The Danger Mark

A quick colour tinted her skin:

"And I will write you every day. I will begin to-day. Kathleen and I expect to be here in September. But you will come back before that and keep Scott company; won't you?"

"I want to get into harness again," he said slowly. "I want to settle down to work."

"Can't you work here?"

"Not very well."

"Why?"

"To tell the truth," he admitted, smiling, "I require something more like a working studio than Miller's garret."

"That's what I thought," she said shyly, "and Scott and I have the plans for a studio all ready; and the men are to begin Monday, and Miller is to take the new gate cottage. Oh, the plans are really very wonderful!" she added hastily, as Duane looked grateful but dubious. "Rollins and Calvert drew them. I wrote to Billy Calvert and sent him the original plans for Hurryon Lodge. Duane, I thought it would please you–"

"It does, you dear, generous girl! I'm a trifle overwhelmed, that's all my silence meant. You ought not to do this for me–"

"Why? Aren't we to be as near each other as we can be until—I am ready—for something—closer?"

"Yes.... Certainly.... I'll arrange to work out certain things up here. As for models, if there is nothing suitable at Westgate village, you won't mind my importing some, will you?"

"No," she said, becoming very serious and gravely interested, as befitted the fiancée of a painter of consequence. "You will do what is necessary, of course; because I—few girls—are accustomed in the beginning to the details of such a profession as yours; and I'm very ignorant, Duane, and I must learn how to second you—intelligently"—she blushed—"that is, if I'm to amount to anything as an artist's wife."

"You dear!" he whispered.

"No; I tell you I am totally ignorant. A studio is an awesome place to me. I merely know enough to keep out of it when you are using models. That is safest, isn't it?"

He said, intensely amused: "It might be safer not to give pink teas while I am working from the nude."

"Duane! Do you think me a perfect ninny? Anyway, you're not always painting Venus and Ariadne and horrid Ledas, are you?"

"Not always!" he managed to assure her; and her pretty, confused laughter mingled with his unembarrassed mirth as the motor-car swung up to carry him and his traps to the station.

They said good-bye; her dark eyes became very tragic; her lips threatened to escape control.

Kathleen turned away, manoeuvring Scott out of earshot, who knowing nothing of any situation between Duane and his sister, protested mildly, but forgot when Kathleen led him to an orange-underwing moth asleep on the stone coping of the terrace.

And when the unfortunate Catocala had been safely bottled and they stood examining it in the library, Scott's rapidly diminishing conceit found utterance:

"I say, Kathleen, it's all very well for me to collect these fascinating things, but any ass can do that. One can't make a particular name for one's self by doing what a lot of cleverer men have already done, and what a lot of idle idiots are imitating."

She raised her violet eyes, astonished:

"Do you want to make a name for yourself?"

"Yes," he said, reddening.

"Why not? I'm a nobody. I'm worse; I'm an amateur! You ought to hear what Duane has to say about amateurs!"

"But, Scott, you don't have to be anything in particular except what you are–"

"What am I?" he demanded.

"Why—yourself."

"And what's that?" He grew redder. "I'll tell you, Kathleen. I'm merely a painfully wealthy young man. Don't laugh; this is becoming deadly serious to me. By my own exertions I've never done one bally thing either useful or spectacular. I'm not distinguished by anything except an unfair share of wealth. I'm not eminent, let alone pre-eminent, even in that sordid class; there are richer men, plenty of them—some even who have made their own fortunes and have not been hatched out in a suffocating plethora of affluence like the larva of the Carnifex tumble-bug–"

"Scott!"

"And I!" he ended savagely. "Why, I'm not even pre-eminent as far as my position in the social puddle is concerned; there are sets that wouldn't endure me; there's at least one club into which I couldn't possibly wriggle; there are drawing-rooms where I wouldn't be tolerated, because I've nothing on earth to recommend me or to distinguish me from Algernon FitzNoodle and Montmorency de Sansgallette except an inflated income! What have I to offer anybody worth while for entertaining me? What have I to offer you, Kathleen, in exchange for yourself?"

He was becoming boyishly dramatic with sweeping gestures which amazed her; but she was conscious that it was all sincere and very real to him.

"Scott, dear," she began sweetly, uncertain how to take it all; "kindness, loyalty, and decent breeding are all that a woman cares for in a man–"

"You are entitled to more; you are entitled to a man of distinction, of attainment, of achievement–"

"Few women ask for that, Scott; few care for it; fewer still understand it–"

"You would. I've got a cheek to ask you to marry me—me!—before I wear any tag to identify me except the dollar mark–"

"Oh, hush, Scott! You are talking utter nonsense; don't you know it?"

He made a large and rather grandiose gesture:

"Around me lies opportunity, Kathleen—every stone; every brook–"

The mischievous laughter of his listener checked him. She said: "I'm sorry; only it made me think of

'Sermons in stones,

Books in the running brooks,'

and the indignant gentleman who said: 'What damn nonsense! It's "sermons in books, stones in the running brooks!"' Do go on, Scott, dear, I don't mean to be frivolous; it is fine of you to wish for fame–"

"It isn't fame alone, although I wouldn't mind it if I deserved it. It's that I want to do just one thing that amounts to something. I wish you'd give me an idea, Kathleen, something useful in—say in entomology."

Together they walked back to the terrace. Duane had gone; Geraldine sat sideways on the parapet, her brown eyes fixed on the road along which her lover had departed.

"Geraldine," said Kathleen, who very seldom relapsed into the vernacular, "this brother of yours desires to perform some startling stunt in entomology and be awarded Carnegie medals."

"That's about it," said Scott, undaunted. "Some wise guy put it all over the Boll-weevil, and saved a few billions for the cotton growers; another gentleman full of scientific thinks studied out the San José scale; others have got in good licks at mosquitoes and house-flies. I'd like to tackle something of that sort."

"Rose-beetles," said his sister briefly. In her voice was a suspicion of tears, and she kept her head turned from them.

"Nobody could ever get rid of Rose-beetles," said Kathleen. "But it would be exciting, wouldn't it, Scott? Think of saving our roses and peonies and irises every year!"

"I am thinking of it," said Scott gravely.