Part 10 (1/2)
Standing there with lunacy in his veins and his head awhirl Kenny looked ahead with foreboding and foresaw days of delicious torment. He knew with the profound and sorrowful wisdom of experience that it would not, could not last. Almost he could have forecast to the day the sad descent into sanity, reactive, monotonous, unemotional, inevitable as the end of the road. But even with his conscience up in arms, he welcomed his surrender. Besides, rebellion, as he knew of old, was utterly futile. He must let the thing run its course.
The thought of flight from a peril of sweetness he banished instantly.
To run away was to deny himself the fullness of life men said he needed as an artist. It was unthinkable. Nay, it was unscrupulous, for the greatness of his gift Kenny regarded as an obligation. Besides, Kenny denied himself nothing that he wanted, having considered his wants in detail and found them human, complex and delightful, and sufficiently harmless.
Pa.s.sionately at war with the new complication in his quest for Brian, Kenny in frantic excitement blamed everything but himself. He blamed the girl. A girl with a face like that had absolutely no right to be loitering in a spot of such enchantment. He blamed the mystery of her gown. Mystery always did for him. He blamed the river and the sylvan wildness all around him and went on staring.
”Please say something!” The girl's laughter had changed to shyness, then to mystification.
Kenny brushed his hair back with a sigh. No fault of his if Fate grew prankish and set the stage with gold brocade and an ancient boat and such a ferryman. He had evoked romance and mystery with the battered horn and he could not escape. All of it had fairly leaped at him and caught him unawares.
”I--I beg your pardon,” he said.
”For sleeping?” The girl smiled a little.
”For staring! First,” he said, his Irish eyes laughing back at her with the frank charm of a boy begging her to like him, ”first I thought you had stepped from a tapestry into my dream--”
The rich hint of rose in her skin deepened. She glanced at her gown.
”Don't tell me about it!” begged Kenny impetuously. And long afterward she was to recognize in that eager gallantry the finest of tact. ”It's a delight just to be wonderin'! You called me Mr. O'Neill!” he added blankly.
”Some letters had tumbled from your pocket.”
Kenny's brow cleared.
”Besides, whenever the horn blew lately I thought it might be you.”
This was too amazing. But the girl's eyes were beautiful, ingenuous and wholly sincere. Dumfounded, Kenny turned away and gathered up his letters.
”Mystery,” he said, shaking his head, ”is the spice of delight. But I like it diffused. A bit more and I'll be knowing for sure that I'm dreamin'.”
”It's as simple as the letters,” said the girl, smiling. She drew a letter from the pocket of her gown and held it out to him. He read the address with frank curiosity. Well, thank Heaven, that was settled.
Her name was Joan West.
The handwriting was Garry's.
”For the love of Mike!” said Kenny, staring.
”Please read it,” said Joan. ”It makes everything so simple.”
Kenny obeyed.
”Dear Miss West:
”It was like Brian to write so splendidly of his father in an effort to guarantee his own respectability as a suitable friend for your truant brother and fix his ident.i.ty for the sake of your peace of mind. And I'm glad he told you to write to me.
”Though at this particular minute I would like best to thrash Kennicott O'Neill into work and sanity, I might just as well admit the fact that I'm merely in the chronic state of all men who love him and pa.s.s on cheerfully to a pleasant task. All that Brian has said of his father is true. As for Brian himself, he's a lovable, hot-headed chap with a head and a heart and too much of both for his own peace of mind. And he's so darned level-headed and unaffected he needs a Boswell. I hope I've made good.
”The O'Neills, in short, are a splendid pair of fellows with a rush of Irish to the head. They give each other more admiration and affection when they're apart and more trouble when they're together than any two men I have ever known. Personally I think they're miserable apart and hopeless together. However, I'm no judge. Five minutes of concentration on their present problems fuddles my brain beyond the point of intelligent logic.
”I must warn you that O'Neill senior is roving Heaven-knows-where in search of your uncle's farm. Knowing him fairly well I am convinced that he'll rove most of the way in a Pullman, though he distinctly said not. He hopes to find at your farm a letter from your brother that will furnish a clue. Whereupon, I take it, he'll rove forth again to seek his son and patch up a regular ballyhoo of a quarrel that almost disrupted the Holbein Club. You see, everybody insisted upon taking both sides, with terrifying results.