Part 13

He shook his head and sought a light on the ground, which, after the manner of "Winking Willies," was showing long and short flashes like Morse. To his amazement, the light became a smile, which gradually developed into a most alluring female face. If he had been in possession of his usual sense of the humorous, he would have recalled that Lewis Carroll's cat appeared to Alice in much the same way; but his mind and body were both in the clouds, a realm where cats and humor are uninvited guests.

He next tried a star, which underwent the same evolution. Even the moon was not proof against the phenomenon. Once he half-closed his eyes, but that was worse than ever. Everywhere he looked, there was the same face--smiling, pouting, coquetting, sympathizing, commiserating.

He tried whistling, but it offered no relief.

Behind him, nearly asleep, Pippa sat with closed eyes. To her the solution was much more simple. All day she had had her Prince by her side, her arm in his, her fingers locked with his. Therefore she was happy; also she was tired.

Not having any tiresome masculine mental gyrations to perform in discovering a truth that was so easily apparent, she accepted the situation with sentimental nonchalance, and falling asleep, dreamed that the statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens had changed to that of the Airy Prince (who, she thought, was ever so much more handsome), and that she was sitting on the grass admiring him, while rabbits played about his feet. She was awakened from this delightful dream by a sensation similar to that of falling off a ladder in one's sleep; but such is the penalty of those who travel at night by air.

And, applying the laws of logic to the case, when a young gentleman sees dark eyes and curved lips in a compass, and a young woman dreams that the citizens of London have erected a monument to a young gentleman with a long face and glow-worm eyebrows, it is reasonable to suppose that they have fallen in love with each other.

But strange things happen in the month of April.

XII

She had just fallen asleep for the second time, when the cessation of the engines woke her, and a few moments later they had descended in a field adjoining his aerodrome.

He jumped from the pilot's seat and lifted her out. "Quick, Pippa," he said. "They'll be here in a few minutes for the machine. I had to land here because that light was my only guide. Do you see that heavy tree over there by the road? Wait by it until I return with a motor-cycle. Hurry, youngster; they're coming."

She did as he bade her, and took refuge in the shadow of a huge tree, just as men's voices told her the mechanics had come. The rolling of distant guns, like thunder echoing through cavernous depths, traveled on the wings of the wind and left her heart fluttering from a sudden contraction of pain. For one day, in the restful meadows of England and in the fascination of the unmarred City of Adventure, she had forgotten France's agony. With the thought came a sudden bitterness.

Ten minutes later she heard him coming with a motor-cycle, to which a side-car was attached. She took her seat in the car, and he fastened the rubber cover over her knees. Then, opening the throttle, they sped through the night towards her home.

It was just twenty minutes to twelve when they reached the mill. Hurrying across the foot-bridge which spanned the chute, she entered the cottage and lit the lamp.

"Louis!" she cried. "Louis!"

That patient feline awoke from slumber and stretched in the most blasé manner; but his little mistress, gathering him in her arms, pressed her cheek against his head, asking a dozen questions at once, to which he deigned no reply other than blinking into space and licking his chops, as though the ways of women were beyond him, but 'twere best to let them have their own way.

The airman followed her in.... The prevaricating clock continued its dilatory march of time. Marshal Joffre was, if anything, more paternal than before, and the geranium-colored table cover lent its unsubtle glow to the scene.

"Good-by, Pippa," he said.

The girl stood motionless, and there was a quick stab in her heart. She had known that this moment would come, but had kept her thoughts from it ... and now ... he was going....

Once more she would have only her little world of make-believe. She released the cat from her arms and turned her eyes away.

"You have been very kind, monsieur," she said.

He fingered his helmet absent-mindedly. "Did you enjoy it?" he asked aimlessly.

"It was wonderful," she said quietly, still looking into distance; "I have seen so much. This morning I was just a little girl, but now----"

His fingers ceased turning the helmet, and he frowned at it intently. "We do not grow old with years but by moments," he said. "For a long time one is a child; then there comes an instant of suffering, or of love ... and one is no longer a child. That is all."

She slowly sank into a chair by the table, and, folding her hands, appeared engrossed in the table cover. "Your Majesty," she said, "do you remember the poor lady with the violets?"

"Yes, Pippa."

"What did she say to you?"

He smiled awkwardly. "It--it is rather hard to explain, little one. She told me to--to take care of you."

"Why did she say that?" she asked without removing her eyes for a moment from the table.

"Well--perhaps you do not know this--but men are sometimes very unkind to women."

"I know, monsieur. Simon Barit, he often beats his wife."

He sat down on a chair opposite her. "There are many more ways of being cruel than that," he said. "Sometimes a kiss, or the gift of a flower, is worse than a blow. Often, Pippa, men play with women's hearts as--well, as Louis does with a spool."

A shadow fell on her face. "I think I understand, monsieur. That poor lady was afraid I should fall in love with you, but that you would not love me."

"That is partly what she meant."

Pippa rose and walked to the window. "To-night I think," she said, after a minute's silence, "that women have the most sorrow in life."

"They do, little one."

"But also the most joy, monsieur."

He rested his chin on his hand, but said nothing.

"All to-day," resumed the girl, "when men seemed happiest it was because they were with women. Also when they looked most cruel--you perhaps know what I mean--there were women there too with the faces that frightened me. And all those lovely children playing in the park--always they seemed so merry because their mothers were near them. But also, you remember the poor soldier in the chair?--no legs and but one arm. His face was so sad until once the lady with him--a nurse, you said--spoke to him and he looked at her and smiled. It was lovely, monsieur. I think I wept a little."

He made no comment, but his left hand ran slow arpeggios on the table. From the window she could see the water of the chute, all silvery in the moonlight.

"So to-night, monsieur," she went on, "I am not the same as this morning. Then I thought that we who are women are the happiest; but now I think, in the real world, it is we who give pleasure or unhappiness. Perhaps, monsieur"--she turned around and faced him--"perhaps a woman finds joy only when she gives it to others."

He looked at her, and his eyebrows were raised in wonder. When he had said we grow old by moments, was it more than just a well-turned phrase?

She returned to her chair by the table.

"When Louis and I are alone," she murmured, "I shall not dream the same as before. Then we had only young people, brave and handsome, but now I shall pretend that there are many old and sad ones, who perhaps will be glad if I am with them. And----"

"Pippa, my dear"--he looked into her eyes that met his without timidity, and there was a pleading note in his voice--"you may be lonely here, but you saw to-day how many discouraged, unhappy people there are--how much sickness and unkindness there is. Keep to your little world here with its Fairy Princes and the music of the wind. It is better, Pippa.... Perhaps it is even more real than the other."

She smiled, patiently, and, for the second time that day, felt a motherly pity for his youthfulness.

"Your Majesty," she said, "in my book, _The Fairy Prince_, the girl sings a song about love, and she asks her mother, '_Est-ce plaisir, est-ce tourment?_' I know now that it is both. Ah! I think it is too wonderful to be a woman; for some day, perhaps yes, perhaps no, I shall have my own children and a husband and friends. And sometimes, when my husband, he is much discouraged if the mill makes no money, though he works so hard, or if my children are perhaps sick and cry--then it is I who smile and say: '_Mes enfants_'--for he, too, will be only a big child--'_Mes enfants_, can you see the sunshine? Do you hear the birds? Can you smell these flowers?--So!' _Et alors_--perhaps they smile too. So I sing a pretty song and say to my husband '_Courage, mon ami!_ Have you not your little wife?' And after that we are all happy.... And now, that is why I think it is so wonderful to be a woman."

The clock hiccoughed, and struck eight.

The airman looked at his watch. "By Jove, it is midnight!" he said. "Pippa, our day is over----"

Tears sprang to her eyes, and her hands groped for his. "But no, monsieur," she cried, "you must not go. It will be so lonely."

He leaned over and covered her little hands with his large, tanned ones. "It will be lonely for me as well," he said.

"But you will come back, Your Majesty? Perhaps--next Easter?"

He gently stroked her hand. "On my honor," he said, "I will come on the Tuesday at dawn. You will be there?"

He released her hands as she slowly rose and crossed once more to the window.

"At daybreak," she said very quietly, gazing at the steely brilliance of the running water, "I will watch from the hill. And if you do not come, though I shall weep a little, I shall say, 'He is fighting, and could not leave for little Pippa. Next year he will come.'"

"And supposing, little one, he does not come the next year either?"

She leaned her arm against the window-pane and rested her cheek on it. "I shall watch again at dawn, monsieur"--the words were spoken very slowly--"and I shall say, 'He is not coming.... He has gone to be with his brothers who went, out into the sunlight, smiling so bravely----'"

Her words ended in a half-sob, and she pressed her face with both hands.

"But every Easter," she said, her voice very soft and trembling, "on the Tuesday I will watch the dawn from the hill, and perhaps, monsieur, you will see me."

He stood motionless for a moment, slowly reached for her leather coat and helmet, and placed them over his arm. "Good-by, Pippa," he said, and he held out his hands.

Timidly, and with cheeks that went all white, then crimson, she came towards him and raised her face for him to kiss. For a moment he held her in his arms, which quivered oddly.... Then, stooping, he gently kissed her--not on the upturned, trembling lips, but on the cheek, just beside her mouth.

Without a word he gently released her from his arms, flung the door open and went out into the night.

Motionless, with the burning memory of his hot lips upon her cheek, she stood until the sound of his footsteps was lost in the song of the chute. Slowly her hands dropped to her side and she sank into the chair by the table. The cat looked up from the task of licking his paws, and sprang upon her lap.

"Louis!" she cried, smothering him in an embrace that threatened to snuff out his nine lives prematurely, while tears from her eyes fell glistening on his fur. "Louis!"

MR. CRAIGHOUSE OF NEW YORK, SATIRIST

I

A raw wind from the sea swept against the mammoth building of the _New York Monthly Journal_. The editor of that classic publication stretched his arms lazily, then crossed to the rattling window and looked at Broadway, far beneath. A few belated flakes of snow mingled with the dust that eddied about in little whirlpools of wind. Like gnomes, the people hurried on in an endless diverging torrent of humanity, slouch-hats of soldiers adding a strangely Western effect to the usual bizarre scene.

The telephone rang, and the editor, Mr. E. H. Townsend, left the window to answer it.

"Yes?" he said. "Mr. Craighouse? Send him right in."

He took from a drawer a box of notoriously expensive cigars, and laid it on his desk. The reasonings of Dr. Watson himself could hardly have failed to deduce that the visitor was of some importance.

A moment later a young man, in the uniform of a United States officer, knocked, and, in response to the invitation, entered the inner temple. Mr. Townsend offered him the arm-chair, and reached for the cigars.

"You look well in uniform," he said, after appropriate comments on the April weather had been made by both.

"Thanks. I received your note this morning asking me to call."

"Ah yes. By-the-by, you are sailing soon, I believe?"

"Any time, now; naturally, we don't know to a day."

"What branch of the Service are you with?"

"The Engineers."

The editor thrust his hands into his pockets. "That is odd," he said. "Did you know anything about engineering?"

"A little." The young man's voice was abrupt, but not unmusical. His brain had always been alert, and army training was making his voice so. "I was a science grad. at Harvard."

The editor gazed out of the window again. "You are a remarkable combination, Mr. Craighouse," he said. "There is nothing more stifling to the artistic nature than a purely scientific training; in fact, the influence of this journal has always been used against absolutely technical schools. Almost the first requisite of any artist is a keen appreciation of the intangible; science deals only with things that can be proved. I often nurse along a young writer if he is incoherent because, as frequently happens, his temperament is greater than his technique. Scientists always marshal their facts well, but they never soar to the heights."

The editor tapped the window gently, the young officer gazing quizzically at him the while. They were a strangely contrasted pair, the editor in the autumn of life, with the calm voice and bearing of one who has fastened routine to art, and become jaded in the process; the young man keenly alert, with eyes that never lost their restlessness, and thin, satirical lips that mocked the high forehead of a philosopher.

"I am greatly interested in your writing," said the editor, after rather a lengthy pause.

The officer smiled. "Is that why you rejected my last two manuscripts?"

"Yes. Neither of them did you credit. Both of them betrayed rather a nasty cynicism in your style."

"I meant them for satire."

"Ah! there is a great difference. Cynicism recoils on the cynic; satire is always delightful, and is never offensive. However, I may say, in spite of their faults, if you survive the war you should become one of America's finest writers."

The young man flushed with pleasure. "Thanks very much, Mr. Townsend."

"You have temperament and you have language," went on the editor, "and, though your emotions are artificial and your judgments too impetuous, that is a natural condition of youth--nature has to keep something to recompense us for growing old. But you have big moments, plus some most promising incoherency, as I said before, and when that chaos becomes cosmos, the world will acknowledge you. You have never been to England before, have you?"

The officer shook his head, a little puzzled at the abrupt descent from the abstract.

Mr. Townsend smoked reflectively for a full minute. "England," he said slowly, "is the paradox of the ages. In America we have the present and the future; England has the present and the past--principally the past. Inefficiency is often no bar to success there--as a matter of fact, an Englishman dislikes appearing efficient--but remember that the British Navy is the most thorough organization in the world. I have often thought that England's success in colonization was largely due to her utter inability to understand the temperament of the people she governed. Look at Canada. There was never an Englishman who really appreciated the restless independence of the Canadian; yet, when the Old Land goes to war, Canada sends and maintains a mighty fine army corps to help her. Listen, my boy. I want you to go to England with your pores open; receive impressions and make a note of them. I want a series of articles explaining England to America--not as it is being done by those polished gentlemen who visit us from London, but by an American for Americans. Don't send me a description of the Strand, or Westminster Abbey, or your thoughts on first seeing the Thames. Go deep. I want a series of articles that rise above journalism. I want the psychology of England written up in a light satirical vein by a clever man with red blood in his veins. You will be there for some time, I suppose?"

"Very likely, as we are the first of the vanguard."

A half-hour later the young officer rose to go, with a contract that promised him generous remuneration, in return for which he had agreed to write ten articles on England. He stood, facing the older man, and smiled slightly. He had removed his cap, and his black hair, struggling into an unruly curl, combined with his dark, brilliant eyes in an appearance of arresting virility.

"You are very encouraging, Mr. Townsend," he said. "I had no idea that an editor could be so--so nearly human."

"My son," said the older man, "we are literature's midwives, toiling year in and year out in the hope that some day we shall assist at the birth of a masterpiece."

"But how is it that you don't write yourself?"

The editor shrugged his shoulders. "Why does a hangman never commit a murder?" he said.

II

Three weeks later a great ocean liner, known since the war as H.M. Transport, No. --, dropped gracefully down the river towards the open sea. Craighouse, from the hurricane-deck, watched the amazing silhouette of New York, as her mighty buildings stood outlined against the darkening skyline. From the wharf came the strains of "The Star-Spangled Banner," and hundreds of handkerchiefs fluttered in farewell.

A British cruiser was lying at anchor, and a thousand bluejackets roared three mighty British cheers for the new crusaders. A bedlam of shouting from the transport acknowledged the compliment, and one American soldier, whose constant attendance at baseball matches had produced stentorian qualities within him, boomed out the words, "Good old Roast Beef!"

Every one laughed. Why not? Men always laugh readily when their emotions are playing leapfrog with each other.

The strains of "The Star-Spangled Banner" sounded fainter; the handkerchiefs were blurred into a fluttering white cloud. A French battleship lay a quarter of a mile from them. As they passed it a bugle sounded on board, followed by a salvo of cheers from the crew. Craighouse noticed that the French cheers were a full third higher in pitch than the British.

Another roar came from the transport, and all eyes were turned towards the stentorian private. He took a deep breath.

"Good old Froggy!" he bellowed, and two or three soldiers laughed. To America, France is the martyr of the ages, and there is a strange sense of the feminine in the affection which the Old World republic inspires in the New. Truly, the ways of an extempore humorist are unhappy.

They passed the Battery, and, nearing the open sea, received the blessing of the Statue of Liberty extending her welcome to all that are weary and discouraged.

Craighouse experienced a thrill of patriotism, and, feeling that he must express it in language, turned to his nearest neighbor, who happened to be a British officer. "That's an inspiring sight," he said.

"Which?" said the Englishman briefly.

"The Statue of Liberty," answered Craighouse with the tone of a 4th of July orator. "That is the spirit of America--equality for all, freedom of thought and action, liberty for every one."

"Oh yes--splendid," commented the Englishman politely.

There was silence for a moment, and then, in a burst of inexcusable chauvinism, Craighouse said, "You haven't anything like that in England, have you?"

"No," said the English officer casually; "but we had an army in France two weeks after war was declared. I say, do come and have a drink."

III

Three months later the editor of the _New York Monthly Journal_ received a letter from Craighouse. Adjusting his glasses, he settled comfortably into his chair and read it.

"MY DEAR PATRON,--I hope you have not been disappointed at my lack of articles, but, to be candid, I have not struck the proper mental balance yet.

"England is delightful; England is absurd. I was on a bus yesterday, and the conductress gave the signal to go ahead by hammering the side with the fare-box. It fascinated me. Incidentally, the girls have wonderful complexions over here, but they do not dress as cleverly as ours. I know you will say it is war-time, but nothing is powerful enough to interfere with anything so fundamental as a woman's clothes." ("A bit labored, but quite good," muttered the editor.)

"The country, as you know, is like a garden, with all a garden's charm and limitations. I don't feel yet that I can take a deep breath. There are woods; but the trees seem to huddle together for want of space, and one always feels that just the other side of the woods there is a town or a village. England is lovely, but I feel the lack of immensity. To me, the whole effect is that the country is complete; there is nothing more to do. Everything that can be built has been built." ("And well built, too," muttered Mr. Townsend.) "In fact, I don't see what there is over here to employ to the full the brains, the nerves, and the imagination of a full-blooded _homo_. Again I return to the garden simile. Is the task of maintenance big enough for the splendid specimens of manhood that England rears?

"I feel that there is something wrong with the public-school system. Not that it is inefficient, but rather that it is too thorough in its results. Judging superficially, of course, it seems that the public school ignores the fact that every one is born an individual, and proceeds to produce a type. To use a vulgarism, it is a high-class scholastic sausage-machine. It takes in variegated ingredients, and turns out uniformity of product. It instructs the youth of the land in the manly virtues of past ages, but appears to ignore the creative instinct. Public-school men are the Greek chorus of England's national drama; they seldom provide either the dramatist or the principal actors.

"My biggest disappointment has been the English stage. I know our 'playsmiths' are futile enough, but we would never endure in New York what is put on at many first-class London theaters. At a time when her grandsons from the four corners of the world are paying, in most cases, their first visit to the Old Country, England offers them the spectacle of a once classic stage given over to inanity and vulgarity. Of course, there are two or three producers who still maintain a commendable standard of art, but in the majority of first-class London theaters one finds a coarseness of innuendo, an utter lack of refinement, and an almost total elimination of humor. In their musical shows the producers still go in for the type of comedian known on Broadway as 'hard-boiled'--the kind that carries his own jests in a valise, and whose _pièce de résistance_ is the word 'damn,' which seldom fails to convulse the audience. If I may coin a phrase, I would say the aim of some London producers is 'to be vulgar without being funny.'" ("I wonder if that is original," observed the editor.)