The calm voice helped to restore Power"s bemused senses. Afraid lest his moonstruck att.i.tude might have been observed by some of Mrs. Marten"s companions, he tried to cover his confusion by a jest.
"Wine, did you say?" he cried. "Certainly--let"s have a magnum. Bottled sunlight should help to dissipate visions."
"Anacreon has something to that effect in one of his odes; though he vowed that he worshiped Wine, Woman, and the Muses in equal measure."
"Who is Anacreon?" asked the man from Plainville.
"He flourished at Athens about 600 B.C.," laughed Dacre.
"Did he? By gosh! The Greeks knew a bit, then, even at that time."
"This one in particular was an authority on those three topics. Love, to him, was no mischievous boy armed with silver darts, but a giant who struck with a smith"s hammer. He died like a gentleman, too, being choked by a grapestone at the age of eighty-five."
"Ah, that explains it!"
"Explains what?"
"He had a small swallow, or rum and romance would have knocked him out in half the time."
Power was rapidly becoming himself again. "I behaved like a stupid boy just now," he said; "but I was never more taken aback in my life. I have not met Mrs. Marten since her marriage, three years ago, and I imagined she was in Europe."
"Oh, is that Mrs. Marten?" chimed in downright Plainville. "Last Sunday"s papers whooped her up as the prize beauty of Newport this summer, and I guess they got nearer the truth than usual. She"s a sure winner."
"Did I hear her mention Mrs. Van Ralten?" inquired Dacre.
"Yes, her hostess tonight, I believe."
"Van Ralten and Marten hurried off together to the Caspian last week.
They are interested in the oil wells at Baku."
Cymbals seemed to clash in Power"s brain, and he heard his own voice saying in a subdued and colorless staccato, "I am sorry I did not meet her sooner. I leave tomorrow."
Dacre looked at him curiously; but the wine had arrived, a choice vintage of the middle "70"s, and the Mexican was lifting his gla.s.s.
"_El sabio muda conseja; el necio no_," he quoted.
The phrase was so apt that Power glanced at the speaker with marked doubt; whereupon the blond Norwegian asked what the senor had said.
"He told us that the wise man changes his mind, but the fool does not,"
translated Power.
"Gee whizz!" cried Plainville. "It"s a pity he can"t give out the text in good American; for he talks horse sense most all the time. If _I_ had a peach like Mrs. Marten callin" me "Derry," d.a.m.n if I"d quit for a month!"
The general laugh at this dry comment evoked a demand by the Mexican for a Spanish version of the joke. Then he made it clear that he had resolved to abjure wine, and was only salving his conscience by a proverb.
This cheerful badinage, which might pa.s.s among any gathering of men when one of them happened to be greeted by a pretty woman, did not leave Power unscathed. He had dwelt too long apart from his fellows not to wince at allusions which would glance harmlessly off less sensitive skins. The iron which had entered into his soul was fused to a white heat by sight of the woman he had loved and lost. He resented what he imagined as being the knowledge these boon companions boasted of his parlous state. Unable to join in their banter, not daring to trust his voice in the most obvious of retorts, for the man from Plainville had not been designed by nature to pose as a squire of dames, he gulped down a gla.s.s of champagne at a draft, and pretended to make up for wasted time in an interrupted course.
Dacre seemed to think that he would be interested in the latest gossip in financial circles with reference to a supposed scheme organized by Marten and Van Ralten to fight the Oil Trust. Power listened in silence until he felt sure of himself; then he launched out vigorously.
"It strikes me that America has lost the art of producing great men," he said. "We whites are degenerating into mere money-grubbers; so, by the law of compensation, our next demiG.o.d should be a n.i.g.g.e.r."
"Huh!" snorted Alabama, eager for battle.
"That"s my serious opinion," continued Power dogmatically. "And, what"s more, I think I know the n.i.g.g.e.r. Have any of you dined in the Auditorium Hotel, Chicago?"
Yes, several; dining-room on top floor; lightning elevator; all right going up empty, but coming down full was rather a trial.
"Well, you will remember that, as you go in, a young colored gentleman takes your hat and overcoat, and cane or umbrella. He supplies no numbered voucher, and cannot possibly tell at which tables some six or seven hundred diners will be seated. At this time of year every man is wearing a straw hat of similar design; yet, as each guest comes forth, he is handed his own hat and other belongings. Now, I hold that that n.i.g.g.e.r has a brain of supreme mathematical excellence. There is not a financier in Wall Street who could begin to emulate that feat of memory.
Given a chance, and such men make their own opportunities. The Auditorium cloakroom attendant will rise to a dizzy height."
"Tosh!" exclaimed Alabama, primed with facts to prove that hundreds of negroes could perform similar tricks, but were no good for anything else.
He was no match for Power in an argument where figures held a place, and Dacre was the only other man present who realized that the talk had been boldly and skilfully wrenched to an impersonal topic. He, at any rate, made no further allusion to Marten or his projects; though he continued to watch Power narrowly but un.o.btrusively. Himself something of a derelict, though his aimless path lay in summer seas, he had conceived a warm regard for the quiet-mannered stranger from Colorado.
Neither he nor any of the others knew aught of Power"s history, who might really be the rancher he professed to be, though his student"s features and reserved manner did not bear out the a.s.sumption. Later, when Dacre was better informed, he realized the cause of his first skepticism, for the engineer belonged to one of those rarer types of mankind who, like the lawyer, the soldier, the physician, and the clergyman, had the seal of his life"s work stamped plainly upon him.
Hence, it followed that in a spirit of sheer comradeship and sympathy he kept an eye on Power during the next few days. He saw how matters were tending, and risked a rebuff in offering a friendly hint when disaster was imminent. Above all--whether for good or evil who can judge? at any rate, the writer of this record of a man"s life feels least qualified to decide the point--he brought a dominating influence to bear at a moment when Power was adrift in a maelstrom which threatened to engulf him.
Yet there was slight sign of impending tempest in that bright room with its groups of diners seemingly well content with their surroundings.
From the adjoining table, which Power could not see owing to the position he occupied, came gusts of animated conversation. Mrs. Van Ralten rejoiced in the loud, penetrating accents of the Middle West, and s.n.a.t.c.hes of her talk were audible.
"I do think James Gordon might have provided a more stylish Casino while he was about it."
"Yes, I sail on the _Teutonic_ first week in August. Nothing will keep Willie away from the moors on the Twelfth."
"Did I see them? My dear, who could miss them? Has anyone ever met such freaks outside a dime museum?"
"Why, Nancy, I don"t wonder a little bit that you were such a success in Paris. The nice things I was told about you turned me green with envy."
Alabama hotly contested each milestone of the Mason and Dixon Line; but Dacre believed that Power was less intent on the color problem than on catching each syllable of a sweet voice seldom heard above the clatter of tongues at the next table. At last the meal was ended, and the men strolled out into the veranda. Mrs. Marten seemed to know when her friend had risen; she turned and waved a hand, and obviously explained her action in the next breath. Soon she appeared, a radiant being fully in keeping with moonlight and a garden of exotics.
"Mary Van Ralten is a duck," she said joyously, when Power hurried forward. "She has given me half an hour; but I mustn"t be a minute later, as she has turned out of her own house to accommodate the Barnstormers from Boston, who are acting for her guests tonight. All Newport will be there. You are coming, Derry. I asked her, and will introduce you afterward. My carriage will wait. But, gracious me, why are you lame?"
He was leading her to a couple of reserved chairs in a palm-shaded nook, and she noticed that he walked with a limp.
"Happened an accident near the mine quite a time since," he said.
"I never heard. I wonder my father didn"t mention it. Anyhow, Derry, why have you never written?"
"Listen to the pot calling the kettle, or, if that is only a trite simile, listen to the Fairy Queen berating a poor mortal for her own lapses!"
"Ah, I have not written since my marriage, it is true, but you treated my hapless missives so cavalierly when I did send them that I hardly dared risk another rebuff."
"What do you mean?" he asked thickly. He was priding himself on the ease with which they were establishing new relations, when this unlooked-for development plunged him again into a swift-running current of doubt and foreboding. They were seated now, not side by side as he had planned, but in such wise that Nancy could see his face clearly, she having deliberately pulled her chair round for that purpose.
"Exactly what I have said," she answered composedly. "I sent three separate letters to Mr. John Darien Power, the Esperanza Placer Mine, Sacramento--I sha"n"t forget the address in a hurry, because I"ve always longed to ask why you were so ready to desert a friend--and, seeing that not one of them was returned by the postoffice, I had good reason to suppose that they reached you all right. Derry, don"t tell me you never got them!"
His heart seemed to miss a beat or two. In an instant he guessed the truth, that their correspondence had been burked by malicious contriving; but all he could find to say was:
"Did you really write to me?"