"Twenty-five," he thought. That is what he had promised. "T-w-e-n-t-y," he wrote. The pen stopped again, hovering hesitatingly above the paper. "Twenty-five is a whole lot," he thought. "Just for selling a ticket. Just for selling a piece of cardboard!" And eight hundred dollars was not so much, either. An hour before,eight hundred dollars had seemed an immense sum. Now it seemed a modest amount, a very modest amount. And twenty-five, twenty-five to give away—that seemed quite big. "Pay to the order of Frank Theodore Pinny," he re-read, "twenty——"
The pen made a sudden descent. "And no-hundredths," it wrote swiftly.
Charles-Norton signed the check, tore it from the book, folded it, and presented it to Pinny, a bit patronizingly. Pinny stuck it into a side pocket without looking at it. He was standing on one leg and seemed in a hurry to get away. Charles-Norton, suddenly, had the same feeling. The sense of comradeship which had been with them for the last hour had abruptly flown with this passing of money. Each man was embarrassed, as before a stranger. "So long," said Pinny; "so long," said Charles-Norton. Pinny, with averted head, turned and walked away.
Charles-Norton pivoted on his heel, and started for the office, worried suddenly by the thought that he was late. He took three long steps, collided with a sodden old gentleman who was just arising from a bench—and then wasstanding very still, looking about him as in a daze, unconscious of the mutter of apology which, together with an odor of stale beer, was fermenting beneath his nose. The old gentleman, pursuing a ray of sun, slipped on to a farther bench. But Charles-Norton still stood there, gazing about him in a sort of mild astonishment, as if, while he was not looking, the scene about him had been transformed like so much cardboard scenery.
To the shock of the collision, as to the stroke of a finger upon a chemical beaker the reluctant crystallization abruptly takes place, there had come to Charles-Norton the realizationthat he did not have to go to the office.
He did not have to go to the office! Here, against his heart, represented by three black figures within a little yellow book, was eight hundred dollars, practically eight months' salary, the assurance of eight months almost of independence, of freedom!
"And Dolly?"
You will think, perhaps, that Charles-Norton was seized by an ardent desire immediately to run to Dolly, spring up the five flights of stairs,push open the door, catch her by the waist and, seating her on his knees, to pantingly tell her of the wondrous news? You are mistaken.
For with the vision of Dolly, the thought that irresistibly came to Charles-Norton was——
That he didn't have to go to Dolly.
He didn't have to go to Dolly and be clipped. He didn't have to go to the glass cage, and he didn't have to go to Dolly. The scissors of Dolly.
Charles-Norton, very pale, his long, strong legs trembling beneath him, sank upon the nearest bench, and tried to catch hold of the world again, of the reality of the world. His hands, unconsciously expressing his mental attitude, held the bench's rim tight with white knuckles.
Eight hundred dollars was not so much. Besides, it was only seven hundred and eighty now. And Dolly was a good little wife. A good, faithful, loving little wife. In a few months the money would all be gone if he stopped working. If he went back to the office and worked, the eight hundred (minus twenty) could be kept in the savings bank as a precious resource against ill-luck. And some of it could be used to buythings—furs for Dolly, for instance, brave little Dolly. Her household allowance could be increased a bit—brave, cheerful, careful, economical, busy, loving little Dolly!
In the silence of his cogitation, Charles-Norton suddenly heard with great distinctness a furtive creaking within the shoulders of his coat.
"Dear Little Dolly!" he exclaimed ostentatiously, making a brave effort to keep his eyes upon his beacon.
But right from between his feet a sparrow, like a firecracker exploding, sprang and went whirring up in the sky. Charles-Norton followed it with his eyes as it went winging, winging up in a series of lines, each of which ended in a droop, toward the high sky-scraper. And when his eyes reached, with the bird, the top of the building, they lit upon a cloud, a great white galleon of a cloud which, with all sails set, flanks opulently agleam with the swell of impalpable freights, went sliding by with streaming pennons, toward the West.
And Charles-Norton felt as though he were going to die. A great, sad yearning seemed to split his breast. He rose to his feet, his eyes upon thecloud. A turbulence now churned within him; his shoulders palpitated within their cloth prison (you see, they had not been sheared for a full twenty-four hours); a wave of madness, of daring, of revolt, rose into the head of Charles-Norton. "No, no, no," he growled. "No more, no more, I can't, I can't, no more, no,no!"
The last no was as a trumpet note—a defiant negative hurled at the Force of the Universe. And Charles-Norton began to race around the fountain, striking with his right fist his left hand, muttering unintelligible and tremendous protests. You see, his wings had grown altogether too long. He could feel their ligatures reaching like roots to his soul. When, at the end of the third lap, he came to his bench again, his mind was made up. Only details remained to be determined.
And when he rose for the last time from the bench, these were fixed. His appearance was one of great calmness tense above a suppressed ebullition. Before him his programme stretched like a broad, clear road. He followed it.
Firstly he went to the bank and drew out three hundred dollars in cash.
With the roll in his breast-pocket, he walked up Broadway till he came to a Cook's Tourist agency; entering, after a short discussion aided by the perusal of a map, he exchanged part of his roll for a long, green, accordeon-pleated ticket.
Then he went out and bought himself a tawny, creaky suit-case, and then, successively, going from store to store:
Two collars.A comb.A neck-tie.A tooth-brush.A safety razor.A little can of tooth-powder.A shaving brush and a cake of soap.A cap.A pair of much abbreviated swimming trunks.
Two collars.
A comb.
A neck-tie.
A tooth-brush.
A safety razor.
A little can of tooth-powder.
A shaving brush and a cake of soap.
A cap.
A pair of much abbreviated swimming trunks.
All of which he placed in his new suit-case.
Then after a moment of frowning consideration, he purchased two thick woolen double-blankets which he rolled up and strapped.
After which he boldly strode into the Waldorf-Astoria.
Such affluence, by this time, did his personemanate that four brass-buttoned boys simultaneously sprang to their feet and came running up to him. He waved them aside with a commanding gesture and went into the writing-room.
He opened his check-book. "3," he wrote firmly in the right hand corner. "Pay to the order of," he read; "Dolly Margaret Sims," he wrote, "Four hundred and eighty and no-hundredths dollars."
He signed the check, tore it off, and let the now looted check-book drop negligently to the floor. He placed the folded check in an envelope, wrote a little letter and placed it by the check, sealed the envelope, and wrote upon it,
Mrs. Charles Norton Sims267 West 129th St.New York
267 West 129th St.New York
New York
and rang for a messenger boy, to whom he gave the letter.
Then calling for a taxi-cab, he whizzed away to the Grand Central station.
Ten minutes later, amid a ding-donging of bells and a roaring of steam, a big, luxurious trainbegan to strain at its couplings on its way overland. As it slid slowly out beneath the resonant cupola, Charles-Norton emerged from the rear door and stepped out upon the observation platform.
And there, upon this wide, large platform, which was much like a miniature stage, Charles-Norton appeared for a moment in undignified pantomime. Leaning over the shining rail, chin thrust out, he shook both fists at the receding city, and spit into its face.
Charles-Norton's letter came to Dolly in the evening, after a day full of worry. It read:
"Dear Dolly:—Enclosed is $480. It's for you. I'm going away. I simply can't stand it, that's all. I think I still love you, Dolly, but I can't stand the life. I can't, that's all. I must have, I must have—well, I can't stand that clipping business any longer."Please don't grieve. Some day you'll meet a man who is real fond of you and who will make you happy—one that hasn't any wings. There are lots of them."Yours always (in thought),"Charles-Norton.""P.S.—Please don't feel too bad about this."C.N."
"Dear Dolly:—Enclosed is $480. It's for you. I'm going away. I simply can't stand it, that's all. I think I still love you, Dolly, but I can't stand the life. I can't, that's all. I must have, I must have—well, I can't stand that clipping business any longer.
"Please don't grieve. Some day you'll meet a man who is real fond of you and who will make you happy—one that hasn't any wings. There are lots of them.
"Yours always (in thought),"Charles-Norton."
"P.S.—Please don't feel too bad about this.
"C.N."
At the reading of this tactful epistle, Dolly, of course, immediately burst out into hysterics. These shall remain undescribed here. There is something mysterious about hysteria which paralyzes the pen. Not the least mysterious thing about it is the fact that the word, pronounced in an assembly of men and women, will simultaneously call up haggard lines on the faces of the men and cooing sniggles in the throats of the ladies.
Anyway, poor little Dolly had it bad all that night, and all the next day, and all the next night. By the morning of the second day, it had passed to a lamentable wandering to and fro within the cage-like apartment, with disordered garments and unkempt hair, through which eyes shone with a glint of madness. By the afternoon of the same day, it was taking some interest in its reflection as it passed the several mirrors in its ceaseless pacing. The reflection reminded of Ophelia. Finally, when in the evening it caught itself nibbling cracker and cheese in the upset kitchen, it realized that it needed new stimulus. It telegraphed for Dolly's Boston aunt.
The calculation proved correct. When, twelvehours later, the Boston aunt pressed the button at the landing, she found herself almost immediately tackled around the neck, while a shriek pierced her right ear. This was followed by a palpitant hugging, from the folds of which emerged vague, bubbling sounds. The aunt bore the demonstration with stoicism and with a certain reservation of self. She was very much unlike Dolly—tall and spare, with bushy brows, beneath the deep arcade of which glowed two limpid gray eyes. These eyes, during Dolly's little performance, remained somehow outside of the enveloping flutter. They peered over Dolly's shoulder in an alert examination of the disorder evident within the flat, and in their serene depths a slight will-o'-the-wisp seemed discreetly dancing. When finally Dolly's outburst had moderated, the old lady spoke. "Where is the bath-room?" she said.
Dolly dropped her convulsive hold and drew back a step. "The bath-room!" she exclaimed, her eyes very big; "you want to know where the bath-room is!"
"Yes, the bath," repeated Auntie, as though astonished at the astonishment.
Dolly showed it to her. A calmness had come over her, a calmness of indignation. Auntie gave the bottom of the tub a hurried cleaning, adjusted the faucet to a tepid flow, dropped in the stopper, and sat down on the edge of the porcelain as the water rose within. "I'm going to give you a bath," she announced to Dolly, who stood there petrified with hurt amazement.
And when the tub was full, she rose lightly to her feet and began to take off Dolly's soiled kimono. Dolly, in a daze, felt the garment slip from her, and then slid into the warm, green pool, which closed softly about her neck. "You lie there a while," said Auntie; "I'll come back and give you a shampoo."
And Dolly remained alone in the steaming room. Little by little, to the persistent caress of the warm water, she felt her body relax; she shut her eyes; from beneath the closed lids tears exuded softly; they came freely, without a pang. After a while, even these ceased. From the bedroom came the sound of a bed being rolled, a flapping of sheets, a whirring of blinds. Auntie returned. "Now," she said alacriously.
Dolly's head was being rubbed; a snow-white bubbly mountain was rising upon it, a mountain like an island—that is to say, like that confection known as a floating island; she could feel on her scalp the wise, soothing fingers of her aunt breaking down the resistance of her nerves; her eyes, shut at first merely to keep out the soap, remained closed in semi-ecstasy.
"Now, out you go!" suddenly boomed a voice, as a patter of water descended upon her head; and Dolly stepped out into the vigorous embrace of a turkish towel. It was passing over her body with a firm, rotary motion as of machinery; she swayed within it like a palm in a tempest. It slid up into her hair and finally twisted itself about it in a turban. A fresh night-dress descended about her; "to bed, now," said the voice.
The room was gray and cool within the lowered blinds; passively, Dolly slipped in between the fresh white sheets; her head sank into the crackling pillow. A little sob rose in her throat. "O, Auntie," she said, "O-o-o."
"Not a word now!" the capable lady immediately broke in. "I know all about it. Youcan tell it to me when you wake up. Go to sleep now."
It was a pleasant sort of violence; as a harness of flowers the obedience of Dolly's childhood slipped again about her. She shut her eyes, then like a puppy-dog snuggling to its mother, turned and dug her round little nose into the pillow. A snifflet of a sigh sounded—and as it sounded became the first long breath of sleep.
The Boston aunt stood some time by the bed, tall and straight like a grenadier on watch. Suddenly she stooped down and placed a kiss upon the curve of cheek emerging from the folds of the pillow. Immediately she was erect again. "Poor darned little girl!" she said.
She paused again, out in the dining-room, her eyes far away. "Hetried that once on me," she said reminiscently. A gleam of humor lit up her gray eyes. "I fixed him," she said decidedly. And then, with some tenderness: "Poor great big things," she said; "what chance have they against us!"
Upon which she went into the kitchen where lay a pile of viscous dishes, eloquent of the home's demoralization.
When Dolly emerged from her room some twenty-four hours later, her face was pale and her little nose was red, and she seemed a bit dazed.
"Hello, Dolly," said the Boston aunt, looking up and giving the sofa-cushion she was arranging a final thump; "hello, Dolly; come into the kitchen and have some breakfast."
Upon the gas stove she toasted bread and poached two eggs, which she laid before Dolly like two triumphant suns glowing through a fragrant haze of coffee. Dolly successively suppressed the joyous acclaim which instinctively rose from her whole being at the sight; but she ate. Rather mincingly, of course; but still, on the whole, efficiently. At times she closed her eyes, and then from beneath the lowered lids a few tears came gliding without friction. "Now," said the aunt, after the last crumb of toast had disappeared; "let's go into the other room and hear about it."
She led the way into that little room, which was fairly encumbered with coziness. She took one of the rocking-chairs. Dolly sank into the other. By keeping the same rhythm, there wasspace for both to swing at the same time. Dolly swayed back and forth three times, and then burst into tears. "He has left me, Auntie; Goosie is gone; ooh-ooh!" The aunt's chair ceased rocking with an abruptness that made their knees bump. Dolly's chair stopped; she looked at her aunt in astonishment. Aunt Hester was sitting up very straight. "Do you mean to say," she began, and then paused as though unable to believe the evidence; "do you mean to say," she went on, "do you mean to say, Dolly Sims, that you made me come down all the way from Boston just because Charles-Norton is gone?"
"Why, yes," answered Dolly, petrified. "Why, yes. Isn't that enough; isn't itenough? My life is ruined! Ruined! Oo-oo-ooh"—and her eyes, ablaze for an instant, became veiled by a filmy cascade.
"Pooh," said Aunt Hester, decidedly; "pooh. Charles-Norton is gone; well, he'll come back."
"He's not coming back," wailed Dolly, indignantly; "he'snot! He has dee-s-s-er-ted me!"
"Deserted," jeered Aunt Hester. "Charles-Norton! A fine chance Charles-Norton has to desert you, Dolly! First of all, he couldn't makehimself want to, no matter how much he tried. And if he did want to, he couldn't. You wouldn't let him, Dolly!"
"Wouldn't let him! Oh! Do you think, Auntie, that I am so low, so base, so devoid of pride, as to keep a man who——"
"Toot-toot," said Aunt Hester; "toot-toot—you can't help it. Have you ever read that fellow Darwin, Dolly?"
"Darwin," said Dolly, rather astonished at the turn taken by the conversation; "Darwin—did he write 'When Knighthood was in Flower'?"
Aunt Hester opened her mouth like a fish suddenly whisked out of water. She closed it again. By the time she spoke, she had suppressed something. "No, no, Dolly," she said. "Darwin, the—well, it doesn't matter. We've been reading him lately, anyway, at the Cooking Club. That chapknowsthings, Dolly. He didn't tell me anything I didn't know ahead myself; but heexplainedlots of things I had found out. You should read him."
"I'll read him, Auntie," said Dolly, with dolorous voice. "I suppose I'll have to read now, orpaint china, or do something like that, now that Charles, that Charles, that Charles——"
"Oh, Charles, Charles, Charles," echoed Aunt Hester, but in much different tone; "you'll get your Charles back. Charles-Norton! He has as much chance to escape you—as the earth has to stop whirling around. You baby! Why, you've got all Nature on your side, plotting and scheming for you.Hisdice are loaded; he can't win!"
"Aunty, whatareyou talking about! Here I am, un-unhappy, and needing, needing, needing friendship, and you sit and talk—I don't know what."
"For, what is Charles-Norton?" continued the Boston lady, as though she had not heard Dolly. "What is Charles-Norton? A man. Hence, a clung-to."
"A clung-to!" exclaimed Dolly, a dreadful suspicion beginning to add itself to her greater trouble.
"Just so—a clung-to. And the direct heir of hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands of clung-tos. For of the men since the beginningof the world, Dolly, it's only the clung-tos that survived, or rather that had babies that survived——"
"Auntie!" admonished Dolly.
"Certainly," went on Aunt Hester, seemingly misinterpreting Dolly's interruption. "They alone had babies that survived. The babies of the others—well, they starved, or fell into the fire, or were massacred in the wars. So that now thereareno others. There are only descendants of clung-tos, and hence clung-tos. Charles-Norton, Dolly, is a clung-to!"
"But, Auntie," protested Dolly, "he isn't any horrid such thing. And he's gone, he's gone—and I certainly won'tforcehim to——"
"And you, Dolly," pursued Aunt Hester, unruffled, as though a professor addressing a group of freshmen. "And you, Dolly, what are you? A woman. Hence a cling-to."
"A cling-to!" screamed Dolly.
"Certainly. A cling-to. The end of a line of thousands and thousands of cling-tos. For of the women since the beginning of the world, Dolly, which survived? The cling-tos. They alone were able to live, and to have baby-girls who survived—if cling-tos. The others, and thebabies of the others, they starved; that's all, Dolly, they starved. No mastodon steak for them, Dolly; no nice wing-bone of ictiosaurus—they starved. So that there are now no others—or mighty few. You, Dolly, being alive and well and a woman, are inevitably a cling-to."
"Auntie! Auntie!" murmured Dolly, puzzled and horrified.
"To recapitulate," Aunt Hester swept on. "To recapitulate: Charles-Norton is a clung-to; you are a cling-to. Neither of you can help him or herself. For it is the very essence of the being of the one to hold, of the other to be held."
"How horrible!" said Dolly, with a shudder.
"In other words, my dears," went on the aunt; "in other words, you aredreadfullyin love with each other and can't keep apart."
"Love!" moaned Dolly.
"Love," the aunt repeated firmly.
Dolly rocked for a time; tears again were dropping fast from the end of her eye-lashes. "But hedoesn'tlove me," she wailed at length. "And heisn'ta, a—that horrid Chinesy word you call him, and he is gone, gone!"
"Oh, my dear, of course," said Aunt Hester; "of course, things are not quite as simple as I have been describing them. A woman has to use some sense about it these days. This clinging business has become more complicated with civilization. You may have erred in the details. Now, tell me what has happened, all that has happened."
And Dolly, in a rush of words, told the lamentable story of her domestic woe, of her struggle with the wings of Charles-Norton.
Aunt Hester was silent for a time; then she nodded her head affirmatively. "Yes, that's it, my dear," she said. "It is as I suspected. You have been clinging with your eyes shut. And in these perilous times it is necessary to cling with eyes open. You——"
But Dolly had risen to her feet, vibrant. "Do you mean to say," she began, and her voice was very low and tense; "do you mean to say that I should be subjected to living with a man—with a man"—her voice rose—"with a man, Auntie, who hasWings?"
"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Aunt Hester, hastily, "you mistake me. Ofcourse, I am notaskingthatof you. But that is not necessary either. The essential—it is to let Charles-Nortonbelievethat he has his wings, not that he should have them. And then, my dear, to be frank, to be just, I must say that this seems to me a case for compromise. Yes, dear, you should allow Charles-Norton part of his wings; oh yes, you should really let him have a bit of these wings. Andthatbit, Dolly, if you are the wise and capable little girl I think you can be, you should turn to the advantage, to the preservation, to the prosperity—hem—of the home!"
Dolly sat down, weak and trembling. She was silent for a long time. When she spoke again, it was in a tired voice. "Auntie," she said, "you mean well. I know that you are trying to help me and am very thankful to you. But we have differing views of Life. I am willing to do much for Charles-Norton—Oh, so much! I am willing to meet him half-way, three-quarters of the way, the whole way, on ever so many things, and I have done so. But when it comes to a question, Auntie, of self-respect, of morality, ofDecency, then, Auntie, never! On that, there can be no compromise. Charles-Norton cannot have wings."
"Oh, very well," said Aunt Hester, plainly nettled; "very well, very well. Then, what are you going to do?"
"Nothing," said Dolly, decidedly. "I will give him up," she said very firmly. "I will give him up," she repeated grandiloquently. "I will give him up," she said a third time—and broke out weeping.
"That," said Aunt Hester, "is what is known as thegrand stunt, and is rather popular these days. I've seen many try it, and mighty few achieve it. And you, Dolly"—she rose and stood with a hand upon the shaking shoulders beneath her—"and you, you little soft Dolly, why, you are about the last——"
"I shall not lift a finger," interrupted Dolly. "If he, he, he does not love me, I, I shall, not stoop to hold him!"
"Well," said Aunt Hester, briskly, "I am going now. I——"
"Going!" cried Dolly, desolately.
"I am going," repeated Aunt Hester, firmly. "There is nothing I can do here. And there're Earl's socks to be looked after (he is just entering Cambridge, you know), and Ethel's frocks(she's at the High School), and then there is your uncle—suppose he gets it intohishead to sprout feathers! No, no—I'm going home.I'mwilling to be what Nature said I had to be.Idon't take any chances with those new-fangled grand-stunts. Besides, if you are just going to do nothing, why, then, you can do that without me."
And setting her bonnet upon her nice gray hair, Aunt Hester picked up her grip and marched out into the hall.
"Auntie! Auntie!" cried Dolly, running after her.
Aunt Hester stopped at the opened door and turned. She confronted Dolly, and the will-o'-the-wisp was dancing in the profundities of her deep-set eyes. A tenderness came into them; she dropped her grip, seized Dolly, and drew her close.
"Dear little Dolly," she whispered; "you'll do it, don't you fear. You'll bring back your Charles-Norton, you soft little woman, you; you'll get him! And now, kiss me good-by. Write to me—when you decide."
The door closed, and leaning against it, Dollywept a long time. Then she went within and in a more comfortable position, wept more. She wept for a whole week. And then, suddenly, one afternoon, she stood up in the center of the room and began stamping her foot.
"I won't," she said, with each stamp of the little foot. "I won't, I won't, I won't!"
And saying "I won't," she did. She sat down at the table and on her pale blue letter paper, wrote:
"Dear Auntie:—Yes, you were right, I guess. Iama cling-to. I want him. I don't care: he's mine and Iwon'tgive him up. Tell me how to do it, Auntie, oh, tell me how! Quick, Auntie, quick!"
"Dear Auntie:—Yes, you were right, I guess. Iama cling-to. I want him. I don't care: he's mine and Iwon'tgive him up. Tell me how to do it, Auntie, oh, tell me how! Quick, Auntie, quick!"
The answer was not long in coming. "Dearest Little Dolly," wrote Aunt Hester; "of course, I knew you would, and I am glad. As to telling you how—well, that is very simple. Just go to him, Dolly. Go to him (not too soon; wait a while) and just stick around. Your instincts will tell you the rest. Rely on your instincts, Dolly," went on this incorrigible Darwinian."They are better than your reason, for they are the reason of your mother and grandmother, and all the line of mothers that came before you.Theyhad to be right, Dolly, or they wouldn't have been, and thenyouwouldn't be. Go to him, and stick around, and do as you feel like doing. In all probability you'll be nice, and humble, and snuggledy, and warm. And then, make—your arrangements.Hecan't help himself. Nature is on your side. His dice are loaded. Cling, Dolly, cling."
Dolly blushed. "Auntie is horrid," she said. And then, after a while, "But right," she said.
Meanwhile, unaware of this discussion and of this decision, Charles-Norton, inflated with fancied freedom, captain of his soul and master of his Fate, was having a beautiful time.
Tableau:
A meadow by a lake, on the western slope of a high Sierra.
Below, and far to the west, lies a great plain, liquid with distance as though it were a sea of gold. From its nearer edge, the land comes leaping up in wide smooth waves of serried pines, to the meadow. There the pines stop abruptly, in the leaning immobility of a man who has almost trodden upon a flower. From their feet the meadow spreads, fresh and lush, susurant with the hidden flow of a brook, and jeweled here and there with flowers that are like butterflies. It stops, in its turn, before a chute of smooth granite in the form of a bowl. In the curve ofthe bowl lies a lake—a silvery lake in the depths of which dark blue hues pulse, and over the face of which light zephyrs pass, like painted shivers.
On the other side of the lake, to the east, the land continues to rise, in accelerated assault, first in long lustrous leaps of glacier-polished granite, then in a chaos of dome and spire, and finally breaks up against the sky in a serrated edge like the top-crest of a great wind-flagellated wave which, attacking Heaven, should have been suddenly petrified by a Word.
On the border of the pine-forest, its one door upon the meadow and facing the lake, is a log-cabin.
It is early morning, and the air is crisp and cold. To the left of the cabin, in the dusk of the trees, a fuzzy little donkey stands immobile as if still frozen by the night.
The sun, still behind the high crest to the east, aureoles it with rose; its light passes in a broad sheet athwart the sky, leaving the meadow in a lower darkish plane, as if in the still half-light of a profound sea; it strikes here and there, among the pinnacles, a glacier that scintillates frigidly. To the west, above the plain, which isas yet but an opalescent gray shift, the last star hangs humidly, like a tear at the end of a lash.
The rose halo deepens along the mountain top; the dark-blue dome of the sky fills with a lighter azure; the star swoons, and the sun peers over the crest. It ascends. Its rays plunge into the pool of darkness still upon the meadow; they pierce it, at first separately as with rapier thrusts, and then finally billow down into it in a cascade of molten gold. The shadows flee; the sunlight strikes the cabin; and Charles-Norton Sims appears at the door.
Immediately, the little donkey, rousing to life, comes braying to him across the green. Charles-Norton gives him a handful of salt, and with a slap sends him off again.
And then he stands in the door-way with arms folded, facing the sun. He is nude—except for the abbreviated swimming-trunks which were his last buy in New York—and to the light his skin, polished like ivory, takes on a warm and subtle glow. From his shoulders there hangs behind him, to his heels, something that might be a cloak, except that it does not cloak him. It does not envelop him; rather does it stand behind himin ornamental background, with a certain sculptural effect. And it is white, a wondrous gleaming white, against which the whiteness of his skin seems rosy. Starting from his shoulders, it goes out and up in gentle undulation to either side, and then descends in two swift slight curves that meet in a gothic tip at his heels. It is in shape like a Greek urn, but has with it a flowing quality—and the whiteness. It is like a Greek urn of pure alabaster that would have turned liquid, and would be pouring down behind him in lustrous cascade.
Charles-Norton steps forward—and suddenly this background, this mantle, this singular ornament, parts in two glistening sections which rise horizontally to either side of him. By Jove, they are wings! The wings of Charles-Norton. They have been growing, since thatcoup-de-têteof his.
He raises them horizontally, and with a dry rustling sound they open out like fans. He waves them gently, up and down; his chest fills, his head goes back; and from his open mouth, as from a clarion, there goes out a great clear cry which, striking the mountain, rebounds alongfrom rock to rock in golden echoes. He rises into the air.
He goes up slowly, in wide, negligent circles, with slow, strong flap of wings, his body, with pointed feet close together, hanging lithe, a warm ivory white between the colder and more radiant whiteness of the wings. He turns and floats above the lake, then, folding his wings, like a white arrow shoots down into the water. A fountain of foaming drops springs toward the sky. Charles-Norton Sims is having his morning bath.
He swims with smooth breast-stroke, his feet and hands below the water, but his wings raised above. Their roots, at his shoulders, cleave the glazed surface like a prow, leaving, behind, a slender wake; they follow above, swinging a bit from side to side, like glorious becalmed sails.
And thus, like a large Nautilus, he drifts to the shore. He emerges, glistening, upon a little beach which curves there like a little moon dropped by a careless Creator; he takes a hop, a skip, and a jump, and lands headlong upon the yellow sand.
He stretches himself taut, his hands, straight above him, clutching the sand, his toes digging into it, and spreads his wings in fans at his sides. The earth is there beneath him, in his embrace; he feels her strength flowing into his veins. The sun is up there, above him; he feels pouring upon him, penetratingly, its hot life. Content croons in his heart.
But after a while, an uneasiness stirs him. He moves vaguely several times, he finally rises to his knees. Oh yes, of course, it is his stomach—the old tyranny. He walks to the cabin, kicks into incandescence the heap of coals in front of the door, and throws a handful of dry brush upon them. He seizes a long pole which is leaning against the façade of the cabin, goes back to the lake, climbs a large bowlder, and sitting himself comfortably in a hollow of it, extends the pole, and drops into the crystalline waters at his feet a bit of red flannel. Immediately there is a small convulsion and he whisks out of the lake a vibrant little object that looks like a fragment of rainbow. He whisks out another, another—twelve in succession. He goes back to the fire with his rainbows.
There, he—fries them; and—eats them.
Upon which he squats contentedly upon the grass, and fills and lights his pipe. He sits there very quietly, his feet drawn up, his wings behind him like a resplendent mantle; he smokes gravely his little black pipe. His eyes are half-closed, watching the hazy blue puffs of the bowl rise toward the turquoise-blue dome of the sky. Far above him, a hawk is circling; to the sight, after a while, a vague melancholy enters his heart, a subtle and inexplicable yearning. He rises slowly to it, his pipe dropping from his loosened lips. He tucks the pipe into his trunks (that is why he wears the trunks); his wings spread out to both sides. He gives a little spring—and is up in the air.
He hovers above the meadow a while, a bit aimlessly, as though waiting for an inspiration, rising, falling, rising with slow strong flap of wing—then suddenly he is off, like a streak, in a whirring diagonal for the high crests. He dwindles, higher and higher, farther and farther, smaller and smaller, till finally he is among the tip-top pinnacles, a mere white palpitation, asnow-flake in the whirl of a capricious wind, a little glistening moth flitting from glacier to glacier as from lily to lily.
Down in the deserted meadow, the little donkey opens his mouth creakingly, and throws forth a lonesome bray.
This is what Charles-Norton Sims is doing while his little wife, back in New York, sits desolate in her empty flat.
On the fourth day of his flight, sitting at the wide window of a Pullman which was clicking slowly along a high summit, he had caught between two snow-sheds a rapid glimpse of this nook in the chaos of the World. In a picture flashed clear for a moment to his eyes, he had seen the cabin, the meadow, and the lake; and his heart had given a leap like that of the anchor of a ship which at last has come to port. When, thirty minutes later, the train, now on the down-grade, had slid with set brakes by a little mining-camp huddled at the foot of a great red scar torn in the heart of a slanting pine forest, Charles-Norton, without more ado, had seized his grip and his blankets, and sidling out to the platform, had jumped lightly and neatly to the ground.
When the last gleaming rail of the train hadvanished around a bend, Charles-Norton descended to the camp. It was a decrepit camp, the mine having given out. Charles-Norton found the whole population in the general store. It consisted of five men, about which seemed thrown an invisible but heavy cloak of somnolence. They had entered languidly but politely into his plans. The storekeeper had gladly parted with one-third of the comestible stock which was slowly petrifying on shelf and rafter; a little burro, grazing on the dump, had been transformed into a pack-animal; and after standing treat three times around, Charles-Norton, leading by a rope his fuzzy four-footed companion, to a great flapping of amicable sombreros had taken the trail winding toward the high hills.
The little burro, now obscurely melancholic, grazed in the meadow. Within the cabin, depending from the smoke-polished rafters, a sack of flour, a bag of sugar, a ham, and several sides of bacon were strung, while a pyramid of tins leaned against the blackened fireplace. The bunk against the right wall held Charles-Norton's blankets; the one on the left wall was empty.In spite of this empty bunk, which at times yawned with an air of vague reproach, the cabin, with its wide fireplace, in the center of which a rotund kettle hung, with its neatly strung and stacked provisions, had a certain coziness, a sober, sedate expression of assurance for days to come.
And it was a fine life to live.
He would get up early in the morning, and reached the sill of the door with the sun. He would have his swim, his breakfast, and his smoke—and then he was off.
He was off for an all-day winged romp. He made straight for the crest at first and lit upon the tip-top of its highest pinnacle, rising there out of the rocky chaos like an exclamation of gleaming granite. Its top, hollowed by the weathers, made a seat which just fitted him. To the north and to the south, the saw-toothed crest extended for miles to purple disappearances; within its folds, here and there, a glacier scintillated like a jewel. To the west and to the east, the mountain descended; at first in a cataract of polished domes and runs, then in long velvety waves of stirring pines, and finally in pale-yellowfoothills, to the plains. These were very far and were elusive of aspect. Sometimes they were as a haze; sometimes like a carpet of twined flowers upon a slowly heaving sea; sometimes they were liquid, and then the one to the east was bluishly white, like milk, the one to the west like pooled molten gold.
Charles-Norton sat here long, his elbow on his knees, his chin in his hand, his wings drooping behind, along the perpendicular smoothness of the rock, and pondered his happiness. A profound satisfaction was within him; it was as if his blood, at last, were flowing submissively along a great cosmic stream, to some eternal behest. After a time, he rose a-tip-toe, like a diver above a gleaming sheet, extended his wings, and sprang.
At first he dropped plumb, into the abyss; then his spread wings caught the air and held his fall. He gave one soft flap, and then another, and rose. He floated upward; he was even with the top of the pinnacle, passed it slowly, saw it beneath his feet, and still, with slow, strong beat of wing, continued ascending. It was joyous work; he rose on powerful pinion; it was as if his headand shoulders continuously were emerging from one layer of the atmosphere into another more fresh and clear and more beautiful; the air streamed along his skin in a clean, cold caress that enveloped his soul. He passed big sad eagles that flew with lowered beaks, their wrinkled and worried eyes upon the peaks below; he laughed, and astounded, they fell off beneath him in vertiginous circles. The earth beneath was like a bowl, a bowl full of plashing sunshine. He kept on up, rising straight in the cold and hollow air, into a great silence, the only sound that of his wings, beating a solemn measure. He looked no longer down, now. Head rearing back, face to the sun, with half-closed eyes he went on up with outspread wings, an ecstasy clutching at his heart; clutching at it, clutching at it, till finally it was too exquisite to bear, and half-swooning, with dangling pinion he let himself swoop back through the dizzy spaces, back to the earth.
Again upon his pinnacle, he lay very still, long, on his back, breathing deeply, while slowly the ecstatic languor left his body. He was alittle afraid of this game, this perpendicular assault of infinities, and allowed it to himself only once a day. It was his dissipation; there was something vaguely perilous in the absorption of it. So, having rested now, he betook himself to less audacious pastimes.
He selected a peak some ten miles away, and shot to it in a line which was impeccably straight. Then he repeated the flight, this time in a slight even curve, flowing and smooth as the rise, swell, and gradual fall of a musical chord. The next time, he flew to the peak in a zipping parabola that was as the course of a rocket.
This game was the consummation of the old yearning which, in days gone by, had impelled him to draw lines upon a sheet of paper. Where before, miserably and inadequately, tormented by a sense of impotence, he had drawn with a pencil lines upon paper, he now drew, with his whole gleaming white body, stupendous lines of beauty upon the blue of the sky.
He liked this. He sensed his evolution. He seemed to have within his brain a delicate instrument that recorded the movements of his body. As he cut through the azure, each flown line was deposited within him in a record of beauty. Heflew from peak to peak, in lean, sizzling white lines; in shooting diagonals; in gentle floating curves; in zig-zags as of lightning; in rising and drooping lines that hoped and despaired; in soarings that aspired and broke; in arabesques that laughed; in gothic arches that prayed; in large undulations that wept. Sometimes he drew whole edifices—fairy castles, domes, towers, spires—which, once created, went floating off forever on the blue, freighted with their fantastic inhabitants, invisible, impalpable, and imperishable. And always within him was the record of the created thing, the record of created beauty, etched forever in the inner chamber of his soul.
Sometimes he played with his shadow; he tried to lose it. With a sudden bound that was meant to take it unaware, he was off, along the crest, at vertiginous speed. He went on thus, mile after mile; mile after mile, razing the peaks, he passed along the crest like a white thunderbolt, his wings a blur, his body streaming behind like an arrow. His head struck the air, broke it, parted it; it slid along his flanks in a caress that penetrated to his heart. But always beneath him, like a menace in water-depths, springing frompeak to peak in huge flaccid leaps, stubborn and black his shadow followed him.
Of all the lines he knew, however, the one that he loved best was the one he drew when returning to the cabin at sunset. He would come to the meadow from the mountains at a high altitude, and then, placing himself carefully above it, he would fold his wings and drop.
He shot down like an arrow, in a long palpitant line, and then, two hundred yards from the sward, opened his wings in an explosion of fluffy whiteness.
Out of this line he obtained a profound sensation of beauty, of beauty in simplicity. It was as though he had drawn a long, slender stalk that opened in a white chalice; as though he had planted a flower, a cosmic flower, there in the bosom of the sky.
In the evening, after his meal and his pipe, he winged away to a last adventure which was as a prayer. Leaving the warm glow of his camp-fire, he soared upward into the violet night. The earth fell away beneath him, a blue blur, a shadow, till finally the shadow itself whelmed in nocturnal profundities, and of the earth thereremained nothing but the little fire, the little fire gleaming red in the clearing. He rose. The night accepted him with silence and solemnity, in a velvety envelopment. He rose. The stars, at first, were all above him; gradually new cohorts of them appeared to his right and his left, on all sides; and finally, his fire, down in the clearing, itself become a star, closed a perfect sphere. He was the center of a universe of stars; the soft beating of his wings was as the hushed tolling of their eternities; the rustle of his wings the crackling of their flames. They moved as he moved; always their center, he could not approach them. And thus encircled, sometimes bewildered, he lost his way. He forgot which star was his; seized with sudden fright, he winged one way and another in mad dashes toward cold orbs which fled him.
But always, finally remembering, he could find his way merely by folding his wings.
He folded his wings, and immediately, of all the stars the little winking red one came rushing to him while the others slid by. It came rushing to him fiercely, with a sort of jealous and almost ludicrous haste, its face red with effort.And with it came the earth, a shadow, a fragrance; its warm, sweet breath fanned his cheek. Spreading largely his wings, he lit softly upon the meadow-grass, by the little fire, by the cabin, home for the night.
Man changes. Toward the end of summer, Charles-Norton found himself insensibly altering the glorious routine of his altitudinous existence.
One day he was tempted by the great plain that lay golden in the West. Idly, he let himself float down the mountain sides, in long descending diagonals, and suddenly found himself above a farm in the plain. In the backyard, children were playing; a man was sharpening a plowshare at a wheel, and out of the kitchen-shed there came a clatter of dishes and the voice of a woman in song. Seized by a sudden perverse humor, Charles-Norton swooped into the chicken-yard and snatched a hen which, feeling herself rising in his hand, straightway shut her eyes and died of imagination. A scream rose from the earth, and looking down, Charles-Norton saw the three little children, legs apart, hands behind them, gazing up with white eyes; the man, backto the wheel, had his mouth open, as if inviting his vanishing fowl to drop back into it; and out of the kitchen door a wide woman suddenly popped, her lips working in malediction. His amusement a bit dampened by this consternation and by the unforeseen conduct of the hen, Charles-Norton went winging back, the dead fowl dangling at the end of his arm, to his retreat, and that night, when the pangs of his conscience had somewhat moderated, enjoyed the best dinner he had had for many days.
This incident reawakened in Charles-Norton a certain interest in human-kind. He began to visit the Valley more often.
The Valley was some hundred miles south of his meadow. It was a great cleft that split the mountain range from crest to center. Its walls were perpendicular and glacier-polished, and sculptured at the top into smooth domes and fretted spires. Down these sheer walls, here and there, coming to them without suspicion, whole rivers fell—some in rockets of diamonds, others chastely, in thin flight, like shifting and impalpable veils, others in great lustrous columns that struck the rocky bottom with thunderousimpact and rebounded high in clouds of pulverized silver.
The Valley seemed full of people. They came in from the West, in stages. They lived in a large structure, at the bottom, which Charles-Norton surmised to be a hotel, and hundreds camped along the banks of the river, which wound light-green through the dark-green meadows. They wandered about incessantly, like ants; most of the time, at the bottom, but a good deal of the time also along the vertical sides, toiling pantingly up narrow trails, laid like the coils of a riata, till they reached points of vantage—domes, pinnacles, heads of falls—whereupon they immediately sat down and devoured sandwiches.
When Charles-Norton had first discovered the Valley, he had fled from it at the sight of human beings. But now, often, a secret impulse urged him to it. He spent days there, crouching upon the top curve of a great half-dome from which he could look down and watch the little beings at their lives—walking about, cooking their meals, eating them, or following the arduous windings of the trails with sweating noses. Atnight their fires twinkled red; and once, when Charles-Norton, wrapped in the secrecy of the dark, had slowly floated the whole length of the Valley above them, there had come to him, softened and blended by distance, the harmony of their voices in song.
At first, he had felt but disdain for them, but gradually another feeling had come to him, they were so slow, and crawly, and helpless—and yet so indomitable. A vague pity, almost a respect, swelled within him as he watched them panting, and perspiring, and toiling up the slopes, reaching thus with untold effort heights insignificant to him, from which they presently tumbled down again after their inevitable lunch of sandwiches. This new interest expressed itself rudimentarily in a perverse desire to tease them. Yielding to it one afternoon, in broad daylight he sailed the whole length of the Valley, going slowly, resplendent in the sun. He could see the little beings gather in groups, and see the little yellow faces screwed up toward him; and upon the stage, gliding in from the West like a Cinderella coach drawn by six white mice, all the passengers were standing with milling arms. With a few strongbeats, he whizzed out of range and returned to his meadow, chuckling.
He was back again the next day, though, and the next; and of evenings he began to hover about the Upper Inn.
The Upper Inn was a little chalet built on the edge of the Valley's northern wall. It crouched there, small as a toy in the chaos of huge domes surrounding it, backed up against a great granite-rooted tamarack as if in fear of the abyss yawning at its feet. From its veranda, a glance fell sheer, along the glacier-polished wall, to the valley floor, three thousand feet below.
Charles-Norton, of evenings, liked to hover in the void in front of the Inn, his head even with the veranda, his body dangling beneath, while he looked through the glass door into the hall within.... Always a red fire glowed there, within a large black fireplace; and about it, men and women, in garments fresh and clean after the day's climbing, sat chatting or reading. Among them was a young woman who interested Charles-Norton. She was slim and very fair, with hair that lay light upon her head as a goldenvapor, and she wore upon her shoulders, negligently draped, a scarf within the white shimmer of which a color glowed like a flame. Beside her nearly always hovered a big young fellow, dark and handsome, but who did not seem very happy.
One evening she rose abruptly, and before Charles-Norton could guess her intention, she had opened the door, and was out upon the veranda, gazing toward him with eyes yet blind with the darkness. Charles-Norton did not move. They two remained thus long, she looking straight out into the void, divining perhaps—who knows?—a vague palpitant whiteness, like a soul, out there in the night; he, moving his great wings slowly and softly, while his heart within him thumped loud. Then he let himself sink silently, till beneath the plane of the Inn's floor, circled, and rising again, took a position at the end of the veranda, from which, peering around the corner of the house, he could still observe her.
She stood there, tight against the rail, as though she had brought up abruptly against it, making impetuously for the void. He could seeher slight pliant form, silhouetted against the jeweled horizon; upon her shoulders, her scarf floated like a vague phosphorescence, and her face was whitely turned toward the stars. He heard her take a long deep breath of the night, and then her arms went up and out in a vibrant gesture.
She remained thus, a long moment, her eyes toward the stars, her arms toward the stars, and her whole slender body, arched slightly backward, seemed to offer itself to the stars. Then suddenly her head dropped, her arms dropped, and she straightened, leaning against the rail. The door behind had opened and closed again, and upon the veranda, now, was the big loom of another form, a form which carried, at the height of the head, a warm pulsing glow, like the incandescent point of a red-heated poker.
They stood immobile, the two, a long time. She had not stirred since her first start; she remained with her back to the door, her eyes out into the void. Then the point of light on the larger form slid down, till it dangled at the end of what Charles-Norton guessed was an arm, and a low voice toned in the silence. "Why did youleave me?" he said; "why do you always leave me?"
Her voice answered immediately, clear and warm as a red crystal. "Oh, I wanted to say good-by to the stars," she said; "I wanted to say good-by to the stars!"
"And why did you want to say good-by to the stars?" he asked, speaking softly, as to a child.
"Because," she said, "I am leaving them. Because I am leaving the stars."
"And why are you leaving the stars?" he asked, taking a step toward her.
She turned toward him, now, and laid both her hands lightly upon his shoulders. "Because, John, I am going to you," she said; "because, John, I love you."
"Dora!" he cried.
She arrested him with a gesture. "I have loved you long, John," she went on; "I have loved you long—but I have fought it, fought it, fought it, John!"
"And why have you fought it?" he asked, again gently, as to a child.
"Because, John—oh, I don't know. Because, John, there is something within me—which Idon't know. Something which yearns, John—for I don't know what. For peaks, John, for skies, for the stars; for—I don't know——"
"Dora, Dora," he said, a bit sadly.
"And so I fought it, John, I fought your love. But it has poured into me, John, as honey fills a chalice; gradually, sweetly, it has filled my veins, my blood, my heart, John. And to-night, John, my whole being was swollen with it, John, with the love of you, John, and I came out to say good-by to the stars——"
"Dora!" he cried again; and this time enveloped her in his arms.
A horrid, impish feeling suddenly pricked Charles-Norton; taking wing he slid along the veranda and seized, as he passed, from the shoulders of the girl, the scarf, from the conceited head of the young man, his derby hat, and flapped off with them in the darkness. The crash of an astonished chair and a faint little cry followed him for a moment, then dropped off behind.
Charles-Norton laughed all the way home. Half-way over he dropped, into the deepest abyss he knew, the derby hat, which arrived at the bottom, no doubt, in very bad condition. But thescarf was still with him as he alighted in the meadow and felt against his hand the humid greeting of Nicodemus, the lonely little donkey.
Across the cabin, as he went to sleep, the empty bunk yawned, somehow, with unusual insistence. "I wonder what Dolly is doing," he said vaguely, as he slid down the slumber-chute.
Dolly was getting along very well, thank you. Mostly, she was reading the papers. For if Charles-Norton thought for a moment that his indiscretions were to go unrecorded, he was very much mistaken.
Cuddled in the big Morris chair of the little flat, a be-ribboned sack loose about her comfortable little body, her head golden in the soft cascade of light falling from the lamp, an open box of candy at her elbow, Dolly was reading the evening paper. It was all about Charles-Norton Sims, the paper, though it did not mention him by name, but variously, according to the temperaments of its correspondents, as a condor, an ichthyosaurus, the moon, an aeroplane, a Japanese fleet, a myth, a cloud, a hallucination, a balloon, and a goose. As she read, she alternately frowned and laughed. Her brows would draw together very seriously, and then suddenly her red lips would part to let through a sparkling rocket oflaughter, and then her brows would again knit in concern. The laughter was of triumph at seeing her prophecy come true, for of course, all the time, she had known that Charles-Norton, left alone, would make a fool of himself; the concern was at the thought that, still alone, he would continue to make a fool of himself.
"Well," she said finally, as the paper slipped from her knees to the floor; "well, it's about time I rescued the poor dear. I must go to him."
She sat gazing mentally back over the lonely two months, the period of her existence now about to terminate, and was astonished to find that, after all, it had not been so bad. Ever since the first crisis, ever since she had made up her mind to hold on to Charles-Norton, the worst, somehow, had been over. It had seemed as if, that determination once made, there was little left to worry over, that things could not possibly come out wrong, that the cosmos itself was with her. And so, she had not worried. And she had had a pretty good time; a pretty good time. Better, in fact, in some ways than——
"Sh-sh-sh," she hissed, stilling the thought.
But why was that?
Well, first of all, there had been the engrossing mystery of the spring hat; this, followed by the still more exciting problem of the summer hat; and now she was planning for the fall hat—she had seen the cutest feathery toque, that came low down about her face, pushing to all sides little wisps of golden curls and making her look—well, very nice indeed. Then, of course, there had been less housework, and she had had much more time to herself, more time and more freedom. The acquaintance with Flossie, the young wife of the floor-walker in the flat across the landing, had helped a lot. Together they had plunged deep into the intoxication of the shops. And several times they had gone off, a bit defiantly, on little orgies. They would go to the matinee, and then have a chocolate ice-cream soda at Huyler's, and called that "having a fling." All this, of course, had been impossible when Charles-Norton had been about. But why? Oh, because he worked so hard, and there wasn't much, there wasn't so much——
Dolly paused and blushed. "Oh, that money,"she said deprecatingly; "that horrid, horrid mon——"
She rose to her feet to a sudden new thought and went into her room, where from beneath ribbons, stockings, gloves, and theater-programmes, she drew out of a drawer a little yellow book and a longer, more narrow, green one.
When she returned, she was a bit pale, and sank rather limply into her chair. "Ooh," she exclaimed disconsolately; "ooh, now I'vegotto get to him; get to himsoon!"
Go to him. But where—how—where?
She knew where he was now, it is true—but only relatively. The first report of his antics had come from a little town in the California foothills; the second from a summer resort in a Valley of the Californian Sierra. He was being reported pretty well all over the United States now, but the first news in all probability were the only valuable clew. They were desolately vague though. A man who flies covers much ground. Where did he sleep? Where was his lair—or his nest, rather? It was sleeping, not flying, that he was to be caught. How could she locate him? It would take time, to do this, and money.And the check-book—oh, Lordie, that check-book!
Little Dolly, always at the bottom a pretty level-headed creature, had become wonderfully patient in the past month. Patient with a determination fixed as a star, as a law of Nature; a determination which was stronger far than herself; which was outside herself; which she could feel, almost, a huge pressure behind her, as of great reservoirs filled through trickling æons; and which astonished her. She had written of it, once, to her aunt.
"Dear Dolly," had answered this Darwinian lady; "you are right. It is not of you. It is of all women that have gone before you, of the millions and millions of women who have fought, and plotted, and intrigued in order to keep alive the spark of Life and hand it down to you. It is, Dolly, the Persistence of Woman; the inexorable persistence of Woman, Dolly, holding Man. Holding Man, Dolly, in spite of his superior physical strength, of his superior brutality; holding him through the ages. The terrific persistence of Woman holding Man, Dolly, Man—the restless, the moody, the incomprehensible; theerratic one, ever dissatisfied, ever bounding to the end of his chain in blind surges toward painted things of the air whichweknow do not exist.
"Oh, no; you cannot help it, dear little Dolly. Cling, Dolly, cling!"
"That's horrid," Dolly had said, when she had finished this epistle.
And then, after a while, but this time with a smile; "howperfectlyhorrid!"
But now, this patience, this persistence, was indeed a precious thing. It enabled her to wait calmly for the turn of chance which would enable her to find Charles-Norton. She read the papers every day. Truth to tell, they promised little help, for by this time they were announcing Charles-Norton simultaneously in New Orleans, Quebec, Key West, and Victoria. Wisely, Dolly had preserved the first clippings. And after all, it was from the papers that was to come the solution. The paper, one morning, after describing appearances of Charles-Norton in Vladivostock, Paris, and Timbuctoo, had slid from her knees to the floor, when her eyes lit upon an advertisement on the up-turned back-page.
BISON BILLIAMANDHIS WORLD-RENOWNED WILD-WEST SHOWPERMANENTLYNOWAT THE HIPPODROMENIGHTLY*Â Â Â Â *Â Â Â Â Â *HENRIQUE FARMANO, IN HIS AEROPLANE,WILL FLYFIFTYFEET!!
"Ooh!" said Dolly, suddenly clapping both her hands to her heart; "ooh, I've got it!"
She sat there, a little weak with excitement, while a rosiness came to her cheeks and a light in her eyes. "Yes," she said at length; "yes; that's it!"
Upon which she dressed very carefully, put on her hat, and went downtown to the Hippodrome.
Once there, she hesitated a moment before the glazed-glass door with its shining brass plate, then knocked like a little mouse. A big bass voice told her to come in.
The owner of the voice was seated at the desk,leaning back in his rolling-chair, a big firecracker of a cigar in the corner of his mouth. His feet were on the desk, and Dolly noticed them first: they were encased in high-heeled boots that seemed very soft and fitted like gloves. A soft, wide-brimmed felt hat sat rakishly upon his head. Hat, cigar, and boots dropped to a simultaneous disappearance. The man rose, and Dolly saw that his hair was very white and long, and cascaded in curls to his shoulders; and that, what with this hair, the little white goatee at the end of his chin, and the long rapier-like mustachios, of the same color, upon his upper lip, he looked like a French musketeer of the seventeenth century. He bowed, sweepingly. Now he was like a Spanish grandee. But the little eyes beneath his bushy eyebrows were blue and shrewd.
Recovering from her first movement of surprise, Dolly made straight for the desk, her eyes set, her lips firm. "Mr. Bison Billiam?" she asked.
He bowed again in assent. "And at your service, madam," he said, and bent his head down toward her in courteous attention.