The Firing Line | Page 8

tray
of glasses.
Portlaw helped himself, grumbling under his breath that he meant to cut
out this sort of thing and set Wayward an example.
Malcourt lifted his glass gaily:
"Our wives and sweethearts; may they never meet!"

They set back their empty glasses; Portlaw started to move away, still
muttering about the folly of self-indulgence; but the other detained him.
"Wayward took it out of me in 'Preference' this morning while Garry
was out courting. I'd better liquidate to-night, hadn't I, Billy?"
"Certainly," said Portlaw.
The other shook his head. "I'll get it all back at Miami, of course. In the
mean time--if you don't mind letting me have enough to square
things--"
Portlaw hesitated, balancing his bulk uneasily first on one foot, then the
other.
"I don't mind; no; only--"
"Only what?" asked Malcourt. "I told you I couldn't afford to play cards
on this trip, but you insisted."
"Certainly, certainly! I expected to consider you as--as--"
"I'm your general manager and I'm ready at all times to earn my salary.
If you think it best to take me away from the estate for a junketing trip
and make me play cards you can do it of course; but if you think I'm
here to throw my money overboard I'm going back to-morrow!"
"Nonsense," said Portlaw; "you're not going back. There's nothing
doing in winter up there that requires your personal attention--"
"It's a bad winter for the deer--I ought to be there now--"
"Well, can't Blake and O'Connor attend to that?"
"Yes, I suppose they can. But I'm not going to waste the winter and my
salary in the semi-tropics just because you want me to--"
"O Lord!" said Portlaw, "what are you kicking about? Have I ever--"

"You force me to be plain-spoken; you never seem to understand that if
you insist on my playing the wealthy do-nothing that you've got to keep
me going. And I tell you frankly, Billy, I'm tired of it."
"Oh, don't flatten your ears and show your teeth," protested Portlaw
amiably. "I only supposed you had enough--with such a salary--to give
yourself a little rope on a trip like this, considering you've nobody but
yourself to look out for, and that I do that and pay you heavily for the
privilege"--his voice had become a mumble--"and all you do is to take
vacations in New York or sit on a horse and watch an army of men
plant trout and pheasants, and cut out ripe timber--O hell!"
"What did you say?"
Portlaw became good-humouredly matter of fact: "I said 'hell,'
Louis--which meant, 'what's the use of squabbling.' It also means that
you are going to have what you require as a matter of course; so come
on down to my state-room and let us figure it up before Jim Wayward
begins to turn restless and limp toward the card-room."
As they turned and strolled forward, Malcourt nudged him:
"Look at the fireworks over Lake Worth," he said; "probably Palm
Beach's welcome to her new and beardless prophet."
"It's one of their cheap Venetian fêtes," muttered Portlaw. "I know 'em;
they're rather amusing. If we weren't sailing in an hour we'd go. No
doubt Hamil's in it already; probably Cardross put him next to a bunch
of dreams and he's right in it at this very moment."
"With the girl in the red handkerchief," added Malcourt. "I wish we had
time."
"I believe I've seen that girl somewhere," mused Portlaw.
"Perhaps you have; there are all kinds at Palm Beach, even yours, and,"
he added with his easy impudence, "I expect to preserve my notions
concerning every one of them. Ho! Look at that sheaf of sky-rockets,

Billy! Zip! Whir-r! Bang! Great is Diana of the Ephesians!--bless her
heart!"
"Going up like Garret Hamil's illusions," said Portlaw, sentimentally. "I
wonder if he sees 'em and considers the moral they are writing across
the stars. O slush! Life is like a stomach; if you fill it too full it hurts
you. What about that epigram, Louis? What about it?"
The other's dark, graceful head was turned toward the fiery fête on
shore, and his busy thoughts were with that lithe, dripping figure he had
seen through the sea-glasses, climbing into a distant boat. For the figure
reminded him of a girl he had known very well when the world was
younger; and the memory was not wholly agreeable.

CHAPTER III
AN ADVANCE
Hamil stood under the cocoanut palms at the lake's edge and watched
the lagoon where thousands of coloured lanterns moved on crafts,
invisible except when revealed in the glare of the rushing rockets.
Lamps glittered everywhere; electric lights were doubly festooned
along the sea wall, drooping creeper-like from palm to palmetto, from
flowering hibiscus to sprawling banyan, from dainty china-berry to
grotesque