Henry C. Rowland

“ It was such a love as poets and painters and philosophers try so vainly to explain and which perhaps musicians come nearest to suggesting remotely. A sort of an ecstasy of soul which heavy mortal senses serve rather to hamper than to interpret. A divine fire; a glory of vibrating delight—words are impossible. How describe in speech something of which one has only the vaguest appreciation of the mere existence? ”

“ Tom. Be still. Let me have my say. I can feel love just as I can smell flowers or hear music. If I had not been sure, do you think, you silly Mr. Tom, that I would have proposed to you in this shameless way? I know what you feel before you do. Be still, Mr. Tom—and don't squeeze my wrists so hard—that's better. Hold them, if you like, but don't hurt me. I could feel you loving me that first day when old Rip and I were watching Dicky play with the wild pigeons—and you were looking out through the window. ”

“ This seemed always rather to irritate Diana.
"Why do you speak like that, Mr. Tom?" said she one day, drawing down her pretty brows. "Is it a pose or what? You know in your heart that you'll not be old for another thirty years, and probably not then. You haven't a gray hair in your head nor a line in your face, except the lines of character a strong man should have, and I don't believe you ever paid a dollar to a dentist! To hear you maunder along one might think you had one foot in the grave." ”

“ I had absolutely no respect whatever for Dicky as a promoter, engineer, financier, or person of any depth of thought—though willing to concede him plenty of depth of feeling of a primitive or pagan sort. I doubted that this feeling could possibly extend beyond the limits of his own desires, any more than could that of any other pagan.
Something of this I told Diana, but she was not of my opinion.
"Nobody could love like Dicky and not have a tremendous lot of soul," said she. "That's what soul means. Love is soul. Mind is different." ”

“ In a scrimmage like that it is impossible to tell how things happen. It is like a football game when the umpire blows his whistle and all hands disentangle and get up. Here was old Van Rippen with a double-barreled shotgun, and his little spaniel was dashing around. I can't describe precisely what he said or how he said it, but it was something like this:
"Let go of that man, Dicky, and get up! Is anybody hurt? What a pack of idiots! What a scandal! How lucky that I came! What a nuisance! Stop crying, Alessandra! Diana, you have betrayed my confidence in your discretion, but it was my fault. ”

“ What I want to know is, are you in love with Diana Maitland or are you not? And if not, why not? How can you help it? And if you are, why do you offer to help hand her father one in the eye? If we put through this scheme you propose, we can knock his line's local traffic galley-west and kill all his schemes for town traction and lighting companies dead as a hundred-year-old Chinese egg. It's not going to help you with Maitland, my son. With a bigger man it might; but not with him."
"Oh, he be hanged!" exclaimed Dicky. "Don't you worry about me, Tom." ”

“ There were a few brief moments of conversation outside, and then Maitland came in with his usual brisk manner, accompanied only by Van Rippen.
Maitland was a handsome man with an active, well-knit figure and alert, clean-cut features. His eyes were gray, very intelligent, and observant. Although never in any sense a popular man, he undoubtedly possessed an unusual amount of magnetism, as he seemed always to get what he went after and to induce people to carry out his wishes. ”

“ Somehow it never occured to me to blame Maitland for his illegal actions. In my association with promoting schemes I had known of a good many such cases, and understood that often they had their mitigating circumstances. A man who has built up a big fortune out of trust funds is often apt to regard himself as privileged to use the capital as if it were his own. It's not so much the money that he wants as the use of it to further his schemes, and it is only when the crash comes that he wakes up to the fact that he is a thief in the eyes of the law. ”

“ She was like some exquisite goddess; a creature utterly removed from the gross, material world. Her costume, too, was singular and enhanced this effect, being the last note of simplicity, but graceful in the extreme; such a light, diaphanous, and sensitively draped tunic as seemed to caress rather than conceal the lovely form to which it clung. The long, round, dazzling arms were bare from the shoulder, and the delicious neck was exposed by an oval opening rather low between the shoulders. ”

“ I shook my head, and, walking to where the trail entered the big timber, stood for a few moments, listening. There was not a sound, and I was about to return when a dark figure slipped across a band of moonlight some fifty yards ahead of me. I stepped back behind the trunk of a great tree and waited. A twig snapped, there was the faint rustle of a garment, and I stepped out to confront this solitary prowler. My square bulk must have loomed startling against the brilliant moonlight of the clearing. ”

“ I snapped. "Here am I, a widower twice her age and with two well-grown kids. Her father and I were in the same class at Andover."
"What of it?" Dicky demanded. "Years don't count with a man of your strength."
"Good Lord!" I groaned. "To hear you talk, one might think you wanted me to marry her."
"So I do," he replied. "I like her and I like you, and I don't like Maitland just from what I've heard about him. There's no use bothering about Maitland, though."
"But don't you want to marry her yourself?" I shot at him. "Yes or no. Haven't you ever thought that you wanted to marry her?" ”

“ Dicky is a character that will please and pique your understanding, with his utter unconventionality, his ancient Greek attitude toward life, his unlimited money for which he cares nothing, and his capacity to love. It is safe to predict that you will never forget him as long as you live. He stays in your mind as persistently as a portrait by some great master. ”

“ But get it straight, Tom. I'm not telling you this sad story of my business career in the hope of softening your heart. I've heard 'em too many times from other people, and they never softened mine. A fellow ought to play the game without turning on water power when it comes time to cash in. Let's cut out my part of it and talk about Diana. She thinks that she's in love with you, and there's no question about your being in love with her, and I'm convinced that you would make her a darn good husband, so go ahead and don't be foolish. ”

“ For the next three or four days Dicky roamed about the place in knickers, bare legs, and a sleeveless shirt, sandaled and bareheaded, with my two kiddies tagging constantly at his heels and Ki-yi, the cub coyote, never far away. In the new interests of the place Dicky appeared to have forgot about Diana Maitland. He played around like a little boy, dug up the material from somewhere and built a sort of Eskimo kayak in which he disported himself on the lake to the great delight of the children and such of the hands as happened to be loitering about. ”

“ About two hundred yards away on the shore of the lake stood Dicky in his pale-green bathing suit and a measure of corn in his hand. Overhead the boughs of the trees were bent down almost to the point of breaking with a great multitude of big wood pigeons, which in later years have for some reason become so rare. He was apparently trying to coax them down by tossing handfuls of the yellow grain, while, at some distance, Tommy and Juanita were watching his maneuvers with breathless interest, and Ki-yi, near them, sitting very erect, head slightly cocked and brushy tail curled around his toes. ”

“ It must be better to have been something than never to have been anything. Otherwise there would be nothing but a great empty space in nothing. Fortunately there appears always to be something in something. Like rain in the clouds and sun in the sky beyond and——"
"'And a nightingale in the forest and hope in one's soul,'" I quoted, translating the verse.
"Precisely," said Diana. "I am glad to see that you are becoming vibrant again, Mr. Tom. The weight of years has fallen from your shoulders, and so has your bandage. ”

“ When I came round a little later I found myself lying on my back, with my head in Diana's lap, and she bathing my face with cold water. Sitting on the tree trunk were the princess and the professor, conversing in low tones. I lay still, listening, and feeling none too badly. The professor got up, and, seeing my eyes wide open, nodded his big head.
"Zo!" said he. "You are feeling better? Good! What a scandal! You have three bad knife wounds, but not dangerous, especially to a man of your physique. What a business! ”

“ I answered, and raised her hand to my lips, whereupon, for some reason, Diana appeared to consider that my face no longer had need of her kind attentions. But she did not shift my head from its most agreeable resting place, nor did I offer to remove it.
"When Mr. Tom went over my head I thought that a tiger had leaped from the bushes," said Alessandra. "It is a wonder that Dimitri had a bone unbroken. But he is very strong."
"He is a dangerous man," growled the professor. "You will have to be very careful." ”

“ I know that my body would die if I should lose her. She's the only one that ever understood me, inside, the way birds and animals and things like that have always done. We must have been in love with each other before ever we met, because we both knew it the minute we laid eyes on each other. ”

“ Tom," said she. "I wish that I were one of your kiddies. Not that I mean that I don't love my father nor he me. But it must be nice to be loved every minute—and close to that love. After all, love is the greatest thing in the world, isn't it, Mr. Tom? Don't you think it is? Don't you think that if there was enough love nothing very bad could ever happen? I must go now——" She looked through the window. "Here comes Rip—and Dicky looking very penitent and naked." She wheeled about. "Alessandra told me to give you her love and a kiss," said she. ”

“ Van Rippen is even worse than Maitland. He has this big reservation just below us, and most of this railroad crowd own a lot of stock in it, though the professor has managed to hang onto the controlling interest. But he seems to be their tool more or less, and just now he's got an injunction holding us up on the riparian rights, and it looks as though we were in for no end of trouble and expense. They know that our funding the water would be of great benefit to this sanitarium plant, which is merely an advertising stunt for the land boom to come later. ”

“ Lovers usually manage to see each other in every walk of life, whether they happen to be royalty or ragpickers."
Diana let go the tree which she had been leaning against like a dryad just freed and not quite sure about the outer world. She seemed quite recovered from the shock of our meeting.
"Mr. Tom," said she, "it's not the propriety of the thing that is worrying me. All of that is their own lookout, and, after all, they are grown-up children. Dicky was to have come to-night, and when it got late and there was still no sign of him, Alessandra was wild. ”

“ No doubt he had come hotfoot from San Francisco to learn more definitely what was doing, and it struck me as decidedly humorous that he should have happened to arrive at a moment to see the principal capitalizer of the scheme walking along the beach on his hands for the edification of two kids and a mongrel coyote, while the two persons who shared the controlling interest were respectively sitting on a canned-beef box smoking a porcelain pipe and reclining in a brass bedstead strewn with blue prints and entertained during the intervals of their examination by his own daughter. ”

“ I told him. "When a man is in love with a girl and wants to marry her it can't do any great amount of harm to make the acquaintance of her father."
"That's what Van Rippen said," Dicky replied. "He talked a good deal the way you do, Tom. I like Diana, of course. How could I help it? But I must say I can't see any sense in this marrying stuff."
"All right," I retorted. "Then somebody else has got to teach you that sort of sense one of these days. Now listen to me, Dicky, and tell me the truth. Do you want to marry this Diana girl, or do you not? ”

“ Dicky clucked at him, and he got docile.
"What are you trying to say?" I asked. "Have you come into a big pile or what?"
"I've always had a lot of money," Dicky answered, and stared out at the lake. "Me for a swim. I like this place." He looked at me and laughed. "Don't bother about that money question, Tom," said he.
"How can I help it?" I exclaimed. "When I show you this proposition you'll understand. There are millions in it if we can only manage to swing the business. Where did you get this money you talk so easily about?" ”

“ Maitland agreed. "To tell the truth, I gave in to the controlling interest he stood out for because this first funding scheme of yours had been talked about already and I thought he would be a good, useful block. So he was, too, until he saw the chance of springing a new one. It's like a game of chess. The old coot is chucking his interest in my little road because he sees the chance of getting it all back, and more besides, on this new proposition. He has swapped his knight for a bishop on the chance of a checkmate." ”

“ It was one of those lambent days when the air seems highly charged with all the ingredients of life, so thin and fine and solvent as to have absorbed the forces of gravity themselves and one moves about with no slightest sense of weight. ”

“ You are counting on the torrential water from the hills to keep up the level when you build your dam in the gorge. It strikes me that it would be a lot better to divert all that muddy stuff by a big spillway, so as not to clog your reservoir with silt. Then, instead of putting your dam where you have planned, you might spend a little more money on caisson work and throw a low, masonry core dam about a mile downstream so as to control the deeper alluvial currents which are constant the year around. ”

“ Diana and I were married a month later, and left for the East, where there was much business to transact.
Dicky and Alessandra were married about a year later, and finally settled on their palatial estate in California, there to rear an interesting family. We are all rich people now, but when I contemplate my golden goddess and our sturdy flock I feel myself to be the richest of them all. ”

“ Well, out he came, and I went to the station to meet him with my team of wiry little red mules. He hadn't changed the slightest particle, but was as boyishly handsome as ever and with that alert, interested way of taking in his surroundings which had about it an air of childish inquiry and eagerness. It was a hot day, and as usual he was half undressed, his coat on his arm, sleeves rolled up, and shirt open at the neck. ”

“ Wasn't my note enough for you?"
"Open the blinds!" I commanded.
"How dare you come to my room like this?" she cried. "If you don't go away at once, I shall ring for the servants. Do you want to compromise me? Or have you merely come to strangle me——"
My answer was to shove my riding crop into the slight opening between the door blinds, knock up the hook, and fling the blinds open. In the sudden light which flooded the place I saw Diana sitting on the side of her bed in a kimono. Her hair was disordered, and her face flushed and wet with tears. She sprang to her feet. ”

“ I asked. "Who are you talking about, old fool?"
She bridled up. "Who should I be talking about but her excellency the princess?" she retorted. "The Princess Maria, who came from across the sea with the Señorita Maitland. And poor Don Ricardo, who is so kind and so gay——"
"All right, Manuela," I said. "Now go to bed and let me continue my work. It was very wrong of you to deceive me and carry notes from one of my guests to a person in the sanitarium. I shall demand an explanation later." ”

“ You see, you were the only man available, and I wanted to keep my hand in. As to the ethics of my behavior, you must remember that I am my father's own daughter.
Please spare me the unpleasantness of reproaches, and don't try to see me again. I am leaving for the East to-morrow. A man of your age and experience ought not to be so easily taken in. Let us hope that the experience may prove of value to you. With best wishes for your future success,
Diana Maitland. ”

“ At the moment I had about as much need of another engineer as I had of an extra leg, but our camp was way off in the backwoods, and, as it looked as though I should have to spend a good deal of the next two or three months in San Francisco fighting our case, I decided that it might be just as well to have a young chap whom I could trust to look after things in my absence and incidentally play watchdog for my motherless kiddies, the little daughter having been born in a Mexican mining camp and at the cost of my wife's life. ”

“ And Dicky looked eagerly at my little bungalow, which was on the edge of the lake and really nothing more than a rough shack.
"Yes, and the idlers we're paying to take a nature cure live in that long shanty behind. We are quite a family party here, Dicky."
"It must be nice to have a family," said Dicky. "I think I'd like to have one myself."
"Well," I answered, "when you marry Diana you might."
Dicky nodded. "That's so. I never thought of that."
My two kiddies discovered us about this moment, and came tearing down the trail, old Manuela sagging along in their wake. ”

“ It seemed to me as though I had already stood as many shocks that day as was good for a white man. "Dimitri? My friend?"
"Yes," Dicky answered, flinging his peach pit through the window. The birds had already discovered his return, and were fluttering all about. Fortunately the children had not returned from the district school. "Dimitri is a sort of cousin of mine. I knew where to find him in Frisco. I've been keeping tabs on him through a detective agency ever since he tried to get gay. I felt sort of sorry for Dimitri because—oh, for a lot of reasons. ”