Chapter 7

"You know it was very foolish of me--very--to think I could make you happy, Andrew, with all these riches," he said at last, not thickly, but very low, as if he had saved strength for what he wished to say.... "You were a long time coming, but I knew you would come--knew it would be just like this--in your arms. Queer, isn't it? And all the waiting years, I kept piling up lands and money, saying: 'This shall be his when he comes.'... It was a little hard at first to know you didn't care--you couldn't care--that one, and ten, were all the same to you. And last night, I saw it all again. Had I brought you word that Celestino Rey had the government and that confiscation of these lands were inevitable, you would never have compared it in importance with finding that part of the symphony. It's all right. I wouldn't have it changed...."

Andrew listened with bowed head, patting the Captain's shoulder gently, as he sustained.

"But I have given you more than money, boy. And this you know--as a man, who knew money better, could never understand. I have given you an old man's love for a son--but more than that, too,--something of the old man's love for the mother of his son.... I thought only women had the delicacy and fineness--you have shown me, sir.... It is all done, and you have made me very glad for these years--since the great wind failed to get us--"

Then he mingled silences with sentences that finally became aimless--seas, ships, cooks, and the boy who had nipped him from the post he meant to hold--and a final genial blending of goats and symphonies, on the borders of the Crossing. Then he nestled, and Bedient felt the hand he had taken, try to sense his own through the gathering cold.... It was very easy and beautiful--and so brief that Bedient's arm was not even tired.

An hour afterward, Falk came in for orders--and withdrew.

Bedient had merely nodded to him from the depths of contemplation.... At last, he heard the weeping of the house-servants. And there was one low wailing tone that startled him with the memory of the Sikh woman who had wept for old Gobind.

EIGHTH CHAPTER

THE MAN FROM _THE PLEIAD_

Bedient drew from Falk a few days afterward that the Captain had planned almost exactly as it happened. Since the beginnings of unrest in Equatoria, he had transferred his banking to New York; so that in the event of defeat in war, only the lands and _hacienda_ would revert, upon the fall of the present government. Falk could not remember (and his services dated back fifteen years, at which time he left Surrey with the Captain) when the master did not speak of Bedient's coming.

"But for your letters, sir, Leadley and I would have come to think of you as--as just one of the master's ways, Mister Andrew."

Falk was a middle-aged serving-class Englishman, highly trained and without humor. Leadley, the cook, and a power in his department, dated also from Surrey, which was his county. These men had learned to handle the natives to a degree, and the entire responsibility of the establishment had fallen upon them during the absences of the Captain. As chief of house-servants and as cook, these two at their best were faultless, but the life was very easy, and they were given altogether too many hands to help. Moreover, Falk and Leadley belonged to that queer human type which proceeds to burn itself out with alcohol if left alone. The latter years of such servants become a steady battle to keep sober enough for service. Each man naturally believed himself an admirable drinker.

Natives came from the entire Island to smoke and drink and weep for the Captain. Dictator Jaffier sent his "abject bereavement" by pony pack-train, which, having formed in a sort of hollow square, received the thanks of Bedient, and assurances that his policy would continue in the delightful groove worn by the late best of men. The reply of Jaffier was the offer of a public funeral in Coral City, but Bedient declined this, and the body of his friend was turned toward the East upon the shoulder of his highest hill....

Presently Bedient read the Captain's documents. Falk and Leadley were bountifully cared for; scores of natives were remembered; the policy toward Jaffier outlined according to the best experience; and the bulk, name, lands, bonds, capital and all--"to my beloved young friend, Andrew Bedient."... At the request and expense of the latter, the New York bankers sent down an agent to verify the transfer of this great fortune. A month passed--a foretaste of what was to come. Bedient, prepared for greater work than this, was lonely in the sunlight.

He knew that he must soon begin to live his own life. His every faculty was deeply urging. Equatoria had little to do with the realities for which he had gathered more than thirty years' equipment. He felt a serious responsibility toward his fortune, though absolutely without the thrill of personal possession. The just administration of these huge forces formed no little part of his work, and in his entire thinking on this subject, New York stood most directly in the need of service. It was there that the Captain's accumulated vitality must be used for good.

Early in the second month, Bedient came in at noon from a long ride across the lands, and reaching the great porch of the _hacienda_, he turned to observe a tropic shower across the valley. The torrent approached at express speed. It was a clean-cut pouring, several acres in extent. Bedient watched it fill the spaces between the little hills, sweep from crest to crest, and bring out a subdued glow in the wild verdure as it swept across the main valley. Sharp was the line of dry sunlit air and gray slanting shower. Presently he heard its pounding, and the dustless slopes rolled into the gray.... Now he sniffed the acute fragrance that rushed before it in the wind, and then it climbed the drive, deluged the _hacienda,_ and was gone.... In the moist, sweet, yellow light that filled his eyes, Bedient, fallen into deeps of contemplation, saw the face of a woman.

He went inside and looked up the Dryden sailings. The _Hatteras_ would clear, according to schedule, in ten days. That meant that the _Henlopen_ was now in port. His eyes had looked first for the former, since it had brought him down, and was the Captain's favorite.... Yes, the _Henlopen_ was due to sail to-morrow at daylight.... He told Falk he would go.... In that upper room across from his own, he bowed his head for a space, and the fragrance still there brought back the heaving cabin of the _Truxton_.... Then he rode down to Coral City in the last hours of daylight.

His devoirs were paid to Dictator Jaffier, who confided that he had purchased a gunboat and search-light on behalf of the government. Its delivery was but ten days off, and with it he expected to keep that old sea-fighter, Celestino Rey, better in order.... Bedient had the evening to himself. In one of the _Calle Real_ cafés, he was attracted by the face and figure of a young white man, of magnificent proportions and remarkably clean-cut profile. The stranger sipped iced claret, watched the natives moving about, and seemed occasionally to forget himself in his thinking.

He looked more than ever a giant in the midst of the little tropical people, and seemed to feel his size in the general diminutive setting. Yet there was balance and fitness about his splendid physical organization, which suggested that he could be quick as a mink in action. He chaffed the native who waited upon him, and his face softened into charming boyishness as he laughed. His mouth was fresh as a child's, but on a scale of grandeur. Bedient found himself smiling with him. Then there was that irresistible folding about the eyes when he laughed, which is Irish as sin, and quite as attractive. Left to himself he fell to brooding, and his brow puzzled over some matter in the frank bored way of one pinned to a textbook. Bedient sat down at the other's table. Acquaintance was as agreeably received as offered.

The stranger's name was Jim Framtree. He had been on the Island for several weeks, and intended to stay for awhile. He liked Equatoria well enough--as well, in fact, as a man could like any place, when he was barred from the real trophy-room in the house of the world, New York.

"I'm sailing for New York in the morning," Bedient said.

Framtree shivered and fell silent.

"You've found work that you like here?" Bedient asked simply.

The other glanced at him humorously, and yet with a bit of intensity, too,--as if searching for the meaning under such an unadorned question.

"I seem to have caught on with Señor Rey at _The Pleiad_," he replied.

"Ah--"

"I'm afraid you're making a mistake, sir," Framtree added quickly. "I'm not barred from New York on any cashier matter. You know when something you want badly--and can't have--is in a town--that isn't the place for you.... Even if you like that town best on earth.... What I mean is, I'm not using _The Pleiad_ as a hiding proposition."

"I wasn't thinking of that," Bedient said.

"I suppose it would be natural--down here----"

"But I _saw you first_."

"Um-m."

"I was only thinking," Bedient resumed, "that if the establishment of Señor Rey palled upon you at any time, I'd like to have you come up and see me in the hills.... I'd be glad to have you come, anyway. I may not be very long in New York--"

* * * * *

"That's mighty good of you," Framtree declared, and yet it was obvious that he could not regard the invitation as purely a friendly impulse, even if he wished to. "I remember now. I've heard of your big place up there."

"Perhaps, I'd better explain that I wasn't thinking of Island politics--when I asked you.... Queer how one has to explain things down here. I've noticed that it's hard for folks to go straight at a thing."

Framtree laughed again, and tried hard to understand what was in the other's mind. Bedient's simplicity was too deep for him. They talked for an hour, each singularly attracted, but evading any subject that would call in the matters of political unrest. Each felt that the other wanted to be square, but Bedient saw that it would be useless to impress upon Framtree how little hampered he was by Jaffier.... At daybreak the next morning, the fruity old _Henlopen_ pointed out toward the reefs, and presently was nudging her way through the coral passage, as confidently as if the trick of getting to sea from Coral City was part of the weathered consciousness of her boilers and plates.

II

NEW YORK

_Andante con moto_

NINTH CHAPTER

THE LONG-AWAITED WOMAN

Bedient went directly to the house-number of David Cairns in West Sixty-seventh Street, without telephoning for an appointment. It happened that the time of his arrival was unfortunate. Something of this he caught, first from the look of the elevator attendant, who took him to the tenth floor of a modern studio-building; and further from the man-servant who answered his ring at the Cairns apartment.

"Mr. Cairns sees no one before two o'clock, sir," said the latter, whose cool eye took in the caller.

Bedient hesitated. It was now twelve-forty-five. He felt that Cairns would be hurt if he went away. "Tell him that Andrew Bedient is here, and that I shall be glad to wait or call again, just as he prefers."

And now the servant hesitated. "It is very seldom we disturb him, sir. Most of his friends understand that he is not available between nine and two."

Bedient was embarrassed. The morning in the city had preyed upon him. Realizing his discomfort, and the petty causes of it, he became unwilling to leave. "I am not of New York and could not know. I think you'd better tell Mr. Cairns and let him judge----"

The servant had reached the same conclusion. Bedient was shown into a small room, furnished with much that was peculiarly metropolitan to read.... He rather expected Cairns to rush from some interior, and waited ten minutes, glancing frequently at the door through which the servant had left.... His heart had bounded at the thought of seeing David, and he smiled at his own hurt.... A door opened behind him. The writer came forward quietly, with warm dignity caught him by both shoulders and smilingly searched his eyes. Bedient was all kindness again. "Doubtless his friends come in from Asia often," he thought.

"Andrew, it's ripping good to see you.... Why didn't you let me know you were coming?"

"I didn't want you to alter your ways at all."

"You see, I have to keep these morning hours----"

"Go back--I'll wait gladly, or call when you like."

"Don't go away, pray, unless there is something you must do for the next hour or so."

* * * * *

In waiting, Bedient did not allow himself to search for anything theatric or unfeeling at the centre of the episode. Cairns had moved in many of the world atmospheres, and had done some work which the world noted with approval. Moreover, he had called from Bedient bestowals of friendship which could not be forgotten.... "I have been alone and in the quiet so much that _I_ can remember," Bedient mused, "while he has been rushing about from action to action. Then New York would rub out anybody's old impressions."

As the clock struck, Cairns appeared ready for the street. He was a trifle drawn about the mouth, and irritated. Having been unable to work in the past hour, the day was amiss, for he hated a broken session and an allotment of space unfilled. Still, Cairns did not permit the other to see his displeasure; and the distress which Bedient felt, he attributed to New York, and not the New Yorker....

The mind of David Cairns had acquired that cultivated sense of authority which comes from constantly being printed. He was a much-praised young man. His mental films were altogether too many, and they had been badly developed for the insatiable momentary markets to which timeliness is all. Very much, he needed quiet years to synthesize and appraise his materials.... Bedient, he regarded as a luxury, and just at this moment, he was not in the mood for one. Cairns drove himself and his work, forgetting that the fuller artist is driven.... Luzon and pack-train memories were dim in his mind. He did not forget that he had won his first name in that field, but he did forget for a time the wonderful night-talks. A multitude of impressions since, had disordered these delicate and formative hours. Only now, in his slow-rousing heart he felt a restlessness, a breath of certain lost delights.

It was a sappy May day. The spring had been late--held long in wet and frosty fingers--and here was the first flood of moist warmth to stir the Northern year into creation. Cairns was better after a brisk walk. Housed for long, unprofitable hours, everything had looked slaty at first.

"Where are you staying, Andrew?"

"_Marigold_."

"Why do you live 'way down there? That's a part of town for business hours only. The heart of things has been derricked up here."

"I'm very sure of a welcome there," Bedient explained. "My old friend Captain Carreras had Room 50, from time to time for so many years, that I fell into it with his other properties. Besides, all the pirates, island kings and prosperous world-tramps call at the _Marigold._ And then, they say--the best dinner----"

"That's a tradition of the Forty-niners----"

"I have no particular reason for staying down there, even if I keep the room. I'll do that for the Captain's sake.... I'm not averse to breezing around up-town."

"Ah----" came softly from Cairns.

"I'd like to know some _folks_," Bedient admitted.

Cairns was smiling at him. "You'll have to have a card at my clubs. There's _Teuton's, Swan's_ and the _Smilax_ down Gramercy way.... Perhaps we'd better stop in at the _Swan's_ for a bite to eat. The idea is, you can try them all, Andrew, and put up at the one you fit into best----"

"Exactly," breathed Bedient.

"You won't like the _Smilax_ overmuch," Cairns ventured, "but you may pass a forenoon there, while I'm at work. Stately old place, with many paintings and virgin silence. The women artists are going there more and more----"

"I like paintings," said Bedient.

They walked across _Times Square_ and toward the Avenue, through Forty-second. Cairns waited for the quiet to ask:

"Andrew, you haven't found Her yet--The Woman?"

"No. Have you?"

"Did--I used to have one, too?"

"Yes."

"Andrew, do you think She's in New York?" Cairns asked.

"It's rather queer about that," Bedient answered. "I was watching a rain-storm from the porch of the _hacienda_ seven or eight days ago, when it came to me that I'd better take the first ship up. I sailed the next morning."

This startled Cairns. He was unaccustomed to such sincerity. "You mean it occurred to you that She was here--the One you used to tell me about in Asia?"

"Yes."

Cairns now felt an untimely eagerness of welcome for the wanderer. A renewal of Bedient's former attractions culminated in his mind, and something more that was fine and fresh and permanent. He twinged for what had happened at the apartment.... Bedient was a man's man, strong as a platoon in a pinch--that had been proved. He was plain as a sailor in ordinary talk, but Cairns knew now that he had only begun to challenge Bedient's finer possessions of mind.... Here in New York, a man over thirty years old, who could speak of the Woman-who-must-be-somewhere. And Bedient spoke in the same ideal, unhurt way of twenty, when they had spread blankets together under strange stars... Cairns knew in a flash that something was gone from his own breast that he had carried then. It was an altogether uncommon moment to him. "So it has not all been growth," he thought. "All that has come since has not been fineness."... He felt a bit denied, as if New York had "gotten" to him, as if he had lost a young prince's vision, that the queen mother had given him on setting out.... He was just one of the million males, feathering nests of impermanence, and stifling the true hunger for the skies and the great cleansing migratory flights....

All this was a miracle to David Cairns. He was solid; almost English in his up-bringing to believe that man's work, and established affairs, thoughts and systems generally were right and unimpeachable. He heard himself scoffing at such a thing, had it happened to another.... He stared into Bedient's face, brown, bright and calm. He had seen only good humor and superb health before, but for an instant now, he perceived a spirit that rode with buoyancy, after a life of loneliness and terror that would have sunk most men's anchorage, fathoms deeper than the reach of the longest cable of faith.

"I think I'm getting to be--just a biped.... I'm glad you came up.... Here we are at _Swan's_," said Cairns.

* * * * *

Like most writers, David Cairns was intensely interesting to himself. His sudden reversal from bleak self-complacence to a clear-eyed view of his questionable approaches to real worth, was strong with bitterness, but deeply absorbing. He was remarkable in his capacity to follow this opening of his own insignificance. It had been slow coming, but ruthlessly now, he traced his way back from one breach to another, and finally to that night in the plaza at Alphonso, when he had been enabled to see service from a unique and winning angle, through the pack-train cook. That was the key to his catching on; that, and his boy ideals of war had lifted his copy from the commonplace. He remembered Bedient in China, in Japan, and in his own house--how grudgingly he had appeared in his working hours. He felt like an office-boy who has made some pert answer to an employer too big and kind to notice. Now and then up the years, certain warm thoughts had come to him from those island nights, but he had forgotten their importance in gaining his so-called standing.

Andrew Bedient was nothing like the man he had expected to find. He remembered now that he might have looked for these rare elements of character, since the boyhood talks had promised them, and power had emanated from them.... Still, Bedient had grown marvellously, in strange, deep ways. Cairns could not fathom them all, but he realized that nothing better could happen to him than to study this man. Indeed, his mind was fascinated in following the rich leads of his friend's resources. He consoled himself for his shortcomings with the thought that, at least, he was ready to see....

They talked as of old, far into the night. Cairns found himself endeavoring with a swift, nervous eagerness to show his _best_ to Andrew Bedient, and to be judged by that best. He spoke of none of the achievements which the world granted to be his; instead, the little byway humanities were called forth, for the other to hear--buds of thought and action, which other pressures had kept from fertilizing into seed--the very things he would have delighted in relating to a dear, wise woman. Something about Bedient called them forth, and Cairns fell into new depths. "I thought it was pure sex-challenge which made a man bring these things to a woman." (This is the way he developed the idea afterward.) "But that can't be all, since I unfolded so to Bedient.... He has me going in all directions like a steam-shovel."

Cairns was arranging a little party for his friend. In the meantime, his productive quantity sank from torrent to trickle. His secretary, who knew the processes of the writer's mind as the keys of his machine, and had adjusted his own brain to them through many brisk sessions, fell now through empty space. He had no resources in this room, where he had been driven so long by the mental force of another. Having suffered himself to be played upon, like the instrument before him, he died many deaths from _ennui_.... So Cairns and the secretary stared helplessly at each other across the emptiness; and New York rushed on, with its mad business, singing spitefully in their ears: "You for the poor-farms. You'll lose your front, and your markets. Your income is suffering; the presses are waiting; editors dependent...."

Cairns left the house on the third morning after Bedient's coming, having dictated two or three letters.... Bedient was across the street from the _Smilax Club_ in the little fenced-in park--Gramercy. Cairns told his work-difficulty.

"Don't you think it would be good for you, David," Bedient asked, "to let the subconscious catch up?"

Cairns was interested at once. "What do you mean?"

"I've been thinking more than a little about you and New York. One thing is sure: New York is pretty much wrong, or I'm insane----"

"You're happy about it," Cairns remarked. "Tell me the worst."

"People here use their reflectors and not their generators," Bedient said. "They shine with another's light, when they should be incandescent. The brain in your skull, in any man's skull, is but a reflector, an instrument of his deeper mind. There's your genius, infinitely wiser than your brain. It's your sun; your brain, the moon. All great work comes from the subconscious mind. You and New York use too much moonshine."

Both men were smiling, but to Cairns, nevertheless, it seemed that his own conscience had awakened after a long sleep. This wanderer from the seas had twigged the brain brass which he had long been passing for gold value. He saw many bits of his recent work, as products of intellectual foppery. He recalled a letter recently received from an editor; which read: "That last article of yours has caught on. Do six more like it." He hadn't felt the stab before. He had done the six--multiplied his original idea by mechanical means....