Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Yes, I suppose they can. But I’m not going to waste the winter and my salary in the semi-tropics just because you want me to—”

  “O Lord!” said Portlaw, “what are you kicking about? Have I ever—”

  “You force me to be plain-spoken; you never seem to understand that if you insist on my playing the wealthy do-nothing that you’ve got to keep me going. And I tell you frankly, Billy, I’m tired of it.”

  “Oh, don’t flatten your ears and show your teeth,” protested Portlaw amiably. “I only supposed you had enough — with such a salary — to give yourself a little rope on a trip like this, considering you’ve nobody but yourself to look out for, and that I do that and pay you heavily for the privilege” — his voice had become a mumble— “and all you do is to take vacations in New York or sit on a horse and watch an army of men plant trout and pheasants, and cut out ripe timber — O hell!”

  “What did you say?”

  Portlaw became good-humouredly matter of fact: “I said ‘hell,’ Louis — which meant, ‘what’s the use of squabbling.’ It also means that you are going to have what you require as a matter of course; so come on down to my state-room and let us figure it up before Jim Wayward begins to turn restless and limp toward the card-room.”

  As they turned and strolled forward, Malcourt nudged him:

  “Look at the fireworks over Lake Worth,” he said; “probably Palm Beach’s welcome to her new and beardless prophet.”

  “It’s one of their cheap Venetian fêtes,” muttered Portlaw. “I know ‘em; they’re rather amusing. If we weren’t sailing in an hour we’d go. No doubt Hamil’s in it already; probably Cardross put him next to a bunch of dreams and he’s right in it at this very moment.”

  “With the girl in the red handkerchief,” added Malcourt. “I wish we had time.”

  “I believe I’ve seen that girl somewhere,” mused Portlaw.

  “Perhaps you have; there are all kinds at Palm Beach, even yours, and,” he added with his easy impudence, “I expect to preserve my notions concerning every one of them. Ho! Look at that sheaf of sky-rockets, Billy! Zip! Whir-r! Bang! Great is Diana of the Ephesians! — bless her heart!”

  “Going up like Garret Hamil’s illusions,” said Portlaw, sentimentally. “I wonder if he sees ’em and considers the moral they are writing across the stars. O slush! Life is like a stomach; if you fill it too full it hurts you. What about that epigram, Louis? What about it?”

  The other’s dark, graceful head was turned toward the fiery fête on shore, and his busy thoughts were with that lithe, dripping figure he had seen through the sea-glasses, climbing into a distant boat. For the figure reminded him of a girl he had known very well when the world was younger; and the memory was not wholly agreeable.

  CHAPTER III

  AN ADVANCE

  Hamil stood under the cocoanut palms at the lake’s edge and watched the lagoon where thousands of coloured lanterns moved on crafts, invisible except when revealed in the glare of the rushing rockets.

  Lamps glittered everywhere; electric lights were doubly festooned along the sea wall, drooping creeper-like from palm to palmetto, from flowering hibiscus to sprawling banyan, from dainty china-berry to grotesque screw-pine tree, shedding strange witch-lights over masses of blossoms, tropical and semi-tropical. Through which the fine-spun spray of fountains drifted, and the great mousy dusk-moths darted through the bars of light with the glimmering bullet-flight of summer meteors.

  And everywhere hung the scent of orange bloom and the more subtle perfume of white and yellow jasmine floated through the trees from gardens or distant hammocks, combining in one intoxicating aroma, spiced always with the savour of the sea.

  Hamil was aware of considerable noise, more or less musical, afloat and ashore; a pretentious orchestra played third-rate music under the hotel colonnade; melody arose from the lantern-lit lake, with clamourous mandolins and young voices singing; and over all hung the confused murmur of unseen throngs, harmonious, capricious; laughter, voice answering voice, and the distant shouts as brilliantly festooned boats hailed and were hailed across the water.

  Hamil passed on to the left through crowded gardens, pressing his way slowly where all around him lantern-lit faces appeared from the dusk and vanished again into it; where the rustle of summer gowns sweeping the shaven lawns of Bermuda grass sounded like a breeze in the leaves.

  Sometimes out of the dusk all tremulous with tinted light the rainbow ray of a jewel flashed in his eyes — or sometimes he caught the glint of eyes above the jewel — a passing view of a fair face, a moment’s encountering glance, and, maybe, a smile just as the shadows falling turned the garden’s brightness to a mystery peopled with phantoms.

  Out along the shell road he sauntered, Whitehall rising from tropic gardens on his right, on his left endless gardens again, and white villas stretching away into the starlight; on, under the leaning coco-palms along quays and low walls of coquina where the lagoon lay under the silvery southern planets.

  After a little he discovered that he had left the bulk of the throng behind, though in front of him and behind, the road was still dotted with white-clad groups strolling or resting on the sea-wall.

  Far out on the lake the elfin pageant continued, but now he could scarcely hear the music; the far cries and the hiss of the rockets came softly as the whizzing of velvet-winged moths around orange blossoms.

  The January night was magnificent; he could scarcely comprehend that this languid world of sea and palm, of heavy odour and slow breezes, was his own land still. Under the spell the Occident vanished; it was the Orient — all this dreamy mirage, these dim white walls, this spice-haunted dusk, the water inlaid with stars, the fairy foliage, the dew drumming in the stillness like the sound of goblin tattooing.

  Never before had he seen this enchanted Southern land which had always been as much a part of his mother-land as Northern hill and Western plain — as much his as the roaring dissonance of Broadway, or the icy silence of the tundras, or the vast tranquil seas of corn rippling mile on mile under the harvest moon of Illinois.

  He halted, unquiet in the strangeness of it all, restless under its exotic beauty, conscious of the languor stealing over him — the premonition of a physical relaxation that he had never before known — that he instinctively mistrusted.

  People in groups passed and repassed along the lagoon wall where, already curiously tired, he had halted beside an old bronze cannon — some ancient Spanish piece, if he could judge by the arms and arabesques covering the breech, dimly visible in the rays of a Chinese lantern.

  Beyond was a private dock where two rakish power-boats lay, receiving their cargo of young men and girls — all very animated and gay under the gaudy electric lanterns strung fore and aft rainbow fashion.

  He seated himself on the cannon, lingering until both boats cleared for the carnival, rushing out into the darkness like streaks of multi-coloured flame; then his lassitude increasing, he rose and sauntered toward the hotel which loomed like a white mountain afire above the dark masses of tropic trees. And again the press of the throng hemmed him in among the palms and fountains and hedges of crimson hibiscus; again the dusk grew gay with voices and the singing overtone of violins; again the suffocating scent of blossoms, too sweet and penetrating for the unacclimated, filtered through and through him, till his breath came unevenly, and the thick odours stirred in him strange senses of expectation, quickening with his pulses to a sudden prophecy.

  And at the same instant he saw the girl of whom he had been thinking.

  She was on the edge of a group of half a dozen or more men in evening dress, and women in filmy white — already close to him — so near that the frail stuff of her skirt brushed him, and the subtle, fresh aroma of her seemed to touch his cheek like a breath as she passed.

  “Calypso,” he whispered, scarcely conscious that he spoke aloud.

  A swift turn of her head, eyes that looked blankly into his, and she had passed.

 
; A sudden realisation of his bad manners left his ears tingling. What on earth had prompted him to speak? What momentary relaxation had permitted him an affront to a young girl whose attitude toward him that morning had been so admirable?

  Chagrined, he turned back to seek some circling path through the dense crowd ahead; and was aware, in the darkness, of a shadowy figure entering the jasmine arbour. And though his eyes were still confused by the lantern light he knew her again in the dusk.

  As they passed she said under her breath: “That was ill-bred. I am disappointed.”

  He wheeled in his tracks; she turned to confront him for an instant.

  “I’m just a plain beast,” he said. “You won’t forgive me of course.”

  “You had no right to say what you did. You said ‘Calypso’ — and I ought not to have heard you.... But I did.... Tell me; if I am too generous to suspect you of intentional impertinence, you are now too chastened to suspect that I came back to give you this chance. That is quite true, isn’t it?”

  “Of course. You are generous and — it’s simply fine of you to overlook it.”

  “I don’t know whether I intend to overlook it; I was surprised and disappointed; but I did desire to give you another chance. And I was so afraid you’d be rude enough to take it that — I spoke first. That was logical. Oh, I know what I’m doing — and it’s particularly common of me — being who I am—”

  She paused, meeting his gaze deliberately.

  “You don’t know who I am. Do you?”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t deserve to. But I’ll be miserable until I do.”

  After a moment: “And you are not going to ask me — because, once, I said that it was nice of you not to?”

  The hint of mockery in her voice edged his lips with a smile, but he shook his head. “No, I won’t ask you that,” he said. “I’ve been beastly enough for one day.”

  “Don’t you care to know?”

  “Of course I care to know.”

  “Yet, exercising all your marvellous masculine self-control, you nobly refuse to ask?”

  “I’m afraid to,” he said, laughing; “I’m horribly afraid of you.”

  She considered him with clear, unsmiling eyes.

  “Coward!” she said calmly.

  He nodded his head, laughing still. “I know it; I almost lost you by saying ‘Calypso’ a moment ago and I’m taking no more risks.”

  “Am I to infer that you expect to recover me after this?”

  And, as he made no answer: “You dare not admit that you hope to see me again. You are horribly afraid of me — even if I have defied convention and your opinions and have graciously overlooked your impertinence. In spite of all this you are still afraid of me. Are you?”

  “Yes,” he said; “as much as I naturally ought to be.”

  “That is nice of you. There’s only one kind of a girl of whom men are really afraid.... And now I don’t exactly know what to do about you — being, myself, as guilty and horrid as you have been.”

  She regarded him contemplatively, her hands joined behind her back.

  “Exactly what to do about you I don’t know,” she repeated, leisurely inspecting him. “Shall I tell you something? I am not afraid to; I am not a bit cowardly about it either. Shall I?”

  “If you dare,” he said, smiling and uncertain.

  “Very well, then; I rather like you, Mr. Hamil.”

  “You are a trump!” he blurted out, reddening with surprise.

  “Are you astonished that I know you?”

  “I don’t see how you found out—”

  “Found out! What perfectly revolting vanity! Do you suppose that the moment I left you I rushed home and began to make happy and incoherent inquiries? Mr. Hamil, you disappoint me every time you speak — and also every time you don’t.”

  “I seem to be doomed.”

  “You are. You can’t help it. Tell me — as inoffensively as possible — are you here to begin your work?”

  “M-my work?”

  “Yes, on the Cardross estate—”

  “You have heard of that!” he exclaimed, surprised.

  “Y-es—” negligently. “Petty gossip circulates here. A cracker at West Palm Beach built a new chicken coop, and we all heard of it. Tell me, do you still desire to see me again?”

  “I do — to pay a revengeful debt or two.”

  “Oh! I have offended you? Pay me now, if you please, and let us end this indiscretion.”

  “You will let me see you again, won’t you?”

  “Why? Mr. Hamil.”

  “Because I — I must!”

  “Oh! You are becoming emphatic. So I am going.... And I’ve half a mind to take you back and present you to my family.... Only it wouldn’t do for me; any other girl perhaps might dare — under the circumstances; but I can’t — and that’s all I’ll tell you.”

  Hamil, standing straight and tall, straw hat tucked under one arm, bent toward her with the formality and engaging deference natural to him.

  “You have been very merciful to me; only a girl of your caste could afford to. Will you forgive my speaking to you as I did? — when I said ‘Calypso!’ I have no excuse; I don’t know why I did. I’m even sorrier for myself than for you.”

  “I was hurt.... Then I supposed that you did not mean it. Besides” — she looked up with her rare smile— “I knew you, Mr. Hamil, in the boat this morning. I haven’t really been very dreadful.”

  “You knew even then?”

  “Yes, I did. The Palm Beach News published your picture a week ago; and I read all about the very remarkable landscape architect who was coming to turn the Cardross jungle into a most wonderful Paradise.”

  “You knew me all that time?”

  “All of it, Mr. Hamil.”

  “From the moment you climbed into my boat?”

  “Practically. Of course I did not look at you very closely at first.... Does that annoy you? It seems to ... or something does, for even in the dusk I can see your ever-ready blush—”

  “I don’t know why you pretend to think me such a fool,” he protested, laughing; “you seemed to take that for granted from the very first.”

  “Why not? You persistently talked to me when you didn’t know me — you’re doing it now for that matter! — and you began by telling me that I was fool-hardy, not really courageous in the decent sense of the word, and that I was a self-conscious stick and a horribly inhuman and unnatural object generally — and all because I wouldn’t flirt with you—”

  His quick laughter interrupted her. She ventured to laugh a little too — a very little; and that was the charm of her to him — the clear-eyed, delicate gravity not lightly transformed. But when her laughter came, it came as such a surprisingly lovely revelation that it left him charmed and silent.

  “I wonder,” she said, “if you can be amusing — except when you don’t mean to be.”

  “If you’ll give me a chance to try—”

  “Perhaps. I was hardly fair to you in that boat.”

  “If you knew me in the boat this morning, why did you not say so?”

  “Could I admit that I knew you without first pretending I didn’t? Hasn’t every woman a Heaven-given right to travel in a circle as the shortest distance between two points?”

  “Certainly; only—”

  She shook her head slowly. “There’s no use in my telling you who I am, now, considering that I can’t very well escape exposure in the near future. That might verge on effrontery — and it’s horrid enough to be here with you — in spite of several thousand people tramping about within elbow touch.... Which reminds me that my own party is probably hunting for me.... Such a crowd, you know, and so easy to become separated. What do you suppose they’d think if they suspected the truth?... And the worst of it is that I cannot afford to do a thing of this sort.... You don’t understand; but you may some day — partly. And then perhaps you’ll think this matter all over and come to a totally different conclusion concerning m
y overlooking your recent rudeness and — and my consenting to speak to you.”

  “You don’t believe for one moment that I could mistake it—”

  “It depends upon what sort of a man you really are.... I don’t know. I give you the benefit of all doubts.”

  She stood silent, looking him candidly in the eyes, then with a gesture and the slightest shrug, she turned away toward the white road outside. He was at her elbow in two steps.

  “Oh, yes — the irony of formality.”

  She nodded. “Good night, then, Mr. Hamil. If circumstances permitted it would have been delightful — this putting off the cloak of convention and donning motley for a little unconventional misbehaviour with you.... But as it is, it worries me — slightly — as much as the episode and your opinion are worth.”

  “I am wondering,” he said, “why this little tincture of bitterness flavours what you say to me?”

  “Because I’ve misbehaved; and so have you. Anyway, now that it’s done, there’s scarcely anything I could do to make the situation more flagrant or less flippant—”

  “You don’t really think—”

  “Certainly. After all is said and done, we don’t know each other; here we are, shamelessly sauntering side by side under the jasmine, Paul-and-Virginia-like, exchanging subtleties blindfolded. You are you; I am I; formally, millions of miles apart — temporarily and informally close together, paralleling each other’s course through life for the span of half an hour — here under the Southern stars.... O Ulysses, truly that island was inhabited by one, Calypso; but your thrall is to be briefer than your prototype’s. See, now; here is the road; and I release you to that not impossible she—”

  “There is none—”

  “There will be. You are very young. Good-bye.”

  “The confusing part of it to me,” he said, smiling, “is to see you so — so physically youthful with even a hint of almost childish immaturity! — and then to hear you as you are — witty, experienced, nicely cynical, maturely sure of yourself and—”

  “You think me experienced?”

  “Yes.”