"And after all these weeks, during which I have so faithfully accompanied you, are you actually going to insist that I lost my bet?" asked the Dryad in a low voice.
"But you didn't, did you?" said the pitiless Jones.
"I let you catch the first Ajax. I might have prevented you; I might have even caught it myself!"
"But you didn't, did you?" said the pitiless Jones.
"Because," continued the Dryad, flushing, "I was generous enough to think only of capturing the butterflies, while all the time it appearsyouwere thinkingof something else. How sordid!" she added, scornfully.
"You admit I won the bet?" persisted that meanest of men.
"I admit nothing, Mr. Jones."
"Didn't I win the bet?"
Silence.
"Didn't I——"
"Goodness, yes!" cried the Dryad. "Now what are you going to do about it?"
"You said," observed Jones, "that you would forfeit anything I desired. Didn't you?"
The Dryad looked at him, then looked away.
"Didn't you?"
Silence.
"Di——"
"Yes, I did."
"Then I am to ask what I desire?"
No answer.
"So," continued Jones in a low voice, "I do ask it."
Still no answer.
"Will you——"
"Mr. Jones," she said, turning a face toward him on which was written utter consternation.
"Will you," continued Jones, "permit me to name the first new butterfly that I capture, after you?"
Her eyes widened.
"Is—isthatall you desire?" she faltered. Suddenly her eyes filled.
"Absolutely all," said Jones simply—"to name a new species of butterfly after my wife——"
However, that was the simplest part of the whole matter; the trouble was all ahead, waiting for them on the veranda—two hundred pounds of wealthy trouble sitting in a rocking-chair, tatting, and keeping tabs upon the great clock and upon the trolley cars as they arrived in decorous procession from the golf links.
There was a long, long silence.
"Is—is that all?" inquired my little neighbour.
"Can't you guess the rest?"
But she only sighed, looking down at the lace handkerchief which she had been absently twisting in her lap.
"You know," said I, "what keys unlock the meaning of all stories?"
She nodded.
"The keys of The Past," I said.
She sighed, looking down into her smooth little empty hands:
"I threw them away, long ago," she said. "Forme there remains only one more door. And that unlocks of itself."
And we sat there, thinking, through the still summer afternoon.
That evening I found Williams curled up in his corner at the Café Jaune.
"You are sun-burned," he said, inspecting me.
"A little. I've been in Florida."
"What?"
"With the ghosts of years ago. But it seemed very realistic to me as I sat in the sun and recalled it. Possibly it was even real enough to sun-burn me a little."
He eyed me with considerable chagrin. Perhaps he thought that he had the monopoly of poetic fancies. It was most agreeable to me to touch him up.They're a jealous bunch, those whittlers of fact into fiction.
However, he brightened as he drew a letter from his pocket:
"You remember Kingsbury, of course?" he asked.
"Perfectly."
"And his friend Smith?"
"Certainly."
"I've a letter here from Kingsbury. He expects to be in Paris this autumn."
"I'd like to see him," said I, "but I'm going home before Autumn."
"Haven't you seen him in all these years?"
"Not once."
"And you never heard——"
"Oh, go on, Williams, and tell your story. I'm perfectly willing to listen. Cut out all that coy business and tear off a few page-proofs. Besides," I added, maliciously, "I know how it's done, now."
"Howdo you know?"
"Because I did a little in that line myself this afternoon. Let me tell you something; there isn't a profession in all the world which can be so easily and quickly acquired as yours. Therefore pin no more orders and ribbons and stars and medals on yourself. The only difference between you and your public isthat they have no time to practice your profession in addition to their own."
Which took him down a peg or two, until we both took down another peg or two. But when I called the waiter and ordered a third, he became more cheerful.
"You're a jollier," he said, "aren't you?"
"I did a little this afternoon. Go on about Kingsbury and Smithy. After all, Williams, you really do it much better than I."
Which mollified him amazingly, and he began with a brisk confidence in his powers of narration:
When Kingsbury had finished his course at the University of Paris, there appeared to be little or nothing further in the way of human knowledge for him to acquire. However, on the chance of disinterring a fragment or two of amorphous information which he might find use for in his projected book, The Economy of Marriage, he allowed himself another year of travel, taking the precaution to invite Smith—the flippancy of Smith being calculated to neutralise any over-intellectual activity in himself.
He needed a rest; he had had the world on his hands too long—ever since his twentieth year. Smith was the man to give him mental repose. There was no use attempting to discuss social economy with Smith,or of interesting that trivial and inert mind in race suicide. Smith was flippant. Often and often Kingsbury thought: "How can he have passed through The University of Paris and remained flippant?" But neither Sorbonne nor Pantheon produced marked effect upon Smith, and although it is true that Paris horridly appealed to him, in the remainder of Europe he found nothing better to do than to unpack his trout-rod and make for the nearest puddle wherever they found themselves, whether in the Alps, the Tyrol, the Vosges, or the forests of Belgium, where they at present occupied a stucco-covered villa with servants, stables, hot-houses, and a likely trout stream for Smith to dabble in, at a sum per month so ridiculously reasonable that I shall not mention it for fear of depopulating my native land.
Besides, they had the youthful and widowed Countess of Semois for their neighbour.
And so it came about that, in this leafy, sunny land of cream and honey, one very lovely morning, young Kingsbury, booted and spurred and still flushed from his early gallop through the soft wood-roads of the forest, found Smith at breakfast under the grape-arbour, immersed in a popular novel and a bowl of strawberries.
"Hello," said Smith, politely, pushing the fruitacross the table. "The berries are fine; I took a corking trout an hour ago; we'll have it directly."
"I saw the Countess," said Kingsbury, carelessly unbuttoning his gloves as he stood there.
"Oh, you did? Well, which one is the Countess, the girl with the dark hair, or that stunning red-haired beauty?"
"How could I tell? I couldn't ride up and ask, could I? They were driving, as usual. The King was out, too; I wish he'd wear a decent hat."
"With the moral welfare of two hemispheres on your hands, you ought not to feel responsible for the King's derby," observed Smith.
Any exaggeration of fact always perplexed Kingsbury. He flattened out his gloves, stuck his riding-crop into his left boot, and looked at Smith through his monocle.
"For all the talk about the King," he said, "the peasantry salute him as reverently as though he were their father."
To which Smith, in his flippancy, replied:
"The children for their monarch pray,Each buxom lass and laddie;A thousand reasons good have theyTo call the King their daddy."
Kingsbury retired to make his toilet; returned presently smelling less of the stables, seated himself,drowned a dozen luscious strawberries in cream, tasted one, and cast a patronising eye upon the trout, which had been prepared à la Meunière.
"Corker, isn't he?" observed Smith, contemplating the fish with pardonable pride. "He's poached, I regret to inform you."
"Poached?"
"Oh, not like an egg; I mean that I took him in private waters. It was a disgusting case of poaching."
"What on earth did you do that for?"
"Now, I'll explain that in a minute. You know where our stream flows under the arch in the wall which separates our grounds from the park next door? Well, I was casting away on our side, never thinking of mischief, when, flip! flop! spatter! splash! and, if you please, right under the water-arch in the wall this scandalous trout jumped. Of course, I put it to him good and plenty, but the criminal creature, on purpose to tempt me, backed off down stream and clean through the arch into our neighbour's water.
"'Is it poaching if I go over after him?' thought I. And, Kingsbury, do you know I had no time to debate that moral question, because, before I could reply to myself, I found myself hoisting a ladder to the top of the wall and lowering it on the other side—there are no steps on the other side. Andwhat do you think? Before I could rouse myself with the cry of 'Trespasser! Help!' I found myself climbing down into the park and casting a fly with sinful accuracy.
"'Is it right?' I asked myself in an agony of doubt. But, alas, Kingsbury, before I had a ghost of a chance to answer myself in the negative I had hooked that trout fast; and there was the deuce to pay, for I'd forgotten my landing-net!"
He shook his head, helped Kingsbury to a portion of the trout, and refilled his own cup. "Isn't it awful," he said.
"It's on a par with most of your performances," observed the other, coldly. "I suppose you continued your foolish conduct with that girl, too."
"What girl?"
"And I suppose you kissed her again! Did you?"
"Kiss a girl?" stammered Smith. "Where have you been prowling?"
"Along the boundary wall on my side, if you want to know. A week ago I chanced to be out by moonlight, and I saw you kiss her, Smith, across the top of the park wall. It is your proper rôle, of course, to deny it, but let me tell you that I think it's a pretty undignified business of yours, kissing the Countess of Semois's servants——"
"What the deuce——"
"Well,whowas it you kissed over the top of the wall, then?"
"I don't know," said Smith, sullenly.
"You don't know! It wasn't the Countess, was it?"
"Of course it wasn't the Countess. I tell you I don't know who it was."
"Nonsense!"
"No, it isn't. What happened was this: I climbed up the niches to sit on the wall by moonlight and watch the trout jump; and just as my head cleared the wall the head of a girl came up on the other side—right against the moon, so it was just a shadow—a sort of silhouette. It was an agreeable silhouette; I couldn't really see her features."
"That was no reason for kissing them, was it?"
"No—oh, not at all. The waythatcame about was most extraordinary. You see, we were both amazed to find our two noses so close together, and I said—something foolish—and she laughed—the prettiest, disconcerted little laugh, and that moon was there, and suddenly, to my astonishment, I realised that I was going to kiss her if she didn't move.... And—she didn't."
"You mean to say——"
"Yes, I do; I haven't the faintest notion who it was I kissed. It couldn't have been the Countess, because I've neither fought any duels nor have I been arrested. I refuse to believe it could have been the cook, because there was something about that kiss indescribably aromatic—and, Kingsbury, she didn't say a word—she scarcely breathed. Now a cook would have screamed, you know——"
"Idon'tknow," interrupted Kingsbury.
"No, no, of course—neither do I."
"Idiot!" said Kingsbury wrathfully. "Suppose ithadbeen the Countess! Think of the consequences! Keep away from that wall and don't attempt to ape the depravity of a morally sick continent. You shocked me in Paris; you're mortifying me here. If you think I'm going to be identified with your ragged morals you are mistaken."
"That's right; don't stand for 'em. I've been reading novels, and I need a jar from an intelligence absolutely devoid of imagination."
"You'll get it if you don't behave yourself," said Kingsbury complacently. "The Countess of Semois probably knows who we are, and ten to one we'll meet her at that charity bazar at Semois-les-Bains this afternoon."
"I'm not going," said Smith, breaking an egg.
"Not going? You said you would go. Our Ambassadorwill be there, and we can meet the Countess if we want to."
"I don't want to. Suppose, after all, I had kissedher! No, I'm not going, I tell you."
"Very well; that's your own affair," observed the other, serenely occupied with the trout. "Perhaps you're right, too; perhaps the happy scullion whom you honoured may have complained about you to her mistress."
Smith sullenly tinkled the bell for more toast; a doll-faced maid in cap and apron brought it.
"Probably," said Kingsbury in English, "thatis the species you fondled——"
Smith opened his novel and pretended to read; Kingsbury picked up the morning paper, propped it against a carafe, sipped his coffee, and inspected the headlines through his single eyeglass. For a few minutes peace and order hovered over the American breakfast; the men were young and in excellent appetite; the fragrance of the flowers was not too intrusive; discreet breezes stirred the leaves; and well-behaved little birds sang judiciously in several surrounding bushes.
As Kingsbury's eyes wandered over the paper, gradually focussing up a small paragraph, a frown began to gather on his youthful features.
"Here's a nice business!" he said, disgusted.
Smith looked up indifferently. "Well, what is it?" he asked, and then, seeing the expression on his friend's face, added: "Oh, I'll bet I know!"
"This," said Kingsbury, paying him no attention, "is simply sickening."
"A young life bartered for a coronet?" inquired Smith, blandly.
"Yes. Isn't it shameful? What on earth are our women thinking of? Are you aware, Smith, that over ninety-seven and three tenths per cent of such marriages are unhappy? Are you? Why, I could sit here and give you statistics——"
"Don't, all the same."
"Statistics that would shock even you. And I say solemnly, that I, as an American, as a humanitarian, as a student of social economics——"
"Help! Help!" complained Smith, addressing the butter.
"Social economics," repeated the other, firmly, "as a patriot, a man, and a future father, I am astounded at the women of my native land! Race suicide is not alone what menaces us; it is the exportation of our finest and most vigorous stock to upbuild a bloodless and alien aristocracy at our expense."
Smith reached for the toast-rack.
"And if there's one thing that irritates me," continued Kingsbury, "it's the spectacle of wholesomeAmerican girls marrying titles. Every time they do it I get madder, too. Short-sighted people like you shrug their shoulders, but I tell you, Smith, it's a terrible menace to our country. Beauty, virtue, wealth, all are being drawn away from America into the aristocratic purlieus of England and the Continent."
"Then I think you ought to see about it at once," said Smith, presenting himself with another slice of toast.
Kingsbury applied marmalade to a muffin and flattened out the newspaper.
"I tell you what," he said, "some American ought to give them a dose of their own medicine."
"How?"
"By coming over here and marrying a few of their titled women."
Smith sipped his coffee, keeping his novel open with the other hand: "We do that sort of thing very frequently in literature, I notice. There's an American doing it now in this novel. I've read lots of novels like it, too." He laid his head on one side, musing. "As far as I can calculate from the romantic literature I have absorbed, I should say that we Americans have already carried off practically all of the available titled beauties of Europe."
"My friend," said Kingsbury, coldly, "do you realise that I am serious?"
"About what?"
"About this scandalous chase after titles. In the book on which I am now engaged I am embodying the following economic propositions: For every good, sweet, wholesome American girl taken from America to bolster up a degenerate title, we men of America ought to see to it that a physically sound and titled young woman be imported and married to one of us."
"Why a titled one?"
"So that Europe shall feel it the more keenly," replied Kingsbury sternly. "I've often pondered the matter. If only one American could be found sufficiently self-sacrificing to step forward and set the example by doing it, I am convinced, Smith, that the tardy wheels of justice would begin to revolve and rouse a nation too long imposed upon."
"Why don't you do something in that way yourself? There's a fine physical specimen of the Belgian nobility in the villa next door."
"I don't know her," said Kingsbury, turning a delicate shell pink.
"You will when you go to the bazar. Stop fiddling with that newspaper and answer me like a man."
But Kingsbury only reopened the newspaper and blandly scanned the columns. Presently he beganmuttering aloud as he skimmed paragraph after paragraph; but his mutterings were ignored by Smith, who, coffee-cup in hand, was again buried in his novel.
"I've a mind to try it," repeated Kingsbury in a higher key. "It is the duty of every decent American to improve his own race. If we want physical perfection in anything don't we select the best type obtainable? Why don't we do it in marrying? I tell you, Smith, this is the time for individual courage, honesty and decency. Our duty is clear; we must meet the impoverishment, which these titled marriages threaten, with a restless counter-raid into the enemy's country. When a European takes from us one of our best, let us take from Europe her best, health for health, wealth for wealth, title for title! By Heaven, Smith, I'm going to write a volume on this."
"Oh, you're going towriteabout it."
"I am."
"And then what?" asked Smith taking the newspaper from Kingsbury and opening it.
"What then? Why—why, some of us ought to give our country an example. I'm willing to do it—when I have time——"
"Here's your chance, then," urged Smith, studying the society column. "Here's all about the charitybazar at Semois-les-Bains this afternoon. The Countess sells dolls there. Our Ambassador will be on hand, and you can meet her easily enough. The rest," he added, politely, "will, of course, be easy."
Kingsbury lighted a cigar, leaned back in his chair, and flung one booted leg over the other.
"If I were not here in Belgium for a rest—" he began.
"You are—but not alone for bodily and mental repose. Think how it would rest your conscience to offset that marriage which has irritated you by marrying the Countess of Semois—by presenting to your surprised and admiring country a superb and titled wife for patriotic purposes."
"I don't know which she is," retorted Kingsbury, intensely annoyed. "If she's the tall girl with dark hair and lots colour I could manage to fall in love easily enough. I may add, Smith, that you have an extraordinary way of messing up the English language."
He arose, walking out toward the gate, where the smiling little postman came trotting up to meet him, fishing out a dozen letters and papers.
"Letters from home, Smith," he observed, strolling back to the arbour. "Here's one for you"—he laid it beside Smith's plate—"and here's one from my sister—I'll just glance at it if you'll excuse me." Heopened it and read placidly for a few moments. Then, of a sudden a terrible change came into his face; he hastily clapped his monocle to his eye, glared at the written page, set his teeth, and crumpled it furiously in his hand.
"Smith," he said, hoarsely, "my sister writes that she's engaged to marry an—an Englishman!"
"What of it?" inquired Smith.
"What of it? I tell you my sister—mysister—mysister—is going to marry a British title!"
"She's probably in love, isn't she? What's the harm——"
"Harm?"
For a full minute Kingsbury stood petrified, glaring at space, then he cast his cigar violently among the roses.
"I have a mind," he said, "to get into a top hat and frock coat and drive to Semois-les-Bains.... You say she sells dolls?"
"She's due to sell 'em, according to the morning paper."
For a few moments more Kingsbury paced the lawn; colour, due to wrath or rising excitement, touched his smooth, handsome face, deepening the mask of tan. He was good to look upon, and one of the most earnest young men the gods had ever slighted.
"You think I'm all theory, don't you?" he said, nervously. "You shrug those flippant shoulders of yours when I tell you what course an American who honors his country should pursue. Now I'll prove to you whether or not I'm sincere. I am deliberately going to marry the Countess of Semois; and this afternoon I shall take the necessary measures to fall in love with her. That," he added, excitedly, "can be accomplished if she is the dark-haired girl we've seen driving."
"Now, I don't suppose you really intend to do such a——"
"Yes, I do! It sounds preposterous, but it's logical. I'm going to practice what I expect to spend my life in preaching; that's all. Not that I want to marry just now—I don't; it's inconvenient. I don't want to fall in love, I don't want to marry, I don't want to have a dozen children," he said, irritably; "but I'm going to, Smith! I'm going to, for the sake of my country. Pro patria et gloria!"
"Right away?"
"What rot you talk, sometimes! But I'm ready to make my words mean something; I'm ready to marry the Countess of Semois. There is no possible room for doubt; any man can marry any woman he wants to; that is my absolute conviction. Anyhow, I shall ask her."
"As soon as you meet her?"
"Certainly not. I expect to take several days about it——"
"Why employ several days in sweet dissembling?"
"Confound it, I'm not going to dissemble! I'm going to let her know that I admire her the moment I meet her. I'm going to tell her about my theory of scientific marriages. If she is sensible—if she is the woman America requires—if she is the dark-haired girl—she'll understand." He turned squarely on Smith: "As for you, if you were the sort of American that you ought to be you would pick out some ornamental and wholesome young Belgian aristocrat and marry her in the shortest time that decency permits! That's what you'd do if you had a scintilla of patriotism in your lazy make-up!"
"No, I wouldn't——"
"You would! Look at yourself—a great, hulking, wealthy, idle young man, who stands around in puddles catching fish while Europe runs off our loveliest women under your bovine nose. Shame on you! Have you no desire to be up and doing?"
"Oh, of course," said Smith, unruffled; "if several passion-smitten duchesses should climb over the big wall yonder and chase me into the garden——"
Kingsbury swung on his spurred heels and strode into the house.
Smith sauntered out to the terrace, looked at the sky, sniffed the roses, and sat down in the shadow of a cherry tree, cocking his feet up and resting his novel on his knees. Several hours later, aroused by the mellow clash of harness and noise of wheels, he looked out over the terrace wall just in time to catch a glimpse of the victoria of his neighbour, gold and green livery, strawberry roans, flashing wheels and all; and quite alone under her brilliant sunshade, the dark-haired girl whom Kingsbury had decided to marry as soon as he could arrange to fall in love with her.
"I fancy she's the Countess, all right," mused Smith; "but, to me, the girl with red hair is vastly—more—more alluring——"
The sound of wheels again broke the thread of his sleepy meditation; their dog-cart was at the gate; and presently he perceived Kingsbury, hatted and gloved to perfection, get in, take the reins from the coachman, loop his whip, assume the posture popularly attributed to pupils of Howlett, and go whirling away through the lazy sunshine of a perfect Belgian afternoon.
"The beast has lunched without me," muttered Smith, yawning and looking at his watch. Then he got up, stretched, tinkled the bell, and when the doll-faced maid arrived, requested an omelet à la Semois and a bottle of claret.
He got it in due time, absorbed it lazily, casting a weatherwise eye on the sky at intervals with a view to afternoon fishing; but the sun was too bright; besides, his book had become interesting in a somewhat maudlin fashion, inasmuch as the lovers must come to a clinch in the next chapter or not at all.
"You can't tell in modern novels," he muttered; "a girl has a way of side-stepping just as the bell rings: but the main guy ought to make good within the next page or two. If he doesn't he's a dub!"
With which comment he sought his hammock for an hour's needed repose; but he had slumbered longer than that when he found himself sitting bolt upright, the telephone bell ringing in his ears.
Comfortably awake now, he slid from the hammock, and, entering the house, stepped into the smoking-room.
"Hello!" he said, unhooking the receiver.
Kingsbury's voice replied: "I'm here in Semois-les-Bains, at the charity bazar. Can you distinguish what I say?"
"Perfectly, my Romeo! Proceed."
"I'm in a fix. Our Ambassador didn't come, and I don't know anybody to take me over and present me."
"Buy a doll, idiot!"
"Confound it, I've already bought ten! That doesn't give me the privilege of doing anything but buying ten more. She's busy; about five million people are crowding around her."
"Buy every doll she has! Put her out of business, man! Then if you can't fix it somehow you're a cuckoo. Is the Countess the dark-haired girl?"
"Certainly."
"How do you know?"
"Isn't she here selling dolls? Didn't the paper say she was going to?"
"Yes—but hadn't you better find out for certain before you——"
"I am certain; anyway, I don't care. Smith, she is the most radiantly——"
"All right; ring off——"
"Wait! I wanted to tell you that she has the prettiest way of smiling every time I buy a doll. And then, while she wraps up the infernal thing in ribbons and tissue we chat a little. I'd like to murder our Ambassador! Do you think that if I bought her entire stock——"
"Yes, I do!"
"What do you think?"
"What you do."
"But I don't think anything at all. I am asking you——"
"Try it, anyhow."
"All right. Hold the wire, Smith. I'll report progress——"
"What! Stand here and wait——"
"Don't be selfish. I'll return in a moment."
The "moment" stretched into a buzzing, crackling half hour, punctuated by impatient inquiries from Central. Suddenly an excited: "Hello, Smith!"
"Hello, you infernal——"
"I've done it! I've bought every doll! She's thesweetest thing; I told her I had a plan for endowing a ward in any old hospital she might name, and she thinks we ought to talk it over, so I'm going to sit out on the terrace with her—Smith!"
"What?"
"Oh, I thought you'd gone! I only wanted to say that she is far, far lovelier than I had supposed. I can't wait here talking with you any longer. Good-by!"
"Is she the Countess?" shouted Smith incredulously. But Kingsbury had rung off.
Smith retired to his room to bathe, clothed himself in snowy linen and fresh tennis flannels, and descended again, book under his arm, to saunter forth through heavy tangles of cinnamon-tinted Flemish roses and great sweet-scented peonies, musing on love and fate.
"Kingsbury and his theories! The Countess of Semois will think him crazy. She'll think us both crazy! And I am not sure that we're not; youth is madness; half the world is lunatic! Take me, for example; I never did a more unexpected thing than kissing that shadow across the wall. I don't know why, I don't know how, but I did it; and I am out of jail yet. Certainly it must have been the cook. Oh, Heavens! If cooks kiss that way, what,whatmust the indiscretion of a Countess resemble?...Shedidkiss back.... At least there was a soft, tremulous, perfumed flutter—a hint of delicate counter-pressure——"
But he had arrived at the wall by that time.
"How like a woodland paradise!" he murmured sentimentally, youthful face upraised to the trees. "How sweet the zephyr! How softly sing the dicky-birds! I wonder—I wonder—" But what it was that perplexed him he did not say; he stood eying the top of the wall as the furtive turkey eyes its selected roost before coyly hopping thither.
"What's the use? If I see her I'll only take fright and skulk homeward. Why do I return again and again to the scene of guilt? Is it Countess or cook that draws me, or some one less exalted in the culinary confine? Why, why should love get busy with me? Is this the price I pay for that guileless kiss? Am I to be forever 'it' in love's gay game of tag?"
He ascended the steplike niche in the wall, peeped fearfully over into his neighbour's chasse. Tree and tangle slept in the golden light of afternoon; a cock-pheasant strutted out of a thicket, surveyed the solitude with brilliant eyes, and strutted back again; a baby rabbit frisked across the carrefour into the ferny warren beyond; and "Bubble, bubble, flowed the stream, like an old song through a dream."
Sprawling there flat on top of the sun-warmedstucco wall, white sunlight barring the pages of his book, he lifted his head to listen. There was a leafy stirring somewhere, perhaps the pheasant rustling in the underbrush. The sing-song of the stream threaded the silence; and as he listened it seemed to grow louder, filling the woods with low, harmonious sounds. In the shallows he heard laughter; in the pouring waterfalls, echoes like wind-blown voices calling. Small grey and saffron tinted birds, passing from twig to twig, peered at him fearlessly; a heavy green lizard vanished between the stones with an iridescent wriggle. Suddenly a branch snapped and the underbrush crackled.
"Probably a deer," thought Smith, turning to look. Close inspection of the thicket revealed nothing; he dropped his chin on his hands, crossed his legs, and opened his book.
The book was about one of those Americans who trouble the peace of mind of Princesses; and this was the place to read it, here in the enchanted stillness of the ancient Belgian forest, here where the sunshine spread its net on fretted waters, where lost pools glimmered with azure when the breeze stirred overhead—here where his neighbor was a Countess and some one in her household wore a mass of gold-red hair Greek fashion—and Aphrodite was not whiter of neck nor bluer eyed than she.
The romance that he read was designed to be thickly satisfying to American readers, for it described a typical American so accurately that Smith did not recognize the type. Until he had been enlightened by fiction he never imagined Americans were so attractive to exotic nobility. So he read on, gratified, cloyed, wondering how the Princess, although she happened to be encumbered with a husband, could stand for anything but ultimate surrender to the Stars and Stripes; and trustfully leaving it to another to see that it was done morally.
Hypnotized by the approaching crisis, he had begun already to finger the next page, when a slight crash in the bushes close by and the swish of parting foliage startled him from romance to reality.
But he had looked up too late; to slink away was impossible; to move was to reveal himself. It wasshe! And she was not ten feet distant.
One thing was certain: whether or not she was the shadowy partner of his kiss, she could not be the Countess, because she was fishing, unattended, hatless, the sleeves of her shirtwaist rolled up above her white elbows, a book and a short landing-net tucked under her left arm. Countesses don't go fishing unattended; gillies carry things. Besides, the Countess of Semois was in Semois-les-Bains selling dolls to Kingsbury.
The sun glowed on her splendid red hair; she switched the slender rod about rather awkwardly, and every time the cast of flies became entangled in a nodding willow she set her red lips tight and with an impatient "Mais, c'est trop bête! Mais, c'est vraiment trop——"
It was evident that she had not seen him where he lay on the wall; the chances were she would pass on—indeed her back was already toward him—when the unexpected happened: a trout leaped for a gnat and fell back into the pool with a resounding splash, sending ring on ring of sunny wavelets toward the shore.
"Ah!Te voilà!" she said aloud, swinging her line free for a cast.
Smith saw what was coming and tried to dodge, but the silk line whistled on the back-cast, and the next moment his cap was snatched from his head and deposited some twenty feet out in the centre of the pool.
The amazement of the fair angler was equal to his own as she looked hastily back over her shoulder and discovered him on the wall.
There is usually something undignified about a man whose hat has been knocked off; to laugh is as fatal as to show irritation; and Smith did neither, but quietly dropped over to her side of the wall,saying, "I'm awfully sorry I spoiled your cast. Don't mind the cap; that trout was a big one, and he may rise again."
He had spoken in English, and she answered in very pretty English: "I am so sorry—could I help you to recover your hat?"
"Thank you; if you would let me take your rod a moment."
"Willingly, monsieur."
She handed him the rod; he loosened the line, measured the distance with practiced eye, turned to look behind him, and, seeing there was scant room for a long back-cast, began sending loop after loop of silken line forward across the water, using the Spey method, of which none except an expert is master.
The first cast struck half-way, but in line; the next, still in line, slipped over the cap, but failed to hook. Then, as he recovered, there was a boiling rush in the water, a flash of pink and silver, and the rod staggered.
"I—I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed aghast; "I have hooked your trout!"
"Play him," she said quickly. The elfin shriek of the reel answered; he gave the fish every ounce the quivering rod could spare, the great trout surged deeply, swerved, circled and bored slowly upstream.
"This fish is magnificent," said Smith, guiltily. "You really must take the rod——"
"I shall not, indeed."
"But this is not fair!"
"It is perfectly fair, monsieur—and a wonderful lesson in angling to me. Oh, I beg you to be careful! There is a sunken tree limb beyond!"
Her cheeks were the colour of wild roses, her blue eyes burned like stars.
"He's down; I can't stir him," said Smith. "He's down like a salmon!"
She linked her hands behind her back. "What is to be done?" she asked calmly.
"If you would gather a handful of those pebbles and throw one at a time into the pool where he is lying——"
Before he finished speaking she had knelt, filled her palms with golden gravel, and stood ready at the water's edge.
"Now?" she nodded, inquiringly.
"Yes, one at a time; try to hit him."
The first pebble produced no effect; neither did the second, nor yet the third.
"Throw a handful at him," he suggested, and braced himself for the result. A spray of gravel fell; the great fish sulked motionless.
"There's a way—" began Smith, feeling in his pockets for his key-ring. It was not there.
"Could I be of any use?" she asked, looking up at Smith very guilelessly.
"Why, if I had something—a key-ring or anything that I could hang over the taut line—something that would slide down and jog him gently——"
"A hairpin?" she asked.
"I'm afraid it's too light."
She reflected a moment; her bent forefinger brushed her velvet lips. Then she began to unfasten a long gold pin at her throat.
"Oh, not that!" exclaimed Smith, anxiously. "It might slip off."
"It can't; there's a safety clasp. Anyway, we must have that trout!"
"But I could not permit——"
"It is I who permit myself, monsieur."
"No, no, it is too generous of you——"
"Please!" She held the pin toward him; he shook his head; she hesitated, then with a quick movement she snapped the clasp over the taut line and sent it spinning toward the invisible fish.
He saw the gold glimmer become a spark under water, die out in dusky depths; then came a rushing upheaval of spray, a flash, the rod quivered to the reel-plate, and the fight began in fury. The rod wasso slim, so light—scarce three ounces—that he could but stand on the defensive at first. Little by little the struggle became give and take, then imperceptibly he forced the issue, steadily, delicately, for the tackle was gossamer, and he fought for the safety of the golden clasp as well as for his honour as an angler.
"Do you know how to net a trout?" he asked presently. She came and stood at his shoulder, net poised, blue eyes intent upon the circling fish.
"I place it behind him, do I not?" she asked coolly.
"Yes—when I give the word——"
One more swerve, a half circle sheering homeward, nearer, nearer——
A moment later the huge trout lay on the moss; iridescent tints played over its broad surface, shimmering hues deepened, waxing, warning; the spots glowed like rubies set in bronze.
Kneeling there, left hand resting on the rod, Smith looked up at her over his shoulder; but all she said was: "Ah, the poor, brave thing! The gallant fish! This is wrong—all wrong. I wish we had not taken a life we cannot give again."
"Shall I put the trout back madame?"
She looked at him surprised.
"Would you?" she asked incredulously.
"If you desire it."
"But it is your fish."
"It is yours, madame."
"Will it live? Oh, try to make it live!"
He lifted the beautiful fish in both hands, and, walking to the water's edge, laid it in the stream. For a while it floated there, gold and silver belly turned to the sky, gills slowly inflating and collapsing. Presently a fin stirred; the spasmodic movement of the gill-covers ceased, and the breathing grew quiet and steady. Smith touched the pectoral fins; the fish strove to turn over; he steadied the dorsal fin, then the caudal, righting the fish. Slowly, very slowly, the great trout moved off, farther, farther, sinking into cool, refreshing depths; there was a dull glitter under the water, a shadow gliding, then nothing except the green obscurity of the pool criss-crossed with surface sunshine.
When Smith turned around the girl was pensively regarding the water. His cap had stranded on a shoal almost at his feet; he recovered it, wrung the drops from it, and stood twirling it thoughtfully in the sunlight.
"I've ruined it, haven't I?" she asked.
"Oh, no; it's a shooting-cap. Like Tartarin, I shall probably ventilate it later in true Midi fashion."
She laughed; then, with the flushed composure of uneasiness: "Thank you for a lesson in angling. Ihave learned a great deal—enough at least to know that I shall not care to destroy life, even in a fish."
"That is as it should be," he replied coolly. "Men find little charm in women who kill."
"That is scarcely in accord with the English novels I read—and I read many," she said laughing.
"It is true, nevertheless. Saint Hubert save us from the woman who can watch the spark of life fade out in the eye of any living thing."
"Are you not a little eccentric, monsieur?"
"If you say so. Eccentricity is the full-blown blossom of mediocrity."