CHAPTER VI

THE BIRD BEHIND BARS

The most beautiful blue Irish eyes in the world gazed out at the dawn which turned night-blue into day-blue and paled the stars. Rosal lay the undulating horizon, presently to burst into living flame, transmuting the dull steel bars of the window into fairy gold, that trick of alchemy so futilely sought by man. There was a window at the north and another at the south, likewise barred; but the Irish eyes never sought these two. It was from the east window only that they could see the long white road that led to Paris.

The nightingale was truly caged. But the wild heart of the eagle beat in this nightingale's breast, and the eyes burned as fiercely toward the east as the east burned toward the west. Sunday and Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, to-day; and that the five dawns were singular in beauty and that she had never in her life before witnessed the creation of five days, one after another, made no impression upon her sense of the beautiful, so delicate and receptive in ordinary times. She was conscious that within her the cup of wrath was overflowing. Of other things, such as eating and sleeping and moving about in her cage (more like an eagle indeed than a nightingale), recurrence had blunted her perception.

Her clothes were soiled and crumpled, sundrily torn; her hair was in disorder, and tendrils hung about her temples and forehead—thick black hair, full of purple tones in the sunlight—for she had not surrendered peacefully to this incarceration. Dignity, that phase of philosophy which accepts quietly the inevitable, she had thrown to the winds. She had fought desperately, primordially, when she had learned that her errand of mercy was nothing more than a cruel hoax.

"Oh, but he shall pay, he shall pay!" she murmured, striving to loosen the bars with her small, white, helpless hands. The cry seemed to be an arietta, for through all these four maddening days she had voiced it,—now low and deadly with hate, now full-toned in burning anger, now broken by sobs of despair. "Will you never come, so that I may tell you how base and vile you are?" she further addressed the east.

She had waited for his appearance on Sunday. Late in the day one of the jailers had informed her that it was impossible for the gentleman to come before Monday. So she marshaled her army of phrases, of accusations, of denunciations, ready to smother him with them the moment he came. But he came not Monday, nor Tuesday, nor Wednesday. The suspense was to her mind diabolical. She began to understand: he intended to keep her there till he was sure that her spirit was broken, then he would come. Break her spirit? She laughed wildly. He could break her spirit no more easily than she could break these bars. To bring her to Versailles upon an errand of mercy! Well, he was capable of anything.

The room was large and fairly comfortable, but contained nothing breakable, having been tenanted at one time by a strenuous lunatic, who had considerately died after his immediate family and relations had worn themselves into their several graves, taking care of him. But Eleonora Harrigan knew nothing of the history of the room while she occupied it. So, no ghost disturbed her restless slumberless nights, consumed in watching and listening.

She was not particularly distressed because she knew that it would not be possible for her to sing again until the following winter in New York. She had sobbed too much, with her face buried in the pillow. Had these sobs been born of weakness, all might have been well; but rage had mothered them, and thus her voice was in a very bad way. This morning she was noticeably hoarse, and there was a break in the arietta. No, she did not fret over this side of the calamity. The sting of it all lay in the fact that she had been outraged in the matter of personal liberty, with no act of reprisal to ease her immediate longing to be avenged.

Nora, as she stood in the full morning sunlight, was like to gladden the eyes of all mankind. She was beautiful, and all adjectives applicable would but serve to confuse rather than to embellish her physical excellence. She was as beautiful as a garden rose is, needing no defense, no ramparts of cloying phrases. The day of poets is gone, otherwise she would have been sung in cantos. She was tall, shapely, deep-bosomed, fine-skinned. Critics, in praising her charms, delved into mythology and folk-lore for comparisons, until there wasn't a goddess left on Olympus or on Northland's icy capes; and when these images became a little shop-worn, referred to certain masterpieces of the old fellows who had left nothing more to be said in oils. Nora enjoyed it all.

She had not been happy in the selection of her stage name; but she had chosen Eleonora da Toscana because she believed there was good luck in it. Once, long before the world knew of her, she had returned home from Italy unexpectedly. "Molly, here's Nora, from Tuscany!" her delighted father had cried: who at that time had a nebulous idea that Tuscany was somewhere in Ireland because it had a Celtic ring to it. Being filled with love of Italy, its tongue, its history, its physical beauty, she naively translated "Nora from Tuscany" into Italian, and declared that when she went upon the stage she would be known by that name. There had been some smiling over the pseudonym; but Nora was Irish enough to cling to it. By and by the great music-loving public ceased to concern itself about her name; it was her fresh beauty and her wonderful voice they craved to see and hear. Kings and queens, emperors and empresses, princes and princesses,—what is called royalty and nobility in the newspapers freely gave her homage. Quite a rise in the world for a little girl who had once lived in a shabby apartment in New York and run barefooted on the wet asphalts, summer nights!

But Nora was not recalling the happy scenes of her childhood; indeed, no; she was still threatening Paris. Once there, she would not lack for reprisals. To have played on her pity! To have made a lure of her tender concern for the unfortunate! Never would she forgive such baseness. And only a little while ago she had been as happy as the nightingale to which they compared her. Never had she wronged any one; she had been kindness and thoughtfulness to all with whom she had come in contact. But from now on!... Her fingers tightened round the bars. She might have posed as Dido when she learned that the noble AEneas was dead. War, war; woe to the moths who fluttered about her head hereafter!

Ah, but had she been happy? Her hands slid down the bars. Her expression changed. The mouth drooped, the eagle-light in her eyes dimmed. From out the bright morning, somewhere, had come weariness, and with this came weakness, and finally, tears.

She heard the key turn in the lock. They had never come so early before. She was astonished to see that her jailer did not close the door as usual. He put down the breakfast tray on the table. There was tea and toast and fruit.

"Mademoiselle, there has been a terrible mistake," said the man humbly.

"Ah! So you have found that out?" she cried.

"Yes. You are not the person for whom this room was intended." Which was half a truth and perfectly true, paradoxical as it may seem. "Eat your breakfast in peace. You are free, Mademoiselle."

"Free? You will not hinder me if I walk through that door?"

"No, Mademoiselle. On the contrary, I shall be very glad, and so will my brother, who guards you at night. I repeat, there has been a frightful mistake. Monsieur Champeaux ..."

"Monsieur Champeaux!" Nora was bewildered. She had never heard this name before.

"He calls himself that," was the diplomatic answer.

All Nora's suspicions took firm ground again. "Will you describe this Monsieur Champeaux to me?" asked the actress coming into life.

"He is short, dark, and old, Mademoiselle."

"Rather is he not tall, blond, and young?" ironically.

The jailer concealed what annoyance he felt. In his way he was just as capable an actor as she was. The accuracy of her description startled him; for the affair had been carried out so adroitly that he had been positive that until her real captor appeared she would be totally in the dark regarding his identity. And here she had hit it off in less than a dozen words. Oh, well; it did not matter now. She might try to make it unpleasant for his employer, but he doubted the ultimate success of her attempts. However, the matter was at an end as far as he was concerned.

"Have you thought what this means? It is abduction. It is a crime you have committed, punishable by long imprisonment."

"I have been Mademoiselle's jailer, not her abductor. And when one is poor and in need of money!" He shrugged.

"I will give you a thousand francs for the name and address of the man who instigated this outrage."

Ah, he thought: then she wasn't so sure? "I told you the name, Mademoiselle. As for his address, I dare not give it, not for ten thousand francs. Besides, I have said that there has been a mistake."

"For whom have I been mistaken?"

"Who but Monsieur Champeaux's wife, Mademoiselle, who is not in her right mind?" with inimitable sadness.

"Very well," said Nora. "You say that I am free. That is all I want, freedom."

"In twenty minutes the electric tram leaves for Paris. You will recall, Mademoiselle," humbly, "that we have taken nothing belonging to you. You have your purse and hat and cloak. The struggle was most unfortunate. But, think, Mademoiselle, think; we thought you to be insane!"

"Permit me to doubt that! And you are not afraid to let me go?"

"Not in the least, Mademoiselle. A mistake has been made, and in telling you to go at once, we do our best to rectify this mistake. It is only five minutes to the tram. A carriage is at the door. Will Mademoiselle be pleased to remember that we have treated her with the utmost courtesy?"

"I shall remember everything," ominously.

"Very good, Mademoiselle. You will be in Paris before nine." With this he bowed and backed out of the room as though Nora had suddenly made a distinct ascension in the scale of importance.

"Wait!" she called.

His face appeared in the doorway again.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Since this morning, Mademoiselle."

"That is all."

Free! Her veins tingled with strange exultation. He had lost his courage and had become afraid of the consequences. Free! Monsieur Champeaux indeed! Cowardice was a new development in his character. He had been afraid to come. She drank the tea, but did not touch the toast or fruit. There would be time enough for breakfast when she arrived in Paris. Her hands trembled violently as she pinned on her hat, and she was not greatly concerned as to the angle. She snatched up her purse and cloak, and sped out into the street. A phaeton awaited her.

"The tram," she said.

"Yes, Mademoiselle."

"And go quickly." She would not feel safe until she was in the tram.

A face appeared at one of the windows. As the vehicle turned the corner, the face vanished; and perhaps that particular visage disappeared forever. A gray wig came off, the little gray side-whiskers, the bushy grey eyebrows, revealing a clever face, not more than thirty, cunning, but humorously cunning and anything but scoundrelly. The painted scar aslant the nose was also obliterated. With haste the man thrust the evidences of disguise into a traveling-bag, ran here and there through the rooms, all bare and unfurnished save the one with the bars and the kitchen, which contained two cots and some cooking utensils. Nothing of importance had been left behind. He locked the door and ran all the way to the Place d'Armes, catching the tram to Paris by a fraction of a minute.

All very well done. She would be in Paris before the police made any definite move. The one thing that disturbed him was the thought of the blockhead of a chauffeur, who had got drunk before his return from Versailles. If he talked; well, he could say nothing beyond the fact that he had deposited the singer at the house as directed. He knew positively nothing.

The man laughed softly. A thousand francs apiece for him and Antoine, and no possible chance of being discovered. Let the police find the house in Versailles; let them trace whatever paths they found; the agent would tell them, and honestly, that an aged man had rented the house for a month and had paid him in advance. What more could the agent say? Only one bit of puzzlement: why hadn't the blond stranger appeared? Who was he, in truth, and what had been his game? All this waiting and wondering, and then a curt telegram of the night before, saying, "Release her." So much the better. What his employer's motives were did not interest him half so much as the fact that he had a thousand francs in his pocket, and that all element of danger had been done away with. True, the singer herself would move heaven and earth to find out who had been back of the abduction. Let her make her accusations. He was out of it.

He glanced toward the forward part of the tram. There she sat, staring at the white road ahead. A young Frenchman sat near her, curling his mustache desperately. So beautiful and all alone! At length he spoke to her. She whirled upon him so suddenly that his hat fell off his head and rolled at the feet of the onlooker.

"Your hat, Monsieur?" he said gravely, returning it.

Nora laughed maliciously. The author of the abortive flirtation fled down to the body of the tram.

And now there was no one on top but Nora and her erstwhile jailer, whom she did not recognize in the least.

* * * * *

"Mademoiselle," said the great policeman soberly, "this is a grave accusation to make."

"I make it, nevertheless," replied Nora. She sat stiffly in her chair, her face colorless, dark circles under her eyes. She never looked toward Courtlandt.

"But Monsieur Courtlandt has offered an alibi such as we can not ignore. More than that, his integrity is vouched for by the gentleman at his side, whom doubtless Mademoiselle recognizes."

Nora eyed the great man doubtfully.

"What is the gentleman to you?" she was interrogated.

"Absolutely nothing," contemptuously.

The minister inspected his rings.

"He has annoyed me at various times," continued Nora; "that is all. And his actions on Friday night warrant every suspicion I have entertained against him."

The chief of police turned toward the bandaged chauffeur. "You recognize the gentleman?"

"No, Monsieur, I never saw him before. It was an old man who engaged me."

"Go on."

"He said that Mademoiselle's old teacher was very ill and asked for assistance. I left Mademoiselle at the house and drove away. I was hired from the garage. That is the truth, Monsieur."

Nora smiled disbelievingly. Doubtless he had been paid well for that lie.

"And you?" asked the chief of Nora's chauffeur.

"He is certainly the gentleman, Monsieur, who attempted to bribe me."

"That is true," said Courtlandt with utmost calmness.

"Mademoiselle, if Monsieur Courtlandt wished, he could accuse you of attempting to shoot him."

"It was an accident. His sudden appearance in my apartment frightened me. Besides, I believe a woman who lives comparatively alone has a legal and moral right to protect herself from such unwarrantable intrusions. I wish him no physical injury, but I am determined to be annoyed by him no longer."

The minister's eyes sought Courtlandt's face obliquely. Strange young man, he thought. From the expression of his face he might have been a spectator rather than the person most vitally concerned in this little scene. And what a pair they made!

"Monsieur Courtlandt, you will give me your word of honor not to annoy Mademoiselle again?"

"I promise never to annoy her again."

For the briefest moment the blazing blue eyes clashed with the calm brown ones. The latter were first to deviate from the line. It was not agreeable to look into a pair of eyes burning with the hate of one's self. Perhaps this conflagration was intensified by the placidity of his gaze. If only there had been some sign of anger, of contempt, anything but this incredible tranquillity against which she longed to cry out! She was too wrathful to notice the quickening throb of the veins on his temples.

"Mademoiselle, I find no case against Monsieur Courtlandt, unless you wish to appear against him for his forcible entrance to your apartment." Nora shook her head. The chief of police stroked his mustache to hide the fleeting smile. A peculiar case, the like of which had never before come under his scrutiny! "Circumstantial evidence, we know, points to him; but we have also an alibi which is incontestable. We must look elsewhere for your abductors. Think; have you not some enemy? Is there no one who might wish you worry and inconvenience? Are your associates all loyal to you? Is there any jealousy?"

"No, none at all, Monsieur," quickly and decidedly.

"In my opinion, then, the whole affair is a hoax, perpetrated to vex and annoy you. The old man who employed this chauffeur may not have been old. I have looked upon all sides of the affair, and it begins to look like a practical joke, Mademoiselle."

"Ah!" angrily. "And am I to have no redress? Think of the misery I have gone through, the suspense! My voice is gone. I shall not be able to sing again for months. Is it your suggestion that I drop the investigation?"

"Yes, Mademoiselle, for it does not look as if we could get anywhere with it. If you insist, I will hold Monsieur Courtlandt; but I warn you the magistrate would not hesitate to dismiss the case instantly. Monsieur Courtlandt arrived in Marseilles Thursday morning; he reached Paris Friday morning. Since arriving in Paris he has fully accounted for his time. It is impossible that he could have arranged for the abduction. Still, if you say, I can hold him for entering your apartment."

"That would be but a farce." Nora rose. "Monsieur, permit me to wish you good day. For my part, I shall pursue this matter to the end. I believe this gentleman guilty, and I shall do my best to prove it. I am a woman, and all alone. When a man has powerful friends, it is not difficult to build an alibi."

"That is a reflection upon my word, Mademoiselle," quietly interposed the minister.

"Monsieur has been imposed upon." Nora walked to the door.

"Wait a moment, Mademoiselle," said the prefect. "Why do you insist upon prosecuting him for something of which he is guiltless, when you could have him held for something of which he is really guilty?"

"The one is trivial; the other is a serious outrage. Good morning." The attendant closed the door behind her.

"A very determined young woman," mused the chief of police.

"Exceedingly," agreed the minister.

Courtlandt got up wearily. But the chief motioned him to be reseated.

"I do not say that I dare not pursue my investigations; but now that mademoiselle is safely returned, I prefer not to."

"May I ask who made this request?" asked Courtlandt.

"Request? Yes, Monsieur, it was a request not to proceed further."

"From where?"

"As to that, you will have to consult the head of the state. I am not at liberty to make the disclosure."

The minister leaned forward eagerly. "Then there is a political side to it?"

"There would be if everything had not turned out so fortunately."

"I believe that I understand now," said Courtlandt, his face hardening. Strange, he had not thought of it before. His skepticism had blinded him to all but one angle. "Your advice to drop the matter is excellent."

The chief of police elevated his brows interrogatively.

"For I presume," continued Courtlandt, rising, "that Mademoiselle's abductor is by this time safely across the frontier."



CHAPTER VII

BATTLING JIMMIE

There is a heavenly terrace, flanked by marvelous trees. To the left, far down below, is a curving, dark-shaded, turquoise body of water called Lecco; to the right there lies the queen of lakes, the crown of Italy, a corn-flower sapphire known as Como. Over and about it—this terrace—poets have raved and tousled their neglected locks in vain to find the perfect phrasing; novelists have come and gone and have carried away peace and inspiration; and painters have painted it from a thousand points of view, and perhaps are painting it from another thousand this very minute. It is the Place of Honeymoons. Rich lovers come and idle there; and lovers of modest means rush up to it and down from it to catch the next steamer to Menaggio. Eros was not born in Greece: of all barren mountains, unstirring, Hymettus, or Olympus, or whatever they called it in the days of the junketing gods, is completest. No; Venus went a-touring and abode a while upon this same gracious spot, once dear to Pliny the younger.

Between the blessed ledge and the towering mountains over the way, rolls a small valley, caressed on either side by the lakes. There are flower gardens, from which in summer rises the spicy perfume of lavender; there are rows upon rows of grape-vines, terraced downward; there are purple figs and white and ruby mulberries. Around and about, rising sheer from the waters, wherever the eye may rove, heaven-touching, salmon-tinted mountains abound, with scarfs of filmy cloud aslant their rugged profiles, and beauty-patches of snow. And everywhere the dark and brooding cypress, the copper beech, the green pine accentuate the pink and blue and white stucco of the villas, the rich and the humble.

Behind the terrace is a promontory, three or four hundred feet above the waters. Upon the crest is a cultivated forest of all known evergreens. There are ten miles of cool and fragrant paths, well trodden by the devotees of Eros. The call of love is heard here; the echoes to-day reverberate with the impassioned declarations of yesterday. The Englishman's reserve melts, the American forgets his coupons, the German puts his arm around the robust waist of his frau or fraeulein. (This is nothing for him; he does it unconcernedly up and down the great urban highways of the world.)

Again, between the terrace ledge and the forest lies a square of velvet green, abounding in four-leaf clover. Buona fortuna! In the center there is a fountain. The water tinkles in drops. One hears its soft music at all times. Along the terrace parapet are tea-tables; a monster oak protects one from the sun. If one (or two) lingers over tea and cakes, one may witness the fiery lances of the setting sun burn across one arm of water while the silver spars of the rising moon shimmer across the other. Nature is whole-souled here; she gives often and freely and all she has.

Seated on one of the rustic benches, his white tennis shoes resting against the lower iron of the railing, a Bavarian dachel snoozing comfortably across his knees, was a man of fifty. He was broad of shoulder, deep of chest, and clean-shaven. He had laid aside his Panama hat, and his hair was clipped closely, and was pleasantly and honorably sprinkled with gray. His face was broad and tanned; the nose was tilted, and the wide mouth was both kindly and humorous. One knew, from the tint of his blue eyes and the quirk of his lips, that when he spoke there would be a bit of brogue. He was James Harrigan, one time celebrated in the ring for his gameness, his squareness, his endurance; "Battling Jimmie" Harrigan, who, when he encountered his first knock-out, retired from the ring. He had to his credit sixty-one battles, of which he had easily won forty. He had been outpointed in some and had broken even in others; but only once had he been "railroaded into dreamland," to use the parlance of the game. That was enough. He understood. Youth would be served, and he was no longer young. He had, unlike the many in his peculiar service, lived cleanly and with wisdom and foresight: he had saved both his money and his health. To-day he was at peace with the world, with three sound appetites the day and the wherewithal to gratify them.

True, he often dreamed of the old days, the roped square, the lights, the haze of tobacco smoke, the white patches surrounding, all of a certain expectant tilt, the reporters scribbling on the deal tables under the very posts, the cheers as he took his corner and scraped his shoes in the powdered resin, the padded gloves thrown down in the center of the canvas which was already scarred and soiled by the preliminaries. But never, never again; if only for the little woman's sake. Only when the game was done did he learn with what terror and dread she had waited for his return on fighting nights.

To-day "Battling Jimmie" was forgotten by the public, and he was happy in the seclusion of this forgetfulness. A new and strange career had opened up before him: he was the father of the most beautiful prima donna in the operatic world, and, difficult as the task was, he did his best to live up to it. It was hard not to offer to shake hands when he was presented to a princess or a duchess; it was hard to remember when to change the studs in his shirt; and a white cravat was the terror of his nights, for his fingers, broad and stubby and powerful, had not been trained to the delicate task of tying a bow-knot. By a judicious blow in that spot where the ribs divaricate he could right well tie his adversary into a bow-knot, but this string of white lawn was a most damnable thing. Still, the puttering of the two women, their daily concern over his deportment, was bringing him into conformity with social usages. That he naturally despised the articles of such a soulless faith was evident in his constant inclination to play hooky. One thing he rebelled against openly, and with such firmness that the women did not press him too strongly for fear of a general revolt. On no occasion, however impressive, would he wear a silk hat. Christmas and birthdays invariably called forth the gift of a silk hat, for the women trusted that they could overcome resistance by persistence. He never said anything, but it was noticed that the hotel porter, or the gardener, or whatever masculine head (save his own) was available, came forth resplendent on feast-days and Sundays.

Leaning back in an iron chair, with his shoulders resting against the oak, was another man, altogether a different type. He was frowning over the pages of Bagot's Italian Lakes, and he wasn't making much headway. He was Italian to the core, for all that he aped the English style and manner. He could speak the tongue with fluency, but he stumbled and faltered miserably over the soundless type. His clothes had the Piccadilly cut, and his mustache, erstwhile waxed and militant, was cropped at the corners, thoroughly insular. He was thirty, and undeniably handsome.

Near the fountain, on the green, was a third man. He was in the act of folding up an easel and a camp-stool.

The tea-drinkers had gone. It was time for the first bell for dinner. The villa's omnibus was toiling up the winding road among the grape-vines. Suddenly Harrigan tilted his head sidewise, and the long silken ears of the dachel stirred. The Italian slowly closed his book and permitted his chair to settle on its four legs. The artist stood up from his paintbox. From a window in the villa came a voice; only a lilt of a melody, no words,—half a dozen bars from Martha; but every delightful note went deep into the three masculine hearts. Harrigan smiled and patted the dog. The Italian scowled at the vegetable garden directly below. The artist scowled at the Italian.

"Fritz, Fritz; here, Fritz!"

The dog struggled in Harrigan's hands and tore himself loose. He went clattering over the path toward the villa and disappeared into the doorway. Nothing could keep him when that voice called. He was as ardent a lover as any, and far more favored.

"Oh, you funny little dog! You merry little dachel! Fritz, mustn't; let go!" Silence.

The artist knew that she was cuddling the puppy to her heart, and his own grew twisted. He stooped over his materials again and tied the box to the easel and the stool, and shifted them under his arm.

"I'll be up after dinner, Mr. Harrigan," he said.

"All right, Abbott." Harrigan waved his hand pleasantly. He was becoming so used to the unvarying statement that Abbott would be up after dinner, that his reply was by now purely mechanical. "She's getting her voice back all right; eh?"

"Beautifully! But I really don't think she ought to sing at the Haines' villa Sunday."

"One song won't hurt her. She's made up her mind to sing. There's nothing for us to do but to sit tight. No news from Paris?"

"No."

"Say, do you know what I think?"

"What?"

"Some one has come across to the police."

"Paris is not New York, Mr. Harrigan."

"Oh, I don't know. There's a hundred cents to the dollar, my boy, Paris or New York. Why haven't they moved? They can't tell me that tow-headed chap's alibi was on the level. I wish I'd been in Paris. There'd been something doing. And who was he? They refuse to give his name. And I can't get a word out of Nora. Shuts me up with a bang when I mention it. Throws her nerves all out, she says. I'd like to get my hands on the blackguard."

"So would I. It's a puzzle. If he had molested her while she was a captive, you could understand. But he never came near her."

"Busted his nerve, that's what."

"I have my doubts about that. A man who will go that far isn't subject to any derangement of his nerves. Want me to bring up the checkers?"

"Sure. I've got two rubbers hanging over you."

The artist took the path that led around the villa and thence down by many steps to the village by the waterside, to the cream-tinted cluster of shops and enormous hotels.

The Italian was more fortunate. He was staying at the villa. He rose and sauntered over to Harrigan, who was always a source of interest to him. Study the man as he might, there always remained a profound mystery to his keen Italian mind. Every now and then nature—to prove that while she provided laws for humanity she obeyed none herself—nature produced the prodigy. Ancestry was nothing; habits, intelligence, physical appearance counted for naught. Harrigan was a fine specimen of the physical man, yes; but to be the father of a woman who was as beautiful as the legendary goddesses and who possessed a voice incomparable in the living history of music, here logic, the cold and accurate intruder, found an unlockable door. He liked the ex-prizefighter, so kindly and wholesome; but he also pitied him. Harrigan reminded him of a seal he had once seen in an aquarium tank: out of his element, but merry-eyed and swimming round and round as if determined to please everybody.

"It will be a fine night," said the Italian, pausing at Harrigan's bench.

"Every night is fine here, Barone," replied Harrigan. "Why, they had me up in Marienbad a few weeks ago, and I'm not over it yet. It's no place for a sick man; only a well man could come out of it alive."

The Barone laughed. Harrigan had told this tale half a dozen times, but each time the Barone felt called on to laugh. The man was her father.

"Do you know, Mr. Harrigan, Miss Harrigan is not herself? She is—what do you call?—bitter. She laughs, but—ah, I do not know!—it sounds not real."

"Well, she isn't over that rumpus in Paris yet."

"Rumpus?"

"The abduction."

"Ah, yes! Rumpus is another word for abduction? Yes, yes, I see."

"No, no! Rumpus is just a mix-up, a row, anything that makes a noise, calls in the police. You can make a rumpus on the piano, over a game of cards, anything."

The Barone spread his hands. "I comprehend," hurriedly. He comprehended nothing, but he was too proud to admit it.

"So Nora is not herself; a case of nerves. And to think that you called there at the apartment the very day!"

"Ah, if I had been there the right time!"

"But what puts me down for the count is the action of the fellow. Never showed up; just made her miss two performances."

"He was afraid. Men who do cowardly things are always afraid." The Barone spoke with decided accent, but he seldom made a grammatical error. "But sometimes, too, men grow mad at once, and they do things in their madness. Ah, she is so beautiful! She is a nightingale." The Italian looked down on Como whose broad expanse was crisscrossed by rippled paths made by arriving and departing steamers. "It is not a wonder that some man might want to run away with her."

Harrigan looked curiously at the other. "Well, it won't be healthy for any man to try it again." The father held out his powerful hands for the Barone's inspection. They called mutely but expressively for the throat of the man who dared. "It'll never happen again. Her mother and I are not going away from her any more. When she sings in Berlin, I'm going to trail along; when she hits the high note in Paris, I'm lingering near; when she trills in London, I'm hiding in the shadow. And you may put that in your pipe and smoke it."

"I smoke only cigarettes," replied the Barone gravely. It had been difficult to follow, this English.

Harrigan said nothing in return. He had given up trying to explain to the Italian the idiomatic style of old Broadway. He got up and brushed his flannels perfunctorily. "Well, I suppose I've got to dress for supper," resentfully. He still called it supper; and, as in the matter of the silk hat, his wife no longer strove to correct him. The evening meal had always been supper, and so it would remain until that time when he would cease to look forward to it.

"Do you go to the dancing at Cadenabbia to-night?"

"Me? I should say not!" Harrigan laughed. "I'd look like a bull in a china-shop. Abbott is coming up to play checkers with me. I'll leave the honors to you."

The Barone's face lighted considerably. He hated the artist only when he was visible. He was rather confused, however. Abbott had been invited to the dance. Why wasn't he going? Could it be true? Had the artist tried his luck and lost? Ah, if fate were as kind as that! He let Harrigan depart alone.

Why not? What did he care? What if the father had been a fighter for prizes? What if the mother was possessed with a misguided desire to shine socially? What mattered it if they had once resided in an obscure tenement in a great city, and that grandfathers were as far back as they could go with any certainty? Was he not his own master? What titled woman of his acquaintance whose forebears had been powerful in the days of the Borgias, was not dimmed in the presence of this wonderful maid to whom all things had been given unreservedly? Her brow was fit for a royal crown, let alone a simple baronial tiara such as he could provide. The mother favored him a little; of this he was reasonably certain; but the moods of the daughter were difficult to discover or to follow.

To-night! The round moon was rising palely over Lecco; the moon, mistress of love and tides, toward whom all men and maids must look, though only Eros knows why! Evidently there was no answer to the Italian's question, for he faced about and walked moodily toward the entrance. Here he paused, looking up at the empty window. Again a snatch of song—

O solo mio ... che bella cosa...!

What a beautiful thing indeed! Passionately he longed for the old days, when by his physical prowess alone oft a man won his lady. Diplomacy, torrents of words, sly little tricks, subterfuges, adroitness, stolen glances, careless touches of the hand; by these must a maid be won to-day. When she was happy she sang, when she was sad, when she was only mischievous. She was just as likely to sing O terra addio when she was happy as O sole mio when she was sad. So, how was a man to know the right approach to her variant moods? Sighing deeply, he went on to his room, to change his Piccadilly suit for another which was supposed to be the last word in the matter of evening dress.

Below, in the village, a man entered the Grand Hotel. He was tall, blond, rosy-cheeked. He carried himself like one used to military service; also, like one used to giving peremptory orders. The porter bowed, the director bowed, and the proprietor himself became a living carpenter's square, hinged. The porter and the director recognized a personage; the proprietor recognized the man. It was of no consequence that the new arrival called himself Herr Rosen. He was assigned to a suite of rooms, and on returning to the bureau, the proprietor squinted his eyes abstractedly. He knew every woman of importance at that time residing on the Point. Certainly it could be none of these. Himmel! He struck his hands together. So that was it: the singer. He recalled the hints in certain newspaper paragraphs, the little tales with the names left to the imagination. So that was it?

What a woman! Men looked at her and went mad. And not so long ago one had abducted her in Paris. The proprietor threw up his hands in despair. What was going to happen to the peace of this bucolic spot? The youth permitted nothing to stand in his way, and the singer's father was a retired fighter with boxing-gloves!



CHAPTER VIII

MOONLIGHT AND A PRINCE

When he had fought what he considered two rattling rounds, Harrigan conceded that his cravat had once more got the decision over him on points. And the cravat was only a second-rater, too, a black-silk affair. He tossed up the sponge and went down to the dining-room, the ends of the conqueror straggling like the four points of a battered weather-vane. His wife and daughter and Mademoiselle Fournier were already at their table by the casement window, from which they could see the changing granite mask of Napoleon across Lecco.

At the villa there were seldom more than ten or twelve guests, this being quite the capacity of the little hotel. These generally took refuge here in order to escape the noise and confusion of a large hotel, to avoid the necessity of dining in state every night. Few of the men wore evening dress, save on occasions when they were entertaining. The villa wasn't at all fashionable, and the run of American tourists fought shy of it, preferring the music and dancing and card-playing of the famous hostelries along the water-front. Of course, everybody came up for the view, just as everybody went up the Corner Grat (by cable) at Zermatt to see the Matterhorn. But for all its apparent dulness, there, was always an English duchess, a Russian princess, or a lady from the Faubourg St.-Germain somewhere about, resting after a strenuous winter along the Riviera. Nora Harrigan sought it not only because she loved the spot, but because it sheltered her from idle curiosity. It was almost as if the villa were hers, and the other people her guests.

Harrigan crossed the room briskly, urged by an appetite as sound as his views on life. The chef here was a king; there was always something to look forward to at the dinner hour; some new way of serving spinach, or lentils, or some irresistible salad. He smiled at every one and pulled out his chair.

"Sorry to keep you folks waiting."

"James!"

"What's the matter now?" he asked good-naturedly. Never that tone but something was out of kilter.

His wife glanced wrathfully at his feet. Wonderingly he looked down. In the heat of the battle with his cravat he had forgotten all about his tennis shoes.

"I see. No soup for mine." He went back to his room, philosophically. There was always something wrong when he got into these infernal clothes.

"Mother," said Nora, "why can't you let him be?"

"But white shoes!" in horror.

"Who cares? He's the patientest man I know. We're always nagging him, and I for one am going to stop. Look about! So few men and women dress for dinner. You do as you please here, and that is why I like it."

"I shall never be able to do anything with him as long as he sees that his mistakes are being condoned by you," bitterly responded the mother. "Some day he will humiliate us all by his carelessness."

"Oh, bother!" Nora's elbow slyly dug into Celeste's side.

The pianist's pretty face was bent over her soup. She had grown accustomed to these little daily rifts. For the great, patient, clumsy, happy-go-lucky man she entertained an intense pity. But it was not the kind that humiliates; on the contrary, it was of a mothering disposition; and the ex-gladiator dimly recognized it, and felt more comfortable with her than with any other woman excepting Nora. She understood him perhaps better than either mother or daughter; he was too late: he belonged to a distant time, the beginning of the Christian era; and often she pictured him braving the net and the trident in the saffroned arena.

Mrs. Harrigan broke her bread vexatiously. Her husband refused to think for himself, and it was wearing on her nerves to watch him day and night. Deep down under the surface of new adjustments and social ambitions, deep in the primitive heart, he was still her man. But it was only when he limped with an occasional twinge of rheumatism, or a tooth ached, or he dallied with his meals, that the old love-instinct broke up through these artificial crustations. True, she never knew how often he invented these trivial ailments, for he soon came into the knowledge that she was less concerned about him when he was hale and hearty. She still retained evidences of a blossomy beauty. Abbott had once said truly that nature had experimented on her; it was in the reproduction that perfection had been reached. To see the father, the mother, and the daughter together it was not difficult to fashion a theory as to the latter's splendid health and physical superiority. Arriving at this point, however, theory began to fray at the ends. No one could account for the genius and the voice. The mother often stood lost in wonder that out of an ordinary childhood, a barelegged, romping, hoydenish childhood, this marvel should emerge: her's!

She was very ambitious for her daughter. She wanted to see nothing less than a ducal coronet upon the child's brow, British preferred. If ordinary chorus girls and vaudeville stars, possessing only passable beauty and no intelligence whatever, could bring earls into their nets, there was no reason why Nora could not be a princess or a duchess. So she planned accordingly. But the child puzzled and eluded her; and from time to time she discovered a disquieting strength of character behind a disarming amiability. Ever since Nora had returned home by way of the Orient, the mother had recognized a subtle change, so subtle that she never had an opportunity of alluding to it verbally. Perhaps the fault lay at her own door. She should never have permitted Nora to come abroad alone to fill her engagements.

But that Nora was to marry a duke was, to her mind, a settled fact. It is a peculiar phase, this of the humble who find themselves, without effort of their own, thrust up among the great and the so-called, who forget whence they came in the fierce contest for supremacy upon that tottering ledge called society. The cad and the snob are only infrequently well-born. Mrs. Harrigan was as yet far from being a snob, but it required some tact upon Nora's part to prevent this dubious accomplishment.

"Is Mr. Abbott going with us?" she inquired.

"Donald is sulking," Nora answered. "For once the Barone got ahead of him in engaging the motor-boat."

"I wish you would not call him by his first name."

"And why not? I like him, and he is a very good comrade."

"You do not call the Barone by his given name."

"Heavens, no! If I did he would kiss me. These Italians will never understand western customs, mother. I shall never marry an Italian, much as I love Italy."

"Nor a Frenchman?" asked Celeste.

"Nor a Frenchman."

"I wish I knew if you meant it," sighed the mother.

"My dear, I have given myself to the stage. You will never see me being led to the altar."

"No, you will do the leading when the time comes," retorted the mother.

"Mother, the men I like you may count upon the fingers of one hand. Three of them are old. For the rest, I despise men."

"I suppose some day you will marry some poverty-stricken artist," said the mother, filled with dark foreboding.

"You would not call Donald poverty-stricken."

"No. But you will never marry him."

"No. I never shall."

Celeste smoothed her hands, a little trick she had acquired from long hours spent at the piano. "He will make some woman a good husband."

"That he will."

"And he is most desperately in love with you."

"That's nonsense!" scoffed Nora. "He thinks he is. He ought to fall in love with you, Celeste. Every time you play the fourth ballade he looks as if he was ready to throw himself at your feet."

"Pouf! For ten minutes?" Celeste laughed bravely. "He leaves me quickly enough when you begin to sing."

"Glamour, glamour!"

"Well, I should not care for the article second-hand."

The arrival of Harrigan put an end to this dangerous trend of conversation. He walked in tight proper pumps, and sat down. He was only hungry now; the zest for dining was gone.

"Don't go sitting out in the night air, Nora," he warned.

"I sha'n't."

"And don't dance more than you ought to. Your mother would let you wear the soles off your shoes if she thought you were attracting attention. Don't do it."

"James, that is not true," the mother protested.

"Well, Molly, you do like to hear 'em talk. I wish they knew how to cook a good club steak."

"I brought up a book from the village for you to-day," said Mrs. Harrigan, sternly.

"I'll bet a dollar it's on how to keep the creases in a fellow's pants."

"Trousers."

"Pants," helping himself to the last of the romaine. "What time do you go over?"

"At nine. We must be getting ready now," said Nora. "Don't wait up for us."

"And only one cigar," added the mother.

"Say, Molly, you keep closing in on me. Tobacco won't hurt me any, and I get a good deal of comfort out of it these days."

"Two," smiled Nora.

"But his heart!"

"And what in mercy's name is the matter with his heart? The doctor at Marienbad said that father was the soundest man of his age he had ever met." Nora looked quizzically at her father.

He grinned. Out of his own mouth he had been nicely trapped. That morning he had complained of a little twinge in his heart, a childish subterfuge to take Mrs. Harrigan's attention away from the eternal society page of the Herald. It had succeeded. He had even been cuddled.

"James, you told me..."

"Oh, Molly, I only wanted to talk to you."

"To do so it isn't necessary to frighten me to death," reproachfully. "One cigar, and no more."

"Molly, what ails you?" as they left the dining-room. "Nora's right. That sawbones said I was made of iron. I'm only smoking native cigars, and it takes a bunch of 'em to get the taste of tobacco. All right; in a few months you'll have me with the stuffed canary under the glass top. What's the name of that book?" diplomatically.

"Social Usages."

"Break away!"

Nora laughed. "But, dad, you really must read it carefully. It will tell you how to talk to a duchess, if you chance to meet one when I am not around. It has all the names of the forks and knives and spoons, and it tells you never to use sugar on your lettuce." And then she threw her arm around her mother's waist. "Honey, when you buy books for father, be sure they are by Dumas or Haggard or Doyle. Otherwise he will never read a line."

"And I try so hard!" Tears came into Mrs. Harrigan's eyes.

"There, there, Molly, old girl!" soothed the outlaw. "I'll read the book. I know I'm a stupid old stumbling-block, but it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, that is, at the ring of the gong. Run along to your party. And don't break any more hearts than you need, Nora."

Nora promised in good faith. But once in the ballroom, that little son of Satan called malice-aforethought took possession of her; and there was havoc. If a certain American countess had not patronized her; if certain lorgnettes (implements of torture used by said son of Satan) had not been leveled in her direction; if certain fans had not been suggestively spread between pairs of feminine heads,—Nora would have been as harmless as a playful kitten.

From door to door of the ballroom her mother fluttered like a hen with a duckling. Even Celeste was disturbed, for she saw that Nora's conduct was not due to any light-hearted fun. There was something bitter and ironic cloaked by those smiles, that tinkle of laughter. In fact, Nora from Tuscany flirted outrageously. The Barone sulked and tore at his mustache. He committed any number of murders, by eye and by wish. When his time came to dance with the mischief-maker, he whirled her around savagely, and never said a word; and once done with, he sternly returned her to her mother, which he deemed the wisest course to pursue.

"Nora, you are behaving abominably!" whispered her mother, pale with indignation.

"Well, I am having a good time ... Your dance? Thank you."

And a tender young American led her through the mazes of the waltz, as some poet who knew what he was about phrased it.

It is not an exaggeration to say that there was not a woman in the ballroom to compare with her, and some of them were marvelously gowned and complexioned, too. She overshadowed them not only by sheer beauty, but by exuberance of spirit. And they followed her with hating eyes and whispered scandalous things behind their fans and wondered what had possessed the Marchesa to invite the bold thing: so does mediocrity pay homage to beauty and genius. As for the men, though madness lay that way, eagerly as of old they sought it.

By way of parenthesis: Herr Rosen marched up the hill and down again, something after the manner of a certain warrior king celebrated in verse. The object of his visit had gone to the ball at Cadenabbia. At the hotel he demanded a motor-boat. There was none to be had. In a furious state of mind he engaged two oarsmen to row him across the lake.

And so it came to pass that when Nora, suddenly grown weary of the play, full of bitterness and distaste, hating herself and every one else in the world, stole out to the quay to commune with the moon, she saw him jump from the boat to the landing, scorning the steps. Instantly she drew her lace mantle closely about her face. It was useless. In the man the hunter's instinct was much too keen.

"So I have found you!"

"One would say that I had been in hiding?" coldly.

"From me, always. I have left everything—duty, obligations—to seek you."

"From any other man that might be a compliment."

"I am a prince," he said proudly.

She faced him with that quick resolution, that swift forming of purpose, which has made the Irish so difficult in argument and persuasion. "Will you marry me? Will you make me your wife legally? Before all the world? Will you surrender, for the sake of this love you profess, your right to a great inheritance? Will you risk the anger and the iron hand of your father for my sake?"

"Herr Gott! I am mad!" He covered his eyes.

"That expression proves that your Highness is sane again. Have you realized the annoyances, the embarrassments, you have thrust upon me by your pursuit? Have you not read the scandalous innuendoes in the newspapers? Your Highness, I was not born on the Continent, so I look upon my work from a point of view not common to those of your caste. I am proud of it, and I look upon it with honor, honor. I am a woman, but I am not wholly defenseless. There was a time when I thought I might number among my friends a prince; but you have made that impossible."

"Come," he said hoarsely; "let us go and find a priest. You are right. I love you; I will give up everything, everything!"

For a moment she was dumb. This absolute surrender appalled her. But that good fortune which had ever been at her side stepped into the breach. And as she saw the tall form of the Barone approach, she could have thrown her arms around his neck in pure gladness.

"Oh, Barone!" she called. "Am I making you miss this dance?"

"It does not matter, Signorina." The Barone stared keenly at the erect and tense figure at the prima donna's side.

"You will excuse me, Herr Rosen," said Nora, as she laid her hand upon the Barone's arm.

Herr Rosen bowed stiffly; and the two left him standing uncovered in the moonlight.

"What is he doing here? What has he been saying to you?" the Barone demanded. Nora withdrew her hand from his arm. "Pardon me," said he contritely. "I have no right to ask you such questions."

It was not long after midnight when the motor-boat returned to its abiding place. On the way over conversation lagged, and finally died altogether. Mrs. Harrigan fell asleep against Celeste's shoulder, and the musician never deviated her gaze from the silver ripples which flowed out diagonally and magically from the prow of the boat. Nora watched the stars slowly ascend over the eastern range of mountains; and across the fire of his innumerable cigarettes the Barone watched her.

As the boat was made fast to the landing in front of the Grand Hotel, Celeste observed a man in evening dress, lounging against the rail of the quay. The search-light from the customs-boat, hunting for tobacco smugglers, flashed over his face. She could not repress the little gasp, and her hand tightened upon Nora's arm.

"What is it?" asked Nora.

"Nothing. I thought I was slipping."



CHAPTER IX

COLONEL CAXLEY-WEBSTER

Abbott's studio was under the roof of one of the little hotels that stand timorously and humbly, yet expectantly, between the imposing cream-stucco of the Grand Hotel at one end and the elaborate pink-stucco of the Grande Bretegne at the other. The hobnailed shoes of the Teuton (who wears his mountain kit all the way from Hamburg to Palermo) wore up and down the stairs all day; and the racket from the hucksters' carts and hotel omnibuses, arriving and departing from the steamboat landing, the shouts of the begging boatmen, the quarreling of the children and the barking of unpedigreed dogs,—these noises were incessant from dawn until sunset.

The artist glared down from his square window at the ruffled waters, or scowled at the fleeting snows on the mountains over the way. He passed some ten or twelve minutes in this useless occupation, but he could not get away from the bald fact that he had acted like a petulant child. To have shown his hand so openly, simply because the Barone had beaten him in the race for the motor-boat! And Nora would understand that he was weak and without backbone. Harrigan himself must have reasoned out the cause for such asinine plays as he had executed in the game of checkers. How many times had the old man called out to him to wake up and move? In spirit he had been across the lake, a spirit in Hades. He was not only a fool, but a coward likewise. He had not dared to

"... put it to the touch To gain or lose it all."

He saw it coming: before long he and that Italian would be at each other's throats.

"Come in!" he called, in response to a sudden thunder on the door.

The door opened and a short, energetic old man, purple-visaged and hawk-eyed, came in. "Why the devil don't you join the Trappist monks, Abbott? If I wasn't tough I should have died of apoplexy on the second landing."

"Good morning, Colonel!" Abbott laughed and rolled out the patent rocker for his guest. "What's on your mind this morning? I can give you one without ice."

"I'll take it neat, my boy. I'm not thirsty, I'm faint. These Italian architects; they call three ladders flights of stairs! ... Ha! That's Irish whisky, and jolly fine. Want you to come over and take tea this afternoon. I'm going up presently to see the Harrigans. Thought I'd go around and do the thing informally. Taken a fancy to the old chap. He's a little bit of all right. I'm no older than he is, but look at the difference! Whisky and soda, that's the racket. Not by the tubful; just an ordinary half dozen a day, and a dem climate thrown in."

"Difference in training."

"Rot! It's the sized hat a man wears. I'd give fifty guineas to see the old fellow in action. But, I say; recall the argument we had before you went to Paris?"

"Yes."

"Well, I win. Saw him bang across the street this morning."

Abbott muttered something.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Sounded like 'dem it' to me."

"Maybe it did."

"Heard about him in Paris?"

"No."

"The old boy had transferred his regiment to a lonesome post in the North to cool his blood. The youngster took the next train to Paris. He was there incognito for two weeks before they found him and bundled him back. Of course, every one knows that he is but a crazy lad who's had too much freedom." The colonel emptied his glass. "I feel dem sorry for Nora. She's the right sort. But a woman can't take a man by the scruff of his neck and chuck him."

"But I can," declared Abbott savagely.

"Tut, tut! He'd eat you alive. Besides, you will find him too clever to give you an opening. But he'll bear watching. He's capable of putting her on a train and running away with her. Between you and me, I don't blame him. What's the matter with sicking the Barone on him? He's the best man in Southern Italy with foils and broadswords. Sic 'em, Towser; sic 'em!" The old fire-eater chuckled.

The subject was extremely distasteful to the artist. The colonel, a rough soldier, whose diplomacy had never risen above the heights of clubbing a recalcitrant Hill man into submission, baldly inferred that he understood the artist's interest in the rose of the Harrigan family. He would have liked to talk more in regard to the interloper, but it would have been sheer folly. The colonel, in his blundering way, would have brought up the subject again at tea-time and put everybody on edge. He had, unfortunately for his friends, a reputation other than that of a soldier: he posed as a peacemaker. He saw trouble where none existed, and the way he patched up imaginary quarrels would have strained the patience of Job. Still, every one loved him, though they lived in mortal fear of him. So Abbott came about quickly and sailed against the wind.

"By the way," he said, "I wish you would let me sketch that servant of yours. He's got a profile like a medallion. Where did you pick him up?"

"In the Hills. He's a Sikh, and a first-class fighting man. Didn't know that you went for faces."

"Not as a usual thing. Just want it for my own use. How does he keep his beard combed that way?"

"I've never bothered myself about the curl of his whiskers. Are my clothes laid out? Luggage attended to? Guns shipshape? That's enough for me. Some day you have got to go out there with me."

"Never shot a gun in all my life. I don't know which end to hold at my shoulder."

"Teach you quick enough. Every man's a born hunter. Rao will have tigers eating out of your hand. He's a marvel; saved my hide more than once. Funny thing; you can't show 'em that you're grateful. Lose caste if you do. I rather miss it. Get the East in your blood and you'll never get it out. Fascinating! But my liver turned over once too many times. Ha! Some one coming up to buy a picture."

The step outside was firm and unwearied by the climb. The door opened unceremoniously, and Courtlandt came in. He stared at the colonel and the colonel returned the stare.

"Caxley-Webster! Well, I say, this globe goes on shrinking every day!" cried Courtlandt.

The two pumped hands energetically, sizing each other up critically. Then they sat down and shot questions, while Abbott looked on bewildered. Elephants and tigers and chittahs and wild boar and quail-running and strange guttural names; weltering nights in the jungles, freezing mornings in the Hills; stupendous card games; and what had become of so-and-so, who always drank his whisky neat; and what's-his-name, who invented cures for snake bites!

Abbott deliberately pushed over an oak bench. "Am I host here or not?"

"Abby, old man, how are you?" said Courtlandt, smiling warmly and holding out his hand. "My apologies; but the colonel and I never expected to see each other again. And I find him talking with you up here under this roof. It's marvelous."

"It's a wonder you wouldn't drop a fellow a line," said Abbott, in a faultfinding tone, as he righted the bench. "When did you come?"

"Last night. Came up from Como."

"Going to stay long?"

"That depends. I am really on my way to Zermatt. I've a hankering to have another try at the Matterhorn."

"Think of that!" exclaimed the colonel. "He says another try."

"You came a roundabout way," was the artist's comment.

"Oh, that's because I left Paris for Brescia. They had some good flights there. Wonderful year! They cross the Channel in an airship and discover the North Pole."

"Pah! Neither will be of any use to humanity; merely a fine sporting proposition." The colonel dug into his pocket for his pipe. "But what do you think of Germany?"

"Fine country," answered Courtlandt, rising and going to a window; "fine people, too. Why?"

"Do you—er—think they could whip us?"

"On land, yes."

"The devil!"

"On water, no."

"Thanks. In other words, you believe our chances equal?"

"So equal that all this war-scare is piffle. But I rather like to see you English get up in the air occasionally. It will do you good. You've an idea because you walloped Napoleon that you're the same race you were then, and you are not. The English-speaking races, as the first soldiers, have ceased to be."

"Well, I be dem!" gasped the colonel.

"It's the truth. Take the American: he thinks there is nothing in the world but money. Take the Britisher: to him caste is everything. Take the money out of one man's mind and the importance of being well-born out of the other...." He turned from the window and smiled at the artist and the empurpling Anglo-Indian.

"Abbott," growled the soldier, "that man will some day drive me amuck. What do you think? One night, on a tiger hunt, he got me into an argument like this. A brute of a beast jumped into the middle of it. Courtlandt shot him on the second bound, and turned to me with—'Well, as I was saying!' I don't know to this day whether it was nerve or what you Americans call gall."

"Divided by two," grinned Abbott.

"Ha, I see; half nerve and half gall. I'll remember that. But we were talking of airships."

"I was," retorted Courtlandt. "You were the man who started the powwow." He looked down into the street with sudden interest. "Who is that?"

The colonel and Abbott hurried across the room.

"What did I say, Abbott? I told you I saw him. He's crazy; fact. Thinks he can travel around incognito when there isn't a magazine on earth that hasn't printed his picture."

"Well, why shouldn't he travel around if he wants to?" asked Courtlandt coolly.

The colonel nudged the artist.

"There happens to be an attraction in Bellaggio," said Abbott irritably.

"The moth and the candle," supplemented the colonel, peering over Courtlandt's shoulder. "He's well set up," grudgingly admitted the old fellow.

"The moth and the candle," mused Courtlandt. "That will be Nora Harrigan. How long has this infatuation been going on?"

"Year and a half."

"And the other side?"

"There isn't any other side," exploded the artist. "She's worried to death. Not a day passes but some scurrilous penny-a-liner springs some yarn, some beastly innuendo. She's been dodging the fellow for months. In Paris last year she couldn't move without running into him. This year she changed her apartment, and gave orders at the Opera to refuse her address to all who asked for it. Consequently she had some peace. I don't know why it is, but a woman in public life seems to be a target."

"The penalty of beauty, Abby. Homely women seldom are annoyed, unless they become suffragists." The colonel poured forth a dense cloud of smoke.

"What brand is that, Colonel?" asked Courtlandt, choking.

The colonel generously produced his pouch.

"No, no! I was about to observe that it isn't ambrosia."

"Rotter!" The soldier dug the offender in the ribs. "I am going to have the Harrigans over for tea this afternoon. Come over! You'll like the family. The girl is charming; and the father is a sportsman to the backbone. Some silly fools laugh behind his back, but never before his face. And my word, I know rafts of gentlemen who are not fit to stand in his shoes."

"I should like to meet Mr. Harrigan." Courtlandt returned his gaze to the window once more.

"And his daughter?" said Abbott, curiously.

"Oh, surely!"

"I may count on you, then?" The colonel stowed away the offending brier. "And you can stay to dinner."

"I'll take the dinner end of the invitation," was the reply. "I've got to go over to Menaggio to see about some papers to be signed. If I can make the three o'clock boat in returning, you'll see me at tea. Dinner at all events. I'm off."

"Do you mean to stand there and tell me that you have important business?" jeered Abbott.

"My boy, the reason I'm on trains and boats, year in and year out, is in the vain endeavor to escape important business. Now and then I am rounded up. Were you ever hunted by money?" humorously.

"No," answered the Englishman sadly. "But I know one thing: I'd throw the race at the starting-post. Millions, Abbott, and to be obliged to run away from them! If the deserts hadn't dried up all my tears, I should weep. Why don't you hire a private secretary to handle your affairs?"

"And have him following at my heels?" Courtlandt gazed at his lean brown hands. "When these begin to shake, I'll do so. Well, I shall see you both at dinner, whatever happens."

"That's Courtlandt," said Abbott, when his friend was gone. "You think he's in Singapore, the door opens and in he walks; never any letter or announcement. He arrives, that's all."

"Strikes me," returned the other, polishing his glass, holding it up to the light, and then screwing it into his eye; "strikes me, he wasn't overanxious to have that dish of tea. Afraid of women?"

"Afraid of women! Why, man, he backed two musical shows in the States a few years ago."

"Musical comedies?" The glass dropped from the colonel's eye. "That's going tigers one better. Forty women, all waiting to be stars, and solemn Courtlandt wandering among them as the god of amity! Afraid of them! Of course he is. Who wouldn't be, after such an experience?" The colonel laughed. "Never had any serious affair?"

"Never heard of one. There was some tommy-rot about a Mahommedan princess in the newspapers; but I knew there was no truth in that. Queer fellow! He wouldn't take the trouble to deny it."

"Never showed any signs of being a woman-hater?"

"No, not the least in the world. But to shy at meeting Nora Harrigan...."

"There you have it; the privilege of the gods. Perhaps he really has business in Menaggio. What'll we do with the other beggar?"

"Knock his head off, if he bothers her."

"Better turn the job over to Courtlandt, then. You're in the light-weight class, and Courtlandt is the best amateur for his weight I ever saw."

"What, boxes?"

"A tough 'un. I had a corporal who beat any one in Northern India. Courtlandt put on the gloves with him and had him begging in the third round."

"I never knew that before. He's as full of surprises as a rummage bag."

Courtlandt walked up the street leisurely, idly pausing now and then before the shop-windows. Apparently he had neither object nor destination; yet his mind was busy, so busy in fact that he looked at the various curios without truly seeing them at all. A delicate situation, which needed the lightest handling, confronted him. He must wait for an overt act, then he might proceed as he pleased. How really helpless he was! He could not force her hand because she held all the cards and he none. Yet he was determined this time to play the game to the end, even if the task was equal to all those of Hercules rolled into one, and none of the gods on his side.

At the hotel he asked for his mail, and was given a formidable packet which, with a sigh of discontent, he slipped into a pocket, strolled out into the garden by the water, and sat down to read. To his surprise there was a note, without stamp or postmark. He opened it, mildly curious to learn who it was that had discovered his presence in Bellaggio so quickly. The envelope contained nothing more than a neatly folded bank-note for one hundred francs. He eyed it stupidly. What might this mean? He unfolded it and smoothed it out across his knee, and the haze of puzzlement drifted away. Three bars from La Boheme. He laughed. So the little lady of the Taverne Royale was in Bellaggio!



CHAPTER X

MARGUERITES AND EMERALDS

From where he sat Courtlandt could see down the main thoroughfare of the pretty village. There were other streets, to be sure, but courtesy and good nature alone permitted this misapplication of title: they were merely a series of torturous enervating stairways of stone, up and down which noisy wooden sandals clattered all the day long. Over the entrances to the shops the proprietors were dropping the white and brown awnings for the day. Very few people shopped after luncheon. There were pleasanter pastimes, even for the women, contradictory as this may seem. By eleven o'clock Courtlandt had finished the reading of his mail, and was now ready to hunt for the little lady of the Taverne Royale. It was necessary to find her. The whereabouts of Flora Desimone was of vital importance. If she had not yet arrived, the presence of her friend presaged her ultimate arrival. The duke was a negligible quantity. It would have surprised Courtlandt could he have foreseen the drawing together of the ends of the circle and the relative concernment of the duke in knotting those ends. The labors of Hercules had never entailed the subjugation of two temperamental women.

He rose and proceeded on his quest. Before the photographer's shop he saw a dachel wrathfully challenging a cat on the balcony of the adjoining building. The cat knew, and so did the puppy, that it was all buncombe on the puppy's part: the usual European war-scare, in which one of the belligerent parties refused to come down because it wouldn't have been worth while, there being the usual Powers ready to intervene. Courtlandt did not bother about the cat; the puppy claimed his attention. He was very fond of dogs. So he reached down suddenly and put an end to the sharp challenge. The dachel struggled valiantly, for this breed of dog does not make friends easily.

"I say, you little Dutchman, what's the row? I'm not going to hurt you. Funny little codger! To whom do you belong?" He turned the collar around, read the inscription, and gently put the puppy on the ground.

Nora Harrigan!

His immediate impulse was to walk on, but somehow this impulse refused to act on his sense of locomotion. He waited, dully wondering what was going to happen when she came out. He had left her room that night in Paris, vowing that he would never intrude on her again. With the recollection of that bullet whizzing past his ear, he had been convinced that the play was done. True, she had testified that it had been accidental, but never would he forget the look in her eyes. It was not pleasant to remember. And still, as the needle is drawn by the magnet, here he was, in Bellaggio. He cursed his weakness. From Brescia he had made up his mind to go directly to Berlin. Before he realized how useless it was to battle against these invisible forces, he was in Milan, booking for Como. At Como he had remained a week (the dullest week he had ever known); at the Villa d'Este three days; at Cadenabbia one day. It had all the characteristics of a tug-of-war, and irresistibly he was drawn over the line. The night before he had taken the evening boat across the lake. And Herr Rosen had been his fellow-passenger! The goddess of chance threw whimsical coils around her victims. To find himself shoulder to shoulder, as it were, with this man who, perhaps more than all other incentives, had urged him to return again to civilization; this man who had aroused in his heart a sentiment that hitherto he had not believed existed,—jealousy.... Ah, voices! He stepped aside quickly.

"Fritz, Fritz; where are you?"

And a moment later she came out, followed by her mother ... and the little lady of the Taverne Royale. Did Nora see him? It was impossible to tell. She simply stooped and gathered up the puppy, who struggled determinedly to lick her face. Courtlandt lifted his hat. It was in nowise offered as an act of recognition; it was merely the mechanical courtesy that a man generally pays to any woman in whose path he chances to be for the breath of a second. The three women in immaculate white, hatless, but with sunshades, passed on down the street.

Courtlandt went into the shop, rather blindly. He stared at the shelves of paper-covered novels and post-cards, and when the polite proprietor offered him a dozen of the latter, he accepted them without comment. Indeed, he put them into a pocket and turned to go out.

"Pardon, sir; those are one franc the dozen."

"Ah, yes." Courtlandt pulled out some silver. It was going to be terribly difficult, and his heart was heavy with evil presages. He had seen Celeste. He understood the amusing if mysterious comedy now. Nora had recognized him and had sent her friend to follow him and learn where he went. And he, poor fool of a blunderer, with the best intentions in the world, he had gone at once to the Calabrian's apartment! It was damnable of fate. He had righted nothing. In truth, he was deeper than ever in the quicksands of misunderstanding. He shut his teeth with a click. How neatly she had waylaid and trapped him!

"Those are from Lucerne, sir."

"What?" bewildered.

"Those wood-carvings which you are touching with your cane, sir."

"I beg your pardon," said Courtlandt, apologetically, and gained the open. He threw a quick glance down the street. There they were. He proceeded in the opposite direction, toward his hotel. Tea at the colonel's? Scarcely. He would go to Menaggio with the hotel motor-boat and return so late that he would arrive only in time for dinner. He was not going to meet the enemy over tea-cups, at least, not under the soldier's tactless supervision. He must find a smoother way, calculated, under the rose, but seemingly accidental. It was something to ponder over.

"Nora, who was that?" asked Mrs. Harrigan.

"Who was who?" countered Nora, snuggling the wriggling dachel under her arm and throwing the sunshade across her shoulder.

"That fine-looking young man who stood by the door as we passed out. He raised his hat."

"Oh, bother! I was looking at Fritz."

Celeste searched her face keenly, but Nora looked on ahead serenely; not a quiver of an eyelid, not the slightest change in color or expression.

"She did not see him!" thought the musician, curiously stirred. She knew her friend tolerably well. It would have been impossible for her to have seen that man and not to have given evidence of the fact.

In short, Nora had spoken truthfully. She had seen a man dressed in white flannels and canvas shoes, but her eyes had not traveled so far as his face.

"Mother, we must have some of those silk blankets. They're so comfy to lie on."

"You never see anything except when you want to," complained Mrs. Harrigan.

"It saves a deal of trouble. I don't want to go to the colonel's this afternoon. He always has some frump to pour tea and ask fool questions."

"The frump, as you call her, is usually a countess or a duchess," with asperity.

"Fiddlesticks! Nobility makes a specialty of frumps; it is one of the species of the caste. That's why I shall never marry a title. I wish neither to visit nor to entertain frumps. Frump,—the word calls up the exact picture; frump and fatuity. Oh, I'll go, but I'd rather stay on my balcony and read a good book."

"My dear," patiently, "the colonel is one of the social laws on Como. His sister is the wife of an earl. You must not offend him. His Sundays are the most exclusive on the lake."

"The word exclusive should be properly applied to those in jail. The social ladder, the social ladder! Don't you know, mother mine, that every rung is sawn by envy and greed, and that those who climb highest fall farthest?"

"You are quoting the padre."

"The padre could give lessons in kindness and shrewdness to any other man I know. If he hadn't chosen the gown he would have been a poet. I love the padre, with his snow-white hair and his withered leathery face. He was with the old king all through the freeing of Italy."

"And had a fine time explaining to the Vatican," sniffed the mother.

"Some day I am going to confess to him."

"Confess what?" asked Celeste.

"That I have wished the Calabrian's voice would fail her some night in Carmen; that I am wearing shoes a size too small for me; that I should like to be rich without labor; that I am sometimes ashamed of my calling; that I should have liked to see father win a prizefight; oh, and a thousand other horrid, hateful things."

"I wish to gracious that you would fall violently in love."

"Spiteful! There are those lovely lace collars; come on."

"You are hopeless," was the mother's conviction.

"In some things, yes," gravely.

"Some day," said Celeste, who was a privileged person in the Harrigan family, "some day I am going to teach you two how to play at foils. It would be splendid. And then you could always settle your differences with bouts."

"Better than that," retorted Nora. "I'll ask father to lend us his old set of gloves. He carries them around as if they were a fetish. I believe they're in the bottom of one of my steamer trunks."

"Nora!" Mrs. Harrigan was not pleased with this jest. Any reference to the past was distasteful to her ears. She, too, went regularly to confession, but up to the present time had omitted the sin of being ashamed of her former poverty and environment. She had taken it for granted that upon her shoulders rested the future good fortune of the Harrigans. They had money; all that was required was social recognition. She found it a battle within a battle. The good-natured reluctance of her husband and the careless indifference of her daughter were as hard to combat as the icy aloofness of those stars into whose orbit she was pluckily striving to steer the family bark. It never entered her scheming head that the reluctance of the father and the indifference of the daughter were the very conditions that drew society nearward, for the simple novelty of finding two persons who did not care in the least whether they were recognized or not.

The trio invaded the lace shop, and Nora and her mother agreed to bury the war-hatchet in their mutual love of Venetian and Florentine fineries. Celeste pretended to be interested, but in truth she was endeavoring to piece together the few facts she had been able to extract from the rubbish of conjecture. Courtlandt and Nora had met somewhere before the beginning of her own intimacy with the singer. They certainly must have formed an extraordinary friendship, for Nora's subsequent vindictiveness could not possibly have arisen out of the ruins of an indifferent acquaintance. Nora could not be moved from the belief that Courtlandt had abducted her; but Celeste was now positive that he had had nothing to do with it. He did not impress her as a man who would abduct a woman, hold her prisoner for five days, and then liberate her without coming near her to press his vantage, rightly or wrongly. He was too strong a personage. He was here in Bellaggio, and attached to that could be but one significance.

Why, then, had he not spoken at the photographer's? Perhaps she herself had been sufficient reason for his dumbness. He had recognized her, and the espionage of the night in Paris was no longer a mystery. Nora had sent her to follow him; why then all this bitterness, since she had not been told where he had gone? Had Nora forgotten to inquire? It was possible that, in view of the startling events which had followed, the matter had slipped entirely from Nora's mind. Many a time she had resorted to that subtle guile known only of woman to trap the singer. But Nora never stumbled, and her smile was as firm a barrier to her thoughts, her secrets, as a stone wall would have been.

Celeste had known about Herr Rosen's infatuation. Aside from that which concerned this stranger, Nora had withheld no real secret from her. Herr Rosen had been given his conge, but that did not prevent him from sending fabulous baskets of flowers and gems, all of which were calmly returned without comment. Whenever a jewel found its way into a bouquet of flowers from an unknown, Nora would promptly convert it into money and give the proceeds to some charity. It afforded the singer no small amusement to show her scorn in this fashion. Yes, there was one other little mystery which she did not confide to her friends. Once a month, wherever she chanced to be singing, there arrived a simple bouquet of marguerites, in the heart of which they would invariably find an uncut emerald. Nora never disposed of these emeralds. The flowers she would leave in her dressing-room; the emerald would disappear. Was there some one else?

Mrs. Harrigan took the omnibus up to the villa. It was generally too much of a climb for her. Nora and Celeste preferred to walk.

"What am I going to do, Celeste? He is here, and over at Cadenabbia last night I had a terrible scene with him. In heaven's name, why can't they let me be?"

"Herr Rosen?"

"Yes."

"Why not speak to your father?"

"And have a fisticuff which would appear in every newspaper in the world? No, thank you. There is enough scandalous stuff being printed as it is, and I am helpless to prevent it."

As the climb starts off stiffly, there wasn't much inclination in either to talk. Celeste had come to one decision, and that was that Nora should find out Courtlandt's presence here in Bellaggio herself. When they arrived at the villa gates, Celeste offered a suggestion.

"You could easily stop all this rumor and annoyance."

"And, pray, how?"

"Marry."

"I prefer the rumor and annoyance. I hate men. Most of them are beasts."

"You are prejudiced."

If Celeste expected Nora to reply that she had reason, she was disappointed, Nora quickened her pace, that was all.

At luncheon Harrigan innocently threw a bomb into camp by inquiring: "Say, Nora, who's this chump Herr Rosen? He was up here last night and again this morning. I was going to offer him the cot on the balcony, but I thought I'd consult you first."

"Herr Rosen!" exclaimed Mrs. Harrigan, a flutter in her throat. "Why, that's...."

"A charming young man who wishes me to sign a contract to sing to him in perpetuity," interrupted Nora, pressing her mother's foot warningly.

"Well, why don't you marry him?" laughed Harrigan. "There's worse things than frankfurters and sauerkraut."

"Not that I can think of just now," returned Nora.



CHAPTER XI

AT THE CRATER'S EDGE

Harrigan declared that he would not go over to Caxley-Webster's to tea.

"But I've promised for you!" expostulated his wife. "And he admires you so."

"Bosh! You women can gad about as much as you please, but I'm in wrong when it comes to eating sponge-cake and knuckling my knees under a dinky willow table. And then he always has some frump...."

"Frump!" repeated Nora, delighted.

"Frump inspecting me through a pair of eye-glasses as if I was a new kind of an animal. It's all right, Molly, when there's a big push. They don't notice me much then. But these six by eight parties have me covering."

"Very well, dad," agreed Nora, who saw the storm gathering in her mother's eyes. "You can stay home and read the book mother got you yesterday. Where are you now?"

"Page one," grinning.

Mrs. Harrigan wisely refrained from continuing the debate. James had made up his mind not to go. If the colonel repeated his invitation to dinner, where there would be only the men folk, why, he'd gladly enough go to that.

The women departed at three, for there was to be tennis until five o'clock. When Harrigan was reasonably sure that they were half the distance to the colonel's villa, he put on his hat, whistled to the dachel, and together they took the path to the village.

"We'd look fine drinking tea, wouldn't we, old scout?" reaching down and tweaking the dog's velvet ears. "They don't understand, and it's no use trying to make 'em. Nora gets as near as possible. Herr Rosen! Now, where have I seen his phiz before? I wish I had a real man to talk to. Abbott sulks half the time, and the Barone can't get a joke unless it's driven in with a mallet. On your way, old scout, or I'll step on you. Let's see if we can hoof it down to the village at a trot without taking the count."

He had but two errands to execute. The first was accomplished expeditely in the little tobacconist's shop under the arcade, where the purchase of a box of Minghetti cigars promised later solace. These cigars were cheap, but Harrigan had a novel way of adding to their strength if not to their aroma. He possessed a meerschaum cigar-holder, in which he had smoked perfectos for some years. The smoke of an ordinary cigar became that of a regalia by the time it passed through the nicotine-soaked clay into the amber mouthpiece. He had kept secret the result of this trifling scientific research. It wouldn't have been politic to disclose it to Molly. The second errand took time and deliberation. He studied the long shelves of Tauchnitz. Having red corpuscles in superabundance, he naturally preferred them in his literature, in the same quantity.

"Ever read this?" asked a pleasant voice from behind, indicating Rodney Stone with the ferrule of a cane.

Harrigan looked up. "No. What's it about?"

"Best story of the London prize-ring ever written. You're Mr. Harrigan, aren't you?"

"Yes," diffidently.

"My name is Edward Courtlandt. If I am not mistaken, you were a great friend of my father's."

"Are you Dick Courtlandt's boy?"

"I am."

"Well, say!" Harrigan held out his hand and was gratified to encounter a man's grasp. "So you're Edward Courtlandt? Now, what do you think of that! Why, your father was the best sportsman I ever met. Square as they make 'em. Not a kink anywhere in his make-up. He used to come to the bouts in his plug hat and dress suit; always had a seat by the ring. I could hear him tap with his cane when there happened to be a bit of pretty sparring. He was no slouch himself when it came to putting on the mitts. Many's the time I've had a round or two with him in my old gymnasium. Well, well! It's good to see a man again. I've seen your name in the papers, but I never knew you was Dick's boy. You've got an old grizzly's head in your dining-room at home. Some day I'll tell you how it got there, when you're not in a hurry. I went out to Montana for a scrap, and your dad went along. After the mill was over, we went hunting. Come up to the villa and meet the folks.... Hang it, I forgot. They're up to Caxley-Webster's to tea; piffle water and sticky sponge-cake. I want you to meet my wife and daughter."

"I should be very pleased to meet them." So this was Nora's father? "Won't you come along with me to the colonel's?" with sudden inspiration. Here was an opportunity not to be thrust aside lightly.

"Why, I just begged off. They won't be expecting me now."

"All the better. I'd rather have you introduce me to your family than to have the colonel. As a matter of fact, I told him I couldn't get up. But I changed my mind. Come along." The first rift in the storm-packed clouds; and to meet her through the kindly offices of this amiable man who was her father!

"But the pup and the cigar box?"

"Send them up."

Harrigan eyed his own spotless flannels and compared them with the other's. What was good enough for the son of a millionaire was certainly good enough for him. Besides, it would be a bully good joke on Nora and Molly.

"You're on!" he cried. Here was a lark. He turned the dog and the purchases over to the proprietor, who promised that they should arrive instantly at the villa.

Then the two men sought the quay to engage a boat. They walked shoulder to shoulder, flat-backed, with supple swinging limbs, tanned faces and clear animated eyes. Perhaps Harrigan was ten or fifteen pounds heavier, but the difference would have been noticeable only upon the scales.

* * * * *

"Padre, my shoe pinches," said Nora with a pucker between her eyes.

"My child," replied the padre, "never carry your vanity into a shoemaker's shop. The happiest man is he who walks in loose shoes."

"If they are his own, and not inherited," quickly.

The padre laughed quietly. He was very fond of this new-found daughter of his. Her spontaneity, her blooming beauty, her careless observation of convention, her independence, had captivated him. Sometimes he believed that he thoroughly understood her, when all at once he would find himself mentally peering into some dark corner into which the penetrating light of his usually swift deduction could throw no glimmer. She possessed the sins of the butterfly and the latent possibilities of a Judith. She was the most interesting feminine problem he had in his long years encountered. The mother mildly amused him, for he could discern the character that she was sedulously striving to batten down beneath inane social usages and formalities. Some day she would revert to the original type, and then he would be glad to renew the acquaintance. In rather a shamefaced way (a sensation he could not quite analyze) he loved the father. The pugilist will always embarrass the scholar and excite a negligible envy; for physical perfection is the most envied of all nature's gifts. The padre was short, thickset, and inclined toward stoutness in the region of the middle button of his cassock. But he was active enough for all purposes.

"I have had many wicked thoughts lately," resumed Nora, turning her gaze away from the tennis players. She and the padre were sitting on the lower steps of the veranda. The others were loitering by the nets.

"The old plaint disturbs you?"

"Yes."

"Can you not cast it out wholly?"

"Hate has many tentacles."

"What produces that condition of mind?" meditatively. "Is it because we have wronged somebody?"

"Or because somebody has wronged us?"

"Or misjudged us, by us have been misjudged?" softly.

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Nora, springing up.

"What is it?"

"Father is coming up the path!"

"I am glad to see him. But I do not recollect having seen the face of the man with him."

The lithe eagerness went out of Nora's body instantly. Everything seemed to grow cold, as if she had become enveloped in one of those fogs that suddenly blow down menacingly from hidden icebergs. Fortunately the inquiring eyes of the padre were not directed at her. He was here, not a dozen yards away, coming toward her, her father's arm in his! After what had passed he had dared! It was not often that Nora Harrigan was subjected to a touch of vertigo, but at this moment she felt that if she stirred ever so little she must fall. The stock whence she had sprung, however, was aggressive and fearless; and by the time Courtlandt had reached the outer markings of the courts, Nora was physically herself again. The advantage of the meeting would be his. That was indubitable. Any mistake on her part would be playing into his hands. If only she had known!