The Firing Line

A few seconds later—or perhaps minutes, or perhaps hours—she found herself seated perfectly conscious, mechanically drying the sea-water from her wet face; while beside her knelt a red-capped figure in wet bathing-dress, both hands brimming with sea-water which ran slowly between the delicate fingers and fell, sparkling.

"Do you feel better?" asked Shiela gently.

"Yes," she said, perfectly conscious and vaguely surprised. Presently she looked down at her skirts, groped about, turned, searching with outstretched fingers. Then her eyes fell on the letter. It lay on the sand beside her sunshade, carefully weighted with a shell.

Neither she nor the girl beside her spoke. Virginia adjusted her hat and veil, sat motionless for a few moments, then picked up the water-stained letter and, rolling it, placed it in her wet glove. A slow flame burned in her pallid cheeks; her eyes remained downcast.

Shiela said with quick sympathy: "I never fainted in my life. Is it painful?"

"No—it's only rather horrid.... I had been walking in the sun. It is very hot on the beach, I think; don't you?"

"Very," said the girl gravely.

Virginia, head still bent, was touching her wet lace waist with her wetter gloves.

"It was very good of you," she said, in a low voice—"and quite stupid of me."

Shiela straightened to her full height and stood gravely watching the sea-water trickle from her joined palms. When the last shining drop had fallen she looked questioningly at Miss Suydam.

"I'm a little tired, that is all," said Virginia. She rose rather unsteadily and took advantage of Shiela's firm young arm, which, as they progressed, finally slipped around Miss Suydam's waist.

Very slowly they crossed the burning sands together, scarcely exchanging a word until they reached the Cardross pavilion.

"If you'll wait until I have my shower I'll take you back in my chair," said Shiela. "Come into my own dressing-room; there's a lounge."

Virginia, white and haggard, seated herself, leaning back languidly against the wall and closing her heavy eyes. They opened again when Shiela came back from the shower, knotting in the girdle of her snowy bath-robe, and seated herself while her maid unloosed the thick hair and rubbed it till the brown-gold lustre came out like little gleams of sunlight, and the ends of the burnished tresses crisped and curled up on the smooth shoulders of snow and rose.

Virginia's lips began to quiver; she was fairly flinching now under the pitiless contrast, fascinated yet shrinking from the splendid young creature before her, resting there aglow in all the vigourous beauty of untainted health.

And from the mirror reflected, the clear eyes smiled back at her, seeming to sear her very soul with their untarnished loveliness.

"Suppose you come and lunch with me?" said Shiela. "I happen to be quite alone. My maid is very glad to do anything for you. Will you come?"

"Yes," said Virginia faintly.

An hour later they had luncheon together in the jasmine arbour; and after that Virginia lay in the hammock under the orange-trees, very still, very tired, glad of the silence, and of the soft cool hand which covered hers so lightly, and, at rare intervals, pressed hers more lightly still.

Shiela, elbow on knee, one arm across the hammock's edge, chin cupped in her other palm, sat staring at vacancy beside the hammock where Virginia lay. And sometimes her partly doubled fingers indented her red lower lip, sometimes they half framed the oval face, as she sat lost in thought beside the hammock where Virginia lay so pale and still.

Musing there in the dappled light, already linked together by that subtle sympathy which lies in silence and in a common need of it, they scarcely stirred save when Shiela's fingers closed almost imperceptibly on Virginia's hand, and Virginia's eyelids quivered in vague response.

In youth, sadness and silence are near akin. That was the only kinship they could claim—this slim, pale scion of a worn-out line, and the nameless, parentless girl beside her. This kinship was their only bond—unadmitted, uncomprehended by themselves; kinship in love, and the sadness of it; in love, and the loneliness of it; love—and the long hours of waiting; night, and the tears of it.

The sun hung low behind the scented orange grove before Virginia moved, laying her thin cheek on Shiela's hand.

"Did you see—that letter—in the sand?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"The writing—you knew it?… Answer me, Shiela."

"Yes, I knew it."

Virginia lay very still for a while, then covered her face with both hands.

"Oh, my dear, my dear!" breathed Shiela, bending close beside her.

Virginia lay motionless for a moment, then uncovered her face.

"It is strange," she said, in a colourless, almost inaudible voice. "You see I am simply helpless—dependent on your mercy.... Because a woman does not faint over—nothing."

The deep distress in Shiela's eyes held her silent for a space. She looked back at her, then her brooding gaze shifted to the laden branches overhead, to the leafy vistas beyond, to the ground where the golden fruit lay burning in the red, level rays of the western sun.

"I did not know he was married," she said vacantly.

Swift anger burned in Shiela's cheeks.

"He was a coward not to tell you—"

"He was honourable about it," said Virginia, in the same monotonous voice. "Do you think I am shameless to admit it? Perhaps I am, but it is fairer to him. As you know this much, you should know the truth. And the truth is that he has never said he loved me."

Her face had become pinched and ghastly, but her mouth never quivered under this final humiliation.

"Did you ever look upon a more brazen and defenceless woman—" she began—and then very quietly and tearlessly broke down in Shiela's tender arms, face hidden on the young girl's breast.

And Shiela's heart responded passionately; but all she could find to say was: "Dear—I know—indeed, indeed I know—believe me I know and understand!" And all she could do was to gather the humbled woman into her arms until, her grief dry-spent, Virginia raised her head and looked at Shiela with strange, quenched, tearless eyes.

"We women are very helpless, very ignorant," she said, "even the worst of us. And I doubt if in all our lives we are capable of the harm that one man refrains from doing for an hour.... And that, I think, is our only compensation.... What theirs may be I do not know.... Dear, I am perfectly able to go, now.... I think I see your mother coming."

They walked together to the terrace where Mrs. Cardross had just arrived in the motor; and Shiela, herself shaken, wondered at the serene poise with which Virginia sustained ten minutes of commonplaces and then made her final adieux, saying that she was leaving on the morning train.

"May we not see each other in town?" she added amiably; and, to Shiela: "You will let me know when you come North? I shall miss you until you come."

Mrs. Cardross sent her back in the motor, a trifle surprised at any intimacy between Shiela and Virginia. She asked a frank question or two and then retired to write to Mrs. Carrick, who, uneasy, had at last gone North to find out what financial troubles were keeping both her husband and her father so long away from this southland that they loved so well.

Hamil, who was to leave for the North with his aunt and Virginia early next morning, returned from the forest about sundown, reeking as usual of the saddle, and rested a moment against the terrace balustrade watching Mrs. Cardross and Shiela over their tea.

"That boy is actually ill," said the sympathetic matron. "Why don't you give him some tea, Shiela? Or would you rather have a little wine and a biscuit, Garret—?"

"And a few pills," added Shiela gravely. "I found a box of odds and ends—powders, pills, tablets, which he might as well finish—"

"Shiela! Garret is ill!"

Hamil, busy with his Madeira and biscuit, laughed. He could not realise he was on the eve of leaving, nor could Shiela.

"Never," said he to the anxious lady, "have I felt better in my life; and I'm sure it is due to your medicines. It's all very well for Shiela to laugh at quinine; mosquitoes don't sting her. But I'd probably be an item in one of those phosphate beds by this time if you hadn't taken care of me."

Shiela laughed; Hamil in excellent humour went off to dress. Everybody seemed to be in particularly good spirits that evening, but later, after dinner, Gray spoke complainingly of the continued absence of his father.

"As for Acton Carrick, he's the limit," added Gray disgustedly. "He hasn't been here this winter except for a day or two, and then he took the train from Miami straight through to New York. I say, Hamil, you'll look him up and write us about him, won't you?"

Shiela looked at Hamil.

"Do you understand anything about financial troubles?" she asked in a bantering voice.

"I've had some experience with my own," he said.

"Well, then, what is the matter with the market?"

"Shall I whisper it?"

"If you are prepared to rhyme it. I dare you!"

It was the rule of the house that anybody was privileged to whisper at table provided they put what they had to communicate into rhyme.

So he thought busily a moment, then leaned over very gravely and whispered close to her ear:

"Tis money makes the market go;When money's high the market's low;When money's low the market's right,And speculators sleep at night.But, dear, there is another mart,Where ticks the ticker called my heart;And there exhaustless funds await,To back my bankrupt trust in Fate;For you will find, as I have found,The old, old logic yet is sound,And love still makes the world go round."

"I always knew it," said Shiela contemptuously.

"Knew what, dear?" asked her mother, amused.

"That Mr. Hamil writes those sickening mottoes for Christmas crackers."

"There are pretty ones in them—sometimes," said Cecile, reminiscently spearing a big red strawberry which resembled the popular and conventional conception of a fat human heart.

Gray, still serious, said: "Unless we are outside of the danger zone I think father ought to teach me something about business."

"If we blow up," observed Cecile, "I'll do clever monologues and support everybody. I'd like that. And Shiela already writes poetry—"

"Nonsense!" said Shiela, very pink.

"Shiela! You do!"

"I did in school—" turning pinker under Hamil's tormenting gaze.

"And you do yet! I found an attempt on the floor—in your flowing penmanship," continued the pitiless younger sister. "What is there to blush about? Of course Phil and I were not low enough to read it, but I'll bet it was about somebody we all know! Do you want to bet—Garry?"

"Cecile!" said her mother mildly.

"Yes, mother—I forgot that I'm not allowed to bet, but if I was—"

Shiela, exasperated, looked at her mother, who shook her head and rose from the table, taking Hamil's arm.

"You little imp!" breathed Shiela fiercely to Cecile, "if you plague me again I'll inform Mr. Hamil of what happened to you this morning."

"I don't care; Garry is part of the family," retorted Cecile, flushed but defiant and not exactly daring to add: "or will be soon." Then she put both arms around Shiela, and holding her imprisoned:

"Are you in love?—you darling!" she whispered persuasively. "Oh, don't commit yourself if you feel that way!… And, O Shiela, you should have seen Phil Gatewood following me in love-smitten hops when I wouldn't listen! My dear, the creature managed to plant both feet on my gown as I fled, and the parquet is so slippery and the gown so flimsy and, oh, there was a dreadful ripping sound and we both went down—"

Shiela was laughing now, holding her sister's gesticulating hands, as she rattled on excitedly:

"I got to my feet in a blaze of fury, holding my gown on with both hands—"

"Cissy!"

"And he gave one horror-stricken look and ran—"

Swaying there together in the deserted dining-room, they gave way to uncontrolled laughter. Laughter rang out from the living-room, too, where Gray was informing Mrs. Cardross and Hamil of the untoward climax to a spring-time wooing; and when Shiela and Cecile came in the latter looked suspiciously at Hamil, requesting to know the reason of his mirth.

"Somebody will have to whisper it to you in rhyme," said Hamil; "it's not fit for prose, Cissy."

Mrs. Cardross retired early. Gray went for a spin in his motor. Cecile, mischievously persuaded that Hamil desired to have Shiela to himself for half an hour, stifled her yawns and bedward inclinations and remained primly near them until Gray returned.

Then the four played innocuous Bridge whist until Cecile's yawns could no longer be disguised; and finally Gray rose in disgust when she ignored the heart-convention and led him an unlovely spade.

"How many kinds of a chump can you be in one day?" asked her wrathful brother.

"Pons longa, vita brevis," observed Hamil, intensely amused. "Don't sit on her, Gray."

"O dear! O dear!" said Cecile calmly, "I'd rather be stepped on again than sat on like that!"

"You're a sweet little thing anyway," said Hamil, "even if you do fall down in Bridge as well as otherwise—"

"Shiela! You told Garret!"

"Cunning child," said Hamil; "make her dance the baby-dance, Shiela!" And he and her sister and brother seized her unwilling hands and compelled her to turn round and round, while they chanted in unison:

"Cissy's Bridge is falling down,            Falling down,            Falling down,Cissy's gown is falling down,            My                Fair                    Lady!"

"Garry, stop it!… It's only an excuse to hold Shiela's hand—"

But Shiela recited very gravely:

"Father's in Manhattan town,    Hunting up our money;Philip's in the music-room,    Calling Cis his honey;Cissy's sprinting through the hall,    Trying to be funny—"

"I won't dance!" cried Cecile. But they sang insultingly:

"Rock-a-by Cissy!    Philip will slop!Cissy is angry,    For Philip won't stop.""If dresses are stepped upon,Something will fall,Down will come petticoat, Cissy, and all!"

"O Garry, how can you!"

"Because you've been too gay lately; you're marked for discipline, young lady!"

"Who told you? Shiela?—and it was my newest, dearest, duck of a gown!… The situation was perfectly horrid, too. What elephants men are!"

"You know, I'd accept him if I were you—just to teach him the value of gowns," suggested Hamil.

But Shiela said seriously: "Phil Gatewood is a nice boy. We all knew that he was going to ask you. You acted like a ninny, Cis."

"With my gown half off!—what would you have done?" demanded the girl hotly.

"Destroyed him," admitted Shiela, "in one way or another, dear. And now I am going to bed—if everybody has had enough of Cissy's Bridge—"

"Me for the hay," observed Gray emphatically.

So they all went up the stairway together, lingering a few moments on the landing to say good night.

Cecile retired first, bewailing the humiliation of not having a maid of her own and requesting Shiela to send hers as she was too sleepy to undress.

Gray caught sight of a moth fluttering around the electric lights and made considerable noise securing the specimen. After which he also retired, cyanide jar containing the victim tucked under his arm.

CHAPTER XVIII

PERIL

Shelia, standing by the lamplit table and resting one slim hand on the edge of it, waited for Hamil to give the signal for separation.

Instead he said: "Are you really sleepy?"

"No."

"Then—"

"I dare not—to-night."

"For any particular reason?"

"For a thousand.... One is that I simply can't believe you are really going North to-morrow. Why do you?" She had asked it nearly a thousand times.

"I've got to begin Portlaw's park; and, besides, my work here is over—"

"Is that all you care about me? Oh, you are truly like the real Ulysses:

"Now toils the hero, trees on trees o'erthrownFall crackling round him, and the forests groan!"

Do you remember, in the Odyssey, when poor Calypso begs him to remain?

"Thus spoke Calypso to her god-like guest:'This shows thee, friend, by old experience taught,    And learn'd in all the wiles of human thought,How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!Thus wilt thou leave me? Are we thus to part?Is Portlaw's Park the passion of thy heart?'"

Laughing, he answered in the Grecian verse:

"Whatever the gods shall destine me to bear,'Tis mine to master with a constant mind;Inured to peril, to the worst resigned,Still I can suffer; their high will be done."

From the soft oval of her face the smile faded, but her voice was still carelessly gay:

"And so he went away. But, concerning his nymph, Calypso, further Homer sayeth not. Yet—in the immortal verse it chanced to be he, not she, who was—married.... And I think I'll retire now—if you have nothing more agreeable to say to me—"

"I have; in the garden—"

"No, I dare not risk it to-night. The guards are about—"

"It is my last night here—"

"We will see each other very soon in New York. And I'll be up in the morning to drive you to the station—"

"But, Shiela, dear—"

"There was a bad nigger hanging around the groves last night and our patrols are out.... No, it's too risky. Besides—"

"Besides—what?"

"I've been thinking."

He said, tenderly impatient:

"You little witch of Ogygia, come into the patio then, and do your thinking and let me make love to you."

But she would not raise her eyes, standing there in the rose lamplight, the perverse smile still edging her lips.

"Calypso," he repeated persuasively.

"No.... Besides, I have nothing to offer you, Ulysses.... You remember what the real Calypso offered the real Ulysses if he'd remain with her in Ogygia?"

"Eternal youth and love?" He bent over the table, moving his hand to cover hers where it rested in the lamplight. "You have given me eternity in love already," he said.

"Have I?" But she would not lift her eyes.... "Then why make love to me if you have it ready-made for you?"

"Will you come?"

And she, quoting the Odyssey again:

"Swear, then, thou mean'st not what my soul forebodes;Swear by the solemn oath that binds the gods!"

And in turn he quoted:

"Loved and adored, O goddess as thou art,Forgive the weakness of a human heart."

But she said with gay audacity, "I have nothing to forgive you—yet."

"Are you challenging me? Because I am likely to take you into my arms at any moment if you are."

"Not here—Garry!"—looking up in quick concern, for his recklessness at times dismayed her. Considering him doubtfully she made up her mind that she was safe, and her little chin went up in defiance.

"The hammock's in the patio," he said.

"There's moonlight there, too. No, thank you—with Cissy wakeful and her windows commanding every nook!… Besides—as I told you, I've been thinking."

"And what have you concluded?"

Delicate straight nose in the air, eyebrows arched in airy disdain, she stood preoccupied with some little inward train of thought that alternately made grave and gay the upcurled corners of her lips.

"About this question of—ah—love-making—" dropping her eyes in pretence of humility.

"It is no longer a question, you know."

She would not look up; her lashes seemed to rest on the bloom of the rounded cheek as though the lids were shut, but there came from the shadows between the lids a faint glimmer; and he thought of that first day when from her lifted gaze a thousand gay little demons seemed to laugh at him.

"I've been thinking," she remarked, "that this question of making love to me should be seriously discussed."

"That's what I've been asking you to do in the patio—"

"I've been thinking, with deep but rather tardy concern, that it is not the best policy for me to be—courted—any more."

She glanced up; her entire expression had suddenly altered to a gravity unmistakable.

"What has happened?" he asked.

"Can you tell me? I ask you, Garry, what has happened?"

"I don't understand—"

"Nor I.... Because that little fool you kissed—so many, many centuries ago—is not this disillusioned woman who is standing here!… May I be a little bit serious with you?"

"Of course," he said, amused; "come out on the east balcony and tell me what troubles you."

She considered him, smilingly suspicious of his alacrity.

"I don't think we had better go to the balcony." "Shiela, can't you ever get over being ashamed when I make love to you?"

"I don't want to get over it, Garry."

"Are you still afraid to let me love you?"

Her mouth curved gravely as a perplexed child's; she looked down at the table where his sun-burnt hand now lay lightly across hers.

"I wished to speak to you about myself—if, somehow you could help me to say what—what is very difficult for a girl to say to a man—even when she loves him.... I don't think I can say it, but I'll try."

"Then if you'll come to the balcony—"

"No, I can't trust you—or myself—unless we promise each other."

"Have I got to do that again?"

"Yes, if I am to go with you. I promise! Do you?"

"If I must," he said with very bad grace—so ungraciously in fact that as they passed from the eastern corridor on to the Spanish balcony she forgot her own promise and slipped her hand into his in half-humourous, half-tender propitiation.

"Are you going to be disagreeable to me, Garry?"

"You darling!" he said; and, laughing, yet secretly dismayed at her own perversion, she hurriedly untwisted her fingers from his and made a new and fervid promise to replace the one just broken.

The moonlight was magnificent, silvering forest, dune, and chaparral. Far to the east a thin straight gleam revealed the sea.

She seated herself under the wall, lying back against it; he lay extended on the marble shelf beside her, studying the moonlight on her face.

"What was it you had to tell me, Shiela? Remember I am going in the morning."

"I've turned cowardly; I cannot tell you.... Perhaps later.... Look at the Seminole moon, Garry. They have such a pretty name for it in March—Tau-sau-tchusi—'Little Spring Moon'! And in May they call it the 'Mulberry Moon'—Kee-hassi, and in November it is a charming name—Hee-wu-li—'Falling Leaf Moon'!—and August is Hyothlucco—'Big Ripening Moon.' … Garry, this moonlight is filling my veins with quicksilver. I feel very restless, very heathenish." … She cast a slanting side-glance at him, lips parting with soundless laughter; and in the witchery of the moon she seemed exquisitely unreal, head tipped back, slender throat and shoulders snow-white in the magic lustre that enveloped them.

Resting one bare arm on the marble she turned, chin on shoulder, looking mischievously down at him, lovely, fresh, perfect as the Cherokee roses that spread their creamy, flawless beauty across the wall behind her.

Imperceptibly her expression changed to soft friendliness, to tenderness, to a hint of deeper emotion; and her lids drooped a little, then opened gravely under the quick caress of his eyes; and very gently she moved her head from side to side as reminder and refusal.

"Another man's wife," she said deliberately.... "Thy neighbour's wife.... That's what we've done!"

Like a cut of a whip her words brought him upright to confront her, his blood tingling on the quick edge of anger.

For always, deep within him, lay that impotent anger latent; always his ignorance of this man haunted him like the aftermath of an ugly dream. But of the man himself she had never spoken since that first day in the wilderness. And then she had not named him.

Her face had grown very serious, but her eyes remained unfathomable under his angry gaze.

"Is there any reason to raise that spectre between us?" he demanded.

"Dear, has it ever been laid?" she asked sorrowfully.

The muscles in his cheeks tightened and his eyes narrowed unpleasantly. Only the one feature saved the man from sullen commonness in his suppressed anger—and that was his boyish mouth, clean, sweet, nobly moulded, giving the lie to the baffled brutality gleaming in the eyes. And the spark died out as it had come, subdued, extinguished when he could no longer sustain the quiet surprise of her regard.