"SALLY IN OUR ALLEY"
She thought no one heard, but out by the azalea hedge, a man was
standing, listening to the hushed chords floating through the open
window.
From the bungalow on the Yokohama Bluff, Daunt had come back to Tokyo
with a sense of dissatisfaction deeper than should have been caused by
his jarring talk with Phil. Perhaps, though he did not guess it, his
mood had to do with a bulky letter in his pocket, received that day. It
was from "Big" Murray, his chum at college, whom he had commonly
addressed by opprobrious epithets that covered an affection time had not
diminished. Of all the men in his class Daunt would have picked him as
the one least likely to marry. Yet the letter had contained a
wedding-invitation and a ream of the usual hyperbole. "Going to name me
godfather, is he!" Daunt had muttered as he read. "The driveling old
horse-thief!" For in some elusive way the intended distinction suggested
that he himself was a hoary back-number, not to be reckoned among the
forces of youth. Strolling from Shimbashi Station, under the clustered,
gaily-colored paper-lanterns, swaying above the rustle and stir of the
exotic street, this thought rankled. A vague discontent stirred in him.
Tokyo had been the objective point of Daunt's six years of diplomatic
career, and he had found the Kingdom of the Slender Swords a fascinating
and absorbing study. He loved its contrasts and its contradictions, its
marvelous artistry, the reserve and nobility of its people, and its
savage, unshamed, sincerity of purpose. In the absorbing routine of the
Chancery and the bright gaieties of the capital's diplomatic circle, the
first year had gone swiftly enough. Since then the Glider experiments
had lent an added zest.
Even at college, Langley's first aëroplane had interested him and out of
that interest had grown a course of reading which had given him a broad
technical knowledge of applied mechanics. In Japan he had conceived the
idea of the new fan-propeller, worked out in many an hour of study in
the little Japanese house in Aoyama, which he had taken because it
adjoined the parade-ground where his earliest experiments were made. At
first the _Corps Diplomatique_ had smiled at this as a harmless _pour
passer le temps_, to be classified with the Roumanian Minister's kennel
of Pomeranians or the Chilian Secretary's collection of _daimyo_ dolls.
But week by week the little crowd of Japanese spectators had grown
larger; often Daunt had recognized among the attentive brown faces this
or that superior military officer whom he knew, albeit in civilian
dress. One day his friend, Viscount Sakai, a dapper young officer on the
General Staff, had surprised him with the offer from the Japanese War
Department of the use of an empty garage on the edge of the great
esplanade. Only a month ago, he had awaked to the knowledge that his
name was known to the aëro enthusiasts of Paris, New York and Vienna,
and that his propeller was an assured success.
Yet to-night he felt that he had somehow failed. The splendid vitality
of the moving scene, the thud and click of wooden _géta_ and the whirr
of _rick'sha_--all the many-keyed diapason of the rustling, lanterned
vistas stretching under the pale moon-lighted sky--lacked the sense of
intimate companionship. The warm still air, freighted with aromatic
scents of cedar from some new-built shop, the pungent smell of incense
burning before some shadowed shrine, the odors of drenched shrubbery
behind the massive retaining wall of some rich noble's compound, came to
him with a new sense of estrangement. The murmured sound of voices
behind the glimmering paper _shoji_ told him, suddenly, that he was
lonely. For the first time in six years, he was feeling keenly his long
isolation from the things of home, the pleasant fellowship and the
firesides of old friends. In this foreign service which he so loved, he
had been growing out of touch, he told himself, out of thought, of the
things "Big" Murray had sought and found.
Unconsciously, the "drivel," as he had denominated it, of the letter in
his pocket, had infected him with sweet and foolish imaginings, and
slowly these took the nebulous shape of a woman. He had often dreamed of
her, though he had never seen her face. It was half-veiled now in the
bluish haze of his pipe, while she talked to him before a fire of
driftwood (that burned with red and blue lights because of sea-ghosts in
it) and her voice was low and clear like a flute.
The wavering outline was still before his mind's eye as he trod the
quiet road that led to the Embassy, entered its wide gate and slowly
crossed the silent garden toward his bachelor cottage on the lawn. And
there, suddenly, the vision had seized a vagrant melody and had spoken
to him in song. Daunt thrust his cold pipe into his pocket and listened
with head thrown back.
It was no brilliant display of technique that held him, for the player
was touching simple chords, but these were singing old melodies that
took him far to other scenes and other times. He smiled to himself. How
long it had been since he had sung them--not since the old college days!
That happy, irresponsible era of senior dignities came back vividly to
him, the campus and the singing. For years he had not recollected it all
so keenly! He had been glee-club soloist, pushed forward on all
occasions and applauded to the echo. Praise of his singing he had
accepted somewhat humorously--never but once had it touched him deeply,
and that had been on commencement afternoon.
He had slipped away from the wavering cheers at the station, because he
could not bear the farewells, and, far down one of the campus lanes, had
come on pretty Mrs. Claybourne sitting on a rustic bench. Again he heard
her speak, as plainly as if it were yesterday: "Why, if it isn't Mr.
Daunt! I wonder how the university can open in the fall without you!" He
had sat down beside her as she said: "This very insistent young person
with me has been heartbroken because we could not get tickets for the
Glee-Club Concert last night. She wanted to hear you sing."
He had looked up then to see a young girl, seated on the leaning trunk
of a tulip-tree. Her neutral-tinted skirt lay against the dark bark; her
face was almost hidden by a spray of the great, creamy-pink blossoms.
Some quality in its delicate loveliness had made him wish to please her,
and sitting there he had sung the song that was his favorite. Mrs.
Claybourne had pulled a big branch of the tulip-tree to hand him like a
bouquet over the footlights, but the girl's parted lips, her wide deep
brown eyes, had thanked him in a better way!
The music, now floating over the garden, by such subconscious
association, recalled this scene, overlaid, but never forgotten. Hark! A
cascade of silver notes, and then an old air that had been revived in
his time to become the madness of the music-halls and the pet of the
pianolas--the one the crowded campus had been wont to demand with
loudest voice when his tenor led the "Senior Singing." It brought back
with a rush the familiar faces, the gray ivied dormitories with their
slim iron balconies, the throbbing plaint of mandolins, and his own
voice--
"Of all the girls that are so smart,
There's none like pretty Sally!
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives----"
He scarcely knew he sang, but the vibrant tenor, lifting across the
scent of the wistaria, came clearly to the girl at the piano. For a
moment Barbara's fingers played on, as she listened with a strained
wonder. Then the music ceased with a discord and she came quickly
through the opened window.
The song was smitten from Daunt's lips. In the instant that she stood
outlined on the broad piazza, a fierce snarling yelp and a clatter came
from within the house and there rang out a screamed Japanese warning. An
outer door flew open and the huge figure of Doctor Bersonin ran out,
pursued by a leaping white shadow, while the air thrilled to the savage
cry of a hound, shaken with rage.
"_Run, Barbara!_" The Ambassador's voice came from the doorway. But the
white, moonlit figure, in its gauzy evening gown, turned too late.
Empty-handed, Daunt dashed for the piazza, as, with a crash, a heavy
porch chair, hurled by a Japanese house-boy, penned the animal for an
instant in a corner. He caught the white figure up in his arms, sprang
into the shade of the wistaria arbor, and set her feet on its high
railing. The voice from the doorway called again, sharply.
"This way, Doctor! _Quick!_"
The wolf-hound, trailing its broken chain, had leaped the barrier and
was launched straight at the crouching expert. The latter had dragged
something small and square from his pocket and he seemed now to hold
this out before him. Daunt, wrenching a cleat from the arbor railing,
felt a puff of cold wind strike his face, and something like an elfin
note of music, high and thin as an insect's, drifted across the
confusion. He rushed forward with his improvised weapon--then stopped
short. The dog was no longer there.
The Ambassador made an exclamation. He stepped down and peered under the
piazza; even in the dim light the long space was palpably empty. The
head-boy spoke rapidly in Japanese and pointed toward the gate.
"He says he must have jumped down this side," explained Daunt, "and run
out to the street. He's nowhere in the garden, at any rate. We can see
every inch. How surprising!" He spoke to the boy in the vernacular. "He
will have the gates closed at once and telephone a warning to the police
station."
Bersonin had sat down on the edge of the piazza. He was crouched far
over; his big frame was shaken with violent shudderings. Suddenly his
head went back and he began to laugh--a jarring, grating, weird
man-hysteria that seemed to burst suddenly beyond his control.
The Ambassador went to him hurriedly, but Bersonin shook off the hand on
his shoulder and rising, still emitting his dreadful laughter, staggered
across the lawn and out of the gate.
The appalling mirth reëchoed from far down the quiet road.