There was silence. At length Blagden spoke. "This fascinates me," he said. "At first, I wholly disbelieved your story; now I do believe it. And upon one condition, I will devote my time, my energy, my best endeavor to the solving of this mystery. But the condition is important."
She regarded him curiously. "Name it," she said.
He rose from his seat, and stood looking at her appraisingly, a cold flame gleaming in his eyes. "It is this," he answered. "You liked me, I think, in the old days, but I was a poor man. I am a poor man to-day. But if we fathom this secret and gain the keys to Paradise, then let us make the building of your yacht a joint enterprise, and let us make the cruise--together."
She too had risen and now stood looking at him with a faint smile upon her lips. "Ours," she responded, "is a quite exceptional friendship. You are a man and I am a woman, and yet we have the great advantage of thoroughly understanding one another. If you can grant me my desire, I will reciprocate. I accept your offer, and I wish you success."
CHAPTER VIII
[The Adventure of Tubby Mills]
At the street entrance to the café, Mills and Atherton came momentarily to a halt. "Well," observed the stout one, "we've got to hand it to Blagden. He's what you might describe as the original Tabasco. Yet it's no credit to him that he finds adventures; they just naturally come his way. He couldn't dodge 'em if he tried. See what's happened to him now; do you suppose either of us is going to run into anything like that?"
Atherton, still under the spell of Blagden's eloquence, was gazing forth upon the crowded thoroughfare, with its hurrying throngs of pedestrians, and its multitude of motors, passing and repassing incessantly under the glare and brilliance of the bright white lights.
"I think," he slowly answered, "that anything is possible. Blagden is right. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred live and die in a rut. It has to be so; that is life. But if the hundredth man is so situated that he may range the world at will, with eyes open and every sense alert, I believe, with Blagden, that he will find adventure awaiting him at every turn in the road. It's tremendously exhilarating. Here we take leave of each other; you go one way, I go the other, and what we may discover we haven't the shadow of an idea. I think we ought to thank Blagden for waking us up. I haven't felt so keen about living since I can remember."
"Blagden," said Mills, "is a queerer combination than most of us. He's an artistic sort of chap, with all the merits and defects of the artistic temperament. He always makes me think of an airship with its steering gear shot away; he goes like the very deuce, but you can't tell what his destination is, or at what moment a gust of wind may veer him from his course. Prince or pauper; he may become either; but he'll never be one of your commonplace mediocrities."