But of course I should have met her. She would have come to me walking lightly out of the dim Algerian evening or bumped into me some morning in Piccadilly or peered curiously through my leaded pane at Oxford, whither I should undoubtedly have returned, one day, to muse away my middle age. I idled for a happy year there, twenty-odd years ago, while Roger was grinding away at the fantastic matter he called the Law, and liked it well. But fate had not decreed me for a conventional Englishman, which I should doubtless have been, for as a boy I was malleable to a degree, but had reserved me instead for the ends of the earth—and Margarita.
CHAPTER IV
FATE REELS IN
There is nothing more certain than that the bare facts of life are misleading in the extreme. This is doubtless nature's reason for concealing the human skeleton; it is undeniably necessary, but not many of us take it into daily consideration, and nobody but a few negligible anthropologists would dream of bringing it forward as proof of anything in particular. And yet people who are fond of describing themselves as practical persistently fold their hands over their abdomens, shrug their shoulders and reiterate monotonously: "But, my dear fellow, there are the facts! It is only necessary to consider the facts of the case!" or, "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid the bare facts are against you!" I suppose that is why they are so often called bare, because so little of the important, informing or attractive is draped around them.
Consider for instance, the bare facts of Roger's adventure. Here is a man who, meeting a perfectly unknown and singularly beautiful young woman in a questionable locality at dusk, enters into conversation with her, takes her to a French restaurant for dinner, then finds himself embroiled in a disgraceful altercation in which wine-glasses are thrown and chairs waved, and finally escapes with her in a closed carriage, which soon becomes the scene of a violent struggle culminating in a ferocious kiss! The case is really too clear; it is almost too conventional for an art student of any initiative and originality. Anyone possessed of the slightest acquaintance with fiction or the daily papers could tell you instantly that here were a dissipated clubman and a too-unfortunately-stereotyped creature who not only required no description but were best, in the interests of morality, undescribed. And yet Roger was emphatically not dissipated, nor even a clubman, in the sense in which the word appears to be used in America, and Margarita was not in the least unfortunate and so far from stereotyped that she pressed the unusual hard toward the utterly unique.
"Well, well," I hear the practical man, "but this is a case in one—five—ten thousand, surely! We all know—"
My good man, there is absolutely nothing we all know except that we shall certainly die, one day, and from this one bare fact more utterly contradictory inferences have been drawn than I can afford ink to enumerate. Nothing could be more certain than this bare fact, and can you show me anything more productive of human uncertainty? I trow not. What do you know of the private life of the man in the next house? Have you a friend who cannot tell you from one to three melodramatic tales, lying quite within his experience, at which you will gasp, "Why, it's as exciting as a novel!" The best novels never get into print and the most blood-curdling, goose-pimpling dramas are played by the boxholders. The longer I live the more firmly am I convinced that the really quiet life is relatively rare.
To Roger, indeed, after his climax in the four-wheeler, it seemed impossible that life could ever again be quiet. If I have not impressed you with the idea that he was a decent sort of man, I have wasted a whole chapter and demonstrated the folly of attempting authorship at my age, and you will be but poorly prepared to learn that when the cabby knocked at the glass, after heaven knows how many minutes of interested observation, Roger discovered his identity again—and loathed it. His conduct appeared to him indescribably beneath contempt, his situation deplorable. Margarita, sobbing quietly in her corner, seemed unlikely to raise either his spirits or his estimate of himself.
Opening the door of the carriage he repeated his directions to the too-confidential driver and spoke stiffly to his companion.
"I will not attempt to excuse myself to you," he said, "for it would be pointless. If you can believe me, I will try my best to help you to your friends. Can you not tell me the name of one?"
"What is your name?" she asked, her voice only a little shaken from her sobs, which had ceased as soon as he began to speak.
"My name is Roger Bradley," he answered promptly.
"Then that is the name of my first friend," said Margarita Joséphine Dolores, "but I hope to find others."
Roger's revulsion of feeling was so great, his state of mind so perturbed and confounded that he crushed them into a short, husky laugh. Had he been the hero of a novel he would undoubtedly have launched into a bitter speech, but he did not.
"Others like me?" he said briefly, and all the bitterness of the novel-hero was there if Margarita had been able to read it. But she only smiled, a little uncertainly, it is true, and replied:
"Yes, I should like them like you—only not so strong," she added softly, with a shy glance at her wrists.
It has been quite unnecessary for me to consult letters or diaries to give me a very clear insight into Roger's feelings at this point, for I myself have experienced them. It was when I took Margarita out in a rowboat and she began to rock herself in it.
"Don't do that, Margarita!" I cried. "That is an idiotic trick."
She continued to rock it.
"Do you hear me, Margarita?" I demanded, tapping her foot with some irritation, for she really was irritating. In fact she completely upset the theory that tact and adaptability constitute her sex's chief charm.
"Of course I hear you. If you kick me, I shall only rock the harder," she answered composedly—and did so.
Shipping the oars carefully I arose, advanced upon Margarita and boxed her ears with determination. I should have done it in mid-ocean. I doubt if sharks in sight would have deterred me. As I was boxing her ears—beautiful, strong ones, they were, not tiny, selfish, high-set bits of porcelain: W—r M—l (who would have been Sir W—r M—l in England to-day) said of Margarita's ears that they were set convincingly low and that he looked to her to demonstrate one of his favourite tests of longevity—in the very act of this boxing. I repeat, I was cruelly bitten in the wrists, and, snorting with rage, pure, primitive, unchivalrous rage, I fell upon that shameless little Pagan and shook her violently, till the teeth rattled in her head. Over we went, the pair of us, struggling like demons, into the chilly, rational water, and as Margarita, like so many people who live by the sea, was utterly ignorant of the art of swimming and like so many people of her temperament, violently averse to the sudden shock of cold water, it was a subdued and dripping young woman that I dragged to the overturned boat and ultimately towed to shore. I worked hard to get her there and had no time for remorse, but as I hurried her up the beach it flooded over me.
"What must you think of me?" I asked her through chattering teeth. "You will not care to meet any more of Roger's friends, I fear."
"Oh, yes," she returned sweetly, looking incomprehensibly lovely—ah,