James Hopper

“ The news came to us at first as a rumor one way, then another, then again in another, always imprecise, but leaving no doubt of the hard fact that she was dead. It gave us no details, did not tell us how she had died—but we knew, the three of us, we knew. Of loneliness, of severity, starved of tinklings and sounds of mirth, of sheer desolation in that miserable pueblo of the Cagayan, beneath the heavy mournfulness of the rains. ”

“ And the thought had a strong effect on me—as strong almost as it had on Strang. For unreasonably but irresistibly, in spite of my best efforts, I became possessed of an absurd but fixed idea: that if I had stayed that time or had gone back, had yielded to the cling of her hands or had returned to the memory of her pleading eyes, that then she would not have died.
The mess was gloomy, and Hart was angry. "I'm going to move," he announced: "you people get on my nerves. This place is like a sepulcher. And all this black fuss over a girl who tinkled a banjo and wore ribbons. ”

“ To this we had nothing to say.
"She's stubborn, too," Strang went on. "With that terrible stubbornness of the gentle, of the one who does not know. She is going to do it, all-right!"
"But, good Lord, why shouldn't she?" broke in Hart, exasperated; "why shouldn't she? It's her affair, not yours, Strang; hers alone. And perhaps there is nothing else for her to do! What would you have her do, Strang—teach school? The joy-bubble teach school! What else have you to offer her, Strang, what else?" ”

“ STRANG was silent a while, trying to smile, but evidently irritated.
"It beats h——," he began again slowly; "it beats h—— how girls marry! I've known several now—and it always appalls me—their unconsciousness, their supreme unconsciousness of what they are doing. They say: 'I'm going to be married'—just like that, just like 'I'm going to drink a glass of water,' except that they have a bit more realization of the importance of the drink of water. They have no imagination; they don't visualize; they don't see what they are doing ”

“ But still, once in a while, we heard of Banjo Nell. We knew that she had been married that same evening of her landing in Aparri, and that her missionary husband had taken her inland, to a little pueblo from which radiated his efforts to teach the natives the art of praising God with song, through their noses. And we couldn't help imagining her there, in that lonely, musty place, with the severe man—little tinkling Nellie and her banjo. ”

“ The ship hissed gently; from its bow two thin emerald lines spread, curling transparently and tipped with foam; two diverging lines like a flight of swallows upon a sky, a flight of white swallows upon a sky bluer than the sky. Upon the immensity of the sea there was no other movement, not a ripple, not a shiver; and upon the immensity of the sky not a cloud, not a haze, not a fleck.
"Damn little fool!" growled Strang, watching. "Look at her; look at those men! Oh, h——, look at that toad of a Q. M.!"
It was true that the men of the upper deck were always about her, like bees about honey ”

“ Hart remarked.
The ship was approaching the Luzon coast. The night before, Strang came down looking weary and discouraged.
"I tried to make her wait—about that marriage," he announced belligerently.
"You're a sentimentalist and a—and a fool!" said Hart.
"I'm not," said Strang. "It's a crime. She doesn't love him; she doesn't know him. I keep asking her why she marries—and the only reason is that she is engaged—that's the end of it—that she mustn't break her promise. That's her only reason. It's a crime." ”

“ The fruit of a sort of upside-down vanity differing absolutely from the spirit of passive hirsuteness. Bespeaking a somber ill-will, a set determination to be singular, to affront the sun, the flowers, the birds, all the joys and beauties of the world. ”

“ She raised the glass above her head, brought it back to her lips, tipped it, and then Hung it far between two long waves which closed like a trap over its fugitive glitter. A babel of male voices rose in applause.
"The tropics!" said Strang sententiously. He looked appalled. "The tropics. She's gone, the little fool!"
"Look here," Hart remonstrated; "a glass of champagne isn't the end of the world."
But Strang turned upon him viciously. "I tell you she's gone!" ”

“ She's a bubble, just a bubble. A bubble—" he stopped, his eyes staring upward. "A bubble—of joy," he resumed; "a joy-bubble. Banjo Nell," he said slowly; "Banjo Nell, the joy-bubble!"
After which he seemed satisfied, and for several days said nothing more of her. But the joy-bubble now, perversely enough, began to give out solid facts. "She's going to be married," was the news he brought down from a new interview; "she's going to the P. I.'s to be married!"
"Good for Banjo Nell!" said Hart maliciously.
"To marry a missionary!" Strang went on. ”

“ We were (being civilians and below decks) a cynical trio (or tried to be) , and observed critically, and with some malevolence, the doings of the upper deck. We watched officers too palpably from West Point and officers too palpably trying to be from West Point; nice army ladies, and army ladies very much painted; but it was Banjo Nell who from the first held our steadfast attention. ”