The Queen of Far-Away

by Inez Haynes Irwin

 

The Queen of Far-Away

By INEZ HAYNES

Illustrated by Jerome Phillips Uhi

If Carow had heard the mouthful of syllables that the brakeman threw at him from the platform, he might have identified the station. As it was, he did not heed, and only glanced abstractedly out of the window as the train stopped, noticing nothing. He was glad that he would continue to have the whole coach to himself. Again he leaned comfortably back, and stretched his lithe six feet of length diagonally across the two seats that he had pre-empted. He pulled out of his pocket a little yellow-covered book and opened it. The train started. He was yawning in relief, when, suddenly, to his disgust, he heard the frou-frou of skirts coming toward him from the rear of the car.

He took his feet off the seat opposite him with a sigh.

But, after all, a woman, segregated from her kind in the solitude of the coach and an hour's railway journey, might prove interesting. Besides, the frou-frou was a remarkably pleasant thing to hear; its crisp sweep and swish was agreeably mysterious. There was a little voluntary stop, then it began again, gaining in silken volume as it approached. Just at his elbow it ceased a second time; the lady, Carow concluded without turning, was about to seat herself in the place across the way.

Instead, a voice broke the silence. It was somewhat plaintive in tone, a trifle ennuyée in expression, and delicately interrogative.

“I beg pardon,” it said, “this is Mr. Carow—Mr. Carleton Carow, is it not?” Carow turned and then jumped to his feet. In that confused instant, as he looked straight into her eyes, his annoyance vanished; instead, he found himself dazed by her beauty.

“Yes—I think so—I have every reason to believe so,” he stammered. “I give you my word I am!” he asserted, gravely, pulling himself together, with his eyes still admiringly on her.

HE WAS GLAD THAT HE WOULD CONTINUE TO HAVE THE WHOLE COACH TO HIMSELF.

He saw a very pretty woman graciously hovering just this side of thirty. She was either a red-haired brunette, or a dark-eyed blonde, which, he could not, at once, determine. She was, at any rate, rather tall, very slender, and extremely elegant. She was looking at him out of clear, dark eyes that brimmed with light and mischief. He noted categorically that their pupils were of ebony and their irises of amber, that they were shaded by gold-tipped, dark lashes, and accented by slender brows outlining the arch of her ivory lids, and that they were set at a distance, maddeningly piquant, from a delicate, upturned nose. Her thin upper lip raised itself, on each side of the crease in its centre, into the two little red tips that actresses, in their make-up, always create or intensify. The lower lip, on the other hand, was distinctly full. When she smiled, as she did soon, it was vouchsafed to Carow to see that her mouth was precious with pearl.

“I mean Mr. Carow, the poet, you know,” she announced prettily, smiling.

“I've even got to admit that,” he confessed, groaningly. “You won't think the less of me?” he hazarded, as she continued largessing the generous glory of her smile.

“I shall think very well of you indeed,” she asserted, “that is—if—if you—would you—will you be so kind? Could one sit with you?”

“I beg your pardon—I am beyond description felicitated—it did not occur to me—” he threw his stick, his overcoat, and his bags in a reckless heap on to the seat in front. She seated herself calmly opposite him.

She wore a long pongee outer coat, with broad cuffs, and a series of three capes; it was buttoned to the very hem with big pearl buttons. From the brim of her black straw hat hung a cobweb film of veil to just below the tip of her nose, and above that, draped over the brim, a thicker, heavier veil. She carried, in one hand, a pongee parasol and in the other, which was bare, she held a glove and something, the sight of which, even after an interval of ten years, always made Carow's heart throb faintly—a little thin book, in white and green. It was his first volume of verse.

“You will think it most extraordinary,” she said, “but frankly, I've been always curious about you—I've read your poetry—a very great deal of it, all of it, in fact—I think I own every book you've published—I've really wanted to know you, I recognized you the instant I entered the car—and the impulse seized me—if the car had been crowded, I couldn't have done it, but when I saw that you were all alone—that you were quite at my mercy—it seemed a heaven-sent opportunity.” She stopped abruptly.

Carow looked nonplussed. He glanced inquiringly at his companion. Her lips were still smiling, but a velvety pink flush had crept to the soft hair-line that outlined wavily her low forehead and her pearly temples; it even dyed the cream of her soft, creased throat.

“You'll think awfully ill of me, I fear,” she ended.

“My dear lady,” Carow answered, “it's impossible to think at all—you take my breath away. But it is with happiness, I assure you.”

“I hope I'm not interrupting anything,” she went on prettily. “Let me see,” she mused, “what could you possibly do?—you've been at the Farringtons all summer—and you're going up to town for the first time. There's nobody to whom you could talk, if I were not here—and surely you don't compose upon the trains.”

Carow's face had undergone the full gamut of its expressions of surprise.

“I sha'n't compose on this train,” he assured her.

“Of course, you might read,” she went on, “you were reading when I approached. But surely I'm better than a book.”

“You're better than anything I can think of,” he asserted, strenuously. “May I ask you how you know so many things about me?”

“That's what most emphatically you can't ask,” she answered promptly.

“You have me at your mercy,” he sighed.

Her color was receding by faint degrees. She smiled delicately and her coquettish lashes swept down, entirely obliterating the radiant eyes. “But what annoys me is—I'm afraid you won't differentiate me from others—from the crowd who—I am told, are always forcing their acquaintance upon you. I want you to remember me, to think of me as separate and distinct—and I don't mind admitting I'm bothered to death to know how to accomplish it. I shall have to be abnormally clever—but with all my efforts. I'm awfully in dread that I shall not stand out from the rest.”

“THIS IS MR. CAROW—MR. CARLETON CAROW, IS IT NOT?”

“You're in no danger of such an unthinkable thing,” he announced, tranquilly; “that's the last thing in the world you need be afraid of.”

“But I fancy,” she sighed, her lips rippling into unconquerable smiles, turning the full light of her mischievous glance upon him, “I fancy there have been a great many such, haven't there?”

“Fewer than you imagine.”

“How few, and what are they like?” she asked, with airy impudence.

“If my memory serves me rightly, they have been in number exactly three,” he responded, “they have been of a sex, feminine, of a physique, thin, of an expression, vinegary, of a class, old maid. Do you recognize the type?” he asked.

“Indeed I do,” she sighed. Again her white lids forced her amber-black eyes into temporary eclipse. “You might even accuse me of belonging to it,” she admitted, humbly.

“Oh, nonsense.”

“You don't believe me,” she protested.

“It's perfectly impossible.”

“I assure you I'm not married.”

“I know—I've already taken the pains to ascertain that you wear no wedding-ring.”

“When?” she demanded.

SHE LEANED TOWARD HIM OUT OF THE STILL UNSHUT DOOR.

“The instant after I had looked at you.”

She laughed.

“You make it very pleasant for me—I shall assuredly spend the rest of this hour with you.” She pushed the infinitesimal veil up over the crown of her hat and unbuttoned her long coat. The delicate film of a batiste gown appeared in the opening. Then she paused. Suddenly, as if yielding to an impulse, she removed her hat.

“Would you be so good as to put it with my parasol?” she begged.

Carow took it gingerly and placed it with the maze of little pinked ruffles on the seat in front. Then he leaned his elbow on the window-sill and surveyed her critically.

“I say, it's awfully good of you—you know——” he burst out.

“What's good of me?” she asked.

“To give me your company, to sit down beside me, to let me see your hair, a dozen, a million things.”

She darted a little sidewise, quizzical glance at him. “I've very nice hair—don't you think—such as it is?”

“Yes,” he admitted, “what there is of it, and you're extravagant with it.” He paused an instant.

“How am I going to break it to her?” he reflected, audibly.

“Break what?” she inquired.

“That she has the advantage of me; that I perfectly remember her face—her divinely beautiful and rememberable face—but that it is her name, her incorrigible, her mysterious, her easily forgotten name, that has slipped from my traitor memory.”

She rippled out a laugh that had the bubbling music of imprisoned water flowing out of a narrow -necked bottle. “You sha'n't catch me that way,” she mocked. “Of course, I have the advantage of you, you never saw me before in your life. Confess, you never saw me before!”

Carow looked at her. He looked at her very hard, but the undertaking did not appear to tire him. She frankly turned her full face up to his scrutiny and she even banished, for so serious an occasion, the splendors of her distracting smile. Carow gazed deep down into the black centres of the amber eyes. It was the lady who finally turned away her head.

“Confess,” she demanded.

Carow sighed. “I have never seen you before in my life,” he admitted. “Unlucky beggar that I am.”

“I can't tell you who I am,” she explained. “You see this is more or less of an adventure for me, undertaken, you understand, in the pure spirit of romance. I can't put it through except as an inconnue. You must not ask me who I am.”

“Oh, very well,” he sighed, “it shall be as you wish, of course.”

“Only—only—I beg of you don't think me——” her exquisite brows bristled into a portentous array of vertical wrinkles—“pray don't think me—the wrong sort.”

“It would not be possible,” he asserted, gravely.

She looked at him curiously. Then she laughed. “When do you sail?” she added, irrelevantly.

“To-morrow.”

“To-morrow. O favored of the gods! And you had just returned in the spring—let me see—March 2d—you call that spring, don't you?”

Carow moved restlessly. “You'll drive me mad,” he murmured, “but go on and finish the job—why don't you come to Paris, too?”

“I'm too poor now—it happens; and I'm absolutely in rags—if ever a woman was hungry for Paris—I shall go in the spring, however.”

“Just as I return—oh, please don't go until the fall—I beg of you, don't go until the fall.”

She laughed. “Nonsense.”

“Don't you see—hang it—I can't get back until the spring—you're not giving me a chance.”

“Nonsense.”

“You're taking a cruel advantage of me—you're pitting your strength against my weakness—you're even hitting a man when he's down.”

“Nonsense.”

He groaned. “Heaven, I've a mind to abduct you.” He leaned forward and picked up the little book that she had carried. He glanced carelessly at the pages at which it opened, they were profusely marked and commented upon. Simultaneously, she seized the book from his hands. Involuntarily, his grip hardened.

“Please don't look at it,” she implored. He released the book immediately. She still held it tight with her two slender hands. They were very white with pink tips, and their swift contact had been marble and velvet. Carow looked at her contritely. Her transitory flush had come again, effacing completely the pearl and alabaster values of her wonderful skin.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “You see, I always feel that it is my book.”

“I wouldn't mind,” she said, impulsively, “if it were not that the markings are Ardroe's”—she stopped abruptly.

“Ardroe's?” he questioned, quickly.

“How stupid of me,” she exclaimed. Her eyelids fell and she frowned. “I didn't mean to mention her name—or anybody's.”

“But you mean Ardroe Garland—I am very sure of that?” he questioned.

“Yes.”

Carow looked out of the window. “I used to know Ardroe Garland,” he said, and he frowned slightly, “when she was Ardroe Kenyon. We were children together. I have not seen her since the old Chesborough days when she was twelve—I have always remembered her clearly—do you mind telling me about her?”

“I see no reason why I shouldn't,” she answered. “I know her very well, after a fashion—much better than she knows me—and, I am fond of her.”

“Is she well?”

“Very.”

“And happy?”

“Oh, reasonably so—she's young—frivolous—not abjectly destitute and a widow—heaven!”

“Is she pretty?”

She laughed again. “I'm really getting jealous, why drag her into the conversation?” she asked.

“Were you one of her playmates too?” Carow queried, interestedly, in another second.

“I knew her a little when we were children, but not so well as I know her now.”

“Merciful heavens—and did I, by chance, ever see you? Did I?”

“You said a few moments ago—that you had never seen me in your life——”

“Did I?”

“——unlucky beggar that you were.”

“Did I?”

She turned and looked at him squarely. Her strange eyes crinkled and her lips rippled into the most delicious of smiles. She nodded finally.

“I knew you?”

“Very well.”

“Imperial Jove! Then tell me who you were.”

“I can't.”

“I entreat you.

“It is impossible.”

“But if——”

“See—” she interrupted—“we're getting into Boston—there's the South Station.” She looked at him with eyes maliciously radiant. “You must leave me soon.”

“Let me take you home?”

“No.”

“Let me walk a little way with you?”

“No.”

“Let me see you to-night—don't you see—I sail to-morrow?”

“No.”

“Let me write you—or will you write me—write to me anonymously—if you wish—any way so long as you'll write—will you?”

“No.”

“He leaned back in his seat. But the train had stopped. She had been composedly putting on her hat, buttoning up the long coat, drawing on the long suède gloves. Mechanically, he gathered up her parasol and her book. Then he picked up his own belongings.

“Heavens, I'm at my wits' end,” he acknowledged. He walked beside her out of the coach.

“You may put me in a carriage,” she conceded. “I want to go to the Touraine first. I'm lunching with some friends there.”

He called a carriage and put her into it. She leaned toward him out of the still unshut door. “I've had a pleasant hour,” she admitted, tantalizingly; “it has been quite all I expected. You're very charming—you've been quite personal enough for the most womanish of women. I think you've scarcely let the conversation get off me once, even when there was a chance to turn it toward your own verse.” She laughed infectiously.

“I say,” Carow broke in, unheedingly, “don't throw me over like this. I shall be at home in the spring—let me find you. I don't ask for any clews, but pray let me earn you—you do live somewhere about where you got on the train?”

She did not assent. But, on the other hand, she did not dissent. She smiled at him again more tantalizingly than ever because at this moment there was in her smile a dangerous element, a sudden rush of sweetness. “Won't you tell the man to take me into the Touraine?” she suggested.

HE MOVED FROM THE COUCH AND KNELT DOWN BESIDE HER.

“One moment,” Carow dared, moving on to the carriage-step and leaning forward in the carriage. “You do give me permission to find you?”

“Yes—yes—if I'm here.”

“Give me a month after I get back, just a month. Don't go to Paris until a month after my return. Promise!”

She looked up at him. He filled the door-way. He seemed to fill the carriage. His flaming blue eyes were looking straight into hers. her scarlet lips parted and a look of alarm began to grow in her deep eyes.

“I promise,” she whispered.

Carow bent farther in—his lips were almost level with hers. He put one hand on the book in her lap, but he did not touch the little bare hand that held it. “Give me something of yours to carry with me,” he pleaded, “give me this book—think how long it will be—give me something.”

“But Ardroe——” she said, weakly.

“Get her another copy. Give this to me.”

She held the book hesitatingly up to him. He took it—and as he took it, all in an instant, he brushed the whole length of the hand that held it with his lips. Then he gave her a quick little glance, jumped out and signalled the driver to go on.

The carriage disappeared around the corner, and Carow was left leaning against a lamp-post, the touch of her velvet flesh still living in fire on his lips; his blood turned suddenly molten and his heart pounded furiously against his side. He was clear only on one thing, that his lips had surprised a sudden tremble in her cool flesh, that his last glance had caught a sudden rush, not of pink but of crimson, on her delicate cheek, a sudden, passionate fire in her strange, amber-black eyes.

••••••

Carow lay all that night tossing and turning, trying to impale his childhood's past on his memory. His thoughts went rushing down again and again every path that led to the misty places of twenty years ago. He found he could remember Ardroe, not nearly so clearly as he had fancied. She had been his childish sweetheart, chosen by him because of her tomboyship—and a rather remarkable quality of camaraderie. She was a red-headed child whom in moments of rage he called “Carrots,” alive, alert, sentient, remarkably active. From the rest, Jack Garland, who had married her, stood out most prominently—the other children of the neighborhood filled the picture in varying degrees of ghostliness. No one of them suggested very clearly the lady of the morning.

The problem haunted him. He ransacked every memory of the old Chesborough days trying to find a clew out of his dilemma.

He had, more than once, had an opportunity of renewing his friendship with Ardroe, but although Chesborough was so near Mexum, where Carow spent much of his time with the Farringtons, he had never cared to run over to renew his memories. This was in part due to the fact that his first volume of verse had celebrated its lanes and ponds and hillsides, and he had an almost superstitious feeling against disturbing his early impressions. During these years he had been three times invited to Ardroe Garland's house with Tom Farrington, who went there often. The first time he was too ill to go, the second time too lazy, the third time too busy. Then the invitations had stopped.

The next morning Carow wrote to Farrington:

“I was able to render some slight assistance to a glorious creature who got on the train yesterday somewhere near Assyria—who can she possibly be?—not quite thirty, I should say, red-haired, dark-eyed, slender, unmarried, very elegant, very much of the gay world—fond of Paris, was reading the first volume of that unappreciated minor poet, C. Carow—a copy that belongs to Ardroe Garland. Move heaven and earth, Tom, to find out who she is. Send news as soon as possible, as usual, care of Baring Brothers.”

A VERY PRETTY WOMAN, GRACIOUSLY CLOSE ON THIRTY.

He took his perplexity aboard the steamer with him, and it throve on the sea air. He received a letter from Farrington soon after reaching the other side. “Have made every possible inquiry,” it ran, “but your incuonnue remains a mystery still. Went over to see Mrs. Garland the next day, and we racked our brains together. She says that she's the only pretty woman under thirty that she knows of in a radius of twenty miles. She went immediately to look for her copy of your verses which she insisted she had not lent, and found it gone. She can't possibly think who has it, but she will know, of course, when it is returned. She entertains, in one way or another, hundreds of people during the year, and it is, she finds, very hard to recall them all. Will write more as the news develops. Mother sends, etc., etc.”

Carow found very engrossing the collaborating work that had brought him to Paris. Nevertheless he discovered himself working with a strenuousness that he had never before achieved, in the superhuman effort to eat up and diminish, if possible, the months that lay between him and spring. He wrote to Tom Farrington with a constancy that deceived neither and amused them both. And he watched the mails like a detective. At Christmas-time Tom wrote him that Mrs. Garland had received a fresh copy of Carow's early verses unaccompanied by any card and directed in an unknown handwriting. But she was hoping to solve the mystery.

This little event, curiously enough, heartened him considerably, and he lived for weeks in the hope of a clew. But by the last of March Paris was ashes in his nostrils and dust in his mouth, though he worked with a dogged persistence. In the middle of April he sailed for home, two weeks ahead of time.

He went immediately to the Farringtons. Tom was away, but Mrs. Farrington welcomed him with her usual hospitality. Mrs. Garland, he found, to his disappointment, was away also, for a month; there was no help to be obtained from that quarter. He procured a map of the country and studied it minutely. He visited all the neighboring towns many times and at different times in the day. He went on foot, on horseback, by wheel, and by train. He explored their main streets, their side streets, their out-of-the-way roads, their alleys and lanes. He made all sorts of veiled and roundabout inquiries. He got out of the exploration only the conclusion that most of the inhabitants of middle Massachusetts wore goggles. He went to town twice a week on a particular train and returned on the next. As he approached Assyria his heart began always to pound against his ribs in an agony of expectation. Six weeks went by like a flash; he had gained nothing.

•••••••

The last day in May Carow worked late into the evening. About eleven he threw his pencil down and left the house. He strolled slowly out of the Farrington estate to follow for a space the main-travelled road. The moon was up, covering the world with its white magic. The young, green things on both sides of the road were distilling all sorts of sweet, spring savors, and he could begin to hear faintly the boom of the sea. Presently, he turned into a narrow road, bushed heavily on either side. He followed that until it debouched upon the broad Mexum beach. He strolled the whole length of the shore until it shot barringly out from under a huge cliff into a long rocky point. He picked his way to a secluded spot and sat down. It was a comfortable nook, floored with sand and surrounded with rock. He stared out into the sea and thought.

He had lost her, of course; of that he was certain. She would sail for Europe soon. He could, of course, shadow the outgoing transatlantic steamers from Boston at least, but there was very little chance of finding her that way. Why hadn't he followed her to the Touraine that day? Why hadn't he in every way demanded a surer knowledge of her—why—a million things?

Carow stared up into the sky. The stars were faint in the brilliant wash of the moonlight, but there was a band of diamonds sparkling on the sea. The zenith was, for the moment, clear, but big, soft clouds were coming up from the horizon.

How beautiful she was! How straight and elegant her lithe figure, swaying in the muffling folds of her long cloak. Her hair. The maze of its brightness where honey-color ran into gold and then both deepened gloriously to red, its distracting ripples, the big, soft bunch, like massy gold at her neck, the fine-spun ringlets that clustered about her little ears. And such eyes! The depths of amber and gold in their irises, surrounding pupils like ebony, their look of radiant mischief, the coquettish sweep of her gold-tipped lashes.

He recalled the clear-cut, dewy corners of her lips, their luscious fulness, the two little red tips so distinctly outlined on each side of the crease in the upper lip, the line of pearl that her rippling laugh disclosed. The vision thrilled him.

He heard footsteps approaching him, a belated member of the life-saving crew, he supposed; he did not sit up. The footsteps came nearer and nearer. They stopped abruptly.

“Confound it!” he thought to himself, “have I got to talk to somebody?” He waited without looking up.

“I beg pardon,” a voice like silver broke the silence, “is this Mr. Carow, Mr. Carleton Carow?”

He turned and was on his feet like a shot. The lady of the train was standing in the moonlight in front of him. Carow did not speak, he simply stared at her, his face a little white. As before, she wore a long cloak, but this one was of heavy, black satin, with cascades of lace. She wore on her head a huge fichu of soft, creamy Spanish lace, but he could see that in her hair, built high into a marvel of waves and ripples, there were dying some little creamy garden roses. Through the opening of her cloak, it could be seen that she was wearing a light evening dress.

She burst into her rippling laugh again. “I mean Mr. Carow, the poet,” she repeated herself bewitchingly.

“Is it really you?” Carow asked simply, “Tell me I am not dreaming.”

She laughed again. “Could one sit beside you?” she asked.

Carow drew off his coat and threw it on the sand against a rock. She seated herself languidly. She drew off the scarf from her head and threw her cloak back. For a second, before she had adjusted the scarf about the neck, Carow caught dazzling glimpses of her velvet flesh. Simultaneously, a delicate stir, as of fresh violets, made itself felt in the air. His senses reeled and his head swam.

“Do tell me that you're glad to see me,” she begged with elaborate earnestness.

“Glad,” he leaned forward and looked at her, his eyes like blue flames. “Oh, the futility, the banality of words. I've absolutely no phrases—my whole vocabulary has departed. I was so afraid I'd lost you.”

“Oh, but you have lost me—you didn't find me, you know. Your month is up tonight—just five minutes ago, at twelve—and you've had two weeks added on.”

He laughed. “It will be very difficult to convince me of that,” he said, tranquilly.

“I sail Wednesday,” she remarked.

“So do I.”

“What nonsense. You've just come home.”

“I know it—and when I left, Paris was nearly as interesting as the crater of an extinct volcano. It is surprising though what glamours it takes on when I think of being there with you.”

“I've changed my mind about going,” she announced.

“It's curious;” he confessed, “so have I.”

“But you know really you haven't found me yet.”

“What do you call this?”

“I found you.”

“Oh, I'm not particular how it comes about. All I can realize is that I have got you now, I sha'n't give you up in a hurry! And besides, in the last six weeks, I have done searching enough to achieve anything.”

She dimpled, “I know it.”

“You know it. How do you know it?”

“I've seen you half a dozen times.”

“Where—by all that's holy?”

“I've always been in my carriage. When I saw you coming, I used simply to slip on a pair of black goggles.”

Carow groaned. “You fiend.”

“And twice I've been by this place at night—up there on the cliff when you were; sitting here.”

“And you didn't put me out of my misery. You—you—oh, you're unspeakable.”

“Surely you're not going to complain. This is twice I've forced myself upon you.”

Carow laughed shortly, “No, I'm not going to complain,” he said. He leaned back against a rock and folded his hands behind his head. He looked at her with steady, half-shut eyes. “I sha'n't complain.” he said again. “By the way,” he continued, pulling himself together, “how did you get here?”

“I drove—the horse is tied in the little clump of bushes at the foot of the cliff. I must go presently—in a few minutes.”

Carow smiled. “I will take you home.”

“But there's no way of your getting back.”

“I can walk.”

“And I haven't decided that I shall let you find me yet——”

“My dear lady,” Carow said. “Do you think I shall permit myself to lose you again? Give me an hour. Surely, I've earned an hour after all these months.”

“Have you really thought of me in all these months in Paris?” she asked after a pause. “One read of gayeties galore and of such ovations!”

Carow looked out at sea. “I can see every line of your face,” he said dreamily, “every curve and dimple; I know just how gold are the irises of your eyes and just the exact tint of the strawberry redness of your lips. I can draw the exquisite curving line in which your hair grows on your forehead—and the surprising dips and scallops it makes on your neck.”

“Can you draw the freckles on my nose?” she inquired, interestedly.

“There were no freckles on your nose—and, by the way, it's quite the most bewitching of noses—when last I saw it. But I'm very glad they're there, they afford me a new beauty to study. Though why I should wish to add to your wiles is beyond me.”

She was silent a moment. Then she leaned more comfortably back and put her shapely clasped hands back of her little head.

“Tell me about Paris,” she said.

Carow pulled himself up and about, sitting in Turk fashion, his hands clasped about his knees, where he could look at her face. The salt wind blew coolly in from the ocean, the moon dipped lower and lower in the sky. The lady lay, her eyelids half down—their long fringes half revealing the liquid sparkle of the eyes they veiled. He talked, almost continuously, but it was not about Paris.

••••••

“Oh,” she said, at length, rousing herself, “that hour must have more than gone. Will you permit me?” she implored. His eyes permitted anything and she stretched herself delicately, turning her head to conceal her yawn. Carow, looking seaward, was suddenly conscious that the hour had indeed more than gone.

“I have kept you too long,” he said regretfully.

“Nobody knows and nobody cares,” she reassured him.

“Only,” she went on, “you must not accompany me to my home.”

“I must.”

“Please,” she begged graciously.

“I must.”

She arose and looked seriously out to sea. Suddenly she dropped her hands. “I must ask you not to persist in going home with me,” she said.

“I realize,” Carow bowed slightly, “that I have forfeited every privilege by boring you to death.”

She did not reply. They walked in silence to her carriage.

“Good-by,” she said, her foot on the step.

“Oh, don't say good-by,” Carow groaned. “Take off your d(^,” he said, imperiously. “Let me look at you.”

As though yielding, half through coquetry, half against her will, she slipped the big-sleeved cloak off, and let it fall into a glistening heap at her feet. She was wearing a cream-colored crêpe gown; there were billows of yellowish old-looking lace about the neck and sleeves. The corsage left bare a square of her delicate flesh, the sleeves uncovered bare triangles of her dazzling shoulders. There was a string of pearls about her throat.

“Heavens, how lovely she is!” Carow thought. He stooped and picked up her cloak. “Put this on,” he said, inconsistently and almost roughly, “you'll catch cold.” He held it and she slipped her arms back into the capacious sleeves. The service brought him very near to her. Carow suddenly lost his head and took her in his arms. A moment later he released her muttering a shamefaced apology. With careful precision she adjusted the yellow scarf of Spanish lace about her neck. Then she stepped into the carriage. Carow gathered up the reins and handed them to her. His face was pale as he stood looking at her.

“I suppose I have offended past forgiveness,” he said, steadily, “but remember, I don't give you up.”

She bowed formally. The horse started forward.

“Remember,” he flung after her.

There was no reply. He watched her carriage out of sight.

••••••

Carow did not sleep very well that night. He could not write the next morning; nor did he seem able to find anything to do that interested him for more than a moment. At noon he received a letter by special delivery. The writing was familiar. As he glanced at the contents, he realized in a flash that it was the same that graced the little volume of his first verse that his inconnue had permitted him to carry to Paris.

“Will you help me out of the most annoying of dilemmas?” it ran. “Especially when I throw myself on your mercy and tell you frankly that I am asking you as a substitute. Mr. Benedict Worth, whom you perhaps remember in the old Chesborough days, cannot dine, as he promised he would, to-morrow at six with me. Will you come and take his place? The Blakes and the Alexanders will be there. I shall be infinitely obliged.

“Au désespoir,
“Ardroe Garland.”

Carow accepted the invitation with alacrity and by telegram. He was reasonably sure thereby, he felt, of a few hours' freedom from himself and his thoughts. And it occurred to him in persistent reiteration, that perhaps he could discover in collaboration with Mrs. Garland, more successfully than with Tom Farrington, the identity of the unknown lady. At six o'clock the carriage had deposited him at “Five Cliffs,” Mrs. Garland's house.

A man-servant answered his ring. He was ushered into a big, low-ceilinged living-room. It was empty, and he conjectured that the other guests had not arrived. He gave his name to the man, who returned presently with Mrs. Garland's excuses and the news that she would be down presently.

Carow glanced absently about. He noticed unheedingly the scheme of the room. He approved indifferently of the low, big-raftered ceiling, stained green, and of the big fireplace, and he was critically indulgent of the pervading femininity; the window-couches and cushions, the many little tables, and the many comfortable green wicker-chairs all up holstered in a cool, forest-colored green, in leather or velours.

Suddenly he heard the silken rustle of a woman's skirt coming, evidently, down the stairs and crossing the broad hall. Involuntarily, his thoughts rushed back in memory to that day in the car when he had heard the frou-frou of another woman's skirt. His heart throbbed painfully and for a second he looked somberly off to sea, oblivious of the present.

Then he jumped to his feet and turned to meet his hostess who stood in the doorway, her hands holding each side, like a picture supporting itself in its frame.

She was dressed in a long, black gown, sequined heavily in black and silver. It left bare a rounded segment of her white neck and then it fell, moulding itself jealously to the lithe, elegant figure. Her hair was knotted in a red-gold bunch on her white neck. She was a very pretty woman graciously close on thirty. Her eyes had amber irises and ebony centres and they were radiantly mischievous in expression. Underlying this, there was, however, at that moment a look a little appealing and wistful—a look trustful and sweet—the look of a coquette who is a woman at heart.

Carow stared at her. “How—” he began, stammeringly, “you're Ardroe Garland!” he apprised her instantaneously, and he sat down very suddenly, as if the shock had been too much for him. But he rose immediately.

She laughed ringingly. “And you never guessed once?” she said, “haven't I managed well?”

“I—I—” he looked helplessly out seaward, “I can't understand or imagine or believe my eyes.”

A soft, pink flush had arisen, blotting out the pearly tones from her delicate skin, and suddenly as he looked, the mischievous brightness of her eyes was cancelled by tears. She half raised her slender, long arms. Then she dropped them again.

“Oh, what do you think of me?” she asked.

Carow walked quietly across the room to where she stood, gazing at her steadily. He closed the portière behind her. Then he led her back into the room to the couch and seated himself beside her.

“I think only that I love you, and that I have found you,” he said quietly.

Her head lay back against the green leather of the couch. Her wet lashes shone iridescently, but her lips smiled tremblingly.

He leaned forward and stared up at her, resting his elbows on his knees.

He moved restlessly toward her. She arose and seated herself in a chair.

He moved from the couch and knelt down beside her. He took her hand. “When will you marry me?” he asked, simply.

“Hear the man!” she exclaimed. She withdrew her hand, but gazed indulgently down upon him. “Since when has the word 'marriage' been entered in his dictionary? And when has one ever referred to it with him? Could it be said that one had even faintly encouraged him?” Her eyes mocked him.

Carow arose. “When will you marry me?” he asked again.

“You looked very pale and tired when I came in——” she observed, seriously.

“Perhaps,” he admitted, uninterestedly. “I don't recall that I slept last night.”

“Nor I—much,” she acknowledged, “but you don't look pale now,” she went on. ^

“No,” he laughed, “I have had an elixir. When will you marry me?” he observed, for the third time, but still with the casual note in his voice.

She did not answer him.

Her big eyes gazed fascinatedly up into his. Her lips parted and her breath began to come hurriedly. Carow bent still further and kissed her full on her scarlet lips. “Answer me,” he commanded imperiously, “I'll not wait another second. Quick, now, before the rest of the people come and interrupt us!”

“There are no people coming,” she said, smiling faintly, “the dinner-party's all a myth. I've even packed Auntie away for dinner and the evening. We are to dine alone!”