The Place of Honeymoons
newspapers? Your Highness, I was not born on the Continent, so I look upon
my work from a point of view not common to those of your caste. I am proud
of it, and I look upon it with honor, honor. I am a woman, but I am not
wholly defenseless. There was a time when I thought I might number among
my friends a prince; but you have made that impossible."
"Come," he said hoarsely; "let us go and find a priest. You are right. I
love you; I will give up everything, everything!"
For a moment she was dumb. This absolute surrender appalled her. But that
good fortune which had ever been at her side stepped into the breach. And
as she saw the tall form of the Barone approach, she could have thrown her
arms around his neck in pure gladness.
"Oh, Barone!" she called. "Am I making you miss this dance?"
"It does not matter, Signorina." The Barone stared keenly at the erect and
tense figure at the prima donna's side.
"You will excuse me, Herr Rosen," said Nora, as she laid her hand upon the
Barone's arm.
Herr Rosen bowed stiffly; and the two left him standing uncovered in the
moonlight.
"What is he doing here? What has he been saying to you?" the Barone
demanded. Nora withdrew her hand from his arm. "Pardon me," said he
contritely. "I have no right to ask you such questions."
It was not long after midnight when the motor-boat returned to its abiding
place. On the way over conversation lagged, and finally died altogether.
Mrs. Harrigan fell asleep against Celeste's shoulder, and the musician
never deviated her gaze from the silver ripples which flowed out
diagonally and magically from the prow of the boat. Nora watched the stars
slowly ascend over the eastern range of mountains; and across the fire of
his innumerable cigarettes the Barone watched her.
As the boat was made fast to the landing in front of the Grand Hotel,
Celeste observed a man in evening dress, lounging against the rail of the
quay. The search-light from the customs-boat, hunting for tobacco
smugglers, flashed over his face. She could not repress the little gasp,
and her hand tightened upon Nora's arm.
"What is it?" asked Nora.
"Nothing. I thought I was slipping."
CHAPTER IX
COLONEL CAXLEY-WEBSTER
Abbott's studio was under the roof of one of the little hotels that stand
timorously and humbly, yet expectantly, between the imposing cream-stucco
of the Grand Hotel at one end and the elaborate pink-stucco of the Grande
Bretegne at the other. The hobnailed shoes of the Teuton (who wears his
mountain kit all the way from Hamburg to Palermo) wore up and down the
stairs all day; and the racket from the hucksters' carts and hotel
omnibuses, arriving and departing from the steamboat landing, the shouts
of the begging boatmen, the quarreling of the children and the barking of
unpedigreed dogs,--these noises were incessant from dawn until sunset.
The artist glared down from his square window at the ruffled waters, or
scowled at the fleeting snows on the mountains over the way. He passed
some ten or twelve minutes in this useless occupation, but he could not
get away from the bald fact that he had acted like a petulant child. To
have shown his hand so openly, simply because the Barone had beaten him in
the race for the motor-boat! And Nora would understand that he was weak
and without backbone. Harrigan himself must have reasoned out the cause
for such asinine plays as he had executed in the game of checkers. How
many times had the old man called out to him to wake up and move? In
spirit he had been across the lake, a spirit in Hades. He was not only a
fool, but a coward likewise. He had not dared to
"... put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all."
He saw it coming: before long he and that Italian would be at each other's
throats.
"Come in!" he called, in response to a sudden thunder on the door.
The door opened and a short, energetic old man, purple-visaged and
hawk-eyed, came in. "Why the devil don't you join the Trappist monks,
Abbott? If I wasn't tough I should have died of apoplexy on the second
landing."
"Good morning, Colonel!" Abbott laughed and rolled out the patent rocker
for his guest. "What's on your mind this morning? I can give you one
without ice."
"I'll take it neat, my boy. I'm not thirsty, I'm faint. These Italian
architects; they call three ladders flights of stairs! ... Ha! That's
Irish whisky, and jolly fine. Want you to come over and take tea this
afternoon. I'm going up presently to see the Harrigans. Thought I'd go
around and do the thing informally. Taken a fancy to the old chap. He's a
little bit of all right. I'm no older than he is, but look at the
difference! Whisky and soda, that's the racket. Not by the tubful; just an
ordinary half dozen a day, and a dem climate thrown in."
"Difference in training."
"Rot! It's the sized hat a man wears. I'd give fifty guineas to see the
old fellow in action. But, I say; recall the argument we had before you
went to Paris?"
"Yes."
"Well, I win. Saw him bang across the street this morning."
Abbott muttered something.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
"Sounded like 'dem it' to me."
"Maybe it did."
"Heard about him in Paris?"
"No."
"The old boy had transferred his regiment to a lonesome post in the North
to cool his blood. The youngster took the next train to Paris. He was
there incognito for two weeks before they found him and bundled him back.
Of course, every one knows that he is but a crazy lad who's had too much
freedom." The colonel emptied his glass. "I feel dem sorry for Nora. She's
the right sort. But a woman can't take a man by the scruff of his neck and
chuck him."
"But I can," declared Abbott savagely.
"Tut, tut! He'd eat you alive. Besides, you will find him too clever to
give you an opening. But he'll bear watching. He's capable of putting her
on a train and running away with her. Between you and me, I don't blame
him. What's the matter with sicking the Barone on him? He's the best man
in Southern Italy with foils and broadswords. Sic 'em, Towser; sic 'em!"
The old fire-eater chuckled.
The subject was extremely distasteful to the artist. The colonel, a rough
soldier, whose diplomacy had never risen above the heights of clubbing a
recalcitrant Hill man into submission, baldly inferred that he understood
the artist's interest in the rose of the Harrigan family. He would have
liked to talk more in regard to the interloper, but it would have been
sheer folly. The colonel, in his blundering way, would have brought up the
subject again at tea-time and put everybody on edge. He had, unfortunately
for his friends, a reputation other than that of a soldier: he posed as a
peacemaker. He saw trouble where none existed, and the way he patched up
imaginary quarrels would have strained the patience of Job. Still, every
one loved him, though they lived in mortal fear of him. So Abbott came
about quickly and sailed against the wind.
"By the way," he said, "I wish you would let me sketch that servant of
yours. He's got a profile like a medallion. Where did you pick him up?"
"In the Hills. He's a Sikh, and a first-class fighting man. Didn't know
that you went for faces."
"Not as a usual thing. Just want it for my own use. How does he keep his
beard combed that way?"
"I've never bothered myself about the curl of his whiskers. Are my clothes
laid out? Luggage attended to? Guns shipshape? That's enough for me. Some
day you have got to go out there with me."
"Never shot a gun in all my life. I don't know which end to hold at my
shoulder."
"Teach you quick enough. Every man's a born hunter. Rao will have tigers
eating out of your hand. He's a marvel; saved my hide more than once.
Funny thing; you can't show 'em that you're grateful. Lose caste if you
do. I rather miss it. Get the East in your blood and you'll never get it
out. Fascinating! But my liver turned over once too many times. Ha! Some
one coming up to buy a picture."
The step outside was firm and unwearied by the climb. The door opened
unceremoniously, and Courtlandt came in. He stared at the colonel and the
colonel returned the stare.
"Caxley-Webster! Well, I say, this globe goes on shrinking every day!"
cried Courtlandt.
The two pumped hands energetically, sizing each other up critically. Then
they sat down and shot questions, while Abbott looked on bewildered.
Elephants and tigers and chittahs and wild boar and quail-running and
strange guttural names; weltering nights in the jungles, freezing mornings
in the Hills; stupendous card games; and what had become of so-and-so, who
always drank his whisky neat; and what's-his-name, who invented cures for
snake bites!
Abbott deliberately pushed over an oak bench. "Am I host here or not?"
"Abby, old man, how are you?" said Courtlandt, smiling warmly and holding
out his hand. "My apologies; but the colonel and I never expected to see
each other again. And I find him talking with you up here under this roof.
It's marvelous."
"It's a wonder you wouldn't drop a fellow a line," said Abbott, in a
faultfinding tone, as he righted the bench. "When did you come?"
"Last night. Came up from Como."
"Going to stay long?"
"That depends. I am really on my way to Zermatt. I've a hankering to have
another try at the Matterhorn."
"Think of that!" exclaimed the colonel. "He says another try."
"You came a roundabout way," was the artist's comment.
"Oh, that's because I left Paris for Brescia. They had some good flights
there. Wonderful year! They cross the Channel in an airship and discover
the North Pole."
"Pah! Neither will be of any use to humanity; merely a fine sporting
proposition." The colonel dug into his pocket for his pipe. "But what do
you think of Germany?"
"Fine country," answered Courtlandt, rising and going to a window; "fine
people, too. Why?"
"Do you--er--think they could whip us?"
"On land, yes."
"The devil!"
"On water, no."
"Thanks. In other words, you believe our chances equal?"
"So equal that all this war-scare is piffle. But I rather like to see you
English get up in the air occasionally. It will do you good. You've an
idea because you walloped Napoleon that you're the same race you were
then, and you are not. The English-speaking races, as the first soldiers,
have ceased to be."
"Well, I be dem!" gasped the colonel.
"It's the truth. Take the American: he thinks there is nothing in the
world but money. Take the Britisher: to him caste is everything. Take the
money out of one man's mind and the importance of being well-born out of
the other...." He turned from the window and smiled at the artist and the
empurpling Anglo-Indian.
"Abbott," growled the soldier, "that man will some day drive me amuck.
What do you think? One night, on a tiger hunt, he got me into an argument
like this. A brute of a beast jumped into the middle of it. Courtlandt
shot him on the second bound, and turned to me with--'Well, as I was
saying!' I don't know to this day whether it was nerve or what you
Americans call gall."
"Divided by two," grinned Abbott.
"Ha, I see; half nerve and half gall. I'll remember that. But we were
talking of airships."
"I was," retorted Courtlandt. "You were the man who started the powwow."
He looked down into the street with sudden interest. "Who is that?"
The colonel and Abbott hurried across the room.
"What did I say, Abbott? I told you I saw him. He's crazy; fact. Thinks he
can travel around incognito when there isn't a magazine on earth that
hasn't printed his picture."
"Well, why shouldn't he travel around if he wants to?" asked Courtlandt
coolly.
The colonel nudged the artist.
"There happens to be an attraction in Bellaggio," said Abbott irritably.