“There, Senorita—I have made it myself.”
The proprietor of the Venta of the Moor's Mill set down upon the table in front of the inn a cracked dish containing an omelette. It was not a bad omelette, though not quite innocent of wood-ash, perhaps, and somewhat ill-shapen. The man laughed gaily and drew himself up. So handsome a man could surely be forgiven a broken omelette and some charcoal, if only for the sake of his gay blue eyes, his curling brown hair, and his devil-may-care air of prosperity. He looked at the Senorita and laughed in the manner of a man who had never yet failed to “get on” with women. He folded his arms with fine, open gestures, and stood looking with approving nods upon his own handiwork. He was without the shadow of the trailing vine which runs riot over bamboo trelliswork in front of the Venta, affording a much needed shade in this the sunniest spot in all Majorca, and the fierce sun beat down upon his face, which was tanned a deep, healthy brown. He was clad almost in white; for his trousers were of canvas, his shirt of spotless linen. Round his waist he wore the usual Spanish faja or bright red cloth. He was consciously picturesque, and withal so natural, so good-natured, so astonishingly optimistic, as to be quite inoffensive in his child-like conceit.
The Venta of the Moor's Mill stands, as many know, at the northern end of the Val D'Erraha, looking down upon the broader valley, through which runs the high road from Palma to Valdemosa. The city of Palma, itself, is only a few miles away, for such as know the mountain path. Few customers come this way, and the actual trade of the Venta is small. Some day a German doctor will start a nerve-healing establishment here, with a table d'hote at six o'clock, and every opportunity for practising the minor virtues—and the Valley of Repose will be the Valley of Repose no longer.
“Ah! It is a good omelette,” said the host of the Venta, as Miss Cheyne took up her fork. “Though I have not always been a cook, nor yet an innkeeper.”
He raised one finger, shook it from side to side in an emphatic negation, and laughed. Then he turned suddenly, and looked down into the valley with a grave face and almost a sigh.
The man had a history it appeared—and, rarer still, was willing to tell it.
She knew too much of the Spanish race, or perhaps of all men, to ask questions.
“Yes,” she said pleasantly, “it is a good omelette.” And the man turned sharply and looked at her as if she had said something startling. She noticed his action, and showed surprise.
“It is nothing,” he said with a laugh, “only a coincidence—a mere accident. It is said by the peasants that the mind of a friend has wings. Perhaps it is so. As I looked down into the valley I was thinking of a man—a friend. Yes—name of a Saint—he was a friend of mine, although a gentleman! Educated? Yes, many languages, and Latin. And I—what am I? You see, Senorita, a peasant, who wears no coat.”
And he laughed heartily, only to change again suddenly to gravity.
“And as I looked down into the valley I was thinking of my friend—and, believe me, you spoke at that moment with something in your voice—in your manner—who knows?—which was like the voice and manner of my friend. Perhaps, Senorita, the peasants are right, and the mind of my friend, having wings, flew to us at that moment.”
The lady laughed, and said that it might be so.
“It is not that you are English,” the innkeeper continued, with easy volubility. “For I know you belong to no other nation. I said so to myself the moment I saw you, riding up here on horseback alone. I called upstairs to Juanita that there was an English Senorita coming on a horse, and Juanita replied with a malediction, that I should raise my voice when the nino was asleep. She said that if it was the Pope of Rome who came on a horse he must not wake the child. 'No,' I answered, 'but he would have to go upstairs to see it;' and Juanita did not laugh. She sees no cause to laugh at anything connected with the nino—oh, no! it is a serious matter.”
He was looking towards the house as he spoke.
“Juanita is your wife?” said the Englishwoman.
“Yes. We have been married a year, and I am still sure that she is the most beautiful woman in the world. Is it not wonderful? And she will be jealous if she hears me talking all this while with the Senorita.”
“You can tell her that the Senorita has grey hair,” said Miss Cheyne, practically.
“That may be,” said the innkeeper, looking at her with his head on one side, and a gravely critical air. “But you still have the air”—he shrugged his shoulders, and spread out his hands—“the air that takes a man's fancy. Who knows?”
Miss Cheyne, who had dealt much with a simple people, accustomed to the statement of simple facts in plain language, only laughed. There is a certain rough purity of thought which vanishes at the advance of civilisation. And cheap journalism, cheap fiction, cheap prudery have not yet reached Spain.
“I know nothing,” went on the man, with a shrewd, upward nod of the head. “But the Senorita has a lover. He may be faithless, he may be absent, he may be dead—but he is there—the God be thanked!”
He touched his broad chest in that part where a deadly experience told him that the heart was to be found, and looked up to Heaven, all with a change of expression and momentary gravity quite incomprehensible to men of northern breed.
Miss Cheyne laughed again without self-consciousness. Uneducated people have a way of arriving at once at those matters that interest rich and poor alike, which is rather refreshing, even to the highly educated.
“But I, who talk like a washerwoman, forget that I am an innkeeper,” said the man, with a truer tact than is often found under fine linen. And he proceeded to wait on her with a grand air, as if she were a queen and he a nobleman.
“If Juanita were about it would be different,” he said, whipping the cloth from the table and shaking the crumbs to the four winds. “And the Senorita would be properly served. But—what will you? the nino is but a fortnight old, and I—I am new at my trade. The Senorita takes coffee?”
Miss Cheyne intimated that she did take coffee.
“And you, perhaps, will take a cup also,” she added, whereupon the man bowed in his best manner. He had that perfect savoir-faire—a certain innate gentlemanliness—which is the characteristic of all Spaniards. His manner indicated an appreciation of the honour, and conveyed at the same time the intimation that he knew quite well how to behave under the circumstances.
He went into the house from which—all the doors and windows being open—came the sound of his conversation with Juanita, while he prepared the coffee. It was quite a frank and open conversation, having Miss Cheyne for its object, and stating that she had not only found the omelette good, but had eaten it all.
Presently he returned with the coffee-pot, two cups, and a small jug of cream on a tray. He turned the handle of the coffee-pot towards Miss Cheyne, and conveyed in one inimitable gesture that he would take his coffee from no other hand.
“The Senorita is staying in Palma?” he asked, pleasantly.
“Yes.”
“For pleasure?”
“No—for business.”
The innkeeper laughed gaily and deprecatingly, as if between persons of their station business was a word only to be mentioned as a sort of jest.
“I am the owner of a small property in the island—over in that direction—towards Soller. It is held on the 'rotas' system by a good farmer, who has frequently come to see me where I live at Monistrol, near Barcelona. He has often begged me to come to Majorca to see the property, and now I have come. I am staying a few days at Palma.”
“Farming is good in Majorca,” said the man, shrewdly. “You should receive a large sum for your share of the harvest. I, too, shall buy land presently when I see my chance, for I have the money. Ah, yes: I was not always an innkeeper!”
He sipped his coffee pensively.
“That reminds me again of my friend,” he said, after a pause. “Why do I think of him this afternoon? It is a strange story; shall I tell it?”
“I shall be glad to hear it,” replied Miss Cheyne, in her energetic way. She was stirring her coffee slowly and thoughtfully.
“I knew him in his own country—in America; and then in Cuba—”
Miss Cheyne ceased stirring her coffee suddenly, as if she had come against some object in the cup. A keen observer might have guessed that she had become interested at that moment in this idle tale.
“Ah! You know Cuba?” she said, indifferently interrogative.
“If I know Cuba?” he laughed, and spread out his hands in mute appeal to the gods. “If I know Cuba! When Cuba is an independent republic, Senorita—when the history of all this trouble comes to be written, you will find two names mentioned in its pages. The one name is Antonio. When you are an old woman, Senorita, you can tell your children—or perhaps your grandchildren, if the good God is kind to you—that you once knew Antonio, and took a cup of coffee with him. But you must not say it now—never—never. And the other name is Mateo. You can tell your children, Senorita, when your hair is white, that you once spoke to a man who was a friend to this Mateo.”
He finished with his gay laugh, as if he were fully alive to his own fine conceit, and begged indulgence.
“He has been here—sitting where you sit now,” he continued, with impressive gravity. “He came to me: 'Antonio,' he said, 'There are five thousand men out there who want you.' 'Amigo,' replied I, 'there is one woman here who does the same'—and I bowed, and Mateo went away without me. I thought he had gone back there to conduct affairs—to fight in his careless way, with his tongue in his cheek, as it were. He did all with his tongue in his cheek—that queer Mateo. And then came a message from Barcelona, saying that he wanted me. Name of a dog, I went—for his letter was unmistakable. He had, it appeared, had an accident. I found him with his arm in a sling. He had been cared for in the house of an Englishwoman—so much he told—but I guessed more. This Englishwoman—well, he said so little about her, that I could only conclude one thing. You know, Senorita—when a man will not talk of a woman—well, it assuredly means something. But there was, it appears, another man—this man, I grind my teeth to tell you of it—he was a priest. One Bernaldez, whom we had both known in Cuba. He had, it appears, come over to Spain in ordinary dress; for he was too well known to travel as Bernaldez, the priest. He was a fine man—so much I will say for him. The Englishwoman was, no doubt, beautiful. Bernaldez met her. She did not know that he was a priest.”
Antonio paused, shrugged his shoulders and spread out his arms.
“The devil did the rest, Senorita. And she? Did she care for him? Ah—one never knows with women.”
“Perhaps they do not always know themselves,” suggested Miss Cheyne, without meeting her companion's eyes.
“Perhaps that is so, Senorita. At all events, Mateo went to these two, when they were together. Mateo was always quick and very calm. He faced Bernaldez, and he told the woman. Then he left them. And I found him in Barcelona, two days afterwards, living at the Hotel of the Four Nations, like one in his sleep. 'If Bernaldez wants me,' he said, 'he knows where to find me.' And the next day Bernaldez came to us, where we sat in front of the Cafe of the Liceo on the Rambla. 'Mateo,' he said, 'you will have to fight me.' And Mateo nodded his head. 'With the revolver.' Mateo looked up with his dry smile. 'I will take you at that game,' he said, 'for nuts'—in the American fashion, Senorita—one of their strange sad jokes. Then Bernaldez sat down—his eyes were hollow; he spoke like one who has been down to the bottom of misery. 'I know a place,' he said, 'that will suit our purpose. It is among the mountains, on the borders of Andorra. You take the train from Barcelona to Berga, the diligencia from Berga to Organa. Between Organa and La Seo de Urgel is a bridge called La Puente del Diabolo. I will meet you at this bridge on foot on Thursday morning at nine o'clock. We can walk up into the mountains together. I shall bring a small travelling clock with me. We shall stand it on the ground between us, and when it strikes, we fire.'”
Antonio had, in the heat of his narrative, leant forward across the table. With quick gestures he described the whole scene, so that Miss Cheyne could see it as it had passed before his eyes.
“There is a madness, Senorita,” he went on, “which shows itself by a thirst for blood. I looked at Bernaldez. He was sane enough, but I think the man's heart was broken. 'It is well,' said Mateo; 'I am your man—at the Puente del Diabolo at nine o'clock on Thursday morning.' And mind you, Senorita, these were not Italians or Greeks—they were a Spaniard and an American—men who mean what they say, whether it be pleasant or the reverse.”
Miss Cheyne was interested enough now. She sat, leaning one arm on the table, and her chin in the palm of her hand. She held her lip with her teeth, and watched the man's quick expressive face.
“We were there at nine o'clock,” he went on, “that Mateo, with his arm in a sling. We had passed the night at the hotel of the Libertad at Organa, where we both slept well enough. What will you?—when one is no longer young, the pulse is slow. The morning mist had descended the mountain side, the air was cold. There at the Puente, leaning against the wall, cloaked and quiet—was Bernaldez. 'Ah!' he said to me, 'you have come, too?' 'Yes, Amigo,' I answered, 'but I do not give the word for two friends to let go at each other. Your little clock can do that.' He nodded and said nothing. Senorita, I was sorry for the man. Who was I that I should judge? You remember, you, who read your Bible, the writing on the ground? Bernaldez led the way, and we climbed up into the mountains in the morning mist. Somewhere above us there was a little waterfall singing its eternal song. In the cloud, where we could not see him, a curlew hung on his heavy wings, and gave forth his low warning whistle. 'Have a care—have a care,' he seemed to cry. Presently Bernaldez stopped, and looked around him. It was a desolate place. 'This will do,' he said. 'And he who drops may be left here. The other may turn on his heel, say “A Dios,” and go in safety. 'Yes,' answered Mateo. 'This will do as well as any other place.' Bernaldez looked at him, with a laugh. 'Ah,' he said, 'you think that you are sure to kill me—but I shall, at all events, have a shot for my money. Who knows? I may kill you.' 'That is quite possible,' answered Mateo. Bernaldez threw back his cloak. He carried the little travelling clock in one hand—a gilt thing made in Paris. 'We will stand it here,' he said, 'on a rock between us.' We were in a little hollow far up the mountain side, and the mist wrapped us round like a cloak. I know these mountains, Senorita, for it was here that the fiercest of the fighting in the last Carlist War took place. There are many dead up there even now, who have never been found. I also was in that trouble—ah, no, I was not always an innkeeper!”
“Go on with your story,” said Miss Cheyne, curtly, and closed her teeth over her lower lip again.
“We stood there, then, and watched Bernaldez take the clock from its case. He held it to his ear to make sure that it was going. It seemed to me that it ticked as loud up there as a clock ticks in a room at night. Bernaldez set forward the hands till they stood at five minutes to eleven. 'The eleventh hour,' said Mateo, with his dry laugh. Bernaldez set the clock down again. He took off his hat and threw it down to mark the ground. 'Ten paces,' he said, and, turning on his heel, counted aloud. I looked half-instinctively at his bared head. The tonsure was still visible to any who sought it; for it was but half-grown over. Mateo counted his steps and then turned. The clock gave a little tick, as such clocks do, four minutes before they strike. It seemed to me to hurry its pace as we three stood listening in that silence. We could hear the whisper of the clouds as they hurried through the mountains. The clock gave another click, and the two men raised their pistols of a similar pattern. The little gong rang out, and immediately after two shots, one following the other. Bernaldez had fired first. Mateo—a man with a reputation to care for—took a moment longer for his aim. I heard Bernaldez's bullet sing past his ear like a mosquito. Bernaldez fell forward—thus, on his arm—and the clock had not ceased striking when we stood over him; and Mateo had held the pistol in his left hand.”
The narrator finished abruptly with a quick gesture. All through his story he had added a vividness to his description by quick movements of the hand and head, by his flashing eyes, his southern fire, so that his hearer could see the scene as he had seen it; could feel the stillness of the mountains; could hear the whisper of the clouds; could see the two men facing each other in the mist. With a gesture he showed her how Bernaldez lay, on his face on the wet stones, with a half-concealed tonsure, turned towards heaven in mute appeal, awaiting the last great hearing of his case in that Court where there is no appeal.
“And there we left him, Senorita,” added Antonio, shortly.
He rose, walked away from her to the edge of the great slope, and stood looking down into the valley that lay shimmering below him. After a time he came back slowly. In his simplicity he was not ashamed of dimmed eyes.
“I tell you this, Senorita,” he said with a laugh, “because you are an Englishwoman, and because this Mateo was my friend. He is an American. His name is Whittaker—Matthew S. Whittaker. And this afternoon I was reminded of him; I know not why. Perhaps it was something that I said myself, or some gesture that I made, which I had caught from him. If one thinks much about a person, one may catch his gestures or his manner: is it not so? And then you reminded me of him a second time. That was strange.”
“Yes,” said Miss Cheyne, thoughtfully; “that was strange.”
“He went to Cuba again at once, Senorita; that was a year ago. And I have never heard from him. If, as the peasants say, the mind of a friend has wings, perhaps Mateo's mind has flown on to tell me that he is coming. He said he would come back.”
“Why was he coming back?” asked Miss Cheyne.
“I do not know, Senorita.”
Miss Cheyne had risen, and was making ready to depart. Her gloves and riding-whip lay on the table. The afternoon was far spent, and already the shadows were lengthening on the mountain-side. She paid the trifling account, Antonio taking the money with such a deep bow that the smallness of the coin was quite atoned for. He brought her horse from the stable.
“The horse and the Senorita are both tired,” he said, with his pleasant laugh. And, indeed, Miss Cheyne looked suddenly weary. “It is not right that you should go by the mountain path,” he added. “It is so easy to lose the way. Besides, a lady alone—it is not done in Spain.”
“No; but in England women are learning to take care of themselves,” laughed Miss Cheyne.
She placed her foot within his curved hands, and he lifted her to the saddle. All her movements were easy and independent. It seemed that she only stated a fact, and the man shook his head forebodingly. He belonged to a country which in some ways is a century behind England and America. She nodded a farewell, and turned the horse's head towards the mountain path.
“I shall find my way,” she said. “Never fear.”
“Only by good fortune,” he answered, with a shake of the head.
The sun had almost set when she reached Palma. At the hotel her lawyer, who had made the voyage from Barcelona with her, awaited her with impatience, while her maid leant idly from the window. In the evening she went abroad again, alone, in her independent way. She walked slowly on the Cathedral terrace, where priests lingered, and a few soldiers from the neighbouring barracks smoked a leisurely cigarette. All turned at intervals, and looked in the same direction—namely, towards the west, where the daylight yet lingered in the sky. The moon, huge and yellow, was rising over the mountains, above Manacor, at the eastern end of the island. One by one the idlers dropped away, moving with leisurely steps towards the town. In very idleness Miss Cheyne followed them. She knew that they were going to the harbour in anticipation of the arrival of the Barcelona steamer. She was on the pier with the others, when the boat came alongside. The passengers trooped off, waving salutations to their friends. One among them, a small-made, frail man, detached himself from the crowd, and made his way towards Miss Cheyne, as if this meeting had been prearranged—and who shall say that it was not?—by the dim decrees of Fate.
It was almost dark, and the Walkham River is much overhung in the parts that lie between Horrabridge and the old brickworks.
In the bed of the river a man stumbled heavily along, trusting more to his knowledge of the river than to his eyesight. He was fishing dexterously with flies that were almost white—flies which seemed to suit admirably the taste of those small brown trout which never have the sense to leave alone the fare provided for their larger white brethren.
Suddenly he hooked a larger fish, and, not daring to step back beneath the overhanging oak, he proceeded to tire his fish out in the deep water. In ten minutes he brought it to the landing-net, and as he turned to open his creel his heart leapt in his breast. A man was standing in the water not two feet behind him.
“Holloa,” he gasped.
“I won't insult you by telling you not to be frightened,” said the voice of a gentleman. There was no mistaking it. The speaker stood quite still, with the water bubbling round his legs. He was hatless, and his hair was cut quite short.
A thought flashed across the fisherman's slow brain. Like the rest of his craft, he was slower of mind than of hand.
“Yes,” said the other, divining his thoughts, “I'm from Dartmoor. You probably heard of my escape two days ago.”
“Yes,” replied the other, quietly, while he wound in his line. “I heard of it.”
“And where do they say I am?”
“Oh, the police have got a clue—as usual,” replied the fisherman.
The escaped convict laughed bitterly, but the laugh broke off into a sickening cackle.
“I've been in those brickworks,” he said, “all the time, meditating murder. I stole a loaf from a baker's cart; but man cannot live by bread alone; ah! Ha! ha!”
The fisherman held out his flask, which the other took, and opened the somewhat uncommon silver top with ease bred of knowledge.
He poured himself out a full glass and drank it off.
“I haven't had that taste in my mouth for four years,” he said, returning the flask. “And you are guilty of felony!”
The fisherman probably knew this, for he merely laughed.
“Do you know Prince Town?” the convict asked abruptly.
The other nodded, glancing in the direction of the rising moor.
“And you've read the rules on the gate? Parcere subjectis, cut in the stone over the top. Good God!”
The fisherman nodded again.
“The question is,” said the convict, after a pause, during which they had waded back to the bank, “whether you are going to help me or not? Heavens! I NEARLY killed you while you were playing that fish.”
“Ya-as,” drawled the fisherman. “I take it that you must have been tempted. I never heard you, owing to the rush of the water.”
They were both big men, and the convict stared curiously into the long, clean-shaven face of this calm speaker. A smile actually flickered for a moment in his desperate eyes.
“What I want,” he said, “is your mackintosh, your waders, and your hat—also your rod-case with a long stick in it. The handle of your landing-net will do. Where do you come from?”
“Plymouth. I am going back by the seven-thirty from Horrabridge.”
“With a return ticket?”
“Yes.”
“I should like that also.”
The fisherman was slowly disjointing his rod.
“Suppose I told you to come and take 'em?” he said, with the drawl again.
The convict looked him up and down with a certain air of competent criticism.
“Then there would be a very pretty fight,” he said, with a laugh, which he checked when he detected the savour of the prison-yard that was in it.
“We haven't time for the fight,” said the fisherman.
And there came a hot gasp of excitement from the convict's lips. His stake was a very large one.
In the same slow, reflective manner, the fisherman unbuttoned the straps of his waders at the thigh, and sat down to unlace his brogues.
“Here,” he said, “pull 'em off for me. They're so damnably sopped.”
He held up his leg, and the convict pulled off the wet fishing-stockings with some technical skill.
He drew them on over his own stockinged legs, and the fisherman kicked the brogues towards him. In exchange the convict handed him his own shoes.
“Am I to wear these?” the fisherman asked, with something in his voice that might have been amusement.
“Yes; they're a little out of shape, I'm afraid. The Queen is no judge of a shoe.”
“I guess not!” answered the other, lacing.
There was a little silence.
“I suppose,” said the convict, with a curious eagerness, “that you have seen a bit of the world?”
“Here and there,” answered the other, searching for the return half of his ticket.
“Should you think, now, that a girl would wait four years for a chap who, in the eyes of the world, was not worth waiting for?”
The fisherman, not being an absolute fool, knew that there was only one answer to give. But he was a kind-hearted man, so he told a lie. There was something about this convict that made him do it.
“Yes; I should think she would. Girls are not always rational, I guess.”
The other said nothing. He took the mackintosh-coat and the creel and the rod-case without a word—even of thanks. His manners were brisker, as if the angler's lie had done him good. The change of costume was now complete, and the convict would pass anywhere for an innocent disciple of Isaac Walton.
For a moment they stood thus, looking at each other. Then the convict spoke.
“Can you lend me a fiver?” he asked.
“Oh yes!”
Carelessly opening his purse, and displaying a good number of bank-notes, he passed one to the unsteady hand held out.
“Want any more?” he asked, with a queer laugh.
“I'll take another if you can spare it.”
A second note passed from hand to hand.
“Thanks,” said the convict. “Now, tell me your name and address; I shall want to send these things back to you if—if I have any luck.”
And the effort to steady his voice was quite apparent.
“Caleb S. Harkness, United States frigate Bruiser, now lying at Plymouth,” replied the other, tersely.
“Ah! you are an American?”
“That is why I don't care a d—n for your laws.”
“MR. Harkness—or what?”
“I'm her captain,” he replied modestly.
They shook hands and parted.
It was only as he plodded along the Tavistock Road, limping in the regulation shoes, that the American remembered that he had quite omitted to ask the convict any questions. He had parted with his mackintosh, and it was pouring. Tavistock was two miles off, and he had no notion what trains there were to Plymouth. Yet he regretted nothing, and at times a queer smile flitted over his countenance. He was a man holding very decided views of his own upon most subjects, and no one suspected him of it, because he never sought to force them upon others. What he loved above all in men was that species of audacious and gentlemanly coolness which is found in greater perfection in the ranks of the British aristocracy than anywhere else in the world.
He was not the sort of man to be afraid of any one, or two, or three men—he had never, for a moment, thought of fearing the fellow who had gone off with his mackintosh, his waders, and his two five-pound notes. We all try to be our ideal, and Caleb S. Harkness prided himself on being the coolest man in the two hemispheres. He had met a cooler, and rather than acknowledge his inferiority he had parted with the valuables above mentioned, with no other guarantee of their safe return than a gentlemanly inflection of voice.
Two days later he received his waders, mackintosh, and brogues; also a new fishing-rod of the very best quality made in England, and two five-pound notes.
America loves to show her appreciation of her great sons, but she does not always do it wisely when she begins to cast honours about. If England showed the same appreciation, some of us would not be so cruelly industrious with our pens; but that is the affair of the British public, who suffer most.
Caleb S. Harkness was bound to get on. Firstly, because his audacity was unrivalled, and secondly, he knew it was wise to be audacious.
In due course he rose as high as he conveniently could in the Navy active, and turned his attention to the Navy passive, which latter means a nice little house in Washington, and the open arms of the best society in that enlightened city. Here also he got on, because men were even more impressed by his audacity than the sea had been. Also he developed a new talent. He found within himself an immense capacity for making others appear ridiculous, and there is no man in the world so sensitive as your American senator.
Thus in six years' time we find Caleb S. Harkness moving, not in the bed of an English trout-stream, but in the lap of Washingtonian luxury. It was a great night in the Government city, for England had sent one of her brightest stars to meet the luminaries of the United States in peaceful arbitration. The British Plenipotentiary had not yet been seen of the multitude—but he was the eldest son of a British Earl, and had a title of his own. That was enough for Washington, with some to spare for Boston and New York. Also he had proved himself equal to two American statesmen and their respective secretaries. He was, therefore, held in the highest esteem by all the political parties except that to which the worsted statesmen belonged.
The President's levee was better attended than usual; that is to say, there was not even room on the stairs, and America's first-born, as per election, had long ago lost all feeling in the digits of his right hand.
Caleb S. Harkness was moving about in the quieter rooms, awaiting the great crush, when a lady and a man entered and looked around them with some amusement.
“Lord!” ejaculated Admiral Harkness, when his slow and mournful eyes rested on the lady. The exclamation, if profane, was justified, for it is probable that the American had never before set eyes on such a masterpiece of the Creator's power. There was in this woman's being—in her eyes, her face, her every movement—that combination of nonchalance and dignity which comes to beautiful and bright-minded girls when they are beginning to leave girlhood behind them. She was moderately tall, with hair of living brown, and deep blue eyes full of life and sweetness. She was not slim, but held herself like a boy with the strength that comes of perfect proportion. She was one of those women who set a soldier or a sailor thinking what manner of men her brothers must be.
Caleb Harkness observed all this with the unobtrusive scrutiny of his nation. He was standing near a curtained doorway buttoning his glove, and some one coming behind him pushed against him.
“Beg pardon, Harkness,” said a voice, and the Chief Secretary of the English Legation patted him on the shoulder. “Didn't see you. Looking for some one. By George, what a heat! Ah! there he is—thank goodness!”
And he went towards the lady and man who had just entered.
“Here, Monty, you're wanted at once,” Harkness heard him say to the youth, who appeared to be a few years younger than his beautiful companion.
He spoke a few words to the lady, who replied laughingly, and the British Attache came towards Harkness.
“Harkness,” he said; “want to introduce you to Lady Storrel.”
The American followed with a smile on his lean face. He knew that he was being introduced to Lady Storrel merely because there happened to be no one else at hand and her cavalier was wanted elsewhere.
“Lady Storrel, let me present to you Admiral Harkness, the man,” he added, over his shoulder, “who is going to make the United States the first Naval Power in the world.”
And with a good-natured laugh the two men went off, speaking hurriedly together.
“Is that true?” asked the lady, smiling with that mixture of girlishness and English grand-ladyism, which was so new to Caleb S. Harkness.
“Quite,” he answered; “but I am not going to tell you how.”
“No, please don't. Of course, you are an American?”
“Yes; but you need not mind that.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, looking at him frankly.
“I take it,” he answered, with a twinkle in his grave eyes, which she saw, and liked him for, “that you want some one to listen to your impressions of—all this. It IS rum, is it not?”
She laughed. “Yes,” she admitted, “it is—RUM.”
In a few minutes they had found a seat beneath a marvellous stand of flowers, and she was chattering away like a schoolgirl while he listened, and added here and there a keen comment or a humorous suggestion.
Presently she began talking of herself, and in natural sequence of her husband, of their home in England, of his career, and her hatred of politics.
“And,” she said suddenly, at the end of it, “here IS my husband.”
Harkness followed the direction of her glance, and looked upon a man in English Court-dress coming towards them.
“Ah!” he said, in a peculiar, dull voice, “that is your husband?”
She was smiling upon the man who approached, beckoning to him to come with her eyes, as women sometimes do. She turned sharply upon Harkness, her attention caught by something in his voice.
“Yes?” she answered.
Harkness had risen with a clatter of his sword on the polished floor, and stood awaiting the introduction.
“My husband—Admiral Harkness.”
The men bowed, and, before they could exchange a banal observation, the fair young man who had been called away came up.
“Phew, this is worse than Simla,” he said; then, offering his arm to Lady Storrel, “Alice,” he continued, “I have discovered some ices, THE most lovely ices.”
They moved away, the lady favouring Harkness with a little nod, leaving the two tallest men in that assembly facing each other.
When they were gone, Caleb S. Harkness and Lord Storrel looked into each other's eyes.
“So,” said Harkness, lapsing suddenly into a twang, “she waited.”
The other nodded. He raised his perfectly gloved hand to his moustache, which he tugged pensively to either side.
“Yes,” he answered; “she waited.”
Then he looked round the room, and, seeing that they were almost alone, he moved towards the seat just vacated by his wife.
“Come and sit down,” he said, “and I will tell you a little story.”
“Does she know it?” enquired Harkness, when they were seated.
“No.”
“Then I don't want to hear it! You'd better keep it to yourself, I reckon.”
The Englishman gave a little laugh, and lapsed into silence—thinking abstractedly.
“I should like to tell you some of it, for my own sake. I don't want you to go away thinking—something that is not the fact.”
“I would rather not have the story,” persisted Harkness. This American had some strange notions of a bygone virtue called chivalry. “Give me a few facts—I will string them together.”
Lord Storrel was sitting forward on his low chair, with his hands clasped between his knees. They were rather large hands—suggestive of manual labour.
“Suppose,” he said, without looking round, “that a man is in a street row in Dublin, when no one knows he is even in the town. Suppose the—eh—English side of the question is getting battered, and he hits out and kills a drunken beast of an Irish agitator. Suppose an innocent man is accused of it and the right chap is forced to come forward and show up UNDER A FALSE NAME and gets five years. Suppose he escapes after three and a half, and goes home, saying that he has been in America, cattle ranching—having always been a scapegrace, and a ne'er-do-well, who never wrote home when he had gone off in a huff. Suppose he had tried all this for the sake of—a girl, and had carried it through—”
Caleb Harkness had discovered that the identity of the British Plenipotentiary had become known to some of the more curious of the President's guests, who were now mooning innocently around them as they sat. He moved in his chair as if to rise.
“Yes—I can suppose all that,” he said.
The Englishman's nerve was marvellous. He saw what Harkness had seen a moment before, and over his face came the bland smile of an intelligent English man talking naval matters with an American admiral.
“Of course,” he said, “I am at your mercy.”
“I was at yours once; so now we are quits, I take it.”
And the two big men rose and passed out of the room together.