Ah, the girl’s innocent manner made a fascinating picture as she lifted her pretty ankle a few inches from the ground. How tenderly Clensy examined it so that he might staunch the tiny flow of blood—a thorn had torn the soft flesh! His solicitude eased the pain! Only a born artist could have pulled the brown stocking down as he did! It was perfect art, a subtle poem in curves, maiden artlessness, and the impertinence of passionate youth. But all was well. Royal Clensy was in Hayti! Hayti, the land of flowers and song. Hayti where the passions ran riot, where pretty maids had a strange golden gleam in their large dark eyes, and all their actions were inspired by the romance and glamour of flamboyant French novels!
“And how, and when shall I see you again, Mademoiselle Sestrina?” said Clensy as he gazed in an insane way into her face. Poor Clensy, it was a case. However, his malady had its compensations, for Sestrina also seemed beautifully insane as they both held each other’s hands, loth to part! Only the cry of the blue-winged Haytian owl disturbed the silence of the giant mahogany trees that stood like mighty sentinels around the palace walls. The sounds of revelry by night had ceased, for quite an hour had passed since they had heard the last wails coming from the violins and weird Haytian musical instruments played in the Presidential ball-room. Clensy had forgotten the flight of time. Sestrina was the more practical of the two in the matter of time, since she dwelt within walking distance of the paternal halls. She knew that her father would raise the roof, so to speak, if he discovered that she was absent from her chamber at such an hour. “Monsieur Royal, I will see you again, fear not,” said Sestrina.
“But—how? And when?” said Clensy as he glanced about him in desperation. Had not Sestrina told him a few moments before that she was not allowed away from the palace precincts without old Claircine?
“Ah, foolish Engleesman,” said Sestrina as she fell back on her fascinating patois, and placing her finger to her lips as though in deep meditation, gave Clensy a roguish glance. Ah, how swift-witted is woman in comparison with dull-witted man? Sestrina had solved the problem as to the means of their meeting again. She well remembered how Dumas’ heroes and heroines managed such delicate matters as lovers’ meetings when a parent stood in the pathway of happiness.
“I will tell mon père that I wish to learn to play the pianoforte, and you whom I wish to see again may easily be the favoured one to give me those lessons, and the harmony be the sweeter for the strange though happy coincidence that you of all men should be the chosen teacher!”
Before the young Englishman had realised the full import of Sestrina’s remarks and her pretty wit, he was alone. Sestrina had passed away like some shadowy form of a dream. He was still standing under the orange trees that fronted Sestrina’s palatial residence. Then he moved away and hurried home, his footsteps walking on air as he recalled the lovely light of Sestrina’s eyes.
That same night Clensy’s life seemed to have become extra valuable to him. For the first time he began to realise what a waste of his days he was making by associating with men like Adams.
“By Jove! she’s a beautiful girl, well educated and poetic too,” he muttered, as he pulled off his boots and recalled Sestrina’s pretty phrases and those poetic sayings which she had memorised from the pages of her beloved French novels. Then, and for the first time for many a long day, Clensy said his prayers, and asked God to give him Sestrina and make him really happy. He lay for quite an hour in his humble bed in the lodging-house at Port-au-Prince, thinking and thinking. His mind roamed far away into the realms of romance as he stared through the window at the stars, a bright constellation that shone just over the mountains, inland from Gonaives. And as he reflected on Sestrina’s beauty and the deep impression she had made on his mind, he began to realise what it all meant to him. His thoughts eventually became entangled in dire confusion as the possibilities of the future presented themselves to his mind. Would she really accept his hand in marriage? Was she earnest, and did she really understand what a man’s love for a woman meant? Why did her eyes look so childlike when he had whispered those words of love in her pretty ears? What would the President think when he became aware that a humble pianist had the infernal cheek to aspire for his daughter’s hand? And what would his people in England think if they heard that he had married an olive-hued Haytian girl? And could he take her back to England with him—if she was willing to go? And as he continued to reflect and conventional obstacles presented themselves to his mind, all to be brushed ruthlessly aside as they came to him, he realised that his personality had come under the complete domination of a passion. He tried to sleep, but only closed his eyes to find his imagination became more lively than ever. Then, opening his eyes again, he drifted into a philosophical vein of thought.
“I am what I am! I cannot change myself. To attempt to control one’s nature is as ridiculous and as hopeless as to attempt to revise and reform the work of God Himself, and all that is written on that strange manuscript—the human heart!”
Clensy fell into a fatalistic mood. He lit his pipe, and pitching his tobacco pouch across the room, murmured, “I’m done for! Royal Clensy of yesterday, Mr. No. 1 of myself died of a passionate spasm before the palace gates at Port-au-Prince on October 14th, 18—, was ruthlessly slain by the magic of a Haytian maid’s eyes. Alas! what is man but a wandering bundle of dreams and vague desires? A scarecrow of himself wrapt in old rags, standing in the lonely field of his imagination, his thoughts fluttering like starving crows about his fleshly skeleton. Where’s the corn and the oil that maketh glad the heart of man?—It exists only in the golden sheaves of dreams, and the sickle that ever reaps is the wide sweep of our hopes being borne back into the dust, scattered by each inevitable disillusionment.”