Active Service Part 13

She lifted her finely penciled eyebrows and looked at him with the baby-stare. " How ? " she enquired.

" You know well enough," he gritted out wrathfully.

"Raising the very devil?" she asked. " How do you mean?"

She was palpably interested for his answer. She waited for his reply for an interval, and then she asked him outright. " Rufus Coleman do you mean that I am not a respectable woman ? "

In reality he had meant nothing of the kind, but this direct throttling of a great question stupefied him utterly, for he saw now that she' would probably never understand him in the least and that she would at any rate always pretend not to understand him and that the more he said the more harm he manufactured. She studied him over carefully and then wheeled her horse towards the rear with some parting remarks. " I suppose you should attend more strictly to your own affairs, Rufus. Instead of raising the devil I am lending hairpins. I have seen you insult people, but I have never seen you insult anyone quite for the whim of the thing.

Go soak your head."

Not considering it advisable to then indulge in such immersion Coleman rode moodily onward. The hot dust continued to sting the cheeks of the travellers and in some places great clouds of dead leaves roared in circles about them.

All of the Wainwright party were utterly f.a.gged. Coleman felt his skin crackle and his throat seemed to be coated with the white dust. He worried his dragoman as to the distance to Arta until the dragoman lied to the point where he always declared that Arta was only off some hundreds of yards.

At their places in the procession Mrs. Wainwright and Marjory were animatedly talking to Nora and the old lady on the little pony. They had at first suffered great amazement at the voluntary presence of the old lady, but she was there really because she knew no better. Her colossal ignorance took the form, mainly, of a most obstreperous patriotism, and indeed she always acted in a foreign country as if she were the special commissioner of the President, or perhaps as a special commissioner could not act at all. She was very aggressive, and when any of the travelling arrangements in Europe did not suit her ideas she was won't to shrilly exclaim: " Well ! New York is good enough for me." Nora, morbidly afraid that her ex- pense bill to the Daylight would not be large enough, had dragged her bodily off to Greece as her companion, friend and protection. At Arta they had heard of the grand success of the Greek army. The Turks had not stood for a moment before that gallant and terrible advance; no; they had scampered howling with fear into the north. Jannina would fall-well, Jannina would fall as soon as the Greeks arrived. There was no doubt of it. The correspondent and her friend, deluded and hurried by the light-hearted confidence of the Greeks in Arta, had hastened out then on a regular tourist's excursion to see Jannina after its capture. Nora concealed from her friend the fact that the editor of the Daylight particularly wished her to see a battle so that she might write an article on actual warfare from a woman's point of view.

With her name as a queen of comic opera, such an article from her pen would be a burning, sensation.

Coleman had been the first to point out to Nora that instead of going on a picnic to Jannina, she had better run back to Arta. When the old lady heard that they had not been entirely safe, she was furious with Nora. "The idea!" she exclaimed to Mrs. Wainwright. "They might have caught us! They might have caught us ! "

" Well," said Mrs. Wainwright. " I verily believe they would have caught us if it had not been for Mr. Coleman."

" Is he the gentleman on the fine horse?"

" Yes; that's him. Oh, he has been sim-plee splendid. I confess I was a little bit-er-surprised. He was in college under my husband. I don't know that we thought very great things of him, but if ever a man won golden opinions he has done so from us."

" Oh, that must be the Coleman who is such a great friend of Nora's."

"Yes?" said Mrs. Wainwright insidiously. "Is he? I didn't know. Of course he knows so many people." Her mind had been suddenly illumined by the old lady and she thought extravagantly of the arrival of Nora upon the scene. She remained all sweetness to the old lady. "Did you know he was here? Did you expect to meet him? I seemed such a delightful coincidence." In truth she was being subterraneously clever.

" Oh, no; I don't think so. I didn't hear Nora mention it. Of course she would have told me. You know, our coming to Greece was such a surprise. Nora had an engagement in London at the Folly Theatre in Fly by Night, but the manager was insufferable, oh, insufferable. So, of course, Nora wouldn't stand it a minute, and then these newspaper people came along and asked her to go to Greece for them and she accepted. I am sure I never expected to find us-aw-fleeing from the Turks or I shouldn't have Come."

" Mrs. Wainwright was gasping. " You don't mean that she is-- she is Nora Black, the actress."

" Of course she is," said the old lady jubilantly.

" Why, how strange," choked Mrs. Wainwrignt. Nothing she knew of Nora could account for her stupefaction and grief.

What happened glaringly to her was the duplicity of man.

Coleman was a ribald deceiver. He must have known and yet he had pretended throughout that the meeting was a pure accident She turned with a nervous impulse to sympathist with her daughter, but despite the lovely tranquillity of the girl's face there was something about her which forbade the mother to meddle. Anyhow Mrs. Wainwright was sorry that she had told nice things of Coleman's behaviour, so she said to the old lady: " Young men of these times get a false age so quickly. We have always thought it a great pity, about Mr. Coleman."

"Why, how so ? " asked the old lady.

"Oh, really nothing. Only, to us he seemed rather --er- prematurely experienced or something of that kind.

The old lady did not catch the meaning of the phrase.

She seemed surprised. " Why, I've never seen any full-grown person in this world who got experience any too quick for his own good."

At the tail of the procession there was talk between the two students who had in charge the little grey horse-one to lead and one to flog. " Billie," said one, " it now becomes necessary to lose this hobby into the hands of some of the other fellows. Whereby we will gain opportunity to pay homage to the great Nora. Why, you egregious thick-head, this is the chance of a life-time. I'm d.a.m.ned if I'm going to tow this beast of burden much further."

" You wouldn't stand a show," said Billie pessimistically. " Look at Coleman."

" That's all right. Do you mean to say that you prefer to continue towing pack horses in the presence of this queen of song and the dance just because you think Coleman can throw out his chest a little more than you. Not so. Think of your bright and sparkling youth. There's c.o.ke and Pete Tounley near Marjory. We'll call 'em." Whereupon he set up a cry. " Say, you people, we're not getting a, salary for this. Supposin' you try for a time. It'll do you good." When the two addressed bad halted to await the arrival of the little grey horse, they took on glum expressions. " You look like poisoned pups," said the student who led the horse. " Too strong for light work. Grab onto the halter, now, Peter, and tow.

We are going ahead to talk to Nora Black."

" Good time you'll have," answered Peter Tounley.

" Coleman is cuttin' up scandalous. You won't stand a show."

" What do you think of him ? " said c.o.ke. " Seems curious, all 'round. Do you suppose he knew she would show up? It was nervy to--"

" Nervy to what? " asked Billie.

"Well," said c.o.ke, " seems to me he is playing both ends against the middle. I don't know anything about Nora Black, but-"

The three other students expressed themselves with conviction and in chorus. " Coleman's all right."

" Well, anyhow," continued c.o.ke, " I don't see my way free to admiring him introducing Nora Black to the Wainwrights."

" He didn't," said the others, still in chorus.

" Queer game," said Peter Tounley. " He seems to know her pretty well."

" Pretty d.a.m.n well," said Billie.

"Anyhow he's a brick," said Peter Tounley. "We mustn't forget that. Lo, I begin to feel that our Rufus is a fly guy of many different kinds. Any play that he is in commands my respect. He won't be hit by a chimney in the daytime, for unto him has come much wisdom, I don't think I'll worry."

"Is he stuck on Nora Black, do you know?" asked Billie.

" One thing is plain," replied c.o.ke. " She has got him somehow by the short hair and she intends him to holler murder. Anybody can see that."

" Well, he won't holler murder," said one of them with conviction. " I'll bet you he won't. He'll hammer the war-post and beat the tom-tom until he drops, but he won't holler murder."

" Old Mother Wainwright will be in his wool presently,"

quoth Peter Tounley musingly, " I could see it coming in her eye. Somebody has given his snap away, or something."

" Aw, he had no snap," said Billie. " Couldn't you see how rattled he was? He would have given a lac if dear Nora hadn't turned up."

"Of course," the others a.s.sented. "He was rattled."

" Looks queer. And nasty," said c.o.ke.

" Nora herself had an axe ready for him."

They began to laugh. " If she had had an umbrella she would have basted him over the head with it. Oh, my! He was green."

" Nevertheless," said Peter Tounley, " I refuse to worry over our Rufus. When he can't take care of himself the rest of us want to hunt cover. He is a fly guy-"

Coleman in the meantime had become aware that the light of Mrs. Wainwright's countenance was turned from him. The party stopped at a well, and when he offered her a drink from his cup he thought she accepted it with scant thanks. Marjory was still gracious, always gracious, but this did not rea.s.sure him, because he felt there was much unfathomable deception in it. When he turned to seek consolation in the manner of the professor he found him as before, stunned with surprise, and the only idea he had was to be as tractable as a child.

When he returned to the head of the column, Nora again cantered forward to join him. " Well, me gay Lochinvar," she cried, " and has your disposition improved? "

" You are very fresh," he said.

She laughed loud enough to be heard the full length of the caravan. It was a beautiful laugh, but full of insolence and confidence. He flashed his eyes malignantly upon her, but then she only laughed more. She could see that he wished to strangle her. " What a disposition ! " she said. " What a disposition ! You are not. nearly so nice as your friends. Now, they are charming, but you-Rufus, I wish you would get that temper mended. Dear Rufus, do it to please me. You know you like to please me. Don't you now, dear? "