The Adventures of a Modest Man

"Because," said I, "nobody except a Charentonian would ever believe that any fish inhabit this river."

"Saint Cloud! Saint Cloud!" called out the ticket-agent as the boat swung in to a little wooden floating pier on the left bank of the river.

The ticket-agent carefully assisted me over the bridge to the landing-dock, and I whispered to him that I was the Duke of Flatbush and would be glad to receive him any day in Prospect Park.

Then, made merry at my own wit, I strolled off up the steps that led to the bank above.

There, perched high above the river, I found a most delightful little rustic restaurant where I at once ordered luncheon served for me on the terrace, in the open air.

The bald waiter sped softly away to deliver my order, and I sipped an Amer-Picon, and bared my head to the warm breeze which swept up the river from distant meadows deep in clover.

There appeared to be few people on the terrace. One young girl, however, whom I had seen on the boat, I noticed particularly because she seemed to be noticing me. Then, fearing that my stare might be misunderstood, I turned away and soon forgot her when the bald waiter returned with an omelet, bread and butter, radishes and a flask of white wine.

Such an omelet! such wine! such butter! and the breeze from the west blowing sweet as perfume from a nectarine, and the green trees waving and whispering, and the blessed yellow sunshine over all —

"Pardon, monsieur."

I turned. It was my pretty little Parisienne of the steamboat, seated at the next small table, demurely chipping an egg.

"I beg your pardon," said I, hastily, for the leg of my chair was pinning her gown to the ground.

"It is nothing," she said brightly, with a mischievous glance under her eyes.

"My child," said I, "it was very stupid of me, and I am certainly old enough to know better."

"Doubtless, monsieur; and yet you do not appear to be very, very old."

"I am very aged," said I – "almost forty-five." And I smiled a retrospective smile, watching the bubbles breaking in my wine-glass.

Memory began to work, deftly, among the debris of past years. I saw myself a student of eighteen, gayly promenading Paris with my tutor, living a monotonous colourless life in a city of which I knew nothing and saw nothing save through the windows of my English pension or in the featureless streets of the American quarter, under escort of my tutor and my asthmatic aunt, Miss Janet Van Twiller.

That year spent in Paris, to "acquire the language" in a house where nothing but English was spoken, had still a vague, tender charm for me, because in that year I was young. I grew older when I shook the tutor, side-stepped my aunt, and moved across the river.

Once, only once, had the placid serenity of that year been broken. It was one day – a day like this in spring – when, for some reason, even now utterly unknown to me, I deliberately walked out of the house alone in defiance of my tutor and my aunt, and wandered all day long through unknown squares and parks and streets intoxicated with my own freedom. And I remember, that day – which was the twin of this – sitting on the terrace of a tiny café in the Latin Quarter, I drifted into idle conversation with a demure little maid who was sipping a red syrup out of a tall thin glass.

Twenty-seven years ago! And here I was again, in the scented spring sunshine, with the same west wind whispering of youth and freedom, and my heart not a day older.

"My child," said I to the little maid, "twenty-seven years ago you drank pink strawberry syrup in a tall iced glass."

"I do not understand you, monsieur," she faltered.

"You cannot, mademoiselle. I am drinking to the memory of my dead youth."

And I touched my lips to the glass.

"I wonder," she said, under her breath, "what I am to do with the rest of the day?"

"I could have told you," said I – "twenty-seven years ago."

"Perhaps you could tell me better now?" she said, innocently.

I looked out into the east where the gold dome of the Tomb rose glimmering through a pale-blue haze. "Under that dome lies an Emperor in his crypt of porphyry," said I. "Deeper than his dust, bedded in its stiff shroud of gold, lies my dead youth, sleeping forever in the heart of this fair young world of spring."

I touched my glass idly, then lifted it.

"Yet," said I, "the pale sunshine of winter lies not unkindly on snow and ice, sometimes. I drink to your youth and beauty, my child."

"Is that all?" she asked, wonder-eyed.

I thought a moment: "No, not all. Williams isn't the only autocratic interpreter of Fate, Chance, and Destiny."

"Williams!" she repeated, perplexed.

"You don't know him. He writes stories for a living. But he'll never write the story I might very easily tell you in the sunshine here."

After a pause she said: "Are you going to?"

"I think I will," I said. And my eyes fixed smiling upon the sunny horizon, I began:

Now, part of this story is to be vague as a mirrored face at dusk; and part is to be as precise as the reflection of green trees in the glass of the stream; and all is to be as capricious as the flight of that wonderful butterfly of the South which is called Ajax by the reverent, and The White Devil by the profane. Incidentally, it is the story of Jones and the Dryad.

The profession of Jones was derided by the world at large. He collected butterflies; and it may be imagined what the American public thought of him when they did not think he was demented. But a large, over-nourished and blasé millionaire, wearied of collecting pigeon-blood rubies, first editions and Rembrandts, through sheer ennui one day commissioned Jones to gather for him the most magnificent and complete collection of American butterflies that could possibly be secured – not only single perfect specimens of the two sexes in each species, but series on series of every kind, showing local varieties, seasonal variations in size and colour, strange examples of albinism and polymorphic phenomena – in fact, this large, benevolent and intellectual capitalist wanted something which nobody else had, so he selected Jones and damned the expense. Nobody else had Jones: that pleased him; Jones was to secure specimens that nobody else had: and that would be doubly gratifying. Therefore he provided Jones with a five-year contract, an agreeable salary, turned him loose on a suspicious nation, and went back to hunt up safe investments for an income the size of which had begun to annoy him.

"This part of the story is clear enough, is it not, my child?"

"Are you Jones?"

"Don't ask questions," I said, seriously.

"The few delirious capers cut by Jones subsequent to the signing of the contract consisted of a debauch at the Astor Library, a mad evening with seven aged gentlemen at the Entomological Society, and the purchase of a ticket to Florida. This last spasm was his undoing; he went for butterflies, and the first thing he did was to trip over the maliciously extended foot of Fate and fall plump into the open arms of Destiny. And in a week he was playing golf. This part is sufficiently vague, I hope. Is it?"

She said it was; so I continued:

The Dryad, with her sleeves rolled up above her pretty elbows, was preparing to assault a golf ball; Jones regarded the proceedings with that inscrutable expression which, no doubt, is bestowed upon certain creatures as a weapon for self-protection.

"Don't talk to me while I'm driving," said the Dryad.

"No," said Jones.

"Don't even say 'no'!" insisted the Dryad.

A sharp thwack shattered the silence; the golf ball sailed away toward the fifth green, landing in a gully. "Oh, bother!" exclaimed the Dryad, petulantly, as the small black caddie pattered forward, irons rattling in his quiver. "Now, Mr. Jones, it is up to you" – doubtless a classically mythological form of admonition common to Dryads but now obsolete.

The Dryad, receiving no reply, looked around and beheld Jones, net poised, advancing on tiptoe across the green.

"What is it – a snake?" inquired the Dryad in an unsteady voice.

"It is The White Devil!" whispered Jones.