very pretty there. Why don’t you think I am likely to remain?”
“You won’t remain,” he repeated. “You’ve slipped your cable. You’re hoisting sail. And it worries me a little.”
The girl laughed. “It’s a pretty place, Shadow Hill, but it’s dull. Everybody in the town is dull, stupid, and perfectly satisfied: everybody owns at least that acre which Ilse demands; there’s no discontent at Shadow Hill, and no reason for it. I really couldn’t bear it,” she added gaily; “I want to go where there’s healthy discontent, wholesome competition, natural aspiration––where things must be bettered, set right, helped. You understand? That is where I wish to be.”
Brisson heard her. “Can’t you practise your loving but godless creed at Shadow Hill?” he inquired, amused. “Can’t you lavish love on the contented and well-to-do?”
“Yes, Mr. Brisson,” she replied with sweet irony, “but where the poor and loveless fight an ever losing battle is still a better place for me to practise my godless creed and my Law of Love.”
“Aha!” he retorted, “––a brand new excuse for living in New York because all young girls love it!”
“Indeed,” she said with some little heat, “I certainly do intend to live and not to stagnate! I intend to live as hard as I can––live and enjoy life with all my might! Can one serve the world better than by loving it enough to live one’s own life through to the last happy rags? Can one give one’s fellow creatures a better example than to live every moment happily and proclaim the world good to live in, and mankind good to live with?”
27
Ilse whispered, leaning near: “Don’t take any more champagne, Palla.”
The girl frowned, then looked serious: “No, I won’t,” she said naïvely. “But it is wonderful how eloquent it makes one feel, isn’t it?”
And to Estridge: “You know that this is quite the first wine I have ever tasted––except at Communion. I was brought up to think it meant destruction. And afterward, wherever I travelled to study, the old prejudice continued to guide me. And after that, even when I began to think of taking the veil, I made abstinence one of my first preliminary vows. … And look what I’ve been doing to-night!”
She held up her glass, tasted it, emptied it.
“There,” she said, “I desired to shock you. I don’t really want any more. Shall we dance? Ilse! Why don’t you seize Mr. Brisson and make him two-step?”
“Please seize me,” added Brisson gravely.
Ilse rose, big, fresh, smilingly inviting; Brisson inspected her seriously––he was only half as tall––then he politely encircled her waist and led her out.
They danced as though they could not get enough of it––exhilaration due to reaction from the long strain during dangerous days.
It was already morning, but they danced on. Palla’s delicate intoxication passed––returned––passed––hovered like a rosy light in her brain, but faded always as she danced.
There were snapping-crackers and paper caps; and they put them on and pelted each other with the drooping table flowers.
Then Estridge went to the piano and sang an ancient song, called “The Cork Leg”––not very well––but well intended and in a gay and inoffensive voice.
28
But Ilse sang some wonderful songs which she had learned in the Battalion of Death.
And that is what was being done when a waiter knocked and asked whether they might desire to order breakfast.
That ended it. The hour of parting had arrived.
No longer bored with one another, they shook hands cordially, regretfully.
It was not a very long time, as time is computed, before these four met again.
29
CHAPTER III
The dingy little Danish steamer Elsinore passed in at dawn, her camouflage obscured by sea-salt, her few passengers still prostrated from the long battering administered by the giant seas of the northern route.
A lone Yankee soldier was aboard––an indignant lieutenant of infantry named Shotwell––sent home from a fighting regiment to instruct the ambitious rookie at Camp Upton.
He had hailed his assignment with delight, thankfully rid himself of his cooties, reported in Paris, reported in London; received orders to depart via Denmark; and, his mission there fullfilled, he had sailed on the Elsinore, already disenchanted with his job and longing to be back with his regiment.
And now, surly from sea-sickness, worried by peace rumours, but still believing that the war would last another year and hopeful of getting back before it ended, he emerged from his stuffy quarters aboard the Elsinore and gazed without enthusiasm at the minarets of Coney Island, now visible off the starboard bow.
Near him, in pasty-faced and shaky groups, huddled his fellow passengers, whom he had not seen during the voyage except when lined up for life-drill.
He had not wished to see them, either, nor, probably, 30 had they desired to lavish social attentions on him or upon one another.
These pallid, discouraged voyagers were few––not two dozen cabin passengers in all.
Who they might be he had no curiosity to know; he had not exchanged ten words with any of them during the entire and nauseating voyage; he certainly did not intend to do so now.
He favoured them with a savage glance and walked over to the port side––the Jersey side––where there seemed to be nobody except a tired Scandinavian sailor or two.
In the grey of morning the Hook loomed up above the sea, gloomy as a thunder-head charged with lightning.
After a while the batteries along the Narrows slipped into view. Farther on, camouflaged ships rode sullenly at anchor, as though ashamed of their frivolous and undignified appearance. A battleship was just leaving the Lower Bay, smoke pouring from every funnel. Destroyers and chasers rushed by them, headed seaward.
Then, high over the shore mists and dimly visible through rising vapours, came speeding a colossal phantom.
Vague as a shark’s long shadow sheering translucent depths, the huge dirigible swept eastward and slid into the Long Island fog.
And at that moment somebody walked plump into young Shotwell; and the soft, fragrant shock knocked the breath out of both.
She recovered hers first:
“I’m sorry!” she faltered. “It was stupid. I was 31 watching the balloon and not looking where I was going. I’m afraid I hurt you.”
