The Unspeakable Perk Part 14

"Better?"

"Yes. Better than the day before yesterday."

"Day before yesterday?"

"Bless the poor man! Much anxious waiting hath bemused his wits. He thinks he's an echo."

"But I was all right the day before yesterday."

"You weren't. You were a prey to the most thrilling terrors. You were a moving picture of tender masculinity in distress. You let bashfulness like a worm i' th' bud prey upon your damask cheek. Have you a damask cheek? Stand out! I wish to consider you impartially. YOU needn't look at ME, you know."

"I'm not going to," he a.s.sured her, stepping forth obediently.

"Basilisk that I am!" she laughed. "How brown you are! How long did you say you'd been here? A year?"

"Fourteen weary Voiceless months. Not on this island, you know, but around the tropics."

"Yet you look vigorous and alert; not like the men I've seen come back from the hot countries, all languid and worn out. And you do look clean."

"Why shouldn't I be clean?"

"Of course you should. But people get slack, don't they, when they live off all alone by themselves? Still, I suppose you spruced up a little for me?"

"Nothing of the sort," he denied, with heat.

"No? Oh, my poor little vanity! He wouldn't dress up for us, Vanity, though we did dress up for him, and we're looking awfully nice--for a voice, that is. Do you always keep so soft and pink and smooth, Mr.

Beetle Man?"

"I own a razor, if that's what you mean. You're making fun of me. Well, _I_ don't mind." He lifted his voice and chanted:--

"Although beyond the pale of law, He always kept a polished jaw; For he was one of those who saw A saving hope In shaving soap."

"Oh, lovely! What a n.o.ble finish. What is it?"

"Extract from 'Biographical Blurbings.'"

"Autobiographical?"

"Yes. By Me."

"And are you beyond the pale of law?"

"Poetical license," he explained airily. "Hold on, though." He fell silent a moment, and out of that silence came a short laugh. "I suppose I AM beyond the pale of law, now that I come to think of it. But you needn't be alarmed, I'm not a really dangerous criminal."

Later she was to recall that confession with sore misgivings. Now she only inquired lightly:

"Is that why you ran away from the tram car yesterday?"

"Ran away? I didn't run away," he said, with dignity. "It just happened that there came into my mind an important engagement that I'd forgotten.

My memory isn't what it should be. So I just turned over the matter in hand to an acquaintance of mine."

"The matter in hand being me."

"Why, yes; and the acquaintance being Mr. Cluff. I saw him throw four men out of a hotel once for insulting a girl, so I knew that he was much better at that sort of thing than I. May I go back now and sit down?"

"Of course. I don't know whether I ought to thank you about yesterday or be very angry. It was such an extraordinary performance on your part--"

"Nothing extraordinary about it." His voice came up out of the shadow, full of judicial confidence. "Merely sound common sense."

"To leave a woman who has been insulted--"

"In more competent hands than one's own."

"Oh, I give it up!" she cried. "I don't understand you at all. Fitzhugh is right; you haven't a tradition to your name."

"Tradition," he repeated thoughtfully. "Why, I don't know. They're pretty rigid things, traditions. Rusty in the joints and all that sort of thing. Life isn't a process of machinery, exactly. One has to meet it with something more supple and adjustable than traditions."

"Is that your philosophy? Suppose a man struck you. Wouldn't you hit him back?"

"Perhaps. It would depend."

"Or insulted your country? Don't you believe that men should be ready to die, if necessary, in such a cause?"

"Some men. Soldiers, for instance. They're paid to."

"Good Heavens! Is it all a question of pay in your mind? Wouldn't YOU, unless you were paid for it?"

"How can I tell until the occasion arises?"

"Are you afraid?"

"I suppose I might be."

"Hasn't the man any blood in his veins?" cried his inquisitor, exasperated. "Haven't you ever been angry clear through?"

"Oh, of course; and sorry for it afterward. One is likely to lose one's temper any time. It might easily happen to me and drive me to make a fool of myself, like--like--" His voice trailed off into a silence of embarra.s.sment.

"Like Fitzhugh Carroll. Why not say it? Well, I much prefer him and his hot-headedness to you and your careful wisdom."

"Of course," he acquiesced patiently. "Any girl would. It's the romantic temperament."

"And yours is the scientific, I suppose. That doesn't take into account little things like patriotism and heroism, does it? Tell me, have you actually ever admired--really got a thrill out of--any deed of heroism?"

"Oh, yes," he replied tranquilly. "I've done my bit of hero wors.h.i.+p in my time. In fact, I've never quite recovered from it."

"No! Really? Do go on. You're growing more human every minute."

"Do you happen to know anything about the Havana campaign?"

"Not much. It never seemed to me anything to brag of. Dad says the Spanish-American War grew a crop of newspaper-made heroes, manufactured by reporters who really took more risks and showed more nerve than the men they glorified."