A FLYING THRONE
Early next morning Monsieur was taken to the little island, and I felt
that his interview would be long and solemn--perhaps stormy. I hoped so.
He came back for luncheon and immediately left again, having given us no
intimation of his progress. I did not know what Doloria might be
suffering from these visits, but they made me so abominably restive that
during the afternoon I took a pine and crossed to the mainland,
half-heartedly intending to look for deer. It was nearly sundown when I
returned.
"We're packing, sir," said the sailor who tied my punt.
"Packing? Why?"
"Orders, sir."
Without loss of time I hunted up Tommy, finding him and Bilkins busy at
carpentry.
"What's in the wind?" I brusquely demanded, forgetting that Tommy was
rather particular about the way people addressed him.
"Rain," he imperturbably replied; or did he mean reign, and was
employing a vulgar pun to apprize me of Doloria's decision! So I
delivered a ten-second philippic on the poverty of some intellects,
whereupon he left off working and regarded me with amusement.
"Fact is, Lord Chesterfield, I don't know what's in the wind," he said,
"but we're leaving for Little Cove to-morrow at dawn. Bilkins and I are
making a portable throne--in other words, a chair suspended from poles
so Doloria won't have to walk. Professor came over about five o'clock in
a rattling hurry and splendid humor. He's packing Efaw Kotee's effects
now. Smilax left two hours ago with orders for the _Whim_ to be there
and take us off. Add it up for yourself."
"Orders," I angrily exclaimed, for this impertinence on the part of
Monsieur was going too far. "He settles with me, that's all!--and the
_Whim_ stays in Big Cove till I send for her!"
He grinned, then whistled softly.
"So there's no use knicking my knuckles any more on this portable
throne?"
"Not the slightest," I told him.
"Love's first tiff," he sighed, laying down the hammer and beginning to
fill his pipe.
"Love's what?"
"Tootsie-wootsie tiff, I believe I said"--this between puffs as the
match flared high and low over the bowl. "You understand, of course,
that Doloria gave the order."
"Confound you, why didn't you say so! What's happened? Did a message
come?"
"Sure." He stopped smoking and looked at me. "A big limousine drove up
with a note and flowers."
"Be serious," I thundered. "This isn't any time to joke!"
"When you talk about a paucity of intellect," he laughed softly, "it's a
wonder you don't bite yourself."
"Oh, Tommy, please let up; I'm sorry, honest--I'm wretched, too!"
His manner changed then. Putting his arm through mine, he led me
outside, going toward our landing.
"This is just the time to joke, old man," he said, when we reached it.
"She made up her mind to leave, _pronto_! Why? Conscience said obey
Monsieur, but heart said nixy! What's to do then? Start home quick, of
course, before little heart gives old conscience the solar plexus!
That's how I size it up!"
"But I don't see anything to joke about," I said gloomily.
"Well, let me shuffle again--now take a look! When Smilax left with her
order, I sent a note to the mate, telling him to bring both yachts down.
Then we'll have to split the crew, and in the mix-up I'll see that you
and she get on the _Whim_, while Monsieur sails on----But I see you get
me! If you can't stifle her conscience before we reach Miami, you're a
mud-hen."
"Great guns," I whispered, grabbing him by the arms, "we might sail----"
"All over the Gulf," he chuckled, giving me a push toward the water.
"There's your Hellespont, son, as sure as Leander was a gentleman! Cross
it now and tell her it's all right about that order!"
"My two days aren't up yet; I'm bound."
"That's nothing. Wait!"
He was off to the old chief's bungalow and reappeared with Monsieur,
whose broad smile was anything but reassuring.
"You wish to relieve her uncertainty about that order?" he asked, coming
up. "Certainly, my boy Jack, go and say what you please."
"What I please?" I asked pointedly.
"Why not what you please? She goes with me to Azuria--we have arranged
it. You could not dissuade her now. Even could you, she knows she can
not resist my authority. Yes, go and say what you like."
He was laughing by this time, at his success rather than my
discomfiture, but Tommy saw that I was making little distinction between
the two and wisely led him away.
As I stepped upon the little island Echochee came down to meet me.
"How's your Lady?" I asked.
"You go see," she answered in a low voice, pointing to the open door.
As I entered the commodious living room Doloria looked up, but did not
smile. She was reclining on a _chaise-longue_, beneath a shaded lamp
whose rays still blended with the light of a dying afterglow. Her
hunting costume had been discarded for a flimsy kind of an exquisite
thing of blue--hardly a dress, although it had a lot of lace and seemed
to fit her perfectly. It was open at the throat like some dresses, and
the sleeves fell away from her arms; but I had seen one instinctive
movement she made to pull it closer which might have indicated
embarrassment.
"I've come with Monsieur's permission," I said, bowing over her hand.
"With Monsieur's permission," she repeated after me. "We seem to do
nothing but with Monsieur's permission."
I saw that she was nervous and very much upset, so replied as gently as
I could:
"But this visit involved my promise, otherwise I wouldn't have asked
him. I want to tell you that it's all right about the yacht--your
sending for her, I mean. She'll be on hand to-morrow."
"Thanks, Chancellor." Her tone had changed to one of complete weariness.
"Now leave me, please."
"Leave you," I exclaimed. "I'll do nothing of the kind! The two-day ban
is off, and Monsieur has told me I can say anything I please!"
"And having his permission to say anything you please, did you rehearse
it before him, too?"
This left me helpless, fervently wishing I'd had more of Tommy's
experience with girls' moods. He knew a lot about them, and would have
understood just what to do. But I felt suddenly enraged--not at her, but
at everything, and cried:
"I don't give a damn for him or his permission! He shan't take you
away!"
For the first time she smiled, and held out her hands to me, saying:
"That's good-medicine-talk, Jack. I like it even if it won't cure me.
Say it again--that you don't give a damn for him!"
I would have said something in an entirely different way had not
Echochee been moving about the next room, but I kneeled, leaning over
her, keeping her hand and whispering:
"He shan't dominate our lives! You're going back with me--don't you know
you are?"
"Don't make me sorry you came, Jack," she said softly. "I must go with
him. So let's talk of other things and keep our last evening here from
being a horror."
"I've got to talk about it, as I've got to breathe and think and move
and love you! It's all one! It's my existence, and if you went away it
would be like tearing me to pieces!"
"Oh, but don't you see that I must," she cried despairingly. "I didn't
close my eyes all night, thinking, thinking, thinking! It was agony.
It's agony now. But my decision's been through the fire, Jack, and I
know I'm right!"
"No decision counts for anything against all you mean to me!"
"Oh, Jack, I'm so sorry!" she moaned, looking at me without
dissimulation and letting me see that her face was marked by a solemnity
and tragedy that wrung my heart. "God," she whispered, putting her hand
to my forehead, "how I suffer while I see your tortured eyes!"
"Then out of sorrow, pity, tell me what the fellow said," I implored,
nearly beside myself. "Let me know the strength of your duty, so my own
strength can have a chance. It isn't fair to make a beggar of me when I
might be fighting for happiness! Let me see his weapons so I can strike
back; then, if I lose, I'll lose standing up--and the future," I added,
less impetuously, "isn't so gray to the man who loses standing up."
She had turned away with a quick gesture of anguish and seemed to be
crying, but when she looked at me again there were no signs of tears.
"He says others have demands and rights, and the many must outweigh the
few."
"That depends on the greatness of each side's claims," I began, when she
interrupted by continuing:
"My conscience decided that--it had no choice; every claim has been
weighed--accurately." Her voice trembled a little, and I thought she was
trying to make it harsh. "He said that you and I were thrown out from
separate spheres, opposite poles. By chance our orbits happened to
cross, and you rendered me this tremendous service. But it was only a
part of the foreordination--only to make my path easier to a greater
duty ahead, a greater destiny to be fulfilled. Now this commands--he
says. The call of my birthright has come, and I must answer. He says
that neither of us will mind it in a little while, as memories
pa--pass." She wavered at last, and again turned away her face.
"But you don't believe that stuff?" I cried.
"Oh, his words are so unanswerable--when he speaks them! Then he has the
authority to command me!"
"They're not unanswerable," I said hotly. "_You_ haven't weighed our
happiness against this unknown voice of your people, your birthright--he
did it for you! His cold logic read the scales--not your heart or your
conscience! He's built a wall around you like a cistern, and you can't
see out. If it was ordained for us to face death, then by the same law
we've got to face life! Sweetheart, don't you see what I mean?"
"I've seen all that from the beginning, dear," she murmured, putting one
hand on my hair and stroking it. "But nothing can prevail against what
you call his cold logic. He's certain that he's right, and he has the
power to make me go."
"Oh, if I only had the brains to out-argue him!" My voice choked, and I
bowed my head in her lap.
For a while we were silent. Her hand continued to stroke my hair, and
soon her fingers strayed to my temple and gently pressed it--as if she
knew that my head burned and ached, and wanted to make it well.
"You don't have to argue, always my own," I heard her whisper. "There's
something stronger than words pleading for you."
I looked up quietly, saying:
"Let's run away to-night! Let's have another rescue, and go back to our
Oasis----" But she stopped me by putting her hand over my mouth,
although she was breathing fast and the color had flown to her cheeks.
"Don't, don't," she gasped. "I've thought of that so many times!"
"To-night," I begged. "You know I'll always make you happy?"
"Happy?" Her eyes, half closed, held mine with a look that did not try
to hide its longing. "There'd be no happiness on earth like that of
being entirely yours at our Oasis!"
"Then, sweetheart----"
"No, Jack," she now sat straighter. "I was dreaming. Besides, he'd
follow with every officer in Florida. Don't you understand, dear, that
he has the _right_? I'm helpless to refuse! I can't--possibly! It's
simply awful, but it's got to be."
Yet I believed that she had been on the point of yielding, and was about
to urge still further when Monsieur's voice, speaking to Echochee,
brought me to my feet.
"Well, my boy Jack," he exclaimed, entering with a cheeriness I found
detestable, "we shall leave her now, eh? She has packing to do, and must
get early to rest."
His protectorate seemed to brook no opposition, and an angry retort
sprang to my lips which remained unspoken when I saw the pallor of
Doloria's face.
"Yes," she said, without animation, "I must pack. See you to-morrow--on
the march."
So, ignoring him, I passed out. But a better humor came to me as I
thought of Tommy's scheme about the _Orchid_, and coming upon Echochee
at the landing I asked--lightly for her benefit, yet quite seriously for
myself:
"Is there any magic in your tribe that can bring a troubled princess
sleep and pleasant dreams?"
I knew that she was searching my face with her black little eyes that
glistened like a snake's, as she answered slowly:
"Injun maiden find plenty good dream when her head lay on breast of
sleeping brave."
"I didn't mean just that," I stammered, feeling my cheeks grow hot. For,
albeit, Doloria had slept part of a night with her head against my
shoulder when we fared alone in the purity of our wilderness, now, since
others of the world were touching elbows with us, Echochee's words
knocked me rather into a self-conscious heap. But such is the bitter
tithe we must toss into the maw of civilization which, despite its
multitude of admitted blessings, breeds also the false! And I stepped
into the punt wishing that this daughter of our oldest American family
could be divinely appointed arbiter of our customs.
Smilax returned with word that both yachts would be at Little Cove, and
one by one the lights in our camp went out. But I sat late at Efaw
Kotee's desk writing a ten-page telegram and a fifty-page letter to my
father. Both of these I would despatch from Key West--the wire telling
him to bring the Mater to Miami where the letter would await them; and I
urged them both, as they loved me, to pick up a certain darling of the
gods named Nell. Only I made it stronger and more explicit than that,
and knew they would comply if such a thing were humanly possible. But
this pet scheme I intended to keep from Tommy. It would repay him for
his masterly scheme of sailing both yachts homeward.
The next morning after an early breakfast our cavalcade set forth, each
man carrying a pack except the two sailors on whose shoulders rested the
poles of Doloria's chair. But in this chair sat a very sad little
princess--this morning particularly, as she was leaving a nominal home
for a new and mystifying adventure. Whatever else Efaw Kotee had been to
her, at least he stood in her memory of father; and however irrevocably
she may have turned against him, the very fact that she found it
necessary to do so was a grievous disappointment.
All that had passed. Strangers had come, and in a few days she was being
borne to the other half of the world. To her mother!--what did she know
of a mother? To a throne!--but with an unknown prince to rule beside
her? And these were entirely apart from the longings she might leave on
this side of the world. Surely, if she needed sympathy at any time it
was now as the march began.
Although Monsieur had taken a position close to her, and evidently meant
to keep it, before we had gone very far I fell in alongside with them,
asking:
"How do you find the march? Tiring?"
"Oh, no, not in Tommy's flying throne, as he calls it,"--and in an
undertone she added: "I wish it were the only throne I had to occupy."
But the professor, overhearing this--for little escaped him now--cleared
his throat and stepped nearer.
"She is mistaken, my boy Jack," he said suavely. "The march is quite
fatiguing, and I must insist that she conserve her strength. There will
be no more conversation."
Taken aback by this, I was on the point of giving him a jolly good
blowing up, but her ready acquiescence caused me to desist. Really, I
began to wonder if he had her hypnotized; and, furious--indeed, quite a
good deal hurt--by the cool way she obeyed him and began to ignore me, I
marched grimly ahead.
As, three hours later, we neared the cove I saw Tommy sauntering back.
His manner seemed an augury of trouble, and I hurried on to him, asking:
"What's happened?"
"The _Orchid_ isn't there," he turned and fell into step with me. "While
getting her out of Big Cove she fouled on a bar. She's still on it, poor
dear. So Monsieur sails with us, after all."
For several minutes I stood still in my tracks and swore, stopping only
when Doloria's chair came in sight.
"I'm glad you got that out of your system," Tommy grinned. "Now get busy
on a new line of attack. We've only three more days, and you'll have to
work fast. Surprise her, upset her, then cinch her before she knows
what's what. That's the way!" And he hurried back to pay his respects.
The mate and his fellows, even to Pete the cook, escorted us happily
down to the small boats. They were honestly glad, and made no pretense
of disguising their admiration for Doloria, to the increasing wrath of
Echochee.
If ever the men of my own boat crew were on their mettle it was when
they sat with oars straight up while I helped her into the gig and took
my place at her side--for this was an honor I could not yield to
Monsieur, etiquette demanding that, when going aboard, the owner must be
her personal escort. With a nod to them they snapped into stroke and we
shot away, leaving the old fellow much disgruntled.
At the top of the gangway she hesitated in pretty wonderment before
stepping on deck, for the _Whim_ was a smart craft and our sailors had
not been idle these few days past.
"Everything's so unreal," she murmured. "My house of cards has come
tumbling down about my ears, until I think it must be a dreadful dream."
"To be transported to a sure-enough throne is certainly dreamlike," I
said, arranging the cushions in a chair. "But I hardly think you'll find
anything dreadful about it."
"You don't?" she asked pointedly.
"No," I answered. "The dreadful part's for me."
I knew this was not true, or only partially true, but considered it
justifiable after Tommy's warning--and Tommy knew a lot about women. I
remembered him saying once that a girl's determination could be changed
in two ways: by opposition, and by cooperation. I had tried opposition,
so now I would pretend to fall resignedly in with Monsieur's plan,
taking it for granted that her future promised nothing but idyllic
happiness, that memories would pass, and all that kind of thing. I would
become an enigma to her--for this, also, had been one of Tommy's diverse
methods of success. Some day, confessing how my triumph had been
achieved, we both would laugh over it, and then she would have to admit
that Tommy was not the only one who knew a thing or two about women.
So reasoning, I started in at once. For a while she stared at me, her
eyes growing wider and wider. Then she arose and went to the rail,
remarking coolly:
"Please signal to have Echochee and Monsieur Dragot brought out at
once." And that was the only thing she would say.
To hell with what Tommy knew about women! She would not so much as look
at me again, and when that wretched old rag of a shriveled-up squaw,
incarnate fiend of a watchful guardian, arrived my princess retired to
her stateroom, nor did she appear again the entire day. What Tommy knew
about women, indeed!
The rest of us lunched in moody silence, except Monsieur who grew
loquacious to the point of making himself an ass. He was not on the
crest of popularity, anyway. Previously, in order to give Doloria more
freedom, Tommy and I decided to sleep on deck and use Gates's quarters
for a dressing room. But when this proposition was also opened to the
professor he flatly refused to join with us. The truth of the matter was
that he had determined upon a plan--singularly popular among
pedagogues--of watchful waiting; he had made up his mind that Doloria
and I should not see each other again except in his presence. He may
have told her this--I rather suspected it.
As we sat in the cockpit smoking, he became down-right obnoxious by
excessive jocularity. It can be disgustingly overdone. Believing that
his triumph was assured, he sputtered and giggled with small regard for
my presence, and the farther he went the madder I got. Despite his
former protestations of fair play, I now began to nurse a suspicion of
this befousled little gimcrack; but I'd not thought that Tommy would
grow a distemper of any magnitude until the professor, rubbing his
hands, announced:
"_Mon Capitaine_ says we do not sail for an hour. Let us take a small
boat and fish around the mangroves! Maybe a snapper, eh?--or a
sheep's-head!"
I was silent. Tommy puffed indifferently at his pipe.
"Come," he cried again. "Let us make a fishing party!"
"The trouble with fishing parties is," Tommy drawled, "that there's
always some damn fool along who wants to fish."--Which was, I think, not
only the best thing Tommy ever said but, in the circumstances, the best
that could have been said.
The professor sat down again rather suddenly and blinked at us.
"So! Then we do not fish," he murmured, and after another thoughtful
pause went below.
"I don't suppose we ought to insult him," I suggested, not intending any
one to think I meant it.
"I don't care what we do to him," Tommy savagely retorted. "All the good
you've got out of this cruise will go to the bow-wows. I won't have it,
I tell you! Let's chuck him overboard!"
"Chuck over your grouch," I laughed, although his proposition interested
me.
"Oh, I haven't any grouch," he turned away; but swung back, asking: "Are
you going to give up?"
"Most certainly not!"
"Then why don't you get busy?"
"Get busy! D'you expect me to go downstairs and drag her out of her
room?"
"Yes--do anything! She isn't staying there from choice!" (But I knew
better than that.) "If I slug the gezabo you might ask her up. Shall I?"
"Show an idea, man! You know she wouldn't see me!"
"What if she wouldn't! Bring her out, anyhow! Good Lord, Jack, if you're
an example of lovers up North, then I say God pity Yankee girls!"
"Well, what would you do, Mr. Know-so-much?" I asked, my temper blowing
up. "If she told you she'd stayed awake nights fighting it out and
reached the conclusion, absolutely and without peradventure of changing
her mind, that her destiny's in Azuria, what would you do then--you who
know such a hell of a lot about women?" I just had to say that; it kept
irritating me.
"I don't claim any knowledge of the genus," he said, looking mildly at
the horizon--and wanting to laugh, I thought. "But a modicum of brain
would show you she hasn't thought it out, at all. How could she in
forty-eight hours, being confronted for the first time in her life with
the two most glowing things in a girl's fancy--love or a throne? She's
dazzled, not decided."
"She's worse," I growled. "She's hurt--that's one reason she won't come
up! And allow me to say that what you know about women wouldn't fill a
gnat's eye!" I seemed to be hypped on this, and couldn't get away from
it.
"Well, if you've spilled the beans you'll have to pick 'em up pretty
quick, for we'll be home in three days. Just be sure you don't intimate
that Azuria can be less than a perfect hell to her, for that would ruin
your chances forever!" And with this parting injunction, that drove
terror to my heart, he walked aft to join Gates.
Going to the companionway door, I peered into the cabin. The wretched
Dragot, bedecked in smoking jacket and spectacles, looking uncommonly
like a monkey, I thought, was lounging behind a book. He knew that the
nearer uncertainty approaches a certainty the more fatal will be the
result of its upsetting; that, whereas a scheme jumbled in its infancy
may recover, the slightest maladjustment on the threshold of success
often spells irrevocable ruin. He was taking no chances.