Short Fiction

supposed), and the winds lay spellbound in their cavern, and the great clouds spellbound in the sky. She danced away from our society and our life, back, back through the centuries till houses and fences fell and the earth lay wild to the sun. Her garment was as foliage upon her, the strength of her limbs as boughs, her throat the smooth upper branch that salutes the morning or glistens to the rain. Leaves move, leaves hide it as hers was hidden by the motion of her hair. Leaves move again and it is ours, as her throat was ours again when, parting the tangle, she faced us crying, “Oh!” crying, “Oh Harcourt! I never was so happy. I have all that there is in the world.”

But he, entrammelled in love’s ecstasy, forgetting certain Madonnas of Raphael, forgetting, I fancy, his soul, sprang to inarm her with, “Evelyn! Eternal Bliss! Mine to eternity! Mine!” and she sprang away. Music was added and she sang, “Oh Ford! oh Ford, among all these Worters, I am coming through you to my Kingdom. Oh Ford, my lover while I was a woman, I will never forget you, never, as long as I have branches to shade you from the sun,” and, singing, crossed the stream.

Why he followed her so passionately, I do not know. It was play, she was in his own domain which a fence surrounds, and she could not possibly escape him. But he dashed round by the bridge as if all their love was at stake, and pursued her with fierceness up the hill. She ran well, but the end was a foregone conclusion, and we only speculated whether he would catch her outside or inside the copse. He gained on her inch by inch; now they were in the shadow of the trees; he had practically grasped her, he had missed; she had disappeared into the trees themselves, he following.

“Harcourt is in high spirits,” said Mrs. Osgood, Anna, and Ruth.

“Evelyn!” we heard him shouting within.

We proceeded up the asphalt path.

“Evelyn! Evelyn!”

“He’s not caught her yet, evidently.”

“Where are you, Evelyn?”

“Miss Beaumont must have hidden herself rather cleverly.”

“Look here,” cried Harcourt, emerging, “have you seen Evelyn?”

“Oh, no, she’s certainly inside.”

“So I thought.”

“Evelyn must be dodging round one of the trunks. You go this way, I that. We’ll soon find her.”

We searched, gaily at first, and always with a feeling that Miss Beaumont was close by, that the delicate limbs were just behind this bole, the hair and the drapery quivering among those leaves. She was beside us, above us; here was her footstep on the purple-brown earth⁠—her bosom, her neck⁠—she was everywhere and nowhere. Gaiety turned to irritation, irritation to anger and fear. Miss Beaumont was apparently lost. “Evelyn! Evelyn!” we continued to cry. “Oh, really, it is beyond a joke.”

Then the wind arose, the more violent for its lull, and we were driven into the house by a terrific storm. We said, “At all events she will come back now.” But she did not come, and the rain hissed and rose up from the dry meadows like incense smoke, and smote the quivering leaves to applause. Then it lightened. Ladies screamed, and we saw Other Kingdom as one who claps the hands, and heard it as one who roars with laughter in the thunder. Not even the Archdeacon can remember such a storm. All Harcourt’s seedlings were ruined, and the tiles flew off his gables right and left. He came to me presently with a white, drawn face, saying: “Inskip, can I trust you?”

“You can, indeed.”

“I have long suspected it; she has eloped with Ford.”

“But how⁠—” I gasped.

“The carriage is ready⁠—we’ll talk as we drive.” Then, against the rain he shouted: “No gate in the fence, I know, but what about a ladder? While I blunder, she’s over the fence, and he⁠—”

“But you were so close. There was not the time.”

“There is time for anything,” he said venomously, “where a treacherous woman is concerned. I found her no better than a savage, I trained her, I educated her. But I’ll break them both. I can do that; I’ll break them soul and body.”

No one can break Ford now. The task is impossible. But I trembled for Miss Beaumont.

We missed the train. Young couples had gone by it, several young couples, and we heard of more young couples in London, as if all the world were mocking Harcourt’s solitude. In desperation we sought the squalid suburb that is now Ford’s home. We swept past the dirty maid and the terrified aunt, swept upstairs, to catch him if we could red-handed. He was seated at the table, reading the Oedipus Coloneus of Sophocles.

“That won’t take in me!” shouted Harcourt. “You’ve got Miss Beaumont with you, and I know it.”

“No such luck,” said Ford.

He stammered with rage. “Inskip⁠—you hear that? ‘No such luck’! Quote the evidence against him. I can’t speak.”

So I quoted her song. “ ‘Oh Ford! Oh Ford, among all these Worters, I am coming through you to my Kingdom! Oh Ford, my lover while I was a woman, I will never forget you, never, as long as I have branches to shade you from the sun.’ Soon after that, we lost her.”

“And⁠—and on another occasion she sent a message of similar effect. Inskip, bear witness. He was to ‘guess’ something.”

“I have guessed it,” said Ford.

“So you practically⁠—”

“Oh, no, Mr. Worters, you mistake me. I have not practically guessed. I have guessed. I could tell you if I chose, but it would be no good, for she has not practically escaped you. She has escaped you absolutely, forever and ever, as long as there are branches to shade men from the sun.”

The Machine Stops

Part I

The Airship

Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance. There are no