The year will all be summer weather
When speech and action go together;
When Aucassin's sage words are met
In all his deeds with Nicolette;
And though fair Daphne's words be free,
Look not too soon her swain to be:
The year will all be summer weather,
When speech and action go together.
--_Song from The Monarch of Nil_.
The reader of this history may have been conscious, from time to time,
of a mysterious glow--now baleful, now rather cheerful, like the light
from the tap-room of an inn--which has illuminated the horizon of the
narrative. It appeared in certain allusions found in Mr. Alvord's
conversation with Mr. Amidon during the episode of the Wrong House, and
so terrified him as to give him thoughts of flight from Bellevale. It
glared more brightly in the chat at the Club. It flamed concretely on
our sight when Mr. Brassfield met its source on the street that day he
made his fatal escape. Mr. Alvord slangily called it "the Strawberry
Blonde." Mr. Brassfield very improperly pinched its elbow, and called
it "Daise." It is high time that we put on our smoked glasses and look
it in the face in such a formal introduction as will enable us to do it
tardy justice--for we may have been guilty of misjudgment!
Miss Daisy Scarlett, sitting on a piano-stool, with one foot curled up
under her, was entertaining Doctor Julia Brown and Miss Flossie Smith,
who had called on her at the home of Major Pumphrey, her uncle. Miss
Scarlett was well and shiveringly known in Bellevale, where she visited
often, and was generally esteemed for her many good qualities of heart
and mind, and for the infinite variety of her contributions to the
sensations of a not over-turbulent social swim. Her entertainment in
this instance consisted in readings from a certain book which must be
regarded as an early literary imprudence of a most estimable and
industrious, as well as improving writer--_Poems of Passion_. The
particular selection rendered by Miss Scarlett was the one (unknown, I
presume, to my readers--no, my dear, we haven't it) which informs us
what the first person singular feminine, being invited into Paradise,
would do if the third person singular masculine, down in the regions
infernal, should open his beautiful arms and smile. Miss Scarlett read
ill sentiments very well, and Miss Smith laid violent hands on herself
and looked shocked.
"Oh, Daisy!" she exclaimed, "don't, please don't!"
"Oh, Flossie!" said Miss Daisy imitatively, "don't pretend! That poem
is simply great!"
Doctor Brown laughed, quite in the manner of the bass villain in the
comic opera.
"The dissecting table," said she, "brings all these beautiful arms and
brows to the same dead level of tissue--unpoetical, but real."
Miss Scarlett liberated her foot, spun about, and dashed into a stormy
prelude, modulating into the accompaniment to the refrain of Sullivan's
_Once Again_, which she sang with much fervor.
She was about the height of a well-grown girl of twelve or thirteen,
and had appealing eyes of delf blue, and a round face of peachy
softness. Her hair was undeniably red, of a shade which put to shame
such verbal mitigations as "auburn" or "golden," and was of tropic
luxuriance and anarchistic disposition. It curled and uncurled and
strayed all about her brow and neck like an explosion of spun lava.
For the rest, had she really been a little girl of twelve, one would
feel free to describe her as fat and roly-poly; but in the case of a
young spinster of somewhere in her third decade, well-gowned and stayed
and otherwise in physical subjection to the modiste, and singing of
love like a diva, what can one say? No more than this, perhaps, that
the fortunate man who carries her off the field a prize, will realize
before he has got very far that he has captured something.
"Love, once again, meet me once again!
Old love is waking; shall it wake in vain!"
Thus sang Miss Scarlett, ending with a fervid trill. Then she turned
about, sitting with her feet very wide apart, and faced Doctor Brown.
"Dissecting table, indeed!" she burst forth. "I tell you, it's
blasphemy to speak of making such use of a nice man! But, if I could
pick 'em out, so as to be sure the right ones were dissected, I don't
know but I'd agree."
Flossie Smith said that some of them ought to be put to _some_ use; and
Doctor Brown, having reminded the company of her profession, merely
laughed again.
"Here I am down from Allentown," Miss Scarlett proceeded, "on purpose
to be stayed with flagons and comforted with apples, as I have been
here in the past. I wanted to have a good sort of lackadaisical time
with the nice boys here, and I've had to stay--I don't know how
long--on a famine diet of women and girls, with Ella Wheeler for sauce.
It makes me swearing mad!"
"I like that now!" said Flossie. "I really like that!"
"Well, I don't," Miss Scarlett went on. "I'm not used to it. To be
left alone--oh, of course Billy Cox has been trying to butt in, but
what good is he? My Hercules, my Roman Antony, who won my trusting
heart last summer, at a time when I had just got it back from what I
had thought a final and total loss--I find him away, and when he gets
back, because, forsooth, he happens to be newly engaged, he's so
wrapped up in a little thing like that, that he might as well have
stayed in New York. He doesn't respond when I ring up his office on
the telephone; he doesn't see me on the street---or, at least, only
once--he seems scared. I've a good mind to give him something to _be_
scared about!"
"Your condition," said the doctor, "is verging on the pathological."
"I don't know what path it's verging on," was the reply, "but it isn't
the primrose path of dalliance. There's some mystery in it."
"Go to Madame What's-Her-Name down at the hotel," said Flossie. "She
has solved almost all the mysteries we used to have--for a
consideration. And she is said to have superior facilities for
observing this Great Brassfield Mystery of yours."
"I must!" replied Miss Scarlett, looking out of the window. "There's
Billy Cox just going into his house! What a pity for a bachelor to
have such a big house all to himself--it has filled me with sighs for
the past week, that thought! Oh, girls, I've an idea! Let's call him
over and have him take us down to her! Central! Give me 432, please.
Is that you, Billy? This is Daisy. Don't you want to do something for
me?--Oh, you behave, now! We want you to take us somewhere down town,
so don't take off your coat. We'll explain when you come over.
Good-by!"
"Well, of all things!" exclaimed Flossie. "_I_ don't care about Mr.
Cox, nor his big house! And the doctor and I have just started----"
"Oh, we can't go," said the doctor, "but that won't break Daisy's
heart; she didn't expect we would, did you?"
"Well, I shall be sorry not to have you go, of course," said Miss
Scarlett. "But if you must go, how would it do for you to slip away
before Billy, comes in, so as to leave him to me? I may be able to
make something of Billy, if I'm allowed to have my way with him.
_Must_ you go? So glad you called. Of course, we shall meet at our
reception? Good-by!"
Madame le Claire looked amusedly down on Miss Scarlett. The
bright-haired one was questioning her concerning her mystic art.
Could she see into the future?
Sometimes, when the conditions were right.
Could she read thoughts?
Let the lady judge, on the statement that two men, one with brown and
the other with gray eyes, had been much in the lady's thoughts lately.
Marvelous! And could she tell what her thoughts in that connection had
been? Well, never mind about that! Did she know about palmistry? And
could she _really_ put people under her influence so that they must do
as she willed? How nice that must be! And would she and the professor
come up to the Pumphreys' reception and arrange to give a program of
occult feats for the entertainment of the guests? Surely; they should
be very glad; that was a part of their profession.
During these negotiations Mr. Cox waited outside, and Florian Amidon,
meeting him in the lobby and being accosted as 'Gene, stopped for a
talk, fearing to slight some dear but unknown friend. The word "'Gene"
was becoming a sort of round shot across the bows in his Bellevale
cruises. The parley (concerning wells and tanks) he cut as short as
possible, and, passing on, started up the stairway.
Half-way up there was a broad landing, and as Florian turned on this,
he saw at the head of the flight the blast-furnace of hair, the
striking hat and the pleasantly rounded figure of Clara's visitor--a
person to him quite unknown. Fate, however, seemed to have in store
for him an extraordinary introduction, for instantly he was aware of
the descent upon him of a fiery comet of femininity. The lady seemed
to be falling down stairs. With a little cry she descended, partly
flying, partly falling, partly sliding flown the baluster--a whirl of
superheated hair, swirling skirts, and wide, appealing eyes of delf
blue. Amidon caught her in his arms, and sought to place her gently on
her feet: but in the pure chance and accident of the encounter, her
arms had fallen about his neck, and she hung upon him in something like
a hug.
"Oh! oh!" said she, "the idea of your flying to me like that! But it's
nice of you!"
Amidon bowed distantly, and in evident embarrassment. Miss Scarlett
drew herself up, as at an undeserved rebuke.
"I am very glad," said he, "to have been of any service, even at the
risk of seeming familiarity, in saving you from a fall. I hope you
will pardon me, a stranger, for so far----"
"A stranger!" she ejaculated; "oh, heavens! Leave me, 'Gene! Go away!"
The "Go away" was pronounced as Mr. Cox appeared at the foot of the
stairs. Amidon passed on, now fully aware of having committed a _faux
pas_. Looking back, he saw Miss Scarlett leaning against a newel-post
as if in agitation; saw Mr. Cox come up and lead her down; and as she
disappeared, leaning weakly on her escort's arm, the mop of rumpled
hair faded from his sight like a receding fire-ship. Who could she be?
Suddenly Alvord's whispered caution flashed on his mind, and he knew
that he had encountered, embraced and repudiated the Strawberry Blonde.
He paused for a moment to think over the situation--considerations of
policy were coming more and more to appeal to him as guides, and he
found himself feeling vulpine and furtive. But here, thought he, would
it not really have been best to temporize with the situation, and not
to have terminated all relations with Miss Scarlett in this public way?
Would it not----
Then rolled over his heart the consciousness of the manifold glories of
his Elizabeth's womanhood. Temporize with another woman? The very
thought repelled him. He involuntarily brushed his coat where it had
supported and encircled Miss Scarlett. He felt a sense of unworthiness
in having, even of necessity and for a proper purpose, embraced this
other girl. Looking up, he saw Judge Blodgett regarding him like a
portly accusing angel from the head of the stairway. He made a feint
at assisting Amidon in brushing his coat.
"Those red ones," said he, "are the very devil for showing on black!
I'd carry a whisk-broom, if I were you!"
[Illustration: "Those red ones," said the judge, "are the very devil
for showing on black!"]
"Blodgett," said Amidon, "I don't care to be chaffed about an accident
of that sort."
"Oh, certainly not!" said the judge. "But pick off the ringlets all
the same. And say, Florian, of course I don't count, but there was
another fellow at the foot of the stairs, the junior in the firm of
Fuller and Cox, my fellow practitioners; and in accidents of this sort
one sometimes does as much damage as a regular cloud of witnesses. And
remember, if you won't use the letter of withdrawal, you're to be a
good deal in the public eye, now."
Amidon moved on in disgust. And the poor faithful fellow, that his
spiritual tone might be restored, sat down and read once more his
Bible--the letter superscribed in the large, scrawly hand, "To be Read
En Route."