He would certainly accept the challenge, but first he must try to make
himself presentable. He shaved. He washed his hand as well as he could,
though he could not remove quite all the soil from the minute valleys of
that peninsula. He put a fresh glove on Pat, remembering how utterly
unaware of Maisie’s ugly clamp she had seemed. He combed his hair and
knelt on the rock to inspect the reflection in liquid diamond, but could
see no good reason why a girl should like his looks.
Then he rowed over to the American shore, and landed near a great rock
against which every swell from the steamers broke and fled away. It was
of the same texture as the island, elegant acid stuff with a grain
almost as smooth as that of obsidian. He changed Maisie for Pat and
climbed up on the rock.
To the west the long low house of logs, half hidden in snowy spirea,
stood on the hillside. At the north end arose a great chimney gleaming
with bits of jasper. Behind it cedars, like green titano-silicate,
banked the hill till they met the pines on the crest.
A month ago he had asked to be sent after titanium to some country where
it occurred without admixture of girls. Yet here he stood, about to seek
silica with a very high admixture of girl. Indeed he seemed to be
seeking pure girl. Perhaps he had better sit down and reflect.
He did so, turning his back on the bridal wreath and fixing his gaze on
the island. It was fair as paradise, yet he was bent on destroying it.
It would be made into pyrex or carborundum or ferrosilicon. And the
transformation would be noisy. Every day for many summers it would groan
with shocks and make the whole country vibrate till most of its bulk was
carried away, leaving only a white Fujiyama of screenings.
As thus he pondered he felt a slight shock himself. A warm weight struck
him and cuddled beside him. A dog had joined him, most surprisingly
silent and friendly. Why, this was a welcome! This was a chunk of living
euxenite, the mineral whose name means hospitable to strangers, even
when the strangers are such odd creatures as titanium and germanium.
But the collie’s warm silence stirred a memory. The girl had said that
she never mentioned explosives in her father’s presence. Evidently the
brother had perished by some explosion, probably of ammunition, and the
very thought of detonations renewed the old man’s grief.
The proper thing would be to remove the old man to some other and better
farm, and to buy his place as barracks for the quarrymen. If the old man
owned the island he would doubtless sell both island and farm for ten
thousand. If not, Marvin would gladly add his own four thousand, now
that he had set eyes on Jean Winifred Rich.
Having neatly settled it all, he felt moved to go immediately and set
eyes on her again. So down he sprang, and the dog followed him, and
together they walked up to the house bent on conquest. He knocked, and
she came to the door.
“My name is Mahan, and I am looking for Miss Rich.”
“Won’t you come in, Mr. Mahan?”
He entered, and stood paralyzed. Instead of a farm-house sitting room
with a hanging lamp and a melodeon, this was a noble library. The
smooth-hewn walls were lined with books, with one or two bronzes above
them. At the north end was a fireplace with crackling birch, and near it
stood an upright rosewood piano, very small and old, but so well kept
that he could have sworn it was in tune. No signs of poverty here except
in that old haircloth couch, which certainly needed new springs.
She motioned him to a seat, and he obeyed as in a dream. He was sitting
in the library of some old scholar. He had come about as near to
guessing father as Sir William came when he guessed quinine and
discovered mauve.
He clung to the collie and for the first time understood what
bashfulness is like.
“Wonderful dog,” he said at last.
“Yes, Agricola has his points.”
The young man searched his memory in vain, like one who has laboriously
primed himself to listen to the converse of specialists, only to be left
behind at the first sentence. Yet “Agricola” sounded strangely familiar.
He reckoned it was one of Julius Caesar’s men, the one perhaps that
built a bridge across a French river.
“Did you call on business?”
“Why, yes. Miss Rich. I’m on my way to the fish market. I understand
that perch are selling very reasonably this morning—eighty cents a
pound, if the market report is correct—and I wished to order, say, ten
pounds.”
She looked at him demurely.
“I keep the market myself, but I’m out of perch. The hotel took them
all.”
“Could I—could you direct me to the hotel?”
“You are in the lobby now.”
“You mean I can actually stay to dinner if I have the price?”
“Of course. Dinner will be ready in half an hour. But our rates—well,
you see, there is no other hotel in these parts, and the rates might
seem unreasonable. Shall I mention them?”
“Not till after dinner, please.”
Off she went without another word, and Marvin drew a long breath. He
rose and moved round the room. He picked up a daily paper, laid it down,
and picked up the only other journal in sight, the current number of a
philological review. The cover bore the table of contents, and the
second article was entitled “The Algonquin Pronominal System,” by
Ambrose Rich. He turned to the end of the article and found it
communicated from Upper Encampment, Michigan!
He reverently laid the Algonquin pronominal system back on the table and
turned to the shelves. Books in every language he had ever heard of,
grammars by the yard, tomes that keep the buyer poor, and not a single
recent volume except the last edition of the Britannica! Finally in an
obscure corner the gleam of gold revealed the name “Rich” some six or
eight times repeated. He drew forth the three largest volumes, opened
one, and read:
“The Complete Works of Cornelius Tacitus, edited with English notes,
critical and explanatory, by Ambrose Rich.”
He carried those three volumes out to the porch and solemnly sat down to
educate himself. Half an hour was not much, but he must do what he
could. His Latin was mostly oxides long ago, but he could read English
if not too hard, and he read a crisp summary of the Germania. He read of
Angles and Saxons and stem family purity. He read of amber, the first
substance to give away the electric constitution of things, though the
editor was evidently innocent of any physics since Lucretius. Amber was
own cousin to the pepper on the editor’s table, but doubtless the old
man cared nothing for such relationships.
And then, glory be, he discovered who Agricola was. Once upon a time,
when St. Paul was yet alive and rather disapproving matrimony, the young
and nervy Tacitus presented himself before General Agricola with a
request for the hand of his daughter. Agricola consented like a man, and
went off to govern Britain, where he doubtless set the Mahans to
draining marshes.
Enough. He would imitate this Tacitus. He would find and face the
caustic old scholar, and be scowled at by fierce blue eyes from under
beetling brows, and register as a candidate. There must be others, but
they couldn’t be worse than the Germans at Mezy.
The dog seemed to understand perfectly, and so they set off up the path.