VThrough the golden forest light of afternoon, they moved from shrub to shrub; and he taught her to be on the watch for any possible foes of the neat and busy little caterpillars, warning her to watch for birds, spiders, beetles, ichneumon flies, possibly squirrels or even hornets. She nodded her comprehension; he went one way, she the other. For nearly ten minutes they remained separated, and it seemed ages to one of them anyway.But the caterpillars appeared to be immune. Nothing whatever interfered with them; wandering beetles left them unmolested; no birds even noticed them; no gauzy-winged and parasitic flies investigated them."Mr. Jones!" she called.[44]He was at her side in an instant."I only wanted to know where you were," she said happily.The sun hung red over the lagoon when they sauntered back to camp. She went into her tent with a cheerful nod to him, which said:"I've had a splendid time, and I'll rejoin you in a few moments."When she emerged in fresh white flannels, she found him writing in a blank-book."I wonder if I might see?" she said. "If it's scientific, I mean.""It is, entirely."So she seated herself on the ground beside him, and read over his shoulder the entries he was making in his field book concerning the day's doings. When he had finished his entry, she said:"You have not mentioned my coming to you, and how we looked for ichneumon flies together.""I——" He was silent.She added timidly: "I know I count for absolutely nothing in the important experiences of a naturalist, but—I did look very hard for ichneumon flies. Couldn't you write in your field book that I tried very hard to help you?"He wrote gravely:"Miss Cassillis most generously volunteered her[45]invaluable aid, and spared no effort to discover any possible foe that might prove to be parasitic upon these larvæ. But so far without success.""Thank you," she said, in a very low voice. And after a short silence: "It was not mere vanity, Mr. Jones. Do you understand?""I know it was not vanity, even if I do not entirely understand.""Shall I tell you?""Please.""It was the first thing that I have ever been permitted to do all by myself. It meant so much to me.... And I wished to have a little record of it—even if you think it is of no scientific importance.""It is of more importance than——" But he managed to stop himself, slightly startled. She had lifted her head from the pages of the field book to look at him. When his voice failed, and while the red burned brilliantly in his ears, she resumed her perusal of his journal, gravely. After a while, though she turned the pages as if she were really reading, he concluded that her mind was elsewhere. It was.Presently he rose, mended the fire, filled the kettle, and unhooked the brace of wild ducks from[46]the eaves where they swung, and marched off with them toward the water.When he returned, the ducks were plucked and split for broiling. He found her seated as he had left her, dreaming awake, idle hands folded on the pages of his open field book.For dinner they had broiled mallard, coffee, ash-cakes, and bon-bons. After it she smoked a cigarette with him.Later she informed him that it was her first, and that she liked it, and requested another."Don't," he said, smiling."Why?""It spoils a girl's voice, ultimately.""But it's very agreeable.""Will you promise not to?" he asked, lightly.Suddenly her blue eyes became serious."Yes," she said, "if you wish."The woods grew darker. Far across the lagoon a tiger-owl woke up and began to yelp like a half-strangled hobgoblin.She sat silent for a little while, then very quietly and frankly put her hand on Jones's. It was shaking."I am afraid of that sound," she said calmly."It is only a big owl," he reassured her, retaining her hand.[47]"Is that what it is? Howverydark the woods are! I had no idea that there could be such utter darkness. I am not sure that I care for it.""There is nothing to harm you in these woods.""No bears and wolves and panthers?""There are a few—and all very anxious to keep away from anything human.""Are you sure?""Absolutely.""Do you mind if I leave my hand where it is?"It appeared that he had no insurmountable objections.After the seventh tiger-owl had awakened and the inky blackness quivered with the witch-like shouting and hellish tumult, he felt her shoulder pressing against his. And bending to look into her face saw that all the colour in it had fled."You mustn't be frightened," he said earnestly."But I am. I'm sorry.... I'll try to accustom myself to it.... The darkness is a—a trifle terrifying—isn't it?""It's beautiful, too," he said, looking up at the firelit foliage overhead. She looked up also, her slender throat glimmering rosy in the embers' glare. After a moment she nodded:"Itiswonderful.... If I only had a little time to accustom myself to it I am sure I should love[48]it.... Oh! What was that very loud splash out there in the dark?""A big fish playing in the lagoon; or perhaps wild ducks feeding."After a few minutes he felt her soft hand tighten within his."It sounds as though some great creature were prowling around our fire," she whispered. "Do you hear its stealthy tread?""Noises in the forest are exaggerated," he said carelessly. "It may be a squirrel or some little furry creature out hunting for his supper. Please don't be afraid.""Then itisn'ta bear?""No, dear," he said, so naturally and unthinkingly that for a full second neither realised the awful break of Delancy Jones.When they did they said nothing about it. But it was some time before speech was resumed. She was the first to recover. Perhaps the demoralisation was largely his. It usually is that way.She said: "This has been the most perfect day of my entire life. I'm even glad I am a little scared. It is delicious to be a trifle afraid. But I'm not, now—very much.... Is there any establishedhour for bedtime in the woods?""Inclination sounds the hour."[49]"Isn't that wonderful!" she sighed, her eyes on the fire. "Inclination rules in the forest.... And here I am."The firelight on her copper-tinted hair masked her lovely eyes in a soft shadow. Her shoulder stirred rhythmically as she breathed."And here you live all alone," she mused, half to herself.... "I once saw you pitch a game against Yale.... And the next time I saw you walking very busily down Fifth Avenue.... And now—you are—here.... That is wonderful.... Everything seems to be wonderful in this place.... Wh-whatisthat flapping noise, please?""Two herons fighting in the sedge.""You know everything.... That is the most wonderful of all. And yet you say you are not famous?""Nobody ever heard of me outside the Smithsonian.""But—youmustbecome famous. To-morrow I shall look very hard for an ichneumon fly for you——""But your discovery will makeyoufamous, Miss Cassillis——""Why—why, it's foryouthat I am going to search so hard! Did you suppose I would dream of claiming any of the glory!"[50]He said, striving to speak coolly:"It is very generous and sweet of you.... And, after all, I hardly suppose that you need any added lustre or any additional happiness in a life which must be so full, so complete, and so care-free."She was silent for a while, then:"Isyourlife then so full of care, Mr. Jones?""Oh, no," he said; "I get on somehow.""Tell me," she insisted."What am I to tell you?""Why it is that your life is care-ridden.""But it isn't——""Tell me!"He said, gaily enough: "To labour for others is sometimes a little irksome.... I am not discontented.... Only, if I had means—if I had barely sufficient—there are so many fascinating and exciting lines of independent research to follow—to make a name in——" He broke off with a light laugh, leaned forward and laid another log on the fire."You can not afford it?" she asked, in a low voice; and for the moment astonishment ruled her to discover that this very perfect specimen of intelligent and gifted manhood was struggling under such an amazingly trifling disadvantage.[51]Only from reading and from hearsay had she been even vaguely acquainted with the existence of poverty."No," he said pleasantly, "I can not yet afford myself the happiness of independent research.""When will you be able to afford it?"Neither were embarrassed; he looked thoughtfully into the fire; and for a while she watched him in his brown study."Will it be soon?" she asked, under her breath."No, dear."That time a full minute intervened before either realised how he had answered. And both remained exceedingly still until she said calmly:"I thought you were the very ideal embodiment of personal liberty. And now I find that wretched and petty and ignoble circumstances fetter even such a man as you are. It—it is—is heartbreaking.""It won't last forever," he said, controlling his voice."But the years are going—the best years, Mr. Jones. And your life's work beckons you. And you are equipped for it, and you can not take it!""Some day——" But he could say no more then, with her hand tightening in his.[52]"To—to rise superior to circumstances—that is god-like, isn't it?" she said."Yes." He laughed. "But on six hundred dollars a year a man can't rise very high above circumstances."The shock left her silent. Any gown of hers cost more than that. Then the awfulness of it all rose before her in its true and hideous proportions. And there was nothing for her to do about it, nothing, absolutely nothing, except to endure the degradation of her wealth and remember that the merest tithe of it could have made this man beside her immortally famous—if, perhaps, no more wonderful than he already was in her eyes.Was there no way to aid him? She could look for ichneumon flies in the morning. And on the morning after that. And the next morning she would say good-bye and go away forever—out of this enchanted forest, out of his life, back to theChihuahua, and to her guests who ate often and digested all day long—back to her father, her mother—back to Stirrups——He felt her hand close on his convulsively, and turned to encounter her flushed and determined face."You like me, don't you?" she said.[53]"Yes." After a moment he said: "Yes—absolutely.""Do you like me enough to—to let me help you in your research work—to be patient enough to teach me a little until I catch up with you?... So we can go on together?... I know I am presumptuous—perhaps importunate—but I thought—somehow—if you did like me well enough—it would be—very agreeable——""It would be!... And I—like you enough for—anything. But you could not remain here——""I don't mean here.""Where, then?""Where?" She looked vaguely about her in the firelight. "Why, everywhere. Wherever you go to make your researches.""Dear, I would go to Ceylon if I could.""I also," she said.He turned a little pale, looking at her in silence. She said calmly: "What would you do in Ceylon?""Study the unknown life-histories of the rarer Ornithoptera."She knew no more than a kitten what he meant. But she wanted to know, and, moreover, was perfectly capable of comprehending."Whatever you desire to study," she said,[54]"would prove delightful to me.... If you want me. Do you?""Want you!" Then he bit his lip."Don't you? Tell me frankly if you don't. But I think, somehow, you would not make a mistake if you did want me. I really am intelligent. I didn't know it until I talked with you. Now, I know it. But I have never been able to give expression to it or cultivate it.... And, somehow, I know I would not be a drag on you—if you would teach me a little in the beginning."He said: "What can I teachyou, Cecil? Not the heavenly frankness that you already use so sweetly. Not the smiling and serene nobility which carries your head so daintily and so fearlessly. Not the calm purity of thought, nor the serene goodness of mind that has graciously included a poor devil like me in your broad and generous sympathies——""Please!" she faltered, flushing. "I am not what you say—though to hear you say such things is a great happiness—a pleasure—very intense—and wonderful—and new. But I am nothing,nothing—unless I should become useful to you. Icouldamount to something—with—you——" She checked herself; looked at him as though a trifle frightened. "Unless," she added[55]with an effort, "you are in love with somebody else. I didn't think of that.Areyou?""No," he said. "Are you?""No.... I have never been in love.... This is the nearest I have come to it.""And I."She smiled faintly."If we——""Oh, yes," he said, calmly, "if we are to pass the balance of our existence in combined research, it would be rather necessary for us to marry.""Do you mind?""On the contrary. Do you?""Not in the least. Do you really mean it? It wouldn't be disagreeable, would it? You are above marrying for mere sentiment, aren't you? Because, somehow, I seem to know you like me.... And it would be death for me—a mental death—to go back now to—to Stirrups——""Where?""To—why do you ask? Couldn't you take me on faith?"He said, unsteadily: "If you rose up out of the silvery lagoon, just born from the starlight and the mist, I would take you.""You—you are a poet, too," she faltered. "You seem to be about everything desirable."[56]"I'm only a man very, very deep in—love.""In love!... I thought——""Ah, but you need think no more. Youknownow, Cecil."She remained silent, thinking for a long while. Then, very quietly:"Yes, I know.... It is that way with me also. For I no sooner find my liberty than I lose it—in the same moment—to you. We must never again be separated.... Do you feel as I do?""Absolutely.... But it must be so.""Why?" she asked, troubled."For one thing, I shall have to work harder now.""Why?""Don't you know we can not marry on what I have?""Oh! Isthatthe reason?" She laughed, sprang lightly to her feet, stood looking down at him. He got up, slowly."I bring you," she said, "six hundred dollars a year. And alittlemore. Which sweeps away that obstacle. Doesn't it?""I could not ask you to live on that——""I can live on what you live on! I should wish to. It would make me utterly and supremely happy."[57]Her flushed, young face confronted his as she took a short, eager step toward him."I am not making love to you," she said, "—at least, I don't think I am. All I desire is to help—to give you myself—my youth, energy, ambition, intelligence—and what I have—which is of no use to me unless it is useful to you. Won't you take these things from me?""Do you give me your heart, too, Cecil?"She smiled faintly, knowing now that she had already given it. She did not answer, but her under lip trembled, and she caught it between her teeth as he took her hands and kissed them in silence.[58]VI"Miami is not very far, is it?" she asked, as she sprang aboard theOrange Puppy."Not very, dear.""We could get a license immediately, couldn't we?""I think so.""And then it will not take us very long to get married, will it?""Not very.""What a wonderful night!" she murmured, looking up at the stars. She turned toward the[59]shore. "What a wonderful place for a honeymoon!... And we can continue business, too, and watch our caterpillars all day long! Oh, it is all too wonderful, wonderful!" She kissed her hand to the unseen camp. "We will be back to-morrow!" she called softly. Then a sudden thought struck her. "You never can get theOrange Puppythrough that narrow lead, can you?""Oh, there is an easier way out," he said, taking the tiller as the sail filled.Her head dropped back against his knees. Now and then her lips moved, murmuring in sheerest happiness the thoughts that drifted through her enchanted mind."I wonder when it began," she whispered, "—at the ball-game—or on Fifth Avenue—or when I saw you here? It seems to me as if I always had been in love with you."Outside in the ocean, the breeze stiffened and the perfume was tinged with salt.Lying back against his knees, her eyes fixed dreamily on the stars, she murmured:"Stirrupswillbe surprised.""What are you talking about down there all by yourself?" he whispered, bending over her.She looked up into his eyes. Suddenly her own[60]filled; and she put up both arms, linking them around his neck.And so theOrange Puppysailed away into the viewless, formless, starry mystery of all romance.After a silence the young novelist, who had been poking the goldfish, said slowly: "That's pretty poor fiction, Athalie, but, as a matter of simple fact and inartistic truth, recording sentimental celerity, it stands unequalled.""Straight facts make poor fiction," remarked Duane."It all depends on who makes the fiction out of them," I ventured."Not always," said Athalie. "There are facts which when straightly told are far stranger than fiction. I noticed a case of that sort in my crystal last winter." And to the youthful novelist she said: "Don't try to guess who the people were if I tell it, will you?""No," he promised."Please fix my cushions," she said to nobody in particular. And after the stampede was over she selected another cigarette, thoughtfully, but did not light it.[61]VII"You are queer folk, you writers of fiction," she mused aloud. "No monarch ordained of God takes himself more seriously; no actor lives more absolutely in a world made out of his imagination."She lighted her cigarette: "You often speak of your most 'important' book,—as though any fiction ever written were important. Painters speak of their most important pictures; sculptors, composers, creative creatures of every species employ the adjective. And it is all very silly. Facts only can be characterised as important; figments of the creative imagination are as unimportant——" she blew a dainty ring of smoke toward the crystal globe—"as that! 'Tout ce qu'ont fait les hommes, les hommes peuvent le[62]détruire. Il n'y a de caractères inéffaçables que ceux qu' imprime la nature.' There has never been but one important author."I said smilingly: "To quote the gentleman you think important enough to quote, Athalie, 'Tout est bien sortant des mains de l'Auteur des choses: tout dégénere entre les mains de l'homme.'"Said the novelist simply: "Imagination alone makes facts important. 'Cette superbe puissance, ennemie de la raison!'""O Athalie," whispered Duane, "night-blooming, exquisite blossom of the arid municipal desert, recount for us these facts which you possess and which, in your delightful opinion, are stranger than fiction, and more important."And Athalie, choosing another sweetmeat, looked at us until it had dissolved in her fragrant mouth. Then she spoke very gravely, while her dark eyes laughed at us:When young Lord Willowmere's fiancée ran away from him and married Delancy Jones, that bereaved nobleman experienced a certain portion of the universal shock which this social seismic disturbance spread far and wide over two hemispheres.[63]That such a girl should marry beneath her naturally disgusted everybody. So both Jones and his wife were properly damned.England read its morning paper, shrugged its derision, and remarked that nobody ought to be surprised at anything that happened in the States. "The States" swallowed the rebuke and squirmed.Now, among the sturdy yeomanry, gentry, and nobility of those same British and impressive Isles there was an earnest gentleman whose ample waist and means and scholarly tastes inclined him to a sedentary life of research. The study of human nature in its various native and exotic phases had for forty years obsessed his insular intellect. Philologist, anthropologist, calm philosopher, and benignant observer, this gentleman, who had never visited the United States, determined to do so now. For, he reasoned—and very properly—a country where such a thing could happen to a British nobleman and a Peer of the Realm must be worth exploring, and its curious inhabitants merited, perhaps, the impersonally judicial inspection of an F. R. B. A. whose gigantic work on the folk manners of the world had now reached its twentieth volume, without as yet including the United States. So he determined to devote several[64]chapters in the forthcoming and twenty-first volume to the recent colonies of Great Britain.Now, when the Duke of Pillchester concluded to do anything, that thing was invariably and thoroughly done. And so, before it entirely realised the honour in store for it, the United States was buttoning its collar, tying its white tie, and rushing down stairs to open its front door to the Duke of Pillchester, the Duchess of Pillchester, and the Lady Alene Innesly, their youthful and ornamental daughter.For a number of months after its arrival, the Ducal party inspected the Yankee continent through a lens made for purposes of scientific investigation only. The massed wealth of the nation met their Graces in solid divisions of social worth. The shock was mutual.Then the massed poverty of the continent was exhibited, leaving the poverty indifferent and slightly bored, and the Ducal party taking notes.It was his Grace's determination to study the folk-ways of Americans; and what the Duke wished the Duchess dutifully desired. The Lady Alene Innesly, however, was dragged most reluctantly from function to function, from palace to purlieu, from theatre to cathedral, from Coney[65]Island to Newport. She was "havin' a rotten time."All day long she had nothing to look at but an overdressed and alien race whose voices distressed her; day after day she had nothing to say except, "How d'y do," and "Mother, shall we have tea?" Week after week she had nothing to think of except the bare, unkempt ugliness of the cities she saw; the raw waste and sordid uglification of what once had been matchless natural resources; dirty rivers, ruined woodlands, flimsy buildings, ignorant architecture. The ostentatious and wretched hotels depressed her; the poor railroads and bad manners disgusted her.Listless, uninterested, Britishly enduring what she could not escape, the little Lady Alene had made not the slightest effort to mitigate the circumstances of her temporary fate. She was civilly incurious concerning the people she met; their social customs, amusements, pastimes, duties, various species of business or of leisure interested her not a whit. All the men looked alike to her; all the women were over-gowned, tiresomely pretty, and might learn one day how to behave themselves after they had found out how to make their voices behave.Meanwhile, requiring summer clothing—tweeds[66]and shooting boots being not what the climate seemed to require in July—she discovered with languid surprise that for the first time in her limited life she was well gowned. A few moments afterward another surprise faintly thrilled her, for, chancing to glance at herself after a Yankee hairdresser had finished her hair, she discovered to her astonishment that she was pretty.For several days this fact preyed upon her mind, alternately troubling and fascinating her. There were several men at home who would certainly sit up; Willowmere among others.As for considering her newly discovered beauty any advantage in America, the idea had not entered her mind. Why should it? All the men looked alike; all wore sleek hair, hats on the backs of their heads, clothing that fitted like a coster's trousers. She had absolutely no use for them, and properly.However, she continued to cultivate her beauty and to adorn it with Yankee clothing and headgear befitting; which filled up considerable time during the day, leaving her fewer empty hours to fill with tea and three-volumed novels from the British Isles.Now, it had never occurred to the Lady Alene Innesly to read anything except British fact and[67]fiction. She had never been sufficiently interested even to open an American book. Why should she, as long as the three props of her national literature endured intact—curates, tea, and thoroughbred horses?But there came a time during the ensuing winter when the last of the three-volumed novels had been assimilated, the last serious tome digested; and there stretched out before her a bookless prospect which presently began to dismay her with the aridness of its perspective.The catastrophe occurred while the Ducal party was investigating the strange folk-customs of those Americans who gathered during the winter in gigantic Florida hotels and lived there, uncomfortably lodged, vilely fed, and shamelessly robbed, while third-rate orchestras play cabaret music and enervating breezes stir the cabbage-palmettos till they rustle like bath-room rubber plants.It was a bad place and a bad time of year for a young and British girl to be deprived of her native and soporific fiction; for the livelier and Frenchier of British novelists were self-denied her, because somebody had said they were not unlike Americans.Now she was, in the uncouth vernacular of the[68]country, up against it for fair! She didn't know what it was called, but she realised how it felt to be against something.Three days she endured it, dozing in her room, half awake when the sea-breeze rattled the Venetian blinds, or the niggers were noisy at baseball.On the fourth day she arose, went to the window, gazed disgustedly out over the tawdry villas of Verbena Inlet, then rang for her maid."Bunn," she said, "here are three sovereigns. You will please buy for me one specimen of every book on sale in the corridor of this hotel. And, Bunn!——""Yes, my lady.""What was it you were eating the other day?""Chewing-gum, my lady.""Is it—agreeable?""Yes, my lady.""Is it nourishing?""No, my lady. It is not intended to be eaten; it is to be chewed.""Then one does not swallow it when one supposes it to be sufficiently masticated?""No, my lady.""What does one do with it?""Beg pardon, my lady—one spits it out.""Ow," said the girl.[69]VIIIShe was lying on the bed when a relay of servants staggered in bearing gaudy piles of the most recent and popular novels, and placed them in tottering profusion upon the adjacent furniture.The Lady Alene turned her head where it lay lazily pillowed on her left arm, and glanced indifferently at the multi-coloured battlement of books. The majority of the covers were embellished with the heads of young women, all endowed with vaudeville-like beauty—it having been discovered by intelligent publishers that a girl's head on any book sells it.On some covers were displayed coloured pictures of handsome and athletic American young men, usually kissing beautiful young ladies who wore crowns, ermines, and foreign orders over dinner dresses. Sometimes, however, they were kicking Kings. That seemed rather odd to the Lady[70]Alene, and she sat up on the bed and reached out her hand. It encountered a book on which rested a small, oblong package. She took book and package. On the pink wrapper of the latter she read this verse:Why are my teeth so white and bright?Because I chew with all my mightThe gum that fills me with delightAnd keeps me healthy day and night.Five cents.The Lady Alene's unaccustomed fingers became occupied with the pink wrapper. Presently she withdrew from it a thin and brittle object, examined it, and gravely placed it in her mouth.For a while the perplexed and apprehensive expression remained upon her face, but it faded gradually, and after a few minutes her lovely features settled into an expression resembling contentment. And, delicately, discreetly, at leisurely intervals, her fresh, sweet lips moved as though she were murmuring a prayer.All that afternoon she perused the first American novel she had ever read. And the cumulative effect of the fiction upon her literal mind was amazing as she turned page after page, and, gradually gathering mental and nervous speed,[71]dashed from one chapter, bang! into another, only to be occultly adjured to "take the car ahead"—which she now did quite naturally, and on the run.Never, never had she imagined such things could be! Always heretofore, to her, fiction had been a strict reflection of actuality in which a dull imagination was licensed to walk about if it kept off the grass. And it always did in the only novels to which she had been accustomed.But good heavens! Here was a realism at work in these pages so astonishing yet so convincing, so subtle yet so natural, so matter of fact yet so astoundingly new to her that the book she was reading was already changing the entire complexion of the Yankee continent for her.It had to do with a young, penniless, and athletic American who went to Europe, tipped a king off his throne, pushed a few dukes, counts, and barons out of the way, reorganized the army, and went home taking with him a beautiful and exclusive princess with honest intentions.The inhabitants of several villages wept at his departure; the abashed nobility made unsuccessful attempts to shoot him; otherwise the trip to the Cunard Line pier was uneventful, and diplomatic circles paid no attention to the incident.[72]When the Lady Alene finished the story her oval face ached; but this was no time to consider aches. So with a charming abandon she relieved her pretty teeth of the morceau, replaced it with another, helped herself to a second novel, settled back on her pillow, and opened the enchanted pages.And zip! Instantly she became acquainted with another athletic and penniless American who was raising the devil in the Balkans.Never in her life had she dreamed that any nation contained such fearless, fascinating, resourceful, epigrammatic, and desirable young men! And here she was in the very midst of them, and never had realised it until now.Where were they? All around her, no doubt. When, a few days later, she had read some baker's dozen novels, and in each one of them had discovered similar athletic, penniless, and omniscient American young men, her opinion was confirmed, and she could no longer doubt that, like the fiction of her own country, the romances of American novelists must have a substantial foundation in solid fact.There could be no use in quibbling. The situation had become exciting. Her youthful imagination was now fired; her Saxon blood thoroughly[73]stirred. She knew perfectly well that there were in her own country no young men like these she had read about—not a man-jack among them who would ever dream of dashing about the world cuffing the ears of reprehensible monarchs, meting out condign punishment to refractory nobility, reconstructing governments and states and armies, and escaping with a princess every time.Not that she actually believed that such episodes were of common occurrence. Young as she was she knew better. But somehow it seemed very clear to her that a race of writers who were so unanimous on the subject and a nation which so complacently read of these events without denying their plausibility, must within itself harbour germs and seeds of romance and reckless deeds which no doubt had produced a number of young men thoroughly capable of doing a few of the exciting things she had read about.Now she regretted she had not noticed the men she had met; now she was indeed sorry she had not at least taken pains to learn to distinguish them one from the other. She wished that she had investigated this reckless, chivalrous, energetic, and distinguishing trait of the American young man.It seemed odd, too, that Pa-pahad never investigated[74]it; that Ma-mahad never appeared to notice it.She mentioned it at dinner carelessly, in the midst of a natural and British silence. Neither parent enlightened her. One said, "Fancy!" And the other said, "Ow."And so, as both parents departed the following morning to investigate the tarpon fishing at Miami, the little Lady Alene made private preparations to investigate and closely observe the astonishing, reckless, and romantic tendencies of the American young man. Her tour of discovery she scheduled for five o'clock that afternoon.Just how these investigations were to be accomplished she did not see very clearly. She had carefully refrained from knowing anybody in the hotel. So how to go about it she did not know; but she knew enough after luncheon to have her hair done by somebody besides her maid, selected the most American gown in her repertoire, took a sunshade hitherto disdained, and glanced in the mirror at a picture in white, with gold hair, violet eyes, and a skin of snow and roses.Further she did not know how to equip herself, except by going out doors at five o'clock. And at five o'clock she went.From the tennis courts young men and girls[75]looked at her. On the golf links youth turned to observe her slim and dainty progress. She was stared at from porch and veranda, from dock and deck, from garden and walk and orange grove and hedge of scarlet hibiscus.From every shop window in the village, folk looked out at her; from automobile, wheeled chair, bicycle, and horse-drawn vehicle she was inspected. But she knew nobody; not one bright nod greeted her; not one straw hat was lifted; not one nigger grinned. She knew nobody. And, alas! everybody knew her. A cold wave seemed to have settled over Verbena Inlet.Yet her father was not unpopular, nor was her mother either; and although they asked too many questions, their perfectly impersonal and scientific mission in Verbena Inlet was understood.But the Lady Alene Innesly was not understood, although her indifference was noted and her exclusiveness amusedly resented. However, nobody interfered with her or her seclusion. The fact that she desired to know nobody had been very quickly accepted. Youth and the world at Verbena Inlet went on without her; the sun continued to rise and set as usual; and the nigger waiters played baseball.She stood watching them now for a few minutes,[76]her parasol tilted over her lovely shoulders. Tiring of this, she sauntered on, having not the slightest idea where she was going, but very calmly she made up her mind to speak to the first agreeable looking young man she encountered, as none of them seemed at all inclined to speak to her.Under her arm she had tucked a novel written by one Smith. She had read it half through. The story concerned a young and athletic and penniless man from Michigan and a Balkan Princess. She had read as far as the first love scene. The young man from Michigan was still kissing the Princess when she left off reading. And her imagination was still on fire.She had wandered down to the lagoon without finding anybody sufficiently attractive to speak to. The water was blue and pretty and very inviting. So she hired a motor-boat, seated herself in the stern, and dabbled her fingers in the water as the engineer took her whizzing across the lagoon and out into the azure waste, headed straight for the distant silvery inlet.[77]IXShe read, gazed at the gulls and wild ducks, placed a bit of gum between her rose-leaf lips, read a little, glanced up to mark the majestic flight of eight pelicans, sighed discreetly, savoured the gum, deposited it in a cunning corner adjacent to her left and snowy cheek, and spoke to the boatman."Did you ever read this book?" she asked."Me! No, ma'am.""It is very interesting. Do you read much?""No, ma'am.""This is a very extraordinary book," she said. "I strongly advise you to read it."[78]The boatman glanced ironically at the scarlet bound volume which bore the portrait of a pretty girl on its covers."Is it that book by John Smith they're sellin' so many of down to the hotel?" he inquired slowly."I believe it was written by one Smith," she said, turning over the volume to look. "Yes, John Smith is the author's name. No doubt he is very famous in America.""He lives down here in winter.""Really!" she exclaimed with considerable animation."Oh, yes. I take him shooting and fishing. He has a shack on the Inlet Point.""Where?""Over there, where them gulls is flying."The girl looked earnestly at the point. All she saw were snowy dunes and wild grasses and seabirds whirling."He writes them books over there," remarked the boatman."How extremely interesting!""They say he makes a world o' money by it. He's rich as mud.""Really!""Yaas'm. I often seen him a settin' onto a[79]camp chair out beyond them dunes a-writing pieces like billy-bedam. Yes'm.""Do you think he is there now?" she asked with a slight catch in her breath."Well, we kin soon find out——" He swung the tiller; the little boat rushed in a seething circle toward the point, veered westward, then south."Yaas'm," said the boatman presently. "Mr. Smith he's reclinin' out there onto his stummick. I guess he's just a thinkin'. He thinks more'n five million niggers, he does. Gor-a-mighty!Inever see such a man for thinkin'! He jest lies onto his stummick an' studies an' ruminates like billy-bedam. Yaas'm. Would you want I should land you so's you can take a peek at him?""Might I?""Sure, Miss. Go up over them dunes and take a peek at him. He won't mind. Ten to nothin' he won't even see ye."There was a little dock built of coquina. A power boat, a sloop, several row-boats, and a canoe lay there, riding the little, limpid, azure-tinted wavelets. Under their keels swam gar-pike, their fins and backs also shimmering with blue and turquoise green.Lady Alene rose; her boatman aided her, and[80]she sprang lightly to the coquina dock and walked straight over the low dune in front of her.There was nothing whatever in sight except beach-grapes and scrubby tufts of palmetto, and flocks of grey, long-legged, long-billed birds running to avoid her. But they did not run very fast or very far, and she saw them at a little distance loitering, with many a bright and apparently friendly glance at her.There was another dune in front. She mounted it. Straight ahead of her, perhaps half a mile distant, stood a whitewashed bungalow under a cluster of palms and palmettos.From where she stood she could see a cove—merely a tiny crescent of sand edged by a thin blade of cobalt water, and curtained by the palmetto forest. And on this little crescent beach, in the shade of the palms, a young man lay at full length, very intent upon his occupation, which was, apparently, to dig holes in the sand with a child's toy shovel.He was clad in white flannels; beside him she noticed a red tin pail, such as children use for gathering shells. Near this stood two camp-chairs, one of which was piled with pads of yellow paper and a few books. She thought his legs very eloquent. Sometimes they lay in picturesque[81]repose, crossed behind him; at other moments they waved in the air or sprawled widely, appearing to express the varying emotions which possessed his deep absorption in the occult task under his nose."Now, what in the world can he be doing?" thought Lady Alene Innesly, watching him. And she remained motionless on top of the dune for ten minutes to find out. He continued to sprawl and dig holes in the sand.Learning nothing, and her interest increasing inversely, she began to walk toward him. It was her disposition to investigate whatever interested her. Already she was conscious of a deep interest in his legs.From time to time low dunes intervened to hide the little cove, but always when she crossed them, pushing her way through fragrant thickets of sweet bay and sparkle-berry shrub, cove and occupant came into view again. And his legs continued to wave. The nearer she drew the less she comprehended the nature of his occupation, and the more she decided to find out what he could be about, lying there flat on his stomach and digging and patting the sand.Also her naturally calm and British heart was beating irregularly and fast, because she realised[82]the fact that she was approaching the vicinity of one of those American young men who did things in books that she never dreamed could be done anywhere. Nay—under her arm was a novel written by this very man, in which the hero was still kissing a Balkan Princess, page 169. And it occurred to her vaguely that her own good taste and modesty ought to make an end of such a situation; and that she ought to finish the page quickly and turn to the next chapter to relieve the pressure on the Princess.Confused a trifle by a haunting sense of her own responsibility, by the actual imminence of such an author, and by her intense curiosity concerning what he was now doing, she walked across the dunes down through little valleys all golden with the flowers of a flat, spreading vine. The blossoms were larger and lovelier than the largest golden portulacca, but she scarcely noticed their beauty as she resolutely approached the cove, moving forward under the cool shadow of the border forest.He did not seem to be aware of her approach, even when she came up and stood by the camp-chairs, parasol tilted, looking down at him with grave, lilac-blue eyes.But she did not look at him as much as she[83]gazed at what he was doing. And what he was doing appeared perfectly clear to her now.With the aid of his toy shovel, his little red pail, and several assorted shells, he had constructed out of sand a walled city. Houses, streets, squares, market place, covered ways, curtain, keep, tower, turret, crenelated battlement, all were there. A driftwood drawbridge bridged the moat, guarded by lead soldiers in Boznovian uniform.And lead soldiers were everywhere in the miniature city; the keep bristled with their bayonets; squads of them marched through street and square; they sat at dinner in the market place; their cannon winked and blinked in the westering sun on every battlement.And after a little while she discovered two lead figures which were not military; a civilian wearing a bowler hat; a feminine figure wearing a crown and ermines. The one stood on the edge of the moat outside the drawbridge: the other, in crown and ermines, was apparently observing him of the bowler hat from the top of a soldier-infested tower.It was plain enough to her now. This amazing young man was working out in concrete detail some incident of an unwritten novel. And the[84]magnificent realism of it fascinated the Lady Alene. Genius only possesses such a capacity for detail.
Through the golden forest light of afternoon, they moved from shrub to shrub; and he taught her to be on the watch for any possible foes of the neat and busy little caterpillars, warning her to watch for birds, spiders, beetles, ichneumon flies, possibly squirrels or even hornets. She nodded her comprehension; he went one way, she the other. For nearly ten minutes they remained separated, and it seemed ages to one of them anyway.
But the caterpillars appeared to be immune. Nothing whatever interfered with them; wandering beetles left them unmolested; no birds even noticed them; no gauzy-winged and parasitic flies investigated them.
"Mr. Jones!" she called.[44]
He was at her side in an instant.
"I only wanted to know where you were," she said happily.
The sun hung red over the lagoon when they sauntered back to camp. She went into her tent with a cheerful nod to him, which said:
"I've had a splendid time, and I'll rejoin you in a few moments."
When she emerged in fresh white flannels, she found him writing in a blank-book.
"I wonder if I might see?" she said. "If it's scientific, I mean."
"It is, entirely."
So she seated herself on the ground beside him, and read over his shoulder the entries he was making in his field book concerning the day's doings. When he had finished his entry, she said:
"You have not mentioned my coming to you, and how we looked for ichneumon flies together."
"I——" He was silent.
She added timidly: "I know I count for absolutely nothing in the important experiences of a naturalist, but—I did look very hard for ichneumon flies. Couldn't you write in your field book that I tried very hard to help you?"
He wrote gravely:
"Miss Cassillis most generously volunteered her[45]invaluable aid, and spared no effort to discover any possible foe that might prove to be parasitic upon these larvæ. But so far without success."
"Thank you," she said, in a very low voice. And after a short silence: "It was not mere vanity, Mr. Jones. Do you understand?"
"I know it was not vanity, even if I do not entirely understand."
"Shall I tell you?"
"Please."
"It was the first thing that I have ever been permitted to do all by myself. It meant so much to me.... And I wished to have a little record of it—even if you think it is of no scientific importance."
"It is of more importance than——" But he managed to stop himself, slightly startled. She had lifted her head from the pages of the field book to look at him. When his voice failed, and while the red burned brilliantly in his ears, she resumed her perusal of his journal, gravely. After a while, though she turned the pages as if she were really reading, he concluded that her mind was elsewhere. It was.
Presently he rose, mended the fire, filled the kettle, and unhooked the brace of wild ducks from[46]the eaves where they swung, and marched off with them toward the water.
When he returned, the ducks were plucked and split for broiling. He found her seated as he had left her, dreaming awake, idle hands folded on the pages of his open field book.
For dinner they had broiled mallard, coffee, ash-cakes, and bon-bons. After it she smoked a cigarette with him.
Later she informed him that it was her first, and that she liked it, and requested another.
"Don't," he said, smiling.
"Why?"
"It spoils a girl's voice, ultimately."
"But it's very agreeable."
"Will you promise not to?" he asked, lightly.
Suddenly her blue eyes became serious.
"Yes," she said, "if you wish."
The woods grew darker. Far across the lagoon a tiger-owl woke up and began to yelp like a half-strangled hobgoblin.
She sat silent for a little while, then very quietly and frankly put her hand on Jones's. It was shaking.
"I am afraid of that sound," she said calmly.
"It is only a big owl," he reassured her, retaining her hand.[47]
"Is that what it is? Howverydark the woods are! I had no idea that there could be such utter darkness. I am not sure that I care for it."
"There is nothing to harm you in these woods."
"No bears and wolves and panthers?"
"There are a few—and all very anxious to keep away from anything human."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely."
"Do you mind if I leave my hand where it is?"
It appeared that he had no insurmountable objections.
After the seventh tiger-owl had awakened and the inky blackness quivered with the witch-like shouting and hellish tumult, he felt her shoulder pressing against his. And bending to look into her face saw that all the colour in it had fled.
"You mustn't be frightened," he said earnestly.
"But I am. I'm sorry.... I'll try to accustom myself to it.... The darkness is a—a trifle terrifying—isn't it?"
"It's beautiful, too," he said, looking up at the firelit foliage overhead. She looked up also, her slender throat glimmering rosy in the embers' glare. After a moment she nodded:
"Itiswonderful.... If I only had a little time to accustom myself to it I am sure I should love[48]it.... Oh! What was that very loud splash out there in the dark?"
"A big fish playing in the lagoon; or perhaps wild ducks feeding."
After a few minutes he felt her soft hand tighten within his.
"It sounds as though some great creature were prowling around our fire," she whispered. "Do you hear its stealthy tread?"
"Noises in the forest are exaggerated," he said carelessly. "It may be a squirrel or some little furry creature out hunting for his supper. Please don't be afraid."
"Then itisn'ta bear?"
"No, dear," he said, so naturally and unthinkingly that for a full second neither realised the awful break of Delancy Jones.
When they did they said nothing about it. But it was some time before speech was resumed. She was the first to recover. Perhaps the demoralisation was largely his. It usually is that way.
She said: "This has been the most perfect day of my entire life. I'm even glad I am a little scared. It is delicious to be a trifle afraid. But I'm not, now—very much.... Is there any establishedhour for bedtime in the woods?"
"Inclination sounds the hour."[49]
"Isn't that wonderful!" she sighed, her eyes on the fire. "Inclination rules in the forest.... And here I am."
The firelight on her copper-tinted hair masked her lovely eyes in a soft shadow. Her shoulder stirred rhythmically as she breathed.
"And here you live all alone," she mused, half to herself.... "I once saw you pitch a game against Yale.... And the next time I saw you walking very busily down Fifth Avenue.... And now—you are—here.... That is wonderful.... Everything seems to be wonderful in this place.... Wh-whatisthat flapping noise, please?"
"Two herons fighting in the sedge."
"You know everything.... That is the most wonderful of all. And yet you say you are not famous?"
"Nobody ever heard of me outside the Smithsonian."
"But—youmustbecome famous. To-morrow I shall look very hard for an ichneumon fly for you——"
"But your discovery will makeyoufamous, Miss Cassillis——"
"Why—why, it's foryouthat I am going to search so hard! Did you suppose I would dream of claiming any of the glory!"[50]
He said, striving to speak coolly:
"It is very generous and sweet of you.... And, after all, I hardly suppose that you need any added lustre or any additional happiness in a life which must be so full, so complete, and so care-free."
She was silent for a while, then:
"Isyourlife then so full of care, Mr. Jones?"
"Oh, no," he said; "I get on somehow."
"Tell me," she insisted.
"What am I to tell you?"
"Why it is that your life is care-ridden."
"But it isn't——"
"Tell me!"
He said, gaily enough: "To labour for others is sometimes a little irksome.... I am not discontented.... Only, if I had means—if I had barely sufficient—there are so many fascinating and exciting lines of independent research to follow—to make a name in——" He broke off with a light laugh, leaned forward and laid another log on the fire.
"You can not afford it?" she asked, in a low voice; and for the moment astonishment ruled her to discover that this very perfect specimen of intelligent and gifted manhood was struggling under such an amazingly trifling disadvantage.[51]Only from reading and from hearsay had she been even vaguely acquainted with the existence of poverty.
"No," he said pleasantly, "I can not yet afford myself the happiness of independent research."
"When will you be able to afford it?"
Neither were embarrassed; he looked thoughtfully into the fire; and for a while she watched him in his brown study.
"Will it be soon?" she asked, under her breath.
"No, dear."
That time a full minute intervened before either realised how he had answered. And both remained exceedingly still until she said calmly:
"I thought you were the very ideal embodiment of personal liberty. And now I find that wretched and petty and ignoble circumstances fetter even such a man as you are. It—it is—is heartbreaking."
"It won't last forever," he said, controlling his voice.
"But the years are going—the best years, Mr. Jones. And your life's work beckons you. And you are equipped for it, and you can not take it!"
"Some day——" But he could say no more then, with her hand tightening in his.[52]
"To—to rise superior to circumstances—that is god-like, isn't it?" she said.
"Yes." He laughed. "But on six hundred dollars a year a man can't rise very high above circumstances."
The shock left her silent. Any gown of hers cost more than that. Then the awfulness of it all rose before her in its true and hideous proportions. And there was nothing for her to do about it, nothing, absolutely nothing, except to endure the degradation of her wealth and remember that the merest tithe of it could have made this man beside her immortally famous—if, perhaps, no more wonderful than he already was in her eyes.
Was there no way to aid him? She could look for ichneumon flies in the morning. And on the morning after that. And the next morning she would say good-bye and go away forever—out of this enchanted forest, out of his life, back to theChihuahua, and to her guests who ate often and digested all day long—back to her father, her mother—back to Stirrups——
He felt her hand close on his convulsively, and turned to encounter her flushed and determined face.
"You like me, don't you?" she said.[53]
"Yes." After a moment he said: "Yes—absolutely."
"Do you like me enough to—to let me help you in your research work—to be patient enough to teach me a little until I catch up with you?... So we can go on together?... I know I am presumptuous—perhaps importunate—but I thought—somehow—if you did like me well enough—it would be—very agreeable——"
"It would be!... And I—like you enough for—anything. But you could not remain here——"
"I don't mean here."
"Where, then?"
"Where?" She looked vaguely about her in the firelight. "Why, everywhere. Wherever you go to make your researches."
"Dear, I would go to Ceylon if I could."
"I also," she said.
He turned a little pale, looking at her in silence. She said calmly: "What would you do in Ceylon?"
"Study the unknown life-histories of the rarer Ornithoptera."
She knew no more than a kitten what he meant. But she wanted to know, and, moreover, was perfectly capable of comprehending.
"Whatever you desire to study," she said,[54]"would prove delightful to me.... If you want me. Do you?"
"Want you!" Then he bit his lip.
"Don't you? Tell me frankly if you don't. But I think, somehow, you would not make a mistake if you did want me. I really am intelligent. I didn't know it until I talked with you. Now, I know it. But I have never been able to give expression to it or cultivate it.... And, somehow, I know I would not be a drag on you—if you would teach me a little in the beginning."
He said: "What can I teachyou, Cecil? Not the heavenly frankness that you already use so sweetly. Not the smiling and serene nobility which carries your head so daintily and so fearlessly. Not the calm purity of thought, nor the serene goodness of mind that has graciously included a poor devil like me in your broad and generous sympathies——"
"Please!" she faltered, flushing. "I am not what you say—though to hear you say such things is a great happiness—a pleasure—very intense—and wonderful—and new. But I am nothing,nothing—unless I should become useful to you. Icouldamount to something—with—you——" She checked herself; looked at him as though a trifle frightened. "Unless," she added[55]with an effort, "you are in love with somebody else. I didn't think of that.Areyou?"
"No," he said. "Are you?"
"No.... I have never been in love.... This is the nearest I have come to it."
"And I."
She smiled faintly.
"If we——"
"Oh, yes," he said, calmly, "if we are to pass the balance of our existence in combined research, it would be rather necessary for us to marry."
"Do you mind?"
"On the contrary. Do you?"
"Not in the least. Do you really mean it? It wouldn't be disagreeable, would it? You are above marrying for mere sentiment, aren't you? Because, somehow, I seem to know you like me.... And it would be death for me—a mental death—to go back now to—to Stirrups——"
"Where?"
"To—why do you ask? Couldn't you take me on faith?"
He said, unsteadily: "If you rose up out of the silvery lagoon, just born from the starlight and the mist, I would take you."
"You—you are a poet, too," she faltered. "You seem to be about everything desirable."[56]
"I'm only a man very, very deep in—love."
"In love!... I thought——"
"Ah, but you need think no more. Youknownow, Cecil."
She remained silent, thinking for a long while. Then, very quietly:
"Yes, I know.... It is that way with me also. For I no sooner find my liberty than I lose it—in the same moment—to you. We must never again be separated.... Do you feel as I do?"
"Absolutely.... But it must be so."
"Why?" she asked, troubled.
"For one thing, I shall have to work harder now."
"Why?"
"Don't you know we can not marry on what I have?"
"Oh! Isthatthe reason?" She laughed, sprang lightly to her feet, stood looking down at him. He got up, slowly.
"I bring you," she said, "six hundred dollars a year. And alittlemore. Which sweeps away that obstacle. Doesn't it?"
"I could not ask you to live on that——"
"I can live on what you live on! I should wish to. It would make me utterly and supremely happy."[57]
Her flushed, young face confronted his as she took a short, eager step toward him.
"I am not making love to you," she said, "—at least, I don't think I am. All I desire is to help—to give you myself—my youth, energy, ambition, intelligence—and what I have—which is of no use to me unless it is useful to you. Won't you take these things from me?"
"Do you give me your heart, too, Cecil?"
She smiled faintly, knowing now that she had already given it. She did not answer, but her under lip trembled, and she caught it between her teeth as he took her hands and kissed them in silence.[58]
"Miami is not very far, is it?" she asked, as she sprang aboard theOrange Puppy.
"Not very, dear."
"We could get a license immediately, couldn't we?"
"I think so."
"And then it will not take us very long to get married, will it?"
"Not very."
"What a wonderful night!" she murmured, looking up at the stars. She turned toward the[59]shore. "What a wonderful place for a honeymoon!... And we can continue business, too, and watch our caterpillars all day long! Oh, it is all too wonderful, wonderful!" She kissed her hand to the unseen camp. "We will be back to-morrow!" she called softly. Then a sudden thought struck her. "You never can get theOrange Puppythrough that narrow lead, can you?"
"Oh, there is an easier way out," he said, taking the tiller as the sail filled.
Her head dropped back against his knees. Now and then her lips moved, murmuring in sheerest happiness the thoughts that drifted through her enchanted mind.
"I wonder when it began," she whispered, "—at the ball-game—or on Fifth Avenue—or when I saw you here? It seems to me as if I always had been in love with you."
Outside in the ocean, the breeze stiffened and the perfume was tinged with salt.
Lying back against his knees, her eyes fixed dreamily on the stars, she murmured:
"Stirrupswillbe surprised."
"What are you talking about down there all by yourself?" he whispered, bending over her.
She looked up into his eyes. Suddenly her own[60]filled; and she put up both arms, linking them around his neck.
And so theOrange Puppysailed away into the viewless, formless, starry mystery of all romance.
After a silence the young novelist, who had been poking the goldfish, said slowly: "That's pretty poor fiction, Athalie, but, as a matter of simple fact and inartistic truth, recording sentimental celerity, it stands unequalled."
"Straight facts make poor fiction," remarked Duane.
"It all depends on who makes the fiction out of them," I ventured.
"Not always," said Athalie. "There are facts which when straightly told are far stranger than fiction. I noticed a case of that sort in my crystal last winter." And to the youthful novelist she said: "Don't try to guess who the people were if I tell it, will you?"
"No," he promised.
"Please fix my cushions," she said to nobody in particular. And after the stampede was over she selected another cigarette, thoughtfully, but did not light it.[61]
"You are queer folk, you writers of fiction," she mused aloud. "No monarch ordained of God takes himself more seriously; no actor lives more absolutely in a world made out of his imagination."
She lighted her cigarette: "You often speak of your most 'important' book,—as though any fiction ever written were important. Painters speak of their most important pictures; sculptors, composers, creative creatures of every species employ the adjective. And it is all very silly. Facts only can be characterised as important; figments of the creative imagination are as unimportant——" she blew a dainty ring of smoke toward the crystal globe—"as that! 'Tout ce qu'ont fait les hommes, les hommes peuvent le[62]détruire. Il n'y a de caractères inéffaçables que ceux qu' imprime la nature.' There has never been but one important author."
I said smilingly: "To quote the gentleman you think important enough to quote, Athalie, 'Tout est bien sortant des mains de l'Auteur des choses: tout dégénere entre les mains de l'homme.'"
Said the novelist simply: "Imagination alone makes facts important. 'Cette superbe puissance, ennemie de la raison!'"
"O Athalie," whispered Duane, "night-blooming, exquisite blossom of the arid municipal desert, recount for us these facts which you possess and which, in your delightful opinion, are stranger than fiction, and more important."
And Athalie, choosing another sweetmeat, looked at us until it had dissolved in her fragrant mouth. Then she spoke very gravely, while her dark eyes laughed at us:
When young Lord Willowmere's fiancée ran away from him and married Delancy Jones, that bereaved nobleman experienced a certain portion of the universal shock which this social seismic disturbance spread far and wide over two hemispheres.[63]
That such a girl should marry beneath her naturally disgusted everybody. So both Jones and his wife were properly damned.
England read its morning paper, shrugged its derision, and remarked that nobody ought to be surprised at anything that happened in the States. "The States" swallowed the rebuke and squirmed.
Now, among the sturdy yeomanry, gentry, and nobility of those same British and impressive Isles there was an earnest gentleman whose ample waist and means and scholarly tastes inclined him to a sedentary life of research. The study of human nature in its various native and exotic phases had for forty years obsessed his insular intellect. Philologist, anthropologist, calm philosopher, and benignant observer, this gentleman, who had never visited the United States, determined to do so now. For, he reasoned—and very properly—a country where such a thing could happen to a British nobleman and a Peer of the Realm must be worth exploring, and its curious inhabitants merited, perhaps, the impersonally judicial inspection of an F. R. B. A. whose gigantic work on the folk manners of the world had now reached its twentieth volume, without as yet including the United States. So he determined to devote several[64]chapters in the forthcoming and twenty-first volume to the recent colonies of Great Britain.
Now, when the Duke of Pillchester concluded to do anything, that thing was invariably and thoroughly done. And so, before it entirely realised the honour in store for it, the United States was buttoning its collar, tying its white tie, and rushing down stairs to open its front door to the Duke of Pillchester, the Duchess of Pillchester, and the Lady Alene Innesly, their youthful and ornamental daughter.
For a number of months after its arrival, the Ducal party inspected the Yankee continent through a lens made for purposes of scientific investigation only. The massed wealth of the nation met their Graces in solid divisions of social worth. The shock was mutual.
Then the massed poverty of the continent was exhibited, leaving the poverty indifferent and slightly bored, and the Ducal party taking notes.
It was his Grace's determination to study the folk-ways of Americans; and what the Duke wished the Duchess dutifully desired. The Lady Alene Innesly, however, was dragged most reluctantly from function to function, from palace to purlieu, from theatre to cathedral, from Coney[65]Island to Newport. She was "havin' a rotten time."
All day long she had nothing to look at but an overdressed and alien race whose voices distressed her; day after day she had nothing to say except, "How d'y do," and "Mother, shall we have tea?" Week after week she had nothing to think of except the bare, unkempt ugliness of the cities she saw; the raw waste and sordid uglification of what once had been matchless natural resources; dirty rivers, ruined woodlands, flimsy buildings, ignorant architecture. The ostentatious and wretched hotels depressed her; the poor railroads and bad manners disgusted her.
Listless, uninterested, Britishly enduring what she could not escape, the little Lady Alene had made not the slightest effort to mitigate the circumstances of her temporary fate. She was civilly incurious concerning the people she met; their social customs, amusements, pastimes, duties, various species of business or of leisure interested her not a whit. All the men looked alike to her; all the women were over-gowned, tiresomely pretty, and might learn one day how to behave themselves after they had found out how to make their voices behave.
Meanwhile, requiring summer clothing—tweeds[66]and shooting boots being not what the climate seemed to require in July—she discovered with languid surprise that for the first time in her limited life she was well gowned. A few moments afterward another surprise faintly thrilled her, for, chancing to glance at herself after a Yankee hairdresser had finished her hair, she discovered to her astonishment that she was pretty.
For several days this fact preyed upon her mind, alternately troubling and fascinating her. There were several men at home who would certainly sit up; Willowmere among others.
As for considering her newly discovered beauty any advantage in America, the idea had not entered her mind. Why should it? All the men looked alike; all wore sleek hair, hats on the backs of their heads, clothing that fitted like a coster's trousers. She had absolutely no use for them, and properly.
However, she continued to cultivate her beauty and to adorn it with Yankee clothing and headgear befitting; which filled up considerable time during the day, leaving her fewer empty hours to fill with tea and three-volumed novels from the British Isles.
Now, it had never occurred to the Lady Alene Innesly to read anything except British fact and[67]fiction. She had never been sufficiently interested even to open an American book. Why should she, as long as the three props of her national literature endured intact—curates, tea, and thoroughbred horses?
But there came a time during the ensuing winter when the last of the three-volumed novels had been assimilated, the last serious tome digested; and there stretched out before her a bookless prospect which presently began to dismay her with the aridness of its perspective.
The catastrophe occurred while the Ducal party was investigating the strange folk-customs of those Americans who gathered during the winter in gigantic Florida hotels and lived there, uncomfortably lodged, vilely fed, and shamelessly robbed, while third-rate orchestras play cabaret music and enervating breezes stir the cabbage-palmettos till they rustle like bath-room rubber plants.
It was a bad place and a bad time of year for a young and British girl to be deprived of her native and soporific fiction; for the livelier and Frenchier of British novelists were self-denied her, because somebody had said they were not unlike Americans.
Now she was, in the uncouth vernacular of the[68]country, up against it for fair! She didn't know what it was called, but she realised how it felt to be against something.
Three days she endured it, dozing in her room, half awake when the sea-breeze rattled the Venetian blinds, or the niggers were noisy at baseball.
On the fourth day she arose, went to the window, gazed disgustedly out over the tawdry villas of Verbena Inlet, then rang for her maid.
"Bunn," she said, "here are three sovereigns. You will please buy for me one specimen of every book on sale in the corridor of this hotel. And, Bunn!——"
"Yes, my lady."
"What was it you were eating the other day?"
"Chewing-gum, my lady."
"Is it—agreeable?"
"Yes, my lady."
"Is it nourishing?"
"No, my lady. It is not intended to be eaten; it is to be chewed."
"Then one does not swallow it when one supposes it to be sufficiently masticated?"
"No, my lady."
"What does one do with it?"
"Beg pardon, my lady—one spits it out."
"Ow," said the girl.[69]
She was lying on the bed when a relay of servants staggered in bearing gaudy piles of the most recent and popular novels, and placed them in tottering profusion upon the adjacent furniture.
The Lady Alene turned her head where it lay lazily pillowed on her left arm, and glanced indifferently at the multi-coloured battlement of books. The majority of the covers were embellished with the heads of young women, all endowed with vaudeville-like beauty—it having been discovered by intelligent publishers that a girl's head on any book sells it.
On some covers were displayed coloured pictures of handsome and athletic American young men, usually kissing beautiful young ladies who wore crowns, ermines, and foreign orders over dinner dresses. Sometimes, however, they were kicking Kings. That seemed rather odd to the Lady[70]Alene, and she sat up on the bed and reached out her hand. It encountered a book on which rested a small, oblong package. She took book and package. On the pink wrapper of the latter she read this verse:
Why are my teeth so white and bright?Because I chew with all my mightThe gum that fills me with delightAnd keeps me healthy day and night.Five cents.
Why are my teeth so white and bright?Because I chew with all my mightThe gum that fills me with delightAnd keeps me healthy day and night.Five cents.
The Lady Alene's unaccustomed fingers became occupied with the pink wrapper. Presently she withdrew from it a thin and brittle object, examined it, and gravely placed it in her mouth.
For a while the perplexed and apprehensive expression remained upon her face, but it faded gradually, and after a few minutes her lovely features settled into an expression resembling contentment. And, delicately, discreetly, at leisurely intervals, her fresh, sweet lips moved as though she were murmuring a prayer.
All that afternoon she perused the first American novel she had ever read. And the cumulative effect of the fiction upon her literal mind was amazing as she turned page after page, and, gradually gathering mental and nervous speed,[71]dashed from one chapter, bang! into another, only to be occultly adjured to "take the car ahead"—which she now did quite naturally, and on the run.
Never, never had she imagined such things could be! Always heretofore, to her, fiction had been a strict reflection of actuality in which a dull imagination was licensed to walk about if it kept off the grass. And it always did in the only novels to which she had been accustomed.
But good heavens! Here was a realism at work in these pages so astonishing yet so convincing, so subtle yet so natural, so matter of fact yet so astoundingly new to her that the book she was reading was already changing the entire complexion of the Yankee continent for her.
It had to do with a young, penniless, and athletic American who went to Europe, tipped a king off his throne, pushed a few dukes, counts, and barons out of the way, reorganized the army, and went home taking with him a beautiful and exclusive princess with honest intentions.
The inhabitants of several villages wept at his departure; the abashed nobility made unsuccessful attempts to shoot him; otherwise the trip to the Cunard Line pier was uneventful, and diplomatic circles paid no attention to the incident.[72]
When the Lady Alene finished the story her oval face ached; but this was no time to consider aches. So with a charming abandon she relieved her pretty teeth of the morceau, replaced it with another, helped herself to a second novel, settled back on her pillow, and opened the enchanted pages.
And zip! Instantly she became acquainted with another athletic and penniless American who was raising the devil in the Balkans.
Never in her life had she dreamed that any nation contained such fearless, fascinating, resourceful, epigrammatic, and desirable young men! And here she was in the very midst of them, and never had realised it until now.
Where were they? All around her, no doubt. When, a few days later, she had read some baker's dozen novels, and in each one of them had discovered similar athletic, penniless, and omniscient American young men, her opinion was confirmed, and she could no longer doubt that, like the fiction of her own country, the romances of American novelists must have a substantial foundation in solid fact.
There could be no use in quibbling. The situation had become exciting. Her youthful imagination was now fired; her Saxon blood thoroughly[73]stirred. She knew perfectly well that there were in her own country no young men like these she had read about—not a man-jack among them who would ever dream of dashing about the world cuffing the ears of reprehensible monarchs, meting out condign punishment to refractory nobility, reconstructing governments and states and armies, and escaping with a princess every time.
Not that she actually believed that such episodes were of common occurrence. Young as she was she knew better. But somehow it seemed very clear to her that a race of writers who were so unanimous on the subject and a nation which so complacently read of these events without denying their plausibility, must within itself harbour germs and seeds of romance and reckless deeds which no doubt had produced a number of young men thoroughly capable of doing a few of the exciting things she had read about.
Now she regretted she had not noticed the men she had met; now she was indeed sorry she had not at least taken pains to learn to distinguish them one from the other. She wished that she had investigated this reckless, chivalrous, energetic, and distinguishing trait of the American young man.
It seemed odd, too, that Pa-pahad never investigated[74]it; that Ma-mahad never appeared to notice it.
She mentioned it at dinner carelessly, in the midst of a natural and British silence. Neither parent enlightened her. One said, "Fancy!" And the other said, "Ow."
And so, as both parents departed the following morning to investigate the tarpon fishing at Miami, the little Lady Alene made private preparations to investigate and closely observe the astonishing, reckless, and romantic tendencies of the American young man. Her tour of discovery she scheduled for five o'clock that afternoon.
Just how these investigations were to be accomplished she did not see very clearly. She had carefully refrained from knowing anybody in the hotel. So how to go about it she did not know; but she knew enough after luncheon to have her hair done by somebody besides her maid, selected the most American gown in her repertoire, took a sunshade hitherto disdained, and glanced in the mirror at a picture in white, with gold hair, violet eyes, and a skin of snow and roses.
Further she did not know how to equip herself, except by going out doors at five o'clock. And at five o'clock she went.
From the tennis courts young men and girls[75]looked at her. On the golf links youth turned to observe her slim and dainty progress. She was stared at from porch and veranda, from dock and deck, from garden and walk and orange grove and hedge of scarlet hibiscus.
From every shop window in the village, folk looked out at her; from automobile, wheeled chair, bicycle, and horse-drawn vehicle she was inspected. But she knew nobody; not one bright nod greeted her; not one straw hat was lifted; not one nigger grinned. She knew nobody. And, alas! everybody knew her. A cold wave seemed to have settled over Verbena Inlet.
Yet her father was not unpopular, nor was her mother either; and although they asked too many questions, their perfectly impersonal and scientific mission in Verbena Inlet was understood.
But the Lady Alene Innesly was not understood, although her indifference was noted and her exclusiveness amusedly resented. However, nobody interfered with her or her seclusion. The fact that she desired to know nobody had been very quickly accepted. Youth and the world at Verbena Inlet went on without her; the sun continued to rise and set as usual; and the nigger waiters played baseball.
She stood watching them now for a few minutes,[76]her parasol tilted over her lovely shoulders. Tiring of this, she sauntered on, having not the slightest idea where she was going, but very calmly she made up her mind to speak to the first agreeable looking young man she encountered, as none of them seemed at all inclined to speak to her.
Under her arm she had tucked a novel written by one Smith. She had read it half through. The story concerned a young and athletic and penniless man from Michigan and a Balkan Princess. She had read as far as the first love scene. The young man from Michigan was still kissing the Princess when she left off reading. And her imagination was still on fire.
She had wandered down to the lagoon without finding anybody sufficiently attractive to speak to. The water was blue and pretty and very inviting. So she hired a motor-boat, seated herself in the stern, and dabbled her fingers in the water as the engineer took her whizzing across the lagoon and out into the azure waste, headed straight for the distant silvery inlet.[77]
She read, gazed at the gulls and wild ducks, placed a bit of gum between her rose-leaf lips, read a little, glanced up to mark the majestic flight of eight pelicans, sighed discreetly, savoured the gum, deposited it in a cunning corner adjacent to her left and snowy cheek, and spoke to the boatman.
"Did you ever read this book?" she asked.
"Me! No, ma'am."
"It is very interesting. Do you read much?"
"No, ma'am."
"This is a very extraordinary book," she said. "I strongly advise you to read it."[78]
The boatman glanced ironically at the scarlet bound volume which bore the portrait of a pretty girl on its covers.
"Is it that book by John Smith they're sellin' so many of down to the hotel?" he inquired slowly.
"I believe it was written by one Smith," she said, turning over the volume to look. "Yes, John Smith is the author's name. No doubt he is very famous in America."
"He lives down here in winter."
"Really!" she exclaimed with considerable animation.
"Oh, yes. I take him shooting and fishing. He has a shack on the Inlet Point."
"Where?"
"Over there, where them gulls is flying."
The girl looked earnestly at the point. All she saw were snowy dunes and wild grasses and seabirds whirling.
"He writes them books over there," remarked the boatman.
"How extremely interesting!"
"They say he makes a world o' money by it. He's rich as mud."
"Really!"
"Yaas'm. I often seen him a settin' onto a[79]camp chair out beyond them dunes a-writing pieces like billy-bedam. Yes'm."
"Do you think he is there now?" she asked with a slight catch in her breath.
"Well, we kin soon find out——" He swung the tiller; the little boat rushed in a seething circle toward the point, veered westward, then south.
"Yaas'm," said the boatman presently. "Mr. Smith he's reclinin' out there onto his stummick. I guess he's just a thinkin'. He thinks more'n five million niggers, he does. Gor-a-mighty!Inever see such a man for thinkin'! He jest lies onto his stummick an' studies an' ruminates like billy-bedam. Yaas'm. Would you want I should land you so's you can take a peek at him?"
"Might I?"
"Sure, Miss. Go up over them dunes and take a peek at him. He won't mind. Ten to nothin' he won't even see ye."
There was a little dock built of coquina. A power boat, a sloop, several row-boats, and a canoe lay there, riding the little, limpid, azure-tinted wavelets. Under their keels swam gar-pike, their fins and backs also shimmering with blue and turquoise green.
Lady Alene rose; her boatman aided her, and[80]she sprang lightly to the coquina dock and walked straight over the low dune in front of her.
There was nothing whatever in sight except beach-grapes and scrubby tufts of palmetto, and flocks of grey, long-legged, long-billed birds running to avoid her. But they did not run very fast or very far, and she saw them at a little distance loitering, with many a bright and apparently friendly glance at her.
There was another dune in front. She mounted it. Straight ahead of her, perhaps half a mile distant, stood a whitewashed bungalow under a cluster of palms and palmettos.
From where she stood she could see a cove—merely a tiny crescent of sand edged by a thin blade of cobalt water, and curtained by the palmetto forest. And on this little crescent beach, in the shade of the palms, a young man lay at full length, very intent upon his occupation, which was, apparently, to dig holes in the sand with a child's toy shovel.
He was clad in white flannels; beside him she noticed a red tin pail, such as children use for gathering shells. Near this stood two camp-chairs, one of which was piled with pads of yellow paper and a few books. She thought his legs very eloquent. Sometimes they lay in picturesque[81]repose, crossed behind him; at other moments they waved in the air or sprawled widely, appearing to express the varying emotions which possessed his deep absorption in the occult task under his nose.
"Now, what in the world can he be doing?" thought Lady Alene Innesly, watching him. And she remained motionless on top of the dune for ten minutes to find out. He continued to sprawl and dig holes in the sand.
Learning nothing, and her interest increasing inversely, she began to walk toward him. It was her disposition to investigate whatever interested her. Already she was conscious of a deep interest in his legs.
From time to time low dunes intervened to hide the little cove, but always when she crossed them, pushing her way through fragrant thickets of sweet bay and sparkle-berry shrub, cove and occupant came into view again. And his legs continued to wave. The nearer she drew the less she comprehended the nature of his occupation, and the more she decided to find out what he could be about, lying there flat on his stomach and digging and patting the sand.
Also her naturally calm and British heart was beating irregularly and fast, because she realised[82]the fact that she was approaching the vicinity of one of those American young men who did things in books that she never dreamed could be done anywhere. Nay—under her arm was a novel written by this very man, in which the hero was still kissing a Balkan Princess, page 169. And it occurred to her vaguely that her own good taste and modesty ought to make an end of such a situation; and that she ought to finish the page quickly and turn to the next chapter to relieve the pressure on the Princess.
Confused a trifle by a haunting sense of her own responsibility, by the actual imminence of such an author, and by her intense curiosity concerning what he was now doing, she walked across the dunes down through little valleys all golden with the flowers of a flat, spreading vine. The blossoms were larger and lovelier than the largest golden portulacca, but she scarcely noticed their beauty as she resolutely approached the cove, moving forward under the cool shadow of the border forest.
He did not seem to be aware of her approach, even when she came up and stood by the camp-chairs, parasol tilted, looking down at him with grave, lilac-blue eyes.
But she did not look at him as much as she[83]gazed at what he was doing. And what he was doing appeared perfectly clear to her now.
With the aid of his toy shovel, his little red pail, and several assorted shells, he had constructed out of sand a walled city. Houses, streets, squares, market place, covered ways, curtain, keep, tower, turret, crenelated battlement, all were there. A driftwood drawbridge bridged the moat, guarded by lead soldiers in Boznovian uniform.
And lead soldiers were everywhere in the miniature city; the keep bristled with their bayonets; squads of them marched through street and square; they sat at dinner in the market place; their cannon winked and blinked in the westering sun on every battlement.
And after a little while she discovered two lead figures which were not military; a civilian wearing a bowler hat; a feminine figure wearing a crown and ermines. The one stood on the edge of the moat outside the drawbridge: the other, in crown and ermines, was apparently observing him of the bowler hat from the top of a soldier-infested tower.
It was plain enough to her now. This amazing young man was working out in concrete detail some incident of an unwritten novel. And the[84]magnificent realism of it fascinated the Lady Alene. Genius only possesses such a capacity for detail.