TWO raptures are there; one is of the spring;Life leaps down all her sources and is gladWith gladness that enfolds each humblest thing.Furrows teem fragrant, trees with buds go mad;Music and color and a sunbright gleeTurn sullen earth into sweet Arcady.The autumn’s rapture is a soberer wight,But deep in tender dreams and rich in rareDesigns, and mellow harmonies of light.The hills lie steeped in memories most fair,The forests blaze with visions, and the year,Two-minded, mingles elegies of dearthWith hopeful hymns of yet triumphant birth,When May returns, when Spring again is here.Richard Burton.
TWO raptures are there; one is of the spring;Life leaps down all her sources and is gladWith gladness that enfolds each humblest thing.Furrows teem fragrant, trees with buds go mad;Music and color and a sunbright gleeTurn sullen earth into sweet Arcady.The autumn’s rapture is a soberer wight,But deep in tender dreams and rich in rareDesigns, and mellow harmonies of light.The hills lie steeped in memories most fair,The forests blaze with visions, and the year,Two-minded, mingles elegies of dearthWith hopeful hymns of yet triumphant birth,When May returns, when Spring again is here.Richard Burton.
TWO raptures are there; one is of the spring;Life leaps down all her sources and is gladWith gladness that enfolds each humblest thing.Furrows teem fragrant, trees with buds go mad;Music and color and a sunbright gleeTurn sullen earth into sweet Arcady.
The autumn’s rapture is a soberer wight,But deep in tender dreams and rich in rareDesigns, and mellow harmonies of light.The hills lie steeped in memories most fair,The forests blaze with visions, and the year,Two-minded, mingles elegies of dearthWith hopeful hymns of yet triumphant birth,When May returns, when Spring again is here.
Richard Burton.
The Mare and the Motor, by Joseph C. Lincoln
I
IN order to understand this story there are a few points of information concerning “Lonesome Huckleberries†with which you ought to be acquainted. First, his nationality: Captain Jonadab Wixon used to say that Lonesome was “a little of everything, like a picked-up dinner; principally Eyetalian and Portygee, I cal’late, with a streak of Gay Head Injun.†Second, his name: To quote from the captain again, “His reel name’s long enough to touch bottom in the ship channel at high tide, so folks nater’lly got to callin’ him ‘Huckleberries,’ ’cause he peddles them kind of fruit in summer. Then he mopes round so, with nary a smile on his face, that it seemed jest right to tack on the ‘Lonesome.’ So ‘Lonesome Huckleberries’ he’s been for the past ten year.†Add to these items the fact that he lived in a patchwork shanty on the end of a sandspit six miles from Wellmouth Port, that he was deaf and dumb, that he drove a liver-colored, balky mare that no one but himself and his daughter “Becky†could handle, that he had a fondness for bad rum, and a wicked temper that had twice landed him in the village lockup, and you have a fair idea of the personality of Lonesome Huckleberries. And, oh, yes! his decoy ducks. He was a great gunner alongshore, and owned a flock of live decoys for which he had refused bids as high as fifteen dollars each. There, now I think you are in position to appreciate the yarn that Mr. Barzilla Wingate told me as we sat in the “Lovers’ Nest,†the summerhouse on the bluff by the Old Home House, and watched theGreased Lightning, Peter Brown’s smart little motor launch, swinging at her moorings below.
“Them Todds,†observed Barzilla, “had got on my nerves. ’Twas Peter’s ad that brought ’em down here. You see, ’twas ’long toward the end of the season at the Old Home House, and Brown had been advertisin’ in the New York and Boston papers to ‘bag the leftovers,’ as he called it. Besides the reg’lar hogwash about the ‘breath of old ocean’ and the ‘simple, cleanly livin’ of the bygone days we dream about,’ there was some new froth concernin’ huntin’ and fishin’. You’d think the wild geese roosted on the flagpole nights, and the bluefish clogged up the bay so’s you could walk on their back fins without wettin’ your feet—that is, if you wore rubbers and trod light.
“‘There!’ says Peter T., wavin’ the advertisement and crowin’ gladsome; ‘they’ll take to that like your temp’rance aunt to brandy coughdrops. We’ll have to put up barbed wire to keep ’em off.’
“‘Humph!’ grunts Cap’n Jonadab. ‘Anybody but a born fool’ll know there ain’t any shootin’ down here this time of year.’
“Peter looked at him sorrowful. ‘Pop,’ says he, ‘did you ever hear that Solomon answered a summer hotel ad? This ain’t a Chautauqua, this is the Old Home House, and its motto is: “There’s a new sucker born every minute, and there’s twenty-four hours in a day.†You set back and count the clock ticks.’
“Well, that’s ’bout all we had to do. We got boarders enough from that ridic’lous advertisement to fill every spare room we had, includin’ Jonadab’s and mine. Me and the cap’n had tobunk in the barn loft; but there was some satisfaction in that—it give us an excuse to git away from the ‘sports’ in the smokin’ room.
“The Todds was part of the haul. He was a little, dried-up man, single, and a minister. Nigh’s I could find out, he’d given up preachin’ by the request of the doctor and his last congregation. He had a notion that he was a mighty hunter afore the Lord, like Nimrod in the Bible, and he’d come to the Old Home to bag a few gross of geese and ducks.
“His sister was an old maid, and slim, neither of which failin’s was from ch’ice, I cal’late. She wore eyeglasses and a veil to ‘preserve her complexion,’ and her idee seemed to be that native Cape Codders lived in trees and et cocoanuts. She called ’em barbarians, utter barbarians.’ Whenever she piped ‘James!’ her brother had to drop everything and report on deck. She was skipper of the Todd craft.
“Well, them Todds was what Peter T. called ‘the limit, and a chip or two over.’ The other would-be gunners and fishermen were satisfied to slam shot after sandpeeps, or hook a stray sculpin or a hake. But t’wa’n’t so with brother James Todd and sister Clarissa. ‘Ducks’ it was in the advertisin’, and nothin’butducks they wanted. Clarissa, she commenced to hint middlin’ p’inted concernin’ fraud.
“Fin’lly we lost patience, and Peter T., he said they’d got to be quieted somehow, or he’d do some shootin’ on his own hook; said too much Toddy was givin’ him the ‘D.T.’s.’ Then I suggested takin’ ’em down the beach somewheres on the chance of seein’ a stray coot or loon or somethin’—anythingthat could be shot at. Jonadab and Peter agreed ’twas a good plan, and we matched to see who’d be guide. And I got stuck, of course; my luck again.
“So the next mornin’ we started, me and the Reverend James and Clarissa, in theGreased Lightnin’. Fust part of the trip that Todd man done nothin’ but ask questions about the launch; I had to show him how to start it and steer it, and the land knows what all. Clarissa set around doin’ the heavy contemptuous and turnin’ up her nose at creation gin’rally. It must have its drawbacks, this roostin’ so fur above the common flock; seems to me I’d be thinkin’ all the time of the bump that was due me if I got shoved off the perch.
“Well, by and by Lonesome Huckleberries’ shanty hove in sight, and I was glad to see it, although I had to answer a million more questions about Lonesome and his history. When we struck the beach, Clarissa, she took her paint box and umbrella and moskeeter ’intment, and the rest of her cargo, and went off by herself to ‘sketch.’ She was great on ’sketchin’,’ and the way she’d use up good paint and spile nice clean paper was a sinful waste. Afore she went, she give me three fathom of sailin’ orders concernin’ takin’ care of ‘James.’ You’d think he was about four year old; made me feel like a hired nuss.
“Well, James and me went perusin’ up and down that beach in the blazin’ sun lookin’ for somethin’ to shoot. We went ’way beyond Lonesome’s shanty, but there wa’n’t nobody to home. Lonesome himself, it turned out afterward, was up to the village with his horse and wagon, and his daughter Becky was over in the woods on the mainland berryin’. Todd was a cheerful talker, but limited. His favorite remark was: ‘Oh, I say, my deah man.’ That’s what he kept callin’ me, ‘my deah man.’ Now, my name ain’t exactly a Claude de Montmorency for prettiness, but ‘Barzilla’ ’ll fetchmealongside a good deal quicker’n ‘my deah man,’ I’ll tell you that.
“We frogged it up and down all the forenoon, but didn’t git a shot at nothin’ but one stray ‘squawk’ that had come over from the Cedar Swamp. I told James ’twas a canvasback, and he blazed away at it, but missed it by three fathom, as might have been expected.
“Fin’lly my game leg—rheumatiz, you understand—begun to give out. So I flops down in the shade of a sand bank to rest, and the reverend goes pokin’ off by himself.
“I cal’late I must have fell asleep, for when I looked at my watch it was close to one o’clock, and time for us to be gittin’ back to the port. I got up and stretched and took an observation, but further’n Clarissa’s umbrella on the skyline, I didn’t see anything stirrin’. Brother James wa’n’t visible, but I jedged he was within hailin’ distance. You can’t see very fur on that point, there’s too many sand hills and hummocks.
“I started over toward theGreased Lightnin’. I’d gone a little ways, and was down in a gully between two big hummocks, when ‘Bang! bang!’ goes both barrels of a shotgun, and that Todd critter busts out hollerin’ like all possessed.
“‘Hooray!’ he squeals, in that squeaky voice of his. ‘Hooray! I’ve got ’em! I’ve got ’em!’
“Thinks I, ‘What in the nation does that lunatic cal’late he’s shot?’ And I left my own gun layin’ where ’twas and piled up over the edge of that sand bank like a cat over a fence. And then I see a sight.
“There was James, hoppin’ up and down in the beach grass, squealin’ like a Guinea hen with a sore throat, and wavin’ his gun with one wing—arm, I mean—and there in front of him, in the foam at the edge of the surf, was two ducks as dead as Nebuchadnezzar—two of Lonesome Huckleberries’ best decoy ducks—ducks he’d tamed and trained, and thought more of than anything else in this world—except rum, maybe—and the rest of the flock was diggin’ up the beach for home as if they’d been telegraphed for, and squawkin’ ‘Fire!’ and ‘Bloody murder!’
“Well, my mind was in a kind of various state, as you might say, for a minute. ’Course, I’d known about Lonesome’s ownin’ them decoys—told Todd about ’em, too—but I hadn’t seen ’em nowhere alongshore, and I sort of cal’lated they was locked up in Lonesome’s hen house, that bein’ his usual way when he went to town. I s’pose likely they’d been feedin’ among the beach grass somewheres out of sight, but I don’t know for sartin to this day. And I didn’t stop to reason it out then, neither. As Scriptur’ or George Washin’ton or somebody says, ‘’twas a condition, not a theory,’ I was afoul of.
“‘I’ve got ’em!’ hollers Todd, grinnin’ till I thought he’d swaller his own ears. ‘I shot ’em all myself!’
“‘You everlastin’——’ I begun, but I didn’t git any further. There was a rattlin’ noise behind me, and I turned, to see Lonesome Huckleberries himself, settin’ on the seat of his old truck wagon and glarin’ over the hammer head of that balky mare of his straight at brother Todd and the dead decoys.
“For a minute there was a kind of tableau, like them they have at church fairs—all four of us, includin’ the mare, keepin’ still, like we was frozen. But ’twas only for a minute. Then it turned into the liveliest movin’ picture that everIsee. Lonesome couldn’t swear—bein’ a dummy—but if ever a man got profane with his eyes, he did right then. Next thing I knew he tossed both hands into the air, clawed two handfuls out of the atmosphere, reached down into the cart, grabbed a pitchfork and piled out of that wagon and after Todd. There was murder comin’ and I could see it.
“‘Run, you loon!’ I hollers, desp’rate.
“James didn’t wait for any advice. He didn’t know what he’d done, I cal’late, but he jedged ’twas his move. He dropped his gun and putted down the shore like a wild man, with Lonesome after him. I tried to foller, but my rheumatiz was too big a handicap; all I could do was yell.
“You never’d have picked out Todd for a sprinter—not to look at him, you wouldn’t—but if he didn’t beat the record for his class jest then I’ll eat my sou’wester. He fairly flew, but Lonesome split tacks with him every time, and kept to wind’ard, into the bargain. Where they went out sight amongst the sand hills ’twas anybody’s race.
“I was scart. I knew what Lonesome’s temper was, ’specially when it had been iled with some Wellmouth Port no-license rum. He’d been took up once for ha’f killin’ some boys thattormented him, and I figgered if he got within’ pitchfork distance of the Todd critter he’d make him the leakiest divine that ever picked a text. I commenced to hobble back after my gun. It looked bad to me.
“But I’d forgot sister Clarissa. ’Fore I’d limped fur I heard her callin’ to me.
“‘Mr. Wingate,’ says she, ’git in here at once.’
“There she was, settin’ on the seat of Lonesome’s wagon, holdin’ the reins and as cool as a white frost in October.
“‘Git in at once,’ says she. I jedged ’twas good advice, and took it.
“‘Proceed,’ says she to the mare. ‘Git dap!’ says I, and we started. When we rounded the sand hill we see the race in the distance. Lonesome had gained a p’int or two, and Todd wa’n’t more’n four pitchforks in the lead.
“‘Make for the launch!’ I whooped, between my hands.
“The parson heard me and come about and broke for the shore. TheGreased Lightnin’had swung out about the length of her anchor rope, and the water wa’n’t deep. Todd splashed in to his waist and climbed aboard. He cut the rodin’ jest as Lonesome reached tide mark. James, he sees it’s a close call, and he shins back to the engine, reachin’ it exactly at the time when the gent with the pitchfork laid hands on the rail. Then the parson throws over the switch—I’d shown him how, you remember—and gives the startin’ wheel a full turn.
“Well, you know theGreased Lightnin’? She don’t linger to say farewell, not any to speak of, she don’t. And this time she jumped like the cat that lit on the hot stove. Lonesome, bein’ balanced with his knees on the rail, pitches headfust into the cockpit. Todd, jumpin’ out of his way, falls overboard backward. Next thing anybody knew, the launch was scootin’ for blue water like a streak of what she was named for, and the huntin’ chaplain was churnin’ up foam like a mill wheel.
“I yelled more orders than second mate on a coaster. Todd bubbled and bellered. Lonesome hung on to the rail of the cockpit and let his hair stand up to grow. Nobody was cool but Clarissa, and she was an iceberg. She had her good p’ints, that old maid did, drat her!
“‘James,’ she calls, ‘git out of that water this minute and come here! This instant, mind!’
“James minded. He paddled ashore and hopped, drippin’ like a dishcloth, alongside the truck wagon.
“‘Git in!’ orders Skipper Clarissa. He done it. ‘Now,’ says the lady, passin’ the reins over to me, ‘drive us home, Mr. Wingate, before that intoxicated lunatic can catch us.’
“It seemed about the only thing to do. I knew ’twas no use explainin’ to Lonesome for an hour or more yit, even if you can talk finger signs, which part of my college trainin’ has been neglected. ’Twas murder he wanted at the present time. I had some sort of a foggy notion that I’d drive along, pick up the guns and then git the Todds over to the hotel, afterward comin’ back to git the launch and pay damages to Huckleberries. I cal’lated he’d be more reasonable by that time.
“But the mare had made other arrangements. When I slapped her with the end of the reins she took the bit in her teeth and commenced to gallop. I hollered ‘Whoa!’ and ‘Heave to!’ and ‘Belay!’ and everything else I could think of, but she never took in a reef. We bumped over hummocks and ridges, and every time we done it we spilled somethin’ out of that wagon. Fust ’twas a lot of huckleberry pails, then a basket of groceries and such, then a tin pan with some potatoes in it, then a jug done up in a blanket. We was heavin’ cargo overboard like a leaky ship in a typhoon. Out of the tail of my eye I see Lonesome, well out to sea, headin’ theGreased Lightnin’for the beach.
“Clarissa put in the time soothin’ James, who had a serious case of the scart-to-deaths, and callin’ me an ‘utter barbarian’ for drivin’ so fast. Lucky for all hands, she had to hold on tight to keep from bein’ jounced out, ’long with the rest of movables, so she couldn’t take the reins. As for me, Iwa’n’t payin’ much attention to her—’twas the ‘Cut-Through’ that was disturbin’mymind.
“When you drive down to Lonesome P’int you have to ford the ‘Cut-Through.’ It’s a strip of water between the bay and the ocean, and ’tain’t very wide nor deep at low tide. But the tide was comin’ in now, and, more’n that, the mare wa’n’t headed for the ford. She was cuttin’ cross-lots on her own hook, and wouldn’t answer the helm.
“Well, we struck that ‘Cut-Through’ about a hundred yards east of the ford, and in two shakes we was hub deep in salt water. ’Fore the Todds could do anything but holler the wagon was afloat and the mare was all but swimmin’. But she kept right on. Bless her, youcouldn’tstop her!
“We crossed the first channel and come out on a flat where ’twasn’t more’n two foot deep then. I commenced to feel better. There was another channel ahead of us, but I figured we’d navigate that same as we had the first one. And then the most outrageous thing happened.
“If you’ll b’lieve it, that pesky mare balked and wouldn’t stir another step.
“And there we was! I punched and kicked and hollered, but all that stubborn horse would do was lay her ears back flat, and snarl up her lip, and look round at us, much as to say: ‘Now, then, you land sharks, I’ve got you between wind and water!’ And I swan to man if it didn’t look like she had!
“‘Drive on!’ says Clarissa, pretty average vinegary. ‘Haven’t you made trouble enough for us already, you dreadful man? Drive on!’
“Hadn’tImade trouble enough! What do you think of that?
“‘You want to drown us!’ says Miss Todd, continuin’ her chatty remarks. ‘I see it all! It’s a plot between you and that murderer. I give you warnin’; if we reach the hotel, my brother and I will commence suit for damages.’
“My temper’s fairly long-sufferin’, but ’twas ravelin’ some by this time.
“‘Commence suit!’ I says. ‘I don’t carewhatyou commence, if you’ll commence to keep quiet now!’ And then I give her a few p’ints as to what her brother had done, heavin’ in some personal flatteries every once in a while for good measure.
“I’d about got to thirdly when James give a screech and p’inted. And, by time! if there wa’n’t Lonesome in the launch, headed right for us, and comin’ a-b’ilin’! He’d run her along abreast of the beach and turned in at the upper end of the ‘Cut-Through.’
“You never in your life heard such a row as there was in that wagon. Clarissa and me yellin’ to Lonesome to keep off—forgittin’ that he was stone deef and dumb—and James vowin’ that he was goin’ to be slaughtered in cold blood. And theGreased Lightnin’p’inted jest so she’d split that cart amidships, and comin’—well, you know how she can go.
“She never budged until she was within ten foot of the flat, and then, jest as I was commencin’ the third line of ‘Now I lay me,’ she sheered off and went past in a wide curve, with Lonesome steerin’ with one hand and shakin’ his pitchfork at Todd with t’other. Andsuchfaces as he made up! They’d have got him hung in any court in the world.
“He run up the ‘Cut-Through’ a little ways, and then come about, and back he comes again, never slackin’ speed a mite, and runnin’ close to the shoal as he could shave, and all the time goin’ through the bloodiest kind of pantomimes. And past he goes, to wheel ’round and commence all over again.
“Thinks I, ‘Why don’t he ease up and lay us aboard? He’s got all the weapons there is. Is he scart?’
“And then it come to me—the reason why.He didn’t know how to stop her.He could steer fust rate, bein’ used to sailboats, but an electric auto launch was a new deal for him, and he didn’t understand her works. And he dastn’t run her aground at the speed she was makin’; ’twould have finished her and, more’n likely, him, too.
“I don’t s’pose there ever was another mess jest like it afore or sence. Here was us, stranded with a horse we couldn’t make go, bein’ chased by afeller who was run away with in a boat he couldn’t stop!
“Jest as I’d about give up hope, I heard somebody callin’ from the beach behind us. I turned, and there was Becky Huckleberries, Lonesome’s daughter. She had the dead decoys by the legs in one hand.
“‘Hi!’ says she.
“‘Hi!’ says I. ‘How do you git this giraffe of yours under way?’
She held up the decoys.
“‘Who kill-a dem ducks?’ says she.
“I p’inted to the reverend. ‘He did,’ says I. And then I cal’late I must have had one of them things they call an inspiration. ‘And he’s willin’ to pay for ’em,’ I says.
“‘Pay thirty-five dolla?’ says she.
“‘You bet!’ says I.
“But I’d forgot Clarissa. She rose up in that waterlogged cart like a Statue of Liberty. ‘Never!’ says she. ‘We will never submit to such extortion. We’ll drown fust!’
“Becky heard her. She didn’t look disapp’inted nor nothin’. Jest turned and begun to walk up the beach. ‘Allright,’ says she;goo’-by.’
“The Todds stood it for a jiffy. Then James give in. ‘I’ll pay it!’ he hollers. ‘I’ll pay it!’
“Even then Becky didn’t smile. She jest came about again and walked back to the shore. Then she took up that tin pan and one of the potaters we’d jounced out of the cart.
“‘Hi, Rosa!’ she hollers. That mare turned her head and looked. And, for the first time sence she hove anchor on that flat, the critter unfurled her ears and histed ’em to the masthead.
“‘Hi, Rosa!’ says Becky again, and begun to pound the pan with the potater. And I give you my word that that mare started up, turned the wagon around nice as could be, and begun to swim ashore. When we got jest where the critter’s legs touched bottom, Becky remarks: ‘Whoa!’
“‘Here!’ I yells, ‘what did you do that for?’
“‘Pay thirty-five dollanow,’ says she. She was bus’ness, that girl.
“Todd got his wallet from under hatches and counted out the thirty-five, keepin’ one eye on Lonesome, who was swoopin’ up and down in the launch lookin’ as if he wanted to cut in, but dastn’t. I tied the bills to my jackknife, to give ’em weight, and tossed the whole thing ashore. Becky, she counted the cash and stowed it away in her apron pocket.
“‘Allright,’ says she. ‘Hi, Rosa!’ The potater and pan performance begun again, and Rosa picked up her hoofs and dragged us to dry land. And it sartinly felt good to the feet.
“‘Say,’ I says, ‘Becky, it’s none of my affairs, as I know of, but is that the way you usually start that horse of yours?’
“She said it was. And Rosa et the potater.
“Well, then Becky asked me how to stop the launch, and I told her. She made a lot of finger signs to Lonesome, and inside of five minutes theGreased Lightnin’was anchored in front of us. Old man Huckleberries was still hankerin’ to interview Todd with the pitchfork, but Becky settled that all right. She jumped in front of him, and her eyes snapped and her feet stamped and her fingers flew. And ’twould have done you good to see her dad shrivel up and git humble. I always had thought that a woman wasn’t much good as a boss of the roost unless she could use her tongue, but Becky showed me my mistake. Well, it’s live and l’arn.
“Then Miss Huckleberries turned to us and smiled.
“‘Allright,’ says she; ‘goo’-by.’
“Them Todds took the train for the city next mornin’. I drove ’em to the depot. James was kind of glum, but Clarissa talked for two. Her opinion of the Cape and Capers, ’specially me, was decided. The final blast was jest as she was climbin’ the car steps.
“‘Of all the barbarians,’ says she; ‘utter, uncouth, murderin’ barbarians in——â€
“She stopped, thinkin’ for a word, I s’pose. I didn’t feel that I could improve on Becky Huckleberries’ conversation much, so I says:
“‘Allright!Goo’-by!’â€
The Wrecker, by Lucia Chamberlain
M
MRS. Gueste looked out from the pink shade of her parasol at the cool green curl of the breakers down the beach with an actual frown between her fine brows. Her eyes were full of queries. Her delicate thumb and forefinger nipped a note. It was from her favorite brother. It had been brought to her that morning half an hour after hers had been sent apprising him of her arrival in Santa Barbara. It ran:
Dear Lil: Great to have you here. Awfully sorry can’t lunch. Another engagement can’t break. See you afternoon.Wallie.
Dear Lil: Great to have you here. Awfully sorry can’t lunch. Another engagement can’t break. See you afternoon.
Wallie.
Thatwasa note to have from one’s favorite brother, her frown said, as she turned to her friend.
“But if her family is so good——†she began, taking up the conversation where they had dropped it. The sentence seemed connected in her mind with the note, at which she looked.
“Oh, but they can’t manage her,†replied Julia Crosby, punching her parasol tip into the sand. “Mr. Remi died when Blanche was a baby. Mrs. Remi is a nervous invalid. Blanche has run wild since she could run at all. If she were a boy—well, she’d be the ‘black sheep.’â€
“Is shefast?†said Lillian Gueste, with horrified emphasis.
“Oh,no!†Mrs. Crosby hastened. But she seemed to find it difficult to explain to her friend just what Blanche Remi was. “She’s—well, she’s wild. She does such things—things none of the other girls do. She drives a sulky. She rides in a man’s coat and red gloves. It sounds so silly when you tell it,†she ended, feeling she had failed to properly impress her friend, “but you can always see her coming a mile away, whether it’s golf or a garden party.â€
“You mean she’s a tomboy?†said Mrs. Gueste, doubtfully. Her smile said that Walter would never take that sort seriously.
“Oh, if it wereonlythat!†Mrs. Crosby’s gesture was eloquent. “Do you know what they call her here?â€
“They?â€
“Well, everybody. Some man, I think, started it. They call her ‘the Wrecker.’â€
“The Wrecker?†Mrs. Gueste’s inquiring eyes were on her friend.
“Because every man in Santa Barbara,†Julia Crosby went on, “has at one time or another——â€
“Run after her? Oh!†Disgust was in the last little word. Mrs. Gueste understood it all in a moment. “She’sthatsort. Is she pretty?â€
“Stunning! Overwhelming!†said Mrs. Crosby, generously. She herself was little and indefinite.
“M-m-m! So poor Wallie is overwhelmed?†Lillian mused. “Julie, why didn’t you let me know sooner?â€
“But, my dear girl, it was all so vague! Even now I don’t know that there’s anything—but there was getting to be such talk!â€
“But you think he’s serious?†Mrs. Gueste’s smile was deprecating.
“I don’t know. That’s why I telegraphed. I knewyouwould.†Her eyes roved anxiously down the beach, and suddenly fixed. “There they are now,†she said, with a small, sharp excitement.
Lillian Gueste started, peered under her pink parasol. Some dozen rods distant the plaza and the beach below it fluttered with the moving colors of acrowd. Between the plaza and the bath houses lay an empty space of beach, and down that glittering white perspective came a horse with a light sulky. They could make out two people in it: a man, holding on his hat; a woman bareheaded, driving—driving so that one wheel of the sulky spun the foam of the receding water. The man was Wallie—Wallie laughing, hugely enjoying it.
Still at a little distance the sulky stopped; the driver gave the reins to her escort, and sprang out with the light, certain leap of a cat. An indifferent Englishman, who had noticed nothing before, put his glass in his eye and stared. It may be he had never seen anything so tawny, so glistening, so magnificent, as the undulant masses of hair gathered up on the crown of the girl’s head. A long tan-colored ulster, the collar turned up around her throat, fell to her feet. She stood pulling off a pair of red gloves, looking up and laughing to Walter Carter, who got out with his habitual lazy lurch.
The two were near the narrow plank that led from the women’s bath houses. Bathers were coming out in bathrobes, which, five steps from the door, they left hanging on the rope, while they hopped, high-shouldered and shivering, down the beach. The girl kicked off her tennis shoes and handed them to Walter, stripped off her ulster, and stood out in a scarlet bathing dress that, covering the knees, left bare legs, slim, brown and dimpled as a child’s. She lingered across the interval of dry sand, calling over her shoulder to Walter something that left him a-grin with amusement; then went joyously down the dip of the beach for the rush of the incoming breakers, and launched into it with the swash of a little, launching ship. The lawlessness of it was beyond any words Lillian knew.
“You see, she does things like that,†Mrs. Crosby explained in her friend’s ear.
“Oh, impossible!†Lillian murmured, watching Blanche Remi’s bathing dress glimmer through the green breakers. “Do you suppose Wallie is going in, too?†she added, glancing down the beach.
The young man was sauntering toward them, unconscious of his sister’s scrutiny, his steps directed, probably, toward the men’s bath houses on the left of where the two women sat. He was as lankly dawdling as ever, but Lillian noted, with a vague uneasiness, his usual air of agreeableennuiwas supplanted by one of half-wakened interest. The remnant of a smile was on his habitually serious face.
Mrs. Gueste stood up and motioned with her lorgnon. He saw, stared, smiled broadly, delightedly, and hastened toward her.
“I say,†he said, subsiding between them, “thisisluck! But why didn’t you let a chap know you were coming a few hours before you landed? What started you, anyway? I thought you had planned for Castle Crag.â€
Julia Crosby’s telegram was hot in Lillian’s pocket, and she thought, anxiously, that Julia’s face was conscious enough to give the thing away. But Walter was frankly unsuspicious.
“If I’d known just a day ahead,†he reproached her, “I could have lunched with you as well as not.â€
“But your engagement?†Lillian hinted.
“Oh, to bring Miss Remi down for a dip. I was going up for you while she paddled ’round, but now I’ve got you here, too, I won’t have to budge.â€
Little as she liked the idea of being thus lumped with Blanche Remi, Lillian made it a point to be lovely.
“Miss Remi?†she wondered, sweetly.
“Why, yes. Didn’t you see us?†He was just a little conscious. “There she is at the raft,†he added. “You must meet her, Lil; mustn’t she, Mrs. Crosby? There’s no one in Santa Barbara like her.â€
“Really?†Mrs. Gueste looked through her lorgnon at the glinting speck traveling out on the water.
Wallie frowned. He hated his sister’s lorgnon, and her lorgnon manner was hisbête noir.
“I am afraid we shan’t be able to waituntil Miss—erâ€â€”she searched for the name—“comes out. We must be at the house by three.â€
“Oh, that’s all right. I’ll signal her to come back. Where’s something?†His hand fell on his sister’s parasol, and before she could protest he had it at the edge of the beach, waving over his head. It was probably the first conspicuous performance of that very discreet parasol; and as for the punctilious Wallie——!
“Do you suppose he gets that sort of thing from her?†Lillian articulated.
“I suppose so,†Mrs. Crosby agreed, faintly. She felt a wish to escape being present at the approaching introduction. “If you don’t mind, Lily,†she excused herself, “I really ought to run uptown and see Mrs. Herrick for a few moments. You remember I promised her.â€
“Why, of course. Wallie will see me home.†Lillian smiled, remembering how in their school days Julia’s conscience had always precipitated the crisis, and dodged the consequences.
She sat composedly alone in the sand, watching the glinting speck drawing landward. Wallie stood awaiting it, his toes in the water, his sister’s pink parasol held like a saber in his hand.
As the girl came splashing through the shallow flow, dripping, glowing, shaking the drops from her hair, Mrs. Gueste saw she carried a little dog, a terrier, in her arms, and this seemed to put the last touch to her conspicuousness. She came up the beach talking, gesticulating vividly, to Walter. Once she nodded to a loose-lipped, pleasant-eyed man who passed them, but she did not give Mrs. Gueste a glance until she was fairly before her—until Walter spoke his sister’s name. Then, when she gave suddenly the full glow of her face, and the strength and light of her hot, hazel eyes, she was, as Mrs. Crosby had said, overwhelming. The touch of her damp hand to Mrs. Gueste’s delicate glove was the touch of compelling physical magnetism that could be looked at safely only through a lorgnon.
But not the lorgnon, nor its accompanying manner, disconcerted Miss Remi. Her own manner was easy, without freeness.
“Youdolook like your brother, Mrs. Gueste,†she said, seating herself in the sand, and warning the wet terrier away with upraised finger.
“Flattered, Lillian?†Wallie murmured, with cloaked satisfaction.
“Oh, you’re very nice looking, Wallie,†Blanche Remi told him, with a frank, smiling, up-and-down glance.
Mrs. Gueste’s lorgnon rose sharply to this sentence, but her voice was gentle.
“Don’t you find it rather cold going in this morning?†she asked.
The girl’s faint change of expression appreciated the round turn that had been given the conversation.
“Oh, it’s always pretty cold, but I keep moving, so I keep warm,†she said. There was a glint of mischief in her wonderful eyes.
“But don’t you feel cold while you’re out?†Mrs. Gueste persisted.
The girl, sitting unwinking, unfrowning, in the glare, looked like some luxurious creature sunning itself. A faint, fine powdering of freckles gave even her skin a tawny hue. Even down the throat, where Lillian was milk white, she showed a tint like old ivory, with creamy shadows under the square chin. She looked up at Lillian Gueste’s face in the dainty shadow of her parasol.
“Do Ilookcold?†she laughed. “You must let me show you how to keep warm. Do you swim? Oh, you should! It saves your nine lives. You ride, of course?â€
“If I can find a horse that suits me.†Mrs. Gueste’s soft reply suggested she was hard to suit.
“You must try my Swallow. She’s perfect. We must have a saddle party, mustn’t we, Wallie?†the girl appealed to him. “But first you may take me to call on Mrs. Gueste. I know she’ll have too many engagements to risk calling on her hit-or-miss.â€
Mrs. Gueste’s reply was a murmur, as she rose, shaking out her soft linen skirts.
Walter Carter felt indefinitely uncomfortable. Blanche Remi stood beside his sister, slightly taller, more vigorously,more carelessly, more brilliantly made. She looked rather commanding, as if she were used to having things her own way; which was precisely what Lillian, little as she looked it, was used to having. But now her manner toward Blanche was almost appealing.
“I am going to beg your escort away from you, Miss Remi, if you will permit it, just to drive me back to Mrs. Crosby’s. I haven’t seen him for three months, you know.†Her voice and eyes somehow made three months seem interminable.
Blanche did not show by the flicker of an eyelash that she appreciated the cleverness of this maneuver. “Why, that’s a dreadful loss of time for Wallie,†she said.
He thanked her with a glance that made his sister wince.
“Then shall I come back for you—Blanche?†The name came out after a moment’s hesitation.
“Oh, no! Blair Hemming will drive me back.â€
Lillian felt a vague resentment that the girl should be so sure.
“And don’t forget about to-morrow,†Blanche warned Wallie, bidding good-by, and left him wondering what had been to-morrow. Nothing had, but the words, as Blanche had wickedly foreseen, lingered in Mrs. Gueste’s mind, and vexed her.
“You have so many engagements, I wonder whether I shall see you at all,†she hinted, as he handed her into the runabout.
He flushed slightly. “Well,†he said, genially, as he took the reins, “you know there are mighty few of ’em I wouldn’t break for you, Lil.â€
As they spun down the spongy asphalt of the boulevard, between the palms and electric-light poles, she was asking herself why it was that good, unsuspecting fellows like Wallie were always pounced upon by such women. She felt it was horrid to meddle, but this creature was so astonishingly impossible, and yet so overwhelming, that Wallie could hardly be expected to rescue himself. But she was cautious.
“Did you meet Miss Remi here, Wallie?†she asked him.
“Yes, at something at the country club.â€
“Does she gothere?â€
“Why, of course. All the nice people go there.†He looked at her in lazy surprise.
“Oh!†she said, with a falling inflection. It was discouraging to find him so unconscious. “Does she go much?â€
“Everywhere. She’s awfully popular. How does she strike you?†He tried to be casual.
“She’s not like anyone else I’ve seen in Santa Barbara,†Lillian replied.
He fairly glowed. She had never seen Wallie so enthusiastic.
“You’re just right, Lil! Thereisno one like her. She makes every other girl look like a dough doll! It’s not only that she’s beautiful—she isn’t afraid of anything, she don’t care how she looks—she’s just crackling with life.â€
“Doyouadmire her so awfully?†Lillian said, with such an amazed emphasis on the personal pronoun as brought him up short.
“Why—er—of course. Why not? Don’t you?†The color came up under his brown skin.
“Well,†she said, slowly, “of course I’ve only met her once; but really, Wallie, is she quite—fine?â€
“Fine? What do you mean?â€
She knew that he knew what she meant. The word was not a new one from her. It was her measure, her ruler by which she judged the world. He was not so unconscious, then, as he seemed.
“I mean what you’ve been so accustomed to in women, you dear, that you don’t know they can lack it,†she said, caressingly. “Is shenice?Isshe a lady?â€
Something threatening looked out of her brother’s eyes. “Well, I introduced her to you.â€
“I know. You put me in rather a difficult position, Wallie.â€
“See here, Lilâ€â€”he dragged out his words with slow emphasis—“I don’t know who you’ve been listening to, butyou can take it from me that’s she as fine as silk and as good as gold.â€
“Oh, as to her goodness, I haven’t a doubt, of course.†She seemed to set this aside as a trifle. “But as to fineness, now, Wallie, what do you think of a girl driving through town in her bathing suit, with a man, and jumping out of her coat and shoes on the beach before everyone, as she did? She did it to make a sensation; and do you thinkthatfine, Wallie?â€
He flushed, but laughed.
“Nonsense. It was a whim—a freak. She thought nothing at all of any effect on the beach. That’s the trouble; she thinks too little of the effect, and so——â€
“And so she wears no stockings—and so she’s called ‘the Wrecker,’†his sister added, with inconsequent effect.
His face was grave, even disturbed. “Oh, yes, I’ve heardthat. But she’s so beautiful, so happy, you can’t wonder at the attraction; and you know there’s always gossip. And then she’s run wild. She has had no one to take care of her——†he left the sentence hanging.
His sister inwardly shivered. When a man talked about “taking care†in that tone, she seemed to see the end.
They were winding up the wide, wandering Main Street, the rose-covered verandas of the Arlington on their left; on the right an old garden ran back to the white stucco fronts and red tiles of the De la Gera place.
“Wallie,†Lillian asked him, softly, “areyou in love with that girl?â€
“Me! Oh, what a question, Lil!†He laughed at her—his nice, lazy laugh she loved so much.
“Are you, Wallie?â€
He put up his monocle to meet her lorgnon. “My dear girl,doI look pale and sunken?â€
“You are dodging the question. But thinkâ€â€”she was light, almost playful, over it—“is she the sort of woman you would care to introduce as your—wife?â€
Wallie looked a little startled, but he took her tone. “My dear Lil, I haven’t thought of her in quite that way.†He grew more serious. “I think she’s wonderful. I never saw anyone like her. You must know her better.â€
“I don’t see how I can,†Lillian sighed.
“You mean you won’tseeher?â€
“I suppose I must, since you are going to bring her to call. But I won’t go about with her. I can’t. Couldn’t you see there on the beach—she isn’t our kind?â€
“She looks nothing like you, certainly, Lillian,†he replied, coolly, “if you insist on judging people by appearances, but it’s hardly a ‘fine’ way to judge.â€
“Now, Wallie——†they had turned into the Crosby drive, between the rose of sharon and syringa bushes.
“Of course,†he went on, “you’re always waving that word around as if it were the only thing worth being, and every virtue hung on it. But what about honor, and generosity, and simplicity, and courage? Are they nothing compared to it?â€
The runabout had stopped before the piazza steps, but Lillian sat still a moment, frowning faintly.
“When I said ‘fine,’†she answered, “I didn’t mean fine finish, cultivation, which is a surface thing, but I meant fine fiber, which goes deep and counts in every way with everything. One judges the big things by the small ones,†she said, as Wallie handed her out, “and remembering mother, and the way we were brought up to feel and understand, I think you will presently agree with me that Miss Remi is hardly—fine.â€
She gave him a smile with the last word; and her look, the movement of her graceful head in the turn, the poise of her delicate body, the fall of her delicate dress, showed forth every shade of meaning which that word could contain.
The memory of her thus was with him all the afternoon. It buzzed like a bee in his brain that night through the dinner at the Crosbys’, though Lillian, ravishing in daintily blended shades of chiffon, referred by no suggestion to the talk of the afternoon. She and herword, he thought, mutually described one another. Lillian was fine, and fine meant Lillian.
Deep down or on the surface, he knew she was the real thing. And the inevitable, following question was, what was Blanche Remi? She was the real thing, too. He was sure of that. Lil was ’way off, he told himself, when she said the big things showed up in the little. He had been bothered all his life by the petty goodnesses of women, and now that he had found one who had the great goodness he was not going to be disturbed by Lil’s scruples. As for being “in love†with Blanche Remi—Lillian had put it to him as he had never put it to himself.
From the first night her marvelous eyes had flashed into his indolent notice, he had felt an inclination to exterminate every other man who talked to her. And there weresomany. The supposition on the tongues of Santa Barbara that all these men made love to her he had not believed—could not have tolerated. Why he had not made love to her himself was not from lack of impulse, but something in the very greatness of the emotions and passions she roused in him, something in her fine, free ignorance of the trifles that make up the virtue of most women, had made any trifling with her impossible to him. But he felt himself brought down to facts. What was he finally intending toward this girl whom he never saw without wanting to kiss, to carry off? His wife?
Well, Lil was right. Blanche did lack the superficial polish. Strange he hadn’t noticed that before. But that was just the use of Lil. She could be a lot of help if she could only be made to like Blanche, and, of course, all that was necessary was that Lil should know her better. He would, he decided, take Blanche to call there to-morrow.
With a little telephoning this was arranged, and Wallie had it all made out just how beautifully he would direct that interview and carry it through. But the direction was reversed at the beginning by so small an incident as a woman’s hat. Not that the hat was, in itself, so slight an affair. Indeed, when Blanche came out to where he waited her, curbing the most impatient horse in Santa Barbara, the hat was the first thing he saw.
It was wide. It was hung about with lace—too much lace. It was covered with pink roses—too many roses. Walter did not quite know what to think of it, but he had a feeling that Lillian would.
As Blanche sprang into the cart with that vigorous, energetic lift of her body in which the muscles seemed always tense with action:
“Where’s that little white, flyaway thing you used to wear?†he ventured.
“Oh, I don’t know—this is a new one. Don’t you like it?â€
“Isn’t it a little—large for driving?â€
She flushed but smiled. “Not for calling. Now, Wallie, that’s the first time since you met me that you’ve noticed my clothes. I don’t believe you’ve known whether I’ve had any. Is it because you’ve been having ideals put under your nose? Is itâ€â€”she laughed, drawing on a pair of extremely long lavender gloves—“because you are afraid your sister won’t approve of my hat, any more than she approved of my legs?â€
It was this astonishing freedom of speech, more than the hat, that made him uneasy of the approaching interview. Of course Blanche could say what she liked to him. He understood. But the very idea of her talking that way to Lillian made him shiver.
But Blanche did not talk “that way†to Lillian. There in the Crosby garden, where the magnolias dropped languid petals on the lawn, she was touchingly like a little girl on her good behavior. She tried, with her anxious sweetness, to make Wallie’s sister like her. But Lillian had seen the hat first, and got no further. It was to the hat she talked, and it seemed to Walter that his sister’s costume, so notably discreet, somehow set off all the daring of Blanche Remi’s gown, the telling blacks of which were touched in at the most unexpected intervals. WasLillian, instead of helping, trying to put Blanche at her worst? He thrust that thought out of sight as disloyal. He sat, wretchedly uncomfortable, trying to remember whether he had ever seen Lillian wear long lavender gloves, hearing Lillian deftly turn and dispose of, unanswered, Blanche Remi’s suggestions for horseback excursions and “plunge parties.â€
He expected, with every covert snub, that Blanche would suddenly, diabolically turn tables on her, as he had seen her do with other women. But Blanche, who had always had what she wanted, now, for perhaps the first time in her life, wanted a woman to like her. And it did not occur to her that she should fail in her desire. But what had been her strength was now her failure. Her compelling magnetism alarmed Lillian Gueste. She had been thoroughly convinced at first glance that the girl was “bad form.†But now she felt her force as something terrible and threatening to Wallie. The very sweetness of the smile Blanche gave her in going seemed too rich.
“But the protection,†Lillian reasoned, going over the interview afterward with herself, “is that Wallie is beginning to see.â€
Wallie, bitterly irritated, saw, indeed, many trifles that he had failed to see before, perplexing as so many pricks. Things he had thought amusing in Blanche Remi—her red gloves, her white spats, her man’s hunting coat, the terrier she took to receptions—would they do for Mrs. Walter Carter? Suppose he should put it to Blanche that way, would she take it from him? he wondered. He felt he must put it to her some way now—the questions of Mrs. Walter Carter—for in the background, dimly threatening him, was that aggregation, each one a future possibility—the pasts he would not contemplate—and all villainously responsible for the name gossip had fastened upon her, “the Wrecker.†He knew that Santa Barbara accounted her a “dangerous†woman, but to him, even with her fatal fascination, she had always seemed a child. And now it came to him that it was not the help of a woman, but the protection of a man, Blanche Remi required most.
He felt he could not wait a day, a moment, to tell her; but somehow it was very difficult to find that moment; his time was so unostentatiously but so thoroughly permeated and broken with Lillian’s engagements for him. A week escaped in which, without having seen Blanche less, he had seen her under circumstances that admitted no opportunity.
Lillian had not, as she first threatened, ignored Blanche. She had invited her, if not to dine, at least to a beach tea, to a driving party; had talked with her at the country club; had kept her before Wallie, always at arm’s length, as if to give him ample opportunity for comparison.
Walter could find no flaw in his sister’s attitude of disinterested politeness, of pale cordiality toward Blanche Remi, but side lights on it now and then made him suspicious. He was bewildered—as bewildered as a man tangled in a veil. He felt that the first fine intimacy of his fellowship with Blanche was dulled. He was distressed with a sense of being on a more formal footing with her. At the same time others—men who had been very much in the background—seemed to come forward into her notice. He saw her at the country club dances magnetize the men too bored to dance into an interested circle round her. Dismayed, he saw her first with one, then with another, driving, swimming, sitting on the beach under one parasol in the association so intimate, so informal, that, before Lillian came, he had usurped to the exclusion of the many. Finally, out of the crowd, as the one oftenest with her, he saw Blair Hemming, the man of loose lips and good-natured eyes, to whom Blanche had bowed that morning on the beach.
Walter had thought him a decent enough fellow, but now he was suddenly vile. And Blanche? Her behavior was unreasonable and unfair. But perhaps he had let himself drift too much with Lillian’s plans. A littleself-accusing, a little self-righteous, he rang up the Remis’s to make an appointment to ride horseback with Blanche that afternoon.
Her voice reached him, nasal, resonant, with a vibrant quality that touched the ear with a fascination deeper than sweetness. She had a luncheon engagement at the club.
He was annoyed that he had not known of this.
“How about to-morrow?â€
“Very well,†came back; “but make it a foursome. Get your sister to come.â€
“Of course, if you would rather,†he answered, a little stiffly. “Whathashappened?†he asked himself. He knew he had done nothing. Was Blanche changing? Had he only imagined her attitude toward him differed from her attitude toward half a dozen others? It had seemed different—but how could a man be sure?
Harassed, suspicious, he hesitated over making the proposal to Lillian until the next afternoon at the last moment. He rode over to the Crosbys’ and found his sister, fair and diaphanous in her mousseline gown, crumbling bread to the gold fish in the fountain. The look she gave his proposition, sweet as it was, made him uncomfortable. Any man would do to fill in the fourth place, he had stupidly said.
“Any man for Miss Remi?†she had asked him. And he had fired.
She heard him with a half smile, softly beating the ground with the dried palm leaf she prettily carried as a parasol.
Well, she told him, she did not care particularly for such an expedition. It was such a time since she had seen him alone! Wouldn’t it be much nicer to make it just atête-à -têtedinner at Estrelda’s?
He replied, with irritation, that if she did not care to make one of the party, it would not prevent him from taking Miss Remi.
“Ah, a previous arrangement,†Lillian said, taking in his whip and his riding boots as if she had just noticed them. “Well, you must realize by this time just what sort of a person she is.â€
“I am far from being sure, but I intend to find out this afternoon.â€
She turned sharply. “You mean you are going to ask her to marry you?â€
“Well, if I am?â€
“After the way she’s been running about with this Hemming?â€
“Lillian—look out,†he warned. His sister’s smile was tight and fine.
“Oh, well,†she said, with a little shrug, letting her hands drop in a gesture that seemed to make an end of the matter. At the moment her brother appeared to her no less than a monster. But she watched him down the drive with a revulsion of mood. She felt he was leaving her forever, her Wallie, her little brother! He was a year younger than she. She had let her sense of personal injury get in the way of his happiness—and he was going to that woman.
She stood, the palm leaf fallen from her hand. He must be stopped, interrupted somehow. He should not do a thing in a heat to regret forever. Calling his name, she hurried down the drive to the gate, but he had already turned out of the side street, and was beyond both sight and call. She fairly ran across the garden, over lawns and borders, her gown streaming, regardless of dust or wet. Had anyone seen her running, flushed and breathless, across the piazza and up the stairs, he would scarcely have recognized, in her abandon, Mrs. Cornelius Gueste.
She hurried into her habit, trying to remember whether Wallie had said they would go down through Monticito and come back by the beach, or whether it were just the other way about. Where could she hope to catch up with them? It would be a humiliating affair enough for her; but she was not in the least thinking of herself, but only of Wallie, and some way by which she could avert his catastrophe.
Walter had departed with the responsibility of what he was about to do heavily upon him. His sister’s look had not failed to affect him. He felt he was adventuring, risking, going to deal with unknown quantities.
He was to meet Blanche in town,where she had told him she had some shopping to do. Halfway down the wide, wandering Main Street he saw her mare fastened in front of the confectioner’s. Riding up, he could glimpse through the glass door Blanche, a tall habited figure, strolling here and there, sampling the sweets. He sat waiting, scowling in the glare of the afternoon sun on white awnings and sidewalks. He saw Hemming jump out of his cart a few doors down, in front of the saddler’s, with a broken bridle over, his arm.
“Hey, Carter!†He came and leaned on the flank of Walter’s horse, his hand on the back of the saddle.
“Beastly familiar,†Walter thought.
Hemming’s good-natured, sensual face was vivid with animal spirits. “Where were you last night?†he said. “Youdidmiss it!â€
“What?†drawled Walter.
“Mrs. Jack Castra’s dinner dance. Great!†Hemming’s eyes narrowed. He shook his head. “I got Blanche Remi a bid. You know she wanted one like the devil. Mrs. Jack is a terrible stickler, but we’re great pals, and she let me have it.â€
“Miss Remi went?†Walter’s voice was very lazy.
“Did she go?†Hemming laughed. “I’ll tell you what it is,†he said, “the Wrecker’s a wonder! She’s such a wonder that most of the women say, ‘Hands off.’ But between you and me, she makes every other woman look like a Dutch doll.â€
Walter had an impulse to strike Hemming. His own words had been flung back at him, but he failed to recognize them.
“Oh, I had a good time,†Hemming repeated, significantly, but unmalicious. “So long.†He sauntered into the saddler’s.
Walter watched the confectioner’s door opening. So Blanche was under an obligation—such an obligation—to Hemming! He had not thought Hemming such a bad lot, but now—— Things Lillian had said crowded back to him. And Blanche’s attitude lately? The color thickened in his sallow cheeks.
Blanche came out of the door with a swing. She was eating a chocolate. As she stood under the rippling awning, pulling on her red gloves, he saw she was glowing with excitement. The weight of her splendid hair under her man’s hat, the play of color in her eyes, the slight backward fling of her figure as she poised—each detail proclaimed eloquently how fully she was a conscious, vital force, stupendous to reckon with.
“Where’s Mrs. Gueste?†was the first question she tossed at him, with a straight, studying look.
“Er—she had a headache—and—er, another engagement,†he added, lamely.
Blanche laughed. “One would have been enough,†she said; but the curve of her lip quivered. She stopped his reply with a second question.
“Who ran away as I came out?†she asked, settling in her saddle.
“Blair Hemming.†He looked at her sharply, but she showed no consciousness; only a smile, as though Hemming were something funny.
“Did you have an amusing time last night?†he asked her.
Some vague reminder of Lillian Gueste’s voice startled her. The color deepened in her cheeks. “Oh, lovely! Hemmingâ€â€”she never gave a title to a name—“took me to the Castras’.â€
“Did he get you the invitation?â€
She looked at him in surprise.
“I didn’taskhim for it. He offered it.â€
“But you took it?â€
“Why not? Everyone does it.â€
Walter looked at her uneasily. He knew well enough that everyone didn’t. He said stiffly: “I don’t like the idea of your being under obligations to a man like Hemming.â€
She looked at him with a quick flush. It might have been anger or pleasure. But then her lashes lowered over her eyes to cover the secret.
“Youdon’t!†she said. “And how do you suppose Hemming likes my being under obligations to you?â€
He was aghast. “What hashegot to say about it?â€
“What haveyou?†She let it fall gently.
“Good heavens!†he burst out. “Do you lumpus? I thought that you and I were—were——â€
“Friends?†she filled in without a quaver. “We were. But you’ve changed, Wallie.â€
“Since——â€
“Your sister came.â€
“What nonsense——†he began, eagerly.
“Noâ€â€”her eyes were somber, smoldering—“shehatesme!†Blanche emphasized the word with her whip on the mare’s flank. “She thinks I’m awful! Hasn’t she said that toyou?â€
“She has said nothing of the sort. She has nothing to do with it.â€
“She has everything!†Blanche said, suddenly, passionately. She jerked the mare’s head fiercely.
They had turned out of the dazzling street into a softly sprinkled side way, where the pepper trees wept their tassels in the dust. Blanche kept her eyes on the bit of blue sky that seemed to close the end of the street like a jewel in a setting.
“Before she came you took me for just what I was. You believed in me, Walter. But ever since she said things, I feel—oh, I don’t know! As if you were a long way off, watching me, and wondering about everything I say and do.â€
He broke in: “Because once or twice I criticised some trifle!â€
“Oh,†she cried, “don’t think I wouldn’t take criticism from you! I’d take a lot. I’d even wear the sort of hats your sister does!â€
“Oh, confound the sort of hats! You know that’s not it. It’s—I—love you, Blanche.â€
He brought out the little isolated sentence breathlessly, with a jerk. His sallow face was flushed.
Blanche was very pale. The horses took five steps while there was silence. Then:
“It’s sweet of you to say that.†The girl’s voice was shaken. “But you know, Walter, asshedoes, I’m not her kind.â€
“But I don’t want you to be!â€
“Don’t you, Walter?†She looked at him earnestly. “And I’m not your kind, either. I mean, I’m not like the women you’ve known.She’smade me feel that—your sister. It’s one reason why I hate her. Oh, I do!†She nodded at him. “You may as well know that. She makes me see what I’ve missed—little things I thought didn’t matter. But now——â€
“But, child,†he interrupted, exasperated, manlike, with her self-depreciations, “those little things don’t count! It isn’t that. But if you loved me——â€
“If Ilovedyou?†She turned large, astonished eyes on him.
“Well, you wouldn’t take things from Blair Hemming. I won’t stand it,†he broke out. “He was talking about you, Blanche.â€
“What did he say?â€
“That makes no difference. A woman can’t afford to be talked about in any way. She can’t know a man in such a way.â€
“In what way?†The girl was breathless.
He seemed to see long perspectives of pasts: the crowds around her at the dances; the men at dinners, talking to her across the disapproval of the other women; the looks following her down the beach. “Well, you know what I mean,†he answered, sullenly.
“Oh, Walter!†Her arms fell at her sides with a gesture of eloquent despair. She seemed to divine his retrospection. “But I can’t help it! I don’t do it on purpose—though I know people say I do.Youdon’t—don’t think I’m ‘the Wrecker’?†She aimed the word at him like a blow, and while he sought an answer: “You don’t believe me. You don’t trust me. You’re wondering now whether I let Hemming make love to me. Hemming!â€â€”she leaned toward him with a savage head shake. “I may not know a good hat when I see one, but I know a good man!â€
The spur pricked. The mare bounded. She was rods away before Walter realized he was deserted. Thenhe followed. The girl turned and motioned him back.
“Go away, go away!†she cried. There was something at once so imperious and so entreating in voice and gesture that he involuntarily halted, and she wheeled and spurred on at a gallop.
If she had not ridden so headlong she must have shrieked. The tempest in her was too much for expression. She saw, subconsciously, a gray blur of olive trees streaming past, with here and there the richer note of orange orchards, and always the road before her, an intense white line over and around the smooth-topped hills. She did not slacken pace at the passing phaëtons, though these may have contained people whom she knew. She dared not look behind her, through a stifling hope and doubt that Walter had followed. She breasted the last hill crest, where the road lifts out of the gardens and orchards of Monticito to the high, wind-raked bluff above the sea.
Here she reined in and turned and looked back down the long, straight stretch of road she had come. Empty, far as eye could see. She listened, breathlessly, but the interminable whisper of the eucalyptus leaves above her head was the only sound. And she had thought so surely he would follow!
She covered her face with her hands and sobbed—crying like a man, with deep chest respirations that shook her whole body. The mare, feeling a relaxed rein, moved a few steps. The girl’s hands fell from her face. She looked seaward through the slim, swaying eucalyptus trees. The tears rolled down her cheeks to the corners of her twitching mouth. Mechanically she wiped them away with the wrist of her red glove. It left odd, bloodlike streaks on her tawny skin. They gave a menacing look to her despair. She was not thinking of how she looked, but of whom she had left, of how she loved him! She was feeling, with her blind forsakenness, that if Walter gave her up she was lost. If he only knew how little the other people mattered! How good, how awfully, abjectly good, she could be if she had him—the only man who had never made love to her! She remembered, with a stir of pure pleasure, how at first she had been piqued and puzzled that he did not. Afterward, how she had loved him for it! But since this woman, his sister, had come, Blanche did not know how it had been brought about, but she knew that she and Walter, who had been so close, so understanding, were apart and at odds. He had trusted her, and now he suspected her.