“Oui, oui, certain’, assurement, wit’ plaisir, Monsieur,” he replied. So I handed him the little packet.
It chanced that my eye caught sight of one of the two letters Mrs. Daniver had handed me. The address was not in Mrs. Daniver’s handwriting, but one that I knew very well. And the letter, in this handwriting that I knew very well, was addressed to Calvin Horace Davidson, Esquire, The Boston Club, New Orleans, Louisiana: all written out in full in Helena’s own scrupulous fashion.
I gave the letter over to the messenger, but for a time I stood silent, thinking. I knew now very well what that letter contained. But yesterday, Helena Emory had finally decided, there on the beach, alone with me, the salt air on her cheek, the salt tears in her eyes. She had gone far as woman might to tell me that she was grieved over a hasty word—she had given me a chance, my first chance, my only chance, my last chance. And, I, pig-headed fool, had slighted her at the very moment of moments of all my life—I who had prided myself on my “psychology”—I who had thought myself wise—I had allowed that woman to go away with her head drooping when at last she—oh, I saw it all plainly enough now! And now indeed small psychology and small wit were requisite to know the whole process of a woman’s soul, thus chilled. She had been hesitant, had been a little resentful of this runaway situation, had not liked my domineering ways; but at last she had relented and had asked my pardon. Then I had spurned her. And then her mind swung to the other man. She had not yet given that man his answer, but when I chilled her, rejected her timid little desire to “make up” with me—why, then, her mind was made up for that other man at once. She had written his answer. And now—oh! fiendlike cruelty of woman’s heart—she had chosen me as her messenger to carry out that word which would cost me herself forever! She had done that exquisitely well, as she did everything, not even advising me that I was to be her errand boy on such an errand, trusting me to find out by accident, as I had, that I was to be my own executioner, was to spring my own guillotine. She knew that, none the less, though I understood what the letter meant thus addressed, I sacredly must execute her silent trust. Oh! Helena, yours was indeed an exquisite revenge for that one hour of a dour man’s hurt pride.
CHAPTER XXXVI
IN WHICH WE FOLD OUR TENTS
BY consent of the lighthouse keeper, we left the Belle Helène moored at the wharf in the channel, with Williams in charge, while Peterson and I, towing the tender’s sailing skiff, its piratical lateen sail lowered, started back for our encampment in our long boat. It was only a half mile or so alongshore around the head of the island, although we had to keep out a bit to avoid going aground on the flats where the Belle Helène had come to grief—and had, moreover, to wade ashore some fifty yards or so, now that the sea was calm, since the keel of the motor-boat would not admit a closer approach in the shallows.
We found our party all assembled, John having but now issued his luncheon call; and, such had proved the swift spell of this care-free life, none expressed much delight at the announcement of my decision to strike camp and move toward civilization. Helena only looked up swiftly, but made no comment; and Mrs. Daniver, to my surprise, openly rebelled at leaving these flesh-pots, where canvasback and terrapin might be had by shaking the bushes, and where the supply of ninety-three seemed, after all, not exhausted. Of course, my men had nothing to say about it, but when it came to my partners and associates, Lafitte and L’Olonnois, there was open mutiny.
“Why, now,” protested L’Olonnois, his lip quivering, “O’ course we don’t want to go home. Ain’t our desert island all right? Where you goin’ to find any better place ’n this, like to know? Besides”—and here he drew me to one side—“they’s a good reason for not goin’ just yet, Black Bart!”