第22章

"'Well, well, well,' said he, 'you old doughface! Struck too, are you?

That's great! But you're too late.Francesca tells me that Anabela talks of nothing but me, day and night.Of course, I'm awfully obliged to you for making that chin-music to her of evenings.But, do you know, I've an idea that I could have done it as well myself.'

"'Mrs.Judson Tate,' says I.'Don't forget the name.You've had the use of my tongue to go with your good looks, my boy.You can't lend me your looks; but hereafter my tongue is my own.Keep your mind on the name that's to be on the visiting cards two inches by three and a half --"Mrs.Judson Tate." That's all.'

"'All right,' says Fergus, laughing again.'I've talked with her father, the alcalde, and he's willing.He's to give a /baile/

to-morrow evening in his new warehouse.If you were a dancing man, Jud, I'd expect you around to meet the future Mrs.McMahan.'

"But on the next evening, when the music was playing loudest at the Alcade Zamora's /baile/, into the room steps Judson Tate in a new white linen clothes as if he were the biggest man in the whole nation, which he was.

"Some of the musicians jumped off the key when they saw my face, and one or two of the timidest senoritas let out a screech or two.But up prances the alcalde and almost wipes the dust off my shoes with his forehead.No mere good looks could have won me that sensational entrance.

"'I hear much, Senor Zamora,' says I, 'of the charm of your daughter.

It would give me great pleasure to be presented to her.'

"There were about six dozen willow rocking-chairs, with pink tidies tied on to them, arranged against the walls.In one of them sat Senorita Anabela in white Swiss and red slippers, with pearls and fireflies in her hair.Fergus was at the other end of the room trying to break away from two maroons and a claybank girl.

"The alcalde leads me up to Anabela and presents me.When she took the first look at my face she dropped her fan and nearly turned her chair over from the shock.But I'm used to that.

"I sat down by her, and began to talk.When she heard me speak she jumped, and her eyes got as big as alligator pears.She couldn't strike a balance between the tones of my voice and face I carried.But I kept on talking in the key of C, which is the ladies' key; and presently she sat still in her chair and a dreamy look came into her eyes.She was coming my way.She knew of Judson Tate, and what a big man he was, and the big things he had done; and that was in my favour.

But, of course, it was some shock to her to find out that I was not the pretty man that had been pointed out to her as the great Judson.

And then I took the Spanish language, which is better than English for certain purposes, and played on it like a harp of a thousand strings.

I ranged from the second G below the staff up to F-sharp above it.I set my voice to poetry, art, romance, flowers, and moonlight.I repeated some of the verses that I had murmured to her in the dark at her window; and I knew from a sudden soft sparkle in her eye that she recognized in my voice the tones of her midnight mysterious wooer.

"Anyhow, I had Fergus McMahan going.Oh, the vocal is the true art--no doubt about that.Handsome is as handsome palavers.That's the renovated proverb.

"I took Senorita Anabela for a walk in the lemon grove while Fergus, disfiguring himself with an ugly frown, was waltzing with the claybank girl.Before we returned I had permission to come to her window in the /patio/ the next evening at midnight and talk some more.

"Oh, it was easy enough.In two weeks Anabela was engaged to me, and Fergus was out.He took it calm, for a handsome man, and told me he wasn't going to give in.

"'Talk may be all right in its place, Judson,' he says to me, 'although I've never thought it worth cultivating.But,' says he, 'to expect mere words to back up successfully a face like yours in a lady's good graces is like expecting a man to make a square meal on the ringing of a dinner-bell.'

"But I haven't begun on the story I was going to tell you yet.

"One day I took a long ride in the hot sunshine, and then took a bath in the cold waters of a lagoon on the edge of the town before I'd cooled off.

"That evening after dark I called at the alcalde's to see Anabela.I was calling regular every evening then, and we were to be married in a month.She was looking like a bulbul, a gazelle, and a tea-rose, and her eyes were as soft and bright as two quarts of cream skimmed off from the Milky Way.She looked at my rugged features without any expression of fear or repugnance.Indeed, I fancied that I saw a look of deep admiration and affection, such as she had cast at Fergus on the plaza.

"I sat down, and opened my mouth to tell Anabela what she loved to hear--that she was a trust, monopolizing all the loveliness of earth.

I opened my mouth, and instead of the usual vibrating words of love and compliment, there came forth a faint wheeze such as a baby with croup might emit.Not a word--not a syllable--not an intelligible sound.I had caught cold in my laryngeal regions when I took my injudicious bath.

"For two hours I sat trying to entertain Anabela.She talked a certain amount, but it was perfunctory and diluted.The nearest approach I made to speech was to formulate a sound like a clam trying to sing 'A

Life on the Ocean Wave' at low tide.It seemed that Anabela's eyes did not rest upon me as often as usual.I had nothing with which to charm her ears.We looked at pictures and she played the guitar occasionally, very badly.When I left, her parting manner seemed cool --or at least thoughtful.

"This happened for five evenings consecutively.

"On the sixth day she ran away with Fergus McMahan.

"It was known that they fled in a sailing yacht bound for Belize.I was only eight hours behind them in a small steam launch belonging to the Revenue Department.