"Yes!" Eleanor laughed. "Are you coming to play with us?"
"No. You"re coming to play with me. One of our best little playmates leans over my elbow as I indite these few lines--little Katie. Mark Heath is reporting great doings in Chinatown to-night, and he wants a.s.sistance. Do you suppose your Aunt Mattie will object to Chinatown?"
"Aunt Matilda never dictates--"
"Then it"s Chinatown! We"ll be along for you in half an hour. We"re dining with the Masters, who have inconsiderately refused to come along. What"s happened to you?"
"Nothing--why?"
"Your voice sounds so chipper!"
"That shows I"m in a mood to play!"
"Then we"ll be along in a _quarter_ of an hour."
"And I"ll be waiting at the garden gate!"
The swish and murmur of night, the rustle of a steady sea breeze, the composite rumble of the city far below, tuned with the song in Eleanor"s blood as she stood waiting by the front gate. She looked down on the pattern of light and heavy shadow that was the city, and a curious mood of exultation came over her. Light foreshadowings of this mood had touched her now and again during the past two months; never before had these transitory feelings piled themselves up into such a definite emotion.
She could not trace its shy beginning, but she was aware of it first as a sense of the humanity in the cells of that luminous honeycomb below, the struggling, hoping, fighting, aspiring ma.s.s, each unit a thing to love, did one but know the best. The wave of love universal beat so strong on her heart that she turned her eyes away for surfeit of rapture, and looked up to the stars. They, the bright angels of judgment whose infinite s.p.a.ces she could not contemplate without fear, united themselves in some mysterious bond with the little human things below; the sight of them brought the same wave of rapture. Too mighty long to be endured, the wave broke into ripples of happy contemplation. Sounding lines of forgotten poems ran through her mind, movements of old symphonies, memories of her vicarious raptures before the altar in the convent, glimpses of hillsides and valleys and woods in the winter rain which she had seen unseeing that she might reserve their deeper meaning for this deeper sight of the spirit. "I wonder if this is not happiness; if Heaven will not be so?" she thought. It came, too, that if this exaltation lasted a moment longer, she should know with G.o.d the meaning of all things, the Reason which united stars and s.p.a.ce and men and the works of men.
The resonant ba.s.s of Bertram Chester, beating down Kate"s cheerful treble, floated up from the sidewalk. The sound came almost as a relief; yet on second thought she was a little sorry for their intrusion into this lonely rapture of the spirit. She looked over the wall. Kate, revealed in the light of their gate-lamp, walked between the two men, who were bending toward her; now they were all laughing together. She was radiant, this firm-fleshed, golden flower of the West. Eleanor dipped from her clouds of glory to notice that she wore a new tailor gown, that every touch of her costume showed how she had got herself up for that special occasion. And now the spiritual fluid in Eleanor trans.m.u.ted itself into a reckless gaiety. She slipped down the steps and confronted them on the sidewalk.
"h.e.l.lo," said Kate, looking her over. "Well, who"s given you a present?"
Eleanor hugged her. "That"s just what"s happened, Katie. Somebody _has_ given me a present--I believe it must have been the stars." She extended her hands, right and left, to the men; holding them so, she rattled on; "Boys and girls, there"s so much ego in my cosmos to-night that it"s running out at every pore. I"m sure there"s going to be a party to-night, and I"m sure it"s got up for my benefit. I"m going to play so hard--so hard that they"ll put me to bed crying! Mr. Heath, bring on your Chinese and let them gambol and frisk. It"s my birthday.
This isn"t the date in the family Bible, as Kate could tell you if she weren"t a lady, but I"m sure my parents made a mistake. I just know that some menial is coming in a minute with a birthday cake--and the ring and the thimble and the coin and everything will be in my slice--h.e.l.lo, Bert Chester!"
"Where do I come in?" enquired Kate.
"You? You come in as my dearest little playmate, to whom I sent the first invitation."
"I see at a glance," rejoined Mark Heath, "that we"ve got our work cut out for us. I will now announce to the Little Girl who is Having a Party the program of games and sports. The festival of the women is on in Chinatown."
"I saw it from the car as I pa.s.sed Dupont Street," chimed in Kate.
"And the Quarter is blazing like a fire in a tar barrel."
In the most natural manner, Kate linked herself to Mark Heath. She always yielded the place beside Bertram when Eleanor was present; quite as naturally, she herself took that place when Eleanor was away.
Bertram cast a long look on his companion; and he ventured for the first time in weeks, on something like a compliment.
"What _has_ happened to you? You look--hanged if I can just tell you how you look, but it"s great!"
"Oh, compliment me! I love compliments! That"s my birthday present from you. I wonder if the Chinese babies will be out on the street--the little, golden babies. Why haven"t they a legend about those babies? Mr. Heath, do you know Chinese mythology? Kate, aren"t you sure those children are primroses transformed by the fairies to hide them from the goblins?"
Bertram frowned a little as she drew the other couple into their private conversation. But he continued to study her. This lightness and brightness which she had developed so suddenly, seemed quite to dim the radiance of his own personality. He fell into a quiet which lasted far into the evening. She, on her side, moved like one intoxicated by some divine liquor. Never had she seemed so gay, so young; and--though he did not wholly formulate this--never had she seemed to him so inaccessible.
They approached a dark alley beside an Italian tenement. Eleanor, dancing around the corner, came upon it suddenly. She drew up.
"There"s an ogre in this dark den--I know there is. I must see him!
Just think, I"m ten years old going onto eleven, and I never yet saw a real ogre. Come on--we"re going ogre hunting!" She plunged into the shadows. Mark, laughing, followed.
Eleanor peeped into the door of a wine-house, peeped over a board fence, and came back to announce:
"He"s not in. I left my card--oh, there he is--he"s visiting the goblin in that garden across the street!" She skipped across to an old stone wall which held its half-acre of earth suspended over the hill-fall. Mark skipped with her; Bertram followed at a distance as one who plays a game of which he is not sure. Eleanor brought up against the wall.
"There he is--by the kitchen door. Of course you see him! Good, Kind ogre, you don"t eat little girls on their birthdays do you?"
"Aren"t his red eyes beautiful and hasn"t he a cla.s.sy set of teeth?"
rejoined Mark Heath. "Be good, Fido, and you shall have a plumber for breakfast."
"But he"ll spare me! He says I"m too beautiful to eat!" Eleanor was dancing back. "Oh Kate, I"ve seen an ogre!"
Kate did not answer. She fell in with Mark Heath, and as they drew ahead she murmured:
"I wonder what"s got into her?"
"Nothing I guess. I should rather say she"d got out. I think it"s bully."
"Oh, yes," said Kate, drawing out the last word.
They turned into the Quarter at Washington Street, and at once they were in the midst of the festival. From a doorway burst a group of little, immobile-featured Cantonese women, all in soft greens, deep blues, reds and golds that glimmered in the gas-lights. Banded combs in jade and gold held their smooth, glossy black hair; their slender hands, peeping from their sleeves, shone with rings. The foremost among them, a doll-girl of sixteen or so, tottered and swayed on the lily feet of a lady. The rest walked upon clattering pattens, like a French heel set by the cobbler"s mistake at the instep.
Mark Heath, the young reporter, proud in his knowledge of "the inside," took up the reins of conversation.
"A fairy story for you right at the start, birthday lady! That little-foot girl is the daughter of Hom Kip. You remember the story, don"t you? The old plug tried to sell this daughter of his for wife to a merchant in Portland. She had her own ideas--she eloped with the second tragedian from the theatre over there. Hom Kip put detectives on them, and caught her at Fresno. But she"d already married her actor American fashion; and the Portland bridegroom is waiting until father makes his little blossom a widow."
"As temporary Empress of Chinatown, I order that he shall do nothing of the kind," said Eleanor.
"As your grand vizier, I shall put the machinery in motion that will free the beautiful young bride," rejoined Mark Heath.
Kate broke in.
"What became of the actor? I"m one of those dull persons who always wants the rest of the story!"
"I told you, didn"t I, that father is going to make her a widow? At least he was until the Empress ordered otherwise. The actor has probably abandoned his art, which gives him undesirable publicity. And some day, if father dares disobey the Empress, there"ll be a mysterious murder in a backwoods laundry--police baffled."
Eleanor contemplated the lily-foot girl, swaying about the corner into Dupont, her little handkerchief in one hand, her proper fan in the other.
"Poor little blossom--I wonder if she"ll mourn for him? Faithful Grand Vizier, don"t tell me sad facts on my birthday night. I want only pretty things."
"Whether she"ll mourn or not won"t make much difference to father--or to the Highbinders. Je-hoshaphat--look!"
For they had turned the corner into Dupont Street, main avenue of the Quarter. Its narrow vista came upon them at first as a smothered flame. Innumerable paper lanterns, from scarlet globes as big as a barrel to parti-colored cones that one might hold in his palm, blazed everywhere, making strange combinations, incredible shades, in the flaring Chinese signs, the bright dresses of the women. The sidewalks quivered with life--soberly dressed coolies, making green background for the gauds of their women, bespangled babies late out of bed that they might gain good luck and blessing from those rites, priests in white robes, dignitaries in long tunics, incongruous Caucasian tourists and spectators.
A moment Eleanor drank it all in; then she addressed her Grand Vizier.
"Inform my people, through your invaluable publication, that their demonstration in my honor is perfect."