The Third Violet, Page 2

  Hawker regarded the group nervously, and at last propounded a greatquestion: "Say, I wonder where they all are recruited? When you come tothink that almost every summer hotel----"

  "Certainly," said Hollanden, "almost every summer hotel. I've studiedthe question, and have nearly established the fact that almost everysummer hotel is furnished with a full corps of----"

  "To be sure," said Hawker; "and if you search for them in the winter,you can find barely a sign of them, until you examine the boardinghouses, and then you observe----"

  "Certainly," said Hollanden, "of course. By the way," he added, "youhaven't got any obviously loose screws in your character, have you?"

  "No," said Hawker, after consideration, "only general poverty--that'sall."

  "Of course, of course," said Hollanden. "But that's bad. They'll get onto you, sure. Particularly since you come up here to see Miss Fanhall somuch."

  Hawker glinted his eyes at his friend. "You've got a deuced open way ofspeaking," he observed.

  "Deuced open, is it?" cried Hollanden. "It isn't near so open as yourdevotion to Miss Fanhall, which is as plain as a red petticoat hung on ahedge."

  Hawker's face gloomed, and he said, "Well, it might be plain to you, youinfernal cat, but that doesn't prove that all those old hens can seeit."

  "I tell you that if they look twice at you they can't fail to see it.And it's bad, too. Very bad. What's the matter with you? Haven't youever been in love before?"

  "None of your business," replied Hawker.

  Hollanden thought upon this point for a time. "Well," he admittedfinally, "that's true in a general way, but I hate to see you managingyour affairs so stupidly."

  Rage flamed into Hawker's face, and he cried passionately, "I tell youit is none of your business!" He suddenly confronted the other man.

  Hollanden surveyed this outburst with a critical eye, and then slappedhis knee with emphasis. "You certainly have got it--a million timesworse than I thought. Why, you--you--you're heels over head."

  "What if I am?" said Hawker, with a gesture of defiance and despair.

  Hollanden saw a dramatic situation in the distance, and with a brightsmile he studied it. "Say," he exclaimed, "suppose she should not go tothe picnic to-morrow? She said this morning she did not know if shecould go. Somebody was expected from New York, I think. Wouldn't itbreak you up, though! Eh?"

  "You're so dev'lish clever!" said Hawker, with sullen irony.

  Hollanden was still regarding the distant dramatic situation. "Andrivals, too! The woods must be crowded with them. A girl like that, youknow. And then all that money! Say, your rivals must number enough tomake a brigade of militia. Imagine them swarming around! But then itdoesn't matter so much," he went on cheerfully; "you've got a good playthere. You must appreciate them to her--you understand?--appreciate themkindly, like a man in a watch-tower. You must laugh at them only aboutonce a week, and then very tolerantly--you understand?--and kindly,and--and appreciatively."

  "You're a colossal ass, Hollie!" said Hawker. "You----"

  "Yes, yes, I know," replied the other peacefully; "a colossal ass. Ofcourse." After looking into the distance again, he murmured: "I'mworried about that picnic. I wish I knew she was going. By heavens, as amatter of fact, she must be made to go!"

  "What have you got to do with it?" cried the painter, in another suddenoutburst.

  "There! there!" said Hollanden, waving his hand. "You fool! Only aspectator, I assure you."

  Hawker seemed overcome then with a deep dislike of himself. "Oh, well,you know, Hollie, this sort of thing----" He broke off and gazed at thetrees. "This sort of thing---- It----"

  "How?" asked Hollanden.

  "Confound you for a meddling, gabbling idiot!" cried Hawker suddenly.

  Hollanden replied, "What did you do with that violet she dropped at theside of the tennis court yesterday?"

  CHAPTER V.

  Mrs. Fanhall, with the two children, the Worcester girls, and Hollanden,clambered down the rocky path. Miss Fanhall and Hawker had remained ontop of the ledge. Hollanden showed much zeal in conducting hiscontingent to the foot of the falls. Through the trees they could seethe cataract, a great shimmering white thing, booming and thunderinguntil all the leaves gently shuddered.

  "I wonder where Miss Fanhall and Mr. Hawker have gone?" said the youngerMiss Worcester. "I wonder where they've gone?"

  "Millicent," said Hollander, looking at her fondly, "you always had suchgreat thought for others."

  "Well, I wonder where they've gone?"

  At the foot of the falls, where the mist arose in silver clouds and thegreen water swept into the pool, Miss Worcester, the elder, seated onthe moss, exclaimed, "Oh, Mr. Hollanden, what makes all literary men sopeculiar?"

  "And all that just because I said that I could have made betterdigestive organs than Providence, if it is true that he made mine,"replied Hollanden, with reproach. "Here, Roger," he cried, as he draggedthe child away from the brink, "don't fall in there, or you won't be thefull-back at Yale in 1907, as you have planned. I'm sure I don't knowhow to answer you, Miss Worcester. I've inquired of innumerable literarymen, and none of 'em know. I may say I have chased that problem foryears. I might give you my personal history, and see if that would throwany light on the subject." He looked about him with chin high until hisglance had noted the two vague figures at the top of the cliff. "I mightgive you my personal history----"

  Mrs. Fanhall looked at him curiously, and the elder Worcester girlcried, "Oh, do!"

  After another scanning of the figures at the top of the cliff, Hollandenestablished himself in an oratorical pose on a great weather-beatenstone. "Well--you must understand--I started my career--my career, youunderstand--with a determination to be a prophet, and, although I haveended in being an acrobat, a trained bear of the magazines, and ajuggler of comic paragraphs, there was once carved upon my lips a smilewhich made many people detest me, for it hung before them like a bansheewhenever they tried to be satisfied with themselves. I was informed fromtime to time that I was making no great holes in the universal plan, andI came to know that one person in every two thousand of the people I sawhad heard of me, and that four out of five of these had forgotten it.And then one in every two of those who remembered that they had heard ofme regarded the fact that I wrote as a great impertinence. I admittedthese things, and in defence merely builded a maxim that stated thateach wise man in this world is concealed amid some twenty thousandfools. If you have eyes for mathematics, this conclusion should interestyou. Meanwhile I created a gigantic dignity, and when men saw thisdignity and heard that I was a literary man they respected me. Iconcluded that the simple campaign of existence for me was to deludethe populace, or as much of it as would look at me. I did. I do. And nowI can make myself quite happy concocting sneers about it. Others may doas they please, but as for me," he concluded ferociously, "I shall neverdisclose to anybody that an acrobat, a trained bear of the magazines, ajuggler of comic paragraphs, is not a priceless pearl of art andphilosophy."

  "I don't believe a word of it is true," said Miss Worcester.

  "What do you expect of autobiography?" demanded Hollanden, withasperity.

  "Well, anyhow, Hollie," exclaimed the younger sister, "you didn'texplain a thing about how literary men came to be so peculiar, andthat's what you started out to do, you know."

  "Well," said Hollanden crossly, "you must never expect a man to do whathe starts to do, Millicent. And besides," he went on, with the gleam ofa sudden idea in his eyes, "literary men are not peculiar, anyhow."

  The elder Worcester girl looked angrily at him. "Indeed? Not you, ofcourse, but the others."

  "They are all asses," said Hollanden genially.

  The elder Worcester girl reflected. "I believe you try to make us thinkand then just tangle us up purposely!"

  The younger Worcester girl reflected. "You are an absurd old thing, youknow, Hollie!"

  Hollanden climbed offendedly from the great weather-beaten stone. "Well,I shall go
and see that the men have not spilled the luncheon whilebreaking their necks over these rocks. Would you like to have it spreadhere, Mrs. Fanhall? Never mind consulting the girls. I assure you Ishall spend a great deal of energy and temper in bullying them intodoing just as they please. Why, when I was in Brussels----"

  "Oh, come now, Hollie, you never were in Brussels, you know," said theyounger Worcester girl.

  "What of that, Millicent?" demanded Hollanden. "This is autobiography."

  "Well, I don't care, Hollie. You tell such whoppers."

  With a gesture of despair he again started away; whereupon theWorcester girls shouted in chorus, "Oh, I say, Hollie, come back! Don'tbe angry. We didn't mean to tease you, Hollie--really, we didn't!"

  "Well, if you didn't," said Hollanden, "why did you----"

  The elder Worcester girl was gazing fixedly at the top of the cliff."Oh, there they are! I wonder why they don't come down?"

  CHAPTER VI.

  Stanley, the setter, walked to the edge of the precipice and, lookingover at the falls, wagged his tail in friendly greeting. He was bracedwarily, so that if this howling white animal should reach up a hand forhim he could flee in time.

  The girl stared dreamily at the red-stained crags that projected fromthe pines of the hill across the stream. Hawker lazily aimed bits ofmoss at the oblivious dog and missed him.

  "It must be fine to have something to think of beyond just living," saidthe girl to the crags.

  "I suppose you mean art?" said Hawker.

  "Yes, of course. It must be finer, at any rate, than the ordinarything."

  He mused for a time. "Yes. It is--it must be," he said. "But then--I'drather just lie here."

  The girl seemed aggrieved. "Oh, no, you wouldn't. You couldn't stop.It's dreadful to talk like that, isn't it? I always thought thatpainters were----"

  "Of course. They should be. Maybe they are. I don't know. Sometimes Iam. But not to-day."

  "Well, I should think you ought to be so much more contented than justordinary people. Now, I----"

  "You!" he cried--"you are not 'just ordinary people.'"

  "Well, but when I try to recall what I have thought about in my life, Ican't remember, you know. That's what I mean."

  "You shouldn't talk that way," he told her.

  "But why do you insist that life should be so highly absorbing for me?"

  "You have everything you wish for," he answered, in a voice of deepgloom.

  "Certainly not. I am a woman."

  "But----"

  "A woman, to have everything she wishes for, would have to beProvidence. There are some things that are not in the world."

  "Well, what are they?" he asked of her.

  "That's just it," she said, nodding her head, "no one knows. That'swhat makes the trouble."

  "Well, you are very unreasonable."

  "What?"

  "You are very unreasonable. If I were you--an heiress----"

  The girl flushed and turned upon him angrily.

  "Well!" he glowered back at her. "You are, you know. You can't deny it."

  She looked at the red-stained crags. At last she said, "You seemedreally contemptuous."

  "Well, I assure you that I do not feel contemptuous. On the contrary, Iam filled with admiration. Thank Heaven, I am a man of the world.Whenever I meet heiresses I always have the deepest admiration." As hesaid this he wore a brave hang-dog expression. The girl surveyed himcoldly from his chin to his eyebrows. "You have a handsome audacity,too."

  He lay back in the long grass and contemplated the clouds.

  "You should have been a Chinese soldier of fortune," she said.

  He threw another little clod at Stanley and struck him on the head.

  "You are the most scientifically unbearable person in the world," shesaid.

  Stanley came back to see his master and to assure himself that the clumpon the head was not intended as a sign of serious displeasure. Hawkertook the dog's long ears and tried to tie them into a knot.

  "And I don't see why you so delight in making people detest you," shecontinued.

  Having failed to make a knot of the dog's ears, Hawker leaned back andsurveyed his failure admiringly. "Well, I don't," he said.

  "You do."

  "No, I don't."

  "Yes, you do. You just say the most terrible things as if you positivelyenjoyed saying them."

  "Well, what did I say, now? What did I say?"

  "Why, you said that you always had the most extraordinary admiration forheiresses whenever you met them."

  "Well, what's wrong with that sentiment?" he said. "You can't findfault with that!"

  "It is utterly detestable."

  "Not at all," he answered sullenly. "I consider it a tribute--a gracefultribute."

  Miss Fanhall arose and went forward to the edge of the cliff. She becameabsorbed in the falls. Far below her a bough of a hemlock drooped to thewater, and each swirling, mad wave caught it and made it nod--nod--nod.Her back was half turned toward Hawker.

  After a time Stanley, the dog, discovered some ants scurrying in themoss, and he at once began to watch them and wag his tail.

  "Isn't it curious," observed Hawker, "how an animal as large as a dogwill sometimes be so entertained by the very smallest things?"

  Stanley pawed gently at the moss, and then thrust his head forward tosee what the ants did under the circumstances.

  "In the hunting season," continued Hawker, having waited a moment, "thisdog knows nothing on earth but his master and the partridges. He is lostto all other sound and movement. He moves through the woods like asteel machine. And when he scents the bird--ah, it is beautiful!Shouldn't you like to see him then?"

  Some of the ants had perhaps made war-like motions, and Stanley waspretending that this was a reason for excitement. He reared aback, andmade grumbling noises in his throat.

  After another pause Hawker went on: "And now see the precious old fool!He is deeply interested in the movements of the little ants, and aschildish and ridiculous over them as if they were highlyimportant.--There, you old blockhead, let them alone!"

  Stanley could not be induced to end his investigations, and he told hismaster that the ants were the most thrilling and dramatic animals of hisexperience.

  "Oh, by the way," said Hawker at last, as his glance caught upon thecrags across the river, "did you ever hear the legend of those rocksyonder? Over there where I am pointing? Where I'm pointing? Did you everhear it? What? Yes? No? Well, I shall tell it to you." He settledcomfortably in the long grass.

  CHAPTER VII.

  "Once upon a time there was a beautiful Indian maiden, of course. Andshe was, of course, beloved by a youth from another tribe who was veryhandsome and stalwart and a mighty hunter, of course. But the maiden'sfather was, of course, a stern old chief, and when the question of hisdaughter's marriage came up, he, of course, declared that the maidenshould be wedded only to a warrior of her tribe. And, of course, whenthe young man heard this he said that in such case he would, of course,fling himself headlong from that crag. The old chief was, of course,obdurate, and, of course, the youth did, of course, as he had said. And,of course, the maiden wept." After Hawker had waited for some time, hesaid with severity, "You seem to have no great appreciation offolklore."

  The girl suddenly bent her head. "Listen," she said, "they're calling.Don't you hear Hollie's voice?"

  They went to another place, and, looking down over the shimmeringtree-tops, they saw Hollanden waving his arms. "It's luncheon," saidHawker. "Look how frantic he is!"

  The path required that Hawker should assist the girl very often. Hiseyes shone at her whenever he held forth his hand to help her down ablessed steep place. She seemed rather pensive. The route to luncheonwas very long. Suddenly he took a seat on an old tree, and said: "Oh, Idon't know why it is, whenever I'm with you, I--I have no wits, nor goodnature, nor anything. It's the worst luck!"

  He had left her standing on a boulder, where she was provisionallyhelpless. "Hurry!" she
said; "they're waiting for us."

  Stanley, the setter, had been sliding down cautiously behind them. Henow stood wagging his tail and waiting for the way to be cleared.

  Hawker leaned his head on his hand and pondered dejectedly. "It's theworst luck!"

  "Hurry!" she said; "they're waiting for us."

  At luncheon the girl was for the most part silent. Hawker wassuperhumanly amiable. Somehow he gained the impression that they allquite fancied him, and it followed that being clever was very easy.Hollanden listened, and approved him with a benign countenance.

  There was a little boat fastened to the willows at the edge of the blackpool. After the spread, Hollanden navigated various parties around towhere they could hear the great hollow roar of the falls beating againstthe sheer rocks. Stanley swam after sticks at the request of littleRoger.

  Once Hollanden succeeded in making the others so engrossed in beingamused that Hawker and Miss Fanhall were left alone staring at the whitebubbles that floated solemnly on the black water. After Hawker hadstared at them a sufficient time, he said, "Well, you are an heiress,you know."