Success, A Novel

Somewhere within the soul of civilized woman burns a craving for that higher power of sensation which we dub sensationalism.  Girls of Io Welland’s upbringing live in an atmosphere which fosters it.  To outshine their rivals in the startling things which they do, always within accepted limits, is an important and exciting phase of existence.  Io had run away to marry the future Duke of Carfax, partly through the charm which a reckless, headlong, and romantic personality imposed upon her, but largely for the excitement of a reckless, headlong, and romantic escapade.  The tragic interposition of the wreck seemed to her present consciousness, cooled and sobered by the spacious peace of the desert, to have been providential.

Despite her disclaimer made to Banneker she felt, deep within the placid acceptances of subconsciousness, that the destruction of a train was not too much for a considerate Providence to undertake on behalf of her petted and important self.  She clearly realized that she had had a narrow escape from Holmesley; that his attraction for her was transient and unsubstantial, a surface magnetism without real value or promise.

In her revulsion of feeling she thought affectionately of Delavan Eyre.  There lay the safe basis of habitude, common interests, settled liking.  True, he bored her at times with his unimpeachable good-nature, his easy self-assurance that everything was and always would be “all right,” and nothing “worth bothering over.”

If he knew of her escapade, that would at least shake him out of his soft and well-lined rut.  Indeed, Io was frank enough with herself to admit that a perverse desire to explode a bomb under her imperturbable and too-assured suitor had been an element in her projected elopement.  Never would that bomb explode.  It would not even fizzle enough to alarm Eyre or her family.  For not a soul knew of the frustrated scheme, except Holmesley and the reliable friend in Paradiso whom she was to visit; not her father, Sims Welland, traveling in Europe on business, nor her aunt, Mrs. Thatcher Forbes, in whose charge she had been left.  Ostensibly she had been going to visit the Westerleys, that was all:  Mrs. Forbes’s misgivings as to a twenty-year-old girl crossing the continent alone had been unavailing against Io’s calm willfulness.

Well, she would go back and marry Del Eyre, and be comfortable ever after.  After all, liking and comprehension were a sounder foundation for matrimony than the perishable glamour of an attraction like Holmesley’s.  Any sensible person would know that.  She wished that she had some older and more experienced woman to talk it out with.  Miss Van Arsdale, if only she knew her a little better….

Camilla Van Arsdale, even on so casual an acquaintance, would have told Io, reckoning with the slumbering fire in her eyes, and the sensitive and passionate turn of the lips, but still more with the subtle and significant emanation of a femininity as yet unawakened to itself, that for her to marry on the pallid expectancies of mere liking would be to invite disaster and challenge ruin.

Meantime Io wanted to rest and think.

Time enough for that was to be hers, it appeared.  Her first night as a guest had been spent in a semi-enclosed porch, to which every breeze wafted the spicy and restful balm of the wet pines.  Io’s hot brain cooled itself in that peace.  Quite with a feeling of welcome she accepted the windy downpour which came with the morning to keep her indoors, as if it were a friendly and opportune jailer.  Reaction from the mental strain and the physical shock had set in.  She wanted only, as she expressed it to her hostess, to “laze” for a while.

“Then this is the ideal spot for you,” Miss Van Arsdale answered her.  “I’m going to ride over to town.”

“In this gale?” asked the surprised girl.

“Oh, I’m weather-proof.  Tell Pedro not to wait luncheon for me.  And keep an eye on him if you want anything fit to eat.  He’s the worst cook west of the plains.  You’ll find books, and the piano to amuse you when you get up.”

She rode away, straight and supple in the saddle, and Io went back to sleep again.  Halfway to her destination, Miss Van Arsdale’s woods-trained ear caught the sound of another horse’s hooves, taking a short cut across a bend in the trail.  To her halloo, Banneker’s clear voice responded.  She waited and presently he rode up to her.

“Come back with me,” she invited after acknowledging his greeting.

“I was going over to see Miss Welland.”

“Wait until to-morrow.  She is resting.”

A shade of disappointment crossed his face.  “All right,” he agreed.  “I wanted to tell her that her messages got off all right.”

“I’ll tell her when I go back.”

“That’ll be just as well,” he answered reluctantly.  “How is she feeling?”

“Exhausted.  She’s been under severe strain.”

“Oughtn’t she to have a doctor?  I could ride—­”

“She won’t listen to it.  And I think her head is all right now.  But she ought to have complete rest for several days.”

“Well, I’m likely to be busy enough,” he said simply.  “The schedule is all shot to pieces, and, unless this rain lets up, we’ll have more track out.  What do you think of it?”

Miss Van Arsdale looked up through the thrashing pines to the rush of the gray-black clouds.  “I think we’re in for a siege of it,” was her pronouncement.

They rode along single file in the narrow trail until they emerged into the open.  Then Banneker’s horse moved forward, neck and neck with the other.  Miss Van Arsdale reined down her uneasy roan.

“Ban.”

“Yes?”

“Have you ever seen anything like her before?”

“Only on the stage.”

She smiled.  “What do you think of her?”

“I hardly know how to express it,” he answered frankly, though hesitantly.  “She makes me think of all the poetry I’ve ever read.”

“That’s dangerous.  Ban, have you any idea what kind of a girl she is?”

“What kind?” he repeated.  He looked startled.

“Of course you haven’t.  How should you?  I’m going to tell you.”

“Do you know her, Miss Camilla?”

“As well as if she were my own sister.  That is, I know her type.  It’s common enough.”

“It can’t be,” he protested eagerly.

“Oh, yes!  The type is.  She is an exquisite specimen of it; that’s all.  Listen, Ban.  Io Welland is the petted and clever and willful daughter of a rich man; a very rich man he would be reckoned out here.  She lives in a world as remote from this as the moon.”

“Of course.  I realize that.”

“It’s well that you do.  And she’s as casual a visitant here as if she had floated down on one moonbeam and would float back on the next.”

“She’ll have to, to get out of here if this rain keeps up,” observed the station-agent grimly.

“I wish she would,” returned Miss Van Arsdale.

“Is she in your way?”

“I shouldn’t mind that if I could keep her out of yours,” she answered bluntly.

Banneker turned a placid and smiling face to her.  “You think I’m a fool, don’t you, Miss Camilla?”

“I think that Io Welland, without ill-intent at all, but with a period of idleness on her hands, is a dangerous creature to have around.  She’s too lovely and, I think, too restless a spirit.”

“She’s lovely, all right,” assented Banneker.

“Well; I’ve warned you, Ban,” returned his friend in slightly dispirited tones.

“What do you want me to do?  Keep away from your place?  I’ll do whatever you say.  But it’s all nonsense.”

“I dare say it is,” sighed Miss Van Arsdale.  “Forget that I’ve said it, Ban.  Meddling is a thankless business.”

“You could never meddle as far as I’m concerned,” said Banneker warmly.  “I’m a little worried,” he added thoughtfully, “about not reporting her as found to the company.  What do you think?”

“Too official a question for me.  You’ll have to settle that for yourself.”

“How long does she intend to stay?”

“I don’t know.  But a girl of her breeding and habits would hardly settle herself on a stranger for very long unless a point were made of urging her.”

“And you won’t do that?”

“I certainly shall not!”

“No; I suppose not.  You’ve been awfully good to her.”

“Hospitality to the shipwrecked,” smiled Miss Van Arsdale as she crossed the track toward the village.

Late afternoon, darkening into wilder winds and harsher rain, brought the hostess back to her lodge dripping and weary.  On a bearskin before the smouldering fire lay the girl, her fingers intertwined behind her head, her eyes half closed and dreamy.  Without directly responding to the other’s salutation she said: 

“Miss Van Arsdale, will you be very good to me?”

“What is it?”

“I’m tired,” said Io.  “So tired!”

“Stay, of course,” responded the hostess, answering the implication heartily, “as long as you will.”

“Only two or three days, until I recover the will to do something.  You’re awfully kind.”  Io looked very young and childlike, with her languid, mobile face irradiated by the half-light of the fire.  “Perhaps you’ll play for me sometime.”

“Of course.  Now, if you like.  As soon as the chill gets out of my hands.”

“Thank you.  And sing?” suggested the girl diffidently.

A fierce contraction of pain marred the serenity of the older woman’s face.  “No,” she said harshly.  “I sing for no one.”

“I’m sorry,” murmured the girl.

“What have you been doing all day?” asked Miss Van Arsdale, holding out her hands toward the fire.

“Resting.  Thinking.  Scaring myself with bogy-thoughts of what I’ve escaped.”  Io smiled and sighed.  “I hadn’t known how worn out I was until I woke up this morning.  I don’t think I ever before realized the meaning of refuge.”

“You’ll recover from the need of it soon enough,” promised the other.  She crossed to the piano.  “What kind of music do you want?  No; don’t tell me.  I should be able to guess.”  Half turning on the bench she gazed speculatively at the lax figure on the rug.  “Chopin, I think.  I’ve guessed right?  Well, I don’t think I shall play you Chopin to-day.  You don’t need that kind of—­of—­well, excitation.”

Musing for a moment over a soft mingling of chords she began with a little ripple of melody, MacDowell’s lovely, hurrying, buoyant “Improvisation,” with its aeolian vibrancies, its light, bright surges of sound, sinking at the last into cradled restfulness.  Without pause or transition she passed on to Grieg; the wistful, remote appeal of the strangely misnamed “Erotique,” plaintive, solemn, and in the fulfillment almost hymnal:  the brusque pursuing minors of the wedding music, and the diamond-shower of notes of the sun-path song, bleak, piercing, Northern sunlight imprisoned in melody.  Then, the majestic swing of Ase’s death-chant, glorious and mystical.

“Are you asleep?” asked the player, speaking through the chords.

“No,” answered Io’s tremulous voice.  “I’m being very unhappy.  I love it!”

Bang!  It was a musical detonation, followed by a volley of chords and then a wild, swirling waltz; and Miss Van Arsdale jumped up and stood over her guest.  “There!” she said.  “That’s better than letting you pamper yourself with the indulgence of unhappiness.”

“But I want to be unhappy,” pouted Io.  “I want to be pampered.”

“Naturally.  You always will be, I expect, as long as there are men in the world to do your bidding.  However, I must see to supper.”

So for two days Io Welland lolled and lazed and listened to Miss Van Arsdale’s music, or read, or took little walks between showers.  No further mention was made by her hostess of the circumstances of the visit.  She was a reticent woman; almost saturnine, Io decided, though her perfect and effortless courtesy preserved her from being antipathetic to any one beneath her own roof.  How much her silence as to the unusual situation was inspired by consideration for her guest, how much due to natural reserve, Io could not estimate.

A little less reticence would have been grateful to her as the hours spun out and she felt her own spirit expand slowly in the calm.  It was she who introduced the subject of Banneker.

“Our quaint young station-agent seems to have abandoned his responsibilities so far as I’m concerned,” she observed.

“Because he hasn’t come to see you?”

“Yes.  He said he would.”

“I told him not to.”

“I see,” said Io, after thinking it over.  “Is he a little—­just a wee, little bit queer in his head?”

“He’s one of the sanest persons I’ve ever known.  And I want him to stay so.”

“I see again,” stated the girl.

“So you thought him a bit unbalanced?  That is amusing.”  That the hostess meant the adjective in good faith was proved by her quiet laughter.

Io regarded her speculatively and with suspicion.  “He asked the same about me, I suppose.”  Such was her interpretation of the laugh.

“But he gave you credit for being only temporarily deranged.”

“Either he or I ought to be up for examination by a medical board,” stated the girl poutingly.  “One of us must be crazy.  The night that I stole his molasses pie—­it was pretty awful pie, but I was starved—­I stumbled over something in the darkness and fell into it with an awful clatter.  What do you suppose it was?”

“I think I could guess,” smiled the other.

“Not unless you knew.  Personally I couldn’t believe it.  It felt like a boat, and it rocked like a boat, and there were the seats and the oars.  I could feel them.  A steel boat!  Miss Van Arsdale, it isn’t reasonable.”

“Why isn’t it reasonable?’

“I looked on the map in his room and there isn’t so much as a mud-puddle within miles and miles and miles.  Is there?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then what does he want of a steel boat?”

“Ask him.”

“It might stir him up.  They get violent if you question their pet lunacies, don’t they?”

“It’s quite simple.  Ban is just an incurable romanticist.  He loves the water.  And his repository of romance is the catalogue of Sears, Roebuck and Co.  When the new issue came, with an entrancing illustration of a fully equipped steel boat, he simply couldn’t stand it.  He had to have one, to remind him that some day he would be going back to the coast lagoons….  Does that sound to you like a fool?”

“No; it sounds delicious,” declared the girl with a ripple of mirth.  “What a wonderful person!  I’m going over to see him to-morrow.  May I?”

“My dear; I have no control over your actions.”

“Have you made any other plans for me to-morrow morning?” inquired Miss Welland in a prim and social tone, belied by the dancing light in her eyes.

“I’ve told you that he was romantic,” warned the other.

“What higher recommendation could there be?  I shall sit in the boat with him and talk nautical language.  Has he a yachting cap?  Oh, do tell me that he has a yachting cap!”

Miss Van Arsdale, smiling, shook her head, but her eyes were troubled.  There was compunction in Io’s next remark.

“I’m really going over to see about accommodations.  Sooner or later I must face the music—­meaning Carty.  I’m fit enough now, thanks to you.”

“Wouldn’t an Eastern trip be safer?” suggested her hostess.

“An Eastern trip would be easier.  But I’ve made my break, and it’s in the rules, as I understand them, that I’ve got to see it through.  If he can get me now”—­she gave a little shrug—­“but he can’t.  I’ve come to my senses.”

Sunlight pale, dubious, filtering through the shaken cloud veils, ushered in the morning.  Meager of promise though it was, Io’s spirits brightened.  Declining the offer of a horse in favor of a pocket compass, she set out afoot, not taking the trail, but forging straight through the heavy forest for the line of desert.  Around her, brisk and busy flocks of pinon jays darted and twittered confidentially.  The warm spice of the pines was sweet in her nostrils.  Little stirrings and rustlings just beyond the reach of vision delightfully and provocatively suggested the interest which she was inspiring by her invasion among the lesser denizens of the place.  The sweetness and intimacy of an unknown life surrounded her.  She sang happily as she strode, lithe and strong and throbbing with unfulfilled energies and potencies, through the springtide of the woods.

But when she emerged upon the desert, she fell silent.  A spaciousness as of endless vistas enthralled and, a little, awed her.  On all sides were ranged the disordered ranks of the cacti, stricken into immobility in the very act of reconstituting their columns, so that they gave the effect of a discord checked on the verge of its resolution into form and harmony, yet with a weird and distorted beauty of its own.  From a little distance, there came a murmur of love-words.  Io moved softly forward, peering curiously, and from the arc of a wide curving ocatilla two wild doves sprang, leaving the branch all aquiver.  Bolder than his companions of the air, a cactus owl, perched upon the highest column of a great green candelabrum, viewed her with a steady detachment, “sleepless, with cold, commemorative eyes.”  The girl gave back look for look, into the big, hard, unwavering circles.

“You’re a funny little bird,” said she.  “Say something!”

Like his congener of the hortatory poem, the owl held his peace.

“Perhaps you’re a stuffed little bird,” said Io, “and this not a real desert at all, but a National Park or something, full of educational specimens.”

She walked past the occupant of the cactus, and his head, turning, followed her with the slow, methodical movement of a toy mechanism.

“You give me a crick in my neck,” protested the intruder plaintively.  “Now, I’ll step over behind you and you’ll have to move or stop watching me.”

She walked behind the watcher.  The eyes continued to hold her in direct range.

“Now,” said Io, “I know where the idea for that horrid advertisement that always follows you with its finger came from.  However, I’ll fix you.”

She fetched a deliberate circle.  The bird’s eyes followed her without cessation.  Yet his feet and body remained motionless.  Only the head had turned.  That had made a complete revolution.

“This is a very queer desert,” gasped Io.  “It’s bewitched.  Or am I?  Now, I’m going to walk once more around you, little owl, or mighty magician, whichever you are.  And after I’ve completely turned your head, you’ll fall at my feet.  Or else…”

Again she walked around the feathered center of the circle.  The head followed her, turning with a steady and uninterrupted motion, on its pivot.  Io took a silver dime from her purse.

“Heaven save us from the powers of evil!” she said appreciatively.  “Aroint thee, witch!”

She threw the coin at the cactus.

“Chrr-rr-rrum!” burbled the owl, and flew away.

“I’m dizzy,” said Io.  “I wonder if the owl is an omen and whether the other inhabitants of this desert are like him; however much you turn their heads, they won’t fall for you.  Charms and counter-charms!...  Be a good child, Io,” she admonished herself.  “Haven’t you got yourself into enough trouble with your deviltries?  I can’t help it,” she defended herself.  “When I see a new and interesting specimen, I’ve just got to investigate its nature and habits.  It’s an inherited scientific spirit, I suppose.  And he is new, and awfully interesting—­even if he is only a station-agent.”  Wherefrom it will be perceived that her thoughts had veered from the cactus owl, to another perplexing local phenomenon.

The glaring line of the railroad right-of-way rose before her feet, a discordant note of rigidity and order in the confused prodigality of desert growth.  Io turned away from it, but followed its line until she reached the station.  No sign of life greeted her.  The door was locked, and the portable house unresponsive to her knocking.  Presently, however, she heard the steady click of the telegraph instrument and, looking through the half-open office window, saw Banneker absorbed in his work.

“Good-morning,” she called.

Without looking up he gave back her greeting in an absent echo.

“As you didn’t come to see me, I’ve come to see you,” was her next attempt.

Did he nod?  Or had he made no motion at all?

“I’ve come to ask important questions about trains,” she pursued, a little aggrieved by his indifference to her presence.

No reply from the intent worker.

“And ‘tell sad stories of the death of kings,’” she quoted with a fairy chuckle.  She thought that she saw a small contortion pass over his features, only to be banished at once.  He had retired within the walls of that impassive and inscrutable reserve which minor railroad officials can at will erect between themselves and the lay public.  Only the broken rhythms of the telegraph ticker relieved the silence and furnished the justification.

A little piqued but more amused, for she was far too confident of herself to feel snubbed, the girl waited smilingly.  Presently she said in silken tones: 

“When you’re quite through and can devote a little attention to insignificant me, I shall perhaps be sitting on the sunny corner of the platform, or perhaps I shall be gone forever.”

But she was not gone when, ten minutes later, Banneker came out.  He looked tired.

“You know, you weren’t very polite to me,” she remarked, glancing at him slantwise as he stood before her.

If she expected apologies, she was disappointed, and perhaps thought none the less of him for his dereliction.

“There’s trouble all up and down the line,” he said.  “Nothing like a schedule left west of Allbright.  Two passenger trains have come through, though.  Would you like to see a paper?  It’s in my office.”

“Goodness, no!  Why should I want a newspaper here?  I haven’t time for it.  I want to see the world”—­she swept a little, indicating hand about her; “all that I can take in in a day.”

“A day?” he echoed.

“Yes.  I’m going to-morrow.”

“That’s as may be.  Ten to one there’s no space to be had.”

“Surely you can get something for me.  A section will do if you can’t get a stateroom.”

He smiled.  “The president of the road might get a stateroom.  I doubt if anybody else could even land an upper.  Of course I’ll do my best.  But it’s a question when there’ll be another train through.”

“What ails your road?” she demanded indignantly.  “Is it just stuck together with glue?”

“You’ve never seen this desert country when it springs a leak.  It can develop a few hundred Niagaras at the shortest notice of any place I know.”

“But it isn’t leaking now,” she objected.

He turned his face to the softly diffused sunlight.  “To be continued.  The storm isn’t over yet, according to the way I feel about it.  Weather reports say so, too.”

“Then take me for a walk!” she cried.  “I’m tired of rain and I want to go over and lean against that lovely white mountain.”

“Well, it’s only sixty miles away,” he answered.  “Perhaps you’d better take some grub along or you might get hungry.”

“Aren’t you coming with me?”

“This is my busy morning.  If it were afternoon, now—­”

“Very well.  Since you are so urgent, I will stay to luncheon.  I’ll even get it up myself if you’ll let me into the shack.”

“That’s a go!” said Banneker heartily.  “What about your horse?”

“I walked over.”

“No; did you?” He turned thoughtful, and his next observation had a slightly troubled ring.  “Have you got a gun?”

“A gun?  Oh, you mean a pistol.  No; I haven’t.  Why should I?”

He shook his head.  “This is no time to be out in the open without a gun.  They had a dance at the Sick Coyote in Manzanita last night, and there’ll be some tough specimens drifting along homeward all day.”

“Do you carry a gun?”

“I would if I were going about with you.”

“Then you can loan me yours to go home with this afternoon,” she said lightly.

“Oh, I’ll take you back.  Just now I’ve got some odds and ends that will take a couple of hours to clear up.  You’ll find plenty to read in the shack, such as it is.”

Thus casually dismissed, Io murmured a “Thank you” which was not as meek as it sounded, and withdrew to rummage among the canned edibles drawn from the inexhaustible stock of Sears-Roebuck.  Having laid out a selection, housewifely, and looked to the oil stove derived from the same source, she turned with some curiosity to the mental pabulum with which this strange young hermit had provided himself.  Would this, too, bear the mail-order imprint and testify to mail-order standards?  At first glance the answer appeared to be affirmative.  The top shelf of the home-made case sagged with the ineffable slusheries of that most popular and pious of novelists, Harvey Wheelwright.  Near by, “How to Behave on All Occasions” held forth its unimpeachable precepts, while a little beyond, “Botany Made Easy” and “The Perfect Letter Writer” proffered further aid to the aspiring mind.  Improvement, stark, blatant Improvement, advertised itself from that culturous and reeking compartment.  But just below—­Io was tempted to rub her eyes—­stood Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy”; a Browning, complete; that inimitably jocund fictional prank, Frederic’s “March Hares,” together with the same author’s fine and profoundly just “Damnation of Theron Ware”; Taylor’s translation of Faust; “The [broken-backed] Egoist”; “Lavengro” (Io touched its magic pages with tender fingers), and a fat, faded, reddish volume so worn and obscured that she at once took it down and made explorative entry.  She was still deep in it when the owner arrived.

“Have you found enough to keep you amused?”

She looked up from the pages and seemed to take him all in anew before answering.  “Hardly the word.  Bewildered would be nearer the feeling.”

“It’s a queerish library, I suppose,” he said apologetically.

“If I believed in dual personality—­” she began; but broke off to hold up the bulky veteran.  “Where did you get ’The Undying Voices’?”

“Oh, that’s a windfall.  What a bully title for a collection of the great poetries, isn’t it!”

She nodded, one caressing hand on the open book, the other propping her chin as she kept the clear wonder of her eyes upon him.

“It makes you think of singers making harmony together in a great open space.  I’d like to know the man who made the selections,” he concluded.

“What kind of a windfall?” she asked.

“A real one.  Pullman travelers sometimes prop their windows open with books.  You can see the window-mark on the cover of this one.  I found it two miles out, beside the right-of-way.  There was no name in it, so I kept it.  It’s the book I read most except one.”

“What’s the one?”

He laughed, holding up the still more corpulent Sears-Roebuck catalogue.

“Ah,” said she gravely.  “That accounts, I suppose, for the top shelf.”

“Yes, mostly.”

“Do you like them?  The Conscientious Improvers, I mean?”

“I think they’re bunk.”

“Then why did you get them?”

“Oh, I suppose I was looking for something,” he returned; and though his tone was careless, she noticed for the first time a tinge of self-consciousness.

“Did you find it there?”

“No.  It isn’t there.”

“Here?” She laid both hands on the “windfall.”

His face lighted subtly.

“It is there, isn’t it!  If one has the sense to get it out.”

“I wonder,” mused the girl.  And again, “I wonder.”  She rose, and taking out “March Hares” held it up.  “I could hardly believe this when I saw it.  Did it also drop out of a car window?”

“No.  I never heard of that until I wrote for it.  I wrote to a Boston bookstore that I’d heard about and told ’em I wanted two books to cheer up a fool with the blues, and another to take him into a strange world—­and keep the change out of five dollars.  They sent me ’The Bab Ballads’ and this, and ‘Lavengro.’”

“Oh, how I’d like to see that letter!  If the bookstore has an ounce of real bookitude about it, they’ve got it preserved in lavender!  And what do you think of ’March Hares’?”

“Did you ever read any of the works of Harvey Wheelwright?” he questioned in turn.

“Now,” thought Io, “he is going to compare Frederic to Wheelwright, and I shall abandon him to his fate forever.  So here’s his chance …  I have,” she replied aloud.

“It’s funny,” ruminated Banneker.  “Mr. Wheelwright writes about the kind of things that might happen any day, and probably do happen, and yet you don’t believe a word of it.  ’March Hares’—­well, it just couldn’t happen; but what do you care while you’re in it!  It seems realer than any of the dull things outside it.  That’s the literary part of it, I suppose, isn’t it?”

“That’s the magic of it,” returned Io, with a little, half-suppressed crow of delight.  “Are you magic, too, Mr. Banneker?”

“Me?  I’m hungry,” said he.

“Forgive the cook!” she cried.  “But just one thing more.  Will you lend me the poetry book?”

“It’s all marked up,” he objected, flushing.

“Are you afraid that I’ll surprise your inmost secrets?” she taunted.  “They’d be safe.  I can be close-mouthed, even though I’ve been chattering like a sparrow.”

“Take it, of course,” he said.  “I suppose I’ve marked all the wrong things.”

“So far,” she laughed, “you’re batting one hundred per cent as a literary critic.”  She poured coffee into a tin cup and handed it to him.  “What do you think of my coffee?”

He tasted it consideringly; then gave a serious verdict.  “Pretty bad.”

“Really!  I suppose it isn’t according to the mail-order book recipe.”

“It’s muddy and it’s weak.”

“Are you always so frank in your expression of views?”

“Well, you asked me.”

“Would you answer as plainly whatever I asked you?”

“Certainly.  I’d have too much respect for you not to.”

She opened wide eyes at this.  Then provocatively:  “What do you think of me, Mr. Banneker?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“Why not?” she teased.

“I don’t know you well enough to give an opinion.”

“You know me as well as you ever will.”

“Very likely.”

“Well, a snap judgment, for what it’s worth….  What are you doing there?”

“Making more coffee.”

Io stamped her foot.  “You’re the most enraging man I ever met.”

“It’s quite unintentional,” he replied patiently, but with no hint of compunction.  “You may drink yours and I’ll drink mine.”

“You’re only making it worse!”

“Very well; then I’ll drink yours if you like.”

“And say it’s good.”

“But what’s the use?”

“And say it’s good,” insisted Io.

“It’s marvelous,” agreed her unsmiling host.

Far from being satisfied with words and tone, which were correctness itself, Io was insensately exasperated.

“You’re treating me like a child,” she charged.

“How do you want me to treat you?”

“As a woman,” she flashed, and was suddenly appalled to feel the blood flush incredibly to her cheeks.

If he noted the phenomenon, he gave no sign, simply assenting with his customary equanimity.  During the luncheon she chattered vaguely.  She was in two minds about calling off the projected walk.  As he set aside his half-emptied cup of coffee—­not even tactful enough to finish it out of compliment to her brew—­Banneker said: 

“Up beyond the turn yonder the right-of-way crosses an arroyo.  I want to take a look at it.  We can cut through the woods to get there.  Are you good for three miles?”

“For a hundred!” cried Io.

The wine of life was potent in her veins.