Kat and Copy-Cat/Chapter 2
FOR SEVERAL days Dick found it practically impossible to concentrate upon his work. At every natural interval, and sometimes between, he would find his mind reverting to his brief conversation with the Hawaiian girl. Over and over again it would recur, and gradually intersperse itself throughout his train of thought, until eventually it had taken entire possession, and he would find himself sitting idly before his machine and reviewing word by word the dialogue, each time finding it more egregious than before. It was horrible. No matter what excuses he made to himself, the fact remained that after the girl had veritably risked her life to save him, he had asked her flatly if she was crazy! And when she had seemed to resent the imputation, he had then asserted confidently that otherwise she certainly must be an idiot! And at that point his jaw always dropped, though in spite of the egregiousness of it all, the corners of his mouth would immediately twitch up again in an unregenerate grin. Dreadful as it was, it was still funny, and occasionally he would chuckle to himself as he recalled the indignant and incredulous expression of the girl's face when he had made these awful statements. Why hadn't the fool girl a sense of humor? She had seen eventually that he had been innocent of any intentional rudeness or of any other crime than ignorance; why couldn't she have laughed and told him of his blunder, and let it go at that? But under it all he was conscious that what he had said, had bitterly hurt,—that the wound had been unbearable when he admitted that someone had said that Pupu-le and Lolo lived there;—that someone had actually told him that two who were gibingly called Crazy and Idiot, lived there. God, it was terrible! It was unforgivable. He had blundered horribly. But he had not meant to. And then, when she had turned to go, she had said, in that heartbreaking way, that she guessed that it wasn't any mistake. Oh, damn it all, anyway! And then he would attack his typewriter once more, with vicious energy; only to find himself again going over and over the circumstances and swearing copiously at himself and at the man who had lightly passed on the villainous phrase to him and involved him in all this mess.
Also, it must be admitted that his thought, in his more relaxed moments, occasionally slid back to his first glimpse of the girl and to the few minutes there on the roof, before she saw him, when she stood bathing her arms in the splendid wind which was sweeping down from the mountains, and then to the exquisite abandon of her exultant dancing in the first rays of the morning sun. When he recalled this, leaning back in his big Morris chair in the starlight, his feet on the rail of the lanai and his cigar smoke wavering off over the valley, he did not indulge in any swearing.
On the second day, he went to town and selected and dispatched to her a new steamer chair to take the place of the lost life raft, and also some slender stemmed amber colored roses with delicate apricot shadings, which someway reminded him of the sunlight upon her skin; but he forbore to add anything more than his name to the cards accompanying the packages. He was in no way surprised when the offerings brought no response. He had expected none.
On the third day, however, he began to concoct letters to her. Letters of apology, letters of explanation, all sorts of letters; but not one which could be formulated, could in any manner explain away the bitter hurt which he had planted in her soul when he told her so inadvertently of the jeering epithet which the world was applying to her and to some unknown person who must be living with her. A letter was impossible and he abandoned the effort. Of course he now had natural curiosity concerning his neighbors, but although it was evident that Moto knew something of them, yet he could not bring himself to question a servant; also, Moto had very discreetly forborne to remember anything whatever of the revelations of that unfortunate morning, or even to comment when the delivery man brought up a new cot to take the place of the one which had catapulted into the Manoa Valley. However, he took the new cot up to the roof and put it in the place of the missing one, and also carried up, with admirable intuition, a new steamer chair which Dick had bought for himself. The roof-garden had been formally opened, there was no reason why it should not continue to be occupied if such were the pleasure of the master of the house. But for the present, at least, the master abstained from going back to the scene of his discomfiture. But meanwhile, in spite of the cool trade winds, Dick's work was not progressing favorably at all.
It was on the afternoon of the fourth day, when Dick was sitting before his typewriter absently lighting cigarettes and leaving them to burn out on the edge of the ash-tray, and watching idly the bit of curved roadway which was visible from his lanai; that he saw a certain little grey roadster come around the bend and slide out of sight behind the foliage of his garden. He sprang to his feet and dashed out of his front door and through the break in the tall hedge, almost colliding with a person who had been upon the point of passing through said opening in the direction of said front door.
"Help! Help!" cried the young woman, dodging out of his way; "Is it a fire or thieves or has the solitude turned your brain and made you run amok like a blithering savage?"
"All! Everything! Only for Heaven's sake come in!"
"Come in! Isn't that what I was trying to do when you came dashing out, brandishing your arms like a wind-mill and all but capsizing me into that bush of thimbleberries with a million thorns on every branch!"
"I was afraid that you would get by before I could stop you," explained Dick contritely.
"I had no intention of getting by. Here is right where I was headed for. Lead on; I want to see your quarters and then to talk serious-like with you about something. Jack's gone tuna fishing, so I'm playing around on my own."
Dick led the way back to his lanai, stopping for a moment to give Moto orders for tea. He was particularly glad, just at this juncture, of an opportunity for a confab with Mrs. Sands, as well as being much in need of the tonic of her vivid personality. Alberta Sands, or Bert, as she was better known, was not more than twenty, agile of brain and venturesome of spirit. A few months before, she had come to Honolulu for a bit of capricious research; and Jack Sands, temporarily interested in the same matter, had married her and carried her off to Japan for a honeymoon. It was upon the return voyage that Dick had met them, and the three had found each other remarkably congenial and had struck up a friendship which had proved particularly delightful to Dick who now made their home at Waikiki his regular town rendezvous. Bert Sands somehow gave the impression of a rather tall boy and was possessed of all of the energy and vitality of one. Her small round head with its curly black hair was carried at an imperious angle which was very like boyish arrogance, though this effect was toned somewhat by the whimsical expression of the exceedingly clear and level grey eyes and the up-curving corners of her very red mouth. She was quick and confident and to Dick she epitomized the true spirit of camaraderie.
When he followed her out onto the lanai, he found her perched boyishly upon the rail and peering eagerly down into the abyss below. She turned as he approached. "Isn't it gorgeous here!" she exclaimed. "You surely did find the most perfect spot on the Island. You must be turning out scads of work;" and she glanced toward the typewriter.
"No," said Dick, "I'm not. I'm having a hell of a time."
"Yes?" said Mrs. Sands, grinning inquiringly. "What's the matter?" And she left the rail for a wicker chair and took an attitude of attention. "A serpent in the Eden already? Well, come on, tell the doctor all about it and then you'll feel better."
Dick sat forward in his chair to start the narration; but when he would have begun, the words failed to come and he only moistened his lips and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and looked uncomfortable.
"What's the pilikia?" asked Mrs. Sands, grinning again her boyish grin. "You look as if you had been caught in the watermelon patch."
"Oh, Gee!" said Dick, "I can't tell you. It's so perfectly ridiculous that you'll laugh, you'll howl with glee; and that'll make me so mad that I'll want to chuck you over the rail into kingdom come."
"Well, if it's funny——" began Bert Sands.
"Of course it's funny!" fumed Dick; "That is, the most of it is funny, but—but at the end it's got an awful hurt in it. A hurt that just turns around in your mind like something with a barb to it, so that it's unbearable—it's unbearable!"
Mrs. Sands' face sobered. "Well now listen," she said; "Suppose that we forget it just for the moment, and talk over the matter that I came to see you about; and by that time perhaps we'll get a clue as to how to handle the thing with a barb, without scratching ourselves. I came to ask a favor of you."
"It's granted already," said Dick. "I'd rather do a favor for you than for anybody else that I know. What's it about? Jack need reforming, or anything?"
"Nope," said Mrs. Sands, "Jack's perfect. It's an entirely different matter. Do you remember some people by the name of Walters who came over on the boat with us from Japan?"
"Sure!" said Dick. "Elderly sheik, frail little blond wife and two sleek daughters with voices like 'sucking doves.' I remember them all right."
"Not daughters, nieces," corrected Mrs. Sands. "The name of the girls is Morton, not Walters."
"Let me see," said Dick, wrinkling his brows; "What was it they called the girls aboard ship?"
Mrs. Sands laughed. "Kat and Copy-cat. Their names are Katisha and Calista; but I'll have to admit, much as I hate nicknames, that those certainly were fitting. Actually, they are the very cattiest humans that I ever knew. Smooth as butter, and with claws an inch long and hooked at the ends. Ugh!"
"You bet I hate nicknames!" said Dick, with feeling.
"Well," said Mrs. Sands, "it isn't the girls that I came to talk about, it's Mrs. Walters. That poor woman is just fretting herself away to a shadow, fairly crying her heart out the most of the time; and I thought that maybe we might help her."
"We? How? What's the matter with her? What is there that I can do?"
Mrs. Sands leaned forward in her chair. "I'll tell you. You are living next door to the one girl in the world, probably, who can tell some little comforting thing about her daughter who disappeared four years ago. I want you to make friends with the girl and—"
But Dick slumped back in his chair with his hands up protestingly. "Me make friends with that girl!" he ejaculated; "Me? My Lord!"
Mrs. Sands shrugged her shoulders rather coolly. "Well," she said, "of course I know that you are too much occupied with your work to spend any period socially; but you could be quite sure that she would not trespass upon your time, as she, herself, seems to prefer isolation; but if you could make her acquaintance, you might be able to turn her over to me, by some careful management, and I might be able to pursuade her to talk to Mrs. Walters just once."
"No, no, you don't understand!" cried Dick, helplessly; "I mean that I couldn't make friends with her. I'm the last man on earth who could make friends with her. Why, if I tried to make friends with that girl, she'd set the police dog on me, and probably the Chinaman with his knife as well. My Lord, no! She'd rather see me in Tophet."
Mrs. Sands was staring at him wide-eyed. "What have you been doing?" she asked, tersely. "Have you met her already? I thought that she didn't see people."
"She saw me, all right," stated Dick; "and she conversed with me, though I'll admit that I did the most of the talking."
"What did you say to her?" Mrs. Sands was sorely puzzled.
"What did I say? I merely asked her if she was pupu-le, that was all."
Mrs. Sands' eyes grew rounder. "Why, what for? What did she answer you?"
"She objected to being called that, and so I cheerfully told her that if she wasn't pupu-le, then she certainly must be lolo."
"Why how awful! What on earth do you mean?"
"Oh, some damned man told me that Pupu-le and Lolo lived there, and so when I saw her, I tried to be agreeable and asked her which she was. Now laugh!"
And Mrs. Sands did laugh. She laughed with a thoroughness and abandon which eventually broke down even Dick's bitter self-recrimination and he laughed with her, ruefully at first; and later, with a momentary forgetfulness of the sorry side of the episode in the absurdity of the contretemps, he laughed with a fervor and appreciation which somewhat relieved the stress of the past few days.
But in another moment, for Mrs. Sands, the pitiful side of it arose and submerged the humor of the situation. "Oh!" she said, her laughter quickly checked, "It really was dreadful, wasn't it? Of course it hurt her desperately. You will understand better when I have told you the story. It is the saddest thing that ever happened. I have heard those awful nicknames. I think that the Kat Mortons began that. They got their own nicknames because they are always thinking up nasty ones for other people and starting them, and then you know it is almost impossible to live them down. Now listen, Mr. Harris, I'm going to tell you the story, and it's a long one; but you really ought to know it, since you live here so closely; and even though you have managed to get such a bad start, yet something might work out while you are here, so that you could fix things up to help Mrs. Walters. One never knows what opportunities may develop. Anyway, here's the story as Mrs. Walters told it to me.
"Virginia Walters disappeared four years ago. She was about seventeen then and was the Walters's only child and her mother fairly worshipped her. That little woman used to take pride in stating that she wanted her daughter to grow up to be able to say that she had never wanted anything in her life that she could not have. Of course you know that the Walters are rich and their home beautiful; and Jean, as she was called, was a sort of 'monarch of all she surveyed.' When she was sixteen she went to the mainland to school; but she was miserable away from Hawaii, and of course when she insisted upon coming home again, home she came, and didn't go back. She was easily the prettiest girl in town, they say; looked like her father, with the same dark eyes and heavy, tawny hair, but with her mother's clear, fair coloring and fine skin. A very unusual combination, and I gather that even at seventeen she must have been a very fascinating sort of a girl; but independent and headstrong from the spoiling which she had experienced from babyhood. Of course she had a whole raft of boys in her train, considering her beauty and her father's wealth; but none of them were in any sort of luck.
"And then she met David Malua, a Hawaiian. Or rather, he was a half-Hawaiian, and of some of the best blood in the Islands. Anyway, from that first night when she met him, her life simply revolved around him like a planet around a sun. She couldn't see anyone else or think of anyone else. He was absolutely the whole thing to her, and she didn't care who knew it.
"Of course her parents were horrified; but parents weren't counting in that particular case;—and she had always had everything that she wanted, and now she wanted David Malua, and David she was going to have, and that was all there was to it. And so her parents threw up their hands and Jean went her own way as she always had.
"But David was another factor to be reckoned with. David was kanelua (doubtful) and although he went about with her and seemed very fond of her, yet he failed to bring matters to a head, and Jean was consequently anxious and impatient. Her mother says that she was desperately nervous and unhappy during that period, and never seemed to have a moment of rest from the distress of uncertainty, but was always on tiptoe with excitement, and either on the top of the wave with joy when David had shown some bit of feeling, or in the depths of despair when he had been indifferent or had failed to come to see her for a day or so.
"And then at last, by some means, she managed to bring him down to a discussion of the situation, and David was frank. He said that he cared for her more than for any other girl that he had ever known; that if he would let himself, he would love her desperately;—but that he was not going to let himself. And the reason was that he wanted to keep Hawaiian blood in his descendants. He loved his race. It was dying out, being attenuated by intermarriage with aliens. He was half white, to be sure; but if he married a white woman, his children would be only one-fourth Hawaiian, and he wouldn't have it that way. His mind was made up to marry a Hawaiian girl, or at least one who was not more than half white;—but an all white girl—no, absolutely! Not even though he loved her to distraction! He simply would not do it, and that was that.
"Of course Jean went down into the depths of torment. She was that kind of a girl. She wanted David, and unless she got David, life was an empty fizzle and the world a complete failure. Her mother was sympathetic and tried to comfort her; but there was no comfort anywhere and she continued to kick against the pricks and suffer intolerably. But she was wise enough to hide her wretchedness from David, in order to keep her hold upon him, hoping that the continued contact would eventually break down his determination and that in some moment of temptation he might abandon his dogged course and sacrifice race for love.
"And at last it really began to look as if she were going to be successful; for he came oftener, seeming to be unable to keep away from the fascination of the forbidden companionship; and when he did come, he more and more often gave way to moments of feeling and flashes of tenderness too compelling to be controlled. Jean was in a fever of excitement and so sure of her victory that she believed that each succeeding evening would bring the breaking down of his defenses and his acknowledgment that even his pride of race was well lost for love of her, and she lived from day to day upon her eager anticipations.
"And that was where things stood when one day, while they were out driving, up here on Tantalus, they ran across Evalani Hookano and took her in" for a lift. That was Jean's undoing. David had not seen Evalani since they were kiddies in school, and, just at this stage, she was a revelation to him. She had all of Jean's personality and fascination, and with it she had one-half good Hawaiian blood, the one thing to be desired in David's mate. There were no two ways about it, she was his ideal made real; and Jean no longer existed, so far as he was concerned."
"Evalani Hookano?" questioned Dick; "Is that the name of my neighbor?"
"It was," said Mrs. Sands. "I suppose that I may as well tell you about her now as any time. It's awkward, you see; but she was Jean's half sister."
Dick looked puzzled. Then his face lightened. "Oh," he said, "I see. I suppose that it was another case of the lax morals of the—"
"Of the white man," interpolated Mrs. Sands crisply. "When an educated, well-bred, wealthy white man, more than thirty years old and married, seduces an innocent little sixteen-year-old child, it is scarcely to be considered an indication of lax morals on the part of the race producing the little girl;—not to any person of the slightest intelligence, at least."
"Properly squelched," said Dick, meekly.
"Oh, well, it makes me tired!" protested Mrs. Sands. "These Hawaiian people were isolated for centuries; didn't know, excepting through a few doubtful legends, that there was any place in the world other than these Islands. Why on earth should they have been expected to have developed a system of morals identical with our own? It's idiotic. Systems of morals grow up as the crystallization of the wisest thought of a group of people and are adapted to the conditions in which they find themselves. It isn't common sense to suppose that they would be identical, in a group utterly isolated, with such as has been evolved under absolutely different conditions and among absolutely different natures. And who is to label the various systems 'good' and 'evil'? Who is sufficiently disinterested and unprejudiced to pass upon the question? We white folks think that we are the enlightened ones; but when the enlightened product of our system, mature and supposedly highly civilized, comes out here and with amused contempt takes advantage of the difference (and I do not say the lower grade) of morals worked out by these people through centuries of observation of their own conditions and what was best adapted to them;—when our self-dubbed superior products turn these differences to the gratification of their own selfish lust—whose then is the low grade of character? Who then, ought to wear the garment of contempt?" Mrs. Sands was sitting very straight and her small chin was up and her breath coming with indignant rapidity.
Dick leaned back and regarded steadfastly the end of his cigarette. "Well," he said, "the case is yours without further argument. You have put into very vital words a thought which has raised its head in my mind a dozen times since I have been here. You are absolutely right; also, I thank you for setting it forth so deftly. You have saved me a lot of trouble in working it out for myself."
"Good!" said Mrs. Sands; "Just keep it in mind the next time that you are inclined to talk about lax morals, and be sure that you put the shoe upon the foot that it fits. Well, to go on with the story. Evalani's mother was only sixteen when the house next door was given to her, together with the ground upon which this one stands, and she and her mother, old Mrs. Hookano, came up here on Tantalus to live. A few months after that, Evalani was born and the young mother died, leaving the little one to grow up with the old grandmother, here alone on the ridge of the mountain.
"They were comfortably provided for, apparently; and when Evalani was old enough to go to school, she went down to Honolulu and made her home with an aunt who lived in town. Everyone knew who she was, and in the course of time she, herself, came to know; but Hookano means proud, and she never lost her pride or gave any apparent concern to such innuendo as marked her, but always remained as high-spirited and clean-cut as Jean herself.
When she was about fourteen she went into Punahou School, and Jean was in the same school and the same classes, for they were of nearly the same age. By this time she was so much like her father that even if Mrs. Grundy had not kept on her trail all her life, there could have been no doubt as to her parentage. Excepting that she was dark skinned, she was her father all over again, feature for feature; but with the bronze Hawaiian coloring and wavy black hair."
"I know," said Dick, "I saw her."
"I never did," said Mrs. Sands; "but Jean's mother told me all about it. She said that at school Jean was, at first, desperately humiliated and rebellious. Poor little Mrs. Walters! She has been so wrapped up in her daughter's feelings for so many years, that she has forgotten to have any feelings for herself, and said absolutely nothing about her own humiliation and bitterness, though she was desperately sympathetic for Jean's unhappiness. But fifteen years is a romantic stage and at that age Jean seemed suddenly to have a revulsion of feeling. She went to Evalani and had it out with her; and then came home to announce that Evalani was thenceforth her bosom friend. In answer to protest, she would only say: 'She is my sister,' and that settled all argument. However, Mr. Walters was adamant upon one point, Evalani was never permitted to come to the home. Jean might see her as much as she chose, give her whatever she pleased; but he had manhood enough to spare his wife the humiliation of having to come in contact with her in any manner. Away from home the girls were inseparable, but the gate of the Walters grounds was closed to any encroachment upon 'the sanctity of home' as he virtuously termed it."
"A little late to stage anything like that," commented Dick, briefly.
"Well," went on Mrs. Sands, "as I told you, Jean went to the mainland to school for a short time, and when she came home, Evalani was up here with her grandmother again, and they saw each other less often; and also, Jean's time and thought were taken up with David Malua and she had no leisure for any other type of romance. And then came the day when she and David picked up Evalani on the Tantalus road, and tragedy began to stalk their trail.
"Here was the implacable triangle. Jean's life was bound up in David; David, as I told you, immediately became possessed with the idea that he must have Evalani; while Evalani, as it happened, would have absolutely nothing to do with David. Whether this was out of loyalty to her half sister, or whether it was because of another interest, the fact remained that she would not even permit David to become acquainted with her. She flouted him upon every occasion, eluded him at every turn, was scarcely civil to him when he managed to compass a brief interview; but it made not the slightest difference to David. He didn't have to know her in order to love her, he loved her already; and nothing whatever that she could do and no amount of cold water could discourage his ardor. She was his woman, and he was going to have her.
"As I said before, it may not have been entirely loyalty to Jean which caused Evalani to be so utterly indifferent; for there was another factor in the case, a young civil engineer by the name of Jim McKnight. He was apparently an easy-going, good-looking, blue-eyed youth who enjoyed love-making and didn't worry about ethics. He was supposed to be engaged to Kat Morton, but he used also to try to play around with Jean when David was out of the way. McKnight had been doing some surveying up on one of the Tantalus roads and he had met Evalani out on the trail somewhere, and had haunted the Tantalus bungalow from that time on. Whether Evalani really cared for him or not, is still an open question; but it may have been that he was a factor in her apathy toward David.
"Of course as soon as David showed his preference for Evalani, Jean went all to pieces. The tragedy of the situation tore her romantic soul to rags. Her father's sin was being visited upon her own head, and the injustice of it rankled maddeningly. She had scene after scene with her father, bitterly denouncing him and then rushing off to her room to cry for hours or to rage over the thought that David might even then be with Evalani up on Tantalus, this big mountain which she could see from her window. She would not go near Evalani nor even read a letter which the girl sent to her, but tore it up in a passion and went off into a spasm of weeping and recrimination.
"I think that Mrs. Walters must have suffered as much as her daughter did; for when she told me, she was broken to her very soul with the memory. And so, when she heard that a film company which had been on location in Hawaii had offered Evalani a chance to go with them to the mainland, she went at once to Jean with the story. Jean grasped at the straw. Evalani would make good on the screen, she knew; for the girl was clever, and a wonderful dancer."
"She still is," commented Dick, with conviction.
"—And in school dramatics, she had been top-notch. Unquestionably she might have a career; but the main point was that with her out of the way, David might return to his attendance upon Jean, and in time she might still win his love and overcome his obsession of race.
"Jean got into her roadster and dashed up Tantalus in a daze of hope and eagerness. What took place between the two girls, no one knows; but Jean came back home in a frenzy of joy. Evalani was going. She had promised to go. The company would pay her general expenses, but Evalani must furnish her own outfit, and Jean was going to attend to that. The troupe was going in two weeks, and the following were busy days; Jean buying everything to the extent of her generous allowance, and Mrs. Walters putting in all that she dared draw from her account without exciting comment; for Jean had demanded secrecy from her father, for fear that he might object and in some way prevent Evalani from going. And also secrecy from David, lest he might try to make some move to hinder the carrying out of the project. Jean herself worked madly and impetuously, planning and bringing into being a wonderful outfit, and becoming almost her old self in the enthusiasm of the occupation and the new hope which the event had brought to her.
"But, careful as they were, the secret in some way leaked out; and David, learning of it just two days before the troupe sailed, and unable to compass an interview with Evalani, came as a last resort to Jean to beg of her to intercede for him and to try to, in some way, prevent Evalani from going and to withdraw any assistance which she might be giving to further the project.
"Jean took a firm stand. She would do nothing of the kind. It was Evalani's problem, not hers. If Evalani wanted a career, and she always had wanted to go on the stage, she certainly was not going to do anything to hinder or discourage her; and David was selfish to try to circumvent the girl's ambitions, and ought to be ashamed of himself; especially since he scarcely knew the girl and she cared nothing whatever about him.
"But David was blind and deaf to any argument, and nothing that she said made the slightest difference. Evalani he wanted, and Evalani he must have. If she went to the mainland, then he should follow her. He would throw up his position,—he didn't care if he went to the dogs,—he would follow her to the ends of the earth. Opposition and indifference had only made his infatuation more fervid, and the question of race and progeny was entirely submerged in the one all-absorbing fact that Evalani was his woman and he would have her or die. And with that he flung away out of the house and left Jean to her misery.
"Long into the night Jean still sat there in the darkness on the lanai, silent and white, neither weeping nor moving from the chair where he had left her. Twice her mother came to the door and asked if she could do anything for her; but she only said, 'No, Mother. Please just let me be;' and the mother went back to her room to grieve alone.
"The next morning early Jean got out the roadster and went up Tantalus, her face white and her eyes strange looking and wide with suffering. About noon she came back, and her face had changed. The set look had given place to a queer little smile, more pathetic than any tears, and her lips quivered whenever her mother glanced at her; but she was perfectly calm and all of the stress and strain had gone out of her manner. In answer to her mother's inquiry, she said: 'No, Evalani is not going to the Coast. She is going to stay here. Tomorrow night she will be married to David Malua.' And then she turned and went to her room and closed the door; and did not appear again that day.
"The following morning she had her breakfast in her room and later came out in tramping togs. 'I'm going for a walk,' she said; and when her mother tried to ask her some questions, she only shook her head, with her eyes full of tears, and kissed her mother and went out. Went out like a candle. No one has ever seen her from that day to this."
"She disappeared like that?" exclaimed Dick.
"Just like that. When she didn't come home that night, they started a search for her,—and they are searching yet, now, after four years; for whenever anyone is out on the mountain trails, he always has his eye out for Jean's yellow sweater, down in some gorge or over some precipice; but she has never been found."
Dick looked up at the dark blue-green of the near mountain peaks. "Could anyone be accidentally lost up there?" he asked.
"Oh, indeed yes!" said Mrs. Sands. "Ever so many have been. The jungle is dense; the stag-horn fern grows to anywhere between three and thirty feet, according to what it has to climb on; and the ledges are steep and are masked clear to the very edge by wild growths; and if one loses the trail and follows down a water course instead of keeping to the top of a ridge, he may get into a rock pocket in one of the palis,—and stay there until the winter rains wash down what is left of him. And the worst of it is that he would be able to see the roads and the people passing below, out through the curtain of foliage, but they could not see him and he could not get out of the pocket to wave a signal. Oh, it is ghastly, the things that have happened to unwary trampers who would not keep to the trails!"
"And you think that she may have been lost up there?"
"No," said Mrs. Sands, "I don't. I think that she had come to the end of her trail, and she knew how to cover her take-off; that was all. Of course the mountains were searched in every direction, citizens, soldiers, boy scouts who were familiar with the trails; but no sign of her was brought up. Naturally there were reports of her being seen in all sorts of directions; on the way to the Pali, on the Tantalus road, on the Konahuanui trail, out Palolo Valley, in the water at Waikiki; but no clue ever led to anything. The sailings of all boats were watched, and those under way were searched at their first port of call, without result. Reports of her having been seen on other Islands of the group were run down and petered out to nothing. She simply had dropped out of the world, and that was the end of it.
"And meanwhile David and Evalani were married that same night, knowing nothing of Jean's disappearance. When they did learn of it, David went out on the search like a wild man; but Evalani only stayed in the little home here, with the old grandmother, and refused to see anyone. To be sure she had to be interviewed by the police, but she absolutely refused to be questioned by anyone else, and the police were unable to obtain the slightest clue or suggestion from her. Of course the house was searched, since they knew that the two girls had been close friends and that Jean had been there only the day before, from bottom to top, including the roof, but not a sign of the girl was to be found; and Evalani would only reiterate that she knew absolutely nothing, had not seen Jean since the day before her disappearance; and beg to be spared talking about the matters which were now common property, although of course garbled into a hundred different shapes and forms. In fact, the notoriety seemed to have made her morbid, for she shut herself up at home and scarcely went out at all; and eventually, because of being so hounded by curiosity-seekers who came into the grounds and even peered into the windows, David brought home the grim Chinaman who, from then on, guarded the door as well as cooked and grumbled. And so at last the two newly-weds settled down to try to enjoy their interrupted honeymoon.
"Report says that they were very happy. David was adoring and Evalani gave every evidence of being a deeply devoted wife; and those who now and then met them wandering along the trail in the dusk, always reported David's arm as being about her, and Evalani nestling close to him, exactly as she should.
"Then, as usual, gossip got busy again. David began building this little house for the old grandmother and it was suggested that perhaps things were not quite smooth in the family. Then this was contradicted on the score that the new house was building only because more room was needed, since a newcomer was expected. And interspersed with this were hints that Jim McKnight had not even yet ceased his attentions. People mentioned seeing him on the Tantalus road while David was in town, and one even reported seeing him in the vicinity of the bungalow upon occasion; but as he had another job up here, that was not so much to be wondered at.
"But all of this culminated one day when the men painting the interior of the new house heard angry voices on the next lanai and then a woman's scream, and then a shot; and a moment after, David appeared with McKnight by the scruff of his neck, propelling him down the walk and out onto the road; and for some period thereafter McKnight walked very lame and sported a very elaborate black eye. Who had fired the shot, nobody knew; and as no one appeared to have been injured further than McKnight's rather broken-up condition, the matter was allowed to drop; although there was much speculation and quite a fever of curiosity. However, travelers upon the Tantalus road reported that still when the pair walked in the dusk, his arm held her as close as ever, and she nestled as confidingly; and so they came to the conclusion that McKnight had been entirely unwanted and that he had probably gotten only his just deserts. Also, David then bought the big police dog, and McKnight seemed thereafter to avoid the premises.
"Nevertheless, it soon came out that Evalani had been badly frightened, quite terribly so, whatever its occasion; for although she continued to go out a little with David, in the dusk, she seemed very weak; and shortly she ceased to go out at all. Of course, there were curious ones, with nothing else to do, who found it interesting to follow the course of events, when they went out with their cars in the evening;—and then they regaled Mrs. Grundy with the results.
"And then the little one came. No one was there but the grandmother and a Japanese maid in the kitchen to help out, and the old Chinaman. The maid never saw the child, but she told afterward what happened. She said that when David came home, the grandmother told him that the child was a boy, but that Evalani was too ill to see him until tomorrow. And the next day, Evalani was still too ill to see him; and he chafed and demanded to see his son; but the old woman refused, said that the baby was too little and must not be brought out, and that Evalani must not be disturbed. For four days the old woman stood between him and his wife and child; and then one evening he came home and strode into the house and shoved roughly past the old woman and into his wife's room.
"He stayed for only a moment, and while he was there, he never spoke a word. The walls are thin and the maid could have heard; but not one word did he speak. And then he strode out of the room again, and his face was like iron. He went straight out through the garden, through the break in the hedge and on up the Tantalus road. When he reached the road-makers' camp, he went to McKnight's tent. McKnight came to the flap just as David came into the camp. David walked straight up to him, looked him in the eye for a moment, and then drew a gun and shot him through the heart. Then he turned the gun upon himself and blew out his own brains."
Dick's hands clenched. "God!" he said, "What a man!"
"Yes," said Mrs. Sands, "Dreadful as it was, it was somehow splendid. David had longed for his child, for his Hawaiian son, and the son was—an idiot—because of this man's evilness. With that direct mind of his, he went straight to the source of the trouble, wiped it out; and then, to finish up clean and save himself and Evalani from the torture and publicity of trial, he took himself off with the same breath. I think that I should have adored David Malua."
"And what happened then?" asked Dick.
"Well, that is about all. There was no one to punish for David's crime; nothing to do but to put the matter on record, bury the dead, and then turn attention to other things, as is the way of the world. Evalani stayed right here, her grandmother moved back into the house with her, and no one has ever yet seen the poor baby, though it must be three years old now. The dog and the Chinaman keep guard of the house, the old grandmother is always there and Evalani never goes down to town, and only rarely ventures out on the mountain trails, and then always takes the dog with her and no one ever tries to talk to her now. The few who dared to pass the time of day, were answered with only a cold stare or else utterly ignored. And so that is why the Kat sisters gave them the names of Pupu-le and Lolo, the crazy and the idiot. Pathetic, isn't it, now that you know?"
"Yes," said Dick, gravely, "Very pathetic. It makes my blunder all the more ghastly and unforgivable. I wonder how they ever happened to rent this house, since they are so anxious for isolation."
"Well," said Mrs. Sands, "they do say that Mr. Walters has had some bad reverses lately, and probably he has not been supplying sufficient funds, and I suppose that they are close run and need the money which it brings in. They have never rented it before, and I don't think that it is generally known that they have done so now. I was going to mention it casually before Mr. Walters, in the hope that it might induce him to be a little more generous; but when Mrs. Walters begged me to try to get you to help her toward learning some little comforting word about her daughter, I hadn't the heart to refuse; and unless they needed the money, they would probably withdraw the house. You see, at first Mrs. Walters didn't want to see the girl; but now she has grieved so long and so hopelessly that I think that if we could manage to arrange an interview between them, it would mean a very great deal to the mother. They both loved Jean, you know."
"But," objected Dick, "If the girl is crazy—"
"I don't believe she's crazy at all," protested Mrs. Sands; "And the reason I don't, is because she is acting exactly as I would have acted in the same circumstances. I would have hated people who wanted to come prying into my sorrow; I would have stared at them as if I were a stone image; and I would have shut up my little child, away from the curious eyes of the world, exactly as she has done. No, I don't see a single crazy thing about her. And I know, too, that if I were in the same situation and could be made to understand what an interview would mean to Jean's mother, I certainly would see her, no matter what it cost me; and so I believe that if we, either you or I or both of us together, can make her understand that, she will really see her. Surely, Mr. Harris, it is worth trying. We have nothing to lose and the poor mother has everything to gain. Won't you help me?"
Dick stood up and folded his arms. "Mrs. Sands, I will," he said. "I don't know how I can manage it or where I can begin; but if there is any way that I can bring about such an interview, I give you my word of honor that I will do it."
Mrs. Sands stood up also and held out her hand, her boyish grin broadly in evidence and her small head thrown back at a spirited angle. "Good!" she said. "Mr. Harris, we're partners. Now, you give the ground a careful going over and figure out what the best mode of action will be and I'll come up again before long and we'll see what our grey matter has evolved by that time. You're starting with a handicap, but that only adds zest, and you have the advantage of propinquity."
"Propinquity!" gibed Dick. "You have propinquity with a girl when you're dancing with her and walking all over her corns, don't you? But it doesn't get you anywhere!"
Bert Sands laughed as she slid into the seat of the grey roadster. "Well, you and the girl are not strangers, anyhow, and that's something."
"It remains to be seen whether we are strangers or not," stated Dick grimly; and Bert laughed again as she drove away.