The Firing Line by Robert W. Chambers

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Then, too, the truly good were there--the sturdy, respectable, and
sometimes dowdy good; also the intellectuals--for ten expensive days at
a time--for it is a deplorable fact that the unworthy frivolous
monopolise all the money in the world! And there, too, were
excursionists from East and West and North and South, tired,
leaden-eyed, uncomfortable, eating luncheons on private lawns, trooping
to see some trained alligators in a muddy pool, resting by roadsides
and dunes in the apathy of repletion, the sucked orange suspended to
follow with narrowing eyes the progress of some imported hat or gown.

And the bad were there; not the very, very bad perhaps; but the
doubtful; over-jewelled, over-tinted of lip and brow and cheek, with
shoes too shapely and waists too small and hair too bright and wavy,
and--but dusty alpaca and false front cannot do absolute justice to a
pearl collar and a gown of lace; and tired, toil-dimmed eyes may make
mistakes, especially as it is already a tradition that America goes to
Palm Beach to cut up shindies, or watch others do it.

So they were all there, the irreproachable, the amusing, the inevitable,
the intellectual, the good, and the bad, the onduled, and the scant of
hair.

And, belonging to one or more of these divisions, Portlaw, Wayward, and
Malcourt were there--had been there, now, for several weeks, the latter
as a guest at the Cardross villa. For the demon of caprice had seized on
Wayward, and half-way to Miami he had turned back for no reason under
the sun apparently--though Constance Palliser had been very glad to see
him after so many years.

The month had made a new man of Hamil. For one thing he had become more
or less acclimated; he no longer desired to sleep several times a day,
he could now assimilate guavas without disaster, and walk about without
acquiring headaches or deluging himself in perspiration. For another he
was enchanted with his work and with Shiela Cardross, and with the
entire Cardross family.

The month had been a busy one for him. When he was not in the saddle
with Neville Cardross the work in the new office and draughting-room
required his close attention. Already affairs were moving briskly; he
had leased a cottage for his office work; draughtsmen had arrived and
were fully occupied, half a dozen contractors appeared on the spot, also
a forester and assistants, and a surveyor and staff. And the energetic
Mr. Cardross, also, was enjoying every minute of his life.

Hamil's plan for the great main park with its terraces, miles of shell
and marl drives, its lakes, bridges, arbours, pools, shelters, canals,
fully satisfied Cardross. Hamil's engineers were still occupied with the
drainage problem, but a happy solution was now in sight. Woodcutters had
already begun work on the great central forest avenue stretching
straight away for four miles between green jungles topped by giant oaks,
magnolias, and palmettos; lesser drives and chair trails were being
planned, blazed, and traced out; sample coquina concrete blocks had been
delivered, and a rickety narrow-gauge railroad was now being installed
with spidery branches reaching out through the monotonous flat woods and
creeping around the boundaries where a nine-foot game-proof fence of
woven buffalo wire was being erected on cypress posts by hundreds of
negroes. Around this went a telephone and telegraph wire connected with
the house and the gamekeeper's lodges.

Beyond the vast park lay an unbroken wilderness. This had already been
surveyed and there remained nothing to do except to pierce it with a
wide main trail and erect a few patrol camps of palmetto logs within
convenient reach of the duck-haunted lagoons.

And now toward the end of the month, as contractor after contractor
arrived with gangs of negroes and were swallowed up in the distant
woodlands, the interest in the Cardross household became acute. From
the front entrance of the house guests and family could see the great
avenue which was being cleared through the forest--could see the vista
growing hour by hour as the huge trees swayed, bent, and came crashing
earthward. Far away the noise of the felling sounded, softened by
distance; snowy jets of steam puffed up above the trees, the panting of
a toy locomotive came on the breeze, the mean, crescendo whine of a
saw-mill.

"It's the only way to do things," said Cardross again and again; "make
up your mind quickly that you want to do them, then do them quickly. I
have no patience with a man who'll dawdle about a bit of property for
years and finally start to improve it with a pot of geraniums after he's
too old to enjoy anything except gruel. When I plant a tree I don't
plant a sapling; I get a machine and four horses and a dozen men and I
put in a full-grown tree so that I can sit under it next day if I wish
to and not spend thirty years waiting for it to grow. Isn't that the way
to do things, Hamil?"

Hamil said yes. It was certainly the way to accomplish things--the
modern millionaire's way; but the majority of people had to do a little
waiting before they could enjoy their vine and fig-tree.

Cardross sat down beside his wife, who was reading in a hammock chair,
and gazed at the new vista through a pair of field-glasses.

"Gad, Hamil!" he said with considerable feeling, "I hate to see a noble
tree go down; it's like murder to me. But it's the only thing to do,
isn't it? The French understand the value of magnificent distances. What
a glorious vista that will make, four miles straight away walled in by
deathless green, and the blue lagoon sparkling at the end of the
perspective! I love it, I tell you. I love it!"

"It will be very fine," said Hamil. His voice sounded a trifle tired. He
had ridden many miles since sunrise. There was marl on his
riding-breeches.

Cardross continued to examine the work in progress through his
binoculars. Presently he said:

"You've been overdoing it, haven't you, Hamil? My wife says so."

"Overdoing it?" repeated the young man, not understanding. "Overdoing
what?"

"I mean you've a touch of malaria; you've been working a little too
hard."

"He has indeed," drawled Mrs. Cardross, laying aside her novel; and,
placidly ignoring Hamil's protests: "Neville, you drag him about through
those dreadful swamps before he is acclimated, and you keep him up half
the night talking plans and making sketches. He is too young to work
like that."

Hamil turned red; but it was impossible to resent or mistake the kindly
solicitude of this very large and leisurely lady whose steadily
increasing motherly interest in him had at times tried his dignity in
that very lively family.

That he was already a successful young man with a metropolitan
reputation made little or no impression upon her. He was young, alone,
and she liked him better and better every day until that liking arrived
at the point where his physical welfare began to preoccupy her. So she
sent maids to his room with nourishing broths at odd and unexpected
moments, and she presented him with so many boxes of quinine that their
disposal became a problem until Shiela took them off his hands and
replaced them in her mother's medicine chest, whence, in due time, they
returned again as gifts to Hamil.

"Dear Mrs. Cardross," he said, taking a vacant chair beside her hammock,
"I really am perfectly well and perfectly acclimated, and I enjoy every
moment of the day whether here as your guest or in the saddle with your
husband or in the office over the plans--"

"But you are always at work!" she drawled; "we never see you."

"But that's why I am here," he insisted, smiling.

"Neville," she interrupted calmly; "no boy of his age ought to kill
himself. Listen to me; when Neville and I were married we had very
little, and he began by laying his plans to work every moment. But we
had an understanding," she added blandly; "I explained that I did not
intend to grow old with a wreck of a man. Now you may see the result of
our understanding," nodding toward her amazingly youthful husband.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" observed Cardross, still looking through his
field-glasses. "There's a baby-show next week and I'll enter if you
like, my dear."

Mrs. Cardross smiled and took Hamil's hand flat between her fair, pudgy
palms.

"We want you here," she said kindly, "_not_ because it is a matter of
convenience, but because we like you. Be a little more amiable, Mr.
Hamil; you never give us a moment during the day or after dinner. You
haven't been to a dance yet; you never go to the beach, you never motor
or sail or golf. Don't you like my children?"

"Like them! I adore them," he said, laughing, "but how can--"

"I'm going to take him camping," observed Cardross, interrupting. "I
want some duck-shooting; don't you, Hamil?"

"Of course I do, but--"

"Then we start this week for the woods--"

"I won't let you," interposed his wife; "you'll talk that boy to death
with your plans and surveys!"

"No, I'll promise to talk shooting every moment, and do a little of it,
too. What do you say, Hamil? Gray will go with us. Are you game?"

"I'd love to, but I promised Malcourt that--"

"Oh, nonsense! Louis can wait for you to go North and lay out Mr.
Portlaw's park. I've the first call on you; I've got you for the winter
here--"

"But Portlaw says--"

"Oh, bother Mr. Portlaw! We'll take him along, too, if he can tear
himself away from the Beach Club long enough to try less dangerous
game."

Since Malcourt's arrival he and Portlaw had joyously waded into whatever
gaiety offered, neck-deep; Portlaw had attached himself to the Club with
all the deliberation of a born gourmet and a hopeless gambler; Malcourt
roamed society and its suburbs, drifting from set to set and from
coterie to coterie, always an opportunist, catholic in his tastes,
tolerant of anything where pretty women were inclined to be amiable. And
they often were so inclined.

For his own curiosity he even asked to be presented to the redoubtable
Mrs. Van Dieman, and he returned at intervals to that austere
conservatory of current gossip and colonial tradition partly because it
was policy, socially, partly because, curiously enough, the somewhat
transparent charms of Virginia Suydam, whom he usually met there,
interested him--enough to make him remember a provocative glance from
her slow eyes--very slow, deeply lidded eyes, washed with the tint of
the sea when it is less blue than green. And the curious side of it was
that Malcourt and Virginia had met before, and he had completely
forgotten. It was difficult to tell whether she had.

He usually remembered women who looked at him like that, tucking them
away in his mental list to be investigated later. He had quite a little
list in his mental archives of women, wedded and otherwise, who
interested him agreeably or otherwise. Neither Mrs. Carrick nor Cecile
was on that list. Shiela Cardross was--and had been for two years.

* * * * *

Hamil, sitting on the terrace beside Mrs. Cardross, became very busy
with his note-book as soon as that languid lady resumed her book.

"If you're going to import wild boar from Germany," he said to Cardross,
"you'll have to fence in some ten miles square--a hundred square
miles!--or they'll take to the Everglades."

"I'm going to," returned that gentleman calmly. "I wish you'd ask
McKenna to figure it out. I'll supply the cypress of course."

Hamil leaned forward, a little thrilled with the colossal scheme. He
never could become quite accustomed to the vast scale on which Cardross
undertook things.

"That will make a corking preserve," he said. "What do you suppose is in
there now?"

"Some bears and deer, a few lynx, perhaps one or two panthers. The boar
will hold their own--if they can stand the summer--and I'm sure they
can. The alligators, no doubt, will get some of their young when they
breed. I shall start with a hundred couple when you're ready for them.
What are you going to do this afternoon?"

"Office work," replied Hamil, rising and looking at his marl-stained
puttees and spurs. Then he straightened up and smiled at Mrs. Cardross,
who was gently shaking her head, saying:

"The young people are at the bathing-beach; I wish you'd take a chair
and go down there--to please me, Mr. Hamil."

"Come, Hamil," added Cardross airily, "take a few days off--on yourself.
You've one thing yet to learn: it's only the unsuccessful who are too
busy to play."

"But what I'm doing is play," remonstrated the young man
good-humouredly. "Well--I'll go to the beach, then." He looked at the
steam-jets above the forest, fumbled with his note-book, caught the eye
of Mrs. Cardross, put away the book, and took his leave laughingly.

"We go duck-shooting to-morrow," called out Cardross after him.

Hamil halted in the doorway to protest, but the elder man waved him
away; and he went to his room to change riding-clothes for flannels and
sponge the reek of horse and leather from his person.

* * * * *

The beach was all ablaze with the brilliant colours of sunshades, hats,
and bathing-skirts. Hamil lost no time in getting into his
swimming-suit; and, as he emerged, tall, cleanly built, his compact
figure deeply tanned where exposed, Portlaw, waddling briskly toward the
ocean, greeted him with the traditional: "Come on! it's fine!" and
informed him furthermore that "everybody" was there.

CHAPTER VIII

MANOEUVERING

Everybody seemed to be there, either splashing about in the Atlantic or
playing ball on the beach or congregated along the sands observant of
the jolly, riotous scene sparkling under the magnificence of a cloudless
sky.

Hamil nodded to a few people as he sauntered toward the surf; he stopped
and spoke to his aunt and Colonel Vetchen, who informed him that
Virginia and Cuyp were somewhere together chastely embracing the ocean;
he nodded to old Classon who was toddling along the wet sands in a
costume which revealed considerable stomach; he saw Malcourt, knee-deep,
hovering around Shiela, yet missing nothing of what went on around him,
particularly wherever the swing of a bathing-skirt caught his quick,
handsome eyes.

Then Cecile stretched out an inviting hand to him from the water and he
caught it, and together they hurled themselves head first into the surf,
swimming side by side out to the raft.

"It's nice to see you again," said the girl. "Are you going to be
agreeable now and go about with us? There's a luncheon at two--your fair
friend Virginia Suydam has asked us, much to our surprise--but after
that I'm quite free if you've anything to propose."

She looked up at him, pink and fresh as a wet rose, balanced there on
the edge of the rocking raft.

"Anything to propose?" he repeated; "I don't know; there's scarcely
anything I wouldn't propose to you. So you're going to Virginia's
luncheon?"

"_I_ am; Shiela won't." She frowned. "It's just as it was two years ago
when Louis Malcourt tagged after her every second. It's stupid, but we
can't count on them any more."

"Does--does Malcourt--"

"Tag after Shiela? Haven't you seen it? You've been too busy to notice.
I wish you wouldn't work every minute. There was the jolliest sort of a
dance at the O'Haras' last night--while you were fast asleep. I know you
were because old Jonas told mother you had fallen asleep in your chair
with your head among a pile of blue-prints. On my way to the dance I
wanted to go in and tie one of Shiela's cunning little lace morning caps
under your chin, but Jessie wouldn't go with me. They're perfectly sweet
and madly fashionable--these little Louis XVI caps. I'll show you one
some day."

For a few moments the girl rattled on capriciously, swinging her
stockinged legs in the smooth green swells that rose above her knees
along the raft's edge; and he sat silent beside her, half-listening,
half-preoccupied, his eyes instinctively searching the water's edge
beyond.

"I--hadn't noticed that Louis Malcourt was so devoted to your sister,"
he said.

Cecile looked up quickly, but detected only amiable indifference in the
young fellow's face.

"They're-always together; _elle s'affiche a la fin_!" she said
impatiently. "Shiela was only eighteen before; she's twenty now, and
old enough to know whether she wants to marry a man like that or not."

Hamil glanced around at her incredulously. "Marry Malcourt?"

But Cecile went on headlong in the wake of her own ideas.

"He's a sort of a relative; we've always known him. He and Gray used to
go camping in Maine and he often spent months in our house. But for two
years now, he's been comparatively busy--he's Mr. Portlaw's manager, you
know, and we've seen nothing of him--which was quite agreeable to me."

Hamil rose, unquiet. "I thought _you_ were rather impressed by Shiela,"
continued the girl. "I really did think so, Mr. Hamil."

"Your sister predicted that I'd lose my heart and senses to _you_" said
Hamil, laughing and reseating himself beside her.

"Have you?"

"Of course I have. Who could help it?"

The girl considered him smilingly.

"You're the nicest of men," she said. "If you hadn't been so busy I'm
certain we'd have had a desperate affair. But--as it is--and it makes me
perfectly furious--I have only the most ridiculously commonplace and
comfortable affection for you--the sort which prompts mother to send you
quinine and talcum powder--"

Balanced there side by side they fell to laughing.

"Sentiment? Yes," she said; "but oh! it's the kind that offers
witch-hazel and hot-water bottles to the best beloved! Mr. Hamil, why
can't we flirt comfortably like sensibly frivolous people!"

"I wish we could, Cecile."

"I wish so, too, Garret. No, that's too formal--Garry! There, that ends
our chances!"

"You're the jolliest family I ever knew," he said. "You can scarcely
understand how pleasant it has been for me to camp on the edges of your
fireside and feel the home-warmth a little--now and then--"

"Why do you remain so aloof then?"

"I don't mean to. But my heart is in this business of your father's--the
more deeply in because of his kindness--and your mother's--and for all
your sakes. You know I can scarcely realise it--I've been with you only
a month, and yet you've done so much for me--received me so simply, so
cordially--that the friendship seems to be of years instead of hours."

"That is the trouble," sighed Cecile; "you and I never had a chance to
be frivolous; I'm no more self-conscious with you than I am with Gray.
Tell me, why was Virginia Suydam so horrid to us at first?"

Hamil reddened. "You mustn't ask me to criticise my own kin," he said.

"No," she said, "you couldn't do that.... And Miss Suydam has been more
civil recently. It's a mean, low, and suspicious thing to say, but I
suppose it's because--but I don't think I'll say it after all."

"It's nicer not to," said Hamil. They both knew perfectly well that
Virginia's advances were anything but disinterested. For, alas! even the
men of her own entourage were now gravitating toward the Cardross
family; Van Tassel Cuyp was continually wrinkling his nose and fixing
his dead-blue eyes in that direction; little Colonel Vetchen circled
busily round and round that centre of attraction, even Courtlandt
Classon evinced an inclination to toddle that way. Besides Louis
Malcourt had arrived; and Virginia had never quite forgotten Malcourt
who had made one at a house party in the Adirondacks some years since,
although even when he again encountered her, Malcourt had retained no
memory of the slim, pallid girl who had for a week been his fellow-guest
at Portlaw's huge camp on Luckless Lake.

* * * * *

"Virginia Suydam is rather an isolated girl," said Hamil thoughtfully.
"She lives alone; and it is not very gay for a woman alone in the world;
not the happiest sort of life.... Virginia has always been very friendly
to me--always. I hope you will find her amusing."

"I'm going to her luncheon," said Cecile calmly. "It's quite too absurd
for her to feel any more doubt about us socially than we feel about her.
That is why I am going. Shall we swim?"

He rose; she clasped his offered hand and sprang to her feet, ready for
the water again. But at that instant Malcourt's dark, handsome head
appeared on the crest of a surge close by, and the next moment that
young gentleman scrambled aboard the raft, breathing heavily.

"Hello, Cecile!" he gasped; "Hello, Hamil! Shiela thought it must be
you, but I was sceptical. Whew! That isn't much of a swim; I must be out
of condition--"

"Late hours, cards, and highballs," observed Cecile scornfully. "You're
horridly smooth and fat, Louis."

Malcourt turned to Hamil.

"Glad to see you've emerged from your shell at last. The rumour is that
you're working too hard."

"There's no similar rumour concerning you," observed Cecile, who had
never made any pretence of liking Malcourt. "Please swim out to sea, if
you've nothing more interesting to tell us. I've just managed to decoy
Mr. Hamil here and I'd like to converse with him in peace."

Malcourt, arms folded, balanced himself easily on the raft's pitching
edge and glanced at her with that amiably bored expression
characteristic of him when rebuffed by a woman. On such occasions his
eyes resembled the half-closed orbs of a teased but patient cat; and
Cecile had once told him so.

"There's a pretty rumour afloat concerning your last night's performance
at the Beach Club," said the girl disdainfully. "A boy like you, making
himself conspicuous by his gambling!"

Malcourt winced, but as the girl had apparently heard nothing to his
discredit except about his gambling, he ventured an intelligent sidelong
glance at Hamil.

The latter looked at him inquiringly; Malcourt laughed.

"You haven't been to the Beach Club yet, have you, Hamil? I'll get you a
card if you like."

Cecile, furious, turned her back and went head first into the sea.

"Come on," said Hamil briefly, and followed her. Malcourt took to the
water leisurely, going out of his way to jeer at and splash Portlaw, who
was labouring like a grampus inshore; then he circled within observation
distance of several pretty girls, displayed his qualities as a swimmer
for their benefit, and finally struck out shoreward.

When he emerged from the surf he looked about for Shiela. She was
already half-way to the beach, walking with Cecile and Hamil toward the
pavilion; and, starting across the shallows to overtake her, he
suddenly came face to face with Virginia Suydam.

She was moving hip-deep out through the seething tide, slim, graceful, a
slight flush tinting the usual delicate pallor of her cheeks. Gussie
Vetchen bobbed nimbly about in the vicinity, very busy trying to look at
everybody and keep his balance at the same time. Miss Palliser was
talking to Cuyp.

As Malcourt waded past, he and Miss Suydam exchanged a pleasantly formal
greeting; and, for the second time, something in her casual gaze--the
steadiness of her pretty green-tinted eyes, perhaps--perhaps their
singular colour--interested him.

"You did not ask _me_ to your luncheon," he said gaily, as he passed her
through the foam.

"No, only petticoats, Mr. Malcourt. I am sorry that your--fiancee isn't
coming."

He halted, perfectly aware of the deliberate and insolent indiscretion
of her reply. Every line of her supple figure accented the listless,
disdainful intention. As he remained motionless she turned, bent
gracefully and laid her palms flat on the surface of the water, then
looked idly over her shoulder at him.

He waded back close to her, she watching him advance without apparent
interest--but watching him nevertheless.

"Have you heard that anybody and myself are supposed to be engaged?" he
asked.

"No," she replied coolly; "have you?"

A dark flush mantled his face and he choked.

For a moment they stood so; her brows were raised a trifle.

"Well?" she asked at last. "Have I made you _very_ angry, Mr. Malcourt?"
She waded out a step or two toward the surf, facing it. The rollers
breaking just beyond made her foothold precarious; twice she nearly lost
her balance; the third time he caught her hand to steady her and held it
as they faced the surges, swaying together.

She did not look again at him. They stood for a while unsteadily, her
hand in his grasp.

"Why on earth did you say such a thing to me?" he asked.

"I don't--know," she said simply; "I really don't, Mr. Malcourt."

And it was true; for their slight acquaintance warranted neither
badinage nor effrontery; and she did not understand the sudden impulse
toward provocation, unless it might be her contempt for Shiela Cardross.
And that was the doing of Mrs. Van Dieman.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking up at him, and after a moment, down at
their clasped hands. "Are we going to swim out, Mr. Malcourt?--or shall
we continue to pose as newly married for the benefit of the East Coast?"

"We'll sit in the sands," he said. "We'll probably find a lot of things
to say to each other." But he dropped her fingers--gently.

"Unless you care to join your--care to join Miss Cardross."

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