PAGE 6
An Unpardonable Liar
by
“Good God!” he said in a whisper. “To hear that off here after all these years!” Suddenly the voice stopped. There was a murmur within. It came to him indistinctly. “She has forgotten the rest,” he said. Instantly and almost involuntarily he sang:
“Look up an look aroun,
Fro you burden on de groun.”
Then came the sequel as we described, and his low chanting of the negro woodcutter’s chant. He knew that any who answered it must have lived the life he once lived in Louisiana, for he had never heard it since he had left there, nor any there hum it except those who knew the negroes well. Of an evening, in the hot, placid south, he had listened to it come floating over the sugarcane and through the brake and go creeping weirdly under the magnolia trees. He waited, hoping, almost wildly–he knew it was a wild hope–that there would be a reply. There was none. But presently there came to him Baron’s crude, honest singing:
“For you’ll take the high road, and I’ll take the low road,
And I’ll be in Scotland before you;
But I and my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Ben Lomond.”
Telford drew in his breath sharply, caught his mustache between his teeth savagely for a minute, then let it go with a run of ironical laughter. He looked round him. He saw in the road two or three people who had been attracted by the music. They seemed so curious merely, so apathetic–his feelings were playing at full tide. To him they were the idle, intrusive spectators of his trouble. All else was dark about him save where on the hill the lights of the Tempe hotel showed, and a man and woman, his arm round her, could be seen pacing among the trees. Telford turned away from this, ground his heel into the turf and said: “I wish I could see who she is. Her voice? It’s impossible.” He edged close to the window, where a light showed at the edge of the curtains. Suddenly he pulled up.
“No. Whoever she is I shall know in time. Things come round. It’s almost uncanny as it stands, but then it was uncanny–it has all been so since the start.” He turned to the window again, raised his hat to it, walked quickly out into the road and made his way to the View hotel. As he came upon the veranda Mildred Margrave passed him. He saw the shy look of interest in her face, and with simple courtesy he raised his hat. She bowed and went on. He turned and looked after her; then, shaking his head as if to dismiss an unreasonable thought, entered and went to his room.
About this time the party at Hagar’s rooms was breaking up. There had been more singing by Mrs. Detlor. She ransacked her memory for half remembered melodies–whimsical, arcadian, sad–and Hagar sat watching her, outwardly quiet and appreciative, inwardly under an influence like none he had ever felt before. When his guests were ready, he went with them to their hotel. He saw that Mrs. Detlor shrank from the attendance of the Prince, who insisted on talking of the “stranger in the greenroom.” When they arrived at the hotel, he managed, simply enough, to send the lad on some mission for Mrs. Detlor, which, he was determined, should be permanent so far as that evening was concerned. He was soon walking alone with her on the terrace. He did not force the conversation, nor try to lead it to the event of the evening, which, he felt, was more important than others guessed. He knew also that she did not care to talk just then. He had never had any difficulty in conversation with her–they had a singular rapport. He had traveled much, seen more, remembered everything, was shy to austerity with people who did not interest him, spontaneous with those that did, and yet was never–save to serve a necessary purpose–a hail fellow with any one. He knew that he could be perfectly natural with this woman–say anything that became a man. He was an artist without affectations, a diplomatic man, having great enthusiasm and some outer cynicism. He had started life terribly in earnest before the world. He had changed all that. In society he was a nervous organism gone cold, a deliberate, self-contained man. But insomuch as he was chastened of enthusiasm outwardly he was boyishly earnest inwardly.