Part 19

"Wait a minute," I interposed; "you are going too fast for me. Are you asking me to believe that it was only by chance that they rolled the piece of coral over to the exact spot where, we may suppose, it originally stood--marking the place of the _Santa Lucia_ burial?"

"Chance and nothing else--excepting, perhaps, it may have rolled more easily that way than any other. It was Goff and I who moved it in the first place, you remember, when we took it to mark our gold grave."

"Now we may come back to Billy," I said. "What more did you tell him?"

"What could I tell him, save to hint that the Spaniards might have split their treasure and buried it in two places?--that, and to josh him a bit for having stopped too soon in his digging venture?"

"Then you told him that the remaining forty pieces belong to Madeleine?"

"I did; I have told them all. She found it, and it is hers. More than that, I have taken Jack Grey into my confidence in the matter of Barclay's shortage in his guardian accounts, and he will see to it that the Vancourt trust fund is made whole again."

"But, see here," I protested; "that is _your_ quarter million that Billy and Edie are making off with!"

He laughed boyishly.

"I'm robbed," he declared; "Held up and cleaned out in the house of my friends. I couldn't claim the stuff if I wanted to--without giving the whole snap away. But I don't mean to claim it. It is going to be put right where it will do the most good, Dick--which it wasn't going to be, if my romantic plot had worked out as it was planned. If Madeleine had found _my_ money, I should never have been able to look her straight in the eyes again--never in this world. You know I shouldn't. That was the weak detail I told you about. But what she did find is her own, her very own, you see; and mine goes to the two kiddies. Billy's father couldn't stake him, neither now nor two or three years hence, when these two babies will take things into their own hands and get married, money or no money. And with another of her girls due to marry a poor man, Mrs. Van Tromp would be in despair."

"Another of her girls--you mean Beatrice?" I asked, dry-lipped.

"Sure thing. Jerry's a pauper; or if he isn't quite that now, he will be when Major Terwilliger's last will and testament is read."

"But Conetta!" I gasped. "He is promised to her, Bonteck."

"Is he?" he said; and that is all he did say.

"Isn't he?" I demanded.

"How should I know? You'd better go and ask him or her--or both of them."

For a flitting instant I found myself desperate enough to do that very thing; but I, too, had suffered my sea change. Curiously enough the hotheaded impulse died within me before I could rise from my seat on the three-legged stool.

"Well, why don't you?" Van Dyck inquired satirically, meaning, I supposed, why didn't I go and make a fool of myself to the two people in question. Then: "What has come over you, Richard? Have you lost all of that fiery impetuosity that used to make you the worry of your friends, and put the fear of God into your enemies?"

It wasn't worth while to answer the gibe. I had other and better things to think of just then. Mellowing things.

"I know now why you dragged me in on this winter cruise, Bonteck," I said, humbly enough. "In the goodness of your heart you thought Conetta and I might be able to bridge the three-year gap and come together again. It was a kindly thought, and I shall always remember it. It wasn't your fault that the chance came too late. Don't you want me to take your trick here and let you go down to the others? True, Ingerson was at the bridge table when I came through, but he may not stay there."

"Ingerson is out of it," he said shortly. "He leaves us at La Guaira, to take the regular steamer for Havana and home."

"Nevertheless, my offer holds good. Give me the course and I'll relieve you."

"Later on, perhaps; the night is yet young. Just now, you'll be wanting to get Conetta and Jerry together so you can fire that question of yours at them. Better toddle along and have it over with, while the thing is fresh in your mind."

I turned to go, but at the door of the chart-room I paused to give him his due.

"You are a kindly sort of villain, after all, Bonteck," I said. "But how about the little experiment in the humanities that was at the bottom of all these things that have happened to us? Did it turn out as you expected it would? Are we worse than you feared--or better than you hoped?"

"Neither, Dick," he returned quite soberly. "We are all pretty much the same, I guess; brothers and sisters under the skin; just men and women 'of like passions'. I think I've known it as well as I needed to, all along, but it suited my humor to pose as a--a----"

"As a pragmatic ass," I snorted, helping him out. "Whenever you are tempted to bray again----"

"I'll just think back a few lines and remember this little Caribbean slip-up," he laughed. "But don't let me keep you. I know you are perishing to go and stick pins into poor old Jerry and Conetta."

That final remark of his was as far as possible from the truth; so far, indeed, that, upon leaving the bridge, I descended to the main deck by way of the forward ladder for the express purpose of keeping out of the way of the group under the awning on the after-deck lounge.

Since the _Andromeda_ was now quite short-handed, the forward deck was deserted by all save a single man at the bow. I crossed to the port rail and stood for a time looking out upon the starlit sea and listening to the sibilant song of the yacht's sharp cutwater as it sheared its way through the gently heaving seas.

I had not been talking merely for effect in telling Bonteck that I should leave the yacht at La Guaira. On all accounts it seemed only the just and decent thing to do. Now that I came to think of it soberly, it seemed quite possible that my presence in the yacht party might have been the provoking cause of Jerry Dupuyster's disloyalty, or apparent disloyalty, to Conetta. He knew that we had once been engaged, and while there had been no more than fellow-passenger intimacy on the cruise, we had been together more or less on the island.

Though it was removed by the better part of the length of the ship, the tinny tinkle of Billy's mandolin was still audible, and presently there were voices joining in a rollicking college song; John Grey's clear tenor, Alicia Van Tromp's rich contralto, and even the professor's bass. It seemed incredible that the reaction from our late privations could have swept us all so swiftly back to the ordinary and the commonplace; and yet the fact remained: a fact demonstrating beyond all question the irresistible impulse in the normal human being to revert quickly to the usual and the accustomed.

Perhaps it was the reflective mood to which this philosophizing vein led that made me insensible of Conetta's approach. At any rate, I had no warning; I was still supposing that she was with the others on the after-deck when I felt her touch on my arm.

"You?" I said.

"Yes, me," she admitted, with the cheerful disregard for grammar which usually marked her flippant moods. "What are you doing up here, all by yourself?"

"What should I be doing? But if you really want to know, I'm gazing out toward the country where I'm likely to spend the next few years of my life--Venezuela."

"Yes," she said quite calmly. "I've just been up on the bridge with Bonteck. He told me you were going to bury yourself again in the South American wilds." Then, with what seemed to be a tinge of mocking malice: "Is it the Castilian princess?--but no; you told me she is married, didn't you?"

"No," I returned crabbedly; "it's you, this time, Conetta. I don't want to be on the same side of the earth with you when you marry Jerry Dupuyster."

She laughed as though I had said something humorous. "Jerry!" she scoffed. "Where are your eyes, Dickie Preble? Don't you see that I haven't the littlest chance in the world in that quarter? I should think you might."

"That is all right," I retorted. "I'll have a thing or two to say to Jerry before I quit this neat little ship at La Guaira!"

"Please don't!" she pleaded.

"Don't tell Jerry where to head in, you mean?"

"No; I didn't mean that. I mean please don't slip back, like all the rest of us have. Don't you know you were awfully dear while we were on the island? There were times--times when you were so patient and good with Aunt Mehitable--when I could have hugged you."

"Humph! I wonder what Jerry would have said to that?"

"Can't we leave Jerry out of it, just for a few minutes? But you _were_ good, you know, and you were really making me begin to believe that your horrible temper, the temper that once made us both pay such a frightful price, was your servant instead of your master."

"Temper?" I said, fairly aghast at this bald accusation.

"Yes, temper. Have you been like everybody else--unable to recognize your own dearest failing? Don't you know that even as a little boy they used to say of you that you'd rather fight than eat? Are all red-headed men like that?"

"Never mind the other red-headed men," I returned. "What price did my temper make us pay?--and when?"

"I wonder if you went through it all without knowing--without realizing?" she said musingly. "Do you remember one night when you were taking Aunt Mehitable and me to the theater and some lobby lounger made a remark that you didn't like?"

"Yes, I remember it. I would have killed the beast if they hadn't pulled me off him. That remark was made about you, Conetta."

"I know. But you--you scandalized poor Aunt Mehitable. She began to say, right then, that I could never hope to have a happy married life with a man who had such an ungovernable temper. Wasn't it more or less true, Dick?"

Back of the island period and its tremendous revelations I should probably have said that it wasn't true. But now I only asked for better information.

"Once upon a time your aunt made two wills; made one, and revoked it with another within a week. Was that done to find out how much I would stand for?"

"I--I'm afraid it was." She admitted it reluctantly.

"Since it is all dead and buried long ago, you might tell me a little more about it. What she said to me was that she had heard of the loss of my property, and that she thought it was only fair to tell me that, under the terms of her will, you wouldn't inherit anything but a small legacy. She added that, of course, under such conditions our marriage was out of the question; that the only thing for me to do was to set you free."

"What did you say to her?"

"I don't remember. I probably raved like a maniac."

"You did. Miss Stebbins, the secretary, was in the library alcove, and she took short-hand notes. It was terrible, Dick. You must have been quite mad to say such things as you said to Aunt Mehitable."

"I was mad. Look at it from my side for a moment, if you can. I had just heard of the smash in the Western mines, and right upon the heels of that I was calmly asked to give you up. Did she show you the short-hand notes?"

"She did, after you had vanished without saying a word to me or even writing a line to tell me what had become of you. She did it to prove what she had said many times before--that your ferocious temper would make it impossible for any peaceable person to live with you."

"And you--what did you do?"

"What could I do? I had to go on living; one has to do that in any case. And after a time----"

"After a time, Jerry stepped in. I'm not blaming anybody, Conetta, dear. If Jerry would only break away from Beatrice Van Tromp and treat you as he ought to treat the woman he is going to marry, I wouldn't say a word."

She turned away, and for the length of time that it took the _Andromeda_ to sheer through three of the long Caribbean swells she was silent. Then, as if she were speaking to the wide expanse of sea and starry sky: "It would be a tragedy if Jerry should break away from Beatrice. They have been engaged for ever and ever so long."

"What!" I exclaimed. "And you've known it all the time?"

"I think you are the only one who hasn't known it."

"But you said you and Jerry----"

"No," she interrupted coolly, "I didn't say it. I merely let you go on believing what you seemed to want to believe."

"But you did say that Jerry had asked you."

"That was a long time ago; and I think he did it only because his uncle told him to."

Slowly the incredible thing battered its way into my brain. Conetta was free; free, and she hadn't been any better able to forget than I had. I slipped an arm around her.

"It's an awful gap--three years; could you--do you suppose we could bridge it--and let Aunt Mehitable make another will, if she wants to?"

Just then, Bonteck, or whoever had the wheel, must have let the _Andromeda_ fall off a bit. There was a plunge, a splash, and the spray of the curling bow wave showered us both. She let me wipe her face with my handkerchief, and then put it up to be kissed.

"There has never been any gap, Dick, dear," she said softly. "I--I guess I'm just a silly little one-love fool. I've just been waiting--and waiting ... and Aunt Mehitable ... she's sorry, dear; she's been sorry ever since that dreadful day three years ago when she made you swear at her and call her a mercenary old harridan...."

Time being the merest abstraction in such circumstances, it might have been either minutes or hours after this that the tubular chime which answered for a ship's bell on the _Andromeda_ began to strike. Conetta counted, and as the last note was dying away she chanted happily:

"Eight bells; the forward light is shining bright, and all's well! Kiss me again, Dickie, dear, and we'll go and find Aunt Mehitable--if she hasn't gone to bed."

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Page 13, "entére" changed to "entrée" (_entrée_ to the best house)

Page 67, "role" changed to "rôle" to match other usage (rôle she had tried)

Page 141, "Dyke" changed to "Dyck" (place in Van Dyck)

Page 168, "maneuvering" changed to "manoeuvering" to match rest of usage in text (fortnight I've been manoeuvering)

Page 172, "hypothssis" changed to "hypothesis" (second hypothesis was)

Page 180, superfluous comma removed after "well" (file and keeping well)

Page 193, final period added to last line on page (blotted me out.)

Page 204, "hestitating" changed to "hesitating" (was not hesitating from)

Page 224, "a" changed to "á" (Gracias á Dios with a disabled)

Pagem 246, "Curacao" changed to "Curaçao" (the island of Curaçao)

Page 257, "Grácias a Dios" changed to "Gracias á Dios" to match rest of usage (repair stop at Gracias á Dios)

Page 248, "Curacao" changed to "Curaçao" (Curaçao, to anyw'ere you)