XXXI

Toward sunset he came to, partially, passed his hand across his enchanted eyes, and rose from the hammock beside her.

"Dearest," he said, "that swamp ought to be partly drained by this time. Suppose we walk over before dinner and take a look?"

Still confused by the sweetness of her dream, she sat up, and he drew her to her feet, where she stood twisting up her beautiful hair, half smiling, shy, adorable.

Then together they walked slowly out along the Causeway, so absorbed in each other that already they had forgotten the explosion, and even the Maltese cross itself.

It was only when they were halted by the great gap in the Causeway that Jean Sandys glanced to the left, over a vast bed of shining mud, where before blue wavelets had lapped the base of the Causeway.

Then her vaguely smiling eyes flew wide open; she caught her lover's arm in an excited clasp.

"O Jim!" she exclaimed. "Look! Look! It is true! It is true! Look at the bed of the lake!"

They stood trembling and staring at the low, squat, windowless coquina house, reeking with the silt of centuries, crawling with stranded water creatures.

The stones that had blocked the door had fallen before the shock of the dynamite.

"Good God!" he whispered. "Do you see what is inside?"

But Jean Sandys, calmly looking untold wealth in its glittering face, sighed, smiled, and turned her blue gaze on her lover, finding in his eyes the only miracle that now had power to hold her undivided attention.

For it is that way with some girls.

But the novelist, unable to endure a dose of his own technique, could no longer control his impatience:

"What in God's name was there in that stone house!" he burst out.

"Oh, Lord!" muttered Stafford, "it is two hours after midnight."

He rose, bent over the girl's hand, and kissed the emerald on the third finger.

Figure after figure, tall, shadowy, leisurely followed his example, while her little hand lay listlessly on the silken cushions and her dreaming eyes seemed to see nobody.

Duane and I remained for a while seated, then in silence,—which Athalie finally broke for us:

"Patience," she said, "is the art of hoping.... Good-night."

I rose; she looked up at me, lifted her slim arm and placed the palm of her hand against my lips.

And so I took my leave; thinking.

Novels by Robert W. Chambers

Quick ActionThe Gay Rebellion

Blue-Bird WeatherThe Streets of Ascalon

JaponetteThe Common Law

The Adventures of a Modest ManAilsa Paige

The Danger MarkThe Green Mouse

Special MessengerIole

The Firing LineThe Reckoning

The Younger SetThe Maid-at-Arms

The Fighting ChanceCardigan

Some Ladies in HasteThe Haunts of Men

The Tree of HeavenThe Mystery of Choice

The Tracer of Lost PersonsThe Cambric Mask

A Young Man in a HurryThe Maker of Moons

LorraineThe King in Yellow

Maids of ParadiseIn Search of the Unknown

Ashes of EmpireThe Conspirators

The Red RepublicA King and a Few Dukes

OutsidersIn the Quarter

The Business of Life