CHAPTER XI
AT THE CRATER’S EDGE
Harrigan declared that he would not go over to Caxley-Webster’s to tea.
“But I’ve promised for you!” expostulated his wife. “And he admires you so.”
“Bosh! You women can gad about as much as you please, but I’m in wrong when it comes to eating sponge-cake and knuckling my knees under a dinky willow table. And then he always has some frump…”
“Frump!” repeated Nora, delighted.
“Frump inspecting me through a pair of eye-glasses as if I was a new kind of an animal. It’s all right, Molly, when there’s a big push. They don’t notice me much then. But these six by eight parties have me covering.”
“Very well, dad,” agreed Nora, who saw the storm gathering in her mother’s eyes. “You can stay home and read the book mother got you yesterday. Where are you now?”
“Page one,” grinning.
Mrs. Harrigan wisely refrained from continuing the debate. James had made up his mind not to go. If the colonel repeated his invitation to dinner, where there would be only the men folk, why, he’d gladly enough go to that.
The women departed at three, for there was to be tennis until five o’clock. When Harrigan was reasonably sure that they were half the distance to the colonel’s villa, he put on his hat, whistled to the dachel, and together they took the path to the village.
“We’d look fine drinking tea, wouldn’t we, old scout?” reaching down and tweaking the dog’s velvet ears. “They don’t understand, and it’s no use trying to make ’em. Nora gets as near as possible. Herr Rosen! Now, where have I seen his phiz before? I wish I had a real man to talk to. Abbott sulks half the time, and the Barone can’t get a joke unless it’s driven in with a mallet. On your way, old scout, or I’ll step on you. Let’s see if we can hoof it down to the village at a trot without taking the count.”
He had but two errands to execute. The first was accomplished expeditely in the little tobacconist’s shop under the arcade, where the purchase of a box of Minghetti cigars promised later solace. These cigars were cheap, but Harrigan had a novel way of adding to their strength if not to their aroma. He possessed a meerschaum cigar-holder, in which he had smoked perfectos for some years. The smoke of an ordinary cigar became that of a regalia by the time it passed through the nicotine-soaked clay into the amber mouthpiece. He had kept secret the result of this trifling scientific research. It wouldn’t have been politic to disclose it to Molly. The second errand took time and deliberation. He studied the long shelves of Tauchnitz. Having red corpuscles in superabundance, he naturally preferred them in his literature, in the same quantity.
“Ever read this?” asked a pleasant voice from behind, indicating Rodney Stone with the ferrule of a cane.
Harrigan looked up. “No. What’s it about?”
“Best story of the London prize-ring ever written. You’re Mr. Harrigan, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” diffidently.
“My name is Edward Courtlandt. If I am not mistaken, you were a great friend of my father’s.”
“Are you Dick Courtlandt’s boy?”
“I am.”
“Well, say!” Harrigan held out his hand and was gratified to encounter a man’s grasp. “So you’re Edward Courtlandt? Now, what do you think of that! Why, your father was the best sportsman I ever met. Square as they make ’em. Not a kink anywhere in his make-up. He used to come to the bouts in his plug hat and dress suit; always had a seat by the ring. I could hear him tap with his cane when there happened to be a bit of pretty sparring. He was no slouch himself when it came to putting on the mitts. Many’s the time I’ve had a round or two with him in my old gymnasium. Well, well! It’s good to see a man again. I’ve seen your name in the papers, but I never knew you was Dick’s boy. You’ve got an old grizzly’s head in your dining-room at home. Some day I’ll tell you how it got there, when you’re not in a hurry. I went out to Montana for a scrap, and your dad went along. After the mill was over, we went hunting. Come up to the villa and meet the folks… Hang it, I forgot. They’re up to Caxley-Webster’s to tea; piffle water and sticky sponge-cake. I want you to meet my wife and daughter.”
“I should be very pleased to meet them.” So this was Nora’s father? “Won’t you come along with me to the colonel’s?” with sudden inspiration. Here was an opportunity not to be thrust aside lightly.
“Why, I just begged off. They won’t be expecting me now.”
“All the better. I’d rather have you introduce me to your family than to have the colonel. As a matter of fact, I told him I couldn’t get up. But I changed my mind. Come along.” The first rift in the storm-packed clouds; and to meet her through the kindly offices of this amiable man who was her father!
“But the pup and the cigar box?”
“Send them up.”
Harrigan eyed his own spotless flannels and compared them with the other’s. What was good enough for the son of a millionaire was certainly good enough for him. Besides, it would be a bully good joke on Nora and Molly.
“You’re on!” he cried. Here was a lark. He turned the dog and the purchases over to the proprietor, who promised that they should arrive instantly at the villa.
Then the two men sought the quay to engage a boat. They walked shoulder to shoulder, flat-backed, with supple swinging limbs, tanned faces and clear animated eyes. Perhaps Harrigan was ten or fifteen pounds heavier, but the difference would have been noticeable only upon the scales.
“Padre, my shoe pinches,” said Nora with a pucker between her eyes.
“My child,” replied the padre, “never carry your vanity into a shoemaker’s shop. The happiest man is he who walks in loose shoes.”
“If they are his own, and not inherited,” quickly.
The padre laughed quietly. He was very fond of this new-found daughter of his. Her spontaneity, her blooming beauty, her careless observation of convention, her independence, had captivated him. Sometimes he believed that he thoroughly understood her, when all at once he would find himself mentally peering into some dark corner into which the penetrating light of his usually swift deduction could throw no glimmer. She possessed the sins of the butterfly and the latent possibilities of a Judith. She was the most interesting feminine problem he had in his long years encountered. The mother mildly amused him, for he could discern the character that she was sedulously striving to batten down beneath inane social usages and formalities. Some day she would revert to the original type, and then he would be glad to renew the acquaintance. In rather a shamefaced way (a sensation he could not quite analyze) he loved the father. The pugilist will always embarrass the scholar and excite a negligible envy; for physical perfection is the most envied of all nature’s gifts. The padre was short, thickset, and inclined toward stoutness in the region of the middle button of his cassock. But he was active enough for all purposes.
“I have had many wicked thoughts lately,” resumed Nora, turning her gaze away from the tennis players. She and the padre were sitting on the lower steps of the veranda. The others were loitering by the nets.
“The old plaint disturbs you?”
“Yes.”
“Can you not cast it out wholly?”
“Hate has many tentacles.”
“What produces that condition of mind?” meditatively. “Is it because we have wronged somebody?”
“Or because somebody has wronged us?”
“Or misjudged us, by us have been misjudged?” softly.
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Nora, springing up.
“What is it?”
“Father is coming up the path!”
“I am glad to see him. But I do not recollect having seen the face of the man with him.”
The lithe eagerness went out of Nora’s body instantly. Everything seemed to grow cold, as if she had become enveloped in one of those fogs that suddenly blow down menacingly from hidden icebergs. Fortunately the inquiring eyes of the padre were not directed at her. He was here, not a dozen yards away, coming toward her, her father’s arm in his! After what had passed he had dared! It was not often that Nora Harrigan was subjected to a touch of vertigo, but at this moment she felt that if she stirred ever so little she must fall. The stock whence she had sprung, however, was aggressive and fearless; and by the time Courtlandt had reached the outer markings of the courts, Nora was physically herself again. The advantage of the meeting would be his. That was indubitable. Any mistake on her part would be playing into his hands. If only she had known!
“Let us go and meet them, Padre,” she said quietly. With her father, her mother and the others, the inevitable introduction would be shorn of its danger. What Celeste might think was of no great importance; Celeste had been tried and her loyalty proven. Where had her father met him, and what diabolical stroke of fate had made him bring this man up here?
“Nora!” It was her mother calling.
She put her arm through the padre’s, and they went forward leisurely.
“Why, father, I thought you weren’t coming,” said Nora. Her voice was without a tremor.
The padre hadn’t the least idea that a volcano might at any moment open up at his side. He smiled benignly.
“Changed my mind,” said Harrigan. “Nora, Molly, I want you to meet Mr. Courtlandt. I don’t know that I ever said anything about it, but his father was one of the best friends I ever had. He was on his way up here, so I came along with him.” Then Harrigan paused and looked about him embarrassedly. There were half a dozen unfamiliar faces.
The colonel quickly stepped into the breach, and the introduction of Courtlandt became general. Nora bowed, and became at once engaged in an animated conversation with the Barone, who had just finished his set victoriously.
The padre’s benign smile slowly faded.
CHAPTER XII
DICK COURTLANDT’S BOY
Presently the servants brought out the tea-service. The silent dark-skinned Sikh, with his fierce curling whiskers, his flashing eyes, the semi-military, semi-oriental garb, topped by an enormous brown turban, claimed Courtlandt’s attention; and it may be added that he was glad to have something to look at unembarrassedly. He wanted to catch the Indian’s eye, but Rao had no glances to waste; he was concerned with the immediate business of superintending the service.
Courtlandt had never been a man to surrender to impulse. It had been his habit to form a purpose and then to go about the fulfilling of it. During the last four or five months, however, he had swung about like a weather-cock in April, the victim of a thousand and one impulses. That morning he would have laughed had any one prophesied his presence here. He had fought against the inclination strongly enough at first, but as hour after hour went by his resolution weakened. His meeting Harrigan had been a stroke of luck. Still, he would have come anyhow.
“Oh, yes; I am very fond of Como,” he found himself replying mechanically to Mrs. Harrigan. He gave up Rao as hopeless so far as coming to his rescue was concerned. He began, despite his repugnance, to watch Nora.
“It is always a little cold in the higher Alps.”
“I am very fond of climbing myself.” Nora was laughing and jesting with one of the English tennis players. Not for nothing had she been called a great actress, he thought. It was not humanly possible that her heart was under better control than his own; and yet his was pounding against his ribs in a manner extremely disquieting. Never must he be left alone with her; always must it be under circumstances like this, with people about, and the more closely about the better. A game like this was far more exciting than tiger-hunting. It was going to assume the characteristics of a duel in which he, being the more advantageously placed, would succeed eventually in wearing down her guard. Hereafter, wherever she went, there must he also go: St. Petersburg or New York or London. And by and by the reporters would hear of it, and there would be rumors which he would neither deny nor affirm. Sport! He smiled, and the blood seemed to recede from his throat and his heart-beats to grow normal.
And all the while Mrs. Harrigan was talking and he was replying; and she thought him charming, whereas he had not formed any opinion of her at all, nor later could remember a word of the conversation.
“Tea!” bawled the colonel. The verb had its distinct uses, and one generally applied it to the colonel’s outbursts without being depressed by the feeling of inelegance.
There is invariably some slight hesitation in the selection of chairs around a tea-table in the open. Nora scored the first point of this singular battle by seizing the padre on one side and her father on the other and pulling them down on the bench. It was adroit in two ways: it put Courtlandt at a safe distance and in nowise offended the younger men, who could find no cause for alarm in the close proximity of her two fathers, the spiritual and the physical. A few moments later Courtlandt saw a smile of malice part her lips, for he found himself between Celeste and the inevitable frump.
“Touched!” he murmured, for he was a thorough sportsman and appreciated a good point even when taken by his opponent.
“I never saw anything like it,” whispered Mrs. Harrigan into the colonel’s ear.
“Saw what?” he asked.
“Mr. Courtlandt can’t keep his eyes off of Nora.”
“I say!” The colonel adjusted his eye-glass, not that he expected to see more clearly by doing so, but because habit had long since turned an affectation into a movement wholly mechanical. “Well, who can blame him? Gad! if I were only twenty-five or thereabouts.”
Mrs. Harrigan did not encourage this regret. The colonel had never been a rich man. On the other hand, this Edward Courtlandt was very rich; he was young; and he had the entrée to the best families in Europe, which was greater in her eyes than either youth or riches. Between sips of tea she builded a fine castle in Spain.
Abbott and the Barone carried their cups and cakes over to the bench and sat down on the grass, Turkish-wise. Both simultaneously offered their cakes, and Nora took a ladyfinger from each. Abbott laughed and the Barone smiled.
“Oh, daddy mine!” sighed Nora drolly.
“Huh?”
“Don’t let mother see those shoes.”
“What’s the matter with ’em? Everybody’s wearing the same.”
“Yes. But I don’t see how you manage to do it. One shoe-string is virgin white and the other is pagan brown.”
“I’ve got nine pairs of shoes, and yet there’s always something the matter,” ruefully. “I never noticed when I put them on. Besides, I wasn’t coming.”
“That’s no defense. But rest easy. I’ll be as secret as the grave.”
“Now, I for one would never have noticed if you hadn’t called my attention,” said the padre, stealing a glance at his own immaculate patent-leathers.
“Ah, Padre, that wife of mine has eyes like a pilot-fish. I’m in for it.”
“Borrow one from the colonel before you go home,” suggested Abbott.
“That’s not half bad,” gratefully.
Harrigan began to recount the trials of forgetfulness.
Slyly from the corner of her eye Nora looked at Courtlandt, who was at that moment staring thoughtfully into his tea-cup and stirring the contents industriously. His face was a little thinner, but aside from that he had changed scarcely at all; and then, because these two years had left so little mark upon his face, a tinge of unreasonable anger ran over her. “Men have died and worms have eaten them,” she thought cynically. Perhaps the air between them was sufficiently charged with electricity to convey the impression across the intervening space; for his eyes came up quickly, but not quickly enough to catch her. She dropped her glance to Abbott, transferred it to the Barone, and finally let it rest on her father’s face. Four handsomer men she had never seen.
“You never told me you knew Courtlandt,” said Harrigan, speaking to Abbott.
“Just happened that way. We went to school together. When I was little they used to make me wear curls and wide collars. Many’s the time Courtlandt walloped the school bullies for mussing me up. I don’t see him much these days. Once in a while he walks in. That’s all. Always seems to know where his friends are, but none ever knows where he is.”
Abbott proceeded to elaborate some of his friend’s exploits. Nora heard, as if from afar. Vaguely she caught a glimmer of what the contest was going to be. She could see only a little way; still, she was optimistically confident of the result. She was ready. Indeed, now that the shock of the meeting was past, she found herself not at all averse to a conflict. It would be something to let go the pent-up wrath of two years. Never would she speak to him directly; never would she permit him to be alone with her; never would she miss a chance to twist his heart, to humiliate him, to snub him. From her point of view, whatever game he chose to play would be a losing one. She was genuinely surprised to learn how eager she was for the game to begin so that she might gage his strength.
“So I have heard,” she was dimly conscious of saying.
“Didn’t know you knew,” said Abbott.
“Knew what?” rousing herself.
“That Courtlandt nearly lost his life in the eighties.”
“In the eighties!” dismayed at her slip.
“Latitudes. Polar expedition.”
“Heavens! I was miles away.”
The padre took her hand in his own and began to pat it softly. It was the nearest he dared approach in the way of suggesting caution. He alone of them all knew.
“Oh, I believe I read something about it in the newspapers.”
“Five years ago.” Abbott set down his tea-cup. “He’s the bravest man I know. He’s rather a friendless man, besides. Horror of money. Thinks every one is after him for that. Tries to throw it away; but the income piles up too quickly. See that Indian, passing the cakes? Wouldn’t think it, would you, that Courtlandt carried him on his back for five miles! The Indian had fallen afoul a wounded tiger, and the beaters were miles off. I’ve been watching. They haven’t even spoken to each other. Courtlandt’s probably forgotten all about the incident, and the Indian would die rather than embarrass his savior before strangers.”
“Your friend, then, is quite a hero?”
What was the matter with Nora’s voice? Abbott looked at her wonderingly. The tone was hard and unmusical.
“He couldn’t be anything else, being Dick Courtlandt’s boy,” volunteered Harrigan, with enthusiasm. “It runs in the family.”
“It seems strange,” observed Nora, “that I never heard you mention that you knew a Mr. Courtlandt.”
“Why, Nora, there’s a lot of things nobody mentions unless chance brings them up. Courtlandt – the one I knew – has been dead these sixteen years. If I knew he had had a son, I’d forgotten all about it. The only graveyard isn’t on the hillside; there’s one under everybody’s thatch.”
The padre nodded approvingly.
Nora was not particularly pleased with this phase in the play. Courtlandt would find a valiant champion in her father, who would blunder in when some fine passes were being exchanged. And she could not tell him; she would have cut out her tongue rather. It was true that she held the principal cards in the game, but she could not table them and claim the tricks as in bridge. She must patiently wait for him to lead, and he, as she very well knew, would lead a card at a time, and then only after mature deliberation. From the exhilaration which attended the prospect of battle she passed into a state of depression, which lasted the rest of the afternoon.
“Will you forgive me?” asked Celeste of Courtlandt. Never had she felt more ill at ease. For a full ten minutes he chatted pleasantly, with never the slightest hint regarding the episode in Paris. She could stand it no longer. “Will you forgive me?”
“For what?”
“That night in Paris.”
“Do not permit that to bother you in the least. I was never going to recall it.”
“Was it so unpleasant?”
“On the contrary, I was much amused.”
“I did not tell you the truth.”
“So I have found out.”
“I do not believe that it was you,” impulsively.
“Thanks. I had nothing to do with Miss Harrigan’s imprisonment.”
“Do you feel that you could make a confidant of me?”
He smiled. “My dear Miss Fournier, I have come to the place where I distrust even myself.”
“Forgive my curiosity!”
Courtlandt held out his cup to Rao. “I am glad to see you again.”
“Ah, Sahib!”
The little Frenchwoman was torn with curiosity and repression. She wanted to know what causes had produced this unusual drama which was unfolding before her eyes. To be presented with effects which had no apparent causes was maddening. It was not dissimilar to being taken to the second act of a modern problem play and being forced to leave before the curtain rose upon the third act. She had laid all the traps her intelligent mind could invent; and Nora had calmly walked over them or around. Nora’s mind was Celtic: French in its adroitness and Irish in its watchfulness and tenacity. And now she had set her arts of persuasion in motion (aided by a piquant beauty) to lift a corner of the veil from this man’s heart. Checkmate!
“I should like to help you,” she said, truthfully.
“In what way?”
It was useless, but she continued: “She does not know that you went to Flora Desimone’s that night.”
“And yet she sent you to watch me.”
“But so many things happened afterward that she evidently forgot.”
“That is possible.”
“I was asleep when the pistol went off. Oh, you must believe that it was purely accidental! She was in a terrible state until morning. What if she had killed you, what if she had killed you! She seemed to hark upon that phrase.”
Courtlandt turned a sober face toward her. She might be sincere, and then again she might be playing the first game over again, in a different guise. “It would have been embarrassing if the bullet had found its mark.” He met her eyes squarely, and she saw that his were totally free from surprise or agitation or interest.
“Do you play chess?” she asked, divertingly.
“Chess? I am very fond of that game.”
“So I should judge,” dryly. “I suppose you look upon me as a meddler. Perhaps I am; but I have nothing but good will toward you; and Nora would be very angry if she knew that I was discussing her affairs with you. But I love her and want to make her happy.”
“That seems to be the ambition of all the young men, at any rate.”
Jealousy? But the smile baffled her. “Will you be here long?”
“It depends.”
“Upon Nora?” persistently.
“The weather.”
“You are hopeless.”
“No; on the contrary, I am the most optimistic man in the world.”
She looked into this reply very carefully. If he had hopes of winning Nora Harrigan, optimistic he certainly must be. Perhaps it was not optimism. Rather might it not be a purpose made of steel, bendable but not breakable, reinforced by a knowledge of conditions which she would have given worlds to learn?
“Is she not beautiful?”
“I am not a poet.”
“Wait a moment,” her eyes widening. “I believe you know who did commit that outrage.”
For the first time he frowned.
“Very well; I promise not to ask any more questions.”
“That would be very agreeable to me.” Then, as if he realized the rudeness of his reply, he added: “Before I leave I will tell you all you wish to know, upon one condition.”
“Tell it!”
“You will say nothing to any one, you will question neither Miss Harrigan nor myself, nor permit yourself to be questioned.”
“I agree.”
“And now, will you not take me over to your friends?”
“Over there?” aghast.
“Why, yes. We can sit upon the grass. They seem to be having a good time.”
What a man! Take him over, into the enemy’s camp? Nothing would be more agreeable to her. Who would be the stronger, Nora or this provoking man?
So they crossed over and joined the group. The padre smiled. It was a situation such as he loved to study: a strong man and a strong woman, at war. But nothing happened; not a ripple anywhere to disclose the agitation beneath. The man laughed and the woman laughed, but they spoke not to each other, nor looked once into each other’s eyes.
The sun was dropping toward the western tops. The guests were leaving by twos and threes. The colonel had prevailed upon his dinner-guests not to bother about going back to the village to dress, but to dine in the clothes they wore. Finally, none remained but Harrigan, Abbott, the Barone, the padre and Courtlandt. And they talked noisily and agreeably concerning man-affairs until Rao gravely announced that dinner was served.
It was only then, during the lull which followed, that light was shed upon the puzzle which had been subconsciously stirring Harrigan’s mind: Nora had not once spoken to the son of his old friend.