An indifferent swimmer, Donald Ware had avoided the afternoon sport in
the tank; but after dinner, somewhat to the irritation of Graham, the
violinist monopolized Paula at the piano. New guests, with the casual
expectedness of the Big House, had drifted in--a lawyer, by name Adolph
Well, who had come to confer with Dick over some big water-right suit;
Jeremy Braxton, straight from Mexico, Dick's general superintendent of
the Harvest Group, which bonanza, according to Jeremy Braxton, was as
"unpetering" as ever; Edwin O'Hay, a red-headed Irish musical and
dramatic critic; and Chauncey Bishop, editor and owner of the _San
Francisco Dispatch_, and a member of Dick's class and frat, as Graham
gleaned.
Dick had started a boisterous gambling game which he called "Horrible
Fives," wherein, although excitement ran high and players plunged, the
limit was ten cents, and, on a lucky coup, the transient banker might
win or lose as high as ninety cents, such coup requiring at least ten
minutes to play out. This game went on at a big table at the far end of
the room, accompanied by much owing and borrowing of small sums and an
incessant clamor for change.
With nine players, the game was crowded, and Graham, rather than draw
cards, casually and occasionally backed Ernestine's cards, the while he
glanced down the long room at the violinist and Paula Forrest absorbed
in Beethoven Symphonies and Delibes' Ballets. Jeremy Braxton was
demanding raising the limit to twenty cents, and Dick, the heaviest
loser, as he averred, to the tune of four dollars and sixty cents, was
plaintively suggesting the starting of a "kitty" in order that some one
should pay for the lights and the sweeping out of the place in the
morning, when Graham, with a profound sigh at the loss of his last
bet--a nickel which he had had to pay double--announced to Ernestine
that he was going to take a turn around the room to change his luck.
"I prophesied you would," she told him under her breath.
"What?" he asked.
She glanced significantly in Paula's direction.
"Just for that I simply must go down there now," he retorted.
"Can't dast decline a dare," she taunted.
"If it were a dare I wouldn't dare do it."
"In which case I dare you," she took up.
He shook his head: "I had already made up my mind to go right down
there to that one spot and cut that fiddler out of the running. You
can't dare me out of it at this late stage. Besides, there's Mr. O'Hay
waiting for you to make your bet."
Ernestine rashly laid ten cents, and scarcely knew whether she won or
lost, so intent was she on watching Graham go down the room, although
she did know that Bert Wainwright had not been unobservant of her gaze
and its direction. On the other hand, neither she nor Bert, nor any
other at the table, knew that Dick's quick-glancing eyes, sparkling
with merriment while his lips chaffed absurdities that made them all
laugh, had missed no portion of the side play.
Ernestine, but little taller than Paula, although hinting of a plus
roundness to come, was a sun-healthy, clear blonde, her skin sprayed
with the almost transparent flush of maidenhood at eighteen. To the
eye, it seemed almost that one could see through the pink daintiness of
fingers, hand, wrist, and forearm, neck and cheek. And to this
delicious transparency of rose and pink, was added a warmth of tone
that did not escape Dick's eyes as he glimpsed her watch Evan Graham
move down the length of room. Dick knew and classified her wild
imagined dream or guess, though the terms of it were beyond his
divination.
What she saw was what she imagined was the princely walk of Graham, the
high, light, blooded carriage of his head, the delightful carelessness
of the gold-burnt, sun-sanded hair that made her fingers ache to be
into with caresses she for the first time knew were possible of her
fingers.
Nor did Paula, during an interval of discussion with the violinist in
which she did not desist from stating her criticism of O'Hay's latest
criticism of Harold Bauer, fail to see and keep her eyes on Graham's
progress. She, too, noted with pleasure his grace of movement, the
high, light poise of head, the careless hair, the clear bronze of the
smooth cheeks, the splendid forehead, the long gray eyes with the hint
of drooping lids and boyish sullenness that fled before the smile with
which he greeted her.
She had observed that smile often since her first meeting with him. It
was an irresistible smile, a smile that lighted the eyes with the
radiance of good fellowship and that crinkled the corners into tiny,
genial lines. It was provocative of smiles, for she found herself
smiling a silent greeting in return as she continued stating to Ware
her grievance against O'Hay's too-complacent praise of Bauer.
But her engagement was tacitly with Donald Ware at the piano, and with
no more than passing speech, she was off and away in a series of
Hungarian dances that made Graham marvel anew as he loafed and smoked
in a window-seat.
He marveled at the proteanness of her, at visions of those nimble
fingers guiding and checking The Fop, swimming and paddling in
submarine crypts, and, falling in swan-like flight through forty feet
of air, locking just above the water to make the diver's
head-protecting arch of arm.
In decency, he lingered but few minutes, returned to the gamblers, and
put the entire table in a roar with a well-acted Yiddisher's chagrin
and passion at losing entire nickels every few minutes to the fortunate
and chesty mine superintendent from Mexico.
Later, when the game of Horrible Fives broke up, Bert and Lute Desten
spoiled the Adagio from Beethoven's _Sonata Pathetique_ by
exaggeratedly ragging to it in what Dick immediately named "The Loving
Slow-Drag," till Paula broke down in a gale of laughter and ceased from
playing.
New groupings occurred. A bridge table formed with Weil, Rita, Bishop,
and Dick. Donald Ware was driven from his monopoly of Paula by the
young people under the leadership of Jeremy Braxton; while Graham and
O'Hay paired off in a window-seat and O'Hay talked shop.
After a time, in which all at the piano had sung Hawaiian _hulas_,
Paula sang alone to her own accompaniment. She sang several German
love-songs in succession, although it was merely for the group about
her and not for the room; and Evan Graham, almost to his delight,
decided that at last he had found a weakness in her. She might be a
magnificent pianist, horsewoman, diver, and swimmer, but it was patent,
despite her singing throat, that she was not a magnificent singer. This
conclusion he was quickly compelled to modify. A singer she was, a
consummate singer. Weakness was only comparative after all. She lacked
the magnificent voice. It was a sweet voice, a rich voice, with the
same warm-fibered thrill of her laugh; but the volume so essential to
the great voice was not there. Ear and voice seemed effortlessly true,
and in her singing were feeling, artistry, training, intelligence. But
volume--it was scarcely a fair average, was his judgment.
But quality--there he halted. It was a woman's voice. It was haunted
with richness of sex. In it resided all the temperament in the
world--with all the restraint of discipline, was the next step of his
analysis. He had to admire the way she refused to exceed the
limitations of her voice. In this she achieved triumphs.
And, while he nodded absently to O'Hay's lecturette on the state of
the--opera, Graham fell to wondering if Paula Forrest, thus so
completely the mistress of her temperament, might not be equally
mistress of her temperament in the deeper, passional ways. There was a
challenge there--based on curiosity, he conceded, but only partly so
based; and, over and beyond, and, deeper and far beneath, a challenge
to a man made in the immemorial image of man.
It was a challenge that bade him pause, and even look up and down the
great room and to the tree-trunked roof far above, and to the flying
gallery hung with the spoils of the world, and to Dick Forrest, master
of all this material achievement and husband of the woman, playing
bridge, just as he worked, with all his heart, his laughter ringing
loud as he caught Rita in renig. For Graham had the courage not to shun
the ultimate connotations. Behind the challenge in his speculations
lurked the woman. Paula Forrest was splendidly, deliciously woman, all
woman, unusually woman. From the blow between the eyes of his first
striking sight of her, swimming the great stallion in the pool, she had
continued to witch-ride his man's imagination. He was anything but
unused to women; and his general attitude was that of being tired of
the mediocre sameness of them. To chance upon the unusual woman was
like finding the great pearl in a lagoon fished out by a generation of
divers.
"Glad to see you're still alive," Paula laughed to him, a little later.
She was prepared to depart with Lute for bed. A second bridge quartet
had been arranged--Ernestine, Bert, Jeremy Braxton, and Graham; while
O'Hay and Bishop were already deep in a bout of two-handed pinochle.
"He's really a charming Irishman when he keeps off his one string,"
Paula went on.
"Which, I think I am fair, is music," Graham said.
"And on music he is insufferable," Lute observed. "It's the only thing
he doesn't know the least thing about. He drives one frantic."
"Never mind," Paula soothed, in gurgling tones. "You will all be
avenged. Dick just whispered to me to get the philosophers up to-morrow
night. You know how they talk music. A musical critic is their awful
prey."
"Terrence said the other night that there was no closed season on
musical critics," Lute contributed.
"Terrence and Aaron will drive him to drink," Paula laughed her joy of
anticipation. "And Dar Hyal, alone, with his blastic theory of art, can
specially apply it to music to the confutation of all the first words
and the last. He doesn't believe a thing he says about blastism, any
more than was he serious when he danced the other evening. It's his bit
of fun. He's such a deep philosopher that he has to get his fun
somehow."
"And if O'Hay ever locks horns with Terrence," Lute prophesied, "I can
see Terrence tucking arm in arm with him, leading him down to the stag
room, and heating the argument with the absentest-minded variety of
drinks that ever O'Hay accomplished."
"Which means a very sick O'Hay next day," Paula continued her gurgles
of anticipation.
"I'll tell him to do it!" exclaimed Lute.
"You mustn't think we're all bad," Paula protested to Graham. "It's
just the spirit of the house. Dick likes it. He's always playing jokes
himself. He relaxes that way. I'll wager, right now, it was Dick's
suggestion, to Lute, and for Lute to carry out, for Terrence to get
O'Hay into the stag room. Now, 'fess up, Lute."
"Well, I will say," Lute answered with meticulous circumspection, "that
the idea was not entirely original with me."
At this point, Ernestine joined them and appropriated Graham with:
"We're all waiting for you. We've cut, and you and I are partners.
Besides, Paula's making her sleep noise. So say good night, and let her
go."
Paula had left for bed at ten o'clock. Not till one did the bridge
break up. Dick, his arm about Ernestine in brotherly fashion, said good
night to Graham where one of the divided ways led to the watch tower,
and continued on with his pretty sister-in-law toward her quarters.
"Just a tip, Ernestine," he said at parting, his gray eyes frankly and
genially on hers, but his voice sufficiently serious to warn her.
"What have I been doing now?" she pouted laughingly.
"Nothing... as yet. But don't get started, or you'll be laying up a
sore heart for yourself. You're only a kid yet--eighteen; and a darned
nice, likable kid at that. Enough to make 'most any man sit up and take
notice. But Evan Graham is not 'most any man--"
"Oh, I can take care of myself," she blurted out in a fling of quick
resentment.
"But listen to me just the same. There comes a time in the affairs of a
girl when the love-bee gets a buzzing with a very loud hum in her
pretty noddle. Then is the time she mustn't make a mistake and start in
loving the wrong man. You haven't fallen in love with Evan Graham yet,
and all you have to do is just not to fall in love with him. He's not
for you, nor for any young thing. He's an oldster, an ancient, and
possibly has forgotten more about love, romantic love, and young
things, than you'll ever learn in a dozen lives. If he ever marries
again--"
"Again!" Ernestine broke in.
"Why, he's been a widower, my dear, for over fifteen years."
"Then what of it?" she demanded defiantly.
"Just this," Dick continued quietly. "He's lived the young-thing
romance, and lived it wonderfully; and, from the fact that in fifteen
years he has not married again, means--"
"That he's never recovered from his loss?" Ernestine interpolated. "But
that's no proof--"
"--Means that he's got over his apprenticeship to wild young romance,"
Dick held on steadily. "All you have to do is look at him and realize
that he has not lacked opportunities, and that, on occasion, some very
fine women, real wise women, mature women, have given him foot-races
that tested his wind and endurance. But so far they've not succeeded in
catching him. And as for young things, you know how filled the world is
with them for a man like him. Think it over, and just keep your
heart-thoughts away from him. If you don't let your heart start to warm
toward him, it will save your heart from a grievous chill later on."
He took one of her hands in his, and drew her against him, an arm
soothingly about her shoulder. For several minutes of silence Dick idly
speculated on what her thoughts might be.
"You know, we hard-bitten old fellows--" he began half-apologetically,
half-humorously.
But she made a restless movement of distaste, and cried out:
"Are the only ones worth while! The young men are all youngsters, and
that's what's the matter with them. They're full of life, and coltish
spirits, and dance, and song. But they're not serious. They're not big.
They're not--oh, they don't give a girl that sense of all-wiseness, of
proven strength, of, of... well, of manhood."
"I understand," Dick murmured. "But please do not forget to glance at
the other side of the shield. You glowing young creatures of women must
affect the old fellows in precisely similar ways. They may look on you
as toys, playthings, delightful things to whom to teach a few fine
foolishnesses, but not as comrades, not as equals, not as sharers--full
sharers. Life is something to be learned. They have learned it... some
of it. But young things like you, Ernestine, have you learned any of it
yet?"
"Tell me," she asked abruptly, almost tragically, "about this wild
young romance, about this young thing when he was young, fifteen years
ago."
"Fifteen?" Dick replied promptly. "Eighteen. They were married three
years before she died. In fact--figure it out for yourself--they were
actually married, by a Church of England dominie, and living in
wedlock, about the same moment that you were squalling your first
post-birth squalls in this world."
"Yes, yes--go on," she urged nervously. "What was she like?"
"She was a resplendent, golden-brown, or tan-golden half-caste, a
Polynesian queen whose mother had been a queen before her, whose father
was an Oxford man, an English gentleman, and a real scholar. Her name
was Nomare. She was Queen of Huahoa. She was barbaric. He was young
enough to out-barbaric her. There was nothing sordid in their marriage.
He was no penniless adventurer. She brought him her island kingdom and
forty thousand subjects. He brought to that island his fortune--and it
was no inconsiderable fortune. He built a palace that no South Sea
island ever possessed before or will ever possess again. It was the
real thing, grass-thatched, hand-hewn beams that were lashed with
cocoanut sennit, and all the rest. It was rooted in the island; it
sprouted out of the island; it _belonged_, although he fetched Hopkins
out from New York to plan it.
"Heavens! they had their own royal yacht, their mountain house, their
canoe house--the last a veritable palace in itself. I know. I have been
at great feasts in it--though it was after their time. Nomare was dead,
and no one knew where Graham was, and a king of collateral line was the
ruler.
"I told you he out-barbaricked her. Their dinner service was gold.--Oh,
what's the use in telling any more. He was only a boy. She was
half-English, half-Polynesian, and a really and truly queen. They were
flowers of their races. They were a pair of wonderful children. They
lived a fairy tale. And... well, Ernestine, the years have passed, and
Evan Graham has passed from the realm of the young thing. It will be a
remarkable woman that will ever infatuate him now. Besides, he's
practically broke. Though he didn't wastrel his money. As much
misfortune, and more, than anything else."
"Paula would be more his kind," Ernestine said meditatively.
"Yes, indeed," Dick agreed. "Paula, or any woman as remarkable as
Paula, would attract him a thousand times more than all the sweet,
young, lovely things like you in the world. We oldsters have our
standards, you know."
"And I'll have to put up with the youngsters," Ernestine sighed.
"In the meantime, yes," he chuckled. "Remembering, always, that you,
too, in time, may grow into the remarkable, mature woman, who can
outfoot a man like Evan in a foot-race of love for possession."
"But I shall be married long before that," she pouted.
"Which will be your good fortune, my dear. And, now, good night. And
you are not angry with me?"
She smiled pathetically and shook her head, put up her lips to be
kissed, then said as they parted:
"I promise not to be angry if you will only show me the way that in the
end will lead me to ancient graybeards like you and Graham."
Dick Forrest, turning off lights as he went, penetrated the library,
and, while selecting half a dozen reference volumes on mechanics and
physics, smiled as if pleased with himself at recollection of the
interview with his sister-in-law. He was confident that he had spoken
in time and not a moment too soon. But, half way up the book-concealed
spiral staircase that led to his work room, a remark of Ernestine,
echoing in his consciousness, made him stop from very suddenness to
lean his shoulder against the wall.--_"Paula would be more his kind."_
"Silly ass!" he laughed aloud, continuing on his way. "And married a
dozen years!"
Nor did he think again about it, until, in bed, on his sleeping porch,
he took a glance at his barometers and thermometers, and prepared to
settle down to the solution of the electrical speculation that had been
puzzling him. Then it was, as he peered across the great court to his
wife's dark wing and dark sleeping porch to see if she were still
waking, that Ernestine's remark again echoed. He dismissed it with a
"Silly ass!" of scorn, lighted a cigarette, and began running, with
trained eye, the indexes of the books and marking the pages sought with
matches.