That was one of many cruises, and the _Blue Wing_ contributed not a
little to the gayety of the waning days of summer at Mount Desert. It
was the _Blue Wing_, too, that in early September brought the Wharton
family, bag and baggage, southward to Philadelphia, where Mortimer Crabb
lingered, hoping to exact a promise of marriage before Christmas.
But Patricia would make no promises. She had a will of her own, her
fiance discovered, and had no humor to forego the independence of her
spinsterhood for the responsibilities which awaited her. It was in this
situation that Crabb discovered himself to be possessed of surprising
virtues in tolerance and tact. Patricia, he knew, had many admirers. The
woods at Bar Harbor had been, both figuratively and literally, filled
with them, and most of them had been eligible. Jack Masters, and
Stephen Ventnor, who lived in Philadelphia, were still warm in pursuit
of the fair quarry, who had not yet consented to an announcement of her
engagement to Crabb.
But these men caused him little anxiety. They were both quite young and
quite callow and stood little chance with a cosmopolitan of Crabb's
caliber. But there was another man of whom people spoke. His name was
Heywood Pennington, and for three years he had been off a-soldiering in
the Philippines. It had only been a boy-and-girl affair, of course, and
most people in Philadelphia had forgotten it, but from his well-stored
memory Crabb recalled at least one calf-love that had later grown into a
veritable bull-in-the-china-shop. It was not that he didn't believe
fully that Patricia would marry him, and it wasn't that he didn't
believe in Patricia. It was only that he knew that for the first time in
his life, his whole happiness depended upon that least stable but most
wonderful of creatures, the unconscious coquette. Moreover, Mortimer
Crabb believed firmly in himself, and he also believed that, married to
him, Patricia would be safely fulfilling her manifest destiny.
But the Philippine soldier kept bobbing up into Crabb's background at
the most inopportune moments: once when the soldier's name had been
mentioned on the _Blue Wing_, and Patricia had sighed and turned her
gaze to the horizon, again at a dinner at Bar Harbor, and later in
Philadelphia, at the Club. Bit by bit Crabb had learned Heywood
Pennington's history, from the wild college days, through his short
business career to the tempestuous and scarcely honorable adventures
which had led to his enlistment under a false name in the regular army
three years ago. It was not a creditable history for a fellow of
Pennington's antecedents, and when his name was mentioned, even the
fellows who had known him longest, turned aside and dismissed him with a
word.
The name of the soldier never passed between the engaged couple, and so
far as Crabb was concerned, Mr. Pennington might never have existed.
Patricia lacked nothing which the most exacting fiancee might require.
Roses and violets arrived regularly at the Wharton country place near
Haverford, and in the afternoons Crabb himself came in a motor car,
always cheerful, always patient, always original and amusing.
To such a wooing, placid, and ardent by turns, Patty yielded inevitably,
and at last, late in September, consented to announce the engagement.
The news was received in her own family circle with delighted amazement,
for Mortimer Crabb had by this time made many friends in Philadelphia,
and Miss Wharton had refused so many offers that her people, remembering
Pennington, had decided that their handsome relative was destined to a
life of single blessedness. They bestirred themselves at once in a round
of entertainments in her honor, the first of which was a lawn party and
masque at her uncle Philip Wharton's country place, near Bryn Mawr.
Philip Wharton never did things by halves, and society, back from the
seashore and mountains, welcomed the first large entertainment which was
to mark the beginning of the country life between seasons.
The gay crowds swarmed out from the wide doorways, into the balmy night,
liberated from the land of matter-of-fact into a domain of enchantment.
Gayly caparisoned cavaliers, moving in the spirit of the characters they
represented strode gallantly in the train of their ladies whose graceful
draperies floated like film from white shoulders and caught in their
silken meshes the shimmer of the moonbeams. Bright eyes flashed from
slits in masks and bolder ones looked searchingly into them. All of the
ages had assembled upon a common meeting ground; a cinquecento rubbed
elbows with an American Indian, Joan of Arc was cajoling a Crusader, a
nun was hazarding her hope of salvation in flirtation with the devil,
the eyes of a Puritan maid fell before the glances of a matador. Nothing
had been spared in costume or in setting to make the picture complete.
The music halted a moment and then swept into the rhythm of a waltz. A
murmur of delight and like a change in the kaleidoscope the pieces all
converged upon the terrace.
It was here that a diversion occurred. A laugh went up from a group upon
the steps and their glances were turned in one direction. Seated upon
the balustrade in the glow of the Chinese lanterns sat a tramp, drinking
a glass of punch from the refreshment table close at hand. It was a
wonderful disguise that he wore. The shirt of some dark material, was
stained and torn, the hat, of the brown, army type, was battered out of
shape, and many holes had been bored into the crown. The trousers had
worn to the color of dry grass and the boots were old, patched, and
yellow with mud and grime. In place of the conventional black mask, he
wore a bandanna handkerchief tied around his brow, with holes for the
eyes. The ends of the handkerchief hung to his breast and hid his
features, but under its edges could be seen a brown ear and a patchy
beard. As the crowd watched him he lifted his glass aloft solemnly and
made the motions of drinking their health. There was a roar of applause.
A whimsical arrogance in the pose of the squarely-made shoulders and the
tilt of the head gave an additional interest to the somber figure.
He looked like a drawing from the pages of a comic weekly, but the
ostentation of his gesture gave him a dignity that made the resemblance
less assured. As the people crowded around him and sought to pierce his
disguise, he got down from his perch and strolled away into the shadows.
When the music stopped again he was surrounded by a curious group, but
he towered in their center grotesque, and inscrutable. To those who
questioned him too closely he mumbled at their meddling and told them to
be off. Then he tightened his belt and asked when supper would be ready.
"Are you hungry?" someone asked. He glared at the questioner.
"What kind of a tramp would I be if I wasn't hungry?" he growled, and
those around him laughed again. So they took him to a table and fed him.
He ate ravenously. They got him something to drink and it seemed to
vanish down his throat without even touching his lips.
"Isn't he splendid?" said Patricia Wharton, who, with Mortimer Crabb,
had just come up. "But who----? I can't think of anyone, and yet----"
The tramp looked up at her suddenly and dropped his fork upon the table.
"_Splendid_," he cried. "That's me. _Splendid._ I sure glitter in this
bunch, don't I?"
There was something irresistibly comic in the gesture with which he
swept the group.
Patricia was still watching him--a puzzled expression in her eyes.
"Who is he?" she asked; but Crabb shook his head. "I haven't an
idea--but he _is_ clever. And look at those boots--they're the real
thing. I wouldn't want to try to dance in them, though."
The tramp drained his glass--set it down on the table and wiped his
mouth on the back of his hand--rose and disappeared between the palms
and hydrangeas into the darkness.
For a guest in good standing the tramp then behaved strangely, for when
he had reached a sheltered spot, in the bushes at the end of the English
Garden, he sank at full length upon the grass and buried his head in his
hands, groaning aloud. It was three years since he had seen her--three
years, and yet she was just as he had seen her last. Time had touched her
lightly, only caressing her playfully, rounding her features to matured
beauty, while he---- A vision of camps, cities, skirmishes, orgies, came
out of his mind in a disordered procession, all culminating in the
incident which had brought him to ruin. Every detail of _that_ at least
was clear; the sudden rage where the bonds of patience had reached the
snapping point--and then the blow. The tramp laughed outright. He could
see now the smirk on the face of the drunken lieutenant as he toppled
over backward and struck his head on the edge of the mahogany table.
After that--irons, the court martial, the transport, Alcatraz, his
chance, the friendly plank, the swim for the mainland, and freedom. He
had never heard whether the man lived or died. He didn't much care. He
got what was coming to him.
The tramp was a fugitive still. He had walked since morning from Malvern
station, where he had been thrown off the freight train on which he
had worked a ride east from Harrisburg. At Bryn Mawr he had begged a
meal--the irony of it had sunk into his soul--at the back door of a
country house at which he had once been a welcome guest. A gossipy
chauffeur had let him into his garage for a rest and had given
him a cigarette over which he had learned the recent doings in the
neighborhood. The thought of venturing into Philip Wharton's grounds
that night had entered his madcap brain while he lay in the woods along
the Gulf Road, trying to make up his mind whether his tired feet would
carry him the twelve miles that remained between him and the city.
Why had he returned? God knew. His feet had dragged him onward as though
impelled by some force beyond his power to resist. Now that he was near
the home of his boyhood it seemed as if any other place in the world
would have been better. It was so real--the peaceful respectability
of this country--so like Her. And yet its very peacefulness and
respectability angered him. Was it nothing to have hungered and
thirsted and sweated that the honor of these people and that of others
like them might be preserved? Even Patricia's blamelessness was
intolerant--reproachful. The springs of memory that had gushed forth
just now at the sight of her were dried in their source. There was a
dull ache, a sinking of the spirit that was almost a physical pain; but
the unreasoning fever of the wayward boy, the wrenching fury of the
outcast soldier were lacking, and for a long time he lay where he had
fallen without moving.