The Firing Line

"Yes.... May I ask her? I came here to ask her."

"We all know that," said Cardross naïvely. "Your aunt is a very fine woman, Hamil.... I don't see why you shouldn't tell Shiela anything you want to. We all wish it."

"Thank you," said the younger man. Their hand grip tightened and parted; shoulder to shoulder they swung into step across the lawn, Cardross planting his white-shod feet with habitual precision.

His hair and moustache were very white in contrast to the ruddy sun-burnt skin; and he spoke of his altered appearance with one of his quick smiles.

"They nearly had me in the panic, Hamil. The Shoshone weathered the scare by grace of God and my little daughter's generosity. And it came fast when it came; we were under bare poles, too, and I didn't expect any cordiality from the Clearing House; but, Hamil, they classed us with the old-liners, and they acted most decently. As for my little daughter—well—"

And to his own and Hamil's embarrassment his clear eyes suddenly grew dim and he walked forward a step or two winking rapidly at the sky.

Gray, bare of arm to the shoulder, booted and bare-headed, loped across the grass on his polo-pony, mallet at salute. Then he leaned down from his saddle and greeted Hamil with unspoiled enthusiasm.

"Shiela is practising and wants you to come over when you can and see us knock the ball about. It's a rotten field, but you can't help that down here."

And clapping his spurless heels to his pony he saluted and wheeled away through the hammock.

On the terrace Mrs. Cardross took his hands in her tremulous and pudgy fingers.

"Are you sure you are perfectly well, Garry? Don't you think it safer to begin at once with a mild dose of quinine and follow it every three hours with a—"

"Amy, dear!" murmured her husband, "I am not dreaming of interfering, but I, personally, never saw a finer specimen of physical health than this boy you are preparing to—be good to—"

"Neville, you know absolutely nothing sometimes," observed his wife serenely. Then looking up at the tall young man bending over her chair:

"You won't need as much as you required when you rode into the swamps every day, but you don't mind my prescribing for you now and then, do you, Garry?"

"I was going to ask you to do it," he said, looking at Cardross unblushingly. And at such perfidy the older man turned away with an unfeigned groan just as Cecile, tennis-bat in hand, came out from the hall, saw him, dropped the bat, and walked straight into his arms.

"Cecile," observed her mother mildly.

"But I wish to hug him, mother, and he doesn't mind."

Her mother laughed; Hamil, a trifle red, received a straightforward salute square on the mouth.

"That," she said with calm conviction, "is the most proper and fitting thing you and I have ever done. Mother, you know it is." And passing her arm through Hamil's:

"Last night," she said under her breath, "I went into Shiela's room to say good-night, and—and we both began to cry a little. It was as though I were giving up my controlling ownership in a dear and familiar possession; we did not speak of you—I don't remember that we spoke at all from the time I entered her room to the time I left—which was fearfully late. But I knew that I was giving up some vague proprietary right in her—that, to-day, that right would pass to another.... And, if I kissed you, Garry, it was in recognition of the passing of that right to you—and happy acquiescence in it, dear—believe me! happy, confident renunciation and gratitude for what must be."

They had walked together to the southern end of the terrace; below stretched the splendid forest vista set with pool and fountain; under the parapet, in the new garden, red and white roses bloomed, and on the surface of spray-dimmed basins the jagged crimson reflections of goldfish dappled every unquiet pool.

"Where is the new polo field?" he asked.

She pointed out an unfamiliar path curving west from the tennis-courts, nodded, smiled, returning the pressure of his hand, and stood watching him from the parapet until he vanished in the shadow of the trees.

The path was a new one to him, cut during the summer. For a quarter of a mile it wound through the virgin hammock, suddenly emerging into a sunny clearing where an old orange grove grown up with tangles of brier and vine had partly given place to the advance of the jungle.

Something glimmered over there among the trees—a girl, coated and skirted in snowy white, sitting a pony, and leisurely picking and eating the great black mulberries that weighted the branches so that they bent almost to the breaking.

She saw him from a distance, turned in her saddle, lifting her polo-mallet in recognition; and as he came, pushing his way across the clearing, almost shoulder-deep through weeds, from which the silver-spotted butterflies rose in clouds, she stripped off one stained glove, and held out her hand to him.

"You were so long in coming," she managed to say, calmly, "I thought I'd ride part way back to meet you; and fell a victim to these mulberries. Tempted and fell, you see.... Are you well? It is nice to see you."

And as he still retained her slim white hand in both of his:

"What do you think of my new pony?" she asked, forcing a smile. "He's teaching me the real game.... I left the others when Gray came up; Cuyp, Phil Gatewood, and some other men are practising. You'll play to-morrow, won't you? It's such a splendid game." She was talking at random, now, as though the sound of her own voice were sustaining her with its nervous informality; and she chattered on in feverish animation, bridging every threatened silence with gay inconsequences.

"You play polo, of course? Tell me you do."

"You know perfectly well I don't—"

"But you'll try if I ask you?"

He still held her hand imprisoned—that fragrant, listless little hand, so lifeless, nerveless, unresponsive—as though it were no longer a part of her and she had forgotten it.

"I'll do anything you wish," he said slowly.

"Then don't eat any of these mulberries until you are acclimated. I'm sorry; they are so delicious. But I won't eat any more, either."

"Nonsense," he said, bending down a heavily laden bough for her. "Eat! daughter of Eve! This fruit is highly recommended."

"Oh, Garry! I'm not such a pig as that!… Well, then; if you make me do it—"

She lifted her face among the tender leaves, detached a luscious berry with her lips, absorbed it reflectively, and shook her head with decision.

The shadow of constraint was fast slipping from them both.

"You know you enjoy it," he insisted, laughing naturally.

"No, I don't enjoy it at all," she retorted indignantly. "I'll not taste another until you are ready to do your part.... I've forgotten, Garry; did the serpent eat the fruit he recommended?"

"He was too wise, not being acclimated in Eden."

She turned in her saddle, laughing, and sat looking down at him—then, more gravely, at her ungloved hand which he still retained in both of his.

Silence fell, and found them ready for it.

For a long while they said nothing; she slipped one leg over the pommel and sat sideways, elbow on knee, chin propped in her gloved hand. At times her eyes wandered over the sunny clearing, but always reverted to him where he stood leaning against her stirrup and looking up at her as though he never could look enough.

The faint, fresh perfume of China-berry was in the air, delicately persistent amid the heavy odours from tufts of orange flowers clinging to worn-out trees of the abandoned grove.

"Your own fragrance," he said.

She looked down at him, dreamily. He bent and touched with his face the hand he held imprisoned.

"There was once," he said, "among the immortals a maid, Calypso.... Do you remember?"

"Yes," she said slowly. "I have not forgotten my only title to immortality."