IX
She read, gazed at the gulls and wild ducks, placed a bit of gum between her rose-leaf lips, read a little, glanced up to mark the majestic flight of eight pelicans, sighed discreetly, savoured the gum, deposited it in a cunning corner adjacent to her left and snowy cheek, and spoke to the boatman.
"Did you ever read this book?" she asked.
"Me! No, ma'am."
"It is very interesting. Do you read much?"
"No, ma'am."
"This is a very extraordinary book," she said. "I strongly advise you to read it."[78]
The boatman glanced ironically at the scarlet bound volume which bore the portrait of a pretty girl on its covers.
"Is it that book by John Smith they're sellin' so many of down to the hotel?" he inquired slowly.
"I believe it was written by one Smith," she said, turning over the volume to look. "Yes, John Smith is the author's name. No doubt he is very famous in America."
"He lives down here in winter."
"Really!" she exclaimed with considerable animation.
"Oh, yes. I take him shooting and fishing. He has a shack on the Inlet Point."
"Where?"
"Over there, where them gulls is flying."
The girl looked earnestly at the point. All she saw were snowy dunes and wild grasses and seabirds whirling.
"He writes them books over there," remarked the boatman.
"How extremely interesting!"
"They say he makes a world o' money by it. He's rich as mud."
"Really!"
"Yaas'm. I often seen him a settin' onto a[79] camp chair out beyond them dunes a-writing pieces like billy-bedam. Yes'm."
"Do you think he is there now?" she asked with a slight catch in her breath.
"Well, we kin soon find out——" He swung the tiller; the little boat rushed in a seething circle toward the point, veered westward, then south.
"Yaas'm," said the boatman presently. "Mr. Smith he's reclinin' out there onto his stummick. I guess he's just a thinkin'. He thinks more'n five million niggers, he does. Gor-a-mighty! I never see such a man for thinkin'! He jest lies onto his stummick an' studies an' ruminates like billy-bedam. Yaas'm. Would you want I should land you so's you can take a peek at him?"
"Might I?"
"Sure, Miss. Go up over them dunes and take a peek at him. He won't mind. Ten to nothin' he won't even see ye."
There was a little dock built of coquina. A power boat, a sloop, several row-boats, and a canoe lay there, riding the little, limpid, azure-tinted wavelets. Under their keels swam gar-pike, their fins and backs also shimmering with blue and turquoise green.
Lady Alene rose; her boatman aided her, and[80] she sprang lightly to the coquina dock and walked straight over the low dune in front of her.
There was nothing whatever in sight except beach-grapes and scrubby tufts of palmetto, and flocks of grey, long-legged, long-billed birds running to avoid her. But they did not run very fast or very far, and she saw them at a little distance loitering, with many a bright and apparently friendly glance at her.
There was another dune in front. She mounted it. Straight ahead of her, perhaps half a mile distant, stood a whitewashed bungalow under a cluster of palms and palmettos.
From where she stood she could see a cove—merely a tiny crescent of sand edged by a thin blade of cobalt water, and curtained by the palmetto forest. And on this little crescent beach, in the shade of the palms, a young man lay at full length, very intent upon his occupation, which was, apparently, to dig holes in the sand with a child's toy shovel.
He was clad in white flannels; beside him she noticed a red tin pail, such as children use for gathering shells. Near this stood two camp-chairs, one of which was piled with pads of yellow paper and a few books. She thought his legs very eloquent. Sometimes they lay in picturesque[81] repose, crossed behind him; at other moments they waved in the air or sprawled widely, appearing to express the varying emotions which possessed his deep absorption in the occult task under his nose.
"Now, what in the world can he be doing?" thought Lady Alene Innesly, watching him. And she remained motionless on top of the dune for ten minutes to find out. He continued to sprawl and dig holes in the sand.
Learning nothing, and her interest increasing inversely, she began to walk toward him. It was her disposition to investigate whatever interested her. Already she was conscious of a deep interest in his legs.
From time to time low dunes intervened to hide the little cove, but always when she crossed them, pushing her way through fragrant thickets of sweet bay and sparkle-berry shrub, cove and occupant came into view again. And his legs continued to wave. The nearer she drew the less she comprehended the nature of his occupation, and the more she decided to find out what he could be about, lying there flat on his stomach and digging and patting the sand.
Also her naturally calm and British heart was beating irregularly and fast, because she realised[82] the fact that she was approaching the vicinity of one of those American young men who did things in books that she never dreamed could be done anywhere. Nay—under her arm was a novel written by this very man, in which the hero was still kissing a Balkan Princess, page 169. And it occurred to her vaguely that her own good taste and modesty ought to make an end of such a situation; and that she ought to finish the page quickly and turn to the next chapter to relieve the pressure on the Princess.
Confused a trifle by a haunting sense of her own responsibility, by the actual imminence of such an author, and by her intense curiosity concerning what he was now doing, she walked across the dunes down through little valleys all golden with the flowers of a flat, spreading vine. The blossoms were larger and lovelier than the largest golden portulacca, but she scarcely noticed their beauty as she resolutely approached the cove, moving forward under the cool shadow of the border forest.
He did not seem to be aware of her approach, even when she came up and stood by the camp-chairs, parasol tilted, looking down at him with grave, lilac-blue eyes.
But she did not look at him as much as she[83] gazed at what he was doing. And what he was doing appeared perfectly clear to her now.
With the aid of his toy shovel, his little red pail, and several assorted shells, he had constructed out of sand a walled city. Houses, streets, squares, market place, covered ways, curtain, keep, tower, turret, crenelated battlement, all were there. A driftwood drawbridge bridged the moat, guarded by lead soldiers in Boznovian uniform.
And lead soldiers were everywhere in the miniature city; the keep bristled with their bayonets; squads of them marched through street and square; they sat at dinner in the market place; their cannon winked and blinked in the westering sun on every battlement.
And after a little while she discovered two lead figures which were not military; a civilian wearing a bowler hat; a feminine figure wearing a crown and ermines. The one stood on the edge of the moat outside the drawbridge: the other, in crown and ermines, was apparently observing him of the bowler hat from the top of a soldier-infested tower.
It was plain enough to her now. This amazing young man was working out in concrete detail some incident of an unwritten novel. And the[84] magnificent realism of it fascinated the Lady Alene. Genius only possesses such a capacity for detail.
"The magnificent realism of it fascinated the Lady Alene."
Without even arousing young Smith from his absorbed preoccupation, she seated herself on the unincumbered camp-chair, laid her book on her knees, rested both elbows on it, propped her chin on both clasped hands, and watched the proceedings.
The lead figure in the bowler hat seemed to be in a bad way. Several dozen Boznovian soldiers were aiming an assortment of firearms at him; cavalry were coming at a gallop, too, not to mention a three-gun battery on a dead run.
The problem seemed to be how, in the face of such a situation, was the lead gentleman in the bowler hat to get away, much less penetrate the city?
Flight seemed hopeless, but presently Smith picked him up, marched him along the edge of the moat, and gave him a shove into it.
"He's swimming," said Smith, aloud to himself. "Bang! Bang! But they don't hit him.... Yes, they do; they graze his shoulder. It is the only wound possible to polite fiction. There is consequently a streak of red in the water. Bang—bang—bang! Crack—crack! The cavalry [85]empty their pistols. Boom! A field piece opens—— Where the devil is that battery——"
Smith reached over, drew horses, cannoniers, gun and caisson over the drawbridge, galloped them along the moat, halted, unlimbered, trained the guns on the bowler hatted swimmer, and remarked, "Boom!"
"The shell," he murmured with satisfaction, "missed him and blew up in the casemates. Did it kill anybody? No; that interferes with the action.... He dives, swims under water to an ancient drain." Smith stuck a peg where the supposed drain emptied into the moat.
"That drain," continued Smith thoughtfully, "connects with the royal residence.... Where's that Princess? Can she see him dive into it? Or does she merely suspect he is making for it? Or—or—doesn't she know anything about it?"
"She doesn't know anything about it!" exclaimed Lady Alene Innesly. The tint of excitement glowed in her cheeks. Her lilac-tinted eyes burned with a soft, blue fire.[86]
