Arms and the Woman

"I shall be a physical wreck," said Pembroke, when we finally returned

to B----, "if you keep this up much longer."

"Look at me!" was my gloomy rejoinder.

"Well, you have that interesting pallor," he admitted, "which women

ascribe to lovers."

Thrusting my elbows on the table, I buried my chin in my hands and

stared. After a while I said: "I do not believe she wants to be found."

"That has been my idea this long while," he replied, "only I did not

wish to make you more despondent than you were."

So I became resigned--as an animal becomes resigned to its cage. I

resolved to tear her image from my heart, to go with Pembroke to the

jungles and shoot tigers; to return in some dim future bronzed,

gray-haired and noted. For above all things I intended to get at my

books again, to make romances instead of living them.

There were times when I longed to go to Phyllis and confide my troubles

to her, but a certain knowledge held me back.

One morning, when I had grown outwardly calm, I said to Pembroke:

"Philip, I shall go with you to India."

"Here is a letter for you," he replied; "it may change your plans."

My mail, since leaving the journalistic field, had become so small that

to receive a letter was an event. As I stretched forth a hand for the

letter my outward calm passed swiftly, and my heart spoke in a voice of

thunder. I could not recall the chirography on the envelope. The

hand, I judged, which had held the pen was more familiar with flays and

scythes. Inside of the envelope I discovered only six words, but they

meant all the world to me. "She is here at the inn." It was unsigned.

I waved the slip of paper before Pembroke's eyes.

"She is found!" I cried.

"Then go in search of her," he said.

"And you will go with me?"

"Not I! I prefer tigers to princesses. By the way, here is an article

in the Zeitung on the coming coronation of Her Serene Highness the

Princess Elizabeth of Hohenphalia. I'm afraid that I shan't be present

to witness the event." He thrust the paper into my hands and

approached the window, out of which he leaned and stared at the garden

flowers below. . . . "When I asked her why it could not be, she

answered that she had no love to give in return for mine." Presently

he rapped his pipe on the sill and drew in his head. His brow was

wrinkled and his lips were drawn down at the corners. With some shame

I remembered that I had thought only of myself during the past few

months. "Jack," he said, "I have gone around with you for the

excitement of it, for the temporary forgetfulness, and because I wanted

to see you well cared for before I left you. The excitement took my

mind from my own malady, but it has returned to-day with all its old

violence. There is the same blood in our veins. We must have one

woman or none. I must get away from all this. We are at the parting

of the ways, old man. To-night I leave for India. The jungle is a

great place. I am glad for your sake that you are not to go with me.

Sometimes one gets lost."