The Laughing Girl

She cast a glance behind her toward the blank void where, on clear days, the bulk of the Bec de l'Empereur towered aloft in its mantle of dazzling snow. Then she slowly walked toward me through the rain.

When she came near to where I sat, she began to laugh; and I never saw such an exquisite sight as Thusis, bare-headed in the rain, laughing.

"What on earth are you up to, Michael?" she said.

"Fishing. That herd of huns will eat us out of house and garden if we don't catch something. Sit beside me under the umbrella, Thusis. There's room if we're careful and don't let the camp-stool collapse."

She gave me an inscrutable glance, stood motionless for a few moments, then slowly came over.

"Careful now," I cautioned her, rising. "We must both seat ourselves at the same instant or this camp-stool will close up like a jack-knife. Are you ready?"

She laughed and inclined her pretty head.

"Then – one! two! three! Sit!"

We managed to accomplish it without an accident.

"We're too close together," she protested.

"Don't stir," said I. "Do you feel how it wabbles?"

She tested the camp-stool cautiously, and nodded.

"What an absurd situation," she remarked, glancing up at the gamp which I held over us.

"I think it's very jolly." She didn't look at me; we were too close – so close that we might possibly have rubbed noses if either turned. But in her side-long glance I noted both amusement and irony.

"Have you caught anything, Don Michael?"

"Not a bally thing."

"What are you reading?"

"A book of sorts – a novel by an 'author' who lacks education, cultivation, experience, vocabulary, and a working knowledge of English grammar. In other words, Thusis, a typical American 'author,' – one of the Bolsheviki of literature whose unlettered Bolshevik readers are recruited from the same audience that understands and roars with laughter at the German and Jewish jokes which compose the librettos of our New York musical comedies."

Thusis turned up her pretty nose and shrugged – or tried to, – but nearly upset me, and desisted.

"It's silly to sit here like two hens on a roost," she said.

"It's cozy," said I with a blissful smile that perhaps approached the idiotic.

"Cozy or not," she insisted, "we resemble a pair of absurd birds."

"Then," said I, "one of us ought to twitter and begin to sing."

We both laughed. "The last time we were here together," I reminded her, "you were singing all the while."

"Was I?"

"Yes, and I liked it – although your detachment was not flattering to me."

"Poor Michael. Did you feel abused?"

"It's no novel feeling," said I.

"You ungrateful young man! Do you mean to insinuate that I abuse you? I – who go fishing with you, stop my house-work to gossip with you, sit on the stairs with you at three in the morning – and in my nightie, too – "

"What an incident for a best-seller!" said I. "Fancy the fury of the female critic! Imagine the rage of the 'good woman'!"

"You are satirical, Don Michael."

"Doesn't satire amuse you?"

"I adore it."

"Nothing," said I, "so angers ignorance as satire, because it is not understood, and ignorance becomes suspicious when it does not understand anything. Ignorance mistakes dullness for depth. That is why dull books are so widely read.

"There is, in America, Thusis, a vast desert inhabited by 'authors' who produce illiterature.

"Similar deserts, though less in area, exist in other sections of America. By its ear-marks, however, I guess that this book was 'authorized' somewhere west of Chicago. Don't read it. Only 'a good woman' could enjoy it."

Thusis laughed. "Don't you admire good women and critics?"

"The American critic," said I, "is usually female but not necessarily feminine in sex. It is what is reverently known as 'a good woman' – and like a truffle-hound its nose for immorality is so keen that it can discover a bad smell where there isn't any."

Thusis threw back her head and yielded to laughter unrestrained.

"So you think there was nothing immoral in sitting on the stairs with you in my nightie?"

"Was there?"

"Of course not. Clean minds are independent of clothes. As for clothing, I often wish these were Greek times and I were rid of all my duds except sandals and a scarf."

"It's all very well for you to wish that, Thusis, but consider the spectacle of the Princess Pudelstoff, for example, in Olympian attire – "

And Thusis went off into a gale of laughter, endangering our mutual stability on the camp-stool. Which scared her, – an unpremeditated bath in the pool having been narrowly averted – and she said again that it was silly of us to sit there like a pair of imbecile dicky-birds.

"Then tune up, Thusis. You seem to know a lot of songs. I liked that odd, weird, sweet little song you kept singing about Naxos and Tenedos."

"I didn't suppose you noticed it, Michael."

"I notice everything concerning you."

Looking at her sideways I saw the charming color deepen in her cheeks.

"Is that paying court to you or making love to you?" I added.

"I don't know. Somehow, when you pay court to me, you make it sound like – the other thing."

"But I am in love – "

"Wait," she said hastily. "I'll sing another funny song – the same sort of song you found so amusing – about Naxos and Tenedos. It is called 'Invocations.'"

As a little bird looks up to heaven after every sip of water, so Thusis looked up after inspiration had sufficiently saturated her. She lifted her pretty voice as clearly and sweetly as a linnet sings in the falling rain:

"Wine poured out to Aphrodite,On thy sacred sands,In libations to the mightyBlue-eyed goddess AphroditePerfumes all thy strands,Scents the meadows and thy woodlands,Tenedos, my Tenedos!Every maiden understandsWhy each flowering orchard closeSwims with fragrance of the rose.Votive wine that long agoSet thy sacred soil aglowSweetens still each Grecian noseIn Tenedos, my Tenedos!IIGod-like Bacchus with his flightyBand of laughing jades,Drank and sang and every night heGot so classically tight heSought thy sylvan glades.Snoring where he gaily reveled,Tenedos, my Tenedos!Mid his pretty nymphs disheveledSleeping off the over-dose,Waking late to vinous woes!Votive wine that long agoSet thy sacred groves aglow,Still exhilarates each noseIn Tenedos, my Tenedos!"

"Oh, the cunning little song!" I exclaimed enchanted. "But what is Tenedos, anyway? It's an island, isn't it?"

"It is," said Thusis solemnly.

"Certainly. I remember. And so is Naxos – Greek islands in the Ægean."

"I shall mark you perfect," said Thusis gravely. And she wrote "perfect" in the air with one slim forefinger.

"Why," said I curiously, "do you sing songs about Naxos and Tenedos?"

"Perhaps because I have lived in Naxos and Tenedos."

"I see."

"No, you don't," said Thusis, smiling.

We sat for a while in silence watching the foaming current swerving my line. But no fish moved it.

"They must be pretty – those Greek islands," said I vaguely.

"Do you know their history?"

"No."

"Would you like to hear it?"

"Whatever you say I like to hear," I replied, beginning to ooze sentiment as well as rain.

"You annoy me," said Thusis. "Listen sensibly, if you wish me to tell you about those islands."

Snubbed, I sat silent with an injured expression that afforded her lively satisfaction, judging from her vivacious voice and manner:

"You are to know, Michael," she began, "that Naxos is one of the Cyclades, and from the day of the old gods it has been famous for its wine.

"In the thirteenth century it was conquered by Venice. It was made into a duchy. So was Tenedos.

"But these two Venetian Duchies were conquered and annexed by the unspeakable Turk in the sixteenth century. Then Greece recovered Naxos."

She looked down pensively at her folded hands. Presently they became interlocked and I saw the fingers twisting nervously.

"There are," she said, "some people – descendants of the old Venetians in Naxos, who believe that the island ought to belong to Italy … and that the duchy ought to be revived and reconstituted."

"Are you one of these people, Thusis?"

"Yes. I am descended from those Venetians. I was born in Naxos."

She remained absorbed in her own reflections for a few moments, then:

"Tenedos, also, ought to become a duchy again. The Turk rules it. He calls it Bogdsha-Adassi. But it was allied with Greece before Christ lived. It should be either Grecian or Italian… And Clelia and I believe that it rightly belongs to Italy."

"How big an island is it?"

"About seven miles long."

We both laughed.

"Are seven miles worth fighting for?" I asked, amused.

"One's back-yard is worth fighting for, isn't it?" she asked calmly.

"Of course. But not for the purpose of establishing a duchy in it."

Thusis didn't seem to consider that remark very funny.

"I'll freely give anything I have," she said hotly, "but I'll fight like a wild-cat to resist the robbery of a single button!"

"I didn't steal that button," said I. "I brought it back to you – from Ferdie's dressing-room."

"I wish you wouldn't be so flippant, Michael!"

"Am I?"

"Very."

She really seemed vexed and I asked her pardon.

"But you oughtn't to mention theft to a thief," I added. "I'm trying to steal your heart, you know – "

"Michael, you are insufferable!" she exclaimed with a movement of impatience that almost sent us into the pool. In fact she clutched me and held fast while I struggled to recover our balance. And after I had reëstablished our equilibrium I was low enough, mean enough, to pretend we were still in danger, so heavenly sweet it was to me to feel her little hands close clinging.

Whether or not she discovered my perfidy I was not certain, for presently she released her grasp and sat very still and flushed beside me, her eyes fixed on the frivolous brook.

Which drove me uneasily toward conversation – the first refuge of the guilty.

"And so," said I, in a casual and pleasant voice, "you are really a descendant of those ancient Venetians who once occupied Naxos."

"I don't wish to continue the subject," she said.

Snubbed again I relapsed into mournful inertia. Which presently she inspected sideways. And after a while she laughed.

"You are so ridiculous," she said. "No girl, I fancy, can remain angry with you very long."

"Thusis?"

"What?"

"I want to court you. May I?"

"Yes – if you don't make it resemble the other thing."

"I'll be careful."

"Very well."

And, as I remained buried in reflection: "You may fire when ready, Michael."

"Have you ever lived in the United States?" I asked, astonished.

"I was educated there," she replied demurely.

"Oh, Lord!" said I, "that accounts for a lot of things! Why on earth I didn't suspect it I can't imagine – "

"Oh, I'm not typical; I'm international, Michael – cosmopolitan, inter-urban, anti-insular, so to speak – "

"You're inter-stellar, you beautiful bright star! – "

"Michael!"

"What?"

"Is that courtship? Or the other?" she inquired.

"Courtship. It's a perfectly proper flight of astronomical fancy. It's a scientific metaphor, Thusis dear. I'll tell you another:

"Some lovers woo the PleiadesWho shyly flirt from midnight skies,But all my vows and all my sighsAre centered in the CycladesWhere she I love first saw the light– Thusis divine so slim and white – "

"Michael!"

"I love her noble mind serene,I love her ruddy tresses bright,I love her slender neck so white,I love her heart so young and clean,In fact I love her, if she please,My goddess of the Cyclades – "

"Michael!!!"

"What?" said I, annoyed at being checked in my fine frenzy.

"Is – is that courtship?"

"Certainly! Did you never hear of a troubadour? I'm improvising and for God's sake don't interrupt me."

At that she relapsed into meek silence. But I had lost my momentum. It was all off; she had ruined that totally unexpected burst of inspired fluency which had astonished and intoxicated me, whatever it had done to her.

"Damnation," I said.

"Forgive me, Michael. I'm so truly repentant… And it was very, very beautiful."

"It wasn't so bad," I admitted, mollified. "I had no idea I could do it, Thusis."

"It was – agreeable. I liked it. Will you forgive me? Because when I interrupted I punished myself most of all."

"You sweet little thing! – "

"I did. I was worse than Psyche," she went on, "who blew out the candle – too late – the torch of inspiration – Oh, dear, that metaphor is very sadly mixed, Michael, but you understand what I mean. Do you pardon me?"

To reassure her I touched her hands which lay clasped in her lap. She gave a slight start, but as my hand settled and rested there upon both of hers she seemed to become unconscious of the contact.

"I had no idea that you could improvise so cleverly," she said.

"Nor I," said I, frankly. "It's true, however, that I've had some little practice in writing verses – er – recently."

"Have you been writing verses, Michael?"

"Yes."

"About what?"

"About you."

She became interested in my fishing line, and watched it intently. But it was only the current moving it.

"Thusis dear – "

She said hastily: "Remember the difference between courtship and the other!"

"Won't you let me make love to you?"

"I can't, Michael!"

After a pause: "Would you let me if you could?"

"Yes," she said under her breath.

"Dear – "

"Please don't say that!"

"I want to ask you one thing."

"What?"

"You're not married, are you?"

"No."

"Then – "

"It's a more hopeless barrier than that!" she interrupted with a sudden catch in her breath. "I can't let you make love to me. I can't let you love me! I c-can't love you – let myself – do it – "

Her voice was drowned in a terrific roar. All the thunders of the skies seemed to unite in one tremendous outburst.

Deafened, almost stunned, we sat there partly stupefied by the mighty concussion which lengthened into bellowing thunder until the bank of the stream trembled under our feet, and the umbrella wiggled in my hand.

"Good Lord!" I whispered; but Thusis sprang up with a little cry of dismay.

"Don't be afraid, darling!" I cried, preparing to gather her to my breast. But she was excitedly adjusting her field-glasses and focussing them on the Bec de l'Empereur.

And then I perceived that the rain had ceased; that the sun was already blazing through the pass below.

"The devil!" cried Thusis, stamping her pretty foot. Then, in a fury of despair, she turned to me and stretched out one arm, pointing toward the valley pass.

And I saw that it had been utterly obliterated by the mighty avalanche, the earth-shaking thunder of which had petrified us.

Suddenly the gray eyes of Thusis filled with tears of fury and disappointment.

"Oh, Michael! Michael!" she faltered, "what shall we do now! We had them all in the trap! We were ready to spring it to-night! Oh, Michael! Michael! M-my heart is b-broken – "

She walked blindly into my arms – she didn't know what she was about, I suppose. I petted and soothed her; she hid her face on my breast.

"Darling," I said, "I can't bear to see you suffer. I suppose that you and Clelia and Josephine and Raoul had some scheme cooked up to kidnap that bunch of huns at the house and get them over the frontier into France. Didn't you, dear?"

"Y-yes. And just l-look what's happened! Look at this act of God! Why has God let it rain? Why has He let loose this avalanche at such a moment! – at such an agonizing moment when we had all the rats trapped! And our own agents on the frontier to let us through! … Doesn't God realize that all civilization – all Christendom is tottering? Doesn't He know what hell threatens it? Why has He done this thing to us! Can He not see France bled white! – England reeling! – Italy agasp! – America only half ready! – Naxos prostrate under the Greek tyrant's usurping heel! – Tenedos thrown to the Turk! I – I have begun to lose my faith in God!" she cried violently; "the old gods were less cruel – less indifferent. And at least they displayed enough interest to take sides!"

I continued to pet and comfort and soothe her as I would a half hysterical child.

"God is on duty," I said. "Who are we to divine His strategy? Why take even General Foch. His own officers can't penetrate his purpose; much less can the huns. But he drives the spirits of evil before him; he hustles the hellish legions toward destruction in his own way. The maddened swine are stampeding, Thusis! God's ocean waits."

"Y-yes. I – shall pull myself together… I'm ashamed."

"No, you're all right, Thusis. Take heart. And, if there's any comfort in knowing I'm with you, always, loyally, through life to death – "

I thought, against my breast, there was the slightest pressure in response, but concluded that Thusis had merely braced herself to get away and stand on her own legs. Which she now did, resolutely, but keeping her face averted.

We stood so, gazing down in silence at the snow-choked pass which now cut us off from the world entire.

"After all," said I, "it pens in the huns as well as it cages us. We may get them yet."

The girl straightened up and turned toward me. Her features were radiant, transfigured.

"Nous les aurons!" she cried, throwing her arm out toward the valley with the superb gesture of some young goddess launching thunderbolts.

XIV

THE MYSTERIOUS MR. SMITH

The distinguished company at the chalet had already gathered on the veranda apparently to contemplate the flaming sunset when, separating from Thusis in the woods behind the barn, I sauntered into view with rod and creel.

Instantly I became a target for Teutonic eyes of the several sorts peculiar to the hunnish race, – cold disapproving eyes, narrow bad-tempered eyes, squinting eyes, gimlet eyes, pale pig-eyes, – all intent on my approach.

"Hello!" cried King Constantine in his loud, bluff way, "have you had any luck, O'Ryan?"

The fat Princess Pudelstoff began to pant cheerfully in anticipation of finny food:

"I hope you've caught some trout," she said in a thick, good-natured voice which the rolls of fat on her neck rendered husky and indistinct. "I like to eat mine Meunière and Blaue-gesotten. I like 'em breaded and fried in butter. I like plenty of melted butter." She pried open the creel cover as I passed. "Where are the fish?" she asked with a gulp of disappointment.

"I'm sorry, Princess – "

"Droly!" she exclaimed in English, turning to General Count von Dungheim, "he ain't caught a fish! And me smackin' my lips like I was eatin' onto a fat filet! Oh my God!"

Astonished to hear such east-side accents spurting from the lips of the Princess Pudelstoff, I politely explained that the stream was in flood, and that trout wouldn't take hold in high water. In the midst of my apology Baron von Bummelzug uttered a disagreeable laugh and said something rude to Admiral Lauterlaus who stared at me insultingly as he replied: "Skill is not to be expected in a Yankee. Instead of a rod he should have used a net. That's the way our peasants fish for trout."

I turned red and looked hard at the Admiral. "There's a net in the barn," said I, "if you want to try your skill!" which infuriated that formidable sea-warrior whose ancestry was purely peasant. He glared at me angrily and his bushy eyebrows worked up and down like the features of a mechanical toy.

"I said our peasants fish with a net!" he began, a far, hollow roar audible in his voice like the sound of the sea in a big shell.

"I heard you," said I. "You're welcome to use the net in your own fashion. Gentlemen fish otherwise."

I think everybody was astounded. Only the pretty Countess Manntrapp shot an amused glance at me.

The others were dreadfully shocked. As for the Admiral he got to his feet almost dazed with rage; but before he could expel the bellowing fury which was congesting his features I lost my own temper and walked over to him.

"Behave yourself!" I said sharply. "I tolerate no bad manners under my roof. And if you show me any further disrespect you'll have to leave my house!"

I think he was too amazed to roar. King Ferdinand waddled over to him and plucked him by the arm, restraining him. King Constantine burst into a heavy laugh:

"Here, gentlemen! This will never do! It's all a misunderstanding. No offense was intended, Mr. O'Ryan – "

"Monsieur Xenos," said I, "it is difficult, I fancy, for a Prussian Admiral to avoid taking the offensive – except at sea."

And I walked into the house amid the most profound and paralyzed silence that ever assailed my ears.

Smith, in the living-room, having heard it all, was doubled up with laughter, but I was in no mood for mirth.

"Did you hear what Admiral Lauterlaus said to me!" I demanded, still hot. "Did you hear what that Prussian had the impudence to say to me under my own roof?"

"Yes, and I heard what you said to him, Michael!" And off he went into another fit of laughter.

"You don't know how funny it is," he said. "They've all been conspiring and perspiring all day long shut up in Tino's apartment with those two smelly Bolsheviks. And just when they'd come to some agreement about slicing up the world and ruling it among themselves, along you come and take all the joy out of life by sitting on a Prussian admiral!"

"I certainly shall put him out of the house if he's impudent to me again," said I, wrathfully. "And it will be tough on him if I do, because an avalanche has blocked the pass and we're all sewed up here together!"

"What!" exclaimed Smith with lively interest.

"It's a fact, Smith. The entire snow-field on the south shoulder of the Bec de l'Empereur let go about an hour since. Didn't you hear it?"

"I heard what I took to be thunder. Do you mean we're blocked from the outside world?"

"Completely."

"We can't dig out?"

"Who's to dig?"

"Good business!" he said, plainly delighted by the news. "How long will it last?"

"Thusis says they'll start digging from the other side, but that it may take weeks."

"Thusis knows about this?"

"She was with me at the time," said I, blushing.

He looked at me absently: "I wonder," he mused, "what Thusis thinks about the situation now."

"Our sudden isolation here?"

"Exactly."

"She doesn't seem to like it… Tell me something, Smith?"

"What?"

"Do you know why Thusis and Clelia and Josephine Vannis and Raoul Despres are here?"

"I can guess," he replied, coolly.

"They came here," said I, "to nab Tino and that murderous ass, Ferdinand, and spirit them across the frontier into France."

"I believe so," he said in a serene but preoccupied voice.

"Now they can't do it," I added, "because the only way out of this valley is blocked."

"Quite so."

"Smith?"

"Yes."

"What do you think of their doing such a thing?"

"It's all right but they can't get away with it."

"Would you – help them?"

"They haven't asked me."

"Would you?" I persisted.

"Would you, Michael?"

"Well, if I do, the Swiss Government would confiscate my property. If Thusis and I succeeded in kidnapping this bunch of Kings, I'd lose this place."

"And if you failed to bag your Kings," remarked Smith, "the Swiss Government would still confiscate your estate and lock you up besides."

"And if you went into this affair," said I, "the Swiss would cancel your forestry contract."

"That," said he with a grin, "would be ruinous, wouldn't it?"

"What are you, anyway, Smith?" I demanded bluntly.

"A Viking. What do you think I am?"

"An agent," I replied darkly.

"Timber agent," he nodded.

"Timber nothing. Much less a Viking. I'm on to you, Smith."

"Do you think you are?"

"Well, do you wish to know what I believe you to be?"

"You probably have guessed. So don't say it too loud, Michael. Besides, I have taken no pains to conceal my business from you."

"I think you are an agent of the United States Secret Service," said I. "And I think you learned, somehow or other, that this bunch of Kings was coming here to conspire. And I think you very cleverly picked me up in Berne with a view to being invited here so that you could watch their activities and keep your government informed. How near right am I?"