ON THE WALL
Smith retired to his room to bathe, clothed himself in snowy linen and
fresh tennis flannels, and descended again, book under his arm, to
saunter forth through heavy tangles of cinnamon-tinted Flemish roses and
great sweet-scented peonies, musing on love and fate.
"Kingsbury and his theories! The Countess of Semois will think him
crazy. She'll think us both crazy! And I am not sure that we're not;
youth is madness; half the world is lunatic! Take me, for example; I
never did a more unexpected thing than kissing that shadow across the
wall. I don't know why, I don't know how, but I did it; and I am out of
jail yet. Certainly it must have been the cook. Oh, Heavens! If cooks
kiss that way, what, _what_ must the indiscretion of a Countess
resemble?... She _did_ kiss back.... At least there was a soft,
tremulous, perfumed flutter--a hint of delicate counter-pressure----"
But he had arrived at the wall by that time.
"How like a woodland paradise!" he murmured sentimentally, youthful face
upraised to the trees. "How sweet the zephyr! How softly sing the
dicky-birds! I wonder--I wonder--" But what it was that perplexed him he
did not say; he stood eying the top of the wall as the furtive turkey
eyes its selected roost before coyly hopping thither.
"What's the use? If I see her I'll only take fright and skulk homeward.
Why do I return again and again to the scene of guilt? Is it Countess or
cook that draws me, or some one less exalted in the culinary confine?
Why, why should love get busy with me? Is this the price I pay for that
guileless kiss? Am I to be forever 'it' in love's gay game of tag?"
He ascended the steplike niche in the wall, peeped fearfully over into
his neighbour's chasse. Tree and tangle slept in the golden light of
afternoon; a cock-pheasant strutted out of a thicket, surveyed the
solitude with brilliant eyes, and strutted back again; a baby rabbit
frisked across the carrefour into the ferny warren beyond; and "Bubble,
bubble, flowed the stream, like an old song through a dream."
Sprawling there flat on top of the sun-warmed stucco wall, white
sunlight barring the pages of his book, he lifted his head to listen.
There was a leafy stirring somewhere, perhaps the pheasant rustling in
the underbrush. The sing-song of the stream threaded the silence; and as
he listened it seemed to grow louder, filling the woods with low,
harmonious sounds. In the shallows he heard laughter; in the pouring
waterfalls, echoes like wind-blown voices calling. Small grey and
saffron tinted birds, passing from twig to twig, peered at him
fearlessly; a heavy green lizard vanished between the stones with an
iridescent wriggle. Suddenly a branch snapped and the underbrush
crackled.
"Probably a deer," thought Smith, turning to look. Close inspection of
the thicket revealed nothing; he dropped his chin on his hands, crossed
his legs, and opened his book.
The book was about one of those Americans who trouble the peace of mind
of Princesses; and this was the place to read it, here in the enchanted
stillness of the ancient Belgian forest, here where the sunshine spread
its net on fretted waters, where lost pools glimmered with azure when
the breeze stirred overhead--here where his neighbor was a Countess and
some one in her household wore a mass of gold-red hair Greek
fashion--and Aphrodite was not whiter of neck nor bluer eyed than she.
The romance that he read was designed to be thickly satisfying to
American readers, for it described a typical American so accurately that
Smith did not recognize the type. Until he had been enlightened by
fiction he never imagined Americans were so attractive to exotic
nobility. So he read on, gratified, cloyed, wondering how the Princess,
although she happened to be encumbered with a husband, could stand for
anything but ultimate surrender to the Stars and Stripes; and trustfully
leaving it to another to see that it was done morally.
Hypnotized by the approaching crisis, he had begun already to finger the
next page, when a slight crash in the bushes close by and the swish of
parting foliage startled him from romance to reality.
But he had looked up too late; to slink away was impossible; to move was
to reveal himself. It was _she_! And she was not ten feet distant.
One thing was certain: whether or not she was the shadowy partner of his
kiss, she could not be the Countess, because she was fishing,
unattended, hatless, the sleeves of her shirtwaist rolled up above her
white elbows, a book and a short landing-net tucked under her left arm.
Countesses don't go fishing unattended; gillies carry things. Besides,
the Countess of Semois was in Semois-les-Bains selling dolls to
Kingsbury.
The sun glowed on her splendid red hair; she switched the slender rod
about rather awkwardly, and every time the cast of flies became
entangled in a nodding willow she set her red lips tight and with an
impatient "_Mais, c'est trop bête! Mais, c'est vraiment trop_----"
It was evident that she had not seen him where he lay on the wall; the
chances were she would pass on--indeed her back was already toward
him--when the unexpected happened: a trout leaped for a gnat and fell
back into the pool with a resounding splash, sending ring on ring of
sunny wavelets toward the shore.
"Ah! _Te voilà!_" she said aloud, swinging her line free for a cast.
Smith saw what was coming and tried to dodge, but the silk line whistled
on the back-cast, and the next moment his cap was snatched from his head
and deposited some twenty feet out in the centre of the pool.
The amazement of the fair angler was equal to his own as she looked
hastily back over her shoulder and discovered him on the wall.
There is usually something undignified about a man whose hat has been
knocked off; to laugh is as fatal as to show irritation; and Smith did
neither, but quietly dropped over to her side of the wall, saying, "I'm
awfully sorry I spoiled your cast. Don't mind the cap; that trout was a
big one, and he may rise again."
He had spoken in English, and she answered in very pretty English: "I am
so sorry--could I help you to recover your hat?"
"Thank you; if you would let me take your rod a moment."
"Willingly, monsieur."
She handed him the rod; he loosened the line, measured the distance with
practiced eye, turned to look behind him, and, seeing there was scant
room for a long back-cast, began sending loop after loop of silken line
forward across the water, using the Spey method, of which none except an
expert is master.
The first cast struck half-way, but in line; the next, still in line,
slipped over the cap, but failed to hook. Then, as he recovered, there
was a boiling rush in the water, a flash of pink and silver, and the rod
staggered.
"I--I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed aghast; "I have hooked your trout!"
"Play him," she said quickly. The elfin shriek of the reel answered; he
gave the fish every ounce the quivering rod could spare, the great trout
surged deeply, swerved, circled and bored slowly upstream.
"This fish is magnificent," said Smith, guiltily. "You really must take
the rod----"
"I shall not, indeed."
"But this is not fair!"
"It is perfectly fair, monsieur--and a wonderful lesson in angling to
me. Oh, I beg you to be careful! There is a sunken tree limb beyond!"
Her cheeks were the colour of wild roses, her blue eyes burned like
stars.
"He's down; I can't stir him," said Smith. "He's down like a salmon!"
She linked her hands behind her back. "What is to be done?" she asked
calmly.
"If you would gather a handful of those pebbles and throw one at a time
into the pool where he is lying----"
Before he finished speaking she had knelt, filled her palms with golden
gravel, and stood ready at the water's edge.
"Now?" she nodded, inquiringly.
"Yes, one at a time; try to hit him."
The first pebble produced no effect; neither did the second, nor yet the
third.
"Throw a handful at him," he suggested, and braced himself for the
result. A spray of gravel fell; the great fish sulked motionless.
"There's a way--" began Smith, feeling in his pockets for his key-ring.
It was not there.
"Could I be of any use?" she asked, looking up at Smith very
guilelessly.
"Why, if I had something--a key-ring or anything that I could hang over
the taut line--something that would slide down and jog him gently----"
"A hairpin?" she asked.
"I'm afraid it's too light."
She reflected a moment; her bent forefinger brushed her velvet lips.
Then she began to unfasten a long gold pin at her throat.
"Oh, not that!" exclaimed Smith, anxiously. "It might slip off."
"It can't; there's a safety clasp. Anyway, we must have that trout!"
"But I could not permit----"
"It is I who permit myself, monsieur."
"No, no, it is too generous of you----"
"Please!" She held the pin toward him; he shook his head; she hesitated,
then with a quick movement she snapped the clasp over the taut line and
sent it spinning toward the invisible fish.
He saw the gold glimmer become a spark under water, die out in dusky
depths; then came a rushing upheaval of spray, a flash, the rod quivered
to the reel-plate, and the fight began in fury. The rod was so slim, so
light--scarce three ounces--that he could but stand on the defensive at
first. Little by little the struggle became give and take, then
imperceptibly he forced the issue, steadily, delicately, for the tackle
was gossamer, and he fought for the safety of the golden clasp as well
as for his honour as an angler.
"Do you know how to net a trout?" he asked presently. She came and stood
at his shoulder, net poised, blue eyes intent upon the circling fish.
"I place it behind him, do I not?" she asked coolly.
"Yes--when I give the word----"
One more swerve, a half circle sheering homeward, nearer, nearer----
A moment later the huge trout lay on the moss; iridescent tints played
over its broad surface, shimmering hues deepened, waxing, warning; the
spots glowed like rubies set in bronze.
Kneeling there, left hand resting on the rod, Smith looked up at her
over his shoulder; but all she said was: "Ah, the poor, brave thing! The
gallant fish! This is wrong--all wrong. I wish we had not taken a life
we cannot give again."
"Shall I put the trout back madame?"
She looked at him surprised.
"Would you?" she asked incredulously.
"If you desire it."
"But it is your fish."
"It is yours, madame."
"Will it live? Oh, try to make it live!"
He lifted the beautiful fish in both hands, and, walking to the water's
edge, laid it in the stream. For a while it floated there, gold and
silver belly turned to the sky, gills slowly inflating and collapsing.
Presently a fin stirred; the spasmodic movement of the gill-covers
ceased, and the breathing grew quiet and steady. Smith touched the
pectoral fins; the fish strove to turn over; he steadied the dorsal fin,
then the caudal, righting the fish. Slowly, very slowly, the great trout
moved off, farther, farther, sinking into cool, refreshing depths; there
was a dull glitter under the water, a shadow gliding, then nothing
except the green obscurity of the pool criss-crossed with surface
sunshine.
When Smith turned around the girl was pensively regarding the water. His
cap had stranded on a shoal almost at his feet; he recovered it, wrung
the drops from it, and stood twirling it thoughtfully in the sunlight.
"I've ruined it, haven't I?" she asked.
"Oh, no; it's a shooting-cap. Like Tartarin, I shall probably ventilate
it later in true Midi fashion."
She laughed; then, with the flushed composure of uneasiness: "Thank you
for a lesson in angling. I have learned a great deal--enough at least
to know that I shall not care to destroy life, even in a fish."
"That is as it should be," he replied coolly. "Men find little charm in
women who kill."
"That is scarcely in accord with the English novels I read--and I read
many," she said laughing.
"It is true, nevertheless. Saint Hubert save us from the woman who can
watch the spark of life fade out in the eye of any living thing."
"Are you not a little eccentric, monsieur?"
"If you say so. Eccentricity is the full-blown blossom of mediocrity."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]