The Turtles of Tasman

finest country home in the county. Its atmosphere was just the sort that he and his daughter would create. But in the days that followed his brother's home-coming, all this was

e were midnight chafing-dish suppers and burs

ys to be found in the big easy chair he frequented and among the cushions of the window-seats. Then there were the cocktails. Brought up under the stern tutelage of Isaac and Eliza Travers, Frederick looked upon liquor in the house as an abomination. Ancient cities had been smitten by God's wrath for just such practices. Before lunch and dinner, Tom, aided and abetted by Polly, mixed an end

house was lively with young life. Ever, day and night, the motor cars honked up and down the gravelled drives. There were picnics and expeditions in the summer weather, moonlight sails on the bay, starts before dawn or home-comings at midnight, and often, of nights, the many bedrooms were filled as they had never been before. Tom must cover a

Tom to his heart's desire. And Frederick heard the true inwardness of the killing of the deer; of its purchase from the overstocked Golden Gate Park; of its crated carriage by train, horse-team and mule-back to the fastnesses of Round Mountain; of Tom falling asleep beside the deer-run the first time it was driven by; of the pursu

nexpected queer, bright way of his, to roll a cigarette and call for his ukulele-a sort of miniature guitar of Portuguese invention. Then, with strumming and tumtumi

great joy in teaching it to her uncle, but when, himself questing for some of this genial flood of life that bathed about his brother, Frederick essayed the song, he noted suppressed glee on the part of his listeners, which increased, through giggles and snickers, to a great outburst of laughter. To his disgust and dismay, he learned that the simple phrase he had repeated and repeated was nothing else than "I am so drunk

could not understand why in the past the young people had voted his house a bore and come no more, save on state and formal occasions, until now, when they flocked to it and to his brother, but not to him. Nor could h

a hotel, he sneered bitterly to himself; and there were times when he was sorely tempted to put his foot down and reassert the old ways. But somehow the ancient sorcery of his masterful brother was too strong upon him; and at times he gazed upon him with a sense almost of awe, groping to fathom the alchemy of charm, baffled by the strange lights and fires in his brother's eyes, and by the wisdom

dwelling upon the failure Tom had made of life. Then it was, in quiet intervals, t

ed," Tom would say. "Yo

ten he drowsed in the bi

place," was Polly's comment. "How do you ever manage it? I should not like to

orked hard,

ard," Frederick affir

at she measured him, challenged him. For the first time his honourable career of building a county commonwealth had

Her mere presence made him uncomfortable. He felt her unspoken disapproval, though there were times when she did not st

f loose and rip things up by the roots? Did you ever once get drunk? Or smoke yourself black in the face? Or

e!" Tom gurgled. "He

e was a chill of horror at Frede

that a man has not lived until he has kissed his woman and stru

u?" he c

reminiscent flash in

leasure," he answered slowly

planted the first oysters on the bay and established that lucrative monopoly, and of how, after exhausting litigation and a campaign

f profit and loss," she said. "I w

again. He had never had time to love. He had worked hard. He had been president of the chamber of commerce, mayor of the city, state senator, but he had missed love. At chance moments he had come upon Polly, openly and shamelessly in her father's arms, and he had noted the warmth and tenderness in their ey

oom, he saw Tom asleep in the big chair, very grey and aged and tired. He remembered all that he had done, all that he possessed. Well, what did Tom po

r interested him in that way. Mary moved along frictionless grooves, and to forecast her actions was so effort

essing, eh?"

would have been impossible. She took liberties with him, cosened him or

are before he was, and she made him aware, her face turned to look at him, on her lips a mocking, contemplative smile that was almost a superior sneer. It was this that shocked him into consciousness of the orgy his imagination had been playing him. From the wall above her, the stiff portr

's music reminded him of church. It was cold and bare as a Methodist meeting house. But Polly's was l

answered, pleased with the succes

like a five-finger exercise compared with the foolishest thing she ripples off. Her music tells me things-oh, things wonderful and unutterable. Mine te

ned and Mary was sobbing in a break-down of tears. He would have liked to take her in his arms, after Tom's fashion, but he did

d been sorely educated in the matter of clothes. He knew just how expensive Mary's clothes were, yet he could not blind himself to the fact that Polly's vagabond makeshifts, c

nd when she goes swimming she beats the boys out of the dressing rooms." Mary was honest and incredulous in he

finally flat broke she'd set up dressmaking

ness to an illuminating scene; Mary, to his certain kno

nd face glowed with honest pleasure, and her hands wove thei

t the miracle of taste and difference achieve

d like wild-fire. Mary found herself the immediate owner of the fan, almost labouring under the fictitious impression that she had conferred an obligation by accepting it. Only a foreign woman could do such things, and Polly was guilty of similar

y more," was Mary's plaint. "If

extravagant moods at the same time shocked and fascinated him. Her voice was as mercurial as her feelings. There were no even tones, and she talked with her hands. Yet, in her mouth, English was a new and beautiful language, softly limpid, with an audacity of phrase and tellin