Colonel Kent had gone away on a short business trip and Allison was spending his evenings, which otherwise would have been lonely, at Madame Bernard's. After talking for a time with Aunt Francesca and Isabel, it seemed natural for him to take up his violin and suggest, if only by a half-humorous glance, that Rose should go to the piano.
Sometimes they played for their own pleasure and sometimes worked for their own benefit. Neither Madame nor Isabel minded hearing the same thing a dozen times or more in the course of an evening, for, as Madame said, with a twinkle in her blue eyes, it made "a pleasant noise," and Isabel did not trouble herself to listen.
Both Rose and Allison were among the fortunate ones who find joy in work. Rose was so keenly interested in her music that she took no count of the hours spent at the piano, and Allison fully appreciated her. It had been a most pleasant surprise for him to find a good accompanist so near home.
The discouraging emptiness of life had mysteriously vanished for Rose. Her restlessness disappeared as though by magic and her indefinite hunger had been, in some way, appeased. She had unconsciously emerged from one state into another, as the tiny dwellers of the sea cast off their shells. She had a sense of freedom and a large vision, as of dissonances resolved into harmony.
Clothes, also, which, as Madame had said, are "supposed to please and satisfy women," had taken to themselves a new significance. Rose had made herself take heed of her clothes, but she had never had much real interest. Now she was glad of the time she had spent in planning her gowns, merely with a view to pleasing Aunt Francesca.
To-night, she wore a clinging gown of deep green velvet, with a spray of green leaves in her hair. Her only ornament was a pin of jade, in an Oriental setting. Allison looked at her admiringly.
"There's something about you," he said, "that I don't know just how to express. I have no words for it, but, in some way, you seem to live up to your name."
"How so?" Rose asked, demurely.
"Well, I've never seen you wear anything that a rose might not wear.I've seen you in red and green and yellow and pink and white, but neverin blue or purple, or any of those soft-coloured things that AuntFrancesca wears."
"That only means," answered Rose, flushing, "that blue and grey and tan and lavender aren't becoming to me."
"That isn't it," Allison insisted, "for you'd be lovely in anything.You're living up to your name."
"Go on," Rose suggested mischievously. "This is getting interesting." "You needn't laugh. I assure you that men know more about those things than they're usually given credit for. Your jewels fit in with the whole idea, too. That jade pin, for instance, and your tourmaline necklace, and your ruby ring, and the topazes you wear with yellow, and the faint scent of roses that always hangs about you."
"What else?" she smiled.
"Well, I had a note from you the other day. It was fragrant with rose petals and the conventionalised rose, in gold and white, that was stamped in place of a monogram, didn't escape me. Besides, here's this."
He took from his pocket a handkerchief of sheerest linen, delicately hemstitched. In one corner was embroidered a rose, in palest shades of pink and green. The delicate, elusive scent filled the room as he shook it out.
"There," he continued, with a laugh. "I found it in my violin case the other day. I don't know how it came there, but it was much the same as finding a rose twined about the strings."
Aunt Francesca was on the other side of the room, by the fire. Her face, in the firelight, was as delicate as a bit of carved ivory. Her thoughts were far away—one could see that. Isabel sat near her, apparently absorbed in a book, but, in reality, listening to every word.
"I wish," Allison was saying, "that people knew how to live up to themselves. That's an awkward phrase, but I don't know of anything better. Even their names don't fit 'em, and they get nicknames."
"'Father calls me William,'" murmured Rose.
"'And Mother calls me Will,'" Allison went on. "That's it, exactly. See how the 'Margarets' are adjusted to themselves by their friends. Some are 'Margie' and more of 'em are 'Peggy.' 'Margaret' who is allowed to wear her full name is very rare."
"I'm glad my name can't be changed, easily," she said, thoughtfully.
"It could be 'Rosie,' with an 'ie,' and if you were that sort, it would be. Take Aunt Francesca, for instance. She might be 'Frances' or 'Fanny' or even 'Fran,' but her name suits her, so she gets the full benefit of it, every time."
Madame turned away from the fire, with the air of one who has been away upon a long journey. "Did I hear my name? Did someone speak to me?"
"Only of you," Allison explained. "We were talking of names and nicknames and saying that yours suited you."
"If it didn't," observed Madame Bernard, "I'd change it. When we get civilised, I believe children will go by number until they get old enough to choose their own names. Fancy a squirming little imp with a terrible temper being saddled with the name of 'William,' by authority of Church and State. Except to his doting parents, he'll never be anything but 'Bill.'"
"Does my name fit me?" queried Isabel, much interested.
"It would," said Allison, "if you weren't quite so tall. Does my name fit me?"
He spoke to Madame Bernard but he looked at Rose. It was the older woman who answered him. "Yes, of course it does. How dare you ask me that when I named you myself?"
"I'd forgotten," Allison laughed. "I can't remember quite that far back."
They began to play once more and Isabel, pleading a headache, said good- night. She made her farewells very prettily and there was a moment's silence after the door closed.
"I'm afraid," said Madame, "that our little girl is lonely. Allison, can't you bestir yourself and find some young men to call upon her? I can't think of anybody but the Crosby twins."
"What's the matter with me?" inquired Allison, lightly. "Am I not calling? And behold, I give her a headache and she goes to bed."
"You're not exactly in her phase of youth," Madame objected. "She's my guest and she has to be entertained."
"I'm willing to do my share. I'll take her into town to the theatre some night, and to supper afterward, in the most brilliantly lighted place I can find."
"That's very nice of you," responded Rose, with a look of friendly appreciation. "I know she would enjoy the bright lights."
"We all do, in certain moods," he said. "Are you ready now?"
The voice of the violin rose to heights of ecstasy, sustained by full chords in the accompaniment. Mingled with the joy of it, like a breath of sadness and longing, was a theme in minor, full of question and heartbreak; of appeal that was almost prayer. And over it all, as always, hovering like some far light, was the call to which Rose answered. Dumbly, she knew that she must always answer it, though she were dead and the violin itself mingled with her dust.
Madame Bernard, still seated by the fire, stirred uneasily. Something had come into her house that vaguely troubled her, because she had no part in it. The air throbbed with something vital, keen, alive; the room trembled as from invisible wings imprisoned.
Old dreams and memories came back with a rush, and the little old lady sitting in the half light looked strangely broken and frail. The sound of marching and the steady beat of a drum vibrated through her consciousness and the singing violin was faint and far. She saw again the dusty street, where the blue column went forward with her Captain at the head, his face stern and cold, grimly set to some high Purpose that meant only anguish for her. The picture above the mantel, seen dimly through a mist, typified, to her, the ways of men and women since the world began—the young knight riding forward in his quest for the Grail, already forgetting what lay behind, while the woman knelt, waiting, waiting, waiting, as women always have and always must.
At last the music reached its end in a low chord that was at once a question and a call. Madame rose, about to say good-night, and go up- stairs where she might be alone. On the instant she paused. Her heart waited almost imperceptibly, then resumed its beat.
Still holding the violin, Allison was looking at Rose. Subconsciously, Madame noted his tall straight figure, his broad well-set shoulders, his boyish face, and his big brown eyes. But Rose had illumined as from some inward light; her lovely face was transfigured into a beauty beyond all words.
Francesca slipped out without speaking and went, unheard, to her own room. She felt guilty because she had discerned something of which Rose herself was as yet entirely unconscious. With the instinctive sex- loyalty that distinguishes fine women from the other sort, Madame hoped that Allison did not know.
"And so," she said to herself, "Love has come back to my house, after many years of absence. I wonder if he cares? He must, oh, he must!" Francesca had no selfish thought of her own loneliness, if her Rose should go away. Though her own heart was forever in the keeping of a distant grave, she could still be glad of another's joy.
Rose turned away from the piano and Allison put his violin into the case. "It's late," he said, regretfully, "and you must be tired."
"Perhaps I am, but I don't know it."
"You respond so fully to the music that it is a great pleasure to play with you. I wish I could always have you as my accompanist."
"I do, too," murmured Rose, turning her face away. The deep colour mounted to the roots of her hair and he studied her impersonally, as he would have studied any other lovely thing.
"Why?" he began, then laughed.
"Why what?" asked Rose, quickly.
"I was about to ask you a very foolish question."
"Don't hesitate," she said. "Most questions are foolish."
"This is worse—it's idiotic. I was going to ask you why you hadn't married."
With a sharp stab at the heart, Rose noted the past tense. "Why haven't you?" she queried, forcing a smile.
"There is only one answer to that question, and yet people keep on asking it. They might as well ask why you don't buy an automobile."
"Well?" continued Rose, inquiringly.
"Because 'the not impossible she,' or 'he,' hasn't come, that's all."
"Perhaps only one knows," she suggested.
"No," replied Allison, "in any true mating, they both know—they must."
There was a long pause. A smouldering log, in the fireplace, broke and fell into the embers. The dying flame took new life and the warm glow filled the room.
"Is that why people don't buy automobiles?" queried Rose, chiefly because she did not know what else to say.
"The answer to that is that they do."
"Sounds as if you might have taken it from Alice in Wonderland," she commented. "Maybe they've had to give each other up," she concluded, enigmatically.
"People who will give each other up should be obliged to do it," he returned. "May I leave my violin here? I'll be coming again so soon."
"Surely. I hope you will."
"Good-night." He took her hand for a moment, in his warm, steady clasp, and subtly, Rose answered to the man—not the violin. She was deathly white when the door closed, and she trembled all the way up-stairs.
When she saw herself in the mirror, she was startled, for, in her ghostly pallor, her deep eyes burned like stars. She knew, now. The woman who had so hungered for Life had suddenly come face to face with its utmost wonder; its highest gift of joy—or pain.
The heart of a man is divided into many compartments, mostly isolated. Sometimes there is a door between two of them, or even three may be joined, but usually, each one is complete in itself. Within the different chambers his soul sojourns as it will, since immeasurably beyond woman, he possesses the power of detachment, of intermittence.
Once in a lifetime, possibly, under the influence of some sweeping passion, all the doors are flung wide and the one beloved woman may enter in. Yet she is wise, with the wisdom of the Sphinx, if she refuses to go. Let her say to him: "Close all these doors, except that which bears my name. In that chamber and in that alone, we shall dwell together." For, with these words, the memories housed in the other chambers crumble to dust and ashes, blown only by vagrant winds of Fate.
In the heart of a woman there are few chambers and still fewer doors. Instead of business-like compartments, neatly labelled, there are long, labyrinthine passages, all opening into one another and inextricably bound together. To shut out one, or even part of one, requires the building of a wall, but it takes a long time and the barrier is never firm.
At a single strain of music, the scent of a flower, or even one glimpse of a path of moonlight lying fair upon a Summer sea, the barriers crumble and fall. Through the long corridors the ghosts of the past walk unforbidden, hindered only by broken promises, dead hopes, and dream- dust.
Even while the petals of long-dead roses rustle through the winding passages, where the windows are hung with cobwebs, greyed at last from iridescence to despairing shadows, a barrier may fall at the sound of a talismanic name, for the hands of women are small and slow to build and the hearts of women are tender beyond all words.
Hidden in the centre of the labyrinth is one small secret chamber, and the door may open only at the touch of one other hand. The woman herself may go into it for peace and sanctuary, when the world goes wrong, but always alone, until the great day comes when two may enter it together.
As Theseus carried the thread of Ariadne through the labyrinth of Crete, there are many who attempt to find the secret chamber, but vainly, for the thread will always break in the wrong heart.
When the door is opened, at last, by the one who has made his way through the devious passages, there is so little to be seen that sometimes even the man himself laughs the woman to scorn and despoils her of her few treasures.
The secret chamber is only a bare, white room, where is erected the high altar of her soul, served through life, by her own faith. Upon the altar burns steadfastly the one light, waiting for him who at last has come and consecrated in his name. The door of the sanctuary is rock-ribbed and heavy, and he who has not the key may beat and call in vain, while within, unheeding, the woman guards her light.
Pitifully often the man does not care. Sometimes he does not even suspect that he has been admitted into the inmost sanctuary of her heart, for there are men who may never know what sanctuary means, nor what the opening of the door has cost. But the man who is worthy will kneel at the altar for a moment, with the woman beside him, and thereafter, when the outside world has been cruel to him, he may go in sometimes, with her, to warm his hands at those divine fires and kindle his failing courage anew.
When the sanctuary is not profaned by him who has come hither, its blessedness is increased ten-fold; it takes on a certain divinity by being shared, and thereafter, they serve the light together.
And yet, through woman's eager trustfulness, the man who opens the door is not always the one divinely appointed to open it. Sometimes the light fails and the woman, weeping in the darkness, is left alone in her profaned temple, never to open its door again, or, after many years, to set another light high upon the altar, and, in the deepening shadows, pray.
So, because the door had never been opened, and because she knew the man had come at last who might enter the sanctuary with her, Rose lifted her ever-burning light that night to the high altar of her soul, and set herself to wait until he should find his way there.
The house seemed very quiet, though steadily, from a distant upper room, came the sound of a violin. For more than an hour, Allison had worked continuously at one difficult phrase. Colonel Kent smiled whimsically as he sat in the library, thinking that, by this time, he could almost play it himself.
Looking back over the thirty years, he could see where he had made mistakes in moulding the human clay entrusted to his care, yet, in the end, the mistakes had not mattered. Back in the beginning, he had formulated certain cherished ideals for his son, and had worked steadily toward them, unmindful of occasional difficulties and even failures.
Against his own judgment, he had yielded to Francesca in the choice of the boy's career. "Look at his hands," she had said. "You couldn't put hands like his at work in an office. If he isn't meant for music, we'll find it out soon enough."
But Allison had gone on, happily, along the chosen path, with never a question or doubt of his ultimate success. Just now, the Colonel was deeply grateful to Francesca, for the years abroad had been pleasant ones, and would have been wholly impossible had Allison been working in an office.
With a sigh, he began to pace back and forth through the hall, his hands in his pockets, and his grey head bowed. Before him was his own portrait, in uniform, his hand upon his sword. The sword itself, hanging in a corner of the hall, was dull and lifeless now. He had a curious sense that his work was done.
The tiny stream, rising from some cool pool among the mountains, is not unlike man's own beginning, for, at first, it gives no hint of its boundless possibilities. Grown to a river, taking to itself the water from a thousand secret channels, it leaps down the mountain, heedless of rocky barriers, with all the joy of lusty youth.
The river itself portrays humanity precisely, with its tortuous windings, its accumulation of driftwood, its unsuspected depths, and its crystalline shallows, singing in the Summer sun. Barriers may be built across its path, but they bring only power, as the conquering of an obstacle is always sure to do. Sometimes when the rocks and stone-clad hills loom large ahead, and eternity itself would be needed to carve a passage, there is an easy way around. The discovery of it makes the river sing with gladness and turns the murmurous deeps to living water, bright with ripples and foam.
Ultimately, too, in spite of rocks and driftwood, of endless seeking for a path, of tempestuous nights and days of ice and snow, man and the river reach the eternal sea, to be merged forever with the Everlasting.
Upstairs the music ceased. A door opened, then closed, and presently Allison came down, rubbing his hands. "It's a little cool up there," he said, "and yet, by the calendar, it's Spring. I wish this climate could be averaged up."
"Even then, we wouldn't be satisfied," the Colonel returned. "Who wants all his days to be alike?"
"Nobody. Still, it's a bit trying to freeze your nose one day and be obliged to keep all the windows open the next."
There was a long pause. The Colonel tapped his fingers restlessly upon the library table. Allison went over to the open fire and stood with his back to it, clasping his hands behind him. "What have you been doing all the morning, Dad?"
"Nothing. Just sitting here, thinking."
"Pretty hopeless occupation unless you have something in particular to think about."
"It's better to have nothing to think about than to be obliged to think of something unpleasant, isn't it?"
"I don't know," Allison responded, smothering a yawn. "Almost anything is better than being bored."
"You're not bored, are you?" asked the Colonel, quickly.
"Far from it, but I have my work. I was thinking of you."
"I can work, too," the Colonel replied. "I think as soon as the ground thaws out, I'll make a garden. A floral catalogue came yesterday and the pictures are very inspiring."
"Does it give any directions for distinguishing between the flowers and weeds?"
"No," laughed the Colonel, "but I've thought of trying the ingenious plan of the man who pulled up the plants and carefully watered the weeds, expecting the usual contrary results."
Luncheon was announced and they went out together, shivering at the change in temperature between the library and the dining-room, where there would be no cheerful open fire until the dinner hour.
"What are you going to do this afternoon?" queried the Colonel.
"Why, work, I suppose—at least until I get too tired to work any more."
"You seem to believe in an eight-hour day."
Something in the tone gave Allison an inkling of the fact that his father was lonely and restless in the big house. When they were abroad, he had managed to occupy himself pleasantly while Allison was busy, and, for the first time, the young man wondered whether it had been wise to come back.
The loneliness of the great rooms was evident, if one looked for it, and the silence was literally to be felt, everywhere. It is difficult for two people to be happy in a large house; they need the cosiness established by walls not too far apart, ceilings not too high, and the necessary furniture not too widely separated. A single row of books, within easy reach, may hint of companionship not possible to the great bookcase across a large room.
"I think," said Allison, "that perhaps this house is too large for us.Why should we need fifteen rooms?"
"We don't, but what's the use of moving again just now, when we're all settled."
"It's no trouble to move," returned the young man.
"It might be, if we did it ourselves. I fancy that Miss Rose could give us a few pointers on the subject of opening an old house."
"There may be something in that," admitted Allison. "What charming neighbours they are!" he added, in a burst of enthusiasm.
"Madame Bernard," replied the Colonel, with emphasis, "is one of the finest women I have ever had the good fortune to meet. Miss Rose is like her, but I have known only one other of the same sort."
"And the other was—"
"Your mother."
The Colonel pushed back his plate and went to the window. Beyond the mountains, somewhere in "God's acre," was the little sunken grave still enfolding a handful of sacred dust. With a sudden throb of pain, Allison realised, for the first time in his life, that his father was an old man. The fine, strong face, outlined clearly by the pitiless afternoon sun, was deeply lined: the broad shoulders were stooped a little, and the serene eyes dimmed as though by mist. In the moment he seemed to have crossed the dividing line between maturity and age.
Allison was about to suggest that they take a walk after luncheon, having Madame Bernard's household in mind as the ultimate object, but, before he could speak, the Colonel had turned away from the window.
"Some day you'll marry, lad," he said, in a strange tone.
Allison smiled and shrugged his shoulders doubtfully.
"And then," the Colonel continued, with a little catch in his voice, "the house will be none too large for two—for you two."
Very rarely, and for a moment only, Allison looked like his mother. For an instant she lived again in her son's eyes, then vanished.
"Dad," he said, gently, "I'm sure you wouldn't desert me even if I did marry. You've stood by me too long."
The stooped shoulders straightened and the Colonel smiled. "Do you mean that—if you married, you'd still—want me?"
"Most assuredly."
"She wouldn't."
"If she didn't," returned Allison, lightly, "she wouldn't get me. Not that I'm any prize to be wrangled over by the fair sex, individually or collectively, but you and I stand together, Dad, and don't you forget it."
The Colonel cleared his throat, tried to speak, then stopped abruptly."I have been thinking," he continued, with a swift change of mood andsubject, "that we might manage a dinner party. We're much indebted toMadame Bernard."
"Good idea! I don't know what sort of party it would prove to be, but, if we did our best, it would be all right with them. Anyhow, Aunt Francesca would give an air to it."
"So would the others, Miss Rose especially."
"I wonder why Aunt Francesca didn't marry again," mused Allison.
"Because her heart is deep enough to hold a grave."
"You knew her husband, didn't you?"
"He was my best friend," answered the Colonel, a little sadly. "How the years separate and destroy, and blot out the things that count for the most!"
"I wonder how she happened to be named 'Francesca.' It isn't an American name."
"She wasn't. Her name was 'Mary Frances,' and he changed it to 'Marie Francesca.' So she has been 'Marie Francesca' ever since, though she never uses the 'Marie.' That was his name for her."
"The change suits her someway. Queer idea she has about names fitting people, and yet it isn't so queer, either, when you come to think of it. Rose might have been named Abigail or Jerusha, yet I believe people would have found out she was like a rose and called her by her proper name."
Colonel Kent flashed a quick glance at him, but the expression of his face had not changed. "And Isabel?" he queried, lightly.
"Isabel's only a kid and it doesn't matter so much whether things fit her or not. I've promised to take her to the theatre," he continued, irrelevantly, "because Aunt Francesca wants her guest to be amused. I'm also commissioned to find some youths about twenty and trot 'em round for Isabel's inspection. Do you know of anybody?"
"I've seen only one who might do. There's a lanky boy with unruly hair and an expansive smile whom I've seen at the post-office a time or two. He usually has a girl with him, but she may be his sister. They look astonishingly alike."
"Bet it's the Crosby twins. I'd like to see the little devils, if they've grown up."
"They're grown up, whoever they are. The boy is almost as tall as I am and his sister doesn't lack much of it."
"I must hunt 'em up. They've already called on Isabel, and perhaps, when she returns the call, she'll take me along."
"Who brought them up?" asked the Colonel idly.
"They've brought themselves up, for the last five or six years, and I'm of the opinion that they've always done it."
"Let's invite them to the dinner party."
Allison's eyes danced at the suggestion. "All right, but we'll have to see 'em first. They may not want to come."
"I've often wondered," mused the Colonel, "why it is so much more pleasant to entertain than it is to be entertained. I'd rather have a guest any day than to be one."
"And yet," returned Allison, "if you are a guest, you can get away any time you want to, within reasonable limits. If you're entertaining, you've got to keep it going until they all want to go."
"In that case, it might be better for us if we went to Crosbys'."
"We can do that, too. I think it would be fun, though, to have 'em here.We need another man in one sense, though not in another."
"I have frequently had occasion to observe," remarked the Colonel, "that many promising dinners are wholly spoiled by the idea that there must be an equal number of men and women. One uncongenial guest can ruin a dinner more easily than a poor salad—and that is saying a great deal."
"Your salad days aren't over yet, evidently."
"I hope not."
The hour of talk had done the Colonel a great deal of good, and he was quite himself again. Some new magazines had come in the afternoon mail and lay on the library table. He fingered the paper knife absently as he tore off the outer wrappings and threw them into the fire.
"I believe I'll go up and work for a couple of hours," said Allison, "and then we'll go out for a walk."
"All right, lad. I'll be ready."
Even after the strains of the violin sounded faintly from upstairs, accompanied by a rhythmic tread as Allison walked to and fro, Colonel Kent did not begin to cut the leaves.
Instead, he sat gazing into the fire, thinking. Quite unconsciously, for years, he had been carrying a heavy burden—the fear that Allison would marry and that his marriage would bring separation. Now he was greatly reassured. "And yet," he thought, "there's no telling what a woman may do."
The sense that his work was done still haunted him, and, resolutely, he tried to push it aside. "While there's life, there's work," he said to himself. He knew, however, as he had not known before, that Allison was past the need of his father, except for companionship.
The old house seemed familiar, yet as though it belonged to another life. He remembered the building of it, when, with a girl's golden head upon his shoulder, they had studied plans together far into the night. As though it were yesterday, their delight at the real beginning came back. There was another radiant hour, when the rough flooring for the first story was laid, and, with bare scantlings reared, skeleton-like, all around them, they actually went into their own house.
One by one, through the vanished years, he sought out the links that bound him to the past. The day the bride came home from the honeymoon, and knelt, with him, upon the hearth-stone, to light their first fire together; the day she came to him, smiling, to whisper to him the secret that lay beneath her heart; the long waiting, half fearful and half sweet, then the hours of terror that made an eternity of a night, then the dawn, that brought the ultimate, unbroken peace which only God can change.
Over there, in front of the fireplace in the library, the little mother had lain in her last sleep. The heavy scent of tuberoses, the rumble of wheels, the slow sound of many feet, and the tiny, wailing cry that followed them when he and she went out of their house together for the last time—it all came back, but, mercifully, without pain.
Were it not for this divine forgetting, few of us could bear life. One can recall only the fact of suffering, never the suffering itself. When a sorrow is once healed, it leaves only a tender memory, to come back, perhaps, in many a twilight hour, with tears from which the bitterness has been distilled.
Slowly, too, by the wonderful magic of the years, unknown joys reveal themselves and stand before us, as though risen from the dead. At such and such a time, we were happy, but we did not know it. In the midst of sorrow, the joy comes back, not reproachfully, but to beckon us on, with clearer sight, to those which lie on the path beyond.
He remembered, too, that after the first sharp agony of bereavement was over; when he had learned that even Death does not deny Love, he had seemed to enter some mysterious fellowship. Gradually, he became aware of the hidden griefs of others, and from many unsuspected sources came consolation. Even those whom he had thought hard and cold cherished some holy of holies—some sacred altar where a bruised heart had been healed and the bitterness taken away.
He had come to see that the world was full of kindness; that through the countless masks of varying personalities, all hearts beat in perfect unison, and that joy, in reality, is immortal, while pain dies in a day.
"And yet," he thought, "how strange it is that life must be nearly over, before one fully learns to live."
The fire crackled cheerily on the hearth, the sunbeams danced gaily through the old house, spending gold-dust generously in corners that were usually dark, and the uncut magazine slipped to the floor. Above, the violin sang high and clear. The Colonel leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
When Allison came down, he was asleep, with the peace of Heaven upon his face, and so quiet that the young man leaned over him, a little frightened, to wait for the next deep breath. Reassured, he did not wake him, but went for his walk alone.
Outside, in the grey darkness, the earth was soft with snow. Upon the illimitable horizon beyond the mountain peaks were straying gleams of dawn, colourless, but none the less surely a promise of daybreak.
Rose had been awake for some time, listening to the ice-clad branches that clattered with every passing breeze. A maple bough, tapping on her window as ghostly fingers might, had first aroused her from a medley of dreams.
She went to the window, shivering a little, and, while she stood there, watching the faint glow in the East, the wind changed in quality, though it was still cool. Hints of warmth and fragrance were indefinably blended with the cold, and Rose laughed as she crept back to bed, for she had chanced upon the mysterious hour when the Weaver of the Seasons changed the pattern upon the loom.
Having raised another window shade, she could see the dawn from where she lay. Tints of gold and amethyst came slowly upon the grey and made the horizon delicately iridescent, like mother-of-pearl. Warm and soft from the Southland, the first wind of Spring danced merrily into Madame Francesca's sleeping garden, thrilling all the life beneath the sod. With the first beam of sun, the ice began to drip from the imprisoned trees and every fibre of shrub and tree to quiver with aspiration, as though a clod should suddenly find a soul.
In the watcher's heart, too, had come another Spring, for once in time and tune with the outer world. The heart's seasons seldom coincide with the calendar. Who among us has not been made desolate beyond all words upon some golden day when the little creatures of the air and meadow were life incarnate, from sheer joy of living? Who among us has not come home, singing, when the streets were almost impassable with snow, or met a friend with a happy, smiling face, in the midst of a pouring rain?
The soul, too, has its own hours of Winter and Spring. Gethsemane and Calvary may come to us in the time of roses and Easter rise upon us in a December night. How shall we know, in our own agony, of another's gladness, or, on that blessed to-morrow when the struggle is over, help someone else to bear our own forgotten pain?
True sympathy is possible only when the season of one soul accords with that of another, or else when memory, divinely tender, brings back a vivid, scarlet hour out of grey, forgotten days, to enable us to share, with another, his own full measure of sorrow or of joy.
Ah, but the world was awake at last! Javelin-like, across a field of melting snow, went a flash of blue wings, and in Madame Francesca's own garden a robin piped his cheery strain upon the topmost bough of a dripping tree.
The woman, too, was awake, in every fibre of body and soul. Even her finger-tips seemed sentient and alive; her heart was strangely lifted, as though by imprisoned wings. She had no doubt of the ultimate hour, when he would know also, yet, half-afraid, she shrank from it, as she would not have shrunk from pain.
Madame had once remarked that civilisation must have begun not earlier than nine in the morning, or later than noon. She had a horror of the early breakfast, when the family, cold, but clean, gathers itself around the board which only last night was festive and strives valiantly to be pleasant. It was almost an axiom with her that human, friendly conversation was not possible before nine in the morning.
So, as there was no one else to be pleased, the three women breakfasted when and where they chose. If Rose preferred to robe herself immaculately in white linen and have her coffee in the dining-room at seven, she was at liberty to do so. If she wanted it in her own room, at ten, that also was easily managed, but this was the only "movable feast" Madame would permit. Luncheon and dinner went precisely by tae clock, year in and year out.
Too happy to sleep and yearning to be outdoors, Rose dressed quietly and tiptoed down-stairs. She smiled whimsically as the heavy front door slammed behind her, wondering if it would wake the others and if they, too, would know that it was Spring.
Tips of green showed now and then where the bulbs were planted, and, down in the wild garden, when she brushed aside the snow, Rose found a blushing hepatica in full bloom. "How indiscreet," she thought, then added, to herself, "but what sublime courage it must take to blossom now!"
The plump robin, whose winter had evidently been pleasant, hopped about the garden after her, occasionally seeking shelter on the lower bough of a tree if she turned, or came too near. "Don't be afraid," she called, aloud, then laughed, as with a farewell chirp and a flutter of wings, the robin took himself beyond the reach of further conversational liberties.
Her pulses leaped with abundant life; the wet road lured her eager feet. She went out, leaving the gate open, and turned toward the woods, where a flock of wild geese, breasting the chill winds far above the river, was steadily cleaving a passage to the friendly North.
When she reached the woods, where the white birches stood like shy dryads among the oaks, she heard once more the robin's flutelike call. It was answered by another, exactly upon the same notes, yet wholly different as to quality. Presently, among the trees, she caught a glimpse of a tall man, and she paused for an instant, frightened. Then her heart leaped and her cheeks burned, as she saw who it was.
"Boy!" she called, clearly. "Oh, Boy!"
Allison turned, startled, then came to her, smiling, hat in hand. "Upon my word," he said. "I didn't think there was anyone else mad enough to come out at this hour."
"Why it's Spring! Didn't you know?"
"Yes. It came this morning just before sunrise."
"Were you awake?"
"Yes, were you?"
"Of course," she answered. "I couldn't stay in."
"Nor could I."
"The year's at the spring,And day's at the morn;Morning's at seven;The hill-side's dew-pearled,"
Rose quoted. "You know the rest, don't you?"
"The rest doesn't matter. 'Morning waits at the end of the world—Gypsy, come away!'"
"I'll go," she breathed, her eyes fixed on his, "anywhere!"
"To the river, then. The last time I saw it, ice and snow had hidden it completely."
The path was narrow until they got out of the woods, so Rose went ahead. "I don't believe I fooled that robin by whistling to him," Allison continued. "He pretended I did, but I believe he was only trying to be polite."
"He wasn't, if it was the same robin I saw in our garden this morning. I spoke to him most pleasantly and told him not to be afraid of me, but he disappeared with a very brief, chirpy good-bye."
"Don't hurry so," he said, as he came up beside her and assisted her over a fallen tree. "We've got the whole day, haven't we?"
"We have all the time there is," laughed Rose. "Everybody has, for that matter."
"Have you had your breakfast?"
"No, have you?"
"Far from it. Everybody was asleep when I came out."
"Then you'll have breakfast with me," she said, quickly.
"Thank you," he smiled, "for taking the hint."
"But won't your father miss you?" she queried, with mock seriousness.
"He pays no attention whatever to my irregular habits, and I think that's one reason why we get on so well together. It's a wise father who knows his own child."
"Especially if it is a wise child," she replied. Her eyes were dancing with mirth, a scarlet signal burned on either cheek, and her parted lips were crimson. She seemed lovelier to him than ever before.
"Honestly, Rose, you seem to get prettier every day."
"Then," she smiled, "if I were younger, I might eventually become dangerous."
"Rose—"
"Old Rose," she interrupted. The high colour faded from her face as she spoke and left her pale.
Allison put his hand on her arm and stopped. "Rose, please don't. You're not a day older than I am."
"Ten years," she insisted stubbornly, for women are wont to lean upon the knife that stabs them and she was in a reckless mood. "When you're forty, I'll be fifty."
A shadow crossed his face. "It hurts me, someway, to have you talk so. I don't know how—nor why."
In a single swift surge her colour came back. "All right," she answered, quietly, "hereafter I'm thirty, also. Thanking you for giving me ten more years of life, for I love it so!"
The sun was well up in the heavens when they came to the river, and the dark, rippling surface gave back the light in a thousand little dancing gleams. The ice was broken, the snow was gone, and fragments of shattered crystal went gently toward the open sea, lured by the song of the river underneath.
"It doesn't look deep," remarked Rose.
"But it is, nevertheless. I nearly drowned myself here when I was a kid, trying to dive to the bottom."
"I'm glad you didn't succeed. What a heavy blow it would have been to your father!"
"Dear old Dad," said Allison, gently. "I'm all he has."
"And all he wants."
"It's after eight," Allison complained, looking at his watch, "and I'm starving."
"So am I. Likewise my skirts are wet, so we'd better go."
When they reached Madame Bernard's, Rose ordered breakfast in the dining-room, for two, then excused herself to put on dry clothing. Allison waited before the open fire until she came down, fresh and tailor-made, in another gown and a white linen collar.
"I thought women always wore soft, fluffy things in the morning," he observed, as they sat down.
"Some do—the fluffy ones, always."
"Who, for instance, are the fluffy ones?"
"Aunt Francesca for one and Isabel for another."
"How long is the kid going to stay?"
"Until she gets ready to go home, I suppose."
"I thought she had no home."
"She hasn't. Poor Isabel is a martyr to the Cause of Woman."
"How so?"
"Her mother is Emancipated, with a large E, and has no time for trifles like a daughter. She devotes herself to what she calls the Higher World Service."
"So Isabel is stranded, on a desert island."
"Yes, except for us."
"How good you are!" he exclaimed, with honest admiration.
"It was Aunt Francesca," returned Rose, flushing slightly. "I had nothing to do with it. She took me from a desert island, too."
"Is Isabel emancipated?"
"Not in the sense that her mother is."
"I don't see but what she is free."
"She is. She can do exactly as she pleases and there is no one to say her nay."
"I thought all women did as they please."
"They do, in the sense that we all do as we please. If you make a sacrifice, you do it because you can get more pleasure out of making it than you would otherwise."
"You've been reading Spencer."
"I plead guilty," she laughed.
"If it's true," he went on, after a moment's pause, "a genuine NewEngland conscience must be an unholy joy to its proud possessor."
"It's unholy at all events. One lump, or two?" she asked, as the coffee was brought in.
"Two, please."
It seemed very pleasant to Allison to sit there in the warm, sunny room, with Rose opposite him, pouring his coffee. There was an air of cosiness and domestic peace about it hitherto outside his experience. For the first time he was conscious of the peculiar graciousness and sense of home that only a home-loving woman may give to a house.
"I like this," he said, as he took the steaming cup. "I'd like to do it often."
"We'd like to have you," she returned, hospitably.
"I thought you all had breakfast together at some fixed hour, and early at that."
"How little you know Aunt Francesca! You can have breakfast in this house in any room you choose, at any hour before noon, all the year round. Sometimes we're all together, sometimes only two. Usually, however I'm alone, as I seem to get up a little earlier than the others."
"I think I'll drop in occasionally, then. It looks as if there'd always be somebody to bear me company. Perhaps I'll bring Dad, too. He'd like to have you pour his coffee."
There was no mistaking the admiration in Allison's eyes and Rose turned hers away. He sat with his back to the dining-room door and she, across from him, faced it squarely. For the merest fraction of a second Isabel, in a pink silk negligee, stood in the doorway, then vanished, as noiselessly as she had come. Her eyes were full of mysterious meaning that Rose was powerless to translate.
"I'd enjoy it," Rose said quickly. "I love to pour the coffee and Aunt Francesca always lets me on the rare occasions when we breakfast together."
If her colour was a little brighter, if her voice was in a higher key, if her eyes had changed their expression, Allison did not notice it. Yet, in the instant, she had attained a certain dual consciousness— there seemed to be two of her. One was the woman of the world, well- schooled in self-control, tactful, watchful, ready to smooth any awkwardness, and, at every point, to guard her guest. The other was Primitive Woman; questioning, curious, and watchful in the sense of rivalry. She put it resolutely aside to think about later, and was very glad that Allison did not know.
She was greatly relieved when he went home, promising to return later for a few hours of work upon a difficult concerto. "We'll do it again," he said, laughing, as he went down the steps. "Ask Aunt Francesca to give me a meal ticket, to be used solely for breakfasts, will you?"
Rose only smiled in answer, but waved her hand to him as he went out of the gate. She stood pensively in the hall for a moment or two after she had closed the door, and would have gone up to her own room had she not heard a step at the head of the stairs.
Isabel was coming down, also fresh and tailor-made, with a white linen collar and a dashing crimson tie. Rose strolled into the library, took up a magazine, sat down, and pretended to read.
"I'm so sorry to be late to breakfast," remarked Isabel, following her."But perhaps it's just as well, as I wasn't invited."
"Nobody was invited," returned Rose, coolly. "I went out for an early walk, chanced to meet Mr. Kent, and he invited himself here to breakfast."
"I didn't know you were in the habit of taking early walks."
"I'm trying to acquire the habit," answered Rose, with icy sweetness.
"It won't be hard," Isabel said, maliciously, "if they're all equally pleasant." She slammed the door as she went out, shutting Rose in the library.
For an instant Rose was angry, then her sense of humour triumphed and she laughed quietly until the tears came. There was no need now to meditate upon that mysterious look in the girl's eyes, for she had translated it herself.
"The idea," said Rose to herself. "That foolish little child!" She tried to recall the conversation at the breakfast table, and remembered, with regret, that they had discussed Isabel quite freely. The thought that Isabel might have been listening before she made her presence known came forward persistently, though Rose hated herself for it.
Then, with swift resolution, she put all annoying thoughts aside to dwell, happily, upon the perfect hour that nothing could ever change or spoil. She went into the hall by another door opening out of the library, thus avoiding Isabel, and sought her own room, singing to herself:
"The year's at the spring,And day's at the morn,The morning's at seven,The hillside's dew-pearled,The lark's on the wing,The snail's on the thorn;God's in His heaven—All's right with the world!"