III
"Before we discuss my financial difficulties," said the poet, liftinghis plump white hand and waving it in unctuous waves about the veranda,"let me show you our home, Mr. Wayne. May I?"
"Certainly," said Wayne politely, following Guilford into the house.
They entered a hall; there was absolutely nothing in the hall except asmall table on which reposed a single daisy in a glass of water.
"Simplicity," breathed Guilford--"a single blossom against a backgroundof nothing at all. You follow me, Mr. Wayne?"
"Not--exactly----"
The poet smiled a large, tender smile, and, with inverted thumb,executed a gesture as though making several spots in the air.
"The concentration of composition," he explained; "the elimination ofcomplexity; the isolation of the concrete in the center of the abstract;something in the midst of nothing. It is a very precious thought, Mr.Wayne."
"Certainly," muttered Wayne; and they moved on.
"This," said the poet, "is what I call my den."
Wayne, not knowing what to say, sidled around the walls. It was almostbare of furniture; what there was appeared to be of the slab variety.
"I call my house the house beautiful," murmured Guilford with his large,sweet smile. "Beauty is simplicity; beauty is unconsciousness; beauty isthe child of elimination. A single fly in an empty room is beautiful tome, Mr. Wayne."
"They carry germs," muttered Wayne, but the poet did not hear him andled the way to another enormous room, bare of everything save for eightthick and very beautiful Kazak rugs on the polished floor.
"Simplicity," breathed Guilford--"a single blossom against a background of nothing at all."]
"My children's bedroom," he whispered solemnly.
"You don't mean to say they sleep on those Oriental rugs!" stammeredWayne.
"They do," murmured the poet. The tender sweetness of his ample smilewas overpowering--like too much bay rum after shaving. "Sparta, Mr.Wayne, Sparta! And the result? My babes are perfect, physically,spiritually. Elimination wrought the miracle; yonder they sleep,innocent as the Graces, with all the windows open, clothed in moonlightor starlight, as the astronomical conditions may be. At the break ofdawn they are afield, simply clothed, free limbed, unhampered by thetawdry harness of degenerate civilization. And as they wander throughthe verdure," he added with rapt enthusiasm, "plucking shy blossoms,gathering simples and herbs and vegetables for our bountiful and naturalrepast, they sing as they go, and every tremulous thrill of melody fallslike balm on a father's heart." The overpowering sweetness of his smiledrugged Wayne. Presently he edged toward the door, and the poetfollowed, a dreamy radiance on his features as though emanating fromsacred inward meditation.
They sat down on the veranda; Wayne fumbled for his cigar-case, but hisunnerved fingers fell away; he dared not smoke.
"About--about that business matter," he ventured feebly; but the poetraised his plump white hand.
"You are my guest," he said graciously. "While you are my guest nothingshall intrude to cloud our happiness."
Perplexed, almost muddled, Wayne strove in vain to find a reason for theelimination of the matter that had interrupted his cruise and broughthim to Rose-Cross, the maddest yachtsman on the Atlantic. Why shouldGuilford forbid the topic as though its discussion were painful toWayne?
"He always gets the wrong end foremost, as Briggs said," thought theyoung man. "I wonder where the deuce Briggs can be? I'm no match forthis bunch."
His thoughts halted; he became aware that the poet was speaking in arich, resonant voice, and he listened in an attitude of painfulpoliteness.
"It's the little things that are most precious," the poet was saying,and pinched the air with forefinger and thumb and pursed up his lips asthough to whistle some saccharine air.
"The little things," he continued, delicately perforating the atmosphereas though selecting a diatom.
"Big things go, too," ventured Wayne.
"No," said the poet; "no--or rather they _do_ go, in a certain sense,for every little thing is precious, and therefore little things arebig!---big with portent, big in value. Do you follow me, Mr. Wayne?"
Wayne's fascinated eyes were fixed on the poet. The latter picked outanother atom from the atmosphere and held it up for Mr. Wayne'sinspection; and while that young man's eyes protruded the poet rambledon and on until the melody of his voice became a ceaseless sound, avague, sustained monotone, which seemed to bore into Wayne's brain untilhis legs twitched with a furious desire for flight.
When he obtained command of himself the poet was saying, "It is my hourfor withdrawal. It were insincere and artificial to ask yourindulgence----"
He rose to his rotund height.
"You are due to sit in your cage," stammered Wayne, comprehending.
"My den," corrected the poet, saturating the air with the sweetness ofhis smile.
Wayne arose. "About that business--" he began desperately; but thepoet's soft, heavy hand hovered in mid-air, and Wayne sat down sosuddenly that when his eyes recovered their focus the poet haddisappeared.
A benumbed resentment struggled within him for adequate expression;he hitched his chair about to command a view of the meadow, then satmotionless, hypnotized by the view. Eight girls, clad in pink blousesand trousers, golden hair twisted up, decorated the landscape. Some werekneeling, filling baskets of woven, scented grasses with wildstrawberries; some were wading the branches of the meadow brook,searching for trout with grass-woven nets; some picked early peas; twowere playing a lightning set at tennis. And in the center of everythingthat was going on was Briggs, perfectly at ease, making himselfagreeably at home.
The spectacle of Briggs among the Hamadryads appeared to paralyze Wayne.
Then an immense, intense resentment set every nerve in him tingling.Briggs, his friend, his confidential business adviser, his indispensable_alter ego_, had abandoned him to be tormented by this fat, saccharinepoet--abandoned him while he, Briggs, made himself popular with eight ofthe most amazingly bewitching maidens mortal man might marvel on! Themeanness stung Wayne till he jumped to his feet and strode out into thesunshine, menacing eyes fastened on Briggs.
"Now wouldn't that sting you!" he breathed fiercely, turning up histrousers and stepping gingerly across the brook.
Whether or not Briggs saw him coming and kept sidling away he could notdetermine; he did not wish to shout; he kept passing pretty girls andtaking off his hat, and following Briggs about, but he never seemed tocome any nearer to Briggs; Briggs always appeared in the middledistance, flitting genially from girl to girl; and presently theabsurdity of his performance struck Wayne, and he sat down on the bankof the brook, too mad to think. There was a pretty girl pickingstrawberries near-by; he rose, took off his hat to her, and sat downagain. She was one of those graceful, clean-limbed, creamy-skinnedcreatures described by Briggs; her hair was twisted up into a heavy,glistening knot, showing the back of a white neck; her eyes matched thesky and her lips the berries she occasionally bit into or dropped to thebottom of her woven basket.
Once or twice she looked up fearlessly at Wayne as her search forberries brought her nearer; and Wayne forgot the perfidy of Briggs inan effort to look politely amiable.
Presently she straightened up where she was kneeling in the long grassand stretched her arms. Then, still kneeling, she gazed curiously atWayne with all the charm of a friendly wild thing unafraid.
"Shall we play tennis?" she asked.
"Certainly," said Wayne, startled.
"Come, then," she said, picking up her basket in one hand and extendingthe other to Wayne.
He took the fresh, cool fingers, and turned scarlet. Once his glancesneaked toward Briggs, but that young man was absorbed in fishing forbrook trout with a net! Oh, ye little fishes! with a _net_!
Wayne's brain seemed to be swarming with glittering pink-winged thoughtsall singing. He walked on air, holding tightly to the hand of hisgoddess, seeing nothing but a blur of green and
sunshine. Then aclean-cut idea stabbed him like a stiletto: was this Vanessa or Iole?And, to his own astonishment, he asked her quite naturally.
"Iole," she said, laughing. "Why?"
"Thank goodness," he said irrationally.
"But why?" she persisted curiously.
"Briggs--Briggs--" he stammered, and got no further. Perplexed, hisgoddess walked on, thoughtful, pure-lidded eyes searching somereasonable interpretation for the phrase, "Briggs--Briggs." But as Waynegave her no aid, she presently dismissed the problem, and bade himselect a tennis bat.
"I do hope you play well," she said. Her hope was comparatively vain;she batted Wayne around the court, drove him wildly from corner tocorner, stampeded him with volleys, lured him with lobs, and finallyleft him reeling dizzily about, while she came around from behind thenet, saying, "It's all because you have no tennis shoes. Come; we'llrest under the trees and console ourselves with chess."
Under a group of huge silver beeches a stone chess-table was setembedded in the moss; and Iole indolently stretched herself out on oneside, chin on hands, while Wayne sorted weather-beaten basalt and marblechess-men which lay in a pile under the tree.
She chatted on without the faintest trace of self-consciousness thewhile he arranged the pieces; then she began to move. He took a longtime between each move; but no sooner did he move than, still talking,she extended her hand and shoved her piece into place without a fractionof a second's hesitation.
When she had mated him twice, and he was still gazing blankly at themess into which she had driven his forces, she sat up sideways,gathering her slim ankles into one hand, and cast about her forsomething to do, eyes wandering over the sunny meadow.
"We had horses," she mused; "we rode like demons, bareback, untiltrouble came."
"Trouble?"
"Oh, not trouble--poverty. So our horses had to go. What shall wedo--you and I?" There was something so subtly sweet, so exquisitelyinnocent in the coupling of the pronouns that a thrill passed completelythrough Wayne, and probably came out on the other side.
"I know what I'm going to do," he said, drawing a note-book and a pencilfrom his pocket and beginning to write, holding it so she could see.
"Do you want me to look over your shoulder?" she asked.
"Please."
She did; and it affected his penmanship so that the writing grew wabbly.Still she could read:
(_Telegram_)
TO SAILING MASTER, YACHT THENDARA, BAR HARBOR:
Put boat out of commission. I may be away all summer.
WAYNE.
"How far is it to the station?" asked Wayne, turning to look into hereyes.
"Only five miles," she said. "I'll walk with you if you like. Shall I?"