II
At the inn, a few days later, the pictures appeared. From them Ixar selected two—one small, one large—which, after dinner, he took to Elaine.
But, as it so happened, the girl, or her father, had guests that evening. Ixar left the pictures at the door and returned to his room.
There, on the mantel, beside a box of pigments and paints, he put one of the remaining photographs. It was a head, nearly life-sized, that showed back, almost as from a mirror, the contour of his features and the melancholy of his eyes.
For a while, a trifle sadly, he studied it. Then he took a book and read. An hour passed, and another. It was getting late.
Ixar stood up, moved to the window and began singing a measure, sweet and slow, a song of faraway lands. As he sang, he could see the road over which he had motored with Elaine, and which stretched on and on until lost in the engulfing city.
At thought of the girl, and oppressed by the utter loneliness that was his, he got out of the window, hung by the sill, and, dropping a few feet to the ground, went up the road to her house.
Save for a light in one curtained window, it was dark. But behind the curtains he divined Elaine. He kissed his hand at them. Abruptly they parted. A fiery face appeared. It was the colonel’s. Ixar sank into the shadows and away.
After luncheon, the next day, he returned there, and was promptly thanked by Elaine for the photographs which he had left for her.
“The big one is excellent,” the girl resumed. “So, too, is the little one. Before they came, I had been writing a letter. I had been telling about you in it, and how nice it is to have someone to talk to here; and afterward I enclosed your picture—the little one. Of course I said to return it. The letter was to my brother.” She paused, then idly added: “I posted it last evening. It must have reached him by this time.”
Idly, also, Ixar remarked:
“I did not know you had a brother.”
“Well, he is my half-brother. My mother was a widow when she married my father, and he and Herbert never quite hit it off.”
As the girl spoke, she thought of a family legend, the story of her father attempting to punish his stepson and of the boy tearing the whip from him, lashing him with it, and throwing it in his face.
A silence ensued. During it, Ixar, lifting his voice, sang, as he had sung the night before, a song of faraway lands.
“Aloha nui, palalaha—”
As the song began, the girl made a little gesture. As it concluded, she sat looking surprised at him.
“Why,” she exclaimed, “I was thinking of Honolulu, and at once you begin on a Hawaiian air. That must be telepathy, isn’t it?”
Ixar turned his dark eyes upon her.
“How do you know what the song is?”
“Because it is an air one can’t forget. I heard my brother sing it. He has been in Honolulu. He has been there twice. The government sent him. You may have heard of him—Herbert Duncan. He is in Boston now. Why, what’s the matter?”
Well she might ask. Had a dog run suddenly out and as suddenly and vicious bit Ixar on the leg, he could not have started more. For a moment his mouth twitched. It was impossible for him to turn pale, and yet, he appeared to.
“What is it?” Elaine repeated.
“The—The—” he at last began, but he did not seem to be able to get any further.
Sympathetically the girl nodded.
“You told us that at Santiago—”
“Yes. I was ill there. I have not quite recovered. I think I had best go back to the inn and lie down.”
“You won’t have anything?” Elaine asked, thinking as she spoke of her father’s decanter. “Can’t I get you—”
Ixar had risen. He thanked the girl. In thanking he looked at her—and what a look! Afterward it was to haunt her. A moment, and he had gone.
Elaine watched him go. She knew he cared for her, but concerning herself she was uncertain. Sometimes she thought she did care, sometimes she thought she did not. It was all very curious and delightful, and it had been more to clarify her own ideas than with any other object that she had written concerning him and sent his picture to her brother.
Now, as she sat musing on the porch, a motor flew up. It had but one occupant, a man, at sight of whom she exclaimed delightedly:
“Herbert! I was just thinking of you.”
Without alighting, he called to her. He had a shrewd, ugly, attractive face and a look of bulldog tenacity. As she hurried to him, he called again.
“Where is this man—what’s his name—Ixar?”
With candid eyes the girl surveyed her brother.
“Where is he? At the inn, I suppose. Why? Why do you ask? Won’t you get out?”
From a pocket he had taken a paper, which he gave her.
“I haven’t time. Here is a letter.”
“But, Herbert—” she expostulated, for already the machine was starting.
From over his shoulder he added:
“Later! I may return.”
The machine shot on, and she looked at the letter, which she had fancied was for her. It was for her father; and she thought it odd, for the two barely spoke.
Perplexed, she entered the house, where she found the colonel seated, conveniently near a sideboard.
“Here is a letter for you,” she announced. “Herbert brought it.”
“Herbert?” the old man growled.
He did not seem to believe her, but he took the letter and opened it. Then he opened his mouth, stared at the letter, stared from it at the girl, let it fall, and, his mouth still agape, got from his chair and steadied himself against the sideboard, where, with hands that shook, he helped himself to liquor.
Elaine ran to him.
“What is it?”
But now his head had begun to shake; it was as though he
