"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."