THE collective and individual charms of the Board of Regents so utterly
over-powered Langdon that he scarcely realised what was happening to him.
First, at their request, he sat cross-legged on the ground; and they
walked round and round him, inspecting him. Under such conditions no man
could be at his best; there was a silly expression on his otherwise
attractive face, which, as their attitude toward him seemed to waver
between indifference and disapproval, became unconsciously appealing.
"Kindly rise, Mr. Langdon," said Miss Challis, chairman of the board.
Langdon got up, and his ears turned red with a sudden and burning
self-consciousness.
"Please walk past us two or three times, varying your speed."
He walked in the various styles to which he had been accustomed, changing
speed at intervals and running the entire gamut between a graceful
boulevard saunter and a lost-dog sprint.
"Now," said the beautiful chairman, "be good enough to run past us
several times."
He complied and they studied his kangaroo-like action. Miss Vining even
bent over and felt of his ankles doubtfully, and to his vivid confusion
Miss Darrell strolled up, made him sit down on a log, placed one soft,
white finger on his mouth, and, opening it coolly, examined the interior.
Then they drew together, consulting in whispers, then Miss Challis came
with a stethoscope and listened to his pneumatic machinery, while Miss
Vining carelessly pinched his biceps and tried his reflexes. After which
Miss Darrell pushed a thermometer into his mouth, measured his pulses
and blood pressure, tested his sight and hearing and his sense of smell.
The latter was intensely keen, as he was very hungry.
Then Miss Challis came and stood behind him and examined,
phrenologically, the bumps on his head, while Miss Vining, seated at his
feet, read his palm, and Miss Darrell produced a dream book and a pack of
cards, and carefully cast his horoscope. But, except that it transpired
that he was going to take a journey, that somebody was going to leave him
money, and that a dark lady was coming over the sea to trouble him,
nothing particularly exciting was discovered concerning him.
Miss Challis, relinquishing his head, produced a crystal and gazed into
it. She did not say what she saw there. Miss Vining tried to hypnotise
him and came near hypnotising herself. Which scared and irritated her;
and she let him very carefully alone after that.
And all the while Ethra sat on a tree stump, hands tightly clasped in her
lap, looking on with pathetic eagerness and timidly searching the pretty
faces of the Board of Regents for any hopeful signs.
Presently the Board retired to a neighbouring cave to confer; and Langdon
drew a deep breath of relief.
"Well," he said, smiling at Ethra, "what do you think?"
"It will be horrid of them if they don't award you a blue ribbon," she
said.
"Good heavens!" he faltered, "do they give ribbons?"
"Certainly, first, second, third, and honourable mention. It is the
scientific and proper method of classification."
Fury empurpled his visage.
"That's the limit!" he shouted, but she silenced him with a gesture,
nodding her head toward the surrounding woods; and among the trees he
caught sight of scores and scores of pretty girls furtively observing the
proceedings.
"Don't let them see you display any temper or you'll lose their good
will, Mr. Langdon. Please recollect that there is no sentiment in this
proceeding; it is a scientific matter to be scientifically
recorded--purely a matter of eugenics."
Langdon gazed around him at the distant and charming faces peeping at
him from behind trees and bushes. Everywhere bright eyes met his
mischievously, gaily. An immense sense of happiness began to invade him.
The enraptured and fatuous smile on his features now became almost
idiotic as here and there, among the trees, he caught glimpses of still
more young girls strolling about, arms interlacing one another's waists.
The prospect dazzled him; his wits spun like a humming top.
"Are--are many ladies likely to come and--and court me?" he asked timidly
of Ethra.
A quick little pang shot through her; but she said with a forced smile:
"Why do you ask? Are you a coquette, Mr. Langdon?"
"Oh, no! But, for example, I wouldn't mind being rushed by that willowy
blonde over there. I'd also like to meet the svelte one with store puffs
and sorrel hair. She _is_ a looker, isn't she?"
"She is certainly very pretty," said Ethra, biting her lips with
unfeigned vexation.
He gazed entranced at the distant throng for a while.
"And that little grey-eyed romp--the very young and slim one," he
continued enthusiastically. "Me for a hammock with her in the goosy-goosy
moonlight. . . . And I hope I'm going to meet a lot more--every one of
'em. . . . _What_ on earth is _that_?" he exclaimed, changing countenance
and leaning forward. "By Jinks, it's a _man_!"
"Certainly. There are four men here. You knew that."
"I forgot," he said, glowering at the unwelcome sight of his own sex.
Ethra said: "Oh, yes, there are those first four men we caught--Mr.
Willett, Mr. Carrick, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Green." She added carelessly: "I
have been paying rather marked attention to Alphonso W. Green."
"To whom?" he asked, with a disagreeable sensation drenching out the
sparks of joy in his bosom.
"To Alphonso W. Green. . . . And I've jollied De Lancy Smith with
bon-bons a bit, too. They are having a lot of attention paid them--and
they're rather spoiled. But, of course, any girl can marry any one of
them if she really wants to."
Langdon gazed miserably at her; she seemed to be pleasantly immersed in
her own reflections and paid no further heed to him. Then he cast a
scowling glance in the direction of the young man who was gathering wild
flowers and arranging them in a little basket.
"Ethra," he began--and stopped short under the sudden and unexpected
unfriendliness of her glance. "Miss Leslie," he resumed, reddening, "I
wouldn't have come here unless I thought--hoped--believed--that you would
pay _me_ m-m-marked----"
"_Mr. Langdon!_"
"What?"
"Men do not assume the initiative here. They make no advances; they wait
until a girl pays them attentions so unmistakable that----"
"Well, I _did_ come here because of you!" he blurted out angrily.
"That is an exceedingly indelicate avowal!" she retorted. "If the Regents
hear you talk that way you won't be permitted to receive any girl
unchaperoned."
He gazed at her, bewildered; she stood a moment frowning and looking in
the direction of the cave whither the Board of Regents had retired.
"They're calling me," she exclaimed as a figure appeared at the cave
entrance and beckoned her.
"I won't be long, Mr. Langdon. I am perfectly confident that you have
passed the inspection!" And she walked swiftly across to the edge of the
thicket where the three Regents stood outside their cave.
As she came up one of them put her arm around her.
"My poor child," she said, "that man will never do."
"W-what!" faltered the girl, turning pale.
"Why, no. How in the world could you make such a mistake?"
Ethra looked piteously from one to another.
"What is the matter with him?" she asked. "I can't see anything the
matter with him. If his legs are a trifle--refined in contour--a bicycle
will help----"
"But, Ethra, this is not a hospital, dear. This is not a sanitarium. We
don't want any imperfect living creature inside this preserve."
"W-w-what is your decision?" asked the girl; and her underlip began to
quiver, but she controlled it.
"The first vote," said Miss Challis, "was for his instant eviction, Miss
Vining dissenting. The second vote was for his expulsion with the
privilege of taking another examination in three months--Miss Darrell
dissenting----"
"I think he's the limit," said Miss Darrell.
"Why, Jessica!" exclaimed Ethra, swallowing a sob.
"The next vote," continued Betty Challis, "was whether he might not
remain here a day or two for closer observation. Jessica hasn't voted
yet, but Phyllis Vining and I are willing----"
"Oh, Jessica!" pleaded Ethra, catching her hands and pressing them to her
own breast, "I--I beg you will let him remain--if only for a few days!
Please, please, dear. I _know_ his calves will grow if scientifically
massaged; and if he is hygienically fed he will improve----"
Miss Darrell looked curiously at her; under her hands the girl's heart
was beating wildly.
"Well, then, Betty," she said to Miss Challis, "I vote we keep him under
observation for a day or two. Give him the yellow ribbon." And, bending,
she kissed Ethra lightly on the lips, whispering:
"I'm afraid we won't be able to keep him, dear. But if you'd like to have
a little fun with him and jolly him along, why--why, I was a flirt myself
in the old days of the old regime."
"That is all I want," said Ethra, dimpling with delight. "I want to see
how far I can go with him just for the fun of it."
Miss Darrell smiled tenderly at the girl and strolled off to join the
other Regents; and Ethra, her thoughtful eyes fixed on Langdon, came
slowly back, the yellow ribbon trailing in her hand.
Langdon leaped to his feet to meet her, gazing delightedly at the yellow
ribbon.
"I qualified, of course!" he said joyously. "When is it customary to
begin the courting?"
"You haven't qualified," said the girl, watching the effect of her words
on the young man. "This is merely the probation ribbon."
An immense astonishment silenced him. She drew the big orange-coloured
ribbon through his button-hole, tied it into a bow, patted it out into
flamboyant smartness, and, stepping back, gazed at him without any
particular expression in her dark blue eyes.
"Then, then I may be chased away at any moment?" he asked unsteadily.
"I am afraid so."
Thunderstruck, he stared at her: "What on earth are we to do?" he
groaned.
"_We?_"
"You and I?"
"How does it concern _me_?" asked the girl coldly.
"Doesn't it?"
She looked him calmly in the eye and shook her head.
"No, Mr. Langdon. However, as you are to remain here for a day or two
under observation, no doubt you will receive _some_ attention."
"Ethra! Isn't it possible that you might learn to care----"
"Hush! That is no way to talk!"
"Well--well, I can't wait for you to----"
"You _must_ wait! You have nothing to say about such things until some
girl asks you. And that isn't very likely. Those four perfectly handsome
young men have been here for weeks now, and, although they have received
lots of attention, not one girl has yet made any of them an actual
declaration. The girls here are having too good a time to do anything
more serious than a little fussing--just enough to frisk a kiss now and
then and keep the men amused----"
"_That_ is monstrous!" said Langdon, very red. "When a man's really in
love----"
"Nonsense! Men are flirts--every one of them!"
She laughed, made him a little gesture of adieu, refused to let him
follow her, and coolly sauntered off among the trees, heedless of his
remonstrances at being left to himself.
He watched her until she disappeared, then, with misgivings, walked
toward a tennis court, where the four men were playing a rather dawdling
and indifferent game and keeping a lively eye out for the advent of some
girl.
They appeared to be rather good-looking fellows, not in any way
extraordinary, remarkable neither for symmetry of feature nor of limb.
Langdon stood at the edge of the court looking at them and secretly
comparing their beauty with such charms as he was shyly inclined to
attribute to himself. There could be no doubt that he compared favourably
with them. If he was some, they were not so much.
One, a tall young fellow with blond, closely clipped hair, nodded
pleasantly to him, and presently came over to speak to him.
"I suppose you are a new recruit. Glad to see you. We're all anxious to
have enough men captured to get up two ball nines. My name is Reginald
Willett."
"Mine is Curtis Langdon."
"Come over and meet the others," said Willett pleasantly.
Langdon followed him, and was presently on excellent terms with James
Carrick, De Lancy Smith, and Alphonso W. Green, amiable, clean cut,
everyday young fellows.
To them he related the circumstances of his capture, and they all laughed
heartily. Then he told them that he was here merely on probation for a
day or two, naïvely displaying the yellow ribbon.
Willett laughed. "Oh, that's all right. They usually say that. We all
came in on probation; the Regents couldn't agree, and some girl always
swings the deciding vote as a special favour to herself."
"You don't think they'll kick me out?"
"Not much!" laughed Willett. "First of all, your captor would object--not
necessarily for sentimental reasons, but because she caught you; you are
hers, her game; she says to herself: 'A poor thing, but mine own!' and
hangs to you like grim death. Besides, no woman ever lets any man loose
voluntarily. And women haven't changed radically, Mr. Langdon. Don't
worry; you can stay, all right."
"Here comes Betty Challis," said Carrick, glancing at Alphonso W. Green.
"It's you for a stroll, I guess."
Mr. Green looked conscious; more conscious still when the pretty Miss
Challis strolled up, presented him with a bouquet, and stood for a few
moments conversing with everybody, perfectly at her ease. Other girls
came up and engaged the young men in lively conversation. Presently Miss
Challis made a play for hers:
"Would you care to canoe, Mr. Green?" she asked casually, turning to him
with a slight blush which she could not control.
Green blushed, too, and consented in a low voice.
As they were departing, Miss Vining rode up on horseback, leading another
horse, which De Lancy Smith, at her request, nimbly mounted; and away
they galloped down a cool forest road, everybody looking after them.
Miss Darrell cut out and roped Willett presently and took him to walk in
the direction of a pretty cascade.
A charming girl, a Miss Trenor, arrived with a hammock, book, and
bon-bons, and led Carrick away somewhere by virtue of a previous
agreement, and the remaining girls pretended not to care, and strolled
serenely off in pretty bunches, leaving Langdon standing, first on one
foot, then on the other, waiting to be spoken to.
Abandoned, he wandered about the tennis court, kicking the balls moodily.
Tiring of this, he sat down under a tree and twirled his thumbs.
Once or twice some slender figure passed, glancing brightly at him, and
he looked as shyly receptive as he could, but to no purpose. Gloom
settled over him; hunger tormented him; he gazed disconsolately at the
yellow ribbon in his button-hole, and twiddled his thumbs.
And all the while, from the shadow of a distant cave, Ethra was watching
him with great content. She knew he was hungry; she let him remain so. By
absent treatment she was reducing him to a proper frame of mind.
The word had been passed that he was Ethra's quarry; mischievous bright
eyes glanced at him, but no lips unclosed to speak to him; little feet
strolled near him, even lingered a moment, but trotted on.
His sentiments varied from apathy to pathos, from self-pity to
mortification, from hungry despair to an indignation no longer endurable.
He had enough of it--plenty. Anger overwhelmed him; hunger smothered
sentiment; he rose in wrath and stalked off toward a girl who was
strolling along, reading a treatise on eugenics.
"Will you be good enough to tell me how to get out?" he asked.
"Out?" she repeated. "Have you a pass to go out?"
"No, I haven't. Where do I obtain one?"
"Only the girl who captured you can give you a pass," she said, amused.
"Very well; where can I find her?"
"Who was it netted you?"
"A Miss Leslie," he snapped.
"Oh! Ethra Leslie's cave is over in those rocks," said the girl, "among
those leafy ledges."
"Thanks," he said briefly, and marched off, scowling.
Ethra saw him coming, and his stride and expression scared her. Not
knowing exactly what to do, and not anticipating such a frame of mind in
him, she turned over in her hammock and pretended to be asleep, as his
figure loomed up in the mouth of the cave.
"Miss Leslie!" His voice was stentorian.
She awoke languidly, and did it very well, making a charming picture as
she sat up in her hammock, a trifle confused, sweet blue eyes scarcely
yet unclosed.
"Mr. Langdon!" she exclaimed in soft surprise.
He looked her squarely, menacingly, in the eyes.
"I suppose," he said, "that all this is a grim parody on the past when
women did the waiting until it was men's pleasure to make the next move.
I suppose that my recent appraisement parallels the social inspection of
a debutante--that my present hunger is paying for the wistful
intellectual starvation to which men once doomed your sex; that my
isolation represents the isolation from all that was vital in the times
when women's opportunities were few and restricted; that my probation
among you symbolises the toleration of my sex for whatever specimen of
your sex they captured and set their mark on as belonging to them, and on
view to the world during good behaviour."
He stared at her flushed face, thoughtfully.
"The allegory is all right," he said, "but you've cast the wrong man for
the goat. I'm going."
"Y-you can't go," she stammered, colouring painfully, "unless I give you
a pass."
"I see; it resembles divorce. My sex had to give yours a cause for
escape, or you couldn't escape. And in here you must give me a pass to
freedom, or I remain here and starve. Is that it?"
She crimsoned to her hair, but said nothing.
"Give me that pass," he said.
"If I do every girl here will gossip----"
"I don't care what they say. I'm going."
She sat very still in the hammock, eyes vacant, chin on hand,
considering. It was not turning out as she had planned. She had starved
him too long.
"Mr. Langdon," she said in a low voice, "if it is only because you are
hungry----"
"I'm not; I'm past mere hunger. You disciplined me because I took a human
and natural interest in the pretty inhabitants of this new world. And I
_told_ you that I never would have entered it except for you. But you
made me pay for a perfectly harmless and happy curiosity. Well, I've
starved and paid. Now I want to go. . . . Either I go or there'll be
something doing--because I won't remain here and go hungry much longer."
"S-something--doing?" she faltered.
"Exactly. With the first----"
"You can go if you wish," she said, flushing scarlet and springing out of
the hammock.
He waited, jaws set, while she seated herself at a table and wrote out
the pass.
"Thank you," he said, in such a rage that he could scarcely control his
voice.
She may not have heard him; she sat rigid at the table, looking very hard
into space--sat motionless as he took a curt leave of her, never turning
her head--listened to his tread as he strode off through the ferns, then
laid her brow between snowy hands which matched the face that trembled in
them.
As for him, he swung away along the path by which he had come, unstrung
by turns, by turns violently desiring her unhappiness, and again
anticipating approaching freedom with reckless satisfaction.
Then a strange buoyancy came over him as he arrived in sight of the
gate, where the red-haired girl sat on a camp stool, yawning and knitting
a silk necktie--for eventualities, perhaps; perhaps for herself, Lord
knows. She lifted her grey eyes as he came swinging up--deep, clear, grey
eyes that met his and presently seemed ready to answer his. So his eyes
asked; and, after a long interval, came the reply, as though she had
unconsciously been waiting a long, long while for the question.
"I suppose you will wish to keep this," he said in a low voice, offering
her the pass. "You will probably desire to preserve it under lock and
key."
She rose to her slender height, took it in her childish hands, hesitated,
then, looking up at him, slowly tore the pass to fragments and loosed
them from her palm into the current of the south wind blowing.
"That does not matter," she said, "if you are going to love me."
There was a moment's silence, then she held out her left hand. He took
it; with her right hand, standing on tiptoe, she reached up and unbarred
the gates. And they passed out together into the infernal splendour of
the sunset forest.
[Illustration]
X
THE riots in London culminated in an episode so cataclysmic that it
sobered the civilised world. Young Lord Marque, replying to a question in
the House of Lords, said: "As long as the British peerage can summon
muscular vigour sufficient to keep a monocle in its eye and extract
satisfaction from a cigarette, no human woman in the British Empire shall
ever cast a bally ballot for any bally purpose whatever. What!"
And the House of Lords rose to its wavering legs and cheered him with an
enthusiasm almost loud enough to be heard above ordinary conversation.
But that unwise and youthful and masculine defiance was the young man's
swan-song. A male suffragette rushed with the news to Miss Pondora
Bottomly; Lord Marque was followed as he left the house; and that very
afternoon he was observed fleeing in a series of startled and graceful
bounds through Regent Park, closely pursued by several ladies of birth,
maturity, and fashion carrying solid silver hair-brushes.
_The Queen_, chronicling the somewhat intimate and exclusive affair a
week later, mentioned that: "Among those present was the lovely Lady
Diana Guernsey wearing tweeds, leather spats, and waving a Directoire
Banner embroidered with the popular device, 'Votes for Women,' in bright
yellow and bottle green on an old rose ground;" and that she had far
outdistanced the aged Marchioness of Dingledell, Lady Spatterdash, the
Hon. Miss Mousely, the Duchess of Rolinstone, Baroness Mosscroppe, and
others; and that, when last seen, she and the Earl of Marque were headed
westward. A week later no news of either pursuer or pursued having been
received, considerable uneasiness was manifested in court and suffragette
circles, and it was freely rumoured that Lady Guernsey had made a rather
rash but thoroughly characteristic vow that she would never relinquish
the trail until she had forced Lord Marque to eat his own words, written
in frosting upon a plum cake of her own manufacture.
Marque may have heard of this vow, and perhaps entertained lively doubts
concerning Lady Diana's abilities as a pastry cook. At any rate, he kept
straight on westward in a series of kangaroo-like leaps until darkness
mercifully blotted out the picture.
Remaining in hiding under a hedge long enough to realise that London was
extremely unsafe for him, he decided to continue west as far as the
United States, consoling himself with the certainty that his creditors
would have forced his emigration anyway before very long, and that he
might as well take the present opportunity to pick out his dollar
princess while in exile.
But circumstances altered his views; the great popular feminine upheaval
in America was now in full swing; the eugenic principle had been
declared; all human infirmity and degenerate imperfections were to be
abolished through marriages based no longer upon sentiment and personal
inclination, but upon the scientific selection of mates for the purpose
of establishing the ideally flawless human race.
This was a pretty bad business for Lord Marque. The day after his arrival
he was a witness of the suffragette riots when the Mayor, the Governor,
and every symmetrical city, county, and State official was captured and
led blushing to the marriage license bureau. He had seen the terrible
panic in Long Acre, where thousands of handsome young men were being
chased in every direction by beautiful and swift-footed suffragettes.
From his window in the Hotel Astor he had gazed with horror upon this
bachelors' St. Bartholomew, and, distracted, had retired under his bed
for the balance of the evening, almost losing consciousness when a
bell-hop knocked at his door with a supply of towels.
Only one thought comforted him; the ocean rolled majestically between the
Lady Diana, her pastry, and the last of the house of Marque.
Never should that terrible and athletic young woman discover his
whereabouts if he had to remain away from London forever; never, never
would he eat that pastry!
As he lay under his bed, stroking his short moustache and occasionally
sneezing, he remembered with a shudder his flight from those solid silver
hair-brushes through Regent's Park; he recalled how, behind him, long
after the heavier feminine aristocracy had given up the chase, one
youthful, fleet, supple, and fearsome girl had hung to his trail--a tall,
lithe, incarnation of her goddess namesake.
She had been too far away for him to distinguish her features; only in
Liverpool, where one dark night he ventured out to buy a copy of the
_Queen_ and eagerly read the details of the function, did he learn the
name of his closest pursuer.
Later, furtively haunting the smoking room on the _Caramania_, he learned
from the gossip there of Lady Diana's vow that she would never rest until
Lord Marque had eaten her plum cake with its frosted inscription--this
inscription consisting of the flippant words of his own rash speech
delivered in the upper house of Parliament.
Now, lying on his back under the bed, while outside in Long Acre the
dreadful work was going on, he lighted a cigarette and pondered the
situation. He didn't believe that Lady Diana would attempt to trail him
to America. That was one comfort. But, in view of the suffragette
disturbances going on outside his windows, he saw little prospect of a
dollar princess for the present. Meanwhile, how was he to exist?
The vague and British convictions concerning the rapid accumulation of
wealth on a "ranch" of any kind comforted Marque. He also believed them.
And three months later he had managed to survive a personal acquaintance
with the following episodes:
First, one large revolver bullet through hat with request to answer
affably when addressed by white men.
Second, one infuriated cow.
Third, one indigestion incubated by cumulative series of pie and
complicated by attentions from one large centipede.
Fourth, one contusion from a Montana boot with suggestion concerning
monocle.
Fifth, one 45-70 Winchester projectile severing string of monocle,
accompanied by laughter and Navajo blanket.
Sixth, comprehensive corporal casualties incident upon international
altercation concerning relative importance of Guy Fawkes and July 4th.
Seventh, physical debility due to excessive local popularity following
personal encounter with one rustler.
Eighth, complete prostration in consequence of frequent attempts to
render thanks for toasts offered him at banquet in celebration of his
impending departure for the East.
Ninth, general collapse following bump of coal and forcible ejection from
freight train near Albany, New York.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]