In her letters Athalie never mentioned Captain Dane; not because she
had anything to conceal regarding him or herself; but she seemed to be
aware that any mention of that friendship might not evoke a
sympathetic response from Clive.
So, in her last letter, as in the others, she had not spoken of
Captain Dane. Yet, now, he was the only man with whom she ever went
anywhere and whom she received at her own apartment.
He had a habit of striding in two or three evenings in a week,--a big,
fair, broad-shouldered six-footer, with sun-narrowed eyes of arctic
blue, a short blond moustache, and skin permanently burned by the
unshadowed glare of many and tropic days.
They went about together on Sundays, usually; sometimes in hot weather
to suburban restaurants for dinner and a breath of air, sometimes to
roof gardens.
Why he lingered in town--for he seemed always to be at leisure--she
did not know. And she wondered a little that he should elect to remain
in the heat-cursed city whence everybody else she knew had fled.
Dane was a godsend to her. With him she went to the Bronx Zoological
Park several times, intensely interested in what he had to say
concerning the creatures housed there, and shyly proud and delighted
to meet the curators of the various departments who all seemed to know
Dane and to be on terms of excellent fellowship with him.
With him she visited the various museums and art galleries; and went
with him to concerts, popular and otherwise; and took long trolley
rides with him on suffocating evenings when the poor slept on the
grass in the parks and the slums, east and west, presented endless
vistas of panting nakedness prostrate under a smouldering red moon.
Every diversion he offered her helped to sustain her courage; every
time she lunched or dined with him meant more to her than he dreamed
it meant. Because her savings were ebbing fast, and she had not yet
been able to find employment.
Some things she would not do--write to her sisters for any financial
aid; nor would she go to the office of her late employers and ask for
any recommendation from Mr. Grossman which might help her to secure a
position. Never could she bring herself to do either of these things,
although the ugly countenance of necessity now began to stare her
persistently in the face.
Also she was sensitive lest Dane suspect her need and offer aid. But
how could he suspect?--with her pretty apartment filled with pretty
things, and the luxurious Hafiz pervading everything with his
incessant purring and his snowy plume of a tail waving fastidious
contentment. He fared better than did his mistress, who denied herself
that Hafiz might flourish that same tail. And after a while the girl
actually began to grow thinner from sheer lack of nourishment.
It never occurred to her to sell or pawn any of the furniture, silver,
furs, rugs,--anything at all that Clive had given her. And there was
one reason why she never would do it: she refused to consider anything
he had given her as her own property to dispose of if she chose. For
she had accepted these things from Clive only because it gave him
pleasure to give. And what she possessed she regarded as his property
held in trust. Nothing could have induced her to consider these things
in any other light.
One souvenir, only, did she look upon as her own. It had no financial
value; and, if it had, she would have starved before disposing of it.
This was the first thing he ever gave her--his boy's offering--the
gun-metal wrist-watch.
And her only recent extravagance had been a sentimental one; she had
the watch cleaned and regulated, and a new leather strap adjusted. The
evening it was returned to her she wore it; and that night she slept
with the watch strapped to her wrist.
So much for a young girl's sentiment!--for no letter came from him on
the morrow although the European mail was in. None came the next day;
nor the next.
Toward the end of the week, one sultry evening, when Athalie returned
from an unsuccessful tour of job-hunting, and nearer depression than
ever she had yet been, Captain Dane came stalking in, shook hands with
his usual decision, picked up Hafiz who adored him, and took the
chair nearest to the lounge where Athalie lay.
[Illustration: "With him she visited the various museums and art
galleries."]
"Suppose we dine somewhere?" he suggested, fondling the purring Angora
and rubbing its ears.
"Would you mind," she said, "if I didn't?"
"You're very tired, aren't you, Miss Greensleeve?"
"A little. I don't believe I have the energy to go out with you."
Still fondling the willing cat he said: "What's wrong? Something's
wrong, isn't it?"
"No indeed."
He turned and gave her a square look: "You're quite sure?"
"Quite."
"Oh; all right. Will you let me have dinner here with you?"
She said without embarrassment: "I neglected my marketing: there's
very little in the pantry."
"Well," he said, "I'm hungry and I'm going to call up the Hotel
Trebizond and have them send us some dinner."
She seemed inclined to demur, but he had his way, went to the
telephone and gave his orders.
The dinner arrived in due time and was excellent. And when the remains
of the dinner and the waiter who served it had been cleared out,
Athalie felt better.
"You ought to go to the country for two or three weeks," he remarked.
"Why don't _you_ go?" she asked, smilingly.
"Don't need it."
"Neither do I, Captain Dane. Besides I have to continue my search for
a position."
"No luck yet?"
"Not yet."
He mused over his cigar for a few moments, lifted his blond head as
though about to speak, but evidently decided not to.
She had taken up her sewing and was now busy with it. From moment to
moment Hafiz took liberties with her spool of thread where he sprawled
beside her, patting it this way and that until it fell upon the floor
and Dane was obliged to rescue it.
It had grown cooler. A breeze from the open windows occasionally
stirred her soft hair and the smoke of Dane's cigar. They had been
silent for a few moments. Threading her needle she happened to glance
up at him, and saw somebody else standing just behind him--a tall man,
olive-skinned and black-bearded--and knew instantly that he was not
alive.
Serenely incurious, she looked at the visitor, aware that the clothes
he wore were foreign, and that his features, too, were not American.
And the next moment she gazed at him more attentively, for he had laid
one hand on Dane's shoulder and was looking very earnestly across at
her.
He said distinctly but with a foreign accent: "Would you please say to
him that the greatest of all the ancient cities is hidden by the
jungle near the source of the middle fork. It was called Yhdunez."
"Yes," she said, unconscious that she had spoken aloud.
Dane lifted his head, and remained motionless, gazing at her intently.
The visitor was already moving across the room. Halfway across he
looked back at Athalie in a pleasant, questioning manner; and she
nodded her reassurance with a smile. Then her visitor was there no
longer; and she found herself, a trifle confused, looking into the
keen eyes of Captain Dane.
Neither spoke for a moment or two; then he said, quietly: "I did not
know you were clairvoyant."
"I--see clearly--now and then."
"I understand. It is nothing new to me."
"You _do_ understand then?"
"I understand that some few people see more clearly than the great
majority."
"Do you?"
"No.... There was a comrade of mine--a Frenchman--Jacques Renouf. He
was like you; he saw."
"Is he living?--I mean as we are?"
"No."
"Was he tall, olive-skinned, black-bearded--"
"Yes," said Dane coolly; "did you see him just now?"
"Yes."
"I wondered.... There are moments when I seem to feel his presence. I
was thinking of him just now. We were on the upper Amazon together
last winter."
"How did he die?"
"He'd been off by himself all day. About five o'clock he came into
camp with a poisoned arrow broken off behind his shoulder-blade. He
seemed dazed and stupefied; but at moments I had an idea that he was
trying to tell us something."
Dane hesitated, shrugged: "It was no use. We left our fire as usual
and went into the forest about two miles to sleep. Jacques died that
night, still dazed by the poison, still making feeble signs at me as
though he were trying to tell me something.... I believe that he has
been near me very often since, trying to speak to me."
"He laid his hand on your shoulder, Captain Dane."
Dane's stern lips quivered for a second, then self-command resumed
control. He said: "He usually did that when he had something to tell
me.... Did he speak to me, Miss Greensleeve?"
"He spoke to me."
"Clearly?"
"Yes. He said: 'Would you please say to him that the greatest of all
the ancient cities is hidden by the jungle near the source of the
middle fork. It was called Yhdunez.'"
For a long while Dane sat silent, his chin resting on his clenched
hand, looking down at the rug at his feet. After a while he said,
still looking down: "He must have found it all alone. And got an arrow
in him for his reward.... They're a dirty lot, those cannibals along
the middle fork of the Amazon. Nobody knows much about them yet except
that they _are_ cannibals and their arrows are poisoned.... I brought
back the arrow that I pulled out of Jacques.... There's no analysis
that can determine what the poison is--except that it's vegetable."
He leaned forward, as though weary, resting his face between both
hands.
"Yhdunez? Is that what it was called? Well, it and everything in it
was not worth the life of my friend Renouf.... Nor is anything I've
ever seen worth a single life sacrificed to the Red God of
Discovery.... Those accursed cities full of vile and monstrous
carvings--they belong to the jaguars now. Let them keep them. Let the
world's jungles keep their own--if only they'd give me back my
friend--"
He rested a moment as he was, then straightened up impatiently as
though ashamed.
"Death is death," he said in matter-of-fact tones.
Athalie slowly shook her head: "There is no death."
He nodded almost gratefully: "I know what you mean. I dare say you are
right.... Well--I think I'll go back to Yhdunez."
"Not this evening?" she protested, smilingly.
He smiled, too: "No, not this evening, Miss Greensleeve. I shall never
care to go anywhere again--"... His face altered.... "Unless you care
to go--with me."
What he had said she would have taken gaily, lightly, had not the
gravity of his face forbidden it. She saw the lean muscles tighten
along his clean-cut cheek, saw the keen eyes grow wistful, then steady
themselves for her answer.
She could not misunderstand him; she disdained to, honouring the
simplicity and truth of this man to whom she was so truly devoted.
Her abandoned sewing lay on her lap. Hafiz slept with one velvet paw
entangled in her thread. She looked down, absently freeing thread and
fabric, and remained so for a moment, thinking. After a while she
looked up, a trifle pale:
"Thank you, Captain Dane," she said in a low voice.
He waited.
"I--am afraid that I am--in love--already--with another man."
He bent his head, quietly; there was no pleading, no asking for a
chance, no whining of any species to which the monarch man is so
constitutionally predisposed when soft, young lips pronounce the death
warrant of his sentimental hopes.
All he said was: "It need not alter anything between us--what I have
asked of you."
"It only makes me care the more for our friendship, Captain Dane."
He nodded, studying the pattern in the Shirvan rug under his feet. A
procession of symbols representing scorpions and tarantulas
embellished one of the rug's many border stripes. His grave eyes
followed the procession entirely around the five-by-three bit of
weaving. Then he rose, bent over her, took her slim hand in silence,
saluted it, and asking if he might call again very soon, went out
about his business, whatever it was. Probably the most important
business he had on hand just then was to get over his love for Athalie
Greensleeve.
For a long while Athalie sat there beside Hafiz considering the world
and what it was threatening to do to her; considering man and what he
had offered and what he had not offered to do to her.
Distressed because of the pain she had inflicted on Captain Dane, yet
proud of the honour done her, she sat thinking, sometimes of Clive,
sometimes of Mr. Wahlbaum, sometimes of Doris and Catharine, and of
her brother who had gone out to the coast years ago, and from whom she
had never heard.
But mostly she thought of Clive--and of his long silence.
Presently Hafiz woke up, stretched his fluffy, snowy limbs, yawned,
pink-mouthed, then looked up out of gem-clear eyes, blinking
inquiringly at his young mistress.
"Hafiz," she said, "if I don't find employment very soon, what is to
become of you?"
The evening paper, as yet unread, lay on the sofa beside her. She
picked it up, listlessly, glancing at the headings of the front page
columns. There seemed to be trouble in Mexico; trouble in Japan;
trouble in Hayti. Another column recorded last night's heat and gave
the list of deaths and prostrations in the city. Another column--the
last on the front page--announced by cable the news of a fashionable
engagement--a Miss Winifred Stuart to a Mr. Clive Bailey; both at
present in Paris--
She read it again, slowly; and even yet it meant nothing to her,
conveyed nothing she seemed able to comprehend.
But halfway down the column her eyes blurred, the paper slipped from
her hands to the floor, and she dropped back into the hollow of the
sofa, and lay there, unstirring. And Hafiz, momentarily disturbed,
curled up on her lap again and went peacefully to sleep.