The Firing Line. Robert W. Chambers
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"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 unnatural object generally—and all because I wouldn't flirt with you—"
His quick laughter interrupted her. She ventured to laugh a little too—a very little; and that was the charm of her to him—the clear-eyed, delicate gravity not lightly transformed. But when her laughter came, it came as such a surprisingly lovely revelation that it left him charmed and silent.
"I wonder," she said, "if you can be amusing—except when you don't mean to be."
"If you'll give me a chance to try—"
"Perhaps. I was hardly fair to you in that boat."
"If you knew me in the boat this morning, why did you not say so?"
"Could I admit that I knew you without first pretending I didn't? Hasn't every woman a Heaven-given right to travel in a circle as the shortest distance between two points?"
"Certainly; only—"
She shook her head slowly. "There's no use in my telling you who I am, now, considering that I can't very well escape exposure in the near future. That might verge on effrontery—and it's horrid enough to be here with you—in spite of several thousand people tramping about within elbow touch. … Which reminds me that my own party is probably hunting for me. … Such a crowd, you know, and so easy to become separated. What do you suppose they'd think if they suspected the truth? … And the worst of it is that I cannot afford to do a thing of this sort. … You don't understand; but you may some day—partly. And then perhaps you'll think this matter all over and come to a totally different conclusion concerning my overlooking your recent rudeness and—and my consenting to speak to you."
"You don't believe for one moment that I could mistake it—"
"It depends upon what sort of a man you really are. … I don't know. I give you the benefit of all doubts."
She stood silent, looking him candidly in the eyes, then with a gesture and the slightest shrug, she turned away toward the white road outside. He was at her elbow in two steps.
"Oh, yes—the irony of formality."
She nodded. "Good night, then, Mr. Hamil. If circumstances permitted it would have been delightful—this putting off the cloak of convention and donning motley for a little unconventional misbehaviour with you. … But as it is, it worries me—slightly—as much as the episode and your opinion are worth."
"I am wondering," he said, "why this little tincture of bitterness flavours what you say to me?"
"Because I've misbehaved; and so have you. Anyway, now that it's done, there's scarcely anything I could do to make the situation more flagrant or less flippant—"
"You don't really think—"
"Certainly. After all is said and done, we don't know each other; here we are, shamelessly sauntering side by side under the jasmine, Paul-and-Virginia-like, exchanging subtleties blindfolded. You are you; I am I; formally, millions of miles apart—temporarily and informally close together, paralleling each other's course through life for the span of half an hour—here under the Southern stars. … O Ulysses, truly that island was inhabited by one, Calypso; but your thrall is to be briefer than your prototype's. See, now; here is the road; and I release you to that not impossible she—"
"There is none—"
"There will be. You are very young. Good-bye."
"The confusing part of it to me," he said, smiling, "is to see you so—so physically youthful with even a hint of almost childish immaturity!—and then to hear you as you are—witty, experienced, nicely cynical, maturely sure of yourself and—"
"You think me experienced?"
"Yes."
"Sure of myself?"
"Of course; with your cool, amused poise, your absolute self-possession—and the half-disdainful sword-play of your wit—at my expense—"
She halted beside the sea-wall, adorably mocking in her exaggerated gravity.
"At your expense?" she repeated. "Why not? You have cost me something."
"You said—"
"I know what I said: I said that we might become friends. But even so, you have already cost me something. Tell me"—he began to listen for this little trick of speech—"how many men do you know who would not misunderstand what I have done this evening? And—do you understand it, Mr. Hamil?"
"I think—"
"If you do you are cleverer than I," she said almost listlessly, moving on again under the royal palms.
"Do you mean that—"
"Yes; that I myself don't entirely understand it. Here, under this Southern sun, we of the North are in danger of acquiring a sort of insouciant directness almost primitive. There comes, after a while, a certain mental as well as physical luxury in relaxation of rule and precept, permitting us a simplicity which sometimes, I think, becomes something less harmless. There is luxury in letting go of that live wire which keeps us all keyed to one conventional monotone in the North. I let go—for a moment—to-night. You let go when you said 'Calypso.' You couldn't have said it in New York; I couldn't have heard you, there. … Alas, Ulysses, I should not have heard you anywhere. But I did; and I answered.