The Place of Honeymoons - Page 112/123

The Colonel and his guests at luncheon had listened to Courtlandt without

sound or movement beyond the occasional rasp of feet shifting under the

table. He had begun with the old familiar phrase--"I've got a story."

"Tell it," had been the instant request.

At the beginning the men had been leaning at various negligent

angles,--some with their elbows upon the table, some with their arms

thrown across the backs of their chairs. The partridge had been excellent,

the wine delicious, the tobacco irreproachable. Burma, the tinkle of bells

in the temples, the strange pictures in the bazaars, long journeys over

smooth and stormy seas; romance, moving and colorful, which began at

Rangoon, had zigzagged around the world, and ended in Berlin.

"And so," concluded the teller of the tale, "that is the story. This man

was perfectly innocent of any wrong, a victim of malice on the one hand

and of injustice on the other."

"Is that the end of the yarn?" asked the colonel.

"Who in life knows what the end of anything is? This is not a story out of

a book." Courtlandt accepted a fresh cigar from the box which Rao passed

to him, and dropped his dead weed into the ash-bowl.

"Has he given up?" asked Abbott, his voice strangely unfamiliar in his own

ears.

"A man can struggle just so long against odds, then he wins or becomes

broken. Women are not logical; generally they permit themselves to be

guided by impulse rather than by reason. This man I am telling you about

was proud; perhaps too proud. It is a shameful fact, but he ran away.

True, he wrote letter after letter, but all these were returned unopened.

Then he stopped."

"A woman would a good deal rather believe circumstantial evidence than

not. Humph!" The colonel primed his pipe and relighted it. "She couldn't

have been worth much."

"Worth much!" cried Abbott. "What do you imply by that?"

"No man will really give up a woman who is really worth while, that is, of

course, admitting that your man, Courtlandt, is a man. Perhaps, though,

it was his fault. He was not persistent enough, maybe a bit spineless. The

fact that he gave up so quickly possibly convinced her that her

impressions were correct. Why, I'd have followed her day in and day out,

year after year; never would I have let up until I had proved to her that

she had been wrong."

"The colonel is right," Abbott approved, never taking his eyes off

Courtlandt, who was apparently absorbed in the contemplation of the bread

crumbs under his fingers.

"And more, by hook or crook, I'd have dragged in the other woman by the

hair and made her confess."

"I do not doubt it, Colonel," responded Courtlandt, with a dry laugh. "And

that would really have been the end of the story. The heroine of this

rambling tale would then have been absolutely certain of collusion between

the two."