Parrot & Co. Part 30

"Honestly. And how you have gone all these years without marrying a grand duke, is something I can't figure out."

"Perhaps I have been waiting for the man. There was no real hurry."

"Lucky chap, when you find him. By the way, our romantic Parrot & Co.

have gone."

"Gone?" Elsa stared at him.

"Yes. Sailed for Saigon at dawn."

"Saigon," she repeated.

"And I am rather glad to see him go. I was afraid he might interest you too much. You'll deny it, but you'll never outgrow the fairy-story age."

"Saigon."

"Good heavens, Elsa, what is the matter?"

"No, no! Don't touch me. I'm not the fainting kind. Did you know last night that he was going?"

"Yes."

"I shall never forgive you."

"Why, Elsa . . ."

"Never, never! You knew and did not tell me. Do you know who Paul Ellison is? He is the brother of the man at home. You knew he was stealing away and did not tell me."

She could not have made the truth any plainer to him. He sat back in his chair, stunned, voiceless.

"I am going to my room," she said. "Do not follow. Please act as if nothing had happened."

He saw her walk bravely the length of the dining-room, out into the office. What a misfortune! Argument was out of the question. Elsa was not a child, to be reasoned with. She was a woman, and she had come to a woman's understanding of her heart. To place before her the true angles of the case, the heartless banishment from the world she knew, the regret which would be hers later, no matter how much she loved the man . . . He pushed back his chair, leaving his coffee untasted.

He possessed the deep understanding of the kindly heart, and his one thought was Elsa's future happiness. As men go, Warrington was an honorable man; honorable enough to run away rather than risk the danger of staying where Elsa was. He was no longer an outlaw; he could go and come as he would. But there was that misstep, not printed in s.h.i.+fting sand but upon the granite of recollection. Single, he could go back to his world and pick up the threads again, but not with a wife at his side. Oh, yes; they would be happy at first. Then Elsa would begin to miss the things she had so gloriously thrown away. The rift in the lute; the canker in the rose. They were equally well-born, well-bred; politeness would usurp affection's hold. Could he save her from the day when she would learn Romance had come from within? No. All he could do was to help her find the man.

He sent five cablegrams to Saigon, to the consulate, to the princ.i.p.al hotels: the most difficult composition he had ever attacked. But because he had forgotten to send the sixth to meet the packet-boat, against the possibility of Warrington changing his mind and not landing, his labor was thrown to the winds.

Meantime Elsa stopped at the office-desk. "I left a note for Mr.

Warrington who has gone to Saigon. I see it in his key-box. Will you please return it to me?"

The clerk did not hesitate an instant. He gravely returned the note to her, marveling at her paleness. Elsa crushed the note in her hand and moved toward the stairs, wondering if she could reach her room before she broke down utterly. He had gone. He had gone without knowing that all he wanted in life was his for the taking. In her room she opened the note and through blurred vision read what she had so happily inscribed the night before. "Paul--I love you. Come to me. Elsa."

She had written it, unashamed.

She flung herself upon the bed, and there Martha found her.

"Elsa, child, what is it?" Martha cried, kneeling beside the bed.

"Child, what has happened?"

Elsa sat up, seized Martha by the shoulders and stared into the faithful eyes.

"Do you want to know?"

"Elsa!"

"Well, I love this man Warrington and he loves me. But he has gone.

Can't you see? Don't you understand? Have you been as blind as I? He is Paul Ellison, Arthur's brother, his twin brother. And they obliterated him. It is Arthur who is the ghost, Martha, the phantom.

Ah, I have caused you a good deal of worry, and I am going to cause you yet more. I am going to Saigon; up and down the world, east and west, until I find him. Shall I go alone, or will you go with me?"

Then Martha did what ever after endeared her to the heart of the stricken girl: she mothered her. "Elsa, my baby! Of course I shall go with you, always. For you could not love any man if he was not worthy."

Then followed the strangest quest doubtless ever made by a woman. From Singapore to Saigon, up to Bangkok, down to Singapore again; to Batavia, over to Hongkong, Shanghai, Pekin, Manila, Hongkong again, then Yokohama. Patient and hopeful, Elsa followed the bewildering trail. She left behind her many puzzled hotel managers and booking agents: for it was not usual for a beautiful young woman to go about the world, inquiring for a blond man with a parrot. Sometimes she was only a day late. Many cablegrams she sent, but upon her arrival in each port she found that these had not been called for. Over these heart-breaking disappointments she uttered no complaint. The world was big and wide; be it never so big and wide, Elsa knew that some day she would find him.

In the daytime there was the quest; but, ah! the nights, the interminable hours of inaction, the s.p.a.ces of time in which she could only lie back and think. Up and down the coasts, across islands, over seas, the journey took her, until one day in July she found herself upon the pillared veranda of the house in which her mother had been born.

XX

THE TWO BROTHERS

From port to port, sometimes not stepping off the boat at all, moody, restless and irritable, Warrington wended his way home. There was nothing surprising in the fact that he never inquired for mail. Who was there to write? Besides, he sought only the obscure hotels, where he was not likely to meet any of his erstwhile fellow pa.s.sengers. The mockery and uselessness of his home-going became more and more apparent as the days slipped by. Often he longed to fly back to the jungles, to James, and leave matters as they were. Here and there, along the way, he had tried a bit of luxury; but the years of economy and frugality had robbed him of the ability to enjoy it. He was going home . . . to what? Surely there would be no welcome for him at his journey's end.

He would return after the manner of prodigals in general, not scriptural, to find that he was not wanted. Of his own free will he had gone out of their lives.

He fought grimly against the thought of Elsa; but he was not strong enough to vanquish the longings from his heart and mind. Always when alone she was in fancy with him, now smiling amusedly into his face, now peering down at the phosph.o.r.escence seething alongside, now standing with her chin up-lifted, her eyes half shut, letting the strong winds strike full in her face. Many a "good night" he sent over the seas. An incident; that would be all.

His first day in New York left him with nothing more than a feeling of foreboding and oppression. The expected exhilaration of returning to the city of his birth did not materialize. So used to open s.p.a.ces was he, to distances and the circle of horizons, that he knew he no longer belonged to the city with its Himalayan gorges and canons, whose torrents were human beings and whose glaciers were the hearts of these.

A great loneliness bore down on him. For months he had been drawing familiar pictures, and to find none of these was like coming home to an empty house. The old life was indeed gone; there were no threads to resume. A hotel stood where his club had been; the house in which he had spent his youth was no more. He wanted to leave the city; and the desire was with difficulty overcome.

Early the second morning he started down-town to the offices of the Andes Construction Company. He was extraordinarily nervous. Cold sweat continually moistened his palms. Change, change, everywhere change; Trinity was like an old friend. When the taxicab driver threw off the power and indicated with a jerk of his head a granite shaft that soared up into the blue, Warrington asked:

"What place is this?"

"The Andes Building, sir. The construction company occupies the top floor."

"Very good," replied Warrington, paying and discharging the man.

From a reliquary of the Dutch, an affair of red-brick, four stories high, this monolith had sprung. With a sigh Warrington entered the cavernous door-way and stepped into an "express-elevator." When the car arrived at the twenty-second story, Warrington was alone. He paused before the door of the vice-president. He recalled the "old man," thin-lipped, blue-eyed, eruptive. It was all very strange, this request to make the rest.i.tution in person. Well he would soon learn why.

He drew the certified check from his wallet and scrutinized it carefully. Twelve thousand, eight hundred dollars. He replaced it, opened the door, and walked in. A boy met him at the railing and briskly inquired his business.

"I wish to see Mr. Elmore."

"Your card."

Card? Warrington had not possessed such a thing in years. "I have no cards with me. But I have an appointment with Mr. Elmore. Tell him that Mr. Ellison is here."

The boy returned promptly and signified that Mr. Elmore was at liberty.