And then it appeared that Sandy had been ailing for weeks on top of a not very serious wound, "wasn't at all fit," yet didn't wish to come home—had been ordered out of the Islands, in fact. And then, as it further appeared, when Dwight turned, looking for little Jim, all eagerness that Sandy should see how splendidly the lad was grown and developed since their parting in Arizona years ago, when Jimmy was just beginning to toddle about and talk, there stood the boy, his big blue eyes fixed on the pallid, solemn face of Lieutenant Ray with a look of bewilderment and trouble. Fowne of the Engineers spoke of it later to Foster, who just at that moment had seized Jimmy and swung him to his shoulder, where, instead of gleefully pounding his captor's head and laughing merrily, as of old he would have done, Jimmy was straining his violet blue eyes again, staring after Ray, whom a waiter, bearing his card, had summoned to follow him. Three or four of the laughing party at the moment had surrounded Dwight, compelling him with their chatter, so that he stood with a hand still extended toward the spot where Jimmy had been standing, and did not even see that Ray had been summoned and was gone. Question and answer were flying thick and fast, for full five minutes before, looking about him, Dwight missed his boy. Foster, finding the little fellow unresponsive, at least, had presently set him down, and then, plunging eagerly into the talk over the latest newspaper tidings of the doings of the Islands—of Otis's probable home-coming and MacArthur's succeeding to the command, of what could be looked for at Samar and Mindanao—he, too, had lost sight of the lad. "Hullo!" said Dwight, "Jimmy has taken possession of Ray. Well, that's as it should be. How was Gridley when you last saw him, Foster? And tell me about the Gillettes. They were mighty kind to me when I was so knocked out after Bender's trial. Fit now? I should say so! Never felt finer in my life. I'm going back to Manila just as soon as I can place my wife and Jimmy, no matter what the doctors say."
And so it happened that, for ten minutes or more, neither Lieutenant Ray nor little Jim was greatly missed. But then Dwight began bethinking him it was high time for Inez to appear. She had promised to come down and meet his old comrades. Only a few minutes would be needed, she declared, in which "to prink a bit." She had been looking so white, or yellow, rather—so wan and weak, yet, after a bumper of champagne, had rallied gallantly, had bidden him run down to meet them and keep them entertained. She'd soon be there. That was now full twenty minutes back, and these fellows were getting impatient for dinner. The head waiter was even now announcing that their table was in readiness. Excusing himself a moment, Dwight hastened from the salon and ran swiftly up to their apartments. She was not there. He went out upon the gallery—the last look by day over that incomparable panorama of earth and sea and sky, for the sun was just kissing the far westward wave and throwing a glow of ruddy gold all over the Vesuvian shore. The waiter was clearing the table. Would the signor finish his wine? The signor needed none. Since that heat prostration in Luzon, Dwight found that a single glass would sometimes go to his head, and so when Inez was fatigued on land or ill at sea, and on her account he had ordered champagne, he merely sipped it, as it were, for her sake. There stood the generous flask still beaded with its icy dew, but most of its contents were gone. So was Inez. That waiter had then the proverbial "cheek" of his class—to drink half their wine and offer the signor the dregs. No, he wished no wine. Where was the signora? The signora, with the signorino, said the waiter, had been there but the moment before. The signora had reëntered her apartment as the signor ascended. Dwight tapped at her window, and presently her voice answered him, in apparent exasperation. She had been having "no end of bother" changing her gown. She couldn't come down to meet his friends in the dusty traveling suit she had worn all day. She had hunted through two trunks before she found what she needed, and was so sorry for the delay, but she heard the party was to dine there. She had a maid to help her now, so she was trying to look her best and be worthy of him. Could he help in some way? Oh, dear no. Run back to them, there's a good boy, and in a few minutes she would be there.
So Dwight returned to the laughing party and went with them to their table and sat with them—an odd group in their service-worn suits of khaki amid the sumptuously attired guests in the brilliant room. Yet even among the wearers of the handsome Italian uniform the incessant glances toward the American party were far from critical. These men had but recently seen sharp service, and soldiers respect and envy soldier achievement. It was Dwight who first missed and asked for Ray. Ray? Why, Ray wasn't of our party. Ray wasn't of any party, in fact. Ray was "off his feed, if not off his base." The fellow was utterly hipped, said Foster. "No more like his father than I to Hercules, and nobody knows why." Ray came ashore with the rest of the crowd, had business at Cook's Bank, wandered off by himself and had been mooning by himself most of the voyage. Foster buried his muzzle deep in his brimming glass of Chianti and didn't care a billy what had become of young Ray. Gone back to the ship, probably, to sit and sulk the rest of the voyage. Obviously the quartette was out for pleasure, and Ray would have been a spoil-sport. None the less, Dwight felt that he should find him, if possible, and so went to the office. But assuredly, said the smiling, gold-banded official, the tenente departed as they were all in conversation. The tenente wished not to disturb them. The signorino went with him to his carriage and, behold! the signorino himself! Jimmy, indeed, came through the portal at the moment from the Piazza Umberto side, but not the blithe, bounding, joyous Jimmy of the morning. The young face was clouded with a look the father never before had seen, and when he called and Jimmy suddenly turned and saw him, though the bright eyes lighted instantly with all the old love—perhaps, too, with some relief—the cloud did not entirely vanish, nor did the boy come bounding. He ran; he took his father's hand and looked up in his face, and when he was asked what he had done with Mr. Ray, said slowly: "Why, daddy, he isn't a bit like what I 'sposed he'd be. He only spoke to mamma a minute or two, and—I guess he isn't well. He didn't have time to speak to me—he hardly said good-by, or—anything."
"Oh, then mamma saw Mr. Ray! I'm glad of that," said Dwight, though remembering she had not mentioned it.
"Yes, on the gallery," said Jimmy. "At least, I suppose so. He came out through the corridor, and then mamma sent me after him with the gloves he had left. I wanted to ask him——" hesitated Jimmy. He did not know whether to go on or not, but he need not have worried. Papa had suddenly turned from him, turned to meet his new mamma—his beautiful young mamma, who, with bared neck and arms, in dinner toilet, was coming slowly and with trailing skirts down the broad and carpeted stairway and looking more radiant and beautiful than Jimmy ever before had seen her; she whom, a few minutes earlier, he had found on the gallery pallid and excited, trembling from weakness, perhaps. Now she had diamonds in her ears and at her creamy throat, diamonds flashing in her corsage. There were shimmer and spangle and firefly sparklings in the lustrous folds of her gown. There were starlight twinklings from the bands of those wondrous, dainty, high-heeled little "slipper shoes," as Jimmy called them. There were glowworm gems in the dark masses of her luxuriant hair. There were rich and precious stones upon her slender, clasping fingers, for Dwight had been lavish to an extent he only now began to realize, for, though his heart leaped in unison with the instant admiration and worship in his eyes, it ached in strange, dull foreboding and reproach for the thought that instantly seized him: How utterly unlike Margaret!
A moment later and the men in khaki were being presented. They had sprung to their feet at sight of the radiant vision in the doorway, where for a moment Inez seemed to hesitate. Beautiful she was beyond question, with the rich, dusky beauty of the passionate South, and they who gazed upon her marveled not at the lover worship in Dwight's deep-set eyes—at the pride with which he watched her gracious, graceful, yet half-appealing and timid acknowledgment of their soldier homage. They made way for her, and would have it that she should sit with them as they lingered a few moments over their wine. And then Farnham, their senior present, raised his glass to her with a word of soldier compliment and greeting, after the manner of the days of his forefathers, and they joined in the toast, one and all, and Inez blushed and beamed upon them, and looked up into her husband's eyes as though begging that he should speak for her, and sipped just the tiniest ripple from the brimming glass of champagne. They had not too much time, for boxes had been reserved for all their party at the Salone Margherita, and could not—would not Mrs. Dwight and the captain join them? Several of the ladies from the transport were to be with them, and now it would be incomplete without Mrs. Dwight. Again the deep, dark, lustrous eyes sought the husband's face, as though she would say in this, as in everything, he must decide. The transport was to proceed at dawn. The Hohenzollern could not be going earlier. How she would shine, this bird of paradise, among those simply-garbed army women who perforce were limited to such toilets as could be evolved from the little steamer trunks. It was Dwight who negatived the project. She would be utterly overdressed for the place and the occasion, but he based his regrets upon the long and fatiguing day, the packing that had to be done, the coming at any moment of their ship. Even now she was announced, said Jimmy, hastening in. And so the others went their way without the Dwights and joined their fellow-voyagers in their revel, the merriest group in all that laughing company, and only once or twice did someone, some gentle-hearted woman, speak the thought that more than once or twice occurred to many present: Why should Sandy Ray have withdrawn from all companionship? Someone said he had returned to the steamer—alone.
It was long after midnight when they came rippling back to the huge bulk of the troopship, with silver raining from the blades of their oars into the sparkling bosom of that wondrous bay. A joyous little flotilla of Neapolitan water craft was theirs, for they had chartered several of the clumsy, unwieldly looking, yet most serviceable barklings, each with its dusky, brown-throated oarsman. They had spent some merry hours after the long, hot voyage through Indian seas and under torrid skies. They had heard much catchy music that all could appreciate and few words, fortunately, that any could understand. They were chatting and singing and recalling the brilliant scene, the dazzling lights, the lustrous corridor and stairway of pure white marble, the coaxing, wheedling swarm of beggar children, the sharp and ever-recurrent contrast between splendid opulence and squalid misery, and as they circled under the massive overhang of their stanch and trusty ship, and one after another each merry boatload came again in full view of the frowning cone of old Vesuvius, belching lurid flame and billowing ruddy streams of molten lava from its crest, some sweet-voiced woman in the foremost boat uplifted her heart in the barcarole from "Masaniello": "Behold how brightly breaks the morning," and, though morning was yet some hours away, here but a league or two across the star-reflecting deep and under the shoulder of the mountain furnace lay the vine-covered walls of Portici, where first was trilled that exquisite welcome to Aurora. And so with music and merriment and laughter, homeward bound from distant service in defense of a beloved flag, they came trooping up the side, the opulence of their gladness all the sharper contrast to the dull apathy of one lone watcher who shrank from their approach and sought seclusion across the deck and in the shadow of the long boat.
Ray was not in his stateroom when Foster bustled thither to inquire. Ray had returned some hours before, said the ship's official on duty. Ray was not found, however, until nearly four bells, when Foster, who had smoked too much to feel sleepy and wished to "stay up and see Vesuvius, anyhow," made an extended inspection of the silent deck. Foster had taken it amiss that Ray should seem so downhearted and be so uncompanionable. Foster felt that the time had come when, in the absence of Sandy's own, he (Foster) should assume paternal rights, or at least those of elder brother, and take the youngster to task. Here and there about the big ship he found, in knots of two or three, silent or conversing in low tone, comrades of the commissioned list or of the ranks, unwilling to seek their berths so long as so gorgeous a panorama lasted. These were ranged along the starboard side, where best they could study that superb sweep of shore line, of light and shadow, of slope and mountain, of curving strand—white, flashing in the moonbeams, of twinkling villages low-lying, of distant, rock-ribbed isles, but among these worshipers there was no Ray.
It was over on the other—the dark, the port—side, and all alone, sprawled in a steamer chair he had lugged to the upper deck and the shadow of the big boat, that Foster came upon the lad. His field glasses were in his hand; his eyes fixed dreamily upon the dwindling, diminishing night lights of the westward suburbs, and Foster hailed brusquely. It was time to jar the boy out of his mooning:
"Hello, Sandy! Where on earth have you been all night?"