"Oh, but the STORY of it!" exclaimed Condy as he and Travis regained
the wharf--"the story of it! Isn't it a ripper. Isn't it a corker! His
leaving her that way, and never caring for any other girl afterward."
"And so original," she commented, quite as enthusiastic as he.
"Original?--why, it's new as paint! It's--it's--Travis, I'll make a
story out of this that will be copied in every paper between the two
oceans."
They were so interested in the mate's story that they forgot to take a
car, and walked up Clay Street talking it over, suggesting,
rearranging, and embellishing; and Condy was astonished and delighted
to note that she "caught on" to the idea as quickly as he, and knew the
telling points and what details to leave out.
"And I'll make a bang-up article out of the whaleback herself,"
declared Condy. The "idea" of the article had returned to him, and all
his enthusiasm with it.
"And look here," he said, showing her the letter from the Centennial
Company. "They turned down my book, but see what they say.
"Quite an unusual order of merit!" cried Travis. "Why, that's fine!
Why didn't you show this to me before?--and asking you like this to
write them a novel of adventure! What MORE can you want? Oh!" she
exclaimed impatiently, "that's so like you; you would tell everybody
about your reverses, and carry on about them yourself, but never say a
word when you get a little boom. Have you an idea for a
thirty-thousand-word novel? Wouldn't that diver's story do?"
"No, there's not enough in that for thirty thousand words. I haven't
any idea at all--never wrote a story of adventure--never wrote anything
longer than six thousand words. But I'll keep my eye open for
something that will do. By the way--by Jove! Travis, where are we?"
They looked briskly around them, and the bustling, breezy waterfront
faded from their recollections. They were in a world of narrow
streets, of galleries and overhanging balconies. Craziest structures,
riddled and honeycombed with stairways and passages, shut out the sky,
though here and there rose a building of extraordinary richness and
most elaborate ornamentation. Color was everywhere. A thousand little
notes of green and yellow, of vermilion and sky blue, assaulted the
eye. Here it was a doorway, here a vivid glint of cloth or hanging,
here a huge scarlet sign lettered with gold, and here a kaleidoscopic
effect in the garments of a passer-by. Directly opposite, and two
stories above their heads, a sort of huge "loggia," one blaze of
gilding and crude vermilions, opened in the gray cement of a crumbling
facade, like a sudden burst of flame. Gigantic pot-bellied lanterns of
red and gold swung from its ceiling, while along its railing stood a
row of pots--brass, ruddy bronze, and blue porcelain--from which were
growing red saffron, purple, pink, and golden tulips without number.
The air was vibrant with unfamiliar noises. From one of the balconies
near at hand, though unseen, a gong, a pipe, and some kind of stringed
instrument wailed and thundered in unison. There was a vast shuffling
of padded soles and a continuous interchange of singsong monosyllables,
high-pitched and staccato, while from every hand rose the strange
aromas of the East--sandalwood, punk, incense, oil, and the smell of
mysterious cookery.
"Chinatown!" exclaimed Travis. "I hadn't the faintest idea we had come
up so far. Condy Rivers, do you know what time it is?" She pointed a
white kid finger through the doorway of a drug-store, where, amid
lacquer boxes and bronze urns of herbs and dried seeds, a round Seth
Thomas marked half-past two.
"And your lunch?" cried Condy. "Great heavens! I never thought."
"It's too late to get any at home. Never mind; I'll go somewhere and
have a cup of tea."
"Why not get a package of Chinese tea, now that you're down here, and
take it home with you?"
"Or drink it here."
"Where?"
"In one of the restaurants. There wouldn't be a soul there at this
hour. I know they serve tea any time. Condy, let's try it. Wouldn't
it be fun?"
Condy smote his thigh. "Fun!" he vociferated; "fun! It is--by Jove--it
would be HEAVENLY! Wait a moment. I'll tell you what we will do. Tea
won't be enough. We'll go down to Kearney Street, or to the market,
and get some crackers to go with it."
They hurried back to the California market, a few blocks distant, and
bought some crackers and a wedge of new cheese. On the way back to
Chinatown Travis stopped at a music store on Kearney Street to get her
banjo, which she had left to have its head tightened; and thus burdened
they regained the "town," Condy grieving audibly at having to carry
"brown-paper bundles through the street."
"First catch your restaurant," said Travis as they turned into Dupont
Street with its thronging coolies and swarming, gayly clad children.
But they had not far to seek.
"Here you are!" suddenly exclaimed Condy, halting in front of a
wholesale tea-house bearing a sign in Chinese and English. "Come on,
Travis!"
They ascended two flights of a broad, brass-bound staircase leading up
from the ground floor, and gained the restaurant on the top story of
the building. As Travis had foretold, it was deserted. She clasped
her gloved hands gayly, crying: "Isn't it delightful! We've the whole
place to ourselves."
The restaurant ran the whole depth of the building, and was finished
off at either extremity with a gilded balcony, one overlooking Dupont
Street and the other the old Plaza. Enormous screens of gilded ebony,
intricately carved and set with colored glass panes, divided the room
into three, and one of these divisions, in the rear part, from which
they could step out upon the balcony that commanded the view of the
Plaza, they elected as their own.
It was charming. At their backs they had the huge, fantastic screen,
brave and fine with its coat of gold. In front, through the
glass-paned valves of a pair of folding doors, they could see the roofs
of the houses beyond the Plaza, and beyond these the blue of the bay
with its anchored ships, and even beyond this the faint purple of the
Oakland shore. On either side of these doors, in deep alcoves, were
divans with mattings and head-rests for opium smokers. The walls were
painted blue and hung with vertical Cantonese legends in red and
silver, while all around the sides of the room small ebony tables
alternated with ebony stools, each inlaid with a slab of mottled
marble. A chandelier, all a-glitter with tinsel, swung from the centre
of the ceiling over a huge round table of mahogany.
And not a soul was there to disturb them. Below them, out there around
the old Plaza, the city drummed through its work with a lazy, soothing
rumble. Nearer at hand, Chinatown sent up the vague murmur of the life
of the Orient. In the direction of the Mexican quarter, the bell of
the cathedral knolled at intervals. The sky was without a cloud and
the afternoon was warm.
Condy was inarticulate with the joy of what he called their
"discovery." He got up and sat down. He went out into the other room
and came back again. He dragged up a couple of the marble-seated
stools to the table. He took off his hat, lighted a cigarette, let it
go out, lighted it again, and burned his fingers. He opened and closed
the folding-doors, pushed the table into a better light, and finally
brought Travis out upon the balcony to show her the "points of
historical interest" in and around the Plaza.
"There's the Stevenson memorial ship in the centre, see; and right
there, where the flagstaff is, General Baker made the funeral oration
over the body of Terry. Broderick killed him in a duel--or was it
Terry killed Broderick? I forget which. Anyhow, right opposite, where
that pawnshop is, is where the Overland stages used to start in '49.
And every other building that fronts on the Plaza, even this one we're
in now, used to be a gambling-house in bonanza times; and, see, over
yonder is the Morgue and the City Prison."
They turned back into the room, and a great, fat Chinaman brought them
tea on Condy's order. But besides tea, he brought dried almonds,
pickled watermelon rinds, candied quince, and "China nuts."
Travis cut the cheese into cubes with Condy's penknife, and arranged
the cubes in geometric figures upon the crackers.
"But, Condy," she complained, "why in the world did you get so many
crackers? There's hundreds of them here--enough to feed a regiment.
Why didn't you ask me?"
"Huh! what? what? I don't know. What's the matter with the crackers?
You were dickering with the cheese, and the man said, 'How many
crackers?' I didn't know. I said, 'Oh, give me a quarter's worth!'"
"And we couldn't possibly have eaten ten cents' worth! Oh, Condy, you
are--you are--But never mind, here's your tea. I wonder if this green,
pasty stuff is good."
They found that it was, but so sweet that it made their tea taste
bitter. The watermelon rinds were flat to their Western palates, but
the dried almonds were a great success. Then Condy promptly got the
hiccoughs from drinking his tea too fast, and fretted up and down the
room like a chicken with the pip till Travis grew faint and weak with
laughter.
"Oh, well," he exclaimed aggrievedly--"laugh, that's right! I don't
laugh. It isn't such fun when you've got 'em yoursel'--HULP."
"But sit down, for goodness' sake! You make me so nervous. You can't
walk them off. Sit down and hold your breath while you count nine.
Condy, I'm going to take off my gloves and veil. What do you think?"
"Sure, of course; and I'll have a cigarette. Do you mind if I smoke?"
"Well, what's that in your hand now?"
"By Jove, I have been smoking! I--I beg your pardon. I'm a regular
stable boy. I'll throw it away."
Travis caught his wrist. "What nonsense! I would have told you before
if I'd minded."
"But it's gone out!" he exclaimed. "I'll have another."
As he reached into his pocket for his case, his hand encountered a
paper-covered volume, and he drew it out in some perplexity.
"Now, how in the wide world did that book come in my pocket?" he
muttered, frowning. "What have I been carrying it around for? I've
forgotten. I declare I have."
"What book is it?"
"Hey? book? . . . h'm," he murmured, staring.
Travis pounded on the table. "Wake up, Condy, I'm talking to you," she
called.
"It's 'Life's Handicap,'" he answered, with a start; "but why and but
why have I--"
"What's it about? I never heard of it," she declared.
"You never heard of 'Life's Handicap'?" he shouted; "you never
heard--you never--you mean to say you never heard--but here, this won't
do. Sit right still, and I'll read you one of these yarns before
you're another minute older. Any one of them--open the book at random.
Here we are--'The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes'; and it's a
stem-winder, too."
And then for the first time in her life, there in that airy, golden
Chinese restaurant, in the city from which he hasted to flee, Travis
Bessemer fell under the charm of the little spectacled colonial, to
whose song we all must listen and to whose pipe we all must dance.
There was one "point" in the story of Jukes' strange ride that Condy
prided himself upon having discovered. So far as he knew, all critics
had overlooked it. It is where Jukes is describing the man-trap of the
City of the Dead who are alive, and mentions that the slope of the
inclosing sandhills was "about forty-five degrees." Jukes was a civil
engineer, and Condy held that it was a capital bit of realism on the
part of the author to have him speak of the pitch of the hills in just
such technical terms. At first he thought he would call Travis'
attention to this bit of cleverness; but as he read he abruptly changed
his mind. He would see if she would find it out for herself. It would
be a test of her quickness, he told himself; almost an unfair test,
because the point was extremely subtle and could easily be ignored by
the most experienced of fiction readers. He read steadily on, working
himself into a positive excitement as he approached the passage. He
came to it and read it through without any emphasis, almost slurring
over it in his eagerness to be perfectly fair. But as he began to read
the next paragraph, Travis, her little eyes sparkling with interest and
attention, exclaimed:
"Just as an engineer would describe it. Isn't that good!"
"Glory hallelujah!" cried Condy, slamming down the book joyfully.
"Travis, you are one in a thousand!"
"What--what is it?' she inquired blankly.
"Never mind, never mind; you're a wonder, that's all"--and he finished
the tale without further explanation. Then, while he smoked another
cigarette and she drank another cup of tea, he read to her "The Return
of Imri" and the "Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney." He found her an
easy and enrapt convert to the little Englishman's creed, and for
himself tasted the intense delight of revealing to another an
appreciation of a literature hitherto ignored.
"Isn't he strong!" cried Travis. "Just a LITTLE better than Marie
Corelli and the Duchess!"
"And to think of having all those stories to read! You haven't read any
of them yet?"
"Not a one. I've been reading only the novels we take up in the
Wednesday class."
"Lord!" muttered Condy.
Condy's spirits had been steadily rising since the incident aboard the
whaleback. The exhilaration of the water-front, his delight over the
story he was to make out of the old mate's yarn, Chinatown, the
charming unconventionality of their lunch in the Chinese restaurant,
the sparkling serenity of the afternoon, and the joy of discovering
Travis' appreciation of his adored and venerated author, had put him
into a mood bordering close upon hilarity.
"The next event upon our interesting programme," he announced, "will be
a banjosephine obligato in A-sia minor, by that justly renowned
impresario, Signor Conde Tin-pani Rivers, specially engaged for this
performance; with a pleasing and pan-hellenic song-and-dance turn by
Miss Travis Bessemer, the infant phenomenon, otherwise known as 'Babby
Bessie.'"
"You're not going to play that banjo here?" said Travis, as he stripped
away the canvas covering.
"Order in the gallery!" cried Condy, beginning to tune up. Then in a
rapid, professional monotone: "Ladies-and-gentlemen - with - your -
kind - permission - I - will - endeavor - to - give - you - an -
imitation - of - a - Carolina - coon - song"--and without more ado,
singing the words to a rattling, catchy accompaniment, swung off into--
"F--or MY gal's a high-born leddy,
SHE'S brack, but not too shady."
He did not sing loud, and the clack and snarl of the banjo carried
hardly further than the adjoining room; but there was no one to hear,
and, as he went along, even Travis began to hum the words, but at that,
Condy stopped abruptly, laid the instrument across his knees with
exaggerated solicitude, and said deliberately:
"Travis, you are a good, sweet girl, and what you lack in beauty you
make up in amiability, and I've no doubt you are kind to your aged
father; but you--can--not--sing."
Travis was cross in a moment, all the more so because Condy had spoken
the exact truth. It was quite impossible for her to carry a tune half
a dozen bars without entangling herself in as many different keys.
What voice she had was not absolutely bad; but as she persisted in
singing in spite of Condy's guying, he put back his head and began a
mournful and lugubrious howling.
"Ho!" she exclaimed, grabbing the banjo from his knees, "if I can't
sing, I can play better than some smart people."
"Yes, by note," rallied Condy, as Travis executed a banjo "piece" of no
little intricacy. "That's just like a machine--like a hand-piano.
"Order in the gallery!" she retorted, without pausing in her playing.
She finished with a great flourish and gazed at him in triumph, only to
find him pretending a profound slumber. "O--o--o!" she remarked
between her teeth, "I just hate you, Condy Rivers."
"There are others," he returned airily.
"Talk about slang."
"NOW what will we do?" he cried. "Let's DO something. Suppose we
break something--just for fun."
Then suddenly the gayety went out of his face, and he started up and
clapped his hand to his head with a gasp of dismay. "Great Heavens!"
he exclaimed.
"Condy," cried Travis in alarm, "what is it"'
"The Tea!" he vociferated. "Laurie Flagg's Tea. I ought to be
there--right this minute."
Travis fetched a sigh of relief. "Is that all?"
"All!" he retorted. "All! Why, it's past four now--and I'd forgotten
every last thing." Then suddenly falling calm again, and quietly
resuming his seat: "I don't see as it makes any difference. I won't
go, that's all. Push those almonds here, will you, Miss Lady?--But we
aren't DOING anything," he exclaimed, with a brusque return of
exuberance. "Let's do things. What'll we do? Think of something. Is
there anything we can break?" Then, without any transition, he vaulted
upon the table and began to declaim, with tremendous gestures:
"There once was a beast called an Ounce,
Who went with a spring and a bounce.
His head was as flat
As the head of a cat,
This quadrupetantical Ounce,
---tical Ounce,
This quadrupetantical Ounce.
"You'd think from his name he was small,
But that was not like him at all.
He weighed, I'll be bound,
Three or four hundred pound,
And he looked most uncommonly tall,
--monly tall,
And he looked most uncommonly tall."
"Bravo! bravo!" cried Travis, pounding on the table. "Hear,
hear--none, Brutus, none."
Condy sat down on the table and swung his legs But during the next few
moments, while they were eating the last of their cheese, his good
spirits fell rapidly away from him. He heaved a sigh, and thrust both
hands gloomily into his pockets.
"Cheese, Condy?" asked Travis.
He shook his head with a dark frown, muttering: "No cheese, no cheese."
"What's wrong, Condy--what's the matter?" asked Travis, with concern.
For some time he would not tell her, answering all her inquiries by
closing his eyes and putting his chin in the air, nodding his head in
knowing fashion.
"But what is it?"
"You don't respect me," he muttered; and for a long time this was all
that could be got from him. No, no, she did not respect him; no, she
did not take him seriously.
"But of course I do. Why don't I? Condy Rivers, what's got into you
NOW?"
"No, no; I know it. I can tell. You don't take me seriously. You
don't respect me."
"But why?"
"Make a blooming buffoon of myself," he mumbled tragically.
In great distress Travis labored to contradict him. Why, they had just
been having a good time, that was all. Why, she had been just as silly
as he. Condy caught at the word.
"Silly! There. I knew it. I told you. I'm silly. I'm a
buffoon.--But haven't we had a great afternoon?" he added, with a
sudden grin.
"I never remember," announced Travis emphatically, "when I've had a
better time than I've had to-day; and I know just why it's been such a
success."
"Why, then?"
"Because we've had no foolishness. We've just been ourselves, and
haven't pretended we were in love with each other when we are not.
Condy, let's do this lots."
"Do what?"
"Go round to queer little, interesting little places. We've had a
glorious time to-day, haven't we?--and we haven't been talked out once.
"As we were last night, for instance," he hazarded.
"I THOUGHT you felt it, the same as I did. It WAS a bit awful wasn't
it?"
"It was."
"From now on, let's make a resolution. I know you've had a good time
to-day. Haven't you had a better time than if you had gone to the
Tea?'"
"Well, RATHER. I don't know when I've had a better, jollier afternoon."
"Well, now, we're going to try to have lots more good times, but just
as chums. We've tried the other, and it failed. Now be sincere;
didn't it fail?"
"It worked out. It DID work out."
"Now from this time on, no more foolishness. We'll just be chums."
"Chums it is. No more foolishness."
"The moment you begin to pretend you're in love with me, it will spoil
everything. It's funny," said Travis, drawing on her gloves. "We're
doing a funny thing, Condy. With ninety-nine people out of one
hundred, this little affair would have been all ended after our
'explanation' of last night--confessing, as we did, that we didn't love
each other. Most couples would have 'drifted apart'; but here we are,
planning to be chums, and have good times in our own original,
unconventional way--and we can do it, too. There, there, he's a
thousand miles away. He's not heard a single word I've said. Condy,
are you listening to me?"
"Blix," he murmured, staring at her vaguely. "Blix--you look that way;
I don't know, look kind of blix. Don't you feel sort of blix?" he
inquired anxiously.
"Blix?"
He smote the table with his palm. "Capital!" he cried; "sounds bully,
and snappy, and crisp, and bright, and sort of sudden. Sounds--don't
you know, THIS way?"--and he snapped his fingers. "Don't you see what
I mean? Blix, that's who you are. You've always been Blix, and I've
just found it out. Blix," he added, listening to the sound of the
name. "Blix, Blix. Yes, yes; that's your name."
"Blix?" she repeated; "but why Blix?"
"Why not?"
"I don't know why not."
"Well, then," he declared, as though that settled the question. They
made ready to go, as it was growing late.
"Will you tie that for me, Condy," she asked, rising and turning the
back of her head toward him, the ends of the veil held under her
fingers. "Not too tight. Condy, don't pull it so tight. There,
there, that will do. Have you everything that belongs to you? I know
you'll go away and leave something here. There's your cigarette case,
and your book, and of course the banjo."
As if warned by a mysterious instinct, the fat Chinaman made his
appearance in the outer room. Condy put his fingers into his vest
pocket, then dropped back upon his stool with a suppressed exclamation
of horror.
"Condy!" exclaimed Blix in alarm, "are you sick?"--for he had turned a
positive white.
"I haven't a cent of money," he murmured faintly. "I spent my last
quarter for those beastly crackers. What's to be done? What is to be
done? I'll--I'll leave him my watch. Yes, that's the only thing."
Blix calmly took out her purse. "I expected it," she said resignedly.
"I knew this would happen sooner or later, and I always have been
prepared. How much is it, John?" she asked of the Chinaman.
"Hefahdollah."
"I'll never be able to look you in the face again," protested Condy.
"I'll pay you back to-night. I will! I'll send it up by a messenger
boy."
"Then you WOULD be a buffoon."
"Don't!" he exclaimed. "Don't, it humiliates me to the dust."
"Oh, come along and don't be so absurd. It must be after five."
Half-way down the brass-bound stairs, he clapped his hand to his head
with a start.
"And NOW what is it?" she inquired meekly.
"Forgotten, forgotten!" he exclaimed. "I knew I would forget
something."
"I knew it, you mean."
He ran back, and returned with the great bag of crackers, and thrust it
into her hands. "Here, here, take these. We mustn't leave these," he
declared earnestly. "It would be a shameful waste of money;" and in
spite of all her protests, he insisted upon taking the crackers along.
"I wonder," said Blix, as the two skirted the Plaza, going down to
Kearney Street; "I wonder if I ought to ask him to supper?"
"Ask who--me?--how funny to--"
"I wonder if we are talked out--if it would spoil the day?"
"Anyhow, I'm going to have supper at the Club; and I've got to write my
article some time to-night."
Blix fixed him with a swift glance of genuine concern. "Don't play
to-night, Condy," she said, with a sudden gravity.
"Fat lot I can play! What money have I got to play with?"
"You might get some somewheres. But, anyhow, promise me you won't
play."
"Well, of course I'll promise. How can I, if I haven't any money? And
besides, I've got my whaleback stuff to write. I'll have supper at the
Club, and go up in the library and grind out copy for a while."
"Condy," said Blix, "I think that diver's story is almost too good for
'The Times.' Why don't you write it and send it East? Send it to the
Centennial Company, why don't you? They've paid some attention to you
now, and it would keep your name in their minds if you sent the story
to them, even if they didn't publish it. Why don't you think of that?"
"Fine--great idea! I'll do that. Only I'll have to write it out of
business hours. It will be extra work."
"Never mind, you do it; and," she added, as he put her on the cable
car, "keep your mind on that thirty-thousand-word story of adventure.
Good-by, Condy; haven't we had the jolliest day that ever was?"
"Couldn't have been better. Good-by, Blix."
Condy returned to his club., It was about six o'clock. In response to
his question, the hall-boy told him that Tracy Sargeant had arrived a
few moments previous, and had been asking for him.
The Saturday of the week before, Condy had made an engagement with
young Sargeant to have supper together that night, and perhaps go to
the theatre afterward. And now at the sight of Sargeant in the "round
window" of the main room, buried in the file of the "Gil Blas," Condy
was pleased to note that neither of them had forgotten the matter.
Sargeant greeted him with extreme cordiality as he came up, and at once
proposed a drink. Sargeant was a sleek, well-groomed, well-looking
fellow of thirty, just beginning to show the effects of a certain
amount of dissipation in the little puffs under the eyes and the faint
blueness of the temples. The sudden death of his father for which
event Sargeant was still mourning, had left him in such position that
his monthly income was about five times as large as Condy's salary.
The two had supper together, and Sargeant proposed the theatre.
"No, no; I've got to work to-night," asserted Condy.
After dinner, while they were smoking their cigars in a window of the
main room, one of the hall-boys came up and touched Condy on the arm.
"Mr. Eckert, and Mr. Hendricks, and Mr. George Hands, and several other
of those gentlemen are up in the card-room, and are asking for you and
Mr. Sargeant."
"Why, I didn't know the boys were here! They've got a game going,
Condy. Let's go up and get in. Shall we?"
Condy remembered that he had no money. "I'm flat broke, Tracy," he
announced, for he knew Sargeant well enough to make the confession
without wincing. "No, I'll not get in; but I'll go up and watch you a
few minutes."
They ascended to the card-room, where the air was heavy and acrid with
cigar smoke, and where the silence was broken only by the click of
poker-chips. At the end of twenty minutes Condy was playing, having
borrowed enough money of Sargeant to start him in the game.
Unusually talkative and restless, he had suddenly hardened and
stiffened to a repressed, tense calm; speechless, almost rigid in his
chair. Excitable under even ordinary circumstances, his every faculty
was now keyed to its highest pitch. The nervous strain upon him was
like the stretching and tightening of harp-strings, too taut to quiver.
The color left his face, and the moisture fled his lips. His projected
article, his promise to Blix, all the jollity of the afternoon, all
thought of time or place, faded away as the one indomitable, evil
passion of the man leaped into life within him, and lashed and roweled
him with excitement. His world resolved itself to a round green table,
columns of tri-colored chips, and five ever-changing cards that came
and went and came again before his tired eyes like the changing,
weaving colors of the kaleidoscope. Midnight struck, then one o'clock,
then two, three, and four. Still his passion rode him like a hag,
spurring the jaded body, rousing up the wearied brain.
Finally, at half-past four, at a time when Condy was precisely where he
had started, neither winner nor loser by so much as a dime, a round of
Jack-pots was declared, and the game broke up. Condy walked home to
the uptown hotel where he lived with his mother, and went to bed as the
first milk-wagons began to make their appearance and the newsboys to
cry the morning papers.
Then, as his tired eyes closed at last, occurred that strange trick of
picture-making that the overtaxed brain plays upon the retina. A swift
series of pictures of the day's doings began to whirl THROUGH rather
than BEFORE the pupils of his shut eyes. Condy saw again a brief
vision of the street, and Blix upon the corner waiting to cross; then
it was the gay, brisk confusion of the water-front, the old mate's
cabin aboard the whaleback, Chinatown, and a loop of vermilion cloth
over a gallery rail, the golden balcony, the glint of the Stevenson
ship upon the green Plaza, Blix playing the banjo, the delightful and
picturesque confusion of the deserted Chinese restaurant; Blix again,
turning her head for him to fasten her veil, holding the ends with her
white-kid fingers; Blix once more, walking at his side with her trim
black skirt, her round little turban hat, her yellow hair, and her
small dark, dancing eyes.
Then, suddenly, he remembered the promise he had made her in the matter
of playing that night. He winced sharply at this, and the remembrance
of his fault harried and harassed him. In spite of himself, he felt
contemptible. Yet he had broken his promises to her in this very
matter of playing before--before that day of their visit to the Chinese
restaurant--and had felt no great qualm of self-reproach. Had their
relations changed? Rather the reverse for they had done with
"foolishness."
"Never worried me before," muttered Condy, as he punched up his
pillow--"never worried me before. Why should it worry me now--worry me
like the devil;--and she caught on to that 'point' about the slope of
forty-five degrees."