“It’s that inspector fellow,” explained Harboro, without looking at her. His tone was not at all contemptuous, though there was a note of amusement in it. “He seems a sort of Prince Charming that everybody takes a liking to.” Wayne and Valdez were already returning, with Runyon between them. They pretended to lead him captive and his face radiated merriment and good nature. He walked with the elasticity of a feline creature; he carried his body as if it were the depository of precious jewels. Never was there a man to whom nature had been kinder—nor any man who was more graciously proud of what nature had done for him. For the occasion he was dressed in a suit of fawn-colored corduroy which fitted him as the rind fits the apple.
“Just a little too much so,” Harboro was thinking, ambiguously enough, certainly, as Runyon was brought before him and Sylvia. Runyon acknowledged the introduction with a cheerful urbanity which was quite without discrimination as between Harboro and Sylvia. Quite impartially he bestowed a flashing smile upon both the man and the woman. And Harboro began vaguely to understand. Runyon was popular, not because he was a particularly good fellow, but because he was so supremely cheerful. And he seemed entirely harmless, despite the glamour of him. After all, he was not a mere male coquette. He was in love with the world, with life.
Wayne was reproaching him for not having come sooner. He should have been there for the beginning, he said.
And Runyon’s response was characteristic enough, perhaps: “Everything is always beginning.”
There was gay laughter at this, though the meaning of it must have been obscure to all save Sylvia. The words sounded like a song to her. It was a song she had wished to sing herself. But she was reflecting, despite her joy in the saying: “No, everything is always ending.”
Runyon was borne away like a conqueror. He mingled with this group and that. His presence was like a stimulant. His musical voice penetrated everywhere; his laughter arose now and again. He did not look back toward Sylvia. She had the strange feeling that even yet they had not met—they had not met, yet had known each other always. He ignored her, she felt, as one ignores the best friend, the oldest associate, on the ground that no explanations are necessary, no misunderstanding possible.
Harboro sat down beside Sylvia. When he spoke there was a note of easy raillery in his voice. “They’re getting him to sing,” he said, and Sylvia, bringing her thoughts back from immeasurable distances, realized that the dancing space had been cleared, and that the musicians had stopped playing and were engaged in a low-spoken conference with Runyon. He nodded toward them approvingly and then stepped out into the open, a little distance from them.
The very sky listened; the desert became dumb. The orchestra played a prelude and then Runyon began to sing. The words came clear and resonant:
| “By the blue Alsatian mountains Dwelt a maiden young and fair....” |
Runyon sang marvellously. Although he was accustomed to the confines of drawing-rooms with low ceilings, he seemed quite at home on this earthen floor of the desert, with the moon sinking regretfully beyond the top of the stockade. He was perfectly at ease. His hands hung so naturally by his sides that they seemed invisible.