She looked at him strangely, her l.u.s.trous eyes wide open and bright with her unsaid thoughts.
"Are you very fond of her, Frank?" she asked.
"Her? Who?" he exclaimed. "You don"t mean Ca.s.sie Derwent?"
"Yes," she said.
"Of course I"m fond of her," he said.
"More than you are of me, Frank?" she persisted.
"Oh, it isn"t the same sort of thing, Florence," he said. "I never even thought of comparing you and her together. Surely you know that? Surely you understand that?"
"You used to--to love me once, Frank," she said, with a stifled sob. "Has she made it any less? Has she robbed me, Frank? Have I lost you without knowing it?"
"No," he said, "no, a thousand times, no!"
"Tell me that you love me, Frank," she burst out. "Tell me, tell me!" Then, as he did not answer, she went on pa.s.sionately: "That"s why I went to sea, Frank. I was mad with jealousy. I couldn"t give you up to her. I couldn"t let her have you!"
She pressed closer against him, and tiptoeing so as to raise her mouth to his ear, she whispered: "I always liked you better than anybody else in the world, Frank. I love you! I love you!"
For the moment he could not realise his own good fortune. He could do nothing but look into her eyes. It was her reproach for years afterwards that she had to kiss him first.
"I suppose it had to come, Frank," she said. "I fought all I could, but it didn"t seem any use!"
"It was inevitable," he returned solemnly. "G.o.d made you for me, and me for you!"
"Amen," she said, and in an ecstasy of abandonment whispered again: "I love you, Frank. I love you!"
FFRENCHES FIRST
I suppose if I had been a hero of romance, instead of an ordinary kind of chap, I would have steamed in with the Tallaha.s.see, fired a gun, and landed in state, instead of putting on my old clothes and sneaking into the county on an automobile. However, I did my little best, so far as making a date with Babc.o.c.k was concerned, and as it turned out in the end I dare say the hero of romance wouldn"t have managed it much better himself. It was late when I got into Forty Fyles (as the village was called), and put up at one of those quaint, low-raftered, bulging old inns which still remain, thank Heaven, here and there, in the less travelled parts of England. If I were dusty and dirty when I arrived, you ought to have seen me the next day after a two-hours" job with the differential gears. By the time I had got the trouble to rights, and had puffed up and down the main street to make a.s.surance sure and astonish the natives (who came out two hundred strong and cheered), I was as frowsy, unkempt, and dilapidated an American as ever drove a twelve H.P. Panhard through the rural lanes of Britain. Indeed, I was so shocked at my own appearance when I looked at myself in the gla.s.s (such a wiggly old gla.s.s that showed one in streaks like bacon) that I went down to the draper"s and tried to buy a new set out. But as they had nothing except cheap tripper suits for pigmies (I stood six feet in my stockings and had played full back at college) and fishermen"s clothes of an ancient Dutch design, I forebore to waste my good dollars in making a guy of myself, and decided to remain as I was.
Then, as I was sitting in the bar and asking the potman the best way to get to Castle Fyles, it suddenly came over me that it was the Fourth of July, and that, recreant as I was, I had come near forgetting the event altogether. I started off again down the main street to discover some means of raising a noise, and after a good deal of searching I managed to procure several handfuls of strange whitey fire-crackers the size of cigars and a peculiar red package that the shopkeeper called a "Haetna Volcano." He said that for four and eightpence one couldn"t find its match in Lunnon itself, and obligingly took off twopence when I pointed out Vesuvius hadn"t a fuse. With the crackers in my pocket and the volcano under my arm I set forth in the pleasant summer morning to walk to Castle Fyles, having an idea to rest by the way and celebrate the Fourth in the very heart of the hereditary enemy.
The road, as is so often the case in England, ran between high stone walls and restrained the wayfarer from straying into the gentlemen"s parks on either hand. The sun shone overhead with the fierce heat of a British July; and to make matters worse in my case, I seemed to be the loadstone of what traffic was in progress on the highway. A load of hay stuck to me with obstinate determination; if I walked slowly, the hay lagged beside me; if I quickened my pace, the hay whipped up his horses; when I rested and mopped my brow, the hay rested and mopped ITS brow. Then there were tramps of various kinds: a Punch and Judy show on the march; swift silent bicyclists who sped past in a flurry of dust; local gentry riding c.o.c.k-horses (no doubt to Banbury Crosses); local gentry in dogcarts; local gentry in closed carriages going to a funeral, and apparently (as seen through the windows) very hot and mournful and perspiring; an antique clergyman in an antique gig who gave me a tract and warned me against drink; a char-a-bancs filled to bursting with the True Blue Const.i.tutional Club of East Pigley--such at least was the inscription on a streaming banner-- who swung past waving their hats and singing "Our Boarder"s such a Nice Young Man"; then some pale aristocratic children in a sort of perambulating clothes-basket drawn by a hairy mite of a pony, who looked at me disapprovingly, as though I hadn"t honestly come by the volcano; then--but why go on with the never-ending procession of British pilgrims who straggled out at just sufficient intervals to keep between them a perpetual eye on my movements and prevent me from celebrating the birth of freedom in any kind of privacy.
At last, getting desperate at this espionage and thinking besides I could make a shorter cut towards Castle Fyles, I clambered over an easy place in the left-hand wall and dropped into the shade of a magnificent park. Here, at least, whatever the risk of an outraged law (which I had been patronisingly told was even stricter than that of the Medes and Persians), I seemed free to wander unseen and undetected, and accordingly struck a course under the oaks that promised in time to bring me out somewhere near the sea.
Dipping into a little dell, where in the perfection of its English woodland one might have thought to meet Robin Hood himself, or startle Little John beside a fallen deer, I looked carefully about, got out my pale crackers, and wondered whether I dared begin. It is always an eerie sensation to be alone in the forest, what with the whispering leaves overhead, the stir and hum of insects, the rustle of ghostly foot-falls, and (in my case) the uneasy sense of green-liveried keepers sneaking up at one through the clumps of gorse. However, I was not the man to belie the blood of Revolutionary heroes and meanly carry my unexploded crackers beyond the scene of danger, so I remembered the brave days of old and touched a whitey off. It burst with the roar of a cannon and reverberated through the glades like the broadside of a man-of- war. It took me a good five minutes before I had the courage to detonate another, which, for better security, I did this time under my hat. I am not saying it did the hat any good, but it seemed safer and less deafening, and I accordingly went on in this manner until there were only about three whiteys left between me and Vesuvius, which I kept back, in accordance with tradition, for one big triumphant bang at the end.
I was in the act of touching my cigar to whitey number three,--on my knees, I remember; and trying to arrange my hat so as to get the most m.u.f.fling for the least outlay of burned felt, when the branches in front of me parted and I looked up to see--well, simply the most beautiful woman in the world, regarding me with astonishment and anger. She was about twenty, somewhat above the medium height, and her eyes were of a lovely flashing blue that seemed in the intensity of her indignation to positively emit sparks--altogether the most exquisitely radiant and glorious creature that man was ever privileged to gaze upon.
"How dare you let off fireworks in this park?" she said, in a voice like clotted cream.
I rose in some confusion.
"Go directly," she said, "or I"ll report you and have you summonsed!"
"I have only two more crackers and this volcano," I said protestingly. "Surely you would not mind----"
"Don"t be insolent," she said, "or I shall have no compunction in setting my dog on you."
I looked down, and there, sure enough, rolling a yellow eye and showing his fangs at me, was a sort of Uncle Tom"s Cabin bloodhound only waiting to begin.
"The fact is," I said, speaking slowly, so as to emphasise the fact that I was a gentleman, "I am an American; to-day is our national holiday; and we make it everywhere our practice to celebrate it with fireworks. I would have done so in the road, but the island seemed so crowded this morning I couldn"t find an undisturbed place outside the park."
Beauty was obviously mollified by my tone and respectful address.
"Please leave the park directly," she said.
I put the crackers in my pocket, took up my hat, placed the Haetna Volcano under my arm, and stood there, ready to go.
"Accept my apologies," I said. "Whatever my fault, at least no discourtesy was intended."
We looked at each other, and Beauty"s face relaxed into something like a smile.
"Just give me one more minute for my volcano," I pleaded.
"You seem very polite," she returned. "Yes, you can set it off, if that will be any satisfaction to you."
"It"ll be a whole lot," I said, "and since you"re so kind perhaps you"ll let me include the crackers as well?"
Then she began to laugh, and the sweetest thing about it was that she didn"t want to laugh a bit and blushed the most lovely pink, as she broke out again and again until the woods fairly rang. And as I laughed too--for really it was most absurd--it was as good as a scene in a play. And so, while she held Legree"s dog, whom the sound inflamed to frenzy, I popped off the crackers and dropped my cigar into Vesuvius. I tell you he was worth four and eightpence, and the man was right when he said there wasn"t his match in London. I doubt if there was his match anywhere for being plumb- full of red b.a.l.l.s and green b.a.l.l.s and blue b.a.l.l.s and crimson stars and fizzlegigs and whole torrents of tiny crackers and chase-me- quicks, and when you about thought he was never going to stop he shot up a silver spray and a gold spray and wound up with a very considerable decent-sized bust.
"I must thank you for your good nature," I said to the young lady.
"Are you a typical American?" she asked. "Oh, so-so," I returned.
"There are heaps like me in New York."
"And do they all do this on the Fourth of July?" she asked.
"Every last one!" I said.
"Fancy!" she said.
"In America," I said, "when a man has received one favour he is certain to make it the stepping-stone for another. Won"t you permit me to walk across the park to Castle Fyles?"
"Castle Fyles?" she repeated, with a little note of curiosity in her girlish voice. "Then don"t you know that this is Fyles Park?"
"Can"t say I did," I returned. "But I am delighted to hear it."
"Why are you delighted to hear it?" she asked, making me feel more than ever like an escaped lunatic.