CHAPTER XV

Sometimes I think it would be sweet, To go out, as a candle in the wind, Whose little flame flares up, in brilliance fleet, To light the secret corners of the mind, And calls to being for a heart-beat's space, Long-buried loves and dreams illuminate; The household furniture of that small place Where Life has dwelt; old, half-forgotten hate, Young, brave belief: dim-colored hopes, and fears, The driftwood memories: grey ghosts of pain, Which haunt us down the long, relentless years, All salient, living, vivid, once again, In that last, eager, leaping ray of light, Which snuffs out in the passing of a breath From windows open to the healing Night, Swift-blown from the quiet Wind of Death.... A throbbing moment, wherein all things cease; A sudden plunging into kindly gloom; A blessed darkness and a perfect peace; And utter silence in an empty Room.

I had gone, with my writing things, to heap pillows on the lawn beneath that curious tropical "Sabre" tree, which is entirely covered with thick, wicked spikes, magnified and dangerous thorns. This tree wears smooth with age, they say--like a number of human beings, perhaps!--and the natives hold it in superstitious awe, believing it to be the tree which formed the Cross. They will not cut one down or in any way deface it.

Lying prone, elbows propped on my gay cushion, my chin in my hands, I contemplated the last verse I had made, considered a title, decided on "Ultimus," and then, weighting the sheet with a round, yellow orange, I rolled over on my back, and crossing my arms beneath my head looked up at the sky.

It was a wonderful morning, cloudless, perfect, not too oppressively warm. And it was the first breathing spell I had had in several days. The business of having as a house guest an eligible young bachelor, of charm and astonishing vitality, was a little wearing. And I was glad when the day came on which Wright concluded that an hour or so in the saddle, with Bill as escort would be both beneficial to his constitution and instructive mentally.

Quite aside from the arduous task of exhibiting Havana and environs to a tireless young man, the effort of "keeping up appearances" had really begun to tell on me. Wright was particularly keen-sighted, and I more than once fancied that he had caught a glimpse of the black waters under the thin verbal ice upon which Bill and I so carelessly skated.

My husband and I had not been alone together since the arrival of his friend. I had seen to that. When we were not in Havana, or at the country club, there were people at the "Palms." And to insure perfect satisfaction for everyone concerned, I had asked Mercedes Howells to bring a bag, and spend a few days in the country. She had accepted with alacrity, and there remained to me but a few hours of comparative peace before she descended upon the household.

I looked across at the mountains: purple blue they were, clear-cut against a marvelous sky. The air was very still. I could hear Arthur shrieking from the house. He had learned a number of fine, full-bodied Cuban-Spanish oaths lately, and was employing them in his most wheedling manner on Nora.

The ox-carts went by on the road below. A bird swayed on the bourganvilla vine and sang. Down in the palm-grove I saw the flick of a peacock tail, and the orchids, themselves like lavender birds, in the distance, flowering from the smooth palm trunks.

My eyes closed and I slept.

When I awoke, someone was sitting cross-legged beside me, whistling "Sally in our Alley."

I saw puttees and riding breeches, a hand holding a cigarette, and finally a blonde countenance which was turned upward to the sky.

"Hello," I said. "How long have you been here?"

"Hours," he answered. "Mavis Denton, you talk in your sleep, you do, somethin' awful!"

I sat up abruptly.

"What did I say?" I demanded.

"First you snored some--"

"I don't snore!"

"You do,--Bill told me so. 'Wright,' he says to me, 'don't you never marry a girl who snores.'"

There was no use arguing with Wright in a silly mood.

"Go on," I said, resigned to heaven alone knew what eccentricities of speech and disclosure.

"I'm going. First you snores a bit, as I remarked before I was so rudely interrupted. Who raised you, anyway, Mavis? Don't you know little girls must never contradict, interrupt, or otherwise distract old gentlemen? Well, after the snore--musical, it was--'Bill!' you says, entreating-like--'Bill,' you says, right out loud. And then, just like a movie heroine, 'Never!' you shouts, 'Never!', and you clinched your hands and ground your teeth as no lady had oughter!"

"I never heard of anything so silly," I said, "You're making it all up!"

Wright laughed.

"I'm not, truly," he said, "although perhaps I have rendered it in a slightly more lurid manner than you did. But it's true, and I'm going to ask Bill what it's all about, so there!"

"Don't you dare!" I said.

"All right, I won't, if you will promise me never to blush again like you have been doing for the last three minutes. It is very disturbing, to a struggling poet who has long sought fresher similes for Dawn and all that sort of thing. You provided the simile, all right, but who in time could rhyme with Mavis?"

At the mention of poetry, my hand unconsciously went toward the sheet of paper beside me. The orange rolled away and the wind provokingly caught the paper and fluttered it.

"What's this?" said the audacious youth beside me. "Ha! I see Bill's fine Italian hand in this--"

He picked up the paper, regardless of my pleas, and scanned it with a practised eye.

"Your writing. Amanuensis now, eh? Hm--that doesn't sound like Bill. Wait a moment, I never saw such illegible calligraphy. At least one member of a doctor's family ought to write so a fellow can read it--"

He laid the paper down.

"Bill didn't write that," he said, suddenly serious, "who did? You, Mavis?"

I nodded.

"Why, you little wretch," he cried out, delightedly. "Bill never told me a word--"

"He doesn't know," I said. "No-one knows. Please don't tell him. I had thought of some day showing what I had done to Uncle John Denton. But I've decided not to, now. I didn't mean anyone to know--"

Wright picked up the paper and read the verse again. I watched him, in a curious mental state. Part of me resented bitterly that even so good a friend should have dragged out to the revealing light of day, my wistful secret of song: and yet, another part of me, back in my brain, said dully, "It really doesn't matter--now."

"I'm a better critic than I am a poet," said Wright, after a time. "I think you have a gift, Mavis. This," he flicked the paper with a thumb and finger, "has grace and delicacy. It's not good, of course,--not according to--well, say, Bill's standards,--but it has promise. I won't tell Bill, if you'd rather not, although I think he would help you a great deal--and I'm sure he'd go quite out of his head with excitement. May I see, sometime, anything else you have? Only, for the love of Mike, what's the idea of being so morbid? Haven't you happier things to write about, child?"

I put my hand over his,

"Sure you won't tell?" I begged.

"I swear, by all the Muses," he replied, "Bill shall never know, from me."

"Know what?" asked Bill, appearing disconcertingly around the tree.

I snatched my hand from Wright's and felt myself grow scarlet. We must both have looked guilty, for Wright's guileless blonde face reflected my embarrassment.

"Secret!" said Wright, firmly.

"Oh, I see."

Bill glanced from one to the other of us, to the paper in Wright's hand, and then considerately walked off.

"Lunch is ready," he remarked, over his shoulder. "Been calling you for about ten minutes."

Wright helped me to my feet.

"Close call," he said.

"Hush!" I said, for my husband was still within ear-shot.

"Is he always like that?" asked Wright, anxiously, as we went toward the house.

"Like what?" I asked, in all innocence.

"Positively green-eyed with rage if you are alone for half a minute with another man--even so harmless a specimen as myself?"

"Don't be silly," said I, with finality.

"I'm not, and if he is going to be jealous as all that, why don't you get to him first before he can accuse you, and demand that he cease baying at the moon with that human leopardess who vamps around these diggings?"

"She'll be here this afternoon, on a visit," I announced, laughing. "Why don't you monopolize her yourself?"

"I never went in for that kind," said Wright with firmness. "I might get scratched. Gentle and soft-spoken, that's my type. Besides, Miss Howells is going to look just like her mother, and that's a warning to any man!"

That afternoon Mercedes arrived. Her bag proved to be a trunk, and within an hour of her arrival, she had charmed the kitchen, made eyes at Silas, called Wright by his first name, hurt her finger--with resultant medical attention, and confided to me that she "hated men!"

After which, she departed in the direction of the palm-grove with "Billy" and "Wright."

I went to her room and viewed her gowns, hanging, like flowers, in her innovation steamer-trunk. After which, I went to my own room and took stock of my chiffon and satin armor.

Bill came back at tea time.

"Wright is reciting poetry to Mercedes on the stone bench under the orchids, and sketching her between verses," he announced, "but I crave more material food."

"You might have stayed on," I suggested, passing him the sandwiches, "and made the recitation competitive."

"Competitive," he remarked, choosing a ripe, red disk of tomato, flanked with thin circles of bread, and biting into it reflectively, "calls for numbers. I don't enjoy being part of a mob-scene, or a mass-meeting."

"Here comes the Meistersänger," I said, as Wright came up the steps, with Mercedes unnecessarily on his arm.

Selecting chairs, cups, plates and food, our guests joined us around the wicker tea-wagon.

"He is not a nice young man at all," said Mercedes frankly, exhibiting a rather clever little pastel of herself, "this Wright. He says to me the most beautiful poetry, so sad and so lovely, all about unrequited love and dead girls floating in moonlit pools, and when, touched to the heart, I weep a little, he laughs and says it is wonderful how much tragedy one can turn out at fifty cents a line!"

She opened ocular fire on her host as she spoke, and Bill responded nicely.

"I'm sure," he said gravely, "that Wright will have plenty of happier inspiration now."

And said Wright to me, under his breath,

"In all justice, one must concede her a certain amount of beauty. I don't think she's going to look like her mother after all."

"Whispering's rude," said Mercedes severely, "isn't it, Billy?"

So the conversation became general again.

At six, Bill drove over to the neighboring plantation to fetch Peterkins, who had spent the day there with the Crowell children, back to supper. When he returned, he looked rather serious.

"What's up?" asked Wright idly, from the canvas verandah swing.

"Nothing much," he answered, "that is, not yet. Run along to Sarah, Peter,--there's a good fellow."

But I knew that something was wrong, and after the child had left us, I asked quietly,

"Tell us, Bill, please!"

"Crowell's been having some trouble with the natives," he answered, frowning. "It may blow over--and it may spread. They're like a lot of sheep. But I feel responsible to Reynolds, even if Silas is in charge. The people have a healthy respect for Silas, and they trust him,--but--"

"What sort of trouble?" asked Wright, practically.

"Oh, threats--and little gatherings--and demonstrations. They are always restless, and the slightest thing sets them off. Crowell discharged one of his surliest men the other day. Unfortunately, the chap is related to half Guayabal. We've some of his cousins and brothers and uncles on this place, I suppose! Anyway, this Miguel person has been going about trying to incite the people to open enmity against the resident Americans. Of course, it probably won't amount to a hill of beans, but you never know where you stand."

"Haven't they just finished a comic-opera revolution here?" asked Wright. "Seems to me I read something about it."

"There are always uprisings," answered Mercedes, covering a yawn, "generally in the eastern districts--nearer Santiago. They are like children, these people."

She turned, with a shrug which dismissed the subject, to Bill.

"Come," she urged prettily, "play my accompaniment for me. I want to sing you some of the old songs my little, Spanish grandmother taught her grandchildren."

We had a little while before we need dress for dinner, and so Bill followed her obediently into the living-room, and presently, her light, sweet voice floated out to Wright and me on the verandah.

"Sings well, doesn't she?" said Wright.

But I was not attending.

"Doesn't Bill seem worried to you?" I asked, more casually than my mental state warranted.

"Who? Bill? Why no, I don't think so," he answered, absently. "He's probably put all this native business out of his head by now. Bill's not an alarmist. Wonder what that song is--quaint, isn't it?"

But I was not satisfied, and after dinner, I deliberately found an opportunity, contrary to custom, to speak with my husband alone.

"About the Crowell plantation," I said, "is there any danger to them from the natives--to us?"

"There is always more or less danger," he answered, with the formal courtesy which had recently characterized all of our infrequent, unattended encounters, "but I do not think we need worry. Still, I shall forbid Peter to go out in the fields, or beyond the house alone, and I must ask you also to be careful. I'm sorry to curtail your freedom--but, if you don't mind--?"

Perversely, I suddenly "minded" very much.

"I won't run any risks," I answered, with mental reservations.

"There you two are again! Sneaking off, whispering, heads together! Aren't you just a little tired of twosing by now?"

It was Wright, coming up behind us. I thought I detected a little, cynical gleam in Mercedes' eyes, and laid my hand defiantly on Bill's arm.

"Are _you_ tired?" I asked him gaily.

He laid his free hand over mine.

"Do men tire of life?" he counter questioned, gallantly, and I knew a swift admiration for his histrionic powers. For his voice went a little deep, quite suddenly, and the hand over mine shook.

"Nice answer," said Wright critically, "quite emotional, but open to argument. Of course men tire of life. Some of them commit suicide, some of them drink, others get married! The remedy is entirely according to temperament."

"Horrid man!" said Mercedes, pouting. And answering amiably, "Am I not?" Wright guided her to the bridge table, having persuaded her at dinner that, with him as partner, she could trump his ace to her heart's content.

As we followed them, Bill said, very low,

"Remember--not to go out alone, Mavis."

"I'll remember," I answered, non-committally, and we sat down to the cards.

It was interesting to observe that Mercedes, her previous assertions to the contrary, played a much better game than any of us, excepting, perhaps, Bill.

So, after all, it had been from choice and not lack of knowledge, that she had not joined the game the night of the dinner. Which looked as if someone else had been manoeuvering besides myself. But I forgave her. She was so pretty that one could not expect her to always play quite "according to Hoyle."