Virginia, partly dressed for dinner, rose and went to the window, frail restless hands clasped behind her back, and stood there gazing out at the fading daylight. Perhaps the close of day made her melancholy; for there were traces of tears on her lashes; perhaps it suggested the approaching end of a dream so bright and strange that, at times, a dull pang of dread stilled her heart—checking for a moment its heavy beating.

Light died in the room; the panes turned silvery, then darker as the swift Southern night fell over sea, lagoon, and forest.

Far away in the wastes of dune and jungle the sweet flute-like tremolo of an owl broke out, prolonged infinitely. From the dark garden below, a widow-bird called breathlessly, its ghostly cry, now a far whisper in the night, now close at hand, husky, hurried, startling amid the shadows. And, whir! whir-r-r! thud! came the great soft night-moths against the window screens where sprays of silvery jasmine clung, perfuming all the night.

Still Constance sat before the mirror which was now invisible in the dusk, bare elbows on the dresser's edge, face framed in her hands over which the thick hair rippled. And, in the darkness, her brown eyes closed—perhaps that they might behold more clearly the phantoms of the past together there in an old-time parlour, where the golden radiance of suns long dead still lingered, warming the faded roses on the floor.

And after a long while her maid came with a card; and she straightened up in her chair, gathered the filmy robe of lace, and, rising, pressed the electric switch. But Virginia had returned to her own room to bathe her eyelids and pace the floor until she cared to face the outer world once more and, for another hour or two, deceive it.



CHAPTER XV

UNDER FIRE

Meanwhile Constance dressed hastily, abetted by the clever maid; for Wayward was below, invited to dine with them. Malcourt also was due for dinner, and, as usual, late.

In fact, he was at that moment leisurely tying his white neckwear in his bed-chamber at Villa Cardross. And sometimes he whistled, tentatively, as though absorbed in mentally following an elusive air; sometimes he resumed a lighted cigarette which lay across the gilded stomach of a Chinese joss, sending a thin, high thread of smoke to the ceiling. He had begun his collection with one small idol; there were now nineteen, and all hideous.

"The deuce! the deuce!" he murmured, rejecting the tie and trying another one; "and all the things I've got to do this blessed night!... Console the afflicted—three of them; dine with one, get to "The Breakers" and spoon with another—get to the Club and sup with another!—the deuce! the deuce! the—"

He hummed a bar or two of a new waltz, took a puff at his cigarette, winked affably at the idol, put on his coat, and without a second glance at the glass went out whistling a lively tune.

Hamil, dressed for dinner, but looking rather worn and fatigued, passed him in the hall.

"You've evidently had a hard day," said Malcourt; "you resemble the last run of sea-weed. Is everybody dining at this hour?"

"I dined early with Mrs. Cardross. Mrs. Carrick has taken Shiela and Cecile to that dinner dance at the O'Haras'. It's the last of the season. I thought you might be going later."

"Are you?"

"No; I'm rather tired."

"I'm tired, too. Hang it! I'm always tired—but only of Bibi. Quand meme! Good night.... I'll probably reappear with the dicky-birds. Leave your key under that yellow rose-bush, will you? I can't stop to hunt up mine. And tell them not to bar and chain the door; that's a good fellow."

Hamil nodded and resumed his journey to his bedroom. There he transferred a disorderly heap of letters, plans, contracts, and blue-prints from his bed to a table, threw a travelling rug over the bed, lay down on it, and lighted a cigar, closing his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them wearily.

He did not intend to sleep; there was work waiting for him; that was why he left the electric bulbs burning as safeguard against slumber.

For a while he smoked, flat on his back; his cigar went out twice and he relighted it. The third time he was deciding whether or not to set fire to it again—he remembered that—and remembered nothing more, except the haunted dreams in which he followed her, through sad and endless forests, gray in deepening twilight, where he could neither see her face nor reach her side, nor utter the cry which strained in his throat.... On, on, endlessly struggling onward in the thickening darkness, year after year, the sky a lowering horror, the forest, no longer silent, a twisting, stupefying confusion of sound, growing, increasing, breaking into a hellish clamour!—

Upright on his bed he realised that somebody was knocking; and he slid to the floor, still stupid and scarcely convinced.

"Mrs. Carrick's compliments, and is Mr. Hamil quite well bein' as the lights is burnin' an' past two o'clock, sir?" said the maid at the door.

"Past two! O Lord! Please thank Mrs. Carrick, and say that I am going to do a little work, and that I am perfectly well."

He closed the door and looked around him in despair: "All that stuff to verify and O.K.! What an infernal ass I am! By the nineteen little josses in Malcourt's bedroom I'm so many kinds of a fool that I hate to count up beyond the dozen!"

Stretching and yawning alternately he eyed the mass of papers with increasing repugnance; but later a cold sponge across his eyes revived him sufficiently to sit down and inspect the first document. Then he opened the ink-well, picked up a pen, and began.

For half an hour he sat there, now refreshed and keenly absorbed in his work. Once the stairs outside creaked, and he raised his head, listening absently, then returned to the task before him with a sigh.

All his windows were open; the warm night air was saturated with the odour of Bermuda lilies. Once or twice he laid down his pen and stared out into the darkness as a subtler perfume grew on the breeze—the far fragrance of china-berry in bloom; Calypso's breath!

Then, in the silence, the heavy throb of his heart unnerved his hand, rendering his pen unsteady as he signed each rendered bill: "O.K. for $——," and affixed his signature, "John Garret Hamil, Architect."

The aroma of the lilies hung heavy in the room, penetrating as the scent of Malcourt's spiced Chinese gums afire and bubbling. And he thought again of Malcourt's nineteen little josses which he lugged about with him everywhere from some occult whim, and in whose gilt-bronze laps he sometimes burned cigarettes, sometimes a tiny globule of aromatic gum, pretending it propitiated the malice-brooding gods.

And, thinking of Malcourt, suddenly he remembered the door-key. Malcourt could not get in without it. And the doors were barred and chained.

Slipping the key into his pocket he opened his door, and, treading quietly through the silent house, descended to the great hall. With infinite precaution he fumbled for the chains; they were dangling loose. Somebody, too, had drawn the heavy bars, but the door itself was locked.

So he cautiously unlocked it, and holding the key in his hand, let himself out on the terrace.

And at the same moment a shadowy figure turned in the starlight to confront him.

"Shiela!"

"Is that you, Mr. Hamil?"

"Yes. What on earth are you—"

"Hush! What are you doing down here?"

"Louis Malcourt is out. I forgot to leave a key for him under the yellow rose—"

"Under the rose—and yellow at that! The mysteries of the Rosicrucians pale into insignificance beside the lurid rites of Mr. Malcourt and Mr. Hamil—under the yellow rose! Proceed, my fearsome adept, and perform the occult deed!"

Hamil descended the terrace to the new garden, hung the key to a brier under the fragrant mass of flowers, and glanced up at Shiela, who, arms on the balustrade above him, was looking down at the proceedings.

"Is the dread deed done?" she whispered.

"If you don't believe it come down and see."

"I? Come down? At two in the morning?"

"It's half-past two."

"Oh," she said, "if it's half-past two I might think of coming down for a moment—to look at my roses.... Thank you, Mr. Hamil, I can see my way very clearly. I can usually see my own way clearly—without the aid of your too readily offered hand.... Did you ever dream of such an exquisitely hot night! That means rain, doesn't it?—with so many fragrances mingling? The odour of lilies predominates, and I think some jasmine is in the inland wind, but my roses are very sweet if you only bend down to them. A rose is always worth stooping for."

She leaned over the yellow blossoms, slender, spirit-white in the starlight, and brushed her fresh young face with the silken petals.

"So sweet," she said; "lean down and worship my young roses, you unappreciative man!"

For a few minutes she strolled along the paths of the new garden he had built, bending capriciously here and there to savour some perfect blossom. The night was growing warmer; the sea breeze had died out, and a hot wind blew languidly from the west.

"You know," she said, looking back at him over her shoulder, "I don't want to go to bed."

"Neither do I, and I'm not going."

"But I'm going.... I wonder why I don't want to? Listen! Once—after I was a protoplasm and a micro-organism, and a mollusc, and other things, I probably was a predatory animal—nice and sleek with velvet feet and shining incandescent eyes—and very, very predatory.... That's doubtless why I often feel so deliciously awake at night—with a tameless longing to prowl under the moon.... And I think I'd better go in, now."

"Nonsense," he said, "I'm not going to bed yet."

"Oh! And what difference might that make to me? You are horridly conceited; do you know it?"

"Please stay, Calypso. It's too hot to sleep."

"No; star-prowling is contrary to civilized custom."

"But every soul in the house is sound asleep—"

"I should hope so! And you and I have no business to be out here."

"Do little observances of that sort count with you and me?"

"They don't," she said, shaking her head, "but they ought to. I want to stay. There is no real reason why I shouldn't—except the absurd fear of being caught unawares. Perhaps, perhaps I might stay for ten more minutes.... Oh, the divine beauty of it all! How hot it is!—the splash of the fountains seems to cool things a little—and those jagged, silvery reflections of the stars, deep, deep in the pool there.... Did you see that fish swirl to the surface? Hark! What was that queer sound?"

"Some night bird crying in the marshes. It will rain to-morrow; the wind is blowing from the hammock; that's why it's hot to-night; can you detect the odour of wild sweet-bay?"

"Yes—at moments. And I can just hear the surf—calling, calling 'Calypso!' as you called me once.... I must go, now."

"To the sea or the house?" he asked, laughing.

She walked a few paces toward the house, halted, and looked back audaciously.

"I'd go to the sea—only I'm afraid I'd be found out.... Isn't it all too stupid! Where convention is needless and one's wish is so harmless why should a girl turn coward at the fear of somebody discovering how innocently happy she is trying to be with a man!... It makes me very impatient at times." ... She turned, hesitated, stepped nearer and looked him in the face, daringly perverse.

"I want to go with you!... Have we not passed through enough together to deserve this little unconventional happiness?" She was breathing more quickly. "I will go with you if you wish."

"To the sea?"

"Yes. It is only a half mile by the hammock path. The servants are awake at six. Really, the night is too superb to waste—alone. But we must get back in time, if I go with you."

"Have you a key?"

"Yes, here in my gloves"—stripping them from her bare arms. "Can you put them into your pocket with the key?... And I'll pin up my skirt to get it out of the way.... What? Do you think it's a pretty gown? I did not think you noticed it. I've danced it to rags.... And will you take this fan, please? No, I'll wear the wrap—it's only cobweb weight."

She had now pinned up her gown to walking-skirt length; her slim feet were sheathed in silken dancing gear; and she bent over to survey them, then glanced doubtfully at Hamil, who shook his head.

"Never mind," she said resolutely; "only we can't walk far on the beach; I could never keep them on in the dune sands. Are you ready, O my tempter?"

Like a pair of guilty ghosts they crossed the shadowy garden, skirted the dark orange groves, and instead of entering the broad palm-lined way that led straight east for two miles to the sea, they turned into the sinuous hammock path which, curving south, cut off nearly a mile and a half.

"It's rather dark," she said.

They walked for a few minutes in silence; and, at first, she could not understand why he insisted on leading, because the path was wide enough for both.

"I will not proceed in this absurd manner," she said at last—"like an Indian and his faithful squaw. Why on earth do you—"

And it flashed across her at the same instant.

"Is that why?"—imperiously abrupt.

"What?" he asked, halting.

She passed her arm through his, not gently, but her laughing voice was very friendly:

"If we jump a snake in the dark, my friend, we jump him together! It's like you, but your friend Shiela won't permit it."

"Oh, it's only a conventional precaution—"

"Yes? Well, we'll take chances together.... Suppose—by the wildest and weirdest stretch of a highly coloured imagination you jumped a rattler?"

"Nonsense—"

"Suppose you did?"

He said, sobered: "It would be horribly awkward for you to explain. I forgot about—"



"Do you think I meant that! Do you think I'd care what people might say about our being here together? I—I'd want them to know it! What would I care—about—anything—then!"

Through the scorn in her voice he detected the awakened emotion; and, responsive, his pulse quickened, beating hard and heavy in throat and breast.

"I had almost forgotten," he said, "that we might dare look at things that way.... It all has been so—hopeless—lately—"

"What?... Yes, I understand."

"Do you?—my trying to let you alone—trying to think differently—to ignore all that has been said?"

"Yes.... This is no time to bring up such things." Her uneven breathing was perceptible to him as she moved by his side through the darkness, her arm resting on his.

No, this was no time to bring up such things. They knew it. And she, who in the confidence of her youth had dared to trust her unknown self, listened now to the startled beating of her heart at the first hint of peril.

"I wish I had not come," she said.

He did not ask her why.

"You are very silent—you have been so for days," she added; then, too late, knew that once more her tongue had betrayed her. "Don't answer me," she whispered.

"Why not?"

"Because what I say is folly.... I—I must ask you to release my hands.... You know it is only because I think it safer for—us; don't you?"

"What threatens you. Calypso?"

"Nothing.... I told you once that I am afraid—even in daylight. Ask yourself what I fear here under the stars with you."

"You fear me?"—managing to laugh.

"No; I dread your ally—my unknown self—in arms eternally to fight for you," she answered with forced gaiety. "Shall we kill her to-night? She deserves no consideration at our hands."

"Dear—"

"Hush! That is not the countersign on the firing line. Besides it is treachery, because to say that word is aiding, abetting, and giving information and comfort to our enemies. Our enemies, remember, are our other and stealthy selves." Her voice broke unsteadily. "I am trying so hard," she breathed, "but I cannot think clearly unless you help me. There is mutiny threatening somewhere."

"I have tried, too," he said.

"I know you have. Do you suppose I have been untouched by your consideration for me all these long days—your quiet cheerfulness—your dear unselfishness—the forbidden word!—but what synonym am I to use?... Oh, I know, I know what you are doing, thinking, feeling—believe me—believe me, I know! And—it is what you must do, of course. But—if you only did not show it so plainly—the effort—the strain—the hurt—"

"Do I show it?" he asked, chagrined. "I did not know that."

"Only to me—because I know. And I remember how young you were—that first day. Your whole expression has changed.... And I know why.... At times it scarcely seems that I can bear it—when I see your mouth laughing at the world and your eyes without mirth—dead—and the youth in you so altered, so quenched, so—forgive me!—so useless—"

"To what better use could I devote it, Shiela?"

"Oh, you don't know!—you don't know!—You are free; there are other women, other hopes—try to understand what freedom means!"

"It means—you,, Shiela."

She fell silent; then:

"Wherever I turn, whatever I say—all paths and words lead back again to you and me. I should not have come."

The hard, hammering pulse in his throat made it difficult for him to speak; but he managed to force an unsteady laugh; "Shiela, there is only one way for me, now—to fire and fall back. I've got to go up to Portlaw's camp anyhow—"

"And after that?"

"Mrs. Ascott wants a miniature Versailles. I'll show you the rough sketches—"

"And after that?"

"I've one or two promises—"

"And afterward?"

"Nothing."

"You will never—see me—again. Is that what 'nothing' means?"

They walked on in silence. The path had now become palely illumined; the sound of the surf was very near. Another step or two and they stood on the forest's edge.

A spectral ocean stretched away under the stars; ghostly rollers thundered along the sands. North and south dunes glimmered; and the hot fragrance of sweet-bay mingled with the mounting savour of the sea.

She looked at the sea, the stars, blindly, lips apart, teeth closed, her arm still resting on his.

"Nothing," she repeated under her breath; "that was the best answer.... Don't touch my hand!... I was mad to come here.... How close and hot it is! What is that new odour—so fresh and sweet—"

"China-berry in bloom—"

"Is it?"

"I'm not sure; once I thought it was—you; the fragrance of your hair and breath—Calypso."

"When did you think that?"

"Our first night together."

She said: "I think this is our last."

He stood for a while, motionless; slowly raised his head and looked straight into her eyes; took her in his arms; holding her loosely.

White of cheek and lip, rigid, her eyes met his in breathless suspense. Fear widened them; her hands tightened on his wrists behind her.

"Will you love me?"

"No!" she gasped.

"Is there no chance?"

"No!"

Her heart was running riot; every pulse in rebellion. A cloud possessed her senses, through which her eyes fought desperately for sight.

"Give me a memory—to carry through the years," he said unsteadily.

"No."

"Not one?"

"No!"

"To help us endure?"

Suddenly she turned in his arms, covering her eyes with both hands.

"Take—what—you wish—" she panted.

He touched one slim rigid finger after another, but they clung fast to the pallid face. Time and space reeled through silence. Then slowly, lids still sealed with desperate white hands, her head sank backward.

Untaught, her lips yielded coldly; but the body, stunned, swayed toward him as he released her; and, his arm supporting her, they turned blindly toward the path. Without power, without will, passive, dependent on his strength, her trembling knees almost failed her. She seemed unconscious of his lips on her cheek, on her hair—of her cold hands crushed in his, of the words he uttered—senseless, broken phrases, questions to which her silence answered and her closed lids acquiesced. If love was what he was asking for, why did he ask? He had his will of her lips, her hair, her slim fragrant hands; and now of her tears—for the lashes were wet and the mouth trembled. Her mind was slowly awaking to pain.

With it, far within her in unknown depths, something else stirred, stilling her swelling heart. Then every vein in her grew warm; and the quick tears sprang to her eyes.

"Dearest—dearest—" he whispered. Through the dim star-pallor she turned toward him, halted, passing her finger-tips across her lashes.

"After all," she said, "it was too late. If there is any sin in loving you it happened long ago—not to-night.... It began from the—the beginning. Does the touch of your lips make me any worse?... But I am not afraid—if you wish it—now that I know I always loved you."

"Shiela! Shiela, little sweetheart—"

"I love you so—I love you so," she said. "I cannot help it any more than I could in dreams—any more than I could when we met in the sea and the fog.... Should I lie to myself and you? I know I can never have you for mine; I know—I know. But if you will be near me when you can—if you will only be near—sometimes—"

She pressed both his hands close between hers.

"Dear—can you give up your freedom for a girl you cannot have?"

"I did so long since."

She bent and laid her lips on his hands, gravely.

"I must say something—that disturbs me a little. May I? Then, there are perils—warnings—veiled hints.... They mean nothing definite to me.... Should I be wiser?... It is difficult to say—senseless—showing my ignorance, but I thought if there were perils that I should know about—that could possibly concern me, now, you would tell me, somehow—in time—"

For a moment the revelation of her faith and innocence—the disclosure of how strange and lost she felt in the overwhelming catastrophe of forbidden love—how ignorant, how alone, left him without a word to utter.

She said, still looking down at his hands held between her own:

"A girl who has done what I have done, loses her bearings.... I don't know yet how desperately bad I am. However, one thing remains clear—only one—that no harm could come to—my family—even if I have given myself to you. And when I did it, only the cowardly idea that I was wronging myself persisted. If that is my only sin—you are worth it. And if I committed worse—I am not repentant. But—dear, what you have done to me has so utterly changed me that—things that I never before heeded or comprehended trouble me. Yesterday I could not have understood what to-night I have done. So, if there lies any unknown peril in to-morrow, or the days to come—if you love me you will tell me.... Yet I cannot believe in it. Dearly as I love you I would not raise one finger to comfort you at their expense. I would not go away with you; I would not seek my freedom for your sake. If there is in my love anything base or selfish I am not conscious of it. I cannot marry you; I can only live on, loving you. What danger can there be in that for you and me?"

"None," he said.

She sighed happily, lifted her eyes, yielded to his arms, sighing her heart out, lips against his.

Somewhere in the forest a bird awoke singing like a soul in Paradise.



CHAPTER XVI

AN ULTIMATUM

With the beginning of March the end of the so-called social season, south of Jupiter Light, is close at hand. First, the great winter hotels close; then, one by one, doors and gates of villa and cottage are locked, bright awnings and lawn shades furled and laid away, blinds bolted, flags lowered. All summer long villa and caravansary alike stand sealed and silent amid their gardens, blazing under the pale fierce splendour of an unclouded sky; tenantless, save where, beside opened doors of quarters, black recumbent figures sprawl asleep, shiny faces fairly sizzling in the rays of a vertical sun.

The row of shops facing the gardens, the white streets, quay, pier, wharf are deserted and silent. Rarely a human being passes; the sands are abandoned except by some stray beach-comber; only at the station remains any sign of life where trains are being loaded for the North, or roll in across the long draw-bridge, steaming south to that magic port from which the white P. and O. steamers sail away into regions of eternal sunshine.

So passes Palm Beach into its long summer sleep; and the haunts of men are desolate. But it is otherwise with the Wild.

Night and the March moon awake the winter-dormant wilderness from the white man's deadening spell. Now, unrestrained, the sound of negro singing floats inland on the sea-wind from inlet, bar, and glassy-still lagoon; great, cumbersome, shadowy things lumber down to tidewater—huge turtles on egg-laying intent. In the dune-hammock the black bear, crab-hungry, awakes from his December sleep and claws the palmetto fruit; the bay lynx steals beachward; a dozen little deaths hatch from the diamond-back, alive; and the mean gray fox uncurls and scratches ticks, grinning, red-gummed, at the moon.

Edging the Everglades, flat-flanked panthers prowl, ears and tail-tips twitching; doe and buck listen from the cypress shades; the razor-back clatters his tusks, and his dull and furry ears stand forward and his dull eyes redden. Then the silver mullet leap in the moonlight, and the tiger-owl floats soundlessly to his plunging perch, and his daring yellow glare flashes even when an otter splashes or a tiny fawn stirs.

And very, very far away, under the stars, rolls the dull bull-bellow of the 'gator, labouring, lumbering, clawing across the saw-grass seas; and all the little striped pigs run, bucking madly, to their dangerous and silent dam who listens, rigid, horny nose aquiver in the wind.

So wakes the Wild when the white men turn northward under the March moon; and, as though released from the same occult restraint, tree and shrub break out at last into riotous florescence: swamp maple sets the cypress shade afire; the cassava lights its orange elf-lamps; dogwood snows in the woods; every magnolia is set with great white chalices divinely scented, and the Royal Poinciana crowns itself with cardinal magnificence.

All day long brilliant butterflies hover on great curved wings over the jungle edge; all day long the cock-quail whistles from wall and hedge, and the crestless jays, sapphire winged, flit across the dunes. Red-bellied woodpeckers gossip in live-oak, sweet-gum, and ancient palm; gray squirrels chatter from pine to bitter-nut; the iridescent little ground-doves, mated for life, run fearlessly under foot or leap up into snapping flight with a flash of saffron-tinted wings. Under the mangroves the pink ajajas preen and wade; and the white ibis walks the woods like a little absent-minded ghost buried in unearthly reverie.

Truly when madam closes her Villa Tillandsia, and when Coquina Court is bereft of mistress and household—butler, footman, maid, and flunky; and when Tsa-na Lah-ni is abandoned by its handsome chatelaine, and the corridors of the vast hotels are dark, it is fashion, not common sense that stirs the flock of gaily gregarious immigrants into premature northern flight; for they go, alas! just as the southland clothes itself in beauty, and are already gone when the Poinciana opens, leaving Paradise to blossom for the lesser brothers of the woodland and the dark-skinned children of the sun.

* * * * *

The toddling Moses of the Exodus, as usual, was Courtlandt Classon; the ornamental Miriam, Mrs. O'Hara; and the children of the preferred stock started North with cymbals and with dances, making a joyful noise, and camping en route at Ormond—vastly more beautiful than the fashion-infested coral reef from which they started—at Saint Augustine, on corporate compulsion, at the great inns of Hampton, Hot Springs, and Old Point, for fashion's sake—taking their falling temperature by degrees—as though any tropic could compare with the scorching suffocation of Manhattan town.

Before the Beach Club closed certain species of humanity left in a body, including a number of the unfledged, and one or two pretty opportunists. Portlaw went, also Malcourt.

It required impudence, optimism, and executive ability for Malcourt to make his separate adieux and render impartial justice on each occasion.

There was a girl at "The Breakers" who was rather apt to slop over, so that interview was timed for noon, when the sun dries up everything very quickly, including such by-products as tears.

Then there was Miss Suydani to ride with at five o'clock on the beach, where the chain of destruction linked mullet and osprey and ended with the robber eagle—and Malcourt—if he chose.

But here there were no tears for the westering sun to dry, only strangely quenched eyes, more green than blue, for Malcourt to study, furtively; only the pale oval of a face to examine, curiously, and not too cynically; and a mouth, somewhat colourless, to reassure without conviction—also without self-conviction. This was all—except a pair of slim, clinging hands to release when the time came, using discretion—and some amiable firmness if required.

They were discussing the passing of the old regime, for lack of a safer theme; and he had spoken flippantly of the decadence of the old families—his arm around her and her pale cheek against his shoulder.

She listened rather absently; her heart was very full and she was thinking of other matters. But as he continued she answered at length, hesitating, using phrases as trite and quaintly stilted as the theme itself, gently defending the old names he sneered at. And in her words he savoured a certain old-time flavour of primness and pride—a vaguely delicate hint of resentment, which it amused him to excite. Pacing the dunes with her waist enlaced, he said, to incite retort:

"The old families are done for. Decadent in morals, in physique, mean mentally and spiritually, they are even worse off than respectfully cherished ruins, because they are out of fashion; they and their dingy dwellings. Our house is on the market; I'd be glad to see it sold only Tressilvain will get half."

"In you," she said, "there seems to be other things, besides reverence, which are out of fashion."

He continued, smilingly: "As the old mansions disappear, Virginia, so disintegrate those families whose ancestors gave names to the old lanes of New Amsterdam. I reverence neither the one nor the other. Good riddance! The fit alone survive."

"I still survive, if you please."

"Proving the rule, dear. But, yourself excepted, look at the few of us who chance to be here in the South. Look at Courtlandt Classon, intellectually destitute! Cuyp, a mental brother to the ox; and Vetchen to the ass; and Mrs. Van Dieman to somebody's maidservant—that old harridan with all the patrician distinction of a Dame des Halles—"

"Please, Louis!"

"Dear, I am right. Even Constance Palliser, still physically superb, but mentally morbid—in love with what once was Wayward—with the ghost she raised in her dead girlhood, there on the edge of yesterday—"

"Louis! Louis! And you! What were you yesterday? What are you to-day?"

"What do I care what I was and am?—Dutch, British, burgher, or cavalier?—What the deuce do I care, my dear? The Malcourts are rotten; everybody knows it. Tressilvain is worse; my sister says so. As I told you, the old families are done for—all except yours—"

"I am the last of mine, Louis."

"The last and best—"

"Are you laughing?"

"No; you are the only human one I've ever heard of among your race—the sweetest, soundest, best—"

"I?... What you say is too terrible to laugh at. I—guilty in mind—unsound—contaminated—"

"Temporarily. I'm going to-night. Time and absence are the great antiseptics. When the corrupt cause disappears the effect follows. Cheer up, dear; I take the night train."

But she only pressed her pale face closer to his shoulder. Their interlocked shadows, huge, fantastic, streamed across the eastern dunes as they moved slowly on together.

"Louis!"

"Yes?"

She could not say it. Close to the breaking point, she was ready now to give up to him more than he might care for—the only shred left which she had shrunk from letting him think was within his reach for the asking—her name.

Pride, prejudice, had died out in the fierce outbreak of a heart amazingly out of place in the body of one who bore her name.

Generations of her kinsmen, close and remote, had lived in the close confines of narrow circles—narrow, bloodless, dull folk, almost all distantly related—and they had lived and mated among themselves, coldly defiant of that great law which dooms the over-cultivated and inbred to folly and extinction.

Somewhere, far back along the race-line, some mongrel ancestor had begun life with a heart; and, unsuspected, that obsolete organ had now reappeared in her, irritating, confusing, amazing, and finally stupefying her with its misunderstood pulsations.

At first, like a wounded creature, consciousness of its presence turned her restless, almost vicious. Then from cynicism to incredulity she had passed the bitter way to passion, and the shamed recoil from it; to recklessness, and the contempt for it, and so through sorrow and humility to love—if it were love to endure the evil in this man and to believe in the good which he had never yet revealed to her save in a half-cynical, half-amused content that matters rest in statu quo.

"The trouble with us," mused Malcourt, lazily switching the fragrant beach-grapes with his riding-crop, "is inbreeding. Yes, that's it. And we know what it brings to kings and kine alike. Tressilvain is half-mad, I think. And we are used up and out of date.... The lusty, jewelled bacchantes who now haunt the inner temple kindle the social flames with newer names than ours. Few of us count; the lumbering British or Dutch cattle our race was bred from, even in these brief generations, have become decadent and barren; we are even passing from a fashion which we have neither intellect to sustain nor courage to dictate to. It's the raw West that is to be our Nemesis, I think.... 'Mix corpuscles or you die!'—that's what I read as I run—I mean, saunter; the Malcourts never run, except to seed. My, what phosphorescent perversion! One might almost mistake it for philosophy.... But it's only the brilliancy of decay, Virginia; and it's about time that the last Malcourt stepped down and out of the scheme of things. My sister is older, but I don't mind going first—even if it is bad manners."

"Is that why you have never asked me to marry you?" she said, white as a ghost.

Startled to silence he walked on beside her. She had pressed her pallid face against his shoulder again; one thin hand crushed her gloves and riding-crop into her hip, the other, doubled, left in the palm pale imprints of her fingers.

"Is that the reason?" she repeated.

"No, dear."

"Is it because you do not care for me—enough?"

"Partly. But that is easily remedied."

"Or"—with bent head—"because you think too—lightly—of me—"

"No! That's a lie anyway."

"A—a lie?"

"Yes. You lie to yourself if you think that! You are not that sort. You are not, and you never were and never could be. Don't you suppose I know?"—almost with a sneer: "I won't have it—nor would you! It is you, not I, who have controlled this situation; and if you don't realise it I do. I never doubted you even when you prattled to me of moderation. I know that you were not named with your name in mockery, or in vain."

Dumb, thrilled, understanding in a blind way what this man had said, dismayed to find safety amid the elements of destruction, a sudden belief in herself—in him, too, began to flicker. "Had the still small flame been relighted for her? Had it never entirely died?"

"If—you will have me, Louis," she whispered.

"I don't love you. I'm rather nearer than I ever have been just now. But I am not in love."

"Could you ever—"

"Yes."

"Then—why—"

"I'll tell you why, some day. Not now."

They had come to where their horses were tied. He put her up, adjusted boot-strap and skirt, then swung gracefully aboard his own pie-faced Tallahassee nag, wheeling into the path beside her.

"The world," observed Malcourt, using his favourite quotation, "is so full of a number of things—like you and me and that coral snake yonder.... It's very hard to make a coral snake bite you; but it's death if you succeed.... Whack that nag if he plunges! Lord, what a nose for sarpints horses have! Hamil was telling me—by the way, there's nothing degenerate about our distant cousin, John Garret Hamil; but he's not pure pedigree. However, I'd advise him to marry into some fresh, new strain—"

"He seems likely to," said Virginia.

After a moment Malcourt looked around at her curiously.

"Do you mean Shiela Cardross?"

"Obviously."

"You think it safe?"—mockingly.

"I wouldn't care if I were a man."

"Oh! I didn't suppose that a Suydam could approve of her."

"I do now—with envy.... You are right about the West. Do you know that it seems to me as though in that girl all sections of the land were merged, as though the freshest blood of all nations flowing through the land had centred and mingled to produce that type of physical perfection! It is a curious idea—isn't it, Louis?—to imagine that the brightest, wholesomest, freshest blood of the nations within this nation has combined to produce such a type! Suppose it were so. After all is it not worth dispensing with a few worn names to look out at the world through those fearless magnificent eyes of hers—to walk the world with such limbs and such a body? Did you ever see such self-possession, such superb capacity for good and evil, such quality and texture!... Oh, yes, I am quite crazy about her—like everybody and John Garret Hamil, third."

"Is he?"

She laughed. "Do you doubt it?"

Malcourt drew bridle, fished for his case, and lighted a cigarette; then he spurred forward again, alert, intent, head partly turned in that curious attitude of listening, though Virginia was riding now in pensive silence.

"Louis," she said at last, "what is it you hear when you seem to listen that way. It's uncanny."

"I'll tell you," he said. "My father had a very pleasant, persuasive voice.... I was fond of him.... And sometimes I still argue with him—in the old humourous fashion—"

"What?"—with a shiver.

"In the old amusing way," continued Malcourt quietly. "Sometimes he makes suggestions to me—curious suggestions—easy ways out of trouble—and I listen—as you noticed."

The girl looked at him, reined up closer, and bent forward, looking him intently in the eyes.

"Well, dear?" inquired Malcourt, with a smile.

But she only straightened up in her saddle, a chill creeping in her veins.

A few moments later he suggested that they gallop. He was obliged to, for he had other interviews awaiting him. Also Portlaw, in a vile humour with the little gods of high and low finance.

* * * * *

One of these interviews occurred after his final evening adieux to the Cardross family and to Hamil. Shiela drove him to the hotel in Gray's motor, slowly, when they were out of sight, at Malcourt's request.

"I wanted to give you another chance," he said. "I'm a little more selfish, this time—because, if I had a decent opportunity I think I'd try to fall in love with somebody or other—"

She flushed painfully, looking straight ahead over the steering-wheel along the blinding path of the acetylenes.

"I am very sorry," she said, "because I had—had almost concluded to tell them—everything."

"What!" he asked, aghast.

Her eyes were steadily fixed on the fan-shaped radiance ahead which played fantastically along the silvery avenue of palms and swept the white road with a glitter like moonlight streaming over snow.

"You mean you are ready for your freedom, Shiela?"

"No."

"What do you mean?"

"That—it may be best—best—to tell them ... and face what is left of life, together."

"You and I?"

"Yes."

He sat beside her, dumb, incredulous, nimble wits searching for reasons. What was he to reckon with in this sudden, calm suggestion of a martyrdom with him? A whim? Some occult caprice?—or a quarrel with Hamil? Was she wearied of the deception? Or distrustful of herself, in her new love for Hamil, lest she be tempted to free herself after all? Was she already at that point where, desperate, benefits forgot, wavering between infatuation and loyalty, she turned, dismayed, to the only course which must crush temptation for ever?

"Is that it?" he asked.

"What?" Her lips moved, forming the word without sound.

"Is it because you are so sorely tempted to free yourself at their expense?"

"Partly."

"You poor child!"

"No child now, Louis.... I have thought too deeply, too clearly. There is no childhood left in me. I know things.... You will help me, won't you—if I find I need you?"

"Need me, Shiela?"

"I may," she said excitedly; "you can't tell; and I don't know. It is all so confused. I thought I knew myself but I seem to have just discovered a devil looking back at me out of my own reflected eyes from my own mirror!"

"What an exaggerated little thing you are!" he said, forcing a laugh.

"Am I? It must be part of me then. I tell you, since that day they told me what I am, I have wondered what else I might be. I don't know, but I'm watching. There are changes—omens, sinister enough to frighten me—"

"Are you turning morbid?"

"I don't know, Louis. Am I? How can I tell? Whom am I to ask? I could ask my own mother if I had one—even if it hurt her. Mothers are made for pain—as we young girls are. Miserable, wretched, deceitful, frightened as I am I could tell her—tell her all.... The longing to have her, to tell her has become almost—almost unendurable—lately.... I have so much need of her.... You don't know the desolation of it—and the fear! I beg your pardon for talking this way. It's over now. You see I am quite calm."

"Can't you confide in your—other mother—"

"I have no right. She did not bear me."

"It is the same as though you were her own; she feels so—"

"She cannot feel so! Nor can I. If I could I would take my fears and sorrows and my sins to her. I could take them to my own mother, for both our sakes; I cannot, to her, for my own sake alone. And never can."

"Then—I don't understand! You have just suggested telling her about ourselves, haven't you?"

"Yes. But not that it has been a horror—a mistake. If I tell her—if I think it necessary—best—to tell them, I—it will be done with mask still on—cheerfully—asking pardon with a smile—I do not lack that kind of courage. I can do that—if I must."

"There will be a new ceremony?"

"If they wish.... I can't—can't talk of it yet, unless I'm driven to it—"

He looked quietly around at her. "What drives you, Shiela?"

Her eyes remained resolutely fixed on the road ahead, but her cheeks were flaming; and he turned his gaze elsewhere, thoughtful, chary of speech, until at last the lights of the station twinkled in the north.

Then he said, carelessly friendly: "I'll just say this: that, being of no legitimate use to anybody, if you find any use for me, you merely need to say so."

"Thank you, Louis."

"No; I thank you! It's a new sensation—to be of legitimate use to anybody. Really, I'm much obliged."

"Don't speak so bitterly—"

"Not at all. Short of being celestially translated and sinlessly melodious on my pianola up aloft, I had no hope of ever being useful to you and Hamil—"

She turned a miserable and colourless face to his and he ceased, startled at the tragedy in such young eyes.

Then he burst out impulsively: "Oh, why don't you cut and run with him! Why, you little ninny, if I loved anybody like that I'd not worry over the morals of it!"

"What!" she gasped.

"Not I! Make a nunnery out of me if you must; clutch at me for sanctuary, if you want to; I'll stand for it! But if you'll listen to me you'll give up romantic martyrdom and sackcloth, put on your best frock, smile on Hamil, and go and ask your mother for a bright, shiny, brand-new divorce."

Revolted, incensed, eyes brilliant with anger, she sat speechless and rigid, clutching the steering-wheel as he nimbly descended to the platform.

"Good-bye, Shiela," he said with a haggard smile. "I meant well—as usual."

Something about him as he stood there alone in the lamp's white radiance stilled her anger by degrees.

"Good-bye," she said with an effort.

He nodded, replaced his hat, and turned away.

"Good-bye, Louis," she said more gently.

He retraced his steps, and stood beside the motor, hat off. She bent forward, generous, as always, and extended her hand.

"What you said to me hurt," she said. "Do you think it would not be easy for me to persuade myself? I believe in divorce with all my heart and soul and intelligence. I know it is right and just. But not for me.... Louis—how can I do this thing to them? How can I go to them and disclose myself as a common creature of common origin and primitive impulse, showing the crack in the gay gilding and veneer they have laboured to cover me with?... I cannot.... I could endure the disgrace myself; I cannot disgrace them. Think of the ridicule they would suffer if it became known that for two years I had been married, and now wanted a public divorce? No! No! There is nothing to do, nothing to hope for.... If it is—advisable—I will tell them, and take your name openly.... I am so uncertain, so frightened at moments—so perplexed. There is no one to tell me what to do.... And, believe me, I am sorry for you—I am deeply, deeply sorry! Good-bye."

"And I for you," he said. "Good-bye."

She sat in her car, waiting, until the train started.



CHAPTER XVII

ECHOES

Some minutes later, on the northward speeding train, he left Portlaw playing solitaire in their own compartment, and, crossing the swaying corridor, entered the state-room opposite. Miss Wilming was there, reading a novel, an enormous bunch of roses, a box of bonbons, and a tiny kitten on the table before her. The kitten was so young that it was shaky on its legs, and it wore very wide eyes and a blue bow.

"Hello, Dolly," he said pleasantly. She answered rather faintly.

"What a voice—like the peep of an infant sparrow! Are you worrying?"

"A little."

"You needn't be. Alphonse will make a noise, of course, but you needn't mind that. The main thing in life is to know what you want to do and do it. Which I've never yet done in my life. Zut! Zut!!—as our late Count Alphonse might say. And he'll say other remarks when he finds you've gone, Dolly." And Malcourt, who was a mimic, shrugged and raised his arms in Gallic appeal to the gods of wrath, until he mouthed his face into a startling resemblance to that of the bereft nobleman.

Then he laughed a little—not very heartily; then, in a more familiar role, he sat down opposite the girl and held up one finger of admonition and consolation.

"The main thing, Dolly, was to get clear of him—and all that silly business. Yes? No? Bon!... And now everything is cleared up between us, and I've told you what I'd do—if you really wanted a chance. I believe in chances for people."

The girl, who was young, buried her delicate face in the roses and looked at him. The kitten, balanced on tiny, wavering legs, stared hard at him, too. He looked from girl to kitten, conscious of the resemblance, and managed to smother a smile.

"You said," he repeated severely, "that you wanted a chance. I told you what I could and would do; see that you live and dress decently, stand for your musical, dramatic, athletic, and terpsichorean education and drilling—but not for one atom of nonsense. Is that clear?"

She nodded.

"Not one break; not one escapade, Dolly. It's up to you."

"I know it."

"All right, then. What's passed doesn't count. You start in and see what you can do. They say they drag one about by the hair at those dramatic schools. If they do, you've got to let 'em. Anyway, things ought to come easier to you than to some, for you've got a corking education, and you don't drink sloe-gin, and you don't smoke."

"And I can cook," added the girl gravely, looking at her childish ringless hands. The rings and a number of other details had been left behind addressed to the count.

"The trouble will be," said Malcourt, "that you will miss the brightness and frivolity of things. That kitten won't compensate."

"Do you think so? I haven't had very much of anything—even kittens," she said, picking up the soft ball of fur and holding it under her chin.

"You missed the frivolous in life even before you had it. You'll miss it again, too."

"But I've had it now."

"That doesn't count. The capacity for frivolity is always there. You are reconciled just now to other things; that man is a beast all right. Oh, yes; this is reaction, Dolly. The idea is to hang on to this conservatism when it becomes stupid and irksome; when you're tired and discouraged, and when you want to be amused and be in bright, attractive places; and when you're lonesome—"

"Lonesome?"

"Certainly you'll be lonesome if you're good."

"Am I not to see you?"

"I'll be in the backwoods working for a living—"

"Yes, but when you come to New York?"

"Sure thing."

"Often?"

"As often as it's advisable," he said pleasantly. "I want you to make friends at school; I want you to have lots of them. A bachelor girl has got to have 'em.... It's on your account and theirs that I don't intend to have anybody make any mistake about me.... Therefore, I'll come to see you when you've a friend or two present. It's fairer to you. Now do you understand me, Dolly?"

"Yes."

"Is it agreeable?"

"Y-es." And, flushing: "But I did not mistake you, Louis; and there is no reason not to come, even if I am alone."

He laughed, lighted a cigarette, and stroked the kitten.

"It's an amusing experiment, anyway," he said.

"Have you never tried it before?"

"Oh, yes, several times."

"Were the several times successes?"

"Not one!" he said, laughing. "It's up to you, Dolly, to prove me a bigger ass than I have been yet—or the reverse."

"It lies with me?" she asked.

"Certainly. Have I ever made love to you?"

"No."

"Ever even kissed you?"

"No."

"Ever been a brute?"

"No.... You are not very careful in speaking to me sometimes. Once—at the Club—when Mr. Hamil—"

"I was brutal. I know it. Do you want my respect?"

"Y-es."

"Earn it," he said drily.

The girl leaned back in her corner, flushed, silent, thoughtful; and sometimes her eyes were fixed on vacancy, sometimes on him where he sat in the opposite seat staring out into the blurred darkness at the red eye of the beacon on Jupiter Light which turned flaring, turned again, dwindling to a spark, and went out.

"Of what are you thinking?" she asked, noticing his frown.

He did not reply; he was thinking of Shiela Cardross. And, frowning, he picked up the kitten, very gently, and flattered it until it purred.

"It's about as big as a minute," said the girl, softly touching the tiny head.

"There are minutes as big as elephants, too," he said, amused. "Nice pussy!" The kitten, concurring in these sentiments, purred with pleasure.

A little later he sauntered back to his own compartment, and, taking out a memorandum, made some figures.

"Is that girl aboard?" asked Portlaw, looking up from the table, his fat hands full of cards.

"Yes, I believe so."

"Well, that's a deuce of a thing to do."

"What?"—absently.

"What! Why, to travel about the country with the nucleus of a theatrical troupe on your hands—"

"She wanted another chance. Few get it."

"Very well, son, if you think you can afford to endow a home for the frivolously erring!—And the chances are she'll turn on you and scratch."

"Yes—the chances favour that."

"She won't understand it; that sort never understands decency in a man."

"Do you think it might damage my reputation to be misunderstood?" sneered Malcourt. "I've taken a notion to give her a chance and I'm going to do it."

Portlaw spread out his first row of cards. "You know what everybody will think, I suppose."

Malcourt yawned.

Presently Portlaw began in a babyish-irritated voice: "I've buried the deuce and trey of diamonds, and blocked myself—"

"Oh, shut up!" said Malcourt, who was hastily scribbling a letter to Virginia Suydam.

He did not post it, however, until he reached New York, being very forgetful and busy in taking money away from the exasperated Portlaw through the medium of double dummy. Also he had a girl, a kitten, and other details to look after, and several matters to think over. So Virginia's letter waited.

* * * * *

Virginia waited, too. She had several headaches to keep inquiring friends at a distance, for her eyes were inclined to redness in those days, and she developed a pronounced taste for the solitude of the chapel and churchly things.

So when at length the letter arrived, Miss Suydam evaded Constance and made for the beach; for it was her natural instinct to be alone with Malcourt, and the instinct unconsciously included even his memory.

Her maid was packing; Constance Palliser's maid was also up to her chin in lingerie, and Constance hovered in the vicinity. So there was no privacy there, and that was the reason Virginia evaded them, side-stepped Gussie Vetchen at the desk, eluded old Classon in the palm room, and fled like a ghost through the empty corridors as though the deuce were at her heels instead of in her heart.

The heart of Virginia was cutting up. Alone in the corridors she furtively glanced at the letter, kissed the edge of the envelope, rolled and tucked it away in her glove, and continued her flight in search of solitude.

The vast hotel seemed lonely enough, but it evidently was too populous to suit Miss Suydam. Yet few guests remained, and the larger caravansary was scheduled to close in another day or two, the residue population to be transferred to "The Breakers."

The day was piping hot but magnificent; corridor, piazza, colonnade, and garden were empty of life, except for a listless negro servant dawdling here and there. Virginia managed to find a wheel-chair under the colonnade and a fat black boy at the control to propel it; and with her letter hidden in her glove, and her heart racing, she seated herself, parasol tilted, chin in the air, and the chair rolled noiselessly away through the dazzling sunshine of the gardens.

On the beach some barelegged children were wading in the surf's bubbling ebb, hunting for king-crabs; an old black mammy, wearing apron and scarlet turban, sat luxuriously in the burning sand watching her thin-legged charges, and cooking the "misery" out of her aged bones. Virginia could see nobody else, except a distant swimmer beyond the raft, capped with a scarlet kerchief. This was not solitude, but it must do.

So she dismissed her chair-boy and strolled out under the pier. And, as nobody was there to interrupt her she sat down in the sand and opened her letter with fingers that seemed absurdly helpless and unsteady.

"On the train near Jupiter Light," it was headed; and presently continued:

"I am trying to be unselfishly honest with you to see how it feels. First—about my loving anybody. I never have; I have on several occasions been prepared to bestow heart and hand—been capable of doing it—and something happened every time. On one of these receptive occasions the thing that happened put me permanently out of business. I'll tell you about that later.

"What I want to say is that the reason I don't love you is not because I can't, but because I won't! You don't understand that. Let me try to explain. I've always had the capacity for really loving some woman. I was more or less lonely and shy as a child and had few playmates—very few girls of my age. I adored those I knew—but—well, I was not considered to be a very desirable playmate by those parents who knew the Malcourt history.

"One family was nice to me—some of them. I usually cared a great deal for anybody who was nice to me.

"The point of all this biography is that I'm usually somewhat absurdly touched by the friendship of an attractive woman of my own sort—or, rather, of the sort I might have been. That is my attitude toward you; you are amiable to me; I like you.

"Now, why am I not in love with you? I've told you that it's because I will not let myself be in love with you. Why?

"Dear—it's just because you have been nice to me. Do you understand? No, you don't. Then—to go back to what I spoke of—I am not free to marry. I am married. Now you know. And there's no way out of it that I can see.

"If I were in love with you I'd simply take you. I am only your friend—and I can't do you that injury. Curious, isn't it, how such a blackguard as I am can be so fastidious!

"But that's the truth. And that, too, may explain a number of other matters.

"So you see how it is, dear. The world is full of a number of things. One of them signs himself your friend,

"LOUIS MALCOURT."

Virginia's eyes remained on the written page long after she had finished reading. They closed once or twice, opened again, blue-green, expressionless. Looking aloft after a while she tried to comprehend that the sky was still overhead; but it seemed to be a tricky, unsteady, unfamiliar sky, wavering, crawling across space like the wrinkled sea beneath it. Confused, she turned, peering about; the beach, too, was becoming unstable; and, through the sudden rushing darkness that obscured things, she tried to rise, then dropped full length along the sand.

A few seconds later—or perhaps minutes, or perhaps hours—she found herself seated perfectly conscious, mechanically drying the sea-water from her wet face; while beside her knelt a red-capped figure in wet bathing-dress, both hands brimming with sea-water which ran slowly between the delicate fingers and fell, sparkling.

"Do you feel better?" asked Shiela gently.

"Yes," she said, perfectly conscious and vaguely surprised. Presently she looked down at her skirts, groped about, turned, searching with outstretched fingers. Then her eyes fell on the letter. It lay on the sand beside her sunshade, carefully weighted with a shell.

Neither she nor the girl beside her spoke. Virginia adjusted her hat and veil, sat motionless for a few moments, then picked up the water-stained letter and, rolling it, placed it in her wet glove. A slow flame burned in her pallid cheeks; her eyes remained downcast.

Shiela said with quick sympathy: "I never fainted in my life. Is it painful?"

"No—it's only rather horrid.... I had been walking in the sun. It is very hot on the beach, I think; don't you?"

"Very," said the girl gravely.

Virginia, head still bent, was touching her wet lace waist with her wetter gloves.

"It was very good of you," she said, in a low voice—"and quite stupid of me."

Shiela straightened to her full height and stood gravely watching the sea-water trickle from her joined palms. When the last shining drop had fallen she looked questioningly at Miss Suydam.

"I'm a little tired, that is all," said Virginia. She rose rather unsteadily and took advantage of Shiela's firm young arm, which, as they progressed, finally slipped around Miss Suydam's waist.

Very slowly they crossed the burning sands together, scarcely exchanging a word until they reached the Cardross pavilion.

"If you'll wait until I have my shower I'll take you back in my chair," said Shiela. "Come into my own dressing-room; there's a lounge."

Virginia, white and haggard, seated herself, leaning back languidly against the wall and closing her heavy eyes. They opened again when Shiela came back from the shower, knotting in the girdle of her snowy bath-robe, and seated herself while her maid unloosed the thick hair and rubbed it till the brown-gold lustre came out like little gleams of sunlight, and the ends of the burnished tresses crisped and curled up on the smooth shoulders of snow and rose.

Virginia's lips began to quiver; she was fairly flinching now under the pitiless contrast, fascinated yet shrinking from the splendid young creature before her, resting there aglow in all the vigourous beauty of untainted health.

And from the mirror reflected, the clear eyes smiled back at her, seeming to sear her very soul with their untarnished loveliness.

"Suppose you come and lunch with me?" said Shiela. "I happen to be quite alone. My maid is very glad to do anything for you. Will you come?"

"Yes," said Virginia faintly.

An hour later they had luncheon together in the jasmine arbour; and after that Virginia lay in the hammock under the orange-trees, very still, very tired, glad of the silence, and of the soft cool hand which covered hers so lightly, and, at rare intervals, pressed hers more lightly still.

Shiela, elbow on knee, one arm across the hammock's edge, chin cupped in her other palm, sat staring at vacancy beside the hammock where Virginia lay. And sometimes her partly doubled fingers indented her red lower lip, sometimes they half framed the oval face, as she sat lost in thought beside the hammock where Virginia lay so pale and still.

Musing there in the dappled light, already linked together by that subtle sympathy which lies in silence and in a common need of it, they scarcely stirred save when Shiela's fingers closed almost imperceptibly on Virginia's hand, and Virginia's eyelids quivered in vague response.

In youth, sadness and silence are near akin. That was the only kinship they could claim—this slim, pale scion of a worn-out line, and the nameless, parentless girl beside her. This kinship was their only bond—unadmitted, uncomprehended by themselves; kinship in love, and the sadness of it; in love, and the loneliness of it; love—and the long hours of waiting; night, and the tears of it.

The sun hung low behind the scented orange grove before Virginia moved, laying her thin cheek on Shiela's hand.

"Did you see—that letter—in the sand?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"The writing—you knew it?... Answer me, Shiela."

"Yes, I knew it."

Virginia lay very still for a while, then covered her face with both hands.

"Oh, my dear, my dear!" breathed Shiela, bending close beside her.

Virginia lay motionless for a moment, then uncovered her face.

"It is strange," she said, in a colourless, almost inaudible voice. "You see I am simply helpless—dependent on your mercy.... Because a woman does not faint over—nothing."

The deep distress in Shiela's eyes held her silent for a space. She looked back at her, then her brooding gaze shifted to the laden branches overhead, to the leafy vistas beyond, to the ground where the golden fruit lay burning in the red, level rays of the western sun.

"I did not know he was married," she said vacantly.

Swift anger burned in Shiela's cheeks.

"He was a coward not to tell you—"

"He was honourable about it," said Virginia, in the same monotonous voice. "Do you think I am shameless to admit it? Perhaps I am, but it is fairer to him. As you know this much, you should know the truth. And the truth is that he has never said he loved me."

Her face had become pinched and ghastly, but her mouth never quivered under this final humiliation.

"Did you ever look upon a more brazen and defenceless woman—" she began—and then very quietly and tearlessly broke down in Shiela's tender arms, face hidden on the young girl's breast.

And Shiela's heart responded passionately; but all she could find to say was: "Dear—I know—indeed, indeed I know—believe me I know and understand!" And all she could do was to gather the humbled woman into her arms until, her grief dry-spent, Virginia raised her head and looked at Shiela with strange, quenched, tearless eyes.

"We women are very helpless, very ignorant," she said, "even the worst of us. And I doubt if in all our lives we are capable of the harm that one man refrains from doing for an hour.... And that, I think, is our only compensation.... What theirs may be I do not know.... Dear, I am perfectly able to go, now.... I think I see your mother coming."

They walked together to the terrace where Mrs. Cardross had just arrived in the motor; and Shiela, herself shaken, wondered at the serene poise with which Virginia sustained ten minutes of commonplaces and then made her final adieux, saying that she was leaving on the morning train.

"May we not see each other in town?" she added amiably; and, to Shiela: "You will let me know when you come North? I shall miss you until you come."

Mrs. Cardross sent her back in the motor, a trifle surprised at any intimacy between Shiela and Virginia. She asked a frank question or two and then retired to write to Mrs. Carrick, who, uneasy, had at last gone North to find out what financial troubles were keeping both her husband and her father so long away from this southland that they loved so well.

Hamil, who was to leave for the North with his aunt and Virginia early next morning, returned from the forest about sundown, reeking as usual of the saddle, and rested a moment against the terrace balustrade watching Mrs. Cardross and Shiela over their tea.

"That boy is actually ill," said the sympathetic matron. "Why don't you give him some tea, Shiela? Or would you rather have a little wine and a biscuit, Garret—?"

"And a few pills," added Shiela gravely. "I found a box of odds and ends—powders, pills, tablets, which he might as well finish—"

"Shiela! Garret is ill!"

Hamil, busy with his Madeira and biscuit, laughed. He could not realise he was on the eve of leaving, nor could Shiela.

"Never," said he to the anxious lady, "have I felt better in my life; and I'm sure it is due to your medicines. It's all very well for Shiela to laugh at quinine; mosquitoes don't sting her. But I'd probably be an item in one of those phosphate beds by this time if you hadn't taken care of me."

Shiela laughed; Hamil in excellent humour went off to dress. Everybody seemed to be in particularly good spirits that evening, but later, after dinner, Gray spoke complainingly of the continued absence of his father.

"As for Acton Carrick, he's the limit," added Gray disgustedly. "He hasn't been here this winter except for a day or two, and then he took the train from Miami straight through to New York. I say, Hamil, you'll look him up and write us about him, won't you?"

Shiela looked at Hamil.

"Do you understand anything about financial troubles?" she asked in a bantering voice.

"I've had some experience with my own," he said.

"Well, then, what is the matter with the market?"

"Shall I whisper it?"

"If you are prepared to rhyme it. I dare you!"

It was the rule of the house that anybody was privileged to whisper at table provided they put what they had to communicate into rhyme.

So he thought busily a moment, then leaned over very gravely and whispered close to her ear:

"Tis money makes the market go; When money's high the market's low; When money's low the market's right, And speculators sleep at night. But, dear, there is another mart, Where ticks the ticker called my heart; And there exhaustless funds await, To back my bankrupt trust in Fate; For you will find, as I have found, The old, old logic yet is sound, And love still makes the world go round."

"I always knew it," said Shiela contemptuously.

"Knew what, dear?" asked her mother, amused.

"That Mr. Hamil writes those sickening mottoes for Christmas crackers."

"There are pretty ones in them—sometimes," said Cecile, reminiscently spearing a big red strawberry which resembled the popular and conventional conception of a fat human heart.

Gray, still serious, said: "Unless we are outside of the danger zone I think father ought to teach me something about business."

"If we blow up," observed Cecile, "I'll do clever monologues and support everybody. I'd like that. And Shiela already writes poetry—"

"Nonsense!" said Shiela, very pink.

"Shiela! You do!"

"I did in school—" turning pinker under Hamil's tormenting gaze.

"And you do yet! I found an attempt on the floor—in your flowing penmanship," continued the pitiless younger sister. "What is there to blush about? Of course Phil and I were not low enough to read it, but I'll bet it was about somebody we all know! Do you want to bet—Garry?"

"Cecile!" said her mother mildly.

"Yes, mother—I forgot that I'm not allowed to bet, but if I was—"

Shiela, exasperated, looked at her mother, who shook her head and rose from the table, taking Hamil's arm.

"You little imp!" breathed Shiela fiercely to Cecile, "if you plague me again I'll inform Mr. Hamil of what happened to you this morning."

"I don't care; Garry is part of the family," retorted Cecile, flushed but defiant and not exactly daring to add: "or will be soon." Then she put both arms around Shiela, and holding her imprisoned:

"Are you in love?—you darling!" she whispered persuasively. "Oh, don't commit yourself if you feel that way!... And, O Shiela, you should have seen Phil Gatewood following me in love-smitten hops when I wouldn't listen! My dear, the creature managed to plant both feet on my gown as I fled, and the parquet is so slippery and the gown so flimsy and, oh, there was a dreadful ripping sound and we both went down—"

Shiela was laughing now, holding her sister's gesticulating hands, as she rattled on excitedly:

"I got to my feet in a blaze of fury, holding my gown on with both hands—"

"Cissy!"

"And he gave one horror-stricken look and ran—"

Swaying there together in the deserted dining-room, they gave way to uncontrolled laughter. Laughter rang out from the living-room, too, where Gray was informing Mrs. Cardross and Hamil of the untoward climax to a spring-time wooing; and when Shiela and Cecile came in the latter looked suspiciously at Hamil, requesting to know the reason of his mirth.

"Somebody will have to whisper it to you in rhyme," said Hamil; "it's not fit for prose, Cissy."

Mrs. Cardross retired early. Gray went for a spin in his motor. Cecile, mischievously persuaded that Hamil desired to have Shiela to himself for half an hour, stifled her yawns and bedward inclinations and remained primly near them until Gray returned.

Then the four played innocuous Bridge whist until Cecile's yawns could no longer be disguised; and finally Gray rose in disgust when she ignored the heart-convention and led him an unlovely spade.

"How many kinds of a chump can you be in one day?" asked her wrathful brother.

"Pons longa, vita brevis," observed Hamil, intensely amused. "Don't sit on her, Gray."

"O dear! O dear!" said Cecile calmly, "I'd rather be stepped on again than sat on like that!"

"You're a sweet little thing anyway," said Hamil, "even if you do fall down in Bridge as well as otherwise—"

"Shiela! You told Garret!"

"Cunning child," said Hamil; "make her dance the baby-dance, Shiela!" And he and her sister and brother seized her unwilling hands and compelled her to turn round and round, while they chanted in unison:

"Cissy's Bridge is falling down, Falling down, Falling down, Cissy's gown is falling down, My Fair Lady!"

"Garry, stop it!... It's only an excuse to hold Shiela's hand—"

But Shiela recited very gravely:

"Father's in Manhattan town, Hunting up our money; Philip's in the music-room, Calling Cis his honey; Cissy's sprinting through the hall, Trying to be funny—"

"I won't dance!" cried Cecile. But they sang insultingly:

"Rock-a-by Cissy! Philip will slop! Cissy is angry, For Philip won't stop."

"If dresses are stepped upon, Something will fall, Down will come petticoat, Cissy, and all!"

"O Garry, how can you!"

"Because you've been too gay lately; you're marked for discipline, young lady!"

"Who told you? Shiela?—and it was my newest, dearest, duck of a gown!... The situation was perfectly horrid, too. What elephants men are!"

"You know, I'd accept him if I were you—just to teach him the value of gowns," suggested Hamil.

But Shiela said seriously: "Phil Gatewood is a nice boy. We all knew that he was going to ask you. You acted like a ninny, Cis."

"With my gown half off!—what would you have done?" demanded the girl hotly.

"Destroyed him," admitted Shiela, "in one way or another, dear. And now I am going to bed—if everybody has had enough of Cissy's Bridge—"

"Me for the hay," observed Gray emphatically.

So they all went up the stairway together, lingering a few moments on the landing to say good night.

Cecile retired first, bewailing the humiliation of not having a maid of her own and requesting Shiela to send hers as she was too sleepy to undress.

Gray caught sight of a moth fluttering around the electric lights and made considerable noise securing the specimen. After which he also retired, cyanide jar containing the victim tucked under his arm.



CHAPTER XVIII

PERIL

Shelia, standing by the lamplit table and resting one slim hand on the edge of it, waited for Hamil to give the signal for separation.

Instead he said: "Are you really sleepy?"

"No."

"Then—"

"I dare not—to-night."

"For any particular reason?"

"For a thousand.... One is that I simply can't believe you are really going North to-morrow. Why do you?" She had asked it nearly a thousand times.

"I've got to begin Portlaw's park; and, besides, my work here is over—"

"Is that all you care about me? Oh, you are truly like the real Ulysses:

"Now toils the hero, trees on trees o'erthrown Fall crackling round him, and the forests groan!"

Do you remember, in the Odyssey, when poor Calypso begs him to remain?

"Thus spoke Calypso to her god-like guest: 'This shows thee, friend, by old experience taught, And learn'd in all the wiles of human thought, How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise! Thus wilt thou leave me? Are we thus to part? Is Portlaw's Park the passion of thy heart?'"

Laughing, he answered in the Grecian verse:

"Whatever the gods shall destine me to bear, 'Tis mine to master with a constant mind; Inured to peril, to the worst resigned, Still I can suffer; their high will be done."

From the soft oval of her face the smile faded, but her voice was still carelessly gay:

"And so he went away. But, concerning his nymph, Calypso, further Homer sayeth not. Yet—in the immortal verse it chanced to be he, not she, who was—married.... And I think I'll retire now—if you have nothing more agreeable to say to me—"

"I have; in the garden—"

"No, I dare not risk it to-night. The guards are about—"

"It is my last night here—"

"We will see each other very soon in New York. And I'll be up in the morning to drive you to the station—"

"But, Shiela, dear—"

"There was a bad nigger hanging around the groves last night and our patrols are out.... No, it's too risky. Besides—"

"Besides—what?"

"I've been thinking."

He said, tenderly impatient:

"You little witch of Ogygia, come into the patio then, and do your thinking and let me make love to you."

But she would not raise her eyes, standing there in the rose lamplight, the perverse smile still edging her lips.

"Calypso," he repeated persuasively.

"No.... Besides, I have nothing to offer you, Ulysses.... You remember what the real Calypso offered the real Ulysses if he'd remain with her in Ogygia?"

"Eternal youth and love?" He bent over the table, moving his hand to cover hers where it rested in the lamplight. "You have given me eternity in love already," he said.

"Have I?" But she would not lift her eyes.... "Then why make love to me if you have it ready-made for you?"

"Will you come?"

And she, quoting the Odyssey again:

"Swear, then, thou mean'st not what my soul forebodes; Swear by the solemn oath that binds the gods!"

And in turn he quoted:

"Loved and adored, O goddess as thou art, Forgive the weakness of a human heart."

But she said with gay audacity, "I have nothing to forgive you—yet."

"Are you challenging me? Because I am likely to take you into my arms at any moment if you are."

"Not here—Garry!"—looking up in quick concern, for his recklessness at times dismayed her. Considering him doubtfully she made up her mind that she was safe, and her little chin went up in defiance.

"The hammock's in the patio," he said.

"There's moonlight there, too. No, thank you—with Cissy wakeful and her windows commanding every nook!... Besides—as I told you, I've been thinking."

"And what have you concluded?"

Delicate straight nose in the air, eyebrows arched in airy disdain, she stood preoccupied with some little inward train of thought that alternately made grave and gay the upcurled corners of her lips.

"About this question of—ah—love-making—" dropping her eyes in pretence of humility.

"It is no longer a question, you know."

She would not look up; her lashes seemed to rest on the bloom of the rounded cheek as though the lids were shut, but there came from the shadows between the lids a faint glimmer; and he thought of that first day when from her lifted gaze a thousand gay little demons seemed to laugh at him.

"I've been thinking," she remarked, "that this question of making love to me should be seriously discussed."

"That's what I've been asking you to do in the patio—"

"I've been thinking, with deep but rather tardy concern, that it is not the best policy for me to be—courted—any more."

She glanced up; her entire expression had suddenly altered to a gravity unmistakable.

"What has happened?" he asked.

"Can you tell me? I ask you, Garry, what has happened?"

"I don't understand—"

"Nor I.... Because that little fool you kissed—so many, many centuries ago—is not this disillusioned woman who is standing here!... May I be a little bit serious with you?"

"Of course," he said, amused; "come out on the east balcony and tell me what troubles you."

She considered him, smilingly suspicious of his alacrity.

"I don't think we had better go to the balcony." "Shiela, can't you ever get over being ashamed when I make love to you?"

"I don't want to get over it, Garry."

"Are you still afraid to let me love you?"

Her mouth curved gravely as a perplexed child's; she looked down at the table where his sun-burnt hand now lay lightly across hers.

"I wished to speak to you about myself—if, somehow you could help me to say what—what is very difficult for a girl to say to a man—even when she loves him.... I don't think I can say it, but I'll try."

"Then if you'll come to the balcony—"

"No, I can't trust you—or myself—unless we promise each other."

"Have I got to do that again?"

"Yes, if I am to go with you. I promise! Do you?"

"If I must," he said with very bad grace—so ungraciously in fact that as they passed from the eastern corridor on to the Spanish balcony she forgot her own promise and slipped her hand into his in half-humourous, half-tender propitiation.

"Are you going to be disagreeable to me, Garry?"

"You darling!" he said; and, laughing, yet secretly dismayed at her own perversion, she hurriedly untwisted her fingers from his and made a new and fervid promise to replace the one just broken.

The moonlight was magnificent, silvering forest, dune, and chaparral. Far to the east a thin straight gleam revealed the sea.

She seated herself under the wall, lying back against it; he lay extended on the marble shelf beside her, studying the moonlight on her face.

"What was it you had to tell me, Shiela? Remember I am going in the morning."

"I've turned cowardly; I cannot tell you.... Perhaps later.... Look at the Seminole moon, Garry. They have such a pretty name for it in March—Tau-sau-tchusi—'Little Spring Moon'! And in May they call it the 'Mulberry Moon'—Kee-hassi, and in November it is a charming name—Hee-wu-li—'Falling Leaf Moon'!—and August is Hyothlucco—'Big Ripening Moon.' ... Garry, this moonlight is filling my veins with quicksilver. I feel very restless, very heathenish." ... She cast a slanting side-glance at him, lips parting with soundless laughter; and in the witchery of the moon she seemed exquisitely unreal, head tipped back, slender throat and shoulders snow-white in the magic lustre that enveloped them.

Resting one bare arm on the marble she turned, chin on shoulder, looking mischievously down at him, lovely, fresh, perfect as the Cherokee roses that spread their creamy, flawless beauty across the wall behind her.

Imperceptibly her expression changed to soft friendliness, to tenderness, to a hint of deeper emotion; and her lids drooped a little, then opened gravely under the quick caress of his eyes; and very gently she moved her head from side to side as reminder and refusal.

"Another man's wife," she said deliberately.... "Thy neighbour's wife.... That's what we've done!"

Like a cut of a whip her words brought him upright to confront her, his blood tingling on the quick edge of anger.

For always, deep within him, lay that impotent anger latent; always his ignorance of this man haunted him like the aftermath of an ugly dream. But of the man himself she had never spoken since that first day in the wilderness. And then she had not named him.

Her face had grown very serious, but her eyes remained unfathomable under his angry gaze.

"Is there any reason to raise that spectre between us?" he demanded.

"Dear, has it ever been laid?" she asked sorrowfully.

The muscles in his cheeks tightened and his eyes narrowed unpleasantly. Only the one feature saved the man from sullen commonness in his suppressed anger—and that was his boyish mouth, clean, sweet, nobly moulded, giving the lie to the baffled brutality gleaming in the eyes. And the spark died out as it had come, subdued, extinguished when he could no longer sustain the quiet surprise of her regard.

"How very, very young you are after all," she said gently. "Come nearer. Lift your sulky, wicked head. Now ask my pardon for not understanding."

"I ask it.... But when you speak of him—"

"Hush. He is only a shadow to you—scarcely more to me. He must remain so. Do you not understand that I wish him to remain a shadow to you—a thing without substance—without a name?"

He bent his head, nodding almost imperceptibly.

"Garry?"

He looked up in response.

"There is something else—if I could only say it.... I might if you would close your eyes." ... She hesitated, half-fearful, then drew his head down on her knees, daintily, using her finger-tips only in the operation.

"Are you listening to what I am trying to tell you?"

"Yes, very intently."

"Then—it's about my being afraid—of love.... Are you listening?... It is very difficult for me to say this.... It is about my being afraid.... I used to be when I did not know enough to be. And now, Garry, when I am less ignorant than I was—when I have divined enough of my unknown self to be afraid—dearest, I am not."

She bent gently above the boyish head lying face downward on her knees—waited timidly for some response, touched his hair.

"I am listening," he nodded.

She said: "My will to deny you, my courage to control myself seem to be waning. I love you so; and it is becoming so much worse, such a blind, unreasoning love.... And—do you think it will grow so much worse that I could be capable of anything ignoble? Do you think I might be mad enough to beg my freedom? I—I don't know where it is leading me, dear. Do you? It is that which bewilders me—that I should love you so—that I should not be afraid to love you so.... Hush, dear! Don't speak—for I shall never be able to tell you this if you speak, or look at me. And I want to ask you a question. May I? And will you keep your eyes covered?"

"Yes."

"Then—there are memories which burn my cheeks—hush!—I do not regret them.... Only, what am I changing into that I am capable of forgetting—everything—in the happiness of consenting to things I never dreamed of—like this"—bending and laying her lips softly against his cheek.... "That was wrong; it ought to frighten me. But it does not."

He turned, looking up into the flushed young face and drew it closer till their cheeks touched.

"Don't look at me! Why do you let me drift like this? It is madness—to give up to each other the way we do—"

"I wish we could give up the world for each other."

"I wish so too. I would—except for the others. Do you suppose I'd hesitate if it were not for them?"