A TRANSIENT GUEST,

AND OTHER EPISODES.

BY EDGAR SALTUS

BELFORD, CLARKE & CO.
CHICAGO, NEW YORK, AND SAN FRANCISCO
Publishers

London, Henry J. Drane, Lovell's Court, Paternoster Row

COPYRIGHT, 1889,
By EDGAR SALTUS.

Press of
E. B. Sheldon & Co.
New Haven, Conn.

TO
K. J. M.

New York, 1st June, 1889.

CONTENTS.

[A TRANSIENT GUEST.]
[I.]
[II.]
[III.]
[IV.]
[V.]
[THE GRAND DUKE'S RUBIES.]
[A MAID OF MODERN ATHENS.]
[FAUSTA.]
[BY THE SAME AUTHOR.]

A TRANSIENT GUEST.

I.

Since the Koenig Wilhelm, of the Dutch East India Service, left Batavia, the sky had been torpidly blue, that suffocating indigo which seems so neighborly that the traveller fancies were he a trifle taller he could touch it with the ferule of his stick. When night came, the stars would issue from their ambush and stab it through and through, but the glittering cicatrices which they made left it bluer even, more persistent than before. And now, as the ship entered the harbor, there was a cruelty about it that exulted and defied. The sun, too, seemed to menace; on every bit of brass it placed a threat, and in the lap of the waters there was an understanding and a pact. Beyond, to the right, was one long level stretch of sand on which the breakers fawned with recurrent surge and swoon. Behind it were the green ramparts of a forest; to the left were the bungalows and booths of Siak; while in the distance, among the hills and intervales, where but a few years before natives lurked beneath the monstrous lilies and clutched their kriss in fierce surmise, a locomotive had left a trail of smoke.

"Sumatra, too, has gone the way of the world," thought one who lounged on deck.

He was a good-looking young fellow, browner far than he had been when he left New York, and he was garbed in a fashion which would have attracted the notice of the most apathetic habitué of Narragansett Pier. Save for a waistband of yellow silk, he was clad wholly in that dead white which is known as fromage à la crême. Had his cork hat been decorated with a canary bird's feather, you would have said a prince stepped from a fairy tale. At his heels was a fox terrier, which he had christened Zut. When he wished to be emphatic, however, Zut was elongated into Zut Alors.

"The general's compliments, sir, and are you ready?"

It was the polyglot steward addressing him, with that deference which is born of tips.

Tancred Ennever—the only son of Furman Ennever, who, as every one knows, is head and front of the steadiest house in Wall Street—turned and nodded. "Got my traps up?" he asked, and without waiting for a reply sauntered across the deck. He had met the general—Petrus van Lier, Consul of the Netherlands to Siak—at the Government House at Batavia, and although the trip which he had outlined for himself consisted, for the moment at least, in making direct for that sultry hole which is known as Singapore, yet the general had so represented the charms and pleasures of Sumatra that he had consented to become his guest. In extending the invitation the general may have had an ulterior motive, but in that case he let no inkling of it escape.

And now, as Tancred crossed the deck, the general stretched his hand. He was a man whose fiftieth birthday would never be fêted again. He had the dormant eyes of his race, those eyes in which apathy is a screen to vigilance, and his chin had the tenacity of a rock. His upper lip was furnished with a cavalry moustache of indistinctest gray, the ends upturned and fierce. In stature he was short and slim. It should be added that he was bald.

Though the ship had barely halted, already it was surrounded by prahus and sampans, the indigenous varieties of skiff, and among them one there was so trim it might have come from a man-of-war. In the bow a fluttering pennon proclaimed it a belonging of the Dutch. The coxswain had already saluted, and sat awaiting the orders of his chief.

The general motioned with a finger, the coxswain touched his forehead, and in a moment the boat was at the slanting ladder. Tancred and the general descended, there was a sullen command, and the oarsmen headed for the shore.

"We are so late my people will be worried," confided the consul, as the landing was reached. "Usually—" and, as he ran on dilating on the unpunctuality of the service, Tancred remembered to have heard that his host was about to be married to an English widow, who, with her brother, was then stopping at the consul's bungalow.

"Be still, Zut," ordered Tancred, for the dog was yelping like mad at a fawn-colored butterfly that floated, tantalizingly, just out of reach. It was as big as a bird, and its eyes were ruby. "Be still."

On the wharf a crowd of Malays and Chinese impeded the way, the Celestials garbed in baggy breeches and black vests, the Malays, nakeder, wickeder, darker, and more compact. Beyond was an open square, a collection of whitewashed booths, roofed with tiles of mottled red, and cottages of thatched palm. In the air was the odor of spices and cachous.

Guided by his host, Tancred entered an open vehicle that waited there. Then, after a brisk drive through the town, a long sweep through a quiet lane that was bordered now by rice-fields, now by giant trees festooned by lianas and rattans, and again by orchards of fruit and betel-nut, at last, in a grove of palms, a house was reached, a one-story dwelling, quaint, roomy, oblong, and still. An hour later the general and his guest were waiting dinner in the balé-balé of the bungalow.

Presently from the panoplied steps came the tinkle of moving feet. The general rose from his chair.

"My future wife," he announced, in an aside. "Mrs. Lyeth," he continued, "this is Mr. Ennever."

She was a woman such as the midland counties alone produce, one whom it would be proper to describe as queenly, were it not that queens are dowds. She just lacked being tall. Her hair was of that hue of citron which is noticeable in very young children, and it was arranged in the fashion we have copied from the Greeks, but her features were wholly English, features that the years would remold with coarser thumb, but which as yet preserved the freshness and the suavity of a pastel. One divined that her limbs were strong and supple. She held herself with a grace of her own, on her cheeks was a flush, her mouth seemed to promise more than any mortal mouth could give; in short, she was beautiful, a northern splendor in a tropic frame.

Tancred, who had risen with the general, stared for a second and bowed.

"Muhammad's prophecy is realized," he murmured; and as Mrs. Lyeth eyed him inquiringly, "At sunset," he added, "I behold a rising sun."

And moving forward he took her wrist and brushed it with his lips.

"One might fancy one's self at Versailles," Mrs. Lyeth replied, and sank into a wicker chair.

"Olympus, rather," Tancred corrected, and found a seat at her side.

"H'm," mused the lady; but evidently nothing pertinent could have occurred to her, for she hesitated a moment and then graciously enough remarked, "The general tells me he knows your father."

"Yes, it may even be that we are connected; there was a Sosinje van Lier who married an Ennever, oh, ages ago. The general, however, thinks she was not a relative of his."

"I have forgotten," the general interjected, and glanced at his future bride. "Is Liance never coming?"

From without came the hum of insects, a hum so insistent, so enervating, and yet so Wagnerian in intensity that you would have said a nation of them celebrating a feast of love. Presently the murmurs were punctuated by the beat of a wooden gong, and as the reverberations fainted in the night, a young girl appeared.

The general left his chair again.

"My daughter," he announced; and as Tancred bowed he remembered that the general had been a widower before he became engaged to the divinity that sat at his side.

"You're an American, aren't you?" the girl asked.

There was nothing forward in her manner: on the contrary, it was languid and restrained, as though the equatorial sky had warped her nerves. But her eyes had in them the flicker of smoldering fire; they seemed to project interior flames. Her complexion was without color, unless indeed olive may be accounted one. Her abundant hair was so dark it seemed nearly blue. At the corners of her upper lip was the faintest trace of down. Her frock was like the night, brilliant yet subdued; it was black, but glittering with little sparks; about her bare arms were coils of silver, and from her waist hung cords of plaited steel. She looked as barbaric as Mrs. Lyeth looked divine.

"Yes," Tancred answered, smilingly; but before he could engage in further speech, the general's "boy" announced that dinner was served.

"What do you think of it there?" asked Mrs. Lyeth, whose arm he found within his own.

And as they passed from the balé-balé, as an uninclosed pavilion is called, to the dining-room beyond, Tancred answered:

"What does one think of the Arabian Nights?"

But there was nothing Arabesque about the meal of which he was then called upon to partake. It began with oysters, rather brackish but good, and ended with cheese. Save for some green pigeons with their plumage undisturbed, and a particularly fiery karri, it was just such a dinner as the average diner-out enjoys on six nights out of seven. There were three kinds of French wine and a variety of Dutch liqueurs. During its service the general held forth, as generals will, on the subject of nothing at all. And when the meal was done, for several hours the little group, reunited in the balé-balé, exchanged the usual commonplace views. During that interchange Tancred kept himself as near as he could to Mrs. Lyeth, and when at last the party broke up and he found himself alone in his room he drew a breath which might have been almost accounted one of relief.

Through the open windows came a heaviness, subtle as the atmosphere of a seraglio. Beyond, some palms masked a cluster of stars, but from above rained down the light and messages of other worlds. In the distance was the surge of the sea, sounding afar the approach and retreat of the waves. Beneath, in the underbrush, fire-flies glittered, avoiding each other in abrupt ziz-zags and sudden loops of flame. The moon had not yet risen, but the sky still was visibly blue.

And as Tancred dropped on a seat he loosened his neck-cloth with a thrust of the thumb. "That claret was heady," he told himself, and with a bit of cambric he mopped his brow. But was it the claret? For a little space he sat gazing at the invitations of the equator. In his ears the hum of insects still sounded, and to his unheeding eyes the stars danced their saraband. The sea seemed to beckon and the night to wait.

Thus far his life had been precisely like that of any other well-nurtured lad of twenty-two. He had been educated at Concord, he was a graduate of Harvard; but during his school and college days the refinement of his own home had accompanied him afar. He was one of those young men, more common now than a few years since, who find it awkward to utter one word that could not be said aloud in a ball-room. And in this he was guided less perhaps by good breeding—for breeding, like every varnish, may cloak the coarsest fibre—than by native comeliness of thought. He shrank from the distasteful as other men shrink from the base. His parents had had the forethought to provide him with two sisters, one a year older than himself, one a year his junior; and these girls, who at the present hour suggest in our metropolitan assemblies the charm and allurements of a politer age, had taken their brother in hand. They had taught him what is best left undone, the grace of self-effacement, and they had given him some breath of the aroma which they themselves exhaled. To this his parents had added a smile of singular beauty, and features clear-cut and sure. In short, his people had done their best for him. And now that he was seeing the world in that easiest way, which consists in travelling around it, his letter of credit was not only in his pocket, but in his face and manner as well.

"I must go to-morrow," he continued. And as he tried to map his departure, the tinkle of a footfall across the hall routed and disturbed his thoughts. Unsummoned there visited him a melody, heard long since, the accompaniment of a song of love. With a gesture he forced it back. Had he not understood—? No; he remembered now there was no boat from Siak for several days. He might engage a prahu, though, and in it effect a crossing to Perang; he could even take the train and journey to another place. Indeed, he reflected, he might readily do that. And as he told himself this, from across the hall a tinkle fainter than before reached his ear. He heard a whispering voice, a door closed, and some one beat upon a gong of wood. It was midnight, he knew.

He threw his coat aside and stared at the stars. They were taciturn still, yet more communicative than ever before. One in particular, that shone sheer above the balé-balé, seemed instinct with lessons and sayings of sooth. And to the precepts it uttered, its companions acquiesced, and smiled. Everything, even to the immaterial, the surge of the sea, the trail of the fire-flies, and the glint of a moonbeam, now aslant at his feet, conspired to coerce his will. The very air was alive with caresses, redolent with the balm and the odors of bamboo.

Slowly he undid the lachets of a shoe.

"It is wrong," he muttered, and a breeze that loitered answered, "It is right." "I will go," he continued, and the great stars chorused, "You will stay."

Meditatively still he continued to disrobe; but in spite of the stars and the moonbeams the light must have been insufficient, for presently he lit a candle, monologuing to himself the while. And as he monologued he was aware of that fettering, overmastering force which visits youth but once—the abnegation of self before that which is.

In that struggle in which we lay our arguments down and rejoice in defeat he had wrestled with all the weakness of his years. And now, as he flung himself on the bed, he clasped a pillow in his arms and sighed. He hoped for nothing, he expected nothing; but it was bliss to be conquered and enchained. The contest was done. During the coming week his captor would move before him, a luring melody, a clear accord sounded for his own delight, and then he would go, leaving the melody undisturbed, yet bearing a strain of it to feed on, a memory of enduring joy.

From without the hum of insects still persisted, and the waves were noisier than before. His eyes closed, and he smiled. For a moment that may have outlasted an hour he dreamed of the fabulous days in which goatherds dared to fall in love with goddesses. And such is the advantage of a classical education, that he mumbled a line from a Greek pedant, another from a Roman bore. In the dactyls and the spondees he caught the rhythm of tinkling feet; and as the measures sank him into deeper sleep a monstrous beetle shot through the casement and put the candle out.

The whir of wings disturbed him ever so little. For an instant he was bending over sandals, caressing a peplum's hem. Then all was blank.

"Tuan! Tuan!"

It was a Malay servant, hailing the foreign lord, admonishing him to rise.

The room was filled with sunlight, and on a palm tree opposite Tancred caught a glimpse of a red monkey scratching his knee, chattering and grimacing at a paroquet.

II.

At tiffin, that noon, the general was absent. It was usually so, his daughter explained; the duties of the consulate at Siak claimed the clearer hours of the day, and it was only now and then, on high days and festivals, that he permitted himself the surcease of a siesta at home.

"He is indefatigable," she added, and shook her peerless head.

During the morning Tancred had explored the grounds; he had idled on the red-road and lost himself among the invitations of a green ravine. A grove of tamarinds had called to him, a stretch of aroids had entreated him that way, the sky had imprisoned him beneath a palm, a brook had murmured to him, a lake had coaxed him to its cool embrace. And then, Zut sniffing at his heels, he had returned in time for luncheon at the bungalow.

In pauses of the stroll he had promised himself that during the afternoon he would endeavor to find an opportunity in which to say something of that which was on his mind. This, however, an accident prevented. Miss Van Lier announced that she and her future step-mother were obliged to attend the funeral of a neighbor, a function at which of course it were idle for him to assist. He watched their departure without a protest, and gave a few more hours to the wonders of the woods. When the sun went down his forbearance was rewarded. The general was detained at Siak. Tancred and the ladies dined as they had lunched—alone.

That evening Mrs. Lyeth seemed even more magnificent than the night before. And beside her the sultry insouciance of the maiden heightened the matron's charm. They were sheerly dissimilar, daughters of antipodal climes and race—the one loquacious and at ease, the other taciturn and absorbed. But it was in eyes they differed most. Those of the general's bride-elect were moist as some blue flower plucked at dawn; the dew seemed still upon them. Those of the general's daughter were sidereal, not white nor cobalt, but something that combined the two. To a lapidary they would have suggested gems.

As Tancred's attention wavered between the charm of the one and the beauty of the other, Mrs. Lyeth had been describing some of the surprises in which Sumatra abounds; but her speech had been lost to him, and it was only the rising inflection with which she terminated a phrase that prompted him to reply.

"In the States, I fancy, you have nothing like it?"

"In the States, no; but in Mexico I believe—"

And Tancred was about to draw on his imagination when a servant offered him some sweets. He would have let them pass, but this Mrs. Lyeth prevented.

"You should try one," she said. "Liance"—and at this she glanced at the girl—"Liance is the inventor; she will be offended if you—"

And, as she again glanced, Liance arched her brows. At the moment it occurred to Tancred that the relations between Mrs. Lyeth and her future step-child might be a trifle strained.

With the aid of a silver prong Tancred helped himself to a confection. It was yellow of hue, and, he presently discovered, agreeable to the mouth. It had the flavor of honey and of meal, but it was slightly acid, as though the rind of a lemon had been mixed therewith.

"I will give one to Zut, if I may," he said, and thereat he tossed one, which the dog caught on the fly and swallowed with the discreetest blink. And then, with the appreciation of a gourmet, Tancred added:

"It is excellent; may I have another?"

The dish again was passed to him. Before he rose from the table the majority of the sweets had disappeared. It was evident that both master and dog had a taste for just such comestibles as these. As he devoured one and then another, he noticed that Liance was watching him.

"The general was in Mexico some years ago," Mrs. Lyeth added, inconsequently. "I have heard him speak of the beauty of the women. But in New York they are more beautiful still, are they not?"

"Yes, they are pretty enough," Tancred answered.

"I hear they propose to the men," Liance interjected.

"Ah, that is a libel. In leap-year, perhaps, and in jest, such a thing may occur, but—"

"They are well behaved, then?"

"Yes, indeed. I remember, though, one girl—her name was—there, I have forgotten it. However, a young fellow was evidently taken with her, and she, as evidently, was taken with him. But for some reason or other he never seemed to get to the point. One afternoon, when he was drinking tea with her, the heat of the room—our houses, you know, are fearfully hot—must have affected her. She went off like that! The young fellow was at his wits' end. It may be that he had never seen anyone faint before. 'What shall I do? what shall I do?' he exclaimed, and he was about to scream for assistance, when the girl in her swoon murmured: 'Kiss me.' He did so and she recovered at once. H'm—they were married last spring."

During the telling of this anecdote Tancred noticed that the girl's eyes were still on his. But as the ultimate phrase dropped from him she rose and left the room.

"She is exquisite," Tancred confided in a whisper to Mrs. Lyeth. To this that lady assented. "But you—" he added, and then stopped short.

"Let us go to the pavilion, it is cooler there." Mrs. Lyeth had risen, and Tancred, hesitant still, followed as she led the way.

"But you," he added at last, "you are perfect."

She had found a seat and he another. A fan which she held she unfurled and shut again with a sudden click. For a moment she toyed with a fold of her frock, but presently her hand fell to her side. He caught it up and kissed the finger-tips. At once she drew it from him.

"It is the climate that has affected you," she said, "not I."

"It is you," he muttered, "it is you."

"Even so, there let it rest."

"I cannot," he insisted; "I love you." As he spoke he started, startled at his own temerity. And as her eyelids drooped he tried to catch her hand again.

"Then, if you love me, say nothing." She had straightened herself and looked him now in the face. "If the general should even imagine—" A gesture completed the sentence.

Tancred nodded. He seemed confident and assured. Evidently the general had aroused no fear in him.

"It was in Mexico," she continued. "Liance was in the cradle. Her mother"—and Mrs. Lyeth turned her head and looked cautiously around—"her mother was younger than I am now. She was beautiful, I have understood; more so even than her daughter. The general suspected that she was flirting with the Austrian attaché. He had him out and shot him. His wife he drove to suicide. It is only recently I learned this. And yet it is not for that reason that I fear. I have no intention of flirting with you; you know that. It is because—because—"

"Don't hunt for a reason. I am willing to be shot."

Mrs. Lyeth hastened to laugh, but her laugh was troubled. It sounded thin, as forced laughter ever does. She unfurled her fan again, and agitated it with sudden vigor.

"It may not be," she murmured.

Her voice was so low that even the breeze did not catch it. And now, as she turned to her companion, it seemed to him that her eyes were compassionate, sympathetic even, awake to possibilities yet careless of result.

At the moment there came to Tancred that annoyance which visits us in dream. Before him was a flower more radiant than any parterre had ever produced. With a reach of the arm it could be his, but his arm had lost its cunning. Do what he might, it refused to move. And still the flower glowed, and still the arm hung pendent and quasi-paralyzed at his side. It may be—such things have happened—it may be that of the inward effort Mrs. Lyeth marked some sign. She shut her fan again, and made as though to rise. But this movement of hers, like the clock in the fable, must have dissolved the spell. Abruptly Tancred was on his feet.

"One instant," he said. "There, you can give me that. Nay, see, if you wish to—go."

And at this he stood aside, as though to let her pass. The magnetism, however, which youth possesses, may have coerced her. In any event she made no further effort to leave; she sat, her eyes a trifle dilated, a whiteness quivering beneath the lace-work at her neck.

"That is good of you," he added; "I have but a word to say. Listen to it, will you? I was sure you would. Last night—or was it last night?—it seems a year ago. H'm, there are people whom we meet—you must have experienced the same thing—people that disturb us with suggestions of something that has gone before. When I saw you last evening—no, not that; but when I heard your voice, there came with it a reminiscence of earlier and forgotten days. It was not of the present I thought, but of a past I remembered I had dreamed. It was like a tangled skein. One after another the threads unloosed, and as they separated from each parting knot a memory returned. You were not a stranger, you were a friend I had lost. I could have sat with you, and from yesterday I could have led you back from one horizon to another until that posting-house was reached where our destiny changed its horses and our hands were first unclasped."

This fine speech delivered, he looked down and plucked at his cuff. And presently, as he was about to speak again, Mrs. Lyeth raised her fan.

"After that I have either to thank you or to go!" Her voice was less severe than pained, and she seemed to retreat yet further in her chair. "And I thank you," she added, after a pause, "but it is you that must go."

To this Tancred answered nothing. He contented himself with looking insubordinate and cross.

"My poor boy!" she murmured, and sighed—or was it a sigh?—a sound that seemed to come less from the heart than the spirit. "My poor boy! But don't you know that you are absurd? I have three brothers—one of them, by the way, is here now; he went down the coast on Tuesday with some friends; he will be back, though, to-morrow or the day after. However, each of my brothers has fallen in love with a woman older than himself, and each of them has fallen in love again and again. I am, believe me, grateful for your homage. What you have said is enough to make any woman pleased. And were I younger—well, then, since you will have it so—were I free, I would ask to hear it until I knew the words by heart. It would be pleasant, that. Oh, there might be so very many pleasant things; yet that is one that may not be. To-morrow, the next day, no matter, presently you will go; a week later you will find some beauty in Madras, and, if you think of me then, it will be but with a smile."

She had risen at last, and stood now smiling too. For the life of him Tancred could not imagine anything fairer, more debonair, nor yet more just than she.

"If I vex you," he said, "I will hold my tongue. But at least you might stay. I will promise this—"

But whatever the intended promise may have been it remained unformulated. In the entrance of the balé-balé Liance had suddenly appeared.

"It is late, is it not?" Mrs. Lyeth, for countenance sake, inquired.

The girl shrugged her shoulders. A gong in the distance answered in her stead.

"It is late," Mrs. Lyeth announced. "We had better go in."

She moved from the pavilion, and presently all three reached the house. The hallway was unlighted, a flicker from the dining-room beyond serving only to make the darkness more opaque.

"Where is Atcheh?" she asked, and called the "boy" by name.

"There," said Tancred, "let me try to find a match."

He groped down the corridor to his room and in a moment or two returned. On the way back he passed some one he took to be Liance.

"I could not find one," he exclaimed.

So well as he was able to make out, Mrs. Lyeth had not moved. To his speech she answered nothing. He advanced a little nearer and tried to take her hand again, but it eluded him. And in an effort to possess himself of it he approached nearer still. Her face seemed to be in the way; for one fleeting second his lips rested on it, then a noise of hoofs must have alarmed him, for he wheeled like a rat surprised. And presently, after he had reached his room again, he heard Mrs. Lyeth welcoming her future husband on the porch.

III.

From his window the next morning Tancred caught a glimpse of Mrs. Lyeth entering the pavilion beyond. He left the house at once and hastened to join her; but Liance must have preceded him. When he reached the pavilion she was already there. On her head was a hat unribboned and broad of brim, in her hand a basket. She struck Tancred as being more restless than usual, but the widow was thoroughly at ease. Apparently the episode in the hallway had not disturbed her in the least. For a few moments there was a common indulgence in those amiable platitudes of which the morning hours are prolific, and then Liance stood up.

"If you are going to the coppice, take Mr. Ennever," Mrs. Lyeth suggested. "He looks bored to death."

"Certainly I will," the girl answered.

Her voice was cordial and her eyes and mouth seemed to invite. Tancred, however, did not on that account experience any notable desire to accompany her. On the contrary, he infinitely preferred to remain where he was. But there was no help for him, not even an excuse. He had his choice between going and being downright rude. Accordingly he smiled, but inwardly he swore.

"Show him the rafflesia," Mrs. Lyeth added.

"The what?"

"You shall see it; come."

Liance turned and led the way, and as Tancred followed he marvelled at the widow's attitude. If he had not kissed her at all she could not have appeared more unconcerned.

To the left was a grove of betel-nut palms, to the right a patch of aroids, broad and leathery of leaf. Save for a whir of pheasants in the distance, and the hum of insects, the hour was still. Even the sea was silent; and had it not been for the odors of strange plants Tancred could have closed his eyes and fancied himself in some New England intervale, loitering through a summer noon. It needed but the toll of a bell to make it seem a Sabbath. A mosquito alighted on his hand, and he slaughtered it with a slap. Presently he found himself in a part of the plantation which he had not yet visited, a strip of turf, the background defended by trees. And there, in the centre, was an object such as he had never seen before. He turned inquiringly to Liance; her eyes were on his own.

"The rafflesia," she lisped, and nodded.

And as he moved to get a nearer view she caught him by the arm.

"Be careful," she added, and warned him with a glance.

But Tancred was not one to fear the immobile; he moved yet nearer to it, the girl hovering at his side. And as he moved there came to greet him a heavy, sullen odor, a smell like to that of an acid burning and blent with rose.

"The heart is poisonous," the girl continued; "don't touch it without gloves."

The admonition, however, was unnecessary. Tancred was motionless with surprise. Before him was a flower, its petals of such consistency and of such unpleasant hue that they resembled huge slabs of uncooked veal. The chalice was deep enough to hold two gallons of liquid, the pistil was red, and the supporting stem was gnarled and irruptive with excrescences. In appearance it suggested an obese and giant lily, grown in a nightmare and watered with blood. It was hideous yet fascinating, as monstrosity ever is. And as Tancred stared, a page of forgotten botany turned in his mind, and he remembered that he had read of this plant, which Sumatra alone produces, and in whose pistil lurks a poison swifter than the cantarella of the Borgias, deadlier than the essences of Locuste.

The odor, more pungent now, drove him back a step. At the moment it seemed to carry with it a whiff of that atmosphere of creosote and tooth-wash which is peculiar to the dentist's chair. And slaughtering another mosquito, he moved yet further away.

"What do you think of it?" asked Liance.

"It would hardly do for the button-hole, would it?" he answered.

The girl nodded appreciatively. Evidently she was of the same mind as he.

"There are few of them here," she continued. "This is the only one in Siak, but back there," and she pointed to the mountains, "they are plentiful. When a Malay prepares for war he slashes the pistil with his kriss. The wound that that kriss makes is death."

"H'm," mused Tancred, with an uncomfortable shrug, "if I happened to fall out with a Malay—"

"Don't."

The monosyllable fell from her like a stone.

"I will do my best," he said.

She turned again and led him back through the coppice. The air was sultrier than ever, heavy with fragrance and enervating with forebodings of a storm. And now, as the girl preceded him, her step seemed more listless than before. She is tired, he reflected. These noons are fierce.

"You are to be with us some time, are you not?" Liance asked.

"No, a day or two at the most. When the next steamer goes, so must I."

"Could you not stay longer?" She stopped and looked at him, the little basket swaying to and fro.

"I should like to, really I should like to very much," he replied. The episode with Mrs. Lyeth was still oppressing him, and in answer to the oppression he added aloud, "But perhaps it is better I should not."

Liance lowered her eyes, and with the point of her shoe tormented a tuft of grass.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because—well, because I feel an intruder."

The girl raised her eyes at once, her lips quivered.

"You are wrong, so wrong."

And then, curiously enough, as such things happen, Tancred—who was not a bit stupider than the rest of us—felt an oracle within him. It was more than probable, he told himself, that widow and maid, being nearly of an age, had, in their Sumatran idleness, become the fastest friends; and at once, with that logic which is peculiar to those that love, he decided that, being friends, they must be confidantes as well, and he concluded that two fair heads had come together and determined he should remain. That woman is variable, was a song he knew by heart, and he also knew that woman is apt to do one thing and mean another—to dismiss, for instance, the very man whom she wishes most at her feet.

These ruminations, however long in the telling, did not in reality outlast a moment's space. It was all very clear to him now, and his blood pulsed quickly.

"If you tell me so, I must indeed be wrong," he answered. "And let me add," he continued, impetuously, "it is a boon to know it."

To his face a flush had come, and his eyes were eager. He had never been accounted anything else than good-looking, but now he was attractive as well.

"You will not be in haste to go, then?"

"In haste to go—" His face completed the sentence. "Tell her from me," he was about to say, when from the girl's loosening fingers the basket fell; she drooped like a flower, her eyes half closed, and he had but the time to hold out his arm when she sank unconscious on it.

The grass seemed an inviting couch, and very gently he let her from him. "It is the heat," he reflected, and kneeling at her side he took her small hand and beat it with his own. "What shall I do?" he wondered. Her cheeks were colorless, though her lips were red, and as, in his perplexity, he gazed at them, he saw them move. "Kiss me," they seemed to say. Her eyes opened and she smiled.

And still he stared. "Merciful heaven!" he thought; "she thinks I am in love with her;" and feigning that the invitation had passed unheard he sprang to his feet.

"Help me," she murmured, smiling still; and as he bent again to aid her, before him in the coppice stood Mrs. Lyeth. Already the girl was on her feet. Whether she had been aware of Mrs. Lyeth's approach, who shall say? She patted out a rumpled fold of her frock, and picking the basket up, glanced over at her father's choice.

"I almost fell," she announced. "Mr. Ennever was gallant enough to prevent me."

In single file all three then returned to tiffin at the bungalow.

IV.

The afternoon slipped by like a chapter in a fairy tale. It promised but it did not fulfil, and at dinner the champagne sparkled, but the conversation was flat. When the cloth was removed the general manifested a desire to look over some papers, and Tancred and the ladies retreated to the pavilion beyond. Yet even there the wheels of talk were clogged. Mrs. Lyeth indeed discoursed amiably enough on the subject of nothing at all, and now and then Liance interjected an apposite sally; but Tancred was taciturn. He divided his time between biting his moustache and bidding Zut be still. And when at last through some channel of thought Mrs. Lyeth anchored herself in the shallows of Anglo-Saxon verse, for a moment the young man fancied that the girl was about to go. Liance made a movement, but whether some signal from her future step-mother detained her, or whether of her own accord she reconsidered her purpose, Tancred was unable to decide. The girl resumed her seat, and, one arm extended on the woodwork, the other pendent at her side, her feet crossed, her head thrown back, she sat staring at the stars in that abstracted attitude which powder and shot are alone qualified to disturb.

There is much in an opportunity that might be and is not. In recollection it appears more fecund in possibilities than any other opportunity ever enjoyed. And later on, when Tancred, without having had the opportunity to exchange in private so much as a word with Mrs. Lyeth, found himself in his room, he ravened at fate and at his own ill-luck. Nothing that he could imagine would have been sweeter to him than to have sat the evening through alone with that human flower. There would have been no need of speech; the languors of the night, the caress of the stars, the scent of palms and of orchids, the accent of the waves beyond, these things would have spoken for him more subtly than words could do. Through their silence the breeze would have whispered, and who does not know what a breeze can say? Though they sat apart, the stars that the old gods used as go-betweens were there to join their hands. They might be timid, but is not the surge of the sea a call that stirs the pulse? And the palms had their secrets to tell, and they would have told them, too; nay, the very fire-flies would have conspired together and made the night more dark. And, instead of a communion such as that, there had been an aimless chit-chat, an awkwardness that was sentient, and an embarrassment terminated only by a chill "Good-night." Truly Zut, who had treed a hedgehog, was to be envied. His evening at least had not been squandered and misspent.

The morrow differed from the day preceding merely in this, that not for one instant during it did Tancred have an opportunity of seeing either Mrs. Lyeth or Liance alone. After tiffin they were inseparate. And Tancred, who had made plans for the afternoon, then made plans for the evening. But the hope which buoyed him was idle. The evening which followed was a counterpart of the one that had gone before, save in this, the general, having no papers to look over, held forth as generals will, and Zut searched for a hedgehog in vain. That night, for the first time, Tancred entered fully into the feelings of Tantalus and those of Sisyphus too. He was dumbly exasperated, the more so perhaps in that he divined that to one cleverer than he no obstacle would exist. If a woman has an ear, and as a rule women have, there is always a way to get at it. Unfortunately for Tancred, the way in this case was by no means clear, and what helped to confuse him was the fact that he was impatient to find it at once, no, but there and then, and without delay. And as in his exasperation he dashed his head against the pillow, he told himself that he had been abrupt, that he had unmasked his batteries too soon, that he had frightened where he had meant to charm. Of Liance he gave no thought whatever, except to decide that she was a nuisance. And such is the selfishness of man, that he wished she would topple over again and sprain a joint; in short, that anything might happen which would keep her to her room and out of the way of Mrs. Lyeth. The idea that the general's bride-elect might be keeping her purposely at her side was one that never occurred to him. She is a nuisance, he decided, and dismissed her from his thoughts.

Before he fell asleep his mind was clear as to one thing; to wit, that in a small household it is more difficult to be alone with one particular person than in a household where there are many. Whether he was correct or not is a matter of the smallest possible importance. The next morning, when Atcheh appeared with coffee and fruit, he was aware that he had wandered through an assortment of dreams in which the rafflesia and the general were confusedly connected; at one moment the general had changed into that unhallowed flower, at another the rafflesia had bristled with the moustaches of his host. And as he rose from these fancies to his coffee he encountered a scheme which he detained and examined. It was not particularly shrewd, yet at the moment it seemed luminous to him. It was to the effect that if he were inhibited from private speech with Mrs. Lyeth, there was no reason in the world why he should not write. And as he mused, from the porch beyond rose the sound of her voice.

He was too far away to hear what she was saying, and, parenthetically, had he been nearer he would not have listened. But now the intonation, the trailing accent of her speech affected him as a balm. The irritation faded, as irritation ever does; he found some paper, and as, to the accompaniment of her voice, he prepared to write one of those letters in which punctuation is disregarded and sequence of idea forgot, he heard her waving inflection cut by a harsher note. It was the general, he knew. For the moment he wondered why he had not already gone to the consulate, but presently the noise of hoofs, the creak of wheels, a shrill cry, and the hiss of a whip seemed to announce that the conveyance which took the consul each morning to Siak was at the door.

Tancred's window did not give on the road, but on the coppice and the pavilion, yet when again he caught the creak of wheels it demanded little imagination on his part to picture the general sitting bolt upright in a gharry, driving to the sun-smitten town beyond. And as the clatter of hoofs fainted in the distance, Tancred took up the pen again. The letter which he then succeeded in producing was one similar to what we have all of us written and all of us received—a clear call of love, in which the words are less jotted than shaken from the end of the pen. Its transcription here is needless.

A love-letter which can pleasure anyone save the recipient proceeds not from the heart but the head. Moreover, when Tancred began it he had not the faintest idea what he intended to say, and when it was finished he did not remember what he had written. Oh, sweethearts and swains! mind ye of this: when a love-letter differs from that, it emanates from a poet or a fraud. Tancred was neither. He was simply a young man suddenly enthralled by the charm of a woman older than himself. He intended no wrong, and if you or I or any other implacable moralist had happened that way and told him, as would have been our duty, that he was betraying the sacredest of trusts, the confidence of a host, he would have exhibited the surprise of a child frowned at for innocent prattle. Bear with him then; of wrong he intended none. It is the essence of crime that it be committed with malice aforethought, that the intention to commit it be clear. In the present case the intention was wholly lacking. Tancred was carried along by one of those unreasoning impulses which the psychologist recognizes and cannot explain. And that impulse, after throwing him at Mrs. Lyeth's feet and dictating a letter to her, left his conscience unruffled and at peace.

His pulse, however, still was stirred. And, the letter completed, he was not in a greater hurry to do anything else than to get it safely in her hand. The manner in which this was to be accomplished was another matter. He might offer it to her in person, or he might leave it in her room. He might even watch his opportunity and slip it into her hand; but, for that, he immediately reflected he would have to wait the opportunity—a tedious operation at best; and, moreover, was he not in haste? And as he mused he remembered that Dugald Maule, a New Yorker like himself, finding himself in similar strait, had, under the very nose of a duenna, deliberately abstracted a handkerchief from his inamorata's pocket, and, wrapping a letter up in it, handed it back with the civilest inquiry as to whether she had not just let the handkerchief fall? That was a remarkably neat trick, Tancred told himself, but somehow it seemed to demand a degree of assurance of which he felt unpossessed. Besides, it was a trick, and as such distasteful to him. And as he twirled his moustache, vaguely perplexed, undecided in what way to act, determining that it were better perhaps to leave it all to chance, he caught a glimpse of Mrs. Lyeth entering the pavilion alone. She was in white from head to foot, alluring as spring, and doubtless every whit as fragrant; she moved easily, her body erect and unswayed, and as Tancred caught sight of her he would have taken his chances then and there, but almost simultaneously he saw Liance following behind. In the annoyance he filliped forefinger and thumb together, and tried to possess his soul with patience. It was not impossible that in a moment the girl might go, and then his time would come. Meanwhile it behooved him to be careful and to remain unseen. But no, Liance must have seated herself at the other side of the pavilion, for he could hear Mrs. Lyeth address her, and the murmurs of the girl's replies. Presumably they would remain together until tiffin, and if before tiffin the note was not delivered, another afternoon, the evening too, perhaps, would be wasted and lost.

And as he thought of this, behind him he divined rather than heard Atcheh's noiseless tread. He turned at once. Another idea had come to him, one on which he determined to act at once. The "boy" was already retreating, a tray in his hand.

"Dja keno," Tancred called.

On shipboard he had not been altogether idle. The Malay tongue is as easy to speak badly as Italian, and Tancred had found slight difficulty in acquiring enough mouthfuls for ordinary needs. "Dja keno—come here." The sultry savage wheeled and obeyed.

"Ba gnio inong—take this to the lady." And as Tancred spoke he pointed through the lattice to Mrs. Lyeth.

The Malay took the note and bowed.

"Baë, Tuan," he answered. "Your lordship, it is well."

In a moment the man had gone, and in another moment Tancred saw him approach Mrs. Lyeth and place the letter in her hand. He could see that she was eying it, wonderingly no doubt, for now she turned her head, but already the Malay had disappeared. And as she still looked about her, holding the letter unopened before her, Tancred felt as though something were clutching at his throat. From out the coppice, not a dozen yards distant, the general had suddenly emerged.

In a state similar to that mental paralysis which visits us in dream, Tancred marked his advance. It seemed perfectly natural that he should be there; without an effort he recalled the fact, forgotten albeit until now, yet still the unaccountable fact that it was Sunday; and presently, as the general halted, his thin figure erect, a bamboo switch in his hand, his cavalry moustache more bristling than ever, and proprietor-fashion surveyed the grounds, it was to Tancred as though he had been there for all of time. Then at once the cerebral swoon departed, in a confusion of visions, with that thing still clutching at his throat and his heart beating like mad, he saw on one side Mrs. Lyeth open the letter, and on the other the general decapitate a poppy with his switch.

Already Mrs. Lyeth had turned the initial page; she had read the second and was beginning at the last, when the general, to whose presence behind her she was obviously oblivious, advanced on tiptoe to where she sat. Tancred saw him raise a warning finger to his lips, beneath the moustache he divined a smile, invisible to him, yet apparent, doubtless, to Liance, at whom the warning gesture must have been made, and then, bending over his fiancée's shoulder, he peered at the letter which she held. Yet before he could have deciphered so much as a line of it, Mrs. Lyeth started, as we all do when taken unaware. In an instant, however, she recovered her self-possession. She turned to the general, her mouth compressed into a pout.

"Do you know," she said, from the tips of her lips, "you are as bad as Atcheh. A cat would make more noise."

At this reproof the general laughed aloud, and, as though in sheer excess of glee, beat his leg with the switch. Tancred could see it was, indeed, a merry jest to him.

"My bonny Kate!" he gurgled. "I frightened her, did I not?" And again he beat his leg and laughed. "And whom is the missive from?" he asked. "I heard the gharry's wheels an hour ago. Will you pay me if I wager and I win? Will you pay me? I wager it is from—h'm—let me see. I wager it is from that coffee planter's wife you met at Singapore."

And Mrs. Lyeth, with her bravest smile, answered:

"You have lost."

"From whom is it then? There is no European mail to-day." He eyed her, laughing still. "From whom is it?" he repeated. And as he spoke he bent again and looked down at the letter, which still lay open in her hand. "Tancred Ennever!" he exclaimed. "Why, what has he to write to you about?"

"Don't ask me," she answered, airily; and then, presumably, she must have understood the uselessness of further parry, for she added, carelessly enough, "It is to Liance, not to me."

From the window Tancred could see the general turn to where his daughter sat. And as he watched he saw the girl issue from the shadow, take the letter from Mrs. Lyeth, and escape with it to the house. During the entire scene she had not uttered a word. She had been a witness, not an actor, and now as she crossed the lawn, the letter rumpled in her hold, there was an alertness in her step and such expectance in her face that you would have thought her hastening to a rendez-vous. It was evident that she, too, had taken the fib for truth.

Tancred moved back. When he again peered out, the general and his bride-elect had disappeared.

V.

Over the luncheon to which Tancred was presently summoned a foreboding hovered, ambient in the air. Mrs. Lyeth was not present, confined by a headache, Liance explained, to her room. The girl herself preserved her every-day attitude, and Tancred did his best to engage her in speech; but she did not second his endeavors. When he addressed her she answered, if at all, with her eyes, and in them she put something that resembled a monition. Save for the reference to her future step-mother, she broke bread in silence. As for the general, Cruikshank would have taken him to his heart; he was both jocose and irritable; he feigned a glutton interest in his plate; he loaded the soft Malay tongue with curious oaths, which he exploded at the servant; he alternately praised and reviled the food, and from beneath his bushy eyebrows he glanced in the kindliest fashion now at his daughter and now at his guest. And so well did he succeed in heightening the enervation of the latter that it was not until the acrid caramels were passed that Tancred even pretended to eat. Then, remembering that it was Liance that made them, he ventured to compliment the girl, and, as she answered nothing, acknowledging the tribute only by an inclination of the head, he saw in the expression of her face that she was even more emotionalized than he. Presently a burning coal and some cigars were brought. Liance rose from the table, and Tancred, rising too, accompanied her to the door. There, it may be, she had some message to impart; her lips moved, yet before Tancred could grasp its import the general called him, and he was obliged to turn. The girl wandered out on the veranda, and Tancred resumed his seat.

"Will you smoke?" the general asked. His tone was so friendly that Tancred felt more miserable than before. "Take one," he continued. "Sumatran tobacco ranks nearly with the Havanese."

For a fraction of time which seemed immeasurable the two men smoked in silence. But in a moment the general gave a poke at the coal, and looked up at his guest.

"Mrs. Lyeth tells me that you have done us the honor to ask for my daughter's hand."

Tancred glanced at the point of his cigar, and discovered that it was out.

"May I trouble you?" he murmured.

The general shoved the brasier toward him, and watched the relighting with evident solicitude.

"It's the dampness," he announced. "H'm. Am I correctly informed?"

Tancred gave a puff or two, and then, withdrawing the weed, he held it contemplatively between forefinger and thumb; but he answered not a word.

The general knocked the ashes from his own cigar and eyed the burning coal.

"H'm, let me ask you, did you write to my daughter this morning?"

And Tancred, with that long-drawn breath we take when we prepare for the worst, answered shortly:

"I did."

To this avowal the general nodded encouragingly. Tancred, however, seemed averse to further confidences; he kept looking at his cigar as though it were some strange and uncanny thing.

"H'm, well—er—did you, did you begin the letter with a term of endearment?"

"Yes, general."

Tancred had tossed his cigar—a cigar that ranked nearly with a Havanese—into the finger-bowl. He straightened himself and looked his host in the face.

"Yes, general, and I am sorry for it. I have no excuse, not one. It was a piece of unpardonable ill-breeding. I had no right to send the note; I had no encouragement to write it. The only amend in my power is an apology. I make one now to you; let me beg that you will convey another to your daughter."

The general half rose from his seat and hit the table with his fist. His face was convulsed. He was hideous.

"But, bandit that you are," he cried, "she loves you."

"No, general, you are wrong."

"Ah, I am wrong, am I? Not an hour ago she told me so of her own accord."

"General, it was a jest."

"A jest! You call it a jest to surprise a girl in the dark"—

"To what?" gasped Tancred. "To what?"

"There, you know well enough what I mean. I refer to the other evening."

"Merciful heaven!" groaned Tancred, "it was she then that I kissed."

"It is a jest to do a thing like that, to write impassioned letters, and to win a heart. Is it a jest you call it, sir, or did I misunderstand your words?"

"No general, not that. What I meant was that it was impossible for Miss Van Lier to have confessed to any love for me—"

The lattice at the window was thrust aside. For a second the girl's sidereal eyes blazed into the room.

"He is right, father: I do not love; I hate."

The lattice fell again. She had gone.

During the moment that followed you could have heard a lizard move. Tancred fumbled at his collar, and General Van Lier sank bank in his chair.

"Mr. Ennever," he said, at last, "you are my guest."

The tone in which he spoke was low and self-restrained, but in it there was an accent that was tantamount to a slap in the face.

Tancred was on his feet at once.

"If you permit me, I will leave to-day."

General Van Lier moved to the door.

"There is a boat from Siak at five," he answered.

"General," Tancred hesitated; he was humiliated as he had never been, and rightly humiliated, he knew. He was trying to say something that would express his sense of abasement, and a fitting speech was on the end of his tongue.

"General—"

"After you, sir." The general was pointing to the door.

"General—"

"Nay, sir, after you. I insist."

Tancred bowed and passed out. A moment later he was in his room.

In a corner was a trunk. In another a shirt-box. Tancred gathered his traps together, and tossed some into the one, some into the other, a proceeding at which Zut yelped and fawned with delight. Evidently on him at least the attractions of the bungalow had begun to pall.

"Yes, Zut, we are going."

And at this the dog yelped again and curveted sheer across the room.

"But you must be quiet," Tancred added. "There, be still."

He was thinking of Mrs. Lyeth, and wondering whether he should see her before he went. If he could exchange but one word with her, surely, he told himself, she would understand. He lounged to the window and leaned on the sill.

It was one of those afternoons, brutal and terrible in beauty, which only the equator provides. The sky was like the curtain of an alcove, the sun a vomiter of living glare. Beyond was a riot of color such as Delacroix never dreamed, a combination more insolent than the Quetzal possesses, all the primaries interstriated, a rainbow of insolent hues. And there, in white, a parasol over her head, a basket dangling from her wrist, Liance appeared, emerging, as her father had, from the coppice beyond.

Instinctively he drew back: he had no wish to see her eyes charged with hate again. She was not one to forgive, he knew; the beauty of the equator was in her, and its pitilessness as well. And yet, he reflected, if I could but tell her not alone how she and I have erred, but how sorry I am for it all. But no; manifestly an explanation was impossible. Did he attempt one it might inculpate another. He was not alone solely to blame, he was blockaded in his own disgrace. He told himself this; he repeated it even in varying keys; but beneath it all he felt that some redress should be. The idea that the house he had entered as an honored guest would see him depart in shame had already brought the blood to his cheeks. And that blood now was leaving a stain that years would not efface. "I must write," he decided; "I must write some word." And he was about to seat himself at the table, when Atcheh appeared.

"Tuan," he murmured, in the soft vocables of his tongue. "The gharry waits your lordship."

At this Zut, who was surprisingly polyglot of ear, yelped with renewed delight. Tancred pointed to his effects, and waited until they had been removed. It was possible, he reflected, that he might meet Liance or Mrs. Lyeth in the hall. Yet should he not do so, then, he told himself, he would write from Singapore.

But when he reached the veranda, only the general was there. Beyond, the gharry stood in readiness, and by it was Atcheh, the trunk and shirt-box already strapped in place. Tancred stretched his hand.

"General—"

"I wish you a pleasant journey, sir," that gentleman answered, and lifted his hat.

Mechanically Tancred raised his own.

"I thank you," he said. And with a backward glance he called to Zut and entered the conveyance.

A whip cracked, the gharry started; in a moment it was on the road. Tancred turned to take another and a parting look. Already the general had disappeared, but from a window he caught a glimpse of some one robed in white. A curve was rounded and the bungalow disappeared.

For an hour over a road beside which the Corniche is commonplace indeed, the gharry rolled on. To Tancred, however, its beauties were remote and undiscerned. If he noticed them at all it was only as accessories. He was wholly absorbed in his own discomfiture, and the gharry drew up and halted at the wharf before he was aware that Siak had been reached and the journey was done.

About him was the same assortment of fat-faced Celestials and gaunt Malays that he had noticed before. Apparently nothing had happened to them; they had contented themselves with continuing to be. Before him was a glistening sea, a limitless horizon. To the left the shore extended, fairer and more brilliant than the courtyard of a royal domain. Just beyond, one of the ships of the Dutch East India service was moored, her funnels lengthening and fading in spirals of smoke. And when Tancred had attended to the transfer of his luggage, and was about to step into the sampan that was to convey him to the steamer, there came a clatter of horse's hoofs, and on a black and panting pony Atcheh suddenly appeared.

"Tuan," he cried, and waved something in the air. "Tuan, a moment more."

In that moment he had sprung from the pony and run to where Tancred stood.

"From the little lady, Lord," he said, and, handing a basket to his master's guest, bowed to the ground.

Tancred found a bit of gold.

"For you," he said, and the Malay bowed again. "To the lady, give my thanks."

And at once his heart gave an exultant throb; his departure was regretted. As he lowered himself into the boat his excess of joy was so acute he nearly fell. Truly, if it be pleasant to appreciate, it is also pleasant to be appreciated. He still clutched at the basket, his hands moist with excitement, his face aglow, and it was not until the ship was reached that he noticed that Zut was sniffing at it.

"Behave," he ordered. But his voice was so kindly that the little fellow only sniffed the more. It was easy to see that he was jubilating too.

On deck Tancred experienced some difficulty in securing a cabin. But for what were rupees coined and tips invented? The steward consulted the purser, the purser consulted the first officer, and in five minutes the cabin of the latter functionary was at Tancred's disposal. It was roomy and cool; or perhaps it would be more exact to say that it was fully as large as a closet and that the thermometer did not mark one degree above ninety. In short, Tancred had every reason to consider himself in luck. He shut the door and throwing himself on a wicker settee he opened the basket, which until now he had kept tight clasped in his hand.

It was, he saw, filled with sweetmeats such as he had eaten at the bungalow. On top, pinned to the interior of the basket, was a slip of paper that contained a single line—Souvenir et bon voyage—and for signature, Liance. He read the message twice, and, it may be, he would have repeated the message aloud, but Zut kept bothering him with little hungry yelps. To quiet the dog be tossed him a sweet and put the basket down.

In some mysterious manner his joy had taken itself away. It was not from Liance he had expected a remembrance. When Atcheh placed the basket in his hand, he had told himself that, whatever it might contain, it was at least a gift from Mrs. Lyeth, a token expressive of her regret at his departure. And instead of that there was a handful of bonbons that might have been sent to a child, and a meaningless message from one to whose solicitude he was indifferent. The disappointment, indeed, was great. For a while he let it intensify within him. But presently he stood up: it was getting dark; long since the sob of water displaced had told him that the ship had started; a turn on deck might do him good, he thought; and as he moved to the door he called to his dog.

"Zut!"

And as the dog did not immediately appear, Tancred wondered could he have got out. But no, the door was closed.

"What the dickens can have become of him?" he muttered, and turning again he caught sight of Zut stretched on the floor. "Hello!" he exclaimed, "there you are. Why don't you come when you're called?"

Even at this, however, the dog did not move. Tancred bent over and touched him, and then suddenly kneeled down. "Why, what is the matter with him? A moment ago he was right enough; it is impossible that—Zut! Zut Alors!"

And raising the dog's head up he stared at it. The eyes were convulsed, the tongue was swollen and distorted. "He is dead," he murmured. "He is dead. But how?"

To this question no answer was vouchsafed. In his bewilderment he stood up again and leaned at the port-hole. Already Siak had faded. Above was a splatter of callous stars, beneath was the sea, black now and almost chill.

"But how?" he repeated. Then at once he clutched at the woodwork; his eyes had fallen on the basket; he remembered the sweet he had tossed to the dog. The cabin seemed to be turning round.

At his side the door opened, and the steward looked in. "Supper is ready, sir; will you come?"

"The rafflesia!" Tancred gasped at him. But what he meant by that absurd reply the steward did not think it necessary to ask.

"Very good, sir," he answered, and shut the door.

THE GRAND DUKE'S RUBIES.

There is in New York a club called the Balmoral, which has two peculiarities—no one ever goes there much before midnight, and it is the only place in town where you can get anything fit to eat at four o'clock in the morning. The members are politicians of the higher grade, men about town, and a sprinkle of nondescripts. In the unhallowed inspiration of a moment, Alphabet Jones, the novelist,—in polite society Mr. A. B. Fenwick Chisholm-Jones,—baptized it the Smallpox, a name which has stuck tenaciously, the before-mentioned members being usually pitted—against each other. Of the many rooms of the club, one, it should be explained, is the most enticing. It is situated on an upper floor, and the siren that presides therein is a long table dressed in green. Her name is Baccarat.

One night last February, Alphabet Jones rattled up to the door in a vagabond hansom. He was thirsty, impecunious, and a trifle tired. He had been to a cotillon, where he had partaken of champagne, and he wanted to get the taste of it out of his throat. He needed five hundred dollars, and in his card-case there were only two hundred and fifty. The bar of the Athenæum Club he knew at that hour was closed, possible money-lenders were in bed, and it was with the idea of killing the two birds of the legend that he sought the Balmoral.

He encountered there no difficulty in slaking his thirst; and when, in one draught, which brought to his tonsils a suggestion of art, science, and Wagner combined, he swallowed a brandy-and-soda, he felt better, and looked about to see who might be present. The room which he had entered was on what is called the parlor floor. It was long, high-ceiled, comfortably furnished, and somewhat dim. At the furthermost end three men were seated, two of whom he recognized, the one as Sumpter Leigh, the other as Colonel Barker; but the third he did not remember to have seen before. Some Westerner, he thought; for Jones prided himself on knowing every one worth knowing in New York, and, it may be added, in several other cities as well.

He took out his card-case and thumbed the roll of bills reflectively. If he went upstairs, he told himself, he might double the amount in two minutes. But then, again, he might lose it. Yet, if he did, might not five hundred be as easily borrowed as two hundred and fifty?

"It's brutal to be so hard up," he mused. "Literature doesn't pay. I might better set up as publisher, open a drug-shop, turn grocer, do anything, in fact, which is brainless and remunerative, than attempt to earn a living by the sweat of my pen. There's that Interstate Magazine: the editor sent me a note by a messenger this morning, asking for a story, adding that the messenger would wait while I wrote it. Evidently he thinks me three parts stenographer and the rest kaleidoscope. What is a good synonym for an editor, anyway?"

And as Jones asked himself this question he glared fiercely in a mirror that extended from cornice to floor. Then, mollified, possibly, by his own appearance, for he was a handsome man, tall, fair, and clear of skin, he threw himself on a sofa, and fell to thinking about the incidents of the ball.

For some time past he had been as discreetly attentive as circumstances permitted to a young girl, the only child of a potent financier, and on that particular evening he had sat out the cotillon with her at an assembly. She was very pretty and, unusual as it may seem in a débutante, rather coy. But when, a half-hour before, he had wished her sweet dreams in that seductive manner for which he was famous, she had allowed the tips of her fingers to rest in his own just one fleeting second longer than was necessary, and, what is more to the point, had looked into his eyes something which now, under the influence of the brandy-and-soda, seemed almost a promise. "Dear little soul!" he muttered; "if she marries me I will refuse her nothing. It will be the devil's own job, though, to get her any sort of an engagement ring. Tiffany, perhaps, might give me one on credit, but it will have to be something very handsome, something new; not that tiresome solitaire. Those stones I saw the other day—H'm! I wonder what that fellow is staring at me for?"

He lounged forward to where the men were seated, and, being asked to draw a chair, graciously accepted the invitation and another brandy-and-soda as well.

"It was this way," the stranger exclaimed, excitedly, when he and Jones had been introduced. "I was telling these gentlemen when you came in that you looked like the Grand Duke Sergius—"

"Thank you," the novelist answered, affably. "The same to you."

"I never saw him though," the stranger continued.

"No more have I."

"Only his picture."

"Your remark, then, was doubly flattering."

"But the picture to which I allude was that of a chimerical grand duke."

"Really, sir, really you are overwhelming."