The Girl From His Town Part 30

She said to Ruggles: "He wants something so heartbreakingly-what can we do?" She saw his hands stir rhythmically on the counterpane-he didn't look to her more than ten years old.... What a cruel thing-he was a boy just of age-a boy-

Ruggles remembered the nights he had spent before the footlights of the Gaiety, and that the pale woman trembling there weeping was a great singer.

"I guess he wants to hear you sing."

She kneeled down by him; she trembled so she couldn't stand.

The others, the doctor and Ruggles, the waiters and porters gathered in the hall, heard. No one of them understood the Gaiety girl's English words.

"From Greenland's icy mountains, From India's coral strands ..."

They were merciful and let him listen in peace. Through the blur in his brain, over the beat of his young ardent heart, above the short breaths the notes reached his failing senses, and lifted him-lifted him. There wasn't a very long distance between his boyhood and his twenty-two years to go, and he was not so weak but that he could travel so far.

He sat there by his father again-and heard. The flies buzzed, and he didn't mind them. The smell of the fields came in through the windows and the Sodawater Fountain Girl sang-and sang; and as she sang her face grew holy to his eyes-radiant with a beauty he had not dreamed a woman's face could wear. Above the choir rail she stood and sang peerlessly, and the church began to fade and fade, and still she stood there in a shaft of light, and her face was like an angel's, and she held her arms out to him as the waters rose to his lips. She bent and lifted him-lifted him high upon the strands....

CHAPTER x.x.xI-IN REALITY

Dan awoke from his dream, and sat suddenly up in bed in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves, and stared at the people in his room,-a hotel boy and two strangers, not unlike the men in his dream. He brushed his hand across his eyes.

"Sit down, will you? Do you speak English?"

They were foreigners, but they did speak English, no doubt far more perfectly than did Dan Blair.

"Look here," the boy said, "I don't know what's the matter with me-I must have had a ripping jag on last night-let me put my head in a basin of water, will you?"

He dived into the dressing-room, and came out in another second, his blond head wet, wiping his face and hair furiously with a towel. He hadn't beamed as he did now on these two strange men-for weeks.

"Well," he asked slowly, "I expect you've come to ask me to fight with Prince Poniotowsky-yes? It's against our principles, you know, in the States-we don't do that way. Personally, I'd throw anything at him I could lay my hands on, but I don't care to have him let daylight through me, and I don't care to kill your friend. See? I'm an American-yes, I know, I know," he nodded sagely, "but we don't have your kind of fights out our way. It means business when we go out to shoot."

He threw the towel down on the table, soaking wet as it was, put his hands in the pockets of his evening clothes, which he still wore, for he had not undressed, threw his young, blond head back and frankly told his visitors:

"I'm not up on swords. I've seen them in pictures and read about them, but I'll be darned if I've ever had one in my hand."

His expression changed at the quiet response of Poniotowsky's seconds.

"_Gee._ Whew!" he exclaimed, "he does, does he? Twenty paces-revolvers-why, he's a bird-a bird!"

A slight flush rose along Dan's cheeks. "I never liked him, and you don't want to hear what I think of him. But I'll be darned if he isn't a bird."

His eyes caught sight of a blue envelope on the table. He tore the telegram open. It was Ruggles' answer to his question:

"Quite true. Tell you about it. Arrive your hotel around noon."

The despatch informed him that he was really a pauper and also that he had a second for his duel with Poniotowsky. His guests stood formally before the young barbarian.

"Look here," he continued amiably, "I can't meet your Dago friend like this, it's not fair. He hasn't seen me shoot; it isn't for me to say it, but I can't miss. Hold," he interrupted, "he has, too. He was at the Galoreys' at that first shoot. Ah-well, I refuse, tell him so, will you?

Tell him I'm an American and a cowboy and that for me a duel at twenty paces with a pistol would mean murder. I like his pluck-it's all right-tell him anything you like. He ought to have chosen swords. He would have had me there."

They retired as formally as they had entered, and took his answer to their client, and after a bath and careful toilet Dan went out, leaving a line for Ruggles, to say that he would be at the hotel to meet him at noon.

CHAPTER x.x.xII-THE PRINCE ACCEPTS

The Hungarian, in the Continental, was drinking his coffee in his room when his friends found him. He listened to what they had to say coolly.

His eye-gla.s.s gave him an air of full dress even at this early hour.

Poniotowsky had not fallen into a deep sleep and had a dream as Dan Blair had-indeed he had only reached his rooms the night before when a letter had been brought him from Miss Lane. He was used to her caprices, which were countless, and he never left her with any certainty that he should see her again, or with any idea of what her next move would be.

The letter read:

"It's no use. I just can't. I've always told you so, and I mean it.

I'm tired out-I want to go away and never see any one again. I want to die. I shall be dead next year, and I don't care. Please leave me alone and don't come to see me, and for heaven's sake don't bore me with notes."

When Poniotowsky received this note he had shrugged, and decided that if he lived after his duel with the young savage he would go to see the actress, taking a jewel or a gift-he would get her a Pomeranian dog, and all would be well. He listened coolly to what his friends had to say.

"_C'est un enfant_," one of them remarked sneeringly.

"In my mind, he is a coward," said the other.

"On the contrary," answered Poniotowsky coolly, "he shoots to perfection. You will be surprised to hear that I admire his refusal. I accept his decision, as his skill is unquestioned with arms. I choose to look upon this reply as an apology. I would like to have you inform Mr.

Blair of this fact. He's young enough to be my son, and he is a barbarian. The incident is closed."

He put Letty Lane's note in his pocket, and leisurely prepared to go out on the Rue de Castiglione to buy her a Pomeranian dog.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII-THE THINGS ABOVE GROUND

Higgins let him in, and across the room Blair saw the figure of the actress against the light of the long window. Her back was to him as he came up, and though she knew who it was, she was far from dreaming how different a man it was that came in to see her this morning from the one she had known.

"Won't you turn around and bid me good-by?" he asked her. "I'm going away."

She gave him a languid hand without looking at him.

"Has Higgins gone?"

"Yes. Won't you turn round and say how-de-do, and good-by? Gosh," he cried as she turned, "how pale you are, darling." And he took her in his arms.

The vision he had had of her in her coral-colored dress at Maxim's gave place to the more radiant one which had shone on him in his curious dream.

"Are you very ill?" he murmured. "Speak to me-tell me-are you going to die?"