The Silent Barrier
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The
Silent Barrier
BY
LOUIS TRACY
AUTHOR OF
CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR, A SON OF THE
IMMORTALS, THE WINGS OF THE MORNING, ETC.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
J. V. McFALL
Page decorations by A. W. PARSONS from
photographs by THE ENGADINE PRESS
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1908, 1911, BY
EDWARD J. CLODE
Entered at Stationers' Hall
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE WISH 1
II. THE FULFILLMENT OF THE WISH 19
III. WHEREIN TWO PEOPLE BECOME BETTER
ACQUAINTED 41
IV. HOW HELEN CAME TO MALOJA 64
V. AN INTERLUDE 84
VI. THE BATTLEFIELD 103
VII. SOME SKIRMISHING 122
VIII. SHADOWS 144
IX. "ETTA'S FATHER" 167
X. ON THE GLACIER 189
XI. WHEREIN HELEN LIVES A CROWDED
HOUR 212
XII. THE ALLIES 232
XIII. THE COMPACT 253
XIV. WHEREIN MILLICENT ARMS FOR THE
FRAY 275
XV. A COWARD'S VICTORY 298
XVI. SPENCER EXPLAINS 321
XVII. THE SETTLEMENT 337
Ich muss--Das ist die Schrank, in welcher mich die Welt
Von einer, die Natur von andrer Seite haelt.
FR. RUeCKERT: _Die Weisheit des Brahmenen._
[I must--That is the Barrier within which I am pent by the World on
the one hand and Nature on the other.]
THE SILENT BARRIER
CHAPTER I
THE WISH
"Mail in?"
"Yes, sir; just arrived. What name?"
"Charles K. Spencer."
The letter clerk seized a batch of correspondence and sorted it with
nimble fingers. The form of the question told him that Spencer was
interested in letters stamped for the greater part with bland
presentments of bygone Presidents of the United States. In any event,
he would have known, by long experience of the type, that the well
dressed, straight limbed, strong faced young man on the other side of
the counter was an American. He withdrew four missives from the
bundle. His quick eyes saw that three bore the Denver postmark, and
the fourth hailed from Leadville.
"That is all at present, sir," he said. "Would you like your mail sent
to your room in future, or shall I keep it here?"
"Right here, please, in No. 20 slot. I could receive a reply by cable
while I was going and coming along my corridor."
The clerk smiled deferentially. He appreciated not only the length of
the corridor, but the price paid by the tenant of a second floor suite
overlooking the river.
"Very well, sir," he said, glancing again at Spencer, "I will
attend to it;" and he took a mental portrait of the man who could
afford to hire apartments that ranked among the most expensive in
the hotel. Obviously, the American was a recent arrival. His suite
had been vacated by a Frankfort banker only three days earlier,
and this was the first time he had asked for letters. Even the
disillusioned official was amused by the difference between the two
latest occupants of No. 20,--Herr Bamberger, a tub of a man, bald
headed and bespectacled, and this alert, sinewy youngster, with the
cleancut features of a Greek statue, and the brilliant, deep set,
earnest eyes of one to whom thought and action were alike familiar.
Spencer, fully aware that he was posing for a necessary picture,
examined the dates on his letters, nipped the end off a green cigar,
helped himself to a match from a box tendered by a watchful boy,
crossed the entrance hall, and descended a few steps leading to the
inner foyer and restaurant. At the foot of the stairs he looked about
for a quiet corner. The luncheon hour was almost ended. Groups of
smokers and coffee drinkers were scattered throughout the larger room,
which widened out below a second short flight of carpeted steps. The
smaller anteroom in which he stood was empty, save for a few people
passing that way from the restaurant, and he decided that a nook near
a palm shaded balcony offered the retreat he sought.
He little dreamed that he was choosing the starting point of the most
thrilling adventure in a life already adventurous; that the soft
carpet of the Embankment Hotel might waft him to scenes not within the
common scope. That is ever the way of true romance. Your knight errant
may wander in the forest for a day or a year,--he never knows the
moment when the enchanted glade shall open before his eyes; nay, he
scarce has seen the weeping maiden bound to a tree ere he is called in
to couch his lance and ride a-tilt at the fire breathing dragon. It
was so when men and maids dwelt in a young world; it is so now; and it
will be so till the crack of doom. Manners may change, and costume;
but hearts filled with the wine of life are not to be altered. They
are fashioned that way, and the world does not vary, else Eve might
regain Paradise, and all the fret and fume have an end.
Charles K. Spencer, then, would certainly have been the most
astonished, though perhaps the most self possessed, man in London had
some guardian sprite whispered low in his ear what strange hazard lay
in his choice of a chair. If such whisper were vouchsafed to him he
paid no heed. Perhaps his occupancy of that particular corner was
preordained. It was inviting, secluded, an upholstered backwash in the
stream of fashion; so he sat there, nearly stunned a waiter by asking
for a glass of water, and composed himself to read his letters.
The waiter hesitated. He was a Frenchman, and feared he had not heard
aright.
"What sort of water, sir," he asked,--"Vichy, St. Galmier,
Apollinaris?"
Spencer looked up. He thought the man had gone. "No, none of those,"
he said. "Just plain, unemotional water,--_eau naturelle_,--straight
from the pipe,--the microbe laden fluid that runs off London tiles
most days. I haven't been outside the hotel during the last hour; but
if you happen to pass the door I guess you'll see the kind of essence
I mean dripping off umbrellas. If you don't keep it in the house, try
to borrow a policeman's cape and shoot a quart into a decanter."
The quelled waiter hurried away and brought a carafe. Spencer
professed to be so pleased with his rare intelligence that he gave him
a shilling. Then he opened the envelop with the Leadville postmark. It
contained a draft for 205 pounds, 15 shillings, 11 pence, and the
accompanying letter from a firm of solicitors showed that the
remittance of a thousand dollars was the moiety of the proceeds of a
clean-up on certain tailings taken over by the purchasers of the
Battle Mountain tunnel. The sum was not a large one; but it seemed to
give its recipient such satisfaction that the movement of chairs on
the floor of the big room just beneath failed to draw his attention
from the lawyer's statement.
A woman's languid, well bred voice broke in on this apparently
pleasant reverie.
"Shall we sit here, Helen?"
"Anywhere you like, dear. It is all the same to me. Thanks to you, I
am passing an afternoon in wonderland. I find my surroundings so novel
and entertaining that I should still be excited if you were to put me
in the refrigerator."
The eager vivacity of the second speaker--the note of undiluted and
almost childlike glee with which she acknowledged that a visit to a
luxurious hotel was a red letter day in her life--caused the man to
glance at the two young women who had unconsciously disturbed him.
Evidently, they had just risen from luncheon in the restaurant, and
meant to dispose themselves for a chat. It was equally clear that each
word they uttered in an ordinary conversational tone must be audible
to him. They were appropriating chairs which would place the plumes of
their hats within a few inches of his feet. When seated, their faces
would be hidden from him, save for a possible glimpse of a profile as
one or other turned toward her companion. But for a few seconds he had
a good view of both, and he was young enough to find the scrutiny to
his liking.
At the first glance, the girl who was acting as hostess might be
deemed the more attractive of the pair. She was tall, slender,
charmingly dressed, and carried herself with an assured elegance that
hinted of the stage. Spencer caught a glint of corn flower blue eyes
beneath long lashes, and a woman would have deduced from their color
the correct explanation of a blue sunshade, a blue straw hat, and a
light cape of Myosotis blue silk that fell from shapely shoulders over
a white lace gown.
The other girl,--she who answered to the name of Helen,--though nearly
as tall and quite as graceful, was robed so simply in muslin that she
might have provided an intentional contrast. In the man's esteem she
lost nothing thereby. He appraised her by the fine contour of her oval
face, the wealth of glossy brown hair that clustered under her hat,
and the gleam of white teeth between lips of healthy redness. Again,
had he looked through a woman's eyes, he would have seen how the
difference between Bond-st. and Kilburn as shopping centers might be
sharply accentuated. But that distinction did not trouble him. Beneath
a cold exterior he had an artist's soul, and "Helen" met an ideal.
"Pretty as a peach!" he said to himself, and he continued to gaze at
her. Indeed, for an instant he forgot himself, and it was not until
she spoke again that he realized how utterly oblivious were both girls
of his nearness.
"I suppose everybody who comes here is very rich," was her rather
awe-stricken comment.
Her companion laughed. "How nice of you to put it that way! It makes
me feel quite important. I lunch or dine or sup here often, and the
direct inference is that I am rolling in wealth."
"Well, dear, you earn a great deal of money----"
"I get twenty pounds a week, and this frock I am wearing cost
twenty-five. Really, Helen, you are the sweetest little goose I ever
met. You live in London, but are not of it. You haven't grasped the
first principle of social existence. If I dressed within my means, and
never spent a sovereign until it was in my purse, I should not even
earn the sovereign. I simply must mix with this crowd whether I can
afford it or not."
"But surely you are paid for your art, not as a mannikin. You
are almost in the front rank of musical comedy. I have seen you
occasionally at the theater, and I thought you were the best dancer
in the company."
"What about my singing?"
"You have a very agreeable and well trained voice."
"I'm afraid you are incorrigible. You ought to have said that I sang
better than I danced, and the fib would have pleased me immensely;
we women like to hear ourselves praised for accomplishments we don't
possess. No, my dear, rule art out of the cast and substitute
advertisement. Did you notice a dowdy creature who was lunching
with two men on your right? She wore a brown Tussore silk and a
turban--well, she writes the 'Pars About People' in 'The Daily
Journal.' I'll bet you a pair of gloves that you will see something
like this in to-morrow's paper: 'Lord Archie Beaumanoir entertained a
party of friends at the Embankment Hotel yesterday. At the next table
Miss Millicent Jaques, of the Wellington Theater, was lunching with a