xt79057crw7z https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt79057crw7z/data/mets.xml Buck, Charles Neville, b. 1879. 1910  books b92-178-30418568 English Grosset & Dunlap, : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Key to yesterday  / Charles Neville Buck. text Key to yesterday  / Charles Neville Buck. 1910 2002 true xt79057crw7z section xt79057crw7z 
 




















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The Key to



Yesterday

 This page in the original text is blank.


 

The Key to Yesterday



               CHAPTER I
  THE palings of the grandstand inclosure
creaked in protest under the pressure. The shad-
ows of forward-surging men wavered far out
across the track. A smother of ondriving dust
broke, hurricane-like, around the last turn,
sweeping before it into the straightaway a strug-
gling mass of horse-flesh and a confusion of
stable-colors. Back to the .right, the grand-
stand came to its feet, bellowing in a madman's
chorus.
  Out of the forefront of the struggle strained
a blood-bay colt. The boy, crouched over the
shoulders, was riding with hand and heel to
the last ounce of his strength and the last sub-
tle feather-weight of his craft and skill. At
his saddleskirts pressed a pair of distended
nostrils and a black, foam-flecked muzzle. Be-
hind, with a gap of track and daylight between,
trailed the laboring " ruck."
                      I

 

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



  A tall stranger, who had lost his companion
and host in the maelstrom of the betting shed,
had taken his stand near the angle where the
paddock grating meets the track fence. A
Derby crowd at Churchill Downs is a conges-
tion of humanity, and in the obvious impossi-
bility of finding his friend he could here at
least give his friend the opportunity of finding
him, since at this point were a few panels of
fence almost clear. As the two colts fought
out the final decisive furlongs, the black nose
stealing inch by inch along the bay neck, the
stranger's face wore an interest not altogether
that of the casual race-goer.  His shoulders
were thrown back, and his rather lean jaw angle
swept into an uncompromising firmness of chin
-just now uptilted.
  The man stood something like six feet of
clear-cut physical fitness. There was a declara-
tion in his breadth of shoulder and depth of
chest, in his slenderness of waist and thigh, of
a life spent only partly within walls, while the
free swing of torso might have intimated to
the expert observer that some of it had been
spent in the saddle.
                      2

 

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



  Of the face itself, the eyes were the com-
manding features. They were gray eyes, set
under level brows; keenly observant by token
of their clear light, yet tinged by a half-wistful
softness that dwells hauntingly in the eyes of
dreamers.
  Just now, the eyes saw not only the determi-
nation of a four-furlong dash for two-year-
olds, but also, across the fresh turf of the in-
field, the radiant magic of May, under skies
washed brilliant by April's rains.
  Then, as the colts came abreast and passed
in a muffled roar of drumming hoofs, his eyes
suddenly abandoned the race at the exact mo-
ment of its climax: as hundreds of heads
craned toward the judges' stand, his own gaze
became a stare focused on a point near his
elbow.
  He stared because he had seen, as it seemed
to him, a miracle, and the miracle was a girl.
It was, at all events, nothing short of miracu-
lous that such a girl should be discovered stand-
ing, apparently unaccompanied, down in this
bricked area, a few yards from the paddock
and the stools of the bookmakers.
                      3

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



  Unlike his own, her eyes had remained con-
stant to the outcome of the race, and now her
face was averted, so that only the curve of one
cheek, a small ear and a curling tendril of brown
hair under the wide, soft brim of her Panama
hat rewarded him for the surrender of the spec.
tacle on the track.
  Most ears, he found himself reflecting with
a sense of triumphant discovery, simply grow
on the sides of heads, but this one might have
been fashioned and set by a hand gifted with
the exquisite perfection of the jeweler's art.
  A few moments before, the spot where she
stood had been empty save for a few touts and
trainers. It seemed inconceivable, in the abrupt
revelation of her presence, that she could, like
himself, have been simply cut off from com-
panions and left for the interval waiting. He
caught himself casting about for a less prosaic
explanation.  Magic would seem   to suit her
better than mere actuality. She was sinuously
slender, and there was a splendid hint of gal-
lantry in the unconscious sweep of her shoul-
ders. He was conscious that the simplicity of
her pongee gown loaned itself to an almost
                      4

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



barbaric freedom of carriage with the same
readiness as do the draperies of the Winged
Victory. Yet, even the Winged Victory achieves
her grace by a pose of triumphant action, while
this woman stood in repose except for the deli-
cate forward-bending excitement of watching
the battle in the stretch.
  The man was not, by nature, susceptible.
Women as sex magnates had little part in his
life cosmos.  The interest he felt now  with
electrical force, was the challenge that beauty
in any form made upon his enthusiasm. Per-
haps, that was why he stood all unrealizing the
discourtesy of his gaping scrutiny-a scrutiny
that, even with her eyes turned away, she must
have felt.
  At all events, he must see her face. As the
crescendo of the grandstand's suspense grad-
uated into the more positive note of climax
and began to die, she turned toward him. Her
lips were half-parted, and the sun struck her
cheeks and mouth and chin into a delicate bril-
liance of color, while the hat-brim threw a
'band of shadow on forehead and eyes. The
man's impression was swift and definite. He
                     S

 

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



had been waiting to see, and was prepared.
The face, he decided, was not beautiful by the
gauge of set standards. It was, however,
beautiful in the better sense of its individuality;
in the delicacy of the small, yet resolute, chin
and the expressive depth of the eyes. Just
now, they were shaded into dark pools of blue,
but he knew they could brighten into limpid
violet.
  She straightened up as she turned and met
his stare with a steadiness that should have
disconcerted it, yet he found himself still study-
ing her with the detached, though utterly en-
grossed, interest of the critic. She did not start
or turn hurriedly away. Somehow, he caught
the realization that flight had no part in her
system of things.
  The human tide began flowing back toward
the betting shed, and left them alone in a
cleared space by the palings. Then, the man
saw a quick anger sweep into the girl's face
and deepen the color of her cheeks. Her chin
went up a trifle, and her lips tightened.
  He found himself all at once in deep con-
fusion. He wanted to tell her that he had not
                      6

 

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



realized the actuality of his staring imperti-
nence, until she had, with a flush of unuttered
wrath and embarrassment, revealed the depth
of his felony . . . for he could no longer re-
gard it as a misdemeanor.
  There was a note of contempt in her eyes
that stung him, and presently he found him-
self stammering an excuse.
  " I beg your pardon-I didn't realize it,"
he began lamely. Then he added as though to
explain it all with the frank outspokenness of a
school-boy: " I was wishing that I could paint
you-I couldn't help gazing."
  For a few moments as she stood rigidly and
indignantly silent, he had opportunity to re-
flect on the inadequacy of his explanation. At
last, she spoke with the fine disdain of affronted
royalty.
  " Are you quite through looking at me
May I go now "
  He was contrite.
  " I don't know that I could explain-but
it wasn't meant to be-to be " He broke
off, floundering.
    It's a little strange," she commented
                      7

 

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



quietly as though talking to herself, "because
you look like a gentleman."
  The man flushed.
  " You are very kind and flattering," he said,
his face instantly hardening. " I sha'n't tax you
with explanation. I don't suppose any woman
could be induced to understand that a man may
look at her-even stare at her-without disre-
spect, just as he might look at a sunset or a
wonderful picture." Then, he added half in
apology, half in defiance: " I don't know much
about women anyway."
)For a moment, the girl stood with her face
resolutely set, then she looked up again, meet-
ing his eyes gravely, though he thought that
she had stifled a mutinous impulse of her
pupils to riffle into amusement.
  " I must wait here for my uncle," she told
him. "Unless you have to stay, perhaps you
had better go."
  The tall stranger swung off toward the bet-
ting shed without a backward glance, and en-
gulfed himself in the mob where one had to
fight and shoulder a difficult way in zigzag
course.
                      8

 

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY,



  Back of the forming lines of winners with
tickets to cash, he caught sight of a young man
almost as tall as himself and characterized by
the wholesome attractiveness of one who has
taken life with zest and decency. He wore
also upon feature and bearing the stamp of an
aristocracy that is not decadent. To the side
of this man, the stranger shouldered his way.
  "Since you abandoned me," he accused,
"I've been standing out there like a little boy
who has lost his nurse." After a pause, he
added: "And I've seen a wonderful girl-the
one woman in your town I want to meet."
  His host took him by the elbow, and began
steering him toward the paddock gate.
  " So, you have discovered a divinity, and are
ready to be presented. And you are the scof-
fer who argues that women may be eliminated.
You are-'or were-the man who didn't care
to know them."
  The guest answered calmly and with brevity:
  " I'm not talking about women. I'm talk-
ing about a woman-and she's totally dif-
ferent."
   "Who is she, Bob"
                     9

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



  " How should I know "
  " I know a few of them-suppose you de-
scribe her."
  The stranger halted and looked at his friend
and host with commiserating pity. WVhen he
deigned to speak, it was with infinite scorn.
  " Describe her! Why, you fool, I'm no poet
laureate, and, if I were, I couldn't describe
her I "
  For reply, he received only the disconcerting
mockery of ironical laughter.
  "My interest," the young man of the fence
calmly deigned to explain, " is impersonal. I
want to meet her, precisely as I'd get up early
in the morning and climb a mountain to see the
sun rise over a particularly lovely valley. It's
not as a woman, but as an object of art."

  On other and meaner days, the track at
Churchill Downs may be in large part sur-
rendered to its more rightful patrons, the
chronics and apostles of the turf, and racing
may be only racing as roulette is roulette. But
on Derby Day it is as though the community
paid tribute to the savor of the soil, and hon-
                     I0

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



ored in memory the traditions of the ancient
regime.
  To-day, in the club-house inclosure, the
roomy verandahs, the close-cropped lawn and
even the roof-gallery were crowded; not in-
deed to the congestion of the grandstand's per-
spiring swarm, for Fashion's reservation still
allowed some luxury of space, but beyond the
numbers of less important times. In the bur-
geoning variety of new spring gowns and hats,
the women made bouquets, as though living
flowers had been brought to the shrine of the
thoroughbred.
  A table at the far end of the verandah
seemed to be a little Mecca for strolling visit-
ors. In the party surrounding it, one might
almost have caught the impression that the
prettiness of the feminine display had been
here arranged, and that in scattering attractive
types along the front of the white club-house,
some landscape gardener had reserved the
most appealing beauties for a sort of climac-
teric effect at the end.
  Sarah and Anne Preston were there, and
wherever the Preston sisters appeared there
                     I I

 
     THE KEY TO YESTERDAY
also were usually gathered together men, not
to the number of two and three, but in full
quorum. And, besides the Preston sisters, this
group included Miss Buford and a fourth girl.
  Indeed, it seemed to be this fourth who held,
with entire unconsciousness, more than an equal
share of attention. Duska Filson was no more
cut to the pattern of the ordinary than the Rus-
sian name her romantic young mother had
given her was an exponent of the life about
her. She was different, and at every point of
her divergence from a routine type it was the
type that suffered by the contrast.  Having
preferred being a boy until she reached that
age when it became necessary to bow to the
dictate of Fate and accept her sex, she had re-
tained an understanding for, and a comradeship
with, men that made them hers in bondage.
This quality she had combined with all that
was subtly and deliciously feminine, and,
though she loved men as she loved small boys,
some of them had discovered that it was a!-
ways as men, never as a man.
  She had a delightfully refractory way of
making her own laws to govern her own world
                     I 2

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



-a system for which she offered no apology;
and this found its vindication in the fact
that her world was well-governed-though
with absolutism.
  The band was blaring something popular
and reminiscent of the winter's gayeties, but the
brasses gave their notes to the May air, and
the May air smoothed and melted them into
softness. Duska's eyes were fixed on the
green turf of the infield where several sentinel
trees pointed into the blue.
  Mr. Walter Bellton, having accomplished
the marvelous feat of escaping from the book-
maker's maelstrom with the.immaculateness of
his personal appearance intact, sauntered up to
drop somewhat languidly into a chair.
  "When one returns in triumph," he com-
mented, " one should have chaplets of bay and
arches to walk under. It looks to me as
though the reception-committee has not been
on the job."
  Sarah Preston raised a face shrouded in
gravity. Her voice was velvety, but Bellton
caught its undernote of ridicule.
  "I render unto Caesar those things that
                     13

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



are Caesar's-but what is your latest tri-
umph " She put her question innocently.
"Did you win a bet "
  If Mr. Bellton's quick-flashing smile was an
acknowledgment of the thrust at his some-
what notorious self-appraisement, his manner
at least remained imperturbably complacent.
  " I was not clamoring for my own just
dues," he explained, with modesty. " For my-
self, I shall be satisfied with an unostentatious
tablet in bronze when I'm no longer with you
in the flesh. In this instance I was speaking for
another."
  He did not hasten to announce the name of
the other. In even the little things of life, this
gentleman calculated to a nicety dramatic val-
ues and effects. Just as a public speaker in
nominat -. a candidate works up to a climax
of eulogy, and pauses to let his hearers shout,
" Name him! Name your man I " so Mr. Bell-
ton paused, waiting for someone to ask of
whom he spoke.
  It was little Miss Buford who did so with
the debutante's legitimate interest in the pos-
sibility of fresh conquest.
                     I4

 

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



  "And who has returned in triumph"
    George Steele."
  Sarah Preston arched her brows in mild in-
terest.
  " So, the wanderer is home! I had the idea
he was painting masterpieces in the Quartier
Latin, or wandering about with a sketching
easel in southern Spain."
  " Nevertheless, he is back," affirmed the
man, " and he has brought with him an even
greater celebrity than himself-a painter of in-
ternational reputation, it would seem. I met
them a few moments ago in the paddock, and
Steele intimated that they would shortly arrive
to lay their joint laurels at your feet."
  Louisville society was fond of George Steele,
and, when on occasion he dropped back from
" the happy roads that lead around the world,"
it was to find a welcome in his home city only
heightened by his long absence.
  "Who is this greater celebrity" demanded
Miss Buford. She knew that Steele belonged
to Duska Filson, or at least that whenever he
returned it was to renew the proffer of himself,
even though with the knowledge that the
                     I5

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



answer would be as it had always been: nega-
tive. Her interest was accordingly ready to
consider in alternative the other man.
  " Robert A. Saxon-the first disciple of
Frederick Marston," declared Mr. Bellton.
If no one present had ever heard the name
before, the consequential manner of its an-
nouncement would have brought a sense of de-
plorable unenlightenment.
  Bellton's eyes, despite the impression of
weakness conveyed by the heavy lenses of his
nose-glasses, missed little, and he saw that
Duska Filson still looked off abstractedly
across the bend of the homestretch, taking no
note of his heralding.
  " Doesn't the news of new arrivals excite
you, Miss Filson" he inquired, with a touch
of drawl in his voice.
  The girl half-turned her head with a smile
distinctly short of enthusiasm.  She did not
care for Bellton. She was herself an exponent
of all things natural and unaffected, and she
read between the impeccably regular lines of
his personality, with a criticism that was ad-
verse.
                     i6

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



  "You see," she answered simply, " it's not
news. I've seen George since he came."
  "Tell us all about this celebrity," prompted
Miss Buford, eagerly. " What is he like"
  Duska shook her head.
  " I haven't seen him. He was to arrive this
morning."
  " So, you see," supplemented Mr. Bellton
with a smile, "you will, after all, have to fall
back on me-I have seen him."
  " You," demurred the debutante with a
disappointed frown, " are only a man. What
does a man know about another man"
  "The celebrity," went on Mr. Bellton,
ignoring the charge of inefficiency, " avoids
women." He paused to laugh. " He was tell-
ing Steele that he had come to paint landscape,
and I am afraid he will have to be brought
lagging into your presence."
  "It seems rather brutal to drag him here,"
suggested Anne Preston. "I, for one, am
willing to spare him the ordeal."
  "However," pursued Mr. Bellton with
some zest of recital, " I have warned him. I
told him what dangerous batteries of eyes he
                    '7

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



must encounter. It seemed to me unfair to let
him charge into the lists of loveliness all un-
armed-with his heart behind no shield."
  "And he . . . how did he take your
warning" demanded Miss Buford.
  " I think it is his craven idea to avoid the
danger and retreat at the first opportunity.
He said that he was a painter, had even been a
cow-puncher once, but that society was beyond
his powers and his taste."
  The group had been neglecting the track.
Now, from the grandstand came once more the
noisy outburst that ushers the horses into the
stretch, and conversation died as the party came
to its feet.
  None of its members noticed for the moment
the two young men who had made their way
between the chairs of the verandah until they
stood just back of the group, awaiting their
turn for recognition.
  As the horses crossed the wire and the pan-
demonium of the stand fell away, George
Steele stepped forward to present his guest.
  " This is Mr. Robert Saxon," he announced.
"He will paint the portraits of you girls almost
                     i8

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



as beautiful as you really are.  . . . It's as
far as mere art can go."
  Saxon stood a trifle abashed at the form of
presentation as the group turned to greet him.
Something in the distance had caught Duska
Filson's imagination-brimming eyes. She was
sitting with her back turned, and did not hear
Steele's approach nor turn with the others.
  Saxon's casually critical glance passed rap-
idly over the almost too flawless beauty of the
Preston sisters and the flower-like charm of
little Miss Buford, then fell on a slender girl
in a simple pongee gown and a soft, wide-
brimmed Panama hat.    UJnder the hat-brim,
he caught the glimpse of an ear that might
have been fashioned by a jeweler and a curl-
ing tendril of brown hair. If Saxon had in-
deed been the timorous man Bellton intimated,
the glimpse would have thrown him into panic.
As it was, he showed no sign of alarm.
  His presentation as a celebrity had focused
attention upon him in a manner momentarily
embarrassing.  He found a subtle pleasure in
the thought that it had not called this girl's
eyes from whatever occupied them out beyond
                     '9

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



the palings. Saxon disliked the ordinary.
His canvases and his enthusiasms were alike
those of the individualist.
  "Duska," laughed Miss Buford, " come
back from your dreams, and be introduced to
Mr. Saxon."
  The painter acknowledged a moment of sus-
pense. What would be her attitude when she
recognized the man who had stared at her
down by the paddock fence
  The girl turned. Except himself, no one
saw the momentary flash of amused surprise in
her eyes, the quick change from grave blue to
flashing violet and back again to grave blue.
To the man, the swiftly shifting light of it
seemed to say: " You are at my mercy; what-
ever liberality you receive is at the gift and
pleasure of my generosity."
  "I beg your pardon," she said simply, ex-
tending her hand. " I was just thinking-" she
paused to laugh frankly, and it was the music
of the laugh that most impressed Saxon-" I
hardly know what I was thinking."
  He dropped with a sense of privileged good-
fortune into the vacant chair at her side.
                     20

 

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



  With just a hint of mischief riffling her
eyes, but utter artlessness in her voice, she
regarded him questioningly.
  " I wonder if we have not met somewhere
before It seems to me "
  "Often," he asserted.  "I think it was in
Babylon first, perhaps. And you were a girl
in Macedon when I was a spearman in the
army of Alexander."
  She sat as reflective and grave as though
she were searching her recollections of Baby-
lon and Macedon for a chance acquaintance,
but under the gravity was a repressed sparkle
of mischievous delight.
  After a moment, he demanded brazenly:
  "XWould you mind telling me which colt
won that first race"



2 I


 
CHAPTER II



  " His career has been pretty much a march
of successive triumphs through the world of
art, and he has left the critics only one peg on
which to hang their carping."
  Steele spoke with the warmth of enthusi-
asm. He had succeeded in capturing Duska
for a few minutes of monopoly in the semi-
solitude of the verandah at the back of the
club-house. Though he had a hopeless cause
of his own to plead, it was characteristic of
him that his first opportunity should go to the
praise of his friend.
  "What is that"    The girl found herself
unaccountably interested and ready to assume
this stranger's defense even before she knew
with what his critics charged him.
" That he is a copyist," explained the man;
" that he is so enamored of the style of Fred-
erick M'arston that his pictures can't shake off
the influence. He is great enough to blaze
his own trail-to create his own school, rather
                     22

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



than to follow in the tracks of another. Of
course," he hastened to defend, " that is hardly
a valid indictment. Every master is, at the be-
ginning of his career, strongly affected by the
genius of some greater master. The only
mistake lies in following in the footsteps of
one not yet dead. To play follow-the-leader
with a man of a past century is permissible
and laudable, but to give the same allegiance
to a contemporary is, in the narrow view of
the critics, to accept a secondary place."
  The Kentuckian sketched with ardor the
dashing brilliance of the other's achievement:
how five years had brought him from lethal
obscurity to international fame; how, though a
strictly American product who had not studied
abroad, his Salon pictures had electrified Paris.
And the girl listened with attentive interest.
  'When the last race was ended and the thou-
sands were crowding out through the gates,
Saxon heard his host accepting a dinner invi-
tation for the evening.
  "I shall have a friend stopping in town on
his way East, whom I want you all to meet,"
explained Mr. Bellton, the prospective host.
                     23

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



" He is one Se-nor Ribero, an attache of a South
American legation, and he may prove inter-
esting."
  Saxon caught himself almost frowning. He
did not care for society's offerings, but the en-
gagement was made, and he had now no alter-
native to adding his declaration of pleasure
to that of his host. He was, however, silent to
taciturnity as Steele's runabout chugged its way
along in the parade of motors and carriages
through the gates of the race-track inclosure.
In his pupils, the note of melancholy unrest
was decided, where ordinarily there was only
the hint.
  "There is time," suggested the host, " for
a run out the Boulevard; I'd like to show you
a view or two."
  The suggestion of looking at a promising
landscape ordinarily challenged Saxon's interest
to the degree of enthusiasm.  Now, he only
nodded.
  It was not until Steele, who drove his own
car, stopped at the top of the Iroquois Park
hill that Saxon spoke. They had halted at the
southerly brow of the ridge from which the
                     24

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



eye sweeps a radius of twenty miles over
purpled hills and polychromatic valleys, to yet
other hills melting into a sky of melting tur-
quois.  Looking across the colorful reaches,
Saxon gave voice to his enthusiasm.
  They left the car, and stood on the rocks that
jut out of the clay at the road's edge. Be-
neath them, the wooded hillside fell away, three
hundred feet of precipitous slope and tangle.
For a time, Saxon's eyes were busy with the avid
drinking in of so much beauty, then once more
they darkened as he wheeled toward his
companion.
  " George," he said slowly, "you told me
that we were to go to a cabin of yours tucked
away somewhere in the hills, and paint land-
scape. I caught the idea that we were to lead
a sort of camp-life-that we were to be hermits
except for the companionship of our palettes
and nature and each other-and the few neigh-
bors that one finds in the country, and
The speaker broke off awkwardly.
  Steele laughed.
  "'It is so nominated in the bond.' The
cabin is over there-some twenty miles." He
                     25

 

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



pointed off across the farthest dim ridge to the
south. " It is among hills where-but to-mor-
row you shall see for yourself ! "
  " To-morrow " There was a touch of anx-
ious haste in the inquiry.
  " Are you so impatient " smiled Steele.
  Saxon wheeled on his host, and on his fore-
head were beads of perspiration though the
breeze across the hilltops was fresh with the
coming of evening. His answer broke from
his lips with the abruptness of an exclamation.
  " My God, man, I'm in panic! "
  The Kentuckian looked up in surprise, and
his bantering smile vanished.  Evidently, he
was talking with a man who was suffering some
stress of emotion, and that man was his friend.
  For a moment, Saxon stood rigidly, looking
away with drawn brow, then he began with a
short laugh in which there was no vestige of
mirth:
  "WVhen two men meet and find themselves
congenial companions," he said slowly, " there
need be no questions asked. We met in a
Mexican hut."
  Steele nodded.
                     26

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



  "Then," went on Saxon, "we discovered a
common love of painting. That was enough,
wasn't it"
  Steele again bowed his assent.
  " Very well." The greater painter spoke with
the painfully slow control of one who has taken
himself in hand, selecting tone and words to
safeguard against any betrayal into sudden out-
burst. " As long as it's merely you and I,
George, we know enough of each other. XWThien
it becomes a matter of meeting your friends,
your own people, you force me to tell you some-
thing more."
  " Why " Steele demanded; almost hotly. " I
don't ask my friends for references or bonds I
  Saxon smiled, but persistently repeated:
  " You met me in Mexico, seven months ago.
What, in God's name, do you know about me"
  The other looked up, surprised.
  " Why, I know," he said, " I know     "
Then, suddenly wondering what he did know,
he stopped, and added lamely: " I know that
you are a landscape-painter of national reputa-
tion and a damned good fellow."
  "And, aside from that, nothing," came the
                    27

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



quick response. " What I am on the side,
preacher, porch-climber, bank-robber-what-
ever else, you don't know." The speaker's
voice was hard.
  "What do you mean"
  "I mean that, before you present me to your
friends, to such people for example-well such
people as I met to-day-you have the right to
ask; and the unfortunate part of it is that, when
you ask, I can't answer."
  " You mean " the Kentuckian halted in
perplexed silence.
  " I mean," said Saxon, forcing his words,
"that God Almighty only knows who I am, or
where I came from. I don't."
  Of all the men Steele had ever known, Saxon
had struck him, through months of intimacy,
as the most normal, sane and cleanly consti-
tuted. Eccentricity was alien to him. In the
same measure that all his physical bents were
straight and clean-cut, so he had been mentally
a contradiction of the morbid and irrational.
The Kentuckian waited in open-eyed astonish-
ment, gazing at the man whose own words had
just convicted him of the wildest insanity.
                     28

 
     THE KEY TO YESTERDAY
  Saxon went on, and even now, in the face
of self-conviction of lunacy, his words fell coldly
logical:
  "I have talked to you of my work and my
travels during the past five or six years. I
have told you that I was a cow-puncher on a
Western range; that I drifted East, and took
up art. Did I ever tell you one word of my life
prior to that Do you know of a single epi-
sode or instance preceding these few fragmen-
tary chapters Do you know who, or what I
was seven years ago"
  Steele was dazed. His eyes were studiously
fixed on the gnarled roots .and twisted bole
of a scrub oak that hung out over the edge of
things with stubborn and distorted tenacity.
  "No," he heard the other say, "you don't,
and I don't."
  Again, there was a pause. The sun was set-
ting at their backs, but off to the east the hills
were bright in the reflection that the western
sky threw across the circle of the horizon. Al-
ready, somewhere below them, a prematurely
tuneful whippoorwill was sending out its night
call.
                     29

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



  Steele looked up, and saw the throat of the
other work convulsively, though the lips grimly
held the set, contradictory smile.
  "The very name I wear is the name, not of
my family, but of my race. R. A. Saxon,
Robert Anglo Saxon or Robert Anonymous
Saxon-take l our choice. I took that because
I felt that I was not stealing it."
  " Go on," prompted Steele.
  " You have heard of those strange practical
jokes which Nature sometimes-not often, only
when she is preternaturally cruel-plays on
men. They have pathological names for it, I
believe-loss of memory"
  Steele only nodded.
  "I told you that I rode the range on the
Anchor-cross outfit. I did not tell you why.
It was because the Anchor-cross took me in
when I was a man without identity. I don't
know why I was in the Rocky Mountains. I
don't know what occurred there, but I do know
that I was picked up in a pass with a fractured
skull. I had been stripped almost naked.
Nothing was left as a clew to identity, except
this      "
                    30

 
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY



  Saxon handed the other a rusty key, evidently
fitting an old-fashioned lock.
  " I always carry that with me. I don't know
where it will fit a door, or what lies behind that
door. I only know that it is in a fashion the
key that can open my past; t