dr. inman shonto was not easily moved to a display of surprise, but for at least once in his life he found himself unequal to the occasion.
the girl in the doorway was galvanically pretty. her features were of that striking, contrasty quality that is the result of an artistic makeup—but she was not made up. she was dark, red-lipped, large-eyed, and her figure brought a quick flush of masculine appreciation in the doctor’s face. physically, it seemed to him, he had never before seen so gloriously all-right a girl. but the desirable physical characteristics which she displayed were not what had caused the cat to get the physician’s tongue. it was the low-neck, sleeveless gown, the sparkling hair ornaments, the gilded slippers and the creaseless silk stockings—all of which had for their background the coal-oil-lighted interior of a log cabin lost in the wilderness—that had wrecked his customary poise.
her ringing laugh served in a measure to readjust his scattered wits. she had interpreted the meaning of his surprise.
“it’s my birthday!” was the girlish announcement that followed her fun-provoking laugh. “it’s my[10] birthday—and i’m twenty-two—and my name is charmian reemy. mrs. charmian reemy, i suppose it is my duty to inform you. aren’t you coming in, dr. shonto?”
at last the doctor’s hat was in his hand, and andy jerome, standing just behind him and equally amazed, removed his too.
shonto was mumbling something about the unexpected pleasure of meeting a girl in the wilderness who knew his name while andy followed him inside. the girl hurried on before them and was arranging comfortable thong-bottom chairs before a huge stone fireplace. skins and bright-coloured navajo rugs half covered the puncheon floor. dainty, inexpensive curtains hung at the windows. deer antlers and enlarged photographs of wildwood scenes broke the solemnity of the dark log walls.
before the fireplace another woman bent and cooked in a dutch oven on red coals raked one side from the roaring fire of fir wood.
“this is mary temple, my companion, nurse, cook, and adviser in all matters pertaining to my general welfare,” announced the girl. “i love her companionship, appreciate her nursing, rave over her cooking, and ignore her advice entirely. mary temple, this is dr. inman shonto, lost in the woods with a friend whom i have not given him time to introduce.”
once more the bombarded doctor stood by his guns, bowed gravely to aged" target="_blank">middle-aged mary temple—who smiled over her lean shoulder but continued to hover her dutch oven—then turned to andy.
[11]“mrs. reemy, permit me,” he said. “my friend, andrew jerome.”
“mr. jerome,” laughed the girl, extending her hand, “i am happy to welcome you to my birthday party.” then, with one of her amazingly swift movements, she swung about to the physician. “and you, dr. shonto, are to be the guest of honour—and you are going to tell us all about glands and things like that.”
“it is absolutely impossible,” dr. shonto returned gallantly, “that i could have met you and forgotten you, mrs. reemy.”
“very well spoken, doctor,” she retorted, with a smile that twisted up a trifle at one corner of her mouth. “but i have heard that before. one would expect dr. inman shonto, renowned gland specialist, to say something more original. there—i’m being impolite again! (beat you to it that time, didn’t i, mary temple!) but you are pardoned for a commonplace speech, doctor. it must have stunned you not a little to come upon a dolled-up flapper out here in the forest. i’ll relieve your mind instantly. we have never met before. but i have read about you for years. and this morning, when i was down at lovejoy’s for my mail—and incidentally a big piece of venison which i hadn’t expected to be given me—i saw you and mr. jerome walking up the road with your guns. i inquired about you, and was told that the eminent dr. shonto and his friend mr. jerome, of los angeles, were in our midst. and, though i saw only your backs this morning, those shoulders of yours, doctor, are as wide when seen from the front as from[12] the rear. and when i saw them threatening to push to right and left the uprights of my door frame, i thought samson was about to bring the house down on us two philistines. for that’s what we are, gentlemen—outlawed philistines. and this is the house called el trono de tolerancia—which in spanish is equivalent to the throne of tolerance. all right, mary temple—i see your shoulders quivering! i’ll stop right now and let somebody else get in a word. but since i already know the doctor and his friend—and a great deal about the doctor that he doesn’t suspect—doesn’t it stand to reason that they ought to hear about us before sitting down to my birthday dinner?”
“you oughtn’t to’ve called yourself a flapper,” said the kneeling mary temple, showing one fire-crimsoned cheek.
with her ready laughter, which was hearty and whole-souled without a suggestion of boisterousness, mrs. charmian reemy seated herself. then andy and doctor shonto found seats one on either side of her.
“this is certainly a refreshing experience, mrs. reemy,” were the younger man’s first words since acknowledging his introduction to her.
“i’m glad you think so,” she replied. “i dearly love to make life refreshing for folks. for myself as well. i thought it would be refreshing fun to dress to-night, with only mary temple and me ’way out here in the woods. it was just a freakish whim of mine. i get ’em frequently. don’t i, mary temple?”
the firelight showed red through one of mary temple’s[13] thin ears as she half turned her head, doubtless to administer a reproof, and executed “eyes front” again when she changed her mind.
“i had no idea at the time, though, that two distressed gentlemen were to come to my party and admire me and my table decorations.”
she swept a white arm in the direction of a table at one side of the large room, on which were a spotless cloth, china and silver, and an earth-sweet centerpiece of ferns and california holly berries.
“now i’ll tell you who i am, so that you will be better able to celebrate properly with me—and then for the glands. i’m dying to learn all about glands. could you rejuvenate me, doctor shonto? now’s your chance for that pretty birthday speech!”
“i think,” said shonto, with his grave smile, “that you, mrs. reemy, are a far more successful rejuvenator right now than i shall ever be. i’ve sloughed off five years since entering your door.”
“better! that was extremely well done. and now let’s get down to business:
“i am charmian reemy, aged twenty-two to-day. i was born in san francisco, and live there now. when i was seventeen i was married to walter j. reemy, a mining man from alaska. to be absolutely frank, that marriage was the result of a plot by my father and mother to marry me off to a wealthy man. and i was too young and pliable to put up a decent fight.
“i went to alaska with my husband, where we lived two years. he was killed in a gambling game, and his will left everything to me. i sold out his alaska mining[14] property and returned to the united states, where i lived with my parents in san francisco until both were taken away in the recent flu epidemic.
“since then i have been alone except for mary temple, who was with me in alaska. she had returned to san francisco with me after walter’s death. so when i was left entirely alone again i hunted her up, and she has been my companion and housekeeper ever since.
“when i was little i was what is generally called a misunderstood child. whether that was true or not i can’t say, but i know that, almost from my earliest remembrance, my home life was unpleasant. my parents were plodders in the footsteps of tradition. at an early age i showed radical tendencies.
“i am a radical to-day. i am intolerant of all the intolerance of this generation of false prophets. i come up here to forget man’s stupidity. and i call my retreat in the big-timber country the throne of tolerance. wait until to-morrow morning. then, if you can look from those west windows and be intolerant of anything or anybody, you don’t belong to my clan.
“i make pilgrimage to el trono de tolerancia whenever i begin to choke up down in san francisco. mary temple and i live simply up here in the woods until the suffocation passes, then we return to the city—and boredom. i learned to love the outdoors up in alaska. and sometime i’m going on a great adventure. i’m going to some far-off place where man never before has set his foot. and maybe i shan’t come back.
“that’s about all there is to be told about me. except[15] that i never intend to marry again. oh, yes!—and i always call mary temple mary temple. if i were to call her mary it would sound disrespectful from one so much younger than she is. if i called her miss temple it would sound stiff and throw a wet blanket over our comradeship. and i’m too human, and i hope too genuine, to ape high society and call her temple. so she’s mary temple to me, and everything seems to move smoothly. now i’m through—positively through. now tell me about the glands, doctor shonto.”
shonto was smiling in quiet amusement. he could not quite make out this girl. shonto was very much a radical himself, and he believed that she knew it. but he considered her too young to hold such a pessimistic outlook on life as she had hinted at. that she was ready to worship him because of his reputation as a specialist in gland secretions seemed apparent. the doctor had been fawned upon by many women intellectually inclined, and they had nauseated him immeasurably. he admired charmian reemy for her physical charm, her vivacity, and her good-fellowship; but he was experienced and therefore wary.
but he was saved for the present from committing himself by mary temple, who had completed her ministrations over the dutch oven, and had carried the result to the table.
“dinner’s ready,” she announced unceremoniously.
whereupon charmian rose and seated her guests.
dr. shonto was not a little puzzled at the behaviour of his friend. andy jerome had spoken to mrs. reemy[16] but once since their entrance into her home, aside from muttering her name when the doctor had introduced him. it was true that their hostess had done most of the talking herself, but shonto had managed to get in a word edgewise now and then. while andy had showed little or no inclination to talk at all.
for the most part he had sat and almost stared at her, as if never before had he seen a beautiful girl in an evening gown. the doctor knew that this was far from the case, and that andy ordinarily was quick to respond to pretty women. he usually could hold his own with them, too. but it seemed that charmian reemy had fairly swept him off his feet. shonto felt a slight twinge of regret. he found that he himself was rather impressed by this frank, free-spoken girl of the woods and the cities.
mary temple occupied the foot of the table, where she sat stiffly and with an austere mien, and attended to the greater part of the serving. they were no more than seated when charmian reemy again began begging the gland specialist to initiate her into the mysteries of his witchcraft. but shonto, seeking an avenue of escape, hit upon a topic that at once changed her thoughts into another, though no less interesting, channel.
“you say, mrs. reemy,” he began, “that you are contemplating going off for a big adventure some day. if you haven’t anything definite in mind, i’d like to offer a suggestion. how would you like to make an attempt to explore a lost valley—a forgotten valley—in reality, an undiscovered valley?”
[17]“what?” her dark eyes were sparkling.
“just that. andy and i heard about it the other day. and on the way to this undiscovered valley you may hunt for opals. of course, a fellow may hunt for opals anywhere he chooses. but in this case he may do so with reasonable hopes of success.”
“do you mean that, doctor shonto?”
“absolutely. but i have only the story of a couple of prospectors, one of whom has been an old-time opal miner in australia. they are both intelligent men, and their story rang true.”
“please let’s hear all about it!” begged charmian. “an undiscovered valley! how can it be undiscovered when these prospectors know about it? and opals! you’ve lured me away from glands for the present, doctor. give us the yarn!”
