------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE PLACE OF HONEYMOONS
By
HAROLD MACGRATH
Author of
THE MAN ON THE BOX, THE GOOSE GIRL,
THE CARPET FROM BAGDAD, ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
ARTHUR I. KELLER
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1912
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
To B. O'G.
Horace calls no more to me,
Homer in the dust-heap lies:
I have found my Odyssey
In the lightness of her glee,
In the laughter of her eyes.
Ovid's page is thumbed no more,
E'en Catullus has no choice!
There is endless, precious lore,
Such as I ne'er knew before,
In the music of her voice.
Breath of hyssop steeped in wine,
Breath of violets and furze,
Wild-wood roses, Grecian myrrhs,
All these perfumes do combine
In that maiden breath of hers.
Nay, I look not at the skies,
Nor the sun that hillward slips,
For the day lives or it dies
In the laughter of her eyes,
In the music of her lips!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. At the Stage Door 1
II. There Is a Woman? 19
III. The Beautiful Tigress 36
IV. The Joke of Monsieur 53
V. Captive or Runaway 74
VI. The Bird Behind Bars 103
VII. Battling Jimmie 126
VIII. Moonlight and a Prince 146
IX. Colonel Caxley-Webster 166
X. Marguerites and Emeralds 185
XI. At the Crater's Edge 202
XII. Dick Courtlandt's Boy 214
XIII. Everything But the Truth 232
XIV. A Comedy with Music 249
XV. Herr Rosen's Regrets 265
XVI. The Apple of Discord 282
XVII. The Ball at the Villa 303
XVIII. Pistols for Two 326
XIX. Courtlandt Tells a Story 345
XX. Journey's End 363
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE PLACE OF HONEYMOONS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I
AT THE STAGE DOOR
Courtlandt sat perfectly straight; his ample shoulders did not touch the
back of his chair; and his arms were folded tightly across his chest. The
characteristic of his attitude was tenseness. The nostrils were well
defined, as in one who sets the upper jaw hard upon the nether. His brown
eyes--their gaze directed toward the stage whence came the voice of the
prima donna--epitomized the tension, expressed the whole as in a word.
Just now the voice was pathetically subdued, yet reached every part of the
auditorium, kindling the ear with its singularly mellowing sweetness. To
Courtlandt it resembled, as no other sound, the note of a muffled Burmese
gong, struck in the dim incensed cavern of a temple. A Burmese gong:
briefly and magically the stage, the audience, the amazing gleam and
scintillation of the Opera, faded. He heard only the voice and saw only
the purple shadows in the temple at Rangoon, the oriental sunset splashing
the golden dome, the wavering lights of the dripping candles, the dead
flowers, the kneeling devotees, the yellow-robed priests, the tatters of
gold-leaf, fresh and old, upon the rows of placid grinning Buddhas. The
vision was of short duration. The sigh, which had been so long repressed,
escaped; his shoulders sank a little, and the angle of his chin became
less resolute; but only for a moment. Tension gave place to an ironical
grimness. The brows relaxed, but the lips became firmer. He listened, with
this new expression unchanging, to the high note that soared above all
others. The French horns blared and the timpani crashed. The curtain sank
slowly. The audience rustled, stood up, sought its wraps, and pressed
toward the exits and the grand staircase. It was all over.
Courtlandt took his leave in leisure. Here and there he saw familiar
faces, but these, after the finding glance, he studiously avoided. He
wanted to be alone. For while the music was still echoing in his ears, in
a subtone, his brain was afire with keen activity; but unfortunately for
the going forward of things, this mental state was divided into so many
battalions, led by so many generals, indirectly and indecisively, nowhere.
This plan had no beginning, that one had no ending, and the other neither
beginning nor ending. Outside he lighted a cigar, not because at that
moment he possessed a craving for nicotine, but because like all
inveterate smokers he believed that tobacco conduced to clarity of
thought. And mayhap it did. At least, there presently followed a mental
calm that expelled all this confusion. The goal waxed and waned as he
gazed down the great avenue with its precise rows of lamps. Far away he
could discern the outline of the brooding Louvre.
There was not the least hope in the world for him to proceed toward his
goal this night. He realized this clearly, now that he was face to face
with actualities. It required more than the chaotic impulses that had
brought him back from the jungles of the Orient. He must reason out a plan
that should be like a straight line, the shortest distance between two
given points. How then should he pass the night, since none of his schemes
could possibly be put into operation? Return to his hotel and smoke
himself headachy? Try to become interested in a novel? Go to bed, to turn
and roll till dawn? A wild desire seized him to make a night of
it,--Maxim's, the cabarets; riot and wine. Who cared? But the desire burnt
itself out between two puffs of his cigar. Ten years ago, perhaps, this
particular brand of amusement might have urged him successfully. But not
now; he was done with tomfool nights. Indeed, his dissipations had been
whimsical rather than banal; and retrospection never aroused a furtive
sense of shame.
He was young, but not so young as an idle glance might conjecture in
passing. To such casual reckoning he appeared to be in the early twenties;
but scrutiny, more or less infallible, noting a line here or an angle
there, was disposed to add ten years to the score. There was in the nose
and chin a certain decisiveness which in true youth is rarely developed.
This characteristic arrives only with manhood, manhood that has been tried
and perhaps buffeted and perchance a little disillusioned. To state that
one is young does not necessarily imply youth; for youth is something that
is truly green and tender, not rounded out, aimless, light-hearted and
desultory, charming and inconsequent. If man regrets his youth it is not
for the passing of these pleasing, though tangled attributes, but rather
because there exists between the two periods of progression a series of
irremediable mistakes. And the subject of this brief commentary could look
back on many a grievous one brought about by pride or carelessness rather
than by intent.
But what was one to do who had both money and leisure linked to an
irresistible desire to leave behind one place or thing in pursuit of
another, indeterminately? At one time he wanted to be an artist, but his
evenly balanced self-criticism had forced him to fling his daubs into the
ash-heap. They were good daubs in a way, but were laid on without fire;
such work as any respectable schoolmarm might have equaled if not
surpassed. Then he had gone in for engineering; but precise and intricate
mathematics required patience of a quality not at his command.
The inherent ambition was to make money; but recognizing the absurdity of
adding to his income, which even in his extravagance he could not spend,
he gave himself over into the hands of grasping railroad and steamship
companies, or their agencies, and became for a time the slave of guide and
dragoman and carrier. And then the wanderlust, descended to him from the
blood of his roving Dutch ancestors, which had lain dormant in the several
generations following, sprang into active life again. He became known in
every port of call. He became known also in the wildernesses. He had
climbed almost inaccessible mountains, in Europe, in Asia; he had fished
and hunted north, east, south and west; he had fitted out polar
expeditions; he had raided the pearl markets; he had made astonishing
gifts to women who had pleased his fancy, but whom he did not know or seek
to know; he had kept some of his intimate friends out of bankruptcy; he
had given the most extravagant dinners at one season and, unknown, had
supported a bread-line at another; he had even financed a musical comedy.
Whatever had for the moment appealed to his fancy, that he had done. That
the world--his world--threw up its hands in wonder and despair neither
disturbed him nor swerved him in the least. He was alone, absolute master
of his millions. Mamas with marriageable daughters declared that he was
impossible; the marriageable daughters never had a chance to decide one
way or the other; and men called him a fool. He had promoted elephant
fights which had stirred the Indian princes out of their melancholy
indifference, and tiger hunts which had, by their duration and
magnificence, threatened to disrupt the efficiency of the British military
service,--whimsical excesses, not understandable by his intimate
acquaintances who cynically arraigned him as the fool and his money.
But, like the villain in the play, his income still pursued him. Certain
scandals inevitably followed, scandals he was the last to hear about and
the last to deny when he heard them. Many persons, not being able to take
into the mind and analyze a character like Courtlandt's, sought the line
of least resistance for their understanding, and built some precious
exploits which included dusky island-princesses, diaphanous dancers, and
comic-opera stars.
Simply, he was without direction; a thousand goals surrounded him and none
burned with that brightness which draws a man toward his destiny: until
one day. Personally, he possessed graces of form and feature, and was
keener mentally than most young men who inherit great fortunes and
distinguished names.
* * * * *
Automobiles of all kinds panted hither and thither. An occasional smart
coupe went by as if to prove that prancing horses were still necessary to
the dignity of the old aristocracy. Courtlandt made up his mind suddenly.
He laughed with bitterness. He knew now that to loiter near the stage
entrance had been his real purpose all along, and persistent lying to
himself had not prevailed. In due time he took his stand among the gilded
youth who were not privileged (like their more prosperous elders) to wait
outside the dressing-rooms for their particular ballerina. By and by there
was a little respectful commotion. Courtlandt's hand went instinctively to
his collar, not to ascertain if it were properly adjusted, but rather to
relieve the sudden pressure. He was enraged at his weakness. He wanted to
turn away, but he could not.
A woman issued forth, muffled in silks and light furs. She was followed by
another, quite possibly her maid. One may observe very well at times from