Beatrice Grimshaw

“ Vandaleur incited the Marquis first to dance with the bird and afterward to give an imitation of its style. I do not think I ever saw anything funnier than the tall, thin bird and the tall, fat Marquis setting to partners on the green grass court, the cassowary taking its part quite seriously, and sidling, chasséing, springing, like a girl in a theatre, the man craning his neck in imitation, stepping stiff-legged as it stepped, and using his arms exactly as it used its wings. ”

“ When a man of forty-odd begins to tell you about the women who admire his beauty, you had better get off that line of rails as quick as you can.
“On my conscience, and my honor as a peer of the ancient regiment of France, I will—not,” said the Marquis. “I have the heart of a child, as the little Dai-see tells me, but a child I am not. To-morrow you will guard our property; the day after, I, and so on to the end. To the end, my friend.” He drank another bottle of ginger-ale in two gulps, and waved his empty tumbler in the air. ”

“ Daisie, making great play with the care of her black draperies in the wind, yet found time to glance at me, I thought, unpleasantly, and the Marquis was pulling his mustache. But I was determinedly stupid.
The two got away in a corner of the garden before long, shamelessly deserting me and the companion, and I could see that Mrs. Daisie was talking religion again; a thing that disgusted me and inclined me to have no mercy on her, if ever she should need it at my hands. I can't say I am particularly religious myself, but any decent man hates to see piety used as a cloak. ”

“ I began.
“Halt!” cried the Marquis. “Dai-see is as innocent as the lamb unborn. When we see the stone is lost, she will not look herself. She sit on the seat and watch. She weep for me, that little one; she is most blooming sorry. But she will not be suspect: she won't touch that searching herself. ”

“ IT'S a wise child that knows 'tis folly to be wise,” said the Marquis.
He was sitting at ease in the supper-room, enjoying trifle, floating-island, tipsy-cake, and the other items of a somewhat sticky and gassy supper. His partner, Mrs. Vandaleur, a very fascinating little widow in a demure black dress, and the most scarlet of scarlet silk stockings, had just been carried off by the fluffy and indignant young Government officer to whom she rightly owed the supper dances. ”

“ And of course it doesn't matter where or how the news gets out—it'll run all over the world in a week, just the same.”
“All over the world!” said the Marquis thoughtfully. “You have reason. We shall be famous, me and you. Flint, I love to be famous. It is the glory of our adventures that has already made that little flower of the tropic, Dai-see Vandaleur. love me as the poor little one loves. It is true, she also thinks me beautiful. But handsome is who tells no tales!” ”

“ So I take away the chamois and I play tennis all the afternoon. And in the end, when it is time to and they have all gone, all but Mrs. Dai-see and me, I feel my hand into my shirt and there is nothing there! Wildly I tear out the bag, and it is splitted-”
“Didn't you know that no silk will stand in the tropics? It was only a protection for the stone. You might as well trust tissue-paper as silk in New Guinea,” I said wearily.
“I did not know, I swear. Well, when I see it is gone, I tell Dai-see that I have lost a something I have the greatest value for, a gem—I do not say a diamond. ”

“ He beat his iguana-skin drum as if for a native dance, with the throbbing, intoxicating beat of the New Guinea drummer. The Marquis snatched a native feather crown off the wall where it had been hung as an ornament, put it on his head, and danced “The Love Dance of the Sorcerer,” looking at Mrs. Vandaleur all the time. ”

“ And, indeed, the inhabitants of Port Moresby love each other scarcely better than do those of Samarai.
But though Daisie Vandaleur was quite respectable, according to the canons of the card-tray, and though in any case there was no risk of the Marquis's historic coronet descending upon her well-dressed head, I thought her none the less dangerous; perhaps rather the more.
“That dear little one, she desires quite simply to marry herself with me. I find that very touching, though I can not accord her her desire,” he said sentimentally. ”

“ It is barren and rather ugly; the white people are more civilized and therefore less interesting than those of Samarai; the natives speak English, wear trade clothing, and cheat the tourist over curios. To any one recently returned, like the Marquis and myself, from the mysteries, horrors, and adventures of the unknown interior, nothing could be more flat and tiresome than the silly little capital town.
All the more was I uncomfortable over my companion's evident fascination by Mrs. Vandaleur, whom I frankly took for an adventuress. ”

“ I told him. “The stone is somewhere. It's been picked up, you take my word for it. It must be in Port Moresby, and you can leave me to find out where.”
It was in my mind, and I could not get it out, that if I wanted to know where the Sorcerer's Stone had gone to, I had better keep as much in Mrs. Vandaleur's company as possible. So, without giving vent to any suspicions I had, I allowed the Marquis to think that I had got the better of my prejudices against the little widow. ”

“ The Marquis jumped up and tore open his shirt with the air of a man opening his very heart for your inspection. Round his neck was hanging a string, and on the string was a small silk bag—empty.
“Not one confoundable thing has that angel had to do with it,” he said. “It is altogether me. I took it out of the chamois case this morning because when I play tennis that chamois sticks, and comes to out of the front of my shirt; but the silk, it slips and does not come out. ”

“ She was clever enough, I could see, to keep free of scandals; the dead or missing Vandaleur had not divorced her; cards were religiously left at her door by the ladies of the capital, who seemed to find a weird delight in playing at a strange imitation of the strange game called Society, away here in the wilderness of New Guinea.
“Like your Israelites of the Bible,” said the Marquis, who always spoke of the Old Testament as if it were the exclusive property of the English race, “these dear ladies make brick in the desert without no straw ”

“ I was feeling a little easier about the Marquis since I had succeeded in extracting from him a solemn promise that he would not on any account or for any reason betray to any person the secret of the diamond. At the same time I managed to persuade him into altering his clothing a little, so that the stone could not be noticed unless some one went actually feeling about after it. More than this I could not do.
There is very little in the capital of Papua to occupy the mind of any reasonable person. ”

“ When you have been out to see the native village, gone for a walk to Koki, where the native servants employed in the town hold nightly dances, and taken a boat across to one or two of the islands, you have about exhausted the interests of the place. ”

“ I said.
“I knew it had to do with tools; it is altogether the same. Now I will show this little beautiful some species of dancing that will make her ready to die of love, there on my feet.”
1 really think the amount of ginger-ale he had drunk must have gone to his head a little; or else it had so inflated him, mentally and physically, that he was a trifle above himself. ”