R. M. Ballantyne - "Confessio Amantis"

W. C. Green - "The Book of Good Manners"

William Shakespeare - "The first Part of Henry the Sixt"

Father Abram J. Ryan - "Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous"

The Quest of the Golden Girl

R >> Richard le Gallienne >> The Quest of the Golden Girl




It was the golden end of afternoon as the coach stopped in front
of the main hotel, The Golden Fortune; and for the benefit of any
with not too long purses who shall hereafter light on
Yellowsands, and be alarmed at the name and the marble
magnificence of that delightful hotel, I may say that the charges
there were surprisingly "reasonable," owing to one other wise
provision of the young lord and master of that happy place, who
had had the wit to realise that the nicest and brightest and
prettiest people were often the poorest. Yellowsands, therefore,
was carried on much like a club, to which you had only to be the
right sort of person to belong. I was relieved to find that the
hotel people evidently considered me the right sort of person,
and didn't take me for a Sunday-school treat,--for presently I
found myself in a charming little corner bedroom, whence I could
survey the whole extent of the little colony of pleasure. The
Golden Fortune was curiously situated, perched at the extreme
sea-end of a little horse-shoe bay hollowed out between two
headlands, the points of which approached each other so closely
that the river Sly had but a few yards of rocky channel through
which to pour itself into the sea. The Golden Fortune, therefore,
backed by towering woodlands, looked out to sea at one side,
across to the breakwater headland on another, and on its land
side commanded a complete view of the gay little haven, with its
white houses built terrace on terrace upon its wooded slopes,
connected by flights of zigzag steps, by which the apparently
inaccessible shelves and platforms circulated their gay life down
to the gay heart of the place,--the circular boulevard,
exquisitely leafy and cool, where one found the great casino and
the open-air theatre, the exquisite orchestra, into which only
the mellowest brass and the subtlest strings were admitted, and
the Cafe du Ciel, charmingly situated among the trees, where the
boulevard became a bridge, for a moment, at the mouth of the
river Sly. Here one might gaze up the green rocky defile through
which the Sly made pebbly music, and through which wound romantic
walks and natural galleries, where far inland you might wander


"From dewy dawn to dewy night,
And have one with you wandering,"


or where you might turn and look across the still lapping
harbour, out through the little neck of light between the
headlands to the shimmering sea beyond,--your ears filled with a
melting tide of sweet sounds, the murmur of the streams and the
gentle surging of the sea, the rippling of leaves, the soft
restless whisper of women's gowns, and the music of their
vowelled voices. It was here I found myself sitting at sunset,
alone, but so completely under the spell of the place that I
needed no companion. The place itself was companion enough. The
electric fairy lamps had popped alight; and as the sun sank
lower, Yellowsands seemed like a glowing crown of light floating
upon the water.

I had as yet failed to catch any sight of Rosalind; so I sat
alone, and so far as I had any thoughts or feelings, beyond a
consciousness of heavenly harmony with my surroundings, they were
for that haunting unknown face with the violet eyes and the heavy
chestnut hair.

Presently, close by, the notes of a guitar came like little gold
butterflies out of the twilight, and then a woman's voice rose
like a silver bird on the air. It was a gay wooing measure to
which she sang. I listened with ears and heart. "All ye," it
went,--


All ye who seek for pleasure,
Here find it without measure--
No one to say
A body nay,
And naught but love and leisure.

All ye who seek forgetting,
Leave frowns and fears and fretting,
Here by the sea
Are fair and free
To give you peace and petting.

All ye whose hearts are breaking
For somebody forsaking,
We'll count you dear,
And heal you here,
And send you home love-making."


"Bravo!" I cried involuntarily, as the song ended amid
multitudinous applause; and I thus attracted the attention of
another who sat near me as lonely as myself, but evidently quite
at home in the place.

"You haven't heard our sirens sing before?" he said, turning
to me with a pleasant smile, and thus we fell into talk of the
place and its pleasures.

"There's one feature of the place I might introduce you to if
you care for a stroll," he said presently. "Have you heard of
The Twelve Golden-Haired Bar-maids?" I hadn't, but the
fantastic name struck my fancy. It was, he explained, the name
given to a favourite buffet at the Hotel Aphrodite, which was
served by twelve wonderful girls, not one under six feet in
height, and all with the most glorious golden hair. It was a
whim of the management, he said.

So, of course, we went.



CHAPTER VIII


THE TWELVE GOLDEN-HAIRED BAR-MAIDS.

Now it was not without some boyish nervousness that I followed my
newly made friend, for I confess that I have ever been a poor
hand at talking to bar-maids. It is, I am convinced, an art
apart, an art like any other,--needing first the natural gift,
then the long patient training, and finally the courageous
practice. Alas for me, I possessed neither gift, training, nor
courage. Courage I lacked most of all. It was in vain that I
said to myself that it was like swimming,--all that was needed
was "confidence." That was the very thing I couldn't muster.
No doubt I am handicapped by a certain respectful homage which I
always feel involuntarily to any one in the shape of woman, for
anything savouring of respect is the last thing to win the
bar-maid heart divine. The man to win her is he who calls loudly
for his drink, without a "Please" or a "Thank you," throws
his hat at the back of his head, gulps down half his glass, and,
while drawing breath for the other half, takes a hard,
indifferent look at her, and in an off-hand voice throws her some
fatuous, mirthless jest.

Now, I've never been able to do this in the convincing grand
manner of the British male; and whatever I have said, the effect
has been the same. I've talked about theatres and music-halls,
of events of the day, I've even--Heaven help me--talked of
racing and football, but I might as well have talked of Herbert
Spencer. I suppose I didn't talk about them in the right way.
I'm sure it must be my fault somewhere, for certainly they seem
easy enough to please, poor things! However, my failure remains,
and sometimes even I find it extremely hard to attract their
attention in the ordinary way of business. I don't mind my
neighbour being preferred before me, but I do object to his being
served before me!

So, I say, I couldn't but tremble at the vision of those
golden-haired goddesses, standing with immobile faces by their
awful altars. Indeed, had I realised how superbly impressive they
were going to be, I think I must have declined the adventure
altogether,--for, robed in lustrous ivory-white linen were those
figures of undress marble, the wealth of their glorious bodies
pressing out into bosoms magnificent as magnolias (nobler lines
and curves Greece herself has never known), towering in throats
of fluted alabaster, and flowering in coiffures of imperial gold.

Nor was their temple less magnificent. To make it fair, Ruskin
had relit the seven lamps of architecture, and written the seven
labours of Hercules; for these windows through a whole youth
Burne Jones had worshipped painted glass at Oxford, and to
breathe romance into these frescos had Rossetti been born, and
Dante born again. Men had gone to prison and to death that this
temple of Whiskey-and-Soda might be fair.

Strange, in truth, are the ministrations to which Beauty is
called. Out of the high heaven is she summoned, from mystic
communion with her own perfection, from majestic labours in the
Sistine Chapel of the Stars,--yea, she must put aside her
gold-leaf and purples and leave unfinished the very panels of the
throne of God,--that Circe shall have her palace, and her
worshippers their gilded sty.

As there were at least a score of "worshippers" round each
Circe, my nervousness became unimportant, and therefore passed.
Thus, as my companion and I sat at one of the little tables, from
which we might gaze upon the sea without and Aphrodite within, my
eyes were able to fly like bees from one fair face to another.
Finally, they settled upon a Circe less besieged of the hoarse
and grunting mob. She was conspicuously less in height, her hair
was rather bright red than golden, and her face had more meanings
than the faces of her fellows.

"Why," in a flash it came to me, "it's Rosalind!" and clean
forgetting to be shy, or polite to my companion, I hastened
across to her, to be greeted instantly in a manner so exclusively
intimate that the little crowd about her presently spread itself
among the other crowds, and we were left to talk alone.

"Well," I said, "you're a nice girl! Whatever are you doing
here?"

"Yes, I'm afraid you'll have but a strange opinion of me,"
she said; "but I love all experience,--it's such fun,--and when
I heard that there was a sudden vacancy for a golden-haired
beauty in this place, I couldn't resist applying, and to my
surprise they took me--and here I am! Of course I shall only
stay till Orlando appears--which," she added mournfully--"he
hasn't done yet."

Her hours were long and late, but she had two half-days free in
the week, and for these of course I engaged myself.

Meanwhile I spent as much time as I decently could at her side;
but it was impossible to monopolise her, and the rest of my time
there was no difficulty in filling up, you may be sure, in so gay
a place.

Two or three nights after this, a little before dinner-time,
while I was standing talking to her, she suddenly went very
white, and in a fluttering voice gasped, "Look yonder!" I
looked. A rather slight dark- haired young man was entering the
bar, with a very stylish pretty woman at his side. As they sat
down and claimed the waiter, some distance away, Rosalind
whispered, "That's my husband!"

"Oh!" I said; "but that's no reason for your fainting. Pull
yourself together. Take a drop of brandy." But woman will
never take the most obvious restorative, and Rosalind presently
recovered without the brandy. She looked covertly at her husband,
with tragic eyes.

"He's much younger than I imagined him," I said,--reserving
for myself the satisfaction which this discovery had for me.

"Oh, yes, he's really quite a boy," said Rosalind; adding
under her breath, "Dear fellow! how I love him!"

"And hate him too!" she superadded, as she observed his evident
satisfaction with his present lot. Indeed the experiment
appeared to be working most successfully with him; nor, looking
at his companion, could I wonder. She was a sprightly young
woman, very smart and merry and decorously voluptuous, and of
that fascinating prettiness that wins the hearts of boys and
storms the footlights. One of her characteristics soothed the
heart of Rosalind. She had splendid red hair, almost as good as
her own.

"He's been faithful to my hair, at all events," she said,
trying to be nonchalant.

"And the eyes are not unlike," I added, meaning well.

"I'm sorry you think so," said Rosalind, evidently piqued.

"Well, never mind," I tried to make peace, "she hasn't your
hands,"--I knew that women cared more about their hands than
their faces.

"How do you know?" she retorted; "you cannot see through her
gloves."

"Would any gloves disguise your hands?" I persisted. "They
would shine through the mittens of an Esquimau."

"Well, enough of that! See--I know it's wickedly mean of
me--but couldn't you manage to sit somewhere near them and hear
what they are saying? Of course you needn't tell me anything it
would be mean to hear, but only what--"

"You would like to know."

But this little plot died at its birth, for that very minute the
threatened couple arose, and went out arm in arm, apparently as
absurdly happy as two young people can be.

As they passed out, one of Rosalind's fellow bar-maids turned to
her and said,--

"You know who that was?"

"Who?" said Rosalind, startled.

"That pretty woman who went out with that young Johnny just
now?"

"No; who is she?"

"Why, that's"--and readers with heart- disease had better
brace themselves up for a great shock--"that's
SYLVIA JOY, the famous dancer!"



CHAPTER IX


SYLVIA JOY

Sylvia Joy! And I hadn't so much as looked at her petticoat for
weeks! But I would now. The violet eyes and the heavy chestnut
hair rose up in moralising vision. Yes! God knows, they were
safe in my heart, but petticoats were another matter. Sylvia Joy!

Well, did you ever? Well, I'm d----d! Sylvia Joy!

I should have been merely superhuman had I been able to control
the expression of surprise which convulsed my countenance at the
sound of that most significant name.

"The name seems familiar to you," said Rosalind, a little
surprised and a little eagerly; "do you know the lady?"

"Slightly," I prevaricated.

"How fortunate!" exclaimed Rosalind; "you'll be all the
better able to help me!"

"Yes," I said; "but since things have turned out so oddly, I
may say that our relations are of so extremely delicate a nature
that I shall have very carefully to think out what is best to be
done. Meanwhile, do you mind lending me that ring for a few
hours?"

It was a large oblong opal set round with small diamonds,--a ring
of distinguished design you could hardly help noticing,
especially on a man's hand, for which it was too conspicuously
dainty. I slipped it on the little finger of my left hand, and,
begging Rosalind to remain where she was meanwhile, and to take
no steps without consulting me, I mysteriously, not to say
officiously, departed.

I left the twelfth Golden-Haired Bar-maid not too late to stalk
her husband and her under-study to their hotel, where they
evidently proposed to dine. There was, therefore, nothing left
for me but to dine also. So I dined; and when the courses of my
dining were ended, I found myself in a mellow twilight at the
Cafe du Ciel. And it was about the hour of the sirens' singing.
Presently the little golden butterflies flitted once more through
the twilight, and again the woman's voice rose like a silver bird
on the air.

As I have a partiality for her songs, I transcribe this Hymn of
the Daughters of Aphrodite, which you must try to imagine
transfigured by her voice and the sunset.


Queen Aphrodite's
Daughters are we,
She that was born
Of the morn
And the sea;
White are our limbs
As the foam on the wave,
Wild are our hymns
And our lovers are brave!

Queen Aphrodite,
Born of the sea,
Beautiful dutiful daughters
Are we!


You who would follow,
Fear not to come,
For love is for love
As dove is for dove;
The harp of Apollo
Shall lull you to rest,
And your head find its home
On this beautiful breast.


Queen Aphrodite,
Born of the sea,
Beautiful dutiful daughters
Are we!


Born of the Ocean,
Wave-like are we!
Rising and falling
Like waves of the sea;
Changing for ever,
Yet ever the same,
Music in motion
And marble in flame.


Queen Aphrodite,
Born of the sea,
Beautiful dutiful daughters
Are we!


When I alighted once more upon the earth from the heaven of this
song, who should I find seated within a table of me but the very
couple I was at the moment so unexpectedly interested in? But
they were far too absorbed in each other to notice me, and
consequently I was able to hear all of importance that was said.
I regret that I cannot gratify the reader with a report of their
conversation, for the excuse I had for listening was one that is
not transferable. A woman's happiness was at stake. No other
consideration could have persuaded me to means so mean save an
end so noble. I didn't even tell Rosalind all I heard.
Mercifully for her, the candour of fools is not among my
superstitions. Suffice it for all third persons to know--what
Rosalind indeed has never known, and what I hope no reader will
be fool enough to tell her--that Orlando was for the moment
hopelessly and besottedly faithless to his wife, and that my
services had been bespoken in the very narrowest nick of time.

Having, as the reader has long known, a warm personal interest in
his attractive companion, and desiring, therefore, to think as
well of her as possible, I was pleased to deduce, negatively,
from their conversation, that Sylvia Joy knew nothing of
Rosalind, and believed Orlando to be a free, that is, an
unmarried man. From the point of view, therefore, of her code,
there was no earthly reason why she should not fall in with
Orlando's proposal that they should leave for Paris by the
"Mayflower" on the following morning. Orlando, I could hear,
wished to make more extended arrangements, and references to that
well-known rendezvous, "Eternity," fell on my ears from time to
time. Evidently Sylvia had no very saving belief in Eternity,
for I heard her say that they might see how they got on in Paris
for a start. Then it would be time enough to talk of Eternity.
This and other remarks of Sylvia's considerably predisposed me
towards her. Having concluded their arrangements for the heaven
of the morrow, they rose to take a stroll along the boulevards.
As they did so, I touched Orlando's shoulder and begged his
attention for a moment. Though an entire stranger to him, I had,
I said, a matter of extreme importance to communicate to him, and
I hoped, therefore, that it would suit his convenience to meet me
at the same place in an hour and a half. As I said this, I
flashed his wife's ring in the light so obviously that he was
compelled to notice it.

"Wherever did you get that?" he gasped, no little surprised and
agitated.

"From your wife," I answered, rapidly moving away. "Be sure
to be here at eleven."

I slipped away into the crowd, and spent my hour and a half in
persuading Rosalind that her husband was no doubt a little
infatuated, but nevertheless the most faithful husband in the
world. If she would only leave all to me, by this time to-morrow
night, if not a good many hours before, he should be in her arms
as safe as in the Bank. It did my heart good to see how happy
this artistic adaptation of the truth made her; and I must say
that she never had a wiser friend.

When eleven came, I was back in my seat at the Cafe du Ciel.
Orlando too was excitedly punctual.

"Well, what is it?" he hurried out, almost before he had sat
down.

"What will you do me the honour of drinking?" I asked calmly.

"Oh, drink be d----d!" he said; "what have you to tell me?"

"I'm glad to hear you rap out such a good honest oath," I
said; "but I should like a drink, for all that, and if I may say
so, you would be none the worse for a brandy and soda, late as it
is."

When the drinks had come, I remarked to him quietly, but not
without significance: "The meaning of this ring is that your
wife is here, and very wretched. By an accident I have been
privileged with her friendship; and I may say, to save time, that
she has told me the whole story.

"What happily she has not been able to tell me, and what I need
hardly say she will never know from me, I overheard, in the
interests of your joint happiness, an hour or so ago."

The man who is telling the story has a proverbial great
advantage; but I hope the reader knows enough of me by this to
believe that I am far from meanly availing myself of it in this
narrative. I am well and gratefully aware that in this interview
with Orlando my advantages were many and fortunate. For example,
had he been bigger and older, or had he not been a gentleman, my
task had been considerably more arduous, not to say dangerous.

But, as Rosalind had said, he was really quite a boy, and I
confess I was a little ashamed for him, and a little piqued, that
he showed so little fight. The unexpectedness of my attack had,
I realised, given me the whip-hand. So I judged, at all events,
from the fact that he forbore to bluster, and sat quite still,
with his head in his hands, saying never a word for what seemed
several minutes. Then presently he said very quietly,--

"I love my wife all the same."

"Of course you do," I answered, eagerly welcoming the
significant announcement; "and if you'll allow me to say so, I
think I understand more about the whole situation than either of
you, bachelor though unfortunately I am. As a famous friend of
mine is fond of saying, lookers-on see most of the game."

Then I rapidly told him the history of my meeting with his wife,
and depicted, in harrowing pigments of phrase, the distress of
her mind.

"I love my wife all the same," he repeated, as I finished;
"and," he added, "I love Sylvia too."

"But not quite in the same way?" I suggested.

"I love Sylvia very tenderly," he said.

"Yes, I know; I don't think you could do anything else. No man
worth his salt could be anything but tender to a dainty little
woman like that. But tenderness, gentleness, affection, even
self-sacrifice,--these may be parts of love; but they are merely
the crude untransformed ingredients of a love such as you feel
for your wife, and such as I know she feels for you."

"She still loves me, then," he said pitifully; "she hasn't
fallen in love with you."

"No fear," I answered; "no such luck for me. If she had, I'm
afraid I should hardly have been talking to you as I am at this
moment. If a woman like Rosalind, as I call her, gave me her
love, it would take more than a husband to rob me of it, I can
tell you."

"Yes," he repeated, "on my soul, I love her. I have never
been false to her, in my heart; but--"

"I know all about it," I said; "may I tell you how it all
was,--diagnose the situation?"

"Do," he replied; "it is a relief to hear you talk."

"Well," I said, "may I ask one rather intimate question? Did
you ever before you were married sow what are known as wild
oats?"

"Never," he answered indignantly, flashing for a moment.

"Well, you should have done," I said; "that's just the whole
trouble. Wild oats will get sown some time, and one of the arts
of life is to sow them at the right time,--the younger the
better. Think candidly before you answer me."

"I believe you are right," he replied, after a long pause.

"You are a believer in theories," I continued, "and so am I;
but you can take my word that on these matters not all, but some,
of the old theories are best. One of them is that the man who
does not sow his wild oats before marriage will sow them
afterwards, with a whirlwind for the reaping."

Orlando looked up at me, haggard with confession.

"You know the old story of the ring given to Venus? Well, it is
the ruin of no few men to meet Venus for the first time on their
marriage night. Their very chastity, paradoxical as it may seem,
is their destruction. No one can appreciate the peace, the holy
satisfaction of monogamy till he has passed through the wasting
distractions, the unrest of polygamy. Plunged right away into
monogamy, man, unexperienced in his good fortune, hankers after
polygamy, as the monotheistic Jew hankered after polytheism; and
thus the monogamic young man too often meets Aphrodite for the
first time, and makes future appointments with her, in the arms
of his pure young wife. If you have read Swedenborg, you will
remember his denunciation of the lust of variety. Now, that is a
lust every young man feels, but it is one to be satisfied before
marriage. Sylvia Joy has been such a variant for you; and I'm
afraid you're going to have some little trouble to get her off
your nerves. Tell me frankly," I said, "have you had your fill
of Aphrodite? It is no use your going back to your wife till you
have had that."

"I'm not quite a beast," he retorted. "After all, it was an
experiment we both agreed to try."

"Certainly," I answered, "and I hope it may have the result of
persuading you of the unwisdom of experimenting with happiness.
You have the realities of happiness; why should you trouble about
its theories? They are for unhappy people, like me, who must
learn to distil by learned patience the aurum potabile from the
husks of life, the peace which happier mortals find lying like
manna each morn upon the meadows."

"Well," I continued, "enough of the abstract; let us have
another drink, and tell me what you propose to do."

"Poor Sylvia!" sighed Orlando.

"Shall I tell you about Sylvia?" I said. "On second thoughts,
I won't. It would hardly be fair play; but this, I may say,
relying on your honour, that if you were to come to my hotel, I
could show you indisputable proof that I know at least as much
about Sylvia Joy as even such a privileged intimate as
yourself."

"It is strange, then, that she never recognised you just now,"
he retorted, with forlorn alertness.

"Of course she didn't. How young you are! It is rather too
bad of a woman of Sylvia's experience."

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