the loss of the jewels affected keturah hand strangely. at first it made her ill, but soon she was not only well, but better than she had been for a long time. she declared herself actually relieved, in a sense, to be rid of the stones. they had been a constant worriment for years. now she did not have the care and anxiety of them—and she knew they were in safe hands.
“any one who steals them is going to take pretty good[165] care of them,” she declared. “and i think i know who stole them, and why.”
“was it the ghost of one of kidd’s pirates?” asked mermaid, upon whom the theft of the jewels had seemed to have a more persistently depressing effect than it had had upon her aunt.
“he may have been one of kidd’s pirates in a previous incarnation, and he may have been kidd himself in an earlier life,” responded keturah. “at present he’s a retired sea captain whose story wouldn’t look pretty in print, i suspect. not that it will ever get printed,” she added. “he took them because——” she broke off. “i don’t know as i’m called upon to air my guesses,” she explained. “i’m not a detective in a detective story and i’ll not do any deducing out loud.”
both ho ha and john smiley were much upset by the disappearance of the stones, though both felt called upon to remonstrate with keturah when she said, quite calmly, that captain vanton had got what he was after.
“if there’s the slightest shred of evidence that captain vanton took them, hosea and i can handle him,” her brother told her. “you won’t let the theft be known, and you won’t hire a detective. you won’t tell us anything that points to vanton.”
“because i can’t,” cut in keturah. “i’m not like a good many women. i don’t mistake my intuitions for evidence. i just feel that he has them—and i don’t much care if he has. i also feel that he won’t break them[166] up and sell them, and that eventually they will get where they belong, as nearly as possible. jewels aren’t like any other kind of property, and everybody who has much to do with them knows it. i’m not superstitious, but you don’t have to be superstitious to believe that a sort of curse attends the possession of most really valuable gems whenever they’re not in the right hands. they don’t rightly belong to me, never did. as i say, it’s no use to hand down jewels like other property. my aunt, to whom they belonged as rightfully as any one else, had no more sense than to leave them to me along with her land and furniture. i’ve always known they weren’t for me, but what could i do about it? nothing, except wait for them to get into the right hands or throw them in the bay. maybe they’ve got into the right hands now. if they haven’t, they’ll make whoever’s got ’em trouble enough until they do. if they belong to him it won’t matter how he came by them, or whether he deserves ’em, or whether he is a good man or a devil; but if they don’t belong in his hands, he may be a living saint and still be sorrier than the worst sinner.”
ho ha and cap’n smiley affected to treat this argument as foolishness, but something in it appealed to the mysticism in mermaid. it fitted in with what she had observed of the illogicality of life, and she was readier than many an older person to believe that the world is ruled as much by sentiment as by law, and that life is a[167] series of compromises only for those who can’t accept its contradictions, and go on with their work.
she expressed this view to guy vanton without mentioning the loss of the stones.
it was mermaid’s last day on the beach. in a week she would be in new york, taking special courses at columbia and perhaps elsewhere. she was going in for cooking and chemistry, the chemistry of foods, and later she might take some medical courses leading to a study of the chemistry of digestion.
“the chemistry of the human body,” she said to guy, “is a job for the next fifty years.”
guy considered, lazily. “if you like it, i suppose,” he said, reflectively. “i wish i knew enough chemistry to analyze my father, for instance. not his digestion, which is perfect, but his mind. but i think the best approach to the mind is still alchemy. the philosopher’s stone probably exists, only we’ve always been on the wrong track in hunting it. it would be an idea that would transmute base-mindedness to rare-mindedness, and not base metals to gold. my father needs that kind of a philosopher’s stone; perhaps i do, too. we’re very unlike, you know; often it seems to me as if he weren’t my father at all. sometimes i think he hates me, but even if he did—there are ties hate can’t break.” his voice lowered and his queer eyes looked into the distance. “some day,” he said, “some day, mermaid, i’ll tell you, maybe—— you pulled me out once, you[168] know.” he looked at her with a painful appeal. his eyes were those of a wild fawn. an almost overpowering desire to answer that appeal swept through the girl, met the solid wall of her final doubt of him, and was broken to pieces. she gave his hand a friendly squeeze. “good-bye,” she said, and left him.
