"Why?" asked Lloyd again.
Phil thrummed on a moment longer, and then began playing in a soft minor key, and his answer, when it finally came, seemed at first to have no connection with what he had been talking about.
"Do you remember when we were in Arizona, the picnic we had at Hole-in-the-rock, and the story that that old Norwegian told about Alaka, the gambling god, who lost his string of precious turquoises and even his eyes?"
"Yes."
Mary looked up from her book, listening alertly. The mystery of years was about to be explained.
"Well, do you remember a conversation you had with Joyce about it afterward, in which you called the turquoise the 'friendship stone,' because it was true blue? And you said it was a pity that some people you knew, not a thousand miles away, couldn't go to the School of the Bees, and learn that line from Watts about Satan finding mischief for idle hands to do. And Joyce said yes, it was too bad for a fine fellow to get into trouble just because he was a drone, and had no ambition to make anything of himself; that if Alaka had gone to the School of the Bees he wouldn't have lost his eyes. And then you said that if somebody kept on he would at least lose his turquoises. Do you remember all that?"
The screw in the post stopped creaking as Lloyd sat straight up in the hammock to exclaim in astonishment: "Yes, I remembah, but how undah the sun, Phil Tremont, do you happen to know anything about that convahsation? You were not there."
"No, but little Mary Ware was. She didn't have the faintest idea that you meant me, and that Sunday morning when I called at the Wigwam for the last time to make my apologies and farewells, and you were not there, she told me all about it like the blessed little chatterbox that she was. Then, when I saw plainly that I had forfeited my right to your friendship, I did not wait to say good-by, just left a message for you with Mary. I knew she would attempt to deliver it, but I have wondered many times since if she gave it in the words I told her. Of course I couldn't expect you to remember the exact words after all this time."
"But it happens that I do," answered Lloyd. "She said, 'Alaka has lost his precious turquoises, but he will win them back again some day.'"
"Did you understand what I meant, Lloyd?"