The Heart Line 24

The Heart Line 24

The shadows fell. The nook became dusky, odorous, moist; the rivulet

rippled pleasantly, the ferns moved lazily in the night airs. The moon

arose and gave a mysterious argent illumination. The going and coming

ceased, the shouting and lusty singing grew still. The blankets were

opened and spread at the foot of the rock. Dougal and Elsie took their

places in the center and, the men on one side and the girls on the

other, they lay upon the ground and wrapped themselves against the

cooling air. The fire was replenished and its glare lighted up the

trees in planes of foliage, like painted sheets of scenery.

 

They lay down, but not to sleep. Dougal’s coffee, black and strong,

stimulated their brains. The talk ran on with an accompaniment of song

and jest. One after another sprang up to sing some old-time tune or to

recite a familiar, well-beloved poem; the dialogue jumped from one to

the other. Some dozed and woke again at a chorus of laughter; some sat

wide-eyed, staring into the fire, into the darkness, or into one

another’s eyes.

 

Maxim was prodigious. He blared forth rollicking airs, he did scenes

from _La Bohème_, posturing picturesquely against the flame, his long

black locks sweeping his face. Starr improvised while they listened,

rapt. Benton climbed high into a beech tree and there, invisible, he

recited _Cynara_ and quoted _The Song of the Sword_, while Dougal jeered

and fed the blaze. Mabel listened entranced and appreciative, and

ventured occasionally on one more long, dull story—her tale always

growing melodramatically exciting, as the attention of her listeners

wandered. Elsie sat and smiled and smiled, wide awake till three.

 

Forgotten tales, snatches of song, jokes and verses surged into Fancy’s

head and one after another she shot them into the night. She, too,

arose and sang, dancing. Not since her vaudeville days had she

attempted it, but mounting to the spirit of the occasion, she thrilled

and fascinated them with her drollery.

 

She and Dougal were the last ones awake. They spoke now in undertones.

Maxim was snoring hideously, so was Benton. Starr lay with his mouth

open, Mabel was curled into a cocoon of blankets, flushed Elsie was

still smiling in her sleep.

 

At four the dawn appeared. They watched it spellbound, and as it turned

from a glowing rose to straw color, the birds began to twitter in the

boughs. Fancy shook off her lassitude.

 

"I’m going in swimming," she exclaimed, starting up. "Stay here,

Dougal—I trust to your honor!"

 

"I’ll not promise," he replied. "One doesn’t often have a chance to see

a nymph bathing in a fountain nowadays, but I have the artist’s eye; it

will only be for beauty’s sake—go ahead!" He kept his place,

nevertheless; the pool was invisible from the level of the camp-ground.

 

Fancy darted down the path to the wash of pebbles below. Dougal shook

Elsie into a dazed wakefulness.

 

Mabel’s eyes opened sleepily.

 

"Fancy’s gone in swimming," he whispered. "Don’t wake up the boys."

 

Like shadows the two girls slid after her. Dougal lay down to sleep.

 

In half an hour he was awakened by their return, fresh, rosy, dewy and

jubilant. Elsie crawled to his side under the blankets; Fancy and Mabel

scrambled up the bank to greet the sun, chattering like sparrows. Maxim

rolled over in his sleep. Benton and Starr, back to back, dreamed on.

The sun rose higher and smote the languid group with a shaft of light.

The men rose at last, and, dismissing Elsie from the camp, took their

turns in the pool. At seven Dougal announced breakfast.

 

At high noon, after a climb up the hill and an hour of poetry, Fancy was

crowned queen of Piedra Pinta, with pomp and circumstance. She was

invested with a crown of bay leaves and, for a scepter, the camp poker

was placed in her hand. Dougal, as her prime minister, waxed merry,

while her loyal lieges passed before her to do her homage. She greeted

them one by one: The Duke of Russian Hill, with his tribute of three

square meals per week; Lord of the Barbary Coast; Elsie, Lady of Lime

Point, Mistress of the Robes; Sir Maxim the Monster, Court Painter; Sir

Starr of Tar Flat, Laureate; and Mabel the Fair, Marchioness of Mount

Tamalpais, First Lady of the Bedchamber, to keep her warm.

 

 

She issued many titles after that, as her domain increased, and as

"Fancy I," she always styled herself in signing her letters. Her royal

edicts were not often slighted.

 

For she was gay and young, and she was bold and free. Life had scarcely

touched her yet with care. This was her apotheosis. The scene went down

in the annals of the Pintos and the tradition spread. Her reign was

famous. Her accolade was a smile. Her homage was paid in kisses—and in

tears.

 

 

Yet Fancy Gray was not a girl to commit herself to any one particular

set. Her tastes were eclectic. She was essentially adventurous. It was

her boast that she never made a promise and never broke one—that she

never explained—that she liked everybody, and nobody. She guarded her

independence jealously, restless at every restraint. With the friend of

the moment she was everything. When he passed out of sight, she devoted

an equal attention to the next comer, and she was faithful to both.

 

She was often seen with Granthope dining or at the theater. Mabel and

Elsie whispered together, adding glances to smiles, and frowns to

blushes, summing them up according to the feminine rules of

psychological arithmetic. The men did not even wonder—it was none of

their business, and was she not Fancy Gray? When they were seen

together, they were conspicuously picturesque. Granthope had an air,

Fancy had a manner, the two harmonized perfectly.

 

Mr. Gay P. Summer, meanwhile, had by no means given up the chase. He

was not one to be easily snubbed, and the only effect of the slight put

upon him by the Pintos was to make him seek after Fancy still more

energetically, and while he paid court to her, to keep her away from the

attractions of that engaging set. Fancy accepted his attentions with

condescension. After all, a dinner was a dinner—her own way of putting

it was that she always hated to refuse "free eggs."

 

He still tried his best to draw her out, but when he asked her about

Granthope, she gave a passionate, indignant refutation of his

innuendoes.

 

"I owe that man everything, everything!" she exclaimed. "He took me

when I was walking the streets, hungry, without a cent, and he has been

good to me ever since! He’s all right! And any one who says anything

against him is crossed off my list!"

 

This was at Zinkand’s. The slur had been occasioned by the sight of

Granthope at table with a lady whom Gay knew rather too much about. It

happened that there was another group in the room that drew Fancy’s

roving eye and nimble comment. She asked about the man with the pointed

beard.

 

"Oh, that’s Blanchard Cayley—everybody knows him," Gay explained. "He’s

a rounder. I see him everywhere. No, I don’t know him to speak to, but

they say he’s a clever chap. I wonder who that is with him, though?

I’ve seen her before, somewhere."

 

"I know," said Fancy; "that’s Mrs. Page."

 

"H’m! Funny, every time I see her she’s with a different man. She’s

pretty gay, that woman."

 

"Is she? You’re a cad to tell of it."

 

"Why? Do you know her?"

 

She scorned to answer.

 

On a Sunday night soon after, Gay invited her to dinner at Carminetti’s.

She accepted, never having gone to the place, which was then in the

height of its prestige, a resort for the most uproarious spirits of the

town.

 

It was down near the harbor front, a region of warehouses, factories,

freight tracks and desecrated, melancholy buildings, disheveled and

squalid, that Mr. Summer took her. He pushed open the door to let upon

her a wave of light frivolity and the mingled odor of Italian oil and

wine permeated by an under-current of fried food. The tables were all

filled, some with six or eight diners at one board, and by the counter

or bar, which ran all along one side of the room, there were at least a

dozen persons waiting for seats. Gay walked up to bald-headed "Dave,"

the patron, who in his shirt-sleeves was superintending the confusion,

keeping an eye ready for rising disorder. After a quick colloquy, he

beckoned to Fancy, who followed him down between the gay groups to a

table in a corner. It was just being deserted by a short young hoodlum,

with a pink and green striped sweater, accompanied by a girl several

inches too tall for him, dressed in a soiled buff raglan and a triumphal

hat.

 

"Here we are," said Gay; "we’re in luck to get a table at all, to-night.

But I gave Dave a four-bit piece and that fixed it."

 

Fancy sat down and looked about. "It is pretty gay, isn’t it? It looks

as if it were going to be fun."

 

"Oh, you wait till nine o’clock," Gay boasted wisely. "They’re not

warmed up to it yet. The ’Dago Red’ hasn’t got in its work. There’ll

be something doing, after a while."

 

The walls were decorated with beer- and wine-signs in frames, and on

either side of the huge mirror hung lithographic portraits of Humberto

and the Queen of Italy. Opposite, a row of windows looking on the

street was hung with half-curtains of a harsh, disagreeable blue; over

them peeped, now and again, wayfarers or others who had dined too well,

rapping on the glass and gesticulating to those inside. All about the

sides of the room and upon every column, hats, coats and cloaks were

hung, making the place seem like an old-clothes shop. The floor was

covered with sawdust and the tables were huddled closely together.

 

For the most part the diners were all young—mechanics, clerks, factory

girls and the like though here and there, watching the sport, were

up-town parties, reveling in an unconventional air. The groups, now

well on in their dinner, had begun to fraternize. Here a young man

raised his wine-glass to a pretty girl across the room and the two drank

together, smiling, or calling out some easy witticism. In one corner, a

party of eight was singing jovially something about: "One day to him a

letter there did come," and anon, encouraged by the applause and the

freedom, a lad of nineteen, devoid of collar, closed his eyes, leaned

back and sang a long song through in a vibrant, harsh voice. He was

greeted with applause, hands clapped, feet pounded and knives clattered

on bottles till the _patron_ hurried from table to table quelling the

pandemonium. Waiters came and went in bustling fervor, dodging between

one table and another, jostling and spilling soup; at intervals a great

clanging bell rang and the apparition of a soiled white cook appeared at

the kitchen door ordering the waiters to: "Take it away!" The kitchen

was an arcade into which from time to time guests wandered, to joke with

the cook and beat upon the huge immaculate copper kettles on the wall.

 

The conversation at times became almost general, the party of songsters

in the corner leading in the exchange of persiflage. Two girls dining

alone, with hard, tired-looking eyes and cheap jewelry, began a duet;

instantly, from a company of young men, two detached themselves, plates

and glasses in hand, and went over to join them. A roar went up;

glasses rang again and Dave fluttered about in protest at the noise.