He kicked the turf at the foot of the wall. "In Germany they are considered beauty-spots."

"I am not in sympathy with that custom."

"Still, it requires courage of a kind."

"The noblest wounds are those that are carried unseen. Student scars are merely patches of vanity."

"He has others besides those. He was nearly killed in the Soudan." Fitzgerald was compelled to offer some defense for the absent. That Breitmann had lied to him, that his appearance here had been in the regular order of things, did not take away the fact that the Bavarian was a man and a brave one. Closely as he had watched, up to the present he had learned absolutely nothing; and to have shown Breitmann the telegram would have accomplished nothing further than to have put him wholly on guard.

"Have you no scars?" mischief in her eyes.

"Not yet;" and the force of his gaze turned hers aside. "Yet I must not forget my conscience; 'tis pretty well battered up."

She greeted this with laughter. She had heard men talk like this before. "You have probably never done a mean or petty thing in all your life."

"Mean and petty things never disturb a man's conscience. It's the big things that scar."

"That's a platitude."

"Then my end of the conversation is becoming flat."

"Confess that you are eager to return to the great highways once more."

"I shall confess nothing of the sort. I should like to stay here for a hundred years."

"You would miss us all very much then," merrily. "And Napoleon's treasure would have gone in and out of innumerable pockets!"

"Do you really and truly believe that we shall bring home a single franc of it?" facing her with incredulous eyes.

"Really and truly. And why not? Treasures have been found before. Fie on you for a Doubting Thomas!"

"We sometimes go many miles to find, in the end, that the treasure was all the time under our very eyes."

"Hyperbole!" But she looked down at the lichen again and began pealing it off the stone. She thought of a duke she knew. At this instant he would have been telling her that she was the most beautiful woman since Helen. What a relief this man at her side was! She was perfectly aware that he admired her, but he veiled his tributes with half-smiles and flashes of humor. "What a gay little man that Mr. Ferraud is!"

"Lively as a cricket. Your father, I understand, is to take him as far as Marseilles. After to-night everything will be quite formal, I suppose. Honestly, I feel ill at ease in accepting your splendid hospitality. I'm an interloper. I haven't even the claim of an ordinary introduction. It has been very, very kind of you."

"You know Mrs. Coldfield. I will, if you wish it, ask her to present you to me."

"I am really serious."

"So am I."

"They will be here to-morrow?"

"Yes. And in four days we sail. Oh, it is all so beautiful! A real treasure hunt."

"It does not seem possible that I have been here a week. It has been a long time since I enjoyed myself so thoroughly. Have you ever wondered what has become of the other man?"

"The other man?"

"Yes; the other one in or outside the chimney. I've been thinking about him this long while. Hasn't it occurred to you that he may have other devices?"

"If he has he will find that he has waited too long. But I would like to know how he found out. You see," triumphantly, "he believed that there is one." She shook the rein, for the sleek mare was nozzling her shoulder and pawing slightly, "Let us be off."

She put her small booted foot on his palm and vaulted into the saddle, and he swung on to his mount. He stuffed his cap into a pocket, for he was no fair-weather horseman, but loved the tingle of the wind rushing through his hair; and the two cantered down the clear sandy road.

"En avant!" she cried joyously, with a light stroke of her whip.

For half a mile they ran and drew in at the fork in the road. Exhilaration was in the eyes of both of them.

"There's nothing equal to it. You feel alive. And off there," with a wave of the whip toward the sea, "off there lies our fortunes. O happy day! to take part in a really truly adventure, without the assistance of a romancer!"

"I think you are one of the most charming women I have ever met," he replied.

"Some women would object to the modification, but I rather like it."

"I withdraw the modification." The smile on his lips was not reflected in his eyes.

The antithesis of the one expression to the other did not annoy her; rather she was sensitive to a tender exultance the recurrence of which, later in the day, subdued her: for Breitmann at tea turned a few phrases of a similar character. Fitzgerald was light-hearted and boyish, Breitmann was grave and dignified; but in the eyes of each there was a force she had encountered so seldom as to forget its being. Breitmann, in his capacity of secretary, was not so often in her company as Fitzgerald; nevertheless she was subtly attracted toward him. When he was of the mind he could invent a happy compliment with a felicity no less facile than Fitzgerald. And the puzzling thing of it all was, both men she knew from their histories had never been ornaments at garden-parties where compliments are current coin. She liked Fitzgerald, but she admired Breitmann, a differentiation which she had no inclination to resolve into first principles. That Breitmann was a secretary for hire drew no barrier in her mind. She had known many gentlemen of fine families who had served in like situations. There were no social distinctions. On the other hand, she never felt wholly comfortable with Breitmann. There was not the least mistrust in this feeling. It was rather because she instinctively felt that he was above his occupation. To sum it up briefly, Breitmann was difficult to understand and Fitzgerald wasn't.

Fitzgerald had an idea; boldly put, it was a grave suspicion. Not once had he forgotten the man in the chimney. Once the finger had pointed at Breitmann or some one with whom he was in understanding. This had proved to be groundless. But he kept turning over the incident and inspecting it from all sides. There were others a-treasure hunting; persons unknown; and a man might easily become desperate in the pursuit of two-million francs, almost half a million of American money, more, for some of these coins would be rare. He had thoroughly searched the ground outside the cellar-window, but the sea gravel held its secret with a tenacity as baffling as the mother-sea herself. There was a new under-groom, or rather there had been. He had left, and where he had gone no one knew. Fitzgerald dismissed the thought of him; at the most he could have been but an accomplice, one to unlock the cellar-window.

While Breitmann lingered near Laura, offering what signs of admiration he dared, and while the admiral chatted to his country neighbors who were gathered round the tea-table, Fitzgerald and M. Ferraud were braced against the terrace wall, a few yards farther on, and exchanged views on various peoples.

"America is a wonderful country," said M. Ferraud, when they had exhausted half a dozen topics. He spread out his hands, Frenchman-wise.

"So it is." Fitzgerald threw away his cigarette.

"And how foolish England was over a pound of tea."

"Something like that."

"But see what she lost!" with a second gesture.

"In one way it would not have mattered. She would patronize us as she still does."

"Do you not resent it, this patronizing attitude?"

"Oh, no—we are very proud to be patronized by England," cynically. "It's a fine thing to have a lord tell you that you wear your clothes jolly well."

"I wonder if you are serious or jesting."

"I am very serious at this moment," said Fitzgerald quietly catching the other by the wrist and turning the palm.

M. Ferraud looked into his face with an astonishment on his own, most genuine. But he did not struggle. "Why do you do that?"

"I am curious, Mr. Ferraud, when I see a hand like this. Would you mind letting me see the other?"

"Not in the least." M. Ferraud offered the other hand.

Fitzgerald let go. "What was your object?"

"Mon dieu! what object?"

Fitzgerald lowered his voice. "What was your object in digging holes in yonder chimney? Did you know what was there? And what do you propose to do now?"

M. Ferraud coolly, took off his spectacles and polished the lenses. It needed but a moment to adjust them. "What are you talking about?"

"You are really M. Ferraud?" said the young man coldly.

The Frenchman produced a wallet and took out a letter. It was written by the president of France, introducing M. Ferraud to the ambassador at Washington. Next, there was a passport, and far more important than either of these was the Legion of Honor. "Yes, I am Anatole Ferraud."

"That is all I desire to know."

"Shall we return to the ladies?" asked M. Ferraud, restoring his treasures.

"Since there is nothing more to be said at present. It seems strange to me that foreign politics should find its way here."

"Politics? I am only a butterfly hunter."

"There are varieties. But you are the man. I shall find out!"

"Possibly," returned M. Ferraud thinking hard.

"I give you fair warning that if anything is missing—"

"Oh, Mr. Fitzgerald!"

"I shall know where to look for it," with a smile which had no humor in it.

"Why not denounce me now?"

"Would it serve your purpose?"

"No," with deeper gravity. "It would be a great disaster; how great, I can not tell you."

"Then, I shall say nothing."

"About what?" dryly, even whimsically.

"About your being a secret agent from France."

This time M. Ferraud's glance proved that he was truly startled. Only three times in his career had his second life been questioned or suspected. He eyed his hands accusingly; they had betrayed him. This young man was clever, cleverer than he had thought. He had been too confident and had committed a blunder. Should he trust him? With that swift unerring instinct which makes the perfect student of character, he said: "You will do me a great favor not to impart this suspicion to any one else."

"Suspicion?"

"It is true: I am a secret agent;" and he said it proudly.

"You wish harm to none here?"

"Mon dieu! No. I am here for the very purpose of saving you all from heartaches and misfortune and disillusion. And had I set to work earlier I should have accomplished all this without a single one of you knowing it. Now the matter will have to go on to its end."

"Can you tell me anything?"

"Not now. I trust you; will you trust me?"

Fitzgerald hesitated for a space. "Yes."

"For that, thanks," and M. Ferraud put out a hand. "It is clean, Mr. Fitzgerald, for all that the skin is broken."

"Of that I have no doubt."

"Before we reach Corsica you will know."

And so temporarily that ended the matter. But as Fitzgerald went over to the chair just vacated by the secretary, he found that there was a double zest to life now. This would be far more exciting than dodging ice-floes and freezing one's toes.

Laura told him the news. Their guests would arrive that evening in time for dinner.

It was Breitmann's habit to come down first. He would thrum a little on the piano or take down some old volume. To-night it was Heine. He had not met any of the guests yet, which he considered a piece of good fortune. But God only knew what would happen when she saw him. He dreaded the moment, dreaded it with anguish. She was a woman, schooled in acting, but a time comes when the best acting is not sufficient. If only in some way he might have warned her; but no way had opened. She would find him ready, however, ready with his eyes, his lips, his nerves. What would the others think or say if she lost her presence of mind? His teeth snapped. He read on. The lamp threw the light on the scarred side of his face.

He heard some one enter, and his gaze stole over the top of his book. This person was a woman, and her eyes traveled from object to object with a curiosity tinged with that incertitude which attacks us all when we enter an unfamiliar room. She was dressed in black, showing the white arms and neck. Her hair was like ripe wheat after a rain-storm: oh, but he knew well the color of her eyes, blue as the Adriatic. She was a woman of perhaps thirty, matured, graceful, handsome. The sight of her excited a thrill in his veins, deny it how he would.

She scanned the long rows of books, the strange weapons, the heroic and sinister flags, the cases of butterflies. With each inspection she stepped nearer and nearer, till by reaching out his hand he might have touched her. Quietly he rose. It was a critical moment.

She was startled. She had thought she was alone.

"Pardon me," she said, in a low, musical voice; "I did not know that any one was here." And then she saw his face. Her own blanched and her hands went to her heart. "Karl?"



CHAPTER XIV

THE DRAMA BEGINS

She swayed a little, but recovered as the pain of the shock was succeeded by numbness. That out of the dark of this room, into the light of that lamp, in this house so far removed from cities that it seemed not a part of the world . . . there should step this man! Why had there been no hint of his presence? Why had not the clairvoyance of despair warned her? One of her hands rose and pressed over her eyes, as if to sponge out this phantom. It was useless; it was no dream; he was still there, this man she had neither seen nor heard of for five years because her will was stronger than her desire, this man who had broken her heart as children break toys! And deep below all this present terror was the abiding truth that she still loved him and always would love him. The shame of this knowledge did more than all else to rouse and to nerve her.

"Karl?" It was like an echo.

"Yes." There was war in his voice and attitude and not without reason. He had wronged this woman, not with direct intention it was true, but nevertheless he had wronged her; and her presence here could mean nothing less than that fate had selected this spot for the reckoning. She could topple down his carefully reared schemes with the same ease with which he had blown over hers. And to him these schemes were life to his breath and salt to his blood, everything. What was one woman? cynically. "Yes, it is I," in the tongue native to them both.

"And what do you here?"

"I am Admiral Killigrew's private secretary." He wet his lips. He was not so strong before this woman as he had expected to be. The glamour of the old days was faintly rekindled at the sight of her. And she was beautiful.

"Then, this is the house?" in a whisper.

"It is."

"You terrify me!"

"Hildegarde, this is your scheme," shrugging. "Tell them all you know; break me, ruin me. Here is a fair opportunity for revenge."

"God forbid!" she cried with a shiver. "Were you guilty of all crimes, I could only remember that once I loved you."

"You shame me," he replied frankly, but with infinite relief. "You have outdone me in magnanimity. Will you forgive me?"

"Oh, yes. Forgiveness is one of the few things you men can not rob us of." She spoke without bitterness, but her eyes were dim and her lips dropped. "What shall we do? They must not know that we have met."

"Cathewe knows," moodily.

"I had forgotten!"

"I leave all in your hands. Do what you will. If you break me—and God knows well that you can do it—it would be only an act of justice. I have been a damned scoundrel; I am man enough to admit of that."

She saw his face more clearly now. Time had marked it. There were new lines at the corners of his eyes and the cheek-bones were more prominent. Perhaps he had suffered too. "You will always have the courage to do," she said, "right or wrong in a great manner."

"Am I wrong to seek—"

"Hush! I know. It is what you must thrust aside or break to reach it, Karl. The thing itself is not wrong, but you will go about it wrongly. You can not help that."

He did not reply. Perhaps she was right. Indeed, was she not herself an example of it? If there was one thing in his complex career that he regretted more than another it was the deception of this woman. He did not possess the usual vanity of the sex; there was nothing here to be proud of; his dream of conquest was not over the kingdom of women.

"Some one is coming," he said, listening.

"Leave it all to me."

"Ah! . . ." with a hand toward her.

"Do not say it. I understand the thought. If only you loved me, you would say!" the iron in her voice unmistakable.

He let his hand fall. He was sorry.

Presently the others made their entrance upon the scene, a singular anticlimax. The admiral rang for the cocktails. Introductions followed.

"Is it not strange?" said the singer to Laura. "I stole in here to look at the trophies, when I discovered Mr. Breitmann whom I once knew in Munich."

"Mr. Cathewe," said the young hostess, "this is Mr. Breitmann, who is aiding father in the compilation of his book."

"Mr. Breitmann and I have met before," said Cathewe soberly.

The two men bowed. Cathewe never gave his hand to any but his intimates. But Laura, who was not aware of this ancient reserve, thought that both of them showed a lack of warmth. And Fitzgerald, who was watching all comers now, was sure that the past of his friend and Breitmann interlaced in some way.

"So, young man," said Mrs. Coldfield, a handsome motherly woman, "you have had the impudence to let five years pass without darkening my doors. What excuse have you?"

"I'm guilty of anything you say," Fitzgerald answered humbly. "What shall be my punishment?"

"You shall take Miss Laura in and I shall sit at your left."

"For my sins it shall be as you say. But, really, I have been so little in New York," he added.

"I forgive you simply because you have not made a failure of your mother's son. And you look like her, too." It is one of the privileges of old persons to compare the young with this or that parent.

"You are flattering me. Dad used to say that I was as homely as a hedge-fence."

"Now you're fishing, and I'm too old a fish to rise to such a cast."

"I heard you sing in Paris a few years ago," said M. Ferraud.

"Yes?" Hildegarde von Mitter wondered who this little man could be.

"And you sing no more?"

"No. The bird has flown; only the woman remains." They were at the table now, and she absently plucked the flowers beside her plate.

"Ah, to sing as you did, and then to disappear, to vanish! You had no right to do so. You belonged to the public," animatedly.

"The public is always selfish; it always demands more than any single person can give to it. Pardon?" she said as Cathewe leaned to speak to her. "I did not hear."

M. Ferraud nibbled his crisp celery.

"I asked, what will you do?" repeated Cathewe for her ear only.

"What do you mean?"

"Did you know that he was here?"

"I should not have been seated at this table had I known."

"Some day you are going to tell me all about it," he asserted; "and you are going to smile when you answer me."

"Thank you. I forgot. My dear friend, I am never going to tell you all about it. Why did you not come first?" her voice vibrating.

"You still love him."

"That is not kind," striving hard to keep the smile on her trembling lips. "Oh, I beg of you, do not make this friendship impossible. Do not rob me of the one man I trust."

Cathewe motioned aside the fish and reached for his sauterne. "I have loved you faithfully and loyally for seven years. I have tried to win you by all those roads a man may honorably traverse in quest of the one woman. For seven years; and for something like three I have stayed away at your command. Will you believe it? Sometimes my hands ache for his throat . . . Smile, they are looking."

It was a crooked smile. "Why did I ever tell you?"

"Why did you ever tell me . . . only part? It is the other part I wish to know. Till I learn what that is I shall never leave you. You will find that there is a difference between love and infatuation."

"As I have never known infatuation I can not tell the difference. Now, no more, unless you care to see me break down before them. For if you tell me that you have loved me seven years, I have loved him eight," cruelly, for Cathewe was pressing her cruelly.

"Devil take him! What do you find in the man?"

"What do you find in me?" her eyes filled with anger.

"Forgive me, Hildegarde; I am blind and mad to-night. I did not expect to find him here either."

Breitmann had tried ineffectually to read their lips. She had given her word, and once given, he knew of old that she never broke it; but he was keenly alive that in some way he was the topic of the inaudible conversation. As he sat here to-night he knew why he had never loved Hildegarde, why in fact, he had never loved any woman. The one great passion which comes in the span of life was centered in the girl beside him, dividing her moments between him and Fitzgerald. Strange, but he had not known it till he saw the two women together. For once his nice calculations had ceased to run smoothly; there appeared now a knot in the thread for which he saw no untying.

"You do not sing now?" asked Laura across the table.

"No," Hildegarde answered, "my voice is gone."

"Oh, I am so sorry."

"It does not matter. I can hum a little to myself; there is yet some pleasure in that. But in opera, no, never again. Has not Mrs. Coldfield told you? No? Imagine! One night in Dresden, in the middle of the aria, my voice broke miserably and I could not go on."

"And her heart nearly broke with it," interposed Mrs. Coldfield, with the best intentions, nearer the truth than she knew. "I am sorry, Laura, that I never told you before."

Hildegarde laughed. "Sooner or later this must happen. I worked too hard, perhaps. At any rate, the opera will know me no more."

There was the hard blue of flint in Cathewe's eyes as they met and held Breitmann's. There was a duel, and the latter was routed. But hate burned fiercely in the breast against the man who could compel him to lower his eyes. Some day he would pay back that glance.

Now, M. Ferraud had missed nothing. He twisted the talk into other channels with his usual adroitness, but all the while there was bubbling in his mind the news that these two men had met before. The history of Hildegarde von Mitter was known to him. But how much did she know, or this man Cathewe? The woman was a thoroughbred. He, Anatole Ferraud, knew; it was his business to know; and that she should happen upon the scene he considered as one of these rare good pieces of luck that fall to the lot of few. There would be something more than treasure hunting here; an intricate comedy-drama, with as many well-defined sides as a diamond. He ate his endive with pleasure and sipped the old yellow Pol Roger with his eyes beaming toward the gods. To be, after a fashion, the prompter behind the scenes; to be able to read the final line before the curtain! Butterflies and butterflies and pins and pins.

Did Laura note any of the portentous glances, those exchanged between the singer and Cathewe and Breitmann? Perhaps. At all events she felt a curiosity to know how long Hildegarde von Mitter had known her father's secretary. There was no envy in her heart as again she acknowledged the beauty of the other woman; moreover, she liked her and was going to like her more. Impressions were made upon her almost instantly, for good or bad, and rarely changed.

She turned oftenest to Fitzgerald, for he made particular effort to entertain, and he succeeded better than he dreamed. It kept turning over in her mind what a whimsical, capricious, whirligig was at work. It was droll, this man at her side, chatting to her as if he had known her for years, when, seven or eight days ago, he had stood, a man all unknown to her, on a city corner, selling plaster of Paris statuettes on a wager; and but for Mrs. Coldfield, she had passed him for ever. Out upon the prude who would look askance at her for harmless daring!

"Drop into my room before you turn in," urged Fitzgerald to Cathewe.

"That I shall, my boy. I've some questions to ask of you."

But a singular idea came into creation, and this was for him, Cathewe, to pay Breitmann a visit on the way to Fitzgerald's room. Not one man in a thousand would have dared put this idea into a plan of action. But neither externals nor conventions deterred Cathewe when he sought a thing. He rapped lightly on the door of the secretary's room.

"Come in."

Cathewe did so, gently closing the door behind him. Breitmann was in his shirt-sleeves. He rose from his chair and laid down his cigarette. A faint smile broke the thin line of his mouth. He waited for his guest, or, rather, this intruder, to break the silence. And as Cathewe did not speak at once, there was a tableau during which each was speculatively busy with the eyes.

"The vicissitudes of time," said Cathewe, "have left no distinguishable marks upon you."

Breitmann bowed. He remained standing.

And Cathewe had no wish to sit. "I never expected to see you in this house."

"A compliment which I readily return."

"A private secretary; I never thought of you in that capacity."

"One must take what one can," tranquilly.

"A good precept." Cathewe rolled the ends of his mustache, a trifle perplexed how to put it. "But there should be exceptions. What," and his voice became crisp and cold, "what was Hildegarde von Mitter to you?"

"And what is that to you?"

"My question first."

"I choose not to answer it."

Again they eyed each other like fencers.

"Were you married?"

Breitmann laughed. Here was his opportunity to wring this man's heart; for he knew that Cathewe loved the woman. "You seem to be in her confidence. Ask her."

"A poltroon would say as much. There is a phase in your make-up I have never fully understood. Physically you are a brave man, but morally you are a cad and a poltroon."

"Take care!" Breitmann stepped forward menacingly.

"There will be no fisticuffs," contemptuously.

"Not if you are careful. I have answered your questions; you had better leave at once."

"She is loyal to you. It was not her voice that broke that night; it was her heart, you have some hold over her."

"None that she can not throw off at any time." Breitmann's mind was working strangely.

"If she would have me I would marry her tomorrow," went on Cathewe, playing openly, "I would marry her to-morrow, priest or protestant, for her religion would be mine."

There was a spark of admiration in Breitmann's eyes. This man Cathewe was out of the ordinary. Well, as for that, so was he himself. He walked silently to the door and opened it, standing aside for the other to pass. "She is perfectly free. Marry her. She is all and more than you wish her to be. Will you go now?"

Cathewe bowed and turned on his heel. Breitmann had really got the better of him.

A peculiar interview, and only two strong men could have handled it in so few words. Not a word above normal tones; once or twice only, in the flutter of the eyelids or in the gesture of the hands, was there any sign that had these been primitive times the two would have gone joyously at each other's throats.

"I owed her that much," said Breitmann as he locked the door.

"It did not matter at all to me," was Cathewe's thought, as he knocked on Fitzgerald's door and heard his cheery call, "I only wanted to know what sort of man he is."

"Oh, I really don't know whether I like him or not," declared Fitzgerald. "I have run across him two or three times, but we were both busy. He has told me a little about himself. He's been knocked about a good deal. Has a title, but doesn't use it."

"A title? That is news to me. Probably it is true."

"I was surprised to learn that you knew him at all."

"Not very well. Met him in Munich mostly."

A long pause.

"Isn't Miss Killigrew just rippin'? There's a comrade for some man. Lucky devil, who gets her! She is new to me every day."

"I think I warned you."

"You were a nice one, never to say a word that you knew the admiral!"

"Are you complaining?"

Fitzgerald laughed; no not exactly; he wasn't complaining.

"You remember the caravan trails in the Lybian desert; the old ones on the way to Khartoum? The pathway behind her is like that, marked with the bleached bones of princely and ducal and common hopes." Cathewe stretched out in his chair. "Since she was eighteen, Jack, she has crossed the man-trail like a sandstorm, and quite as innocently, too."

"Oh, rot! I'm no green and salad youth."

"Your bones will be only the tougher, that's all."

Another pause.

"But what's your opinion regarding Breitmann?"

Cathewe laced his fingers and bent his chin on them. "There's a great rascal or a great hero somewhere under his skin."



CHAPTER XV

THEY GO A-SAILING

Five o'clock in the afternoon, and a mild blue sea flashing under the ever-deepening orange of the falling sun. Golden castles and gray castles and castles of shadowed-white billowed in the east; turrets rose and subsided and spires of cloud-cities formed and re-formed. The yacht Laura, sleek and swan-white, her ensign and colors folding and unfolding, lifting and sinking, as the shore breeze stirred them, was making ready for sea; and many of the villagers had come down to the water front to see her off. Very few sea-going vessels, outside of freighters, ever stopped in this harbor; and naturally the departures of the yacht were events equalled only by her arrivals. The railroad station was close to the wharves, and the old sailors hated the sight of the bright rails; for the locomotive had robbed them of the excitement of the semi-weekly packets that used to coast up and down between New York and Philadelphia.

"Wonder what poor devil of a pirate is going to have his bones turned over this trip?" said the station-agent to Mr. Donovan, who, among others on the station platform, watched the drab anchor as it clanked jerkily upward to the bows, leaving a swivel and a boil on the waters which had released it so grudgingly.

"I guess it ain't goin' t' be any ol' pirate this time," replied Mr. Donovan, with a pleasurable squeeze of the pocket-book over his heart.

"Well, I hope he finds what he's going after," generously. "He is the mainstay of this old one-horse town. Say, she's a beauty, isn't she? Why, man, that anchor alone is worth more than we make in four months. And think of the good things to eat and drink. If I had a million, no pirates or butterflies for mine. I'd hie me to Monte Carlo and bat the tiger all over the place."

Mr. Donovan knew nothing definite about Monte Carlo, but he would have liked to back up against some of those New York contractors on their own grounds.

"Hi! There she goes. Good luck!" cried the station-agent, swinging his hat with gusto.

The yacht swam out gracefully. There was a freshening blow from the southwest, but it would take the yacht half an hour to reach the deep-sea swells outside. Her whistle blew cheerily and was answered by the single tug-boat moored to the railroad wharf. And after that the villagers straggled back to their various daily concerns. Even the landlord of Swan's Hotel sighed as he balanced up his books. Business would be slack for some days to come.

The voyagers were gathered about the stern-rail and a handkerchief or two fluttered in the wind. For an hour they tarried there, keeping in view the green-wooded hills and the white cottages nestling at their base. And turn by turn there were glimpses of the noble old house at the top of the hill. And some looked upon it for the last time.

"I've had a jolly time up there," said Fitzgerald. The gulls swooped, as they crossed and recrossed the milky wake. "Better time than I deserved."

"Are you still worried about that adventure?" Laura demanded. "Dismiss it from your mind and let it be as if we had known each other for many years."

"Do you really mean that?"

"To be sure I do," promptly. "I have stepped to the time of convention so much that a lapse once in a while is a positive luxury. But Mrs. Coldfield had given me a guaranty before I addressed you, so the adventure was only a make-believe one after all."

There never was a girl quite like this one. He purloined a sidelong glance at her which embraced her wholly, from the chic gray cap on the top of her shapely head to the sensible little boots on her feet. She wore a heavy, plaid coat, with deep pockets into which her hands were snugly buried; and she stood braced against the swell and the wind which was turning out strong and cold. The rich pigment in the blood mantled her cheeks and in her eyes there was still a bit of captive sunshine. He knew now that what had been only a possibility was an assured fact. Never before had he cursed his father's friends, but he did so now, silently and earnestly; for their pilfering fingers and their plausible lies had robbed his father's son of a fine inheritance. Money. Never had he desired it so keenly. A few weeks ago it had meant the wherewithal to pay his club-dues and to support a decent table when he traveled. Now it was everything; for without it he never could dare lift his eyes seriously to this lovely picture so close to him, let alone dream of winning her. He recalled Cathewe's light warning about the bones of ducal hopes. What earthly chance had he? Unconsciously he shrugged.

"You are shrugging!" she cried, noting the expression; for, if he was secretly observing her, she was surreptitiously contemplating his own advantages.

"Did I shrug?"

"You certainly did."

"Well," candidly, "it was the thought of money that made me do it."

"I detest it, too."

"Good heavens, I didn't say I detested it! What I shrugged about was my own dreary lack of it."

"Bachelors do not require much."

"That's true; but I no longer desire to remain a bachelor." The very thing that saved him was the added laughter, forced, miserably forced. Fool! The words had slipped without his thinking.

"Gracious! That sounds horribly like a proposal." She beamed upon him merrily.

And his heart sank, for he had been earnest enough, for all his blunder. Manlike, he did not grasp the fact that under the circumstance merriment was all she could offer him, if she would save him from his own stupidity.

"But I do hate money," she reaffirmed.

"I shouldn't. Think of what it brings."

"I do; begging letters, impostures, battle-scarred titles, humbugging shop-keepers, and perhaps one honest friend in a thousand. And if I married a title, what equivalent would I get for my money, to put it brutally? A chateau, which I should have to patch up, and tolerance from my husband's noble friends. Not an engaging prospect."

She threw a handful of biscuit to the gulls, and there was fighting and screaming almost in touch of the hands. Then of a sudden the red rim of the sun vanished behind the settling landscape, and all the grim loneliness of the sea rose up to greet them.

"It is lonely; let us go and prepare for dinner. Look!" pointing to a bright star far down the east. "And Corsica lies that way."

"And also madness!" was his thought.

"Oh, it seems not quite true that we are all going a-venturing as they do in the story-books. The others think we are just going to Funchal. Remember, you must not tell. Think of it; a real treasure, every franc of which must tell a story of its own; love, heroism and devotion."

"Beautiful! But there must be a rescuing of princesses and fighting and all that. I choose the part of remaining by the princess."

"It is yours." She tilted back her head and breathed and breathed. She knew the love of living.

"Lucky we are all good sailors," he said. "There will be a fair sea on all night. But how well she rides!"

"I love every beam and bolt of her."

Shoulder to shoulder they bore forward to the companionway, and immediately the door banged after them.

Breitmann came out from behind the funnel and walked the deck for a time. He had studied the two from his shelter. What were they saying? Oh, Fitzgerald was clever and strong and good to look at, but . . . ! Breitmann straightened his arms before him, opened and shut his hands violently. Like that he would break him if he interfered with any of his desires. It would be fully twenty days before they made Ajaccio. Many things might happen before that time.

Two or three of the crew were lashing on the rail-canvas, and the snap and flap of it jarred on Breitmann's nerves. For a week or more his nerves had been very close to the surface, so close that it had required all his will to keep his voice and hands from shaking. As he passed, one of the sailors doffed his cap and bowed with great respect.

"That's not the admiral, Alphonse," whispered another of the crew, chuckling. "It's only his privit secretary."

"Ah, I haf meestake!"

But Alphonse had made no mistake. He knew who it was. His mates did not see the smile of irony, of sly ridicule, which stirred his lips as he bowed to the passer. Immediately his rather handsome effeminate face resumed a stolid vacuity.

His name was not Alphonse; it was a captious offering by the crew, which, on this yacht, never went further than to tolerate the addition of a foreigner to their mess. He had signed a day or two before sailing; he had even begged for the honor to ship with Captain Flanagan; and he gave his name as Pierre Picard, to which he had no more right than to Alphonse. As Captain Flanagan was too good a sailor himself to draw distinctions, he was always glad to add a foreign tongue to his crew. You never could tell when its use might come in handy. That is why Pierre Picard was allowed to drink his soup in the forecastle mess.

Breitmann continued on, oblivious to all things save his cogitations. He swung round the bridge. He believed that he and Cathewe could henceforth proceed on parallel lines, and there was much to be grateful for. Cathewe was quiet but deep; and he, Breitmann, had knocked about among that sort and knew that they were to be respected. In all, he had made only one serious blunder. He should never have permitted the vision of a face to deter him. He should have taken the things from the safe and vanished. It had not been, a matter of compunction. And yet . . . Ah, he was human, whatever his dream might be; and he loved this American girl with all his heart and mind. It was not lawless love, but it was ruthless. When the time was ripe he would speak. Only a little while now to wait. The course had smoothed out, the sailing was easy. The man in the chimney no longer bothered him. Whoever and whatever he was, he had not shot his bolt soon enough.

Hildegarde von Mitter. He stopped against the rail. The yacht was burying her nose now, and the white drift from her cut-water seemed strangely luminous as it swirled obliquely away in the fading twilight. Hildegarde von Mitter. Was she to be the flaw in the chain? No, no; there should be no regret; he had steeled his heart against any such weakness. She had been necessary, and he would be a fool to pause over a bit of sentimentality. Her appearance had disorganized his nerves, that was all. Peering into his watch he found that he had only half an hour before dinner. And it may be added that he dressed with singular care.

So did Fitzgerald, for that matter.

It took Cathewe just as long, but he did not make two or three selections of this or that before finding what he wanted. He was engrossed most of the time in the sober contemplation of the rubber flooring or the running sea outside the port-hole.

And this night Hildegarde von Mitter was meditating on the last throw for her hopes. She determined to cast once more the full sun of her beauty into the face of the man she loved; and if she failed to win, the fault would not be hers. Why could she not tear out this maddening heart of hers and fling it to the sea? Why could she not turn it toward the man who loved her? Why, why? Why should God make her so unhappy? Why such injustice? Why this twisted interlacing of lives? And yet, amid all these futile seekings, with subconscious deftness her hands went on with their appointed work. Never again would the splendor of her beauty burn as it did this night.

Laura, alone among them all, went serenely about her toilet. She was young, and love had not yet spread its puzzle before her feet.

As for the others, they were on the far side of the hill, whence the paths are smooth and gentle and the prospect is peacefulness and the retrospect is dimly rosal. They dressed as they had done those twenty odd years, plainly.

On the bridge the first officer was standing at the captain's side.

"Captain," he shouted, "where did you get that Frenchman?"

"Picked him up day before yestiddy. Speaks fair English an' a bit o' Dago. They're allus handy on a pleasure-boat. He c'n keep off th' riffraff boatmen. An' you know what persistent cusses they be in the Med'terranean. Why?"

"Oh, nothing, if he's a good sailor. Notice his hands?"

"Why, no!"

"Soft as a woman's."

"Y' don't say! Well, we'll see 'em tough enough before we sight Funchal. Smells good up here; huh?"

"Yes; but I don't mind three months on land, full pay. Not me. But this Frenchman?"

"Oh, he had good papers from a White Star liner; an' you can leave it to me regardin' his lily-white hands. By th' way, George, will you have them bring up my other leg? Th' salt takes th' color out o' this here brass ferrule, an' rubber's safer."

"Yes, sir."

There was one vacant chair in the dining-salon. M. Ferraud was indisposed. He could climb the highest peak, he could cross ice-ridges, with a sheer mile on either side of him, with never an attack of vertigo; but this heaving mystery under his feet always got the better of him the first day out. He considered it the one flaw in an otherwise perfect system. Thus, he misled the comedy and the tragedy of the eyes at dinner, nor saw a woman throw her all and lose it.



CHAPTER XVI

CROSS-PURPOSES

"Is there anything I can do for you?" asked Fitzgerald, venturing his head into M. Ferraud's cabin.

"Nothing; to-morrow it will all be gone. I am always so. The miserable water!" M. Ferraud drew the blanket under his chin.

"When you are better I should like to ask you some questions."

"My friend, you have been very good. I promise to tell you all when the time comes. It will interest you."

"Breitmann?"

"What makes you think I am interested in Mr. Breitmann?"

Fitzgerald could not exactly tell. "Perhaps I have noticed you watching him."

"Ah, you have good eyes, Mr. Fitzgerald. Have you observed that I have been watching you also?"

"Yes. You haven't been quite sure of me." Fitzgerald smiled a little. "But you may rest your mind. I never break my word."

"Nor do I, my friend. Have patience. Satan take these small boats!" He stifled a groan.

"A little champagne?"

"Nothing, nothing; thank you."

"As you will. Good night."

Fitzgerald shut the door and returned to the smoking-room. Something or other, concerning Breitmann; he was sure of it. What had he done, or what was he going to do, that France should watch him? There was no doubt in his mind now; Breitmann had known of this treasure and had come to The Pines simply to put his hands on the casket. M. Ferraud had tried to forestall him. This much of the riddle was plain. But the pivots upon which these things turned! There was something more than a treasure in the balance. Well, M. Ferraud had told him to wait. There was nothing else for him to do.

A little rubber at bridge was in progress. The admiral was playing with Mrs. Coldfield and Cathewe sat opposite Hildegarde. The latter two were losing. She was ordinarily a skilful player, as Cathewe knew; but to-night she lost constantly, was reckless with her leads, and played carelessly into her opponents' hands. Cathewe watched her gravely. Never had he seen her more beautiful; and the apprehension that she would never be his was like a hand straining over his heart.

Yes, she was beautiful; but he did not know that there was death in her eyes and death in her smile. Once upon a time he had believed that her heart had broken; but she was learning that the heart breaks, rebreaks, and breaks again.

How many times he stood on the precipice during the dinner hour, Breitmann doubtless would never be told. A woman scorned is an old story; still, the story goes on, retold each day. Education may smooth the externals, but underneath the fire burns just as furiously as of old. To this affront the average woman's mind leaps at once to revenge; and that she does not always take it depends upon two things; opportunity, and love, which is more powerful than revenge. Sometimes, on hot summer nights, clouds form angrily in the distance; vivid flashes dartle hither and about, which serve to intensify the evening darkness. Thus, a similar phenomenon was taking place in Hildegarde von Mitter's mind. The red fires of revenge danced before her eyes, blurring the spots, on the cards, the blackness of despair crowding upon each flash. Let him beware! With a word she could shatter his dream; ay, and so she would. What! sit there and let him turn the knife in her heart and receive the pain meekly? No! It was the thoughtless brutality with which he went about this new affair that bit so poignantly. To show her, so indurately, that she was nothing, that, despite her magnificent sacrifice, she had never been more than a convenience, was maddening. There was no spontaneity in his heart; his life was a calculation to which various sums were added or subtracted. With all her beauty, intellect, genius and generosity, she had not been able to stir him as this young girl was unconsciously doing. She held no animosity for the daughter of her host; she was clear-visioned enough to put the wrong where it belonged.

"It is your lead," said the admiral patiently.

"Pardon me!" contritely. The gentle reproach brought her back to the surroundings.

"It is the motion of the boat," hazarded Cathewe, as he saw her lead the ace. "I often find myself losing count in waiting for the next roll."

"Mr. Cathewe is very kind," she replied. "The truth is, however, I am simply stupid to-night."

Breitmann continued to speak lowly to Laura. He was evidently amusing, for she smiled frequently. Nevertheless, she smiled as often upon Fitzgerald. Never a glance toward the woman who held his fortunes, as they both believed, in the hollow of her hand. Breitmann appeared to have forgotten her existence.

When the rubber was finished Cathewe came into the breach by suggesting that they two, he and his partner, should take the air for a while; and Hildegarde thanked him with her eyes. They tramped the port side, saying nothing but thinking much. His arm was under hers to steady her, and he could feel the catch each time she breathed, as when one stifles sobs that are tearless. Ah, to hold her close and to shield her; but a thousand arms may not intervene between the heart and the pain that stabs it. He knew; he knew all about it, and there was murder in his thought whenever his thought was of Breitmann. To be alone with him somewhere, and to fight it out with their bare hands.

She had been schooled in the art of acting, but not in the art of dissimulation; she had been of the world without having been worldly; and sometimes she was as frank and simple as a child. And worldliness makes a buffer in times like these. Cathewe thanked God for his own shell, toughened as it had been in the war of life.

"Look!" he exclaimed, thankful for the diversion. "There goes a big liner for Sandy Hook. How cheerful she looks with all her lights! Everybody's busy there. There will be greetings to-morrow, among the sundry curses of those who have not declared their Parisian models."

They paused by the rail and followed the great ship till all the lights had narrowed and melted into one; and then, almost at once, the limitless circle of pitching black water seemed tenanted by themselves alone.

Without warning she bent swiftly and kissed the hand which lay upon the rail. "How kind you are to me!"

"Oh, pshaw!" But the touch of her lips shook his soul.

Cathewe was one of those sure, quiet men, a staff to lean on, that a woman may find once in a life-time. They are, as a usual thing, always loving deeply and without success, but always invariably cheerful and buoyant, genuine philosophers. They are not given much to writing sonnets or posing; and they can stand aside with a brave heart as the other man takes the dream out of their lives. This is not to affirm that they do not fight stoutly to hold this dream; simply, that they accept defeat like good soldiers. There are many heroes who have never heard war's alarms. He knew that the whole heart of Hildegarde von Mitter had yielded to another. But it had been thrown, as it were, against a wall; there was this one hope, dimly burning, that some day he might catch it on the rebound.

"Why are not all men like you?" she asked.

"The world would not be half so interesting. Some men shall be fortunate and others shall not; everything has to balance in some way. I am necessary to one side of the scales, as a weight." He spoke with a levity he by no means felt.

"You are always making sport of yourself."

"Would it be wise to weep? Not at all. I laugh because I enjoy it, just the same as I enjoy hunting or going on voyages of discovery."

"To have met you!" childishly.

"Don't talk like that. It always makes me less sad than furious. And how do you know? If it had been written that you should care for me, would any one else have mattered? No. It just is, that's all. So we'll go on as we have done in the past, good friends. Call me when you need me, and wherever I am I shall come."

"How pitifully weak I must seem to you!"

"You would be no happier if you wore a mask. Hildegarde, what has happened? What power has this adventurer over you? I can not understand. He was man enough to say that you were guiltless of any wrong."

"He said that?" turning upon him sharply. She could forgive much.

He could not see her face, but by the tone of her voice he knew it had brightened. "Yes. I did a freakish thing the night we arrived at the Killigrews'. I forced him into a corner, but it did not pan out as I hoped. So far as it touched me, it wasn't necessary, as I have told you a thousand times. Your past is nothing to me; your future is everything, and I want it. God knows how I want it! Well, I wished to find out what kind of man he is, but I wasn't very successful. Hildegarde," and he pressed his hand down hard over hers, "I could find a priest the day we land if you would love me. You will always remember that."

"As if I could ever forget your kindness! But you forced him; there is no merit in such a confession. And I wonder how you forced him. It was not by fear. Much as I know him there are still some unfilled pages. I would call him a scoundrel did I not know that in parts he has been a hero. What sacrifices the man has made, and with what patience!"

"To what end?" quietly.

"No, no, Arthur! I have promised him."

He took her by the arm roughly. "Let us make two or three rounds and go back. We shan't grow any more cheerful talking this way."

"He loves her. I saw it in his eyes; and I must stand aside and watch!"

"So must I," he said. "Aren't you just a little selfish, Hildegarde?"

"I am wretched, Arthur; and I am a fool, besides. Oh, that I were cold-blooded like your women, that I could eat out my heart in secret; but I can't, I can't!"

"But you have courage; only use it. If what you say of him is true, rest easy. She is not in his orbit. She will not be impressed by an adventurer of his breed."

"Thank you!" with a broken laugh. "I am only an opera-singer, here on suffrance."

"Oh, good Lord! I did not mean it that way. Let us finish the walk," savagely.

On the afternoon of the second day out, tea was served under the awning, and Captain Flanagan condescended to leave his bridge for half an hour. Through a previous hint dropped by the admiral they lured the captain into spinning yarns; and well-salted hair-breadth escapes they were. He understood that the admiral's guests always expected these flights, and he was in nowise niggard. An ordinary sailor would have been dead these twenty years, under any one of the exploits.

"Marvelous!" said M. Ferraud from the depths of his rugs. "And he still lives to tell it?"

"It's the easiest thing in the world, sir, if y' know how," the captain declared complacently. Indeed, he had recounted these yarns so many times that he was beginning to regard them as facts. His statement, ambiguous as it was, passed unchallenged, however; for not one had the daring to inquire whether he referred to the telling or the living of them. So he believed that he was looked upon as an apostle of truth. Only the admiral had the temerity to look his captain squarely in the eye and wink.

"Captain, would you mind if I put these tales in a book?" Fitzgerald put this question with a seriousness which fooled no one but the captain.

"You come up t' the bridge some afternoon, when we've got a smooth sea, and I'll give y' some real ones." The captain's vanity was soothed, but he was not aware that he had put doubt upon his own veracity.

"That's kind of you."

"An' say!" went on the captain, drinking his tea, not because he liked it but because it was customary, "I've got a character forwards. I'm allus shippin' odds and ends. Got a Frenchman; hands like a lady."

Breitmann leaned forward, and M. Ferraud sat up.

"Yessir," continued the captain; "speaks I-talyan an' English. An' if I ever meets a lady with long soft hands like his'n, I'm for a pert talk, straightway."

"What's the matter with his hands?" asked the admiral.

"Why, Commodore, they're as soft as Miss Laura's here, an' yet when th' big Swede who handles th' baggage was a-foolin' with him this mornin', it was the Swede who begs off. Nary a callous, an' yet he bowls the big one round the deck like he was a liner being pierced by a sassy tug. An' what gets me is, he knows every bolt from stem to stern, sir, an' an all-round good sailor int' th' bargain; an' it don' take me more'n twelve hours t' find that out. Well, I'm off t' th' bridge. Good day, ladies."

When he was out of earshot the admiral roared. "He's the dearest old liar since Muenchhausen."

"Aren't they true stories?" asked Hildegarde.

"Bless you, no! And he knows we know it, too. But he tells them so well that I've never had the courage to sheer him off."

"It's amusing," said Laura; "but I do not think that it's always fair to him."

"Why, Laura, you're as good a listener as any I know. Read him a tract, if you wish."

Breitmann rose presently and sauntered forward, while M. Ferraud snuggled down in his rugs again. The others entered into a game of deck-cricket.

But M. Ferraud was not so ill that he was unable to steal from his cabin at half after nine, at night, without even the steward being aware of his departure. It can not be said that he roamed about the deck, for whenever he moved it was in the shadow, and always forward. By and by voices drifted down the wind. One he knew and expected, Breitmann's; of the other he was not sure, though the French he spoke was of classic smoothness. M. Ferraud was exceedingly interested. He had been waiting for this meeting. Only a phrase or two could be heard distinctly. But words were not necessary. What he desired above all things was a glimpse of this Frenchman's face. After several minutes Breitmann went aft. M. Ferraud stepped out cautiously, and luck was with him. The sailor to whom Breitmann had spoken so earnestly was lolling against the rail, in the act of lighting a cigarette. The light from the match was feeble, but it sufficed the keen eyes of the watcher. He gasped a little. Strong hands indeed! Here in the garb of a common sailor, was one of the foremost Orleanists in France!



CHAPTER XVII

A QUESTION FROM KEATS

Breitmann and the admiral usually worked from ten till luncheon, unless it was too stormy; and then the admiral took the day off. The business under hand was of no great moment; it was rather an outlet for the admiral's energy, and gave him something to look forward to as each day came round. Many a morning he longed for the quarter-deck of his old battle-ship; the trig crew and marines lined up for inspection; the revelries of the foreign ports; the great manoeuvres; the target practice. Never would his old heart swell again under the full-dress uniform nor his eyes sparkle under the plume of his rank. He was retired on half-pay. Only a few close friends knew how his half-pay was invested. There remained perhaps ten of the old war-crew, and among them every Christmas the admiral's half-pay was divided. This and his daughter were the two unalloyed joys of his life.

Since his country had no further use for him, and as it was as necessary as air to his lungs that he tread the deck of a ship, he had purchased the Laura; and, when he was not stirring up the bones of dead pirates, he was at Cowes or at Brest or at Keil or on the Hudson, wherever the big fellows indulged in mimic warfare.

"That will be all this morning, Mr. Breitmann," he said, rising and looking out of the port-hole.

"Very well, sir. I believe that by the time we make Corsica we shall have the book ready for the printers. It is very interesting."

"Much obliged. You have been a good aid. As you know, I am writing this rubbish only because it is play and passable mental exercise."

"I do not agree with you there," returned the secretary, with his pleasant smile. "The book will be really a treasure of itself. It is far more interesting than any romance."

The admiral shook his head dubiously.

"No, no," Breitmann averred. "There is no flattery in what I say. Flattery was not in our agreement. And," with a slight lift of the jaw, "I never say what I do not honestly mean. It will be a good book, and I am proud to have had a hand, however light, in the making."

The admiral chuckled. "That is the kind of flattery no man may shut his ears to. It has been a great pleasure to me; it has kept me out-of-doors, in the open, where I belong. Come in, Laura, come in."

The girl stood framed in the low doorway, a charming picture to the old man and a lovely one to the secretary. She balanced herself with a hand on each side of the jam.

"Father, how can you work when the sun is so beautiful outside? Good morning, Mr. Breitmann," cordially.

"Good morning."

"Work is over, Laura. Come in." The admiral reached forth an arm and caught her, drawing her gently in and finally to his breast.

Breitmann would have given an eye for that right. The picture set his nerves twitching.

"I am not in the way?"

"Not at all," answered the secretary. "I was just leaving." And with good foresight he passed out.

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever," murmured the admiral.

"Fudge!" and she laughed.

"We are having a fine voyage."

"Splendid! Why is it that I am always happy?"

"It is because you do not depend upon others for it, my dear. I am happy, too. I am as happy as a boy with his first boat. But never has a ship gone slower than this one of mine. I am simply crazy to drop anchor in the Gulf of Ajaccio. I find it on the tip of my tongue, every night at dinner, to tell the others where we are bound."

"Why not? Where's the harm now?"

"I don't know, but something keeps it back. Laura," looking into her eyes, "did we ever cruise with brighter men on board?"

"What is it you wish to know, father?" merrily. "You dear old sailor, don't you understand that these men are different? They are men who accomplish things; they haven't time to bother about young women."

"You don't say!" pinching the ear nearest.

"This is the seventh day out, and not one of them has ceased to be interesting yet."

"Would they cease to be interesting if they proposed?" quizzing.

These two had no unshared secrets. They were sure of each other. He knew that when this child of his divided her affection with another man, that man would be deserving.

"I would rather have them all as they are. They make fine comrades."

He sighed thankfully. "Arthur seems to be out of the race."

"Rather say I am!" with laughter. "Why, a child could read Arthur Cathewe's face when he looks at her. Isn't she simply beautiful?"

"Very. But there are types and types."

"Am I really pretty?" Sometimes she grew shy under her father's open admiration. She was afraid it was his love rather than his judgment that made her beautiful in his eyes.

"My child, there's more than one man who will agree with me when I say that there is no one to compare with you. You are the living quotation from Keats."

"I shall kiss you for that." And straightway she did.

"What do you think of Mr. Breitmann?" soberly.

"He is charming sometimes; but he has a little too much reserve. Doubtless he sees his position too keenly. He should not."

"Do you like him?"

"Yes," frankly.

"So do I; and yet there are moments when I do not." The admiral filled his pipe carefully.

"But your reason?" surprised.

"That's just the trouble. I haven't any tangible reason. The doubt exists, and I can't explain it. The sea often looks smooth and mild, and the sky is cloudless; yet an old sailor will suddenly grow suspicious; he will see a storm, a heavy blow. And why, he couldn't say for the life of him. Flanagan will tell you."

The girl grew studious and grave. Had there not been an echo of this doubt in her own mind? Immediately she smiled.

"We are talking nonsense and wasting the sunshine."

"How about Fitzgerald?"

"Oh, he's the most sensible of them all. He proposed to me the first night out."

"What?" The admiral dropped his pipe.

"Not so loud!" she warned. And then the clear music of her laughter penetrated beyond the cabin; and Fitzgerald, wandering about without purpose, heard it and paused.

"You minx!" growled the admiral; "to scare your old father like that!"

"Dearest, weren't you fishing to be scared?"

"Let's get out into the sunshine. I never could get the best of you. But you really don't mean—"

"I really do not. He's too busy telling me the plot of this novel he is going to write to make love to a girl who doesn't want more than one man in the family, and that's her foolish old father."

And they went outside, arm in arm, laughing together like the good comrades they were. M. Ferraud joined them.

"I wish," said he, "that I was a poet."

"What would you do?" she asked.

"I should write a sonnet to your eyebrows this morning, is it not?"

"Mercy, no! That kind of poetry has long been passe."

"Helas!" mournfully.

It was a beautiful morning, a sharp blue sky and a sea of running silver; warm, too, for they were bearing away into the southern seas now. Every one had sea-legs by this time, and the larder dwindled in a respectable manner.

Fitzgerald viewed his case dispassionately. But what to do? A thousand times he had argued out the question, with a single result, that he was a fool for his pains. He became possessed with sudden inexplicable longings for land. He could not get away from this yacht; on land there would have been a hundred straight lines to the woods and the fisherman's philosophy. Things were going directly to one end, and presently he would have no more power to stem the words. At least one thing was certain, the admiral could not drop him overboard.

"The villain?"

He was moved suddenly out of his dream, for the object of it stood smiling at his side. A wisp of hair was blowing across her eyes and she was endeavoring to adjust it under her cap.

"The villain?" making a fine effort to remarshal his thoughts.

"Yes. We were talking about him last night. Where did you leave him?"

"He was still pursuing, I believe."

"Why don't you make him a real villain, a man who never kills any one, but who makes every one unhappy?"

"But that's a problem-villain; what we must have is a romance-villain, the kind every one is sorry for. Look at that old Portuguese man-o'-war," pointing to the crest of a near-by wave. "Funny little codger!"

"When do you expect to begin the story on paper?"

"When I have all the material," not afraid of her eyes at that moment.

She propped her elbows on the rail. It was a seductive pose, and came very near being the young man's undoing.

"Does it seem impossible to you," she said, "that in these prosaic times we are treasure hunting? Must we not wake up and find it a dream?"

"Most dreams are perishable, but in this case we have the dream tightly bound. But what are we going to do with all this money when we find it?"

"Divide it or start a soldiers' home. I've never thought of it as money."

"Heaven knows, I have!"

"Why?"

"Do you really wish to know?" in a voice new to her ear. "Do you wish to know why I want money, lots and lots of it?"

She dropped her arms and turned. The tone agitated and alarmed her strangely. "Why, yes. With plenty of money you could devote all your time to writing; and I am sure you could write splendid stories."

"That was not my exact thought," he replied, resolutely pulling himself together. "But it will serve." By George! he thought, that was close enough.

She did not ask him what his exact thought was, but she suspected it. There was a little shock of pleasure and disappointment; the one rising from the fact that he had stopped where he did and the other that he had not gone on. And she grew angry over this second expression. She liked him; she had never met a young man whom she liked more. But liking is never loving, and her heart was as free and unburdened as the wind. As once remarked, many of the men with whom she had come into contact had been bred in idleness, and her interest in them had never gone above friendly tolerance. Her admiration was for men, young or old, who cut their way roughly through the world's great obstacles, who achieved things in pioneering, in history, in science; and she admired them because they were rather difficult to draw out, being more familiar with startling journeys, wildernesses, strange peoples, than with the gilded metaphors of the drawing-room.

And here were three of them to meet daily, to study and to ponder over. And types as far apart as the three points of a triangle; the man at her side, young, witty, agreeable; Cathewe, grave, kindly, and sometimes rather saturnine; Breitmann, proud and reserved; and each of them having rung true in some great crisis. If ever she loved a man . . . The thought remained unfinished and she glanced up and met Fitzgerald's eyes. They were sad, with the line of a frown above them. How was she to keep him under hand, and still erect an impassable barrier! It was the first time she had given the matter serious thought. The joy of the sea underfoot, the tang of the rushing air, the journey's end, these had occupied her volatile young mind. But now!

"I am dull," said he gloomily.

"Thank you!"

"I mean that I am stupid, doubly stupid," he corrected.

"Cricket will be a cure for that."

"I doubt it," approaching dangerous ground once more.

"Let's go and talk to Captain Flanagan, then."

"There!" with sudden spirit, "the very thing I've been wanting!"'

It was of no importance that they both knew this to be a prevarication about which St. Peter would not trouble his hoary head nor take the pains to indite in his great book of demerits.

But all through that bright day the girl thought, and there were times when the others had to speak to her twice; not at all a reassuring sign.



CHAPTER XVIII

CATHEWE ADVISES AND THE ADMIRAL DISCLOSES

One day they dropped anchor in the sapphire bay of Funchal, in the summer calm, hot and glaring; Funchal, with its dense tropical growth, its cloud-wreathed mountains, its amethystine sisters in the faded southeast. And for two days, while Captain Flanagan recoaled, they played like children, jolting round in the low bullock-carts, climbing the mountains or bumping down the corduroy road. It was the strangest treasure hunt that ever left a home port. It was more like a page out of a boy's frolic than a sober quest by grown-ups. That danger, menace and death hid in covert would have appealed to them (those who knew) as ridiculous, impossible, obsolete. The story of cutlass and pistol and highboots had been molding in archives these eighty-odd years. Dangers? From whom, from what direction? No one suggested the possibility, even in jest; and the only man who could have advanced, with reasonable assurance, that danger, real and serious, existed, was too busy apparently with his butterfly-net. Still, he had not yet been consulted; he was not supposed to know that this cruise was weighted with something more than pleasure.

Fitzgerald waited with an impatience which often choked him. A secret agent had not so adroitly joined this expedition for the pleasure of seeing a treasure dug up from some reluctant grave. What was he after? If indeed Breitmann was directly concerned, if he knew of the treasure's existence, of what benefit now would be his knowledge? A share in the finding at most. And was Breitmann one who was conditioned of such easy stuff that he would rather be sure and share than to strike out for all the treasure and all the risks? The more he gave his thought to Breitmann the more that gentleman retracted into the fog, as it were. On several occasions he had noticed signs of a preoccupation, of suppressed excitement, of silence and moroseness. Fitzgerald could join certain squares of the puzzle, but this led forward scarce a step. Breitmann had entered the employ of the admiral for the very purpose for which M. Ferraud had journeyed sundrily into the cellar and beaten futilely on the chimney. It resolved to one thing, and that was the secretary had arrived too late. He was sure that Breitmann had no suspicion regarding M. Ferraud. But for a casual glance at the little man's hands, neither would he have had any. He determined to prod M. Ferraud. He was well trained in repression; so, while he often lost patience, there was never any external sign of it. Besides, there was another affair which over-shadowed it and at times engulfed it.

Love. The cross-tides of sense and sentiment made a pretty disturbance. And still further, there was another counter-tide. Love does not necessarily make a young man keen-sighted, but it generally highly develops his talent for suspicion. By subtle gradations, Breitmann had shifted in Fitzgerald's mind from a possible friend to a probable rival. Breitmann did not now court his society when the smoking bouts came round, or when the steward brought the whisky and soda after the ladies had retired. Breitmann was moody, and whatever variance his moods had, they retained the gray tone. This Fitzgerald saw and dilated upon; and it rankled when he thought that this hypothetical adventurer had rights, level and equal to his, always supposing he had any.

In this state of mind he drooped idly over the rail as the yacht drew out of the bay, the evening of the second day. The glories of the southern sunset lingered and vanished, a-begging, without his senses being roused by them; and long after the sea, chameleon-like, changed from rose to lavender, from lavender to gray, the mountains yet jealously clung to their vivid aureolas of phantom gold. Fitzgerald saw nothing but writing on the water.

"Well, my boy," said Cathewe, lounging affectionately against Fitzgerald, "here we are, rolled over again."

"What?"

Cathewe described a circle with his finger lazily.

"Oh!" said Fitzgerald, listless. "Another day more or less, crowded into the past, doesn't matter."

"Maybe. If we could only have the full days and deposit the others and draw as we need them; but we can't do it. And yet each day means something; there ought always to be a little of it worth remembering."

"Old parson!" cried Fitzgerald, with a jab of his elbow.

"All bally rot, eh? I wish I could look at it that way. Yet, when a man mopes as you are doing, when this sunset. . ."

"New one every day."

"What's the difficulty, Jack?"

"Am I walking around with a sign on my back?" testily.

"Of a kind, yes."

Cathewe spoke so solemnly that Fitzgerald looked round, and saw that which set his ears burning. Immediately he lowered his gaze and sought the water again.

"Have I been making an ass of myself, Arthur?"

"No, Jack; but you are laying yourself open to some wonder. For three or four days now, except for the forty-eight hours on land there, you've been a sort of killjoy. Even the admiral has remarked it."

"Tell him it's my liver," with a laugh not wholly free of embarrassment. "Suppose," he continued, in a low voice; "suppose—" But he couldn't go on.

"Yes, suppose," said Cathewe, taking up the broken thread; "suppose there was a person who had a heap of money, or will have some day; and suppose there's another person who has but little and may have less in days to come. Is that the supposition, Jack? The presumption of an old friend, a right that ought never to be abrogated." Cathewe laid a hand on his young friend's shoulder; there was a silent speech of knowledge and brotherhood in it such as Fitzgerald could not mistake.

"That's the supposition," he admitted generously.

"Well, money counts only when you buy horses and yachts and houses, it never really matters in anything else."

"It is easy to say that."

"It is also easy to learn that it is true."

"Isn't there a good deal of buying these days where there should be giving?"

"Not among real people. You have had enough experience with both types to be competent to distinguish the one from the other. You have birth and brains and industry; you're a decent sort of chap besides," genially. "Can money buy these things when grounded on self-respect as they are in you? Come along now; for the admiral sent me after you. It's the steward's champagne cocktail; and you know how good they are. And remember, if you will put your head into the clouds, don't take your feet off the deck."

Fitzgerald expanded under his tactful interpretation. A long breath of relief issued from his heart, and the rending doubt was dissipated: the vulture-shadow spread its dark pennons and wheeled down the west. A priceless thing is that friend upon whom one may shift the part of a burden. It seemed to be one of Cathewe's occupations in life to absorb, in a kindly, unemotional manner, other people's troubles. It is this type of man, too, who rarely shares his own.

It would be rather graceless to say that after drinking the cocktail Fitzgerald resumed his aforetime rosal lenses. He was naturally at heart an optimist, as are all men of action. And so the admiral, who had begun to look upon him with puzzled commiseration, came to the conclusion that the young man's liver had resumed its normal functions. An old woman would have diagnosed the case as one of heart (as Mrs. Coldfield secretly and readily and happily did); but an old fellow like the admiral generally compromises on the liver.

When one has journeyed for days on the unquiet sea, a touch of land underfoot renews, Antaeus-wise, one's strength and mental activity; so a festive spirit presided at the dinner table. The admiral determined to vault the enforced repression of his secret. Inasmuch as it must be told, the present seemed a propitious moment. He signed for the attendants to leave the salon, and then rapped on the table for silence. He obtained it easily enough.

"My friends," he began, "where do you think this boat is really going?"

"Marseilles," answered Coldfield.

"Where else?" cried M. Ferraud, as if diversion from that course was something of an improbability.

"Corsica. We can leave you at Marseilles, Mr. Ferraud, if you wish; but I advise you to remain with us. It will be something to tell in your old age."

Cathewe glanced across to Fitzgerald, as if to ask: "Do you know anything about this?" Fitzgerald, catching the sense of this mute inquiry, nodded affirmatively.

"Corsica is a beautiful place," said Hildegarde. "I spent a spring in Ajaccio."

"Well, that is our port," confessed the admiral, laying his precious documents on the table. "The fact is, we are going to dig up a treasure," with a flourish.

Laughter and incredulous exclamations followed this statement.

"Pirates?" cried Coldfield, with a good-natured jeer. He had cruised with the admiral before. "Where's the cutlass and jolly-roger? Yo-ho! and a bottle o' rum!"

"Yes. And where's the other ship following at our heels, as they always do in treasure hunts, the rival pirates who will cut our throats when we have dug up the treasure?"—from Cathewe.

"Treasures!" mumbled M. Ferraud from behind his pineapple. Carefully he avoided Fitzgerald's gaze, but he noted the expression on Breitmann's face. It was not pleasant.

"Just a moment," the admiral requested patiently. "I know it smells fishy. Laura, go ahead and read the documents to the unbelieving giaours. Mr. Fitzgerald knows and so does Mr. Breitmann."

"Tell us about it, Laura. No joking, now," said Coldfield, surrendering his incredulity with some hesitance. "And if the treasure involves no fighting or diplomatic tangle, count me in. Think of it, Jane," turning to his wife; "two old church-goers like you and me, a-going after a pirate's treasure! Doesn't it make you laugh?"

Laura unfolded the story, and when she came to the end, the excitement was hot and Babylonic. Napoleon! What a word! A treasure put together to rescue him from St. Helena! Gold, French gold, English gold, Spanish and Austrian gold, all mildewing in a rotting chest somewhere back of Ajaccio! It was unbelievable, fantastic as one of those cinematograph pictures, running backward.

"But what are you going to do with it when you find it?"

"Findings is keepings," quoted the admiral. "Perhaps divide it, perhaps turn it over to France, providing France agrees to use it for charitable purposes."

"A fine plan, is it not, Mr. Breitmann?" said M. Ferraud.

"Findings is keepings," repeated Breitmann, with a pale smile.

The eyes of Hildegarde von Mitter burned and burned. Could she but read what lay behind that impassive face! And he took it all with a smile! What would he do? what would he do now? kept recurring in her mind. She knew the man, or at least she thought she did; and she was aware that there existed in his soul dark caverns which she had never dared to explore. Yes, what would he do now? How would he put his hand upon this gold? She trembled with apprehension.

And later, when she found the courage to put the question boldly, he answered with a laugh, so low and yet so wild with fury that she drew away from him in dumb terror.



CHAPTER XIX

BREITMANN MAKES HIS FIRST BLUNDER

The secretary nerved himself and waited; and yet he knew what her reply would be, even before she framed it, knew it with that indescribable certainty which prescience occasionally grants in the space of a moment. Before he had spoken there had been hope to stand upon, for she had always been gentle and kindly toward him, not a whit less than she had been to the others.

"Mr. Breitmann, I am sorry. I never dreamed of this;" nor had she. She had forgotten Europeans seldom understand the American girl as she is or believe that the natural buoyancy of spirit is as free from purpose or intent as the play of a child. But in this moment she remembered her little and perfectly inconsequent attentions toward this man, and seeing them from his viewpoint she readily forgave him. Abroad, she was always on guard; but here, among her own compatriots who accepted her as she was, she had excusably forgotten. "I am sorry if you have misunderstood me in any way."

"I could no more help loving you than that those stars should cease to shine to-night," his voice heavy with emotion.

"I am sorry," she could only repeat. Men had spoken to her like this before, and always had the speech been new to her and always had a great and tender pity charged her heart. And perhaps her pity for this one was greater than any she had previously known; he seemed so lonely.

"Sorry, sorry! Does that mean there is no hope?"

"None, Mr. Breitmann, none."

"Is there another?" his throat swelling. But before she could answer: "Pardon me; I did not mean that. I have no right to ask such a question."

"And I should not have answered it to any but my father, Mr. Breitmann." She extended her hand. "Let us forget that you have spoken. I should like you for a friend."

Without a word he took the hand and kissed it. He made no effort to hold it, and it slipped from his clasp easily.

"Goodnight."

"Good night." And he never lost sight of her till she entered the salon-cabin. He saw a star fall out of nothing into nothing. She was sorry! The moment brewed a thousand wild suggestions. To abduct her, to carry her away into the mountains, to cast his dream to the four winds, to take her in spite of herself. He laid his hand on the teak railing, wondering at the sudden wracking pain, a pain which unlinked coherent thought and left his mind stagnant and inert. For the first time he realized that his pain was a recurrence of former ones similar. Why? He did not know. He only remembered that he had had the pain at the back of his head and that it was generally followed by a burning fury, a rage to rend and destroy things. What was the matter?

The damp rail was cool and refreshing, and after a spell the pain diminished. He shook himself free and stood straight, his jaws hard and his eyes, absorbing what light there was from the stars, chatoyant. Sorry! So be it. To have humbled himself before this American girl and to be snubbed for his pains! But, patience! Two million francs and his friends awaiting the word from him. She was sorry! He laughed, and the laughter was not unlike that which a few nights gone had startled the ears of the other woman to whom he had once appealed in passionate tones and not without success.

"Karl!"

The sight of Hildegarde at this moment neither angered nor pleased him. He permitted her hand to lay upon his arm.

"My head aches," he said, as if replying to the unspoken question in her eyes.

"Karl, why not give it up?" she pleaded.

"Give it up? What! when I have come this far, when I have gone through what I have? Oh, no! Do not think so little of me as that."

"But it is a dream!"

He shook off her hand angrily. "If there is to be any reckoning I shall pay, never fear. But it will not, shall not fail!"

She would have liked to weep for him. "I would gladly give you my eyes, Karl, if you might see it all as I see it. Ruin, ruin! Can you touch this money without violence? Ah, my God, what has blinded you to the real issues?"

"I have not asked you to share the difficulties."

"No. You have not been that kind to me."

To-night there were no places in his armor for any sentiment but his own. "I want nothing but revenge."

"I think I can read," her own bitterness getting the better of her tongue. "Miss Killigrew has declined."

"You have been listening?" with a snarl.

"It has not been necessary to listen; I needed only to watch."

"Well, what is it to you?"

"Take care, Karl! You can not talk to me like that."

"Don't drive me, then. Oh," with a sudden turn of mind, "I am sorry that you can not understand."

"If I hadn't I should never have given you my promise not to speak. There was a time when you had right on your side, but that time ceased to be when you lied to me. How little you understood me! Had you spoken frankly and generously at the start, God knows I shouldn't have refused you. But you set out to walk over my heart to get that miserable slip of paper. Ah! had I but known! I say to you, you will fail utterly and miserably. You are either blind or mad!"

Without a word in reply to this prophecy he turned and left her; and as soon as he had vanished she kissed the spot on the rail where his hand had rested and laid her own there. When at last she raised it, the rail was no longer merely damp, it was wet.

"Now there," began Fitzgerald, taking M. Ferraud firmly by the sleeve, "I have come to the end of my patience. What has Breitmann to do with all this business?"

"Will you permit me to polish my spectacles?" mildly asked M. Ferraud.

"It's the deuce of a job to get you into a corner," Fitzgerald declared. "But I have your promise, and you should recollect that I know things which might interest Mr. Breitmann."

"Croyez-vous qu'il pleuve? Il fait bien du vent," adjusting his spectacles and viewing the clear sky and the serene bosom of the Mediterranean. Then M. Ferraud turned round with: "Ah, Mr. Fitzgerald, this man Breitmann is what you call 'poor devil,' is it not? At dinner to-night I shall tell a story, at once marvelous past belief and pathetic. I shall tell this story against my best convictions because I wish him no harm, because I should like to save him from black ruin. But, attend me; my efforts shall be as wind blowing upon stone; and I shall not save him. An alienist would tell you better than I can. Listen. You have watched him, have you not? To you he seems like any other man? Yes? Keen-witted, gifted, a bit of a musician, a good deal of a scholar? Well, had I found that paper first, there would have been no treasure hunt. I should have torn it into one thousand pieces; I should have saved him in spite of himself and have done my duty also. He is mad, mad as a whirlwind, as a tempest, as a fire, as a sandstorm."

"About what?"

"To-night, to-night!"

And the wiry little man released himself and bustled away to his chair where he became buried in rugs and magazines.



CHAPTER XX

AN OLD SCANDAL

"Corsica to-morrow," said the admiral.

"Napoleon," said Laura.

"Romance," said Cathewe.

"Treasures," said M. Ferraud.

Hildegarde felt uneasy. Breitmann toyed with the bread crumbs. He was inattentive besides.

"Napoleon. There is an old scandal," mused M. Ferraud. "I don't think that any of you have heard it."

"That will interest me," Fitzgerald cried. "Tell it."

M. Ferraud cleared his throat with a sharp ahem and proceeded to burnish his crystals. Specks and motes were ever adhering to them. He held them up to the light and pretended to look through them: he saw nothing but the secretary's abstraction.

"We were talking about treasures the other night," began the Frenchman, "and I came near telling it then. It is a story of Napoleon."

"Never a better moment to tell it," said the admiral, rubbing his hands in pleasurable anticipation.

"I say to you at once that the tale is known to few, and has never had any publicity, and must never have any. Remember that, if you please, Mr. Fitzgerald, and you also, Mr. Breitmann."

"I beg your pardon," said Breitmann. "I was not listening."

M. Ferraud repeated his request clearly.

"I am no longer a newspaper writer," Breitmann affirmed, clearing the fog out of his head. "A story about Napoleon; will it be true?"

"Every word of it." M. Ferraud folded his arms and sat back.

During the pause Hildegarde shivered. Something made her desire madly to thrust a hand out and cover M. Ferraud's mouth.

"We have all read much about Napoleon. I can not recall how many lives range shoulder to shoulder on the booksellers' shelves. There have been letters and memoirs, anecdotes by celebrated men and women who were his contemporaries. But there is one thing upon which we shall all agree, and that is that the emperor was in private life something of a beast. As a soldier he was the peer of all the Caesars; as a husband he was vastly inferior to any of them. This story does not concern him as emperor. If in my narrative there occurs anything offensive, correct me instantly. I speak English fluently, but there are still some idioms I trip on."

"I'll trust you to steer straight enough," said the admiral.

"Thank you. Well, then, once upon a time Napoleon was in Bavaria. The country was at that time his ablest ally. There was a pretty peasant girl."

A knife clattered to the floor. "Pardon!" whispered Hildegarde to Cathewe. "I am clumsy." She was as white as the linen.

Breitmann went on with his crumbs.

"I believe," continued M. Ferraud, "that it was in the year 1813 that the emperor received a peculiar letter. It begged that a title be conferred upon a pretty little peasant boy. The emperor was a grim humorist, I may say in passing; and for this infant he created a baronetcy, threw in a parcel of land, and a purse. That was the end of it, as far as it related to the emperor. Waterloo came and with it vanished the empire; and it would be a long time before a baron of the empire returned to any degree of popularity. For years the matter was forgotten. The documents in the case, the letters of patent, the deeds and titles to the land, and a single Napoleonic scrawl, these gathered dust in the loft. When I heard this tale the thing which appealed to me most keenly was the thought that over in Bavaria there exists the only real direct strain of Napoleonic blood: a Teuton, one of those who had brought about the downfall of the empire."