Harold MacGrath

“ Taking the wind was her business in life. She creaked, groaned, and rattled; but that was only her way of yawning when she awoke.
The sun-canvas was stowed; and Spurlock's chair was set forward the foremast, where the bulging jib cast a sliding blue shadow over him. Rather a hazardous spot for a convalescent, and McClintock had been doubtful at first; but Spurlock declared that he was a good sailor, which was true. He loved the sea, and could give a good account of himself in any weather. And this was an adventure of which he had dreamed from boyhood: aboard a windjammer on the South Seas. ”

“ And what must have been the man's thought as he came upon Ruth wearing a gown of her mother's?—a fair picture of the mother in the primrose days? Not a flicker of an eyelash; steel and granite outwardly.
The conceit of Howard Spurlock in imagining he knew what mental suffering was! But Enschede was right: Ruth must never know. To find the true father at the expense of the beautiful fairy tale Ruth had woven around the woman in the locket was an intolerable thought. But the father, to go his way forever alone! The iron in the man!—the iron in this child of his! ”

“ But before the Grieg concerto was done, she knew that she was free. Free! All the fine ecstasy, without the numbing terror.
Spurlock sat limply, his arms hanging. McClintock, striking a match to relight his cigar, broke the spell. Ruth sighed; Spurlock stood up and drew his hand across his forehead as if awakening from a dream.
"I didn't know the machine had such stuff in it," said McClintock. "I imagine I must have a hundred rolls—all the old fellows. It's a sorry world," he went on. "Nobody composes any more, nobody paints, nobody writes—I mean, on a par with what we've just heard." ”

“ She smiled, and returned to the spinsters.
Spurlock began to munch his water-chestnuts. What he needed was not a food but a flavour; and the cocoanut taste of the chestnuts soothed his burning tongue and throat. He had let go his name so easily as that! What was the name she had given? Ruth something; he could not remember. What a frightened fool he was! If he could not remember her name, it was equally possible that already she had forgotten his. Conscience was always digging sudden pits for his feet and common sense ridiculing his fears. ”

“ She knew now what had saved her—her mother's hand, reaching down from heaven, had set the giver's flaming eyes upon the covers of these books. One day she had thrown all the gifts into the lagoon, and visited the secret nook no more.
And here he was, but a hundred yards away, this wastrel who trailed his genius through the mud. Hoddy! All her fears fell away. Between herself and yonder evil mind she had the strongest buckler God could give—love. Hoddy. No other man should touch her; she was Hoddy's, body and soul, in this life and after. ”

“ It would be difficult to find another human being subjected to so many angles of attack as Spurlock. Ruth loved him. This did not tickle his vanity; on the contrary, it enlivened his terror, which is a phase of fascination. She loved him. That held his thought as the magnet holds the needle, inescapably. The mortal youth in him, then, was fascinated, the thinker, the poet; from all sides Ruth attacked him, innocently. The novel danger of the situation enthralled him. He saw himself retreating from barricade to barricade, Ruth always advancing, perfectly oblivious of the terror she inspired. ”

“ Ruth sat waiting for the half hour, subconsciously. Her thoughts were busy with the possibilities of this break in her journey. Somebody to depend upon her; somebody to have need of her, if only for a little while. In all her life no living thing had had to depend upon her, not even a dog or a cat. All other things were without weight or consequence before the fact that this poor young man would have to depend upon her for his life. The amazing tonic of the thought!
From time to time she laid her hand upon Spurlock's forehead: it was still cold. ”

“ Ruth wore a printed cotton kimono. She tied the obi clumsily about her waist, then gently laid her hand on the bowed head. He did not move. Mischief bubbled up in her. She set her fingers in the hair and tugged, drawing him to a sitting posture and stooping so that her eyes would be on the level with his when he awoke.
He opened his eyes, protestingly, and beheld the realization of his dream. He had been dreaming of Ruth—an old recurrency of that dream he had had in Canton, of Ruth leading him to the top of the mountain. For a moment he believed this merely a new phase of the dream. He smiled. ”

“ Return! She was of all human beings the most lonely. Even now, during the recurring doubts of the future, the thought of the island was repellent. She hated it, she hated the mission-house; she hated the sleek lagoon, the palms, the burning sky. But some day she would find a place to love: there would be rosy apples on the boughs, and there would be flurries of snow blowing into her face. It was astonishing how often this picture returned: cold rosy apples and flurries of snow.
"The poor young man!" she said.
The doctor sensed that his bolt had gone wrong, but he could not tell how or why. ”

“ The woman I wanted was another man's wife. So here I am, king of all I survey, with a predilection for poker, a scorched liver, and a piano-player. But you! Ruth is your lawful wife. Not to go to her is wickeder than if I had run away with my friend's wife. You're a queer lad. With your pencil you see into the hearts of all; and without your pencil you are dumb and blind. Ruth is not another man's wife; she is all your own, for better or for worse. Have you thought of the monstrous lie you are adding to your theft?"
"Lie?" said Spurlock, astounded. ”

“ Ruth?"
"Why the devil not? Why do you suppose she married you if she didn't love you? While you read I watched her face. It was in her eyes—the big thing that comes but once. But you! Why the devil did you marry her? That's the thing that confounds me."
"God help me, what a muddle!" The cigar crumbled in Spurlock's hand.
"All life is a muddle, and we are all muddlers, more or less. It is a matter of degree. Lord, I am sixty. For thirty years I have lived alone; but once upon a time I lived among men. I know life. ”

“ For Ruth was in love, tenderly and beautifully in love; but she did not know how to express it beyond the fetch and carry phase. Her heart ached; and that puzzled her. Love was joy, and joyous she was when alone. But in his presence a wall of diffidence and timidity encompassed her.
The call of youth to youth, and we name it love for want of something better: a glamorous, evanescent thing "like snow upon the desert's dusty face, lighting a little hour or two, was gone." Man is a peculiar animal. ”

“ As many a wiser woman had done, Ruth mistook thrilling eagerness for love. Love and companionship. A fire enveloped her, a fire which was strangely healing, filling her heart with warmth, blotting out the menace of the world. She forgot her vital hatred of the South Seas; she forgot that McClintock's would not differ a jot from the old island she had for ever left behind her; she forgot all the doctor's lessons and warnings. ”

“ A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city at night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!' ... It kind of terrifies me," said Ruth, looking up, first at the face of her husband, then at McClintock's. "No matter how much I tell of myself, I shall always keep something back. No matter how much you tell me, you will always keep something back." ”

“ Had she not seen them go forth with tracts in their pockets and grins in their beards? To set fire to his imagination, to sting his sense of chivalry into being, to awaken his manhood, she must present some irresistible project. She recalled that day of the typhoon and the sloop crashing on the outer reefs. The heroism of two beach combers had saved all on board and their own manhood as well.
"Are you returning to Hong-Kong to-morrow by the day boat?"
For a moment Ruth was astonished at the sound of the spinster's voice. ”

“ He depended upon her, for his medicine, for his drink, for the little amusement it was now permissible to give him. The knowledge breathed into her heart a satisfying warmth.
At noon the doctor himself arrived. "Go to lunch," he ordered Ruth. He wanted to talk with the patient, test him variously; and he wanted to be alone with him while he put these tests. His idea was to get behind this sustained listlessness. "How goes it?" he began, heartily. "A bit up in the world again; eh?"
"Why did you bother with me?"
"Because no human being has the right to die. Death belongs to God, young man." ”

“ He tried not to think—of Ruth with her mother's locket, of her misguided father, taking his lonely way to sea. He drew compellingly upon his new characters to keep him out of this melancholy channel; but they ebbed and ebbed; he could not hold them. Enschede: no human emotion should ever again shuttle between him and God. As if God would not continue to mock him so long as his brain held a human thought! God had given him a pearl without price, and he had misunderstood until this day.
McClintock was in a gay mood at dinner that night ”

“ For Ruth grew lovelier as the days went on. She was as lovely in the spirit as in the flesh. Her moods were many and always striking. She was never violent when angry: she became as calm and baffling as the sea in doldrums. She never grew angry for anything her husband did: such anger as came to her was directed against the lazy, incompetent servant who was always snooping about in the inner temple—Spurlock's study. ”

“ For all her ignorance of material things—the human inventions which served the physical comforts of man—how much she knew about man himself! She had seen him bereft of all those spiritual props which permit man to walk on two feet instead of four—broken, without resilience. And now she was witnessing or observing the complicated machinery of civilization through which they had come, at length to land on the beach of her island. She knew now the supreme human energy which sent men to hell or carried them to their earthly heights. ”

“ You will have a bungalow to yourself," continued McClintock, "and your morning meal will be your own affair. But luncheon and dinners you will sit at my table. I'm a stickler about clothes and clean chins. How you dress when you're loafing will be no concern of mine; but fresh twill or Shantung, when you dine with me, collar and tie. If you like books and music, we'll get along."
"Then you are taking me on?" Spurlock's eyes grew soft like those of a dog that, expecting the whip, saw only the kindly hand. ”

“ For a while they stood there, silent, motionless, staring at the doorway where still a few strings of the bamboo curtain swayed and twisted, agitated by the Wastrel's passage.
"I was going to die, Hoddy!" she whispered. "You do love me?"
"God knows how much!" Suddenly he laid his head on her shoulder. "But I'm a blackguard, too, Ruth. I had no right to marry you. I have no right to love you." ”

“ It was his turn to express astonishment. Fire; she was full of it. Pearls in the dawn light, flashing and burning!
"You don't like your island?"
"I hate it!... But, there!"—weariness edging in. "I am sorry. I shouldn't talk like that. I'm a poor nurse."
"You are the most wonderful human being I ever saw!" And he meant it.
She trembled; but she did not know why. "You mustn't talk any more; the excitement isn't good for you."
Drama. To get behind that impenetrable curtain, to learn why she hated her island. Never had he been so intrigued. Why, there was drama in the very dress she wore! ”