The Maker of Opportunities Part 11

"Oh, yes," he said, promptly, "of course you would. A rich man has about as much chance of entering the Kingdom of Romance as the Biblical camel has to get through the eye of the needle."

"Why is it then that I find you so very much more attractive now that I've found the _Blue Wing_?"

"But you found _me_ first," he laughed.

"Did I?" archly.

"If you still doubt it, there's the parasol!"

The mention of the parasol always silenced her.

CHAPTER X

That was one of many cruises, and the _Blue Wing_ contributed not a little to the gayety of the waning days of summer at Mount Desert. It was the _Blue Wing_, too, that in early September brought the Wharton family, bag and baggage, southward to Philadelphia, where Mortimer Crabb lingered, hoping to exact a promise of marriage before Christmas.

But Patricia would make no promises. She had a will of her own, her fiance discovered, and had no humor to forego the independence of her spinsterhood for the responsibilities which awaited her. It was in this situation that Crabb discovered himself to be possessed of surprising virtues in tolerance and tact. Patricia, he knew, had many admirers. The woods at Bar Harbor had been, both figuratively and literally, filled with them, and most of them had been eligible. Jack Masters, and Stephen Ventnor, who lived in Philadelphia, were still warm in pursuit of the fair quarry, who had not yet consented to an announcement of her engagement to Crabb.

But these men caused him little anxiety. They were both quite young and quite callow and stood little chance with a cosmopolitan of Crabb's caliber. But there was another man of whom people spoke. His name was Heywood Pennington, and for three years he had been off a-soldiering in the Philippines. It had only been a boy-and-girl affair, of course, and most people in Philadelphia had forgotten it, but from his well-stored memory Crabb recalled at least one calf-love that had later grown into a veritable bull-in-the-china-shop. It was not that he didn't believe fully that Patricia would marry him, and it wasn't that he didn't believe in Patricia. It was only that he knew that for the first time in his life, his whole happiness depended upon that least stable but most wonderful of creatures, the unconscious coquette. Moreover, Mortimer Crabb believed firmly in himself, and he also believed that, married to him, Patricia would be safely fulfilling her manifest destiny.

But the Philippine soldier kept bobbing up into Crabb's background at the most inopportune moments: once when the soldier's name had been mentioned on the _Blue Wing_, and Patricia had sighed and turned her gaze to the horizon, again at a dinner at Bar Harbor, and later in Philadelphia, at the Club. Bit by bit Crabb had learned Heywood Pennington's history, from the wild college days, through his short business career to the tempestuous and scarcely honorable adventures which had led to his enlistment under a false name in the regular army three years ago. It was not a creditable history for a fellow of Pennington's antecedents, and when his name was mentioned, even the fellows who had known him longest, turned aside and dismissed him with a word.

The name of the soldier never pa.s.sed between the engaged couple, and so far as Crabb was concerned, Mr. Pennington might never have existed.

Patricia lacked nothing which the most exacting fiancee might require.

Roses and violets arrived regularly at the Wharton country place near Haverford, and in the afternoons Crabb himself came in a motor car, always cheerful, always patient, always original and amusing.

To such a wooing, placid, and ardent by turns, Patty yielded inevitably, and at last, late in September, consented to announce the engagement.

The news was received in her own family circle with delighted amazement, for Mortimer Crabb had by this time made many friends in Philadelphia, and Miss Wharton had refused so many offers that her people, remembering Pennington, had decided that their handsome relative was destined to a life of single blessedness. They bestirred themselves at once in a round of entertainments in her honor, the first of which was a lawn party and masque at her uncle Philip Wharton's country place, near Bryn Mawr.

Philip Wharton never did things by halves, and society, back from the seash.o.r.e and mountains, welcomed the first large entertainment which was to mark the beginning of the country life between seasons.

The gay crowds swarmed out from the wide doorways, into the balmy night, liberated from the land of matter-of-fact into a domain of enchantment.

Gayly caparisoned cavaliers, moving in the spirit of the characters they represented strode gallantly in the train of their ladies whose graceful draperies floated like film from white shoulders and caught in their silken meshes the s.h.i.+mmer of the moonbeams. Bright eyes flashed from slits in masks and bolder ones looked searchingly into them. All of the ages had a.s.sembled upon a common meeting ground; a cinquecento rubbed elbows with an American Indian, Joan of Arc was cajoling a Crusader, a nun was hazarding her hope of salvation in flirtation with the devil, the eyes of a Puritan maid fell before the glances of a matador. Nothing had been spared in costume or in setting to make the picture complete.

The music halted a moment and then swept into the rhythm of a waltz. A murmur of delight and like a change in the kaleidoscope the pieces all converged upon the terrace.

It was here that a diversion occurred. A laugh went up from a group upon the steps and their glances were turned in one direction. Seated upon the bal.u.s.trade in the glow of the Chinese lanterns sat a tramp, drinking a gla.s.s of punch from the refreshment table close at hand. It was a wonderful disguise that he wore. The s.h.i.+rt of some dark material, was stained and torn, the hat, of the brown, army type, was battered out of shape, and many holes had been bored into the crown. The trousers had worn to the color of dry gra.s.s and the boots were old, patched, and yellow with mud and grime. In place of the conventional black mask, he wore a bandanna handkerchief tied around his brow, with holes for the eyes. The ends of the handkerchief hung to his breast and hid his features, but under its edges could be seen a brown ear and a patchy beard. As the crowd watched him he lifted his gla.s.s aloft solemnly and made the motions of drinking their health. There was a roar of applause.

A whimsical arrogance in the pose of the squarely-made shoulders and the tilt of the head gave an additional interest to the somber figure.

He looked like a drawing from the pages of a comic weekly, but the ostentation of his gesture gave him a dignity that made the resemblance less a.s.sured. As the people crowded around him and sought to pierce his disguise, he got down from his perch and strolled away into the shadows.

When the music stopped again he was surrounded by a curious group, but he towered in their center grotesque, and inscrutable. To those who questioned him too closely he mumbled at their meddling and told them to be off. Then he tightened his belt and asked when supper would be ready.

"Are you hungry?" someone asked. He glared at the questioner.

"What kind of a tramp would I be if I wasn't hungry?" he growled, and those around him laughed again. So they took him to a table and fed him.

He ate ravenously. They got him something to drink and it seemed to vanish down his throat without even touching his lips.

"Isn't he splendid?" said Patricia Wharton, who, with Mortimer Crabb, had just come up. "But who----? I can't think of anyone, and yet----"

The tramp looked up at her suddenly and dropped his fork upon the table.

"_Splendid_," he cried. "That's me. _Splendid._ I sure glitter in this bunch, don't I?"

There was something irresistibly comic in the gesture with which he swept the group.

Patricia was still watching him--a puzzled expression in her eyes.

"Who is he?" she asked; but Crabb shook his head. "I haven't an idea--but he _is_ clever. And look at those boots--they're the real thing. I wouldn't want to try to dance in them, though."

The tramp drained his gla.s.s--set it down on the table and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand--rose and disappeared between the palms and hydrangeas into the darkness.

For a guest in good standing the tramp then behaved strangely, for when he had reached a sheltered spot, in the bushes at the end of the English Garden, he sank at full length upon the gra.s.s and buried his head in his hands, groaning aloud. It was three years since he had seen her--three years, and yet she was just as he had seen her last. Time had touched her lightly, only caressing her playfully, rounding her features to matured beauty, while he---- A vision of camps, cities, skirmishes, orgies, came out of his mind in a disordered procession, all culminating in the incident which had brought him to ruin. Every detail of _that_ at least was clear; the sudden rage where the bonds of patience had reached the snapping point--and then the blow. The tramp laughed outright. He could see now the smirk on the face of the drunken lieutenant as he toppled over backward and struck his head on the edge of the mahogany table.

After that--irons, the court martial, the transport, Alcatraz, his chance, the friendly plank, the swim for the mainland, and freedom. He had never heard whether the man lived or died. He didn't much care. He got what was coming to him.

The tramp was a fugitive still. He had walked since morning from Malvern station, where he had been thrown off the freight train on which he had worked a ride east from Harrisburg. At Bryn Mawr he had begged a meal--the irony of it had sunk into his soul--at the back door of a country house at which he had once been a welcome guest. A gossipy chauffeur had let him into his garage for a rest and had given him a cigarette over which he had learned the recent doings in the neighborhood. The thought of venturing into Philip Wharton's grounds that night had entered his madcap brain while he lay in the woods along the Gulf Road, trying to make up his mind whether his tired feet would carry him the twelve miles that remained between him and the city.

Why had he returned? G.o.d knew. His feet had dragged him onward as though impelled by some force beyond his power to resist. Now that he was near the home of his boyhood it seemed as if any other place in the world would have been better. It was so real--the peaceful respectability of this country--so like Her. And yet its very peacefulness and respectability angered him. Was it nothing to have hungered and thirsted and sweated that the honor of these people and that of others like them might be preserved? Even Patricia's blamelessness was intolerant--reproachful. The springs of memory that had gushed forth just now at the sight of her were dried in their source. There was a dull ache, a sinking of the spirit that was almost a physical pain; but the unreasoning fever of the wayward boy, the wrenching fury of the outcast soldier were lacking, and for a long time he lay where he had fallen without moving.

CHAPTER XI

Patricia Wharton stood a moment on the edge of the terrace after the dance, slipped her hand into Mortimer Crabb's arm and came down upon the path, drawing a drapery across her white shoulders.

"What is it?" asked Crabb. "You are not cold?"

"Oh, no," she said quietly. "I think I am a little tired."

"Come," he said. "There's a beautiful spot--just here." He led her across the lawn and through an opening in the trees to a garden-bench in the shadow, a spot which none of the other maskers had discovered.

Through the leafy screen they could see the gay figures floating like will-o'-the-wisps across the golden lawn, but here they were quiet and un.o.bserved. Patricia sank upon the bench with a sigh, while Crabb sat beside her.

"Are you happy?" he asked after awhile.

"Perfectly," she murmured. "What a beautiful party!" She placed her hand in his and moved a little closer to him, then sat listlessly, her eyes seeking the s.p.a.ces between the branches where the people were. "I don't want to grow old too soon," she was saying. "The whole world is in short clothes to-night. Wouldn't it be good to be young forever?"

Crabb smiled indulgently.

"Yes," he said. "It is good to be young. But isn't it anything to take your place in the world? I want you to know all a man can do for the woman he loves. Won't you let me? Soon?" He bent over her and took the rounded arm in his strong hand. She did not withdraw it, but something told him a link of sympathy was lacking in the chain. As she did not reply he straightened and sat moodily looking before him.

"Don't think me capricious, please," she began. "You're everything I can hope for--and yet----"

"And yet?" he repeated.

She paused a moment, then broke in, "Forgive me, won't you? I don't know what it is. Something has affected me strangely." She leaned against the back of the bench, rested her head in her hand, away from him, and Crabb turned jealously toward her.

"You were thinking--of him--of the other."