Stanley, the setter, walked to the edge of the precipice and, looking
over at the falls, wagged his tail in friendly greeting. He was braced
warily, so that if this howling white animal should reach up a hand for
him he could flee in time.
The girl stared dreamily at the red-stained crags that projected from
the pines of the hill across the stream. Hawker lazily aimed bits of
moss at the oblivious dog and missed him.
"It must be fine to have something to think of beyond just living," said
the girl to the crags.
"I suppose you mean art?" said Hawker.
"Yes, of course. It must be finer, at any rate, than the ordinary
thing."
He mused for a time. "Yes. It is--it must be," he said. "But then--I'd
rather just lie here."
The girl seemed aggrieved. "Oh, no, you wouldn't. You couldn't stop.
It's dreadful to talk like that, isn't it? I always thought that
painters were----"
"Of course. They should be. Maybe they are. I don't know. Sometimes I
am. But not to-day."
"Well, I should think you ought to be so much more contented than just
ordinary people. Now, I----"
"You!" he cried--"you are not 'just ordinary people.'"
"Well, but when I try to recall what I have thought about in my life, I
can't remember, you know. That's what I mean."
"You shouldn't talk that way," he told her.
"But why do you insist that life should be so highly absorbing for me?"
"You have everything you wish for," he answered, in a voice of deep
gloom.
"Certainly not. I am a woman."
"But----"
"A woman, to have everything she wishes for, would have to be
Providence. There are some things that are not in the world."
"Well, what are they?" he asked of her.
"That's just it," she said, nodding her head, "no one knows. That's
what makes the trouble."
"Well, you are very unreasonable."
"What?"
"You are very unreasonable. If I were you--an heiress----"
The girl flushed and turned upon him angrily.
"Well!" he glowered back at her. "You are, you know. You can't deny it."
She looked at the red-stained crags. At last she said, "You seemed
really contemptuous."
"Well, I assure you that I do not feel contemptuous. On the contrary, I
am filled with admiration. Thank Heaven, I am a man of the world.
Whenever I meet heiresses I always have the deepest admiration." As he
said this he wore a brave hang-dog expression. The girl surveyed him
coldly from his chin to his eyebrows. "You have a handsome audacity,
too."
He lay back in the long grass and contemplated the clouds.
"You should have been a Chinese soldier of fortune," she said.
He threw another little clod at Stanley and struck him on the head.
"You are the most scientifically unbearable person in the world," she
said.
Stanley came back to see his master and to assure himself that the clump
on the head was not intended as a sign of serious displeasure. Hawker
took the dog's long ears and tried to tie them into a knot.
"And I don't see why you so delight in making people detest you," she
continued.
Having failed to make a knot of the dog's ears, Hawker leaned back and
surveyed his failure admiringly. "Well, I don't," he said.
"You do."
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do. You just say the most terrible things as if you positively
enjoyed saying them."
"Well, what did I say, now? What did I say?"
"Why, you said that you always had the most extraordinary admiration for
heiresses whenever you met them."
"Well, what's wrong with that sentiment?" he said. "You can't find
fault with that!"
"It is utterly detestable."
"Not at all," he answered sullenly. "I consider it a tribute--a graceful
tribute."
Miss Fanhall arose and went forward to the edge of the cliff. She became
absorbed in the falls. Far below her a bough of a hemlock drooped to the
water, and each swirling, mad wave caught it and made it nod--nod--nod.
Her back was half turned toward Hawker.
After a time Stanley, the dog, discovered some ants scurrying in the
moss, and he at once began to watch them and wag his tail.
"Isn't it curious," observed Hawker, "how an animal as large as a dog
will sometimes be so entertained by the very smallest things?"
Stanley pawed gently at the moss, and then thrust his head forward to
see what the ants did under the circumstances.
"In the hunting season," continued Hawker, having waited a moment, "this
dog knows nothing on earth but his master and the partridges. He is lost
to all other sound and movement. He moves through the woods like a
steel machine. And when he scents the bird--ah, it is beautiful!
Shouldn't you like to see him then?"
Some of the ants had perhaps made war-like motions, and Stanley was
pretending that this was a reason for excitement. He reared aback, and
made grumbling noises in his throat.
After another pause Hawker went on: "And now see the precious old fool!
He is deeply interested in the movements of the little ants, and as
childish and ridiculous over them as if they were highly
important.--There, you old blockhead, let them alone!"
Stanley could not be induced to end his investigations, and he told his
master that the ants were the most thrilling and dramatic animals of his
experience.
"Oh, by the way," said Hawker at last, as his glance caught upon the
crags across the river, "did you ever hear the legend of those rocks
yonder? Over there where I am pointing? Where I'm pointing? Did you ever
hear it? What? Yes? No? Well, I shall tell it to you." He settled
comfortably in the long grass.