Madcap Part 19

"You, child!" he gasped. "What in the name of all that's impossible--"

"John Markham!"

"Good Lord, but you had a close call for it! Couldn't you have waited a moment--"

"It was a new machine," she stammered. "I was trying for a record to Trouville from Paris."

"It was a d--n fool thing to do," he blurted forth angrily. "You might have been killed."

She looked at him, her lips compressed, but made no reply.

The gate-woman, who for a few moments had stood as though petrified with fright, now resumed her screams and gesticulations as the crew of the train descended. In a few moments they surrounded Hermia, all shouting at once, and waving their arms under Hermia's nose. She attempted replies, but the noise was deafening and no one listened to her. Peasants working in the fields nearby who had heard the crash came running and added their numbers and temperaments to the Babel.

The gate-keeper thrust herself violently into the midst of the group pointing at the wreck of the machine and at Hermia, her remarks as unintelligible to the train crew as they were to Markham.

Hermia stood her ground, but when one of the train crew seized her by the arm and thrust his grimy face close to her own she grew pale and drew back. Markham stepped between and gave the fellow a shove which sent him sprawling. There was a pause and for a moment matters looked difficult. But Markham mounted the embankment, drew Hermia up beside him, put his back against a car, held up his hand and in French demanded silence. His voice rang true and they listened. He had seen the accident from the road and would bear witness. It was not the fault of the gate-keeper or of the lady who drove the car. It was simply an accident tin which lives had fortunately been spared. The axle of the machine had broken upon the track. If there was any claim for damages he would testify that the engineer was not to blame.

A man in a peasant's smock from a neighboring field, who, it appeared, held some local office of authority, now took a hand in the investigation and, after a number of questions of Hermia and the gate-keeper, sent the train upon its way.

Amid the turmoil of the gate-keeper's voice who was recounting the affair to the latest arrivals Hermia watched the train as it pa.s.sed between the fragments of what a few minutes before had been a new French machine. Some of the peasants had already gathered around the wreck and one of them restored her leather bag, which had been tossed some distance into the ditch. To all appearances this was the only salvage and she took it gratefully. A walk down the track convinced Markham that what was left of the car was only fit for the sc.r.a.p-heap.

And as the crowd still surrounded Hermia he put his arm in hers and led her away. She followed him silently up the road by which she had come until they had left the gaping crowd behind them. Then he made her sit on a bank by the roadside and unslinging his knapsack dropped beside her. "Well?" he asked.

She looked down the road toward the scene of her misfortune, the smile, half plaintive, half whimsical, that had been hovering on her lips suddenly breaking.

"If you scold me I shall cry."

"I'm not going to scold," he said kindly. "That wouldn't help matters."

"It was such a beautiful piece of mechanism--so human--so intelligent--" a tear trembled on her lashes and fell--"and I've only had it two days."

She was the child with a broken toy. It was the child he wanted to comfort.

"I'm sorry," he said genuinely. "I wish I could put it together for you again."

"It's gone--irretrievably. There's nothing to be done, of course."

And then, "Oh! it seems so cruel! The thing cried out like a wounded animal. You heard it, didn't you? And it was all my fault. That's what hurts me so."

"One gets over being hurt, but one doesn't get over being dead. You only missed being killed by the part of a second."

She dashed the tears form her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Oh, I know. And I'm awfully grateful. I really am. I don't know why I didn't jump sooner. I saw the train, too. I simply couldn't move.

I seemed to be glued there--until you shouted. It was lucky you were there."

She buried her face in her hands a moment and when she straightened was quite calm again.

"It's all over now, Mr. Markham, and I'm awfully obliged," she said with a laugh. "You seem fated to be the recording angel of my maddest ventures."

"It _was_ madness," he insisted.

"I know it," she sighed. "And yet I'm quite sure I would do it again."

"I don't doubt that in the least," he replied gravely, concealing a smile as one would have done from a mischievous child.

There was a silence.

"The world is very small, isn't it, Mr. Markham?" she asked. "What on earth are you doing here?

"I? Oh, vagabonding. It's a habit I have, I'm doing Normandy."

She examined him from top to toe and then said amusedly:

"Did you know that for the past week Olga has been searching Havre high and low for you?"

"No. I didn't know it. Where is she now?"

"At Trouville. And I was to have dined with her tonight."

"I'm afraid you'll hardly get there," he said, looking at his watch.

"This line doesn't connect."

"Doesn't it? Oh, some line will, I suppose." And then irrelevantly, "Do you know, Mr. Markham, I've often wondered what it would be like to be a vagabond? I think I really am one deep down in my heart."

"Vagabonds are born--not made, Miss Challoner. They belong to the immortal Fellows.h.i.+p of the Open Air, an a.s.sociation which dates from Esau--an exclusive company, I can tell you, which black-balled brother Jacob, and made Franois Villon its laureate. It is the only club in the world where the possession of money is looked on with suspicion. Imagine a vagabond in a six thousand-dollar motor car!"

She opened her eyes wide and threw out her hands with a hopeless gesture.

"But I'm not responsible for the money. _I_ didn't make it. I don't see why I haven't just as much right to be a vagabond as you have."

He examined her amusedly.

"You would have the right perhaps if it wasn't for your unfortunate millions. It's too bad. I'm really very sorry for you."

His irony pa.s.sed beyond her.

"I _am_ a vagabond," she insisted. "I haven't a single conventional instinct. I've never had. I hate convention. It fetters and stifles me. My money! If you only knew how I loathe the responsibilities, the endless formalities, the people who prey upon me and those who would like to, the toadying of the older people, the hypocrisy of the younger ones. It isn't me that they care for. I have no friends. No one as rich as I am _can_ have friends. I distrust everyone.

Sometimes I've thought of going away from it all--disappearing and never coming back again. I'm so tired of having everything I want. I want to want something I can't get. I am weary of everything that life can offer me. I have to choose unhealthy excitements to keep my soul alive. Speed--danger--they're the only things that seem to make life worth while."

He shook his head as she paused for breath.

"Oh, I know you think I'm mad. I seem so by contrast to your content.

You seem so happy, Mr. Markham."

"I am," he said. "All vagabonds are happy."

She looked at him enviously as though she might by chance discover his secret of life, but he lit his pipe and puffed at it silently.

"What is your secret of happiness, Mr. Markham?" she asked wistfully.

"Tell me, won't you?"