Pearl of Pearl Island | Page 6

and all dribbled smart inanities, and
nothing but inanities, with the glibness of a Charles Pixley, what a
world it would be!
However, it was Charles Pixley who brought Margaret Brandt to that
dinner, and Graeme sat on the other side of her there. And so, Charles
Svendt--blessings on thee, unworthy friar though thou be!
And presently, Miss Brandt, wearying no doubt of _perdrix, perdrix,
toujours perdrix_,--that is to say of Charles's sprightly chatter, of which
she doubtless got more than enough at home,--essayed conversation
with the silent one at her other side, and, one may suppose, found it
more to her taste, or more of a novelty, than the Pixley outflow.
For, once started, she and Graeme talked together most of the
evening--breaking off reluctantly to drink various toasts to people in
whom they had, at the moment, no remotest interest whatever, and

recovering the thread of their conversation before they resumed their
seats.
Only one toast really interested Graeme, and that was "The Ladies--the
Guests of the Evening"; and that he drank right heartily, with his eyes
on Miss Brandt's sparkling face, and if it had been left to himself he
would have converted it from plural to singular and drunk to her alone.
Adam Black, excellent fellow, and gifted beyond most with wisdom
and insight, and the condensed milk of human kindness, took upon
himself the burden of Pixley, and engaged that eminent financier so
deeply in talk concerning matters of import, that Miss Brandt and
Graeme found themselves at liberty to enjoy one another to their hearts'
content.
They talked on many subjects--tentatively, and as sounding novel
depths--in a way that occasioned one of them, at all events, very great
surprise. Indeed, it seemed to him afterwards that, for a silent and
observant man, he had been led into quite unwonted, but none the less
very enjoyable, ways. He went home that night feeling very much as
Columbus must have done when his New World swam before his eyes
in misted glory. He too had sighted a new world. He had discovered
Margaret Brandt.
She had travelled widely over Europe, he learned, and was looking
forward with eagerness to another tour in the near future. They
discovered a common liking for many of the places she had visited.
She was a wide and intelligent reader. To him it was a rare pleasure to
meet one.
"New places, and new books, and new people are always a joy to me,"
she said, in a glow of naïve enthusiasm. And then she blushed slightly
lest he should discover a personal application in the last-named, or even
in the last two.
But Graeme was thinking of her, and was formulating her character
from the delicious little bits of self-revelation which slipped out every

now and again.
"Yes," he said, "new things are very enjoyable, and in these times there
is no lack of them. The tendency, I should say, is towards superfluity.
But new places----! There are surely not many left except the North
Pole and the South. Everybody goes everywhere nowadays, and you
tumble over friends in Damascus and find your tailor picnicking on the
slopes of Lebanon."
Now, as it chanced,--if you admit such a thing as chance in so tangled a
coil as this complex world of ours,--Adam Black had just tucked
Charles Pixley into a close little argumentative corner, and given him
food for contemplation, and catching Graeme's last remark, he smiled
across the table, and in a word of four letters dropped a seed into
several lives which bore odd fruit and blossom.
"Ever been to Sark, Graeme?" he asked.
"Sark? No. Let me see----"
"Channel Islands. You go across from Guernsey. If ever you want relief
from your fellows--to finish a book, or to start one, or just to grizzle
and find yourself--try Sark. It's the most wonderful little place, and it's
amazing how few people know it."
Then Charles Pixley bethought him of a fresh line of argument, and
engaged Black, and was promptly shown the error of his ways; and
Margaret Brandt and Graeme resumed their discussion of places and
books and people. And before that evening ended, with such affinity of
tastes, their feet were fairly set in the rosy path of friendship.
Now that is how it all began, and that explains what happened
afterwards when the right time came.
Chance, forsooth! We know better.
IV

Not long after that dinner, Lady Elspeth Gordon came up to town for
the first time after her husband's death.
She had been John Graeme's mother's closest friend, and when he was
left alone in the world, the dear old lady, before she had fully recovered
from her own sore loss, took upon herself a friendly supervision of him
and his small affairs, and their intercourse