II
He was willing enough for his own part to relapse into his own thoughts. He went so deeply into them that, coming to the Ridge and involuntarily pausing there, he was twice told by her "Here I return," before he was aroused to her again. Bemused, he stared at her a moment as one stares that is aroused from sleep, and his mind jumped back in confusion to the last words that had passed between them. "Well, if you were so anxious for the lessons, why did you give them up when the winter was over?"
She answered him—sadness in her voice rather than reproach—"We have done that talk long since. Thou dost not heed me. It is that I am going that I am telling thee."
He knew he had been careless of her again, and sought to laugh it off. "Well, it is why you stopped your lessons that I am asking thee," he mimicked her. "Woman's reasons, Ima?"
She threw out her hands towards him in a gesture of appeal. "Ah, do not toy me woman's reasons," she said. "Think me less light than that—if thou thinkest of me. Not woman's reasons bade me back to the van when winter broke. Not woman's reasons. I knew me there were green buds in the ditches beneath the dead wet leaves. I had discovered them to the sun and the breezes many years—turning back the leaves and smelling the smell they have. How could I stay beneath a roof when I had thoughts of such?"
She drew a deep and tremulous breath of the mild night air as though she inhaled the scents of which she spoke, and he watched her gaze across the eastward vale with those starry eyes that, as she went on, never the lids unstarred, and she said: "Thoughts of such—of green buds in the ditches beneath the moulding leaves that waited for me to uncover them and knew me when I came; of the first cloud of dust along the road—dust, ah! of tiny sprigs on every bough that I might run to see; of busy birds stealing the straws and coming for the bits of cloth and wool they know I place for them; of early light with all the trees and fields wet and aglisten; of gentle evenings when the new stars come dropping down the sky; of the road—the road, ah!—I sitting on the shafts; of the cool brooks, and leading Pilgrim in and hearing him suck the water and hearing him tear the grass; of the running stream about my feet and the soft grass that sinks a little—these bade me back."
She turned to him and said in the low voice in which she had been speaking: "Not women's reasons these." She changed her voice to one that cried: "Remember me that if I am not like fine ladies I cannot help be what I am with these things speaking to me. Now I am going," and she went swiftly from him and was a dozen paces gone before he called her back.
III
"Ima!" While she spoke he had envisaged what she told, setting its freedom and its elemental note to his own desires as one sets music that stirs the breast. Shaking himself from the spell, "Ima!" he called, and went to her. "Don't go like that. Say good-by properly."
She stopped short and put her hand to her side as though his call had launched a shaft that struck her. She did not turn—as though she dared not turn—until he was close up to her, touching her. Then she turned, and he saw her eyes amazingly lit, and as they met his, saw the light pass like a star extinguished. It was as if she had expected much and had found nothing; and it was so pronounced that he said: "Ima! Why, what did you think I was going to say?"
There was a wild rose in the bosom of her dress that she had plucked as they came through the lane. She bent her head to it and put her hands to it in the action of one that seeks to cover lack of words by some occupation. She drew the flower from her breast and placed it in his coat, pinning it there.
"That's right," he smiled. "I'll keep that to remember you by. What did you think I was going to say? You seemed as though you expected something—then as if you were disappointed. What was it?"
She was very careful in settling the flower. Then she dropped her hands and looked up at him. "I asked nothing," she said. "How should I be disappointed?"
"Asked! No! I saw it in your eyes."
She answered swiftly, almost as one speaking in menace of offending words: "What in mine eyes?"
"Why, what I tell you. As though you expected something and were disappointed."
"No more?" she inquired, and repeated it—"No more?"
"No more—no. But I want to know why—or what?"
She gave a gentle laugh and relaxed her attitude that had been strained, in keeping with her voice. She seemed to have feared he had derived some secret that she had; and she seemed glad and yet a little sad her eyes had not betrayed her. She gave a gentle laugh and threw her hands apart as if to show how small a thing was here.
"Why, little master, there is nothing in that," she said. "The eyes light for that the heart runneth to peep through them as a child to the window."
He laughed at the pleasant fancy: "Well, what did your heart run to see?"
"Nay, I have not done," she told him. "Look also how one may see a child run happily past the window—from the van I have seen it: so sometimes the heart but passeth across the eyes with a glad face, singing from one happy thought to where another waits. I think my heart passed so and thou didst catch the gleam."
He heard her take in a quick breath as her words ended. Then, "Suffer me to go now," she said. "Keep my pretty flowers;" and turned and went swiftly from him down the slope; and was dim where the moonlight faded; and was gone in the further darkness.
ALONE ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE
I
She was as quickly gone from Percival's mind as from his sight. Now that he was free and alone—as he had wished to be alone—he faced about with an abrupt movement and began to set homewards at a swift pace along the Ridge; simultaneously his mind returned to his own business.
He had reached a sudden determination while he talked with Japhra; he found his mind carried forward to the scenes of its prosecution, and he was made to breathe deeply and to walk fast as he visioned them. A conflict possessed him and tore at him as he went. Before he got to bed that night he would have from Aunt Maggie what she purposed for his future—he would have it in definite words—he would not be put off by vague generalisations—he would accept nothing in the nature of "next year will be time enough to decide"—nay, nor "next month," nor "next week"—he would have it definitely, clearly, unmistakably now. That was his determination; thence arose the conflict. He assured himself as he walked that let him but know Aunt Maggie's intentions, and however cruel, however impossible, however unendurable they might be, he would follow wise Japhra's advice—would meet in the ring as if it were a physical antagonist the passionate impulse to reward all kind Aunt Maggie's love by violent refusal to obey her—would meet and would defeat it there.
He threw up his head as he so thought and had his fists clenched and his jaw set. The action made him conscious of old friend wind. At this the pitch of his heat, "Ha! Ha! Ha!" shouted old friend wind in his ears. "Accept idleness if Aunt Maggie so desires, will you?—and the laughter and contempt, eh? Ha! Ha! Ha!"
He put down his head again. The wind was getting up; it took some buffeting.
He began to reason now that he should have argued with Japhra when Japhra laid down the law of self-discipline and moral conduct.
"You can't make one rule to cover everything!" he said aloud, driving along against the wind. "A man must do something with his life!" he cried.
He suddenly realised that he was dallying; he suddenly knew that he was weakening. He was persuading himself that the hour of the fight would fall when he questioned Aunt Maggie; he suddenly realised that the battle was already begun.
II
The knowledge brought him to a dead halt. His thoughts had fallen in train with his steps: he had the feeling that he was being beaten while he walked—only could be master of himself while he stood still and centred all his faculties on defeating the impulses that goaded him as they had goaded him earlier in the day. As the sufferer on a sick-bed tosses wearily through the sleepless night and comes from weariness to savage groans and curses that rest is not to be found nor a cool position discovered, so he lashed in spirit to find a stable thought that would support him amid the tumult that possessed him. He strove to image Aunt Maggie with gentle eyes; he could command no more than a glimpse before she was presented to him again as not understanding—not understanding!—unkind, unkind! He directed his mind at Japhra and strove to see how small a thing, how childish, how petty was his trouble; in a moment, "Preposterous! preposterous!" shouted the tumult. "A small thing to others? Easy for them to think that. Let them apply it to their own concerns! How can they judge what is your affair alone? If you are struck, can they feel your pain? If you are starving, can they measure your hunger?" And again, with greater cunning: "Why, what a damnable philosophy is this that calls upon a man to suffer any rebuke, and smile and submit, and declare it is a small thing, unworthy of notice, and cover himself with sophistries as that life is too big, the sea too deep, the hills too high, for such an affair to cause affront! What, is that a man's part, do you think? A man's part—or a coward's?"
"Not the right way to put it!" Percival struggled. "A false way to look at it!"
And his adversary, with deeper cunning yet: "Is it fight you would, as Japhra bade you? You did not explain all the circumstances to him. A man must do something with his life—he admitted that. Is it fight you would? Why, fight then! Choose your own life. Make your own life. For that a man should fight! Get into the world and prove yourself a man! You are no better than a baby here—worse than a baby; you're a lout. What sort of a lout will you be in another year or so? What will they think of you then? Ah, go on; make this precious ring-business of your life. Rebuke yourself—your natural desires, your rightful ambitions; win your fight as Japhra bade you win it, and then when all laugh at you or ignore you for a contemptible lout—then tell them, tell all the village what a rare prize you have really won—tell it to Rollo, tell it to Dora!"
The poor boy cried aloud: "Oh, these infernal thoughts! These infernal thoughts! If only I could get them out of my head—think of something else!" He was going mad over it, he told himself. His head ached—ached. It would all come right—there was no cause for all this worrying. He had often thought about it before—never till now, till to-day, this wild, maddening, throbbing fury of trouble. What was it? What was it that caused these feelings and all this pain—why, why was he so taxed and tormented? If only he could get it out of his mind, could think of something else till he got home! There would be the jolly, jolly little supper with Aunt Maggie awaiting him; after it they would talk quietly, happily together, and he would tell her how he really must be doing something, and she would understand and everything would be put right. If only he could get it out of his mind—if he went back now as he was, why, he was not in a fit state of mind to go near her—and why? why? why this sudden difference, this sudden, maddening, throbbing state that goaded and tortured like a wild live thing within his brain? why?
III
More reasoned thoughts these—at least a consciousness of his condition and an attempt to plumb its cause. More reasoned thoughts—and they brought him suddenly to a calmer moment and there to the answer he sought: Dora.
He was not far in person from the very spot where earlier in the day the vision of her had come to him and he had breathed her name and had her name come floating about him—Dora! Dora! Dora! soft as rose petals fall, sweet as they. He was not far in person from that spot—realising her in spirit he was aswoon again in that vision's ecstasy; and suddenly knew what reason urged his burning mood, and suddenly discovered why he burned to do. She the sweet cause of all this new distress!—hers the dear fault that life was now thus changed!
Further than that he might not go—nor cared to seek. It was not his—nor ever belongs to youth suddenly under the sex attraction—to know a new ichor was mingled with his blood, causing it to surge and boil and test the very fibre of his veins. Not his to know a sap that had been storing in his vigour was now released whence it had stored—touching new strengths that had not yet been felt; flushing the brain in cells not yet aroused; and crying, and crying to be relieved; and causing in his strength a tingling vibrancy, as a willow rod that has been bent springs upright and vibrates when its constraint is cut. Not his to know, nor care to seek, how love manifested itself within him, nor what love was, nor why he loved, nor if, indeed, love were this sudden thing. He only knew that what had served his boyhood could not suffice now Dora filled his mind; he only knew that in all the world to bring to Dora's eyes the light of admiration was his sole desire; he only knew that to have her hold him in contempt—even in slight regard—was to endure an outrage unendurable; he only knew he was possessed to challenge mighty businesses—of arms, of strength, of courage, of riches—that he might win her smile.
He had the new thoughts now for which he had cried while the tumult of right and wrong conduct vexed him. She filled his mind, suffused his being, stood with her exquisite face before his eyes. Peace in the guise of ardour came where conflict in passion's flame had burned. "If only I could see her before I go home!" he thought.
The recollection came of a hot day earlier in the week when, at lunch with Dora and Rollo at the Old Manor, they had conspired to abuse the sultry weather. "But the evenings are worth it," Dora had said. "In London it is different;" with her mother she had just come from London for a few days at Abbey Royal before she went, for her last term, to the "finishing" school near Paris. "In London it is different—of ten more stifling at night than in the day. But here! Here the evenings are worth it. Always after dinner I stroll in the garden—and love it."
If only he could see her before he went home! He looked at his watch beneath the moonlight. Almost nine o'clock it told him. That would be about her hour. He could strike across to Abbey Royal in fifteen minutes if he ran. There was just the chance!—just the chance of a glimpse of her, the first glimpse since this new and adorable sense of her had come to be his. He might even speak with her—hear her voice. Hear her voice!—it was the utmost desire he had in all the world! There was just the chance!—if it failed, still he could see the home where she lived, see it with the new eyes that now were his—her home, the grounds her feet had trod, the gates her hand had touched, the flowers perhaps her dress had brushed or she had stooped to breathe.
There was just the chance!—along the Ridge, down to Upabbot, behind the church and so to her home. His mind leapt across his route, eager to urge his pace. He pocketed his watch and set towards the shrine that had his heart.
WITH DORA IN THE DRIVE
I
There was just the chance! "Ah, Chance be kind!" his prayer, but in the simpler form: "If only I can see her!" For he could not have told himself precisely what he desired of her. The new condition of mind and body that possessed him was too newly come for him clearly to understand towards what it impelled him. We speak of love as an intoxication. He was as it were beneath the first and sudden influence of a draught of wine more potent than the drinker knows—causing an elevation of the spirits, that is to say, a sharper note in the surroundings, something of a singing in the ears; a readiness for adventure, but not a clear notion as to the form of adventure required; a sudden comprehension that there is more tingling stuff in life than ever the dull round has revealed; but a sense that it is there and must be found rather than an exact knowledge of what it will prove to be. He only knew he wished to see her; that seemed the goal; he had no thoughts nor fancies to take him to what might lie beyond—then reached the Abbey gates and saw the drive, and saw her there, and stopped as if a hand suddenly rebuked him in the throat.
That he felt a surge run through his being and flame upon his face, that he felt suddenly abashed and could not dare to make his presence known—these marked his nearness to knowledge of his state.
II
The night was very clear. By now the full moon had disdained more trifling with the clouds that earlier had joined hands about her. Far to the west they trailed their watery burdens to the hills: she queened above them—queenly serene, aloof in the unbounded vault that all her empery of stars about her ruled and divided subject to her rule. The Abbey gates stood wide. Between their pillars little breezes came to him and brought to him the fragrance of the flowers that banked the drive on either hand. He saw they also stirred the dress and some light scarf that Dora wore.
Mystery was here. He knew not what—only that, conditioned by some new sense that caused him strangeness, he was upon the threshold of things as yet unknown.
He watched—afraid as yet. She was stooped above a cluster of pansies. While he looked, she plucked a blossom here and there, her hand now hovering above their shade and now caressed amid their bloom, and raised them to her face.
She turned then and came towards him; and he drew back a step. Mystery was here; not yet, not yet to challenge what it held!
She reached the gates and paused a moment. The little breezes that had brought the flowers to him stopped their play; her scarf's floating ends—gossamer and delicately painted—came softly to her sides. You might have said that the night airs had heralded her here, had taken form in her scarf's ends to attend her as she walked, and now awaited which way she should please to move.
Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! The childish appreciation of her, aroused in him years before, returned to him again. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red—that was she! As when a child he had been caused a childish wonder and a child's unspoilt delight at so rare a thing as she appeared to him, so now, seeing her for the first time with the new eyes that belonged to his new condition, he felt himself amazed and almost awed that beauty could have this degree. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! All she had promised in her girlish years dowered her now in the burgeoning of her maidenhood—and dowered more than it had told, as all the beauty of the opening bud scarcely can hint the opened blossom's beauty; and dowered more than it had told by the increasing strangeness, as she grew, of this rare perfection of each feature in one face. Rare, strangely rare, the transparent fairness of her skin; rare, rare that almost crimson shade on either cheek, sharply defined, not blended, as it were frozen there; rare the dark pansy of her wide and stilly eyes; rare, most rare of all, transcending all, the high air with which she bore herself—that her chaste and faultless face maintained, with which her eyes looked and that her presence seemed to make.
He saw her dress. He saw her scarf to be some filmy veil about her shoulders and that beneath it all her throat was bare. He saw that it was turned about her throat in a loose fold that lay where her bosom was disclosed by the silk evening gown she wore, draped low, but maidenly discreet. At throat, at breast, at arms, at hands, he saw this filmy thing was challenged of its whiteness and seemed to take a shade.
She moved; he thought to speak. Mystery was here and held him on its threshold.
Watching her he had a sudden new conception of her quality. Later, when he had spoken to her, when he had left her, when he trod again each passage of their meeting, recalled her voice, her mode of speech, and how she bore herself, he recalled that conception and knew it was most proper to her, and thrilled to know it so.
As he looked, and afterwards as he remembered, he conceived the word that estimated all her beauty, all her quality and her degree—frozen. Frozen and thus invested with the strange rareness that frozen beauty has. Frozen and thus most proper that those flames upon her cheeks never could stain beyond themselves, as blood that will not run in snow; proper the quaint precision of the words she used, as icicles broken in a cold hand; proper the high pitch of her voice, curiously hard, without modulations, as winter sounds are hard.
Snow-White-and-Rose-Red—and frozen snow and frozen red. She was that in his new discovery of her: and was that better than he knew; caparisoned and trained for that.
III
She raised to her face the pansies he had seen her gather, caressed them a moment against her lips, then turned and went a few steps back. And then he spoke—stepped from the pillar's shadow and into mystery's doors and called her—"Dora!"
The little breezes ran among the flowers: "Bend! Bend! you sleepy things and blow her your caresses where she moves again!"—ran among the tree-tops high above the borders: "Salute! Salute! you sentinels, and show your joy, she comes!"—chased from her path a daring leaf or two—sprung to her person and bade her veil attend her—caught his low whisper and tossed it from her ears.
Tiny the stir; yet stiller all the voice he made. He waited; breathed her name again—"Dora!" and then she heard.
She gave the faintest start; turned, and said, "Why—Percival?" and then a little laugh, and then spoke "Percival!" again.
He went to her. "Did I frighten you? I'm sorry."
He went into the mystery that barred him at the gate. Her surprise caused the shades upon her cheeks to flame to sudden crimson, promoting her beauty to its most high effect. Her lips—also of her surprise—were lightly parted, alert, with the aspect of some nymph of the woods and glades, startled and poised to listen. Not yet, not yet his to know all the truth of what influence had him here. He only had known he wished to see her: he only knew now that he wished to stay and talk with her. He was in the mystery—not yet of it; but already, at this first contact with her presence, a glimmering, a suspicion arose—softened his voice, quickened his senses.
"I ought to have been frightened," she said. "I never heard you come. But I scarcely was startled. It is the most curious circumstance, but I happened to be thinking of you."
As icicles broken in a cold hand!
He did not cry, as love might have directed him—"Thinking of me! You!" Not yet, not yet the knowledge that would give that ardour. He only was boyishly pleased. He only said: "Were you, Dora? I'm awfully glad you were."
And she, no more aware of deeper things than he: "Well, they were not particularly nice thoughts I had of you," she said, and gave a little laugh that toned with the clear pitch of her voice. "Indeed, I was vexed with you."
He laughed back an easy laugh: "I wonder what I've done?"
"It is what you have not done, Percival—or did not do. I was at the Manor all the afternoon and had the dullest time that anybody could imagine. Your fault. Rollo was expecting you to tea, and was looking out for you all the time, and was the most ungracious person. To me, you know, it is ridiculous how he seems to dote upon you."
And Percival laughed brightly again. Happy, happy to be with her—alone, alone at this hour, in this still place! "Old Rollo!" he laughed. "Well, anyway, if I failed him, I've seen you."
She asked him. "But why have you come—so late?" and at that his laughter left him.
"I wanted to see you," he said. "I don't know why," and paused.
He did not know; but in declaring it to her, and in that pause, came a step nearer discovery. Some nameless reason held his speech, and, while she waited, fluttered in his eyes and communicated its influence to her also. In that pause suspicion came to both of some strange element that trembled in the air—fugitive, remote, but causing its presence to be known as a scent declares itself upon the breeze. She saw a tinge of redness kindle in his face. He saw the faintest trace of deepening colour in the shades upon her cheeks.
Not yet, not yet the truth! Transient the spell and quickly gone. Only, a little shaken by it, "You're going away soon, Dora," he said. "I think that's why I came."
Free of it: "But that's not a reason," she answered him lightly. "I am not going so suddenly—not till the end of the week."
"Saturday—it's the day after to-morrow."
"Ah, well, time goes so slowly here."
"Dull for you—I can imagine that. To this French school, are you going, Dora? I heard you telling Lady Burdon of it."
"It's not a school. No more school for me, and I am very thankful."
"Tell me what you do there."
She went into a sudden break of laughter. She had somewhere picked up a single vulgar phrase that consorted most strangely with her precise manner of speech. "Your coming here like this," she laughed, "and asking such very funny things!"—then used her phrase—"it tickles me to death."
The piquancy of it delighted him, and he laughed delightedly, and for some reason had a stronger sense of her rare beauty. Not yet, not yet the truth, but nearer yet, even as such truth advances by the strangest and most secret steps.
"Tell me, though, Dora!"
"Oh, how it can interest you I am puzzled to imagine! Pleasant enough things, then. There are twelve of us there, all English, I am glad to say. We never speak English, though—always French; and then there are German and Italian days; they make us laugh very much."
As icicles broken in the hand!
Her laughter had caused the shades on her cheek to glow. He gazed at her in sheerest admiration; felt a new stirring of his blood; felt his breath quicken. She was close, close to him. The little breezes that had attended her, and had gone as if asulk at his intrusion, came with a sudden little fury to win her back again, and smote him full with all the fragrance that she had, and tossed her scarf and tossed her skirt against him.
She drew back her skirt, using the hand that held the pansies she had gathered. The action brushed his hand with hers and with her flowers.
Not yet, not yet the truth, but almost come! He slipped his fingers about her wrist, holding her hand mid-breast between them. "Give me those flowers, Dora."
She slower in approaching it, but suspicious again of some strange element in the air, as a fawn that lifts a doubtful head to question a new thing in the breeze. "You have one buttonhole already," she told him, her voice not very easy.
He looked down at Ima's wild rose in his coat. "That's nothing," he said, and began to remove it whence it was pinned.
He was clumsy, for his hand trembled—the other still had hers. He was clumsy. Thoughts, thoughts, were at hammer in his brain—new to him, fierce to him and, as from iron in a forge, striking a glow that glowed within his eyes.
She saw the glow, saw how his hand shook. "It is well fastened," she said.
He broke off the rose at its head, jerked it aside and drew down the stalk. She suffered him to take her flowers, and very carefully then he placed them where the rose had been—hers! hers! That she had plucked! That she had held! He was at the truth and he looked at her.
She almost there.
The glow in his eyes was turned full upon her and she stepped back from it. The secret thing the night had was full about her and she had alarm of it. "I find it rather chilly standing here," she said, "—and late. I must be going in."
He watched her take the veil about her shoulders another turn about her throat, and watched her move away a pace. He started after her as though he burst through bonds that held him. He walked beside her, moving his tongue in his mouth as though it were locked from words and sought them; and he could hear his heart knock.
So, without words—in silence that shouted louder than speech—they came to where the drive bent towards the house. She paused, and he knew his dismissal.
His face was red, as a child reddens when control of tears is on the edge of breaking. His voice, when he spoke, had a strained note as the voice is caused to strain when only one thought can be spoken and a hundred press for speech. And strange—as between them—the words at last he found: "Dora, you'd hate a man—wouldn't you?—with nothing—who just poked along and did nothing?"
It was the door that should introduce her to the knowledge wherein he struggled. But she was only surprised, not recognising it; and surprised, relieved indeed. "Any one would," she said.
He flung wide the door. "Ah! Do you suppose I am going to?"
IV
Love is an instinct and is played by instinct. Struggling in the knowledge, in the mystery, that had drawn him here and that now engulfed him, he scarcely yet was aware that he loved, but by instinct was put in command of all the cunning of the game. His question fronted her with personal issue between them; it is the first, the last, the essential strategy.
"Why, Percival!" she said and stopped—saw the door wide; and he saw the colour deepen where her colour lay. "Why, Percival, why ever should I suppose it of you?"
He could control his voice no more. The strained note went. He said thickly: "But you'll begin to think it. In time you're bound to—if I let you. And then scorn me. If I just idled here you're bound to scorn me. Any one would—you said it."
Nervous her breathing. "But you—you never could be like that, Percival. I've always thought of you as doing things. Every one thinks it. I have noticed how they do."
All the distress he had suffered earlier in the day was back with him now, joined in fiercest tumult with what caused his heart to knock. He cried "They soon won't!" and cried it on a bitter note that made her go an unthinking step towards what waited her. "Percival, they always will," she said. "I always will, Percival."
The redness went from his face. His own clear voice came back to him. All, all his being braced from storm to his control. He breathed "Dora! Will you?"
The stress that had been his was hers. She found no words; she only nodded—moved her lips for "yes" but made no sound. He had come slowly to the truth, by blundering ways that sometimes brought him near and sometimes went astray. She was suddenly come—and come, not of herself, but of as it were a flame that his voice as he spoke, his ardour as he bent towards her, seemed to communicate. She was suddenly come, was a degree bewildered, wanted even yet some further light. She only nodded.
"Dora, you are going for a long time. I heard you tell—"
She said very low: "For a year."
"Dora! A year!"
"I am to be a year away. It is the last time. It is to finish."
"A year! A year! Oh, Dora, a year!"
Her face was close to his, her lips a shade apart, her wide eyes lifted to him. Rare, rare he had thought her; perfect he knew her. That mystic thing the night had held, held them mute, magnetised, privy from all the world, alone. They stood so close the air he drew had first caressed her. They stood so close that her young bosom almost told him how she breathed. Slowly, as he were drawn to it, he stooped towards her; steadily, as she were held, she suffered his face to approach. Their lips touched, stayed for a space—smaller, infinitely less, than mind can conceive; wider, immeasurably more, as their joined spirits reckoned time, and rushed through time in bliss of ecstasy, than mind can reckon space.
And then he kissed her.
Crimson she flamed in the places of her colour—flaming and more flaming and deeper yet their flame. Their sharp limitations drove her driven white about them; from throat to flame and flame to brow as lily was her hue. She did not move nor speak, and he, amazed before her rareness, drew back a step. She might have been a statue, so still she stood. She might not have breathed, nor thought, so motionless her breast, her eyes so wide, so still her gaze. Only that glowing scarlet on her cheeks, only her skin's transparency—soft, deep, as if beneath it some jewel gave a secret light—declared her mortal and proclaimed she lived.
A space passed. She came from the trance in which she seemed to be. She gave a little sigh. As if she had been struck, not kissed; as if she had been robbed, not possessed. "Oh! Percival!" she said.
And he: "Oh! Dora!"
He sprung to her, took both her hands; clasped them in his and adored her with his eyes; bent his head to them and raised them to his lips.
"Oh, Dora, have I hurt you? Oh, Dora, I love you so!"
"Let me go in, Percival!"
He held her hands against his breast. "I could not help it! I could not help it! I love you, Dora! I've always loved you! I suddenly knew I'd always loved you!"
She spoke so low he scarcely could hear her voice: "Percival, let me go in!"
"Oh, Dora, have I hurt you? Dear, dear Dora, you are all the world to me. I love you so, I love you so!"
The faintest movement of her head gave him his answer and gave him ecstasy.
"I have not hurt you? You are not angry? I knew—or I would not have kissed you. Speak to me, dear Dora."
She only whispered: "Percival, I would like to go in. I am afraid."
He cried: "I know. You are so beautiful—so beautiful; not meant for me to love you."
"You are hurting my hands, Percival."
He kissed her hands again—fragile and white and cold and scented, like crushed, cold flowers in his grasp. He told her: "From the very first I loved you—but could not know it then. From that day when I first saw you! Look how I must have been born to love you—you'll not be frightened then. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red I called you. Smile, darling Dora, as you smiled when I told you in the muddy lane that day. Do you remember?"
She had no smile: still seemed aswoon, still scarcely breathed, as some bewildered dove—captured, past fluttering—which only quivers in the hands that hold it.
"If only you can sometimes think of me. You will understand then and think again perhaps, and know all my life is changed, and know that everything I do I shall do for you. I'll not see you again. I'll not be here when you come back."
At that he felt her fingers move within his hands.
"I cannot stay here now—now that I love you. I shall go."
He felt her tremble, and she breathed: "Oh, why? Oh, where?"
"How could I face you again and still be idling here? I don't know where, Dora. I only know why—because I love you so. Anywhere, anything to get me something that will give you to me!"
She whispered "Percival!" and stopped as though she had not strength for more. And he breathed "Dora!" as though he knew what she would say and by intensity of love would draw it from her.
She slowly drew her hands from his. She took them to her breast, and faltered again—again as she were wounded, afraid, struck, threatened, atremble at some fearful brink, robbed of some vital virtue: "Oh, Percival!" and caught her breath and said "Oh, Percival, what is it—this?"
"It is love!" he cried. "Dora, it is love!"
She gave a little sigh; she unclasped her hands; seemed to relax in all her spirit; suffered her hands, like cold white flowers floating earthwards, lovewards to float to his.
"Tell me!" he breathed.
Soft as her hands fell, "I always shall think of you," she told him.
He besought her "Tell me!"
She whispered "Always!"
In a man's voice, out of a sudden and terrible review of his condition—possessed of nothing, chained to do nothing—and of her high estate: "Others will love you!" he cried.
As they would nestle there and there abide, her fingers moved within his hands.
In a man's voice, full man as full love makes, "Tell me," he besought her.
Scarcely perceptible her answer came; scarcely her lips moved for it—faint as the timid breeze ventured to the innermost thicket, soft as the hushed caress of summer rain along the hedgerows, "I shall always love you," she breathed.
Shortly he left her.
WITH AUNT MAGGIE IN FAREWELL
I
It was past eleven when Percival got back to "Post Offic." He had been absent seven hours. He felt himself removed by thrice as many years from the moment when he had flung away from Aunt Maggie to work off by active exercise the feelings aroused in him when, to his demands that he must be doing something with his life, she had prayed him only wait.
Day then, night now, and he as changed.
The mood he brought her was unlike any he had proposed should be his case. On Plowman's Ridge before he saw Japhra he had imagined for his return a petulant, a trying-to-be-calm scene in which he should repeat his purpose that an end must be made of the purposeless way of life in which she was keeping him. By Fir-Tree Pool, with wise Japhra propounding how a man must encourage his spirit and defeat his flesh, he had imagined himself gentle with dear Aunt Maggie; gently showing her what restlessness had him, persuading her to his ends, or, of his love for her, accepting her wishes. Now he was come back and neither case was his. Day then, night now, and he as changed. Now he had lived that hour with Dora in the drive; now he had kissed her; now had heard her breathe "I shall always love you." Gone every thought of petulant distress; gone Japhra's counsels—gone boyhood, manhood come!
The change was stamped upon his face, figured in his air. Aunt Maggie looked up eagerly as he entered. She had waited him anxiously. He stood a moment on the threshold of the room and looked at her with steady, reckoning eyes. She saw; and she greeted him fearfully. "Why, Percival, dear, how very late you are," she said.
He replied: "It took me longer to get back than I expected."
His tone matched his aspect and the look in his eyes. Aunt Maggie's voice trembled a little: "You must have been a long way, dear?"
"A good many miles," he said, and came forward and went to his place at the table where supper was laid, and sat down.
"Are you very tired, dear?—you look tired."
"No—no, thank you, Aunt Maggie."
His voice was absent—or stern; and absently—or sternly—he looked at her across the table.
She caught her breath and hesitated, and began pathetically to try by brightness to rally him from his mood.
"At least you must be terribly hungry," she smiled. "Here comes Honor with just what you like."
A tray tanged against the door, and was borne in by Honor, uncommonly grim of the face.
"Now wasn't that clever of Honor!" Aunt Maggie went on. "Five minutes ago—after waiting since seven—she said she knew you would be just in time if she began to cook the trout then; and here it is ready, and most delicious, I'm sure, just as you arrive."
Honor's actual words had been: "Time and tide wait for no dangerous delays, Miss Oxford, and I don't neither—not a single instant longer. I'll put these troutses on now which ought to have been on at ten minutes to seven, and I'll cook 'em, and cook 'em and cook 'em till I drop fainting on my own kitchen carpet and till they're nasty black cinders that will serve him right. Lost his way! lost his nasty bold temper! It's no good talking different to me, Miss, not if your voice was tinkling trumpets, it isn't!" She had burst in with her tray prepared to repeat her wrath to Percival's face, but caught the appealing look in Aunt Maggie's eyes, perceived that something was seriously amiss with Percival, and exchanged her heat for the affection he had won in her from the first moment, years before, of his arrival—the sweetest bundle of shawls—at "Post Offic."
"Cooked to a turn, Master Percival, dear," Honor said, uncovering before him the steaming dish.
"And only just caught," Aunt Maggie smiled. "Rollo brought them in just before supper time."
And Honor: "And want it you do, as I can see. Nasty pinched look you've got, Master Percival."
And Aunt Maggie: "And look at that beer, dear. You'd scarcely think it was a new cask, would you? As clear as crystal."
And Honor: "Ah, 'Pitch that cask about,' I says to the man when he delivered it. 'Pitch that cask about, my beauty, and you can pitch it back into your waggin', I says. 'Young master don't want to eat his beer with a knife and fork, not if you do,' I says sharp."
And Aunt Maggie: "You see what care we take of you, Percival, although you leave us all day long."
And Honor: "And now I'll just get your slippers down for you. Nothing like slippers when you're tired. And then you'll be to rights."