I
It was the following day, about noon, as I sat intent upon my Paris Herald that a tiny finger thrust a hole in it. I gave an inaudible observation, and observed a very plump young person in white with disfavour.
“And who may you happen to be?” I demanded.
“I’m Gladys,” the young lady responded; “and I’ve runned away.”
“But not without an escort, I trust, Miss Gladys? Really—upon my word, you know, you surprise me, Gladys! An elopement without even a tincture of masculinity is positively not respectable.” I took the little girl into my lap, for I loved children, and all helpless things. “Gladys,” I said, “why don’t you elope with me? And we will spend our honeymoon in the Hesperides.”
“All right,” said Gladys, cheerfully. She leaned upon my chest, and the plump, tiny hand clasped mine, in entire confidence; and the contact moved me to an irrational transport and to a yearning whose aim I could not comprehend. “Now tell me a story,” said Gladys.
So that I presently narrated to Gladys the ensuing
“Fair Sou-Chong-Tee, by a shimmering brook
Where ghostlike lilies loomed tall and straight,
Met young Too-Hi, in a moonlit nook,
Where they cooed and kissed till the hour was late:
Then, with lanterns, a mandarin passed in state,
Named Hoo-Hung-Hoo of the Golden Band,
Who had wooed the maiden to be his mate—
For these things occur in the Flowery Land.
“Now, Hoo-Hung-Hoo had written a book,
In seven volumes, to celebrate
The death of the Emperor’s thirteenth cook:
So, being a person whose power was great,
He ordered a herald to indicate
He would blind Too-Hi with a red-hot brand
And marry Sou-Chong at a quarter-past-eight—
For these things occur in the Flowery Land.
“And the brand was hot, and the lovers shook
In their several shoes, when by lucky fate
A Dragon came, with his tail in a crook—
A Dragon out of a Nankeen Plate—
And gobbled the hard-hearted potentate
And all of his servants, and snorted, and
Passed on at a super-cyclonic rate—
For these things occur in the Flowery Land.
“The lovers were wed at an early date,
And lived for the future, I understand,
In one continuous tête-à-tête—
For these things occur … in the Flowery Land.”
Gladys wanted to know: “But what sort of house is a tête-à-tête? Is it like a palace?”
“It is very often much nicer than a palace,” I declared—“provided of course you are only stopping over for a weekend.”
“And wasn’t it odd the Dragon should have come just when he did?”
“Oh, Gladys, Gladys! don’t tell me you are a realist.”
“No, I’m a precious angel,” she composedly responded, with a flavour of quotation.
“Well! it is precisely the intervention of the Dragon, Gladys, which proves the story is literature,” I announced. “Don’t you pity the poor Dragon, Gladys, who never gets a chance in life and has to live always between two book-covers?”
She said that couldn’t be so, because it would squash him.
“And yet, dear, it is perfectly true,” said Mrs. Hardress. The lean and handsome woman was regarding the pair of us curiously. “I didn’t know you cared for children, Mr. Townsend. Yes, she is my daughter.” She carried Gladys away, without much further speech.
Yet one Parthian comment in leaving me was flung over her shoulder, snappishly. “I wish you wouldn’t imitate John Charteris so. You are getting to be just a silly copy of him. You are just Jack where he is John. I think I shall call you Jack.”
“I wish you would,” I said, “if only because your sponsors happened to christen you Gillian. So it’s a bargain. And now when are we going for that pail of water?”
Mrs. Hardress wheeled, the child in her arms, so that she was looking at me, rather queerly, over the little round, yellow head. “And it was only Jill, as I remember, who got the spanking,” she said. “Oh, well! it always is just Jill who gets the spanking—Jack.”
“But it was Jack who broke his crown,” said I; “Wasn’t it—Jill?” It seemed a jest at the time. But before long we had made these nicknames a habit, when just we two were together. And the outcome of it all was not precisely a jest. …