The Unspeakable Perk Part 3

"If I am, it isn't going to hurt you. Besides, I'm not. And, anyway, who are you to judge me? You're not here as a judge; you're an augur. Now, go on and aug."

"Aug?" repeated the other hesitantly.

"Certainly. Do an augury. Tell me which."

"Oh! As for that, it's easy. None."

"Why not?"

"Because I much prefer to think of you, when you are gone, as unmarried.

It's more in character with your voice."

"Well, of all the selfish pigs! Condemned to be an old maid, in order not to spoil an ideal! Perhaps you'd like to enter the lists yourself,"

she taunted.

"Good Heavens, no!" he cried in the most unflattering alarm. "It isn't in my line--I mean I haven't time for that sort of thing. I'm a very busy man."

"You look it! Or you did look it, scrambling about like a doodle bug after your absurd spectacles."

"There is no such insect as a doodle bug."

"Isn't there? How do you know? Are you personally acquainted with all the insect families?"

"Certainly. That's my business. I'm a scientist."

"Oh, gracious! And I've appealed to you in a matter of sentiment! I might better have stuck to Fitz. Poor Fitz! I wonder if he's lost."

"Why should he be lost?"

"Because I lost him. Back there on the trail. Purposely. I sent him for water and then--I skipped."

"Oh-h-h! Then HE'S the goose."

"Goose! Preston Fairfax Fitz--"

"Yes, the goose you said 'Boo!' to, you know."

"Of course. You didn't steal his hat, did you?"

"No. It's my own hat. Why did you run away from him?"

"He bored me. When people bore me, I always run away. I'm beginning to feel quite fugitive this very minute."

There was silence below, a silence that piqued the girl.

"Well," she challenged, "haven't you anything to say before the court pa.s.ses sentence of abandonment to your fate?"

"I'm thinking--frantically. But the thoughts aren't girl thoughts. I mean, they wouldn't interest you. I might tell you about some of my insects," he added hopefully.

"Heaven forbid!"

"They're very interesting."

"No. You're worthless as an augur, and a flat failure as a conversationalist, when thrown on your own resources. So I shall shake the dust from my feet and depart."

"Good-bye!" he said desolately. "And thank you."

"For what?"

"For making music in my desert."

"That's much better," she approved. "But you've paid your score with the orchids. If you have one or two more pretty speeches like that in stock, I might linger for a while."

"I'm afraid I'm all out of those," he returned. "But," he added desperately, "there's the hexagonal scarab beetle. He's awfully queer and of much older family even than Mr. Fitzwhizzle's. It is the hexagonal scarab's habit when dis--"

"We have an encyclopaedia of our own at home," she interrupted coldly.

"I didn't climb this mountain to talk about beetles."

"Well, I'll talk some more about you, if you'll give me a little time to think."

"I think you are very impertinent. I don't wish to talk about myself.

Just because I asked your advice in my difficulties, you a.s.sume that I'm a little egoist--"

"Oh, please don't--"

"Don't interrupt. I'm very much offended, and I'm glad we are never going to meet. Just as I was beginning to like you, too," she added, with malice. "Good-bye!"

"Good-bye," he answered mournfully.

But his attentive ears failed to discern the sound of departing footsteps. The breeze whispered in the tree-tops. A sulphur-yellow bird, of French extraction, perched in a flowering bush, insistently demanded: "Qu'est-ce qu'il dit? Qu'est-ce qu'il dit?"--What's he say? WHAT'S he say?--over and over again, becoming quite wrathful because neither he nor any one else offered the slightest reply or explanation. The girl sympathized with the bird. If the particular he whose blond top she could barely see by peeping over the rock would only say something, matters would be easier for her. But he didn't. So presently, in a voice of suspiciously saccharine meekness, she said:--

"Please, Mr. Beetle Man, I'm lost."

"No, you're not," he said rea.s.suringly. "You're not a quarter of a mile from the Puerto del Norte Road."

"But I don't know which direction--"

"Perfectly simple. Keep on over the top of the rock; turn left down the slope, right up the dry stream bed to a dead tree; bear right past--"

"That's too many turns, I never could remember more than two."

"Now, listen," he said persuasively. "I can make it quite plain to you if--"

"I don't WISH to listen! I'll never find it."

"I'll toss you up my compa.s.s."

"I don't want your compa.s.s," she said firmly.