Part 13 (2/2)

”Just the sort of man who does it,” commented Keen. ”Continue.”

Harren fidgeted about in his chair, looked out of the window, squinted at the ceiling, then straightened up, folding his arms with sudden determination.

”I'd rather be boloed than tell you,” he said. ”Perhaps, after all, I _am_ a lunatic; perhaps I've had a touch of the Luzon sun and don't know it.”

”I'll be the judge,” said the Tracer, smiling.

”Very well, sir. Then I'll begin by telling you that I've seen a ghost.”

”There are such things,” observed Keen quietly.

”Oh, I don't mean one of those fabled sheeted creatures that float about at night; I mean a phantom--a real phantom--in the sunlight--standing before my very eyes in broad day! . . . Now do you feel inclined to go on with my case, Mr. Keen?”

”Certainly,” replied the Tracer gravely. ”Please continue, Captain Harren.”

”All right, then. Here's the beginning of it: Three years ago, here in New York, drifting along Fifth Avenue with the crowd, I looked up to encounter the most wonderful pair of eyes that I ever beheld--that any living man ever beheld! The most--wonderfully--beautiful--”

He sat so long immersed in retrospection that the Tracer said: ”I am listening, Captain,” and the Captain woke up with a start.

”What was I saying? How far had I proceeded?”

”Only to the eyes.”

”Oh, I see! The eyes were dark, sir, dark and lovely beyond any power of description. The hair was also dark--very soft and thick and--er--wavy and dark. The face was extremely youthful, and ornamental to the uttermost verges of a beauty so exquisite that, were I to attempt to formulate for you its individual attractions, I should, I fear, transgress the strictly rigid bounds of that reticence which becomes a gentleman in complete possession of his senses.”

”_Ex_actly,” mused the Tracer.

”Also,” continued Captain Harren, with growing animation, ”to attempt to describe her figure would be utterly useless, because I am a practical man and not a poet, nor do I read poetry or indulge in futile novels or romances of any description. Therefore I can only add that it was a figure, a poise, absolutely faultless, youthful, beautiful, erect, wholesome, gracious, graceful, charmingly buoyant and--well, I cannot describe her figure, and I shall not try.”

”_Ex_actly; don't try.”

”No,” said Harren mournfully, ”it is useless”; and he relapsed into enchanted retrospection.

”Who was she?” asked Mr. Keen softly.

”I don't know.”

”You never again saw her?”

”Mr. Keen, I--I am not ill-bred, but I simply could not help following her. She was so b-b-beautiful that it hurt; and I only wanted to look at her; I didn't mind being hurt. So I walked on and on, and sometimes I'd pa.s.s her and sometimes I'd let her pa.s.s me, and when she wasn't looking I'd look--not offensively, but just because I _couldn't_ help it. And all the time my senses were humming like a top and my heart kept jumping to get into my throat, and I hadn't a notion where I was going or what time it was or what day of the week. She didn't see me; she didn't dream that I was looking at her; she didn't know me from any of the thousand silk-hatted, frock-coated men who pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed her on Fifth Avenue. And when she went into St. Berold's Church, I went, too, and I stood where I could see her and where she couldn't see me. It was like a touch of the Luzon sun, Mr. Keen. And then she came out and got into a Fifth Avenue stage, and I got in, too. And whenever she looked away I looked at her--without the slightest offense, Mr. Keen, until, once, she caught my eye--”

He pa.s.sed an unsteady hand over his forehead.

”For a moment we looked full at one another,” he continued. ”I got red, sir; I felt it, and I couldn't look away. And when I turned color like a blooming beet, she began to turn pink like a rosebud, and she looked full into my eyes with such a wonderful purity, such exquisite innocence, that I--I never felt so near--er--heaven in my life! No, sir, not even when they ambushed us at Manoa Wells--but that's another thing--only it is part of this business.”

He tightened his clasped hands over his knee until the knuckles whitened.

”_That's_ my story, Mr. Keen,” he said crisply.

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