Part 9 (1/2)

She arrested him with a gesture. ”I have loved you long, John,” she went on; ”I have loved you long--but I have fought it, fought it, fought it, John!”

”And why have you fought it?” he asked, again gently, as to a child.

”Because, John--oh, I don't know. Because, John, there is something within me--which I don't know. Something which yearns, John--for I don't know what. For peaks, John, for skies, for the stars; for--I don't know----”

”Dora, Dora,” he said, a bit sadly.

”And so I fought it, John, I fought your love. But it has poured into me, John, as honey fills a chalice; gradually, sweetly, it has filled my veins, my blood, my heart, John. And to-night, John, my whole being was swollen with it, John, with the love of you, John, and I came out to say good-by to the stars----”

”Dora!” he cried again; and this time enveloped her in his arms.

A horrid, impish feeling suddenly p.r.i.c.ked Charles-Norton; taking wing he slid along the veranda and seized, as he pa.s.sed, from the shoulders of the girl, the scarf, from the conceited head of the young man, his derby hat, and flapped off with them in the darkness. The crash of an astonished chair and a faint little cry followed him for a moment, then dropped off behind.

Charles-Norton laughed all the way home. Half-way over he dropped, into the deepest abyss he knew, the derby hat, which arrived at the bottom, no doubt, in very bad condition. But the scarf was still with him as he alighted in the meadow and felt against his hand the humid greeting of Nicodemus, the lonely little donkey.

Across the cabin, as he went to sleep, the empty bunk yawned, somehow, with unusual insistence. ”I wonder what Dolly is doing,” he said vaguely, as he slid down the slumber-chute.

CHAPTER XII

Dolly was getting along very well, thank you. Mostly, she was reading the papers. For if Charles-Norton thought for a moment that his indiscretions were to go unrecorded, he was very much mistaken.

Cuddled in the big Morris chair of the little flat, a be-ribboned sack loose about her comfortable little body, her head golden in the soft cascade of light falling from the lamp, an open box of candy at her elbow, Dolly was reading the evening paper. It was all about Charles-Norton Sims, the paper, though it did not mention him by name, but variously, according to the temperaments of its correspondents, as a condor, an ichthyosaurus, the moon, an aeroplane, a j.a.panese fleet, a myth, a cloud, a hallucination, a balloon, and a goose. As she read, she alternately frowned and laughed. Her brows would draw together very seriously, and then suddenly her red lips would part to let through a sparkling rocket of laughter, and then her brows would again knit in concern. The laughter was of triumph at seeing her prophecy come true, for of course, all the time, she had known that Charles-Norton, left alone, would make a fool of himself; the concern was at the thought that, still alone, he would continue to make a fool of himself.

”Well,” she said finally, as the paper slipped from her knees to the floor; ”well, it's about time I rescued the poor dear. I must go to him.”

She sat gazing mentally back over the lonely two months, the period of her existence now about to terminate, and was astonished to find that, after all, it had not been so bad. Ever since the first crisis, ever since she had made up her mind to hold on to Charles-Norton, the worst, somehow, had been over. It had seemed as if, that determination once made, there was little left to worry over, that things could not possibly come out wrong, that the cosmos itself was with her. And so, she had not worried. And she had had a pretty good time; a pretty good time. Better, in fact, in some ways than----

”Sh-sh-sh,” she hissed, stilling the thought.

But why was that?

Well, first of all, there had been the engrossing mystery of the spring hat; this, followed by the still more exciting problem of the summer hat; and now she was planning for the fall hat--she had seen the cutest feathery toque, that came low down about her face, pus.h.i.+ng to all sides little wisps of golden curls and making her look--well, very nice indeed.

Then, of course, there had been less housework, and she had had much more time to herself, more time and more freedom. The acquaintance with Flossie, the young wife of the floor-walker in the flat across the landing, had helped a lot. Together they had plunged deep into the intoxication of the shops. And several times they had gone off, a bit defiantly, on little orgies. They would go to the matinee, and then have a chocolate ice-cream soda at Huyler's, and called that ”having a fling.”

All this, of course, had been impossible when Charles-Norton had been about. But why? Oh, because he worked so hard, and there wasn't much, there wasn't so much----

Dolly paused and blushed. ”Oh, that money,” she said deprecatingly; ”that horrid, horrid mon----”

She rose to her feet to a sudden new thought and went into her room, where from beneath ribbons, stockings, gloves, and theater-programmes, she drew out of a drawer a little yellow book and a longer, more narrow, green one.

When she returned, she was a bit pale, and sank rather limply into her chair. ”Ooh,” she exclaimed disconsolately; ”ooh, now I've _got_ to get to him; get to him _soon_!”

Go to him. But where--how--where?

She knew where he was now, it is true--but only relatively. The first report of his antics had come from a little town in the California foothills; the second from a summer resort in a Valley of the Californian Sierra. He was being reported pretty well all over the United States now, but the first news in all probability were the only valuable clew. They were desolately vague though. A man who flies covers much ground. Where did he sleep? Where was his lair--or his nest, rather? It was sleeping, not flying, that he was to be caught. How could she locate him? It would take time, to do this, and money. And the check-book--oh, Lordie, that check-book!

Little Dolly, always at the bottom a pretty level-headed creature, had become wonderfully patient in the past month. Patient with a determination fixed as a star, as a law of Nature; a determination which was stronger far than herself; which was outside herself; which she could feel, almost, a huge pressure behind her, as of great reservoirs filled through trickling aeons; and which astonished her. She had written of it, once, to her aunt.