The Trimming of Goosie Part 9

She arrested him with a gesture. "I have loved you long, John," she went on; "I have loved you long--but I have fought it, fought it, fought it, John!"

"And why have you fought it?" he asked, again gently, as to a child.

"Because, John--oh, I don't know. Because, John, there is something within me--which I don't know. Something which yearns, John--for I don't know what. For peaks, John, for skies, for the stars; for--I don't know----"

"Dora, Dora," he said, a bit sadly.

"And so I fought it, John, I fought your love. But it has poured into me, John, as honey fills a chalice; gradually, sweetly, it has filled my veins, my blood, my heart, John. And to-night, John, my whole being was swollen with it, John, with the love of you, John, and I came out to say good-by to the stars----"

"Dora!" he cried again; and this time enveloped her in his arms.

A horrid, impish feeling suddenly p.r.i.c.ked Charles-Norton; taking wing he slid along the veranda and seized, as he pa.s.sed, from the shoulders of the girl, the scarf, from the conceited head of the young man, his derby hat, and flapped off with them in the darkness. The crash of an astonished chair and a faint little cry followed him for a moment, then dropped off behind.

Charles-Norton laughed all the way home. Half-way over he dropped, into the deepest abyss he knew, the derby hat, which arrived at the bottom, no doubt, in very bad condition. But the scarf was still with him as he alighted in the meadow and felt against his hand the humid greeting of Nicodemus, the lonely little donkey.

Across the cabin, as he went to sleep, the empty bunk yawned, somehow, with unusual insistence. "I wonder what Dolly is doing," he said vaguely, as he slid down the slumber-chute.

CHAPTER XII

Dolly was getting along very well, thank you. Mostly, she was reading the papers. For if Charles-Norton thought for a moment that his indiscretions were to go unrecorded, he was very much mistaken.

Cuddled in the big Morris chair of the little flat, a be-ribboned sack loose about her comfortable little body, her head golden in the soft cascade of light falling from the lamp, an open box of candy at her elbow, Dolly was reading the evening paper. It was all about Charles-Norton Sims, the paper, though it did not mention him by name, but variously, according to the temperaments of its correspondents, as a condor, an ichthyosaurus, the moon, an aeroplane, a j.a.panese fleet, a myth, a cloud, a hallucination, a balloon, and a goose. As she read, she alternately frowned and laughed. Her brows would draw together very seriously, and then suddenly her red lips would part to let through a sparkling rocket of laughter, and then her brows would again knit in concern. The laughter was of triumph at seeing her prophecy come true, for of course, all the time, she had known that Charles-Norton, left alone, would make a fool of himself; the concern was at the thought that, still alone, he would continue to make a fool of himself.

"Well," she said finally, as the paper slipped from her knees to the floor; "well, it's about time I rescued the poor dear. I must go to him."

She sat gazing mentally back over the lonely two months, the period of her existence now about to terminate, and was astonished to find that, after all, it had not been so bad. Ever since the first crisis, ever since she had made up her mind to hold on to Charles-Norton, the worst, somehow, had been over. It had seemed as if, that determination once made, there was little left to worry over, that things could not possibly come out wrong, that the cosmos itself was with her. And so, she had not worried. And she had had a pretty good time; a pretty good time. Better, in fact, in some ways than----

"Sh-sh-sh," she hissed, stilling the thought.

But why was that?

Well, first of all, there had been the engrossing mystery of the spring hat; this, followed by the still more exciting problem of the summer hat; and now she was planning for the fall hat--she had seen the cutest feathery toque, that came low down about her face, pushing to all sides little wisps of golden curls and making her look--well, very nice indeed.

Then, of course, there had been less housework, and she had had much more time to herself, more time and more freedom. The acquaintance with Flossie, the young wife of the floor-walker in the flat across the landing, had helped a lot. Together they had plunged deep into the intoxication of the shops. And several times they had gone off, a bit defiantly, on little orgies. They would go to the matinee, and then have a chocolate ice-cream soda at Huyler's, and called that "having a fling."

All this, of course, had been impossible when Charles-Norton had been about. But why? Oh, because he worked so hard, and there wasn't much, there wasn't so much----

Dolly paused and blushed. "Oh, that money," she said deprecatingly; "that horrid, horrid mon----"

She rose to her feet to a sudden new thought and went into her room, where from beneath ribbons, stockings, gloves, and theater-programmes, she drew out of a drawer a little yellow book and a longer, more narrow, green one.

When she returned, she was a bit pale, and sank rather limply into her chair. "Ooh," she exclaimed disconsolately; "ooh, now I've _got_ to get to him; get to him _soon_!"

Go to him. But where--how--where?

She knew where he was now, it is true--but only relatively. The first report of his antics had come from a little town in the California foothills; the second from a summer resort in a Valley of the Californian Sierra. He was being reported pretty well all over the United States now, but the first news in all probability were the only valuable clew. They were desolately vague though. A man who flies covers much ground. Where did he sleep? Where was his lair--or his nest, rather? It was sleeping, not flying, that he was to be caught. How could she locate him? It would take time, to do this, and money. And the check-book--oh, Lordie, that check-book!

Little Dolly, always at the bottom a pretty level-headed creature, had become wonderfully patient in the past month. Patient with a determination fixed as a star, as a law of Nature; a determination which was stronger far than herself; which was outside herself; which she could feel, almost, a huge pressure behind her, as of great reservoirs filled through trickling aeons; and which astonished her. She had written of it, once, to her aunt.

"Dear Dolly," had answered this Darwinian lady; "you are right. It is not of you. It is of all women that have gone before you, of the millions and millions of women who have fought, and plotted, and intrigued in order to keep alive the spark of Life and hand it down to you. It is, Dolly, the Persistence of Woman; the inexorable persistence of Woman, Dolly, holding Man. Holding Man, Dolly, in spite of his superior physical strength, of his superior brutality; holding him through the ages. The terrific persistence of Woman holding Man, Dolly, Man--the restless, the moody, the incomprehensible; the erratic one, ever dissatisfied, ever bounding to the end of his chain in blind surges toward painted things of the air which _we_ know do not exist.

"Oh, no; you cannot help it, dear little Dolly. Cling, Dolly, cling!"

"That's horrid," Dolly had said, when she had finished this epistle.

And then, after a while, but this time with a smile; "how _perfectly_ horrid!"

But now, this patience, this persistence, was indeed a precious thing. It enabled her to wait calmly for the turn of chance which would enable her to find Charles-Norton. She read the papers every day. Truth to tell, they promised little help, for by this time they were announcing Charles-Norton simultaneously in New Orleans, Quebec, Key West, and Victoria. Wisely, Dolly had preserved the first clippings. And after all, it was from the papers that was to come the solution. The paper, one morning, after describing appearances of Charles-Norton in Vladivostock, Paris, and Timbuctoo, had slid from her knees to the floor, when her eyes lit upon an advertis.e.m.e.nt on the up-turned back-page.

BISON BILLIAM

AND

HIS WORLD-RENOWNED WILD-WEST SHOW

PERMANENTLY

NOW

AT THE HIPPODROME

NIGHTLY

HENRIQUE FARMANO, IN HIS AEROPLANE,

WILL FLY FIFTY FEET!!

"Ooh!" said Dolly, suddenly clapping both her hands to her heart; "ooh, I've got it!"

She sat there, a little weak with excitement, while a rosiness came to her cheeks and a light in her eyes. "Yes," she said at length; "yes; that's it!"

Upon which she dressed very carefully, put on her hat, and went downtown to the Hippodrome.

Once there, she hesitated a moment before the glazed-gla.s.s door with its shining bra.s.s plate, then knocked like a little mouse. A big ba.s.s voice told her to come in.

The owner of the voice was seated at the desk, leaning back in his rolling-chair, a big firecracker of a cigar in the corner of his mouth.

His feet were on the desk, and Dolly noticed them first: they were encased in high-heeled boots that seemed very soft and fitted like gloves. A soft, wide-brimmed felt hat sat rakishly upon his head. Hat, cigar, and boots dropped to a simultaneous disappearance. The man rose, and Dolly saw that his hair was very white and long, and cascaded in curls to his shoulders; and that, what with this hair, the little white goatee at the end of his chin, and the long rapier-like mustachios, of the same color, upon his upper lip, he looked like a French musketeer of the seventeenth century. He bowed, sweepingly. Now he was like a Spanish grandee. But the little eyes beneath his bushy eyebrows were blue and shrewd.

Recovering from her first movement of surprise, Dolly made straight for the desk, her eyes set, her lips firm. "Mr. Bison Billiam?" she asked.

He bowed again in a.s.sent. "And at your service, madam," he said, and bent his head down toward her in courteous attention.

But at the first rush of words from her, an agitation came over him; his shrewd little eyes flitted here and there about the room as though suspicious. He stopped her with a wide gesture. "Sh-sh," he hissed gently; "this is very important indeed; we must not be overheard. Won't you step into my private office. Do me this favor," he asked, opening a heavily-paneled door behind him.