The Coast of Chance

by Esther Chamberlain and Lucia Chamberlain

  VI

  BLACK MAGIC

  The memory of Clara's incredulous glance remained with her as somethingcurious, and she was not unprepared to be challenged when, the nextmorning, she hurried down the hall, drawing on her gloves. Clara's doordid open, but the lady herself, yawning lightly on the threshold, hadthis time no questions for her. "Remember the luncheon," she advised,"and by the way, Ella wants us to sit in their box to-night. Don'tforget to tell Harry."

  Flora threw back a gay "All right," but she was in danger of forgettingeven the object of their errand, once she and Harry were out in thebright glare of the street. The wind, keen and resinous from the wetPresidio woods, blew at their back down the short block of pavement,and buffeted them, broadside, as they waited on the corner for theslow-crawling little car. In spite of the blustering air Flora insistedon the side seat of the "dummy," and, catching her hat with one hand,pressing down her fluttering skirts with the other, she laughed, nowsidelong at Harry, now out at the dancing face of the bay.

  Each succeeding cross-street gave up a flash of blue water. The shortblocks slid by, first stone fronts and fresh lawns, stucco and tiles;then here and there corner lots, the great gray, towered, woodenmansions the stock-brokers of the "seventies" built, and below them,like a contingent of shabby-genteel relations, the narrow gray woodenfaces of what was "smart" in the "sixties". It was a continuous progressbackward toward the old, the original town. There was no statelynucleus. This town was a succession of widening ripples of progress,each newer, more polished than the last, but not different in qualityfrom the old center that still teemed--a region of frail woodenrookeries full of foreign contending interests, haunted with theadventures of its feverish past. It had built itself on the hopes of amoment, and what spread from it still was the spell of the new, thechanging, and the reckless. It drew still from the ends of the earth.The broad road in over the mountains, the broad road out over the oceanmade it where it stood, touching all trades, a road-house of the world.

  Some dim perception of this touched Flora as the houses, gliding past,grew older, grayer, with steeper gardens, narrower streets, here andthere even trees, lone, sentinel, at the edge of cobbled gutters. Fromthe crest of the last hill they had looked a mile down the long graythroat of the street to where the ferry building lay stretched out withits one tall tower pricked up among the masts of shipping. Half-waybetween their momentary perch and the ferry slips the street suddenlythickened, darkened, swarmed, flying a yellow pennon high aboveblackened roofs. And now, as they slipped down the long decline intothe foreign quarter the pungent oriental breath of Chinatown was blownup to them. She breathed it in readily. It was pleasant because it wasstrange, outlandish, suggesting a wide web of life beyond her ownknowledge. She wondered what Harry was thinking of it, as he sat withhis passive profile turned from her to the heathen street ahead. Sheguessed, by the curl of his nostril, that it was only present to him asan unpleasant odor to be got through as quickly as possible; but she waswrong. He had another thought. This time, oddly enough, a thought forher.

  He gave it to her presently, abrupt, matter-of-fact, material. "ThatChinese goldsmith down there has good stuff now and then. How'd you liketo look in there before we go on to what-you-call-'em's,--the regularplace?"

  "You mean for a ring?" She was doubtful only of his being in earnest.

  "You have so many of the Shrove kind," he explained. "I thought youmight like it, Flora; you're so romantic!" he laughed.

  "Like it!" she cried, too touched at his thought for her to resent theimputation. "I should love it! But I didn't know they had such things."

  "Now and then--though it is a rare chance."

  "But that will be just the fun of it," she hastened, half afraid lestHarry should change his mind, "to see if we can possibly find one thatwill be different from all these others."

  She kept this little feeling of exploration close about her, as theyleft the car, a block above the green trees of the plaza, and enteredone of the narrow streets that was not even a cross-street, but analley, running to a bag's end, with balconies, green railings andnarcissi taking the sun.

  A slant-eyed baby in a mauve blouse stared after them; and a white faceso poisoned in its badness that it gave Flora a start, peered at themfrom across the street. It made her shrink a little behind Harry's broadshoulder and take hold of his arm. The mere touch of that arm wassecurity. His big presence, moving agilely beside her, seemed to fillthe street with its strength, as if, by merely flinging out his arms,Samson-like, he could burst the dark walls asunder.

  In the middle of the block, sunk a little back from the fronts of theothers, the goldsmith's shop showed a single, filmed window; and thepale glow through it proclaimed that the worker in metals preferredanother light to the sun's. The threshold was worn to a hollow thatsurprised the foot; and the interior into which it led them gloomed sosuddenly around them after the broad sunlight, that it was a momentbefore they made out the little man behind the counter, sitting hunchedup on a high stool.

  "Hullo, Joe," said Harry, in the same voice that hailed his friends onthe street-corners; but the goldsmith only nodded like a noddingmandarin, as if, without looking up, he took them in and sensed theirerrand. He wore a round, blue Chinese cap drawn over his crown; a pairof strange goggles like a mask over his eyes, and his little body seemedto poise as lightly on his high stool as a wisp, as if there were nomore flesh in it than in his long, dry fingers that so marvelouslymanipulated the metal. Save for that glitter of gold on his glass plate,and the grin of a lighted brazier, all was dark, discolored andcluttered.

  And the way Harry bloomed upon this background of dubious antiquity! Heleaned on the little counter, which creaked under his weight, in hisbig, fresh coat, with his clear, fresh face bent above the shallow trayof trinkets--doubtful jades, dim-eyed rings, dull clasps and coins--hislarge, fastidious finger poked among. He was the one vital thing in theshop.

  Over everything else was spread a dimness of age like dust. It envelopedthe little man behind the counter, not with the frailness that belongsto human age, but with that weathered, polished hardness which timebrings to antiques of wood and metal. Indeed, he appeared so like acarved idol in a curio shop that Flora was a little startled to findthat he was looking at her. Chinamen had always seemed to her blankautomatons; but this one looked keenly, pointedly, as if he personallytook note. She told herself whimsically that perhaps it was hisextraordinary glasses that gave point to that expression; and presentlywhen he took them off she was surprised to see it seemed verily true.His little physiognomy had no more expression than a withered nut. Butthere was something about it more disturbing than its vanishingintelligence, something unexpected, and out of harmony with the rest ofhim, yet so illusive that, flit over him as her eye would, she failed tofind it.

  "Harry," she murmured to Cressy, who was still stirring the contents ofthe box with a disdainful forefinger, "this little man gives me theshivers."

  "Old Joe?" Harry smiled indulgently. "He's a queer customer. Been quitea figurehead in Chinatown for twenty years. Say, Joe, heap bad!" andwith the back of his hand he flicked the tray away from him.

  The little man undoubled his knees and descended the stool. He stoodbreast-high behind the counter. He dropped a lack-luster eye to the box."Velly nice," he murmured with vague, falling inflection.

  "Oh, rotten!" Harry laughed at him.

  "You no like?"

  "No. No like. You got something else--something nice?"

  "No." It was like a door closed in the face of their hope--that fallinginflection, that blank of vacuity that settled over his face, and hiswhole drooping figure. He seemed to be only mutely awaiting theirimmediate departure to climb back again on his high stool. But Harrystill leaned on the counter and grinned ingratiatingly. "Oh, Joe, yougood flen'. You got something pretty--maybe?"

  The curtain of vacuity parted just a crack--let through a gleam ofintense intelligence. "Maybe." The goldsmith chuckled deeply, as ifHarry had unwittingly perp
etrated some joke--some particularly cleverconjurer's trick. He sidled out behind the counter, past the grinningbrazier, and shuffled into the back of the shop where he opened a door.

  Flora had expected a cupboard, but the vista it gave upon was a long,black, incredibly narrow passage, that stretched away into gloom withall the suggestion of distance of a road going over a horizon. Down thisthe goldsmith went, with his straw slippers clapping on his heels, untilhis small figure merged in the gloom and presently disappearedaltogether, and only the faint flipper-flap of his slippers came backgrowing more and more distant to them, and finally dying into silence.In the stillness that followed while they waited they could hear eachother breathe. The little shop with the water-stained walls and theancient odor--ancient as the empire of China--inclosed them like a spellcast around them by a vanishing enchanter to hold them there mute untilhis returning. They did not look at each other, but rather at theglowing brazier, at the gold on the glass plates, at the forms of peoplepassing in the street, moving palely across the dim window pane, asdistant to Flora's eye as though they moved in another world. Then camethe flipper-flap of the goldsmith's slippers returning. The soundsnapped their tension, and Harry laughed.

  "Lord knows how far he went to get it!"

  "Across the street?" Flora wondered.

  "Or under it. And it won't be worth two bits when it gets here." Hepeered at the little man coming toward them down the passage, flappingand shuffling, and carrying, held before him in both hands, a square,deep little box.

  It was a worn, nondescript box that he set down before them, but thejealous way he had carried it had suggested treasure, and Flora leanedeagerly forward as he raised the cover, half expecting the blaze of ajewel-case. She saw at first only dull shanks of metal tumbled one uponthe other. But, after a moment's peering, between them she caught gleamsof veritable light. Her fingers went in to retrieve a hoop of heavysilver, in the midst of which was sunk a flawed topaz. She admired amoment the play of light over the imperfection.

  "But this isn't Chinese," she objected, turning her surprise on Harry.

  "Lots of 'em aren't. These men glean everywhere. That's pretty." He heldup a little circle of discolored but lusterful pearls--let it fallagain, since it was worth only a glance. He leaned on the counter,indifferent to urge where value seemed so slight. He seemed amused atFlora's enthusiasm for clouded opals.

  "They look well enough among this junk," he said, "but compare them withyour own rings and you'll see the difference."

  She heard him dreamily. She was wishing, as she turned over the tumbleof damaged jewels, that things so pretty might have been perfect. Tofind a perfect thing in this place would be too extraordinary to hopefor. Yet, taking up the next, and the next, she found herself wishing itmight be this one--this cracked intaglio. No? Then this blue one--say.The setting spoke nothing for it. It was a plain, thin, round hoop ofpalpable brass, and the battered thing seemed almost too feeble to holdthe solitary stone. But the stone! She looked it full in the eye, thebig, blazing, blue eye of it. What was the matter with this one? A flaw?She held it to the light.

  She felt Harry move behind her. She knew he couldn't but be looking atit. For how, by all that was marvelous, had she for a moment doubted it?Down to its very heart, which was near to black, it was clear fire, andoutward toward the facets struck flaming hyacinth hues with zigzag whitecross-lights that dazzled and mesmerized. Just the look of it--themarvelous deep well of its light--declared its truth.

  "Harry," she breathed, without taking her gaze from the thing in herhand, "do look at this!"

  She felt him lean closer. Then with an abrupt "Let's see it," he took itfrom her--held it to the light, laid it on his palm, looking sharplyacross the counter at the shopkeeper, then back at the ring with a longscrutiny. His face, too, had a flush of excitement.

  "Is it--good?" Flora faltered.

  "A sapphire," he said, and taking her third finger by the tip, he slidon the thin circle of metal.

  She breathed high, looking down at the stone with eyes absorbed in theblue fire. There was none of the cupidity of women for jewels in herlook. It was the intrinsic beauty of this drop of dark liquid light thathad captured her. It had mystery, and her imagination woke to it--thewistful mystery of perfect beauty. And perfect beauty in such a place!It was too beautiful. The feeling it brought her was too sharp for purepleasure. It was dimly like fear. Yet instinctively she shut her handabout the ring. She murmured out her wonder.

  "How in the world did such a thing come here?"

  "Oh, not so strange," Harry answered. He leaned on his elbow upon thecounter, his head bent close to hers above the single, glittering pointthat drew the four eyes to one focus. "Sailors now and then pick up athing of whose value they have no idea--get hard up, and pawn it--stillwithout any idea. These chaps"--and his bold hand indicated theshopkeeper--"take in anything--that is, anything worth their while; andwait, and wait, and wait until they see just the moment--and turn it toaccount."

  It might be because Harry's eyes were so taken with the jewel that histongue ran recklessly. He had spoken low, but Flora sent an anxiousglance to be sure the shopkeeper hadn't overheard. She had meant only toglance, but she found herself staring into eyes that stared back fromthe other side of the counter. That wide, unwinking scrutiny filled herwhole vision. For an instant she saw nothing but the dance ofscintillant pupils. Then, with a little gasp she clutched at hercompanion's arm.

  "Oh, Harry!"

  His glance came quickly round to her. "Why, what's the matter?"

  She murmured, "That Chinaman has blue eyes."

  He looked at her with good-natured wonder.

  "Why, Flora, haven't you blue on the brain? I believe he has, though,"he added, as he peered across the counter at the shopkeeper, whose gazenow fluttered under narrowed lids; "but why in the world should blueeyes scare you?" His look returned indulgently to Flora's face.

  She could not explain her reason of fear to him. She could not explainit to herself more than that the eyes had seemed to know. What? Shecould not tell; but they had had a deadly intelligence. She onlywhispered back, "But he is awful!"

  "Oh, I guess not," Harry grinned, and turned his back to the counter,"only part white. Makes him a little sharper at a bargain."

  But, in spite of his off-handedness, Flora saw he was alert, touchedwith excitement. Once or twice he looked from the shopkeeper to thesapphire.

  "Do you like it, Flora?" he said. "Do you want it?" He spoke eagerlyagainst her reluctance.

  "It is the most beautiful thing I ever saw, but--" She could not put itto him why she shrank from it. That feeling which had touched her at thefirst had a little expanded, the sense of the sapphire's sinister charm.She faltered out as much as she could explain. "It's too much for me."

  His shoulders shook with appreciation of this. "Oh, I guess not! If youkeep that up I shall be thinking you mean it is too much for me."

  It hadn't been in the least what she meant, but now that he hadsuggested it to her--"Well, I shouldn't like it to be," she blushed, butshe braved him.

  The ring of his laughter filled the little, dark, old shop, and made theproprietor blink.

  "Oh, I guess not," he said again, and with that he seemed to make an endof her hesitations. There was not another objection she could bring up.She let him draw the ring off her hand with a mingled feeling ofreluctance and relief. She saw him turn briskly to the shopkeeper.

  "Now, Joe, how much you want?" That much she heard as she turned awaywith a fear lest it might, and a hope that it would be, too much forhim!

  She lingered away to the door, through whose upper glazed half she sawthe street swarming and sunny, picked out with streamers of red andsquares of green. The murmur of traffic outside was faint to her ears.The murmur of the two voices talking on inside the shop momently grewfainter. She looked behind her and saw them now in the back of the shop,close by the grinning brazier.

  The light of it showed what would have been otherwise dark.
It showedher Harry, straddling, hands in pockets, hat thrust back, a silhouetteas hard as if cast in cold metal. The aspect of him, thus, was strange,not quite unlike himself, but giving her the feeling that she had neverknown how much Harry smoothed over.

  Perhaps men were always like that with men. Still she looked away againbecause she felt she had taken a liberty in catching him when he wascoming out so plain and coming out so positive to the shopkeeper, whomhe seemed really to be bullying. She felt that, considering thesapphire, nothing that went on about it could be too extraordinary. Andyet the tone their voices were taking on made her nervous. Whatever theywere arguing about, she found it hard to go on standing thus with herback to it, and for so long, while her expectancy tightened, and herunreasonable idea that she did not want the ring, more and more tookhold of her. If he did not want to sell it, why not let it go--thebeautiful thing!

  She thought she would call Harry, and suggest it--but no. She hesitated.She would give them a chance to finish it themselves. She would countten pigtails past the window first. She watched the last far into thedistance, and still she was there, blowing hot and cold. She would callto Harry--call out to him from where she stood, that she wouldn't havethe thing.

  She turned, and there they were yet. They had not moved. The shadow ofthe gesticulating little Chinaman danced like a bird on the wall, andbefore him Harry glowed, immovable, but ruddy, as if the hard metalwhereof he was cast was slowly heating through. The thought came to herthen. Harry was iron! The hard shade of his profile on the wall, thestiff movement of his lips, the forward thrust of his head on hisshoulders gave her another thought. Was Harry also brutal? The sight ofthat brutality awake, feeding, as it were, on the fluttering littlefigure before it, distressed her. How long were they going on putting anedge to their argument? There was continually with her the fear that itmight sharpen into a quarrel; for now the goldsmith had ceased hisgesticulation and became suddenly immobile, and still Harry wasrequiring of him the same thing. It was insisted upon, by all the linesof his stiff braced figure, and she had a fluttered expectancy that ifthe little man didn't do something quickly, now--now it would happen.

  What she expected of Harry, a violent act or a quick relaxation of hisiron mood, she had not time to consider, for the shopkeeper had moved.He was jerking his head, his thumb, and finally his arm in the directionof the long, dim passage--such a pointed direction, such a singulargesture, as to startle her with its incongruity. What had that to dowith the price of the ring? And if it had nothing to do with the priceof the ring, what had they been talking about? Her small scruple againstknowing what was going on behind her was forgotten. Indeed, now she wasoblivious of everything else. She was taking it in with all her eyes,when Harry turned and looked at her. And, oddly enough, she thought helooked as if he wondered how she came there. She saw him return to itslowly. Then, in a flash, he met her brilliantly. He came toward herout of the gloom, holding the ring before him, as if with the light ofthat, and the flash of his smile, he was anxious immediately to coverhis deficit.

  "I had the very devil of a time getting it," he said. "The little beggardidn't want to let me have it." But there was a subsiding excitement inhis face, and a something in his manner, both triumphant and troubled,which his explanation did not reasonably account for. Had Harry felt thetouch of the same strange influence that the little shop, and theblue-eyed Chinaman, and the sapphire, had wrought around her? Or was itsomething more salient, the same thing that had suggested itself to herwith the violent gesticulation of the shopkeeper at the passage--thatsome question other than the mere transfer of the ring had come upbetween them?

  "Harry"--she hesitated--"are you quite sure it's all right?"

  "All right?" The sudden edge in his voice made her look at him. "Why,it's genuine, if that's what you mean."

  It hadn't been, quite; but her meaning was too vague to put intowords--a mere sensation of uneasiness. She watched Harry turn the ringover, as if he were reluctant to let it go out of his hands. And then,looking at her, she thought his glance was a little uncertain. Shethought he hesitated, and when he finally slid the ring over her finger,"I wouldn't wear it until it is reset," he said. "That setting isn'tgold. It's hardly decent."

  "Yes," she assented; "Clara will laugh at us."

  "She won't if we don't show it to her until it's fit to appear. In fact,I would rather you wouldn't. As it is now, the thing doesn't representmy gift to you."

  She felt this was Harry's conventional streak asserting itself. But evenshe had to admit that an engagement ring which was palpably not gold wasrather out of the way.

  "You'd better keep it a day or two and look it over and make up yourmind how you want it set, and then we'll spring it on them," headvised.

  But now it was finally on her finger, she did not want to think it wouldever have to be taken off again. She drew her glove over it. The greatfacets showed sharp angles under the thin kid. She wished the sapphirewere not quite so large, so difficult to reconcile with everything else.Now that she had the perfect thing with her, clasping her so heavilyaround the third finger, she was half afraid it was going to be too muchfor her, after all.