Cape of Storms Part 7

Rice and a "3" to the right. "Here we are! Now then, what are you going to do?" He whipped out a twenty dollar bill and crumpled it carefully into the palm of his hand.

d.i.c.k thought quickly. After all, it was merely the foregoing of some luxury or another; he would postpone joining that polo club, perhaps, or go without that new edition of Menzel's drawing's that he had been promising himself. He took a bill out of his card-case and handed it, without a word, to Stanley.

The ticket that Stanley presently handed him had "Rice" almost illigibly scrawled across it, and the figures "70" and "10." d.i.c.k stood to lose ten or to win seventy dollars.

By the time they had got comfortably ensconsed in their seats in the dog-cart once more, the horses were at the post for the great event of the day, the American Derby. d.i.c.k had begun to feel something of the torment of expectation and fear and hope that makes the gambler's nerves either like a sheet of reeds in the wind or like a tightly-drawn wire.

If he won it would be, as he heard some men in the betting-shed remark, "just like finding money." He could allow himself all sorts of extravagances. He observed the horses making false start after false start without even a suspicion of qualmishness as to the moral aspect of the case coming over him. He had grown, to use his own phase, broader.

Down beyond the turn into the stretch was the bunch of restless horses, the vari-colored jackets, the starter's carriage, and the a.s.sistant starter's flag. There was the sky-blue jacket that showed where the favorite, The Ghost, was pirouetting on his hind legs; the black and yellow bars of aetna's jockey, and many others. But d.i.c.k's eyes were focused on Dr. Rice; the horse's jockey was in all-black.

"Ah--h!" The vast crowd roars and cheers as a start is made. All together, like a herd of cattle, they sweep on toward the grand-stand.

It is not racing yet. Favorite and second favorite are back in the centre of the bunch. In front of the grand-stand one jockey sends his horse out a length in front. It is an outsider, but there are plenty of backers of outsiders, and a cheer goes up. "He'll walk away from them!"

"The others are standing still!" and such-like shouts go up. The pace begins to get killing. At the half aetna is seen to move up to the leader, finally to pa.s.s him. The favorite is also creeping from out the ruck. Slowly, surely he forges past all the leaders but aetna; the latter shoots ahead again for the distance of a length and The Ghost drops back to fourth place. It was evidently merely a feeler to find out whether aetna was going too fast or whether there was still time to get up when the stretch was reached.

Round the turn they sweep into the stretch. It is a dangerous picture, with so many horses so close together, with such speed, and such possibility of collisions. But the turn is made in a second; now they are in the straight road for home. The Ghost is creeping up again, wearing down horse after horse, finally reaching aetna's throatlatch.

Neck and neck these two race up the last furlong; then a sudden, surprised roar breaks out from the mob of onlookers; another horse has cut loose from the bunch that has now become a straggling, attenuated string of tired horses. The shout goes up: "Look at Dr. Rice!" "Dr.

Rice!"

Now he is up to aetna's flanks and going under a pull; his jockey has never yet touched spur to him. The whip comes down on aetna; it is no use; he is raced out. Now Dr. Rice has reached The Ghost, and the latter's jockey begins using the whip. In the grand-stand there is an inferno of cheering; men are shouting themselves hoa.r.s.e, and jumping up and down in nervous paroxysms. Dr. Rice's jockey never moves a muscle to all appearances. The cries go up from the mob: "Come Rice!" "Come Ghost!" The judges begin to strain their their attention to the viewing of a very close finish. Then with a final mighty lift, Dr. Rice, in the very last stride, snoots forward under the wire a neck in front of The Ghost.

Dr. Rice has won.

On the way home Stanley was another man. He talked as if such a thing as a regret for a lost youth had never entered his head; he was young again. He recounted his impression of the race, asked d.i.c.k what he had thought of it all, was full of amusing anecdotes about men who had tried to get him to back the favorite, and was fertile in suggestions for what they should do that evening. Of course it was understood they must celebrate in some way. Surely! Surely!

"Oh," he said, finally, "I know what we'll do. We'll go along to the Imperial Theatre. I know some of the girls in the burlesque there. I'll introduce you. We'll enjoy ourselves."

d.i.c.k began to demur.

"Don't be a d-----d idiot," said the other man, half smiling, half frowning.

CHAPTER VII

No one that has ever been in Dresden is likely to forget the beauties of the Bruehlsche Terra.s.se. The cool plash of waters from the Elbe come up invitingly; the green of the neighboring gardens is luscious, and there are nearly always strains of music in the air. Especially pleasing is the picture on a summer's evening.

In one of the concert gardens they give out on the Terra.s.se, there sat at a small round table, one dreamy midsummer evening, Mrs. Ware and her daughter, Dorothy. In front of them were small cups of coffee, and such appetising rolls as only the Conditors of the continent can make. The garden was in no wise different from a thousand others to be found in German cities; save only that it was especially happy in its location.

There was a light, gravelly soil; a mult.i.tude of round tables; chairs occupied by a cosmopolitan crew of both s.e.xes; at one end, in the shadow of huge lime trees, was the _Capelle_. Over all was the star-gemmed sky.

The air was sweet with the song of the violins, and the cheery laughter of the many family parties came echoing along from time to time in musical accompaniment. There were German students, with the vari-colored caps and occasional sword-wounds on their faces; officers with clanking swords and clothes fitting in lines that suggested stays; English tourists, easily distinguishable by costumes they would not have dared to startle Hyde Park with; Americans with high pitched voices; and a few Russians, excessively polite of manner and cruel of eye.

Miss Dorothy Ware was engaged in munching at a roll that had been steeping in the strong coffee, when she suddenly turned to her mother with an eager exclamation.

"I declare, mamma," she said, "if there isn't Mr. Wooton coming this way. The idea of meeting him again at all. I'm sure I never thought we would; there are so many people away traveling about this time of the year, and there are so many places. He has just seen us, mamma, and he's coming over here. See he's lifting his hat. I'm glad we've got this vacant chair."

Wooton shook hands with them. "The old plat.i.tude about the world being a very small place seems to strike true," he said. "Do you know, it's a positive relief to talk to people of my own sort once more." He had sat down beside Dorothy, and placed his stick and gloves on the gravel beside him. He looked decidedly handsome; his small mouth seemed smaller than ever, and his face was paler than when he dictated the fortunes of the _Torch_. He was scrupulously dressed; every detail was so nicely adjusted that he would have successfully run the gauntlet of all the comment of Piccadilly and Broadway.

"I've just come from Berlin," he went on, "it was like an oven there.

Nearly everybody was away; some of them in Heringsdorf, some in Switzerland, some down in this district. My compartment in the train was filled with a lot of officers on leave, and they talked army slang until my head swam, and I would have given gold for the sound of an American voice."

"You seem to rush about a good deal," ventured Mrs. Ware. "Didn't we meet you in Schwalbach?"

"Mamma forgets so," put in Dorothy, "she's been meeting so many people, I begin to think she jumbles them all up. But it was in Schwalbach, mamma; you're right. Don't you remember? We were sitting near the Stahlbrunnen, with the Tremonts--we used to set next to them at the Hotel d'Europe--when Mr. Wooton came up and said how-d'ye-do to the Tremonts, and they presented him to us. When Mrs. Tremont was at boarding-school, you know," she went on, turning to Wooton, "she and mamma were great chums. She was a Miss Alexander." She put her hand up to her hat and gave it a mysterious pressure, presumably to rectify some invisible displacement. She turned and looked out into the darkness whence came the sullen swish of the river. "It was delightful in Schwalbach," she said finally.

"It was horribly expensive," commented Mrs. Ware, sipping her coffee.

"But the waters did you good, I hope?" inquired Wooton, suavely solicitous.

"Oh, I guess so. But I don't seem to improve right along, as I should?

But I shouldn't complain. I'm a good deal stouter than when I left home.

Besides, Dorothy is having a right good time."

"Ah," smiled Wooton, to the girl, "you like it--the life here?"

"Yes; I like it. I don't say that I like it better than other things.

But who could help liking that?" She swept her parasol around so that it pointed out toward the river. There was complete darkness there, lit up occasionally by the lights of pa.s.sing steamers. Fog-whistles sounded occasionally; on the opposite sh.o.r.e there was a dim glow of yellow lights. The water sobbed ceaselessly; there was a mist rising, and the steamer lights began to seem hazier than ever, mere golden circles hanging in the dense darkness. The violins were playing something of Waldteufel's.

It was true; not even the most patriotic of Americans could have helped granting that all this was very pleasant. Dorothy Ware had certainly given up being half-hearted in her enthusiasm for European things; they had met so many people and had rubbed up against so much of cosmopolitanism that unconsciously she had come to see that to apply the narrow Lincolnville view to all the people she saw now was a trifle absurd. She gave herself candidly over to enjoy it all. That was what she had come for. And it must be confessed that, during this process of enjoyment, her memories of her former self became ghosts of ever-increasing vagueness. When she caught herself thinking of d.i.c.k Lancaster it was usually to wonder what sort of a girl he had married.

She smiled when she thought of the things he had said to her before they parted. It didn't seem to touch her at all now, and she seemed sure that a man slips out of that sort of thing much earlier than the woman.

They met Wooton a good deal after that. He spent a good deal of time among the pictures, and when they visited the _Gruene Gwoeble_ they found him there. He was invariably bright and amusing; he offered to pilot them and smooth things for them generally; Mrs. Ware began to think he was tremendously nice. She remembered that Miss Alexander--now Mrs. Tremont--had always been one of the most aristocratic of girls; she recalled with something of a shudder, her own awe at her school-mate's lengthy dissertation upon blood and family and kindred subjects. So, she argued, if Wooton was in Mrs. Tremont's set in town, there was certainly not the vestige of a doubt concerning his being eminently the correct thing. She had lived in the country so long herself that she admitted she was no longer able to note the difference between good coin and bad; but she had infinite faith in Mrs. Tremont. Dorothy, too, got to feel that he was very charming; he was so handsome, and dressed so well. It was very pleasant to have him in the party; he added distinction.

Wooton had admitted that he knew young Lancaster; he divined that she had liked the boy; he was wise enough to tell her only pleasant things about d.i.c.k. The only thing Dorothy objected to was that Wooton went about a good deal with the Tremonts. It seemed to her that he was quite devoted to Miss Eugenie.

"I don't like her a bit," she told him rather tactlessly, speaking of Miss Tremont, "she's so supercilious. I never know when she's laughing at me and when she's not listening to me. I suppose she thinks I'm a country chit and don't know anything. But I wouldn't be clever the way she's clever for anything in the world. Why does she have to sneer at innocence and goodness? n.o.body ever accused her of either, did they?"

Which, Wooton thought to himself, was not half bad. As a matter of fact he enjoyed being with Eugene Tremont immensely. She was one of those intensely modern girls that the world is so unhappily rich in just now.

She would talk about any subject under the sun. She declared that she had always cared more for male society anyway; she despised her own s.e.x and said spiteful things about it. She pretended to be completely cognizant of all the wickedness there was in the world; and she went on the presumption that man was a sort of infernal machine that there was unlimited fun--the fun of danger--in handling. Men liked her at first invariably; there was something refreshing and stimulating in the nonchalance with which she tabooed no subject from her conversation; they said to themselves that this was a person, thank goodness, whom one did not eternally have to consider in the light of a s.e.x, but rather of a s.e.xless cleverness. But, somehow or other, her cleverness wearied presently; she palled as all surfaces must inevitably pall. Wooton, however, turned to her because she was of his own special calibre--all cleverness, and no apparent sharply defined system of conduct. With the Wares he was so perpetually on a grid-iron; he was afraid of saying something that would startle them. They amused him, these people, with their simplicity, their taking virtue for granted and vice for an abh.o.r.ent mystery! To talk to them it was necessary to keep a constant check on his cynical; while with Eugene Tremont it was sword to sword, a sharp continuous fencing with verbal weapons.

So, when Dorothy Ware made the cutting little speech about Miss Tremont, Wooton told himself that there was something more than mere dislike for the Boston girl at the bottom of it. Considering the matter, he broke into a laugh. Was it possible, h'm. That would really be too rich.

He began to be seen with the Tremonts oftener than ever. He went with them to the opera, he took a seat in their landau. He went to Teplitz with them.

"They're more in the same set, I suppose," said Mrs. Ware, when Dorothy spoke of it. "He was at college with her brother, too; I guess they talk about him a good deal."

Dorothy guessed that she knew better; but she said nothing. Somehow, Dresden began to seem fearfully dreary. She began importuning her mother to pack up and go to Munich; they had some friends there. Dorothy declared Dresden made her homesick; she said it was all so small and pretty, anyway; it wasn't a metropolis, yet it tried to ape the real article. And then there were so many Americans--you couldn't talk English anywhere without having people understand you, which was distinctly annoying, because occasionally one likes to make personal asides about costumes and hats and complexions--and, well, what was the use of staying there any longer anyhow? But Mrs. Ware declared the climate agreed with her. She said she hadn't felt so well for ever so long, she wasn't going to try any other place as this one agreed with her. Did Dorothy want to see her die? No; Dorothy did not. She submitted, and went about looking dismal.

And then, one day, the sunshine came back into here face once more. It was not that the good fairies had remodeled the town of Dresden; it was not that all English-speaking people had suddenly deserted the place; in fact, it was hard to say just what made the difference. It was just possible that Wooton's return from Teplitz had something to do with the good humor in which Dorothy came back to her mother that noon, after a walk down to the Conditorei. She had almost cannoned into him, rounding a corner; they had shaken hands; he had avowed the pleasure he felt at seeing her again. It is just possible that the sight of this young man was a talisman for Miss Ware's temper; it is at least certain that her melancholia was gone.

He called on them, in a day or so, at their apartments in the Hotel Bellevue. Mrs. Ware was very glad to see him; she was more vivacious than she had yet shown herself. She proposed that they take their coffee out in the garden, on the river front, under the trees. They sat watching the boats, and the little boys paddling about barefooted; it was in the cool of sunset, and there were red bars slanting across the western horizon. It was very pleasant. The waiter moved about noiselessly; there were some children making merry in the swing set up at the far end of the garden.

"Is Teplitz very full?" asked Mrs. Ware.

"Yes; more people than usual, I believe. I should think the hot baths would do you good, too, Mrs. Ware?"

"Oh, I guess I'll stay here awhile yet. I'm getting to feel quite spry again. You left the Tremonts there?"