Quick Action

But she did not look at him as much as she gazed at what he was doing. And what he was doing appeared perfectly clear to her now.

With the aid of his toy shovel, his little red pail, and several assorted shells, he had constructed out of sand a walled city. Houses, streets, squares, market place, covered ways, curtain, keep, tower, turret, crenelated battlement, all were there. A driftwood drawbridge bridged the moat, guarded by lead soldiers in Boznovian uniform.

And lead soldiers were everywhere in the miniature city; the keep bristled with their bayonets; squads of them marched through street and square; they sat at dinner in the market place; their cannon winked and blinked in the westering sun on every battlement.

And after a little while she discovered two lead figures which were not military; a civilian wearing a bowler hat; a feminine figure wearing a crown and ermines. The one stood on the edge of the moat outside the drawbridge: the other, in crown and ermines, was apparently observing him of the bowler hat from the top of a soldier-infested tower.

It was plain enough to her now. This amazing young man was working out in concrete detail some incident of an unwritten novel. And the magnificent realism of it fascinated the Lady Alene. Genius only possesses such a capacity for detail.

Without even arousing young Smith from his absorbed preoccupation, she seated herself on the unincumbered camp-chair, laid her book on her knees, rested both elbows on it, propped her chin on both clasped hands, and watched the proceedings.

The lead figure in the bowler hat seemed to be in a bad way. Several dozen Boznovian soldiers were aiming an assortment of firearms at him; cavalry were coming at a gallop, too, not to mention a three-gun battery on a dead run.

The problem seemed to be how, in the face of such a situation, was the lead gentleman in the bowler hat to get away, much less penetrate the city?

Flight seemed hopeless, but presently Smith picked him up, marched him along the edge of the moat, and gave him a shove into it.

"He's swimming," said Smith, aloud to himself. "Bang! Bang! But they don't hit him… Yes, they do; they graze his shoulder. It is the only wound possible to polite fiction. There is consequently a streak of red in the water. Bang – bang – bang! Crack – crack! The cavalry empty their pistols. Boom! A field piece opens – Where the devil is that battery – "

Smith reached over, drew horses, cannoniers, gun and caisson over the drawbridge, galloped them along the moat, halted, unlimbered, trained the guns on the bowler hatted swimmer, and remarked, "Boom!"

"The shell," he murmured with satisfaction, "missed him and blew up in the casemates. Did it kill anybody? No; that interferes with the action… He dives, swims under water to an ancient drain." Smith stuck a peg where the supposed drain emptied into the moat.

"That drain," continued Smith thoughtfully, "connects with the royal residence… Where's that Princess? Can she see him dive into it? Or does she merely suspect he is making for it? Or – or – doesn't she know anything about it?"

"She doesn't know anything about it!" exclaimed Lady Alene Innesly. The tint of excitement glowed in her cheeks. Her lilac-tinted eyes burned with a soft, blue fire.

X

Slowly as a partly paralysed crab, Smith raised himself to a sitting posture and looked over his shoulder into the loveliest face that he had ever beheld, except on the paper wrappers of his own books.

"I'm sorry," said the Lady Alene. "Shouldn't I have spoken?"

The smoke and turmoil of battle still confused Smith's brain; visualisation of wall and tower and crowns and ermines made the Lady Alene's fresh, wholesome beauty very unreal to him for a moment or two.

When his eyes found their focus and his mind returned to actuality, he climbed to his feet, hat in hand, and made his manners to her. Then, tumbling books and pads from the other camp-chair, he reseated himself with a half smiling, half shamed glance at her, and a "May I?" to which she responded, "Please! And might I talk to you for a few moments?"

Smith shot a keen glance at the book on her knees. Resignation and pride altered his features, but when again he looked at the Lady Alene he experienced a pleasure in his resignation which hitherto no curious tourist, no enterprising reporter had ever aroused. Smilingly he composed himself for the impending interview.

"Until now," said the girl earnestly, "I think I have not been entirely convinced by your novels. Somehow or other I could not bring myself to comprehend the amazing realism of your plots. But now I understand the basis of great and fundamental truth on which you build so plausibly your splendid novels of love and life."

"What?" said Smith.

"To see you," she continued, "constructing the scenes of which later you are to write, has been a wonderful revelation to me. It has been a privilege the importance of which I can scarcely estimate. Your devotion to the details of your art, your endless patience, your almost austere absorption in truth and realism, have not only astounded me but have entirely convinced me. The greatest thing in the world is Truth. Now I realise it!"

She made a pretty gesture of enthusiasm:

"What a wonderful nation of young men is yours, Mr. Smith! What qualities! What fearlessness – initiative – idealism – daring – ! What invention, what recklessness, what romance – "

Her voice failed her; she sat with lips parted, a soft glow in her cheeks, gazing upon Smith with fascinated eyes. And Smith gazed back at her without a word.

"I don't believe," she said, "that in all England there exists a single man capable even of conceiving the career for which so many young Americans seem to be equipped."

After a moment Smith said very quietly:

"I am sorry, but do you know I don't quite understand you?"

"I mean," she said, "that you Americans have a capacity for conceiving, understanding, and performing everything you write about."

"Why do you think so?" asked Smith, a trifle red.

"Because if Englishmen could understand and do such things, our novelists would write about them. They never write about them. But you Americans do. You write thousands of most delightful novels about young men who do things unheard of, undreamed of, in England. Therefore, it is very clear to me that you Americans are quite capable of doing what you write about, and what your readers so ardently admire."

"I see," said Smith calmly. His ear-tips still burned.

"No doubt," said the girl, "many of the astonishing things you Americans write about are really done. Many astounding episodes in fiction are of not uncommon occurrence in real life."

"What kind of episodes?" asked Smith gravely.

"Why, any of them you write about. They all are astonishing enough. For example, your young men do not seem to know what fear is."

"No," said Smith, "they don't."

"And when they love," said the girl, "nothing can stop them."

"Nothing."

"Nothing!" she repeated, the soft glow coming into her cheeks again. " – Nothing! Neither rank nor wealth nor political considerations nor family prejudices, nor even the military!"

Smith bit his lip in silence. He had heard of irony; never had he dreamed it could be so crushing: he had heard of sarcasm; but the quiet sarcasm of this unknown young girl was annihilating him. Critics had carved him in his time; but the fine mincemeat which this pretty stranger was making of him promised to leave nothing more either to carve or to roast.

"Do you mind my talking to you?" she asked, noting the strained expression of his features.

"No," he said, "go ahead."

"Because if I am tiring you – "

He said he was not tired.

" – or if it bores you to discuss your art with a foreigner who so truly admires it – "

He shot a glance at her, then forced a laugh.

"I am not offended," he said. "What paper do you represent?"

"I?" she said, bewildered.

"Yes. You are a newspaper woman, are you not?"