The Coast of Chance
Page 4
IV
FLOWERS BY THE WAY
Flora liked this funny little dining-room with walls as frail asbox-boards, low-ceiled and flooded with sun. It recalled surroundingsshe had known later than the mining camp, but long before the great redhouse. It seemed to her that she fitted here better than the Purdies.She looked across at Kerr, sitting opposite, to see if perhaps he fittedtoo. But he was foreign, decidedly. He kept about him still the hint ofdelicate masquerade that she had noticed the night before. Out of doors,alone with her, he had lost it. For a moment he had been absolutely offhis guard. And even now he was more off his guard than he had been lastnight. She was surprised to see him so unstudied, so uncritical, sohumorously anecdotal. If she and the major, between them, had draggedhim into this against his will he did not show it. She rose from thetable with the feeling that in an hour all three of them had becomequite old friends of his, though without knowing anything further abouthim.
"We must do this again," Mrs. Purdie said, as they parted from her inthe garden.
"Surely we will," Kerr answered her.
But Flora had the feeling that they never, never would. For him it hadbeen a chance touching on a strange shore.
But at least they were going away together. They would walk together asfar as the little car, whose terminal was the edge of the parade-ground.But just outside of the gate he stopped.
"Do you especially like board walks?" he asked.
It was an instant before she took his meaning. Then she laughed. "No. Ilike green paths."
He waved with his cane. "There is a path yonder, that goes over abridge, and beyond that a hill."
"And at the top of that another car," Flora reminded him.
"Ah well," he said, "there are flowers on the way, at least." He lookedat her whimsically. "There are three purple irises under the bridge. Inoticed them as I came down."
She was pleased that he had noticed that for himself--pleased, too, thathe had suggested the longer way.
The narrow path that they had chosen branched out upon the main path,broad and yellow, which dipped downward into the hollow. From there camethe murmur of water. Green showed through the white grass of lastsummer. The odor of wet evergreens was pungent in their nostrils. Theylooked at the delicate fringed acacias, at the circle of hills showingabove the low tree-tops, at the cloudless sky; but always their eyesreturned to each other's faces, as if they found these the pleasantestpoints of the landscape. Sauntering between plantations of youngeucalyptus, they came to the arched stone bridge. They leaned on theparapet, looking down at the marshy stream beneath and at the threeirises Kerr had remarked, knee-deep in swamp ground.
"Now that I see them I suppose I want them," Flora remarked.
"Of course," he assented. "Then hold all these."
He put into her hands the loose bunch of syringa and rose plucked forher in the Purdies' garden, laid his hat and gloves on the parapet;then, with an eye for the better bank, walked to the end of the bridge.
She watched him descending the steep bank and issuing into the broadshallow basin of the stream's way. The sun was still high enough to fillthe hollows with warm light and mellow the doubles of trees and grass inthe stream. In this landscape of green and pale gold he looked black andtall and angular. The wind blew longish locks of hair across hisforehead, and she had a moment's pleased and timorous reflection thathe looked like Satan coming into the Garden.
He advanced from tussock to tussock. He came to the brink of the marsh.The lilies wavered what seemed but a hand's-breadth from him. But hestooped, he reached--Oh, could anything so foolish happen as that hecould not get them! Or, more foolish still, plunge in to the knees! Hestraightened from his fruitless effort, drew back, but before she couldthink what he was about he had leaned forward again, flashed out hiscane, and with three quick, cutting slashes the lilies were mown. It wasdeftly, delicately, astonishingly done, but it gave her a singularshock, as if she had seen a hawk strike its prey. He drew them cleverlytoward him in the crook of his cane, took them up daintily in hisfingers, and returned to her across the shallow valley. She waited himwith mixed emotions.
HE TOOK THE LILIES UP DAINTILY, AND RETURNED TO HER.]
"Oh, how could you!" she murmured, as he put them into her hand.
He looked at her in amused astonishment. "Why, aren't they right?"
They were as clean clipped off and as perfect as if the daintiest handhad plucked them.
"Oh, yes," she admitted, "they're lovely, but I don't like the way yougot them."
"I took the means I had," he objected.
"I don't think I like it."
His whole face was sparkling with interest and amusement. "Is that so?Why not?"
"You're too--too"--she cast about for the word--"too terriblyresourceful!"
"I see," he said. If she had feared he would laugh, it showed how littleshe had gauged the limits of his laughter. He only looked at her rathermore intently than he had before.
"But, my good child, resourcefulness is a very natural instinct. I amafraid you read more into it than is there. You wanted the flowers, Ihad a stick, and in my youth I was taught to strike clean and straight.I am really a very simple fellow."
Looking him in the eyes, which were of a clear, candid gray, she wasready to believe it. It seemed as if he had let her look for a momentthrough his manner, his ironies, his armor of indifference, to the frankfoundations of his nature.
"But, you see, the trouble is you don't in the least look it," sheargued.
"So you think because I have a long face and wild hair that I am asinister person? My dear Miss Gilsey, the most desperate character Iever knew was five feet high and wore mutton-chop whiskers. It is anuncertain business judging men by their appearance."
She could not help smiling. "But most people do."
"I don't class you with most people."
She gave him a quick look. "You _did_ the first night."
"Possibly--but less and less ever since. You have me now in the state ofmind where I don't know what you'll be at next."
This was fortunate, she thought, since she had not the least ideaherself, beyond a teasing desire to find out more about him. He hadshown her many fleeting phases which, put together, seemedcontradictory. She could not connect this man, so mild and amusing,strolling beside her, with the alert, whetted, combative person of thenight before, or even with the aloof and reticent figure on theparade-ground. His very attitude toward herself had changed from theamused scrutiny of the first night into something more indulgent, moresympathetic. There was only one attitude on his part that had remainedthe same--one attitude toward one person--and her mind hovered overthis. On each occasion it had stirred her curiosity and, though she hadnot admitted it, made her uneasy. Why not probe him on the subject, nowthat she had him completely to herself? But as soon as silence fellbetween them she saw that wave of preoccupation which had submerged himduring their walk from the parade-ground to the Purdies' rising over himagain and floating him away from her. He no longer even looked at her.His eyes were on the ground, and it was not until they had crossed theopen expanse of the shallow valley and were climbing toward the avenueof cypress that she found courage to put her question.
"Have you and Mr. Cressy met before?"
He raised his head with a jerk and looked at her a moment inastonishment.
"Do you mind if I answer your question American fashion by askinganother?" he said presently. "What put it into your head that we mayhave met before?"
"The way you looked at each other at the club, and again this morning."
Kerr shook his head. "You are an observant young person! The fact is,I've never met him--of that I'm certain, but I believe I've seen himbefore, and for the life of me, I can't think where. At the moment youspoke I was trying to remember."
"Was it in this country?" Flora prompted, hopeful of fishing somethingdefinite out of this vagueness.
"No, it was years ago. It must have been in England." He looked at herinquir
ingly, as if he expected her to help him.
"Oh, Harry's been in England," she said quickly; and then, with aflashing thought, came to her the one scene Harry had mentioned in hisEnglish experience. Was it at a ball? The question came to her lips, butshe checked it there. She remembered how Harry had stopped her the nightbefore with a nod, with a look, from mentioning that very thing. Stillshe hesitated--for the temptation was strong. But no; it was only loyalto Harry to speak to him first.
"So you're not going to tell me?" Kerr remarked, and she came back to asudden consciousness of how her face must have reflected her thought.
"No--not this time!" she said, smiling, though somewhat flushed.
He knitted his brows at her. They had reached the arched gate, and thecar that would carry her home was approaching.
"Ah, then, I am afraid it will be never," he said.
Was it possible this was their last meeting? Did he mean he was goingaway? The questions formed in her mind, but there was no time for words.He had stopped the car with a flick of his agile cane, and handed her inas if he had handed her into a carriage; and not a word as to whetherthey would see each other again, though she hoped and hesitated to thelast moment.
Her hand was in his for the fraction of a minute. Then the car waswidening the distance between them, and she was no longer looking intohis face, which had seemed at their last moment both merry and wistful,but back at his diminishing figure, showing black against the palePresidio hills.