Wilbur

“ Guilt, too, swept over her, for she remembered what big, handsome Dick Wilbur had said: He would meet his end through a woman. Now it had come to him, and through her.
She cringed at the thought, for what was she that a man should die in her service? She raised her hands with a moan to the nodding tops of the trees, to the vast, black sky above them, and the full knowledge of Wilbur's strength came to her, for had he not ridden calmly, defiantly, into the heart of this wilderness, confident in his power to care both for himself and for her? But she! What could she do wandering by herself? ”

“ Wilbur sat down with such abruptness that he almost went through an ancient sofa to the floor. Merlin's eyes lit up.
"You really are timid," he said.
"Yes, sir," Wilbur agreed hastily. "Do you think you can help me?"
"Depends. It isn't my regular line. I came here looking for a special kind of person. If you're that person you can help me. In return I'll do the same for you. All depends on how cowardly you are."
"I've never been brave about anything in my life," Wilbur said truthfully. ”

“ If he were so close, loving her, he could not stay away; she read in her own heart, and knew. Then it must be something else; evil, because it feared to be seen; not wholly evil, because it surrounded her with care.
At least this new emotion obscured somewhat the terror and the sorrow of Wilbur's disappearance. She cooked her breakfast as if obeying the order of the unseen, climbed into the saddle of Wilbur's horse, and started off up the valley, leading her own mount. ”

“ Wilbur was called by those who knew him one of the most silent men that ever lived, as he never uttered a word unless he had something to say, and then he said it in the most direct and the briefest possible manner. He had an unlimited capacity for hard work, nerves of steel and the kind of daring that makes the aviator face death with pleasure every minute of the time he is in the air. ”

“ Dennison! He possessed Wilbur's ardor and reverence, with a robustness of physique and a practical air which Wilbur had lacked—lacked to his and her detriment. If Wilbur had been as vigorous in body as he ought to have been, would he have died? She had read somewhere lately that physical delicacy was apt to react on the mind and make one's ideas too fine-spun and unsubstantial. Here was the advantage which a man like Mr. Lyons had over Wilbur. He was strong and thickset, and looked as though he could endure hard work without wincing. ”

“ I've watched her use her gun; I've slept rolled in the same blankets with her, back to back; I've walked and talked and traveled with her as if she were my kid brother."
Wilbur nodded, as if the miracle were being slowly unfolded before his eyes.
"And you've never noticed anything different about her? Never watched a little lift and grace in her walk that no man could ever have; never heard her laugh in a voice that no man could ever imitate; never seen her color change just because you, Pierre, came near or went far away from her?" ”

“ Penniman's aprons, crowding folds of it inside his neckband. Then with stern orders to hold his head still the rite was consummated with a pair of shears commandeered from plain and fancy dressmaking. Loath himself to begin the work, the judge always came to feel, as it progressed, a fussy pride in his artistry; a pride never in the least justified by results. To Wilbur, after these ordeals, his own mirrored head was a strange and fearsome apparition, the ears appearing to have been too carelessly affixed and the scanty remainder of his hair left in furrows, with pallid scalp showing through. ”

“ It was the turn of Wilbur to laugh, and he responded uproariously until Pierre frowned and flushed a little.
"When I see you out here on your horse with your rifle in the boot and your six-gun swinging low in the scabbard, and riding the fastest bit of horse-flesh on the ranges," explained Wilbur, "I get to thinking that you're pretty much king of the mountains; but in certain respects, Pierre, you're a child. Ha, ha, ha! a regular infant."
Pierre stirred uneasily in his saddle. A man must be well over thirty before he can withstand ridicule. ”

“ Wilbur undertook to write a letter to his mother. Usually Aunt Susan was obliged to urge him to his duty, but to-day it offered an excuse to remain indoors, and Wilbur seized it gladly. Writing a letter was a business that took time and effort. After a while, as Wilbur sat in the attitude of composition, with his legs wrapped around the legs of his chair and his shoulders hunched over the table, Aunt Susan’s anxious eye detected the fact that he was not writing but was absently chewing his pencil. ”

“ Looking up fearfully, Wilbur saw that Arthur had fixed Merlin with a hostile glare.
"Did you so promise?" Arthur demanded. He stood straight and regal. "Answer me, and forget not I am your king."
Merlin's hands made feeble and apologetic gestures.
"What could I do?" he pleaded. "One like him is born seldom. I had searched the centuries, and there was no more time."
He turned to Wilbur and his face betrayed an apprehension that made Wilbur's hopes rise. Arthur did not act like he would stand for any promise-breaking among his subjects. ”

“ He did not see the covert grin of Wilbur in the background. He blurted: "Tired?"
"Awfully. You don't mind me being frank, do you, Pierre?"
He could only stammer: "Sometimes I wish to God you were a man,
Jack!"
"You don't often remember that I'm a woman."
"Do you mean that I'm rude or rough with you, Jacqueline?" Still the silence, but Wilbur was grinning broader than ever. "Answer me!"
She started up and faced him, her face convulsed with rage.
"What do you want me to say? Yes, you are rude—I hate you and your lot. Go away from me; I don't want you; I hate you all." ”

“ In spite of his best efforts at self-control, Wilbur felt a slow, cold clutch at his heart. That sickening, uncanny lifting of the schooner out of the glassy water, at a time when there was not enough wind to so much as wrinkle the surface, sent a creep of something very like horror through all his flesh.
Again he peered over the side, down into the kelp-thickened sea. Nothing—not a breath of air was stirring. The gray light that flooded down from the stars showed not a break upon the surface of Magdalena Bay. On shore, nothing moved. ”

“ Wilbur was not. She was a young wife and she could not imagine a man who would not rather spend an afternoon in her home than anywhere else, and she accepted his coming as calmly as she would have accepted the coming of any of the other men Arthur had asked. She wrote the letter to her father in Vermont, telling him that she expected to have company for dinner, and asking him to send his best turkey, and she went on with her other preparations just as if Mr. Foster had been a common man, and not Arthur's employer. ”

“ It was a weakness, but what made a tragic figure of handsome Dick Wilbur was that he knew his weakness and sat still and let fate walk up and overtake him.
Yet Pierre le Rouge answered this man of sorrowful wisdom: "In my part of the country men say: 'If you would speak of women let money talk for you.'"
And he placed a gold piece on the table.
"She will come out to the supper table."
"She will not," smiled Wilbur, and covered the coin. "Will you take odds?"
"No charity. Who else will bet?"
"I," said Jim Boone instantly. "You figure her for an ordinary sulky kid." ”

“ I'd met him a number of times, of course, during this interval, and had come to understand Lee Fu's urgent advice. Indeed, for one curious about the habits of the human species, Wilbur compelled attention. That perfect urbanity, that air of unfailing dignity and confidence, that aura of a commanding personality, of an able ship-master among his brethren, of a man whose position in the world was secure beyond peradventure: all this could spring from one of only two spiritual conditions—either from a quiet and innocent conscience, or from a heart perfectly attuned to villainy. ”

“ Yes! Imelda now knew that she loved, even as she was loved, and the minutes passed until they grew to hours—hours of pure holy joy, and when Wilbur left her the dawn had crept into the east, and with his kisses resting upon her lips she still sat at the open window, dreaming of the raptures that life—sweetened by magic love—had brought her. And soon the waking dreams merged into the sleep of youth and innocence as the brown eyes closed; and still the smile hovered about the dewy red lips as they in tender cadence whispered—“Wilbur!” ”

“ Pauline had thought that out in her clear brain over night since receiving Wilbur's telegram. Wilbur must move into a modern house, and she into a modern flat. She would keep the very old things, such as the blazer and some andirons and a pair of candlesticks, for they were ancient enough to be really artistic, but the furniture of the immediate past, her father and mother's generation, should be sold at auction. Wilbur and she must, if only for Selma's sake, become modern in material matters as well as in their mental interests. ”

“ Wilbur fell silent. In that instant he had a distinct vision of Moran's life and character, shunning men and shunned of women, a strange, lonely creature, solitary as the ocean whereon she lived, beautiful after her fashion; as yet without sex, proud, untamed, splendid in her savage, primal independence—a thing untouched and unsullied by civilization. She seemed to him some Bradamante, some mythical Brunhilde, some Valkyrie of the legends, born out of season, lost and unfamiliar in this end-of-the-century time. ”

“ The glance of Pierre still lingered on Gandil as he turned and followed Wilbur up the complaining stairs to the one habitable room in the second story of the house. It was set aside for the use of Jacqueline.
At the door Wilbur said: "Shrug your shoulders back; you look as if you were going to jump at something. And wipe the wolf-look off your face. After all, Jack's a girl, not a gun-fighter." ”

“ When the window opposite his bed began to grow bright with the pink and gold of sunrise, Wilbur woke and sat up, looking first at the chair, then at the bureau. No, it was not in the room. It would be in the dining-room, then. When he went downstairs he was surprised to find that Aunt Susan had not yet left her room. In the kitchen Rosa was only beginning her preparations for breakfast. Wilbur spent a long time, a restless but happy hour, waiting, idling about the dewy garden and the front yard, feeding the chickens and playing with the cat. ”

“ The line of flame grew shorter, but even as he looked a gust came along, which swept a tongue of fire fifty yards at a breath. Wilbur rushed after it, knowing the danger of these side-way fires, but before that gust had lulled the tongue of fire reached a little clearing which the boy had not known was there, only a rod or two of grass, but that browned by the sun and the drought until it seemed scarcely more than tinder. If it should touch that!
Despite the fact that his shoes were dropping from his feet, the leather being burned through, Wilbur sped after the escaping fire. He reached it. ”

“ Jimmie Dale swore softly to himself. Wilbur was too old a man to be called upon to stand against the trouble and anxiety that was mirrored in the misery in his face, that had brought him to the point of taking his own life. ”

“ Wilbur turned and swept haughtily down the stone stairs, lingering for a minute before the rushing Victory. Such art was naked as men were naked in the childhood of the race. That state of simplicity could never come again. The nakedness of Erard seemed to her like impotent curiosity.
She might come to accept this attitude, also, and see no mystery in man and woman more than the mystery of two sensual animals. But she shuddered at the idea. That would strip the world of one necessary covering for its sordidness. ”

“ Wilbur and two other boobs fall for the bunk and they open up. Wilbur, after losing a little junk, gives the wise guys the office that he's jerry to the fact that they are playing with newspaper, and lets them know that if he ain't in on the frame-up he'll belch.
"These two boobs are dirty with the evergreen, and Wilbur's got the wise guys so leary for fear he will tip his mitt and they naturally slip him a big one every time they get a chance. Wilbur gets his money back and everything is even all around, but the wise guys are the only ones who want to lay down. ”

“ Wilbur and Erard went again to Rome with several other members of the Circle. There a gradual languor stupefied her will. The year with its multiform passions had scorched her, and she found herself feeble before the fierce heat, the parched season of Italy. Over her drawing her arm would relax, and she would gaze vacantly at the object before her, wondering where the beauty in it lay. Beauty, which she had worshipped so passionately had escaped her, was fleeing further every dead day, and behind the smile of creation which had roused her pulses, she was now feeling the dull, earthy matter. ”

“ Dick Wilbur rose, tall and stiff, and stood with his hands gripped at his sides, and Black Morgan Gandil clutched at the table before him and his keen eyes wandered swiftly about the room, seeking a place for escape. ”

“ No quarter of one of the most picturesque cities in the world had more interest for Wilbur than the water-front. In the mile or so of shipping that stretched from the docks where the China steamships landed, down past the ferry slips and on to Meiggs's Wharf, every maritime nation in the world was represented. More than once Wilbur had talked to the loungers of the wharves, stevedores out of work, sailors between voyages, caulkers and ship chandlers' men looking—not too earnestly—for jobs ”

“ If he asks a question you can gamble every chip in your pile that you're elected, and you've got to ante up with the answer whether it suits your hand or no."
Wilbur, following the suggestion of the Ranger, unsaddled his pony, turned him into the corral, and hung his saddle on the fence. Then together they went up to the house, where Wilbur met the boss, and after a few moments' chat they returned to the corral. ”