A week later Tavernake was in London. A visit to his friend Mr. Martin had easily proved the truth of Pritchard's words, and he found himself in possession of a sum of money at least twice as great as he had anticipated. He stayed at a cheap hotel in the Strand and made purchases under Pritchard's supervision. For the first few days he was too busy for reflection. Then Pritchard let him alone while he ran over to Paris, and Tavernake suddenly realized that he was in the city to which he had thought never to return. He passed the back of the theatre where he had waited for Beatrice, he looked up at the entrance of the Milan Court; he lunched alone, and with a curious mixture of feelings, at the little restaurant where he had supped with Beatrice. It was over, that part of his life, over and finished. Yet, with his natural truthfulness, he never attempted to disguise from himself the pain at his heart. Three times in one day he found himself, under some pretext or another, in Imano's Restaurant. Once, in the middle of the street, he burst into a fit of laughter. It was while Pritchard was in London, and he asked him a question.
“Pritchard,” he remarked, “you area man of experience. Did any one ever care for two women at the same time?”
Pritchard removed his cigar from his teeth and stared at his companion.
“Why, my young friend,” he replied, “I've found no trouble myself in being fond of a dozen.”
Tavernake smiled and said no more. Pritchard was one of the good fellows of the world, but there were things which were hidden from him. Yet Tavernake, who had fallen into a habit, during his solitude, of analyzing his sensations, was puzzled by this one circumstance, that when he thought of Elizabeth, though his heart never failed to beat more quickly, the sense of shame generally stole over him; and when he thought of Beatrice, a curious loneliness, a loneliness that brought with it a pain, seemed suddenly to make the hours drag and his pleasures flavorless. For two days he was puzzled. Then his habit of taking long walks helped him toward a solution. In a small outlying music-hall in the east-end of London, he saw the same announcement that he had noticed in the Norfolk newspaper,—“Professor Franklin” in large type, and “Miss Beatrice Franklin” in small.
That night he attended the music-hall. The scene was practically a repetition of the one in Norwich, only with additions. The professor's bombastic performance met with scarcely any applause. Its termination was, indeed, interrupted by catcalls and whistles from the gallery. Beatrice's songs, on the other hand, were applauded more vociferously than ever. She had hard work to avoid a third encore.
At the end of the performance, Tavernake made his way to the stage-door and waited. The neighborhood was an unsavory one, and the building itself seemed crowded in among a row of shops of the worst order, fish stalls, and a glaring gin palace. Long before Beatrice came out, Tavernake could hear the professor's voice down the covered passage, the professor's voice apparently raised in anger.
“Undutiful behavior, that's what I call it—undutiful!”
They emerged into the street, the professor very much the same as usual; Beatrice paler, with a pathetic droop about her mouth. Tavernake came eagerly forward.
“Beatrice!” he cried, holding out his hand.
The professor drew back. Beatrice stood still,—for a moment it seemed as though she were about to faint. Tavernake grasped her hands.
“I am so sorry!” he exclaimed, clumsily. “I ought not to have come up like that.”
She smiled a little wan smile.
“I am quite all right,” she replied, “only the heat inside was rather trying, and even out here the atmosphere isn't too good, is it? How did you find us out?”
“By chance again,” Tavernake answered. “I have news. May I walk with you a few steps?”
She glanced timidly toward her father. The professor was holding aloof in dignified silence.
“Perhaps,” Tavernake said quickly, “you would take supper with me? I am going abroad, and I should like to say good-bye properly. A bottle of champagne and some supper. What do you say, Professor?”
The professor suffered his features to relax.
“A very admirable idea,” he declared. “Where shall we go?”
“Is it too late to get to Imano's?” Tavernake suggested.
The professor hesitated.
“A taxicab,” he remarked, “would do it, if—”
He paused, and Tavernake smiled.
“A taxicab it shall be,” he decided. “I am in funds just for the moment. Come along, both of you, and I'll tell you all about it.”
He made her take his arm, although her fingers did no more than touch his coat sleeve.
“Pritchard came and dug me out,” he continued. “I am going abroad with him. It's sort of prospecting in some new country at the back of British Columbia. We see what we can find and then go to a financier's and start companies, mining companies and oil fields—anything. I am off in a week.”
Beatrice half closed her eyes. They had hailed a passing cab and she sank back among the cushions with a sigh of relief.
“Dear Leonard,” she murmured, “I am so glad, so very happy for your sake. This is the sort of thing which I hoped would happen.”
“And now tell me about yourselves,” he went on.
There was a sudden silence. Tavernake was conscious that Beatrice's clothes were distinctly shabbier, that the professor's hat was shiny. The professor cleared his throat.
“I do not wish,” he said, “to intrude our private matters upon one who, although I will not call him a stranger, is assuredly not one of our old friends. At the same time, I admit that a little trouble has arisen between Beatrice and myself, and we were discussing it at the moment you arrived. I shall appeal to you now. As an unprejudiced member of the audience to-night, Mr. Tavernake, you will give me your honest opinion?”
“Certainly,” Tavernake promised, with a sinking premonition of what was to come.
“What I complain of,” the professor began, speaking with elaborate and impressive slowness, “is that my performance is hurried over and that too long a time is taken up by Beatrice's songs. The management remark upon the applause which her efforts occasionally ensure, but, as I would point out to you, sir,” he continued, “a performance such as mine makes too deep an impression for the audience to show their appreciation of it by such vulgar methods as hand-clapping and whistling. You follow me, I trust, Mr. Tavernake?”
“Why, yes, of course,” Tavernake admitted.
“I take a sincere and earnest interest in my work,” the professor declared, “and I feel that when it has to be scamped that my daughter may sing a music-hall ditty, the result is, to say the least of it, undignified. For some reason or other, I have been unable to induce the management to see entirely with me, but my point is that Beatrice should sing one song only, and that the additional ten minutes should be occupied by me in either a further exposition of my extraordinary powers as a hypnotist, or in a little address to the audience upon the hidden sciences. Now I appeal to you, Mr. Tavernake, as a young man of common sense. What is your opinion?”
Tavernake, much too honest to be capable in a general way of duplicity, was on the point of giving it, but he caught Beatrice's imploring gaze. Her lips were moving. He hesitated.
“Of course,” he began, slowly, “you have to try and put yourself into the position of the major part of the audience, who are exceedingly uneducated people. It is very hard to give an opinion, Professor. I must say that your entertainment this evening was listened to with rapt interest.”
The professor turned solemnly towards his daughter.
“You hear that, Beatrice?” he said severely. “You hear what Mr. Tavernake says? 'With rapt interest!'”
“At the same time,” Tavernake went on, “without a doubt Miss Beatrice's songs were also extremely popular. It is rather a pity that the management could not give you a little more time.”
“Failing that, sir,” the professor declared, “my point is, as I explained before, that Beatrice should give up one of her songs. What you have said this evening more than ever confirms me in my view.”
Beatrice smiled thankfully at Tavernake.
“Well,” she suggested, “at any rate we will leave it for the present. Sometimes I think, though, father, that you frighten them with some of your work, and you must remember that they come to be amused.”
“That,” the professor admitted, “is the most sensible remark you have made, Beatrice. There is indeed something terrifying in some of my manifestations, terrifying even to myself, who understand so thoroughly my subject. However, as you say, we will dismiss the matter for the present. The thought of this supper party is a pleasant one. Do you remember, Mr. Tavernake, the night when you and I met in the balcony at Imano's?”
“Perfectly well,” Tavernake answered.
“Now I shall test your memory,” the professor continued, with a knowing smile. “Can you remember, sir, the brand of champagne which I was then drinking, and which I declared, if you recollect, was the one which best agreed with me, the one brand worth drinking?”
“I am afraid I don't remember that,” Tavernake confessed. “Restaurant life is a thing I know so little of, and I have only drunk champagne once or twice in my life.”
“Dear, dear me!” the professor exclaimed. “You do astonish me, sir. Well, that brand was Veuve Clicquot, and you may take my word for it, Mr. Tavernake, and you may find this knowledge useful to you when you have made a fortune in America and have become a man of pleasure; there is no wine equal to it. Veuve Clicquot, sir, if possible of the year 1899, though the year 1900 is quite drinkable.”
“Veuve Clicquot,” Tavernake repeated. “I'll remember it for this evening.”
The professor beamed.
“My dear,” he said to Beatrice, “Mr. Tavernake will think that I had a purpose in testing his memory.”
Beatrice smiled.
“And hadn't you, father?” she asked.
They all laughed together.
“Well, it is pleasant,” the professor admitted, “to have one's weaknesses ministered to, especially when one is getting on in life,” he added, with a ponderous sigh. “Never mind, we will think only of pleasant subjects this evening. It will be quite interesting, Mr. Tavernake, to hear you order the supper.”
“I sha'n't attempt it,” Tavernake answered. “I shall pass it on to you.”
“This reminds me,” the professor declared, “of the old days. I feel sure that this is going to be a thoroughly enjoyable evening. We shall think of it often, Mr. Tavernake, when you lie sleeping under the stars. Why, what a wonderful thing these taxicabs are! You see, we have arrived.”
They secured a small table in a corner at Imano's, and Tavernake found himself curiously moved as he watched Beatrice take off her worn and much mended gloves and look around uneasily at the other guests. Her clothes were indeed shabby, and there were hollows now in her cheeks.
Again he felt that pain, a pain for which he could not account. Suddenly America seemed so far away, the loneliness of the great continent became an actual and appreciable thing. The professor was very much occupied ordering the supper. Tavernake leaned across the table.
“Do you remember our first supper here, Beatrice?” he asked.
She nodded, with an attempt at brightness which was a little pitiful.
“Yes,” she replied, “I remember it quite well. And now, please, Leonard, don't talk to me again until I have had a glass of wine. I am tired and worn out, that is all.”
Even Tavernake knew that she was struggling against the tears which already dimmed her eyes. He filled her glass himself. The professor set his own down empty with the satisfied smile of a connoisseur.
“I think,” he said, “that you will agree with me about this vintage. Beatrice, this is what will bring color into your cheeks. My little girl,” he continued, turning to Tavernake, “will soon need a holiday. I am hoping presently to be able to arrange a short tour by myself, and if so, I shall send her to the seaside. Now I want you particularly to try the fish salad—the second dish there. Beatrice, let me help you.”
Presently the orchestra began to play. The warmth of the room, the wine and the food—Tavernake had a horrible idea once that she had eaten nothing that day—brought back some of the color to Beatrice's cheeks and a little of the light to her eyes. She began to talk something in the old fashion. She avoided, however, any mention of that other supper they had had together. As time went on, the professor, who had drunk the best part of two bottles of wine and was talking now to a friend, became almost negligible. Tavernake leaned across the table.
“Beatrice,” he whispered, “you are not looking well. I am afraid that life is getting harder with you.”
She shook her head.
“I am doing what I must,” she answered. “Please don't sympathize with me. I am hysterical, I think, tonight. It will pass off.”
“But, Beatrice,” he ventured, timidly, “could one do nothing for you? I don't like these performances, and between you and me, we know they won't stand your father's show much longer. It will certainly come to an end soon. Why don't you try and get back your place at the theatre? You could still earn enough to keep him.”
“Already I have tried,” she replied, sorrowfully. “My place is filled up. You see,” she added, with a forced laugh, “I have lost some of my looks, Leonard. I am thinner, too. Of course, I shall be all right presently, but it's rather against me at these west-end places.”
Again he felt that pain at his heart. He was sure now that he was beginning to understand!
“Beatrice,” he whispered, “give it up—marry me I will take care of him.”
The flush of color faded from her cheeks. She shivered a little and looked at him piteously.
“Leonard,” she pleaded, “you mustn't. I really am not very strong just now. We have finished with all that—it distresses me.”
“But I mean it,” he begged. “Somehow, I have felt all sorts of things since we came in here. I think of that night, and I believe—I do believe that what came to me before was madness. It was not the same.”
She was trembling now.
“Leonard,” she implored, “if you care for me at all, be quiet. Father will turn round directly and I can't bear it. I shall be your very faithful friend; I shall think of you through the long days before we meet again, but don't—don't spoil this last evening.”
The professor turned round, his face mottled, his eyes moist, a great good-humor apparent in his tone.
“Well, I must say,” he declared, “that this has been a most delightful evening. I feel immensely better, and you, too, I hope, Beatrice?”
She nodded, smiling.
“I trust that when Mr. Tavernake returns,” the professor continued, “he will give us the opportunity of entertaining him in much the same manner. It will give me very much pleasure, also Beatrice. And if, sir,” he proceeded, “during your stay in New York you will mention my name at the Goat's Club, or the Mosquito Club, you will, I think, find yourself received with a hospitality which will surprise you.”
Tavernake thanked him and paid the bill. They walked slowly down the room, and Tavernake was curiously reluctant to release the little hand which clasped his.
“I have kept this to the last,” Beatrice said, in a low tone. “Elizabeth is in London.”
He was curiously unmoved.
“Yes?” he murmured.
“I should like you—I think it would be well for you to go and see her,” she went on. “You know, Leonard, you were such a strange person in those days. You may imagine things. You may not realize where you are. I think that you ought to go and see her now, now that you have lived through some suffering, now that you understand things better. Will you?”
“Yes, I will go,” Tavernake promised.
Beatrice glanced round towards where her father was standing.
“I don't want him to know,” she whispered. “I don't want either him or myself to be tempted to take any of her money. She is living at Claridge's Hotel. Go there and see her before you leave for your new life.”
He stood at the door and watched them go down the Strand, the professor, flamboyant, walking erect with flying coat-tails, and his big cigar held firmly between his teeth; Beatrice, a wan figure in her black clothes, clinging to his arm. Tavernake watched them until they disappeared, conscious of a curious excitement, a strange pain, a sense of revelation. When at last they were out of sight and he turned back for his coat and hat, his feet were suddenly leaden. The band was playing the last selection—it was the air which Beatrice had sung only that night at the east-end music-hall. With a sudden overpowering impulse he turned and strode down the Strand in the direction where they had vanished. It was too late. There was no sign of them.
Tavernake's first impression of Elizabeth was that he had never, even in his wildest thoughts, done her justice. He had never imagined her so wonderfully, so alluringly beautiful. She had received him, after a very long delay, in her sitting-room at Claridge's Hotel—a large apartment furnished more like a drawing-room. She was standing, when he entered, almost in the center of the room, dressed in a long lace cloak and a hat with a drooping black feather. She looked at him, as the door opened, as though for a moment half puzzled. Then she laughed softly and held out her hands.
“Why, of course I remember you!” she exclaimed. “And to think that when I had your card I couldn't imagine where I had heard the name before! You are my dear estate agent's clerk, who wouldn't take my money, and who was so wretchedly rude to me twelve months ago.”
Tavernake was quite cool. He found himself wondering whether this was a pose, or whether she had indeed forgotten. He decided that it was a pose.
“I was also,” he reminded her, “one night in your rooms at the Milan Court when your husband—”
She stopped him with an imperative gesture.
“Spare me, please,” she begged. “Those were such terrible days—so dull, too! I remember that you were quite one of the brightest spots. You were absolutely different from every one I had ever met before, and you interested me immensely.”
She looked at him and slowly shook her head.
“You look very nice,” she said. “Your clothes fit you and you are most becomingly tanned, but you don't look half so awkward and so adorable.”
“I am sorry,” he replied, shortly.
“And you came to see me!” she went on. “That was really nice of you. You were quite fond of me, once, you know. Tell me, has it lasted?”
“That is exactly what I came to find out,” he answered deliberately. “So far, I am inclined to think that it has not lasted.”
She made a little wry face and drew his arm through hers.
“Come and sit down and tell me why,” she insisted. “Be honest, now. Is it because you think I am looking older?”
“I have thought of you for many hours a day for months,” Tavernake said, slowly, “and I never imagined you so beautiful as you seem now.”
She clapped her hands.
“And you mean it, too!” she exclaimed. “There is just the same delightfully convincing note in your tone. I am sure that you mean it. Please go on adoring me, Mr. Tavernake. I have no one who interests me at all just now. There is an Italian Count who wants to marry me, but he is terribly poor; and a young Australian, who follows me everywhere, but I am not sure about him. There is an English boy, too, who is going to commit suicide if I don't say 'yes' to him this week. On the whole, I think I am rather sorry that people know I am a widow. Tell me, Mr. Tavernake, are you going to adore me, too?”
“I don't think so,” Tavernake answered. “I rather believe that I am cured.”
She shrugged her shoulders and laughed musically.
“But you say that you still think I am beautiful,” she went on, “and I am sure my clothes are perfect—they came straight from Paris. I hope you appreciate this lace,” she added, drawing it through her fingers. “My figure is just as good, too, isn't it?”
She stood up and turned slowly round. Then she sat down suddenly, taking his hand in hers.
“Please don't say that you think I have grown less attractive,” she begged.
“As regards your personal attractions,” Tavernake replied, “I imagine that they are at least as great as ever. If you want the truth, I think that the reason I do not adore you any longer is because I saw your sister last night.”
“Saw Beatrice!” she exclaimed. “Where?”
“She was singing at a miserable east-end music-hall so that her father might find some sort of employment,” Tavernake said. “The people only forbore to hiss her father's turn for her sake. She goes about the country with him. Heaven knows what they earn, but it must be little enough! Beatrice is shabby and thin and pale. She is devoting the best years of her life to what she imagines to be her duty.”
“And how does this affect me?” Elizabeth asked, coldly.
“Only in this way,” Tavernake answered. “You asked me how it was that I could find you as beautiful as ever and adore you no longer. The reason is because I know you to be wretchedly selfish. I believed in you before. Everything that you did seemed right. That was because I was a fool, because you had filled my brain with impossible fancies, because I saw you and everything that you did through a distorted mirror.”
“Have you come here to be rude?” she asked him.
“Not in the least,” he replied. “I came here to see whether I was cured.”
She began to laugh, very softly at first, but soon she threw herself back among the cushions and laid her hand caressingly upon his shoulder.
“Oh, you are just the same!” she cried. “Just the same dear, truthful bundle of honesty and awkwardness and ignorance. So you are going to be victim of Beatrice's bow and spear, after all.”
“I have asked your sister to marry me,” Tavernake admitted. “She will not.”
“She was very wise,” Elizabeth declared, wiping the tears from her eyes. “As an experience you are delightful. As a husband you would be terribly impossible. Are you going to stay and take me out to dinner this evening? I'm sure you have a dress suit now.”
Tavernake shook his head.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I have already an engagement.”
She looked at him curiously. Was it really true that he had become indifferent? She was not used to men who escaped.
“Tell me,” she asked, abruptly, “why did you come? I don't understand. You are here, and you pass your time being rude to me. I ask you to take me to dinner and you refuse. Do you know that scarcely a man in London would not have jumped at such a chance?”
“Very likely,” Tavernake answered. “I have no experience in such matters. I only know that I am going to do something else.”
“Something you want to do very much?” she whispered.
“I am going down to a little music-hall in Whitechapel,” Tavernake said, “and I am going to meet your sister and I am going to put her in a cab and take her to have some supper, and I am going to worry her until she promises to be my wife.”
“You are certainly a devoted admirer of the family,” she laughed. “Perhaps you were in love with her all the time.”
“Perhaps I was,” he admitted.
She shook her head.
“I don't believe it,” she said. “I think you were quite fond of me once. You have such absurdly old-fashioned ideas or I think that you would be fond of me now.”
Tavernake rose to his feet.
“I am going,” he declared. “This will be good-bye. To-morrow I am going to British Columbia.”
The laughter faded for a moment from her face. She was suddenly serious.
“Don't go,” she begged. “Listen. I know I am not good like Beatrice, but I do like you—I always did. I suppose it is that wonderful truthfulness of yours. You are a different type from the men one meets. I am rather a reckless person. It is such a comfort sometimes to meet any one like you. You seem such an anchorage. Stay and talk to me for a little time. Take me out to-night. You asked me to go with you once, you know, and I would not. To-night it is I who ask you.”
He shook his head slowly.
“This is good-bye!” he said, firmly. “I suppose, after all, you were not unkind to me in those days, but you taught me a very bitter lesson. I came to you to-day in fear and trembling. I was afraid, perhaps, that the worst was not over, that there was more yet to come. Now I know that I am free.”
She stamped her foot.
“You shall not go away like that,” she declared.
He smiled.
“Do you think I do not understand?” he continued. “It is only because I am able to go, because the touch of your fingers, that look in your eyes, do not drive me half mad now, that you want me to stay. You would like to try your powers once more. I think not. I am satisfied that I am cured indeed, but perhaps it is safer to risk nothing.”
She pointed to the door.
“Very well, then,” she ordered, “you can go.”
He bowed, and already his fingers were on the handle. Suddenly she called to him.
“Leonard! Leonard!”
He turned round. She was coming towards him with her arms outstretched, her eyes were full of tears, there were sobs in her voice.
“I am so lonely,” she begged. “I have thought of you so much. Don't go away unkindly. Stay with me for this evening, at any rate. You can see Beatrice at any time. It is I who need you most now.”
He looked around at the splendid apartment; he looked at the woman whose fingers, glittering with jewels, rested upon his shoulders. Then he thought of Beatrice in her shabby black gown and wan little face, and very gently he removed her hands.
“No,” he said, “I do not think that you need me any more than I need you. This is a caprice of yours. You know it and I know it. Is it worth while to play with one another?”
Her hands fell to her sides. She turned half away but she said nothing. Tavernake, with a sudden impulse which had in it nothing of passion—very little, indeed, of affection—lifted her fingers to his lips and passed out of the room. He descended the stairs, filled with a wonderful sense of elation, a buoyancy of spirit which he could not understand. As he walked blithely to his hotel, however, he began to realize how much he had dreaded this interview. He was a free man, after all. The spell was broken. He could think of her now as she deserved to be thought of, as a consummate woman of the world, selfish, heartless, conscienceless. He was well out of her toils. It was nothing to him if even he had known that at that moment she was lying upon the sofa to which she had staggered as he left the room, weeping bitterly.
For over an hour Tavernake endured the smells and the bad atmosphere of that miserable little music-hall, watching eagerly each time the numbers were changed. Then at last, towards the end of the program, the manager appeared in front.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “I regret very much to inform you that owing to the indisposition of the young lady, Miss Beatrice Franklin and her father are unable to appear to-night. I have pleasure in announcing an extra turn, namely the Sisters De Vere in their wonderful burlesque act.”
There was a murmur of disapprobation mingled with some cheering. Tavernake left his place and walked around to the back of the hall. Presently the manager came out to him.
“I am sorry to trouble you, sir,” Tavernake said, “but I heard your announcement just now from the front. Can you give me the address of Professor Franklin? I am a friend, and I should like to go and see them.”
The manager pointed to the stage-doorkeeper.
“This man will give it you,” he announced, shortly. “It's quite close. I shall look in myself after the show to know how the young lady is.”
Tavernake procured the address and set out in the taxicab which he had kept waiting. The driver listened to the direction doubtfully.
“It's a poor sort of neighborhood, sir,” he remarked.
“We've got to go there,” Tavernake told him.
They reached it in a few minutes, a miserable street indeed. Tavernake knocked at the door of the house to which he was directed, with sinking heart. A man, collarless and half dressed, in carpet slippers, opened the door after a few moments' waiting.
“Well, what is it?” he asked, gruffly.
“Is Professor Franklin here?” Tavernake inquired.
The man seemed as though he were about to slam the door, but thought better of it.
“If you're a friend of the professor's, as he calls himself,” he said, “and you've any money to shell out, why, you're welcome, but if you're only asking out of curiosity, let me tell you that he used to lodge here but he's gone, and if I'd had my way he'd have gone a week ago, him and his daughter, too.”
“I don't understand,” Tavernake protested. “I thought the young lady was ill.”
“She may be ill or she may not,” the man replied, sulkily. “All I know is that they couldn't pay their rent, couldn't pay their food bill, couldn't pay for the drinks the old man was always sending out for. So tonight I spoke up and they've gone.”
“At least you know where to!” Tavernake exclaimed.
“I ain't no sort of an idea,” the man declared. “Take my word for it straight, guvnor, I know no more about where they went to than the man in the moon, except that I'm well shut of them, and there's a matter of eighteen and sixpence, if you care to pay it.”
“I'll give you a sovereign,” Tavernake promised, “if you will tell me where they are now.”
“What's the good of making silly conditions like that!” the man grumbled. “If I knew where they were, I'd earn the quid soon enough, but I don't, and that's the long and the short of it! And if you ain't going to pay the eighteen and six, well, I've answered all the questions I feel inclined to.”
“I'll make it two pounds,” Tavernake promised. “I'm going to sail for America to-morrow morning early, and I must see them first.”
The man leaned forward.
“Look here,” he said, “if I knew where they was, a quid would be quite good enough for me, but I don't, and that's straight. If you want to look for them, I should try one of the doss houses. As likely there as anywhere.”
He slammed the door and Tavernake turned away. A sudden despair had seized him. He looked up and down the street, he looked away beyond and thought of the miles and miles of streets, the myriads of chimneys, the huge branches of the great city stretching far and wide. At eight o'clock the next morning, he must leave for Southampton. Was it too late, after all, that he had discovered the truth?
One night Tavernake began to laugh. He had grown a long brown beard and the hair was over his ears. He was wearing a gray flannel shirt, a handkerchief tied around his neck, and a pair of worn riding breeches held up by a belt. He had kicked his boots off at the end of a long day, and was lying in the moonlight before a fire of pine logs, whose smoke went straight to the star-hung sky. No word had been spoken for the last hour. Tavernake's fit of mirth came with as little apparent reason as the puffs of wind which every now and then stole down from the mountain side and made faint music in the virgin forests.
Pritchard turned over on his side and looked at him. Cigars had for many weeks been an unknown thing, and he was smoking a corn-cob pipe full of coarse tobacco.
“Stumbled across a joke anywhere?” he asked.
“I'm afraid no one but myself would see the humor of it,” Tavernake answered. “I was thinking of those days in London; I was thinking of Beatrice's horror when she discovered that I was wearing ready-made clothes, and the amazement of Elizabeth when she found that I hadn't a dress suit. It's odd how cramped life gets back there.”
Pritchard nodded, pressing the tobacco down into the bowl of his pipe with his forefinger.
“You're right, Tavernake,” he agreed. “One loses one's sense of proportion. Men in the cities are all alike. They go about in disguise.”
“I should like,” Tavernake said, inconsequently, “to have Mr. Dowling out here.”
“Amusing fellow?” Pritchard inquired.
Tavernake shook his head, smiling.
“Not in the least,” he answered, “only he was a very small man. Out here it is difficult to keep small. Don't you feel it, Pritchard? These mountains make our hills at home seem like dust-heaps. The skies seem loftier. Look down into that valley. It's gigantic, immense.”
Pritchard yawned.
“There's a little place in the Bowery,” he began,—
“Oh, I don't want to know any more about New York,” Tavernake interrupted. “Lean back and close your eyes, smell the cinnamon trees, listen to that night bird calling every now and then across the ravine. There's blackness, if you like; there's depth. It's like a cloak of velvet to look into. But you can't see the bottom—no, not in the daytime. Listen!”
Pritchard sat up. For a few moments neither spoke. A dozen yards or so off, a scattered group—the rest of the party—were playing cards around a fire. The green wood crackled, an occasional murmur of voices, a laugh or an exclamation, came to their ears, but for the rest, an immense, a wonderful silence, a silence which seemed to spread far away over that weird, half-invisible world! Tavernake listened reverently.
“Isn't it marvelous!” he exclaimed. “We haven't seen a human being except our own party, for three days. There probably isn't one within hearing of us now. Very likely no living person has ever set foot in this precise spot.”
“Oh, it's big,” Pritchard admitted, “it's big and it's restful, but it isn't satisfying. It does for you for a time because you started life wrong and you needed a reaction. But for me—ah, well!” he added, “I hear the call right across these thousands of miles of forests and valley and swamp. I hear the electric cars and the clash of the overhead railway, I see the flaring lights of Broadway and I hear the babel of tongues. I am going back to it, Tavernake. There's plenty to go on with. We've done more than carry out our program.”
“Back to New York!” Tavernake muttered, disconsolately.
“So you're not ready yet?” Pritchard demanded.
“Heavens, no!” Tavernake answered. “Who would be? What is there in New York to make up for this?”
Pritchard was silent for a moment.
“Well,” he said, “one of us must be getting back near civilization. The syndicate will be expecting to hear from us. Besides, we've reports enough already. It's time something was decided about that oil country. We've done some grand work there, Tavernake.”
Tavernake nodded. He was lying on his side and his eyes were fixed wistfully southward, over the glimmering moonlit valley, over the great wilderness of virgin pine woods which hung from the mountains on the other side, away through the cleft in the hills to the plains beyond, chaotic, a world unseen.
“If you like to go on for a bit,” Pritchard suggested, slowly, “there's no reason why you shouldn't take McCleod and Richardson with you, and Pete and half the horses, and strike for the tin country on the other side of the Yolite Hills. So long as we are here, it's quite worth it, if you can stick it out.”
Tavernake drew a long breath.
“I'd like to go,” he admitted, simply. “I know McCleod is keen about prospecting further south. You see, most of our finds so far have been among the oil fields.”
“Settled,” Pritchard declared. “To-morrow, then, we part. I'm for the valley, and I reckon I'll strike the railway to Chicago in a week. Gee whiz! New York will seem good!”
“You think that the syndicate will be satisfied with what we have done so far?” Tavernake asked.
His companion smiled.
“If they aren't, they'll be fools. I reckon there's enough oil fields here for seven companies. There'll be a bit for us, too, Tavernake, I guess. Don't you want to come back to New York and spend it?”
Tavernake laughed once more, but this time his laugh was not wholly natural.
“Spend it!” he repeated. “What is there to spend it on? Uncomfortable clothes, false plays, drinks that are bad for you, food that's half poisoned, atmosphere that stifles. My God, Pritchard, is there anything in the world like this! Stretch out your arms, man. Lie on your back, look up at the stars, let that wind blow over your face. Listen.”
They listened, and again they heard nothing, yet again there seemed to be that peculiar quality about the silence which spoke of the vastness of space.
Pritchard rose to his feet.
“New York and the fleshpots for me,” he declared. “Keep in touch, and good luck old man!”
Next day at dawn they parted, and Tavernake, with his three companions, set his face towards an almost undiscovered tract of land. Their progress was slow, for they were all the time in a country rich with possibilities. For weeks they climbed, climbed till they reached the snows and the wind stung their faces and they shivered in their rugs at night. They came to a land of sparser vegetation, of fewer and wilder animals, where they heard the baying of wolves at night, and saw the eyes of strange animals glisten through the thicket as the flames of their evening fire shot up toward the sky. Then the long descent began, the long descent to the great plain. Now their faces were bronzed with a sun ever hotter, ever more powerful. No longer the snow flakes beat their cheeks. They came slowly down into a land which seemed to Tavernake like the biblical land of Canaan. Three times in ten days they had to halt and make a camp, while Tavernake prepared a geographical survey of likely-looking land.
McCleod came up to Tavernake one day with a dull-looking lump in his hand, glistening in places.
“Copper,” he announced, shortly. “It's what I've been looking for all the time. No end to it. There's something bigger than oil here.”
They spent a month in the locality, and every day McCleod became more enthusiastic. After that it was hard work to keep him from heading homeward at once.
“I tell you, sir,” he explained to Tavernake, “there's millions there, millions between those four stakes of yours. What's the good of more prospecting? There's enough there in a square acre to pay the expenses of our expedition a thousand times over. Let's get back and make reports. We can strike the railway in ten days from here—perhaps sooner.”
“You go,” Tavernake said. “Leave me Pete and two of the horses.”
The man stared at him in surprise.
“What's the good of going on alone?” he asked. “You're not a mining expert or an oil man. You can't go prospecting by yourself.”
“I can't help it,” Tavernake answered. “It's something in my blood, I suppose. I am going on. Think! You'll strike that railway and in a month you will be back in New York. Don't you imagine, when you're there, when you hear the clatter and turmoil of it, when you see the pale crowds chivvying one another about to pick the dollars from each other's pockets,—don't you believe you'll long for these solitudes, the big empty places, great possibilities, the silence? Think of it, man. What is there beyond those mountains, I wonder?”
McCleod sighed.
“You're right,” he said. “One may never get so far out again. Our fortunes will keep, I suppose, and anyhow we ought to strike a telegraph station in about a fortnight. We'll go right ahead, then.”
In ten days they dropped ten thousand feet. They came to a land where their throats were always dry, where the trees and shrubs seemed like property affairs from a theatre, where they plunged their heads into every pool that came to wash their noses and mouths from the red dust that seemed to choke them up. They found tin and oil and more copper. Then, by slow stages, they passed on to a land of great grassy plains, of blue grass, miles and miles of it, and suddenly one day they came to the telegraph posts, rough pine trees unstripped of their bark, with a few sagging wires. Tavernake looked at them as Robinson Crusoe might have looked at Man Friday's footsteps. It was the first sign of human life which they had seen for months.
“It's a real world we are in, after all!” he sighed. “Somehow or other, I thought—I thought we'd escaped.”