The Blower of Bubbles Part 31

He made no comment, but his left hand ran slow arpeggios on the table.

From the window she could see the water of the chute, all silvery in the moonlight.

"So to-night, monsieur," she went on, "I am not the same as this morning. Then I thought that we who are women are the happiest; but now I think, in the real world, it is we who give pleasure or unhappiness.

Perhaps, monsieur"--she turned around and faced him--"perhaps a woman finds joy only when she gives it to others."

He looked at her, and his eyebrows were raised in wonder. When he had said we grow old by moments, was it more than just a well-turned phrase?

She returned to her chair by the table.

"When Louis and I are alone," she murmured, "I shall not dream the same as before. Then we had only young people, brave and handsome, but now I shall pretend that there are many old and sad ones, who perhaps will be glad if I am with them. And----"

"Pippa, my dear"--he looked into her eyes that met his without timidity, and there was a pleading note in his voice--"you may be lonely here, but you saw to-day how many discouraged, unhappy people there are--how much sickness and unkindness there is. Keep to your little world here with its Fairy Princes and the music of the wind. It is better, Pippa.... Perhaps it is even more real than the other."

She smiled, patiently, and, for the second time that day, felt a motherly pity for his youthfulness.

"Your Majesty," she said, "in my book, _The Fairy Prince_, the girl sings a song about love, and she asks her mother, '_Est-ce plaisir, est-ce tourment?_' I know now that it is both. Ah! I think it is too wonderful to be a woman; for some day, perhaps yes, perhaps no, I shall have my own children and a husband and friends. And sometimes, when my husband, he is much discouraged if the mill makes no money, though he works so hard, or if my children are perhaps sick and cry--then it is I who smile and say: '_Mes enfants_'--for he, too, will be only a big child--'_Mes enfants_, can you see the suns.h.i.+ne? Do you hear the birds?

Can you smell these flowers?--So!' _Et alors_--perhaps they smile too.

So I sing a pretty song and say to my husband '_Courage, mon ami!_ Have you not your little wife?' And after that we are all happy.... And now, that is why I think it is so wonderful to be a woman."

The clock hiccoughed, and struck eight.

The airman looked at his watch. "By Jove, it is midnight!" he said.

"Pippa, our day is over----"

Tears sprang to her eyes, and her hands groped for his. "But no, monsieur," she cried, "you must not go. It will be so lonely."

He leaned over and covered her little hands with his large, tanned ones. "It will be lonely for me as well," he said.

"But you will come back, Your Majesty? Perhaps--next Easter?"

He gently stroked her hand. "On my honor," he said, "I will come on the Tuesday at dawn. You will be there?"

He released her hands as she slowly rose and crossed once more to the window.

"At daybreak," she said very quietly, gazing at the steely brilliance of the running water, "I will watch from the hill. And if you do not come, though I shall weep a little, I shall say, 'He is fighting, and could not leave for little Pippa. Next year he will come.'"

"And supposing, little one, he does not come the next year either?"

She leaned her arm against the window-pane and rested her cheek on it.

"I shall watch again at dawn, monsieur"--the words were spoken very slowly--"and I shall say, 'He is not coming.... He has gone to be with his brothers who went, out into the sunlight, smiling so bravely----'"

Her words ended in a half-sob, and she pressed her face with both hands.

"But every Easter," she said, her voice very soft and trembling, "on the Tuesday I will watch the dawn from the hill, and perhaps, monsieur, you will see me."

He stood motionless for a moment, slowly reached for her leather coat and helmet, and placed them over his arm. "Good-by, Pippa," he said, and he held out his hands.

Timidly, and with cheeks that went all white, then crimson, she came towards him and raised her face for him to kiss. For a moment he held her in his arms, which quivered oddly.... Then, stooping, he gently kissed her--not on the upturned, trembling lips, but on the cheek, just beside her mouth.

Without a word he gently released her from his arms, flung the door open and went out into the night.

Motionless, with the burning memory of his hot lips upon her cheek, she stood until the sound of his footsteps was lost in the song of the chute. Slowly her hands dropped to her side and she sank into the chair by the table. The cat looked up from the task of licking his paws, and sprang upon her lap.

"Louis!" she cried, smothering him in an embrace that threatened to snuff out his nine lives prematurely, while tears from her eyes fell glistening on his fur. "Louis!"

MR. CRAIGHOUSE OF NEW YORK, SATIRIST

I

A raw wind from the sea swept against the mammoth building of the _New York Monthly Journal_. The editor of that cla.s.sic publication stretched his arms lazily, then crossed to the rattling window and looked at Broadway, far beneath. A few belated flakes of snow mingled with the dust that eddied about in little whirlpools of wind. Like gnomes, the people hurried on in an endless diverging torrent of humanity, slouch-hats of soldiers adding a strangely Western effect to the usual bizarre scene.

The telephone rang, and the editor, Mr. E. H. Townsend, left the window to answer it.

"Yes?" he said. "Mr. Craighouse? Send him right in."

He took from a drawer a box of notoriously expensive cigars, and laid it on his desk. The reasonings of Dr. Watson himself could hardly have failed to deduce that the visitor was of some importance.

A moment later a young man, in the uniform of a United States officer, knocked, and, in response to the invitation, entered the inner temple.

Mr. Townsend offered him the arm-chair, and reached for the cigars.

"You look well in uniform," he said, after appropriate comments on the April weather had been made by both.

"Thanks. I received your note this morning asking me to call."

"Ah yes. By-the-by, you are sailing soon, I believe?"

"Any time, now; naturally, we don't know to a day."

"What branch of the Service are you with?"

"The Engineers."

The editor thrust his hands into his pockets. "That is odd," he said.

"Did you know anything about engineering?"

"A little." The young man's voice was abrupt, but not unmusical. His brain had always been alert, and army training was making his voice so.

"I was a science grad. at Harvard."

The editor gazed out of the window again. "You are a remarkable combination, Mr. Craighouse," he said. "There is nothing more stifling to the artistic nature than a purely scientific training; in fact, the influence of this journal has always been used against absolutely technical schools. Almost the first requisite of any artist is a keen appreciation of the intangible; science deals only with things that can be proved. I often nurse along a young writer if he is incoherent because, as frequently happens, his temperament is greater than his technique. Scientists always marshal their facts well, but they never soar to the heights."

The editor tapped the window gently, the young officer gazing quizzically at him the while. They were a strangely contrasted pair, the editor in the autumn of life, with the calm voice and bearing of one who has fastened routine to art, and become jaded in the process; the young man keenly alert, with eyes that never lost their restlessness, and thin, satirical lips that mocked the high forehead of a philosopher.

"I am greatly interested in your writing," said the editor, after rather a lengthy pause.