The Place of Honeymoons

Horace calls no more to me, Homer in the dust-heap lies: I have found my Odyssey In the lightness of her glee, In the laughter of her eyes.

Ovid's page is thumbed no more, E'en Catullus has no choice! There is endless, precious lore, Such as I ne'er knew before, In the music of her voice.

Breath of hyssop steeped in wine, Breath of violets and furze, Wild-wood roses, Grecian myrrhs, All these perfumes do combine In that maiden breath of hers.

Nay, I look not at the skies, Nor the sun that hillward slips, For the day lives or it dies In the laughter of her eyes, In the music of her lips!

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE I. At the Stage Door 1 II. There Is a Woman? 19 III. The Beautiful Tigress 36 IV. The Joke of Monsieur 53 V. Captive or Runaway 74 VI. The Bird Behind Bars 103 VII. Battling Jimmie 126 VIII. Moonlight and a Prince 146 IX. Colonel Caxley-Webster 166 X. Marguerites and Emeralds 185 XI. At the Crater's Edge 202 XII. Dick Courtlandt's Boy 214 XIII. Everything But the Truth 232 XIV. A Comedy with Music 249 XV. Herr Rosen's Regrets 265 XVI. The Apple of Discord 282 XVII. The Ball at the Villa 303 XVIII. Pistols for Two 326 XIX. Courtlandt Tells a Story 345 XX. Journey's End 363

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THE PLACE OF HONEYMOONS

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CHAPTER I

AT THE STAGE DOOR

Courtlandt sat perfectly straight; his ample shoulders did not touch the back of his chair; and his arms were folded tightly across his chest. The characteristic of his attitude was tenseness. The nostrils were well defined, as in one who sets the upper jaw hard upon the nether. His brown eyes--their gaze directed toward the stage whence came the voice of the prima donna--epitomized the tension, expressed the whole as in a word.

Just now the voice was pathetically subdued, yet reached every part of the auditorium, kindling the ear with its singularly mellowing sweetness. To Courtlandt it resembled, as no other sound, the note of a muffled Burmese gong, struck in the dim incensed cavern of a temple. A Burmese gong: briefly and magically the stage, the audience, the amazing gleam and scintillation of the Opera, faded. He heard only the voice and saw only the purple shadows in the temple at Rangoon, the oriental sunset splashing the golden dome, the wavering lights of the dripping candles, the dead flowers, the kneeling devoteés, the yellow-robed priests, the tatters of gold-leaf, fresh and old, upon the rows of placid grinning Buddhas. The vision was of short duration. The sigh, which had been so long repressed, escaped; his shoulders sank a little, and the angle of his chin became less resolute; but only for a moment. Tension gave place to an ironical grimness. The brows relaxed, but the lips became firmer. He listened, with this new expression unchanging, to the high note that soared above all others. The French horns blared and the timpani crashed. The curtain sank slowly. The audience rustled, stood up, sought its wraps, and pressed toward the exits and the grand staircase. It was all over.