Moon of madness
was well aware of the fact. Her happiness was that of the girl who
knows herself to be perfectly gowned. It was completed now that Fate
had ordained O’Shea to be the first man to see her so.
Jumping on to a tall stool:
“Do you like me?” she demanded naïvely.
“You look as though you had come straight from fairyland,” I said.
“Let me order you something, to prove you are mortal.”
“Oh, no, please!” cried Nanette. “Mumsy would play Hamlet if she
caught me drinking cocktails! Give me just a sip of yours!”
She drank from my glass, watching me with roguish eyes; then, turning
to O’Shea:
“Am I smart enough to be honoured with a dance this evening, Major?”
she asked--but the note of raillery faded as she met his glance, and
she dropped her bobbed head, looking down at tiny blue and silver
shoes.
“The honour would be mine, Nanette,” he said, in the gentle way he had
of addressing all women.
Nanette bit her lip and jumped to the floor, as her mother came to
look for her.
“Good gracious, Nanette!” she exclaimed. “In the _bar_! And your
frock, dear! I see, now, why you wouldn’t have me with you to try on!”
“Please _don’t_, Mumsy!” cried Nanette. “Will you _never_ allow me to
grow up!”
The blue-and-silver frock was certainly daring for a débutante. It
was pure Paris; but Nanette’s sweet shoulders were worth displaying.
“You are altogether too naked, dear!” her mother declared.
“I wear less when I’m swimming!” argued the reasonable Nanette.
“Never mind. Please wear your wrap, dear, or a scarf--at least during
dinner.”
And so the famous evening began.
Da Cunha had managed to get himself invited to the dinner party that
included Nanette, and Jack sat facing him. Ensleigh, O’Shea, and I
shared a bachelor table.
When the dancing began, I missed O’Shea. Nanette danced with me, but
very abstractedly, alternately watching the door and the open French
windows. There are few things more provoking than to dance with a
pretty girl who wants to dance with someone else.
Da Cunha claimed her quite often and she suffered his public
love-making in a way that nearly led to an outburst from Jack. The
storm broke when O’Shea appeared. Nanette had begun dancing with Jack,
but she did not finish. She dragged him across the floor to O’Shea,
and:
“Please say you will dance,” she pleaded. She turned to her flushed
partner. “Then we will finish our fox-trot, Jack,” she added.
“I hate to refuse,” O’Shea replied, and his voice was very gentle;
“but I came down to beg you to excuse me. I find that I must go
out--on most urgent business. Don’t be angry. I mean it, Nanette.”
Nanette was not angry--but she was deeply humiliated. Every woman in
the room had marked her descent upon the aloof O’Shea, confident in
her radiant young beauty.
“I don’t want to dance any more,” she said petulantly, when the Major
had gone, “at least, not to this silly band.”
“It’s an excellent band, dear,” her mother replied, watching Nanette
with a sudden maternal anxiety.
“They play such old stuff,” Nanette declared. “‘Brown Eyes, Why Are
You Blue?’ is wildly out of date. They are liable to break into ‘Rock
of Ages’ almost any minute!”
“Then what do you want to do?”
“I want to drive up to Gabriel’s and dance to the Savoy band.”
“Nanette!”--her mother spoke sharply--“I have already told you that I
absolutely refuse. You heard what your father said?”
“No, Mumsy, I didn’t,” Nanette replied. “_You_ told me. I would like
to ask Pop.”
But “Pop” had retired with a _Financial News_ and three old copies of
the _Morning Post_.
“Then I’m going to bed,” Nanette announced. “I have a headache.”
She turned and walked from the ballroom. Da Cunha detained her in the
doorway, but only for a moment. Then he crossed the floor and went out
on to the terrace. A few minutes later I strolled up to my room to get
a pipe. The window was open, and I lingered in the dark for a moment,
held by the moon-magic of the night. As I stood there, I heard a soft
call:
“Nanette!”
Nanette’s room was below and to the left of mine. I looked out. I
could see a slender silvery figure leaning over the balcony.
“Is that you, Gabriel?”
“Yes, dear.”
“In five minutes!”
CHAPTER VI.
THE BUNGALOW IN THE HILLS
Personality is a queer thing. Nobody has quite defined it yet. In my
wild quest of a plan to save Nanette from herself, without letting her
mother know and without compromising her, I came straight to what
looked to me like an inevitable decision--I decided to tell O’Shea.
What I thought he could do that I couldn’t do alone, God knows; but
the Guards used to feel like that about him.
One fear I had: that he should have started out on whatever mysterious
business called him. I raced across to his room. It was in darkness. I
went hareing down to the lounge. Dancing was in full swing; no sign of
O’Shea. I grabbed the hall porter.
“Has Major O’Shea gone out?”
“No, sir. Not this way.”
I turned, hope reborn--and there stood O’Shea reading a note that a
chambermaid had just handed to him!
“O’Shea!” I cried.
He glanced up. His face was very stern. His eyes glinted icily.
“Go and get Kelton,” he said. “Bring him here--alone.”
“But Nanette----”
“I know all about Nanette. Bring Kelton to me.”
I ran. I was under orders. But it was a service of love.
Jack was in the bar--quite alone. He looked at me in a lowering way.
“Nanette’s in danger,” I said briefly. He jumped up. “Come quickly.”
When we got to the hall porter’s sanctum, and he saw who was waiting,
he pulled up with a jerk.
“What the hell has _he_ got to do with it?” he demanded.
“Mr. Kelton!”
O’Shea was watching him.
“Well, what is it?”
“This!” O’Shea handed him the note. “You read it, too, Decies.”
Jack and I read together:
Have gone to Gabriel’s bungalow to dance. If you get this in time,
will you join us?
Nanette.
Jack crushed the paper into a ball.
“My God! The little fool!” he said. “Why did she send this to _you_?”
O’Shea stared the angry lover down, then:
“Because she is very young,” he answered, without one note of anger.
“Don’t blame her, Kelton--and don’t blame me. Blame the customs of
to-day. Leave me out. _You_ are going to save her from Da Cunha.”
“Has she started?”
“I fear so.”
“Then where’s the chance? That swine has a Farman racer!”
“True, but he can’t race at night on those roads. It will take him
half an hour.”
“We have no car!”
“We don’t need one. I happen to know a route--a mere goat track--by
which we can climb to the bungalow almost as quickly as he can drive
there.”
“You mean it?” asked Jack hoarsely.
“As it happens, I was about to take a stroll in that direction when
this note reached me.”
“Come on!” said Jack.
* * * * *
I have the haziest recollection of that appalling climb. O’Shea knew
the way like the palm of his hand. Under a sickle moon that looked so
near in its white purity one almost felt one could reach up and grasp
it, we climbed, panting and sweating. From the gardens of the valley
we broke up through banana plantations where the great bursting pods
banged our heads as we stooped to follow that tireless guide. We
scaled a sheer hillside steep as a roof. We crawled along a path less
than a yard wide, with a gorge yawning hundreds of feet below in which
the vineyards shrank to a close green carpet.
We came to the red earth of the uplands. Our feet sank in it as in
moss. Pines barred our way, rank on rank. Away to the left, below,
beyond, the still sea shone like lapis lazuli.
“Ssh! Quiet!” O’Shea ordered.
We pulled up. I looked at Jack. He might recently have come out of the
hot-room in a Turkish bath. His collar was a mere farce; a loop of
exhausted linen. I believe I was no more spruce. I looked at O’Shea.
That remarkable man appeared to be as well-dressed as usual.
“Single file,” he commanded. “Not a sound.”
We crept on, breathing heavily; and presently, through those sentinel
pines on the crest, it reached us--the music of the Savoy orchestra,
playing in a distant Strand!
“Thank God! We are in time!” said O’Shea.
We sighted Da Cunha’s bungalow through the thinning trees. Lights
shone out from three tall windows fronting on an L-shaped stoop. The
windows were open, and O’Shea made his dispositions.
“Kelton,” he directed, “take the window on your right front. Keep out
of sight. Wait your moment. Time it. We shall not interfere.” He held
out his hand. “This is your chance. Make the most of it.”
Jack grasped the extended hand, and:
“Thank you, sir!” he said.
He went off through the pines, stooping warily.
We gave him time to reach his post; then O’Shea and I made a detour
and crept up on to the veranda so that we looked into Da Cunha’s
bungalow from a window opposite to that which concealed Jack.
The room was sparsely furnished. It had a polished floor from which
the few rugs had been removed. There was champagne in an ice bucket on
a buffet. There was the most elaborate and costly wireless set I had
ever beheld. A Moorish lamp hanging from the beamed ceiling gave
light. I could see two good pictures--both nudes--and a long, deep,
cushioned divan. At the Savoy, they were playing Jerome Kern’s “Who,”
and Nanette and Da Cunha were dancing to it.
I have said that the none-such danced perfectly. His dancing on this
night was inspired--inspired by passion. He did not merely hold
Nanette, he enveloped her; with his arms, with his ardent, lascivious
eyes.
She swam into view and out of view like a dream-nymph hypnotized by a
satyr. Her expression was indefinable as I saw it. A sort of
exaltation was there, born of adventure and sensuous music. I could
not know whether she had tasted the wine; but there was a dawning
doubt, too, a doubt of herself that was not yet fear.
Then the music ceased, and we heard remote applause.
Da Cunha disconnected the set and led Nanette to the divan. He seated
himself beside her, smiled, and put his arm around her bare shoulders.
She made a little whimsical grimace, but did not protest. Then she
glanced at him quickly--and he stooped and kissed her. It was a
lingering kiss, which she ended by pushing him away.
Their conversation reached us as a mere murmur; but Nanette
imperatively negatived further advances and pointed in the direction
of the buffet. Da Cunha shrugged, smiled, and crossed to the ice
bucket.
I had both fists so tightly clenched that they hurt; but O’Shea’s hand
held my wrist like a human manacle. Jack’s inaction astounded me.
Then, under the urge of O’Shea’s iron restraint, I began to think.
After all, poor Jack held no rights over Nanette, and he was too
unworldly to grasp the inwardness of this scene. She had suffered Da
Cunha’s kiss. Jack was still waiting for his cue.
It came shortly after Da Cunha returned with two beaded glasses. I had
watched Nanette whilst the man had poured out the wine; and I knew
that, at last, pique, rebellion, having died their natural deaths, she
realized her position.
He set the glasses on a little coffee table and drew it beside the
divan. Nanette asked him to connect up with the Savoy again. He shook
his head and smilingly handed her one of the glasses. She put it down,
untouched. Da Cunha drained the other, replaced it on the table, and,
suddenly throwing himself on his knees, clasped the girl in eager arms
and burst into a torrent of passionate speech.
Nanette shrank back on the divan. Da Cunha followed her. He kissed her
hands, her arms, her shoulders. He devoured her with his lips.
She writhed in his clasp, uttered a half-stifled cry, and wrenching
one arm free, tried to thrust him away.
Then Jack came in.