“Yes, Jason H. Barton, I know with sadness in my heart after you go that love is biggest thing in the world — that I am coward — afraid to put to test all my fine-spun theories. But now the true vision come to me. I do not care what my honourable father, or the Chinese officials of my country, or anybody in whole world say — I shall fulfil O Lyra Seng’s destiny to find her own happiness — in the way the Great Spirit behind the universe desires — and dictates. There is but one question — and I ask it again. You will love me always? I want you — but perhaps to get you I give up everything in the world. I do not know now. But O Lyra is willing to take chance — if you will tell her only that you will always, always take care of her — and care for her.”
He bent down and kissed her. “Always, O Lyra. I only wish that I were the one who was perhaps giving up everything — and you nothing. But conditions are the reverse. It will be the dream of my life, though, to make you feel that you received more than you gave up, providing that results from what we are contemplating; but the choice must come from you.”
“I marry you,” she said simply. “I marry you now this minute — anywhere — anyway.”
“Then listen carefully to me,” he cautioned hurriedly. “We can never go by way of the lobby of the hotel. We would be stopped instantly by the house detective. Are you a brave girl? There is only one way to get out. That is by way of the fire-escape. And remember — Tsung will arrive any minute.”
She stepped into the bedroom and emerged a second later with a quaint little picture hat tied under her chin with pink ribbons. On her arm was an expensive cloak of Persian camel’s hair, dyed a rich purple. “I am ready,” she said quietly. “Lead — and O Lyra will follow.”
He held the cloak for her, and she crept into it. He buttoned it carefully about her, for he knew that the air of the evening was going to become chilly during a certain swift drive. He didn’t quite want to realise what he was doing lest he lose his courage; so he worked quickly at the buttons to keep his mind busy on details.
When he was finished she stepped to the maid, and patting her on the cheek, addressed a few words in Chinese to her. The woman smiled back at her — rather wistfully, as it seemed to Barton. Then the Princess turned to him.
“I am ready, Jason H. Barton.”
CHAPTER XLIII
DOCUMENT V. DOCUMENT
BARTON flung open the door of the room and led the way to the fire-escape. Out he climbed on the little iron platform, lighted dimly by an arc light far below in the alley, and put forth his hand to help the Princess out. She shivered a little and hesitated.
“Do you wish to go back, Princess?” he asked kindly. “It is not too late.”
She smiled to him in the half-light. “I tell my maid to tell honourable Tsung that I go marry with most wonderful man I know — and now I never go back till I make marry with him. Lead — and I follow.”
“Then don’t look down,” he advised. With his hand on her arm, he led the way down the first flight of the clinging stairway. She clutched at him fearfully at first, but as they covered flight after flight, she seemed to get back her courage, and several times gave a delighted little laugh. At the bottom landing he ran out on the great swinging arm a few steps, and with a ponderous groaning it dropped to the ground and after a bump or two lay stationary.
Down the flight they sped, like two children on an escapade. Through the dark alleys, past boxes and barrels they threaded their way, guided only by the brilliant lights at the alley opening on Congress Street. Out they came on the sidewalk, and Barton breathed a long sigh of relief. The taxicab was waiting, the driver posted in the seat smoking a cigarette.
They dived across the pavement, a few pedestrians stopping point-blank in their tracks at the strange performance. “Down Michigan Avenue — quick — and turn off at Eleventh Street,” said Barton, as he helped the girl in and slammed the door.
When they had covered a few blocks and were off the brightly lighted boulevard, he thrust out his head from the half-opened door. “Where’s the nearest Indiana town to the State line,” he queried, “that a marriage can be performed without legal residence and without a town licence?”
Was ever a taxi driver that was not encyclopedic in his knowledge of customs, geography and topography for miles and miles around?” Whiting,” the young Irishman responded, grinning. “Can get ye to a minister’s house in Whiting inside of an hour and a half. Just the other side of the South Chicago steel mills.”
“Shoot!” directed Barton, and settled back on the cushions again.
The girl nestled in his arms. “I am so glad we make up our minds,” she said simply, looking up at him as a rapidly receding arc-light flashed into their faces for a bare instant. “China — the Empire — the life of my youth seems to be far away — something unreal. But this is real, so real — and to-night I know I am living life.”
Their machine rolled before they knew it into South Chicago, with its rickety gas lamps, its sunbaked cottages, its pink-tinged sky from the great blast furnaces and converters. Rapidly the dull “boom-boom-boom” from the plate mills grew fainter and fainter in their rear; soon they passed two great concrete posts bearing the sign “State Line.” And fifteen minutes later they shot into a quiet little town with dirt-paved streets and great green trees lining along the roadway.
The machine stopped in front of a tiny vine-covered cottage. The driver looked in and nodded. “We’re there,” he announced.
Barton sprang from the taxi and helped the Princess out. He beckoned to the driver. “Come,” he said; “we’ll need you for a witness.”
The marriage was performed by a white-haired old clergyman, in a quaint little parlour which held an old-fashioned organ quite in keeping with the handworked Bible quotations about the walls. For a ring, Barton placed on the Princess’s slim finger the ring he had received from his mother — the ring which he had always carried; for witnesses, the clergyman’s wife, bedecked in a huge gingham apron, and the chauffeur sufficed. Fifteen minutes later all three emerged, in Barton’s pocket a crisp white certificate bearing the information that one O Lyra Seng, twenty years of age, and Jason H. Barton had been made man and wife.
Back over the State Line, through Steeltown, and to the Sun building the taxicab went by Barton’s direction. Long before they reached the city proper the streets began to be deserted. In front of the dingy building on Market Street he helped out the smiling Chinese girl. On glancing up, he could see that Britton’s office was brilliantly lighted, the rays piercing the dark gorge of Newspaper Row.
Up the stairs he conducted her and into the office without the formality of knocking. But there, seated against the folding doors that shut off the city room, were two men with Britton. Each of them had stout, strong jaws; each was smoking a big black cigar; each wore a shiny Federal badge on his vest. The moment that Barton and the girl entered the office, she standing timidly at his elbow, the taller of the two men arose and came straight over to him.
“Your name Jason H. Barton?” he asked.
Barton’s face showed his puzzlement. “It is.”
The man gave a searching glance toward the Princess, then faced Barton again.
“I am sorry to say that one Li Hwei Tsung made a technical affidavit two hours ago before the commanding official of the Federal Immigration Bureau. His affidavit declares that he and his party entered the United States for commercial purposes, and he requests immediate deportation back to China — including Princess O Lyra Seng.” He paused. “You know the law. You’ve heard of the Asiatic Exclusion Act. This girl must go with me to the Federal Bureau and be put under the charge of the matron — and from there be sent back to China.”
Suddenly the officer’s words seemed to pierce the Princess’s consciousness. She clung to Barton, shrinking. “Oh,” she wailed, looking up helplessly at him, “you — you won’t let them — ”
But she did not finish, for Barton strode forward a step and looked the other man straight in
the eye.
“It was a brilliantly clever move on Li Hwei Tsung’s part,” he stated quietly,” to make that affidavit, but I’m afraid he’s hoist by his own petard, and that he’s the jolly little boy who’ll have to take the toboggan shute out of the U.S.A. Indeed, sir, I have due respect for the Chinese Exclusion Act. It rules that no member of that empire may permanently enter the United States after the year 1908. But I will call your attention to a peculiar modification or so. First, however, I have the honour to inform you that this lady became my wife two hours ago in Whiting, Indiana” — he dug down into his pocket and whipped out the crisp marriage certificate — ” and by the completion of that ceremony automatically placed herself under the invariable immigration rules that wives and husbands, when the husband is an American citizen and the wife a native of a country which has no quota, cannot be separated by all the immigration laws there are. So let me introduce you all to Mrs. Jason H. Barton, who may now pass back and forth from this country to China just as often as she pleases, and may reside, likewise, as long as she pleases in either land, and whenever she pleases. She cannot be barred now by ten thousand exclusion acts.”
The tense silence following his words was broken by Britton clapping his hands and pounding on the table. Over the face of the Federal officer a broad smile came. He thrust out his hand. “Bully for you, old man! I really hoped you had done it. It was your only chance.” He made a careful examination of the marriage certificate and handed it back. Then he motioned to his companion. “Come, Jimmy; we’re not needed around here.”
Already Britton was swinging open the great doors that led from his office into the city room of the Sun. At the raising of his hand the fearful clatter ceased and a score of reporters and sub-editors sat stiffly in their chairs. A profound silence filled both rooms.
“Gentlemen,” said Britton in the doorway, “attention, all of you — if you please! The Fates that govern news have unduly honoured the Sun to-night. A Sun reporter, descended on one side from British stock, and on the other side a Yankee, has married the only daughter of the Emperor of China, and recovered the biggest treasure in the history of that peculiar empire. It means many things, gentlemen, many strange things — for a Chinese empress does not surrender her rule when she marries. It means, for one thing, the end of pernicious, embarrassing Japanese influence in China, for three countries are now involved instead of one. And God knows how many other changes it is going to make in the ultimate political history of Europe and Asia. Gentlemen, our paper — all of us — hold in our hands to-night the biggest, strangest, most exclusive and most unbelievable story of the year. This way, every mother’s son of you — and bring your chairs and note-books!”
CHAPTER XLIV
AND THE CLOCK STRUCK FOUR!
A MOST dramatic pause followed Krenwicz’s swiftly-moving narrative, with its strangest of all love stories. The mission clock on the wall, suddenly striking four times, seemed to bring to each man the realisation that it was four in the morning, that there remained but one hundred and twenty minutes more of life for part of the little group. Each waited curiously to hear the decision of the Irishman. The latter knocked out the ashes of his clay pipe into the bolted cuspidor.
“Well, by gorry,” he exclaimed, exactly as he had after McCaigh’s story, “but that there wur a swift-movin’ yarn. It hild me from start to finish. ’tis thinkin’ I’ll be goin’ out meself, afther hearin’ that, an’ marry me a Chinese girl.” He paused. “An’ Misther Krenwicz, you be another Misther McCaigh, with your clockwir-rk — wheels within wheels and little wheels still inside o’ the little wheels!” He gazed curiously toward Eastwood. “ ’tis not yet, though, that I’ll be sayin’ which were the bistest story, Mister McCaigh’s or Misther Krenwicz’s, but they was diff’runt from each other — both like good booze, but like two kinds — say Scotch an’ Irish.” He smiled a broad genial Irish smile. “W’at beats me, Misther Krenwicz, is how you started on wan of these here things ye calls plots. How do ye do ut?”
“Yes,” put in Eastwood, leaning back wearily against the stone wall, “how do you accomplish that, Krenwicz? I have written, I daresay, and had published, well over a thousand stories in my day, some short and many practically of novelette length. But I have always worked from a central idea, rather than tried to accomplish that peculiar co-ordination of motive and incident we call plot. I believe I should be lost entirely should I try and deliberately create a plot. And your story was admirably plotted, let me assure you.”
“I thank you,” replied the Russian writer. “That was my swan song. And the swan song is the sweetest song that the swan sings.” He paused a moment, contemplating the floor. “The art of creating a plot, at the expense once more of disillusionising our estimable friend Shanahan, consists of a psychological manipulation of initial ideas, which even McCaigh, who has never perhaps analysed his own mental reactions, will probably concede is infallible. Hundreds of professional writers, and thousands of amateurs in all countries to-day, are vainly striving to create plots, and are being forced to give up that satisfactory mode of attaining a rounded-out story or play, because ignorant of this basic principle which has never been stated mathematically. The preliminary structure of the amateur plot-maker in all instances — perhaps with you, too, Eastwood, who work out from a pivotal idea — invariably collapses because of a paucity of threads with which to weave the web; because, in other words, the plot-builder gets up a blind alley.” He paused. “And so because but one of us, after all, may carry this little secret back to the outside world, I think I may state it here to-night.”
He was silent for a bare moment. The other two men looked curiously, McCaigh, himself a plot-builder, leaning forward in his chair.
“The author,” declared Krenwicz, “must first get clear in his mind that, in that web we call a plot, any character or vital inanimate object such as a letter, or a weapon, or a photograph, will constitute a thread. He must therefore first conceive of a thread which we may call the viewpoint thread, or thread representing the eyes of the character through whom most of the story is to be seen, and which we may term thread ‘A.’ This thread ‘A’ must figure with another thread ‘?’ in an opening incident which we will term incident ‘n,’ since its chronological order relative to the very earliest incident in the entire plot structure depends solely upon what revelations shall subsequently be made as to vital happenings occurring prior to the actual opening of the story. Very well. After inventing incident ‘n’ between thread ‘A’ and thread ‘B,’ there must be invented immediately an incident of numerical order ‘n + 1’ involving thread ‘A’ with still another thread ‘C’; then an incident ‘n + 2’ involving the same thread ‘A’ with one ‘D’; then an incident ‘n + 3’ comprising an incident between thread ‘A’ and still a further thread ‘E’; and this, to avoid an impasse, must be carried on as a rule to not less than an incident of order ‘n + 4 ‘or even ‘n + 5’; and now mark well the essential desideratum of this preliminary invention. Here it is: Incident ‘n’ must produce incident ‘n + 1’; ‘n + 2’ must be the result of incident ‘n + 1’; ‘n + 3’ must be the result of ‘n + 2’; and so on. This much correctly done, any writer — no matter who he be — will have a real set of threads with which to weave, as well as the nucleus — if we may use such a term — of the web itself.” He turned to McCaigh. “Is my rule right?”
McCaigh nodded slowly. “I grant you are, Krenwicz. For it is only, after all, by the method you express mathematically that the plot inventor will secure sufficient materials with which to work.” He went on nodding. “Yes, Krenwicz, you have stated the very method by which I developed my Strange Adventure of the Giant Moth. Indeed, you have stated a psychological truth in an admirable form.”
Eastwood, however, shook his head. “I still maintain,” he said quietly, “that having done a thousand stories in which I proceeded out from a central idea, I can get along without that mathematical law.”
But here the Iron Man
put in a succinct observation. “I do believe, Eastwood, that your mental processes in making up your story follow that law subconsciously, as mine have for years until Krenwicz bluntly stated it.”
Eastwood made no retort. Instead, he spoke to Krenwicz. “I was struck, Krenwicz, by your theory — for does not a writer invariably express his own theories in his own stories? — is not all art merely life viewed through a temperament? — that the one solution of the ever-antagonistic feeling between races and nations lies in a complete homogeneising — if I may coin the word — of the human race through interbreeding? Do you yourself hold that view?”
Krenwicz leaned forward, the enthusiast, his eyes now full of fire, lighting a new cigarette in the lamp light.
“Yes, although the accomplishment depends to a considerable extent upon modifications of conditions which science is already beginning to give us. In the first place, the ultimate creation of a universal language which will take place and be taught in every school in the world within a century, some hundred years minus two hours after we — or part of us — have become clay — will be the first step toward bringing about a better rapprochement of the races. The creation of giant air-liners which will bring India closer to the United States than St. Louis from Chicago, and England, France, Russia and Italy as close to New York as Philadelphia is to Washington, means a greater intermingling of human folks than the world has ever dreamed. A hundred nationalities will then be seen any afternoon on any boulevard of any big city.”
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