Chambers Robert William
The Adventures of a Modest Man

"Oh – thank you," he said, picking up an envelope directed, "Mr. Seabury," and opening it. Then a trifle surprised but smiling, he turned to find the girl whose name was written on the card. She was speaking to the hostess and the amiable man who had first greeted him. And this is what he didn't hear as he watched her, waiting grimly for a chance at her:

"Cecil! Who is that very young man?"

"Betty, how should I know – "

"Look here, Cis," from the amiable gentleman; "this is some of your deviltry – "

"Oh, thank you, Jim!"

"Yes, it is. Who is he and where did you rope him?"

"Jim!"

"Cecil! What nonsense is this?" demanded her hostess and elder sister. "How did he get here and who is he?"

"I did not bring him, Betty. He simply came?"

"How?"

"In the depot-sleigh, of course – "

"With you?"

"Certainly. He wanted to come. He would come! I couldn't turn him out, could I – after he climbed in?"

Host and hostess glared at their flushed and defiant relative, who tried to look saucy, but only looked scared. "He doesn't know he's made a mistake," she faltered; "and there's no need to tell him yet – is there?.. I put my name down on his card; he'll take me in… Jim, don't, for Heaven's sake, say anything if he calls Betty Mrs. Austin. Oh, Jim, be decent, please! I was a fool to do it; I don't know what possessed me! Wait until to-morrow before you say anything! Besides, he may be furious! Please wait until I'm out of the house. He'll breakfast late, I hope; and I promise you I'll be up early and off by the seven o'clock train – "

"In Heaven's name, who is he?" broke in the amiable man so fiercely that Cecil jumped.

"He's only Lily Seabury's brother," she said, meekly, "and he thinks he's at the Austins' – and he might as well be, because he knows half the people here, and I've simply got to keep him out of their way so that nobody can tell him where he is. Oh, Betty – I've spoiled my own Christmas fun, and his, too! Is there any way to get him to the Austins' now?'

"The Jack Austins' of Beverly!" exclaimed her sister, incredulously. "Of course not!"

"And you let him think he was on his way there?" demanded her brother-in-law. "Well – you – are – the – limit!"

"So is he," murmured the abashed maid, slinking back to give place to a new and last arrival. Then she turned her guilty face in a sort of panic of premonition. She was a true prophetess; Seabury had seen his chance and was coming. And that's what comes of mocking the Mystic Three and cutting capers before High Heaven.

CHAPTER XI
DESTINY

He had taken her in and was apparently climbing rapidly through the seven Heavens of rapture – having arrived as far as the third unchecked and without mishap. It is not probable that she kept pace with him: she had other things to think of.

Dinner was served at small tables; and it required all her will, all her limited experience, every atom of her intelligence, to keep him from talking about things that meant exposure for her. Never apparently had he been so flattered by any individual girl's attention; she was gay, witty, audacious, charming, leading and carrying every theme to a scintillating conclusion.

The other four people at their table he had not before met – she had seen to that – and it proved to be a very jolly group, and there was a steady, gay tumult of voices around it, swept by little gusts of laughter; and he knew perfectly well that he had never had such a good time as he was having – had never been so clever, so interesting, so quick with his wit, so amusing. He had never seen such a girl as had been allotted to him – never! Besides, something else had nerved him to do his best. And he was doing it.

"It's a curious thing," he said, with that odd new smile of his, "what a resemblance there is between you and Mrs. Austin."

"What Mrs. Austin?" began the girl opposite; but got no further, for Cecil Gay was appealing to him to act as arbiter in a disputed Bridge question; and he did so with nice discrimination and a logical explanation which tided matters over that time. But it was a close call; and the color had not all returned to Cecil's cheeks when he finished, with great credit to his own reputation as a Bridge expert.

But the very deuce seemed to possess him to talk on subjects from which she strove to lead him.

These are the other breaks he made, and as far as he got with each break – stopped neatly every time in time:

"Curious I haven't seen Jack Aus – "

"Mrs. Austin does resemble – "

"This is the first time I have ever been in Bev – "

And each time she managed to repair the break unnoticed. But it was telling on her; she couldn't last another round – she knew that. Only the figurative bell could save her now. And she could almost hear it as her sister rose.

Saved! But – but —what might some of these men say to him if he lingered here for coffee and cigarettes?

"You won't, will you?" she said desperately, as all rose.

"Won't – what?" he asked.

"Stay —long."

He rapidly made his way from the third into the fourth Heaven. She watched him.

"No, indeed," he said under his breath.

She lingered, fascinated by her own peril. Could she get him away at once?

"I – I wonder, Mr. Seabury, what you would think if I – if I suggested that you smoke – smoke – on the stairs – now – with me?"

He hastily scrambled out of the fourth Heaven into the fifth. She saw him do it.

"I'd rather smoke there than anywhere in the world – "

"Quick, then! Saunter over to the door – stroll about a little first – no, don't do even that! – I – I mean – you'd better hurry. Please!" She cast a rapid look about her; she could not linger another moment. Then, concentrating all the sweetness and audacity in her, and turning to him, she gave him one last look. It was sufficient to send him in one wild, flying leap from the fifth Heaven plump into the sixth. The sixth Heaven was on the stairs; and his legs carried him thither at a slow and indifferent saunter, though it required every scrap of his self-control to prevent his legs from breaking into a triumphant trot. Yet all the while that odd smile flickered, went out, and flickered in his eyes.

She was there, very fluffy, very brilliant, and flustered and adorable, the light from the sconces playing over her bare arms and shoulders and spinning all sorts of aureoles around her bright hair. Hah! She had him alone now. She was safe; she could breathe again. And he might harp on the Austins all he chose. Let him!

"No, I can't have cigarettes," she explained, "because it isn't good for my voice. I'm supposed to possess a voice, you know."

"It's about the sweetest voice I ever heard," he said so sincerely that the bright tint in her cheeks deepened.

"That is nicer than a compliment," she said, looking at him with a little laugh of pleasure. He nodded, watching the smoke rings drifting through the hall.

"Do you know something?" he said.

"Not very much. What?"

"If I were a great matrimonial prize – "

"You are, aren't you?"

"If I was," he continued, ignoring her, "like a king or a grand duke – "

"Exactly."

"I'd invite a grand competition for my hand and heart – "

"We'd all go, Mr. Seabury – "

" – And then I'd stroll about among them all – "

"Certainly – among the competing millions."

"Among the millions – blindfolded – "

"Blinfo – "

"Yes."

"Why?"

" – Blindfolded!" he repeated with emphasis. "I would choose a voice! – before everything else in the world."

"Oh," she said, rather faintly.

"A voice," he mused, looking hard at the end of his cigarette which had gone out: and the odd smile began to flicker in his eyes again.

Mischief prompting, she began: "I wonder what chance I should have in your competition? First prize I couldn't aspire to, but – there would be a sort of booby prize – wouldn't there, Mr. Seabury?"

"There would be only one prize – "

"Oh!"

"And that would be the booby prize; the prize booby." And he smiled his odd smile and laid his hand rather gracefully over his heart. "You have won him, Miss Gay."

She looked at him prepared to laugh, but, curiously enough, there was less of the booby about him as she saw him there than she had expected – a tall, clean-cut, attractive young fellow, with a well-shaped head and nice ears – a man, not a boy, after all – pleasant, amiably self-possessed, and of her own sort, as far as breeding showed.

Gone was the indescribably indefinite suggestion of too good looks, of latent self-sufficiency. He no longer struck her as being pleased with himself, of being a shade – just a shade – too sure of himself. A change, certainly; and to his advantage. Kindness, sympathy, recognition make wonderful changes in some people.

"I'll tell you what I'd do if I were queen, and" – she glanced at him – "a matrimonial prize… Shall I?"

"Why be both?" he asked.

"That rings hollow, Mr. Seabury, after your tribute to my voice!.. Suppose I were queen. I'd hold a caucus, too. Please say you'd come."

"Oh, I am already there!"

"That won't help you; it isn't first come, first served at my caucus!.. So, suppose millions of suitors were all sitting around twisting their fingers in abashed hopeful silence."

"Exactly."

"What do you think I'd do, Mr. Seabury?"

"Run. I should."

"No; I should make them a speech – a long one – oh, dreadfully long and wearisome. I should talk and talk and talk, and repeat myself, and pile platitude on platitude, and maunder on and on and on. And about luncheon-time I should have a delicious repast served me, and I'd continue my speech as I ate. And after that I'd ramble on and on until dinner-time. And I should dine magnificently up there on the dais, and, between courses, I'd continue my speech – "

"You'd choose the last man to go to sleep," he said simply.

"How did you guess it!" she exclaimed, vexed. "I – it's too bad for you to know everything, Mr. Seabury."

"I thought you were convinced that I didn't know anything?" he said, looking up at her. His voice was quiet – too quiet; his face grave, unsmiling, firm.

"I? Mr. Seabury, I don't understand you."

He folded his hands and rested his chin on the knuckles. "But I understand you, Miss Gay. Tell me" – the odd smile flickered and went out – "Tell me, in whose house am I?"

Sheer shame paralyzed her; wave on wave of it crimsoned her to the hair. She sat there in deathly silence; he coolly lighted another cigarette, dropped one elbow on his knee, propping his chin in his open palm.

"I'm curious to know – if you don't mind," he added pleasantly.

"Oh – h!" she breathed, covering her eyes suddenly with both hands. She pressed the lids for a moment steadily, then her hands fell to her lap, and she faced him, cheeks aflame.

"I – I have no excuse," she stammered – "nothing to say for myself … except I did not understand what a – a common – dreadful – insulting thing I was doing – "

He waited; then: "I am not angry, Miss Gay."

"N-not angry? You are! You must be! It was too mean – too contemptible – "

"Please don't. Besides, I took possession of your sleigh. Bailey did the business for me. I didn't know he had left the Austins, of course."

She looked up quickly; there was a dimness in her eyes, partly from earnestness; "I did not know you had made a mistake until you spoke of the Austins," she said. "And then something whispered to me not to tell you – to let you go on – something possessed me to commit this folly – "

"Oh, no; I committed it. Besides, we were more than half-way here, were we not?"

"Ye-yes."

"And there's only one more train for Beverly, and I couldn't possibly have made that, even if we had turned back!"

"Y-yes. Mr. Seabury, are you trying to defend me?"

"You need no defense. You were involved through no fault of your own in a rather ridiculous situation. And you simply, and like a philosopher, extracted what amusement there was in it."

"Mr. Seabury! You shall not be so – so generous. I have cut a wretchedly undignified figure – "

"You couldn't!"

"I could – I have – I'm doing it!"

"You are doing something else, Miss Gay."

"W-what?"

"Making it very, very hard for me to go."

"But you can't go! You mustn't! Do you think I'd let you go —now? Not if the Austins lived next door! I mean it, Mr. Seabury. I – I simply must make amends – all I can – "

"Amends? You have."

"I? How?"

"By being here with me."

"Th-that is – is very sweet of you, Mr. Seabury, but I – but they – but you – Oh! I don't know what I'm trying to say, except that I like you —they will like you – and everybody knows Lily Seabury. Please, please forgive – "

"I'm going to telephone to Beverly… Will you wait —here?"

"Ye-yes. Wh-what are you going to telephone? You can't go, you know. Please don't try – will you?"

"No," he said, looking down at her.

Things were happening swiftly – everything was happening in an instant – life, youth, time, all were whirling and spinning around her in bewildering rapidity; and her pulses, too, leaping responsive, drummed cadence to her throbbing brain.

She saw him mount the stairs and disappear – no doubt to his room, for there was a telephone there. Then, before she realized the lapse of time, he was back again, seating himself quietly beside her on the broad stair.

"Shall I tell you what I am going to do?" he said after a silence through which the confused sense of rushing unreality had held her mute.

"Wh-what are you going to do?"

"Walk to Beverly."

"Mr. Seabury! You promised – "

"Did I?"

"You did! It is snowing terribly… It is miles and miles and the snow is already too deep. Besides, do you think I – we would let you walk! But you shall not go – and there are horses enough, too! No, no, no! I – I wish you would let me try to make up something to you – if I – all that I can possibly make up."

"At the end of the hall above there's a window," he said slowly. "Prove to me that the snow is too deep."

"Prove it?" She sprang up, gathering her silken skirts and was on the landing above before he could rise.

He found her, smiling, triumphant, beside the big casement at the end of the hallway.

"Now are you convinced?" she said. "Just look at the snowdrifts. Are you satisfied?"

"No," he said, quietly – too quietly by far. She looked up at him, a quick protest framed on her red lips. Something – perhaps the odd glimmer in his eyes – committed her to silence. From silence the stillness grew into tension; and again the rushing sense of unreality surged over them both, leaving their senses swimming.

"There is only one thing in the world I care for now," he said.

"Ye-yes."

"And that is to have you think well of me."

"I – I do."

" – And each day – think better of me."

"I – will – probably – "

"And in the end – "

She neither stirred nor turned her eyes.

" – In the end —Listen to me."

"I am wi-willing to."

"Because it will be then as it is now; as it was when even I didn't know it – as it must be always, for me. Only one person in the world can ever matter to me – now… There's no escape from it for me."

"Do – do you wish to – escape?"

"Cecil!" he said under his breath.

"They're dancing, below," she said leaning over the gallery, one soft white hand on the polished rail, the other abandoned to him – carelessly – as though she were quite unconscious where it lay.

"They are dancing," she repeated, turning toward him – which brought them face to face, both her hands resting listlessly in his.

A silence, then:

"Do you know," she said, "that this is a very serious matter?"

"I know."

"And that it's probably one of those dreadful, terrible and sudden strokes of Fate?"

"I know."

"And that – that it serves me right?"

He was smiling; and she smiled back at him, the starry beauty of her eyes dimming a trifle.

"You say that you have chosen a 'Voice,'" she said; "and – do you think that you would be the last man to go to sleep?"

"The very last."

"Then – I suppose I must make my choice… I will … some day… And, are you going to dance with me?"

He raised her hands, joining them together between his; and she watched him gravely, a tremor touching her lips. In silence their hands fell apart; he stepped nearer; she lifted her head a little – a very little – closing her lids; he bent and kissed her lips, very lightly.

That was all; they opened their eyes upon one another, somewhat dazed. A bell, very far off, was sounding faintly through the falling snow – faintly, persistently, the first bell for Christmas morning.

Then she took the edges of her silken gown between thumb and forefinger, and slowly, very slowly, sank low with flushed cheeks, sweeping him an old-time curtsey.

"I – I wish you a Merry Christmas," she said… "And thank you for your wish… And you may take me down, now" – rising to her slim and lovely height – "and I think we had better dance as hard as we can and try to forget what our families are likely to think of what we've done… Don't you?"

"Yes," he said seriously, "I do."

"And that's what comes of running after trains, and talking to fat conductors, and wearing chinchilla furs, and flouting the Mystic Three!" added Williams throwing away his cigar.

CHAPTER XII
IN WHICH A MODEST MAN MAUNDERS

"In my opinion," said I, "a man who comes to see Paris in three months is a fool, and kin to that celebrated ass who circum-perambulated the globe in eighty days. See all, see nothing. A man might camp a lifetime in the Louvre and learn little about it before he left for Père Lachaise. Yet here comes the United States in a gigantic "mônome" to see the city in three weeks, when three years is too short a time in which to appreciate the Carnavalet Museum alone! I'm going home."

"Oh, papa!" said Alida.

"Yes, I am," I snapped. "I'd rather be tried and convicted in Oyster Bay on the charge of stealing my own pig than confess I had 'seen Paris' in three months."

We had driven out to the Trocadero that day, and were now comfortably seated in the tower of that somewhat shabby "palace," for the purpose of obtaining a bird's eye view of the "Rive Droite" or right bank of the Seine.

Elegant, modern, spotless, the Rive Droite spread out at our feet, silver-gray squares of Renaissance architecture inlaid with the delicate green of parks, circles, squares, and those endless double and quadruple lines of trees which make Paris slums more attractive than Fifth Avenue. Far as the eye could see stretched the exquisite monotony of the Rive Droite, discreetly and artistically broken by domes and spires of uncatalogued "monuments," in virgin territory, unknown and unsuspected to those spiritual vandals whose hordes raged through the boulevards, waving ten thousand blood-red Baedekers at the paralyzed Parisians.

"Well," said I, "now that we have 'seen' the Rive Droite, let's cast a bird's-eye glance over Europe and Asia and go back to the hotel for luncheon."

My sarcasm was lost on my daughters because they had moved out of earshot. Alida was looking through a telescope held for her by a friend of Captain de Barsac, an officer of artillery named Captain Vicômte Torchon de Cluny. He was all over scarlet and black and gold; when he walked his sabre made noises, and his ringing spurs reminded me of the sound of sleigh-bells in Oyster Bay.

My daughter Dulcima was observing the fortress of Mont-Valerien through a tiny pair of jewelled opera-glasses, held for her by Captain de Barsac. It was astonishing to see how tirelessly De Barsac held those opera-glasses, which must have weighed at least an ounce. But French officers are inured to hardships and fatigue.

"Is that a fortress?" asked Dulcima ironically. "I see nothing but some low stone houses."

"Next to Gibraltar," said De Barsac, "it is the most powerful fortress in the world, mademoiselle. It garrisons thousands of men; its stores are enormous; it dominates not only Paris, but all France."

"But where are the cannon?" asked Dulcima.

"Ah – exactly – where? That is what other nations pay millions to find out – and cannot. Will you take my word for it that there are one or two cannon there – and permit me to avoid particulars?"

"You might tell me where just one little unimportant cannon is?" said my daughter, with the naïve curiosity which amuses the opposite and still more curious sex.

"And endanger France?" asked De Barsac, with owl-like solemnity.

"Thank you," pouted Dulcima, perfectly aware that he was laughing.

Their voices became low, and relapsed into that buzzing murmur which always defeats its own ends by arousing parental vigilance.

"Let us visit the aquarium," said I in a distinct and disagreeable voice. Doubtless the "voice from the wilderness" was gratuitously unwelcome to Messieurs De Barsac and Torchon de Cluny, but they appeared to welcome the idea with a conciliatory alacrity noticeable in young men when intruded upon by the parent of pretty daughters. Dear me, how fond they appeared to be of me; what delightful information they volunteered concerning the Trocadero, the Alexander Bridge, the Champ de Mars.

The aquarium of the Trocadero is underground. To reach it you simply walk down a hole in France and find yourself under the earth, listening to the silvery prattle of a little brook which runs over its bed of pebbles above your head, pouring down little waterfalls into endless basins of glass which line the damp arcades as far as you can see. The arcades themselves are dim, the tanks, set in the solid rock, are illuminated from above by holes in the ground, through which pours the yellow sunshine of France.

Looking upward through the glass faces of the tanks you can see the surface of the water with bubbles afloat, you can see the waterfall tumbling in; you can catch glimpses of green grass and bushes, and a bit of blue sky.

Into the tanks fall insects from the world above, and the fish sail up to the surface and lazily suck in the hapless fly or spider that tumbles onto the surface of the water.

It is a fresh-water aquarium. All the fresh-water fish of France are represented here by fine specimens – pike, barbels, tench, dace, perch, gudgeons, sea-trout, salmon, brown-trout, and that lovely delicate trout-like fish called l'Ombre de Chevallier. What it is I do not know, but it resembles our beautiful American brook-trout in shape and marking; and is probably a hybrid, cultivated by these clever French specialists in fish-propagation.

Coming to a long crystal-clear tank, I touched the glass with my finger-tip, and a slender, delicate fish, colored like mother-of-pearl, slowly turned to stare at me.

"This," said I, "is that aristocrat of the waters called the 'Grayling.' Notice its huge dorsal fin, its tender and diminutive mouth. It takes a fly like a trout, but the angler who would bring it to net must work gently and patiently, else the tender mouth tears and the fish is lost. Is it not the most beautiful of all fishes?

 
"'Here and there a lusty trout;
Here and there a Grayling – '
 

"Ah, Tennyson knew. And that reminds me, Alida," I continued, preparing to recount a personal adventure with a grayling in Austria – "that reminds me – "

I turned around to find I had been addressing the empty and somewhat humid atmosphere. My daughter Alida stood some distance away, gazing absently at a tank full of small fry; and Captain Vicômte Torchon de Cluny stood beside her, talking. Perhaps he was explaining the habits of the fish in the tank.

My daughter Dulcima and Captain de Barsac I beheld far down the arcades, strolling along without the faintest pretence of looking at anything but each other.

"Very well," thought I to myself, "this aquarium is exactly the place I expect to avoid in future – " And I cheerfully joined my daughters as though they and their escorts had long missed me.

Now, of course, they all expressed an enthusiastic desire to visit every tank and hear me explain the nature of their contents; but it was too late.

"No," said I, "it is damp enough here to float all the fishes in the Seine. And besides, as we are to 'see' the Rive Droite, we should hasten, so that we may have at least half an hour to devote to the remainder of France."

From the bowels of the earth we emerged into the sunshine, to partake of an exceedingly modest luncheon in the Trocadero restaurant, under the great waterfall.

Across the river a regiment of red-legged infantry marched, drums and bugles sounding.

"All that territory over there," said De Barsac, "is given up to barracks. It is an entire quarter of the city, occupied almost exclusively by the military. There the streets run between miles of monotonous barracks, through miles of arid parade grounds, where all day long the piou-pious drill in the dust; where the cavalry exercise; where the field-artillery go clanking along the dreary streets toward their own exercise ground beyond the Usine de Gaz. All day long that quarter of the city echoes with drums beating and trumpets sounding, and the trample of passing cavalry, and the clank and rattle of cannon. Truly, in the midst of peace we prepare for – something else – we French."

"It is strange," said I, "that you have time to be the greatest sculptors, architects, and painters in the world."

"In France, monsieur, we never lack time. It is only in America that you corner time and dispense it at a profit."

"Time," said I, "is at once our most valuable and valueless commodity. Our millionaires seldom have sufficient time to avoid indigestion. Yet, although time is apparently so precious, there are among us men who spend it in reading the New York Herald editorials. I myself am often short of time, yet I take a Long Island newspaper and sometimes even read it."

We had been walking through the gardens, while speaking, toward a large crowd of people which had collected along the river. In the centre of the crowd stood a taxicab, on the box of which danced the cabby, gesticulating.

When we arrived at the scene of disturbance the first person I saw distinctly was our acquaintance, the young man from East Boston, hatless, dishevelled, all over dust, in the grasp of two agents de police.

"He has been run over by a taxi," observed De Barsac. "They are going to arrest him."

"Well, why don't they do it?" I said, indignantly, supposing that De Barsac meant the chauffeur was to be arrested.

"They have done so."

"No, they haven't! They are holding the man who has been run over!"

"Exactly. He has been run over and they are arresting him."

"Who?" I demanded, bewildered.

"Why, the man who has been run over!"

"But why, in Heaven's name!"

"Why? Because he allowed himself to be run over!"

"What!" I cried. "They arrest the man who has been run over, and not the man who ran over him?"

"It is the law," said De Barsac, coolly.

"Do you mean to tell me that the runner is left free, while the runnee is arrested?" I asked in deadly calmness, reducing my question to legal and laconic language impossible to misinterpret.

"Exactly. The person who permits a vehicle to run over him in defiance of the French law, which says that nobody ought to let himself be run over, is liable to arrest, imprisonment, and fine – unless, of course, so badly injured that recovery is impossible."

Now at last I understood the Dreyfus Affaire. Now I began to comprehend the laws of the Bandarlog. Now I could follow the subtle logic of the philosophy embodied in "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass!"

This was the country for me! Why, certainly; these people here could understand a man who was guilty of stealing his own pig.

"I think I should like to live in Paris again," I said to my daughters; then I approached the young man from East Boston and bade him cheer up.

He was not hurt; he was only rumpled and dusty and hopping mad.

"I shall pay their darned fine," he said. "Then I'm going to hire a cab and drive it myself, and hunt up that cabman who ran over me, by Judas!"

That night I met Williams at the Café Jaune by previous and crafty agreement; and it certainly was nice to be together after all these years in the same old seats in the same café, and discuss the days that we never could live again – and wouldn't want to if we could – alas!

The talk fell on Ellis and Jones, and immediately I perceived that Williams had skillfully steered the conversation toward those two young men – and I knew devilish well he had a story to tell me about them.

So I cut short his side-stepping and circling, and told him to be about it as I wanted to devote one or two hours that night to a matter which I had recently neglected – Sleep.

"That Jones," he said, "was a funny fellow. He and Ellis didn't meet over here; Ellis was before his time. But they became excellent friends under rather unusual circumstances.

"Ellis, you know, was always getting some trout fishing when he was over here. He was a good deal of a general sportsman. As for Jones – well, you remember that he had no use for anything more strenuous than a motor tour."

"I remember," I said.