"Is there--is there really such a thing, William? You would not tell me a bind like that just to make a goat of me, would you?"
"No, I wouldn"t. There is such a thing."
"Did you see it?"
"No, I----"
"How do you know?"
"Amourette told me--shamelessly, defiantly, adorably! It was organised in secret out of the most advanced and determined as well as the most healthy, vigorous, and physically beautiful of all the suffragettes in North America. One of their number happened to own a thousand acres here before the State took the rest for its park. And here they have come, dozens and dozens of them--to attend the first summer session of the New Race University."
"Is--is there actually a University in these woods?"
"There is."
"Buildings?" demanded Langdon, amazed.
"No, burrows. Isn"t that the limit? Curt, believe me, they live in caves. It"s their idea of being vigorous and simple and primitive. Their cult is the cave woman. They have cla.s.ses; they study and recite and exercise and cook and play auction bridge. Their object is to hasten not only political enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, but the era of a physical and intellectual equality which will permit them to mate as they choose and people this republic with perfect progeny. Every girl there is pledged to mate only with the very pick of physical masculine perfection. Their pledge is to build up a new, G.o.d-like race on earth, which ultimately will dominate, crush out, survive, and replace all humanity which has become degenerate. Nothing mentally or physically or politically imperfect is permitted inside that wire fence. My eye-gla.s.ses bar me out; your shanks exclude you--also your politics, because you"re a democrat."
"That"s monstrous!" exclaimed Langdon, indignantly.
"More monstrous still, these disciples of the New Race movement are militant! Their audacity is unbelievable! Certain ones among them, adepts in woodcraft, have now begun to range this forest with nets. What do you think of that! And when they encounter a young fellow who agrees with the remorseless standard of perfection set up by the University, they stalk him and net him! They"ve got four so far. And now it"s Amourette"s turn to go out!"
Langdon"s teeth chattered.
"W-w-what are they g-going to do with their captures?"
"Marry them!"
"Willett? And Carrick and----"
"Yes. Isn"t it awful, Curt?"
"Was she the girl with the net in the photo? I mean, was that her hand?"
"No; that was a friend of her"s who bagged Willett. Amourette started out yesterday for the first time after--well, I suppose you"d call it "big game." She saw me, stalked me, got near enough to see my gla.s.ses, and let me go. And to-day, thinking that she might have been mistaken and that perhaps I only wore sun-gla.s.ses, she came back. But I was a.s.s enough to take off my cap to her, and she saw my hair--saw where it wasn"t--and that settled it."
"What a mortifying thing to happen to you, William."
"I should think so. There"s nothing unusual the matter with me. Caesar was bald. It"s idiotic to bar a man out because he has fewer hairs than the next man. And the exasperating part of it is that I believe I could win her if I had half a chance."
"Of course you could. If she"s any good as a sport, she"d rather have you, hairless myopiac that you are, than a tailor"s dummy."
Sayre said: "Isn"t it a terrible thing, Curtis, to think of that sweet, lovely young girl pledged to a scientific life like that? P-pledged to p-p-propagate p-p-perfection?"
"What a mean-spirited creature that fellow Willett must be," observed Langdon in disgust; "and the other three--Ugh!"
"Why?"
"To tamely submit to being kidnapped and woo"d and wed that way--endure the degradation of a captivity among all those young girls----"
Sayre said: "Would you call for help if kidnapped?"
Langdon gazed into s.p.a.ce: "I wonder," he murmured.
Sayre looked at him searchingly.
"I don"t believe you"d make the welkin ring with your yelps. It"s probably the same with those four men."
"Probably."
"I don"t suppose those suffragettes of the New Race University really require any fence there to keep those men in."
"No; only to keep the rest of us out."
"The chances are that Willett and that poet Carrick and De Lancy Smith and Alphonso W. Green couldn"t be chased out of that University."
"Those are the chances. How I hate those four men. It"s curious, William, that no man can ever tolerate the idea of any other man ever getting solid with any looker. I always did dislike to see another man with a pretty girl... . William?"
"What?"
"Think of the concentrated beauty in that University! Think of that rich round-up of creamy dreams! Consider that mellifluous marmalade! And--we can"t have any--because you are slightly bald and near-sighted and I am thin and scholarly!" He ran at the camp-kettle and kicked it.
After a painful silence Sayre said timidly: "Don"t laugh, but is there any known substance which will bring in hair?"
"You mean bring it out?"
"Well, dammit, grow it! Is there?"
"There are too many bald monarchs and millionaires to prove the contrary. Nor is there anything that can make my thin shanks fatter."
"--I"d be willing to go about without gla.s.ses," said Sayre humbly. "I told her so."
"Couldn"t you deceive her with a wig? It wouldn"t matter afterward. After you"re once married let her shriek."
"Amourette saw my head." And he hung it in bitter dejection.
"Come on," said Langdon cheerily. "Let"s peek through their fence and see what happens. Much has been done with a merry eye in this world of haughty ladies."
As they turned away into the woods Sayre clenched his fists.
"I"d like to knock the collective blocks off those four young men inside that fence. And--to think--to think of Amourette going out again to-morrow, man hunting, with her net! I can"t endure it, Curt--I simply can"t."
Langdon looked at his friend in deep commiseration.
"I wish I could help you, William--but I don"t see--I--don"t--exactly--see----" He hesitated. "Of course I could go to Utica and pay a wig-maker and costumer to make me up into the kind of Charlie-Gussie they"re looking for at that University... . And when your best girl goes out hunting, she"ll see me and net me, and you can be in hiding near by, and rush out and net her."
In their excitement they seized each other and danced.
"Why not?" exclaimed Langdon. "Shall I try? Trust me to come back a specimen of sickening symmetry--the kind of man women write about and draw pictures of--pink and white and silky-whiskered! Shall I? And I"ll bring you a net to catch her in! Is it a go, William?"
Sayre broke down and began to cry.
"Heaven bless you, friend," he sobbed. "And if ever I get that girl inside a net she"ll learn something about natural selection that they p-p-probably forgot to teach in their accursed New Race University!"
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
V.
ONE week later Curtis Langdon sat on the banks of a trout stream fishing, apparently deeply absorbed in his business; but he was listening so hard that his ears hurt him.
A few yards away, ambushed behind a rock on which was painted "Votes for Women," lurked William Sayre. A net lay on the ground beside him, fashioned with ring and detachable handle like a gigantic b.u.t.terfly net.
He, too, tremendously excited, was listening and watching the human bait--Langdon being cast for the bait.
Perfect and nauseating beauty now marked that young gentleman. Features and figure were symmetrical; his eyebrows had been pencilled into exact arcs, his mouth was a Cupid"s bow, his cheeks were softly rosy, and a silky and sickly moustache shadowed his rosy lips. Under his fashionable outing shirt he wore a rubber chest improver; his cunningly padded shoulders recalled the exquisite sartorial creations of Mart, Haffner, and Sharx; his patent puttees gave him a calf to which his personal shanks had never aspired; thick, golden-brown hair, false as a woman"s vows, was tossed carelessly from a brow, snowy with pearl powder. And he wore a lilac-edged handkerchief in his left cuff.
Both young men truly felt that if any undergraduate of the New Race University was out stalking she"d have at least one try at such a bait. Nothing feminine and earnest could resist that glutinous agglomeration of charms.
But they had now been there since before dawn; nothing had broken the sun-lit quiet of forest and water, not even a trout; and they listened in vain for the snapping of the cla.s.sical twig.
Lunch time came; they ate a pad apiece. Neither dared to smoke, Sayre because it might reveal his hiding place, Langdon because smoking might be considered an imperfection in the University.
Sunlight fell warm on the banks of the stream, the leaves rustled, big white clouds floated in the blue above. Nothing came near Langdon except a few mosquitoes, who couldn"t bite through the make-up; and a small and inquisitive bird that inspected him with disdain and said, "cheep--che-ep!" so many times that Langdon took it as a personal comment and almost blushed.
He thought to himself: "If it wasn"t that William is actually becoming ill over his unhappy love affair I"m d.a.m.ned if I"d let even a d.i.c.ky-bird see me in this rig. Ugh! What a head of hair! The average girl"s ideal is what every healthy man wants to kick. I wouldn"t blame any decent fellow for booting me into the brook on sight."
He bit into his pad and sat chewing reflectively and dabbling his line in the water.
"Poor old William," he mused. "This business is likely to end us both. If we stay here we lose our jobs; if we go back William is likely to increase the nut crop. I never supposed men took love as seriously as that. I"ve heard that it sometimes occurred--what is it Shakespeare says: "How Love doth make nuts of us all!""
He chewed his pad and swung his feet, philosophically.
"Why the devil doesn"t some girl come and try to steal a kiss?" he muttered. "It might perhaps be well to call their attention to my helpless presence and unguarded condition."
So he sang for a while, swinging his legs: "Somebody"s watching and waiting for me!" munching his luncheon between verses; and, as n.o.body came, he bawled louder and louder the refrain: "Somebody"s darling, darling, dah-ling!" until a hoa.r.s.e voice from behind the rock silenced him: "Shut up that hurdy-gurdy voice of yours! A defect like that will count ten points against you! Can it!"
"Oh, very well," said Langdon, offended; "but everybody doesn"t feel the way you do about music."
Silence resumed her cla.s.sical occupation in the forest; the stream continued to sparkle and make its own kind of music; the trout, having become accustomed to the queer thing on the bank and the baited hook among the pebbles, gathered in the ripples stemming the current with winnowing fins.
A very young rabbit sat up in a fern patch and examined Langdon with dark, moist eyes. He sat there for several minutes, and might have remained for several more if a sound, unheard by Langdon and by Sayre, had not set the bunch of whiskers on his restless nose twitching, and sent him scurrying off over the moss.
The sound was no sound to human ears; Langdon heard it not; Sayre, drowsy in the scented heat, dozed behind his rock.
A shadow fell across the moss; then another; two slim shapes moved stealthily among the trees across the brook.
For ten minutes the foremost figure stood looking at Langdon. Occasionally she used an opera gla.s.s, which, from time to time, she pa.s.sed back over her shoulder to her companion.
"Ethra," she whispered at last, "he seems to be practically perfect."
"I"m wondering about those puttees, dear--shanks in puttees are deceptive."
"Those are exquisite calves," said Amourette sadly. "I"m sure they"ll measure up to regulation. And his chest seems up to proof."
"What beautiful eyebrows," murmured Ethra.
But Amourette found no pleasure in them, nor in the golden-brown hair, nor the bloom of youth and perfect health pervading their unconscious quarry. Perhaps she was thinking of a certain near-sighted, thin-haired young man--and how she had slammed the gate of the wire fence in his face--after their first kiss.
She drew a deep, painful breath and lifted her head resolutely.
"I suppose I"d better begin to stalk him, Ethra," she said.
"Yes; he"s a very good specimen. Be careful, dear. Strike a circle and come up behind him. When you"re ready, mew like a cat-bird and I"ll let him catch a glimpse of me. And as soon as he begins to--to rubber," she said, with a haughty glance at the unconscious angler, "steal up and net him, and I"ll come across and help tie him up."
Amourette sighed, standing there irresolute. Then she straightened her drooping shoulders, seized her net very firmly, and, with infinite caution, began to stalk her quarry.
Once the stalking had fairly begun, the girl became absorbed in the game. All memory of Sayre, if there indeed had been any to make her falter in her purpose, now departed. She was a huntress pure and simple, silent, furtive, adroit, intent upon her quarry. There came a kind of fierceness into her concentration; the joy of the chase thrilled her as she crept noiselessly through the woods, describing a circle, crossing the stream far above the sleepy fisherman, gliding, stealing nearer, nearer, until at length she stood in the thicket behind him.
For a moment she waited silently, freeing her net and gathering it in her right hand ready for a deadly cast. Then, pursing up her red lips, she mewed like a cat-bird, three times.
Instantly, across the stream, she saw Ethra step out of the willows into plain view; saw Langdon wake up, stare, get up, and regard the beautiful vision across the stream with concentrated and delighted attention.
Then Amourette stole swiftly forward over the moss, swinging the heavy silken net in her right hand, closer, closer. Suddenly the net whistled in the air, glistened, lengthened, and fell, enmeshing Langdon; and, at the same instant something behind her whistled and fell slap; and she found herself struggling in the folds of an enormous b.u.t.terfly net.
"Ethra! Help!" she cried, terrified, trying to keep her balance in the web which enveloped her, striving to tear a way free through the meshes; but she was only wrapped up the tighter; two brutal masculine arms lifted her, held her cradled and entangled, freed the handle from the net, and bore her swiftly away.
"Darling," whispered William Sayre, "d-don"t kick."
"You!" she gasped, struggling frantically.
"The real thing, dearest of women! The old-fashioned, original cave man. Will you come quietly? There"s a license bureau in the next village. Or shall I be obliged to keep right on carrying you?"
"Oh, oh, oh!" she sobbed; "what disgrace! what humiliation; what shame! Oh, Ethra! Ethra! What in the world am I to do?"
"That"s where the mistake arose," said William gently; "you don"t have to do anything--except put both arms around my neck and--be careful not to knock off my gla.s.ses."
"Gla.s.ses! Ethra! Ethra! Where are you? Don"t you see what is becoming of me? You--you had b-better hurry, too," she added with a sob, "because the man who is carrying me off is the man I told you about. Ethra! Where are you?"
A convenient echo replied in similar terms. Meanwhile Sayre was walking faster and faster through the woods.