Quick Action

by Robert W. Chambers

  XXXI

  Toward sunset he came to, partially, passed his hand across hisenchanted eyes, and rose from the hammock beside her.

  "Dearest," he said, "that swamp ought to be partly drained by this time.Suppose we walk over before dinner and take a look?"

  Still confused by the sweetness of her dream, she sat up, and he drewher to her feet, where she stood twisting up her beautiful hair, halfsmiling, shy, adorable.

  Then together they walked slowly out along the Causeway, so absorbed ineach other that already they had forgotten the explosion, and even theMaltese cross itself.

  It was only when they were halted by the great gap in the Causeway thatJean Sandys glanced to the left, over a vast bed of shining mud, wherebefore blue wavelets had lapped the base of the Causeway.

  Then her vaguely smiling eyes flew wide open; she caught her lover's armin an excited clasp.

  "O Jim!" she exclaimed. "Look! Look! It is true! It is true! _Look_ atthe bed of the lake!"

  They stood trembling and staring at the low, squat, windowless coquinahouse, reeking with the silt of centuries, crawling with stranded watercreatures.

  The stones that had blocked the door had fallen before the shock of thedynamite.

  "Good God!" he whispered. "_Do you see what is inside?_"

  But Jean Sandys, calmly looking untold wealth in its glittering face,sighed, smiled, and turned her blue gaze on her lover, finding in hiseyes the only miracle that now had power to hold her undividedattention.

  For it is that way with some girls.

  * * * * *

  But the novelist, unable to endure a dose of his own technique, could nolonger control his impatience:

  "What in God's name was there in that stone house!" he burst out.

  "Oh, Lord!" muttered Stafford, "it is two hours after midnight."

  He rose, bent over the girl's hand, and kissed the emerald on the thirdfinger.

  Figure after figure, tall, shadowy, leisurely followed his example,while her little hand lay listlessly on the silken cushions and herdreaming eyes seemed to see nobody.

  Duane and I remained for a while seated, then in silence,--which Athaliefinally broke for us:

  "Patience," she said, "is the art of hoping.... Good-night."

  I rose; she looked up at me, lifted her slim arm and placed the palm ofher hand against my lips.

  And so I took my leave; thinking.

  +-------------------------------------------------+ | Novels by Robert W. Chambers | | | | Quick Action The Business of Life | | Blue-Bird Weather The Gay Rebellion | | Japonette The Streets of Ascalon | | The Adventures of a The Common Law | | Modest Man Ailsa Paige | | The Danger Mark The Green Mouse | | Special Messenger Iole | | The Firing Line The Reckoning | | The Younger Set The Maid-at-Arms | | The Fighting Chance Cardigan | | Some Ladies in Haste The Haunts of Men | | The Tree of Heaven The Mystery of Choice | | The Tracer of Lost The Cambric Mask | | Persons The Maker of Moons | | A Young Man in a The King in Yellow | | Hurry In Search of the Unknown | | Lorraine | | Maids of Paradise The Conspirators | | Ashes of Empire A King and a Few | | The Red Republic Dukes | | Outsiders In the Quarter | +-------------------------------------------------+