  Evening had come again. In fact, it was almost bedtime. Frances and I sat before the hearth in the library, looking silently into the red heart of the dying embers of fragrant pine cones. For in the heights of the Pocantico Hills it often is chilly on summer nights. My darling sat on a low fauteuil, her chin resting upon her hand, her beautiful eyes fixed dreamily, inscrutably, upon the fading coals. In her lap lay the spread of the crimson pajamas. She was thinking—thinking—I wondered what! And I was thinking how jolly rum it all was; that Francis wasn't Frances, that the professor wasn't Billings, Colonel Francis Kirkland wasn't Foxy Grandpa and wasn't the frump's father after all; and that the frump, herself—bless her, her name was Elizabeth—wasn't Frances, and wasn't a frump at all, but just a jolly, nice, homely old dear, you know. And I was trying to catch and hold some of the deuced queer things the professor had discoursed upon about ancient Oriental what's-its-name, and astral bodies, obsession, psychical research and all that sort of thing. Somehow, dash it, it had all seemed devilish unreasonable and improbable to me—couldn't get hold of it, you know; but as everybody else had said "Ah-h-h!" and had wagged their heads as though they understood, I just said: "Dash it, of course, you know!" and recrossed my legs and took a fresher grip on my monocle. The most devilish hard thing to get hold of had been that Frances had never sat on the arm of my Morris chair, had never told me she liked me better than any man she had ever met, and had never called me "Dicky" at any time or anywhere. I wondered if she ever would, and how the deuce fellows went about it when they proposed to the girl they madly loved. I was devilish put out, you know, that I had never tried it so I could know. From across the hall droned the voices from the smoking-room—Colonel Kirkland and the judge debating something about treaty ports and the Manchurian railway. Through the French windows from the open loggia came the eager, pitched tones of the professor and the frump—no, Elizabeth, I mean—discussing Aldeberan and Betelguese, dead suns, star clusters and the nebular hypothesis. Within the room Billings had snapped out the lights, to bring out the blazing fire of his treasured ruby, and from the tray in the dark corner where he was closing it in his collection vault, it gleamed like the end of a bright cigar. The other four were absently clutched in my darling's hand and the crimson shine gleamed bravely through her finger bars. "Carbuncles—ancient carbuncles," the professor had called them, "that the Chinese believed their dragons carried in their mouths, in their black caves in days of old, to furnish light whereby they could see to devour their victims." And that I believed, for I could see some practical sense about it! "What I should like to know," said the dear, precious cub, hugging his knee by the mantel, "is where I come in!" "You don't come in," said Billings, lifting him playfully by the ear; "you come out!" And out they went. And my dear girl and I were like what's-his-name's picture—alone at last, you know. She stirred softly and her sigh came like the wind through the trees at night. "I suppose we will have to burn them," she said dolefully; "the professor says it is the only thing to do." "Jolly shame, I say!" I murmured indignantly. "It seems a crime," she said softly, and there was a little choke in her voice. She slipped to the soft-fibered rug before the fire. I gently brought my chair closer to her. For a moment she pressed her cheek against the crimson mass, then kneeling forward, laid it gently on the glowing coals. There was a flash, a lightning blaze of red that almost blinded us, and then for a brief space a field of shining ash. Against this the tiny serpent frogs writhed and twisted and turned at last to leaden gray. Over the spread of all, swept wave after wave of golden, crimsoned pictures—temples and pagodas—dragons that licked fiery tongues at us—strange faces that came and went, leering hideously into our own. And then of a sudden it was all faded—gone! The breeze from the open window stirred the ashes to the side. She dropped back with a deep sigh. "They're gone," she breathed mournfully. "Never mind," I said; "you've these left." And daringly I laid my hand upon the one that clasped the rubies. And I thrilled as it lay still beneath my own. "Good-by, you dear old, wicked, enchanted pajamas," she said. "I don't care—I just love you, because—" She paused. "Because they brought us together?" By Jove, I didn't know I had said it, till it came out! An instant, and then I caught it—just a little whisper, you know: "Yes—Dicky!" By Jove! And then, dash it, my monocle dropped! But I let it go. Presently she looked at the glowing rubies in her hand. "They are from India, you know, Dicky—from Mandalay, the professor said." And she murmured: "'On the road to Mandalay, where the old flotilla lay'—don't you remember? I've been there, Dicky." "By Jove!" I said. "Have you, though? Is it jolly?" "The poet seemed to think so—" She laughed. "Do you know Kipling, Dicky?" I tried to think, but dashed if I could remember. I wondered if it would be a good place to take a trip to! I hitched closer. "What does—er—this poet chap say about it? What's it like, you know?" She laughed. "I'm afraid it's wicked, Dicky, a good deal like the haunted pajamas." She leaned forward, chin upon her hand again, looking into the fading coals. "I'll tell you what he says." Then her voice went on: "By Jove!" I said, interested. "For the temple bells are callin', and it's there that I would be— By the old Moulmein pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea." I brought my hand down on my knee. "Oh, I say, you know—er—Frances," I exclaimed with enthusiasm, "we'll go there for our honeymoon, by Jove! Shall we—eh?" And then the jolly rubies rolled unheeded to the floor. And nothing stirred but the ashes of the haunted pajamas! And then—Oh, but Frances says that's all! THE END |
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