?... Are you ready now? Ossining, Hudson,
Albany, Fonda, and Pride's Fall.... Thank you.... Mr. Malcourt wishes
you to send the Morgan horses.... If there is any change in Mr. Hamil's
condition before the train leaves the Grand Central at 10.20, let me
know. I will be at the telephone station until the last moment.
Telegrams for the train should be directed to me aboard "The
Seminole"--the private car of Mr. Cardross.... Is all this clear?...
Thank you."

With a confused idea that he was being ordered about too frequently of
late Portlaw waddled off bedward; but sleep eluded him; he lay there
watching through his window the light in the window of the sick-room
where Hamil lay fighting for breath; and sometimes he quivered all over
in scared foreboding, and sometimes the thought that Malcourt was
returning seemed to ease for a moment the dread load of responsibility
that was already playing the mischief with his digestion.

A curry had started it; a midnight golden-buck superimposed upon a
miniature mince pie had, to his grief and indignation, continued an
outrageous conspiracy against his liver begun by the shock of Hamil's
illness. But what completed his exasperation was the indifference of the
physicians attending Hamil who did not seem to appreciate the gravity of
an impaired digestive system, or comprehend that a man who couldn't
enjoy eating might as well be in Hamil's condition; and Portlaw angrily
swallowed the calomel so indifferently shoved toward him and hunted up
Wayward, to whom he aired his deeply injured feelings.

"What you need are 'Drover's Remedies,'" observed Wayward, peering at
him through his spectacles; and Portlaw unsuspiciously made a memorandum
of the famous live-stock and kennel panacea for future personal
emergencies.

The weather was unfavourable for Hamil; a raw, wet wind rattled the
windows; the east lowered thick and gray with hurrying clouds; volleys
of chilly rain swept across the clearing from time to time.

Portlaw and Wayward sat most of the time in the big living-room playing
"Canfield." There was nothing else to do except to linger somewhere
within call, and wait. Constance Palliser remained near whichever nurse
happened to be off duty, and close enough to the sick-room to shudder at
what she heard from within, all day, all night, ceaselessly ominous,
pitiable, heart-breaking.

At length Wayward took her away without ceremony into the open air.

"Look here, Constance, your sitting there and hearing such things isn't
helping Garry. Lansdale is doing everything that can be done; Miss Race
and Miss Clay are competent. You're simply frightening yourself sick--"

She protested, but he put her into a hooded ulster, buckled on her feet
a pair of heavy carriage boots, and drew her arm under his, saying: "If
there's a chance Garry is having it, and you've got to keep your
strength.... I wish this mist would clear; Hooper telephoned to Pride's
for the weather bulletin, but it is not encouraging."

They walked about for an hour and finally returned from the wet woodland
paths to the bridge, leaning on the stone parapet together.

A swollen brook roared under the arches, carrying on its amber
wave-crests tufts of green grass and young leaves and buds which the
promise of summer had tenderly unfolded to the mercy of a ruthless
flood.

"Like those young lives that go out too early," murmured Constance. "See
that little wind-flower, Jim, uprooted, drowning--and that dead thing
tumbling about half under water--"

Wayward laid a firm hand across hers.

"I don't mean to be morbid," she said with a pathetic upward glance,
"but, Jim, it is too awful to hear him fighting for just--just a chance
to breathe a little--"

"I think he's going to get well," said Wayward.

"Jim! Why do you think it? Has any--"

"No.... I just think it."

"Is there any reason--"

"None--except you."

His voice within the last month or two had almost entirely lost its
indistinct and husky undertone; the clear resonant quality, which had
always thrilled her a little as a young girl, seemed to be returning;
and now she felt, faintly, the old response awaking within her.

"It is very sweet of you to believe he'll live because I love him," she
said gently.

Wayward drew his hand from hers and, folding his arms, leaned on the
parapet inspecting the turbid water through his spectacles.

"There are no fights too desperate to be won," he said. "The thing to do
is to finish--still fighting!"

"Jim?"

"Yes."

This time her hand sought his, drew it toward her, and covered it with
both of hers.

"Jim," she said tremulously, "there is something--I am horribly
afraid--that--perhaps Garry is not fighting."

"Why?" he asked bluntly.

"There was an--an attachment--"

"A what?"

"An unfortunate affair; he was very deeply in love--"

"Not ridiculously, I hope!"

"I don't know what you mean.... He cared more than I have believed
possible; I saw him in New York on his way here and, Jim, he must have
known then, for he looked like death--"

"You mean he was in love with that Cardross girl?"

"Oh, yes, yes!... I do not understand the affair; but I tell you, Jim,
the strangest part was that the girl loved him! If ever a woman was in
love with a man, Shiela Cardross was in love with Garry! I tell you I
know it; I am not guessing, not hazarding an opinion; I _know_ it....
And she married Louis Malcourt!... And, Jim, I have been so
frightened--so terrified--for Garry--so afraid that he might not care to
fight--"

Wayward leaned there heavily and in silence. He was going to say that
men do not do such things for women any longer, but he thought of the
awful battle not yet ended which he had endured for the sake of the
woman beside him; and he said nothing; because he knew that, without
hope of her to help him, the battle had long since gone against him. But
Garry had nothing to fight for, if what Constance said was true. And
within him his latent distrust and contempt for Malcourt blazed up,
tightening the stern lines of his sun-burnt visage.

"Portlaw says that Louis is coming to-night, and that young Mrs.
Malcourt is with him," he observed.

"I know it.... I was wondering if there was any way we could use
her--make use of her--"

"To stir up Garry to fight?"

"Y-yes--something like that--I am vague about it myself--if it could be
done without anybody suspecting the--O Jim!--I don't know; I am only a
half-crazed woman willing to do anything for my boy--"

"Certainly. If there's anything that might benefit Garry you need not
hesitate on account of that little beast Malcourt--"

She said in her gentle, earnest way: "Louis Malcourt is so very strange.
He has treated Virginia dreadfully; they were engaged--they must have
been or she could not have gone all to pieces the way she has.... I
cannot understand it, Jim--"

"What's Louis coming here for?"

"Mr. Portlaw begged him to come--"

"What for? Oh, well, I guess I can answer that for myself; it's to save
Portlaw some trouble or other--"

"You are very hard on people--very intolerant, sometimes--"

"I have no illusions concerning the unselfishness of Billy Portlaw. Look
at him tagging after the doctors and bawling for pills!--with Garry
lying there! He hustled him into a cottage, too--"

"He was quite right, Jim, Garry is better off--"

"So's William. Don't tell _me_, Constance; he's always been the same;
he never really cared for anybody in all his life except Louis Malcourt.
But it's a jolly, fat, good-humoured beast, and excellent company aboard
the _Ariani!_" ... He was silent a moment, then his voice deepened to a
clear, gentle tone, almost tender: "You've been rained on enough, now;
come in by the fire and I'll bring you the latest news from Garry."

But when he returned to the fire where Constance and Portlaw sat in
silence, the report he brought was only negative. A third doctor from
Albany arrived at nightfall and left an hour later. He was non-committal
and in a hurry, and very, very famous.



CHAPTER XXI

REINFORCEMENTS


All day Portlaw had been telephoning and telegraphing the various
stations along the New York Central Railroad, following the schedule
from his time-table and from the memoranda given him by young Mrs.
Malcourt; and now the big, double, covered buckboard and the fast
horses, which had been sent to meet them at Pride's, was expected at any
moment.

"At least," Portlaw confided with a subdued animation to Wayward, "we're
going to have a most excellent dinner for them when they arrive. My
Frenchman is doing the capons in Louis XI style--"

"Somebody," said Wayward pleasantly, "will do you in the same style some
day." And he retired to dress, laughing in an odd way. But Portlaw
searched in vain for the humour which he had contrived somehow to miss.
He also missed Malcourt on such occasions--Malcourt whose nimble
intelligence never missed a trick!

"Thank the Lord he's coming!" he breathed devoutly. "It's bad enough to
have a man dying on the premises without having an earthly thing to do
while he's doing it.... I can see no disrespect to Hamil if we play a
few cards now and then."

His valet was buttoning him up when Malcourt arrived and walked coolly
into his room.

"Louis! Damnation!" ejaculated Portlaw, purple with emotion.

"Especially the latter," nodded Malcourt. "They tell me, below, that
Hamil is very sick; wait a moment!--Mrs. Malcourt is in my house; she is
to have it for herself. Do you understand?"

"Y-yes--"

"All right. I take my old rooms here for the present. Tell Williams.
Mrs. Malcourt has brought a maid and another trained nurse for
emergencies. She wanted to; and that's enough."

"Lord, but I'm glad you've come!" said Portlaw, forgetting all the
reproaches and sarcasms he had been laboriously treasuring to discharge
at his superintendent.

"Thanks," said Malcourt drily. "And I say; we didn't know anybody else
was here--"

"Only his aunt and Wayward--"

Malcourt cast a troubled glance around the room, repeating: "I didn't
understand that anybody was here."

"What difference does that make? You're coming back to stay, aren't
you?"

Malcourt looked at him. "That's supposed to be the excuse for our
coming.... Certainly; I'm your superintendent, back from a fortnight's
leave to get married in.... That's understood." ... And, stepping
nearer: "There's hell to pay in town. Have you seen the papers?"

"Not to-day's--"

"They're down-stairs. Wormly, Hunter & Blake have failed--liabilities
over three million. There's probably going to be a run on the Shoshone
Securities Company; Andreas Hogg and Gumble Brothers have laid down on
their own brokers and the Exchange has--"

"What!"

"A nice outlook, isn't it? Be careful what you say before Mrs. Malcourt;
she doesn't realise that Cardross, Carrick & Co. may be involved."

Portlaw said with that simple self-centred dignity which characterised
him in really solemn moments: "Thank God, I'm in an old-line institution
and own nothing that can ever pass a dividend!"

"Even your hens pay their daily dole," nodded Malcourt, eyeing him.

"Certainly. If they don't, it's a fricassee for theirs!" chuckled
Portlaw, in excellent humour over his own financial security in time of
stress.

So they descended to the living-room together where Constance and
Wayward stood whispering by the fire. Malcourt greeted them; they
exchanged a few words in faultless taste, then he picked an umbrella
from the rack and went across the lawn to his house where his bride of a
fortnight awaited him. Portlaw rubbed his pudgy hands together
contentedly.

"Now that Louis is back," he said to Wayward, "this place will be run
properly again."

"Is it likely," asked Wayward, "that a man who has just married several
millions will do duty as your superintendent in the backwoods?"

"Well," said Portlaw, with his head on one side, "do you know, it is
extremely likely. And I have a vague idea that he will draw his salary
with great regularity and promptness."

"What are you talking about?" said Wayward bluntly.

"I'll tell you. But young Mrs. Malcourt does not know--and she is not to
be told as long as it can be avoided: Cardross, Carrick & Co. are in a
bad way."

"How bad?"

"The worst--unless the Clearing House does something--"

"What!"

"--And it won't! Mark my words. Wayward, the Clearing House won't lift a
penny's weight from the load on their shoulders. _I_ know. There's a
string of banks due to blow up; the fuse has been lighted, and it's up
to us to stand clear--"

"Oh, hush!" whispered Constance in a frightened voice; the door swung
open; a gust of chilly air sent the ashes in the fireplace whirling
upward among the leaping flames.

Young Mrs. Malcourt entered the room.

Her gown, which was dark--and may have been black--set off her
dead-white face and hands in a contrast almost startling. Confused for a
moment by the brilliancy of the lamplight she stood looking around her;
then, as Portlaw waddled forward, she greeted him very quietly;
recognised and greeted Wayward, and then slowly turned toward Constance.

There was a pause; the girl took a hesitating step forward; but Miss
Palliser met her more than half-way, took both her hands, and, holding
them, looked her through and through.

Malcourt's voice broke in gravely:

"It is most unfortunate that my return to duty should happen under such
circumstances. I do not think there is any man in the world for whom I
have the respect--and affection--that I have for Hamil."

Wayward was staring at him almost insolently; Portlaw, comfortably
affected, shook his head in profound sympathy, glancing sideways at the
door where his butler always announced dinner. Constance had heard, but
she looked only at young Mrs. Malcourt. Shiela alone had been
unconscious of the voice of her lord and master.

She looked bravely back into the golden-brown eyes of Miss Palliser;
and, suddenly realising that, somehow, this woman knew the truth,
flinched pitifully.

But Constance crushed the slender, colourless hands in her own, speaking
tremulously low:

"Perhaps he'll have a chance now. I am so thankful that you've come."

"Yes." Her ashy lips formed the word, but there was no utterance.

Dinner was announced with a decorous modulation befitting the
circumstances.

Malcourt bore himself faultlessly during the trying function; Wayward
was moody; his cynical glance through his gold-rimmed glasses resting
now on Malcourt, now on Shiela. The latter ate nothing, which grieved
Portlaw beyond measure, for the salad was ambrosial and the capon was
truly Louis XI.

Later the men played Preference, having nothing else to do after the
ladies left, Constance insisting on taking Shiela back to her own house,
and Malcourt acquiescing in the best of taste.

The stars were out; a warm, sweet, dry wind had set in from the
south-west.

"It was what we've prayed for," breathed Constance, pausing on the lawn.
"It was what the doctors wanted for him. How deliciously warm it is! Oh,
I hope it will help him!"

"Is that _his_ cottage?" whispered Shiela.

"Yes.... His room is there where the windows are open.... They keep
them open, you know.... Do you want to go in?"

"Oh, _may_ I see him!"

"No, dear.... Only I often sit in the corridor outside.... But perhaps
you could not endure it--"

"Endure what?"

"To hear--to listen--to his--breathing--"

"Let me go with you!" she whispered, clasping her hands, "let me go with
you, Miss Palliser. I will be very quiet, I will do whatever you tell
me--only let me go with you!"

Miss Clay, just released from duty, met them at the door.

"There is nothing to say," she said; "of course every hour he holds out
is an hour gained. The weather is more favourable. Miss Race will show
you the chart."

As Shiela entered the house the ominous sounds from above struck her
like a blow; she caught her breath and stood perfectly still, one hand
pressing her breast.

"That is not as bad as it has been," whispered Constance, and
noiselessly mounted the stairs.

Shiela crept after her and halted as though paralysed when the elder
woman pointed at a door which hung just ajar. Inside the door stood a
screen and a shaded electric jet. A woman's shadow moved across the wall
within.

Without the slightest noise Constance sank down on the hallway sofa;
Shiela crept up close beside her, closer, when the dreadful sounds broke
out again, trembling in every limb, pressing her head convulsively
against the elder woman's arm.

Young Dr. Lansdale came up-stairs an hour later, nodded to Constance,
looked sharply at Shiela, then turned to the nurse who had forestalled
him at the door. A glance akin to telepathy flashed between physician
and nurse, and the doctor turned to Miss Palliser:

"Would you mind asking Miss Clay to come back?" he said quietly.
"Oh!--has she gone to bed?"

Shiela was on her feet: "I--I have brought a trained nurse," she said;
"the very best--from Johns Hopkins--"

"I should be very glad to have her for a few moments," said the doctor,
looking at the chart by the light of the hall lamp.

Shiela sped down the stairs like a ghost; the nurse re-entered the room;
the doctor turned to follow, and halted short as a hand touched his arm.

"Dr. Lansdale?"

He nodded pleasantly.

"Does it do any good--when one is very, very ill--to see--"

The doctor made a motion with his head. "Who is that young girl?" he
asked coolly.

"Mrs. Malcourt--"

"Oh! I thought it might have been this Shiela he is always talking about
in his delirium--"

"It _is_," whispered Constance.

For a moment they looked one another in the eyes; then a delicate colour
stole over the woman's face.

"I'm afraid--I'm afraid that my boy is not making the fight he could
make," she whispered.

"Why not?"

She was speechless.

"Why _not_!" ... And in a lower voice: "This corridor is a
confessional. Miss Palliser--if that helps you any."

She said: "They were in love."

"Oh! Are they yet?"

"Yes."

"Oh! _She_ married the other man?"

"Yes."

"Oh!"

Young Lansdale wheeled abruptly and entered the sick-room. Shiela
returned in a few minutes with her nurse, a quick-stepping, cool-eyed
young woman in spotless uniform. A few minutes afterward the sounds
indicated that oxygen was being used.

An hour later Miss Race came into the hallway and looked at Shiela.

"Mr. Hamil is conscious," she said. "Would you care to see him for a
second?"

A dreadful fear smote her as she crouched there speechless.

"The danger of infection is slight," said the nurse--and knew at the
same instant that she had misunderstood. "Did you think I meant he is
dying?" she added gently as Shiela straightened up to her slender
height.

"Is he better?" whispered Constance.

"He is conscious," said the nurse patiently. "He knows"--turning to
Shiela--"that you are here. You must not speak to him; you may let him
see you for a moment. Come!"

In the shadowy half-light of the room Shiela halted at a sign from the
nurse; the doctor glanced up, nodding almost imperceptibly as the girl's
eyes fell upon the bed.

How she did it--what instinct moved her, what unsuspected reserve of
courage prompted her, she never understood; but looking into the
dreadful eyes of death itself there in the sombre shadows of the bed,
she smiled with a little gesture of gay recognition, then, turning,
passed from the room.

"Did he know you?" motioned Constance.

"I don't know--I don't know.... I think he was--dying--before he saw
me--"

She was shuddering so violently that Constance could scarcely hold her,
scarcely guide her down the stairs, across the lawn toward her own
house. The doctor overtook and passed them on his way to his own
quarters, but he only bowed very pleasantly, and would have gone on
except for the soft appeal of Constance.

"Miss Palliser," he said, "I _don't_ know--if you want the truth. You
know all that I do; he is conscious--or was. I expect he will be, at
intervals, now. This young lady behaved admirably--admirably! The thing
to do is to wait."

He glanced at Shiela, hesitated, then:

"Would it be any comfort to learn that he knew you?"

"Yes.... Thank you."

The doctor nodded and said in a hearty voice: "Oh, we've got to pull him
through somehow. That's what I'm here for." And he went away briskly
across the lawn.

"What are you going to do?" asked Constance in a low voice.

"I don't know; write to my father, I think."

"You ought not to sit up after such a journey."

"Do you suppose I could sleep _to-night_?"

Constance drew her into her arms; the girl clung to her, head hidden on
her breast.

"Shiela, Shiela," she murmured, "you can always come to me. Always,
always!--for Garry's sake.... Listen, child: I do not understand your
tragedy--his and yours--I only know you loved each other.... Love--and a
boy's strange ways in love have always been to me a mystery--a sad one,
Shiela.... For once upon a time--there was a boy--and never in all my
life another. Dear, we women are all born mothers to men--and from birth
to death our heritage is motherhood--grief for those of us who
bear--sadness for us who shall never bear--mothers to sorrow
everyone.... Do you love him?"

"Yes."

"That is forbidden you, now."

"It was forbidden me from the first; yet, when I saw him I loved him.
What was I to do?"

Constance waited, but the girl had fallen silent.

"Is there more you wish to tell me?"

"No more."

She bent and kissed the cold cheek on her shoulder.

"Don't sit up, child. If there is any reason for waking you I will come
myself."

"Thank you."

So they parted, Constance to seek her room and lie down partly dressed;
Shiela to the new quarters still strange and abhorrent to her.

Her maid, half dead with fatigue, slept in a chair, and young Mrs.
Malcourt aroused her and sent her off to bed. Then she roamed through
the rooms, striving to occupy her mind with the negative details of the
furnishing; but it was all drearily harmless, unaccented anywhere by
personal taste, merely the unmeaning harmony executed by a famous New
York decorator, at Portlaw's request--a faultless monotony from garret
to basement.

There was a desk in one room; ink in the well, notepaper bearing the
name of Portlaw's camp. She looked at it and passed on to her bedroom.

But after she had unlaced and, hair unbound, stood staring vacantly
about her, she remembered the desk; and drawing on her silken
chamber-robe, went into the writing-room.

At intervals, during her writing, she would rise and gaze from the
window across the darkness where in the sick-room a faint, steady glow
remained; and she could see the white curtains in his room stirring like
ghosts in the soft night wind and the shadow of the nurse on wall and
ceiling.

   "Dear, dear dad and mother," she wrote; "Mr. Portlaw was so
   anxious for Louis to begin his duties that we decided to come at
   once, particularly as we both were somewhat worried over the
   serious illness of Mr. Hamil.

   "He is very, very ill, poor fellow. The sudden change from the
   South brought on pneumonia. I know that you both and Gray and
   Cecile and Jessie will feel as sorry as I do. His aunt, Miss
   Palliser, is here. To-night I was permitted to see him. Only his
   eyes were visible and they were wide open. It is very dreadful,
   very painful, and has cast a gloom over our gaiety.

   "To-night Dr. Lansdale said that he would pull him through. I am
   afraid he said it to encourage Miss Palliser.

   "This is a beautiful place--" She dropped her pen with a shudder,
   closed her eyes, groped for it again, and forced herself to
   continue--"Mr. Portlaw is very kind. The superintendent's house
   is large and comfortable. Louis begins his duties to-morrow.
   Everything promises to be most interesting and enjoyable--" She
   laid her head in her arms, remaining so, motionless until
   somewhere on the floor below a clock struck midnight."

At last she managed to go on:

   "Dad, dear; what you said to Louis about my part of your estate
   was very sweet and generous of you; but I do not want it. Louis
   and I have talked it over in the last fortnight and we came to
   the conclusion that you must make no provision for me at present.
   We wish to begin very simply and make our own way. Besides I know
   from something I heard Acton say that even very wealthy people
   are hard pressed for ready money; and so Phil Gatewood acted as
   our attorney and Mr. Cuyp's firm as our brokers and now the Union
   Pacific and Government bonds have been transferred to Colonel
   Vetchen's bank subject to your order--is that the term?--and the
   two blocks on Lexington Avenue now stand in your name, and Cuyp,
   Van Dine, and Siclen sold all those queer things for me--the
   Industrials, I think you call them--and I endorsed a sheaf of
   certified checks, making them all payable to your order.

   "Dad, dear--I cannot take anything of that kind from you.... I am
   very, very tired of the things that money buys. All I shall ever
   care for is the quiet of unsettled places, the silence of the
   hills, where I can study and read and live out the life I am
   fitted for. The rest is too complex, too tiresome to keep up with
   or even to watch from my windows.

   "Dear dad and dear mother, I am a little anxious about what Acton
   said to Gray--about money troubles that threaten wealthy people.
   And so it makes me very happy to know that the rather
   overwhelming fortune which you so long ago set aside for me to
   accumulate until my marriage is at last at your disposal again.
   Because Gray told me that Acton was forced to borrow such
   frightful sums at such ruinous rates. And now you need borrow no
   more, need you?

   "You have been _so_ good to me--both of you. I am afraid you
   won't believe how dearly I love you. I don't very well see how
   you can believe it. But it is true.

   "The light in Mr. Hamil's sick-room seems to be out. I am going
   to ask what it means.

   "Good-night, my darling two--I will write you every day.

                                                  "SHIELA."

She was standing, looking out across the night at the darkened windows
of the sick-room, her sealed letter in her hand, when she heard the
lower door open and shut, steps on the stairs--and turned to face her
husband.

"W-what is it?" she faltered.

"What is what?" he asked coolly.

"The reason there is no light in Mr. Hamil's windows?"

"He's asleep," said Malcourt in a dull voice.

"Louis! Are you telling me the truth?"

"Yes.... I'd tell you if he were dead. He isn't. Lansdale thinks there
is a slight change for the better. So I came to tell you."

Every tense nerve and muscle in her body seemed to give way at the same
instant as she dropped to the lounge. For a moment her mind was only a
confused void, then the routine instinct of self-control asserted
itself; she made the effort required of her, groping for composure and
self-command.

"He is better, you say?"

"Lansdale said there was a change which might be slightly favourable....
I wish I could say more than that, Shiela."

"But--he _is_ better, then?"--pitifully persistent.

Malcourt looked at her a moment. "Yes, he is better. I believe it."

For a few moments they sat there in silence.

"That is a pretty gown," he said pleasantly.

"What! Oh!" Young Mrs. Malcourt bent her head, gazing fixedly at the
sealed letter in her hand. The faint red of annoyance touched her
pallor--perhaps because her chamber-robe suggested an informality
between them that was impossible.

"I have written to my father and mother," she said, "about the
securities."

"Have you?" he said grimly.

"Yes. And, Louis, I forgot to tell you that Mr. Cuyp telephoned me
yesterday assuring me that everything had been transferred and recorded
and that my father could use everything in an emergency--if it comes as
you thought possible.... And I--I wish to say"--she went on in a
curiously constrained voice--"that I appreciate what you have done--what
you so willingly gave up--"

An odd smile hovered on Malcourt's lips:

"Nonsense," he said. "One couldn't give up what one never had and never
wanted.... And you say that it was all available yesterday?"

"Available!"

"At the order of Cardross, Carrick & Co.?"

"Mr. Cuyp said so."

"You made over all those checks to them?"

"Yes. Mr. Cuyp took them away."

"And that Lexington Avenue stuff?"

"Deeded and recorded."

"The bonds?"

"Everything is father's again."

"Was it yesterday?"

"Yes. Why?"

"You are absolutely certain?"

"Mr. Cuyp said so."

Malcourt slowly rolled a cigarette and held it, unlighted, in his
nervous fingers. Young Mrs. Malcourt watched him, but her mind was on
other things.

Presently he rose, and she looked up as though startled painfully from
her abstraction.

"You ought to turn in," he said quietly. "Good night."

"Good night."

He went out and started to descend the stairs; but somebody was banging
at the lower door, entering clumsily, and in haste.

"Louis!" panted Portlaw, "they say Hamil is dying--"

"Damn you," whispered Malcourt fiercely, "will you shut your cursed
mouth!"

Then slowly he turned, leaden-footed, head hanging, and ascended the
stairs once more to the room where his wife had been. She was standing
there, pale as a corpse, struggling into a heavy coat.

"Did you--hear?"

"Yes."

He aided her with her coat.

"Do you think you had better go over?"

"Yes, I must go."

She was trembling so that he could scarcely get her into the coat.

"Probably," he said, "Portlaw doesn't know what he's talking about....
Shiela, do you want me to go with you--"

"No--no! Oh, hurry--"

She was crying now; he saw that she was breaking down.

"Wait till I find your shoes. You can't go that way. Wait a moment--"

"No--no!"

He followed her to the stairs, but:

"No--no!" she sobbed, pushing him back; "I want him to myself. Can't
they let me have him even when he is dying?"

"You can't go!" he said.

She turned on him quivering, beside herself.

"Not in this condition--for your own sake," he repeated steadily. And
again he said: "For the sake of your name in the years to come, Shiela,
you cannot go to him like this. Control yourself."

She strove to pass him; all her strength was leaving her.

"You coward!" she gasped.

"I thought you would mistake me," he said quietly. "People usually
do.... Sit down."

For a while she lay sobbing in her arm-chair, white hands clinched,
biting at her lips to choke back the terror and grief.

[Illustration: "'You can't go!' he said."]

"As soon as your self-command returns my commands are void," he said
coolly. "Nobody here shall see you as you are. If you can't protect
yourself it's my duty to do it for you.... Do you want Portlaw to see
you?--Wayward?--these doctors and nurses and servants? How long would
it take for gossip to reach your family!... And what you've done for
their sakes would be a crime instead of a sacrifice!"

She looked up; he continued his pacing to and fro but said no more.

After a while she rose; an immense lassitude weighted her limbs and
body.

"I think I am fit to go now," she said in a low voice.

"Use a sponge and cold water and fix your hair and put on your shoes,"
he said. "By the time you are ready I'll be back with the truth."

She was blindly involved with her tangled hair when she heard him on the
stairs again--a quick, active step that she mistook for haste; and hair
and arms fell as she turned to confront him.

"It was a sinking crisis; they got him through--both doctors. I tell
you, Shiela, things look better," he said cheerily.



CHAPTER XXII

THE ROLL CALL


As in similar cases of the same disease Hamil's progress toward recovery
was scarcely appreciable for a fortnight or so, then, danger of
reinfection practically over, convalescence began with the new moon of
May.

Other things also began about that time, including a lawsuit against
Portlaw, the lilacs, jonquils, and appleblossoms in Shiela's garden, and
Malcourt's capricious journeys to New York on business concerning which
he offered no explanation to anybody.

The summons bidding William Van Beuren Portlaw of Camp Chickadee, town
of Pride's Fall, Horican County, New York, to defend a suit for damages
arising from trespass, tree-felling, the malicious diversion of the
waters of Painted Creek, the wilful and deliberate killing of game, the
flooding of wild meadow lands in contemptuous disregard of riparian
rights and the drowning of certain sheep thereby, had been impending
since the return from Florida to her pretty residence at Pride's Fall of
Mrs. Alida Ascott.

Trouble had begun the previous autumn with a lively exchange of notes
between them concerning the shooting of woodcock on Mrs. Ascott's side
of the boundary. Then Portlaw stupidly built a dam and diverted the
waters of Painted Creek. Having been planned, designed, and constructed
according to Portlaw's own calculations, the dam presently burst and the
escaping flood drowned some of Mrs. Ascott's sheep. Then somebody cut
some pine timber on her side of the line and Mrs. Ascott's smouldering
indignation flamed.

Personally she and Portlaw had been rather fond of one another; and to
avoid trouble incident on hot temper Alida Ascott decamped, intending to
cool off in the Palm Beach surf and think it over; but she met Portlaw
at Palm Beach that winter, and Portlaw dodged the olive branch and
neglected her so selfishly that she determined then and there upon his
punishment, now long overdue.

"My Lord!" said Portlaw plaintively to Malcourt, "I had no idea she'd do
such a thing to me; had you?"

"Didn't I tell you she would?" said Malcourt. "I know women better than
you do, though you don't believe it."

"But I thought she was rather fond of me!" protested Portlaw
indignantly.

"That may be the reason she's going to chasten you, friend. Don't come
bleating to me; I advised you to be attentive to her at Palm Beach, but
you sulked and stood about like a baby-hippopotamus and pouted and shot
your cuffs. I warned you to be agreeable to her, but you preferred the
Beach Club and pigeon shooting. It's easy enough to amuse yourself and
be decent to a nice woman too. Even I can combine those things."

"Didn't I go to that lawn party?"

"Yes, and scarcely spoke to her. And never went near her afterward. Now
she's mad all through."

"Well, I can get mad, too--"

"No, you're too plump to ever become angry--"

"Do you think I'm going to submit to--"

"You'll submit all right when they've dragged you twenty-eight miles to
the county court house once or twice."

"Louis! Are you against me too?"--in a voice vibrating with reproach and
self-pity.

"Now, look here, William Van Beuren; your guests _did_ shoot woodcock on
Mrs. Ascott's land--"

"They're migratory birds, confound it!"

"--And," continued Malcourt, paying no attention to the interruption,
"you did build that fool dam regardless of my advice; and you first left
her cattle waterless, then drowned her sheep--"

"That was a cloud-burst--an act of God--"

"It was a dam-burst, and the act of an obstinate chump!"

"Louis, I won't let anybody talk to me like that!"

"But you've just _done_ it, William."

Portlaw, in a miniature fury, began to run around in little circles,
puffing threats which, however, he was cautious enough to make obscure;
winding up with:

"And I might as well take this opportunity to ask you what you mean by
calmly going off to town every ten days or so and absenting yourself
without a word of--"

"Oh, bosh," said Malcourt; "if you don't want me here, Billy, say so and
be done with it."

"I didn't say I didn't want you--"

"Well, then, let me alone. I don't neglect your business and I don't
intend to neglect my own. If the time comes when I can't attend to both
I'll let you know soon enough--perhaps sooner than you expect."

"You're perfectly welcome to go to town," insisted Portlaw, alarmed.

"I know it," nodded Malcourt coolly. "Now, if you'll take my advice
you'll behave less like a pig in this Ascott matter."

"I'm going to fight that suit--"

"Certainly fight it. But not the way you're planning."

"Well--how, then?"

"Go and see the little lady."

"See _her_? She wouldn't receive me."

"Probably not. That's unimportant. For heaven's sake, Portlaw, you're
becoming chuckle-headed with all your feeding and inertia and pampered
self-indulgence. You're the limit!--with your thirty-eight-inch girth
and your twin chins and baby wrists! You know, it's pitiable when I
think what a clean-cut, decent-looking, decently set-up fellow you were
only two years ago!--it's enough to make a cat sick!"

"Can I help what I look like!" bellowed Portlaw wrathfully.

"What an idiot question!" said Malcourt with weary patience. "All you've
got to do is to cuddle yourself less, and go out into the fresh air on
your ridiculous legs--"

"Ridiculous!" gasped the other. "Well, I'm damned if I stand _that_--!"

"You won't be able to stand at all if you continue eating and sitting in
arm-chairs. You don't like what I say, do you?" with easy impudence.
"Well, I said it to sting you--if there's any sensation left under your
hide. And I'll say something else: if you'd care for somebody beside
yourself for a change and give the overworked Ego a vacation, you'd get
along with your pretty neighbour yonder. Oh, yes, you would; she was
quite inclined to like you before you began to turn, physically, into a
stall-fed prize winner. You're only thirty-seven or eight; you've a
reasonable chance yet to exchange obesity for perspicacity before it
smothers what intellect remains. And if you're anything except what
you're beginning to resemble you'll stop sharp, behave yourself, go to
see your neighbour, and"--with a shrug--"marry her. Marriage--as easy a
way out of trouble as it is in."

He swung carelessly on his heel, supple, erect, graceful as always.

"But," he threw back over his shoulder, "you'd better acquire the
rudiments of a figure before you go a-courting Alida Ascott." And left
Portlaw sitting petrified in his wadded chair.

Malcourt strolled on, a humorously malicious smile hovering near his
eyes, but his face grew serious as he glanced up at Hamil's window. He
had not seen Hamil during his illness or his convalescence--had made no
attempt to, evading lightly the casual suggestions of Portlaw that he
and his young wife pay Hamil a visit; nor did he appear to take anything
more than a politely perfunctory interest in the sick man's progress;
yet Constance Palliser had often seen him pacing the lawn under Hamil's
window long after midnight during those desperate hours when the
life-flame scarcely flickered--those ominous moments when so many souls
go out to meet the impending dawn.

But now, in the later stages of Hamil's rapid convalescence which is
characteristic of a healthy recovery from that unpleasant malady,
Malcourt avoided the cottage, even ceased to inquire; and Hamil had
never asked to see him, although, for appearance' sake, he knew that he
must do so very soon.

Wayward and Constance Palliser were visiting Mrs. Ascott at Pride's
Fall; young Mrs. Malcourt had been there for a few days, but was
returning to prepare for the series of house-parties arranged by Portlaw
who had included Cecile Cardross and Philip Gatewood in the first relay.

As for Malcourt there was no counting on him; he was likely to remain
for several days at any of the five distant gate-keepers' lodges across
the mountains or to be mousing about the woods with wardens and
foresters, camping where convenient; or to start for New York without
explanation. All of which activity annoyed Portlaw, who missed his
manager at table and at cards--missed his nimble humour, his impudence,
his casual malice--missed even the paternal toleration which this
younger man bestowed upon him--a sort of half-tolerant,
half-contemptuous supervision.

And now that Malcourt was so often absent Portlaw was surprised to find
how much he missed the veiled authority exercised--how dependent on it
he had become, how secretly agreeable had been the half-mocking
discipline which relieved him of any responsibility except as over-lord
of the culinary régime.

Like a spoiled school-lad, badly brought up, he sometimes defied
Malcourt's authority--as in the matter of the dam--enjoying his own
perversity. But he always got into hot water and was glad enough to
return to safety.

Even now, though his truancy had landed him in a very lively lawsuit, he
was glad enough to slink back through the stinging comments to the
security of authority; and his bellows of exasperation under reproof
were half pretence. He expected Malcourt to get him out of it if he
could not extract himself; he had no idea of defending the suit. Besides
there was sufficient vanity in him to rely on a personal meeting with
Mrs. Ascott. But he laughed in his sleeve at the idea of the necessity
of making love to her.

And one day when Hamil was out for the third or fourth time, walking
about the drives and lawns in the sunshine, and Malcourt was not in
sight, Portlaw called for his riding-breeches and boots.

He had not been on a horse in years and it seemed as though only faith
and a shoe-horn could get him into his riding-breeches; but with the aid
of Heaven and a powerful valet he stood before his mirror arrayed at
last; and presently went out across the lawn and through the grove to
Malcourt's house.

Young Mrs. Malcourt in pink gingham apron and sun-bonnet was digging
with a trowel in her garden when he appeared upon the landscape.

"I don't want you to tell Louis," he cautioned her with a very knowing
and subtle smile, "but I'm just going to ride over to Pride's this
morning and settle this lawsuit matter, and surprise him."

Shiela had straightened up, trowel in her gloved hand, and now stood
looking at him in amused surprise.

"I didn't know you rode," she said. "I should think it would be very
good for you."

"Well," he admitted, turning red, "I suppose I ought to ride now and
then. Louis has been at me rather viciously. But you won't tell him,
will you?"

"No," said Shiela.

"Because, you see, he doesn't think me capable of settling this thing;
and so I'm just going to gallop over and have a little friendly chat
with Mrs. Ascott--"

"Friendly?" very gravely.

"Yes," he said, alarmed; "why not?"

"Do you think Mrs. Ascott will receive you?"

"Well--now--Louis said something of that sort. And then he added that it
didn't matter--but he didn't explain what I was to do when she refused
to see me.... Ah--could--would you mind telling me what to do in that
case, Mrs. Malcourt?"

"What _is_ there to do, Mr. Portlaw, if a woman refuses to receive you?"

"Why--_I_ don't know," he admitted vacantly. "What would _you_ do?"

Young Mrs. Malcourt, frankly amused, shook her head:

"If Mrs. Ascott won't see you, she _won't_! You don't intend to carry
Pride's Fall by assault, do you?"

"But Louis said--"

"Mr. Malcourt knows quite well that Mrs. Ascott won't see you."

"W-why?"

"Ask yourself. Besides, her lawyers have forbidden her."

But Portlaw's simple faith in Malcourt never wavered; he stood his
ground and quoted him naïvely, adding: "You see Louis must have meant
_something_. Couldn't you tell me what he meant? I'll promise to do it."

"I suppose," she answered, laughing, "that he meant me to write a note
to Alida Ascott, making a personal appeal for your reception. He spoke
of it; but, Mr. Portlaw, I am scarcely on such a footing with her."

Portlaw was so innocently delighted with the idea which bore Malcourt's
stamp of authority, that young Mrs. Malcourt found it difficult to
refuse; and a few moments later, armed with a friendly but cautious
note, he climbed laboriously aboard a huge chestnut hack, sat there
doubtfully while a groom made all fast and tight for heavy weather,
then, with a groan, set spurs to his mount, and went pounding away
through the forest, upon diplomacy intent.

Hamil, walking about the lawns in the sunshine, saw him come careering
past, making heavy weather of it, and smiled in salute; Shiela on a
rustic ladder, pruning-knife in hand, gazed over her garden wall until
the woods swallowed rotund rider and steed. As she turned to descend,
her glance fell upon Hamil who was crossing the lawn directly below. For
a moment they looked at each other without sign of recognition; then
scarcely aware of what she did she made him a carelessly gay salute with
her pruning-knife, clinging to the ladder with the other hand in sheer
fear of falling, so suddenly unsteady her limbs and body.

He went directly toward her; and she, her knees scarcely supporting her,
mounted the last rung of the ladder and seated herself sidewise on the
top of the wall, looking down at him, leaning on one arm.

"It is nice to see you out," she said, as he came to the foot of the
sunny wall.... "Do you really feel as thin as you look?... I had a letter
from your aunt to-day asking an outsider's opinion of your condition,
and now I'll be able to give it.... You do look pathetically thin--but I
shan't tell her that.... If you are tired standing up you may come into
my garden where there are some very agreeable benches.... I would like
to have you come if you care to."

She herself scarcely knew what she was saying; smile, voice, animation
were forced; the havoc of his illness stared at her from his sharp
cheek-bones, thin, bloodless hands, eyes still slow in turning, dull,
heavy-lidded.

"I thought perhaps you would come to call," he said listlessly.

She flushed.

"You _did_ come, once?"

"Yes."

"You did not come again while I was conscious, did you?"

"No."

He passed his thin hand across eyes and forehead.

She folded her arms under her breast and hung far over the
shadow-dappled wall half-screened in young vine-leaves. Over her pink
sun-bonnet and shoulders the hot spring sunshine fell; her face was in
shadow; his, under the full glare of the unclouded sky, every ravage
starkly revealed. And she could not turn her fascinated gaze or crush
out the swelling tenderness that closed her throat to speech and set her
eyes glimmering.

The lids closed, slowly; she leaned there without a word, living through
in the space of a dozen pulse-beats, the agony and sweetness of the
past; then laid her flushed cheek on her arms and opened her eyes,
looking at him in silence.

But he dared not sustain her gaze and took refuge from it in a forced
gaiety, comparing his reappearance to the return of Ulysses, where Dame
Art, that respectable old Haus-Frau, awaited him in a rocking-chair,
chastely preoccupied with her tatting, while rival architects squatted
anxiously around her, urging their claims to a dead man's shoes.

She strove to smile at him and to speak coolly: "Will you come in? I
have finished the vines and presently I'm going to dig. Wait a
moment"--looking behind her and searching with one tentative foot for
the ladder--"I will have to let you in--"

A moment later she met him at the grille and flung it wide, holding out
her hand in welcome with a careless frankness not quite natural--nor was
the nervously vigorous handshake, nor the laughter, light as a breeze,
leaving her breathing fast and unevenly with the hue of excitement
deepening on lip and cheek.

So, the handshaking safely over, and chatting together in a tone louder
and more animated than usual, they walked down the moist gravel path
together--the extreme width of the path apart.

"I think," she said, considering the question, with small head tipped
sideways, "that you had better sit on this bench because the paint is
dry and besides I can talk to you here and dig up these seedling
larkspurs at the same time."

"Don't you want me to do some weeding?"

"With pleasure when you are a little stronger--"

"I'm all right now--"

He stood looking seriously at the bare flower-bed along the wall where
amber shoots of peonies were feathering out into palmate grace, and
older larkspurs had pushed up into fringed mounds of green foliage.

She had knelt down on the bed's edge, trowel in hand, pink sun-bonnet
fallen back neglected; and with blade and gloved fingers she began
transferring the irresponsible larkspur seedlings to the confines of
their proper spheres, patting each frail little plant into place
caressingly.

And he was thinking of her as he had last seen her--on her knees at the
edge of another bed, her hair fallen unheeded as her sun-bonnet hung
now, and the small hands clasping, twisting, very busy with their
agony--as busy as her gloved fingers were now, restlessly in motion
among the thickets of living green.

"Tell me," she said, not looking back over her shoulder, "it must be
heavenly to be out of doors again."

"It _is_ rather pleasant," he assented.

"Did you--they said you had dreadful visions. Did you?"

He laughed. "Some of them were absurd, Shiela; the most abominably
grotesque creatures came swarming and crowding around the bed--faces
without bodies--creatures that grew while I looked at them, swelling to
gigantic proportions--Oh, it was a merry carnival--"

Neither spoke. Her back was toward him as she knelt there very much
occupied with her straying seedlings in the cool shade of the wall.

Jonquils in heavy golden patches stretched away into sun-flecked
perspective broken by the cool silver-green of iris thickets and the
white star-clusters of narcissus nodding under sprays of bleeding-heart.

The air was sweet with the scent of late apple-bloom and lilac--and
Hamil, brooding there on his bench in the sun, clasped his thin hands
over his walking-stick and bent his head to the fragrant memories of
Calypso's own perfume--the lilac-odour of China-berry in bloom, under
the Southern stars.

He drew his breath sharply, raising his head--because this sort of thing
would not do to begin life with again.

"How is Louis?" he asked in a pleasantly deliberate voice.

The thing had to be said sooner or later. They both knew that. It was
over now, with no sign of effort, nothing in his voice or manner to
betray him. Fortunately for him her face was turned away--fortunately
for her, too.

There was a few moments' silence; the trowel, driven abruptly into the
earth to the hilt, served as a prop for her clinched hand.

"I think--Louis--is very well," she said.

"He is remaining permanently with Mr. Portlaw?"

"I think so."

"I hope it will be agreeable for you--both."

"It is a very beautiful country." She rose to her slender, graceful
height and surveyed her work: "A pretty country, a pretty house and
garden," she said steadily. "After all, you know, that is the main thing
in this world."

"What?"

"Why, an agreeable environment; isn't it?"

She turned smilingly, walked to the bench and seated herself.

"Your environment promises to be a little lonely at times," he ventured.

"Oh, yes. But I rather like it, when it's not over-populated. There will
be a great deal for me to do in my garden--teaching young plants
self-control."

"Gardens freeze up, Shiela."

"Yes, that is true."

"But you'll have good shooting--"

"I will never again draw trigger on any living thing!"

"What? The girl who--"

"No girl, now--a woman who can never again bring herself to inflict
death."

"Why?"

"I know better now."

"You rather astonish me?" he said, pretending amusement.

She sat very still, thoughtful eyes roaming, then rested her chin on her
hand, dropping one knee over the other to support her elbow. And he saw
the sensitive mouth droop a little, and the white lids drooping too
until the lashes rested on the bloom of the curved cheek. So he had seen
her, often, silent, absent-minded, thoughts astray amid some blessed
day-dream in that golden fable they had lived--and died in.

She said, as though to herself: "How can a woman slay?... I think those
who have ever been victims of pain never desire to inflict it again on
any living thing."

She looked up humbly, searching his face.

"You know it has become such a dreadful thing to me--the responsibility
for pain and death.... It is horrible for humanity to usurp such a
power--to dare interfere with life--to mar it, end it!... Children do
not understand. I was nothing more a few months ago. To my intelligence
the shallow arguments of those takers of life called sportsmen was
sufficient. I supposed that because almost all the little children of
the wild were doomed to die by violence, sooner or later, that the
quicker death I offered was pardonable on the score of mercy." ... She
shook her head. "Why death and pain exist, I do not know; He who deals
them must know why."

He said, surprised at her seriousness: "Right or wrong, a matter of
taste cannot be argued--"

"A matter of taste! Every fibre of me rebels at the thought of death--of
inflicting it on anything. God knows how I could have done it when I had
so much of happiness myself!" She swung around toward him:

"Sooner or later what remains to say between us must be said, Garry. I
think the time is now--here in my garden--in the clear daylight of the
young summer.... You have that last letter of my girlhood?"

"I burned it."

"I have every letter you ever wrote me. They are in my desk upstairs.
The desk is not locked."

"Had you not better destroy them?"

"Why?"

"As you wish," he said, looking at the ground.

"One keeps the letters of the dead," she said; "your youth and
mine"--she made a little gesture downward as though smoothing a
grave--daintily.

They were very unwise, sitting there in the sunshine side by side,
tremendously impressed with the catastrophe of life and with each
other--still young enough to be in earnest, to take life and each other
with that awesome finality which is the dread privilege of youth.

She spoke with conviction of the mockery of life, of wisdom and its
sadness; he looked upon the world in all the serious disillusion of
youth, and saw it strewn with the fragments of their wrecked happiness.

They were very emotional, very unhappy, very, very much in love; but the
truly pathetic part of it all lay in her innocent conviction that a
marriage witnessed by the world was a sanctuary within the circle of
which neither she nor he had any reason to fear each other or
themselves.

The thing was done; hope slain. They, the mourners, might now meet in
safety to talk together over the dead--suffer together among the graves
of common memories, sadly tracing, reverently marking with epitaphs
appropriate the tombs which held the dead days of their youth.

Youth believes; Age is the sceptic. So they did not know that, as nature
abhors a vacuum, youth cannot long tolerate the vacuity of grief. Rose
vines, cut to the roots, climb the higher. No checking ever killed a
passion. Just now her inexperience was driving her into platitudes.

"Dear Garry," she said gently, "it is such happiness to talk to you like
this; to know that you understand."

There is a regulation forbidding prisoners to converse upon the subject
of their misdemeanours, but neither he nor she seemed to be aware of it.

Moreover, she was truly convinced that no nun in cloister was as
hopelessly certain of safety from world and flesh and devil as was her
heart and its meditations, under the aegis of admitted wedlock.

She looked down at the ring she wore, and a faint shiver passed over
her.

"You are going to Mrs. Ascott?"

"Yes, to make her a Trianon and a smirking little park. I can't quarrel
with my bread and butter, but I wish people would let these woods
alone."

She sat very still and thoughtful, hands clasped on her knee.

"So you are going to Mrs. Ascott," she repeated. And, still thoughtful:
"I am so fond of Alida Ascott.... She is very pretty, isn't she?"

"Very," he said absently.

"Don't you think so?"--warmly.

"I never met her but once."

She was considering him, the knuckle of one forefinger resting against
her chin in an almost childish attitude of thoughtful perplexity.

"How long are you to remain there, Garry?"

"Where?"--coming out of abstraction.

"There--at Mrs. Ascott's?"

"Oh, I don't know--a month, I suppose."

"Not longer?"

"I can't tell, Shiela."

Young Mrs. Malcourt fell silent, eyes on the ground, one knee loosely
crossed over the other, and her small foot swinging gently above its
blue shadow on the gravel.

Some details in the eternal scheme of things were troubling her already;
for one, the liberty of this man to come and go at will; and the dawning
perception of her own chaining.

It was curious, too, to be sitting here so idly beside him, and realise
that she had belonged to him so absolutely--remembering the thousand
thrilling intimacies that bound them immortally together--and now to be
actually so isolated, so beyond his reach, so alone, so miserably
certain of her soul's safety!... And now, for the first time, she missed
the pleasures of fear--the exquisite trepidation that lay in
unsafety--the blessed thrill of peril warning her to avoid his eyes, his
touch, his--lips.

She glanced uneasily at him, a slow side gaze; and met his eyes.

Her heart had begun beating faster; a glow grew in her veins; she closed
her eyes, sitting there surprised--not yet frightened.

Time throbbed on; rigid, motionless, she endured the pulsing silence
while the blood quickened till body and limbs seemed burning; and
suddenly, from heart to throat the tension tightened as though a cry,
echoing within her, was being strangled.

"Perhaps you had better--go--" she managed to say.

"Why?"

She looked down at her restless fingers interlacing, too confused to be
actually afraid of herself or him.

What was there to fear? What occult uneasiness was haunting them? Where
might lie any peril, now? How could the battle begin again when all was
quiet along the firing line--quiet with the quiet of death? Do dead
memories surge up into furies? Can dead hopes burn again? Is there any
resurrection for the insurgent passions of the past laid for ever under
the ban of wedlock? The fear within her turned to impatience--to a proud
incredulity.

And now she felt the calm reaction as though, unbidden, an ugly dream,
passing, had shadowed her unawakened senses for a moment, and passed
away.

As long as they lived there was nothing to be done. Endurance could
cease only with death. What was there to fear? She asked herself,
waiting half contemptuously for an answer. But her unknown self had now
subsided into the obscurity from whence it rose. The Phantom of the
Future was laid.



CHAPTER XXIII

A CAPITULATION


As Hamil left the garden Malcourt sauntered into view, halted, then came
forward.

"I'm glad to see you," he said pleasantly.

"Thank you."

Neither offered to shake hands; Malcourt, lightly formal, spoke of
Hamil's illness in a few words, using that excellent taste which was at
his command when he chose to employ it. He expressed his pleasure in
Hamil's recovery, and said that he was ready at any time to take up the
unfinished details of Portlaw's business, agreeing with Hamil that there
remained very little to talk over.

"The main thing, of course, is to squelch William's last hopes of any
Rhine castles," continued Malcourt, laughing. "If you feel like it
to-day I'll bring over the plans as you sketched them."

"In a day or two," nodded Hamil.

"Or perhaps you will lunch with m--with us, and you and I can go over
the things comfortably."

But he saw by the scarcely perceptible change in Hamil's face that there
were to be no such relations between them, informal or otherwise; and he
went on quietly, closing his own suggestion:

"Or, if you like, we'll get Portlaw some morning after his breakfast,
and end the whole matter by laying down the law to him."

"That would be perfectly agreeable to me," said Hamil. He spoke as
though fatigued, and he looked it as he moved toward his house, using
his walking-stick. Malcourt accompanied him to the road.

"Hamil," he said coolly, "may I suggest something?"

The other turned an expressionless face toward him: "What do you wish to
suggest?"

"That, some day when you feel physically better, I'd like to go over one
or two matters with you--privately--"

"What matters?"

"They concern you and myself."

"I know of no private matters which concern you and myself--or are ever
likely to."

Malcourt's face darkened. "I think I warned you once that one day you
would misunderstand my friendship for you."

Hamil straightened up, looking him coldly in the eye.

"Malcourt," he said, "there is no reason for the slightest pretence
between us. I don't like you; I don't dislike you; I simply don't take
you into consideration at all. The accident of your intrusion into a
woman's life is not going to make any more difference to me than it has
already made, nor can it affect my complete liberty and freedom to do
and say what I choose."

"I am not sure that I understand you, Hamil."

"Well, you can certainly understand this: that my regard for--Mrs.
Malcourt--does not extend to you; that it is neither modified nor
hampered by the fact that you happen to exist, or that she now bears
your name."

Malcourt's face had lost its colour. He began slowly:

"There is no reason, I think--"

"I don't care what you think!" said Hamil. "It is not of any consequence
to me, nor will it govern me in any manner." He made a contemptuous
gesture toward the garden. "Those flower-beds and gravel walks in
there--I don't know whether they belong to you or to Mrs. Malcourt or to
Portlaw; and I don't care. The accidental ownership of property will not
prevent my entering it; but its ownership by you would prevent my
accepting your personal invitation to use it or even enter it. And now,
perhaps, you understand."

Malcourt, very white, nodded:

"It is so useless," he said--"all this bitterness. You don't know what
you're saying.... But I suppose you can't help it.... It always has been
that way; things go to smash if I try to do anything.... Well, Hamil,
we'll go on in your own fashion, if we must--for a while. But"--and he
laughed mirthlessly--"if it ends in a little shooting--you mustn't blame
me!"

Hamil surveyed him in cold displeasure.

"I always expected you'd find your level," he observed.

"Yes, I'll find it," mused Malcourt, "as soon as I know what it ought to
be. Under pressure it is difficult to ascertain such things; one's true
level may be higher or lower. My father and I have often discussed this
matter--and the ethics of straight shooting."

Hamil's eyes narrowed.

"If you mean that as a threat"--he began contemptuously; but Malcourt,
who had suddenly assumed that curious listening attitude, raised his
hand impatiently, as though silencing interruption.

And long after Hamil had turned on his heel and gone, he stood there,
graceful head lowered a little and partly turned as though poetically
appreciative of the soft twittering music which the bluebirds were
making among the falling apple-bloom.

Then, slowly, not noticing Hamil's departure, he retraced his steps
through the garden, head slightly inclined, as though to catch the
murmur of some invisible companion accompanying him. Once or twice he
nodded, a strange smile creeping over his face; once his lips moved as
though asking a question; no sound came from them, but apparently he had
his answer, for he nodded assent, halted, drew a deep breath, and looked
upward.

"We can try that," he said aloud in his naturally pleasant voice; and,
entering the house, went upstairs to his wife's apartments.

Shiela's maid answered his knock; a moment later, Shiela herself, gowned
for the afternoon, came to the door, and her maid retired.

"Do you mind my stepping in a moment?" he asked.

She glanced back into her own bedroom, closed the door, and led the way
to the small living-room at the other end of the house.

"Where's that maid of yours?" he asked.

"Sewing in my dressing-room. Shall I send her downstairs?"

"Yes; it's better."

So Shiela went away and returned shortly saying that her maid had gone;
and then, with a questioning gesture to her husband, she seated herself
by the open window and looked out into the sunshine, waiting for him to
speak.

"Do you know," he said abruptly, "what saved Cardross, Carrick & Co.
from going to the wall?"

"What?" The quick, crisp question sounded like the crack of a tiny whip.

He looked at her, languidly amused.

"You knew there was a panic?" he asked.

"Yes, of course."

"You knew that your father and Mr. Carrick were worried?"

"Yes."

"You didn't realise they were in bad shape?"

"Not--very. Were they?"

"That they needed money, and that they couldn't go out into the market
and borrow it because nobody would lend any money to anybody?"

"I do not understand such details."

"Details? Ah--yes, quite so.... Then you were not aware that a run was
threatened on the Shoshone Securities Company and certain affiliated
banks?"

"Yes--but I did not suppose it meant anything alarming."

"And you didn't understand that your father and brother-in-law could not
convert their securities into the ready cash they needed to meet their
obligations--did you?"

"I do not understand details, Louis.... No."

"Or that they were desperate?"

Her face altered pitifully.

"On the edge of bankruptcy?" he went on.

"_What_!"

"Then," he said deliberately, "you don't know what helped them--what
tided them over those two days--what pulled them through by the slimmest
margin that ever saved the credit of anybody."

"Not--my money?"

"Yes; your money."

"Is it true, Louis?"

"Absolutely."

She leaned her head on her hand and sat gazing out of the open window.
There were tears very near her eyes, but the lids closed and not one
fell or even wet the thick lashes resting on her cheeks.

"I supposed it would please you to know what you have done."

The face she turned toward him was wonderful in its radiance.

She said: "I have never been as happy in all my life, I think. Thank you
for telling me. I needed just--that."

He studied her for a moment, nimble wits at work. Then:

"Has your father--and the others--in their letters, said anything about
it to you?"

"Yes, father has. He did not say matters had been desperate."

"I suppose he does not dare commit such a thing to paper--yet.... _You_
do not burn your letters," he added blandly.

"I have no reason to."

"It might save servants' gossip."

"What gossip?"--in cold surprise.

"There's a desk full of Hamil's letters upstairs, judging from the
writing on the envelopes." He added with a smile: "Although I don't
pry, some servants do. And if there is anything in those letters you do
not care to have discussed below stairs, you ought either to lock them
up or destroy them."

Her face was burning hot; but she met his gaze with equanimity, slowly
nodding serene assent to his suggestion.

"Shiela," he said pleasantly, "it looks to me as though what you have
done for your family in that hour of need rather balances all accounts
between you and them."

"What?"

"I say that you are square with them for what they have done in the past
for you."

She shook her head. "I don't know what you mean, Louis."

He said patiently: "You had nothing to give but your fortune, and you
gave it."

"Yes."

"Which settles your obligations toward them--puts them so deeply for
ever in your debt that--" He hesitated, considering the chances, then,
seriously persuasive:

"They are now in _your_ debt, Shiela. They have sufficient proof of your
unselfish affection for them to stand a temporary little shock. Why
don't you administer it?"

"What shock?"--in an altered voice.

"Your divorce."

"I thought you were meaning that."

"I do mean it. You ought to have your freedom; you are ruining your own
life and Hamil's, and--and--"

"Yours?"

"Let that go," he said almost savagely; "I can always get along. But I
want you to have your freedom to marry that damned fool, Hamil."

The quick blood stung her face under his sudden blunt brutality.

"You think that because I returned a little money to my family, it
entitles me to publicly disgrace them?"

Malcourt's patience was fast going.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, Shiela, shed your swaddling clothes and act like
something adult. Is there any reason why two people situated as we are
cannot discuss sensibly some method of mitigating our misfortune? I'll
do anything you say in the matter. Divorce is a good thing sometimes.
This is one of the times, and I'll give you every reason for a
successful suit against me--"

She rose, cheeks aflame, and in her eyes scorn ungovernable.

He rose too, exasperated.

"You won't consider it?" he asked harshly.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not coward enough to ask others to bear the consequences of
my own folly and yours!"

"You little fool," he said, "do you think your family would let you
endure me for one second if they knew how you felt? Or what I am likely
to do at any moment?"

She stood, without replying, plainly waiting for him to leave the room
and her apartments. All her colour had fled.

"You know," he said, with an ugly glimmer in his eyes, "I need not
continue this appeal to your common sense, if you haven't got any; I
can force you to a choice."

"What choice?"--in leisurely contempt.

He hesitated; then, insolently: "Your choice between--honest wifehood
and honest divorce."

For a moment she could not comprehend: suddenly her hands contracted and
clinched as the crimson wave stained her from throat to brow. But in her
eyes was terror unutterable.

"I--I beg--your pardon," he stammered. "I did not mean to frighten
you--"

But at his first word she clapped both hands over her ears, staring at
him in horror--backing away from him, shrinking flat against the wall.

"Confound it! I am not threatening you," he said, raising his voice; but
she would not hear another word--he saw that now--and, with a shrug, he
walked past her, patient once more, outwardly polite, inwardly bitterly
amused, as he heard the key snap in the door behind him.

Standing in his own office on the floor below, he glanced vacantly
around him. After a moment he said aloud, as though to somebody in the
room: "Well, I tried it. But that is not the way."

Later, young Mrs. Malcourt, passing, saw him seated at his desk, head
bent as though listening to something interesting. But there was nobody
else in the office.

When at last he roused himself the afternoon sun was shining level in
the west; long rosy beams struck through the woods turning the silver
stems of the birches pink.

On the footbridge spanning the meadow brook he saw his wife and Hamil
leaning over the hand-rail, shoulder almost touching shoulder; and he
went to the window and stood intently observing them.

They seemed to be conversing very earnestly; once she threw back her
pretty head and laughed unrestrainedly, and the clear sound of it
floated up to him through the late sunshine; and once she shook her head
emphatically, and once he saw her lay her hand on Hamil's arm--an
impulsive gesture, as though to enforce her words, but it was more like
a caress.

A tinge of malice altered Malcourt's smile as he watched them; the
stiffening grin twitched at his cheeks.

"Now I wonder," he thought to himself, "whether it is the right way
after all!... I don't think I'll threaten her again with--alternatives.
There's no telling what a fool might do in a panic." Then, as though the
spectacle bored him, he yawned, stretched his arms and back gracefully,
turned and touched the button that summoned his servant.

"Order the horses and pack as usual, Simmons," he said with another
yawn. "I'm going to New York. Isn't Mr. Portlaw here yet?"

"No, sir."

"Did you say he went away on horseback?"

"Yes, sir, this morning."

"And you don't know where?"

"No, sir. Mr. Portlaw took the South Road."

Malcourt grinned again, perfectly certain, now, of Portlaw's
destination; and thinking to himself that unless his fatuous employer
had been landed in a ditch somewhere, en route, he was by this time
returning from Pride's Fall with considerable respect for Mrs. Ascott.

       *       *       *       *       *

As a matter of fact, Portlaw had already started on his way back. Mrs.
Ascott was not at Pride's Hall--her house--when he presented himself at
the door. Her servant, evidently instructed, did not know where Mrs.
Ascott and Miss Palliser had gone or when they might return.

So Portlaw betook himself heavily to the village inn, where he insulted
his astonished stomach with a noonday dinner, and found the hard wooden
chairs exceedingly unpleasant.

About five o'clock he got into his saddle with an unfeigned groan, and
out of it again at Mrs. Ascott's door. They told him there that Mrs.
Ascott was not at home.

Whether this might be the conventional manner of informing him that she
declined to receive him, or whether she really was out, he had no means
of knowing; so he left his cards for Mrs. Ascott and Miss Palliser, also
the note which young Mrs. Malcourt had given him; clambered once more up
the side of his horse, suppressing his groans until out of hearing and
well on his way toward the fatal boundary.


In the late afternoon, sky and water had turned to a golden rose hue;
clouds of gnats danced madly over meadow pools, calm mirrors of the
sunset, save when a trout sprang quivering, a dark, slim crescent
against the light, falling back with a mellow splash that set the pool
rocking.

At gaze a deer looked at him from sedge, furry ears forward; stamped,
winded him, and, not frightened very much, trotted into the dwarf
willows, halting once or twice to look around.

As he advanced, his horse splashing through the flooded land
fetlock-deep in water, green herons flapped upward, protesting harshly,
circled overhead with leisurely wing-beats, and settled on some dead
limb, thin, strange shapes against the deepening orange of the western
heavens.

Portlaw, sitting his saddle gingerly, patronized nature askance; and he
saw across the flooded meadow where the river sand had piled its
smothering blanket--which phenomenon he was guiltily aware was due to
him.

Everywhere were signs of the late overflow--raw new gravel channels for
Painted Creek; river willows bent low where the flood had winnowed;
piles of driftwood jammed here and there; a single stone pier stemming
mid-stream, ancient floor and cover gone. More of his work--or the
consequences of it--this desolation; from which, under his horse's feet,
rose a hawk, flapping, furious, a half-drowned snake dangling from the
talon-clutch.

"Ugh!" muttered Portlaw, bringing his startled horse under discipline;
then forged forward across the drowned lands, sorry for his work, sorry
for his obstinacy, sorrier for himself; for Portlaw, in some matters was
illogically parsimonious; and it irked him dreadfully to realise how
utterly indefensible were his actions and how much they promised to cost
him.

"Unless," he thought cannily to himself, "I can fix it up with her--for
old friendship's sake--bah!--doing the regretful sinner business--"

As the horse thrashed out of the drowned lands up into the flat plateau
where acres of alders, their tops level as a trimmed hedge, stretched
away in an even, green sea, a distant, rapping sound struck his ear,
sharp, regular as the tree-tapping of a cock-o'-the-woods.

Indifferently convinced that the great, noisy woodpecker was the cause
of the racket, he rode on toward the hard-wood ridge dominating this
plateau where his guests, last season, had shot woodcock--one of the
charges in the suit against him.

"The thing to do," he ruminated, "is to throw myself gracefully on her
mercy. Women like to have a chance to forgive you; Louis says so, and he
ought to know. What a devilishly noisy woodpecker!"

And, looking up, he drew bridle sharply.

For there, on the wood's edge, stood a familiar gray mare, and in the
saddle, astride, sat Alida Ascott, busily hammering tacks into a
trespass notice printed on white muslin, and attached to the trunk of a
big maple-tree.

So absorbed was she in her hammering that at first she neither heard nor
saw Portlaw when he finally ventured to advance; and when she did she
dropped the tack hammer in her astonishment.

He dismounted, with pain, to pick it up, presented it, face wreathed in
a series of appealing smiles, then, managing to scale the side of his
horse again, settled himself as comfortably as possible for the
impending conflict.

But Alida Ascott, in her boyish riding breeches and deep-skirted coat,
merely nodded her thanks, took hold of the hammer firmly, and drove in
more tacks, paying no further attention to William Van Beuren Portlaw
and his heart-rending smiles.

It was very embarrassing; he sidled his horse around so that he might
catch a glimpse of her profile. The view he obtained was not
encouraging.

"Alida," he ventured plaintively.

"Mr. Portlaw!"--so suddenly swinging on him that he lost all countenance
and blurted out:

"I--I only want to make amends and be friends."

"I expect you to make amends," she said in a significantly quiet voice,
which chilled him with the menace of damages unlimited. And even in his
perturbation he saw at once that it would never do to have a backwoods
jury look upon the fascinating countenance of this young plaintiff.

"Alida," he said sorrowfully, "I am beginning to see things in a clearer
light."

"I think that light will grow very much clearer, Mr. Portlaw."

He repressed a shudder, and tried to look reproachful, but she seemed to
be very hard-hearted, for she turned once more to her hammering.

"Alida!"

"What?"--continuing to drive tacks.

"After all these years of friendship it--it is perfectly painful for me
to contemplate a possible lawsuit--"

"It will be more painful to contemplate an actual one, Mr. Portlaw."

"Alida, do you really mean that you--my neighbour and friend--are going
to press this unnatural complaint?"

"I certainly do."

Portlaw shook his head violently, and passed his gloved hand over his
eyes as though to rouse himself from a distressing dream; all of which
expressive pantomime was lost on Mrs. Ascott, who was busy driving
tacks.

"I simply cannot credit my senses," he said mournfully.

"You ought to try; it will be still more difficult later," she observed,
backing her horse so that she might inspect her handiwork from the
proper point of view.

Portlaw looked askance at the sign. It warned people not to shoot, fish,
cut trees, dam streams, or build fires under penalty of the law; and was
signed, "Alida Ascott."

"You didn't have any up before, did you?" he asked innocently.

"By advice of counsel I think I had better not reply, Mr. Portlaw. But I
believe that point will be brought out by my lawyers--unless"--with a
brilliant smile--"your own counsel sees fit to discuss it."

Portlaw was convinced that his hair was stirring under his cap. He was
horribly afraid of the law.

"See here, Alida," he said, assuming the bluff rough-diamond front which
the alarm in his eyes made foolish, "I want to settle this little
difference and be friends with you again. I was wrong; I admit it.... Of
course I might very easily defend such a suit--"

"But, of course"--serenely undeceived--"as you admit you are in the
wrong you will scarcely venture to defend such a suit. _Your_ lawyers
ought to forbid _you_ to talk about this case, particularly"--with a
demure smile--"to the plaintiff."

"Alida," he said, "I am determined to remain your friend. You may do
what you will, say what you wish, yes, even use my own words against me,
but"--and virtue fairly exuded from every perspiring pore--"I will not
retaliate!"

"I'm afraid you can't, William," she said softly.

"Won't you--forgive?" he asked in a melting voice; but his eyes were
round with apprehension.

"There are some things that no woman can overlook," she said.

"I'll send my men down to fix that bridge--"

"Bridges can be mended; I was not speaking of the bridge."

"You mean those sheep--"

"No, Mr. Portlaw."

"Well, there's a lot--I mean that some little sand has been washed over
your meadow--"

"Good night," she said, turning her horse's head.

"Isn't it the sand, Alida?" he pleaded. "You surely will forgive that
timber-cutting--and the shooting of a few migratory birds--"

"Good night," touching her gray mare forward to where he was awkwardly
blocking the wood-path.... "Do you mind moving a trifle, Mr. Portlaw?"

"About--ah--the--down there, you know, at Palm Beach," he stammered, "at
that accursed lawn-party--"

"Yes?" She smiled but her eyes harboured lightning.

"It was so hot in Florida--you know how infernally hot it was, don't
you, Alida?" he asked beseechingly. "I scarcely dared leave the Beach
Club."

"Well?"

"I--I thought I'd just m-m-mention it. That's why I didn't call on
you--I was afraid of sunstroke--"

"What!" she exclaimed, astonished at his stuttering audacity.

He knew he was absurd, but it was all he could think of. She gave him
time enough to realise the pitiable spectacle he was making of himself,
sitting her horse motionless, pretty eyes bent on his--an almost
faultless though slight figure, smooth as a girl's yet faintly instinct
with that charm of ripened adolescence just short of maturity.

And, slowly, under her clear gaze, a confused comprehension began to
stir in him--at first only a sort of chagrin, then something more--a
consciousness of his own heaviness of intellect and grossness of
figure--the fatness of mind and body which had developed so rapidly
within the last two years.

There she sat, as slim and pretty and fresh as ever; and only two years
ago he had been mentally and physically active enough to find vigorous
amusement in her company. Malcourt's stinging words concerning his
bodily unloveliness and self-centred inertia came into his mind; and a
slow blush deepened the colour in his heavy face.

What vanity he had reckoned on had deserted him along with any hope of
compromising a case only too palpably against him. And yet, through the
rudiments of better feeling awakening within him, the instinct of thrift
still coloured his ideas a little.

"I'm dead wrong, Alida. We might just as well save fees and costs and go
over the damages together.... I'll pay them. I ought to, anyway. I
suppose I don't usually do what I ought. Malcourt says I don't--said so
very severely--very mortifyingly the other day. So--if you'll get him or
your own men to decide on the amount--"

"Do you think the amount matters?"

"Oh, of course it's principle; very proper of you to stand on your
dignity--"

"I am not standing on it now; I am listening to your utter
misapprehension of me and my motives.... I don't care for any--damages."

"It is perfectly proper for you to claim them, if," he added
cautiously, "they are within reason--"

"Mr. Portlaw!"

"What?" he asked, alarmed.

"I would not touch a penny! I meant to give it to the schools,
here--whatever I recovered.... Your misunderstanding of me is
abominable!"

He hung his head, heavy-witted, confused as a stupid schoolboy, feeling,
helplessly, his clumsiness of mind and body.

Something of this may have been perceptible to her--may have softened
her ideas concerning him--ideas which had accumulated bitterness during
the year of his misbehaviour and selfish neglect. Her instinct divined
in his apparently sullen attitude the slow intelligence and mental
perturbation of a wilful, selfish boy made stupid through idleness and
self-indulgence. Even what had been clean-cut, attractive, in his face
and figure was being marred and coarsened by his slothful habits to an
extent that secretly dismayed her; for she had always thought him very
handsome; and, with that natural perversity of selection, finding in him
a perfect foil to her own character, had been seriously inclined to like
him.

Attractions begin in that way, sometimes, where the gentler is the
stronger, the frailer, the dominant character; and the root is in the
feminine instinct to care for, develop, and make the most of what
palpably needs a protectorate.

Without comprehending her own instinct, Mrs. Ascott had found the
preliminary moulding of Portlaw an agreeable diversion; had rather taken
for granted that she was doing him good; and was correspondingly annoyed
when he parted his moorings and started drifting aimlessly as a
derelict scow awash, floundering seaward without further notice of the
trim little tug standing by and amiably ready to act as convoy.


Now, sitting her saddle in silence she surveyed him, striving to
understand him--his recent indifference, his deterioration, the present
figure he was cutting. And it seemed to her a trifle sad that he had no
one to tell him a few wholesome truths.

"Mr. Portlaw," she said, "do you know that you have been exceedingly
rude to me?"

"Yes, I--do know it."

"Why?" she asked simply.

"I don't know."

"Didn't you care for our friendship? Didn't it amuse and interest you?
How could you have done the things you did--in the way you did?... If
you had asked my permission to build a dozen dams I'd have given it.
Didn't you know it? But my self-respect protested when you so cynically
ignored me--"

"I'm a beast all right," he muttered.

She gazed at him, softened, even faintly amused at his repentant bad-boy
attitude.

"Do you want me to forgive you, Mr. Portlaw?"

"Yes--but you oughtn't."

"That is quite true.... Turn your horse and ride back with me. I'm going
to find out exactly how repentant you really are.... If you pass a
decent examination you may dine with Miss Palliser, Mr. Wayward, and me.
It's too late anyway to return through the forest.... I'll send you over
in the motor."

And as they wheeled and walked their horses forward through the dusk,
she said impulsively:

"We have four for Bridge if you like."

"Alida," he said sincerely, "you _are_ a corker."

She looked up demurely. What she could see to interest her in this lump
of a man Heaven alone knew, but a hint of the old half-patient,
half-amused liking for him and his slow wits began to flicker once more.
De gustibus--alas!



CHAPTER XXIV

THE SCHOOL OF THE RECRUIT


When Portlaw arrived home late that evening there existed within his
somewhat ordinary intellect a sense of triumph. The weak usually
experience it at the beginning and through every step of their own
subjugation.

Malcourt, having decided to take an express which stopped on signal at
six in the morning, was reading as usual before the empty fireplace; and
at the first glance he suspected what had begun to happen to Portlaw.

The latter bustled about the room with an air of more or less
importance, sorted his letters, fussed with a newspaper; and every now
and then Malcourt, glancing up, caught Portlaw's eyes peeping
triumphantly around corners at him.

"You've been riding?" he said, much amused. "Are you stiff?"

"A trifle," replied the other carelessly. "I must keep it up. Really,
you know, I've rather neglected the horses lately."

"Rather. So you're taking up riding again?"

Portlaw nodded: "I've come to the conclusion that I need exercise."

Malcourt, who had been urging him for years to exercise, nodded approval
as though the suggestion were a brand-new one.

"Yes," said Portlaw, "I shall ride, I think, every day. I intend to do
a good bit of tramping, too. It's excellent for the liver, Louis."

At this piece of inspired information Malcourt assumed an expression of
deepest interest, but hoped Portlaw might not overdo it.

"I'm going to diet, too," observed Portlaw, watching the effect of this
astounding statement on his superintendent. "My theory is that we all
eat too much."

"Don't do anything Spartan," said Malcourt warningly; "a man at your
time of life--"

"My--what! Confound it, Louis, I'm well this side of forty!"

"Yes, perhaps; but when a man reaches your age there is not much left
for him but the happiness of overeating--"

"What d'y' mean?"

"Nothing; only as he's out of the race with younger men as far as a
pretty woman is concerned--"

"Who's out!" demanded Portlaw, red in the face. "What sort of men do you
suppose interest women? Broilers? I always thought your knowledge of
women was superficial; now I know it. And you don't know everything
about everything else, either--about summonses and lawsuits, for
example." And he cast an exultant look at his superintendent.

But Malcourt let him tell the news in his own way; and he did, imparting
it in bits with naive enjoyment, apparently utterly unconscious that he
was doing exactly what his superintendent had told him to do.

"You _are_ a diplomat, aren't you?" said Malcourt with a weary smile.

"A little, a little," admitted Portlaw modestly. "I merely mentioned
these things--" He waved his hand to check any possible eulogy of
himself from Malcourt. "I'll merely say this: that when I make up my
mind to settle anything--" He waved his hand again, condescendingly.

"That man," thought Malcourt, "will be done for in a year. Any woman
could have had him; the deuce of it was to find one who'd take him. I
think she's found."

And looking up blandly:

"Porty, old fellow, you're really rather past the marrying age--"

"I'll do what I please!" shouted Portlaw, exasperated.

Malcourt had two ways of making Portlaw do a thing; one was to tell him
not to, the other the reverse. He always ended by doing it anyway; but
the quicker result was obtained by the first method.

So Malcourt went to New York next morning convinced that Portlaw's
bachelor days were numbered; aware, also, that as soon as Mrs. Ascott
took the helm his own tenure of office would promptly expire. He wished
it to expire, easily, agreeably, naturally; and that is why he had
chosen to shove Portlaw in the general direction of the hymeneal altar.

He did not care very much for Portlaw--scarcely enough to avoid hurting
his feelings by abandoning him. But now he had arranged it so that to
all appearances the abandoning would be done by Portlaw, inspired by the
stronger mind of Mrs. Ascott. It had been easy and rather amusing to
arrange; it saved wordy and endless disputes with Portlaw; it would give
him a longed-for release from an occupation he had come to hate.

Malcourt was tired. He wanted a year of freedom from dependence,
surcease of responsibility--a year to roam where he wished, foregather
with whom he pleased, haunt the places congenial to him, come and go
unhampered; a year of it--only one year. What remained for him to do
after the year had expired he thought he understood; yes, he was
practically certain--had always been.

But first must come that wonderful year he had planned--or, if he tired
of the pleasure sooner, then, as the caprice stirred him, he would do
what he had planned to do ever since his father died. The details only
remained to be settled.

For Malcourt, with all the contradictions in his character, all his
cynicism, effrontery, ruthlessness, preferred to do things in a manner
calculated to spare the prejudices of others; and if there was a way to
accomplish a thing without hurting people, he usually took the trouble
to do it in that way. If not, he did it anyway.

And now, at last, he saw before him the beginning of that curious year
for which he had so long waited; and, concerning the closing details of
which, he had pondered so often with his dark, handsome head lowered and
slightly turned, listening, always listening.

But nothing of this had he spoken of to his wife. It was not necessary.
He had a year in which to live in a certain manner and do a certain
thing; and it was going to amuse him to do it in a way which would harm
nobody.

The year promised to be an interesting one, to judge from all signs. For
one item his sister, Lady Tressilvain, was impending from Paris--also
his brother-in-law--complicating the humour of the visitation.
Malcourt's marriage to an heiress was the perfectly obvious incentive
of the visit. And when they wrote that they were coming to New York, it
amused Malcourt exceedingly to invite them to Luckless Lake. But he said
nothing about it to Portlaw or his wife.

Then, for another thing, the regeneration and development, ethically and
artistically, of Dolly Wilming amused him. He wanted to be near enough
to watch it--without, however, any real faith in its continuation.

And, also, there was Miss Suydam. Her development would not be quite as
agreeable to witness; process of disillusioning her, little by little,
until he had undermined himself sufficiently to make the final break
with her very easy--for her. Of course it interested him; all intrigue
did where skill was required with women.

And, last of all, yet of supreme importance, he desired leisure,
undisturbed, to study his own cumulative development, to humorously
thwart it, or misunderstand it, or slyly aid it now and then--always
aware of and attentive to that extraneous something which held him so
motionless, at moments, listening attentively as though to a command.

For, from that morning four years ago when, crushed with fatigue, he
strove to keep his vigil beside his father who, toward daybreak, had
been feigning sleep--from that dreadful dawn when, waking with the crash
of the shot in his ears, his blinded gaze beheld the passing of a
soul--he understood that he was no longer his own master.

Not that the occult triad, Chance, Fate, and Destiny ruled; they only
modified his orbit. But from the centre of things Something that ruled
them was pulling him toward it, slowly, steadily, inexorably drawing him
nearer, lessening the circumference of his path, attenuating it,
circumscribing, limiting, controlling. And long since he had learned to
name this thing, undismayed--this one thing remaining in the world in
which his father's son might take a sporting interest.

       *       *       *       *       *

He had been in New York two weeks, enjoying existence in his own
fashion, untroubled by any demands, questions, or scruples concerning
responsibility, when a passionate letter from Portlaw disturbed the
placid interlude:

   "Confound it, Louis, haven't you the common decency to come back
   when you know I've had a bunch of people here to be entertained?

   "Nobody's heard a peep from you. What on earth do you mean by
   this?

   "Miss Palliser, Mrs. Ascott, Miss Cardross are here, also
   Wayward, and Gray Cardross--which with you and Mrs. Malcourt and
   myself solves the Bridge proposition--or would have solved it.
   But without warning, yesterday, your sister and brother-in-law
   arrived, bag and baggage, and Mrs. Malcourt has given them the
   west wing of your house. I believe she was as astonished as I,
   but she will not admit it.

   "I don't know whether this is some sorry jest of yours--not that
   Lady Tressilvain and her noble spouse are unwelcome--but for
   Heaven's sake consider Wayward's feelings--cooped up in camp with
   his ex-wife! It wasn't a very funny thing to do, Louis; but now
   that it's done you can come back and take care of the mess you've
   made.

   "As for Mrs. Malcourt, she is not merely a trump, she is a
   hundred aces and a grand slam in a redoubled Without!--if that's
   possible. But Mrs. Ascott is my pillar of support in what might
   easily become a fool of a situation.

   "And you, you amateur idiot!--are down there in town, humorously
   awaiting the shriek of anguish from me. Well, you've heard me.
   But it's not a senseless shriek; it's a dignified protest. I tell
   you I've learned to depend on myself, recently--at Mrs. Ascott's
   suggestion. And I'm doing it now by wiring Virginia Suydam to
   come and fill in the third table.

   "Now I want you to come back at once. If you don't I'm going to
   have a serious talk with you, Louis. I've taken Mrs. Ascott into
   my confidence more or less and she agrees with me that I ought to
   lay down a strong, rigid policy and that it is your duty to
   execute it. In fact she also took me into her confidence and gave
   me, at my request, a very clear idea of how she would run this
   place; and to my surprise and gratification I find that her ideas
   of discipline, taste, and economy are exactly mine, although I
   thought of them first and perhaps have influenced her in this
   matter as I have in others. That is, of course, natural, she
   being a woman.

   "I think I ought to be frank with you, Louis. It isn't good form
   for you to leave Mrs. Malcourt the way you do every week or two
   and disappear in New York and give no explanation. You haven't
   been married long enough to do that. It isn't square to me,
   either.

   "And while I'm about it I want to add that, at Mrs. Ascott's
   suggestion--which really is my own idea--I have decided not to
   build all those Rhine castles, which useless notion, if I am not
   mistaken, originated with you. I don't want to disfigure my
   beautiful wilderness. Mrs. Ascott and I had a very plain talk
   with Hamil and we forced him to agree with us that the less he
   did to improve my place the better for the place. He seemed to
   take it good-humouredly. He left yesterday to look over Mrs.
   Ascott's place and plan for her a formal garden and Trianon at
   Pride's Hall. So he being out I wired also to Virginia and to
   Philip Gatewood, which will make it right--four at a table. Your
   brother-in-law plays a stiff game and your sister is a
   wonder!--five grand slams last night! But I played like a
   dub--I'd been riding and walking and canoeing all day with Mrs.
   Ascott and I was terribly sleepy.

   "So come on up, Louis. I'll forgive you--but don't mind if I
   growl at you before Mrs. Ascott as she thinks I ought to
   discipline you. And, confound it, I ought to, and I will, too, if
   you don't look out. But I'll be devilish glad to see you.

                             "Yours,
                                  "W. VAN BEUREN PORTLAW."

Malcourt, in his arm-chair by the open window, lay back full length,
every fibre of him vibrating with laughter.

Dolly Wilming at the piano continued running over the pretty firework
melodies of last season's metropolitan success--a success built entirely
on a Viennese waltz, the air of which might have been taken from almost
any popular Yankee hymn-book.

He folded Portlaw's letter and pocketed it; and lay for a while under
the open window, enjoying his own noiseless mirth, gaily accompanied by
Dolly Winning's fresh, clear singing or her capricious improvising.

Begonias bloomed in a riotous row on the sill, nodding gently in the
river-wind which also fluttered the flags and sails on yacht, schooner,
and sloop under the wall of the Palisades.

That day the North River was more green than blue--like the eyes of a
girl he knew; summer, crowned and trimmed with green, brooded on the
long rock rampart across the stream. Turquoise patches of sky and big
clouds, leafy parapets, ships passing to the sea; and in mid-stream an
anchored island of steel painted white and buff, bristling with long
thin guns, the flower-like flag rippling astern; another battle-ship
farther north; another, another; and farther still the white
tomb--unlovely mansion of the dead--on outpost duty above the river,
guarding with the warning of its dead glories the unlovely mansions of
the living ranged along the most noble terrace in the world.

And everywhere to north, south, and east, the endless waste of city,
stark, clean-cut, naked alike of tree and of art, unsoftened even by the
haze of its own exudations--everywhere the window-riddled blocks of
oblongs and cubes gridironed with steel rails--New York in all the
painted squalor of its Pueblo splendour.

       *       *       *       *       *

"You say you are doing well in everything except French and Italian?"

Dolly, still humming to her own accompaniment, looked over her shoulder
and nodded.

"Well, how the dickens are you ever going to sing at either Opera or on
the road or anywhere if you don't learn French and Italian?"

"I'm trying, Louis."

"Go ahead; let's hear something, then."

And she sang very intelligently and in excellent taste:

    "Pendant que, plein d'amour, j'expire à votre porte,
    Vous dormez d'un paisible sommeil--"

and turned questioningly to him.

"That's all right; try another."

So, serenely obedient, she sang:

    "Chantons Margot, nos amours,
    Margot leste et bien tournée--"

"Well, I don't see anything the matter with your French," he muttered.

The girl coloured with pleasure, resting pensively above the key-board;
but he had no further requests to make and presently she swung around on
the piano-stool, looking at him.

"You sing all right; you are doing your part--as far as I can discover."

"There is nothing for you to discover that I have not told you," she
said gravely. In her manner there was a subdued dignity which he had
noticed recently--something of the self-confidence of the very young and
unspoiled--which, considering all things, he could not exactly account
for.

"Does that doddering old dancing-master of yours behave himself?"

"Yes--since you spoke to him. Mr. Bulder came to the school again."

"What did you say to him?"

"I told him that you wouldn't let me sing in 'The Inca.'"

"And what did Bulder say?"

"He was persistent but perfectly respectful; asked if he might confer
with you. He wrote to you I think, didn't he?"

Malcourt nodded and lighted a cigarette.

"Dolly," he said, "do you want to sing _Chaské_ in 'The Inca' next
winter?"

"Yes, I do--if you think it is all right." She added in a low voice: "I
want to do what will please you, Louis."

"I don't know whether it's the best thing to do, but--you may have to."
He laid his cigarette in a saucer, watched the smoke curling
ceilingward, and said as though to himself:

"I should like to be certain that you can support yourself--within a
reasonable time from now--say a year. That is all, Dolly."

"I can do it now if you wish it--" The expression of his face checked
her.

"I don't mean a variety career devoted to 'mother' songs," he said with
a sneer. "There's a middle course between diamonds and 'sinkers.' You'll
get there if you don't kick over the traces.... Have you made any more
friends?"

"Yes."

"Are they respectable?"

"Yes," she said, colouring.

"Has anybody been impertinent?"

"Mr. Williams."

"I'll attend to him--the little squirt!... Who are your new friends?"

"There's a perfectly sweet girl in the French class, Marguerite Barret.
I think she likes me.... Louis, I don't believe you understand how very
happy I am beginning to be--"

"Do people come here?"

"Yes, on Sunday afternoons; I know nearly a dozen nice girls now, and
those men I told you about--Mr. Snyder, Mr. Jim Anthony and his brother
the artist, and Mr. Cass and Mr. Renwick."

"You can cut out Renwick," he said briefly.

She seemed surprised. "He has always been perfectly nice to me,
Louis--"

"Cut him out, Dolly. I know the breed."

"Of course, if you wish."

He looked at her, convinced in spite of himself. "Always ask me about
people. If I don't know I can find out."

"I always do," she said.

"Yes, I believe you do.... You're all right, Dolly--so far.... There,
don't look at me in that distressed-dove fashion; I _know_ you are all
right and mean to be for your own sake--"

"For yours also," she said.

"Oh--that's all right, too--story-book fidelity; my preserver
ever!--What?--Sure--and a slow curtain.... There, there, Dolly--where's
your sense of humour! Good Lord, what's changing you into a
bread-and-butter boarding-school sentimentalist!--to feel hurt at
nothing! Hello! look at that kitten of yours climbing your silk
curtains! Spank the rascal!"

But the girl caught up the kitten and tucked it up under her chin,
smiling across at Malcourt, who had picked up his hat, gloves, and
stick.

"Will you come to-morrow?" she asked.

"I'm going away for a while."

Her face fell; she rose, placed the kitten on the lounge, and walked up
to him, both hands clasped loosely behind her back, wistfully
acquiescent.

"It's going to be lonely again for me," she said.

"Nonsense! You've just read me your visiting list--"

"I had rather have you here than anybody."

"Dolly, you'll get over that absurd sense of obligatory regard for
me--"

"I had _rather_ have you, Louis."

"I know. That's very sweet of you--and very proper.... You are all
right.... I'll be back in a week or ten days, and," smilingly, "mind you
have your report ready! If you've been a good girl we'll talk over 'The
Inca' again and--perhaps--we'll have Mr. Bulder up to luncheon....
Good-bye."

She gave him her hand, looking up into his face.

"Smile!" he insisted.

She smiled.

So he went away, rather satiated with the pleasures of self-denial; but
the lightly latent mockery soon broke out again in a smile as he reached
the street.

"What a mess!" he grinned to himself. "The Tressilvains at Portlaw's!
And Wayward! and Shiela and Virginia and that awful Louis Malcourt! It
only wants Hamil to make the jolliest little hell of it. O my, O my,
what an amusing mess!"

However, he knew what Portlaw didn't know, that Virginia would never
accept that invitation, and that neither Wayward nor Constance Palliser
would remain one day under the roof that harboured the sister of Louis
Malcourt.



CHAPTER XXV

A CONFERENCE


When Malcourt arrived at Luckless Lake Sunday evening he found Portlaw
hunched up in an arm-chair, all alone in the living-room, although the
hour was still early.

"Where's your very agreeable house-party?" he inquired, looking about
the empty room and hall with an air of troubled surprise.

"Gone to bed," replied Portlaw irritably,--"what's left of 'em." And he
continued reading "The Pink 'Un."

"Really!" said Malcourt in polite concern.

"Yes, really!" snapped Portlaw. "Mrs. Ascott went to Pride's and took
Wayward and Constance Palliser; that was Friday. And Gray and Cecile
joined them yesterday. It's been a horrible house-party; nobody had any
use for anybody else and it has rained every day and--and--to be plain
with you, Louis, nobody is enchanted with your relatives and that's the
unpleasant truth!"

"I don't blame anybody," returned Malcourt sincerely, removing his
driving-gloves and shaking off his wet box-coat. "Why, I can scarcely
stand them myself, William. Where are they?"

"In the west wing of your house--preparing to remain indefinitely."

"Dear, dear!" exclaimed Malcourt. "What on earth shall we do?" And he
peered sideways at Portlaw with his tongue in his cheek.

"Do? _I_ don't know. Why the devil did you suggest that they stop at
your house?"

"Because, William, curious as it may seem, I had a sort of weak-minded
curiosity to see my sister once more." He walked over to the table, took
a cigarette and lighted it, then stood regarding the burning match in
his fingers. "She's the last of the family; I'll probably never see her
again--"

"She appears to be in excellent health," remarked Portlaw viciously.

"So am I; but--" He shrugged and tossed the embers of the match onto the
hearth.

"But what?"

"Well, I'm going to take a vacation pretty soon--a sort of voyage, and a
devilish long one, William. That's why I wanted to see her again."

"You mean to tell me you are going away?" demanded the other
indignantly.

Malcourt laughed. "Oh, yes. I planned it long ago--one morning toward
daybreak years ago.... A--a relative of mine started on the same voyage
rather unexpectedly.... I've heard very often from him since; I'm
curious to try it, too--when he makes up his mind to invite me--"

"When are you starting?" interrupted Portlaw, disgusted.

"Oh, not for a while, I think. I won't embarrass you; I'll leave
everything in ship-shape--"

"_Where_ are you going?--dammit!"

Malcourt looked at him humorously, head on one side. "I am not perfectly
sure, dear friend. I hate to know all about a thing before I do it.
Otherwise there's no sporting interest in it."

"You mean to tell me that you're going off a-gipsying without any
definite plans?"

"Gipsying?" he laughed. "Well, that may perhaps describe it. I don't
know; I have no plans. That's the charm of it. When one grows tired,
that is the restful part of it--to simply start, having no plans; just
to leave, and drift away haphazard. One is always bound to arrive
somewhere, William."

He had been pacing backward and forward, the burning cigarette balanced
between his fingers, turning his handsome head from time to time to
answer Portlaw's ill-tempered questions. Now he halted, dark eyes roving
about the room. They fell and lingered on a card-table where some empty
glasses decorated the green baize top.

"Bridge?" he queried.

"Unfortunately," growled Portlaw.

"Who?"

"Mrs. Malcourt and I versus your--ah--talented family."

"Mrs. Malcourt doesn't gamble."

"Tressilvain and I did."

"Were you badly stung, dear friend?"

Portlaw muttered.

Malcourt lifted his expressive eyebrows.

"Why didn't you try my talented relative again to-night?"

"Mrs. Malcourt had enough," said Portlaw briefly; then mumbled something
injuriously unintelligible.

"I think I'll go over to the house and see if my gifted brother-in-law
has retired," said Malcourt, adding carelessly, "I suppose Mrs. Malcourt
is asleep."

"It wouldn't surprise me," replied Portlaw. And Malcourt was free to
interpret the remark as he chose.

He went away thoughtfully, crossing the lawn in the rainy darkness, and
came to the garden where his own dogs barked at him--a small thing to
depress a man, but it did; and it was safer for the dogs, perhaps, that
they sniffed recognition before they came too near with their growls and
barking. But he opened the gate, disdaining to speak to them, and when
they knew him, it was a pack of very humble, wet, and penitent hounds
that came wagging up alongside. He let them wag unnoticed.

Lights burned in his house, one in Shiela's apartments, several in the
west wing where the Tressilvains were housed. A servant, locking up for
the night, came across the dripping veranda to admit him; and he went
upstairs and knocked at his wife's door.

Shiela's maid opened, hesitated; and a moment later Shiela appeared,
fully dressed, a book in her hand. It was one of Hamil's architectural
volumes.

"Well, Shiela," he said lightly; "I got in to-night and rather expected
to see somebody; but nobody waited up to see me! I'm rather wet--it's
raining--so I won't trouble you. I only wanted to say good night."

The quick displeasure in her face died out. She dismissed the maid, and
came slowly forward. Beneath the light her face looked much thinner; he
noticed dark shadows under the eyes; the eyes themselves seemed tired
and expressionless.

"Aren't you well?" he asked bluntly.

"Perfectly.... Was it you the dogs were so noisy about just now?"

"Yes; it seems that even my own dogs resent my return. Well--good night.
I'm glad you're all right."

Something in his voice, more than in the words, arrested her listless
attention.

"Will you come in, Louis?"

"I'm afraid I'm keeping you awake. Besides I'm wet--"

"Come in and tell me where you've been--if you care to. Would you like
some tea--or something?"

He shook his head, but followed her into the small receiving-room. There
he declined an offered chair.

"I've been in New York.... No, I did not see your family.... As for what
I've been doing--"

Her lifted eyes betrayed no curiosity; a growing sense of depression
crept over him.

"Oh, well," he said, "it doesn't matter." And turned toward the door.

She looked into the empty fireplace with a sigh; then, gently, "I don't
mean to make it any drearier for you than I can help."

He considered her a moment.

"Are you really well, Shiela?"

"Why, yes; only a little tired. I do not sleep well."

He nodded toward the west wing of the house.

"Do _they_ bother you?"

She did not answer.

He said: "Thank you for putting them up. We'll get rid of them if they
annoy you."

"They are quite welcome."

"That's very decent of you, Shiela. I dare say you have not found them
congenial."

"We have nothing in common. I think they consider me a fool."

"Why?" He looked up, keenly humourous.

"Because I don't understand their inquiries. Besides, I don't gamble--"

"What kind of inquiries do they make?"

"Personal ones," she said quietly.

He laughed. "They're probably more offensively impertinent than the
Chinese--that sort of Briton. I think I'll step into the west wing and
greet my relations. I won't impose them on you for very long. Do you
know when they are going?"

"I think they have made plans to remain here for a while."

"Really?" he sneered. "Well, leave that to me, Shiela."

So he crossed into the western wing and found the Tressilvains
tête-à-tête over a card-table, deeply interested in something that
resembled legerdemain; and he stood at the door and watched them with a
smile that was not agreeable.

"Well, Helen!" he said at last; and Lady Tressilvain started, and her
husband rose to the full height of his five feet nothing, dropping the
pack which he had been so nimbly manipulating for his wife's amusement.

"Where the devil did you come from?" blurted his lordship; but his wife
made a creditable appearance in her rôle of surprised sisterly
affection; and when the two men had gone through the form of family
greeting they all sat down for the conventional family confab.

Tressilvain said little but drank a great deal of whisky--his long,
white, bony fingers were always spread around his glass--unusually long
fingers for such a short man, and out of all proportion to the scant
five-foot frame, topped with a little pointed head, in which the eyes
were set exactly as glass eyes are screwed into the mask of a fox.

"Bertie and I have been practising leads from trick hands," observed
Lady Tressilvain, removing the ice from her glass and filling it from a
soda bottle which Malcourt uncorked for her.

"Well, Herby," said Malcourt genially, "I suppose you and Helen play a
game well worth--ah--watching."

Tressilvain looked dully annoyed, although there was nothing in his
brother-in-law's remark to ruffle anybody, except that his lordship did
not like to be called Herby. He sat silent, caressing his glass; and
presently his little black eyes stole around in Malcourt's direction,
and remained there, waveringly, while brother and sister discussed the
former's marriage, the situation at Luckless Lake, and future prospects.

That is to say, Lady Tressilvain did the discussing; Malcourt, bland,
amiable, remained uncommunicatively polite, parrying everything so
innocently that his sister, deceived, became plainer in her questions
concerning the fortune he was supposed to have married, and more
persistent in her suggestions of a winter in New York--a delightful and
prolonged family reunion, in which the Tressilvains were to figure as
distinguished guests and virtual pensioners of everybody connected with
his wife's family.

"Do you think," drawled Malcourt, intercepting a furtive glance between
his sister and brother-in-law, to that gentleman's slight confusion, "do
you think it might prove interesting to you and Herby? Americans are so
happy to have your countrymen to entertain--particularly when their
credentials are as unquestionable as Herby's and yours."

For a full minute, in strained silence, the concentrated gaze of the
Tressilvains was focused upon the guileless countenance of Malcourt;
and discovered nothing except a fatuous cordiality.

Lady Tressilvain drew a deep, noiseless breath and glanced at her
husband.

"I don't understand, Louis, exactly what settlement--what sort of
arrangement you made when you married this--very interesting young
girl--"

"Oh, I didn't have anything to endow her with," said Malcourt, so
amiably stupid that his sister bit her lip.

Tressilvain essayed a jest.

"Rather good, that!" he said with his short, barking laugh; "but I
da'say the glove was on the other hand, eh, Louis?"

"What?"

"Why the--ah--the lady did the endowing and all that, don't you see?"

"See what?" asked Malcourt so pleasantly that his sister shot a look at
her husband which checked him.

Malcourt was now on maliciously humourous terms with himself; he began
to speak impulsively, affectionately, with all the appearance of a
garrulous younger brother impatient to unbosom himself to his family;
and he talked and talked, confidingly, guilelessly, voluminously, yet
managed to say absolutely nothing. And, strain their ears as they might,
the Tressilvains in their perplexity and increasing impatience could
make out nothing of all this voluntary information--understand
nothing--pick out not one single fact to satisfy their desperately
hungry curiosity.

There was no use interrupting him with questions; he answered them with
others; he whispered ambiguities in a manner most portentous; hinted at
bewildering paradoxes with an air; nodded mysterious nothings, and
finally left them gaping at him, exasperated, unable to make any sense
out of what most astonishingly resembled a candid revelation of the
hopes, fears, ambitions, and worldly circumstances of Louis Malcourt.

"Good-night," he said, lingering at the door to look upon and enjoy the
fruit of his perversity and malice. "When I start on that journey I
mentioned to you I'll leave something for you and Herby--merely to show
you how much I think of my own people--a little gift--a trifle!
No--no!"--lifting his hand with smiling depreciation as Tressilvain
began to thank him. "One must look out for one's own family. It's
natural--only natural to make some provision. Good-night, Helen!
Good-night, Herby. Portlaw and I will take you on at Bridge if it rains
to-morrow. It will be a privilege for us to--ah--watch your
game--closely. Good-night!"

And closed the door.

"What the devil does he mean?" demanded Tressilvain, peering sideways at
his wife.

"I don't exactly know," she said thoughtfully, sorting the cards. She
added: "If we play to-morrow you stick to signals; do you understand?
And keep your ring and your fingers off the cards until I can make up my
mind about my brother. You're a fool to drink American whisky the way
you did yesterday. Mr. Portlaw noticed the roughness on the aces; you
pricked them too deep. You'd better keep your wits about you, I can tell
you. I'm a Yankee myself."

"Right--O! But I say, Helen, I'm damned if I make out that brother of
yours. Doesn't he live in the same house as his wife?"

Lady Tressilvain sat listening to the uproar from the dogs as Malcourt
left the garden. But this time the outbreak was only a noisy welcome;
and Malcourt, on excellent terms with himself, patted every sleek, wet
head thrust up for caresses and walked gaily on through the driving
rain.


The rain continued the following day. Piloted by Malcourt, the
Tressilvains, thickly shod and water-proofed, tramped about with rod and
creel and returned for luncheon where their blunt criticisms on the
fishing aroused Portlaw's implacable resentment. For they sneered at the
trout, calling them "char," patronised the rather scanty pheasantry,
commented on the kennels, stables, and gardens in a manner that brought
the red into Portlaw's face and left him silent while luncheon lasted.

After luncheon Tressilvain tried the billiards, but found the game
inferior to the English game. So he burrowed into a box of cigars,
established himself before the fire with all the newspapers, deploring
the fact that the papers were not worth reading.

Lady Tressilvain cornered Shiela and badgered her and stared at her
until she dared not lift her hot face or open her lips lest the pent
resentment escape; Portlaw smoked a pipe--a sure indication of
smouldering wrath; Malcourt, at a desk, blew clouds of smoke from his
cigarette and smilingly continued writing to his attorney:

   "This is the general idea for the document, and it's up to you to
   fix it up and make it legal, and have it ready for me when I come
   to town.

   "1st. I want to leave all my property to a Miss Dorothy or Dolly
   Wilming; and I want you to sell off everything after my death and
   invest the proceeds for her because it's all she'll have to live
   on except what she gets by her own endeavours. This, in case I
   suddenly snuff out.

   "2d. I want to leave my English riding-crop, spurs, bridle, and
   saddle to a Miss Virginia Suydam. Fix it legally.

   "3d. Here is a list of eighteen ladies. Each is to have one of my
   eighteen Chinese gods.

   "4th. To my wife I leave the nineteenth god. Mr. Hamil has it in
   his possession. I have no right to dispose of it, but he will
   have some day.

   "5th. To John Garret Hamil, 3d, I leave my volume of Jean DuMont,
   the same being an essay on Friendship.

   "6th. To my friend, William Van Bueren Portlaw, I leave my dogs,
   rods, and guns with a recommendation that he use them and his
   legs.

   "7th. To my sister, Lady Tressilvain, I leave my book of comic
   Bridge rules, and to her husband a volume of Methodist hymns.

   "I'll be in town again, shortly, and expect you to have my will
   ready to be signed and witnessed. One ought always to be
   prepared, particularly when in excellent health.

                                  "Yours sincerely,
                                        "LOUIS MALCOURT."

   "P.S. I enclose a check for the Greenlawn Cemetery people. I wish
   you'd see that they keep the hedge properly trimmed around my
   father's plot and renew the dead sod where needed. I noticed that
   one of the trees was also dead. Have them put in another and keep
   the flowers in good shape. I don't want anything dead around that
   lot.

                                         "L.M."

When he had sealed and directed his letter he looked around the silent
room. Shiela was sewing by the window. Portlaw, back to the fire, stood
staring out at the rain; Lady Tressilvain, a cigarette between her thin
lips, wandered through the work-shop and loading-room where, from hooks
in the ceiling, a thicket of split-cane rod-joints hung, each suspended
by a single strong thread.

The loading-room was lined with glass-faced cases containing
fowling-pieces, rifles, reels, and the inevitable cutlery and
ironmongery associated with utensils for the murder of wild creatures.
Tressilvain sat at the loading-table to which he was screwing a delicate
vise to hold hooks; for Malcourt had given him a lesson in fly-tying,
and he meant to dress a dozen to try on Painted Creek.

So he sorted snell and hook and explored the tin trunk for hackles,
silks, and feathers, up to his bony wrists in the fluffy heap of
brilliant plumage, burrowing, busy as a burying beetle under a dead
bird.

Malcourt dropped his letter into the post-box, glanced uncertainly in
the direction of his wife, but as she did not lift her head from her
sewing, turned with a shrug and crossed the floor to where Portlaw stood
scowling and sucking at his empty pipe.

"Look at that horrid little brother-in-law of mine with his ferret eyes
and fox face, fussing around those feathers--as though he had just
caught and eaten the bird that wore them!"

Portlaw continued to scowl.

"Suppose we take them on at cards," suggested Malcourt.

"No, thanks."

"Why not?"

"They've taken a thousand out of me already."

Malcourt said quietly: "You've never before given such a reason for
discontinuing card-playing. What's your real reason?"

Portlaw was silent.

"Did you quit a thousand to the bad, Billy?"

"Yes, I did."

"Then why not get it back?"

"I don't care to play," said Portlaw shortly.

The eyes of the two men met.

"Are you, by any chance, afraid of our fox-faced guest?" asked Malcourt
suavely.

"I don't care to give any reason, I tell you."

"That's serious; as there could be only one reason. Did you think you
noticed--anything?"

"I don't know what I think.... I've half a mind to stop payment on that
check--if that enlightens you any."

"There's an easier way," said Malcourt coolly. "You know how it is in
sparring? You forecast what your opponent is going to do and you stop
him before he does it."

"I'm not _certain_ that he--did it," muttered Portlaw. "I can't afford
to make a mistake by kicking out your brother-in-law."

"Oh, don't mind me--"

"I wouldn't if I were sure.... I wish I had that thousand back; it
drives me crazy to think of losing it--in that way--"

"Oh; then you feel reasonably sure--"

"No, confound it.... The backs of the aces were slightly rough--but I
can scarcely believe--"

"Have you a magnifying glass?"

The pack has disappeared.... I meant to try that."

"My dear fellow," said Malcourt calmly, "it wouldn't surprise me in the
slightest to learn that Tressilvain is a blackguard. It's easy enough to
get your thousand back. Shall we?"

"How?"

Malcourt sauntered over to a card table, seated himself, motioned
Portlaw to the chair opposite, and removed the cover from a new pack.

Then, to Portlaw's astonishment, he began to take aces and court cards
from any part of the pack at his pleasure; any card that Portlaw called
for was produced unerringly. Then Malcourt dealt him unbelievable
hands--all of a colour, all of a suit, all the cards below the tens, all
above; and Portlaw, fascinated, watched the dark, deft fingers nimbly
dealing, shuffling, until his senses spun round; and when Malcourt
finally tore up all the aces, and then, ripping the green baize cover
from the table, disclosed the four aces underneath, intact, Portlaw,
petrified, only stared at him out of distended eyes.

"Those are nice tricks, aren't they?" asked Malcourt, smiling.

"Y-yes. Lord! Louis, I never dreamed you could do such devilish things
as--"

"I can. If I were not always behind you in my score I'd scarcely dare
let you know what I might do if I chose.... How far ahead is that little
mink, yonder?"

"Tressilvain?"

"Yes."

"He has taken about a thousand--wait!" Portlaw consulted his note-book,
made a wry face, and gave Malcourt the exact total.

Malcourt turned carelessly in his chair.

"O Herbert!" he called across to his brother-in-law; "don't you and
Helen want to take us on?"

"Rather!" replied Tressilvain briskly; and came trotting across the
room, his close-set black eyes moving restlessly from Malcourt to
Portlaw.

"Come on, Helen," said Malcourt, drawing up a chair for her; and his
sister seated herself gracefully. A moment later the game began, Portlaw
passing it over to Malcourt, who made it no trumps, and laid out all the
materials for international trouble, including a hundred aces.

The games were brutally short, savage, decisive; Tressilvain lost
countenance after the fastest four rubbers he had ever played, and shot
an exasperated glance at his wife, who was staring thoughtfully at her
brother.

But that young man appeared to be in an innocently merry mood; he gaily
taunted Herby, as he chose to call him, with loss of nerve; he tormented
his sister because she didn't seem to know what Portlaw's discards
meant; and no wonder, because he discarded from an obscure system taught
him by Malcourt. Also, with a malice which Tressilvain ignored, he
forced formalities, holding everybody ruthlessly to iron-clad rule,
taking penalties, enforcing the most rigid etiquette. For he was one of
those rare players who knew the game so thoroughly that while he, and
the man he had taught, often ignored the classics of adversary play, the
slightest relaxing of etiquette, rule, precept, or precedent, in his
opponents, brought him out with a protest exacting the last item of toll
for indiscretion.

Portlaw was perhaps the sounder player, Malcourt certainly the more
brilliant; and now, for the first time since the advent of the
Tressilvains, the cards Portlaw held were good ones.

"What a nasty thing to do!" said Lady Tressilvain sharply, as her
brother's finesse went through, and with it another rubber.

"It was horrid, wasn't it, Helen? I don't know what's got into you and
Herby"; and to the latter's protest he added pleasantly: "You talk like
a bucket of ashes. Go on and deal!"

"A--what!" demanded Tressilvain angrily.

"It's an Americanism," observed his wife, surveying her cards with
masked displeasure and making it spades. "Louis, I never held such hands
in all my life," she said, displaying the meagre dummy.

"Do you good, Helen. Mustn't be too proud and haughty. No, no! Good for
you and Herby--"

"I wish you wouldn't call him Herby," snapped his sister.

"Not respectful?" inquired Malcourt, lifting his eyebrows. "Well, I'll
call him anything you like, Helen; I don't care. But make it something I
can say when ladies are present--"

Tressilvain's mink-like muzzle turned white with rage. He didn't like to
be flouted, he didn't like his cards, he didn't like to lose money. And
he had already lost a lot between luncheon and the impending dinner.

"Why the devil I continue to hold all these three-card suits I don't
know," he said savagely. "Isn't there another pack in the house?"

"There _was_" said Malcourt; and ironically condoled with him as Portlaw
accomplished a little slam in hearts.

Then Tressilvain dealt; and Malcourt's eyes never left his
brother-in-law's hands as they distributed the cards with nervous
rapidity.

"Misdeal," he said quietly.

"What?" demanded his sister in sharp protest.

"It's a misdeal," repeated Malcourt, smiling at her; and, as
Tressilvain, half the pack suspended, gazed blankly at him, Malcourt
turned and looked him squarely in the eye. The other reddened.

"Too bad," said Malcourt, with careless good-humour, "but one has to be
so careful in dealing the top card, Herby. You stumble over your own
fingers; they're too long; or perhaps it's that ring of yours."

A curious, almost ghastly glance passed involuntarily between the
Tressilvains; Portlaw, who was busy lighting a cigar, did not notice it,
but Malcourt laughed lightly and ran over the score, adding it up with a
nimble accuracy that seemed to stun his relatives.

"Why, look what's here!" he exclaimed, genially displaying a total that,
added, balanced all Portlaw's gains and losses to date. "Why, isn't that
curious, Helen! Right off the bat like that!--cricket-bat," he explained
affably to Tressilvain, who, as dinner was imminent, had begun fumbling
for his check-book.

At Malcourt's suave suggestion, however, instead of drawing a new check
he returned Portlaw's check. Malcourt took it, tore it carefully in two
equal parts.

"Half for you, William, half for me," he said gaily. "My--my! What
strange things do happen in cards--and in the British Isles!"

The dull flush deepened on Tressilvain's averted face, but Lady
Tressilvain, unusually pale, watched her brother persistently during the
general conversation that preceded dressing for dinner.



CHAPTER XXVI

SEALED INSTRUCTIONS


After the guests had gone away to dress Portlaw looked inquiringly at
Malcourt and said: "That misdeal may have been a slip. I begin to
believe I was mistaken after all. What do you think, Louis?"

Malcourt's eyes wandered toward his wife who still bent low over her
sewing. "I don't think," he said absently, and sauntered over to Shiela,
saying:

"It's rather dull for you, isn't it?"

She made no reply until Portlaw had gone upstairs; then looking around
at him:

"Is there any necessity for me to sit here while you play cards this
evening?"

"No, if it doesn't amuse you."

Amuse her! She rested her elbow on the window ledge, and, chin on hand,
stared out into the gray world of rain--the world that had been so
terribly altered for her for ever. In the room shadows were gathering;
the dull light faded. Outside it rained over land and water, over the
encircling forest which walled in this stretch of spectral world where
the monotony of her days was spent.

To the sadness of it she was slowly becoming inured; but the strangeness
of her life she could not yet comprehend--its meaningless days and
nights, its dragging hours--and the strange people around her immersed
in their sordid pleasures--this woman--her husband's sister,
thin-lipped, hard-featured, drinking, smoking, gambling, shrill in
disputes, merciless of speech, venomously curious concerning all that
she held locked in the privacy of her wretchedness.

"Shiela," he said, "why don't you pay your family a visit?"

She shook her head.

"You're afraid they might suspect that you are not particularly happy?"

"Yes.... It was wrong to have Gray and Cecile here. It was fortunate you
were away. But they saw the Tressilvains."

"What did they think of 'em?" inquired Malcourt.

"What do you suppose they would think?"

"Quite right. Well, don't worry. Hold out a little longer. This is a
ghastly sort of pantomime for you, but there's always a grand
transformation scene at the end. Who knows how soon the curtain will
rise on fairyland and the happy lovers and all that bright and sparkling
business? Children demand it--must have it.... And you are very young
yet."

He laughed, seeing her perplexed expression.

"You don't know what I mean, do you? Listen, Shiela; stay here to
dinner, if you can stand my relatives. We won't play cards. You'll
really find it amusing I think."

"Do you wish me to stay?"

"Yes, I do. I want you to see something."

A few moments afterward she took her umbrella and waterproof and went
away to dress, returning to a dinner-table remarkable for the silence of
the diners. Something, too, had gone wrong with the electric plant, and
after dinner candles were lighted in the living-room. Outside it rained
heavily.

Malcourt sat beside his wife, smoking, and, unaided, sustaining what
conversation there was; and after a while he rose, dragged a heavy,
solid wooden table to the middle of the room, placed five chairs around
it, and smilingly invited Shiela, the Tressilvains, and Portlaw to join
him.

"A seance in table-tipping?" asked his sister coldly. "Really, Louis, I
think we are rather past such things."

"I never saw a bally table tip," observed Tressilvain. "How do you do
it, Louis?"

"I don't; it tips. Come, Shiela, if you don't mind. Come on, Billy."

Tressilvain seated himself and glanced furtively about him.

"I dare say you're all in this game," he said, with a rattling laugh.

"It's no game. If the table tips it tips, and our combined weight can't
hold it down," said Malcourt. "If it won't tip it won't, and I'll bet
you a hundred dollars that you can't tip it, Herby."

Tressilvain, pressing his hands hard on the polished edge, tried to move
the table; then he stood up and tried. It was too heavy and solid, and
he could do nothing except by actually lifting it or by seizing it in
both hands and dragging it about.

One by one, reluctantly, the others took seats around the table and, as
instructed by Malcourt, rested the points of their fingers on the dully
polished surface.

"Does it really ever move?" asked Shiela of Malcourt.

"It sometimes does."

"What's the explanation?" demanded Portlaw, incredulously; "spirits?"

"I don't think anybody here would credit such an explanation," said
Malcourt. "The table moves or it doesn't. If it does you'll see it. I'll
leave the explanation to you, William."

"Have you ever seen it move?" asked Shiela, turning again to Malcourt.

"Yes; so has my sister. It's not a trick." Lady Tressilvain looked
bored, but answered Shiela's inquiry:

"I've seen it often. Louis and I and my father used to do it. I don't
know how it's done, and nobody else does. Personally I think it's rather
a stupid way to spend an evening--"

"But," interrupted Portlaw, "there'll be nothing stupid about it if the
table begins to tip up here under our very fingers. I'll bet you, Louis,
that it doesn't. Do you care to bet?"

"Shouldn't the lights be put out?" asked Tressilvain.

Malcourt said it was not necessary, and cautioned everybody to sit
absolutely clear of the table, and to rest only the tips of the fingers
very lightly on the surface.

"Can we speak?" grinned Portlaw.

"Oh, yes, if you like." A bright colour glowed in Malcourt's face; he
looked down dreamily at the top of the table where his hands touched. A
sudden quiet fell over the company.

Shiela, sitting with her white fingers lightly brushing the smooth
mahogany, bent her head, mind wandering; and her thoughts were very far
away when, under her sensitive touch, a curious quiver seemed to run
through the very grain of the wood.

"What's that!" exclaimed Portlaw.

Deep in the wood, wave after wave of motion seemed to spread until the
fibres emitted a faint splintering sound. Then, suddenly, the heavy
table rose slowly, the end on which Shiela's hands rested sinking; and
fell back with a solid shock.

"That's--rather--odd!" muttered Tressilvain. Portlaw's distended eyes
were fastened on the table, which was now heaving uneasily like a boat
at anchor, creaking, cracking, rocking under their finger-tips.
Tressilvain rose from his chair and tried to see, but as everybody was
clear of the table, and their fingers barely touched the top, he could
discover no visible reason for what was occurring so violently under his
very pointed nose.

"It's like a bally earthquake," he said in amazement. "God bless my
soul! the thing is walking off with us!"

Everybody had risen from necessity; chairs were pushed back, skirts
drawn aside as the heavy table, staggering, lurching, moved out across
the floor; and they all followed, striving to keep their finger-tips on
the top.

Portlaw was speechless; Shiela pale, tremulous, bewildered;
Tressilvain's beady eyes shone like the eyes of a surprised rat; but his
wife and Malcourt took it calmly.

"The game is," said Malcourt, "to ask whether there is a spirit present,
and then recite the alphabet. Shall I?... It isn't frightening you, is
it, Shiela?"

"No.... But I don't understand why it moves."

"Neither does anybody. But you see it, feel it. Nor can anybody explain
why an absurd question and reciting the alphabet sometimes results in a
coherent message. Shall I try it, Helen?"

His sister nodded indifferently.

There was a silence, then Malcourt, still standing, said quietly:

"Is there a message?"

From the deep, woody centre of the table three loud knocks
sounded--almost ripped out, and the table quivered in every fibre.

"Is there a message for anybody present?"

Three raps followed in a startling volley.

"Get the chairs," motioned Malcourt; and when all were seated clear of
the table but touching lightly the surface with their finger-tips:

"A B C D E F"--began Malcourt, slowly reciting the alphabet; and, as the
raps rang out, sig-nalling some letter, he began again in a monotonous
voice: "A B C D E F G"--pausing as soon as the raps arrested him at a
certain letter, only to begin again.

"Get a pad and pencil," whispered Lady Tressilvain to Shiela.

So Shiela left the table, found a pad and pencil, and seated herself
near a candle by the window; and as each letter was rapped out by the
table, she put it down in order.

The recitation seemed endless; Malcourt's voice grew hoarse with the
repetition; letter after letter was added to the apparently meaningless
sequence on Shiela's pad.

"Is there any sense in it so far?" asked Lady Tressilvain.

"I cannot find any," said Shiela, striving with her pencil point to
divide the string of letters into intelligible words.

And still Malcourt's monotonous voice droned on, and still the raps
sounded from the table. Portlaw hung over it as though hypnotized;
Tressilvain had fallen to moistening his lips with the tip of his
tongue, stealthy eyes always roaming about the candle-lit room as though
searching for something uncanny lurking in the shadows.

Shiela shivered, wide-eyed, as she sat watching the table which was now
snapping and cracking and heaving under her gaze. A slow fear of the
thing crept over her--of this senseless, lifeless mass of wood,
fashioned by human hands. The people around it, the room, the house were
becoming horrible to her; she loathed them and what they were doing.

A ripping crash brought her to her feet; everybody sprang up. Under
their hands the table was shuddering convulsively. Suddenly it split
open as though rent by a bolt, and fell like a live thing in agony, a
mass of twisted fibres protruding like viscera from its shattered core.

Stunned silence; and Malcourt turned to his sister and spoke in a low
voice, but she only shook her head, shivering, and stared at the wreck
of wood as though revolted.

"W-what happened?" faltered Portlaw, bewildered.

"I don't know," said Malcourt unsteadily.

"Don't know! Look at that table! Why, man, it's--it's _dying_!"

Tressilvain stood as though stupefied. Malcourt walked slowly over to
where Shiela stood.

She shrank involuntarily away from him as he bent to pick up the pad
which had fallen from her hands.

"There's nothing to be frightened about," he said, forcing a smile; and,
holding the pad under the light, scanned it attentively. His sister came
over to him, asking if the letters made any sense.

He shook his head.

They studied it together, Shiela's fascinated gaze riveted on them both.
And she saw Lady Tressilvain's big eyes widen as she laid her pencil on
a sequence; saw Malcourt's quick nod of surprised comprehension when she
checked off a word, then another, another, another; and suddenly her
face turned white to the lips, and she caught at her brother's arm,
terrified.

"Will you keep quiet?" he whispered fiercely, snatching the sheet from
the pad and crumpling it into his palm.

Sister and brother faced each other; in his eyes leaped a flame infernal
which seemed to hold her paralyzed for a moment; then, with a gesture,
she swept him aside, and covering her eyes with her hands, sank into a
chair.

"What a fool you are!" he said furiously, bending down beside her. "It's
in us both; you'll do it, too, when you are ready--if you have any
sporting blood in you!"

And, straightening up impatiently, his eyes fell on Shiela, and he
shrugged his shoulders and smiled resignedly.

"It's nothing. My sister's nerves are a bit upset.... After all, this
parlour magic is a stupid mistake, because there's always somebody who
takes it seriously. It's only humbug, anyway; you know that, don't you,
Shiela?"

He untwisted the paper in his hand and held it in the candle flame until
it burned to cinders.

"What was there on that paper?" asked Shiela, managing to control her
voice.

"Why, merely a suggestion that I travel," he said coolly. "I can't see
why my sister should make a fool of herself over the idea of my going on
a journey. I've meant to, for years--to rest myself. I've told you that
often, haven't I, Shiela?"

She nodded slowly, but her eyes reverted to the woman crouching in the
chair, face buried in her brilliantly jewelled hands. Portlaw and
Tressilvain were also staring at her.

"You'd better go to bed, Helen," said Malcourt coolly; and turned on his
heel, lighting a cigarette.

A little later the Tressilvains and Shiela started across the lawn to
their own apartments, and Malcourt went with them to hold an umbrella
over his wife.

In the lower hall they separated with scarcely a word, but Malcourt
detained his brother-in-law by a significant touch on the arm, and drew
him into the library.

"So you're leaving to-morrow?" he asked.

"What?" said Tressilvain.

"I say that I understand you and Helen are leaving us to-morrow."

"I had not thought of leaving," said Tressilvain.

"Think again," suggested Malcourt.

"What do you mean?"

Malcourt walked up very close and looked him in the face.

"Must I explain?" he asked contemptuously. "I will if you like--you
clumsy card-slipping, ace-pricking blackguard!... The station-wagon will
be ready at seven. See that you are, too. Now go and tell my sister. It
may reconcile her to various ideas of mine."

And he turned and, walking to a leather-covered chair drawn up beside
the library table, seated himself and opened a heavy book.

Tressilvain stood absolutely still, his close-set eyes fairly starting
from his face, in which not a vestige of colour now remained; and when
at length he left the room he left so noiselessly that Malcourt did not
hear him. However, Malcourt happened to be very intent upon his own
train of thought, so absorbed, in fact, that it was a long while before
he looked up and around, as though somebody had suddenly spoken his
name.

But it was only the voice which had sounded so often and familiarly in
his ears; and he smiled and inclined his graceful head to listen,
folding his hands under his chin.

He seemed very young and boyish, there, leaning both elbows on the
library table, head bent expectantly as he listened, or lifted when he,
in turn, spoke aloud. And sometimes he spoke gravely, argumentatively,
sometimes almost flippantly, and once or twice his laugh rang out
through the empty room.

In the forest a heavy wind had risen; somewhere outside a door or
shutter banged persistently. He did not hear it, but Shiela, sleepless
in her room above, laid down Hamil's book; then, thinking it might be
the outer door left carelessly unlocked, descended the stairs with
lighted candle. Passing the library and hearing voices she halted,
astonished to see her husband there alone; and as she stood, perplexed
and disturbed, he spoke as though answering a question. But there was no
one there who could have asked it; the room was empty save for that
solitary figure. Something in his voice terrified her--in the uncanny
monologue which meant nothing to her--in his curiously altered laugh--in
his intent listening attitude. It was not the first time she had seen
him this way.

"Louis!" she exclaimed; "what are you doing?"

He turned dreamily toward her, rose as in a trance.

"Oh, is it you?... Come in here."

"I cannot; I am tired."

"So am I, Shiela--tired to death. What time is it?"

"After ten, I think--if that clock is right."

She entered, reluctant, uncertain, peering up at the clock; then:

"I thought the front door had been left open and came down to lock it.
What are you doing here at this hour? I--I thought I heard you talking."

"I was talking to my father."

"What!" she said, startled.

"Pretending to," he added wearily; "sit down."

"Do you wish me--"

"Yes; sit down."

"I--" she looked fearfully at him, hesitated, and slowly seated herself
on the arm of a lounge. "W-what is it you--want, Louis?" she faltered,
every nerve on edge.

"Nothing much; a kindly word or two."

"What do you mean? Have I ever been unkind? I--I am too unhappy to be
unkind to anybody." Suddenly her eyes filled.

"Don't do that," he said; "you are always civil to me--never unkind. By
the way, my relatives leave to-morrow. That will comfort you, won't it?"

She said nothing.

He leaned heavily on the table, dark face framed in both hands:

"Shiela, when a man is really tired, don't you think it reasonable for
him to take a rest--and give others one?"

"I don't understand."

"A rather protracted rest is good for tired people, isn't it?"

"Yes, if--"

"In fact," with a whimsical smile, "a sort of endlessly eternal rest
ought to cure anybody. Don't you think so?"

She stared at him.

"Do you happen to remember that my father, needing a good long rest,
took a sudden vacation to enjoy it?"

"I--I--don't know what you mean!"--tremulously.

"You remember how he started on that restful vacation which he is still
enjoying?"

A shudder ran over her. She strove to speak, but her voice died in her
throat.

"My father," he said dreamily, "seems to want me to join him during his
vacation--"

"Louis!"

"What are you frightened about? It's as good a vacation as any
other--only one takes no luggage and pays no hotel bills.... Haven't you
any sense of humour left in you, Shiela? I'm not serious."

She said, trembling, and very white: "I thought you meant it." Then she
rose with a shiver, turned, and mounted the stairs to her room again.
But in the stillness of the place something was already at work on
her--fear--a slow dawning alarm at the silence, the loneliness, the
forests, the rain--a growing horror of the place, of the people in it,
of this man the world called her husband, of his listening silences, his
solitary laughter, his words spoken to something unseen in empty rooms,
his awful humour.

Her very knees were shaking under her now; she stared around her like a
trapped thing, desperate, feeling that self-control was going in sudden,
ungovernable panic.

Scarcely knowing what she was about she crept to the telephone and,
leaning heavily against the wall, placed the receiver to her ear.

For a long while she waited, dreading lest the operator had gone. Then a
far voice hailed her; she gave the name; waited interminable minutes
until a servant's sleepy voice requested her to hold the wire. And, at
last:

"Is it you?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Garry, could you come here to-night?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Danger? No, I am in no danger; I am just frightened."

       *       *       *       *       *

"I don't know what is frightening me."

       *       *       *       *       *

"No, not ill. It's only that I am so horribly alone here in the rain.
I--I cannot seem to endure it." She was speaking almost incoherently,
now, scarcely conscious of what she was saying. "There's a man
downstairs who talks in empty rooms and listens to things I cannot
hear--listens every day, I tell you; I've seen him often, often--I mean
Louis Malcourt! And I cannot endure it--the table that moves, and the--O
Garry! Take me away with you. I cannot stand it any longer!"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Will you come?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"To-night, Garry?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"How long will you be? I simply cannot stay alone in this house until
you come. I'll go down and saddle my mare--"

       *       *       *       *       *

"What?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Oh, yes--yes! I know what I'm doing--"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Yes, I do remember, but--why won't you take me away from--"

       *       *       *       *       *

"I know it--Oh, I know it! I am half-crazed, I think--"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Yes--"

       *       *       *       *       *

"I do care for them still! But--"

       *       *       *       *       *

"O Garry! Garry! I will be true to them! I will do anything you wish,
only come! Come! Come!"

       *       *       *       *       *

"You promise?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"At once?"

       *       *       *       *       *

She hung up the receiver, turned, and flung open the window.

Over the wet woods a rain-washed moon glittered; the long storm had
passed.

An hour later, as she kneeled by the open window, her chin on her arms,
watching for him, out of the shadow and into the full moonlight galloped
a rider who drew bridle on the distant lawn, waving her a gay gesture of
reassurance.

It was too far for her to call; she dared not descend fearing the dogs
might wake the house.

And in answer to his confident salute, she lighted a candle, and,
against the darkness, drew the fiery outline of a heart; then
extinguishing the light, she sank back in her big chair, watching him as
he settled in his stirrups for the night-long vigil that she meant to
share with him till dawn.

The whole night long once more together! She thrilled at the thought of
it--at the memory of that other night and dawn under the Southern
planets where a ghostly ocean thundered at their feet--where her
awakened heart quickened with the fear of him--and all her body trembled
with the blessed fear of him, and every breath was delicious with terror
of the man who had come this night to guard her.

Partly undressed, head cradled in her tumbled hair, she lay there in the
darkness watching him--her paladin on guard beneath the argent splendour
of the moon. Under the loosened silken vest her heart was racing; under
the unbound hair her cheeks were burning. The soft lake breeze rippled
the woodbine leaves along the sill, stirring the lace and ribbon on her
breast.

Hour after hour she lay there, watching him through the dreamy lustre of
the moon, all the mystery of her love for him tremulous within her.
Once, on the edge of sleep, yet still awake, she stretched her arms
toward him in the darkness, unconsciously as she did in dreams.

Slowly the unreality of it all was enveloping her, possessed her as her
lids grew heavy. In the dim silvery light she could scarcely see him
now: a frail mist belted horse and rider, stretching fairy barriers
across the lawn. Suddenly, within her, clear, distinct, a voice began
calling to him imperiously; but her lips never moved. Yet she knew he
would hear; surely he heard! Surely, surely!--for was he not already
drifting toward her through the moonlight, nearer, here under the palms
and orange-trees--here at her feet, holding her close, safe, strong,
till, faint with the happiness of dreams come true, she slept, circled
by his splendid arms.

And, while she lay there, lips scarce parted, sleeping quietly as a
tired child, he sat his mud-splashed saddle, motionless under the moon,
eyes never leaving her window for an instant, till at last the far dawn
broke and the ghostly shadows fled away.

Then, in the pallid light, he slowly gathered bridle and rode back into
the Southern forest, head heavy on his breast.



CHAPTER XXVII

MALCOURT LISTENS


Malcourt was up and ready before seven when his sister came to his door,
dressed in her pretty blue travelling gown, hatted, veiled, gloved to
perfection; but there was a bloom on cheek and mouth which mocked at the
wearied eyes--a lassitude in every step as she slowly entered and seated
herself.

For a moment neither spoke; her brother was looking at her narrowly; and
after a while she raised her veil, turning her face to the merciless
morning light.

"Paint," she said; "and I'm little older than you."

"You will be younger than I am, soon."

She paled a trifle under the red.

"Are you losing your reason, Louis?"

"No, but I've contrived to lose everything else. It was a losing game
from the beginning--for both of us."

"Are you going to be coward enough to drop your cards and quit the
game?"

"Call it that. But the cards are marked and the game crooked--as crooked
as Herby's." He began to laugh. "The world's dice are loaded; I've got
enough."

"Yet you beat Bertie in spite of--"

"For Portlaw's sake. I wouldn't fight with marked cards for my own sake.
Faugh! the world plays a game too rotten to suit me. I'll drop my hand
and--take a stroll for a little fresh air--out yonder--" He waved his
arm toward the rising sun. "Just a step into the fresh air, Helen."

"Are you not afraid?" She managed to form the words with stiffened lips.

"Afraid?" He stared at her. "No; neither are you. You'll do it, too,
some day. If you don't want to now, you will later; if you have any
doubts left they won't last. We have no choice; it's in us. We don't
belong here, Helen; we're different. We didn't know until we'd tried
to live like other people, and everything went wrong." A glint
of humour came into his eyes. "I've made up my mind that we're
extra-terrestrial--something external and foreign to this particular
star. I think it's time to ask for a transfer and take the star ahead."

Not a muscle moved in her expressionless face; he shrugged and drew out
his watch.

"I'm sorry, Helen--"

"Is it time to go?"

"Yes.... Why do you stick to that little cockney pup?"

"I don't know."

"You ruined a decent man to pick him out of the gutter. Why don't you
drop him back?"

"I don't know."

"Do you--ah--care for him?"

"No."

"Then why--"

She shook her head.

"Quite right," said Malcourt, rising; "you're in the wrong planet, too.
And the sooner you realise it the sooner we'll meet again. Good-bye."

She turned horribly pale, stammering something about his coming with
her, resisting a little as he drew her out, down the stairs, and aided
her to enter the depot-wagon. There he kissed her; and she caught him
around the neck, holding him convulsively.

"Nonsense," he whispered. "I've talked it all over with father; he and
I'll talk it over some day with you. Then you'll understand." And
backing away he called to the coachman: "Drive on!" ignoring his
brother-in-law, who sat huddled in a corner, glassy eyes focused on him.

       *       *       *       *       *

Portlaw almost capered with surprise and relief when at breakfast he
learned that the Tressilvains had departed.

"Oh, everything is coming everybody's way," said Malcourt gaily--"like
the last chapter of a bally novel--the old-fashioned kind, Billy, where
Nemesis gets busy with a gun and kind Providence hitches 'em up in
ever-after blocks of two. It takes a rotten novelist to use a gun on his
villains! It's never done in decent literature--never done anywhere
except in real life."

He swallowed his coffee and, lighting a cigarette, tipped back his
chair, balancing himself with one hand on the table.

"The use of the gun," he said lazily, "is obsolete in the modern novel;
the theme now is, how to be passionate though pure. Personally, being
neither one nor the other, I remain uninterested in the modern novel."

"Real life," said Portlaw, spearing a fish-ball, "is damn monotonous.
The only gun-play is in the morning papers."

"Sure," nodded Malcourt, "and there's too many shooting items in 'em
every day to make gun-play available for a novel.... Once, when I
thought I could write--just after I left college--they took me aboard a
morning newspaper on the strength of a chance I had to discover a
missing woman.

"She was in hiding; her name had been horribly spattered in a divorce,
and the poor thing was in hiding--had changed her name, crept off to a
little town in Delaware.

"Our enlightened press was hunting for her; to find her was termed a
'scoop,' I believe.... Well--boys pull legs off grasshoppers and do
other damnable things without thinking.... I found _her_.... So as I
knocked at her door--in the mean little farmhouse down there in
Delaware--she opened it, smiling--she was quite pretty--and blew her
brains out in my very face."

"Wh-what!" bawled Portlaw, dropping knife and fork.

"I--I want to see that girl again--some time," said Malcourt
thoughtfully. "I would like to tell her that I didn't mean it--case of
boy and grasshopper, you know.... Well, as you say, gun-play has no
place in real novels. There wouldn't be room, anyway, with all the
literature and illustrations and purpose and purple preciousness; as
anachronismatically superfluous as sleigh-bells in hell."

Portlaw resumed his egg; Malcourt considered him ironically.

"Sporty Porty, are you going to wed the Pretty Lady of Pride's Hall at
Pride's Fall some blooming day in June?"

"None of your infernal business!"

"Quite so. I only wanted to see how the novel was coming out before
somebody takes the book away from me."

"You talk like a pint of shoe-strings," growled Portlaw; "you'd better
find out whose horse has been denting the lawn all over and tearing off
several yards of sod."

"I know already," said Malcourt.

"Well, who had the nerve to--"

"None of your bally business, dear friend. Are you riding over to
Pride's to-day?"

"Yes, I am."

"I think I'll go, too."

"You're not expected."

"That's the charm of it, old fellow. I didn't expect to go; they don't
expect me; they don't want me; I want to go! All the elements of a
delightful surprise, do you notice?"

Portlaw said, irritably: "They asked Mrs. Malcourt and me. Nothing was
said about you."

"Something will be said if I go," observed Malcourt cheerfully.

Portlaw was exasperated. "There's a girl there you behaved badly to.
You'd better stay away."

Malcourt looked innocently surprised.

"Now, who could that be! I have, it is true, at times, misbehaved, but I
can't ever remember behaving badly--"

Portlaw, too mad to speak, strode wrathfully away toward the stables.

Malcourt was interested to see that he could stride now without
waddling.

"Marvellous, marvellous!--the power of love!" he mused sentimentally;
"Porty is no longer rotund--only majestically portly. See where he
hastens lightly to his Alida!

    "Shepherd fair and maidens all--
    Too-ri-looral!
    Too-ri-looral!"

And, very gracefully, he sketched a step or two in contra-dance to his
own shadow on the grass.

    "Shepherd fair and maidens all--
    Truly rural,
    Too-ri-looral,
    Man prefers his maidens plural;
    One is none, he wants them all!
    Too-ri-looral!
    Too-ri-looral--"

And he sauntered off humming gaily, making playful passes at the trees
with his riding-crop as he passed.

Later he aided his wife to mount and stood looking after her as she rode
away, Portlaw pounding along heavily beside her.

"All alone with the daisies," he said, looking around him when they had
disappeared.

Toward noon he ordered a horse, ate his luncheon in leisurely solitude,
read yesterday's papers while he smoked, then went out, mounted, and
took the road to Pride's Fall, letting his horse choose his own pace.

Moving along through the pretty forest road, he glanced casually right
and left as he advanced, tapping his riding-boots in rhythm to the air
he was humming in a careless undertone--something about a shepherd and
the plural tastes of man.

His mood was inspired by that odd merriment which came from sheer
perversity. When the depths and shallows of his contradictory character
were disturbed a ripple of what passed for mirth covered all the
surface; if there was any profundity to the man the ripple obscured it.
No eye had ever penetrated the secrecy of what lay below; none ever
would. Perhaps there was nothing there.

He journeyed on, his horse ambling or walking as it suited him, or
sometimes veering to stretch a long glossy neck and nip at a bunch of
leaves.

The cock-partridge stood on his drumming-log and defied the forest
rider, all unseen; rabbit and squirrel sat bolt upright with palpitating
flanks and moist bright eyes at gaze; overhead the slow hawks sailed,
looking down at him as he rode.

Sometimes Malcourt whistled to himself, sometimes he sang in a variably
agreeable voice, and now and then he quoted the poets, taking pleasure
in the precision of his own diction.

    "C'est le jour des morts,
    Mirliton, Mirlitaine!
    Requiescant in pace!"

he chanted; and quoted more of the same bard with a grimace, adding, as
he spurred his horse:

"_Poeta nascitur, non fit_!--the poet's nasty and not fit. Zut!
Boum-boum! Get along, old fellow, or we'll never see the pretty ladies
of Pride's this blooming day!"

There was a shorter cut by a spotted trail, and when he saw the first
blaze glimmering through the leaves he steered his horse toward it. The
sound of voices came distantly from the wooded heights above--far
laughter, the faint aroma of a wood fire; no doubt some
picnickers--trespassing as usual, but that was Mrs. Ascott's affair.

A little later, far below him, he caught a glimpse of a white gown among
the trees. There was a spring down there somewhere in that thicket of
silver birches; probably one of the trespassers was drinking. So, idly
curious, he rode that way, his horse making no sound on the thick moss.

"If she's ornamental," he said to himself, "I'll linger to point out the
sin of trespassing; that is if she is sufficiently ornamental--"

His horse stepped on a dead branch which cracked; the girl in white, who
had been looking out through the birch-trees across the valley, turned
her head.

They recognised each other even at that distance; he uttered a low
exclamation of satisfaction, sprang from his saddle, and led his horse
down among the mossy rocks of the water-course to the shelf of rock
overhanging the ravine where she stood as motionless as one of the
silver saplings.

"Virginia," he said, humorously abashed, "shall I say I am glad to see
you, and how d'you do, and offer you my hand?--or had I better not?"

He thought she meant to answer; perhaps she meant to, but found no voice
at her disposal.

He dropped his bridle over a branch and, drawing off his gloves, walked
up to where she was standing.

"I knew you were at Pride's Hall," he said; "I'm aware, also, that
nobody there either expected or wished to see me. But I wanted to see
you; and little things of that sort couldn't keep me away. Where are the
others?"

She strove twice to answer him, then turned abruptly, steadying herself
against a birch-tree with one arm.

"Where are the others, Virginia?" he asked gently.

"On the rocks beyond."

"Picnicking?"

"Yes."

"How charming!" he said; "as though one couldn't see enough country out
of one's windows every minute in the year. But you can't tell where
sentiment will crop up; some people don't object to chasing ants off the
dishes and fishing sticks out of the milk. I do.... It's rather
fortunate I found you alone: saves a frigid reception and cruel comments
after I'm gone.... After I'm gone, Virginia."

He seated himself where the sunlight fell agreeably and looked off over
the valley. A shrunken river ran below--a mere thread of life through
its own stony skeleton--a mockery of what it once had been before the
white-hided things on two legs had cut the forests from the hills and
killed its cool mossy sources in their channels. The crushers of pulp
and the sawyers of logs had done their dirty work thoroughly; their
acids and their sawdust poisoned and choked; their devastation turned
the tree-clothed hill flanks to arid lumps of sand and rock.

He said aloud, "to think of these trees being turned into newspapers!"

He looked up at her whimsically.

"The least I can do is to help grow them again. As a phosphate I might
amount to something--if I'm carefully spaded in." And in a lower voice
just escaping mockery: "How are you, Virginia?"

"I am perfectly well."

"Are you well enough to sit down and talk to me for half an hour?"

She made no reply.

"Don't be dignified; there is nothing more inartistic, except a woman
who is trying to be brave on an inadequate income."

She did not move or look at him.

"Virginia--dear?"

"What?"

"Do you remember that day we met in the surf; and you said something
insolent to me, and bent over, laying your palms flat on the water,
looking at me over your shoulder?"

"Yes."

"You knew what you were doing?"

"Yes."

"This is part of the consequences. That's what life is, nothing but a
game of consequences. I knew what I was doing; you admit you were
responsible for yourself; and nothing but consequences have resulted
ever since. Sit down and be reasonable and friendly; won't you?"

"I cannot stay here."

"Try," he said, smiling, and made room for her on the sun-crisped moss.
A little later she seated herself with an absent-minded air and gazed
out across the valley. A leaf or two, prematurely yellow, drifted from
the birches.

"It reminds me," he said thoughtfully, "of that exquisite poem on
Autumn:

    "'The autumn leaves are falling,
    They're falling everywhere;
    They're falling in the atmosphere,
    They're falling in the air--'

--and I don't remember any more, dear."

"Did you wish to say anything to me besides nonsense?" she asked,
flushing.

"Did you expect anything else from me?"

"I had no reason to."

"Oh; I thought you might have been prepared for a little wickedness."

She turned her eyes, more green than blue, on him.

"I was not unprepared."

"Nor I," he said gaily; "don't let's disappoint each other. You know our
theory is that the old families are decadent; and I think we ought to
try to prove any theory we advance--in the interests of psychology.
Don't you?"

"I think we have proved it."

He laughed, and passing his arm around her drew her head so that it
rested against his face.

"That is particularly dishonourable," she said in an odd voice.

"Because I'm married?"

"Yes; and because I know it."

"That's true; you didn't know it when we were at Palm Beach. That was
tamer than this. I think now we can very easily prove our theory." And
he kissed her, still laughing. But when he did it again, she turned her
face against his shoulder.

"Courage," he said; "we ought to be able to prove this theory of
ours--you and I together--"

She was crying.

"If you're feeling guilty on Shiela's account, you needn't," he said.
"Didn't you know she can scarcely endure me?"

"Y-yes."

"Well, then--"

"No--no--no! Louis--I care too much--"

"For yourself?"

"N-no."

"For me? For Shiela? For public opinion?"

"No."

"For what?"

"I--I think it must be for--for--just for being--decent."

He inspected her with lively interest.

"Hello," he said coolly, "you're disproving our theory!"

She turned her face away from him, touching her eyes with her
handkerchief.

"Or," he added ironically, "is there another man?"

"No," she said without resentment; and there was a certain quality in
her voice new to him--a curious sweetness that he had never before
perceived.

"Tell me," he said quietly, "have you really suffered?"

"Suffered? Yes."

"You really cared for me?"

"I do still."

A flicker of the old malice lighted his face.

"But you won't let me kiss you? Why?"

She looked up into his eyes. "I feel as powerless with you as I was
before. You could always have had your will. Once I would not have
blamed you. Now it would be cowardly--because--I have forgiven myself--"

"I won't disturb your vows," he said seriously.

"Then--I think you had better go."

"I am going.... I only wanted to see you again.... May I ask you
something, dear?"

"Ask it," she said.

"Then--you are going to get over this, aren't you?"

"Not as long as you live, Louis."

"Oh!... And suppose I were not living?"

"I don't know."

"You'd recover, wouldn't you?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Well, you'd never have any other temptation--"

She turned scarlet.

"That is wicked!"

"It certainly is," he said with great gravity; "and I must come to the
scarcely flattering conclusion that there is in me a source of hideous
depravity, the unseen emanations of which, like those of the classic
upas-tree, are purest poison to a woman morally constituted as you are."

She looked up as he laughed; but there was no mirth in her bewildered
eyes.

"There _is_ something in you, Louis, which is fatal to the better side
of me."

"The _other_ Virginia couldn't endure me, I know."

"My other self learned to love your better self."

"I have none--"

"I have seen it revealed in--"

"Oh, yes," he laughed, "revealed in what you used to call one of my
infernal flashes of chivalry."

"Yes," she said quietly, "in that."

He sat very still there in the afternoon sunshine, pondering; and
sometimes his gaze searched the valley depths below, lost among the
tree-tops; sometimes he studied the far horizon where the little blue
hills stood up against the sky like little blue waves at sea. His hat
was off; the cliff breeze played with his dark curly hair, lifting it at
the temples, stirring the one obstinate strand that never lay quite flat
on the crown of his head.

Twice she looked around as though to interrupt his preoccupation, but he
neither responded nor even seemed to be aware of her; and she sighed
imperceptibly and followed his errant eyes with her own.

At last:

"Is there no way out of it for you, Louis? I am not thinking of myself,"
she added simply.

He turned fully around.

"If there was a way out I'd take it and marry you."

"I did not ask for that; I was thinking of you."

He was silent.

"Besides," she said, "I know that you do not love me."

"That is true only because I _will_ not. I could."

She looked at him.

"But," he said calmly, "I mustn't; because there is no way out for
me--there's no way out of anything for me--while I live--down here."

"Down--where?"

"On this exotic planet called the earth, dear child," he said with
mocking gravity. "I'm a sort of moon-calf--a seed blown clear from
Saturn's surface, which fell here and sprouted into the thing you call
Louis Malcourt." And, his perverse gaiety in full possession of him
again, he laughed, and his mirth was tinctured with the bitter-sweet of
that humorous malice which jeered unkindly only at himself.

"All to the bad, Virginia--all to the bow-wows--judging me from your
narrow, earthly standard and the laws of your local divinity. That's why
I want to see the real One and ask Him how bad I really am. They'd tell
me down here that I'll never see Him. Zut! I'll take that chance--not
such a long shot either. Why, if I am no good, the risk is all the
better; He _is_ because of such as I! No need for Him where all the
ba-bas are white as the driven snow, and all the little white doves
keep their feathers clean and coo-coo hymns from dawn to sunset.... By
the way, I never gave you anything, did I?--a Chinese god, for example?"

She shook her head, bewildered at his inconsequences.

"No, I never did. You're not entitled to a gift of a Chinese god from
me. But I've given eighteen of them to a number of--ah--friends. I had
nineteen, but never had the--right to present that nineteenth god."

"What do you mean, Louis?"

"Oh, those gilded idols are the deities of secrecy. Their commandment
is, 'Thou shalt not be found out.' So I distributed them among those who
worship them--that is, I have so directed my executors.... By the way, I
made a new will."

He looked at her cheerfully, evidently very much pleased with himself.

"And _what_ do you think I've left to you?"

"Louis, I don't--"

"Why, the bridle, saddle, crop, and spurs I wore that day when we rode
to the ocean! Don't you remember the day that you noticed me listening
and asked me what I heard?"

"Y-yes--"

"And I told you I was listening to my father?"

Again that same chilly tremor passed over her as it had then.

The sun, over the Adirondack foot-hills, hung above bands of smouldering
cloud. Presently it dipped into them, hanging triple-ringed, like Saturn
on fire.

"It's time for you to go," he said in an altered voice; and she turned
to find him standing and ready to aid her.

A little pale with the realisation that the end had come so soon, she
rose and walked slowly back to where his horse stood munching leaves.

"Well, Virginia--good-bye, little girl. You'll be all right before
long."

There was no humour left in his voice now; no mocking in his dark gaze.

She raised her eyes to his in vague distress.

"Where are the others?" he asked. "Oh, up on those rocks? Yes, I see the
smoke of their fire.... Say good-bye to them for me--not _now_--some
day."

She did not understand him; he hesitated, smiled, and took her in his
arms.

"Good-bye, dear," he said.

"Good-bye."

They kissed.

After she was half-way to the top of the rocks he mounted his horse. She
did not look back.

"She's a good little sport," he said, smiling; and, gathering bridle,
turned back into the forest. This time he neither sang nor whistled as
he rode through the red splendour of the western sun. But he was very
busy listening.

There was plenty to hear, too; wood-thrushes were melodious in the late
afternoon light; infant crows cawed from high nests unseen in the leafy
tree-tops; the stream's thin, silvery song threaded the forest quiet,
accompanying him as he rode home.

Home? Yes--if this silent house where he dismounted could be called
that. The place was very still. Evidently the servants had taken
advantage of their master's and mistress's absence to wander out into
the woods. Some of the stablemen had the dogs out, too; there was nobody
in sight to take his horse, so he led the animal to the stables and
found there a lad to relieve him.

Then he retraced his steps to the house and entered the deserted garden
where pearl-tinted spikes of iris perfumed the air and great masses of
peonies nodded along borders banked deep under the long wall. A few
butterflies still flitted in the golden radiance, but already that
solemn harbinger of sunset, the garden toad, had emerged from leafy
obscurity into the gravel path, and hopped heavily forward as Malcourt
passed by.

The house--nothing can be as silent as an empty house--echoed his
spurred tread from porch to stairway. He went up to the first landing,
not knowing why, then roamed aimlessly through, wandering from room to
room, idly, looking on familiar things as though they were
strange--strange, but uninteresting.

Upstairs and down, in, around, and about he drifted, quiet as a cat,
avoiding only his wife's bedroom. He had never entered it since their
marriage; he did not care to do so now, though the door stood wide. And,
indifferent, he turned without even a glance, and traversing the hall,
descended the stairs to the library.

For a while he sat there, legs crossed, drumming thoughtfully on his
boot with his riding-crop; and after a while he dragged the chair
forward and picked up a pen.

"Why not?" he said aloud; "it will save railroad fare--and she'll need
it all."

So, to his lawyer in New York he wrote:

   "I won't come to town after all. You have my letter and you know
   what I want done. Nobody is likely to dispute the matter, and it
   won't require a will to make my wife carry out the essence of the
   thing."

And signed his name.

When he had sealed and directed the letter he could find no stamp; so he
left it on the table.

"That's the usual way they find such letters," he said, smiling to
himself as the thought struck him. "It certainly is hard to be
original.... But then I'm not ambitious."

He found another sheet of paper and wrote to Hamil:

   "All the same you are wrong; I have always been your friend. My
   father comes first, as always; you second. There is no third."

This note, signed, sealed, and addressed, he left with the other.

"Certainly I am not original in the least," he said, beginning another
note.

   "DOLLY DEAR:

   "You have made good. _Continuez, chère énfant_--and if you don't
   know what that means your French lessons are in vain. Now the
   usual few words: don't let any man who is not married to you lay
   the weight of his little finger on you! Don't ignore convention
   unless there is a good reason--and then don't! When you're tired
   of behaving yourself go to sleep; and if you can't sleep, sleep
   some more; and then some. Men are exactly like women until they
   differ from them; there is no real mystery about either outside
   of popular novels.

   "I am very, very glad that I have known you, Dolly. Don't tint
   yourself, except for the footlights. There are other things, but
   I can't think of them; and so,

                                             "LOUIS MALCOURT"

This letter he sealed and laid with the others; it was the last. There
was nothing more to do, except to open the table drawer and drop
something into the side pocket of his coat.

Malcourt had no favourite spots in the woods and fields around him; one
trail resembled another; he cared as much for one patch of woods, one
wild meadow, one tumbling brook as he did for the next--which was not
very much.

But there was one place where the sun-bronzed moss was deep and level;
where, on the edge of a leafy ravine, the last rays of the sinking sun
always lingered after all else lay in shadow.

Here he sat down, thoughtfully; and for a little while remained in his
listening attitude. Then, smiling, he lay back, pillowing his head on
his left arm; and drew something from the side pocket of his coat.

The world had grown silent; across the ravine a deer among the trees
watched him, motionless.

Suddenly the deer leaped in an ecstasy of terror and went crashing away
into obscurity. But Malcourt lay very, very still.

His hat was off; the cliff breeze played with his dark curly hair,
lifting it at the temples, stirring the one obstinate strand that never
lay quite flat on the crown of his head.

A moment later the sun set.



CHAPTER XXVIII

HAMIL IS SILENT


Late in the autumn his aunt wrote Hamil from Sapphire Springs:

   "There seems to be a favourable change in Shiela. Her aversion to
   people is certainly modified. Yesterday on my way to the hot
   springs I met her with her trained nurse, Miss Lester, face to
   face, and of course meant to pass on as usual, apparently without
   seeing her; but to my surprise she turned and spoke my name very
   quietly; and I said, as though we had parted the day before--'I
   hope you are better'; and she said, 'I think I am'--very slowly
   and precisely like a person who strives to speak correctly in a
   foreign tongue. Garry, dear, it was too pathetic; she is so
   changed--beautiful, even more beautiful than before; but the last
   childish softness has fled from the delicate and almost undecided
   features you remember, and her face has settled into a nobler
   mould. Do you recollect in the Munich Museum an antique marble,
   by some unknown Greek sculptor, called 'Head of a Young Amazon'?
   You must recall it because you have spoken to me of its noble and
   almost immortal loveliness. Dear, it resembles Shiela as she is
   now--with that mysterious and almost imperceptible hint of sorrow
   in the tenderly youthful dignity of the features.

   "We exchanged only the words I have written you; she passed her
   way leaning on Miss Lester's arm; I went for a mud bath as a
   precaution to our inherited enemy. If rheumatism gets me at last
   it will not be the fault of your aged and timorous aunt.

   "So that was all, yesterday. But to-day as I was standing on the
   leafy path above the bath-houses, listening to the chattering of
   some excited birds recently arrived from the North in the first
   batch of migrants, Miss Lester came up to me and said that Shiela
   would like to see me, and that the doctors said there was no harm
   in her talking to anybody if she desired to do so.

   "So I took my book to a rustic seat under the trees, and
   presently our little Shiela came by, leaning on Miss Lester's
   arm; and Miss Lester walked on, leaving her seated beside me.

   "For quite five minutes she neither spoke nor even looked at me,
   and I was very careful to leave the quiet unbroken.

   "The noise of the birds--they were not singing, only chattering
   to each other about their trip--seemed to attract her notice, and
   she laid her hand on mine to direct my attention. Her hand
   remained there--she has the same soft little hands, as dazzlingly
   white as ever, only thinner.

   "She said, not looking at me: 'I have been ill. You understand
   that.'

   "'Yes,' I said, 'but it is all over now, isn't it?'

   "She nodded listlessly: 'I think so.'

   "Again, but not looking at me she spoke of her illness as dating
   from a shock received long ago. She is a little confused about
   the lapse of time, vague as to dates. You see it is four months
   since Louis--did what he did. She said nothing more, and in a few
   minutes Miss Lester came back for her.

   "Now as to her mental condition: I have had a thorough
   understanding with the physicians and one and all assure me that
   there is absolutely nothing the matter with her except the
   physical consequences of the shock; and those are wearing off.

   "What she did, what she lived through with him--the dreadful
   tension, the endless insomnia--all this--and then, when the
   searching party was out all night long in the rain and all the
   next day--and _then_, Garry, to have her stumble on him at
   dusk--that young girl, all alone, nerves strung to the breaking
   point--and to find him, _that_ way! Was it not enough to account
   for this nervous demoralisation? The wonder is that it has not
   permanently injured her.

   "But it has not; she is certainly recovering. The dread of seeing
   a familiar face is less poignant; her father was here to-day with
   Gray and she saw them both.

   "Now, dear, as for your coming here, it will not do. I can see
   that. She has not yet spoken of you, nor have I ventured to. What
   her attitude toward you may be I cannot guess from her speech or
   manner.

   "Miss Lester told me that at first, in the complete nervous
   prostration, she seemed to have a morbid idea that you had been
   unkind to her, neglected and deserted her--left her to face some
   endless horror all alone. The shock to her mind had been
   terrible, Garry; everything was grotesquely twisted--she had some
   fever, you know--and Miss Lester told me that it was too pitiful
   to hear her talk of you and mix up everything with military
   jargon about outpost duty and the firing line, and some comrade
   who had deserted her under fire.

   "All of which I mention, dear, so that you may, in a measure,
   comprehend how very ill she has been; and that she is not yet
   well by any means, and perhaps will not be for a long time to
   come.

   "To-night I had a very straight talk with Mr. Cardross. One has
   to talk straight when one talks to him. There is not in my mind
   the slightest doubt that he knows exactly now what misguided
   impulse drove Shiela to that distressing sacrifice of herself and
   you. And at first I was afraid that what she had done from a
   mistaken sense of duty might have hastened poor Louis' end; but
   Mr. Cardross told me that from the day of his father's death he
   had determined to follow in the same fashion; and had told Mr.
   Cardross of his intention more than once.

   "So you see it was in him--in the blood. See what his own sister
   did to herself within a month of Louis' death!

   "A strange family; an utterly incomprehensible race. And Mr.
   Cardross says that it happened to his father's father; and _his_
   father before him died by his own hand!

       *       *       *       *       *

   "Now there is little more news to write you--little more that
   could interest you because you care only to hear about Shiela,
   and that is perfectly reasonable."

   "However, what there is of news I will write you as faithfully as
   I have done ever since I came here on your service under pretence
   of fighting gout which, Heaven be praised, has never yet waylaid
   me!--_unberufen_!"

   "So, to continue: the faithful three, Messieurs Classon, Cuyp,
   and Vetchen, do valiantly escort me on my mountain rides and
   drives. They are dears, all three, Garry, and it does not become
   you to shrug your shoulders. When I go to Palm Beach in January
   they, as usual, are going too. I don't know what I should do
   without them, Virginia having decided to remain in Europe this
   winter.

   "Yes, to answer your question, Mr. Wayward expects to cruise as
   far South as Palm Beach in January. I happen to have a note from
   him here on my desk in which he asks me whether he may invite you
   to go with him. Isn't it a tactful way of finding out whether you
   would care to be at Palm Beach this winter?

   "So I shall write him that I think you would like to be asked.
   Because, Garry, I do believe that it is all turning out
   naturally, inevitably, as it was meant to turn out from the
   first, and that, some time this winter, there can be no reason
   why you should not see Shiela again.

   "I know this, that Mr. Cardross is very fond of you--that Mrs.
   Cardross is also--that every member of that most wholesome family
   cares a great deal about you.

   "As for their not being very fashionable people, their amiable
   freedom from social pretension, their very simple origin--all
   that, in their case, affects me not at all--where any happiness
   of yours is concerned.

   "I _do_ like old-time folk, and lineage smacking of New
   Amsterdam; but even my harmless snobbishness is now so completely
   out of fashion that nobody cares. You are modern enough to laugh
   at it; I am not; and I still continue faithful to my Classons and
   Cuyps and Vetchens and Suydams; and to all that they stand for in
   Manhattan--the rusty vestiges of by-gone pomp and fussy
   circumstance--the memories that cling to the early lords of the
   manors, the old Patroons, and titled refugees--all this I still
   cling to--even to their shabbiness and stupidity and bad manners.

   "Don't be too bitter in your amusement, for after all, you are
   kin to us; don't be too severe on us; for we are passing, Garry,
   the descendants of Patroon and refugee alike--the Cuyps, the
   Classons, the Van Diemans, the Vetchens, the Suydams--and James
   Wayward is the last of his race, and I am the last of the French
   refugees, and the Malcourts are already ended. Pax!

   "True it begins to look as if the gentleman adventurer stock
   which terminates in the Ascotts and Portlaws might be revived to
   struggle on for another generation; but, Garry, we all, who
   intermarry, are doomed.

   "Louis Malcourt was right; we are destined to perish; Still we
   have left our marks on the nation I care for no other epitaph
   than the names of counties, cities, streets which we have named
   with our names.

   "But you, dear, you are wise in your generation and fortunate to
   love as you love. For, God willing, your race will begin the
   welding of the old and new, the youngest and best of the nation.
   And at the feet of such a race the whole world lies."

       *       *       *       *       *

These letters from Constance Palliser to her nephew continued during the
autumn and early winter while he was at work on that series of public
parks provided for by the metropolis on Long Island.

Once he was obliged to return to Pride's Hall to inspect the progress of
work for Mrs. Ascott; and it happened during his brief stay there that
her engagement was announced.

"I tell you what, Hamil," said Portlaw confidentailly over their cigars,
"I never thought I could win her, never in the world. Besides poor Louis
was opposed to it; but you know when I make up my mind--"

"I know," said Hamil.

"That's it! First, a man must have a mind to make up; then he must have
enough intelligence to make it up."

"Certainly," nodded Hamil.

"I'm glad you understand me," said Portlaw, gratified. "Alida
understands me; why, do you know that, somehow, everything I think of
she seems to agree to; in fact, sometimes--on one or two unimportant
matters, I actually believe that Mrs. Ascott thought of what I thought
of, a few seconds before I thought of it," he ended generously; "but,"
and his expression became slyly portentous, "it would never do to have
her suspect it. I intend to be Caesar in my own house!"

"Exactly," said Hamil solemnly; "and Caesar's wife must have no
suspicions."

       *       *       *       *       *

It was early November before he returned to town. His new suite of
offices in Broad Street hummed with activity, although the lingering
aftermath of the business depression prevented for the time being any
hope of new commissions from private sources.

But fortunately he had enough public work to keep the office busy, and
his dogged personal supervision of it during the racking suspense of
Shiela's illness was his salvation.

Twice a week his aunt wrote him from Sapphire Springs; every day he went
to his outdoor work on Long Island and forced himself to a minute
personal supervision of every detail, never allowing himself a moment's
brooding, never permitting himself to become panic-stricken at the
outlook which varied from one letter to another. For as yet, according
to these same letters, the woman he loved had never once mentioned his
name.

He found little leisure for amusement, even had he been inclined that
way. Night found him very tired; morning brought a hundred self-imposed
and complicated tasks to be accomplished before the advent of another
night.

He lived at his club and wrote to his aunt from there. Sundays were more
difficult to negotiate; he went to St. George's in the morning, read in
the club library until afternoon permitted him to maintain some
semblance of those social duties which no man has a right to entirely
neglect.

Now and then he dined out; once he went to the opera with the O'Haras;
but it nearly did for him, for they sang "Madame Butterfly," and
Farrar's matchless voice and acting tore him to shreds. Only the happy
can endure such tragedy.

And one Sunday, having pondered long that afternoon over the last letter
Malcourt had ever written him, he put on hat and overcoat and went to
Greenlawn Cemetery--a tedious journey through strange avenues and
unknown suburbs, under a wet sky from which occasionally a flake or two
of snow fell through the fine-spun drizzle.

In the cemetery the oaks still bore leaves which were growing while
Malcourt was alive; here and there a beech-tree remained in full autumn
foliage and the grass on the graves was intensely green; but the few
flowers that lifted their stalks were discoloured and shabby; bare
branches interlaced overhead; dead leaves, wet and flattened, stuck to
slab and headstone or left their stained imprints on the tarnished
marble.

He had bought some flowers--violets and lilies--at a florist's near the
cemetery gates. These he laid, awkwardly, at the base of the white slab
from which Malcourt's newly cut name stared at him.

Louis Malcourt lay, as he had wished, next to his father. Also, as he
had desired, a freshly planted tree, bereft now of foliage, rose,
spindling, to balance an older one on the other corner of the plot. His
sister's recently shaped grave lay just beyond. As yet, Bertie had
provided no headstone for the late Lady Tressilvain.

Hamil stood inspecting Malcourt's name, finding it impossible to realise
that he was dead--or for that matter, unable to comprehend death at all.
The newly chiselled letters seemed vaguely instinct with something of
Malcourt's own clean-cut irony; they appeared to challenge him with
their mocking legend of death, daring him, with sly malice, to credit
the inscription.

To look at them became almost an effort, so white and clear they stared
back at him--as though the pallid face of the dead himself, set for ever
in raillery, was on the watch to detect false sentiment and delight in
it. And Hamil's eyes fell uneasily upon the flowers, then lifted. And he
said aloud, unconsciously:

"You are right; it's too late, Malcourt."

There was a shabby, neglected grave in the adjoining plot; he bent over,
gathered up his flowers, and laid them on the slab of somebody aged
ninety-three whose name was blotted out by wet dead leaves. Then he
slowly returned to face Malcourt, and stood musing, gloved hands deep in
his overcoat pockets.

"If I could have understood you--" he began, under his breath, then fell
silent. A few moments later he uncovered.

It was snowing heavily when he turned to leave; and he stood back and
aside, hat in hand, to permit a young woman to pass the iron gateway--a
slim figure in black, heavy veil drawn, arms piled high with lilies. He
knew her at once and she knew him.

"I think you are Mr. Hamil," she said timidly.

"You are Miss Wilming?" he said in his naturally pleasant voice, which
brought old memories crowding upon her and a pale flush to her cheeks.

There was a moment's silence; she dropped some flowers and he recovered
them for her. Then she knelt down in the sleet, unconscious of it, and
laid the flowers on the mound, arranging them with great care, while the
thickening snow pelted her and began to veil the white blossoms on the
grave.

Hamil hesitated after the girl had risen, and, presently, as she did not
stir, he quietly asked if he might be of any use to her.

At first she made no reply, and her gaze remained remote; then, turning:

"Was he your friend?" she asked wistfully.

"I think he meant to be."

"You quarrelled--down there--in the South"--she made a vague gesture
toward the gray horizon. "Do you remember that night, Mr. Hamil?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever become friends again?"

"No.... I think he meant to be.... The fault was probably mine. I
misunderstood."

She said: "I know he cared a great deal for you."

The man was silent.

She turned directly toward him, pale, clear-eyed, and in the poise of
her head a faint touch of pride.

"Please do not misunderstand his friendship for me, then. If you were
his friend I would not need to say this. He was very kind to me, Mr.
Hamil."

"I do not doubt it," said Hamil gravely.

"And you do not mistake, what I say?"

He looked her in the eyes, curious--and, in a moment, convinced.

"No," he said gently.... And, offering his hand: "Men are very ignorant
concerning one another. Women are wiser, I think."

He took the slender black-gloved hand in his.

"Can I be of the least use to you?" he asked.

"You have been," she sighed, "if what I said has taught you to know him
a little better."

       *       *       *       *       *

A week later when the curtain fell on the second act of the new musical
comedy, "The Inca," critics preparing to leave questioned each other
with considerable curiosity concerning this newcomer, Dorothy Wilming,
who had sung so intelligently and made so much out of a subordinate
part.

Nobody seemed to know very much about her; several nice-looking young
girls and exceedingly respectable young men sent her flowers. Afterward
they gathered at the stage entrance, evidently expecting to meet and
congratulate her; but she had slipped away. And while they hunted high
and low, and the last figurante had trotted off under the lamp-lights,
Dolly lay in her own dark room, face among the pillows, sobbing her
heart out for a dead man who had been kind to her for nothing.

       *       *       *       *       *

And, at the same hour, across an ocean, another woman awoke to take up
the ravelled threadings of her life again and, through another day,
remember Louis Malcourt and all that he had left undone for kindness'
sake.

There were others, too, who were not likely to forget him, particularly
those who had received, with some astonishment, a legacy apiece of one
small Chinese gilded idol--images all of the _Pa-hsien_ or of
_Kwan-Yin_, who rescues souls from hell with the mystic lotus-prayer,
"_Om mane padme hum_."

But the true Catholicism, which perplexed the eighteen legatees lay in
the paradox of the Mohammedan inscriptions across each lotus written in
Malcourt's hand:

"I direct my face unto Him who hath created.

"Who maketh His messengers with two and three and four pairs of wings.

"And thou shall see them going in procession.

"This is what ye are promised: 'For the last hour will surely come;
there is no doubt thereof; but the greater part of men believe it not.'

"Thus, facing the stars, I go out among them into darkness.

"Say not for me the Sobhat with the ninety-nine; for the hundredth pearl
is the _Iman_--pearl beyond praise, pearl of the five-score names in
one, more precious than mercy, more priceless than compassion--Iman!
Iman! thy splendid name is Death!"

So lingered the living memory of Malcourt among men--a little
while--longer among women--then faded as shadows die at dusk when the
_mala_ is told for the soul that waits the Rosary of a Thousand Beads.

       *       *       *       *       *

In January the _Ariani_ sailed with her owner aboard; but Hamil was not
with him.

In February Constance Palliser wrote Hamil from Palm Beach:

   "It is too beautiful here and you must come.

   "As for Shiela, I do not even pretend to understand her. I see
   her every day; to-day I lunched with Mrs. Cardross, and Shiela
   was there, apparently perfectly well and entirely her former
   lovely self. Yet she has never yet spoken of you to me; and, I
   learn from Mrs. Cardross, never to anybody as far as she knows.

   "She seems to be in splendid health; I have seen her swimming,
   galloping, playing tennis madly. The usual swarm of devoted youth
   and smitten middle-age is in attendance. She wears neither black
   nor colours; only white; nor does she go to any sort of
   functions. At times, to me, she resembles a scarcely grown girl
   just freed from school and playing hard every minute with every
   atom of heart and soul in her play.

   "Gray has an apology for a polo field and a string of ponies, and
   Shiela plays with the men--a crazy, reckless, headlong game, in
   which every minute my heart is in my mouth for fear somebody will
   cannon into her, or some dreadful swing of a mallet will injure
   her for life.

   "But everybody is so sweet to her--and it is delightful to see
   her with her own family--their pride and tenderness for her, and
   her devotion to them.

   "Mrs. Cardross asked me to-day what I thought might be the effect
   on Shiela if you came. And, dear, I could not answer. Mr.
   Cardross joined us, divining the subject of our furtive confab in
   the _patio_, and he seemed to think that you ought to come.

   "There is no reason to hesitate in saying that the family would
   be very glad to count you as one of them. Even a little snob like
   myself can see that there is, in this desire of theirs, no motive
   except affection for you and for Shiela; and, in a way, it's
   rather humiliating to recognise that they don't care a fig for
   the social advantage that must, automatically, accrue to the
   House of Cardross through such connections.

   "I never thought that I should so earnestly hope for such an
   alliance for you; but I do, Garry. They are such simple folk with
   all their riches--simple as gentle folk--kind, sincere, utterly
   without self-consciousness, untainted by the sordid social
   ambitions which make so many of the wealthy abhorrent. There is
   no pretence about them, nothing of that uncertainty of self
   mingled with vanity which grows into arrogance or servility as
   the social weather-vane veers with the breeze of fashion. Rather
   flowery that, for an old-fashioned spinster.

   "But, dear, there are other flowers than those of speech eloquent
   in the soft Southern air--flowers everywhere outside my open
   window where I sit writing you.

   "I miss Virginia, but Shiela compensates when she can find time
   from her breathless pleasure chase to give me an hour or two at
   tea-time.

   "And Cecile, too, is very charming, and I know she likes me. Such
   a coquette! She has her own court among the younger set; and from
   her very severe treatment of young Gatewood on all occasions I
   fancy she may be kinder to him one day.

   "Mrs. Carrick is not here this winter, her new baby keeping her
   in town; and Acton, of course, is only too happy to remain with
   her.

   "As for Gray, he is a nice boy--a little slow, a trifle shy and
   retiring and over-studious; but his devotion to Shiela makes me
   love him. And he, too, ventured to ask me whether you were not
   coming down this winter to hunt along the Everglades with him and
   Little Tiger.

   "So, dear, I think perhaps you had better come. It really
   frightens me to give you this advice. I could not endure it if
   anything went wrong--if your coming proved premature.

   "For it is true, Garry, that I love our little Shiela with all my
   aged, priggish, and prejudiced heart, and I should simply expire
   if your happiness, which is bound up in her, were threatened by
   any meddling of mine.

   "Jim Wayward and I discuss the matter every day; I don't know
   what he thinks--he's so obstinate some days--and sometimes he is
   irritable when Gussie Vetchen and Cuyp talk _too_ inanely--bless
   their hearts! I really don't know what I shall do with James
   Wayward. What would you suggest?"

On the heels of this letter went another.

   "Garry, dear, read this and then make up your mind whether to
   come here or not.

   "This morning I was sitting on the Cardrosses' terrace knitting a
   red four-in-hand for Mr. Wayward--he is _too_ snuffy in his
   browns and grays!--and Mrs. Cardross was knitting one for
   Neville, and Cecile was knitting one for Heaven knows who, and
   Shiela, swinging her polo-mallet, sat waiting for her pony--the
   cunning little thing in her boots and breeches!--I mean the girl,
   not the pony, dear--Oh, my, I'm getting involved and you're
   hurrying through this scrawl perfectly furious, trying to find
   out what I'm talking about.

   "Well, then; I forgot for a moment that Shiela was there within
   ear-shot; and eyes on my knitting, I began talking about you to
   Mrs. Cardross; and I had been gossiping away quite innocently for
   almost a minute when I chanced to look up and notice the peculiar
   expressions of Mrs. Cardross and Cecile. They weren't looking at
   me; they were watching Shiela, who had slipped down from the
   parapet where she had been perched and now stood beside my chair
   listening.

   "I hesitated, faltered, but did not make the mistake of stopping
   or changing the subject, but went on gaily telling about your
   work on the new Long Island park system.

   "And as long as I talked she remained motionless beside me. They
   brought around her pony--a new one--but she did not stir.

   "Her mother and sister continued their knitting, asking questions
   about you now and then, apparently taking no notice of her. My
   monologue in praise of you became a triangular discussion; and
   all the while the pony was cutting up the marl drive with
   impatience, and Shiela never stirred.

   "Then Cecile said to me quite naturally: 'I wish Garry were
   here.' And, looking up at Shiela, she added: 'Don't you?'

   "For a second or two there was absolute silence; and then Shiela
   said to me:

   "'Does he know I have been ill?'

   "'Of course,' I said, 'and he knows that you are now perfectly
   well.'

   "She turned slowly to her mother: 'Am I?' she asked.

   "'What, dear?'

   "'Perfectly well.'

   "'Certainly,' replied her mother, laughing; 'well enough to break
   your neck on that horrid, jigging, little pony. If Garry wants to
   see you alive he'd better come pretty soon--'

   "'Come _here?_'

   "We all looked up at her. Oh, Garry! For a moment something came
   into her eyes that I never want to see there again--and, please
   God, never shall!--a momentary light like a pale afterglow of
   terror.

   "It went as it came; and the colour returned to her face.

   "'Is he coming here?' she asked calmly.

   "'Yes,' I made bold to say.

   "'When?'

   "'In a few days, I hope.'

   "She said nothing more about you, nor did I. A moment later she
   sent away her pony and went indoors.

   "After luncheon I found her lying in the hammock in the _patio_,
   eyes closed as though asleep. She lay there all the afternoon--an
   unusual thing for her.

   "Toward sundown, as I was entering my chair to go back to the
   hotel, she came out and stood beside the chair looking at me as
   though she was trying to say something. I don't know what it
   might have been, for she never said it, but she bent down and
   laid her cheek against mine for a moment, and drew my head
   around, searching my eyes.

   "I don't know whether I was right or wrong, but I said: 'There is
   no one to compare with you, Shiela, in your new incarnation of
   health and youth. I never before knew you; I don't think you ever
   before knew yourself.'

   "'Not entirely,' she said.

   "'Do you now?'

   "'I think so.... May I ask you something?'

   "I nodded, smiling.

   "'Then--there is only one thing I care for now--to'--she looked
   up toward the house--'to make them contented--to make up to them
   what I can for--for all that I failed in. Do you understand?'

   "'Yes,' I said, 'you sweet thing.' And gave her a little hug,
   adding: 'And that's why I'm going to write a letter to-night--at
   your mother's desire--and my own.'

   "She said nothing more; my chair rolled away; and here's the
   letter that I told her I meant to write.

     "'Now, dear, come if you think best. I don't know of any
     reason why you should not come; if you know of any you must
     act on your own responsibility.'

   "Last winter, believing that she cared for you, I did an
   extraordinary thing--in fact I intimated to her that it was
   agreeable for me to believe you cared for each other. And she
   told me very sweetly that I was in error.

   "So I'm not going to place Constance Palliser in such a position
   again. If there's any chance of her caring for you you ought to
   know it and act accordingly. Personally I think there is and that
   you should take that chance and take it now. But for goodness'
   sake don't act on my advice. I'm a perfect fool to meddle this
   way; besides I'm having troubles of my own which you know nothing
   about.

   "O Garry, dear, if you'll come down I may perhaps have something
   very, very foolish to tell you.

   "Truly there is no idiot like an old one, but--I'm close, I
   think, to being happier than I ever was in all my life. God help
   us both, my dear, dear boy.

                     "Your faithful
                               "CONSTANCE."

       *       *       *       *       *



CHAPTER XXIX

CALYPSO'S GIFT


Two days later as his pretty aunt stood in her chamber shaking out the
chestnut masses of her hair before her mirror, an impatient rapping at
the living-room door sent her maid flying.

"That's Garry," said Constance calmly, belting in her chamber-robe of
silk and twisting up her hair into one heavy lustrous knot.

A moment later they had exchanged salutes and, holding both his hands in
hers, she stood looking at him, golden brown eyes very tender, cheeks
becomingly pink.

"That miserable train is early; it happens once in a century. I meant to
meet you, dear."

"Wayward met me at the station," he said.

There was a silence; under his curious and significant gaze she flushed,
then laughed.

"Wayward said that you had something to tell me," he added....
"Constance, is it--"

"Yes."

"You darling!" he whispered, taking her into his arms. And she laid her
face on his shoulder, crying a little, laughing a little.

"After all these years, Garry--all these years! It is a long time to--to
care for a man--a long, long time.... But there never was any other--not
even through that dreadful period--"

"I know."

"Yes, you know.... I have cared for him since I was a little girl."

They stood a while talking tenderly, intimately of her new happiness and
of the new man, Wayward.

Both knew that he must bear his scars for ever, that youth had died in
him. But they were very confident and happy standing there together in
the sunlight which poured into the room, transfiguring her. And she
truly seemed as lovely, radiant, and youthful as her own young heart,
unsullied, innocent, now, as when it yielded its first love so long ago
amid the rosewood and brocades of the old-time parlour where the sun
fell across the faded roses of the carpet.

"I knew it was so from the way he shook hands," said Hamil, smiling.
"How well he looks, Constance! And as for you--you are a real beauty!"

"You _don't_ think so! But say it, Garry.... And now I think I had
better retire and complete this unceremonious toilet.... And you may
stroll over to pay your respects to Mrs. Cardross in the meanwhile if
you choose."

He looked at her gravely. She nodded. "They all know you are due
to-day."

"Shiela?"

"Yes.... Be careful, Garry; she is very young after all.... I think--if
I were you--I would not even seem conscious that she had been ill--that
anything had happened to interrupt your friendship. She is very
sensitive, very deeply sensible of the dreadful mistake she made, and,
somehow, I think she is a little afraid of you, as though you might
possibly think less of her--Heaven knows what ideas the young conjure to
worry themselves and those they care for!"

She laughed, kissed him and bowed him out; and he went away to bathe and
change into cool clothing of white serge.

Later as he passed through the gardens, a white oleander blossom fell,
and he picked it up and drew it through his coat.

Shadows of palm and palmetto stretched westward across the white shell
road, striping his path; early sunlight crinkled the lagoon; the little
wild ducks steered fearlessly inshore, peering up at him with bright
golden-irised eyes; mullet jumped heavily, tumbling back into the water
with splashes that echoed through the morning stillness.

The stained bronze cannon still poked their ancient and flaring muzzles
out over the lake; farther along crimson hibiscus blossoms blazed from
every hedge; and above him the stately plumes of royal palms hung
motionless, tufting the trunks, which rose with the shaft-like dignity
of slender Egyptian pillars into a cloudless sky.

On he went, along endless hedges of azalea and oleander, past thickets
of Spanish-bayonet, under leaning cocoanut-palms; and at last the huge
banyan-tree rose sprawling across the sky-line, and he saw the white
facades and red-tiled roofs beyond.

All around him now, as the air grew sweet with the breath of orange
blossoms, a subtler scent, delicately persistent, came to him on the
sea-wind; and he remembered it!--the lilac perfume of China-berry in
bloom; Calypso's own immortal fragrance. And, in the brilliant sunshine,
there under green trees with the dome of blue above, unbidden, the
shadows of the past rose up; and once more lantern-lit faces crowded
through the aromatic dark; once more the fountains' haze drifted across
dim lawns; once more he caught the faint, uncertain rustle of her gown
close to him as she passed like a fresh breath through the dusk.

Overhead a little breeze became entangled in the palmetto fronds,
setting them softly clashing together as though a million unseen elfin
hands were welcoming his return; the big black-and-gold butterflies,
beating up against the sudden air current, flapped back to their honeyed
haven in the orange grove; bold, yellow-eyed grackle stared at him from
the grass; a bird like a winged streak of flame flashed through the
jungle and was gone.

And now every breath he drew was quickening his pulses with the sense of
home-coming; he saw the red-bellied woodpeckers sticking like shreds of
checked gingham to the trees, turning their pointed heads incuriously as
he passed; the welling notes of a wren bubbled upward through the
sun-shot azure; high in the vault above an eagle was passing seaward,
silver of tail and crest, winged with bronze; and everywhere on every
side glittered the gold-and-saffron dragon-flies of the South like the
play of sunbeams on a green lagoon.

Under the sapodilla-trees on the lawn two aged, white-clad negro
servants were gathering fruit forbidden them; and at sight of him two
wrinkled black hands furtively wiped two furrowed faces free from
incriminating evidence; two solemn pairs of eyes rolled piously in his
direction.

"Mohnin', suh, Mistuh Hamil."

"Good morning, Jonas; good morning, Archimedes. Mr. Cardross is in the
orange grove, I see."

And, smiling, passed the guilty ones with a humorously threatening shake
of his head.

A black boy, grinning, opened the gate; the quick-stepping figure in
white flannels glanced around at the click of the latch.

"Hamil! Good work! I am glad to see you!"--his firm, sun-burnt hands
closing over Hamil's--"glad all through!"

"Not as glad as I am, Mr. Cardross--"

"Yes, I am. Why didn't you come before? The weather has been heavenly;
everybody wanted you--"

"_Everybody_?"

"Yes--yes, of course!... Well, look here, Hamil, I've no authority to
discuss that matter; but her mother, I think, has made matters clear to
her--concerning our personal wishes--ah--hum--is that what you're
driving at?"

"Yes.... May I ask her? I came here to ask her."

"We all know that," said Cardross naïvely. "Your aunt is a very fine
woman, Hamil.... I don't see why you shouldn't tell Shiela anything you
want to. We all wish it."

"Thank you," said the younger man. Their hand grip tightened and parted;
shoulder to shoulder they swung into step across the lawn, Cardross
planting his white-shod feet with habitual precision.

His hair and moustache were very white in contrast to the ruddy
sun-burnt skin; and he spoke of his altered appearance with one of his
quick smiles.

"They nearly had me in the panic, Hamil. The Shoshone weathered the
scare by grace of God and my little daughter's generosity. And it came
fast when it came; we were under bare poles, too, and I didn't expect
any cordiality from the Clearing House; but, Hamil, they classed us with
the old-liners, and they acted most decently. As for my little
daughter--well--"

And to his own and Hamil's embarrassment his clear eyes suddenly grew
dim and he walked forward a step or two winking rapidly at the sky.

Gray, bare of arm to the shoulder, booted and bare-headed, loped across
the grass on his polo-pony, mallet at salute. Then he leaned down from
his saddle and greeted Hamil with unspoiled enthusiasm.

"Shiela is practising and wants you to come over when you can and see us
knock the ball about. It's a rotten field, but you can't help that down
here."

And clapping his spurless heels to his pony he saluted and wheeled away
through the hammock.

On the terrace Mrs. Cardross took his hands in her tremulous and pudgy
fingers.

"Are you sure you are perfectly well, Garry? Don't you think it safer to
begin at once with a mild dose of quinine and follow it every three
hours with a--"

"Amy, dear!" murmured her husband, "I am not dreaming of interfering,
but I, personally, never saw a finer specimen of physical health than
this boy you are preparing to--be good to--"

"Neville, you know absolutely nothing sometimes," observed his wife
serenely. Then looking up at the tall young man bending over her chair:

"You won't need as much as you required when you rode into the swamps
every day, but you don't mind my prescribing for you now and then, do
you, Garry?"

"I was going to ask you to do it," he said, looking at Cardross
unblushingly. And at such perfidy the older man turned away with an
unfeigned groan just as Cecile, tennis-bat in hand, came out from the
hall, saw him, dropped the bat, and walked straight into his arms.

"Cecile," observed her mother mildly.

"But I wish to hug him, mother, and he doesn't mind."

Her mother laughed; Hamil, a trifle red, received a straightforward
salute square on the mouth.

"That," she said with calm conviction, "is the most proper and fitting
thing you and I have ever done. Mother, you know it is." And passing her
arm through Hamil's:

"Last night," she said under her breath, "I went into Shiela's room to
say good-night, and--and we both began to cry a little. It was as though
I were giving up my controlling ownership in a dear and familiar
possession; we did not speak of you--I don't remember that we spoke at
all from the time I entered her room to the time I left--which was
fearfully late. But I knew that I was giving up some vague proprietary
right in her--that, to-day, that right would pass to another.... And, if
I kissed you, Garry, it was in recognition of the passing of that right
to you--and happy acquiescence in it, dear--believe me! happy, confident
renunciation and gratitude for what must be."

They had walked together to the southern end of the terrace; below
stretched the splendid forest vista set with pool and fountain; under
the parapet, in the new garden, red and white roses bloomed, and on the
surface of spray-dimmed basins the jagged crimson reflections of
goldfish dappled every unquiet pool.

"Where is the new polo field?" he asked.

She pointed out an unfamiliar path curving west from the tennis-courts,
nodded, smiled, returning the pressure of his hand, and stood watching
him from the parapet until he vanished in the shadow of the trees.

The path was a new one to him, cut during the summer. For a quarter of
a mile it wound through the virgin hammock, suddenly emerging into a
sunny clearing where an old orange grove grown up with tangles of brier
and vine had partly given place to the advance of the jungle.

Something glimmered over there among the trees--a girl, coated and
skirted in snowy white, sitting a pony, and leisurely picking and eating
the great black mulberries that weighted the branches so that they bent
almost to the breaking.

She saw him from a distance, turned in her saddle, lifting her
polo-mallet in recognition; and as he came, pushing his way across the
clearing, almost shoulder-deep through weeds, from which the
silver-spotted butterflies rose in clouds, she stripped off one stained
glove, and held out her hand to him.

"You were so long in coming," she managed to say, calmly, "I thought I'd
ride part way back to meet you; and fell a victim to these mulberries.
Tempted and fell, you see.... Are you well? It is nice to see you."

And as he still retained her slim white hand in both of his:

"What do you think of my new pony?" she asked, forcing a smile. "He's
teaching me the real game.... I left the others when Gray came up; Cuyp,
Phil Gatewood, and some other men are practising. You'll play to-morrow,
won't you? It's such a splendid game." She was talking at random, now,
as though the sound of her own voice were sustaining her with its
nervous informality; and she chattered on in feverish animation,
bridging every threatened silence with gay inconsequences.

"You play polo, of course? Tell me you do."

"You know perfectly well I don't--"

"But you'll try if I ask you?"

He still held her hand imprisoned--that fragrant, listless little hand,
so lifeless, nerveless, unresponsive--as though it were no longer a part
of her and she had forgotten it.

"I'll do anything you wish," he said slowly.

"Then _don't_ eat any of these mulberries until you are acclimated. I'm
sorry; they are so delicious. But I won't eat any more, either."

"Nonsense," he said, bending down a heavily laden bough for her. "Eat!
daughter of Eve! This fruit is highly recommended."

"Oh, Garry! I'm not such a pig as that!... Well, then; if you make me do
it--"

She lifted her face among the tender leaves, detached a luscious berry
with her lips, absorbed it reflectively, and shook her head with
decision.

The shadow of constraint was fast slipping from them both.

"You know you enjoy it," he insisted, laughing naturally.

"No, I don't enjoy it at all," she retorted indignantly. "I'll not taste
another until you are ready to do your part.... I've forgotten, Garry;
did the serpent eat the fruit he recommended?"

"He was too wise, not being acclimated in Eden."

She turned in her saddle, laughing, and sat looking down at him--then,
more gravely, at her ungloved hand which he still retained in both of
his.

Silence fell, and found them ready for it.

For a long while they said nothing; she slipped one leg over the pommel
and sat sideways, elbow on knee, chin propped in her gloved hand. At
times her eyes wandered over the sunny clearing, but always reverted to
him where he stood leaning against her stirrup and looking up at her as
though he never could look enough.

The faint, fresh perfume of China-berry was in the air, delicately
persistent amid the heavy odours from tufts of orange flowers clinging
to worn-out trees of the abandoned grove.

"Your own fragrance," he said.

She looked down at him, dreamily. He bent and touched with his face the
hand he held imprisoned.

"There was once," he said, "among the immortals a maid, Calypso.... Do
you remember?"

"Yes," she said slowly. "I have not forgotten my only title to
immortality."

Their gaze met; then he stepped closer.

She raised both arms, crossing them to cover her eyes; his arms circled
her, lifted her from the saddle, holding her a moment above the earth,
free, glorious, superb in her vivid beauty; then he swung her to the
ground, holding her embraced; and as she abandoned to him, one by one,
her hands and mouth and throat, her gaze never left him--clear,
unfaltering eyes of a child innocent enough to look on passion
unafraid--fearless, confident eyes, wondering, worshipping in unison
with the deepening adoration in his.

"I love you so," she said, "I love you so for making me what I am. I can
be all that you could wish for if you only say it--"

She smiled, unconvinced at his tender protest, wise, sweet eyes on his.

"What a boy you are, sometimes!--as though I did not know myself! Dear,
it is for you to say what I shall be. I am capable of being what you
think I am. Don't you know it, Garry? It is only--"

[Illustration: "And locked in his embrace, she lifted her lips to his."]

She felt a cool, thin pressure on her finger, and glanced down at the
ring sparkling white fire. She lifted her hand, doubling it; looked at
the gem for a moment, laid it against her mouth. Then, with dimmed eyes:

"Your love, your name, your ring for this nameless girl? And I--what can
I give for a bridal gift?"

"What sweet nonsense--"

"What can I give, Garry? Don't laugh--"

"Calypso, dear--"

"Yes--Calypso's offer!--immortal love--endless, deathless. It is all I
have to give you, Garry.... Will you take it?... Take it, then."

And, locked in his embrace, she lifted her lips to his.


THE END





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Firing Line" ***

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