CHAPTER IX

COLONEL CAXLEY-WEBSTER

Abbott's studio was under the roof of one of the little hotels that stand

timorously and humbly, yet expectantly, between the imposing cream-stucco

of the Grand Hotel at one end and the elaborate pink-stucco of the Grande

Bretegne at the other. The hobnailed shoes of the Teuton (who wears his

mountain kit all the way from Hamburg to Palermo) wore up and down the

stairs all day; and the racket from the hucksters' carts and hotel

omnibuses, arriving and departing from the steamboat landing, the shouts

of the begging boatmen, the quarreling of the children and the barking of

unpedigreed dogs,--these noises were incessant from dawn until sunset.

The artist glared down from his square window at the ruffled waters, or

scowled at the fleeting snows on the mountains over the way. He passed

some ten or twelve minutes in this useless occupation, but he could not

get away from the bald fact that he had acted like a petulant child. To

have shown his hand so openly, simply because the Barone had beaten him in

the race for the motor-boat! And Nora would understand that he was weak

and without backbone. Harrigan himself must have reasoned out the cause

for such asinine plays as he had executed in the game of checkers. How

many times had the old man called out to him to wake up and move? In

spirit he had been across the lake, a spirit in Hades. He was not only a

fool, but a coward likewise. He had not dared to

"... put it to the touch

To gain or lose it all."

He saw it coming: before long he and that Italian would be at each other's

throats.

"Come in!" he called, in response to a sudden thunder on the door.

The door opened and a short, energetic old man, purple-visaged and

hawk-eyed, came in. "Why the devil don't you join the Trappist monks,

Abbott? If I wasn't tough I should have died of apoplexy on the second

landing."

"Good morning, Colonel!" Abbott laughed and rolled out the patent rocker

for his guest. "What's on your mind this morning? I can give you one

without ice."

"I'll take it neat, my boy. I'm not thirsty, I'm faint. These Italian

architects; they call three ladders flights of stairs! ... Ha! That's

Irish whisky, and jolly fine. Want you to come over and take tea this

afternoon. I'm going up presently to see the Harrigans. Thought I'd go

around and do the thing informally. Taken a fancy to the old chap. He's a

little bit of all right. I'm no older than he is, but look at the

difference! Whisky and soda, that's the racket. Not by the tubful; just an

ordinary half dozen a day, and a dem climate thrown in."

"Difference in training."

"Rot! It's the sized hat a man wears. I'd give fifty guineas to see the

old fellow in action. But, I say; recall the argument we had before you

went to Paris?"

"Yes."

"Well, I win. Saw him bang across the street this morning."

Abbott muttered something.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Sounded like 'dem it' to me."

"Maybe it did."

"Heard about him in Paris?"

"No."

"The old boy had transferred his regiment to a lonesome post in the North

to cool his blood. The youngster took the next train to Paris. He was

there incognito for two weeks before they found him and bundled him back.

Of course, every one knows that he is but a crazy lad who's had too much

freedom." The colonel emptied his glass. "I feel dem sorry for Nora. She's

the right sort. But a woman can't take a man by the scruff of his neck and

chuck him."

"But I can," declared Abbott savagely.

"Tut, tut! He'd eat you alive. Besides, you will find him too clever to

give you an opening. But he'll bear watching. He's capable of putting her

on a train and running away with her. Between you and me, I don't blame

him. What's the matter with sicking the Barone on him? He's the best man

in Southern Italy with foils and broadswords. Sic 'em, Towser; sic 'em!"

The old fire-eater chuckled.

The subject was extremely distasteful to the artist. The colonel, a rough

soldier, whose diplomacy had never risen above the heights of clubbing a

recalcitrant Hill man into submission, baldly inferred that he understood

the artist's interest in the rose of the Harrigan family. He would have

liked to talk more in regard to the interloper, but it would have been

sheer folly. The colonel, in his blundering way, would have brought up the

subject again at tea-time and put everybody on edge. He had, unfortunately

for his friends, a reputation other than that of a soldier: he posed as a

peacemaker. He saw trouble where none existed, and the way he patched up

imaginary quarrels would have strained the patience of Job. Still, every

one loved him, though they lived in mortal fear of him. So Abbott came

about quickly and sailed against the wind.

"By the way," he said, "I wish you would let me sketch that servant of

yours. He's got a profile like a medallion. Where did you pick him up?"

"In the Hills. He's a Sikh, and a first-class fighting man. Didn't know

that you went for faces."

"Not as a usual thing. Just want it for my own use. How does he keep his

beard combed that way?"

"I've never bothered myself about the curl of his whiskers. Are my clothes

laid out? Luggage attended to? Guns shipshape? That's enough for me. Some

day you have got to go out there with me."

"Never shot a gun in all my life. I don't know which end to hold at my

shoulder."

"Teach you quick enough. Every man's a born hunter. Rao will have tigers

eating out of your hand. He's a marvel; saved my hide more than once.

Funny thing; you can't show 'em that you're grateful. Lose caste if you

do. I rather miss it. Get the East in your blood and you'll never get it

out. Fascinating! But my liver turned over once too many times. Ha! Some

one coming up to buy a picture."

The step outside was firm and unwearied by the climb. The door opened

unceremoniously, and Courtlandt came in. He stared at the colonel and the

colonel returned the stare.

"Caxley-Webster! Well, I say, this globe goes on shrinking every day!"

cried Courtlandt.

The two pumped hands energetically, sizing each other up critically. Then

they sat down and shot questions, while Abbott looked on bewildered.

Elephants and tigers and chittahs and wild boar and quail-running and

strange guttural names; weltering nights in the jungles, freezing mornings

in the Hills; stupendous card games; and what had become of so-and-so, who

always drank his whisky neat; and what's-his-name, who invented cures for

snake bites!

Abbott deliberately pushed over an oak bench. "Am I host here or not?"

"Abby, old man, how are you?" said Courtlandt, smiling warmly and holding

out his hand. "My apologies; but the colonel and I never expected to see

each other again. And I find him talking with you up here under this roof.

It's marvelous."

"It's a wonder you wouldn't drop a fellow a line," said Abbott, in a

faultfinding tone, as he righted the bench. "When did you come?"

"Last night. Came up from Como."

"Going to stay long?"

"That depends. I am really on my way to Zermatt. I've a hankering to have

another try at the Matterhorn."

"Think of that!" exclaimed the colonel. "He says another try."

"You came a roundabout way," was the artist's comment.

"Oh, that's because I left Paris for Brescia. They had some good flights

there. Wonderful year! They cross the Channel in an airship and discover

the North Pole."

"Pah! Neither will be of any use to humanity; merely a fine sporting

proposition." The colonel dug into his pocket for his pipe. "But what do

you think of Germany?"

"Fine country," answered Courtlandt, rising and going to a window; "fine

people, too. Why?"

"Do you--er--think they could whip us?"

"On land, yes."

"The devil!"

"On water, no."

"Thanks. In other words, you believe our chances equal?"

"So equal that all this war-scare is piffle. But I rather like to see you

English get up in the air occasionally. It will do you good. You've an

idea because you walloped Napoleon that you're the same race you were

then, and you are not. The English-speaking races, as the first soldiers,

have ceased to be."

"Well, I be dem!" gasped the colonel.

"It's the truth. Take the American: he thinks there is nothing in the

world but money. Take the Britisher: to him caste is everything. Take the

money out of one man's mind and the importance of being well-born out of

the other...." He turned from the window and smiled at the artist and the

empurpling Anglo-Indian.

"Abbott," growled the soldier, "that man will some day drive me amuck.

What do you think? One night, on a tiger hunt, he got me into an argument

like this. A brute of a beast jumped into the middle of it. Courtlandt

shot him on the second bound, and turned to me with--'Well, as I was

saying!' I don't know to this day whether it was nerve or what you

Americans call gall."

"Divided by two," grinned Abbott.

"Ha, I see; half nerve and half gall. I'll remember that. But we were

talking of airships."

"I was," retorted Courtlandt. "You were the man who started the powwow."

He looked down into the street with sudden interest. "Who is that?"

The colonel and Abbott hurried across the room.

"What did I say, Abbott? I told you I saw him. He's crazy; fact. Thinks he

can travel around incognito when there isn't a magazine on earth that

hasn't printed his picture."

"Well, why shouldn't he travel around if he wants to?" asked Courtlandt

coolly.

The colonel nudged the artist.

"There happens to be an attraction in Bellaggio," said Abbott irritably.

"The moth and the candle," supplemented the colonel, peering over

Courtlandt's shoulder. "He's well set up," grudgingly admitted the old

fellow.

"The moth and the candle," mused Courtlandt. "That will be Nora Harrigan.

How long has this infatuation been going on?"

"Year and a half."

"And the other side?"

"There isn't any other side," exploded the artist. "She's worried to

death. Not a day passes but some scurrilous penny-a-liner springs some

yarn, some beastly innuendo. She's been dodging the fellow for months. In

Paris last year she couldn't move without running into him. This year she

changed her apartment, and gave orders at the Opera to refuse her address

to all who asked for it. Consequently she had some peace. I don't know why

it is, but a woman in public life seems to be a target."

"The penalty of beauty, Abby. Homely women seldom are annoyed, unless they

become suffragists." The colonel poured forth a dense cloud of smoke.

"What brand is that, Colonel?" asked Courtlandt, choking.

The colonel generously produced his pouch.

"No, no! I was about to observe that it isn't ambrosia."

"Rotter!" The soldier dug the offender in the ribs. "I am going to have

the Harrigans over for tea this afternoon. Come over! You'll like the

family. The girl is charming; and the father is a sportsman to the

backbone. Some silly fools laugh behind his back, but never before his

face. And my word, I know rafts of gentlemen who are not fit to stand in

his shoes."

"I should like to meet Mr. Harrigan." Courtlandt returned his gaze to the

window once more.

"And his daughter?" said Abbott, curiously.

"Oh, surely!"

"I may count on you, then?" The colonel stowed away the offending brier.

"And you can stay to dinner."

"I'll take the dinner end of the invitation," was the reply. "I've got to

go over to Menaggio to see about some papers to be signed. If I can make

the three o'clock boat in returning, you'll see me at tea. Dinner at all

events. I'm off."

"Do you mean to stand there and tell me that you have important business?"

jeered Abbott.

"My boy, the reason I'm on trains and boats, year in and year out, is in

the vain endeavor to escape important business. Now and then I am rounded

up. Were you ever hunted by money?" humorously.

"No," answered the Englishman sadly. "But I know one thing: I'd throw the

race at the starting-post. Millions, Abbott, and to be obliged to run away

from them! If the deserts hadn't dried up all my tears, I should weep. Why

don't you hire a private secretary to handle your affairs?"

"And have him following at my heels?" Courtlandt gazed at his lean brown

hands. "When these begin to shake, I'll do so. Well, I shall see you both

at dinner, whatever happens."

"That's Courtlandt," said Abbott, when his friend was gone. "You think

he's in Singapore, the door opens and in he walks; never any letter or

announcement. He arrives, that's all."

"Strikes me," returned the other, polishing his glass, holding it up to

the light, and then screwing it into his eye; "strikes me, he wasn't

overanxious to have that dish of tea. Afraid of women?"

"Afraid of women! Why, man, he backed two musical shows in the States a

few years ago."

"Musical comedies?" The glass dropped from the colonel's eye. "That's

going tigers one better. Forty women, all waiting to be stars, and solemn

Courtlandt wandering among them as the god of amity! Afraid of them! Of

course he is. Who wouldn't be, after such an experience?" The colonel

laughed. "Never had any serious affair?"

"Never heard of one. There was some tommy-rot about a Mahommedan princess

in the newspapers; but I knew there was no truth in that. Queer fellow! He

wouldn't take the trouble to deny it."

"Never showed any signs of being a woman-hater?"

"No, not the least in the world. But to shy at meeting Nora Harrigan...."

"There you have it; the privilege of the gods. Perhaps he really has

business in Menaggio. What'll we do with the other beggar?"

"Knock his head off, if he bothers her."

"Better turn the job over to Courtlandt, then. You're in the light-weight

class, and Courtlandt is the best amateur for his weight I ever saw."

"What, boxes?"

"A tough 'un. I had a corporal who beat any one in Northern India.

Courtlandt put on the gloves with him and had him begging in the third

round."

"I never knew that before. He's as full of surprises as a rummage bag."

Courtlandt walked up the street leisurely, idly pausing now and then

before the shop-windows. Apparently he had neither object nor destination;

yet his mind was busy, so busy in fact that he looked at the various

curios without truly seeing them at all. A delicate situation, which

needed the lightest handling, confronted him. He must wait for an overt

act, then he might proceed as he pleased. How really helpless he was! He

could not force her hand because she held all the cards and he none. Yet

he was determined this time to play the game to the end, even if the task

was equal to all those of Hercules rolled into one, and none of the gods

on his side.

At the hotel he asked for his mail, and was given a formidable packet

which, with a sigh of discontent, he slipped into a pocket, strolled out

into the garden by the water, and sat down to read. To his surprise there

was a note, without stamp or postmark. He opened it, mildly curious to

learn who it was that had discovered his presence in Bellaggio so quickly.

The envelope contained nothing more than a neatly folded bank-note for one

hundred francs. He eyed it stupidly. What might this mean? He unfolded it

and smoothed it out across his knee, and the haze of puzzlement drifted

away. Three bars from _La Boheme_. He laughed. So the little lady of the

Taverne Royale was in Bellaggio!