The Firing Line Part 97

The man was silent.

She turned directly toward him, pale, clear-eyed, and in the poise of her head a faint touch of pride.

"Please do not misunderstand his friends.h.i.+p for me, then. If you were his friend I would not need to say this. He was very kind to me, Mr.

Hamil."

"I do not doubt it," said Hamil gravely.

"And you do not mistake, what I say?"

He looked her in the eyes, curious--and, in a moment, convinced.

"No," he said gently.... And, offering his hand: "Men are very ignorant concerning one another. Women are wiser, I think."

He took the slender black-gloved hand in his.

"Can I be of the least use to you?" he asked.

"You have been," she sighed, "if what I said has taught you to know him a little better."

A week later when the curtain fell on the second act of the new musical comedy, "The Inca," critics preparing to leave questioned each other with considerable curiosity concerning this newcomer, Dorothy Wilming, who had sung so intelligently and made so much out of a subordinate part.

n.o.body seemed to know very much about her; several nice-looking young girls and exceedingly respectable young men sent her flowers. Afterward they gathered at the stage entrance, evidently expecting to meet and congratulate her; but she had slipped away. And while they hunted high and low, and the last figurante had trotted off under the lamp-lights, Dolly lay in her own dark room, face among the pillows, sobbing her heart out for a dead man who had been kind to her for nothing.

And, at the same hour, across an ocean, another woman awoke to take up the ravelled threadings of her life again and, through another day, remember Louis Malcourt and all that he had left undone for kindness'

sake.

There were others, too, who were not likely to forget him, particularly those who had received, with some astonishment, a legacy apiece of one small Chinese gilded idol--images all of the _Pa-hsien_ or of _Kwan-Yin_, who rescues souls from h.e.l.l with the mystic lotus-prayer, "_Om mane padme hum_."

But the true Catholicism, which perplexed the eighteen legatees lay in the paradox of the Mohammedan inscriptions across each lotus written in Malcourt's hand:

"I direct my face unto Him who hath created.

"Who maketh His messengers with two and three and four pairs of wings.

"And thou shall see them going in procession.

"This is what ye are promised: 'For the last hour will surely come; there is no doubt thereof; but the greater part of men believe it not.'

"Thus, facing the stars, I go out among them into darkness.

"Say not for me the Sobhat with the ninety-nine; for the hundredth pearl is the _Iman_--pearl beyond praise, pearl of the five-score names in one, more precious than mercy, more priceless than compa.s.sion--Iman!

Iman! thy splendid name is Death!"

So lingered the living memory of Malcourt among men--a little while--longer among women--then faded as shadows die at dusk when the _mala_ is told for the soul that waits the Rosary of a Thousand Beads.

In January the _Ariani_ sailed with her owner aboard; but Hamil was not with him.

In February Constance Palliser wrote Hamil from Palm Beach:

"It is too beautiful here and you must come.

"As for s.h.i.+ela, I do not even pretend to understand her. I see her every day; to-day I lunched with Mrs. Cardross, and s.h.i.+ela was there, apparently perfectly well and entirely her former lovely self. Yet she has never yet spoken of you to me; and, I learn from Mrs. Cardross, never to anybody as far as she knows.

"She seems to be in splendid health; I have seen her swimming, galloping, playing tennis madly. The usual swarm of devoted youth and smitten middle-age is in attendance. She wears neither black nor colours; only white; nor does she go to any sort of functions. At times, to me, she resembles a scarcely grown girl just freed from school and playing hard every minute with every atom of heart and soul in her play.

"Gray has an apology for a polo field and a string of ponies, and s.h.i.+ela plays with the men--a crazy, reckless, headlong game, in which every minute my heart is in my mouth for fear somebody will cannon into her, or some dreadful swing of a mallet will injure her for life.

"But everybody is so sweet to her--and it is delightful to see her with her own family--their pride and tenderness for her, and her devotion to them.

"Mrs. Cardross asked me to-day what I thought might be the effect on s.h.i.+ela if you came. And, dear, I could not answer. Mr.

Cardross joined us, divining the subject of our furtive confab in the _patio_, and he seemed to think that you ought to come.

"There is no reason to hesitate in saying that the family would be very glad to count you as one of them. Even a little sn.o.b like myself can see that there is, in this desire of theirs, no motive except affection for you and for s.h.i.+ela; and, in a way, it's rather humiliating to recognise that they don't care a fig for the social advantage that must, automatically, accrue to the House of Cardross through such connections.

"I never thought that I should so earnestly hope for such an alliance for you; but I do, Garry. They are such simple folk with all their riches--simple as gentle folk--kind, sincere, utterly without self-consciousness, untainted by the sordid social ambitions which make so many of the wealthy abhorrent. There is no pretence about them, nothing of that uncertainty of self mingled with vanity which grows into arrogance or servility as the social weather-vane veers with the breeze of fas.h.i.+on. Rather flowery that, for an old-fas.h.i.+oned spinster.

"But, dear, there are other flowers than those of speech eloquent in the soft Southern air--flowers everywhere outside my open window where I sit writing you.

"I miss Virginia, but s.h.i.+ela compensates when she can find time from her breathless pleasure chase to give me an hour or two at tea-time.

"And Cecile, too, is very charming, and I know she likes me. Such a coquette! She has her own court among the younger set; and from her very severe treatment of young Gatewood on all occasions I fancy she may be kinder to him one day.

"Mrs. Carrick is not here this winter, her new baby keeping her in town; and Acton, of course, is only too happy to remain with her.

"As for Gray, he is a nice boy--a little slow, a trifle shy and retiring and over-studious; but his devotion to s.h.i.+ela makes me love him. And he, too, ventured to ask me whether you were not coming down this winter to hunt along the Everglades with him and Little Tiger.

"So, dear, I think perhaps you had better come. It really frightens me to give you this advice. I could not endure it if anything went wrong--if your coming proved premature.

"For it is true, Garry, that I love our little s.h.i.+ela with all my aged, priggish, and prejudiced heart, and I should simply expire if your happiness, which is bound up in her, were threatened by any meddling of mine.

"Jim Wayward and I discuss the matter every day; I don't know what he thinks--he's so obstinate some days--and sometimes he is irritable when Gussie Vetchen and Cuyp talk _too_ inanely--bless their hearts! I really don't know what I shall do with James Wayward. What would you suggest?"

On the heels of this letter went another.

"Garry, dear, read this and then make up your mind whether to come here or not.

"This morning I was sitting on the Cardrosses' terrace knitting a red four-in-hand for Mr. Wayward--he is _too_ snuffy in his browns and grays!--and Mrs. Cardross was knitting one for Neville, and Cecile was knitting one for Heaven knows who, and s.h.i.+ela, swinging her polo-mallet, sat waiting for her pony--the cunning little thing in her boots and breeches!--I mean the girl, not the pony, dear--Oh, my, I'm getting involved and you're hurrying through this scrawl perfectly furious, trying to find out what I'm talking about.

"Well, then; I forgot for a moment that s.h.i.+ela was there within ear-shot; and eyes on my knitting, I began talking about you to Mrs. Cardross; and I had been gossiping away quite innocently for almost a minute when I chanced to look up and notice the peculiar expressions of Mrs. Cardross and Cecile. They weren't looking at me; they were watching s.h.i.+ela, who had slipped down from the parapet where she had been perched and now stood beside my chair listening.

"I hesitated, faltered, but did not make the mistake of stopping or changing the subject, but went on gaily telling about your work on the new Long Island park system.