Part II

Strange

VII

Dressed in overalls that had once been white, he was superintending the

stacking of wool in a long, brick-walled, iron-roofed shed in Buenos Aires

when the thought came to him how easy it had all been. He paused for a

minute in his work of inspection--standing by an open window, where a

whiff of fresh air from off the mud-brown Rio de la Plata relieved the

heavy, greasy smell of the piles of unwashed wool--just to review again

the past eighteen months. Below him stretched the noisy docks, with their

row of electric cranes, as regular as a line of street lamps, loading or

unloading a mile of steamers lying broadside on, and flying all flags but

the Stars and Stripes. Wines, silk, machinery, textiles were coming out;

wheat, cattle, hides, and beef were pouring in. In the confusion of

tongues that reached him he could, on occasions, catch the tones of

Spaniard, Frenchman, Swede, and Italian, together with all the varieties

of English speech from Highland Scotch to Cockney; but none of the

intonations of his native land. The comparative rarity of anything

American in his city of refuge, while it added to his sense of exile,

heightened his feeling of security. It was still another of the happy

circumstances that had helped him.

The strain under which he had lived during this year and a half had

undoubtedly been great; but he could see now that it had been inward

strain--the mental strain of unceasing apprehension, the spiritual strain

of the new creature in casting off the old husk, and adapting itself not

merely to new surroundings, but to a new life. This had been severe. He

was not a rover, and still less an adventurer, in any of the senses

attached to that word. His instincts were for the settled, the

well-ordered, and the practical. He would have been content with any

humdrum existence that permitted his peaceable, commercially gifted soul

to develop in its natural environment. The process, therefore, by which

Norrie Ford became Herbert Strange, even in his own thoughts, had been one

of inner travail, though the outward conditions could not have been more

favorable. Now that he had reached a point where his more obvious

anxieties were passing away, and the hope of safety was becoming a

reality, he could look back and see how relatively easy everything had

been.

He had leisure for reflection because it was the hour for the men's midday

meal and siesta. He could see them grouped together--some thirty-odd--at

the far end of the shed--sturdy little Italians, black-eyed, smiling,

thrifty, dirty, and contented to a degree that made them incomprehensible

to the ambitious, upward-toiling American set over them. They sat, or

lounged, on piles of wood, or on the floor, some chattering, most of them

asleep. He had begun like them. He had stacked wool under orders till he

had made himself capable of being in command. He had been beneath the

ladder; and though his foot was only on the lowest rung of it even now, he

was satisfied to have made this first step upward.

He could not be said to have taken it to his own surprise, since he had

prepared himself for it, and for other such steps to follow it, knowing

that they must become feasible in time. He had been given to understand

that what the Argentine, in common with some other countries, needed most

was neither men nor capital, but intelligence. Men were pouring in from

every corner of the globe; capital was keen in looking for its

opportunity; but for intelligence the demand was always greater than the

supply.

The first intimation of such a need had come to him on the _Empress of

Erin_, in mid-Atlantic, by a chance opportunity of the voyage. It was on

one of the first days of liberty when he had ventured to mix freely with

his fellow-passengers. Up to the present he had followed the rule of

conduct adopted at the little Canadian station of Saint Jean du Clou Noir.

He went into public when necessary, but no oftener. He did then what other

people did, in the way to attract the least attention. The season favored

him, for amid the throngs of early autumn travellers, moving from country

back to town, or from seaside resorts to the mountains he passed

unnoticed. At Quebec he was one of the crowd of tourists come to see the

picturesque old town. At Rimouski he was lost among the trainful of people

from the Canadian maritime provinces taking the Atlantic steamer at a

convenient port. He lived through each minute in expectation of the law's

tap on his shoulder; but he acquired the habit of nonchalance. On

shipboard it was a relief to be able to shut himself up in his cabin--his

suite!--feigning sickness, but really allowing his taut nerves to relax,

as he watched first the outlines of the Laurentides, and then the shores

of Anticosti, and lastly the iron-black coast of Labrador, follow each

other below the horizon. Two or three appearances at table gave him

confidence that he had nothing to fear. By degrees he allowed himself to

walk up and down the deck, where it was a queer sensation to feel that the

long row of eyes must of necessity be fixed upon him. The mere fact that

he was wearing another man's clothes--clothes he had found in the cabin

trunk that had come on board for him--produced a shyness scarcely

mitigated by the knowledge that he was far from looking grotesque.

Little by little he plucked up courage to enter the smoking-room where the

tacit, matter-of-course welcome of his own sex seemed to him like

extraordinary affability. An occasional word from a neighbor, or an

invitation to "take a hand at poker," or to "have a cocktail," was like an

assurance to a man who fancies himself dead that he really is alive. He

joined in no conversations and met no advances, but from the possibilities

of doing so he would go back to his cabin smiling.

The nearest approach to pleasure he allowed himself was to sit in a corner

and listen to the talk of his fellow-men. It was sometimes amusing, but

oftener stupid; it turned largely on food, with irrelevant interludes on

business. It never went beyond the range of topics possible to the

American or Canadian merchants, professional men, politicians, and

saloon-keepers, who form the rank and file of smoking-room society on any

Atlantic liner; but the Delphic worshipper never listened to Apollo's

oracle with a more rapt devotion than Ford to this intercommunion of

souls.

It was in this way that he chanced one day to hear a man speaking of the

Argentine. The remarks were casual, choppy, and without importance, but

the speaker evidently knew the ground. Ford had already noticed him,

because they occupied adjoining steamer-chairs--a tall, sallow Englishman

of the ineffectual type, with sagging shoulders, a drooping mustache, and

furtive eyes. Ford had scarcely thought of the Argentine since the girl in

the cabin had mentioned it--- now ten or twelve days ago; but the

necessity of having an objective point, and one sufficiently distant

turned his mind again in that direction.

"Did I hear you speaking yesterday of Buenos Aires?" he ventured to ask,

on the next occasion when he found himself seated beside his neighbor on

deck.

The Englishman drew his brier-root pipe from his mouth, glanced sidewise

from the magazine he was reading, and jerked his head in assent.

"What kind of place did it seem to you?"

"Jolly rotten."

Pondering this reply, Ford might have lost courage to speak again had he

not caught the eye of the Englishman's wife as she leaned forward and

peeped at him across her husband's brier-root. There was something in her

starry glance--an invitation, or an incitement--that impelled him to

continue.

"I've been told it's the land of new opportunities."

The Englishman grunted without looking up. "I didn't see many."

"May I ask if you saw any?"

"None fit for a white man."

"My husband means none fit for a--gentleman. I liked the place."

From the woman's steely smile and bitter-sweet tones Ford got hints of

masculine inefficiency and feminine contempt which he had no wish to

follow up. He knew from fragments of talk overheard in the smoking-room

that they had tried Mexico, California, and Saskatchewan in addition to

South America. From the impatience with which she shook the foot just

visible beneath the steamer-rug, while all the rest of her bearing feigned

repose, he guessed her humiliation at returning empty to the land she had

left with an Anglo-Saxon's pioneering hope, beside a husband who could do

nothing but curse luck. To get over the awkward minute he spoke hurriedly.

"I've heard of a very good house out there--Stephens and Jarrott. Do you

happen to know anything about them?"

"Wool," the Englishman grunted again. "Wool and wheat. Beastly brutes."

"They were horribly impertinent to my husband," the woman spoke up, with a

kind of feverish eagerness to have her say. "They actually asked him if

there was anything he could do. Fancy!"

"Oh, I know people of that sort put a lot of superfluous questions to

you," Ford said. But the lady hurried on.

"As to questions, there are probably fewer asked you in Argentine than

anywhere else in the world. It's one of the standing jokes of the place,

both in Buenos Aires and out in the Camp. Of course, the old Spanish

families are all right; but when it comes to foreigners a social catechism

wouldn't do. That's one of the reasons the place didn't agree with us. We

wanted people to know who we'd been before we got there; but that branch

of knowledge isn't cultivated."

"More beastly Johnnies in the Argentine passin' under names not their

own," said the man, moved to speak, at last, "than in all the rest of the

world put together. Heard a story at the Jockey Club--lot of beastly

native bounders in the Jockey Club--heard a story at the Jockey Club of a

little Irish Johnny who'd been cheatin' at cards. Three other asses

kicked him out. Beggar turned at the door and got in his lick of revenge.

'Say boys, d'yez know why they call me Mickey Flanagan out here? Because

it's me na-ame.' Beggar 'd got 'em all there."

Ford nerved himself to laugh, but made an excuse for rising.

"Oh, there's lots of cleverness among them," the lady observed, before he

had time to get away. "In fact, it's one of the troubles with the

country--for people like us. There's too much competition in brains. My

husband hit the right nail on the head when he said there was no chance

for any beastly Johnny out there, unless he could use his bloomin'

mind--and for us that was out of the question."

Ford never spoke to them again, but he meditated on their words, finding

himself at the end of twenty-four hours in possession of a new light.

"I've got to use my bloomin' mind." The words seemed to offer him the clew

to life. It was the answer to the question, "What should I do _there_?"

which positively asked itself, whenever he thought of seeking a refuge in

this country or in that. It came as a discovery that within himself was

the power that would enable him to make the best of any country, and the

country to make the best of him.

He could hardly have explained how his decision to try Argentina had

become fixed. Until he saw whether or not he should get successfully

ashore at Liverpool there was a paralysis of all mental effort; but once

on the train for London his plans appeared before him already formed. The

country where few questions were asked and the past had no importance was

clearly the place for him. Within a fortnight he was a second-class

passenger on board the Royal Mail Steam Packet _Parana_, bound for Buenos

Aires--thus fulfilling, almost unexpectedly to himself, the suggestion

made by the girl in the Adirondack cabin, whose star, as he began to

believe, must rule his fate.

He thought of her now and then, but always with the same curious sense of

remoteness--or unreality, as of a figure seen in a dream. Were it not for

the substantial tokens of her actuality he possessed she would have seemed

to him like the heroine of a play. He would have reproached himself for

disloyalty if the intensity of each minute as he had to meet it had not

been an excuse for him. The time would come when the pressure of the

instant would be less great, and he should be able to get back the emotion

with which he left her. Perhaps if she had been "his type of girl," her

image would not have faded so quickly.

There was but one thing for which he was not grateful to her. She had

fixed the name of Herbert Strange upon him in such a way that he was

unable to shake it off. His own first name was the unobjectionable

monosyllable John--though he had always been known by his less familiar

middle name, Norrie--and as John Ford he could have faced the world with a

certain amount of bluff. He meant to begin the attempt immediately on

reaching London, but the difficulty of appearing in a hotel under one name

while everything he brought with him bore another was patent to him at

once. Similarly, he could not receive the correspondence incidental to his

outfit and his passage under the name of Ford in a house where he was

known as Strange. Having applied for his passage as Strange, he knew it

would create comment if he asked to be put down in the books as Ford. Do

what he would he was obliged to appear on the printed list of second-cabin

passengers as Herbert Strange, and he had made at least one acquaintance

who would expect to call him so after they reached land.

This was a little, clean-shaven man, in the neighborhood of sixty, always

dressed at sea as he probably dressed on shore. He wore nothing but black,

with a white shirt and a ready-made black bow-tie. He might have been a

butler, an elderly valet, or a member of some discreet religious order in

street costume. Ford had heard a flippant young Frenchman speak of him as

an "ancien curé, qui a fait quelque bêtise"; and indeed there was about

him that stamp of the ecclesiastic which is sometimes ineffaceable.

"I call myself Durand," he said to Ford, using the conveniently ambiguous

French idiom, "je m'appelle Durand."

"Et je m'appelle Strange, I call myself Strange," Ford had replied,

claiming the name for the first time without hesitation, but feeling the

irrevocable nature of the words as soon as he had uttered them.

Out of the crowd of second-rate Europeans of all races who made up the

second cabin, the man who called himself Strange had selected the man who

called himself Durand by some obscure instinct of affinity. "He looks like

an old chap who could give one information," was Strange's own way of

putting it, not caring to confess that he was feeling after a bit of

sympathy. But the give and take of information became the basis of their

friendship, and imparted the first real stimulus to the young man's

awkward efforts to use his mind.

Monsieur Durand had been thirty years in the Argentine, observing the

place and the people, native and foreign, with the impartial shrewdness

only possible to one who sought little for himself. It was a pleasure to

share the fruits of his experience with one so eager to learn, for young

men were not in the habit of showing him deference. He could tell Mr.

Strange many things that would be to his advantage--what to do--what to

avoid--what sort of place to live in--what he ought to pay--and what sort

of company to keep.

Yes, he knew the firm of Stephens and Jarrott--an excellent house. There

was no Mr. Stephens now, only a Mr. Jarrott. Mr. Stephens had belonged to

the great days of American enterprise in the southern hemisphere, to the

time of Wheelwright, and Halsey, and Hale. The Civil War had put an end to

that. Mr. Jarrott had come later--a good man, not generally understood. He

had suffered a great loss a few years ago in the death of his

brother-in-law and partner, Mr. Colfax. Mrs. Colfax, a pretty little

woman, who hadn't old age in her blood either--one could see that--had

gone back to the United States with her child--but a child!--blond as an

angel--altogether darling--_tout à fait mignonne_. Monsieur Durand thought

he remembered hearing that Mrs. Colfax had married again, but he couldn't

say for certain. What would you? One heard so many things. He knew less of

the family since the last boy died--the boy to whom he gave lessons in

Spanish and French. Death hadn't spared the household--taking the three

sons one after another and leaving father and mother alone. It was a

thousand pities Mrs. Colfax had taken the little girl away. They loved her

as if she had been their own--especially after the boys died. An excellent

house! Mr. Strange couldn't do better than seek an entry there--it is I

who tell you so--_c'est moi qui vous le dis_.

All this was said in very good English, with occasional lapses into

French, in a soft, benevolent voice, with slow benedictory movements of

the hands, more and more suggestive of an ecclesiastic _en civile_--or

under a cloud. Strange stole an occasional glance into the delicate,

clear-cut face, where the thin lips were compressed into permanent lines

of pain, and the sunken brown eyes looked out from under scholarly brows

with the kind of hopeful anguish a penitent soul might feel in the midst

of purifying flames. He remembered again that the flippant young Frenchman

had said, "Un ancien curé, qui a fait quelque bêtise." Was it possible

that some tragic sin lay under this gentle life? And was the

four-funnelled, twin-screwed _Parana_ but a ghostly ship bearing a cargo

of haunted souls into their earthly purgatory?

"But listen, monsieur," the old man began next day. But listen! There

would be difficulties. Stephens and Jarrott employed only picked men, men

with some experience--except for the mere manual labor such as the

Italians could perform. Wouldn't it be well for Mr. Strange to qualify

himself a little before risking a refusal? Ah, but how? Monsieur Durand

would explain. There was first the question of Spanish. No one could get

along in the Argentine without a working knowledge of that tongue.

Monsieur Durand himself gave lessons in it--and in French--but in the

English and American colonies of Buenos Aires exclusively. There were

reasons why he did not care to teach among Catholics, though he himself

was a fervent one, and he hoped--repentant. He pronounced the last word

with some emphasis, as though to call Strange's attention to it. If his

young friend would give him the pleasure of taking a few lessons, they

could begin even now. It would while away the time on the voyage. He had

his own method of teaching, a method based on the Berlitz system, but not

borrowed from it, and, he ventured to say, possessing its own good

points. For example: _el tabaco--la pipa--los cigarillos. Que es esto?

Esto es la pipa_. Very simple. In a few weeks' time the pupil is carrying

on conversations.

It would be an incalculable advantage to Mr. Strange if he could enter on

his Argentine life with some command of the vernacular. It might even be

well to defer his search for permanent employment until he could have that

accomplishment to his credit. If he possessed a little money--even a very

little--Oh, he did? Then so much the better. He need not live on it

entirely, but it would be something to fall back on while getting the

rudiments of his education. In the mean time he could learn a little about

wool if he picked up jobs--Oh, very humble ones!--they were always to be

had by the young and able-bodied--at the Mercado Central, one of the great

wool-markets of the world. He could earn a few pesetas, acquire practical

experience, and fit himself out in Spanish, all at the same time.

And he could live with relative economy. Monsieur Durand could explain

that too. In fact, he might get board and lodging in the same house as

himself, with Mrs. Wilson who conducted a modest home for "gentlemen

only." Mrs. Wilson was a Protestant--what they called a Methodist, he

believed--but her house was clean, with a few flowers in the patio, very

different from the frightful conventillos in which the poor were obliged

to herd. If Mr. Strange thought it odd that he, Monsieur Durand, should be

living beneath a Protestant roof--well, there were reasons which were

difficult to explain.

Later on, perhaps, Mr. Strange might take a season on some great sheep

estancia out in the Camp, where there were thousands of herds that were

thousands strong. Monsieur Durand could help him in that too. He could

introduce him to wealthy proprietors whose sons he had taught. It would be

a hard life, but it need not be for long. He would live in a mud hut,

dirty, isolated, with no companionship but that of the Italian laborers

and their womenkind. But the outdoor existence would do him good; the air

over the pampas was like wine; and the food would not be as bad as he

might expect. There would be an abundance of excellent meat, chiefly

mutton, it was true, which when cooked _à_ la guacho--_carne concuero_,

they called it in the Camp--roasted in the skin so as to keep all the

juices in the meat--! A gesture of the hands, accompanied by a succulent

inspiration between the teeth, gave Strange to understand that there was

one mitigation at least to life on an Argentine estancia.

To come into actual contact with the sheep, to know Oxfords, Cheviots,

Leicesters, and Black-faced Downs, to assist at the feedings and washings

and doctorings and shearings, to follow the crossings and recrossings and

crossings again, that bred new varieties as if they were roses, to trace

the processes by which the Argentine pampas supply novel resources to the

European manufacturer, and the European manufacturer turns out the smart

young man of London or New York, with his air of wearing "the very

latest"--all this would not only give Strange a pleasing sense of being at

the root of things, but form a sort of apprenticeship to his trade.

* * * * *

The men had not yet finished their hour of siesta, but Strange himself was

at work. Ten minutes were sufficient for his own snack, and he never

needed rest. Moreover, he was still too new to his position to do other

than glory in the fact that he was a free being, doing a man's work, and

earning a man's wage. Out in the Camp he had been too desolate to feel

that, but here in Buenos Aires, at the very moment when the great city was

waking to the knowledge of her queenship in the southern world--when the

commercial hordes of the north were sweeping down in thousands of ships

across the equator to outdo each other in her markets, it was an inspiring

thing merely to be alive and busy. He was as proud of Stephens and

Jarrott's long brick shed, where the sun beat pitilessly on the corrugated

iron roof, and the smell of wool nearly sickened him, as if it had been a

Rothschild's counting-house. His position there was just above the lowest;

but his enthusiasm was independent of trivial things like that. How could

he lounge about, taking siestas, when work was such a pleasure in itself?

The shed of which he had the oversight was a model of its kind, not so

much because his ambition designed to make it so, as because his ardor

could make it nothing else.

The roar of dock traffic through the open windows drowned everything but

the loudest sounds, so that busily working, he heard nothing, and paid no

attention, when some one stopped behind him. He had turned accidentally,

humming to himself in the sheer joy of his task, when the presence of the

stranger caused him to blush furiously beneath his tan. He drew himself

up, like a soldier to attention. He had never seen the head of the firm

that employed him, but he had heard a young Englishman describe him as

"looking like a wooden man just coming into life," so that he was enabled

to recognize him now. He did look something like a wooden man, in that the

long, lean face, of the tone of parchment, was marked by the few, deep,

almost perpendicular folds that give all the expression there is to a

Swiss or German medieval statue of a saint or warrior in painted oak. One

could see it was a face that rarely smiled, though there was plenty of

life in the deep-set, gray-blue eyes, together with a force of cautious,

reserved, and possibly timid, sympathy. Of the middle height and slender,

with hair just turning from iron-gray to gray, immaculate in white duck,

and wearing a dignified Panama, he stood looking at Strange--who, tall and

stalwart in his greasy overalls, held his head high in conscious pride in

his position in the shed--as Capital might look at Labor. It seemed a long

time before Mr Jarrott spoke--the natural harshness of his voice softened

by his quiet manner.

"You're in charge of this gang?"

"Yes, sir."

There was an embarrassed pause. As though not knowing what to say next,

Mr. Jarrott's gaze travelled down the length of the shed to where the

Italians, rubbing their sleepy eyes, were preparing for work again.

"You're an American, I believe?"

"Yes, sir."

"How old are you?"

"Not quite twenty-six."

"What's your name?"

"Herbert Strange!"

"Ah? One of the Stranges of Virginia?"

"No, sir."

There was another long pause, during which the older man's eyes wandered

once more over the shed and the piles of wool, coming back again to

Strange.

"You should pick up a little Spanish."

"I've been studying it. Hablo Español, pero no muy bien."

Mr. Jarrott looked at him for a minute in surprise.

"So much the better--tanto mejor," he said, after a brief pause, and

passed on.

VIII

He was again thinking how easy it had been, as he stood, more than three

years later, on the bluffs of Rosario, watching the sacks of wheat glide

down the long chute--full seventy feet--into the hold of the _Walmer

Castle_. The sturdy little Italians who carried the bags from the

warehouse in long single file might have been those he had superintended

in the wool-shed in Buenos Aires in the early stages of his rise. But he

was not superintending these. He superintended the superintendents of

those who superintended them. Tired with his long day in the office, he

had come out toward the end of the afternoon not only to get a breath of

the fresh air off the Parana, but to muse, as he often did, over the odd

spectacle of the neglected, half-forgotten Spanish settlement, that had

slumbered for two hundred years, waking to the sense of its destiny as a

factor of importance in the modern world. Wheat had created Chicago and

Winnipeg Adam-like from the ground; but it was rejuvenating Rosario de

Santa Fé Faust-like, with its golden elixir. It interested the man who

called himself Herbert Strange--resident manager of Stephens and Jarrott's

great wheat business in this outlet of the great wheat provinces--to watch

the impulse by which Decrepitude rose and shook itself into Youth. As yet

the process had scarcely advanced beyond the early stages of surprise.

The dome of the seventeenth-century Renaissance cathedral accustomed for

five or six generations to look down on low, one-storied Spanish dwellings

surrounding patios almost Moorish in their privacy, seemed to lift itself

in some astonishment over warehouses and flour-mills; while the mingling

of its sweet old bells with the creaking of cranes and the shrieks of

steam was like that chorus of the centuries in which there can be no

blending of the tones.

Strange felt himself so much a part of the rejuvenescence that the

incongruity gave him no mental nor æsthetic shock. If in his present

position he took a less naïve pride than in that of three years ago, he

was conscious none the less of a deep satisfaction in having his part,

however humble, in the exercise of the world's energies. It gave him a

sense of oneness with the great primal forces--with the river flowing

beneath him, two hundred miles to the Atlantic, with the wheat fields

stretching behind him to the confines of Brazil and the foothills of the

Andes--to be a moving element in this galvanizing of new life into the

dormant town, in this finding of new riches in the waiting earth. There

was, too, a kind of companionship in the steamers moored to the red buoys

in the river, waiting their turns to come up to the insufficient quays and

be loaded. They bore such names as _Devonshire_, _Ben Nevis_, and

_Princess of Wales_. They would go back to the countries where the speech

was English, and the ideals something like his own. They would go back,

above all, to the north, to the north that he yearned for with a yearning

to which time brought no mitigation, to the north which was coming to mean

for him what heaven means to a soul outside the scope of redemption.

It was only on occasions that this sentiment got possession of him

strongly. He was generally able to keep it down. Hard work, assisted by

his natural faculty for singleness of purpose and concentration of

attention, kept him from lifting the eyes of his heart toward the

unattainable. Moreover, he had developed an enthusiasm, genuine in its

way, for the land of his adoption. The elemental hugeness of its

characteristics--its rivers fifty to a hundred miles in width, its farms a

hundred thousand acres in extent, its sheep herds and cattle herds

thousands to the count--were of the kind to appeal to an ardent, strenuous

nature. There was an exhilarating sense of discovery in coming thus early

to one of the world's richest sources of supply at a minute when it was

only beginning to be tapped. Out in the Camp there was an impression of

fecundity, of earth and animal alike, that seem to relegate poverty and

its kindred ills to a past that would never return; while down in the Port

the growth of the city went on like the bursting of some magic, monstrous

flower. It was impossible not to share in some degree the pride of the

braggart Argentine.

It was difficult, too, not to love a country in which the way had been

made so smooth for him. While he knew that he brought to his work those

qualities most highly prized by men of business, he was astonished

nevertheless at the rapidity with which he climbed. Men of long experience

in the country had been more than once passed over, while he got the

promotion for which they had waited ten and fifteen years. He admired the

way in which for the most part they concealed their chagrin, but now and

then some one would give it utterance.

"Hello, grafter!" a little man had said to him, on the day when his

present appointment had become known among his colleagues.

The speaker was coming down the stairs of the head office in the Avenida

de Mayo as Strange was going up. His name was Green, and though he had

been twenty years in Argentine, he haled from Boston. Short and stout,

with gray hair, a gray complexion, a gray mustache, and wearing gray

flannels, with a gray felt hat, he produced a general impression of

neutrality. Strange would have gone on his way unheeding had not the

snarling tone arrested him. He had ignored this sort of insult more than

once; but he thought the time had come for ending it. He turned on an

upper step, looking down on the ashy-faced little man, to whom he had once

been subordinate and who was now subordinate to him.

"Hello--what?" he asked, with an air of quiet curiosity.

"I said, Hello, grafter," Green repeated, with bravado.

"Why?"

"I guess you know that as well as I do."

"I don't. What is it? Out with it. Fire away."

His tranquil air of strength had its effect in overawing the little man,

though the latter stood firm and began to explain.

"A grafter is a fellow with an underground pull for getting hold of what

belongs to some one else. At least that's what I understand by it--"

"It's very much what I understand by it, too. But have I ever got hold of

anything of yours?"

"Yes, confound you! You've taken my job--the job I've waited for ever

since 1885."

"Did waiting for it make it yours? If so, you would have come by it more

easily than I did. I worked for it."

"Worked for it? Haven't I worked for it, too? Haven't I been in this

office for going on seventeen years? Haven't I done what they've paid me

for--?"

"I dare say. But I've done twice what they've paid me for. That's the

secret of my pull, and I don't mind giving it away. You mayn't like

it--some fellows don't; but you'll admit it it's a pull you could have

had, as well as I. Look here, Green," he continued, in the same quiet

tone, "I'm sorry for you. If I were in your place, I dare say I should

feel as you do. But if I _were_ in your place, I'll be hanged if I

shouldn't make myself fit to get out of it. You're not fit--and that's the

only reason why you aren't going as resident manager to Rosario. You're

labelled with the year '1885,' as if you were a bottle of champagne--and

you've forgotten that champagne is a wine that gets out of date. You're a

good chap--quite as good as your position--but you're not better than your

position--and when you are you won't be left in it any longer."

In speaking in this way the man who had been Norrie Ford was consciously

doing violence to himself. His natural tendency was to be on friendly

terms with those around him, and he had no prompting stronger than the

liking to be liked. In normal conditions he was always glad to do a

kindness; and when he hurt any one's feelings he hurt his own still more.

Even now, though he felt justified in giving little Green to understand

his intoleration of impertinence, he was obliged to fortify himself by

appealing to his creed that he owed no consideration to any one. Little

Green was protected by a whole world organized in his defence; Norrie Ford

had been ruined by that world, while Herbert Strange had been born outside

it. With a temperament like that of a quiet mastiff, he was forced to turn

himself into something like a wolf.

In spite of the fact that little Green's account of the brief meeting on

the stairs presented it in the light of the castigation he had

administered to "that confounded upstart from nobody knows where," Strange

noticed that it made the clerks in the office, most of whom had been his

superiors as Green had been, less inclined to bark at his heels. He got

respect from them, even if he could not win popularity--and from

popularity, in any case, he had been shut out from the first. No man can

be popular who works harder than anybody else, shuns companionship, and

takes his rare amusements alone. He had been obliged to do all three,

knowing in advance that it would create for him a reputation of an "ugly

brute" in quarters whence he would have been glad to get good-will.

Finding the lack of popularity a safeguard not only against prying

curiosity, but against inadvertent self-betrayal, it was with some

misgiving that he saw his hermit-like seclusion threatened, as he rose

higher in the business and consequently in the social--scale. In the

English-speaking colony of Buenos Aires the one advance is likely to bring

about the other--especially in the case of a good-looking young man,

evidently bound to make his mark, and apparently of respectable

antecedents. The first menace of danger had come from Mr. Jarrott himself,

who had unexpectedly invited his intelligent employee to lunch with him at

a club, in order to talk over a commission with which Strange was to be

intrusted. On this occasion he was able to stammer his way out of the

invitation; but when later, Mr. Skinner, the second partner, made a like

proposal, he was caught without an excuse, being obliged, with some

confusion, to eat his meal in a fashionable restaurant in the Calle

Florida. Oddly enough, both his refusal on the one occasion and his

acceptance on the other obtained him credit with his elders and superiors,

as a modest young fellow, too shy to seize an honor, and embarrassed when

it was thrust upon him.

To Strange both occurrences were so alarming that he put himself into a

daily attitude of defence, fearing similar attack from Mr. Martin, the

third member of the firm. He, however, made no sign; and the bomb was

thrown by his wife. It came in the shape of a card informing Mr. Strange

that on a certain evening, a few weeks hence, Mrs. Martin would be at

home, at her residence in Hurlingham. It was briefly indicated that there

would be dancing, and he was requested to answer if he pleased. The

general information being engraved, his particular name was written in a

free bold hand, which he took to be that of one of the daughters of the

family.

Though he did his best to keep his head, there was everything in that bit

of pasteboard to throw him into a state of something like excitement. Not

only were the doors of the world Norrie Ford had known being thrown open

to Herbert Strange, but the one was being moved by the same thrill--the

thrill of the feminine--that had been so powerful with the other. He was

growing more susceptible to it in proportion as it seemed forbidden--just

as a man in a desert island may dream of the delights of wine.

He had looked at the Misses Martin, but had never supposed they could

fling a glance at him. He had seen them at the public gathering-places--in

their box at the opera, in the grand stand at the Jockey Club, in their

carriage at Palermo or in the Florida. They were handsome girls--blonde

and dashing--whose New York air was in pleasant contrast to the graceful

indolence or stolid repose of the dark-eyed ladies of the Argentine, too

heavily bejewelled and too consciously dressed according to the Paris

mode. Strange said of the Misses Martin, as he had said of Wild Olive,

that they were "not his type of girl"--but they were girls--they were

American girls--they were bright, lively girls, representing the very

poetry and romance of the world that had turned him out.

It was a foregone conclusion that he should decline their invitation, and

he did so; but the mere occasion for doing it gave his mind an impetus in

the direction in which he had been able hitherto to check it. He began

again to think of the feminine, to dream of it, to long for it. For the

time being it was the feminine in the abstract--without features or

personality. As far as it took form at all it was with the dainty,

nestling seductiveness that belonged to what he called his "type"--a charm

that had nothing in common with the forest grace of the Wild Olive or the

dash of the Misses Martin.

Now and then he caught glimpses of it, but it was generally out of reach.

Soft eyes, of the velvety kind that smote him most deliciously, would lift

their light upon him through the casement of some old Spanish residence,

or from the daily procession of carriages moving slowly along the palm

avenue at Palermo or in the Florida. When this happened he would have a

day or two of acting foolishly, in the manner of the Bonarense bucks. He

would stand for hours of his leisure time--if he could get away from the

office at the minute of the fashionable promenade--on the pavement of the

Florida, or under a palm-tree in the park, waiting for a particular

carriage to drive round again and again and again, while he returned the

sweet gaze which the manners of the country allow an unknown lady to

bestow, as a rose is allowed to shed its beauty. This being done, he

would go away, and realize that he had been making himself ridiculous.

Once the incarnation of his dreams came so near him that it was actually

within his grasp. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil dangled its

fruit right before his eyes in the person of Mademoiselle Hortense, who

sang at the Café Florian, while the clients, of whom he was sometimes one,

smoked and partook of refreshments. She was just the little round, soft,

dimpling, downy bundle of youth and love he so often saw in his mind's

eye, and so rarely in reality, and he was ready to fall in love with any

one. The mutual acquaintance was formed, as a matter of course, over the

piece of gold he threw into the tambourine, from which, as she passed from

table to table, she was able to measure her hearer's appreciation of art.

Those were the days in which he first began to be able to dress well, and

to have a little money to throw away. For ten days or a fortnight he threw

it away in considerable sums, being either in love or in a condition like

it. He respected Mademoiselle Hortense, and had sympathy with her in her

trials. She was desperately sick of her roving life as he was of Mrs.

Wilson's boarding-house. She was as eager to marry and settle down as he

to have a home. The subject was not exactly broached between them, but

they certainly talked round it. The decisive moment came on the night when

her troupe was to sail for Montevideo. In the most delicate way in the

world she gave him to understand that she would remain even at the

eleventh hour if he were to say the word. She might be on the deck, she

might be in her berth, and it still would not be too late. He left her at

nine, and she was to sail at eleven. During the two intervening hours he

paced the town, a prey to hopes, fears, temptations, distresses. To do him

justice, it was her broken heart he thought of, not his own. To him she

was only one of many possibilities; to her, he was the chance of a

lifetime. She might never, he said to himself, "fall into the clutches of

so decent a chap again." It was a wild wrestle between common sense and

folly--so wild that he was relieved to hear a clock strike eleven, and to

know she must have sailed.

The incident sobered him by showing him how near and how easily he could

come to a certain form of madness. After that he worked harder than ever,

and in the course of time got his appointment at Rosario. It was a great

"rise," not only in position and salary, but also in expectations. Mr.

Martin had been resident manager at Rosario before he was taken into

partnership--so who could tell what might happen next?

The first intimation of the change was conveyed by Mr. Jarrott in a manner

characteristically casual. Strange, being about to leave the private

office one day, after a consultation on some matter of secondary import,

was already half-way to the door, while Mr. Jarrott himself was stooping

to replace a book in the revolving bookcase that stood beside his chair.

"By-the-way," he said, without looking up, "Jenkins is going to represent

the house in New York. We think you had better take his place at Rosario."

Strange drew himself up to attention. He knew the old man liked his

subordinates to receive momentous orders as if they came in the routine of

the day.

"Very well, sir," he said, quietly, betraying no sign of his excitement

within. Raising himself, Mr. Jarrott looked about uneasily, as if trying

to find something else to say, while Strange began again to move toward

the door.

"And Mrs. Jarrott--"

Strange stopped so still that the senior partner paused with that air of

gentlemanly awkwardness--something like an Englishman's--which he took on

when he had firmly made up his mind.

"Mrs. Jarrott," he continued, "begs me to say she hopes you will--a--come

and lunch with us on Sunday next."

There was a long pause, during which the young man searched wildly for

some formula that would soften his point-blank refusal.

"Mrs. Jarrott is awfully kind," he began at last to stammer, "but if she

would excuse me--"

"She will expect you on Sunday at half-past twelve."

The words were uttered with that barely perceptible emphasis which, as the

whole house knew, implied that all had been said.

* * * * *

In the end the luncheon was no formidable affair. Except for his fear,

lest it should be the thin edge of the wedge of that American social life

which it would be perilous for him to enter, he would have enjoyed this

peep into a comfortable home, after his long exile from anything of the

sort. In building his house at Palermo, Mr. Jarrott had kept, in the

outlines at least, to the old Spanish style of architecture, as being most

suited to the history and climate of the country, though the wealthy

Argentines themselves preferred to have their residences look--like their

dresses, jewels, and carriages--as if they had come from Paris. The

interior patio was spacious, shaded with vines, and gay with flowers,

while birds, caged or free, were singing everywhere. The rooms

surrounding it were airy and cool, and adapted to American standards of

comfort. In the dining-room mahogany, damask, crystal, and silver gave

Strange an odd feeling of having been wafted back to the days and usages

of the boyhood of Norrie Ford.

As the only guest he found himself seated on Mrs. Jarrott's right, and

opposite Miss Queenie Jarrott, the sister of the head of the house. The

host, as his manner was, spoke little. Miss Jarrott, too, only looked at

Strange across the table, smiling at him with her large, thin,

upward-curving smile, comic in spite of itself, and with a certain pathos,

since she meant it to be charged with sentiment. Over the party at table,

over the elderly men-servants who waited on them, over the room, over the

patio, there was--except for the singing of the birds--the hush that

belongs to a household that never hears the noise or the laughter of

youth.

Mrs. Jarrott took the brunt of the conversation on herself She was a

beautiful woman, faded now with the pallor that comes to northern people

after a long residence in the sub-tropical south, and languid from the

same cause. Her handsome hazel eyes looked as if they had been used to

weeping, though they conserved a brightness that imparted animation to her

face. A white frill round her throat gave the only relief to her plain

black dress, but she wore many handsome rings, after the Argentine fashion

as well as a brooch and earrings of black pearls.

She began by asking her guest if it was true, as Mr. Jarrott had informed

her, that he was not one of the Stranges of Virginia. She thought he must

be. It would be so odd if he wasn't. There _were_ Stranges in Virginia,

and had been for a great many generations. In fact, her own family, the

Colfaxes, had almost intermarried with them. When she said almost, she

meant that they had intermarried with the same families--the Yorkes, the

Endsleighs and the Poles. If Mr. Strange did belong to the Virginia

Stranges, she was sure they could find relatives in common. Oh, he didn't?

Well, it seemed really as if he must. If Mr. Strange came from New York,

he probably knew the Wrenns. Her own mother was a Wrenn. She had been Miss

Wrenn before she was Mrs. Colfax. He thought he had heard of them? Oh,

probably. They were well-known people--at least they had been in the old

days--though New York was so very much changed. She rarely went back there

now, the voyage was so long, but when she did she was quite bewildered.

Her own family used to be so conservative, keeping to a little circle of

relatives and friends that rarely went north of Boston or south of

Philadelphia; but now when she made them a visit she found them surrounded

by a lot of people who had never been heard of before. She thought it a

pity that in a country where there were so few distinctions, those which

existed shouldn't be observed.

It was a relief to Strange when the sweet, languorous monologue,

punctuated from time to time by a response from himself, or an

interjectory remark from one of the others, came to an end, and they

proceeded to the patio for coffee.

It was served in a corner shaded by flowering vines, and presided over by

a huge green and gray parrot in a cage. The host and hostess being denied

this form of refreshment took advantage of the moment to stroll arm in arm

around the court, leaving Miss Jarrott in tête-à-tête with Strange. He

noticed that as this lady led the way her figure was as lithe as a young

girl's and her walk singularly graceful. "No one is ever old with a

carriage like yours," Miss Jarrott had been told, and she believed it. She

dressed and talked according to her figure, and, had it not been for

features too heavily accentuated in nose and chin, she might have produced

an impression of eternal spring-tide. As it was, the comic papers would

have found her cruelly easy to caricature, had she been a statesman. The

parrot screamed at her approach, croaking out an air, slightly off the

key:

/P

"Up and down the ba-by goes,

Turning out its lit-tle ..."

P/

Tempted to lapse into prose, it proceeded to cry:

"Wa-al, Polly, how are you to-day? Wa-al, pretty well for an old gal,"

after which there was a minute of inarticulate grumbling. When coffee was

poured, and the young man's cigarette alight, Miss Jarrott seized the

opportunity which her sister-in-law's soft murmur at the table had not

allowed her.

"It's really funny you should be Mr. Strange, because I've known a young

lady of the same name. That is, I haven't known her exactly, but I've

known about her."

Not to show his irritation at the renewal of the subject, Strange presumed

she was one of the Stranges of Virginia, with right and title to be so

called.

"She is and she isn't," Miss Jarrot replied. "I know you'll think it funny

to hear me speak so; but I can't explain I'm like that. I can't always

explain. I say lots and lots of things that people just have to interpret

for themselves It's funny I should be like that, isn't it? I wonder why?

Can you tell me why? And this Miss Strange--I never knew her really--not

really--but I feel as if I had. I always feel that way about friends of

friends of mine. I feel as if they were my friends, too. I'd go through

fire and water for them. Of course that's just an expression but you know

what I mean, now don't you?"

Having been assured on that point, she continued:

"I'm afraid you'll find us a very quiet household, Mr. Strange, but we're

in mourning. That is, Mrs. Jarrott is in mourning; and when those dear to

me are in mourning I always feel that I'm in mourning, too. I'm like that.

I never can tell why it is, but--I'm like that. My sister-in-law has just

lost her sister-in-law. Of course that's no relation to me, is it? And yet

I feel as if it was. I've always called Mrs. Colfax my sister-in-law, and

I've taught her little girl to call me Aunt Queenie. They lived here once.

Mr. Colfax was Mrs. Jarrott's brother and Mr. Jarrott's partner. The

little girl was born here. It was a great loss to my brother when Mr.

Colfax died. Mrs. Colfax went back to New York and married again. That was

a blow, too; so we haven't been on the same friendly terms of late years.

But now I hope it will be different. I'm like that. I always hope. It's

funny, isn't it? No matter what happens, I always think there's a silver

lining to the cloud. Now, why should I be like that? Why shouldn't I

despair, like other people?"

Strange ventured the suggestion that she had been born with a joyous

temperament.

"Wa-al, pretty well for an old gal!" screamed the parrot ending in a

croaking laugh.

"I'm sure I don't know," Miss Jarrott mused. "Everybody is different,

don't you think? And yet it sometimes seems to me that no one can be so

different as I am. I always hope and hope; and you see, in this case I've

been justified. We're going to have our little girl again. She's coming to

make us a long, long visit. Her name is Evelyn; and once we get her here

we hope she'll stay. Who knows? There may be something to keep her here.

You never can tell about that. She's an orphan, with no one in the world

but a stepfather, and he's blind. So who has a better right to her? I

always think that people who have a right to other people should have

them, don't you? Besides, he's going to Wiesbaden, to a great oculist

there, so that Evelyn will come to us as her natural protectors. She's

nearly eighteen now, and she wasn't eight when she left us. Oh yes, of

course we've seen her since then--when we've gone to New York--but that

hasn't been often. She will have changed; she'll have her hair up, and be

wearing her dresses long; but I shall know her. Oh, you couldn't deceive

me. I never forget a face. I'm like that. No, nor names either. I should

remember you, Mr. Strange, if I met you fifty years from now. I noticed

you when you first began to work for Stephens and Jarrott. So did my

sister-in-law, but I noticed you first. We've often spoken of you,

especially after we knew your name was Strange. It seemed to us so

strange. That's a pun, isn't it? I often make them. We both thought you

were like what Henry--that's Mr. Jarrott's oldest son--might have grown

to, if he had been spared to us. We've had a great deal of sorrow--Oh, a

great deal! It's weaned my sister-in-law away from the world altogether.

She's like that. My brother, too--he isn't the same man. So when Evelyn

comes we hope we shall see you often, Mr. Strange. You must begin to look

on this house as your second home. Indeed, you must. It'll please my

brother. I've never heard him speak of any young man as he's spoken of

you. I think he sees the likeness to Henry. That'll be next year when

Evelyn comes. No, I'm sorry to say it isn't to be this year. She can't

leave her stepfather till he goes to Wiesbaden. Then she'll be free. Some

one else is going to Wiesbaden with him. And isn't it funny, it's the same

Miss Strange--the lady we were speaking of just now."

It was already some months since those words had been spoken, so that he

had ceased to dwell on them; but at first they haunted him like a snatch

of an air that passes through the mental hearing, and yet eludes the

attempt to bring it to the lips. Even if he had had the synthetic

imagination that easily puts two and two together, he had not the leisure,

in the excitement of his removal to Rosario and the undertaking of his

duties there, to follow up a set of clews that were scarcely more palpable

than odors. Nevertheless the words came back to him from time to time, and

always with the same odd suggestion of a meaning special--perhaps

fatal--to himself. They came back to him at this minute, as he stood

watching the loading of the _Walmer Castle_ and breathing the fresh air

off the Parana. But if they threatened danger, it was a danger that

disappeared the instant he turned and faced it--leaving nothing behind but

the evanescent memory of a memory, such as will sometimes remain from a

dream about a dream.

IX

Another year had passed before he learned what Miss Jarrott's words were

to mean to him. Knowledge came then as a flash of revelation in which he

saw himself and his limitations clearly defined. His success at Rosario

had been such that he had begun to think himself master of Fate; but Fate

in half an hour laughingly showed herself mistress of him.

He had been called to Buenos Aires on an errand of piety and affection--to

bury Monsieur Durand. The poor old unfrocked priest had been gathered to

his rest, taking his secret with him--penitent, reconciled to the Church,

and fortified with the Last Sacraments. Strange slipped a crucifix between

the wax-like fingers, and followed--the only mourner--to the Recoleta

Cemetery.

Having ordered a cross to mark the grave, he remained in town a day or two

longer to attend to a small matter which for some time past he had at

heart and on his conscience. It was now three or four years since he had

set aside the sum lent him by the girl for whom he had still no other name

than that of the Wild Olive. He had invested it, and reinvested it, till

it had become a fund of some importance. Putting it now into the safest

American securities, he placed them in the hands of a firm of English

solicitors in Buenos Aires, with directions not only to invest the

interest from time to time, but--in the event of his death--to follow

certain sealed instructions with which also he intrusted them. From the

few hints he was able to give them in this way he had little doubt but

that her identity could be discovered, and the loan returned.

In taking these steps he could not but see that what would be feasible in

case of his death must be equally feasible now; but he had two reasons for

not attempting it. The first was definite and prudential. He was unwilling

to risk anything that could connect him ever so indirectly with the life

of Norrie Ford. Secondly, he was conscious of a vague shrinking from the

payment of this debt otherwise than face to face. Apart from

considerations of safety, he was unwilling to resort to the commonplace

channels of business as long as there was a possibility of taking another

way.

Not that he was eager to see her again. He had questioned himself on that

point, and knew she had faded from his memory. Except for a vision of

fugitive dark eyes--eyes of Beatrice Cenci--he could scarcely recall her

features. Events during the last six years had pressed so fast on each

other, life had been so full, so ardent, each minute had been so insistent

that he should give it his whole soul's attention, that the antecedent

past was gone like the passion no effort can recapture. As far as he could

see her face at all, it looked at him out of an abyss of oblivion to which

his mind found it as hard to travel back as a man's imagination to his

infancy.

It was with some shame that he admitted this. She had saved him--in a

sense, she had created him. By her sorcery she had raised up Herbert

Strange out of the ruin of Norrie Ford, and endowed him with young vigor.

He owed her everything. He had told her so. He had vowed his life to her.

It was to be hers to dispose of, even at her caprice. It was what he had

meant in uttering his parting words to her. But, now, that he had the

power in some degree, he was doing nothing to fulfil his promise. He had

even lost the desire to make the promise good.

It was not difficult to find excuses for himself. They were ready-made to

his hand. There was nothing practical that he could do except what he had

done about the money. Life was not over yet; and some day the chance might

come to prove himself as high-souled as he should like to be. If he could

only have been surer that he was inwardly sincere he would not have been

uneasy over his inactivity.

Then, within a few minutes, the thing happened that placed him in a new

attitude, not only toward the Wild Olive, but toward all life.

Business with the head office detained him in Buenos Aires longer than he

had expected. It was business of a few hours at a time, leaving him

leisure for the theatres and the opera, for strollings at Palermo, and for

standing stock-still watching the procession of carriages in the Florida

or the Avenida Sarmiento, in the good Bonarense fashion. He was always

alone, for he had acquired the art--none too easy--of taking pleasure

without sharing it.

So he found himself, one bright afternoon, watching the races from the

lawn of the Hipodromo of the Jockey Club. He was fond of horses, and he

liked a good race. When he went to the Hipodromo it was for the sporting,

not the social, aspect of the affair. Nevertheless, as he strolled about,

he watched for that occasional velvety glance that gave him pleasure, and

amused himself with the types seated around him, or crossing his

path--heavy, swarthy Argentines, looking like Italian laborers grown

rich--their heavy, swarthy wives, come out to display all the jewels that

could be conveniently worn at once--pretty, dark-eyed girls, already with

a fatal tendency to embonpoint, wearing diamonds in their ears and round

their necks as an added glory to costumes fresh from the rue de la

Paix--grave little boys, in gloves and patent-leather boots, seated

without budging by their mammas, sucking the tops of their canes in

imitation of their elder brothers, who wandered about in pairs or groups,

all of the latest cut, eying the ladies but rarely addressing them--tall

Englishmen, who looked taller than they were in contrast to the pudgy race

around them, as the Germans looked lighter and the French more

blond--Italian opera singers, Parisian actresses Spanish dancers,

music-hall soubrettes--diplomats of all nations--clerks out for a

holiday--sailors on shore--tourists come to profit by a spectacle that has

no equal in the southern world, and little of the kind that is more

amusing in the north.

As Strange's glance roamed about in search of a response he not

infrequently received it, for he was a handsome fellow by this time--tall,

well dressed, and well set up, his trim, fair beard emphasizing the

clear-cut regularity of his profile, without concealing the kindliness

that played about the mouth. A little gray on the temples, as well as a

few tiny wrinkles of concentration about the eyes, gave him an air of

maturity beyond his age of thirty-two. The Anglo-Saxon influence in the

Argentine is English--from which cause he had insensibly taken on an

English air, as his speech had acquired something of the English

intonation. He was often told that he might pass for an Englishman

anywhere, and he was glad to think so. It was a reason the less for being

identified as Norrie Ford. It sometimes seemed to him that he could, in

case of necessity, go back to North America, to New York, to Greenport, or

even to the little county town where he had been tried and sentenced to

death, and run no risk of detection.

* * * * *

The staring of other men first directed his attention toward her. She was

sitting slightly detached from the party of Americans to whom she clearly

belonged, and in which the Misses Martin formed the merrily noisy centre.

Though dressed in white, that fell softly about her feet, and trained on

the grass sidewise from her chair, her black cuffs, collar and hat

suggested the last days of mourning. Whether or not she was aware of the

gaze of the passers-by it was difficult to guess, for her air of demure

simplicity was proof against penetration. She was one of those dainty

little creatures who seem to see best with the eyes downcast; but when she

lifted her dark lashes, the darker from contrast with the golden hair, to

sweep heaven and earth in a blue glance that belonged less to scrutiny

than to prayer, the effort seemed to create a shyness causing the lids,

dusky as some flowers are, to drop heavily into place again, like curtains

over a masterpiece. It was so that they rose and fell before Strange, her

eyes meeting his in a look that no Argentine beauty could ever have

bestowed, in that it was free from coquetry or intention, and wholly

accidental.

It was in fact this accidental element, with its lack of preparation, that

gave the electric thrill to both. That is to say, in Strange the thrill

was electric; as for her, she gave no sign further than that she opened

her parasol and raised it to shade her face. Having done this she

continued to sit in undisturbed composure, though she probably saw

through her fringing lashes that the tall, good-looking young man still

stood spellbound, not twenty yards away.

Strange, on his part, was aware of the unconventionality of his behavior,

though he was incapable of moving on. He felt the occasion to be one which

justified him in transcending the established rules of courtesy. He was

face to face with the being who met not only all the longings of his

earthly love, but the higher, purer aspirations that accompanied it. It

was not, so he said to himself, a chance meeting; it was one which the

ages had prepared, and led him up to. She was "his type of girl" only in

so far as she distilled the essence of his gross imaginings and gave them

in their exquisite reality. So, too, she was the incarnation of his dreams

only because he had yearned for something mundane of which she was the

celestial, and the true, embodiment. He had that sense of the

insufficiency of his own powers of preconception which comes to a blind

man when he gets his sight and sees a rose.

He was so lost in the wonder of the vision that he had to be awakened as

from a trance when Miss Jarrott, very young and graceful, crossed the lawn

and held out her hand.

"Mr. Strange! I didn't know you were in town. My brother never mentioned

it. He's like that. He never tells. If I didn't guess his thoughts, I

shouldn't know anything. But I always guess people's thoughts. Why do you

suppose it is? I don't know. Do you? When I see people, I can tell what

they're thinking of as well as anything. I'm like that; but I can't tell

how I do it. I saw you from over there, and I knew you were thinking about

Evelyn. Now weren't you? Oh, you can't deceive me. You were thinking of

her just as plain--! Well, now you must come and be introduced."

He felt that he stumbled blindly as he crossed the bit of greensward in

Miss Jarrott's wake; and yet he kept his head sufficiently to know that he

was breaking his rules, contradicting his past, and putting himself in

peril. In being presented to the Misses Martin and their group, he was

actually entering that Organized Society to which Herbert Strange had no

attachments, and in which he could thrust down no roots. By sheer force of

will he might keep a footing there, as a plant that cannot strike into the

soil may cling to a bare rock. All the same the attempt would be

dangerous, and might easily lead to his being swept away.

It was in full consciousness, therefore, of the revolution in his life

that he bowed before the Misses Martin, who received him coldly. He had

not come to their dance, nor "called," nor shown them any of the

civilities they were accustomed to look for from young men. Turning their

attention at once to the other gentlemen about them, they made no effort

to detain him as Miss Jarrott led him to Miss Colfax.

Here the introduction would have been disappointing if the greatness of

the event had not been independent of the details with which it happened.

Strange was not in a condition to notice them, any more than a soul can

heed the formalities with which it is admitted into heaven. Nearly all his

impressions were subconscious--to be brought to the surface and dwelt on

after he went away. It was thus he recorded the facts relating to the gold

tint--the _teint doré_--of her complexion, the curl of her lashes that

seemed to him deep chestnut rather than quite black, as well as the little

tremor about her mouth, which was pensive in repose, and yet smiled with

the unreserved sweetness of an infant. He could not be said to have taken

in any of these points at a glance; but they came to him later, vividly,

enchantingly, in the solitude of his room at the Phoenix Hotel.

What actually passed would have been commonplace in itself had it not been

for what lay behind. Miss Colfax acknowledged the introduction with a

fleeting smile and a quick lifting of the curtains of her eyes. He did not

need that glimpse to know that they were blue, but he got a throb of bliss

from it, as does one from the gleam of a sunlit sea. To her answers to the

questions he asked as to when she had arrived, how she liked the

Argentine, and what she thought of the Hipodromo, he listened less than to

the silvery timbre of her voice. Mere words were as unimportant to those

first minutes of subtle ecstasy as to an old Italian opera. The music was

the thing, and for that he had become one enraptured auditory nerve.

There was no chair for him, so that he was obliged to carry on the

conversation standing. He did not object to this, as it would give him an

excuse for passing on. That he was eager to go, to be alone, to think, to

feel, to suffer, to realize, to trace step by step the minutes of the day

till they had led him to the supreme instant when his eyes had fallen on

her, to take the succeeding seconds one by one and extract the

significance from each, was proof of the power of the spell that had been

cast upon him.

"And isn't it funny, Evie, dear," Miss Jarrott began, just as he was about

to take his leave, "that Mr. Strange's name should be--"

"Yes, I've been thinking about that," Miss Colfax fluted, with that pretty

way she had of speaking with little movement of the lips.

But he was gone. He was gone with those broken sentences ringing in his

ears--casual and yet haunting--meaningless and yet more than

pregnant--creeping through the magic music of the afternoon, as a

death-motive breathes in a love-chant.

X

After a night of little sleep and much thinking he determined to listen to

nothing but the love-chant. He came to this decision, not in the

recklessness of self-will, but after due consideration of his rights. It

was true that, in biblical phrase, necessity was laid upon him. He could

no more shut his ears against that entrancing song than he could shut his

eyes against the daylight. This was not, however, the argument that he

found most cogent, as it was not the impulse from which he meant to act.

If he could make this girl his wife it would be something more than a case

of getting his own way; it would be an instance--probably the highest

instance--of the assertion of himself against a world organized to destroy

him. He could not enter that world and form a part of it; but at least he

could carry off a wife from it, as a lion may leap into a sheepfold and

snatch a lamb.

It was in this light that he viewed the matter when he accepted Miss

Jarrott's invitations--now to lunch, now to dinner, now to a seat in their

box at the opera or in their carriage in the park--during the rest of the

time he remained in town. It became clear to him that the family viewed

with approval the attachment that had sprung up between Miss Colfax and

himself, and were helping it to a happy ending. He even became aware that

they were growing fond of him--making the discovery with a queer

sensation of surprise. It was a thing so new in his experience that he

would have treated the notion as ridiculous had it not been forced upon

him. Women had shown him favors; one lonely old man, now lying in the

Recoleta Cemetery, had yearned over him; but a household had never opened

its heart to him before. And yet there could be no other reading of the

present situation. He began to think that Mr. Jarrott was delaying his

departure for Rosario purposely, to keep him near. It was certain that

into the old man's bearing toward him there had crept something that might

almost be called paternal, so that their business discussions were much

like those between father and son. Mrs. Jarrott advanced as far out of the

circle of her griefs to welcome him as it was possible for her languorous

spirit to emerge. Miss Jarrott, friendly from the first, attached him to

the wheels of her social chariot with an air of affectionate possession.

It required no great amount of perspicuity to see that the three elders

would be glad if Miss Colfax and he were to "make a match of it," and why.

It would be a means--and a means they could approve--of keeping their

little girl among them. As matters stood, she was only a visitor, who

spoke of her flight back to New York as a matter of course.

"I only came," she lisped to Strange, as they sat one day, under the

parrot's chaperonage, in the shady corner of the patio--"I only came

because when dear mamma died there was nothing else for me to do.

Everything happened so unfortunately, do you see? Mamma died, and my

stepfather went blind, and really I had no home. Of course that doesn't

matter so much while I'm in mourning--I mean, not having a home--but I

simply _must_ go back to New York next autumn, in order to 'come out.'"

[Illustration: "Who is Miriam?" was on his lips]

"Aren't you 'out' enough already?"

"Do you see?" she began to explain, with the quaint air of practical

wisdom he adored in her, "I'm not out at all--and I'm nearly nineteen.

Dear mamma fretted over it as it was--and if she knew it hadn't been done

yet--Well something must be managed, but I don't know what. It isn't as if

Miriam could do anything about it, though she's a great deal older than I

am, and has seen a lot of social life at Washington and in England. But

she's out of the question. Dear mamma would never have allowed it. And

she's no relation to me, besides."

The question, "Who is Miriam?" was on his lips, but he checked it in time.

He checked all questions as to her relatives and friends whom he did not

know already. He was purposely making ignorance his bliss as long as

possible, in the hope that before enlightenment could be forced upon him

it would be too late for any one to recede.

"Couldn't they do it for you here?" he asked, when he was sure of what he

meant to say. "I know the Miss Martins--"

"Carrie and Ethel! Oh, well! That isn't quite the same thing. _I_ couldn't

come out in a place like Buenos Aires--or anywhere, except New York."

"But when you've been through it all, you'll come back here, won't you?"

His eyes sought hers, but he saw only the curtains of the lids--those lids

with the curious dusk on them, which reminded him of the petals of certain

pansies.

"That'll--depend," she said, after a minute's hesitation.

"It'll depend--on what?" he persisted, softly.

Before she could answer the parrot interrupted, screaming out a bit of

doggerel in its hoarse staccato.

"Oh, that bird!" the girl cried, springing up. "I do wish some one would

wring its neck."

He got no nearer to his point that day, and perhaps he was not eager to.

The present situation, with its excitements and uncertainties, was too

blissful to bring to a sudden end. Besides, he was obliged to go through

some further rehearsing of the creed adopted in the dawn on Lake Champlain

before his self-justification could be complete. It was not that he was

questioning his right to act; it was only that he needed to strengthen the

chain of arguments by which his action must be supported--against himself.

Within his own heart there was something that pleaded against the breaking

off of this tender sprig of the true olive to graft it on the wild, in

addition to which the attitude of the Jarrott family disconcerted him. It

was one thing to push his rights against a world ready to deny them, but

it was quite another to take advantage of a trusting affection that came

more than half-way to meet him. His mind refused to imagine what they

would do if they could know that behind the origin of Herbert Strange

there lay the history of Norrie Ford. After all, he was not concerned with

them, he asserted inwardly, but with himself. They were intrenched within

a world able to take care of itself; while there was no power whatever to

protect him, once he made a mistake.

So every night, as he sat in his cheerless hotel room, he reviewed his

arguments, testing them one by one, strengthening the weak spots according

to his lights, and weighing the for and against with all the nicety he

could command. On the one side were love, happiness, position, a home,

children probably, and whatever else the normal, healthy nature craves;

on the other, loneliness, abnegation, crucifixion, slow torture, and

slower death. Was it just to himself to choose the latter, simply because

human law had made a mistake and put him outside the human race? The

answer was obvious enough; but while his intelligence made it promptly,

something else within him--some illogical emotion--seemed to lag behind

with its corroboration.

This hesitation of his entire being to respond to the bugle-call of his

need gave to his wooing a certain irregularity--an advance and recession

like that of the tide. At the very instant when the words of declaration

were trembling on his lips this doubt about himself would check him. There

were minutes--moonlit minutes, in the patio, when the birds were hushed,

and the scent of flowers heavy, and the voices of the older ones stole

from some lighted room like a soft, human obligato to the melody of the

night--minutes when he felt that to his "I love you!" hers would come as

surely as the echo to the sound; and yet he shrank from saying it. Their

talk would drift near to it, dally with it, flash about it, play attack

and defence across it, and drift away again, leaving the essential thing

unspoken. The skill with which she fenced with this most fragile of all

topics, never losing her guard, never missing her thrust or parry, and yet

never inflicting anything like a wound, filled him with a sort of rapture.

It united the innocence of a child to the cleverness of a woman of the

world, giving an exquisite piquancy to both. In this young creature, who

could have had no experience of anything of the kind, it was the very

essence of the feminine.

By dint of vigil and meditation he drew the conclusion that his inner

hesitancy sprang from the fact that he was not being honest with himself.

He was shirking knowledge that he ought to face. Up to the present he had

done his duty in that respect, and done it pluckily. He had not balked at

the statement that his rôle in the world was that of an impostor--though

an impostor of the world's own creation. It had been part of the task

forced upon him "to deceive men under their very noses," as he had

expressed it to himself that night on Lake Champlain. Whatever vengeance,

therefore, discovery might call upon him, he could suffer nothing in the

loss of self-respect. He would be always supported by his inner approval.

Remorse would be as alien to him as to Prometheus on the rock.

In the present situation he was less sure of that, and there he put his

finger on his weakness. Seeing shadows flitting in the background he

dodged them, instead of calling them out into daylight. He was counting on

happy chances in dealing with the unforeseen, when all his moves should be

based on the precise information of a general.

Therefore, when, in the corner of the patio, the next opportunity arose

for asking the question, "Who is Miriam?" he brought it out boldly.

"She's a darling." The unexpected reply was accompanied by a sudden

lifting of the lashes for a rapturous look and one of the flashing smiles.

"That's high praise--from you."

"She deserves it--from any one!"

"Why? What for? What has she done to win your enthusiasm when other people

find it so hard?"

"It isn't so hard--only some people go the wrong way to work about it, do

you see?"

She leaned back in her wicker chair, fanning herself slowly, and smiling

at him with that air of mingled innocence and provocation which he found

the most captivating of her charms.

"Do I?" he was tempted to ask.

"Do you? Now, let me think. Really, I never noticed. You'd have to begin

all over again--if you ever did begin--before I could venture an opinion."

This was pretty, but it was not keeping to the point.

"Evidently Miriam knows how to do it, and when I see her I shall ask her."

"I wish you _could_ see her. You'd adore her. She'd be just your style."

"What makes you think that? Is she so beautiful? What is she like?"

"Oh, I couldn't tell you what she's like. You'd have to see her for

yourself. No, I don't think I should call her beautiful, though some

people do. She's awfully attractive anyhow."

"Attractive? In what way?"

"Oh, in a lot of ways. She isn't like anybody else. She's in a class by

herself. In fact, she has to be, poor thing."

"Why should she be poor thing, with so much to her credit in the way of

assets?"

"Do you see?--that's something I can't tell you. There's a sort of mystery

about her. I'm not sure that I understand it very well myself. I only know

that dear mamma didn't feel that she could take her out, in New York,

except among our very most intimate friends, where it didn't matter. And

yet when Lady Bonchurch took her to Washington she got a lot of offers--I

know that for a fact--and in England, too."

"I seem to be getting deeper in," Strange smiled, with the necessary air

of speaking carelessly. "Who is Lady Bonchurch?"

"Don't you know? Why, I thought you knew everything. She was the wife of

the British Ambassador. They took a house at Greenport that year because

they were afraid about Lord Bonchurch's lungs. It didn't do any good,

though. He had to give up his post the next winter, and not long after

that he died. I don't think air is much good for people's lungs, do you? I

know it wasn't any help to dear mamma. We had all those tedious years at

Greenport, and in the end--but that's how we came to know Lady Bonchurch,

and she took a great fancy to Miriam. She said it was a shame a girl like

that shouldn't have a chance, and so it was. Mamma thought she interfered

and I suppose she did. Still, you can't blame her much, when she had no

children of her own, can you?"

"I shouldn't want to blame her if she gave Miriam her chance."

"That's what I've always said. And if Miriam had only wanted to, she could

have been--well, almost anybody. She had offers and offers in Washington,

and in England there was a Sir Somebody-or-other who asked her two or

three times over. He married an actress in the end--and dear mamma thought

Miriam must be crazy not to have taken him while he was to be had. Dear

mamma said it would have been such a good thing for me to have some one

like Miriam--who was under obligations to us, do you see?--in a good

social position abroad."

"But Miriam didn't see it in that way?"

"She didn't see it in any way. She's terribly exasperating in some

respects, although she's such a dear. Poor mamma used to be very tried

about her--and she so ill--and my stepfather going blind--and everything.

If Miriam had only been in a good social position abroad it would have

been a place for me to go--instead of having no home--like this."

There was something so touching in her manner that he found it difficult

not to offer her a home there and then; but the shadows were marching out

into daylight, and he must watch the procession to the end.

"It seems to have been very inconsiderate of Miriam," he said. "But why do

you suppose she acted so?"

"Dear mamma thought she was in love with some one--some one we didn't know

anything about--but I never believed that. In the first place, she didn't

know any one we didn't know anything about--not before she went to

Washington with Lady Bonchurch. And besides, she couldn't be in love with

any one without my knowing it, now could she?"

"I suppose not; unless she made up her mind she wouldn't tell you."

"Oh, I shouldn't want her to tell me. I should see it for myself. She

wouldn't tell me, in any case--not till things had gone so far that--but I

never noticed the least sign of it, do you see? and I've a pretty sharp

eye for that sort of thing at all times. There was just one thing. Dear

mamma used to say that for a while she used to do a good deal of moping in

a little studio she had, up in the hills near our house--but you couldn't

tell anything from that. I've gone and moped there myself when I've felt I

wanted a good cry--and I wasn't in love with any one."

There was a long silence, during which he sat grave, motionless,

reflecting. Now and then he placed his extinguished cigarette to his

lips, with the mechanical motion of a man forgetful of time and place and

circumstance.

"Well, what are you thinking about?" she inquired, when the pause had

lasted long enough. He seemed to wake with a start.

"Oh--I--I don't know. I rather fancy I was thinking about--about this

Miss--after all, you haven't given me any name but Miriam."

"Strange, her name is. The same as yours."

"Oh? You've never told me that."

"Aunt Queenie has, though. But you always seem to shuffle so when it's

mentioned that I've let it alone. I don't blame you, either; for if

there's one thing more tedious than another, it's having people for ever

fussing about your name. There was a girl at our school whose name was

Fidgett--Jessie Fidgett--a nice, quiet girl, as placid as a church--but I

do assure you, it got to be so tiresome--well, you know how it would

be--and so I decided I wouldn't say anything about Miriam's name to you,

nor about yours to her. Goodness knows, there must be lots of Stranges in

the world--just as much as Jarrotts."

"So that--after all--her name was Miriam Strange."

"It was, and is, and always will be--if she goes on like this," Miss

Colfax rejoined, not noticing that he had spoken half-musingly to himself.

"She was a ward of my step-father's till she came of age," she added, in

an explanatory tone. "She's a sort of Canadian--or half a Canadian--or

something--I never could quite make out what. Anyhow, she's a dear. She's

gone now with my stepfather to Wiesbaden, about his eyes--and you can't

think what a relief to me it is. If she hadn't, I might have had to go

myself--and at my age--with all I've got to think about--and my coming

out--Well, you can see how it would be."

She lifted such sweet blue eyes upon him that he would have seen anything

she wanted him to see, if he had not been determined to push his inquiries

until there was nothing left for him to learn.

"Were you fond of him?--your stepfather?"

"Of course--in a way. But everything was so unfortunate I know dear mamma

thought she was acting for the best when she married him; and if he hadn't

begun to go blind almost immediately--But he was very kind to mamma, when

she had to go to the Adirondacks for her health. That was very soon after

she returned to New York from here--when papa died. But she was so lonely

in the Adirondacks--and he was a judge--a Mr. Wayne--with a good

position--and naturally she never dreamed he had anything the matter with

his eyes--it isn't the sort of thing you'd ever think of asking about

beforehand--and so it all happened that way, do you see?"

He did see. He could have wished not to see so clearly. He saw with a

light that dazzled him. Any step would be hazardous now, except one in

retreat; though he was careful to explain to himself that night that it

was retreat for reconnoitre, and not for running away. The mere fact that

the Wild Olive had taken on personality, with a place of some sort in the

world, brought her near to him again; while the knowledge that he bore her

name--possibly her father's name--seemed to make him the creation of her

magic to an even greater degree than he had felt hitherto. He could

perceive, too, that by living out the suggestions she had made to him in

the cabin--the Argentine--Stephens and Jarrott--"the very good firm to

work for"--he had never got beyond her influence, no more than the

oak-tree gets beyond the acorn that has been its seed. The perception of

these things would have been enough to puzzle a mind not easily at home in

the complex, even if the reintroduction of Judge Wayne had not confused

him further.

It was not astonishing, therefore, that he was seized with a sudden

longing to get away--a longing for space and solitude, for the pampas and

the rivers, and, above all, for work. In the free air his spirit would

throw off its oppression of discomfort, while in a daily routine of

occupation he often found that difficulties solved themselves.

"If you think that this business of Kent's can get along without me now,"

he said to Mr. Jarrott, in the private office, next morning, "perhaps I

had better be getting back to Rosario."

Not a muscle moved in the old man's long, wooden face, but the gray-blue

eyes threw Strange a curious look.

"Do you want to go?" he asked, after a slight pause.

Strange smiled, with an embarrassment that did not escape observation.

"I've been away longer than I expected--a good deal longer. Things must

want looking after, I suppose. Green can take my place for a while, but--"

"Green is doing very well--better than I thought he could. He seems to

have taken a new start, that man."

"I'm not used to loafing, sir. If there's no particular reason for my

staying on here--"

Mr. Jarrott fitted the tips of his fingers together, and answered slowly.

"There's no particular reason--just now. We've been speaking

of--of--a--certain changes--But it's too soon--"

"Of course, sir, I don't want to urge my private wishes against--"

"Quite so; quite so; I understand that. A--a--private wishes, you say?"

"Yes, sir; entirely private."

The gray-blue eyes rested on him in a gaze meant to be uninquisitive and

non-committal, but which, as a matter of fact, expressed something from

which Strange turned his own glance away.

"Very well; I'd go," the old man said, quietly.

Strange left his cards that afternoon at the house just when he knew Mrs.

Jarrott would be resting and Miss Jarrott driving with Miss Colfax. At

seven he took the night boat up the Plata to the Parana.

XI

"Evie, what do you think made Mr. Strange rush away like that? Your uncle

says he didn't have to--that he might just as well have stayed in town."

"I'm sure I don't know," was Evie's truthful response, as she flitted

about the dining-room table arranging the flowers before luncheon.

"Your uncle thinks you do," Mrs. Jarrott said, leaning languidly back in

an arm-chair. Her tone and manner implied that the matter had nothing to

do with her, though she was willing to speak of it. This was as far as she

could come to showing an interest in anything outside herself since the

boys died. She would not have brought up the subject now if the girl's

pallor during the last few days had not made them uneasy.

"I haven't the least idea," Miss Colfax declared. "I was just as much

surprised as you were, Aunt Helen."

"Your uncle thinks you must have said something to him--"

"I didn't. I didn't say anything to him whatever. Why should I? He's

nothing to me."

"Of course he's nothing to you, if you're engaged to Billy Merrow."

Miss Colfax leaned across the table, taking a longer time than necessary

to give its value to a certain rose.

"I'm not engaged to him now," she said, as if after reflection--"not in

my own mind, that is."

"But you are in his, I suppose."

"Well, I can't help that, can I?"

"Not unless you write and tell him it's all over."

Miss Colfax stood still, a large red flower raised in protestation.

"That would be the cruellest thing I ever heard of," she exclaimed, with

conviction. "I don't see how you can bear to make the suggestion."

"Then what are you going to do about it?"

"I needn't do anything just yet. There's no hurry--till I get back to New

York."

"Do you mean to let him go on thinking--?"

"He'd much rather. Whenever I tell him, it will be too soon for him.

There's no reason why he should know earlier than he wants to."

"But is that honor, dear?"

"How can I tell?" At so unreasonable a question the blue eyes clouded with

threatening tears. "I can't go into all those fine points, Aunt Helen, do

you see? I've just got to do what's right."

Mrs. Jarrot rose with an air of helplessness. She loved her brother's

daughter tenderly enough, but she admitted to herself that she did not

understand young girls. Having borne only sons, she had never been called

upon to struggle with the baffling.

"I hope you're not going to tell any one, Aunt Helen," Evie begged, as

Mrs. Jarrott seemed about to leave the room. "I shouldn't want Uncle

Jarrott to know, or Aunt Queenie, either."

"I shall certainly spare them," Mrs. Jarrott said, with what for her was

asperity. "They would be surprised, to say the least, after the

encouragement you gave Mr. Strange."

"I didn't give it--he took it. I couldn't stop him."

"Did you want to?"

"I thought of it--sometimes--till I gave up being engaged to Billy."

"And having passed that mental crisis, I suppose it didn't matter."

"Well, the mental crisis, as you call it, left me free. I sha'n't have to

reproach myself--"

"No; Mr. Merrow will do that for you."

"Of course he will. I expect him to. It would be very queer if he didn't.

I shall have a dreadful time making him see things my way. And with all

that hanging over me, I should think I might look for a little sympathy

from you, Aunt Helen. Lots of girls wouldn't have said anything about it.

But I told you because I want you to see I'm perfectly straight and

above-board."

Mrs. Jarrott said no more for the moment, but later in the day she

confided to her husband that the girl puzzled her. "She mixes me up so

that I don't know which of us is talking sense." She was not at all sure

that Evie was fretting about Mr. Strange--though she might be. If she

wasn't, then she couldn't be well. That was the only explanation of her

depression and loss of appetite.

"You can bet your life he's thinking of her," Mr. Jarrott said, with the

lapse from colloquial dignity he permitted himself when he got into his

house-jacket. "He's praying to her image as if it was a wooden saint."

With the omission of the word wooden this was much what Strange was doing

at Rosario. Not venturing--in view of all the circumstances--to write to

her, he could only erect a shrine in his heart, and serve it with a

devotion very few saints enjoy. He found, however, that absence from her

did not enable him to form detached and impartial opinions on his

situation, just as work brought no subconsciously reached solution to the

problems he had to face. In these respects he was disappointed in the

results of his unnecessary flight from town.

At the end of two months he was still mentally where he was when he left

Buenos Aires. His intelligence assured him that he had the right of a man

who has no rights to seize and carry off what he can; while that nameless

something else within him refused to ratify the statement. What precise

part of him raised this obstacle he was at a loss to guess. It could not

be his conscience, since he had been free of conscience ever since the

night on Lake Champlain. Still less could it be his heart, seeing that his

heart was crying out for Evie Colfax more fiercely than a lion roars for

food. The paralysis of his judgment had become such that he was fast

approaching the determination to make Love the only arbiter, and let all

the rest go hang!

He was encouraged in this impulse by the thought that between her and

himself there was the mysterious bond of something "meant." He believed

vaguely in a Power, which, with designs as to human destinies, manifests

its intentions by fitful gleams, vouchsafed somewhat erratically. In this

way Evie Colfax, as a beautiful, fairy-like child, had been revealed to

him at the most critical instant of his life. His mind had never hitherto

gone back willingly to recollections of that night; but now he made the

excursion into the past with a certain amount of pleasure. He could see

her still, looking at a picture-book, her face resting on the back of her

hand, and golden ringlets falling over her bare arm. He could see the

boy, too. He remembered that his name was Billy. Billy who? he wondered.

He could hear the sweet, rather fretful voice calling from the shadows:

"Evie dear, it's time to go to bed. Billy, I don't believe they let you

stay up as late as this at home."

How ridiculous it would have been to remember such trivial details all

these years if something hadn't been "meant" by it. There was a hint in

the back of his mind that by the same token something might have been

"meant" about the Wild Olive, too, but he had not an equal temptation to

dwell on it. The Wild Olive, he repeated, had never been "his type of

girl"--not from the very first. It was obviously impossible for a

superintending Power to "mean" things that were out of the question.

He had got no further than this when the news was conveyed to him by Mrs.

Green, whom he met accidentally in the street, that Mr. Skinner, the

second partner, had had a "stroke," and had been ordered to Carlsbad. Mrs.

Skinner, so Mrs. Green's letters from the Port informed her, was to

accompany her husband. Furthermore, Miss Colfax was seizing the

opportunity to travel with them to Southampton, where she would be able to

join friends who would take her to New York. There was even a rumor that

Miss Jarrott was to accompany her niece, but Mrs. Green was unable to

vouch for the truth of it. In any case, she said, there were signs of "a

regular shaking up," such as comes periodically in any great mercantile

establishment; and this time, she ventured to hope, Mr. Green would get

his rights.

XII

The knowledge that it was a juncture at which to execute a daring movement

acted as an opiate on what would otherwise have been, for Strange, a day

of frenzy. While to the outward eye he was going quietly about his work,

he was inwardly calling all his resources to his aid to devise some plan

for outwitting circumstance. After forty-eight hours of tearing at his

heart and hacking at his brain, he could think of nothing more original

than to take the first train down to the Port, ask the girl to be his

wife, and let life work out the consequence. At the end of two days,

however, he was saved from a too deliberate defiance of the

unaccounted-for inner voice, by an official communication from Mr.

Jarrott.

It was in the brief, dry form of his business conversation, giving no hint

that there were emotions behind the stilted phraseology, and an old man's

yearnings. Mr. Skinner was far from well, and would "proceed immediately"

to Carlsbad. Strange would hand over the business at Rosario to Mr.

Green--who would become resident manager, _pro tem_ at any rate--and

present himself in Buenos Aires at the earliest convenient moment. Mr.

Jarrott would be glad to see him as soon as possible after his arrival.

That was all; but as far as the young man was concerned, it saved the

situation. On consulting the steamer-list he saw that the Royal Mail

Steam Packet _Corrientes_ would sail for Southampton in exactly six days'

time. By dint of working all night with Mr. Green, who was happy to lend

himself to anything that would show him the last of his rival, he was able

to take a train to the Port next day. It was half-past six when he arrived

in Buenos Aires. By half-past eight he had washed, changed to an evening

suit, and dined. At nine his cab stopped at the door of the house at

Palermo.

As he followed the elderly man-servant who admitted him, the patio was so

dim that he made his way but slowly. He made his way but slowly, not only

because the patio was dim, but because he was trying to get his crowding

emotions under control before meeting his employer in an interview that

might be fraught with serious results. For once in his life he was

unnerved, tremulous, almost afraid. As he passed the open doors and

windows of unlighted, or dimly lighted, rooms he knew she might be in any

one of the shadowy recesses. It would have been a relief to hear her at

the piano, or in conversation, and to know her attention was diverted.

None the less, he peered about for a glimpse of her, and strained his

hearing for a sound of her voice. But all was still and silent, except for

the muffled footfall of the servant leading him to the library at the far

end of the court.

If she had not moved out unexpectedly from behind a pillar, a little

fluttering figure in a white frock, he could have kept his self-control.

If he had not come upon her in this sudden way, when she believed him in

Rosario, she, too, would not have been caught at a disadvantage. As it

was, he stood still, as if awe-struck. She gave a little cry, as if

frightened. It is certain that his movement of the arms was an automatic

process, not dictated by any order of the brain; and the same may be said

for the impulse which threw her on his breast. If, after that, the rest

was not silence, it was little more. What he uttered and she replied was

scarcely audible to either, though it was understood by both. It was all

over so quickly that the man-servant had barely thrown open the library

door, and announced "Mr. Strange," when Strange himself was on the

threshold.

It was a moment at which to summon all his wits together to attend to

business; but he was astonished at the coolness and lightness of heart

with which he did it. After those brief, sudden vows exchanged, it was as

easy to dismiss Evie Colfax momentarily from his mind as it is to forget

money troubles on inheriting a fortune. Nevertheless as he got himself

ready to deal with practical, and probably quite commercial, topics, he

was fully conscious of the rapture of her love, while he was scarcely less

aware of a comfort closely akin to joy in feeling that the burden of

decision had been lifted from him. Since Fate had taken the matter into

her own hands, she could be charged with the full responsibility.

* * * * *

Mr. Jarrott, who was smoking a cigar and sipping his after-dinner coffee,

was in evening dress, but wore his house-jacket--a circumstance of which

Strange did not know the significance, though he felt its effect. The old

man's welcome was not unlike that of a shy father trying to break the

shackles of reserve with a home-coming son. He pushed Strange gently into

the most comfortable arm-chair beside which he drew up a small table for

the cigar-box, the ash-tray, and the matches. He rang for another cup,

and brought the coffee with his own hands. Strange remembered how often,

after a hard day's work, he had been made uncomfortable by just such

awkward, affectionate attentions from poor old Monsieur Durand.

"I didn't expect you so soon," Mr. Jarrott began, when they were both

seated, "but you've done well to come. I'm afraid we're in for a regular

upset all round."

"I hope it isn't going to make things harder for you, sir," Strange

ventured, in the tone of personal concern which his kindly treatment

seemed to warrant him in taking.

"It won't if I can get the right men into the right places. That'll be the

tough part of the business. The wool department will suffer by Mr.

Skinner's absence--he's very ill, in my opinion--and there's only one man

who can take his place." Strange felt his heart throbbing and the color

rising to his face. He did not covet the position, for he disliked the

wool department; but it was undeniably a "rise," and right along the line

of highest promotion. "That's Jenkins," Mr. Jarrott finished, quietly.

Strange said nothing. After all, he was relieved. Mr. Jarrott did not go

on at once, but when he did speak Strange fell back into the depths of his

arm-chair, in an attitude suggestive of physical collapse.

"And if Jenkins came back here," the old man pursued, "you'd have to take

his place in New York."

Strange concealed his agitation by puffing out successive rings of smoke.

If he had not long ago considered what he would say should this proposal

ever be made to him, he would have been even more overcome than he

actually was. He had meant to oppose the offer with a point-blank refusal,

but what had happened within the last quarter of an hour had so modified

this judgment that he could only sit, turning things rapidly over in his

mind, till more was said.

"There's no harm in--a--telling you," Mr. Jarrott went on again, with that

hesitancy Strange had begun to associate with important announcements,

"that--a--Jenkins will be--a--taken into partnership. You won't--a--be

taken into partnership--a--yet. But you will have a good salary in New

York. I can--a--promise you that much."

It was because he was unnerved that tears smarted in the young man's eyes

at the implications in these sentences. He took his time before

responding, the courtesies of the occasion being served as well by silence

as by speech.

"I won't try to thank you for all your kindness, sir," he said, with a

visible effort, "until I've told you something--something that, very

likely, you won't approve of. I've asked Miss Colfax to marry me, and

she's consented."

The old man's brows shot up incredulously.

"That's odd," he said, "because not half an hour ago she told my wife

there was nothing whatever between you--that you hadn't even written to

her since you went away. Mrs. Jarrott only left this room as you rang the

door-bell."

"But it was after I rang the door-bell," Strange stammered "that

I--I--asked her."

"Quick work," was the old man's only comment, but the muscles of his lips

relaxed slowly, as if rusty from disuse, into one of his rare smiles.

With the assurance of this reception, Strange could afford to sit silent

till Mr. Jarrott made some further sign.

"By the terms of her father's will," he explained some minutes later, "I'm

her guardian and trustee. She can't marry without my consent till she

comes of age. I don't say that in this instance I should--a--withhold my

consent; but I should feel constrained to--a--give it with conditions."

"If it's anything I can fulfil, sir--"

"No; it wouldn't concern you so much as her. She's very young--and in

heart she's younger than her age. She knows nothing about men--she can't

know--and I dare say you're the first young fellow who ever said anything

to her about--well, you understand what I mean. Mind you, we've no

objections to you whatever. You are your own credentials; and we take them

at their face value. You tell me you're an orphan, with no near relations,

so that there couldn't be any complications on that score. Besides that,

you're--a likely chap; and I don't mind saying that--a--my ladies--Mrs.

Jarrott and my sister--have taken rather a fancy to you. It can't do you

any--a--harm to know as much as that."

Strange murmurred his appreciation, and the old man went on.

"No; you're all right. But, as I said before, she's very young, and if we

married her to you out of hand we feel that we shouldn't be giving her a

fair show. We think she ought to have a little more chance to look round

her, so to speak. In fact, she isn't what ladies call 'out.' She's

scarcely ever seen a man, except through a window. Consequently, we think

we must send her back to New York, for a winter at any rate, and trot the

procession before her. My sister is to undertake it, and they're to sail

next week. That won't make so much difference to you now, as it would if

you weren't soon going to follow them."

Strange nodded. He felt himself being wafted to New York, whether he would

or no.

"Now all I have to say is this: if, when she's regularly started, she

sees some other young fellow she likes better than you, you're to give her

up without making a fuss."

"Of course. Naturally, she would have to be free to do as she chose in the

long run. I'm not afraid of losing her--"

"That'll be your own lookout. You'll be on the spot, and will have as good

a chance as anybody else. You'll have a better chance; for you'll only

have to keep what you've won, while any one else would have to start in at

the beginning. But it's understood that there--a--can be no talk of a

wedding just yet. She must have next winter to reconsider her promise to

you, if she wants to."

Strange having admitted the justice of this, the old man rose, and held

out his hand.

"We'll keep the matter between ourselves--in the family, I mean--for the

time being," he said, with another slowly breaking smile; "but the ladies

will want to wish you luck. You must come into the drawing-room and see

them."

They were half-way to the door when Mr. Jarrott paused.

"And, of course, you'll go to New York? I didn't think it necessary to ask

you if you cared to make the change."

With the question straight before him, Strange knew that an answer must be

given. He understood now how it is that there are men and women who find

it worth their while to thrust their heads into lions' mouths.

"Yes, sir, of course," he answered, quietly; and they went on to join the

ladies.