Chapter 6

The boy had grown refined by his illness--the sturdy hands that had guided the push-cart had lost their roughened look and seemed the shape of some old statue; and the head, poised on the round throat, was as if some old museum had come to life and laughed in the sun. If Mrs. Philip Harris had seen Alcibiades shoving his cart before him, along the cobbled street, his head thrown back, his voice calling “Ban-an-nas!” as he went, she would not have given him a thought. But here, in her garden, in the white clothes that he wore, and sitting at her feet, it was as if the gates to another world had opened to them--and both looked back together at his own life. The mystery in the boy’s eyes stirred her--and the sound of his voice... there was something in it... beauty, wonder--mystery. She drew a quick breath. “I think I will go in,” she said, and the boy lifted himself to help her--and only left her, under the loggia, with a quick, grateful flash of the dark smile.

Mrs. Philip Harris slept that night--the chloral, on the little table beside her, untouched. And the next day found her in the garden.

All the household watched--with quickened hope. The mistress of the house had taken up her life, and the old quick orders ran through the house. And no one spoke of the child. It was as if she were asleep--in some distant room--veiled in her cloud. But the house came back to its life. Only, the social groups that had filled it every summer were not there. But there was the Greek boy, in the garden, and Miss Stone, and Philip Harris whirring out at night and sitting on the terrace in the dusk, the light of his cigar glimmering a little, as he watched the Greek boy flung on the ground at his feet, his eyes playing with the stars. He knew them all by name under the skies of Greece. Achilles had taught them to him; and he counted them, like a flock, as he lay on the terrace--rolling out the great Greek names while they girdled the sky above him in a kind of homely chant.

When the boy had gone to bed Philip Harris remained smoking thoughtfully and looking still at the stars. He had had a long talk with the surgeon to-day and he had given his consent. The boy was well, he admitted--as well as he was likely to be--perhaps. Give him three more days--then, if nothing happened, they might question him.

Philip Harris threw away his cigar--and its glimmering light went out in the grass. Overhead the great stars still circled in space, travelling on toward the new day.

XX

THE TEST IS MADE

“I will ask the questions,” Achilles had said, in his quiet voice, and it had been arranged that he should come to Idlewood when the surgeon gave the word.

He arrived the next night, stepping from the car as it drew up before the door, and Alcibiades, standing among the flowers talking with Miss Stone, saw him and started and came forward swiftly. He had not known that his father was coming--he ran a little as he came nearer and threw himself in his arms, laughing out.

Achilles smiled--a dark, wistful smile. “You are grown strong,” he said. He held him off to look at him.

The boy’s teeth gleamed--a white line. “To-morrow we go home?” he replied. “I am all well--father--well now!”

But Achilles shook his head. “To-morrow we stay,” he replied. “I stay one day--two days--three--” He looked at the boy narrowly. “Then we go home.”

The boy smiled contentedly and they moved away. Early the next morning he was up before Achilles, calling to him from the garden to hurry and see the flowers before the mist was off them, and showing him, with eager teeth, his own radishes--ready to pull--and little lines of green lettuce that sprang above the earth. “I plant,” said the boy proudly. “I make grow.” He swung his arm over the whole garden.

Achilles watched him with gentle face, following him from bed to bed and stooping to the plants with courteous gesture. It was all like home. They had never been in a garden before--in this new land... the melons and berries and plums and peaches and pears that came crated into the little fruit-shop had grown in unknown fields--but here they stretched in the sun; and the two Greeks moved toward them with laughing, gentle words and quick gestures that flitted and stopped, and went on, and gathered in the day. The new world was gathering its sky about them; and their faces turned to meet it. And with every gesture of the boy, Achilles’s eyes were on him, studying his face, its quick colour running beneath the tan, and the clear light of his eyes. Indoors or out, he was testing him; and with every gesture his heart sang. His boy was well... and he held a key that should open the dark door that baffled them all. When he spoke, that door would open for them--a little way, perhaps--only a little way--but the rest would be clear. And soon the boy would speak.

In the house Philip Harris waited; and with him the chief of police, detectives and plain-clothes men--summoned hastily--waited what should develop. They watched the boy and his father, from a distance, and speculated and made guesses on what he would know; for weeks they had been waiting on a sick boy’s whim--held back by the doctor’s orders. They watched him moving across the garden--his quick, supple gestures, his live face--the boy was well enough! They smoked innumerable cigars and strolled out through the grounds and sat by the river, and threw stones into its sluggish current, waiting while hours went by. Since the ultimatum--a hundred thousand for three months--not a line had reached them, no message over the whispering wires--the child might be in the city, hidden in some safe corner; she might be in Europe, or in Timbuctoo. There had been time enough to smuggle her away. Every port had been watched, but there was the Canadian line stretching to the north, and the men who were “on the deal” would stop at nothing. They had been approached, tentatively, in the beginning, for a share of profits; but they had scorned the overture. “Catch me--if you can!” the voice laughed and rang off. The police were hot against them. Just one clue--the merest clue--and they would run it to earth--like bloodhounds. They chewed the ends of their cigars and waited... and in the garden the boy and his father watched the clouds go by and talked of Athens and gods and temples and sunny streets. Back through the past, carefree they went--and at every turn the boy’s memory rang true. “Do you remember, Alcie--the little house below the Temple of the Winds--” Achilles’s eyes were on his face--and the boy’s face laughed--“Yes--father. That house--” quick running words that tripped themselves--“where I stole--figs--three little figs. You whipped me then!” The boy laughed and turned on his side and watched the clouds and the talk ran on... coming closer at last, across the great Sea, through New York and the long hurrying train, into the grimy city--on the shore of the lake--the boy’s eyes grew wistful. “I go home--with you--father--?” he said. It was a quick question and his eyes flashed from the garden to his father’s face.

“Do you what to go home, Alcie?” The face smiled at him. “Don’t you like it here?” A gesture touched the garden.

“I like--yes. I go home--with you,” he said simply.

“You must stay till you are strong,” said the father, watching him. “You were hurt, you know. It takes time to get strong.... You remember that you were hurt?”

The words dropped slowly, one by one, and the day drowsed. The sun--warm as Athens--shone down, waiting, while the boy turned slowly on his side... his eyes had grown dark. “I try--remember” His voice was half a whisper, “--but it runs--away!” The eyes seemed to be straining to see something beyond them--through a veil.

Achilles’s hand passed before them and shut them off. “Don’t try, Alcie. Never mind--it’s all right. Don’t mind!”

But the boy had thrown himself forward with a long cry, sobbing. “I--want--to--see,” he said, “it--hurts--here.” His fingers touched the faint line along his forehead. And Achilles bent and kissed it, and soothed him, talking low words--till the boy sat up, a little laugh on his lips--his grief forgotten.

So the detectives went back to the city--each with his expensive cigar--cursing luck. And Achilles, after a day or two, followed them. “He will be better without you,” said the surgeon. “You disturb his mind. Let him have time to get quiet again. Give nature her chance.”

So Achilles returned to the city, unlocking the boy’s fingers from his. “You must wait a little while,” he said gently. “Then I come for you.” And he left the boy in the garden, looking after the great machine that bore him away--an unfathomable look in his dark, following eyes.

XXI

A CONNOISSEUR SPEAKS

The next day it rained. All day the rain dripped on the roof and ran down the waterspouts, hurrying to the ground. In her own room the mistress of the house sat watching the rain and the heavy sky and drenched earth. The child was never for a minute out of her thoughts. Her fancy pictured gruesome places, foul dens where the child sat--pale and worn and listless. Did they tie her hands? Would they let her run about a little--and play? But she could not play--a child could not play in all the strangeness and sordidness. The mother had watched the dripping rain too long. It seemed to be falling on coffins. She crept back to the fire and held out her hands to a feeble blaze that flickered up, and died out. Why did not Marie come back? It was three o’clock--where was Marie? She looked about her and held out her hands to the blaze and shivered--there was fire in her veins, and beside her on the hearth the child seemed to crouch and shiver and reach out thin hands to the warmth. Phil had said they would not hurt her! But what could a man know? He did not know the sensitive child-nature that trembled at a word. And she was with rough men--hideous women--longing to come home--wondering why they did not come for her and take her away... dear child! How cruel Phil was! She crouched nearer the fire, her eyes devouring it--her thoughts crowding on the darkness. Those terrible men had been silent seven weeks--more than seven--desperate weeks... not a word out of the darkness--and she could not cry out to them--perhaps they would not tap the wires again! The thought confronted her and she sprang up and walked wildly, her pulses beating in her temples.... She stopped by a table and looked down. A little vial lay there, and the medicine dropper and wine glass--waiting. She turned her head uneasily and moved away. She must save it for the night--for the dark hours that never passed. But she must think of something! She glanced about her, and rang the bell sharply, and waited.

“I want the Greek boy,” she said, “send him to me!”

“Yes, madame.” Marie’s voice hurried itself away... and Alcibiades stood in the doorway, looking in.

The woman turned to him--a little comfort shining in the sleepless eyes. “Come in,” she said, “I want to talk to you--tell me about Athens--the sun shines there!” She glanced again at the hearth and shivered.

The boy came in, flashing a gleam through the dark day. The little sadness of the night before had gone. He was alive and lithe and happy. He came over to her, smiling... and she looked at him curiously. “What have you been doing all day?” she asked.

“I play,” said Alcibiades, “I play--on flute--” His fingers made little music gestures at his lips, and fell away. “And I--run--” he said, “I go in rain--and run--and come in.” He shook his dark head. Little gleams of moisture shone from it. The earth seemed to breathe about him.

She drew a quick breath. “You shall tell me,” she said, “but not here.” She glanced about the room filled with sickness and wild thoughts--not even the boy’s presence dispelled them. “We will go away somewhere--to the gallery,” she said quickly, “it is lighter there and I have not been there--for weeks.” Her voice dropped a little.

The boy followed her through the hall, across a covered way, to the gallery that held the gems--and the refuse--that Philip Harris had gathered up from the world. She looked about her with a proud, imperious gesture. She knew--better now than when the pictures were purchased--which ones were good, and which were very bad; but she could not interfere with the gallery. It was Philip’s own place in the house. It had been his fancy--to buy pictures--when the money came pouring in faster than they could spend it--and the gallery was his own private venture--his gymnasium in culture! She smiled a little. Over there, a great canvas had been taken down and carted off to make room for the little Monticelli in its place. He was learning--yes! But she could not bring guests to the gallery when they came to Idlewood for the day. If he would only let a connoisseur go through the place and pick out the best ones--the gallery was not so bad! She looked about her with curious, tolerant smile.

The boy’s gaze followed hers. He had not been in this big room, with the high-reaching skylight, and the vari-coloured pictures and grey walls. His dark eyes went everywhere--and flashed smiles and brought a touch-stone to the place. Eyes trained to the Acropolis were on the pictures; and the temples of the gods spoke in swift words or laughed out in quick surprise.

The mistress of the house followed him, with amused step. If Phil could only hear it! She must manage somehow--Phil was too shrewd and practical not to see how true the boy was--and how keen! That great Thing--over the fireplace--Chicago on her throne, with the nations prostrate before her--how the boy wondered and chuckled--and questioned her--and brought the colour to her face!... Philip had stood before the picture by the hour--entranced; the man who painted it had made a key to go with it, and Philip Harris knew the meaning of every line and figure--and he gloried and wallowed in it. “That is a picture with some sense in it!” was his proudest word, standing before it and waving his hand at the vision on her throne. She was a lovely lady--a little like his wife, Philip Harris thought. Perhaps the artist had not been unaware of this. Certainly Mrs. Philip Harris knew it, and loathed the Thing. The boy’s words were like music to her soul, under the skylight with the rain dripping softly down. She had thought of covering the Thing up--a velvet curtain, perhaps. But she had not quite dared yet.... Across the room another picture was covered by a curtain--the velvet folds sweeping straight in front of it, and covering it from top to bottom. Only the rim of the gilt frame that reached to the ceiling, glimmered about the blue folds of the curtain. The boy’s eyes had rested on the curtained picture as they passed before it, but Mrs. Philip Harris had not turned her head. She felt the boy’s eyes now--they had wandered to it again, and he stood with half-parted lips, as if something behind the curtain called to him. She touched him subtly and drew his attention--and he followed her a minute... then his attention wandered and he gazed at the deep folds in the curtain with troubled eyes. She hesitated a moment--and her hand trembled. It was as if the curtain were calling her, too, and she moved toward it, the boy beside her.... They did not speak--they moved blindly and paused a breath... the rain falling on the skylight. The boy flashed a smile to her. “I have not see it,” he said.

She reached out her hand then and drew back the curtain. “It is Betty--my little girl--” she said, “she has gone away--” She was talking aimlessly--to steady her hands. But the boy did not hear her--he had stumbled a little--and his eyes were on the picture--searching the roguish smile, the wide eyes, the straight, true little figure that seemed stepping toward them--out from behind the curtain.... The mother’s eyes feasted on it a moment hungrily and she turned to the boy. But he did not see--his gaze was on the picture--and he took a step--and looked--and drew his hand across his eyes with a little breath. Then he reached out his hands, “--I--see--her,” he said swiftly. “She look at me--on ground--she cry--” His face worked a minute--then it grew quiet and he turned it toward her. “I see--her,” he repeated slowly.

She had seized his shoulder and was questioning him, forcing him toward the picture, calling the words into his ear as if he were deaf, or far away--and the boy responded slowly--truly, each word lighting up the scene for her--the great car crashing upon him, the overthrow of his cart, the scattered fruit on the ground, and the Greek boy crawling toward it--thrust forward as the car pushed by--and his swift, upward glance of the girl’s face as it flashed past, and of the men holding her between them--“She cry,” he said--as if he saw the vision again before him. “She cry--and they stop--hands.” He placed both hands across his mouth, shutting out words and cry.

And the mother fondled him and cried to him and questioned him again. _She_ had no fear--no knowledge of what might hang in the balance--of the delicate grey matter that trembled at her strokes... no surgeon would have dared question so sternly, so unsparingly. But the delicate brain held itself steady and the boy’s eyes were turned to her--piecing her broken words, answering them before they came--as if she drew them forth at will--

The door opened and she looked up and sprang forward. “Listen, Phil. He saw Betty!” Her hand trembled to the boy. “He _saw_ her--_that last day_--it must be--tell him, Alcie--”

The boy was looking at him smiling quietly, and nodding to him.

Philip Harris closed the door with set face.

XXII

“WHAT DID YOU SEE?”

“What did you see--boy?” Philip Harris stood with his legs well apart, looking at him.

The boy answered quickly, his quick gesture running to the picture above them, and filling out his words. He had gathered the story of the child as the mother had gathered his--and his voice trembled a little, but it did not falter in the broken words.

Philip Harris glanced up. The rain on the skylight had ceased, but the room was full of dusk. “There is not time,” he said, “to-night--You must rest now, and have your dinner and go to bed. To-morrow there will be men to question you. You must tell them what you have told us.”

“I tell them,” said the boy simply, “--what I see.”

So the boy slept quietly... and through the night, messages ran beneath the ground, they leaped out and struck wires--and laughed. Men bent their heads to listen... and spoke softly and hurried. Cars thrust themselves forth, striking at the miles--their great bulk sliding on. The world was awake--gathering itself... toward the boy.

In the morning they questioned him--they set down his answers with quick, sharp jerks that asked for more. And the boy repeated faithfully all that he had told; and the surgeon sitting beside him watched with keen eyes--and smiled.... The boy would hold. He was sound. But they must be careful... and after a little he sent him into the garden to work--while the men compared notes and sent despatches and the story travelled into the world, tallying itself against the face of every rogue. But there were no faces that matched it--no faces such as the boy had cherished with minute care... as if the features had been stamped--one flashing stroke--upon his brain, and disappeared. There could be no doubt of them--the description of the child was perfect--red cherries, grey coat--and floating curls. He seemed to see the face before him as he talked--and the face of the big man at her left, with red moustache and sharp chin--and the smaller man beside her, who had clapped his hand across her mouth and glared at the boy on the ground--his eyes were black--yes, and he wore a cap--pulled down, and collar up--you only saw the eyes--black as--The boy had looked about him a minute, and pointed to the shoes of the chief of police gleaming in the sunlight--patent leathers, and dress suit, hurried away from a political banquet the night before. The men smiled and the pencils raced.... There had been another man who drove the machine, but the boy had not noticed him--his swift glance had taken in only the child, it seemed, and the faces that framed her.

A little later they drove into the city--the boy accompanying them, and the surgeon and Achilles, who had hurried out with the first news and had listened to his son’s story with dark, silent eyes. He sat in the car close to Alcibiades, one hand on the back of the seat, the other on the boy’s hand. Through the long miles they did not speak. The boy seemed resting in his father’s strength. It was only when they reached the scene of his disaster that he roused himself and pointed with quick finger--to the place where he had fallen.... He was pushing his cart--so--and he looked up--quick--and his cart went--so!--and all his fruit, and he was down--looking up--and the car went by, close.... Which way?--He could not tell that--no.... He shut his eyes--his face grew pale. He could not tell.

The street forked here--it might have been either way--by swerving a little. And the police looked wise and took notes and reporters photographed the spot and before night a crowd had gathered about it, peering hopefully at the pavement where Alcibiades had lain, and pointing with eager fingers to bits of peel--orange and banana--scattered by the last passer-by, and gazing at dark stains on the pavement--something that might be marks of blood--after ten weeks of rain and mud and dust!

Achilles and the boy returned to the shop. “I want to go home,” the boy had said, as the car turned away, “I--go--home--with you, father.” So they had drawn up at the little fruit shop; and Yaxis in the door, his teeth gleaming, had darted out to meet them, hovering about them and helping his brother up the stairs and out to the verandah that ran across the windows at the rear. Down below, in tin-can backyards of the neighbours, old bottles and piles of broken lumber filled the place; but along the edge of the verandah, boxes of earth had been set, and the vines ran to the top, shutting out the glare of the brick walls opposite and making a cool spot in the blank heat.

Alcibiades looked at the vines with happy eyes. “They grow,” he said softly.

Yaxis nodded and produced a pot of forget-me-nots. He had been tending them for three weeks--for Alcie. They bent over the pot, blue with blossoms, talking eager words and little gestures and quick laughs. And Achilles, coming out, smiled at the two heads bending above the plant. Yaxis had been lonely--but now the little laughs seemed to stir softly in the close rooms and wake something happy there.

XXIII

ACHILLES HAS A PLAN

The next day, life in the little shop went on as if there had been no break. With the early light, Yaxis was off, to the south, pushing his tip-cart before him and calling aloud--bananas and fruit and the joy of Alcibiades’s return, in his clear, high voice.... In the shop, Achilles arranged the fruit--great piles of oranges, and grape fruit and figs--and swung the heavy bunches of bananas to their hooks outside, and opened crates and boxes and made ready for the day. By and by, when trade slackened a little, he would slip away and leave Alcibiades in charge of the shop. His mind was busy as he worked. He had something to do that would take him away from the shop--every day for a while, it might be--but the shop would not suffer. Alcibiades was strong--not well enough, perhaps, to go out with the new push-cart that had replaced the old one, and waited outside, but strong enough to make change and fill up the holes in the piles of oranges as they diminished under the swift rush of trade.