The Laughing Girl. Chambers Robert William
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course, Monsieur," he replied innocently.
"Certainly… And, how about that machinery, Raoul?"
"It functions, Monsieur. A little rust – nothing serious. The torrent from the Bec de l'Empereur runs the dynamo; the spring flows full. Listen!"
We listened. Through the purring of the dynamo the bubbling melody of the famous mineral spring was perfectly audible.
"How many bottles have we?" I asked.
"In the unopened cases a hundred thousand. In odd lots, quart size, twenty thousand more."
"Corks? Boxes?"
"Plenty."
"Labels? Straw?"
"Bales, Monsieur."
"And all the machinery works?"
For answer he picked up a quart bottle and placed it in a porcelain cylinder. Then he threw a switch; the bottle was filled automatically, corked, labeled, sheathed in straw and deposited in a straw-lined box.
"Fine!" I said. "When you have a few moments to spare from the farm you can fill a few dozen cases. And you, too, Smith, when time hangs heavy on your hands, it might amuse you to drop in and start bottling spring water for me – instead of rearranging your bureau drawers."
The suggestion did not seem to attract him. He said he'd enjoy doing it but that he did not comprehend machinery.
I smiled at him and made up my mind that he'd not spend his spare time in Clelia's neighborhood.
"Raoul," said I, "that was an interesting song you were singing when we came in."
"What song, Monsieur?"
"The one about 'Crack-brain-cripple-arm.'"
He gazed at me so stupidly that I hesitated.
"I thought I heard you humming a song," said I.
"Maybe it was the dynamo, Monsieur."
"Maybe," I said gravely.
Smith and I walked out and across toward the cow-stables.
There was nothing to see there except chickens; the little brown Swiss cattle being in pasture on the Bec de l'Empereur.
"If time hangs heavy with you, Smith," I ventured, "why not drive the cows home and milk them in the evenings?"
He told me, profanely, that he had plenty to do to amuse himself.
"What, for example, did he tell you?"
"Write letters," he said, – "for example."
"To friends in dear old Norway, I suppose," said I flippantly.
"To whomever I darn well please," he rejoined drily.
That, of course, precluded further playful inquiry. Baffled, I walked on beside him. But I sullenly decided to stick to him until Clelia had done the chamber-work and had safely retired to regions below stairs.
Several times he remarked he'd forgotten something and ought to go to his rooms to look for the missing objects. I pretended not to hear him and he hadn't the effrontery to attempt it.
The words of Raoul's song kept running in my mind.
"Crack-brain-cripple-arm
You have done a heap of harm – "
And I found myself humming the catchy air as I strolled over my domain with my unwilling companion.
"I like that song," I remarked.
"Of course you would," he said.
"Why?"
"Because you're so bally neutral," he replied ironically.
"I am neutral. All Chileans are. I'm neutral because my country is."
"You're neutral as hell," he retorted with a shrug – "you camouflaged Yankee."
"If I weren't neutral," said I, "I'd not be afraid of admitting it to a New York Viking."
That put him out on first. I enjoyed his silence for a while, then I said: "Come on, old top, sing us some more Norse sagas about 'My girl's a corker.'"
"Can it!" retorted that typical product of Christiania.
So with quip and retort and persiflage veiled and more or less merry, we strolled about in the beautiful early summer weather.
"Why the devil don't you find Thusis and take another lesson in angling?" he suggested.
"Because, dear friend, Thusis hitched up our horse and went to Zurich this morning."
"What? When?"
"Ere the earliest dicky-bird had caroled – ere Aurora had wiped night's messy cobwebs from the skies with rosy fingers."
"What did she go for? – that is, what did she say she was going for?"
"To purchase various household necessaries. Why?"
"She's a funny girl," he remarked evasively.
"Yes?"
"Rather."
"In what humorous particular do you hand it so generously to Thusis?" I inquired.
"Oh, you know well enough she's odd. You can't explain her. She's no peasant, and you know it. She's not Swiss, either. I don't know what she is. I don't know quite what she's doing here. Sometimes she reminds me of a runaway school girl: sometimes of the humorless, pep-less prude who usually figures as heroine in a best seller. And sometimes she acts like a vixen! … I didn't tell you," he added, "but I was amiable enough to try to kiss her that first evening. I don't know where you were – but you can take it from me, O'Ryan, I thought I'd caught hold of the original vestal virgin and that my hour had come for the lions!"
"You beast," said I, not recollecting my own behavior in the cellar. "What did she say?"
"She didn't say anything. She merely looked it. I've been horribly afraid she'd tell her sister," he added naïvely.
"Smith," I said, laying an earnest hand on his arm, "you mustn't frivol with my household. I won't stand for it. I admit that my household is an unusual one. Frankly, I have no more idea than you have that Thusis and Clelia are real servants, or why they choose to take service here with me. Probably they're political agents. I don't care. But you and I mustn't interfere with them, first, because it disorganizes my ménage; second, because I believe they're really nice girls."
"I think so, too," he said.
"Well, then, if they are, we don't want to forget it. And also we must remember that probably they are political agents of some country now engaged in this war, and it won't do for us to become involved."
"How involved?"
"Well, suppose I took Thusis more or less seriously?"
"Do you?"
"I didn't say I did. I said suppose I do? Who is she? With all her dainty personality and undoubted marks of birth and breeding – with the irrefutable evidence of manner and speech and presence – with all these ear-marks by which both she and Clelia seem plainly labeled —who is Thusis?"
"I don't know," he said soberly.
"Nor I. And yet it is apparent that she has taken no pains to play the part of a peasant or of a servant for our benefit. Evidently she doesn't care – for I venture to believe she's a good actress in addition to the rest of her ungodly cleverness.
"But she seems to think it immaterial as to whether or not you and I wonder who she may be. Mentally, Thusis snaps her fingers at us, Smith. So does Clelia."
"Clelia is gentler – more girlish and immature," he said, "but she makes no bones about having been in better circumstances. She's sweet but she's no weakling. My curiosity amuses her and she pokes a lot of fun at me."
"Doesn't she tell you anything? Doesn't she give you any hint?"
"No, she doesn't. She's friendly – willing to stop dusting and exchange a little innocent banter with me… Do you know, O'Ryan, I never