"'Oh, de sun shines bright in my ole Kentucky home,’Tis summah, de darkies are gay—'"
"'Twas his singing, you know, that attracted my attention," said Garda to Winthrop, under cover of the song. She did not seem to be explaining so much as repeating a narrative that pleased herself. "I had climbed up here to hide myself from you, when I heard singing; I followed the sound, and—here he was!"
"You have met him before, of course?" was Winthrop's reply.
"Never in the world—that is the beauty of it; it's sodelightful to meet people you have never met before. And then to find him here in the woods, where I didn't expect to see anybody, save perhaps you, later, coming slowly along. And isn't it nice, too, that we shall have a new person to add to our excursions, and parties! For they were getting to be a little dull,—don't you think so? always the same people. He is a cousin of Mr. Moore's," she added, "or rather his mother was; he has just been telling me about it." She did not bring out this last fact as though it were the most important. Important?—the only important point was that she should be pleased. She had kept Winthrop's arm during this time; now she relinquished it, and turned back to the easel.
"'De corn-tops ripe, an' de meddars all abloom,In my ole Kentucky home far away,'"
sang the stranger; and this time he let out his voice, and sang aloud. It was a very good voice. But Winthrop did not admire it.
"The others have probably no idea what has become of us," he said to Garda; "shall we go and look for them?"
"Yes," answered Garda; "of course they must be wondering. You go; I will wait here; go and bring Mr. Moore to see his cousin."
"It will be quite easy for Mr.—— for this gentleman—"
"Spenser," said the artist, good-humoredly, as he painted on.
"—to see Mr. Moore at any time in Gracias," continued Winthrop, without accepting the name. For the life of him he could not put full confidence in this impromptu relationship which Garda had discovered, any more than he could in this, as one might say, impromptu man, whom she had also unearthed, miles from any inhabited point, on a wild shore. If the stranger were indeed a cousin of the Rev. Mr. Moore's, why had he not made himself known to him before this? He must have come through Gracias; Gracias was not so large a place that there could have been any difficulty in finding the rector of St. Philip and St. James'; nor was it so busy a place that one could have been pressed for time there.
"The truth is," answered Spenser, after he had completed a bit of work which seemed much to his mind—"the truth is," he repeated, looking at it critically, with his head on one side, "that I have, so far at least, rather shirked my good cousin; I am ashamed to say it, but it is true. You see, I only faintly remember him; but he will very clearly remember me, he will have reminiscences; he will be sure to tell me that he knew me when I was a dear little baby! Now I maintain that no man can really welcome that statement, it betokens recollections into which he cannot possibly enter; all he can do is to smirk inanely, and say that he fears he must have been a bad little boy."
"I know Mr. Moore will say it," said Garda, gleefully; "I know he will! Do go and call him," she said to Winthrop; "he will walk down to Jupiter Inlet if you don't stop him."
But Winthrop stood his ground; Mr. Moore's cousin or not Mr. Moore's cousin, he did not intend to leave Garda Thorne alone again with this chance, this particularly chance acquaintance. True, this was a very remote place, to which city rules did not apply; but the very seclusion had been like a wall, probably the girl had never made a chance acquaintance in all her life before.
"I will go myself, then," said Garda, seeing that he did not move. She did not seem annoyed, she was, in truth, very seldom ill-tempered. On the present occasion Winthrop might have been better pleased if she had showed some little signs of irritation; for she was simply not thinking of him at all, she was thinking only of Mr. Moore's cousin.
She crossed the flower-decked space quickly, and entered the myrtle grove; Winthrop followed her. When they reached the verge, "There they are," she said, looking southward.
"I don't know how I am to get you down," said Winthrop. "You could jump across from the drift-wood, but you cannot jump back upon it; it's not steady."
"I don't want to go down," said Garda. "They must come up." And she called, in a long note, "Mar—garet!" "Mar—garet!"
Mrs. Harold heard her and turned.
"There! I've called her Margaret to her face!" exclaimed the girl.
"To her back, you mean."
"I never did it before. But I was sure to do it some time; we always call her Margaret when we talk about her, mamma and I; and we talk about her by the hour."
"Mr. Moore and I together can perhaps get you down," said Winthrop, trying the edge of the sand-cliff to see if a niche could be trodden out.
"How odd you are—when I tell you I'm not going down! The others are to come up. Mr. Moore will be enchanted to see his cousin; I am sureIwas—though he isn't mine."
Winthrop asked himself whether he should take this opportunity to give this beautiful Florida girl a first lesson in worldly wisdom. Then he reflected that what he had admired the most in her had been her frank naturalness, the freedom with which she had followed her impulses, without pausing to think whither they might lead her. So far, her impulses had all been child-like, charming. As regarded this present one, though it was child-like also, he would have liked, with it, a little more discrimination; but discrimination is eminently a trait developed by time, and time, of course, had not yet had a chance to do much for Edgarda Thorne.
He decided to leave her to herself, and to return for the moment to his old position (from which he had rather departed of late), the position of looking on, without comment, to see what she would do or say next. What she did was simple enough. She directed, with much merriment, the efforts of the Rev. Mr. Moore, as in response to her request he climbed up the jagged pile of drift-wood first, in order to show Mrs. Harold the best footholds, his butterfly pole much in his way, but not relinquished; for had not that butterfly flown inland? When he was safely landed on Patricio, Margaret Harold followed him. Winthrop, in spite of the difficulties of descent, wished to come down and assist her; but this she would not allow, and assistance, indeed, was plainly worse than useless in such a place. Nor did she betray any need of it; she climbed with an ease which showed a light foot and accurate balance, and was soon standing by Garda's side.
When they reached the little flower cove it immediately became apparent that the mother of this singing, painting stranger had really been (she had been dead many years) a cousin of Middleton Moore's, Winthrop himself, unless he was prepared to believe in an amount of plotting for which there seemed no sufficient motive, being forced to acknowledge the truth of the story. The conversation between the clergyman and Spenser went on with much animation. Mr. Moore was greatly interested, he was even excited; and they talked of many things. At last he said, with feeling, "I remember yousowell, Lucian, as a baby; I was in the same house with you once for a whole week when you were just able to walk alone."
"Ah, yes! I am afraid I was rather a bad little boy," Spenser answered.
"Youwererather—rather animated," the clergyman admitted, mildly.
Garda, who, as usual, had her arm in Margaret's, leaned her head on Margaret's shoulder and gave way to soft laughter.
Middleton Moore talked, enjoying his adventure greatly. But though he talked, he did not question, he was too complete a southerner for that; he leaned on his butterfly pole, and regarded Lucian with the utmost friendliness, not thinking, apparently, of the fact that he had come upon this interesting young relative quite by chance, and that this same young relative must have passed through Gracias (if indeed he were not staying there) without paying him a visit, though he knew that his cousin was rector of St. Philip and St. James'; he had confessed as much. Lucian, who had left his easel, now moved towards it again, and stood scanning his work with the painter's suddenly absorbed gaze—as though he had forgotten, for the moment, everything else in the world but that; then he sat down, as if unable to resist it, and began to add a touch or two, while (with his disengaged faculties) he was good enough to give to his cousin, of his own accord, a brief account of himself in the present, as well as the past. It seemed that he was by profession a civil engineer (as he had already told Garda), and that the party of which he was chief were engaged in surveying fora proposed railway, which would reach Gracias-á-Dios (he thought) in about seventy-five years. However, that was nothing to him; there was undoubtedly a company (they had got an English lord in it), and he, Lucian, was willing to survey for them, if it amused them to have surveying done; that part of the scheme, at least, was paid for. His party were now some distance north of Gracias, they had reached one of the swamps; it had occurred to him that it was a good time to take a day or two, and come down and see the little old town on the coast; and as he was a dabbler in water-colors, he had not been able to resist doing some of the little "bits" he had found under his hand. "I was coming to see you, sir, to-morrow," he concluded. "The truth is, I had only these rough clothes with me; I have sent back for more."
"To the swamp?" said Garda.
"To the swamp—precisely; I keep them there very carefully in a dry canoe."
"You must not only come and see us, Lucian, you must come and stay with us," said the clergyman, cordially; "Penelope will hear of nothing else," he added, bending in his near-sighted way to look at the picture, and putting his nose close to Lucian's pinks and blues. "Isn't it rather—rather bright?" he asked, blinking a little as he drew back. Mr. Moore's idea of a picture was a landscape with a hill in the background, a brook and willows in front, a church spire peeping out somewhere in the middle distance, and a cow or two at the brook's edge, all painted in a dark, melancholy—what he himself would have called a chaste—green, even the cow partaking in some degree of that decorous hue.
"It's not brighter than the reality, is it?" said Lucian.
"I—don't—know," answered Mr. Moore, straightening himself, and looking about him as if to observe the reality, which he evidently was now noting for the first time. "You have put in a butterfly," he added, returning to his inspection; "that is—if it isn't a bird? There are no butterflies here now; has there been one here?"
"There should have been; it's the very place for them," Lucian declared.
"I don't think, Lucian, that there's any certainty aboutthat; I myself have often searched for them in places where it seemed to me theyshouldbe; they are never there."
Garda again gave way to merriment, hiding it and her face on Margaret's shoulder.
"Hasn't your sky rather too vivid a blue, Lucian?" Mr. Moore went on, his face again close to the picture.
"Well, sir, that's as we see it;Isee that color in the sky, you know."
"How can you see it if it is not there?" demanded his relative, with his temperate dwelling upon his point. And he transferred his gaze from the sketch to the young man.
"But itisthere for me. It's the old question of the two kinds of truth."
"There are not two kinds, I think, Lucian," responded the clergyman, and this time he spoke with decision.
"There are two ways of seeing it, then. We state or believe a thing as we see it, and we do not all see alike; you see the hues of a sunset in one way, Turner saw them in another; he painted certain skies, and people said there were no such skies; but Turner saw them."
"The fault was still there, Lucian; it was in his vision."
"Or take another instance," continued Spenser. "A man has a wife whom he loves. She has grown old and faded, there is no trace of beauty left; but he still sees her as she was; to him she does not merely seem beautiful, she is beautiful."
The eyes of Garda and Margaret met, one of those rapid exchanges of a mutual comprehension which are always passing between women unless they happen to be open enemies; even then they are sometimes forced to suspend hostilities long enough for one of these quick passwords of intelligence;—men are so slow! The mutual thought of the two women now was—Mrs. Penelope. Certainly she was old and faded, and very certainly also her husband regarded her as much of a Venus as it was proper for a clerical household to possess. Their entertainment continued as they saw that the clergyman made no personal application of Spenser's comparison, but merely considered the illustration rather an immoral one.
As if to change the subject, this good man now demanded, in his equable, unresonant voice, "How do you return to Gracias, Lucian?"
"There's a contraband with a dug-out waiting for me over on the Espiritu side," answered Spenser; "I walked across."
"Ah!weare sailing," remarked the clergyman, in a gently superior tone; little as he himself enjoyed maritime excursions, he felt that this was the proper tone to take in the presence of his host, the owner of theEmperadora. "We shall reach home, probably, much earlier than you will," he went on, looking off at the chaparral with an abstracted air.
Winthrop, smiling at this innocent little manœuvre, invited Spenser to return to Gracias with them; he could send one of his men across to tell the contraband of the change of plan. Spenser accepted the offer promptly. He packed his scattered belongings into small compass, and slung them across his shoulder; his easel, under his manipulation, became a stout walking-stick.
"That is a very convenient arrangement," said the clergyman.
"Yes; I am rather proud of it. I invented it myself."
"Ah, that's your father in you," said Mr. Moore, unconsciously betraying something that was almost disapproval; "your father was a northern man. But your mother, Lucian, was a thorough southerner;shehad no taste for invention."
"She wouldn't have had it even if she had been a northern woman, I fancy," responded Spenser; "women are not inventors. I don't mind saying it before Mrs. Harold and Miss Thorne, because they haven't the air of wishing to be; it's a particular sort of air, you know."
"Is your invention strong?" asked Winthrop. "I don't know how we are going to get the ladies down to the beach, unless we make a perch for them by driving that stick of yours and Mr. Moore's butterfly pole into the sand-drift half-way down. From there, with our help, they might perhaps jump the rest of the distance; we should have to tread out some sort of footing for ourselves."
Mr. Moore involuntarily glanced at his green pole, and then at Margaret and Garda, as if estimating their weight.
"We shall certainly snap it in two," exclaimed Garda, gayly. "Snip, snap, gone!"
"But there's a descent not so very far above here," said Spenser; "I've found it once, and I think, if you will trustme, I can find it again." He led the way into the chaparral, and the others followed.
The chaparral, a thicket of little evergreen oaks, rose, round the flower cove, to a height of ten feet. But soon it grew lower, and they came out upon a broad stretch of it not much over four or four and a half feet in height, very even on the top, extending unbroken to the south as far as they could see, and rising gently on the west, in the same even sweep, over the small ridge that formed Patricio's backbone; their heads were now well above the surface of this leafy sea.
"There's my track," said Spenser.
It was a line which had been made across the foliage by his passage through it; the leaves had been rippled back a little, so that there was a trail visible on the green surface like that left by a boat which has passed over a smooth pond; they made their way towards this trail.
The little oaks were not thorny, but their small stubborn branches grew as closely at the bottom as at the top, so that it was necessary to push with the ankles as well as with the shoulders in order to get through.
"Deep wading," said Lucian, who led the way.
"Wading?" said Garda. "Drowning! These leaves are likewaves. And I'm sure that fishes are biting my ankles. Or else snakes! I shall sink soon; you'll hear a gurgle, and I shall have gone."
Spenser, laughing, turned and made his way back to her from the front at the same moment that Winthrop, who was last, pushed his way forward from behind; they reached her at the same moment, and placed themselves, one on each side, so that they could make her progress easier.
The Rev. Mr. Moore, who had been calling back a careful explanation that the Florida snakes, that is, the dangerous ones, were not found in chaparral, was now left at the head of the party, to keep the course for them by the line of rippled leaves. This duty he performed with much circumspection, lifting the long butterfly pole high in the air every now and then, and stretching it forward as far as he could to tap the line of rippled leaves, as much as to say, "There you are;quitesafe." He had the air of a magician with his wand.
"I shall have to stop for a moment," said Margaret Harold, after a while, speaking for the first time since their entrance into the chaparral; she was next to Mr. Moore in their little procession, but a distance of ten or fifteen feet separated them, while Garda, with Spenser and Winthrop, was at a still greater distance behind. Winthrop waited only an instant after she had spoken (long enough, however, to give Spenser and the clergyman the opportunity, in case they should desire it); he then made his way forward and joined her.
"Here—lean on me," he said, quickly, as soon as he saw her face; he thought she was going to faint.
Margaret, though she was pale, smiled, and declined his help; she only wished to rest for a moment, she said; the chaparral had tired her. She stood still, embosomed in the foliage, her eyes closed, the long dark lashes lying on her checks. Winthrop could see now more clearly how delicate her face was; he remembered, too, that though she was tall, she was a slender woman, with slender little hands and feet; her grace of step, though remarkable, had probably not been of much use in forcing a way through chaparral. But her cheeks were growing whiter, he was afraid she would fall forward among the bristling little branches; he pushed his way nearer and supported her with his arm. Garda meanwhile, her fatigue forgotten, had started to come to her friend, Spenser helping her, while Mr. Moore, his pole carefully held out over the trail (as though otherwise it would disappear), watched them with anxiety from the front.
But now Margaret was recovering, the color had come back to her face in a flood; she opened her eyes, and immediately began to push her way forward again, as if she wished to show Winthrop that he need have no further fears. He stayed to aid her, nevertheless.
"Why didn't you go to her?" said Garda to Lucian Spenser, as they resumed their former pace after Margaret's recovery. "I mean why didn't you start before Mr. Winthrop did? There was time."
"He had the better right; he knows her."
"It wasn't a question of knowing, but of helping. As to knowing—you don't know me."
"Oh yes, I do!" answered Spenser.
"But you have never seen me until to-day. Now please don't tell me that I am so much like some one else that you feel as if you had known me for ages."
"You are like no one else, your type exists only in dreams—the dreams of artists mad on color. It's in my dreams that I have seen you," he went on, surveying her with the frankest, the most enjoying admiration. "Aren't you glad you're so beautiful?"
"Yes," responded Garda, with serene gravity. "I am very glad indeed."
They came before long to the descent of which he had spoken; it was a miniature gorge, which led down to the beach in the scallop where Garda had begun her race. As soon as they reached the lower level, Garda went to Margaret and took her hands. "Do you really feel better!" she said. "We'll stay here a while and rest."
Margaret refused, saying that the feeling of fatigue had passed away.
"Youhavegot more color than usual," said Garda, scanning her face.
"A sure sign that I am perfectly well again," answered Margaret, smiling.
"A sure sign that you are very tired," said Evert Winthrop.
Margaret made no reply, she began to walk northward, with Garda, up the beach; Lucian Spenser kept his place on the other side of Garda; but Winthrop joined the Rev. Mr. Moore, who was alone.
Mr. Moore improved the occasion, he related the entire history of the Spenser, or rather the Byrd family, the family of Lucian's mother (connections of the celebrated Colonel Byrd). That is, their history in the past; as to the present and its representative, he seemed quite without information.
The present representative spent several days at the rectory; and probably imparted the information which was lacking. During his visit he formed one, as Garda had anticipated, of the various little parties which Betty still continued to arrange and carry out for the entertainment of her dearest Katrina; then he took leave of the rector and his wife, and returned to the camp in the swamp.
Three days later he came back to remain some time; he took a room at the Seminole, saying that his hours were quite too uncertain for a well-regulated household like that of the Moores.
His hours proved to be uncertain indeed, save that a certain number of them were sure to be spent with Garda Thorne. A few also were spent in bringing Torres out of his seclusion. For Lucian took a fancy to the young Cuban; "I don't think you half appreciate him," he said, in his easy, unattached way—unattached to any local view. "He's a perfect mine of gold in the way of peculiarities and precious oddities; he repays you every time."
"I was not aware that oddities had so much value in the market," remarked Dr. Kirby, dryly.
"My dear sir, the greatest!" said Lucian, still in his detached tone.
The Doctor was not very fond of Lucian. The truth was, the Doctor did not like to be called "my dear sir;" the possessive pronoun and the adjective made a different thing of it from his own Johnsonian mode of address.
"Iappreciate Mr. Torres," Garda remarked, "I always have appreciated him. He's like a thunder-cloud on the edge of the sky; you feel that he could give out some tremendous flashes if he pleased; some day he will please."
"I'll tell him that," said Spenser, who, among his other accomplishments, had that of speaking Spanish.
Whether he told or not, the young Cuban at any rate appeared among them again. He was tired, possibly, of the consumption of his soul. But there was this advantage about Torres, that though he might consume his own, he had no desire to consume the soul (or body either) of any one else; whereas Manuel appeared to cherish this wish to an absolutely sanguinary degree. The dislike he had had for Evert Winthrop was nothing compared with the rage with which he now regarded Lucian Spenser. To tell the truth, Lucian trespassed upon his own ground: if Manuel was handsome, Lucian was handsomer still. "A finer-looking young man than Lucian Spenser," Mrs. Rutherford had more than once remarked, "isveryseldom seen." And Kate Rutherford was a judge.
Lucian having no horse, as Winthrop had, could not, as Garda expressed it, ride over the pine barrens in every direction and stop at East Angels; but he had a fisherman's black boat, with ragged sail, and though it was not anEmperadora, it could still float down the Espiritu with sufficient swiftness, giving its occupant an opportunity to stop at the same old Spanish residence, where there was a convenient water-landing as well as an entrance from the barrens. The occupant stopped so often, and his manner when he did stop was so different from that of their other visitors, that Mrs. Thorne felt at last that duty demanded that she should "make inquiries." This duty had never been esteemed one of the principal ones of life at Gracias-á-Dios; Mrs. Thorne's determination, therefore, showed that her original New England maxims were alive somewhere down in her composition still (as Betty Carew had always declared that they were), in spite of the layer upon layer of Thorne and Duero traditions with which she had carefully overlaid them. She was aware that it was a great inconsistency on her part to revert, at this late day, to the methods of her youth. But what could she do? The Thornes and Dueros were dead, and had left no precedents for a case like this; and Lucian Spenser was alive (particularly so), and with Garda almost all the time.
"She asked me," said the Rev. Mr. Moore to his wife, "what I knew, that was 'definite,' about Lucian, which seemed to me, Penelope, a very singular question, Lucian being so near and dear a relative of ours. I did not, however, comment upon this; I simply gave her a full account of the Spenser family, or rather of the Byrds, his mother's side of the house, going back (in order to be explicit) through three generations. Strange to say, this did not appear to satisfy her; I will not say that she interrupted me, for she did not; but she had nevertheless, in some ways, an appearance of—of being perhaps somewhat impatient."
"Oh,Iknow!" said Mrs. Moore, nodding her head. "She coughed behind her hand; and she shook out her handkerchief, holding it by the exact middle between her forefinger and thumb; and she tapped on the floor with the point of her slipper; and she settled her cuffs; and then she coughed again."
"That is exactly what she did! You have a wonderful insight, Penelope," said her husband, admiringly.
"Give me awoman, and I'll unravel her for you in no time—in no time at all," answered Penelope. "But men are different—somuch deeper; you yourself are very deep, Middleton."
The clergyman stroked his chin meditatively; his eyes wandered, and after a while rested peacefully on the floor.
"There! I know just what you're thinking of now," resumed his wife from her sofa; "I can tell you every word!"
Her husband, who at that moment was thinking of nothing at all, unless it might be of a worn place which he had detected in the red and white matting at his feet, raised his eyes and looked at her with amiable expectancy. He had long ago learned to acquiesce in all the discoveries respecting himself made by his clever Penelope; he even believed in them after a vague fashion, and was much interested in hearing the latest. But he was so unmitigatedly modest, he took such impersonal views of everything, including himself, that he could listen to her eulogistic divinations by the hour without the least real appropriation of them, as though they had been spoken of some one else. He thought them very wonderful, and he thought her almost a sibyl as she brought them forth; but no glow of self-appreciation followed, this frugal man was not easily made to glow. At present, when his wife had unrolled before him the interesting thoughts which she knew he was thinking (and the rector himself was always of the opinion that he must be thinking them somewhere, in some remote part of his mind which for the moment he had forgotten), she concluded, triumphantly, as follows: "I can always tell what you are thinking of from the expression of your face, Middleton; it's not in theleastnecessary for you to speak." Which was on the whole, perhaps, fortunate for Middleton.
Mrs. Thorne, not having succeeded in obtaining "definite" information from the Rev. Mr. Moore, addressed herself, at length, to Evert Winthrop. Something that was almost a friendship had established itself between these two; Mrs. Thorne found Winthrop very "satisfying," she mentioned that she found him so; she mentioned it to Margaret Harold,with whom, also, she now had an acquaintance which was almost intimate, though in this case the intimacy had been formed and kept up principally by herself. "Yes, extremely satisfying," she repeated; "on every subject of importance he has definite information, or a definite opinion, and these he gives you—when you ask for them—with the utmost clearness. Touch him anywhere," continued the lady, tapping her delicately starched handkerchief (which she held up for the purpose) with her little knuckle, "anywhere, I say," she went on, still tapping, "and—heresounds."
"Dear me, mamma! is he hollow?" said Garda, while Margaret gave way to laughter. But Mrs. Thorne liked even Margaret's laughs; Margaret too she found "very satisfying," she said.
When she spoke to Winthrop about Lucian Spenser, however, she found him perhaps not so satisfying as usual.
"I know nothing whatever about Mr. Spenser," he answered.
"We are seeing a good deal of him at present," remarked the little mother, in a conversational tone, ignoring his reply. "It's rather better—don't you think so?—to know something—definite—of those one is seeing a good deal of?"
"That is the way to learn, isn't it—seeing a good deal of them?" Winthrop answered.
Mrs. Thorne coughed in her most discreet manner, and looked about the room for a moment or two. Then, "Doyoulike him, Mr. Winthrop?" she said, her eyes on the opposite wall.
"My dear lady, what has that got to do with it?"
"Much," responded Mrs. Thorne, modestly dropping her eyes to the carpet. "A man's opinion of a man, you know, may be quite different from a woman's."
"There is his cousin, Mr. Moore."
"I have already asked Mr. Moore; he knows only Mr. Spenser's grandfathers," replied Mrs. Thorne, dismissing the clergyman, as informant, with a wave of her dry little hand.
"Dr. Kirby, then."
"Dr.Kirby" said the lady, with an especial emphasis on the name, as though there were a dozen other doctors in Gracias—"Dr.Kirbyspeaks well of Mr. Spenser. But weshould not count too much upon that, for Dr.Kirbylooks upon him, as I may say, medically."
"Good heavens! does he want to dissect him?" said Winthrop.
Mrs. Thorne gave her guarded little laugh. "No; but he says that he is such a perfect specimen, physically, of the Anglo-Saxon at his best. He may be; I am sure I am willing. But we are not all ethnologists, I suppose, and something more definite in the way of a background than ancient Saxony, or even Anglia, would be, I think, desirable, when, as I remarked before, one is seeing so much of a person."
There was a short silence, which Winthrop did not break. Then he rose, and took up his hat and whip; he had been paying one of his afternoon visits at the old house. "Don't be uneasy," he said, in the half-protecting tone which he often adopted now when speaking to the little mistress of East Angels; "if you are seeing much of this Mr. Spenser, you and your daughter, you must remember that you are also seeing much of others as well; of Manuel Ruiz, of young Torres, even of myself; there's safety in numbers."
"Mr. Spenser is not in the least like any of you; that is my trouble," Mrs. Thorne declared, with emphasis. "I do not mean," she added, with her anxious particularity, "thatyouare in the least like Manuel or Adolfo, Mr. Winthrop; of course not."
Winthrop did not reply to this beyond a smile. He took leave, and went towards the door.
Mrs. Thorne's gaze followed him; then with her quick step she crossed the room, and stopped him on the threshold. "Mr. Winthrop, doyoulike to see my little girl showing such an interest in this Lucian Spenser?" Her voice was almost a whisper, but her bright eyes met his bravely.
For a moment he returned her gaze. Then, "I like it immensely," he said, and went down the stairs.
Soon after this, however, there was what Mrs. Thorne called "definite" information about Lucian Spenser in circulation in Gracias; it was even very definite. He might have the background of honorable grandfathers which Mr. Moore attributed to him, but for the foreground there was only himself, himself without any of the adjuncts of wealth, or a fixedincome of any kind, even the smallest. He was a civil engineer (apparently not a very industrious one); he had whatever emoluments that profession could bring in to a man who painted a good many pictures in water-colors; and he had nothing more. This he told himself, with the utmost frankness.
"Nothing more?" commented Mrs. Rutherford, with appreciative emphasis. "But he has always his wonderful good looks; that in itself is a handsome fortune."
"His good looks, I confess,Ihave never seen," answered Mrs. Thorne, who was paying a morning visit at the eyrie. Garda was at that moment on the eyrie's east piazza with Lucian, and the mother knew it; true, Margaret Harold, Dr. Kirby, and Adolfo Torres were there also; but Mrs. Thorne had no difficulty in picturing to herself the success with which Lucian was engrossing Garda's attention.
"You've never seen them? You must be a little blind, I should think," said Mrs. Rutherford, pleasantly. Mrs. Rutherford was not fond of Mrs. Thorne.
"I am blind to the mere sensuous delights of the eye," responded the little mother, the old Puritan fire sparkling for a moment in her own blue ones. Then she controlled herself. "I cannot admire his expression," she explained. "His nature is a very superficial one; I am surprised that Mrs. Harold should listen to him as she does."
"Oh, as to that," remarked Mrs. Rutherford, "he amuses her, you know; Margaret and I are both very fond of being amused. However, we do not complain; we find a vast deal of amusement in Gracias; it's a very funny little place," added the northern lady, with much tranquil entertainment in her tone, paying back with her "funny" her visitor's "sensuous." (Mrs. Rutherford could always be trusted to pay back.)
That evening she announced to her niece, "Little Madam Thorne has designs upon Evert."
Margaret looked up from her book. "Isn't she rather old for that sort of thing?"
"Thatsort of thing? Do you mean designs? Or attractions? Attraction is not in the least a matter of age," answered Mrs. Rutherford, with dignity. She disposed herstatuesque hands upon her well-rounded arms, and looked about the room as though Margaret were not there.
"I meant her feelings," replied Margaret, smiling. "There's such a thing as age in feelings, isn't there?"
"Yes; and in manner and dress," said Mrs. Rutherford, accepting this compromise. "Certainly Mrs. Thorne is a marked example of all three. I don't think any one ofourfamilyeverlooked so old as she does, even at ninety! But how could you suppose I meant that she had designs upon Evert for herself? For Garda, of course."
"Garda is very young."
"Why don't you say she's a child! That is what they all say here, I think they say it too much. To be sure, she is only sixteen, barely that, I believe, and with us, girls of that age are immature; but Garda Thorne isn't immature, she talks as maturely as I do."
"She does—in some ways," admitted Margaret.
"She talks remarkablywell, if you mean that," responded Mrs. Rutherford, who always felt called upon to differ from her niece. "And she is certainly quite pretty."
"She is more than pretty; she is strikingly beautiful."
"Oh no, she isn't," replied Mrs. Rutherford, veering again; "you exaggerate. It's only because you see her here in this dull little place."
"I think it would be the same anywhere, Aunt Katrina."
"Well, we shall not have to compare, fortunately. She will stay here, of course, where she belongs, she will probably marry that young Torres. But that little ill-bred mother's designs upon Evert—that is too amusing. Evert, indeed! Evert has more coolness and discrimination than any man I have ever known."
The man of discrimination was at that moment strolling slowly through the St. Luz quarter, on his way to the Benito; he reached it, and walked out its silver floor. The tide was coming in. On that low coast there were no rocks, the waves reached the shore in long, low, unbroken swells, like quiet breathing; they had come evenly in from deep water outside, and now flowed softly up the beach a little way and then back again, with a rippling murmurous sound that was peace itself. Warm as was the land, still dreaming of thesun, the ocean was warmer still; the Gulf Stream flowed by not far from shore, and the air that came from the water was soft on the cheek like a caress. From the many orange groves of the town dense perfume was wafted towards him, he walked through belts of it. At last, at the point's end, he found himself bathed in it; he threw the light overcoat he had been carrying down upon the sand, and stretched himself upon it, with his back against an old boat; lying there, he could look down the harbor and out to sea.
He was thinking a little of the scene before him, but more of Garda—her liking for the new-comer. For she had confessed it to him herself; confessed, however, was hardly the term, she had no wish apparently to conceal anything; she had simply told him, in so many words, that she had never met or known any one so delightful as Lucian Spenser. This was innocent enough, Garda was, in truth, very childlike. True, she was not shy, she was very sure of herself; she talked to him and to everybody with untroubled ease. Her frankness, indeed, was the great thing; it had an endless attraction for Evert Winthrop. His idea had been (and a very fixed belief it had grown to be) that no girl was frank after the age of long clothes; that the pretty little creatures, while still toddling about, developed the instinct to be "good" rather than outspoken; and that the "better" they were, the more obedient and docile, the less outspoken they became. He could not say that he did not admire obedience. But the flower of frankness had come to seem to him the most fragrant of the whole bouquet of feminine virtues, as it certainly was the rarest. He had told Mrs. Thorne that he liked to see Garda show her preference for Spenser, and this had been true, to a certain extent; he knew that he had felt a distinct pleasure in the swiftness with which she had turned from him to the younger man as soon as she found that the younger man pleased her more. For it showed that she was not touched by the attractions of a large fortune, that they were not attractions to her; and Winthrop held (he knew that many persons would not agree with him) that young girls are more apt to be influenced by wealth, more apt to be dazzled by it, to covet it, than older women are. The older women know that it does not bring happiness in its train, that it may bringgreat unhappiness; the young girls do not know, and, from their very ignorance, they do not care, because they have not learned as yet what a cruel, torturing pain unhappiness may be. Garda Thorne was poor, and even very poor; she had a strong natural taste for luxury. Yet her passing amusement was evidently far more to her than anything else; she simply did not give a thought to the fortune that lay near. And even her amusement was founded upon nothing stable; Lucian, though she considered him so delightful, was by no means devoted to her. He openly admired her beauty (Winthrop thought too openly), he preferred her society to that of any one in Gracias; but all could see that Gracias was probably the limit, that in other and larger places he would find others to admire; that he was, in short, a votary of variety. In spite of this, Garda found him supremely entertaining, and that was enough for her; she followed him about, always, however, in her indolent way, in which there was no trace of eagerness. But if she were not eager, she seemed to consider him her own property; she always wished to be near him, so that she could hear all he was saying, she laughed far oftener when with him than she did when with any one else.
Winthrop was always attracted by Garda's laugh; he seemed to hear it again as he lay there in the moonlight, breathing the dense perfume from the groves, and looking at the warm, low, glittering sea. "There isn't a particle of worldliness about her," he said to himself. "What a contrast to Margaret!"
He did not leave the perfumed point until it was midnight and high tide.
Lucian Spenser's good looks were of the kind that is conspicuously attractive while the youth, which accompanies them, lasts, his face and figure being a personification of radiant young manhood at its best; the same features, the same height and bearing, would have had quite a different aspect if robbed of the color, the sunniness—if one may so express it—which was now the most striking attribute of the whole.He was tall and broad-shouldered, but slender still, he had a bearing which was graceful as well as manly; his hair of a bright golden color had a burnished look, which came from its thick mass being kept so short that the light could find only an expanse of crisped ends to shine across. His eyes were blue, the deep blue which is distinguishable as blue, and not gray or green, across a room; this clear bright color was their principal beauty, as they were not large. They were charming eyes, which could turn to tenderness in an instant; but though they could be tender, their usual expression was that of easy indifference—an expression which, when accompanied by a becoming modesty and frankness, sits well upon a strong, handsome young man. He had a well-cut profile, white teeth gleaming under a golden mustache, a pleasant voice, and a frequent, equally pleasant laugh. No one could resist a certain amount of admiration when he appeared; and the feeling was not dimmed by anything in his manner, for he was good-humored and witty, and if, as has been said, he was rather indifferent, he was also quite without egotism, and quite without, too, that tendency to underrate others which many excellent persons possess—a tendency which comes oftenest from jealousy, but often, too, from a real incapacity to comprehend that people may be agreeable, and happy, and much admired, and even good, with tastes and opinions, appearance and habits, which differ totally from their own. Lucian Spenser underrated nobody; on the contrary, he was apt to see the pleasant side of the people with whom he was thrown. He took no trouble to penetrate, it was not a deep view; probably it was a superficial one. But it was a question—so some of his friends had thought—whether this was not better than the strict watch, the sadly satisfactory search for faults in the circle of their own families and acquaintances, which many conscientious people keep up all their lives.
A day or two after his midnight musings on the beach, Evert Winthrop was coming down Pacheco Lane towards the eyrie when he heard, in a long, sweet, distant note, "Good-by." It came from the water. But at first he could not place it; there were two or three fishermen's boats passing, but the fishermen of Gracias were not in the habit ofcalling "good-by" in clear English accents to each other; their English was by no means clear, it was mixed with Spanish and West Indian, with words borrowed from the not remote African of the Florida negro, and even with some from the native Indian tongues; it was a very patchwork of languages. Again came the note, and Winthrop, going forward to the edge of the low bank, looked over the water. The course of one of the boats, the smallest, had brought it nearer, and he now recognized Lucian Spenser in the stern, holding the sail-rope and steering, and Garda Thorne, facing him, seated in the bottom of the boat. Garda waved her hand, and called again "Good-by." They glided past him, and he raised his hat, but did not attempt conversation across the water; in a few minutes more Lucian had tacked, and the boat turned eastward down the harbor, the sail, which had swung round, now hiding their figures from his view. Winthrop left the bank, crossed the green-carpeted lane, and went up the outside stairway to the eyrie's drawing-room. It was inhabited at present by tea-leaves. Celestine, loathing, as Minerva Poindexter, the desultory methods of Cindy, the colored girl who was supposed to act as parlor-maid, was in the habit of banishing her at intervals from the scene, and engaging personally in an encounter with the dust according to her own system. The system of Celestine was deep and complicated, beginning with the pinning of a towel tightly over her entire head in a compact cap-like fashion of much austerity, followed, as second stage, by an elaborate arrangement of tea-leaves upon the carpet, and ending—but no one knew where it ended, no one had ever gone far enough. It was at the tea-leaf stage that Winthrop found her.
"She's gone out with Mrs. Carew," Celestine replied, in answer to his inquiry for Mrs. Rutherford. "You see she got her feet all sozzled last night coming home across the plazzer fromchurchwith that there Dr. Kirby, and so she took cold,of course. And there's nothin' so good for a cold as half an hour outside in this bakin' sun, and so I told her."
"You don't speak as though you altogether approved of evening service, Minerva?" Winthrop answered, amused by her emphasis.
"Well, I don't, and that's a fact, Mr. Evert. In themornin' it's all very well; but in theevenin', I've noticed, the motive's apt to be mixed, it's pretty generally who you come home with. My mother used to say to Lovina (that was my sister) and me, 'Girls, in the evenin's Idon'tlike to have you go loblolloping down to meetin' and straddlin' up the aisle. It ain't real godliness; it's just purtense, and everybody knows it.' And she was quite right, Mr. Evert—quite." And having thus expressed herself at much greater length than was usual with her, Celestine resumed her labors, and raised such a dust that the man (whom she still considered quite a young lad) was glad to beat a retreat.
He went to the east piazza, and seated himself with a book in his hand; but his eyes followed the sail which was moving slowly down the harbor towards Patricio. Fifteen minutes later Margaret Harold, coming through the long window, found him there. By this time the sail was gone, only the bare mast could be seen; Lucian and his companion had landed on Patricio.
"They are going to see Madam Ruiz," said Margaret.
"No," replied Winthrop; "if they had been going there, they would have stopped this side, at the landing."
"It would amuse Garda more to stop on the ocean side. It's the only thing she plans for—amusement."
"I can see no especial entertainment in it; it will simply be that he will have hard work to get the boat off."
"That is what will amuse her—to see him work hard."
"He won't enjoy it!"
"But she will."
"You knew they were going?" said Winthrop, taking up his book again.
"I was passing the plaza landing, and happened to see them start."
"Did they tell you they were going to see Madam Ruiz?"
"They were too far off to speak to me, they were just passing the end of the pier. No; but when I saw they had landed (I have been watching them from my window) I knew of course that they were going there."
"There's no 'of course' with Lucian Spenser!" answered Winthrop. He got up, took the glass which was hanging on a nail behind him, and turned it towards the point ofPatricio. "They're not going towards the Ruiz plantation at all," he said; "they're walking southward, down the beach." He put the glass back in its case, closed it, replaced it on the nail, and sat down again.
"I am surprised that Mrs. Carew should have allowed Garda to go," he went on, after a moment. "She's staying with Mrs. Carew, isn't she?—she's always staying with some one now."
"She is staying with Mrs. Carew till to-morrow only. Mrs. Carew likes Lucian Spenser immensely, she tells every one how much she likes him."
"I don't think that has anything to do with it—Mrs. Carew's admirations," responded Winthrop. "He's an irresponsible sort of fellow," he added, speaking with moderation. He was not moderate, but he often spoke with moderation. On the present occasion he felt that he might have said much more.
"Yes, I think he is rather irresponsible," assented Margaret. "I suppose he would say why shouldn't he be, if it pleases him."
"No reason in the world, I don't imagine any one cares. But they ought not to permit Edgarda Thorne to go about with him as she does; she has never been in the habit of walking or sailing with Manuel Ruiz, or that young Cuban—I mean walking or sailing with them alone."
"Probably they have never asked her."
"That is very likely, I suppose they wouldn't dream of it. And that is what I am referring to; she has been brought up here under such a curious mixture of freedom and strictness that she is not at all fitted to understand a person like Spenser."
"Shall I speak to Mrs. Thorne?" said Margaret. She was standing by the piazza's parapet, her hand resting on its top, her eyes fixed on Patricio, though the two figures were no longer in sight. Winthrop's chair being behind her and on one side, he could see only her profile, outlined against the light.
"Mrs. Thorne is already awakened to it," he answered; "she has spoken to me on the subject."
"There was your opportunity. What did you say?"
"I told her—I told her not to be uneasy," he replied, breaking into a laugh over his own inconsistencies. "But it isn't Mrs. Thorne who is to blame—I mean Mrs. Thorne alone; it is Mrs. Carew, the Kirbys, the Moores, and all the rest of them."
"In other words, the whole society of Gracias. Do you think we ought to corrupt them with our worldly cautions?"
"We're not corrupting, it's Spenser who's corrupting; we should never corrupt them though we should stay here forever. They're idyllic, of course, it's an idyllic society; but we can be idyllic too."
Margaret shook her head. "I'm afraid we can only be appreciative."
"It's the same thing. If we can appreciate little Gracias, with its remoteness and simplicity and stateliness, its pine barrens and beaches and roses, I maintain that we're very idyllic; what can be more so?"
Margaret did not reply. After a while she said, "If you will take Aunt Katrina to drive to-morrow afternoon, I will have Telano row me down to East Angels."
"You think you will speak in any case? I suppose you know with what enthusiastic approval Mrs. Thorne honors all you say and do?"
"Yes, something of it."
"But you don't care for her approvals," he said, half interrogatively.
"Yes, I care," Margaret answered. "In this case I care a great deal, as it may give me some influence over her."
"What shall you say to her?—not that I have any right to ask."
"I am very willing to tell. I had thought of asking whether she would let Garda go back with me when we go home—back to New York; I had thought of having her go to school there for six months."
"I can't imagine her in a school! But it's very kind in you to think of it, all the same."
"She could stay with Madame Martel, and take lessons; it wouldn't be quite like a school."
"That might do. Still—I can hardly imagine her away from Gracias, when it comes to the point."
"Neither can I. But, as you say, irresponsible people have made their way in here, they will do so again; we shall not be able to keep the place, and Garda, idyllic simply to please ourselves."
"Well, then, I wish we could!" responded Winthrop. "But I don't believe the little mother could stand the separation," he went on.
"I shouldn't ask her to, at least not for long; I should ask her to come herself, later. New York might amuse her."
"Never in the world, she wouldn't in the least approve of it," said Winthrop, laughing. "It wouldn't be Thorne and Duero; it wouldn't even be New Bristol, where she spent her youth. She would feel that she ought to reform it, yet she wouldn't know how; she would be dreadfully perplexed. She has a genius for perplexity, poor little soul. But I can't express how good I think it is of you to be willing to give them such a delightful change as that," he went on—"to take a whole family on your shoulders for six long months."
"A family of two. And it would be a pleasure."
"I suppose you know that people don't often do such things, except for their relatives. Not very often for them."
"I know it perfectly; I have always wondered why they did not—provided, of course, that they had the ability," answered Margaret.
Winthrop in his heart had been much astonished by her plan. He looked at her as if in search of some expression that should throw a gleam of light upon her motives. But she had not moved, and he could still see only her profile. After a while she lifted her eyes, which had been resting with abstracted gaze upon the water, and, for the first time, turned them towards him. A faint smile crossed her face as she met his inquiring look, but her expression under the smile seemed to him sad; she bent her head slightly without speaking, as if to say good-by, and then she went back through the long window into the house. Winthrop, left behind, said to himself that while he had no desire as a general thing for long conversations with Margaret Harold, he wished this time that she had not gone away so soon. Then it came to him that she almost always went away, that it was almost always she who rose, and on some pretext orother left him to himself; she left him—he did not leave her; on this occasion she had gone without the pretext; she had not taken the trouble to invent one, she had simply walked off. Of course she was quite free to come and go as she pleased. But he should have liked to hear more about her plan for Garda.
The next day she did not go down to East Angels. Her proposed visit had had to do with Lucian Spenser, and Lucian Spenser had taken his departure from Gracias that morning—a final departure, as it was understood; at least he had no present intention of returning. It was very sudden. He had had time to say good-by only to his cousin, Mr. Moore. To Mr. Moore he had intrusted a little note of farewell for Edgarda Thorne, who had returned to East Angels at an earlier hour, without seeing Lucian or knowing his intention. Mr. Moore said that Lucian had not known his intention himself until that morning; he had received a letter, which was probably the cause of his departure (this "probably" was very characteristic of the clergyman). He, Lucian, intended to go directly north to Washington, and from there to New York; and then, possibly, abroad.
"Dear me!—and his surveying camp, and the swamp, and those interesting young bears he had there?" said Mrs. Rutherford, who, having once arranged this very handsome young man's background definitely in her mind, was loath to change it, "even," as she remarked, with an unusual flight of imagination,—"even for the White House!"
"It would hardly be the Executive Mansion in any case, I fancy," explained Mr. Moore, mildly, "Lucian has, I think, no acquaintance with the President. But Washington is in reality his home; though it is perhaps apparent that he has not been there very often of late years."
These rather vague deductions regarding his young cousin's movements were satisfactory to Middleton Moore; he had evidently asked no more questions of Lucian on the occasion of his unexpected departure than he had upon the occasion of his equally unexpected arrival; his interest in him (which was great) had no connection with the interrogation point.
"What shall you do now?" said Winthrop to Margaret,after the clergyman had taken leave. They were alone in the little drawing-room, Mrs. Rutherford having gone to put herself in the hands of Celestine for the elaborate change of dress required before her daily drive.
Margaret had risen; but she stopped long enough to answer: "Of course now I need not speak to Mrs. Thorne about Mr. Spenser."
"No. But about Garda's going north? Do you still think of that?"
"Yes; that is, I should like very much to take her. But I don't think I shall speak of it immediately, there need be no hurry now." She paused. "I should like first to talk it over more clearly with you," she said, as if with an effort.
"Whenever you please; I am always at your service," replied Winthrop, with a return of his formal manner.
That afternoon he rode down to East Angels. Mrs. Thorne received him; there was excitement visible in her face and manner—an excitement which she held in careful control; but it manifested itself, in spite of the control, in the increased brightness of her eyes, which now fairly shone, in the round spot of red on each little cheek-bone, and in the more accentuated distinctness of her speech, which now came as nearly as possible to a pronunciation of every letter. She asked him how he was; she inquired after the health of Mrs. Rutherford, after the health of Mrs. Harold; she even included Celestine. She spoke of her own health, and at some length. She then branched off upon the weather. All her T's were so preternaturally acute that they snapped like a drop of rain falling into a fire; when she said "we" or "week," she brought out the vowel-sound so distinctly that her thin lips widened themselves flatly over her small teeth, and her mouth became the centre of a sharp triangle whose apex was the base of the nose, and the sides two deep lines that extended outward diagonally to the edge of the jaws. So far, she was displaying unusual formality with the friend she had found so satisfying. The friend betrayed no consciousness of any change, he saw that she wished to keep the direction of the conversation in her own hands, and he did not interfere with her desire; he was sure that she had something to say, and that in her own good time she wouldbring it forth. And she did. After treating him to twenty minutes of pronunciations, she folded her hands closely and with the same crisp utterance remarked: "My daughter is in the rose garden, I should like to have you see her before you go. I shall not accompany you, I shall ask you to do me the favor of seeing her alone."
He could not help smiling a little, in spite of the repressed tragedy of the tone. "Favor?" he repeated.
"Yes, favor," responded Mrs. Thorne, in a slightly higher key, though her voice remained musical, as it always was. "Favor, indeed! Wait till you see her. Listen, Mr. Winthrop; I want you to be very gentle with Edgarda now." And, leaning forward, she touched his arm impressively with her finger.
Winthrop always felt an immense pity for this little mother, she was racked by so many anxieties of which the ordinary world knew nothing, the comfortable world of Mrs. Rutherford and Mrs. Carew; that these anxieties were exaggerated, did not render them any the less painful to the woman who could not perceive that they were.
"Of course I shall be gentle," he said, taking her hand cordially. As he held it he could feel the hard places on the palm which much household toil, never neglected, though never mentioned, had made there.
"But when you see her, when you hear her talk, it may not be so easy," responded Mrs. Thorne, looking at him with an expression in her eyes which struck him as containing at the same time both entreaty and defiance.
"It will always be easy, I think, for me to be gentle with Garda," responded Winthrop; and his own tone was gentle enough as he said it.
Tears rose in Mrs. Thorne's eyes; but she repressed them, they did not fall. "I depend greatly upon you," she said, with more directness than she had yet used. She drew her hand from his, took up his hat, which was lying on a chair near her, and gave it to him; she seemed to wish him to go, to say no more.
He obeyed her wish, he left the house and went to the rose garden. Here, after looking about for a moment, he saw Garda.
She was under the great rose-tree. Dressed in an old white gown of a thick cotton material, she was sitting on the ground, with her crossed arms resting on the bench, and her head laid on her arms; her straw hat was off, the rose-tree shading her from the afternoon sun. Carlos Mateo, mounting guard near, eyed Winthrop sharply as he approached. But though Garda of course heard his steps, she did not move; he came up and stood beside her, still she did not raise her head. He could see her face in profile, as it lay on her arm; it was pale, the long lashes were wet with tears.
"Garda," he said.
"Yes, I know who it is," she answered without looking up;—"it is Mr. Winthrop. Mamma has asked you to come and talk to me, I suppose; but it is of no use." And he could see the tears drop down again, one by one.
"I should be glad to come on my own account, without being asked, if I could be of any use to you, Garda."
"You cannot," she murmured, hopelessly.
His speech had sounded in his own ears far too formal and cold for this grieving child—for the girl looked not more than fourteen as she sat there with her bowed head on her arms. He resisted, however, the impulse to treat her as though she had been indeed a child, to stoop down and try to comfort her.
"I am very sorry to find you so unhappy," he went on, still feeling that his words were too perfunctory.
"I don't believe it; I wish I did," answered Garda, who was never perfunctory, but always natural. "If I did, perhaps I could talk to you about it, and then it wouldn't bequiteso hard."
"Talk to me whether you believe it or not," suggested Winthrop.
"I cannot; you never liked him."
A frown showed itself on Winthrop's face; but Gardacould not see it, and he took good care that his voice should not betray irritation as he answered: "But as I like you, won't that do as well? You ought to feel safe enough with me to say anything."
"Oh, why won't you be good to me?" said the girl, in a weeping tone, abandoning the argument. "I shall die if everybody is so cruel when I am suffering so."
"I am not cruel," said Winthrop. He had seated himself on the bench near her, he put out his hand and laid it for a moment on her bright brown hair.
The touch seemed very grateful to Garda; instantly she moved towards him, put her arms on his knee, and laid her head down again, in much the same attitude she often assumed when with Margaret Harold, save that she did not look up; her eyes remained downcast, the lashes heavy with tears. "I cannot bear it—he has gone away," she said, letting her sorrow come forth. "I liked him so much—so much better than I liked any one else. And now he has gone, and I am left! And there was no preparation—it was so sudden! Only yesterday we had that beautiful walk on Patricio beach (don't you remember?—I called to you as we passed), and he said nothing about going. I can never tell you how long and dreadful the time has been since I got his note this morning."
"Don't try," said Winthrop. "Think of other things. Some of us are left, make the best of us; we are all very fond of you, Garda." He felt a great wrath against Lucian Spenser; but he could not show any indication of it lest he should lose the confidence she was reposing in him, the confidence which made her come and lay her crossed arms on his knee and tell him all her grief. This confidence had other restrictive aspects, it showed that she regarded him as a species (somewhat younger, perhaps) of Mr. Moore or Dr. Kirby; Winthrop was acutely conscious that he could not play that part in the least; it certainly behooved him, therefore, to do the best he could with his own.
"Yes, you are all kind, I know," Garda had answered. "But Lucian was different, Lucianamusedme so."
"Amused? Was that it?" said Winthrop, surprised by the word she had chosen.
"Of course," answered Garda, in the same dejected tone. "Is there anything better than to be amused? I am sure I don't know anything. I was so dull here, and he made everything delightful; but now—" Her tears rose again as the contrast came over her.
"Perhaps, now that you have called our attention to it, the rest of us might contrive to be more amusing," said Winthrop, with a tinge of sarcasm in his tone.
But Garda did not notice the sarcasm. "No," she answered, seriously, "you could not. You might try; but no, you could not," she repeated, with conviction. "For it wasn't anything he did, it was Lucian himself. Besides, I liked so much to look at him—he was so beautiful. Don't you remember the dimple that came when he threw back his head and laughed?" She moved a little so that she could rest her chin on her clasped hands, and look up into Winthrop's face; her eyes met his dreamily; she saw him, but she was thinking of Spenser.
"Torres has a dimple too," answered Winthrop, rather desperately. For between the beauty of the girl herself, made more appealing as it was now by her sorrow, her confiding trust that he was prepared to play on demand the part of grandfather or uncle—between this and her extraordinary, frank dwelling upon the attractive points of Lucian Spenser, together with the wrath he felt against that accomplished young engineer—he was not, perhaps, so fully in possession of his accustomed calmness as usual. But she was a child, of course; he always came back to that; she was nothing but a child.
It was true that poor Torres had a dimple, as Winthrop had said. It was in his lean dark cheek, and everybody was astonished to see it there; once there, everybody wondered where it found space to play. It did not find it in depth, and had to spread itself laterally; it was a very thin dimple on a bone.
But Garda paid no attention to this attempt at a diversion. "Did you ever see such eyes as Lucian's, such a deep, deep blue?" she demanded of Winthrop's gray ones.
"Very blue," he answered. He was succeeding in keeping all expression out of his face (if there had been any, itwould not have been of the pleasantest). He felt, however, that his tone was dry.
But acquiescence was enough for Garda, she did not notice his tone; she continued the expression of her recollections. "When the light shone across his hair—don't you remember the color? It was like real gold. He looked then like—like a sun-god," she concluded, bringing out the word with ardor.
"What do you know of sun-gods?" said Winthrop, endeavoring to bear himself agreeably in these intimate confidences. "How many of the warm-complexioned gentlemen have you known?"
"I mean the Kirbys' picture," answered Garda, with much definiteness, rejecting sun-gods in general as a topic, as she had the dimple of poor Torres; "you must remember the one I mean."
Winthrop did remember; it was a copy of the Phœbus Apollo of Guido's "Aurora" at Rome.
"Oh," continued Garda, without waiting for reply, "what a comfort it is to talk to you! Mamma has been so strange, she has looked at me as though I were saying something very wrong. I have only told her how much I admired him—just as I have been telling you; is that wrong?"
"Not the least in the world," answered Winthrop, who had at last decided upon the course he should pursue. "But it won't last long, you know, it's only a fancy; you have seen so few people, shut up in this one little place. When you have been about more, your taste will change."
Garda did not pay much heed to these generalities arrayed before her, nor did he expect that she would. But this was the tone he intended to take; later she would recall it. All she said now was, "Oh, please stay ever so long, all the evening; I cannot let you go, now that you are so good to me." And taking his hand with a caressing little motion, she laid her soft cheek against it.
"Suppose we walk a while," suggested Winthrop, rising. He said to himself that perhaps he should feel less like a grandfather if he were on his feet; perhaps, too, she would treat him less like one.
Garda obeyed him directly. She was as docile as possible.When they were a dozen yards off, Carlos Mateo began to follow them slowly, taking very high steps with his thin legs, and pausing carefully before each one, with his upheld claw in the air, as if considering the exact point in the sand where he should place it next. They went to the live-oak avenue. "How long do you think it will hurt me so, hurt me as it does now—his going away?" the girl asked, sadly.
"Not long," replied Winthrop, in a matter-of-course tone. "It's always so when we are parted from our friends; perhaps you have never been parted from a friend before?"
"That is true, I have not," she answered, a little consoled. "But no," she went on, in a changed voice, "it's not like that, it's not like other friends; I cared so much for him! You might all go away, every one of you, and I shouldn't care as I do now." And with all her figure drooping, as though it had been struck by a blighting wind, she put her hand over her eyes again.
"Take my arm," said Winthrop; "we will go down to the landing, where you can rest on the bench; you are tired out, poor child."
Again she obeyed him without opposition, and they walked on; but her breath came in long sobs, and she kept her little hand over her eyes, trusting to his arm to guide her. He felt that it was better that she should talk of Spenser than sob in that way, and, bracing himself with patience, he began.
"How was it that he entertained you so? what did he do?" he asked. There was no indefiniteness about that "he;" there was only one "he" for Garda.
She took the bait immediately. "Oh, I don't know. He always made me laugh." Then her face brightened as recollection woke. "He was always saying things that I had never thought of—not like the things that other people say," she went on; "and he said them, too, in a way that always pleased me so much. Generally he surprised me, and I like to be surprised."