the face has never come back. For a while I expected to see the scarf
vanish. I held it tightly for most of the night, and finally went
to sleep with it wrapped closely around my arm and hand. It did not
vanish--I have ceased to fear that. I know that somehow or other it
has taken its material form for me, and however it came, it came from
someone, and I shall meet her, whoever she is; wherever she is, she
is mine. She will become mine, she waits for me. I shall carry this
scarf across the sea; I shall travel with it till I meet her; she will
recognize it and me; the scarf is my credential; no matter where we
meet, I shall know her by her red-brown eyes and pointed chin; she will
know this’--and he fluttered the full length of the scarf in the air.
It shimmered and doubled on itself, and coiled and shifted in sentient
evolutions as it fell again to his knee.
‘I don’t know what to think; you must not ask me to say anything,’ said
Mark, as he arose to go. ‘All I can say is, that you have gone into a
realm where I cannot follow--my path lies near the earth.’
‘No, of course he could not say anything; what could he say?’ thought
Rob; ‘but I am glad I told him.’
‘I don’t know what to think.’ said Mark to himself, as he went
homeward. ‘Rob is as sane as I am; he is logical, given the premise,
and why shouldn’t he see red-brown eyes--is there ever a minute when
I cannot summon an inward vision of dark ones? Yes, is there ever a
minute in my life when I am not conforming my acts, my thoughts, my
very self, to a vision that is as unsubstantial as his own? What if the
being whose eidolon he lives for is thousands of miles away? What if
he saw her in spirit before he saw her in fact--does that mean so very
much? Have I been able to banish the dark eyes, try as I did? And _he_
has fostered the vision of the red-brown eyes till he is as sure, yes,
a thousand times more sure, of his title to them than I am of ever
having a right to even touch the vaguest drapery that has brushed my
hand as my love passed. He follows shadows of the unseen--_I_ follow
the less substantial visions of the seen.’
* * * * *
Up and down on the deck of the outward-bound steamer walked Rob,
happy, and with expectant eyes. He had a word for each new friend, as
he passed, on deck or in the reading-room; but mostly he was walking
and thinking. In Switzerland, he walked much, and always dined at the
public table, and he could have told you in particulars about every
other one at the table, especially as to the color of the eyes of the
women. He enjoyed seeing multitudes of people; but when, on meeting
a chance friend, he was asked to go in a party over some particular
route, he was always going the other way. His fancy was like the wind,
and he obeyed it as does the weather-cock.
In Italy he staid many weeks, always straying among crowds, dining in
public, riding out to the villas, often standing on the Pincio watching
the carriages as they went by, delighting in looking at the faces of
the beautiful women. He strolled through galleries, less to see the
pictures than to see those who looked at them. It seemed as if _she_
must be somewhere waiting for him with those smiling eyes. Had her
garments but just brushed over this stone pavement? Had her hand rested
for a moment on this delicate, fretted iron-work as she leaned over to
see the crowd below? Had she watched last night’s glow as the sun had
sent up those golden shafts behind that dome? Had she been in Venice,
and watched the black gondolas as they slipped by in the night? Was
it her voice that said, out of the darkness, as one of the shadows
flitted, bat-like, across his path, ‘I could stay here forever, were I
not driven by fate to further shores’?
There was no desolation in his search; it was only a searching and a
waiting, and where-ever the scarf floated, there was his land--his home.
‘I am the Knight of the Immaterial,’ he said to someone who detained
him; ‘I follow a thought.’
He began to buy trinkets such as women wear. His luggage took on new
shapes. It had corners dedicated to strange bits of regally embroidered
fabrics; to rings old and wonderful; to strings of delicious yellow
pearls, numerous and small as sands of the shore, gathered on a string.
At Naples he thought to find her. At Castallamarie he looked for her
in the orange garden. At Amalfi he expected to see her leaning on the
wall to scan the blue waters.
In the reading-room at Athens he sat looking over the American papers.
People were going in and out; some were reading, as if at their own
club or at home. Fussy folks turned over all the papers, looking for
something which wasn’t, and never would be, there. Men exchanged
greetings and news in after-dinner leisure. At Rob’s side sat Drayton,
our American Charge d’Affaires. He had an appointment later at a
reception, and had come in to escort a party of people who had especial
claims on his attention. Suddenly Rob leaned over, and said to him:
‘Who is that lady standing there at the end of the table with her fur
cloak thrown back--the beautiful one standing by the old man--that
Russian, with all those decorations or orders?’
‘That? why, that is Madame Dembevetskoi, the most beautiful woman in
Athens. If she _is_ a Russian, it is a tie between her and the Venus de
Milo.’
‘I want to know her.’
‘That is all right--Americans have every privilege; I will introduce
you to her to-morrow.’
‘No, now; I must meet her now.’
‘Great Scott! that is too American; you ask too much.’
‘I ask just enough, and you will accede to my request.’
The two men looked at each other, then our functionary walked away
with his diplomatic courtesy a little ruffled. A moment later he was
introducing to Monsieur Dembevetskoi, ‘My friend, Monsieur Robert
Dudley.’
In turn, Robert was presented to Madame. The diplomat, once in action,
never flinched fire, and he now engaged the Russian in an absorbing
conversation, while Madame Dembevetskoi, holding with one hand her gray
fur wrap, which was slipping from her, stretched out her other hand,
and said, breathlessly:
‘Oh, Monsieur Dudley, please give me back my scarf!’
[Illustration]
PRINTED FOR WAY AND WILLIAMS BY R. R. DONNELLEY AND SONS CO AT
THE LAKESIDE PRESS, CHICAGO FROM PLATES MADE BY THE DIAL PRESS:
MDCCCXCV
Transcriber’s Note:
Variations in hyphenation have been retained as they appear in the
original publication. Punctuation has been standardised.