THE PANACEA OF CORUSCATION

He seemed to be uttering her name when he awoke.  It was daylight; the sun poured its rays over his face, and he asked himself how he could have fallen asleep leaving the lamp burning on the table near his bed.  He must have slept long, for he felt rested, cheerful—­happy.  As he dressed he speculated whether it was the sunshine, or the prospect of going back to life, or—­or—­Did he wish to return so soon?  He wondered what Mila was doing.  Then he went into the stone corridor and coughed as a hint that he was up.  Not a sound but the persistent fall at a distance of some heavy metallic substance.  It must be Karospina in his workshop, at his rockets, pinwheels, torpedoes, and firecrackers.  What a singular change in a bloodthirsty revolutionist.  And how childish!  Had he squandered his millions on futile experimentings?  What his object, what his scheme, for the amelioration of mankind’s woes?  Gerald’s stomach warned him that coffee and rolls were far dearer to him than the downfall of tyranny’s bastions, and impatiently he began whistling.  The rhythmic thud never ceased.  He noticed an open door at the back of the house, and he went out, his long legs carrying him about the yard, toward the beach.  The air was glorious, a soft breeze blowing landward from the ocean.  He almost forgot his hunger in the face of such a spectacle.  The breakers were racing in, and after crumbling, they scudded, a film of green, crested by cottony white, across the hard sand to the young man’s feet.  He felt exhilarated.  And his hunger returned.  Then Mila’s voice sounded near him.  She carried a basket and fairly ran in her eagerness.

“Mr. Shannon, Mr. Shannon, good Prince Gerald—­” he was amazed; where could she have heard his Christian name?—­“your breakfast.  Wait—­don’t swim the seas to New York for it.  Here it is.”  She opened the basket and handed him a jug of coffee and showed him the rolls inside.  Without the slightest embarrassment he thanked her and drank his coffee, walking; he ate the bread, and felt, as he expressed it, like leading a forlorn hope.  They went on, the cutting sunshine and sparkling breeze alluring them to vague distances.  It was long after midday when they marched back at a slower pace, Gerald swinging the basket like a light-hearted boy, instead of the desperado he fancied himself.

Entering the house, Mila hunted up some cold meat, and with fresh tea and stale bread they were contented.  The formidable pyrotechnist did not appear, and so the young people enjoyed the day in each other’s company.  She conducted him like a river through the lands of sociology, Dostoiewsky, and Chopin.  She played, but made him sit in the hall, for the piano was in her private room.  And then they began to exchange confidences.  It was dusk before the prince returned, in the attire of a workingman, his face and hands covered with soot and grease.  A hard day’s labour, he said, and did not seem surprised to see Shannon.