The hermit’s eyes strayed far away — down the mountain — and beyond.
“New York,” said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. “A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago — I see the candles lit on the Great White Way — I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy’s first night. New York!”
Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain.
“I got you!” he cried in triumph. “I’m wise! You want to go back.”
A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit’s face.
“I guess I’m about the poorest liar in the world,” he said. “I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn’t cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit’s oath. That isn’t the reason. I’m afraid.”
“Afraid?” echoed Mr. Magee.
“Scared,” said Mr. Peters, “of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain’t then I want to go back. It’s when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there’s only the wind and me on the mountain — then I get the fever. I haven’t the post-card trade to think of — so I think of Ellen, and New York. She’s — my wife. New York — it’s my town.
“That’s why I can’t come among you to cook. It’d be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I’d hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I’d shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of Woman, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can’t stand such temptation.”
Mr. Peters’ auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door.
“Now you understand how it is,” he said. “Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking.”
“One minute,” objected Mr. Magee. “You spoke of one lie — your masterpiece. We must hear about that.”
“Yes — spin the yarn, pal,” requested Mr. Max.
“Well,” said the hermit reluctantly, “if you’re quite comfortable — it ain’t very short.”
“Please,” beamed Miss Norton.
With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close.
“It was like this,” he began. “Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don’t look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It’s just a quiet little lie I’m speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn’t show up with breakfast.
“Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d’hôtes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why.
“I don’t need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one’s name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man’s bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard.
“ ‘She cast you off?’ I asked.
“ ‘She threw me down,’ said he.
“Well, it seems he’d bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. ‘I could buy the ticket,’ he said, ‘as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can’t forget. I’ve tried. It’s hopeless.’ And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won’t go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I’m told. They’re unimportant; I’ll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me — the lie — the great glorious lie — and I told it.”
The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle.
“ ‘You’re chuck full of sorrow now,’ I said to McMann, ‘but it won’t last long.’ He shook his head. ‘Nonsense,’ I told him. ‘Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?’ And he couldn’t, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. ‘You?’ he asked. ‘Me,’ I said. ‘Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel — or Marie — or what was it? — spoke to you.’
“I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage — a fairy sprite. I loved her — worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear — a sweet tear of sorrow at parting.’
“ ‘I went to my room,’ I told McMann, ‘with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books — the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.’
“He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed — I could see it. ‘I’m supremely happy,’ I told him. ‘I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture — as I saw her last — with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she’s forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You’re going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.’ I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann.
“As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid’s lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship — to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me.
“We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone.