The editor of the "San Francisco Clarion" tilted his chair far back and
look quizzically at the young man sitting beside his desk. "Sure I
remember you," he remarked. "Did some Sunday work for us some time ago,
didn't you?"
"Yes, a little feature stuff when I was in college."
"And now you want to go it strong, eh? Well, we've been rather
disorganized in here since the war. There's been a constant stream of
reporters coming and going. But things are settling down a little now
and we're not taking on anybody who doesn't want to stick. Planning to
be in the city right along, are you?"
"Well, I'll be perfectly frank with you about that. I'm not. I've got to
go East as soon as I get a little money. But I'm not planning to stay
there. I'm coming back for good as soon as I've closed up my business."
"Why not close up the Eastern business first?"
"Can't. It's not ripe yet." There was a note of grimness in the young
man's voice. "I don't know just when it will be, either. But when I do
go back, I don't think it will take me long to finish it. Don't give me
a reporter's job if I don't look good to you. Put me on to some feature
stuff for a while."
"All right. Sit in, and I'll give you a line on a few things I'd like to
have hunted down."
When he left the office half an hour later, Kenwick sought the public
library. There he spent the entire afternoon and a part of the evening.
It was about nine o'clock when he entered the St. Germaine, a modest
hotel in the uptown district. The night clerk cast an inquiring glance
in search of his suit-case.
"My baggage hasn't come yet," the prospective guest explained
tranquilly. "It may be in to-morrow. If you want to know anything about
me, call Allen Boyer at the 'Clarion' office."
When he had been shown to his room on the fifth floor he lighted the
lamp on the stand near his bed and became absorbed in the contents of
one of the weekly magazines. He read until very late and then snapped
out the light, cursing himself for having abused his eyes on the eve of
taking a new position.
The next morning he was out early, eager to hunt down one of the stories
that Boyer had suggested. As he swung out into the exhilaration of the
crisp November morning on the scent of an assignment some of the old
self-assurance and buoyancy came back to him.
Half an hour after he had left the hotel, the revolving doors swung
round the circle to admit a man with prosperous leather suit-case and
"freckled" eyes. The day clerk handed him a pen and registration-slip.
He was beginning to sign, after a curt question about the rates, when
the blond cashier, perched on a stool in the wire cage adjoining the
desk, pushed a similar slip of paper toward the clerk. "Can't quite make
out that name," she confessed. "Looks like Renwich. Do you get it?"
The desk official glanced at it with the casually professional air of
one to whom all the mysteries of chirography are as an open book. "It's
Kenwick. Plain as day--Roger Kenwick."
The pen slid from the fingers of the man on the other side of the desk.
For a moment, self-possession deserted Richard Glover. He stood there
staring hard at the ugly blot which he had made across his own
signature. Then he crumpled the bit of paper, threw it into the
waste-basket, and, suit-case in hand, went out into the street.
The day clerk darted a contemptuous glance after his disappearing
figure. "Some nut," he remarked. "Told me the terms were all right and
then got cold feet. I'll bet he's a crook."
"Sure he's a crook." The blond cashier spoke with cheerful authority. "I
could have told you that when he first came in. I can size 'em up as far
off as the front door. And I had him posted on the 'Losses by Default'
page before he'd set down his bag."
The day clerk regarded her musingly. "He _had_ a bag, though, and that's
more than this Kenwick fellow showed. But Brown thought he was all right
and let him have 526. Did you notice him this morning? Tall, dark
fellow, young but with hair a little gray around the temples."
"Ye-a. High-brow. Looks like he was here for his health. Probably broke
down in some government job."
"No, he's a newspaper man."
"Let's see where he's from?" She reached for the slip.
"New York. Well, I slipped a cog. I would have said he was a Westerner."
"That's right. That last chap looked more like New York to me. But you
never can tell. And something seemed to hit him all wrong about this
place."
With this conclusion Richard Glover was in complete accord. As he walked
down Geary Street clutching his heavy bag, he was conscious with every
nerve of his being that something had struck him decidedly wrong about
the St. Germaine. "It might be just a coincidence," he reassured
himself. "It's undoubtedly just a coincidence but--but that isn't such a
very common name. My God! I begin to feel like a spy caught in his own
trap."
With scarcely more than a glance at the name above the entrance he
turned into the lobby of another hotel and signed for a room. It was
almost noon when he appeared again and wrote a letter at one of the
lobby desks. It was not a long letter, hardly more than a note, but its
composition consumed almost an hour and a half a dozen sheets of
stationery, which were successively torn to bits and thrown into the
waste-basket. And then at last the final sheet met the same fate and
Richard Glover sat tapping the desk softly with the edge of the blotter.
"No, I won't write; I'll just go," he decided. "For asking if I may come
almost invites a refusal. And then it takes longer. I'll go up there
this afternoon. The secret of getting what you want out of people is to
take them off guard."
Following this policy he set out in the late afternoon to pay a call. At
the door of the uptown address he was met by a colored maid. She offered
him neither hope nor despair but agreed to present his card.
And in front of the living-room fire Marcreta Morgan read the card and
flicked it across to her brother. "I don't think I care to see anybody
to-day," she said. "It's your first night at home, and there's so much
to talk about."
"Don't know him," Clinton decided. "Somebody you met while I was away?"
"Oh, yes, you know him, Clint. You introduced me to him yourself. Don't
you remember he came here one night before you went to Washington and
asked you to analyze some specimens of mineral water."
"Oh, _that_ fellow! Has he been hanging around here ever since?"
"Well, no. I can't say that he has hung around exactly. But of late he
has called rather often. He's really quite entertaining in some ways.
You were very much interested in his specimens."
"In his _specimens_, yes."
It may have been that she resented his implied dislike. It may have been
for some other reason. But Marcreta suddenly reversed her decision.
"Show him in, please," she ordered. And the next moment the visitor
stood in the doorway.
It was apparent as he crossed the long room that he had not expected to
meet any one save his hostess. But he responded warmly to Clinton's
handshake and drew up a chair for himself opposite Marcreta. "It's a
pleasant surprise to find you here, Mr. Morgan," he said. "I thought you
were still in the service at Washington. But it's time for every one to
be getting home now, isn't it?"
Clinton Morgan surveyed him silently. It struck him that his guest was
very much at home himself. For a time the conversation followed that
level, triangular form of talk which so effectually conceals purpose and
personality. Then Clinton excused himself on the plea that he had some
unpacking to do, and Marcreta and Richard Glover were left alone.
"It's been a long time since I've seen you, Mr. Glover," she said. "You
haven't been in the Bay region lately?"
"No, I've not been able to get away." His tone indicated that he had
chafed under this pressure of adverse circumstance. "But it's good to
get back now," he went on. "I'm always glad to get back--here."
She ignored the new ardent note in his voice. "But the southern part of
the State is beautiful," she said. "Mont-Mer, particularly, is so
beautiful that it makes the soul ache."
The words seemed to startle him. His eyes left the camouflaged log of
wood in the fireplace and fixed themselves steadily upon her. "How do
you know? How do you, San Francisco-bound, know?"
"I have just returned from there. My brother and I arrived home the same
day. I spent a week near Mont-Mer visiting my friends, the Paddingtons.
Do you know them?"
"No. But I think I know their home. They call it 'Utopia,' I believe?"
"Yes. And until I saw it I had always thought that Utopia was a myth."
"Mont-Mer," he mused, "does look rather like a fairy-story come true,
doesn't it? There's something perilously seductive about it. It's a
place where people go to forget."
"I have heard that said about it, but somehow it didn't make that kind
of an appeal to me. I had the feeling that in such a place as that every
sorrow of life is a bleeding wound. There's a terrible cruelty about
that tropical sort of beauty. It drives memories in, not out."
For some unaccountable reason the tensity of her tone annoyed him. "You
didn't like it then?"
"It's beautiful, as I have said, but--I shall never go there again."
"The place you ought to see," he told her, "is Cedargrove, about two
hours' trip to the south."
"That's where the mineral springs are?"
"Yes. And what I really came to tell you to-day is that I've bought the
controlling interest in the springs. It was after your brother had given
me his final analysis of the water last year that I decided to do it. He
said, you know, that in his opinion the medicinal ingredients equaled
that of the waters of Carlsbad. I've made great plans. You see, there
are twenty acres, and so far we've found eighteen springs. We've been
bottling the stuff for several months now and it's selling like hot
cakes. The next step is a hotel. It's not to be too colossal, but unique
in every respect. That's what takes in California. Show people that
you've got 'something different' and they'll jump to the conclusion that
because it's different it must be desirable. That's America. I've had
other chemists besides your brother tell me that the water is wonderful.
The best doctors in the South declare that those springs are a bigger
find than a gold mine."
He had warmed to his theme now and his amber eyes glowed. And she
followed his words with that quick responsiveness that was all
unconsciously one of her chief charms. "And what are your advertising
plans?" she asked.
It was like a fresh supply of gasolene to an engine. He plunged into
stupendous plans for a publicity campaign. "I'm doing most of the copy
work myself so far. I love the advertising game. I love telling people
what they want and making them want it. I'm calling it 'The Carlsbad of
America.' That will get the health-seekers, and health-seekers will pay
any price."
For half an hour he talked, going into every detail of his plan. And
then all at once he stopped abruptly as though he had grown suddenly
weary of Carlsbad. She sat gazing into the fire, waiting in sympathetic
silence, for him to resume the subject. But he didn't resume it. When he
spoke again, his tone had changed as well as his theme. For the first
time the conversation became keenly personal. He talked about himself
with a humility that was quite new and, to his listener, somewhat
startling.
"I don't think it can be a complete surprise to you," he said, "to know
how much I need you; how much I depend upon your sympathy and
understanding. You must have guessed something of my feeling. You are
too intuitive not to have guessed."
Her frank, blue-gray eyes were fixed upon him with an expression that
baffled him, yet gave him hope. "No, it is not quite unexpected," she
admitted. "But I didn't realize that it had gone quite so far. It seems
to have all happened rather suddenly. We haven't known each other very
long; not nearly long enough for anything like this."
"No. But I've been looking for you all my life. That ought to count for
something."
"For something--yes. But not for so much as--that."
"Love isn't a matter of time," he told her.
"No. But it's a matter of exploration. It's a matter of finding each
other. And in the half a dozen times that you have called here, Mr.
Glover, we haven't talked about the finding kind of things. No, we don't
know each other. We don't know each other half well enough to consider
anything like this."
"But we can get to know each other better. Is there any reason why we
should not do that?"
She pondered this for a moment. "Well, for one thing, there is
distance."
"There is no longer distance," he pleaded eagerly. "For I have severed
my connections with Mont-Mer."
"Oh!" He couldn't tell whether the exclamation emanated from pleasure or
merely surprise. "You severed your connections there because of this new
Carlsbad plan?"
"Partly because of that. But chiefly because a secretaryship to a rich
man doesn't get one anywhere."
"I suppose not."
Still he couldn't decide whether her interest now was genuine or only
courteous. But she would give him no further encouragement than to allow
him to call occasionally. And with this permission he went away well
content.
Ten minutes after he heard the front door close, Clinton, in a
dressing-gown and slippers, appeared on the threshold of his sister's
room. "Gone, at last?" he queried. "What's Glover doing up here anyway?
I thought he was securely anchored with a millionaire hermit down
South."
She spoke without turning from the dressing-table where she was shaking
her long dark hair down over an amethyst-colored negligée. "You don't
like him, do you?"
"No, I can't say that I do."
"Why not?"
Before the directness of the question he felt suddenly shamefaced, as a
man always does who condemns one of his own sex before a woman on
insufficient evidence. "Oh, he's all right, of course. I have no reason
really for disliking the fellow, except----Well, he seems to like you
too much. And he's not your style. What did he want to-night?"
"He wanted to tell me about a new scheme he has, a really wonderful
enterprise, Clint, for turning that mineral water place into a
health-resort. He's taken over most of the stock and he talked glowingly
about it."
"He does talk well; I'll admit that. But who is going to capitalize this
venture?"
His sister smiled. "Well, Clinton, I could hardly ask him that, you
know."
"No, I suppose not. And if you had, I imagine that he would hardly have
liked to answer it. Anyhow, he's cheered you up, and I ought to be
grateful to him for that. It was a mistake for you to take that trip to
Mont-Mer, Crete. It was too much for you."
She made no response to this, and her brother, noting the delicately
flushed face and languid movements, told himself reproachfully that the
mistake was in going away and leaving her to struggle alone with the
hospital venture. He sat down on a cedar chest beside the window.
"Let's retint the whole lower floor, Crete," he suggested, seizing upon
the first change of topic that offered itself. "Now that this place is
to be a home again and not a sanitarium, let's retint and get the public
institution smell out of it."
She laid down the ivory brush and turned to him. But her gaze was
abstracted, and when she spoke in a musing voice, her words showed that
she had not been listening. "Clinton, have you ever figured out just how
much of the Coalinga oil stock belongs to me?"
He had been sitting with one knee hugged between his arms. Now he
released it and brought himself upright upon the cedar chest.
"Why, no, I haven't. I don't think it makes much difference, while we're
living together, sharing everything this way."
She got up from the dressing-table and walked over to the far window,
drawing the deep lace collar of the amethyst negligée up about her ears
as though to screen herself from his view. Out on the bay the lighted
ferry-boats plied their silent passage, and on the Key Route pier an
orange-colored train crawled cautiously, like a brilliant caterpillar,
across a thread of track. Marcreta, gazing out into the clear soft dusk,
sent a question backward over her shoulder.
"Would it be very much trouble to go over our properties some time
and--make a division?"
"No, it wouldn't be much trouble, and I suppose it would be much more
businesslike." He spoke briskly but she knew that her demand had
astonished him. "You know," he admitted ruefully, "I don't pretend to be
much of a business man. I think you may be right to insist upon an
accounting."
"O Clint! I don't mean that. You know I don't mean that." Her voice held
the stricken tone of the sensitive nature stabbed by the swift
realization that it has hurt some one else. "You've been the best
brother a girl ever had. You've been too good to me. I didn't mean
_that_ at all."
"What do you mean then, Crete?"
Her answer seemed to grope its way through an underbrush of tangled
emotions. "I just thought it would be well for us each to know what we
have because--you see, we may not always be living together like this."