Now, having tracked her down, he gazed upon the sub-
stance of his fears and dreams alike, still
bewildered (Page 311)


Copyright, jqii
By Louis Joseph Vance
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England
All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign
languages including the Scandinavian
Copyright, ign
By Louis Joseph Vance
as "The Crimson Rambler''





CONTENTS
Page
I Drifting i
II Derelicts f4
III The Man without a Smile ... 26
IV White Moth 5 2
V Ashes 60
VI The Amethyst Ring 80
VII Cinderella i00
VIII The Changeling Cynthia . . . . i18
IX Who Knows? i36
X Contretemps J53
XI Punic Faith »75
XII Pillage i89
XIII Truth 203
XIV Aftermath 23l
XV Coffin Cay 253
XVI Blows 266
XVII Cynthia's Gambit
XVIII Marooned 3°8
XIX The Sentimental Scamp 334
XX In a Garden 34»
242738





ILLUSTRATIONS
Now, having tracked her down, he gazed upon the
substance of his fears and dreams alike, still
bewildered
Frontispiece
If you want to marry that pretty young woman
I saw this evening — you'll have to do the
divorcing yourself, Bruce" j
Facing page 72
Presently he did spring, with neat calculation launch-
ing himself from the topmost step through the
air to land on Rhode's head and shoulders . " " 182
The Brazilian returned to the attack — swinging an
arm round Cynthia's waist and catching her
close to him '* " 280





I
DRIFTING
From the harsh hot glare of midsummer noon on
Broadway, to the perennially shadowed southerly
sidewalk of the cross-town street — ordinarily the
transition would have proved a grateful one. To-
day, however, Cynthia Grayce was numb to the
contrast: the heat was everywhere so great that the
difference between phase and phase seemed negli-
gible. If she sighed softly as she slipped out of the
main channel through which roaring tides of life
surge without end or rest, the sigh was more of
fatigue than of relief.
Swayed by an instinct as true as that of the hom-
ing pigeon (heartless though the simile may appear)
with lagging footsteps she drifted westwards; drifted
rather than willed to go; so overborne by stress of
heat and dreary circumstance that she went in a sort
of daze, almost thoughtless, scarcely aware of the
movements of her aching limbs and feet: drifting
like the bit of unconsidered flotsam that she was,,
aside from the fairway to rest a little in a still and
sluggish backwater of existence.
Beneath the broad brim of her simply trimmed
straw her pretty young face shone with a pallor
more than normal, a trifle drawn and jaded, a
thought thin — but not yet thin enough to mar the
graciousness residing in those salient curves of cheek


2 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
and chin and brow. In her brown eyes dwelt fathom-
less abstraction, wistful and wondering.
Strong upon her spirit, oppressing it like some
grim dumb menace, she felt the consciousness of the
city, the sweltering city of steel and stone, as selfish
and as heartless as the sun beating ruthlessly down
upon it from out a sky of brass and fire. And with
this she endured a sense, poignant and unnerving, of
her unfitness, her poor pitiful impotence in opposition
to this cruelly impersonal antagonism. In her mood
of the minute, detached, depressed, sensitive to the
point of clairaudience, the dull hum of the life
swarming round her seemed articulate with the mes-
sage of the city: You are not of me and I will none
of you.
Long since she had heard the message, like a whis-
pered warning endlessly iterated in the thick, sullen
droning of the hive; but always bravely she had
closed her ears to it, denying the futility of her un-
trained and almost aimless efforts to overcome the
dreadful, neutral hostility of the soul of the city,
refusing to believe it held no place for her, to which
she might win through continual striving: the barest
living with a little peace — she asked no more than
this.
But to-day she might no longer be insensible to the
message. Dinned upon her heed by every wave
of sound that swept the streets, she heard it in the
crash and clangour of the trolley cars on Broadway,
in the roar and rumble of the Sixth Avenue Ele-
vated, in the minor motif beaten out by a myriad
blending footsteps, rhythmical with a cadence like


4 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
vanishing coat of silver; but few, if any, of the
patrons knew the place as anything but Suzanne's,
a middle-class French restaurant and boarding house
where one might lunch sufficiently for forty cents and
dine with surprising relish and satisfaction for the
equally modest sum of fifty-five.
To lunch at Suzanne's had become a settled habit
with Cynthia. Rarely did she miss a day. Lunch
there was as much a matter of her diurnal routine
as was the morning egg and coffee cooked over the
single gas-jet in her hall bed-room in another
quarter of the city, or her supper of a handful of
crackers and a bowl of milk at Child's on Twenty-
third street. That lunch was the mainstay of her
daily life, her dinner. The evening meal she
could no longer afford, even at Suzanne's trifling
price.
And after to-morrow she would have to forego
lunch.
There was little to disturb the quiet of Suzanne's
at noon-day. As a rule there was present merely a
handful of patrons: a few guests of the boarding
house, a scattering of stout Frenchmen in small ways
of business in the neighbourhood, three or four out-
siders like Cynthia attracted from afar by the un-
usual combination of low cost and palatable food,
now and again a bird of passage — generally dissat-
isfied and wishing himself at Martin's — or less
frequently a small, loud-voiced luncheon party
eagerly a-sniff for the rare fragrance of the true
Bohemia.
To-day the number of guests was more scant than


DRIFTING 5
usual. Suzanne herself, sitting at the little table by
the door to which Jean flew for change and where
one stopped for a trite but cheerful word on entering
or departing—Suzanne herself, fat and rosy and per-
spiring generously, dozed fitfully or, rousing anon,
surveyed the tables with lacklustre eyes. On a day
so stifling not many of her guests would care to heat
themselves with apertifs or cordials or a better grade
of claret than that supplied with the meal: Suzanne
consequently felt little need to keep on the alert
against possible small peculations on the part of that
cochon, Jean.
It was the latter, as always, who showed Cynthia
to her table by the window in the rear of the room
— it was Jean, that extraordinarily animated phe-
nomenon of thinness, suavity and dexterity, who held
her chair for her and then vanished with apron
whipping briskly about his amazingly long and
thin black legs, only an instant later to reappear
(with his smirk of the successful conjurer) bear-
ing the service for Cynthiajs place. Unruffled,
assiduous, sempiternally courteous Jean, serenely
ignoring the paucity and infrequency of mademoi-
selle's tips!
Cynthia's heart smote her when she contem-
plated his unfailing alacrity and attentiveness; and
when the waiter had performed another of his as-
tonishing feats of levitation and legerdemain, re-
turning with her cup of chilled consomme in much
less time than another man had required to leave
the room without hurdling the tables, and serving
her with a low word of solicitude for mademoiselle's


6 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
ability to endure this execrable heat, Cynthia re-
warded him with the first smile she had been able
to force in days, together with thanks in his own
tongue that seemed to delight him to excess.
But she could not eat. The food which she was
accustomed to anticipate with a desire almost pain-
ful, to-day was flat and tasteless to her palate, ashes
in her mouth. She sent away her consomme barely
tasted, refused the fish, choked down a mouthful of
chicken and played with her salad. Only the finger-
wide slice of parti-coloured ice-cream she consumed
slowly — and was sorry when it was gone.
And now what . . . ? What way to turn, what
to do to fill the empty, aching hours until bed-time?
She lingered on in purposeless indecision, thoughts
far astray in a dull, dim void, forgetful of her sur-
roundings, forgetful of the flight of time.
Later, feeling a little thirsty, she coloured the
water in her glass with a little of the wine from the
small, corkless, green-glass bottle, and touchedit
to her lips.
Then again she permitted herself to relapse into
dreary dreaming.
Gradually the guests departed. Presently there
remained only herself, Jean idling near the entrance,
the Red Man and one other, for whom she had no
nickname, unless it were "that boy " — as she al-
ways thought of him when it occurred to her to think
of him at all.
He was, of the three of them, the senior habitue
of Suzanne's; he had been there, at his table in the
opposite corner of the room, the first time Cynthia


DRIFTING 7
had entered the restaurant; doubtless (she thought
wearily) he would be there long after she had passed
out of its hospitable door for the final time — to-
morrow; or at least until that day when he too
would have reached the end of everything, and like
her would go forth to seek some unnamed circle of
oblivion. Meanwhile she would be forgotten, while
he sat on, smoking his interminable caporal cigar-
ettes between the courses, which (she guessed) he
induced Jean purposely to delay, that he might have
the more excuse for dawdling.
In the beginning, surmising intuitively that their
lots were not dissimilar, that he likewise was one of
those rejected of the city, she had vaguely wondered
about him and tried to reason why the world had no
need for that keen intelligence she sometimes saw
glowing in the dark eyes set in his dark, thin,
finely-featured face. He was not dissipated, she
believed — though he did smoke much too many
cigarettes; his wine more often than not was taken
from the table untouched. There was something
too fine and open in his expression, something too
steady and straightforward in his eyes and too
human in his smile, to leave ground for belief that
he was addicted to any degrading habit, the victim
of a drug, for instance; as she had heard men some-
times were. No — she had concluded — he was
merely another like herself, an incompetent turned
out to fight for a living with no weapons aside from
honesty and a good intent.
And with that she had ticketed the "boy" and
tucked him away in a pigeonhole of her memory and


8 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
forgotten him, save when now and again their eyes
met casually in passing. He had become to her just
a bit of the furnishing of Suzanne's — even as her-
self, if possibly less transitory.
As for the Red Man, he was comparatively a new-
comer. He had first appeared in Suzanne's within
the last ten days, but since that debut had become
what Jean would have termed a " regular."
At sight Cynthia had dubbed him the Red Man,
because he was red. He was the reddest human
being she had ever seen. His broad, bluntly mod-
elled face was red with the burnt redness of a brick,
and so were his thick, strong neck and big, outstand-
ing ears. In that sanguine expanse his eyes were
like blue stones, hard and cold and penetrating — a
blue almost turquoise in tint and quite as opaque.
And his hair was outrageously aflame, a hot reddish-
brown matching nearly the colour of the baggy
ready-made coat and trousers which, apparently, he
never changed. His shirts were always (or else it
was always the same shirt) barred with vivid pink
stripes; just as a small "bat-wing" tie of crimson
satin always nestled cosily up under the incarnadined
folds of his fat chin. Even his high-cut shoes (Cyn-
thia, having been bred abroad, would have called
them boots) were of that deadly russet-red leather
that is as a general thing only to be seen calling at-
tention to the feet of the " swellest dressed feller"
in some small inland town. And finally, one of his
huge but chubby red hands was adorned with a gar-
net ring, and he wore cuff-links set with carbuncles.
O, decidedly the Red Man of all red menl


DRIFTING 9
Another thing that made him memorable, if any-
thing were needed aside from his feverish colour-
scheme, was his seriousness. Large, fat, red-faced
men are, in the popular conception, good-humoured
and jolly. But the Red Man of Suzanne's never
smiled—so far as Cynthia knew, at least; she had
never seen him save when his features were set and
hard and his eyes cold and calculating. Sometimes
she thought his expression one of anxiety, as if he
too had grave troubles to contend with; but this im-
pression was modified by the fact that he seemed to
have plenty of money. He ate ferociously and
enormously, frequently sending Jean back to the
kitchen for double and treble orders of some dish he
fancied; and he drank in proportion — always at
least one large bottle of table wine at a meal and
more often two — but without ever seeming affected
by the quantity of cheap alcohol thus consumed.
And several times she had noticed, when he paid his
reckoning, that he drew from his trouser-pocket a
great, fat wad of bills with yellow backs, all rolled
up tight and bound together with a twisted rubber-
band.
After he had finished luncheon the Red Man al-
ways smoked a very large and thick and dark cigar
with a very large red-and-gold band round its middle
— meanwhile staring impertinently round the room,
fastening his chilly blue stare on one patron or an-
other and prolonging it until, Cynthia sometimes
thought, it must be unendurable. She was relieved
that he never seemed to think her worth more than
a fugitive glance. Thrice she had noticed him rise


CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
and approaching a table occupied by some one he had
been staring out of countenance, pull out a chair, sit
down and begin talking, apparently without preface
or apology — talking in a thick, dull, rumbling voice
that filled the room like the growl of some caged
animal — no more intelligible, at a distance of a few
feet. Two of the persons so addressed (they were
invariably men) had listened, at first with interest,
then with diminishing attention, finally cutting him
short by calling to Jean for the addition. The third
(a short, burly man who somehow made Cynthia
think of a sailor out of work) had heard him out
to the end and then, evidently in an assenting hu-
mour, gone away with the Red Man. That event
was two days old; and now that she thought of
it, the man with the seafaring air had not since then
been seen in Suzanne's, although previously he had
figured as a regular attendant.
So she was interested distantly, but not in any
way surprised when the Red Man, after glaring at
"that boy" for a period of fully five minutes, sud-
denly got up, lumbered heavily over to the other's
table and sat down — first, as in other instances she
had remarked, pushing before his victim a piece of
pasteboard shaped like a calling card, but consider-
ably larger.
A moment later his heavy voice was reverberating
between the walls, more than ever reminiscent of
the purring of a huge cat; but, when one came to
analyse it, without the contented note.
She noticed that the "boy" (who was probably
three or four years older than herself) started


DRIFTING
11
slightly and then smiled as his gaze fell on the Red
Man's card. Thereafter he listened somewhat
eagerly, nodding at times or interjecting a quick
word.
Her interest in this episode was at the time too
remote to hold her regard more than a moment or
two, and presently the Red Man's accents merged
into the roar of the city that insinuated itself even
into this quiet retreat. And, in considering what
she could do to deaden the irk of the hopeless
hours that must elapse before sleep would bring her
forgetfulness, she forgot their slow flight, and sat
on, staring vacantly out of the window on the dismal
scenery of the backyard of Suzanne's, with its bare,
unlovely fence, its network of clothesline, its parched
patch of dejected grass, and its array of ash- and
refuse-cans.
When at length she aroused herself, she was
alone — save for Jean. She guessed that the
"boy" had gone away with the Red Man, just
as the sailorman had; and wondered if, like
the latter, he would never return. Not that it
mattered. . . .
She paid Jean, adding shamefacedly a gratuity of
five cents which he received with the air of one
who has been presented with a modest competence.
Then, as he flapped off to hand over forty cents to
Suzanne, she started to go.
As a matter of fact, she did leave Suzanne's within
the next few moments, but first she paused in the
outer hall to satisfy a whim of curiosity.
At her feet, just within the threshold of the street


12 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
door, she chanced to see a large white card, con-
spicuous against the soiled and frayed oilcloth. If
the print on it had not been unusually legible and if
her eyes had not been young and strong and quick
she would doubtless have passed on; but these things
being as they were she read at a glimpse enough of
the inscription to fix her interest. She stooped,
picked it up, and stood knitting her delicately-lined
brows over it.
It was the card the Red Man had handed that
"boy"; she knew as much from its size and shape.
It had been printed on a press from common type
and one edge showed the marks of perforations, as
though it had been bound with several others in a
book, to be torn off at convenience. Its face bore
this legend:
Inventor of Occupations
George O. Rhode
250 Broadway
New York
'Hours: I to 4 p. 11.
Pardonably puzzled and. intrigued, the girl turned
the card over, and her eyes widened. Of course
(she was instant to admit) it was simply coinci-
dence; but after all, coincidences are interesting,
however commonplace they may be outside of
book covers. And to find her own first name star-
ing up at her seemed at first more than a little
astonishing.


DRIFTING
*3
On the back of the card some one (the Red Man,
at an easy guess) had scrawled in pencil the
memorandum:
Cynthia (Cydonia)
pr Y Erie 9 p 8/10


II
DERELICTS
A MOMENT longer the card held Cynthia lingering
irresolute there in the dingy hallway of Suzanne's,
wondering what she ought to do with it. Should
she call Jean and leave it with him to be returned to
its putative owner, the Red Man? Or was that
worth while — would it not be dignifying the thing
with an undue importance, since apparently it had
been thrown away as worthless?
The cryptic scrawl on the back inclined her to the
latter conclusion. She could trace no intelligible con-
nection between the words "Cynthia" and "Cy-
donia," and the rest of it seemed quite meaningless
— merely a purposeless scribble such as one is apt
to make if playing with a pencil while conversing.
She was on the point of dropping the card where
she had found it, when she heard a sound of quick
footsteps ascending the brownstone stoop, and be-
fore she bethought herself to move out of the way
the entrance was again darkened by the slender, well-
poised figure of " that boy."
At sight of Cynthia, pausing there with the
card in her hand, he halted short, momentarily con-
fused. He said, "I beg your pardon," between
breaths, and removed his hat with a sudden grace-
ful gesture.
Cynthia's confusion, however, was greater than


DERELICTS 15
any he betrayed. For a moment she was assailed
by a wholly unreasonable sense of mortification, as
if she had been caught doing something unworthy of
her — something almost as contemptible as eaves-
dropping. This was in part due to his questioning
attitude; she realized at once, of course, that he had
come back for the card and was surprised to find
it in her possession. She flushed sensitively, thereby
rendering herself rather more pretty than usual,
collected her wits and in response to his uncalled-for
apology, tendered him the card.
"This is yours?" she said. "I happened to see
it here on the floor ..."
He took it with a little bow of thanks that
reminded her of the minor courtesies she was accus-
tomed to expect of men abroad rather than of the
nervous and self-conscious civility of the average
American man of affairs.
"Thank you," he said. "I missed it just a minute
ago and hurried back. . . . I'm greatly obliged —
would n't have lost that for a good deal."
She heard herself say " No?" with the inquiring
inflection; and caught her breath with surprise that
she should have forgotten herself so far. It was n't
like her to offer encouragement to young men
unknown to her—or vice versa, for that matter;
whereas her monosyllabic reply had been distinctly
an invitation to him to explain, if he wished, why
he valued the card so highly. An explanation would
involve some acknowledgment on her part and that
would prolong the passage sufficiently to provoke
his interest.


16 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
She had, perhaps, a trace less vanity than most
women who could boast as much attractiveness. She
was normally aware of her good looks, and glad of
them, but wholesomely glad — much as she rejoiced
in her sanity, or in the health of her body, or in
owning two feet; it is good to be pleasing to the
eye, and Cynthia knew it; but she wasn't in the
habit of forcing herself upon the heed of beholders.
Furthermore, there was grained in her understand-
ing that cardinal precept of a Continental upbring-
ing, that a young unmarried woman may not
knowingly excite the attention of man and remain
womanly.
So she was surprised at herself with a surprise
that was nothing lessened by her subsequent con-
duct: something which remained inexplicable to her
long after the incident might well have been for-
gotten. The real explanation of her acceptance
of the situation, not only at that moment but
as it developed, probably resided in the young
man's manner; which was perfection. She was
even then discovering that his smile, viewed at
close quarters, was both disarming and insidious,
and could be, when he chose, positively charming
with its suggestion of humour, deference, and
some little reserve, all coloured by a suggestion of
admiration to which no woman could remain totally
indifferent. And he chose that it should convey
a great deal when it accompanied his prompt
response.
"It means a lot to me," he said with an engaging
hint of candour; "you see, I struck a bit of luck


DERELICTS 17
to-day and this " — indicating the card — " is the
token thereof."
," You've found something to do? " she said; and
1 the query came as impulsively, as naturally as had
its predecessor. "I am glad," she added, feeling
that since she had gone so far with impunity she
might venture a step further without loss of dig-
nity. Momentarily she was gaining confidence in
him, that he was not the sort to impose upon her
generosity.
"Yes," he said, gravity shadowing his smile,
while his glance clung to her, keenly inquisitive.
"Yes, I seem to have stumbled on something I
think I can do. It's promising, anyway, and I'm
going to have a try at it."
Cynthia repeated a shade vaguely, beginning to
remember that she must find an excuse to terminate
the incident, "I am glad ..."
He was quick to divine her thought, and at once
stood aside, leaving the doorway clear; but at the
same time he pursued the subject with a question
that had every excuse: " But how did you guess —?"
"Why, the card of course," she said with a smile
that shyly extenuated her presumption. "' Inventor
of occupations,' " she quoted. "You see, I noticed
him go over and speak to you. Apparently he
doesn't wait in his den for clients; he goes boldly
forth and hunts them down and forces his inventions
upon them."
"It does look like that," admitted the other.
Somehow it seemed quite natural that he should
follow her out and down to the sidewalk. But at


18 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
the foot of the steps he hesitated, took a couple o
steps by her side, then paused.
"Would it annoy you," he said, "to have me
walk with you as far as Fifth Avenue — if you go
that way? It didn't occur to me, at first, that I
might seem impertinent . . . You see, having seen
you so often at Suzanne's ..." He broke off
with a short, embarrassed laugh.
"No," returned Cynthia quietly. "I quite under-
stand."
He thanked her in a curious tone, as if he had
not yet quite recovered from the realization of his
effrontery; and for a minute or two neither spoke
as they walked soberly toward Sixth Avenue. Then
he said abruptly: "I beg your pardon. My name
is Bruce Crittenden. I don't know why you should
be interested to know that, but perhaps it will help
excuse — somehow —"
"I quite understand," she said again, not under-
standing in the least; the name, Bruce Crittenden,
conveyed nothing to her intelligence, nor did she
comprehend his thought that possibly it might. "I
am Cynthia Grayce," she added with a kindly if
hazy notion of setting him more at his ease.
Crittenden looked at her sharply. "Cynthia!"
he repeated. "That's odd!"
"Isn't it?" she agreed. "I had just read the
name on the card, and was wondering who she
might be when you surprised me."
"Oh, that Cynthia!" he laughed. "She's not
a woman, she's . . . But I must n't tell; that's one
of the stipulations laid down by the Inventor of


DERELICTS 19
Occupations. He swore me to secrecy before he'd
open up —"
"Open up? " Cynthia iterated, perplexed.
"Disclose," Crittenden interpreted promptly.
"You have n't been long in this country, have you?"
he pursued.
"How do you know that?"
"For one thing you 're not acclimatised to our
slang. Then you've the Parisian touch about your
clothes and the ghost of an accent — just enough
to show you 're accustomed to speaking French. I
don't mind risking an impudent guess: you've been
over not more than three months."
"Five," she corrected, smiling. "And I don't
consider your guess impudent."
"That's good of you. If I were n't bound by
awful oaths," Crittenden laughed, " I'd reward you
by a full account, with all the hideous details, of the
occupation Mr. Rhode thinks he has invented for
me.
"But you've accepted, have n't you?"
"I have; with much joy; but I'm not at all sure
I 'll make good, of course."
"I'm sure you will," she said softly; " I do hope
you will. It must be terrible —"
"What must be terrible?" he asked gently as
her voice fell.
Temporarily she had forgotten the tenuousness
of their acquaintance and was thinking only of the
mid-world of misery in which they both had existed
for so long, and from which he was now to es-
cape, while she must remain, to suffer and endure


20 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
until the coming of that End which she foresaw so
clearly.
"It must be terrible," she said, "to wait and
wait so long and patiently, and then to have your
chance and fail: more terrible even than never to
have your chance at all."
He was silent for a little time. Cynthia was
looking another way, seeing nothing, lost in her
sombre thoughts, quite unconscious of his scrutiny,
now more close and keen than any he had previously
accorded her.
Crittendon missed nothing, raking her from her
inconspicuous but becoming hat to the tips of the
small shoes that were just beginning to exhibit inef-
faceable signs of wear. He saw that her neatness,
which had impressed him long before he had spoken
to her, was the neatness of extreme poverty making
the best of souvenirs of days of affluence. The
materials of her skirt and shirtwaist were of the
best, but worn threadbare — almost. He could
reconstruct mentally the particulars of the daily
struggle that alone served to keep her presentable:
the constant wielding of the brush, the darning and
mending, the scrubbings with naphtha, the pressings
with an iron surreptitiously heated over a gas jet
when the landlady was absent. And he could see
other signs which her prettiness served wellnigh
wholly to disguise: the lines that wearing care had
furrowed in her face, faint, thin, almost indistin-
guishable, but still to be detected by the solicitous
eye; and the surfaces once rounded, that privation
had gently hollowed out.


DERELICTS
21
Something else, hidden from the eye but very real
for all that, told him that the days of even such
Spartan existence were numbered for her; that she
was perilously near the verge of the precipice.
He took thought hurriedly, covering his abstrac-
tion with a steady flow of talk as to the coherence
of which he was dimly dubious.
"Well, yes. . . . But I'm not going to fail. In
fact, I don't see how I can, with the opportunity
I'm offered. . . . We 'll both win — you with your
chance, and I with mine. Confidence is half the
battle. . . ."
She said nothing. He added a banality or
two. . . .
Something certainly must be contrived for her,
and that quickly. The corner at which, he sus-
pected, their ways would part, was altogether too
near to leave him time to consider ways and means.
He must manage somehow to stick beside her for
a little longer. There was one way. . . .
Once conceived, the notion took shape and colour
rapidly, and began to seem most desirable in his
understanding. If only he could induce her to con-
sent; if only she were so worn down and weary of
everything as to be ductile to persuasion. . . .
In his pocket he had nearly fifteen dollars, the
balance of fifty realized by the hypothecation of his
watch ten days ago. And there remained his cigar-
ette-case; it would bring in enough to tide him over
at a pinch. Or, failing that — over on Fifth Avenue
he could see a corner of the facade of the only club
that now maintained his name on its membership


DERELICTS 23
we are; and we both would be the better for a little
change. We need to get out of this — this heat and
misery, and all that — and play like sane people and
— forget. But there's no forgetting, and no good
playing, when you've no one to talk to and play
with. That's no fun at all. Why not come with me,
just for this afternoon — some place where one can
see the sky, where there's clean sand underfoot
instead of dusty pavements, where there are waves
to watch and listen to and clean air to breathe?
Please don't shake your head like that. It is n't as
if we were utter strangers: people who lunch at the
same restaurant every day for a couple of months
ought to know one another, even if they don't.
Come along! Let's pretend we 're old friends with
nothing to discuss, no memories to dissect, nothing
to do but take a day off from the fret and worry of
things. Do say yes — it 'll be awfully good of
youl"
She withheld her decision only a minute, while she
regarded him openly with clear, thoughtful eyes.
Strongly the suggestion tempted. She wanted to
accept. She needed to go, badly. And why not?
Only the habits of convention stood between her
and a few hours of happiness — or if not happiness,
at least forgetfulness. And what was convention to
such as they, hapless wanderers astray in the baffling
maze of things?
Six years of existence in European pensions had
not left her without a balance of experience in which
to weigh men; and he who stood before her, awaiting
her answer with his face glowing with enthusiasm


24 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
in his plan and confidence that she would consent,
deceived her greatly if he were not sound and
worthy of the little trust and tolerance he asked.
Nor had those years left her wanting in self-
knowledge; she was a woman of twenty-two, and
could care for herself. Then why not humour
his wish and accept this boon the gods offered
her?
Crittenden read the answer in her eyes before she
could utter it.
"You will? That's fine of you!"
"Wait!" She checked him, but with a reassuring
smile. "One question —"
"Name it."
"Can you — afford this, Mr. Crittenden?"
"Of course I can. I'm a good distance from
the end of my tether, really; I could hold on for
months yet, if I had to. But I won't have to. In
a day or two I 'll be independent."
"Then one condition: the one you yourself sug-
gested. We 're to pretend we've known one another
since ever so long; we'll have no questions to ask,
no memories to dissect — as you said — no plans
for the future. To-day must be a day apart, a day
that somehow mysteriously managed to slip in be-
tween yesterday and to-morrow and so will slip out,
leaving no trace of itself — not so much as the ghost
of a memory. Is that agreed?"
"Certainly it is," he assented gayly. "I'd prom-
ise anything you asked — and stick to it, too — to
get you to go."
Her smile was shadowy and wistful. "I


Ill
THE MAN WITHOUT A SMILE
It was rather late, on the verge of twilight, when
hunger drove Cynthia and Crittenden to offer them-
selves to the critical consideration of the person
presiding over the destiny of one of the seaside
hotel restaurants near New York.
At first glance this head waiter was inclined to
treat the applicants with an access of hauteur
approaching disdain and presaging neglect. They
were as modest of manner as of attire, if that were
possible; and to this large and dictatorial person,
who in the winter months was accustomed to lording
it over the money-spending clientele of one of the
largest establishments on Longacre Square, they
conveyed a cursory impression of belonging to that
class of casual strays who infrequently drift into
superior restaurants and dine unhappily with diffi-
dence for their sauce and the red ink figures at the
foot of the impending bill dancing before their
appalled eyes.
But because he was really an excellent head waiter,
if harassed by and impatient of the demands of a
heterogeneous crew of guests characteristic of
summer, he indulged in a second, if hasty, glance.
And immediately his manner was moderated by a
very perceptible thaw. Not for nothing had he
attained to his awful estate through sedulous culti-


THE MAN WITHOUT A SMILE 27
vation of the qualities named tact and discretion,
with the further assistance of a good, working
memory.
He was able to see that beyond question madame
was a lady of a caste to which the best he had to
offer would prove nothing startling, while the gentle-
man accompanying her was the Mr. Bruce Critten-
den, whose recent total and inexplicable self-expunc-
tion from the circles he had once frequented and
adorned was only just ceasing to be a matter of
debate. From his present appearance Franz would
have been inclined to diagnose the cause of Critten-
den's troubles as collapse of the financial system
(though other things were being whispered); but
that was none of his concern. He was himself
(incredible though it may appear) a human being
not devoid of human sensibilities, in the number of
which gratitude had its place; he could not be un-
mindful of the several notes of legal tender which
had, in time gone by, found their way from Mr.
Crittenden's pocket to his own.
He bowed, then, with precisely the proper shade
of respectful recognition, and allotted them a desir-
able table, one not too conspicuously placed yet not
too far from the orchestra.
It is a curious fact that even the best head waiters
seem to consider music not incongruous with the
process of mastication. Perhaps, however, it is n't
altogether their fault; the tastes of the American
restaurant-going public must be remembered.
While Franz stood by, attentive to take Critten-
den's order, Cynthia settled herself in her chair with


28 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
a luxurious movement suggesting an Incarnate sigh
of content. She was a little tired and glad to rest.
A throng of new impressions besieged her fancy:
of the boat trip down the bay and through the
Narrows, with the clean salt breath of the Atlantic
reinvigorating every wearied fibre of her being; of
the landing in the tawdry seaside city of tinsel, paint,
and plaster, weird and extravagant as the nightmare
of a scene-painter; of fluent throngs of people amuse-
ment-mad, seeking the bubble sensation at the bar-
ker's mouth; of a thousand smells of food and
animals and melting sugar, of dust, smoke, and hu-
manity; of a deafening roar of blending dissonances,
— shrieks, cries, yells, groans, windy roaring of meg-
aphones, brassy blaring of bands, crashing and
whineing of carrousel organs, barking of motor
horns — as wild and wrong as a symphony com-
posed during delirium by an apostle of the New
Music; of their flight therefrom to a lonely spot
of sand and sounding waves; stronger than all else,
of Crittenden's constant sympathy, courtesy, and
quiet humour. . . .
"Is this normal — does it go on this way all the
time?" she had asked in consternation.
"The summer through," he answered. "And
this is a quiet day — Monday."
"It all seems so strange to me." This in apology
for her slowness to comprehend the spirit of her
native land.
"You 'll get used to it. Unlike the English, we
take our pleasures raw — and ravenously." . . .
If Crittenden's choice of a diversion seems curious


30 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
After the waiter had departed with his carefully
considered order, Crittenden rested his forearms
on the edge of the table, joined his hands, and
watched the woman, his own eyes thoughtful.
He wondered, speculated idly about her. Than
this he could do no less nor more, their bond of
understanding debarring him from any inquiry the
least intimate. Probably he was never to know
more of her than he did now. In a few brief
hours they must say good-night, good-bye. A slen-
der chance, that they would ever meet again. Only
another day, two at most, and he would have
dropped completely out of the scheme of things that
thus far had concerned him. Heaven alone knew
what was to become of him!
What did it all mean, then? Life, as he had
found it, was altogether made up of just such things
— a look, a smile, a touch of hands, a word in
passing: then forgetfulness — all inconsequent.
Through these, his questing fancies, ran a refrain,
oddly apposite, he thought — a half-remembered
verse of Henley's:
"Now die the dream, or come the wife,
The past is not in vain,
For wholly as it was your life
Can never be again,
My dear,
Can never be again."
Was it true? Were all these unconsidered bub-
bles in the draught of life — words, glances, fancies,
impulses, aimless meetings and partings — were
these all charged with inscrutable significance, to


THE MAN WITHOUT A SMILE 31
wield for aye Influences imperceptible and leave their
marks indelible? . . . Not that that was Henley's
meaning. Not that it mattered. . . .
His humour veered, fickle as the weathervane.
As for this Miss Grayce, he little doubted her way
would somehow be made smooth for her. Extremely
pretty women rarely have a very hard time of it.
He did not mean to be cynical; indeed his
thoughts inclined to another bias. At the bottom
they were that this woman was very charming: it
would be strange indeed if she didn't, before long,
meet and marry some lucky chap. Crittenden hoped
the man would be the right one. But there was
in his musings nothing whatever of self-consciousness.
His attitude toward Cynthia was more detached than
he would have believed possible, a year ago, where
pretty women were concerned.
And Cynthia was rather more than merely pretty;
he had been quick to concede that, whose taste was
exacting when feminine beauty was involved. She
had that inexplicable quality which men call charm.
She had, besides, distinction and, when she chose to
exercise it, a pretty turn of wit. Give her but a
moiety of happiness, he predicted, and she would
be radiant.
Well, if so, another would see his prophecy ful-
filled — not he, save by the strangest trick of chance.
The road he was to take when their ways parted —
Crittenden doubted it; it was dark, dark as a tunnel,
and so long that he might not see what light, if
any, shone at its far end. . . .
With a slow movement of her head, recalled to


32 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
herself, Cynthia looked back to him. Her smile
deepened insensibly, out of sheer friendliness, as
their glances met.
Against the background of the dusk her face,
framed in its blushing russet hair, shone like a cameo
of pale, tinted ivory. The soft lights overhead lent
her eyes a world of shadowed mystery, infinitely
enhancing their allure.
"Tired?" he asked, solicitous.
"A little," she conceded, amending quickly:
"not very."
"You were so quiet," he explained.
"Was I? Pure animal enjoyment, I presume:
contentment lulling thought to sleep. Still, I was
thinking — wondering if you, too, would now for-
sake Suzanne's."
"Why 'too '?" he asked. "Are you going to
desert?"
"Perhaps. ... I did n't mean myself. I was
thinking of the other man who went away with the
Inventor of Occupations. Did you notice that he
never returned?"
"Which?"
She described the man whose bearing she had
thought suggestive of the sea. Crittenden readily
recalled him.
"Yes, I remember. That's so, too: he has n't
been back. Wonder why? Perhaps his new-found
occupation is much the same as mine."
"Then you may never lunch at Suzanne's again,
you think?"
"It may be." He lifted his shoulders slightly,


THE MAN WITHOUT A SMILE 33
with a quiet laugh. "That would be hard to
say."
"You leave New York?"
"I may have to, I'm told."
"I'm sorry," she said gravely. "But I should n't
be, I presume. I ought to offer you congratulations:
you 're very fortunate."
"Am I? " he queried as soberly. "I wonder?"
They were interrupted by the waiter.
Silent and serious for a span, Cynthia's attention
was apparently held by the show of life and gayety
on whose border they sat, observing when they would
but almost altogether unobserved.
Her eyes grew dark with thought and a pucker
showed, all but imperceptible, between her delicately
lined brows.
Crittenden, whose interest was nowhere else, was
moved to inquire: "Why the frown?"
It vanished in a twinkling, and she smiled. But
then again the pucker insensibly marred the smooth-
ness of her forehead.
"I don't like mysteries," she averred with a trace
of petulance.
"No more do I," he said, his tone meaningful.
"But we must respect our bargain," she insisted.
"' No questions to ask — '"
"' No memories to dissect,'" he recited, "' no
plans for the future.' . . . But for one thing that
would be a hard bargain."
"Yes?"
"That we 're friends — the other half of the
bargain: old friends, just for to-day." His regard


CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
was steady and intent upon her. And again the
thought that had been Henley's stirred his mood like
a whiff of an old perfume. "Friends," he said
softly —
"' Friends . . . old friends . . .
What is it ends
With friends?'"
There was a flash like summer lightning in the
eyes that held her own. She caught her breath
sharply. A sudden swirl of half-formed emotions
bewildered her. Something, somehow (she had no
time to analyse) had surprised her off-guard and
filled her being with sweetly strange confusion and
alarm.
Now for the first time she was brought to face
the fact that he was a man and she a woman.
She looked hastily away, with frightened eyes,
striving to readjust the subjective balance of their
relations. She flushed deliciously. . . .
Yet he had said nothing, positively nothing; he
had done nothing she could name to bring about this
change in their attitudes, one toward the other. The
responsibility for it lay with her as much as with him.
It was all in nature; as she had long since learned,
between man and woman one must constantly antici-
pate the unexpected: it must inevitably come, soon
or late — the recognition of sex. It may mean
nothing, herald nothing, lead to nothing: but in-
variably it will come where friendship is.
Constraint lay between them for a space.
She stole a glance at him. He was staring som-
brely at his plate. She fancied a slight movement


THE MAN WITHOUT A SMILE 35
of his lips; and it was real, but she could not
guess that he was swearing very softly, but very
bitterly. . . .
A second time the waiter disturbed them, earning
the gratitude of both. When his services were for
the time discharged and he had retired to a discreet
distance, the situation was saved. Crittenden quick-
ened to an amused commentary on their experiences
of the afternoon, so wittily phrased that Cynthia's
laughter swept her mood away and with it his. The
surface of their intercourse became as it had been,
both tacitly ignoring that instant of the senses which
had shown them what depths might lie beneath the
most quiet calm.
The meal passed off, under cover of light table-
talk as impersonal as politics and infinitely more
diverting.
Still, however, was the evening young. Content
to watch it age and loath to leave this spot where
quiet and forgetfulness had been found, they lingered
on, dawdling over their coffee, Crittenden steadily
consuming his interminable cigarettes.
Slowly the dinner parties rose and left; the restau-
rant remaining only moderately busy with the
demands of an intermittent trickle of belated pat-
ronage.
Silences lengthened between them, as each antici-
pated with refreshed regret the approach of that
moment when their rising must signal the preliminary
of their parting. To both came a sensation of gentle
melancholy, of whose pleasures, of late so few, this
was the last. In the shadow of the impending mor-


36 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
row with its insistent problems which one of them
at least thought to find in»olvable, the tide of their
spirits slackened and began to ebb in sadness.
From beyond the railing at their elbows, masked
by the sombrous night, sounded the endless com-
plaining of the unsleeping sea.
At length, unwillingly, Crittenden looked at his
watch, then signalled to their waiter.
"I'm sorry," he said, apologetic. "We 've just
time to catch our boat."
"I'm sorry, too — very," she said softly. "It
has been very sweet — this changling day that
knew no yesterday and no to-morrow."
"Innocent at once of parentage and posterity,"
he laughed covering his realization that the waiter
was making off with every cent he owned aside from
a single half-dollar.
She began to draw on her gloves. "You have
been kind," she said, without meeting his look,
"more than kind. I have no way of thanking you
but by my appreciation — but is it too much to ask
you for a further kindness, a word of advice?"
"You could n't gratify me more," he said.
"I want to know if you think " — she coloured,
stammering — " if you think that possibly the In-
ventor of Occupations might be induced to invent —
something for a woman — like myself." Her laugh
was brief and self-conscious.
"You might ask him," said Crittenden quietly.
"He's a curious creature — I've found that out
already — though I know little about him. If you
like, I 'll ask him over."


THE MAN WITHOUT A SMILE 37
'How — what do you mean?" she demanded,
puzzled.
Crittenden indicated a direction with a faint nod.
"He's over there now," he said, smiling. "I saw
him roll in — like a sure-enough fire-ball — about
ten minutes ago."
"Truly?" But her eyes had been instant to his
hint and she knew already that the veritable Red
Man was seated, quite by himself, at a table near
the other edge of the veranda. There was no mis-
taking that ensanguined shape. The only wonder
was, she had not noticed him before.
"Has he seen us?"
"The instant he came in," said Crittenden.
"Those blue-glass eyes of his have been bulging
ever since; he's positively aching with curiosity —
quivering all over like one of those hairless Mexican
terriers. Shall I put him out of his misery — ask
him over?"
"We will miss our boat ...?"
"What's that compared with the advantage of
setting his inventive brain to work on your behalf?
Besides, we can as easily — more, in fact, from
this place — go back by trolley."
"You don't mind?"
"Not in the least." Crittenden summoned the
waiter — who required no description more specific
than "that man in red" before he trotted off.
"You must make allowances," Crittenden advised
her hastily. "He's an odd fish — I doubt if ever
you met his like."
"I understand," she murmured.


38 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
In another moment the Inventor of Occupations
was heaying his huge bulk impatiently down the
long aisle between tables.
"A pillar of fire by night," observed Crittenden
irrepressibly, rising.
"Evenin', Mr. Crittenden." The Red Man
halted, perfunctorily seizing and dropping the
other's hand. His blue eyes remained steadfast to
Cynthia. He bobbed his bullet-shaped head uncer-
tainly in her direction.
"Miss Grayce, this is Mr. Rhode."
"Please't' meet you," said Mr. Rhode, projecting
a big red hand suddenly and enveloping Cynthia's
in a moist, warm grasp.
As she acknowledged the introduction she was
shaken by a mad desire to do something to mitigate
the awful seriousness of that wide red countenance.
Features hewn out of red marl would have conveyed
an effect of no more immutable immobility. Cynthia
discovered another nickname for him presently: the
Man Without a Smile. Surely in the hour of his
birth the minds of men and the preterhuman sen-
tience of the spheres as well must all have been con-
centrated upon the inconceivable concept of Eternity.
A waiter brought a chair. Mr. Rhode took it
from the man with an air of forestalling a practical
joke — he was not to be fooled into permitting that
chair to be withdrawn from under him at any critical
moment — planted it firmly at the unoccupied side of
the table, between Cynthia and Crittenden, and reso-
lutely sat down. His stony blue eyes shifted from
face to face suspiciously.


THE MAN WITHOUT A SMILE 39
"Did n't know you two knew each other," he
observed with fine directness.
"Indeed?" answered Crittenden suavely.
"We did n't," Cynthia interposed frankly, "until
this afternoon."
Here the Inventor of Occupations interjected an
"Oh," as inexpressive as his face.
"I happened to see your card," Cynthia continued
with winning directness, her voice calm above the
tumult of her emotions: somehow to her the instant
seemed crucial; as though she were venturing her all
upon a single throw. And indeed she felt this to
be a last resort, this appeal to a Fortune as inscru-
table as its cardinal envoy. "And I asked to meet
you. Your business must be a fascinating one, Mr.
Rhode."
The Red Man shifted his cigar thoughtfully, from
corner to corner of his mouth. "Well, yes, it is,"
he assented grudgingly. He no longer took account
of Crittenden : his cold blue stare was all for Cynthia.
"I understand you have found — invented an
occupation for Mr. Crittenden."
Rhode removed the cigar from his mouth.
"What's he been tellin' you about it? " he demanded
in a breath.
"Simply that," said Cynthia.
Crittendon shrugged and laughed quietly. Rhode
received the assertion with an unintelligible grunt.
"You do, really," the girl pursued, a little timidly,
"invent occupations?"
"You might call it that," rumbled the Red Man.
"I just put that line on my card to fix people's


4o CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
attention, as you might say. Anyway, I do find
some folks work. Why? You want a job?"
"I . . . " faltered Cynthia, confused.
"Thought so. Funny, us meetin' this way. I was
goin' to look you up t'night." Rhode reinserted
the cigar and mumbled it through a long moment.
"Then all of a sudden something immediate turns
up this evenin', and I'm sort of wishin' I could lay
my hand on you, and I'm comin' down here in my
car to look for a feller — and here you are puttin'
it to me. Now / call that funny," he concluded.
But it seemed doubtful if he had ever thought
anything really amusing.
A great wave of hope flooded Cynthia's conscious-
ness, as potent as old wine. She felt a little dizzy.
Words to encourage him to continue were not at
her command. She sat silent, her gaze fixed and
intent upon this great red face, which for a moment
seemed as mysteriously beautiful with promise as a
harvest moon.
"Yes," she breathed at length.
"Uh-huh," Rhode concurred without emotion.
"You really want work, now?"
"Very badly ..."
"Bad enough to take most anythin'?"
Cynthia nodded, breathless.
"Well, then y' understand this is business with
me. I got to know all about you. I got to ask
questions and you got to hand it to me straight."
"Hand it to you —?"
"Come through on the level," Mr. Rhode para-
phrased neatly.


THE MAN WITHOUT A SMILE 41
"Tell the plain unvarnished truth," Crittenden
interpreted.
"Oh! . . . Certainly. I understand."
"Well, then —" Rhode paused to clear his
throat importantly.
"Perhaps," Crittenden suggested, " you'd like me
to go away for a few minutes?"
Cynthia shook her head. "No," she said in-
tently; "oh, no. Stay, please."
The Red Man had been excavating one of his
breast pockets, producing a bulky sheaf of torn and
thumb-marked papers — mainly, to all appearances,
letters in their original envelopes. From these he
sorted out one with an unmarked back; its fellows,
one noticed, were for the most part blackened with
innumerable memoranda in fine, clear penmanship.
Placing the envelope on the table before him,
he unlimbered a fountain-pen, decorated the cloth
with a casual spatter of ink, and looked up at
,Cynthia.
"Name, please?"
"In full? Cynthia Urcilla Grayce."
The blue eyes looked a trace more opaque.
"What's that?"
With careful enunciation Miss Grayce reiterated.
. "Spell it," suggested Rhode brusquely. "I mean
the middle name. The others are easy."
"U-r-c-i-l-l-a."
"Why not s-u-l-a?" the inquisitor demanded
aggressively.
"I'm sure I don't know," admitted Cynthia,
blankly. •


THE MAN WITHOUT A SMILE 43
"None. ..."
His ears were quick to defect the note of hesitancy.
"None you care to speak about, huh?"
"No one I can ask for aid," she corrected a trifle
primly.
"Hmm. . . . Where do you live?"
"At present —" She hesitated, then gave him
the address of the third-rate boarding house where
she had a room, and was relieved when neither he
nor Crittenden seemed to think the neighbourhood
undesirable.
"Age?"
"Twenty-two," she said.
"Married or single?"
"I am unmarried."
"Engaged? Excuse me, but I gotta know."
"No," she said evenly, "I am not engaged to
be married."
"Health good?"
"Yes."
"Occupation?"
"I have none."
"Never studied no trade or profession at all?"
"Unfortunately" — her voice was almost a
whisper —" no. ... I once thought I might be
able to earn a living with my brush," she added;
"I am fond of painting. . . . But I have not had
sufficient experience, I find."
"Have you any resources?"
Cynthia shook her head.
"No friends to turn to?"
"No."


44 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"You mean you won't — too proud," Rhode
observed calmly.
"No," she said patiently; " I mean what I say.
I am practically a stranger in New York. I was
born in America, but have been in this country for
the last five months only, since I was a young child."
The Red Man sat up at attention and with a nod
encouraged her to: " Go on."
"My father," she said after a retrospective
pause, "was a scientist well-known abroad — Dr.
David Grayce, the biologist. He was said to be
well-to-do. We had our own home in Paris —
everything. He died some years ago, and when
his estate was settled up it was discovered that he
had been speculating unfortunately on the Bourse.
My mother and I had a bare living left. . . . My
mother died last year, leaving me about a thousand
dollars. I had no friends from whom I could ask
or accept aid. . . . Then there were other reasons
why I didn't want to live in Europe. I came here
at length, hoping to be able to make money by
painting ..."
She concluded with an eloquent movement of her
hands.
Rhode grunted unintelligibly, to signify he had
heard and understood, jotted down several more
notes, read the whole over, and took thought obvi-
ously, his dense blue eyes staring away into the
night that lurked beyond the rail, his cigar (which
had gone out) quivering violently to his ruminative
champings.
Cynthia took a deep breath, sought Crittenden's


THE MAN WITHOUT A SMILE 45
eyes with a smile both timid and deprecating and,
suddenly made conscious of her unthinking revela-
tion of self, looked away, confused, and waited in
tense anxiety.
Crittenden helped himself to a cigarette, dissem-
bling his interest, his mind already engaged in profit-
less endeavor to piece out the gaps in Cynthia's
story. She had been frank and candid — to a
point. But there were gaps. He was not at all
inclined to question the absolute truth of what she
•had disclosed about herself, but he was very keen
to know much that she had not told. What had
happened to that "bare living" to reduce Cyn-
thia's inheritance from her mother to a lump sum
of "about a thousand dollars"? A living meant
an income sufficient for support from year to year,
and to draw such an income, however meagre, one
must have more than a thousand dollars invested.
. . . And, that aside, what were the reasons
why Cynthia, bred to the ways of life abroad,
almost wholly ignorant of her own country, had
preferred not to continue living abroad, or trying
to? . . .
He made sure that he would never know these
things. It was a most unlikely chance that the em-
ployment Rhode contemplated offering the girl would
throw them together. By his own acceptance of the
Red Man's cautiously-worded proposition he stood
committed to an enterprise of whose nature he knew
little, save that it was probably hazardous and pos-
sibly lawless and most unquestionably no business
for a woman.


46 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
At about this stage Crittenden's profitless train
of conjecture was diverted and abrupted by Mr.
Rhode, in whose person premonitory symptoms of
speech, like seismic tremors, were beginning to be
noticeable.
He shifted suddenly in his chair and sat back,
glancing from one to the other of his companions.
He grunted subterraneously and cleared his throat
in a most candid and public-spirited manner. Then
he slipped the Cynthia memoranda into one breast
pocket and from the other brought forth a second
considerable handful of letters and papers, mostly
more or less shopworn, assorting which he selected
one: a yellow telegram form wearing every indica-
tion of freshness.
Opening this out he read it through with profound
deliberation, then handed it to Cynthia.
"I guess," said he, " you can fill that bill all right,
all right — goin' by what you tell me. Huh?"
Cynthia spread the form out upon the cloth, afraid
to trust her hands to hold it, lest by their trembling
they should betray her agitation. She was all
a-quake with rapturous hope — to have been
weighed and not found wanting! To her good
faith and judgment, it seemed, was left the decision
whether or not she should accept the position now
being offered her by this wonderful red wizard, the
Inventor of Occupations.
For a moment or two the lines of typewritten
words, blurred and befogged with purple by the
copy-press, melted all and merged together inco-
herently beneath her eager eyes. But gradually she


THE MAN WITHOUT A SMILE 47
was able to force herself to recognise and compre-
hend them.
Addressed to Rhode at his downtown office — the
address given on his card — and with the date of
that same day affixed, the body of the communica-
tion ran something in this fashion:
"Herald tuesday help wanted ads companion desired by
elderly lady must be young educated refined able to discharge
light secretarial duties play good hand at bridge married or
single no objection ocean travel good remuneration no agents
old maids or parties with pet dogs apply tues a m desk hotel
monolith ask for Mme A B S row today Biddle fired old
woman on warpath get busy and dont let this get past you
"Cyd."
Cynthia read and re-read with a puzzled frown,
then showed bewildered eyes to Rhode.
"Well? " he asked. "How does it strike you?"
She hesitated. "Perhaps I don't quite under-
stand. ... I don't like to seem stupid. ... Or
does this simply mean, that somebody you know in-
tends to advertise for a companion to-morrow morn-
ing, in the Herald, and you think I could fill the
position?"
"You 'll do," said Rhode, applauding Cynthia's
insight in the cryptic tongue he habitually employed.
"You really think so? " she asked anxiously.
Crittenden enjoyed his smile alone, unheeded.
"You've doped it out right," Rhode asserted vig-
orously. "Now this Madum A. B. S. is a party by
the name of Savaran, widow of a side-partner of
mine that died recent'. She's got money to burn —


48 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
but when it comes to that kind of a Glorious Fourth
she's strong for the safe-and-sane thing."
This statement was made in a moderately
aggrieved tone. Crittenden laughed spontaneously.
But Cynthia seemed only the more perplexed, and
in the face of Rhode's resentful glare he subsided
and permitted the other to continue.
"As I was sayin', this Biddle party that was on
the companion-job didn't make a hit, so she got the
hook, Madum Savaran preferrin' young folks —
lively — same's yourself. This Biddle tried too
hard to live up to her name: besides, she called
herself a spinster. That 'll give you a line on what
to side-step. What the old lady is out for, is first
her own way and second a good time."
He shifted his cigar, contemplative. "Now what
you want to do," he continued, " is to get up with the
chickens and be ready at the gate while the rest of
the field's warmin' up. There 'll be more 'n a mil-
lion dames mobbin' the desk-clerk at the Monolith
by nine o'clock. You gotta be there by eight or there
won't be no party. Of course, it's a gamble, but
if Savaran don't fall for you the first pike I've got
the wrong ticket."
Here Crittenden interrupted out of sheer com-
passion for the girl, whose mystification was plainly
becoming more and more acute as her untrained ear
was subjected to fresh assaults of the New York
argot of the moment.
"Just a minute, Mr. Rhode," he said with a
laugh; " Miss Grayce has n't been in this country long
enough to be wise to — ah — the line of talk you 're


THE MAN WITHOUT A SMILE 49
unwinding. If you don't mind my translating," he
pursued, addressing Cynthia, "Mr. Rhode means
you to understand that Madame Savaran is well-to-
do but careful of her money. I assume you gathered
he advised you to call at the Monolith Hotel no later
than eight, in order to forestall all other applicants.
His last remark was intended to convey his belief
that, while it's all a chance, if you succeed in seeing
the lady she's sure to like you."
Rhode endured this effort at interpretation with
a bored and pained air. "That's what I meant,"
he admitted ungraciously, " but I don't see how your
way of handin' it out has got anything on mine.
However . . ."
He consulted Cynthia's face with the manner of
intense anxiety peculiar to him.
"I understand perfectly," she said with gratitude,
"and I don't know how to thank you. Of course, I
shall tell Madame Savaran —"
"No!" Rhode broke in, almost in panic.
"Nothin' like that. You 'll queer everythin' if you
as much's mention my name. She don't like me so's
you'd notice it, and if she suspected I'd put you
wise to this, it would be exit runnin' for yours. You
just want to have a copy of the Herald with you and
say nothin' at all about me; she 'll naturally take it
you piped the ad. in the usual way, and so you 'll
get in right. . . . You see," he amended hurriedly,
before the girl could object, "Savaran and me was
good friends, but he could n't get on with the old
lady, nor she with him; they hadn't lived together
for twenty years when he cashed in, but all the same


5o CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
he was strong for her, and I promised him I'd keep
an eye on hier and — well, see she did n't get bun-
coed. Now there's a party I'm on to, what they'd
call a designin' female in a play, laying for the
Madum, wanting to get next to her bank roll. I'm
workin' against that, and so I'm puttin' this chance
up to you. All you've got to do is to be on the
square with the old lady and forget you ever met
me, and you 'll be doing us all a favour — me and
her and yourself. Believe me, this is a swell open-
ing for you, and you don't want to let it get by you."
He paused with the attitude of one to whom altru-
ism is second nature: a pose that, in Crittenden's
understanding, assorted oddly with his laboured and
quasi fictitious explanation. What little the young
man's perspicacity told him of the character of the
Red Man was not calculated to inspire him with
belief in the unselfishness of his plans and motives;
and he believed that something lay beneath this,
something odd and, for the present, at least, to
remain insolvable.
But Cynthia had no such doubts to disturb her.
Excitement and the stimulus of new-born hope ren-
dered her insensible to questions she might other-
wise have raised. For that matter, her experience
of life had not been such as to infuse her with proper
and normal mistrust of all men without exception.
Certain types she knew well enough to distrust on
principle; but these, her present companions, were
of no order familiar to her exotic observation —
save that Crittenden seemed a gentleman like fine
silver, hall-marked with the stamp of sincerity.


THE MAN WITHOUT A SMILE 51
"I think," she said to Rhode with sweet serious-
ness, "that you are very good and kind."
"You 'll try it on, then?"
For the briefest instant she hesitated, with pre-
cisely what reason she could hardly have said. An
instinct moved her to guide herself by Crittenden's
advice; she had no one else to ask for counsel; and
yet she did not know him well enough. . . .
But he took advantage of her pause to interpose
of his own notion. "If you don't mind," he said to
Cynthia, " I 'll venture to urge you to accept — that
is, to do all you can to secure this employment. Mr.
Rhode asks nothing of you," he continued slowly
and distinctly, "in return for his suggestion, other
than that you give loyal service to the widow of his
late friend. If I were you I'd at least see her, the
first thing to-morrow."
"Thank you," Cynthia answered; and to them
both, brightening distractingly, she announced: "I
will."
"That's sensible!" grunted Rhode, pushing back
his chair with an abrupt and hasty movement.
"Lucky I run into you two down here. But I don't
see nothin' of the party I was Iookin' to find, and I
gotta hustle back to town. And if you 're going my
way, I 'll be pleased to have you come with me in
my car. There's all the room in the world in it."


IV
WHITE MOTH
Crittenden offered no objection when Cynthia
consulted his wishes with a shyly formal glance
which for some reason pleased him uncommonly.
She herself seemed ready enough to fall in with the
Red Man's offer, and since they had missed the last
boat for New York a motor ride seemed infinitely
preferable to its only alternative, the trip by trolley
or elevated, in cars crowded to the point of suffoca-
tion with the dregs of Coney Island's floating
population.
So presently this singularly assorted trio rose and
passed back through the hotel to the carriage
entrance.
Here a stalwart person not less imposingly in-
vested in livery than in the habit of authority, con-
sented to accept of Mr. Rhode a quarter of a dollar
together with the numbered ticket for his waiting
car, and went languidly away to sort out that par-
ticular vehicle from what seemed little less than half
a hundred others, all parked in a shadowy reserva-
tion to one side of the carriage-drive.
Then the Inventor of Occupations suddenly dis-
covered his cigar-magazine to be quite empty, and
after snorting immitigable disdain of the cigarette
Crittenden gravely offered, hurried off to lay in a
fresh supply of his preferred deadly black projectiles
with brilliantly illuminated stomachers.


WHITE MOTH 53
"I wanted to ask you —" Cynthia began, the
moment they were alone.
"And I wanted to tell you," Crittenden inter-
rupted. "We may not have another chance. . . .
This man Rhode I know practically nothing about;
he seems to be a rather unusual type of the chevalier
d'industrie, and I would n't advise anybody to trust
him out of hand. But Madame Savaran is quite
another proposition. I don't know her personally
but I do know a little something about her; in fact,
almost everybody in New York does; she's a —
well, an original. But she 'll probably tell you all
about herself, if you get the job, and there is n't
time now. . . . There's no reason whatever why
you should n't engage yourself to her, if you want
to — especially since you're in no way bound to
Rhode. Don't forget he has done nothing but give
you advance advice of the opportunity. Of course
— there's no question but — I — he has — ah . . ."
Crittenden's words were trailing off into hopeless
incoherence even as his voice fell to an inarticulate
mumble. Cynthia, who had been listening atten-
tively enough while idly watching the arrival of a
belated but evidently high-spirited motor party,
whose car had just then run in to the carriage land-
ing, turned to look wonderingly at her companion.
She surprised him in a state of utter consterna-
tion, stammering to a full stop. Even in the semi-
dusk of the veranda the hue of pallor replacing the
healthy colour in his dark face was noticeable, while
the eyes she had thought so kind and pleasant were
cold and staring, just as the gently humorous lines


54 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
of his mouth had hardened into a set, thin line of
lips. She thought his appearance that of one to
whom an ineradicable affront has suddenly been
offered, judging from the struggle to retain his self-
command that obviously was taking place within the
man.
Naturally she sought the source of this unpre-
saged change, and with a woman's unerring instinct
found it in another woman — one of the newly-
arriving party.
There were four of this company—two men in
dinner clothes and two women all in white. Of these
last, the first to be helped from the body of the car
was just then coming up the steps to the veranda.
Even though she were a thought too strikingly at-
tired, Cynthia thought her ravishingly beautiful —
thought so even when conscious of that first antago-
nistic and resentful pang which invariably assails a
pretty woman confronted by a rival of equal if not
superior physical attractions and more fortunate in
the possession of a wardrobe better calculated to set
off her charms.
She was what reporters are fond of calling a
golden blonde, with very regular and handsome fea-
tures and a really superb, if slightly exaggerated,
habit of carrying her head and finely proportioned
body. The languorous grace with which she moved,
Cynthia thought inimitable. She seemed to re-
semble nothing so much as a magnificent white moth
with a woman's head and shoulders; for she had
discarded her dust wrap before leaving the car, re-
vealing a costume whose trailing draperies of filmy


WHITE MOTH 55
white matched in splendour even the wonderful
scarf of lace and golden spangles falling negligently
away from her perfect shoulders. And the last-
named garment, the watcher knew at a glance, was
worth the cost of many a woman's happiness.
As she reached the level on which Cynthia and
Crittenden stood waiting, her glance embraced the
two, at first indifferently, a suggestion of lazy inso-
lence in her large and heavy-lidded eyes, then recog-
nising the man with a swift flash of surprise as
swiftly veiled. She paused the hint of an instant,
looked from Crittenden to Cynthia and back again,
and nodded coolly.
"Why, Bruce," she drawled in a soft, rich voice,
"what a surprise!"
By this time he had himself well in hand; his bow
was immediate, if distant and unaccompanied by
spoken reply. But the woman had not waited for
this acknowledgment; already she was trailing past
them, moving slowly toward the hotel entrance,
while her companions raced up the steps to overtake
her.
To the latter Cynthia gave little heed after receiv-
ing an impression that the second woman was rather
more plain and plainly dressed than the other, and
that neither of the men was particularly distinguish-
able from those types of well-groomed and well
set-up Americans to the sight of whom she had be-
come accustomed in the last few months.
One of the men, however, knew Crittenden and
threw him a greeting with a cordial wave of his
hand, en passant:


56 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"Hello, Crit! Thought you were out of town."
To this Crittenden responded, with an air as
casual and good-natured: "Good evening, Tommy."
And the entire party disappeared in the direction
of the restaurant, leaving Cynthia to try to realise
that the encounter, to her intuitions so fraught with
provoking significance, had passed off in hardly more
than a minute of real time. Already Crittenden,
quite the same cool and collected, friendly-mannered
young man of that afternoon and evening, was say-
ing in accents of amused detachment: " Fancy people
who live in New York being surprised to meet one
another at Coney Island!" And already the Red
Man was rolling heavily back to them in the wake
of one of his huge cigars; while, the other car
having drawn aside, the important and bedizened
flunky was ushering in Rhode's car and with much
pomp and circumstance making ready to open its
door.
In so far as she analysed the situation at all, Cyn-
thia laid at the door of regret, that their pleasant
companionship should have been thus clouded, the
blame, for the discomfort of which she was sensible.
She was unsophisticated enough to aim close to truth
the shafts of her mental inquiry into the incident:
to guess that there had been love between that moth-
woman and Crittenden, where there was love no
longer, but only pain and vain regret — for him, at
least.
Whether or not because of the discord sounded by
this untoward meeting in the harmony of their asso-
ciation, they were a silent company on the homeward


WHITE MOTH 57
way. The Inventor of Occupations, not a man to
dim his lustre in the comparative obscurity of a ton-
neau, elected to ride beside the driver, into whose
defenseless ear he poured tobacco smoke and a
stream of conversation in about equal proportions
throughout the ride. What he said was, however,
couched in his favourite rumble, merging with the
purring of the motor, indistinguishable to the two
behind. Crittenden, after one or two abortive at-
tempts to be amusing, lapsed into thoughtful silence;
and Cynthia was quite too tired to talk. Besides,
she was content with her thoughts; they occupied
her not unhappily, once she succeeded in laying the
memory of the white moth-woman. Her bent was
toward optimism: she saw a sanguine promise in
the morrow, not in the least doubting that she would
secure employment as companion to this Madame
Savaran or that, having it, she would find it con-
genial. Her future seemed quite serene and settled
to Cynthia: she was young enough for that.
Air pungent with the odour of marshes, salty-
sweet, gave way to air hot with the smell of earth
and man; the gentle darkness of meadows and
country roads to the illumination of city streets. The
hour was late, late enough for the thoroughfares to
be moderately clear of traffic o'ther than cars like
their own, most of which were bound in the same
direction. They climbed a long ascent between rows
of trees, swung into a broad, smoothly paved avenue,
and shot without a break down and down its lengthy
decline to the water. Then the air grew thicker and
more foul, only thinning for a little time as they


58 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
drove at a steady, lawful pace over a narrow road-
way suspended in mid-air by a multitude of tiny
threads shining like wrought silver in the light of
electric arcs — the East River flowing black and
broad and far beneath. And then again, miles
upon miles of choking streets. . . .
Drowsily conscious of this all, as through a mist
of dreams, Cynthia roused only when the machine
drew up before her lodgings.
Crittenden got out and turned to help her to
alight. Rhode rose and turned, proffering a great
moist paw over the back of the seat. As her own
hand was smothered in its fervid grasp it encoun-
tered a slip of cardboard.
"M' card," explained Rhode. "If you don't cop
out that job t'morrow mornin', le' me know about it
soon's you can. G'dnight. Hope you enjoyed the
ride."
"It was delightful," she told him prettily.
"You've been very kind — you have both been
very kind. I can't thank either of you enough."
"Don't mention it," said the Inventor of Occu-
pations, and sat down again.
Her fingers rested an instant in Crittenden's palm
as she descended to the sidewalk. He moved a pace
or two with her toward the brownstone stoop.
"If possible —and if I may," he said —"I'll
lunch at Suzanne's to-morrow. Shall you be there?"
"I 'll try," she said a bit doubtfully.
"I'm anxious to know about Madame Savaran,"
he pursued. "You won't mind —?"
"Indeed," she said, disturbed by something in his


WHITE MOTH 59
attitude, "I shall be glad. . . . And — O, thank
you, thank you, Mr. Crittenden!"
His smile was curious, as revealed by the half-
lights of the street: a smile somehow wistfully
whimsical.
"It's you who were kind," he insisted quietly,
"to take pity on my loneliness. . . . Good-night,
Miss Grayce."


V
ASHES
As the driver skilfully swung the motor-car into
Broadway, Rhode twisted and leaned back over his
seat, to address Crittenden, who now occupied the
tonneau in lonely state.
"You in any rush to get home?"
"No," said Crittenden pleasantly.
Rhode stared sombrely at an open trolley-car they
were passing. Then he nodded abruptly, ejecting
a huge cloud of stifling smoke. "A' right," said he.
A few minutes later the car slackened speed and
swept to a standstill by the curb, a block or two
north of Thirty-fourth street.
As Crittenden stepped out he was aware that
Rhode, on the sidewalk by the driver's seat, was
thumbing over an impressive bundle of bills. Pres-
ently discovering one of the right denomination, he
stripped it off and presented it to the chaffeur.
"That's right, huh? " he inquired.
The driver inspected the legal tender narrowly,
approved it and stuffed it in his pocket with a curt
nod. "Right," he said, "g'dnight."
Rhode turned away. "Come on over to the
Marlborough and have a drink,"*he said, embar-
rassed. "I got somethin' I wanta say to you."
Crittenden assented amiably, quietly amused.
"Anyway," volunteered the Red Man, abruptly


ASHES
61
defensive, in the act of pushing wide the swinging
doors — " Anyway, it was my car so long's I paid
for it, huh? That's all anybody can do — pay for
a thing."
"Surely," agreed Crittenden without prejudice.
But the thought seemed to rankle in his com-
panion's bosom. Sometime after they had found
seats at a table, he broke a spell of taciturnity with
the observation:
"A man that buys one of them cars and pays for
its keep's a fool, when he's got as little use for it's
I have."
"True," said Crittenden. Intensely diverted, he
watched Rhode toss up his glass and, with far more
evidence of enjoyment than he ordinarily betrayed,
inject into his system a full-grown drink of red
whiskey.
"You said you had something you wished to talk
to me about."
"Yeh." Rhode pushed aside his empty glass and
frankly wiped his lips on the back of his hand.
"Hrrrhm! " he said resoundingly. "That girl," he
demanded — " what d' you know about her?"
"Just as much as she told you — not a thing
more."
Rhode concentrated a hard blue stare on the
young man's face. "Funny," he averred. "You
would n't take her for the kind you could pick up
without a knock-down."
"I should n't advise anybody to attempt it," said
Crittenden dryly. He considered a moment, then
briefly narrated the circumstances under which he


62 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
had made Cynthia's acquaintance. "Is there any-
thing else you need to know? " he concluded.
The Inventor of Occupations shook his head mo-
rosely. "No," he rumbled; "I had a hunch it hap-
pened like that, but I wanted to be sure. A fellow
in my line's gotta be careful who he takes up with."
"But are you?" Crittenden's surprise was
patent.
"Careful? You bet I ami" said Rhode with an
emphasis that drew the eyes of the room.
"I would n't think so."
"You wouldn't, huh? I guess you've got an
idea I go stumbling around with my eyes shut, just
because I happened to speak to you without a letter
of introduction?"
"What would you think, if you were I?"
"I'd think hard, that's what I'd think. I ain't
in business for my health; I gotta know everythin'
about the people I do business with. Take yourself:
I spotted you two weeks ago, but I knew all about
you before I as much as looked cross-eyed at you."
"Indeed? " said Crittenden civilly.
"Yes, indeed, I did. I got a line on you that
showed me just what kinda fellow you was."
"And your sources of information?"
"Well, that waiter Jean told me your name. The
rest was easy, considerin' what you've been in this
town. A man don't hit Broadway as hard as you
did a coupla years ago without leaving his mark
on it."
"Now you are interesting," said Crittenden.
*' May I ask just what you learned about me?"


ASHES 63
"Sure. Here . . ." Rhode delved into one of
his pockets and brought out its store of folded docu-
ments, running through which rapidly he selected an
envelope densely darkened with his singularly fine
handwriting. "How's this, now?" He began to
read: "Born, Baltimore, Eighteen-eighty-three.
Educated U. of P. Came to N' York Nineteen-one.
First job, clerk in law-office — Higginbotham &
Hunt, Wall Street. Nineteen-five, on your own,
writing stories and books. Nineteen-eight wrote a
show called Bridge — made a pot of money. Next
year, another show, called Faustine. That fell
down. Since then you have n't been doing anything."
Rhode paused, met Crittenden's glance, and
looked hastily away.
"Go on," said Crittenden in a level tone.
"That's all."
"That's not all you have written down there."
"No . . ." Rhode admitted reluctantly. He
looked down at the envelope in his hand, then with
a quick movement of his strong fingers tore it across,
placed the halves together and tore it again and
again. "The rest of it's none of my business," he
growled surlily as the cloud of scraps drifted from
his hand to the floor.
For several moments neither spoke. The Red
Man employed the time with the trimming and
lighting of a fresh cigar. Crittenden sat staring at
his glass; then slowly his face regained his normal
colouring and his eyes their calm.
"And on the strength of that," he said, "you feel
justified in offering me a job." ,


64 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"Sure," assented the other, visibly relieved.
"Just what kind of a job, precisely?"
"Well ... we gotta have a purser —"
"On the Cynthia, late Cydonia? That's a posi-
tion of some responsibility, is n't it?"
"Yeh," admitted Rhode, faintly abstracted.
"And you have that much confidence in me?"
"I ain't worryin' about you. You 're all right."
"Then suppose you go a step farther and tell me
what this is all about?"
But the red head was shaken in slow but firm ne-
gation. "I told you this afternoon," said Mr.
Rhode sadly, "you 'll be told everything good for
you to know, once we get clear of New York."
Realising he would have to be content with this,
Crittenden refrained from pressing the inquiry. But
after a moment coloured by the Red Man's air of
gentle melancholy, he saw fit to inquire:
"And Madame Savaran?"
Rhode started. "Huh?" he demanded in
confusion.
"What's your interest in Madame Savaran?"
"Oh, you don't gotta worry about her" Rhode
evaded.
"I think she can take care of herself, if there's
anything in rumour—"
"She can do that, all right, all right."
"I'm thinking about Miss Grayce."
"That's all right; she won't get hurt."
"But why do you want her, rather than anybody
who might chance to see that advertisement, to get
the situation?"


ASHES 65
"Well . . ." The Inventor of Occupations
studied the ash of his cigar thoughtfully. "I got a
hunch that girl's straight," said he, slowly.
"I think you 'll find she's too straight to be your
cat's-paw."
Rhode subjected the cigar to a still more keen
inspection. Then, moving back his chair, "That's
just what I'm countin' on," he said inscrutably.
"Come on; we gotta be movin'. They're shut-
tin' up."
It was so; the front doors had been closed and
the shades drawn. Now the bartenders were busy
clearing up, and the lights were being lowered.
Baffled and wondering, Crittenden followed the
adventurer through the side door to the hotel lobby
and then on out to the street, where they paused.
"Goin' downtown, I suppose?" said Rhode.
"Well, g'dnight. Remember, if anythin' turns up
to change our plans, I 'll call you up or wire you.
Otherwise, you come aboard by nine, if not before.'*'
"Very well," said Crittenden shortly. "Good-
night."
He walked slowly down Broadway, suddenly
aware he was acutely tired. Of him no less than of
the city's millions the heat of the day had taken its
toll of stamina. He would be glad to reach his room
and bed.
On the corner of Thirty-fifth street he paused an
instant, his eyes instinctively seeking one of the huge
painted signboards raised above the roofs of a row
of buildings on the south side of Thirty-fourth, at
the corner of Sixth Avenue. Only that morning he


66 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
had noticed painters at work, blocking out a new
design: it was finished now, glaring in its coat of
gaudy colours beneath a row of electric lights.
"' Opening Tuesday, September fifth,' " he read
aloud: "' Princesse Theatre — Letty Noon in
Witchcraft — comedy by Tynan Dodd.'"
He lifted his shoulders, smiled oddly and moved
on, lips framing noiselessly unspoken thoughts. If
he had until that moment entertained any lingering
doubt as to whether he would in the last analysis
close with the proposition put before him by Rhode,
it was now altogether swept away and as if it had
never existed.
Borne northwards from the bay, on the wings of
a vagrant breeze, a welcome breath of coolness came
stealing through the thermal channels of steel and
stone: like a sigh of the city turning in the oppres-
sion of its sleep. Otherwise the quiet seemed un-
usual, even for that late hour; so much so that the
ordinary, never-ending traffic in the street, of trolley-
cars and skulking nighthawk hansoms and flitting
bat-like taxicabs, forced itself upon the notice that at
another time had accepted all as commonplace.
He turned into Twenty-fourth street just as the
great clock in the Metropolitan tower across the
Park was telling the hour of half-past one. The
sonorous echo, dying, left a hush disturbed only by
the footsteps of a solitary pedestrian: but for Crit-
tenden the block was silent and deserted — save that
a somnolent taxicab stood before a door two or three
removes from his own lodgings.
Midway between Broadway and Sixth Avenue, as-


ASHES 67
cending iron steps to an iron stoop, he let himself
into a dark hallway, then groped his way, through
gloom made sensible by a single light turned low
upon the second landing, up three flights to the top-
most floor, where, in the back of the house, he came
to his door.
It stood ajar — presumably he had neglected to
lock it that morning. With a slight exclamation of
annoyance he pushed it open, entered, and closed it
behind him. Then, confused, he paused for a long
moment, half inclined to believe that through some
strange aberration he had found his way into the
wrong room, perhaps into the wrong house.
There was a scent in the air, a perfume as deli-
cate as the ghost of a dead caress, yet potent to dis-
sipate that familiar atmosphere and to evoke in its
stead a dream of yesterday so sad and poignant with
memories that his breath caught in his throat and he
gasped as if stifling.
Troubled, perplexed, he peered about him.
Through the wide north-light overhead a dull glow
stole, a wraith of twilight, barely tempering the
shadows. The dimensions of the room spread round
him, indistinctly as intimate as the palm of his hand,
yet as strange and unreal as a vision in illness.
He forced composure upon himself with an effort
of will. He must not permit imagination so to trick
him. What he fancied was madness, bred of that
shock of meeting and recognition. . . . He drew
a deep breath, strode hastily to a wall-bracket, struck
a match and lit the gas.
Then, when he turned to review his surroundings,


68 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
out of their sombrous obscurity, warmed to life and
colour by the flaring jet, leaped the incarnate sub-
stance of his apprehensions. In the deeper gloom
of the room beyond the skylight, a woman was wait-
ing, disposed at indolent, graceful ease on an old
settee, filmy, white draperies drooping round her
like the weary wings of a resting moth: an elbow
on the arm of the settee, chin cradled in the hollow
of her palm, her face turned to him, eyes in the
shadow of her hair of gold seeking his face with a
look wide, pensive, and inscrutable.
A gust of anger shook him like a wind. He took
a step toward her with an unconscious gesture of in-
credulity, as if he would exorcise an hallucination,
then halted and dropped his hand and stood staring
at her.
"Letty," he said in a voice so low that it was
almost a whisper — " Letty!"
Slowly the moth-woman inclined her head, then
again moveless watched him with a regard unwaver-
ingly intent and curious.
"What do you want?" he asked unsteadily.
"To see you, Bruce." Her tone was calm, even,
and bell-clear.
He tried to control his own. "How did you get
in here?"
She raised the arm that had lain in her lap, and
the gas light struck a myriad dazzling rays of iri-
descence from her gem-incrusted wrist and the fingers
that offered him a key.
"I happened to remember having this," she said
slowly, "and thought I'd drop round and see if


ASHES 69
you had changed the lock. I could n't find matches
— so waited in the dark. You 're late."
A note of biting raillery blended with the silken
richness of her tones. He felt it, resented it, lost
grip of himself for an instant. In another stride
he stood over her, snatched the key from her unre-
sisting grasp and tossed it away, through a nearby
window.
"You've forfeited your right to that . . ." he
said, trembling.
The woman smiled provokingly. "You have n't
forgotten how to be melodramatic, have you,
Bruce?"
"You taught me," he said sullenly. "You made
a fool of me from the first."
"Are you sure?" she asked with a quiet laugh.
"Are you sure, Bruce? I've always wondered!"
The distilled malice of her words and manner
sobered him suddenly. His face hardened even as
the eyes that stared openly into her own until her
smile faded and a slow, hot colour burned in her
cheeks and temples.
"No," he said quietly; "you 're right, Letty. I
have given you too much credit. You simply im-
proved in your own way the raw material I furnished
you."
"Meaning, I presume, you were a fool to marry
me, Bruce?"
"That's my meaning." His jaws snapped on the
words.
"Then . . . why did you?"
"Because you ...!" Crittenden broke off,


70 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
aware that he was raising his voice. Without finish-
ing, he turned, crossed the room and dropped heavily
into a chair.
"Well, Bruce?" the woman goaded him.
"Well, because I—?"
"Because I thought I loved you," he replied in
a more guarded tone.
"And you didn't, really?"
"God knows I did!"
"I didn't value you highly enough, you think?"
"No; I wouldn't say that: you valued me ex-
actly— to the last dollar, Letty."
With a swift and graceful movement the woman
sat up, signals of danger in her eyes; but Critten-
den was not even looking at her. His elbows on
his knees, his hands clasped low, he sat with ab-
stracted gaze directed toward the floor.
"You played the game by the rules you knew,"
he continued bitterly. "You found me pretty well
fixed and well thought-of; it seems only yesterday
they were calling me the coming man, along Broad-
way. You thought so, too, else you would n't have
consented to marry me; you had your eye on royal-
ties — and a play to exploit yourself in. You got
the former, every damned cent, and you got the
latter — only that failed. And because it failed you
rid yourself of me, just as you'd have sent back a
gown you'd ordered and then thought shabby. You
cast me off like an old glove and — went to the
arms of a man with money. There's only one
thing that saved you . . ."
"From what, Bruce? Did you really think of


ASHES 71
killing me? How dramatic 1" Letty bent forward,
watching him closely with eyes alight. "I think that
would have made me love you a little, Bruce — if
you'd shown that much spirit. Why did n't you try
it, anyhow — throw the bluff, at least?"
"Because I've got a decent name, for one thing,"
he told her coolly; "even you couldn't destroy my
pride in that. And then the man you went to —
poor Tommy 1 — was my friend."
"But either of those reasons was enough,
Bruce —"
"You forget," he interrupted quietly; "Tommy
knew nothing of our relations — any more than the
world did. You provided for that when you insisted
that our marriage be kept a secret — it was I who
insisted on marriage, you know, Letty — because
you could n't live without the footlights, and if man-
agers knew you were married it would work against
their interest in you. You made that stipulation,
and because I loved and had faith in you and wanted
to please you, I consented—like the fool you thought
me, doubtless."
"Well, yes," she admitted lightly.
"And so," Crittenden pursued without heeding
the interpolation, "it was kept secret — no one
knew. Some guessed, of course; but not Tommy,
and not my family. If I'd lost my head, I'd have
broken Tommy's heart — for he'd sooner have cut
off his hand than play double with me; and then
I'd have had the name of Crittenden shrieking at
the world from every newspaper headline — coupled
with the name of a —"


72 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"Don't say it!" Letty Noon interrupted sharply,
rising. "I did n't come here to have you —"
"Oh, yes, I know," he said wearily. "You
need n't remind me you can tear a passion to tatters
in private as well as in public. I've seen you do it
often enough. Is that what you hunted me up for —
to raise a row and rant and rage? What's the
matter? Is Tommy already beginning to be bored
by your temper? Or is n't the stage of the Princesse
big enough for your rehearsals?"
The woman had moved over to him, cheeks and
eyes hot with anger. Now, however, after a mo-
ment-long downward look of contemplation, she
compressed her lips, laughed briefly, and turned
away.
"That was clever of you," she said in a cutting
voice. "You 're improving, Bruce. Why don't you
get back into harness?"
He made no answer other than a gesture by which,
unwittingly, he pictured the emptiness of effort, for
him.
Soft, lustrous draperies trailing, the woman
strolled languidly to the window, looking out, then
since he threatened to permit the scene to fall flat,
turned impatiently back.
"You ought to be in good form, after so long a
rest," she said. "Why not dramatise this harrow-
ing story you've been telling me? I'm sure it would
make a hit."
He looked up, his glance keen and speculative.
"I wonder that that did n't warn me what you
were," he said.



"If you want to marry that pretty young woman I saw
this evening—you'll have to do the divorcing
yourself, Bruce"





ASHES 73
She paused beside him, and asked sharply:
"What do you mean?"
"That streak of coarseness in you," he said ear-
nestly, absorbed in an analysis that interested him
so thoroughly for the moment that his attitude
toward its subject was wholly impersonal. "I used
to notice it —it jarred; and wondered about it,
wondered how you could be two women at once:
the one I loved, the actress with intelligence enough
to ape the woman of delicate sentiment and sensi-
tiveness, and the other woman, crude enough to sug-
gest things such as you said just now — even in
anger. That should have shown me what you were
at heart — but, Lord! I was infatuated, blind!"
"Well," she said harshly, "you've got your eyes
open now, have n't you?"
He nodded listlessly. "What do you want? " he
asked after a span of silence, while the woman con-
tinued to move quietly to and fro, her eyes apprais-
ing the changes that had come to pass in the room
since last she had seen it. "I presume you 're after
something —?"
"Just now," she returned lightly, "I'm after
a cigarette."
"I think you 'll find some over there on the
table."
She swung away to the farther side of the room
and for a moment stood with her back to him.
Then she struck a match, touched it to the cigarette
between her full, crimson lips, and returned, puffing.
"Caporal," she said abruptly. "That's pretty
poor stuff for you to smoke, Bruce." She threw


74 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
the cigarette away with a little moue of disgust.
"What's become of your desk?"
"Sold," he said.
"And the rest of the things — your rugs?"
"Sold," he iterated in the same uninterested voice.
"Hmtn . . ." She began to move back and
forth again, restlessly. "There's a paper on your
door — did you see it?"
"This morning," he said: "my landlord's gentle
way of suggesting he'd prefer my room to my
tenancy."
"Dispossess notice — what?"
"Yes."
"And all because of me!" She laughed affect-
edly. "How romantic, how touching! He's going
to the bow-wows because of a woman! Or are
you?" She paused, swaying, before him. "Are
you going to the dogs on my account, Bruce?"
He shook his head. "No," he returned; "I
daresay I might have, if I'd had a taste for drink.
That would have killed thought. As it was, my
mind remained clear enough for me to think, to
understand a little just how worthless a thing you
were. You are n't worth a man's damnation,
Letty."
"But," she argued, puzzled, "you are going
down-hill, you know. You've let go — people are
forgetting you."
"I'm working out my cure in my own way," he
said. "If I'd been making money all this time,
there might have been the temptation . . ."
"To try to buy me back, Bruce?"


ASHES 75
He said nothing. She considered briefly, then
came and stood near to him.
"What," she purred gently — "what if I had
come to tell you I'd found out my mistake, Bruce?"
Startled, he lifted his head, his glance meeting
her eyes in mute inquiry. She smiled slowly down
upon him.
"What," she went on in her silken accents, "if I
wanted you to take me back?"
His eyes clouded and turned blank. "Good
Lord!" he exclaimed in utter disgust; and rising,
moved away.
Presently, from the open window, where he stood
with an elbow against the frame, his gaze wandering
blindly through the gulf of darkness that yawned
below, he resumed: "No; I'm not down. Only
I've had my taste of hell, this past year. It took
time to get over that, and regain my belief in right
and decency and the worth of work. I'm not
wholly sound, even yet, but it's coming. It won't
take forever. I 'll come back."
"There's a woman in this," said his wife from
the room behind him.
"No ..."
"There sure' is," she insisted. "I guess I know
men well enough . . . Who is she? That kid you
were with tonight? She's good looking; I always
said it would take a good-looking woman to make
you forget me."
"You 're mistaken," he said quietly. "And it's
getting late and I want sleep. Can't you come to
the point and go?"


76 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"Who was she?" queried the actress, ignoring
his attitude. "I'm curious."
"No one you'd know — or understand," he said
impatiently.
"Well, then, the man with you: who was he?"
"Calls himself Rhode, if that 'll satisfy you."
Crittenden lounged away from the window, irritated.
"Is that all?"
Delicately, shielding her mouth with a dainty,
jewelled hand, Letty yawned. "It is late," she
conceded. "I'm getting tired, too — you 're mak-
ing me tired, if you must know, Bruce." She
flashed a dazzling, mocking smile at him. "Don't
you care?"
In the depths of his impatience and contempt, he
was dumb.
"Dear me, is it really as bad as that? Have you
actually grown so cold to me, Bruce? Have you
nothing to say to me? Not a word, not a sign
of encouragement to offer the erring spouse?
Think —"
"What did you come here for?" he demanded
in exasperation.
"Simply to see you, Bruce. That glimpse I had
of you — well, it startled me. I couldn't forget it.
You've no idea how seedy you look. I could n't
rest for thinking about you, after I'd got home.
Remorse —"
"Damn your emotions!" he cried. "If you
were n't dead to every decent one, you'd end this
and get out."
Again she yawned fastidiously. "How rude!"


ASHES 77
she jeered. "How awfully rudel You have
changed, Bruce. . . . Very well." She gathered up
her wrap and turned toward the door. "You 'll be
sorry some day. See if you are n't. I'm going to
be sorry right away: I daresay I 'll have the deuce
of a taxi bill to pay, all for the pleasure of this
interview."
"Letty —" he said, as her fingers closed round
the door-knob.
She looked inquiringly over her shoulder. "Well,
my dear?"
He crossed the room to her. "Letty," he said
gravely, "tell me one thing. . . . You 're going to
divorce me, of course?"
"I?" She simulated surprise admirably, then
thoughtful consideration, to end which she shook her
head gravely. "No; I really hadn't thought about
it, Bruce. But it is white of you to give me the
chance."
He paled slightly. "You have legal grounds, if
you wish to use them — non-support, you know. I
shant enter a defense; of course you understand
that. It can be arranged."
Letty allowed herself still another histrionic pause
for deliberation. Then, " No," she repeated. "I'm
not anxious; married life suits me — this sort. It's
quite convenient to have a tame husband to fall back
upon in case of emergency, really."
His face burned crimson; in wrists and temples
his pulses throbbed. She pretended not to notice.
"If you want to marry that pretty woman I saw
this evening — you 'll have to do the divorcing your-


7 8 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
self, Bruce. That way I 'll even things up a bit, out
of revenge for your rudeness. Good-night."
She turned calmly, opened the door and passed
out.
His temper had passed the stage of resentment.
He was conscious only of the sickness of self-con-
tempt as he stood watching the moth-shape disappear
over the edge of the landing, and heard the slow,
steady tapping of his wife's heels on the lower steps
and landings.
Then the front door closed with an echoing bang.
Later, while still he remained in the doorway,
chained in thought, he heard from the street the
staccato rattle of a taxicab motor, a whine, a deep-
ening hum, the squawk of a horn; then silence.
He shut the door and dropped into a chair, cover-
ing his face with both hands.
For nearly an hour he continued in that position,
without stirring. Then with an effort he roused,
pulled himself together, glanced at his watch, and
rising, took off his coat.
In unconscious obedience to the promptings of
his habit, he moved thoughtlessly over to the table
and took up the packet of cigarettes from the spot
where his wife had dropped it. The wrapper round
it was loose and came away in his hand. Incuriously
he looked down to find he held a bit of yellow-
backed paper, crisp and clean from the engravers'
press.
Thunderstruck, he smoothed the Treasury note
out between his fingers. Its value was that of one
hundred dollars.


ASHES 79
Then slowly his face darkened with a suffusion of
blood, and for a time he stood trembling in every
limb with the sense of outrage.
Suddenly seating himself by the table, he drew
pen and paper to him, and wrote:
"My dear Letty, — I return, enclosed herewith, the
$100 you left on my work-table.
"Even were I positive the money was yours — or a rem-
nant of my own — I should not keep it. You, of course,
knew that. Even in your world, there are conventions which
the majority observes for the preservation of its self-respect.
One of them is that in affairs such as ours — the marital tie
being conceded nothing more than a mere form — it is always
the man who must pay.
"Bruce Crittenden."
While still his anger burned like slow-fire in all
his body, mind, and soul, he sealed and addressed
this communication, slipped on his coat, left the
house and posted the letter at a corner box.


82 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
Presently Sidonie appeared; but in the meantime
Madame Savaran had exercised her inalienable pre-
rogative of changing her mind. Not that she had
abandoned her intention of making the morning
an interesting one for Sidonie; simply that she had
employed the interim to dramatise the contemplated
explosion and had decided it would prove more
effective if temporarily withheld but ominously
presaged.
Therefore her mistress was merely cold and
sharply taciturn with Sidonie. She demanded in
icy accents her matutinal draught of hot water and
lemon-juice; she commanded her dressing-gown to
be produced forthwith in the most terrifying and
peremptory manner; she snapped for her slippers
and barked for her breakfast and ordered her paper
in phrases of sardonic humour — a form of expres-
sion in whose use she had few peers: all, oddly
enough, without losing jot or tittle of her magnifi-
cent dignity.
Let none waste sympathy on Sidonie; not only
was she inured to Madame's temper, but she deserved
more of it than she got. Her name was not right-
fully Sidonie and she was neither French nor young
nor trim nor a maid — although she performed the
office of lady's maid to admiration. She was a
Belgian woman only some ten years the junior of
Madame Savaran, she was homely of feature and
figure, she was an inveterate petty peculator, and she
would have sold every amazing secret of the morning
toilet of her employer for anything that might excite
her inordinate cupidity, however trifling. Also she


THE AMETHYST RING 83
carried tales and, when occasion offered, she
drank.
Why did Madame Savaran retain Sidonie in her
service? Sidonie was a habit, and had besides the
inestimable virtue of being imperturbably patient.
Madame Savaran could tear the English language
into strips and lash Sidonie with the cat-o'-nine-tails
so extemporised and Sidonie would not even wink.
From which it will be seen that Sidonie was indis-
pensable.
The suit of rooms Madame Savaran occupied in
the Hotel Monolith consisted of " parlour, two bed-
rooms and bath." One of the bedrooms had until
the previous day been occupied by the unhappy Miss
Biddle — the latest of a long series of indigent lady
companions whom Madame had suffered to the best
of her endurance and whom Sidonie had conspired
to oust with ultimately invariable success.
Now after Madame had had her cold bath and
Sidonie had dressed her to the breakfast-gown point
and had performed sundry, wondrous acts of skill
and daring in the arrangement of Madame's hair,
crowning the achievement with a coquettish cap of
lace and ribbons, which the wearer would have died
rather than don, had not the mode of the moment
prescribed that article for all matrons without respect
to age — after all this, Madame frigidly called for
her cane and hobbled into the so-styled parlour,
where her breakfast was served.
The cane, like the hobble, should be accounted for,
by the way: both were cherished mementos of the
aristocratic disease known as gout, from which Mad-


84 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
ame Savaran had n't suffered for so long that she
could not recall her last twinge, but the semblance
of which she would as willingly have abandoned as
she would the component parts of that miraculous
edifice Sidonie had just builded beneath her break-
fast-cap. Gout at sixty lends one an air; it is besides
a sovereign excuse for grumbling and an excellent
mask for the infirmities of advancing years.
As Madame Savaran sat at table, enjoying the
clean and sweet if slightly warm breeze that sighed
in through the window at her elbow, and likewise
enjoying iced canteloupe, she looked easily five years
younger than the hard-faced Belgian woman attend-
ing her. But then Sidonie looked older than her age
by an equivalent span — easily fifty-five. So that
the mistress would have passed for fifty at face value.
And a valuable face it was to her, with a better nat-
ural colour than many a girl of thirty could boast,
and a fine and prideful cast of feature that told
truthfully the tale of a youth of unusual beauty.
The adjective patrician, though overworked, seems
the most fitting wherewith to characterise Madame's
cast of countenance; it betokened breeding, intelli-
gence, a proper self-esteem, and a good, strong will
whose constitution had by no means been undermined
through lack of exercise. Her person was plentiful
but ductile; its abundance never brimmed over or
bulged unbecomingly. Her eyes were handsome:
blue-grey, strong and humorous, if capable of omi-
nous fire-play. In European terminology she would
doubtless have fallen under the classification of
grande dame; in the King's English, unquestionably,


THE AMETHYST RING 85.
a deuced fine woman; in every-day American, a
mighty well-preserved lady.
At sixty one does not trifle with one's digestion.
Madame's morning meal comprised simply fruit, dry
toast, and coffee. She consumed it at leisure, a news-
paper propped before her: an encroachment on the
bestial ways of man in itself betraying an advanced
state of intelligence which, had Madame been twenty
years younger, would certainly have made of her a
militant suffragist.
The meal concluded, Sidonie removed the tray,
in its place presenting the morning mail and one
long and corpulent cigarette. Though Madame Sav-
aran restricted herself to a single matutinal smoke,
she procured for the purpose the largest cigarette
she could find.
It was really astonishing how daintily she could
wield so massive a roll of paper-wrapped tobacco.
Smoking, she poked through the batch of letters,
to a running accompaniment of trenchant comment.
Their majority went to the waste-basket half read;
and with these went the picture post-cards, as to the
place of which in polite correspondence Madame
Savaran entertained profound and unpolite convic-
tions. The remainder of the mail was intrusted to
Sidonie to be placed in the leather writing-case
Madame used when travelling.
And now Madame Savaran rested and smiled a
sweetly dangerous smile, with dilated nostrils scent-
ing the imminent hour of battle.
"Sidonie," said she in deceptively dulcet tones.
But Sidonie was too old in Madame's service to


86 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
be deceived. She replied submissively, "Yes, Mad-
ame?" But she rolled up her eyes, shrugged her
shoulders, and shivered as she spoke.
"Sidonie, fetch my jewel-case."
Sidonie said a naughty word, but obeyed without
demur.
It was a commodious strong-box, that jewel-case,
whose nickel-steel construction was concealed by a
sheath of grained leather. To open it one required
both a key and a pass-word with which to cajole the
combination-lock. Its interior was arranged with
four trays of varying depths, each divided into com-
partments, and yielding only to individual keys.
Sidonie kept the keys, her mistress the combination.
But sometimes Madame Savaran neglected the latter,
being, in spite of her keen business instinct, inordi-
nately heedless and negligent.
In this instance the key alone served to release
the hinged front, which fell flat on the table, per-
mitting the trays to be removed. Madame Savaran
attended to this with her own jealous hands, and
when the four trays lay in a row before her, their
glittering, glistening hoard disclosed, she sighed a
little and then her breath came momentarily fast,
while her eyes shone greedily and her shapely, well-
cared-for hands trembled as they hovered over the
treasure.
In opening the case, Madame Savaran had un-
locked her soul. Its ruling passion lay revealed.
She adored jewelry with a devotion not even tran-
scended by her love of having her own way, but
not as ignobly as one might fancy: its intrinsic value


THE AMETHYST RING 87
was little to its owner; it was the beauty of fine
stones and cunning settings that enslaved the heart
of Madame Savaran; historical association came-
second in her esteem, money-worth last and least.
As may be imagined from this explanation, the
collection was in the main composed of curious pieces
and antiques. Its value was indisputably very great,
but by no means so staggering as they were led to
believe who heard rumours of the old lady's wealth
in gems and jewels.
Each piece had its individual niche or compart-
ment. One tray was entirely given over to rings,
another to necklaces, a third to bracelets and
brooches, the last to a heterogeneous assemblage of
strange, rare articles whose uniquity alone had been
enough to render them irresistible to the heart of
the amateur.
Deliberately, piece by piece, Madame Savaran
took up and examined the selection of rings. It
is n't too much to say that she forgot, temporarily,
her fell intent with regard to Sidonie; but presently
she came to that which reminded her thereof, to wit,
an empty place.
"Sidonie," she said blandly.
"Madame? " returned Sidonie in accents as suave.
"The amethyst ring of the Due de Guise ..."
"Doubtless Madame will recall that the setting
was loose and that she instructed me to take it to
the jeweller to repair."
But now Madame Savaran was sitting back in her
chair, watching Sidonie with catlike attention, a
smile of open derision in her eyes and on her lips.


S8 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"Positively, Sidonie, you bore me. Do, the next
time this happens, have the sense to divert me with
an original lie. To be entertained with the same old
story, Sidonie, wearies me of you. How much did
you get on it?"
"Ten dollars," replied Sidonie, placidly.
"Is that all?"
Sidonie grimaced her deprecation of the insult to
the collection.
"These pawnbrokers, Madame —! What would
you? They have no soull"
"Beast! " said Madame Savaran slowly and dis-
tinctly.
It was like the puff of wind that darkens the
surface of calm waters, forerunning the storm.
Sidonie prepared to bow her head to the wither-
ing blast. It is no good, trying to fight the
elements.
"You have the ticket, I presume?"
"It is here, Madame." Sidonie readily opened
her hand, exposing a scrap of paper.
Madame Savaran gripped her cane and leaned
forward. Forked lightnings could be no more terri-
fying than the flashes from her steel-grey eyes.
Just then the situation was saved for Sidonie by
the telephone bell.
Madame Savaran heard it ringing in the adjoin-
ing chamber, snorted viciously, and called Sidonie a
devil. "Go and see what that isl " she commanded
with violence. And when Sidonie hastily disappeared
she settled back in the black temper of a tigress
balked of her prey.


THE AMETHYST RING 89
The inevitable, however, was but temporarily de-
ferred. She would yet have it out with Sidonie.
"Well?" she demanded acidly, when Sidonie
returned.
"A young lady calling, Madame; she gave her
name as Miss Grayce. I told the office to send her
up at once."
"You did!" The mistress gathered herself to-
gether again, ready to launch the thunderbolt.
"What right —"
"Pardon, Madame, but one presumed the young
person was calling in response to Madame's adver-
tisement," explained Sidonie hastily. "Madame
was so concerned to replace the excellent Miss Biddle
without loss of time that I —"
"Be silent, you 1 " snapped Madame, hastily re-
placing the trays and shutting the jewel-case.
Accordingly Sidonie closed her thin lips. She was
on the point of treating herself to a secret smile, to
think of how she had outwitted Madame this once
when she was thrown into complete consternation
(or a condition as nearly approximating that as her
completely cold and calculating nature would permit)
to see an open and an inexplicable smile on the face
of Madame Savaran: a smile that said "Aha!"
or Sidonie's painfully acquired lore of Madame
Savaran's weather-signals counted for nothing.
It hinted at hideous things, that smile, of a res-
ervation of secret strength of awful potentialities.
Sobered by alarm and wonderment, the woman
hurried away to the door, grateful for the respite
promised by the knocking that summoned her.


9o CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
She opened, and there was Cynthia.
Heaven alone, it is believed, knows how women
manage these things. Certain it is Cynthia had had
little sleep, the previous night. Before she dared
go to bed, she had much to do to make herself
presentable in the morning: mending, cleaning,
pressing — a task of tedious difficulty when the iron
must be heated by means of a patent attachment
which subdues the solitary gas jet to a mere ghastly
blue flicker. And after that, when at length free to
lay herself down, there had been what seemed end-
less hours of half-conscious dozing, excitement — a
froth in her mind of fresh impressions and emotions
— working with care to hold back the craved loss
of consciousness.
A man who had undergone as much would have
felt and looked wretchedly seedy.
But Cynthia, faltering on the threshold there, was
as fresh and pretty as any dew-drenched rose at
dawn. Her colour was clear and glowing with
health; something with which, no doubt, her rapid
walk across- and up-town had much to do. Her
manner of composure moderated by reserve became
her wonderfully well. That incredible ingenuity
of the impoverished woman of sensibility cunningly
concealed and denied a score of lacks and faults and
incongruities in her attire. Her eyes alone may have
betrayed her, fatigue rendering them unusually dark
and big, though at the same time they were luminous
with hope and confidence inspired of the ease with
which she had gained to this presence of bountiful
promise. For while she had been, womanlike, a


THE AMETHYST RING 91
bit late getting away and had lost some time vainly
scanning the Herald columns for Madame Savaran's
advertisement, she had found none to dispute pre-
cedence with her when she applied at the hotel
desk.
In fine she was altogether charming. Madame
Savaran and her maid granted this at a glance,
though otherwise both received her appearance with
surprise, wonder, and doubt: a community of feeling
of which Sidonie, unhappily, was entirely unsus-
picious.
Cynthia's gaze, moving from the maid's face,
fixed upon that of the handsome old lady behind the
small table by the window. She inclined her head
a little diffidently.
"Madame Savaran?" asked she.
"I am Madame Savaran," said that person.
"Won't you come in?"
Cynthia entered and Sidonie shut the door.
"Come here, please — to the light," said Madame
in her most impressive manner; and when Cynthia
had complied: "You wished to see me?"
"Your advertisement in the Herald ..."
"Ah," said Madame Savaran dispassionately. In
fact, she was disappointed. She had hoped for
something different, Cynthia's appearance prepos-
sessing her.
"I wish to apply for the position." This super-
erogatory explanation Cynthia felt to be somehow
demanded by Madame's manner.
The latter performed a miracle of diplomatic
chemistry, coating seething deeps of feeling with the


92 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
thin, smooth ice of judicial calm. This operation is
understood to be known under the name of Tact.
"Sit down," said she with just enough hauteur to
render Cynthia vaguely uncomfortable, as obediently
she took the seat indicated by a motion of Madame's
graceful hand. "Your name, please?"
"Cynthia Urcilla Grayce."
"Ah!" This time the interjection was unmis-
takably pregnant with meaning: only the meaning
remained indecipherable.
With keen old eyes, Madame Savaran looked the
young woman up and down, without apology for
her rudeness; and you may be certain nothing escaped
her. Cynthia felt herself stripped of every sorry
trick of artifice to which she had resorted to cloak
her crying deficiencies. In that one, long, lingering
scrutiny she was read through and through: it
shrewdly surmised in a single cast her life to that
hour and her logical future; she no longer was
comforted by her mantle of personal privacy; every-
thing was revealed to that dreadful and relentless
old woman, and — the chiefest horror — against the
virgin innocence of her soul that deceit she had been
told to practise stood out as publicly as a blotch of
soot on a snowbound waste.
She stirred uneasily. A look of satisfaction lit
up Madame's eyes; she smiled a smile faintly sar-
donic and the tip of her tongue showed between her
strong white teeth and touched her lips. Actually,
Madame Savaran licked her lips in anticipation of
what was to come.
In the unnaturally prolonged pause, distressed,


THE AMETHYST RING 93
Cynthia even shivered. Sidonie, more wise in her
day and generation, saw that look, interpreted it,
and felt her soul shudder. Madame unquestionably
had a trump card up her sleeve, and as soon as that
was played, the game was up so far as Sidonie was
concerned.
Only a fearful incredulity held her spellbound.
It seemed incredible that her apprehensions could
have any root in fact. . . .
"What," queried Madame Savaran — " what
precisely is your understanding of your duties, should
I engage you?"
"Why," replied Cynthia faintly, "I understand
you wanted a companion and secretary, some one
who had no objection to travel —"
"Yes," Madame interrupted. "You saw all that
in the advertisement?"
Cynthia's lips sought to shape the affirmative, but
her tongue would not utter it. She had not yet
learned to lie. So she was silent.
"No," the old lady presently answered for her;
"you did not see it in the advertisement. Do you
know why, Sidonie? Because I didn't insert the
advertisement after all, you she-devil! I thought
you were a bit too interested in it, when I caught
you patching together the scraps of the first draft;
so I said nothing and simply pretended to go out to
the Herald office. Then you sold me, Sidonie.
Really, I'd have been an old fool not to expect it of
you. Don't you think so, Sidonie?"
The pallor in the maid's sallow face spoke for
her more truthfully than her stammered negative.


94 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"What a liar you are, Sidonie! " observed Mad-
ame with irony as corrosive as an acid. She turned
upon Cynthia with something less of personal hos-
tility in her manner. "Who sent you here?" she
demanded.
"I — why —" Cynthia said in crimson confusion
and shame.
"Who told you about the advertisement I had
in mind? It was that scoundrel Rhode! Wasn't
it?"
"Yes," said Cynthia of the pitiful eyes.
"You admit it? You dare tell me to my face
he sent you here to win my confidence and spy on
me and sell me to him — like Sidonie there?"
Her spirit came to Cynthia's rescue, tardily but
not too late. "That is not so," she said clearly.
"There was no such understanding. You have no
possible right to assume so much — or to talk to
me this way."
There was now a fighting light in Cynthia's eyes
and a brilliant spot on her either cheek. She made
no move to go, for she was determined this hateful
creature should know the absolute truth about her
application. In justice to herself she would tell that
story, whether the old woman chose to believe her
or not.
Madame Savaran stared in surprise to see her
sitting there, facing bravely her anger, giving
her look for look and betraying no hint of de-
sire to escape. She liked that: she liked spirit in
her sex, and had scant patience with a will that
dared not cross her own. None the less, there was


THE AMETHYST RING 95
no suggestion of her mollification in her instant
rejoinder.
"Indeed?" said she in her most caustic tone.
Just so would her grandmother have said: "Hoity-
toity!"
"Yes, indeed!" Cynthia insisted courageously.
"I came to you simply because I was poor and needed
work. From Mr. Rhode, by the merest accident,
I learned that you needed a companion. I never
knew him before yesterday, and I hardly know him
now. There was n't the least intimation that I was
to deceive you in any way; only he advised me not
to mention his name."
"I should fancy," said Madame Savaran with
edged significance. "And how, pray, did all this
come about?"
"I was dining with a friend." Cynthia told her
brief story as succinctly as she could, concerned only
to get it told and feel free to go away. "After
dinner he — Mr. Rhode — came in. He knew this
friend and so was introduced to me. He calls himself
an Inventor of Occupations — I presume you know
that?"
"I do. Go on," said Madame severely. "Sidonie,
stop making those hideous faces instandy. Stand
behind Miss Grayce — anywhere, so she does n't
see you."
Sullenly Sidonie complied.
"I was pretty desperate because I needed work;
that made me ask him if he could invent an occu-
pation for me. He said he could, and showed me
a telegram to him giving the wording of an adver-


96 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
tisement which it stated was to appear in the Herald
this morning. He told me I had a chance of getting
the position if I got here early enough. It was
distinctly understood I was in no way bound to him
for telling me about this chance."
"And why was that so distinctly understood,
please?" As yet Madame's voice had lost nothing
of its edge of sarcasm. But already her eyes were
twinkling.
"Because my friend mentioned it — indeed, in-
sisted upon it. . . . And that," added Cynthia,
rising, "is all I have to say to you, Madame
Savaran."
"But it's not all I have to say to you, young
woman. Sit down."
"I shall do nothing of the sort," replied Cynthia,
moving toward the door.
"But I have n't finished with you, girl!"
Still Cynthia did not turn back, and in this ex-
tremity, faced out, Madame had need to have re-
course to wheedling. "Miss Grayce!" she pleaded
with so complete a change of tone and manner that
Cynthia looked round in surprise, her hand on the
door-knob. "Just a minute longer, please ..."
"Not if you 're going to continue being incivil,"
stipulated Cynthia.
At this, to her, the old lady's sense of humour
was so tickled that she laughed outright. "Come
back, you droll creature!" she gasped. "I promise
to handle you with gloves, my dear. Please — to
please an old woman — just for a minute!"
Uncompromising of mien, the younger woman


THE AMETHYST RING 97
consented and came back to her chair. By the time
she was seated Madame Savaran's temper toward
her had undergone a complete volte-face. She had
a not unfriendly smile for the girl.
"My dear," said she in this new and kindly voice,
"you should have more patience with a lonely
woman of my age who is harried by cares and upset
by treachery. And you must admit you came to me
with the worst credentials imaginable."
"I know nothing about Mr. Rhode," said Cynthia,
relenting slightly. "You should know best what he is."
"I do. Now, before we have a little talk — I
believe you are truthful, my dear; those big eyes
could n't lie — tell me one thing. . . . You say you
saw this telegram?"
"Yes."
"What signature did it have? Or perhaps you
did n't notice —?"
"I remember perfectly," Cynthia asserted. Then
she spelled it out: "C-y-d."
"Ah!" commented Madame with a return to her
earlier, fighting manner. "C-y-d," she iterated; and
if looks could wither Sidonie had been shrivelled then
and there. "C-y-d or S-i-d— Sidonie!"
"Madame?" The maid's tone was frightened.
The mistress dissembled her covert joy: it was
something, it was much, at last to have brought this
creature to the fear of God. Almost Madame
Savaran could have forgiven her, in this time of tri-
umph. But not quite: there be crimes too heinous
for forgiveness, and treachery heads the list.
"Your trunk is packed, Sidonie?"


98 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
Sidonie's face was ghastly. "Practically, Mad-
ame," she mumbled.
"Go to your room, take out of your trunk what-
ever it holds that is mine, telephone for the porter,
and get away as quick as you can. I give you ten
minutes to leave my rooms. If you are here at the
end of that time, I will telephone for the police and
give you in charge for the theft of the amethyst
ring of the Due de Guise!"
"Yes, Madame. Very well, Madame." The
accents of the maid were barely audible.
"Wait." Madame Savaran pushed her jewel-case
out of the way, pulled the writing-case before her,
found a loose cheque, and with a fountain-pen rapidly
filled it in.
"Where is that pawn-ticket, Sidonie?"
"Here, Madame."
"Give it me." She took it roughly from the
maid's fingers, examined it closely, and put it away in
the writing-case, accompanying the action with a
snort of satisfaction. "Here," she added, tendering
the cheque: "your wage to date and a month in
advance, minus the ten dollars necessary to redeem
the ring. Now go."
Her voice was frigidly uncompromising, yet Sid-
onie in her despair dared a single attempt to regain
her forfeited place.
"But, Madame," she whined, " I —"
"And if you take anything more of mine, I shall
send detectives after you. It is now fifteen minutes
of nine. By five minutes of nine you must be out
of this hotel. You have no time to waste."


THE AMETHYST RING 99
Sidonie lifted bony shoulders to her ears and hypo-
critical eyes to heaven. "Madame will regret this,"
she began.
But inasmuch as her mistress was synchronously
grasping her cane and rising from her chair, Sidonie
retired at accelerated discretion. On the way she
flashed Cynthia a poisoned look of endless hatred.


VII
CINDERELLA
"Beast!"
That crisp epithet, barbed with whole-hearted
rage and contempt, fell sharp upon the closing of
the door behind gaunt, unpleasing, sullen Sidonie.
Uttering it, Madame Savaran sank heavily back
into her chair, replacing her cane in its corner. She
sat in silence for a long minute, her eyes scintillant.
Then her mood veered. The ten plump and active
fingers of her two hands drummed the devil's tattoo
on the polished top of the little table before her.
Her handsome old face clouded. "Whatever shall
I do?" she soliloquised in despair. "I can never
replace her, never!"
To that instant Cynthia, untroubled by the enven-
omed glance the discharged maid had given her in
parting, had been faintly amused. She was so no
longer. She detected in the old lady's exclamations
a very real and poignant distress. Sympathy stirred
in the girl's generous bosom.
"You must n't think that," she said soothingly.
"I'm sure there must be plenty of maids —"
"There's only one Sidonie!" declared Madame
with vigour. "That animal!" she cried. "Think
of it! For ten — no, for more years than I can say
without stopping to reckon, she has been my servant.
: One does n't uproot from one's heart the association


CINDERELLA
ior
of that time and not feel it! She was a paragon of
maids; she understood me thoroughly; I never had
to tell her a word of her duties. It is true she would
steal my trinkets and pawn them for money to get
drunk on, she would lie to me and carry tales to turn
me against my companions — she had got rid of
at least one rival every year by such means; but
then I could say anything to her. She was the only
maid I ever had who could endure my temper. I
have a filthy temper," said Madame Savaran com-
placently.
"And you don't think you could take her back?"
"What? That snake? Thatingratel Neverrr!"
the old lady swore cheerfully. "Anything but
treachery I could stand; but let that once show its
head, and it is over — all — everything is finished!"
She waved her hands excitedly, folded them, and
breathed, or rather sighed plaintively, a three-ply,
copper-rivetted malediction on the head of the de-
parting maid.
Shocked, Cynthia involuntarily sat bolt upright,
eyeing Madame in wide dismay. • The movement
did not pass unremarked.
"I do swear wonderfully," observed Madame.
"Sometimes I surprise even myself. But it is a
great comfort. You must n't mind: you 'll get used
to it in time."
"I!" Cynthia exclaimed, amazed.
"You — certainly — my dear. Why, do you im-
agine, did I call you back if I intended to let you
leave me?"
"But —"


ioa CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"You needn't think I hold it against you that
you were sent me by that red-headed blackguard,
Rhode. It only goes to prove that good may come
of evil. You see, my dear, I believe you, and I
don't believe that if you were to attach yourself
to me you'd sell me, like that . . . that," repeated
Madame slowly; then she got her faculties well in
hand and with the careful deliberation of the true
artist, thoughtfully, fully, and freely delivered her-
self of a character sketch of Sidonie, forgetting, ex-
tenuating, and omitting nothing, working up through
well-chosen epithet and simile neatly applied to a
soul-stirring, hair-raising, blistering, blasting pero-
ration that borrowed its bolts from the skies and
sifted the abyss for its metaphors.
When she had finished, Sidonie's ante-mortem
obituary had been written by a master-hand.
Stunned, breathless, hardly able to credit her
hearing, Cynthia remained spell-bound, unable to
associate such fearful powers of expression and the
comely old lady with the stately manner moderated
by a glow of creative enthusiasm and obvious self-
approval, from whose lips the tirade issued.
Then the heavens cleared. Madame Savaran
folded her hands, compressed her mouth primly, and
smiled, radiating good nature.
"I feel better now," she remarked. "We 'll for-
get it and say no more about it." It was Cynthia's
thought that she had left nothing unsaid. "It's
a great comfort to be old enough to have a safety-
valve like that, really: ever so much better than
what fools call a good cry. Besides, women don't


CINDERELLA 103
cry much, except in novels, unless there's a man
concerned. Now we will talk about yourself. How
old are you?"
Recovering, Cynthia told her.
"And your middle name — how do you spell
it?"
Cynthia detailed the orthography of Urcilla.
"Don't you wonder why I ask?"
"Perhaps you thought the name unusual," Cynthia
ventured.
"Rather," Madame Savaran affirmed with a
strong, humourous drawl. "But I had another
reason. But no matter: I 'll explain later. Now tell
me more of yourself?"
In the course of the next ten minutes she proved
herself an exceedingly able practitioner of the art
of cross-examination. Cynthia was not permitted
time to think how entirely she was surrendering her
personal history and character into the hands of
this pragmatical person, so swiftly did question fol-
low upon the heels of answer. Things she had
never dreamed to tell another ran off her tongue ere
she thought to impeach Madame's right to know.
Beneath the fire of interrogation lay warmth of
sympathy, a personal and friendly interest, anaes-
thetic to maiden reticence. Before this, reserve
melted like ground mists before the sun of morn-
ing: Cynthia innocently revealed herself, with
neither suspicion nor misgiving.
Afterwards, wondering at this, she was never
able to account for it, save under the excuse of
white magic: Madame Savaran seemed undoubt-


1o4 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
edly a witch of sorts, to have been able so to in-
sinuate herself beneath a stranger's guard.
Cynthia told everything, indeed: what Crittenden
had missed in her more constrained self-accounting
of the evening previous: the story of her mother's
arrant infatuation with the notion of marrying her
child to money, through pursuit of which her small
competence had ebbed as she moved wearily on
from Continental spa to bad and bad to capital,
capital to seaside watering-place and thence to gam-
bling centre, dragging with her the poor, over-
dressed, shrinking, sullenly mutinous girl and thrust-
ing her beneath the notice of the fashionable crew
they followed; and the story of the senile devotion
of a certain Englishman, to whom she had reluc-
tantly engaged her hand before her mother's death,
only to beg and plead and pray and finally to
fly for freedom, when death came to ease her of
the necessity for self-sacrifice upon the altar of
daughterly love.
Guilelessly she disclosed everything: and ab-
sorbed, the old woman listened, drinking in the
least, last detail with her gossip-loving ears, and
when the inquisition was temporarily suspended,
proving herself no less candid in the matter of un-
veiling her personality.
"And now, my dear," she said, sleek with satis-
faction at her success in pumping the girl, "I 'll
tell you why your middle name interested me. The
only woman I ever knew who wore it with the same
spelling was Miss Urcilla Wayne, of the Waynes
of Washington Square."


CINDERELLA 105
"My mother!" cried Cynthia. "You knew her?"
"Of course I knew her," returned Madame with
some asperity. "Why not? Not intimately, you
understand, but still in a somewhat personal way.
I designed the gown she was married in — to say
nothing of the rest of her trousseau — I, Adele
Blessington. ... I remember her perfectly: you
are very like her, only, I should say, a mite prettier.
And you should know that Urcilla Wayne was con-
sidered the most beautiful bride of her year. So
you see ..."
"You, Madame Savaran— you were Madame
Blessington? Really?"
"Mademoiselle Blessington I was in those days,
•my dear. That, you see, was before I made a fool
of myself, marrying that villain Savaran. Yes,"
reaffirmed the old lady, placidly self-conceited, "I
was that same Adelaide Blessington. Adelaide was
my given name, you know, my dear; but I changed
it. It always sounded to me like something spoiled
— and nobody ever spoiled me, not even that brute
Savaran, when we were first married." She choked
and lifted her voice. "Sidonie!"
"But —" began Cynthia.
"To be sure," said Madame with a flush. "Bless
your heart, my dear, you made me forget my troubles.
No matter." She assumed a look of obstinate cheer-
fulness, expectation a-glitter in her eyes.
A door opened noiselessly and the maid showed
herself on the threshold.
"Madame called?" she inquired in a voice of
velvet fawning.


io6 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"Go to the devil, you!" said Madame briskly.
"Why are you still there? Your time is up!"
"But, Madame —"
"If the porter delays another instant, go wait in
the hall. Get out of my apartment. You under-
stand me? Go 1"
Dumb with rage, Sidonie shut herself out of the
room.
Madame Savaran chuckled like a mischievous
child. "Loathsome insect!" she commented, and
then dropped the subject for good and all. "Cyn-
thia, my dear, will you fetch me a cigarette — that
box on the console there. If I am to talk of myself
— and I know I shall — I must smoke; although as
a rule I smoke but once between breakfast and
lunch. But this is an exceptional day."
Cynthia obligingly brought the cigarettes and
matches, her European upbringing having made her
so thoroughly accustomed to the practice of smoking
on the part of women of station and refinement, that
she thought nothing of it in this instance.
"Yes," resumed Madame, puffing contentedly,
"it was I who founded the great Blessington dress-
making establishment, and made it what it is, easily
the foremost house on Fifth Avenue. I'm out of
it now — and they feel the loss of me, / can tell you;
but that's another matter. Savaran was responsible
for that, the beast. He was my head-cutter, in the
beginning. I married him — let me see — yes, the
year your mother married Dr. Grayce. Immediately
he stopped working: he seemed to think the husband
of the head of the house ought to do nothing. And


CINDERELLA 107
then he took to drink. I stood it for a while. Then
I discharged him."
She smiled sweetly in reminiscent enjoyment.
"You discharged your husband, Madame?"
Madame nodded emphatically. "Assuredly. Do
you think I would stand his nonsense? Not I. I
refused to have him hanging round the establishment.
He lowered its tone. It did the business no good
to have a half-drunken creature acting as my right
hand — and letting not the left hand know what the
right was up to. The animal used actually to flirt
with my assistants the moment I turned my back.
And then they would complain to me and threaten
to go. Besides, he disturbed my temperament. How
is one to dream creations with a pig of the gutter
like that at one's elbow? Certainly I discharged
him. . . .
"He would not believe me, at first; but soon I
convinced him. Even then I had my famous temper:
the thing was known. So one day he went. And
then it was I who could not believe it true — that
blessed relief! — until I discovered the thief had
absconded with ten thousand dollars of my money.
It was cheap at the price, I told myself: of course,
after that he would never return. And he didn't:
I am always right. I never saw him again until
a month or so ago, when he was dying. Then he
sent for me, and at first I would n't hear of going.
But finally I went: I went to find out what he had
done with my money."
Madame paused, puffed her cigarette viciously until
the smoke grew too hot for comfort, and put it aside.


108 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"My dear," she pursued, "fancy my feelings!
That blackleg, Rhode, came with the longest face
imaginable to tell me Savaran was dying and had
asked for me. I flew to him, repentant, prepared
to forgive him — to forgive him even the ten
thousand dollars. Besides, I had made my mind up
that he had long since squandered it in reckless
profligacy. I figured to myself the scene: the poor
man dying in want and misery, the deserted and
wronged wife hastening to his side to comfort his
last moments, angelically pitiful and compassionate.
. . . And I found him on the point of expiring,
it's true, but surrounded by every imaginable com-
fort and luxury! Never was woman so disillusioned.
Do you believe he had sent for me to beg my for-
giveness? Not he: not Savaran. He merely wanted
to do Rhode an ill-turn. They were associated in
a business venture none too savory, and had quar-
relled, so he summoned me to make me a present of
his interest in it, that I might be a thorn in Rhode's
side. . . .
"What a deathbed! I thought it was I who would
die of amusement, as soon as I got over being indig-
nant. I bear George Rhode no love myself; he is
my son-in-law. He's a bad one, a cut off the same
piece as Savaran — only a rarer cut, you might say.
He married my only daughter against my will, and
got what he deserved. She was more Savaran's
daughter than mine, anyway, and she left George
Rhode after making him properly miserable for a
year, more or less."
The old lady paused to rejoice with unnatural glee


CINDERELLA 109
over the discomfiture of the Red Man; and Cynthia,
fascinated, interjected an excusable query.
"Is she living, Madame — your daughter?"
"Of course. We never die, we Blessingtons.
But she's no good. I have nothing to do with her,
beyond giving her money when she's broke. . . .
But no matter: I never talk of her. To get back
to my husband: we had it hot and heavy, right
and left, Savaran, Rhode, and myself. Rhode wished
to prevent his talking: he's slow, that one; he'd
never guessed what Savaran was up to when he asked
for me in his pathetic whisper. And in the end I
had to put the hulking red brute out of the room;
and he let me do it. Just fancy that! He was
afraid of me, the great coward.
"Then Savaran told me something about his
affairs. It seems he had not wasted the stolen
money; and that was like him; he never by any
chance did what one would expect. He actually had
the face to insist it was my temper that made him
drink, and that once free of it he straightened out,
went on the water-wagon and into the restaurant
business in Boston, and positively made money.
My ten thousand grew to twenty in as many years.
Meanwhile he had got acquainted with George
Rhode, through my daughter, somehow — I'd never
suspected she ever saw her father — and when
Rhode proposed his scheme to make cent per cent,
by a questionable means (to say the least, question-
able) Savaran sold out his business, retired on a
quarter of his capital and put the rest of it into
Rhode's venture. On the eve of its inception, he


no CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
fell ill; the matter had to be postponed, against
Rhode's wishes. Delays exasperate that devil. So
they began to fight — and I inherited a fifteen-
thousand-dollar interest in their plant."
The semi-occasional and always abrupt descents
into current slang which were apt to punctuate the
voluble onward flow of Madame's vivacious narra-
tive, as cascades a mountain torrent, were always
mystifying to Cynthia. She had not the slightest
notion of what a "plant" might be, any more than
she understood the term "water-wagon" save by
a process of connotation in itself vague and unsatis-
factory. But she was too interested to interrupt,
even had the manner of Madame been such as to
make interruption seem advisable, which it was not.
So, after finishing her cigarette and extinguishing its
glowing tip upon the ash-tray, Madame Savaran
took up her tale.
"The dickens of it was, the money was tied up:
I could n't get it out without losing most of it. And
by every right it was mine, though yoked to a scamp
for a rogue's march. Savaran was a fiend for cun-
ning; he got even with both of us by that move.
And then he turned his back to us and died chuckling.
It was as good as any play. . . .
"So here am I, on the verge of stepping off into
the unknown with my arm crooked through a ras-
cal's — for I would n't trust George Rhode out of
my sight with a dollar of my money. And here are
you sent me by him to be my comfort and delight —
he 'll bite his cigar in two when he finds out how
things stand with you and me. Not that I'm not


CINDERELLA
in
fond of you for your own sweet self, already, my
dear; but it does n't lessen my joy in you to know
all this will make George Rhode run round in circles.
. . . And here are the two of us sitting and jabber-
ing like a couple of old women at a meeting of the
Dorcas Circle, when we ought to be up and hustling,
getting our things packed. We must be on board by
nine to-night, you know, though the steamer does n't
sail till morning."
"But — Madame Savaran — " Cynthia protested
in bewilderment.
That lady had got out of her chair with every ap-
parent intention of being an exceedingly busy woman
in the immediate future and of expecting Cynthia
to stand by her without further parley. But she
was n't disposed to be unreasonable — as she com-
prehended the meaning of that term.
"Yes, my dear? " said she, pausing. "Of course
I don't want to hurry you, but we really have a great
deal to get through with, and it's all the fault of
that double-faced Sidonie, for most of the packing's
finished, and it's only the odds and ends we must
attend to, but of course —"
Here she stopped short and laughed outright at
Cynthia's dazed expression. "Am I talking your
head off, my dear, and never permitting you to get
a word in edgewise? There, I 'll try to be sensible.
What is it you wish to say?"
"The steamer," Cynthia pleaded in a breath —
"you say we must be on board to-night — what
steamer? And where is she going?"
"Her name is Cydonia, and as for her destination


112 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
you know as much as I, my dear — or very nearly.
Rhode won't say, beyond that she's clearing for Rio
de Janeiro; and that may be true. But when you've
known George Rhode as long as I have you 'll take
everything he says with several grains of salt. He
says Rio and sticks to it; / say, I don't know."
"Is that the only reason you have for be-
lieving his intention to be dishonest?" asked the
girl.
"I need no other: I know the man. He declares
the Cydonia is bound on a perfectly legitimate busi-
ness venture, carrying a valuable cargo to its market;
I say the man's as crooked as the off hind-leg of a
mongrel hound-pup, and therefore would n't turn his
hand to anything on the level. Besides, he had Sav-
aran with him, to start with; and Savaran was a
scoundrel if ever there was one. And even he inti-
mated the speculation was off-colour, though he was
despicable enough to stop at that and refer me to
Rhode for further particulars. And then Rhode has
fought tooth-and-nail against my coming: and that's
more proof. If he is going to turn an honest trick,
why should he object to my company? Thank good-
ness, I'm too old to have the wool drawn over my
eyes by a clumsy rip like George!"
The old lady wound up with a wide, combative
flourish of her cane; but she had been studying her
companion's face while she rattled on, and now was
instant to encourage the girl, recognising that her
mind was troubled.
"That is n't all you wanted to know, my dear?"
"No, Madame Savaran." Cynthia hesitated,


CINDERELLA 113
colouring adorably. "It's very kind of you to want
me and I — I'd like to come — but —"
"And come you shall. Make up your mind to
that. I'm not taking no for an answer from you,
child."
"But I can't," Cynthia blurted in desperation.
"I'm not prepared. I — I have n't any clothes for
an ocean trip."
"Indeed!" commented Madam, unperturbed.
"And do you think that shall stop you or prevent
me from having you, when I've set my heart on it?"
She deliberated briefly, keen old eyes searching the
young and beautiful ones that met them so openly
and honestly. "But not against your will," she said
suddenly. "I want you, but not unless you really
wish to come with me. Tell me truthfully, Cynthia:
if you had the proper outfit, would you be willing to
come?"
"Oh, yes —"
"Then it's settled. While I'm looking round and
making up my mind where to begin, please go to the
telephone, call up Ninety-eleven Gramercy — Bless-
ington's — ask for Mr. Simonson (fancy Blessing-
ton's being managed by a syndicate of Jews, my
dearl) and I 'll talk to him."
As one who dreams, Cynthia complied.
And as in a dream she moved and had her being
throughout the remainder of that extraordinary day
— though with gratitude be it chronicled, she at-
tempted nothing so bromidic as to pinch herself for
reassurance as to her wakefulness. She was quite
a normal human woman, was Cynthia, but in this as


114 C YNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
in some other minor matters she was not altogether
as other girls one reads about.
It would, however, have been remarkable if she
had been able to review this day without considering
it a day apart. She awakened to its light a pauper
orphan; she went to sleep with the sensations of a
princess in a fairy tale; but, unlike most such prin-
cesses, quite forgetful of the prince; indeed rather
inclined to ascribe her transformation less to his
adroit and courageous intervention than to the magic
weavings of the benignant witch.
In retrospect she always saw that interval be-
tween waking and sleeping as through the dust of
action; in a way as one might recall the perform-
ance in a three-ringed circus several days after the
performance: in lightning-flash glimpses of amazing
activity seen through a swirl of dust-motes luminous
with unreal light like a veil of golden gauze.
Through the glamour of that day of days men and
women and things appeared, postured for a little
time, and went their ways, like puppets moving to
the manipulation of a master: or again like gnomes
and elves and goblins, supernaturally potent but none
the less docile to the will of the omnipotent fairy
godmother bent on creating a new world for her
new-found Cinderella.
Mr. Simonson of Blessington's, for one, by some
magic incantation of Madame's was materialised
from a paradoxically nasal and disembodied voice
at the end of a telephone wire into a small, neat,
suave Semitic jinnee, charged like a storage battery
with juice of deference — obsequious to the least


CINDERELLA 115
significant utterance of the enchantress. With him
appeared a train of imps bringing boxes, a small
warehouse of boxes; which, being opened, discov-
ered a woman's world of ravishing things — gowns,
suits, wraps, skirts and blouses, hats, veils, stockings,
underwear in delicious profusion, appointments of
many kinds. . . . "Everything!" as Madame had
stipulated imperially over the telephone, adding
measurements partially supplied by Cynthia, par-
tially perceptible to her educated eye.
Simonson had taken her word at its literal value.
With his and Madame's counsel Cynthia found her-
self trying on and selecting what seemed a little of
all things requisite and (Madame's amendment, curi-
ous but expressive) "then some."
Following Simonson's prompt exorcism at the
instant his services seemed no longer essential, came
other jinn of an inferior order, in checked jumpers,
bearing on their shoulders empty trunks dedicated
with her initials to the wardrobe of the princess.
This reminded Cynthia of her own trunk and
small belongings; and after a brisk discussion with
Madame the Enchantress she gave way, much
against her will, and permitted one of the Monolith
housekeepers, specially detailed for the service at
the command of the old lady, to go to her humble
lodging, pay her bill and pack and bring away every-
thing she owned.
There followed hours of furious packing, spaced
by intervals devoted to the spiritual excoriation of
Sidonie for having forgotten all things forgettable
and having neglected all things else.


116 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
And then, arrayed in her fresh finery, she had a
ride in a taxi with Madame, with pauses here and
there to pick up a dozen indispensables — among
these the amethyst ring of Monsieur le Due de
Guise; after which they returned to the hotel in
frantic haste, Madame happening to remember hav-
ing left the jewel-case in a precariously exposed
position. But they found it safe, its contents
intact.
A little later they had an early dinner of many
delectable courses — " the last mouthfuls of decent
food we'll have in weeks, my dearl " — served in
state in the most magnificent dining-room of the most
magnificent Monolith.
There were breathless final rites in the storm-
swept apartment.
Most indelible of all memories was provided by
the long and weary ride alone in the motor-cab —
Madame Savaran following in another, because two
were required to convey their luggage — with one
of the hotel detectives on the front seat as a guard
over Cynthia and the jewel-case; the same in its own
individual handbag having been intrusted to her care
— most unfairly, Cynthia considered.
The feeling of unreality was most ineluctible then,
with the well-kenned lights of Manhattan slipping
steadily past, to be replaced by those of the bridge of
the long slow climb and the swift downward dip to
Brooklyn, where interminable processions of strange
lights strode mysteriously through strangely quiet
streets, all apparently escaping from the echoing
iron-roofed shed by the waterside with its cold


CINDERELLA 117
chiaroscuro of high swung spluttering electric arc-
lamps and grim, tenebrous shadows skulking amidst
great piles of bags and bales and crated things —
and, most tenacious of all memories, its atmosphere
impregnated with a sickly sweetish, fruity odour,
lightened by infrequent whiffs of salty wind from
the tidal river.
A myriad of singular impressions culminated with
the Rubicon-crossing of a gangplank that spanned a
black abysmal depth with a forbidding glint of slug-
gish water at its bottom, to a stuffy-smelling and
poorly-lighted saloon, where Rhode greeted them,
dawning upon Cynthia's consciousness like some
sullen midnight sun, blazingly ungracious. The sight
of him jogged her perceptions out of their glutted
stupor for a little; but she was too utterly weary
to remain awake for long. Even a sharp passage-
at-arms between Madame Savaran and her son-in-
law had no more effect than to rouse dull wonder-
ment that they had energy enough to quarrel.
She experienced a sensation of moving down a
narrow, dark tunnel (termed by Rhode an alleyway)
of coming to a stop in a small cabin bright with elec-
tric light and white-painted woodwork, of under-
standing that this was her own private stateroom
and that it adjoined that to be occupied by Madame,
of bolting the door behind Rhode and unlocking and
unpacking divers pieces of hand-luggage.
Then dull, sweet, narcotic darkness. . . .


VIII
THE CHANGELING CYNTHIA
"My dear ..."
Cynthia opened drowsy eyes incredulously.
"My dear, it's after eight o'clock, and you've
slept —! Do you know, you almost fell asleep
standing up ! — so tired, poor child, you hardly
opened your eyes when I made you undress and get
into your berth."
Madame Savaran's voice; and Madame Sava-
ran's the face bending above Cynthia. So it all was
true! After all some dreams do come true. . . .
With a quaint, perverse shake of her head and a
sleepy smile, "I don't believe a word of this, you
know," said Cynthia.
Madame had at her command a smile very winning
and sweet, if a trace impish: with such she answered
Cynthia's, from her place on the folding seat by the
head of the berth. She was wearing a very fetching
thing of frills and furbelows, all of a soft pink tone,
which went by the designation of dressing-gown;
and her morning-cap was set jauntily atop that sur-
prising edifice of hair which Cynthia had already
begun to suspect. But if it were a wig, it was
certainly a most becoming one; and Cynthia could
have sworn, had there been need, that there was
nothing artificial about the colouring of Madame's
cheeks and lips any more than there was about


THE CHANGELING CYNTHIA 119
the brightness of her eyes or the humanity of her
heart.
She decided suddenly that her first impression had
been trustworthy; one could n't help liking Madame
Savaran. And with a frankly impulsive gesture,
accompanied by a deepening of her affectionate smile,
Cynthia thrust a round and white arm, bare nearly
to the shoulder, from beneath the covers, and laid
her hand caressingly over that of her benefactress.
"You 're a dear," she said. And thereby won the
heart of Madame completely.
But the next instant she found herself abruptly con-
scious of a number of physical sensations as strange
and surprising as they were unquestionably real.
And she sat up, with a start and a flush of penitence.
"Great heavens!" she exclaimed. "We 're
under way!"
"I should say so," Madame affirmed the obvious
calmly, as the ship, sonorously vibrant from stem to
stern with the labouring of its engines, slipped over
the rounded shoulder of a long, slow swell and began
an equally long descent. "Since daylight, practi-
cally," she added with a sigh half envious, half in-
dulgent. "The way you sleep, child! Ah me!
Youth, youth!"
"But why didn't you wake me?" Cynthia pro-
tested. "I meant to get up hours ago and help you
dress."
"I did n't need you, my dear. And you were rest-
ing so beautifully, I had n't the heart to disturb you
— so pretty on your pillow! . . . There! not a
word! I'm too old not to speak my mind, and


120 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
you 're too sensible a body to become spoiled because
of an old woman's compliments. You are pretty —
you know it as well as I. What's the use of blink-
ing facts?"
"But," insisted the girl, confused and blushing,
"you should n't, really— I meant to be up —"
"As to that, I must tell you that animal Sidonie
showed up at my door, when I rang for my hot water
and bath." Madame made the announcement as
complacently as though the circumstance reflected
credit upon her personal fascinations. "So I made
her help me dress — and that 'll relieve you of an
unpleasant duty."
"Sidonie — on board!" gasped Cynthia. "But
I thought — you said —"
"Tut!" said Madame gently. "In fact, two
tuts, dear. You 'll have to get used to my ways.
One of them, and the most trying to my friends and
me — to everybody concerned, in fact — is my dis-
position to change my mind. To tell the truth, that
beast and I can't get along without one another;
we've been too long together. I overlook her faults,
and she endures my temper, and so we get along
famously between her periodical dismissals. Be-
sides, she was here, and I needed her, and so why
should n't I be blind to the insolence of the proceed-
ing and make use of her for my comfort? . . .
Not, I 'll have you understand, that we did n't have
it out before we agreed on a modus vivendi. I'm
sure the creature never took such a tongue lashing
from me before; in fact, I quite outdid myself. The
only wonder is, we did n't wake you. . . . However,


THE CHANGELING CYNTHIA 121
it's understood I shall endure her services until the
end of this voyage, and no longer. Though by
that time we 're sure to be allowing for one
another's shortcomings with such entire amiability
that we would n't dream of parting. So that's
settled."
Cynthia was not inclined to dispute that declara-
tion. However much she might wonder, the episode
was clearly to be catalogued in the list of traits
peculiar to Madame Savaran, an exhaustive and
sympathetic study of which was to prove an indis-
pensable concomitant to success in the role of com-
panion to the lady.
But to say that Cynthia was pleased in any degree
would be to misrepresent the young woman's per-
sonality. She was by no means abnormally chari-
table or tolerant, and in their one meeting Sidonie
had shown her a hostility not far short of downright
hatred, if not by any overt act by imperceptible signs
that every woman recognises at sight and knows by
heart.
For this reason, when Madame tacked a tri-
umphant addition to her explanation, to the effect
that everything invariably turned out for the best,
adducing in proof thereof the fact that they would
both have the services of an accomplished maid from
that time on, Cynthia demurred openly.
"I'm accustomed to dressing myself, Madame
Savaran. If you don't mind —"
Nor was her employer insensible to the signifi-
cance of straws in the wind. "Why, of course, as
you please, my dear," she acquiesced after a search-


122 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
ing and comprehensive look into Cynthia's honest
eyes. "But you won't mind using her as you would
a stewardess, in such matters as your baths and so
forth, will you? You see, there isn't any steward-
ess, this not being a regular passenger steam-
ship. I've just sent her to fix your bath, by the
way."
In confirmation of this statement, a knock pres-
ently sounded on the door to Cynthia's stateroom,
and Sidonie entered with the information that the
bath was ready — a Sidonie chastened and subdued
of mien but none the less bristling with elusive an-
tagonism to her newly-established rival.
Cynthia promptly adopted an attitude toward the
woman very practically defensive and no doubt thor-
oughly offensive to its object, consisting as it did
simply in a dignified and apparently quite unstudied
unconsciousness of her existence save in her proper
place as a servant exclusively personal to Madame
Savaran.
That the Cydonia in its present state of commis-
sion was anything but a passenger steamship, in the
accepted understanding of that expression, was dem-
onstrated to the young woman from the instant she
stepped out of her stateroom to follow the maid to
the bath. There was an air of disuse and emptiness
in the alleyways, strong as the effluvia of desolation
in a vacant dwelling. Most of the doors she passed
were hooked back to the partitions, showing a suc-
cession of staterooms not only unused but half dis-
mantled. One and all, the ports were screwed down
hard and fast, their glass bull's-eyes opaque with


THE CHANGELING CYNTHIA 123
dust and grime. Her bath slippers scraped over
dingy planking destitute of its accustomed strip of
carpeting. . . .
Later — Madame Savaran having breakfasted
simply, as ever, at an early hour— Cynthia had her
morning meal alone in a dining-saloon that seemed
painfully small in comparison with that of the gigan-
tic vessel on which she had travelled home to
America. It was also dingy — not unclean, but dim
with desuetude, the lustre of its brightwork dulled,
its white paint tarnished. Three tables ran length-
wise through it, the longest, in the middle, being the
only one in use, apparently. It was covered with a
long strip of tapestry-like cloth, as worn and stained
as the upholstering of the clumsy pivot seats im-
movably fixed at close intervals down the sides of
the table and at its either end. The other tables
were quite bare, but the main one boasted three
nickel-plated casters with cruets for vinegar, pepper,
oil and sauces.
Cynthia sat near one end of this main table, where
a small white cloth had been laid for her. She as-
sumed that everybody else had had breakfast long
since. The main companionway ran up to her right,
forward; to the left, at the after end of the saloon,
were doors to starboard and port, giving access to
the galley and the officers' quarters respectively.
No one passed through either while she occupied her
place, save only the steward attending her, a taci-
turn, hard-faced fellow whom she thought a little
strange to his duties.
He served her acceptably, however, and she found


124 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
the food ample, in quantity and well-cooked, if re-
stricted as to variety.
She ate with appetite, watching the wide bars of
sunlight that played through the open ports, shifting
over the interior to the slow, steady roll of the vessel.
Now and again the line of the horizon would bisect
the openings, showing at once clear sky and a gentle
sea.
Her thoughts were quite as clear and calm — like
her dreaming eyes. She was thinking of Crittenden
and vaguely reproaching herself for having for-
gotten him so completely in the turmoil and confu-
sion of yesterday. She wondered if he had really
troubled to lunch again at Suzanne's, in the hope of
meeting her there; perhaps he, too, had been so
preoccupied with the hurry of getting away at short
notice that the suggested appointment had slipped
his mind.
Cynthia decided to hunt him up and ask him. She
owed him gratitude for a great kindness, and she
liked him for himself, besides. It would be pleasant
to talk to him again. . . .
She made sure he must be aboard. It was for this
mysterious voyage, undoubtedly, that the Red Man
had enlisted him. His veiled allusions, the half-
admissions their conversation had drawn from him,
all had pointed to some odd, anomalous adventure
such as this promised to be — gratuitously to endow
it with the equivocal complexion favoured by Ma-
dame Savaran.
Still, she might be mistaken: Rhode might have
intended to employ Crittenden on some more eso-


THE CHANGELING CYNTHIA 125
teric ramification of his scheme and have commis-
sioned him with an errand and duties ashore.
If so, Cynthia wanted to know about it, immedi-
ately— with, she discovered to her considerable sur-
prise, an intensity of interest quite unwarranted by
anything in the length or the nature of their ac-
quaintance. They had not in one afternoon become
such close friends that she ought to feel so woefully
disappointed at the bare suspicion they might not be
fellow adventurers on this voyage.
Faintly annoyed, she puzzled over this newly-
recognised obsession, until, at length impatient of
her inexplicable self, she sought relief from the
nearest source, — the steward, impassively waiting
for her to go, that he might clear the table.
Briefly she studied the man more closely than
theretofore. He was something undersized and
stocky, apparently middle-aged, and carried himself
with a certain manner of assurance and quick-footed
readiness that seems native to men of his occupa-
tion. This more narrow inspection furnished her
with a surprise in the discovery that his eyes were
incongruously gentle and pleasant in a face, tanned
and modelled by exposure, that was somehow remi-
niscent of portraits she had seen of heroes of the
prize-ring — Cynthia could n't say just how or why,
unless it were by the ruthless line of his thin lips or
a sense of contentiousness conveyed by his rather
low forehead and square jaws.
But he remarked her interest, and came forward
instantly.
"Anything you'd like me to get you, miss?"


THE CHANGELING CYNTHIA 127
the s'ying is, the work doubles hup on us, so to speak.
It aynt as if we were in the North Atlantic tryde,
carryin' passengers regular. But when a chap gets
out of 'is job in New York, 'e inclines to tyke on any-
thing that turns up, you know; at least, 'e does if
'e's an Englishman."
"You've worked on the big boats — the Trans-
atlantic steamers — then?"
"Yes, miss," replied the man in a subdued
tone. "I was with the W'ite Star until I lost my
job."
Something plaintive in his accents moved Cynthia
to pursue, kindly: " How did that happen?"
"I got drunk, miss," was the matter-of-fact if
thoroughly regretful answer. "Every man likes
a bit of a lark once in a w'y, you know: and 'e's
generally sorry for it, like me. My boat s'iled with-
out me before I woke up. So I 'ad a bit of 'ard
knocking abaht, and then I 'appened to meet Mr.
Rhode, and 'e offered me this charnce on the Cynthia,
and I was glad enough to close with 'im."
"The Cydonia, you mean? " corrected Cynthia to
cover the embarrassment of being made a confidant
of this disconcertingly candid person.
"That was 'er nyme when she was in the fruit
tryde, miss, but now it's Cynthia. They chynged it
when they sold 'er."
"But why should they? Or don't you know?"
Cynthia was beginning to discover that the mys-
terious is generally very commonplace, stripped of
the trappings of imagination. Why the Inventor of
Occupations had written Cydonia in brackets after


i28 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
Cynthia was now quite clear, and even the hiero-
glyphs which had followed those words, examined
in a light of calm reason, began to bear a strong
resemblance to an abbreviated address, such as:
"Pier Y, Erie Basin, 9 p.m., August 10th."
And the steward was helpfully continuing further
to elucidate.
"It's sometimes done, miss, when a boat chynges
'ands, 'specially if the old owners want to ret'in the
nyme for any reason — like as they might think it
lucky. The Caribbean Fruit Company, as used to
run this ship, nymes all its vessels beginning with a
C and ending I-A, and likely they wanted to use
Cydonia on a new boat."
"Oh! I understand."
"It's not much trouble — is it, miss? — to chynge
Cydonia to Cynthia, there being only three letters
different?"
"No — that's true," Cynthia agreed.
Certainly this common-sense explanation made
the circumstance seem much less underhand and
doubtful; and it was in the girl's mind that very
likely Madame Savaran's out-spoken suspicions of
Rhode's honest intent on this venture might seem
less plausible if subjected to like illumination.
"You spoke of this as a 'chance,' " she pursued,
lingering to lead the man on. "Do you mean it's
really a promising opening for you?"
"Not that, exactly, miss; but it puts a bit of 'ard
cash in my pocket, as they s'y, so I 'll be ayble to
p'y my passage 'ome in cyse I can't pick up a job
in Rio."


THE CHANGELING CYNTHIA 129
"Then you don't intend to stay with the — the
Cynthia?"
In the act of bending over to take up his tray,
the steward paused to question her face with a
surprised glance.
"'Ardly," said he. "She's been sold, so I under-
stand, to an Argentine company for coastwise ser-
vice. That would n't suit me at all. . . . That's
'ow we come to be so short-'anded — just a scratch
crew to tyke her down for delivery."
"Oh, I see," said Cynthia slowly.
He shouldered his tray. "My nyme's Acklin,
miss, if ever you should 'appen to want me for any-
thing," he concluded. "Good-morning."
"Good-morning, Acklin."
If that were all — if only this might be the true
explanation —!
Madame was as sweet and dear as she could be
(Cynthia's affection for her was unaffected if of
recent growth) but she was as captious as old people
generally are, viewed through the spectacles of youth,
and just the sort to weave a mare's nest out of a
handful of shreds of dislike and distrust. A harmless
idiosyncrasy, in the main: Cynthia was not inclined
to do anything toward molesting the old lady in
her pet diversion. By all means leave to her her
dark and grisly illusions, as long as they afforded
her amusement. But for herself, personally, Cynthia
was resolved no longer to be troubled by anything
but the manifest and tangible. And besides, Mr.
Crittenden was really on board. . . .
She took on deck with her a heart as light as the


i3o CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
daintily shod feet that danced up the companion-way
and through the musty saloon to the upper deck,
and as a result showed a face so prettily animated
and coloured that it won an approving look and word
from Madame — whom she found snugly wedged
into a long-suffering deck-chair in the shadow of the
superstructure amidships.
"The change has done you a world of good
already, my dear," announced Madame critically.
*" I'm quite sure, now that memory grows stronger,
your mother was never quite so fascinating. It does
me good to look at you, and if it was n't for that
creature Sidonie and my bete rouge of a son-in-
law —" She paused with a chuckle to roll this
original epithet under her tongue and enjoy the
full-bodied flavour of it. "By the way, have you
seen him this morning?"
Cynthia shook her head in smiling negation.
"You should — though I dare say he's gone below
to get some sleep. My dear, he 's the most tragic
thing you ever laid eyes on. He's been up all night,
and this morning he has a bad taste in his mouth and
the cares of the known world on his shoulders.
We've had a famous set-to already." She chuckled
again and sighed. "I see I'm going to enjoy this
trip, after all — if it is unsettling for a woman of
my years to gad about this way. . . . No, don't sit
down; I don't need to be talked to, and you do
need exercise. Run round the deck and take a look
at this old tub and let me know what you think
of her."
Nothing reluctant, Cynthia obeyed, making the


THE CHANGELING CYNTHIA 131
circuit of the promenade deck with the greater ease,
in view of its scant width, because of the absence
of the customary rows of deck-chairs occupied by
lounging passengers. Aside from herself and Mad-
ame, indeed, there was apparently no one on board
the changeling Cynthia without some pressing busi-
ness at that hour; the majority of the ship's company
was invisible.
A lanky man in a rusty blue coat was pacing the
bridge, his manner listless; a sturdy fellow without
distinguishing livery was standing his trick at the
wheel. Another person in the blue and languor of
authority was directing the activities of three seamen
about the lifeboats, which were being prepared
against emergency in accordance with the customary
routine of a ship on the day she leaves port.
Nobody paid Cynthia any attention whatever;
even Madame had ceased to be bored and was
now absorbed in the pages of a novel whose flimsy
yellow paper cover shamelessly advertised Paris as
the place of its nativity. Cynthia had all the liberty
the ship afforded and — naturally — that piqued
her passingly. She wanted to talk to somebody —
in reality, to exchange impressions with Crittenden;
though she was far from admitting as much even to
her private consciousness. Having counted, illogi-
cally, upon an early meeting with him, she was dis-
appointed, dissatisfied, vexed.
For a long time she stood with elbows on the
forward rail of the promenade-deck, staring idly into
the vast emptiness between blue sky and blue water,
feeling its great loneliness akin to the loneliness of


132 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
her soul. She was still so young at heart ... I
It required mercurial youth to be even intentionally
saddened by a day like that, shining only the brighter
for the contrast afforded by so gloomy yesterdays.
Out of the southwest soft airs and suave were
breathing, barely strong enough to flaw the burnished
surfaces of mile-long, deliberate undulations of the
ground swell; but, borrowing strength from the
steady onward urge of the Cynthia, the breeze gave
grateful moderation to the heat of the sun, which
in a dead calm had proven almost unendurable. Out
of the wind the air was hot, heavy, stifling; out of
the shadow the woodwork was hot, metal intolerable,
to the hand. Not a cloud obstructed the fervour
of the sun; not a swell but mirrored it blindingly.
For as long as ten minutes the young woman
indulged to the full her whim for melancholy; then,
having squeezed from it the ultimate drop of pensive
satisfaction, she discarded the mood as thoughtlessly
as a child a worn-out toy, and let her thoughts drift
uncontrolled.
Purposeless, idle, her errant fancy quested hither
and yon through unfathomed depths of pure abstrac-
tion; always, insensibly, as the world swings round
the sun, turning its face to the abstract concept
that in her understanding stood for Crittenden. He
was never quite absent from her inward conscious-
ness, though she remained wholly unaware of this.
After some time she turned and moved listlessly
aft, passing Madame without distracting her in-
trigued intelligence from the fascination of the
printed page.


THE CHANGELING CYNTHIA 133
Abaft the engine-room skylight stood a deck house
that had as yet escaped her investigation. Its doors
were hooked back. Cynthia paused and looked in,
recognizing the fittings and arrangement of a smok-
ing-room.
At a little table in the middle of it, sat Rhode,
brooding over a glass half empty. As her figure
darkened the doorway he looked up, saw who she
was, and nodded heavily.
Cynthia returned the salutation with some uncer-
tainty. Her "Good-morning," owned a ring of
dubiety. But to her relief the Red Man seemed to
harbour no ill feeling toward her. Indeed, his pri-
mal and most grave concern resided with her em-
ployer, apparently, for his first words, spoken after
he had hastily drained his glass and heaved his heavy
bulk out of the chair and toward the door, were
accompanied by a jerk of his thumb toward the
bows.
"What's she up to now?" he demanded in a
husky stage-whisper.
"Reading," replied Cynthia, restraining an almost
irresistible impulse to laugh: his reception of her was
so different from her anticipations, and his anxiety
to avoid rousing Madame's attention seemed so
naif. "At least, I left her so."
"Thank God!" said the Red Man with unaffected
earnestness. Leaning a huge shoulder wearily against
the door case, he rummaged in a hip-pocket, found
a pink-bordered handkerchief, and mopped his face
diligently. "Say," he observed plaintively, "she
sure can raise more h—hmm! — Cain to the min-


134 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
ute —! Has she tried to scalp you yet? " he added
with some show of anxiety.
"Not yet," said Cynthia cheerfully. "We seem
to get along very well."
"Wait," said Rhode in a sepulchral voice. "She
has n't got your number yet. Honest, she's a won-
der. She flayed me alive this morning and then did
a monologue over my prostrate form. And I hope
I may die if I done anythin' but say she ought to be
grateful to me for sendin' her a nice girl like you."
Cynthia searched his expression narrowly; but
there was not a ghost of a smile therein — merely
mournful retrospection.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I had to tell her — she
knew."
"I know," he sighed. "She knows everything,
and the worst of it is, generally she knows it first.
You can't beat that woman. I didn't mean her no
harm, sendin' you to her — not her nor yet you; I
only asked you not to mention me because I knew
what'd happen if you did. But what's the use?
Get in wrong with her just once and you 're all to
the bad forever and ever—amen! Gee!" he ex-
claimed in reminiscent torment.
"I'm glad you 're not angry with me — " Cynthia
began, diffidently.
"Who — me? Angry with you? Quit your kid-
din'. I aint such a fool as she'd like you to believe:
I don't blame you, I'm just sorry for you."
"I don't think you need be — " Cynthia said with
some dignity.
"You wait. It's comin'. Between her and that


THE CHANGELING CYNTHIA 135
Belgian cat, they 'll frame up somethin' that's your
fault, and then you 'll get yours, same's the rest
of us. But take it from me, Miss Grayce, the first
time you hear her crack the whip, you crawl right
under the table and be a good doggie. It's no use
tryin' to make her understand. The only thing to
do is to crawl, and crawl pronto. I've been there,
and I know."
He craned his fat red neck round the corner of
the deck house, cast a hasty glance forward, and as
hastily dodged back.
"Still readin'; but you can't tell when she 'll take
it into her head to come to. I'm goin' to beat it
while the beatin's easy. It's me for a swift exit,
with a hunted expression and my ears flappin'."
He rolled cumbrously over to the head of the
ladder leading down to the main deck aft. There
he turned to eye Cynthia morosely as she stood
crimson with suppressed laughter.
"You mind what I said," he advised dourly.
"And when you get into trouble — well, you know
me, and you know I'm your frien'."
With that he let himself cautiously down to the
main deck and, turning, disappeared into the super-
structure.


IX
WHO KNOWS?
When at midday they went below, Cynthia in
Madame Savaran's tow, the latter lady timing their
entrance tardily enough to render it impressive (you
don't know her if you can fancy Madame as punctual
at any time save when business was involved) Cyn-
thia's growing impatience was by way of becoming
appeased: to find the majority of the executive and
engineering staff of the whilom Cydonia, Crittenden
of their number, already at table, afforded her the
chance she had been desiring, to assort, classify
and register her fellow voyagers by her personal
standards.
Crittenden had been assigned to a place about
midway down the long table, several removes from
Cynthia's chair and on the opposite side. He was
talking interestedly to some one on his right, a quiet-
mannered young fellow, whom she later came to
recognise by the name of Thurlow; and for some
minutes after Madame Savaran and Cynthia were
seated, Crittenden continued his conversation, appar-
ently unaware of their presence. Then he looked
up and directly at the girl, and bowed, gravely smiling
a greeting in which she was unable to detect any
element of surprise.
She was disappointed that they were too far apart
to exchange more than an occasional glance. . . ,


WHO KNOWS? 137
He was among the first, too, to leave the table —
rising, with another friendly look and semi-formal
bow to her, and hurrying off as though under pressure
of urgent affairs. She found this vexatious, but was
reasonable enough to allow for the demands of his
position, which, though she had but vague notions
of a purser's place in the scheme of shipboard things,
she conceived to be one of responsibility. Crittenden
looked, she thought, a little worried and preoccupied.
Having subjected him to a rather close, if furtive,
review, as contrasted with the man she had met
only two days before, she adjudged him notably
changed in aspect as well as in manner. He showed
less of that spirit she had called boyish; a shade of
care toned down the youthfulness of his face, and
lines were there that she had not before remarked
— though that they were of recent acquisition she
was not prepared to assert.
His going left her free to give more attention to
the remainder of an oddly-assorted crew, to gain
first impressions of the few who assumed distinc-
tion in her estimation by reason of individual pecu-
liarity, position, or subsequent activity.
For one there was, naturally foremost, the cap-
tain, calling himself Angus Lobb and claiming Nova
Scotia for his birthplace: a tall, loose-jointed rogue
with a bold eye, a fixed smirk (who rather fancied
himself with the ladies) and a bushy black mous-
tache overhanging his mouth, through which he
filtered liquid nourishment and the King's English
with equally vast and discordant gusto.
His first officer, answering to the name of Claret,


138 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
Cynthia identified as the man she had noticed pacing
the bridge. She hit him off, to her satisfaction, in
a phrase: a man in monotone; a soft-voiced, close-
mouthed, saturnine person, apparently owning some
pretensions to education, and a secret, gnawing con-
tempt for himself, his employment, surroundings
and associates.
Opposite the captain, at the farther end of the
table, sat Mr. Youngling, chief engineer, fat and
easy-going, with moisture in his beaming eye, and
in his breast-pocket (it developed) a photograph of
his wife and children grouped stolidly round a plush
sofa.
There were several others present, mostly men
of a shadowy stamp in Cynthia's understanding:
figures with faces and functions and names: Ber-
gen, Greenaway, Spelvin, an inevitable Smith,
Murray. . . .
Easily dominant (Rhode being absent) she found
her vis-a-vis, Hippolyte Perez — soi disant: a Bra-
zilian, swart as one could wish a buccaneer but suave
and sleek as any cat; a rather portly person yet alert
and positive in action, with a bland urbanity enhanced
by a bright black eye and the hint of a cheerful
smile about his mouth, where as on cheek and jowl
the close-shaven beard added a purplish shade to
the native darkness of his skin.
With a graceful courtesy, not overdone, an easy
command of perfect English on the tip of a glib
tongue, and a wide range of conversational subject
matter; with his fetching and seeming imperturbable
good-humour and an air of leadership conceding not


WHO KNOWS? 139
an inch to opposition: here, Cynthia recognised, in
this man Perez was a personality of unusual force,
as formidable as that of Rhode — with, perhaps,
an even greater capacity for mischief, his somewhat
higher order of endowments considered.
His status on shipboard was undefined — or
rather, it seemed to Cynthia from the deference
accorded him by everybody present, definite but
unnamed. He was easily a leading spirit, possibly
the leading spirit, but certainly nothing less than full
partner in the enterprise.
With what excuse shall transpire, Cynthia thought
to detect in the manner of all, with few exceptions
(in the number of which Rhode was not) a spirit
of tacit resentment and diligent tolerance of the
presence of women in their company. Perez, to be
sure, was superficially too well-bred not to mask his
feeling, were that hostile; while Captain Lobb was
too entirely the lady's man to grudge himself this
exceptional opportunity to parade his disastrous fas-
cinations. Of the others, not one discovered to
Cynthia's perceptions an aspect of welcome, or indeed
anything but passive endurance; as who should say,
This is not woman's business; what are you doing
here?
It was this almost unanimous attitude that first
rendered the young woman really uneasy and sus-
picious. To that luncheon hour she had been content
to question lightly and without actual concern the
true nature of the Cynthia's mission: a reassurance
as trifling as that of the steward Acklin's common-
place explanation had been sufficient to quiet her most


14o CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
serious apprehensions. With the encouragement
provided by the extraordinary fashion in which she
had become involved in the affair, her imagination,
youthfully susceptible and romantic, had invested it
all with the alluring glamour of a venturesome lark.
The fairy godmother had waved her magic wand —
and if the legendary golden chariot had turned out
a prosaic ocean steamship, the bewildered Cinder-
ella was n't inclined to cavil. There are prospects
less calculated to captivate the mind of youth than
that of a voyage over summer seas to an unknown
port. . . .
But, so sensitive are the antennae of feminine
intuition, Cynthia had wanted not even a look of
veiled dislike to render her conscious that she
and Madame Savaran were considered in the way,
an element intrusive and hindering. And immedi-
ately the adventure assumed a forbidding and omi-
nous countenance. She experienced some little de-
pression of spirit. To feel that she was suffered as
an unavoidable nuisance was both disconcerting and
perplexing. To what sort of work could the Cynthia
be dedicated, that women should be held an em-
barrassment?
She dissembled her misgivings, but not more
admirably than Madame — to assume the latter
similarly affected, as she probably was. But the
old lady was in high feather with herself. Against
opposition she was having her own way, and she
had the additional joy residing in the knowledge she
was making life a misery for her bete rouge. It
was a great day for Madame: she shone accordingly,


WHO KNOWS? 141
exchanging a running fire of amusing inconsequences
with Perez, her opposite at table, and between whiles
diverting herself hugely by coolly appropriating to
her complacent self all those artful blandishments
aimed past her ample bosom by the gallant captain,
at the head of the table, to her right, for the subju-
gation of poor Cynthia on her left.
"That man Lobb, my dear," she confided to
Cynthia later, while they prepared for a siesta in
their staterooms — " that captain is such an infat-
uated ass I don't need to fret about him. But Perez
— now there's an accomplished scoundrel. Look
out for him, child."
Cynthia, amused, protested faintly against the
sweeping nature of this apparently premature char-
acterisation, but Madame calmly brushed aside ob-
jections.
"Tut! . . . When you've lived as long as I
have, my dear . . .! And not only that, but what's
he doing in this galley if he 's an honest man? . . .
A dangerous person, Cynthia — mark my words;
much more so than George Rhode — more brains,
depth, subtlety. . . . There's a sort of elemental
honesty about Rhode's wickedness that I find rather
fascinating; he's so loaded with sin he's bow-legged
carrying it, but he's no hypocrite. But this Perez,
he's just the kind to smile and smile and be a villain
still."
"Certainly one can't say that of Mr. Rhode."
"I should say notl" The old lady chuckled vin-
dictively. "When they started to assemble George
Rhode his sense of humour got lost in the shuffle


142 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
along with his sense of meum et tuum. . . . Now,"
she shifted abruptly, "who was that good-looking
young fellow you bowed to?"
Something in Madame's tone brought a soft flush
to Cynthia's face as she replied: "Mr. Crit-
tenden —"
"Crittenden? What Crittenden? The Balti-
more family?"
"I'm sure I don't know —"
"Is he the dramatist?"
"I don't know," Cynthia was obliged to confess
again.
"What's his first name?"
"I believe — Bruce Crittenden."
"Then he is the dramatist."
"I really don't know."
"But — it seems rather strange to me, my dear,"
insisted the old woman sharply, "that you should
know a man well enough to bow to him and yet know
positively nothing about him."
Thus challenged, Cynthia entered in her defense
a complete confession of the manner by which she
had become acquainted with Crittenden and Rhode,
Madame Savaran attending to the recital with the
comforting expression of a hanging judge. At its
conclusion she preened herself, elevated her brows,
pursed her lips, and sniffed disapprovingly.
"You 're a very unwise young woman," she an-
nounced severely. "That I'd probably have done
precisely as you did, under the circumstances, has
nothing to do with the case. Young women, par-
ticularly those as attractive as you, ought to have


WHO KNOWS? 143
more sense. I've a great mind to read you a lec-
ture, but inasmuch as your silly imprudence brought
you to me, I have n't got the nerve to do it. Which
proves I'm a sentimental old fool. But don't tell
anybody; they'd never believe you. . . . Now rum
along and shut your door; I positively cannot sleep
with all this hair on my head, and I'm not sure
enough of your affection to let you see me without
my wig. . . . There, now you know all; I've put
myself in your power completely; you've but to
breathe a word of that hideous secret to humble
my poor, silly, old vanity to the dust. Besides, you'd
have found it out, soon or late. So what's the
odds? . . ."
Late in the afternoon she disturbed Cynthia, who
had dropped off into a semi-waking doze in her
berth, by ringing for Sidonie. The girl rose and re-
dressed at leisure, with perhaps a little extra care
prompted by thoughts she refused to recognise.
When at length presentable she knocked at the com-
municating door and was by Madame's voice biddem
to enter.
The retired dressmaker, in negligee, was under-
going assiduous primping at the hands of her maid.
"Don't wait for me, child," she advised. "I
shall be hours getting ready to appear in public;
there's no fool, you know, like — like a woman of
sixty who's as little senile as I. . . . And when this
animal has done her bungling best for me, I shall
put in my routine hour writing my memoirs."
Cynthia said "Memoirs?" with the normal as-
cending inflection.


144 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"Merely another of my foibles, my dear; it
amuses me to set down in writing something of
what I've learned in the world. You 've no idea
what an amazing amount of scandal percolates
through a fashionable dress-making establishment
like Blessington's." There was a wicked twinkle
in her eye as she tapped the leather-bound writ-
ing-case on the nearby stand. "If that were
ever to be put into print — 1" She rolled her
fine eyes in eloquent horror. "After that — the
Deluge!"
"Then you don't mean to publish—?"
"What! Submit my spelling and punctuation to
the public eye? I guess not!" She shook her old
head vivaciously. "Neverrr while I live, child.
Simply for my own diversion, to recall the time when
I was a real power in the land . . . But — remem-
ber! — not a word of this to that red-headed rascal
of a son-in-law of mine. If he suspected — he'd
sell his soul (if he has one) for a sight of the manu-
script. He has a real talent for blackmail, that
one. . . .
There was a look in Sidonie's small, close-set
eyes that Cynthia did not like; a little flare-up
of avaricious, malicious fire, swiftly and prudently
extinguished.
"You should be very careful," Cynthia began
slowly.
But Madame Savaran's quickness of perception
was inimitable. "Don't think for an instant I trust
this creature," she interrupted instantly. "Under
lock and key — that's my motto where she's con-


WHO KNOWS? 145/
cerned. Oh, we know one another — but I know
Sidonie better than she dreams."
The lightning-quick flash of hateful fire from the
maid's eye signalised the entry of another mark to'
the debit of Cynthia in Sidonie's black-books.
Disturbed, the girl withdrew, pursued by ani-
mated compliment and admonition:
"Be careful you don't let that oaf of a captain
see you in that captivating get-up, my dear. You 're
far too fascinating to be permitted at large, and I'm
too old to be running after you continually. . . ."
Flushed and smiling, Cynthia fled from flattery
only to encounter it on deck in another guise, per-
haps less fulsome but certainly no less persistent.
Perez was there when she emerged from the
companion door. A single movement of his hand,
apparently, was enough to take the cigarette from
between his lips, flick it over the rail and remove his
cap, as he caught sight of and hastened toward her.
Since luncheon, when he had appeared in a sober-
coloured business suit, the Brazilian had changed to
a costume of white flannels, white shirt of silk, and
white leather shoes, in which his well-proportioned
and well-poised body owned a suggestion of distinc-
tion even more marked than had been noticeable at
first. In view of his weight, his lithe ease of action
w.as peculiar and striking. And neither the regu-
larity of his features nor the rich dusk of his com-
plexion lost any effectiveness through the change of
costume.
His manner was open, friendly, and frank, tinged
with just the right effect of pleasure in their meeting.


WHO KNOWS? 147
comprehended the visible deck revealing neither an-
other person nor any becoming way of escape from
the Brazilian, she resigned herself to the situation
with the prettier grace, perhaps, in view of the fact
that she was not in the least incurious. Give a dog
a bad name — and he at once becomes an object of
lively interest to every normal woman. Madame's
animadversions upon Perez had not robbed him of
any attractiveness.
"I consider myself happy indeed," the man was
assuring her, after a formal good-afternoon. "I
had no real hope my loneliness was to be relieved so
quickly — and so charmingly."
"Oh!" Cynthia's laugh deprecated this flower
of extravagance. "Just the same," she said with sly
malice, "you were confident it would be relieved,
sooner or later — were n't you?"
"Well, yes," Perez admitted; "at least, I
counted on my luck standing by me. Thus it is to
have been born under a lucky star, senorita."
Cynthia arched her brows over that senorita, not
wholly sure she liked it; but for the time she let it
pass. It had a flavour of familiarity she questioned.
"You believe in your lucky star, then?" she said,
turning to walk aft, the man beside her.
"Implicitly. I am really singularly favoured by
chance," he asserted. "I mean, I never fail. What
I set my heart on, senorita, that comes to my posses-
sion, invariably; not, perhaps, through any act of
mine, but as the sun rises, but as something
predestined."
"Possibly you are careful never to wish for the


148 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
unattainable," Cynthia suggested, pliant to an im-
pulse for mischief.
"Possibly," he admitted with a serene laugh.
"But if I were to, I'm confident the unattainable
would become mine, senorita."
His tone and his look were alike meaningful.
Cynthia stiffened.
"If you don't mind," she said quietly, "I prefer
Miss Grayce to seiiorita."
"Your preference is my law, Miss Grayce. . . .
And yet sehorita seemed appropriate to one in your
position."
"How —?"
"Travelling with a duenna . . ." He laughed.
"On the contrary," said Cynthia seriously, " Mad-
ame Savaran is my employer. I am merely her
paid companion."
"Nevertheless, I maintain she is equipped with
all the harness of a duenna. I'm sure the sehora is
a terrible dragon."
"She's a dear," Cynthia insisted stoutly; "I'm
very fond of her and I wish you wouldn't speak of
her disrespectfully."
"I shant again — not having intended disrespect
in the first instance. Merely to see you was sufficient
to suggest the need of a duenna, Miss Grayce."
They paused by the after rail of the promenade
deck, Cynthia a trifle ruffled and frowning, precisely
as Perez, suavely attentive, wished her to be.
"Is that impudence, Mr. Perez? " she asked with
a direct look into his face.
He composed his features to a gravity commen-


WHO KNOWS? 149
surate with hers. "Not so meant," he said soberly.
"You surely can't blame me for thinking you require
protection on this ship, this voyage."
"Why? " she demanded.
"Don't you know?" he countered in surprise —
whether real or simulated she could not tell.
"I am told," she said after a moment, "that the
Cynthia is being taken to Rio de Janeiro for delivery
to an Argentine shipping concern that has purchased
her at second hand. Is n't that true?"
Perez regarded her with amusement. "So they
told you that!" said he softly, clapping his hands
together on the rail.
"Is n't it true? " she insisted.
"Not wholly," he answered, still with his gentle,
derisive smile. "But it is a good lie," he added
generously.
"Then what is the truth?"
"I'm not sure I have the right to say," Perez
replied cautiously. "Why not ask Madame
Savaran?"
"She does n't know —"
"So-o!" said Perez, again bringing his hands
gently together.
"She knows — has given me to understand —
that there's something strange — outre —"
"That is the right word — outre" agreed the
man gravely. "There is, in fact," he added with an
appearance of spontaneous candour, "more to this
voyage than a simple transfer of the ship from North
to South American hands. I should think you'd
have been told. . . . However, matters as they


150 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
stand, I can't say more, except, senorita — pardon,
Miss Grayce — that in event of any — ah — time
of stress and discomfort — I trust you will remem-
ber your obedient servant, Hippolyte Perez, believe
me, yours to command."
From an after door in the main deck superstruc-
ture, beneath their feet, a tall young man appeared,
and unconscious of those above him — a cigarette
drooping from his lips — strayed at leisure toward
the stern. Something— a flutter of recognition, she
thought it — stirred in Cynthia's bosom; but she
stood still and made no sign.
"Then you think," she said in a low voice, " that
matters may become so — so complicated that the
women on board might need protection?"
"I trust it won't be as serious as that," returned
the man at her side; "but if anything so deplorable
should come about, I'd be glad to know you de-
pended on me."
Cynthia straightened up and stood back from the
rail.
"I presume I should thank you," said she, with
her most bewildering smile.
"To have you remember my offer in time of need,
will be my thanks," said Perez, making her a little,
semi-grave bow.
"I 'll try not to forget," she assured him lightly.
"But I'm half convinced you incline to exaggerate.
However," she added, moving off toward the com-
panion-ladder, with a little nod indicating the one
she named — " however, there's Mr. Crittenden,
and I'm going to ask him what he thinks."


15 2 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
their handclasp was not to be disputed. But it was
a brief and quite unloverlike formality; and their
subsequent attitude one toward the other furnished
no further clew to the enigma — at least to the un-
imaginative eye and mind. Cynthia with back to
the rail and elbows resting on it, trim white shoes
near together as she braced her body against the
slow rolling of the boat, white linen skirt whipping
in the breeze, hair of gold burning in the evening
light like a frame for the brilliant miniature of her
bright young face: Crittenden at a little distance,
standing without support, his dark, lean, thoughtful
countenance bended attentively over her: this did
not convey any impression of a reunion of disparted
sweethearts.
"Or a romance in the making, eh?" said Perez
softly. "Quien sabet"


154 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
Impulsively she whipped a hand from conceal-
ment and placed it in his. "I am glad to see you,"
she said, emphatically, "though I have got every
reason in the world to be displeased with you."
"But why? " he insisted, dropping her hand with
more reluctance than he permitted to be apparent
either to Cynthia or to the observant Senor Perez.
As for himself, if indicted for that reluctance, he
would have entered an honest plea of not guilty.
"For dereliction of duty," Cynthia impeached
him; "for gross discourtesy and for plain, down-
right unkindness."
"Whew!" Crittenden whistled, dismayed. "Do
you mind giving me a bill of particulars? I'd no
idea I was so hopelessly uncivilised."
"Very well." Cynthia backed up to the rail and
reckoned the several counts upon the tips of her
fingers. "Dereliction of duty: because as purser
you should look after your passengers; and you
have n't taken enough interest to find out whether we
were comfortable or not. Discourtesy: because you
should have done so anyway, ex officio. Unkind-
ness: because you have n't given me the ghost of a
chance — till now — to thank you and tell you how
happy I am as Madame Savaran's companion; which
I would n't be but for you."
"I'm sorry," he said penitently — "sorry, I
mean, that I've been so busy trying to be a regular
purser, ever since I came aboard, that I had n't the
time for this — this talk with you that I Ve been
looking forward to all day. Honestly I have,
only —"


CONTRETEMPS 155
"Go on; I'm rapidly becoming placated," said
Cynthia demurely.
He laughed quietly. "The fact of the matter is,"
he confessed, "I would n't be here, myself, if it
was n't for you. I had no idea you were to sail with
us until nearly midnight — long after you had come
aboard and, I presume, were asleep. . . . You see,
all yesterday I was in two minds about this business;
first I was for it, and then again I thought perhaps
I'd better try a bit longer to stick it out at the old
stand. Finally, late last night something brought
me to the point of making the trip to Brooklyn to
find out what it all was about. Then Rhode got hold
of me — and — well, he'd set his heart on having
me — I don't in the least know why. I was trying
to insist on being let in on the know— I mean, told
what all this was about — and he was just as deter-
mined he wouldn't tell; and in the end he clinched
the matter for me by informing me you were on
board — you," Crittenden amended hastily, "with
Madame Savaran and her maid."
"Do you mean me to understand you gave in on
my account alone?" demanded Cynthia of the
straightforward eyes. (There must be no hint of
nonsense between them: she had made up her mind
on that point !)
"That's about the truth of the matter," he
conceded. "I felt responsible, in a way — hav-
ing been the agent — unconscious enough — who
involved you in — well, whatever all this nonsense
is about."
His earnestness impressed the girl. "Then you,


15 6 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
too, really think there's something under the
surface —?"
"Crooked," he gave her the final word — cant
of the hour but, like many of its kin, inevitable
in its expressiveness. "Yes, I do think—I'd
hope not, but I'm sure of it — there's crooked
work at the bottom of this. Everything points that
way."
"And there 'll be danger —?"
"I don't know. Perhaps not —probably not. I
was afraid at first there might be —
"What?"
"Well — filibustering — gun running for some
South American revolutionary junta. But I don't
take much stock in that, now. I've had time to do
a little thinking and looking about since I joined the
ship, and — well, matters don't look that way, for
a number of reasons."
"You don't mind telling me —?"
"Certainly I don't. To begin with, there's little
incentive for gun running, just now. Things are
quiet all down the coast. It's funny, but it's so.
There's not even a cloud the traditional size of a
man's hand on the political horizon. And then —
as nearly as I can make out, and I'm in a position to
know, being purser — we 're not carrying guns or
ammunition. The manifests show practically noth-
ing that could disguise that sort of thing. We carry
practically no machinery. The cargo's a rich one —
suspiciously rich to my mind — but all goods of a
domestic class. Finally, Rhode has pledged me his
word we 're not filibusters; that would n't mean so


CONTRETEMPS 157
much, perhaps, without this burden of proof in its
support. He's probably telling the truth."
"I see," said Cynthia slowly, intent to follow his
exposition. "But still one must believe there's
something wrong!"
"You can't get away from it," Crittenden de-
clared. "It's in the air: the ship fairly smells of it.
To begin with, if, as they've been pretending, the
Cynthia were really being taken down for delivery
to an Argentine firm — why all this mystery and
moonshine? Why recruit a crew on the quiet? Why
was Rhode so keen to get me — of all incompetents 1
— instead of a purser who knew his business? Why
single out a member of the Down and Out Club when
there are any number of capable men to be had for
the advertising? Why did he pick up Griscom for
boatswain? That's the chap you noticed him speak
to at Suzanne's — you remember. Why is he him-
self so interested and anxious? Why does Madame
Savaran insist on coming along to see that he does n't
play horse with her stake in the venture? He's been
telling me about that, by the way. . . . And then
again, no sane firm of shippers would have bought
this tub; she's fit for nothing but to be broken up
for old iron, I understand. They say Youngling
fairly weeps over the condition of the boilers and
engines. Apparently not a dollar has been spent on
sorely needed repairs — she's had not a lick of paint
put on her beyond those necessary to change the
name Cydonia to Cynthia. The only thing about the
ship that has been put in decent working order is the
wireless outfit and that Thurlow, the wireless oper-


158 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
ator, tells me is the most complete and expensive in-
stallation imaginable: the sort of thing you'd look
for on the Lusitania instead of on a rusty old hulk
of something less than two thousand tons, like this.
If it was n't for that immensely rich cargo, I'd sus-
pect they intended to throw her away for the insur-
ance money. But remembering that, it does n't seem
plausible. . . . And finally, there are two distinct
factions on board — the Reds and the Blacks, you
might say: Rhode's party and Perez's. Neither
trusts the other an inch. Rhode's nominally the
leader, but Perez treats him as a nonentity — and
somehow generally manages to get his way when it
comes to a show-down. Lobb and Claret, Bergen,
Murray, Spelvin — they 're all Blacks. Rhode has
on his side Youngling, Griscom, Greenaway, Bergen;
and, I presume, myself. Thurlow seems to be inde-
pendent. ... A queer kettle of fish. ..."
Crittenden wound up a long speech with an im-
patient shake of his bewildered head and a half in-
audible and wholly threadbare reference to that pu-
tative decadence obtaining in the state of Denmark.
"It sounds a good deal like my wall-paper," ob-
served Cynthia from profound deeps of abstraction.
"Sounds like what? " cried Crittenden, astounded.
"I mean," Cynthia translated, much diverted by
her blunder, " it reminds me of the wall-paper in the
room I had in that dreadful lodging-house."
"Oh-h ..." said Crittenden, still groping.
"It was so old and stained and faded and worn,"
the girl explained, "that at first it seemed impos-
sible. It was positively inhumanly incoherent. The


CONTRETEMPS 159
more you saw of it the more it seemed like something
suggested by a rather insipid nightmare. But then,
if you kept on looking and puzzling, after a while
suddenly you'd catch a glimpse of the first, awful,
hideous design, and then you could easily enough
make it out in all its ugliness. ... I mean that this
affair may be like that; if you watch it patiently
enough and puzzle your brains until you 're weary,
some sort of a design will show up through the su-
perficial meaninglessness."
She smiled disparagement. "That's a pretty la-
boured comparison, I'm afraid, and hardly worth
while —"
"It's vivid enough," Crittenden asserted, "and
I've no doubt pretty apt. ... At all events, we
won't be long finding out, now. The farther
we leave New York behind us, the nearer we
draw to the revelation, whatever it may be. That's
Certain."
He spoke mechanically, his eyes thoughtfully nar-
rowed in the obsession of this problem. Fumbling
absently in a side pocket of his coat he found and
stuck between his lips a wrinkled cigarette.
Cynthia remarked the disappearance of his silver
case, wondered, and surmised the reason for it. For
a moment a perilous sympathy shone in her gaze.
But, perhaps fortunately for him, he was blindly
abstracted.
"Then you 're just a little sorry ... ?" the
girl asked after a moment, her tone bantering.
"Not I," said Crittenden, rousing. "It's more
comfortable, this way — standing by to take my


16o CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
share of responsibility in case anything does
happen ..."
"You ought n't to feel that way, fairly," objected
Cynthia, more serious. "It's no more your fault
than mine. Through you I found this position,
through me you were drawn aboard the ship. It's
the Red Man, really, who's to blame. We 're only
his manikins — bits of flotsam in the race of the
tide. ..."
"Partners of strange fortunes," said Crittenden,
under the contagious spell of phrase-mongering.
"Is that a bargain? " she caught him up quickly.
"Another? " he laughed.
But Cynthia met his odd, whimsical stare with
eyes naively earnest and sincere. "Don't joke," she
said quietly. "I mean it. And we owe it to our-
selves, in a way — to form an alliance offensive and
defensive: you and I against them all. Is it a bar-
gain? " she repeated, offering her hand with a pretty
gesture at once generous and appealing.
"Yes. ..."
Crittenden took her hand with more reluctance
than he let her see. He could not refuse it, but he
was wary of letting himself become too intimately
interested in her, of letting himself drift with the
tide of inclination and desire. He feared her, just
a little. She was just that much too bewitching. It
would n't be hard to become more than fond of a
creature so artless and yet so pleasing, so danger-
ously armoured in unusual charm and yet so helpless.
And Letty in her idle malice had put this con-
straint upon him, with her casual and contemptuous


162 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
her delicate audacity of spirit, her heart-free laugh-
ter, her pensive silences.
He was his own fool, who foresaw, with the clear-
ness of vision that only bitter unhappiness brings to
a man, step by step the progress of infatuation and
its inevitable end; while he had at his command a
word to break the spell of that fond enchantment,
but not the will or the power to utter it and rob him-
self of what he was learning to prize beyond all
things desirable.
By degrees he came to despise himself and to look
forward, with something of the yearning of a life
prisoner foreseeing the approach of death in his
dungeon, toward that inescapable hour when he must
either speak the truth or deny his manhood. He
had one hope, of the faintest: that the culmination
of the intrigue involving them all would come in time
to afford him some honourable means of escape.
Those days, while yet that crisis was deferred, to
Crittenden were strangely bitter-sweet.
To Cynthia they were only sweet, days that ran
their courses in an iridescent glamour of romance.
Unlike Crittenden, she did not analyse what ren-
dered them so precious to her. The capacity for
self-delusion is not singular to man. Cynthia lived
only for the hour, her soul asleep — though dream-
ing. In her understanding the sunlight shone with
added lustre only because she had no longer that
gaunt shape of Care for company, the air she in-
spired was rarely stimulating only because of the
mystery of their great adventure. She was happy
because she was loved — by Madame Savaran, of


CONTRETEMPS 163
course, who petted her inordinately, to an extent that
would have spoiled another nature; she was light
of heart and prone to frequent laughter because she
was kept continually diverted by an unfamiliar mode
of life; she was constantly mindful of Crittenden
because he was a good comrade, keen for the fun of
playing fellow-conspirator and of making believe
that this was a most desperate hazard — whereas,
as she knew in her heart, the outcome of it could not
possibly be anything but for the happiness of every
one concerned.
Thus Cynthia in infrequent moods of introspec-
tion. . . .
Meanwhile the Cynthia ploughed steadily south-
wards her blind furrow on the face of the' waters.
Little of moment happened to disturb the tranquillity
of shipboard existence. The great conspiracy sim-
mered gently in a covered vessel; only occasional
jets of steam escaped to remind one of the existence
of the brew. The several cooks responsible for its
concoction hovered solicitously round the pot, ex-
ceedingly jealous of its ultimate perfection, but with-
out open dissension. Treating one another with
admirable if studied tolerance, the head chefs, Rhode
and Perez, walked apart, wrapped each in his mantle
of remote inscrutability.
Small incidents proved disproportionately amus-
ing. Captain Lobb, waxing bold on sufferance, con-
trived to overstep the undefined bounds of Madame's
tolerance, and got himself severely snubbed. He
sulked for an hour and then, despairing of making
any impression upon Cynthia, who somehow inex-


164 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
plicably remained unconscious of his charms, began
casting sheep's eyes at Sidonie.
Mr. Youngling, mildly saturated, entertained the
company at one luncheon with a long, loud, and lach-
rymose monologue anent the virtues of his deceased
spouse, blandly refusing to be silenced or squelched
by Madame Savaran's acrid commentary or basilisk
stare.
Senor Perez continued consistently attentive to the
ladies, implacably supercilious toward Rhode.
The latter gentleman, between morning and even-
ing bouts with his estimable mother-in-law, devoted
himself to the melancholy consumption of an inordi-
nate amount of American whiskey, without showing
any effects thereof, ill or otherwise, whatever; unless
such may be termed his habit of hasty preparation
for immediate flight whenever he heard a sound
resembling the rustling of a skirt.
Mr. Claret, somewhat slowly but methodically,
managed to quarrel with every individual member of
the ship's executive staff, seeming to derive from this
depressing occupation a sort of morose satisfaction.
Systematically dividing up her day to permit of the
prosecution of her several interests, Madame Savaran
diligently browsed through six volumes of modern
French literature, complacently declared them one
and all " disgusting " and threw them overboard lest
they fall into Cynthia's hands; bickered with and
badgered Rhode until that unhappy person glowed
incandescent with the fury he lacked vocabulary to
express; hectored and bullyragged Sidonie until the
wonder was, not that the maid remained in Ma-


CONTRETEMPS 167
Following a particularly prolonged and vehement
outbreak of that racket, Crittenden appeared from
the rear of the promenade deck, in conversation with
some one Cynthia failed to identify because of the
darkness. Apparently they were coming from the
smoking-room, where the adventurers were in the
habit of gathering together nightly for drinks, dis-
cussion, and cards. At the entrance to the main com-
panionway they separated, Crittenden stopping by
the rail while the other turned in with a growled
"G'd-night," which Cynthia recognised as Rhode's
voice.
A moment later the young man discovered the
lighter blot made by the white garments of the
girl in her deck-chair against the darker shadow
of the superstructure. He came forward, peering
incredulously.
"Miss Grayce —?" he asked in a low voice.
"It was so hot; I could n't bear the idea
of going in," said the girl. "Won't you sit
down?"
Crittenden dropped into the chair Madame Sav-
aran had left vacant by Cynthia's side, and for a
little time sat without speaking.
She thought nothing of this: four days on ship-
board are not too few for an acquaintanceship to
progress far enough to permit of the long silences
of mutual understanding. But insensibly she became
aware that the man was in a frame of mind radically
different from that which she had come to know the
best. Something had happened to agitate him, to
worry him beyond the normal. She did not know


168 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
how she knew this, but know it she did with unquali-
fied certainty.
Disturbed, she moved uneasily in her chair and
turned toward him; but a synchronous burst of send-
ing from the wireless station made speech in any-
thing like a guarded tone for the time being an
impossibility.
For several minutes the stuttering, sour wheeze,
punctuated by heavy detonations, continued with
barely perceptible interruptions. Cynthia could see
Crittenden holding his head to one side, attentively,
as though listening; and when the noise at length
was silenced he sat up with a short laugh.
"Well, thank Heaven, that's over for to-night!"
said he.
"How do you know?"
"I heard him pound out 'Good-night,' " explained
Crittenden. "I picked up a fair working knowledge
of telegraphese when I was a reporter, and learned to
read Morse by ear. Up to that signal to shut off
Thurlow was sending code, and of course I could n't
make that out."
"I did n't know you had ever been a newspaper
man. ..."
"Oh, yes," replied Crittenden indifferently.
He raked a match beneath the arm of his chair
and applied the flame to the tip of a cigarette. In
the small glare of ruddy light Cynthia saw his face
quite clearly for an instant, and from its expression
saw she had not been led astray by instinct.
"There's something wrong," she said cautiously.
"What is it?"


CONTRETEMPS 169
M How did you know?" he parried, surprised.
"Your manner; you're excited and fretting.
Can't you tell me?"
"I don't know," he returned slowly. "I did n't
mean to, to-night. There's no special reason why
you should n't know, but I intended to keep it till
morning and let you have a night's unworried rest."
He fell silent again and continued so until Cynthia
reopened the subject — something which she did
without great delay.
"That was the Red Man with you, was n't it?"
"Yes."
"He's been talking to you about this business?"
Again Crittenden replied in the affirmative. "He
put it all before me — I believe, fully. We've been
confabulating over an hour, I guess."
"And —?"
"And — well, it's not a nice job," admitted Crit-
tenden uncomfortably. "I wish you were well out
of it."
"Worse than you anticipated?"
"No; better, if anything. I mean, I don't think
you 'll be in personal danger of any sort. But if
things don't work out precisely according to Hoyle,
everybody's going to get into serious trouble. It's
a penitentiary offense, if we 're caught and I am not
mistaken about the law."
He would have continued but for two interrup-
tions that postponed his revelation indefinitely. The
first was the slow, deep, mellow sounding of seven
bells, telling the hour of half-past eleven. The sec-
ond was the sudden reappearance of Rhode, who


170 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
tumbled out on deck with a show of haste and agita-
tion extraordinary in him.
"Crittenden — that you?" he called, catching
sight of the young man, whose chair was nearest the
companion-way entrance. "Look here, I want —"
He broke off sharply, bending forward to stare
through the darkness. "Who's that with you?"
"Miss Grayce," said Crittenden, rising.
"Uh!" the Red Man grunted. "Well — g'd-
evening, Miss Grayce — perhaps it's a good thing
you 're here. I gotta have a talk with the Madum,
and I stand no show on earth of getting away with
that, without the whole ship knowing it, unless you
can clear the way. D' you mind trotting below and
askin' her if she'll give me a quiet hearing? Tell
her it's important. It is. It's damn' important —■
beg pardon — it's pretty near a matter of life and
death."
Cynthia was already out of her chair. Rhode's
manner no less than his words impressed one with
the conviction that he made his request in no trifling
humour.
"Certainly," she said quickly. "I 'll go to her
at once. If you'll come in five minutes —"
"We 'll be with you in two," interrupted Rhode
brusquely.
Alarmed, Cynthia hurried to her stateroom, the
two men following at a little distance.
Entering and closing the door, the girl switched
on the electric light. The door to Madame's cabin
was open, a dark oblong against the white-painted
woodwork; and simultaneously with the flood of


CONTRETEMPS . 171
light there came from the farther room Madame
Savaran's clear, incisive accents, in expostulation.
"My dear child, do you really need that light?
It makes everything seem so hot!"
Before answering Cynthia entered the other state-
room and shut the door to the alleyway, which, for
the sake of ventilation, had been hooked back against
the partition. Then, while Madame Savaran was
gathering together her powers of profane remon-
strance, in a hurried whisper made the necessary
explanations.
Her answer was instant, positive, and not unan-
ticipated.
"Certainly not! At this hour of the night! My
dear, you must be as mad as he! Absurd!"
Cynthia had to exert all her talents for persuasion,
exhaustively and without stint, before she succeeded
in overcoming the old lady's stubbornness and educed
a grudged consent.
"Very well, my dear, if you insist. ... I
wouldn't mind if it wasn't for that damned wig.
. . . Go in your room and wait — I 'll turn on the
light, myself. . . . I'm surely degenerating into
second childhood when I let a chit like you make
me do what I don't want to."
Her grumbling would have seemed laughable had
not Cynthia's mind been thoroughly imbued with the
notion that the Red Man was not discovering such
temerity without ample warrant.
She waited, in a torment of anxiety, listening to
the hushed rumble of Rhode's voice as he conferred
with Crittenden in the alleyway — a sound so un-


172 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
naturally subdued that in itself it gave rise to affright-
ing conjectures — until the connecting door was
opened and Madame Savaran, in her own good time,
consented to show herself in dressing-gown and with
her wig set jauntily at just the most striking angle
imaginable. Out of sheer compassion Cynthia in-
sisted on adjusting it properly before she opened to
the impatient men.
Rhode's appearance, when the light discovered
him, fully carried out the gravest misgivings. For
once Cynthia saw him when he was not wholly the
Red Man, with a touch of pallor underlying his
sanguine skin, so pronounced that he seemed almost
ghastly by comparison with his familiar habit. Per-
spiration was dripping from his cheeks and forehead
and his stony eyes were darker than their wont — or
seemed to be — and glittering. Between passion and
perturbation he was trembling.
To see the man so shocked out of his customary
phlegm was in itself startling. Or so thought Cyn-
thia. To Madame Savaran, however, the vision had
only the effect of causing her lips to curl slightly at
the corners.
"Well?" she demanded grimly. "Now you've
got me out of bed with your foolishness, get it off
your chest, please, and go away. If you've waked
me up for nonsense I warn you, George—!"
"Ah, bite that off!" Rhode interrupted impa-
tiently. "I ain't here to hand you your daily fracas.
This is business, and I gotta know the truth, and I
gotta know it now — if you don't want to wake up
in the mornin' with your foolish throat cut. Now,


CONTRETEMPS 173
lis'n to me," he pursued rapidly, giving his mother-
in-law no chance to break, in: " that bonehead maid
of yours, Sidonie, has been talking to the men — I
guess it started with Lobb, but it's all over the ship
now — and if it's true there's going to be hell to
pay, or I miss my guess. I just found it out, and —"
"What on earth are you raving about, George
Rhode?" snapped Madame savagely. "Will you
be coherent or do you want me to turn you out of
this stateroom?"
None the less Cynthia could see that Rhode's agi-
tation had impressed the old lady.
"You turn me out now, and the chances are you 'll
be sore on yourself the rest of your born days,"
replied the man sulkily. "I wanta know if it's
true, what that idiot says: that you were fool
enough to bring that jewel-case with you. Don't
tell me it's so!"
"And what if it is?" demanded Madame coolly,
though she was visibly more pale.
"Is it? " Rhode insisted.
"Certainly. Why not?"
Incredulity set its seal on the face of the adven-
turer for a long moment. Then he thrust his hands
helplessly into his trousers pockets and regarded
Madame Savaran with the look of one despairing
of her sanity. Pity was written there, and confusion
and disgust, large for all to read.
"Honest," he said slowly — "believe me, some-
times you don't seem even human. I usta think you
had a lot of sense tucked away under that war-
bonnet, but I guess it's gone ossified with age, now,


174 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
all right. Say, what'd you think of me if I brought
a cart-load of real jewl'ry into the midst of a bunch
like this we got on board, and then turned a walkin'
handbill like that Sidonie loose to spread the news?
You've just about gummed things up good and
plenty, that's what you've done. If they get it fixed
in their heads that that truck's worth stealing they
won't think no more of takin' it away from you 'n
they would of swipin' candy off 'n a sick kid."


XI
PUNIC FAITH
By no means least singular among the many unique
phases in the temperamental repertory of Madame
Savaran was a bewildering amenability to reason,
which she was liable to exhibit at the least expected
times, though always opportunely to her best
interests.
In this instance, when all present looked to see
Rhode excoriated and blasted by the wrath his inso-
lence invited, she chose to blink the affront and take
account only of whatever justification he might have
for his attitude.
"If," said she calmly, when he had finished his
harangue — " if you 'll stop play acting, George
Rhode, and try to conduct yourself like a rational
being for a few moments, we 'll consider what you
tell me. I'm not at all sure you have n't got some
justice on your side. Let's grant it, without any
more bickering, that I was a fool to bring my jewels
aboard (though I never go anywhere without them,
as every one knows) and then let us try to find the
best way out of a bad fix. To begin with, tell me
just what you 're afraid of."
Rhode rested his huge body limply against the
partition and stared with protruding eye, his jaw
dropping.
"If you don't beat the Dutch ... l " said he in
a stunned tone.


17 6 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"Oh," retorted Madame with a toss of her hand-
some head and a bodeful flash of eyes, "don't de-
ceive yourself: I've an excellent memory; I shant
forget your impertinence." Here the Red Man
groaned so soulfully that even the set, disapproving
lips of his mother-in-law were seen to twitch. "But
I want to know what you 're scared of, and you 're
simply wasting time, not answering me — if there is
anything to be alarmed about. You don't really
mean to tell me you think your fellow black-
guards would attempt to rob me? Not seriously,
George?"
"Maybe I don't," returned the man with sullen
irony. "Maybe you know best. But / think I do.
As far as that is, I ain't got any doubt about it, if
they make up their minds the job's worth while.
That is, the most of 'em. There's some I can trust
a little. Crittenden, here — him and me are about
the only square men aboard the boat —"
"You 're embarrassing him terribly," interposed
Madame.
"And Youngling's all right when he's sober,"
Rhode continued with a dogged shake of his head;
"but you can't depend on him. And that little stew-
ard, Acklin — he acts like he's on the level: it was
him told me about this thing bein' the talk of the
ship."
"No one else you can trust?" Crittenden sug-
gested. "Bergen, Griscom, Greenaway —"
"Nah," snarled Rhode in disgust. "They'd be
for me in any ordinary show-down, but I could n't
count on ,'em if Perez was to offer 'em a bit more for


PUNIC FAITH 177
themselves than they'd been lookin' to get — like a
fat share in this jewel loot."
"Surely Serior Perez—?" protested Madame
Savaran in a shocked voice.
"G' wan," said Rhode wearily. "You 're losing
your grip if you've been lettin' him come the soft-
soap game with you. Why, he would n't think any-
thing of dumpin' us all into the drink if he thought
he saw a chance to get away with the bulk of the
graft. He's all there with the glad class, and every-
thing like that, but show him a dollar and he 'll suck
eggs and hide the shells."
This being apparently the nadir of depravity in
Mr. Rhode's data of ethics Perez was considered
specifically defined.
"But Captain Lobb and Mr. Claret — " Madame
pursued insistently.
"You just gotta know the worst all at once,
haven't you?" inquired Rhode sullenly. "Well,
Lobb's one of these jolly tars with a wife in every
port — waitin' for him with an axe. He's jumped
bail on a bigamy indictment, and I don't think the
United States is liable to be bothered with him for
some years to come. Claret's ex-first officer of a
South Seas tramp, where hazin' 's the fashion; he's
wanted for manslaughter. Thurlow used to be the
noble wireless boy on one of the Transatlantic boats,
but got to makin' too much profit out of the infor-
mation he picked up that way. Murray's . . . But
what's the use? None of 'em has got anythin' on
any of the others."
"But — great Heavens!" gasped Madame.


178 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"Why did you ship such a rabble? How dared you
bring us into the clutches of such thugs?"
"You can't forget that engraved invitation to
come to our party that I sent you by special messen-
ger, can you?" countered Rhode, glumly sarcastic.
"I done the best I could; I had to take 'em as they
come. You can't demand references when you 're
signin' on men to loot Lloyd's. Besides, Perez had
to have his say: I did n't dare turn down his men.
. . . Nope," Rhode summed up sourly; "when you
come down to cases you 'll find there's only me and
Crittenden you can tie to."
"And why yourself?" demanded Madame Sav-
aran. "What makes you so concerned to protect
me and my jewels, if you please?"
Rhode looked up with a stare of astonishment.
"Say," he expostulated, " you don't seem wise to the
fact that if those pikers annex that load of junk,
they 're just naturally going to chuck this job and
queer the frame for all of us. And then where 'll
your blessed fifteen thousand be? And my stake?
You don't want to forget I got a few cents invested
in this business. If I let it be ditched, where 'll I get
off?"
"Doesn't the same argument apply to Perez?
Won't the same interest hold him to us?"
"That's what I'm rootin' for; but I ain't bankin'
on Perez, not so's anybody'd notice it. If I did
I'd be as big a mutt as when I give in and let you
come along to put this show on the blink — just
because you threatened to blow if you didn't get
your fool way."


PUNIC FAITH 179
"Well, you have this satisfaction, George Rhode:
for once you were right." Shattered self-esteem fla-
voured the accents of Madame with a bitterness pass-
ing the bitterness of remorse. "I'm an old fool;
but I'm too old to change my ways. The ques-
tion is: What's to be done? What have you to
propose?"
Rhode wagged his head dismally. "There's only
one sensible thing," said he. "And I think I can
see you falling for it — not."
"I presume you mean I ought to let you take care
of my jewels?"
"That's what you ought to do. Me and Critten-
den can shove 'em in the safe in the purser's office."
"Thank you; I don't intend to shirk the responsi-
bility at this stage," Madame interrupted dryly.
"They will stay where they are — in my hands. If
I am robbed, on your head be it."
"Sure," agreed Rhode. "I seen that coming
before I spoke." He waved his big, red hands in a
helpless way, and turned to Crittenden a lowering,
plaintive gaze. "What'd I tell you? " he inquired,
aggrieved. "There's nothin' to it: all women are
crazy."
"That will do —" Madame began with ardent
vigour.
"Well, I ought to know," Rhode countered. "I
was married once."
"You deserved to be!" snapped his mother-in-
law.
For a few moments there was silence, Rhode with
a movement of his heavy shoulders signifying his


18o CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
willingness to concede the point. Then Madame
Savaran revived the moot question.
"Presumably you can't suggest anything sane,
George Rhode?"
"No; not from your point of view." The man
stood up and moved listlessly toward the door.
"There ain't nothin' to do but wait for the fuss to
commence. I don't think anythin' will happen until
to-morrow, or to-morrow night, likely; but there
ain't any good takin, chances. I'm goin' to move
into the stateroom forward, and Crittenden can have
the next aft, and between us we 'll stand watch and
watch. Not," he concluded with a dismal candour,
"that we got any show on earth if it comes to an
open break. We 're as good as beat already. Only,
we 'll do what we can."
With a discouraged nod and gesture he indicated
his good-nights and brushed past Crittenden into the
alleyway.
"Cm' on, Crittenden," he growled in passing.
But Crittenden delayed another moment. He
looked from Cynthia, a trifle pale but unfrightened,
to Madame Savaran, disturbed but not in the least
awed by the gravity of their plight, then back to the
girl again, drawing hope and a halting sense of pride
from the look of her eyes: in which he read confi-
dence. Of that faith he must prove worthy. He
dared not fail her.
He drew somewhat heavily upon his stock of in-
genuity and plausibility.
"I would n't worry much, if I were you," said he
glibly. "This is the first I've heard of this. I


PUNIC FAITH
fancy Rhode overdraws the situation somewhat.
Anyhow, with this shift of quarters, you 'll be safe
enough. Even granting Rhode's fears justified to
the letter, you 're not likely to meet ill treatment
until these chaps have exhausted every means of per-
suasion and deception at their command. You see,
neither you nor the jewels can get away. ... In
the meantime," he continued hastily, realising that
this course of argument was hardly calculated greatly
to ease the minds of the women, "we can't fail to
scheme a way out of the trouble; and — if I may —
I'd suggest that Madame Savaran try to pack her
valuables up in the least possible compass, for con-
venience in hiding or carrying away. . . . And," he
concluded vaguely, " don't worry. ..."
He was conscious of the penetrating stare of Ma-
dame Savaran's shrewd, old eyes. "You've a head
on your shoulders," said that lady, with an air of
some slight surprise at the discovery that Crittenden
wore his head so conventionally. "And I've half a
mind to take your advice. But ... is all this solic-
itude on my behalf?"
Momentarily she raked two burning faces with an
amused look of seasoned wisdom. Then with a
prim manner: "As emergency chaperon of Miss
Grayce," said she, " I thank you for your kind offices
on behalf of both of us. And now if you 'll be good
enough to go away, we 'll try to compose ourselves
and get a little rest."
Incontinently Crittenden departed.
Rhode he found waiting alone in the meagre
saloon abaft the head of the main companion-way,



Presently he did spring, with neat calculation launching
himself from the topmost step through the
air to land on Rhode's head and
shoulders





PUNIC FAITH 183
the swish and hollow clash of waters riven by her
bows and repelled by her flanks.
Rhode shook his shoulders. "Bad? " he grunted.
"It's rotten. Honest, it don't smell right. I guess
it's only what was comin' to me for trustin' a ginny
like Perez. . . . But I was all the time countin' on
his playin' square just out of policy. In an act like
this it's 'united we get away with it, divided we
get the hook.' But this Perez wants all the centre
of the stage for himself. He's got it all doped out
to slip me the wrong cue and spoil my exit. And
the hell of it is, it's too late to call an extra rehearsal.
The curtain's up and we simply dassent keep the
stage waitin'."
"Meaning you've gone too far to draw back?"
"You get me. . . . Now, this Acklin says he
heard Perez and Lobb talkin' about sneakin' the
stuff off of Madum and, if I raise my voice, handin'
me mine now. That means they've had this double
cross ready to slip me, all along: this is only the
beginnin' of the finish. . . . Believe me, we 're in
wrong seven ways from the deuce."
He rocked heavily, to and fro, grumbling inar-
ticulately for a moment.
"Well," he said at length, rising, "we better be
doin' what we can. This shift of rooms 'll only
show 'em we 're wise to what's comin', but we
gotta put up a bluff at protectin' them fool women.
That's the only play, now. You slip below, will
you, and find Acklin and tell him what we want
done — and tell him in a whisper. I 'll wait here."
And then, as Crittenden with a nod of under-


184 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
standing turned toward the companion-way, Rhode
stopped him with a word: "Listen!"
He rolled nearer, dropping the pitch of his voice.
"Got a gun?"
Crittenden nodded.
"On you?"
"No; in my stateroom."
"That'd help a lot — wouldn't it? — if you
happened to need it now? G'wan and get it, before
you look Acklin up. I'm heeled already."
"Right," agreed Crittenden. He ran lightly down
the steps, with a quick and comprehensive survey
determined that the dining-saloon was deserted, and
swung aft, into the darkling alleyway, lighted by a
single lamp, on which opened the office and sleeping
quarters of the purser, the chief steward and minor
officers of the ship.
Entering his room, Crittenden shut the door and
shot the bolt to provide against observation or inter-
ruption, then switched on the light, dropped to his
knees and pulled from beneath the berth his cabin
trunk.
In the tray, hidden in a tangle of shirts, collars,
socks, and ties, he found the automatic pistol which
instinct — and the coincidence of catching sight
of it in the money-lender's show-window — had
prompted him to purchase out of the proceeds of
the hypothecation of his cigarette-case, the day be-
fore the Cynthia sailed.
As his fingers closed upon it he was conscious of
a feeling of reinforced self-confidence; and he smiled
a little nervously, to remember how he had doubted


PUNIC FAITH 185
the wisdom of the purchase, how he had hesitated
and haggled with his conscience.
Even though Rhode had overdrawn their jeopardy
(and Crittenden in his saner moments little doubted
such to be the case: this was the Twentieth Century,
not those days when buccaneers haunted those Ba-
haman waters through which the Cynthia was forg-
ing)— even though Rhode's fears hobbled his judg-
ment, still it was comforting to know that one was
armed, equipped for defense. . . .
And even as he thought in this wise Crittenden
heard a succession of sounds that left him scantily
in doubt as to the soundness of Rhode's most evil
apprehension.
He heard first a cry, deep and hoarse with anger
though dulled by distance and the anfractuous route
it travelled to reach his ears; then a noise like that
made by bringing two planks smartly together; and
finally a confused noise of voices and rough-and-
tumble scuffling: all, apparently, emanating from the
upper deck, where he had left Rhode, where Cyn-
thia and Madame Savaran had their staterooms.
Alarmed, he closed his trunk, shoved it back
beneath the berth, thrust the pistol into his pocket,
jumped up and ran out into the corridor, as he opened
his stateroom door hearing the noise more distinctly,
and, with an addition to its volume, the bellowing of
a heavy voice, unmistakably that of the Red Man:
a sustained gush of wrath as incoherent and unin-
termittent as the roaring of an ill-tempered child.
Then, bursting headlong through the swinging
door at the end of the passage, Crittenden pulled up


186 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
in the middle of the dining-saloon, watching with
amazed eyes the gradual downward progress on the
companion-way of an apparently inextricably inter-
entangled mass of arms, legs, heads, and bodies,
belonging to a knot of struggling men — four or
five of them, at least, all clinging tooth-and-nail to
a common centre of devoted interest, as if in con-
certed effort to smother and silence the source of
that incredible efflux of sound.
Through interstices in this coil of contention,
glimpses of Rhode were to be had — spots and
splashes of a huge red shape, squirming, heaving,
quaking: a formless thing of sanguinary colour that
wrought like a devil in chains. . . .
With a forcible thud the writhing heap struck
the landing, where the steps from port and star-
board united to a single flight down to the main deck,
and one of the attacking party, stunned by the impact
of his head with a baluster, relaxed and fell away.
His handicap thus lightened, Rhode exerted himself
magnificently. Momentarily the snarl of struggling
men was agitated as by a seismal shock.
Crittenden, with pistol poised but fearing to fire,
saw the Red Man upheave, first gaining his knees,
then with a terrific effort his feet, shedding the
human bodies like garments. Men seemed to fly
from him as through some singular phenomenon
of centrifugal force. A veritable eruption of limbs
and torsos clouded the air about him and subsided,
leaving Rhode momentarily free and erect.
He stood so, collecting himself, for a bare mo-
ment: an accent of triumph emphasizing his unin-


XII
PILLAGE
ABRUPTLY Cynthia was startled to discover that
Perez had left his place at the head of the opposite
flight of steps and had moved round the companion
well to her side — making the manoeuvre with that
suggestion of swift, practised stealth that seemed to
inhere in every action of the man. He was quite
close upon her, his dark, smooth, evil face within
a yard of her own, his eyes probing hers with their
fixed, poisonous smile, before she realised his ap-
proach.
Surprised out of her absorbed contemplation of
the scene beneath her, where at the foot of the com-
panion-way Claret was rising from Rhode's back,
while the others clustered round the motionless man
like flies round a dish of sweetmeats — she recol-
lected her wits and stepped back.
"May I suggest this is hardly a scene for your
eyes, senorita?" Perez's tone was oleaginous but
his intent clear. "Your stateroom, perhaps. . . ."
She gave him look for look, striving to cut the
unctuous quality in his manner by a display of down-
right contempt; but without effect. If anything his
slow smile became more familiar.
"Why," she said, her voice hard, — " why did
you do that?"
He acted a phase of bewilderment ending in under-


19o CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
standing of her meaning. "What — If" he asked,
hurt, with a gesture comprehending the group below.
"Why have / done that? I beg your pardon: I had
nothing to do with it. You yourself must have seen
that I did n't lift a finger. . . ."
"Yes," she agreed, with a scornful mouth; "I
saw that."
Perez shrugged. "And you hold me responsible,
sehorita? Is it my part to interfere with Senor
Rhode's quarrels?"
"You inspired this outrage," the girl insisted, her
voice trembling with anger in spite of her efforts to
control it. "You know that, and I know it. It was
as despicable as you are cowardly."
"But . . ." Again the shrug, with, this time,
a slight filming of his eyes, as though by this means
the Brazilian sought to conceal his resentment. "But
I assure you —"
He was interrupted by a voice from below —
Claret's, lifted impatiently: "I say, Perez, what'll
we do with this pig? He's down and out. . . .
Damn it, what's become of you?"
But the self-possession of the scoundrel was proof
even against this circumstance. A third time his
shoulders and his eloquent hands deprecated the look
that Cynthia had for him.
"I see," he said with a gentle laugh. "I must
not hold it against you, this cruel suspicion you have
as to my honest motives. Another shares your delu-
sion —"
"You are insufferable," Cynthia interrupted
coldly. She showed him her back, returning to her


PILLAGE 191
stateroom and Madame; thus complying with his
wishes without realizing it.
She was in a ferment of indignation when she
opened the door and closed it behind her, but only
her sense of right and justice had been outraged
by the sight of a single man (even though he was
one she disliked and distrusted) beset and overcome
by numbers and treachery. Of the assault on Crit-
tenden she knew nothing. It was primarily solici-
tude on his account that had brought her hurriedly
forth from the security of her cabin, at the first
sound of conflict; but that anxiety laid by the fact
of his absence, she had given her interest forthright
to the unequal struggle engaging the Red Man, and
thought no more of the other save in a dull way of
wonderment, that he had disappeared so suddenly.
And there had been but little light in the after
part of the main saloon, which every night, dinner
over, was thriftily reduced to an allowance of two
bulbs, placed forward, near the foot of the com-
panion way. These served hardly more than to
reveal the proportions of the place and its furnishing,
enabling its gloom to be navigated without disaster
to the human shin. So Crittenden, from the time of
his entrance through the door aft to the moment
he fell beneath Lobb's fist — a period spanned by
a few swift seconds — had remained in shadow,
inconspicuous to the girl at the head of the well, on
the upper deck.
It was not, indeed, until she had, with flushed
cheeks and firelit eyes, blurted out her account to
Madame Savaran, that she was reminded of Crit-


192 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
tenden by a gnawing sense of omission as much as
by the comments of that shrewd lady.
To do Madame no injustice, she failed to show
much dismay because of the happening, at least, out-
wardly, to an extent sufficient to feed fuel to the
flame of Cynthia's excitement. The old lady pos-
sessed a strong sense of her own competent calibre
and preparedness, to sustain her in most emergencies.
"Quite so," she calmly endorsed Cynthia's burning
strictures: "but, after all, it was no more than we
expected — only quicker. Even Rhode looked for
something of the sort. I'm sorry they caught him
off guard; but then, my dear, we mustn't forget
he deserves a deal of punishment. . . .
"Don't think me heartless, Cynthia," said she;
"I'm not at all so. But I just can't help being
philosophical about George Rhode's misadventures.
He had n't any business dragging us into this mess,
and he was a born fool to go into it himself with-
out some assurance that he'd got and could hold the
upper hand. I'd be ashamed to knuckle under to
low ruffians like Lobb and that slimy sneak, Perez.
Besides, be sure, he's not much hurt. You can't
hurt that man; his head is solid ivory."
"But, Madame," Cynthia remonstrated, "you
forget what this means to you."
Madame Savaran shook her wig awry in emphatic
negation. "Not in the least. I'm fully alive. But
since it had to come, is it any worse coming to-night
than to-morrow? There's some consolation, to my
mind, in knowing where one stands. The only thing
I regret is that it was n't that devil Sidonie instead


PILLAGE 193
of George. . . . And by the way, what about your
young man?"
If Cynthia contemplated a denial that Crittenden
was to be classified as her property, she had no
opportunity to register it. On the heels of Madame's
inquiry there fell a knock on the door, a double knock
of a guarded accent but at the same time sharply
arresting.
"Well?" demanded the elder lady, lifting her
voice. "What do you want?"
"If you please, ma'm," came a voice, subdued but
eager, "it's I — the steward, Acklin, ma'm —"
"What do you want?"
"It's Mr. Crittenden, ma'm. 'E's 'urt. 'E got
a bit knocked up and I think needs a bit of caring-
for."
By this time Cynthia, either unconscious of or
ignoring Madame's gesture of caution, had the bolts
drawn and the door open, revealing the stunted
figure of the little Englishman.
"Where is he?" she asked in a breath.
"They've took 'im into one of the for'ard styte-
rooms. 'E's unconscious and — if you 'll pardon
my s'ying so — 'e's bleedin' a bit from a cut on the
'ead, where 'e 'it a tyble, fallin'. There is n't a sur-
geon aboard, and they've left 'im to shift for 'im-
self, and it seemed rahther 'artless, so I thought —"
But Cynthia had ceased to listen. She turned back
to Madame with a look of appeal, instantly recog-
nised.
"Go to him at once, of course," said the old lady
promptly.


i94 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"But you —?"
"I can take care of myself, thank you. Don't
worry about me." Madame Savaran turned on the
steward. "This isn't a trick?" she demanded
sharply.
But the man's face was ingenuous and sincere.
"I 'ope I may die — !" he protested.
"Who sent you?"
"I came of my own accord, ma'm; indeed I did."
"He's telling the truth," Madame assured Cyn-
thia, convinced. "Go along with him. But wait.
Take some handkerchiefs for bandages, cologne,
peroxide . . ."
She began to bustle about, helping Cynthia to find
the articles indicated, with others that seemed cal-
culated to prove helpful.
"And Mr. Rhode?" she shot at Acklin over her
shoulder, in the midst of these preparations. "How
is he?"
"'E's come to already, ma'm; 'e's in 'is own
styteroom now, with Captain Lobb and Mr. Claret
and — I beg pardon, sir; I didn't see you coming,"
the man hroke off suddenly.
"What's this?" Madame Savaran rapped out
•harply, swinging back to face the door. Perez
stood there, sleek and obsequious to her face —
having the instant before unceremoniously thrust
Acklin out of his way.
"I hope I don't intrude," he began in tones oily
and ingratiating.
"You do," Madame caught him up. "What do
you want?"


PILLAGE 195
"I merely stopped to inquire, thinking you might
have been alarmed—"
"I have n't, and I'm not, if that's all that's
troubling you. Or is there, possibly, something
else?" demanded the old lady with an edge to her
tone calculated to bite deep into the man's effrontery.
He looked and lifted his brows and his shoulders
and his two hands at once, deprecating her attitude.
"Pardon," said he, blandly, "I wished merely to
offer myself should you feel the need of protec-
tion—"
"We don't and we won't," Madame informed
him bluntly. "You may as well understand now and
at once that I'm quite capable of taking care of my-
self, even in association with reptiles such as you and
Lobb — to say nothing of that insect Claret. If
you think you can brow-beat and cow me by making
dastardly assaults on our natural protectors, my son-
in-law and that poor Mr. Crittenden — you 're sadly
in error. I'm glad," said Madame Savaran, con-
fronting him squarely and speaking with clear and
blighting emphasis, "you butted in just at this
moment, for it's time you were brought to your
senses. There's entirely too much nonsense in this
business, and we'd better clear it up now and for
all time. To begin with, either you will carry out
your undertaking with Mr. Rhode, or I 'll devote
my fortune to seeing that you spend the balance of
your days behind penitentiary bars. And to continue,
you will take steps immediately to restore to me my
jewels, or I 'll lay information against you the first
port we make."


196 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"What!" For once a tithe of Perez's noncha-
lance was notably subtracted. His mouth opened
and his eyes grew cloudy with dismay. "What's
that you say? Your jewels 1"
"Precisely — my jewels," retorted Madame,
shrewish but cool. "Gone," said she, with an ex-
pressive gesture: " vanished — stolen from my state-
room between dinner this evening and an hour ago,
when I came to bed. But if you know what's good
for you, my good man, they 'll be returned in mighty
short order, believe me."
"But ... I am sure . . . Madame must be
mistaken?" Incredulity tinged the tone of the ob-
jection, betraying his obvious conclusion, on second
thought, that the woman must be lying.
"You think so? Wait one moment." The old
lady turned quickly and caught up the leather-bound
steel case from her berth. "Look, then!" she cried,
opening its front with a jerk and pulling out, one
after another, its velvet-lined, neatly partitioned
drawers, one and all destitute of a single article of
jewelry. "This is how I find it, when I start to
put away what I have been wearing — empty, swept
and garnished! And how did it happen? Ask
Sidonie — my maid — that beast! — ask Sidonie
who knew the combination of the first lock and
who kept the keys of the others! That sneaking
animal!"
"But, Madame —" began Perez, dubious but
none the less impressed; for her rage was most con-
vincing.
"But, Madame!" the old lady mimicked venom-


PILLAGE 197
ously. "But, Madame! A fine figure of a villain
you are, indeed! To let yourself be over-reached
by a woman: to let Sidonie fill your ears with tales
of my jewels until she sees your cupidity is excited
and makes up her mind to steal them for her own
hand. And so you 'll renege on your bargain, throw
down your partner, abandon your filthy plot — will
you? — in order to reap a greater profit by robbing
an old woman! And here you are, with all your
pains gone for nothing!"
"Ah, but as for that," returned Perez, recovering
and unabashed; "we sha'n't be long getting the
jewels from Sidonie — if she has them."
"Meaning, if I am telling the truth?" demanded
Madame with a dangerous light in her eyes.
Perez bowed insolently.
"Get out of my room, you beast!"
"All in good time —"
"Get out of my room, d'ye hear?" With a
swift movement Madame Savaran seized a cologne
bottle from her dressing-table. "And if you ever
dare speak to me again —"
Perez incautiously opened his mouth, and then
ducked alertly. The heavy cut-glass bottle struck
a metal coat-hook on the partition beside his head,
broke and drenched him with its pungent contents.
For a second he stood coughing and strangling, his
eyes and face smarting with the potent stuff, then
turned and stumbled blindly out into the alleyway
and so away, mopping his countenance with a hand-
kerchief and swearing fluently to himself in mixed
English, French, and Spanish.


198 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"Virago!" he asserted, among other printable
designations. "Termagant! Vixen!"
As he disappeared and the sound of his lamenta-
tions grew less deafening, Madame Savaran with an
abrupt shift of manner turned to Cynthia. "Go
quickly," she said with a soft laugh. "They won't
trouble me again to-night, I promise you. . . . And
here — take this." She thrust a little pearl-handled
revolver into Cynthia's unwilling hand. "I have
another, in case of need. Give this to your young
man, my dear. He 'll need it."
"But, Madame," stammered Cynthia, "is it true
— about the jewels?"
"True? My dear, of course it's true. They
have inexplicably disappeared."
"But —"
"Not another ' but' to-night. It is nothing. I am
rich: I can buy more, if I wish to. But they will
come back, never fear. Now go, before they think
to set a guard and stop you from seeing him."
She grasped Cynthia's arm and, half affection-
ately, pushed her out of the stateroom.
Acklin was waiting patiently in the alleyway. With
a diffident gesture he plucked at the sleeve of the
dazed girl. "This w'y, ma'm, please," said he.
"There's a service companion-w'y up for'ard 'ere.
They might 'old us up if we was to try to pass
through the saloon. They 're all w'ytin' there. 'Ark
to that, now 1"
A burst of laughter, deep and hearty, rolled up
from the main deck.
"Perez," explained the steward, thoughtfully


PILLAGE 199
relieving Cynthia of part of her stock of emergency
medicaments. "Larfin' at 'im, they are. 'E 'll be
'arf wild."
Madame just then closing her door, with a great
racket of lock and bolts, they were left in darkness
tempered only by the light from the saloon at the
end of the tunnel. Fortunately, however, Acklin
knew the way, and they met with no hindrance. In
another moment they were gingerly descending a
steep interior companion ladder to the main deck.
At its foot Acklin first opening the door a mere inch
for a cautious reconnaissance, Cynthia found herself
in the lower alleyway and moved stealthily forward
at the urge of the steward, who danced impatiently
at her heels, alarmed because of the commotion of
voices aft.
"'T is n't 'ardly likely they 'll bother abah 'im,"
explained the man in a stage whisper. "Only if
they was to catch me at this, my gyme would be about
up and no mistyke. All I'm afryde of is somebody 'l1
remember 'e is n't locked in. 'E's 'ere, miss."
He stopped before the door of the stateroom
farthest forward, on the starboard side. "None
of the other rooms is occupied," said he, groping in
the darkness for the knob. "They 're mostly dis-
mantled. 'E's really 'ardly what you might call
comfortable."
He touched a switch and flooded the stateroom
with light, then stood aside. Cynthia brushed past
him with a little cry of pity and concern.
The room was bare of all save fixed furniture,
such as the berths built in one above the other, and


zoo CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
the wardrobe, folding-seat, and washstand. There
was, however, a mattress on the lower berth, and on
this lay Crittenden, just sensible.
To an unnatural pallor was added the ghastly
effect of a quantity of blood smeared over his coun-
tenance, its source a deep gash above his right temple.
At first glance his appearance boded a far more
serious pass than was actually the case with him.
Notwithstanding this, Cynthia had her emotions
well in hand.
"Water," she said quickly to Acklin.
"'Ere, ma'm," said he, indicating a small tin
pitcher with steaming spout on the floor by the head
of the berth. "I was going to try to mend.'im up
myself before I thought how as per'aps a woman's
'ands would make a tidier job of it."
"Yes," said Cynthia absently. "Put those down
here," she added, pointing out a place for him to
leave the supplies for first aid to the injured. "And
pour the water into the basin."
"Yes, miss." Acklin obeyed, then hung for a
moment in indecision. "I'm afryde I 'll 'ave to go
now, miss. They 're ringin' for their whiskey."
"Very well."
"And I m'y not 'ave a chance to get back."
"Don't worry. This is nothing serious, and I
shall find the way back to my room without trouble."
"Thank you, miss. Good-night."
"Good-night," said Cynthia, preoccupied.
She sat down, quietly ignoring Crittenden's look,
which in his daze and pain was curiously compounded
of gratitude and consternation, as well as his efforts


PILLAGE
201
to speak", whicH she put a temporary stop to by
placing her soft fingers across his lips; then with
a business-like air she proceeded to examine his
wound.
It proved happily to be superficial — merely a
nasty bruise beneath skin broken by collision with
the sharp edge of a piece of furniture. The real
cause of Crittenden's period of unconsciousness —
now some time past, although he was as yet by no
means in full command of his faculties — resided in
the merciless blow on his jaw, a clean knock-out
administered with all the force and weight and mali-
cious brutality of intent that the Nova Scotian had
at his command.
But even of this, the effects were rapidly wearing
away. Crittenden's head was still ringing and aching
badly; otherwise he was resting without intolerable
discomfort, able to understand what was going on
and to tell with his eyes, if not with his prohibited
lips, of his thankfulness and appreciation, as Cynthia,
with quick deft hands first sponged the blood-stains
from his face, then cleansed the wound with hot
water and peroxide, finally dusting it with an astrin-
gent antiseptic powder, and bandaging it with a
soft pad of linen and adhesive plaster.
As she was finishing, the click of a latch behind
her brought her to her feet with a start.
A face looked in, dour and sardonic, at the open
door — the face of Mr. Claret darkened by an open
sneer.
"Affecting," he observed, with his air of the aloof
cynic. "In fact, touching. Sweetheart at bedside


XIII
TRUTH
Instinctively Crittenden tried to rise. The effort,
however, only resulted in an immediate return to his
former position, eyes closed, set teeth restraining an
involuntary groan.
Pitiful, Cynthia went to him. "What is it? " she
asked gently, taking the seat by the head of the
berth.
"Pinwheels —"
"What!"
A sorry smile accompanied Crittenden's explana-
tion: " Pinwheels goin' round in my head; also long
jagged streaks of red fire. Hurts plenty. Don't
worry, though. Better presently."
He opened his eyes and regarded her, with a
clearer intelligence in his expression. "Good of
you to patch me up. Lobb hit me before I got a
chance at him. How long ago was that?"
She told him half an hour: whatever its actual
length, the period of time that had elapsed between
the assault on Rhode and the recovery of Critten-
den had been so filled with incident and emotion
that to Cynthia half an hour seemed a conservative
estimate of its duration.
Crittenden knitted his brows, perplexed. "My
light's been out uncommonly long for a clean knock-
out. Must've hit my head, falling."


206 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
with a quick survey of their prison that suggested
nothing hopeful.
Cynthia worked her hands together. "Mr. Claret
locked the door and took the key with him," she
explained. "You see . . ." She recounted tersely
the circumstances which had brought her to his side
and kept her there, a prisoner with him.
He listened attentively, if with a wandering glance,
alert to catch upon the least promising material to
facilitate their escape — or, rather, hers; for himself
he was comparatively indifferent. He could manage
— somehow — alone . . .
There were two ports, one in the side, the other
opening through the transverse bulkhead forward,
overlooking the main deck to the bows: both, of
course, far too small for the passage of any body
larger than a monkey's; and, equally of course, both
open for the sake of ventilation. The single door
was as stout as its lock: moreover it closed tightly.
At the top of the rear partition a ventilating space
four or five inches deep was filled in by an iron grill,
to the under side of the deck above. There were
no other openings, and not a stick of detachable
furniture that might serve as a lever to force the
door.
"Score a big black mark against Mr. Claret,"
commented Crittenden as the girl stopped speak-
ing. "There's no sense in this, anyway. Why
keep you locked up? What could you do against
them?"
"Perhaps to get me out of the way while they
rob Madame Savaran," she suggested.


TRUTH 207
"But if her jewelry has already been rooked —"
"Perhaps Perez did n't believe her."
Crittenden considered this with an intent frown.
"There may be something in that," he conceded.
"Still . . . Do you believe her story?"
"Don't you think it likely?"
"It's quite probable, at all events. Sidonie's
capable of it — or, for that matter, any one of this
gang might have made up his mind to steal a
march on the others. But that does n't alter the
senselessness of this outrage. If ever I get within
arm's length of Claret, I 'll wring his scoundrelly
neck. Pure malicious mischief— 1 The curl"
"Don't mind. I 'll try not to. It might be
worse."
"Oh, something must be done about it," Critten-
den declared.
He stopped by the push-button for the annunciator
in the main saloon, and putting his thumb upon it,
maintained a steady pressure during several minutes,
trying to detect the faint, distant thrill of the elec-
tric buzzer. But nothing answered it, and at
length, discouraged and exasperated, he gave up
the attempt.
"Don't worry so," Cynthia pleaded diffidently.
"We must be patient . . ."
Incredulous, he stared down, at her. Was it
possible she did not understand the true inwardness
of her predicament — the tacit* inference therefrom
in the minds of men, that battened on their dual
sequestration, gaining weight and cruel significance
with every minute they passed together?


TRUTH 209
fresh trick of objectless malevolence, he got up from
his knees, blinking a little before he got his bearings.
Cynthia had uttered only a faint exclamation of
surprise.
"It's nothing," he said: "I mean, no matter.
I was n't accomplishing anything, anyway. We must
try to think of something else."
"I'm afraid it's of no use," said the girl quietly.
"Why not rest?"
"I'm not beaten yet," he asserted stubbornly.
"I 'll think of something. ..."
He moved over to the forward port and looked
out. The companion-ladder from the promenade
deck came down directly in front of it, but through
its steps he could see more or less distinctly most
of the deck space, a-glimmer with starlight between
the black shapes of winch, windlass, mast, and cap-
stan. To one side rose the white-painted wall of
the wireless deck-house, through whose port a broad
yellow bar of light swayed athwart-ships like a
boom of gold.
Noting this, he said aloud in his wonder:
"Hel-lo!"
Behind him he heard Cynthia rise. "What
is it?"
"Nothing — only Thurlow is apparently still on
duty. I thought he'd shut up shop for the night.
It means nothing — to us, at least."
She failed to reply for a moment, then, standing
beside him, closed her fingers in caution on his hand.
"Hush! " said she softly:
"What —?"


21 o C YNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"Listen. . . ."
He experienced the inevitable reawakened con-
sciousness of the ship's concordant sounds. Then
instinctively pitching his auditory sense to a higher
key, distinctly he heard the door of the next state-
room aft shut with an effect of stealth. Immediately
there followed a noise of some one stumbling with
less caution in the darkness, and then a loud squeak
as some considerable weight strained the slats of
the berth.
"Who's there? " Crittenden demanded suddenly,
aloud.
His reply came apparently from the ceiling, in
tones hushed and furtive: "S-sh! Not so loud,
please, Mr. Crittenden."
"Acklin!" cried Cynthia incautiously.
"You, Miss Grycel" — with boundless amaze-
ment.
"Quiet — steady!" Crittenden cautioned. "What
are you doing there, Acklin?"
"Standin' on the berth, sir, the better to talk
quiet-like through the grytin'."
Cynthia stifled a nervous laugh, Crittenden leaving
her to imitate the example set by the steward.
"What do you want?" he asked, when their
heads were on a level.
"Only to see if there was aught I could do for
you, sir. I thought Miss Gryce'd be in her styte-
room —"
"She was locked in with me — by accident.
Claret has the key. Can you get your hands on it,
any way?"


TRUTH
211
After an instant: "I'm afr'ide not, sir. Mr.
Claret's standin' 'is watch on the bridge just now,
sir."
"Try some other key —"
"I 'll see, sir. They 're kept, as you know, in the
chief steward's office. Mr. Griscom sleeps there;
if he's not—"
"Then get me a screw-driver; I can take the
lock off from this side. Tie a string to it and
lower it over to the starboard port. Do you
understand?"
"Yes, sir. Very good, sir. I can manage that,
I think; but ou must be pytient. They're 'avin'
a conference in the dining-saloon and keepin' me
busy passin' the drinks, sir. I just stole off for a
minute to see 'ow you were. But I 'll get you the
screw-driver, sir; never fear."
"One moment. What about Madame Savaran?"
"I believe she's 'oldin' the fort, as one might
s'y, sir; she's in her styteroom, and I think she 'as
barricyded the door."
"At least, she's in no immediate danger?"
"No, sir. There's a bit of a row on about 'er
jewels. They've 'ad the myde Sidonie up, a-cross-
examinin' 'er till she threatened to go into 'ysterics:
but she wouldn't own up to tykin' the jewels; and
now they 're accusin' each other. It's a ticklish job
all round, sir. . . . But they 'll be missin' me; I 'll
be off."
He dropped down with a light thud of feet, and
in another moment had let himself almost noiselessly
out into the alleyway, while, encouraged, Crittenden


2i2 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
himself cautiously descended to share with Cynthia;
this gleam of hope.
"He won't delay any more than he can help, I
feel sure. So you won't be cooped up here a great
while longer," he concluded.
She made no answer.
"You will be able to find your way back all
right? " he added, nervously.
"Yes," said Cynthia in a listless tone. "But
you? What will you do?"
"I 'll be all right. They only locked me up to get
me out of the way for the time being. If Rhode
goes over, as I think he must to save his skin, they 'II
take me as one of his henchmen. So I 'll be on hand,
whatever happens, undoubtedly."
"But unarmed? " she said quickly.
He was obliged to admit that.
"Then take this: Madame Savaran said it was
for you." Cynthia groped in the darkness until she
recovered the pretty little revolver she had heedlessly
put aside on entering. Then finding his hand she
pressed the weapon into it, ascribing to his over-
taxed nerves the sharp movement with which he
broke the contact of her fingers.
"What's this?" he demanded brusquely. "Oh!
. . . I presume one might have expected Madame
to invest in a trinket like this." His laugh sounded
briefly supercilious.
"Is it —isn't it —?"
"Calibre too light," he answered in language
cryptic to Cynthia. "For real service you want a
gun that throws a bullet heavy enough to stop a man


TRUTH 213
coming at you. This — well, it might blind him by
happy chance, or confuse him with pain — not if he
were fighting mad, however. Otherwise," he con-
tinued, talking rapidly to cover his feeling, "I'd
make shift with it to blow the lock off that door. At
least, I've heard of that sort of thing being accom-
plished — in books. However, we may be able to
knock a turn out of it."
"Yes," said Cynthia dully, silencing him with the
discovery that she had not been attending.
He went to the forward port and looked out. He
had hardly guessed how precariously his emotions
were balanced, that they should be so unsettled,
thrust perilously out of poise, by the simple touch of
Cynthia's hand upon his own.
He fought against himself, and was afraid, know-
ing what she suspected only as one who dreams.
She had returned to the folding-seat against the
after partition, on a sudden assailed by an inexpli-
cable sensation of helplessness and need, of weak-
ness and distress, unrelated to any conditions her
mind acknowledged.
Moveless, tense, she sat in undefined expectancy,
brooding over the troubled depths of her soul.
Something curious was happening: deep down in
the profound, unplumbed abyss of her being some
change was in process, infusing her consciousness
with exquisite premonitions.
And there, in the darkness that lay between them,
she seemed to sense a presence alien yet strangely
intimate to them both; there something lived out-
side of life; there something rare and delicately


2i4 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
wonderful stirred and pulsed in the womb of
nature.
^Whispered hints of a happiness passing the under-
standing bewildered with their impalpable, elusive
charm. She experienced confusing, poignant ink-
lings of something new and theretofore undreamed
of, something singular and consummate — as they
were glimpses of the light of a world beyond human
ken, a light blindingly beautiful, penetrating, intense,
visible only to the elect. . . .
Cynthia felt herself all trembling, beyond
control.
At the port, against a plaque of purple sky strewn
with the dust of stars, Crittenden's profile showed
stark, en silhouette. Her gaze was held to this, be-
cause of this her lips were parted and for this her
heart was throbbing like the heart of a wild thing in
a cage. . . .
Without presage this dangerous, murmurous husK
was broken by the ship's bell. Two strokes beautiful
with brazen sonance, and then two more, with a
scanty space between, sang through the silent, sound-
swept ship. Following, a man's voice rang out with
an eerie, plaintive cadence:
"Four bells, and all's wel-l-l . . ."
The spell snapped like an over-taut string. Cyn-
thia stirred restlessly, feeling the bonds of enchant-
ment severed and falling irrevocably from her
senses. In his place, Crittenden moved, with a low
exclamation of impatience.
"Good Lord!" he breathed, thinking of Ack-
lin. "Will he never come?"


216 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
•
down the ladder before the port, with a caution in
strong contrast to the impetuosity of the seaman
who had preceded him. As the man found footing
at the bottom Crittenden recognised the figure and
habit of Perez.
"Wait," he admonished the girl a second time, in
a whisper.
The Brazilian turned immediately toward the
wireless deck-house, and disappeared. They heard
him speak, evidently addressing an order to the oper-
ator. The dynamo began to purr, its volume waxing
to a windy roar, there was a clicking of switches
easily audible, and the abrupt crackle and detonation
of the spark broke upon the quiet, somehow thrilling
with its monotonous insistence, endlessly iterated its
tocsin cry through night-bound leagues of loneliness.
After the first half dozen or so explosions, Crit-
tenden started and smothered an exclamation.
Cynthia studied his face as revealed in the diffused
glimmer of starlight that penetrated the port. His
look was strained, she thought; and his hand grasp-
ing the brass-bound opening was rigid and motion-
less. She divined that he was influenced by a strong
excitement.
"What is it?" she asked.
"5. O. S.," he told her quickly: "the wireless
signal of distress. It has come quicker than I
thought. ..."
; She stiffened with a shock of alarm. "Are we in
danger, then —?"
"No. Not really. Wait."
"But why—?"


TRUTH 217
He caught her hand, heedless of all save what was
unfolding to his intelligence, and put upon her slen-
der fingers a pressure that insisted on silence equally
as it hurt.
But she did not complain. Neither did she seek
to draw away. Only something moved in her bosom
and something tightened in her throat, hastening her
breathing as she stood in patient waiting, staring up
at his thoughtful, intent countenance.
"Wait," he repeated. "I must get this. . . .
There!" he added as there fell a momentary break
in the continuity of Thurlow's urgent sending.
"He's stopped to listen for an answer."
Sharp upon the subsidence of his whisper sounded
the hissing clash of a switch shot home; and again
the spluttering shocks shattered the silence.
Crittenden's fingers closed like bands of steel on
Cynthia's hand, for an instant, then in the uncon-
sciousness of his preoccupation relaxed.
"By George!" he cried. "He's picked up Key
West!"
"What is it about? Can you tell?" asked Cyn-
thia, herself infected with his agitation.
"Listen: I 'll try to translate as he goes on."
In a voice low but clear Crittenden began to ren-
der into English the fluent stream of crepitant sound;
between the periods of almost deafening clamour
communicating its import to the girl as intelligibly
as his handicap permitted.
"'Steamship Cynthia: Lobb commander (code
word to signify owners) formerly Cydonia, Carib-
bean Fruit Company . . .


21 8 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"' In cargo, New York to Rio: no passen-
gers. . . .
"' At sea, latitude twenty-three thirty, longitude
sixty-eight, latest observation. (If I'm not mis-
taken that 'll be somewhere to the north of Haiti —■
six or seven hundred miles to the eastward of our
present position.) . . .
"' About one-fifty a.m. in head-on collision at
full speed with submerged derelict. (Don't let this
fairy-tale frighten you, please.) . . .
"' Bows crushed in below water-line. Impossible
to stop leak. Pumps powerless. Water-tight bulk-
heads useless, doors refuse to close. (Details intro-
duced, you understand, "to lend a specious air of
verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing
narrative." Still, he's a perfectly good liar, who-
ever cooked up this story.) . . .
"' Engine-room flooding rapidly, ship sinking by
head. Will stick by post as long as possible or until
juice gives out. (Meaning current for the dynamo.
Score one for wireless hero!) . . .
"' Boats in water, crew leaving ship in perfect dis-
cipline. Night clear, quiet sea. No help needed.
Steamship Orion, tramp, Hendricks commander,
Halifax for Kingston, standing close by to pick up
boats. . . .
"' No disorder, but sinking very fast. Impos-
sible to continue report. Called to boats. All
saved. . . .
"' Good-night. Thurlow, operator.1"
Crittenden wound up with a brief, derisive laugh.
"Pretty clumsy yarn; but the public will probably


220 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
ful — this ship: the brutality and horror of it, the
weirdness of that awful lying message, heard here
in darkness and captivity ... It all worked upon
me, unnerving me for the moment. I was a little
afraid. . . . You can do something," she added
with an uncontrollable shiver, which however he did
not suspect, since he no longer retained her hand.
"You can tell me what it all means — lift a little of
the black mystery, Bruce — reassure me, if you
can ...!"
"Steady!" he cautioned her. "One minute
more . . ."
On deck, just outside the port, footsteps were
sounding, and voices in guarded exultation. Some
one laughed slyly.
Crittenden cast a furtive glance through the open-
ing. The light in the wireless structure had been
extinguished. Near the foot of the companion lad-
der two men were pausing, evidently having just
reached that spot. Thurlow's shapely head was
visible, dark against the sea of stars.
"Thank God, that's over," he said distinctly.
"I did n't like the job, but it's not a bad one, now
it's done with."
The face of the other showed a flash of fine teeth.
"Excellent!" agreed Perez with his complacent
chuckle. "After you, serior —"
"No; you first." Thurlow stood aside, politely.
With a little formal bow Perez ran up the ladder,
the wireless operator following.
Crittenden drew a long breath of relief, grateful
for the evidence that neither man had overheard the


TRUTH
221
girl's nervous breakdown. Seemingly the story was
not yet common to the company on the ship: at least,
one might hope as much. It was still possible, on
the face of the situation, to save it by smuggling
Cynthia back to her cabin and by giving Claret
the lie direct, if he dared attempt to retail his
gossip.
If only Acklin ...!
Crittenden was thunderstruck to think that they
had agreed on no signal. He had all the while sub-
consciously been anticipating something — a tap,
a heavy stamp on the deck, a whistle — anything! —
to apprise him that Acklin was ready to lower the
screw-driver in front of the starboard port; without
pausing to reflect that any such proceeding would be
incautious to an extreme and that Acklin probably
counted on Crittenden himself being on the alert.
Cursing himself to himself, he turned hastily to
the opening in the side. Kneeling on the berth, he
looked out, then thrust a hand through and clutched
the object that had been hanging there — Heaven
knew how long! — dangling from the end of a cord
secured to the upper railing.
A single quick jerk broke the fastening. Critten-
den gave over berating himself and breathed a
prayer of thanksgiving for the screw-driver in his
grasp.
"At last!" he cried, triumphant, turning back into
the stateroom and crossing to the door. "I've got
it at last! In five minutes, now —"
But Cynthia gave him pause, as he stopped to
kneel and examine the lock anew. "Can't you make


222 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
it six?" she begged in a broken voice. "Give me
one minute to comfort me, to satisfy my curiosity,
to make me understand —"
"I'm sorry," he returned gravely. "I am think-
ing only of your good, even if apparently forgetful."
"Then tell me ..."
"It is nothing wonderful," he said hastily, with
disdain for the subject in his tone: "a cheap and
common-place swindling game, in the final analysis.
You remember I told you, the first day out, I had
suspected an attempt to sink the vessel for her in-
surance, and had rejected the suspicion as unlikely
because of the quantity and value of her cargo?"
"Yes," she breathed, almost heedless of what he
said, thinking only to keep him there a little longer,
to lose him no sooner than she must. . . .
"Well, then, it turns out my first guess was right,
after all — according to Rhode," Crittenden contin-
ued, thinking only to have done and make an end of
this equivocal complication. "Perez proposed the
plot, Savaran (Madame's husband) and Rhode en-
tered into it willingly, each putting up all their
available capital. Perez took a half share, it ap-
pears, therefore has the most voice. Savaran and
Rhode shared the other half, Savaran's interest
being the lesser. They bought this vessel, con-
demned by its former owners, for a song, paying
part cash down; tricked half a dozen marine insur-
ance concerns, including Lloyd's of London, into
continuing as her underwriters — but at a pretty stiff
premium, I guess; assembled the richest cargo they
could come by, partly on credit, partly on consign-


TRUTH 223
ment, and insured that up to the hilt. Do you follow
me?"
"Yes," said Cynthia softly.
"So now the plan is this: legally the Cynthia
passed out of existence just now, when the news of her
sinking was sent out by wireless. In another day or
two she is to be sunk in actuality. In the meantime,
we are making for a little, isolate, desolate cay on
the southern boundary of the Bahamas: Coffin Cay,
so-called. There we 're to make a junction with this
tramp steamship Thurlow just named, the Orion;
in that seclusion — the waters are travelled only by
ignorant sponge fishermen — the cargo will be trans-
ferred to the tramp. As soon as that has been ac-
complished, both vessels will steam out to sea, at
night, everybody on board the Cynthia having been
transferred to the Orion save the barest working
crew. At the first convenient deep the Cynthia's sea
cocks will be opened, and the balance of her crew will
take to the boats and rejoin the Orion, which will
then proceed to Kingston with a likely yarn about an
engine-room breakdown to account for the delay.
The cargo, by means of forged manifests, will be
taken elsewhere and disposed of to the best advan-
tage; the insurance both on it and on the Cynthia
will be collected; and the syndicate will whack up
on the spoils and the incident be closed."
"How long have you known this?"
Crittenden hesitated. "To be honest, I've sus-
pected foul play from the first; but I let myself in
for it, partly through sheer desperation, partly be-
cause I felt responsible for you — as I've said. The


224 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
positive truth I have n't known until to-night, when
Rhode cornered me and put it up to me, telling the
part I was expected to play. So also with Madame
Savaran; she too knew from the first that something
fraudulent was contemplated, and I dare say sur-
mised a good part of the truth; but Rhode says he
never told her any details until this evening, after
dinner. It was solely her cupidity, to look after her
money, and her distrust of him (which is conceiv-
able) that induced her to come along. She insisted
on it, and Perez and Rhode had to give in, for if
she'd carried out her threat to make public what
little she knew, even, it would have been fatal to
their plans. Now she's hopping mad, declares
she won't be a party to the plot if it ruins her to
expose it, and it begins to look as if she'd snarled it
up impossibly. Perez wants to put her out of the
way and take her jewels and . . . And I've no right
to be telling you all this to frighten you."
His voice assumed a weary tone. "But now you
know — you had to, sooner or later — and you
know just what I am, the associate and employee of
thieves and —"
He stopped speaking in sheer amazement and
solely because of the reason for that emotion: Cyn-
thia's hand, warm, soft, and gentle, that had found
its way to his lips and closed them with its silken
pressure.
"I know," assented the girl. "No, let me speak.
It's my turn, now." There was a deepened richness
in her voice that perturbed him: sympathy therein
mingled with understanding and resolution and with


TRUTH 225
something else, something infinitely sweet and ten-
der, like a caress.
"I know you — yes," she said; "and since that's
so, you must n't malign yourself to me, Bruce. I
know you better now than I have ever known any-
body in all my life, and I won't hear you libelled,
even by yourself."
"But," he protested, alarmed, " you don't seem to
understand —"
"I do; I understand too well. Listen to me,
Bruce. There were two of us — two innocents —
drawn into this, almost against our wills; be-
cause we were poor and friendless and . . . But
wait. No, don't say anything just yet, please.
Give me time to think out what I want to say to
you."
She hesitated a short minute. . . .
Through all the time he had been laying bare to
her the scheme of the swindlers, she had been mind-
ful of what he said only with her objective senses.
Beneath them ran a feeling new-discovered that set
her a riddle she must tax all her wits to read.
Throughout that span her woman's heart had been
busy with its problem, weighing it, considering it in
all its baffling complexity; devising its shrewd snare
for the feet of happiness.
Love was her birthright, deeded to her with her
sex. Contemplating it from afar, from the remote
heights of maiden simplicity, she had somewhat mis-
prized it, perhaps; now that it was come to her, and
she knew herself a woman, she would have it at
whatever price. It was her woman's right: she who


TRUTH 227
She uttered, at length, a soft, low, baffled laugh.
"It comes to this, in the end, Bruce," said she.
..." I have been trying to think straight and true,
to make you understand why I must tell you, but the
thoughts are all a-whirl in my poor head. And so in
the end it comes to this, that I must simply say I love
you. ..."
Appalled, he strove to speak, the breath rattling
in his bone-dry throat.
Confidently she stretched forth a hand toward
him; it rested upon his sleeve. "Bruce . . ." she
sighed.
He drew away, with a gesture of renunciation
of which neither was conscious. ■ "No," he said
harshly: "no! You mustn't say itl You don't
mean it!"
"Oh, but I do, Bruce," she told him serenely.
"It is true: I love you. I had to tell you; some-
thing— I don't know what — made me tell you.
I'd just found it out and— I couldn't help it."
Crittenden said nothing. There was nothing to
say that he could gain his own consent to utter.
Dumb and aghast, he waited, racked with suffering
and compassion.
"Bruce," Cynthia's voice sounded again through
the shadows, "you 're not angry with me?" There
came a sudden spirit of alarm into her accents. "You
don't mean—? You don't answer me! . . . You
can't mean . . . Oh!"
She faltered and broke down with a stifled
sob. . . .
After a mad interval Crittenden found himself


TRUTH 229
ing you, Cynthia, making love to you, insensibly to
myself and perhaps to you, but none the less actually
wooing you, dear, because I loved you. But . . ."
His will was weaker than his necessity. He had
need to pause and summon more strength before
he could lay bare the truth to her.
"Then," the girl said, wondering, hurt and hesi-
tant — " then, since you love me, why —?"
"Because," he said in a voice that she hardly
recognised, "it has pleased God so to order my
affairs that I have already a wife. I may not love
you nor long for you nor even worship your sweet-
ness and dearness from a distance — because I am
married."
His hands left her shoulders; free, she tottered,
turned, and reeled toward the forward port, blindly
seeking air. Crittenden saw the shadow of her head
against the opening, then with a sense of suffocation
bred of his futile rage against himself, his hatred and
contempt and despair of himself, he turned as
instinctively to the sole outlet for his feelings — the
lock that held them in this heart-rending intimacy,
the lock that was responsible for all this needless
pain and suffering: needless, at least, this night.
He fell to his knees before the door, struck a
match, found the screw-driver, and attacked the lock
with a concentrated ferocity, as though he held it
a malignant foe.
While he worked he could hear Cynthia behind
him fighting to restrain sobs that were shaking her
in great, stormy gusts, torturing and exhausting her
with demoniac strength. For all that, few were


230 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
audible — short, dry, painful jets of sound that
stretched him no less than her upon a rack of
anguish. . . .
With a final, frantic wrench he tore the lock away,
thrust the shank of the screw-driver through the key-
hole, and pried the door open.
Then, rising, "Cynthia," he called softly, shiv-
ering.
He heard her shift and move toward him, and.
he stood out of her path.
A faint glimmer of light sifting down the alleyway
from the illumination in the dining-saloon showed
him her face, set and drawn and white with a ghostly
pallor. Her eyes were fixed and steady, seeing only
what lay ahead. She moved with the intent, uncon-
scious air of a somnambulist.
"Cynthia . . ."
She paused, just perceptibly, her pale lips moving.
"Yes?"
"Cynthia," he said, "I — I'm sorry, Cynthia."
She nodded automatically, meeting his eyes with
the same stunned stare. "Yes," she assented
wearily; "you must be. I know that. We are both
sorry. But . . ." Her sweet lips softened and
quivered. "Good-night," she said in a choking
breath; and so went from him, finding her way by
some subliminal sense, since she could not see its
turnings for her blinding tears.


XIV
AFTERMATH
With but little hesitation, worked upon impera-
tively by his solicitude, Crittenden quietly followed
Cynthia. He might not rest until he knew that she
was safe in her stateroom, in the company and care
of Madame Savaran — for whose capabilities he
shared profound respect with all who came within
the bounds of her sphere of influence and activity.
With Madame, he felt, Cynthia would be more safe
than anywhere else, under the conditions — still
somewhat nebulous in his intelligence — then obtain-
ing aboard the vessel. Whether or not the attack
upon Rhode and his downfall spelled anarchy, a
reign of misrule on the Cynthia, remained in question.
Of one thing alone could Crittenden be sure: that the
ship was not large enough to shelter both himself
and Claret. . . .
Captain Lobb he could regard without corrosive
animosity. Crittenden bore the man no good will,
but was reasonable. His attitude when discovered
by Lobb — with pistol poised apparently on a point
of choice alone — had been sufficient warrant for
his prompt disarmament by the handiest method.
So with Lobb he could rest content to settle at any
opportune time. But Claret — a rattlesnake or
scorpion could share with him his quarters as con-
ceivably as the first officer of the Cynthia. . . .


23 2 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
The slender, swaying shape of white, groping its
way through the tenebrious obscurity of the passages,
led him like a lodestar. He trailed it with caution,
at a distance, lest Cynthia become aware of the
attention. Though determined to see that she
regained her stateroom unmolested, he was no less
resolved that she should never again, by any act or
word of his, be reminded of his interest or ev-1 —
if he could find a way to efface himself — of his
existence. The wrong that he had done her rankled
like corruption in his thoughts, blighting every nor-
mal instinct, not even second in his estimation to the
foul injury conceived in the viciousness of Claret's
imagination.
From the very beginning, Crittenden told himself,
he had played the cur in all his association with her.
He loathed himself for the readiness with which he
had made place for her image in his heart, for the
fondness with which he had in secret dwelt upon the
thought of her, for the love of her that he had ap-
prehended without a quiver of resistance, telling him-
self what he knew in his heart to be false, that she
should never dream of it; for the eagerness which
had marked his anticipations of their meetings and
the sweetness he had tasted of her naive acceptance
of him in the guise of friend and confidant. Through
these things alone, which he could have averted and
rendered as nothing by the least show of indifference
(he fancied) had love grown up between them. . . .
And even within the hour he had proven himself the
egoist beyond pardon or redemption, through the
weakness with which he had yielded to the tempta-


AFTERMATH 233
tion to justify himself in her eyes by the declaration
of his love. True, he had spoken simple truth —
but a lie, a denial, a brutally contemptuous attitude,
would have quenched her passion in its inception;
whereas his course had been calculated solely to feed
fuel to its flame. Though through some such false
cruelty on his part, she had learned to despise the
thought of him, and would so all her days, still
would he have earned the right to hold his head up
with the highest among men, have proven himself
more kind and true to her by playing traitor to their
love. . . .
Before him, in the alleyway, the shadowy shape
of white faltered. He too paused. He heard her
try the knob of her stateroom door, then her uncer-
tain knock, and an instant later the inarticulate,
mellow tones of Madame Savaran's voice.
Cynthia said in a breath: "It is I, Cynthia.
Please —"
There was a sound of something heavy being
dragged away from the door, followed by a rattle
of yielding wards and bolts. An oblong of light
fell across the alleyway, showing Cynthia like
a ghost, Madame a figure for laughter, mature
charms too candidly displayed in the too-youthful
revelation of her nightdress, wig and cap disposed
at conflicting but mutually impossible angles. Then
again the passage was darkened. Crittenden stole
softly aft.
The upper saloon resembled what was visible to
him of the lower, in its emptiness. He swung lightly
down the companion-way, rage like a fire burning in


234 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
his bosom, and surprised Acklin in the business of
clearing away a litter of bottles and glasses at the
end of one of the tables.
The little Londoner showed a face of care and
anxiety, when he looked up at the sound of foot-
steps. Seeing Crittenden, he put aside his tray and
came to meet him midway in the saloon, with a finger
to his lips admonishing caution.
"Miss Gr'yce, sir?" he asked quickly. "She's
in 'er styteroom, syfe?"
"Yes," Crittenden answered, pausing. "Thanks
to you. Where's Claret?" he pursued without a
break.
Acklin threw a quick glance at the clock on the
after transverse. "'Ardly six bells, sir," he com-
mented. "He 'll be on the bridge, still."
"All right," said Crittenden brusquely. He swung
on his heel to go back up the companion, at the same
time feeling in his pocket for Madame Savaran's
revolver.
"Beg pardon, sir —"
"Later — I 'll talk to you later."
"No, sir, now — if you'll pardon," insisted the
steward, darting forward and catching his sleeve as
Crittenden put foot on the lowest step. "Just a
word of advice — you must 'ear me, sir. You 're
thinkin' of shuttin' 'is mouth, I tyke it?"
"I am," said Crittenden grimly. "Has he been
talking, do you know?"
"I think not, sir. 'E's been too busy ever since;
'e's navigatin' officer and pilot in one, as you might
s'y. That's what I wanted to tell you, sir. 'E's the


AFTERMATH 235
only man that knows these waters well enough to
tyke the ship syfely through them, and if 'e's inter-
fered with before we come to anchor the chawnces
are she 'll pile up on a sunken reef. She's in the
thick of them now, sir. I 'ope you 'll overlook the
liberty, but 'ad n't you better wyte till 'e comes off
the bridge, rather than risk the lives of all of us?"
Scowling with impatience, Crittenden shook his
arm free. "You 're right," he agreed reluctantly.
"I did n't know about our position — or rather, I'd
forgotten what it ought to be just now. Make your
mind easy. I 'll hold off till she makes her
anchorage."
"Thankee, sir. That's all I wanted to s'y."
Humbly the steward turned back to his interrupted
task.
For a few moments Crittenden lingered, watching
him curiously. Then abruptly: "Acklin— ?" said
he.
The man hesitated inquiringly.
"What's your interest in our side of this business,
Acklin?" demanded Crittenden, coming closer.
"Why are you so concerned for us, rather than for
the side of the biggest guns?"
A strange look, unintelligible, crossed the steward's
face; then, when he seemed on the point of some
impulsive disclosure, reticence clouded his eyes like
a palpable film.
"I don't 'old with such goin's-on," he said a
thought sullenly; "that is, not where women's con-
cerned. I've always tried to be as decent as most
men — average honest and square; it was only 'ard


AFTERMATH 237
the bridge, where a knot of heads and shoulders
bulked black against the shimmering heavens. Sev-
eral men were there, in consultation over and more
or less tense attendance upon the ticklish task of
navigation. In their number Crittenden thought to
distinguish Lobb and Claret, but without surety. At
all events, he considered Acklin's counsel had been
that of supererogation: only a madman would have
dreamed of bearding the first officer against such
overwhelming odds.
None the less, his hour would strike. . . .
He set his teeth upon his purpose neither to forget
nor yet to weaken, and moved noiselessly forward,
placing himself at the rail directly beneath the bridge.
Here he found himself in close acquaintance with
every phase of their position. The Cynthia was
approaching the conclusion of her voyage: the omi-
nous finis to her story was imminent.
Some distance ahead, insensibly gaining breadth
and the seeming of substantiality, an island of fair
size loomed dark and dense in the midst of the im-
mense glimmering spaces of sea and sky; like the
pendant of a necklace, a great stone in a chain of
lesser stones, or like the parent of a brood of tiny,
nameless little islands, mere outcroppings of sand
and coral — pin-prick dots upon the charts.
Crittenden had scant doubt about the identity of
the larger shape of land: it was Coffin Cay, as Rhode
called it.
Toward it at snail's pace the Cynthia shouldered
on, seeming with an effect of sentience to pick and
choose its perilous channel, forging sullenly through


AFTERMATH 239
checked to half-speed and less, obedient to the jangle
and clanking of the engine-room telegraph; as inces-
santly from under the bows a guggling, down the
sides a sibilant swash. . . .
After some time, wearying and growing restive
under the strain of waiting, Crittenden took a turn
down the deck.
Soft-stepping, he came to the rail abaft the smok-
ing-room, and stopped to analyse the discovery that
the vessel was being followed by another: astern
and far, a cluster of lights flanked by green and
red dogged the wake of the Cynthia, turning and
twisting to the convolutions of the tortuous trail
she blazed — a way visible long after she had passed,
in the smoking phosphorescence of the waters. . . .
"The Orion," he surmised.
Later, attracted by a mumble of voices behind him,
he turned and, himself unseen, acquired a vivid
mental sketch of a scene revealed by the open door
of the smoking-room: of three men grouped round
a table, with a bottle and glasses before them: on
the one hand Thurlow, indolently smoking, indiffer-
ently amused; Perez on the other, leaning forward,
his stout person animated and his hands vivacious
with a vehemence of argument and exposition; Rhode
between the two sitting with folded arms in stony
mutiny, like an incarnate blush of humiliation due
to the ignominy of the pass to which lack of fore-
sight and confidence misplaced had brought him.
So, apparently, he was not yet renegade — won
over, like sardonic Providence, to the side with the
heaviest artillery! . . .


24o CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
Thoughtful, Crittenden moved forward again. On
the way he was passed by an exhilarated person, one
of the ship's officers — Greenaway — without at-
tracting his notice. Then he heard the man's voice
at the smoking-room window.
"Thurlow? Shay, Lobb wansh you — wansh
send wireless's message to Orion."
"All right. Coming."
Crittenden drew back into the shadow of an angle;
the wireless operator passed him, unseeing and heed-
less; Greenaway unquestionably yielded to the allure
of the bottle and joined the party in the smoking-
room.
Watching Thurlow clamber to the bridge, slip
hastily down again and, turning, descend the com-
panion-ladder to his box on the main-deck, a sug-
gestion stirred in Crittenden's thoughts and was
instantly forgotten in the discovery that Claret, too,
was leaving the bridge. Coffin Cay was now enfold-
ing the Cynthia in wide-spreading arms; the first
officer had been relieved of his onerous duties as
pilot, Lobb resuming supreme authority; and as
Crittenden caught sight of Claret the ship awakened
to a volley of orders and commands, the scurrying
footsteps of seamen on the forward deck, the expir-
ing groan of the engines as they ceased to turn the
screw, and the rattle and clank of the bower chains.
Within five minutes the ship swung at anchor,
still and peaceful save for the spitting crackle of wire-
less and the jubilant voices of those gathered in the
smoking-room for a final toast to success before
, seeking their berths.


242 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"I didn't mean —" Claret stammered, his face
ashen. "Joke —"
"Whom have you told about it? Tell the truth,
you contemptible hound!"
Plainly Claret meditated mendacity, but from a
shifty glance at Crittenden's blazing eyes found
reason to change his mind. "Captain Lobb," he
said sullenly; "Mr. Perez . . ."
"No one else?" ■
"Greenaway. I did n't mean any harm. It was
simply a joke —"
"Very well," Crittenden snapped. "Your sense
of humour needs revision. Put up your hands."
"Wha-what do you mean?" faltered Claret,
staring.
"I warn you to guard yourself. I intend to knock
you down. You 're said to be a fighter, a bully, a
bucko mate: prove it. Do you hear? I'm going
to knock you down!"
Then, when the fellow still hesitated and with
hasty sidelong glances sought means of escape, Crit-
tenden lifted his hand and dashed its knuckles across
Claret's mouth, with staggering force and a report
like a pistol-shot.
His lips bruised, cut, and bleeding in a face white
with rage and pain, Claret leaped back, threw him-
self into fighting poise, feinted deftly once or twice,
then with a guttural growl lowered his head and
bored in to battle. Deprived of the moral support
of his weapon, he had needed the blow to rouse him
to join issue with a man not physically his inferior.
And he knew how to use his hands.


AFTERMATH 243
Crittenden, however, conceded nothing to him in
such skill, and had needed nothing to warm his
blood. He held himself alertly, watching and
meeting Claret's endeavours with steady eyes and a
slow, cold smile.
Suddenly he stepped aside, avoiding an infuriated
rush, and shot his left fist like a hammer into the
passing face. His right, following it with incon-
ceivable rapidity, had all his weight and passion
behind it. Claret, lifted off his feet, grasped wildly
at air and went down, a crumpled mass of insensible
fiesh.
He lay in a tumbled heap, breathing stertorously,
nor moved during the long minute that Crittenden
waited. Then, a little disappointed, the latter left
him and moved round the table, picking up the re-
volvers he had thrown there.
For the first time it occurred to him to examine
that presented to him by Cynthia. He laughed a
little, lightly, to find it lacking cartridges. That,
thought he, was precisely like Madame Savaran: a
woman courageous enough to buy a weapon and to
use it, or try to, in a moment of emergency, and at
the same time too careless and inconsequential of
humour to trouble about keeping it loaded!
Claret's revolver, however, was ready for imme-
diate employment. With a final glance at its owner,
Crittenden took it away with him.
Keenly alive to the inevitable consequences of his
action (as, indeed, he had been from the first, though
heedless of them) he went up the companion-way
and again out on deck, stepping lightly and warily,


AFTERMATH 245
Thurlow, having apparently concluded his com-
munication to the Orion, was standing in the doorway
of the wireless house, lighting a cigarette preparatory
to rejoining his associates. Surprised by the thud of
Crittenden's feet as they left the ladder, he looked
up and into the mouth of Claret's revolver.
Unperturbed and impassive, he blew out the match,
tossed it from him, ejected twin clouds of smoke
from his nostrils, and removed the cigarette from
his mouth only long enough to inquire: "Well,
what's eating you, Crittenden?"
"Back up," suggested the other, falling in with
his cool humour without modifying the poise of his
weapon. "Get inside there, and I 'll explain. No
harm intended — but if you yell or kick up a row
of any kind, I 'll have to treat you unkindly."
Thurlow looked him over with a less dispassionate
eye, stepped negligently back into the cabin and
dropped into a chair before his operating table, his
attention concentrated. Crittenden, following him
over the threshold, shut the door and with his unen-
gaged hand shot the bolts.
"Now," he said in a level tone, " we will proceed
to put a severe crimp in this gay swindle. Please
don't make it unpleasant by trying to object or put
up a scrap; I'm deadly serious, and this thing is
going to go through the way I plan it. Do you
understand me?"
"Clearly." Thurlow lifted his brows and laughed
quietly. "What's the matter?"
"The matter is personal," continued Crittenden
in the same manner. "I won't bother you with the


AFTERMATH 247
sonorous humming that presently settled into a
resounding, windy roar.
Fitting on the telephone head-piece, he threw the
current in slowly through the starting-box, closed
one switch after another, and carefully attuned the
instruments for the approximate distance. A little
later his deft manipulation of the key was filling the
little cabin with a deafening clamour, while the
anchor-gap spluttered with its bluish spark and pale
violet lightnings flashed and flickered within the helix.
For some moments his summons for Key West
was iterated insistently. Then releasing the sending-
key, Thurlow shifted the current to the detector,
and for a period sat intently listening, trained fingers
making imperceptible adjustments of the sensitive
receiving mechanism.
Presently he turned to Crittenden and nodded.
"Fire away," he said, moving the earpiece aside to
facilitate his hearing. "I've got 'em."
He reset the switches and grasped the key.
"Steamship Cynthia" Crittenden dictated, " Lobb
Commander— and give the company cipher—"
Thurlow lifted his hand and began to send, drum-
ming out the words with such adept speed that the
racket of the spark was almost as one long roll of
thundering, and Crittenden, reading the message by
ear, was barely able to keep up.
Thereafter, with but short pauses, the news drilled
through the night in Crittenden's terse phrasing:
"Late Cydonia (code signal for Caribbean Fruit
Company). At anchor harbour of Coffin Cay,
somewhere west of Man-of-War Channel, north of


248 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
Cochinos Bank. Report wirelessed about two this
morning concerning accident in collision with dere-
lict north of Haiti absolute fabrication. Owners in-
tend sinking ship for insurance in thousand-fathom
deep south of Columbus Bank after trans-ship-
ment of cargo to tramp steamer Orion, Hendricks
commander, now approaching this anchorage.
. . . What's that row?" Crittenden broke off
suddenly.
There was, in fact, a noise of running feet and
shouting voices on the upper deck, clearly to be
distinguished as the reverberations of the spark
ceased, on the conclusion of the last sentence. Thur-
low cocked an intelligent ear to the uproar and drew
as intelligent an inference.
"Probably just discovered your escape," he sug-
gested amiably. "They had you locked up, did n't
they, after you butted into that row with Rhode?"
"Yes. Never mind. Get this out," replied Crit-
tenden hurriedly:
"Notify Lloyd's, London, also New York Board
of Marine Underwriters and other proper authori-
ties. Rush help if possible. Women on board,
Madame Savaran, maid and companion, all of New
York, threatened with robbery and violence. . . .
Hello 1"
"Sounds like friend Claret with his mad up about
something," commented the operator cheerfully.
"Perhaps he can read Morse by ear, too. I would n't
care to fill your shoes if —"
"Don't fret about me, I beg you. Proceed:
Probably impossible to communicate further. . . .


250 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
were you talking to? " demanded the captain's voice.
"Who've you got in there, anyway?"
Claret's snarl followed before Thurlow could
reply.
"I tell you, he's chucked the game. I got part
of that message. I'm going down —"
"Better beat it," Thurlow advised in an aside.
"Listen — was that true about the women?"
"Yes," grunted Crittenden, drawing the bolts.
"Honest?" An unsuspected contrition and con-
cern darkened the young man's eyes. "If I'd known
that —"
"What?" Crittenden lingered against his judg-
ment, hearing the drum of feet on the deck outside.
"Never mind. But I 'll do what I can for 'em,
if you — I'm not fighting women. Now then!"
A heavy thump sounded on the door. Crittenden
jerked it suddenly open and stepped out, at the same
time thrusting his own revolver into Claret's face.
"Out of the way!" he cried, shouldering forward.
Unprepared for this abrupt development, the first
officer involuntarily stepped back. At the same time
he screamed with rage. "Get him, you fellows I"
he raved. "Lobb — Griscom — Bergen —!"
Overhead, from the rail, a pistol snapped like a
whip-lash. Crittenden heard the nearest winch-drum
ring like a cracked bell as the bullet glanced from it.
He tossed the coat hanging over his left arm directly
in the face of some one unknown who was blocking
his path, dodged aside, and sprang for the rail.
Claret, however, profited by the interference to
draw a revolver and fire with the swiftness of


AFTERMATH 251
thought. Thrice his weapon barked like a vicious
animal, and with the third shot Crittenden felt a
bullet crease his shoulder, without entering the flesh,
like the touch of a white-hot branding iron. Clench-
ing his teeth on a cry of pain, he overestimated the
distance between him and the rail and blundered
heavily against it, Claret and another man not ten
feet behind.
Wheeling, he fired point-blank. Claret with a
howl dropped to his knees, reeled and fell on his
face. The other man dodged hastily behind a ven-
tilator.
From the promenade deck, where dark figures
clustered thick against the rail, there fell a scattering
spatter of bullets.
Keenly alive to the vanity of attempting to reply
to these, Crittenden stuffed the revolver into his
trousers-pocket, seized the rail and swung himself
over.
The moonlight flashed in his eyes like a blaze of
cold fire. Then blackness of waters enveloped him.
Striking feet first, he went down but a short dis-
tance beneath the surface, and came up almost
instantly, close in under the Cynthia's overhanging
freeboard.
If he had entertained any notion of sheltering him-
self there until he could recover somewhat of his
spent breath and strength, it was immediately dis-
sipated by the discovery that those above were in-
clined to take pot-shots at him. A bullet or two
rebounded from the water near him with accom-
panying claps like cracks of a slap-stick.


252 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
Diving, he swam under water as long as his scant
store of breath permitted, shaping a course toward
the vessel's stem, and presently re-emerged near the
anchor cable.
For some reason — whether this manoeuvre had
caused the marksmen to lose track of him, or because
they were called off by superior authority, he could
not guess — he was not again made a target. He
clung to the chain for a moment or two, renewing
his wind, then let go and struck out for the shore,
heavily handicapped by the weight of his sodden,
clinging clothing.
The beach, that had seemed so near abeam from
the deck of the steamship, now was as if it had
mysteriously receded: the distance that separated him
from it was heart-breaking. And he was tortured
by a sudden, violent, almost overpowering terror of
sharks.
None the less, he swam slowly, with long, powerful
but deliberate strokes, husbanding his'!Strength and
endurance.
And in good time his feet found shallows, and he
stood up and waded ashore, to drop with a gasp
on the dry, warm sands — jaded to the point of
exhaustion.


XV
COFFIN CAY
Dawn, unfolding marvellously over the Great
Bahama Banks its laminated waves of light, succes-
sively more beautiful, strong and warm with orient
colour, wasted its diurnal wonder on the alien visi-
tants at Coffin Cay — so-named. One and all, the
tension of the night had taken its toll of them: the
spring of day surprised them in unconsciousness.
In the narrow roadstead, cheek by jowl, the Cyn-
thia and the Orion swung at anchor, scarce a cable-
length apart, their funnels only faintly vaporous,
their decks deserted.
Aboard the former, the first officer, Mr. Claret,
lay in stupor, his lungs perforated by a bullet that
remained, undislodged, in the muscles of his back.
Amateur surgary of the rudest had done what it
could for him. By his side a steward (not Acklin)
watched with leaden eyelids, more than half asleep.
In their berths the remainder of the ship's com-
pany slept in varying stages of exhaustion superin-
duced by work, worry, and dissipation. Only Rhode
despised his bed, sitting, fully dressed, in a sort of
wakeful torpor in the smoking-room: his gaze, out
of lacklustre eyes whose inflamed lids lent an added
touch to his ensanguined habit, fixed without devia-
tion upon the emptiness of wasted endeavour as typi-
fied in the emptiness of a bottle of wasted whiskey:
his shoulders hunched up nearly to his ears, his great


254 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
red hands lost in cavernous pockets, the dead end of
a cigar distilling quintessence of rancour between his
fat, unmoving lips.
Cynthia herself, in her stateroom, rested in merci-
ful lethargy, numb for a time to the want of him
who held her soul in thrall: one white arm, round
and firm, crooked across her eyes, in unwitting dupli-
cation of the pose of him who lay asprawl and cover-
less in the shadow of a plantation of pitch-pines, out
of sight of the vessels, deep in the stirless, dreamless
slumbers demanded by a mind and a body taxed to
the extreme of their endurance. . . .
Gradually with the growth of day, life quickened
aboard the ships. One by one men showed them-
selves on the decks, yawning and stretching lazily
ere disappearing to rout out others. Those with the
vesture of command appeared. Hails were ex-
changed across the brief divisional gulf. The smoke
of galleys mingled with the smoke of furnace-fires
replenished ,— and pungent incense of morning pipes
tinctured air immaculate.
On both .vessels hatches were removed fore and
aft, and cranes rigged with heavy hoisting tackles.
In good time the Orion was warped comfortably
alongside the Cynthia; thereafter to a great clamour
of voices, to the jar and rattle and clank of winches
and capstans and the husky roaring, of donkey-
engines, was added a shrill, intermittent piping of
boatswains' whistles directing the task of translad-
ing cargo.
To this blaring discordance, the work of the day
at the top of its swing, Cynthia awakened.


COFFIN CAY 255
For a little while she tarried in her berth, unstir-
ring, confused, her eyes like a child's swimming with
wonder and dread, oppressed by a sense of waking
to a world blackened with despair and sorrow —
formless in her drowsy thoughts, but none the less
desperate.
Then, the drift of dreams receding to the urge
of her questing conscience, with renascent memory
fell the blow: and she shuddered, as though the hurt
were mortal, and lay rigid, pale lids adroop over
the anguish in her eyes, face whitening to the hue
of wax while the flush of slumber ebbed, hands
clenched and still upon her breasts.
Her soul sick with qualms of memory, at length
pure instinct guided her to seek ease of action. She
slipped out of her berth and began to dress, moving
quickly and quietly round the stateroom; quietly more
to fend off interruption than to escape disturbing
Madame Savaran, from whose quarters Cynthia was
but dimly aware of a hum of voices; quickly as if
to make up for time lost during those long whiles
when reminiscence assailed her passionately and im-
peratively, with the resistless cogency of a will-de-
stroying drug, enchaining her thoughts and limbs
alike with inertia.
Now she stood staring through the port, fascinated
by the suggestion of the circumscribed scene bounded
by its round brass frame: the hemicycle of rimpled
water, sun-smitten, its colour an incredible, nitid blue
like the blue of a corn-flower sapphire; bisecting the
disk, the bar of the island beach, no less strange and
exotic to her eyes with its glowing tint of pink cor-


256 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
alliferous sand; a screen of deep green tropical vege-
tation by way of background, starred with splashes
of flower-colour unbelievably brilliant; the smiling
arc of cloudless sky.
He was there: Crittenden, the man she loved,
the man who loved her. . . .
She knew, of course, of his escape. Alarmed by
the sounds of contention and combat on the fore-deck,
she had roused out of a daze of wretchedness long
enough to listen to Rhode's account, delivered tc
Madame at the port of the latter's stateroom: of
Crittenden's assault on Claret in the dining-saloon
and his subsequent attempt to confound the plans
of the conspirators by means of wireless; of his
failure — according to Thurlow, who nonchalantly
explained how, instead of tuning his instruments to
the pitch requisite for communication with Key West,
he had actually sent out the message (at the pistol's
point) over an area of very limited radius; of Crit-
tenden's immediate discovery and fight for freedom
resulting in the disablement of Claret and in his
own escape apparently unscathed. "He got away
clean," Rhode had asserted. "I was watchin' with
the glasses. I could see him plain enough in the
moonlight, swimmin' ashore and wadin' up to the
beach. He's all right — damn him!" . . .
And again, for minutes at a time Cynthia would
sit lost in dull misery of meditation; motionless, some
dainty garment dangling from her idle fingers; her
knees crossed, a trifling satin bedroom slipper hang-
ing from the slim foot in its silken casing; elbow on
knee, chin in hand, eyes — their brown loveliness


COFFIN CAY 257
enhanced by faint shades of blue round the lower
lids — probing insistently the infinite dreariness of
parting and renunciation, of a life made up of day6
unlighted by the light of his smile and the sweetness
of his presence — the presence of the man she might
not love or even dwell upon in longing thought, the
man who had no right to dream of loving her. . . .
Yet she was fully dressed when eventually Mad-
ame Savaran surprised her in like apathy of reverie,
opening the communicating door with her character-
istic vigorous readiness, sharp upon her warning
knock.
"My dear— !" began that virile lady with the
vivacity of her habitual early morning manner. And
then in swift sympathy she paused.
"Cynthia, dear," said she in a softened voice,
touched by the girl's wan attempt to smile as she
rose and turned. ..." Child," she said with a hint
of ready arms and a bosom warm with comfort, " is
there anything I can do for you?"
Slowly, her lips compressed, Cynthia shook her
head. "No," she said, her tone lifeless. "I am
all right . . . thank you."
"You have n't been able to sleep. I can see that.
This infernal racket ... I shall speak to George
Rhode about it."
"No," said Cynthia again; "I have slept — but
not well. I was too tired, I presume. I don't feel
rested yet."
She forced a semblance of animation, stirring
about to set her room to rights before going below
for breakfast. But Madame was not to be deceived.


26o CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
tinct but unquestionably malignant somethings —
presumably because she did n't consider her state of
mind regarding Sidonie fit for utterance in the hearing
of Cynthia.
"But," pursued Cynthia, pertinacious to the main
issue, " Sidonie said Mr. Crittenden—?"
"Oh, so we are interested in the fate of the
gentleman who's nothing to us, eh? Sidonie said
I simply this: that the Crimson Rambler —"
"Who? Oh!" ejaculated Cynthia in successive
\ surprise and comprehension.
"Precisely, my dear; I have found the name for
him now. . . . The Crimson Rambler, Perez, and
Lobb went ashore half an hour ago to interview this
person in whom we have positively no interest what-
ever. I dare say if you hurry down to breakfast
you 'll be on deck by the time they bring him back
with gyves upon his wrists and a ball and chain on
one leg, and cast him into the lazarette, or whatever
they call the dungeon vile on shipboard; where
you 'll be able to visit him by stealth, disguised as the
warder's daughter, and minister to his wants, and
finally bribe the caitiff hireling who guards him to
connive at his escape, and ride away with him on a
milk-white palfrey — or, I dare say, a motor-boat
would seem more sensible 1"
With this, and a final lift of her chin, Madame
Savaran concluded her harangue, seized Cynthia by
both arms and drew her close, presented her with two
quick, warm pecks, one on either cheek, gave her an
affectionate shake and released her, accomplishing
her exit into the adjoining stateroom with surprising


COFFIN CAY
261
celerity and a final admonishment as to the need for
haste to breakfast.
As moved and diverted as Madame had intended
her to be (who had entered in suspicion and retired,
she believed, in full possession of Cynthia's secret)
the girl waited an instant, long enough to reassort
and gain control of her harassed faculties, then pulled
herself together and left her room, a widely different
woman from her who had but lately been as a lyre
high-strung, iEolian to the breath of passion: a
woman at least outwardly calm, collected, mistress
of her wits and her emotions. So much for the stim-
ulating properties of Madame Savaran's cunningly
concocted mental cocktail.
There was fresh colour in her face, and to spare,
and a brave light in her clear eyes, when with an air
of alert and vigorous dignity, Cynthia swung out of
the alleyway and through the door to the deck, steel-
ing herself against whatever reception she was to
undergo, on this her first public appearance since the
events of the night just passed. What she would be
called upon to endure and ignore in the way of covert
sneer and secret smile and overt innuendo, she dared
not surmise; only the day would declare it. But
whatever might transpire, she was determined to
suffer with a face of courage, unflinching. She owed
as much to Crittenden no less than to herself; he had
risked his life in vain endeavour to seal the lips of
Claret and bring help to her and Madame Savaran
from the outer world. She must prove herself
worthy of his self-sacrifice and devotion.
Notwithstanding this spirit of challenge and con-


262 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
tempt with which she made her appearance in the
light of day, it was with relief that she discovered
promenade-deck and bridge alike deserted, the work
of the hour absorbing completely the energies and
attention of every man on board both vessels.
Forward and abaft the superstructures of both
the Cynthia and the Orion, the decks presented
scenes of stirring and unresting action. Between
the bulwarks and the dark yawning cavernous hatch-
ways, men swarmed like ants: men clothed only
within the limits of decency, sweating, struggling,
swearing, running to and fro as if blindly to the behest
of interminable whistlings, pulling and pushing and
attacking with steel hooks and stern fury and naked
hands a myriad articles — huge bales and bundles,
crates and packing-boxes — that were being hoisted
out of the hold of the Cynthia to a tune of groan-
ing winches, grumbling engines, whining cranes, and
shrieking, greaseless tackles, to be deposited in the
hold of the Orion.
Over the process of these furious labours hung a
veil, tenuous but distinct, a haze of sunlit dust and
dancing heated air; and from it rose in heavy, stifling
gusts a reek compounded of the odour of perspiring
humanity and the dank and tainted effluvia of the
holds.
From all of which it was apparent that the pause
at Coffin Cay was to be made as brief as the will of
those in authority could contrive.
By its sights and sounds and smells, deterred from
attempting even the most casual inquiry into this pro-
ceeding, Cynthia gave her heed all the more will-


COFFIN CAY 263
ingly to the scene of peace and beauty that formed
its incongruous setting: to the cay that enfolded
them in its hospitable arms of sand and earth-in-
crusted limestone, to the islet-dotted sea that rocked
and danced to the soft rush of a southerly wind, —
a sea lonely and bare of sail to its empty, purple-
shaded horizons.
No better spot, she thought, could have been
found or contrived, whether by accident or design,
to meet the needs and purpose of this iniquitous
adventure. The island, serene and smiling in its
insolate and isolate solitude, offered little aside from
such peculiarity in the way of singular attraction.
Its brethren by hundreds studded the circumja-
cent waters: islands for the most part endowed with
the advantages of greater size and accessibility.
Here was only a rocky atoll, low-lying, a mere several
acres in extent, bordered by its broad pink beaches,
crowned by bird-haunted wilderness of sun-weathered
vegetation, with its small, lagoon-like harbour acces-
sible only after traversing a league-long channel,
narrow, occult and intricate, through lightless and
unbuoyed waters.
Nature would seem to have designed this cay
solely to be of old the refuge and the stronghold of
the one-time picaroons and buccaneers of the Ba-
hamas, in its degenerate present, to be a day-mark
for the sponge-fishermen and the negro wreckers of
the archipelago and a trysting spot for common swin-
dlers of the high seas.
The eager, far-sighted gaze of Cynthia's eyes,
raking the glistening crescent of the coral sands,


264 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
scarcely an eighth of a mile away, was quick to locate
the Cynthia's small life-boat, drawn up about mid-
way between the horns of the island. It was empty.
Two men, evidently ordinary seamen, sat smoking
in the shade of a thicket on the edge of the beach,
and near them Cynthia descried a small box or two,
and a keg. These circumstances perplexed her. Of
Rhode, Lobb, Perez, or Crittenden there was no
sign.
She lingered at the rail, waiting in anxious
wondering.
Wearying of the monotonous rose-tinted glare
of the strand, baffled of wresting a hint of what
was taking place ashore by the silent, dark-green
hedges of foliage that masked its farther beaches and
meagre upland, her gaze sought rest in wandering
over the rainbow-tinted reaches of the sea, whose
shimmering surface showed a polychrome of blended
colourings, from the maroon shadow of a weed-
rank ledge through shades of exquisite amethyst and
lapis lazuli to the translucent jade of white sand
shoals brilliant with refracted sun rays.
But its beauty was that of desolation only. . . .
Cynthia returned her heed to the beached life-boat.
Now Lobb appeared, and stood at pause, looking
back up a glade of the wooded rise, while the sea-
men, scrambling hastily to their feet, shuffled down
to the boat.
Then Perez ambled into view, followed in a mo-
ment by Rhode and Crittenden in company.
Something moved violently, stopped, and moved
again with more methodic beat, in Cynthia's bosom.


XVI
BLOWS
Deliberately (like some strange, clumsy, grizzled
creature creeping across a plate of polished cyanite)
long oars lifting and dipping in slow rhythm, the
life-boat crawled over the stretch of sun- and sky-
stained waters that lay, within the encircling arms
of the cay, as still as glass, only casually flawed by
fugitive breaths of air — offshooting currents from
the sweeping wind that whipped the outer main.
From the edge of the painted beach, where the
shadows of wind-swayed foliage maculated the glow-
ing sands with shifting shapes of mauve, Crittenden,
forlorn and desperate of air and plight alike, watched
the boat as it moved away.
By the rail, Cynthia likewise watched, apportioning
her attention between the two: the boat with its crew
of outlaws, the cay with its solitary victim of a malign
and arbitrary proscription. Whether or not he saw
her she was unable to determine, at that distance;
for a long span he neither moved nor made a sign,
but merely stood at gaze, his pose proclaiming a deep,
corroding desolation of spirit no less than of circum-
stance.
To this pass was he come because of her: to be
deserted and abandoned by her as well as by those
against whom he had pitted himself and all his
strength and wits and daring, in the hope of serving
her.


BLOWS 267
Bitterly she blamed herself, at her own door lay-
ing all responsibility for this extremity that he was
come to face. If she had not permitted him to turn
aside to do her a common kindness, moved to pity
by the evidences of distress she had not sought to
disguise — from him — there had been no subsequent
propinquity, no community of thought and interests,
to be the occasion of this devastating love of theirs.
If, when at length she learned the name of the
passion that consumed her, she had known the mean-
ing of reticence or womanly reserve; if she had not
been so keen to share with him the joy of her dis-
covery; if she had had the simple delicacy to hold
her peace against a time more suitable: Crittenden
had not been driven to confession and thereafter
to that pitch of desperation which had ended in
this sentence of exile.
Her imagination, spurred by a merciless conscience,
limned his fate in vivid colours. She saw him
doomed to death-in-life, saw the atoll as a living
tomb, its smiling verdure but a grinning mask for
harsh and barren inhospitality. She figured to her
fancy the cycle of his days sequestrate, from that on
which his straining vision should see the last film
of smoke fade from the staring skies, through those
in which hope must perish, to that when madness
should blunt his sensibility to suffering or death put
a period to this chapter of crime, brutality, horror,
and starvation. . . .
Unconscious of exaggeration, denying another side
to the picture, she lashed herself into a state of semi-
hysteric consternation and contrition; the while she


268 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
stood without a quiver, eyes spellbound by the fas-
cination of that lonely and beloved figure.
At length — still with that puzzling stiffness of
carriage — he turned and slowly moved away into
the shadows.
Smitten unreasonably with a panic premonition
that she had looked her last upon him, Cynthia
started and barely restrained a cry. A fit of trem-
bling seized her, so strong that she was glad there
was none by to see. And then she calmed, suddenly
discovering that the life-boat had drawn close in
under the vessel's side.
Rhode sitting with head bowed in his habit of
injured melancholy; Perez playing with a cigarette;
Lobb staring up at her with a fatuitous smile: the
sight of these so near inboard, beneath her, affected
her with an almost physically painful disgust; and
the contemplation of their monstrous complacence
left her with swelling bosom and a heart on fire.
She swung away abruptly, knowing herself unfit
to face them in her present violent and unsettled
temper, and went below, with the privacy of her
stateroom desirable in her thought.
But by the entrance to the alleyway she checked
on the memory that Madame Savaran would be
there, pottering about one of her idle occupations,
with eyes quick to read the signs of trouble on her
companion's face, a mind keen and ruthless to
inquire, and a tongue sharp to question. Cynthia
dared not face her — yet. As alternative, she chose
the ordeal of breakfast.
As on the first day of the voyage — seeming so


BLOWS 269
strangely distant in the past — she had the saloon
to herself, aside from the attending Acklin. But on
this occasion in contrast with the former, she had no
appetite. The dishes Acklin set before her she left
untouched; even coffee threatened to choke her.
Respecting her distress, as patent in its manifesta-
tion as its cause in his knowledge, the steward made
no advances, but rather waited patiendy for her to
address to him some observation unconnected with
his services. But she did nothing of the sort. Ab-
sorbed in harrowing introspection, she was barely
conscious of the man in waiting. Putting herself, as
a slave to routine, through a hurried pantomime of
eating, she rose and left the table as unceremoniously
as she had approached it.
At the head of the companion-way, with every
inclination urging her toward her stateroom, she was
again diverted, this time unexpectedly enough by
finding the burly proportions of the Red Man ob-
structing the passage as he lumbered aft, evidendy
returning from Madame Savaran's room. Cynthia
perforce paused and drew to one side, waiting. But
Rhode took his time, moving slowly and cumbrously
as though he found exertion wearisome, his huge
shoulders sagging, his aspect dogged and sultry.
In the entrance, blocking it completely, he paused
to favour the young woman with a morose nod.
"Mornin'," he mumbled.
Cynthia obliged herself to respond, unconsciously
flavouring her cool " Good-morning " with the crisp-
ness of coerced civility. She moved expectantly, as
if to enter the passage, but Rhode made no offer to


270 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
get out of her way. To the contrary, with a sour
grunt, he settled one shoulder against the partition,
dug his hands still deeper into his pockets, and looked
her over with a crabbed and dismal scrutiny.
"Good-mornin'," said he, with a crude imitation
of her enunciation. "Just like that, huh? . . .
Nobody," he quoted, lugubrious, " loves a fat man."
Cynthia lifted her chin with a hint of hauteur; a
flush of umbrage darkened her face and the light of it
flickered in her eyes. Otherwise she made no answer.
"I guess that line's worn threadbare, all right,"
commented the Red Man. "It usta be funny,
though. I've heard 'em laugh like thunder at it,
once, in a play. But mebbe it's me; I guess that
must be it — I'm a bad actor. None of my comedy,
ever, seems to get a hand from you."
"Comedy! Youl " Cynthia ejaculated.
"Never mind." Rhode produced a great red hand
and waved it largely with a somewhat incoherent
combination of effects, seeming at one and the same
time to flaunt a danger signal and generously to
concede a troublesome question. "God knows," he
asserted with great earnestness, "I don't expect to
be taken for a comedian; but I'd think it'd stake
'most anybody to a laugh, the way I have to stand
for all the slapstick work in this turn."
"I don't know what you mean."
"No, I don't guess you do. You would n't natu-
rally. I 'll have to change my act and come through
with the straight talk if I want you to get next. . . .
I was in the th'atrical business, once," he explained
pensively — and, to Cynthia, inconclusively.


272 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
wisht they'd find 'em. But no such luck. Take it
from me, if Madum was wise enough to plant that
junk and then set up a yell she'd been touched, she
put it in a place them guys 'll never light on, not in
a thousand years. All the same, if I knew where
they was, I'd slip 'em the high sign."
"I have no doubt," said Cynthia curtly, disgusted.
"Well, you need n't get sore," protested the
man, disgruntled. "I'd only do it to save the show,
for the good of everybody in the cast. If I was able
to hand 'em over to Perez, it'd just about get us
out of this mess with our hair on. As it is, if they
don't drop on to the stuff before long, they 're goin'
to turn loose several assorted brands of unpleasant-
ness for all concerned — and you and Madum 'll
be the first ones on the carpet. I've done all I could
to shunt the row, but I can see it coming, all right,
all right."
"You don't think they'd dare —" Cynthia stam-
mered, aghast.
"Don't ask me what I think: I might tell you,"
returned the Red Man ominously.
For a moment or two his hard blue stare bored
deep into the black emptiness of his apprehensions.
"Good Lord! " he sighed. "If I had my way with
them jools I'd pick out a nice wet hole in the ocean,
about ten thousand fathom deep, and dump 'em into
it. If it had n't been for them — for Madum bein'
pig-head enough to bring 'em with her and that blab-
mouthed idiot, Sidonie, shootin' off her face about
their value — this en'tainment would have played
as smooth as the hundredth p'formance of a Casino


BLOWS 273
musical show. Look at the way we picked up
the Orion and made this island — just like clock-
work! . . . I'd still've been boss of my end of the
business, Crittenden would n't've kicked over the
traces, Claret would've been able to navigate us out
(which he ain't) . . . everythin' would have run off
as reg'lar as the programme of a Tammany primary.
. . . Forgive me if I seem to beef about this,
but —!"
His gesture enounced the hollowness of failure.
With a concluding grunt, compounded of discour-
agement and disgust, he relapsed into morbid con-
templation, mumbling his cigar.
Cynthia experienced an elementary feeling of tol-
erance for the man, a faint commiseration for him
in the completeness of his downfall. Evil though
he were, lacking utterly any moral sense, still he had
never shown her aught but blundering kindness and
uncouth courtesy. . . . But no emotion could with-
stand for long her importunate solicitude for Crit-
tenden.
"You've been ashore?" she demanded abruptly.
Rhode started out of his abstraction, looking down
upon her with understanding.
"Yes," he assented briefly. "I seen him."
"Why," she persisted, with a tremor in her voice,
— " why did he stay when you returned?"
Rhode's reply she had discounted. "He did n't
— that is, of his own accord. He was left. Don't
jump on me — it ain't my doin'; I'm as sore about
it as anybody — as him or you, even. I done all I
could for him, but they would n't listen to me; the


274 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
vote was again' him. He'd oughta've known
better. If he'd only had sense enough to lay low
until —"
"How do you know what motive he had for
doing what he did? " demanded the girl passionately.
"How dare you judge him?"
"Ex-cuse me," Rhode begged, alarmed. "I don't
know nothin' about anythin'. It ain't any of my
business. Only I'm sorry he could n't let things slide.
As it is, it'd be as much as his life's worth for him
to come aboard again. They 're all down on him
for what he done. Shootin' Claret up was enough
i— that puts us in a hole, for sure, with nobody else
that knows the channels, barring Hendricks of the
Orion. But then he had to go and try to gum the
whole game up by forcin' Thurlow to send out that
message; if Thurlow hadn't been foxy enough to
play him for a fool, I don't like to think what they'd
do to him."
"But could anything be worse than this?"
"You would n't think so, would you?" The Red
Man shook his head, chewing his cigar until it
vibrated like an animate thing in agony. "Still,
he's young, and the chances are mebbe some fisher-
man'll come pokin' along — p'rhaps. I don't
know."
"Can — can nothing be done for him?"
Again the Red Man shook his head, hopelessly.
"I done what I could — took him a pocketful of
cigarettes and slipped 'em to him when they was n't
lookin'. . . . We found him asleep on the beach,
o er on the other side of the island, and Lobb took


276 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
dences of agitation Cynthia made no attempt to
conceal.
Lobb showed a countenance almost as black with
disappointment as was that of Perez with its native
complexion. He, for once, discovered scant interest
in the girl; he had sucked an end of his overlarge
and luxuriant moustache between his teeth and was
gnawing it nervously and savagely. Perez, however,
displayed his habitual assurance and impassive
aplomb, regarding Cynthia with a smile faintly
tainted with sardonic humour though bearing himself
toward her without abatement of his attitude of
gallantry.
"The sehorita" he said civilly, with a little bow,
"seems excited — frightened, possibly. May I hope
my assurance that she, at least, has nothing to fear,
will serve to comfort her?"
"I am not afraid and I am not excited," asserted
Cynthia, mingling obvious exaggeration with pal-
pable truth; for if she was not alarmed on her own
behalf, she was now half frantic with the cumulative
effect of Rhode's news of Crittenden added to her
primary anxiety and distress. "Mr. Rhode tells
me," she went on in a breath, " Mr. Crittenden is to
be left — marooned — on the island."
"That is true, unhappily," averred Perez gravely.
"Circumstances, of which he was the author, but out
of our control —"
"I have no patience to bandy words with you!"
Cynthia interrupted. "He is wounded and in need
of care —"
"That likewise is sadly true —"


BLOWS 277
"And you intend to leave him without that care,
without even the means to bandage his hurt him-
self? Oh, it isn't possible you could think of any-
thing so contemptibly brutal and cowardly —"
"One moment!" the Brazilian protested with
lifted hand soliciting a hearing. "Just one moment,
if you please, senorita." He turned to his com-
panions, with an apologetic shrug. "Captain," he
suggested blandly, "you will find Madame Savaran
on deck, I believe. You might put to her the several
questions we have prepared, while I endeavour to
make Miss Grayce understand. And Mr. Rhode, I
am sure, will forgive me for asking that he leave
us for a few moments."
With a brusque nod, Lobb strode out upon the
deck, evidently relieved. Rhode with less willing-
ness, showing a lowering, suspicious, and reluctant
face, more slowly followed. Perez had already
returned his heedful and calculating consideration to
the girl. He smiled deprecatingly, with a briefly
eloquent gesture indicating their exposed surround-
ings.
"It is so public," he deprecated. "If you would
not mind, senorita, stepping to the back of the saloon
. . . there, at least, we can converse without being
overheard."
Cynthia did not stir. "Is there any reason why
we shouldn't be overheard?" she asked quietly,
having in the interval drawn upon her self-command.
"/ think so," said the Brazilian. "I have in
mind one or two matters which might be held
intimate to you, seiiorita, — matters which you


273 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
would hardly like the stewards (say) to be pri-
vate to."
"Very well." Cynthia inclined her head stiffly,
smothering an instinct of repugnance, the feline grace
and nonchalance of the man affecting her more un-
pleasantly even than ordinarily. She turned sharply
and marched with uncompromising arrogance back
to the extreme of the shallow apartment. "Well?"
she demanded, halting, Perez at her elbow with a
manner made up in equal parts of courtly deference,
sheer effrontery and guile supported by conscious-
ness of ascendency.
"You will be seated —?"
"No!" she said briefly.
Perez contrived to elevate his hands, his shoulders,
and his brows at one and the same time.
Cynthia ignored the imputation. "You said you
could make me understand," she told him. "I am
ready to listen."
"Well ... I am sorry you feel called upon to
show me so great hostility, seiiorita."
"Yes—?"
"It is painful . . . One had hoped . . ."
"I'm waiting, Mr. Perez. You are to explain
why you feel justified in leaving a wounded man to
live or die, as his wound permits, upon an uninhab-
itable island."
"It is too true: such is the unfortunate aspect
of affairs." Perez discarded the resources of diplo-
macy rendered ineffectual by Cynthia's attitude,
and reluctantly resigned himself to an appearance of
sympathetic candour. "Such, indeed, is the pass to


28o CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
to be aboard the vessel; some one has made way
with them, we grant. That some one might even be
Madame Savaran herself; she is cunning enough to
take such a step to protect her property. But, if such
were the case, you would certainly know of it —"
"I don't," said Cynthia bluntly. "If there's any-
thing in your theory — and I hope there is — Mad-
ame Savaran keeps her own confidence. Not even
to help this poor, wounded man can I tell you what
you want to know. I don't know, myself."
Disappointment set its cast in the eyes of the Bra-
zilian. "So!" he said thoughtfully. He moved
hands expressive of confounded resignation. "So
there is nothing feasible in that direction, senorita.
I am sorry; upon my word, I am desolated."
"But there's another way," Cynthia insisted.
"Yes—?"
"Even if necessary to leave him — and I can't
see that; I don't believe there are two men with us
who would nurse a grudge to the point of being
willing to murder — even granting that necessity, is
there any for leaving Mr. Crittenden without attend-
ance? You have boats; you can set me ashore, to
take him medicines and dress his wound —"
"Ah, but why should I?"
There was that in the tone of the man to appraise
Cynthia that a new element had been injected into
the conference. She looked him coldly and steadily
in his eyes.
"It's common humanity," said she. Then sud-
denly she uttered a low cry of horror and consterna-
tion, for without the least warning the Brazilian


282 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
barred by the confidently extended arms of the
Brazilian.
Intent on conquest and contemptuous of resistance,
making nothing of her hunted and desperate look,
Perez stepped closer, smiling insolently.
"No!" Cynthia pleaded wildly, beating down the
hands that sought to renew their grasp. "Please —
I beg of you —"
Perez's smile became more maddeningly presump-
tuous. With his inflamed countenance within a foot
of hers, subjecting her to the indescribable offen-
siveness of his greedy eyes, the man lowered his
voice, speaking swiftly and incisively in a familiar
undertone.
What precisely it was that he said, Cynthia never
recalled. There followed a brief moment when her
senses seemed to reel, stunned with the enormity of
the affront.
Then, quite automatically, as one conforming to
a law of nature, she closed her hand and struck
him in the face with all her might.
With a low, animal-like cry he started back.
Incredulous, holding her breath, she saw the stamp
of her knuckles whiten his flushed flesh, then as in
his rage the blood receded, leaving his countenance
repellently livid, flash out in scarlet against the grey
pallor, above the purple shadow of his shaven beard.
For the space of thirty heart-beats he seemed con-
founded by the effort to assimilate the amazing,
the unbelievable fact that he had been repulsed and
struck by a woman. His eyes were blank and lightless
with astonishment, while yet he was shaken by purely


BLOWS 283
insensate fury: the instinctive reflexion of shocked
nerve centres and the reaction of a disturbed sub-
jective poise.
* Cynthia, herself, acutely tremulous in appalled
contemplation of her handiwork, saw him lift a hand
quivering like that of an aged and palsied man, to
touch the spot where she had struck him; as if to
assure himself he did not labour under some wild
hallucination.
But in another breath the broken circuit of his
amour-propre reclosed; with a half-snarling smile
that showed a white gleam of teeth, and with a
quick, lithe, cat-like movement wholly inescapable,
the Brazilian returned to the attack — swinging an
arm round Cynthia's waist and catching her close
to him.
"You little devil!" he said, his breath hot and
hateful on her cheek. "You witch! You know your
value — eh? You intend that I shall realise it —"
A very demon of exasperation seemed to possess
Cynthia for a time. Without real comprehension
of what she did, she fought Perez like a mad crea-
ture, crying out in a voice whose hoarse accents rang
with an inhuman note even in her own ears, whilst
she beat his face wildly with her soft, unskillful,
ineffectual hands.
She was only dimly conscious of the blows she
was raining upon him in her blind frenzy, and as
Vaguely of his determined but futile efforts to regain
control of her wrists and hold her to him yet more
strongly. For in the midst of it all Cynthia found
herself abruptly free and leaning back against the


286 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
the ladder to the main deck ere Madame had time
to uncork upon his devoted head the phials of her
mordant wrath. Shortly after, by his order, the life-
boat, which after its morning employment had been
permitted to drift alongside at the length of its
painter, was again hoisted back upon its davits.
Perez remained judiciously invisible — no doubt
busy enough with that thorough ransacking of every
nook and corner which, Acklin reported, was in
process throughout the vessel. No news of the lost,
stolen, or secreted treasure was, however, reported
in the hearing of Cynthia; who had been mildly
diverted by the account, from the lips of Madame
Savaran, of that lady's vigorous reception of a cate-
chism propounded by Lobb and followed up by sug-
gestion from him that both women submit to a per-
sonal search. That the suggestion was not renewed
was accounted for by Madame, complacently enough,
on the ground of her complete readiness to make use
of the small revolver she kept conspicuously dis-
played in the mouth of her reticule.
"I told him," she reported with a vivacious relish,
"that if he dared so far as to look at me cross-eyed
I'd put a hole through every bone in his head. . . .
I would, too," she asseverated with a decided nod.
..." Much less lay even a finger upon me! . . .
Search, indeed!"
Cynthia could muster but the most faint of smiles.
Her care for Crittenden preoccupied her every
thought and faculty. She could not rest for thinking
of him. Nothing else mattered.
In retrospect, in after days, she thought it strange


CYNTHIA'S GAMBIT 287
enough that she gave the episode of Perez so
little consideration, after the first vehemence of
her anger waned. As for apprehension lest he
resume his advances, the possibility never occurred
to her, who held his declaration, like himself, so
insignificant that she forgot both altogether in the
urgency of her more pressing affairs; considering
him, when she considered him at all, in the light of
an exceptionably objectionable and annoying element
in the mixture of her dilemma, rather than as a
sentient human being, potent for good or evil, or
owning any actual claim upon her heed.
Nothing whatever mattered but the intolerable
exigency of her need to be with Crittenden.
Whether to spare himself the sight of her, or
vice versa, Crittenden kept away from the beach.
From that moment when he turned back from con-
templation of the departing life-boat, though all
day long Cynthia searched the island incessantly
with her hungering gaze, she saw nothing of the
man. She deduced disability: he did not show him-
self because he could not.
She was haunted for hours by the picture of him
lying helpless in the burning sun-glare, unable to
crawl to shade by reason of the infirmity of his
wound.
For hours at a time she walked the deck in an
agony of powerlessness. She could do nothing. By
no stratagem her mind could hit upon could she
contrive to send him either aid or word that he,
lonely, outcast, suffering, was at least not denied by
the woman of his love, the woman who loved him;


CYNTHIA'S GAMBIT 289
ceived project, looked down with compressed lips
and reticent eyes.
"Nothing," said she, abstractedly. "I . . .
think I'm tired. Perhaps I 'll lie down for a little
before dinner."
"Very well," approved Madame, and nodded
sagely to herself as the girl slipped quickly out of
sight through the door to the companion-way.
Acklin was setting the table in the dining-saloon.
Cynthia found him alone. None the less it was in
a guarded tone that she addressed him.
"Acklin," said she, "you've been kind and help-
ful, all along. I'm in trouble and need help. Can
I trust you?"
She studied his homely, pleasant face with a keen
scrutiny while he weighed his answer.
"I think so, miss," he said quietly. "There is n't
much I would n't be willin' to do to serve you."
"I can pay," Cynthia asserted. "I'm not asking
you to run a risk for nothing. But I have n't any
money. If this ..."
She opened her hand, showing him in its palm
a ring of pearls and diamonds Madame Savaran had
given her. The steward glanced at it, then back
at her eyes, as if puzzled.
"It is n't extraordinarily valuable," she apolo-
gised.
"You misunderstand, miss," he interrupted. "I
can't tyke anythin' from you."
"You mean you 're committed to loyalty to —
them?" she asked, dashed.
"I'm under orders, right enough," he admitted


29o CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
with an unwilling manner. "I'm not to talk about
what's goin' on. Aside from that, I 'ave n't any-
thing to expect beyond my wyges and a bit over,
per'aps, in the w'y of 'ush-money. ... It is n't that.
I mean I'm yours to command, miss — but not for
'ire."
"You 're kind," said Cynthia gratefully. "But
you might get into trouble if they found out you had
helped me."
"I 'll run the risk, if you 'll permit me, miss,"
he insisted. "I'm not afr'ide."
"Then . . . Thank you." Impetuously Cynthia
offered him her hand.
Acklin touched it with diffident fingers, a singular
lustre in his eyes.
"First," she told him, "I want to get at one of
our trunks — the 'hold' luggage."
"That won't be 'ard. They did n't trouble to
stow 'em below decks, miss, because there was so few
of 'em. They 're all in a storeroom abaft the officers'
quarters. You can get at them any time you like."
"I like now — if you can spare the time."
"You won't be long, miss?"
"Not after I get the keys from my stateroom."
"Very well, miss. I 'll wyte 'ere."
She was back within five minutes, a single key
hidden in her palm.
The steward led the way down the starboard pas-
sage, pausing to unlatch and throw open the door
to an inside room near the rear of the superstructure.
"I should n't be surprised, miss," he volunteered,
groping along the inside of the door-frame for the


292 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
to trespass of alien eyes and rude hands. Recent
experience had already schooled her to the anticipa-
tion of nothing better than barbarisms from barba-
rians, to whom neither age nor sex nor condition
were considerable if opposed to their desires and
designs.
Acklin dragged the trunk to an accessible posi-
tion, and at her direction lifted out the upper tray,
permitting Cynthia, on her knees, to delve directly
to the lowermost layer of her possessions. And
there, confirming her expectation and hope, she found
a neat and compact bundle of black-silk garments:
her bathing costume, an almost forgotten relic and
despised memento of those old, those now strangely
unreal, days when the round of European watering-
places had been an essential part of the annual
programme dictated by her money-maddened
parent.
Singular she thought it, to reflect that its very
inutility alone had permitted the survival of this
costume until this day, when nothing could by any
possibility more fitly serve her requirements.
"That is all, thank you, Acklin," she said absently,
examining the bundle to make certain that nothing
was lacking.
Impassive, as became his training, the steward
replaced the tray and closed the top upon it, then
straightened up, expectant.
Misgivings beset Cynthia anew. Again she
searched his face with eyes at once distrustful and
appealing. If he should fail her, now— 1 And
what did she know of him? What right had she to


CYNTHIA'S GAMBIT 293
trust to him the issue of her happiness? What if he
should disapprove her project, refuse his aid?
And yet she had no choice but to trust him. He
alone of all on board the Cynthia (Madame Savaran
and Crittenden aside) had shown her a friendly and
willing countenance. She must have help, or run the
gravest risk of failure through the handicap of her
ignorance and her sex. Acklin alone could afford
her precisely the assistance and information she
required.
"You said that was all, miss?" he asked, respect-
ful even in his impatience.
Impetuously she took doubt and indecision by
storm.
"I'm going ashore, Acklin," she said rapidly;
"Mr. Crittenden is wounded and alone. They won't
permit him to return to the ship. He must have
attention, but they have refused me a boat, to go to
him. So I'm going, alone — to-night, after dinner
— when the ship is quiet. And I want you to help
me.
Acklin's eyes narrowed with attention and per-
plexity. "But how, miss?" he objected. "It
would n't be possible, I'm afr'ide, to lower a boat
without —"
"I don't need a boat," the girl declared. "I can
do without it. I mean to swim ashore."
"Swim, miss — you?"
"Why not? I'm not afraid: I can swim quite
well; it's not too far. And I must ..."
"But, miss, you ..." Acklyn's forehead grew
corrugated with uncertainty. "It don't seem as if


294 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
you ought to, if you don't mind my s'ying so. . . .
It's 'ard to s'y what's right. I'd go myself instead
of you, miss, only I can't swim."
Cynthia shook her head vigorously. "I would n't
let you. No one could attend to his wound like — a
woman. And it will be easy enough. I have my
bathing-suit here. All I need of you is to find some
way for me to slip over the side without being seen
or making too much noise. . . ."
"That ought to be easy enough — to-night," he
replied after a thoughtful pause. "They won't fin-
ish with the cargo till late, I 'ear, and then they 'll all
be dead beat or drunk or both — beg pardon, miss.
There won't be any anchor watch — none worth the
nyme, if they should trouble to set one. I can fix
that part of it, all right."
"And then," the girl continued intently, "I want
you to find me something water-tight, something to
hold bandages and medicines, that I can fix on my
shoulders, like a knapsack, you know."
"Yes," Acklin nodded. "I know just the thing.
It'd be a bit of an 'elp to you, too, miss, unless
you 're a very strong swimmer indeed. I 'll tyke a
life-belt and remove one of the corks and put a
water-tight tin in its plyce. Then you can strap
it round you, and if you should get tired, it 'll 'old
you up as long as you like. You give me whatever
you 'ave in mind to tyke to Mr. Crittenden — pass
it to me quiet-like — and I 'll pack it in the tin, and
'ave it all ready for you."
Not an objection, not a hint of unwillingness to
be her accomplice! Cynthia was all but ready to


CYNTHIA'S GAMBIT 295
weep for sheer relief. Indeed, so intense was the
obsession of her purpose, the sense of being under
the lash of implacable necessity, that in all probability
she would as readily have broken down at any sug-
gestion in the manner of the steward of a desire to
thwart or to deny her.
But Acklin was alert to recognise the symptoms
of her half-distracted state, and to key up her ner-
vous tension with a quiet word of caution.
"I'm afr'ide you 'll 'ave to excuse me now, miss.
I 'ave my work w'itin' in the saloon, and if anybody
was to see us they might suspect we 'ad somethin'
in mind. . . ."
"You 're right," Cynthia agreed. "But . . .
Acklin . . . you won't fail me?"
"Never fear, miss. If I m'y s'y so, I'm quite a
bit fond of Mr. Crittenden; 'e's the right sort. It
ayn't every d'y one's as the chawnce to be of service
to a gentleman like 'im — or a lidy like yourself,
eyether. I'm only too glad. . . . Now if you 'll
just ring for me from your styteroom, after dinner —
like as if you wanted a bottle of drinkin' water—
you can 'and me whatever 's to go in the tin. Myke
it as little as you can do with, please, miss. . . . And
then later, as soon as the coast's clear, I 'll let you
know by tappin' softly on your door. . . . M'y I
turn off the lights now, miss?"
In a fever, Cynthia made her way, unremarked,
back to her stateroom, there to secrete the bathing-
suit against the prying eyes of Madame Savaran;
who, the girl firmly believed, might be counted upon
to stamp the project with a prompt and cogent veto


CYNTHIA'S GAMBIT 297
About nine o'clock Acklin answered her bell, took
away the packet she had prepared for him, and
brought her a bottle of fresh drinking water to dis-
guise the transaction.
"Better not risk 'er 'earin' my knock, miss," he
advised in a hurried whisper, with a jerk of his head
to indicate the stateroom occupied by Madame Sav-
aran. "I 'll 'ave all ready for you, and be w'itin'
at the foot of the for'ard companion-w'y at eight
bells — midnight. It won't be safe to stir till then
— nor till later, if they 'ave n't finished up with the
cargo by that time. Wyte till the ship quiets down.
If I'm not there, wyte till I come; and I 'll do the
syme. . . ."
Cynthia signified assent. He hurried off. . . .
It was after ten before Madame Savaran elected
to go to bed; and six bells sounded their mellow
chiming through the vessel before the old lady
said good-night and turned off the light in her
stateroom.
There followed hours of nerve-racking suspense
in torment.
Not till two bells — one in the morning — did the
puffing and snorting of donkey-engines, the clan-
gour of windlass pawls, the shift and scuffle and
pound of feet upon the decks and the husky blatancy
of men's voices die out upon the still and peaceful
bosom of the night, when the Orion ceased to rub
shoulders with the Cynthia and swung off to her for-
mer anchorage.
Yet another half-hour elapsed before Madame
Savaran's snorts and complaints against procrasti-


298 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
nating sleep had by degrees become absorbed in
regular if slightly stertorous respiration.
Then Cynthia sat up on the edge of her berth and
with infinite precautions slipped out of her night-
dress and into her bathing-suit.
Fastening the straps of black cloth sandals round
her slender ankles in their heavy black silk stockings,
she stood up, in black from head to foot save for
the fair wan glimmer of her arms and neck and face
and the brighter glow (in the dim starshine that
drifted through the port) of her closely coiffed hair
of gold: for she had no rubber cap. A heavy
mantilla of black Spanish lace — Madame's gift —
thrown over her head and shoulders served measur-
ably to deepen the effect of all-embracing shadow.
Moving as softly as a shade of night itself, with
infinite stealth she found the door and let herself
out into the dark alleyway, reclosing the door with-
out a sound.
Listening a breathless moment, she was reassured
by the sustained drone of Madame Savaran's gentle
snore; and no other sound alien to the night life of
the vessel was audible to alarm her. Indeed, if any-
thing, the quiet was more than ordinarily note-
worthy, after the uninterrupted uproar of the last
twenty hours or so. Officers and men alike, with
hardly an exception, the crew of the Cynthia rested
in slumbers so profound that they were as if drugged.
No hour could have been selected more propitious
for her undertaking.
Yet it was with a faint heart, timid to the least
alarm, that Cynthia moved forward, groping in the


CYNTHIA'S GAMBIT 301
imbiguity of its potential sequel. The mystery, the
enigmatic might and majesty of that strange tropic
night, laid its hand upon her heart and taught her
fear.
For a little time she trembled and was afraid, real-
ising her poignant limitations: she was at most a
woman, fashioned for the softer side of life, with a
body delicate and fragile, unsuited to the stress of
adventurous fortunes and the strain of arrogant mis-
chance, with only the mettle of her spirit to nerve
her on to reckless daring — that, and her love alone.
Dwelling upon the thought of Crittenden to rein-
vigorate her failing pluck, she bent over and ad-
justed the noose round her foot. Then swinging
sideways until poised insecurely upon one hip she
caught the edge of the port with one hand, the rope
with the other.
"I'm ready, Acklin," she said in a steady voice.
"Try to get the mantilla back to my stateroom with-
out being seen, if possible. If anything happens
. . . explain to Madame Savaran in the morning,
please. . . . And thank you, and good-bye."
"Yes, miss — 'nk you," the man's voice came out
of the shadows. "Just one word more: I've stuck
a note for Mr. Crittenden inside the medicine tin;
just a line of advice. You might read it yourself, if
you don't find 'im able. . . . Ready? . . . Then,
good-bye, Miss Gr'yce — and be careful to kick your
foot free before you let go, please — and God guard
you, miss. . . ."
Her wonder that Acklin should have troubled to
write a note to Crittenden of a nature so impersonal


302 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
that he was willing she should know its contents, in
preference to charging her with an oral message,
faded and vanished utterly from her mind as Cynthia
found herself swinging by one hand from the lip of
the port, the weight of her body on the foot sup-
ported by the loop. She checked her breath sharply
and let go her hold on the ship, clutching the rope
with both hands.
And then she was dropping slowly through the
dark, down, deep down into an everlasting black
abyss. . . .
Inch by inch, the steward paid out the line. Pres-
ently the water touched her foot, stole up her legs,
embraced her body. Cautiously she lifted her weight
upon her hands, freed her foot, and let go: at length
away, definitely and irrevocably committed to her
great adventure.
Her immersion had been accomplished with barely
a splash. She lay for a moment almost motionless,
close to the black, over-hanging wall, conscious of
the bland encompassment of water softly enveloping
her from chin to feet, penetrating the thick silken
fabric of her suit and touching her flesh like some
all-girding caress, with a sense of coolness though
suave and soothing.
Then, almost thoughtless in her complete surren-
der to her purpose, she thrust quietly away from the
side, plying stroke after stroke of her strong young
arms silently beneath the face of the waters, until she
was well away from the Cynthia and could see the
shape of it from stem to stern, in dense projection
against the sea of stars.


304 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
As she stood, at length, upon dry sand, wringing
the water from her skirt, the first stage accomplished,
the second assuming the shape of a riddle (in what
quarter of that dark, unplotted island should she first
look for him of whom she had seen nothing since the
previous mid-morning?) a brief, antiphonal chorus
of ships' bells made silver music in the hush, the
Orion answering the Cynthia in mellow confirmation
of its news.
Cynthia paused to listen, counting two double
strokes and one single from the bell of each vessel:
five bells: half-past two and, thus far, all well!
Then abruptly upon the singing silence that en-
sued, broke the rasping sound of wireless sending,
as vicious and venomous of accent as the crack of a
punitive whip-lash.
Startled and wondering, unable to believe that the
alarm was raised in advertisement of her escape, yet
incapable of fitting to it any less personal signifi-
cance, she turned and ran across the beach to hide
herself in the shadows of the vegetation; in whose
cover she stopped, wide eyes staring back over the
still lagoon, a hand seeming to endeavour to restrain
the violent agitation of her heart, her breath has-
tened and shortened more through dismay and con-
sternation than because of her exertions.
She could see the door and port of the wireless
deck-house aboard the Cynthia, bright with light,
and could hear, through the broken drumming of the
spark, the sound of voices calling to one another —
voices quick with apprehension. The bulk of a
man's figure darkened the doorway, and then an-


CYNTHIA'S GAMBIT 305
other. All along the side of the superstructure,
ports were breaking out with light, and aboard the
Orion, likewise, a sporadic flickering of lights
showed that her crew, too, was being roused from
its abbreviated rest. From the bridges of both
vessels men bellowed to each other windily through
megaphones, though the information they exchanged
remained a mystery to the listener ashore, seeming
no more than a spasmodic, angry, husky roaring,
altogether inarticulate.
Fear electrified her — fear lest this frantic, cla-
mant hue-and-cry in the placid night, whether or not
it were raised because of her disappearance, would
involve the discovery of it, and immediate pursuit.
Madame Savaran would be sure to waken and call
to the adjoining stateroom, then, surprised to get no
answer, would investigate and find her companion
missing — her berth empty, her clothing untouched
— and ring and demand news of her. . . .
Cynthia began to run down the beach, softly call-
ing Crittenden, now and again stopping to listen for
response. She heard none.
Presently she found the boxes of biscuit and the
keg of water, where the Cynthia's sailors had left
them. One of the boxes had been broken open, the
keg broached; but Crittenden was nowhere near
them.
She called again, insistently, getting no answer.
None the less, it was from this spot that he had
turned away to conceal himself in the hinterland of
the cay. The girl hesitated here, a trifle abashed by
the thought of attempting such exploration, of brav-


CYNTHIA'S GAMBIT 307
tHe fire that consumed him. . . . And the island
appalled her with its silence and mystery, masking
who should be able to say how many traps for the
destruction of her beloved. . . .
In her distraction, finding the weight of the life-
belt constraining, she unloosed it and slipped it from
her shoulders, letting it fall without marking the
spot.
She began to run frantically and aimlessly to and
fro, hither and yon, crying his name, heedless of
whither she wandered. . . .
In this course of this blind ranging, and after a
lapse of time, she came out again upon the beach, at
a point near that at which she first had left it.
There was more light now, in the east a fore-
running pulsation of dusk. The lagoon showed
glassy and blank, pale beneath the fainting stars,
and empty.
The Cynthia was even then steaming slowly out
between the converging capes, the Orion having pre-
ceded her at some distance.
Cynthia's breath stopped in her throat for an in-
stant, her heart in her bosom seeming to fail. With
a short, gasping cry she came to the last of her ebb-
ing strength and sank down on the sands, staring
after the vessels with eyes horror-smitten.
Crittenden vanished, the Cynthia abandoning her!
. . . Terror of loneliness overcast Cynthia's senses.
Unconsciousness claimed her and from it she passed
unstirring into deep slumber, docile to the demands
of an overwrought mind and an overworked body.


XVIII
MAROONED
On this the sun rose, on this tableau arranged upon
a stretch of pink coral sand, with a smiling breadth
of water of a wonderful fulgent blue as foreground,
a thicket of cedar and pitch-pine and strangely tinted
tropical undergrowth for background: a young and
beautiful woman, dressed in a bathing-suit that would
have seemed not out of place on a Newport beach,
lying in the attitude of one who had succumbed to
the need of sleep at a nadir of pure physical prostra-
tion, her head pillowed on the rounded softness of
one bare arm outflung; standing above her in a pose
of complete and absolute stupefaction, a young man
in torn shirt and soiled trousers, collarless and bare-
footed and lacking a hat, in one hand the straps of a
canvas-covered life-belt, old, discoloured, damp, and
stencilled with the name Cydonia. . . .
Crittenden's features were drawn and haggard
and darkened beyond their normal shade by a coat of
fresh sunburn; slightly bloodshot, his eyes shone like
smouldering coals in their deep-set sockets. There
was a hint of grimness and despair in the set of his
mouth and chin, rusty with day-old stubble. One
sleeve of his shirt was ripped to the shoulder, where
it was widely stained with dry blood. His trousers
were turned up high, exposed spare sinewy ankles
and feet sun-scorched, scratched and abraded from


31 o C YNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
sat himself down to rest in mute communion with his
benumbed senses, promising himself that this torpor
born of utter weariness meant indifference: that he
could thenceforth entertain the thought of Cynthia
without emotion, contemplate eternal separation
from her without repining, that what he had named
love was but fugitive infatuation — that white was
black and forever would be so.
The spitting crackle of wireless from the Cynthia,
sounding its tocsin-like alarm in the stilly night,
failed to interest him. He hearkened without troub-
ling to attempt interpretation. The confusion that
followed, culminating in departure of both vessels,
left him in like apathy: he had looked to be left
behind and had reconciled himself with the under-
standing; to see his expectation fulfilled to the black-
est letter failed to move him. He even, in the astig-
matism of perceptions that saw his abandonment as
a matter of less consequence than the inviolate pres-
ervation of his ideal of honour, found himself suffi-
ciently unconcerned to doze upon the knowledge
of his desertion, until daylight banished further
thoughts of sleep.
Then, in somewhat objectless return to the place
he had selected for his fire, he had stumbled across
the life-belt, wet from recent immersion, lying across
what otherwise he might have overlooked — the
trail of flying footprints, dim, divergent: marks of
feet shod in light, narrow, heelless sandals. Crusoe
on Juan Fernandez discovering the marks of Fri-
day's feet had been no more dumfoundered. Crit-
tenden, astare, was oppressed by a suspicion, vague,


MAROONED 317
ture of ungovernable alarm, she covered her eyes,
while her body was shaken by a spasm of sobs, tear-
less, soundless, terrible. . . .
He too was trembling. Unconsciously he spoke
her name in a low, harsh voice, like some brutal en-
dearment. And then in an instant, carried alto-
gether out of himself, leaned forward with a lithe,
quick movement and caught her to him.
Unstruggling, she lay in his arms for an instant,
mouth locked to mouth, lips warm and yielding
pressed by lips fevered and hard, the delicate bloom
of her countenance dewed with tears, burning and
smarting with the rasp of his chin, bruised and be-
numbed with the hurt of his violent caresses: her
senses in tumult, the world rocking and reeling, her
whole being vibrant in ecstasy of sweetness and lan-
guor and pain, racked by a tempest of sighs and
half-stifled sobs. . . .
For a bare instant only their embrace endured.
Then, on a simultaneous and' mutual impulse, they
started apart, questioning one another with eyes con-
founded and incredulous.
"Cynthia, Cynthia . . .!" Crittenden murmured,
distracted.
The girl drew a shade farther away, her lips mov-
ing without articulation, eyes imploring.
Crittenden lifted himself to his feet with a me-
chanical manner, moved aside a few paces, and
paused, grappling with the task of regaining his
balance. Contrition etched his face with deep lines
of distress and the palms of his hands learned the
length of his nails.


MAROONED 319
go forever lonely for your lips and your voice and
the clasp of your hands — I'm glad!"
"Cynthia!" he cried brokenly, and tried impetu-
ously to catch her hand and bend his lips to it. But
she withdrew it, eluding him.
"No," she said patiently, without reproach.
"Not again, dear heart. Never kiss me again,
Bruce. . . . Only remember, always and always,
and like me — as I shall — with gladness. . . . Do
you remember that first night — in the restaurant,
when you quoted Henley to me?"
He nodded, mute, unable to endure the calm
beauty of her gaze, then bowed his head, staring
blankly away into the lightless murk of a world
darkened by self-knowledge, by distrust and fear
of self. . . .
"And do you remember?" the quiet voice went
on, and quoted:
"' So may it be: that so dear Yesterday,
No sad-eyed ghost but generous and gay,
May serve, you memories like almighty wine,
When you are old.
"Don't ... l" he begged, in the voice of a
man on the rack.
She hesitated, affected by his distress, troubled
and questioning. "But, dearest," she pleaded with
him, " it must be so. We must be content . . . with
memories so dear and sweet. . . . That is the spirit
of love — isn't it? — to be content with itself, to
ask nothing but to go on loving, to endure all things
and survive, to say: I am Love eternal and unchang-
ing, death itself cannot change me. ... I love and


MAROONED 323
and our day will come, my dearest, as surely as the
sun shall rise to-morrow. ... I love you. . . .
"So," said Cynthia with a little laugh, gentle
and rich and deep, that seemed the very voice of
happiness. "So you see, God's in his heaven,
dear; all's well with the world. Have patience, O
my heart! — and a little faith. Love shall sustain
us. . . ."
He turned his head, with confused and doubting
gaze searching for long the serene depths of her
brave and candid eyes, while slowly a light kindled
in his own and warmed them, and their look be-
came strong and firm with hope and faith and his
abiding joy of her, mirroring her flawless trust and
confidence.
Beneath the silken pressure of her arm his
shoulders forgot their droop, even as his mood
its misgivings.
"You . . . wonderful one !" he cried in a hushed
and reverent voice, his face glowing. "It must and
shall be so, dear heart — even as you will have it.
. . . Surely it shall be so, sweetest of women: I will
have patience and faith to conquer; for you, and be-
cause of you alone, who have remade a man of me,
I will work and wait and want and fight . . .
Cynthia, my Cynthia!"
This time he found her hand resistless; and he
took it to his lips, humbly and gratefully pledging
her his fealty and devotion, world without end. . . .
Round them they seemed to hear faint chords of
harmony, as sweet and wonderful as the singing of
the spheres, softly sonorous in the vibrant stillness


324 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
of mid-morning; in whose windless hush the island
drowsed, tranquil and contented. In that secluded
spot the fragrant, heady air hung moveless; only the
softest sibilance of the sea's unending murmurings
came to their ears. A sense of their aloofness, their
remote dissociation from the world, was strong upon
their spirits, like a benediction, anodynous as abso-
lution after confession. Knowing their utter isola-
tion, they were unafraid; they divined a troublous
future without shrinking; love balanced all. Peace
and thanksgiving brimmed their naive hearts, twin
chalices for the wine of life. . . .
Then, upon this hush that bound all their world,
as if it were a witching spell, without any warning
whatsoever there fell a sound as quickening as the
trump of doom: a wild, weird blast of noise, rau-
cous and unearthly: an inhuman bellow that rasped
the ear-drums ere its swift diminution into a goblin
shriek that faded suddenly into complete silence.
Like children appalled by a thunderclap in the
engrossment of play, with a single impulse Cynthia
and Crittenden started apart and jumped to their
feet, so to stand through a tense instant or two,
vainly interrogating one another with startled and
incredulous glances; until again that inexplicable
gust of sound shook the stillness — as a dog shakes
a rat — and again trailed off sickeningly to its
cessation.
Crittenden shook his wits together with a quick,
impatient movement, and nodded reassuringly to
Cynthia, who was standing at a little distance,
poised in her alarm as lightly and gracefully as a bird


MAROONED 325
on the edge of instant if aimless flight. His lips
tightened and his eyes narrowed with concentration
of thought.
"It is n't reasonable," he said, with an attempt at
lightness to ease the strain; "it's the wildest and
most improbable and absurd thing imaginable: but
either I'm stark, staring mad, or that's a siren
whistle. And that means . . ." He indicated his
thorough mystification with a motion of his hand.
"Wait here till I take a look," he said sharply.
Sounded as though it came from the lagoon —"
Another repetition of the racket drowned the rest
of his words. He set off incontinently toward the
inner beach, running as though he thought their lives
depended on his haste — and with half a hundred
hopes and fears seething to the surface of his con-
sciousness.
On the verge of the thinning wilderness, half-
jungle, that masked the beach, he delayed his anxious
footsteps, going more cautiously and with eyes jeal-
ous to reconnoitre the sweep of sea and sand and
sky that was momentarily more widely revealed.
Suddenly, with an exclamation, he stepped boldly
out into open sunlight, cupped hands to mouth and
sent a hail ringing out over the waters.
"Aho-o-oy!" he shouted at the full strength of
his lungs.
From a stocky, lead-coloured steam-launch, fairly
well filled with men in livery of white, which was
just then negotiating the entrance to the lagoon —
picking its way warily, at half-speed — there came
an answering hail.


MAROONED 327
He started off at a rapid stride, back toward tHe
spot where he had bade Cynthia await him: she by
his side, trotting to keep up, divided between laugh-
ter and tears, relief and curiosity.
"But why back? " she insisted in a gasp. "Why
don't we wait here?"
"To get Madame Savaran's jewelry," he replied
in heedless precipitance.
"To get what?"
"Of course!" he cried, apologetic, realising her
ignorance of all he knew. "I forgot to tell you when
you woke — I had n't time, really, you know.
They 're here, you see — yes, really, on this very
island! You brought them ashore with you this
morning."
"/ brought them ashore — If" demanded Cyn-
thia in thorough amaze. She halted, staring at him
as though half inclined to impeach his reason. "I
did nothing of the sort, Bruce. What are you talk-
ing about?"
They were already returned to the glade where
Crittenden had watched over her in her sleep. He,
too, had paused, standing over the life-belt Cynthia
had worn, while he made his explanation.
"But you did," he persisted, with a boyish laugh
of enjoyment of her wonder. "You did n't know it,
but you did. In this." He bent and lifted the life-
belt with its empty pockets, together with the two
tin boxes he had removed therefrom. "Acklin's
idea. Read this," he said, offering her the slip of
paper he had found beneath the bandages and
medicine.


MAROONED 329
gested, " that his accent was a wee bit too careful'—
a trifle overdone."
"Whereas a true British accent is a rare thing
— and precious one?" Crittenden laughed light-
heartedly. "True for you. However, we 'll soon
know everything good for us to know. Now,
then!"
They broke for the last time from the sheltering
trees and for the last time trod those incredible,
painted sands.
Before them on the incredible, painted waters, the
dull grey launch, like an ugly duckling, was floating
without perceptible motion, its engine stilled, its
ensign drooping in lazy, stirless folds.
Half way between it and the shore a tender was
driving in at the vigorous propulsion of four long
oars worked by two sturdy, white-clad oarsmen. In
the stern were two passengers, one a youthful-look-
ing, well set-up officer of His Majesty's Navy, the
other an undersized, round-shouldered little figure
of a man in a steward's white coat and nondescript
trousers, a little man whose carriage and sharp but
friendly grin were peculiarly Acklin's and not to be
mistaken.
By the time Crittenden and Cynthia had reached
the water's edge, the sailors had shipped their oars
and the dinghy was gliding in over the rapidly
shoaling waters. As the keel grated the oars-
men jumped out, bare legs splashing, and seiz-
ing the thwarts ran the bows well up on the dry
beach.
The officer rose, stepped forward, and jumped out,


MAROONED 333
the steward's job. So you need n't wonder any
longer why she trusted me with her jewelry.
"You've got them safe, I see," he added with a
nod to the life-belt over Crittenden's shoulder; "and
such being the case I'm sure we've no further excuse
for detaining Lieutenant Gathorne-Bell. It's a
good long sail back to the Admirable, and a hot one.
We'd better be moving along."
The Englishman turned to Cynthia, offering a
hand to help into the boat. "If Miss Grayce is
quite ready —?" said he. "May I be privileged to
assist the bravest lady I ever had the honour of
meeting?"


XIX
THE SENTIMENTAL SCAMP
With a word of thanks Crittenden returned the
bulky tome of the telegraphic code to the clerk of
the cable company, and moved off toward the door,
wagging his head incredulously as for at least the
tenth time he re-compared the code message in his
right hand with its deciphered transcript in his left.
Then, as he reached the threshold of the office,
his manner that of one abandoning a thankless and
unsolvable problem, he thrust both papers into the
breast pocket of his white linen suit, and plunged
heedlessly from the shadow of the room — by con-
trast, a spot of cool refuge — into the blinding glare
and heat of the sun-smitten waterfront of Hamilton,
Bermuda.
Descending to the stone landing-stage for the
small craft of the harbour, he beckoned in one of the
hovering flock of watermen, dropped into the stern
seat of the man's cumbersome row-boat, and named
his destination: ignoring entirely the steamship
moored at the quay, in which he might have been
expected to show some slight interest, since it had
brought in, that morning, the extradition papers by
virtue of which the conspirators of the Cynthia were
presently to be deported to New York.
Crittenden was altogether preoccupied with a fresh
development in his fortunes, information of which


THE SENTIMENTAL SCAMP 337
"I heard as much. How's Claret?"
"Oh, he's all right," said the detective with a
grunt of disgust. "You can't really hurt that type
of thug. He's as full of hell already as a kid is of
mischief. Good thing you 're not going back on the
same boat; he'd lay to get you, if he hung for it. . . ..
Perez and Lobb are n't so vindictive, though you 're
safe in assuming that neither of 'em loves you to
death. . . . Going?" Macklin added as Crittenden
betrayed symptoms of a desire to continue the ascent.
He consulted his watch, announcing with a show of
surprise: "It's getting late. Tell Rhode I 'll give
him twenty minutes more. I don't want to go home
in the dark."
"I'll tell him," Crittenden laughed. "Good-
night."
"So long. I 'll be over before we sail, for a final
confab. Give Miss Grayce my respects, please,"
Macklin called after him. "Night."
Crittenden moved on, still with inquisitive eyes
prying eagerly into each nook and corner of the
grounds: receiving on the way an impression that
the hour was really later than he had suspected,
whose thoughts had all been taken up with other
matters since receipt of his cryptic cable message,
about mid-afternoon.
Now there was a slant of ruddy burning sunlight
through the trees, a softened tone in the long, east-
ward stretching shadows that stencilled the velvet
lawns, a hint of evening coolness in the air. . . .
Drawing near the topmost terrace of the hillside,
he became aware of voices: a conversation largely
s


THE SENTIMENTAL SCAMP 341
he has been deceiving me, Mr. Crittenden. Do you
blame me for feeling exasperation?"
"But how have I deceived you? Now go on and
tell," insisted Rhode. "You started this. Now go
on and tell how I've been deceivin' you!"
"Simply by seeming to be what you were not,"
countered Madame readily. "For years I have
nursed a sneaking and unworthy admiration for you,
George; you seemed, you made yourself out to be,
such a thorough-paced blackguard, without a single
redeeming feature, that I actually liked you for the
flawless perfection of your unmorality. And now,
at this late day, you choose to reveal yourself for a
hypocrite: you show me that beneath the placid
mask of your iniquity, you are, after all, and have
always been, a man of some feeling, with a heart and
sensibility to human emotions — sentiment, gener-
osity, even — God save the mark! — a rudimentary
sense of humour."
"Mebbe," Rhode addressed Crittenden, transfix-
ing him with a hopeless stare, " you know what she's
talkin' about. I'm damned if I do. But let it rave,
let it rave!"
Madame Savaran drew herself up with a dignity
that went far to conceal the twitching of her fine
mouth. "I sha'n't stay here to be insulted," she
remarked, rising. "I'm going up to find Cynthia.
No, please, Mr. Crittenden," she insisted when the
young man, on his feet, offered to escort her to the
door — one of the old-fashioned attentions of which
she had shown him she was fond. "I wish you to
stay. This beast of a son-in-law of mine has some-


r044 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
"I guess there's somethin' in that, too. Not that
I had any kick comin' about the matrimony thing,
while it lasted. I liked it. Honest, you would n't
believe how much I liked it."
He turned, staring stonily at the cloud-bound sun-
set that burned like some vast celestial holocaust
above and beyond the low, swelling hills of
Somerset.
His pensive silence endured so long that Critten-
den's impatience moved him to break in upon it.
"Madame Savaran said you had something to
tell me? " he suggested.
"Yes." The Red Man swung round again, set-
tling comfortably into his chair. "I'm comin' to
that," he said.
But Crittenden thought he was going a sin-
gular route toward it, whatever it might prove
to be.
"You 're kinda all in about Miss Cynthia, ain't
you?" Rhode demanded suddenly. "Excuse me if
I seem to butt in, but I gotta nobject."
"Wel-l," Crittenden laughed a trifle uneasily, "I
don't know that I really mind telling you what Mad-
ame Savaran has probably told you already. Yes,
I'm in love with Miss Grayce."
"Want to marry her, of course?"
"When I'm able. I believe you understand I'm
not free, precisely."
"Uh-huh; I heard somethin' about that, oncet."
"But why—?"
"Now, listen: I wanta tell you about my own
matrimonial experience. P'rhaps it 'll help you


THE SENTIMENTAL SCAMP 345
some. This ain't none of my business, I know; and
yet, on the other hand, in a way it is."
He gnawed his cigar thoughtfully for some mo-
ments ere proceeding. "It comes down to a sorta
history of my life," he said apologetically, at length.
"I was in the th'atrical bus'ness in them days — part-
ner in a good firm. You Ve heard of Sterner &
Rhode? Well, we done well for a good while. . . .
One day a young woman fluffed into the offis and
said she wanted to be a nactress. Believe me, I was
dippy about her from the minute I lamped that dame.
She had me goin' from start to finish. We got
married, on the quiet, and I put all I had into makin'
her happy — I mean, makin' her what she wanted
to be, a star. I done it, too; but by that time she
had me runnin' round in circles and foamin' at the
mouth every time another man took a squint at her.
And then we had a coupla failures and my money
gave out, and she chucked me cold."
He rolled his great head to and fro in mournful
wonder. "It beats me what dubs we men are about
women. Now I just told you how this dame treated
me, but it's the God's honest truth I'd come right
to heel and charge like a good dawg if she was ever
to give me the whistle. That's what egged me on to
try a turn at this plant. I figured it out I stood to
make a killin' if we could put it through, and all
the time I had in the back of my mind a picture of
me walkin' up to my wife with a wad of dollars and
sayin':' Kid, take me back.' . . . You see, she never
wasted any money gettin' a divorce from me, and
there would n't be nothin' to prevent our beginnin'


346 CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
again where we left off — and no questions asked.
. . . Her right name was Letitia Savaran," said the
Red Man quietly, "but I reckon you'd know her
better as Letty Noon."
After many silent minutes, during which the sunset
faded in the darkling sky and the evening shadows
closed softly about the two men, hiding their faces
from one another, Rhode sat up in his chair.
"Well," he said huskily, "I guess I gotta be
goin'. Macklin said take my time, but . . ."
"You understand," said Crittenden, controlling
his voice with difficulty, "what this means to me —
what I am to infer from what you've told me?"
"Well, yes; at least, I think I do. Of course,
since I was Letty Noon's husband when you married
her, it follows that the second marriage was n't legal.
That's all there is to it. You 're as free as air."
The speaker laboriously hoisted himself upon his
feet, Crittenden rising to face him.
"I been meanin' to tell you this ever since I seen
how things was with Miss Cynthia and you. Only
. . . well, somehow, I did n't want to. I guess you
understand how I felt."
"Yes," Crittenden agreed simply. He put forth
a hand that was promptly engulfed in one almost
twice its size. "I can't — it does n't seem a matter
I can thank you for —"
"Oh, that's all right," Rhode interrupted uncom-
fortably. "Of course I had to wise Madum up to
how things stood. She's on. She never had much
use for Letty — has n't seen her in a good many
years. . . . But it begins to look's if I was n't never


THE SENTIMENTAL SCAMP 347
goin' to get over it. . . . Well, take care of your-
self. So long." He gave Crittenden's hand a part-
ing wrench, dropped it, and lumbered hurriedly
away. "G'd-night," said he.


IN A GARDEN 349
house, came the sound of his name softly fluted in
a voice incomparable.
He turned and stumbled blindly toward the dimly
illuminated verandas, guided less by sight than by
instinct.
Something moved before him in the shadows, and
then abruptly a bright window in the hotel was un-
shuttered and its wide, warm bar of light, falling
athwart the lawn, discovered the girl almost within
arm's-length of him.
In his bosom his heart checked, then hammered
madly; in wrists and throat and temples his pulses
raced and drummed, like distant thunderings.
Unspeakably bewitching in his vision, Cynthia
stood waiting for her lover, her face soft in shadow,
with little more than her glorious hair, the sweet line
of her cheek, the gracious and delicate curve of her
slim throat and lifted chin, etched by the kindly,
generous light.
"Bruce?" Again she called him in her voice of
gold. "Bruce, are you there?"
"Cynthia!" Her name broke from his lips like
a sob of happiness.
She started and came quickly to him, her hands
light upon his arm. "Bruce, has anything hap-
pened? . . . Tell me, dear heart."
He swung an arm round her and slowly, murmur-
ing, drew her with him, away into the scented night
of the flower-haunted gardens.
UNIV. C. •