The Red Book Magazine/Volume 37/Number 3/The Astonishing Suzanne

by Emerson Hough

 

The story so far:

AFTER the riding accident in which Major Murrell Cardon did his best to rescue Suzanne, he received a correct and grateful note from her mother, Mrs. Collingsworth; and that was the end of the matter—socially. Emotionally the Major was badly taken with Suzanne. Now, the Major, sojourning in France during the late unpleasantness, had acquired a limp, and when he found himself continually and consistently dropped by Mrs. and Miss Collingsworth, he concluded that his limp was part of the reason. He therefore conferred with his friend Doctor Westfield, and by a very painful operation his two legs were made equal.

Doctor Westfield did not feel his responsibility ended with the operation, however, and he arranged a social introduction for his young friend. This introduction came off, for the Major, in the form of a solo before the Quadrangle Woman's Club, with Mrs. Collingsworth and Suzanne in the audience. The program over, the Major waited with beating heart for Mrs. Collingsworth and Suzanne to come forward and congratulate him, and his dismay was tremendous when he saw these ladies quietly leave the room with a certain Mr. Blandsiord and son Jimmy. The Major ground his teeth and remained impotent. But he adopted the Blandsfords into his permanent hatred.

Time went on, with the Major increasingly unhappy, until one evening he decided to take the bull by the horns and call upon Suzanne, all unintroduced as he was. He reached her house and was ushered into the hall. As he waited, heavy curtains parted, Suzanne appeared, resplendent, beautiful, and with a chuckle of delight threw her arms about his neck and kissed him.

The Major struggled with his now uncontrollable heart, while Suzanne drew back with a low cry of dismay; and then, “Why not?” exclaimed Suzanne, and kissed him fair and full again.

A moment later the dazed Major found himself following Mrs. Collingsworth into the conservatory behind Suzanne and Jimmy Blandsford.

 

The story continues:

Chapter V (continued)

“IF I had a hundred daughters,” said Mrs. Collingsworth, “I should want each of them to be her own self and to follow out her own character. I myself did. Perhaps that accounts for many things.”

I wondered if it could account for the kiss—the two kisses—which her daughter had given me, an uninvited stranger, at her threshold a few minutes before. I wondered if it could account for her daughter's unbelievably capricious conduct—her gayety—in receiving Jimmy Blandsford an instant later. A hot, male anger filled my soul, even as I stifled the horrid question whether she had kissed him too, whether indeed such was a household custom with this extraordinary family.

My hostess herself was an extraordinary person. Even a woman's envious estimate would not have placed her age above forty, and she looked rather thirty as she sat now, in evening dress, surrounded by all the belongings of her patrician home. There was type, family, “quality” here. The thoroughbred, time out of mind, has been licensed to occasional eccentricity. I had found myself hanging on her next remark, even as I heard through the open door the gay laughter of Suzanne, and the voice of Jimmy Blandsford, booming buoyantly.

Surely I had been set at ease with perfect breeding, perfect grace. No opportunity had been given me to stumble or blunder, to make myself unhappy by attempting to explain my presence. I was accepted as if I were an old friend. My heart went out to so fine a hostess. Indeed I was willing, there and then, to cast the full vote of the electoral college for her as my mother-in-law.

She must have touched some button, for the old negro man, silent and impassive, appeared with coffee and cigarettes.

“The young people are going to hear 'Thaïs' tonight,” she remarked. “Would you rather go? I think there would be room in our box.”

I made apologies now for my intrusion, began to stammer would have excused myself. But she would have none of that.

“If only you could sit here and talk to an old lady instead!” She smiled. “'Thaïs' bores me. I only thought you might like to run down for an hour or so.”

“Thaïs” indeed! Was Thaïs herself of old, or any light o' love of all the world, more fickle or more condemnable than she whose joyous laughter now came to me? Sit near her, the strong cordial of her kiss in all my veins, and watch her talk to Jimmy Blandsford, accepted openly as guest in the Collingsworth box? No, I could not—not even for the sight of her beauty thus close at hand. Wretched, I remained mute, I suppose, or at least inarticulate.

“There will be two other ladies in the box tonight. They will for chaperons. Then you'll humor me and sit here for a time, Major?”

I heard her voice, reassuring, a perfect index of her exquisite tact. I wondered how much she knew, how much she guessed, how much she understood.

I heard the front door open. Suzanne and her escort passed, outbound for “Thaïs,” both talking at once, very happily.

“It is so nice of you to stay, Major. It was so nice of you come.”

In her delicate upward inflection I caught her indication of cue.

“My dear Mrs. Collingsworth, you are simply splendid!” I broke out. “You allow me, a stranger—”

“Oh, not at all a stranger, not in the least. Haven't you been a friend to my daughter—when she was hurt? Haven't we heard you speak, and sing, and everything? And doesn't everyone know Major Murrell Cardon?”

I fancy I colored.

“But where has Major Cardon been, the last month or so? Until just the other day, when you sang—do you know,”—she smiled suddenly—“I don't usually much care for men who sing, but you sang so badly I rather fancied you, because I fancied you didn't fancy yourself! So many amateurs do.”

When I told her I had been in hospital, told her why, necessarily, explanations began to pend between us.

“Mrs. Collingsworth,” I began again impetuously, “you are Southern, you are Kentuckian. You ride as your daughter does?”

She nodded. “Of course.'

“There are two ways of riding, Mrs. Collingsworth. One is safe, perhaps wise. If the rails look too stiff, one can follow down the road and find a gate. The other way is to ride straight across.”

Her lips parted in a little smile. “I always did,” she said simply.

“And I also. I know no other way.”

“Yes. Then?”

“Yes! That is why I am here. That is why I went to the hospital—that I might be fit to come here. And that is why I came tonight. Can you understand?”

“I suppose it was Suzanne,” she said at length gravely. For an instant a dimple showed in her left cheek—the same dimple I had seen on the left cheek of Suzanne.

“Yes, it was Suzanne! Oh, perhaps my friends the Blandsfords would have introduced me properly, but my instinct in some way warned me away from that. You see—here is young Mr. Blandsford now! I did not know—believe me, I did not know. But you understand?”

“Why should I not?” The sudden tender sadness of her eyes left me not quite so sad. “I knew that Blandsford, père, might quite as well abandon all his ardors. The widow Collingsworth had loved once, and would love no more. And so that proved. He passed away from Allenby Place, his health demanding Pasadena for five months.

“You do understand the intentness of a young man in love?”

“Why should I not?”

“Then you know I really came on any desperate excuse to see your daughter, not to ask consent to love her. It already was too late for that. Only, if it had not been too late, otherwise—” I nodded toward the vacant music room. “I can't help hoping you'd not have objected.”

She put down her cigarette in the tray with a certain firmness. “My dear Major Cardon,” said she straightly. “I do not conceive that it is my function to object. It did my parents no good to object in my own case. And I have told you, if I had a hundred daughters, and if each had a hundred beaux” (she used the quaint Southern term), “I'd not raise a hand to help or hinder one of them. You see, I'd want all my hundred daughters to be physically, mentally and morally fit for marriage to the right man. I'd want him to be fit. After that—why, the knees of the immortal gods, Major! That is my idea of life and triumph. And it's in marriage that a girl triumphs—or loses. It was my own triumph. Should I debar a daughter of mine from the methods that I myself used? I've been happy in my time.”

She sat, calm and direct of gaze, in her own drawing-room, in a home undoubtedly of wealth and culture also—the mahogany and draperies, the silver and the curtains, all simple, all good, proving all that, even had her own rapid social successes not attested to her the cachet. The vagrant dimple just flashed to view once more, but the somberness of her eyes remained unchanged.

“Then I may come again?” I had risen. “May I take you down and leave you at the opera now? My own car is here.”

“Thank you, no. But yes, I hope you'll come again, quite often, Major. A great many gentlemen do, you know. Are you one of the Alabama Cardons?”

“Yes, madam, originally.”

“Indeed? We are Kentucky, as I've said. We just came up here for the summer, and have stayed along, you see. I took this house for a long term, finally. We've traveled a great deal—not without interest, perhaps?” Again her delightful rising inflection. I could see scores of gallants following en train.

“Yes, Europe often—before the great war. Pretty much all America. We're thinking of the Yellowstone this coming summer. Do you know anything about it?”

“Everything! I've been there often, and am going there this summer once more. You see, I'd a friend out there, Billy Hammond, Captain in the Sixth Cavalry. When the war broke out, he left all his stuff in the Park. I'm offered his old bungalow as a home this summer, if I like. I was thinking I'd enjoy a month or so in the mountains there.”

Mrs. Collingsworth smiled. “You do ride rather straight, don't you? Well, for my part, I should be willing to go. But always there are so many young men, wherever we go. Really, we came up here to get away from them, but it seems of no use—they fairly seem to lie in wait. My daughter is—well—rather—don't you think?”

“Your daughter is adorable, as her mother was before her and is. And now, dear lady, since matters have run so fast. I can't help making it still plainer, why I came here. I came because I had to come! And I can't help saying now to her mother that even though I never should see Suzanne again, there will be no other woman, ever, in all the world for me. That's why I came tonight. It was irregular, but I could not help it.”

The lids of her eves trembled. “That is just what my husband said to me, when first he came.”

“Did it sound the truth, then?”

“It sounded very sweet.”

Impulsively I held out my hand, and she took it. With Southern graciousness she walked part way with me to the door.

“I shall not help or hinder you,” said she slowly, at last.

And so ended the most extraordinary evening I had—up to that time—ever spent in all my life. There were now no secrets between Mrs. Collingsworth and myself—nothing, except the kiss of Suzanne.

 

Chapter VI

I MADE not the slightest doubt that the Blandsfords, père and fils, disregarded Lenten sackcloth and ashes, so far as calling upon the Collingsworth family was concerned. I imagined they both sent flowers daily—not knowing then that Blandsford père had been sent back to banking. For myself, courteous as had been my own reception, it did not on the whole leave me feeling free to press my advantage; so I sent flowers but once—not to Suzanne, but to her mother. As for Suzanne, right or wrong, and be her conduct what it might, I knew I loved her desperately, absorbingly, to the exclusion of every other interest or occupation. It all began and ended there.

But Lent passed, and in time spring promised. I went to Florida for some sea-fishing, impatient for the opening of the season in the mountains, which would not be until some time in June. The snows hardly leave the mountain parks before the middle of that month; but giving myself ample leeway, I was on hand at the Yellowstone by the first of June. By the time the roads were cleared for the first traffic, I was installed comfortably in the quarters offered me by my friend Billy Hammond, who, being now in Coblentz, had no need of his erstwhile abode.

A bon vivant of sorts, my rollicking friend had left the imprint of his care-free life on this house of his. The upper floor had a couple of austere sleeping-rooms, but a certain rude and crude frontier profusion of furnishing marked the rest—Navajo rugs, skins, trophies, chairs of unmilitary softness, even in the den, which once had been little more than a well-appointed bar, if une might read signs and portents. Billy's cook, once the best in the army, was gone; but I smuggled in a China boy, who promised well.

I knew that I had perhaps a month of waiting on my hands—provided indeed the Collingsworth family had not changed their minds and gone to Italy or Honolulu—I put nothing beyond them.

I passed the time as I might, and dare venture the belief that I learned more of geyser formations and mountain flowers than any other man of my acquaintance in like time. I made walks daily over the Jupiter and Minerva terraces, and had the algæ of each hot spring so accurately classified I might have served as a public guide. I went through with the snowplows over Dunraven Pass, helped break the trail up Mount Washburne, and saw Old Faithful's fleecy clouds stream up in an air which held the ice of January in the calendar of June. Further to pass the time, I angled on the Glen Creek sloughs on Swan Lake Flats, before the ice was out along the edges. I hung over the bridges at the Lake road and the La Mar Fork, where the blue of th summer waters had not yet tinged the gray murk of the snow-made floods. The marvels of this wonderland never until now had palled on me, and I had known them long.

But now my geysers had lost their taste. Even the little water ousel along the streams roused no more than languid interest as they dived and hid under the ice-cakes, and the shrill whistle of the marmot no longer caused me to raise a questing eye. I was weary of the buffalo, cared no more for the elk, was indifferent regarding the bighorns, and did not even seek out the eagle nests that I knew of old. All the ancient and wonderful panorama was there, but it lacked, it lacked.

SUDDENLY, all of one day of marvels, spring came over the mountains, and ere it well had begun, summer had replaced it. The thermometers would say 80° any midday now. The countless tourist cars had the dust cut free, and the sprinkler-wagons all were out. The fuss and fret of operating a vast playhouse for a hundred thousand eager Americans was in full swing. The flowers were out, myriads and myriads of them, and on the lawn of the old parade-ground before the hotels the water-sprays must run day and night to keep the grass green against the half-savage sun.

The season was on, hectic, absorbing, full of interest even to the most jaded man.

Yet joy was not for me. Aloof, morose, I waited fatuously, not knowing but that I was wasting a summer on the whom of one fully capable of caprice. I had been too proud or too foolish to ask Mrs. Collingsworth as to her plans for her Western journey, so I knew nothing of the date of her possible arrival. I only waited, like the fool I was, as I assured myself.

My China boy declared himself to be a cousin of the Oriental who operated the hotel vegetable gardens down the Gardiner river, and assured me—I know not with what legal justice—that he had access at will to the said gardens to the extent of such lettuce, radishes and other early green provender as my table might require. As spring advanced, he began to produce regular results in such matters, and so I was always willing to let him off when he asked for a trip down the river.

One morning, my quarters being thus alone except for myself, I also strolled out into the bright air. I had no more plan than was comprised in my daily visit to the hotel register. No doubt I would purchase yet more postal cards depicting bears and geysers feeding from the hand.

I did not get so far as the hotel, and instead of turning down the hill, walked in the opposite direction, interested in the progress of the great new swimming-pool now almost completed by the camping company whose settlement lay below the Mammoth Terrace. Fed by deliciously warm sulphur water piped down from the great hot springs on the mountain-side, it was plain that the pool would be a great attraction to the dusty tourist folks. Its formal opening was eagerly awaited by the public.

The workmen that day, for some reason, had been laid off, and the place was deserted. I concluded to go into the great lounging-room of the camping company, where I might loaf for a while before going back home. I thought I might make further photographs of Billy, my pet bear who had taken up his abode under my front porch—one of the tamest of the astonishingly tame bears which have made the Yellowstone Park famous.

But when, after an hour or so in the lounge, I returned to my bungalow on the hillside above the swimming-pool, Billy was not at home. A trifle grumpy over his defection, I entered and threw myself into a chair, hands in pockets, wondering if I could sleep and so forget myself.

I had sat I do not know just how long, when I heard swift, soft padding as of bare feet on the walk from my gate, heard my screen door flung open—and then heard a woman's scream. My front door burst open even as the cry filled my ears, and an instant later the screen door slammed shut back of the intruder.

Outlined for a second against the blue sky beyond, there stood in my doorway a woman, a young woman, a very beautiful young woman; indeed, a goddesslike young woman, and clad much as goddesses were reputed once to have gone about in a more favored period of the world's existence. In point of fact, the apparel of this particular goddess seemed to amount to very little at all, although the shine and drip of it proved it to be a very brief and most becoming bathing suit—very wet indeed. It must have been a run of several hundred yards from the nearest place where one thus could wet a bathing suit. My goddess had been running—her breath came in gasps.

It was Suzanne! It could by no manner of human possibility have been anyone else but Suzanne. No other girl in all the world would be gallivanting around in public at midday in a wetly revealing bathing suit. No one but Suzanne would have come alone, unheralded and uninvited, into the bachelor abode of the very man who loved her with such devotion as comes but once to any man. Well, I could not complain. I had been waiting for weeks in ignorance of her possible arrival. And as for Suzanne, any arrival of hers, no matter how sudden, could not be called too soon.

She saw me—shrieked, clapped her hands to her cheeks, folded her arms across her bosom, sank sidewise with her limbs, womanwise, as though te conceal her revealedness. There was terror on her features and shame and surprise and consternation.

There was nowhere for her to go. She tugged open the door to escape, but just beyond the screen, reared to his full height and whining his disappointment, stood my pet bear Billy. “Oh, my God!” shrieked Suzanne, seeing Billy. Then, “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed again, as she turned and saw me confronting her upon the other side.

“Please! Please!” Her hands were stretched at arm's-length before her as she stood, begging excuse, begging protection, begging I should not see her thus.

“Suzanne! My God,” was all I myself could say at first.

Her lips trembled in genuine terror. I felt a sudden wish to pull her head down upon my shoulder, to pat her hair, silk cap and all. For once she had lost her self-possession. In all the diverse ways in which we heretofore had met, never had she been more appealing than now—I shall not say more alluring, for that is no word to apply to a maid in such distress.

My second instinct, after the surprise and the swift joy of her presence, was to protect her as I could. I swept toward her a great Navajo blanket from an easy chair. She caught it around her, turned to see where she might hide. I motioned her to the depths of wing chair that stood before the fireplace. She sank down, pulling her feet back under her, drawing the blanket high, remaining mute.

I could see her shrink when she heard Billy scratching at the door; so I opened the door, gave Billy a chocolate caramel and scared him off the porch. He went below to his usual domicile, grumbling very much over what he regarded as mistreatment.

I knew almost at once what had brought this unexpected visitor to my door. “You had heard of the new swimming-pool and could not wait for it to open!” I said to Suzanne. “I suppose you went down there all alone and left your clothing in the locker. You took your plunge. When you came out, Billy saw you.”

She nodded, breathing hard.

“He is harmless as a child. He wanted you to feed him. Instead of that, you ran, and naturally he followed. Who or what would not? I am supposed to be a creature of reason, and Billy is not. When you ran, you saw this, the closest house—you opened the nearest door.

“Well, I have been waiting for you, for many, many long weeks. My compliments, my felicitations! I am obliged to you for the prompt if somewhat unceremonious manner in which you return calls.”

“If I had known you were here, that this is your place, I would have let it eat me first!” she blazed out. “Do you stop to think—”

“No, Miss Collingsworth,” I replied, “I do not stop to think. I have had no time to stop to think. Have you yourself? I no more expected to see you enter my house in a bathing-suit than I expected you in evening dress to put your arms around my neck and kiss me when I called on you for the first time. Oh, yes, kiss me not once but twice also was uninvited—but, stop to think? It seems no longer being done.”

She looked at me in absolute sheer horror—I can give it no other name. “What do you mean? What can you mean?” I saw her lip tremble. She seemed genuinely perturbed.

“What do I mean?” I felt scorn at her denial of the truth, even as I marveled at the excellence of her acting. She gazed at me in as perfect counterfeit of open-eyed innocence as any mistress of histrionic art could have offered. It enraged me. My anger and my love broke away together.

“What do I mean? What do you mean, now? What did you mean then—when the next moment you hung on another man's arm before my very eyes—talked and laughed with him—while you mocked at me for a fool, I do not doubt? What do I mean? I swear if I could cut out my heart and cease to love you, as I ought to do, I'd mock at you in turn. You act your ignorance well—you do everything well. Oh, go on—weep if you like—fate brought you here so I could upbraid you. Would you cut a man's heart in pieces for the mere sport of it? Don't you think I feel it? Don't you think I love you? Isn't it enough for you to ruin me without pretending innocence about it? What do I mean? There is no need to act—you know!”

Her eyes stared at me in apparent lack of comprehension, so perfect that it seemed candor itself, or rather horror itself. “My God, how terrible!” That was all she said. Then she put her head down on the arm of the chair and drew the corner of the blanket across her face. Her body was shaken by half-hysterical sobs.

I did not know what to do. Obviously she could not long remain here in a situation so compromising. No one could know how many had seen her enter my door, clad as she was; and nowhere more than in such places as this does gossip wag.

There came back my original impulse to take her head in my arms and comfort her. With plan or not, she had come here to me. The same roof covered us; she was sitting at my fire. I presume it was something primordial, something ancient and strange, although something rather natural—this singular feeling of ownership Perhaps I did something primordial after all.

“You are cold,” said I “Please, I shall mend our fire.”

There was wood ready for the fireplace. Kneeling beside her, I fed up the blaze. It was hard not to lay a hand upon her head and comfort her, she was so troubled, so much in need of protectionso —piteous, even if so false.

AS I passed, she sat up, huddled, drawing a blanket about her, gazing somberly into the glowing flames. For me, I cared not if this scene might last a thousand years

But suddenly she turned, and sheer anger came into her eyes—hot, relentless anger. “If I were a man, I'd make you take that back—what you said! Oh, if ever there were a way, I'd be even with you!”

Her eyes fell upon a pair of crossed foils which hung above the mantel, where my martial friend Billy Hammond had left them. With a leap she tore them down.

“If you're a man, I'll make you apologize for that! Do you dare?”

“No need. I will apologize for any word or thought that would hurt you or offend you,” I said.

“You said I kissed you. That's something a gentleman does not remember, does not say. I never did. Admit you lied.”

“Yes, I lied to you. You never kissed me. I only imagined that.” It was my best.

“I'll not have it that way! I'll make you really apologize. Do you dare? If I beat you, will you say you're sorry, and never, never speak to me again so long as you live?”

“I hardly have had a chance to do that now,” said I.

She stamped her bare foot again in rage, her eyes flashing—I could see their gray-blue fire as she faced the window—and I swear she was fearless as a lion.

“You coward!” she taunted me. “In your own house you insult me over and over again. I wish I were a man. I'd show you. I can show you anyhow if you've nerve enough to take it on. But perhaps you don't fence. Perhaps you only talk—only insult women when they can't help themselves!”

This, of course, brought the color to my face. “That's rather hard,” said I. “But as to fencing, you'd have no chance with me at the foils. I do fence—with other officers and with athletes, not with women.”

“I can beat you,” she said. “What's the prize?”

I turned to her suddenly. “The truth! Just once the real truth. I'll not fence you for another kiss—no gentleman would do that. But I've lied to you once like a gentleman. Have you lied to me like a woman? Come, now—which of us told the truth? Let that be the wager. I'll stand you a bout for that—though I warn you, you have no chance.”

She only stamped her foot once more, her splendid blue eyes gleaming undismayed. She flung one foil at me and cast a glance about the room for her footing.

“Wait!” I said, and began to push back the chairs and table. On the latter I found the plastrons and handed one to her. She stood, her figure no more than half-concealed by the toga of the Navajo. “Put it on,” I said; “otherwise I cannot fence with you.”

She faced about, and unsteadily I helped her with the straps. She stood then less hampered than myself, for I would not use the plastron. All at once a feeling of pity, of horror, came to me. I saw blood-stains on the floor where she stood. Her feet were bleeding from the stones over which she had run. She had not whimpered once.

“Oh, I say, I can't go on with this!” I exclaimed.

“Need you mind, if I don't?” She retorted. “Does blood make you sick? That's too bad.”

She goaded me. I saw no other way than to give her a lesson, as gently and swiftly as I could. There was no way of inducing her to give up the combat. Her eye coldly followed every move I made, wholly without fear and wholly implacable.

With a sigh I faced her at length. “Shall it be for points?” I asked.

“As you like,” she replied. “Of course I'll acknowledge any touch. Put on your breastguard, sir.”

“You'll need it. I ask no odds of you.”

“You'll never touch me with your point. I'm only going to make you tell the truth. I dislike this very much. But it's your own choosing.”

Her foil whistled ina moulinade, flashed into a semi-circle above her head, and she fell into a fencing position which was perfection in form. I saluted and she returned. “On guard!” she exclaimed impatiently, and frowning.

We engaged; and I felt against my wrist the light strength of a wrist made of silk and steel. Instinctively I knew I had my work cut out for me—any fencer knows as to that.

The next few moments were among the busiest of my life. I never met except among the masters any fence such as hers. Women have ways of their own in everything. With absolute fearlessness she united a strength of attack and suppleness in play that, within half a minute, more than astonished me. On her feet she was light as a cat, but she made not one unnecessary motion. Her eyes were cold and half hypnotic now as she stared unemotionally into mine, never once wavering.

I knew she felt sure of beating me. Inside of two minutes I began to fear she might. Where she got her amazing skill I could not guess—not this side of France or Italy, and of a past master. What a pupil he had had! Back, forward, her bleeding feet spaced to the hair, her arm straight, her blade a steel wall before her, she gave me such a round as I had not dreamed any woman could, nor many men, for the foils had long been a curious study with me.

AT length I took a chance against the steady point opposed to me, and executed a swift riposte. She flung a hand and stepped back. “Touchée!” she said, calmly and very honorably. It was so bare a touch I could not have sworn to it. “But that's the last,” she added grimly.

“My compliments, mademoiselle. Shall it be three minute assaults?”

“As you like. On guard!”

“But wait—one minute rest after any touch? And how many?”

“Three, five, anything you like!”—contemptuously.

“Say five. On guard!”

We fell to again with none but the mantel clock to arbitrate. Again I marveled at the ease and tirelessness that confronted me. At length a parry in tierce failed me. Her point came through like a flash—had it been a rapier, it would have been the worse for me. “Touché!” I called.

We rested, points down. I smiled, but she frowned coldly, too confident to exult. “I told you to put on the plastron,” was all she said. “I'm going to beat you now.”

Once more we engaged, and once more by mere luck—as she tripped on the corner of a small rug—I managed to get through her marvelous defense, automatically exact. She honored it, but cut short the minute's rest. Since she was so impatient, I went on with what I now saw was going to be a very difficult lesson to her.

ALL at once she seemed to gather new reserve energy from somewhere in her marvelous body and came at me with a fury that, but for its machine-like impersonality, might have marked a veritable duel and not a fencing bout. Her foot stamping, her breath hissing to the lunge, her lips muttering low to herself in the parry—the thing became personal and terrible to me.

If either of us had doubt, it was not she. She came on again and again, her wrist easy, her arm like a white bar, her lithe young body alive with vindictive, almost vicious energy—gaining on me, I pushing me inch by inch, now fairly on I the defensive and at my very best.

All at once with lightning-like swiftness she came through my guard with a long, slithering lunge which seemed to make of her arm and her weapon a projectile. The padded point of the foil caught me full force, driven by her whole body, directly over my heart. I sank back gasping, and was only lucky when I dropped into a chair.

The point had caught me at precisely the spot which my friend Dr. Westfield had selected, in his prowling around in my assortment of ribs, as offering the best bit of bone he could find for the splice in my broken leg. Spite of all that nature had done meantime, there was left a weak spot in the house that enclosed my vital organs. The blow was as though a boxer had landed fair on the plexus which lies a little below the center of the chest. A sudden vertigo caught me. I was for the moment almost “out”—I, who had undertaken to give this girl a lesson at the foils!

Silence for an instant: then I heard her foil clatter, was sensible of two hands at my head. “Oh—oh!” I heard her exclaim in sudden and most unwarrior-like contrition.

My vision cleared presently. I looked into her eyes. I saw her frown of anxiety. “I've hurt you!” she said.

“Not in the least!” I protested. “Two and two—it is love all, shall we say? Which shall apologize? Shall we go on?” I arose, foil in hand.

“No, no!” she exclaimed, “I'll not!” Nor would she resume. My chagrin obliged me to say a word also.

“You see,” I explained, “you hit me directly in my least defended point—the heart. I've only half a rib just there. A part has been cut out.”

“Oh! You were wounded in the war; and I hit you there!”

“You hit me there the first time I saw quietly. But as to the actual wound, I did not get it in the war—the surgeon cut out some bone. It was to mend my leg, which was lame. I loved a woman, and I swore I would not stand before her as a cripple: so they mended me—pretty well, don't you think? Of course, you never knew anything about my limp.”

“Oh, yes, I did,” she said simply, which made me feel very fine indeed.

“It was, Suzanne, the old, old story, old as Paradise. I gave a rib that I might look on the face of Eve. I have done so, and nothing matters now.

“Suzanne,”—I had cast away my foil alike with my sense of propriety now,—“I love you, as you know—no matter what you have done. Shall I apologize for that? I never will. Your own mother gave me leave to try—she said she would not raise a hand to help or hinder, that it must be Adam, it must be Eve. What has been, has been and cannot be recalled. Blandsford must take his chances.”

“This isn't the place—” she began.

“I know, I know. But if ever you could love me half as I do you, the little things would not matter. And if this were all the home we could ever have, and if you had come to it regularly, conventionally, a place like this would do. A loaf of bread—a fire—a bear under the front porch—and thou! I'll say this wilderness business might be a lot worse!”

BUT she would not joke. Again she had flung herself upon the chair, a figure of wholly disconcerting beauty. But the late Amazon now was woman. Her eyes covered, she again was sobbing.

“You don't understand,” she said at length between her sobs. "You don't in the least understand.”

“No, Suzanne. I do not understand—I understand nothing in the world any more except that l love you and wish that I did not.”

She turned her wet face toward me. “Oh, is it so? That's a fine thing to say, isn't it? Let me out of here—I am going home, even if that bear eats me! I just came over from the hotel to have a dip in the pool, and I came alone.”

She was explaining. But when she heard Billy's scratching and grumbling under the porch, her bravery left her again. She thought also of her lack of raiment.

“I'll go down in the pool and get your things, if they still are there," I ventured. “Which was the locker?”

“How should l know? It was over toward the end. There was no one about everyone had gone from the camp. I didn't wait—I just went in.”

“If your—your apparel has been found, it will probably be at the office,” I suggested. “I'll run down and see.”

“And leave me here alone? No. Anybody might come! Anybody might see you, carrying those—things—back. It might seem odd. And I'll not be left here with that bear. I'm afraid.”

“I can telephone.”

“No, no! And let the whole world know I'm here this way? Not in the least.”

“You've been safe with me,” said I quietly. “At least, I haven't tried to massacre you, as you have me.”

She only bit her lip. “I said you did not understand,” she replied.

“I'll make one suggestion,” I ventured.

“Yes?”

“There are some uniforms and things here—Billy Hammond's, you know, who lived here. He wasn't so tall as I am. You know how women dress nowadays out here in the West—if you can manage about the trousers, perhaps the flannel shirt would do.”

I pointed to the dresser in the bedroom, the door of which was open. “I'll go feed Billy,” said I. “Billy and I having a hard time this morning.”

Draped in the Navajo, she motioned me out coldly. In ten minutes I knocked. There met me an astonishingly trim young officer, with campaign hat, khaki shirt, breeches and all—the latter much puckered at the waist but not ungracious. Suzanne held the puttees in her hand, and she had no shoes.

“He had a cook once,” I ventured. “I'll see.” By sheer luck I found in the wood-box a discarded pair of canvas sneakers about five sizes too large but offering hope. But my lady meantime had found other cause for criticism.

“This is one fine place,” she remarked “Such pictures! So this is the way men live when they are alone!”

She pointed to the walls, which had been adorned in accordance with Billy Hammond's taste. I was obliged to admit that my friend's taste had been somewhat catholic as to dramatic stars whose paucity of apparel left the eye fairly free to pass upon the classic quality of their charms. Before now I had not thought much about Billy Hammond's pictures. Now I flushed as though personally guilty.

“I don't blame you for blushing,” remarked Suzanne keenly. “I compliment you on your taste in beauty.”

I bowed and did not defend myself as to Billy's choice in decorations. “I'm sorry they're so large,” I said, now handing her the shoes which once had been worn of woman.

"With an extra pair of socks, they'll do,” was her business-like comment.

Again she retired, and this time, when she reappeared, she had made shift, puttees and all, although the canvas shoes might have seemed a trifle sketchy to an exacting military eye.

IN any garb she would have been beautiful, and I could not call her new outfit unbecoming. She had her hair high under her hat; and now she was rolling up her bathing-suit in one paper after another, at the table. Her attitude toward me had changed once more. It was disapproval she showed, when she swept another gaze about the room.

“Women!” she exclaimed. “Women! Is that all a man thinks about, then?”

“Yes, Suzanne, it is,” said I, “until he finds the one woman. But why not? Your own mother said she would raise her daughters, if she had a hundred of them, to be fit for life and loving. She said she would try to teach them what men really were, and then would pray that each might find a fit one among them all. From the first time I saw you I hated my own infirmity. I conquered it—for you. I gave my rib for you. I made an image in my heart of you alone, Suzanne. If you don't think I'm good enough to love you, the one woman out of them all, then don't ever think of me again. But your own mother—”

“You seem to have had quite a lot to do with my own mother. I suppose you've been talking. Fine of you!”

“Your mother is as sweet a woman as ever was,” said I. “And by the way, since I have waited more than a month to see her, I'm going down with you to the hotel. I shall tell her all about your intruding on me unasked—I must do that, of course. At least, I shall not need to explain to her that I did not kiss you at the door. She knows nothing of that.”

She went suddenly pale again. I saw the swift tears start in her eyes, the actual tears. “Forgive me,” I exclaimed, too late, and I tried to take down her hands from her eyes. “If you had run me through, it would have served me right. I ask your pardon—there was no kiss at all. But so help me God, Suzanne, one day there will be. Good-by.”

She wept, even after she had stepped outside the door, with my eyes I followed her through the window, watching her as she walked, head high, straight and firm. I knew her feet were bleeding, but she never winced.

Again I flung myself into a chair, feeling that the morning had bettered my chances but very little—feeling indeed that I had made two capital errors in strategy. A girl may weep, yes; and that is when you may comfort her. But when she leaves you with tears still in her eyes, the chances are good that another may be the one to dry those tears.

 

Chapter VII

AT three that afternoon I found it impossible longer to stave off my restlessness. Although I vowed I would walk up the mountain to the hot springs, I walked precisely in the opposite direction.

The day was splendid. The gate of the valley which comes in from the east, beyond the near-by river, now was lighted full by the sun's westerly position. The gray face of Mount Everts was picked out in detail. The entire panorama of the mountains was beautiful, well nigh as free of change from God's original imprint as when the first adventurers came hither to tell of a region of miracles.

I loved it all, as I always had. But now I saw it in a haze even under the brilliant illumination of the sun, not yet old. Although I had not forced my company upon Suzanne when she left, I found my feet now following hers down the walk she had taken; so I came to the parade ground which makes the civic center at Yellowstone. The formal row of stone houses, which once made the officers' quarters, was drear and somber as ever. The motor-coaches had gone for the day from the hotel, and there passed now only the scattered cars of individual tourists, streaming through. A group of horseback folk came by. A sober pack-train of a dozen mules, under guidance of a ranger, headed out toward the hills.

THE long verandas of the hotel usually were not so crowded at that hour of the day; but there, by good fortune, I found at once the long-absent Mrs. Collingsworth whom I sought.

She was sitting on one foot in an arm-chair, quite contentedly, busy with needle and silks at a bit of linen stretched over a hoop—which labor she executed without the aid of glasses. At least she knew me—although the dimple which she staged warned me of some inner amusement of which her greeting did not speak.

I drew up a chair beside her and plunged at once into the middle of my complaining that I had come out a month earlier than there had been need of, and had been waiting ever since.

“But why did you not call, Major?” she asked. “Why did you not write me? Why did you not telephone? We would have told you all about our plans.”

“Mrs. Collingsworth, because I had delicacy about it—because I was proud—because also I was such a fool!”

Then I told her of the contretemps through which I had that day learned of her own presence—told her all that had happened regarding Suzanne's call—all except the real reason for our duello with the foils.

“And I must say your daughter swings a nasty foil,” I concluded. “I vow, I believe she would beat me in time. Has she always been at these things—swimming, fencing, riding and all that?”

Mrs. Collingsworth nodded gravely. “Especially swimming. If I had a hundred daughters—which I have remarked is quite impossible,—I would live in mortal terror for fear they would all disrobe every time they saw a swimming pool. Suzanne is mad about the water.”

“But still,” she went on, “if I did have so many daughters, I would see to it that they should dance, ride, swim and fence. Boxing, of course, no. But what will make a man's body fit, will serve also for a woman's, though few women seem to realize that.

“You see, I have always had a few theories regarding all my hundred daughters,” she sighed gently. “Of course, it serves Suzanne right. She should have waited till her chaperon had had her coffee, at least. Nowadays girls will be boys. What can I do?” She spread out one hand resignedly.

“The only hope I have,” she continued, “is that all my hundred daughters in one will get her fill of bathing at Del Monte—I hear the water of Monterey Bay is cold. I hope she freezes! I'd like a little of her company myself once in a while.”

“Del Monte—Monterey?” I said. “Then you are going on to California! Of course, not at once?”

“Dear Major,” she smiled, “not until you have had opportunity to get at least a little of the worth of your wasted time here! Of course you will follow us. They always do.” She smiled a trifle ruefully, I thought.

“Men make a great nuisance in my life, Major. I hardly have time to sleep. There is no place we can escape them. They follow us even here—when they do not precede us and lie in wait.”

I saw her cast an eye toward the platform in front of the great hotel door, where the cars pulled in and where the horseback parties usually mounted and dismounted. As my gaze followed hers, I saw what made me catch my breath in a sudden sense of injury.

The young man who rode up and dismounted was well-looking enough and well-turned out; but I knew him at first glance. It was Jimmy Blandsford, of Chicago!

And there came down the steps to meet him, as he stood holding the bridle reins of the mount he led, a girl whose sheer fervid beauty drew the gaze of every person on the gallery. She was fastening her glove, crop under her arm. Her park costume was faultless. She herself was faultless. The sight of her set loose again in my heart all of the old madness. Suzanne!

So, then, so soon, another indeed had dried her tears! Oh, fool that I had been, to remind a woman of a kiss! With fortune favoring me, when I could have been kind, gentle, gallant, anything, with her in my own company—how little had I improved my shining hour! I well knew no such hour would shine again for me.

She was up in her saddle lightly, carelessly, rode as I had seen her ride, automatically well. As she passed us, she saluted. and Blandsford raised his hat. Mrs. Collingsworth waved her embroidery hoop half a foot or so. I rose; but I could not be sure she knew me; Blandsford I was certain did not. Something struck me as additionally familiar in the pleasant equestrian picture that they made.

“Why, that's Danny!” I exclaimed. “Did you bring him away out here?”

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Collingsworth carelessly. “We nearly always take Danny along wherever we go. Suzanne doesn't like to ride any other horse.”

It seemed to me that the Collingsworth family surely had a way with them, but I accepted this instance as a part of their kaleideoscopic methods.

“Do you know,” I began cheerfully, “Danny was the excuse, and the only excuse, I had in mind when I called that night last winter.”

“But you quite forgot to inquire for Danny's health! He's quite well now, thank you. I thought at the time you had come about Suzanne. Indeed, you said so, Major.”

Her forehead wrinkled. Her face grew graver. “Did you speak to her this morning?”

“Yes. I ought not to have done so, but I did. I told her that I loved her, told even there. I upbraided her.”

“Tut-tut!” She laid a swift hand lightly on my sleeve. Again it seemed to me that her face was vague with trouble as she spoke. “But believe me, I like you awfully well, Major. It was lovely of you—about Danny.”

We both laughed. By this time the riders were out of sight, across the hill.

“We have dances every evening, I understand, Major,” resumed Mrs. Collingsworth. “The zero hour is mine. You will be down?”

I said I would—although I had resolved never to see Suzanne again.

But I did.

 

Chapter VIII

WHEN I started up the hill for my own quarters, I caught myself almost looking over my shoulder, almost dreading some subtle influence whose real nature I could not fathom. Suzanne's mother was as inscrutable as Suzanne herself. She raised no bar against me, true, but dimple and all considered, I almost misdoubted that even Suzanne's mother gently was mocking me. Once more I vowed never to meet Suzanne again.

But I did meet her again that very night. And this time, as I shall explain, of all the shocks that merry maid had given me, I received the very worst and the one most nearly unsustainable.

Nervous and restless as I was, I found it impossible to remain away from hotel until the dancing hour; and having arrived so early, I spent some time mooning about the parade walks, gazing at the long rows of lighted windows of the great hotel.

The hotel dances, made up among tourists few of whom spent more than one night at this entry point, were more or less catch-as-catch-can in their quality. A few, sternly resolved to show their social standing, appeared in evening dress and diamonds—women, of course, rather than men going to this pains. Of the latter not many wore even dinner dress. Rather a delightful flavor of the out of doors, for the most part, marked the assemblage. One saw blazers and sweaters, flannels, soft collars and everywhere was the military note of khaki puttees, affected by men and women alike. As to the idea of correctness in wilderness attire, the most interesting diversity was in evidence among the women, young and old; a vast preference for trousers manifesting itself even in the instances of many elderly ladies who should have known much better. For myself, I was content with tennis costume; and when, after the first blare of the jazz orchestra had begun to fill the rotunda with its motley crew, I was disposed to approve Mrs. Collingsworth when I saw her enter, garbed as when I had left her on the gallery, in Norfolk jacket and skirt of gray tweed.

She found a seat; but for a time I held back, not keen to play too much the part of the lovesick swain. My own amour propre was somewhat bruised. So I busied myself at the counters of curio shops or read again the volumes of wit manufactured for tourist purposes—even turned over some of the impossible Indian articles, moccasins, beaded bags, miniature canoes, and the like, all fresh from New England factories.

Having spent some time in feigning nonchalance, at length with equally feigned surprise—or so I fancied—I turned and saw Mrs. Collingsworth, dimple and all. She was sitting in a rocking-chair at the farther end of the lobby, with her embroidery hoop still in hand.

“I saw you all the time,” she said, smiling. “Of course I saw that you saw me.”

“No, I missed you—you looked so like a young school-teacher on vacation,” I asseverated.

“Thank you, Major. Now you feel obliged to ask me to dance. In advance I refuse—I am too lazy. I shall dance by proxy.”

She raise eyes. She raised her eyes. Suzanne must have entered just as my back was turned toward the door. The direction of the eyes of all the dowagers on the floor pointed toward her as with index fingers. It was Suzanne; and following her came Jimmy Blandsford, emerging from some waiting place. When the orchestra began, they swept into the first dance together.

I must say for Blandsford that he danced well. He knew every step now or recently fashionable. But when the music, billowy and freakish for the most part, made it possible, he and his partner swept into the long, smooth rhythm of the waltz. I alone of all who saw her knew that her feet were bleeding in her boots.

Suzanne had disdained to change her riding-costume, but that mattered little. She danced unconsciously, dreamily, her eyes languid—danced as it is given to but few to dance. I admired her, but I was not happy.

With the last strident bray of the saxophone, the first number ended and the dancers broke into groups and pairs. I saw Suzanne coming toward me. Upon occasion I had seen a screaming Uhlan coming toward me, automatic in hand, and had feared him less.

OF course I knew Jimmy Blandsford only as a friend, nor had I reason to believe he even understood me to be a rival. We met in business, at the clubs, socially here or there, and I had not the slightest reason to dislike his sunny disposition—more than I had disposition to discount his rapid success in his own chosen profession. Therefore, naturally, only conventionalities passed between us now, after Jimmy's first frank and manly surprise at seeing me here. He seemed to think it quite natural that he should be there, that Danny should be here, and Suzanne and Suzanne's mother—but as to me he looked surprised; that was all. As he turned away, he assumed an open and arrogant ownership of Suzanne, even in her mother's presence. “Of course,” said he, as he passed, “I might jar loose for one dance.”

The musicians were again assuming threatening attitudes. He looked toward Suzanne, who smiled at me finely. Before I had time to think, the music blared again, and Suzanne and I were swept away.

For the first time in my life, I might almost have said, I was face to face with the woman I loved, under conditions I which gave me at least half a chance to say a word, though that word were no more than a farewell.

She danced with the same dreamy abandon, drifting as light as the blown down of the cottonwoods in spring. Her eyes were veiled. But I needed not to guide her; it was all automatic with this lissome, yielding body, which I myself knew was strong as steel.

I exulted that now I also was strong as any man. We went on in the luxury of silence. Once in a while I would catch the frank smile she gave me, her teeth white against the brown tan of her face. She danced as naturally, as carelessly, as she rode or swam or fenced.

It was all too short. I felt that this was the last dance for me.

“You are going on to the Coast,” I said at last. “Your mother spoke of Del Monte. It is lovely there.”

“You have been there?”

“Oh, yes, often. It is the most beautiful place in the world. You will love it.”

“And are you not going on this year?”

Her artlessness cut me. “Have you no heart at all?” I whispered.

“Why, yes,” she answered, amusedly. “A little, maybe.”

“I am not seeking fractional interests. If I can't have all a girl's heart, I want none. I can't go to Del Monte, because there are some things too hard for any man to bear.”

AT that moment a large lady, in very ill-fitting trousers, who was dancing with her son, who wore very ill-fitting knickerbockers, had the bad taste to bump into us; so I could not look into Suzanne's eyes. I did not think she was smiling. “Moriturus te saluto,” I said at last, as I saw our dance number about to end. “Good-by. At least I hope you find I dance better than I fence. When you were up at my house this morning, I made rather a bad showing, it seemed to me.”

“I beg pardon?” She did not raise her head.

“I refer to our little rencontre this morning—up at my place, you know. But what a marvel of fortitude a woman can be! Your poor feet—how you must suffer in your riding boots.”

Now she smiled. “You're such a grand little joker,” said she. “I don't know what you mean, I'm sure; but I guess it's all right.”

“Mean? I meant only the one delirious moment you came to my roof, my fire—when you and I were alone. I'll never fence with you again. My honor—that place is sore yet where you struck me.”

It seemed to me her color rose a trifle; then lightly she made one of the most extraordinary speeches I ever heard of her in all my life.

“I don't go to gentlemen's houses,” said she, “—not usually. As for fencing—if ever we really should do that for the first time, I'd make you apologize for what you said, although I'm sure I don't in the least know what you mean.”

Traitress, again she had denied my love! While I ought not to have been surprised at that, I felt myself redden to the eyes, thunder struck at her sheer audacity. I bowed as I left her.

“It is time for one so young and simple as myself to be safe under cover at his home,” I said to Mrs. Collingsworth after a time. “Good-by. I shall not meet you at Del Monte.”

She looked up at me, the dimple missing.

Never have I been so full of chagrin and mortification, as I was when I stepped out into the moonlight, after making my adieux to these strange persons. The silent mountains mocked me. The stars, additionally brilliant here, were cold. The moon assumed an icy malevolence in the chill of the mountain night. The murmur of the water jets seemed but to be indulging grass to grow upon a grave.

I crossed over the parade on the diagonal walk. It led near to a clump of cedars, black as ink in the moonlight, funereal at any time, and now many-fold more so than in the sunlight. The silent cedars did indeed surround a grave. Age-old themselves, they grew on the brink of a grave that was even older—the inverted cone of a geyser, extinct no man may say how long.

Often I had looked into this hollow cavern, wondering how long since its hot mutiny at confinement had last flung its protest white-hot into the sky—none might say how often. It was a heart-shaped cavity—a dead heart of the wild world where forces primordial fight one with the other endlessly.

It was my own heart! For even as now my blood had leaped in protest at restraint, breaking out in violence at every sight or thought of her—so now I knew my heart one day would lie active no more, but forever empty, dead and gray. I had loved madly, hotly enough, it is true, but honorably after all, playing man's greatest game as fairly as I knew. What result for fairness had I had in return?

I could hear the mocking jazz blaring across the parade, screaming its demoniacal notes, fit for a day of hysteria. The number ended with a maniac wail. I looked into the geyser grave and felt that all the world had gone quite mad.

I hardly knew when I reached my own veranda and heard Billy grumbling to himself beneath the flooring. So, as Mr. Pepys would say, “Good night,” yet there was no sleep for me.

One thing at least, however, was sure—I would never follow Suzanne to Monterey.

But I did.

THE next installment of this captivating novel by the author of “The Mississippi Bubble” and “54-40 or Fight” brings it to a climax dramatic indeed. Be sure to read it—in the forthcoming August issue of The Red Book Magazine.