CHAPTER IV.

Jim discovers his Coral Island.

There has long been abroad in the world a belief that events which bear

some controlling relation to one's destiny are announced by premonition,

some spiritual trepidation, some movement of that curtain which cuts off

our view of the future. I believe this notion to be false, but feel that

it is true; and the manner in which that adventure of mine in the old

art gallery and at Auriccio's impressed my mind, and the way in which my

memory clung to it, seem to justify my feeling rather than my belief.

Whenever I visited Chicago, I went to the gallery, more in the hope of

seeing the girl whose only name to me was "the Empress" than to gratify

my cravings for art. I felt a boundless pity for her--and laughed at

myself for taking so seriously an incident which, in all likelihood, she

herself dismissed with a few tears, a few retrospective burnings of

heart and cheek. But I never saw her. Once I loitered for an hour about

the boarding-house with the vine-clad porch, while the boarders (mostly

students, I judged) came and went; but though I saw many young girls,

the Empress was not among them. And all this time the years were rolling

on, and I was permitting my once bright political career to blight and

wither by my own neglect, as a growth not worth caring for.

I became a private citizen in due time, but found no comfort in leisure.

I was in those doldrums which beset the politician when rivals justle

him from his little eminence. One who, for years, is annually or

biennially complimented by the suffrages of even a few thousands of his

fellow citizens, and is invited into the penetralia of a great political

party, is apt to regard himself, after a while, as peculiarly deserving

of the plaudits of the humble and the consideration of the powerful.

Then comes the inevitable hour when pussy finds himself without a

corner. The deep disgust for party and politics which then takes

possession of him demands change of scene and new surroundings. Any

flagging in partisan enthusiasm is sure to be attributed to

sore-headedness, and leads to charges of perfidy and thanklessness. Yet,

for him, the choice lies between abated zeal and hypocrisy, inasmuch as

no man can normally be as zealous for his party as the fanatic into

which the candidate or incumbent converts himself.

Underlying my whole frame of mind was the knowledge that, so far as

making a career was concerned, I had wasted several years of my life,

and had now to begin anew. Add to this a slight sense of having played

an unworthy part in life (although here I was unable to particularize),

and a new sense of aloofness from the people with whom I had been for

so long on terms of hearty and back-slapping familiarity, and no further

reason need be sought for a desire which came mightily upon me to go

away and begin life over again in a new _milieu_. In spite of the mild

opposition of my wife, this desire grew to a resolve; and I came to look

upon myself as a temporary sojourner in my own home.

Such was the state of our affairs, when a letter came from Mr. Elkins

(in lieu of the promised visit) urging me to remove to the then obscure

but since celebrated town of Lattimore.

"I got to be too rich for Charley Harper's blood," said the letter,

among other things. "I wanted as much in the way of salary as I could

earn, working for myself, and Charley kicked--said the directors

wouldn't consent, and that such a salary list would be a black eye for

the Frugality and Indemnity if it showed up in its statements. So I

quit. I am loan agent for the company here, which gives me a visible

means of support, and keeps me from being vagged. But, in confidence, I

want to tell you that my main graft here is the putting in operation of

my boom-hatching scheme. Come out, and I'll enroll you as a member of

the band once more; for this is the coral atoll for me. You ought to get

out of that stagnant pond of yours, and come where the natatory medium

is fresh, clean, and thickly peopled with suckers, and a new run of 'em

coming on right soon. In other words, get into the swim."

After reading this letter and considering it as a whole, I was so much

impressed by it that Lattimore was added to the list of places I meant

to visit, on a tour I had planned for myself.

In the West, all roads run to or from Chicago. It is nearer to almost

any place by the way of Chicago than by any other route: so Alice and I

went to the city by the lake, as the beginning of our prospecting tour.

I took her to the art gallery and showed her just where my two lovers

had stood,--telling her the story for the first time. Then she wanted to

eat a supper at Auriccio's; and after the play we went there, and I was

forced to describe the whole scene over again.

"Didn't she see you at all?" she asked.

"Not at all," said I.

"You are a good boy," said my wife, judging me by one act which she

approved. "Kiss me."

This occurred after we reached our lodgings. I suggested as a change of

subject that my next day's engagements took me to the Stock Yards, and I

assumed that she would scarcely wish to accompany me.

"I think I prefer the stores," said she, "and the pictures. Maybe _I_

shall have an adventure."

At the big Exchange Building, I found that the acquaintance whom I

sought was absent from his office, and I roamed up and down the

corridors in search of him. As usual the gathering here was intensely

Western. There were bronzed cattlemen from every range from Amarillo to

the Belle Fourche, sturdy buyers of swine from Iowa and Illinois,

sombreroed sheepmen from New Mexico, and vikingesque Swedes from North

Dakota. Men there were wearing thousand-dollar diamonds in red flannel

shirts, solid gold watch-chains made to imitate bridle-bits, and heavy

golden bullocks sliding on horse-hair guards. It pleased me, as such a

crowd always does. The laughter was loud but it was free, and the hunted

look one sees on State Street and Michigan Avenue was absent.

"I wish Alice had come," said I, noting the flutter of skirts in a group

of people in the corridor; and then, as I came near, the press divided,

and I saw something which drew my eyes as to a sight in which lay

mystery to be unraveled.

Facing me stood a stout farmer in a dark suit of common cut and texture.

He seemed, somehow, not entirely strange; but the petite figure of the

girl whose back was turned to me was what fixed my attention.

She wore a smart traveling-gown of some pretty gray fabric, and bore

herself gracefully and with the air of dominating the group of

commission men among whom she stood. I noted the incurved spine, the

deep curves of the waist, and the liberal slope of the hips belonging to

a shapely little woman in whom slimness was mitigated in adorable ways,

which in some remote future bade fair to convert it into matronliness.

Under a broad hat there showed a wealth of red-brown hair, drawn up like

a sunburst from a slender little neck.

"I have provided a box at Hooley's," said the head of a great commission

firm. "Mrs. Johnson will be with us. We may count upon you?"

"I think so," said the girl, "if papa hasn't made any engagements."

The stout farmer blushed as he looked down at his daughter.

"Engagements, eh? No, sir!" he replied. "She runs things after the

steers is unloaded. Whatever the little gal says goes with me."

They turned, and as they came on down the hall, still chatting, I saw

her face, and knew it. It was the Empress! But even in that glimpse I

saw the change which years had brought. Now she ruled instead of

submitting; her voice, still soft and low, had lost its rustic

inflections; and in spite of the change in the surroundings,--the leap

from the art gallery to the Stock Yards,--there was more of the artist

now, and less of the farmer's lass. They turned into a suite of offices

and disappeared.

"Well, Mr. Barslow," said my friend, coming up. "Glad to see you. I've

been hunting for you."

"Who is that girl and her father?" I asked.

"One of the Johnson Commission Company's Shippers," said he, "Prescott,

from Lattimore; I wish I could get his shipments."

"No!" said I, "Not Lattimore!"

"Prescott of Lattimore," he repeated. "Know anything of him?"

"N-no," said I. "I have friends in that town."

"I wish I had," was the reply; "I'd try to get old Prescott's business."

* * * * *

"There's destiny in this," said Alice, when I told her of my encounter

with the Empress and her father. "Her living in Lattimore is not an

accident."

"I doubt," said I, "if anybody's is."

"She looked nice, did she?" Alice went on, "and dressed well?" and

without waiting for an answer added: "Let's leave Chicago. I'm anxious

to get to Lattimore!"