Annandale touched his cap. "How do you do, Mrs. Price?"

He would have lingered, but f.a.n.n.y dismissed him.

"Good-bye," she said. "I may see you this evening."

As he ambled off Mrs. Price returned to the charge. "Where have you been?"

f.a.n.n.y patted a yawn. "Listening to sweet nothings."

"From him? Why, he hasn't anything, has he? What did you do?"

f.a.n.n.y patted another yawn or else another sigh. "I fell on his neck and sobbed for joy."

"Nonsense. Has he anything, tell me?"

"Not enough to entertain on. Twenty-five thousand a year, I think."

"The impertinence of it!" said the lady.

Had her daughter been an heiress a duke would hardly have satisfied her. As things were, or more exactly, since the girl began to grow in beauty she had dreamed for her but one dream--a brilliant match. To Mrs. Price there could be no brilliance if the party of the second part had a dollar less than ten million.

"You might have had Loftus," she declared at last. "Where is he, do you know?"

"Abroad, I hear."

"With that creature?"

Mrs. Price in common with many others had heard of Marie Leroy. But though others in hearing had not heeded, Mrs. Price took it as a personal affront.

"Then it is your fault," she snarled. "You could have had him if you had wanted. Don't tell me. He was in love with you. I could see it."

f.a.n.n.y was looking at the ocean. A white sail was fainting in the distance. Like it, a hope she had had was fading away. She watched it go. It had been very fair, very dear, more dear and fair than any she had known. But it was going. It was out of reach and now out of sight. She could not beckon to it.

"What are you staring at?" Mrs. Price asked.

"A sail out there," the girl answered.

Then presently mother and daughter pa.s.sed into an adjoining corridor where they had rooms.

CHAPTER IX

f.a.n.n.y CHANGES HER CLOTHES

f.a.n.n.y did not appear that evening. In search of her Annandale prowled vainly around. But on the morrow he ran into her on the beach.

It was still as fine as powder. To have found elbow room there a few days previous you would have had to go out to sea. Now, in and on it children were making hillocks and holes. Near them a few groups of older people loitered. But the coryphees that had danced there were migrating. Already the Rockingham, a big hotel which faced the beach, had closed. Sweet-and-twenty was packing her trunk.

The morning itself was of the quality which Lowell has catalogued as from the Gulf adrift. In the air was a caress. f.a.n.n.y, in a frock the color of pale pastel pink, a wide hat in which that color was repeated, her eyes blue as the sea and bluer, added to its charm.

As Annandale approached she smiled and gave him a finger. But at once the smile fell from her. With the finger which he had released she pointed at the big hotel. Annandale turned. Other people were turning.

Some were running. A child that had been at play in the sand jumped and clapped his hands. About one side of the hotel a sheet of flame was climbing, crackling in and out. A cry of "Fire!" caught up and renewed, mounted in the crystalline air.

"d.a.m.n!" said Annandale. "If that goes----"

f.a.n.n.y said nothing. Her eyes widened. Through the windows that front the beach more flames were leaping. From the side the first flames pa.s.sed to shops over the way, pa.s.sed back with fresh ones created and joined the others beyond. Above was smoke. Higher yet the tender blue of the sky. But below was a whirlwind of ochre, scarlet and gamboge, a fierce yet compact tornado of oscillant hues, shot with green and shuttled with black. Then suddenly, with a roar, the tornado doubled, the roof had fallen. The child that had jumped and clapped his hands, feebly now was beginning to cry.

"It is glorious," said f.a.n.n.y.

"I am afraid--" Annandale muttered.

f.a.n.n.y glanced at him. Yet at once she understood. On the other side of the hotel, across the road, the Casino stood. Her mother, of course, would be safe. But her clothes! At thought of them her hand went to her throat.

"Do you think the Casino will catch?" she gasped.

Annandale nodded.

"Oh," she continued, "I shan't have a st.i.tch, not one."

"Yes, you shall," Annandale heroically retorted. "I will see to them.

But I must run. Find your mother if you can and take her to the Inn."

The Inn, a hotel half a mile away, was where Annandale lodged. At once he was off. Shortly, by a detour, he got to the other side of the fire. As he swung about he saw that the Casino's ballroom had caught.

But that part of the place was of wood. The other end, where f.a.n.n.y lodged, was of wood also, but it was also partly of stone. To this part as yet the flames had not reached.

As Annandale ran he told himself that he would have time to get in and get out, but he told himself too that it was a ridiculous job. f.a.n.n.y's clothes a stroke of his pen could replace. But now the crowd impeded him. Lines had formed. Buckets were being pa.s.sed. There were throngs of natives and resorters. Through them he pushed.

At the further entrance to the Casino, above which he knew the Prices lodged, a fat policeman stood, blocking the way. Annandale shoved him aside, sprang up the stairs, reached the room, fumbled with the door.

It was locked.

Annandale swore deeply, tried the door with his shoulder, kicked at it till it cracked, kicked again, throwing himself against it with all his weight, then, not the door, but the fastenings of the lock broke and he went sprawling in. Through the open window he could see the flames, he could hear them, he could hear too the cries of the crowd.

But he had no time to waste. He tore around the room.

In one corner was a deep closet, full of clothes. He took them and threw them in armfuls on the bed. In another corner was a bureau, the drawers packed with scented lingerie. These on the bed he emptied also. What else did women wear? he wondered. Oh, yes, he remembered; hats certainly and probably shoes. Around the room he tore again. But already the bed was mountainous. He turned it all over on the floor, gathered up as much as the coverlid would hold and made a hasty bundle of it. Beneath was a blanket; he filled that, made a bundle of it also, repeated the operation with a sheet. Into another sheet he threw hats which meanwhile had loomed in boxes on a shelf, and dragging a curtain down filled that with shoes which also he had found, changed his mind and stuffed them into a pillow case, tossing in after them articles from a dressing-table, brushes and combs, odds and ends, helter skelter.

But in dragging the curtain from the window he had noticed a writing-desk. After he had finished with the pillow case he returned to it. Like the door it was locked. He kicked at it, kicked it open, discovered in it loose money and trinkets, stuck them in his pockets, grabbed at the bundles and dashed from the room just as with a roar the flames leaped in.

In the corridor he tripped, but he was up again with the tightly tied bundles and down the stair before the flames and the smoke of them could catch him. Once on the road without he turned to look, but the flames pirouetting in increasing size made it too hot to linger. Down the road he went, not overweighted but impeded by the awkward bundles, and staggered first into an engulfing, shouting crowd, then into a convenient hack, in which he reached the Inn, minus his cap and perspiring profusely.

The Prices as yet had not turned up. Annandale secured rooms for them, had the bundles taken there, went to his own quarters, re-emerged shortly fresh as paint, hungry as a wolf.

It was high noon. From beyond drifted the sound of cries, the smell of smoke, the commotion of flight. The Rockingham had gone, the adjacent shops and bath houses with it; the Casino had fallen.

Hurrying to the railway station beyond came people with handbags, wagons with trunks. From the air the caress had pa.s.sed. There was panic in it.

But presently the flames showed less voluminous. After devouring all that they conveniently could they were subsiding. It was apparent that the worst was over. Then at last f.a.n.n.y and her mother drove up.