CHAPTER XVI
Long before the sun came creeping up beyond Mt. Diablo, Dan Pritchard made the discovery that the man who has too many things to think about cannot devote constructive thought to any of them. After being the innocent cause of more discomfort than Dan had thought it possible for any man to experience in a single evening, Tamea had swept from his heart in a moment a feeling of resentment, or irritation, that had been developing there. Her tender little speech, evidencing as it did the essential nobility of her primitive soul, had surrounded the girl, in Dan’s eyes, with a newer, more distinctive charm, and rendered more distressing the prospect of the impending parting. For all the embarrassment she had caused him in Maisie’s presence, Dan realized that Tamea was notgauche, that she possessed in full measure a characteristic rather uncommon among her white sisters, and that was sportsmanship.
Tamea fought in the open; she was above a mean, small, underhanded action. Notwithstanding the fact that Tamea’s calm announcement to her rival that Dan was her man had caused him to yearn for a hole into which he might disappear, effectually dragging the aperture in after him, Dan had a hearty man’s hearty appreciation of her frankness, her simplicity, her utter lack of dissembling, of feminine guile. He entertained a similar feeling of admiration for Maisie, in whom the exigencies of this peculiar situation had developed similar characteristics. And lastly, he was sensible of a little titillation to his masculine vanity in the knowledge that two glorious women desired him, that they were engaged in a battle of wits and charm to win him.
He was, on the whole, however, very uncomfortable and apprehensive of unfortunate developments. Mellenger, beloved pal of his boyhood and steadfast friend of his mature years, had read him truthfully and then told him that which he had read. Dan was unwilling to believe that Mellenger had read him aright yet he had lacked the courage to deny it.
What a keen fellow Mark Mellenger was! How prudent, farseeing and fearless! And how charitable, how thoroughly understanding! Dear old Mel! He hadn’t gotten ahead in life. His one great ambition had failed dismally of realization, and he had had to content himself with second place; nevertheless he was not embittered. His life was taken up with doing well the task he could do so much better than others; no hint of the sadness of unfulfilled dreams ever escaped him, and until tonight Dan had never seen him excited or distressed about anything.
“The old boy has a tremendous affection for me,” Dan meditated as he got out of bed, donned dressing gown and slippers and sat by the window to watch the sun rise over San Francisco bay. “What a blow it would be to him were I to—but of course I shall not. The idea is unthinkable.”
Gradually his mind turned to thoughts of business, to the increasing annoyance of association with old John Casson, to the rice market. He would call upon Ridley, the rice broker, and put pressure behind the selling drive if Ridley failed to render an encouraging report by noon. Once in the clear on those rice deals, he was resolved to do one of two things—buy John Casson out or force Casson to buy him out.
And then there was the accursed question of what to do with Tamea. That also would have to be solved today.
At seven o’clock he heard Sooey Wan puttering about in the kitchen below, so he shaved, bathed, dressed and descended for an early breakfast. Sooey Wan served him in profound silence, but eyed him with a steady, speculative gaze; from time to time he shook his old head as if he, too, wrestled with problems hard to solve. When Dan left the house Sooey Wan accompanied him into the hall, helped him into his overcoat and handed him hat and stick. Then he voiced something of what was on his mind.
“Boss, how soon you mally Captain’s girl?”
“How dare you ask me such a question? Mind your own business, you grinning old idol, or I’ll fire you one of these bright days. I’m not going to marry the Captain’s girl.”
Sooey Wan did not seem to be impressed. “Helluva house you ketchum, boss, you fire Sooey Wan. Allee time you makee too much talkee-talk. Talk velly cheap, but ketchum money you likee buy whisky. You no mally Captain’s girl, eh? Well, when you mally Missie Maisie?”
“I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
Sooey Wan rubbed his corrugated brow and scowled in huge despair. “Go ’long, boy, go ’long,” he entreated wearily. “Allee time you makee Sooey Wan sick. Why I ask? Wha’s mallah? You no wanchee ketchum little baby—ketchum fi’, six son?”
“I haven’t thought about it,” Dan growled.
“Hully up. Thinkee quick!” Sooey Wan entreated. “Pitty soon if you no thinkee, evelything go blooey-blooey. Sooey Wan talkee Captain’s girl, she tellee me pitty soon ketchum my boss for mally. Now you say no ketchum. Wha’s mallah? You thinkee make fool of Sooey Wan? Listen, boy. When Captain’s girl say ketchum boss, then Sooey Wan bettee bankroll on Captain’s girl. She ketch you, sure. Oh-h-h, velly nice!”
Dan slammed the door in Sooey Wan’s face and hastened down the street. It was an hour’s walk to his office and his head ached from too much thinking. The exercise would do him good.
He purchased the morning papers and looked through them for Tamea’s picture and the story of her arrival, of her father’s dramatic death. Mellenger, for some unknown reason, had not featured his story as Dan had expected. It was a short straight news story, on the second page, with a very good picture of Tamea, and Dan noted that Mellenger had said nothing of the fact that he was to be Tamea’s guardian, that she was a guest at his home. The other paper had handled the story more flamboyantly and featured it on the first page, but with an eye single to local color the editor had run the photograph of Tamea in the Mother Hubbard dress.
“Brainless apes,” Dan growled. “Makes her look like a colored mammy. I hate them.”
Arrived at his office, he had scarcely read his mail before Ridley, the rice broker, called him up.
“I can unload that four thousand tons at Shanghai for cash,” he announced, “but the price I can get will not leave you much of a profit.”
“How much?”
“Fourteen cents, at ships’ tackles, Shanghai.”
Dan figured rapidly while Ridley held the wire. The price quoted would net his firm a profit of about eight thousand dollars. “Sold!” he cried triumphantly.
By noon the deal had been definitely closed with Ridley’s client, the space contracted for on the Malayan transferred to the new owner of the rice, and the check in payment deposited in bank. Dan’s mental thermometer commenced to rise, so he decided to accord himself the delight of breaking the news to old Casson.
The senior partner’s face darkened with fury. “You’ve cost us a potential profit of a quarter of a million dollars, Pritchard. I suppose you realize that this confounded interference of yours means the end of our business association.”
“I hope so. Thank you, I wouldn’t care for another helping of the mustard. Do you propose buying me out or selling out to me?”
“I would prefer to buy you out—today—and carry those rice deals myself.”
“Unfortunately, the sale of my interest here will not invalidate my signature on some of this firm’s paper, Mr. Casson.”
“That might be arranged somehow. What do you want for your interest?”
Dan named a figure and old Casson nodded approval.
“Terms?” he queried.
“Cash.”
“Impossible.”
“Well, then, fifty thousand in cash and the balance on secured notes.”
“Impossible.”
“I had a suspicion you have dissipated in crazy deals most of your share of the money we made during the war. Well, it appears you cannot buy me out, and until our rice deals have been safely disposed of, if not at a profit at least without loss, I do not yearn to take over your share. It might prove a very bad investment. However, for reasons which would never occur to you, I am willing, once the rice deals have been disposed of, to buy you out on a basis of the actual value of our assets, but with nothing additional for good-will. All the good-will value of Casson and Pritchard has been created by my father and myself.”
“I shall not sell on that basis.”
“Very well. The day on which our last note is paid I am relieved of all contingent liability as a partner in Casson and Pritchard. We will dissolve partnership. That will kill your credit with our bankers and I shall sit calmly by and watch you go to smash. When you’ve had your beating, sir, you will be glad to sell—at my terms. I am generous now. You may be sure I shall not be generous then.”
Old Casson glowered, puffed at his cigar and then studied the ash reflectively.
“While you were busy this morning unloading that Shanghai rice at a paltry eight thousand dollars profit—just because you lack the courage of a jack-rabbit—I disposed of the Manila rice at the market.”
“To whom?”
“Katsuma and Company.”
“Japs, eh?”
“They’re good.”
“Financial rating is unquestionably splendid. Know anything about the moral rating of a Japanese business firm?”
“They’ve always met their business obligations.”
“Any Jap will—until the meeting of them becomes burdensome or unprofitable. Ninety day paper, I suppose.”
Casson smiled triumphantly. “No, not with Katsuma and Company. Sight draft against bill of lading, payable at the Philippine National Bank.”
“Well, that’s better than I had expected. Unfortunately the cargo has to be loaded aboard ship before that draft will be cashable. That means thirty days of suspense—and I do not like the financial aspect in the East. Pricesmustcome down—and once they start downward they may develop into an economic avalanche. It’s an unhealthy situation and I don’t like it. Where’s your contract with Katsuma and Company?”
Casson handed it to him and Dan scanned it carefully, nodded his approval, rang for the chief clerk and gave the contract to him to be placed in the safe.
“Well, on the face of things, we’re out of the rice market,” he said as he rose to return to his own office. “I feel much relieved.”
In his private office he found Mark Mellenger waiting for him. “Well, you bird of ill omen,” Dan greeted him cheerily, “what brings you here?”
“Had an hour to kill and thought I’d kill it here. I do not go on duty until one thirty. Dan, I’ve been thinking. What, if anything, have you decided in the matter of the girl, Tamea?”
“Nothing, Mel. I’ve been too busy on something else.”
“It would be well to make Tamea’s matter a special order of business. Have you thought of anything to do?”
“Not a thing.”
“I suspected that might be the case. The fact is that you are being ruled by your subconscious mind. You do not wish to do anything. However, you shall. I have a plan.”
“Indeed?”
“None of your sarcasm. Not that it will avail you anything. It’s just futile—wasted energy—on me. You must induce Maisie Morrison to take Tamea to Del Monte for a couple of weeks.”
“My dear man, why should I ask Maisie to burden herself with such a responsibility?”
“Well, itisselfish, I admit, but then if one would make an omelette one must break eggs. Maisie will regard it as a burden and she will appreciate to the fullest your cussedness in asking her, but she will accept the nomination gracefully—indeed, I am moved to add—gratefully.”
“How do you know she will?”
“Don’t know. I’m merely guessing. I guessed her right last night, did I not?. . . Yes, I’m not half bad at guessing things.”
“But something tells me there is mutual hostility between Maisie and Tamea. They disliked each other at sight.”
“Quite true. But then women who despise each other for a reason which may not be discussed will never admit that they despise each other. And Maisie will subjugate her very natural desire to spank Tamea if she realizes that by so doing she will be enabled to thwart Tamea in the latter’s campaign for your affection. It occurs to me, therefore——”
“You mean that Maisie will eagerly grasp the opportunity to take Tamea out of my presence and keep her out?”
“Dan, you poor moon-calf, you’re growing brilliant. You’re beginning to do some head-work. Answering your question, I would say that such is my interpretation of what will be her mental attitude.”
“Women are so queer,” Dan declared helplessly.
“Women study the essentials which most men overlook, to wit, cause and effect. The adverbwhywas invented for the use of women. They always want to know. When they have a battle on they use their heads to think continuously of the enemy. They do not forget him or ignore him or underestimate him—I mean her.”
“Old cynic!”
“Not at all. That’s sound argument based on observation. A smart woman never forgets that her opponent is extremely likely to act with discretion.”
“Well?”
“I think you ought to ask Maisie and her aunt to be your guests at Del Monte for a few weeks, and explain to Maisie that you will take it kindly of her to look after Tamea. Be sure to inform her that while you will drive down with them and spend the week-end, you will motor home on Monday—and stay at home thereafter. You see, Dan,” Mellenger continued, “there will be much to divert and interest Tamea down there. She can ride, and if she cannot ride she can spend her time learning. Same thing with golf. She can swim—and I dare say she’ll be the sensation of the beach. Lots of good looking, idle gents down there to take her mind off you, and with Maisie and her aunt to chaperon her, and Julia to help steer her straight, you stand a very fair chance of forgetting her, of having her forget you.”
“That is a very good plan. After a few weeks there I will have her school arrangements made. Then I’ll have a talk with her, tell her exactly what I want, and that I am going away on a trip to Europe and that she must be a very good, obedient girl while I am away.”
“But—are you really going to Europe?”
“I am. In about thirty days I’m going to sell out to old Casson, or buy him out. If the former, I’ll be free to go. If the latter, I’ll appoint a manager and go abroad anyway.”
“The day you get Tamea into a convent—and that’s where she belongs—you are to marry Maisie Morrison and take her to Europe with you. I’ll keep an eye on Tamea for you.
“No risk, I assure you. I have a pachydermous hide which her glances may not penetrate. Besides, I’ve always been singularly intrigued with the idea that one of these bright days I may marry some fine woman and father some blue-eyed, flaxen-haired children.”
“You old-fashioned devil!”
“Do not seek with specious compliments to swerve my single-track mind from youraffaire de cœur. It is understood, then, that you are committed to my plan?”
“Absolutely.”
“Fine! Telephone Maisie at once.”
Dan hesitated, so Mellenger pressed the push-button that summoned Dan’s secretary. “Please get Miss Morrison on the telephone for Mr. Pritchard,” he requested.
Maisie was at home and to Dan’s suggestion she agreed—not with enthusiasm, but upon the ground of obliging him, of helping him out of a distressing situation. Mellenger, listening to Dan’s replies, managed to patch together a very fair résumé of their conversation, and grinned openly.
“Told you I was a good hand at guessing,” he bragged. “Ah, that’s a smart girl, that Maisie. She’s a diplomat. Got tact—rarest feminine gift. Before you hang up I should like to speak to her.”
There was a wait of a few minutes while Maisie urged her aunt to agree to chaperon the party. Presently Maisie called back to say that Mrs. Casson, having communicated by telephone with her husband, would be delighted to accept.
“Falls in with old Casson’s mood very nicely,” Dan soliloquized. “He’s morose and sulky and prefers to be alone.” To Maisie: “Mel is in my office, Maisie. He wishes to say a word to you.”
“Miss Maisie,” Mellenger announced, “I’ve taken on a new job.”
“Indeed?”
“I’m managing Dan Pritchard. The man is bewildered and doesn’t know how to manage himself. He’s afraid to act with force and decision at home, although down in the office he never hesitates to crack the whip.”
“I know. Dan is so tender-hearted. He’s afraid his passion-flower will droop and die if he exercises the least bit of authority. If his true friends do not organize——”
“Exactly, Miss Maisie, exactly. You start for Del Monte at two o’clock this afternoon, in Dan’s car. You will arrive in time for dinner. Your trunks will follow by express.”
“Are you giving orders, Mel?”
“I am.”
“I hear you and I obey. Good-by. Thank you.”
Mellenger hung up and faced Dan. “Go home and get ready, but before you leave this office, telephone Julia and start her packing.”
“You’re a fast worker.”
“I know a faster one,” Mellenger retorted significantly.
CHAPTER XVII
At a quarter past seven, when Dan Pritchard’s limousine drew up in front of the Hotel Del Monte, a white, flannel-clad figure heaved itself out of a chair on the porch, came down the steps and opened the door of the car.
“Good evening, everybody,” he greeted Dan’s party.
“Hello! Mel! You here!”
Mellenger sighed. “One might glean the impression judging by your intonation, that I haven’t any right here,” he complained. “After leaving your office today I began to feel the downhill pull, so I jumped the two o’clock train and here I am. How do you do, Miss Maisie.”
He gave Maisie his hand and assisted her to alight. They exchanged glances and Mellenger felt his hand squeezed just a little. He answered the pressure, was introduced to Mrs. Casson as Dan handed her out on the steps, and immediately turned to greet Tamea.
“Good evening, Your Majesty.”
“Good evening, Monsieur Stoneface,” Tamea answered, and ignored his outstretched hand. He knew she was not pleased to find him here, and her next words, spoken in French, clinched this conclusion. “I will make your task an easy one,” she challenged. “I have been doing some thinking.” She smiled enigmatically. “Oh, I understand you very well, indeed!”
“Yes, I think we understand each other, Tamea. I want you to know, however,” he added as they followed Dan, Maisie and Mrs. Casson into the hotel, “that my attitude is perfectly impersonal. I do not dislike you.”
“If you understood me there would have been no necessity for that speech. Listen to my words, Stoneface. I——”
“Why do you call me Stoneface?” he interrupted.
“Because to many people your face reveals nothing. It is dull and blank when you would deceive people, but you are not a fool, Stoneface. But you remind me of the tremendous stone images on the coast of Easter Island, with their plain, sad, dull faces turned ever toward the sea as if seeking something that never comes. So you are Stoneface to me.”
“And what do I seek?” he demanded.
“You seek in men those qualities which are in you. They are hard to find, Stoneface. And you seek from some woman a love that will give a little in exchange for a great deal. You are a lonely man, Stoneface—always seeking, seldom finding, never satisfied. You see, I have been thinking of you. And I have done some thinking on your words to Dan Pritchard.”
“I hope you will not quarrel with me for that.”
“It is hard to quarrel with the true friend of him I love, but you are in my way, Stoneface, and you are a resolute man. So I shall not have mercy. Of two women who love your friend, you must, it seems, approve of one. I am not that one. . . . Well, when the gods rain blows on Tamea she will take them standing and none shall know how much they hurt. And you have hurt me, Stoneface. Still, I shall be what you call a good sport. Dan Pritchard has come to this place for a few days to play—with me—and you are here to have him play—with you! Well, Stoneface, I give him to you for those few days because I love him. I would not have his mind distressed with the striving to keep two women happy. I shall not again be of gross manners and embarrass him,” she added darkly.
“You feel quite certain of yourself, do you not?”
“Yes. And why not? This girl”—with an infinitesimal shrug of her shoulder she indicated Maisie, who had met a friend in the lobby and was talking to her—“causes me no alarm, so I shall be kind to her.”
“I’m the bug in your amber, eh?”
“You must be considered,” she admitted.
He laughed.
“Why do you oppose my desires, Stoneface? I am not a black woman, I am not stupid, I have, perhaps, as much beauty as——” And again she shrugged a shoulder at Maisie.
“I am informed,” said Mellenger coolly, “that on your mother’s side you are descended from a line of kings who have never mingled their blood with that of the common people.”
“That is true.”
“I would that my friend refrained from mingling the blood of his children with that of another race, a race that is not white.”
She was silent, digesting this unanswerable argument. Then: “Some day, perhaps, Stoneface, you will cast away that argument. Like a child’s garment, it will not fit a grown man.”
Maisie came toward them. “We will go to our rooms now and dress for dinner, Tamea,” she suggested.
When he was alone in the lobby Mark Mellenger sat down in a quiet corner to think. “She bombs one,” he complained. “She fairly blows one out of the water. She will not be deferred to nor pitied nor patronized. Realizing why I am here—why I have found it necessary to be here—she renders me futile and my presence unnecessary by changing her tactics. She reads my poker face, and, having read it this evening, she has taken my job away from me and I feel foolish. Judas priest, what a woman! She’s perfectly tremendous! Fair and square, hitting straight from the shoulder and with character enough to dislike me intensely. She is adorably feminine and I’ve got my hands full to defeat her purpose. She isn’t going to plead with me to get out of her way, nor is she going to oppose me. She’s just going to ignore me. . . . Well, poor old Dan, I did the best I could by you, at any rate. The idealistic, altruistic dreamer. He’s helpless, because this girl possesses a charm that Maisie hasn’t got or hasn’t developed. Tamea can hear the pipes of Pan. That’s it! She can hear them and make men hear them, too.”
It did not occur to Mellenger that he liked reedy music.
CHAPTER XVIII
At dinner Tamea captured a seat beside Dan but gave it up almost instantly to Maisie, giving as a reason her desire to sit beside Mark Mellenger and talk with him. However, she had little to say during the meal. Seemingly she was content to be a good listener.
“Yes, she has been doing some thinking,” Mellenger thought. “And she has decided to disarm active opposition by abandoning direct action and fighting under the rules of the game as Maisie and her kind play it. Preëmpted the seat beside Dan and then abandoned it, just to show her power. She’s half French and a born coquette.”
Suddenly Tamea turned to him as if she had read his thoughts. “I have decided to be all white,” she said.
He noted the fascination of her habit of starting a conversation as if it were the continuation of a discussion, her trick of foreshortening words and ideas.
“I commend your decision, Tamea.”
“Will you help me, Stoneface?” she pleaded with sad wistfulness.
“No!”
She bowed her head understandingly. . . . When the gods rained blows on Tamea, Queen of Riva, she took them standing, and none might know how much they hurt.
“I hate you—but I respect you,” she said in a low voice. “You are a man of resolution, Stoneface.”
“I wonder, my dear, if you will believe me when I assure you it is very difficult for me to act in a manner which causes you to dislike me.”
“Yes, I know that. If you were unkind because you enjoyed unkindness, Dan Pritchard would not love you.”
“Tamea, you have, in full measure, the greatest gift, an understanding heart. In time I shall hope to be understood and—forgiven.”
She frowned. “An understanding head might be a better gift. This evening, when I saw you, I understood why you came without telling anybody. And I thought: ‘Tamea, you are a little fool. Go back to Riva where your mixed blood does not set you apart from your world. Here it is difficult to know happiness!’”
“That was a sensible thought. Why do you not return to Riva? You are terribly out of place here.”
“You, who are all white, cannot understand the combat in my heart, Stoneface. I inherited too much from my father, who was a very wonderful man. I comprehend too quickly, I see too clearly and, I think, sometimes, I shall never be very happy. I am a child of love and I—I—well, I am sorry you will not help me know the ways of your people. I shall learn without aid but just now I would make haste. . . . However, I understand.”
Her long, beautiful hands lay in her lap—her fingers lacing and interlacing nervously; her face was downcast. Mellenger suspected that her long black lashes, seeming to lie on her rose-ivory cheek, effectually concealed a suspicious moistness. There was about her a sad, gentle, Madonna-like wistfulness more poignant than sorrow. Mellenger was touched.
Presently she raised her head and smiled defiantly. “Perhaps I, too, shall be a Stoneface, searching the sea for that which never comes. Tomorrow what shall we do to make happiness for ourselves?”
“Tomorrow I would like to dedicate to the delightful task of making you happy.”
“Then go away. You are not needed here.”
“I will go on Monday with Dan in his car. Until then you must endure me.”
“Thank you, Stoneface. This is a pretty place with none but fashionable people in it, apparently. I shall learn much here so I shall be dutiful and remain here very quietly with Maisie and Mrs. Casson.”
“That will please Dan very much.”
“He will think of me while he is away. He will write to me. Perhaps he will think of Maisie too and write to her. If so—very well. It is not nice to play the cat.”
CHAPTER XIX
That ended the conversation for that night. Tamea retired shortly after dinner, leaving Maisie and Mellenger in possession of the field. The next morning Dan and Mellenger breakfasted early and left for the golf links at Pebble Beach. Maisie, her aunt and Tamea joined them there for luncheon, and in the afternoon Maisie, Dan and Mellenger made up a threesome and played nine holes, with Tamea following, playing the part of the gallery and bored to the point of tears. At a point on the course where one drives along the cliff, Mellenger sliced badly and drove a new ball into the Pacific Ocean. Tamea was frankly delighted. In the evening there was dancing and again Tamea was out of it. She could neither fox-trot nor waltz; she could only gaze wistfully after Dan and Maisie.
Mellenger sat with her. “Do you dance, Stoneface?” she queried.
“Oh, yes!”
“Perhaps you will teach me?”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Oh, but a beginner——”
“You do not wish me to dance with Dan Pritchard?”
“I do not.”
She nodded. “I have listened to this music and I have watched these others dance. I think I can dance the fox-trot, too. You shall dance with me, Stoneface. I would learn.”
“I’ll not make a spectacle of myself, Tamea.”
“Then I shall. You shall dance with me or I shall dance alone, and when I dance alone others cease dancing to watch me. I will do what you call bust up the show. I will do thehula!”
“You win,” he declared, and they stood up. Tamea made a false step or two, caught the rhythm and moved away rather easily. As she gathered confidence she improved and they circled the hall without colliding with anybody. “You’re an apt pupil,” said Mellenger.
“I grow more apt,” she retorted—and commenced to dance. In all his days Mark Mellenger had never held in his arms a more wonderful partner. She handled him easily, steering him cleverly among the dancers, moving with a swiftness, a lightness and an abandon both new and thrilling.
“You have danced before?” he charged. “You’re marvelous.”
“In Tahiti,” she admitted. “I had a humor to force you to meet my will. Now I am very weary—so weary that I shall not dance with Dan Pritchard if he asks me—and he will.”
Dan did—and Tamea begged off. Mellenger was immensely amused. “Playing me off against old Dan,” he thought. “Well, I think I shall fall in with that mood and play the game. This is getting interesting.”
They drove around the seventeen mile drive the following forenoon and had a Spanish luncheon in Monterey; in the afternoon Mark and Dan played eighteen holes of golf while Tamea and Maisie went down to the beach swimming. After dinner Tamea fell into step beside Mellenger as they walked down the long hall and clasped her hand in his, after a childish fashion she had.
“You have been very nice to me today, Stoneface,” she admitted. “I think, perhaps, I may learn soon to forget that I dislike you. Do you insist upon going back to the city tomorrow morning?”
“Yes, I’m going back with Dan.”
“Please do not go,” she whispered, and squeezed his hand a little.
“Why? Why do you ask me to remain, child?”
“Because I shall be lonely here—and if you remain perhaps we may have a nice fight, no? I wish to talk to you—to understand some things. Please?”
She halted him, came close to him and looked up at him in a manner that could not be resisted. Mellenger felt a wild thrill in his heart and it must have registered in his eyes, for Tamea’s great orbs answered thrill for thrill.
“I’ll not stay,” he almost growled.
“Then walk with me a few minutes in the grounds,” she begged. “I must have some conversation with you—alone.”
They strolled out and down a graveled path through the trees to a bench Tamea had observed under one of them that day. They sat down. Tamea was first to speak.
“Stoneface, I have done much thinking because of what I heard you tell Dan the other night at his house. I know now how the friends of Dan Pritchard will regard me if he takes me to wife. They will not say, ‘Ah, there is that nice wife of his.’ No, they will say, ‘There is Dan Pritchard and his Kanaka wife.’ I shall always be one apart. You have made me very unhappy, Stoneface, but perhaps I should thank you for telling me first. Now I shall not go too far until I know how far I should go.”
“I’m so sorry,” he murmured humbly. “I didn’t mean it for your ears. I wouldn’t have said it—then—if I had known you were eavesdropping. You’re much too fine, Tamea, to have this happen to you, but I know Dan Pritchard. You are not the woman for him. Maisie Morrison is.”
“Perhaps those are true words, Stoneface. I do not know men of your race too well. Yet it is certain that some day a man will seek me and I will be glad of the seeking. Many have sought me already, but you must understand, Stoneface, they were not gentlemen. Ah, but you do not understand. . . you do not know how much I wish to be all white. . . how my heart hurts because here, where I am alone, I must be alone always because I—am—different.”
He was overwhelmed with sympathy and possessed himself of her hand and patted it, but without speaking.
“You like me, do you not, Stoneface?” she pleaded.
“You are wonderful—transcendently beautiful—you have a mind and a heart and a soul.”
“And you like me—a very little?”
His grip on her hand tightened. “God help me,” he murmured huskily. “I love you. I am like a man smitten with a plague.”
“Yes, you love me. I was quite certain of that, only you told me the eyes were not admissible as evidence. You did not think I could stir a heart of stone and see love and longing in Stoneface, no? But I saw it, and I have not wished it, for I have not liked you. And now will I make you humble. You shall seek the love of the woman you would not wish your friend to take to wife—no, no, I dishonor you, Stoneface.
“Forgive, please. You would not seek it, but you shall yearn for it with a great yearning that shall cause you to forget that in my veins flows an ancient and alien blood. Stoneface, know you that if half of my blood is dark it is not the blood of the unbeautiful or the base. It is the blood of the kings and patriarchs of a lost race that is dying because, in its innocence, it touched hands with the vilest of living things, the white man civilized. No, I am not ashamed of my blood. I am proud of it and I rejoice that it has given me a weapon to humble you.”
She grasped his hands and drew him toward her. “Look at me, Stoneface,” she commanded. But he turned away his heavy, impassive face. “Ah, look at me,” she pleaded now, “and let me see again in those strange, stern eyes the look that was there when you betrayed yourself into my power. For I have power—over men. I know it. It is not to brag, to show a large conceit, when I admit it—to you. . . . Come, look at me, Stoneface.”
He looked at her, turning his head slowly, as if it hurt him to move it. There, in the moonlight, in that scented park, her power, her tremendous magnetism, the intoxicating glory of her strange, baffling, childlike but commanding personality made his heart pound and set up in his huge frame a weak trembling. Had he possessed the power to think, this spell she had cast upon him, all within the space of seventy-two hours, would not have been possible of analysis. Perhaps the best explanation was the one he had already given—that he was as a man suddenly smitten with a plague.
“You tremble, Stoneface.”
“That is because I am weak, Tamea, and I am ashamed of my weakness. I, who came to scoff, remain to pray.”
“That is my desire. I would have you, of all men, suffer as you have made me suffer. I shall make of you a great stone idol, with stony face turned sadly to the sea, like those colossal figures on the coast of Easter Island. Yes, Stoneface. Now you may gaze long for that which never comes. I am avenged.”
She dropped his hands and with her own clasped tight against her tumultuous breast she looked at him with eyes that blazed with emotion. Mellenger sighed deeply and then his heavy, almost dull face lighted with a smile so tender the plain face was glorified.
“And when the gods rain blows upon me, O Tamea, I, too, shall take them standing and smiling. You have called me Stoneface. Very well. I withdraw my opposition. I would have you happy, even at the price of my old friend’s unhappiness, even at the sacrifice of my own. But I shall not gaze out to sea for that which never comes. For it shall come. And when I see you bent and broken and taking the blows with your flower face in the dust——”
Her glorious face softened. “Then what, Stoneface? Then what?”
“Then,” he murmured huskily, “I shall weep. But I shall also lift you up and hold you to my heart and love you, and my love shall endure in the days when you are old, and perhaps fat, when your beauty shall be but a memory. Yes, Tamea, when you too are a Stoneface gazing sadly out to sea for that which came—and went—and shall never, never come again, I shall love you and love you the more because your child’s heart will have been broken. You will, perhaps, remember this when you need a friend.”
He left her there and went away, with hands outstretched a little before him, like one who walks in darkness and is afraid.
CHAPTER XX
In the morning Mellenger was gone. He left a note to Dan explaining that he had received a sudden and wholly unexpected call to return to San Francisco and begged Dan to present his compliments to the ladies and to express his regret at an unceremonious departure.
“The man’s a poor slave,” Dan declared.
Tamea, who had been at his elbow as he read, inquired: “Who?”
“Mellenger. He has left us.”
“Ah,” Tamea breathed—thoughtfully. After a brief silence she said: “Then Maisie will have an opportunity to play with you. I am glad Mellengair has gone.”
“Tamea, you mustn’t hold a grudge against my friend Mark. He is not an enemy of yours.”
“An enemy conquered is no longer an enemy, Dan. I do not hold the grudge. I have taken my vengeance on that man for the hurt he has done me, and I am content to forget him.”
“But you’ll always be pleasant and courteous to him when you meet him at my house?”
“Certainement.”
“Sorry you cannot play golf, or we’d make it a threesome, Tamea.”
“What man would be delayed and annoyed in his sports by an unlearned woman? I have letters to write to friends in Riva and Tahiti, so go you with Maisie.”
Dan was glad to accept an invitation so heartily extended. He had a feeling that, in the delicate operation of remaining strictly neutral, he had neglected Maisie; he felt that Maisie sensed the neglect. With a light heart and a beaming smile, therefore, he sought her out and drove off with her to the golf links at Pebble Beach. They played eighteen holes and had luncheon at the Lodge, and not once during the day did either refer to Tamea, her future or her avowed attitude toward her guardian.
Late in the afternoon they drove down the Monterey County coast. Dan could not recall an occasion when Maisie had been more delightful in conversation or more winsome as to personal appearance. She appeared to have fallen suddenly into a habit he had not previously noted, that of adjusting herself to his moods. Throughout that drive there were long, blissful silences when Maisie observed his head sunk on his breast and the dreamer’s look in his troubled eyes; when he saw fit to toss her a conversational bone she seized it eagerly and managed to extract from it a surprising quantity of red meat. He was thrilled with a new sense of the girl’s potentialities for comradeship and sympathy, for abrupt and infallible understanding. Today she made no attempt to dominate him, to encompass and envelop him in the aura of her penchant for leadership, for direction. And he liked that quite as much as he disliked criticism, whether expressed or implied. Had Maisie at last sensed what had been keeping them apart for so long—his repugnance to the slightest suggestion of a hindrance to his masculine freedom? He pondered this.
Dan wished that women viewed men and their affairs from a more masculine point of view. He wished that they did not have such a tendency to condemn without trial by jury, as it were. He deplored their prompt and definite acting on instinct or intuition, and he wished that the girl he might desire ardently to marry should be possessed of a modicum of the sportsmanship of a very gallant gentleman. Why did they dislike each other so on sight? Why did they provoke silly little tiffs over nothing in particular; and why, when they were not on speaking terms with each other, did they decline to avoid the embarrassment of a meeting, as men do? Why were they controlled by their emotions? How difficult of understanding they were!
Well, at any rate, Tamea appeared to have a fairly well developed sense of sportsmanship, for she had deliberately abdicated today in favor of her rival, and Dan thought that was mighty decent of her. She had a definite philosophy, and, it seemed to him, she could smother an active dislike and not develop the remotest indications of a soul convulsion. Poor child! He wondered if he had been quite kind in leaving her to amuse herself all day at the hotel.
He shifted his position and his hand fell, not by design, on top of Maisie’s. Instantly her soft, warm fingers closed over it. The touch thrilled him pleasurably; he wanted to hold Maisie’s hand, so soft and small and fragile; he did not want her to hold his. So he removed his hand from hers and she drew away from him.
“Ah, don’t,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean that,” and his arm went up and around her neck, deliberately, possessively. She leaned toward him and he felt her tremble. “This has been a wonderful, wonderful day,” he said huskily. “It’s been one of those rare days that upthrust themselves for years in one’s dearest memories. You’re such a bully little comrade, Maisie. I’m getting quite wild about you, dear,” and he kissed her tenderly on the cheek closest to him and patted the other cheek.
Her eyes were starry with love; she snuggled closer to him and laid her head in the hollow of his shoulder. “I’m glad you wanted to play with me today, old dear,” she whispered. “I’ve been so happy. I was afraid, when I heard Mark Mellenger had left early this morning, that you would attempt the impossible task of spreading yourself over too much territory. I don’t think I could have stood more than nine holes with Tamea along for a gallery.”
“Score one for Tamea there,” he blurted undiplomatically. “She declined to come with us.”
She raised her head and looked out of the window. “Oh,” she breathed, “so youdidask her!”
He was suddenly annoyed. “No, I did not, Maisie. She was the first to suggest that I take you golfing.”
“Indeed! What magnanimity! I wonder why.”
“She said she had some letters to write.”
“Her letters could have waited. She had some other reason. I do not relish being the recipient of her—of her—forbearance and generosity. I’ll not be patronized by that barbarian.”
He was furious. “I’m sorry you mentioned her name,” he retorted. “Ihave carefully refrained all day long from doing so.”
“Why?”
“Maisie, that eternal ‘why?’ of yours grows provoking. You make me feel like a cadaver on a dissecting table.”
“You’re mixed in your metaphor, my dear Dan,” she replied with a small clink of ice in her tones. “Your statement that you have carefully refrained, all day long, from mentioning Tamea’s name to me seems to imply an impression on your part that such mention would be distasteful to me. I have a normal, healthy feminine curiosity, so I asked you why. If one would ascertain information, one must make inquiries, I’m sure.”
“Well, you didn’t mention her name, and that seemed a bit queer. I merely bowed to what I gathered was your unspoken wish.”
“How silly! Why, I didn’t refer to the girl today because I never once thought of her today—until just now. Why should I think of her? She doesn’t interest me in the least, Dan.”
“I’m glad to know that. I had a sneaking impression she did interest you—vitally.”
“You amazing man! Now, why should she?”
“There you go,” he declared furiously, “driving me into a corner and forcing me to say crazy things so you will not have to say them. How like a woman!”
She laughed softly. Evidently she was enjoying his discomfiture immensely. “Don’t evade the issue, Dan. Why did you have that sneaking impression that Tamea did interest me—vitally?”
“Well, after that night Mel was up to dinner—that was a bit awkward, you know. And you two do not like each other.”
“If you mean that I decline to fall on that young hussy’s neck and make over her——”
“Don’t call her a hussy, Maisie. That doesn’t sound like you, and besides, she isn’t a hussy. She’s a poor, lonely, misunderstood young girl and——”
“And making desperate love to you,” Maisie taunted him.
“Well,” he chuckled, “that doesn’t annoy me particularly. In fact I feel complimented.” Maisie winced. There was a note of sincerity in his tone that robbed it of any hint of badinage. Dan continued: “The fact that she is making desperate love to me—it would be useless and stupid to endeavor to hide that fact—seemed to me to constitute sufficient ground for my suspicion that you would prefer not to discuss her.”
Maisie turned abruptly and faced him with wide, curious eyes. There was cleverly simulated amusement in those sea-blue orbs, and Dan’s train of thought running his single-track mind was completely ditched.
“Indeed, Dan, my dear old friend, what possible interest could I have in anything Tamea does—with you or any other man? You say you are complimented. Perhaps you may even be delighted. I’m sure I do not know, and I’m not sufficiently interested to inquire. It hasn’t occurred to me to take you or Tamea or your love-making at all seriously.”
He was crushed. “I see I’ve made a star-spangled monkey of myself,” he said gloomily.
“Oh, say not so, old boy!” Maisie bantered. She had him down in his corner now; a little more battering and he would be counted out. “Have you been indulging in some day-dreams, Dan?”
He nodded, and she laid her little hand on his forearm with an adorable look of simulated interest, tenderness and banter. With a fascinating uplift and outthrust of her lovely chin, Maisie said: “Tell Auntie about it.”
“Oh, don’t annoy me. You’re a most provoking woman.”
“Do please tell, Dan’l. I’m that cur’ous.”
“Well, I suppose I might as well. It appears I have laid the flattering unction to my soul that you loved me.”
“Yes?” Maisie barely cooed the word.
“And you do not.”
“How do you know, old snarleyow?”
“I’m not exactly feeble-minded.”
“No, indeed. I think you’re a high-grade moron. At least, you act like one. Now, I want to know how you could possibly have gathered the impression that I am in love with you.”
“I cannot answer that query, Maisie. I only know that very recently I began to think you did.”
“You take too much for granted, Dan. Why didn’t you ask me to make certain?”
“It’s not too late, Maisie.” He was desperate—afraid of Tamea and what might happen to him if he did not forestall her by some definite strategy—fearful of being “spoofed” so outrageously by Maisie for a minute longer. In her present mood, half childish, half devilish, wholly womanish, Maisie held a tremendous lure for him. Indeed, the environment was ideal for such a situation. There was the blue sea out beyond them, with the white waves breaking on a white beach; their little subdued thunder as they broke, and then the mournful swish as the broken water raced up the shingle, had a particularly soothing effect upon him. It stimulated his imagination. On the mountains to their right the blue sunset haze still lingered; cock quails were calling to their families to “Come right home, come right home,” and somewhere over in the chapparal a cowbell tinkled melodiously. Why, the man who could ride with Maisie Morrison in such surroundings and not feel his pulse throb with desire for love and contentment was fit for treason, stratagems and spoils.
With a mighty sigh he said: “Well, Maisie, do you?”
Alas! The blundering idiot had neglected to postulate his monumental query with a plain, blunt assertion of his own love for her. Maisie, being what she was, could never by any possibility admit anything now. She would not have him think of her in the years to come as a brazen woman who had proposed to him—that she had been at allgauche. So she looked him coolly in the eyes with a glance that did not conceal the fact that she was irritated profoundly; with a certain silky waspishness she gave him his answer.
“Well, not particularly, Dan.”
Fell a silence. Maisie, glancing sidewise at her victim, observed him gulp. There was a momentary flush and then Dan took up the annunciator and said very distinctly to Graves:
“Step on it, Graves. I think the county motorcycle officer has gone home to dinner. At any rate, if we’re arrested I’ll pay the fine.”
Graves nodded and the car leaped to forty-five miles an hour. “I have a special arrangement with Graves,” Dan continued, turning to Maisie as calmly as if his heart were beating at its normal rate of seventy-six, full and strong. “Unless instructions to the contrary are given him, his orders from me are to obey the traffic laws. If he is arrested in the absence of such instructions to the contrary, he pays his own fine. Under any other circumstances, I pay it.”
“Fair enough,” Maisie answered, with a near approach to slang which, coming from her, was rather delightful. To herself she said: “What a charming old idiot he is! I’ve gotten him quite fussed and he is in a hurry to get back to the hotel so he can go to his room and sulk. Well, he almost proposed that time. I wonder if I wasn’t just a little bit too feminine with him. I had an opportunity and failed to take advantage of it. . . . Oh well, he shall propose again before the night is over, and this time. . .”
Dan was humming a crazy little lumber-jack song: