RODERIC'S REPENTANCE.
Roderic had indeed been up against it good and hard since leaving his
cousin at the breakfast table.
He had entered upon his duties of the day with a vim, desirous of
closing his accounts so that he might get away on the next morning, if
Cleo and her captain were willing.
During the morning he was haunted by certain facts which bore heavily
upon the relations existing between present conditions and those that
prevailed two years back.
The girl from Porto Rico occupied a prime place in all these
reflections.
Every word that had been spoken by her on the preceding night came
again before his mental vision, and underwent a revised scrutiny.
New solutions sprang up, for he was able to better understand certain
things that were uttered.
Still there was much to puzzle him.
How came she to know of Cleo, his cousin--true, in times past, when
paradise seemed opening to his feet--ah, what a fool's dream he had
indulged in--he must have frequently spoken of his cousin, for she was
often in his mind; but that would not account for her pertinent remarks
concerning Cleo's attachment for him.
Was it jealousy prompted this?
Roderic flushed with pleasure at the very thought of such a thing,
since the green-eyed monster can never lodge in a human heart unless
there still remains love to stir the depths.
Then, somehow, he felt a strange shudder pass through his whole frame.
Would it bring trouble of any kind to this loyal cousin, whose welfare
was certainly as dear to him as that of a sister?
He knew much of these southern women--their virtues and frailties--and
realized what a serious thing it meant to be passionately loved by one
of them, and how ill they brooked rivalry.
The love Georgia had given him was so entirely different from the pure,
unselfish devotion of which Cleo was capable--he knew this as well
as any one, and yet with his eyes open he had chosen the rush of the
hurricane to the calm, steady current of never changing regard.
Love is a little god who will have his way despite reason and
philosophy.
Once poor mortal falls under his sway and farewell to discernment--from
that time on Cupid sits in the balance, and weighs things to suit his
own capricious nature.
Thus our good Roderic found himself worried with a variety of new
questions, such as it had not occurred to him before could ever come up
in connection with his affairs.
They cropped up before him in his business and he found it utterly
impossible to get rid of them. What was on the heart must have a place
in the mind in spite of stern endeavors to banish his own private
affairs from the front.
Thus the day wore on.
Things worked fairly well.
He sent some letters, and toward the close of the afternoon some
telegrams in cipher intended for those connected with the government at
Washington in whose special line he was working.
Finally he pronounced his work done.
Unless some late orders, which he did not look for, turned up to
intercept him, he was free to shake the dust of old Erin from his shoes
on the morrow.
He anticipated the voyage to the West Indies with considerable
pleasure, for, as the veil of the future can not be raised by mortal
hands, how was he to know what strange happenings might occur before
the anchor was lifted, to change his relations to the owner of the
yacht?
About sundown he visited a store on Lower Sackville street where he had
been receiving his mail.
There was a message awaiting him.
It came from Darby.
How that remarkable man had managed to mail the letter was a puzzle to
Roderic, but no doubt he had prepared the envelope with a stamp and
found some means of getting it posted by bribing a sailor.
Darby could accomplish anything under heaven when he made up his mind.
The note was brief and epigrammatic, just as Darby's speech had always
been. Time was worth money to him, and he used very few words.
"They got me as per agreement. We are on the way to Havre. Will touch
at coast of Cornwall for private reasons of captain. Mail this there if
possible. The French m'amselle aboard. Charming young woman. Think I
shall be pleasantly entertained, as she has a voice like a bird. Do not
pity me, comrade. I may go all the way to Monte Carlo. Who could refuse
such good fortune? More anon."
That was all.
Roderic laughed when he read it.
"What a sly dog that Darby is--outwardly an iceberg, a glacier, he yet
possesses the capacity for adoring lovely woman. Perhaps he may yet be
wrecked upon the same reefs that have been the destruction of so many.
Alas! poor Yorick. But I am willing to wager that at least he extracts
some fun out of this game before he gives up the ghost."
And now, dinner!
The thought was delightful, since his appetite had become clamorous,
and besides there was great pleasure in the anticipation of some hours
in the society of his cousin. Cleo could chat so entertainingly of many
things he had seen, for both were great travelers.
She had visited the frequented thoroughfares of ordinary travel.
Besides, she had gone from Europe to India via the overland Afghanistan
and Khyber Pass route, had looked upon the celebrated Vale of Cashmere,
wandered in Cathay, and was at home in Japan.
It can be readily understood how much satisfaction Roderic found in
chatting with her on these subjects, for the fever of exploration
was growing upon him all the while--he yearned to delve amid the
wild places of earth seldom or never gazed upon by the eyes of
civilization--he had already ridden on elephants in Siam, mounted the
Peruvian Andes on a llama, explored the Himalayas with adventurous
officers, their only vehicle being drawn by yaks; and once Roderic had
scoured the desolate Kirghiz steppes on a tarantas drawn by shuffling
camels.
Secretly he aspired to some day make his way to the Forbidden City of
Tibet, where the foot of a white man has never yet trodden, and whose
gorgeous wonders yet remain sealed books to the world--a city which the
bold traveler Harry Savage Landor recently endeavored to reach but was
forced to abandon the task as impossible.
At present of course these things were hung up in abeyance, since his
beloved country was at war with Spain, and called upon her patriotic
sons to overwhelm the enemy, both in the field and under the guise of
diplomacy.
The pursuit of his business had taken him far out from the central part
of the city and the river Liffey.
From Donnybrook he had crossed to the region of Rathmines, where in an
interview with one whose word carried great weight among the Fenian
brotherhood, he learned that the mission of the Spanish schemers had
failed.
This was a matter of great importance to those faithful statesmen at
Washington who labored to prevent any combination of European Powers
against Young America--it meant that the great coalition would pull
through and that poor Spain must take her drubbing.
He had mounted to the upper deck of a tramcar and was on the way back
to the city, surveying with considerable interest the names of the many
villas, places and terraces, for every householder apparently desired
to mark his residence by some appropriate designation.
From this state of beatitude, superinduced by the clear consciousness
of a day's work well done and the soothing effect of a good pipe,
Roderic was without the least warning precipitated into a condition of
tremendous excitement.
He had just noted the old name on a rough stone gate post "Lucknow
Bungalow," and was wondering if some gallant retired officer who had
seen exciting days with Havelock, or later with gallant Roberts, might
live in cozy retirement here, surrounded by objects brought from the
far distant realm of Her Majesty the Empress of India, when some
magnetism seemed to draw his gaze toward the romantic house set back a
little from the road.
Just at the same instant some one leaned out of an open window as if
to close a shutter, some one whose personality acted upon Roderic very
much as might a shock of electricity.
Of course it was the girl from Porto Rico.
That she saw him and recognized him Roderic realized instantly.
It was another freak of Fate.
When the three sisters who weave our destinies with distaff and loom,
conspire against a poor mortal, there is little use trying to dodge the
snare, since the loop falls over one's shoulders on the most unexpected
occasions, and usually without warning.
Roderic yielded, rescue or no rescue, at once.
He immediately arose from his place and made down the winding stairs
at the end of the car. The vehicle had been progressing meanwhile as
rapidly as two sturdy Irish horses could draw it along the rails, and
by the time the gentleman from across the Atlantic reached _terra
firma_ they were half a block away from the bungalow and its stone
posts.
Roderic had not developed any plan of action--what he did was from
sheer impulse.
The sight of her face had spurred him on--nor might this be set
down as the only instance where a woman's lovely countenance caused
unpremeditated action on the part of a usually conservative and well
balanced man.
When he reached the distinguishing stone pillars upon which he read the
name of the villa, Roderic boldly turned in.
Prudence might have dictated another course, for there was reason to
believe, as both Darby and himself had discovered, that the old Porto
Rican general, Georgia's uncle in fact, was allied with those who had
endeavored to work the grand scheme.
Therefore, he would not be apt to look upon any Yankee, and
particularly Roderic Owen, with favor.
General Porfidio to the contrary, the American strode past the sentinel
posts, up the box bordered walk and directly to the front door.
This was his nature, bold to a fault, ready to walk directly up to the
cannon's mouth if duty but half demanded it.
It was the Irish element in his blood, for where that strain goes
throughout the peoples of the wide world, it carries with it devotion
and gallantry.
Before he could lay a hand upon the knocker, that represented a bronze
Hindoo god, the door softly opened.
A young girl stood there.
As he looked at her, framed in the opening, with the light of the
setting sun falling upon her wondrous face, Roderic held his very
breath, for he was again under the spell of her dusky eyes, that ever
wove a web of enchantment about him.
Thus they stood, these two who had parted some years before--stood and
stared and said not a single word for more than a full minute.
What they lived over in those sixty seconds of time God only knows.
Perhaps there came up before them a vision of Paradise Lost--of sweet
scented flowers, flashing fountains, caroling birds--of a West Indian
garden where the God of Love reigned, where the soft tinkle of magic
mandolin accompanied songs of hottest devotion, where eyes looked into
eyes and drank to the fill of heaven's nectar, where vows of constancy
were fervently breathed and returned. Alas! how many times these same
maddening memories arise to haunt broken hearts, for human nature is
weak, and prone to wander afar after strange idols.
Roderic recovered his voice, and while he still kept his eyes on her
glowing face he said, quietly:
"You expected me--you knew I would come?"
"I believed you would when I saw you look this way," she admitted; and
then added: "but I do not know why you are here, Senor Roderic."
"Perhaps to thank you."
"For what?" confused.
"Your garb deceived me last night, but I knew the voice which you could
not wholly disguise. I wish to tell you how--"
"Stop. I do not desire to hear your gratitude. It was a duty with me.
By chance I learned of the miserable plot. I could not bear to even see
an enemy so badly used, much less one whom I once delighted to call--my
friend."
"Once--are we then no longer such?"
"Senor, your welfare will always be regarded with interest by me,"
coldly.
"You have condemned me unheard," with a gesture of despair.
"Not I, senor, but yourself. The choice lay before you, and you decided
to flee from San Juan--from Elysium. You were unjust--for once in your
life. You alone, senor, condemned, not I."
"But--was there no reason--I beg of you, I implore, an answer?"
"Senor, this is a house where danger lurks for you--a house where
plots are nightly considered against your people. It would be better
for you to go away lest some of these hot headed Spanish sympathizers
set eyes on you."
"Let them go to the devil--what care I for all the Spaniards in
Christendom. I shall stay here just as long as I like--as long as you
allow me."
"Ah! senor, but you did not always exhibit that same spirit--there was
_one_ Spaniard you feared worse than Satan does holy water."
The spirit of coquetry ever lives in woman, and this girl could not
resist giving poor Owen a little thrust even while her heart was
wonderfully stirred by his presence.
"Yes, Julio, the handsome bolero dancer, who had once been a famous
toreador in Spain. As I hope for salvation I believe you favored his
advances--you laughed at me when a denial was what I asked. Words
followed, for my part in which may Heaven forgive me, and we parted in
hot anger, we two who had been all in all to each other. Georgia, will
you answer that question _now_?" he asked, holding her eyes enthralled
by his eager gaze.
She did not speak, only put out her hand and plucked him by the sleeve.
It was only a gentle pull, but to Roderic Owen the power of a giant
steam engine could not exert greater force.
She meant that he should enter that East Indian bower--she would answer
his passionate question--the doubts and fears that had haunted him lo,
these many moons were on the eve of being forever put to rest.
Thus he followed her through the doorway and presently found
himself in a little parlor where walls and mantles were almost
covered with hundreds of strange mementoes of the land of Buddha and
Vishnu--grinning idols, miniature elephants, tiger skins, queer swords
and knives, and wonderful pieces of colored work fashioned by the
cunning handicraft of those natives of Bengal and Ceylon.
Upon the floor were strewn very costly rugs from Dagestan and Persia.
There was an air of romance hovering about the apartment--even the
peculiar Oriental odor that was so pronounced, seemed to be associated
with tender scenes.
Roderic felt it, and a strange eagerness took possession of his heart.
Was such happiness as he had never allowed himself to dream could dawn
upon him again about to become his guest?
Having led him into this apartment, the girl drew back the Bagdad
curtains in order that more light from the westerly sun might enter,
after which she advanced slowly toward him.
Her head was lowered, so that he knew not whether those wonderful orbs
were filled with love or contempt, and the uncertainty alarmed him.
"You have surely not brought me in here to upbraid, Georgia--I cannot
believe that. It would have been enough had you desired me to go, to
have told me so outside, and while ready to ask forgiveness on my
knees, if you assured me I was quite in the wrong, I would have turned
away without one reproach, deserving all. I asked you the question
that has burned itself upon my brain ever since that hour when I flung
myself out of your presence so madly, and vowed never again to believe
in a woman's love. Was dashing Julio anything to you _then_--is he
_now_?"
Then she threw back her proud head and looked him in the face--he was
answered even before she spoke a word.
"One finger of your hand, Roderic Owen, yes, even its tip was of more
value to me in those days than a dozen bolero dancers with their
graceful movements and threadbare love phrases. Julio sued in vain--I
laughed him to scorn--I have not seen him from the hour you fled."
Then a glad cry burst from his lips--he opened his arms and would
have seized upon her, believing that she had forgiven--that the old
conditions could be thus easily revived, since the barrier that had
separated them was swept aside.
He had lowered his pride--he had humbly cried "_peccavi_--I have
sinned," and it was reasonable to believe that if she still cherished
the love she once bore him, this girl of the Antilles would fall into
his embrace to forgive and be forgiven.
But instead she stepped back, eluding his grasp, and while panting with
emotion, said resolutely:
"Stand back, Senor Roderic--touch me not I command you!"