The Four Million
you see yonder house—the one with three upper windows lighted? Well, at
6 o’clock I stood in that house with the young lady I am—that is, I
was—engaged to. I had been doing wrong, my dear Prince—I had been a
naughty boy, and she had heard of it. I wanted to be forgiven, of
course—we are always wanting women to forgive us, aren’t we, Prince?”
“‘I want time to think it over,’ said she. ‘There is one thing certain;
I will either fully forgive you, or I will never see your face again.
There will be no half-way business. At half-past eight,’ she said, ‘at
exactly half-past eight you may be watching the middle upper window of
the top floor. If I decide to forgive I will hang out of that window a
white silk scarf. You will know by that that all is as was before, and
you may come to me. If you see no scarf you may consider that
everything between us is ended forever.’ That,” concluded the young man
bitterly, “is why I have been watching that clock. The time for the
signal to appear has passed twenty-three minutes ago. Do you wonder
that I am a little disturbed, my Prince of Rags and Whiskers?”
“Let me repeat to you,” said Prince Michael, in his even,
well-modulated tones, “that women are the natural enemies of clocks.
Clocks are an evil, women a blessing. The signal may yet appear.”
“Never, on your principality!” exclaimed the young man, hopelessly.
“You don’t know Marian—of course. She’s always on time, to the minute.
That was the first thing about her that attracted me. I’ve got the
mitten instead of the scarf. I ought to have known at 8.31 that my
goose was cooked. I’ll go West on the 11.45 to-night with Jack Milburn.
The jig’s up. I’ll try Jack’s ranch awhile and top off with the
Klondike and whiskey. Good-night—er—er—Prince.”
Prince Michael smiled his enigmatic, gentle, comprehending smile and
caught the coat sleeve of the other. The brilliant light in the
Prince’s eyes was softening to a dreamier, cloudy translucence.
“Wait,” he said solemnly, “till the clock strikes. I have wealth and
power and knowledge above most men, but when the clock strikes I am
afraid. Stay by me until then. This woman shall be yours. You have the
word of the hereditary Prince of Valleluna. On the day of your marriage
I will give you $100,000 and a palace on the Hudson. But there must be
no clocks in that palace—they measure our follies and limit our
pleasures. Do you agree to that?”
“Of course,” said the young man, cheerfully, “they’re a nuisance,
anyway—always ticking and striking and getting you late for dinner.”
He glanced again at the clock in the tower. The hands stood at three
minutes to nine.
“I think,” said Prince Michael, “that I will sleep a little. The day
has been fatiguing.”
He stretched himself upon a bench with the manner of one who had slept
thus before.
“You will find me in this park on any evening when the weather is
suitable,” said the Prince, sleepily. “Come to me when your marriage
day is set and I will give you a cheque for the money.”
“Thanks, Your Highness,” said the young man, seriously. “It doesn’t
look as if I would need that palace on the Hudson, but I appreciate
your offer, just the same.”
Prince Michael sank into deep slumber. His battered hat rolled from the
bench to the ground. The young man lifted it, placed it over the frowsy
face and moved one of the grotesquely relaxed limbs into a more
comfortable position. “Poor devil!” he said, as he drew the tattered
clothes closer about the Prince’s breast.
Sonorous and startling came the stroke of 9 from the clock tower. The
young man sighed again, turned his face for one last look at the house
of his relinquished hopes—and cried aloud profane words of holy
rapture.
From the middle upper window blossomed in the dusk a waving, snowy,
fluttering, wonderful, divine emblem of forgiveness and promised joy.
By came a citizen, rotund, comfortable, home-hurrying, unknowing of the
delights of waving silken scarfs on the borders of dimly-lit parks.
“Will you oblige me with the time, sir?” asked the young man; and the
citizen, shrewdly conjecturing his watch to be safe, dragged it out and
announced:
“Twenty-nine and a half minutes past eight, sir.”
And then, from habit, he glanced at the clock in the tower, and made
further oration.
“By George! that clock’s half an hour fast! First time in ten years
I’ve known it to be off. This watch of mine never varies a—”
But the citizen was talking to vacancy. He turned and saw his hearer, a
fast receding black shadow, flying in the direction of a house with
three lighted upper windows.
And in the morning came along two policemen on their way to the beats
they owned. The park was deserted save for one dilapidated figure that
sprawled, asleep, on a bench. They stopped and gazed upon it.
“It’s Dopy Mike,” said one. “He hits the pipe every night. Park bum for
twenty years. On his last legs, I guess.”
The other policeman stooped and looked at something crumpled and crisp
in the hand of the sleeper.
“Gee!” he remarked. “He’s doped out a fifty-dollar bill, anyway. Wish I
knew the brand of hop that he smokes.”
And then “Rap, rap, rap!” went the club of realism against the shoe
soles of Prince Michael, of the Electorate of Valleluna.
SISTERS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE
The Rubberneck Auto was about ready to start. The merry top-riders had
been assigned to their seats by the gentlemanly conductor. The sidewalk
was blockaded with sightseers who had gathered to stare at sightseers,
justifying the natural law that every creature on earth is preyed upon
by some other creature.
The megaphone man raised his instrument of torture; the inside of the
great automobile began to thump and throb like the heart of a coffee
drinker. The top-riders nervously clung to the seats; the old lady from
Valparaiso, Indiana, shrieked to be put ashore. But, before a wheel
turns, listen to a brief preamble through the cardiaphone, which shall
point out to you an object of interest on life’s sightseeing tour.
Swift and comprehensive is the recognition of white man for white man
in African wilds; instant and sure is the spiritual greeting between
mother and babe; unhesitatingly do master and dog commune across the
slight gulf between animal and man; immeasurably quick and sapient are
the brief messages between one and one’s beloved. But all these
instances set forth only slow and groping interchange of sympathy and
thought beside one other instance which the Rubberneck coach shall
disclose. You shall learn (if you have not learned already) what two
beings of all earth’s living inhabitants most quickly look into each
other’s hearts and souls when they meet face to face.
The gong whirred, and the Glaring-at-Gotham car moved majestically upon
its instructive tour.
On the highest, rear seat was James Williams, of Cloverdale, Missouri,
and his Bride.
Capitalise it, friend typo—that last word—word of words in the epiphany
of life and love. The scent of the flowers, the booty of the bee, the
primal drip of spring waters, the overture of the lark, the twist of
lemon peel on the cocktail of creation—such is the bride. Holy is the
wife; revered the mother; galliptious is the summer girl—but the bride
is the certified check among the wedding presents that the gods send in
when man is married to mortality.
The car glided up the Golden Way. On the bridge of the great cruiser
the captain stood, trumpeting the sights of the big city to his
passengers. Wide-mouthed and open-eared, they heard the sights of the
metropolis thundered forth to their eyes. Confused, delirious with
excitement and provincial longings, they tried to make ocular responses
to the megaphonic ritual. In the solemn spires of spreading cathedrals
they saw the home of the Vanderbilts; in the busy bulk of the Grand
Central depot they viewed, wonderingly, the frugal cot of Russell Sage.
Bidden to observe the highlands of the Hudson, they gaped,
unsuspecting, at the upturned mountains of a new-laid sewer. To many
the elevated railroad was the Rialto, on the stations of which
uniformed men sat and made chop suey of your tickets. And to this day
in the outlying districts many have it that Chuck Connors, with his
hand on his heart, leads reform; and that but for the noble municipal
efforts of one Parkhurst, a district attorney, the notorious “Bishop”
Potter gang would have destroyed law and order from the Bowery to the
Harlem River.
But I beg you to observe Mrs. James Williams—Hattie Chalmers that
was—once the belle of Cloverdale. Pale-blue is the bride’s, if she
will; and this colour she had honoured. Willingly had the moss rosebud
loaned to her cheeks of its pink—and as for the violet!—her eyes will
do very well as they are, thank you. A useless strip of white chaf—oh,
no, he was guiding the auto car—of white chiffon—or perhaps it was
grenadine or tulle—was tied beneath her chin, pretending to hold her
bonnet in place. But you know as well as I do that the hatpins did the
work.
And on Mrs. James Williams’s face was recorded a little library of the
world’s best thoughts in three volumes. Volume No. 1 contained the
belief that James Williams was about the right sort of thing. Volume
No. 2 was an essay on the world, declaring it to be a very excellent
place. Volume No. 3 disclosed the belief that in occupying the highest
seat in a Rubberneck auto they were travelling the pace that passes all
understanding.
James Williams, you would have guessed, was about twenty-four. It will
gratify you to know that your estimate was so accurate. He was exactly
twenty-three years, eleven months and twenty-nine days old. He was well
built, active, strong-jawed, good-natured and rising. He was on his
wedding trip.
Dear kind fairy, please cut out those orders for money and 40 H. P.
touring cars and fame and a new growth of hair and the presidency of
the boat club. Instead of any of them turn backward—oh, turn backward
and give us just a teeny-weeny bit of our wedding trip over again. Just
an hour, dear fairy, so we can remember how the grass and poplar trees
looked, and the bow of those bonnet strings tied beneath her chin—even
if it was the hatpins that did the work. Can’t do it? Very well; hurry
up with that touring car and the oil stock, then.
Just in front of Mrs. James Williams sat a girl in a loose tan jacket
and a straw hat adorned with grapes and roses. Only in dreams and
milliners’ shops do we, alas! gather grapes and roses at one swipe.
This girl gazed with large blue eyes, credulous, when the megaphone man
roared his doctrine that millionaires were things about which we should
be concerned. Between blasts she resorted to Epictetian philosophy in
the form of pepsin chewing gum.
At this girl’s right hand sat a young man about twenty-four. He was
well-built, active, strong-jawed and good-natured. But if his
description seems to follow that of James Williams, divest it of
anything Cloverdalian. This man belonged to hard streets and sharp
corners. He looked keenly about him, seeming to begrudge the asphalt
under the feet of those upon whom he looked down from his perch.
While the megaphone barks at a famous hostelry, let me whisper you
through the low-tuned cardiaphone to sit tight; for now things are
about to happen, and the great city will close over them again as over
a scrap of ticker tape floating down from the den of a Broad street
bear.
The girl in the tan jacket twisted around to view the pilgrims on the
last seat. The other passengers she had absorbed; the seat behind her
was her Bluebeard’s chamber.
Her eyes met those of Mrs. James Williams. Between two ticks of a watch
they exchanged their life’s experiences, histories, hopes and fancies.
And all, mind you, with the eye, before two men could have decided