The Green Mouse

by Robert W. Chambers

  "She almost wished some fisherman might come into view."]

  THE GREEN MOUSE

  By

  ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

  ILLUSTRATED IN COLOR BY

  EDMUND FREDERICK

  1910

  TO

  MY FRIEND

  JOHN CORBIN

  Folly and Wisdom, Heavenly twins, Sons of the god Imagination,Heirs of the Virtues--which were Sins Till Transcendental ContemplationTransmogrified their outer skins-- Friend, do you follow me? For I Have lost myself, I don't know why.

  Resuming, then, this erudite And decorative Dedication,--Accept it, John, with all your might In Cinquecentic resignation.You may not understand it, quite, But if you've followed me all through, You've done far more than I could do.

  PREFACE

  To the literary, literal, and scientific mind purposeless fiction isabhorrent. Fortunately we all are literally and scientifically inclined;the doom of purposeless fiction is sounded; and it is a great comfort tobelieve that, in the near future, only literary and scientific workssuitable for man, woman, child, and suffragette, are to adorn thelingerie-laden counters in our great department shops.

  It is, then, with animation and confidence that the author politelyoffers to a regenerated nation this modern, moral, literary, and highlyscientific work, thinly but ineffectually disguised as fiction, indeference to the prejudices of a few old-fashioned story-readers whostill survive among us.

  R. W. C.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I. An Idyl of the IdleII. The IdlerIII. The Green MouseIV. An Ideal IdolV. SacharissaVI. In WrongVII. The Invisible WireVIII. "In Heaven and Earth"IX. A Cross-town CarX. The Lid OffXI. BettyXII. SybillaXIII. The Crown PrinceXIV. Gentlemen of the PressXV. DrusillaXVI. Flavilla

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  "She almost wished some fisherman might come into view"

  "'Those squirrels are very tame,' she observed calmly"

  "'Are you not terribly impatient?' she inquired"

  "The lid of the basket tilted a little.... Then a plaintive voice said'Meow-w!'"

  "'I'm afraid,' he ventured, 'that I may require that table for cutting'"

  "'Perhaps,' he said, 'I had better hold your pencil again'"

  I

  AN IDYL OF THE IDYL

  _In Which a Young Man Arrives at His Last Ditch and a Young Girl JumpsOver It_

  Utterly unequipped for anything except to ornament his environment, thecrash in Steel stunned him. Dazed but polite, he remained a passiveobserver of the sale which followed and which apparently realizedsufficient to satisfy every creditor, but not enough for an income tocontinue a harmlessly idle career which he had supposed was to continueindefinitely.

  He had never earned a penny; he had not the vaguest idea of how peoplemade money. To do something, however, was absolutely necessary.

  He wasted some time in finding out just how much aid he might expect fromhis late father's friends, but when he understood the attitude of societytoward a knocked-out gentleman he wisely ceased to annoy society, andturned to the business world.

  Here he wasted some more time. Perhaps the time was not absolutelywasted, for during that period he learned that he could use nobody whocould not use him; and as he appeared to be perfectly useless, except forornament, and as a business house is not a kindergarten, and furthermore,as he had neither time nor money to attend any school where anybody couldteach him anything, it occurred to him to take a day off for minute andthorough self-examination concerning his qualifications and even hisright to occupy a few feet of space upon the earth's surface.

  Four years at Harvard, two more in postgraduate courses, two more inEurope to perfect himself in electrical engineering, and a year at homeattempting to invent a wireless apparatus for intercepting andtransmitting psychical waves had left him pitifully unfit for wageearning.

  There remained his accomplishments; but the market was overstocked withassorted time-killers.

  His last asset was a trivial though unusual talent--a natural manualdexterity cultivated since childhood to amuse himself--something he nevertook seriously. This, and a curious control over animals, had, as thepleasant years flowed by, become an astonishing skill which was much morethan sleight of hand; and he, always as good-humored as well-bred, hadnever refused to amuse the frivolous, of which he was also one, bypicking silver dollars out of space and causing the proper card to fallfluttering from the ceiling.

  Day by day, as the little money left him melted away, he continued hisvigorous mental examination, until the alarming shrinkage in his fundsleft him staring fixedly at his last asset. Could he use it? Was it anasset, after all? How clever was he? Could he face an audience andperform the usual magician tricks without bungling? A slip by a careless,laughing, fashionable young amateur amusing his social equals at a houseparty is excusable; a bungle by a hired professional meant an end to hopein that direction.

  So he rented a suite of two rooms on Central Park West, furnished themwith what remained from better days, bought the necessary paraphernaliaof his profession, and immured himself for practice before entering uponhis contemplated invasion of Newport, Lenox, and Bar Harbor. And one verylovely afternoon in May, when the Park from his windows looked like agreen forest, and puff on puff of perfumed air fluttered the curtains athis opened windows, he picked up his gloves and stick, put on his hat,and went out to walk in the Park; and when he had walked sufficiently hesat down on a bench in a flowery, bushy nook on the edge of a bridlepath.

  Few people disturbed the leafy privacy; a policeman sauntering southwardnoted him, perhaps for future identification. The spectacle of a well-built, well-groomed, and fashionable young man sitting moodily upon apark bench was certainly to be noted. It is not the fashion forfashionable people to sit on park benches unless they contemplate self,as well as social, destruction.

  So the policeman lingered for a while in the vicinity, but not hearingany revolver shot, presently sauntered on, buck-skinned fist claspedbehind his broad back, squinting at a distant social gathering composedentirely of the most exclusive nursemaids.

  The young man looked up into the pleasant blue above, then hispreoccupied gaze wandered from woodland to thicket, where the scarletglow of Japanese quince mocked the colors of the fluttering scarlettanagers; where orange-tinted orioles flashed amid tangles of goldenForsythia; and past the shrubbery to an azure corner of water, shimmeringunder the wooded slope below.

  That sense of languor and unrest, of despondency threaded by hope whichfair skies and sunshine and new leaves bring with the young year to theyoung, he felt. Yet there was no bitterness in his brooding, for he was asingularly generous young man, and there was no vindictiveness mixed withthe memories of his failures among those whose cordial respect for hisfather had been balanced between that blameless gentleman's wealth andposition.

  A gray squirrel came crawling and nosing through the fresh grass; hecaught its eyes, and, though the little animal was plainly boundelsewhere on important business, the young man soon had it curled up onhis knee, asleep.

  For a while he amused himself by using his curious power, alternatelywaking the squirrel and allowing it to bound off, tail twitching, andthen calling it back, slowly but inexorably to climb his trousers andcurl up on his knee and sleep an uncanny and deep sleep which might endonly at the young man's pleasure.

  He, too, began to feel the subtle stillness of the drowsing woodland;musing there, caressing his short, crisp mustache
, he watched the purplegrackle walking about in iridescent solitude, the sun spots waning andglowing on the grass; he heard the soft, garrulous whimper of waterfowlalong the water's edge, the stir of leaves above.

  He thought of various personal matters: his poverty, the low ebb of hisbalance at the bank, his present profession, his approaching debut as anentertainer, the chances of his failure. He thought, too, of theastounding change in his life, the future, vacant of promise, devoid ofmeaning, a future so utterly new and blank that he could find in itnothing to speculate upon. He thought also, and perfectly impersonally,of a girl whom he had met now and then upon the stairs of the apartmenthouse which he now inhabited.

  Evidently there had been an ebb in her prosperity; the tumble of a NewYorker's fortune leads from the Avenue to the Eighties, from thencethrough Morristown, Staten Island, to the West Side. Besides, she paintedpictures; he knew the aroma of fixitive, siccative, and burnt sienna; andher studio adjoined his sky drawing-room.

  He thought of this girl quite impersonally; she resembled a youthfulbeauty he had known--might still know if he chose; for a man who can payfor his evening clothes need never deny himself the society he was bredto.

  She certainly did resemble that girl--she had the same bluish violeteyes, the same white and deeply fringed lids, the same free grace ofcarriage, a trifle too boyish at times--the same firmly rounded, yetslender, figure.

  "Now, as a matter of fact," he mused aloud, stroking the sleepingsquirrel on his knee, "I could have fallen in love with either of thosegirls--before Copper blew up."

  Pursuing his innocuous meditation he nodded to himself: "I rather likethe poor one better than any girl I ever saw. Doubtless she paintsportraits over solar prints. That's all right; she's doing more than Ihave done yet.... I approve of those eyes of hers; they're like the eyesof that waking Aphrodite in the Luxembourg. If she would only just lookat me once instead of looking through me when we pass one another in thehall----"

  The deadened gallop of a horse on the bridle path caught his ear. Thehorse was coming fast--almost too fast. He laid the sleeping squirrel onthe bench, listened, then instinctively stood up and walked to thethicket's edge.

  What happened was too quick for him to comprehend; he had a vision of abig black horse, mane and tail in the wind, tearing madly, straight athim--a glimpse of a white face, desperate and set, a flutter of loosenedhair; then a storm of wind and sand roared in his ears; he was hurled,jerked, and flung forward, dragged, shaken, and left half senseless,hanging to nose and bit of a horse whose rider was picking herself out ofa bush covered with white flowers.

  Half senseless still, he tightened his grip on the bit, released thegrasp on the creature's nose, and, laying his hand full on the forelock,brought it down twice and twice across the eyes, talking to the horse inhalting, broken whispers.

  When he had the trembling animal under control he looked around; the girlstood on the grass, dusty, dirty, disheveled, bleeding from a cut on thecheek bone; the most bewildered and astonished creature he had everlooked upon.

  "It will be all right in a few minutes," he said, motioning her to thebench on the asphalt walk. She nodded, turned, picked up his hat, and,seating herself, began to smooth the furred nap with her sleeve, watchinghim intently all the while. That he already had the confidence of a horsethat he had never before seen was perfectly apparent. Little by littlethe sweating, quivering limbs were stilled, the tense muscles in the neckrelaxed, the head sank, dusty velvet lips nibbled at his hand, hisshoulder; the heaving, sunken flanks filled and grew quiet.

  Bareheaded, his attire in disorder and covered with slaver and sand, theyoung man laid the bridle on the horse's neck, held out his hand, and,saying "Come," turned his back and walked down the bridle path. The horsestretched a sweating neck, sniffed, pricked forward both small ears, andslowly followed, turning as the man turned, up and down, crowding at heellike a trained dog, finally stopping on the edge of the walk.

  The young man looped the bridle over a low maple limb, and leaving thehorse standing sauntered over to the bench.

  "That horse," he said pleasantly, "is all right now; but the question is,are you all right?"

  She rose, handing him his hat, and began to twist up her bright hair. Fora few moments' silence they were frankly occupied in restoring order toraiment, dusting off gravel and examining rents.

  "I'm tremendously grateful," she said abruptly.

  "I am, too," he said in that attractive manner which sets people ofsimilar caste at ease with one another.

  "Thank you; it's a generous compliment, considering your hat andclothing."

  He looked up; she stood twisting her hair and doing her best with the fewremaining hair pegs.

  "I'm a sight for little fishes," she said, coloring. "Did that wretchedbeast bruise you?"

  "Oh, no----"

  "You limped!"

  "Did I?" he said vaguely. "How do you feel?"

  "There is," she said, "a curious, breathless flutter all over me; if thatis fright, I suppose I'm frightened, but I don't mind mounting at once--if you would put me up----"

  "Better wait a bit," he said; "it would not do to have that horse feel afluttering pulse, telegraphing along the snaffle. Tell me, are youspurred?"

  She lifted the hem of her habit; two small spurs glittered on herpolished boot heels.

  "That's it, you see," he observed; "you probably have not ridden crosssaddle very long. When your mount swerved you spurred, and he bolted, bitin teeth."

  "That's exactly it," she admitted, looking ruefully at her spurs. Thenshe dropped her skirt, glanced interrogatively at him, and, obeying hisgrave gesture, seated herself again upon the bench.

  "Don't stand," she said civilly. He took the other end of the seat,lifting the still slumbering squirrel to his knee.

  "I--I haven't said very much," she began; "I'm impulsive enough to beovergrateful and say too much. I hope you understand me; do you?"

  "Of course; you're very good. It was nothing; you could have stopped yourhorse yourself. People do that sort of thing for one another as a matterof course."

  "But not at the risk you took----"

  "No risk at all," he said hastily.

  She thought otherwise, and thought it so fervently that, afraid ofemotion, she turned her cold, white profile to him and studied her horse,haughty lids adroop. The same insolent sweetness was in her eyes whenthey again reverted to him. He knew the look; he had encountered it oftenenough in the hallway and on the stairs. He knew, too, that she mustrecognize him; yet, under the circumstances, it was for her to speakfirst; and she did not, for she was at that age when horror of overdoinganything chokes back the scarcely extinguished childish instinct to saytoo much. In other words, she was eighteen and had had her first seasonthe winter past--the winter when he had not been visible among thegatherings of his own kind.

  "'Those squirrels are very tame,' she observed calmly."]

  "Those squirrels are very tame," she observed calmly.

  "Not always," he said. "Try to hold this one, for example."

  She raised her pretty eyebrows, then accepted the lump of fluffy fur fromhis hands. Instantly an electric shock seemed to set the squirrelfrantic, there was a struggle, a streak of gray and white, and thesquirrel leaped from her lap and fairly flew down the asphalt path.

  "Gracious!" she exclaimed faintly; "what was the matter?"

  "Some squirrels are very wild," he said innocently.

  "I know--but you held him--he was asleep on your knee. Why didn't he staywith me?"

  "Oh, perhaps because I have a way with animals."

  "With horses, too," she added gayly. And the smile breaking from herviolet eyes silenced him in the magic of a beauty he had never dreamedof. At first she mistook his silence for modesty; then--because even asyoung a maid as she is quick to divine and fine of instinct--she too fellsilent and serious, the while the shuttles of her reason flew likelightning, weaving the picture of him she had conceived--a gentleman, aman of her own sort,
rather splendid and wise and bewildering. Theportrait completed, there was no room for the hint of presumption she hadhalf sensed in the brown eyes' glance that had set her alert; and shelooked up at him again, frankly, a trifle curiously.

  "I am going to thank you once more," she said, "and ask you to put me up.There is not a flutter of fear in my pulse now."

  "Are you quite sure?"

  "Perfectly."

  They arose; he untied the horse and beckoned it to the walk's edge.

  "I forgot," she said, laughing, "that I am riding cross saddle. I canmount without troubling you--" She set her toe to the stirrup which heheld, and swung herself up into the saddle with a breezy "Thanks,awfully," and sat there gathering her bridle.

  Had she said enough? How coldly her own thanks rang in her ears--forperhaps he had saved her neck--and perhaps not. Busy with curb andsnaffle reins, head bent, into her oval face a tint of color crept. Didhe think she treated lightly, flippantly, the courage which became himso? Or was he already bored by her acknowledgment of it? Sensitive,dreading to expose youth and inexperience to the amused smile of thisattractive young man of the world, she sat fumbling with her bridle,conscious that he stood beside her, hat in hand, looking up at her. Shecould delay no longer; the bridle had been shifted and reshifted to thelast second of procrastination. She must say something or go.

  Meeting his eyes, she smiled and leaned a little forward in her saddle asthough to speak, but his brown eyes troubled her, and all she could saywas "Thank you--good-by," and galloped off down the vista through dim,leafy depths heavy with the incense of lilac and syringa.