Part 6

Clifford withdrew a little later to the Café Anglais where he sullenly brooded and dined too freely. About nine o’clock, he went to see Stanley; at half-past ten a handsome young Spaniard called to pay his respects and bring courteous greetings from Fantozzi.

Clifford left the Spaniard and Stanley deeply interested in each other’s society, and took a cab to the United States Embassy, where, as an artist, he was to oversee the decorative preparations for next evening’s garden-party. His Excellency had requested it; Amyce appeared pleasantly cordial; so Clifford went to direct the hanging of lanterns and gaily-coloured scarfs, and, incidentally to propose marriage to his Excellency’s only daughter.

His Excellency was smoking a cigar on the lawn as Clifford entered, mentally thanking all the saints that it was too late to play croquet. Servants moved through the shrubbery; a few lanterns threw an orange light among the chestnut branches.

His Excellency was in good humour; he pattered about, as though driven by improved mechanism; he chuckled at times that irritating chuckle incident to victory at croquet.

“We’ll have electric lights next week,” he said; “ever play croquet by moonlight?”

“There is no moon to-night,” said Clifford, triumphantly.

“I know it,” sighed his Excellency.

Presently the Ambassador exhibited a desire to interfere with Clifford’s directions to the servants; he insisted on mounting a ladder and fussing with a string of crimson lanterns. The first, second, and third Secretaries of the Embassy were summoned to steady the ladder; Clifford saw an opportunity and seized it.

Amyce, who had been standing on the porch, observed Clifford’s advance with mixed sentiments.

“Are all the lanterns hung?” she asked.

“No,” said Clifford, “his Excellency has proposed modifications.”

“Man proposes—” began Amyce, gaily, then stopped.

The silence was startling.

Presently Amyce picked a rose from the vine at her elbow.

“Is it mine?” asked Clifford.

“Yours? I—I don’t know.”

She held it a moment, then he took it.

“And the giver?” he whispered.

“I—I don’t know,” said Amyce.

“Then,” said Clifford, “I shall take her—as I took the rose;” and he moved toward her up the steps.

At that moment Fate, who had been listening as usual, somewhere among the shadows, took a hand in the proceedings; there was a crunch of footsteps on the gravel walk, the dim glimmer of a cigar, and Captain Stanley entered the house, bowing pleasantly to Amyce and casting a look at Clifford that meant, “Follow me.”

Before Clifford could move, Amyce passed him with a pale smile and crossed the lawn toward the lantern-hangers.

His emotions were indescribable; he damned Stanley, then, buoyed with the intoxicating thought that Amyce had not refused him, he went into the house and found Stanley waiting in the smoking-room.

“Well,” said Clifford ungraciously.

Stanley appeared a trifle surprised but said: “I’m sorry you are in this mess, old fellow. Fantozzi naturally wants a shot at you.”

An unpleasant sensation passed through Clifford; Fantozzi and his shot were repulsive at the moment.

“When?” asked Clifford.

“To-morrow at sunrise. I’ve notified Bull.”

Clifford grew angry: “Then he can have his shot,” he said savagely, and sat down for a conference, interrupted about eleven o’clock by his Excellency.

The Ambassador was in no mood for bed. Perhaps something in the lighted lanterns had roused the long smouldering spark of revelry, dormant in every masculine bosom. Being an Anglo-Saxon he knew of no lighter gaiety than heavy drinking. He began to tell stories—quite pointless tales—and he would not let Clifford go, and he spoke vaguely of wonderful brands of whisky past and whisky to come. He sat there, his limpid hazel eyes meeker than any lambkin’s, a carefully dressed lay-figure, irresponsible to God and man, and for whom nobody was responsible except his Constructor.

About midnight he became entirely automatic; his eyes seemed to plead for somebody to wind him up and set him going again.

“When he gets this way he has a tendency to wander,” whispered Stanley; “I usually lock him in his room; if I didn’t he’d be all over town—like an escaped toy.”

Clifford went out on the porch; Stanley followed.

“At sunrise,” said Clifford soberly. “Will you call for me in a carriage?”

“At sunrise,” replied Stanley offering his hand.

Then Clifford went away, and Stanley, lingering to watch him to the gate, walked slowly back to the smoking-room.

To his horror his Excellency had disappeared. The west porch door swung wide open.

“He’ll be all over Paris!” groaned Stanley smiting his head with both hands.

IV.

Clifford did not go back to the studio; he took a long drive in a cab to steady his nerves. He alternately thought of Amyce, of Fantozzi, of his Excellency’s incoherent stories, of Elliott and the studio,—and, perhaps, of Jacquette. Two hours before dawn he found himself standing in front of Sylvain’s; and, wondering why he had wandered there, he went in and upstairs. The long glittering room reeked with cigar smoke; voices rose harshly from the disordered tables; a piano tinkled faintly on the floor above. He looked at his watch; it lacked an hour of the appointed time when he was to meet Stanley with the carriage at the studio. He turned toward the portal impatiently; somebody entered as he opened the leather doors; he glanced up and met his Excellency face to face.

His Excellency began a mechanical trot into the room; Clifford involuntarily detained him and the Ambassador stopped obediently as though somebody had arrested his running-gear. He examined Clifford with mild vitreous eyes as though he had never before seen him. He was perfectly docile, perfectly contented to be started again in any new direction. He needed a few repairs; Clifford saw that at once. It would never do to send his Excellency home with such a hat and collar and tie; the personnel at the Embassy must never see his Excellency in such disorder.

“Come,” said Clifford gently. There was a cab at the door; he stowed his Excellency away in one corner and followed, ordering the cabby to hasten to the studio in the rue Notre Dame. There was not much time to lose when they reached the studio. Clifford attempted to adorn his Excellency with clean linen, but found that it might take some hours as the machinery had run down and the Ambassador evinced an unmistakable inclination to slumber. He seated his Excellency in an arm-chair, and hurriedly changed his own evening dress for morning clothes. Then he went up to Elliott’s bed-room, but that young man’s bed was untenanted and undisturbed. The Ambassador slept peacefully in the studio; after a moment’s thought Clifford scribbled a note:

“DEAR ELLIOTT:—

“When you come in please give this gentleman clean linen and a new hat and brush his clothes and send him to the United States Embassy p. d. q.

“Yours,

“CLIFFORD.”

As he finished he heard carriage-wheels in the street outside and he thrust the note into his Excellency’s hat-band, jammed the hat on the slumbering diplomat’s head, and hurried out to the street where Stanley and Bull were waiting in the dim grey of the coming dawn.

“Not had coffee!” exclaimed Bull; “nonsense, it’s traditional!”

“We’ll take it at St. Cloud,” said Stanley. “Are you ready, old fellow?”

The carriage door slammed, the wheels rattled faster and faster.

“By the way,” said Clifford, “his Excellency paid me a visit this morning. I’ll see he gets home in good shape.”

“Thank heaven!” cried Stanley; “I’ve been hunting him all night!”

A moment later he looked earnestly at Clifford: “Is your hand steady?”

“Yes,” said Clifford pleasantly.

“You’d better shoot closer than you did at the pigeons,” suggested Bull.

“Why? Is Fantozzi a good shot?”

“Rotten,” said Stanley.

“He’s the more to be feared then,” observed Bull cynically.

“Why, you know,” confessed Clifford with a frank smile, “I feel certain that I’m not going to be hit. I was nervous last night, but not on that account.”

And he smiled confidently, thinking of Amyce.

“But,” insisted Bull, “are you going to hit your man?”

“Perhaps. What bosh it all is, anyway,” laughed Clifford.

V.

It was not yet sunrise when Elliott, entering the studio with Selby, lighted the gas and started to prepare for bed. As Elliott turned up the gas Selby encountered the owl-like eyes of his Excellency, blinking, limpid, vacant.

“What’s that?” he said nervously. But when he saw the evening dress, the disordered tie, the hat, he approached the Ambassador curiously. Presently he reached up, slipped the note from his Excellency’s hat-band, opened it, read it in silence, then passed it to Elliott without a word.

“May I ask who you are?” said Elliott. His Excellency bleated and waited for somebody to set him in motion, with placid confidence. Elliott frowned. This then was one of those who had lured Clifford from the fold!—this wicked old creature, apparently paralysed by depravity, planted in an arm-chair! His ruffled hat accused him! His crumpled tie, coyly peeping from behind one ear, convicted him!

“Call a cab,” said Elliott thickly.

His Excellency betrayed no emotion; his round eyes followed Elliott’s movements with trustful tranquillity. When Selby returned, saying the cab was there, Elliott assisted the Ambassador to his feet; but, what was his surprise and indignation to see that his Excellency was entirely capable of movement. For, once set in motion, the Ambassador began trotting all about the room with perfect solemnity and, apparently with keen satisfaction.

“I beg your pardon,” said Elliott coldly, “your cab is waiting.” He might as well have talked to the statues in the Louvre. Then he lost his self-control and, taking his Excellency by one sleeve he led him to the arm-chair and seated him.

“Aged man,” he said, “are you not mortified? You have dragged my comrade into your depraved society! You’ve taken him away from the Latin Quarter, you’ve stuffed his head full of marriage nonsense, of ambition, of desire for wealth and position. How dare you come here and ask for a hat and a collar!”

“Do you intend to ruin Clifford at baccarat?” demanded Selby.

“Or marry him to anybody?” added Elliott hoarsely.

“Who are you?” cried Selby; “are you a corrupt diplomat? Or are you merely a wicked old man on a spree?”

“He can’t wear that hat; it won’t stay on,” observed Elliott. Selby took a woman’s bonnet from the manikin, placed it on his Excellency’s head and tied the strings under his chin. Elliott threw Clifford’s covert-coat over his Excellency’s shoulders.

“That bonnet will keep him from catching cold,” he said, “it may teach him a lesson, too, when his wife sees it.”

His Excellency unmoved, serene, surveyed Elliott from under his bonnet.

“Come,” said Selby, and they set the Ambassador in motion again, out the door, along the garden to the street where the cab stood. The cabby stared a little, but Elliott said grimly: “Take him to the United States Embassy with Mr. Clifford’s compliments. And leave word that he can keep the bonnet for future use.”

* * * * *

About that time, several miles away in the forest of St. Cloud, Clifford was taking careful aim at Fantozzi’s anatomy, and Fantozzi was returning the attention. A moment later two insignificant reports broke the silence; both men, very pale, stood motionless; two tiny shreds of smoke floated upward through the tender foliage above.

Captain Stanley turned to Fantozzi’s second, they conferred for a moment, then Stanley turned away to avoid a smile and went hastily up to Clifford.

“He says he doesn’t want another shot; he says honour is satisfied; look out, I believe he’s preparing to embrace you!”

In vain Clifford attempted to shun the fervid reconciliation, in vain he dodged Fantozzi’s tears and hugs. Fantozzi would not leave him, not he! Clifford dexterously escaped a kiss aimed at his cheek.

There were compliments from seconds, from the surgeon, from the principals. Undismayed, Stanley tackled the procés-verbal. Bull locked up his instruments, the carriages were summoned by handkerchief signal; the duel was at an end. Gaily they drove back to breakfast—a red-hot Spanish breakfast at Fantozzi’s apartments. They toasted each other, they toasted the two nations, Spain and the United States.

Stanley, obliged to report at his Embassy, excused himself and promised to return. The breakfast continued; Fantozzi played exquisite Spanish airs on the guitar between courses; his handsome attaché accompanied him on the piano.

Bull, tactless to the back-bone, sang “Cuba Libre,” but nobody cared and everybody laughed. Afternoon came; they still breakfasted. Fantozzi insisted on a bout with the foils; Clifford accepted; they broke a handsome vase and some saucers.

About four o’clock, while Bull was singing “Cuba Libre” for the eleventh time by special request, Stanley entered, glanced gravely around, and motioned Clifford to come outside. Clifford went, closing the door behind him, troubled by the stony solemnity of Stanley’s visage.

“What’s up?” he inquired.

“This,” said Stanley with inscrutable eyes. “His Excellency was sent home in a cab this morning, wearing a woman’s bonnet and your covert-coat!”

“What!” gasped Clifford.

“Also with your compliments and a request that his Excellency keep the bonnet for future use.”

Cold sweat broke out on Clifford’s brow.

“It’s Elliott!” he moaned. “It’s Elliott’s work! Oh, Heaven, he didn’t know what he was doing!”

Stanley was silent.

“I’ll go to the Embassy,” cried Clifford, “I’ll go now.”

“Better not,” said Stanley kindly.

There was a pause.

“Does—does she know?” faltered Clifford.

“Yes,” said Stanley.

“And—and she—_she_ believed I did it!”

“No—I told her you were incapable of such a thing. But she is perhaps a little prejudiced—that is—I mean—you understand, I found her much distressed.”

Clifford raised his eyes, searching the handsome young face before him. Something in that face made his heart turn to water.

“Stanley!” he blurted out, “it isn’t _you_, is it, she has promised to marry—”

“Yes,” said Stanley slowly.

Clifford went and leaned over the banisters. After a long time he straightened up, mopped his brow with his handkerchief, smiled, and came up to Stanley holding out his hand.

“Before I take it I want to say that this incident had nothing to do with it,” said Stanley; “I proposed and was accepted at the pigeon match.”

Clifford was staggered for a moment; then he recovered and held out his hand again.

“She is one in a million,” he said cordially, thinking to himself, “and the rest of the millions are just like her, oh, Lord! just like her!”

Stanley grasped his hand; they stood looking at each other with kindly eyes. Fantozzi’s voice came through the closed door:

“Espagne! Espagne! Bravo! Toro!”

Somewhere in there Bull still chanted “Cuba Libre!” Presently they bowed to each other, shook hands again, and parted.

“My compliments to His Excellency and to Miss Amyce,” said Clifford. Then he went in and took leave of Fantozzi and the others despite their united protests. An hour later he entered the studio, fell upon Elliott and beat him madly. They fought like schoolboys until tired; perspiring and breathless, they retreated to separate sofas and panted.

“Confound you!” gasped Elliott, “what do you mean by it?”

“I mean that I forgive you,” said Clifford grimly; “go to the devil!”

They smiled at each other across the studio.

“Was _that_ the Ambassador, then?” asked Elliott.

“It was,—Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary.”

“He isn’t red-headed,” suggested Elliott, “your Ambassador Extraordinary.”

“Nevertheless,” said Clifford “he is a most extraordinary Ambassador. Where shall we dine?”

“In the Quarter?”

“In the Quarter.”

“With me?”

“With you.”

“And Colette and Jacquette?”

“And Colette and Jacquette.”

Elliott, choking with emotion, nodded, and picked up a ruffled silk hat from the floor.

“His Excellency’s,” said Clifford softly, and hung it over an easel.

YO ESPERO.

YO ESPERO.

God be merciful to me, a sinner. Thou hast already been merciful to the virtuous by making them so.—_Arabian Prayer._

I.

“Good morning,” said the young fellow, lifting his cap.

“Good morning,” said the girl.

It was the third time they had met; they had never before spoken. The young fellow buttoned his tweed jacket to the throat, glanced over the wooden railing of the foot-bridge, and then looked up at the sky. The sky was pale blue, fleckless and untroubled save for a shred of filmy vapour floating all alone in the zenith;—that was all, except the gilt incandescent disc of the sun;—all, except a speck, high in the scintillating vault, that circled slowly, slowly southwards, and vanished in mid-air.

The speck was a buzzard.

The young fellow turned from the glimmering water and looked diffidently at the girl. She bent her grey eyes upon the stream.

“Would you mind telling me whether there are trout in this river?” he asked, moving a step toward her.

She raised her head instantly, smiling.

“Gay Brook was a famous trout stream—once,” she answered.

“Then I suppose there are a few still left in it,” he asked, also smiling.

“But,” continued the girl, “that was very, very long ago.” She was looking again at the water, pensively.

“How long ago?” he persisted, drawing a little nearer.

“About seventy-five years ago,” she replied without raising her head; “Buck Gordon says so. Do you know Buck Gordon? His boys are the telegraph agents at the station above. I don’t know the Gordon boys; I have spoken twice with old man Gordon. I do not suppose,” she continued reflectively, “that there has been a trout in Gay Brook for fifty years. Do you know why?”

“No,” he said, “but I should be glad to know.”

He had drawn a little nearer and now leaned on the wooden railing of the bridge, his back to the water, his hands in his pockets. A leather rod-case was slung over one shoulder. The southern sun crisped the edges of his short hair and shorter moustache.

“The reason,” said the girl, gazing dreamily into the stream again,—“the reason is because they cut off so much timber in the mountain notch yonder that now the freshets come every spring, and for weeks the water is nothing but yellow mud. Trout can’t live in mud,—can they?”

After a silence he said: “And so there are no more trout.” She shook her head. The sun burnished her dark hair and tinged the delicate contour of cheek and throat with a warmer flush. Her white cambric sun-bonnet swung from her waist by both strings. Presently she put it on and turned toward him, holding the tips of the strings between the forefinger and thumb of her left hand. Her right hand lay indolently along the grey railing of the bridge. It was dimpled and tanned to a creamy tint.

“I have seen you three times here at the bridge,” she observed.

“And I have seen you,” he said; “I wish I had spoken before.”

She tore a tiny splinter from the sun-bleached railing and dropped it into the water. It danced away through the trembling sunbeams.

“I wondered why you came to fish in Gay Brook,” she went on; “I might have told you that there are nothing but minnows here;—I nearly did tell you—”

“I wish I had asked the first time we—I saw you,” he said; “it would have saved me no end of disappointment. Why did you not tell me?”

“Because—you didn’t ask me. I might have told you anyway if I had not seen that you were from the North.”

“You dislike Northern people?”

“I? Oh, no,—I don’t know any.”

“But you say that if—”

“I mean that I do not understand Northern strangers.”

The young fellow looked at her curiously.

“Why, I thought you also were from the North,” he said; “you do not speak with a Southern accent—”

“I am from Maryland, but I have lived here in North Carolina nearly all of my life. The reason that I do not speak with a Southern accent is because my uncle is from the North and I have lived alone with him,—ever since I can remember.”

“Here?”

“Yes. I am very glad you spoke to me. When do you go away to the North again?”

The young fellow touched his short moustache and gave her a sharp glance. His sunburned cheeks were tinged with a faint colour.

“I am very glad too,” he said; “I find it a bit lonely at the hotel.”

“The hotel,” she repeated; “there are two hundred people there.”

“And I am lonely,” he said again.

“You can’t be,—how can you be?” she persisted, raising her grey eyes to his.

“Because,” he replied; “I haven’t anything in common with any of them,—except Tom O’Hara.”

“I don’t understand,” she insisted. “It seems to me that if I had the happiness of being with a great many people I should have all in the world that I long for. I have nobody,—except my uncle.”

“You have your friends,” he said.

“No, nobody except my uncle. I do not count Zeke, and the boys.”

“Zeke?”

“Zeke Chace.”

“Oh,” he said; “I’ve heard of him. He runs the blockade, doesn’t he?”

“Does he?” she asked demurely.

He laughed and rested his head on his wrist, looking into her face. Her face was half hidden in the shadow of her sun-bonnet, so she met his gaze placidly.

“Doesn’t Zeke Chace run the blockade?” he repeated.

“What blockade?” she asked. Her grey eyes were very round and innocent.

“Have you never heard of blockade whisky?” he insisted.

She had to laugh.

“I might have heard something about it,” she admitted.

His pleasant serious face questioned hers and her lips parted in the merriest laugh again.

“How silly!” she cried; “everybody has heard of blockade whisky.”

“Oh,” he said, “I have often asked, but the people around here won’t talk about it!”

“Perhaps they take you for a Revenue Officer,” she ventured gravely.

“Very probably,” he answered.

At this she laughed outright. It occurred to him that she was making fun of him and he glanced at her again sharply.

“How do you know that I am not a Revenue Officer?” he asked.

Her laughing eyes met his.

“Can you tell a coon from a possum?” she asked in return.

“I? Of course.”

“So can I,” she said, trying hard to look serious. After a moment they both laughed outright.

“You have teased me unmercifully,” he said; “don’t you think you ought to tell me where I can catch a trout or two?”

“Then I will,” she answered impulsively, moving a step nearer; “but Zeke won’t like it. There are trout in the Buzzard Run.”

“The Buzzard Run?”

“It’s yonder, behind Mist Mountain. Zeke won’t like it,” she repeated.

“Why? Does Zeke fish too?”

“Zeke? Hm! Not exactly. Never mind,—I shall tell Zeke about you and nobody will bother you. But you must be a little careful; there are snakes on Mist Mountain.”

“Not dangerous snakes,—are there?”

“I don’t know what kind you are used to,” she said; “there are rattlers in the rocks on Mist Mountain.”

After a pause he asked her if there were many rattlesnakes there.

“Sometimes one sees two or three, sometimes none at all,” she answered. “They give you warning; they run if you let them. It might be better if you kept to the path. There is a path all the way.”

“Then I’ll stick to it,” he said lightly; “I suppose it’s too late to go to-day.” He looked at his watch and raised his eyebrows. “Why, it’s twelve o’clock!” he exclaimed.

She refused to believe it and bent her dainty head over his shoulder to see.

“Dear me!” she cried, “uncle will question me!”

They stood looking at each other with new-born awkwardness. She took one short step backward.

“Are you going?” he asked, scarcely conscious of what he said.

“Why, yes,—I must.”

He leaned over the bridge railing and looked at the crinkling ripples. After a while she also bent over, resting her elbows on the railing. A brilliant green beetle ran across the bleached board, halted, spread its burnished wings, and buzzed away across the stream. A small fluffy honey-wasp alighted between her elbows and crept quickly into a hole in the splintering plank.