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 004 
 
 BLIX 
 
 LIBRARY ANNEX 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 RFP 1 4 2( 
 
 105 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I Cornell University 
 y Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 1 522004 
 
BLIX 
 
 by FRANK NORRIS 
 
 Author of McTeague 
 
 Moran of the 
 
 Lady Letty 
 
 etc. 
 
 New York 
 
 Doubleday & McClure Co. 
 
 1899 
 
Copyright, 1S99, 
 
 BV 
 
 FRANK A. MUNSEY 
 
 Copyright, 1899, 
 
 BY 
 
 DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO. 
 
DEDICATED TO 
 
 MY MOTHER 
 
KBIvIX 
 
 It had just struck nine from the cuckoo 
 clock that hung over the mantelpiece in 
 the dining-room, when Victorine brought 
 in the halved watermelon and set it in 
 front of Mr. Bessemer's plate. Then 
 she went down to the front door for the 
 damp, twisted roll of the Sunday morn- 
 ing's paper, and came back and rang the 
 breakfast- bell for the second time. 
 
 As the family still hesitated to appear, 
 she went to the bay window at the end 
 of the room, and stood there for a mo- 
 ment looking out. The view was won- 
 derful. The Bessemers lived upon the 
 Washington-Street hill, almost at its very 
 
2 Blix 
 
 summit, in a flat in the third story of 
 the building. The contractor had been 
 clever enough to reverse the position of 
 kitchen and dining-room, so that the lat- 
 ter room was at the rear of the house. 
 From its windows one could command a 
 sweep of San Francisco Bay and the 
 Contra Costa shore, from Mount Diablo, 
 along past Oakland, Berkeley, Saucelito, 
 and Mount Tamalpais, out to the Golden 
 Gate, the Presidio, the ocean, and even 
 — on very clear days — to the Farrallone 
 islands. 
 
 For some time Victorine stood looking 
 down at the great expanse of land and 
 sea, then faced about with an impatient 
 exclamation. 
 
 On Sundays all the week-day regime 
 of the family was deranged, and break- 
 fast was a movable feast, to be had any 
 time after seven or before half-past nine. 
 As Victorine was pouring the ice-water, 
 Mr. Bessemer himself came in, and ad- 
 dressed himself at once to his meal, with- 
 
Blix 
 
 3 
 
 out so much as a thought of waiting for 
 the others. 
 
 He was a little round man. He wore 
 a skull-cap to keep his bald spot warm, 
 and read his paper through a reading- 
 glass. The expression of his face, 
 wrinkled and bearded, the eyes shadowed 
 by enormous gray eyebrows, was that of 
 an amiable gorilla. 
 
 Bessemer was one of those men who 
 seem entirely disassociated from their 
 families. Only on rare and intense oc- 
 casions did his paternal spirit or instincts 
 assert themselves. At table he talked 
 but little. Though devotedly fond of his 
 eldest daughter, she was a puzzle and a 
 stranger to him. His interests and hers 
 were absolutely dissimilar. The chil- 
 dren he seldom spoke to but to reprove ; 
 while Howard, the son, the ten-year-old 
 and terrible infant of the household, he 
 always referred to as "that boy." 
 
 He was an abstracted, self-centred old 
 man, with but two hobbies — ^homoeopathy 
 
4 Blix 
 
 and the mechanism of clocks. But he 
 had a strange way of talking to himself 
 in a low voice, keeping up a rimning, 
 half-whispered comment upon his own 
 doings and actions ; as, for instance, upon 
 this occasion : "Nine o'clock — the clock's 
 a little fast. I think I'll wind my 
 watch. No, I've forgotten my watch. 
 Watermelon this morning, eh? Where's 
 a knife? I'll have a little salt. Vic- 
 torine's forgot the spoons — .ah, here's a 
 spoon! No, it's a knife I want." 
 
 After he had finished his watermelon, 
 and while Victorine was pouring his 
 coffee, the two children came in, scram- 
 bling to their places, and drumming on 
 the table with their knife-handles. 
 
 The son and heir, Howard, was very 
 much a boy. He played baseball too 
 well to be a very good boy, and for the 
 sake of his own self-respect maintained 
 an attitude of perpetual revolt against his 
 older sister, who, as much as possible, took 
 the place of the mother, long since dead. 
 
Blix 5 
 
 Under her supervision, Howard blacked 
 his own shoes every morning before 
 breakfast, changed his underclothes twice 
 a week, and was dissuaded from playing 
 with' the dentist's son who lived three 
 doors below and who had St. Vitus' dance. 
 His little sister was much more trac- 
 table. She had been christened Alberta, 
 and was called Snooky. She promised 
 to be pretty when she grew up, but was 
 at this time in that distressing transi- 
 tional stage between twelve and fifteen; 
 was long-legged, and endowed with all 
 the awkwardness of a- colt. Her shoes 
 were still innocent of heels; but on 
 those occasions when she was allowed 
 to wear her tiny first pair of corsets she 
 was exalted to an almost celestial pitch 
 of silent ecstasy. The clasp of the 
 miniature stays around her small body 
 was like the embrace of a little lover, 
 and awoke in her, ideas that were as 
 vague, as immature and unformed, as the 
 straight little figure itself. 
 
6 Blix 
 
 When Snooky and Howard had seated 
 themselves, but one chair — at the end 
 of the breakfast-table, opposite Mr. Bes- 
 semer — remained vacant. 
 
 "Is your sister — is Miss Travis going 
 to have her breakfast now? Is she got 
 up yet?" inquired Victorine of Howard 
 and Snooky, as she pushed the cream 
 pitcher out of Howard's reach. It was 
 significant of Mr. Bessemer's relations 
 with his family that Victorine did not 
 address her question to him. 
 
 "Yes, yes, she's coming," said both 
 the children, speaking together; and 
 Howard added: "Here she comes now.'' 
 
 Travis Bessemer came in. Even in 
 San Francisco, where all women are more 
 or less beautiful, Travis passed for a 
 beautiful girl. She was young, but tall 
 as most men, and solidly, almost heavily 
 built. Her shoulders were broad, her 
 chest was deep, her neck round and firm. 
 She radiated health; there were exuber- 
 ance and vitality in the very touch of her 
 
Blix 7 
 
 foot upon the carpet, and there was that 
 cleanliness about her, that freshness, that 
 suggested a recent plunge in the surf and 
 a " constitutional " along the beach. One 
 felt that here was stamina, good physical 
 force, and fine animal vigor. Her arms 
 were large, her wrists were large, and her 
 fingers did not taper. Her hair was of a 
 brown so light as to be almost yellow. 
 In fact, it would be safer to call it yel- 
 low from the start — not golden nor flaxen, 
 but plain, honest yellow. The skia of 
 her face was clean and white, except 
 where it flushed to a most charming pink 
 upon her smooth, cool cheeks. Her lips 
 were full and red, her chin very round 
 and a little salient. Curiously enough, 
 her eyes were small — small, but of 
 the deepest, deepest brown, and always 
 twinkling and aUght, as though she were 
 just ready to snlile or had just done 
 smiling, one could not say which. And 
 nothing could have been more delightful 
 than these sloe-brown, glinting little eyes 
 
8 Blix 
 
 of hers set off by her white skin and 
 yellow hair. 
 
 She impressed one as being a very 
 normal girl: nothing morbid about her, 
 nothing nervous or false or overwrought. 
 You did not expect to find her introspec- 
 tive. You felt sure that her mental life 
 was not at all the result of thoughts and 
 reflections germinating from within, but 
 rather of impressions and sensations that 
 came to her from without. There was 
 nothing extraordinary about Travis. She 
 never had her vagaries, was not moody 
 — depressed one day and exalted the 
 next. She was just a good, sweet, nat- 
 ural, healthy - minded, healthy - bodied 
 girl, honest, strong, self-reliant, and good- 
 tempered. 
 
 Though she was not yet dressed for 
 church, there was style in her to the 
 pointed tips of her patent-leather slippers. 
 She wore a heavy black overskirt that 
 rustled in delicious fashion over the 
 colored silk skirt beneath, and a white 
 
Blix 9 
 
 shirt-waist, striped black, and starched 
 to a rattling stiffness. Her neck was 
 swathed tight and high with a broad rib- 
 bon of white satin, while around her 
 waist, in place of a belt, she wore the 
 huge dog-collar of a St. Bernard — a chic 
 little idea which was all her own, and of 
 which she was very proud. 
 
 She was as trig and trim and crisp as 
 a crack yacht : not a pin was loose, not a 
 seam that did not fall in its precise right 
 line; and with every movement there 
 emanated from her a barely perceptible 
 delicious feminine odor — an odor that 
 was in part perfume, but mostly a subtle, 
 vague smell, charming beyond words, 
 that came from her hair, her neck, her 
 arms — her whole sweet personality. She 
 was nineteen years old. 
 
 She sat down to breakfast and ate 
 heartily, though with her attention di- 
 vided between Howard — who was atro- 
 ciously bad, as usual of a Sunday morning 
 — and her father's plate. Mr. Bessemer 
 
I o Blix 
 
 was as like as not to leave the table 
 without any breakfast at all unless his 
 fruit, chops, and coffee were actually 
 thrust under his nose. 
 
 "Papum," she called, speaking clear 
 and distinct, as though to the deaf, 
 " there'c your coffee there at your elbow ; 
 be careful, you'll tip it over. Victorine, 
 push his cup farther on the table. Is it 
 strong enough for you, Papum ? " 
 
 "Eh? Ah, yes — yes — yes," mur- 
 mured the old man, looking vaguely 
 about him ; " coffee, to be sure " — and he 
 emptied the cup at a single draught, 
 hardly knowing whether it was coffee 
 or tea. "Now, I'll take a roll," he 
 continued, in a monotonous murmur. 
 " Where are the rolls ? Here they are. 
 Hot rolls are bad for my digestion — I 
 ought to eat bread. I think I eat too 
 much. Where's my place in the paper? 
 — always lose my place in the paper. 
 Clever editorials this fellow Eastman 
 writes, unbiassed by party prejudice — 
 
Bllx II 
 
 unbiassed — unbiassed." His voice died 
 to a whisper. 
 
 The breakfast proceeded, Travis super- 
 vising everything that went forward, 
 even giving directions to Victorine as 
 to the hour for serving dinner. It was 
 while she was talking to Victorine as 
 to this matter that Snooky began to 
 whine. 
 
 "Stop!" 
 
 "And tell Maggie," pursued Travis, 
 "to fricassee her chicken, and not to 
 have it too well done " 
 
 " Sto-o-op ! " whined Snooky again. 
 
 " And leave the heart out for Papum. 
 He likes the heart " 
 
 "Sto-o-op!" 
 
 "Unbiassed by prejudice," murmured 
 Mr. Bessemer, " vigorous and to the point. 
 I'll have another roll." 
 
 " Pa, make Howard stop ! " 
 
 "Howard!" exclaimed Travis; "what 
 is it now ? " 
 
 " Howard's squirting watermelon-seeds 
 
1 2 Blix 
 
 at me," whined Snooky, "and Pa Avon't 
 make him stop." 
 
 " Oh, I didn't so ! " vociferated Howard. 
 " I only held one between my fingers, and 
 it just kind of shot out." 
 
 "You'll come upstairs with me in just 
 five minutes," announced Travis, "and 
 get ready for Sunday-school." 
 
 Howard knew that his older sister's 
 decisions were as the laws of the Persians, 
 and found means to finish his breakfast 
 within the specified time, though not 
 without protest. Once upstairs, how- 
 ever, the usual Sunday-morning drama 
 of despatching him to Sunday-school in 
 presentable condition was enacted. At 
 every moment his voice could be heard 
 uplifted in shrill expostulation and de- 
 bate. No, his hands were clean enough, 
 and he didn't see. why he had to wear 
 that little old pink tie ; and, oh ! his new 
 shoes were too tight and hurt his sore 
 toe; and he wouldn't, he wouldn't — no, 
 not if he were killed for it, change his 
 
Blix 13 
 
 shirt. Not for a moment did Travis lose 
 her temper with him. But "very well," 
 she declared at length, " the next time she 
 saw that little Miner girl she would tell 
 her that he had said she was his beau- 
 heart. Now would he hold still while 
 she brushed his hair? " 
 
 At a few minutes before eleven Travis 
 and her father went to church. They were 
 Episcopalians, and for time out of mind 
 had rented a half -pew in the church of 
 their denomination on California Street, 
 not far from Chinatown. By noon the 
 family reassembled at dinner-table, where 
 Mr. Bessemer ate his chicken-heart — 
 after Travis had thrice reminded him of 
 it — and expressed himself as to the ser- 
 mon and the minister's theology : some- 
 times to his daughter and sometimes to 
 himself. 
 
 After dinner Howard and Snooky fore- 
 gathered in the nursery with their be- 
 loved lead soldiers; Travis went to her 
 room to write letters ; and Mr. Bessemer 
 
14 Blix 
 
 sat in the bay window of the dining- 
 room reading the paper from end to end. 
 
 At five Travis bestirred herself. It 
 was Victorine's afternoon out. Travis 
 set the table, spreading a cover of blue 
 denim edged with white braid, which 
 showed off the silver and the set of delft 
 — her great and never-ending joy — to 
 great effect. Then she tied her apron 
 about her, and went into the kitchen to 
 make the mayonnaise dressing for the 
 potato salad, to slice the ham, and to 
 help the cook (a most inefficient Irish 
 person, taken on only for that month 
 during the absence of the family's be- 
 loved and venerated Sing Wo) in the 
 matter of preparing the Sunday-evening 
 tea. 
 
 Tea was had at half-past five. Never 
 in the history of the family had its menu 
 varied : cold ham, potato salad, pork and 
 beans, canned fruit, chocolate, and the 
 inevitable pitcher of ice- water. 
 
 In the absence of Victorine, Maggie 
 
Blix 15 
 
 waited on the table, very uncomfortable 
 in her one good dress and stiff white 
 apron. She stood off from the table, 
 making awkward dabs at it from time to 
 time. In her excess of deference she 
 developed a clumsiness that was beyond 
 all expression. She passed the plates 
 upon the wrong side, and remembered 
 herself with a broken apology at inop- 
 portune moments. She dropped a spoon, 
 she spilt the ice-water. She handled the 
 delft cups and platters with an exagger- 
 ated solicitude, as though they were glass 
 bombs. She brushed the crumbs into 
 their laps instead of into the crumb-tray, 
 and at last, when she had set even Travis' 
 placid nerves in a jangle, was dismissed 
 to the kitchen, and retired with a gasp 
 of unspeakable relief. 
 
 Suddenly there came a prolonged trill- 
 ing of the electric bell, and Howard 
 flashed a grin at Travis. Snooky jumped 
 up and pushed back, crying out: "I'll 
 go! I'll go!" 
 
1 6 Blix 
 
 Mr. Bessemer glanced nervously at 
 Travis. "That's Mr. Elvers, isn't it, 
 daughter?" Travis smiled. "Well, I 
 
 think 'I'll— I think I'd better " he 
 
 began. 
 
 "No," said Travis, "I don't want you 
 to, Papum; you sit right where you are. 
 How absurd ! " 
 
 The old man dropped obediently back 
 into his seat. 
 
 "That's all right, Maggie," said Travis 
 as the cook reappeared from the pantry. 
 "Snooky went." 
 
 " Huh ! " exclaimed Howard, his grin 
 widening. " Huh ! " 
 
 "And remember one thing, Howard," 
 remarked Travis calmly ; " don't you ever 
 again ask Mr. Elvers for a nickel to put 
 in your bank." 
 
 Mr. Bessemer roused up. "Did that 
 boy do that? " he inquired sharply of 
 Travis. 
 
 "Well, well, he won't do it again," 
 said Travis soothingly. The old man 
 
Blix 17 
 
 glared for an instant at Howard, who 
 shifted uneasily in his seat. But mean- 
 while Snooky had clamored down to the 
 outside door, and before anything further 
 could be said young Eivers came into 
 the dining-room. 
 
n 
 
 Foe sQ,me reason, never made suffi- 
 ciently clear, Elvers' parents had handi- 
 capped him from the baptismal font with 
 the praenomen of Condd, which, how- 
 ever, upon Anglo-Saxon tongues, had 
 been promptly modified to Condy, or 
 even, amongst his familiar and intimate 
 friends, to Conny. Asked as to his 
 birthplace — for no Califomian assumes 
 that his neighbor is bom in the State — 
 Condy was wont to reply that he was 
 "bawn 'n' rais' " in Chicago; "but," he 
 always added, " I couldn't help that, you 
 know." His people had come West in 
 the early eighties, just in time to bury 
 the father in alien soil. Condy was an 
 only child. He was educated at the 
 State University, had a finishing year at 
 Yale, and a few months after his return 
 
Blix 1 9 
 
 home was taken on the staff of the San 
 Francisco Daily Times as an associate 
 editor of its Sunday supplement. For 
 Condy had developed a taste and talent 
 in the matter of writing. Short stories 
 were his mania. He had begun by an 
 inoculation of the Kipling virus, had 
 suffered an almost fatal attack of Hard- 
 ing Davis, and had even been affected by 
 Maupassant. He " went in " for accuracy 
 of detail ; held that if one wrote a story 
 involving firemen one should have, or 
 seem to have, every detail of the de- 
 partment at his fingers' ends, and should 
 " bring in " to the tale all manner of 
 technical names and cant phrases. 
 
 Much of his work on the Sunday sup- 
 plements of Tlie Times was of the hack 
 order — special articles, write-ups, and 
 interviews. About once a month, how- 
 ever, he wrote a short story, and of late, 
 now that he was convalescing from Mau- 
 passant and had begun to be somewhat 
 himself, these stories had improved in 
 
20 
 
 Blix 
 
 quality, and one or two had even been 
 copied in the Eastern journals. He 
 earned $100 a month. 
 
 When Snooky had let him in, Eivers 
 dashed up the stairs of the Bessemers' 
 flat, two at a time, tossed his stick in- 
 to a porcelain cane-rack in the hall, 
 wrenched off his overcoat with a sin- 
 gle movement, and precipitated himself, 
 panting, into the dining-room, tugging 
 at his gloves. 
 
 He was twenty-eight years old — nearly 
 ten years older than Travis; tall and 
 somewhat lean; his face smooth-shaven 
 and pink all over, as if he had just given 
 it a violent rubbing with a crash towel. 
 Unlike most writing folk, he dressed 
 himself according to prevailing custom. 
 But Condy overdid the matter. His 
 scarfs and cravats were too bright, his 
 colored shirt-bosoms were too broadly 
 barred, his waistcoats too extreme. 
 Even Travis, as she rose to his abrupt 
 entrance, told herself that of a Sunday 
 
Blix 21 
 
 evening a pink shirt and scarlet tie were 
 a combination hardly to be forgiven. 
 
 Condy shook her hand in both of his, 
 then rushed over to Mr. Bessemer, ex- 
 claiming between breaths: "Don't get 
 up, sir — don't think of it ! Heavens ! I'm 
 disgustingly late. You're all through. 
 My watch — this beastly watch of mine — 
 I can't imagine how I came to be so 
 late. You did quite right not to wait. " 
 
 Then as his morbidly keen observation 
 caught a certain look of blankness on 
 Travis' face, and his rapid glance noted 
 no vacant chair at table, he gave a quick 
 gasp of dismay. 
 
 " Heavens and earth ! didn't you expect 
 me? " he cried. "I thought you said — I 
 thought — I must have forgotten — I must 
 have got it mixed up somehow. What a 
 hideous mistake, what a blunder ! What 
 a fool I am ! " 
 
 He dropped into a chair against the 
 wall and mopped his forehead with a 
 blue-bordered handkerchief. 
 
22 Blix 
 
 "Well, what difference does it make, 
 Condy?" said Travis quietly. "I'll put 
 another place for you. " 
 
 " No, no ! " he vociferated, jumping up. 
 "I won't hear of it, I won't permit it! 
 You'll think I did it on purpose ! " 
 
 Travis ignored his interference, and 
 made a place for him opposite the chil- 
 dren, and had Maggie make some more 
 chocolate. 
 
 Condy meanwhile covered himself with 
 opprobrium. 
 
 "And all this trouble — I always make 
 trouble everywhere I go. Always a 
 round man in a square hole, or a square 
 man in a round hole." 
 
 He got up and sat down again, crossed 
 and recrossed his legs, picked up little 
 ornaments from the mantelpiece, and 
 replaced them without consciousness of 
 what they were, and finally broke the 
 crystal of his watch as he was resetting 
 it by the cuckoo clock. 
 
 " Hello ! " he exclaimed suddenly ; 
 
Blix 
 
 23 
 
 "where did you get that clock? Where 
 did you get that clock? That's new to 
 me. Where did that come from ? " 
 
 "That cuckoo clock? " inquired Travis, 
 with a stare. "Condy Eivers, you've 
 been here and in this room at least twice 
 a week for the last year and a half, and 
 that clock, and no other, has always 
 hung there." 
 
 But already Condy had forgotten or 
 lost interest in the clock. 
 
 " Is that so ? is that so ? " he murmured 
 absent-mindedly, seating himself at the 
 table. 
 
 Mr. Bessemer was murmuring: "That 
 clock's a little fast. I cannot make that 
 clock keep time. Victorine has lost the 
 key. I have to wind it with a monkey- 
 wrench. Now I'll try some more beans. 
 Maggie has put in too much pepper. I'll 
 have to have a new key made to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "Hey? Yes — yes. Is that so?" an- 
 swered Condy Eivers, bewildered, wish- 
 
24 Blix 
 
 ing to be polite, yet unable to follow the 
 old man's mutterings. 
 
 "He's not talking to you," remarked 
 Travis, without lowering her voice. 
 "You know how Papum goes on. He 
 won't hear a word you say. Well, I 
 read your story in this morning's Times." 
 
 A few moments later, while Travis 
 and Condy were still discussing this 
 story, Mr. Bessemer rose. "Well, Mr. 
 Eivers," he announced, "I guess I'll say 
 good-night. Come, Snooky." 
 
 "Yes, take her with you, Papum," said 
 Travis. " She'll go to sleep on the lounge 
 here if you don't. Howard, have you 
 got your lessons for to-morrow? " 
 
 It appeared that he had not. Snooky 
 whined to stay up a little longer, but at 
 last consented to go with her father. 
 They all bade Condy good-night and 
 took themselves away, Howard lingering 
 a moment in the door in the hope of the 
 nickel he dared not ask for. Maggie re- 
 appeared to clear away the table. 
 
Blix 25 
 
 "Let's go in the parlor," suggested 
 Travis, rising. "Don't you want to? " 
 
 The parlor was the front room over- 
 looking the street, and was reached by 
 the long hall that ran the whole length 
 of the flat, passing by the door of each 
 one of its eight rooms in turn. 
 
 Travis preceded Condy, and turned up 
 one of the burners in a colored globe of 
 the little brass chandelier. 
 
 The parlor was a small affair, peopled 
 by a family of chairs and sofas robed in 
 white druggets. A gold-and-white effect 
 had been striven for throughout the room. 
 The walls had been tinted instead of 
 papered, and bunches of hand-painted 
 pink flowers tied up with blue ribbons 
 straggled from one corner of the ceil- 
 ing. Across one angle of the room 
 straddled a brass easel upholding a 
 crayon portrait of Travis at the age of 
 nine, "enlarged from a photograph." A 
 yellow drape ornamented one corner 
 of the frame, while another drape of 
 
26 Blix 
 
 blue depended from one end of the 
 mantelpiece. 
 
 The piano, upon which nobody ever 
 played, balanced the easel in an opposite 
 corner. Over the mantelpiece hung ta a 
 gilded frame a steel engraving of Priscilla 
 and John Alden ; and on the mantel itself 
 two bisque figures of an Italian fisher boy 
 and girl kept company with the clock, a 
 huge timepiece, set in a red plush palette, 
 that never was known to go. But at the 
 right of the fireplace, and balancing the 
 tuft of pampa-grass to the left, was an 
 inverted section of a sewer-pipe painted 
 blue and decorated with daisies. Into it 
 was thrust a sheaf of cat-tails, gilded, 
 and tied with a pink ribbon. 
 
 Travis dropped upon the shrouded sofa, 
 and Condy set himself carefully down on 
 one of the frail chairs with its spindling 
 golden legs, and they began to talk. 
 
 Condy had taken her to the theatre 
 the Monday night of that week, as had 
 been his custom ever since he had known 
 
Blix 27 
 
 her well, and there was something left for 
 them to say on that subject. But in ten 
 minutes they had exhausted it. An en- 
 gagement of a girl known to both of them 
 had just been announced. Condy brought 
 that up, and kept conversation going for 
 another twenty minutes, and then filled 
 in what threatened to be a gap by telling 
 her stories of the society reporters, and 
 how they got inside news by listening to 
 telephone party wires for days at a time. 
 Travis' condemnation of this occupied 
 another five or ten minutes ; and so what 
 with this and with that they reached 
 nine o'clock. Then decidedly the even- 
 ing began to drag. It was too early to 
 go. Condy could find no good excuse 
 for taking himself away, and, though 
 Travis was good-natured enough, and met 
 him more than half way, their talk lapsed, 
 and lapsed, and lapsed. The breaks be- 
 came more numerous and lasted longer. 
 Condy began to wonder if he was boring 
 her. No sooner had the suspicion en- 
 
28 Blix 
 
 tered his head than it hardened into a 
 certainty, and at once what little fluency 
 and freshness he yet retained forsook him 
 on the spot. What made matters worse 
 was his recollection of other evenings 
 that of late had failed in precisely the 
 same manner. Even while he struggled 
 to save the situation Condy was wonder- 
 ing if they two were talked out — if they 
 had lost charm for each other. Did he 
 not know Travis through and through by 
 now — her opinions, her ideas, her con- 
 victions? Was there any more freshness 
 in her for him ? Was their little flirta- 
 tion of the last eighteen months, charm- 
 ing as it had been, about to end ? Had 
 they played out the play, had they come 
 to the end of each other's resources? He 
 had never considered the possibility of 
 this before ; but all at once as he looked 
 at Travis^ — looked fairly into her little 
 brown-black eyes — it was borne in upon 
 him that she was thinking precisely the 
 same thing. 
 
Blix 29 
 
 Condy Elvers had met Travis at a 
 dance a year and a half before this, and, 
 because she was so very pretty, so unaf- 
 fected, and so good-natured, had found 
 means to see her three or four times a 
 week ever since. They two "' went out '' 
 not a little in San Francisco society, and 
 had been in a measure identified with 
 what was known as the Younger Set; 
 though Travis was too young to come out, 
 and Elvers too old to feel very much at 
 home with girls of twenty and boys of 
 eighteen. 
 
 They had known each other in the 
 conventional way (as conventionality 
 goes in San Francisco) ; during the sea- 
 son Elvers took her to the theatres 
 Monday nights, and called regularly 
 Wednesdays and Sundays. Then they 
 met at dances, and managed to be invited 
 to the same houses for teas and dinners. 
 They had flirted rather desperately, and 
 at times Condy even told himself that he 
 loved this girl so much younger than he 
 
3° 
 
 Blix 
 
 — this girl with the smiling eyes and 
 robust figure and yellow hair, who was so 
 frank, so straightforward, and so wonder- 
 fully pretty. 
 
 But evidently they had come to the 
 last move in the game; and as Condy 
 reflected that after all he had never 
 known the real Travis, that the girl 
 whom he told himself he knew through 
 and through was only the Travis of 
 dinner parties and afternoon fimctions, 
 he was suddenly surprised to experience 
 a sudden qualm of deep and genuine re- 
 gret. He had never been near to her, 
 after all. They were as far apart as 
 when they had first met. And yet he 
 knew enough of her to know that she was 
 " worth while. " He had had experience 
 
 — all the experience he wanted — with 
 other older women and girls of society. 
 They were sophisticated, they were all a 
 little tired, they had run the gamut of 
 amusements — in a word, they were 
 jaded. But Travis, this girl of nineteen, 
 
Blix 
 
 31 
 
 who was not yet even a dSbutante, had 
 been fresh and unspoiled, had been new 
 and strong and young. 
 
 " Of course you may call it what you 
 like. He was nothing more nor less than 
 intoxicated — yes, drunk." 
 
 " Hah ! who — what — wh — what are 
 you talking about? " gasped Condy, sit- 
 ting bolt upright. 
 
 " Jack Carter, " answered Travis. " No, " 
 she added, shaking her head at him help- 
 lessly, "he hasn't been listening to a 
 word. I'm talking about Jack Carter 
 and the 'Saturday Evening' last night." 
 
 "No, no, I haven't heard. Forgive 
 me ; I was thinking — thinking of some- 
 thing else. Who was drunk ? " 
 
 Travis paused a moment, settling her 
 side-combs in her hair ; then : 
 
 " If you will try to listen, I'll tell it 
 all over again, because it's serious with 
 me, and I'm going to take a very decided 
 stand about it. You know," she went 
 on — " you know what the 'Saturday Even- 
 
3 2 Blix 
 
 ing ' is. Plenty of the girls who are not 
 'out' belong, and a good many of last 
 year's dSbutantes come, as well as the 
 older girls of three or four seasons' stand- 
 ing. You could call it representative, 
 couldn't you? Well, they always serve 
 punch ; and you know yourself that you 
 have seen men there who have taken 
 more than they should." 
 
 " Yes, yes," admitted Condy. " I know 
 Carter and the two Catlin boys always 
 do." 
 
 " It gets pretty bad sometimes, doesn't 
 it? " she said. 
 
 " It does, it does, — and it's shameful. 
 But most of the girls — most of them — 
 don't seem to mind." 
 
 Miss Bessemer stiffened a bit. " There 
 are one or two girls that do," she said 
 quietly. " Frank Catlin had the decency 
 to go home last night," she continued; 
 " and his brother wasn't any worse than 
 usual. But Jack Carter must have been 
 drinking before he came. He was very 
 
Blix 
 
 33 
 
 bad indeed — as bad," she said between 
 her teeth, " as he could be and yet walk 
 straight. As you say, most of the girls 
 don't mind. They say, 'It's only John- 
 nie Carter; what do you expect?' But 
 one of the girls — you know her, Laurie 
 Flagg — cut a dance with him last night 
 and told him exactly why. Of course 
 Carter was furious. He was sober 
 enough to think he had been insulted; 
 and what do you suppose he did ? " 
 
 "What? what?" exclaimed Condy, 
 breathless, leaning toward her. 
 
 " Went about the halls and dressing- 
 rooms circulating some dirty little lie 
 about Laurie. Actually trying to — to " — 
 Travis hesitated — "to make a scandal 
 about her." 
 
 Condy bounded in his seat. "Beast, 
 cad, swine ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 "I didn't think," said Travis, "that 
 Carter would so much as dare to ask me 
 to dance with him " 
 
 "Did he? did— did " 
 
 3 
 
34 Blix 
 
 " Wait," she interrupted. " So I wasn't 
 at all prepared for what happened. Dur- 
 ing the german, before I knew it, there 
 he was in front of me. It was a break, 
 and he wanted it. I hadn't time to 
 think. The only, idea I had was that if 
 I refused him he might tell some dirty 
 little lie about me. I was all confused — 
 mixed up. I felt just as though it were 
 a snake that I had to humor to get rid 
 of. I gave him the break." 
 
 Condy sat speechless. Suddenly he 
 arose. 
 
 "Well, now, let's see," he began, 
 speaking rapidly, his hands twisting and 
 untwisting till the knuckles cracked. 
 " Now, let's see. You leave it to me. I 
 know Carter. He's going to be at a stag 
 dinner where I am invited to-morrow 
 night, and I — I " 
 
 "No, you won't, Condy," said Travis 
 placidly. " You'll pay no attention to it, 
 and I'll tell you why. Suppose you 
 should make a scene with Mr. Carter — I 
 
Blix 
 
 35 
 
 don't know how men settle these things. 
 Well, it would be told in all the clubs 
 and in all the newspaper offices that two 
 men had quarrelled over a girl; and my 
 name is mentioned, discussed, and handed 
 around from one crowd of men to another, 
 from one club to another; and then, of 
 course, the papers take it up. By that 
 time Mr. Carter will have told his side 
 of the story and invented another dirty 
 little lie, and I'm the one who suffers the 
 most in the end. And remember, Condy, 
 that I haven't any mother in such an 
 affair, not even an older sister. No, 
 we'll just let the matter drop. It would 
 be more dignified anyhow. Only I have 
 made up my mind what I am going to do." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "I'm not coming out. If that's the 
 sort of thing one has to put up with in 
 society," — Travis drew a little line on the 
 sofa at her side with her finger-tip, — " I 
 am going to — stop — right — there. It's 
 not " — Miss Bessemer stiffened again — 
 
36 Blix 
 
 " that I'm afraid of Jack Carter and his 
 dirty stories; I simply don't want to 
 know the kind of people who have made 
 Jack Carter possible. The other girls 
 don't mind it, nor many men besides 
 you, Condy ; and I'm not going to be as- 
 sociated with people who take it as a 
 joke for a man to come to a function 
 drunk. And as for having a good time, 
 I'll find my amusements somewhere else. 
 I'U ride a wheel, take long walks, study 
 something. But as for leading the life of a 
 society girl — no ! And whether I have a 
 good time or not, I'll keep my own self- 
 respect. At least I'll never have to dance 
 with a drunken man. I won't have to 
 humiliate myself like that a second time." 
 
 " But I presume you will still continue 
 to go out somewhere," protested Condy 
 Rivers. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " I have thought it all over, and I've 
 talked about it with Papum. There's 
 no half way about it. The only way to 
 
Blix 37 
 
 stop is to stop short. Just this afternoon 
 I've regretted three functions for next 
 week, and I shall resign from the 'Satur- 
 day Evening.' Oh, it's not the Jack 
 Carter affair alone ! " she exclaimed ; 
 "the whole thing tires me. Mind, 
 Condy," she concluded, "I'm not going 
 to break with it because I have any 
 'purpose in life,' or that sort of thiug. I 
 want to have a good time, and I'm going 
 to see if I can't have it in my own way. 
 If the kind of thing that makes Jack 
 Carter possible is conventionality, then 
 I'm done with conventionality for good. 
 I am going to try, from this time on, to 
 be just as true to myself as I can be. I 
 am going to be sincere, and not pretend 
 to like people and things that I don't 
 like ; and I'm going to do the things that 
 I like to do — just so long as they are the 
 things a good girl can do. See, Condy ? " 
 "You're fine," murmured Condy, 
 breathless. " You're fine as gold, Travis, 
 and I — I love you all the better for it." 
 
38 Blix 
 
 " Ah, now ! " exclaimed Travis, with a 
 brusque movement, " there's another thing 
 we must talk about. No more foolishness 
 between us. We've had a jolly little 
 flirtation, I know, and it's been good fun 
 while it lasted. I know you like me, 
 and you know that I like you ; but as for 
 loving each other, you know we don't. 
 Yes, you say that you love me and that 
 I'm the only girl. That's part of the 
 game. I can play it" — ^her little eyes 
 began to dance — "quite as well as you. 
 But it's playing with something that's 
 quite too serious to be played with — after 
 all, isn't it, now? It's insincere, and, 
 as I tell you, from now on I'm going to 
 be as true and as sincere and as honest 
 as I can." 
 
 "But I tell you that I do love you," 
 protested Condy, trying to make the 
 words ring true. 
 
 Travis looked about the room an in- 
 stant as if in deliberation ; then abruptly : 
 " Ah ! what am I going to do with such 
 
Blix 39 
 
 a boy as you are, after all — a great, big, 
 overgrown boy ? Condy Elvers, lock at 
 me straight in the eye. Tell me, do you 
 honestly love me? You know what I 
 mean when I say 'love.' Do you love 
 me?" 
 
 " No, I don't ! " he exclaimed blankly, 
 as though he had just discovered the fact. 
 
 "There!" declared Travis — "and I 
 don't love you." They both began to 
 laugh. 
 
 "Now," added Travis, ''we don't need 
 to have the burden and trouble of keep- 
 ing up the pretences any more. We un- 
 derstand each other, don't we? " 
 
 "This is queer enough," said Condy 
 droUy. 
 
 "But isn't it an improvement? " 
 
 Condy scoured his head. 
 
 " Tell me the truth," she insisted ; " you 
 be sincere." 
 
 "I do believe it is. Why — why — 
 Travis — by Jingo ! Travis, I think I'm 
 going to like you better than ever now. " 
 
4© Blix 
 
 "Never inind. Is it an agreement? " 
 
 "What is?' 
 
 "That we don't pretend to love each 
 other any more?" 
 
 " All right— yes — you're right; because 
 the moment I began to love you I should 
 like you so much less." 
 
 She put out her hand. "That's an 
 agreement, then." 
 
 Condy took her hand in his. "Yes, 
 it's an agreement." But when, as had 
 been his custom, he made as though to 
 kiss her hand, Travis drew it quickly 
 away. 
 
 " No ! no ! " she said firmly, smiling for 
 all that — "no more foolishness." 
 
 "But — but," he protested, "it's not so 
 radical as that, is it? You're not going 
 to overturn such time-worn, time-honored 
 customs as that? Why, this is a regular 
 rebellion." 
 
 "No, sire," quoted Travis, trying not 
 to laugh, "it is a revolution." 
 
Ill 
 
 Although Monday was practically a 
 holiday for the Sunday-supplement staff 
 of The Times, Condy Eivers made a point 
 to get down to the office betimes the next 
 morning. There were reasons why a cer- 
 tain article descriptive of a great whale- 
 back steamer taking on grain for famine- 
 stricken India should be written that 
 day, and Eivers wanted his afternoon 
 free in order to go to Laurie Flagg's 
 coming-out tea. 
 
 But as he came into his room at The 
 Times office, which he shared with the 
 exchange and sporting editors, and settled 
 himself at his desk, he suddenly remem- 
 bered that, under the new order of things, 
 he need not expect to see Travis at the 
 Flaggs'. 
 
 " Well," he muttered, " maybe it doesn't 
 make so much difference, after all. She 
 
42 Blix 
 
 was a corking fine girl, but — might as 
 well admit it — the play is played out. 
 Of course I don't love her — any more 
 than she loves me. I'll see less and less 
 of her now. It's inevitable, and after a 
 while we'll hardly even meet. In a way, 
 it's a pity; but of course one has to be 
 sensible about these things. . . . Well, 
 this whaleback now. " 
 
 He rang up the Chamber of Commerce, 
 and found out that the City of Everett, 
 which was the whaleback's name, was at 
 the Mission- Street wharf. This made it 
 possible for him to write the article in 
 two ways. He either could fake his 
 copy from a clipping on the subject 
 which the exchange editor had laid on 
 his desk, or he could go down in person 
 to the wharf, interview the captain, and 
 inspect the craft for himself. The former 
 was the short and easy method. The 
 latter was more troublesome, but would 
 result in a far more interesting article. 
 
 Condy debated the subject a few min- 
 
Blix 
 
 43 
 
 utes, then decided to go down to the 
 wharf. San Francisco's water-front was 
 always interesting, and he might get hold 
 of a photograph of the whaleback. All 
 at once the " idea " of the article struck 
 him, the certain underlying notion that 
 would give importance and weight to the 
 mere details and descriptions. Condy's 
 enthusiasm flared up in an instant. 
 " By Jove ! " he exclaimed ; " by Jove ! " 
 He clapped on his hat wrong side fore- 
 most, crammed a sheaf of copy-paper into 
 his pocket, and was on the street again 
 in another moment. Then it occurred to 
 him that he had forgotten to call at his 
 club that morning for his mail, as was 
 his custom, on the way to the office. He 
 looked at his watch. It was early yet, 
 and his club was but two blocks' distance. 
 He decided that he would get his letters 
 at the club, and read them on the way 
 down to the wharf. 
 
 For Condy had joined a certain San 
 Francisco club of artists, journalists, 
 
44 Blix 
 
 musicians, and professional men that is 
 one of the institutions of the city, and, 
 in fact, famous throughout the United 
 States. He was one of the younger 
 members, but was popular and well 
 liked, and on more than one occasion 
 had materially contributed to the fim of 
 the club's "low jinks." 
 
 In his box this morning he found one 
 letter that he told himself he must read 
 upon the instant. It bore upon the en- 
 velope the name of a New York publish- 
 ing house to whom Condy had sent a 
 collection of his short stories about a 
 month before. He took the letter into 
 the " round window " of the club, over- 
 looking the street, and tore it open ex- 
 citedly. The fact that he had received a 
 letter from the firm without the return 
 of his manuscript seemed a good omen. 
 This was what he read : 
 
 Condi Bivers, Esq., Bohemian Club, 
 San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 Dear Sir : We return to you by this 
 
Blix 45 
 
 mail the manuscript of your stories, 
 which we do not consider as available 
 for publication at the present moment. 
 We would say, however, that we find in 
 several of them indications of a quite 
 unusual order of merit. The best-selling 
 book just now is the short novel — say 
 thirty thousand words — of action and ad- 
 venture. Judging from the stories of 
 your collection, we suspect that your 
 talent lies in this direction, and we 
 would suggest that you write such a 
 novel and submit the same to us. 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 The Centennial Co., 
 
 New York. 
 
 Condy shoved the letter into his pocket 
 and collapsed limply into his chair. 
 
 " What's the good of trying to do any- 
 thing anyhow ! " he muttered, looking 
 gloomily down into the street. "My 
 level is just the hack-work of a local 
 Sunday supplement, and I am a fool to 
 think of anything else." 
 
 His enthusiasm in the matter of the 
 City of Everett was cold and dead in a 
 moment. He could see no possibilities 
 
46 Blix 
 
 in the subject whatever. His " idea " of 
 a few minutes previous seemed ridiculous 
 and overwrought. He would go back to 
 the office and grind out his copy from 
 the exchange editor's clipping. 
 
 Just then his eye was caught by a 
 familiar figure in trim, well-fitting black 
 halted on the opposite corner waiting for 
 the passage of a cable-car. It was Travis 
 Bessemer. No one but she could carry 
 ofif such rigorous simplicity in the matter 
 of dress so well : black skirt, black Eus- 
 sian blouse, tiny black bonnet and black 
 veil, white kids with black stitching. 
 Simplicity itself. Yet the style of her, 
 as Condy Elvers told himself, flew up and 
 hit you in the face ; and her figure — was 
 there anything more perfect? and the soft 
 pretty effect of her yellow hair seen 
 through the veil — could anything be 
 more fetching? and her smart carriage 
 and the fling of her fine broad shoulders, 
 and — no, it was no use ; Condy had to 
 run down to speak to her. 
 
Blix 47 
 
 " Come, come ! " she said as he pre- 
 tended to jostle against her on the curb- 
 stone without noticing her; "yo% had 
 best go to work. Loafing at ten o'clock 
 on the street-comers — the idea ! " 
 
 " It is not — it cannot be — and yet it 
 is — it is she," he burlesqued; "and after 
 all these years ! " Then in his natural 
 voice: " Hello, T. B." 
 
 "Hello, C. E." 
 
 "Where are you going? " 
 
 " Home. I've just run down for half 
 an hour to have the head of my banjo 
 tightened." 
 
 " If I put you on the car, will you ex- 
 pect me to pay your car-fare ? " 
 
 " Condy Eivers, I've long since got over 
 the idea of ever expecting you to have 
 any change concealed about your person." 
 
 "Huh! no, it all goes for theatre- 
 tickets, and flowers, and boxes of candy 
 for a certain girl I know. But " — and he 
 glared at her significantly — " no more 
 foolishness." 
 
48 Blix 
 
 She laughed. "What are you 'on' 
 this morning, Condy ? " 
 
 Condy told her as they started to walk 
 toward Kearney Street. 
 
 " But why don't you go to the dock 
 and see the vessel, if you can make a 
 better article that way? " 
 
 " Oh, what's the good ! The Centennial 
 people have turned down my stories." 
 
 She commiserated him for this; then 
 suddenly exclaimed : 
 
 " No, you must go down to the dock ! 
 You ought to, Condy. Oh, I tell you, 
 let me go down with you ! " 
 
 In an instant Condy leaped to the no- 
 tion. "Splendid! splendid! no reason 
 why you shouldn't ! " he exclaimed. And 
 within fifteen minutes the two were 
 treading the wharfs and quays of the 
 city's water-front. 
 
 Ships innumerable nuzzled at the end- 
 less line of docks, mast overspiring mast, 
 and bowsprit overlapping bowsprit, till 
 the eye was bewildered, as if by the con- 
 
Blix 49 
 
 fusion of branches in a leafless forest. 
 In the distance the mass of rigging re- 
 solved itself into a solid gray blur against 
 the sky. The great hulks, green and 
 black and slate gray, laid themselves 
 along the docks, straining leisurely at 
 their mammoth chains, their flanks 
 opened, their cargoes, as it were their 
 entrails, spewed out in a wild disarray of 
 crate and bale and box. Sailors and 
 stevedores swarmed them like vermin. 
 Trucks rolled along the wharfs like 
 peals of ordnance, the horse-hoofs beat- 
 ing the boards like heavy drum -taps. 
 Chains clanked, a ship's dog barked in- 
 cessantly from a companionway, ropes 
 creaked in complaining pulleys, blocks 
 rattled, hoisting-engines coughed and 
 strangled, while all the air was redolent 
 of oakum, of pitch, of paint, of spices, of 
 ripe fruit, of clean cool lumber, of coffee, 
 of tar, of bilge, and the brisk, nimble 
 odor of the sea. 
 
 Travis was delighted, her little brown 
 4 
 
5© Blix 
 
 eyes snapping, her cheeks flushing, as 
 she drank in the scene. 
 
 "To think," she cried, "where all these 
 ships have come from! Look at their 
 names; aren't they perfect? Just the 
 names, see: the Mary Baker, Hull; and 
 the Anandale, Liverpool ; and the Two 
 Sisters, Calcxitia,; and see that one they're 
 calking, the Montevideo, Callao; and 
 there, look! look! the very one you're 
 looking for, the City of Everett, San 
 Francisco." 
 
 The whaleback, an immense tube of 
 steel plates, lay at her wharf, sucking in 
 entire harvests of wheat from the San 
 Joaquin valley — harvests that were to feed 
 strangely clad skeletons on the southern 
 slopes of the Himalaya foot-hills. Travis 
 and Condy edged their way among piles 
 of wheat-bags, dodging drays and rum- 
 bling trucks, and finally brought up at the 
 after gangplank, where a sailor halted 
 them. Condy exhibited his reporter's 
 badge. 
 
Blix 5 1 
 
 "I represent The Times," he said, with 
 profound solemnity, "and I want to see 
 the officer in charge." 
 
 The sailor fell back upon the instant. 
 
 "Power of the press," whispered Condy 
 to Travis as the two gained the deck. 
 
 A second sailor directed them to the 
 mate, whom they found in the chart- 
 room, engaged, singularly enough, in 
 trimming the leaves of a scraggly 
 geranium. 
 
 Condy explained his mission with flat- 
 tering allusions to the whaleback and 
 the novelty of the construction. The 
 mate — an old man with a patriarchal 
 beard — softened at once, asked them into 
 his own cabin aft, and even brought out 
 a camp-stool for Travis, brushing it with 
 his sleeve before setting it down. 
 
 While Condy was interviewing the old 
 fellow, Travis was examining, with the 
 interest of a child, the details of the 
 cabin: the rack-like bunk, the wash- 
 stand, ingeniously constructed so as to 
 
52 Blix 
 
 shut into the bulkhead when not in use, 
 the alarm-clock screwed to the wall, and 
 the array of photographs thrust into the 
 mirror between frame and glass. One, 
 an old daguerreotype, particularly caught 
 her fancy. It was the portrait of a very 
 beautiful girl, wearing the old-fashioned 
 side curls and high comb of a half-cen- 
 tury previous. The old mate noticed the 
 attention she paid to it, and, as soon as 
 he had done giving information to Condy, 
 turned and nodded to Travis, and said 
 quietly : " She was pretty, wasn't she ? " 
 
 " Oh, very ! " answered Travis, without 
 looking away. 
 
 There was a silence. Then the mate, 
 his eyes wide and thoughtful, said with 
 a long breath : 
 
 "And she was just about your age, 
 miss, when I saw her; and you favor her 
 too." 
 
 Condy and Travis held their breaths 
 in attention. There in the cabin of that 
 curious nondescript whaleback they had 
 
Blix 
 
 53 
 
 come suddenly to the edge of a romance — 
 a romance that had been lived through 
 before they were bom. Then Travis said 
 in a low voice, and sweetly: "She died? " 
 
 " Before I ever set eyes on her, miss. 
 That is, maybe she died. I sometimes 
 think — fact is, I really believe she's alive 
 yet, and waiting for me." He hesitated 
 awkwardly. "I dunno," he said, pulling 
 his beard. " I don't usually tell that story 
 to strange folk ; but you remind me so of 
 her that I guess I will. " 
 
 Condy sat down on the edge of the 
 bunk, and the mate seated himself on the 
 plush settle opposite the door, his elbows 
 on his knees, his eyes fixed on a patch of 
 sunlight upon the deck outside. 
 
 "I began life," he said, "as a deep-sea 
 diver — began pretty young too. I first 
 put on the armor when I was twenty, 
 nothing but a lad ; but I could take the 
 pressure up to seventy pounds even then. 
 One of my very first dives was off Trin- 
 comalee, on the coast of Ceylon. A mail 
 
54 Blix 
 
 packet had gone down in a squall with 
 all on board. Six of the bodies had 
 come up and had been recovered, but the 
 seventh hadn't. It was the body of the 
 daughter of the governor of the island — a 
 beautiful young girl of nineteen, whom 
 everybody loved. I was sent for to go 
 down and bring the body up. Well, I 
 went down. The packet lay in a hun- 
 dred feet of water, and that's a wonder 
 deep dive. I had to go down twice. 
 The first time I couldn't find anything, 
 though I went all through the berth- 
 deck. I came up to the wrecking-float 
 and reported that I had seen nothing. 
 There were a lot of men there belonging 
 to the wrecking gang, and some corre- 
 spondents of London papers. But they 
 would have it that she was below, and 
 had me go down again. I did, and this 
 time I found her. " 
 
 The mate paused a moment. 
 
 "I'll have to tell you," he went on, 
 "that when a body don't come to the 
 
Blix 
 
 55 
 
 surface it will stand or sit in a perfectly 
 natural position until a current or move- 
 ment of the water around touches it. 
 When that happens — well, you'd say the 
 body was alive; and old divers have a 
 superstition — no, it ain't just a supersti- 
 tion, I believe it's so — that drowned peo- 
 ple really don't die till they come to the 
 surface, and the air touches them. We 
 say that the drowned who don't come up 
 still have some sort of life of their own 
 way down there in all that green water 
 . . . some kind of life . . . surely . . . 
 surely. When I went down the second 
 time, I came across the door of what I 
 thought at first was the linen-closet. 
 But it turned out to be a little state- 
 room. I opened it. There was the girl. 
 She was sitting on the sofa opposite the 
 door, with a little hat on her head, and 
 holding a satchel in her lap, just as if 
 she was ready to go ashore. Her eyes 
 were wide open, and she was looking 
 right at me and smiling. It didn't seem 
 
56 Blix 
 
 terrible or ghastly in the least. She 
 seemed very sweet. When I opened the 
 door it set the water in motion, and she 
 got up and dropped the satchel, and came 
 toward me smiling and holding out her 
 arms. 
 
 "I stepped back quick and shut the 
 door, and sat down in one of the saloon 
 chairs to fetch my breath, for it had 
 given me a start. The next thing to do 
 was to send her up. But I began to 
 think. She seemed so pretty as she was. 
 What was the use of bringing her up — 
 up there on the wrecking-float with that 
 crowd of men — up where the air would 
 get at her, and where they would put her 
 in the ground along o' the worms? If I 
 left her there she'd always be sweet and 
 pretty — always be nineteen; and I re- 
 membered what old divers said about 
 drowned people living just so long as 
 they stayed below. You see, I was only 
 a lad then, and things like that impress 
 you when you're young. Well, I sig- 
 
Blix s7 
 
 nailed to be hauled up. They asked me 
 on the float if I'd seen anything, and I 
 said no. That was all there was to the 
 affair. They never raised the ship, and 
 in a little while it was all forgotten. 
 
 "But I never forgot it, and I always 
 remembered her, way -down there in all 
 that still green water, waiting there in 
 that little state-room for me to come back 
 and open the door. And I've growed to 
 be an old man remembering her; but 
 she's always stayed just as she was the 
 first day I saw her, when she came 
 toward me smiling and holding out her 
 arms. She's always stayed young and 
 fresh and pretty. I never saw her but 
 that once. Only afterward I got her 
 picture from a native woman of Trin- 
 comalee who was housekeeper at the 
 Residency where the governor of the 
 island lived. Somehow I never could 
 care for other women after that, and I 
 ain't never married ^or that reason." 
 
 " No, no, of course not ! " exclaimed 
 
58 Blix 
 
 Travis, in a low voice, as the old fellow 
 paused. 
 
 " Fine, fine ; oh, fine as gold ! " mur- 
 mured Condy, under his breath. 
 
 "Well," said the mate, getting up and 
 rubbing his knee, " that's the story. Now 
 you know all about that picture. Will 
 you have a glass of Madeira, miss ? " 
 
 He got out a bottle of wine bearing 
 the genuine Tunchal label and filled three 
 tiny glasses. Travis pushed up her veil, 
 and she and Condy rose. 
 
 "This is to Aer," said Travis gravely. 
 
 "Thank you, miss," answered the mate, 
 and the three drank in silence. 
 
 As Travis and Condy were going down 
 the gangplank they met the captain of 
 the whaleback coming up. 
 
 "I saw you in there talking to old 
 McPherson," he explained. " Did you get 
 what you wanted from him ? " 
 
 " More, more ! " exclaimed Condy. 
 
 " My hand in the fire, he told you that 
 yam about the girl who was drowned off 
 
Blix 59 
 
 Trincomalee. Of course, I knew it. 
 The old boy's wits are turned on that 
 subject. He will have it that the body 
 hasn't decomposed in all this time. 
 Good seaman enough, and a first-class 
 navigator, but he's soft in that one spot. " 
 
IV 
 
 " Oh, but the story of it ! " exclaimed 
 Condy as he and Travis regained the 
 wharf — "the story of it! Isn't it a 
 ripper ! Isn't it a corker ! His leaving 
 her that way, and never caring for any 
 other girl afterward." 
 
 " And so original ! " she commented, 
 quite as enthusiastic as he. 
 
 "Original? — why, it's new as paint! 
 It's — it's — Travis, I'll make a story out 
 of this that wUl be copied in every paper 
 between the two oceans." 
 
 They were so interested in the mate's 
 story that they forgot to take a car, and 
 walked up Clay Street talking it over, 
 suggesting, rearranging, and embellishing ; 
 and Condy was astonished and delighted 
 to note that she " caught on " to the idea 
 as quickly as he, and knew the tellihg 
 points and what details to leave out. 
 
Blix 6 1 
 
 "And I'll make a bang-up article out 
 of the whaleback herself," declared Con- 
 dy. The " idea " of the article had re- 
 turned to him, and all his enthusiasm 
 with it. 
 
 "And look here," he said, showing her 
 the letter from the Centennial Com- 
 pany. " They turned down my book, but 
 see what they say." 
 
 " Quite an unusual order of merit ! " 
 cried Travis. " Why, that's fine ! Why 
 didn't you show this to me before ? — and 
 asking you like this to write them a 
 novel of adventure ! What more can you 
 want? Oh ! " she exclaimed impatiently, 
 " that's so like you ; you would tell every- 
 body about your reverses, and carry on 
 about them yourself, but never say a word 
 when you get a little boom. Have you 
 an idea for a thirty-thousand- word novel ? 
 Wouldn't that diver's story do ? " 
 
 "No, there's not enough in that for 
 thirty thousand words. I haven't any 
 idea at all — never wrote a story of ad- 
 
62 Blix 
 
 venture — never wrote anything longer 
 than six thousand words. But I'll keep 
 my eye open for something that will do. 
 By the way — by Jove ! Travis, where are 
 we?" 
 
 They looked swiftly around them, and 
 the bustling, breezy water-front faded 
 from their recollections. They were in 
 a world of narrow streets, of galleries 
 and overhanging balconies. Craziest 
 structures, riddled and honeycombed 
 with stairways and passages, shut out 
 the sky, though here and there rose a 
 building of extraordinary richness and 
 most elaborate ornamentation. Color 
 was everywhere. A thousand little 
 notes of green and yellow, of vermil- 
 ion and sky blue, assaulted the eye. 
 Here it was a doorway, here a vivid 
 glint of cloth or hanging, here a huge 
 scarlet sign lettered with gold, and here 
 a kaleidoscopic effect in the garments 
 of a passer-by. Directly opposite, and 
 two stories above their heads, a sort of 
 
Blix 63 
 
 huge "loggia," one blaze of gilding and 
 crude vermilions, opened in the gray 
 cement of a crumbling fagade, like a 
 sudden burst of flame. Gigantic pot- 
 bellied lanterns of red and gold swung 
 from its ceiling, while along its railing 
 stood a row of pots — brass, ruddy bronze, 
 and blue porcelain — from which were 
 growing red, saffron, purple, pink, and 
 golden tulips without number. The air 
 was vibrant with unfamiliar noises. 
 From one of the balconies near at hand, 
 though unseen, a gong, a pipe, and some 
 kind of stringed instrument wailed and 
 th\mdered in unison. There was a vast 
 shuffling of padded soles and a continu- 
 ous interchange of singsong monosylla- 
 bles, high-pitched and staccato, while 
 from every hand rose the strange aromas 
 of the East — sandalwood, punk, incense, 
 oil, and the smell of mysterious cookery. 
 " Chinatovra ! " exclaimed Travis. " I 
 hadn't the faintest idea we had come up 
 so far. Condy Kivers, do you know what 
 
64 Blix 
 
 time it is ? " She pointed a white kid 
 finger through the doorway of a drug- 
 store, where, amid lacquer boxes and 
 bronze urns of herbs and dried seeds, a 
 round Seth Thomas marked half-past 
 two. 
 
 " And your lunch ? " cried Condy. 
 " Great heavens ! I never thought." 
 
 "It's too late to get any at home. 
 Never mind ; I'll go somewhere and have 
 a cup of tea." 
 
 "Why not get a package of Chinese 
 tea, now that you're down here, and take 
 it home with you? " 
 
 "Or drink it here." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "In one of the restaurants. There 
 wouldn't be a soul there at this hour. 
 I know they serve tea any time. Condy, 
 let's try it. Wouldn't it be fun ? " 
 
 Condy smote his thigh. "Fun!" he 
 vociferated; "fun! It is — by Jove — it 
 would be heavenly ! Wait a moment. 
 I'll tell you what we will do. Tea won't 
 
Blix 65 
 
 be enough. We'll go down to Kearney- 
 Street, or to the market, and get some 
 crackers to go with it." 
 
 They hurried back to the California 
 market, a few blocks distant, and bought 
 some crackers and a wedge of new cheese. 
 On the way back to Chinatown Travis 
 stopped at a music-store on Kearney 
 Street to get her banjo, which she had 
 left to have its head tightened ; and thus 
 burdened they regained the "town," Con- 
 dy grieving audibly at having to carry 
 " brown-paper bundles through the street. " 
 
 "First catch your restaurant," said 
 Travis as they turned into Dupont Street 
 with its thronging coolies and swarming, 
 gayly clad children. But they had not 
 far to seek. 
 
 " Here you are ! " suddenly exclaimed 
 Condy, halting in front of a wholesale 
 tea-house bearing a sign in Chinese and 
 English. " Come on, Travis ! " 
 
 They ascended two flights of a broad, 
 brass-bound staircase leading up from the 
 5 
 
66 Blix 
 
 ground floor, and gained the restaurapt 
 on the top story of the building. As 
 Travis had foretold, it was deserted. She 
 clasped her gloved hands gayly, crying : 
 "Isn't it delightful! We've the whole 
 place to ourselves. " 
 
 The restaurant ran the whole depth of 
 the building, and was finished off at either 
 extremity with a gilded balcony, one 
 overlooking Dupont Street and the other 
 the old Plaza. Enormous screens of gild- 
 ed ebony, intricately carved and set with 
 colored glass panes, divided the room into 
 three, and one of these divisions, in the 
 rear part, from which they could step out 
 upon the balcony that commanded the 
 view of the Plaza, they elected as their 
 own. 
 
 It was charming. At their backs they 
 had the huge, fantastic screen, brave and 
 fine with its coat of gold. In front, 
 through the glass-paved valves of a pair 
 of folding doors, they could see the roofs 
 of the houses beyond the Plaza, and be- 
 
Blix 67 
 
 yond these the blue of the bay with its 
 anchored ships, and even beyond this the 
 faint purple of the Oakland shore. On 
 either side of these doors, in deep alcoves, 
 were divans with mattings and head- 
 rests for opium-smokers. The walls were 
 painted blue and hung with vertical Can- 
 tonese legends in red and silver, while all 
 around the sides of the room small ebony 
 tables alternated with ebony stools, each 
 inlaid with a slab of mottled marble. A 
 chandelier, all a-glitter with tinsel, swung 
 from the centre of the ceiling over a huge 
 round table of mahogany. 
 
 And not a soul was there to disturb 
 them. Below them, out there around the 
 old Plaza, the city drummed through 
 its work with a lazy, soothing rumble. 
 Nearer at hand, Chinatown sent up the 
 vague murmur of the life of the Orient. 
 In the direction of the Mexican quarter, 
 the bell of the cathedral knolled at inter- 
 vals. The sky was without a cloud and 
 the afternoon was warm. 
 
68 Blix 
 
 Condy was inarticulate with the joy 
 of what he called their " discovery. " He 
 got up and sat down. He went out into 
 the other room and came back again. 
 He dragged up a couple of the marble- 
 seated stools to the table. He took off 
 his hat, lit a cigarette, let it go out, lit it 
 again, and burned his fingers. He opened 
 and closed the folding doors, pushed the 
 table into a better light, and finally 
 brought Travis out upon the balcony to 
 show her the " points of historical inter- 
 est " in and around the Plaza. 
 
 "There's the Stevenson memorial ship 
 in the centre, see ; and right there, where 
 the flagstaff is. General Baker made the 
 funeral oration over the body of Terry. 
 Broderick killed him in a duel, — or was it 
 Terry killed Broderick? I forget which. 
 Anyhow, right opposite, where that 
 pawnshop is, is where the Overland 
 stages used to start in '49. And every 
 other building that fronts on the Plaza, 
 even this one we're in now, used to be a 
 
Blix 69 
 
 gambling -house in bonanza times; and, 
 see, over yonder is the Morgue and the 
 City Prison." 
 
 They turned back into the room, and 
 a great, fat Chinaman brought them tea 
 on Condy's order. But besides tea, he 
 brought dried almonds, pickled water- 
 melon rinds, candied quince, and " China 
 nuts." 
 
 Travis cut the cheese into cubes with 
 Condy's penknife, and arranged the cubes 
 in geometric figures upon the crackers. 
 
 "But, Condy," she complained, "why 
 in the world did you get so many crack- 
 ers ? There's hundreds of them here — 
 enough to feed a regiment. Why didn't 
 you ask me? " 
 
 "Huh! what? what? I don't know. 
 What's the matter with the crackers? 
 You were dickering with the cheese, and 
 the man said, ' How many crackers? ' I 
 didn't know. I said, ' Oh, give me a 
 quarter's worth ! ' " 
 
 "And we couldn't possibly have eaten 
 
70 Blix 
 
 ten cents' worth ! Oh, Condy, you are 
 
 you are But never mind, here's your 
 
 tea. I wonder if this green, pasty stuff is 
 good." 
 
 They found that it was, but so sweet 
 that it made their tea taste bitter. The 
 watermelon rinds were fiat to their West- 
 em palates, but the dried almonds were 
 a great success. Then Condy promptly 
 got the hiccoughs from drinking his tea 
 too fast, and fretted up and down the 
 room like a chicken with the pip till 
 Travis grew faint and weak with laugh- 
 ter. 
 
 "Oh, well," he exclaimed aggrievedly, 
 — "laugh, that's right! / don't laugh. 
 It isn't such fun when you've got 'em 
 yoursel — hulp." 
 
 "But sit down, for goodness' sake! 
 You make me so nervous. You can't 
 walk them off. Sit down and hold your 
 breath while you count nine. Condy, 
 I'm going to take off my gloves and veil. 
 What do you think?" 
 
Blix 71 
 
 " Sure, of course ; and I'll have a cigar- 
 ette. Do you mind if I smoke ? " 
 
 "Well, what's that in your hand now? " 
 
 " By Jove, I have been smoking ! I — 
 I beg your pardon. I'm a regular stable 
 boy. I'U throw it away." 
 
 Travis caught his wrist. " "What non- 
 sense ! I would have told you before if 
 I'd minded." 
 
 "But it's gone out!" he exclaimed. 
 "I'll have another." 
 
 As he reached into his pocket for his 
 case, his hand encountered a paper-cov- 
 ered volume, and he drew it out in some 
 perplexity. 
 
 " ITow, how in the wide world did that 
 book come in my pocket ? " he muttered, 
 frowning. "What have I been carrying 
 it around for? I've forgotten. I declare 
 I have." 
 
 "What book is it?" 
 
 "Hey? book? . . . h'm," be mur- 
 mured, staring. 
 
 Travis pounded on the table. " Wake 
 
72 Blix 
 
 up, Condy, I'm talking to you," she 
 called. 
 
 " It's ' Life's Handicap,' " he answered, 
 with a start; "but why .and but why 
 have I " 
 
 "What's it about? I never heard of 
 it," she declared. 
 
 " You never heard of ' Life's Handi- 
 cap ' ? " he shouted ; "you never heard — 
 you never — you mean to say you never 
 heard — but here, this won't do. Sit right 
 still, and I'll read you one of these yarns 
 before you're another minute older. Any 
 one of them — open the book at random. 
 Here we are, — ' The Strange Eide of 
 Morrowbie Jukes' ; and it's a stem- 
 winder, too." 
 
 And then for the first time in her life, 
 there in that airy, golden Chinese restau- 
 rant, in the city from which he hasted to 
 flee, Travis Bessemer fell under the charm 
 of the little spectacled colonial, to whose 
 song we all must listen and to whose pipe 
 we all must dance. 
 
Blix 73 
 
 There was one " point " in the story of 
 Jukes' strange ride that Condy prided 
 himself upon having discovered. So far 
 as he knew, all critics had overlooked it. 
 It is where Jukes is describing the man- 
 trap of the City of the Dead who are 
 alive, and mentions that the slope of the 
 enclosing sandhills was "about forty-five 
 degrees." Jukes was a civil engineer, 
 and Condy held that it was a capital bit 
 of realism on the part of the author to 
 have him speak of the pitch of the hills 
 in just such technical terms. At first he 
 thought he would call Travis' attention to 
 this bit of cleverness ; but as he read he 
 abruptly changed his mind. He would 
 see if she would find it out for herself. 
 It would be a test of her quickness, he 
 told himself; almost an unfair test, be- 
 cause the point was extremely subtle and 
 could easily be ignored by the most ex- 
 perienced of fiction readers. He read 
 steadily on, working himself into a posi- 
 tive excitement as he approached the 
 
74 Blix 
 
 passage. He came to it and read it 
 through without any emphasis, almost 
 slurring over it in his eagerness to be 
 perfectly faijr. But as he began to read 
 the next paragraph, Travis, her little eyes 
 sparkling with interest and attention, ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 " Just as an engineer would describe it. 
 Isn't that good ! " 
 
 " Glory hallelujah ! " cried Condy, 
 slamming down the book joyfully. 
 "Travis, you are one in a thousand!" 
 
 "What — what is it?" she inquired 
 blankly. 
 
 "Never mind, never mind; you're a 
 wonder, that's all," — and he finished the 
 tale without further explanation. Then, 
 while he smoked another cigarette and 
 she drank another cup of tea, he read to 
 her "The Eetum of Imri " and the "In- 
 carnation of Krishna Mulvaney." He 
 found her an easy and enrapt convert to 
 the little Englishman's creed, and for 
 himself tasted the intense delight of re- 
 
Blix 7^ 
 
 vealing to another an appreciation of a 
 literature hitherto ignored. 
 
 " Isn't he strong ! " cried Travis. " Just 
 a little better than Marie Corelli and the 
 Duchess ! " 
 
 " And to think of having all those sto- 
 ries to read ! You haven't read any of 
 them yet?" 
 
 "Not a one. I've been reading only 
 the novels we take up in the Wednesday 
 class." 
 
 " Lord ! " muttered Condy. 
 
 Condy's spirits had been steadily rising 
 since the incident aboard the whaleback. 
 The exhilaration of the water-front, his 
 delight over the story he was to make 
 out of the old mate's yarn, Chinatown, 
 the charming unconventionality of their 
 lunch in the Chinese restaurant, the 
 sparkling serenity of the afternoon, and 
 the joy of discovering Travis' apprecia- 
 tion of his adored and venerated author, 
 had put him into a mood bordering close 
 upon hilarity. 
 
jb Blix 
 
 " The next event upon our interesting 
 programme," he announced, "will be a 
 banjosephine obligato in A-sia minor, by 
 that justly renowned impresario, Signor 
 Conde Tin-pani Eivers, specially engaged 
 for this performance ; with a pleasing and 
 pan-hellenic song-and-dance turn by Miss 
 Travis Bessemer, the infant phenomenon, 
 otherwise known as ' Babby Bessie.' " 
 
 " You're not going to play that banjo 
 here? " said Travis, as he stripped away 
 the canvas covering. 
 
 " Order in the gallery ! " cried Oondy, 
 begianing to tune up. Then in a rapid, 
 professional monotone: " Ladies-and-gen- 
 tlemen-with-your-kind-permission-I-will- 
 endeavor-to-give-you-an-imitation - of - a- 
 Carolina-coon-song," — and without more 
 ado, singing the words to a rattling, 
 catchy accompaniment, swung off into — 
 
 "r — or my gal's a high-born leddy, 
 She's brack, but not too shady. " 
 
 He -did not sing loud, and the clack 
 
Blix 
 
 n 
 
 and snarl of the banjo carried hardly far- 
 ther than the adjoining room ; but there 
 was no one to hear, and, as he went along, 
 even Travis began to hum the words. 
 But at that, Condy stopped abruptly, laid 
 the instrument across his knees with 
 exaggerated solicitude, and said deliber- 
 ately : 
 
 "Travis, you are a good, sweet girl, 
 and what you lack in beauty you make 
 up in amiability, and I've no'doubt you 
 are kind to your aged father; but you — 
 can — not — sing. " 
 
 Travis was cross in a moment, all the 
 more so because Condy had spoken the 
 exact truth. It was quite impossible 
 for her to carry a tune half-a-dozen bars 
 without entangling herself in as many 
 different keys. What voice she had was 
 not absolutely bad ; but as she persisted 
 in singing in spite of Condy's guying, he 
 put back his head and began a mournful 
 and lugubrious howling. 
 
 "Ho!" she exclaimed, grabbing the 
 
78 Blix 
 
 banjo from his knees, " if I can't sing, I 
 can play better than some smart people." 
 
 "Yes, by note," railed Condy, as Travis 
 executed a banjo "piece " of no little in- 
 tricacy. "That's just like a machine — 
 like a hand-piano." 
 
 " Order in the gallery ! " she retorted, 
 without pausing in her playing. She 
 finished with a great flourish and gazed 
 at him in triumph, only to find him pre- 
 tending a profound slumber. "0 — o — 
 o ! " she remarked between her teeth, " I 
 just hate you, Condy Eivers." 
 
 "There are others," he returned airily. 
 
 "Talk about slang." 
 
 " Now what will we do ? " he cried. 
 " Let's do something. Suppose we break 
 something — just for fun. " 
 
 Then suddenly the gayety went out of 
 his face, and he started up and clapped 
 his hand to his head with a gasp of dis- 
 may. " Great Heavens ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 "Condy," cried Travis in alarm, "what 
 is it? " 
 
Blix 79 
 
 "The Tea!" he vociferated. "Laurie 
 Flagg's Tea. I ought to be there — right 
 this minute." 
 
 Travis fetched a sigh of relief. "Is 
 that all?" 
 
 " All ! " he retorted. " All ! Why, it's 
 past four now — and I'd forgotten every 
 last thing." Then suddenly falling calm 
 again, and quietly resuming his seat : " I 
 don't see as it makes any difference. I 
 won't go, that's all. Push those almonds 
 here, will you. Miss Lady? — But we 
 aren't doing anything," he exclaimed, 
 with a brusque return of exuberance. 
 "Let's do things. What'U we do? 
 Think of something. Is there anything 
 we can break? " Then, without any 
 transition, he vaulted upon the table and 
 began to declaim, with tremendous ges- 
 tures : 
 
 " There once was a beast called an Ounce, 
 Who went with a spriug and a bounce. 
 His head was as flat 
 As the head of a cat, 
 
8o Blix 
 
 This quadrupetantical Ounce, 
 
 — tical Ounce, 
 This quadrupetantical Ounce. 
 
 "You'd think from his name he was small, 
 But that was not like him at all. 
 He weighed, I'll be bound. 
 Three or four hundred pound, 
 And he looked most uncommonly tall, 
 
 — monly tall, 
 And he looked most uncommonly tall. " 
 
 " Bravo ! bravo ! " cried Travis, pound- 
 ing on the table. "Hear, hear — none, 
 Brutus, none." 
 
 Condy sat down on the table and 
 swung his legs. But during the next 
 few moments, while they were eating the 
 last of their cheese, his good spirits fell 
 rapidly away from him. He heaved a 
 sigh, and thrust both hands gloomily 
 into his pockets. 
 
 "Cheese, Condy? " asked Travis. 
 
 He shook his head with a dark frown, 
 muttering: "No cheese, no cheese." 
 
 "What's wrong, Condy, — what's the 
 matter? " asked Travis, with concern. 
 
Blix 8 1 
 
 For some time he would not tell her, 
 answering all her inquiries by closing his 
 eyes and putting his chin in the air, nod- 
 ding his head in knowing fashion. 
 
 "But what is it?" 
 
 "You don't respect me," he muttered; 
 and for a long time this was all that 
 could be got from him. No, no, she 
 did not respect him ; no, she did not take 
 him seriously. 
 
 "But of course I do. Why don't I? 
 Condy Eivers, what's got into you now ? " 
 
 " No, no ; I know it. I can tell. You 
 don't take me seriously. You don't re- 
 spect me." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 "Make a blooming buffoon of myself," 
 he mumbled tragically. 
 
 In great distress Travis labored to con- 
 tradict him. Why, they had just been 
 having a good time, that was all. Why, 
 she had been just as silly as he. Condy 
 caught at the word. 
 
 "Silly! There, I knew it. I told 
 6 
 
82 Blix 
 
 you. I'm silly. I'm a buffoon. — But 
 haven't we had a great afternoon ? " he 
 added, with a sudden grin. 
 
 " I never remember," announced Travis 
 emphatically, "when I've had a better 
 time than I've had to-day ; and I know 
 just why it's been such a success." 
 
 "Why, then?" 
 
 "Because we've had no foolishness. 
 We've just been ourselves, and haven't 
 pretended we were in love with each 
 other when we are not. Condy, let's do 
 this lots." 
 
 "Do what?" 
 
 "Go round to queer little, interesting 
 little places. We've had a glorious time 
 to-day, haven't we ? — and we haven't been 
 talked out once." 
 
 "As we were last night, for instance," 
 he hazarded. 
 
 "I thought you felt it, the same as I 
 did. It was a bit awful, wasn't it? " 
 
 "It was." 
 
 "From now on, let's make a resolu- 
 
Blix 83 
 
 tion. I know you've had a good time 
 to-day. Haven't you had a better time 
 than if you had gone to the Tea? " 
 
 " Well, rather. I don't know when 
 I've had a better, jollier afternoon." 
 
 " Well, now, we're going to try to have 
 lots more good times, but just as chums. 
 We've tried the other, and it failed. Now 
 be sincere; didn't it fail? " 
 
 " It worked out. It did work out. " 
 " Now from this time on, no more fool- 
 ishness. We'll just be chums." 
 
 "Chums it is. No more foolishness." 
 "The moment you begin to pretend 
 you're in love with me, it will spoil 
 everything. It's funny," said Travis, 
 drawing on her gloves. "We're doing a 
 funny thing, Condy. With ninety-nine 
 people out of one hundred, this little a£fair 
 would have been all ended after our ' ex- 
 planation ' of last night — confessing, as 
 we did, that we didn't love each other. 
 Most couples would have ' drifted apart ' ; 
 but here we are, planning to be chums, 
 
84 Blix 
 
 and have good times in our own original, 
 unconventional way — and we can do it, 
 too. There, there, he's a thousand 
 miles away. He's not heard a single 
 word I've said. Condy, are you listen- 
 ing to me? " 
 
 "Blix," he murmured, staring at her 
 vaguely. "Blix — you look that way; I 
 don't know, look kind of blix. Don't 
 you feel sort of blix ? " he inquired anx- 
 ously. 
 
 "Blix?" 
 
 He smote the table with his palm. 
 " Capital ! " he cried ; " sounds bully, and 
 snappy, and crisp, and bright, and sort 
 of sudden. Sounds — don't you know, 
 this way?" — and he snapped his fingers. 
 "Don't you see what I mean? Blix, 
 that's who you are. You've always been 
 Blix, and I've just found it out. Blix," 
 he added, listening to the sound of the 
 name. "Blix, Blix. Yes, yes; that's 
 your name." 
 
 " Blix? " she repeated ; " but why Blix? " 
 
Blix 85 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " I don't know why not. " 
 
 "Well, then," he declared, as though 
 that settled the question. They made 
 ready to go, as it was growing late. 
 
 "Will you tie that for me, Condy," she 
 asked, rising and turning the back of her 
 head toward him, the ends of the veil 
 held under her fingers. " Not too tight. 
 Condy, don't pull it so tight. There, 
 there, that will do. Have you every- 
 thing that belongs to you? I know 
 you'll go away and leave something here. 
 There's your cigarette-case, and your 
 book, and of course the banjo." 
 
 As if warned by a mysterious instinct, 
 the fat Chinaman made his appearance 
 in the outer room. Condy put his fin- 
 gers into his vest pocket, then dropped 
 back upon his stool with a suppressed 
 exclamation of horror. 
 
 " Condy ! " exclaimed Blix in alarm, 
 ■' are you sick ? " — for he had turned a 
 positive white. 
 
86 Blix 
 
 " I haven't a cent of money," he mur- 
 mured faintly. " I spent my last quarter 
 for those beastly crackers. What's to be 
 done? What is to be done? I'U— I'll 
 leave him my watch. Yes, that's the 
 only thing." 
 
 Blix calmly took out her purse. "I 
 expected it, " she said resignedly. " I knew 
 this would happen sooner or later, and I 
 always have been prepared. How much 
 is it, John ? " she asked of the Chinaman. 
 
 "Hefadollah." 
 
 " I'll never be able to look you in the 
 face again," protested Condy. "I'll pay 
 you back to-night. I will! I'll send 
 it up by a messenger boy." 
 
 " Then you would be a buffoon. " 
 
 "Don't!" he exclaimed. "Don't, it 
 humiliates me to the dust." 
 
 " Oh, come along and don't be so ab- 
 surd ! It must be after five. " 
 
 Half-way down the brass-bound stairs, 
 he clapped his hand to his head with a 
 start. 
 
Blix 87 
 
 "And now what is it?" she inquired 
 meekly. 
 
 " Forgotten, forgotten ! " he exclaimed. 
 "I knew I would forget something." 
 
 "/knew it, you mean." 
 
 He ran back, and returned with the 
 great bag of crackers, and thrust it into 
 her hands. " Here, here, take these. We 
 mustn't leave these," he declared ear- 
 nestly. " It would be a shameful waste 
 of money '' ; and in spite of all her pro- 
 tests, he insisted upon taking the crack- 
 ers along. 
 
 "I wonder," said Blix, as the two 
 skirted the Plaza, going down to Kearney 
 Street; "I wonder if I ought to ask him 
 to supper? " 
 
 " Ask who — me ? — how funny to " 
 
 " I wonder if we are talked out — if it 
 would spoil the day?" 
 
 " Anyhow, I'm going to have supper at 
 the Club ; and I've got to write my article 
 some time to-night." 
 
 Blix fixed him with a swift glance of 
 
88 Blix 
 
 genuine concern. "Don't play to-night, 
 Condy," she said, with a sudden gravity. 
 
 "Fat lot / can play! What money 
 have I got to play with ? " 
 
 "You might get some somewheres. 
 But, anyhow, promise me you won't 
 play." 
 
 "Well, of course I'll promise. How 
 can I, if I haven't any money ? And be- 
 sides, I've got my whaleback stuff to write. 
 I'll have supper at the Club, and go up in 
 the library and grind out copy for a while. " 
 
 " Condy," said Blix, " I think that diver's 
 story is almost too good for The Times. 
 Why don't you write it and send it East? 
 Send it to the Centennial Company, why 
 don't you? They've paid some attention 
 to you now, and it would keep your name 
 in their minds if you sent the story to 
 them, even if they didn't publish it. Why 
 don't you think of that? " 
 
 " Fine — great idea ! I'll do that. Only 
 I'll have to write it out of business hours. 
 It will be extra work. " 
 
Blix 89 
 
 "Never mind, you do it; and," she 
 added, as he put her on the cable car, 
 "keep your mind on that thirty-thou- 
 sand-word story of adventure. Good- 
 by, Condy; haven't we had the j oiliest 
 day that ever was ? " 
 
 "Couldn't have been better. Good- 
 by, Blix." 
 
 Condy returned to his club. It was 
 about six o'clock. In response to his 
 question, the hall-boy told him that Tracy 
 Sargeant had arrived a few moments pre- 
 vious, and had been asking for him. 
 
 The Saturday of the week before, Condy 
 had made an engagement with young 
 Sargeant to have supper together that 
 night, and perhaps go to the theatre after- 
 ward. And now at the sight of Sargeant 
 in the " round window " of the main room, 
 buried in the file of the Oil Bias, Condy 
 was pleased to note that neither of them 
 had forgotten the matter. 
 
 Sargeant greeted him with extreme 
 cordiality as he came up, and at once 
 
90 Blix 
 
 proposed a drink. Sargeant was a sleek, 
 well - groomed, well - looking fellow of 
 thirty, just beginning to show the effects 
 of a certain amount of dissipation in the 
 little puffs imder the eyes and the faint 
 blueness of the temples. The sudden 
 death of his father, for which event Sar- 
 geant was still mourning, had left him 
 in such position that his monthly income 
 was about five times as large as Condy's 
 salary. The two had supper together, 
 and Sargeant proposed the theatre. 
 
 "No, no; I've got to work to-night," 
 asserted Condy. 
 
 After dinner, while they were smoking 
 their cigars in a window of the main 
 room, one of the hall-boys came up and 
 touched Condy on the arm. 
 
 " Mr. Eckert, and Mr. Hendricks, and 
 Mr. George Hands, and several other of 
 those gentlemen are up in the card-room, 
 and are asking for you and Mr. . Sar- 
 geant." 
 
 "Why, I didn't know the boys were 
 
Blix 9 1 
 
 here ! They've got a game going, Condy. 
 Let's go up and get in. Shall we? " 
 
 Condy remembered that he had no 
 money. "I'm flat broke, Tracy," he an- 
 nounced, for he knew Sargeant well 
 enough to make the confession without 
 wincing. " No, I'll not get in ; but I'll 
 go up and watch you a few minutes. " 
 
 They ascended to the card-room, where 
 the air was heavy and acrid with cigar 
 smoke, and where the silence was broken 
 only by the click of poker-chips. At the 
 end of twenty minutes Condy was play- 
 ing, having borrowed enough money of 
 Sargeant to start him in the game. 
 
 Unusually talkative and restless, he 
 had suddenly hardened and stiffened to 
 a repressed, tense calm ; speechless, al- 
 most rigid in his chair. Excitable under 
 even ordinary circumstances, his every 
 faculty was now keyed to its highest 
 pitch. The nervous strain upon him was 
 like the stretching and tighteniag of harp- 
 strings, too taut to quiver. The color 
 
92 Blix 
 
 left his face, and the moisture fled his 
 lips. His projected article, his promise 
 to Blix, all the jollity of the afternoon, 
 all thought of time or place, faded away 
 as the one indomitable, evil passion of 
 the man leaped into life within him, and 
 lashed and rowelled him with excite- 
 ment. His world resolved itself to a 
 round green table, columns of tri- colored 
 chips, and five ever-changing cards that 
 came and went and came again before 
 his tired eyes like the changing, weaving 
 colors of the kaleidoscope. Midnight 
 struck, then one o'clock, then two, three, 
 and four. Still his passion rode him like 
 a hag, spurring the jaded body, rousing 
 up the wearied brain. 
 
 Finally, at half-past four, at a time 
 when Condy was precisely where he had 
 started, neither winner nor loser by so 
 much as a dime, a round of Jack-pots was 
 declared, and the game broke up. Condy 
 walked home to the uptown hotel where 
 he lived with his mother, and went to 
 
Blix 
 
 93 
 
 bed as the first milk-wagons began to 
 make their appearance and the news- 
 boys to cry the morning papers. 
 
 Then, as his tired eyes closed at last, 
 occurred that strange trick of picture- 
 making that the overtaxed brain plays 
 upon the retina. A swift series of pic- 
 tures of the day's doings began to whirl 
 through rather than hefore the pupils of 
 his shut eyes. Condy saw again a brief 
 vision of the street, and Blix upon the 
 corner waiting to cross ; then it was the 
 gay, brisk confusion of the water-front, 
 the old mate's cabin aboard the whale- 
 back, Chinatown, and a loop of vermilion 
 cloth over a gallery rail, the golden bal- 
 cony, the glint of the Stevenson ship upon 
 the green Plaza, Blix playing the banjo, 
 the delightful and picturesque confusion 
 of the deserted Chinese restaurant; Blix 
 again, turning her head for him to fasten 
 her veil, holding the ends with her white- 
 kid fingers; Blix once more, walking at 
 his side with her trim black skirt, her 
 
94 Blix 
 
 round little turban hat, her yellow hair, 
 and her small dark, dancing eyes. 
 
 Then, suddenly, he remembered the 
 promise he had made her in the matter 
 of playing that night. He winced sharply 
 at this, and the remembrance of his fault 
 harried and harassed him. In spite of 
 himself, he felt contemptible. Yet he 
 had broken his promises to her in this 
 very matter of playing before — before 
 that day of their visit to the Chinese 
 restaurant — and had felt no great qualm 
 of self-reproach. Had their relations 
 changed? Eather the reverse, for they 
 had done with "foolishness." 
 
 "Never worried me before," muttered 
 Condy, as he punched up his pillow, — 
 " never worried me before. Why should 
 it worry me now — worry me like the 
 devil ; — and she caught on to that 'point ' 
 about the slope of forty-five degrees." 
 
CONDY began his week's work for the 
 supplement behindhand. Naturally he 
 overslept himself Tuesday morning, and, 
 not having any change in his pockets, 
 was obliged to walk down to the office. 
 He arrived late, to find the compositors 
 already fretting for copy. His editor 
 promptly asked for the whaleback stuff, 
 and Condy was forced into promising it 
 within a half-hour. It was out of the 
 question to write the article according to 
 his own idea in so short a time ; so Condy 
 faked the stuff from the exchange clip- 
 ping, after all. His description of the 
 boat and his comments upon her mis- 
 sion — taken largely at second hand — 
 served only to fill space in the paper. 
 They were lacking both in interest and 
 in point. There were no illustrations. 
 The article was a failure. 
 
96 Blix 
 
 But Condy redeemed himself by a witty 
 interview later in the week with an emo- 
 tional actress, and by a solemn article — 
 compiled after an hour's reading in Laf- 
 cadio Hearn and the Encyclopedia — on 
 the "Industrial Eenaissance in Japan." 
 
 But the idea of the diver's story came 
 back to him again and again, and Thurs- 
 day night after supper he went down to 
 his club, and hid himself at a comer desk 
 in the library, and, in a burst of enthusi- 
 asm, wrote out some two thousand words 
 of it. In order to get the "technical 
 details," upon which he set such store, 
 he consulted the Encyclopedias again, 
 and " worked in " a number of unfamiliar 
 phrases and odd-sounding names. He 
 was so proud of the result that he felt he 
 could not wait until the tale was finished 
 and in print to try its effect. He wanted 
 appreciation and encouragement upon the 
 instant. He thought of Blix. 
 
 "She saw the point in Morrowbie 
 Jukes' description of the slope of the 
 
Blix 97 
 
 sandhill," he told himself; and the next 
 moment had resolved to go up and see 
 her the next evening, and read to her 
 what he had written. 
 
 This was on Thursday. All through 
 that week Blix had kept much to herself, 
 and for the first time in two years had 
 begun to spend every evening at home. 
 In the morning of each day she helped 
 Victorine with the upstairs work, mak- 
 ing the beds, putting the rooms to rights ; 
 or consulted with the butcher's and gro- 
 cer's boys at the head of the back stairs, 
 or chaffered with urbane and smiling 
 Chinamen with their balanced vegetable 
 baskets. She knew the house and its 
 management at her fingers' ends, and 
 supervised everything that went forward. 
 Laurie Flagg coming to call upon her, 
 on Wednesday afternoon, to remonstrate 
 upon her sudden defection, found her in 
 the act of tacking up a curtain across the 
 pantry window. 
 
 But Blix had the afternoons and even- 
 7 
 
98 Blix 
 
 ings almost entirely to herself. These 
 hours, heretofore taken up with functions 
 and the discharge of obligations, dragged 
 not a little during the week that followed 
 upon her declaration of independence. 
 Wednesday afternoon, however, was warm 
 and fine, and she went to the Park with 
 Snooky. Without looking for it or even 
 expectiag it, Blix came across a little 
 Japanese tea-house, or rather a tiny Jap- 
 anese garden, set with almost toy Japa- 
 nese houses and pavilions, where tea was 
 served and thin sweetish wafers for five 
 cents. Blix and Snooky went in. There 
 was nobody about but the Japanese serv- 
 ing woman. Snooky was in raptures, 
 and Blix spent a delightful half-hour 
 there, drinking Japanese tea, and feed- 
 ing the wafers to the carp and gold-fish 
 in the tiny pond immediately below 
 where she sat. A Chinaman, evidently 
 of the merchant class, came in, with a 
 Chinese woman following. As he took 
 his place and the Japanese girl came up 
 
Blix 
 
 99 
 
 to get his order, Blix overheard him say 
 in English: "Bring tea for-um leddy." 
 
 "He had to speak in English to her," 
 she whispered ; " isn't that splendid ! Did 
 you notice that. Snooty?" 
 
 On the way home Blix was wondering 
 how she should pass her evening. She 
 was to have made one of a theatre party 
 where Jack Carter was to be present. 
 Then she suddenly remembered "Mor- 
 rowbie Jukes," "The Eeturn of Imri," 
 and "Krishna Mulvaney." She contin- 
 ued on past her home, downtown, and 
 returned late for supper with "Plain 
 Tales " and "Many Inventions." 
 
 Toward half-past eight there came a 
 titter of the electric bell. At the mo- 
 ment Blix was in the upper chamber of 
 the house of Suddhoo, quaking with ex- 
 quisite horror at the Seal-cutter's magic. 
 She looked up quickly as the bell rang. 
 It was not Condy Eivers' touch. She 
 swiftly reflected that it was Wednesday 
 night, and that she might probably ex- 
 
lOO 
 
 Blix 
 
 pect Frank Catlin. He was a fair speci- 
 men of the Younger Set, a sort of modi- 
 fied Jack Carter, and called upon her 
 about once a fortnight. No doubt he 
 would hint darkly as to his riotous liv- 
 ing during the past few days and refer to 
 his diet of bromo-seltzers. He would be 
 slangy, familiar, call her by her first 
 name as many times as he dared, discuss 
 the last dance of the Saturday cotillion, 
 and try to make her laugh over Carter's 
 drunkenness. Blix knew the type. Cat- 
 lin was hardly out of college ; but the 
 older girls, even the young women of 
 twenty five or six, encouraged and petted 
 these youngsters, driven to the alterna- 
 tive by the absolute dearth of older 
 men. 
 
 "I'm not at home, Victorine," an- 
 nounced Blix, intercepting the maid in 
 the hall. It chanced that it was not 
 Frank Catlin, but another boy of pre- 
 cisely the same breed ; and Blix returned 
 to Suddhoo, Mrs. Hawksbee, and Mul- 
 
Blix I o I 
 
 vaney with a little cuddling movement 
 of satisfaction. 
 
 " There is only one thing I regret about 
 this," she said to Condy Elvers on the 
 Friday night of that week; "that is, that 
 I never thought of doing it before. " Then 
 suddenly she put up her hand to shield 
 her eyes, as though from an intense light, 
 turning away her head abruptly. 
 
 " I say, what it it? What — what's the 
 matter? " he exclaimed. 
 
 Blix peeped at him fearfully from be- 
 tween her fingers. "He's got it on," she 
 whispered, — " that awful crimson scarf. " 
 
 " Hob ! " said Condy, touching his scarf 
 nervously, " it's — it's very swell. Is it 
 too loud ? " he asked uneasily. 
 
 Blix put her fingers in her ears ; then : 
 
 "Condy, you're a nice, amiable young 
 man, and, if you're not brilliant, you're 
 good and kind to your aged mother ; but 
 your scarfs and neckties are simply im- 
 possible." 
 
 " Well, look at this room ! " he shouted 
 
I02 Blix 
 
 — they were in the parlor. " You needn't 
 talk about bad taste. Those drapes — 
 oh-h! those drapes! ! Yellow, s'help 
 me ! And those bisque figures that you 
 get with every pound of tea you buy; 
 and this, this, this," he whimpered, wav- 
 ing his hands at the decorated sewer- 
 pipe with its gilded cat-tails. " Oh, speak 
 to me of this ; speak to me of art ; speak 
 to me of aesthetics. Cat-tails, gilded. Of 
 course, why not, gilded ! " He wrung 
 his hands. " ' Somewhere people are 
 happy. Somewhere little children are 
 at play ' " 
 
 " Oh, hush ! " she interrupted. " I know 
 it's bad ; but we've always had it so, and 
 I won't have it abused. Let's go into 
 the dining-room anyway. We'll sit in 
 there after this. We've always been stiff 
 and constrained in here." 
 
 They went out into the diuing-room, 
 and drew up a couple of arm-chairs into 
 the bay window, and sat there looking 
 out. Blix had not yet lit the gas — it 
 
Blix 103 
 
 was hardly dark enough for that; and 
 for upward of ten minutes they sat and 
 watched the evening dropping into night. 
 Below them the hill fell away so 
 abruptly that the roofs of the nearest 
 houses were almost at their feet; and 
 beyond these the city tumbled raggedly 
 down to meet the bay in a confused, 
 vague mass of roofs, cornices, cupolas, and 
 chimneys, blurred and indistinct in the 
 twilight, but here and there pierced by 
 a new-lit street lamp. Then came the 
 bay. To the east they could see Goat 
 Island, and the fleet of sailing-ships an- 
 chored off the water-front ; while directly 
 in their line of vision the island of Alca- 
 traz, with its triple crown of forts, started 
 from the surface of the water. Beyond 
 was the Contra Costa shore, a vast streak 
 of purple against the sky. The eye fol- 
 lowed its sky-line westward till it climbed, 
 climbed, climbed up a long slope that 
 suddenly leaped heavenward with the 
 crest of Tamalpais, purple and still, look- 
 
1 04 Blix 
 
 ing always to the sunset like a great 
 watching sphinx. Then, farther on, the 
 slope seemed to break like the breaking 
 of an advancing billow, and go tunabling, 
 crumbling downward to meet the Golden 
 Gate — the narrow inlet of green tide- 
 water with its flanking Presidio. But, 
 farther than this, the eye was stayed. 
 Farther than this there was nothing, 
 nothing but a vast, illimitable plain of 
 green — the open Pacific. But at this 
 hour the color of the scene was its 
 greatest charm. It glowed with all the 
 sombre radiance of a cathedral. Every- 
 thing was seen through a haze of purple 
 — from the low green hills in the Presidio 
 reservation to the faint red mass of Mount 
 Diablo shrugging its rugged shoulder 
 over the Contra Costa foot-hills. As the 
 evening faded, the west burned down to 
 a dull red glow that overlaid the blue of 
 the bay with a sheen of ruddy gold. The 
 foot-hills of the opposite shore, Diablo, 
 and at last even Tamalpais, resolved 
 
Blix 105 
 
 themselves in the velvet gray of the sky. 
 Outlines were lost. Only the masses re- 
 mained, and these soon began to blend 
 into one another. The sky, and land, and 
 the city's huddled roofs were one. Only 
 the sheen of dull gold remained, piercing 
 the single vast mass of purple like the 
 blade of a golden sword. 
 
 " There's a ship ! " said Blix in a low 
 tone. 
 
 A four-master was dropping quietly 
 through the Golden Gate, swimming on 
 that sheen of gold, a mere shadow, specked 
 with lights, red and green. In a few 
 moments her bows were shut from sight 
 by the old fort at the Gate. Then her 
 red light vanished, then the mainmast. 
 She was gone. By midnight she would 
 be out of sight of land, rolling on the 
 swell of the lonely ocean under the 
 moon's white eye. 
 
 Condy and Blix sat quiet and without 
 speech, not caring to break the charm of 
 the evening. For quite five minutes they 
 
1 06 Blix 
 
 sat thus, watching the stars light one by 
 one, and the immense gray night settle 
 and broaden and widen from mountain- 
 top to horizon. They did not feel the 
 necessity of making conversation. There 
 was no constraint in their silence now. 
 
 Gently, and a little at a time, Condy 
 turned his head and looked at Blix. 
 There was just light enough to see. She 
 was leaning back in her chair, her hands 
 fallen into her lap, her head back and 
 a little to one side. As usual, she was 
 in black; but now it was some sort of 
 dinner-gown that left her arms and neck 
 bare. The line of the chin and the 
 throat and the sweet round curve of the 
 shoulder had in it something indescribable 
 — something that was related to music, 
 and that eluded speech. Her hair was 
 nothing more than a warm colored mist 
 without form or outline. The sloe-brown 
 of her little eyes and the flush of her 
 cheek were mere inferences, — like the 
 faintest stars that are never visible when 
 
Blix 1 07 
 
 looked at directly ; and it seemed to him 
 that there was disengaged from her some- 
 thing for which there was no name; 
 something that appealed to a mysterious 
 sixth sense — a sense that only stirred at 
 such~c[uiet moments as this; something 
 that was now a dim, sweet radiance, now 
 a faint aroma, and now again a mere es- 
 sence, an influence, an impression — noth- 
 ing more. It seemed to him as if her 
 sweet, clean purity and womanliness took 
 a form of its own which his accustomed 
 senses were too gross to perceive. Only 
 a certain vague tenderness in him went 
 out to meet and receive this impalpable 
 presence ; a tenderness not for her only, 
 but for all the good things of the world. 
 Often he had experienced the same feel- 
 ing when listening to music. Her sweet- 
 ness, her goodness, appealed to what he 
 guessed must be the noblest in him. 
 And she was only nineteen. Suddenly 
 his heart swelled, the ache came to his 
 throat and the smart to his eyes. 
 
io8 Blix 
 
 "Blixy," he said, just above a whisper; 
 "Blixy, wish I was a better sort of chap." 
 
 " That's the beginning of being better, 
 isn't it, Condy?" she answered, turning 
 toward him, her chin on her hand. 
 
 "It does seem a pity," he went on, 
 "that when you want to do the right, 
 straight thing, and be clean and fine, that 
 you can't just he it, and have it over 
 with. It's the keeping it up that's the 
 grind." 
 
 " But it's the keeping it up, Condy, that 
 makes you worth being good when you 
 finally get to be good ; don't you think ? 
 It's the keeping it up that makes you 
 strong; and then when you get to be 
 good you can make your goodness count. 
 What's a good man if he's weak? — if his 
 goodness is better than he is himself? 
 It's the good man who is strong — as 
 strong as his goodness, and who can make 
 his goodness count — who is the right kind 
 of man. That's what I think." 
 
 "There's something in that, there's 
 
Blix 
 
 109 
 
 something iu that." Then, after a pause : 
 " I played Monday night after all, Blix, 
 after promising I wouldn't." 
 
 For a time she did not answer, and 
 when she spoke, she spoke quietly : " Well 
 — I'm glad you told me " ; and after a 
 little she added, " Can't you stop, Condy ? " 
 
 "Why yes — yes, of course — I — oh, 
 Blix, sometimes I don't know! You 
 can't understand! How could a girl 
 understand the power of it? Other 
 things, I don't say; but when it comes to 
 gambling, there seems to be another me 
 that does precisely as he chooses, whether 
 / will or not. But I'm going to do my 
 best. I haven't played since, although 
 there was plenty of chance. You see, 
 this card business is only a part of this 
 club life, this city life — like drinking and 
 — other vices of men. If I didn't have 
 to lead the life, or if I didn't go with 
 that crowd — Sargeant and the rest of 
 those men — it would be different; easier, 
 maybe. " 
 
1 1 o Blix 
 
 " But a man ought to be strong enough 
 to be himself and master of himself 
 anywhere. Condy, is there anything in 
 the world better or finer than a strong 
 man?" 
 
 "Not unless it is a good woman, Blix." 
 
 " I suppose I look at it from a woman's 
 point of view; but for me, a strong man 
 — strong in everything — is the grandest 
 thing in the world. Women love strong 
 men, Condy. They can forgive a strong 
 man almost anything." 
 
 Condy did not immediately answer, 
 and in the interval an idea occurred to 
 Blix that at once hardened into a deter- 
 mination. But she said nothing at the 
 moment. The spell of the sunset was 
 gone, and they had evidently reached the 
 end of that subject of their talk. Blix 
 rose to light the gas. Will you promise 
 me one thing, Condy ? " she said. " Don't, 
 if you don't want to. But will you 
 promise me that you will tell me when- 
 ever you do play?" 
 
Blix 1 1 1 
 
 " That I'll promise you ! " exclaimed 
 Condy; ''and I'll keep that, too." 
 
 "And now, let's hear the story — or 
 what you've done of it. " 
 
 They drew up to the dining-room table 
 with its cover of blue denim edged with 
 white cord, and Condy unrolled his manu- 
 script and read through what he had 
 written. She approved, and, as he had 
 foreseen, '' caught on " to every one of his 
 points. He was almost ready to burst 
 into cheers when she said : 
 
 "Any one reading that would almost 
 believe you had been a diver yourself, or 
 at least had lived with divers. Those 
 little details count, don't they? Condy, 
 I've an idea. See what you think of it. 
 Instead of having the story end with his 
 leaving her down there and going away, 
 do it this way. Let him leave her there, 
 and then go back after a long time when 
 he gets to be an old man. Fix it up 
 some way to make it natural. Have him 
 go down to see her and never come up 
 
I 12 
 
 Blix 
 
 again, see ? And leave the reader in doubt 
 as to whether it was an accident or 
 whether he did it on purpose. " 
 
 Condy choked back a whoop and smote 
 his knee. " Blix, you're the eighth won- 
 der ! Magnificent — glorious ! Say ! " — 
 he fixed her with a glance of curiosity — 
 " you ought to take to story-writing your- 
 self." 
 
 "No, no," she retorted significantly. 
 " I'll just stay with my singing and be 
 content with that. But remember that 
 story don't go to The Times supplement. 
 At least not until you have tried it East, 
 — with the Centennial Company, at any 
 rate." 
 
 " Well, I guess not ! " snorted Condy. 
 " Why, this is going to be one of the best 
 yarns I ever wrote." 
 
 A little later on, he inquired with 
 sudden concern : " Have you got anything 
 to eat in the house? " 
 
 " I never saw such a man ! " declared 
 Blix; "you are always hungry." 
 
Blix 113 
 
 "I love to eat," he protested. 
 
 "Well, we'll make some creamed oys- 
 ters ; how would that do ? " suggested 
 Blix. 
 
 Condy rolled his eyes. "Oh, speak 
 to me of creamed oysters ! " Then, with 
 abrupt solemnity : " Blix, I never in my 
 life had as many oysters as I could eat." 
 
 She made the creamed oysters in 
 the kitchen over the gas-stove, and 
 they ate them there, — Condy sitting on 
 the wash-board of the sink, his plate in 
 his lap. 
 
 Condy had a way of catching up in his 
 hands whatever happened to be nearest 
 him, and while still continuing to talk, 
 examining it with apparent deep interest. 
 Just now it happened to be the morning's 
 paper that Victorine had left on the table. 
 For five minutes Condy had been picking 
 it up and laying it down, frowning ab- 
 stractedly at it during the pauses in 
 the conversation. Suddenly he became 
 aware of what it was, and instantly 
 8 
 
114 ^1^^ 
 
 read aloud the first item that caught his 
 glance : 
 
 " ' Personal. — Young woman, thirty- 
 one, good housekeeper, desires acquaint- 
 ance respectable middle-aged gentleman. 
 Object, matrimony. Address K. D. B., 
 this office.' — Hum!" he commented, 
 " nothing equivocal about K. D. B. ; has 
 the heroism to call herself young at thir- 
 ty-one. I'll bet she is a good house- 
 keeper. Eight to the point. If K. D. 
 B. don't see what she wants, she asks 
 for it." 
 
 "I wonder," mused Blix, "what kind 
 of people they are who put personals in 
 the papers. K. D. B., for instance; who 
 is she, and what is she like?" 
 
 "They're not tough," Condy assured 
 her. " I see 'em often down at The Times 
 office. They are usually a plain, matter- 
 of-fact sort, quite conscientious, you 
 know; generally middle-aged — or thirty- 
 one ; outgrown their youthful follies and 
 illusions, and want to settle down." 
 
Blix 1 1 5 
 
 "Eead some more," urged Blix. 
 Condy went on. 
 
 " ' Bachelor, good habits, twenty-five, 
 affectionate disposition, accomplishments, 
 money, desires acquaintance pretty, re- 
 fined girl. Object, matrimony. MoB., 
 this office." 
 
 "No, I don't like McB.," said Blix. 
 "He's too — ornamental, somehow." 
 
 "He wouldn't do for K. D. B., would 
 he?" 
 
 "Oh, my, no! He'd make her very 
 unhappy." 
 
 "'Widower, two children, home-loving 
 disposition, desires introduction to good, 
 honest woman to make home for his chil- 
 dren. Matrimony, if suitable. B. P. T., 
 Box A, this office.'" 
 
 "He's not for K. D. B., that's flat," 
 declared Blix ; " the idea, ' matrimony if 
 suitable,' — ^patronizing enough ! I know 
 just what kind of an old man B. P. T. 
 is. I know he would want K. D . B. to 
 warm his slippers, and would be fretful 
 
ii6 Blix 
 
 and grumpy. B. P. T., just an abbrevi- 
 ation of bumptious. No, he can't have 
 her." 
 
 Condy read the next two or three to 
 himself, despite her protests. 
 
 "Condy, don't be mean! Eead them 
 to " 
 
 " Ah ! " he exclaimed, " here's one for 
 K. D. B. Behold, the bridegroom com- 
 eth! Listen." 
 
 " ' Bachelor, thirty -nine, sober and in- 
 dustrious, retired sea captain, desires 
 acquaintance respectable young woman, 
 good housekeeper and manager. Object, 
 matrimony. Address Captain Jack, 
 office this paper.' " 
 
 " I know he's got a wooden leg !" cried 
 Blix. " Can't you just see it sticking out 
 between the lines? And he lives all 
 alone somewhere down near the bay with 
 a parrot — • — " 
 
 "And makes a glass of grog every 
 night." 
 
 "And smokes a long clay pipe." 
 
Blix 
 
 117 
 
 " But he chews tobacco. " 
 
 " Yes, isn't it a pity he will chew that 
 nasty, smelly tobacco ? But K. D. B. will 
 break him of that." 
 
 " Oh, is he for K. D. B. ? " 
 
 " Sent by Providence ! " declared Blix. 
 "They were born for each other. Just 
 see, K. D. is a good housekeeper, and 
 wants a respectable middle-aged gentle- 
 man. Captain Jack is a respectable mid- 
 dle-aged gentleman, and wants a good 
 housekeeper. Oh, and besides, I can read 
 between the lines ! I just feel they would 
 be congenial. If they know what's best 
 for themselves, they would write to each 
 other right away." 
 
 "But wouldn't you love to be there 
 and see them meet ! " exclaimed Condy. 
 
 "Can't we fix it up some way," said 
 Blix, "to bring these two together, — to 
 help them out in some way ? " 
 
 Condy smote the table, and jumped to 
 his feet. 
 
 " Write to 'em ! " he shouted. " Write 
 
ii8 Blix 
 
 to K. D. B. and sign it Captain Jack, and 
 write to Captain Jack " 
 
 "And sign it K. D. B.," she inter- 
 rupted, catching his idea. 
 
 " And have him tell her, and her tell 
 him," he added, "to meet at some place; 
 and then we can go to that place and 
 hide, and watch." 
 
 " But how will we know them ? How 
 would they know each other? They've 
 never met." 
 
 " We'll tell them both to wear a kind 
 of flower. Then we can know them, and 
 they can know each other. Of course as 
 soon as they began to talk they would 
 find out they hadn't written." 
 
 "But they wouldn't care." 
 
 " No — they want to meet each other. 
 They would be thankful to us for bring- 
 ing them together." 
 
 "Won't it be the greatest fun?" 
 
 "Fun! Why, it will be a regular 
 drama. Only we are rimning the show, 
 and everything is real. Let's get at it ! " 
 
Blix 
 
 119 
 
 Blix ran into her room and returned 
 with writing material. Condy looked at 
 the note-paper critically. "This kind's 
 too swell. K. D. B. wouldn't use Irish 
 linen — never ! Here, this is better, glazed 
 with blue lines and a flying bird stamped 
 in the comer. Now I'll write for the 
 Captain, and you write for K. D. B." 
 
 "But where will we have them meet? " 
 
 This was a point. They considered 
 the Chinese restaurant, the Plaza, Lotta's 
 fountain, the Mechanics' Library, and 
 even the cathedral over in the Mexican 
 quarter, but arrived at no decision. 
 
 "Did you ever hear of Luna's restau- 
 rant? " said Condy. "By Jove, it's just 
 the place ! It's the restaurant where you 
 get Mexican dinners j right in the heart 
 of the Latin quarter; quiet little old- 
 fashioned place, below the level of the 
 street, respectable as a tomb. I was 
 there just once. We'll have 'em meet 
 there at seven in the evening. No one 
 is there at that hour. The place isn't 
 
1 20 Blix 
 
 patronized much, and it shuts up at 
 eight. You and I can go there and have 
 dinner at six, say, and watch for them to 
 come." 
 
 Then they set to work at their letters. 
 
 "Now," said Condy, "we must have 
 these sound perfectly natural, because if 
 either of these people smell the smallest 
 kind of a rat, you won't catch 'em. 
 You must write not as you would write, 
 but as you think they would. This is an 
 art, a kind of fiction, don't you see? We 
 must imagine a certain character, and 
 ^vrite a letter consistent with that char- 
 acter. Then it'll soxmd natural. Now, 
 K. D. B. Well, K. D. B., she's prim. 
 Let's have her prim, and proud of using 
 correct, precise, ' elegant ' language. I 
 guess she wears mits, and believes in cre- 
 mation. Let's have her believe in crema- 
 tion. And Captain Jack ; oh ! he's got a 
 terrible voice, like this, row-row-row, 
 see? and whiskers, very fierce; and he 
 says, ' Belay there ! ' and ' Avast ! ' and is 
 
Blix 121 
 
 very grandiloquent and orotund and gal- 
 lant when it comes to women. Oh, he's 
 the devil of a man when it comes to 
 women, is Captain Jack ! " 
 
 After countless trials and failures, they 
 evolved the two following missives, which 
 Condy posted that night : 
 
 Captain Jack. 
 
 SiK: — I have perused with entire sat- 
 isfaction your personal in The Times. I 
 should like to know more of you. I read 
 between the lines, and my perception in- 
 eradicably convinces me that you are hon- 
 est and respectable. I do not believe I 
 should compromise my self-esteem at all 
 in granting you an interview. I shall be 
 at Luna's restaurant at seven precisely, 
 next Monday eve, and will bear a bunch 
 of white marguerites. Will you likewise, 
 and wear a marguerite in your lapel? 
 
 Trusting this wiU find you in health, 
 I am 
 
 Kespectfully yours, 
 
 K. D. B. 
 
 K. D. B. 
 
 Dear Miss: — From the modest and 
 retiring description of your qualities and 
 
1 22 Blix 
 
 character, I am led to believe that I will 
 find ia you an agreeable life companion. 
 Will you not accord me the great favor 
 of a personal interview? I shall esteem 
 it a high honor. I will be at Luna's 
 Mexican restaurant at seven of the clock 
 P.M. on Monday evening next. May I 
 express the fervent hope that you also 
 will be there? I name the locality be- 
 cause it is quiet and respectable. I shall 
 wear a white marguerite in my button- 
 hole. Will you also carry a bunch of 
 the same flower? 
 
 Yours to command, 
 
 Captain Jack. 
 
 So great was her interest in the affair 
 that Blix even went out with Condy 
 while he mailed the letters in the nearest 
 box, for he was quite capable of forget- 
 ting the whole matter as soon as he was 
 out of the house. 
 
 " Now let it work ! " she exclaimed as 
 the iron flap clanked down upon the 
 disappearing envelopes. But Condy was 
 suddenly smitten with nameless misgiv- 
 ing. "Now we've done it! now we've 
 
Blix 123 
 
 done it ! " he cried aghast. " I wish we 
 hadn't. We're in a fine fix now." 
 
 Still uneasy, he saw Blix back to the 
 flat, and bade her good-by at the door. 
 
 But before she went to bed that night, 
 Blix sought out her father, who was still 
 sitting up tiakering with the cuckoo 
 clock, which he had taken all to pieces 
 under the pretext that it was out of order 
 and went too fast. 
 
 "Papum," said Blix, sitting down on 
 the rug before him," did you ever — when 
 you were a pioneer, when you first came 
 out here ia the fifties — did you ever play 
 poker? " 
 
 " I — oh, well ! it was the only amuse- 
 ment the miners had for a long time." 
 
 "I want you to teach me." 
 
 The old man let the clock fall into his 
 lap and stared. But Blix explained her 
 reasons. 
 
VI 
 
 The next day was Saturday, and Blix 
 had planned a walk out to the Presidio. 
 But at breakfast, while she was debating 
 whether she should take with her How- 
 ard and Snooky, or " Many Inventions," 
 she received a note from Condy, sent by 
 special messenger. 
 
 "All our fun is spoiled," he wrote. 
 " I've got ptomaine poisoning from eating 
 the creamed oysters last night, and am in 
 for a solid fortnight spent in bed. Have 
 passed a horrible night. Can't you look 
 in at the hotel this afternoon? My 
 mother will be here at the time." 
 
 " Ptomaine poisoning ! " The name 
 had an ugly sound, and Condy's use of 
 the term inferred the doctor's visit. Blix 
 decided that she would put off her walk 
 
Blix 125 
 
 until the afternoon, and call on Mrs. 
 Rivers at once, and ask how Condy did. 
 
 She got away from the flat about ten 
 o'clock, but on the steps outside met 
 Condy dressed as if for bicycling, and 
 smoking a cigarette. 
 
 " I've got eleven dollars ! " he an- 
 nounced cheerily. 
 
 "But I thought it was ptomaine poi- 
 soning ! " she cried with a sudden vexa- 
 tion. 
 
 "Pshaw! that's what the doctor says. 
 He's a flapdoodle; nothing but a kind 
 of a sort of a pain. It's all gone now. 
 I'm as fit as a fiddle, — and I've got eleven 
 dollars. Let's go somewhere and do 
 something. " 
 
 " But your work ? " 
 
 "They don't expect me. "When I 
 thought I was going to be sick, I tele- 
 phoned the office, and they said all right, 
 that they didn't need me. Now I've got 
 eleven dollars, and there are three holi- 
 days of perfect weather before us : to-day, 
 
1 26 Blix 
 
 to-morrow, and Monday. What will we 
 do? What must we do to be saved? 
 Our matrimonial objects don't material- 
 ize till Monday night. In the mean 
 while, what? Shall we go down to 
 Chinatown — ter the restaurant, or to the 
 water-front again? Maybe the mate on 
 the whaleback would invite us to lunch. 
 Or," added Condy, his eye caught by a 
 fresh-fish peddler who had just turned 
 into the street, "we can go fishing." 
 
 "For oysters, perhaps." 
 
 But the idea had caught Condy's 
 fancy. 
 
 " Blix ! " he exclaimed, " let's go fish- 
 ing." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " I don't know. Where do people fish 
 around here? Where there's water, I 
 presume." 
 
 "No, is it possible?" she asked with 
 deep concern. " I thought they fished in 
 their back yards, or in their front parlors 
 perhaps." 
 
Blix 1 27 
 
 " Oh, you be quiet ! you're all the time 
 guying me," he answered. "Let me 
 think — let me think," he went on, 
 frowning heavily, scouring at his hair. 
 Suddenly he slapped a thigh. 
 
 "Come on," he cried, "I've an idea!" 
 He was already half-way down the steps, 
 when Blix called him back. 
 
 "Leave it all to me," he assured her; 
 "trust me implicitly. Don't you want 
 to go ? " he demanded with abrupt disap- 
 pointment. 
 
 " Want to ! " she exclaimed. " Why it 
 would be the very best kind of fun, 
 but " 
 
 "Well, then, come along." 
 
 They took a downtown car. 
 
 "I've got a couple of split bamboo 
 rods," he explained as the car slid down 
 the terrific grade of the Washington- 
 Street hill. "I haven't used 'em in 
 years — not since we lived East; but 
 they're hand-made, and are tip-top. I 
 haven't any other kind of tackle ; but it's 
 
128 Blix 
 
 just as well, because the tackle will all 
 depend upon where we are going to fish." 
 
 "Where's that?" 
 
 " Don't know yet ; am going down now 
 to find out." 
 
 He took her down to the principal 
 dealer in sporting goods on Market 
 Street. It was a delicious world, whose 
 atmosphere and charm were not to be 
 resisted. There were shot-guns in rows, 
 their gray barrels looking like so many 
 organ-pipes ; sheaves of fishing-rods, from 
 the four-ounce wisp of the brook-trout 
 up to the rigid eighteen-ounce lance of 
 the king-salmon and sea-bass; show- 
 cases of wicked revolvers, swelling by 
 calibres into the thirty-eight and forty- 
 four man-killers of the plainsmen and 
 Arizona cavalry; hunting knives and 
 dirks, and the slender steel whips of the 
 fencers; files of Winchesters, sleeping 
 quietly in their racks, waiting patiently 
 for the signal to speak the one grim word 
 they Icnew; swarms of artificial flies of 
 
Blix 1 29 
 
 every conceivable shade, brown, gray, 
 black, gray-brown, gray-black, with here 
 and there a brisk vermilion note; coils 
 of line, from the thickness of a pencil, 
 spun to hold the sullen plunges of a jew- 
 fish off the Catalina Islands, down to the 
 sea-green gossamers that a vigorous fin- 
 gerling might snap; hooks, snells, guts, 
 leaders, gaffs, cartridges, shells, and all 
 the entrancing munitions of the sports- 
 man, that savored of lonely caifions, deer- 
 licks, mountain streams, quail uplands, 
 and the still reaches of inlet and marsh 
 grounds, gray and cool in the early au- 
 tumn dawn. 
 
 Condy and Blix got the attention of a 
 clerk, and Condy explained. 
 
 " I want to go fishing — we want to go 
 fishing. We want some place where we 
 can go and come in the same day, and 
 we want to catch fair-sized fish — no 
 minnows." 
 
 The following half-hour was charm- 
 ing. Never was there a clerk more de- 
 
130 Blix 
 
 lightfiil. It would appear that his one 
 object ia life was that Condy and Blix 
 should catch fish. The affairs of the 
 nation stood still while he pondered, sug- 
 gested, advised, and deliberated. He told 
 them where to go, how to get there, what 
 train to take coming back, and who to 
 ask for when they arrived. They would 
 have to wait till Monday before going, 
 but could return long before the fated 
 hour of 7 P.M. 
 
 "Ask for Eichardson," said the clerk; 
 " and here, givo him my card. He'll put 
 you on to the good spots : some places are 
 A-1 to-day, and to-morrow in the same 
 place you can't kill a single fish." 
 
 Condy nudged Blix as the Mentor 
 turned away to get his card. 
 
 "Notice that," he whispered: "kill a 
 fish. You don't say ' catch,' you say 
 'kiU' — technical detail." 
 
 Then they bought their tackle : a couple 
 of cheap reels, lines, leaders, sinkers, a 
 book of assorted flies that the delightful 
 
Blix 131 
 
 clerk suggested, and a beautiful little tia 
 box painted green, and stencilled with a 
 gorgeous gold trout upon the lid, in 
 which they were to keep the pint of 
 salted shrimps to be used as bait in ad- 
 dition to the flies. Blix would get these 
 shrimps at a little market near her home. 
 
 "But,"' said the clerk, "you got to get 
 a permit to fish in that lake. Have you 
 got a pull with the Water Company? 
 Are you a stockholder? " 
 
 Condy's face fell, and Blix gave a little 
 gasp of dismay. They looked at each 
 other. Here was a check, indeed. 
 
 "Well," said the sublime being in shirt 
 sleeves from behind the counter, "see 
 what you can do ; and if you can't make 
 it, come back here an' lemmeno, and 
 we'll fix you up in some other place. 
 But Lake San Andreas has been bang- 
 up this last week, — been some great 
 kills there; hope to the deuce you can 
 make it." 
 
 Everything now hinged upon this per- 
 
132 Blix 
 
 mit. It was not until their expedition 
 had been in doubt that Condy and Blix 
 realized how alluring had been its pros- 
 pects. 
 
 "Oh, I guess you can get a permit," 
 said the clerk soothingly. "An' if you 
 make any good kills, lemmeno and I'll 
 f.ut it in the paper. I'm the editor of 
 the ' Sport- with-Gun-and-Eod ' column 
 in The Press," he added with a flush of 
 pride. 
 
 Toward the middle of the afternoon, 
 Blix, who was waiting at home, in great 
 suspense, for that very purpose, received 
 another telegram from Condy : 
 
 "Tension of situation relieved. Un- 
 conditional permission obtained. Don't 
 forget the shrimps." 
 
 It had been understood that Condy was 
 to come to the flat on Sunday afternoon 
 to talk over final arrangements with Blix. 
 But as it was, Saturday evening saw him 
 again at the Bessemers. 
 
Blix 
 
 33 
 
 He had been down at his club in the 
 library, writing the last paragraphs of his 
 diver's story, when, just as he finished, 
 Sargeant discovered him. 
 
 " Why, Conny, old man, all alone here ? 
 Let's go downstairs and have a cigar. 
 Hendricks and George Hands are coming 
 aroxmd in half an hour. They told me 
 not to let you get away." 
 
 Condy stirred nervously in his chair. 
 He knew what that meant. He had 
 enough money in his pockets to play 
 that night, and in an instant the enemy 
 was all awake. The rowel was in his 
 flank again, and the scourge at his back. 
 Sargeant stood there, the well-groomed 
 clubman of thirty; a little cynical per- 
 haps, but a really good fellow for all that, 
 and undeniably fond of Condy. But 
 somewhere with the eyes of some second 
 self Condy saw the girl of nineteen, part 
 child and part woman ; saw her goodness, 
 her fine, sweet feminine strength as it 
 were a dim radiance; "What's a good 
 
1 34 Blix 
 
 man worth, Condy," she had said, "if 
 he's not a strong man ? " 
 
 "I suppose wfi'll have a game going 
 before midnight," admitted Sargeant re- 
 signedly, smiling good-humoredly never- 
 theless. 
 
 Condy set his teeth. "I'll join you 
 later. Wait a few moments," he said. 
 He hurried to the office of the club, and 
 sent a despatch to Blix — the third since 
 morning : 
 
 "Can I come up right away? It's 
 urgent. Send answer by this messenger." 
 
 He got his answer within three-quar- 
 ters of an hour, and left the club as Hen- 
 dricks and George Hands arrived by the 
 elevator entrance. 
 
 Sitting in the bay window of the din- 
 ing-room, he told Blix why he had come. 
 
 " Oh, you were right ! " she told him. 
 " Always, always come, when — when you 
 feel you must." 
 
 "It gets so bad sometimes, Blix," he 
 
Blix 135 
 
 confessed with abject self-contempt, " that 
 when I can't get some one to play against, 
 I'U sit down and deal dummy hands, 
 and bet on them. Just the touch of the 
 cards — just the feel of the chips. Faugh ! 
 it's shameful." 
 
 The day following, Sunday, Condy came 
 to tea as usual; and after the meal, as 
 soon as the family and Victorine had left 
 the pair alone in the dining-room, they 
 set about preparing for their morrow's 
 excursion. Blix put up their lunch — 
 sandwiches of what Condy called "dev- 
 ilish " ham, hard-boiled eggs, stuffed 
 olives, and a bottle of claret. 
 
 Condy took off his coat and made a 
 great show of stringing the tackle : wind- 
 ing the lines from the spools on to the 
 reels, and attaching the sinkers and flies 
 to the leaders, smoking the whUe, and 
 scowling fiercely. He got the lines fear- 
 fully and wonderfully snarled, he caught 
 the hooks in the table-cloth, he lost the 
 almost invisible gut leaders on the floor, 
 
136 Blix 
 
 and looped the sinkers on the lines when 
 they should have gone on the leaders. 
 In the end, Blix had to help him out, 
 disentangling the lines foot by foot with 
 a patience that seemed to Condy little 
 short of superhuman. 
 
 At nine o'clock she said decisively: 
 
 " Do you know what time we must get 
 up in the morning if we are to have 
 breakfast and get the seven-forty train? 
 Quarter of six by the latest, and you must 
 get up earlier than that, because you're 
 at the hotel and have further to go. 
 Come here for breakfast, and — listen — be 
 here by half -past six — are you listening, 
 Condy ? — and we'll go down to the depot 
 from here. Don't forget to bring the 
 rods." 
 
 "I'll wear my bicycle suit," he said, 
 " and one of those golf scarfs that wrap 
 around your neck." 
 
 "No," she declared, "I won't have it. 
 Wear the oldest clothes you've got, but 
 look fairly respectable, because we're to 
 
Blix 
 
 137 
 
 go to Luna's when we get back, remem- 
 ber. And now go ^home ; you need all 
 the sleep you can get if you are to get 
 up at six o'clock." 
 
 Instead of being late, as Blix had 
 feared, Condy was absurdly ahead of 
 time the next morning. For a wonder, 
 he had not forgotten the rods ; but he was 
 one tremor of nervousness. He would 
 eat no breakfast. 
 
 " We're going to miss that train, " he 
 would announce from time to time; "I 
 just know it. Blix, look what time it 
 is. We ought to be on the way to the 
 depot now. Come on; you don't want 
 any more coffee. Have you got every- 
 thing? Did you put the reels in the 
 lunch-basket? — and the fly-book? Lord, 
 if we should forget the fly-book ! " 
 
 He managed to get her to the depot 
 over half an hour ahead of time. The 
 train had not even backed in, nor the 
 ticket office opened. 
 
 "I told you, Condy, I told you," com- 
 
138 Blix 
 
 plained Blix, sinking helplessly upon a 
 bench in the waiting-room. 
 
 "No — no — no," he answered vaguely, 
 looking nervously about, his head in the 
 air. " We're none too soon — have more 
 time to rest now. I wonder what track 
 the train leaves from. I wonder if it 
 stops at San Bruno. I wonder how far it 
 is from San Bruno to Lake San Andreas. 
 I'm afraid it's going to rain. Heavens 
 and earth, Blix, we forgot the shrimps ! " 
 
 " No, no ! Sit down, I've got the 
 shrimps. Condy, you make me so ner- 
 vous I shall scream in a minute." 
 
 Some three-quarters of an hour later 
 the train had set them down at San 
 Bruno — nothing more than a road-house, 
 the headquarters for duck-shooters and 
 fishermen from the city. However, Blix 
 and Condy were the only visitors. Every- 
 body seemed to be especially nice to them 
 on that wonderful morning. Even the 
 supercilious ticket - seller at the San 
 Francisco depot had unbent, and wished 
 
Blix 139 
 
 them good luck. The conductor of the 
 train had shown himself affable. The 
 very brakeman had gone out of his way 
 to apprize them, quite five minutes ahead 
 of time, that "the next stop was their 
 place." And at San Brimo the proprietor 
 of the road-house himself hitched up to 
 drive them over to the lake, announcing 
 that he would call for them at " Eichard- 
 son's " in time for the evening train. 
 
 "And he only asked me four bits for 
 both trips," whispered Condy to Blix, as 
 they jogged along. 
 
 The country was beautiful. It was 
 hardly eight o'clock, and the morning 
 still retained much of the brisk efferves- 
 cence of the early dawn. Great bare, 
 rolling hills of gray-green, thinly scat- 
 tered with live oak, bore back from the 
 road on either hand. The sky was pale 
 blue. There was a smell of cows in the 
 air, and twice they heard an unseen lark 
 singing. It was very still. The old 
 buggy and complacent horse were em- 
 
1 40 Blix 
 
 balmed in a pungent aroma of old leather 
 and of stables that was entrancing; and 
 a sweet smell of grass and sap came to 
 them in occasional long whiffs. There 
 was exhilaration in the very thought of 
 being alive on that odorous, still morn- 
 ing. The young blood went spanking in 
 the veins. Blix's cheeks were ruddy, 
 her little dark-brown eyes fairly corus- 
 cating with pleasure. 
 
 " Condy, isn't it all splendid ! " she 
 suddenly burst out. 
 
 "I feel regularly bigger," he declared 
 solemnly. " I could do anything a morn- 
 ing like this." 
 
 Then they came to the lake, and to 
 Eichardson's, where the farmer lived who 
 was also the custodian of the lake. The 
 complacent horse jogged back, and Condy 
 and Blix set about the serious business 
 of the day. Condy had no need to show 
 Eichardson the delightful sporting clerk's 
 card. The old Yankee — his twang and 
 dry humor singularly incongruous on that 
 
Blix 141 
 
 royal morning — was solicitude itself. He 
 picked out the best boat on the beach for 
 them, loaned them his own anchor of 
 railroad iron, indicated minutely the 
 point on the opposite shore off which 
 the last big trout had been "killed," and 
 wetted himself to his ankles as he pushed 
 off the boat. 
 
 Condy took the oars. Blix sat in the 
 stern, jointing the rods and running the 
 lines through the guides. She even 
 baited the hooks with the salt shrimp, 
 herself; and by nine o'clock they were at 
 anchor some forty feet off-shore, and fish- 
 ing, according to Eichardson's advice, " a 
 leetle mite off the edge o' the weeds." 
 
 "If we don't get a bite the whole 
 blessed day," said Condy, as he paid out 
 his line to the ratchet music of the reel, 
 "we'll have fun, just the same. Look 
 around, — isn't this great? " 
 
 They were absolutely alone. The day 
 was young as yet. The lake, smooth and 
 still as gray silk, widened to the west and 
 
142 Blix 
 
 south without so much as a wrinkle to 
 roughen the surface. Only to the east, 
 where the sun looked over a shoulder of 
 a higher hill, it flamed up into a blinding 
 diamond iridescence. The surrounding 
 land lay between sky and water, hushed 
 to a Sunday stillness. Far off across the 
 lake by Eichardson's they heard a dog 
 bark, and the sound came fine and small 
 and delicate. At long intervals the boat 
 stirred with a gentle clap-clapptug of the 
 water along its sides. From the near-by 
 shore in the growth of manzanita bushes 
 quail called and clucked comfortably to 
 each other; a bewildered yellow butterfly 
 danced by over their heads, and slim blue 
 dragon-flies came and poised on their 
 lines and fishing-rods, bowing their 
 backs. 
 
 From his seat in the bow, Condy cast 
 a glance at Blix. She was holding her 
 rod in both hands, absorbed, watchful, 
 very intent. She was as trim as ever, 
 even in the old clothes she had worn for 
 
Blix 
 
 143 
 
 the occasion. Her round, strong neck 
 was as usual swathed high and tight 
 in white, and the huge dog-collar girdled 
 her waist according to her custom. She 
 had taken off her hat. Her yellow hair 
 rolled back from her round forehead and 
 cool pink cheeks like a veritable nimbus, 
 and for the fiftieth time Condy remarked 
 the charming contrast of her small, deep- 
 brown eyes in the midst of this white 
 satin, yellow hair, white skin, and exquis- 
 ite pink cheeks. 
 
 An hour passed. Then two. 
 
 "No fish," murmured Condy, drawing 
 in his line to examine the bait. But, as 
 he was fumbling with the flies he was 
 startled by a sharp exclamation from 
 Blix. 
 
 " Oh-Condy-I've-got-a-bite ! " 
 
 He looked up just in time to see the 
 tip of her rod twitch, twitch, twitch. 
 Then the whole rod arched suddenly, the 
 reel sang, the line tautened and cut diag- 
 onally through the water. 
 
144 Blix 
 
 " You got him ! you got him ! " he 
 shouted, palpitating with excitement. 
 " And he's a good one ! " 
 
 Blix rose, reeling in as rapidly as was 
 possible, the butt of the twitching, living 
 rod braced against her belt. All at once 
 the rod straightened out again, the strain 
 was released, and the line began to slant 
 rapidly away from the boat. 
 
 "He's off! "she cried. 
 
 "Off, nothing! Ke's going to jump. 
 Look out for him, now ! " 
 
 And then the two watching from the 
 boat, tense and quivering with the drama 
 of the moment, saw that most inspiriting 
 of sights — the " break " of a salmon-trout. 
 Up he went, from a brusque explosion of 
 ripples and foam — up into the gray of the 
 morning from out the gray of the water : 
 scales all gleaming, hackles all a-bristle; 
 a sudden flash of silver, a sweep as of a 
 scimitar in gray smoke, with a splash, a 
 turmoil, an abrupt burst of troubled sound 
 that stabbed through the silence of the 
 
Blix 145 
 
 morning, and in a single instant dissi- 
 pated all the placid calm of the previous 
 hours. 
 
 "Keep the line taut," whispered Condy, 
 gritting his teeth. "When he comes 
 toward you, reel him in ; an' if he pulls 
 too hard, give him his head." 
 
 Blix was breathing fast, her cheeks 
 blazing, her eyes all alight. 
 
 "Oh," she gasped, "I'm so afraid I'll 
 lose him ! Oh, look at that ! " she cried, 
 as the trout darted straight for the bot- 
 tom, bending the rod till the tip was sub- 
 merged. "Condy, I'll lose him — I know 
 I shall ; you, you take the rod ! " 
 
 " Not for a thousand dollars ! Steady, 
 there ; he's away again ! Oh, talk about 
 sport ! " 
 
 Yard by yard Blix reeled in until they 
 began to see the silver glint of the trout's 
 flanks through the green water. She 
 brought him nearer. Swimming parallel 
 with the boat, he was plainly visible 
 from his wide-open mouth — the hook 
 
146 Blix 
 
 and fly protruding from his lower jaw — 
 to the red, quivering flanges of the tail. 
 His sides were faintly speckled, his belly 
 white as chalk. He was almost as long 
 as Condy's forearm. 
 
 "Oh, he's a beauty! Oh, isn't he a 
 beauty ! " murmured Condy. " Now, care- 
 full, careful; bring him up to the boat 
 where I can reach him ; e-easy, Blix. If 
 he holts again, let him nm." 
 
 Twice the trout shied from the boat's 
 shadow, and twice, as Blix gave him his 
 head, the reel sang and hummed like a 
 watchman's rattle. But the third time 
 he came to the surface and turned slowly 
 on his side, the white belly and one red 
 fin out of the water, the gills opening and 
 shutting. He was tired out. A third 
 time Blix drew him gently to the boat's 
 side. Condy reached out and down into 
 the water till his very shoulder was wet, 
 hooked two fingers under the distended 
 gills, and with a long, easy movement of 
 the arm svnmg him into the boat. 
 
Blix 1 47 
 
 Their exultation was that of veritable 
 children. Condy whooped like an 
 Apache, throwing his hat into the air; 
 Blix was hardly articulate, her hands 
 clasped, her hair in disarray, her eyes 
 swimming with tears of sheer excite- 
 ment. They shook each other's hands; 
 they talked wildly at the same time; 
 they pounded on the boat's thwarts with 
 their fists ; they laughed at their own ab- 
 surdity ; they looked at the trout again 
 and again, guessed at his weight, and re- 
 called to each other details of the struggle. 
 
 "When he broke that time, wasn't it 
 grand?" 
 
 " And when I first felt him bite ! It 
 was so sudden — why, it actually fright- 
 ened me. I never— no, never in my life ! " 
 exclaimed Blix, "was so happy as I am 
 at this moment. Oh, Condy, to think — 
 just to thinh ! " 
 
 "Isn't it glory hallelujah? " 
 
 " Isn't it better than teas, and dancing, 
 and functions ? " 
 
148 Blix 
 
 "Blix — how old are we? " 
 
 " I don't care how old we are ; I think 
 that trout will weigh two pounds." 
 
 When they were calm again, they re- 
 turned to their fishing. The morning 
 passed, and it was noon before they were 
 aware of it. By half-past twelve Blix 
 had caught three trout, though the first 
 was by far the heaviest. Condy had not 
 had so much as a bite. At one o'clock 
 they rowed ashore and had lunch under 
 a huge live oak in a little amphitheatre 
 of manzanita. 
 
 Never had a lunch tasted so delicious. 
 What if the wine was warm and the 
 stuffed olives oily? What if the pepper 
 for the hard-boiled eggs had sifted all 
 over the " devilish " ham sandwiches ? 
 What if the eggs themselves had not been 
 sufficiently cooked, and the corkscrew for- 
 gotten ? They coidd not be anything else 
 but inordinately happy, sublimely gay. 
 Nothing short of actual tragedy could 
 have marred the joy of that day. 
 
Blix 149 
 
 But after they were done eating, and 
 Blix had put away the forks and spoons, 
 and while Condy was stretched upon his 
 back smoking a cigar, she said to him : 
 
 "Now, Condy, what do you say to a 
 little game of cards with me ? " 
 
 The cigar dropped from Condy's lips, 
 and he sat suddenly upright, brushing 
 the fallen leaves from his hair. Blix 
 had taken a deck of cards from the lunch- 
 basket, and four rolls of chips wrapped 
 in tissue paper. He stared at her in 
 speechless amazement. 
 
 " What do you say ? " she repeated, 
 looking at him and smiling. 
 
 " Why, Blix ! " he exclaimed in amaze- 
 ment, " what do you mean ? " 
 
 " Just what I say. I want you to play 
 cards with me." 
 
 "I'll not do it," he declared, almost 
 coldly. 
 
 "Listen to me, Condy," answered Blix; 
 and for quite five minutes, while he in- 
 terrupted and protested and pshawed and 
 
150 Blix 
 
 argued, she talked to him calmly and 
 quietly. 
 
 "I don't ask you to stop playing, 
 Condy," she said, as she finished; "I just 
 ask you that when you feel you must 
 play — or — I mean, when you want to 
 very bad, you will come and play with 
 me, instead of playing at your club." 
 
 " But it's absurd, it's preposterous. I 
 hate to see a girl gambling, — and you of 
 all girls!" 
 
 " It's no worse for me than it is for you 
 and — well, do you suppose I would play 
 with any one else? Maybe you think I 
 can't play well enough to make it inter- 
 esting for you," she said gaily. "Is that 
 it? I can soon show you, Condy Elvers 
 — never mind when I learned how." 
 
 "But, Blix, you don't know how often 
 we play, those men and I. Why, it is 
 almost every — you don't know how often 
 we play." 
 
 "Condy, whenever you want to play, 
 and will play with me, no matter what 
 
Blix 1 5 1 
 
 I've got in hand, I'll stop everything 
 and play with you." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 " Because I thiak, Condy, that this way 
 perhaps you won't play quite so often at 
 first ; and then little hy little perhaps — 
 perhaps — well, never mind that now. / 
 want to play; put it that way. But I 
 want you to promise me never to play 
 with any one else — say for six months." 
 
 And in the end, whipped by a sense 
 of shame, Condy made her the promise. 
 They became very gay upon the instant. 
 
 " Hoh ! " exclaimed Condy ; " what do 
 you know of poker? I think we had^ 
 best play old sledge or cassino." 
 
 Blix had dealt a hand and partitioned 
 the chips. 
 
 " Straights and flushes lefore the draw," 
 she announced calmly. 
 
 Condy started and stared. Then look- 
 ing at her askance, picked up his hand. 
 
 "It's up to you." 
 
 "I'll make it five to play." 
 
152 Blix 
 
 "Five? Very well. How many cards?" 
 
 "Three." 
 
 "I'U take two." 
 
 "Bet you five more." 
 
 Blix looked at her hand. Then, with- 
 out trace of expression in her voice or 
 face, said : 
 
 "There's your five, and I'll raise you 
 five." 
 
 "Five better. " 
 
 "And five better than that." 
 
 "Call you." 
 
 "Full house. Aces on tens," said 
 Blix, throwing down her cards. 
 
 "Heavens! they're good as gold," mut- 
 tered Condy as Blix gathered in the 
 chips. 
 
 An hour later she had won all the 
 chips but five. 
 
 "Now we'll stop and get to fishing 
 again ; don't you want to? " 
 
 He agreed, and she counted the chips. 
 
 " Condy, you owe me seven doUars and 
 a half," she annoimced. 
 
Blix 153 
 
 Condy began to smile. " Well," he said 
 jocosely, "I'll send you around a check 
 to-morrow." 
 
 But at this Blix was cross upon the in- 
 stant. " You wouldn't do that — wouldn't 
 talk that way with one of your friends at 
 the club ! " she exclaimed ; " and it's not 
 right to do it with me. Condy, give me 
 seven dollars and a half. When you play 
 cards with me it's just as though it were 
 with another man. I would have paid 
 you if you had won." 
 
 "But I haven't got more than nine 
 dollars. Who'll pay for the supper to- 
 night at Luna's, and our railroad fare 
 going home ? " 
 
 "I'll pay." 
 
 "But I — I can't afford to lose money 
 this way." 
 
 " Shouldn't have played, then ; I took 
 the same chances as you. Condy, I want 
 my money." 
 
 " You — you — why you've regularly 
 flimflammed me." 
 
154 Blix 
 
 "Will you give me my money? " 
 " Oh, take your money then ! " 
 Blix shut the money in her purse, and 
 rose, dusting her dress. 
 
 "Now," she said, — "now that the pas- 
 time of card-playing is over, we will re- 
 turn to the serious business of life, which 
 is the catching — no, ' killing ' of lake 
 trout. " 
 
 At five o'clock in the afternoon, Condy 
 pulled up the anchor of railroad iron and 
 rowed back to Eichardson's. Blix had 
 six trout to her credit, but Condy' s ill- 
 luck had been actually ludicrous. 
 
 " I can hold a string in the water as 
 long as anybody," he complained, "but 
 I'd like to have the satisfaction of merely 
 changing the bait occasionally. I've not 
 had a single bite — not a nibble, y' know, 
 all day. Never mind, you got the big 
 trout, Blix ; that first one. That five min- 
 utes was worth the whole day. It's been 
 glorious, the whole thing. We'll come 
 down here once a week right along now." 
 
Blix 155 
 
 But the one incident that completed 
 the happiness of that wonderful day oc- 
 curred just as they were getting out of 
 the boat on the shore by Eichardson's. 
 In a mud-hole between two rocks they 
 discovered a tiny striped snake, hardly 
 bigger than a lead-pencil, in the act of 
 swallowing a little green frog, and they 
 passed a rapt ten minutes in witnessing 
 the progress of this miniature drama, 
 which culminated happily in the victim's 
 escape, and triumph of virtue. 
 
 "That," declared Blix as they climbed 
 into the old buggy which was to take 
 them to the train, " was the one thing 
 necessary. That made the day perfect." 
 
 They reached the city at dusk, and 
 sent their fish, lunch-basket, and rods up 
 to the Bessemers' flat by a messenger boy 
 with an explanatory note for Blix's 
 father. 
 
 "Now," said Condy, "for Luna's and 
 the matrimonial objects." 
 
VII 
 
 Luna's Mexican restaurant has no 
 address. It is on no particular street, 
 at no particular corner ; even its habitufe, 
 its most enthusiatic devotees, are unable 
 to locate it upon demand. It is " over 
 there in the quarter," "not far from the 
 cathedral there." One could find it if 
 one started out with that intent; but to 
 direct another there — no, that is out of 
 the question. It can be reached by fol- 
 lowing the alleys of Chinatown. You 
 will come out of the last alley — the one 
 where the slave girls are — upon the edge of 
 the Mexican quarter, and by going straight 
 forward a block or two, and by keeping a 
 sharp lookout to right and left you will 
 hit upon it. It is always to be searched 
 for. Always to be discovered. 
 
 On that particular Monday evening 
 
Blix 157 
 
 Blix and Condy arrived at Luna's some 
 fifteen minutes before seven. Condy had 
 lost himself and all sense of direction in 
 the strange streets of the quarter, and 
 they were on the very briak of despair 
 when Blix discovered the sign upon an 
 opposite corner. 
 
 As Condy had foretold, they had the 
 place to themselves. They went into the 
 back room with its one mirror, six tables, 
 and astonishing curtains of Nottingham 
 lace; and the waiter, whose name was 
 Eichard or Eiccardo, according to taste, 
 began to officiate at the solemn rites of 
 the "supper Mexican." Condy and Blix 
 ate with their eyes continually wander- 
 ing to the door ; and as the frijoles were 
 being served, started simultaneously and 
 exchanged glances. 
 
 A man wearing two marguerites in the 
 lapel of his coat had entered abruptly, 
 and sat down to a table close at hand. 
 
 Condy drew a breath of suppressed 
 excitement. 
 
158 Blix 
 
 " There he is," he whispered, — " Captain 
 Jack!" 
 
 They looked at the newcomer with 
 furtive anxiety, and told themselves that 
 they were disappointed. For a retired 
 sea captain he was desperately common- 
 place. His hair was red, he was younger 
 than they had expected, and, worst of all, 
 he did look tough. 
 
 "Oh, poor K. D. B. 1 " sighed Blix, 
 shaking her head. " He'll never do, I'm 
 afraid. Perhaps he has a good heart, 
 though; red-headed people are sometimes 
 affectionate." 
 
 "They are impulsive," hazarded 
 Condy. 
 
 As he spoke the words, a second man 
 entered the little room. He, too, sat 
 down at a near-by table. He, too, or- 
 dered the "supper Mexican." He, too, 
 wore marguerites in his buttonhole. 
 
 " Death and destruction ! " gasped 
 Condy, turning pale: 
 
 Blix collapsed helplessly in her chair. 
 
Blix 159 
 
 her hands dropping in her lap. They 
 stared at each other in utter confusion. 
 
 "Here's a how-do-you-do," murmured 
 Condy, pretending to strip a tamale that 
 Eichard had just set before him. But 
 Blix had pushed hers aside. 
 
 " What does it mean ? " whispered 
 Condy across the table. "In Heaven's 
 name, what does it mean ? " 
 
 "It can only mean one thing," Blix 
 declared; "one of them is the captain, 
 and one is a coincidence. Anybody 
 might wear a marguerite; we ought to 
 have thought of that. " 
 
 "But which is which?" 
 
 "If K. D. B. should come now! " 
 
 "But the last man looks more like the 
 captain. " 
 
 The last man was a sturdy, broad- 
 shouldered fellow, who might have been 
 forty. His heavy moustache was just 
 touched with gray, and he did have a 
 certain vaguely " sober and industrious " 
 appearance. But the difference between 
 
1 60 Blix 
 
 the two men was slight, after all ; the red- 
 headed man could easily have been a sea 
 captain, and he certainly was over thirty- 
 five. 
 
 "Which? which? which? — how can we 
 tell? We might think of some way to 
 get rid of the coincidence, if we could 
 only tell which the coincidence was. We 
 owe it to K. D. B. In a way, Condy, it's 
 our duty. We brought her here, or we 
 are going to, and we ought to help her all 
 we can ; and she may be here at any mo- 
 ment. What time is it now? " 
 
 " Five minutes after seven. But, Blix, 
 I should think the right one — the cap- 
 tain — would be all put out himself by 
 seeing another chap here wearing mar- 
 guerites. Does either one of 'em seem 
 put out to you? Look. I should think 
 the captain, whichever one he is, would 
 kind of glare at the coincidence." 
 
 Stealthily they studied the two men 
 for a moment. 
 
 "No, no," murmured Blix, "you can't 
 
Blix i6i 
 
 tell. Neither of them seems to glare 
 much. Oh, Condy," — her voice dropped 
 to a faint whisper. "The red-headed 
 one has put his hat on a chair, just be- 
 hind him, notice? Do you suppose if 
 you stood up you could see inside ? " 
 
 "What good would that do? " 
 
 " He might have his initials inside the 
 crown, or his whole name even ; and you 
 could see if he had a ' captain ' before it. " 
 
 Condy made a pretence of rising to get 
 a match in a ribbed, truncated cone of 
 china that stood upon an adjacent table, 
 and Blix held her breath as he glanced 
 down into the depths of the hat. He re- 
 sumed his seat. 
 
 "Only initials," he breathed,— " W. J. 
 A. It might be Jack, that J., and it 
 might be Joe, or Jeremiah, or Joshua ; and 
 even if he was a captain he might" not use 
 the title. We're no better oft' than we 
 were before." 
 
 "And K. D. B. may come at any mo- 
 ment. Maybe she has come already and 
 
1 6 2 Blix 
 
 looked through the windows, and saw 
 two men with marguerites and went 
 away. She'd he just that timid. What 
 can we do ? " 
 
 "Wait a minute, look here," murmured 
 Condy. "I've an idea. Til find out 
 which the captain is. You see that pic- 
 ture, that chromo, on the wall opposite? " 
 
 Blix looked as he indicated. The pic- 
 ture was a gorgeously colored lithograph 
 of a pilot-boat, schooner-rigged, aU sails 
 set, dashing bravely through seas of 
 emerald green color. 
 
 " You mean that schooner?" asked Blix. 
 
 "That schooner, exactly. Now listen. 
 You ask me in a loud voice what kind of 
 a boat that is ; and when I answer, you 
 keep your eye on the two men. " 
 
 " Why, what are you going to do ? " 
 
 "You'll see. Try it now; we've no 
 time to lose." 
 
 Blix shifted in her seat and cleared 
 her throat. Then : 
 
 " What a pretty boat that is up there, 
 
Blix 163 
 
 that picture on the wall. See over there, 
 on the wall opposite? Do you notice it? 
 Isn't she pretty? Condy, tell me what 
 kind of a boat is that? " 
 
 Condy turned about in his place with 
 great deliberation, fixed the picture with 
 a judicial eye, and announced decisively : 
 
 "That? — why that's a harkentine." 
 
 Condy had no need to wait for Blix's 
 report. The demonstration came far too 
 quickly for that. The red-headed man 
 at his loud declaration merely glanced in 
 the direction of the chromo and returned 
 to his enchellados. But he of the black 
 moustache followed Condy's glance, not- 
 ed the picture of which he spoke, and 
 snorted contemptuously. They even 
 heard him mutter beneath his moustache : 
 
 " Barkentine your eye ! " 
 
 "No doubt as to which is the captain 
 now," whispered Condy so soon as the 
 other had removed from him a glance of 
 withering scorn. 
 
 They could hardly restrain their gaiety ; 
 
1 64 Blix 
 
 but their gravity promptly returned when 
 Blix kicked Condy's foot under the table 
 and murmured: "He's looking at his 
 watch, the captain is. K. D. B. isn't 
 here yet, and the red-headed man, the 
 coincidence, is. We must get rid of him. 
 Condy, can't you think of something? " 
 
 "Well, he won't go till he's through 
 his supper, you can depend upon that. 
 If he's here when K. D. B. arrives, it 
 will spoil everything. She wouldn't stay 
 a moment. She wouldn't even come in." 
 
 "Isn't it disappointing? And I had so 
 counted upon bringing these two together ! 
 And Captain Jack is a nice man ! " 
 
 " You can see that with one hand tied 
 behind you," whispered Condy. "The 
 other chap's tough." 
 
 "Looks just like the kind of man to 
 get into jail sooner or later. " 
 
 " Maybe he's into some mischief now ; 
 you never can tell. And the Mexican 
 quarter of San Francisco is just the place 
 for ' affairs.' I'll warrant he's got pals." 
 
Blix 165 
 
 "Well, here he is — that's the main 
 point — just keeping those people apart 
 spoiling a whole romance. Maybe ruin- 
 ing their lives. It's quite possible; 
 really it is. Just stop and think. This 
 is a positive crisis we're looking at 
 now. " 
 
 " Can't we get rid of him somehow ? " 
 
 " 0-oh ! " whispered Blix, all at once, 
 in a quiver of excitement. " There is a 
 way, if we'd ever have the courage to do 
 it. It might work; and if it didn't, 
 he'd never know the difference, never 
 would suspect us. Oh ! but we wouldn't 
 dare." 
 
 "What? what? In Heaven's name 
 what is it, Blix?" 
 
 "We wouldn't dare — we couldn't. 
 Oh ! but it would be such " 
 
 "K. D. B. may come in that door at 
 any second." 
 
 " I'm half afraid, but all the same 
 
 Condy, let me have a pencil." She 
 dashed off a couple of lines on the back 
 
1 66 Blix 
 
 of the bill of fare, and her hand trembled 
 like a leaf as she handed him what she 
 had written. 
 
 " Send him — the red-readed man — that 
 telegram. There's an office just two 
 doors below here, next the drug-store. I 
 saw it as we came by. You know his 
 initials ; remember, you saw them in his 
 hat. W. J. A., Luna's restaurant. 
 That's all you want." 
 
 "Lord," muttered Condy, as he gazed 
 upon what Blix had written. 
 
 "Do you dare?" she whispered, with a 
 little hysterical shudder. 
 
 "If it failed we've nothing to lose." 
 
 "And K. D. is coming nearer every 
 instant ! " 
 
 " But would he go — that is, at once ? " 
 
 "We can only try. You won't be 
 gone a hundred seconds. You can leave 
 me here that length of time. Quick, 
 Condy; decide one way or the other. 
 It's getting desperate." 
 
 Condy reached for his hat. 
 
Blix 167 
 
 "Give me some money, then," he said. 
 "You won all of mine." 
 
 A few moments later he was back 
 again; and the two sat, pretending to eat 
 their chili peppers, their hearts in their 
 throats, hardly daring to raise their eyes 
 from their plates. Condy was actually 
 sick with excitement, and all but tipped 
 the seltzer bottle to the floor when a 
 messenger boy appeared in the outer 
 room. The boy and the proprietor held 
 a conference over the counter. Then 
 Eichard appeared between the portiferes 
 of Nottingham lace, the telegram in his 
 hand and the boy at his heels. 
 
 Evidently Eichard knew the red-headed 
 man, for he crossed over to him at once 
 with the words : 
 
 " I guess this is for you, Mr. Atkins ? " 
 
 He handed him the despatch and re- 
 tired. The red-headed man signed the 
 receipt; the boy departed. Blix and 
 Condy heard the sound of torn paper as 
 the red-headed man opened the telegram. 
 
1 68 Blix 
 
 Ten seconds passed, then fifteen, then 
 twenty. There was a silence. Condy 
 dared to steal a glance at the red-headed 
 man's reflection in the mirror. He was 
 studying the despatch, frowning horribly. 
 He put it away in his pocket, took it out 
 again with a fierce movement of impa- 
 tience, and consulted it a second time. 
 His " supper Mexican " remained untasted 
 before him; Condy and Blix heard him 
 breathing loud through his nose. That 
 he was profoundly agitated, they could 
 not doubt for a single moment. All at 
 once a little panic terror seemed to take 
 possession of him. He rose, seized his 
 hat, jammed it over his ears, slapped a 
 half-dollar upon the table, and strode 
 from the restaurant. 
 
 This is what the red-headed man had 
 read in the despatch; this is what Blix 
 had written: 
 
 "All is discovered. Fly at once." 
 
 And never in all their subsequent ram- 
 
Blix 169 
 
 bles about the city did Blix or Condy set 
 eyes upon the red-headed man again, nor 
 did Luna's restaurant, where he seemed 
 to have been a habitu^, ever afterward 
 know his presence. He disappeared ; he 
 was swallowed up. He had left the res- 
 taurant, true. Had he also left that 
 neighborhood ? Had he fled the city, the 
 State, the country even ? What skeleton 
 in the red-headed man's closet had those 
 six words called to life and the light of 
 day. Had they frightened him forth to 
 spend the rest of his days fleeing from an 
 unnamed, unknown avenger — a verita- 
 ble wandering Jew? What mystery had 
 they touched upon there in the bald, bare 
 back room of the Quarter's restaurant? 
 What dark door had they opened, what 
 red-headed phantom had they evoked? 
 Had they broken up a plot, thwarted a 
 conspiracy, prevented a crime? They 
 never knew. One thing only was cer- 
 tain. The red-headed man had had a 
 past. 
 
1 70 Blix 
 
 Meanwhile the minutes were passing, 
 and K. D. B. still failed to appear. Cap- 
 tain Jack was visibly growing impatient, 
 anxious. By now he had come to the 
 fiery liqueur called mescal. He was 
 nearly through his supper. At every 
 moment he consulted his watch and fixed 
 the outside door with a scowl. It was 
 already twenty minutes after seven. 
 
 " I know the red-headed man spoiled it, 
 after all," murmured Blix, "K. D. B. 
 saw the two of them in here and was 
 frightened." 
 
 " We could send Captain Jack a tele- 
 gram from her," suggested Condy. "I'm 
 ready for anything now." 
 
 "What could you say?" 
 
 "Oh, that she couldn't come. Make 
 another appointment." 
 
 "He'd be offended with her. He'd 
 never make another appointment. Sea 
 captains are always so punctilious, y' 
 know." 
 
 Eichard brought them their coffee and 
 
Blix 171 
 
 kirsch, and Condy showed Blix how to 
 burn a lump of sugar and sweeten the 
 coffee with syrup. But they were disap- 
 pointed. Captain Jack was getting ready 
 to leave. K. D. B. had evidently broken 
 the appointment. 
 
 Then all at once she appeared. 
 
 They knew it upon the instant by a 
 brisk opening and shutting of the street 
 door, and by a sudden alertness on the 
 part of Captain Jack, which he immedi- 
 ately followed by a quite inexplicable 
 move. The street door in the outside 
 room had hardly closed before his hand 
 shot to his coat lapel and tore out the 
 two marguerites. 
 
 The action was instinctive ; Blix knew 
 it for such immediately. The retired cap- 
 tain had not premeditated it. He had 
 not seen the face of the newcomer. She 
 had not time to come into the back room, 
 or even to close the street door. But the 
 instant that the captain had recognized a 
 bunch of white marguerites in her belt 
 
172 Blix 
 
 he had, without knowing why, been 
 moved to conceal his identity. 
 
 "He's afraid," whispered Blix. "Posi- 
 tively, I believe he's afraid. How abso- 
 lutely stupid men are ! " 
 
 But meanwhile, K. D. B., the looked- 
 for, the planned-for and intrigued-for; 
 the object of so much diplomacy, such 
 delicate manoeuvring; the pivot upon 
 which all plans were to turn, the storm- 
 centre round which so many conflicting 
 currents revolved, and for whose benefit 
 the peace of mind of the red-headed man 
 had been forever broken up, — had entered 
 the room. 
 
 " Why, she's pretty ! " was Blix's first 
 smothered exclamation, as if she had ex- 
 pected a harridan. 
 
 K. D. B. looked like a servant-girl of 
 the better sort, and was really very neatly 
 dressed. She was small, little even. 
 She had snappy black eyes, a resolute 
 mouth, and a general air of being very 
 quiet, very matter-of-fact and compla- 
 
Blix 173 
 
 cent. She. would be disturbed at noth- 
 ing, excited at nothing; Blix was sure 
 of that. She was placid, but it was the 
 placidity not of the absence of emotion, 
 but of emotion disdained. Not the pla- 
 cidity of the moUusk, but that of a ma- 
 ture and contemplative cat. 
 
 Quietly she sat down at a corner table, 
 quietly she removed her veil and gloves, 
 and quietly she took in the room and its 
 three occupants. 
 
 Condy and Blix glued their eyes upon 
 their coffee cups like guilty conspirators ; 
 but a crash of falling crockery called 
 their attention to the captain's table. 
 
 Captain Jack was in a tremor. Hith- 
 erto he had acted the r6le of a sane and 
 sensible gentleman of middle age, master 
 of himself and of the situation. The en- 
 trance of K. D. B. had evidently reduced 
 him to a semi-idiotic condition. He en- 
 larged himself; he eased his neck in his 
 collar with a rotary movement of head 
 and shoulders. He frowned terribly at 
 
1 74 Blix 
 
 trifling objects in comers of the room. 
 He cleared his throat till the glassware 
 jingled. He pulled at his moustache. 
 He perspired, fumed, fretted, and was 
 suddenly seized with an insane desire to 
 laugh. Once only he caught the eye of 
 K. D. B., calmly sitting in her corner 
 picking daintily at her fish, whereupon 
 he immediately overturned the vinegar 
 and pepper casters upon the floor. Just 
 so might have behaved an overgrown 
 puppy in the presence of a sleepy, 
 unperturbed chessy-cat, dozing by the 
 fire. 
 
 "He ought to be shaken," murmured 
 Blix at the end of her patience. "Does 
 he think she is going to make the first 
 move?" 
 
 " Ha, ah'm ! " thundered the captain, 
 clearing his throat for the twentieth time, 
 twirling his moustache, and burying his 
 scarlet face in an enormous pocket hand- 
 kerchief. 
 
 Five minutes passed and he was still 
 
Blix 175 
 
 in his place. From time to time K. D. 
 B. fixed him with a quiet, deliberate 
 look, and resumed her delicate picking. 
 
 "Do you think she knows it's he, now 
 that he's taken off his marguerites ? " 
 whispered Condy. 
 
 "Know it? — of course she does! Do 
 you think women are absolutely Hind, or 
 so imbecile as men are? And, then, if 
 she didn't think it was he, she'd go away. 
 And she's so really pretty, too. He 
 ought to thank his stars alive. Think 
 what a fright she might have been ! She 
 doesn't look thirty-one." 
 
 "Huh!" returned Condy. "As long 
 as she said she was thirty-one, you can 
 bet everything you have that she is; 
 that's as true as revealed religion." 
 
 " Well, it's something to have seen the 
 kind of people who write the personals," 
 said Blix. " I had always imagined that 
 they were kind of tough." 
 
 "You see they are not," he answered. 
 " I told you they were not. Maybe, how- 
 
176 Blix 
 
 ever, we have been exceptionally fortu- 
 nate. At any rate, these are respectable 
 enough. " 
 
 " Not the least doubt about that. But 
 why won't he do something, that cap- 
 tain?" mourned Blix. "Why vnll he 
 act like such a ninny? " 
 
 " He's waiting for us to go, " said Condy ; 
 " I'm sure of it. They'll never meet so 
 long as we're here. Let's go and give 
 'em a chance. If you leave the two 
 alone here, one or the other will have to 
 speak. The suspense would become too 
 terrible. It would be as though they 
 were on a desert island. " 
 
 "But I wanted to see them meet," she 
 protested. 
 
 "You wouldn't hear what they said." 
 
 "But we'd never know if they did 
 meet, and oh — and who spoke first? " 
 
 "She'll speak first," declared Condy. 
 
 " Never ! " returned Blix, in an indig- 
 nant whisper. 
 
 " I tell you what. We could go and 
 
Blix 177 
 
 then come back in five minutes. I'll for- 
 get my stick here. Savvy ? " 
 
 "You would probably do it anyhow," 
 she told him. 
 
 They decided this would be the better 
 course. They got together their things, 
 and Condy neglected his stick, hanging 
 upon a hook on the wall. 
 
 At the counter in the outside room, 
 Blix, to the stupefaction of Eichard, the 
 waiter, paid the bill. But as she was 
 moving toward the door, Condy called 
 her back. 
 
 " Remember the waiter," he said severe- 
 ly, while Eichard grinned and bobbed. 
 " Fifty cents is the very least you could 
 tip him." Eichard actually protested, 
 but Condy was firm, and insisted upon a 
 half-dollar tip. 
 
 " NoUesse oblige," he declared with vast 
 solemnity. 
 
 They walked as far as the cathedral, 
 listened for a moment to the bell striking 
 the hour of eight; then as they remem- 
 
178 Blix 
 
 bered that the restaurant closed at that 
 time, hurried back and entered the out- 
 side room in feigned perturbation. 
 
 " Did I, could I possibly have left my 
 stick here ! " exclaimed Condy to Eich- 
 ard, who was untying his apron behind 
 the coxmter. But Eichard had not no- 
 ticed. 
 
 " I think I must have left it back here 
 where we were sitting." 
 
 Condy stepped into the back room, 
 Blix following. They got his stick and 
 returned to the outside room. 
 
 "Yes, yes, I did leave it," he said, as 
 he showed it to Eichard. I'm always 
 leaving that stick wherever I go. " 
 
 "Come again," said Eichard, as he 
 bowed them out of the door. 
 
 On the curb outside Condy and Blix 
 shook hands and congratulated each 
 other on the success of all their labors. 
 In the back room, seated at the same 
 table, a bunch of wilting marguerites be- 
 tween them, they had seen their "matri- 
 
Blix 1 79 
 
 monial objects " conferring earnestly to- 
 gether, absorbed in the business of getting 
 acquainted. 
 
 Blix heaved a great sigh of relief and 
 satisfaction, exclaiming : 
 
 "At last K. D. B. and Captain Jack 
 have met! " 
 
VIII 
 
 "But," she added, as they started to 
 walk, "we will never know which one 
 spoke first." 
 
 But Condy was already worrying. 
 
 " I don't know, I don't know," he mur- 
 mured anxiously. "Perhaps we've done 
 an awful thing. Suppose they aren't 
 happy together after they're married? I 
 wish we hadn't; I wish we hadn't now. 
 We've been playing a game of checkers 
 with human souls. We've an awful re- 
 sponsibility. Suppose he kills her some 
 time?" 
 
 "Fiddlesticks, Condy! And, besides, 
 if we've done wrong with our matrimo- 
 nial objects, we've offset it by doing well 
 with our red-headed coincidence. How 
 do you know, you may have ' foiled a 
 
Blix i8i 
 
 villain ' with that telegram — prevented a 
 crime?" 
 
 Condy grinned at the recollection of 
 the incident. 
 
 " ' Fly at once,' " he repeated. " I guess 
 he's flying yet. ' All is discovered.' 
 I'd give a dollar and a half " 
 
 "If you had it?" 
 
 " Oh, well, if I had it, — to know just 
 what it was we have discovered." 
 
 Suddenly Blix caught his arm. 
 
 " Condy, here they come ! " 
 
 "Who? Who?" 
 
 " Our objects. Captain Jack and K. D. B. " 
 
 "Of course, of course. They couldn't 
 stay. The restaurant shuts up at eight. " 
 
 Blix and Condy had been walking 
 slowly in the direction of Pacific Street, 
 and K. D. B. and her escort soon over- 
 took them going in the same direction. 
 As they passed, the captain was saying : 
 
 " — jumped on my hatches, and says 
 we'll make it an international affair. 
 That didn't " 
 
1 82 Blix 
 
 A passing wagon drowned the sound of 
 his voice. 
 
 " He was telling her of his adventures ! " 
 cried Blix. "Splendid] Othello and 
 Desdemona. They're getting on." 
 
 " Let's follow them ! " exclaimed Condy. 
 
 "Should we? Wouldn't it be — indis- 
 creet?" 
 
 "No. We are the arbiters of their 
 fate; we must take an interest." 
 
 They allowed their objects to get ahead 
 some half a block and then feU in be- 
 hind. There was little danger of their 
 being detected. The captain and K. D. 
 B. were absorbed in each other. She 
 had even taken his arm. 
 
 "They make a fine-looking couple, 
 really," said Blix. "Where do you sup- 
 pose they are going ? To another restau- 
 rant?" 
 
 But this was not the case. Blix and 
 Condy followed them as far as Washing- 
 ton Square, where the Geodetic Survey 
 stone stands, and the enormous flagstaff; 
 
Blix 183 
 
 and there in front of a commonplace lit- 
 tle house, two doors above the Eussian 
 church with its minarets like inverted 
 balloons, K. D. B. and the captain 
 halted. For a few moments they con- 
 versed in low tones at the gate, then said 
 good-night, K. D. B. entering the house, 
 the captain bowing with great deference, 
 his hat in his hand. Then he turned 
 about, glanced once or twice at the house, 
 set his hat at an angle, and disappeared 
 across the square, whistling a tune, his 
 chin in the air. 
 
 "Very good, excellent, highly respect- 
 able," approved Blix ; and Condy himself 
 fetched a sigh of relief. 
 
 "Yes, yes, it might have been worse." 
 "We'll never see them again, our 
 ' Matrimonial Objects,' " said Blix, "and 
 they'll never know about us; but we 
 have brought them together. We've 
 started a romance. Yes, I think we've 
 done a good day's work. And now, 
 Condy, I think we had best be thinking 
 
1 84 Blix 
 
 of home ourselves. I'm just beginning 
 to get most awfully sleepy. What a day 
 we've had ! " 
 
 A sea fog, or rather the sea fog — San 
 Francisco's old and inseparable compan- 
 ion — had gathered by the time they 
 reached the top of the Washington-Street 
 hill. Everything was wet with it. The 
 asphalt was like varnished ebony. In- 
 distinct masses and huge dim shadows 
 stood for the houses on either side. 
 From the eucalyptus trees and the palms 
 the water dripped like rain. Far off, 
 oceanward, the fog-horn was lowing like 
 a lost gigantic bull. The gray bulk of a 
 policeman — the light from the street lamp 
 reflected in his star — loomed upon the 
 corner as they descended from the car. 
 
 Condy had intended to call his diver's 
 story "A Submarine Eomance," but Blix 
 had disapproved. 
 
 "It's too 'Twenty Thousand Leagues 
 under the Sea,'" she had said. "You 
 
Blix 185 
 
 want something much more dignified. 
 There is that about you, Condy, you like 
 to be too showy ; you don't know when 
 to stop. But you have left off red-and- 
 white scarfs, and I am very glad to see 
 you wearing white shirt-fronts instead of 
 pink ones." 
 
 "Yes, yes, I thought it would be 
 quieter," he had answered, as though the 
 idea had come from him. Blix allowed 
 him to think so. 
 
 But "A Victory Over Death," as the 
 story was finally called, was a success. 
 Condy was too much of a born story-teller 
 not to know when he had done something 
 distinctly good. When the story came 
 back from the typewriter's, with the ad- 
 ditional strength that print lends to fic- 
 tion, and he had read it over, he could 
 not repress a sense of jubilation, The 
 story rang true. 
 
 " Bully, bully ! " he muttered between 
 his teeth as he finished the last para- 
 graph. "It's a corker! If it's rejected 
 
1 86 Blix 
 
 everywhere, it's an out-of-sighfc yarn just 
 the same." 
 
 And there Condy's enthusiasm in the 
 matter began to dwindle. The fine fire 
 which had sustained him during the 
 story's composition had died out. He 
 was satisfied with his work. He had 
 written a good story, and that was the 
 end of it. No doubt he would send it 
 East — to the Centennial Company — to- 
 morrow or the day after — some time that 
 week. To mail the manuscript meant 
 quite half an hour's effort. He would 
 have to buy stamps for return postage; a 
 letter would have to be written, a large 
 envelope procured, the accurate address 
 ascertained. For the moment his supple- 
 ment work demanded his attention. He 
 put off sending the story from day to 
 day. His interest in it abated. And for 
 the matter he soon discovered he had 
 other things to think of. 
 
 It had been easy to promise Blix that 
 he would no longer gamble at his club 
 
Blix 187 
 
 with the other men of his acquaintance; 
 but it was "death and the devil," as he 
 told himself, to abide by that promise. 
 More than once in the fortnight follow- 
 ing upon his resolution he had come up 
 to the little flat on the Washington-Street 
 hill as to a place of refuge; and Blix, 
 always pretending that it was all a huge 
 joke and part of their good times, had 
 brought out the cards and played with 
 him. But she knew^ very well the fight 
 he was making against the enemy, and 
 how hard it was for him to keep from the 
 round green tables and group of silent 
 shirt-sleeved men in the card-rooms of 
 his club. She looked forward to the 
 time when Condy would cease to play 
 even with her. But she was too sensi- 
 ble and practical a girl to expect him 
 to break a habit of years' standing in a 
 couple of weeks. The thing would have 
 to be accomplished little by little. At 
 times she had misgivings as to the hon- 
 esty of the course she had adopted. But 
 
1 88 Blix 
 
 nowadays, playing as he did with her 
 only, Condy gambled but two or three 
 evenings in the week, and then not for 
 more than two hours at a time. Hereto- 
 fore hardly an evening that had not seen 
 him at the round table in his club's card- 
 room, whence he had not risen until long 
 after midnight. 
 
 Condy had told young Sargeant that 
 he had "' reformed " in the matter of gam- 
 bling, and intended to swear off for a few 
 months. Sargeant, like the thorough- 
 bred he was, never urged to play after 
 that, and never spoke of the previous 
 night's game when Condy was about. 
 The other men of his " set " were no less 
 thoughtful, and, though they rallied him 
 a little at first upon his defection, soon 
 let the matter drop. Condy told himself 
 that there were plenty of good people in 
 the world, after all. Every one seemed 
 conspiring to make it easy for him, and 
 he swore at himself for a weak-kneed 
 cad. 
 
Blix 189 
 
 On a certain Tuesday, about a week 
 after the fishing excursion and the affair 
 of the "Matrimonial Objects," toward 
 half-past six in the evening, Condy was 
 in his room, dressing for a dinner engage- 
 ment. Young Sargeant's sister had in- 
 vited him to be one of a party who were 
 to dine at the University Club, and later 
 on fill a box at a charity play, given by 
 amateurs at one of the downtown thea- 
 tres. But as he was washing his linen 
 shirt-studs with his tooth-brush, his eye 
 fell upon a note, in Laurie Flagg's hand- 
 writing, that lay on his writing-desk, and 
 that he had received some ten days pre- 
 vious. Condy turned cold upon the in- 
 stant, hurled the tooth-brush across the 
 room, and dropped into a chair with a 
 groan of despair. Miss Flagg was giving 
 a theatre party for the same affair, and 
 he remembered now that he had promised 
 to join her party as well, forgetting all 
 about the engagement he had made with 
 Miss Sargeant. It was impossible at this 
 
190 Blix 
 
 late hour to accept either one of the 
 young women's invitations without of- 
 fending the other. 
 
 "Well, I won't go to either, that's all," 
 he vociferated aloud to the opposite wall. 
 " I'll send 'em each a wire, and say that 
 I'm sick or have got to go down to the 
 office, and — and, by George! I'll go up 
 and see Blix, and we'll read and make 
 things to eat." 
 
 And no sooner had this alternative 
 occurred to him than it appeared too fas- 
 cinating to be resisted. A weight seemed 
 removed from his mind. When it came 
 to that, what amusement would he have 
 at either affair? 
 
 "Sit up there with your shirt-front 
 starched like a board," he blustered, "and 
 your collar throttling you, and smile till 
 your face is sore, and reel off small talk 
 to a girl whose last name you can't re- 
 member ! Do I have any fun, does it do 
 me any good, do I get ideas for yams ? 
 What do I do it for? I don't know." 
 
Blix 
 
 191 
 
 While speaking he had been kicking 
 off his tight shoes and such of his full 
 dress as he had already put on, and with 
 a feeling of enormous relief turned again 
 to his sack suit of tweed. " Lord, these 
 feel better ! " he exclaimed, as he substi- 
 tuted the loose business suit for the 
 formal rigidity of his evening dress. It 
 was with a sensation of positive luxury 
 that he put on a " soft " shirt of blue 
 cheviot and his tan walking-shoes. 
 
 "But no more red scarfs," he declared, 
 as he knotted his black satin " club " be- 
 fore the mirror. " She was right there. " 
 He put his cigarettes in his pocket, 
 caught up his gloves and stick, clapped 
 on his hat, and started for the Bessemers' 
 flat with a feeling of joyous expectancy 
 he had not known for days. 
 
 Evidently Blix had seen him coming, 
 for she opened the door herself; and it 
 suited her humor for the moment to treat 
 him as a peddler or book-agent. 
 
 "No, no," she said airily, her head in 
 
192 Blix 
 
 the air as she held the door. " No, we 
 don't want any to-day. We have the 
 biography of Abraham Lincoln. Don't 
 want to subscribe to any Home Book of 
 Art. We're not artistic; we use drapes 
 ill our parlors. Don't want ' The Wives 
 and Mothers of Great Men.' " 
 
 But Condy had noticed a couple of 
 young women on the lower steps of 
 the adjacent flat, quite within ear-shot, 
 and at once he began in a loud, harsh 
 voice : 
 
 " Well, y' know, we can't wait for our 
 rent forever; I'm only the collector, and 
 I've nothing to do with repairs. Pay 
 your rent that's three months overdue, 
 and then " 
 
 But Blix pulled him within the house 
 and clapped to the door. 
 
 " Condy Rivers ! " she exclaimed, her 
 cheeks flaming, " those are our neighbors. 
 They heard every word. What do you 
 suppose they think ? " 
 
 "Huh! I'd rather have 'em think I 
 
Blix 193 
 
 was a rent-collector than a book-agent. 
 You began it. 'Evenin ', Miss Lady." 
 
 "'Evenin', Mister Man." 
 
 But Condy's visit, began thus gaily, 
 soon developed along much more serious 
 lines. After supper, while the light still 
 lasted, Blix read stories to him while he 
 smoked cigarettes in the bay window of 
 the dining-room. But as soon as the 
 light began to go she put the book aside, 
 and the two took their accustomed places 
 in the window, and watched the evening 
 burning itself out over the Golden Gate. 
 
 It was just warm enough to have one 
 of the windows opened, and for a long 
 time after the dusk they sat listening to 
 the vague clamor of the city, lapsing by 
 degrees, till it settled into a measured, 
 soothing murmur, like the breathing of 
 some vast monster asleep, Condy's ci- 
 garette was a mere red point in the half- 
 darkness. The smoke drifted out of the 
 open window in long, blue strata. At his 
 elbow Blix was leaning forward, looking 
 13 
 
1 94 Blix 
 
 down upon the darkening, drowsing city, 
 her round, strong chin propped upon her 
 hand. She was just close enough for 
 Condy to catch the sweet, delicious femi- 
 nine perfume that came indefinitely from 
 her clothes, her hair, her neck. From 
 where Condy sat he could see the silhou- 
 ette of her head and shoulders against 
 the dull golden blur of the open window; 
 her round, high forehead, with the thick 
 yellow hair rolling back from her temples 
 and ears, her pink clean cheeks, her little 
 dark-brown, scintillating eyes, and her 
 firm red mouth, made all the firmer by the 
 position of her chin upon her hand. As 
 ever, her round, strong neck was swathed 
 high and tight in white satin; but be- 
 tween the topmost fold of the satin and 
 the rose of one small ear-lobe was a little 
 triangle of white skin, that was partly 
 her neck and partly her cheek, and that 
 Condy knew should be softer than down, 
 smoother than satin, warm and sweet and 
 redolent as new apples. Condy imagined 
 
Blix 195 
 
 himself having the right to lean toward 
 her there and kiss that little spot upon 
 her neck or her cheek ; and as he fancied 
 it, was surprised to find his breath come 
 suddenly quick, and a barely perceptible 
 qualm, as of a certain faintness, thrill 
 him to his finger-tips; and then, he 
 thought, how would it be if he could, 
 without fear of rebuff, reach out his arm 
 and put it about her trim, firm waist, and 
 draw her very close to him, till he should 
 feel the satiny coolness of her smooth 
 cheek agaiast his ; till he could sink his 
 face in the delicious, fragrant confusion 
 of her hair, then turn that face to his — 
 that face with its strong, calm mouth and 
 sweet, full lips — the face of this dear 
 young girl of nineteen, and then 
 
 " I say — I — shall we — let's read again. 
 Let's — let's do something." 
 
 " Condy, how you frightened me ! " ex- 
 claimed Blix, with a great start. "No, 
 listen : I want to talk to you, to tell you 
 something. Papum and I have been 
 
196 Blix 
 
 having some very long and serious talks 
 since you were last here. What do you 
 think, I may go away." 
 
 " The deuce you say ! " exclaimed Con- 
 dy,- sitting suddenly upright. "Where 
 to, in Heaven's name ? " he added, — " and 
 when? and what for? " 
 
 "To New York, to study medicine." 
 
 There was a silence ; then Condy ex- 
 claimed, waving his hands at her: 
 
 "Oh, go right on! Don't mind me. 
 Little thing like going to New York 
 — to study medicine. Of course, that 
 happens every day, a mere detail. I 
 presume you'll go back and forth for your 
 meals?" 
 
 Then Blix began to explain. It appear- 
 ed that she had two aunts, both sisters of 
 her father — one a widow, the other unmar- 
 ried. The widow, a certain Mrs. Kihm, 
 lived in New York, and was wealthy, and 
 had views on " women's sphere of useful- 
 ness." The other. Miss Bessemer, a little 
 old maid of fifty, Condy had oa rare 00- 
 
Blix 197 
 
 casions seen at the flat, where every one 
 called her Aunt Dodd. She lived in that 
 vague region of the city known as the 
 Mission, where she owned a little prop- 
 erty. 
 
 From what Blix told him that evening, 
 Condy learned that Mrs. Kihm had vis- 
 ited the coast a few winters previous and 
 had taken a great fancy to Blix. Even 
 then she had proposed to Mr. Bessemer 
 to take Blix back to New York with her, 
 and educate her to some woman's pro- 
 fession; but at that time the old man 
 would not listen to it. Now it seemed 
 that the opportunity had again presented 
 itself. 
 
 "She's a dear old lady," Blix said; 
 " not a bit strong-minded, as you would 
 think, and ever so much cleverer than 
 most men. She manages all her property 
 herself. Tor the last month she's been 
 writing again to Papum for me to come 
 on and stay with her three or four years. 
 She hasn't a chick nor a child, and she 
 
198 Blix 
 
 don't entertain or go out any, so may- 
 be she feels lonesome. Of course if I 
 studied there, Papum wouldn't think of 
 Aunt Kihm — don't you know- — -paying 
 for it at all. I wouldn't go if it was 
 that way. But I could stay with her 
 and she could make a home for me while 
 I was there — if I should study — any- 
 thing — study medicine." 
 
 "But why!" he exclaimed. "What 
 do you want to study to be a doctor for? 
 It isn't as though you had to support 
 yourself." 
 
 " I know, I know I've not got to sup- 
 port myself. But why shouldn't I have 
 a profession just like a man — just like 
 you, Condy? You stop and think. It 
 seemed strange to me when I first thought 
 of it; but I got thinking about it and 
 talking it over with Papum, and I should 
 love it. I'd do it, not because I would 
 have to do it, but because it would interest 
 me. Condy, you know that I'm not a 
 bit strong-minded, and that I hate a 
 
Blix 199 
 
 masculine, unfeminine girl as much as 
 you do." 
 
 "But a medical college, Blix! You 
 don't know what you are talking about." 
 
 " Yes, I do. There's a college in New 
 York just for women. Aunt Kihm sent 
 me the prospectus, and it's one of the best 
 in the country. I don't dream of practis- 
 ing, you know; at least, I don't think 
 about that now. But one must have some 
 occupation; and isn't studying medi- 
 cine, Condy, better than piano-playing, or 
 Trench courses, or literary classes and 
 Browning circles? Oh, I've no patience 
 with that kind of girl ! And look at the 
 chance I have now ; and Aunt Kihm is 
 such a dear ! Think, she writes, I could 
 go to and from the college in her coup^ 
 every day, and I would see New York; 
 and just being in a big city like that is 
 an education." 
 
 " You're right, it would be a big thing 
 for you," assented Condy, "and I like 
 the idea of you studying something. It 
 
200 Blix 
 
 would be the making of such a girl as 
 you, Blix." 
 
 And then Blix, seeing him thus ac- 
 quiescent, said : 
 
 "Well, it's all settled; Papum and I 
 both wrote last night." 
 " When are you going? " 
 " The first week in January. '' 
 "Well, that's not so awfully soon. 
 But who will take your place here? 
 However in the world would your father 
 get along without you, — and Snooky and 
 Howard?" 
 
 "Aimt Dodd is going to come." 
 "Sudden enough," said Condy, "but it 
 is a great thing for you, Blix, and I'm 
 mighty glad for you. Your future is all 
 cut out for you now. Of course your 
 aunt, if she's so fond of you and hasn't 
 any children, will leave you everything 
 — maybe settle something on you right 
 away; and you'll marry some one of 
 those New York chaps, and be great big 
 people before you know it. " 
 
Blix 20 1 
 
 " The idea, Condy ! " she protested, 
 "No; I'm going there to study medicine. 
 Oh, you don't know how enthusiastic I 
 am over the idea! I've bought some of 
 the first-year books already, and have 
 been reading them. EeaUy, Condy, they 
 are even better than ' Many Inventions.' " 
 
 "Wish / could get East," muttered 
 Condy gloomily. Blix forgot her own 
 good fortune upon the instant. 
 
 " I do so wish you could, Condy ! " she 
 exclaimed. "You are too good for a 
 Sunday supplement. / know it and yoit 
 know it, and I've heard ever so many 
 people who have read your stories say the 
 same thing. You could spend twenty 
 years working as you are now, and at 
 the end what would you be? Just an 
 assistant editor of a Sunday supplement, 
 and still in the same place ; and worse, 
 you'd come to be contented with that 
 and think you were only good for that 
 and nothing better. You've got it in 
 you, Condy, to be a great story-teller. I 
 
202 Blix 
 
 believe in you, and I've every confidence 
 in you. But just so long as you stay 
 liere and are willing to do hack work, 
 just so long you will be a hack writer. 
 You must break from it ; you must get 
 away. I know you have a good time 
 here ; but there are so many things better 
 than that and more worth while. You 
 ought to make up your mind to get East, 
 and work for that and nothing else. I 
 know you want to go, but wanting isn't 
 enough. Enthusiasm without energy 
 isn't enough. You have enthusiasm, 
 Condy ; but you must have energy. You 
 must be willing to give up things; you 
 must make up your mind that you will 
 go East, and then set your teeth together 
 and do it. Oh, I love a man that can do 
 that — make up his mind to a thing and 
 then put it through ! " 
 
 Condy watched her as she talked, her 
 brown-black eyes coruscating, her cheeks 
 glowing, her small hands curled into 
 round pink fists. 
 
Blix 203 
 
 " Blix, you're splendid ! " he exclaimed ; 
 " you're fine ! You could put life into a 
 dead man. You're the kind of girl that 
 are the making of men. By Jove, you'd 
 back a man up, wouldn't you? You'd 
 stand by him till the last ditch. Of 
 course," he went on after a pause, — "of 
 course I ought to go to New York. But, 
 Blix, suppose I went — well, then what? 
 It isn't as though I had any income of 
 my own, or rich aunt. Suppose I didn't 
 find something to do — and the chances 
 are that I wouldn't for three or four 
 months — what would I live on in the 
 mean while ? ' What would the robin do 
 then, poor thing?' I'm a poor young 
 man. Miss Bessemer, and I've got to eat. 
 No; my only chance is ' to be discov- 
 ered ' by a magazine or a publishing 
 house or somebody, and get a bid of some 
 kind." 
 
 "Well, there is the Centennial Com- 
 pany. They have taken an interest in 
 you, Condy. You must follow that right 
 
204 Blix 
 
 up and keep your name before them all 
 the time. Have you sent them 'A Vic- 
 tory Over Death ' yet? " 
 
 Condy sat down to his eggs and coffee 
 the next morning in the hotel, harried 
 with a certain sense of depression and 
 disappointment for which he could as- 
 sign no cause. Nothing seemed to inter- 
 est him. The newspaper was dull. He 
 could look forward to no pleasure in his 
 day's work; and what was the matter 
 with the sun that morning? As he 
 walked down to the office he noted no 
 cloud in the sky, but the brightness was 
 gone from the day. He sat down to his 
 desk and attacked his work, but " copy " 
 would not come. The sporting editor 
 and his inane jokes harassed him be- 
 yond expression. Just the sight of the 
 clipping editor's back was an irritation. 
 The office boy was a mere incentive 
 to profanity. There was no spring in 
 Condy that morning, no elasticity, none 
 of his natural buoyancy. As the day 
 
Blix 
 
 205 
 
 wore on, his ennui increased; his 
 luncheon at the club was tasteless, to- 
 bacco had lost its charm. He ordered a 
 cocktail in the wine-room, and put it 
 aside with a wry face. 
 
 The afternoon was one long tedium. 
 At every hour he flung his pencil down, 
 utterly unable to formulate the next sen- 
 tence of his article, and, his hands in his 
 pockets, gazed gloomily out of the win- 
 dow over the wilderness of roofs — grimy, 
 dirty, ugly roofs that spread out below. 
 He craved diversion, amusement, excite- 
 ment. Something there was that he 
 wanted with all his heart and soul ; yet 
 he was quite unable to say what it was. 
 Something was gone from him to-day 
 that he had possessed yesterday, and he 
 knew he would not regain it on the mor- 
 row, nor the next day, nor the day after 
 that. What was it? He could not say. 
 For half an hour he imagined he was go- 
 ing to be sick. His mother was not to 
 be at home that evening, and Condy dined 
 
2o6 Blix 
 
 at his club in the hopes of finding some 
 one with whom he could go to the the- 
 atre later on in the evening. Sargeant 
 joined him over his coffee and cigarette, 
 but declined to go with him to the 
 theatre. 
 
 "Another game on to-night?" asked 
 Condy. 
 
 "I suppose so," admitted the other. 
 
 "I guess I'll join you to-night," said 
 Condy. " I've had the blue devils since 
 morning, and I've got to have something 
 to drive them off." 
 
 "Don't let me urge you, you know," 
 returned Sargeant. 
 
 " Oh, that's all right ! " Condy assured 
 him. " My time's about up, anyways. " 
 
 An hour later, just as he, Sargeant, 
 and the other men of their " set " were in 
 the act of going upstairs to the card- 
 rooms, a hall-boy gave Condy a note, at 
 that moment brought by a messenger, 
 who was waiting for an answer. It was 
 from Blix. She wrote: 
 
Blix 207 
 
 "Don't you want to come up and play 
 cards with me to-night? We haven't 
 had a game in over a week. " 
 
 "How did she know? " thought Condy 
 to himself, — "how could she tell?" 
 Aloud, he said : 
 
 "I can't join you fellows, after all. 
 ' Despatch from the managing editor.' 
 Some special detail or other." 
 
 For the first time since the previous 
 evening Condy felt his spirits rise as he 
 set off toward the Washington-Street hill 
 But though he and Blix spent as merry 
 an evening as they remembered in a long 
 time, his nameless, formless irritation re- 
 turned upon him almost as soon as he 
 had bade her good-night. It stayed with 
 him all through the week, and told upon 
 his work. As a result, three of his articles 
 were thrown out by the editor. 
 
 "We can't run such rot as that in the 
 paper," the chief had said. "Can't you 
 give us a story? " 
 
 " Oh, I've got a kind of a yarn you can 
 
2o8 Blix 
 
 run if you like," answered Condy, his 
 week's depression at its very lowest. 
 
 " A Victory Over Death " was published 
 in the following Sunday's supplement of 
 Tlie Times, with illustrations bygone of 
 the staff artists. It attracted not the 
 least attention. 
 
 Just before he went to bed the Sunday 
 evening of its appearance, Condy read it 
 over again for the last time. 
 
 "It's a rotten failure," he muttered 
 gloomily as he cast the paper from him. 
 "Simple drivel. I wonder what Blix 
 will think of it. I wonder if I amount 
 to a hill of beans. I wonder what she 
 wants to go East for, anyway." 
 
IX 
 
 The old-fashioned Union-Street cable 
 car, with its low, comfortable outside 
 seats, put Blix and Condy down just in- 
 side the Presidio Government Eeserva- 
 tion. Condy asked a direction of a sen- 
 try nursing his Krag-Jb'rgensen at the 
 terminus of the track, and then with Blix 
 set off down the long board walk through 
 the tunnel of overhanging evergreens. 
 
 The day could not have been more de- 
 sirable. It was a little after ten of a 
 Monday morning, Condy's weekly holi- 
 day. The air was neither cool nor warm, 
 effervescent merely, brisk and full of the 
 smell of grass and of the sea. The sky 
 was a speckless sheen of pale blue. To 
 their right, and not far off, was the bay, 
 blue as indigo. Alcatraz seemed close at 
 hand; beyond was the enormous green, 
 14 
 
2 1 o Blix 
 
 red, and purple pyramid of Tamalpais 
 climbing out of the water, head and 
 shoulders above the little foot-hills, and 
 looking out to the sea and to the West. 
 
 The Eeservation itself was delightful. 
 There were rows of the officers' houses, 
 all alike, drawn up in lines like an as- 
 sembly of the staff; there were huge bar- 
 racks, most like college dormitories ; and 
 on their porches enlisted men in shirt 
 sleeves and overalls were cleaning saddles, 
 and polishing the brass of head-stalls and 
 bridles, whistling the whiles or smoking 
 corn-cob pipes. Here on the parade- 
 ground a soldier, his coat and vest re- 
 moved, was batting grounders and flies to 
 a half-dozen of his fellows. Over by the 
 stables, strings of horses, all of the same 
 color, were being curried and cleaned. A 
 young lieutenant upon a bicycle spun si- 
 lently past. An officer came from his 
 front gate, his coat unbuttoned and a 
 briar in his teeth. The walks and roads 
 were flanked with lines of black-painted 
 
Blix 211 
 
 cannon-balls; inverted pieces of aban- 
 doned ordnance stood at corners. From 
 a distance came the mellow snarling of a 
 bugle. 
 
 Blix and Condy had planned a long 
 walk for that day. They were to go out 
 through the Presidio Eeservation, past 
 the barracks and officers' quarters, and on 
 to the old fort at the Golden Gate. Here 
 they would turn and follow the shore-line 
 for a ways, then strike inland across the 
 hills for a short half-mile, and regain the 
 city and the street-car lines by way of 
 the golf-links. Condy had insisted upon 
 wearing his bicycle outfit for the occa- 
 sion, and, moreover, carried a little 
 satchel, which, he said, contained a pair 
 of shoes. 
 
 But Blix was as sweet as a rose that 
 morning, all in tailor-made black but 
 for the inevitable bands of white satin 
 wrapped high and tight about her neck. 
 The St. Bernard's dog-collar did duty as 
 a belt. She had disdained a veil, and 
 
212 Blix 
 
 her yellow hair was already blowing 
 about her smooth pink cheeks. She 
 walked at his side, her step as firm and 
 solid as his own, her round, strong arms 
 swinging, her little brown eyes shining 
 with good spirits and vigor, and the pure, 
 clean animal joy of being alive on that 
 fine cool Western morning. She talked 
 almost incessantly. She was positively 
 garrulous. She talked about the fine day 
 that it was, about the queer new forage 
 caps of the soldiers, about the bare green 
 hills of the reservation, about the little 
 cemetery they passed just beyond the lim- 
 its of the barracks, about a rabbit she 
 saw, and about the quail they both heard 
 whistling and calling in the hollows un- 
 der the bushes. 
 
 Condy walked at her side in silence, 
 yet no less happy than she, smoking his 
 pipe and casting occasional glances at a 
 great ship — a four-master that was being 
 towed out toward the Golden Gate. At 
 every moment and at every turn they 
 
Blix 213 
 
 noted things that interested them, and to 
 which they called each other's attention. 
 
 "Look, Blix!" 
 
 "Oh, Condy, look at that!" 
 
 They were soon out of the miniature 
 city of the Post, and held on down 
 through the low reach of tidies and sand- 
 dunes that stretch between the barracks 
 and the old red fort. 
 
 "Look, Condy!" said Blix. "What's 
 that building down there on the shore of 
 the bay — the one with the flagstaff ? " 
 
 " I think that must be the life-boat sta- 
 tion." 
 
 "I wonder if we could go down and 
 visit it. I think it would be good fun." 
 
 " Idea ! " exclaimed Condy. 
 
 The station was close at hand. To 
 reach it they had but to leave the crazy 
 board walk that led on toward the fort, 
 and cross a few hundred yards of sand- 
 dune. Condy opened the gate that broke 
 the line of evergreen hedge around the 
 little two-story house, and promptly 
 
2 1 4 Blix 
 
 unchained a veritable pandemonium of 
 dogs. 
 
 Inside, the place was not without a cer- 
 tain charm of its own. A brick walk, 
 bordered with shells, led to the front of 
 the station, which gave directly upon the 
 bay; a little well-kept lawn opened to 
 right and left, and six or eight gaily- 
 painted old row-boats were set about, half 
 filled with loam ia which fuchsias, gera- 
 niums, and mignonettes were flowering. 
 A cat or two dozed upon the window-sills 
 in the sun. Upon a sort of porch over- 
 head, two of the crew paced up and 
 down in a manner that at once suggested 
 the poop. Here and there was a gleam 
 of highly polished red copper or brass 
 trimmings. The bay was within two 
 steps of the front door, while a little 
 farther down the beach was the house 
 where the surf-boat was kept, and the 
 long run-way leading down from it to the 
 water. Condy rapped boldly at the front 
 door. It was opened by Captain Jack. 
 
Blix 215 
 
 Captain Jack, and no other; only now 
 he wore a blue sweater and a leather- 
 visored cap, with the letters U. S. L. B. S. 
 around the band. 
 
 Not an instant was given them for 
 preparation. The thing had happened 
 with the abruptness of a transformation 
 scene at a theatre. Condy's knock had 
 evoked a situation. Speech was stricken 
 from their mouths. For a moment they 
 were bereft even of action, and stood 
 there on the threshold, staring open- 
 mouthed and open-eyed at the sudden re- 
 appearance of their "matrimonial object." 
 Condy was literally dumb; in the end 
 it was Blix who tided them over the 
 crisis. 
 
 "We were just going by — just taking a 
 walk," she explained, "and we thought 
 we'd like to see the station. Is it all 
 right? Can we look around? " 
 
 " Why, of course," assented the Captain 
 with great cordiality. "Come right in. 
 This is visitors' day. You just happened 
 
2 1 6 Blix 
 
 to hit it; — only it's mighty few visitors 
 we ever have," he added. 
 
 While Condy was registering for him- 
 self and Blix, they managed to exchange 
 a lightning glance. It was evident the 
 Captain did not recognize them. The 
 situation readjusted itself, even promised 
 to be of extraordinary interest. And for 
 that matter it made little difference 
 whether the captain remembered them or 
 not. 
 
 " No, we don't get many visitors," the 
 Captain went on, as he led them out of 
 the station and down the small gravel 
 walk to the house where the surf-boat 
 was kept. "This is a quiet station. 
 People don't fetch out this way very 
 often, and we're not called out very often 
 either. We're an inside post, you see, 
 and usually we don't get a call unless 
 the sea's so high that the Cli£f House sta- 
 tion can't launch their boat. So, you 
 see, we don't go out much; but when we 
 do, it means business with a great big B. 
 
Blix 217 
 
 Now this here, you see," continued the 
 Captain, rolling back the sliding doors 
 of the house, " is the surf -boat. By the 
 way, let's see; I ain't just caught your 
 names yet." 
 
 "Well, my name's Elvers," said Condy, 
 " and this is Miss Bessemer. We're both 
 from the city." 
 
 "Happy to know you, sir; happy to 
 know you, miss," he returned, pulling off 
 his cap. " My name's Hoskins, but you 
 can just call me Captain Jack. I'm so 
 used to it that I don't kind of answer to 
 the other. Well, now. Miss Bessemer, 
 this here's the surf -boat; she's self -right- 
 in', self-bailin', she can't capsize, and if I 
 was to tell you how many thousands of 
 dollars she cost, you wouldn't believe me." 
 
 Condy and Blix spent a delightful half- 
 hour in the boat-house while Captain 
 Jack explained and illustrated, and told 
 them anecdotes of wrecks, escapes, and 
 rescues till they held their breaths like 
 ten-year-olds. 
 
21 8 Blix 
 
 It did not take Condy long to know 
 that he had discovered what the story- 
 teller so often tells of but so seldom 
 finds, and what, for want of a better 
 name, he elects to call "a character." 
 
 Captain Jack had been everywhere, had 
 seen everything, and had done most of the 
 things worth doing, including a great 
 many things that he had far better have 
 left undone. But on this latter point the 
 Captain seemed to be innocently and com- 
 pletely devoid of a moral sense of right 
 and wrong. It was quite evident that 
 he saW no matter for conscience in the 
 smuggling of Chinamen across the Cana- 
 dian border at thirty dollars a head — a 
 venture in which he had had the assis- 
 tance of the prodigal son of an Ameri- 
 can divine of international renown. The 
 trade to Peruvian insurgents of con- 
 demned rifles was to be regretted only 
 because the ring manipulating it was 
 broken up. The appropriation of a 
 schooner in the harbor of Callao was a 
 
Blix 2 1 9 
 
 story in itself; while the robbery of 
 thirty thousand dollars' worth of sea- 
 otter skins from a Eussian trading-post 
 in Alaska, accomplished chiefly through 
 the agency of a barrel of rum manufac- 
 tured from sugar-cane, was a veritable 
 achievement. 
 
 He had been bom, so he told them, in 
 Winchester, in England, and — Heaven 
 save the mark! — had been brought up 
 with a view of taking orders. For some 
 time he was a choir boy in the great 
 Winchester Cathedral ; then, while yet a 
 lad, had gone to sea. He had been boat- 
 steerer on a New Bedford whaler, and 
 struck his first whale when only sixteen. 
 He had filibustered down to Chili; had 
 acted as ice pilot on an Arctic relief ex- 
 pedition ; had captained a crew of China- 
 men shark-fishing in Magdalena Bay, 
 and had been nearly murdered by his 
 men ; had been a deep-sea diver, and had 
 burst his ear-drums at the business, so 
 that now he could blow tobacco smoke 
 
220 Blix 
 
 out of his ears ; he had been shipwrecked 
 in the Gilberts, fought with the Seris on 
 the lower California Islands, sold cham- 
 pagne — made from rock candy, efferves- 
 cent salts, and Eeisling wine — to the 
 Coreans, had dreamed of "holding up" 
 a Cunard liner, and had ridden on 
 the Strand in a hansom with William 
 Ewart Gladstone. But the one thing of 
 which he was proud, the one picture of 
 his life he most delighted to recall, was 
 himself as manager of a negro minstrel 
 troupe, in a hired drum-major's imifomi, 
 marching down the streets of Sacramento 
 at the head of the brass band in burnt 
 cork and regimentals. 
 
 "The star of the troupe," he told them, 
 "was the lady with the iron jore. We 
 busted in Stockton, and she gave me her 
 diamonds to pawn. I pawned 'em, and 
 kept back something in the hand for 
 myself and hooked it to San Francisco. 
 Strike me straight if she didn't follow 
 me, that iron- jored piece ; met me one day 
 
Blix 221 
 
 in front of the Bush-Street Theatre, and 
 horsewhipped me properly. Now, just 
 think of that," — and he laughed as though 
 it was the best kind of a joke. 
 
 "But," hazarded Blix, "don't you find 
 it rather dull out here — lonesome? I 
 should think you would want to have 
 some one with you to keep you company 
 — to — to do your cooking for you ? " 
 
 But Condy, ignoring her diplomacy 
 and thinking only of possible stories, 
 blundered off upon another track. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "you've led such a life 
 of action, I should think this station 
 would be pretty dull for you. How did 
 you happen to choose it? " 
 
 "Well, you see," answered the Captain, 
 leaning against the smooth white flank of 
 the surf-boat, his hands in his pockets, 
 " I'm lying low just now. I got into a 
 scrape down at Libertad, in Mexico, that 
 made talk, and I'm waiting for that to 
 die down some. You see, it was this 
 way. " 
 
222 Blix 
 
 Mindful of their experience with the 
 mate of the whaleback, Condy and Blix 
 were all attention in an instant. Blix 
 sat down upon an upturned box, her 
 elbows on her knees, leaning forward, her 
 little eyes fixed and shining with interest 
 and expectation; Condy, the story-teller 
 all alive and vibrant in him, stood at her 
 elbow, smoking cigarette after cigarette, 
 his fingers dancing with excitement and 
 animation as the Captain spoke. 
 
 And then it was that Condy and Blix, 
 in that isolated station, the bay lapping 
 at the shore within ear-shot, in that at- 
 mosphere redolent of paint and oakum 
 and of seaweed decaying upon the beach 
 outside, first heard the story of " In De- 
 fiance of Authority." 
 
 Captain Jack began it with his experi- 
 ence as a restaurant keeper during the 
 boom days in Seattle, Washington. He 
 told them how he was the cashier of a 
 dining-saloon whose daily net profits 
 exceeded eight hundred dollars; how its 
 
Blix 
 
 223 
 
 proprietor suddenly died, and how he, 
 Captain Jack, continued the management 
 of the restaurant pending a settlement of 
 the proprietor's affairs and an appearance 
 of heirs ; how in the confusion and ex- 
 citement of the boom no settlement was 
 ever made ; and how, no heirs appearing, 
 he assumed charge of the establishment 
 himself, paying bills, making contracts, 
 and signing notes, until he came to con- 
 sider the business and all its enormous 
 profits as his own ; and how at last, when 
 the restaurant was burned, he found him 
 self some forty thousand dollars " ahead 
 of the game." 
 
 Then he told them of the strange club 
 of the place, called "The Exiles," made 
 up chiefly of " younger sons " of English 
 and British - Canadian families, every 
 member possessed of a " past " more or 
 less disreputable ; men who had left their 
 country for their country's good, and for 
 their family's peace of mind — adventur- 
 ers, wanderers, soldiers of fortune, gentle- 
 
224 ^^^^ 
 
 men-vagabonds, men of hyphenated names 
 and even noble birth, whose appellations 
 were avowedly aliases. He told them 
 of his meeting with Billy Isham, one of 
 the club's directors, and of the happy-go- 
 lucky, reckless, unpractical character of 
 the man ; of their acquaintance, intimacy, 
 and subsequent partnership ; of how the 
 filibustering project was started with Cap- 
 tain Jack's forty thousand, and the never- 
 to-be-forgotten interview in San Francisco 
 with Senora Estrada, the agent of the in- 
 surgents; of the incident of her calling- 
 card — how she tore it ia two and gave 
 one-half to Isham ; of their outfitting, and 
 the broken sextant that was to cause their 
 ultimate discomfiture and disaster, and of 
 the voyage to the rendezvous on a Pana- 
 ma liner. 
 
 " Strike me ! " contiaued Captain Jack, 
 "you should have seen Billy Isham on 
 that Panama dough-dish; a passenger 
 ship she was, and Billy was the life of 
 her from stem to stem-post. There was 
 
Blix 225 
 
 a church pulpit aboard that they were 
 taking down to Mazatlan for some chapel 
 or other, and this here pulpit was lashed 
 on deck aft. Well, Billy had been most 
 kinds of a fool in his life, and amongst 
 others a play-actor j called hisself Gaston 
 Maundeville, and was clean daft on his 
 knowledge of Shakespeare and his own 
 power of interpretin' the hidden meanin' 
 of the lines. I ain't never going to for- 
 git the day he gave us Portia's speech. 
 We were just under the tropic, and the 
 day was a scorcher. There was mostly 
 men folk aboard, and we lay around the 
 deck in our pajamas, while Billy — Gaston 
 Maundeville, dressed in striped red and 
 white pajamas — clum up in that bally 
 pulpit, with the ship's Shakespeare in his 
 hands, an' let us have — "The quality o' 
 mercy isn't strained; it droppeth as the 
 genteel dew from heavun.' Laugh, I tell 
 you I was sore with it. Lord, how we 
 guyed him ! An' the more we guyed and 
 the more we laughed, the more serious 
 15 
 
226 Blix 
 
 he got and the madder he grew. He said 
 he was interpretin' the hidden meanin' of 
 the lines." 
 
 And so the Captain ran through that 
 wild, fiery tale, — of fighting and loving, 
 buccaneering and conspiring j mandolins 
 tinkling, knives clicking; oaths min- 
 gling with sonnets, and spilled wine with 
 spilled blood. He told them of Isham's 
 knife duel with the Mexican lieutenant, 
 their left wrists lashed together; of the 
 " battle of the thirty " in the pitch dark 
 of the Custom-House cellar; of Senora 
 Estrada's love for Isham ; and all the roll 
 and plunge of action that make up the 
 story of "In Defiance of Authority." 
 
 At the end, Blix's little eyes were snap- 
 ping like sparks ; Condy's face was flam- 
 ing, his hands were cold, and he was 
 shifting his weight from foot to foot, like 
 an excited thoroughbred horse. 
 
 " Heavens and earth, what a yam ! " he 
 exclaimed almost in a whisper. 
 
 Blix drew a long, tremulous breath and 
 
Blix 227 
 
 sat back upon the upturned box, looking 
 around her as though she had but that 
 moment been awakened. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the Captain, rolling a 
 cigarette. "Yes, sir, those were great 
 days. Get down there around the line 
 in those little, out-o'-the-way republics 
 along the South American coast, and 
 things happen to you. You hold a man's 
 life in the crook of your forefinger, an' 
 nothing's done by halves. If you hate a 
 man, you lay awake nights biting your 
 mattress, just thinking how you hate 
 him; an' if you love a woman, — good 
 Lord, how you do love her ! " 
 
 "But— but!" exclaimed Condy, "I 
 don't see how you can want to do any- 
 thing else. Why, you're living sixty to 
 the minute when you're playing a game 
 like that!" 
 
 " Oh, I ain't dead yet ! " answered the 
 Captain. " I got a few schemes left that 
 I could get fun out of." 
 
 " How can you wait a minute ! " ex- 
 
228 Blix 
 
 claimed Blix breathlessly. "Why don't 
 you get a ship right away — to-morrow — 
 and go right off on some other adventure? " 
 "Well, I can't just now," returned the 
 Captain, blowing the smoke from his 
 cigarette through his ears. "There's a 
 good many reasons; one of 'em is that 
 I've just been married." 
 
"Mum — MAE — MAKEiED ! " gasped 
 Condy, swallowing something in his 
 throat. 
 
 Blix rose to her feet. 
 
 " Just been married ! " she repeated, 
 a little frightened. "Why — why — why, 
 how delightful ! " 
 
 "Yes — yes," mumbled Condy. "How 
 delightful. I congratulate you ! " 
 
 "Come in, — come back to the station," 
 said the Captain jovially, "and I'll intro- 
 duce you to m' wife. We were married 
 only last Sunday." 
 
 "Why, yes — yes, of course, we'd be 
 delighted," vociferated the two conspira- 
 tors a little hysterically. 
 
 "She's a mighty fine little woman," 
 declared the Captain, as he rolled the 
 door of the boat-house to its place and 
 
230 Blix 
 
 preceded them up the gravel walk to the 
 station. 
 
 "Of course she is," responded Blix. 
 Behind Captain Jack's back she fixed 
 Condy with a wide-eyed look, and 
 nudged him fiercely with an elbow to 
 recall him to himself ; for Condy's wits 
 were scattered like a flock of terrified 
 birds, and he was gazing blankly at the 
 Captain's coat collar with a vacant, ma- 
 niacal smile. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, Condy ! " she had 
 time to whisper before they arrived in the 
 hallway of the station. 
 
 But fortunately they were allowed a 
 minute or so to recover themselves and 
 prepare for what was coming. Captain 
 Jack ushered them into what was either 
 the parlor, office, or sitting-room of the 
 station, and left them with the words : 
 
 "Just make yourselves comfortable 
 here, an' I'll go fetch the little woman." 
 
 No sooner had he gone than the two 
 turned to each other. 
 
Blix 231 
 
 "Well!" 
 
 " Well ! " 
 
 "We're in for it now." 
 
 " But we must see it through, Condy ; 
 act just as natural as you can, and we're 
 all right." 
 
 " But supposing she recognizes us ? " 
 
 "Supposing she does, — what then? 
 How are they to know that we wrote the 
 letters?" 
 
 "Sh, Blix, not so loud! They know 
 by now that they didn't." 
 
 " But it seems that it hasn't made any 
 difference to themj they are married. 
 And besides, they wouldn't speak about 
 putting ' personals ' in the paper to us. 
 They would never let anybody know 
 that." 
 
 "Do you suppose they could possibly 
 suspect? " 
 
 "I'm sure they couldn't." 
 
 "Here they come." 
 
 "Keep perfectly calm, and we're 
 saved. " 
 
232 
 
 Blix 
 
 "Suppose it isn't K. D. B., after all? " 
 
 But it was, of course, and she recog- 
 nized them in an instant. She and the 
 Captain — the latter all grins — came in 
 from the direction of the kitchen, K. D. 
 B. wearing a neat blue calico gown and 
 an apron that was really a marvel of 
 cleanliness and starch. 
 
 " Kitty ! " exclaimed Captain Jack, 
 seized again with an unexplainable mirth, 
 " here's some young folks come out to see 
 the place, an' I want you to know 'em. 
 Mr. Elvers, this is m' wife, Kitty, and 
 — lessee, miss, I don't rightly remember 
 your name." 
 
 "Bessemer!" exclaimed Condy and 
 Blix in a breath. 
 
 "Oh! " exclaimed K. D. B., "you were 
 in the restaurant the night that the Cap- 
 tain and I — I — that is — yes, I'm quite 
 sure I've seen you before. " She turned 
 from one to the other, beginning to blush 
 furiously. 
 
 " Yes, yes, in Luna's restaurant, wasn't 
 
Blix 233 
 
 it?" said Condy desperately. "It seems 
 to me I do just barely remember." 
 
 "And wasn't the Captain there? " Blix 
 ventured. 
 
 "I forgot my stick, I remember," con- 
 tinued Condy. " I came back for it ; and 
 just as I was going out, it seems to me I 
 saw you two at a table near the door. " 
 
 He thought it best to allow their 
 " matrimonial objects " to believe he had 
 not seen them before. 
 
 "Yes, yes, we were there," answered 
 K. D. B. tactfully. " We dine there al- 
 most every Monday night." 
 
 Blix guessed that K. D. B. would pre- 
 fer to have the real facts of the situation 
 ignored, and determined she should have 
 the chance to change the conversation if 
 she wished. 
 
 "What a delicious supper one has 
 there ! " she said. 
 
 "Can't say I like Mexican cooking 
 myself," answered K. D. B., forgetting 
 that they dined there every Monday 
 
234 Blix 
 
 night. "Plain United States is good 
 enough for me." 
 
 Suddenly Captain Jack turned ab- 
 ruptly to Condy, exclaiming: "Oh, you 
 was the chap that called the picture of 
 that schooner a barkentine." 
 
 "Yes; wasn't that a barkentine?" he 
 answered innocently. 
 
 " Barkentine your eye ! " spluttered the 
 captain. " Why, that was a schooner as 
 plain as a pie plate." 
 
 But ten minutes later the ordeal was 
 over, and Blix and Condy, once more 
 breathing easy, were on their walk 
 again. The captain and K. D. B. had 
 even accompanied them to the gate of 
 the station, and had strenuously urged 
 them to " come in and see them again 
 the next time they were out that way." 
 
 " Married ! " murmured Condy, putting 
 both hands to his head. "We've done 
 it, we've done it now." 
 
 "Well, what of it?" declared Blix, a 
 little defiantly. " I think it's all right. 
 
Blix 235 
 
 You can see the captain is in love with 
 her, and she with him. No, we've noth- 
 ing to reproach ourselves with." 
 
 " But — but — but so sudden ! " whis- 
 pered Condy, all aghast. "That's what 
 makes me faint — the suddenness of it." 
 
 " It shows how much they are in love, 
 how — how readily they — adapted them- 
 selves to each other. No, it's all right. " 
 
 "They seemed to like us — actually." 
 
 " Well, they had better — if they knew 
 the truth. Without us they never would 
 have met." 
 
 " They both asked us to come out and 
 see them again, did you notice that? 
 Let's do it, Blix," Condy suddenly ex- 
 claimed ; " let's get to know them. " 
 
 " Of course we must. Wouldn't it be 
 fun to call on them — to get regularly 
 acquainted with them ! " 
 
 "They might ask us to dinner some 
 time." 
 
 "And think of the stories he could 
 tell you I" 
 
236 Blix 
 
 They enthused immediately upon this 
 subject, both talking excitedly at the 
 same time, going over the details of the 
 captain's yarns, recalling the incidents to 
 each other. 
 
 "Fancy!" exclaimed Condy — "fancy 
 Billy Isham in his pajamas, red and 
 white stripes, reading Shakespeare from 
 that pulpit on board the ship, and the 
 other men guying him! Isn't that a 
 scene for you? Can't you just see it? " 
 
 " I wonder if the captain wasn't mak- 
 ing all those things up as he went along. 
 He don't seem to have any sense of right 
 and wrong at all. He might have been 
 lying, Condy." 
 
 " What difference would that make ? " 
 
 And so they went along in that fine, 
 clear. Western morning, on the edge of 
 the Continent, both of them young and 
 strong and vigorous, the Pacific under 
 their eyes, the great clean Trades blowing 
 in their faces, the smell of the salt sea 
 coming in long aromatic whiffs to their 
 
Blix 237 
 
 nostrils. Young and strong and fresh, 
 their imaginations thronging with pictures 
 of vigorous action and adventure, buc- 
 caneering, filibustering, and all the swing, 
 the leap, the rush and gallop, the exu- 
 berant, strong life of the great, uncharted 
 world of Eomance. 
 
 And all unknowingly they were a 
 Eomance in themselves. Cynicism, old 
 age, and the weariness of all things done 
 had no place in the world in which they 
 walked. They still had their illusions, 
 all the keenness of their sensations, all 
 the vividness of their impressions. The 
 simple things of the world, the great, 
 broad, primal emotions of the race stirred 
 in them. As they swung along, going 
 toward the ocean, their brains were al- 
 most as empty of thought or of reflection 
 as those of two fine, clean animals. 
 They were all for the immediate sen- 
 sation; they did not think — they fdt. 
 The intellect was dormant; they looked 
 at things, they heard things, they smelt 
 
238 Blix 
 
 the smell of the sea, and of the seaweed, 
 of the fat, rank growth of cresses in the 
 salt marshes ; they turned their cheeks 
 to the passing wind, and filled their 
 mouths and breasts with it. Their life 
 was sweet to them ; every hour was one 
 glad effervescence. The fact that the 
 ocean was blue was a matter for rejoic- 
 ing. It was good to be alive on that 
 royal morning. Just to be young was 
 an exhilaration; and everything was 
 young with them — the day was young, 
 the country was young, and the civiliza- 
 tion to which they belonged, teeming 
 there upon the green, Western fringe of 
 the continent, was young and heady and 
 tumultuous with the boisterous, red blood 
 of a new race. 
 
 Condy even forgot, or rather disdained 
 on such a morning as that, to piece to- 
 gether and rearrange Captain Jack's 
 yarns into story form. To look at the 
 sea and the green hills, to watch the pink 
 on Blix's cheek and her yellow hair 
 
Blix 
 
 239 
 
 blowing across her eyes and lips, was bet- 
 ter than thinking. Life was better than 
 literature. To live was better than to 
 read; one live human being was better 
 than ten thousand Shakespeares ; an act 
 was better than a thought. Why, just 
 to love Blix, to be with her, to see the 
 sweet, clean flush of her cheek, to know 
 that she was there at his side, and to 
 have the touch of her elbow as they 
 walked, was better than the best story, 
 the greatest novel he could ever hope to 
 write. Life was better than literature, 
 and love was the best thing in life. To 
 love Blix and to be near her — what else 
 was worth while? Could he ever think 
 of finding anything in life sweeter and 
 finer than this dear young girl of nine- 
 teen? 
 
 Suddenly Condy came to himself with 
 an abrupt start. What was this he was 
 thinking — what was this he was telling 
 himself? Love Blix! He loved Blix! 
 Why, of course he loved her — loved her 
 
240 Blix 
 
 so, that with the thought of it there came 
 a great, sudden clutch at the heart and a 
 strange sense of tenderness, so vague and 
 yet so great that it eluded speech and all 
 expression. Love her! Of course he 
 loved her ! He had, all unknowing, loved 
 her even before this wonderful morning; 
 had loved her that day at the lake, and 
 that never-to-be-forgotten, delicious after- 
 noon in the Chinese restaurant; all those 
 long, quiet evenings spent in the window 
 of the little dining-room, looking down 
 upon the darkening city, he had loved 
 her. Why, all his days for the last few 
 months had been full of the love of her. 
 
 How else had he been so happy ? how 
 else did it come about that little by little 
 he was withdrawing from the society and 
 influence of his artificial world, as repre- 
 sented by such men as Sergeant? how 
 else was he slowly loosening the grip of 
 the one evil and vicious habit that had 
 clutched him so long? how else was his 
 ambition stirring ? how else was his hith- 
 
Blix 241 
 
 erto aimless enthusiasm hardening to 
 energy and determination ? She had not 
 always so influenced him. In the days 
 when they had just known each other, 
 and met each other in the weekly course 
 of their formal life, it had not been so, 
 even though they pretended a certain 
 amount of affection. He remembered 
 the evening when Blix had brought those 
 days to an abrupt end, and how at the 
 moment he had told himself that after 
 all he had never known the real Blix. 
 SiQce then, in the charming, unconven- 
 tional life they had led, everything had 
 been changed. He had come to know 
 her for what she was, to know her genu- 
 ine goodness, her sincerity, her contempt 
 of affectations, her comradeship, her calm, 
 fine strength and unbroken good nature ; 
 and day by day, here a little and there a 
 little, his love for her had grown so qui- 
 etly, so evenly, that he had never known 
 it, until now, behold! it was suddenly 
 
 come to flower, full and strong — a flower 
 16 
 
242 Blix 
 
 whose fragrance had suddenly filled all 
 his life and all his world with its sweet- 
 ness. 
 
 Half an hour after leaving the life-boat 
 station, Condy and Blix reached the old, 
 red-brick fort, deserted, abandoned, and 
 rime-encrusted, at the entrance of the 
 Golden Gate. They turned its angle, and 
 there rolled the Pacific, a blue floor of 
 shifting water, stretching out there for- 
 ever and forever over the curve of the 
 earth, over the shoulder of the world, 
 with never a sail in view and never a 
 break from horizon to horizon. 
 
 They followed down the shore, some- 
 times upon the old and broken flume that 
 runs along the seaward face of the hills 
 that rise from the beach, or sometimes 
 upon the beach itself, stepping from 
 boulder to boulder, or holding along at 
 the edge of the water upon reaches of 
 white, hard sand. 
 
 The beach was solitary ; not a soul was 
 in sight. Close at hand, to landward, 
 
Blix 243 
 
 great hills, bare and green, shut off the 
 sky; and here and there the land came 
 tumbling down into the sea in great, 
 jagged, craggy rocks, knee-deep in swirl- 
 ing foam, and all black with wet. The 
 air was full of the prolonged thunder of 
 the surf, and at intervals sea-birds passed 
 overhead with an occasional, piping cry. 
 Wreckage was tumbled about here and 
 there; and innumerable cocoanut shards, 
 huge, brown cups of fuzzy bark, lay un- 
 der foot and in the crevices of the rocks. 
 They found a jelly-fish — a pulpy, trans- 
 lucent mass; and once even caught a 
 sight of a seal in the hollow of a breaker, 
 with sleek and shining head, his barbels 
 bristling, and heard his hoarse croaking 
 bark as he hunted the off-shore fish. 
 
 Blix refused to allow Condy to help 
 her in the least. She was quite as active 
 and strong as he, and clambered from 
 rock to rock and over the shattered 
 scantling of the flume with the vigor 
 and agility of a young boy. She mud- 
 
244 ^^^^ 
 
 died her shoes to the very tops, scratched 
 her hands, tore her skirt, and even twist- 
 ed her ankle; but her little eyes were 
 never so bright, nor was the pink flush 
 of her cheeks ever more adorable. And 
 she was never done talking — a veritable 
 chatterbox. She saw everything and 
 talked about everything she saw, quite 
 indifferent as to whether or no Condy 
 listened. Now it was a queer bit of sea- 
 weed, now it was a group of gulls clam- 
 oring over a dead fish, now a purple 
 star-fish, now a breaker of unusual size. 
 Her splendid vitality carried her away. 
 She was excited, alive to her very finger- 
 tips, vibrant to the least sensation, quiv- 
 ering to the least impression. 
 
 " Let's get up here and sit down some- 
 where," said Condy, at length. 
 
 They left the beach and climbed up 
 the slope of the hills, near a point where 
 a long arm of land thrust out into the 
 sea and shut off the wind ; a path was 
 there, and they followed it for a few 
 
Blix 245 
 
 yards, till they had come to a little am- 
 phitheatre surrounded with blackberry 
 bushes. 
 
 Here they sat down, Blix settling 
 herself on an old log with a little sigh 
 of contentment, Condy stretching himself 
 out, a new-lit pipe in his teeth, his head 
 resting on the little handbag he had per- 
 sistently carried ever since morning. 
 Then Blix fell suddenly silent, and for a 
 long time the two sat there without 
 speaking, absorbed in the enjoyment of 
 looking at the enormous green hills roll- 
 ing down to the sea, the breakers thun- 
 dering at the beach, the gashed pinnacles 
 of rock, the vast reach of the Pacific, and 
 the distant prospect of the old fort at the 
 entrance of the Golden Gate. 
 
 " We might be a thousand miles away 
 from the city, for all the looks of it, 
 mightn't we, Condy ? " said Blix, after a 
 while. " And I'm that hungry ! It 
 must be nearly noon." 
 
 For answer, Condy sat up with pro- 
 
246 Blix 
 
 found gravity, and with a great air of 
 nonchalance opened the handbag, and, 
 instead of shoes, took out, first, a pint 
 bottle of claret, then " devilish " ham 
 sandwiches in oiled paper, a bottle of 
 stuffed olives, a great bag of salted al- 
 monds, two little tumblers, a paper-cov- 
 ered novel, and a mouth organ. 
 
 Blix fairly crowed with delight, clasp- 
 ing her hands upon her knees, and rock- 
 ing to and fro where she sat upon the 
 log. 
 
 "Oh, Condy, and you thought of a 
 lunch — you said it was shoes — and you 
 remembered I loved stuffed olives, too; 
 and a book to read. What is it — ' The 
 Seven Seas.' No, I never was so happy. 
 But the mouth organ — what's that for? " 
 
 "To play on. What did you think — 
 think it was a can-opener? " 
 
 Blix choked with merriment over his 
 foolery, and Condy added proudly : 
 
 "Look there! / made those sand- 
 wiches ! " 
 
Blix 247 
 
 They looked aa though he had — great, 
 fat chunks of bread, the crust still on; 
 the " devilish " ham in thick strata be- 
 tween ; and, positively, he had buttered 
 the bread. But it was all one with 
 them ; they ate as though at a banquet, 
 and Blix even took off her hat and hung 
 it upon one of the near-by bushes. Of 
 course Condy had forgotten a corkscrew. 
 He tried to dig out the cork of the claret 
 bottle with his knife, until he had broken 
 both blades and was about to give up in 
 despair, when Blix, at the end of her 
 patience, took the bottle from him and 
 pushed in the cork with her finger. 
 
 "Wine, music, literature, and feast- 
 ing," observed Condy. "We're getting 
 regularly luxurious, just like Sardine- 
 apalus." 
 
 But Condy himself had suddenly en- 
 tered into an atmosphere of happiness, 
 the like of which he had never known or 
 dreamed of before. He loved Blix — he 
 had just discovered it. He loved her 
 
248 Blix 
 
 because she was so genuine, so radiantly 
 fresh and strong; loved her because she 
 liked the things that he liked, because 
 they two looked at the world from pre- 
 cisely the same point of view, hating 
 shams and affectations, happy in the 
 things that were simple and honest and 
 natural. He loved her because she liked 
 his books, appreciating the things therein 
 that he appreciated, liking what he liked, 
 disapproving of what he condemned. 
 He loved her because she was nineteen, 
 and because she was so young and un- 
 spoiled and was happy just because the 
 ocean was blue and the morning fine. 
 He loved her because she was so pretty, 
 because of the softness of her yellow hair, 
 because of her round, white forehead and 
 pink cheeks, because of her little, dark- 
 brown eyes, with that look in them as if 
 she were just done smiling or just about 
 to smile, one could not say which; 
 loved her because of her good, firm 
 mouth and chin, because of her full neck 
 
Blix 249 
 
 and its high, tight bands of white satin. 
 And he loved her because her arms were 
 strong and round, and because she wore 
 the great dog collar around her trim, 
 firm- corseted waist, and because there 
 emanated from her with every move- 
 ment a barely perceptible, delicious, fem- 
 inine odor, that was in part perfume, but 
 mostly a subtle, vague aroma, charming 
 beyond words, that came from her mouth, 
 her hair, her neck, her arms, her whole 
 sweet personality. And he loved her 
 because she was herself, because she was 
 Blix, because of that strange, sweet influ- 
 ence that was disengaged from her in 
 those quiet moments when she seemed so 
 close to him, when some unnamed, mys- 
 terious, sixth sense in him stirred and 
 woke and told him of her goodness, of 
 her clean purity and womanliness ; and 
 that certain, vague tenderness in him 
 went out toward her, a tenderness not for 
 her only, but for all the good things of 
 the world; and he felt his nobler side 
 
250 Blix 
 
 rousing up and the awakening of the de- 
 sire to be his better self. 
 
 Covertly he looked at her, as she sat 
 near him, her yellow hair rolling and 
 blowing back from her forehead, her 
 hands clasped over her knee, looking out 
 over the ocean, thoughtful, her eyes 
 wide. 
 
 She had told him she did not love 
 him. Condy remembered that perfectly 
 well. She was sincere in the matter; 
 she did not love him. That subject had 
 been once and for all banished from their 
 intercourse. And it was because of that 
 very reason that their companionship of 
 the last three or four months had been so 
 charming. She looked upon him merely 
 as a chum. She had not changed in the 
 least from that time until now, whereas 
 he— why, all his world was new for him 
 that morning! Why, he loved her so, 
 she had become so dear to him, that the 
 very thought of h^r made his heart swell 
 and leap. 
 
Blix 25 1 
 
 But he must keep all this to himself. 
 If he spoke to her, told her of how he 
 loved her, it would spoil and end their 
 companionship upon the instant. They 
 had both agreed upon that; they had 
 tried the other, and it had worked out. 
 As lovers they had wearied of each other ; 
 as chums they had been perfectly conge- 
 nial, thoroughly and completely happy. 
 
 Condy set his teeth. It was a hard 
 situation. He must choose between 
 bringing an end to this charming com- 
 radeship of theirs, or else fight back all 
 show of love for her, keep it down and 
 under hand, and that at a time when 
 every nerve of him quivered like a smit- 
 ten harp-string. It was not in him or 
 in his temperament to love her calmly, 
 quietly, or at a distance; he wanted the 
 touch of her hand, the touch of her cool, 
 smooth cheek, the delicious aroma of her 
 breath in his nostrils, her lips against his, 
 her hair and all its fragrance in his face. 
 
 "Condy, what's the matter?" Blix 
 
252 Blix 
 
 was looking at him with an expression of 
 no little concern. " What are you frown- 
 ing so about, and clinching your fists? 
 And you're pale, too. What's gone 
 wrong? " 
 
 He shot a glance at her, and bestirred 
 himself sharply. 
 
 "Isn't this a jolly little corner?" he 
 said. "Blix, how long is it before you 
 go?" 
 
 " Six weeks from to-morrow. " 
 
 "And you're going to be gone four 
 years — four years! Maybe you never 
 will come back. Can't tell what will 
 happen in four years. Where's the 
 blooming mouth-organ ? " 
 
 But the mouth-organ was full of 
 crumbs. Condy could not play on it. 
 To all his efforts it responded only by 
 gasps, mournfuUest death-rattles, and la- 
 mentable wails. Condy hurled it into the 
 sea. 
 
 "Well, Where's the blooming book, 
 then?" he demanded. "You're sitting 
 
Blix 
 
 253 
 
 on it, Blix. Here, read something in it. 
 Open it anywhere." 
 
 "No; you read to me." 
 
 "I will not. Haven't I done enough? 
 Didn't I luy the book and get the lunch, 
 and make the sandwiches, and pay the 
 car-fare. I think this expedition will 
 cost me pretty near three dollars before 
 we're through with the day. No; the 
 least you can do is to read to me. Here, 
 we'll match for it." 
 
 Condy drew a dime from his pocket, 
 and Blix a quarter from her purse. 
 
 "You're matching me," she said. 
 
 Condy tossed the coin and lost, and 
 Blix said, as he picked up the book : 
 
 "For a man that has such unvarying 
 bad luck as you, gambling is just simple 
 madness. You and I have never played 
 a game of poker yet that I've not won 
 every cent of money you had." 
 
 " Yes ; and what are you doing with it 
 all?" 
 
 "Spending it," she returned loftily; 
 
254 Blix 
 
 "gloves and veils and lace pins — all 
 kinds of things." 
 
 But' Condy knew the way she spoke 
 that this was not true. 
 
 For the next hour or so he read to her 
 from "The Seven Seas," while the after- 
 noon passed, the wind stirring the chap- 
 paral and blackberry bushes in the hollows 
 of the huge, bare hills, the surf rolling 
 and grumbling on the beach below, the 
 sea-birds wheeling overhead. Blix lis- 
 tened intently, but Condy could not have 
 told of what he was reading. Living was 
 better than reading, life was better than 
 literature, and his new-found love for her 
 was poetry enough for him. He read so 
 that he might not talk to her or look at 
 her, for it seemed to him at times as 
 though some second self in him would 
 speak and betray him in spite of his best 
 efforts. Never before in all his life had 
 he been so happy; never before had he 
 been so troubled. He began to jumble 
 the lines and words as he read, overrun- 
 
Blix 255 
 
 ning periods, even turning two pages at 
 once. 
 
 "What a splendid line!" Blix ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 "What line — what — what are you 
 talking about? Blix, let's always re- 
 member to-day. Let's make a promise, 
 no matter what happens or where we 
 are, let's always write to each other on 
 the anniversary of to-day. What do you 
 say?" 
 
 "Yes; I'll promise — and you " 
 
 "I'll promise faithfully. Oh, I'll 
 never forget to-day nor — yes, yes, I'll 
 promise — why, to-day — Blix — where's 
 that damn book gone ? " 
 
 "Condy!" 
 
 " Well, I can't find the book. You're 
 sitting on it again. Confoimd the book, 
 anyway! Let's walk some more." 
 
 " We've a long ways to go if we're to 
 get home in time for supper. Let's go 
 to Luna's for supper." 
 
 "I never saw such a girl as you to 
 
256 Blix 
 
 think of ways for spending money. 
 What kind of a purse-proud plutocrat do 
 you think I am? I've only seventy-five 
 cents left. How much have you got? " 
 
 Blix had fifty-five cents in her purse, 
 and they had a grave council over their 
 finances. They had just enough for 
 car-fare and two "suppers Mexican," 
 with ten cents left over. 
 
 "That's for Eichard's tip," said Blix. 
 
 "That's for my cigar," he retorted. 
 
 "You made me give him fifty cents. 
 You said it was the least I could offer 
 him — noUesse oblige." 
 
 "Well, then, I couldn't offer him a 
 dime, don't you see? I'll tell him we 
 are broke this time." 
 
 They started home, not as they had 
 come, but climbing the hill and going on 
 across a breezy open down, radiant with 
 blue iris, wild heliotrope, yellow poppies, 
 and even a violet here and there. A 
 little further on they gained one of the 
 roads of the Reservation, red earth 
 
Blix 257 
 
 smooth as a billiard table; and just at 
 an angle where the road made a sharp 
 elbow and trended cityward, they paused 
 for a moment and loolied down and back 
 at the superb view of the ocean, the vast 
 half -moon of land, and the rolling hills in 
 the foreground tumbling down toward 
 the beach and all spangled with wild 
 flowers. 
 
 Some fifteen minutes later they reached 
 the golf links. 
 
 "We can go across the links," said 
 Condy, "and strike any number of car 
 lines on the other side." 
 
 They left the road and struck across 
 the links, Condy smoking his new-lit 
 pipe. But as they came around the edge 
 of a long line of eucalyptus trees near the 
 teeing ground, a warning voice suddenly 
 called out: 
 
 "Fore!" 
 
 Condy and Blix looked up sharply, and 
 there in a group not twenty feet away, in 
 tweeds and "knickers," in smart, short 
 17 
 
258 Blix 
 
 golfing skirts and plaid cloaks, they saw 
 young Sargeant and his sister, two other 
 girls whom they knew as n»embers of the 
 fashionable "set," and Jack Carter in the 
 act of swinging his driving iron. 
 
XI 
 
 As the clock in the library of the club 
 struck midnight, Condy laid down his 
 pen, shoved the closely written sheets of 
 paper from him, and leaned back in his 
 chair, his fingers to his tired eyes. He 
 was sitting at a desk in one of the farther 
 comers of the room and shut off by a 
 great Japanese screen. He was in his 
 shirt-sleeves, his hair was tumbled, his 
 fingers ink-stained, and his face a little 
 pale. 
 
 Since late in the evening he had been 
 steadily writing. Three chapters of " In 
 Defiance of Authority " were done, and 
 he was now at work on the fourth. The 
 day after the excursion to the Presidio — 
 that wonderful event which seemed to 
 Condy to mark the birthday of some new 
 man within him — the idea had suddenly 
 
26o Blix 
 
 occurred to him that Captain Jack's story 
 of the club of the exiles, the boom restau- 
 rant, and the filibustering expedition was 
 precisely the novel of adventure of which 
 the Centennial Company had spoken. 
 At once he had set to work upon it, with 
 an enthusiasm that, with shut teeth, he 
 declared would not be lacking in energy. 
 The story would have to be written out 
 of his business hours. That meant he 
 would have to give up his evenings to it. 
 But he had done this, and for nearly a 
 week had settled himself to his task in 
 the quiet comer of the club at eight 
 o'clock, and held to it resolutely until 
 twelve. 
 
 The first two chapters had run off 
 his pen with delightful ease. The third 
 came harder; the events and incidents of 
 the story became confused and contradic- 
 tory; the character of Billy Isham obsti- 
 nately refused to take the prominent 
 place which Condy had designed for him ; 
 and with the beginning of the fourth 
 
Blix 261 
 
 chapter, Condy had finally come to know 
 the enormous difficulties, the exaspera- 
 ting complications, the discouragements 
 that begin anew with every paragraph, 
 the obstacles that refuse to be surmount- 
 ed, and all the pain, the labor, the down- 
 right mental travail and anguish that fall 
 to the lot of the writer of novels. 
 
 To write a short story with the end in 
 plain sight from the beginning was an 
 easy matter compared to the upbuilding, 
 grain by grain, atom by atom, of the fab- 
 ric of "In Defiance of Authority." Con- 
 dy soon found that there was but one 
 way to go about the business. He must 
 shut his eyes to the end of his novel — 
 that far-off, divine event — and take his 
 task chapter by chapter, even paragraph 
 by paragraph; grinding out the tale, as 
 it were, by main strength, driving his 
 pen from line to line, hating the effort, 
 happy only with the termination of each 
 chapter, and working away, hour by hour, 
 minute by minute, with the dogged, sul- 
 
262 Blix 
 
 len, hammer-and-tongs obstinacy of the 
 galley-slave, scourged to his daily toil. 
 
 At times the tale, apparently out of 
 sheer perversity, would come to a full 
 stop. To write another word seemed be- 
 yond the power of human ingenuity, and 
 for an hour or more Condy would sit 
 scowling at the half-written page, gnaw- 
 ing his nails, scouring his hair, dipping 
 his pen into the ink-well, and squaring 
 himself to the sheet of paper, all to no 
 purpose. 
 
 There was no pleasure in it for him. 
 A character once fixed in his mind, a 
 scene once pictured in his imagination, 
 and even before he had written a word 
 the character lost the charm of its nov- 
 elty, the scene the freshness of its origi- 
 nal conception. Then, with infinite 
 painstaking and with a patience little 
 short of miraculous, he must slowly build 
 up, brick by brick, the plan his brain had 
 outlined in a single instant. It was 
 all work — hard, disagreeable, laborious 
 
Blix 263 
 
 work; and no juggling with phrases, no 
 false notions as to the " delight of crea- 
 tion," could make it appear otherwise. 
 "And for what," he muttered as he rose, 
 rolled up his sheaf of manuscript, and 
 put on his coat ; " what do I do it for, / 
 don't know." 
 
 It was beyond question that, had he 
 begun his novel three months before this 
 time, Condy would have long since aban- 
 doned the hateful task. But Blix had 
 changed all that. A sudden male force 
 had begun to develop in Condy. A mas- 
 ter-emotion had shaken him, and he had 
 commenced to see and to feel the serious, 
 more abiding, and perhaps the sterner 
 side of life. Blix had steadied him, 
 there was no denying that. He was not 
 quite the same boyish, hairbrained fel- 
 low who had made "a buffoon of him- 
 self " in the Chinese restaurant, three 
 months before. 
 
 The cars had stopped running by the 
 time Condy reached the street. He 
 
264 Blix 
 
 walked home and flung himself to bed, 
 his mind tired, his nerves unstrung, and 
 all the blood of his body apparently 
 concentrated in his brain. Working at 
 night after writing all day long was 
 telling upon him, and he knew it. 
 
 What with his work and his compan- 
 ionship with Blix, Condy soon began to 
 drop out of his wonted place in his "set." 
 He was obliged to decline one invitation 
 after another that would take him out in 
 the evening, and instead of lunching at 
 his club with Sargeant or George Hands, 
 as he had been accustomed to do at one 
 time, he fell into another habit of lunch- 
 ing with Blix at the flat on Washington 
 Street, and spending the two hours al- 
 lowed to him in the middle of the day 
 in her company. 
 
 Condy's desertion of them was often 
 spoken of by the men of his club with 
 whom he had been at one time so inti- 
 mate, and the subject happened to be 
 brought up again one noon when Jack 
 
Blix 265 
 
 Carter was in the club as George Hands' 
 guest. Hands, Carter, and Eckert were 
 at one of the windows over their after- 
 dinner cigars and liqueurs. 
 
 "I say," said Eckert suddenly, "who's 
 that girl across the street there — the one 
 in black, just going by that furrier's 
 sign? I've seen her somewhere before. 
 Know who it is ? " 
 
 "That's Miss Bessemer, isn't it? " said 
 George Hands, leaning forward. "Eath- 
 er a stunning-looking girl." 
 
 "Yes, that's Travis Bessemer," assent- 
 ed Jack Carter; adding, a moment later, 
 "It's too bad about that girl." 
 
 "What's the matter? " asked Eckert. 
 
 Carter lifted a shoulder. "Isn't any- 
 thing the matter as far as I know, only 
 somehow the best people have dropped 
 her. She used to be received every- 
 where." 
 
 " Come to think, I haven't seen her out 
 much this season," said Eckert. "But I 
 heard she had bolted from ' Society ' with 
 
266 Blix 
 
 the big S, and was going East — going to 
 study medicine, I believe." 
 
 "I've alv^ays noticed," said Carter, 
 with a smile, "that so soon as a girl is 
 declassee, she develops a purpose in life, 
 and gets earnest, and all that sort of 
 thing." 
 
 "Oh, well, come," growled George 
 Hands. " Travis Bessemer is not declas- 
 sh." 
 
 "I didn't say she was," answered Car- 
 ter; "but she has made herself talked 
 about a good deal lately. Going around 
 with Eivers, as she does, isn't the most 
 discreet thing in the world. Of course 
 it's all right, but it all makes talk ; and 
 I came across them by a grove of trees 
 out on the links the other day " 
 
 "Yes," observed Sargeant, leaning on 
 the back of Carter's armchair ; " yes ; and 
 I noticed, too, that she cut you dead. 
 You fellows should have been there," he 
 went on, in perfect good humor, turning 
 to the others. " You missed a good little 
 
Blix-' 267 
 
 scene. Elvers and Miss Bessemer had 
 been taking a tramp over the Eeservation 
 — and, by the way, it's a great place to 
 walk, so my sister tells me; she and 
 Dick Forsythe take a constitutional out 
 there every Saturday morning — well, as 
 I was saying. Elvers and Miss Bessemer 
 came upon our party rather unexpect- 
 edly. "We were all togged out in our 
 golfing bags, and I presume we looked 
 more like tailor's models, posing for the 
 gallery, than people who were taking an 
 outing; but Elvers and Miss Bessemer 
 had been regularly exercising; looked as 
 though they had done their fifteen miles 
 since morning. They had their old 
 clothes on, and they were dusty and 
 muddy. 
 
 "You would have thought that a 
 young girl such as Miss Bessemer is — 
 for she's very young — would have been a 
 little embarrassed at running up against 
 such a spick and span lot as we were. 
 Not a bit of it ; didn't lose her poise for 
 
268 Blix 
 
 a moment. She bowed to my sister and 
 to me, as though from the top of a drag, 
 by Jove! and as though she were fresh 
 from Eedfern and Virot. You know a 
 girl that can manage herself that way is 
 a thoroughbred. She even remembered 
 to cut little Johnnie Carter here, because 
 Johnnie forced himself upon her one 
 night at a dance when he was drunk; 
 didn't she, Johnnie? Johnnie came up 
 to her there, out on the links, fresh as 
 a daisy, and put out his hand, with, 
 ' Why, how do you do. Miss Bessemer? ' 
 and ' wherever did you come from ? ' and 
 ' I haven't seen you in so long ' ; and she 
 says, ' No, not since our last dance, I 
 believe, Mr. Carter,' and looked at his 
 hand as though it was something funny. 
 " Little Johnnie mumbled and flushed 
 and stammered and backed off; and it 
 was well that he did, because Elvers had 
 begun to get red around the wattles. I 
 say the little girl is a thoroughbred, and 
 my sister wants to give her a dinner as 
 
Blix 269 
 
 soon as she comes out. But Johnnie 
 says she's declassee, so may be my sister 
 had better think it over." 
 
 "I didn't say she was declassSe," ex- 
 claimed Carter. " I only said she would 
 do well to be more careful." 
 
 Sargeant shifted his cigar to the other 
 comer of his mouth, one eye shut to 
 avoid the smoke. 
 
 "One might say as much of lots of 
 people," he answered. 
 
 " I don't like your tone ! " Carter flared 
 out. 
 
 " Oh, go to the devil, Johnnie ! Shall 
 we all have a drink ? " 
 
 On the Friday evening of that week, 
 Condy set himself to his work at his ac- 
 customed hour. But he had had a hard 
 day on the Times Supplement, and his 
 brain, like an overdriven horse, refused 
 to work. In half an hour he had not 
 written a paragraph. 
 
 " I thought it would be better, in the 
 end, to loaf for one evening," he ex- 
 
270 Blix 
 
 plained to Blix, some twenty minutes 
 later, as they settled themselves in the 
 little dining-room. " I can go at it bet- 
 ter to-morrow. See how you like this 
 last chapter." 
 
 Blix was enthusiastic over "In Defi- 
 ance of Authority." Condy had told 
 her the outline of the story, and had read 
 to her each chapter as he finished it. 
 
 "It's the best thing you have ever 
 done, Condy, and you know it. I sup- 
 pose it has faults, but I don't care any- 
 thing about them. It's the story itself 
 that's so interesting. After that first 
 chapter of the boom restaurant and the 
 exiles' club, nobody would want to lay 
 the book down. You're doing the best 
 work of your life so far, and you stick 
 to it." 
 
 " It's grinding out copy for the Supple- 
 ment at the same time that takes all the 
 starch out of me. You've no idea what 
 it means to write all day, and then sit 
 down and write all evening." 
 
Blix 271 
 
 "I wish you could get off the Times,'" 
 said Blix. " You're just giving the best 
 part of your life to hack work, and now 
 it's interfering with your novel. I know 
 you could do better work on your novel 
 if you didn't have to work on the Times, 
 couldn't you? " 
 
 "Oh, if you come to that, of course I 
 could," he answered. "But they won't 
 give me a vacation. I was sounding the 
 editor on it day before yesterday. No; 
 I'll have to manage somehow to swing 
 the two together." 
 
 "Well, let's not talk shop now, Condy. 
 You need a rest. Do you want to play 
 poker?" 
 
 They played for upward of an hour 
 that evening, and Condy, as usual, lost. 
 His ill-luck was positively astonishing. 
 During the last two months he had 
 played poker with Blix on an average of 
 three or four evenings in the week, and 
 at the close of every game it was Blix 
 who had all the chips. 
 
272 Blix 
 
 Blix had come to know the game quite 
 as well, if not better, than he. She 
 could almost invariably tell when Condy 
 held a good hand, but on her part could 
 assume an air of indifference absolutely 
 inscrutable. 
 
 " Cards ? " said Condy, picking up the 
 deck after the deal. 
 
 " I'll stand pat, Condy." 
 
 "The deuce you say," he answered, 
 with a stare. "I'll take three." 
 
 "I'll pass it up to you," continued 
 Blix gravely. 
 
 "Well — well, I'll bet you five chips." 
 
 " Eaise you twenty. " 
 
 Condy studied his hand, laid down the 
 cards, picked them up again, scratched 
 his head, and moved uneasily in his 
 place. Then he threw down two high 
 pairs. 
 
 "No," he said; "I won't see you. 
 What did you have? Let's see, just for 
 the fun of it." 
 
 Blix spread her cards on the table. 
 
Blix 273 
 
 " Not a blessed thing ! " exclaimed 
 Condy. "I might have known it. 
 There's my last dollar gone, too. Lend 
 me fifty cents, Blix." 
 
 Blix shook her head. 
 
 " Why, what a little niggard ! " he ex- 
 claimed aggrievedly. "I'll pay them all 
 back to you." 
 
 " Now, why should I lend you money 
 to play against me? I'll not give you a 
 chip ; and, besides, I don't want to play 
 any more. Let's stop." 
 
 "I've a mind to stop for good; stop 
 playing even with you." 
 
 Blix gave a little cry of joy. 
 
 "Oh, Condy, will you, could you? and 
 never, never touch a card again? never 
 play for money ? I'd be so happy — but 
 don't, unless you know you would keep 
 your promise. I would much rather 
 have you play every night, down there 
 at your club, than break your promise." 
 
 Condy fell silent, biting thoughtfully 
 at the knuckle of a forefinger. 
 18 
 
274 
 
 Blix 
 
 "Think twice about it, Condy," urged 
 Blix; "because this would be for al- 
 ways." 
 
 Condy hesitated; then, abstractedly 
 and as though speaking to himself : 
 
 "It's different now. Before we took 
 that — three months ago, I don't say. It 
 was harder for me to quit then, but now 
 — well, everything is different now ; and 
 it would please you, Blixy I ' 
 
 "More than anything else I can think 
 of, Condy.' 
 
 He gave her his hand. 
 
 "That settles it," he said quietly. 
 "I'll never gamble again, Blix." 
 
 Blix gripped his hand hard, then 
 jumped up, and, with a quick breath of 
 satisfaction, gathered up the cards and 
 chips and flung them into the fireplace. 
 
 "Oh, I'm so glad that's over with," 
 she exclaimed, her little eyes dancing. 
 " I've pretended to like it, but I've hated 
 it all the time. You don't know how 
 I've hated it ! What men can see in it 
 
Blix 275 
 
 to make them sit up all night long is be- 
 yond me. And you truly mean, Condy, 
 that you never will gamble again? Yes, 
 I know you mean it this time. Oh, I'm 
 so happy I could sing ! " 
 
 "Good Heavens, don't do that!" he 
 cried quickly. "You're a nice, amiable 
 girl, Blix, even if you're not pretty, and 
 you " 
 
 " Oh, bother you ' " she retorted ; " but 
 you promise ? " 
 
 " On my honor. " 
 
 "That's enough," she said quietly. 
 
 But even when " loafing " as he was 
 this evening, Condy could not rid himself 
 of the thought and recollection of his 
 novel ; resting or writing, it haunted him. 
 Otherwise he would not have been the 
 story-writer that he was. From now on 
 until he should set down the last sen- 
 tence, the " thing " was never to let him 
 alone, never to allow him a moment's 
 peace. He could think of nothing else, 
 could talk of nothing else ; every faculty 
 
2/6 Blix 
 
 of his brain, every sense of observation 
 or imagination incessantly concentrated 
 themselves upon this one point. 
 
 As they sat in the bay window watch- 
 ing the moon rise, his mind was still 
 busy with it, and he suddenly broke 
 out: 
 
 " I ought to work some kind of a treas- 
 ure into the yam. What's a story of 
 adventure without a treasure ? By Jove, 
 Blix, I wish I could give my whole time 
 to this stuff ! It's ripping good material, 
 and it ought to be handled as carefully 
 as glass. Ought to be worked up, you 
 know." 
 
 "Oondy," said Blix, looking at him 
 intently, " what is it stands in your way 
 of leaving the Times ? Would they take 
 you back if you left them long enough to 
 write your novel ? You could write it in 
 a month, couldn't you, if you had noth- 
 ing else to do? Suppose you left them 
 for a month — would they hold your 
 place for you? " 
 
Blix 277 
 
 "Yes — yes, I think they would; but 
 in the mean while, Blix — there's the 
 rub. I've never saved a cent out of my 
 salary. When I stop, my pay stops, and 
 wherewithal would I be fed? What 
 are you looking for in that drawer — 
 matches? Here, I've got a match." 
 
 Blix faced about at the sideboard, 
 shutting the drawer by leaning against 
 it. In both hands she held one of the 
 delf sugar-bowls. She came up to the ta- 
 ble, and emptied its contents upon the 
 blue denim table-cover — two or three 
 gold pieces, some fifteen silver dollars, 
 and a handful of small change. 
 
 Disregarding all Condy's inquiries, she 
 counted it, making little piles of the gold 
 and silver and nickel pieces. 
 
 "Thirty-five and seven is forty-two," 
 she murmured, counting off on her fin- 
 gers, " and six is forty-eight, and ten is 
 fifty -eight, and ten is sixty-eight; and 
 here is ten, twenty, thirty, fifty-five cents 
 in change." She thrust it all toward 
 
2/8 Blix 
 
 him, across the table. "There," she 
 said, " is your wherewithal. " 
 
 Condy stared. " My wherewithal ! " 
 he muttered. 
 
 " It ought to be enough for over a 
 month." 
 
 "Where did you get all that? Whose 
 is it?" 
 
 " It's your money, Condy. You loaned 
 it to me, and now it has come in very 
 handy." 
 
 " I loaned it to you? " 
 
 " It's the money I won from you dur- 
 ing the time you've been playing poker 
 with me. You didn't know it would 
 amount to so much, did you? " 
 
 "Pshaw, I'll not touch it!" he ex- 
 claimed, drawing back from the money 
 as though it was red-hot. 
 
 "Yes, you will," she told him. "I've 
 been saving it up for you, Condy, every 
 penny of it, from the first day we played 
 down there at the lake; and I always 
 (fold myself that the moment you maed 
 
Blix 279 
 
 up your mind to quit playing, I would 
 give it back to you." 
 
 " Why, the very idea ! " he vociferated, 
 his hands deep in his pockets, his face 
 scarlet. "It's — it's preposterous, Blix! 
 I won't let you talk about it even — I 
 won't touch a nickel of that money. 
 But, Blix, you're — you're — ^the finest 
 woman I ever knew. You're a man's 
 woman, that's what you are." He set 
 his teeth. " If you loved a man, you'd 
 be a regular pal to him; you'd back 
 him up, you'd stand by him till the last 
 gun was fired. I could do anything if a 
 woman like you cared for me. Why, 
 Blix, I — you haven't any idea — ■ — " He 
 cleared his throat, stopping abruptly. 
 
 "But you must take this money," she 
 answered; "your money. If you didn't, 
 Condy, it would make me out nothing 
 more nor less than a gambler. I 
 wouldn't have dreamed of playing cards 
 with you if I had ever intended to keep 
 one penny of your money. From the 
 
28o Blix 
 
 very start I intended to keep it for you, 
 and give it back^to you so soon as you 
 would stop ; and now you have a chance 
 to put this money to a good use. You 
 don't have to stay on the Times now. 
 You can't do your novel justice while you 
 are doing your hack work at the same 
 time, and I do so want ' In Defiance of 
 Authority ' to be a success. I've faith 
 in you, Condy. I know if you got the 
 opportunity you would make a success." 
 
 " But you and I have played like two 
 men playing," exclaimed Condy. "How 
 would it look if Sargeant, say, should 
 give me back the money he had won 
 from me? What a cad I would be to 
 take it!" 
 
 "That's just it — we've not played like 
 two men. Then I would have been a 
 gambler. I've played with you because 
 I thought it would make a way for you 
 to break off with the habit ; and knowing 
 as I did how fond you were of playing 
 cards and how bad it was for you, how 
 
Blix 281 
 
 wicked it would have been for me to 
 have played with you in any other spirit ! 
 Don't you see? And as it has turned 
 out, you've given up playing, and you've 
 enough money to make it possible for 
 you to write your novel. The Centen- 
 nial Company have asked you to try a 
 story of adventure for them, you've 
 found one that is splendid, you're just 
 the man who could handle it, and now 
 you've got the money to make it possi- 
 ble. Condy," she exclaimed suddenly, 
 " don't you see your chance ? Aren't you 
 a big enough man to see your chance 
 when it comes? And, besides, do you 
 think -I would take money from you? 
 Can't you understand? If you don't 
 take this money that belongs to you, 
 you would insult me. That is just the 
 way I would feel about it. You must 
 see that. If you care for me at all, 
 you'll take it." 
 
 The editor of the Sunday Supplement 
 
282 Blix 
 
 put his toothpick behind his ear and 
 fixed Condy with his eyeglasses. 
 
 "Well, it's like this, Eivers," he said. 
 " Of course you know your own business 
 best. If you stay on here with us, it 
 will be all right. But I may as well tell 
 you that I don't believe I can hold your 
 place for a month. I can't get a man in 
 here to do your work for just a month, 
 and then fire him out at the end of that 
 time. I don't like to lose you, but if you 
 have an opportunity to get in on another 
 paper during this vacation of yours, you're 
 at liberty to do so, for all of me." 
 
 " Then you think my chance of com- 
 ing back here would be pretty slim if I 
 leave for a month now? " 
 
 "That's right." 
 
 There was a silence. Condy hesitated ; 
 then he rose. 
 
 "I'll take the chance," he announced. 
 
 To Blix that evening, as he told her of 
 the affair, he said : 
 
 "It's neck or nothing now, Blix." 
 
XII 
 
 But did Blix care for him ? 
 
 In the retired corner of his club, shut 
 off by the Japanese screen, or going up 
 and down the city to and from his work, 
 or sitting with her in the bay window 
 of the little dining-room looking down 
 upon the city, blurred in the twilight or 
 radiant with the sunset, Condy asked 
 himself the question. A score of times 
 each day he came to a final, definite, neg- 
 ative decision ; and a score of times re- 
 opened the whole subject. Beyond the 
 fact that Blix had enjoyed herself in his 
 company during the last months, Condy 
 could find no sign or trace of encourage- 
 ment ; and for that matter he told him- 
 self that the indications pointed rather 
 in the other direction. She had no com- 
 punction in leaving him to go away to 
 
284 Blix 
 
 New York, perhaps never to return. In 
 less than a month now all their compan- 
 ionship was to end, and he would proba- 
 bly see the last of her. 
 
 He dared not let her know that at last 
 he had really come to love her — that it 
 was no pretence now ; for he knew that 
 with such declaration their '' good times '' 
 would end even before she should go 
 away. But every day, every hour that 
 they were together made it harder for 
 him to keep himself within bounds. 
 
 What with this trouble on his mind 
 and the grim determination with which 
 he held to his work, Condy changed rap- 
 idly. Blix had steadied him, and a cer- 
 tain earnestness and seriousness of pur- 
 pose, a certain strength he had not known 
 before, came swiftly into being. 
 
 Was Blix to go away, leave him, per- 
 haps for all time, and not know how 
 much he cared ? Would he speak before 
 she went? Condy did not know. It 
 was a question that circumstances would 
 
Blix 285 
 
 help him to decide. He would not 
 speak, so he resolved, unless he was sure 
 that she cared herself ; and if she did, she 
 herself would give him a cue, a hint 
 whereon to speak. But days went hy, 
 the time set for Blix's departure drew 
 nearer and nearer, and yet she gave him 
 not the slightest sign. 
 
 These two interests had now absorbed 
 his entire life for the moment — his love 
 for Blix, and his novel. Little by little 
 " In Defiance of Authority " took shape. 
 The boom restaurant and the club of 
 the exiles were disposed of, Billy Isham 
 began to come to the front,- the filibuster- 
 ing expedition and Senora Estrada (with 
 her torn calling card) had been intro- 
 duced, and the expedition was ready to 
 put to sea. But here a new difficulty 
 was encountered. 
 
 " What do I know about ships ? " Con- 
 dy confessed to Blix. "If Billy Isham 
 is going to command a filibustering 
 schooner, I've got to know something 
 
286 Blix 
 
 about a schooner — appear to, anyhow. 
 I've got to know nautical lingo, the real 
 thing, you know. I don't believe a real 
 sailor ever in his life said ' belay there,' 
 or ' avast.' We'll have to go out and 
 see Captain Jack; get some more techni- 
 cal detail. " 
 
 This move was productive of the most 
 delightful results. Captain Jack was all 
 on fire with interest the moment that 
 Condy and Blix told him of the idea. 
 
 " An' you're going to put Billy Isham 
 in a book. Well, strike me straight, 
 that's a snorkin' good idea ! I've always 
 said that all Billy needed was a ticket 
 seller an' an advance agent, an' he was a 
 whole show in himself." 
 
 "We're going to send it East," said 
 Blix, "as soon as it's finished, and have 
 it published." 
 
 "Well, it ought to make prime readin', 
 Miss ; an' that's a good fetchin' title, ' In 
 Defiance of Authority.' " 
 
 Eegularly Wednesday and Sunday af- 
 
Blix 287 
 
 temoons, Blix and Condy came out to 
 the life-boat station. Captain Jack re- 
 ceived them in sweater and visored cap, 
 and ushered them into the front room. 
 
 " Well, how's the yarn getting on ? " 
 Captain Jack would ask. 
 
 Then Condy would read the last chap- 
 ter while the captain paced the floor, 
 frowning heavily, smoking cigars, listen- 
 ing to every word. Condy told the story 
 in the first person, as if Billy Isham's 
 partner were narrating scenes and events 
 in which he himself had moved. Condy 
 called this protagonist "Burke Casso- 
 wan," and was rather proud of the name. 
 But the captain would none of it. Cas- 
 sowan, the protagonist, was simply "Our 
 Mug." 
 
 " Now, " Condy would say, notebook in 
 hand, "now. Cap., we've got down to 
 Mazatlan. Now I want to sort of organ- 
 ize the expedition in this next chapter. " 
 
 "I see, I see," Captain Jack would ex- 
 claim, interested at once. " Wait a bit 
 
288 Blix 
 
 till I take off my shoes. I can think 
 better with my shoes off " ; and having 
 removed his shoes, he would begin to 
 pace the room in his stocking feet, 
 puffing fiercely on his cigar as he warmed 
 to the tale, blowing the smoke out 
 through either ear, gesturing savagely, 
 his face flushed and his eyes kindling. 
 
 "Well, now, lessee. First thing Our 
 Mug does when he gets to Mazatlan is to 
 communicate his arrival to Senora Estra- 
 da — telegraphs, you know; and, by the 
 way, have him use a cipher." 
 
 "What kind of cipher?" 
 
 " Count three letters on from the right 
 letter, see. If you were spelling ' boat,' 
 for instance, you would begin with an e, 
 the third letter after h ; then r for the o, 
 r being the third letter from o. So you'd 
 spell 'boat,' erdw ; and SeHora Estrada 
 knows when she gets that dispatch that 
 she must count three letters hack from 
 each letter to get the right ones. Take 
 now such a cipher word as ulioh. That 
 
Blix 289 
 
 means rifle. Count three letters back 
 from each letter of ulioh, and it'll spell 
 rifle. You can make up a lot of dis- 
 patches like that, just to have the thing 
 look natural ; savvy ? " 
 
 " Out of sight ! " muttered Condy, mak- 
 ing a note. 
 
 " Then Our Mug and Billy Isham start 
 getting a crew. And Our Mug, he buys 
 the sextant there in Mazatlan — the sex- 
 tant, that got out of order and spoiled 
 everything. Or, no; don't have it a 
 sextant; have it a quadrant — an old- 
 fashioned, ebony quadrant. Have Billy 
 Isham buy it because it was cheap." 
 
 " How did it get out of order. Captain 
 Jack?" inquired Blix. "That would 
 be a good technical detail, wouldn't it, 
 Condy?" 
 
 "Well, it's like this. Our Mug an' 
 
 Billy, get a schooner that's so bally small, 
 
 that they have to do their cooking in the 
 
 cabin; quadrant's on a rack over the 
 
 stove, and the heat warps the joints, so 
 19 
 
290 Blix 
 
 when Our Mug takes his observation he 
 gets fifty miles o£f his course and raises 
 the land where the government forces 
 are watching for him." 
 
 "And here's another point, Cap.," said 
 Condy. " We ought to work some kind 
 of a treasure into this yarn; can't you 
 think up something new and original in 
 the way of a treasure? I don't want the 
 old game of a buried chest of money. 
 Let's have him get track of something 
 that's worth a fortune — something 
 novel." 
 
 "Yes, yes; I see the idea," answered 
 the Captain, striding over the floor with 
 great thuds of his stockinged feet. 
 "Now, lessee; let me think." He began, 
 rubbing all his hair the wrong way. 
 "We want something new and queer, 
 something that ain't ever been written 
 up before. I tell you what ! Here it is ! 
 Have Our Mug get wind of a little river 
 schooner that sunk fifty years before his 
 time in one of the big South American 
 
Blix 
 
 291 
 
 rivers, during a flood — I heard of this 
 myself. Schooner went down and was 
 buried twenty feet under mud and sand ; 
 and since that time — you know how the 
 big rivers act — the whole blessed course 
 of the river has changed at that point, 
 and that schooner is on dry land, or 
 rather twenty feet under it, and as soimd 
 as the day she chartered. " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, have it that when she sank she 
 had aboard of her a cargo of five hundred 
 cases of whiskey, prime stuff, seven thou- 
 sand quart bottles, sealed up tight as 
 drums. Now Our Mug — nor Billy Ish- 
 am either — they ain't born yesterday. 
 No, sir; they're right next to them- 
 selves! They figure this way. This 
 here whiskey's been kept fifty years 
 without being moved. Now, what do 
 you suppose seven thousand quart bottles 
 of fifty-year-old whiskey would be worth ? 
 Why, twenty dollars a quart wouldn't be 
 too fancy. So there you are; there's 
 
292 Blix 
 
 your treasure. Our Mug and Billy Ish- 
 am have only got to dig through twen- 
 ty feet of sand to pick up a hundred 
 thousand dollars, */ they can jind the 
 schooner." 
 
 Blix clapped her hands with a little 
 cry of delight, and Condy smote a knee, 
 exclaiming : 
 
 "By Jove! that's as good as Loudon 
 Dodds' opium ship! Why, Cap., you're 
 a treasure in yourself for a fellow looking 
 for stories." 
 
 Then after the notes were taken and 
 the story talked over. Captain Jack, es- 
 pecially if the day happened to be Sun- 
 day, would insist upon their staying to 
 dinner — boiled beef and cabbage, smok- 
 ing coffee and pickles — that K. D. B. 
 served in the little, brick-paved kitchen 
 in the back of the station. The crew 
 messed in their quarters overhead. 
 
 K. D. B. herself was not uninteresting. 
 Her respectability encased her like armor 
 plate, and she never laughed without 
 
Blix 293 
 
 putting three fingers to her lips, She 
 told them that she had at one time been 
 a " costume reader." 
 
 "A costume reader? " 
 
 " Yes ; reading extracts from celebrated 
 authors in the appropriate costume of the 
 character. It used to pay very well, 
 and it was very refined. I used to do 
 ' In a Balcony,' by Mister Browning, and 
 ' Laska,' the same evening, and it always 
 made a hit. I'd do ' In a Balcony,' first, 
 and I'd put on a Louis-Quinze-the-fif- 
 teenth gown and wig-to-match over a 
 female cowboy outfit. When I'd fin- 
 ished ' In a Balcony,' I'd do an exit, and 
 shunt the gown and wig-to-match, and 
 come on as ' Laska,' with thunder noises 
 off. It was one of the strongest effects 
 in my repertoire, and it always got me a 
 curtain call." 
 
 And Captain Jack would wag his head 
 and murmur : 
 
 " Extraordinary ! extraordinary ! " 
 
 Blix and Condy soon noted that upon 
 
294 Blix 
 
 the occasion of each one of their visits, 
 K. D. B. found means to entertain them 
 at great length with long discussions 
 upon certain subjects of curiously diver- 
 sified character. Upon their first visit 
 she elected to talk upon the Alps moun- 
 tains. The Sunday following it was bac- 
 teriology ; on the next Wednesday it was 
 crystals; while for two hours during 
 their next visit to the station, Condy and 
 Blix were obliged to listen to K. D. B.'s 
 interminable discourse on the origin, his- 
 tory, and development of the kingdom of 
 Denmark. Condy was dumbfounded. 
 
 " I never met such a person, man or 
 woman, in all my life. Talk about edu- 
 cation ! Why, I think she knows every- 
 thing ! " 
 
 " In Defiance of Authority " soon be- 
 gan to make good progress, but Condy, 
 once laimched upon technical navigation, 
 must have Captain Jack at his elbow 
 continually, to keep him from founder- 
 ing. In some sea novel he remembered 
 
Blix 295 
 
 to have come across the expression " gar- 
 board streak," and from the context 
 guessed it was to be applied to a detail 
 of a vessel's construction. In an un- 
 guarded moment he had written that his 
 schooner's name " was painted in showy 
 gilt letters upon her garboard streak. " 
 
 "What's the garboard streak, Condy?" 
 Blix had asked, when he had read the 
 chapter to her. 
 
 "That's where they paint her name," 
 he declared promptly. " I don't know 
 exactly, but I like the sound of it." 
 
 But the next day, when he was read- 
 ing this same chapter to Captain Jack, 
 the latter suddenly interrupted with an 
 exclamation as of acute physical anguish. 
 
 "What's that? Bead that last over 
 again," he demanded. 
 
 " ' When they had come within a few 
 boat's lengths,' " read Condy, " ' they 
 were able to read the schooner's name, 
 painted in showy gilt letters upon her 
 garboard streak.' " 
 
296 Blix 
 
 " My God ! " gasped the Captain, clasp- 
 ing his head. Then, with a shout: 
 "Garboard streak! garboard streak! 
 Don't you know that the garboard streak 
 is the last plank next the keel? You 
 mean counter, not garboard streak. 
 That regularly gravelled me, that did ! " 
 
 They stayed to dinner with the couple 
 that afternoon, and for half an hour after- 
 ward K. D. B. told them of the wonders 
 of the caves of Elephantis. One would 
 have believed that she had actually been 
 at the place. But when she changed the 
 subject to the science of fortification, 
 Blix could no longer restrain herself. 
 
 "But it is really wonderful that you 
 should know all these things! Where 
 did you find time to study so much ? " 
 
 "One must have an education," re- 
 turned K. D. B. primly. 
 
 But Condy had caught sight of a half- 
 fiUed book-shelf against the opposite wall, 
 and had been suddenly smitten with an 
 inspiration. On a leaf of his notebook 
 
Blix 297 
 
 he wrote: "Try her on the G's and H's," 
 and found means to show it furtively to 
 Blix. But Blix was puzzled, and at the 
 earliest opportunity Condy himself said 
 to the retired costume reader : 
 
 "Speaking of fortifications, Mrs. Hos- 
 kins, Gibraltar now — that's a wonderful 
 rock, isn't it?" 
 
 "Eock!" she queried. "I thought it 
 was an island." 
 
 " Oh, no ; it's a fortress. They have a 
 castle there — a castle, something like — 
 well, like the old Schloss at Heidelberg. 
 Did you ever hear about or read about 
 Heidelberg University ? " 
 
 But K, D. B. was all abroad now. 
 Gibraltar and Heidelberg were unknown 
 subjects to her, as were also inoculation, 
 Japan, and Kosciusko. Above the H's 
 she was sound ; below that point her ig- 
 norance was benighted. 
 
 " But what is it, Condy ? " demanded 
 Blix, as soon as they were alone. 
 
 "I've the idea," he answered, chuck- 
 
298 Blix 
 
 ling. " Wait till after Sunday to see if 
 I'm right; then I'll tell you. It's a 
 dollar to a paper dime, K. D. E. will 
 have something for us by Sunday, begin- 
 ning with an I." 
 
 And she had. It was Internal Reve- 
 nue. 
 
 " Right ! right ! " Condy shouted glee- 
 fully, as he and Blix were on their way 
 home. "I knew it. She's done with 
 Ash — Bol, Bol — Car, and all those, and 
 has worked through Cod — Dem, and 
 Dem — Eve. She's down to Hor — Kin 
 now, and she'll go through the whole lot 
 before she's done — Kin — Mag, Mag — 
 Mot, Mot — Pal, and all the rest." 
 
 "The Encyclopaedia?" 
 
 "Don't you see it? No wonder she 
 didn't know beans about Gibraltar ! She 
 hadn't come to the G's by then." 
 
 " She's reading the Encyclopsedia. " 
 
 " And she gets the volumes on the in- 
 stalment plan, don't you see? Reads the 
 leading articles, and then springs 'em on 
 
Blix 299 
 
 us. To know things and talk about 'em, 
 that's her idea of being cultured. ' One 
 must have an education.' Do you re- 
 member her saying that? Oh, our mat- 
 rimonial objects are panning out beyond 
 all expectation ! " 
 
 What a delicious, never-to-be-forgotten 
 month it was for those two! There in 
 the midst of life they were as much 
 alone as upon a tropic island. Blix had 
 deliberately freed herself from a world 
 that had grown distasteful to her ; Condy 
 little by little had dropped away from his 
 place among the men and the women of 
 his acquaintance, and the two came and 
 went together, living in a little world of 
 their own creation, happy in each other's 
 society, living only in the present, and 
 asking nothing better than to be left 
 alone and to their own devices. 
 
 They saw each other every day. In 
 the morning from nine till twelve, and in 
 the afternoon until three, Condy worked 
 away upon his novel ; but not an evening 
 
300 Blix 
 
 passed that did not see him and Blix in 
 the dining-room of the little fiat. Thurs- 
 days and Sunday afternoons they visited 
 the life-boat station, and at other times 
 prowled about the unfrequented comers 
 of the city, now passing an afternoon 
 along the water front, watching the de- 
 parture of a China steamer or the load- 
 ing of the great, steel wheat-ships; now 
 climbing the ladder-like streets of Tele- 
 graph Hill, or revisiting the Plaza, China- 
 town, and the restaurant; or taking long 
 walks in the Presidio Eeservation, watch- 
 ing cavalry and artillery drills ; or sitting 
 for hours on the rocks by the seashore, 
 watching the ceaseless roU and plunge of 
 the surf, the wheeling sea-birds, and the 
 sleek-headed seals hunting the off-shore 
 fish, happy for a half-hour when they 
 surprised one with his prey in his teeth. 
 One day, some three weeks before the 
 end of the year, toward two in the after- 
 noon, Condy sat in his usual corner of 
 the club, behind the screen, writing raji- 
 
Blix 
 
 301 
 
 idly. His coat was off and the stump of 
 a cigar was between his teeth. At his 
 elbow was the rectangular block of his 
 manuscript. During the last week the 
 story had run from him with a facility 
 that had surprised and delighted him; 
 words came to him without effort, rang- 
 ing themselves into line with the promp- 
 titude of well-drilled soldiery ; sentences 
 and paragraphs marched down the clean- 
 swept spaces of his paper, like companies 
 and platoons defiling upon review; his 
 chapters were brigades that he mar- 
 shalled at will, falling them in one be- 
 hind the other, each preceded by its 
 chapter-head, like an officer in the space 
 between two divisions. In the guise of 
 a commander-in-chief sitting his horse 
 upon an eminence that overlooked the 
 field of operations, Condy at last took in 
 the entire situation at a glance, and, with 
 the force and precision of a machine, 
 marched his forces straight to the goal he 
 had set for himself so long a time before. 
 
302 Blix 
 
 Then at length he took a fresh penful 
 of ink, squared his elbows, drew closer to 
 the desk, and with a single swift spurt of 
 the pen wrote the last line of his novel, 
 dropping the pen upon the instant and 
 pressing the blotter over the words as 
 though setting a seal of approval upon 
 the completed task. 
 
 " There ! " he muttered, between his 
 teeth ; " I've done for you ! " 
 
 That same afternoon he read the last 
 chapter to Blix, and she helped him to 
 prepare the manuscript for expressage. 
 She insisted that it should go off that 
 very day, and herself wrote the directions 
 upon the outside wrapper. Then the two 
 went down together to the Wells Fargo 
 office, and " In Defiance of Authority " 
 was sent on its journey across the conti- 
 nent. 
 
 " Now," she said, as they came out of 
 the express office and stood for a moment 
 upon the steps, "now there's nothing to 
 do but wait for the Centennial Company. 
 
Blix 
 
 303 
 
 I do so hope we'll get their answer be- 
 fore I go away. They ought to take it. 
 It's just what they asked for. Don't 
 you think they'll take it, Condy? " 
 
 " Oh, bother that ! " answered Condy. 
 " I don't care whether they take it or not. 
 How long now is it before you go, 
 Blix?" 
 
XIII 
 
 A WEEK passed; then another. The 
 year was coming to a close. In ten days 
 Blix would be gone. Letters had been 
 received from Aunt Kihm, and also an 
 exquisite black leather travelling-case, 
 a present to her niece, full of cut-glass 
 bottles, ebony-backed brushes, and shell 
 combs. Blix was to leave on the second 
 day of January. In the mean while she 
 had been reading far into her first-year 
 text-books, underscoring and annotating, 
 studying for hours upon such subjects as 
 she did not understand, so that she might 
 get hold of her work the readier when 
 it came to class-room routine and lect- 
 ures. Hers was a temperament admirably 
 suited to the study she had chosen — self- 
 reliant, cool, and robust. 
 
 But it was not easy for her to go. 
 
Blix 305 
 
 Never before had Blix been away from 
 her home ; never for longer than a week 
 had she been separated from her father, 
 nor from Howard and Snooky. That 
 huge city upon the Atlantic seaboard, 
 with its vast, fierce life, where beat 
 the heart of the nation, and where be- 
 yond Aunt Kihm she knew no friend, 
 filled Blix with a vague sense of terror 
 and of oppression. She was going out 
 into a new life, a life of work and of 
 study, a harsher life than she had yet 
 known. Her father, her friends, her 
 home — all these were to be left behind. 
 It was not surprising that Blix should be 
 daunted at the prospect of so great a 
 change in her life, now so close at hand. 
 But if the tears did start at times, 
 no one ever saw them fall, and with 
 a courage that was all her own Blix 
 watched the last days of the year troop- 
 ing past, and the approach of the New 
 Year that was to begin the new life. 
 But Condy was thoroughly unhappy. 
 20 
 
306 Blix 
 
 Those wonderful three months were at an 
 end. Blix was going. In less than a 
 week now she would be gone. He would 
 see the last of her. Then what? He 
 pictured himself — when he had said 
 good-by to her and the train had less- 
 ened to a smoky blur in the distance — 
 facing about, facing the life that must 
 then begin for him, returning to the city 
 alone, picking up the routine again. 
 There would be nothing to look forward 
 to then ; he would not see Blix in the 
 afternoon ; would not sit with her in the 
 evening in the little dining-room of the 
 flat overlooking the city and the bay; 
 would not wake in the morning with the 
 consciousness that before the sun would 
 set he would see her again, be with her, 
 and hear the sound of her voice. The 
 months that were to follow would be one 
 long ache, one long, harsh, colorless grind 
 without her. How was he to get through 
 that first evening that he must pass 
 alone? And she did not care for him. 
 
Blix 307 
 
 Condy at last knew this to be so. Even 
 the poor solace of knowing that she, too, 
 was unhappy was denied him. She had 
 never loved him, and never would. He 
 was a chum to her, nothing more. Con- 
 dy was too clear-headed to deceive him- 
 self iipon this point. The time was 
 come for her to go away, and she had 
 given him no sign, no cue. 
 
 The last days passed ; Blix's trunk was 
 packed, her half section engaged, her 
 ticket bought. They said good-by to 
 the old places they had come to know so 
 well — Chinatown, the Golden Balcony, 
 the water-front, the lake of San Andreas, 
 Telegraph Hill, and Luna's — and had 
 bade farewell to Eicardo and to old Rich- 
 ardson. They had left K. D. B. and 
 Captain Jack until the last day. Blix 
 was to go on the second of January. On 
 New Year's Day she and Condy were to 
 take their last walk, were to go out to the 
 life-boat station, and then on around the 
 shore to the little amphitheatre of black- 
 
3o8 Blix 
 
 berry bushes — where they had promised 
 always to write one another on the anni- 
 versary of their first visit — and then for 
 the last time climb the hill, and go across 
 the breezy downs to the city. 
 
 Then came the last day of the old 
 year, the last day but one that they would 
 be together. They spent it in a long 
 ramble along the water-front, following 
 the line of the shipping even as far as 
 Meigg's Wharf. They had come back to 
 the flat for supper, and afterward, as soon 
 as the family had left them alone, had 
 settled themselves in the bay window to 
 watch the New Year in. 
 
 The little dining-room was dark, but 
 for the indistinct blur of light that came 
 in through the window— a light that was 
 a mingling of the after-glow, the new- 
 risen moon, and the faint haze that the 
 city threw off into the sky from its 
 street lamps and electrics. From where 
 they sat they could look down, almost 
 as from a tower, into the city's streets. 
 
Blix 
 
 309 
 
 Here a comer came into view ; further on 
 a great puff of green foliage — palms and 
 pines side by side — overlooked a wall. 
 Here a street was visible for almost its 
 entire length, like a stream of asphalt 
 flowing down the pitch of the hill, 
 dammed on either side by rows upon 
 rows of houses; while further on the 
 vague confusion of roofs and facades 
 opened out around a patch of green lawn, 
 the garden of some larger residence. 
 
 As they looked and watched, the after- 
 glow caught window after window, till 
 all that quarter of the city seemed to 
 stare up at them from a thousand ruddy 
 eyes. The windows seemed infinite in 
 number, the streets endless in their com- 
 plications ; yet everything was deserted. 
 At this hour the streets were empty, and 
 would remain so until daylight. Not a 
 soul was stirring; no face looked from 
 any of those myriads of glowing win- 
 dows; no footfall disturbed the silence 
 of those asphalt streets. There, almost 
 
3 1 o Blix 
 
 within call behind those windows, shut 
 off from those empty streets, a thousand 
 human lives were teeming, each the cen- 
 tre of its own circle of thoughts and 
 words and actions ; and yet the solitude 
 was profound, the desolation complete, 
 the stillness unbroken by a single echo. 
 
 The night — the last night of the old 
 year — was fine; the white, clear light 
 from a moon they could not see grew 
 wide and clear over the city, as the last 
 gleam of the sunset faded. It was just 
 warm enough for the window to be open, 
 and for nearly three hours Condy and 
 Blix sat looking down upon the city in 
 these last moments of the passing year, 
 feeling upon their faces an occasional 
 touch of the breeze, that carried with it 
 the smell of trees and flowers from the 
 gardens below them, and the faint, fine 
 taint of the ocean from far out beyond 
 the Heads. But the scene was not in 
 reality silent. At times when they 
 listened intently, especially when they 
 
Blix 311 
 
 closed their eyes, there came to them a 
 subdued, steady bourdon, profound, un- 
 ceasing, a vast, numb murmur, like no 
 other sound in all the gamut of nature — 
 the sound of a city at night, the hum of 
 a great, conglomerate life, wrought out 
 there from moment to moment under the 
 stars and under the moon, while the last 
 hours of the old year dropped quietly 
 away. 
 
 A star fell. 
 
 Sitting in the window, the two noticed 
 it at once, and Condy stirred for the first 
 time in fifteen minutes. 
 
 "That was a very long one," he said, 
 in a low voice. " Blix, you must write 
 to me — we must write each other 
 often." 
 
 "Oh, yes," she answered. "We must 
 not forget each other ; we have had too 
 good a time for that." 
 
 "Four years is a long time," he went 
 on. "Lots can happen in four years. 
 Wonder what I'll be doing at the end of 
 
312 Blix 
 
 four years? We've had a pleasant time 
 while it lasted, Blix." 
 
 " Haven't we ? " she said, her chin on 
 her hand, the moonlight shining in her 
 little, dark-brown eyes. 
 
 Well, he was going to lose her. He 
 had found out that he loved her only in 
 time to feel the wrench of parting from 
 her all the more keenly. What was he 
 to do with himself after she was gone? 
 What could he turn to in order to fill up 
 the great emptiness that her going would 
 leave in his daily life? And was she 
 never to know how dear she was to him ? 
 Why not speak to her, why not tell her 
 that he loved her? But Condy knew 
 that Blix did not love him, and the 
 knowledge of that must keep him silent; 
 he must hug his secret to him, like the 
 Spartan boy with his stolen fox, no mat- 
 ter how grievously it hurt him to do so. 
 He and Blix had lived through two 
 months of rarest, most untroubled happi- 
 ness, with hardly more self-consciousness 
 
Blix 
 
 313 
 
 than two young and healthy boys. To 
 bring that troublous, disquieting element 
 of love between them — unrequited love, 
 of all things — would be a folly. She 
 would tell him — must in all honesty tell 
 him that she did not love him, and all 
 their delicious camaraderie would end in 
 a "scene." Condy, above everything, 
 wished to look back on those two months, 
 after she had gone, without being able to 
 remember therein one single note that 
 jarred. If the memory of her was all 
 that he was to have, he resolved that at 
 least that memory should be perfect. 
 
 And the love of her had made a man 
 of him — he could not forget that; had 
 given to him just the strength that made 
 it possible for him to keep that resolute, 
 grim silence now. In those two months 
 he had grown five years; he was more 
 masculine, more virile. The very set of 
 his mouth was different; between the 
 eyebrows the cleft had deepened; his 
 voice itself vibrated to a heavier note. 
 
314 Blix 
 
 No, no; so long as he should live, he, 
 man grown as he was, could never forget 
 this girl of nineteen who had come into 
 his life so quietly, so unexpectedly, who 
 had influenced it so irresistibly and so 
 unmistakably for its betterment, and who 
 had passed out of it with the passing of 
 the year. 
 
 For a few moments Condy had been 
 absent-mindedly snapping the lid of his 
 cigarette case, while he thought; now he 
 selected a cigarette, returned the case to 
 his pocket, and fumbled for a match. 
 But the little gun-metal safe he carried 
 was empty. Blix rose and groped for a 
 moment upon the mantel-shelf, then 
 returned and handed him a match, and 
 stood over him while he scraped it under 
 the arm of the chair wherein he sat. 
 Even when his cigarette was lit she still 
 stood there, looking at him, the fingers 
 of her hands clasped in front of her, her 
 hair, one side of her cheek, her chin, and 
 sweet, round neck outlined by the faint 
 
Blix 315 
 
 blur of light that came from the open 
 window. Then quietly she said : 
 
 "Well, Condy?" 
 
 "Well, Blix?" 
 
 " Just ' well ' ? " she repeated. " Is that 
 all ? Is that all you have to say to me ? " 
 
 He gave a great start. 
 
 " Blix ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 "Is that all? And you are going to 
 let me go away from you for so long, and 
 say nothing more than that to me ? You 
 think you have been so careful, think 
 you have kept your secret so close! 
 Condy, don't you suppose I know? Do 
 you suppose women are so blind? No, 
 you don't need to tell me; I know 
 I've known it — oh, for weeks ! " 
 
 "You know — know — know what? " he 
 exclaimed, breathless. 
 
 "That you have been pretending that 
 you did not love me. I know that you 
 do love me — I know you have been try- 
 ing to keep it from me for fear it would 
 spoil our good times, and because we had 
 
3i6 Blix 
 
 made up our miuds to be chums, and 
 have 'no more foolishness.' Once — in 
 those days when we first knew each other 
 — I knew you did not love me when you 
 said you did; but now, since — oh, since 
 that afternoon in the Chinese restaurant, 
 remember? — I've known that you did 
 love me, although you pretended you 
 didn't. It was the pretence I wanted to 
 be rid of ; I wanted to be rid of it when 
 you said you loved me and didn't, and I 
 want to be rid of it now when you pre- 
 tend not to love me and I know you do," 
 and Blix leaned back her head as she 
 spoke that "know," looking at him from 
 under her lids, a smile upon her lips. 
 "It's the pretence that I won't have," 
 she added. " We must be sincere with 
 each other, you and I." 
 
 " Blix, do you love me ? " 
 
 Condy had risen to his feet, his breath 
 was coming quick, his cigarette was flung 
 away, and his hands opened and shut 
 swiftly. 
 
Blix 
 
 317 
 
 "Oh, Blixy, little girl, do yoit love 
 me ? " 
 
 They stood there for a moment in the 
 half dark, facing one another, their hearts 
 beating, their breath failing them in the 
 tension of the instant. There in that 
 room, high above the city, a little climax 
 had come swiftly to a head, a crisis in two 
 lives had suddenly developed. The mo- 
 ment that had been in preparation for the 
 last few months, the last few years, the 
 last few centuries, behold ! it had arrived. 
 
 " Blix, do you love me ? " 
 
 Suddenly it was the New Year. Some- 
 where close at hand a chorus of chiming 
 church bells sang together. Far off in 
 the direction of the wharves, where the 
 great ocean steamships lay, came the 
 glad, sonorous shouting of a whistle; 
 from a nearby street a bugle called aloud. 
 And then from point to point, from 
 street to roof top, and from roof to spire, 
 the vague murmur of many sounds grew 
 and spread and widened, slowly, grandly; 
 
3 1 8 Blix 
 
 that profound and steady bourdon, as of 
 an invisible organ swelling, deepening, 
 and expanding to the full male diapason 
 of the city aroused and signalling the ad- 
 vent of another year. 
 
 And they heard it, they two heard it, 
 standing there face to face, looking into 
 each other's eyes, that unanswered ques- 
 tion yet between them, the question that 
 had come to them with the turning of 
 the year. It was the old year yet when 
 Condy had asked that question. In that 
 moment's pause, while Blix hesitated to 
 answer him, the New Year had come. 
 And while the huge, vast note of the city 
 swelled and vibrated, she still kept si- 
 lent. But only for a moment. Then 
 she came closer to him, and put a hand 
 on each of his shoulders. 
 
 "Happy New Year, dear," she said. 
 
 On New Year's Day, the last day they 
 were to be together, Blix and Condy took 
 "their walk," as they had come to call it 
 
Blix 
 
 319 
 
 — the walk that included the life-boat 
 station, the Golden Gate, the ocean beach 
 beyond the old fort, the green, bare, 
 flower-starred hills and downs, and the 
 smooth levels of the golf links. Blix 
 had been busy with the last details of her 
 packing, and they did not get started un- 
 til toward two in the afternoon. 
 
 " Strike me ! " exclaimed Captain Jack, 
 as Blix informed him that she had come 
 to say good-by. "Why, ain't this very 
 sudden-like. Miss Bessemer? Hey, Kit- 
 ty, come in here. Here's Miss Bessemer 
 come to say good-by; going to New 
 York to-morrow." 
 
 " We'll regularly be lonesome without 
 you, miss," said K. D. B., as she came 
 into the front room, bringing with her a 
 brisk, pungent odor of boiled vegetables. 
 " New York — such a town as it must be ! 
 It was called Manhattan at first, you 
 know, and was settled by the Dutch." 
 
 Evidently K. D. B. had reached the N's. 
 
 With such deftness as she possessed. 
 
320 Blix 
 
 Blix tried to turn the conversation upon 
 the first meeting of the retired sea cap- 
 tain and the one-time costume reader, 
 but all to no purpose. The " Matrimo- 
 nial Objects " were perhaps a little 
 ashamed of their "personals" by now, and 
 neither Blix nor Condy were ever to hear 
 their version of the meeting in the back 
 dining-room of Luna's Mexican restau- 
 rant. Captain Jack was, in fact, anx- 
 ious to change the subject. 
 
 " Any news of the yam yet ? " he sud- 
 denly inquired of Condy. "What do 
 those Eastern publishin' people think of 
 Our Mug and Billy Isham and the whis- 
 key schooner? " 
 
 Condy had received the rejected man- 
 uscript of " In Defiance of Authority " 
 that morning, accompanied by a letter 
 from the Centennial Company. 
 
 "Well," he said in answer, "they're 
 not, as you might say, falling over them- 
 selves trying to see who'll be the first to 
 print it. It's been returned." 
 
Blix 321 
 
 " The devil you say ! " responded the 
 Captain. "Well, that's kind of disap- 
 pointin' to you, ain't it? " 
 
 "But," Blix hastened to add, "we're 
 not at all discouraged. We're going to 
 send it off again right away." 
 
 Then she said good-by to them. 
 
 "I dunno as you'll see me here when 
 you come back, miss," said the Captain, 
 at the gate, his arm around K. D. B. 
 "I've got to schemin' again. Do you 
 know," he added, in a low, confidential 
 tone, "that all the mines in California 
 send their clean-ups and gold bricks down 
 to the Selby smeltin' works once every 
 week? They send 'em to San Francisco 
 first, and they are taken up to Selby's 
 Wednesday afternoons on a little stern- 
 wheel steamer called the Monticello. All 
 them bricks are in a box^ — dumped in 
 like so much coal — and that box sets just 
 under the wheel-house, for'ard. How 
 much money do you suppose them bricks 
 represent? Well, I'll tell you; last week 
 
322 Blix 
 
 they represented seven hundred and 
 eighty thousand dollars. Well, now, I 
 got a chart of the bay near Vallejo; the 
 channel's all right, but there are mud- 
 flats that run out from shore three miles. 
 Enough water for a Whitehall, but not 
 enough for — well, for the patrol boat, for 
 instance. Two or three slick boys, of a 
 foggy night — of course, I'm not in that 
 kind of game, but strike ! it would be a 
 deal now, wouldn't it ? " 
 
 "Don't you believe him, miss," put in 
 K. D. B. "He's just talking to show off." 
 
 " I think your scheme of holding up a 
 Cunard liner," said Condy, with great 
 earnestness, "is more feasible. You 
 could lay across her course and fly a dis- 
 tress signal. She'd have to heave to." 
 
 "Yes, I been thinkin' o' that; but 
 look here — what's to prevent the liner 
 taking right after your schooner after 
 you've got the stuff aboard — just follow- 
 in' you right around an' findin' out where 
 you land?" 
 
Blix 323 
 
 " She'd be under contract to carry gov- 
 ernment mails," contradicted Condy. 
 " She couldn't do that. You'd leave her 
 mails aboard for just that reason. You 
 wouldn't rob her of her mails; just so 
 long as she was carrying government 
 mails she couldn't stop." 
 
 The Captain clapped his palm down 
 upon the gate-post. 
 
 "Strike me straight! I never thought 
 of that." 
 
XIV 
 
 Blix and Condy went on ; on along 
 the narrow road upon the edge of the 
 salt marshes and tules that lay between 
 the station and the Golden Gate; on to 
 the Golden Gate itself, and around the 
 old rime-encrusted fort to the ocean 
 shore, with its reaches of hard, white' 
 sand, where the boulders lay tumbled 
 and the surf grumbled incessantly. 
 
 The world seemed very far away from 
 them there on the shores of the Pacific, 
 on that first afternoon of the New Year. 
 They were supremely happy, and they 
 sufficed to themselves. Condy had for- 
 gotten all about the next day, when he 
 must say good-by to Blix. It did not 
 seem possible, it was not within the 
 bounds of possibility, that she was to go 
 away — that they two were to be sepa- 
 
Blix 325 
 
 lated. And for that matter, to-morrow 
 was to-morrow. It was twenty-four 
 hours away. The present moment was 
 sufficient. 
 
 The persistence with which they clung 
 to the immediate moment, their happi- 
 ness in living only in the present, had 
 brought about a rather curious condition 
 of things between them. 
 
 In their love for each other there was 
 no thought of marriage; they were too 
 much occupied with the joy of being to- 
 gether at that particular instant to think 
 of the future. They loved each other, 
 and that was enough. They did not look 
 ahead further than the following day, and 
 then but furtively, and only in order that 
 their morrow's parting might intensify 
 their happiness of to-day. That New 
 Year's Day was to be the end of every- 
 thing. Blix was going; she and Condy 
 would never see each other again. The 
 thought of marriage — with its certain re- 
 sponsibilities, its duties, its gravity, its 
 
326 Blix 
 
 vague, troublous seriousness, its inevita- 
 ble disappointments — was even a little 
 distasteful to them. Their romance had 
 been hitherto without a flaw; they had 
 been genuinely happy in little things. 
 It was as well that it should end that 
 day, in all its pristine sweetness, unsul- 
 lied by a single bitter moment, un- 
 dimmed by the cloud of a single disil- 
 lusion or disappointment. Whatever 
 chanced to them in later years, they 
 could at least cherish this one memory 
 of a pure, unselfish affection, young and 
 unstained and almost without thought of 
 sex, come and gone on the very thresh- 
 old of their lives. This was the end, 
 they both understood. They were glad 
 that it was to be so. They did not even 
 speak again of writing to each other. 
 
 They found once more the little semi- 
 circle of blackberry bushes and the fallen 
 log, half-way up the hill above the shore, 
 and sat there a while, looking down upon 
 the long green rollers, marching inces- 
 
Blix 327 
 
 santly toward the beach, and there break- 
 ing in a prolonged explosion of solid 
 green water and flying spume. And 
 their glance followed their succeeding 
 ranks farther and farther out to sea, till 
 the multitude blended into the mass — 
 the vast, green, shifting mass that drew 
 the eye on and on, to the abrupt, fine 
 line of the horizon. 
 
 There was no detail in the scene. 
 There was nothing but the great reach of 
 the ocean floor, the unbroken plane of 
 blue sky, and the bare green slope of 
 land — three immensities, gigantic, vast, 
 primordial. It was no place for trivial 
 ideas and thoughts of little things. The 
 mind harked back unconsciously to the 
 broad, simpler, basic emotions, the fun- 
 damental instincts of the race. The 
 huge spaces of earth and air and water 
 carried with them a feeling of kindly but 
 enormous force — elemental force, fresh, 
 untutored, new, and young. There was 
 buoyancy in it ; a fine, breathless sense of 
 
328 Blix 
 
 uplifting and exhilaration; a sensation as 
 of bigness and a return to the homely, 
 human, natural life, to the primitive old 
 impulses, irresistible, changeless, and un- 
 hampered ; old as the ocean, stable as the 
 hills, vast as the unplumbed depths of the 
 sky. 
 
 Condy and Blix sat still, listening, 
 looking, and watching — the intellect 
 drowsy and numb; the emotions, the 
 senses, all alive and brimming to the 
 surface. Vaguely they felt the influence 
 of the moment. Something was prepar- 
 ing for them. From the lowest, un- 
 touched depths in the hearts of each of 
 them something was rising steadily to 
 consciousness and the light of day. 
 There is no name for such things, no 
 name for the mystery that spans the 
 interval between man and woman — the 
 mystery that bears no relation to their 
 love for each other, but that is some- 
 thing better than love, and whose coming 
 savors of the miraculous. 
 
Blix 329 
 
 The afternoon had waned and the sun 
 had begun to set when Blix rose. 
 
 "We should be going, Condy," she 
 told him. 
 
 They started up the hill, and Condy 
 said : " I feel as though I had been some- 
 how asleep with my eyes wide open. 
 What a glorious sunset ! It seems to me 
 as though I were living double every 
 minute ; and, oh ! Blix, isn't it the great- 
 est thing in the world to love each other 
 as we do ? " 
 
 They had come to the top of the hill 
 by now, and went on across the open, 
 breezy downs, all starred with blue iris 
 and wild heliotrope. Blix drew his arm 
 about her waist, and laid her cheek upon 
 his shoulder with a little caressing motion. 
 
 "And I do love you, dear," she said, 
 — "love you with all my heart. And it's 
 for always, too ; I know that. I've been 
 a girl Tintil withia the last three or four 
 days — just a girl, dearest; not very se- 
 rious, I'm afraid, and not caring for any- 
 
33° -^^^^ 
 
 thing else beyond what was happening 
 close around me — don't you understand ? 
 But since I've found out how much I 
 loved you and knew that you loved me 
 — why, everything is changed for me. 
 I'm not the same, I enjoy things that I 
 never thought of enjoying before, and I 
 feel so — oh, larger, don't you know? — 
 and stronger, and so much more serious. 
 Just a little while ago I was only nine- 
 teen, but I think, dear, that by loving 
 you I have become — all of a sudden and 
 without knowing it — a woman." 
 
 A little trembling ran through her 
 with the words. She stopped and put 
 both arms around his neck, her head 
 tipped back, her eyes half closed, her 
 sweet yellow hair rolling from her fore- 
 head. Her whole dear being radiated 
 with that sweet, clean perfume that 
 seemed to come alike from her clothes, 
 her neck, her arms, her hair, and mouth 
 — the delicious, almost divine, feminine 
 aroma that was part of herself. 
 
Blix 
 
 33: 
 
 "You do love me, Condy, don't you, 
 just as I love you ? " 
 
 Such words as he could think of 
 seemed pitifully inadequate. For an- 
 swer he could only hold her the closer. 
 She understood. Her eyes closed slowly, 
 and her face drew nearer to his. Just 
 above a whisper, she said : 
 
 " I love you, dear ! " 
 
 "I love you, Blix!" 
 
 And they kissed each other then upon 
 the mouth. 
 
 Meanwhile the sun had been setting. 
 Such a sunset! The whole world, the 
 three great spaces of sea and land and 
 sky, were incarnadined with the glory of 
 it. The ocean floor was a blinding red 
 radiance, the hills were amethyst, the sky 
 one gigantic opal, and they two seemed 
 poised in the midst of all the chaotic 
 glory of a primitive world. It was New 
 Year's Day ; the earth was new, the year 
 was new, and their love was new and 
 strong. Everything was before them. 
 
332 Blix 
 
 There was no longer any past, no longer 
 any present. Eegrets and memories had 
 no place in their new world. It was 
 Hope, Hope, Hope, that sang to them 
 and called to them and smote into life 
 the new keen .blood of them. 
 
 Then suddenly came the miracle, like 
 the flashiug out of a new star, whose ra- 
 diance they felt but could not see, like a 
 burst of music whose harmony they felt 
 but could not hear. And as they stood 
 there alone in all that simple glory of 
 sky and earth and sea, they knew all in 
 an instant that they were for each other, 
 forever and forever, for better or for 
 worse, till death should them part. Into 
 their romance, into their world of little 
 things, their joys of the moment, their 
 happiness of the hour, had suddenly de- 
 scended a great and lasting joy, the hap- 
 piness of the great, grave issues of life — 
 a happiness so deep, so intense, as to 
 thrill them with a sense of solemnity and 
 wonder. Instead of being the end, that 
 
Blix 333 
 
 New Year's Day was but the beginning 
 — the beginning of their real romance. 
 All the fine, virile, masculine energy of 
 him was aroused and rampant. All her 
 sweet, strong womanliness had been sud- 
 denly deepened and broadened. In fine 
 he had become a man, and she a woman. 
 Youth, life, and the love of man and 
 woman, the strength of the hills, the 
 depth of the ocean, and the beauty of the 
 sky at sunset ; that was what the New 
 Year had brought to them. 
 
 "It's good-by, dear, isn't it?" said 
 Blix. 
 
 But Condy would not have it so. 
 
 "No, no," he told her; "no, Blix; no 
 matter how often we separate after this 
 wonderful New Year's Day, no matter 
 how far we are apart, we two shall never, 
 never say good-by." 
 
 " Oh, you're right, you're right ! " she 
 answered, the tears beginning to shine 
 in her little dark-brown eyes. "No; so 
 
334 Blix 
 
 long as we love each other, nothing mat- 
 ters. There's no such thing as distance 
 for us, is there? Just think, you will be 
 here on the shores of the Pacific, and I 
 on the shores of the Atlantic, but the 
 whole continent can't come between us." 
 
 "And we'll be together again, Blix," 
 he said ; " and it won't be very long now. 
 Just give me time — a few years now." 
 
 "But so long as we love each other, 
 time won't matter either." 
 
 "What are the tears for, Blixy?" he 
 asked, pressing his handkerchief to her 
 cheek. 
 
 "Because this is the saddest and hap- 
 piest day of my life," she answered. 
 Then she pulled from him with a little 
 laugh, adding: "Look, Condy, you've 
 dropped your letter. You pulled it out 
 just now with your handkerchief." 
 
 As Condy picked it up, she noted the 
 name of the Centennial Company upon 
 the comer. 
 
 " It's the letter I got with the manu- 
 
Blix 335 
 
 script of the novel when they sent it 
 back," he explained. 
 
 "Whatdid they say?" 
 
 " Oh, the usual thing. I haven't read 
 it yet. Here's what they say." He 
 opened it and read : 
 
 " We return to you herewith the MS. of your 
 novel, ' In Defiance of Authority, ' and regret 
 that our reader does not recommend it as availa- 
 ble for publication at present. We have, how- 
 ever, followed your work with considerable in- 
 terest, and have read a story by you, copied in 
 one of our exchanges, under the title, ' A Vic- 
 tory Over Death,' ■which we would have been 
 glad to publish ourselves, had you given us the 
 chance. » 
 
 " Would you consider the ofEer of the assistant 
 editorship of our Qua/rterly, a literary and criti- 
 cal pamphlet, that we publish in New York, 
 and with which we presume you are familiar? 
 We do not believe there would be any diflBculty 
 in the matter of financial arrangements. In case 
 you should decide to come on, we enclose E.R. 
 passes via the A. T. & S. F. , C. c& A. , and New 
 
 York Central. 
 
 " "Very truly, 
 
 "The Centennial Publishing Company, 
 
 " New York. " 
 
336 Blix 
 
 The two exchanged glances. But Blix 
 was too excited to speak, and could only 
 give vent to a little, quivering, choking 
 sigh. The letter was a veritable god 
 from the machine, the one thing lacking 
 to complete their happiness. 
 
 "I don't know how this looks to ?/om," 
 Condy began, trying to be calm, "but it 
 seems to me that this is — that this — 
 this " 
 
 But what they said then, they could 
 never afterward remember. The golden 
 haze of the sunset somehow got into 
 their recollection of the moment, and 
 they could only recall the fact that they 
 had been gayer in that moment than ever 
 before in all their lives. 
 
 Perhaps as gay as they ever were to be 
 again. They began to know the differ- 
 ence between gayety and happiness. 
 That New Year's Day, that sunset, 
 marked for them an end and a beginning. 
 It was the end of their gay, irresponsible, 
 hour - to - hour life of the past three 
 
Blix 337 
 
 months; and it was the beginning of a 
 new life, whose possibilities of sorrow 
 and of trouble, of pleasure and of happi- 
 ness, were greater than aught they had 
 yet experienced. They knew this — they 
 felt it instinctively, as with a common 
 impulse they turned and looked back 
 upon the glowing earth and sea and sky, 
 the breaking surf, the beach, the distant, 
 rime-encrusted, ancient fort — all that 
 scene that to their eyes stood for the 
 dear, free, careless companionship of those 
 last few months. Their new-found hap- 
 piness was not without its sadness al- 
 ready. All was over nowj their soli- 
 tary walks, the long, still evenings in 
 the little dining-room overlooking the 
 sleeping city, their excursions to Luna's, 
 their afternoons spent in the golden Chi- 
 nese balcony, their mornings on the lake, 
 calm and still and hot. Forever and for- 
 ever they had said good-by to that life. 
 Already the sunset was losing its glory. 
 Then, with one last look, they turned 
 
 22 
 
338 Blix 
 
 about and set their faces from it to the 
 new life, to the East, where lay the Na- 
 tion. Out beyond the purple bulwarks of 
 the Sierras, far off, the great, grim world 
 went clashing through its grooves — the 
 world that now they were to know, the 
 world that called to them, and woke 
 them, and roused them. Their little gay- 
 eties were done; the life of little things 
 was all behind. Now for the future. 
 The sterner note had struck — work was 
 to be done ; that, too, the New Year had 
 brought to them — work for each of them, 
 work and the world of men. 
 
 For a moment they shrank from it, 
 loath to take the first step beyond the 
 confines of the garden wherein they had 
 lived so joyously and learned to love 
 each other; and as they stood there, fac- 
 ing the gray and darkening Eastern sky, 
 their backs forever turned to the sunset, 
 Blix drew closer to him, putting her 
 hand in his, looking a little timidly into 
 his eyes. But his arm was around her, 
 
Blix 339 
 
 and the strong young force that looked 
 into her eyes from his gave her courage. 
 
 "A happy New Year, dear," she said. 
 
 "A very, very happy New Year, Blix," 
 he answered.