"It was the only way," said the lady as Lewis handed her out of the
carriage. "The horses wouldn't wait, once the gates were open. What did
you wish to say?"
"I--I wanted to ask you about the Leightons," stammered Lewis. "They
used to live here. That is--"
"I know," said the lady. "Come up on the veranda."
That veranda made Consolation Cottage seem farther away than ever to
Lewis. Its floor was tiled. Its roof was cleverly arranged to give a
pergola effect. It was quite vine-covered. The vines hid the glass that
made it rain-proof. In one corner rugs were placed, wicker chairs, a
swinging book-rack, and a tea-table. The lady motioned to Lewis to sit
down. She sat down herself and started drawing off her long gloves. She
looked curiously at Lewis's face.
"You're a Leighton yourself, aren't you? Some relative to Mrs. Leighton
and Natalie?"
Lewis nodded.
"A cousin in some Scotch degree to Natalie," he said; "I don't know just
what." Then he turned his eyes frankly on her.
"Where are they--Mrs. Leighton and--and Natalie?"
"They are gone," said the lady. "They sold out here almost a year ago
and went back to the States. I have the address somewhere. I'll get it
for you." She went, but was back in a moment.
"Thanks," said Lewis. He did not look at her any more or around him. His
eyes fixed vaguely on distance, as one's eyes do when the mind tells
them they are not wanted.
The lady sat perfectly still and silent. The silence grew and grew until
by its own weight it suddenly brought Lewis back to the present and
confusion. He colored. His lips were opening in apology when the lady
spoke.
"Where have you been?" she asked.
Lewis gave her a grateful look.
"I've been playing about the old place," he said, smiling. "Not alone.
Natalie, Shenton, and I. We've been racing through the pineapple-patch,
lying on our backs under an orange-tree, visiting the stables, and--and
Manoel's little house, hiding in the bramble-patch, and peeking over the
priest's wall." Lewis waved his hand at the scene that made his words so
incongruous. "Sounds to you like rank nonsense, I suppose."
The lady shook her head.
"No," she said--"no, it doesn't sound like nonsense."
Then he asked her about Natalie. She told him many little things. At the
end she said:
"I feel that I've told you nothing. Natalie is one of those persons that
we generally call a 'queer girl' because we haven't the intelligence or
the expression to define them. Our local wit said that she was a girl
whom every man considered himself good enough for, but that considered
herself too good for any man. That was unjust, but it sounded true
because sooner or later all the eligibles lined up before Natalie--and
in vain." The lady frowned. "But she wasn't selfish or hard. She used to
let them hang on till they just dropped off. She was one of those women
that nothing surprises. Her train was made up of the ugly and the
handsome--bore, prude, wit, and libertine. She gave them all something;
you could feel it. I think she got tired of giving and never taking."
"Is she so beautiful?" asked Lewis.
"Beautiful? Oh, no," said the lady, and then suddenly stopped and
straightened. She laughed. "Now I look back on it all, it seems she must
be beautiful, but--but I know she isn't. Now _I'm_ talking nonsense."
"No, you 're not," said Lewis. "There are women like that." He reached
out for his hat and stick.
"You're not going?" said the lady. "You'll stay to tea?"
Lewis shook his head.
"You've been very kind," he said, "but I must be going."
Without rising, she took the hand that he held out and then sat and
watched his erect figure swing down the drive to the gate. Suddenly she
remembered him. They had been together in school. She did not call him
back. Bores are people that misjudge the values of impressions. The lady
was not a bore; she was a wise woman.
By traveling overland to Rio, Lewis caught the newest and finest of the
big steam-packets plying between Buenos Aires and Southampton. This old
world of his had been moving apace in more ways than one. The years
since, with his father, he had made this same trip were comparatively
few, but during them progress had more than taken a long stride; it had
crossed a line.
He dressed for dinner at eight. As he stepped into the dining-room, he
paused and stared. It was like walking into some smart London restaurant
after the theater. Gone were the long ship-boards at which for
generations human beings had been lined up like cattle at a trough. In
their place were scattered small tables, round and square, of a capacity
varying from two to eight.
Around the tables wealth rioted. There were wealthy coffee-planters, who
spent a yearly fortune on their annual trip to Paris, surrounded by
their wives and such of their offspring as were old enough to escape the
nursery table; planters, sheep- and cattle-men from the Argentine, some
of them married, all accompanied; and women. Lewis had never before seen
so many beautiful women at one time. It was _the_ boat of the season.
Over all hung an atmosphere of vintage wines.
Lewis was shown to a seat at a table for two. His _vis-à-vis_ was a
rare, lonely little man. The black studs in his shirt seemed to explain
him. He was sour and morose till he found Lewis could speak French, then
he bubbled over with information. It transpired that the room was alive
with situations.
"This is a crowded boat, but see the lady over there?"
Lewis's eyes followed the speaker's backward nod. He saw a remarkably
beautiful blonde in evening dress sitting alone at a table for four. She
kept her eyes steadily on her plate.
"We call her the Duchess," continued the little man. "She belongs to De
la Valla, the sugar king. He's got his daughters with him, so she had to
sit at another table, and he paid four passages for her so she'd be kept
alone."
Lewis nodded politely.
"Now slant your eyes over my left shoulder," continued the little man.
To Lewis's surprise, he saw another beautiful woman, a bright-eyed
brunette, sitting alone at a table for four. He turned, interested, to
his table companion for the explanation.
"Ah-ha!" said the little man, "you begin to wake up. That, my friend, is
Mlle. Folly Delaires. She's been playing in Buenos Aires. When she saw
people staring at the Duchess, she stepped up to the purser's office and
laid down the cash for a table for four. At first we thought it was just
vanity and a challenge, but we know her better now. She's just the devil
of mischief and several other things in the flesh. We ought all to be
grateful for her."
Lewis looked curiously at Mlle. Delaires. He watched to see her get up.
She passed close to him. She did not have the height that his training
had taught him was essential to beauty, but she had certain attributes
that made one suddenly class height with other bloodless statistics.
From her crown of brown hair to her tiny slippers she was alive.
Vitality did not radiate from her, but it seemed to lurk, like a
constant, in her whole body and in her every supple movement. Lewis did
not see it, but she was of the type that forever takes and never gives.
As she passed close by him he felt an utterly new sensation, as though
he were standing in a garden of narcotics, and lassitude were stealing
through his limbs. When she had gone, a single memory clung to him--the
memory of the wonderful texture of her skin. He had read in a child's
book of physiology that our skin breathes. The affirmation had meant
nothing to him beyond mechanics; now, suddenly, it meant much. He had
seen, felt, this woman's skin breathe, and its breath had been like the
fragrance of a flower.
For the first time in his life Lewis looked on woman with blind eyes.
During almost three weeks the years that he had lived in familiar
contact with women stood him in good stead. He never spoke to the
bright-eyed rival to the Duchess, but he watched her from afar. Men
swarmed about her. She stood them as long as they amused her, and then
would suddenly shake them all off. There were days when she would let no
one come near her. There was no day when any man could say he had been
favored above another.
Then came an evening when Lewis had dressed unusually early and slipped
up to the boat-deck to cool off before dinner. He sat down on a bench
and half closed his eyes. When he opened them again he saw a woman--the
woman, Folly Delaires--standing with her back to him at the rail. He had
not heard or seen her come. Almost without volition he arose and stepped
to the rail. He leaned on it beside her. She did not move away.
"I want to kiss you," said Lewis, and trembled as he heard his own
words.
The woman did not start. She turned her face slowly toward his.
"And I want you to," she said.