The Port of Adventure. C. N. Williamson

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СКАЧАТЬ a California pioneer of good Southern family, a successful judge, had turned an only son away, penniless, because the boy of twenty chose to take for a wife a pretty little dressmaker, of no family at all; how the couple had gone East, to live on a few hundred dollars left to the boy by an aunt; how he had hoped and expected to succeed in New York as a journalist and writer; how he had failed and starved with his bride; how he had faded out of life while Nick was a baby; how the girl-widow had taken in sewing to support her child, and when she couldn't get that, had washed or scrubbed; and how, as Nick became a wise, worried old man of four or five years, he had been able to help earn the family living by selling the newspapers which had refused his dead father's contributions. Nick had not enlarged upon his adventures after this stage of his youthful career, merely sketching them in the baldest manner, when it had been necessary to present his credentials to the "boss"—"old Grizzly Gaylor." But in one way or other it had leaked out that the boy had learned to read and write and cipher at a night school in New York, not having time for such "frills" as schooling by day. And Carmen could not help knowing that he had gone on studying, and thinking out his own rather queer ideas about heaven and earth, ever since, in spite of the most strenuous interruptions—for she had been ashamed occasionally by happening to discover how much Nick knew. He had read everybody and everything from Plato to Schopenhauer, whereas it bored Carmen unspeakably to read anything except novels, and verses which she liked sometimes in magazines, because their pathos or passion might have been written round her.

      She knew how Nick, as a little boy, had swept shops and found all sorts of odd jobs; how he had been errand boy, and district messenger in a uniform of which he had been proud because it made him feel "almost like a soldier"; how after his mother's death he had got his long-cherished wish to "go West," by working on the railway and eventually becoming a brakesman. After that short experience "cowpunching" days had come, and after several years in a subordinate position on Eldridge Gaylor's ranch he had at twenty-five been made foreman. But by this time he was already a familiar figure in her life—the life which she had chosen, and hated after it was chosen, except for Nick Hilliard, who had always loomed large in it, though she saw little of him until a year ago.

      Except perhaps with the old man she had married for his money and hated for his brutality, Carmen believed that Nick Hilliard's "ways" and good looks had helped, even more than his courage and cleverness, to win him success and recognition. With Eldridge Gaylor it had been different. He thought of no man's pleasant looks or ways, though even upon the corrugated iron of his nature, a woman's beauty had had influence, and he had married Carmen off the comic opera stage, in the City of Mexico, where he had gone to see a great bullfight ten years ago. When he had brought her home to his famous ranch, willing for a while to be her slave and give her everything she wanted, she had found Nick a cowpuncher among other cowpunchers. And she had seen how he made "old Grizzly" respect him. But his promotion had come through a row and an attempt at murdering the "boss" by a drunken foreman driven mad by a blow from the short whip Gaylor carried about the ranch. Nick had saved his employer's life, risking his own—for he was unarmed at the moment; and to his surprise the reward had been the discharged foreman's place. Carmen shivered a little even now, remembering that night, and how she had worshipped Nick for his bravery. She had never since ceased to worship him, though he had done a great many things which irritated her extremely, such as saving "old Grizzly's" life once again: but those years were past.

      As she wondered whether Nick would like her to talk with him about his mother, or whether that subject was too delicate to pursue, a musical Japanese gong sounded from a side gallery.

      "Oh, it must be half-past seven," she said. "I ordered dinner early, so we could talk afterward by moonlight (I love talking in moonlight!) before the time for you to go. You can give me your arm, if you like, Nick."

      Of course, Nick "liked," though he had never taken a lady to dinner in that way before, and he felt proud, if a little awkward, as a bare, creamy arm laid itself on his coat-sleeve.

      Slowly and without speaking, they walked along a flower-bordered path that skirted the lawn on one side, and on the other a canal full to the brim of glittering water, which reflected the sky and the two figures.

      It was a place and an hour made for love.

III. THE ANNIVERSARY

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      They did not dine in the house, though one of the show rooms was a huge dining-hall like a glorified refectory in an old Spanish mission. After the beginning of April, and sometimes long before, Carmen seldom took a meal indoors, unless she was attacked by one of her fierce fits of depression, and had a whim to hate the sun.

      She and Nick mounted the steps, passed the fountain which spouted diamond spray through a round head made of some flowering water-plant, went on round a corner, Carmen's dress brushing fallen camellia petals or pink shells of broken roses, and so came to another veranda. This was pergola as well. It had no roof but beams of old Spanish chestnut, so draped with wistaria and roses that the whole out-of-doors room was canopied with leaves and hanging clusters of flowers. Only a faint filtering of sun or moonshine could steal through, and such rays as penetrated seemed to be dyed pink and purple by draining through the flowers.

      Suspended from the beams were big iridescent pearl-shells, known in southern California as "abalone," and in the rainbow-tinted half-globes gleamed electric lights, subdued by dull gold glass; but neither these nor the tall shaded lamps on the low wall of the terrace, nor the hidden electric bulbs in the fountain basin, were allowed to shine out yet. As Carmen said, she liked to talk by moonlight; and now, over in the east, behind magnolia and palm trees, the moon had been born while the sun died in the west.

      If it had been her wedding-night dinner Carmen could not have been more careful in ordering the different dishes and planning the decorations of the table. Usually whether she were alone or had guests (as she had sometimes, though "society" had never taken her up), she left everything to her Chinese head-cook, who was a worthy rival of any Parisian chef; and the beautifying of her table to the artistic Japanese youth whose one business in life was to think out new flower-combinations. This, however, was not only the anniversary of the day which had given her freedom, but she hoped it might be one to remember for a sweeter reason. Besides, Nick Hilliard was to be enchanted, to be made conscious of himself and her, as the only man, the only woman, worth thinking of in the world.

      The air was sweet with the fragrance of orange-blossoms, and the deep-red velvet roses which were Carmen's own flowers. Nick was a water drinker by preference and because he was an open-air man, also because it had been necessary for him to set an example; but to-night Carmen made him sip a little iced champagne, and she drank to the success of his first visit East since boyhood—to his safe and speedy home-coming.

      "Because this is home, Nick; your home," she said. "It would kill me if you saw any place you liked better, and if you made up your mind that you wanted to sell out and live in New York."

      "No fear," said Nick. "No man ever left paradise unless he was driven out by flaming swords."

      "Then you won't be gone long?" she asked, playing with the abalone chowder on her plate.

      "Not more than a month anyhow; maybe a few days less if I get homesick; though it would hardly be worth while to go so far for a shorter time, after staying West so many years without a single break. First, I count on poking round in some of our old haunts—poor mother's and mine—and then, when I am way down in the dumps I'll yank myself up again with a little fun—theatres and roof-gardens and such-like."

      "You've seen good plays in San Francisco," said Carmen.

      "Yes, San Franciso's a great place. Only I haven't СКАЧАТЬ