The House of Mystery | Page 4

placed her as a Californienne. Perhaps this
fragment explained it. She must be a daughter of the English official
class, reared in America. The theory would explain her complexion and
her simple, natural balance between frankness and reserve. He formed
that conclusion, but, "How do you like America after India?" was all he
said.
"How do you like it after the Philippines?" she responded.
"That is a Yankee trick--answering one question with another," he said,
still following his line of conjecture; "it was invented by the original
Yankee philosopher, a person named Socrates. I like it after
everything--I'm an American. I'm one of those rare birds in the Eastern
United States, a native of New York City."

"Well, then,"--her manner had, for the first time, the brightness which
goes with youth, plus the romantic adventure--"I like it not only after
anything but before anything--I'm an American, too."
A sense of irritation rose in him. He had let conjecture grow to
conclusion in the most reckless fashion. And why should he care so
much that he had risked offending a mere passing acquaintance of the
road?
"Somehow, I had taken it for granted--your reference to India I
suppose--that you were English."
"Oh, no! Though an English governess made me fond of the English.
I'm another of the rare birds. I was hardly out of New York in my life
until five years ago, when my aunt took me for a stay of two years in
the Orient--in India at least. I've been very happy to be back."
The current of talk drifted then from the coast of confidences to the
open sea of general conversation. He pulled himself up once or twice
by the reflection that he was talking too much about himself. Once--and
he remembered it with blushes afterward--he went so far as to say, "I
didn't really need to be a doctor, any more than I needed to go to the
Philippines--the family income takes care of that. But a man should do
something." Nevertheless, she seemed disposed to encourage him in
this course, seemed most to encourage him when he told his stories
about the Philippine Army of Occupation.
"Oh, tell me another!" she would cry. And once she said, "If there were
a piano here, I venture you'd sing Mandelay." "That would I," he
answered with a half sigh. And at last, when he was running down, she
said, "Oh, please don't stop! It makes me crazy for the Orient!" "And
me!" he confessed. Before luncheon was over, he had dragged out the
two or three best stories in his wanderer's pack, and especially that one,
which he saved for late firesides and the high moments of anecdotal
exchange, about the charge at Caloocon. She drank down these tales of
hike and jungle and firing-line like a seminary girl listening to her first
grownup caller. For his part, youth and the need of male youth to
spread its bright feathers before the female of its species, drove him on

to more tales. He contrived his luncheon so that they finished and paid
simultaneously--and in the middle of his story about Sergeant Jones,
the dynamite and the pack mule. So, when they returned to the
parlor-car, nothing was more simple, natural and necessary than that he
should drop into the vacant chair beside her, and continue where he left
off. He felt, when he had finished, the polite necessity of leading the
talk back to her; besides, he had not finished his Study of the Unknown
Girl. He returned, then, to the last thread which she had left hanging.
"So you too are glad to be at home!" he said. "I'm so glad that I don't
want to lose sight either of a skyscraper or of apple trees for years and
years. I can't remember when I've ever wanted to stay in one place
before."
She laughed--the first full laugh he had heard from her. It was low and
deep and bubbling, like water flowing from a long-necked bottle.
"Just a moment ago, we were confessing that we were crazy for the
Orient."
"I'm glad to be caught in an inconsistency!" he answered. "I've been
afraid, though, that this desire to roost in one place was a sign of
incipient old age."
She looked at him directly, and for a moment her fearless glance played
over him, as in alarm.
"Oh, I shouldn't be afraid of that," she said. "I don't know your age, of
course, but if it will reassure you any, I'd put it at twenty-eight. And
that, according to Peter Ibbertson, is quite the nicest age." Her face,
with its unyouthful capacity for sudden seriousness, grew grave. Her
deep blue eyes gazed past him out of the window.
"I'm only twenty-four, but I know what it is