Chapter 9

Payne looked, and in place of the lake he seemed to behold a swimming pool and to sense an atmosphere that was like a drug. He opened the gate and stepped out on the sand prairie. As in moments of crisis, when unseen, unknown forces take a life in hand, he was for the moment like a man in a dream, unconscious of his movements, incapable of intention. He leaned against the gatepost to think. The soft thud-thud of an unseen horse, walking slowly somewhere out upon the prairie, brought him up with a jerk. He peered into the moonlight in a vain effort to see. Placing his ear to the ground he caught the sound again and after a moment made out that the hoof beats were coming slowly toward his fence.

Payne stepped within his own line and closed the gate.

Presently he flung it open again and stood in the shade of a palmetto, waiting. He rubbed his eyes to make sure he was not a victim of the night's magic. It was Annette on her pony; she had kept the promise of her eyes. But her appearance gave Roger a shock. Her hair was disheveled. Her hands hung limply upon the saddle pommel and her head was bowed. She rode through the gate, past him to the brink of the tiny lakelet and halted. Then she looked round as if seeking some one. She looked to where the tent lights gleamed mistily through the canvas of Payne's camp. Then, after a long while, she dismounted and started to lead her mount toward the tents. Payne stepped forward out of the shadows and into her sight.

Neither spoke at first. Surprise had rendered her speechless; and as the silvery moon haze revealed her upturned face Payne was frozen dumb. For the look in her eyes and upon her face was a hint of the look which he had beheld upon the countenance of Mrs. Blease. He recoiled from it at first. Then he bent forward, scanning her mercilessly, and saw with a sense of relief that he was wrong. The face of the girl was the panorama of a struggle. There was fear there, and uncertainty in the eyes; but there was no acknowledgment of defeat. The change in her bearing was appalling to Payne. The gallant bearing of her vibrant young body was gone. She might have been drugged, so submerged was her true self.

"You think it's the moon, don't you?" she said with an uneasy laugh, leaning languidly against the patient pony's neck. "Well, it isn't. It--it's something else--something so different--I don't even understand what it is. I don't even know if there is anything. Yet there must be; it affects me so. I'm afraid--and yet I'm not. I--I rather like it, too. That's why I'm afraid; I like it so well. It seems so--soothing."

"Miss----" began Roger and paused, puzzled at what to call her.

Her response was a languid chuckle.

"My name? How formal! Does it seem natural to be formal here? It doesn't to me. And it doesn't seem pleasant; it jars so. That's why the other thing, whatever it is, seems so inviting and inevitable. So natural. No formality. No straining. Nothing but--that."

"What is--'that'?" asked Payne.

"I don't know," she responded in wide-eyed wonderment. "Really, I don't. It isn't anything tangible. It's over there some place," she nodded languidly across the prairie. "It--frightened me to-night. I ran away--but I didn't escape it."

"It's Garman!" blurted Payne hoarsely.

"Oh, don't!" She cowered against the pony. "Please--please don't! Oh, if you don't wish to be cruel----"

"Miss Annette!"

The utterance of her name seemed to bring back a sense of her true self. She straightened herself slowly to her full height, and her poise of assurance seemed to come back to its own.

"It must sound terribly silly to you," she said quietly. "I wonder if the Florida moon affects every one that way."

"You said it wasn't the moon."

"No," she said seriously, "it isn't." She paused, stroking the pony's neck thoughtfully. "Do you know, I actually was so frightened at nothing that I ran away this evening."

"You were going over there?" He pointed toward the vague lights showing through the tents of his camp.

"Why--yes. It isn't the most thickly populated part of the world about here, isn't it? White people aren't so plentiful here. At least I knew there were white men at those tents--that funny red-haired man and yourself. You see it was the only place about here where I knew I could find anybody who--what shall I say? Why, who doesn't belong in this weird atmosphere----It was uncanny over at our place this evening. At sunset the water in the swimming pool didn't seem to be water at all; it seemed molten gold; and the mosaic round it seemed to be made up of whitened bones, and back of that was the fringe of palms hiding the jungle. It suddenly seemed to me that the palms were there for that purpose, and that the jungle needed to be hidden; and the palms seemed to know it, for their fronds hung drooping, like the hands of weary, worn-out women, tired of concealing whatever it is that's Back There--in the jungle--on Palm Island."

"You don't mind my talking, do you? It's a relief. I couldn't talk to any one over there. The whole place seemed to be suffocating. I had to talk. I'll tell you why; I wanted to go into the jungle and see what it is the palms hide back there at night. Isn't it ludicrous--or ghastly--whichever way you look at it?"

"You aren't alone over there? Mrs. Livingstone is still there, isn't she?"

"Yes, Aunty's still there. I'm safely chaperoned." She laughed with a note of hardness in her young voice. "What a chaperon! If she knew I was here talking to you I believe it would drive her mad. She guards me so closely--when it pleases her to do so."

She laughed bitterly again.

"That's why she brought me down here alone to--that house. I am beginning to understand Aunty. I never knew why she guarded me so carefully before. My mother died before I could remember. Aunty brought me up. She's my father's sister. She brought me up well, for her purpose. I've been in schools all my life it seems until last winter. Then she brought me out, in Washington. Since then--Society. You see, we haven't got money. People think we have, but we haven't. So I've been on display, set up by Aunty in one of society's shop windows, like goods in the Boardwalk booths at Atlantic City. Do you mind my rambling?"

"Go on, please."

"You don't know what such a life means. You're a producer; I've been a doll tricked out for inspection by the men who are rich enough to buy expensive dolls. But we've no money. Society asks about that first of all when--an Aunty is trying to put a doll up for sale:

"'What have you to offer? Honesty? Character? Decency? Oh, well-hm-hm. Is that all? Then stand in the corner there among the obscure ones. Some one will see you in time--if you live long enough. And the next: What have you to offer? Intelligence; thought? No sale; you make us all feel uncomfortable. Virtue? Tut, tut, my dear! Cleverness, charm, facile smartness? The crowd gathers round. Beauty? The crowd grows thicker. Money--wealth--gold by millions? Ah! Come to our arms, you golden one, rotten to the core though you may be--gentleman with a gorilla's tastes; lady with Madonna face, Venus body, viper soul! Come to the throne; we salaam before you--your gold has made you sacred.'

"Oh! The stench of it still is in my nostrils; I still feel thick cold fingers on my bare arms. I once was one of them--serenely satisfied that I was one of the elect of earth, though I had never produced a thing in this world, but only consumed. No right at all to anything and sure I had the right to everything, to consume food, to wear out clothes, to wear out servants. In return I gave--nothing. Not a thing. But I've waked up. Earth--good, black earth--you are greater than Mrs. Butterfly Croesus and all her brood; because you are real.

"I see it now. My silly pretty face, my woman's body, my graces, seductions, all have been so much bait for Aunty's fishing. Bait! That's what I've been; bait to catch goldfish! And she brought me down here on the greatest fishing trip she's ever attempted."

"But you have a father."

"Yes. You will meet him Sunday. Well, I suppose I've bored you terribly. Thank you for your patience. It was a relief to talk to some one."

But she did not go. The mystery and companionship of the sub-tropical night was upon them with its sensuous caresses. All of Payne's hard-won man-strength seemed to leave him: he felt as weak as a child; and he began to stammer brokenly.

"Anything I can do--if I can help--what you spoke of--Back There in the jungle----?"

"No, no. Nobody can help me with that. It's got to be just myself. I know that now."

She was the more self-controlled. Payne could not speak. All that he wished to say--his strength, his life, at her call in her hour of need--he expressed in a gesture.

"Thank you."

She touched his outstretched hand. Instinctively their fingers locked together, instinctively she swayed toward him.

"Thank you."

He had released her hand. They looked at one another a long time. She smiled a little.

"I must go back."

She touched his sleeve lightly, mounted and looked down at him.

"Can't I help in any way?" he asked.

"No one can help me," she whispered. "No one but my own weak self."

And the look upon her countenance which had appalled him as she passed through the gate was coming back as she rode away.

XXIII

A soft, misty pall of midsummer heat hung over and pervaded the vine-covered forest of wild-apple trees surrounding Garman's house when Payne set out on Sunday afternoon to keep his appointment. As he entered the footpath leading from the prairie toward the house, he was forced to stoop to avoid the curtain of flowering moonvine which hung overhead, and once in the path he felt again the sickening drowsiness of the shut-in air. A mingling of many sweet odors hung about him like a heavy, poisonous drug; and he felt that it was pleasant poison, and walked swiftly on.

In a shaded pergola running out from the house to the jungle he saw Annette, and stopped.

An old man with a white Vandyke beard and pompously out-thrown chest was coming down the path from the house. He strutted as he walked, and stood for a moment framed between two palm trees where the path entered the pergola.

"Little Annette!" he murmured, beaming patronizingly upon the girl. "Happy again. I knew you would be. But I haven't heard you laugh for a long time."

"No," said the girl, looking at him intently, "I haven't laughed since we came here."

"But you are happy now. Yes, yes, quite happy, quite happy. Up early this morning and all round the place like a little lark."

"Because I couldn't sleep. And because--early in the morning--others are not up--and I can be alone."

"No one can--no one can be alone in this world, dear. No one should. The laws of God and man, of Nature, forbid it." His old, self-satisfied eyes took in the long rounded lines of her figure and the virgin freshness of her throat and face with assuring calculation. "Especially, my dear, is it a crime to attempt to remain alone when nature has so abundantly endowed one for the purpose of--not remaining alone. Also, my dear," he continued, the playfulness gone from his tones as he pointed sternly at the diamond upon the third finger of her left hand, "you will kindly not forget that you wear that."

"Do you think there is any opportunity for me to forget it?" she asked. "Do you! Think!"

He attempted to face down her steadfast eyes. He failed, and, turning his glance uneasily, he saw Roger Payne.

"What's this? What's this?"

His eyes ran wildly from Roger to the girl and back again; and as they rested upon Payne they grew dead and gray with hatred, the futile hopeless hatred of an old man for one who is young.

"Who is this man, Annette? How does he come to be here? Answer me at once; answer me, I say!"

The girl looked long at him, looked with clear, calm eyes until the old man's pouter-pigeon effect disappeared.

"My dear! Forgive my vehemence. You see I think only of you. I was afraid----"

"Yes. What are you afraid of, father?" asked the girl swiftly. "Tell me that. I often wonder."

"Afraid? I?"

"Yes. I sometimes see it in your eyes when you think no one is looking. Have you done something----?"

"Child?"

"Land sales, for instance? If so, I must know. I'm not little Annette any longer. I must know things now."

The old man stroked his white beard nervously. His eyes shifted uneasily toward Payne.

"Oh! pardon my negligence," exclaimed the girl. "This is Mr. Payne, father. He's purchased a lot of land down here. Mr. Payne, this is my father, Senator Fairclothe."

Payne bowed automatically. He was dumbfounded for a moment, but in a flash his self-control had returned.

"We have had some correspondence--business correspondence--Senator," he said.

Senator Fairclothe was watching him with the shifty eyes of a cornered man who stands on guard, ready to parry a blow.

"Have we? I don't recall the name, young man. Lane, Caine?"

"Payne."

"No. No, I don't remember the name."

"You're sure you don't, father?" interposed Miss Fairclothe.

Payne came to the rescue.

"Of course you wouldn't remember my name, Senator. You have too many large affairs to occupy your mind. It was merely about some land down here. I've meant for some time to write you and thank you for influencing me to buy the land down here."

"What!" cried the girl, and stood dumb, staring at Payne, with a hand pressed to her lips.

"Influence you?" snapped Fairclothe testily. "How could I influence you? You are no child. The buyer must protect himself. It is the first rule of business."

"Nevertheless, you did influence me. It was your letters that caused me to decide to buy. And I want to thank you, because otherwise I would not be where I stand at present."

The Senator tugged at his beard, watching Payne narrowly, suspicious of some trick.

"Any letters I may have written to you--which I do not remember doing--were merely a formal part of one phase of my activities. It is gratifying, of course, to hear you express your satisfaction. On the other hand, as I said, the oldest law in business is 'Let the buyer beware,' and it would not have disturbed me in the least, young man, had you appeared with a poppycock song of dissatisfaction with your purchase."

"But I am satisfied," insisted Payne. "Some of the land I bought for $30 an acre will be worth $200 when the ditcher gets in and we drain it. It's rich, black muck, three feet deep in spots. I see profit of $100 an acre within a year."

"Hm," said Senator Fairclothe. "As much as that?"

"That's the minimum."

"You will make a hundred dollars on our land--the land you've purchased, I should say?"

"As soon as I get it drained, yes, sir."

Senator Fairclothe tugged again at his beard. There was a new look in his eyes as he revolved over and over again the words, "one hundred dollars profit per acre." Payne had purchased a thousand acres from his company. A hundred times a thousand meant a hundred thousand dollars.

"I am glad to hear you say that," he said finally. "I hope you will dig your drainage ditches soon?"

"The ditch contractor will come up the river to-morrow. It won't take long after he gets to work."

"I am glad to hear that, too. If I can do anything to assist you in getting your drainage work done, pray command me."

"Just what I told him, Senator," boomed Garman's voice behind them. "We want to help him get his improvement work done promptly."

Garman stood leaning against the custard-apple tree which had hidden his approach and looked at Payne and Annette as he spoke. So far as his expression was concerned the Senator, whom he addressed, did not exist for him. His lips uttered words for Fairclothe's ears; but his lazy, heavily lidded eyes searched Payne and the girl to the bottom of their souls. Roger returned the look steadily; and by the flickering mockery in Garman's eyes he knew that it was Garman's ring that gleamed on Annette's finger.

XXIV

"I was just thanking Senator Fairclothe for influencing me in the purchase of land down here," said Roger deliberately. "If it hadn't been for him, Garman, I wouldn't be here now."

"If that is so," returned Garman, "we must thank him, too. For we wouldn't be deprived of your company for a lot--would we, Annette?"

"Mr. Payne was speaking of the land he bought," said Annette. "The land with the water on it."

"Yes, dear." Garman's mocking eyes were on Payne as he spoke. "Water galore. But Payne is a worker. Youth, strength, high hopes, ambition! Payne will have that water off in a hurry. We'll be glad to see that done, won't we, Senator?"

"Yes, indeed. Improvement work----"

"Mrs. Livingston was asking for you and Annette, Senator," said Garman.

Payne nearly started at the change in his tone. It was a tone of command, of dismissal, and to Roger's astonishment Annette and her father obeyed. Garman strolled into the pergola and dropped into a chair, a huge, oppressive figure in white silk. Lazily and from beneath the half-closed heavy lids his eyes watched Annette as she walked toward the house. With an air of playful possession he followed the play of her young body in motion, the quick, strong flip of her foot upon the hard sand of the path, the firmness of her limbs, the sway of her rounded torso, the poise of her neck and head. A smile lifted his mustache, revealing the thick red mouth beneath. Indolently he breathed through half-parted lips.

"Payne," he said thickly, "there goes Love. There goes the dream of all young fools. Aren't you dreaming a little yourself, Payne, eh?--I see you are. You have looked upon the dream in the flesh, and hope has been born in your young, manly bosom. Hope? No; belief. Belief in the realization of ideals. What damn fools all you young cubs are, to be sure!"

"Well," said Roger calmly, "I like that. I like to have a man ask me to be his guest and try to make things pleasant for me by calling me a damn fool."

"If," retorted Garman slowly, "you were the average young cub I'd get to my feet and apologize for speaking sense; but you're fairly well grown. All you need, Payne, is to have the fresh young mask pulled from the face of Life and to see the old hag as she really is. Then you'd be fit for something. Payne, I believe I'm going to do that service for you."

He looked toward the house where Annette was to be seen on the verandah. He smiled as he saw how Roger's eyes followed his.

"Payne, it's those girls with the fair, thin skin that the Southern sun and tropical environment are ruthless with. They've no shield against nature's relentless desire down here, tropical nature's desire for a welter of life. And when they're too young to have developed the hard outer shell of experience, why, their womanhood is just naked to the searching, smirching tropical sun, and they go plumb crazy. Develop dual personalities. Lose their civilization. Want to go into the jungle, and so on. Thin white skin, like thinnest silk, and blue veins full of young red blood showing through. A fine spectacle, Payne; a natural princess among girls writhing in a struggle against the luring muck of the jungle. Ever hear of Palm Island? She's struggling against going there. Well, she'll lose her struggle; has lost it; that's settled. Come on to dinner."

On the verandah he paused sharply, whirling about with the swiftness of a tiger. Ramos, the Mexican, had come galloping out of the jungle, flogging his horse as he came.

"Well?" Garman's attitude, suggested the crouch of a tiger ready to spring.

"_Si_! Yes; it is so!"

"They've got him?"

"Yes. He is on Palm Island, surrounded; not caught."

"A-a-ah!" Garman rubbed his hands together as a growl of triumph rumbled up from his thick red throat. "Have Prince saddled, Ramos. Then ride back and watch so they don't hurt him. I'll follow--I'm called away--on business, Annette. You entertain Mr. Payne."

With a leap he was off the verandah and running for the stables.

Payne met him as he mounted, and caught the horse by the head.

"Garman, who's the man Ramos spoke of?"

"Let go, you fool! The brute's a striker."

Payne dodged the flash of the animal's forehoofs, but caught a bridle rein.

"Who is he, Garman?"

"A fool--trespassing. Just business."

"Not Higgins or any of my men?"

"No, nobody you know. Look out!"

The horse lunged forward. Payne stepped aside. Garman was gone, like a hunter in sight of his quarry.

XXV

The silence that followed was broken by Annette's laughter.

"What very pretty conduct!" she said.

Senator Fairclothe thrust out his chest pompously. Garman being gone he saw himself as the dominant personality present.

"Men of great affairs, my dear Annette, cannot permit attention to the petty details of conduct to disturb their purpose when a crisis presents itself. The truly big man lets his results speak for themselves. Mr. Garman exercises the privileges of the big man that he is. It is a privilege to see such a man meeting and solving a problem."

"Do you know what it is about, father?"

"Not at all. Nor do I concern myself. I know Mr. Garman."

The girl leaned forward and peered in his eyes.

"Do you really, father? Ah! I see you do. You too, then? But how you--a man?"

"Annette," called Mrs. Livingstone, "will you please come in?"

The meal that followed was a ghastly affair. One figure there alone would have served to cast gloom over the table. Senator Fairclothe sat crumpled in his chair, his white Vandyke beard crushed on his breast, looking ridiculously helpless. He had shrunk from his daughter's words. Not until he had drunk much champagne after the meal did he begin to recover. And soon after he strutted out to a shaded chair and fell asleep.

Said Mrs. Livingstone presently:

"Mr. Payne, I understand that Mr. Garman has given orders that the Egret is at your disposal if you wish to go down the river. I believe you had planned such a trip, had you not?"

"Are you going?" asked Annette suddenly.

"Yes. Our ditcher is down there at Gumbo Key. I'll feel safer if I start him up the river myself."

Annette jumped up with a cry of relief.

"Get my sweater coat, Aunty. Get one for yourself. Father! Father, wake up! We're all going for a nice, beautiful, cool ride down the river."

"Annette!" gasped Mrs. Livingstone; but Annette carried all before her like a young spring storm.

Payne had not contemplated a start until near evening, but within half an hour he found himself beside the girl leaning over the port rail of the Egret and watching the water curl away from her gleaming bows as the boat slipped swiftly downstream toward Gumbo Key.

"I was suffocating back there," she explained. "I had to get away. Yes, Aunty; I'll come out of the sun in a minute--Mr. Payne, I want to thank you for the way you lied to my father about being satisfied with your land. Why did you do it?"

He turned to her, intending to laugh the matter away, but as he met her look, his eyes betrayed him.

"Why did you do it?" she whispered.

Payne looked away; and there was no need for him to speak.

"Oh, no!" she whispered. "Oh, no, no, no, no!"

There was a long silence. At last he heard her stifle a sob and looked round. Annette was walking aft toward the cabin with slow, dragging steps.

"My dear Annette!" cried Mrs. Livingstone and Senator Fairclothe together as they saw her face, but she pushed past them and disappeared in the cabin.

"Sir!" began the Senator indignantly. "May I ask you for an explanation?"

"Lafe," interrupted his sister quietly, "will you go and see how Annette is? I fear she stayed too long in the sun."

"I demand a father's right----"

"Yes, yes. Please do as I suggest. I am sure Annette is wanting you."