A Splendid Hazard, Harold MacGrath [websites to read books for free txt] 📗

must think me an odd girl."

"Pray why?"

"By the manner in which I brought you here."

"On the contrary, you are one of the few women I ever met who know something about scoring a good joke. Didn't your friend, Mrs. Coldfield, know my mother; and wasn't your father a great friend of my father's? As for being odd, what about me? I believe I stood on the corner, and tried to sell plaster casts, just to win a foolish club wager."

"Men can jest that way with impunity, but a woman may not. Still, I really couldn't help acting the way I did," with a tinkle in her voice and a twinkle in her eyes.

"Convention is made up of many idiotic laws. Why we feel obliged to obey is beyond offhand study. Of course, the main block is sensible; it holds humanity together. It's the irritating, burr-like amendments that one rages against. It's the same in politics. Some clear-headed fellow gets up and makes a just law. His enemies and his friends alike realize that if the law isn't passed there will be a roar from the public. So they pass the bill with amendments. In other words, they kill its usefulness. I suppose that's why I am always happy to leave convention behind, to be sent to the middle of Africa, to Patagonia, or sign an agreement to go to the North Pole."

"The North Pole? Have you been to the Arctic?"

"No; but I expect to go up in June with an Italian explorer."

"Isn't it terribly lonely up there?"

"It can't be worse than the Sahara or our own Death Valley. One extreme is as bad as the other. Some time I hope your father will take me along on one of those treasure hunts. I should like to be in at the finding of a pirate ship. It would make a boy out of me again."

His eyes were very handsome when he smiled. Boy? she thought. He was scarce more than that now.

"Pirates' gold! What a lure it has been, is, and will be! Blood money, brrr! I can see no pleasure in touching it. And the poor, pathetic trinkets, which once adorned some fair neck! It takes a man's mind to pass over that side of the picture, and see only the fighting. But humanity has gone on. The pirate is no more, and the highwayman is a thing to laugh at."

"Thanks to railways and steamships. It is beautiful here."

"We are nearly always here in the summer. In the winter we cruise. But this winter we remained at home. It was splendid. The snow was deep, and often I joined the village children on their bobsleds. I made father ride down once. He grumbled about making a fool of himself. After the first slide, I couldn't keep him off the hill. He wants to go to St. Moritz next winter." She laughed joyously.

"I shall take the Arctic trip," he said to himself irrelevantly.

"Let us go and pick some apple blossoms. They last such a little while, and they are so pretty on the table. So you were in Napoleon's tomb that day? I have cried over the king of Rome's toys. Did Mr. Breitmann receive those scars in battle?"

"Oh, no. It was a phase of his student life in Munich. But he has been under fire. He has had some hard luck." He wanted to add: "Poor devil!"

She did not reply, but walked down the terrace steps to the path leading to the orchard. The sturdy, warty old trees leaned toward the west, the single evidence of the years of punishment received at the hands of the winter sea tempests. It was a real orchard, composed of several hundred trees, well kept, as evenly matched as might be, out of weedless ground. From some hidden bough, a robin voiced his happiness, and yellowbirds flew hither and thither, and there was billing and cooing and nesting. Along the low stone wall a wee chipmunk scampered.

"What place do you like best in this beautiful old world?" she asked, drawing down a snowy bough. Some of the blossoms fell and lay entrapped in her hair.

"This," he answered frankly. She met his gaze quickly, and with suspicion. His face was smiling, but not so his eyes. "Wherever I am, if content, I like that place best. And I am content here."

"You fought with Greece?"

"Yes."

"How that country always rouses our sympathies! Isn't there a little too much poetry and not enough truth about it?"

"There is. I fought with the Greeks because I disliked them less than the Turks."

"And Mr. Breitmann?"

He smiled. "He fought with the Turks to chastise Greece, which he loves."

"What adventures you two must have had! To be on opposing sides, like that!"

"Opposing newspapers. The two angles of vision made our copy interesting. There was really no romance about it. It was purely a business transaction. We offered our lives and our pencils for a hundred a week and our expenses. Rather sordid side to it, eh? And a fourth-rate order or two-"

"You were decorated?" excitedly. "I am sure it was for bravery."

"Don't you believe it. The king of Greece and the sultan both considered the honor conferred upon us as good advertising."

"You are laughing."

"Well, war in the Balkans is generally a laughing matter. Sounds brutal, I know, but it is true."

"I know," gaily. "You are conceited, and are trying to make me believe that you are modest."

"A bull's-eye!"

"And this Mr. Breitmann has been decorated for valor? And yet to-day he becomes my father's private secretary. The two do not connect."

"May I ask you to mention nothing of this to him? It would embarrass him. I had no business to bring him into it."

She grew meditative, brushing her lips with the blossoms. "He will be something of a mystery. I am not overfond of mysteries outside of book covers."

"There is really no mystery; but it is human for a man in his position to wish to bury his past greatness."

By and by the sun touched the southwest shoulder of the hill, and the two strolled back to the house.

From his window, Breitmann could see them plainly.

"Damn those scars!" he murmured, striking with his fist the disfigured cheek, which upon a time had been a source of pride and honor. "Damn them!"


CHAPTER IX

THEY DRESS FOR DINNER

Breitmann watched them as long as he could. There was no jealousy in his heart, but there was bitterness, discontent, a savage self-pillorying. He was genuinely sorry that this young woman was so pretty; still, had she the graces of Calypso, he must have come. She would distract him, and he desired at that time distraction least of all diversions. Concentration and singleness of purpose-upon these two attributes practically hung his life. How strangely fate had stepped with him. What if there had not been that advertisement for a private secretary? How then should he have gained a footing in this house? Well, here he was, and speculation was of no value, save in a congratulatory sense. The fly in the amber was the presence of the young American; Fitzgerald, shrewd and clever, might stumble upon something. Well, till against that time!

His room was pleasant, a corner which gave two excellent views, one of the sea and the other of the orchard. There was no cluttering of furniture; it was simple, substantial, decently old. On the plain walls were some choice paintings. A landscape by Constable, a water color by Fortuny, and a rough sketch by Détaille; and the inevitable marines, such as one might expect in the house of a fighting sailor. He examined these closely, and was rather pleased to find them valuable old prints. And, better to his mind than all these, was the deft, mysterious touch or suggestion of a woman's hand. He saw it in the pillows on the lounge, in the curtains dropping from the windows, in the counterpane on the old four-poster.

Did Americans usually house their private secretaries in rooms fit for guests of long and intimate acquaintance? Ah, yes; this sailor was a rich man; and this mansion had not been erected yesterday. It amused him to think that these walls and richly polished floors were older than the French revolution. It seemed incredible, but it was true.

"Pirates!" His laughter broke forth, not loudly but deeply, fired by a broad and ready sense of humor-a perilous gift for a man who is seeking fine hazards. It was droll, it was even fantastic. To cruise about the world in search of pirate treasures, as if there remained a single isle, shore, promontory, known to have been the haunt of pirates, which had not been dug up and dug up again! And here, under the very hand-- He struck his palms. "Why not?"

He ran to the window. The sleek white yacht lay tugging at her cables, like an eager hound in the leash. "Seaworthy from stem to stern. Why not? No better cloak than this. I may not make you a good secretary, admiral; but, the gods propitious, I can, if needs say must, take you treasure hunting. It will be a fine stroke. Is it possible that fortune begins to smile on me at last? Well, I have had the patience to wait. The hour has come, and fortune shall not find me laggard. It has been something to wait as I have, never to have spoken, never to have forgotten. France knows and Germany knows, but only me, not what I have. They have even tried to drive me to crime. Wait, fools, wait!"

He drew his arms tightly over his heaving breast, for he was deeply moved, while over his face came that indefinable light which, at times, illuminates the countenance of a great man. It came and went; as a flash of lightning betrays the oncoming storm.

The chimney! His heart missed a beat. He had forgotten the chimney. The reaction affected him like a blow. A snarl twisted his mouth. What was this chimney to any other man? Only he of all men, knew. And yet, here was some one stealthily at work, forestalling him, knocking the bottom out of his great dream. There was nothing pleasant in the growing expression an his face; it was the tiger, waking. There could be only one way.

Swiftly he dashed to his trunk, knelt and examined the lock, unscrewed it, and took out the documents more precious to him than the treasures of a hundred Captain Kidds. Instantly, he returned to the window. Nothing was missing. But here was something he had never noticed before. On the face of the slip of parchment-a diagram, dim and faded-was an oily thumb-mark.