The Firing Line. Chambers Robert William
rakish power-boats lay, receiving their cargo of young men and girls—all very animated and gay under the gaudy electric lanterns strung fore and aft rainbow fashion.
He seated himself on the cannon, lingering until both boats cleared for the carnival, rushing out into the darkness like streaks of multi-coloured flame; then his lassitude increasing, he rose and sauntered toward the hotel which loomed like a white mountain afire above the dark masses of tropic trees. And again the press of the throng hemmed him in among the palms and fountains and hedges of crimson hibiscus; again the dusk grew gay with voices and the singing overtone of violins; again the suffocating scent of blossoms, too sweet and penetrating for the unacclimated, filtered through and through him, till his breath came unevenly, and the thick odours stirred in him strange senses of expectation, quickening with his pulses to a sudden prophecy.
And at the same instant he saw the girl of whom he had been thinking.
She was on the edge of a group of half a dozen or more men in evening dress, and women in filmy white—already close to him—so near that the frail stuff of her skirt brushed him, and the subtle, fresh aroma of her seemed to touch his cheek like a breath as she passed.
"Calypso," he whispered, scarcely conscious that he spoke aloud.
A swift turn of her head, eyes that looked blankly into his, and she had passed.
A sudden realisation of his bad manners left his ears tingling. What on earth had prompted him to speak? What momentary relaxation had permitted him an affront to a young girl whose attitude toward him that morning had been so admirable?
Chagrined, he turned back to seek some circling path through the dense crowd ahead; and was aware, in the darkness, of a shadowy figure entering the jasmine arbour. And though his eyes were still confused by the lantern light he knew her again in the dusk.
As they passed she said under her breath: "That was ill-bred. I am disappointed."
He wheeled in his tracks; she turned to confront him for an instant.
"I'm just a plain beast," he said. "You won't forgive me of course."
"You had no right to say what you did. You said 'Calypso'—and I ought not to have heard you.... But I did.... Tell me; if I am too generous to suspect you of intentional impertinence, you are now too chastened to suspect that I came back to give you this chance. That is quite true, isn't it?"
"Of course. You are generous and—it's simply fine of you to overlook it."
"I don't know whether I intend to overlook it; I was surprised and disappointed; but I did desire to give you another chance. And I was so afraid you'd be rude enough to take it that—I spoke first. That was logical. Oh, I know what I'm doing—and it's particularly common of me—being who I am—"
She paused, meeting his gaze deliberately.
"You don't know who I am. Do you?"
"No," he said. "I don't deserve to. But I'll be miserable until I do."
After a moment: "And you are not going to ask me—because, once, I said that it was nice of you not to?"
The hint of mockery in her voice edged his lips with a smile, but he shook his head. "No, I won't ask you that," he said. "I've been beastly enough for one day."
"Don't you care to know?"
"Of course I care to know."
"Yet, exercising all your marvellous masculine self-control, you nobly refuse to ask?"
"I'm afraid to," he said, laughing; "I'm horribly afraid of you."
She considered him with clear, unsmiling eyes.
"Coward!" she said calmly.
He nodded his head, laughing still. "I know it; I almost lost you by saying 'Calypso' a moment ago and I'm taking no more risks."
"Am I to infer that you expect to recover me after this?"
And, as he made no answer: "You dare not admit that you hope to see me again. You are horribly afraid of me—even if I have defied convention and your opinions and have graciously overlooked your impertinence. In spite of all this you are still afraid of me. Are you?"
"Yes," he said; "as much as I naturally ought to be."
"That is nice of you. There's only one kind of a girl of whom men are really afraid.... And now I don't exactly know what to do about you—being, myself, as guilty and horrid as you have been."
She regarded him contemplatively, her hands joined behind her back.
"Exactly what to do about you I don't know," she repeated, leisurely inspecting him. "Shall I tell you something? I am not afraid to; I am not a bit cowardly about it either. Shall I?"
"If you dare," he said, smiling and uncertain.
"Very well, then; I rather like you, Mr. Hamil."
"You are a trump!" he blurted out, reddening with surprise.
"Are you astonished that I know you?"
"I don't see how you found out—"
"Found out! What perfectly revolting vanity! Do you suppose that the moment I left you I rushed home and began to make happy and incoherent inquiries? Mr. Hamil, you disappoint me every time you speak—and also every time you don't."
"I seem to be doomed."
"You are. You can't help it. Tell me—as inoffensively as possible—are you here to begin your work?"
"M-my work?"
"Yes, on the Cardross estate—"
"You have heard of that!" he exclaimed, surprised.
"Y-es—" negligently. "Petty gossip circulates here. A cracker at West Palm Beach built a new chicken coop, and we all heard of it. Tell me, do you still desire to see me again?"
"I do—to pay a revengeful debt or two."
"Oh! I have offended you? Pay me now, if you please, and let us end this indiscretion."
"You will let me see you again, won't you?"
"Why? Mr. Hamil."
"Because I—I must!"
"Oh! You are becoming emphatic. So I am going.... And I've half a mind to take you back and present you to my family.... Only it wouldn't do for me; any other girl perhaps might dare—under the circumstances; but I can't—and that's all I'll tell you."
Hamil, standing straight and tall, straw hat tucked under one arm, bent toward her with the formality and engaging deference natural to him.
"You have been very merciful to me; only a girl of your caste could afford to. Will you forgive my speaking to you as I did?—when I said 'Calypso!' I have no excuse; I don't know why I did. I'm even sorrier for myself than for you."
"I was hurt.... Then I supposed that you did not mean it. Besides"—she looked up with her rare smile—"I knew you, Mr. Hamil, in the boat this morning. I haven't really been very dreadful."
"You knew even then?"
"Yes, I did. The Palm Beach News published your picture a week ago; and I read all about the very remarkable landscape architect who was coming to turn the Cardross jungle into a most wonderful Paradise."
"You knew me all that time?"
"All of it, Mr. Hamil."
"From the moment you climbed into my boat?"
"Practically. Of course I did not look at you very closely at first.... Does that annoy you? It seems to … or something does, for even in the dusk I can see your ever-ready blush—"
"I don't know why you pretend to think me such a fool," he protested, laughing; "you seemed to take that for granted from the very first."
"Why not? You persistently talked to me when you didn't know me—you're doing it now for that matter!—and you began by telling me that I was fool-hardy, not really courageous in the decent sense of the word, and that I was a self-conscious stick and a horribly inhuman and