Page:Century Magazine v069 (centuryillustrat69holl).pdf/451

about, putting out the lights one by one, and smiling at her face out of the shadows. He was a distinguished gentleman, and how pretty Henrietta looked! She was a dear child.

Up in his room the Scientist was unpacking his bag, moving softly and putting things carefully away. He took out a set of flat boxes and arranged them symmetrically on the unfinished beam that ran along the side of the room and formed a shelf. When they were arranged he stood back and surveyed them proudly. They represented many thousand miles of travel, cold days and hot, and hungry ones, and they were very beautiful. He hugged himself and got down on his knees, crawling from box to box and peering ecstatically at the array of wings and spots and stripes. When at last he rose from his knees he brushed them absently, as if from habit, and took from his bag a large square of cardboard. He laid it on the table and gazed at it fondly. It was a water-color drawing of a large brown moth with small whitish dots along the edge of each wing. It was much less brilliant than many of the specimens shining at him from the wall, but he gazed at it with reverence. There was but one specimen in the world. It was in the laboratory of Herr Plautsnitz in Berlin, where he had made the drawing two months before. The professor had not allowed him to touch so much as a hair of the soft, downy wings. The specimen was locked away behind glass doors; and the Scientist had copied it, pressing his nose close to the glass and cherishing thoughts of envy. Then there had come to him his inspiration—half hearsay, half intuition—that California was the proper habitat of the Scarberus; and he had packed his bag and was off.

He looked around the room with a happy sigh. It was an ideal place to work, high in the top of the house, and here he would stay till the prize had been captured. There could be no doubt of the genuineness of his welcome. And there was music and the young woman who played the andante. He peered again at the drawing. Ah, that was it! He had forgotten. The wings were like her eyes—radiant wings and brown, with deep lights in them. He hung above them enraptured. A sound caught his ear—a soft pad, pad of flying feet and quick breathing. He sprang to the window and looked down. At the edge of the cleared space a figure stood poised, one hand on the collar of the huge dog, the other raised as if listening. The moon had come over the tops of the redwoods and glimmered about her. As the Scientist appeared at the window she looked up with a swift wave of the lifted hand and disappeared in the forest. The Scientist bent forward eagerly. Had she called to him? Was it only the flicker of moonlight, the waving of a branch, or did the brown hand beckon to him? He had a sudden impulse to follow her, to taste the night again; and he turned quickly from the window. But half-way to the door he paused. His eye had lighted on the drawing by the lamp, and he fluttered toward it.

Two hours later, when Henrietta, fresh from her roaming, crept quietly into the house, the Scientist was still bent above the drawing, his eyes rapt. The click of a latch roused him, and he looked up vaguely. With a smile of contentment he reached over and turned out the lamp, and went to bed.

IV

"It is a perfect day," announced Mrs. Tryon at the breakfast-table; "we will take our lunch and picnic on the Bluff."

"Good!" said Henrietta, boyishly.

Ethelberta looked inquiringly at the Scientist. "Perhaps Mr. Flaxman won't want to—"

"Anybody 'd want to," rejoined Henrietta.

"If they could spare the time," said Ethelberta.

The three women were looking at him, and the Scientist put down his cup quickly.

"I—I'm only too happy," he said.

"There!" said Henrietta. "I told you so."

"Henrietta!" reproved her mother.

"Of course he has time," replied Henrietta—"all the time there is."

"But Mr. Flaxman has come here to work, Henrietta," said her mother.

"Oh!" Henrietta gave a little gasp. Then she laughed. "I did n't know anybody could work here," she declared. "What do you do?" She was leaning forward, looking at him with clear eyes.

He blushed, but the friendly eyes had no mercy. "Perhaps you would n't call it