“Which way were you walking?” she asked him, obviously impressed by his
adventure.
“I’m on my way back to town. We’re merely camping here till we can get a
boat out.”
“Then let’s walk back together,” she suggested.
“May I wheel your bicycle along?” he requested in a rather worldly way.
And she surrendered it to him—not because she subscribed, of course,
in even the faintest degree, to any of the old sex superstitions, but
simply because Elsa was so splendidly emancipated that she could be
unquestionably glad to rid herself of an encumbrance when possible, with
no thought about it one way or another. Otherwise her surrendering it
must have seemed a faint contradiction. So Jerome took charge of the
bicycle, and she walked beside him with free, full stride, while he
harked back into the realm of ancient history and told her, discreetly
and with ever an effect of budding cynicism, the thrilling tale of the
kidnapping—or rather, his accidental departure—in the first place, and
something of his adventurous life after that. She appeared very much
interested. And it seemed so good having some one entirely outside his
now largely harrowing association to whom he could talk, that Jerome
found himself looking upon Elsa Utterbourne as really an old friend. He
did not mention Lili, and left uncommunicated the heartache connected
with the loss of his tiny son at sea. It seemed almost incredible—almost
like a strange illusion—that all this could have happened to him since
the day in San Francisco when Elsa Utterbourne had come along to
contemplate, without entirely knowing it, his sense of forlornness and
pique.
“Do you know where Stella is now, by the way?” he asked casually.
Elsa looked at him in a somewhat sidewise fashion. “I rather thought
you’d be able to give _me_ a little news of her.”
“No, I’ve not heard a word since she went away on her honeymoon.”
“Neither have I, nor has any one else, so far as I know.”
“Strange. You’d think the earth had swallowed them up!”
“Yes, wouldn’t you?”
“But your father took them off in the first place—he must have some idea,
at least, where they are.”
“Oh, the Captain knows exactly.”
“But he won’t tell?”
“No, he won’t tell. The only way would be to take a chance on his talking
in his sleep. But the trouble is,” she smiled dryly. “he never even
snores—he sleeps like the Sphynxes.”
Jerome gave her a glance of amusement.
“No doubt,” continued Elsa, “they’ll turn up one of these days with some
unbelievable adventure to relate.”
“I expect so.”
As they walked Elsa shaded her eyes with an arm from time to time, and
gazed coolly off across the panorama which kept spreading new pictures.
Occasionally a native with empty baskets would pass them, trudging back
from the coast where beeswax and tobacco had been traded.
“If you’d like to come out this evening, you’ll find us at home,” the
girl said as they approached the port.
“You’re staying on board?”
“We always do. It’s very comfortable. We have plenty of ice, and plenty
of things to mix with it. You’d better come.”
“Thanks. I believe I will.”
She nodded, and, recovering her bicycle, rode off down to the wharf,
where a small boat awaited her.