Chapter XI: Part 11

Oddly enough, the spectacle caused him no subtle pang, although their heads were pretty close together and their mutual absorption in whatever they were saying appeared evident enough.

"Let 'em chatter," he said after an instant's hesitation. "Thessa or my sister can ride with you this afternoon when it's cooler. I suppose you'll take to the saddle as though born there."

"Oh, I hope so!"

"Sure thing. All Irish girls--of your quality--take to it."

"My--quality?"

"Yours.... It's merely happened so," he added irrelevantly, "--but the contrary couldn't have mattered ... as long as you are _you_! Nothing else matters one way or another. You _are_ you: that answers all questions, fulfils all requirements----"

"I _don't_ quite understand what you say, Garry!"

"Don't you, Sweetness? Don't you understand why you've always been exactly what you appear like at this moment?"

She looked at him with her lovely, uncertain smile:

"I've always been myself, I suppose. You are teasing me dreadfully!"

He laughed in a nervous, excited way, not like himself:

"You bet you have always been yourself, Sweetness!--in spite of everything you've always been _yourself_. I am very slow in discovering it. But I think I realise it now."

"Please," she remonstrated, "you are laughing at me and I don't know why. I think you've been talking nonsense and expecting me to pretend to understand.... If you don't stop laughing at me I shall retire to my room and--and----"

"What, Sweetness?" he demanded, still laughing.

"Change to a cooler gown," she said, humorously vexed at her own inability to threaten or punish him for his gaiety at her expense.

"All right; I'll change too, and we'll meet in the music-room!"

She considered him askance:

"Will you be more respectful to me, Garry?"

"Respectful? I don't know."

"Very well, then, I'm not coming back."

But when he entered the music-room half an hour later, Dulcie was seated demurely before the piano, and when he came and stood behind her she dropped her head straight back and looked up at him.

"I had a wonderful icy bath," she said, "and I'm ready for anything. Are you?"

"Almost," he said, looking down at her.

She straightened up, gazed silently at the piano for a few moments; sounded a few chords. Then her fingers wandered uncertainly, as though groping for something that eluded them--something that they delicately sought to interpret. But apparently she did not discover it; and her search among the keys ended in a soft chord like a sigh. Only her lips could have spoken more plainly.

At that moment Westmore and Thessalie came in breezily and remained to gossip a few minutes before bathing and changing.

"Play something jolly!" said Westmore. "One of those gay Irish things, you know, like 'The Honourable Michael Dunn,' or 'Finnigan's Wake,' or----"

"I don't know any," said Dulcie, smiling. "There's a song called 'Asthore.' My mother wrote it----"

"Can you sing it?"

The girl ran her fingers over the keys musingly:

"I'll remember it presently. I know one or two old songs like 'Irishmen All.' Do you know that song?"

And she sang it in her gay, unembarrassed way:

"Warm is our love for the island that bore us,
Ready are we as our fathers before us,
Genial and gallant men,
Fearless and valiant men,
Faithful to Erin we answer her call.
Ulster men, Munster men,
Connaught men, Leinster men,
Irishmen all we answer her call!"

"Fine!" cried Westmore. "Try it again, Dulcie!"

"Maybe you'll like this better," she said:

"Our Irish girls are beautiful,
As all the world will own;
An Irish smile in Irish eyes
Would melt a heart of stone;
But all their smiles and all their wiles
Will quickly turn to sneers
If you fail to fight for Erin
In the Irish Volunteers!"

"Hurrah!" cried Westmore, beating time and picking up the chorus of the "Irish Volunteers," which Dulcie played to a thunderous finish amid frantic applause.

She sang for them "The West's Awake!", "The Risin' of the Moon," "Clare's Dragoons," and "Paddy Get Up!" And after Westmore had exercised his lungs sufficiently in every chorus, he and Thessalie went off to their respective quarters, leaving Barres leaning on the piano beside Dulcie.

"Your people are a splendid lot--given half a chance," he said.

"My people?"

"Certainly. After all, Sweetness, you're Irish, you know."

"Oh."

"Aren't you?"

"I don't know what I am," she murmured half to herself.

"Whoever you are it's the same to me, Dulcie." ... He took a few short, nervous turns across the room; walked slowly back to her: "Has it come back to you yet--that song of your mother's you were trying to remember?"

Even while he was speaking the song came back to her memory--her mother's song called "Asthore"--startling her with its poignant significance to herself.

"Do you recollect it?" he asked again.

"Y-yes ... I can't sing it."

"Why?"

"I don't wish to sing 'Asthore'----" She bent her head and gazed at the keyboard, the painful colour dyeing her neck and cheeks.

When at length she looked up at him out of lovely, distressed eyes, something in his face--something--some new expression which she dared not interpret--set her heart flying. And, scarcely knowing what she was saying in her swift and exquisite confusion:

"The words of my mother's song would mean nothing to you, Garry," she faltered. "You could not understand them----"

"Why not?"

"B-because you could not be in sympathy with them."

"How do you know? Try!"

"I can't----"

"Please, dear!"

The smile edging her lips glimmered in her eyes now--a reckless little glint of humour, almost defiant.

"Do you insist that I sing 'Asthore'?"

"Yes."

He seemed conscious of a latent excitement in her to which something within himself was already responsive.

"It's about a lover," she said, "--one of the old-fashioned, head-long, hot-headed sort--Irish, of course!--you'd not understand--such things----" Her tongue and colour were running random riot; her words outstripped her thoughts and tripped up her tongue, scaring her a little. She drummed on the keys a rollicking trill or two, hesitated, stole a swift, uncertain glance at him.

A delicate intoxication enveloped her, stimulating, frightening her a little, yet hurrying her into speech again:

"I'll sing it for you, Garry asthore! And if I were a lad I'd be singing my own gay credo!--if I were the lad--and you but a lass, asthore!"

Then, though her gray eyes winced and her flying colour betrayed her trepidation, she looked straight at him, laughingly, and her clear, childish voice continued the little prelude to "Asthore":

I

"I long for her, who e'er she be--
The lass that Fate decrees for me;
Or dark or white and fair to see,
My heart is hers _'be n-Eirinn i_!

I care not, I,
Who ever she be,
I could not love her more!
_'Be n-Eirin i--
'Be n-Eirinn i--
'Be n-Eirinn i Asthore!_[1]

II

"I know her tresses unconfined,
In wanton ringlets woo the wind--
Or rags or silk her bosom bind
It's one to me; my eyes are blind!

I care not, I,
Who ever she be,
Or poor, or rich galore!
_'Be n-Eirinn i--
'Be n-Eirinn i--
'Be n-Eirinn i Asthore!_

III

"At noon, some day, I'll climb a hill,
And find her there and kiss my fill;
And if she won't, I think she will,
For every Jack must have his Jill!

I care not, I,
Who ever she be,
The lass that I adore!
_'Be n-Eirinn i--
'Be n-Eirinn i--
'Be n-Eirinn i Asthore!_"

[1] The refrain, pronounced _Bay-nayring-ee_, is common to a number of
Irish love-songs written during the last century. It should be
translated: "Whoever she be."

In writing this song, it is evident that Eileen Fane was
inspired by Blind William of Tipperary; and that she was
beholden to Carroll O'Daly for her "Eileen, my Treasure,"
although not to Robin Adair of County Wicklow.

AUTHOR.

Dulcie's voice and her flushed smile, too, faded, died out. She looked down at the keyboard, where her white hands rested idly; she bent lower--a little lower; laid her arms on the music-rest, her face on her crossed arms. And, slowly, the tears fell without a tremor, without a sound.

He had leaned over her shoulders; his bowed head was close to hers--so close that he became aware of the hot, tearful fragrance of her breath; but there was not a sound from her, not a stir.

"What is it, Sweetness?" he whispered.

"I--don't know.... I didn't m-mean to--cry.... And I don't know why I should.... I'm very h-happy----" She withdrew one arm and stretched it out, blindly, seeking him; and he took her hand and held it close to his lips.

"Why are you so distressed, Dulcie?"

"I'm not. I'm happy.... You know I am.... My heart was very full; that is all.... I don't seem to know how to express myself sometimes.... Perhaps it's because I don't quite dare.... So something gives way.... And this happens--tears. Don't mind them, please.... If I could reach my handkerchief----" She drew the tiny square of sheer stuff from her bosom and rested her closed eyes on it.

"It's silly, isn't it, Garry?... W-when a girl is so heavenly contented.... Is anybody coming?"

"Westmore and Thessa!"

She whisked her tears away and sat up swiftly. But Thessa merely called to them that she and Westmore were off for a walk, and passed on through the hall and out through the porch.

"Garry," she murmured, looking away from him.

"Yes, dear?"

"May I go to my room and fix my hair? Because Mr. Skeel will be here. Do you mind if I leave you?"

He laughed:

"Of course not, you charming child!" Then, as he looked down at her hand, which he still retained, his expression altered; he inclosed the slender fingers, bent slowly and touched the fragrant palm with his lips.

They were both on their feet the next second; she passing him with a pale, breathless little smile, and swiftly crossing the hall; he dumb, confused by the sudden tumult within him, standing there with one hand holding to the piano as though for support, and looking after the slim, receding figure till it disappeared beyond the library door.

His mother and sister returned from their morning ride, lingered to chat with him, then went away to dress for luncheon. Murtagh Skeel had not yet arrived.

Westmore and Thessalie returned from their walk in the woods by the second lake, reporting a distant view of Barres senior, fishing madly from a canoe.

Dulcie came down and joined them in the library. Later Mrs. Barres and Lee appeared, and luncheon was announced.

Murtagh Skeel had not come to Foreland Farms, and there was no word from him.

Mrs. Barres spoke of his absence during luncheon, for Garry had told her he was coming to talk to Dulcie about her mother, whom he had known very well in Ireland.

Luncheon ended, and the cool north veranda became the popular rendezvous for the afternoon, and later for tea. People from Northbrook drove, rode, or motored up for a cheering cup, and a word or two of gossip. But Skeel did not come.

By half-past five the north veranda was thronged with a gaily chattering and very numerous throng from neighbouring estates. The lively gossip was of war, of the coming elections, of German activities, of the Gerhardts' promised moonlight spectacle and dance, of Murtagh Skeel and the romantic interest he had aroused among Northbrook folk.

So many people were arriving or leaving and such a delightful and general informality reigned that Dulcie, momentarily disengaged from a vapid but persistent dialogue with a chuckle-headed but persistent youth, ventured to slip into the house, and through it to the garden in the faint hope that perhaps Murtagh Skeel might have avoided the tea-crush and had gone directly there.

But the rose arbour was empty; only the bubble of the little wall fountain and a robin's evening melody broke the scented stillness of the late afternoon.

Her mind was full of Murtagh Skeel, her heart of Garry Barres, as she stood there in that blossoming solitude, listening to the robin and the fountain, while her eyes wandered across flower-bed, pool, and clipped greensward, and beyond the garden wall to the hill where three pines stood silver-green against the sky.

Little by little the thought of Murtagh Skeel faded from her mind; fuller and fuller grew her heart with confused emotions new to her--emotions too perplexing, too deep, too powerful, perhaps, for her to understand--or to know how to resist or to endure. For the first vague sweetness of her thoughts had grown keen to the verge of pain--an exquisite spiritual tension which hurt her, bewildered her with the deep emotions it stirred.

To love, had been a phrase to her; a lover, a name. For beyond that childish, passionate adoration which Barres had evoked in her, and which to her meant friendship, nothing more subtly mature, more vital, had threatened her unawakened adolescence with any clearer comprehension of him or any deeper apprehension of herself.

And even now it was not knowledge that pierced her, lighting little confusing flashes in her mind and heart. For her heart was still a child's heart; and her mind, stimulated and rapidly developing under the warm and magic kindness of this man who had become her only friend, had not thought of him in any other way.... Until to-day.

What had happened in her mind, in her heart, she had not analysed--probably was afraid to, there at the piano in the music-room. And later, in her bedroom, when she had summoned up innocent courage sufficient for self-analysis, she didn't know how to question herself--did not realise exactly what had happened to her, and never even thought of including him in the enchanted cataclysm which had befallen her mind and heart and soul.

Thessalie and Westmore appeared on the lawn by the pool. Behind the woods the sky was tinted with pale orange.

It may have been the psychic quality of the Celt in Dulcie--a pale glimmer of clairvoyance--some momentary and vague premonition wirelessed through the evening stillness which set her sensitive body vibrating; for she turned abruptly and gazed northward across the woods and hills--remained motionless, her grey eyes fixed on the far horizon, all silvery with the hidden glimmer of unlighted stars.

Then she slowly said aloud to herself:

"He will not come. He will never come again--this man who loved my mother."

Barres approached across the grass, looking for her. She went forward through the arbour to meet him.

"Hasn't he come?" he asked.

"He is not coming, Garry."

"Why? Have you heard anything?"

She shook her head:

"No. But he isn't coming."

"Probably he'll explain this evening at the Gerhardts'."

"I shall never see him again," she said absently.

He turned and gave her a searching look. Her gaze was remote, her face a little pale.

They walked back to the house together in silence.

A servant met them in the hall with a note on a tray. It was for Barres; Dulcie passed on with a pale little smile of dismissal; Barres opened the note:

"The pot has boiled over, mon ami. Something has scared Skeel. He
gave us the slip very cleverly, leaving Gerhardt's house before
sunrise and motoring north at crazy speed. Where he will strike
the railway I have no means of knowing. Your Government's people
are trying to cover Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. On the Canada side
the authorities have been notified and are alert I hope.

"Gerhardt's country house is a nest of mischief hatchers. One in
particular is under surveillance and will be arrested. His name is
Tauscher.

"Because, mon ami, it has just been discovered that there are
_two_ plots to blow up the Welland Canal! One is Skeel's. The
other is Tauscher's. It is a purely German plot. They don't intend
to blow themselves up these Huns. Oh no! They expect to get away.

"Evidently Bernstorff puts no faith in Skeel's mad plan. So, in
case it doesn't pan out, here is Tauscher with another plan, made
in Germany, and very, very thorough. Isn't it characteristic? Here
is the report I received this morning:

"'Captain Franz von Papen, Military Attache on the ambassadorial
staff of Count von Bernstorff, and Captain Hans Tauscher, who,
besides being the Krupp agent in America, is also, by appointment
of the German War Office, von Papen's chief military assistant in
the United States, have plotted the destruction of the Welland
Canal in Canada.

"'Captain Hans Tauscher will be arrested and indicted for
violation of Section 13 of the United States Criminal Code, for
setting on foot a military enterprise against Canada during the
neutrality of the United States.

"'Tauscher is a German reserve officer and is subject to the
orders of Captain Franz von Papen, Military Attache of Count von
Bernstorff. His indictment will be brought about by reason of an
attempt to blow up parts of the Welland Canal, the waterway
connecting Lakes Erie and Ontario. A small party of Germans, under
command of one von der Goltz, have started from New York for the
purpose of committing this act of sabotage, and, incidentally, of
assassination of all men, women and children who might be involved
in the explosion at the point to be selected by the plotters.

"'Tauscher bought and furnished to this crowd of assassins the
dynamite which was to be used for the purpose. The fact that
Tauscher had bought the dynamite has become known to the United
States authorities and he will be called upon to make an
explanation.

"'Captain Tauscher is said to be an agreeable companion, but
he had the ordinary predilection of a German officer for
assassinating women and children.'

"Now, then, mon ami, this is the report. I expect that United
States Secret Service men will arrest Tauscher to-night. Perhaps
Gerhardt, also, will be arrested.

"At any rate, at the dance to-night you need not look for Skeel.
But may I suggest that you and Mr. Westmore keep your eyes on
Mademoiselle Dunois. Because, at the railway station to-day, the
German agents, Franz Lehr and Max Freund, were recognised by my
men, disguised as liveried chauffeurs, but in whose service we
have not yet been able to discover.

"Therefore, it might be well for you and Mr. Westmore to remain
near Mademoiselle Dunois during the evening.

"Au revoir! I shall see you at the dance.

"RENOUX."

XXVII

THE MOONLIT WAY

Barres whistled and sang alternately as he tied his evening tie before his looking glass.

"_And I care not, I,
Who ever she be
I could not love her more!_"

he chanted gaily, examining the effect and buttoning his white waistcoat.

Westmore, loitering near and waiting for him, referred again, indignantly, to Renoux's report concerning the presence of Freund and Lehr at the Northbrook railway station.

"If I catch them hanging around Thessa," he said, "I'll certainly beat them up, Garry.

"Deal with anything of that sort directly; that's always the best way. No use arguing with a Hun. When he misbehaves, beat him up. It's the only thing he understands."

"Well, it's all right for us to do it now, as long as the French Government knows where Thessa is," remarked Barres, drawing a white clove-carnation through his buttonhole. "But what do you think of that dirty swine, Tauscher, planning wholesale murder like that? Isn't it the fine flower of Prussianism? There's the real and porcine boche for you, sombre, savage, stupidly ferocious, swinishly persistent, but never quite cunning enough, never sufficiently subtle in planning his filthy and murderous holocausts."

Westmore nodded:

"Quite right. The _Lusitania_ and Belgium cost the Hun the respect of civilisation, and are driving the civilised world into a common understanding. We'll go in before long; don't worry."

They descended the stairs together just as dinner was announced.

Mrs. Barres said laughingly to her son:

"Your father is still fishing, I suppose, so in spite of his admonition to me by letter this morning, I sent over one of the men with some thermos bottles and a very nice supper. He grumbles, but he always likes it."

"I wonder what Mr. Barres will think of me," ventured Dulcie. "He left such a pretty little rod for me. Thessa and I have been examining it. I'd like to go, only--" she added with a wistful smile, "I have never been to a real party."

"Of course you're going to the Gerhardts'," insisted Lee, laughing. "Dad is absurd about his fishing. I don't believe any girl ever lived who'd prefer fishing on that foggy lake at night to dancing at such a party as you are going to to-night."

"Aren't you going?" asked Thessalie, but Lee shook her head, still smiling.

"We have two young setters down with distemper, and mother and I always sit up with our dogs under such circumstances."

Personal devotion of this sort was new to Thessalie. Mrs. Barres and Lee told her all about the dreaded contagion and how very dreadful an epidemic might be in a kennel of such finely bred dogs as was the well-known Foreland Kennels.

Dog talk absorbed everybody during dinner. Mrs. Barres and Lee were intensely interested in Thessalie's description of the Grand Duke Cyril's Russian wolfhounds, with which she had coursed and hunted as a child.

Once she spoke, also, of those strange, pathetic, melancholy Ishmaelites, pitiable outcasts of their race--the pariah dogs of Constantinople. For, somehow, while dressing that evening, the distant complaint of a tethered beagle had made her think of Stamboul. And she remembered that night so long ago on the moonlit deck of the _Mirage_, where she had stood with Ferez Bey while, from the unseen, monstrous city close at hand, arose the endless wailing of homeless dogs.

How strange it was, too, to think that the owner of the _Mirage_ should this night be her host here in the Western World, yet remain unconscious that he had ever before entertained her.

* * * * *

Before coffee had been served in the entrance hall, the kennel master sent in word that one of the pups, a promising Blue Belton, had turned very sick indeed, and would Mrs. Barres come to the kennels as soon as convenient.

It was enough for Mrs. Barres and for Lee; they both excused themselves without further ceremony and went away together to the kennels, apparently quite oblivious of their delicate dinner gowns and slippers.

"I've seen my mother ruin many a gown on such errands," remarked Garry, smiling. "No use offering yourself as substitute; my mother would as soon abandon her own sick baby to strangers as turn over an ailing pup to anybody except Lee and herself."

"I think that is very splendid," murmured Dulcie, relinquishing her coffee cup to Garry and suffering a maid to invest her with a scarf and light silk wrap.

"My mother _is_ splendid," said Garry in a low voice. "You will see her prove it some day, I hope."

The girl turned her lovely head, curiously, not understanding. Garry laughed, but his voice was not quite steady when he said:

"But it all depends on you, Dulcie, how splendid my mother may prove herself."

"On _me_!"

"On your--kindness."

"My--_kindness_!"

Thessalie came up in her pretty carnation-rose cloak, esquired by the enraptured Westmore, expressing admiration for the clothing adorning the very obvious object of his devotion:

"All girls can't wear a thing like that cloak," he was explaining proudly; "now it would look like the devil on you, Dulcie, with your coppery hair and----"

"What exquisite tact!" shrugged Thessalie, already a trifle restive under his constant attendance and unremitting admiration. "Can't you, out of your richly redundant vocabulary, find something civil to say to Dulcie?"

But Dulcie, still preoccupied with what Barres had said, merely gave her an absent-minded smile and walked slowly out beside her to the porch, where the headlights of a touring car threw two broad beams of gold across the lawn.

It was a swift, short run through the valley northward among the hills, and very soon the yellow lights of Northbrook summer homes dotted the darkness ahead, and cars were speeding in from every direction--from Ilderness, Wythem, East and South Gorloch--carrying guests for the Gerhardts' moonlight spectacle and dance.

Apropos of the promised spectacle, Barres observed to Dulcie that there happened to be no moon, and consequently no moonlight, but the girl, now delightfully excited by glimpses of Hohenlinden festooned with electricity, gaily reproached him for being literal.

"If one is happy," she said, "a word is enough to satisfy one's imagination. If they call it a moonlight spectacle, I shall certainly see moonlight whether it's there or not!"

"They may call it heaven, too, if they like," he said, "and I'll believe it--if you are there."

At that she blushed furiously:

"Oh, Garry! You don't mean it, and it's silly to say it!"

"I mean it all right," he muttered, as the car swung in through the great ornamental gates of Hohenlinden. "The trouble is that I mean so much--and _you_ mean so much to me--that I don't know how to express it."

The girl, her face charmingly aglow, looked straight in front of her out of enchanted eyes, but her heart's soft violence in her breast left her breathless and mute; and when the car stopped she scarcely dared rest her hand on the arm which Barres presented to guide her in her descent to earth.

It may have been partly the magnificence of Hohenlinden that so thrillingly overwhelmed her as she seated herself with Garry on the marble terrace of an amphitheatre among brilliant throngs already gathered to witness the eagerly discussed spectacle.

And it really was a bewilderingly beautiful scene, there under the summer stars, where a thousand rosy lanterns hung tinting the still waters of the little stream that wound through the clipped greensward which was the stage.

The foliage of a young woodland walled in this vernal scene; the auditorium was a semi-circle of amber marble--rows of low benches, tier on tier, rising to a level with the lawn above.

The lantern light glowed on pretty shoulders and bare arms, on laces and silks and splendid jewels, and stained the sombre black of the men with vague warm hues of rose.

Westmore, leaning over to address Barres, said with an amused air:

"You know, Garry, it's Corot Mandel who is putting on this thing for the Gerhardts."

"Certainly I know it," nodded Barres. "Didn't he try to get Thessa for it?"

Thessalie, whose colour was high and whose dark eyes, roaming, had grown very brilliant, suddenly held out her hand to one of two men who, traversing the inclined aisle beside her, halted to salute her.

"Your name was on our lips," she said gaily. "How do you do, Mr. Mandel! How do you do, Mr. Trenor! Are you going to amaze us with a miracle in this enchanting place?"

The two men paid their respects to her, and, with unfeigned astonishment and admiration, to Dulcie, whom they recognised only when Thessalie named her with delighted malice.

"Oh, I say, Miss Soane," began Mandel, leaning on the back of the marble seat, "you and Miss Dunois might have helped me a lot if I'd known you were to be in this neighbourhood."

Esme Trenor bent over Barres, dropping his voice:

"We had to use a couple of Broadway hacks--you'll recognise 'em through their paint--you understand?--the two that New York screams for. It's too bad. Corot wanted something unfamiliarly beautiful and young and fresh. But these Northbrook amateurs are incredibly amateurish."

Thessalie was chattering away with Corot Mandel and Westmore; Esme Trenor gazed upon Dulcie in wonder not unmixed with chagrin:

"You've never forgiven me, Dulcie, have you?"

"For what?" she inquired indifferently.

"For not discovering you when I should have."

She smiled, but the polite effort and her detachment of all interest in him were painfully visible to Esme.

"I'm sorry you still remember me so unkindly," he murmured.

"But I never do remember you at all," she explained so candidly that Barres was obliged to avert his amused face, and Esme Trenor reddened to the roots of his elaborate hair. Mandel, with a wry grin, linked his arm in Trenor's and drew him away toward the flight of steps which was the stage entrance to the dressing rooms below.

"Good-bye!" he said, waving his hat. "Hope you'll like my moonlight frolic!"

"Where's your bally moon!" demanded Westmore.

As he spoke, an unseen orchestra began to play "_Au Claire de la Lune_," and, behind the woods, silhouetting every trunk and branch and twig, the glittering edge of a huge, silvery moon appeared.

Slowly it rose, flashing a broad path of light across the lawn, reflected in the still little river. And when it was in the position properly arranged for it, some local Joshua--probably Corot Mandel--arrested its further motion, and it hung there, flooding the stage with a witching lustre.

All at once the stage swarmed with supple, glimmering shapes: Oberon and Titania came flitting down through the trees; Puck, scintillating like a dragon-fly, dropped on the sward, seemingly out of nowhere.

It was a wonderfully beautiful ballet, with an unseen chorus singing from within the woods like a thousand seraphim.

As for the play itself, which began with the calm and silvered river suddenly swarming alive with water-nymphs, it had to do, spasmodically, with the love of the fairy crown-prince for the very attractive water-nymph, Ythali. This nimble lady, otherwise, was fiercely wooed by the King of the Mud-turtles, a most horrid and sprawling shape, but a clever foil--with his army of river-rats, minks and crabs--to the nymphs and wood fairies.

Also, the music was refreshingly charming, the singing excellent, and the story interesting enough to keep the audience amused until the end.

There was, of course, much moonlight dancing, much frolicking in the water, few clothes on the Broadway principals, fewer on the chorus, and apparently no scruples about discarding even these.

But the whole spectacle was so unreal, so spectral, that its shadowy beauty robbed it of offence.

That sort of thing had made Corot Mandel famous. He calculated to the width of a moonbeam just how far he could go. And he never went a hair's breadth farther.

Thessalie looked on with flushed cheeks and parted lips, absorbed in it all with the savant eyes of a professional. She also had once coolly decided how far her beauty and talent and adolescent effrontery could carry her gay disdain of man. And she had flouted him with indifferent eyes and dainty nose uplifted--mocked him and his conventions, with a few roubles in her dressing-room--slapped the collective face of his sex with her insolent loveliness, and careless smile.

Perhaps, as she sat there watching the fairy scene, she remembered her ostrich and the German Embassy, and the aged Von-der-Goltz Pasha, all over jewels and gold, peeping at her through thick spectacles under his red fez.

Perhaps she thought of Ferez, too, and maybe it was thought of him that caused her smooth young shoulders the slightest of shivers, as though a harsh breeze had chilled her skin.

As for Dulcie, she was in the seventh heaven, thrilled with the dreamy beauty of it all and the exquisite phantoms floating on the greensward under her enraptured eyes.

No other thought possessed her save sheer delight in this revelation of pure enchantment.

So intent, so still she became, leaning a little forward in her place, that Barres found her far more interesting and wonderful to watch than Mandel's cunningly contrived illusions in the artificial moonlight below.

And now Titania's trumpets sounded from the woods, warning all of the impending dawn. Suddenly the magic fairy moon vanished like the flame of a blown-out candle; a faint, rosy light grew through the trees, revealing an empty stage and a river on which floated a single swan.

Then, from somewhere, a distant cock-crow rang through the dawn. The play was ended.

Two splendid orchestras were alternating on the vast marble terraces of Hohenlinden, where hundreds of dancers moved under the white radiance of a huge silvery moon overhead--another contrivance of Mandel's--for the splendid sphere aglow with white fire had somehow been suspended above the linden trees so that no poles and no wires were visible against the starry sky.

And in its milky flood of light the dancers moved amid a wilderness of flowers or thronged the supper-rooms within, where Teutonic architectural and decorative magnificence reigned in one vast, incredible, indigestible gastronomic apotheosis of German kultur.

Barres, for the moment, dancing with Thessalie, pressed her fingers with mischievous tenderness and whispered:

"The moonlit way once more with you, Thessa! Do you remember our first dance?"

"Can I ever thank God enough for that night's folly!" she said, with such sudden emotion that his smile altered as he looked into her dark eyes.

"Yet that dance by moonlight exiled you," he said.

"Do you realise what it saved me from, too? And what it has given me?"

He wondered whether she included Westmore in the gift. The music ceased at that moment, and, though the other orchestra began, they strolled along the flowering balustrade of the terrace together until they encountered Dulcie and Westmore.

"Have you spoken to your hostess?" inquired Westmore. "She's over yonder on a dais, enthroned like Germania or a Metropolitan Opera Valkyrie. Dulcie and I have paid our homage."

So Barres and Thessalie went away to comply with the required formality; and, when they returned from the rite, they found Esme Trenor and Corot Mandel cornering Dulcie under a flowering orange tree while Westmore, beside her, chatted with a most engaging woman who proved, later, to be a practising physician.

Esme was saying languidly, that anybody could fly into a temper and kick his neighbours, but that indifference to physical violence was a condition of mind attained only by the spiritual intellect of the psychic adept.

"Passivism," he added with a wave of his lank fingers, "is the first plane to be attained on the journey toward Nirvana. Therefore, I am a pacifist and this silly war does not interest me in the slightest."

The very engaging woman, who had been chatting with Westmore, looked around at Esme Trenor, evidently much amused.

"I imagined that you were a pacifist," she said. "I fancy, Mr. Mandel, also, is one."

"Indeed, I am, madam!" said Corot Mandel. "I've plenty to do in life without strutting around and bawling for blood at the top of my lungs!"

"Thank heaven," added Esme, "the President has kept us out of war. This business of butchering others never appealed to me--except for the slightly unpleasant sensations which I experience when I read the details."

"Oh. Then unpleasant sensations so appeal to you?" inquired Westmore, very red.

"Well, they _are_ sensations, you know," drawled Esme. "And, for a man who experiences few sensations of any sort, even unpleasant ones are pleasurable."

Mandel yawned and said:

"The war is an outrageous bore. All wars are stupid to a man of temperament. Therefore, I'm a pacifist. And I had rather live under Prussian domination than rush about the country with a gun and sixty pounds of luggage on my back!"

He looked heavily at Dulcie, who had slipped out of the corner on the terrace, where he and Esme had penned her.

"There are other things to do more interesting than jabbing bayonets into Germans," he remarked. "Did you say you hadn't any dance to spare us, Miss Soane? Nor you either, Miss Dunois? Oh, well." He cast a disgusted glance at Barres, squinted at Westmore through his greasy monocle in hostile silence; then, taking Esme's arm, made them all a too profound obeisance and sauntered away along the terrace.

"What a pair of beasts!" said Westmore. "They make me actually ill!"

Barres shrugged and turned to the very engaging lady beside him:

"What do you think of that breed of human, doctor?" he inquired.

She smiled at Barres and said:

"Several of my own patients who are suffering from the same form of psycho-neurotic trouble are also peace-at-any-price pacifists. They do not come to me to be cured of their pacifism. On the contrary, they cherish it most tenderly. In examining them for other troubles I happened upon what appeared to me a very close relation between the peculiar attitude of the peace-at-any-price pacifist and a certain type of unconscious pervert."

"That passivism is perversion does not surprise me," remarked Barres.

"Well," she said, "the pacifist is not conscious of his real desires and therefore cannot be termed a true pervert. But the very term, passivism, is usually significant and goes very deep psychologically. In analysing my patients I struck against a buried impulse in them to suffer tyrannous treatment from an omnipotent master. The impulse was so strong that it amounted to a craving and tried to absorb all the psychic material within its reach. They did not recognise the original impulse, because that had long ago been crushed down by the exactions of civilised life. Nevertheless, they were tortured and teased, made unsettled and wretched by a something which continually baffled them. Deep under the upper crust of their personalities was concealed a seething desire to be completely, inevitably, relentlessly, unreservedly overwhelmed by a subjugation from which there was no escape."

She turned to Westmore:

"It's purely pathological, the condition of those two self-confessed pacifists. The pacifist loves suffering. The ordinary normal person avoids suffering when possible. He endures it only when something necessary or desirable cannot be gained in any other way. He may undergo agony at the mere thought of it. His bravery consists in facing danger and pain in spite of fear. But the extreme passivist, who is really an unconscious pervert, loves to dream of martyrdom and suffering. It must be a suffering, however, which is forced upon him, and it must be a personal matter, not impersonal and general, as in war. And he loves to contemplate a condition of complete captivity--of irresponsible passivity, in which all resistance is in vain."

"Do you know, they disgust me, those two!" said Westmore angrily. "I never could endure anything abnormal. And now that I know Esme is--and that big lout, Mandel--I'll keep away from them. Do you blame me, doctor?"

"Well," she said, much amused and turning to go, "they're very interesting to physicians, you know--these non-resisting, pacifistic perverts. But outside a sanatorium I shouldn't expect them to be very popular." And she laughed and joined a big, good-looking man who had come to seek her, and who wore, in his buttonhole, the button of the French Legion of Honour.

Thessalie had strolled forward along the terrace by herself, interested in the pretty spectacle and the play of light on jewels and gowns.

Westmore, busy in expressing to Barres his opinion of Esme and Mandel, did not at the moment miss Thessalie, who continued to saunter on along the balustrade of the terrace, under the blossoming row of orange trees.

Just below her was another terrace and an oval pool set with tiny jets which seemed to spray the basin with liquid silver. Silvery fish, too, were swimming in it near the surface, sometimes flinging themselves clear out of water as though intoxicated by the unwonted lustre which flooded their crystal pool.

To see them nearer, Thessalie ran lightly down the steps and walked toward the shimmering basin. And at the same time the head and shoulders of a man in evening dress, his bosom crossed by a sash of watered red silk, appeared climbing nimbly from a still lower level.

She watched him step swiftly upon the terrace and cross it diagonally, walking in her direction toward the stone stairs which she had just descended. Then, paying him no further attention, she looked down into the water.

He came along very near to where she stood, gazing into the pool--peered at her curiously--was already passing at her very elbow--when something made her lift her head and look around at him.

The mock moonlight struck full across his features; and the shock of seeing him drove every vestige of colour from her own face.

The man halted, staring at her in unfeigned amazement. Suddenly he snarled at her, baring his teeth in her shrinking face.

"_Kismet dir!_" he whispered, "it ees _you_!... Nihla Quellen! _Now_ I begin onderstan'!... Yas, I now onderstan' who arrange it that they haf arrest my good frien', Tauscher! It ees _you_, then! Von Igel he has tol' me, look out once eef she escape--thees yoong leopardess----"

"Ferez!" Thessalie's young figure stiffened and the colour flamed in her cheeks.

"You leopardess!" he repeated, every tooth a-grin again with rage, "you misbegotten slut of a hunting cheetah! So thees is 'ow you strike!... Ver' well. Yas, I see 'ow it ees you strike at----"

"Ferez!" she cried. "Listen to _me_!"

"I 'ear you! Allez!"

"Ferez Bey! I am not afraid of you!"

"Ees it so?"

"Yes, it is so. I _never_ have been afraid of you! Not even there on the deck of the _Mirage_, that night when you tapped the hilt of your Kurdish knife and spoke of Seraglio Point! Nor when your scared spy shot at me in the corridor of the Tenth Street house; nor afterward at Dragon Court! Nor now! Do you understand, Eurasian jackal! Nor _now_! Anybody can see what _Heruli_ whelped you! What are you doing in America? Kassim Pasha is your den, where your _rayah_ loll and scratch in the sun! It is their _Keyeff_! And yours!"

She took a quick step toward him, her eyes flashing, her white hand clenched:

"_Allah Kerim_--do you say? _El Hamdu Lillah!_ Do you take yourself for the _muezzin_ of all jackals, then, howling blasphemies from some _minaret_ in the hills? Do you understand what they'd do to you in the _Hirka-i-Sherif Jamesi_? Because you are _nothing_; do you hear?--nothing but an Eurasian assassin! And Moslem and Christian alike know where _you_ belong among the lost pariahs of Stamboul!"

The girl was utterly transfigured. Whatever of the Orient was in her, now blazed white hot.

"What have I done to you, Ferez? What have I ever done to you that you, even from my childhood, come always stepping noiselessly at my skirt's edge?--always padding behind me at my heels, silent, sinister, whimpering with bared teeth for the courage to bite which God denies you!"

The man stood almost motionless, moistening his dry lips with his tongue, but his eyes moved continually, stealing uneasy glances around him and upward, where, on the main terrace above them, the heads of the throng passed and repassed.

"Nihla," he said, "for all thees scorn and abuse of me, you know, in the false heart of you, why it ees so if I have seek you."

"You dealer in lies! You would have sold me to d'Eblis! You thought you _had_ sold me! You were paid for it, too!"

"An' still!" He looked at her furtively.

"What do you mean? You conspired with d'Eblis to ruin me, soul and body! You involved me in your treacherous propaganda in Paris. Through you I am an exile. If I go back to my own country, I shall go to a shameful death. You have blackened my honour in my country's eyes. But that was not enough. No! You thought me sufficiently broken, degraded, terrified to listen to any proposition from you. You sent your agents to me with offers of money if I would betray my country. Finding I would not, you whined and threatened. Then, like the Eurasian dog you are, you tried to bargain. You were eager to offer me anything if I would keep quiet and not interfere----"

"Nihla!"

"What?" she said, contemptuously.

"In spite of thees--of all you say--I have love you!"

"Liar!" she retorted wrathfully. "Do you dare say that to me, whom you have already tried to murder?"

"I say it. Yas. Eef it has not been so then you were dead long time."

"You--you are trying to tell me that you spared me!" she demanded scornfully.

"It ees so. Alexandre--d'Eblis, you know?--long time since he would have safety for us all--thees way. Non! Je ne pourrais pas vouz tuer, moi! It ees not in my heart, Nihla.... Because I have love you long time--ver' long time."

"Because you have _feared_ me long time, ver' long time!" she mocked him. "That is why, Ferez--because you are afraid; because you are only a jackal. And jackals never kill. No!"

"You say thees-a to me, Nihla?"

"Yes, I say it. You're a coward! And I'll tell you something more. I am going to make a complete statement to the French Government. I shall relate everything I know about d'Eblis, Bolo Effendi, a certain bureaucrat, an Italian politician, a Swiss banker, old Von-der-Goltz Pasha, Heimholz, Von-der-Hohe Pasha, and you, my Ferez--and you, also!

"Do you know what France will do to d'Eblis and his scoundrel friends? Do you guess what these duped Americans will do to Bolo Effendi? And to you? And to Von Papen and Boy-ed and Von Igel--yes, and to Bernstorff and his whole murderous herd of Germans? And can you imagine what my own doubly duped Government will surely, surely do, some day, to you, Ferez?"

She laughed, but her dark eyes fairly glittered:

"_My_ martyrdom is ending, God be thanked! And then I shall be free to serve where my heart is ... in Alsace!... Alsace!--forever French!"

In the white light she saw the sweat break out on the man's forehead--saw him grope for his handkerchief--and draw out a knife instead--never taking his eyes off her.

She turned to run; but he had already blocked the way to the stone steps; and now he came creeping toward her, white as a cadaver, distracted from sheer terror, and rubbing the knife flat against his thigh.

"So you shall do thees--a filth to me--eh, Nihla?" he whispered with blanched lips. "It ees on me, your frien', you spring to keel me, eh, my leopardess? Ver' well. But firs' I teach you somethings you don' know!--thees-a way, my Nihla!"

He came toward her stealthily, moving more swiftly as she put the stone basin of the pool between them and cast an agonised glance up at the distant terrace.

"Jim!" she cried frantically. "Jim! Help me, Jim!"

The gay din of the music above drowned her cry; she fled as Ferez darted toward her, but again he doubled and sprang back to bar the stone steps, and she halted, white and breathless, yet poised for instant flight.

Again and again she called out desperately for aid; the noise of the orchestra smothered her cry. And if, indeed, anybody from the terrace above chanced to glance down, it is likely that they supposed these two were skylarking merrymakers at some irresponsible game of catch-who-can.

Suddenly Thessalie remembered the lower level, where the automobiles were parked, and from which Ferez had first appeared. She could escape that way. There were the steps, not very far behind her. The next instant she turned and ran like a deer.

And after her sped Ferez, his broad, thin-bladed knife pressed flat against the crimson sash across his breast, his dead-white visage distorted with that blind, convulsive fear which makes murderers out of cowards.

XXVIII

GREEN JACKETS

Thoroughly worried by this time over the sudden disappearance of Thessalie Dunois, and unable to discover her anywhere on the terrace or in the house, Westmore, Barres and Dulcie Soane had followed the winding main drive as far as the level, where their car was waiting among scores of other cars.

But Thessalie was not there; the chauffeur had not seen her.

"Where in the world could she have gone?" faltered Dulcie. "She was standing up there on the terrace with us, a moment ago; then, the very next second, she had vanished utterly."

Westmore, grim and pallid, walked back along the drive; Dulcie followed with Barres. As they overtook Westmore, he cast one more glance back at the ranks of waiting cars, then stared up at the terraced hill above them, over which the artificial moon hung above the lindens, glowing with pallid, lambent fires.

There was a vague whitish object on one of the grassy slopes--something in motion up there--something that was running erratically but swiftly--as though in pursuit--or _pursued_!

"My God! What's that, Garry!" he burst out. "That thing up there on the hillside!"

He sprang for the steps, Barres after him, taking the ascent at incredible speed, up, up, then out along a shrub-set grassy slope.

"Thessa!" shouted Westmore. "Thessa!"

But the girl was flat on her back on the grass now, fighting sturdily for life--twisting, striking, baffling the whining, panting thing that knelt on her, holding her and trying to drive a knife deep into the lithe young body which always slipped and writhed out of his trembling clutch.

Again and again he tore himself free from her grasp; again and again his armed hand sought to strike, but she always managed to seize and drag it aside with the terrible strength of one dying. And at last, with a last crazed, superhuman effort, she wrested the knife from his unnerved fist, tore it out of his spent fingers.

It fell somewhere near her on the grass; he strove to reach it and pick it up, but already her dauntless resistance began to exhaust him, and he groped for the knife in vain, trying to pin her down with one hand while, with desperate little fists, she rained blows on his bloodless face that dazed him.

But there was still another way--a much better way, in fact. And, as the idea came to him, he ripped the red-silk sash from his breast and, in spite of her struggles, managed to pass it around her bare neck.

"Now!" he panted. "I keep my word at last. C'est fini, ma petite Nihla."

"Jim! Help me!" she gasped, as Ferez pulled savagely at the silk noose, tightened it with all his strength, knotted it. And in that same second he heard Westmore crashing through the shrubbery, close to him.

Instantly he rose to his knees on the grass; bounded to his feet, leaped over the low shrubs, and was off down the slope--gone like a swift hawk's shadow on the hillside. Barres was after him.

* * * * *

The soul of Thessalie Dunois was very near to its escape, now, brightening, glistening within its unconscious chrysalis, stretching its glorious limbs and wings; preparing to arise from its spectral tenement and soar aloft to its myriad sisters, where they swarmed glittering in the zenith.

Had it not been for the knife lying beside her on the grass--the blade very bright in the starlight--truly the youthful soul of Thessalie had been sped.

At the edge of the Gerhardts' pine woods, Barres, at fault, baffled, furious, out of breath and glaring around him in the dark, sullenly gave up the hopeless chase, turned in his tracks, and came back. Thessalie, lying in Dulcie's arms, unclosed her eyes and looked up at him.

"Are you all right?" he asked, kneeling and bending over her.

"Yes ... Jim came."

Westmore's voice was shaky.

"We worked her arms--Dulcie and I--started respiration. She was nearly gone. That beast strangled her----"

"I lost him in those woods below. Who was he?"

"Ferez Bey!"

Thessalie sighed, closed her eyes.

"She's about all in," whispered Westmore. And, to Dulcie: "Let me take her. I'll carry her to the car."

At that Thessalie opened her eyes again and the old, faintly humorous smile glimmered out at him as he stooped and lifted her from the grass.

"Can I really trust myself to your arms, Jim?" she murmured.

"You'd better get used to 'em," he retorted. "You'll never get away from them again--I can tell you that right now!"

"Oh.... In that case, I hope they'll be--comfortable--your arms."

"Do you think they will be, Thessa?"

"Perhaps." She gazed into his eyes very seriously from where she lay cradled in his powerful arms.

"I'm tired, Jim.... So sore and bruised.... When he was choking me I tried to think of you--believing it was the end--my last conscious thought----"

"My darling!----"

"I'm so tired," she breathed, "so lonely.... I shall be--contented--in your arms.... Always----" She turned her head and rested her cheek against his breast with a deep sigh.

* * * * *

He held her in his arms in the car all the way to Foreland Farms. Dulcie, however, had possessed herself of Thessalie's left hand, and when she stroked it and pressed it to her lips the girl's tightening fingers responded, and she always smiled.

"I'm just tired and sore," she explained languidly. "Ferez battered me about so dreadfully!... It was so mortifying. I despised him all the time. It made me furious to be handled by such a contemptible and cowardly creature."

"It's a matter for the police, now," remarked Barres gloomily.

"Oh, Garry!" she exclaimed. "What a very horrid ending to the moonlit way we took together so long ago!--the lovely silvery path of Pierrot!"

"The story of Pierrot is a tragedy, Thessa! We have been luckier on our moonlit way."

"Than Pierrot and Pierrette?"

"Yes. Death always saunters along the path of the moon, watching for those who take it.... You are very fortunate, Pierrette."

"Yes," she murmured, "I am fortunate.... Am I not, Jim?" she added, looking up wistfully into his shadowy face above her.