 The Devotion of Henry K. Part 2. From Selected Stories by Brett Hart. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The present recording is by Raju, Amina45 at HartMile.com. The Devotion of Henry K. Part 2. Chance favoured me. The next evening I was at a party where Miss Manorsley, by reason of her position and quality, was at Distinguished. I had almost written a popular guest. But, as I have formally stated, although the youthful fare of the NCNL were flattered by her casual attentions and secretly admired her superior style and aristocratic calm, they were more or less uneasy under the dominance of her intelligence and education and were afraid to attempt either confidence or familiarity. They were also singularly jealous of her, for although the average young man was equally afraid of her cleverness and her candour, he was not about paying a tremulous and timid coat to her for its effect upon her humbler sisters. This evening she was surrounded by her usual satellites, including of course a local notable and special guest of distinction. She had been discussing, I think, the existence of glaciers on Mount Shasta with a spectacular geologist and had participated with Charmin Frankness in a conversation on anatomy with the local doctor and a learned professor when she was asked to take a seat at the piano. She played with remarkable skill and wonderful precision, but coolly and brilliantly. As she sat there in a subdued but perfectly fitting evening dress, her regular profile and short but slender neck firmly set up on her high shoulders, exhaling an atmosphere of refined puritanism and provocative intelligence, the utter incongruity of Enrique's extravagant attentions, if ironical, and their equal hopelessness, if not, seem to me plainer than ever. What had this well poised, coolly observant spinster to do with that pointy ironic ruffler, the romantic signe, the rowdy Don Quixote, that impossible Enrique? Presently, she ceased playing. Her slim narrow slipper, revealing her thin ankle, remind upon the pedal. Her delicate fingers were resting idly on the keys. Her head was slightly thrown back and her narrow eyebrows prettily knit toward the ceiling in an effort of memory. Something of Charmin's suggested the geologist ardently. That extraquist, Soneta, pleaded the doctor. Soothing of Rubenstein, her demons, said a gentleman of Siskiou. He just made the piano get up and howl, play-roop. She shook her head with parted lips and a slight touch of girlish coquetry in her manner. Then her fingers suddenly dropped upon the keys of the glassy tinkle. There were a few quick pizzicato chords down when the low pedal with the monotonous drumming and she presently began to hum to herself. I started as well I might, for I recognized one of the Enrique's favorite and most extravagant guitar solos. It was Adoshius. It was barbaric. It was I fear vulgar. As I remembered it, as he sang it, it recounted the adventures of one Don Francisco, a provincial gallant and roisterer of the most objectionable type. It had 104 verses, which Enrique never sped me. I shuddered, as in a pleasant quiet voice, the correct, mismanishly wobbled in musical praise of Peleju or Boynstein. And the eulogy of the icebox came karasingly from her thin red lips. But the company was far differently affected. The strange wild air and wild air accompaniment were evidently catching. People moved toward the piano. Somebody whizzled the air from a distant corner. Even the faces of geologist and doctor frightened. A torrental, I presume, blandly suggested the doctor, mismanishly stopped and rose carelessly from the piano. It's a Moorish gypsy song of the 15th century. She said, trying. It seemed sort of familiar to hesitated one of the young man timidly. Like as if, don't you know, you had without knowing it. Don't you know, he blushed slightly, sort of picked it up somewhere. I picked it up, as you call it, in the collection of medieval manuscripts of the Harvard Library and copied it, returned mismanishly codily as she turned away. But I was not inclined to let her off so easily. I presently made my way to her side. Your uncle was complimentary enough to consult me as to the meaning of the appearance of a certain exuberant Spanish visitor at his house the other night. I looked in her brown eyes, my own slipped off her velvety pupils without retaining anything. Then she reinforced her gaze with a pinceness and said carelessly, Oh, it's you. How are you? Well, could you give me any information? Only generally, I returned, still looking into her eyes. These people are impulsive. The Spanish blood is a mixture of gold and chrysler. She smiled slightly. That reminds me of your volatile friend. He was mercurial enough certainly. Is he still dancing? And singing sometimes I responded pointedly. But she only added casually a singular creature without exhibiting the least consciousness and drifted away, leaving me none the wiser. I felt that Enrique alone could enlighten me. I must see him. I did, but not in the way I expected. There was a bullfight at San Antonio the next Saturday afternoon. The usual Sunday performance being changed in deference to the sabbatical habits of the Americans. An additional attraction was offered in the shape of a bull and bear fight, also a concession to American taste, which had voted the bull fight slow and had a word that the bull did not get a fair show. I am glad that I am able to spar the reader the usual realistic horrors for in the Californian performances there was very little of brutality that distinguished this function in the mother country. The horses were not miserable, worn out hacks, but young and alert most times. And the display of horsemanship by the peccadors was not only wonderful, but secured and almost absolute safety to horse and rider. I never saw a horse go. Although unskillful riders were sometimes thrown in wheeling quickly to avoid the bull's charge, they generally regained their animals without injury. The Plaza de Toros was reached through the decade and tiled strong outskirts of an old Spanish village. It was a rudely built oval amphitheater with crumbling whitewashed adobe walls and roofed only over portions of the gallery, reserved for the provincial notables, but now occupied by a few shopkeepers and their wives with the sprinkling of American travelers and ranchmen. The impalpable adobe test of the arena was being wired into the air by the strong onset of the afternoon trade winds, which happily, however, helped also to dissipate a reek of garlic and the acrid fumes of cheap tobacco rolled in con-hurst cigarettes. I was leaning over the second barrier, waiting for the meager and circus-like procession to enter with the keys of the bullpen when my attention was attracted to a movement in the reserve gallery. A lady and gentleman of equality that was evidently unfamiliar to the rest of the audience were picking their way along the rickety benches to a French seat. I recognized the geologist with some surprise and the lady was leading with still great astonishment, for it was mismanagedly in her precise, well-fitting, walking costume, a monotone of sober color among the party-colored audience. However, I was perhaps less surprised than the audience for I was not only becoming as accustomed to the young girls' vagaries as I had been to Enrique's extravagance, but I was also satisfied that her uncle might have given her permission to come as a recognition of the Sunday concession of the management as well as to conciliate his supposed ethnic friends. I watched her sitting there until the first bull had entered and, after a rather brief play with the picadels and banterly arose, was despatched. At the moment when the mantador approached the bull with his lethal weapon, I was not sorry for an excuse for the concept mismanagedly. Her hands were in her lap, her head slightly bent forward over her knees. I fancied that she too had dropped her eyes before the brutal situation. To my horror, I saw that she had a drawing book in her hand and was actually sketching it. I turned my eyes in preference to the dying bull. The second animal laid out for this ingenious slaughter was however more silent, uncertain and discomposing to his butchers. He accepted the irony of a trial with gloomy, suspicious eyes and he declined the challenge of boiling and insulting picadels. He brazzled with the banterlose like a headhawk but remained with his hunches back against the barrier. At times almost hidden in the fine dust raised by the monotonous stroke of his sullenly pawing hoof. His own dull, heavy protest. A vague uneasiness had infected his adversaries. The picadels held aloof. The banterlose skirmished at a safe distance. The audience resented only the indecision of the bull. Galing epithets were flung at him, followed by cries of espada and curving his elbow under his short cloak, the matador. It is flashing blade in hand, advanced and stopped. The bull remained motionless. For at that moment a heavier gust of wind than usual swept down upon the arena, lifted a suffocating cloud of dust and wired it around the tires of benches in the balcony and for a moment seemed to stop the performance. I heard an exclamation from the geologist who had risen to his feet. I fancied. I heard even a faint cry from miss Manasli but the next moment as the dust was slowly settling we saw a sheet of paper in the air that had been caught up in a brief cyclone tied on uncertain wings until it slowly descended in the very middle of the arena. It was a leaf from miss Manasli's sketchbook the one on which he had been sketching. In the past that followed it seemed to be the one object that at last excited the bull's growing but tardy ire. He glanced at it with murky distanted eyes. He started at it with vague yet troubled fury. Whether he detected a long presentment in miss Manasli's sketch or whether he recognized it as an unknown and unfamiliar trickery in his surroundings I could not conjecture. For the next moment the matador taking advantage of the bull's concentration with a complacent ear at the audience advanced toward the paper but at that instant a young man cleared the barrier into the arena with a single bonk, shout the matador to one side turned toward the balcony and miss Manasli with a gesture of apology dropped gaily before the bull knelt down before him with an exaggerated humility and held up the drawing as if for his inspection. A roar of applause broke from the audience a cry of warning and exasperation from the attendance as the goaded bull suddenly charged the stranger but he sprang to one side with great dexterity made a courteous gesture to the matador as if for him and still holding the paper in his hand re-leaped the barrier and rejoined the audience in safety I did not wait to see the deadly dominant thrust with which the matador received the charging bull my eyes were following the figure now bounding up the steps to the balcony where with an exaggerated salutation he laid the drawing in miss Manasli's lap and vanished there was no mistaking that thin lip form the narrow black moustache and gravely dancing eyes the velocity of conception the extravagance of execution the quaint irony of the sequel could belong to no one but Henry K I hurried up to her as the six yoked mules dragged the carcass of the bull away she was placidly putting up her book the unmoved focus of a hundred eager and curious eyes she smiled slightly as she saw me I was just telling Mr Briggs what an extraordinary creature it was and how you knew him Mr Briggs had great experience to do that sort of thing so cleverly and safely does he do it often? of course not just that but does he pick up cigars and things that I see they throw to the matador does he belong to the management? Mr Briggs thinks the whole thing was a feint to distract the bull she added with a wicket glance at the geologist who I fancied looked disturbed I am afraid I said dryly that his act was unpremeditated and genuine as it was unusual why afraid? it was a matter of fact question but I instantly saw my mistake what right had I to assume that Henry K's attentions were any more genuine than her own easy indifference and if I suspected that they were was it fair in me to give my friend away to this heartless cockat? you are not very gallant she said with a slight laugh as I was hesitating and turned away with her escort before I could frame a reply but at least Henry K was now accessible and I should gain some information from him I knew where to find him unless he was still lounging about the building intent upon more extravagance but I waited until I saw Miss Manusvili and Briggs depart without further interruption the hastened half Roman Saltilo Henry K's cousin was on the outskirts of the village when I arrived there I found Henry K's Pinto mustang steaming in the coral and although I was momentarily delayed by the servants at the gateway I was surprised to find Henry K himself lying languidly on his back in a hammock in the patio his arms were hanging down listlessly on each side as if in the greatest frustration yet I could not resist the impression that the rascal had only just got into the hammock when he heard of my arrival you have arrived friend Pancho in time he said in accents of exaggerated weakness I am absolutely exhaust I am busted, caved in, kerflomoxt I have behold you my friend at the barrier I speak not, I make no sign at the first because I was on fire I speak not at the finish for I am exhaust I see the bull made it lively for you he instantly bounded up in the hammock the bull karamba not a thousand bulls and this one look you was a craven I snap my fingers over his arm I roll my cigarette Henry's nose well then what was it he instantly lay down again pulling up the sides of the hammer presently his voice came from its depths appealing in hollow tones to the sky he asks me these friend of my soul these brother of my life these Pancho that I love what it was he would that I should tell him why I am game in the legs why I shake in the hand crack in the voice and I am generally wiped out and yet he my partner he is Francisco you know that I have seen this miss from Boston that I have gaze into the eye touch the hand and for the instant pushes a picture that hand have drawn it was a sublime picture Pancho he said sitting up again suddenly and have killed the bull before our friend peeps sword have touched even the bone of his back make finish of him look here Henry K I said bluntly have you been serenading that girl she struck these shoulders with the least embarrassment and said ah yes what would you it's of a necessity well I retorted then you ought to know that her uncle took it all to himself thought you some grateful Catholic pleased with his religious tolerance he did not even smile we know he said gravely that makes something to in this affair it's well to begin with the duana he is the duana I went on relentlessly her escort told her just now that you are exploiting the bull ring was only a trick to divert the bull suggested by the management her escort is a geology naturally she is to him as a stone I would have continued but a peon interrupted us at this moment with a sign to Henry K who leaped briskly from the hammock bidding me wait his return from a messenger in the gateway still unsatisfied of mine and sat down in the hammock that Henry K had quit it a scrap of paper was lying in its which at first appeared to be of the kind from which Henry K rolled his cigarettes but as I picked it up to throw it away I found it was a much firmer and doubter material looking at it more closely I was surprised to recognize it as a piece of the tinted drawing paper torn off the block that Miss Manorsley had used it had been deeply creased right angles as if it had been folded it looked as if it might have been the outer half of a sheet used for a note it might have been a trifling circumstance but it greatly excited my curiosity I knew that he had returned the sketch to Miss Manorsley for I had seen it in a ran had she given him another and if so why had it been folded to the destruction of the drawing or was it a part of a note which he had destroyed in the first impulse of discovery I walked quickly with it toward the gateway where Henry K had disappeared intending to restore it to him he was just outside talking with a young girl I started for it was the costa Miss Manorsley's maid with this added discovery came that sense of uneasiness and indignation with which we illogically or apt to resent withholding of a friend's confidence even matters concerning only himself it was no use for me to reason that it was no business of mine that he was right in keeping a secret that concerned another under lady but I was afraid I was even more mainly sinful because the discovery quite upset my theory of his conduct and of Miss Manorsley's attitude toward him I continued to walk on to the gateway where I bid Henry K a hurried goodbye alleging the sudden remembrance of another engagement but without appearing to recognize the girl who was moving away when to my further discomfort the rascal stopped me with an appealing wink threw his arms around my neck whispered hoarsely in my ear ah, you see you comprehend but you are the mirror of discretion and return to Jacosta but whether this meant that he had received a message from Miss Manorsley or that he was trying to summon her maid to carry one was still uncertain he was capable of either during the next two or three weeks or him frequently but as I had resolved to try the effect of ignoring Miss Manorsley in our conversation I gathered little further of their relations to my surprise after one or two characteristic extravagances of illusion Henry K dropped the subject too only one afternoon as we were parting he said carefully my friend you are going to the castle of Manorsley tonight I too have the honor of the invitation to my mercury, my laparillo you will take of me a message to these means Boston that I am crushed, desolated, prostrate and flabbergasted that I cannot arrive for I have of that night to sit up with the grand aunt of my brother-in-law who has a Quincy to the death it's sad this was the first indication I had received of Miss Manorsley's advances I was equally surprised at Henry K's refusal to go to the castle bluntly nothing keeps you from going my friend returned Henry K with a sudden lapse in the languishment that seemed to make him absolutely informed it's everything that shall restrain me I am not strong I shall become weak of the knee and tremble under the eye of Miss Boston I shall precipitate myself to the geology and by the throat ask me another conundrum that shall be easy he seemed idiotically inflexible and did not go I found Miss Manorsley exquisitely dressed and looking singularly animated and pretty the lamb and glow of her inscrutable eye as she turned toward me might have been flattering but for my uneasiness in regard to Henry K I delivered his excuses as naturally as I could she stiffened for an instant and seemed an inch higher I am so sorry she said at last in a level voice I thought he would have been so amusing indeed I had hoped we might try an old Moorish dance together which I have found and was practicing he would have been delighted I know it's a great pity he didn't come with me I said quickly but I could not help adding with emphasis on her words he is such an extraordinary creature you know I see nothing extraordinary in his devotion to an ageer relative returned Miss Manorsley quietly as she turned away except that it justifies by respect for his character I do not know why I did not relate this to him possibly I had given up trying to understand them perhaps I was beginning to have an idea that he could take care of himself but I was somewhat surprised a few days later when after asking me to go with him to a rodeo at his uncles he added composedly you will meet Miss Boston I stared and but for his manner would have thought it part of his extravagance for the rodeo the chase of wild cattle for the purpose of lassoing and branding them was a rather brutal affair and purely a man's function it was also a family affair a property stock taking of the great Spanish cattle owners than strangers particularly Americans found it difficult to gain access to his mysteries and the fear start that followed but how did she get an invitation I asked you did not dare to ask I began my friend said with a singular deliberation the great and respectable Boston herself and a serene venerable uncle and other Boston Magnificos have of a truth done me the inexpressible honor to solicit of my degraded papistical uncle that she shall come that she shall of her own superior I behold the barbaric customs of her race his tone and manner were so peculiar that I stepped quickly before him my hands on his shoulders and looked down into his face but the actual devil which I know for the first time saw in his eyes went out of them suddenly and he relapsed again in affected languishment in his chair I shall be their friend Pancho he said with the preposterous gas I shall now my arm to lasso the bull and tumble him before her at her feet I shall throw the Buckyum Stang at the same sacred spot I shall pluck for her the buried chicken at full speed from the ground and present it to her you shall see it friend Pancho I shall be there he was as good as his word when Don Pedro Emador installed Miss Manasli with Spanish courtesy on a race platform in the Long Valley where the rodeo took place the gallant Enrique selected a bull from the frightened and galloping herd and cleverly isolating him from the band lassoed his hind legs and threw him exactly before the platform where Miss Manasli was seated it was Enrique who caught the unbroken Mustang sprang from his own saddle to the bar back of his captive and with the lasso for a bridle halted him on rigid hunches at Miss Manasli's feet it was Enrique who in sports that followed leaned from his saddle at full speed caught up the chicken buried to its head in the sand without ringing its neck and tossed it unharmed and fluttering toward his mistress as for her she wore the same look of animation that I had seen in her face at our previous meeting although she did not bring her sketchbook with her as at the bullfight she did not shrink from the branding of the cattle which took place under her very eyes yet I had never seen her and Enrique together they had never to my actual knowledge even exchanged words although she was the guest of his uncle his duties seemed to keep him in the field and apart from her nor as far as I could detect did either apparently make any effort to have it otherwise the peculiar circumstance seemed to attract no attention from anyone else but for what I alone knew or thought I knew of their actual relations I should have thought them strangers but I felt certain that the fiesta which took place in the broad patio of Don Pedro's casa would bring them together and later in the evening as we were all sitting in the veranda watching the dancing of the Mexican women whose white flounders were anonymously rising and falling to the strains of two melancholy harps mismanagedly rejoined us from the house she seemed to be utterly absorbed and attracted in the barbaric dances and scarcely moved as she leaned over the reeling resting on her hand suddenly she arose with a little cry what is it asked two or three nothing only I have lost my fan she had risen and was looking abstractedly on the floor half a dozen men jumped to their feet let me fetch it they said no thank you I think I know where it is and will go for it myself she was moving away but Don Pedro interposed with the Spanish gravity such a thing was not to be heard of if the sonorita would not permit him an old man to go for it it must be brought by Enrique her cavalier of the day but Enrique was not to be found I glanced at mismanagedly somewhat disturbed face and begged her to let me fetch it I thought I saw a flush of relief came into her pale cheek as she said in a lower voice on the stone seat in the garden I hurried away leaving Don Pedro still protesting I knew the gardens and the stone seat at an angle of the wall not a dozen yards from the casa the moon shone full upon it there indeed lay the little grey feathered fan but beside it also lay the crumpled black gold embroidered riding gauntlet that Enrique had worn at the rodeo I thrust it hurriedly into my pocket and ran back as I passed through the gateway I asked the peon to send Enrique to me the man stared did I not know that Don Enrique had ridden away two minutes ago when I reached the veranda I handed the fan to mismanagedly without a word we know said Don Pedro gravely it's as well there shall be no bones broken over the getting of him for Enrique I here has had to return to Encina this very evening mismanagedly retired early I did not inform her of my discovery now did I seek in any way to penetrate her secret there is no doubt that she and Enrique had been together perhaps not for the first time but what was the result of their interview from the young girls demeanor and Enrique's hurried departure I could only fear the worst for him had he been tempted into some further extravagance and been angrily rebuked or had he about a real passion concealed under his exaggerated mask and been deliberately rejected I tossed uneasily half the night following in my dreams my poor friends hurrying hoof beats and I was starting from my sleep at what I thought was the sound of calipin hooves I rose early and lunged into the patio but others were there before me and a small group of Don Pedro's family were excitedly discussing something and I fancied they turned away awkwardly and consciously as I approached there was an air of indifferent uneasiness everywhere a strange fear came over me with the chill of the early morning air had anything happened to Enrique I had always looked upon his extravagance as part of his playful humour could it be possible that under the sting of rejection he had made his clotus threat of languishing efface material surely Miss Manaslee would know or suspect something if it were the case I approached one of the Mexican women and asked if the sonorita had risen the woman started covertly round before she replied did not Pancho know that Miss Manaslee and her maid had not slept in their beds that night but had gone none knew where for an instant I felt an appalling sense of my own responsibility in this suddenly serious situation and hurried after retreating family group but as I entered the corridor a vacura touched me on the shoulder he had evidently just dismounted and was covered with dust of the road not written in pencil on a leaf from Miss Manaslee's sketchbook it was in Enrique's hand and his signature was followed by his most extravagant rubric friend Pancho when you read this line you shall have a possibility think I am no more that's where you shall sleep up my little brother I am much more I am two times as much I have married Miss Boston with the hand of my venerable uncle-in-law you shall say to him that we fly to the south wilderness as a combined evangelical missionary to the heathen Miss Boston herself said this Tata, how are you now your own Enrique end of the devotion of Enrique from Selected Stories by Brett Hart the present recording is by Raju Ramina45 at hotmail.com