Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “That was a funny reply to make, papa,” said Dulcima.

  “Not at all,” I replied, with animation; “to know a language is to know when to use its idioms.” They both looked a little blank, but continued to wave their handkerchiefs.

  “À bien-tôt!” called Alida softly, as the towering black sides of the steamer slipped along the wooden wharf.

  Van Dieman raised his hat on the pier below, and answered: “À bien-tôt? C’est la mort, jusqu’à bien-tôt! Donc, vîve la vie, Mademoiselle!”

  “There is no necessity in chattering like a Frenchman when you talk French,” I observed to Alida. “Could you make out what Van Dieman said to you?”

  “Y — yes,” she admitted, with a slight blush.

  I glanced at Dulcima. There was a mischievous light in her blue eyes.

  “Pooh!” I thought; “Van Dieman is forty if he’s a day.”

  While the ship slid on past Castle William and poked her nose toward the forts at the Narrows, I watched the distant pier which we had left. It was still black with people, moving like ants. And, as I looked, I muttered ever: “Pooh! Van Dieman’s forty. There’s nothing in it, nothing in it, nothing whatever.”

  Off Fort Hamilton I noticed that Alida had a tear in one of her brown eyes. “There’s nothing in it,” I repeated obstinately.

  Off Sandy Hook we ran into a sea-storm. In a few minutes many of the passengers went below; in a few more minutes the remainder of the passengers went below; and I was on the way below with my daughter Alida on one arm and my daughter Dulcima on the other.

  “There is nothing in it,” I reflected, as the ship shuddered, pitched, and we involuntarily began running down a toboggan slide, taking little timorous steps. Then the deck flew up and caught the soles of our shoes before we were ready to put our feet down. “Alida,” I said, “do you feel bored?”

  There was no mistaking the tears in her eyes now. “There’s nothing in it. There’s nothing in anything,” I muttered faintly. And I was right as far as it concerned the passengers on the pitching Cambodia.

  CHAPTER II

  A CHAPTER DEPICTING A RATHER GARRULOUS REUNION

  The second day we ran out of the storm. I remember on that day that I wore a rather doggy suit of gray — a trifle too doggy for a man of my years. In my button-hole reposed a white carnation, and as I strolled into the smoking-room I was humming under my breath an air from “Miss Helyet” — a thing I had not thought of in twenty years.

  “Well, upon my word!” exclaimed a man who looked up from his novel as I entered the doorway. “Gad! You haven’t changed in twenty years! — except that your moustache is — —”

  “Sure! And my temples, Williams! Besides, I have two grown-up daughters aboard! How are you, anyway, you Latin Quarter come-back?”

  We settled ourselves, hands still warmly clasped.

  “You’re not going back to Paris?” I asked.

  “Why, man, I live there.”

  “By George, so you do! I forgot.”

  There was a silence — that smiling, retrospective silence which ends inevitably in a sigh not entirely painful.

  “Are any of the old men left there?” I asked.

  “Some.”

  “I — I suppose the city has changed a lot. Men who’ve been over since, say so.”

  “It hasn’t changed, radically.”

  “Hasn’t it, Williams?” I asked wistfully.

  “No. The old café is exactly the same. The Luxembourg Quarter will seem familiar to you — —”

  “I’m not going there,” I said hastily.

  He smiled; I could see him doing it, askance. But my features remained dignified and my attitude detached.

  “I wonder,” I began carelessly, “whether — —”

  “She got married,” he said casually; “I’m glad. She was a sweet little thing.”

  “She was exceedingly charming,” I said, selecting a cigar. “And the other?”

  “Which?”

  “I forget her name.”

  “Oh, you mean Delancy’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know whatever became of her,” he said.

  “Whatever became of Delancy?”

  “Oh, he did what we all usually do — he came back, married, and spent the better part of his life in trying to keep his daughter from marrying that young Harroll.”

  “Sir Peter’s son?”

  “Yes. I was a guest at the Delancy’s at the time, and I nearly died. Harroll confided in me, Catharine Delancy confided in me, John Delancy told me his woes. It’s an amusing story. Do you want to hear it?”

  “Go ahead,” I said. “My sympathies are already with Delancy. I’ve a pair of daughters myself, and I’m trying to shoo away every sort of man and keep ’em for myself a little longer.”

  Williams smiled:

  “Well, you listen to what those two did to John Delancy. It was some.”

  I lit my cigar; he lit his; and I settled back, looking at him attentively as he began with a wave of his gloved hand, a story of peculiar interest to a man with two unusually attractive daughters:

  Now, although Harroll had been refused a dozen times — not by Miss Delancy, but by her father — the young man’s naturally optimistic spirits suffered only temporary depression; and a few evenings later he asked for her again, making it a bakers’ dozen — an uncanny record.

  “No,” said Mr. Delancy.

  “Won’t you let me have her when I become tenth vice-president of the Half-Moon Title Guarantee and Trust — —”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “When will you let me try for her?”

  There was no reply.

  “Well, sir,” said the young man cheerfully, “there must be some way, of course.”

  “Really, Jim, I don’t see what way,” said Mr. Delancy, without emotion. “I don’t want you for a son-in-law, and I’m not going to have you. That’s one of the reasons I allow you the run of the house. My daughter sees too much of you to care for you. It’s a theory of my own, and a good one, too.”

  “Why don’t you want me for a son-in-law?” asked the young man, for the hundredth time.

  “Can you give me one single reason why I should want you?” asked Mr. Delancy wearily.

  Harroll stood buried in meditation for a few moments. “No,” he said, “I can’t recall any important reasons at the moment.”

  “I can supply you with one — your sense of honor — but it doesn’t count in this case, because you wouldn’t be in my house if you didn’t have any.”

  Harroll looked at the fire.

  “I’ve told you a hundred times that when my little girl marries, she marries one of her own kind. I don’t like Englishmen. And that is all there is to it, Jim.”

  “Don’t you like me?”

  “I’m not infatuated with you.”

  “Well,” said Harroll, slowly pacing the rug in front of the fire, “it’s curious, isn’t it? — but, do you know, I think that I am going to marry Catharine one of these days?”

  “Oh, I think not,” replied Mr. Delancy amiably. “And perhaps this is a good opportunity to say good-by for a while. You know we go to Palm Beach to-morrow?”

  “Catharine told me,” said the young man, placidly. “So I’ve wired for quarters at The Breakers — for two weeks.”

  The two men smiled at one another.

  “You take your vacation late,” said Mr. Delancy.

  “Not too late, I trust.”

  “You think you can afford Palm Beach, Jim?”

  “No; but I’m going.”

  Mr. Delancy rose and stood thoughtfully twirling his monocle by the string. Then he threw away his cigar, concealed a yawn, and glanced gravely at the clock on the mantel.

  “May I go in and say good-night to Catharine, sir?” asked young Harroll.

  Mr. Delancy looked bored, but nodded civilly enough.

  “And, Jim,” he drawled, as the young man started toward the drawing-room, �
�I wouldn’t go to Palm Beach if I were you.”

  “Yes, you would, sir — if you were I.”

  “Young man,” said Mr. Delancy, mildly, “I’m damned if I have you for a son-in-law! Good-night.”

  They shook hands. Harroll walked into the drawing-room and found it empty. The music-room, however, was lighted, and Catharine Delancy sat tucked up in a deep window-seat, studying a map of southern Florida and feeding bonbons to an enormous white Persian cat.

  “Jim,” she said, raising her dark eyes as he sauntered up, “you and father have lately fallen into the disreputable habit of sitting behind closed doors and gossiping. You have done it thirteen times in three months. Don’t be such pigs; scandal, like other pleasures, was meant to be shared.”

  At a gesture of invitation he seated himself beside her and lifted the Persian pussy to his lap.

  “Well,” she inquired, “are you really going with us?”

  “I can’t go when you do, but I’m going to The Breakers for a week or two — solely to keep an eye on your behavior.”

  “That is jolly!” she said, flushing with pleasure. “Was father pleased when you told him?”

  “He didn’t say he was pleased.”

  “He is always reticent,” she said, quickly. “But won’t it be too jolly for words! We’ll travel miles and miles together in bicycle-chairs, and we’ll yacht and bathe and ride and golf, and catch amber-jack and sharks, and — you’ll persuade father to let me gamble just once at the club — won’t you?”

  “Not much! Where did you hear that sort of talk, Catharine?”

  “Don’t tweak Omar’s tail and I’ll tell you — there! you’ve done it again, and I won’t tell you.”

  He fell to stroking the cat’s fur, gazing the while into space with an absent eye that piqued her curiosity. For a year now he had acquired that trick of suddenly detaching himself from earth and gazing speculatively toward heaven, lost in a revery far from flattering to the ignored onlooker. And now he was doing it again under her very nose. What was he thinking about? He seemed, all at once, a thousand miles removed from her. Where were his thoughts?

  Touched in her amour propre, she quietly resumed the map of southern Florida; but even the rustle of the paper did not disturb his self-centred and provoking meditation.

  She looked at him, looked at the map, considered him again, and finally watched him.

  Suddenly, for the first time in her life, she thought him dangerously attractive. Surprised and interested, she regarded him in this new light, impersonally for the moment. So far away had he apparently drifted in his meditation that it seemed to her as though she were observing a stranger — a most interesting and most unusual young man.

  He turned and looked her straight in the eyes.

  Twenty-two, and her first season half over, and to be caught blushing like a school-girl!

  There was no constraint; her self-possession cooled her cheeks — and he was not looking at her, after all: he was looking through her, at something his fancy focused far, far beyond her.

  Never had she thought any man half as attractive as this old friend in a new light — this handsome, well-built, careless young fellow absorbed in thoughts which excluded her. No doubt he was so habituated to herself in all her moods that nothing except the friendliest indifference could ever ——

  To her consternation another tint of warm color slowly spread over neck and cheek. He rose at the same moment, dropped the cat back among the cushions, and smiling down at her, held out his hand. She took it, met his eyes with an effort; but what message she divined in them Heaven alone knows, for all at once her heart stood still and a strange thrill left her fingers nerveless in his hand.

  He was saying slowly, “Then I shall see you at Palm Beach next week?”

  “Yes.... You will come, won’t you?”

  “Yes, I will come.”

  “But if you — change your mind?”

  “I never change. May I write you?”

  “Good-night.... You may write me if you wish.”

  “I will write, every day — if you don’t mind.”

  “No — I don’t mind,” she said thoughtfully.

  She withdrew her hand and stood perfectly still as he left the room. She heard a servant open the door, she heard Harroll’s quick step echo on the stoop, then the door closed.

  A second later Mr. Delancy in the library was aroused from complacent meditation by the swish of a silken skirt, and glancing up, beheld a tall, prettily formed girl looking at him with a sober and rather colorless face.

  “Father,” she said, “I’m in love with Jim Harroll!”

  Mr. Delancy groped for his monocle, screwed it into his left eye, and examined his daughter.

  “It’s true, and I thought I’d better tell you,” she said.

  “Yes,” he agreed, “it’s as well to let me know. Ah — er — when and how did it occur?”

  “I don’t know, father. I was feeding Omar bonbons and looking over the map of South Florida, and thinking about nothing in particular, when Jim came in. He said he was going to Palm Beach, and I said, ‘How jolly!’ and he sat down and picked up Omar, and — I don’t know how it was, but I began to think him very attractive, and the first thing I knew — it — happened!”

  “Oh! So that’s the way it happened?”

  “I think it was, father.”

  “No doubt you’ll outgrow it.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I haven’t a doubt of it, little daughter.”

  “I have.”

  Mr. Delancy dropped his monocle and looked at the fire. The fire was all right.

  “Do you — do you suppose that Jim is — does — thinks — knows — —”

  “I never speculate on what Jim is, does, thinks, or knows,” said her father, thoughtfully, stirring the embers and spoiling a perfectly good fire. When he looked up again she had gone.

  “One theory smashed!” observed Mr. Delancy. “I’ll try another, with separation as the main ingredient.”

  He sat down before the fire and lighted a fresh cigar, which wasn’t good for him.

  “Must avoid making a martyr of Jim or there will be trouble,” he mused. “There remains another way — make a martyr of myself.”

  He sat swinging his monocle around his forefinger, gazing vacantly at the pattern the shadows cast across the hearth.

  “Avalon!” he said, abruptly. “Avalon! The ‘back-to-nature’ business, ‘grass-cure’ and all. It can’t harm either Catharine or me, I fancy — or any other pair of donkeys!”

  CHAPTER III

  TROUBLE FOR TWO

  A Note Found by Young Harroll on his Dresser the Evening of his Arrival at Palm Beach.

  “11.30 a.m.

  “Dear Jim — Everything is spoiled, after all! Father’s failing health has suddenly become a serious matter, and we are going to try the ‘nature cure,’ or whatever they call it, at Avalon Island. I had no idea he was really ill. Evidently he is alarmed, for we have only been here six days, and in a few minutes we are to start for Avalon. Isn’t it perfectly horrid? And to think that you are coming this evening and expecting to find us here!

  “Father says you can’t come to Avalon; that only invalids are received (I didn’t know I was one, but it seems I’m to take the treatment, too!), and he says that nobody is received for less than a month’s treatment, so I suppose that bars you even if you were self-sacrificing enough to endure a ‘nature cure’ for the pleasure of spending two weeks with [me, crossed out] us.

  “I’m actually on the verge of tears when I think of all we had planned to do together! And there’s my maid at the door, knocking. Good-by. You will write, won’t you?

  “Catharine Delancy.”

  Mr. James Harroll to Miss Catharine Delancy, Avalon, Balboa County, Florida.

  “Holy Cross Light, February 15.

  “Dear Catharine — Your father was right: they refuse to take me at Avalon. As soon as I found your note I telegraphed t
o Avalon for accommodations. It seems Avalon is an island, and they have to wait for the steamers to carry telegrams over from the mainland. So the reply has just reached me that they won’t take me for less than a month; and my limit from business is two weeks or give up my position with your father.

  “Yesterday I came out here to Holy Cross Spring to shoot ducks. I’d scarcely begun shooting, at dawn, when along came a couple of men through the fog, rowing like the mischief plump into my decoys, and I shouted out, ‘What the deuce are you about?’ and they begged my pardon, and said they had thought the point unoccupied, and that the fog was thicker than several things — which was true.

  “So I invited them into the blind to — oh, the usual ceremony — and they came, and they turned out to be Jack Selden — the chap I told you about who was so decent to me in Paris — and his guide.

  “So we had — ceremonies — several of them — and Selden stayed to shoot with me over my decoys, and our bag was fifty-three, all big duck except fifteen bluebills.

  “Selden is a godsend to me. We’re going to stay out here to-night at the lighthouse, and shoot all to-morrow if it doesn’t blow too hard. It’s blowing great guns now. I’m here in the lighthouse, writing in the glow of a lamp in the keeper’s living-room, with his good little wife sewing by the fire and a half-dozen of his kids tumbling about on the floor. It’s a pretty sight; I love children and firesides and that sort of thing. They’ve got hold of Selden now, and are making him tell stories of adventure. He’s been all over the world, and is perfectly crazy to get married. Says he would prefer a widow with yellow hair and blue eyes. Do you know any? He’s a nice chap.”

  “Catharine, I wish I were in Avalon. They could put me in a strait-jacket and I wouldn’t care as long as [you were, crossed out] I could be with [you, crossed out] your father and you in Avalon.

  “It’s growing late, and Selden and I should be on the ducking-grounds to-morrow before dawn. The keeper’s wife says it will blow too hard, but Selden only smiles. He’s a cool one, and if he has the nerve to go out I’ll go, too.

  “With sincere regards to your father and every wish for his speedy recovery, I remain