The Firing Line by Robert W. Chambers

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"Isn't this primitive luxury, Mr. Hamil? We ought to wear our
bathing-clothes.... Don't dare take my largest king-orange! Yes--you may
have it;--I won't take it.... Are you being amused? My father said that
you were to be amused. What in the world are you staring at?"

"That!" said Hamil, eyes widening. "What on earth--"

"Oh, that's nothing--that is our watchman. We have to employ somebody to
watch our groves, you know, or all the negroes in Florida would be
banqueting here. So we have that watchman yonder--"

"But it's a _bird_!" insisted Hamil, "a big gray, long-legged, five-foot
bird with a scarlet head!"

"Of course," said the girl serenely; "it's a crane. His name is Alonzo;
he's four feet high; and he's horridly savage. If you came in here
without father or me or some of the workmen who know him, Alonzo would
begin to dance at you, flapping his wings, every plume erect; and if you
didn't run he'd attack you. That big, dagger-like bill of his is an
atrocious weapon."

The crane resembled a round-shouldered, thin-legged old gentleman with
his hands tucked under his coat-tails; and as he came up, tiptoeing and
peering slyly at Hamil out of two bright evil-looking eyes, the girl
raised her arm and threw a kum-quat at him so accurately that the bird
veered off with a huge hop of grieved astonishment.

"Alonzo! Go away this instant!" she commanded. And to Hamil: "He's
disgustingly treacherous; he'll sidle up behind you if he can. Give me
that palmetto fan."

But the bird saw her rise, and hastily retreated to the farther edge of
the grove, where presently they saw him pretending to hunt snails and
lizards as innocently as though premeditated human assassination was
farthest from his thoughts.

There was a fountain with a coquina basin in the grove; and here they
washed the orange juice from their hands and dried them on their
handkerchiefs.

"Would you like to see Tommy Tiger?" she asked. "I'm taming him."

"Very much," he said politely.

"Well, he's in there somewhere," pointing to a section of bushy jungle
edging the grove and around which was a high heavy fence of closely
woven buffalo wire. "Here, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy!" she called, in her
fresh young voice that, at times, broke deliciously in a childish
grace-note.

At first Hamil could see nothing in the tangle of brier and
saw-palmetto, but after a while he became aware of a wild-cat, tufted
ears flattenend, standing in the shadow of a striped bush and looking
at him out of the greenest eyes he had ever beheld.

"Pretty Tom," said the girl caressingly. "Tommy, come and let Shiela
scratch his ears."

And the lynx, disdainfully shifting its blank green gaze from Hamil,
hoisted an absurd stub of a tail and began rubbing its lavishly
whiskered jowl against the bush. Nearer and nearer sidled the lithe
grayish animal, cautiously the girl advanced, until the cat was rubbing
cheek and flank against the woven-wire fence. Then, with infinite
precaution, she extended her hand, touched the flat fierce head, and
slowly began to rub it.

"Don't!" said Hamil, stepping forward; and at the sound of his voice and
step the cat whirled and struck, and the girl sprang back, white to the
lips.

For a moment she said nothing, then looked up at Hamil beside her, as
pale as she.

"I am not hurt," she said, "only startled."

"I should not have spoken," he faltered. "What an ass I am!"

"It is all right; I ought to have cautioned you about moving or
speaking. I thought you understood--but please don't look that way, Mr.
Hamil. It was not your fault and I am not hurt. Which teaches me a
lesson, I hope. What is the moral?--don't attempt to caress the
impossible?--or something similarly senseless," she added gaily. And
turning on the crouching lynx: "Bad Tommy! Wicked, treacherous,
_bad_--no! _Poor_ old Tom! You are quite right. I'd do the same if I
were trapped and anybody tried to patronize me. I know how you
feel--yes, I do, Tommy Tiger. And I'll tell old Jonas to give you lots
and lots of delicious mud-fish for your dinner to-night--yes, I will, my
friend. Also some lavender to roll on.... Mr. Hamil, you are still
unusually colourless. Were you really afraid?"

"Horribly."

"Oh, the wire is too strong for him to break out," she observed coolly.

"I was not afraid of that," he retorted, reddening.

She turned toward him, smilingly remorseful.

"I know it! I say such things--I don't know why. You will learn how to
take them, won't you?"

They walked on, passing through grove after grove, Alonzo tiptoeing
after them, and when, as a matter of precaution from time to time,
Shiela looked back, the bird pretended not to see them until they passed
the last gate and locked it. Then the great crane, half flying, half
running, charged at the closed gate, dancing and bounding about; and
long after they were out of sight Alonzo's discordant metallic shrieks
rang out in baffled fury from among the trees.

They had come into a wide smooth roadway flanked by walks shaded by
quadruple rows of palms. Oleander and hibiscus hedges ran on either side
as far as the eye could see, and long brilliant flower-beds stretched
away into gorgeous perspective.

"This is stunning," he said, staring about him.

"It is our road to the ocean, about two miles long," she explained. "My
father designed it; do you really like it?"

"Yes, I do," he said sincerely; "and I scarcely understand why Mr.
Cardross has called me into consultation if this is the way he can do
things."

"That is generous of you. Father will be very proud and happy when I
tell him."

They were leaning over the rail of a stone bridge together; the clear
stream below wound through thickets of mangrove, bamboo, and flowering
vines all a-flutter with butterflies; a school of fish stemmed the
current with winnowing fins; myriads of brown and gold dragon-flies
darted overhead.

"It's fairyland--the only proper setting for you after all," he said.

Resting one elbow on the stone parapet, her cheek in the hollow of her
hand, she watched the smile brightening in his face, but responded only
faintly to it.

"Some day," she said, "when we have blown the froth and sparkle from our
scarcely tasted cup of acquaintance, you will talk to me of serious
things sometimes--will you not?"

"Why--yes," he said, surprised.

"I mean--as you would to a man. You will find me capable of
understanding you. You once said to me, in a boat, that no two normal
people of opposite sex can meet without experiencing more or less
wholesome interest in one another. Didn't you say that? Very well, then;
I now admit my normal interest in you--untinged by sentiment. Don't
disappoint me."

He said whimsically: "I'm not intellectual; I don't know very much about
anything except my profession."

"Then talk to me about it. Goodness! Don't I deserve it? Is a girl to
violate precept and instinct on an ill-considered impulse only to find
the man in the case was not worth it? And how do you know what else I
violated--merely to be kind. I must have been mad to do it!"

He flushed up so vividly that she winced, then added quickly: "I didn't
mean that, Mr. Hamil; I knew you were worth it when I did it."

"The worst of it is that I am not," he said. "I'm like everybody who has
been through college and chooses a profession for love of it. I do know
something about that profession; outside of it, the least I can say for
myself is that I care about everything that goes on in this very jolly
world. Curiosity has led me about by the nose. The result is a series of
acquired smatterings."

She regarded him intently with that clear gaze he found so refreshing--a
direct, fearless scrutiny which straightened her eyebrows to a
fascinating level and always made him think of a pagan marble, with
delicately chiselled, upcurled lips, and white brow youthfully grave.

"Did you study abroad?"

"Yes--not long enough."

She seemed rather astonished at this. Amused, he rested both elbows on
the parapet, looking at her from between the strong, lean hands that
framed his face.

"It was droll--the way I managed to scurry like a jack-rabbit through
school and college on nothing a year. I was obliged to hurry
post-graduate courses and Europe and such agreeable things. Otherwise I
would probably be more interesting to you--"

"You are sufficiently interesting," she said, flushing up at his wilful
misinterpretation.

And, as he laughed easily:

"The horrid thing about it is that you _are_ interesting and you know
it. All I asked of you was to be seriously interesting to
me--occasionally; and instead you are rude--"

"Rude!"

"Yes, you are!--pretending that I was disappointed in you because you
hadn't dawdled around Europe for years in the wake of an education. You
are, apparently, just about the average sort of man one meets--yet I
kicked over several conventions for the sake of exchanging a few
premature words with you, knowing all the while I was to meet you later.
It certainly was not for your beaux yeux; I am not sentimental!" she
added fiercely. "And it was not because you are a celebrity--you are not
one yet, you know. Something in you certainly appealed to something
reckless in me; yet I did not really feel very sinful when I let you
speak to me; and, even in the boat, I admit frankly that I enjoyed every
word that we spoke--though I didn't appear to, did I?"

"No, you didn't," he said.

She smiled, watching him, chin on hand.

"I wonder how you'll like this place," she mused. "It's gay--in a way.
There are things to do every moment if you let people rob you of your
time--dances, carnivals, races, gambling, suppers. There's the
Fortnightly Club, and various charities too, and dinners and teas and
all sorts of things to do outdoors on land and on water. Are you fond of
shooting?"

"Very. I _can_ do that pretty well."

"So can I. We'll go with my father and Gray. Gray is my brother; you'll
meet him at luncheon. What time is it?"

He looked at his watch. "Eleven--a little after."

"We're missing the bathing. Everybody splashes about the pool or the
ocean at this hour. Then everybody sits on the veranda of _The Breakers_
and drinks things and gossips until luncheon. Rather intellectual, isn't
it?"

"Sufficiently," he replied lazily.

She leaned over the parapet, standing on the tips of her white shoes and
looked down at the school of fish. Presently she pointed to a snake
swimming against the current.

"A moccasin?" he asked.

"No, only a water snake. They call everything moccasins down here, but
real moccasins are not very common."

"And rattlesnakes?"

"Scarcer still. You hear stories, but--" She shrugged her shoulders. "Of
course when we are quail shooting it's well to look where you step, but
there are more snakes in the latitude of Saint Augustine than there are
here. When father and I are shooting we never think anything about them.
I'm more afraid of those horrid wood-ticks. Listen; shall we go
camping?"

"But I have work on hand," he said dejectedly.

"That is part of your work. Father said so. Anyway I know he means to
camp with you somewhere in the hammock, and if Gray goes I go too."

"Calypso," he said, "do you know what I've been hearing about you? I've
heard that you are the most assiduously run-after girl at Palm Beach.
And if you are, what on earth will the legions of the adoring say when
you take to the jungle?"

"Who said that about me?" she asked, smiling adorably.

"Is it true?"

"I am--liked. Who said it?"

"You don't mean to say," he continued perversely, "that I have
monopolised the reigning beauty of Palm Beach for an entire morning."

"Yes, you have and it is high time you understood it. _Who_ said this to
_you_?"

"Well--I gathered the fact--"

"Who?"

"My aunt--Miss Palliser."

"Do you know," said Shiela Cardross slowly, "that Miss Palliser has
been exceedingly nice to me? But her friend, Miss Suydam, is not very
civil."

"I'm awfully sorry," he said.

"I could tell you that it mattered nothing," she said, looking straight
at him; "and that would be an untruth. I know that many people disregard
such things--many are indifferent to the opinion of others, or say they
are. I never have been; I want everybody to like me--even people I have
not the slightest interest in--people I do not even know--I want them
all to like me. For I must tell you, Mr. Hamil, that when anybody
dislikes me, and I know it, I am just as unhappy about it as though I
cared for them."

"It's absurd for anybody not to like you!" he said.

"Well, do you know it really is absurd--if they only knew how willing I
am to like everybody.... I was inclined to like Miss Suydam."

Hamil remained silent.

The girl added: "One does not absolutely disregard the displeasure of
such people."

"They didn't some years ago when there were no shops on Fifth Avenue and
gentlemen wore side-whiskers," said Hamil, smiling.

Shiela Cardross shrugged. "I'm sorry; I was inclined to like her. She
misses more than I do because we are a jolly and amusing family. It's
curious how much energy is wasted disliking people. Who is Miss Suydam?"

"She's a sort of a relative. I have always known her. I'm sorry she was
rude. She is sometimes."

They said no more about her or about his aunt; and presently they moved
on again, luncheon being imminent.

"You will like my sister, Mrs. Carrick," said Shiela tranquilly. "You
know her husband, Acton, don't you? He's at Miami fishing."

"Oh, yes; I've met him at the club. He's very agreeable."

"He _is_ jolly. And Jessie--Mrs. Carrick--is the best fun in the world.
And you are sure to like my little sister Cecile; every man adores her,
and you'll do it, too--yes, I mean sentimentally--until she laughs you
out of it."

"Like yourself, Calypso, I'm not inclined to sentiment," he said.

"You can't help it with Cecile. Wait! Then there are others to lunch
with us--Marjorie Staines--very popular with men, and Stephanie
Anan--you studied with her uncle, Winslow Anan, didn't you?"

"Yes, indeed!" he exclaimed warmly, "but how did you--"

"Oh, I knew it; I know lots about you, you see.... Then there is Phil
Gatewood--a perfectly splendid fellow, and Alex Anan--a dear boy, ready
to adore any girl who looks sideways at him.... I don't remember who
else is to lunch with us, except my brother Gray. Look, Mr. Hamil!
They've actually sat down to luncheon without waiting for us! What
horrid incivility! Could your watch have been wrong?--or have we been
too deeply absorbed?"

"I can speak for one of us," he said, as they came out upon the lawn in
full view of the table which was spread under the most beautiful
live-oaks he had ever seen.

* * * * *

Everybody was very friendly. Gray Cardross, a nice-looking boy who wore
spectacles, collected butterflies, and did not look like a "speed-mad
cub," took Hamil to the house, whither Shiela had already retired for
an ante-prandial toilet; but there is no dust in that part of the world,
and his preparations were quickly made.

"Awfully glad you came," repeated young Cardross with all the excessive
cordiality of the young and unspoiled. "Father has been checking off the
days on the calendar since your letter saying you were coming by way of
Nassau. The Governor is dying to begin operations on that jungle yonder.
When we camp I'm going--and probably Shiela is--she began clamoring to
go two weeks ago. We all had an idea that you were a rather feeble old
gentleman--like Mr. Anan--until Shiela brought us the picture they
published of you in the paper two weeks ago; and she said immediately
that if you were young enough to camp she was old enough to go too.
She's a good shot, Mr. Hamil, and she won't interfere with your
professional duties--"

"I should think not!" said Hamil cordially; "but--as for my
camping--there's really almost nothing left for me to do except to
familiarise myself with the character of your wilderness. Your father
tells me he has the surveys and contour maps all ready. As a matter of
fact I really could begin the office work at once--"

"For Heaven's sake don't do that! and don't say it!" exclaimed the young
fellow in dismay. "Father and Shiela and I are counting on this trip.
There's a butterfly or two I want to get at Ruffle Lake. Don't you think
it extremely necessary that you go over the entire territory?--become
thoroughly saturated with the atmosphere and--"

"Malaria?" suggested Hamil, laughing. "Of course, seriously, it will be
simply fine. And perhaps it is the best thing to do for a while. Please
don't mistake me; I _want_ to do it; I--I've never before had a
vacation like this. It's like a trip into paradise from the sordid
horror of Broadway. Only," he added slowly as they left the house and
started toward the luncheon party under the live-oaks, "I should like to
have your father know that I am ready to give him every moment of my
time."

"That's what he wants--and so do I," said young Cardross.... "Hello!
Here's Shiela back before us! I'd like to sit near enough to talk to
you, but Shiela is between us. I'll tell you after luncheon what we
propose to do on this trip."

A white servant seated Hamil on Mrs. Cardross's right; and for a while
that languid but friendly lady drawled amiable trivialities to him,
propounding the tritest questions with an air of pleased profundity,
replying to his observations with harmlessly complacent platitudes--a
good woman, every inch of her--one who had never known an unkindly act
or word in the circle of her own family--one who had always been
accustomed to honor, deference, and affection--of whom nothing more had
ever been demanded than the affections of a good wife and a good mother.

Being very, very stout, and elaborately upholstered, a shady hammock
couch suited her best; and as she was eternally dieting and was too
stout to sit comfortably, she never remained very long at table.

Gray escorted her houseward in the midst of the festivities. She nodded
a gracious apology to all, entered her wheel-chair, and was rolled
heavily away for her daily siesta.

* * * * *

Everybody appeared to be friendly to him, even cordial. Mrs. Acton
Carrick talked to him in her pretty, decisive, animated manner, a
feminine reflection of her father's characteristic energy and frankness.

Her younger sister, Cecile, possessed a drawl like her mother's.
Petite, distractingly pretty, Hamil recognised immediately her
attraction--experienced it, amused himself by yielding to it as he
exchanged conventionally preliminary observations with her across the
table.

Men, on first acquaintance, were usually very easily captivated, for she
had not only all the general attraction of being young, feminine, and
unusually ornamental, but she also possessed numberless individualities
like a rapid fire of incarnations, which since she was sixteen had kept
many a young man, good and true, madly guessing which was the real
Cecile. And yet all the various and assorted Ceciles seemed equally
desirable, susceptible, and eternally on the verge of being rounded up
and captured; that was the worst of it; and no young man she had ever
known had wholly relinquished hope. For even in the graceful act of
side-stepping the smitten, the girl's eyes and lips seemed unconsciously
to unite in a gay little unspoken promise--"This serial story is to be
continued in our next--perhaps."

As for the other people at the table Hamil began to distinguish one from
another by degrees; the fair-haired Anans, sister and brother, who spoke
of their celebrated uncle, Winslow Anan, and his predictions concerning
Hamil as his legitimate successor; Marjorie Staines, willowy, active,
fresh as a stem of white jasmine, and inconsequent as a very restless
bird; Philip Gatewood, grave, thin, prematurely saddened by the
responsibility of a vast inheritance, consumed by a desire for an
artistic career, looking at the world with his owlish eyes through the
prismatic colors of a set palette.

There were others there whom as yet he had been unable to
differentiate; smiling, well-mannered, affable people who chattered with
more or less intimacy among themselves as though accustomed to meeting
one another year after year in this winter rendezvous. And everywhere he
felt the easy, informal friendliness and goodwill of these young people.

"Are you being amused?" asked Shiela beside him. "My father's orders,
you know," she added demurely.

They stood up as Mrs. Carrick rose and left the table followed by the
others; and he looked at Shiela expecting her to imitate her sister's
example. As she did not, he waited beside her, his cigarette unlighted.

Presently she bent over the table, extended her arm, and lifted a small
burning lamp of silver toward him; and, thanking her, he lighted his
cigarette.

"Siesta?" she asked.

"No; I feel fairly normal."

"That's abnormal in Florida. But if you really don't feel sleepy--if you
really don't--we'll get the _Gracilis_--our fastest motor-boat--and run
down to the Beach Club and get father. Shall we--just you and I?"

"And the engineer?"

"I'll run the _Gracilis_ if you will steer," she said quietly.

"I'll do whichever you wish, Calypso, steer or run things."

She looked up with that quick smile which seemed to transfigure her into
something a little more than mortal.

"Why in the world have I ever been afraid of you?" she said. "Will you
come? I think our galley is in commission.... Once I told you that
Calypso was a land-nymph. But--time changes us all, you know--and as
nobody reads the classics any longer nobody will perceive the
anachronism."

"Except ourselves."

"Except ourselves, Ulysses; and we'll forgive each other." She took a
step out from the shadow of the oaks' foliage into the white sunlight
and turned, looking back at him.

And he followed, as did his heroic namesake in the golden noon of the
age of fable.

As they came in sight of the sea he halted.

"That's curious!" he exclaimed; "there is the _Ariani_ again!"

"The yacht you came on?"

"Yes. I wonder if there's been an accident. She cleared for Miami last
night."

They stood looking at the white steamer for a moment.

"I hope everything's all right with the _Ariani_" he murmured; then
turned to the girl beside him.

"By the way I have a message for you from a man on board; I forgot to
deliver it."

"A message for _me_?"

"From a very ornamental young man who desired to be particularly
remembered to Shiela Cardross until he could pay his respects in person.
Can you guess?"

For a moment she looked at him with a tremor of curiosity and amusement
edging her lips.

"Louis Malcourt," he said, smiling; and turned again to the sea.

A sudden, still, inward fright seized her; the curious soundless crash
of her own senses followed--as though all within had given way.

She had known many, many such moments; one was upon her now, the
clutching terror of it seeming to stiffen the very soul within her.

"I hope all's well with the _Ariani_" he repeated under his breath,
staring at the sea.

Miss Cardross said nothing.

CHAPTER VII

A CHANGE OF BASE

February, the gayest winter month on the East Coast, found the winter
resorts already overcrowded. Relays and consignments of fashion arrived
and departed on every train; the permanent winter colony, composed of
those who owned or rented villas and those who remained for the three
months at either of the great hotels, had started the season vigorously.
Dances, dinners, lawn fetes, entertainments for local churches and
charities left little time for anything except the routine of the
bathing-hour, the noon gathering at "The Breakers," and tea during the
concert.

Every day beach, pier, and swimming-pool were thronged; every day the
white motor-cars rushed southward to Miami, and the swift power-boats
sped northward to the Inlet; and the house-boat rendezvous rang with the
gay laughter of pretty women, and the restaurant of the Beach Club
flashed with their jewels.

Dozens of villas had begun their series of house-parties; attractive
girls held court everywhere--under coco-palm and hibiscus, along the
beach, on the snowy decks of yachts; agreeable girls fished from the
pier, pervaded bazaars for charity, sauntered, bare of elbow and throat,
across the sandy links; adorable girls appeared everywhere, on veranda,
in canoes, in wheel-chairs, in the surf and out of it--everywhere youth
and beauty decorated the sun-drenched landscape. And Hamil thought that
he had never before beheld so many ornamental women together in any one
place except in his native city; certainly, nowhere had he ever
encountered such a heterogeneous mixture of all the shades, nuances,
tints, hues, and grades which enter into the warp and weft of the
American social fabric; and he noticed some colours that do not enter
into that fabric at all.

East, West, North, and South sent types of those worthy citizens who
upheld local social structures; the brilliant migrants were there
also--samples of the gay, wealthy, over-accented floating population of
great cities--the rich and homeless and restless--those who lived and
had their social being in the gorgeous and expensive hotels; who had
neither firesides nor taxes nor fixed social obligations to worry them,
nor any of the trying civic or routine duties devolving upon permanent
inhabitants--the jewelled throngers of the horse-shows and motor-shows,
and theatres, and night restaurants--the people, in fact, who make
ocean-liners, high prices, and the metropolis possible, and the name of
their country blinked at abroad. For it is not your native New Yorker
who supports the continual fete from the Bronx to the sea and carries it
over-seas for a Parisian summer.

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