AN ADVANCE
Hamil stood under the cocoanut palms at the lake's edge and watched the
lagoon where thousands of coloured lanterns moved on crafts, invisible
except when revealed in the glare of the rushing rockets.
Lamps glittered everywhere; electric lights were doubly festooned along
the sea wall, drooping creeper-like from palm to palmetto, from
flowering hibiscus to sprawling banyan, from dainty china-berry to
grotesque screw-pine tree, shedding strange witch-lights over masses of
blossoms, tropical and semi-tropical. Through which the fine-spun spray
of fountains drifted, and the great mousy dusk-moths darted through the
bars of light with the glimmering bullet-flight of summer meteors.
And everywhere hung the scent of orange bloom and the more subtle
perfume of white and yellow jasmine floated through the trees from
gardens or distant hammocks, combining in one intoxicating aroma, spiced
always with the savour of the sea.
Hamil was aware of considerable noise, more or less musical, afloat and
ashore; a pretentious orchestra played third-rate music under the hotel
colonnade; melody arose from the lantern-lit lake, with clamourous
mandolins and young voices singing; and over all hung the confused
murmur of unseen throngs, harmonious, capricious; laughter, voice
answering voice, and the distant shouts as brilliantly festooned boats
hailed and were hailed across the water.
Hamil passed on to the left through crowded gardens, pressing his way
slowly where all around him lantern-lit faces appeared from the dusk and
vanished again into it; where the rustle of summer gowns sweeping the
shaven lawns of Bermuda grass sounded like a breeze in the leaves.
Sometimes out of the dusk all tremulous with tinted light the rainbow
ray of a jewel flashed in his eyes--or sometimes he caught the glint of
eyes above the jewel--a passing view of a fair face, a moment's
encountering glance, and, maybe, a smile just as the shadows falling
turned the garden's brightness to a mystery peopled with phantoms.
Out along the shell road he sauntered, Whitehall rising from tropic
gardens on his right, on his left endless gardens again, and white
villas stretching away into the starlight; on, under the leaning
coco-palms along quays and low walls of coquina where the lagoon lay
under the silvery southern planets.
After a little he discovered that he had left the bulk of the throng
behind, though in front of him and behind, the road was still dotted
with white-clad groups strolling or resting on the sea-wall.
Far out on the lake the elfin pageant continued, but now he could
scarcely hear the music; the far cries and the hiss of the rockets came
softly as the whizzing of velvet-winged moths around orange blossoms.
The January night was magnificent; he could scarcely comprehend that
this languid world of sea and palm, of heavy odour and slow breezes, was
his own land still. Under the spell the Occident vanished; it was the
Orient--all this dreamy mirage, these dim white walls, this
spice-haunted dusk, the water inlaid with stars, the fairy foliage, the
dew drumming in the stillness like the sound of goblin tattooing.
Never before had he seen this enchanted Southern land which had always
been as much a part of his mother-land as Northern hill and Western
plain--as much his as the roaring dissonance of Broadway, or the icy
silence of the tundras, or the vast tranquil seas of corn rippling mile
on mile under the harvest moon of Illinois.
He halted, unquiet in the strangeness of it all, restless under its
exotic beauty, conscious of the languor stealing over him--the
premonition of a physical relaxation that he had never before
known--that he instinctively mistrusted.
People in groups passed and repassed along the lagoon wall where,
already curiously tired, he had halted beside an old bronze cannon--some
ancient Spanish piece, if he could judge by the arms and arabesques
covering the breech, dimly visible in the rays of a Chinese lantern.
Beyond was a private dock where two rakish power-boats lay, receiving
their cargo of young men and girls--all very animated and gay under the
gaudy electric lanterns strung fore and aft rainbow fashion.
He seated himself on the cannon, lingering until both boats cleared for
the carnival, rushing out into the darkness like streaks of
multi-coloured flame; then his lassitude increasing, he rose and
sauntered toward the hotel which loomed like a white mountain afire
above the dark masses of tropic trees. And again the press of the throng
hemmed him in among the palms and fountains and hedges of crimson
hibiscus; again the dusk grew gay with voices and the singing overtone
of violins; again the suffocating scent of blossoms, too sweet and
penetrating for the unacclimated, filtered through and through him, till
his breath came unevenly, and the thick odours stirred in him strange
senses of expectation, quickening with his pulses to a sudden prophecy.
And at the same instant he saw the girl of whom he had been thinking.
She was on the edge of a group of half a dozen or more men in evening
dress, and women in filmy white--already close to him--so near that the
frail stuff of her skirt brushed him, and the subtle, fresh aroma of her
seemed to touch his cheek like a breath as she passed.
"Calypso," he whispered, scarcely conscious that he spoke aloud.
A swift turn of her head, eyes that looked blankly into his, and she had
passed.
A sudden realisation of his bad manners left his ears tingling. What on
earth had prompted him to speak? What momentary relaxation had permitted
him an affront to a young girl whose attitude toward him that morning
had been so admirable?
Chagrined, he turned back to seek some circling path through the dense
crowd ahead; and was aware, in the darkness, of a shadowy figure
entering the jasmine arbour. And though his eyes were still confused by
the lantern light he knew her again in the dusk.
As they passed she said under her breath: "That was ill-bred. I am
disappointed."
He wheeled in his tracks; she turned to confront him for an instant.
"I'm just a plain beast," he said. "You won't forgive me of course."
"You had no right to say what you did. You said 'Calypso'--and I ought
not to have heard you.... But I did.... Tell me; if I am too generous to
suspect you of intentional impertinence, you are now too chastened to
suspect that I came back to give you this chance. That is quite true,
isn't it?"
"Of course. You _are_ generous and--it's simply fine of you to overlook
it."
"I don't know whether I intend to overlook it; I was surprised and
disappointed; but I _did_ desire to give you another chance. And I was
so afraid you'd be rude enough to take it that--I spoke first. That was
logical. Oh, I know what I'm doing--and it's particularly common of
me--being who I am--"
She paused, meeting his gaze deliberately.
"You don't know who I am. Do you?"
"No," he said. "I don't deserve to. But I'll be miserable until I do."
After a moment: "And you are not going to ask me--because, once, I said
that it was nice of you not to?"
The hint of mockery in her voice edged his lips with a smile, but he
shook his head. "No, I won't ask you that," he said. "I've been beastly
enough for one day."
"Don't you care to know?"
"Of course I care to know."
"Yet, exercising all your marvellous masculine self-control, you nobly
refuse to ask?"
"I'm afraid to," he said, laughing; "I'm horribly afraid of you."
She considered him with clear, unsmiling eyes.
"Coward!" she said calmly.
He nodded his head, laughing still. "I know it; I almost lost you by
saying 'Calypso' a moment ago and I'm taking no more risks."
"Am I to infer that you expect to recover me after this?"
And, as he made no answer: "You dare not admit that you hope to see me
again. You _are_ horribly afraid of me--even if I have defied convention
and your opinions and have graciously overlooked your impertinence. In
spite of all this you are still afraid of me. Are you?"
"Yes," he said; "as much as I naturally ought to be."
"_That_ is nice of you. There's only one kind of a girl of whom men are
really afraid.... And now I don't exactly know what to do about
you--being, myself, as guilty and horrid as you have been."
She regarded him contemplatively, her hands joined behind her back.
"Exactly what to do about you I don't know," she repeated, leisurely
inspecting him. "Shall I tell you something? I am not afraid to; I am
not a bit cowardly about it either. Shall I?"
"If you dare," he said, smiling and uncertain.
"Very well, then; I rather like you, Mr. Hamil."
"You _are_ a trump!" he blurted out, reddening with surprise.
"Are you astonished that I know you?"
"I don't see how you found out--"
"Found out! What perfectly revolting vanity! Do you suppose that the
moment I left you I rushed home and began to make happy and incoherent
inquiries? Mr. Hamil, you disappoint me every time you speak--and also
every time you don't."
"I seem to be doomed."
"You are. You can't help it. Tell me--as inoffensively as possible--are
you here to begin your work?"
"M-my work?"
"Yes, on the Cardross estate--"
"You have heard of that!" he exclaimed, surprised.
"Y-es--" negligently. "Petty gossip circulates here. A cracker at West
Palm Beach built a new chicken coop, and we all heard of it. Tell me, do
you still desire to see me again?"
"I do--to pay a revengeful debt or two."
"Oh! I have offended you? Pay me now, if you please, and let us end this
indiscretion."
"You will let me see you again, won't you?"
"Why? Mr. Hamil."
"Because I--I _must_!"
"Oh! You are becoming emphatic. So I am going.... And I've half a mind
to take you back and present you to my family.... Only it wouldn't do
for _me_; any other girl perhaps might dare--under the circumstances;
but _I_ can't--and that's all I'll tell you."
Hamil, standing straight and tall, straw hat tucked under one arm, bent
toward her with the formality and engaging deference natural to him.
"You have been very merciful to me; only a girl of your caste could
afford to. Will you forgive my speaking to you as I did?--when I said
'Calypso!' I have no excuse; I don't know why I did. I'm even sorrier
for myself than for you."
"I _was_ hurt.... Then I supposed that you did not mean it.
Besides"--she looked up with her rare smile--"I knew you, Mr. Hamil, in
the boat this morning. I haven't really been very dreadful."
"You knew even _then_?"
"Yes, I did. The Palm Beach News published your picture a week ago; and
I read all about the very remarkable landscape architect who was coming
to turn the Cardross jungle into a most wonderful Paradise."
"You knew me all that time?"
"All of it, Mr. Hamil."
"From the moment you climbed into my boat?"
"Practically. Of course I did not look at you very closely at first....
Does that annoy you? It seems to ... or something does, for even in the
dusk I can see your ever-ready blush--"
"I don't know why you pretend to think me such a fool," he protested,
laughing; "you seemed to take that for granted from the very first."
"Why not? You persistently talked to me when you didn't know me--you're
doing it now for that matter!--and you began by telling me that I was
fool-hardy, not really courageous in the decent sense of the word, and
that I was a self-conscious stick and a horribly inhuman and unnatural
object generally--and all because I wouldn't flirt with you--"
His quick laughter interrupted her. She ventured to laugh a little
too--a very little; and that was the charm of her to him--the
clear-eyed, delicate gravity not lightly transformed. But when her
laughter came, it came as such a surprisingly lovely revelation that it
left him charmed and silent.
"I wonder," she said, "if you can be amusing--except when you don't mean
to be."
"If you'll give me a chance to try--"
"Perhaps. I was hardly fair to you in that boat."
"If you knew me in the boat this morning, why did you not say so?"
"Could I admit that I knew you without first pretending I didn't? Hasn't
every woman a Heaven-given right to travel in a circle as the shortest
distance between two points?"
"Certainly; only--"
She shook her head slowly. "There's no use in my telling you who I am,
now, considering that I can't very well escape exposure in the near
future. That might verge on effrontery--and it's horrid enough to be
here with you--in spite of several thousand people tramping about within
elbow touch.... Which reminds me that my own party is probably hunting
for me.... Such a crowd, you know, and so easy to become separated. What
do you suppose they'd think if they suspected the truth?... And the
worst of it is that I cannot afford to do a thing of this sort.... You
don't understand; but you may some day--partly. And then perhaps you'll
think this matter all over and come to a totally different conclusion
concerning my overlooking your recent rudeness and--and my consenting to
speak to you."
"You don't believe for one moment that I could mistake it--"
"It depends upon what sort of a man you really are.... I don't know. I
give you the benefit of all doubts."
She stood silent, looking him candidly in the eyes, then with a gesture
and the slightest shrug, she turned away toward the white road outside.
He was at her elbow in two steps.
"Oh, yes--the irony of formality."
She nodded. "Good night, then, Mr. Hamil. If circumstances permitted it
would have been delightful--this putting off the cloak of convention and
donning motley for a little unconventional misbehaviour with you....
But as it is, it worries me--slightly--as much as the episode and your
opinion are worth."
"I am wondering," he said, "why this little tincture of bitterness
flavours what you say to me?"
"Because I've misbehaved; and so have you. Anyway, now that it's done,
there's scarcely anything I could do to make the situation more flagrant
or less flippant--"
"You don't really think--"
"Certainly. After all is said and done, we _don't_ know each other; here
we are, shamelessly sauntering side by side under the jasmine,
Paul-and-Virginia-like, exchanging subtleties blindfolded. You are you;
I am I; formally, millions of miles apart--temporarily and informally
close together, paralleling each other's course through life for the
span of half an hour--here under the Southern stars.... O Ulysses, truly
that island was inhabited by one, Calypso; but your thrall is to be
briefer than your prototype's. See, now; here is the road; and I release
you to that not impossible she--"
"There is none--"
"There will be. You are very young. Good-bye."
"The confusing part of it to me," he said, smiling, "is to _see_ you
so--so physically youthful with even a hint of almost childish
immaturity!--and then to _hear_ you as you _are_--witty, experienced,
nicely cynical, maturely sure of yourself and--"
"You think me experienced?"
"Yes."
"Sure of myself?"
"Of course; with your cool, amused poise, your absolute
self-possession--and the half-disdainful sword-play of your wit--at my
expense--"
She halted beside the sea-wall, adorably mocking in her exaggerated
gravity.
"At your expense?" she repeated. "Why not? You have cost me something."
"You said--"
"I know what I said: I said that we might become friends. But even so,
you have already cost me something. Tell me"--he began to listen for
this little trick of speech--"how many men do you know who would not
misunderstand what I have done this evening? And--do _you_ understand
it, Mr. Hamil?"
"I think--"
"If you do you are cleverer than I," she said almost listlessly, moving
on again under the royal palms.
"Do you mean that--"
"Yes; that I myself don't entirely understand it. Here, under this
Southern sun, we of the North are in danger of acquiring a sort of
insouciant directness almost primitive. There comes, after a while, a
certain mental as well as physical luxury in relaxation of rule and
precept, permitting us a simplicity which sometimes, I think, becomes
something less harmless. There _is_ luxury in letting go of that live
wire which keeps us all keyed to one conventional monotone in the North.
I let go--for a moment--to-night. _You_ let go when you said 'Calypso.'
You couldn't have said it in New York; I couldn't have heard you,
there.... Alas, Ulysses, I should not have heard you anywhere. But I
did; and I answered.... Say good night to me, now; won't you? We have
not been very wicked, I think."
She offered her hand; smooth and cool it lay for a second in his.
"I can't let you return alone," he ventured.
"If you please, how am I to explain you to--the others?"
And as he said nothing:
"If I were--different--I'd simply tell them the truth. I could afford
to. Besides we'll all know you before very long. Then we'll see--oh,
yes, both of us--whether we have been foolishly wise to become
companions in our indiscretion, or--otherwise.... And don't worry about
my home-arrival. That's my lawn--there where that enormous rubber-banyan
tree straddles across the stars.... Is it not quaint--the tangle of
shrubbery all over jasmine?--and those are royal poincianas, if you
please--and there's a great garden beyond and most delectable orange
groves where you and I and the family and Alonzo will wander and eat
pine-oranges and king-oranges and mandarins and--oh, well! Are you going
to call on Mr. Cardross to-morrow?"
"Yes," he said, "I'll have to see Mr. Cardross at once. And after that,
what am I to do to meet you?"
"I will consider the matter," she said; and bending slightly toward him:
"Am I to be disappointed in you? I don't know, and you can't tell me."
Then, impulsively: "Be generous to me. You are right; I am not very old,
yet. Be nice to me in your thoughts. I have never before done such a
thing as this: I never could again. It is not very dreadful--is it? Will
you think nicely of me?"
He said gaily: "Now you speak as you look, not like a world-worn woman
of thirty wearing the soft, fresh mask of nineteen."
"You have not answered me," she said quietly.
"Answered you, Calypso?"
"Yes; I ask you to be very gentle and fastidious with me in your
thoughts; not even to call me Calypso--in your thoughts."
"What you ask I had given you the first moment we met."
"Then you _may_ call me Calypso--in your thoughts."
"Calypso," he pleaded, "won't you tell me where to find you?"
"Yes; in the house of--Mr. Cardross. This is his house."
She turned and stepped onto the lawn. A mass of scarlet hibiscus hid
her, then she reappeared, a pale shape in the dusk of the
oleander-bordered path.
He listened; the perfume of the oleanders enveloped him; high under the
stars the fronds of a royal palm hung motionless. Then, through the
stillness, very far away, he heard the southern ocean murmuring in its
slumber under a million stars.