text: SS/*' HE' ■■■■ .- fr'A* 7■< ~ •’'-■'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'•'• "They wouldn’t know it was a lie. You are, the missionary chaps will still believe a native; they can't afford to concede the immutable fact that a black consistently makes only one constant effort in his life — an effort to win the answer that he thinks will please you most to hear. Why, I don’t even have to fix it up with my people. You’d believe the lie yourself if you could understand half they will." Amtrea’s lips drooped and she shook her head. "No," she said slowly. "No, I wouldn't. She was sitting with her elbow on the table, her cheek against the back of her clasped hands and her eyes following the white man’s nervous movements with a sort of wounded wonder. "So, you see, we can fix it," he concluded. "Those clergymen are the only people in this back country that I could have trusted you with and who will strike just the right family note in your precious world-of-the-things that aren’t-done-you-know. I have worked my best for you. I’ve made them come a hundred miles through country they have always thought impossible." Andrea sat back and let her hands fall to her lap; for a moment she bowed her head and looked down at them, then she raised her gaze to his face. Her own, while it had been half hidden, had suddenly lost Its look of exuberant youth. It was so pale that her eyes seemed too large for it. They moved its outlines. White Man," she said, "do you mean to kill beasts and men?" Kidd Andrea, "but even so, I wouldn't have believed it of you." Her face grew dull, like water running over silken moss. "I couldn't have believed that you would hurt me so!" she called her arms out across the table and dropped her face upon them. With a self-accusing cry, Trevor sprang to her, picked her up and carried her to the couch. She lay in his arms without resisting; her body had surrendered to a laxity that let him pile furs under her head and arrange her limbs as he would. She was listless; too tired to fight; too broken to weep. Me knelt beside her and took both her hands in his. “Now that you are no longer an irresponsible child,” he said, “now that your stripped self is here to listen, I will tell you how I love you. The child in you might forget; the woman never. I love you in body and in spirit I love you so that I am ready to stand up and deny freedom. I love you enough to give you myself and the world—my world of starlit nights and silent spaces that I’ve worshiped so long alone. Yes, I love you enough for that, and I have to, God help me, for you are in my and I can never, never get you out." Andrea looked as if mood were being transfused into her eyes with each word. She felt her youth coming back with the sure surge of an advancing tide. Her eyes grew bright and then frightened. “White Man!" she gasped, "take me quickly; I feel myself growing young again!" He leaped to his feet, caught her up in his arms and shook her; then he surrendered. “Young or old,” he said, “what difference does it make? I love your youth as I already love your old age. Put Your arm around my neck, look into my eyes and tell me you love me, too. Clinging to him, her head thrown back, her eyes in his, she said, “I love you.” Again, commanded Trevor. "I love you," said Andrea, "and now, my little sweetheart, my own girl just once more." "Ah, begged Andrea, "don't make so any of it again; I just kiss you." Five minutes later, Trevor reluctantly opened the door on the door and said, "Bishop!" One of the three white men sprang to his feet, "God bless my soul," he exclaimed, "where did you come from? When did you get here? My dear chap, what's happened to your face?" Trevor, forgetful of his damaged appearance, put his hands to his lips, though he feared that some mark had hung there to betray their recent occupation; then he remembered his singed and bandaged condition. "Oh, that's it," he said. "Nothing more." CHAPTER XII—Continued. "Mean what?" AUTHOR OF HOME, THROUGH STAIN! JOHN DOGALD—KINGS Emma and things in general, but do let's sit down. It always seems so greedy to me to gossip standing." She turned from him to the chair that Trevor held for her and motioned the suddenly turned prelate to another. His lips had snapped shut at the shocking aspersion that he came bearing bits on his tongue and he sat down on the extreme edge of the indicated seat as though By his pose, he would register a continued but silent protest. "You wouldn't think to look at him," said Andrea to Trevor, "that in half an hour he'll be taking comfort out of that chair and out of a good cigar and out of a long drink." Her eyes laughed at the bishop in just the way to take the edge off her words. He slowly smiled and just as slowly slid back into the depths of the chair; his hands, without the aid of his eyes, found the box of cigars that Trevor held out to him and his lips formed. In reply to a murmured inquiry, the following words, “A small one, please—not at all mumble.” Then he turned to Andrea and said in a louder voice, “Now tell me all about it.” “There really isn’t much to tell,” said Andrea. “I was tired of dancing and climbed down the cliff from the hotel. It must have been about four o’clock in the morning. I found this white man—his real name is Robert Oddman Trevor —tinkering with an airplane and I asked him to take me with him and he did.” She dropped her eyes. “Now he’s agreed to marry me." Trevor turned white-lipped from the door where he had been giving an order to Bathtub. “Andrea," he said, his eyes blazing with anger, “you will please keep out of this conversation until you are called upon for a few responses.” He turned to the bishop. “Please overlook Mire Pelor’s flip pancy," he continued. “There is only one reason why I should marry her and she me and that is that we love each other beyond the power of the words to express." “But, my dear man," said the bishop. “I know who Lady Andrea is, only too well: the question is who on earth are you? I take it I'm not wrong to thinking that you have got me bore with the idea of persuading me to perform a ceremony which will shower me with lime-light for the next six months." “Nine days is the accepted limit," “—nothing to Speak of. Won’t you come in? I’ll see your companions later.” The bishop entered the hut and raised his eyebrows inquiringly as Tre vor closed the door. “Mosquitoes?" he murmured and politely didn't wait for an answer. "Channing quarters. Quite the comfortable thing." Then he caught sight of Andren who was half-sitting on the corner of the table and swinging her free leg. Once more his eyebrows went up but this time with a snap that would have carried them over the back of his head had they not been rooted. "The bishop of Moina; the Honorable Anda I’lller," said Trevor in businesslike tones. “So pleased, my lord," said Andrea with a smile that turned into a rip pling laugh. “I— I beg your pardon," she stammered, “but I—surprise doesn’t go well with your face It was true; the bishop's astonishment seemed to have startled his features separately, scattering them over his countenance at grotesque angles. "Andrea," he gasped, "Andrea!" "Yes," said Trevor, "that's the name. Now, bishop, if you’ll sit down, I’ll soon be able to satisfy you that the arguments I used to get you here are more than justified." “Andrea, I’ll tell you,” repeated his lordship. “You have it correctly, bishop,” assured Trevor. "Won’t you take this chair?" The bishop’s eyes gradually gathered themselves to a single focus on Andrea's face. "Young woman,” he said, “do you know that the entire world has been perturbed for weeks as to your whereabouts? Do you know that your family has been suffering agonies of suspense as to your fate? Do you know that the man to whom you are betrothed has offered a thousand pounds for your discovery to you?" Andrea smiled triumphantly at Trevor. “A thousand pounds,” she murmured. "Alive," he countered, also murmuring. The bishop rapped on the table with his knuckles. “Do you know all these things?” Andrea slipped from the table and stood before her inquisitor. “It’s quite natural!” she said in a clean-cut tone. Trevor had never heard her say before. “That you should be a little excited. Of course, I’m dying to hear all the news about the world and dear old man,” he murmured. “I was just speaking to myself.” Trevor ignored her. “Your question?” “Yes,” he said, “I’m not going to tell you.” Trevor ignored her. “I’m  natural one." He went to the high desk, took certain papers and, flushing slightly, handed them to the bishop, who glanced over them with undisguised interest. “So,” he said finally, “you are a retired officer of the Royal Flying Corps, a D.S.O. and you also hold the cross de guerre!” He tapped a devil’s tattoo on the arm of his chair and gradually the furrow on his brow cleared and he smiled. “Unexceptional credentials; but as I am in peril of becoming a very much interested third party, I can not refrain from asking if you are in a position to render such financial comfort to this young lady and to her family as I believe it has reason to expect from her original betrothed?” “I am not buying Andrea,” said Trevor quickly, “Illusions for herself if she needs them; not a cent of tribute for the family. Not to waste your time further,” he continued, “I wish to say that I consider you entitled to the thousand pounds’ reward offered for her discovery alive and am prepared to hand you the sum in gold at once. If you have any scruples as to taking it personally, there is surely no reason why you should not accept it for your mission. In return you will marry us immediately by the rites of your church, which you doubtless know will be accepted as legally binding in my own country. “If you refuse,” said Trevor grimly, “you and your companions will be detained, forcibly if necessary, as witnesses to a ceremony performed in accordance with native custom." “What!” exclaimed the bishop, aghast. “This isn’t an argument.” "Yes," said Trevor dryly; "it's a proposition, quite fair and above-board. You take it or leave it — Inside of five minutes." The bishop turned to Andrea. "Would you—?" he stammered and stopped. “I am quite indifferent as to method,” said Andrea quietly. “No ceremony can add to the pledge that I have made in my heart. He has my love. He can have my body and soul for the asking.” The bishop was silent for a moment, his eyes fixed on the sudden glow that illuminated Trevor's face; then he said, “You will marry us immediately by the rites of your church.” “Well, my dear, that settles it—settles it finally. In fact, that I can’t help but perceive that you are both equally in haste to repent at leisure.” He arose with a resigned sigh. “Five minutes are soon up,” he said to Trevor. “Will you agree to take time out while I talk to my associates?” “Most certainty,” answered Trevor gravely and opened the door for his lordship. In ten minutes the associates were persuaded; in half an hour, with the assistance of the diamond magnate's engagement ring, Andrea and Trevor were made man and wife according to the ancient usage of the Church of England; and just five minutes after that, Bathtub announced dinner. It was high time, for in spite of the toast that she had had with her tea, Andrea was faint and Dale with hunger. Nothing short of the stimulus in the excitement of being married for the very first time in her life could have saved her from collapse. That was a great and merry dinner. The toasts that were drunk to the bride were many, some hearty, some witty; but the one that stood out above all others was that in which she pledged herself. She stood, glass in hand, and looked down at the kindly, encouraging faces of the four men. “This, the song of the Honorable Andrea Pelor,” she said in a voice that started a bit gaspingly but soon steadied to a clear flow, “who worshiped false gods flippantly during twenty-five years of her life, who traveled blindfolded through a beautiful world to the feet of a Calf of Gold and mercifully died on a certain beach at four o'clock of a morning. She drinks with you to Andrea Robert Oldman Trevor, the happiest woman—the happiest woman—the —" Trevor leaped to his feet, put his arm around her and patted her on the shoulder. “There, there!” he soothed desperately, his face flushed with embarrassment. "Kiss her, you duffer!" roared the three divines in one voice. CHAPTER XIV. They were all early to bed, the word having gone out to break camp at dawn for safari. The bishop and his companions were northward bound, Andrea and her man headed for the south and the coast. In the cold mist of the morning they parted with tight handclasps and earnestly murmured “God bless you’s.” Incidents, following rapidly one after the other, kept Andrea. In the mind of the coming encounter with her old world until she was actually on its verge. Late one afternoon they came upon the bay and Trevor waited expectantly for her to recognize the scene of her ravishment. He was disappointed, for the thin, insignificant strip of yellow sand tucked under the red cliff diminished by distance to the proportion of a railway embankment, meant nothing to her inexperienced eyes. At last he pointed it out to her. “Behold,” he said, “the beginning and the end of all things.” “Why,” exclaimed Andrea. “Is it really the beach — our beach? How it's shrunk!” “It has,” said Trevor solemnly. “The erosion on this bit of coast is a foot for every hundred years. We’d better hurry if we want to make a landing." He chartered two sailing boats from a Greek fisherman and in an hour the beach had broadened, the cliff had risen to almost imposing heights; while they were still well off the shore they shot into its shadow. The boatman chose a landing at the foot of the Cliff road, a quarter of a mile away from the steep path by which Andrea had made her descent. As the safety began to form on the beach Trevor turned to Andrea. “Were going to your old hotel, you know. It’s really the only one. If you prefer, I can send for a motor-car for you and myself; but we’d have to wait half an hour.” Andrea caught her breath as she realized that it was only minutes before she would be in collision with a world. Her eyes ran down the line of their marching column already on the edge of an incongruous stream. Roussé Setting, but still impressing with that subtle dignity which the free and half-naked black takes with him everywhere and which is born of his absolute indifference to standards not his own. “Let us go down at the head of our men," she answered. “You are right," said Trevor, pleased at her shrewd judgment. "We mortals,” he added, “don’t always recognize the importance of fighting an atmosphere with an atmosphere. To go in as cock of our own walk is a thousand times better than a motor car and the back door.” Andrea nodded. “I felt it but I could not put it in words like that.” As Trevor, the white head of a quarter-mile-long and glistening black serpent of humanity, swung in between the gateposts of the hotel’s imposing portals, the ever-opportune Marguerite stretched his neck, raised his barrel-head and brayed. Above that raucous cry sounded the spontaneous and uncontrollable peal of Andrea’s silver laughter. The groups of men and women—all but one—on the hotel veranda stopped in their various occupations as though paralyzed; drinks paused half-way to thirsty lips, cigarettes burned unconscious fingers, knitting needles poised instantaneously—all but one pair. The manipulator of the exception was a dear but very proper old lady wearing a cap of filmy lace on her plentiful white hair and enough filmy lace on her person to make the ponché chair, in which she sat, look like a stall at a Red Cross bazaar. She was knitting a vast khaki-colored sweater and at the sound of Andrea’s laughter she gave no sign beyond pursing her withered lips while she mechanically finished. Off the stitch upon which she had been engaged. That done, she raised a pair of heady black eyes more wistfully aloft that it seemed impossible to belong to her wrinkled face and flashed one look at Andrea and one at Trevor. "Well, my dear," she said calmly, presumably to the former, "It's a relief to have you back apparently alive and well." No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she was swept into Andrea's in petuous embrace. "Oh, Aunt Gwen; Oh, you old dear!" The lady defended herself with considerable energy and was heard to grumble that even kissing had degenerated into a rough pastime. Having rescued herself from Andrea's arms, she said, "Now that that is over you will please go to your room and change from that outlandish circus costume, you'll find everything as you left it except for a new lock on the door." Andrea glanced at Trevor and leaned over to whisper imploringly in her aunt's ear. "Your husband?" enunciated the old lady dearly. "Well, that's a relief, too; but I prefer to meet him elsewhere and after you have presented documentary evidence. By the way," she added with ominous emphasis as she resumed her knitting, "Harry is still here." "I should say I am," exclaimed a youth in the trim uniform of the Flying Corps, as he stepped out from the hotel door. "Hello, Sister Andy." Then his eyes fell on Trevor. A slow smile of happy welcome. Spread over his face. "Well, if he did," he exclaimed fervently. "Do you know, Treves?" I've been saying from the first, 'Chez the flying-in-the-mule.' Come in and let me watch you have a drink." Trevor, quivering under the pressure of the control, he had scrambled to carry him through the trying moment and filled with an immediate love and admiration for Aunt Gwen, paused to direct his following to a nearby vacant lot. "Is that marriage up straight?" asked Harry. "Straight as the good bishop of Moab and two other missionary Johnnie could make it," replied Trevor. Harry was thoughtful for a moment, then he said, "Well, Trevor, I don't know how you're fixed for proof but you know that through lean years and fat. I'm for you from the break in the back. As one sportsman to another, I congratulate you on putting one over on that up-country animated leather sack of vintage wines. By the way, you realize I've got to wintry him." "Of course," said Trevor. "The sooner the better. Don't worry about Andrea's food and raiment," he added flushing. "The truth is, I'm pretty well heeled with the needful." "You Americans generally are," said Harry admiringly. "Sort of jolly national tradition." Twenty-four hours later the diamond magnate, perennially flushed as to face and he ivy of paunch made his impression. ressive arrival. When he had washed and otherwise attempted to freshen his perspiring person, he sent out a call for a family conference. It took place in the Trevor's sitting room. Harry was there, representative of the house of Pellor, and his bride. The sole name representative of the Assurance of Pellor opened the proceedings with the following speeches: “Hainan,” he said, “on the part of my father, I wish to offer you an unqualified apology. It seems that she was —er —suddenly carried away by an impulse in conjunction with a flying machine, but you will be glad to know that Trevor here has —er —has played the man all through and you are permanently relieved from any further responsibility in the matter. I don’t think there’s another bally thing to say beyond repeating the apology due you from my entire family.” “Not a thing to say, you young sycophant of a whipper-snapper!” thundered the red-faced magnate. “Do you think I came down here to listen to your maiden speech, accept a dirty apology and get out with my tail between my legs? Well, I didn’t, I came down here to show this laterloping vagabond of a scavenger where he and his wife—don’t get off.” A gleam crept into Tremor’s the same gleam that had shone there when he had shot MacCloster, but it turned into his slow assuring. Glimpses as his gaze met that of Andrea and took note of her alarm. He remembered that only ten minutes before he had promised on the honor of a lover to be seen only and not heard. “Aren’t you a bit late for that?” asked Hany, unperturbed. “They seem to be running before the wind already and with a full lead.” He lit a cigarette and snapped the dead match through the open doorway. “You think so, do you?” said the magnate, his eyes snapping malignantly. “You’ve probably never heard of the shipping ring, but I’ll tell you this—the line that takes these two—two—two—two—whatchumay-callums as passengers is ruined. They’ll stay in Africa till they rot.” Andrea stifled a yawn. “Robert,” she said in her coolest and best society voice, “If Sir Hainmar is going to force us to wait here for one of your own steamer? to put in— I think you’ll better object that thousand pounds reward.” It was the end. The magnate gasped, spouting up and fled, pursued by a stroke arrow propelled from Harry’s rounded mouth. Aunty Gwen pursed her lips but kept on knitting; she could not, however, altogether hide the laugh that was in her snapping eyes. Andrea dropped on her knees beside her. “Oh, Aunty Gwen,” she begged, “won’t you please let me introduce Robert? He’s the dearest, most thoughtful, strongest and weakest man that a lucky girl ever loved.” That night when all the hotel was in darkness and silence refused Andrea and Trevor stood together by. The coping at the edge of the cliff and looked across the moonlit bay to the far-awny line of the sea. Behind them was the dark, massed shadow of the Bougaln villa; at their feet and before them stretched an open world, bathed in kindly and opalescent light. Andrea's eyes started at the top of the zigzag path and followed it deliberately down the cliff-side until they reached and swept the gleaming crescent of the beach; then they rose and stared at the placid moon. Nine weeks, no more, had passed since last this scene had held her, yet into them was pecked the germ of all her life almost to the exclusion of preceding memories. She felt a welling within her of all the minor emotions and frightened, turned from them to hide her face against Trevor's shoulder. Her arms slipped up around his neck and clung to him. "Oh, White Man," she whispered, "my Wonder Man, plunderer of my heart, if desire to give is any measure, how far you have led me along the shining road!" (THE END.) Very Good or Very Bad. 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