Cape of Storms Part 15

"Stanley," said Wooton, "its time we left the great man to his thoughts.

He is evolving a new and fearful sketch. Hope we've not intruded." They got up and were for leaving him, but he protested, and they all strolled away together. He accompanied them to their hotel, and then sauntered off for a stroll in the _Thiergarten_. He found a bench that gave him a view of the sandy ditch wherein the children played all day long in the sun-light, while their nurses sat placidly knitting or reading. It attracted him immediately, this picture of the little bare-legged youngsters in their quaint German attire, digging about in the sand, shouting and laughing and fighting, and all living in the evergreen country of make-believe.

He began to draw some rough sketches. So engrossed was he that the sun had sunk behind the trees before he remembered that he had promised his two townsmen to go to the "Linden" theatre with them. He got up, looked at his watch, and hailed a pa.s.sing Taxometer.

CHAPTER XV

In the days that immediately followed, these three were together a great deal. Presently Stanley drawlingly, announced that he would have to be packing up; his bank account was getting low, he declared, and he would be forced once more to bask in the sunshine of his wife's presence.

The other two still stayed on. Berlin was just beginning to be amusing.

People were beginning to return from Marienbad, from Schwalbach, from Heringsdorf. All the theatres were once more open. Summer was saying goodbye.

One day Wooton asked: "Of course you've seen Potsdam?"

Lancaster shook his head.

"Well, then it's high time you did. Leaves beginning to fall and all that sort of thing. The last chance. It's really very worth while.

Castles till you can't rest. Babelsberg, Sans-souci, and the New Palace.

To say nothing of a bit of Potsdam, near the Barberini Palace, that's almost as good as Venice."

They arranged to make the excursion the first sunny day, and had only to wait until the sun rose again. They chose to travel by boat. It was a splendid journey, in the bright sun-light, past the woods and rushes and villas that skirt the little series of inland lakes between Spandau and Potsdam. They left the steamer at the landing-stage for Babelsberg and went leisurely through the grounds and the simple, comfortable, old place. By the time a boatman had rowed them over to Potsdam, it was luncheon time.

They left the boat riding in the Venice-like waterway, and stepped directly into the garden of the vine-covered, shady cafe that skirted the water for quite a distance. Waiters were moving about and at tables sat family parties, eating and drinking cheerily and honestly. It was one of the things that enchanted Lancaster, this part of continental life, this open-air freedom of taking one's gla.s.s of beer, this cheerful way of supping out-doors _en famille_, of devoting to restaurant-garden uses the most expensive corner-lots, of making the pa.s.sing show of strollers one of the sights that you paid for with your gla.s.s.

They chose a table that directly overlooked the water-front. Behind them lay the yellow shabbiness of the Barberini palace, that relic of a king's devotion to a dancer. Below them gleamed the water. It was by no means an unpicturesque spot.

"By the way," said Wooton, casually, as they were discussing the entree, "I met a friend of your's last summer, a Miss Ware."

"Oh." There was not much interest in Lancaster's tone, but Wooton helped himself to the Rauenthaler and went on:

"Yes. Rather a pleasant girl. Charmingly unsophisticated. Known her long?"

"We were children together."

"Ah, then she's a country girl, so to say, eh? I thought so."

Lancaster was deep in thought. The other continued to ply himself with wine.

"We had some charming days together," he went on, reminiscently. "She amused me immensely. The Tremonts were staying at the same place then, and I used to amuse myself contrasting that Tremont girl with Miss Ware.

The one was like an armor-plate, the other impressionable as wax."

He began to smile to himself mysteriously. "Do have some of this Rauenthaler Berg," he urged, effusively. "It's really capital!" He ordered another bottle, and helped himself liberally. Lancaster was scarcely heeding his companion. He was looking out over the water. For once, he was forgetting to be amused.

"As between two men of the world, you know," Wooton was saying, leaning impressively on his elbow, "it may as well be understood that that Tremont girl is the newest kind a new woman." "Know what she said to me one day? 'The only thing I don't like about love is its consequences!'

Nice girls, these new women, eh?" He laughed softly and drank again.

Lancaster turned to watch him. The man was showing all the cad in him; the wine was bringing it out. "Women, nowadays," Wooton went on, "make a fad of everything except the homely virtues. They deliver lectures on art, and literature, and posters, and music, and the redemption of the fallen; but they never care for the staple virtues that bring happiness to households. I'm not saying that I'm a model, not by a d.a.m.ned sight, but I have my eyes open, and I think the woman of today is trying to usurp, chiefly, man's prerogative of being a _roue_ if he chooses. What she needs is to go to a medical school. Then she knows the difference."

He crumbled a piece of bread, and flung it out to the swans that floated down before them.

"I don't mind telling you," he continued, confidentially, "that they were both in love with me, Miss Tremont and Miss Ware. In Miss Tremont's case, I naturally, had no scruples at all. The fact is, I think she took the initiative." He stopped, smiling significantly, and sipping at the yellow wine.

Lancaster's eyes were glowing with anger. The man's brutality was so disgusting! Not that there was anything surprising in these wine-woven statements, for a man who could welch his debts in the way Wooton did, two years ago, was hardly a man to suffer from scruples of any sort; but the very fact of having the names of people well-known to him brought up in this way was nauseating to Lancaster.

"Why don't you drink some of this wine?" Wooton was holding the bottle across the table. "No? You're missing something good, you can bet on that! Wine is the way to forgetfulness, and most men would sell their souls to be able to forget. Don't you agree with me? That's right." He leered fatuously at his companion. "I've always liked you, y'know, Lancaster, always liked you. Friend of mine, yessir, friend of mine; you bet! Great artist, too, proud to know you. But, oh Scott! what a simple sort of idiot you were when you first came to town! You'll excuse my candor; friend of your's, I am, yessir, friend of yours." He proceeded to watch the swans that glided past them, rippling the smooth water gracefully. "Beautiful creature," he drawled in drunken sentimentality, "beautiful creature! Reminds me of that girl's neck,--that girl I kissed in Schandau. Beautiful neck, Lancaster, beautiful neck! White, and smooth, and soft, Moreover, she had the most adorable lips; extraordinarily sweet, I a.s.sure you. Lancaster, I understand you've been rioting all over this continent, you dog you; but I defy you to say you kissed any sweeter lips than those. I defy you to--!" He sank back into his chair, chuckling to himself. "Excuse me, didn't mean to be so energetic. Excuse me."

Lancaster half turned his head away from the man and looked out over the water. Where the ca.n.a.l widened out into the lake a crowd of youths were amusing themselves in diving from a considerable height; the sun flashed for one instant on each white body as it gleamed through the air down into the cool ca.n.a.l. From across the water came the voices of sightseers and pleasure-finders. Closer at hand, in the very garden they sat in, the occasional clirring of a sword over the gravel denoted the entrance or exit of an officer; in the warm sun-light all these things combined to make a delightful impressionistic scene. Lancaster turned to it as a relief from his companion.

But Wooton, with the growing persistence of intoxication, was heedless of the other's indifference. He began again, maunderingly:

"I don't deny, y'know, that there's an attraction about the woman of experience. Not for a minute! extremely fascinating person, woman of experience. As good as a comedy to make love to her. But the women of experience grow old, very old; while the fresh young sprigs of girlhood never grow old." He chuckled again. "No; they never grow old. They grow into experienced women. Axiom: I prefer the fresh flower of innocence because it never grows old. Sometimes, sometimes it withers. To wither innocence is one of the most fascinating games in the world. I wonder how often the average man of the world has played that game in his life?" He helped himself to the wine again, and looked at it lovingly as it gleamed yellow between him and the sun. "You really should let me pour you out some of this excellent vintage," he said, oilily smiling upon Lancaster, "you really should. There is a deal of philosophy in it."

Lancaster was now watching the fellow in an increase of amused attention. With the inflow of the wine the man's mood changed, from a species of maudlin sentimentality to an extravagantly ornate loquacity.

"Philosophy is one of the fairest jewels on the robe of fortune. In misfortune it is marked worthless collateral. When we are well off, we philosophize; when we are hard up we curse philosophy. Wine is the only real philosopher. Do you know, I consider your abstinence, disgraceful, positively disgraceful. It argues an unphilosophic mind.... There's that swan, again! Beautiful neck. Such grace! And yet, I prefer the other one. The other one had a beautiful face, as well as a glorious neck.

Moreover, the taste of those lips was positively intoxicating." He looked solemnly at the gla.s.s of wine before him, and declared, impressively: "As between the two, do you know, I actually believe I prefer the lips?" He gulped at the liquor again. His eyes strayed dreamily into an abstracted stare. "Dear Dorothy!" he murmured.

"I beg your pardon?" Lancaster started savagely. He thought he might not have heard aright.

The other blandly continued. "I said 'Dear Dorothy!' That was her name, you know. Her name is almost as sweet as her kisses. Dorothy" he lingered over the syllables--"Dorothy Ware."

"What!" Lancaster half sprung up from his chair. Then he curbed himself, with intense efforts, to calmness. "Did I understand you to say that it was Miss Dorothy Ware?"

"Certainly, my dear boy. Most correct. Oh, yes; remember now: friend of your's. Recommend your taste, my boy, I really do. She--"

"Look here!" Lancaster's voice had grown hard and chill. "Do you mean to say that--all that--is true?"

Wooton noticed the other's repressed agitation, and it quickened this mischief in him. "Most exactly true. Are you--can it be?--are you, h'm, jealous? My dear boy, go in and win; I clear the field. I--only harvest once." He laughed at the thought. And then, in a second, his laughter choked to a rattling gurgle in his throat.

Lancaster had sprung up, white and trembling with rage, and stood over him, squeezing the breath out of the fellow's windpipe. "You drunken, hideous hound you," he crunched from between his teeth, "you rifler of reputations, you d.a.m.nable dog!" He stopped. His rage scarcely permitted words. "You're drunk, d.a.m.n you, and you're a puny little brute, so I can't whip you as you should be whipped. But if you don't take that back, if you don't say you lied--I'll--give your burning head the cooling it deserves." He eased his hold on the other's throat for a time. Wooton glared at him, breathlessly, with a fantastically ugly sneer attempting lodgment on the lips that still writhed for air.

"Say you lied!" Lancaster loomed over him in tremendous wrath.

Wooton glared doggedly. "I shall do nothing of the sort," he managed to whisper. His left hand was sliding along the table to where the gla.s.s, half full of wine, stood. Suddenly he gripped it and with a wrench, splashed up the contents and the gla.s.s, full into Lancaster's face. The crystal shattered on the artist's chin, fortunately, and so did but little harm. Before the crash of the breaking gla.s.s was stilled, and the wine spent, Lancaster's hands were about the other's throat again; he gave a swing, viciously, and flung the body completely over the low railing.

It splashed into the still waters noisily. The swans swam away for a moment, then returned in curiosity. As Wooton came to the surface, he screamed out an oath and a cry for help. There was a boatman at the water-steps of the adjoining cafe, and in a few minutes he had pulled the choking man out of the water.

Wooton glared up to where Lancaster stood, still hot with anger. "d.a.m.n him," he thought, "if he were not so much stronger than I--" But the thought prevailed, and he told the boatman to row further down the ca.n.a.l.

To the waiters who had rushed up, Lancaster had been very cool. "_Es handelt sich um eine Wette_" he a.s.sured them. The whole thing had been so swift, so silent, that up to the moment of the splash in the water, there had been no eye-witnesses. He smiled at the waiters, paying his bill, and leaving a liberal _trinkgeld_. "_Mein freund hat die wette gewonnen_." Then he sauntered out with a final fierce glance in the direction of the boat that was turning the corner in the far distance, bearing away the scoundrelisms that lived in Wooton.

When he reached the marble circle of the fountain in the gardens of Sans-souci, Lancaster stopped, and addressed the spray, bitterly: "So that was why I was refused? Well, well! It seems, as I said a little while ago, that there are still new emotions in store for me." He watched the spray turn to mist that was almost invisible. "That is the way with ideals," he mused. Then he turned with a laugh in the direction of the terraces. "How absurd he looked, in the water!" He went on, laughing quietly.

CHAPTER XVI