A Fool There Was Part 12

"Do you remember how it goes?" persisted Blake.

Schuyler thought a moment. Then, slowly, he recited:

"A fool there was, and he made his prayer, (Even as you and I) To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair.

We called her the woman who did not care.

But the fool, he called her his Lady Fair--"

He broke off, abruptly. "A weird thing," he said, as though to himself.

"I never thought much about what it meant before...." He turned, abruptly. "Why did you ask me if I'd read it?" he demanded.

"Well," said Blake, flicking the ashes from his cigarette, "there's the fool," he nodded toward the drying spot upon the deck. "And there," he indicated, with a backward toss of his well-shaped head, the corridor down which had pa.s.sed the woman, "is his lady fair. I've even heard," he went on, "that she used to call him her 'fool,' quoting the poem. Pretty little conceit, eh?" His jaw, firm, square, set tight. Then, with a touch of deeper feeling. "She murdered that boy just as surely as if she had cut his throat; and the worst of it is that she can't be held legally guilty--morally, yes, guilty as sin; but legally--" He shook his head.

"The laws that man makes for mankind are a joke."

"As sometimes seem," added Schuyler, slowly, "the laws that G.o.d makes for mankind.... If what you say about that woman be true, she ought to be taken by the hair of the head and dragged through the h.e.l.l she has built for others." His brows were knitted; he was gazing with unseeing eyes upon the bustle and confusion of the dock below.

Blake, eyeing him, remarked quietly, but in tones more light:

"However, that's not your job, nor mine, thank G.o.d. It would be an eminently suitable recreation for a debonair young man with a shattered reputation, a cast iron stomach, several millions of dollars and no objections to staying up by the year." He turned a little, toward Schuyler. "What are you thinking about?" he queried.

"Only the fool."

"The generic fool of Kipling, or Young Parmalee?"

"I was thinking of Young Parmalee, then."

"And the woman?"

Schuyler quoted, slowly:

"A fool there was--"

"Oh, but," Blake protested, "I wouldn't call him a fool."

"Why not?" demanded Schuyler. "He was a fool."

"Yes," returned Blake. "But he's dead, now."

"Bosh," retorted Schuyler, impatiently. "I've no sympathy with that false sentiment that forbids one to speak the unpleasant truth of a dead person. If a man were a fool while alive, his dying doesn't absolve him of his folly. Young Parmalee's death was a mitigating circ.u.mstance, however. He killed himself; which shows that he had some manhood left.

But he should have had the decency to choose another place for his self destruction." He was silent for a moment; at length he went on: "A man is what he is, and he was what he was. His dying can change nothing of his living."

He looked up. His wife and child were coming toward him.

"Say nothing to them about all this, Tom," he urged.

"Certainly not," acquiesced Blake.

A steward came down the deck, calling raucously:

"All ash.o.r.e that's going ash.o.r.e!"

Kathryn turned to Schuyler.

"And now that the time has really come to say good-bye," she said, brokenly, "here's something I brought you, Jack."

She handed him a little box of glazed cardboard. Wonderingly he took it.

"For me?" he cried, with simulated gaiety. "That's sweet of you, dear heart--sweeter, even than are these." For he had opened it, and taken forth the tiny bouquet of forget-me-nots that had nestled in the depths of the moist cotton, "and these are sweetness itself. But why forget-me- nots! As though I could ever forget you, even for one little minute!"

There came again the strident call:

"All ash.o.r.e that's going ashor-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-e!!!"

Violet eyes suffused, Kathryn was clinging to him.

"Jack," she whispered. "Jack, I'm afraid I'm--going--to--cry."

With infinite tenderness he held her to him.

"There, there, sweetheart mine," he said, soothingly. "Don't be a silly.... Now we'll all go down to the gangway, where the big hugs are.... Then I'll rush back here and we can wave one another good-bye and try to imagine I'm going only over to Staten Island for the afternoon."

Came farewells at the gangway--farewells of tears, of heart-aches, of quivering lips and moist lids--of laughter quavering and smiles unreal-- of the good hand clasp that good men know--the touch of wet, clinging lips.

Schuyler came rushing down the deck, keeping to that part of the ship that lay nearest to the dock. From the bouquet that had been given him, he plucked tiny, fragrant blossoms, casting them to those that had given, and with them sending cheery word of hope, tender word of parting.

He could see them there, far below, straining against the ropes, waving to him. He could see the violet eyes, tear laden, the lithe, slender, figure of his wife in the glory of her perfect womanhood--the st.u.r.dy little body of his child, barelegged, browned, hair tumbled, waving frantically a tiny little square of muslin and shouting farewells at the highest pitch of childish treble. He could see his friend--the friend such as few men may ever have, and, having, may pray to hold--broad shoulders protecting wife and child from the pressing throngs--he could hear his voice booming through all the heterogeneous medley of sound.

His voice choked. Words that he was crying--words lost in all the confusion of sound and movement--stuck in his throat. Moisture came to his eyes.... He turned a little.... Came into range of his vision a tiny streak of shifting crimson. He looked.

She was sitting there, on the deck--she--The Woman. She lay back in her chair, long, lithe limbs covered with a rug of crimson and black and dull, dull green. She was dangling gently, sensuously, the great cl.u.s.ter of scarlet roses that she held, now and again bringing them to where their fragrance would reach her delicately-chiseled nose, imperious, haughty.... They looked startlingly red against her cheek--like blood upon the snow.... She was looking at him.... There was no movement, save the even, languorous swing of the crimson blossoms. Lips, vivid red, were motionless, half parted in a little, inscrutable smile.... She was looking at him.... He forgot.... The whistle had been blowing, sounding departure. He had not heard. There was a lull. From afar, shrill, childish voice brought a drifting, "Bye, bye, daddy, dear!" ... He did not hear.... Her eyes were on his. His eyes were on hers.... And seemed to be nothing else....

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

IN THE NIGHT.

He had told Parks to come to him as soon as they were under way. There were certain letters that he wished to get off in time to send them back on the pilot boat. Parks found him by the rail, gazing at a tall, darkly- beautiful woman reclining in a steamer chair, eyes only visible above a great cl.u.s.ter of crimson blossoms. Parks had spoken to him three times before there was forthcoming a reply. Then, slowly, as a man awakening from a heavy sleep, Schuyler had gone with him to his room.

He had tried to dictate his correspondence; had tried, and failed. There were many mistakes. His thoughts would not seem to coalesce. His mind was not upon what he was doing, nor could he place it there. And Schuyler's was a brain that had always been to him an admirably trained servant, coming when he willed it, doing what he willed and in the way he willed.... But today it was a servant sullen, rebellious, recalcitrant.

... The letters remained unwritten. Nothing was sent back with the pilot. And Parks, wondering, puzzled--and, perhaps, a bit perturbed-- watched the pilot swing down the Jacob's ladder, and make across the water toward his craft, with wonderment, puzzlement, perturbation no bit abated.

Schuyler paced the deck all that day. Lunch he did not touch. Dinner found him undesirous of food. He was walking--walking--striding up and down, up and down--deep in thought, it seemed--and yet he had not been able to dictate his letters. Parks wondered yet more. At length he went to his employer and asked him if he were not needed. The answer was curt; it was "no." And never before had Parks been answered without a cordial nod, or, perhaps, the good smile of good-fellowship.... He could not understand.

And Schuyler? His brain was in a tumult. Like us all, there were many things that he did not know--there were many things that he did not even know there were to know.... Some of these he was beginning to learn. It had shaken him--it was shaking him--to his soul.