A Chapter Concerning Drusilla, Pa-pah and a Minion
Capital had now been furnished for The Green Mouse, Limited; a great central station of white marble was being built, facing Madison Avenue and occupying the entire block front between Eighty-second and Eighty-third streets.
The building promised to be magnificent; the plans provided for a thousand private operating rooms, each beautifully furnished in Louis XVI style, a restaurant, a tea room, a marriage licence bureau, and an emergency chapel where first aid clergymen were to be always in attendance.
In each of the thousand Louis XVI operating rooms a Destyn-Carr wireless instrument was to stand upon a rococo table. A maid to every two rooms, a physician to every ten, and smelling salts to each room, were provided for in this gigantic enterprise.
Millions of circulars were being prepared to send broadcast over the United States. They read as follows:
ARE YOU IN LOVE? IF NOT, WHY NOT?Wedlock by Wireless. Marriage by Machinery. A Wondrous Wooer Without Words! No more doubt; no more hesitation; no more uncertainty. The Destyn-Carr Wireless Apparatus does it all for you. Happy Marriage Guaranteed or money eagerly refunded!Psychical Science says that for every man and woman on earth there is a predestined mate!That mate can be discovered for you by The Green Mouse, Limited.Why waste time with costly courtship? Why frivol? Why fuss?There is only ONE mate created for YOU. You pay us; We find that ONE, thereby preventing mistakes, lawsuits, elopements, regrets, grouches, alimony.Divorce Absolutely EliminatedBy Our Infallible Wireless MethodSuccess CertainIt is now known the world over that Professor William Augustus Destyn has discovered that the earth we live on is enveloped in Psychical Currents. By the Destyn-Carr instrument these currents may be tapped, controlled and used to communicate between two people of opposite sex whose subconscious and psychic personalities are predestined to affinity and amorous accord. In other words, when psychic waves from any individual are collected or telegraphed along these wireless psychical currents, only that one affinity attuned to receive them can properly respond.We catch your psychic waves for you. We send them out into the world.WATCH THAT SPARK!When you see a tiny bluish-white spark tip the tentacle of the Destyn-Carr transmitter,THE WORLD IS YOURS!for $25.Our method is quick, painless, merciful and certain. Fee, twenty-five dollars in advance. Certified checks accepted.THE GREEN MOUSE, Limited.President PROF. WM. AUGUSTUS DESTYN.Vice-Presidents THE HON. KILLIAN VAN K. VANDERDYNK.THE HON. GEORGE GRAY, 3D.Treasurer THE HON. BUSHWYCK CARR.
ARE YOU IN LOVE? IF NOT, WHY NOT?
Wedlock by Wireless. Marriage by Machinery. A Wondrous Wooer Without Words! No more doubt; no more hesitation; no more uncertainty. The Destyn-Carr Wireless Apparatus does it all for you. Happy Marriage Guaranteed or money eagerly refunded!
Psychical Science says that for every man and woman on earth there is a predestined mate!
That mate can be discovered for you by The Green Mouse, Limited.
Why waste time with costly courtship? Why frivol? Why fuss?
There is only ONE mate created for YOU. You pay us; We find that ONE, thereby preventing mistakes, lawsuits, elopements, regrets, grouches, alimony.
Divorce Absolutely Eliminated
By Our Infallible Wireless Method
Success Certain
It is now known the world over that Professor William Augustus Destyn has discovered that the earth we live on is enveloped in Psychical Currents. By the Destyn-Carr instrument these currents may be tapped, controlled and used to communicate between two people of opposite sex whose subconscious and psychic personalities are predestined to affinity and amorous accord. In other words, when psychic waves from any individual are collected or telegraphed along these wireless psychical currents, only that one affinity attuned to receive them can properly respond.
We catch your psychic waves for you. We send them out into the world.
WATCH THAT SPARK!
When you see a tiny bluish-white spark tip the tentacle of the Destyn-Carr transmitter,
THE WORLD IS YOURS!
for $25.
Our method is quick, painless, merciful and certain. Fee, twenty-five dollars in advance. Certified checks accepted.
THE GREEN MOUSE, Limited.
President PROF. WM. AUGUSTUS DESTYN.Vice-Presidents THE HON. KILLIAN VAN K. VANDERDYNK.THE HON. GEORGE GRAY, 3D.Treasurer THE HON. BUSHWYCK CARR.
These circulars were composed, illuminated and printed upon vellum by what was known as an "Art" community in West Borealis, N.J. Several tons were expected for delivery early in June.
Meanwhile, the Carr family and its affiliations had invested every cent they possessed in Green Mouse, Limited; and those who controlled the stock were Bushwyck Carr; William Augustus Destyn and Mrs. Destyn, née Ethelinda Carr; Mr. Killian Van K. Vanderdynk and Mrs. Vanderdynk, née Sacharissa Carr; George Gray and Mrs. Gray, very lately Sybilla Carr; and the unmarried triplets, Flavilla and Drusilla Carr.
Remembering with a shudder how Bell Telephone and Standard Oil might once have been bought for a song, Bushwyck Carr determined that in this case his pudgy fingers should not miss the forelock of Time and the divided skirts of Chance.
Squinting at the viewless ether through his monocle he beheld millions in it; so did William Augustus Destyn and the other sons-in-law.
Only the unmarried triplets, Flavilla and Drusilla, remained amiably indifferent in the midst of all these family financial scurryings and preparations to secure world patents in a monopoly which promised the social regeneration of the globe.
The considerable independent fortunes that their mother had left them they invested in Green Mouse, at their father's suggestion; but further than that they took no part in the affair.
For a while the hurry and bustle and secret family conferences mildly interested them. Very soon, however, the talk of psychic waves and millions bored them; and as soon as the villa at Oyster Bay was opened they were glad enough to go.
Here, at Oyster Bay, there was some chance of escaping their money-mad and wave-intoxicated family; they could entertain and be entertained by both of the younger sets in that dignified summer resort; they could wander about their own vast estate alone; they could play tennis, sail, swim, ride, and drive their tandem.
But best of all--for they were rather seriously inclined at the age of eighteen, or, rather, on the verge of nineteen--they adored sketching, in water colors, out of doors.
Scrubby forelands set with cedars, shadow-flecked paths under the scrub oak, meadows where water glimmered, white sails off Center Island and Cooper's Bluff--Cooper's Bluff from the north, northeast, east, southeast, south--this they painted with never-tiring, Pecksniffian patience, boxing the compass around it as enthusiastically as that immortal architect circumnavigated Salisbury Cathedral.
And one delicious morning in early June, when the dew sparkled on the poison ivy and the air was vibrant with the soft monotone of mosquitoes and the public road exhaled a delicate aroma of crude oil, Drusilla and Flavilla, laden with sketching-blocks, color-boxes, camp-stools, white umbrellas and bonbons, descended to the great hall, on sketching bent.
Mr. Carr also stood there, just outside on the porch, red, explosive, determined legs planted wide apart, defying several courtly reporters, who for a month had patiently and politely appeared every hour to learn whether Mr. Carr had anything to say about the new invention, rumors of which were flying thick about Park Row.
"No, I haven't!" he shouted in his mellow and sonorously musical bellow. "I have told you one hundred times that when I have anything to say I'll send for you. Now, permit me to inform you, for the hundred and first consecutive time, that I have nothing to say--which won't prevent you from coming back in an hour and standing in exactly the same ridiculous position you now occupy, and asking me exactly the same unmannerly questions, and taking the same impertinent snapshots at my house and my person!"
He executed a ferocious facial contortion, clapped the monocle into his left eye, and squinted fiercely.
"I'm getting tired of this!" he continued. "When I wake in the morning and look out of my window there are always anywhere from one to twenty reporters decorating my lawn! That young man over there is the worst and most persistent offender!"--scowling at a good-looking youth in white flannels, who immediately blushed distressingly. "Yes, you are, young man! I'm amazed that you have the decency to blush! Your insolent sheet, the Evening Star, refers to my Trust Company as a Green Mouse Trap and aMouseleum. It also publishes preposterous pictures of myself and family. Dammit, sir, they even produce a photograph of Orlando, the family cat! You did it, I am told. Did you?"
"I am trying to do what I can for my paper, Mr. Carr," said the young man. "The public is interested."
Mr. Carr regarded him with peculiar hatred.
"Come here," he said; "Ihavegot something to say toyou."
The young man cautiously left the ranks of his fellows and came up on the porch. Behind Mr. Carr, in the doorway, stood Drusilla and Flavilla. The young man tried not to see them; he pretended not to. But he flushed deeply.
"I want to know," demanded Mr. Carr, "why the devil you are always around here blushing. You've been around here blushing for a month, and I want to know why you do it."
The youth stood speechless, features afire to the tips of his glowing ears.
"At first," continued Mr. Carr, mercilessly, "I had a vague hope that you might perhaps be blushing for shame at your profession; I heard that you were young at it, and I was inclined to be sorry for you. But I'm not sorry any more!"
The young man remained crimson and dumb.
"Confound it," resumed Mr. Carr, "I want to know why the deuce you come and blush all over my lawn. I won't stand it! I'll not allow anybody to come blushing around me----"
Indignation choked him; he turned on his heel to enter the house and beheld Flavilla and Drusilla regarding him, wide-eyed.
He went in, waving them away before him.
"I've taught that young pup a lesson," he said with savage satisfaction. "I'll teach him to blush at me! I'll----"
"But why," asked Drusilla, "are you so cruel to Mr. Yates? We like him."
"Mr.--Mr.Yates!" repeated her father, astonished. "Is that his name? And who toldyou?"
"He did," said Drusilla, innocently.
"He--that infernal newspaper bantam----"
"Pa-pah!Please don't say that about Mr. Yates. He is really exceedingly kind and civil to us. Every time you go to town on business he comes and sketches with us at----"
"Oh," said Mr. Carr, with the calm of deadly fury, "so he goes to Cooper's Bluff with you when I'm away, does he?"
Flavilla said: "He doesn't exactly go with us; but he usually comes there to sketch. He makes sketches for his newspaper."
"Does he?" asked her father, grinding his teeth.
"Yes," said Drusilla; "and he sketches so beautifully. He made such perfectly charming drawings of Flavilla and of me, and he drew pictures of the house and gardens, and of all the servants, and"--she laughed--"I once caught a glimpse in his sketch-book of the funniest caricature of you----"
The expression on her father's face was so misleading in its terrible calm that she laughed again, innocently.
"It was not at all an offensive caricature, you know--really it was not a caricature at all--it wasyou--just the way you stand and look at people when you are--slightly--annoyed----"
"Oh, he is so clever," chimed in Flavilla, "and is so perfectly well-bred and so delightful to us--to Drusilla particularly. He wrote the prettiest set of verses--To Drusilla in June--just dashed them off while he was watching her sketch Cooper's Bluff from the southwest----"
"He is really quite wonderful," added Drusilla, sincerely, "and so generous and helpful when my drawing becomes weak and wobbly----"
"Mr. Yates shows Drusilla how to hold her pencil," said Flavilla, becoming warmly earnest in her appreciation of this self-sacrificing young man. "He often lays aside his own sketching and guides Drusilla's hand while she holds the pencil----"
"And when I'm tired," said Drusilla, "and the water colors get into a dreadful mess, Mr. Yates will drop his own work and come and talk to me about art--and other things----"
"He issokind!" cried Flavilla in generous enthusiasm.
"Andsovitally interesting," said Drusilla.
"And so talented!" echoed Flavilla.
"And so--" Drusilla glanced up, beheld something in the fixed stare of her parent that frightened her, and rose in confusion. "Have I said-- done--anything?" she faltered.
With an awful spasm Mr. Carr jerked his congested features into the ghastly semblance of a smile.
"Not at all," he managed to say. "This is very interesting--what you tell me about this p-pu--this talented young man. Does he--does he seem-- attracted toward you--unusually attracted?"
"Yes," said Drusilla, smiling reminiscently.
"How do you know?"
"Because he once said so."
"S-said--w-what?"
"Why, he said quite frankly that he thought me the most delightful girl he had ever met."
"What--else?" Mr. Carr's voice was scarcely audible.
"Nothing," said Drusilla; "except that he said he cared for me very much and wished to know whether I ever could care very much for him.... I told him I thought I could. Flavilla told him so, too.... And we all felt rather happy, I think; at least I did."
Her parent emitted a low, melodious sort of sound, a kind of mellifluous howl.
"Pa-pah!" they exclaimed in gentle consternation.
He beat at the empty air for a moment like a rotund fowl about to seek its roost. Suddenly he ran distractedly at an armchair and kicked it.
They watched him in sorrowful amazement.
"If we are going to sketch Cooper's Bluff this morning," observed Drusilla to Flavilla, "I think we had better go--quietly--by way of the kitchen garden. Evidently Pa-pah does not care for Mr. Yates."
Orlando, the family cat, strolled in, conciliatory tail hoisted. Mr. Carr hurled a cushion at Orlando, then beat madly upon his own head with both hands. Servants respectfully gave him room; some furniture was overturned--a chair or two--as he bounced upward and locked and bolted himself in his room.
What transports of fury he lived through there nobody else can know; what terrible visions of vengeance lit up his outraged intellect, what cold intervals of quivering hate, what stealthy schemes of reprisal, what awful retribution for young Mr. Yates were hatched in those dreadful moments, he alone could tell. And as he never did tell, how can I know?
However, in about half an hour his expression of stony malignity changed to a smile so cunningly devilish that, as he caught sight of himself in the mirror, his corrugated countenance really startled him.
"I must smooth out--smooth out!" he muttered. "Smoothness does it!" And he rang for a servant and bade him seek out a certain Mr. Yates among the throng of young men who had been taking snapshots.
During Which Chapter Mr. Carr Sings and One of His Daughters Takes her Postgraduate
Mr. Yates came presently, ushered by Ferdinand, and looking extremely worried. Mr. Carr received him in his private office with ominous urbanity.
"Mr. Yates," he said, forcing a distorted smile, "I have rather abruptly decided to show you exactly how one of the Destyn-Carr instruments is supposed to work. Would you kindly stand here--close by this table?"
Mr. Yates, astounded, obeyed.
"Now," said Mr. Carr, with a deeply creased smile, "here is the famous Destyn-Carr apparatus. That's quite right--take a snapshot at it without my permission----"
"I--I thought----"
"Quite right, my boy; I intend you shall know all about it. You see it resembles the works of a watch.... Now, when I touch this spring the receiver opens and gathers in certain psychic waves which emanate from the subconscious personality of--well, let us say you, for example!... And now I touch this button. You see that slender hairspring of Rosium uncurl and rise, trembling and waving about like a tentacle?"
Young Yates, notebook in hand, recovered himself sufficiently to nod. Mr. Carr leered at him:
"That tentacle," he explained, "is now seeking some invisible, wireless, psychic current along which it is to transmit the accumulated psychic waves. As soon as the wireless current finds the subconscious personality of the woman you are destined to love and marry some day----"
"I?" exclaimed young Yates, horrified.
"Yes, you. Why not? Do you mind my trying it on you?"
"But I am already in love," protested the young man, turning, as usual, a ready red. "I don't care to have you try it on me. Suppose that machine should connect me with--some other--girl----"
"It has!" cried Carr with a hideous laugh as a point of bluish-white fire tipped the tentacle for an instant. "You're tied fast to something feminine! Probably a flossy typewriter--or a burlesque actress--somebody you're fitted for, anyway!" He clapped on his monocle, and glared gleefully at the stupefied young man.
"That will teach you to enter my premises and hold my daughter's hand when she is drawing innocent pictures of Cooper's Bluff!" he shouted. "That will teach you to write poems to my eighteen-year-old daughter, Drusilla; that will teach you to tell her you are in love with her--you young pup!"
"I am in love with her!" said Yates, undaunted; but he was very white when he said it. "I do love her; and if you had behaved halfway decently I'd have told you so two weeks ago!"
Mr. Carr turned a delicate purple, then, recovering, laughed horribly.
"Whether or not you were once in love with my daughter is of no consequence now. That machine has nullified your nonsense! That instrument has found you your proper affinity--doubtless below stairs----"
"Iamstill in love with Drusilla," repeated Yates, firmly.
"I tell you, you're not!" retorted Carr. "Didn't I turn that machine on you? It has never missed yet! The Green Mouse has gotyouin the Mouseleum!"
"You are mistaken," insisted Yates, still more firmly. "I was in love with your daughter Drusilla before you started the machine; and I love her yet! Now! At the present time! This very instant I am loving her!"
"You can't!" shouted Carr.
"Yes, I can. And I do!"
"No, you don't! I tell you it's a scientific and psychical impossibility for you to continue to love her! Your subconscious personality is now in eternal and irrevocable accord and communication with the subconscious personality of some chit of a girl who is destined to love and marry you! And she's probably a ballet-girl, at that!"
"I shall marry Drusilla!" retorted the young man, very pale; "because I am quite confident that she loves me, though very probably she doesn't know it yet."
"You talk foolishness!" hissed Carr. "This machine has settled the whole matter! Didn't you see that spark?"
"I saw a spark--yes!"
"And do you mean to tell me you are not beginning to feel queer?"
"Not in the slightest."
"Look me squarely in the eye, young man, and tell me whether you do not have a sensation as though your heart were cutting capers?"
"Not in the least," said Yates, calmly. "If that machine worked at all it wouldn't surprise me if you yourself had become entangled in it--caught in your own machine!"
"W-what!" exclaimed Carr, faintly.
"It wouldn't astonish me in the slightest," repeated Yates, delighted to discover the dawning alarm in the older man's features. "Youopened the receiver;youhave psychic waves as well as I.Iwas in love at the time;youwere not. What was there to prevent your waves from being hitched to a wireless current and, finally, signaling the subconscious personality of--of some pretty actress, for example?"
Mr. Carr sank nervously onto a chair; his eyes, already wild, became wilder as he began to realize the risk he had unthinkingly taken.
"Perhapsyoufeel a little--queer. You look it," suggested the young man, in a voice made anxious by an ever-ready sympathy. "Can I do anything? I am really very sorry to have spoken so."
A damp chill gathered on the brow of Bushwyck Carr. Hedidfeel a trifle queer. A curious lightness--a perfectly inexplicable buoyancy seemed to possess him. He was beginning to feel strangely youthful; the sound of his own heart suddenly became apparent. To his alarm it was beating playfully, skittishly. No--it was not even beating; it was skipping.
"Y-Yates," he stammered, "you don't think that I could p-possibly have become inadvertently mixed up with that horrible machine--do you?"
Now Yates was a generous youth; resentment at the treatment meted out to him by this florid, bad-tempered and pompous gentleman changed to instinctive sympathy when he suddenly realized the plight his future father-in-law might now be in.
"Yates," repeated Mr. Carr in an agitated voice, "tell me honestly:doyou think there is anything unusual the matter with me? I--I seem to f-feel unusually--young. Do I look it? Have I changed? W-watch me while I walk across the room."
Mr. Carr arose with a frightened glance at Yates, put on his hat, and fairly pranced across the room. "Great Heavens!" he faltered; "my hat's on one side and my walk is distinctly jaunty! Do you notice it, Yates?"
"I'm afraid I do, Mr. Carr."
"This--this is infamous!" gasped Mr. Carr. "This is--is outrageous! I'm forty-five! I'm a widower! I detest a jaunty widower! I don't want to be one; I don't want to----"
Yates gazed at him with deep concern.
"Can't you help lifting your legs that way when you walk--as though a band were playing? Wait, I'll straighten your hat. Now try it again."
Mr. Carr pranced back across the room.
"IknowI'm doing it again," he groaned, "but I can't help it! I--I feel so gay--dammit!--so frivolous--it's--it's that infernal machine. W-what am I to do, Yates," he added piteously, "when the world looks so good to me?"
"Think of your family!" urged Yates. "Think of--of Drusilla."
"Do you know," observed Carr, twirling his eyeglass and twisting his mustache, "that I'm beginning not to care what my family think!... Isn't it amazing, Yates? I--I seem to be somebody else, several years younger. Somewhere," he added, with a flourish of his monocle--"somewhere on earth there is a little birdie waiting for me."
"Don't talk that way!" exclaimed Yates, horrified.
"Yes, I will, young man. I repeat, with optimism and emphasis, thatsomewherethere is a birdie----"
"Mr. Carr!"
"Yes, merry old Top!"
"May I use your telephone?"
"I don't care what you do!" said Carr, gayly. "Use my telephone if you like; pull it out by the roots and throw it over Cooper's Bluff, for all I care! But"--and a sudden glimmer of reason seemed to come over him--"if you have one grain of human decency left in you, you won't drag me and my terrible plight into that scurrilous New York paper of yours."
"No," said Yates, "I won't. And that ends my career on Park Row. I'm going to telephone my resignation."
Mr. Carr gazed calmly around and twisted his mustache with a satisfied and retrospective smile.
"That's very decent of you, Yates; you must pardon me; I was naturally half scared to death at first; but I realize you are acting very handsomely in this horrible dilemma----"
"Naturally," interrupted Yates. "I must stand by the family into which I am, as you know, destined to marry."
"To be sure," nodded Carr, absently; "it really looks that way, doesn't it! And, Yates, you have no idea how I hated you an hour ago."
"Yes, I have," said Yates.
"No, you really have not, if you will permit me to contradict you, merry old Top. I--but never mind now. You have behaved in an unusually considerate manner. Who the devil are you, anyway?"
Yates informed him modestly.
"Well, why didn't you say so, instead of letting me bully you! I've known your father for twenty years. Why didn't you tell me you wanted to marry Drusilla, instead of coming and blushing all over the premises? I'd have told you she was too young; and she is! I'd have told you to wait; and you'd have waited. You'd have been civil enough to wait when I explained to you that I've already lost, by marriage, two daughters through that accursed machine. You wouldn't entirely denude me of daughters, would you?"
"I only want one," said John Yates, simply.
"Well, all right; I'm a decent father-in-law when I've got to be. I'm really a good sport. You may ask all my sons-in-law; they'll admit it." He scrutinized the young man and found him decidedly agreeable to look at, and at the same time a vague realization of his own predicament returned for a moment.
"Yates," he said unsteadily, "all I ask of you is to keep this terrible n-news from my innocent d-daughters until I can f-find out what sort of a person is f-fated to lead me to the altar!"
Yates took the offered hand with genuine emotion.
"Surely," he said, "your unknown intended must be some charming leader in the social activities of the great metropolis."
"Who knows! She may be m-my own l-laundress for all I know. She may be anything, Yates! She--she might even be b-black!"
"Black!"
Mr. Carr nodded, shuddered, dashed the unmanly moisture from his eyeglass.
"I think I'd better go to town and tell my son-in-law, William Destyn, exactly what has happened to me," he said. "And I think I'll go through the kitchen garden and take my power boat so that those devilish reporters can't follow me. Ferdinand!" to the man at the door, "ring up the garage and order the blue motor, and tell those newspaper men I'm going to town. That, I think, will glue them to the lawn for a while."
"About--Drusilla, sir?" ventured Yates; but Mr. Carr was already gone, speeding noiselessly out the back way, through the kitchen garden, and across the great tree-shaded lawn which led down to the boat landing.
Across the distant hedge, from the beautiful grounds of his next-door neighbor, floated sounds of mirth and music. Gay flags fluttered among the trees. The Magnelius Grandcourts were evidently preparing for the brilliant charity bazaar to be held there that afternoon and evening.
"To think," muttered Carr, "that only an hour ago I was agreeably and comfortably prepared to pass the entire afternoon there with my daughters, amid innocent revelry. And now I'm in flight--pursued by furies of my own invoking--threatened with love in its most hideous form-- matrimony! Any woman I now look upon may be my intended bride for all I know," he continued, turning into the semiprivate driveway, bordered heavily by lilacs; "and the curious thing about it is that I really don't care; in fact, the excitement is mildly pleasing."
He halted; in the driveway, blocking it, stood a red motor car--a little runabout affair; and at the steering-wheel sat a woman--a lady's maid by her cap and narrow apron, and an exceedingly pretty one, at that.
When she saw Mr. Carr she looked up, showing an edge of white teeth in the most unembarrassed of smiles. She certainly was an unusually agreeable-looking girl.
"Has something gone wrong with your motor?" inquired Mr. Carr, pleasantly.
"I am afraid so." She didn't say "sir"; probably because she was too pretty to bother about such incidentals. And she looked at Carr and smiled, as though he were particularly ornamental.
"Let me see," began Mr. Carr, laying his hand on the steering-wheel; "perhaps I can make it go."
"It won't go," she said, a trifle despondently and shaking her charming head. "I've been here nearly half an hour waiting for it to do something; but it won't."
Mr. Carr peered wisely into the acetylenes, looked carefully under the hood, examined the upholstery. He didn't know anything about motors.
"I'm afraid," he said sadly, "that there's something wrong with the magne-e-to!"
"Do you think it is as bad as that?"
"I fear so," he said gravely. "If I were you I'd get out--and keep well away from that machine."
"Why?" she asked nervously, stepping to the grass beside him.
"Itmightblow up."
They backed away rather hastily, side by side. After a while they backed farther away, hand in hand.
"I--I hate to leave it there all alone," said the maid, when they had backed completely out of sight of the car. "If there was only some safe place where I could watch and see if it is going to explode."
They ventured back a little way and peeped at the motor.
"You could take a rowboat and watch it from the water," said Mr. Carr.
"But I don't know how to row."
Mr. Carr looked at her. Certainly she was the most prepossessing specimen of wholesome, rose-cheeked and ivory-skinned womanhood that he had ever beheld; a trifle nearer thirty-five than twenty-five, he thought, but so sweet and fresh and with such charming eyes and manners.
"I have," said Mr. Carr, "several hours at my disposal before I go to town on important business. If you like I will row you out in one of my boats, and then, from a safe distance, we can sit and watch your motor blow up. Shall we?"
"It is most kind of you----"
"Not at all. It would be most kind of you."
She looked sideways at the motor, sideways at the water, sideways at Mr. Carr.
It was a very lovely morning in early June.
As Mr. Carr handed her into the rowboat with ceremony she swept him a courtesy. Her apron and manners were charmingly incongruous.
When she was gracefully seated in the stern Mr. Carr turned for a moment, stared all Oyster Bay calmly in the face through his monocle, then, untying the painter, fairly skipped into the boat with a step distinctly frolicsome.
"It's curious how I feel about this," he observed, digging both oars into the water.
"Howdo you feel, Mr. Carr?"
"Like a bird," he said softly.
And the boat moved off gently through the sparkling waters of Oyster Bay.
At that same moment, also, the sparkling waters of Oyster Bay were gently caressing the classic contours of Cooper's Bluff, and upon that monumental headland, seated under sketching umbrellas, Flavilla and Drusilla worked, in a puddle of water colors; and John Chillingham Yates, in becoming white flannels and lilac tie and hosiery, lay on the sod and looked at Drusilla.
Silence, delicately accented by the faint harmony of mosquitoes, brooded over Cooper's Bluff.
"There's no use," said Drusilla at last; "one can draw a landscape from every point of view except lookingdownhill. Mr. Yates, how on earth am I to sit here and make a drawing looking down hill?"
"Perhaps," he said, "I had better hold your pencil again. Shall I?"
"Do you think that would help?"
"I think it helps--somehow."
Her pretty, narrow hand held the pencil; his sun-browned hand closed over it. She looked at the pad on her knees.
After a while she said: "I think, perhaps, we had better draw. Don't you?"
They made a few hen-tracks. Noticing his shoulder was just touching hers, and feeling a trifle weary on her camp-stool, she leaned back a little.
"It is very pleasant to have you here," she said dreamily.
"It is very heavenly to be here," he said.
"How generous you are to give us so much of your time!" murmured Drusilla.
"I think so, too," said Flavilla, washing a badger brush. "And I am becoming almost as fond of you as Drusilla is."
"Don't you like him as well as I do?" asked Drusilla.
Flavilla turned on her camp-stool and inspected them both.
"Not quite as well," she said frankly. "You know, Drusilla, you are very nearly in love with him." And she resumed her sketching.
Drusilla gazed at the purple horizon unembarrassed. "Am I?" she said absently.
'Perhaps,' he said, 'I had better hold your pencil again'
"Are you?" he repeated, close to her shoulder.
She turned and looked into his sun-tanned face curiously.
"What is it--to love? Is it"--she looked at him undisturbed--"is it to be quite happy and lazy with a man like you?"
He was silent.
"I thought," she continued, "that there would be some hesitation, some shyness about it--some embarrassment. But there, has been none between you and me."
He said nothing.
She went on absently:
"You said, the other day, very simply, that you cared a great deal for me; and I was not very much surprised. And I said that I cared very much for you.... And, by the way, I meant to ask you yesterday; are we engaged?"
"Are we?" he asked.
"Yes--if you wish.... Isthatall there is to an engagement?"
"There's a ring," observed Flavilla, dabbing on too much ultramarine and using a sponge. "You've got to get her one, Mr. Yates."
Drusilla looked at the man beside her and smiled.
"How simple it is, after all!" she said. "I have read in the books Pa-pah permits us to read such odd things about love and lovers.... Are we lovers, Mr. Yates? But, of course, we must be, I fancy."
"Yes," he said.
"Some time or other, when it is convenient," observed Flavilla, "you ought to kiss each other occasionally."
"That doesn't come until I'm a bride, does it?" asked Drusilla.
"I believe it's a matter of taste," said Flavilla, rising and naively stretching her long, pretty limbs.
She stood a moment on the edge of the bluff, looking down.
"How curious!" she said after a moment. "There is Pa-pah on the water rowing somebody's maid about."
"What!" exclaimed Yates, springing to his feet.
"How extraordinary," said Drusilla, following him to the edge of the bluff; "and they're singing, too, as they row!"
From far below, wafted across the sparkling waters of Oyster Bay, Mr. Carr's rich and mellifluous voice was wafted shoreward:
"I der-reamt that I dwelt in ma-arble h-a-l-ls."
The sunlight fell on the maid's coquettish cap and apron, and sparkled upon the buckle of one dainty shoe. It also glittered across the monocle of Mr. Carr.
"Pa-pah!" cried Flavilla.
Far away her parent waved a careless greeting to his offspring, then resumed his oars and his song.
"How extraordinary!" said Flavilla. "Why do you suppose that Pa-pahis rowing somebody's maid around the bay, and singing that way to her?"
"Perhaps it's one of our maids," said Drusilla; "but that would be rather odd, too, wouldn't it, Mr. Yates?"
"A--little," he admitted. And his heart sank.
Flavilla had started down the sandy face of the bluff.
"I'm going to see whose maid it is," she called back.
Drusilla seated herself in the sun-dried grass and watched her sister.
Yates stood beside her in bitter dejection.
Sothiswas the result! His unfortunate future father-in-law was done for. What a diabolical machine! What a terrible, swift, relentless answer had been returned when, out of space, this misguided gentleman had, by mistake, summoned his own affinity! Andwhatan affinity! A saucy soubrette who might easily have just stepped from thecoulisseof a Parisian theater!
Yates looked at Drusilla. What an awful blow was impending! She never could have suspected it, but there, in that boat, sat her future stepmother in cap and apron!--his own future stepmother-in-law!
And in the misery of that moment's realization John Chillingham Yates showed the material of which he was constructed.
"Dear," he said gently.
"Do you mean me?" asked Drusilla, looking up in frank surprise.
And at the same time she saw on his face a look which she had never before encountered there. It was the shadow of trouble; and it drew her to her feet instinctively.
"What is it, Jack?" she asked.
She had never before called him anything but Mr. Yates.
"What is it?" she repeated, turning away beside him along the leafy path; and with every word another year seemed, somehow, to be added to her youth. "Has anything happened, Jack? Are you unhappy--or ill?"
He did not speak; she walked beside him, regarding him with wistful eyes.
So there was more of love than happiness, after all; she began to half understand it in a vague way as she watched his somber face. There certainly was more of love than a mere lazy happiness; there was solicitude and warm concern, and desire to comfort, to protect.
"Jack," she said tremulously.
He turned and took her unresisting hands. A quick thrill shot through her. Yes, therewasmore to love than she had expected.
"Are you unhappy?" she asked. "Tell me. I can't bear to see you this way. I--I never did--before."
"Will you love me; Drusilla?"
"Yes--yes, I will, Jack."
"Dearly?"
"I do--dearly." The first blush that ever tinted her cheek spread and deepened.
"Will you marry me, Drusilla?"
"Yes.... You frighten me."
She trembled, suddenly, in his arms. Surely there were more things to love than she had dreamed of in her philosophy. She looked up as he bent nearer, understanding that she was to be kissed, awaiting the event which suddenly loomed up freighted with terrific significance.
There was a silence, a sob.
"Jack--darling--I--I love you so!"
Flavilla was sketching on her camp-stool when they returned.
"I'm horridly hungry," she said. "It's luncheon time, isn't it? And, by the way, it's all right about that maid. She was on her way to serve in the tea pavilion at Mrs. Magnelius Grandcourt's bazaar, and her runabout broke down and nearly blew up."
"What on earth are you talking about?" exclaimed Drusilla.
"I'm talking about Mrs. Magnelius Grandcourt's younger sister from Philadelphia, who looks perfectly sweet as a lady's maid. Tea," she added, "is to be a dollar a cup, and three if you take sugar. And," she continued, "if you and I are to sell flowers there this afternoon we'd better go home and dress....Whatare you smiling at, Mr. Yates?"
Drusilla naturally supposed she could answer that question.
"Dearest little sister," she said shyly and tenderly, "we have something very wonderful to tell you."
"What is it?" asked Flavilla.
"We--we are--engaged," whispered Drusilla, radiant.
"Why, I knew that already!" said Flavilla.
"Did you?" sighed her sister, turning to look at her tall, young lover. "I didn't.... Being in love is a much more complicated matter than you and I imagined, Flavilla. Is it not, Jack?"
Containing a Parable Told with Such Metaphorical Skill that the Author Is Totally Unable to Understand It
The Green Mouse now dominated the country; the entire United States was occupied in getting married. In the great main office on Madison Avenue, and in a thousand branch offices all over the Union, Destyn-Carr machines were working furiously; a love-mad nation was illuminated by their sparks.
Marriage-license bureaus had been almost put out of business by the sudden matrimonial rush; clergymen became exhausted, wedding bells in the churches were worn thin, California and Florida reported no orange crops, as all the blossoms had been required for brides; there was a shortage of solitaires, traveling clocks, asparagus tongs; and the corner in rice perpetrated by some conscienceless captain of industry produced a panic equaled only by a more terriblecoupin slightly worn shoes.
All America was rushing to get married; from Seattle to Key West the railroads were blocked with bridal parties; a vast hum of merrymaking resounded from the Golden Gate to Governor's Island, from Niagara to the Gulf of Mexico. In New York City the din was persistent; all day long church bells pealed, all day long the rattle of smart carriages and hired hacks echoed over the asphalt. A reporter of theTribunestood on top of the New York Life tower for an entire week, devouring cold-slaw sandwiches and Marie Corelli, and during that period, as his affidavit runs, "never for one consecutive second were his ample ears free from the near or distant strains of the Wedding March."
And over all, in approving benediction, brooded the wide smile of the greatest of statesmen and the great smile of the widest of statesmen-- these two, metaphorically, hand in hand, floated high above their people, scattering encouraging blessings on every bride.
A tremendous rise in values set in; the newly married required homes; architects were rushed to death; builders, real-estate operators, brokers, could not handle the business hurled at them by impatient bridegrooms.
Then, seizing time by the fetlock, some indescribable monster secured the next ten years' output of go-carts. The sins of Standard Oil were forgotten in the menace of such a national catastrophe; mothers' meetings were held; the excitement became stupendous; a hundred thousand brides invaded the Attorney-General's office, but all he could think of to say was: "Thirty centuries look down upon you!"
These vague sentiments perplexed the country. People understood that the Government meant well, but they also realized that the time was not far off when millions of go-carts would be required in the United States. And they no longer hesitated.
All over the Union fairs and bazaars were held to collect funds for a great national factory to turn out carts. Alarmed, the Trust tried to unload; militant womanhood, thoroughly aroused, scorned compromise. In every city, town, and hamlet of the nation entertainments were given, money collected for the great popular go-cart factory.
The affair planned for Oyster Bay was to be particularly brilliant--a water carnival at Center Island with tableaux, fireworks, and illuminations of all sorts.
Reassured by the magnificent attitude of America's womanhood, business discounted the collapse of the go-cart trust and began to recover from the check very quickly. Stocks advanced, fluctuated, and suddenly whizzed upward like skyrockets; and the long-expected wave of prosperity inundated the country. On the crest of it rode Cupid, bow and arrows discarded, holding aloft in his right hand a Destyn-Carr machine.
For the old order of things had passed away; the old-fashioned doubts and fears of courtship were now practically superfluous.
Anybody on earth could now buy a ticket and be perfectly certain that whoever he or she might chance to marry would be the right one--the one intended by destiny.
Yet, strange as it may appear, there still remained, here and there, a few young people in the United States who had no desire to be safely provided for by a Destyn-Carr machine.
Whether there was in them some sporting instinct, making hazard attractive, or, perhaps, a conviction that Fate is kind, need not be discussed. The fact remains that there were a very few youthful and marriageable folk who had no desire to know beforehand what their fate might be.
One of these unregenerate reactionists was Flavilla. To see her entire family married by machinery was enough for her; to witness such consummate and collective happiness became slightly cloying. Perfection can be overdone; a rift in a lute relieves melodious monotony, and when discords cease to amuse, one can always have the instrument mended or buy a banjo.
"What I desire," she said, ignoring the remonstrances of the family, "is a chance to make mistakes. Three or four nice men have thought they were in love with me, and I wouldn't take anything for the--experience. Or," she added innocently, "for the chances that some day three or four more agreeable young men may think they are in love with me. One learns by making mistakes--very pleasantly."
Her family sat in an affectionately earnest row and adjured her--four married sisters, four blissful brothers-in-law, her attractive stepmother, her father. She shook her pretty head and continued sewing on the costume she was to wear at the Oyster Bay Venetian Fête and Go-cart Fair.
"No," she said, threading her needle and deftly sewing a shining, silvery scale onto the mermaid's dress lying across her knees, "I'll take my chances with men. It's better fun to love a man not intended for me, and make him love me, and live happily and defiantly ever after, than to have a horrid old machine settle you for life."
"But you are wasting time, dear," explained her stepmother gently.
"Oh, no, I'm not. I've been engaged three times and I've enjoyed it immensely. That isn't wasting time, is it? And it'ssuchfun! He thinks he's in love and you think you're in love, and you have such an agreeable time together until you find out that you're spoons on somebody else. And then you find out you're mistaken and you say you always want him for a friend, and you presently begin all over again with a perfectly new man----"
"Flavilla!"
"Yes, Pa-pah."
"Are you utterly demoralized!"
"Demoralized? Why? Everybody behaved as I do before you and William invented your horrid machine. Everybody in the world married at hazard, after being engaged to various interesting young men. And I'm not demoralized; I'm only old-fashioned enough to take chances. Please let me."
The family regarded her sadly. In their amalgamated happiness they deplored her reluctance to enter where perfect bliss was guaranteed.
Her choice of rôle and costume for the Seawanhaka Club water tableaux they also disapproved of; for she had chosen to represent a character now superfluous and out of date--the Lorelei who lured Teutonic yachtsmen to destruction with her singing some centuries ago. And that, in these times, was ridiculous, because, fortified by a visit to the nearest Destyn-Carr machine, no weak-minded young sailorman would care what a Lorelei might do; and she could sing her pretty head off and comb herself bald before any Destyn-Carr inoculated mariner would be lured overboard.
But Flavilla obstinately insisted on her scaled and fish-tailed costume. When her turn came, a spot-light on the clubhouse was to illuminate the float and reveal her, combing her golden hair with a golden comb and singing away like the Musical Arts.
"And," she thought secretly, "if there remains upon this machine-made earth one young man worth my kind consideration, it wouldn't surprise me very much if he took a header off the Yacht Club wharf and requested me to be his. And I'd be very likely to listen to his suggestion."
So in secret hopes of this pleasing episode--but not giving any such reason to her protesting family--she vigorously resisted all attempts to deprive her of her fish scales, golden comb, and rôle in the coming water fête. And now the programmes were printed and it was too late for them to intervene.
She rose, holding out the glittering, finny garment, which flashed like a collapsed fish in the sunshine.
"It's finished," she said. "Now I'm going off somewhere by myself to rehearse."
"In the water?" asked her father uneasily.
"Certainly."
As Flavilla was a superb swimmer nobody could object. Later, a maid went down to the landing, stowed away luncheon, water-bottles and costume in the canoe. Later, Flavilla herself came down to the water's edge, hatless, sleeves rolled up, balancing a paddle across her shoulders.
As the paddle flashed and the canoe danced away over the sparkling waters of Oyster Bay, Flavilla hummed the threadbare German song which she was to sing in her rôle of Lorelei, and headed toward Northport.
"The thing to do," she thought to herself, "is to find some nice, little, wooded inlet where I can safely change my costume and rehearse. I must know whether I can swim in this thing--and whether I can sing while swimming about. It would be more effective, I think, than merely sitting on the float, and singing and combing my hair through all those verses."
The canoe danced across the water, the paddle glittered, dipped, swept astern, and flashed again. Flavilla was very, very happy for no particular reason, which is the best sort of happiness on earth.
There is a sandy neck of land which obstructs direct navigation between the sacred waters of Oyster Bay and the profane floods which wash the gravelly shores of Northport.
"I'll make a carry," thought Flavilla, beaching her canoe. Then, looking around her at the lonely stretch of sand flanked by woods, she realized at once that she need seek no farther for seclusion.
First of all, she dragged the canoe into the woods, then rapidly undressed and drew on the mermaid's scaly suit, which fitted her to the throat as beautifully as her own skin.
It was rather difficult for her to navigate on land, as her legs were incased in a fish's tail, but, seizing her comb and mirror, she managed to wriggle down to the water's edge.
A few sun-warmed rocks jutted up some little distance from shore; with a final and vigorous wriggle Flavilla launched herself and struck out for the rocks, holding comb and mirror in either hand.
Fishtail and accessories impeded her, but she was the sort of swimmer who took no account of such trifles; and after a while she drew herself up from the sea, and, breathless, glittering, iridescent, flopped down upon a flat rock in the sunshine. From which she took a careful survey of the surroundings.
Certainly nobody could see her here. Nobody would interrupt her either, because the route of navigation lay far outside, to the north. All around were woods; the place was almost landlocked, save where, far away through the estuary, a blue and hazy horizon glimmered in the general direction of New England.
So, when she had recovered sufficient breath she let down the flashing, golden-brown hair, sat up on the rock, lifted her pretty nose skyward, and poured forth melody.
As she sang the tiresome old Teutonic ballad she combed away vigorously, and every now and then surveyed her features in the mirror.
Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeutenDass ich so traurig bin----
she sang happily, studying her gestures with care and cheerfully flopping her tail.
She had a very lovely voice which had been expensively cultivated. One or two small birds listened attentively for a while, then started in to help her out.
On the veranda of his bungalow, not very far from Northport, stood a young man of pleasing aspect, knickerbockers, and unusually symmetrical legs. His hands reposed in his pockets, his eyes behind their eyeglasses were fixed dreamily upon the skies. Somebody over beyond that screen of woods was singing very beautifully, and he liked it--at first.
However, when the unseen singer had been singing the Lorelei for an hour, steadily, without intermission, an expression of surprise gradually developed into uneasy astonishment upon his clean-cut and unusually attractive features.
"That girl, whoever she is, can sing, all right," he reflected, "but why on earth does she dope out the same old thing?"
He looked at the strip of woods, but could see nothing of the singer. He listened; she continued to sing the Lorelei.
"It can't be a phonograph," he reasoned. "No sane person could endure an hour of that fool song. No sane person would sing it for an hour, either."
Disturbed, he picked up the marine glasses, slung them over his shoulder, walked up on the hill back of the bungalow, selected a promising tree, and climbed it.
Astride a lofty limb the lord of Northport gazed earnestly across the fringe of woods. Something sparkled out there, something moved, glittering on a half-submerged rock. He adjusted the marine glasses and squinted through them.
"Great James!" he faltered, dropping them; and almost followed the glasses to destruction on the ground below.
How he managed to get safely to earth he never knew. "Either I'm crazy," he shouted aloud, "or there's a--a mermaid out there, and I'm going to find out before they chase me to the funny house!"
There was a fat tub of a boat at his landing; he reached the shore in a series of long, distracted leaps, sprang aboard, cast off, thrust both oars deep into the water, and fairly hurled the boat forward, so that it alternately skipped, wallowed, scuttered, and scrambled, like a hen overboard.
"This is terrible," he groaned. "If Ididn'tsee what I think I saw, I'll eat my hat; if I did see what I'm sure I saw, I'm madder than the hatter who made it!"
Nearer and nearer, heard by him distinctly above the frantic splashing of his oars, her Lorelei song sounded perilously sweet and clear.
"Oh, bunch!" he moaned; "it's horribly like the real thing; and here I come headlong, as they do in the story books----"
He caught a crab that landed him in a graceful parabola in the bow, where he lay biting at the air to recover his breath. Then his boat's nose plowed into the sandy neck of land; he clambered to his feet, jumped out, and ran headlong into the belt of trees which screened the singer. Speed and gait recalled the effortless grace of the kangaroo; when he encountered logs and gullies he rose grandly, sailing into space, landing with a series of soft bounces, which presently brought him to the other side of the woods.
And there, what he beheld, what he heard, almost paralyzed him. Weak- kneed, he passed a trembling hand over his incredulous eyes; with the courage of despair, he feebly pinched himself. Then for sixty sickening seconds he closed his eyes and pressed both hands over his ears. But when he took his hands away and opened his terrified eyes, the exquisitely seductive melody, wind blown from the water, thrilled him in every fiber; his wild gaze fell upon a distant, glittering shape--white-armed, golden- haired, fish-tailed, slender body glittering with silvery scales.
The low rippling wash of the tide across the pebbly shore was in his ears; the salt wind was in his throat. He saw the sun flash on golden comb and mirror, as her snowy fingers caressed the splendid masses of her hair; her song stole sweetly seaward as the wind veered.
A terrible calm descended upon him.
"This is interesting," he said aloud.
A sickening wave of terror swept him, but he straightened up, squaring his shoulders.
"I may as well face the fact," he said, "that I, Henry Kingsbury, of Pebble Point, Northport, L.I., and recently in my right mind, am now, this very moment, looking at a--a mermaid in Long Island Sound!"
He shuddered; but he was sheer pluck all through. Teeth might chatter, knees smite together, marrow turn cold; nothing on earth or Long Island could entirely stampede Henry Kingsbury, of Pebble Point.
His clutch on his self-control in any real crisis never slipped; his mental steering-gear never gave way. Again his pallid lips moved in speech:
"The--thing--to--do," he said very slowly and deliberately, "is to swim out and--and touch it. If it dissolves into nothing I'll probably feel better----"
He began to remove coat, collar, and shoes, forcing himself to talk calmly all the while.
"The thing to do," he went on dully, "is to swim over there and get a look at it. Of course, it isn't really there. As for drowning--it really doesn't matter.... In the midst of life we are in Long Island.... And, if itisthere--I c-c-can c-capture it for the B-B-Bronx----"
Reason tottered; it revived, however, as he plunged into the s. w.[*] of Oyster Bay and struck out, silent as a sea otter for the shimmering shape on the ruddy rocks.
* Sparkling Waters or Sacred Waters.
Flavilla was rehearsing with all her might; her white throat swelled with the music she poured forth to the sky and sea; her pretty fingers played with the folds of burnished hair; her gilded hand-mirror flashed, she gently beat time with her tail.
So thoroughly, so earnestly, did she enter into the spirit of the siren she was representing that, at moments, she almost wished some fisherman might come into view--just to see whether he'd really go overboard after her.
However, audacious as her vagrant thoughts might be, she was entirely unprepared to see a human head, made sleek by sea water, emerge from the floating weeds almost at her feet.
"Goodness," she said faintly, and attempted to rise. But her fish tail fettered her.
"Are you real!" gasped Kingsbury.
"Y-yes.... Are you?"
"Great James!" he half shouted, half sobbed, "are youhuman?"
"V-very. Areyou?"
He clutched at the weedy rock and dragged himself up. For a moment he lay breathing fast, water dripping from his soaked clothing. Once he feebly touched the glittering fish tail that lay on the rock beside him. It quivered, but needle and thread had been at work there; he drew a deep breath and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again she was looking about for a likely place to launch herself into the bay; in fact, she had already started to glide toward the water; the scraping of the scales aroused him, and he sat up.
"I heard singing," he said dreamily, "and I climbed a tree and saw--you! Do you blame me for trying to corroborate a thing likeyou?"
"You thought I was arealone?"
"I thought that I thought I saw a real one."
She looked at him hopefully.
"Tell me,didmy singing compel you to swim out here?"
"I don't know what compelled me."
"But--youwerecompelled?"
"I--it seems so----"
"O-h!" Flushed, excited, laughing, she clasped her hands under her chin and gazed at him.
"To think," she said softly, "that you believed me to be a real siren, and that my beauty and my singing actually did lure you to my rock! Isn't it exciting?"
He looked at her, then turned red:
"Yes, it is," he said.
Hands still clasped together tightly beneath her rounded chin, she surveyed him with intense interest. He was at a disadvantage; the sleek, half-drowned appearance which a man has who emerges from a swim does not exhibit him at his best.
But he had a deeper interest for Flavilla; her melody and loveliness had actually lured him across the water to the peril of her rocks; this human being, this man creature, seemed to be, in a sense, hers.
"Please fix your hair," she said, handing him her comb and mirror.
"My hair?"
"Certainly. I want to look at you."
He thought her request rather extraordinary, but he sat up and with the aid of the mirror, scraped away at his wet hair, parting it in the middle and combing it deftly into two gay little Mercury wings. Then, fishing in the soaked pockets of his knickerbockers, he produced a pair of smart pince-nez, which he put on, and then gazed up at her.
"Oh!" she said, with a quick, indrawn breath, "youareattractive!"
At that he turned becomingly scarlet.
Leaning on one lovely, bare arm, burnished hair clustering against her cheeks, she continued to survey him in delighted approval which sometimes made him squirm inwardly, sometimes almost intoxicated him.
"To think," she murmured, "thatIluredyouout here!"
"Iamthinking about it," he said.
She laid her head on one side, inspecting him with frankest approval.
"I wonder," she said, "what your name is. I am Flavilla Carr."
"Not one of the Carr triplets!"
"Yes--but," she added quickly, "I'm not married. Are you?"
"Oh, no, no, no!" he said hastily. "I'm Henry Kingsbury, of Pebble Point, Northport----"
"Master and owner of the beautiful but uncertainSappho?Oh, tell me,areyou the man who has tipped over so many times in Long Island Sound? Because I--I adore a man who has the pluck to continue to capsize every day or two."
"Then," he said, "you can safely adore me, for I am that yachtsman who has fallen off theSapphomore times than the White Knight fell off his horse."
"I--Idoadore you!" she exclaimed impulsively.
"Of course, you d-d-don't mean that," he stammered, striving to smile.
"Yes--almost. Tell me, you--I know you are not like other men!Younever have had anything to do with a Destyn-Carr machine, have you?"
"Never!"
"Neither have I.... And so you are not in love--are you?"
"No."
"Neither am I. Oh, I am so glad that you and I have waited, and not become engaged to somebody by machinery.... I wonder whom you are destined for."
"Nobody--by machinery."
She clapped her hands. "Neither am I. It is too stupid, isn't it? Idon'twant to marry the man I ought to marry. I'd rather take chances with a man who attracts me and who is attracted by me.... There was, in the old days--before everybody married by machinery--something not altogether unworthy in being a siren, wasn't there?... It's perfectly delightful to think of your seeing me out here on the rocks, and then instantly plunging into the waves and tearing a foaming right of way to what might have been destruction!"
Her flushed, excited face between its clustering curls looked straight into his.
"Itwasdestruction," he said. His own voice sounded odd to him. "Utter destruction to my peace of mind," he said again.
"You--don't think that you love me, do you?" she asked. "That would be too--too perfect a climax....Doyou?" she asked curiously.
"I--think so."
"Do--do youknowit?" He gazed bravely at her: "Yes."
She flung up both arms joyously, then laughed aloud:
"Oh, the wonder of it! It is too perfect, too beautiful! You really love me? Do you? Are yousure?"
"Yes.... Will you try to love me?"
"Well, you know that sirens don't care for people.... I've already been engaged two or three times.... I don't mind being engaged to you."
"Couldn't you care for me, Flavilla?"
"Why, yes. I do.... Please don't touch me; I'd rather not. Of course, you know, I couldn't really love you so quickly unless I'd been subjected to one of those Destyn-Carr machines. You know that, don't you? But," she added frankly, "I wouldn't like to have you get away from me. I--I feel like a tender-hearted person in the street who is followed by a lost cat----"
"What!"
"Oh, Ididn'tmean anything unpleasant--truly I didn't. You know how tenderly one feels when a poor stray cat comes trotting after one----"
He got up, mad all through.
"Areyou offended?" she asked sorrowfully. "When I didn't mean anything except that my heart--which is rather impressionable--feels very warmly and tenderly toward the man who swam after me.... Won't you understand, please? Listen, we have been engaged only a minute, and here already is our first quarrel. You can see for yourself what would happen if we ever married."
"It wouldn't be machine-made bliss, anyway," he said.
That seemed to interest her; she inspected him earnestly.
"Also," he added, "I thought you desired to take a sportsman's chances?"
"I--do."
"And I thought you didn't want to marry the man you ought to marry."
"That is--true."
"Then you certainly ought not to marry me--but, will you?"
"How can I when I don't--love you."
"You don't love me because you ought not to on such brief acquaintance.... Butwillyou love me, Flavilla?"