Langdon gazed into space: "I wonder," he murmured.
Sayre looked at him searchingly.
"I don't believe you'd make the welkin ring with your yelps. It's
probably the same with those four men."
"Probably."
"I don't suppose those suffragettes of the New Race University really
require any fence there to keep those men in."
"No; only to keep the rest of us out."
"The chances are that Willett and that poet Carrick and De Lancy Smith
and Alphonso W. Green couldn't be chased out of that University."
"Those _are_ the chances. How I hate those four men. It's curious,
William, that no man can ever tolerate the idea of any other man ever
getting solid with any looker. I always did dislike to see another man
with a pretty girl. . . . William?"
"What?"
"Think of the concentrated beauty in that University! Think of that rich
round-up of creamy dreams! Consider that mellifluous marmalade! And--we
can't have any--because _you_ are slightly bald and near-sighted and _I_
am thin and scholarly!" He ran at the camp-kettle and kicked it.
After a painful silence Sayre said timidly: "Don't laugh, but _is_ there
any known substance which will bring in hair?"
"You mean bring it out?"
"Well, dammit, grow it! Is there?"
"There are too many bald monarchs and millionaires to prove the contrary.
Nor is there anything that can make my thin shanks fatter."
"--I'd be willing to go about without glasses," said Sayre humbly. "I
told her so."
"Couldn't you deceive her with a wig? It wouldn't matter afterward. After
you're once married let her shriek."
"Amourette _saw_ my head." And he hung it in bitter dejection.
"Come on," said Langdon cheerily. "Let's peek through their fence and see
what happens. Much has been done with a merry eye in this world of
haughty ladies."
As they turned away into the woods Sayre clenched his fists.
"I'd like to knock the collective blocks off those four young men inside
that fence. And--to think--to _think_ of Amourette going out again
to-morrow, man hunting, with her net! I can't endure it, Curt--I simply
can't."
Langdon looked at his friend in deep commiseration.
"I wish I could help you, William--but I don't
see--I--don't--exactly--see----" He hesitated. "Of course I _could_ go to
Utica and pay a wig-maker and costumer to make me up into the kind of
Charlie-Gussie they're looking for at that University. . . . And when
your best girl goes out hunting, she'll see me and net me, and you can be
in hiding near by, and rush out and net her."
In their excitement they seized each other and danced.
"Why not?" exclaimed Langdon. "Shall I try? Trust me to come back a
specimen of sickening symmetry--the kind of man women write about and
draw pictures of--pink and white and silky-whiskered! Shall I? And I'll
bring you a net to catch her in! Is it a go, William?"
Sayre broke down and began to cry.
"Heaven bless you, friend," he sobbed. "And if ever I get that girl
inside a net she'll learn something about natural selection that they
p-p-probably forgot to teach in their accursed New Race University!"
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
V
ONE week later Curtis Langdon sat on the banks of a trout stream fishing,
apparently deeply absorbed in his business; but he was listening so hard
that his ears hurt him.
A few yards away, ambushed behind a rock on which was painted "Votes for
Women," lurked William Sayre. A net lay on the ground beside him,
fashioned with ring and detachable handle like a gigantic butterfly net.
He, too, tremendously excited, was listening and watching the human
bait--Langdon being cast for the bait.
Perfect and nauseating beauty now marked that young gentleman. Features
and figure were symmetrical; his eyebrows had been pencilled into exact
arcs, his mouth was a Cupid's bow, his cheeks were softly rosy, and a
silky and sickly moustache shadowed his rosy lips. Under his fashionable
outing shirt he wore a rubber chest improver; his cunningly padded
shoulders recalled the exquisite sartorial creations of Mart, Haffner,
and Sharx; his patent puttees gave him a calf to which his personal
shanks had never aspired; thick, golden-brown hair, false as a woman's
vows, was tossed carelessly from a brow, snowy with pearl powder. And he
wore a lilac-edged handkerchief in his left cuff.
Both young men truly felt that if any undergraduate of the New Race
University was out stalking she'd have at least one try at such a bait.
Nothing feminine and earnest could resist that glutinous agglomeration of
charms.
But they had now been there since before dawn; nothing had broken the
sun-lit quiet of forest and water, not even a trout; and they listened
in vain for the snapping of the classical twig.
Lunch time came; they ate a pad apiece. Neither dared to smoke, Sayre
because it might reveal his hiding place, Langdon because smoking might
be considered an imperfection in the University.
Sunlight fell warm on the banks of the stream, the leaves rustled, big
white clouds floated in the blue above. Nothing came near Langdon except
a few mosquitoes, who couldn't bite through the make-up; and a small and
inquisitive bird that inspected him with disdain and said,
"cheep--che-ep!" so many times that Langdon took it as a personal comment
and almost blushed.
He thought to himself: "If it wasn't that William is actually becoming
ill over his unhappy love affair I'm damned if I'd let even a dicky-bird
see me in this rig. Ugh! What a head of hair! The average girl's ideal is
what every healthy man wants to kick. I wouldn't blame any decent fellow
for booting me into the brook on sight."
He bit into his pad and sat chewing reflectively and dabbling his line in
the water.
"Poor old William," he mused. "This business is likely to end us both. If
we stay here we lose our jobs; if we go back William is likely to
increase the nut crop. I never supposed men took love as seriously as
that. I've heard that it sometimes occurred--what is it Shakespeare says:
'How Love doth make nuts of us all!'"
He chewed his pad and swung his feet, philosophically.
"Why the devil doesn't some girl come and try to steal a kiss?" he
muttered. "It might perhaps be well to call their attention to my
helpless presence and unguarded condition."
So he sang for a while, swinging his legs: "Somebody's watching and
waiting for me!" munching his luncheon between verses; and, as nobody
came, he bawled louder and louder the refrain: "Somebody's darling,
darling, dah-ling!" until a hoarse voice from behind the rock silenced
him:
"Shut up that hurdy-gurdy voice of yours! A defect like that will count
ten points against you! Can it!"
"Oh, very well," said Langdon, offended; "but everybody doesn't feel the
way you do about music."
Silence resumed her classical occupation in the forest; the stream
continued to sparkle and make its own kind of music; the trout, having
become accustomed to the queer thing on the bank and the baited hook
among the pebbles, gathered in the ripples stemming the current with
winnowing fins.
A very young rabbit sat up in a fern patch and examined Langdon with
dark, moist eyes. He sat there for several minutes, and might have
remained for several more if a sound, unheard by Langdon and by Sayre,
had not set the bunch of whiskers on his restless nose twitching, and
sent him scurrying off over the moss.
The sound was no sound to human ears; Langdon heard it not; Sayre, drowsy
in the scented heat, dozed behind his rock.
A shadow fell across the moss; then another; two slim shapes moved
stealthily among the trees across the brook.
For ten minutes the foremost figure stood looking at Langdon.
Occasionally she used an opera glass, which, from time to time, she
passed back over her shoulder to her companion.
"Ethra," she whispered at last, "he seems to be practically perfect."
"I'm wondering about those puttees, dear--shanks in puttees are
deceptive."
"Those are exquisite calves," said Amourette sadly. "I'm sure they'll
measure up to regulation. And his chest seems up to proof."
"What beautiful eyebrows," murmured Ethra.
But Amourette found no pleasure in them, nor in the golden-brown hair,
nor the bloom of youth and perfect health pervading their unconscious
quarry. Perhaps she was thinking of a certain near-sighted, thin-haired
young man--and how she had slammed the gate of the wire fence in his
face--_after_ their first kiss.
She drew a deep, painful breath and lifted her head resolutely.
"I suppose I'd better begin to stalk him, Ethra," she said.
"Yes; he's a very good specimen. Be careful, dear. Strike a circle and
come up behind him. When you're ready, mew like a cat-bird and I'll let
him catch a glimpse of me. And as soon as he begins to--to rubber," she
said, with a haughty glance at the unconscious angler, "steal up and net
him, and I'll come across and help tie him up."
Amourette sighed, standing there irresolute. Then she straightened her
drooping shoulders, seized her net very firmly, and, with infinite
caution, began to stalk her quarry.
Once the stalking had fairly begun, the girl became absorbed in the game.
All memory of Sayre, if there indeed had been any to make her falter in
her purpose, now departed. She was a huntress pure and simple, silent,
furtive, adroit, intent upon her quarry. There came a kind of fierceness
into her concentration; the joy of the chase thrilled her as she crept
noiselessly through the woods, describing a circle, crossing the stream
far above the sleepy fisherman, gliding, stealing nearer, nearer, until
at length she stood in the thicket behind him.
For a moment she waited silently, freeing her net and gathering it in her
right hand ready for a deadly cast. Then, pursing up her red lips, she
mewed like a cat-bird, three times.
Instantly, across the stream, she saw Ethra step out of the willows into
plain view; saw Langdon wake up, stare, get up, and regard the beautiful
vision across the stream with concentrated and delighted attention.
Then Amourette stole swiftly forward over the moss, swinging the heavy
silken net in her right hand, closer, closer. Suddenly the net whistled
in the air, glistened, lengthened, and fell, enmeshing Langdon; and, at
the same instant something behind her whistled and fell slap; and she
found herself struggling in the folds of an enormous butterfly net.
"Ethra! Help!" she cried, terrified, trying to keep her balance in the
web which enveloped her, striving to tear a way free through the meshes;
but she was only wrapped up the tighter; two brutal masculine arms lifted
her, held her cradled and entangled, freed the handle from the net, and
bore her swiftly away.
"Darling," whispered William Sayre, "d-don't kick."
"_You_!" she gasped, struggling frantically.
"The real thing, dearest of women! The old-fashioned, original cave man.
Will you come quietly? There's a license bureau in the next village. Or
shall I be obliged to keep right on carrying you?"
"Oh, oh, _oh_!" she sobbed; "what disgrace! what humiliation; what shame!
Oh, Ethra! Ethra! What in the world am I to do?"
"That's where the mistake arose," said William gently; "_you_ don't have
to do anything--except put both arms around my neck and--be careful not
to knock off my glasses."
"_Glasses_! Ethra! Ethra! Where are you? Don't you see what is becoming
of me? You--you had b-better hurry, too," she added with a sob, "because
the man who is carrying me off is the man I told you about. _Ethra_!
Where are you?"
A convenient echo replied in similar terms. Meanwhile Sayre was walking
faster and faster through the woods.
For a while she lay motionless and silent, cradled in his arms. And after
a long, long time she tried feebly to adjust the disordered ondulations
on her hair.
Then a very small, still voice said:
"Mr. Sayre?"
"Darling!"
She seemed to recognise this as her name.
"Mr. Sayre, w-what are you going to do with me?"
"Marry you."
"B-b-by f-f-force?"
"That is up to you, darling."
"Against my will?"
"That also is up to you."
"And--and my inclination?"
"No, not against that, Amourette."
"Do you dare believe I love you?"
"I should worry."
"Do you know you are hurting me, physically, spiritually, mentally?"
"I suppose I am."
"Do you realise that you are a brute?"
"I sure do. We're all of us a little in that line, Amourette."
After a long silence she turned her face so that it rested against his
shoulder--nestled closer, and lay very still.
[Illustration]