Quick Action Part 4

Everywhere dragon-flies glittered over the saw-gra.s.s; wild ducks with golden eyes and heads like b.a.l.l.s of brown plush swam leisurely out of the way; a few mallard, pretending to be frightened, splashed and clattered into flight, the sunlight jewelling the emerald heads of the drakes.

"Wonderful, wonderful," her heart was singing to itself, while her enchanted eyes missed nothing--neither the feebly flying and strangely shaped, velvety black b.u.t.terflies, the narrow wings of which were striped with violent yellow; nor the metallic blue and crestless jays that sat on saplings, watching her; nor the pelicans fis.h.i.+ng with nature's orange and iridescent net in the shallows; nor the tall, slate-blue birds that marched in dignified retreat through the sedge, picking up their stilt-like legs with the precision of German foot-soldiers on parade.

These and other phenomena made her drop her paddle at intervals and clap her hands softly in an ecstasy beyond mere exclamation. How restfully green was the world; how limpid the water; how royally blue the heavens!

Listening, she could hear the soft stirring of palmetto fronds in the forests; the celestial song of a little bird that sat on a sparkle-berry bush, its delicate long-curved bill tilted skyward. Then the deep note of splendour flashed across the scheme of sound and colour as a crimson cardinal alighted near her, crest erect.

But more wonderful than all was that at last, after eighteen years, she was utterly alone; and liberty was showering its inestimable gifts upon her in breathless prodigality--liberty to see with her own eyes and judge with her own senses; liberty to linger capriciously amid mental fancies, to move on impulsively to others; liberty to reflect unurged and unrestricted; liberty to choose, to reject, to ignore.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "They inspected each other, apparently bereft of the power of speech."]

Now and then a brilliant swimming snake filled her with interest and curiosity. Once, on a flat, low bush, she saw a dull, heavy, blunt-bodied serpent lying asleep in the sun like an old and swollen section of rubber hose. But when she ventured to touch the bush with her paddle, the snake reared high and yawned at her with jaws which seemed to be lined in white satin. Which fortunately made her uneasy, and she meddled no more with the Little Death of the southern swamps.

She was now pa.s.sing very close to the edge of the "hammock," where palmettos overhung the water; and as the cool, dim woodlands seemed to invite her, she looked about her leisurely for an agreeable landing place. There were plenty to choose from; and she selected a little sandy point under a red cedar tree, drove her canoe upon it, and calmly stepped ash.o.r.e. And found herself looking into the countenance of Jones.

For a full minute they inspected each other, apparently bereft of the power of speech.

She said, finally: "About a year ago last February, did you happen to walk down Fifth Avenue--very busily? Did you?"

It took him an appreciable time to concentrate for mental retrospection.

"Yes," he said, "I did."

"You were going down town, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"On business?"

"Yes," he said, bewildered.

"I wonder," she said timidly, "if you would tell me what that business was? Do you mind? Because, really, I don't mean to be impertinent."

He made an effort to reflect. It was difficult to reflect and to keep his eyes on her but also it is impolite to converse with anybody and look elsewhere. This he had been taught at his mother's knee--and sometimes over it.

"My business down town," he said very slowly, "was with an officer of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution who had come on from Was.h.i.+ngton to see something which I had brought with me from Florida."

"Would you mind telling me what it was you brought with you from Florida?" she asked wistfully.

"No. It was malaria."

"What!"

"It was malaria," he repeated politely.

"I--I don't see how you could--could show it to him," she murmured, perplexed.

"Well, I'll tell you how I showed it to him. I made a little incision in my skin with a lancet; he made a smear or two----"

"A--what?"

"A smear--he put a few drops of my blood on some gla.s.s plates."

"Why?"

"To examine them under the microscope."

"Why?"

"So that he might determine what particular kind of malaria I had brought back with me."

"Did he find out?" she asked, deeply interested.

"Yes," said Jones, displaying mild symptoms of enthusiasm, "he discovered that I was fairly swarming with a perfectly new and undescribed species of bacillus. That bacillus," he added, with modest diffidence, "is now named after me."

She looked at him very earnestly, dropped her blue eyes, raised them again after a moment:

"It must be--pleasant--to give one's name to a bacillus."

"It is an agreeable and exciting privilege. When I look into the culture tubes I feel an intimate relations.h.i.+p with those bacilli which I have never felt for any human being."

"You--you are a----" she hesitated, with a slight but charming colour in her cheeks, "a naturalist, I presume?" And she added hastily, "No doubt you are a famous one, and my question must sound ignorant and absurd to you. But as I do not know your name----"

"It is Jones," he said gloomily, "--and I am not famous."

"Mine is Cecil Ca.s.sillis; and neither am I," she said. "But I thought when naturalists gave their names to b.u.t.terflies and microbes that everything concerned immediately became celebrated."

Jones smiled; and she thought his expression very attractive.

"No," he said, "fame crowns the man who, celebrated only for his wealth, names hotels, tug-boats, and art galleries after himself. Thus are Immortals made."

She laughed, standing there gracefully as a boy, her hands resting on her narrow hips. She laughed again. A tug-boat, a hotel, and a cigar were named after her father.

"Fame is an extraordinary thing," she said. "But liberty is still more wonderful, isn't it?"

"Liberty is only comparative," he said, smiling. "There is really no such thing as absolute freedom."

"_You_ have all the freedom you desire, haven't you?"

"Well--I enjoy the only approach to absolute liberty I ever heard of."

"What kind of liberty is that?"

"Freedom to think as I please, no matter what I'm obliged to do."

"But you do what you please, too, don't you?"

"Oh, no!" he said smiling. "The man was never born who did what he pleased."