Chapter IV: NEW YORK. (Allegro. Finale.) (9)

She seemed the plaything of some furious, reckless happiness.... "Asking nothing! Asking nothing!" repeated again and again in her brain. And what should he ask--and why?... Her thoughts flew by and upward--intent, but swift to vanish, like bees in high noon. Atoms of concentrated sunlight, sun-gold upon their wings.... The good hot sun, all the earth stretched out for it, and giving forth green tributes. The newest leaf and the oldest tree alike expanded with praise.... What a splendor to be out of the city and the paint and the tragedy; to have in her veins the warm brown earth and the good hot sun--and this mighty dynamo beneath! She was mad with it all, and glad it was so.

Beth raised her eyes to the dazzling vault. One cannot sit a horse so--well. She lost the rhythm of her posting, but loved the roughness of it. The heights thralled her. Up, up, into the blue and gold, she trembled with the ecstasy of the thought, like the bee princess in nuptial flight--a June day like this--up, up, until the followers had fallen back--all but two--all but one--which one?... There was a slight pull at her skirt. She turned.

He was laughing. His hand held a fold of her dress against the cantle of the saddle. She could not have fallen on the far side, and he was on this.... A sudden plunge of a mount would unseat any rider, staring straight up.... Yes, he was there!... How different the world looked--with him there. She had ridden alone so long. She dared to look at him again.

His eyes were fastened ahead. Could it be illusion--their fiery intentness? She followed his glance.... The big woods--she knew them, had ridden by them many times--how deep and green they looked!... But what was the meaning of that set, inexorable line of his profile? What was he battling? That was her word, her portion. For hours, days, years she had been battling, but not now! No longer would she be one of the veal calves tied to a post on the world's highway, to consume the pity of poor avatars!... Avatars--the word changed the whole order of her thoughts; and those which came were not like hers, but reckless ventures on forbidden ground; and, too, there was zest in the very foreignness of the thoughts: Avatars--did they not spring into being from such instants as this--high noon, vitality rising to the sun, all earth in the stillness of creation; and above, blue and gold, millions and millions of leagues of sheer happiness; and behind--put far behind for the hour--all crawling and contending creatures....

And now the yellow-brown studio would not remain behind, but swept clearly into her thinking. Something was queer about it. Yes, the havoc of loneliness and suffering was gone.... And there seemed a rustling in the far shadows of the little room. Could it be the Shadowy Sister returning? And that instant, with a realism that haunted her for years, there came--to her human or psychic sense, she could never tell--_a tiny cry!_... Beth almost swooned. His hand sustained ... and then she saw again his laughing face; all the intensity gone. It was carved of sunlight. Everything was sunlight.

Beth spoke to Clarendon. She would ride--show him, she needed no hand in riding. The great beast settled down to his famous trot, pulling the chestnut mare to a run. Clarendon was steady as a car; the faster his trot, the easier to ride.... She turned and watched this magician beside her; his bridle-arm lifted, the leather held lightly as a pencil; laughing, asking nothing, needing not to ask. And she was unafraid, rejoicing in his power. All fear and slavishness and rebellion, all that was bleak and nineteenth century, far behind. This was the Rousing Modern Hour--her high day.

Nearer and nearer--the big woods.... She was thinking of a wonderful little path ahead. She had never ventured in alone, a deep, leafy footpath, soft with moss and fern-embroidered.... There was no one on the road ahead, nor behind; only young corn in the sloping field on the left, and now the big woods closed in on the right, and Beth reined a little.

There was no shade upon the highway, even with the wood at hand. The horses were trampling their own shadows in this zenith hour.... She watched his eye quicken as he noted the little path.

"Ah--let's go in!" he called, pulling up.

It was her thought. "I've always wanted to, but never dared, alone," she panted, bringing Clarendon down.

Bedient dismounted, pulled the reins over the mare's head and through his arm; then held up both hands to her.... Something made her hesitate a second. He did not seem to consider her faltering.

"Oh, Beth, why should _we_ rush in there, as if we were afraid of the light?... Come!"

She knew by his eyes what would happen; and yet she leaned forward, until his hands fitted under her arms, and her eyelids dropped against the blinding light....

"It had to be in the great sunlight--_that!_.... How glorious you are!"

"Please ... put me down!"

But again, he kissed her mouth, and the shut eyelids. And when her feet at last touched the earth, he caught her up again, because her figure swayed a little,--and laughed and kissed her--until the fainting passed....

* * * * *

"... And--these--were--the--great--things--you asked permission to tell me?" she said slowly, without raising her eyes.

The strange smile on her scarlet lips, and the lustrous pallor of her face, so wonderfully prevailed, that he caught her in his arms again. And they were quite alone in that mighty light, as if they had penetrated dragons-deep in an enchanted forest.

"I cannot help it. You are stronger!" she said in the same trailing, faery tone.... "And that distance--between us--that you always felt--in 'the cycle of Cathay'--you seem to have overcome that----"

"It was another century----"

"Oh----"

"And now to explore the wood!"

"But the horses, sir--"

"They will stand."

... She would not let him help, but loosened Clarendon's bridle, and slipping out the bit, put the head-straps back. Bedient shook his head.

"It may slide askew that way, and worry him more than if the bit were in," he said.

"If you command, I shall put it back."

"Let me."

"No."

Smiling, he watched her. The frail left hand parted the huge foamy jaws, and held them apart--thumb and little finger--while the other hand, behind Clarendon's ears, drew the bit home. The big fellow decently bowed his head to take the steel from her. Then she patted the mouse-colored muzzle, and gave the reins to the man, who, much marvelling, tethered the two horses together.

Then they set forth into the wood.

TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER

A PARABLE OF TWO HORSES

They were nearing Dunstan on the way back. The light had flattened out, and the little town was stretching its shadows. They were silent.... Beth was trying to fit this day to days that had gone, but it was hard. This had a brightness apart from them, but it seemed to her now that the brightness was gone with the sun. She was tired--and _alone_. The thoughts in her mind had brought the sense of separateness.

She must soon know from him, if the day had served her end. She thought of her temptation in the studio--to hold him from the ocean, as a woman might, as a Wordling might. She had not needed quite to do that, merely to let herself go. The glorious lover in him had done more than she dreamed, in making her Beth of the bestowals, this day.

In the sunlight, she had been one with him. Rather startlingly it came to her now, that she could have asked anything _then_. But in those incomparable moments of the high day, there had been nothing to ask. How strange this was to her! How utterly had they put all commonness behind.

She trembled at the thought of another woman rousing that lover in him, looking upon the miracle she had evoked. She could not bear it, nor could she suffer him to know this thought of hers.

They were riding down into the town. Brightenings from the West were still upon the upper foliage of the trees, but vague dusk had fallen between their faces. His features were white and haggard.... She was afraid to ask him now. She would wait for the darkness. Had he heard a tremble in her voice, Bedient would have caught her bridle-rein and searched her face.

She clucked. Clarendon, with stables just ahead, was only too eager.... Bedient rejoined her after turning over his horse, and making the change of clothes. Beth met him at the gate of her mother's house and there was a smile in the evening light.

They did not sit opposite at supper. Bedient studied the little mother at the head of the table, but with a fear in his heart. A sense of disaster had come to him at the end of the ride. He knew nothing of what had formed about the short sea journey in Beth's mind; he could not have believed from her own lips that she had been tempted to hold him with passion. He would have expected faith from her, had some destroying tale come to her ears. He did not realize the effect upon others, of his aptness to ignore all explanation. Especially in this seagoing affair, he had nothing to say. It was not his way to discuss his adventures into the happiness of others.... Beth felt his reserve instinctively, a reason why it had been impossible for her to show him the document of disorder.

The talk at the supper table had to do with the portrait she had painted. Beth never forgot some of Bedient's sentences.... Then she told him about the new life of the Grey One; of the latter's call on Wednesday, with the great news about Torvin, and of the telephone message yesterday.

"More buyers have been to her studio," Beth said. "You see, Torvin can do anything. A whisper from him and they buy. The Grey One has disposed of several of her little things at her vogue prices----"

"I'm glad," said Bedient.

"It came in the nick of time. It means more than money or pictures. Margie Grey has won her race."

"I understand," he added.

After supper, they walked together outside. With her whole heart Beth prayed that the day had changed him from going. She had put off until the last moment any talk that would bring his answer. And now walking with him in the darkness, she thought strangely of her parting with the Other. All was forgotten save that moment of parting; all the old intimacies had dropped from mind, banished by the sunlit god she had met this day.... Bedient's defect would be quite as intrinsic as the Other's--if he went to Wordling now. She could have forgiven a boyish carelessness in either, but Beth could not forgive in any man that unfinished humanity which has a love-token for the obviously common and sensuous.... She was ill with terror and tension. And how pitifully human she was! A greater faith or a lesser strength would have saved her. Beth failed in the first. It was her madness; her mortal enemy--this pride.

"I doubt if there could be such another day of June," she observed at last, wondering if he caught the hard note in her voice.... This would bring his word. She would cry aloud with happiness--if the day had changed him.

"To-morrow----" he answered. "Beth, is there anything to prevent to-morrow----?"

"Riding together?"

"Yes."

"Not to-morrow. The horses had better rest a day. We must have done twenty-five miles to-day.... But early next week----"

She had turned away, as one averts the face from disaster. Even had she not turned from him, it was too dark to see his queer troubled smile, as he said:

"Monday, I go away. It's that ocean matter. Three days will finish it, I'm sure."

So this was her answer. Beth of the bestowals had not prevailed. This was the inner uprooting. Love-lady she had been--love-lady of thrilling arts this day--and yet his determination to go to the other was not altered.... She would not show him tears of rage and jealousy. She would not see him again. She meant to show him that the day had not stormed her heart of hearts. Her spirit was torn, and she was not above hurting him.... "Three days will finish it, I'm sure." To her the sentence had the clang of a prison door.... It was through the Other that she proceeded now.... How he had struck her through another!....

They had walked for some time through the evergreens. His listening had become like a furious draught, her brain burning intensely beneath it. It had been hard for her to begin, but that was over.... "It was not until to-day that there was any need to tell you," she was saying. "You were inspiring in other ways. I would have been stupid, indeed, not to have seen that, but somehow you seemed remote from everyday habiliments and workday New York--somehow inseparable from silences--until to-day--when you came singing _Invictus_. You did not let me tell you--out there--in the sunlight. You didn't let me think of telling you.... You mustn't judge me always so susceptible----"

She halted, lost for an instant in the emptiness.

"Please tell me about him," Bedient said.

"Why, he was only a working boy when he first came to our house--here," she went on. "I was just back from Paris--after years. I remember with what a shock of surprise I noted the perfection of his face. The angle was absolutely correct as the old Hellenic marbles, and to every curve was that final warmth which stone can only distantly suggest. Then he was tall, but so light and lithe----"

She knew he would not fail to see the flaw here--the artistic taint. She had heard him deplore the worship of empty line, saying that nature almost invariably travesties it.

"I was hasty, then, in my conclusion to-day," he said, questioning, "when I asked if there was any reason why I should not tell you how great you are to me?"

"It did not seem the time to tell you," she answered quickly. "I was wrong, but--it was not wrong to him! Please don't think that! I sent him away."

"Oh, I see better--thank you. And now go on, Beth, please----"

"You see, he was my work----"

Beth's mother now called from the front door. She was going upstairs and would say good-night to Mr. Bedient.

"Go to her," Beth whispered. "I shall see her later."

... And now she stood alone by the gate, her mind seething. Forces within falteringly implored her to go no further. She found in his few brief questions that old fidelity to truth that had been one of his first charms. This helped to unsteady her. Was she not wrong to judge this man by the standards the world had made her accept for others?... The day came back. Why had Wordling been so far from her mind out there in the sunlight? Radiant with health, thrilling with mysteries, in the summit of her womanhood, she had been above fear, and he above evil. The Shadowy Sister, too, had gone forth to meet him, majestic and unashamed. What spell was that which had come over her, a perfect vein-dilation in the brilliant light? Why, it had seemed to her that she could feel the pulse of flower-stems, and paint the nervous systems of the bees. Painting--what a pitiful transaction was art (in the divine stimulus at that hour) compared to the supernal happiness of evolved motherhood! And what exquisite homage had he shown her! And the long talk, his mind crowded with pictures like memories of a world-voyage! Again and again, there had come over her, some inner uplift, as if she were rising upon a wave.... She heard his tones now, as he spoke to her mother on the porch, and his gentleness throughout recurred.

The Other had gone from her world, and now he was going. Her mind shrank from the new and utter desolation.... The night seemed closing about her, as she stood beside the gate. Like some great foreign elemental, it was, until she was near to screaming, and perceived herself captive to madness--a broken-nerved creature in a strange place, stifling among aliens, undone in the torment of strange stars.... And, another, the ancient terror to strong women, now fell upon her, to show Beth Truba how mighty she was to suffer. The sense of her own fruitlessness drove home to her breast, of living without solution, realizing that all her fluent emotions, lovely ideals, all her sympathies, dreams and labors, should end with her own tired hands; that she must know the emptiness of every aspiration, while half-finished women everywhere were girdled with children.... He was coming toward her.

That instant, a merciful blankness fell upon her mind. Out of the fury and maiming, her consciousness seemed lifted to some cool blackness. There was just one vague, almost primal, instinct, such as a babe must feel--the need to be taken in his arms. The wall between them would have fallen had Bedient done that, but nothing was further from his thoughts. He, too, was groping in terrible darkness. Her spirit was lost to him.... There was no moonlight, so he could not discern the anguish of her face, and the sense of her suffering blended with his own.... A very wise woman has said that it isn't a woman's mysteries which dismay and mislead a man, but her contradictions.

"And now tell me the rest, Beth," he said quickly, looking down into the pale blur which was her face. "I must know."

She shivered slightly. She was dazed. Hatred for the moment, hatred for self and the world, for him, imperiously pinning her to the old sorrow; his failure to make a child of her, as a lover of less integrity might have done--it was all a sickening botch, about Wordling's pretty taunting face. She had not the strength of faculty to tear down and build again the better way.

"You were telling me that he was your work--of his face and all," Bedient whispered.

"Oh, yes.... Oh, yes, and you went away----"

"Yes," he said strangely.

"I must have been dreaming.... It hurt me so--he hurt me so. I remember----"

And now a cold gray light dawned in her brain, and the old story cleared--the old worn grooves were easily followed.

"Yes."

"But I--perhaps--I was inexorable." There was something eerie in that touch which held her for an instant.

"But you started to tell me more about him, I'm sure, at first," Bedient said. The idea in his brain needed this.

"I helped him in his studies," she answered angrily. There was something morbid to her in Bedient's intensity. "I helped him in the world, or friends of mine did. Yes, I made his way among men until he could stand alone. And he did, quickly. He was bright. Even his refinements of dress and manner and English--I undertook at the beginning."

Half-dead she had fallen into the old current, not comprehending a tithe of his suffering.

"Oh, I put love into it!" she said dully. "I thought it the most glorious work I ever did."

"You tell me wonderfully about yourself, Beth, with these few sentences.... There is nothing finer in my comprehension than the mother-spirit in the maid which makes her love the boy or the man whom she lifts and inspires."

The cool idealist had returned. Beth did not welcome him.

"I believe that every achievement which lifts a man above his fellows is energized by some woman's outpouring heart. She bestows brave and beautiful things of her own, working in the dark, until the hour of his test, as those fine straws of the Tropics are woven under water----"

"And what mockery to find," she finished coldly, "after you have woven and woven, that the fabric finally brought to light is streaky and imperfect."

Bedient's business of the moment was to learn if she were right in being as she said, "inexorable"; if she did not sometimes think that a finely-human heart might have come since to that flashing exterior, which had filled the girlish eyes. He could only draw from the whole savage darkness that the Other still lived in her heart.

"But he will not stay forgotten--is that it, Beth?"

Into the cold gray light of her mind, came a curious parable that had occurred to her, as they started out to ride this morning, before the great moments of high noon. And thus she related it to Bedient in the hatred which filled her, last of all from his imperturbable coolness:

"I saddled a great deal, even as a girl. In New York, years ago, the desire came to possess a horse of my own. I bought a beautiful bay colt, pure saddle-bred, rare to look upon; but something always went wrong with him. He galled, threw a shoe and went lame, stumbled, invariably did the unexpected, and often the dangerous, thing. Truly he was brand new every morning. I worried as if he were a child, but I wasn't the handler for him; he spoiled in my care; yet how I loved that colt--the first. He might have killed me, had I kept him.... It was over a year before I had the heart to buy again--Clarendon--big, courageous, swifter than the other, splendid in strength, yet absolutely reliable in temper. Day after day, in all roads and weathers, he never failed nor fell--until----"

Beth halted. The parable faltered here. She foresaw a dangerous question, and finished it true to Clarendon.

"Until----" Bedient repeated.

"Until now--and you have seen him to-day," she said hastily. "Always he seems to be aiming at improvement with eager, unabated energy. In many ways, it was hard for me to realize that a horse could be so noble.... And yet I gave to the first something that I didn't have for the second. Something that belonged to the second, was gone from me----"

A moment passed. Beth glanced into Bedient's face, but the darkness was too deep for her to see. When he spoke, it was as steadily as ever:

"I understand clearly, Beth. I should say, don't do the first an injustice. It was those very uncertainties of his, those coltish frights and tempers, that made you so perfect a mistress of the second, for you invariably bring forth the _best_ from the second."

Something big came to her from the utterance. But nothing of the truth--that his heart had just received a death-thrust to its love-giving.... He had left his gloves in the house. He asked for a cup of water.... It was strange--his asking for anything. She could remember only, besides this, his wish expressed that she might ride with him. He had asked nothing this day. And it was a _cup_ of water now.... They were in the lamplight, and he had drunk.... She was standing by the table, and he at the door waiting for her to lift her eyes.... Suddenly she felt, through the silence, his great strength pouring over her.

She looked up at last. There was a dazzling light in his eyes, as if some wonderful good to do had formed in his mind.

"Beth, was he the Other Man--who rested for one day on the mantel in the studio?"

"Yes."... The question shocked her. She could not have believed that it was harder for him to ask, than for her to answer....

He came nearer. Like a spirit he came.... He seemed very tall and tired and white.... Her hand was lifted to his lips, but when she turned, he was gone.

Beth did not shut the door.... The sound of a shut door must not be the last so strange a guest should hear. Beth was cold. She could hardly realize....

Bedient turned and saw the light streaming out upon the porch. She was not visible, but her shadow stood forth upon the boards, arms strangely uplifted. The mortal within him was outraged, because he did not turn back--into that open door.

III

EQUATORIA

_Allegro Scherzo_

TWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER

BEDIENT FOR _THE PLEIAD_

Bedient dreamed:

He was sitting in the dark, in a high, still place; and at last (through a rift in the far mountains), a faint ghost appeared, waveringly white. Just a shimmering mist, at first, but it steadied and brightened, until the snowy breast of old _God-Mother_ was configured in the midst of her lowly brethren on the borders of Kashmir.... And just as he was about to enter into the great peace, his consciousness beginning to wing with cosmic sweep, the rock upon which he sat started to creak and stir, and presently he was rolled about like a haversack in a heaving palanquin.

Thus he awoke, tossed in his berth aboard the _Hatteras_--and a gale was on. The ship, Southward bound, was far off the cape for which she was named, asking only wide sea-room, to take the big rollers with easy grace.

Bedient had not slept long. He had not slept for two consecutive hours during the past ten days. From the open door of _her_ mother's house in Dunstan his whole life had felt the urge to India. But that could not be. It had the look of running away.

The little ocean matter had been happily ended.... The exact impulse to tell David Cairns of his intention to return to Equatoria, and the moment for it, had not offered, so Bedient had parted from his friend, as one going to a different room for the night. Nor had he seen Mrs. Wordling, the Grey One, Kate Wilkes or Vina Nettleton since the last ride; though for the latter, he left a page of writing she had asked.

Beth he had tried to see, four days after their parting in Dunstan, but she was not at her studio, nor with her mother. He did not seek further.

Bedient felt that he was needed in Equatoria, but there was another reason for his sudden return, than attention to the large financial interests. Though his home was there, Equatoria had no imperious call for him that his inner nature answered.... Only India had that. The very name was like water to a fevered throat. They would know in India. Old Gobind had always known:

"_You will learn to look within for the woman. You would not find favor in finding her without. It is not for you--the red desire of love_."

How he had rebelled against the authority of those sentences, but his respect for the deep vision of Gobind was complete. Moreover, the old _Sannyasin_ had said he was not to return to India until he was ready to give up the body. No sense of the physical end had come to him, even in his darkest hour. There was much for him to do, and in New York, but the pith was gone from him. His desolation made the idea of returning to New York one of the hardest things he had ever faced. He had thought of Beth Truba in his every conception of service. She inspired a love which held him true to every ideal of woman, and kept the ideals flaming higher. And what form she had brought to his concepts! In expressing himself to her, direct world-values had attached to his thoughts. Through her he had seen the ways of work. Every hour, he blessed her in his heart--again and again; and every hour, the anguish deepened.

But work had a different look. Darkness covered his dreams of service. He was torn down; some great vitality was disintegrating. His projects would be carried out; he would continue to give, and continue to produce the things to give--but the heart, the love of giving, the spirit of outpouring to men--these were gone from him. There was a certain emptiness in following the old laws of his fuller nature. To give and serve now, was like obeying the commands of the dead. He had never turned to the past before. He would have been the first to tell another--that one who looks to his past for the sanction of some act of the present, has reached the end of growth.

Bedient could not lie to himself. He wanted to run away. He wanted to sit at the knees of some old Gobind. Never since the night his mother had taken him in her arms, had he so needed _to lean_.... Yes. he had failed to find favor--in finding the woman.

And now came to him the inevitable thought, and not without savagery to one of his nature: Was his high theme of uplift for women stimulated from the beginning by his need of a human mate? Was it a mere man-passion, which had charmed all his thoughts of women, from a boy? Was this the glow which had illuminated his work in the world, during the maturing silences of the Punjab? Was it physical, and not spiritual--this love of all women, until he had come into his love of one? And must he lose the broader love--in missing the love of one?

The answer lay dark in his consciousness. Ways to bring happiness to women had come to him, but to carry them out now was mere obedience to the old galvanism. He faced this realization with deadly shame....

"_You will learn to look within for the woman_." And what was left within? In a kind of desperation, Bedient turned to this inventory. The old faith of the soul in God, in the Son, and in the Blessed Mother-Spirit still stood, apart and above the wreckage, unassailed. This was Light.

In these furious days of disintegration Bedient's soul-faith was not brought to test. A woman's might have fallen with her love.... But the mighty passionate being, that was roused to commanding actions in that high sunlit hour, died slowly and with agonies untellable.

The _Hatteras_ steamed out of the gale, as she had done out of many another, in the same riotous stretch of sea-water. Bedient had become known aboard from his association with Captain Carreras. It was during the first dinner of the voyage that certain interesting information transpired from the conversation of Captain Bloom.

"Insurrection was smoking down there when we left ten days ago. We expected to hear in New York that the shooting had begun. Celestino Rey very nearly got a body-blow over, while we were hung up in port before the last trip up. Jaffier, the old Dictator, had just stepped out of his dingy little capitol, when a rifle-ball tore through his sleeve, between his arm and ribs. His sentries clubbed the rifle-man to death in the street----"

"It's rather a peculiar situation as I understand it," Bedient said. "The death of either leader----"

"Would mean an end to his party. That's it exactly," said Captain Bloom.

A lively listener to this talk at the Captain's table was a dark-haired young woman with dancing brown eyes--Miss Adith Mallory. She was slender, and not tall, but spirited in manner; exhibited a fine freedom with her new acquaintances at the table, mostly gentlemen, but with an elegance which repelled familiarity. Miss Mallory seemed to find great fun in these revolutionary affairs, and a deep interest in Andrew Bedient, and his vast holdings on the Island. Her eyes quickly recalled to Bedient's mind a line of Tennyson's--"_Sunset and evening star, and after that the dark_."

He saw very little of her until the _Hatteras_ emerged into the warm, blue Caribbean, and he no longer had the excuse of rough weather to keep away from the dining-saloon. Miss Mallory favored every chance for a talk with Bedient, and once or twice he caught her regarding him with a strange, half-humorous depth of glance. One evening, as the ship was passing the northern coast of Porto Rico, they met on the promenade. The Island was a heavy shadow, off in the moon-bright South.

"... They say, Mr. Bedient, that if the revolution succeeds, it will make a great difference to you."

"Perhaps it may," he replied.

Miss Mallory had heard from the ship's officers, something of his relations with Captain Carreras. He laughingly deprecated his adequacy as a money-master.

"That's quite extraordinary," she said thoughtfully. "New York has not taught me to expect such from a man. Then the American dollar is not the sign of the Holy of Holies--to you?"

... Her talk was blithe. Presently she chaffed him for absences from the saloon during the rough weather.

"And you are such an old sailor, too," she finished.

"But my sailing was largely--sailing," he said. "It's different under steam."

"But we have been nearly three days in a turquoise calm, and I have watched you. A goldfinch would pine away on the nourishment you have taken! How do you manage to live?"

"You see how well I am," he said.

"You're not nearly----" Miss Mallory checked herself, and swallowed several times, before venturing again: "Do you know what I thought?"

"No."

"That you were in the clutch of mortal fear, lest you lose your fortune in the fighting."

"That _was_ a bit wide, Miss Mallory----"

"In reparation for that injustice, I am going to tell you--what takes me to Coral City. I haven't told anyone else.... It's the prospect of a war. I've always wanted a revolution. You can never know how much.... You see, I'm an every-day working woman, a newspaper woman, but out of routine work. Some big things have fallen to me, but never war. Equatoria, the name and everything about it, has enchanted me for years----"

Bedient liked her enthusiasm. He explained much about the Island, Jaffier, Celestino Rey, _The Pleiad_, and the manner of men who frequented this remarkable palace. He advised Miss Mallory not to be known as a newspaper woman, if she expected a welcome at _The Pleiad_.

The _Hatteras_ finally made the coral passage, and was steaming into the inner harbor. Miss Mallory left Captain Bloom, who was pointing out the line of reefs, to join Bedient on the promenade-deck.

"I'm surprised and disappointed," she said. "I expected to hear shooting long before this."

"It may not be started," he suggested. "And now, Miss Mallory, we'd better not go ashore together. I'm known as a follower of Jaffier; and since you go to _The Pleiad,_ the only really suitable place to live, you'd only complicate your standing in the community by being seen with me. If _The Pleiad_ should happen to be invested in a siege, I'll see you comfortably quartered elsewhere. In any case, I am at your service."

Bedient was entirely unexpected at the _hacienda_, but a small caravan had come down to meet the steamer and carry back supplies. Coral City was feverish with excitement, although the revolutionists had not yet taken to gunning. Bedient dispatched a letter to Jaffier with greeting, a congratulation on his escape from death (regarded in the letter as a good omen), and among other matters, an inquiry in regard to the American Jim Framtree, whom he had met in Coral City, just before he embarked for New York. This done, Bedient procured a saddle-pony, and started alone up the trails to the _hacienda_.

He reached the great house in the early dusk. Such was the welcome Bedient met, that for a moment, he was unable to speak. It was spontaneous, too, for he was an hour ahead of the caravan. All was as he had left. Dozens of natives trooped in with flowers and fruits, and when he was alone upstairs, their singing came to him from the cabins.... Bedient did not realize how worn and near to breaking he was, until the outer door of his apartment was shut; and standing in the centre of the room, with a laugh on his lips, he had to wait two or three minutes, for the upheaval to subside in his breast.... A little later, he crossed to the Captain's quarters, opened the door, and stood in the dark for several moments, his head bowed. And a breath of that faint sweet perfume, which never wearied nor obtruded, came to his nostrils, as if one of the old silk handkerchiefs were softly waved in the darkness.

* * * * *

A convoy, in the charge of Dictator Jaffier's oldest and most trusted servant, reached the _hacienda_ at noon the next day. Thus the reply to his letter was borne to Bedient. The cumbersome efficiency clothed an imperative need for money first of all. Bedient expected this and was prepared to assist.... A revolution was inevitable, the communication further divulged. The point in Dictator Jaffier's mind was just the hour to strike. He recognized the importance of striking first; but, he observed sententiously, there was an exact moment between preparedness and precipitation. Jaffier believed that Celestino Rey was looking for a shipload of rifles and ammunition; but the entire coast was guarded by the Defenders, especially _The Pleiad_ inlet, where the Spaniard's rare yacht lay. A seizure of the contraband, it was naïvely stated, would be a most desirable stroke by the government.... The letter closed with the information Bedient had especially requested. The young American Jim Framtree, whose movements in part had been followed by Jaffier's agents, was at _The Pleiad_ with his chief, Celestino Rey, and was doubtless an important member of the rebel staff....

Bedient read the letter carefully and glanced through it again. Jaffier's reliable held out his hand for it.

"If the Señor has carefully digested the contents----" he began.

"Yes, I have it all----"

The other took the letter and touched a match to it, stepping upon the crisp, blackened shell of fibre that fell to the floor. He carried back a New York draft for a large amount.

Bedient slept; that is, his body lay moveless from mid-evening to broad daylight, that first night at the _hacienda_. His consciousness had taken long journeys to Beth, remarkable pilgrimages to India (and found Beth there in the tonic altitudes). Always she regarded him with some strange terror that would not let her speak. Home from these far flights, he would see his body lying still in the splendid, silent room, fanned by soft night-winds, and quickly depart again.... It must have been the beautiful welcome from Falk and the natives. He had broken down quite absurdly, all his furious sustaining force had relaxed. Perhaps it had been necessary for him to break down before he could sleep.... Many times before, he had seen his body lying asleep.

He was more than ever tired and torn this day. Every vista of the hills held poignant hurt, because Beth Truba could not see this beauty. He dared not touch the orchestrelle. Falk brought coffee and fruit after Jaffier's servant had departed. Coffee at the _hacienda_ was a perfect achievement. Eight years of training under Captain Carreras, who had an ideal in the making, and who claimed the finest coffee in the world as the product of his own hills, had brought the beverage to a high point. Bedient drank with a relish almost forgotten, but instantly followed that crippling pang--that it was not for Beth; that she could not breathe the warm fragrant winds.... Bedient sprang up. Some hard, brain-filling, body-straining task was the cry of his mind. This was its first defensive activity against the tearing down of bitter loneliness. Until this moment, he had endured passively.

Bedient determined to go to _The Pleiad_. He had thought of various ways to get in contact with Jim Framtree, but there were obstacles in every path, from the point of view of one conceded by the whole Island to be Dictator Jaffier's right hand, as Captain Carreras had been. The idea appealed more every second. It would startle all concerned, Jaffier and Celestino Rey especially. But the former had just received a large financial assurance of his loyalty, and there was value in giving the ex-pirate something formidable to cope with. Moreover, to meet Jim Framtree again was Bedient's first reason for sudden return to Equatoria.... He called for a pony, and followed by a servant with a case of fresh clothing, rode down the trail to Coral City.

TWENTY-SIXTH CHAPTER

HOW STARTLING IS TRUTH

Bedient entered _The Pleiad_, and with relief breathed the coolness of the vast shadowed halls. One does not ride for pleasure on a June afternoon in Equatoria, and Bedient was far from fit.... There were no guests about. A pale, slender, sad-eyed gentleman appeared in a sort of throne of marble and mahogany, and perceiving the arrival, his look became fixed and glassy.

"Just give me your name, please, if you wish," the pale one said, clearing as dry a throat as ever gave passage to words. Indeed, Bedient could only think of some one stepping upon nut-shells to compare with that voice. The sentence was spoken in answer to his glance about for a register or something of the sort.... No questions were asked regarding price, baggage, nor the nature of the quarters desired. A Chinese servant appeared, and took the case from Bedient's man, who was sent down to quarter in the city. The guest followed the Oriental. The stillness and vast proportions of the structure; the endless darkened halls robed in tapestries and animate with oils; the heavy fragrance from the gardens, crushed out of blossoms by the fierce heat; rugs of all the world's weaving, from the golden fleeces of Persia to fire-lit Navajos; a glimpse to the left, of a room walled with books, and sunk into an Egypt of silence; an acreage of covered billiard-tables through a vast door to the right--a composite of such impressions made the moment memorable. Bedient could only think of a king's winter palace--in summer.... He left the servant to return a moment to the desk.

"Have you a list of the men-guests?" he asked.

The pale one looked disturbed; or possibly it was disappointment that his colorless features expressed, as if such affairs were for the lesser servants of the establishment, and not in the province of gentlemanly dealings.

"No, we have no such list," he said. "Later in the day, when it is cooler, however, most of our guests are abroad, and you will doubtless have little difficulty in finding him whom you seek. You will become familiar in a few hours with our little peculiarities of management. There is little to complain of in the way of service, I believe----"

Rejoining the Chinese, Bedient was led to an apartment, the elegance of detail and effect of which was imperial, no less. With relief he stepped out of his riding clothes, bathed in a deliciously tempered shower, and sat down to think. The chair folded about him like a cool soft arm. The whole atmosphere was to him embarrassingly sensuous. The city was below, shadowed in the swift-falling night; the harbor lay in purple silence, the sun had sunk in a blood-orange sky.

A smile came to his lips at the heavy seriousness of life all about him; vice clinging tenaciously to world-forms, and leaning upon the purchasable beauty of marble and figured walls, its hollowness sustained with the perfections of service. Then he looked across the dark harbor to the sweep of deep red which alone remained of the sunset, thinking of Beth and the dividing sea and the dividing world, and why it had happened so. He was ashamed because he could not think of the great work he had dreamed of doing for women, because Beth meant _Women_ to him now, and he was not for her.... Would the visions of service ever come back?

This brought his mind to the thing he had come to _The Pleiad_ to do, and the revolution all around it, in the very air. What a queer post--in the very fortress of insurrection. It was all boyish stuff. Many adventures might accrue. Would they be enough to keep his mind from realities?... He feared not. For an hour he sat there, regarding the lights of the city and harbor, until his thoughts grew too heavy, and the manacled lover within him was spent and blood-drawn from straining against his chains--the captive that would not die.... He arose wearily to find that a letter had been thrust beneath his door, and so silently that he had not been aroused from his thoughts. The paper was of palest blue and heavy-laid. His name was written with a blunt pen in an angular, eccentric hand, and the contents proved unique:

MR. ANDREW BEDIENT,

SIR: Many of my guests have caught the spirit of _The Pleiad_ more
readily and pleasurably, after making the acquaintance of one
elsewhere designated, I believe, the proprietor. We do not use the
word here, as we are friends together. The fact that my manager
showed you apartments is enough to make me glad to welcome you. He
makes few mistakes. Will you not dine with me at eight this
evening in the Shield Room. If you have a previous engagement,
pray do not permit me to disturb it, as I shall be ready at your
good time.

With unwonted regard,

CELESTINO REY.

Bedient sat down again. The systems of the house moved him to amusement and marvelling. To think that the pale creature at the desk had weighed him from all angles of desirability; and like some more or less infallible Peter had allowed him to enter into the abiding peace of _The Pleiad_. It was rather a morsel, that he had not been turned away. Then to be invited to dine the first evening with the establishment's presiding individuality, who did not approve of the term, "proprietor." There was a tropic, an orient, delight about the affair.

"To think a stranger must lose or win caste in Equatoria, on the glance of that Tired-eyed," he mused. "I really must master this atmosphere."

Bedient thought of _Treasure Island Inn_, in the lower city, where a stranger would probably go, if denied entrance at _The Pleiad_. "Infested" was the word Captain Carreras had once used to depict its denizens.... A few minutes before eight Bedient left the room and descended. From the staircase, he perceived that the guests had, indeed, gathered at this hour. The company was not large, but rather distinguished at first glance. So various were the nationalities represented that Bedient thought the picture not unlike a court-ball with attachés present. The hum of voices was quickened with half the tongues of Europe, and now and then an intonation of Asia. There were more men than women, but this only accentuated the attractions of the latter, of which there were two or three sense-stirring blooms.

For just an instant on the staircase, Bedient stood among the punkah-blown palms to scan the faces below. Framtree was not there, but Miss Mallory appeared in a discussion with an elderly gentleman, and her usual animation was apparent. Bedient was struck with the fact that he had been singularly remiss. In the thirty hours which had passed since their parting, her likeness had not once entered his mind, and he had offered to see that she was comfortably ensconced. Her eyes turned to him now, but as quickly turned away. He had tried to bow.... And at this moment, Bedient perceived the languid eye of the man at the desk, cooling itself upon him. Crossing the tiles from the stairs toward this gentleman, moreover, he was covered with glances from the guests, eyes of swift, searching intensity. "How interested they are in a stranger," he thought. There was a sharpness of needles and acid in the air.

Low chimes from an indefinite source now struck the hour of eight. A Chinese stepped up to the desk beside Bedient.

"You are dining with Señor Rey?" the manager inquired lazily.

Bedient nodded, and turned to greet Miss Mallory. She caught his eye and intent, and promptly turned her back. For the first time, Bedient felt himself a little inadequate to cope with the psychological activities of this establishment. Reverting to the desk, the manager appeared dazed and absent-minded as usual.

"The boy," he said, indicating the Chinese, "will show you to the Shield Room."

Bedient trailed the soft-footed oriental through the bewildering hall, until he saw Señor Rey standing in a doorway--and behind him a low-lit arcanum of leather and metal.... The face of the Spaniard was startling, like the discovery of a crime. It was lean and livid as a cadaver. The pallor of the entire left cheek, including the corner of the lips, had the shine of an old burn, the pores run together in a sort of changeless glaze. In the haggard, bloodless face, eyes shone with black brilliance. The teeth were whole and prominent, as was the entire bony structure of the face and skull. Señor Rey had a tall, attenuated figure, with military shoulders. He moved with great difficulty, as if lacking control of his lower limbs, but in his hands was the contrast--long, white, swift and perfectly preserved. The scarred face and ruffled throat united to form in Bedient's mind the hideous suggestion that the Spaniard had once been tortured _full-length_--his flesh once thrawned in machinery of the devil.... Bedient's hand was grasped in a cold bony grip, and his eyes held for an instant in the bright unquiet gaze of the Spaniard.

"I welcome you, Mr. Bedient.... Do you plan to be with us some little time?" The Señor spoke in a low, monotonous way. His English was but little colored by native speech.

"I cannot tell yet," said Bedient. "I have long wanted to see your wonderful house, but this particular moment, I came to find a certain man----"

Bedient noted the yellow eyelids of the other droop a little. He understood perfectly that there were many men now at _The Pleiad_ who were badly wanted.

"Don't mistake me, Señor Rey," he added. "The man I wish to talk with can only prosper for my coming."

"Frequently it happens that the one searched for in Equatoria--is the last found," the Spaniard observed.

Linen, silver, crystal and candle-radiance were superbly blended upon the small round table between them. Rey, as a talker, was artful and inspiriting. His disordered body seemed an ancient classic volume, done in scarred vellum--a book of perils, named Celestino Rey--and all things about, the spears, guns, skins, shields, even the grim shadows, were but references to the text. The dinner was perfect. A tray of wines and a sheaf of cheroots were placed upon the balcony, at length, with two chairs covered with puma skins. The Chinese assisted Rey thither, and when they were alone, he said:

"Do you feel at all like discussing the affair which really brings you to _The Pleiad_?... You neither eat nor drink nor smoke--perhaps you talk."

Bedient laughed. "Wouldn't it be the simplest way to believe me?" he asked. "I want to see Jim Framtree, and I heard he was here. The matter has nothing to do with Equatoria, the present unrest, nor with any relation of his or mine to the Island or to _The Pleiad_. You can make it possible for me to see him at once."

"Unfortunately, I cannot. My province in _The Pleiad_ is to cut down tension to a minimum. So many gentlemen present are of a highly nervous temperament. My best procedure many times is to act negatively.... Doubtless Dictator Jaffier was very glad of your return to the dreamiest of climates----"

"Yes," said Bedient.

"I noted this morning that he dispatched a convoy to your _hacienda_, bearing doubtless the official welcome----"

"Yes, I met the party."

Bedient perceived that the Spaniard missed little that was going on in the city and Island; also that he believed Jaffier's convoy had something to do with his own presence at _The Pleiad_; and finally that Celestino Rey was not trained to truth. In fact, Bedient had done more to disconcert the master of the establishment by stating the exact facts, than by any strategy he might have evolved.... Bedient arose at length and took the cold hand. He could not forbear a laugh.

"I am flexible enough to appreciate your position," he said. "As an acknowledged resource of the government, I suppose it is rather hard to see me--at this particular moment in the history of Equatoria--as carrying anything so simple as a friendly token."

"You are very absorbing to me, Mr. Bedient," the Señor said delicately. "An old man may express his fondness.... I am glad _The Pleiad_ pleases you. I have built it out of the clods that the world has hurled at me, and have preserved enough vitality to laugh at it all. I find it best to keep down the tension----"

The younger man assisted the Spaniard to his feet.

"Ah, thank you," said the Señor, bowing. "I am dead below the knees."