"You will remember, won't you?" she said--the laughter flashed in her
eyes:--"especially if we ever happen to be in the cellar together?"
I said, forcing a smile and my voice not quite steady: "Suppose we
finish that scene, now, Thusis?"
"Good heavens!" she said:--"and the Admiral watching us!" She drew her
hand from mine and pointed at the picture over my mantel.
"I'm afraid of that man," she said. "The cellar is less terrifying----"
"Thusis!"
But she laughed and slipped through the door. "Good-by, Don Michael!"
she called back softly from the stairs.
I walked back slowly to the center of my room and for a long time I
stood there quite motionless, staring fixedly at the Admiral.
*V*
*AN ODD SONG*
"There's one thing certain," thought I; "my household personnel is
altogether too pulchritudinous for a man like Smith, and it begins to
worry me."
Considerably disturbed in my mind I reconnoitered Smith's rooms, and
found him, as I suspected, loitering there on pretense of re-arranging
the contents of his bureau-drawers.
Now Smith had no legitimate business there; it was Clelia's hour to do
his rooms. But, as I say, I already had noticed his artless way of
hanging about at that hour, and several times during the last two weeks
I had encountered him conversing with the girl while she, her blonde
hair bound up in a beguiling dust-cap, and otherwise undeniably
fetching, leaned at ease on her broom and appeared quite willing to be
cornered and conversed with.
My advent always galvanized this situation; Clelia instantly became busy
with her broom and duster, and Smith usually pretended he had been
inquiring of Clelia where I might be found.
He attempted the same dishonesty now, and, with every symptom of
delight, cordially hailed me and inquired where I'd been keeping myself
since breakfast.
"I've been out doors," said I coldly, "where I hoped--if I did not
really expect--to find you."
This sarcasm put a slight crimp in his assurance, and he accompanied me
out with docile alacrity, which touched me.
"It's too good a household to spoil," said I. "A little innocent
gaiety--a bit of persiflage en passant--that doesn't interfere with
discipline. But this loitering about the vicinity of little Clelia's
too brief skirts is almost becoming a habit with you."
"She's a nice girl," returned Smith, vaguely.
"Surely. And you're a very nice young man; but you know as well as I do
that we can't arrange our social life to include the circle below
stairs."
"You mean, in the event of travelers arriving, they might misconstrue
such a democracy?"
"Certainly, they'd misjudge it. We couldn't explain why our cook was
playing the piano in the living-room or why Clelia laid aside her
dust-pan for a cup of tea with us at five, could we?"
"Or why Thusis and you went trout fishing together," he added
pleasantly.
A violent blush possessed my countenance. So he was aware of that
incident! He had gone to Zurich that day. I hadn't mentioned it.
"Smith," said I, "these are war times. To catch fish is to conserve
food. Under no other circumstances----"
"I understand, of course! Two can catch more fish than one. Which
caught it?"
"Thusis," I admitted. "Thusis happened to know where these Swiss trout
hide and how to catch them. Naturally I was glad to avail myself of her
knowledge."
"Very interesting. You need no further instruction, I fancy."
"To become proficient," said I, "another lesson or two--possibly----" I
paused out near the fountain to stoop over and break off a daisy. From
which innocent blossom, absent-mindedly, I plucked the snowy petals one
by one as I sauntered along beside Smith.
Presently he began to mutter to himself. At first I remained sublimely
unconscious of what he was murmuring, then I caught the outrageous
words: "Elle m'aime--un peu--beaucoup--passablement--pas-du-tout----"
"What's that?" I demanded, glaring at him. "What are you gabbling
about?"
He seemed surprised at my warmth. I hurled the daisy from me; we turned
and strode back in hostile silence toward the bottling house.
My farmer, Raoul Despres, was inside and the door stood open. We could
hear the humming of the dynamo. Evidently, obeying my orders of
yesterday, he had gone in to look over and report upon the condition of
the plant with a view to resuming business where my recent uncle had
left off.
We could see his curly black head, and athletic figure inside the low
building. As he prowled hither and thither investigating the machinery
he was singing blithely to himself:
"Crack-brain-cripple-arm
You have done a heap of harm--
You and yours and all your friends!
Now you'll have to make amends."
Smith and I looked at each other in blank perplexity.
"That's a remarkable song," I said at last.
"Very," said Smith. We halted. The dynamo droned on like a giant bee.
Raoul continued to sing as he moved around in the bottling house, and
the words he sang came to us quite plainly:
"Crack-brain-cripple-arm
Sacking city, town and farm!
You, your children and your friends,
All will come to rotten ends!"
"Smith," said I, "who on earth do you suppose he means by
'Crack-brain-cripple-arm'?"
"Surely," mused Smith, "he could not be referring to the All-highest of
Hunland.... Could he?"
"Impossible," said I. We went into the bottling house. And the song of
Raoul ceased.
It struck me, as he turned and came toward us with his frank, quick
smile and his gay and slightly jaunty bearing, that he had about him
something of that nameless allure of a soldier of France.
"But of course you are Swiss," I said to him with a trace of a grin
twitching at my lips.
"Of course, Monsieur," he replied innocently.
"Certainly.... And, how about that machinery, Raoul?"
"It functions, Monsieur. A little rust--nothing serious. The torrent
from the Bec de l'Empereur runs the dynamo; the spring flows full.
Listen!"
We listened. Through the purring of the dynamo the bubbling melody of
the famous mineral spring was perfectly audible.
"How many bottles have we?" I asked.
"In the unopened cases a hundred thousand. In odd lots, quart size,
twenty thousand more."
"Corks? Boxes?"
"Plenty."
"Labels? Straw?"
"Bales, Monsieur."
"And all the machinery works?"
For answer he picked up a quart bottle and placed it in a porcelain
cylinder. Then he threw a switch; the bottle was filled automatically,
corked, labeled, sheathed in straw and deposited in a straw-lined box.
"Fine!" I said. "When you have a few moments to spare from the farm you
can fill a few dozen cases. And you, too, Smith, when time hangs heavy
on your hands, it might amuse you to drop in and start bottling spring
water for me--instead of rearranging your bureau drawers."
The suggestion did not seem to attract him. He said he'd enjoy doing it
but that he did not comprehend machinery.
I smiled at him and made up my mind that he'd not spend his spare time
in Clelia's neighborhood.
"Raoul," said I, "that was an interesting song you were singing when we
came in."
"What song, Monsieur?"
"The one about 'Crack-brain-cripple-arm.'"
He gazed at me so stupidly that I hesitated.
"I thought I heard you humming a song," said I.
"Maybe it was the dynamo, Monsieur."
"Maybe," I said gravely.
Smith and I walked out and across toward the cow-stables.
There was nothing to see there except chickens; the little brown Swiss
cattle being in pasture on the Bec de l'Empereur.
"If time hangs heavy with you, Smith," I ventured, "why not drive the
cows home and milk them in the evenings?"
He told me, profanely, that he had plenty to do to amuse himself.
"What, for example, did he tell you?"
"Write letters," he said,--"for example."
"To friends in dear old Norway, I suppose," said I flippantly.
"To whomever I darn well please," he rejoined drily.
That, of course, precluded further playful inquiry. Baffled, I walked on
beside him. But I sullenly decided to stick to him until Clelia had
done the chamber-work and had safely retired to regions below stairs.
Several times he remarked he'd forgotten something and ought to go to
his rooms to look for the missing objects. I pretended not to hear him
and he hadn't the effrontery to attempt it.
The words of Raoul's song kept running in my mind.
"Crack-brain-cripple-arm
You have done a heap of harm--"
And I found myself humming the catchy air as I strolled over my domain
with my unwilling companion.
"I like that song," I remarked.
"Of course _you_ would," he said.
"Why?"
"Because you're so bally neutral," he replied ironically.
"I _am_ neutral. All Chileans are. I'm neutral because my country is."
"You're neutral as hell," he retorted with a shrug--"you camouflaged
Yankee."
"If I weren't neutral," said I, "I'd not be afraid of admitting it to a
New York Viking."
That put him out on first. I enjoyed his silence for a while, then I
said: "Come on, old top, sing us some more Norse sagas about 'My girl's
a corker.'"
"Can it!" retorted that typical product of Christiania.
So with quip and retort and persiflage veiled and more or less merry, we
strolled about in the beautiful early summer weather.
"Why the devil don't you find Thusis and take another lesson in
angling?" he suggested.
"Because, dear friend, Thusis hitched up our horse and went to Zurich
this morning."
"What? When?"
"Ere the earliest dicky-bird had caroled--ere Aurora had wiped night's
messy cobwebs from the skies with rosy fingers."
"What did she go for?--that is, what did she say she was going for?"
"To purchase various household necessaries. Why?"
"She's a funny girl," he remarked evasively.
"Yes?"
"Rather."
"In what humorous particular do you hand it so generously to Thusis?" I
inquired.
"Oh, you know well enough she's odd. You can't explain her. She's no
peasant, and you know it. She's not Swiss, either. I don't know what
she is. I don't know quite what she's doing here. Sometimes she
reminds me of a runaway school girl: sometimes of the humorless,
pep-less prude who usually figures as heroine in a best seller. And
sometimes she acts like a vixen! ... I didn't tell you," he added, "but
I was amiable enough to try to kiss her that first evening. I don't
know where you were--but you can take it from me, O'Ryan, I thought I'd
caught hold of the original vestal virgin and that my hour had come for
the lions!"
"You beast," said I, not recollecting my own behavior in the cellar.
"What did she say?"
"She didn't say anything. She merely looked it. I've been horribly
afraid she'd tell her sister," he added naively.
"Smith," I said, laying an earnest hand on his arm, "you mustn't frivol
with my household. I won't stand for it. I admit that my household is
an unusual one. Frankly, I have no more idea than you have that Thusis
and Clelia are real servants, or why they choose to take service here
with me. Probably they're political agents. I don't care. But you and
I mustn't interfere with them, first, because it disorganizes my menage;
second, because I believe they're really nice girls."
"I think so, too," he said.
"Well, then, if they are, we don't want to forget it. And also we must
remember that probably they are political agents of some country now
engaged in this war, and it won't do for us to become involved."
"How involved?"
"Well, suppose I took Thusis more or less seriously?"
"_Do_ you?"
"I didn't say I did. I said suppose I do? Who is she? With all her
dainty personality and undoubted marks of birth and breeding--with the
irrefutable evidence of manner and speech and presence--with all these
ear-marks by which both she and Clelia seem plainly labeled--_who_ is
Thusis?"
"I don't know," he said soberly.
"Nor I. And yet it is apparent that she has taken no pains to play the
part of a peasant or of a servant for our benefit. Evidently she
doesn't care--for I venture to believe she's a good actress in addition
to the rest of her ungodly cleverness.
"But she seems to think it immaterial as to whether or not you and I
wonder who she may be. Mentally, Thusis snaps her fingers at us, Smith.
So does Clelia."
"Clelia is gentler--more girlish and immature," he said, "but she makes
no bones about having been in better circumstances. She's sweet but
she's no weakling. My curiosity amuses her and she pokes a lot of fun
at me."
"Doesn't she tell you anything? Doesn't she give you any hint?"
"No, she doesn't. She's friendly--willing to stop dusting and exchange
a little innocent banter with me.... Do you know, O'Ryan, I never
before saw such a pretty girl. She's only eighteen. Did you know it?"
"No, I didn't."
"And Thusis is twenty."