"Oh, but look here, Hagar," said the other protestingly as he laid his hand upon the curtains.
Few men could resist the quiet decision of Hagar's manner, though he often laughed that, having but a poor opinion of his will as he knew it, and believing that he acted firmness without possessing it, save where he was purely selfish. He put his hands in his pockets carelessly, and said in a low, decisive tone, "Don't do it, if you please."
But he smiled, too, so that others, now gossiping, were unaware that the words were not of as light comedy as the manner. Hagar immediately began a general conversation and asked Baron to sing "The Banks o' Ben Lomond," feeling sure that Mrs. Detlor did not wish to sing again. Again she sent him a quick look of thanks and waved her fingers in protest to those who were urging her. She clapped her hands as she saw Baron rise, and the others, for politeness sake, could not urge her more.
For the stranger. Only the morning of that day he had arrived at the pretty town of Herridon among the hills and moors, set apart for the idle and ailing of this world. Of the world literally, for there might be seen at the pump-room visitors from every point of the compass—Hindoo gentlemen brought by sons who ate their legal dinners near Temple Bar; invalided officers from Hongkong, Bombay, Aden, the Gold Coast and otherwhere; Australian squatters and their daughters; attaches of foreign embassies; a prince from the Straits Settlements; priests without number from the northern counties; Scotch manufacturers; ladies wearied from the London season; artists, actors and authors, expected to do at inopportune times embarrassing things, and very many from Columbia, happy land, who go to Herridon as to Westminster—to see the ruins.
It is difficult for Herridon to take its visitors seriously, and quite as difficult for the visitors to take Herridon seriously. That is what the stranger thought as he tramped back and forth from point to point through the town. He had only been there twelve hours, yet he was familiar with the place. He had the instincts and the methods of the true traveler. He never was guilty of sightseeing in the usual sense. But it was his habit to get general outlines fixed at once. In Paris, in London, he had taken a map, had gone to some central spot, and had studied the cities from there; had traveled in different directions merely to get his bearings. After that he was quite at home. This was singular, too, for his life had been of recent years much out of the beaten tracks of civilization. He got the outlines of Herridon in an hour or two, and by evening he could have drawn a pretty accurate chart of it, both as to detail and from the point of a birdseye view at the top of the moor.
The moor had delighted him. He looked away to all quarters and saw hill and valley wrapped in that green. He saw it under an almost cloudless sky, and he took off his hat and threw his grizzled head back with a boyish laugh.
"It's good—good enough!" he said. "I've seen so much country all on edge that this is like getting a peep over the wall on the other side—the other side of Jordan. And yet that was God's country with the sun on it, as Gladney used to say—poor devil!"
He dropped his eyes from the prospect before him and pushed the sod and ling with his foot musingly. "If I had been in Gladney's place, would I have done as he did, and if he had been in my place would he have done as I did? One thing is certain, there'd have been bad luck for both of us, this way or that, with a woman in the equation. He was a fool—that's the way it looked, and I was a liar—to all appearances, and there's no heaven on earth for either. I've seen that all along the line. One thing is sure, Gladney has reached, as in his engineering phrase he'd say, the line of saturation, and I the line of liver, thanks be to London and its joys! And now for sulphur water and—damnation!"
This last word was not the real end to the sentence. He had, while lighting his cigar, suddenly remembered something. He puffed the cigar fiercely and immediately drew out a letter. He stood looking at it for a minute and presently let go a long breath.