XXII

The rest of the day was torture for Payne. Blease had said too much

and too little for him to have any peace. He had caught one glimpse of

the woman in the shack, and alternately he wished he had not seen her

and that the sight of her had been more illuminating.

Blease's wife was no "cracker," no native of those parts, no type which

belonged in a squatter's shack in the heart of a jungle. Her presence

there seemed to cry out the news of some foul miscarriage of destiny,

of a wrong to her life too hideous to imagine. Upon her face--still

young--was the tale of a broken soul protesting against the wrong life

had dealt it. He drew his hands across his brow to dispel the memory

of that look and to try to see Mrs. Blease as she had been before it

came. A high type of business secretary. Blease had started to tell

and had stopped. Secretary to Garman possibly. Blease had been

Garman's caretaker. Payne recalled the swimming pool with its

drug-like atmosphere. What had happened there? He felt he would never

know, did not wish to know. What might be happening there now?

A river of ice seemed to roll down his spine and little rivulets seemed

to trickle out to the last nerve tips of his fingers, chilling him

through and through; and he worked through the day dry-throated and

breathing hard, conscious that a crisis in his life lay before him.

Why should it affect him so? What had he to do with Garman's affairs

or the affairs of those with him? The vision of the girl called

Annette, as he first saw her in the dawn on Gumbo Key, stood before his

eyes, and he knew how false his attempts at disinterest. Life had

caught him up in a net with other lives. He thought of Garman, and

groaned behind set teeth.

Night came with no surcease to the apprehension in his heart; and as if

to mock his mood the scene, after a lurid sunset, was beautiful and

kindly beyond compare. A mist of color like powdered silver filled the

air. Soft, near-by stars blinked lazily down upon the scene,

illumining it without the effect of brilliance. A half moon hung idly

in the mists above the cypress trees, and long, languorous shadows

streaked the silvered ground with black. In the dark jungle of elder

bushes there opened long vistas of silver light, as unreal as the black

tops of the far-away trees. In the unreality of the night the earth

itself seemed unreal, all things appeared as shadows swimming in a

dream sea of soft radiance.

Payne left his tent and walked out into the marvelous night, unsoothed

by its beauty, not caring whither he went. Annette's eyes had promised

she would return, and he went toward the sand prairie where he knew she

rode sometimes in the cool of the evening. He came abruptly upon the

wire of his line fence, and for a moment stood gripping the wires and

looking off into the distance, over the sand prairie. He found himself

presently by the gate he had cut in the wire as an entrance to Flower

Prairie, and stood entranced by the dreamy beauty of the spot. In the

center of the park the bowllike sand of a long dried-up water hole

seemed overlaid by a thin sheet of silver, and the tiny palms that

circled its shores were dark pillars, topped by a crown of silver

leaves. The effect of the moon upon the water of the Prairie's tiny

spring lake was like magic. In its silver gleam the trees, shrubs and

even the flowers upon its bank were reflected vividly, and a fish

swimming near the surface lifted the water in a gentle, rolling swell.

Payne looked, and in place of the lake he seemed to behold a swimming

pool and to sense an atmosphere that was like a drug. He opened the

gate and stepped out on the sand prairie. As in moments of crisis,

when unseen, unknown forces take a life in hand, he was for the moment

like a man in a dream, unconscious of his movements, incapable of

intention. He leaned against the gatepost to think. The soft

thud-thud of an unseen horse, walking slowly somewhere out upon the

prairie, brought him up with a jerk. He peered into the moonlight in a

vain effort to see. Placing his ear to the ground he caught the sound

again and after a moment made out that the hoof beats were coming

slowly toward his fence.

Payne stepped within his own line and closed the gate.

Presently he flung it open again and stood in the shade of a palmetto,

waiting. He rubbed his eyes to make sure he was not a victim of the

night's magic. It was Annette on her pony; she had kept the promise of

her eyes. But her appearance gave Roger a shock. Her hair was

disheveled. Her hands hung limply upon the saddle pommel and her head

was bowed. She rode through the gate, past him to the brink of the

tiny lakelet and halted. Then she looked round as if seeking some one.

She looked to where the tent lights gleamed mistily through the canvas

of Payne's camp. Then, after a long while, she dismounted and started

to lead her mount toward the tents. Payne stepped forward out of the

shadows and into her sight.

Neither spoke at first. Surprise had rendered her speechless; and as

the silvery moon haze revealed her upturned face Payne was frozen dumb.

For the look in her eyes and upon her face was a hint of the look which

he had beheld upon the countenance of Mrs. Blease. He recoiled from it

at first. Then he bent forward, scanning her mercilessly, and saw with

a sense of relief that he was wrong. The face of the girl was the

panorama of a struggle. There was fear there, and uncertainty in the

eyes; but there was no acknowledgment of defeat. The change in her

bearing was appalling to Payne. The gallant bearing of her vibrant

young body was gone. She might have been drugged, so submerged was her

true self.

"You think it's the moon, don't you?" she said with an uneasy laugh,

leaning languidly against the patient pony's neck. "Well, it isn't.

It--it's something else--something so different--I don't even

understand what it is. I don't even know if there is anything. Yet

there must be; it affects me so. I'm afraid--and yet I'm not. I--I

rather like it, too. That's why I'm afraid; I like it so well. It

seems so--soothing."

"Miss----" began Roger and paused, puzzled at what to call her.

Her response was a languid chuckle.

"My name? How formal! Does it seem natural to be formal here? It

doesn't to me. And it doesn't seem pleasant; it jars so. That's why

the other thing, whatever it is, seems so inviting and inevitable. So

natural. No formality. No straining. Nothing but--that."

"What is--'that'?" asked Payne.

"I don't know," she responded in wide-eyed wonderment. "Really, I

don't. It isn't anything tangible. It's over there some place," she

nodded languidly across the prairie. "It--frightened me to-night. I

ran away--but I didn't escape it."

"It's Garman!" blurted Payne hoarsely.

"Oh, don't!" She cowered against the pony. "Please--please don't!

Oh, if you don't wish to be cruel----"

"Miss Annette!"

The utterance of her name seemed to bring back a sense of her true

self. She straightened herself slowly to her full height, and her

poise of assurance seemed to come back to its own.

"It must sound terribly silly to you," she said quietly. "I wonder if

the Florida moon affects every one that way."

"You said it wasn't the moon."

"No," she said seriously, "it isn't." She paused, stroking the pony's

neck thoughtfully. "Do you know, I actually was so frightened at

nothing that I ran away this evening."

"You were going over there?" He pointed toward the vague lights

showing through the tents of his camp.

"Why--yes. It isn't the most thickly populated part of the world about

here, isn't it? White people aren't so plentiful here. At least I

knew there were white men at those tents--that funny red-haired man and

yourself. You see it was the only place about here where I knew I

could find anybody who--what shall I say? Why, who doesn't belong in

this weird atmosphere----It was uncanny over at our place this evening.

At sunset the water in the swimming pool didn't seem to be water at

all; it seemed molten gold; and the mosaic round it seemed to be made

up of whitened bones, and back of that was the fringe of palms hiding

the jungle. It suddenly seemed to me that the palms were there for

that purpose, and that the jungle needed to be hidden; and the palms

seemed to know it, for their fronds hung drooping, like the hands of

weary, worn-out women, tired of concealing whatever it is that's Back

There--in the jungle--on Palm Island."

"You don't mind my talking, do you? It's a relief. I couldn't talk to

any one over there. The whole place seemed to be suffocating. I had

to talk. I'll tell you why; I wanted to go into the jungle and see

what it is the palms hide back there at night. Isn't it ludicrous--or

ghastly--whichever way you look at it?"

"You aren't alone over there? Mrs. Livingstone is still there, isn't

she?"

"Yes, Aunty's still there. I'm safely chaperoned." She laughed with a

note of hardness in her young voice. "What a chaperon! If she knew I

was here talking to you I believe it would drive her mad. She guards

me so closely--when it pleases her to do so."

She laughed bitterly again.

"That's why she brought me down here alone to--that house. I am

beginning to understand Aunty. I never knew why she guarded me so

carefully before. My mother died before I could remember. Aunty

brought me up. She's my father's sister. She brought me up well, for

her purpose. I've been in schools all my life it seems until last

winter. Then she brought me out, in Washington. Since then--Society.

You see, we haven't got money. People think we have, but we haven't.

So I've been on display, set up by Aunty in one of society's shop

windows, like goods in the Boardwalk booths at Atlantic City. Do you

mind my rambling?"

"Go on, please."

"You don't know what such a life means. You're a producer; I've been a

doll tricked out for inspection by the men who are rich enough to buy

expensive dolls. But we've no money. Society asks about that first of

all when--an Aunty is trying to put a doll up for sale:

"'What have you to offer? Honesty? Character? Decency? Oh,

well-hm-hm. Is that all? Then stand in the corner there among the

obscure ones. Some one will see you in time--if you live long enough.

And the next: What have you to offer? Intelligence; thought? No sale;

you make us all feel uncomfortable. Virtue? Tut, tut, my dear!

Cleverness, charm, facile smartness? The crowd gathers round. Beauty?

The crowd grows thicker. Money--wealth--gold by millions? Ah! Come

to our arms, you golden one, rotten to the core though you may

be--gentleman with a gorilla's tastes; lady with Madonna face, Venus

body, viper soul! Come to the throne; we salaam before you--your gold

has made you sacred.'

"Oh! The stench of it still is in my nostrils; I still feel thick cold

fingers on my bare arms. I once was one of them--serenely satisfied

that I was one of the elect of earth, though I had never produced a

thing in this world, but only consumed. No right at all to anything

and sure I had the right to everything, to consume food, to wear out

clothes, to wear out servants. In return I gave--nothing. Not a

thing. But I've waked up. Earth--good, black earth--you are greater

than Mrs. Butterfly Croesus and all her brood; because you are real.

"I see it now. My silly pretty face, my woman's body, my graces,

seductions, all have been so much bait for Aunty's fishing. Bait!

That's what I've been; bait to catch goldfish! And she brought me down

here on the greatest fishing trip she's ever attempted."

"But you have a father."

"Yes. You will meet him Sunday. Well, I suppose I've bored you

terribly. Thank you for your patience. It was a relief to talk to

some one."

But she did not go. The mystery and companionship of the sub-tropical

night was upon them with its sensuous caresses. All of Payne's

hard-won man-strength seemed to leave him: he felt as weak as a child;

and he began to stammer brokenly.

"Anything I can do--if I can help--what you spoke of--Back There in the

jungle----?"

"No, no. Nobody can help me with that. It's got to be just myself. I

know that now."

She was the more self-controlled. Payne could not speak. All that he

wished to say--his strength, his life, at her call in her hour of

need--he expressed in a gesture.

"Thank you."

She touched his outstretched hand. Instinctively their fingers locked

together, instinctively she swayed toward him.

"Thank you."

He had released her hand. They looked at one another a long time. She

smiled a little.

"I must go back."

She touched his sleeve lightly, mounted and looked down at him.

"Can't I help in any way?" he asked.

"No one can help me," she whispered. "No one but my own weak self."

And the look upon her countenance which had appalled him as she passed

through the gate was coming back as she rode away.