Quick Action

by Robert W. Chambers

  XIII

  So Brown, who was nourishing a theory, shook his family and, requiringmental solitude to develop his idea, he went to Verbena Inlet. Not tothe enormous and expensive caravansary swarming with wealth, ennui,envy, and fashion; not even to its sister hotel similarly infested. Butto West Verbena, where for a mile along the white shell road modesthotels, boarding houses, and cottages nestled behind mosquito screensunder the dingy cabbage-palmettos.

  Here was stranded the winter driftwood from the North--that peculiarflotsam and jetsam which summered in similar resorts in the North,rocked in rocking chairs on dreary rural verandas, congregated at thevillage post-office, awaited its men folk every week-end from the filthyand sweltering metropolis.

  It was at a shabby but pretentious hostelry called the Villa Hibiscusthat Brown took up his quarters. Several rusty cabbage-palmettos wavedabove the whitish, sandy soil surrounding it; one or two discouragedorange trees fruited despondently near the veranda. And the placeswarmed with human beings from all over the United States, lured frominclement climes, into the land of the orange and the palm--wistfullyseeking in the land of advertised perpetual sunshine what the restlessworld has never yet discovered anywhere--surcease from care, fromlonging, from the unkindliness of its fellow seekers.

  Dowdiness filled the veranda rocking chairs; unlovely hands were folded;faded eyes gazed vacantly at the white road, at the oranges; enviouslyat the flashing wheels and fluttering lingerie from the great HotelVerbena.

  Womanhood was there in all its ages and average phases; infancy, youth,middle age, age--all were there in the rusty villas and hotels rangedfor a mile along the smooth shell road.

  The region, thought Brown to himself, was rich in material. And thereflection helped him somewhat with his dinner, which needed a fillip ortwo.

  In his faultless dinner jacket he sauntered out after the evening meal;and the idea which possessed and even thrilled him aided him to forgetwhat he had eaten.

  The lagoon glimmered mysteriously in the starlight; the royal palmsbordering it rustled high in the night breeze from the sea. Perfume fromoleander hedges smote softly the olfactories of Brown; the southernwhip-poor-wills' hurried whisper thrilled the darkness with a deepermystery.

  Here was the place to study woman. There could be no doubt about that.Here, untrammelled, uninterrupted, unvexed by the jarring of the world,he could place his model, turn her loose, and observe her.

  To concentrate all his powers of analytical observation upon a singlespecimen of woman was his plan. Painters and sculptors used models. Hemeant to use one, too.

  It would be simple. First, he must discover what he wanted. Thisaccomplished, he had decided to make a plain business proposition toher. She was to go about her own affairs and her pleasure withoutembarrassment or self-consciousness--behave naturally; do whatever itpleased her to do. But he was to be permitted to observe her, followher, make what notes he chose; and, as a resume of each day, they wereto meet in some quiet spot in order that he might question her as hechose, concerning whatever interested him, or whatever in her movementsor behaviour had seemed to him involved or inexplicable.

  Thus and thus only, he had decided, could light be shed upon themysterious twilight veiling the inner woman! Thus only might carefullyconcealed motives be detected, cause and effect co-ordinated, the verysource of all feminine logic, reason, and emotion be laid bare anddissected at leisure.

  Never had anybody written such a novel as he would be equipped to write.The ultimate word concerning woman was about to be written.

  Inwardly excited, outwardly calm, he had seated himself on the coquinawall which ran along the lagoon under the Royal Palms. He was about tostudy his subject as the great masters studied, coolly, impersonally,with clear and merciless intelligence, setting down with calm simplicitynothing except facts.

  All that was worthy and unworthy should be recorded--the good with theevil--nothing should be too ephemeral, too minute, to escape hissearching analysis.

  And all the while, though Brown was not aware of it, the memory of aface he had seen in the dining-room grew vaguely and faded, waxing andwaning alternately, like a phantom illustration accompanying histhoughts.

  As for the model he should choose to study, she ought to be thoroughlyfeminine, he thought; young, probably blonde, well formed, not verydeeply experienced, and with every human capacity for good and badalike.

  He would approach her frankly, tell her what he required, offer her thepay of an artist's model, three dollars a day; and, if she accepted, shecould have her head and do what she liked. All that concerned him was tomake his observations and record them.

  In the blue starlight people passed and re-passed like ghosts along theshell-road--the white summer gowns of young girls were constantlyappearing in the dusk, taking vague shape, vanishing. On the lagoon, aguitar sounded very far away. The suave scent of oleander grew sweeter.

  Spectral groups passed in clinging lingerie; here and there a ghostlingered to lean over the coquina wall, her lost gaze faintly accentedby some level star. One of these, a slender young thing, paused near toBrown, resting gracefully against the wall.

  All around her the whip-poor-wills were calling breathlessly; theperfume of oleander grew sweeter.

  As for the girl herself, she resembled the tenth muse. Brown had neverattempted to visualise his mistress; it had been enough for him that shewas Thalomene, daughter of Zeus, and divinely fair.

  But now, as he recognised the face he had noticed that evening in thedining-room, somehow he thought of his muse for the first time,concretely. Perhaps because the girl by the coquina wall was young,slim, golden haired, and Greek.

  His impulse, without bothering to reason, was to hop from the wall andgo over to where she was standing.

  She looked around calmly as he approached, gave him a little nod inrecognition of his lifted hat.

  "I'm John Brown, 4th," he said. "I'm stopping at the Villa Hibiscus. Doyou mind my saying so?"

  "No, I don't mind," she said.

  "There is a vast amount of nonsense in formality and convention," saidBrown. "If you don't mind ignoring such details, I have somethingimportant to say to you."

  She looked at him unsmilingly. Probably it was the starlight in hereyes that made them glimmer as though with hidden laughter.

  "I am," said Brown, pleasantly, "an author."

  "Really," she said.

  "When I say that I am an author," continued Brown seriously, "I mean inthe higher sense."

  "Oh. What is the higher sense, Mr. Brown?" she asked.

  "The higher sense does not necessarily imply authorship. I do not meanthat I am a mere writer. I have written very little."

  "Oh," she said.

  "Very little," repeated Brown combatively. "You will look in vain amongthe crowded counters piled high with contemporary fiction for anythingfrom my pen."

  "Then perhaps I had better not look," she said so simply that Brown wasa trifle disappointed in her.

  "Some day, however," he said, "you may search, and, perhaps, not whollyin vain."

  "Oh, you are writing a book!"

  "Yes," he said, "I am, so to speak, at work on a novel."

  "Might one, with discretion, make further inquiry concerning your novel,Mr. Brown?"

  "_You_ may."

  "Thank you," she said, apparently a trifle disconcerted by the privilegeso promptly granted.

  "_You_ may," repeated Brown. "Shall I explain why?"

  "Please."

  "You will not mistake me, I am sure. Will you?"

  She turned her pretty face toward him.

  "I don't think so," she said after a moment. The starlight was meddlingwith her eyes again.