_ CHAPTER IV
"Wealth," observed the poet, waving his heavy white hand, "is a figure of speech, Mr. Wayne. Only by the process of elimination can one arrive at the exquisite simplicity of poverty--care-free poverty. Even a single penny is a burden--the flaw in the marble, the fly in the amber of perfection. Cast it away and enter Eden!" And joining thumb and forefinger, he plucked a figurative copper from the atmosphere, tossed it away, and wiped his fingers on his handkerchief.
"But--" began Wayne uneasily.
"Try it," smiled the poet, diffusing sweetness; "try it. Dismiss all thoughts of money from your mind."
"I do," said Wayne, somewhat relieved. "I thought you meant for me to chuck my securities overboard and eat herbs."
"Not in your case--no, not in your case. _I_ can do that; I have done it. No, your sacred mission is simply to forget that you are wealthy. That is a very precious thought, Mr. Wayne--remain a Croesus and forget it! Not to eliminate your _wealth_, but eliminate all _thought_ of it. Very, very precious."
"Well, I never think about things like that except at a directors' meeting," blurted out the young fellow. "Perhaps it's because I've never had to think about it."
The poet sighed so sweetly that the atmosphere seemed to drip with the saccharine injection.
"I wish," ventured Wayne, "that you would let me mention the subject of business"--the poet shook his head indulgently--"just to say that I'm not going to foreclose." He laid a packet of legal papers in the poet's hand.
"Hush," smiled Guilford, "this is not seemly in the house beautiful.... _What_ was it you said, Mr. Wayne?"
"I? I was going to say that I just wanted--wanted to stay here--be your guest, if you'll let me," he said honestly. "I was cruising--I didn't understand--Briggs--Briggs--" He stuck.
"Yes, Briggs," softly suggested the poet, spraying the night air with more sweetness.
"Briggs has spoken to you about--about your daughter Vanessa. You see, Briggs is my closest friend; his happiness is--er--important to me. I want to see Briggs happy; that's why I want to stay here, just to see Briggs happy. I--I love Briggs. You understand me, don't you, Mr. Guilford?"
The poet breathed a dulcet breath. "Perfectly," he murmured. "The contemplation of Mr. Briggs' happiness eliminates all thoughts of self within you. By this process of elimination you arrive at happiness yourself. Ah, the thought is a very precious one, my young friend, for by elimination only can we arrive at perfection. Thank you for the thought; thank you. You have given me a very, very precious thought to cherish."
"I--I have been here a week," muttered Wayne. "I thought--perhaps--my welcome might be outworn----"
"In the house beautiful," murmured the poet, rising and waving his heavy white hand at the open door, "welcome is eternal." He folded his arms with difficulty, for he was stout, and one hand clutched the legal papers; his head sank. In profound meditation he wandered away into the shadowy house, leaving Wayne sitting on the veranda rail, eyes fixed on a white shape dimly seen moving through the moonlit meadows below. Briggs sauntered into sight presently, his arms full of flowers.
"Get me a jug of water, will you? Vanessa has been picking these and she sent me back to fix 'em. Hurry, man! She is waiting for me in the garden." Wayne gazed earnestly at his friend.
"So you have done it, have you, Stuyve?"
"Done what?" demanded Briggs, blushing.
"It."
"If you mean," he said with dignity, "that I've asked the sweetest girl on earth to marry me, I have. And I'm the happiest man on the footstool, too. Good Heaven, George," he broke out, "if you knew the meaning of love! if you could for one second catch a glimpse of the beauty of her soul! Why, man of sordid clay that I was--creature of club and claret and turtle--like you----"
"Drop it!" said Wayne somberly.
"I can't help it, George. We were beasts--and _you_ are yet. But my base clay is transmuted, spiritualized; my soul is awake, traveling, toiling toward the upward heights where hers sits enthroned. When I think of what I was, and what you still are----"
Wayne rose exasperated:
"Do you think your soul is doing the only upward hustling?" he said hotly.
Briggs, clasping his flowers to his breast, gazed out over them at Wayne.
"You don't mean----"
"Yes, I do," said Wayne. "I may be crazy, but I know something," with which paradox he turned on his heel and walked into the moonlit meadow toward that dim, white form moving through the dusk.
"I wondered," she said, "whether you were coming," as he stepped through the long, fragrant grass to her side.
"You might have wondered if I had not come," he answered.
"Yes, that is true. This moonlight is too wonderful to miss," she added without a trace of self-consciousness.
"It was for you I came."
"Couldn't you find my sisters?" she asked innocently.
He did not reply. Presently she stumbled over a hummock, recovered her poise without comment, and slipped her hand into his with unconscious confidence.
"Do you know what I have been studying to-day?" she asked.
"What?"
"That curious phycomycetous fungus that produces resting-spores by the conjugation of two similar club-shaped hyphae, and in which conidia also occur. It's fascinating."
After a silence he said:
"What would you think of me if I told you that I do not comprehend a single word of what you have just told me?"
"Don't you?" she asked, astonished.
"No," he replied, dropping her hand. She wondered, vaguely distressed; and he went on presently: "As a plain matter of fact, I don't know much. It's an astonishing discovery for me, but it's a fact that I am not your mental, physical, or spiritual equal. In sheer, brute strength perhaps I am, and I am none too certain of that, either. But, and I say it to my shame, I can not follow you; I am inferior in education, in culture, in fine instinct, in mental development. You chatter in a dozen languages to your sisters: my French appals a Paris cabman; you play any instrument I ever heard of: the guitar is my limit, the fandango my repertoire. As for alert intelligence, artistic comprehension, ability to appreciate, I can not make the running with you; I am outclassed--hopelessly. Now, if this is all true--and I have spoken the wretched truth--_what_ can a man like me have to say for himself?"
Her head was bent, her fair face was in shadow. She strayed on a little way, then, finding herself alone, turned and looked back at him where he stood. For a moment they remained motionless, looking at one another, then, as on some sweet impulse, she came back hastily and looked into his eyes.
"I do not feel as you do," she said; "you are very--good--company. I am not all you say; I know very little. Listen. It--it distresses me to have you think I hold you--lightly. Truly we are _not_ apart."
"There is but one thing that can join us."
"What is that?"
"Love."
Her pure gaze did not falter nor her eyes droop. Curiously regarding him, she seemed immersed in the solution of the problem as he had solved it.
"Do you love me?" she asked.
"With all my soul--such as it is, with all my heart, with every thought, every instinct, every breath I draw."
She considered him with fearless eyes; the beauty of them was all he could endure.
"You love me?" she repeated.
He bent his head, incapable of speech.
"You wish me to love you?"
He looked at her, utterly unable to move his lips.
"_How_ do you wish me to love you?"
He opened his arms; she stepped forward, close to him.
Then their lips met.
"Oh," she said faintly, "I did not know it--it was so sweet."
And as her head fell back on his arm about her neck she looked up at him full of wonder at this new knowledge he had taught her, marvelous, unsuspected, divine in its simplicity. Then the first delicate blush that ever mounted her face spread, tinting throat and forehead; she drew his face down to her own.
The poet paced the dim veranda, arms folded, head bent. But his glance was sideways and full of intelligence as it included two vague figures coming slowly back through the moon-drenched meadow.
"By elimination we arrive at perfection," he mused; "and perfection is success. There remain six more," he added irrelevantly, "but they're young yet. Patience, subtle patience--and attention to the little things." He pinched a morsel of air out of the darkness, examined it and released it.
"The little things," he repeated; "that is a very precious thought.... I believe the sea air may agree with me--now and then."
And he wandered off into his "den" and unlocked a drawer in his desk, and took out a bundle of legal papers, and tore them slowly, carefully, into very small pieces. _