The Ne'er-Do-Well Part 29

"The high-salaried positions are well filled now, and most of the fellows are married."

"A new position will be created."

But Kirk was obdurate. "I'd prefer to start in as confidential adviser to the Ca.n.a.l Commission, of course, but I'd be a 'frost,'

and my father would say 'I told you so.' I must make good for his sake, even if it's only counting cars or licking postage-stamps.

Besides, it isn't exactly the square thing to take money for work that somebody else does for you. When a man tried for the Yale team he had to play football, no matter who his people were. If some capable chap were displaced to put in an incapable fellow like me, he'd be sore, and so would his friends; then I'd have to lick them. We'd have a fine sc.r.a.p, because I couldn't stand being pointed out as a dub. No, I'll go in through the gate and pay my admission."

"Do you realize that you can't live at the Tivoli?"

"I hadn't thought about that, but I'll live where the other fellows do."

"No more good dinners, no drives and little parties like this."

"Oh, now, you won't cut me out just because I pull bell-cords and you pull diplomatic wires? Remember one of our champion pugilists was once a sailor."

Mrs. Cortlandt laughed with a touch of annoyance.

"It is utterly ridiculous, and I can't believe you are in earnest."

"I am, though. If I learn to be a good conductor, I'd like to step up. I'm young. I can't go back to New York; there's plenty of time for promotion."

"Oh, you'll have every chance," she declared. "But I think a few weeks in cap and b.u.t.tons will cure you of this quixotic sentiment.

Meanwhile I must admit it is refres.h.i.+ng." She stared unseeingly at the street lights for a moment, then broke out as a new thought occurred to her: "But see here, Kirk, don't the collectors live in Colon?"

"I don't know," he replied, startled and flattered by her first use of his given name.

"I'll look it up to-morrow. You know I--Mr. Cortlandt and I will be in Panama, and I prefer to have you here. You see, we can do more for you." A little later she broke into a low laugh.

"It seems strange to go driving with a conductor."

As they reclined against the padded seat of their coach, lulled by the strains of music that came to them across the crowded Plaza and argued their first difference, it struck the young man that Edith Cortlandt was surprisingly warm and human for a woman of ice. He fully felt her superiority, yet he almost forgot it in the sense of cordial companions.h.i.+p she gave him.

XII

A NIGHT AT TABOGA

Despite his great contentment in Mrs. Cortlandt's society, Kirk found himself waiting with growing impatience for his active duties to begin. There was a restlessness in his mood, moreover, which his desire to escape from a situation of rather humiliating dependence could not wholly explain. Curiously enough, this feeling was somehow connected with the thought of Edith herself.

Why this should be so, he did not trouble to inquire. They had become the best of good friends, he told himself--a consummation for which he had devoutly wished--yet, for some indefinable reason, he was dissatisfied. He did not know that their moment of perfect, unspoiled companions.h.i.+p had come and gone that evening in the Plaza.

Every relation into which sentiment enters at all has its crisis or turning-point, though it may pa.s.s un.o.bserved. Perhaps they are happiest who heed it least. Certainly, morbid self-a.n.a.lysis was the last fault of which Kirk could be accused. If he had a rule of action, it was simply to behave naturally, and, so far, experience had justified him in the belief that behaving naturally always brought him out right in the end.

He decided that he needed exercise, and determined to take a tramp through the country; but on the evening before the day he had set for his excursion his plans were upset by a note from Mrs.

Cortlandt, which the clerk handed him. It ran:

DEAR KIRK,--Stephen has arranged an outing for all three of us, and we are counting on you for to-morrow. It will be a really, truly picnic, with all the delightful discomforts of such affairs.

You are not to know where we are going until we call for you at eight.

Faithfully and mysteriously yours, EDITH CORTLANDT.

The recipient of this kind invitation tossed it aside with a gesture of impatience. For the moment he experienced a kind of boyish resentment at having his intentions thwarted that seemed out of proportion to the cause. Whether he would have felt the same if Edith's husband were not to be one of the party was a question that did not occur to him. At all events, the emotion soon pa.s.sed, and he rose the next morning feeling that an outing with the Cortlandts would be as pleasant a diversion for the day as any other.

Promptly at eight Edith appeared upon the hotel porch. She was alone.

"Where's Mr. Cortlandt?" he inquired.

"Oh, some men arrived last night from Bocas del Toro and telephoned that they must see him to-day on a matter of importance."

"Then he's coming later?"

"I hardly think so. I was terribly disappointed, so he told me to go without him. Now, I shall have to make up to you for his absence, if I am able."

"That's the sort of speech," Kirk laughed, "that doesn't leave a fellow any nice answer. I'm sorry he couldn't come, of course, and awfully glad you did. Now, where is to be the scene of our revel?"

"Taboga," she said, with eyes sparkling. "You've never been there, but it's perfectly gorgeous. Please call a coach, our boat is waiting--and don't sit on the lunch."

Kirk obeyed, and they went clattering down the deserted brick street. Edith leaned back with a sigh.

"I'm so glad to get away from that hotel for a day. You've no idea how hard it is to be forever entertaining a lot of people you care nothing about, or being entertained by people you detest. I've smiled and smirked and cooed until I'm sick; I want to scowl and grind my teeth and roar."

"Still politics, I suppose?"

"Yes, indeed; we don't dare talk about it. If you only knew it, Kirk, you've capsized the political calculations of the Panama Conservative Party."

"I didn't know I had ever even rocked the boat."

"It runs back to your affair with Ramen." She glanced toward the coach driver, suggesting the need of reticence.

"Really, did that effect it?"

"Rather. At any rate, it gave an excuse for setting things in motion. There had been some doubt about the matter for a long time, and I was only too glad to exert my influence in the right direction, but--this is a picnic to an enchanted island, and here we are talking politics! We mustn't be so serious. School is out, and it's vacation. I want to romp and play and get my face dirty."

Kirk readily fell in with her mood, and by the time they reached the water-front they were laughing like two children. Down through a stone arch they went, and out upon a landing beneath the sea wall. In front of them the placid waters of the bay were s.h.i.+mmering, a myriad of small boats thronged the harbor. There were coasting steamers, launches, sail-boats, skiffs, and canoes.

Along the sh.o.r.e above the tide-line were rows of schooners fas.h.i.+oned from gigantic tree-trunks and capable of carrying many tons, all squatting upon the mud, their white sails raised to dry like the outstretched wings of resting sea-gulls.

The landing was thronged, and, at sight of the newcomers, loiterers gathered from all sides--a pirate throng, shouting a dozen dialects and forcing Kirk to battle l.u.s.tily for his luggage.

Stepping into a skiff, they were rowed to a launch, and a few moments later were gliding swiftly around the long rock-rib that guards the harbor, a copper-hued bandit at the wheel, a Nubian giant at the engine, and an evil, yellow-faced desperado sprawling upon the forward deck.

Looking back, they saw the city spread out in brilliant panorama, clear and beautiful in the morning radiance. Packed and dense it lay, b.u.t.tressed by the weather-stained ramparts which legend says were built by the women while their husbands were at war, and backed by the green heights of Ancon, against which the foreign houses nestled. Set in the foreground, like an ivory carving, was the Government Theatre, while away beyond it loomed the Tivoli.

Noting armed sentinels pacing the sea wall at a certain spot, Kirk called his companion's attention to them.

"That's Chiriqui Prison, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yes. They say some of the dungeons are almost under the sea. It must be a terrible place."