Part 3 (1/2)
”I don't believe I'll go back to the Barton just yet,” Deering suggested timidly. ”It's possible, you know, that that girl _might_----”
”You've got it!” exclaimed Hood eagerly, clapping his hands upon Deering's shoulders. ”The spell is taking hold! Wait here a thousand years if you like for that kid to come back, and don't bother about me.
But cut out your vulgar bond twaddle, and don't ask her if she stole your suitcase! As like as not she'll lead you to the end of the rainbow, and show you a meal sack bulging with red, red gold. Here's her cap--better keep it for good luck.”
Deering stood, with the clown's cap in his hand, staring after Hood's retreating figure. It was not wholly an illusion that he had experienced a change of some sort, and he wondered whether there might not be something in Hood's patter about the May madness. At any rate, his troubles had slipped from him, and he was conscious of a new and delightful sense of freedom. Moreover, he had been kidnapped by the oddest man he had ever met, and he didn't care!
IV
Beyond the bungalow rose a dark strip of woodland, and suddenly, as Deering's eyes caught sight of it, he became aware that the moon, which had not appeared before that night, seemed to be lingering cosily among the trees. Even a victim of May madness hardly sees moons where they do not exist, but to all intents and purpose this _was_ a moon, a large round moon, on its way down the horizon in the orderly fas.h.i.+on of elderly moons. He turned toward the road, then glanced back quickly to make sure his eyes were not playing tricks upon him. The moon was still there, blandly staring. His powers of orientation had often been tested; on hunting and fis.h.i.+ng trips he had ranged the wilderness without a compa.s.s, and never come to grief. He was sure that this huge orb was in the north, where no moon of decent habits has any right to be.
With his eyes glued to this phenomenon, he advanced up the slope. When he reached the crest of the meadow the moon still hung where he had first seen it--a most unaccountable moon that apparently lingered to encourage his investigations.
He jumped a wall that separated the meadow from the woodland, and advanced resolutely toward the lunar mystery. He found Stygian darkness in among the pines: the moon, considering its size, shed amazingly little light. He crept toward it warily, and in a moment stood beneath the outward and visible form of a moon cleverly contrived of barrel staves and tissue-paper with a lighted lantern inside, and thrust into the crotch of a tree.
As he contemplated it something struck him--something, he surmised, that had been flung by mortal hand, and a pine-cone caught in his waistcoat collar.
”Please don't spoil my moon,” piped a voice out of the darkness. ”It's a lot of trouble to make a moon!”
Walking cautiously toward the wall, he saw, against the star dusk of the open, the girl in clown costume who had danced in the meadow. She sat the long way of the wall, her knees clasped comfortably, and seemed in nowise disturbed by his appearance.
”I beg your pardon,” he said, ”but I didn't know it was _your_ moon. I thought it was just the regular old moon that had got lost on the way home.”
”Oh, don't apologize. I rather hoped somebody would come up to have a look at it; but you'd better run along now. This is private property, you know.”
”Thanks for the hint,” he remarked. ”But on a night when moons hang in trees you can't expect me to be scared away so easily. And besides, I'm an outlaw,” he ended in a tone meant to be terrifying.
She betrayed neither surprise nor fear, but laughed and uttered a ”Really!” that was just such a ”really” as any well-bred girl might use at a tea, or anywhere else that reputable folk congregate, to express faint surprise. Her way of laughing was altogether charming. A girl who donned a clown's garb for night prowling and manufactured moons for her own amus.e.m.e.nt could not have laughed otherwise, he reflected.
”A burglar?” she suggested with mild curiosity.
”Not professionally; but I'm seriously thinking of going in for it. What do you think of burgling as a career?”
”Interesting--rather--I should think,” she replied after a moment's hesitation, as though she were weighing his suggestion carefully.
”And highway robbery appeals to me--rather. It's more picturesque, and you wouldn't have to break into houses. I think I'd rather work in the open.”
”The chances of escape might be better,” she admitted; ”but you needn't try the bungalow down there, for there's nothing in it worth stealing. I give you my word for that!”
”Oh, I hadn't thought of the bungalow. I had it in mind to begin by holding up a motor. n.o.body's doing that sort of thing just now.”
”Capital!” she murmured pleasantly, as though she found nothing extraordinary in the idea. ”So you're really new at the game.”
”Well, I've _stolen_ before, if that's what you mean, but I didn't get much fun out of it. I suppose after the first fatal plunge the rest will come easier.”
”I dare say that's true,” she a.s.sented. There was real witchery in the girl's light, murmurous laugh.
It seemed impossible to surprise her; she was taking him as a matter of course--as though sitting on a wall at night, and talking to a strange young man about stealing was a familiar experience.