ON THE ROAD
"Dick," said Mrs. Harlan, with extreme politeness, "I am perfectly
willing that Lola should have all the best of it. I am used to that. I
am quite prepared to admit that she is younger than I am, and better
looking, although I still think that she might get along without
telling me of it herself. It's none of my business how much money you
give her, nor how much she may bully you in private, but, my dear boy,
I am just naturally damned if I'll put up with her tantrums any
longer."
"But, Madge," pleaded Dick Fenway, rather anxiously, "Lola is--a
little nervous!"
"She's all of that," agreed Mrs. Harlan. "We started out to make a
jolly party of this and it's winding up like an Irish wake. Look at
Bob."
In response to her rather dramatic invitation, Dick turned his head,
and did as he was requested. He looked at Bob, and in spite of his
disturbed mind he found himself smiling. Bob Nelson, who made up the
fourth in their little party, was a stout young fellow in the late
twenties, whose sole ambition in life seemed to centre about a desire
not to have rows; he sat on the sand a few paces away from them, and
was earnestly practicing his favorite amusement, which consisted in
fixing his eyes firmly upon nothing whatever, and allowing his mind to
"stand without hitching," as he had once described it, a mental
gymnastic only possible of achievement inside of a skull so
constituted as to allow the brain an abundance of room.
"Bob," continued Mrs. Harlan firmly, "is getting good and tired of the
way things are going. We don't mind a little change now and then, but
we do object to being politely requested to get out of every hotel
between Palm Beach and Quebec. Bob! What is your opinion of the way
Lola is going on?"
Bob, evidently anxious to do the subject full justice, gave the matter
at least a moment's calm thought before he replied.
"I--er--yes----" He then, with considerable satisfaction, resumed his
former amusement, only slightly troubled by the unusual mental effort.
"There! You see!" exclaimed Mrs. Harlan.
Although somewhat in doubt as to precisely what he was supposed to
see, Dick was content to assume that it was not exactly a compliment
to Lola.
Lola had been making rows; there was no denying that. She was
difficult to please, and absolutely indifferent to the rights of
others. She was constantly getting them into disputes with the hotel
clerks, the servants, or with the other guests, and on several
occasions during their trip they had been politely informed that their
rooms were needed for other purposes. All this had been fully as
annoying to Dick as it had to either of the others, but during the six
weeks they had been together, his love for her had grown into a great
passion that made no account of her faults, although it could not
blind him to them.
"She's in a difficult position, Madge," he explained, anxious to
smooth things over, for he knew that Lola would not travel about with
him alone, and for the last few days he had seen that Mrs. Harlan was
rapidly growing tired of her role of chaperone. "She's had to break
off with her people, and she's new to this sort of thing. It will be
all right as soon as that confounded divorce of mine is settled. Once
we are married she'll settle down and have an easy mind."
"All right," Mrs. Harlan sighed patiently. "I'm your friend, and I'll
stick as long as I can, but I can't help saying this, Dick: you're the
bravest man I ever knew. They make an awful fuss about 'Daniel in the
Lions' Den' but he wasn't a marker to you!"
"Oh, come now! Lola isn't so bad as all that. She's the best girl in
the world, and the gamest little sport. Of course, I'll admit she is a
little bit upset right now, and her temper is a little--little
violent."
"And then some," agreed Mrs. Harlan coarsely.
"Come on; let's go back and see if she's still asleep. If she is the
hotel people will probably allow us to stay to lunch. Are you ready,
Bob?"
Bob was never what could properly be described as ready, but as it was
easier on the whole to move than to dispute the matter, and as he was
vaguely impressed with the idea that the word lunch had been
mentioned, he rose ponderously to his feet and followed the others
back to the hotel. Several groups of summer visitors, noticing the
deep abstraction of his manner, were quite impressed. One young lady
was heard to remark, that she "would like to know what he was thinking
about;" a desire which, had he known of it, he would have been quite
unable to gratify.
They found Lola waiting for them on the broad veranda, and as she saw
them she came to the head of the steps and stood there smiling down at
them. She was all in white, and looked as fresh and as sweet as a
flower. No one, to see her, would have believed that only the night
before she had left them in a furious burst of temper, vowing that she
never wanted to see any of them again as long as she lived.
"I've been waiting for you for the longest time," she cried out gayly.
"I was afraid that you had all grown so disgusted with me that you had
run away together, and were going to leave me here all by myself."
"You didn't answer when I knocked at your door this morning, and I was
afraid to wake you. I thought the sleep would do you more good than
anything else."
Dick spoke tenderly, for he was really very fond of her, and anxious
that the scene of the night before should be forgotten.
"Aren't you going to kiss me, Madge?"
As Lola held out her hand pleadingly, and with an air of sweet
repentance, Mrs. Harlan, who was kind-hearted enough in her way,
completely surrendered, and kissed her warmly, although she had vowed
to herself that she would make no more efforts to live at peace with
her.
"And you, Bob?" As she stood with her arm about Mrs. Harlan, she held
out her left hand to him. "Will you forgive me also? You see that
everyone else has; you don't want to be the hard-hearted one of the
crowd, do you?"
"Lola, you're all right," said Bob, enormously flattered by all this
unusual attention.
"We're going to cut out rows after this, and have a great time. Let's
go to lunch!"
"Right again, Bob," cried out Mrs. Harlan. "I always said you had more
brains than any of us."
"Oh, no," replied Bob modestly, as they started for the dining-room,
"I don't claim to have more than my share of brains, but I'm
practical."
They had arrived here, at Narragansett Pier, only the day before, and
Lola, who had been tired out by the long journey from Bar Harbor, had
refused to go down stairs to dinner, and had, as she always did of
late, taken breakfast in bed; so this was her first sight of the
pretty dining-room.
They were given a table by one of the front windows looking out over
the water, and as she seated herself and looked around she made up her
mind that she was going to like this new place.
The room was crowded, although the season was drawing to a close, and
she noted with approval that the guests were of a quieter sort than
those to whom they had been accustomed of late.
"It's a fine assortment of old dopes we've fell into this time,"
remarked Mrs. Harlan, looking about her scornfully. "Hadn't you better
say grace, Bob, or start a hymn?"
"Good God, Madge!" exclaimed Bob in horror. "It ain't as bad as that,
is it?"
"It's a good thing for all of us," said Lola. "It's a rest to get
where you can see decent women and children again. I'm tired of those
sporty hotels we've been living in lately. I'm going in for the simple
life, and besides, these are smart people; you can tell that by
looking at them. There isn't a thing in the world the matter with
them, outside of their being respectable."
"They know enough to get good grub," Bob asserted with strong
approval. "If soup like this goes with being respectable, I believe
I'll get me a pair of spectacles and start in to raise whiskers."
"Look!" Lola nodded her head in the direction of a table near to them.
"Did you ever see a finer looking old man or a prettier child! I
wonder if he is her father? No, he's too old. He is her grandfather;
that pretty little woman next to him is his daughter and the little
girl's mother!"
"Thank God for this cocktail!" exclaimed Mrs. Harlan piously, as she
raised it to her lips. "It's all that's keeping me from a bad attack
of the 'Willies.' You don't seriously mean that you like this sort of
thing."
"Of course I do," replied Lola; "I like it better than any of the
places we have been to yet; don't you, Dick?"
"I like any place where you are happy, Lola," he replied.
"Quick, Bob, send for another cocktail," Mrs. Harlan demanded
earnestly, "and tell the waiter to hurry up with it, or I'll be
turning virtuous myself."
There was, in fact, some reason for her surprise. Lola was never in
the same mood for any great length of time, but up to now she had been
tireless in her search for pleasure and excitement. She could not have
told herself just why the atmosphere of this rather aristocratic hotel
appealed so strongly to her, but the fact remained that, for the
moment at least, she was happier than she had been at any time since
their hurried flight from New York.
They had gone first to Atlantic City, where Bob had joined their
party, but on the second day after their arrival, one of the private
detectives whom Dick had prudently engaged to keep an eye on John
Dorris, had telegraphed that John had just taken a train for Atlantic
City. How he had discovered their whereabouts they did not know, but
long before his train arrived they were on their way to Cape May.
That was the last they heard of John; whether he had continued the
search, or given up and returned home, they neither knew nor cared.
They travelled on, from one gay summer resort to another, as frantic
in their search for amusement as the prospectors who journey up and
down the Yukon are in their search for gold.
At first Lola had great trouble in teaching Dick that, in spite of her
complete surrender of her life to his care, she had no idea of
allowing him any favors beyond those conventionally granted to an
accepted lover. On rare occasions she let him kiss her, with a little
more warmth than is usually considered quite correct; he was
privileged to hold her hand; once or twice perhaps to take her in his
arms for a moment; aside from that all that he was expected to do was
to provide her with the most costly dresses, and in every way to
gratify her extravagant whims and caprices.
This attitude of Lola's was such a surprise to Mrs. Harlan that the
good lady went about in a sort of fog of astonished admiration, and
confided to Bob, at intervals of about four hours, that Lola was
"about the slickest article she had as yet discovered."
Dick himself, however, seemed perfectly satisfied after he had been
made to clearly understand Lola's attitude. She had read his nature
with true feminine intuition; to him the thing out of his reach was
always the thing to be desired, and he made the life of his Cleveland
attorney a burden with his daily demands of a speedy settlement of his
divorce.
To Lola's father, sitting alone in New York, quietly waiting her
return, to John or to Dr. Crossett, now half way across the Atlantic
on his way back to Paris, the knowledge of her attitude might have
brought some comfort; to them she seemed lost to all feelings of shame
or sense of prudence, and it is possible, had they known how matters
stood, that they would have kept on in their search for her.
The real facts were that Dick was to Lola the direct means by which
she was to provide herself with the good things of life. He was a rich
man. As his wife she could be sure of the things that just now seemed
to her to be of all things the most to be desired. He, himself, was a
handsome, good-natured, easily managed young fellow. To the physical
side of her, which as yet had only been aroused for one moment when
she had thrown herself into John's arms, Dick made absolutely no
appeal, and twenty years of purity of thought and action had provided
her with a defence against the casual promptings of instinctive
desires too strong to be easily broken down. Of late a restless,
nervous condition of mind and body might have warned her of a growing
longing to solve for herself some of the depths of the world's
knowledge. Her eyes had more than once been held for a moment by the
bold, admiring gaze of some one of the strong, handsome men whom she
had met or when she had passed casually on the beaches or on the hotel
verandas, but the quick catch of her breath, the sudden leap of her
heart at such times had speedily been forgotten; she was not given to
self-analysis; her whole existence just now was centered in a daily
search for pleasure.
After lunch she and Dick went for a long walk, and Dick took advantage
of her present gentle mood to tell her of his hope of a quick
settlement of his divorce action and to discuss with her plans for
their future. As they strolled along the shore road, Lola noticed,
idly, a rather striking couple who seemed to keep at about the same
distance ahead of them; father and daughter she thought they must be;
a very pretty girl of perhaps eighteen and a man in the late fifties,
but so hale and vigorous that at the first glance he suggested no
thought of age; indeed, it was not until the couple turned and passed
them that Lola, glancing quickly at him, saw on his face that in spite
of his youthful step and almost soldierly bearing, he was a man of
about her own father's time of life. The thought came to her, as for a
moment she met his strong, eager glance of approval, as he saw her
fresh young beauty and splendid vitality, that here was a man of real
force.
"How queerly he looked to me," she thought, "this old man, with a
daughter very little younger than I am myself. Yet when he saw me his
eyes seemed to burn into mine. He is in mourning, too, for he wore a
band on his arm, and the girl is in black; how queer men are. Are they
always the same, boys and men, always like that? A girl has only to
look at them, and they can think of nothing but her."
"Father!" The young lady looked almost angrily at him, then turning
threw a quick look of scorn over her shoulder toward Lola.
"What a bold-looking girl!"
"Was she, my dear?" remarked her father coldly. "I thought her rather
pretty."
"Pretty! She is beautiful. I was looking at her at lunch. I thought
she was sweet, although she was with impossible persons, but as she
looked at you just now----"
"Well, my dear?"
"She looked like--like an animal."
"A very fine animal, Alice; she is a very beautiful woman, although I
fancy you are right about her not being quite--quite the thing. The
less notice you take of such people the better, my dear, unless you
know something about who and what they are."
"That old boy," remarked Dick to Lola, looking after the couple who
had just passed them, "is Howard Bradley, of Detroit, one of the
biggest lumbermen in the country, said to be worth eight or ten
millions."
"Really?" She looked up with a quick flash of interest.
"Yes, that's his daughter, Alice Bradley; you must have often seen her
picture in the Sunday papers. She's a real swell; they are friends of
my old man's, although I've never met 'em myself."
"You are a foolish boy, Dick. You must go and introduce yourself at
once! It's silly not to make friends of that sort when you can."
"But I can't be bothered."
"Now, Dick, you do as I tell you. I'd like to meet a girl like that
myself. You could introduce me easily enough."
"All right, Lola," replied Dick indifferently. "I'm even ready to butt
into society if you think it will amuse you, but right now let's go
for a swim. Bob and Madge will be waiting for us."
The beach was crowded when they entered the water together a little
later, and as Lola was the only one of the four who ever did any real
swimming, she left the others without ceremony and struck out for the
raft, which, as it was now high tide, was quite a distance from the
shore.
"Careful, Lola!" Dick called out to her anxiously, but she only turned
her head and laughed at him as she swam easily along with an over-hand
stroke that sent her through the water without the slightest apparent
effort. In a moment she was past the line of bobbing heads that marked
the limit of the average bather's courage and in comparatively clear
water; another moment and she was within a few strokes of the raft on
which a half dozen men and one woman were standing; one of the men she
saw was the gentleman Dick had told her was Howard Bradley; the girl
was his daughter.
[Illustration: LOLA'S THOUGHTS REVERT TO THE HANDSOME STRANGER WHOM
SHE MET ON THE ATLANTIC CITY BOARDWALK.]
"She needn't think she is the only girl that knows how to swim," said
Lola to herself, as she deliberately guided herself past the raft and
out toward the distant shore line; she was quite conscious of the fact
that all those on the raft had turned to watch her, and a feeling of
bravado urged her to keep on. She felt strong to-day, full of youth
and life, and she had no fear of any danger.
"Look, father!" said Alice Bradley, following Lola anxiously with her
eyes. "Surely she is going too far out."
"By Jove," said Mr. Bradley, "she's fine. Look at the way she goes
through the water."
"But it isn't safe; you know it isn't," exclaimed his daughter. "Look!
Look at her now! Father! Look at her!"
"Wait!" She felt her father's fingers crush her bare arm as he
clutched her in his excitement. "She's turned over, swimming on her
back. It's all right; I think I---- No, by God! No! Here! Hello!
Hello, there, guard!" He pointed with one hand to where Lola floated,
and waved the other frantically to a life guard who sat in a boat
nearer to Lola than he was, but even at that a good fifty yards away.
"Behind you! There! Behind you!"
"He sees her, father. He is going to her," cried Alice, while the
others on the raft screamed out directions and encouragement to the
sun-burned young fellow who was making his heavy surf-boat leap
through the water. "He will be in time; she is keeping herself
afloat!"
She was keeping herself afloat, but that was all. Suddenly a pain had
shot through her heart, and she felt herself powerless to move her
arms; she sank over, and when she rose to the surface just managed to
keep herself above water by floating on her back, and now and then, by
the greatest effort, taking a feeble stroke when the numbness that was
so rapidly spreading over her body allowed her to do so. She would die
unless she managed to keep up until help should come; she knew that!
She was fast losing consciousness now; she would die unless she forced
herself to live! Unless she drove back, bit by bit, the weakness that
was overpowering her. The pain in her heart was not so bad now; she
could move her arm a little more; she could move it more if she tried;
she must try; she would--there--again--again--what did the pain
matter; it was life--life----
"Are you all right now?" She was lying in the bottom of a little
surf-boat; a young man was bending over her, speaking to her. She
looked up into his face and smiled. How big he was, and how strong,
and how naked. Arms, and legs, and breast, and shoulders, firm, solid,
sun-burned flesh.
He had one arm about her, holding her up. She nestled close up to him,
her head dropping back on his shoulder, her eyes answering the
challenge that suddenly flashed into his.