There had been no more shooting or attempts at murder. The mail began to
arrive from home, and Colonel Van Ashton and Mrs. Forest began to
breathe easier.
Life at the old _Posada_ had settled down once more to its accustomed
calm and routine. The sun shone benignly and the birds sang daily in the
garden where the guests were wont to pass the greater part of the day.
The gay little songsters were a veritable revelation to them--especially
to the Colonel. How could such gentle creatures go on singing with such
indifference to the future in a land where life was held so cheap and
all things so uncertain?
Blanch had turned a deaf ear to the others' entreaties to return home at
once. The more they talked, the firmer she became, and finally, taking
matters into her own hands, settled the question by telegraphing home
for the twenty trunks of clothes she left there on her departure.
"Can't you see," she said by way of explanation, "how disastrous it
would be to leave Jack alone in this country with that--"
"Don't mention her!" interrupted Mrs. Forest.
"I don't see how we can help it," replied Blanch, "since fate has thrust
her unbidden into our lives. We might as well recognize facts first as
last since we are no longer in a position to choose either our
surroundings or the persons with whom we are to associate. There is only
one way to avert the catastrophe threatening us, and that is--by my
marrying Jack."
Chiquita's beauty filled Mrs. Forest with a vague and nameless terror.
But a glimpse of that dark siren was enough to apprise her of her son's
peril, and she unhesitatingly implored Blanch not to let him out of her
sight--to go off with him alone as often as possible and flirt with him
to any length; a tremendous concession on Mrs. Forest's part--nothing
less than a complete surrender, she being one of those proud but insipid
mortals whose temperature could be easily gauged by the inclination of
her long, slender, slightly upturned nose which seemed to be forever
pointing toward a better world. For her, it was not enough that one's
appearance and innate refinement marked one as a lady or a gentleman,
but it must be proven by a long deduction beginning with some obscure
ancestor of whom the world has never heard and whose shortcomings have
been happily buried in the oblivion of time. Could she have had her way,
the world would have been long since wrapped in pink tissue paper, tied
with blue ribbon and labeled safe. How she ever came by her dauntless
son remains a mystery; it certainly was no fault of hers.
Somebody of a pessimistic turn of mind once remarked that, if the human
race were suddenly stripped naked, it would be impossible to distinguish
the refined from the vulgar. A truly inspired utterance. For as Captain
Forest viewed his family from his plane of vantage, especially after
the leveling process had set in, they strangely reminded him of a flock
of tame geese rioting in a pond. They made a great noise and stir, but
convinced nobody.
Everybody having reached his level and been shorn of airs and
affectations, it no longer remained a question of what one was, but what
one could do. Consequently, it became daily more and more difficult to
distinguish between personalities. It is true there were occasional
flashes suggestive of submerged, latent faculties, but only flashes;
stupidity and the commonplace were the dominating notes.
It was a wonderful study in human nature, and hopeless though the
general outlook appeared, the future was not entirely without its
promise. The souls of Blanch and Chiquita shone like radiant twin stars
from out the gloomy, abysmal depths of the Egyptian darkness that had
settled over the world.
Perhaps the most remarkable and amusing feature of it all was that, with
the exception of Blanch, the others still seemed able to take themselves
seriously. They regarded the Captain's new outlook upon life as a
complete reversion to the primitive type, but luckily for them, he had
not yet lost his sense of compassion.
Recognizing the deplorable mental state to which his uncle was fast
sinking, he kept him supplied with wines and cigars, obtained from his
friend, Pedro Romero, the gambler. No man can partake of excellent wines
and cigars for any length of time without feeling his oats, as the
saying goes; and the Colonel proved no exception to the rule.
He had just finished a bottle of Burgundy and, as he sat in the garden
with his sister, sipping his _demitasse_ and inhaling the fragrant aroma
of a Havana, he began to feel the return of his nerve. In fact, had he
been approached on the subject, he would have admitted that he felt like
a fighting-cock, in just the proper condition to quarrel with his
nephew. Happily for the Colonel, the subject of his thoughts came
sauntering into view at this juncture, and he squared himself, assuming
an aggressive attitude preparatory to the encounter which he intended to
precipitate with all possible dispatch.
The disgusting complacency with which his nephew had taken to wearing
long trousers over his riding-boots in place of those precious balloon
breeches originally designed for lackeys but since adopted as a becoming
apparel for a gentleman, affected the Colonel's tender susceptibilities
to an extent almost inducing nausea. He quite forgot that he had been
guilty of a similar offense during his campaigning in the Civil War, and
naïvely imagined that his nephew had acquired this vulgar habit from his
friend, Mr. Yankton; a person whose lack of etiquette and easy-going
ways were enough to set his teeth on edge.
The Captain was looking for Blanch whom he had seen entering the garden
with his mother and the Colonel, but whose return to the house he had
not noticed, and he, therefore, walked unsuspectingly into the arms of
his uncle.
"I wish you would get rid of that infernal horse of yours," began the
Colonel by way of a preliminary to the skirmish, while his nephew
seated himself unconcernedly in a chair opposite him, tilting it
backwards and leisurely crossing his legs. "He positively threatened to
devour me bodily as I passed the corral this morning."
"I suppose it's because he has not yet learned that you are my uncle,"
replied the Captain, suppressing a smile. "It's strange what dislikes he
takes to certain persons when one considers that he's as gentle as a
kitten when children are around; but I'll try to teach him to
distinguish members of the family in the future."
"Look here, Jack! I've had enough of this beating about the bush. It's
time we came to an understanding."
"There's nothing to prevent it that I can see," answered the Captain
with maddening coolness. "I was merely apologizing for an ill-mannered
horse."
"Damn your horse, sir!" cried the Colonel with increasing choler.
"Any time you are ready, dear Uncle," replied the Captain calmly, taking
a cigarette from his case and lighting it. The Colonel ground his teeth
in silence. His first encounter with his nephew could hardly be called
satisfactory and he did not wish a repetition of it. He had come to
argue his nephew out of his folly through sheer force of logic and it
behooved him to remain as calm as possible during the interview, for his
nephew had a most surprising way of answering back and turning the
argument against one.
"Tell me," he began, "what possible attraction this country can have for
you?"
"It would be quite as impossible to explain that satisfactorily to you
as to make my reasons clear for being here at all. But since you again
ask me for those reasons, I can only answer as I did before. I have
exhausted that felicitous state called civilization. I want to be free."
"Rot!" cried the Colonel, literally snorting and bounding into the air.
"You've no right to be free! Only savages and criminals want to be free!
If that's all you have to say--" but his voice choked and he resumed his
seat in silence.
"I've never heard anything quite so silly!" exclaimed Mrs. Forest who up
to this point had maintained a discreet silence.
"It's true nevertheless," continued the Captain composedly, blowing a
ring of blue smoke into the air. "Civilization, you know, is practically
the same the world over. I have seen and heard everything, read
everything, and met everybody that's worth meeting, and I'm tired of
seeing and hearing them over and over again, year in and year out, with
always the dead certainty of their return to look forward to. Our lives
have become too stilted, too artificial--we lack poise, we live in
grooves. Everything is overdone--there is nothing left for us to
enjoy--our finer sensibilities have become dulled--the simplicity and
refinements of life have been swallowed up by luxury, tawdry display and
prudism."
"Bosh!" cried the Colonel.
"Everybody," the Captain went on, "knows exactly what his neighbor
thinks and is going to say, and should anybody by any chance begin to
think differently and seriously on life, society instantly brands that
person as stupid, if not a little queer. We have lost our independence."
"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Forest.
"Granted for the sake of argument," broke in the Colonel, flipping the
ash from off his cigar. "But what about art, science and literature, the
real things which stand for civilization?"
"Oh! as to them, they are all right in themselves. It is fortunate that
man has an outlet through these manifold channels of expression.
"They are the best part of our lives so far as they go, but all art and
science and no nature, and what becomes of man? Have they made the world
happy, and is there any immediate prospect of their ever doing so? Did
the Greeks, who attained the supreme heights in art, find happiness in
their art? Their history is the record of one long struggle; and so it
was with the renaissance of the Middle Ages, and so it is with us; our
sciences and arts can never change the complicated conditions in which
we live. They have never developed the sympathy and brotherly love which
should exist between man and man; we are still barbarians.
"The most miserable wretches that ever lived were the very ones that
passed their lives creating and theorizing. They all forgot and are
still forgetting like the rest of the world to-day that, these things,
no matter how great, amuse and interest for a time only; that once they
are absorbed, their original charm and novelty are gone forever. They
become worn and threadbare like all of man's inventions, and humanity is
ever left searching for the great panacea of life.
"The God-inspired sing and talk of the great life, but they do not live
it themselves, and that is why they never really succeed in delivering
their messages. And they may continue to write books and compose music,
to paint pictures and build temples and hew statues so long as this
planet is habitable, but these things are merely an imitation of the
reality--a reflection of the ideal in man. The delivered man must stand
above his art and science. He must recognize that he himself is the
well-spring, the source of his inspiration and is greater than his
emotional expressions. The true message can never be delivered to the
world until the life for which these things stand is actually lived out,
becomes a part of man's daily life."
"And you intend to deliver that message, I suppose?" observed the
Colonel sarcastically, smiling compassionately and twirling the end of
his mustache.
"In my own humble way, yes, but I ask no man to follow me!" A chorus of
laughter, in which were mingled the voices of Blanch and Bessie who had
just joined the group, greeted this confession.
"Did you ever hear the like of the conceit?" exclaimed Mrs. Forest as
the laughter subsided.
"Excuse my frankness, Jack, but you're an ass," said the Colonel tartly.
"You set an example to the world? Why, you're as spoiled as the rest of
us!" cried Bessie.
"Quite true, Cousin, but with this difference, I realize that fact and
the rest of you do not."
"What a charming pedestal you have placed yourself upon, Jack," said
Blanch, seating herself beside Mrs. Forest.
"Perhaps," returned the Captain dryly, "but of one thing I am certain.
Few people are better prepared to speak on this matter than I am."
"What an interesting lot we women must be in your eyes," broke in
Bessie, digressing from the subject. Captain Forest smiled.
"Don't misunderstand me," he went on. "You are trumps, every one of you,
if you only knew it, but unfortunately you do not. You are the most
attractive women in the world, but you are spoiled--utterly spoiled. You
are the well-groomed, lovely curled and pampered darlings of society,
but alas! utterly superficial, just like those brilliant women of the
great French revolutionary period."
"I admire your frankness, Jack; but what do you really intend doing?
What sort of a life do you intend to lead?" asked Blanch.
"Cease chasing will-o'-the-wisps about in the vain pursuit of happiness,
and live as man was intended to live by substituting nature's realities
for man's creations; those things which we prize most--which please for
a time, but which in the end leave us as empty handed as the day we
first started in quest of the _golden fleece_. Live as close as possible
to nature; cultivate the soil, watch the fruit and the flowers and the
grain grow, and roam throughout the length and breadth of the land when
the longing seizes me."
"What!" cried the Colonel, unable to contain himself any longer. "Is
this the inane, prosaic existence for which you have given up one of the
most brilliant careers the world had to offer a man? It's bad enough to
have wrecked that, but for one possessing the wealth you do to waste his
life after such fashion; it's simply disgusting! Think of what you might
do in the financial world!"
"That's just the sort of answer one might expect from you," replied the
Captain, taking a fresh pull at his cigarette. "You talk like a
stockbroker. That phase of labor brings no real happiness to any one.
Besides, it would be absurd for one possessing the money I do to spend
his days earning more. Of course as things are constituted to-day, it is
difficult to get along without money, but in reality I don't consider it
has anything to do with happiness. Lasting pleasure and peace can only
be found in the verities of nature; her beauties and realities are the
only satisfying and enduring things.
"What can you who pass your days amid the noise and dirt of cities,
breathing their tainted atmosphere, and your intellects nourished upon
artificialities and the creations of men's minds, know of nature? How
many of you have ever gazed long enough at the stars to appreciate their
beauty and mystery, or listened to the sound of the wind and tried to
guess its meaning?"
"Bah! you are as sentimental as a school-girl!" ejaculated the Colonel.
"You talk like one who has just taken a short course in Thoreau or
Rousseau."
The Captain only laughed in return. He rose from his seat and began
striding up and down before them with his hands clasped behind his back
and his gaze fixed on the ground.
"Who are you," he continued passionately, stopping abruptly before them,
"to assume that others should live according to your lackadaisical,
sensuous sentimentality--your divan, boudoir conceptions of life?
Thoreau and Rousseau and Emerson and Ruskin were great men, but had they
talked less and actually lived out the life they preached, the world
might possibly have been aroused to a consciousness of something higher
by this time; but they were too small for the task. It requires a man
cast in a bigger mold to perform the work--it is only in men like me
that the future hope of the race lies. I must _live_ the life they
preached. Do you understand? Why, I could crush you and the world you
represent in the hollow of my hand! You seek happiness in the evanescent
wine and laughter of the illusive, superficial life. I, too, sought it
there, but like you, I did not find it."
His words sank deep into the soul of Blanch. She admired his strength
and yet hated him for it. Why, she asked herself again, as she did on
the day he first imparted his new views of life to her, was she not
moved? Why was she still unable to thrill at the sound of his words?
She could not understand it. There seemed to be something lacking either
in him or in her.
"What assurance have you," she asked, "that you will find happiness in
this new life which you propose to lead?"
"The consciousness which tells me I exist, voices the fulfillment of
that promise. There can be no doubt of it. The traditions that have come
down to us from the past from all nations that once men were free, is no
myth. The true poetry of life, I repeat, is not found in the epics men
have created, but in the sources that inspired them. In the glories of
the earth and the air, in the stars and mountains and forests and fields
and streams, in man, in the birds and animals, in the turning of the
soil with the plow and the spade, and in the growing corn. These are the
things which, before all else, add to the spiritual growth of man and
inspire him to pray and hope, to sing and to love, and draw him close to
the invisible world because they are a part of the life of man, not
imitations of life. The instant man realizes this he will be free.
"I know you cannot understand this," he continued with a shade of
impatience in his voice, "for what can a lot of slaves like you, the
brick and mortar type of man, know of freedom, all that is best and
noble in life? You are so bound to the world of your own creating that
it has become as meaningless as a fancy to you. Your souls run on the
dead level; the great song of life sweeps by you unheeded, and is gone
forever."