BOOK VI

FANNY

I

DURING the long voyage Julia dismissed her work and its obligations from her mind, and resigned herself to that form of happiness women are able to extract from the mere fact of being in love, even when indefinitely separated from the object. Her fear that she might have alienated Tay by her excursion into his brain had been banished by his letters, and she was free to enjoy herself miserably. She was delighted to find that he filled every waking moment, that neither literature nor the several pleasant people with whom she made acquaintance could send him to the rear, and she cultivated long hours of solitude and idleness during which she thought of nothing else. She projected her spirit into the future and California, and dreamed of happiness only: politics, reform, and the improvement of the race were not for dreams. The only real rival of love is Art, for that in itself is a deep personal passion, its function an act of creation, fed by some mysterious perversion of sex, and demanding all the imagination’s activities. This rival Tay was mercifully spared, and the god of duty, always arbitrarily elevated and largely the child of egoism, stands a poor chance when gasping in the furnace of love. Abstractly, Julia purposed to return to her duty when its call became imperious, but during this period of liberty she felt she would be more than fool to close her eyes to any of the beatic pictures composed by her imagination and the tumults of sex.

Of course there were hours when she felt profoundly depressed and miserable, when she stormed and protested, and hated the fluid desert that prevented her from changing her course and fleeing to Tay. But this, also, was novel and exciting and part of love’s curriculum; she revelled in every manifestation of her long-denied womanhood, and was further thrilled with the belief that no woman had ever suffered such an upheaval before. She wrote a daily letter to Tay, revealing herself without mercy, and found a keen delight in this new power of his to annihilate the profound reserve of her nature.

The only thing she didn’t tell him was of the return of her old longing for children. That inherent desire had slunk into horrified retreat at France’s betrothal kiss, and had visited her but fitfully in India, but now it reasserted itself almost as tyrannically as her longing for the man who was the mate of her sex as surely as of her soul and brain. She even felt a passionate delight that she soon could satisfy it vicariously in Fanny. She had never ceased to love this child she once had cuddled daily in her arms, and was far more excited at the prospect of being with her again, than of seeing her strange old mother. To be sure, her love for that once fond parent had risen in all its old strength during this carnival of the primal, but Mrs. Edis at her best was unresponsive, and after the long separation unlikely to thaw for some time to come. In Fanny she could find satisfaction for her maternal yearnings until they found their natural outlet. And she should take her back to London, with or without her mother’s consent. Fanny! What did she look like? She had been an adorable little dark baby; surely she must have inherited the beauty of the family. Some were dark and others almost blond, like herself, but both the Byams and the Edises had always been famous for their looks. Even Mrs. Winstone had grudgingly admitted that Fanny had exterior promise, and if she had turned out a beauty, Ishbel should give her the best of girl’s good times in London. And she herself should have something to cling to during these awful months—perhaps years—of separation.

After she changed steamers at Barbadoes and began the leisurely journey up the Caribbean Sea, she was much diverted by the beauty of the long chain of islands, and began to thrill with the prospect of seeing her birthplace once more. Her roots were in Nevis; it held the dust of generations of her ancestors; it was the one perfect, peaceful, and happy memory of her life, and never could she love even California as well. She knew that she should have flown to it in her trouble were it empty of both her mother and Fanny.

After the steamer left Antigua, she never took her eyes from the stately pyramid, shadowy at first, detaching itself with a sharper definition every moment. When she was close enough to see the green on its sweeping lines, its waving fields of cane, its fine ruins of old “Great Houses,” the white roads, deserted save for an occasional laborer or a colored woman swinging along with a basket on her head, a pic’nie clinging to her hip, the waving palms on the shore, the white cloud that hovered by day over the lost crater, and extinguished the island at night, she ran to her stateroom to quell an almost unbearable excitement. But Collins was packing, and Collins was already puzzled, perturbed, and speculating. No quicker antidote to tumultuous emotions could be devised. Julia’s tears retreated, and she began to rearrange her flying locks before the mirror; but it was impossible to keep the exultation out of her voice.

“We’re nearly there, Collins!”

“Yes, mum.”

“It is my old home! Just think of it, I haven’t seen it for sixteen years.”

“Yes, mum.”

“I’m sure you will enjoy staying here for a bit, Nevis is so beautiful. There’s nothing in all Europe like it.”

“I shan’t be sea-sick. I’m thankful for that.”

“How do I look? I haven’t seen my waist line since I left London.”

“I dressed you this morning, mum. You look quite all right. Shall I really sleep in a Christian bed to-night, and have a decent cup of tea?”

“You shall, you shall! And if my mother still kills stringy old cows, I’ll get good English beef for you from Bath House.”

“Thank God, mum. Everything on board ship tastes that horrid I could eat a cow cooked particular, no matter how stringy. Don’t lean on the rail too much. Linen crushes that easy.”

Julia, who wore a linen coat and skirt of crash brown linen, with a hat and parasol, and shoes and gloves, of a darker shade, nodded at herself in the glass and returned to the deck. For the moment Tay was forgotten.

The steamer was rounding the island and she stared at Bath House, the greatest hotel in the world in its time, a picturesque ruin in her memory, now rebuilt in part and showing many signs of life. Colored servants were hanging out of the upper windows cheering the ship, and gayly dressed people were sitting on the terrace. But Julia, although for a moment she resented the least of the changes in her island, soon forgot Bath House as she eagerly gazed through her field-glass at the groups down by the jetty. There was the usual crowd of whites and negroes, some with much business to attend to when the ship cast anchor, more with none whatever. In a moment she detached a group striving to detach itself from the pushing crowd—all Charles Town seemed to have turned out—and saw Mrs. Winstone, Mr. Pirie, several people of the same class, and one young girl. Could that be Fanny? Once more her hands shook. The girl was dancing up and down, waving her handkerchief. It must be. Julia laid aside her field-glass and waved in return. Then the delay seemed endless.

The water had become suddenly alive with boats. Little black boys were diving for pennies. It was a gay tropical picture; and, behind, the palms and the cocoanut-trees, fringing the suave flowing lines of the great volcano.

The ladder was swung, the first officer gave her his arm, and she descended to the boat, followed by the uneasy Collins, who looked at the heaving waters below that frail craft with dire forebodings. But Julia had no sympathy in her for Collins. Her thoughts were on Fanny, when they were not adjusting her mask of bright cool serenity. She had no intention of making an exhibition of herself in public.

All doubt of Fanny’s identity was set at rest, for a girl’s long supple figure was flying down the jetty, and she was waving frantically and calling out, “Aunt Julia! Aunt Julia!” Julia received a momentary shock, not quite sure that she liked being called aunt by this tall girl, who looked more than her eighteen years. But that was a trifle and she gazed with both fondness and admiration at the blooming beauty of the girl who now stood quite alone on the edge of the jetty. Fanny was very dark, showing the French strain in their blood (Mrs. Edis’s father had found his wife on Martinique); her large eyes and abundant hair were black, her skin olive and claret, her full large mouth as red as one of the hibiscus flowers of her native island; her figure, both slender and full, was as beautiful as her face, even in the white cotton frock which she probably had made itself. Julia thought she had never seen a more perfect type of voluptuous young womanhood, and reflected that she should not be long marrying her off in London, even without a dowry.

She smiled happily, and a moment later, elevated to the jetty by the boatman, was enveloped, smothered, overwhelmed by Fanny.

“Oh, Aunt Julia!” cried the girl between her kisses. “Just to think you are here at last! Something is actually happening on this old island. Oh, promise me that you will take me away with you.”

“Yes, yes, indeed,” gasped Julia, her spirits unaccountably dashed. “Of course I will, darling. How beautiful you are!”

“Oh, am I? Much good it has done me so far. I’ve just spoken to a young man for the first time in my life, and he has gray hair.”

“You poor child! Did—did—my mother come down?”

“Not she. The steamer wasn’t expected until seven, and she was asleep. When I saw it coming, I _ran_. She’d never have let me come. I’ve never been outside the estate alone before. Even Aunt Maria hasn’t taken me down to Bath House. There she is with an old gentleman that wears a wig.”

They had reached the end of the long jetty, and Julia kissed her aunt, shook hands with Mr. Pirie, who had eyes for no one but Fanny, and was introduced to a young gray-haired man named Morison.

“_Mo_rison,” she repeated mechanically to herself. “Where have I heard that name?”

But she had no time to think. Mrs. Winstone was talking rapidly. Julia wondered if the tropics had affected her aunt’s nerves. She was twirling her parasol, and her eyes had more intelligence in them than she usually admitted, save when conducting a dilettante Suffrage meeting.

“Really, Julia!” she exclaimed. “It’s too tiresome. But I didn’t expect the Royal Mail for hours yet; came down to see Hannah and Pirie at Bath House, and sent the horses to be shod. They’re not ready, and there’s nothin’ else—everybody drivin’. Do you think you could walk up the mountain in this heat?”

“Of course she can’t!” cried Fanny. “Of course she can’t!”

“I’m sure I could,” began Julia, but once more Fanny enveloped her.

“Oh, no, darling,” she cried entreatingly. “You’d faint in that heat—climbing. It was bad enough coming down. And, oh, I do want another glimpse of Bath House. You’ve no idea how excited I was all the time it was building. It was like an old romance come to life. But much good it has done me. And it has an orchestra!”

Julia laughed outright. Fanny might not possess the priceless gift of tact, but she was enchantingly young. Her exuberant youth, in fact, made everybody else feel superannuated, and her next remark, as she and Julia started for the hotel arm in arm, did not remove the impression.

“How oddly young you look, Aunt Julia,” observed the girl, whose large curious eyes were exploring every detail of Julia’s appearance. “Of course I knew you were much younger than Granny or Aunt Maria, or I shouldn’t have been so keen to have you come home, but you look almost a girl. I suppose it’s because you are quite a little thing and haven’t grown either scrawny or fat.”

“Really,” said her aunt, dryly, “I’m five feet three and a half, and thirty-four is a long way from old age.”

“Well, it’s not young,” said Fanny, who appeared to be of a hopelessly literal turn. “Thirty-four! Why you are only a year younger than mother would have been.”

This remark touched a chord which for the moment routed anxious vanity. Julia put her arm about Fanny’s waist, no slenderer than her own. “I wish you _were_ mine!” she said fondly. “But sister is the next best thing. I can’t have you calling me aunt. That is much too remote—I have wanted you for so many years. You must imagine that you are my little sister, and call me Julia. Will you?”

“Yes, if you like. But promise me that you will bring me to Bath House every day. You will want to come yourself, if only to get away from Great House, and you have friends there—a nice old lady named Macmanus—and I saw two or three women with _such_ frocks! Did you bring me any frocks from London?”

“Ah—I didn’t! But, you see, I not only left in such a hurry, but I had no idea whether you were tall or short. Of course I brought you some presents.”

“Oh, did you? What are they?”

“Some pretty silver things for your dressing-table, and a manicure set, and some scarves, and all sorts of fol-de-rols that pretty girls like.”

“Well, that’s too sweet of you,” and Fanny, kissed her again. “But I’d rather have had frocks. What shall I do if you take me to the party at Bath House on Thursday night?—and you must! You must! There’s no dressmaker on Nevis that could make a party-gown.”

“You shall have any of my evening gowns you want. You are taller, but Collins is quite a genius.”

Fanny almost danced. “That will be heavenly. Oh—oh—talk about frocks!”

“What a pretty woman!”

They were both looking at a very smart young woman advancing down the palm avenue. She had a dark vivid little face, and wore a frock of sublimated pink linen, and a soft drooping black hat. She smiled and waved her parasol as she caught Julia’s eye.

“Of course you’ve forgotten me, Mrs. France,” she cried gayly.

“This is Mrs. Morison, of New York, Julia,” said Mrs. Winstone, who had accelerated her steps. Her voice had lost its drawl.

“Mrs. Morison?” asked Julia, with a premonitory tremor.

“Yes—Emily Tay—but of course you’ve quite forgotten me. I never forgot you, though—and that terrible old castle you showed me for a solid hour.”

Julia had taken her hand mechanically, wondering if Nevis were shaking herself loose from the sea.

“Of course I do remember you. I liked your independence. But how odd you should be here.”

“Not a bit of it. I’m always after novelty—restless American, you know, and this is the very latest. Besides, my husband had an attack of Wall Street prostration, and this wasn’t too far. But it’s simply enchanting to see you again—I’ve been so proud these last two or three years to be able to say I knew you.”

Fanny cast a glance over her shoulder, then fell back between Mr. Pirie and Mr. Morison.

“I saw Dan in New York,” Dan’s sister rattled on. “It was too funny. He was in a beastly glum temper, until I mentioned your name. Then he cleared up so suddenly that I had my suspicions. Do you remember how dead in love with you he was at the tender age of fifteen, and what a time Cherry had inducing him to go home without you? I’ve just the ghost of an idea he hasn’t got over it. Poor Dan! Of course you’d never look at him.”

“And why not?” asked Julia, in arms.

“Well, you are some person over there, and California is the jumping-off place.”

“I thought it was the most beautiful country in the world.”

“Oh, it’s that, all right. But after London—or New York! I do want Dan to transfer his energies to New York. It’s the only place in America to live.”

“Perhaps he thinks he can do more good in his own state.”

“New York being in no need of a clean-up! However, no doubt you’re right. Dan’s a tremendous gun out there, if he does make himself unpopular. I try to console myself with the thought that he’s making a national reputation, but meanwhile my income doesn’t go up. However, of course you’re not interested in our politics. Dan’ll be delighted to hear that we’ve met again. Here we are. You must be dying for your tea.”

II

THEY crossed the terraces and entered the cool spacious hall of the hotel. Mrs. Macmanus, who was sitting alone, came forward and kissed Julia warmly.

“So delighted you’ve come down here to liven us up a bit, my dear. Maria has almost deserted us. It was only to-day I heard you were coming. Bath House is in quite a flutter.”

“My nerves haven’t been worth mentioning since we got Julia’s cable,” said Mrs. Winstone, who was close on Julia’s heels. “I came to Nevis to rest them, and Fanny alone would set them on edge. I don’t believe she’s slept since she heard Julia was comin’.”

Julia, whose agitation had subsided, hastily swallowed a cup of strong tea, left the group abruptly, and put her arm about Fanny. Here, at least, was peace and diversion.

“Come and talk to me, darling,” she said. “I’ve a thousand things to say to you.”

Fanny, who was alone with Mr. Pirie at the moment, went willingly, and they sat down on one of the sofas at the end of the long hall.

“Now let me really look at you. Yes, you look like Fawcett. Do you remember your father?”

“How could I? I was only three when he died.”

“And now you are eighteen! I cannot take it in. I believe I have always thought of you as a baby.”

“Oh, do you think Granny’ll let me go back with you? She hates the world and despises men—as if they were all alike! But at least—Oh, please _swear_, dear Aunt—Julia—that you will help me to play a bit while you’re here. You can’t fancy how dull I am. I want to come to Bath House every day, and dance every night. You can tell Granny that Mrs. Morison is an old friend of yours, and has come to Nevis to see you. Of course Granny’ll let me go anywhere with you.”

“Poor mother!”

“Oh, she’s had her own way all her life; just what I’d like to have. Please pity _me_, Julia. Why, I might marry if I ever had a chance to see a man nearer than through a field-glass. The war-ships that I’ve seen come and go in this roadstead! And the St. Kitts girls dancing on them! But I! I might as well be one of those Dutch women in the crater of St. Batts, making drawn-work from one year’s end to the other.”

“Poor child! You may be sure I’ll do all I can. But—ah—” Julia felt quite the aunt for a moment. “Don’t be in such a hurry to marry.”

“But I am in a hurry to marry. That’s the only road out of Nevis. And what girl isn’t in a hurry to marry? If Granny wouldn’t give her consent, well—I’d just love to elope.”

Julia laughed. “If you are as romantic as that, I must manage that you see a good bit of the world before you enter the somewhat prosaic state of matrimony—”

“I am romantic—rather! I think of nothing else but love—love—love. I’ve made up a lover out of all the novels I’ve read—and I’ll have one, no fear! But I must have a chance to see him first. So please give it to me.”

“Where have you found novels to read? Mother long since wrote me to send you none.”

“Oh, I know. And Aunt Maria keeps hers locked up. But I run the estate, you know, and I have to go over to St. Kitts every now and again, body-guarded by two old servants, of course, and I’ve made friends with some girls over there, and they’ve lent me a few. And I always manage to pass an hour in the public library, and look at the picture papers. Granny takes in nothing but the _Weekly Times_. Sometimes, when we are driving, she lets me get out and read the cablegrams tacked up on the court-house door! Oh, what a place to live in!”

“And yet I could wish that I had never left Nevis. I almost wish I need never leave it again.”

“Oh, you’ll get over that in about a week. Aunt Maria yawns all the time. If it weren’t for her complexion and her waist line, she’d be packing now. What does she want? She’s always spying on me.”

Mrs. Winstone descended upon them precipitately. There was a pleasurable excitement in her mien, and once more Julia wondered if she, like many others, had found the tropics bad for the nerves.

“Fanny. Mr. Pirie wants to talk to you, calls you a blushing peach, volcanic product: you’ve quite rejuvenated him. I want to ask Julia about our great cause in London.”

“I’ll not talk to any old men. Mr. Morison’s quite nice. What a bore he’s married. I could have cried when I heard it, although I never could fall in love with a man with gray hair.” And she deliberately walked over to the young man lounging in a chair and staring at her.

“A bit forward, our Fanny,” said Julia, with a sigh. “But she has all her father’s love of life.”

“And all her grandmother’s of havin’ her own way. Not that it’s worth analyzin’. Analyzin’s so fatiguin’. She’s young, pretty, healthy, starves for life, and exists on a volcano! I’d feel sorry for her if I wasn’t sure she could take care of herself. What’s your impression of her?”

“She’s a beauty. A rather obvious type, perhaps, but still—How’s my mother?”

“Quite all right. She’ll bury us all, and then merely desiccate—or fly off on a broomstick.”

“Was—is—do you think she wants to see me?”

“Don’t ask me. She won’t talk about you. But—but—” Mrs. Winstone shot a cunning glance out of her now absent and ingenuous orbs. “Do tell me, Julia,—I’m expirin’ with curiosity—what brought you here? You hadn’t the least notion of comin’ when I saw you last. Has Mr. Tay—”

“I don’t care to talk about Mr. Tay.”

“Of course it’s none of my business, but please! I’ve been quite excited ever since I came down to-day—it’s astonishin’ what will interest one on a desert island!—But Pirie and Hannah have known all about it ever since Mrs. Morison came. It seems she—ah!—well, came down here on purpose to see you, persuaded her husband he was ill—”

“What an idea!”

“Quite so!”

“But after all, not so unnatural. I may as well tell you, Aunt Maria—there is no occasion for mystery—I am—that is, in a way—engaged to Mr. Tay. But it’s all in the air, at present. It is impossible to marry him without an American divorce, and it is not necessary to explain to you how out of the question that will be for some time to come. But—I was feeling rather done, and the truce with the Government gave me the opportunity I have so longed for—to come to Nevis once more, to see my mother.”

“Oh, that is it! Nevis is good for the nerves; or would be without Fanny, and one or two other distractions. Now, I’ve quite an excitin’ duty to perform, and time’s up. Mr. Tay is here!”

“What?” Julia once more had the sensation that Nevis had left her moorings. She caught the back of the sofa for support. “What are you talking about? Mr. Tay is in California.”

“Not he. He’s been here, stalkin’ round this island, or cruisin’ round in a motor boat he’s hired, for the last five days. I saw him through the field-glass, but didn’t know what brought him until to-day.”

“But what—what—has he come for? Oh, how could he!”

“He’ll tell you that, never fear! The others, includin’ Mrs. Morison, were all for a surprise, but I thought it my duty to tell you. That is the reason I wanted you to go straight home—surprises are so fatiguin’—but there may be time yet. He’s off somewhere in his boat, and the steamer was ahead of time—”

Julia sprang to her feet. “I’ll go this minute. I can walk. You stay with Fanny—poor little thing—”

And then she sat down. Tay was running up the steps of the terrace.

Mrs. Winstone rose and retreated gracefully. Julia’s heart had leaped, but she was very angry. She had made her own plans too long. This was to have been an interval of rest. As Tay walked rapidly down the long hall she was not too agitated to observe that although his keen eyes were alight and eager, and his mouth smiling, there was less confidence in his bearing than usual; she also observed that white linen became him remarkably.

“I think this quite abominable of you,” she said coldly, as he dropped into the chair before her. She withheld her hand.

“So does my father. But please don’t be angry with me. I really couldn’t help it when I heard—”

“How did you hear? Dark, of course. What treachery!”

“Treachery to me if he hadn’t!”

“How you men stand by one another,” said Julia, bitterly. “Especially when it is to defeat a woman.”

“Well,” said Tay, laughing, more at his ease in the presence of futile feminine wrath, “it may be our most contemptible trait, but we shall be driven to practise it more and more, I fancy.”

“I refuse to joke, and I am going home at once.”

She rose.

“Sit down,” said Tay, peremptorily. “If you don’t, I shall kiss you in the presence of Bath House. They can’t hear what we say, but you may be sure they are all watching us.”

Julia hesitated, then sat down. “What—what made you do this? I never should have believed it of you. I came here for rest—for—for strength.”

“Strength? Great Scott! You need less, not more.”

“Oh—I— You’ll never know what I’ve gone through! I shan’t give you the letters I wrote you—”

“Now, Julia, be rational. I simply couldn’t resist coming, that’s all. I cut out business, politics, everything, the moment there was a prospect of seeing you again—and on an enchanted island! The rest can wait, but I, well, I couldn’t! This past month has seemed like a wasted lifetime. I thought I was resigned. I resisted engaging a passage back to England by wireless. I might have got through those six months in California by doing the work of six men; but I could see no reason why I shouldn’t spend at least the interval between steamers with you here. There will be no harm done—much good, for it will make the separation shorter.”

“Dan,” said Julia, sitting upright, “there is something behind all this. What have you really come here for? After all it’s not like you. In the first place you have imperative duties in California, and then—you know, you _know_, that I need all my strength.”

He hesitated. Should he tell her? But there are certain facts that sound ugly when put into bald English, whatever the excuse; and he doubted if he ever could tell her that he had come to Nevis to wait for a cablegram announcing the death of her husband. Not now, at all events!

“My dear child!” he said earnestly, and before his hesitation became noticeable. “Is not love excuse enough for anything? Haven’t men sacrificed duty, done everything that was rash and foolish, for love, since the beginning of time? The prospect of two or three weeks with you on a tropic island was too much for my limited powers of endurance. I suddenly wanted you more than anything on earth. This is a wonderful place—I never knew I had so much romance in me—let us forget the coming separation and be young and happy.”

Julia leaned back and looked down. “I should have told you more about my mother,” she said, infusing her tones with ice to keep them from vibrating with delight at the vision he had evoked. “Made you realize just what she is. You will never be able to cross her threshold. She would think that you came to see Fanny. Or if she guessed that you loved me, a married woman,—why! she’s quite capable of locking me up on bread and water.”

“Gorgeous! We’ll have a real old-fashioned romance. You will climb out of the window—”

“She’d nail the jalousies.”

“There are no jalousies I can’t unnail—”

“Oh, you’d never get past the gates. She’d post blacks with guns at every corner of the stone wall about the grounds. You don’t know her. She doesn’t belong to this century. She’s never brooked opposition to her will since she was born.”

“Those crude forthright persons are just the ones that can always be outwitted. She needn’t know I’m here. I’ll not go to the house. You can meet me in a hundred enchanting nooks—down among the palms on the beach, in the ruins of one of those old estates, in a jungle I’ve discovered, with a creek, and all sorts of tropical trees that give more shade than these feather dusters they call royal palms—”

“I won’t leave my mother’s house!”

“Do you mean that?”

“Yes.”

“Julia, you have the longest and the blackest eyelashes I ever saw, and you have never given me such an opportunity to admire them. But on the whole I prefer your eyes. Look at me.”

Julia raised her eyes, and Tay held his breath. They were full of tears. “Oh, please go, Dan,” she whispered. “I suffered death after you left before. I can’t, can’t go through all that again. I couldn’t stay here after you left. I never wanted to see you again until I could marry you. I know now why you have come to Nevis. You think that here, where I spent my youth, where it is difficult to remember England and Suffrage, I will weaken—that I will go with you to that horrid place and get a divorce. It was very clever of you, and I might! Oh, I might! You have been too strong for me from first to last. But I don’t want to! I want to finish my duty, as I planned. Please, please go. There is a German steamer in the roadstead. Take it and wait on one of the Danish islands for the American steamer—”

“Julia, there is only one thing on earth I won’t do for you, and that is to leave you now. And believe me, I had no such subtle far-seeing policy in coming here. My purpose was far simpler. I’d marry you up in Fig Tree Church to-morrow if you were free, but if—as I can’t, I’ll be content with this brief romance. Now promise that you will meet me to-morrow over in that jungle—”

“I won’t! I won’t!”

“Then, by God, I’ll manage things myself—if I have to murder niggers and break in—”

“Julia! Julia!” cried Fanny’s excited voice. “The horses are shod. Aunt Maria wants to go.”

She was running down the hall. As Tay rose she stopped short and stared, her heavy lids lifting.

Julia rose hurriedly. “Fanny, this is Mr. Tay, an American friend of mine. My niece, Fanny Edis.”

“An American?” cried Fanny. “Another! Well, Nevis _is_ waking up. Are you thinking of buying an estate and planting?” she asked eagerly. “You don’t look as if you had rheumatism.”

Tay played a bold hand, knowing that young girls like romance even at second hand. “I came to Nevis to see Mrs. France,” he said deliberately. “We are engaged to be married, and she tells me it will be difficult to see her in her mother’s house. Suppose you lend me a helping hand.” And he held out his with a charming smile.

Fanny scowled, and for the moment looked more formidable than handsome; then, with the adaptability of youth, was suddenly afire at the prospect of a vicarious romance.

“How perfectly glorious!” she cried. “Oh, I’ll help you, Mr. Tay. Granny’ll never let you in. But I’ll hide you in the shrubberies. I’ll throw you a rope over the wall, made of ancestral sheets—”

“Fanny!” said Julia, severely. “We’re not characters in an old-fashioned novel.”

“Don’t I wish we were! That’s all I could be. Oh, Mr. Tay, don’t give up.”

“Fanny! Do you forget that my husband is alive?”

“Oh, what’s a lunatic? Mr. Tay just said you were engaged, and anybody can get a divorce. They’ve been talking about it on the terrace.”

“Ah!” Julia made an attempt at lightness. “You are not so inhospitable to these times, after all.”

“I’d swallow them whole. But lots of kings and queens were divorced ages ago. When you’re in love I don’t fancy the century makes any difference.”

“Good! It all comes back to that, Miss Edis!”

“When there’s nothing else to be considered. Come, Fanny.” She held out her hand to Tay. “Good-by. I hope you will take that German steamer—”

“Aunt Julia! Where is your West Indian hospitality?”

“It must wait. Will you go?”

“I shall not. Permit me to see you to your carriage.”

“I’d—I’d rather you stayed here. Anyhow, it’s good-by.”

“Good afternoon,” said Tay, shaking her hand heartily.

“Good-by.”

“Good afternoon.”

Julia turned her back and walked up the hall, her head very high, and hoping she could control the longing to run back.

“You won’t give up, Mr. Tay?” asked Fanny, eagerly.

“Never, Miss Edis.”

“Oh, something is happening on this old island! And what fun it’ll be to get ahead of Granny. I’ll help you. Good-by.” She ran after her aunt, but cast a rapid backward glance over her shoulder. English dukes and European princes had been the heroes of her romantic imaginings, Americans standing, in her limited knowledge of the outside world, for all that was plebeian and strictly commercial. But she liked the looks of this one. By some freak of fate he was a gentleman. And she was to be a character in a live romance!

III

THE terraces, mercifully, possibly tactfully, were deserted. Julia greeted warmly the old man who had served for so many years as butler and coachman, then announced curtly that she had a headache, and kept her eyes closed as the lean old horses crawled through Charles Town and up the mountain. She was still very angry with Tay, but, on the whole, more so with herself. Why hadn’t she rushed into his arms and been happy for a few moments? And what did she really intend to do? She had not the least idea. He had an amazing faculty for getting his own way. He would manage to see her, and what would be the outcome? Was there anything he would stop at? It were more than human not to feel a thrill of excitement.

Her anger passed, and she wondered if she should not steal out and meet him that very night. Why not? Why not? Hadn’t she her right to live? She forgave Tay promptly for this last and most reckless proof of his love for her. Lightly as he had dismissed the fact, she knew that he had made heavy sacrifices in turning his back on California at this critical moment. His party might declare him a traitor and cast him out. He deserved his reward. All the romance in her nature leaped into sudden and vivid life. To her Nevis was the most beautiful spot on earth. To live a few intense weeks—what a memory—

But she opened her eyes as if under the impact of a cold shower. The carriage had entered the grounds about the house. Here, in these beautiful wild spaces of tropic tree and shrub and flaming color, France had once followed her about, striving to kiss her. Here he had kissed her the day he had been forced to leave her for the ship, immediately after the marriage ceremony. His menacing shadow seemed to detach itself as on that awful night in the plantation of White Lodge. Her life with him rose and overwhelmed her. She sat up with a gasp. No romance on Nevis for her!

“Are you thinkin’ of the meetin’ with your mother?” asked Mrs. Winstone. “Fanny and I’ll leave the field clear. She’s probably in the living-room.”

Julia descended slowly, and glanced through the window before entering. Mrs. Edis was sewing by the lamp on the table; the tropic night had descended with a rush. She was a little more bowed than formerly, perhaps a trifle pallid. But her hair was still almost black. Time might have forgotten and passed her by.

As Julia opened the door, she lifted her deep piercing eyes, seized her stick, and rose to her feet. Her hand trembled, but not her voice.

“I am glad to see you, Julia,” she said, in her grand manner. “But the steamer must have been ahead of time.”

She presented her gnarled cheek to be kissed, but Julia, who had suffered many emotions that day, burst into tears and flung herself into her mother’s arms.

“Oh, do say you are glad to see me. I am so miserable, so worried. Oh, please do!”

Mrs. Edis patted her head, but her voice remained dry.

“You have been long coming, but you must know how glad I am to see you once more before I die. Your trouble must be grave indeed! You have been in trouble before.”

Mrs. Edis’s tones would have dried any fountain. They also expressed suspicion. Julia took out her pocket-handkerchief.

“Forgive me. It isn’t worth speaking of. I am only tired. Of course we are all, we women, in a sea of difficulties—”

“Not a word of that, if you please.” Mrs. Edis sat down; the glistening heavy brows that Captain Dundas had once compared to lizards, met over her flashing eyes. “You must make up your mind not to mention that disgusting subject while you are in my house. If that is your trouble, you will have every opportunity to forget it!”

“I came to forget everything but you and Nevis and Fanny. Now give me another kiss, and I’ll go and make myself presentable. I don’t want you to find me too much changed.”

“Maria told me that you had changed very little, and I thought you looked quite pretty before you reddened your eyes. Run along and I will order dinner.”

At the table Mrs. Edis betrayed a little of the joy she felt at the return of her prodigal, by talking far more than her wont. She told Julia the gossip of the islands, mostly mortuary, as all the old women of her own generation had died; but although she anathematized Bath House and the idle rheumatics it would bring to Nevis, she permitted herself to express hope regarding the future of the islands. She went to her room immediately after the meal finished, but it was long before Julia could enjoy the seclusion of her own. Fanny, who barely opened her mouth before her grandmother, burst into speech the moment that august presence was withdrawn, and Julia for quite three hours was obliged to answer her questions regarding the great world of London, when not sympathizing with the dynamic maiden’s hatred of life on Nevis.

“Good heaven!” she thought. “That I ever could have imagined a girl of eighteen interesting!”

She locked herself in her own room at last, but not to sleep. Her homecoming had proved a bitter disappointment. Fanny she might have forgiven, for all girls were more or less alike, wrapped up in themselves, happy in the delusion of their supreme importance. But her mother! She had always remembered her as the most wonderful of her sex, a tower of strength, no matter how hard, a superwoman isolated on a rock in the Caribbean Sea. What was she, after all, but an obstinate old woman? Was she to find strength in no one but herself? Well, why not? Hadn’t it been her cherished ideal to stand alone?

But what, in heaven’s name, was she to do with Tay?

The rooms opened upon a corridor, but her window was only a few feet above the large garden in front of the house. She unlatched the jalousie and sprang to the ground. Here she could decide his fate without sentiment, for here was the shadow of France. But the shadow had departed and ignored her summons. The renaissance of old impressions is fleeting. It rarely comes twice, and never at command. And Nevis and all things on it were changed! Only one of the old servants, Denny, was alive. She had visited the outbuildings before dinner, eager for familiar faces. The girls of her youth were fat old women. There were many of them, and the pic’nies swarmed as of yore. The court, no doubt, was still full of color by day, but everything was orderly and clean; there were few of the old evidences of congenital laziness. Fanny, for all her romantic notions, was an admirable overseer—and a tyrant. Since this duty had been thrust upon her by her inexorable grandparent, she would use it as an outlet for her energies; and Julia suspected that she found a decided gratification in ruling her subjects with an iron hand.

The white cloud on Nevis had slipped down the mountain, enveloping it in a fine white mist. The garden was full of enchanting shapes, of heavy intoxicating odors. Where was Tay? Why had he not come to shake her jalousie? She longed to find him hiding under one of the heavy trees. But he was probably asleep at Bath House; and his temporary quiescence inspired her reason with gratitude. For the first time she feared him. He had come to Nevis for no such indefinite object as an episodical romance. He meant to take her with him when he left, possibly to forge the strongest of all bonds in the earlier phases of love. This thought made her angry once more, roused the subtle antagonism of sex. If it came to an actual contest of strength, here was her chance to prove to him what the years and much else had made of her.

She went to bed, and her thoughts turned contritely to Fanny. Was she really disappointed in this girl who seemed to be the embodiment of soulless, unimaginative, brutal youth? Or might not she still find her so interesting as a study, and companion, that the old fond image would be undeplored? The last, no doubt. She had been just as soulless, and her true imagination as unawakened. She went to sleep determined to love Fanny whatever befell.

IV

SHE slept until late in the day, Mrs. Edis having given orders that she should not be disturbed. Otherwise the routine of Great House was not altered. Fanny took her daily ride over the estate. Mrs. Edis sat in her chair in the living-room, making a feint of sewing, in reality listening for Julia’s footfalls. So she had sat listening for sixteen years.

But it was a lagging, almost elderly step that she finally heard approaching along the terrace at the back of the house. A moment later Mrs. Winstone entered, flushed, damp, but with her eyes full of malicious amusement.

“Really, Jane,” she drawled, “the tropics were never made for walkin’. I believe I’ll keep my new waist line—”

“Not a bad idea to keep what little Nature is still willing to give you.” Mrs. Edis’s voice was as sarcastic as her eyes. “I hope there was no bad news in your note?”

“Note?” Mrs. Winstone turned her back and began to rearrange the flowers on the bookcase.

“Do you fancy the least event could happen in this house without my knowledge?”

“Really, it was so unimportant I had forgotten it. Merely an invitation to Bath House. That reminds me—” She adopted her airiest tones. “Have I spoken to you of Mrs. Morison? Charmin’ little woman stoppin’ at Bath House. I met her drivin’ just now, and impulsively asked her to come to tea to-day, and bring the others. How naughty of me. I should have consulted you first.”

“Your friends are welcome to tea. I am not a pauper.”

“But such a hermit! It is too kind of you to take _me_ in. I don’t fancy botherin’ you with my friends.”

“How is it you were not carried away by impulse before?”

“I came to Nevis to see you and to rest. I see enough of Hannah and Pirie in London. But now that Mrs. Morison has come to Bath House, and her brother, Daniel Tay—”

Mrs. Edis lifted her head as if she scented powder. “A man? Is he married?”

Mrs. Winstone smiled significantly. “Oh, dear me, no!”

“How old is he?”

“About thirty.”

“I’ll have no young man in this house.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t look at Fanny. Hates girls. He’s a very dear, a very particular friend of mine.”

Mrs. Edis laid her work on the table, dropped her spectacles to the end of her nose, and surveyed the smart figure with the developing waist line. “And what are you doing with very dear and particular friends of that sex at your time of life?”

“Dear Jane!” said Mrs. Winstone, with asperity, and transferring her attention to the early Victorian tidies. “Please remember that if you live out of the world I live in it. Oh, la! la! Come over to London and see the procession of hansoms in Bond Street containin’ smart gray-haired women and nice boys. The gray hairs are generally payin’ for the hansoms, and more. I never had a gray hair, and my rich American friend always pays for the hansoms, and more. Why shouldn’t I have a youngish beau if I can get one? But really, I didn’t think he’d follow me here!”

“Disgusting!” announced Mrs. Edis, who looked as if she had just entered a room in the Paris salon devoted to the nude. “In my time—”

“Ah, dear Jane, that time is forever gone. You couldn’t get a bonnet in all Bond Street to suit your years. Hannah Macmanus, who poses as an old woman, has to have hers made at a little shop in Bloomsbury.”

“I can well believe it! I could see what London was coming to sixty years ago. Enamelled old women—”

“Oh, la! la! Prehistoric! Filthy habit! To-day we keep our skins clean.”

“Do sit down. You are flouncing about like a sylph of twenty. I hope you have not permitted yourself to become seriously interested in this young man.”

Mrs. Winstone dropped into a chair on the other side of the table and looked across the work-basket with airy self-consciousness.

“Why not?”

“You are an old fool, and he must be a young one.”

“Not a bit of it. Level-headed business man. Rich and strenuous.”

“Strenuous?”

“New word. American. Means a short life for yourself and a merry one for your heirs.”

“Be good enough to confine yourself to English. Are you going to marry this youth and make a laughing-stock of yourself and your family?”

“Marry? Oh, how tiresome of you to be so serious. I’d managed him so well! I never thought he would follow me here when I need a rest. But he’s romantic—”

“Romantic? He must be if he’s in love with you. Really, Maria, I never even look at you that I don’t feel like giving thanks I have been permitted to spend my life on Nevis.”

Mrs. Winstone fetched a little sigh. “But you don’t mind my askin’ these people to tea?”

“It is a long time since a stranger has crossed my threshold. Still, they are welcome. This is your birthplace as well as mine.”

“How sweet of you! I’ll go and smarten up a bit.” As she was leaving the room she turned, knit her brows, and said hesitatingly, “Better not tell Julia they’re comin’. She left London because she was sick of people, and has really come for a rest. She might run away, and Mrs. Morison is dyin’ to meet her. Americans are quite mad about celebrities.”

“Oh, very well,” said Mrs. Edis, impatiently.

She sewed for half an hour longer. Suddenly her eyes flashed and she lifted her head. But when Julia came in she said formally:—

“Good morning. Do you always sleep until noon?”

“Rather not! But I didn’t go to sleep till nearly dawn, I was so excited. I shall get up every morning at five and take that old walk round the cone. How often I have thought of it.”

“You have been long coming to take it.”

Julia seated herself on the arm of her mother’s chair, and took the work out of her hand. “Now,” she said, “let’s have it out. You are angry with me for staying away for sixteen years, among other things, and I have been very angry with you. But all my childish resentment was over long ago. It is time you forgave me. If I stayed away, it was because you never asked me to come. Since the day the duke married, you have written me nothing but formal notes, except when you were angry with me for some new cause. You have hurt me more than I can have hurt you, and I have resented your injustice. But let us bury it all. If you knew how glad I am to be here again, to see you look just the same! If you would only be your old self, I could feel your little girl once more. The past—much of it—seems like a dream—”

Mrs. Edis threw back her head. Her heavy nostrils dilated. She looked like an old war-horse. She raised her stick and brought it down on the hard floor with a resounding thump. “Yes!” she said harshly. “Let us have it out. Let me tell you that I have sat here for ten of those years waiting to acknowledge that I have been tortured by remorse. I could not bring myself to write it. But I never thought you would stay away so long— You!—and I an old old woman!”

Julia had moved away uneasily at this outburst. “Oh, don’t!—never mind—it was a natural enough mistake on your part. Let us never speak of it again. I should have come long ago—but time passes so quickly—I don’t think I realized—and then I thought you had given all your love to Fanny—”

“Fanny?” with indescribable scorn.

“Oh, I see now you don’t care for her—”

“Let me finish. I am a hard old woman. Demonstrations are not for me. Nor is my pride dead. That will survive life itself. But I will tell you that I have never ceased to love you—I think I have never loved any one else. Your first petulant childish letters—I didn’t choose to believe. But later, when I began to hear those vague terrible rumors— My God! Well, you had the world, and youth, and diversions—but I have sat here and thought, and thought, and longed for death—”

“Oh, please! It has all been for the best. I needed a hard school. You know what a child I was. If life had been too kind to me, I should have developed slowly, if at all. I might have nothing but a cauliflower in my brain to-day. Now, you would be proud of me if you would only let me explain this great work to you, make you see what it means—”

“Not an allusion to that! You, who were born to be a duchess. Ah! Let me confess that it is not remorse alone that has made me a desolate old woman all these years. My old belief survived the marriage of the duke, even the birth of his heir—at least, I clung to it. But when your husband went hopelessly insane— Oh, my old belief! It had been companion, friend, consolation—as satisfying as only a science can be. When my faith in that was destroyed—”

“Ah! If you would only let me tell you something! I met far wiser men in the East than old M’sieu. They placed a very different interpretation on my horoscope—”

“What?”

“Why, can’t you see—what I have become in England—what I may still become— Oh, far, far more!”

Mrs. Edis snorted in her wrath and disgust as she rose to her feet and thumped the floor with her stick. “Gammon! Do you expect me to believe that that is what the world has come to? Fighting and scratching policemen, going to gaol, speaking on a public platform! Has that become the substitute for a great English lady?”

“Oh, let us say no more about it. I recognize it is hopeless. If you still believe that a woman’s highest destiny is to be an English duchess— Do sit down. There is so much else to talk about.”

Mrs. Edis resumed her seat, but still frowning. She had quite forgotten her remorse.

“I want to talk about poor little Fanny—”

“_Poor_ little Fanny?”

“Who has the best memory in the world? Who was the belle of the West Indies in her day? I have an idea that Fanny looks exactly as you did at her age. And she is not too unlike you in other things—”

“Arrant nonsense. What are you driving at?”

“I mean that youth has its rights, and you are depriving Fanny of hers.”

“I have replanted the entire estate and built a mill. Fanny will be rich one day. I can’t abide the minx, but I know my duty to my son’s child, and the last of my race.”

“So that is to be Fanny’s fate? A little West Indian planter! When she dreams of nothing but love and marriage—”

“She knows naught of such things.”

“Oh, doesn’t she? And what of instincts, especially when a girl is beautiful and fairly bursting with vitality?”

“She can consume her vitality in hard work. Youth and beauty soon pass. Hers will go before they have given any man the chance to ruin her life. In her lies my opportunity for atonement—”

“Fanny will marry. That is her obvious destiny. What is more, she will marry the first man that asks her, unless she has the diversion of society and many admirers. Bath House is open again. Many young men will come—”

“Fanny will see none of them!”

“Oh, won’t she? Youth has a magnet all its own. They’ll be prowling round the place, sitting on the wall like tomcats!”

“Is that a sample of the new school of conversation?”

“No, but it expresses a fact. Now, do be sweet and reasonable and let Fanny go to the party at Bath House on Thursday night—”

“Not another word. Fanny goes to no parties, neither at Bath House nor elsewhere. Have you quite forgotten me, that you fancy you can change my mind when it is made up? There is the luncheon gong. Will you give me your arm?”

V

“WELL,” said Fanny, “I saw you having a talk with Granny in here this morning. I suppose she has promised I shall go to London and live like other girls. That would be so like her,—such a sweet creature—”

“Sh—sh—”

“Oh, why not say what you think? I’d like to hear your real opinion of her—after all these years.”

“She is my mother; and she was angelic to me this morning.”

Fanny stared, then burst into laughter. “Angelic! How I should like to have seen Granny do it. Did you ask her if I could go to the party at Bath House?”

“She is opposed to it,” said Julia, evasively, “but I think I can talk her over. One would never expect to get the best of mother in the first round. I must tell you, however, that I shall not go to Bath House myself—”

“Oh, _that_ Mr. Tay! Only it _is_ romantic, and he _is_ handsome, and quite nice. Do tell me, Julia,” she asked eagerly, “what is it like to be in love with a real man?”

“Put such thoughts out of your head for the present.”

“Did he ever kiss you?”

“Have you looked over my evening gowns? Collins is quite excited at the prospect of fussing with them.”

“How heavenly! I’ll go this minute! What on earth is the matter with Denny? He looks as if he’d just heard the guns at the fort announcing a hurricane.”

The old man almost staggered in. His expression was quite wild.

“Lor’s sake, Missy,” he gasped. “A visitor! A man!”

Fanny snatched the card.

“Julia!” she cried, more excited than Denny. “It’s he! It’s Mr. Tay!”

Julia turned her face away and walked with great dignity to the opposite door. “Tell him that he must excuse me,” she said over her shoulder.

“He ask for Mis’ Winstone, Mis’ Julia.”

“For whom?”

“He say she ask him for tea.”

“She must be quite mad. Well, go and find her.” And she hastened to her room, determined to punish Tay for coming, but not so sure she should not waylay him in the garden when he left.

“Denny,” said Fanny, “ask him to come in here. And you need not disturb my aunt at present. She is taking her nap.”

“Yes, Missy.” And Denny went off, shaking his head.

Fanny ran over to a glass and smoothed her hair, put a flower in it, and made an attempt to stiffen her figure until it looked as if incased in stays. But when Tay entered she immediately became as natural as the young female ever is in the presence of the young and marriageable male. Tay did not look in the best of tempers, but she thought him quite handsome enough to be the hero of a romance.

“Do sit down,” she said hospitably. “Aunt Maria will be in presently. Oh, do tell me how you got in. I mean, what can Aunt Maria have told Granny— Or hasn’t she told her? Perhaps I’d better take you out for a walk. Granny might be too horrid.”

“I fancy Mrs. Winstone has told your grandmother that she asked me for tea,” said Tay, with a slight access of color.

“But what?”

“Oh— Are not you too afraid of this—of your formidable grandmother?”

“Not a bit. I only pretend to be for the sake of peace. But, oh, do tell me how Aunt Maria had the courage to ask you here! I’m simply mad with curiosity. A young man in this house!”

Tay drew a long breath. This was an explanation he had not bargained for, and those immense eyes were disconcertingly young, and very handsome. “Well, you see—this is how it is: I came here, neglected business and a good many other things, to see Julia France, and I have no idea of wasting my time. I don’t like underhand methods. I’d rather fight in the open any time, but with women you almost never can. So let us call this strategy—”

“Yes! Yes!” cried Fanny. “But for heaven’s sake, what is it?”

“We had a conference last night at the hotel.” Tay got up and walked about the room.

“Oh, do go on.”

“Well, briefly, we hatched a plot. Mrs. Winstone was to be induced to tell your grandmother that she and I are engaged—”

“What?”

“Ah—yes.”

“You and Aunt Maria!” She succeeded in taking it in, then went off into shrieks of laughter. Tay swore under his breath, and looked out of the window.

“You and Aunt Maria! I never heard of anything so funny in all my life. Why on earth didn’t you pretend to have fallen in love with me? That would have fooled everybody, and I should have loved to take you out for long walks—and turn you over to Julia!”

“You forget that a man doesn’t care to place a girl in a false position—”

“But Aunt Maria never can have made Granny believe—”

“Why not? Half the women in London have admirers young enough to be their sons, and sometimes they marry them. Your aunt could have one of those brats dangling if she chose. It’s not my rôle, but I can play it at a pinch.” He returned to his chair. “Do you think I can see Julia to-day?”

“She ran away when she heard you were here.”

“Oh, did she?”

“I don’t think she means to see you. That would be horrid of her. But you come here every day—to see Aunt Maria!—and I’ll manage it. And if you always come when Granny’s asleep, you can talk to me.”

“That would be ample compensation,” said Tay, mechanically. He was feeling very cross, and it was long since callow girlhood had appealed to him. Still, this child was beautiful, and beauty exacts tribute at any age. He told himself that he was a surly brute, and exerted himself to be agreeable.

“You must find this a lonely life,” he observed. “What do you do with yourself? Read novels? Go over to parties on St. Kitts?”

“Novels! Parties! I’ve read about ten, and I’ve never been to a party in my life. You are the first young man I’ve ever talked to.”

“Really?” Tay was mildly interested. “What a life for a young girl. I’ve never seen any one look less like a hermit. What _do_ you do with yourself?”

“Oh, Granny put me in charge of the estate a year ago. She’s too old to go out much, and she drilled me until I thought I’d go off my head. But now I rather like it. There’s something to do, anyhow, riding over the estate every morning, keeping the mill overseer from cheating, and getting work out of lazy blacks. I can do that, and in a way it’s like having a little kingdom all your own. I’ve made them all afraid of me.”

“Have you? By George, you are some girl! I thought you were merely out for fun. I’d be put to it to find another girl of your age—and—and—general style—who was running an estate. It seems to be a remarkable family, altogether.”

Fanny saw that she had now really caught his attention, and found him more attractive every moment. The subject of her prosaic duties had never entered her imaginary conversations with young men, but this one was quite different himself from any of her dreams; and she suddenly found reality far more attractive than romance. She was also quick to take a cue, and was about to launch upon a description of plantation life in the West Indies, when Denny came running in, this time looking fairly distracted.

“Lots of visitors, Missy!”

“I should have told you that Mrs. Winstone asked the rest of our party,” said Tay.

Fanny forgot him in her fright, as Mrs. Macmanus, Mr. Pirie, and the Morisons entered. But her instincts asserted themselves, and she went through the ordeal very creditably.

“Why, how do you do?” she said hospitably. “I’m so glad to see you all in our house. Please sit down. Denny, go and tell Mrs. Winstone. Ah—won’t you take off your hats?”

“No, thank you, dear,” said Mrs. Morison, whose eyes were brimming with mischief. “Mine is so becoming. Besides, a lot of hair would come off, too.”

“I will,” said Mrs. Macmanus, “and thank you for asking me. Reminds me of my youth.” And she removed her bonnet and rolled up the strings. “Even one’s hair is too warm for the tropics. Pirie, you might take off your toupee. I’ve seen you do it twice when you thought no one was looking!”

“Really, Hannah!” Pirie almost exploded. What an assault in the presence of glorious eighteen!

But Fanny was paying no attention to Pirie. She was gazing in rapt admiration at Mrs. Morison’s airy toilette of daffodil yellow, with a large chiffon hat of the same shade, covered with more little soft feathers than she had ever seen before, and a perfectly useless, but all the more enviable, sunshade of chiffon and lace.

Mrs. Morison saw the admiration in the girl’s eyes, and no admiration was thrown away on her. She smiled brilliantly.

“How simply enchanting to see the inside of an old West Indian home,” she exclaimed. “I never had any old-fashioned things in my life. Grandpa emigrated to California in the fifties, and every house he built burned down whenever the city did. So when I came along and pa was making _his_ pile, there wasn’t so much as a daguerrotype in the family. We were just upholstered from New York and dressed from Paris. How’s that for family history, Miss Edis?”

“Oh,” said Fanny, through her teeth, “how I should like to live in a country where there were no ancestors. There’s nothing else here.”

Morison was also beaming upon her. “You must come and visit us in New York,” he said. “We’re imitating England and becoming too democratic to talk about ancestors, even when we’ve got ’em, and we usually haven’t.”

“Why, Nolly,” cried Emily, who was Californian when she wanted to be audacious, but valued her New York to its ultimate vanishing drop of azure blood, “you know your mother was a—”

“Pauper. She hooked my father, which is more to the point, and I’m in the race for Millionaire Street, which is the whole point.”

“Oh, you little bleating Wall Street Calf! Such a little one, too, Miss Edis.”

“I might be a bigger one if you spent less. What are we here for, anyhow?” he asked, as Fanny, apprehending a domestic scene, moved away. “Dan can take care of his own affairs, and I feel as if I were on a ship in midocean with the wireless out of order.”

“What man ever could manage his own affairs? It would have been cruel to let Dan come alone, and I know I can help him out. We mustn’t scrap and frighten Mrs. France, or she’ll think the temper is in the Tay family, whereas it’s always your fault—”

But she laughed good-naturedly, extracting the sting, and Morison, who never quite understood her, was mollified and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I’m going to flirt with that little West Indian girl who doesn’t know the first thing about life and wants to know it all in five minutes. Great fun. Serve you right, too, for bringing me here.”

“Run along,” said his wife, indulgently, and he joined Fanny, who was talking to Tay, and told her that the St. Kitts girls were coming to the party on Thursday night. But Fanny had lost all interest in the married man now that a single one had appeared, and gave him her shoulder with a young girl’s brutality. A moment later, when Mrs. Winstone entered, she deliberately drew Tay into the embrasure of one of the windows. She had curled her lip at her grandaunt’s appearance, but the rest applauded, and Mrs. Winstone was secretly delighted with herself. She had abandoned her usual discretion and got herself up like a woman of thirty. There was rouge on her cheeks, a flower in her youthfully dressed hair, and a pink chiffon scarf floated over her white gown.

“Good! Good!” cried Mrs. Macmanus. “How does it work?”

“Oh, quite all right. Only I was made to feel as if I had escaped from the mummy room in the British Museum and stolen my grandniece’s clothes.”

“Upon my word, Maria,” said Pirie, gallantly, “I didn’t know you could do it. Ten to one Tay does fall in love with you. Why not? Julia’s got a bee in her bonnet. We men don’t like bees as domestic pets. They sting.”

“Curious that even the young men are as old-fashioned as ever, while the women go marching on,” said Mrs. Macmanus, unrolling her knitting. “What will you all do for partners, by and by?”

“Oh, we’ll still marry them,” said Mrs. Morison, patronizingly. “They give us our little romance, and it’s no part of our policy to let the race die out.”

“Hear! Hear!” cried Mrs. Macmanus, looking over her eye-glasses. “So you, too, are a suffragette. You never gave us a hint.”

“I forgot about it down here. But last winter in New York, everybody who was anybody, or wanted to be, went in for it. Two or three of the rich and fashionable women whose names are regular electric signs—designed by the press—great gilt way—took it up, and all the rank outsiders fairly fell over themselves to get into the new Suffrage societies, and shake hands with those Brunhildes come down off their fire-girt perch. Makes me sick. I believe in it because I know it’s coming.”

“Ha! Ha!” cried Pirie. “A good patriot always loves the top.”

“Don’t be cynical, Pirie,” said Mrs. Macmanus, who had not failed to note the longing glances cast in Fanny’s direction. “It can’t be laid to extreme youth in your case.”

“Now, why is a man always called cynical when he tells the truth? No limelight, no martyrs.”

“Oh, what a sophisticated old lot we are,” said Mrs. Macmanus, with a sigh. “I wish I knew as little as that charming Fanny. She is youth—innocent barbarous youth—personified. Look at her flirting with her aunt’s lover. I always said that honor was an acquired virtue.”

“Sh—sh—” whispered Mrs. Winstone, and she sprang to her feet.

Mrs. Edis stood in the terrace doorway leaning on her stick. She looked like an allegory of the past, the uncompromising disillusioned past, which has come in contact with none of the bridges that connect with the present. Her keen contemptuous gaze had just lit upon Fanny and Tay, when the company, made aware of her presence, rose precipitately, and were presented by Mrs. Winstone.

“I bid you all welcome to my house,” said Mrs. Edis, formally.

Fanny had hastily marshalled Tay into the circle. Mrs. Edis favored him with a piercing look which gave him a sensation of acute discomfort.

“Good lord!” he thought. “Here’s an enemy worthy of any man’s mettle. What a family!”

Mrs. Winstone almost laughed aloud as she met her sister’s glance of disgust. It was long since she had enjoyed herself so thoroughly. To outwit Jane and embroil everybody else was better for the nerves than mere vegetating.

Mrs. Edis turned to Fanny.

“Where is Julia?”

“I don’t know, Grandmother.”

“Go and find her. She must not appear to want in hospitality.”

“Yes, Grandmother.”

“Sit down, all of you.”

The company did as commanded, Tay in ostentatious proximity to Mrs. Winstone. There was a moment’s profound silence, Mrs. Edis, like George Washington, having the rare gift of immersing any company in an ice bath. Mrs. Macmanus would never have dreamed of making conversation unless she had something to say; Pirie and Morison, snubbed by Fanny, were both sulky; Mrs. Winstone was flirting with Tay under the eagle eye of her sister, who poured out the tea. Finally, Mrs. Morison, with the American woman’s sense of conversational responsibility, rushed into the breach, after peremptorily motioning to her husband to sit beside her on the little sofa: here was an opportunity for a parade of domestic American bliss.

“Oh, Mrs. Edis!” she cried. “We were just talking when you came in— Aren’t you quite too frightfully proud of Mrs. France?”

“Frightfully?”

“Our dreadful slang. I mean—well, aren’t you too proud of her for words?”

“And pray why should I be unable to express myself? Julia was always a good child.”

“Oh, of course—but it isn’t often that any one is as good as Mrs. France, and so tremendously clever.”

“I am glad to infer that you think well of Julia.” Mrs. Edis, reflecting that society was even more silly than in her own day, wondered how long these people would stay. She observed that the company was looking amused, but before she had time to speculate upon the cause, she forgot the rest of them, in her keen observation of Tay. He was ignoring Mrs. Winstone and frowning at his sister. But in another moment she forgot even him.

“Oh, I don’t count,” cried the desperate Mrs. Morison. “I’m merely trying to make myself agreeable, in return for your gracious hospitality. It’s what the world thinks.”

“The world?”

“Surely, you must feel proud that she’s quite the hope of the party, a flaming torch. If she remains in London, why, she’ll be its only leader—a regular queen.”

“Queen?”

Mrs. Edis set the tea-pot violently down.

“Prime Minister, you know, or something like that,” said Pirie. “Strange things are happening.”

“Are you making game of me?” cried Mrs. Edis, furiously.

“Oh, Pirie never makes game of anybody but himself,” said Mrs. Macmanus, soothingly.

“I beg your pardon, then, but it sounds pure gammon to me.”

“It does to many, dear madam.”

Mrs. Edis was staring straight before her, the company forgotten. “Queen.” That still active brain, never rusty, nor clouded, had leaped back to the night when she and old M’sieu had pored over Julia’s horoscope. “Queen.” The word had almost been written. They had compromised on a mere peerage, as the times no longer permitted the marriage of a sovereign with a subject. But—times change—Julia had unwittingly made her feel like an old crab—moreover, the twentieth century was to witness the birth of a new solar year, the year of Man. Might that be but a generic term? The woman’s movement had been abhorrent to her, shocking every aristocratic instinct, much as she despised men. But she had begun to realize that it was both portentous and imperishable. If Julia was to lead it, if in it lay her child’s only chance to achieve a vast and splendid distinction—well, she was not too old to reconstruct her ideas, bury her inherited ideals, move, herself, with the times.

She became aware that a pall-like silence had descended upon her guests.

“Pardon me,” she said more graciously. “I am an old woman and my mind wanders. What you said startled me. A great future was predicted for my child at birth—and the time came when I made sure that she was to be a duchess—”

“Duchess!” cried Mrs. Morison. “Oh, dear me, a duchess isn’t in it these days with a great public leader. Think of all the dukedoms that have been bought with brand new American dollars. It’s now quite a commonplace position.”

“Is this true?”

“True as Suffrage, dear madam,” said Mrs. Macmanus. “There are even English duchesses that are nobodies. This is the day of the individual.”

Once more Mrs. Edis stared straight before her. “I see! I see!” she muttered.

Tay sprang to his feet and bore down upon his sister.

“For God’s sake change the subject,” he said, in a tone of concentrated fury. “Can’t you see what is going on in that old woman’s mind? I wish you had stayed in New York.”

“I kept getting in deeper and deeper,” said Mrs. Morison, apologetically, but enjoying herself, nevertheless. “That old woman would rattle anybody. Here comes your Julia.”

Julia had hidden when she heard Fanny’s voice, but on second thoughts had concluded not to arouse her mother’s suspicions. She had therefore hastily put herself into a soft white house frock with a floating green scarf, and looked little older than Fanny.

She barely glanced at Tay, but smiled brightly at the other guests. “Good afternoon, everybody. How delightful to see the old house so gay. A very strong cup, please, mother.”

“Oh, not so awfully gay,” cried Mrs. Morison. “We’ve been talking Suffrage.”

“No more of that at present,” said Mrs. Edis, peremptorily. “Fanny, stop trying to engage Mr. Tay’s attention. He came to Nevis to see your grandaunt. Go and talk to Mrs. Macmanus. Young girls should always strive to make themselves agreeable to elderly ladies.”

Fanny obeyed sulkily, and the company, now put completely at its ease, fell upon the tea and cakes, which Mrs. Edis finally remembered to order Denny to pass. Tay bent over Mrs. Winstone and shot a glance at Julia. She was consumed with silent laughter. His eyes grew imploring, but he moved them with a sudden sense of discomfort. Mrs. Edis looked as if about to launch her cane at him.

Mrs. Macmanus, fearing they would all break into hysterical laughter, addressed herself to Mrs. Edis. “We have been admiring your wonderful old house. Would it be asking too much to let us see more of it?”

“And the delicious grounds,” cried Mrs. Morison, determined to acquit herself and give Dan his opportunity to talk to Julia. “I’ve never seen anything like those terraces rising up the mountain.”

Mrs. Edis rose. “Give me your arm, Julia. I shall be happy to show our guests the house, and then you may take them up to the cone.”

“I’ll not go,” said Tay to Mrs. Winstone. “I shall stay here. Please get Julia away from them and send her back.”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Winstone, good-naturedly. “Possess your soul in patience!”

“I’ve a small stock left!”

VI

ALONE, a moment later, Tay was contemplating a short excursion into the garden with the solace of a cigarette, when he heard light rapid footsteps on the terrace flags. He turned eagerly. But it was Fanny who came running in. Her face was flushed with triumph, and her eyes sparkled under their heavy lids.

“I gave Granny the slip,” she exclaimed. “Let’s stay here and make Julia jealous.”

“But your grandmother will be unmerciful—”

“Oh, she never knows whether I’m round or not.”

“You make me feel that you lead a most unnatural life.”

“You may just better believe I do—dodging Granny, and watching cane grow. Oh, do make me feel like a girl in a book. You had just begun to tell me about that wonderful San Francisco when Granny had to come in. Tell me more. It will be something to dream of even if I never can see it.”

Tay resigned himself and sat down.

“Oh, you’ll see it, all right. You will visit us.”

“But suppose Julia won’t become an American and divorce that lunatic of hers.”

“But she shall, and you must help me. Will you?”

“If you will swear to take me away and find me a husband as perfectly fascinating as yourself.”

“Good lord!” Tay almost blushed. Then he looked at her suspiciously. Was the little devil as innocent as she pretended, or was this merely the instinct of the born coquette, crudely expressing itself? “Oh, you’ll meet a hundred far better worth your while than I am.”

“I don’t believe it,” announced Fanny, who had never removed her eyes from his face. (“What’s an aunt?” she was thinking, “especially when she’s old enough to be your mother?”) “And have they all got as much money?” she added aloud.

This certainly was ingenuousness! “Oh, I’m a pauper compared with several I could name. Any one of them will succumb at once.”

“Julia says she will take me back to London and ask a friend of hers, Lady Dark, to give me a gay season, but San Francisco sounds even more fascinating. Haven’t you any titles in America?”

“Oh, titles without number. Especially honorables. Every ex-official, if he’s bagged a big enough office, expects ‘honorable’ on his letters for the rest of his life. And once a judge always a judge. State senators are addressed as if they were old Romans, and the militia turns out even more life titles than the bench.”

But the American humor was beyond Fanny. She pouted. “Tell me something really interesting. Tell me about a whole day of life in San Francisco. Tell me everything you think and feel and do.”

“Great Scott!”

“Oh,” cried Fanny, throwing herself halfway across the little table. “If you only knew how I want to know—everything! everything!”

“Oh, you’ll learn fast enough. Nevis will never hold you. But I’ll help you out, by George! It would be some fun to turn you loose and watch you make things hum.”

“How perfectly heavenly to hear some one talking about poor little me! Tell me more about myself.”

Tay laughed indulgently. “You _are_ a baby!”

“Don’t laugh at me. Oh—I’m not a bit like Julia. I’d have killed that husband of hers long before she shut him up. Queer how different people in the same family can be. They all seem to think that Julia’s not much changed—although she’s really quite old now. But it would have made a devil out of me.”

“I believe you!” And he added unwillingly, “How interesting you will be when you are a few years older.”

“Not if I stay on Nevis.”

“Oh, don’t let that worry you.”

She brought her face so close to his that he fancied he felt a light shock of electricity. “Swear it!” she whispered eagerly. “You look as if you could do anything you wanted to do. I haven’t felt a bit encouraged by Julia’s promises, but if _you_ promise me—”

Tay stood up and put his hands in his pockets. “It’s a go,” he said. “Trust me to turn you loose among our squabs the first chance I get—”

“Fanny, dear, will you show Mr. and Mrs. Morison the orchards? They are waiting for you.”

Julia’s tones had never been so sweet, her large gray eyes so cool; but as Fanny, with a sharp, “Oh, very well, _Aunt_ Julia,” went forth on a leaden foot, both voice and expression changed.

“You were flirting with Fanny!”

“So I was,” said Tay, coolly. “That girl’s spoiling for a flirtation. Well, I’ll gratify her if you leave me to my own devices on this beastly island.”

“You’d never do such a thing! Destroy that child’s peace of mind—”

“Peace of mind nothing. That’s not the sort that gets hurt. If she belonged to a lower walk of life, she’d be on the— Well, our Fillmore precinct can show you dozens, walking the streets of an evening looking for trouble. ‘Juicy peaches,’ as Pirie calls them, just waiting to be plucked. Accident is about all that protects the Fannys. Few men are in the seducing business when it comes to their own class.”

“Dan!” cried Julia, aghast. “You must be in a frightful temper to say such things to me about my own niece.”

“She’s practically my niece. And I am in a frightful temper. Never expect to be in a worse. Little good even this ruse has done me. Your mother’s eyes could see through a stone wall.”

Women find few of man’s moods so attractive, before matrimony, as his anger. It rouses their inherited instinct to placate, to submit. Julia went to the terrace door and looked up and down. Her mother was sitting in an arbor with Mrs. Macmanus and Pirie. She was also leaning back in her chair, resigned, if not interested.

Julia went up to Tay and put her hand on his arm. “Don’t—please!—be angry with me,” she whispered. “If you knew what a tumult I’ve been in—finding you here—wanting to see you more than anything on earth—but not knowing _what_ to do!”

Tay melted instantly, and took her in his arms and kissed her. “It’s all simple enough. I’ll take the next American steamer if you insist upon it, but that doesn’t come for eight days yet. Meanwhile I must see you. I don’t like the tropics. They get on my nerves. Nothing doing, and the air shot with a curious lazy electricity. And I’m by no means satisfied with myself. I should be in California this minute. Love plays the devil with a man!”

“But you would stay a month if I wanted you to!” said Julia, triumphantly.

“Six months, let everything go hang!” he said savagely. “You’ve got me, all right. But to waste my time—even for eight—nine days longer! That’s a horse of another color. Am I to see you every day or not?”

“Oh, yes! Yes!” murmured Julia. “I have given up the struggle. The way you got in—it was too funny! I saw at once that I might as well give up first as last. You will always have your way. Besides, I want to. I’ll meet you every day, three times a day. I couldn’t help myself if I would.”

“Thank heaven. And don’t try being too strong again. It’s not the strong women that men die for, Julia.”

He lifted his head with the uneasy sense of being watched. “Damn it!” he thought. “Is that old witch—” But he could see nothing.

“Julia,” he said, lowering his voice, “I shall not come to this house again. Meet me to-night—no, to-morrow morning—early—at nine o’clock—over in that jungle.”

“I will! I will! Only promise never to be angry with me again.”

“That will depend entirely upon yourself. If you go back on your word—”

“As if I would! We’ll have long wonderful days together— Oh, dear, they are coming.”

She broke away from him and smoothed her hair.

“It’s not so late,” said Tay, hurriedly, “only six. Couldn’t you come for a spin in my motor boat? I’ll walk back, and wait for you at the bend of the road.”

“I’ll try. If I don’t, it will be because I can’t get away from mother. But I’ll be in the jungle to-morrow at nine.”

The guests entered with Mrs. Winstone.

“Southern California isn’t in it, Dan,” said his sister, mischievously. “Such orange and lime groves. You must come again. Still, _I_ could hardly tear myself away from this room—”

A door opened and Fanny burst in. She looked on the verge of hysterics. “Oh, what do you think?” she cried. “What _do_ you think? Granny says I can go to the party on Thursday night, and that I may go to Bath House every day and see you, Mrs. Morison! She likes you so much. The skies must be going to fall. You have bewitched her.”

“You are talking nonsense,” said Mrs. Winstone.

“Ask Granny. She was almost sweet. But who cares what’s come over her? You will teach me to dance, won’t you, Mr. Tay? I could learn in five minutes.”

“Charmed. Congratulate you—and ourselves. Is the carriage ready?”

“Oh, it is! I’ll go out with our guests. Don’t you bother, Julia. Aunt Maria, you must be tired out. Oh, what a funny, funny day! I’ll never sleep again.”

“Really, I do feel as if we had all gone mad,” said Mrs. Winstone, when the good-bys had been said, and she and Julia were alone. “Jane must be quite off her head. There’s a cruiser comin’ in to-morrow. Fanny’ll be engaged to-morrow night. Perhaps, after all, Jane jumped at the chance of gettin’ rid of her.”

“Oh, I was sure she would relent. And she could see to-day what company means to a young girl.”

She ran away to her room to change her frock, for she had no intention of incurring Tay’s wrath again. But as she was about to open her door she saw Denny coming down the corridor waving two cablegrams.

“Oh, dear!” she thought. “Is this a summons? Well, thank heaven I can’t get away for a fortnight yet.”

She took the cablegrams, half resolved, as she closed her door, not to open them until her return. But of course she did nothing of the sort, and read them promptly.

The first was from Ishbel:—

“All serene. Stay as long as you like.”

The second was from the duke:—

“Harold died this morning.”

“And he knows,” thought Julia, with instant conviction. “That is what brought him here.”

VII

FORCED to the wall, Julia’s mind always became cool and practical. Tay inspired her with a new fear. If he had come to Nevis to await her husband’s death, he intended to marry her and take her away with him. It was one more proof that he possessed that form of genius which makes certain men the quick partner of circumstance and insures their mastery of life. In his own phraseology, he never missed a trick. No doubt he would take out a special license to-morrow.

But she had no intention of being rushed into marriage. The most formidable barrier had been razed; her desertion of the women might bring reprobation on herself, but not ridicule on the cause; nevertheless, confronted with the necessity of an immediate decision, she realized acutely that four years of devotion to a great impersonal ideal had inspired her with a love for it of which she had barely been conscious at the time. The idea of deserting this cause she had made her own, or, at the most, giving it a divided homage in a distant land, renewed that love with such a jealous intensity that for the moment she hated Tay as the chief exponent of that ruthless male force which had bred the revolt of Woman. His dash to Nevis was a declaration of war, but a war which should bring defeat to her not to him. She buckled on her own armor at the thought. It was possible that he would win, but not without her full connivance. Nor should she see him again until she had made up her mind with no assistance of his.

She had instantly abandoned the intention to meet him at present, and sat down to compose a note to send him on the morrow. Many sheets went into the waste-paper basket before this note was written to her satisfaction. It was impossible to refer openly to her husband’s death, nor, for the matter of that, was it necessary. Angry as she was, she never for a moment forgot that his instant sympathy, his instinctive comprehension of her, was the deepest of their bonds. A word would be sufficient. He would understand, and wait.

“You must give me three or four days, possibly a week, to think it all out,” she wrote finally. “_You_ think and strike like lightning, but my mind is made on another plan. For me, all great crises must be approached with deliberation, if only because nature made me the most impulsive of women. I have learned to weigh, having a profound distrust for those instincts upon which women pride themselves. But you always understand. I could not love you if you did not. When I write next, my mind will have been made up once for all.”

But unfortunately Tay was not in a position to understand. He had received no second cablegram from Dark, for Dark knew nothing of France’s death. The duke, by no means anxious to remind the world that another member of the house of France had gone insane, made no announcement in the London newspapers, and it was not until several days later that Ishbel heard the news from Bridgit.

“That’s over, thank heaven!” said Mrs. Maundrell. “And I’m going to take the bull by the horns and send Nigel to Nevis when he returns next week. Happily, Mr. Tay is safe in California. What is the matter?”

“I was thinking how wonderful it would be if Nigel and Julia really should marry, after all,” said Ishbel, without a blush. “But I must run, dear. I’ve a dinner to-night.” And she hastened to the cable office and sent a message to Tay; and another to Julia, warning her of the threatened invasion.

But this was not until three days later, and meanwhile Tay received Julia’s note. Nor was Denny the messenger.

The old servant had orders to take it to the hotel at seven o’clock in the morning, and, if Tay had gone out (and even visitors rise early in the tropics) to go to the jungle at nine. As Denny never hurried himself, it was after seven when he started on his errand. Fanny was mounting her horse for her daily ride over the estate when he passed her. She saw the note, held respectfully in his hand, swooped down upon it, and tucked it in her belt.

“You have too much to do to go on errands,” she said severely. “I will give this note to Mr. Tay. Where shall I find him?”

Denny repeated his instructions, adding dubiously, “But you never go off the estate alone, Missy.”

“I shall this morning, and see that you do not mention it. If you do, you shall have no tobacco for a week.”

Fanny attended to her duties mechanically until a few minutes before nine, then turned her horse in the direction of the jungle. She felt no curiosity in regard to the contents of the note, but knew that it must have been written to break an appointment. She hummed an old African tune and felt that she held the apple of life in her hand. No scruples disturbed her. Julia was thirty-four, quite old enough, as she had frankly observed, to be her mother, certainly old enough to have done with love, far too old to interfere with the preeminent rights of youth. Nor had she the faintest misgivings as to her power to take any man from any woman. Was she not eighteen? Was she not a beauty? Did not every man’s eye fight a torch as it met hers? The arrogance of girlhood was never more consummately realized than in Fanny Edis on that glorious tropic morning as she rode to appropriate her aunt’s lover; and although her intelligence was too undeveloped to reason, she subtly felt that nature was always the ally of such fresh healthy young vehicles for the race as she. Nor was she as innocent as Julia had been at her age. No governess had ever been able to keep at her heels, and she had seen much of life among the blacks.

She saw Tay walking restlessly up and down before a grove of banana trees, and waved to him gayly, taking no notice of his apprehensive frown.

“Here is a letter from Julia,” she said as she rode up. “I suspect she can’t come. Granny told her last night that she wanted the whole history of that Suffrage movement this morning.”

Tay barely heard her. He read with a sensation of amazement the brief too carefully written message, which informed him that he was to waste a week more of his precious time on this island. He had no key to the riddle, and was astonished at this manifestation of caprice in a woman who had always seemed to him to possess just enough of that charming feminine quality; none of the stupid excess which made so many women unreasonable. Moreover, she had deliberately broken her word. Anger succeeded amazement, and if there had been a steamer leaving Nevis, he would have taken it and flung the consequences in her face. But here he was a captive for quite another week. He had no intention of betraying his chagrin to this sharp-eyed girl, however, and he merely put the note in his pocket and thanked her for bringing it.

But the eyes he met were not sharp. They were fixed on him in a large appeal.

“Mr. Tay,” Fanny said, with charming hesitation, “I know that Julia wouldn’t meet you this morning, and from something she said last night I know that she does not intend to leave the estate for several days. She made Aunt Maria promise to take me to the party at Bath House on Thursday. She said she was too tired, but I am sure she is avoiding you. It is too horrid of her, when you have come all this distance. But I don’t fancy any one can unmake Aunt Julia’s mind. So—so—I have a plan to propose.”

She blushed and looked handsomer than ever, and as she was a born horsewoman, this was very handsome indeed. Her lids drooped, and she drew a long breath, almost of ecstasy. “Oh, Mr. Tay!” she whispered imploringly. “Make believe that I am Aunt Julia—_young_ again—while you are here! Then I should have an imitation love affair, at least, and it would be something always to remember. Will you?”

Tay stared at her; but balked, angry, helpless, his temper lashed with the memory of cablegrams he had received that morning both from his irate father and the Lincoln-Roosevelt League, he felt more than inclined to accept this young coquette’s proposal, not only to punish Julia, but to pass the time. Moreover, Julia had thrown her at his head. He never doubted that she had given Fanny the note; and he wondered at the fatuity of woman. Still, he hesitated.

Fanny pouted.

“You are afraid I will fall in love with you,” she said audaciously.

“More likely it would be the other way,” he replied with automatic gallantry.

“Well—why not?”

“My dear Miss Edis, there is no more harrowing experience than being in love with two women at once.”

“As if such a thing could be!”

“Common enough outside of books.”

“Well— You might love me on Nevis and keep Julia for London. That is where she belongs.”

Again Tay stared at her. She had the heady magnetism of youth. She was a part of the gorgeous tropic scene. He reflected that if he had met Fanny first, and on Nevis, he certainly should have flirted with her. He did not take girls very seriously, having been trained by the cool flirtatious young heads of his own race. That Fanny was in love with him never entered his mind. Little did he guess the pickle he was mixing for himself when he finally raised that brown little hand to his lips.

“By all means let us have our comedy,” he said. “I am game if you are.”

Fanny gave a nervous laugh that might have warned him if anger and disappointment had not made him reckless. She slid from her horse and tied it to a tree.

“Now take me out in your motor-boat,” she said with a charming air of authority. “That will be a real adventure.”

VIII

JULIA, grateful for any distraction after another sleepless night, went to her mother’s room to relate the history of Woman’s Suffrage from its incipiency in the United States of America down to the present moment, when the English women, having been driven to adopt the methods of men, were confident of victory for the first time.

Mrs. Edis, who rose late in these days, was propped up in bed, wearing the expression of one who is about to enter a hospital and have the operation performed which may give her a new lease of life.

“If I must hear this tiresome story, I must,” she said. “Tell it me in as few words as possible, but leave out no detail which will make me understand it fully. I read your horoscope again last night. Your destiny is too plainly writ to admit of any doubt. And it was made three times. I am an old woman to sever my mind from the ideals of a lifetime, but those frivolous people opened my eyes yesterday. Moreover, you can never be Duchess Kingsborough. You are not likely to have another opportunity to marry, for no child of mine would disgrace herself in the divorce courts.” Her sharp eyes never left Julia’s face. “Nor could you obtain a divorce in England. Ring the bell. I wish another cup of tea. Then you may convert me.”

Julia had made up her mind not to tell her family of France’s death until she had reached her final decision, and felt reasonably certain that Mrs. Winstone would not hear of it at Bath House. Tay would understand her desire for secrecy, nor would he be eager to admit that he had come to Nevis to await the man’s death. Even Mrs. Morison, she felt sure, had not been taken into his confidence. That lively little lady had prattled a good deal yesterday, while Julia was showing her the gardens, and it was evident that she had leaped to the natural conclusion that her brother was determined to persuade Julia to have her marriage annulled in the United States without further delay.

Mrs. Edis having fortified herself with a cup of strong tea, Julia spent the next three hours telling her story. When she had finished, her mother did not speak for a few moments, then nodded her head emphatically.

“I see! I see!” she said. “I shall never approve of those unladylike demonstrations, but I admit that results have justified them. Your destiny is clear to me now. You have only begun. I, in my limited knowledge, read that you were to be the greatest lady in England. Substitute the greatest woman in England and all is clear.”

“It might be in America,” said Julia, hesitatingly, but not turning her eyes away. “They—they—have talked more than once of sending me there.”

“Nonsense!” Mrs. Edis reached for her stick that she might thump the floor. “America! A nation of savages—”

“Good heavens, mother! America—the United States—is one of the great countries of the earth, a world power. Must I give you its history, too?”

“God forbid. It does not exist as far as I am concerned. Great Britain is practically the earth. No other country is worthy of your horoscope. And you must not stay here too long. Don’t fancy that men will hasten to give you power. Not they! Men! How I should like to see them humbled to the dust before I go. No, your time here must be short, and I want you to promise to give it all to me.”

“Oh, I came to see you.”

“I shall claim you. Who is this Mr. Tay? Is he really in love with Maria?” There was the ghost of a smile on her grim mouth, and her bright little eyes explored the serene depths before her.

“Oh, Aunt Maria always has an infant-in-waiting. I doubt if she is ever serious.”

“But who is he? Of course he has no family, as he is an American, but is he respectable? Has he any fortune?”

“He is quite respectable, and I believe he is well off. His sister, Mrs. Bode, is an old friend of Aunt Maria’s. She is received everywhere in London.”

“Ah? So! Maria had better marry him. But I’ll not have him, nor any of those people, here again. I have never needed society, and now!” Her harsh dry face lit up. “My old science is restored to me. It will companion me for the rest of my days. You need never fear that I am lonely. A great science is all things to the mind that loves it. You will visit me as often as you can. I need nothing further. When Fanny marries—and I now hope she will find a husband at Bath House; I long to be rid of her sulky discontented face—my lawyer will engage a suitable overseer. Now go and send that lazy black-and-tan mustee to come and dress me.”

Fanny came in late for lunch. She looked flushed and triumphant, and her manner was subtly insulting. But nobody noticed her, nor that she left the house as soon as the meal finished. Mrs. Edis talked of the new central factory to be built on St. Kitts, and the significance of the projected Government House for Nevis. Mrs. Winstone yawned, and Julia was absorbed in her own thoughts. She longed to be alone, but she had barely reached the shelter of her room when Denny knocked and handed her a letter. She closed the door in his face, and her hand shook. But the address was not in Tay’s handwriting, and she opened the letter with a sensation of bitter ennui. It proved to be a circular communication from the ladies of St. Kitts, begging her to speak to them at her convenience on the subject of the Militant movement in England. It was couched in formal terms, but enthusiasm exuded, and the word great, personally applied, occurred no less than four times.

“Great!” thought Julia. “We that the world calls great know just how great we are. Every man his own valet!”

Her impulse was to refuse, but on second thought she concluded to accept the invitation, and for the morrow. Here was her opportunity to discover if the great cause had taken irrevocable possession of her. She had recited its history mechanically to her mother, but that, no doubt, was owing to her mental and physical fatigue. She would sleep to-night, and to-morrow, if she could feel the old thrill when talking to a rapt audience, play upon them, sway them, rise to the heights of magnetic eloquence which had made her famous, convert the cynical, then, surely, her old enthusiasm would return. If not—

Denny had told her that the messenger awaited an answer. She went to the living-room and read the letter to her mother.

“If you don’t mind my leaving you for one day—”

Mrs. Edis interrupted her. There was a slight flush on her face. “By all means, accept,” she said. “And I, too, will go. It will be my only opportunity to hear you, to witness one of your triumphs. Have you all those newspaper articles about yourself that I have heard of?”

“I am afraid not. I kept a scrap-book for a year, but we soon get over that.”

“Can you obtain them?”

“Oh, yes, it would be possible.”

“I wish them, and everything else that is written about you from this time forth.”

“Very well, you shall have them.”

“Write your acceptance. To-morrow I shall go to St. Kitts for the first time in sixteen years. And for the first time in forty years I shall see that island bend the knee to an Edis.”

IX

THE next evening Julia sat in her room divided between consternation and secret joy. The women of St. Kitts had given her a reception such as had never been offered to another woman in the history of the island. A military band had played a welcome as her boat approached the jetty, a committee of representative women had met her, and all Basse Terre, black as well as white, had turned out to escort her to the house of Mrs. Ridgley, the first lady of St. Kitts, where a select few had been invited to greet her at luncheon. The meeting itself had taken place in the ball-room of Government House, and been attended by every man and woman that could obtain entrance, irrespective of sympathies. All were eager to be instructed, but far more eager to see and hear the famous Julia France, to be able to talk about it for the rest of their lives.

Julia had talked to them for two hours. She instructed them to the full, and she related many of her personal experiences in and out of Holloway gaol. Never had she spoken more brilliantly, been more amusing and witty, and never before had she spoken with an unremitting sense of effort. Her speech had come from the head alone. It had felt like a wound-up mechanical toy. The personal passion with which she had infused her speeches and won her great following never stirred. It had retreated to her depths, and taken her magnetism with it. She entertained her audience and she converted no one. She concentrated her mind with a determination almost vicious, but more than once it slipped its anchor, and she failed utterly to reduce the brains below her into one relaxing helpless whole for the planting of her suggestions.

She alone, however, realized her failure. St. Kitts was delighted with the entertainment, to say nothing of the profound satisfaction of listening to the woman who had been introduced to the world in this very ball-room, and then gone forth to make their islands famous: St. Kitts and Nevis had more than once been pictured in the weekly press of England while Julia’s comet was playing about the heavens. As for Mrs. Edis she swelled with pride and treated the ladies of St. Kitts, who showed her almost as much honor as they did her daughter, with a haughty urbanity that made them feel humble and insignificant.

When the lecture was over, there was an informal reception, during which Julia had never been more gracious and talkative, while wishing them all at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. Then the wife of the Administrator had invited them into the dining-room for an elaborate tea; and it was six o’clock before release was sounded, and Julia found herself in the boat once more, listening to the congratulations and the rapt prophecies of her mother.

At dinner Fanny had stared with open mouth at her grandmother’s almost excited account of the day’s events, but she had finally turned to Julia with a laugh.

“Really, my famous aunt,” she said, “there can be no doubt as to what you were born for. It must be quite wonderful to have a career. Shan’t you change your mind and speak at Bath House?”

“No,” said Mrs. Edis, sharply. “Julia will devote the rest of her visit to me. It is quite enough to have two members of the family gadding at Bath House.”

“Upon my word,” said Mrs. Winstone, languidly, “I didn’t come to Nevis to chaperon a young girl. Chaperonin’s not my line. I think Julia had better take Fanny to the party to-morrow night.”

“Oh, no, Aunt Maria! Julia—Julia needs a good long rest.”

Fanny stared apprehensively at her young aunt, but was immediately reassured.

“I shall not go to Bath House at present. And you, Aunt Maria, you have your two old cronies, and bridge. Mrs. Morison will look out for Fanny—”

“All very well, but—ah—I shouldn’t advise you to stay away too long. Mr.—ah—the Morisons are getting impatient—say they’ll leave by the next steamer, if you don’t give them the benefit of your society. That, it appears, is what they came for.”

Julia saw Fanny frown at Mrs. Winstone, but could only interpret her aunt’s words as a warning that Tay was showing signs of impatience; by no means unwelcome news. She answered lightly:—

“I didn’t ask them to come. They must take the consequences.”

Mrs. Winstone shrugged her shoulders. “I take very little interest in other people’s affairs, as you know. And advice was always thrown away on you.”

Mrs. Edis’s dry sarcastic tones interposed before Fanny could speak. And Fanny’s breath was short, and her chair might have been sown with tacks.

“Really, Maria, you must grudge every moment spent away from Bath House and that young fool of yours. I wonder you can still talk of coming to your old home to rest.”

“Quite so!” Mrs. Winstone, recalled, fluttered her eyelashes, and glanced into an old concave mirror. “He grows more devoted every minute. One couldn’t imagine he had ever had a thought for another woman.”

“Good for you, Aunt Maria,” cried Julia, gayly, and escaped to her room.

Here she promptly forgot the conversation and sat down to face her own problem once more. Was her love for the great impersonal cause, which had commanded all the forces of her nature, extinct? Or was her appalling coldness but the natural result of her present state of mind—and the agitating nearness of the man? Surely, if she broke with him definitely, returned to England, submerged herself in work, became a part once more of the crowding incidents, triumphs, disappointments, problems, of a cause that could never write finis, all her old passionate interest would return.

But if they no longer needed her? She had inferred from Ishbel’s cablegram that the Government was about to surrender. But it was hard to believe that Mr. Asquith, in any circumstances, would become a convert to a revolution he abhorred and sincerely disbelieved in; and as for Lloyd-George, the cleverest man in England, it was far more likely that he was playing for a long respite, hoping to relegate the women quietly out of the public eye, to take the fight and courage out of them by degrees, while pretending sympathy, promising his personal assistance, advising them to abstain from demonstrations which forbade the Government to capitulate in a manner inconsistent with its dignity. Of course he would succeed for a brief interval only, for if he was clever and subtle, the women were as clever—and alert; but—well—on the other hand, did she care? From Nevis England looked like an old page of written history, shut up between calfskin. Moreover, the cause was bound to sweep on to victory with its own momentum—why should she—

Her subtle brain, unleashed, marched straight ahead, and in step with her desires. How were women to improve the world, if they progressed to that point of superiority and self-completion, of unity in the ego, where they could no longer marry and produce a worthy race to complete their work? Even to-day many a high-minded woman went through life unwedded rather than degrade herself in marriage with a man whom she was forced to admit her inferior in all but the common attraction of sex. But she had no such excuse. And if her power to devote herself to this cause, impersonally and wholly, had vanished, with her interest in it, now that her mind was recentred; if she must, did she return to England, resent her sacrifice, possibly with hatred, of what use her lip service? If the experience of to-day were prophetic, she could give to the work but a hypocritical shell, while her aching soul was on the other side of the globe. On the other hand, with Tay, even in an alien land, there was no question that she might be of service for the rest of her life.

And what of the immorality of loving a man irrevocably and not living with him? Morality was still of higher account than politics. And children? The inadequacy of Fanny, who almost repelled her, had renewed her intense longing for children of her own. And if she so desired these children, the children of one man out of all the millions of men on earth, did not this mean that they were clamoring for their right to live? What right hers to deny them, that being, after all, the first reason for which she had received life herself?

But at this point she went to bed.

“What is the use?” she thought. “I’m going to marry him, and that is the end of it. I’ll not give the matter another thought from this time forth.”

And for the first time since her arrival on Nevis she slept soundly.

X

SHE awoke at dawn, and rose at once, remembering that she had not had a walk since leaving the ship. No wonder these three long days of bodily inactivity and mental turmoil had played havoc with her nerves. She would walk for hours and then return and write to Tay, telling him that she would marry him on the day the next American steamer arrived, but begging him to make no attempt to see her until then. It was her duty to devote the few intervening days to her mother, as well as to prepare her by degrees for the staggering information that she intended to marry an American and desert her country. But if she could convince the old lady that the planets had reckoned with the United States of America, she should, if not reconcile her to a son-in-law of a race she despised, at least leave her with unbroken faith in a science full of compensations.

She went out to the kitchen and brewed herself a cup of coffee, then started for a brisk walk round the island. The night’s refreshing sleep, the strong drink, the awakening tropic morning, the peace of mind that follows a momentous and final decision, made her feel as if dancing on ether, almost as happy as if Tay were beside her. The sea was as blue as liquid sapphire, save near the shore, where it was as green as the beryl stone. The cloud that descends the slopes of Nevis at nightfall had rolled itself upward and floated lightly above the cone. In the distance were the outlines of other islands; and everywhere the royal palms with their long bladelike leaves rattling in the rising trade-wind that gives lightness to Nevis air on the hottest day, the bright green cane fields, the heavy dark groves of banana trees, the lime and shaddock orchards. Even the ruins of the deserted old estates, splendid masses of masonry in their day, a day of coaches, and knee-breeches, and gay brocades, had a new and more pictorial lease of life, for brilliant foliage burst from every crevice.

The negroes began to sing in the cane fields, women in bright cotton frocks, with brighter handkerchiefs about their heads, came from their huts along the shore and cooked in the open, boats danced on the water. She walked halfway round the island and was hungry once more. A little black boy, tempted by a bit of silver, “skinned” up the slim shaft of a tree and threw down a young cocoanut. She refreshed herself with its “wine” and then started along the stretch of road that passed Bath House, half hoping to meet Tay. In a moment she heard the sound of galloping hoofs, eight at least, and averse from meeting any one else, hid behind a clump of low palms.

The horses stopped abruptly, then struck the road more lightly as if their riders had dismounted. She parted the palm leaves and looked out. A man and a maid appeared round a bend of the road, each leading a horse. The girl took the man’s arm with a little gesture of confidence and looked up into his face, speaking rapidly. The man looked down at her, smiling, admiring, indulgent. The girl’s face was flaming with nothing short of adoration. They were Fanny Edis and Daniel Tay.

Julia, feeling as if she had received a blow in the pit of the stomach, sank limply to the ground and stared out over the dazzling sea. Monserrat quivered in its haze, and she wondered if it were in the throes of an earthquake. It usually was. She remembered that Mont Pelée, after untold years of “death,” had suddenly blown the lake from her summit and suffocated thirty-five thousand people in four minutes. Would that Nevis would awake, pour out her boiling lava, and extinguish her wretched mortals. Julia beat her brow with one of those instinctive gestures too natural for the modern stage; for perfect naturalism borders upon farce.

Tay—Fanny. She took it in finally. He had fallen in love with Fanny, the young, beautiful, glowing girl—What was it old Pirie had called her—“volcanic product”? No doubt she was far more beautiful and fascinating than any girl Tay had ever met,—and quite different from American girls. Julia recalled many of them; they had always seemed to her rather light; clever and charming, but scantily sexed. No wonder Tay had succumbed to this gorgeous tropic flower. Fanny might be selfish, soulless, brutal, but what man ever looked behind a beauty like that? She was the siren born, and men have gone down before sirens since the daughters of Eve came to rule the earth and laugh to scorn the god in man.

Julia felt quite sixty. No doubt Tay had realized that she was all of thirty-four the moment he had seen her beside Fanny. Men were always fools about the mere youth in woman. Hadn’t she noticed that years ago, before she had spent a week in London? No wonder Nature made women brutal and wholly selfish during its brief possession. Tay had loved her, oh, no doubt of that, but with his mind, with that greater half of his being which he had shown her that day in the Bavarian wood; but men are primal always and spiritual incidentally, when they are men at all; and her hold had been a flimsy silken string that had snapped the moment he met this radiant mate, unspoiled, untouched, awaiting him on a tropical island. He had loved her, but he was madly in love with Fanny, and that, after all, was the great passion mortals lived to experience, if only because the poets had taught them to expect it. And she—she must despise where she had almost worshipped. How did women survive the death of illusions? Material death was something to pray for.

But Julia’s brain, stunned for the first time in its active life, soon recovered its energies. She suddenly realized that she did not feel sixty, no, not by any means. She felt very young and very angry. A moment more and she sprang to her feet with a cry of fury. She fancied she heard her flame-colored locks crackle. Her slim fine hands worked. They looked like steel instruments of torture one may see among old relics of the Inquisition. What right had this raw silly girl to take her man from her? Tay was hers and she should have him. She should hold him to his word, marry him, make him forget this passing infatuation. He would not be long discovering that she had far more to give him than any callow girl. If not! Once more her fingers opened and shut. Well for Fanny that she was once more on her horse with a strong arm beside her. Julia’s fingers were ready for the slender stem upholding that triumphant arrogant head. Fanny! Why, Fanny was a fool. She would make Tay the most miserable of men, understand not the least of his ambitions, leave him, no doubt, for another the moment her passion had cooled. He had insinuated that she was a born wanton, although he appeared to have forgotten this virtuous impression.

Her next impulse was to run after Fanny, denounce her as a thief, a pirate, force her to see the dishonor of her conduct. But this impulse soon passed, for never would she, Julia France, make a fool of herself, no, not if they laughed in her face. But what, in heaven’s name, _should_ she do?

She peered out. The road was clear. She darted across it, and up into a cane field. The negroes were far away by the mill. She threw herself down in the dense green silence and wept a torrent. After all, what could she do? She could only recognize that she had lost Tay, the one man in the world for her; she, who had made herself so much more than mere woman, and to a girl who was her inferior in everything but beauty.

She wept stormily for her lost lover, for love, for herself. Then, once more, she despised him. Why should she regret a man who had proved himself weak and contemptible? Why indeed? Ask womankind. She did. The more convinced she grew that she had lost him, the more she wanted him. She abhorred him, she loathed him, she had never despised any mortal so utterly, and she loved him several thousand times more than ever.

She sat up and dried her eyes viciously. Why was she making a fright of herself? She had always laughed at women that cried and spoiled their eyes. He was not yet married to Fanny. Why should she not pretend to release him, then subtly reënter the lists and win him again? How could any girl survive in a close contest with a woman still young and beautiful, and with experience and knowledge of men? But she stirred uneasily. She had seen the automatic triumphs of girls more than once. Nature was always on their side.

She fell back on the ground with a sensation of despair. “Oh, what shall I do?” she thought in terror. “Have I come to this? How shall I live?”

But she sat up again in a few moments and deliberately composed herself, ordering her powerful will to rise and perform its office. She must return to the house before her mother sent servants in search of her, and her eyes must not be red. Nor her hair look as if she had tried to tear it out by the roots. She took down the braids, smoothed them with her hands, pinned them up, and pushed the short locks under her hat.

Her mother. She had risen to her feet, but stood staring out over the waving cane. Why had she given Fanny this sudden liberty, and not three hours after announcing her decision, with all the force of her obstinate old will, that Fanny should never marry, never be permitted even to meet, a young man? And why had she insisted that Julia remain at her side throughout her entire visit? Never was there a less sentimental woman. And the conversation at the dinner-table last night? It sprang vividly from her memory. She saw Fanny’s face, flushed, arrogant, anxious, her aunt’s faint satiric smile, heard her covert words of warning.

What a blind fool she had been.

“So,” she thought grimly. “We are all the victims of a plot, and one quite worthy of my mother. I have been managed as easily as if I had but a teaspoonful of brains in my head. And so has he. Idiots! Idiots!” And she hated everybody on earth.

She walked rapidly home, slipped into the house unobserved, bathed her eyes, until the outer signs of the most tempestuous hour of her life were obliterated, powdered the black rings under her eyes, and made a satisfactory appearance at the lunch table. Neither Mrs. Winstone nor Fanny was present. Mrs. Edis talked of naught but Suffrage.

“Great heaven!” thought Julia. “That I should live to hate the word!”

XI

AFTER luncheon, she told her mother that the sun had given her a headache, and that it was likely she should be obliged to go to bed for the rest of the day; she had no intention of appearing at dinner. Her own room seemed the one bearable spot on earth, and she was grateful that it was far from the other bedrooms, at the opposite end of the long house.

She locked her door, and ordered her brain on duty. This was no time for throes—she had the rest of her life to mourn and rage in; now was the time to act in a fashion that should be worthy of her, of all she had tried to make of herself, of those three years in India, of the succeeding four when she had risen so high above the mere female. She must face with dignity, both in public and in private, whatever ordeal still awaited her; that she owed to herself; and the best of all good friends is pride. Nor should she condescend to fight or scheme for a love that had turned from her, even for a moment. If it had turned once, it would turn again. She had always despised men that could be “managed,” and could imagine no happiness with a man who must inspire her with recurring contempt.

If she loved Tay, it was her part to make him happy, not to force him into a marriage with herself when he loved another woman. Of course he would insist upon keeping his engagement with her, for he was honorable, and, no doubt, as miserable at this moment as herself. But it had never entered her plans to balk and torment the man to whom she had given her love, and she could force his freedom upon him, persuade him that her cause had conquered. As for Fanny, what right had she to assume that she would make him unhappy? Were not all girls brutes? The most selfish and heartless of them often made the best of wives when they got the man they wanted. No doubt all that Fanny needed to become a good woman was a baby. The vision of Fanny, a placid domestic cow, fat at thirty, gave her comfort.

When a woman has made up her mind to be noble, she generally succeeds, for a time, at least; she admires herself in the rôle, and self-admiration giveth much consolation. But the duration of this attitude varies in different people. Nobility as a fixed attitude of mind is possible only to the stupid; it can find no vested place in the subtle active intellect. Julia remained noble and sacrificing—even unpacking her Koran and reading it diligently—until precisely eight o’clock. At that hour she heard the rustle of skirts in the corridor, then Fanny’s excited voice as she knocked on her door

“Oh, Julia! Julia! Look at me! I’m dressed for the party at Bath House. Please let me in!”

Julia ground her teeth. Her eyes emitted steel sparks. Once more her strong fingers opened and shut.

“Run along, dear,” she managed to articulate. “I have such a headache I can’t see. I know you will be the belle.”

“Oh, I know I shall!” Julia saw that triumphant face above her best gown. “Even Granny says I look beautiful and I can see it for myself. I’m wild with excitement—and so happy!”

This was the last straw, but it braced instead of breaking. Julia rose with the fixed smile of one who is walking to the scaffold, dignified to the last, and opened the door. There stood Fanny, looking more beautiful than any girl she had ever seen. Her hair was dressed high for the first time, and in it was a string of her grandmother’s pearls and a flaming hibiscus. The floating white gown was caught at her breast with another flower, and her neck and arms and the soft rise of her bust were as white as the cloud on Nevis. Her heavy eyes were glittering with excitement, and her cheeks and lips made the tropic flowers look old and wilted.

“I have never seen a girl as beautiful as you are,” said Julia, deliberately, “and you will certainly make all the pretty girls from St. Kitts turn green with envy. I don’t believe there is another West Indian girl with color. Of course you will be the belle, and of many more balls. What luck that a British cruiser is here.”

Fanny smiled, and a slight sarcastic inflection, not unlike her grandmother’s, sharpened her rich contralto voice. “Well, if _you_ find me beautiful, Julia, I must be. And I owe it all to you. Thank you again for this lovely frock. Good night. I’ll tell you lots of things in the morning.” And she lifted her head with a movement that would have been fatuous if she had been a few years older, and almost smirked in her proud satisfaction with herself and her looks, as she sailed off for conquest.

Julia flung the Koran across the room, herself face downward on the sofa, and wondered how on earth she was to stand it. “If it only were over and they were married and gone,” she thought. “Or if only the Royal Mail were due to-morrow instead of eleven days hence, and I could go! Or if I could go out and kill somebody, or get drunk like a man! Passive endurance! That is all the hell that any religion need promise us.”

She lay for three hours without moving, then heard the clatter of a horse’s hoofs. A moment later Denny knocked and handed her a cablegram. She opened it without interest. It was from Ishbel, and informed her that Nigel might take the next steamer for Nevis. Julia broke into hysterical laughter.

“Is my tragedy becoming a farce?” she thought. “But not if I can help it!”

She answered the cablegram at once, that the messenger might take it.

“Tell Nigel am leaving immediately.”

Then she returned to her sofa, too indolent to go to bed, and this time exhaustion gave her sleep.

XII

SHE was awakened by the rattling of her jalousie, and lifted her head, wondering if a storm were rising.

“Julia! Julia!” called an imperative voice.

She sprang to her feet and held her breath, not believing herself awake.

“Julia!” This time the voice was savage. “If you don’t come out, I’ll break in. What I’ve got to say won’t keep.”

Julia unfastened the jalousie. Tay stood there in his evening clothes, and without a hat. His face was distraught.

“Dan!” gasped Julia.

He put his hands about her waist and lifted her down. “Now,” he said, “take me to some place where we can talk, and as far from the house and the gates as possible. They’ll be coming home presently.”

She walked swiftly down a path, turned to the right, and pushing aside the heavy growth from an older path, long out of use, led the way to the ruins of a bath-house in a corner of the garden. It was surrounded by heavy palms, but its paneless windows admitted the full moon’s light. Julia sat limply down on the circular seat before the empty pool. Through the open doorway she could see and hear the sea. The moonlight was dazzling, Nevis having forgotten to shake out her night-robes. Her bewildered mind took note of details while Tay walked back a few steps to make sure they had not been followed.

He came in and stood before her.

“There’s the devil to pay!” he exclaimed. “Did you get a cable last Monday?”

“Yes. Didn’t you?”

“I did not, or I shouldn’t be wanting to shoot myself. Dark promised to cable the moment it happened, and only to-night, half an hour ago, I got a cable from Lady Dark telling me that France died last Monday, and that she had only just heard it. Confound Dark! Talk about the wrath of God. It’s chain lightning compared to an Englishman.”

“No doubt the duke suppressed the notice. It would be like him.”

“It was Dark’s business to find out. I should have employed a detective. When a thing’s to do, do it. Well, here’s the result! I’ve got myself into the devil of a mess—”

“You’ve been making love to Fanny.”

“I have—or rather—not been making love from my point of view—only she doesn’t see it in that light. I’ve been flirting like the deuce. When I got your note that morning, I took it for pure caprice. It seemed to me totally without excuse. You had promised faithfully to meet me every day. I had not a suspicion of the truth. Moreover, I had just received cables from California that stirred me up. They couldn’t understand my desertion at such a moment, and no wonder. To be told that I had come here for nothing—to be coolly asked to wait a week—to know that I had to stay whether I would or not—well, I felt as if hell had been let loose inside of me. Fanny brought the note—”

“Fanny!” Julia sprang to her feet. “Fanny? I didn’t give it to her.”

“She brought it all the same, and she looked something more than ripe for a flirtation, and beautiful—”

“You have fallen in love with her! I saw you this morning.”

“Oh, you did? Well, you didn’t see much. I am not in love with her, but—well, it’s got to be said—she’s in love with me, or thinks she is. I was treated to high tragedy an hour since in the garden of Bath House. I never for a moment thought she would take the thing seriously—have seen too many summer flirtations—American girls know exactly what that sort of thing means—but this girl might have Nevis inside of her. She wanted to elope with me to-night—threatens to drown herself—”

“Great heaven! What have you done?”

“I feel like Don Juan, of course, only as it happens I haven’t made downright love to her. I was on the edge of it once or twice, she’s so infernally pretty, but, well, hang it all, I’m in love with you to the limit, all the more so that you’re not dead easy game. If I hadn’t been, I’d have made love to her fast enough. But I flirted as hard as I know how, and she took that for love-making, thought I held back because I felt bound to you, and—well—it was the hateful things she said about you to-night that put me in a rage and made me hustle her back into the ball-room and into the arms of one of her other admirers. I had gone as far as I intended, and made up my mind, not two minutes before I got Lady Dark’s cable, to go to one of the other islands and wait for the steamer. When I got that cable, of course I understood. Now are you properly repentant? Why in thunder didn’t you tell me in your note—”

“Of course, I thought you knew—”

“Never take anything for granted where there are big things at stake. But what are we to do? I’m going to marry you to-morrow evening at seven o’clock over in Fig Tree Church, but what is to be done with Fanny? She’s all fixed for tragedy, and there’s no knowing just what a girl of that sort might do. I don’t care to begin our life with a horror. You must take her in hand to-morrow morning and talk her into reason. I gave her to understand that I didn’t love her, but a man has to say a thing of that sort so decently that a girl never believes him—particularly a girl like Fanny, who has a sublime confidence in herself I’ve never seen equalled. What’s to be done? What’s to be done?”

“Are you quite sure that you love me, that you haven’t really wavered—”

“Oh, lord! I’m more mad about you than ever.”

“Would you have married Fanny if you had met her first?”

“There’s no woman on earth I should ever have wanted to marry but you. Do you fancy a man thinks of marriage with every girl he puts in his time with? I’ve had a dozen flirtations—as hard and a good deal longer than this; and neither of us the worse, I may add. I’m no heart-breaker. Our girls know the game too well.”

“If I thought you were merely bent upon being honorable—”

“Julia, if I didn’t love you, I’d tell you so. Do you suppose I’m the man to jump into matrimony blindfolded? I’ve seen too many of my friends marry—and divorce four years later. I’m no candidate for the divorce court. What I want is a wife I can love and work with for the rest of my life. That wife is you, or will be this time to-morrow night. So cut all that out and set your wits to work.”

Julia moved her eager eyes from his face and looked out over the sea. She did not speak for several moments, and Tay saw her face set and grow whiter, her eyes shine until they looked like polished steel.

“Leave Fanny to me,” she said finally. “I’ll dispose of her. She will give no further trouble.”

Tay stirred uneasily. “Oh—you don’t mean—That is hardly fair—”

“_Fair?_” asked Julia, with unmitigated scorn.

“Couldn’t you give her a good womanly talking-to?”

“And what good do you suppose that would do? Did you ever hear of love being talked out of any woman?”

“I know—but you are clever enough without that—and after all it _isn’t_ fair. It’s a violent assault on personality—”

Julia whirled about and confronted him with blazing eyes.

“_Fair? Fair?_” she cried. “And do you suppose I’d think twice about what is fair with that treacherous little fool? Do you suppose I would let any scruple weigh a feather with me when the happiness of my whole life is at stake? If you didn’t love me, you could go and I’d not condescend to lift a finger; but you do, you do, and nothing shall stand between us; _nothing_, I tell you! If I could have caught her alone this morning, I’d have twisted her neck and held her under the water until she was dead. And yet you imagine I’d stop at hypnotizing her? For the matter of that it will be treating her far better than she deserves, for she will practically have forgotten you when I am finished with her. She deserves to be left here in sackcloth—oh, she’s not the sort that kills herself, she’s far too selfish and vain—but she’s noisy and stubborn and the sort that calf-love makes ungovernable. She’d turn the island upside down and run to my mother with the story that you had compromised her—there’s nothing she wouldn’t tell her. My mother is a very old woman. The excitement might make her so ill that I should be detained here for months. And I won’t! I won’t! I’ll leave this island with you!”

Tay brought his hands down on her shoulders and gripped them. “By God, Julia!” he said hoarsely, “you are the woman for me. Together we’ll conquer the earth.”

“Oh, you’ll find me useful to you in many ways you barely suspect now. I can do more than hypnotize! But I don’t wish you to misunderstand me. What I do to Fanny will be nothing more than the reputable scientific psychotherapeutists do every day to their patients. I shall give her an immediate suggestion that her will shall not be weakened, that she shall no longer be under my control after coming out of the hypnotic trance. And as I said before, she will benefit equally with ourselves. We don’t practise black magic, we initiates; not that we are above it, but because we don’t dare. It rebounds like an arrow and strikes our greater powers dead. I never have harmed any one and I never shall, but that leaves an enormous field for action.”

“Good. And she’d not think of going to Bath House before to-morrow night. She heard me accept an invitation to lunch on board the cruiser. By the way, you might plant in that ill-regulated head the suggestion that she be less anxious to fall in love. There are men of all sorts—”

“That would be unfair, if you like! Our impulses are our birthright. To alter personality would be unjust, almost criminal, for the impulses that make a fool or worse of us in certain circumstances may be necessary for our happiness. Fanny must work out her own destiny. I shall settle my income from France’s estate on her, and induce Aunt Maria to take charge of her as far as England. There Ishbel will introduce her—”

“That’s right!” interrupted Tay, viciously. “Turn her loose on Dark. Serve him right.”

“Dark is the best-managed man in England. Fanny’ll not get a chance at him. And she’ll have a husband before the season is over.”

“Good. But are you dead sure you can do it? You failed with me, you know.”

“Because I hated to do it, and because—well, you are you. But Fanny! To-morrow she’ll be sleepy and stupid from the excitement of to-night, and she will eat an enormous lunch, as she always does. She is curious about India. I’ll interest her in that subject at the table and then invite her to my room, and interest her more. She’s never heard of hypnosis. I’ll offer to put her to sleep. She’ll consent, not only because she’s worn out, and yet too excited and disturbed for sleep, but because I choose that she shall. I’ll tell her to fix her eyes on mine, and the moment she does that she’s lost. In just three minutes she’ll be a lump of wax. Now, are you satisfied? Why, if I had the least misgiving, I’d summon Hadji Sadrä.”

Tay laughed. “Oh, Julia! Julia! You’re all right. Now listen to me. To-morrow I shall take out a special license—”

“I’d rather you waited until just before we sail. My mother—”

“Don’t expect me to show any concern for your mother. She’s at the bottom of all this trouble. She set Fanny on me. I had already begun to suspect it before your aunt let it out—I have had more than one scene to-night!—I feel sure she saw us together the day I called at the house; at all events she got on to the facts. I didn’t suspect this earlier because I hadn’t really believed that she had kept Fanny so close—girls are always working on a man’s sympathies. Otherwise I shouldn’t have fallen for it. Now, to continue. I shall marry you to-morrow. You will meet me at Fig Tree Church at seven o’clock. Hardly any one is abroad at that hour. You can keep it from your mother until we are about to sail, if you choose. That is all one to me. But I’ll take no more chances. Now give me your hands and say that nothing on God’s earth shall prevent you from coming to Fig Tree Church to-morrow evening at seven o’clock.”

Julia gave him her hands. “I’ll be there,” she said. “I, too, shall take no more chances.”

* * * * *

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“A composite yet a splendid picture.”—_New York Herald._

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A NEW DANBY NOVEL

Joseph in Jeopardy

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* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York

* * * * *

_BY MRS. ATHERTON_

THE CONQUEROR A FEW OF HAMILTON’S LETTERS ANCESTORS THE GORGEOUS ISLE RULERS OF KINGS THE ARISTOCRATS THE TRAVELLING THIRDS THE BELL IN THE FOG PATIENCE SPARHAWK AND HER TIMES SENATOR NORTH HIS FORTUNATE GRACE TOWER OF IVORY

_CALIFORNIA SERIES_

REZÁNOV THE DOOMSWOMAN THE SPLENDID IDLE FORTIES A DAUGHTER OF THE VINE THE CALIFORNIANS AMERICAN WIVES AND ENGLISH HUSBANDS A WHIRL ASUNDER THE VALIANT RUNAWAYS (A BOOK FOR BOYS)

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes:

The list of other works by the author has been moved from the front of the book to the end. Spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original. A few obvious typesetting errors have been corrected without note.

[The end of _Julia France and her Times_ by Gertrude Atherton]

End of Project Gutenberg's Julia France and Her Times, by Gertrude Atherton