# McClure's Magazine/Volume 29/Number 1/The Gate of the Seven Hundred Virgins

Extracted from McClure's magazine, May 1907, pp. 25–38.
THE GATE OF THE SEVEN HUNDRED VIRGINS
BY
MARY S. WATTS
IT was a wearying journey. All day long the diligence toiled forward, attended by such a pillar of dust as went before the Egyptians; all day long it creaked, floundered, jingled, under a merciless sun, over certainly the worst roads in Europe; and all day long our driver discharged blast after blast of unavailing rhetoric at his beasts and flourished a gad calculated to inspire with respect any animal less sodden in evil thin a mule. We grilled patiently on the hard, slippery, leather cushions of our chariot, from the pastoral hour of five o'clock in the morning, when we left Château Charny, until eight thai night, when Valmi was reached. Valmi can be approached only by diligence, the theory (and practice) of rapid transit not having yet penetrated to this quarter of the globe; its road sets at defiance even the motor-tourist, spite of scenery and associations. We bounced, swayed, and jolted until eleven, when we halted for luncheon at the inn of the "Golden Fleece," Arrietz. Helen remarked that the only "fleece" about it was the dexterous operation performed on ourselves. "A franc apiece for that abysmal omelet!" she said; "no native would have been asked that much. But these people have Americans spotted as far as they can see us!" At three in the afternoon, we "raised" Marigny, in the nautical phrase, and came to anchor before the Café Deux Agneaux. "There's a satirical suggestion in these names," said Helen. "Two Lambs—here we are!" But the Two Lambs supplied us with fairly eatable bread and cheese, and thin red wine, for an immoderately small sum, only a sou or two, I think; and a fresh-looking, comely peasant woman with a sturdy little boy in l]er hand came and watched us eat, commenting audibly on our shoes and shirt-waists, which she bade the child observe, travelers being rare upon that road. She asked whither we were bound, and, on being told; "Ah-h-h, Valmi!" she echoed, quite ecstatically, "figure to yourself, madame, it is all by the sea, and they have fish—but such fish!"
As the hot afternoon wore away, a change grew upon the landscape. The hills were all at once mountains, not lofty, yet severe with pine-groves and abrupt cliffs. In the valleys between their feet were pleasant fields of corn, orchards and vineyards; and a little river linking through the meadows. There was a poignant tang of salt in the air. The sea was not farther than five miles now, our driver said; and, pleased at our interest, he began to enlarge his conversation, hitherto confined to the mules. The whole shore and neighboring countryside, he told us, were sprinkled thick with caverns and deep glens, a great place for smugglers and piratical adventurers in the old days. Tone Dieu! We ought to hear some of the tales they told about those pirates! He? No, he could not remember any of the stories, but his brother Pierre—there was a man, now! Vè! If we liked, he would send Pierre to see us at our hotel in Valmi. Madame would perhaps need a guide, anyhow? Was Pierre a guide? Tè! Oh, no! Pierre was not; Pierre did not do anything. What should such a man as that do? Sometimes, it was true, he showed people about the city; and he had known Pierre to take eh, whatever they wanted to give. For, do you see, madame, you cannot hurt people's feelings by refusing. Pierre would not do that; Pierre had a great soul. Eh, but yes, he was a man, that Pierre! He knew every stone of Valmi and could tell you stories as long as this whip. Vlà! Go on, then, sac-cr-red sons of thunder!
"All nonsense!" said Helen vigorously. "They play into one another's hands all the time. I don't believe we need a guide any more than we do another foot apiece!" I shook my head. My niece Helen is a self-reliant and adventurous spirit; she will undertake to go anywhere, serene in the assurance of ultimately getting somewhere, either to her appointed place, or, as she is fond of saying, to some other just as good. For myself, as I am equally fond of saying, I want to go where I want to go. But, unfortunately, there never was a person so totally unblessed with any sense of location; I am of those who get up in the night and fall out of the window or down the backstairs. And when, at length, we reached Valmi, long after dark, the aspect of its steep, tortuous, ill-lighted streets was so bewildering, and the points of the compass shifted about with such appalling infirmity of purpose, that Pierre (had he known it) was as good as engaged before, we were set down at our hotel door.
"Only for a few days," I pleaded, in response to Helen's jeers, "until we get used to the place. Then we can dismiss him. Besides, Baedeker says tourists are obliged to hire a guide for the old palace; it's not safe to wander about the ruins alone."
"Oh, but we're not alone," said she, with an impish twinkle. "Isn't P. Virgilius Maro along?" and we both laughed. I am afraid we are very simple people, and easily amused. P. Virgilius Maro is an ancient and honorable joke with us. That shabby gentleman in a brown calf coat has been my valued companion for years; his age defeats scandal. And, latterly, I devised a more convenient fashion of carrying him, by barbarously splitting favorite parts of the volume, notably the Aeneid, into liths or sections of one book each, rendering P. Virgilius much more portable and handy.
Valmi was impossibly theatrical; it would have furnished an incomparable setting for Elizabethan drama. Except for the changes wrought by gradual decay, the town (for good reasons, I have re-christened it, and you shall look in vain for "Valmi" on any map) could scarcely have altered its contours in the last three hundred years. There was a telegraph-office—these eyes beheld it; and we were told that some one in the city, some high official, owned an American clock. But think then, madame, a clock American! Save in these two instances, what we like to call the march of improvement had passed Valmi by on the other side. And this was the stranger because it was a seaport town, in constant touch, one would have thought, with the changeful world. Once its old stone quays roared with commerce; now only a few sad little ships stole out and in upon the tides. I suppose, however, that my second visit will find Valmi thoroughly commercialized; there was a dealer in curios already established, bird of ill-omen! Soon people will be selling Oriental brass and embroideries and Mexican silver jewelry in the tiny dark shops, and other people will be calling it "quaint," an adjective which I am proud to say I have not yet used—nor shall.
Pierre, the ornamental, the lotos-eating, presented himself the next morning. He was a swarthy, good-looking vagabond, in a velveteen jacket with silver buttons, a red cap and sash, and little gold ear-rings, the very figure of a stage bandit. After the first payment—or, shall I say, tribute?—we hardly expected to see him again; but he appeared punctually the following day, and thereafter showed himself more faithful and diligent than one could possibly have hoped of so magnificent a creature. Under his guidance we saw the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Bon Salut, and the cloisters; the ancient Fish-Market, decorated with amazing stone dolphins; and the royal palace, for once there were kings in Valmi. It was a vast, wandering pile, mostly roofless, covering an acre or so of cellars, dungeons, oubliettes, about which Pierre told us some grisly tales. In the desolate gardens he showed us the dried basin of a fish-pond, rimmed with marble, where some unlucky royal baby, neglected by its nurses, had tumbled in; and the carp had almost eaten it before the floor little body was found.
"And what did they do to those careless nurses, Pierre?"
He turned his thumb to the ground with a gesture and grimace of hideous significance. A great actor was lost to the world when Pierre elected to spend his life leading tourists about Valmi. We understood without further words. They had buried them alive.
The palace stood on an eminence dominating the view to land and sea for many miles; and, on one side, the ground sloped away steeply to the shore; so steeply that, perching on the ruinous old palace wall, we could see, in a rift between the houses, a stair plunging down, which, Pierre said, led to a place they called the Quai Reine-Marguerite. There these dead-and-gone royalties were wont to take ship when bent on either business or pleasure. One of them, in the last days of Valmi, had escaped a mob of bloody-minded revolutionists, flying down these steps on horseback, like General Israel Putnam, that hero of another revolution. Pierre's stories were worth remembering; they would have made the fortune of a writer of romance. But Helen interrupted him in the middle of this one to ask: "What are those two towers close together down there to the right?"
He said he could not see any towers; it was a long while before he could be made to see them, although they stood out prominently above the roofs. Then he shrugged and said, "Oh, those!" He had not dreamed mademoiselle meant those! They were nothing; some ruins by the city wall. He turned his back on them and resolutely went on with his story.
"He was mad because I interrupted his ridiculous yarn about the Princess What's-her-name," Helen said. "Did you ever see anything so childish?"
We stayed in Valmi nearly three weeks; it was not later than the second or third day that Mr. Weingartner swam into our ken. With him, Romance (of a sort) entered our humdrum lives; and it is worth while noting in what an extraordinary guise Romance may sometimes be clothed. We came upon him in a black little shop on the Rue Saint Ignace—that curiosity-shop of which I have spoken. There he stood, with his hat pushed towards the nape of his neck, an umbrella (impeccably rolled) clamped fast between his knees, a cigar clamped in the corner of his mouth, and his mind clamped, figuratively, on the knotty French phrase-book. Around him hung, stood, or lay in heaps on the floor old brass bowls and cups, old needle-work delicately yellowed, old carved furniture, old swords and bits of armor, old pottery of shapes and colors to make a painter throw up his hat and rejoice. In the background the dealer agitated vainly with a stiletto (dated 1560 on the blade) in one hand, and a brass hunting-horn, its smooth curves wound with faded green silk cord, in the other. "Gimme time, gimme time, John William Henry," he was saying, "I can't find it right first dash out of the box. Let's see: a necktie, a pair of socks, a pair of gloves, a pair of suspenders, a pair of shoes—nope, 'tain't there. Here's another. I want: a bath, ung bang—well, I do, but not right away this minute. Toilet Articles, see Page 52. I want: a towel, a cake of soap, a bath-tub, a foot-bath, a sitz-bath, a comb, a brush, a buttonhook, a wash-basin, a cuspidor—foiled again! Once more: A Visit to the Doctor. I have: a fever, a chill, a cold, a sore throat, a boil, a toothache, a backache, a headache—next will be a visit to the Morgue, I guess,—hold on! Now we're getting down to pay-dirt. I want: a pill, a powder, a gargle—nixie. This book is N. G. Or else the word bottle don't exist in the French language."
He stuffed the pamphlet into his pocket and eyed the shopkeeper with humorous resignation.
"Here's your Podunk, Missouri, or North Illyria, New York," whispered Helen, who comes from Chicago; "don't one see funny Americans over here, though?"
He looked up at that moment, catching sight of us, flushed, hesitated, waved the dealer aside impatiently, and evidently bracing himself to the deed, spoke:
"Beg pardon, but you're United States, ain't you?"
Helen stiffened into a cardboard dignity; but a respectable middle-aged woman may overlook some conventions. I said, "Yes."
"I'd have known it anywhere, by your looks," he said candidly, "but I saw your names on the hotel-book this morning. I'm staying here, too. I guess there ain't any other tourists here, it's such an out-of-the-way place. I'm one of Cook's. These tourist parties ain't such a much. The way they go around sort of puts me in mind of Christian Endeavorers, at home. I shook the outfit last week and came on here by myself. You can do that on your ticket, you know. I have to join 'em again at Bullone. I'm from Chicago, same as you."
Helen's face was a study.
"Pretty good little old town, Chicago," said he affectionately. "It just about spreads over anything I've seen here and tucks under the sides. My name's Weingartner—Weingartner's Perennial Fountain-Pen Fluid, I guess you've heard of that."
He stood before us, a little awkward, nervously smiling, eager to hear the kind speech of home, yet plainly doubtful whether a perfect gentleman should thus introduce himself to perfect ladies. It would have been brutal to rebuff him. I am somewhat afraid of Helen; she is twenty-one and knows so much more than I do; and, indeed, she afterwards informed me, with bitter satire, that I could have been polite, but I did not need to be cordial. "Funny little hotel we're at, ain't it?" he said, glowing under the influence of my reprehensible cordiality; "not very up-to-date, but then nothing is, here. I'd like to find some place in this God-forsaken country where a person could get batter-cakes and syrup for breakfast. You ladies going to see the sights? I know my way all around here."
"We have a guide, thank you," said Helen, in a tone which should have withered Mr. Weingartner on the spot. But he only looked surprised.
"Guide? What do you want with a guide? Why, I don't know a word of the language, and I go everywhere, without any trouble. Just bull right ahead, you know."
"Not always without any trouble, Mr. Weingartner," said I.
"Well, I ain't the first man that's had trouble over a bottle, ma'am," he said, grinning. "You know this is a sort of a second-hand shop, and I thought maybe I could pick up some little trick in the way of an old-fashioned bottle that I could have copied and use for the Fluid. Something the ladies would think kind of cute, you know. I do that pretty near everywhere. Look here, I had this made in Paris." He brought out a neat, nickel-plated cylinder about six inches long, with a pear-shaped bulb at one end. "Just try to open that, will you?"
I tried in vain, while Helen strolled around the shop, glowering helplessly. He took it from me with a smile and snapped the bulb end open and shut several times. "See. That's how. It's to hold the twenty-five-cent size bottles," he explained, "and, when it's closed, you can throw it across the street without breaking 'em. Good idea for traveling, hey? That's Pe-air outside, ain't he? The diligence-driver wanted me to hire him, but I said not any; I guess I can worry along by myself and save my dollar-and-a-half per. Say, you get him to show you that old gate that's got the bass-relief of women walking along the top of it. That's the funniest ever."
Relations were rather strained between Helen and me, as we followed Pierre, until the chastening she gave me put her in a good temper, as is frequently the case. We asked Pierre about the gate with the procession of women described by our new acquaintance.
"Women, madame?" he said vaguely. "But yes, we are coming to the Gate of Saint Mark, and that has a figure—but not a woman. Tonne Dieu! This poor Saint Mark, to be taken for a woman! He has a gown on; that is what misled this monsieur, no doubt."
There was, in fact, a colossal statue of the saint with his lion by his side, on a sort of shelf projecting from the top of the gate; it was a beautiful stone archway, draped with vines. The sea-air, I suppose, kept all the foliage here a lively green; and there was a picturesque and highly unwholesome mold on the buildings.
"This can't be the gate he meant, Pierre," said Helen. "That figure don't look the least like a woman. What are the other gates?"
He said there were a great many, oh, but a great many! Five or six, and there had been more, but three were battered down a hundred years ago, during the Vendée. Did ces dames know about the Vendée? Vé! He could tell us a story about that time—and he plunged into it forthwith.
Mr. Weingartner's last words had been, "See you later," and see us later he did, every day and all day, to Helen's indignation. The girl was civil to him, not for his sake, but for her own, because she was a lady, as she majestically informed me, and would not have two sets of manners.
"Oh, you don't care," she said savagely; "you think he's a type, and you'd just as lief study him. The man's impossible; I simply cannot stand him! Goodness, there he comes now!" We hurried along, but he overtook us at the next corner, beaming and breathless, wiping the inside of his straw hat with a large, spotless handkerchief. Mr. Weingartner was a very clean man; and also, what he himself would doubtless have called a "neat dresser." One envied him the easy, well-fitted comfort of his clothing.
"You two walk the fastest of any ladies I ever saw," he said; "and do you know, ma'am," here he addressed me, "you cross the street different from any lady I know. Most of 'em get out in the middle, and then they don't know whether they better cover short stop or second base. And while they're jig-stepping, along comes a fire-engine or a trolley-car or an automobile—Bing! Friends will kindly omit flowers. Beg pardon, ma'am, but don't you write? I see you going around with that book all the time."
He meant P. Virgilius!
"Well, I write myself, off and on," he said, when I had confusedly acknowledged that I did sometimes. "Got into it writing ads for the Fluid. Last year I had a book out, 'Why?' Just that, you know, 'Why?' Inside it was all why this and why that. I made twenty-five hundred dollars with it. I'm going to write another, 'Because,' same style. That kind of book is a strong seller. Where you ladies going to-day?"
"Nowhere," said Helen hastily. "We—we're just taking a little exercise, and then we're going back to our room to rest."
He was distinctly disappointed. "I thought maybe I could take you to some of these places," he said wistfully "There's that flight of steps down behind the palace. It's where the old kings and queens used to go piking out With their crowns and scepters and take a swim. Seen it yet?"
"We really can't go to-day,- Mr. Weingartner," said Helen humanely—for her, that is, "I'm sorry, we're both tired. Anyway, we saw the steps from the palace wall."
"Oh, that ain't any place to see from. They're right by that gate I was telling you about. It's got two towers and a span between. I judge you haven't seen that either, if you haven't been down to the steps. You better let me take you. Pe-air'll never get around to it, the gait he's going."
Helen ruthlessly dragged me back to our huge, bare, stone-floored cave of a room. It was about as dry, well-lighted, and cozy as the average basement laundry. I protested, but she was inexorable.
"What is it you object to about Mr. Weingartner, Helen?"
She turned her youthful, measuring eye upon me. "Now you're studying me!" she remarked acutely. "What I object to about Mr. Weingartner is Mr. Weingartner!" And after this epigrammatic deliverance, she added, "He's slangy, for one thing."
"Every one that has any respect or affection for the English language is slangy at times——"
"Oh, you always can say something like that!" said the girl, with contempt. "It's really not as clever as it sounds. You know he's slangy. He's—the—limit I What are you laughing at, now?"
In my serious moods I felt sorry for our poor countryman. For, whatever she thought of him, it was plain that he was very much taken with Helen. Anything more hopeless could not well be imagined; she was engaged, and, apart from that, she would not look upon him as a possible husband under any circumstances. The young man, to borrow from his own vocabulary, "meant business"; otherwise he would not make such an effort to be polite and attentive to me. That is a specific symptom. It was too bad; I had to fall back on the time-tested saying: "Men may die and worms may eat them—but not for love!" He would get over it.
The immediate result of our enforced seclusion this afternoon was a profound study of the guide-book on Helen's part. And before very long she unearthed some interesting particulars. "Why, look at this," she exclaimed. "We've been missing something worth while all this time. This must be the place Mr. Weingartner is always talking about. It's starred in Baedeker, and it sounds attractive. 'Porte des Sept Cent Vierges (Gate of the Seven Hundred Virgins), situated at the northeastern extremity of the city, on the Rue Reine-Marguerite, leading to the Quai of that name, the principal connecting-street between the Upper and Lower Towns at one time, now almost disused. An interesting medieval relic, the center of many legends. Its capacious dungeons,' etc., etc. I'll speak to Pierre about that. We ought to see it."
But, as it happened, Pierre, being arraigned the next day, put on a manner of much mystery and embarrassment. He shrugged, he shook his head, he made a dozen apologetic and deprecatory gestures. Yes, certainly, it was a fine gate, a pearl of gates, but—mademoiselle did not, could not comprehend. He would explain, only—to get there, one had to pass—and, in effect, there were in the neighborhood—of course, if ces dames insisted—! Enfin, he would speak at large to madame, if she liked, but to mademoiselle, never!
He might have said more, but Helen's agile feminine mind had already jumped—no, bounded, like a Rocky Mountain sheep, to a conclusion. She returned to me with a shocked face. "It's plain enough," she said, "the place isn't respectable. Pierre said no decent people would be seen going there; at least, he didn't say so in so many words, but that's what he meant."
So no more mention was made of the Gate of the Seven Hundred Virgins, until Mr. Weingartner again brought up the subject. I had to tell him of our investigation. He took his cigar from between his lips and stared at me in incredulous astonishment.
"Not respectable! Well, I like that!" he ejaculated. "If I'm any judge, it's forty times more respectable than the Rue Saint Lazare, where he took you the other day, where the pawnshops are. Half the houses are shut up and empty; you don't see any people. It's as quiet as Sunday-at-the-farm. There's a kind of dump in one place where the citizens do considerable landscape-gardening with garbage and dead cats—but that's nothing, you see that right in the principal streets. I guess the Health Inspector don't get around oftener than once a day in Valmi. Respectable! Well, I guess I ought to know—any man that's born and brought up in Chicago—!" He paused, knitting his brows; then he gave voice to a thought that, strangely enough, had come to all three of us at the same moment. "Strikes me Pe-air's kind of leery of taking people to that gate!"
The upshot of this was that Mr. Weingartner finally had his desire and escorted us to see the Gate of the Seven Hundred Virgins, in absurdly high spirits. Helen and I were even on the score of undue cordiality now; it was she who accepted his invitation before I could say a word, with a weird and unnatural affability. And I took some satisfaction in reminding her that if she made a convenience of him, she must be prepared to be kind to him. "I'm going to be kind to him," she answered, and gave me an unreadable glance, "just as kind as you are!"
The Rue Reine-Marguerite, to uninstructed eyes, looked neither respectable nor the reverse. It was dead, that street; it had no soul, whether to sin with or to save. Grass grew between the cobbles. The houses were empty and falling into ruins; their hearths had been cold this hundred years. Even we, with our harsh, Yankee levity, our incongruous talk, could not touch to life its spiritless old echoes. Instead, it began to sit heavy on us all, in spite of Mr. Weingartner; and I, for one, thought, when we turned a bend and came upon the Gate, with the living water of the bay showing distantly under its wide-flung arch, that I had seldom seen so comfortable a sight.
There were two monstrous towers coupled together by a closed-in gallery over the archway; under it might still be seen the sockets wherein the great iron valves of the Gate had once swung. A tribe of beggars had taken possession of this old rookery, with a shambling hut built against the ancient city wall and roofed with boards and bits of sacking. Two women were washing clothes on a terrace, the place clattering with their talk; their dull-blue and Isabella-colored rags fluttered on a line strung between a pair of stone pillars. There was a man asleep on a bench near by, with his hat over his face. The women stopped a moment, gazed at us, then the shrill duet broke out afresh.
"The Virgins are on the other side," said Mr. Weingartner. "Hello! There's a steamer!" He pointed, and we made out the vessel at some distance from the harbor entrance, an attenuated smudge from its funnel defacing the sky.
"That's the first steamship I've seen around here," he said. "She's almost standing still. Some tramp, I guess."
We turned to the Gate. Across the entire outer face of the gallery-part (I do not know its architectural name) was a gigantic frieze, carved in what must have been at one time high relief,—the Virgins. The style of the carving was, of course, archaic; childishly direct, full of a rude sentiment. There was movement and dignity in these up-and-down Noah's Ark figures. One could see that it was meant for a march of triumph; and there was something brave and uplifted in its simplicity.
"What on earth is that thing they're each one holding?" Helen wondered; "a sword?"
"Looks like a baseball bat," suggested Mr. Weingartner.
I thought it might be a palm leaf.
"This place must be beautiful by moonlight," said Helen abruptly.
What put that into her head? Mr. Weingartner had out a little pocket-calendar in an instant. "It must, indeed, Miss Helen," he said; "let's see. 'Moon rises 8 hrs. 25 min.' That's to-night. What do you say we come down and see it about nine or half-past when it's got up in the sky, hey?"
"I think it would be lovely!" said Helen, with wholly unwarrantable enthusiasm. Had she proposed to dislodge the moon and remove it from the heavens, I could not have been more surprised. This was being kind to him with a vengeance! Never before had the duties of a chaperon so weighed on me. I thought I saw a malign sparkle in her eye. And Mr. Weingartner looked inanely pleased.
"You'd just as lief, wouldn't you?" he asked me timidly; "just us three?"
I may fairly say that, speaking as an aunt with a marriageable niece, my world reeled! Three! The weather-beaten old she-dragon that guarded her was being invited to bear a hand in this Romeo-and-Juliet business! I had expected to go anyhow, writhing in the Nessus' shirt of propriety; and, lo, they wanted me!
"I hope Pe-air won't get next to the scheme," remarked Mr. Weingartner. "He's a butter-in, Pe-air is."
"Here's Pierre now!" said Helen.
"Told you so!" said Mr. Weingartner, under his breath.
Our ex-guide came up, a little winded by rapid walking, but smiling and civil as ever.
"You have seen the Gate, madame?" He smacked his lips and fell into an attitude of reverent admiration. "Ah-h-h, but it is the beautiful, the superb gate! And of an antiquity! Imagine you, madame, a thousand, two thousand years, maybe! That is prettily well old. Vè!" He pointed to the frieze. "Behold, the Virgins! They are all there—all the Seven Hundred, you may count them. And, observe, every one has her arms and legs complete—except where they have been broken off, and then you can see the place! It is of a completeness! In all that crowd, a pair of legs for every head! Not one forgotten, not one slighted! And conceive the difficulty! Seven hundred heads! Fourteen hundred legs!" He remained posed before this triumph of the sculptor's art in contemplative ecstasy.
"What do they keep in those old towers?" asked Mr. Weingartner.
"Tonne Dieu! Nothing at all, monsieur. They are all falling down inside."
"Look pretty solid to me," said Mr. Weingartner, who seemed to make a point of not believing Pierre, on principle, "and the doors are locked good and hard. I tried one of 'em the other day."
"But, monsieur, it is to break the neck if one goes in there! They lock the doors for that reason precisely."
"Huh!" said Mr. Weingartner.
Pierre gave him up and turned hopefully to me.
"There is a story about that Gate, madame, about the Virgins—if you would like——?"
"Does it tell what they're holding in their hands?" asked Helen.
"Eh, yes, mademoiselle, and more, much more besides——"
"Here's a place for you to sit down in the shade, ma'am," said Mr. Weingartner. "I can make a cushion of my coat——"
He had it half-way off; but I refused, not as pleasantly as might be, I am afraid. I was not such a Mrs. Methuselah as all that, if I was Helen's aunt. He sat down beside us, on a patch of grass, and Pierre, standing in front, a dramatic figure in that drop-curtain landscape of sunshine, ruins, and distant sea, began:
"Madame, you know that statue of King Louis the Crusader, that I showed you in the middle of the Place du Roi, on horseback, looking toward Jerusalem, with a lance in his hand? Every year, at the feast of Corpus Domini, the little girls that make their first communion come in procession from the church and lay wreaths of olive and of parsley around the horse's hoofs—that is as high as they can reach, the little girls—Well, madame, it was in his time that all this happened. That was many, many hundred years ago, oh, but many centuries. King Louis went away to the Crusade, and all his knights and nobles with him, so there were only women and little children and old men left in Valmi. The city had a stout wall then, and nobody was afraid. But after a while a wild, roving king came down from the North with many long black ships, and bearded fierce men—they were Danes, madame, I do not know if you have ever heard of Danes in America. They drank blood, as I have been told. The king's name was Eohric. He anchored his ships off there beyond the point—it was there then as now; and landed his men, and they came up to take Valmi. But there were very brave people in those days, and they shut all the gates and came out upon the walls, and the women made kettles of boiling pitch and poured down, and the old men served the cannon—Bim! Boum! And the boys fired off the muskets—Tr—rr—rrat! Tr—rrrrrat!——"
"Cut it out, sport! They didn't have guns in those days' said Mr. Weingartner.
"Never mind, it was catapults and arrows, I suppose," I said. "Let him go on."
"All right, ma'am," said he, patting a fold of my dress soothingly, "what you say goes."
"So the Danes, at first, could make no headway at all, madame, and they were sore and angry. And the young women came and stood on the walls and called out to taunt them: 'Eohric, King of the Danes, why do you not come into Valmi?' But, madame, they laugh best who laugh last. By-and-by they had nothing more to eat in the town, and the Danes would let nothing come in. They were starving, these brave citizens, and they killed rats and mules and ate them, and the children cried for bread. That is to make one mad, madame, when the little children suffer! At last Eohric, the King, sent in word: 'I will go away and trouble you never again, if you will send out to me and my men all those young women that came and mocked me from the battlements, and all the other young women. But if you will not send them, I will lay Valmi waste with fire and sword and take the young women away into slavery and kill all the rest of you.' So, madame, the elders held a council and talked a long while—because, do you see, the position had its difficulties. On the one hand they would all be killed, and the young women made slaves—and, on the other, they would all live, but the young women would still be—bien, madame, it was a point, that! It took thought!"
"A-o-reek kind of had 'em coming and going, didn't he!" said Mr. Weingartner.
"In the end, the old men sent word to Eohric that he could have the young women. For, you see, madame, somebody must live, there were children to grow up, and—and—there would, after a while, be more young women. There were seven hundred of them in the town, and the next day they all marched out——"
"What!" shouted Mr. Weingartner, "they gave up the girls?"
"Monsieur, yes—one cannot have an omelet without breaking eggs!"
"Well, they were a pretty bum lot of old men, that's all I've got to say!" said Mr. Weingartner, reddening with indignation.
"Monsieur, I have no doubt you would not have done it, but, quelle pitié! You were not living and in Valmi then!" said Pierre, with fine irony. "They all wore long white dresses, and each one carried a sharp sword in the folds of her clothing, to kill the man she should be allotted to, or, if that might not be, to kill herself. And they sang hymns to the Virgin and made prayers: 'Mater purissima, ora pro nobis! Sancta Virgo virginum, ora pro nobis!' like Père Antoine when he says the litany, madame. Then there came up a great fog out of the sea, and the people that stood and wailed and wrung their hands on the wall could not see, no, not ten paces from the wall. But they heard thunder and fighting, and words of command in many great voices, and saw flashes of scarlet and swords through the fog. Then, when evening came, the mist all rolled back, and there was the battlefield by the sea, and the dead, torn, trampled bodies of Eohric and his followers to the last man—but no Virgins. While they looked and wondered, the troop of girls came back just as they had set out, only with chaplets of flowers and hawthorn-boughs in their hands. When every one ran and embraced them, crying for joy, they were like people waked from a dream. They said, 'What is it all about? Here are dead men and a bloody field, but we saw nothing of it. There were no Danes here, as we thought, but only fresh fields and hedges. Now we will go and hang up our wreaths to the Virgin, and then we will sleep, for we are tired.' But, madame, when they got to Notre Dame, the Cathedral, there were the statues of the Holy Mother and the saints all hacked and bloodstained, and broken armor and swords flung down, and the garments of the images caked with sweat and dust! So they knew there had been a miracle, that the Blessed Virgin and the saints had come down from Heaven and saved the girls and delivered Valmi. Then they built the Gate, and here it stands to-day, to prove what I tell you. And, for another proof, they say, sometimes about the midsummer, like this, on a foggy night, the Virgins come down from the Gate and walk this way on their old march. Tè! I have known two, three, who have seen it!"
"Pipe-dream!" said Mr. Weingartner, rising. But I think he gave Pierre some money. As we walked back along the Rue Reine-Marguerite, Helen leading the way, for, whenever she decently could, she left Mr. Weingartner to my entertainment, he said to me in an undertone: "You know what I said about Pe-air sort of gum-shoeing around and breaking in whenever he had a chance? Well, you saw how he followed us to-day. And I'm pretty sure he's the man I saw following me when I came down here by myself the first day or so I was here. I didn't know his looks so well then, and, at the time, I thought it was only some beggar. I'm telling you because I—because I—" he stopped short in some confusion.
"Thank you very much, Mr. Weingartner," I said, "but we don't need Pierre now anyhow. We've dismissed him."
"I guess that's just as well," he said; "but, ma'am, there's another thing. There ain't much gets by me, without my seeing it, and I've got a hunch there's something going on here, on the Q.T., you know. You saw that fellow asleep on the bench this afternoon where the women were washing? Well, he wasn't asleep at all. He was watching us under his hat the whole time!"
The moon came up per instructions, as Mr. Weingartner said. We watched it rise that evening from a little balcony outside the dining-room windows where, on fine days, they served our meals. There was a yellow-and-white striped awning spread upon a sort of wooden gridiron to protect us from the sun or the night air; and we ate at charming little round tables painted apple-green. We had no view of the bay, for the hotel looked landward; but Valmi lying all aslant on the hillside, it was pretty to see tier on tier of red roofs and blazing windows at sunset; and, as night drew on, lights pricking out against the dusk. Mr. Weingartner came and sat by us, smoking, after dinner.
"I had a cup of nice, strong, old-vatted chicory and a fried boot-heel for my dinner," he observed gravely. "They called it coffee, and rag-oo, or burgoo, but I'm giving it to you straight. Say, it's a foggy night. Look at the moon."
There was a dull, iridescent ring about it; and we could see dim vapors drifting, fold on fold, over the house-tops.
"There is some fog every night," Helen said; "I've noticed it. This is a very damp place."
"It'll be worse on the bay-side than here," Mr. Weingartner remarked. He looked at his watch and stood up, settling those neat clothes with a man's slight shrugging movements. It occurred to me for the first time that he was a well-made man, straight and active; I suppose he was rather good-looking in a way. "Are you ladies ready?"
On the other side the fog was much heavier, as he had predicted. It dimmed the few lights along the streets, so that walking was not always easy; and, standing at one end of the Rue Reine-Marguerite, one might see tall wraiths of mist coil and dissolve and reshape against the farther dimness with a mysterious precision.
"Good night for the Virgins," said our cavalier.
"Oh, it is beautiful!" Helen cried out at that moment; for we had just come in sight of the Gate. It soared above us into the pallid twilight with a grave strength of outline. One small street lamp on the brow of the arch sent out half a dozen brave Lilliputian lances of light athwart the mist. The beggars' hut, the sordid rubbish of its surroundings, were all confounded in shadow. Immemorially old it looked, staunch and faithful; I think it somehow touched and awed us. We went through the arch; looking seaward, the vapors were not too heavy for us to distinguish the bay tracked here and there with lights. "That must be that steamer, where you see those red and green lights—they're too high up for any of the craft around here," Mr. Weingartner said. "She's lying a good deal nearer in. Ain't it funny about harbor-lights—on the boats, I mean? They're the same, and hung the same way, all over the world. You wouldn't find 'em any different from here in the bay of Hong-Kong."
We walked out in the middle of the road and backed away to get a good view of the Gate. "Oh, the top of it's all in shadow," I exclaimed, disappointed. "You can't see the frieze. But maybe the effect will be better when the moon gets higher. Why, where's Helen?"
"Over there," said Mr. Weingartner, with a vague gesture. "Come down this way; the farther off you get, the better you can see it."
"I hope Helen won't get turned around in this fog," I said. "If I were alone, I never could find my way home in the world."
We walked a little farther. "You ain't alone; you're with me," said Mr. Weingartner. "I guess Miss Helen's on. She's a mighty sweet girl, and bright, too. Runs in the family, I expect."
Oh, he was impossible! What ought I to do if he opened up on Helen to me? Heavens! Opened up! A week or so more of him would wreck the best-built edifice of English style in the world. What he would have said next, there is no telling, for, just then, Helen called out. She was in the road, a little behind us. "Look!" she said, in a high, gasping voice, "Look!"
I looked towards the Gate.
They came, the Virgins. Two by two, a procession, tall, white, and soundless as the fog specters among which they moved. The archway filled and discharged them, a measured stream. The swords were in their hands. They came. Straight towards us. Unhurried, inescapable.
I do not describe my sensations, because I do not remember to have had any sensations. I was in a stupor of terror, or mere surprise, call it which you choose. In common with the rest of the world, I have liked to fancy myself playing a high part in some heroic situation—but I know better now than to expect of myself presence of mind or even ordinary common-sense. They came, the Virgins! And then——
Well, then, Mr. Weingartner rose to the occasion with the promptness and energy which have, no doubt, contributed to making Weingartner's Fountain-Pen Fluid famous. They were not fifteen yards away when he swept Helen and me behind him, with a sudden movement of his left arm, not ungentle, but of a convincing strength. And, with the same magic directness, his right hand traveled to the efficient, the ready, the deadly American pocket. Something twinkled in the moonlight, something clicked. I had never seen that motion outside of a cow-boy melodrama; but, amazing as it sounds, the Virgins had! They understood it! Their advance slackened, wavered, stopped utterly. A retrograde movement undulated through their ranks! They were prudent Virgins! After a pause, during which my mind groped up and down for thoughts and found none, a Virgin emerged from the front ranks, already fallen into a disordered group, and thus she spoke:
"Monsieur, we do not wish to hurt you, but ces dames must be taken quelque part, and you must come——"
Mr. Weingartner opened his mouth and delivered a volley of clicking short words like a repeating rifle.
"See-you-to-hell-first!" And then, as two or three made a step forward, he trained the revolver on the first speaker. "Halt!" said he venomously.
They halted.
"Monsieur," said the Virgin, twittering, "pour l' amour de Dieu, ne tirez pas! Un coup de pistolet, un seul, et la garde civile viendra!" He wrung his hands, he made wildly imploring gestures. "Pensez à votre mère, monsieur, et ne tirez pas!"
This is the simple truth. Twenty armed men stood cowed and aghast before one! Somebody burst into a shrill cackle of laughter. Upon reflection, I believe this person was myself. Another phenomenon now took place. A very high, wide Virgin detached itself from the multitude, and, advancing, remarked huskily:
"Don't shoot, cap. You and th' ladies air as safe as—as the Democratic majority in South Ca'lina. If you git to sloshin' 'round with that there gun, the p'leece'll git down on us, and then th' whole thing'll blow up. That's what Pe-air's trying to tell you."
Mr. Weingartner, without removing his aim from Pierre, spoke out of the side of his mouth:
"Can vou talk their hinky-dink?"
"Sure."
"Tell 'em to line up to one side, and if one of 'em stirs, I'll blow the head off him."
"Brother," said the other solemnly, "there ain't no needcessity. They know me. If I land on one of 'em oncet, it'll be th' same as if a chimney had fell on him. He won't be a smear. Wait till I git my nightie off."
He de-rolled his white shroud and stood forth, a monument in seaman's trousers and a red flannel shirt. The others watched him, apparently in a semi-hypnotic state—like myself. He addressed his associates in a language unknown to the human race, I should have thought, but it had the desired effect. They took position at the side of the road.
"Pe-air!" said Mr. Weingartner, and motioned him to a place about a yard in front of him. Pierre obeyed.
"Now you tell 'em that you and I are going to take the ladies home, and Pe-air's going to walk in front of me this way until we're out of sight, then he can come back and go on with this thirty-third degree fool business, whatever it is. And you tell em if one of 'em gets gay when my back is turned, it'll be all day with Pe-air. See?"
"Mister," said the other, "Pe-air ain't no such package of gilt-edge securities as you think. He ain't never been quoted above thirty to my knowledge, and I wouldn't wonder if he'd slumped about fifteen points quite recent. However—" again he harangued the Virgins. They seemed to understand.
"You take that fair-haired lady," said Mr. Weingartner to our ally; his voice softened as he spoke to us. "Are you all right, ma'am? You—you don't feel faint, do you?"
"I can walk, I'm all right." said I. "I never fainted in my life." He took his arm away and offered it to me instead.
"Now then," he said to Pierre, "you walk!"
"Monsieur——"
"Walk, damn you!"
Pierre walked.
We carried out Mr. Weingartner's program to the letter. I think the Virgins must have stood as still as their stone originals. Pierre was dismissed at the turn and went posting back to his followers with no more words.
"Mister," said the big man, as we resumed our journey, after watching him out of range, "you done right. I had to talk that way, because some of 'em understand a little U.S. But if you hadn't put up such a good front, you an' th' ladies wouldn't 'a' been safe, not one minute. An' then, of course, they knowed one shot 'ld blow th' gaff to th' gardsy veal—th' p'lecce, you know. That was lucky for you, too."
"I think it was lucky for us you were there," said Helen. She was dangling from his arm like a tassel.
"Miss," said he, with conviction, "it was."
"I wish you'd tell me your name," said the girl. "I want to write about it to Papa."
"It's so long since I was baptized, I plumb fergit it," he said seriously. "But Paducah, Kentucky, is where I was raised, an' I'm thinkin' o' gittin' a 'ack o' Congress to call myself that—Paducah. George W. Paducah. Then I kin always look on th' map an' find out who I am, when I git one o' my lapses of mem'ry.
Helen understood: she asked no more questions. And when we reached the house, she did a very pretty thing. She has—she had—a tiny miniature of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, painted on ivory and set around with pearls for a brooch. A dozen people have asked her if it was not a portrait of herself in fancy dress. At the door she gave her hand to her massive escort.
"I am glad to have known you, even for this short time," she said. "And I shall never forget you. And I feel proud of my country-men to-night. I want you to take this, because it's the nearest thing I have to a picture of myself, and I like to think of your having it." She reached up and fastened the rich little trifle on the breast of his red flannel shirt. She meant the words, and her young voice quavered as she thought of home. Oh, my country, if I forget thee——!
Paducah was so embarrassed he could only stammer. The little scene did credit to them both. At the foot of the steps, as we turned to go up, we saw him remove the pin and carefully bestow it in his hip-pocket—to the destruction of sentiment! There was not much romance about Paducah.
Valmi looked so placid the next morning from my breakfast-table on the balcony, one might have fancied it knew of no such things in life as plots and pistols. Yet not for the first time had those ancient stones answered to armed men and desperate words. I had to smile when I remembered how well the setting had become the scone. My mind stopped short at the mystery of the Virgins; who they were, and what they were about, I did not even care to guess. In fact, I was tired and had not slept well had not slept at all, to be accurate. As we were playing our gay, careless summer play, of a sudden the grim face of Tragedy looked forth between the music and the lights; and 1 found the adventure none the less gruesome for being also grotesque.
Mr. Weingartner stepped through the glass doors and threaded his way toward me among the apple-green tables. A week earlier, twenty-four hours earlier, no one could have persuaded me that the sight of him would stir me with a throb of relief and thankfulness. He looked a little jaded: yet crisp, clean-shaven, and unruffled as usual. "Well?" he said, and drew up up a chair.
"Mr. Weingartner," I said. "why did you go go back there last night?"
"Back where?" he asked shamelessly, pretending not to understand. Then he added ingenuously, "How did you know I went back?"
"I saw you and Paducah from my window. I had a notion that was what you meant to do, when you didn't follow us inside. And I stayed awake until I heard you come in. That was about three o'clock, I think."
A startling change came into his face. He turned red; he turned white. He made an impulsive movement towards me, then checked himself, dropping his eyes.
"Were you laying awake last night worrying about me, ma'am?" he asked hoarsely. "What did you do that for?"
"Because I wouldn't have been half a woman if I hadn't," said I fiercely. "As if I could have helped worrying! Why did you risk your life that way?"
"Oh, risk my life! I wasn't risking my life with that bunch. I wanted to know what in thunder they were up to, that's all."
He picked up a ribbon of my dress and passed it through and through his fingers. "Say, I think your clothes are so pretty," he remarked, with entire irrelevance. "But I guess it's you wearing 'em, it ain't the clothes."
Well, he was impossible! But, for all that——
"Then you know, now, all about it, I suppose? What the Virgins were, I mean. Pirates, robbers, smugglers?"
"You've missed," he said, chuckling. "Nope. At least, you might call 'em smugglers, but not the brandy and kid-glove kind. I guess the bottom dropped out of that business seventy-five years ago. Nope. You'd never guess, if you lived to be a thousand, and guessed every minute of your time. Why, those were real, live swords they were carrying, and some of 'em had guns with ammunition, cartridge-belts, navy revolvers on the side. They were shipping 'em all as per contract to William P. Castro, James W. Amador, Hiram H. Bolivar & Co., South America."
I looked at him bewildered.
"You don't see?" he said, twinkling with laughter. "One of these little tin-pot republics they have down there. The one-sixteenth of the populace that hasn't revoluted yet is getting ready to, and some guy over here is staking 'em to the munitions of war. They've got to keep it dark, you know; if the French. government or their own got wise there'd be a dickens of a time. Paducah told me about it. You notice I'm not mentioning any names. That wouldn't be quite square. Paducah's all right; he's one of these fellows that kind of floats around and gets into everything. He's fourth-assistant-deputy-deck-swabber on that steamboat (remember that tramp we saw in the bay?) and they sent him ashore yesterday morning to take account of stock. Say, he said it was the worst job he was ever up against. You see, their agent has been shipping the stuff in here by the car-load for the last two weeks; they've had it spread out all over the country in caves and holes, so if any of it was found anywhere they'd kind of have a get-away stake somewhere else, see? The idea was, they were finally to get it all together in the cellars under that old Gate and have it ready to deliver when the steamboat came along. When Paducah was telling me all this, I says, 'Well, why in Sam Hill did they pick out Valmi? Couldn't they get terminal facilities anywhere but here?' 'Why wouldn't they pick out Valmi?' says he. 'Look at the town—look at the people—ain't they all dead ones? It's the safest town this side of the pearly gates. Who's straining their minds here about the down-trodden masses of the Republic of Casta Diva?' says he. 'Nobody. There's hardly ever any tourists even, except one or two like yourselves. They've got Rip Van Winkle beat a block.' Pe-air's chairman of the committee on entertainment; he's a natural-born pirate, that fellow, if he had a little more get-up-and-get. He had to see about getting the baggage here and billed to South America and way-stations. Every time anybody got within shouting distance of that Gate, Pe-air pretty near threw a fit. They worked at night, mostly, and Paducah says they kept the Virgin outfit on hand to scare off any townspeople that might come along. Trouble was, you see, we didn't scare worth a cent. 'Why, look here,' says I, 'did you know we were coming down? We fixed it all up to see the place by moonlight when we were there in the afternoon, and I thought that fellow on the bench was rubbering.' 'That's what he was there for,' Paducah says. 'He's one of 'em that savvies a little English, but there's a whole lot he don't know; he didn't catch on to your plan. No, pardner,' says he, 'you and your girl and the little one that give me the sunburst was a surprise-party. Lemme tell you says he, 'it was this way: I come ashore in th' morning and found everything wrong-end-before. These mutts ain't any more idea of organizing than the reform candidate for mayor of South Succotash, Mass. They keep right on talkin' after they've quit thinkin', and they quit early. Our agent picked out Pe-air for the likeliest man to run the Valmi end of the business. They had to have somebody, you know. The idea was that Pe-air was to have so many heelers at so much per. Well, then, what does Pe-air do but get together the star collection of thugs and strong-arms; you never see anything like 'em outside of Joliet, Ill. I was plumb disgusted when I see 'em,' says Paducah. 'I ain't any use fer 'em, but I can't help myself. I'm up against it, as here-in-before stated. I've been with 'em all day, an' I guess these hot sports have begun to find out there ain't much differ between me an' Old Pap Trouble; they're afraid if they ain't real good, I'll wig-wag th' "Lucania" to send ashore th' rest o' th' Trouble family. Likewise, I'm th' channel whereby they'll git th' long green. When you an' th' ladies turned up about nine-thirty, we was all ready to issue from our dungeon-cells into th' gladsome light of day, each one with a armful o' boodle. We had to begin early, or we'd never git through, you know. An' Pe-air was dead set on th' Virgin rig; that'll do more than anything else to show you what kind o' geezers they are over here. If you had 'a' been French, you'd be running still,' says Paducah. 'That's what they was figgerin' on. An' then they know they can't git up any kind of a roughhouse, without stirrin' up th' gardsy veal. But they was plenty ready to stick a knife in your back when you was soft-sodderin' around out there'—I'm just saying it like he did, you know," finished Mr. Weingartner, coloring. And, indeed, he had imitated Paducah to admiration.
"Then your life was in danger," I said. "I don't see how you dared to go back after that."
"Pshaw, what would I be afraid of? Paducah told me all this while we were walking back. When we got there, they had about a wheelbarrow-load of sabres dumped on the Key Rain-Margaret, and that was as far as they had got! The skipper of the 'Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse' had landed a party of three or four husky-looking coons, in command of the second-mate, to hustle 'em along. The mate was a white man, about seven feet high, with a gun strapped around his waist; and when we got there, he was using language and a marlin-spike with equal freedom. 'Fine evening, bo!' says I. 'Heavenly, if it wasn't for the fog and the place and the people and a few other trifling objections!' He held up a lantern to look at me. 'Who in Hades are you?' he says (only that's not what he said). 'Shh! Don't give it away!' says I, 'but I'm Silent Sam the Snake-like Sleuth of Savannah. Want any help?' 'Oh, sugar!' says he (but that wasn't the word), 'do I want help? Get busy, or get out!' So I took off my coat and started in."
"What!" I shrieked, "you helped them?"
Sure I did. Why not? It was pitiful to see 'em. They had the shells and cartridges and uniforms packed in boxes, but the guns and side-arms were sort of stacked up loose. 'Wouldn't that give you the Willies?' says Paducah. And, say, you ought to have seen those guns. They were the kind my dad carried at Chancellorsville back in '62 or thereabouts. 'They don' know any better,' Paducah said, 'and what's the use of telling 'em? Let 'em sleep.'
"Of course, we made more or less noise while we were working, and the a-leet that resides along the water-front and on Garbage-park came and looked on after a while; but I guess they were all friends and relatives of Pe-air and the rest, for they never offered to tip it off to the police. We cleaned up the last boat-load about half-past two, and then the mate and Paducah and I hunted up a soda-water fountain and had a drink. I liked those fellows."
1 gazed at Mr. Weingartner silently, marveling within me at the Eternal Boy—marveling and envying!
"I guess you think I'm dippy," he said, with a diffident grin.
"I was wishing I was a man," I said.
He nodded comprehendingly. "We hit it off pretty well, don't we?" he said; and there came a look into his face that reminded me he was no boy, but a man.
"There was something I wanted to speak to you about," he began, in a different voice. "I'm—I'm thinking of—of getting married—if the lady'll have me, that is. I think maybe she—she likes me pretty well, from little things she's said. You know her. I—I guess I've showed how I feel, plain enough. I believe Miss Helen knows, though of course I've never said anything to her about it——"
"Mr. Weingartner, I'm so sorry," I said. "My niece is engaged. And I don't think she knows how you feel, or has had any idea of encouraging you. Helen isn't that kind of a girl,"
He looked at me with an extraordinary expression. He had been nervously turning his hat between his hands, and now clapped it on the table with some emphasis.
"Helen—nothing!" said he. "It's you I'm talking about"; and followed this up by a fervent statement, the like of which I have not heard in twenty years.
They say every woman knows—but every woman does not know. I had a painful quarter of an hour with Mr. Weingartner. I reminded him that he had only known me ten or twelve days. He said ten or twelve years wouldn't have made him more certain. I represented to him that a person who goes mooning about the country with a dismembered Virgil under one arm is not likely to make a practical housewife. He said he was willing to chance it. I pointed out that I must be at least five years older than himself. He said that didn't make any difference, he guessed he was old enough to know what he wanted.
"I know you'd—you'd like it after we were married," he said earnestly. "You know we get along first-rate together. We like the same kind of things—we both write, even. And you could have anything you wanted. I'm well-fixed, you know, I've got plenty. And the Fluid's pretty solid—it's a money hatcher, that stuff. My mother wouldn't have to live with us, if you didn't want; I could get her a nice flat somewhere. You can have two girls and send the wash out. I'll put on a dress-suit for dinner every evening, if you like, even when it's just ourselves. I know you're used to having things tony."
Let no one think this was amusing. It was not. If I had been Helen's age, I might have known better how to deal with him, perhaps. But my youth is long dead and decently coffined; I felt an inhumanity in disturbing those poor ashes. Let 'em sleep! In the end, I made the highly original remark that this need not keep us from being friends.
He got up. "Oh, friends!" he said savagely. "Don't give me that old gag!"
Here, mercifully, Helen appeared on the balcony. She saw everything, of course; but, like a well-bred woman, and a genuinely kind and sympathetic one, she seemed to see nothing. She began and kept up a pleasant trickle of talk, until we had both somewhat recovered our poise.
"Shall we go to see any more gates to-day, Mr. Weingartner?" she gaily asked him.
"I'm going to see one," he said gloomily. "I leave by the diligence at noon."
Helen expressed what I believe was a sincere regret. And the conversation halted dismally. She cast about and started a new topic.
"I didn't know you went around armed, Mr. Weingartner."
He surveyed her vaguely. "Armed? Me? Why, I don't."
"But you had that revolver last night, and very luckily, too. Did you take it because you had suspicions of Pierre?"
I was pleased to see the ghost of his natural cheerfulness flit over Mr. Weingartner's features.
"Oh, that!" he said. "Look here!" He repeated the Wild-West gesture and produced—the nickel-plated holder for that indispensable liquid, Weingartner's Perennial Fountain-Pen Fluid, twenty-five-cent size bottles!
"Stood 'em up, didn't I?" he said, with a faint smile. "I just happened to think of this. The bluff wouldn't have worked with a gang of toughs from some of our precincts—but these dagos! I believe Paducah and I could have won out if it had come to a show-down. They ain't in it with Americans!
Skoal to the Westland! Skoal! Thus the tale ended! I have never seen the hero of it since. In my quiet journey through the world, I do not meet with many Mr. Weingartners; yet he was only one of thousands. And I thought I saw in him not a little of the shrewd simplicity, the kind humor, the hearty spirit of his native land.
One thing more. Mr. Weingartner has got over it. There was an elaborate notice of his marriage in all our papers the other day. Men may die, and worms may eat them, but not for love.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
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