H lne turned her eyes away.
"But if you're not really pals for always, the one that doesn't care will grow coarse. If it's Folly, her past will seize upon her. She'll run from your condemning eyes, but you—you can't run from your own soul.
"Lew, I know. I'm awake. Every woman has a right to an awakening, but most of them by good fortune miss it. There's one in ten that doesn't. I didn't. The tenth woman—that's what I'm coming to, and whether it's the tenth woman or the tenth man, it's all the same in bitter love."
H lne's eyes took on the far-away look that blots out the present world, and clothes a distant vision in flesh and blood.
"You saw what you saw to-day," she went on in a voice so low that Lewis leaned forward to catch her words. "Remember that, and then listen. The love that comes to youth is like the dawn of day. There is no resplendent dawn without a sun, nor does the flower of a woman's soul open to a lesser light. The tenth woman," she repeated, "the one woman. To her awakening comes with a man, not through him. He is part of the dawn of life, and though clouds may later hide his shining face, her heart remembers forever the glory of the morning."
The tears welled from her eyes unheeded. Lewis leaped forward with a cry.
"H lne! H lne!"
She held him off.
"Don't touch me!" she gasped. "I only wanted you to see the whole burden of love. Now go, dear. Please go. I'm—I'm very tired."
Lewis, walking rapidly toward the flat, was thinking over all that Lady Derl had said and was trying to bring Folly into line with his thoughts. He had never pictured Folly old. He tried now and failed. Folly and youth were inseparable; Follywasyouth. Then he gave up thinking of Folly. That moment did not belong to her. As once before, the fragrance and the memory of H lne clung to him, held him.
He passed slowly into the room where Leighton sat. He felt a dread lest his father ask him what it was H lne had said. But he wronged his father. Leighton merely glanced up, flashed a look into the eyes of his son. He saw and knew the light that was there for the light that lingers in the eyes of him who comes from looking upon holy inner places.
For an hour neither spoke, then Leighton said:
"Going out to lunch to-day?"
"No," said Lewis; "I've told Nelton I'd be in."
"About this marriage," said Leighton, smiling. "Let's look on it as a settled thing that there's going to be a marriage. Have you thought about the date and ways and means?"
Lewis flushed.
"Don't misunderstand me," said Leighton. "I might as well tell you that I've decided to divide my income equally between us, marriage or no marriage."
"Dad!" cried Lewis, half protesting.
"There, there," said Leighton, "you're not getting from me what you think. What I mean is that I'm not making any sacrifice. I've lived on half my income for some time. You'll need a lump-sum of money besides. Your grandmother left you a big house in Albany. It won't bring much, but I think you'd better sell it. It's on the wrong side of the town now."
"I'll do whatever you say, Dad," said Lewis.
"I suggest that you fix your marriage for six months from now," went on Leighton. "That will give us time to go over and untangle certain affairs, including the house, on the other side. It isn't altogether on account of the house I want to take you over."
Lewis had winced at six months. Now he looked questioningly at his father.
"Keep your eyes open as you go through life," continued Leighton, "and you'll see that marriage is a great divisor. All the sums of friendship and relation are cut in two by marriage. You and I, we've been friends, and before I surrender you I think it's only just that I should take you over and introduce you to your inheritance."
"My inheritance?" asked Lewis.
"Yes," said Leighton, "your country."
"You might think," continued Leighton, "that I'm an expatriate. Externally I have been, but never in the heart. I've been waiting—waiting for our country to catch up to me. Under certain conditions a man has the right to pick out the stage of civilization best adapted to his needs. There are two ways of doing that: either go to it or make it come to you. If you're not tied, it's easier to go to it, because sometimes it takes more than a generation to make it come to you."
"So you've gone to it," said Lewis.
Leighton nodded.
"Nations and individuals travel like the hands of a clock. You can't always live in the midday of your life, but you can in the midday of a nation. When you get an educated taste, you prefer pheasants, bananas, Stilton, and nations when they're at one o'clock. The best flavor—I'm not talking about emotions—the best flavor of anything, including life, comes with one o'clock."
"What time is it over there now?" asked Leighton.
"About eleven," said Leighton, "top wave of success. Now, these are the earmarks of success: a meticulous morality in trifles, ingrowing eyes, crudity, enthusiasm, and a majority."
"Heavens!" cried Lewis, "you told me once you were afraid I was going to be successful. Am I earmarked like that?"
"You will be," said Leighton, "the minute you're driven to sculpturing for the populace—for what it will bring. That's why I'm giving you your own income now, because, when you're married, you're going to be pretty hard pressed. I don't want you to be able to justify the sale of your soul.
"I had an uncle once—he's dead now—that had an only son named Will. Uncle Jim was a hard worker. He had a paper-mill, and he was worth a lot of money. His son Will wasn't a worker. He didn't own the paper-mill, but he never let you forget he was going to. He failed his way through school, but he couldn't quite fail through college. Every time he failed at anything, he used to say: 'It doesn't matter. Dad will give me a start in life, won't you, Dad?' And his father would say, 'I certainly will.'
"Well, one morning a little after Will had been flunked out of college, he was standing on the lawn whittling. I happened to be looking out of the window. I saw Uncle Jim crawling across the grass under cover of a rhododendron bush to a position just behind Will. He was carrying under one arm an enormous fire-cracker, with the fuse lit. He rolled it out on the grass behind Will, and when it went off, Will went, too. He landed seventeen feet from the hole the cracker made.
"When he'd turned around, but before he could get his jaw up, my uncle said: 'Will, I've always promised I'd give you a start in life. Well, I've given it to you—a damn good start, too, judging by the length of that jump. Now you git! Not a word. You just git!'
"Will didn't go very far away. He went to the rival town across the river. He hadn't learned anything about making paper, but a New England Leighton is just naturally born knowing how to make paper. In fifteen years Will didn't have much soul left, but he had enough money to buy his father out and make him sign an agreement to retire. They were both as pleased as Punch. To the day of his death the old man would say, 'I certainly gave you a start in life, Will,' and Will would answer with a grin, 'Dad, you certainly did.'
"The moral of that yarn is that we Leightons have proved over and over that we could play the game of success when we thought it was worth while. Will's generation and mine, generally speaking, thought it was worth while. But your generation—the best of it—isn't going to think so. That's why I'm giving you enough money so that you won't have to think about it all the time."
"I'm grateful, Dad," said Lewis. "It's easier to breathe that way."
Leighton nodded. "Sometimes," He continued, "I feel guilty, as though it were cowardly not to have lived where I was put. But—have you ever seen a straw, caught on a snag, try to stop a river? To your sentimentalist that straw looks heroic; to anybody that knows the difference between bathos and pathos it simply looks silly. The river of life is bigger than that of any nation. We can't stop it, but we can swell it by going with it. Did you ever see a mule drink against the current?"
"No," said Lewis, his eyes lighting with memory of a thing that he knew.
"Did you ever see free cattle face a gale?"
"No," said Lewis again.
"Out of the mouths of the dumb come words of wisdom," said Leighton. "Go with life, Boy. Don't get stranded on a snag. You'll only look silly. I'm glad you've traveled around a bit, because the wider the range of your legs the wider your range of vision, and, let me tell you, you'll need a mighty broad field of sight to take in America and the Americans.
"Your country and mine is a national paradox. It's the only country where you can't buy little things for money. For instance, you can't buy four seats that somebody else has a right to from a railway conductor for sixty-two and a half cents. There isn't any price at which you can get an American to say, 'Yes, sir, thank you, sir,' every time he does anything for you."
"Lunch is served, sir, thank you, sir," announced the impassive Nelton from the doorway.
Lewis smiled, and then laughed at his father's face.
"Nelton," said Leighton, "did you hear what I was saying?"
"I did, sir, thank——"
"Yes, yes," broke in Leighton, "we know. Well, Nelton, your pay is raised. Ten per cent."
"Yes, sir," said Nelton, unmoved. "Thankyou,sir."
"As I was saying," continued Leighton to Lewis, "a country where money can't buy little things. A leveled country where there's less under dog than anywhere else on the face of the earth. A people that's more communal and less socialistic than any other commonwealth. A happy nation, my boy—a happy nation of discontented units. Do you get that? Of discontented units."
"Yes, I think I do," said Lewis.
"You don't, but you will in time," said Leighton.
WHEN Lewis burst upon Folly with the news that his father had given not only consent to the marriage, but half his income to smooth the way to it, Folly frowned. What was the game? she wondered. But the first thing she asked was:
"And how much is that?"
Lewis stammered, and said really he didn't know, which made Folly laugh.Then he told her about the six months and the trip to America. WhereuponFolly nodded her head and said:
"Oh, that's it, is it? Well, your governor is willing to pay pretty thick for six months of you. All I want to know is, Will you come back to me?"
"Come back to you, Folly?" cried Lewis, "Of course I'll come back to you. Why, that's just what I'm going for. To sell the house and fix things so Icancome back to you."
At the same hour Leighton was saying good-by to H lne. He had not really come to say good-by. He had come to thank her for her sacrifice, for the things he knew she had said to Lew. He did not try to thank her in words. A boyish glance, an awkward movement, a laugh that broke—these things said more to H lne than words.
"So you've got six months' grace," said H lne, when Leighton had told her how things stood. "Glen, do you remember this: 'All erotic love is a progression. There is no amatory affection that can stand the strain of a separation of six months in conjunction with six thousand miles. All the standard tales ofgrande passionand absence are—'"
"'Legendary hypotheses based on a neurotic foundation,'" finishedLeighton. "Yes, I remember that theory of mine. I'm building on it."
"I thought you were," said H lne. "Don't build too confidently. Lew has a strain of constancy in him. It's quite unconscious, but it's there. Just add my theory to yours."
"What's your theory?" asked Leighton.
"My theory," said H lne, "is that little girl Natalie. I don't suppose she's little now."
Leighton frowned.
"Do you know where Natalie is living? She'sthere." His brow clouded with thoughts of the scene of his bitter love.
H lne understood.
"I know. I thought so," she said.
"I'll send Lewis to her."
"No, Glen," said H lne softly, "you'll take him to her."
When all was ready for the start, Nelton appeared before Leighton.
"Please, sir," he said, "I've taken the liberty of packing my bags, too, thank, you, sir. I thought, sir, since you're both going, the flat might be locked up."
"Well," said Leighton, "I suppose it might for once. Where are you off to?"
"Why, with you, sir. If you don't mind, sir, I'd like to see thisAmerica."
Leighton smiled.
"Come along, by all means, Nelton," he said. "Go ahead with the baggage, and see that Master Lewis and I get a compartment to ourselves. Here's half a crown."
Leighton and Lewis were not traveling with the rush of the traffic. It was too early in the year. While the boat was not crowded, it was by no means deserted. It had just that number of passengers on board which an old traveler would like to stipulate for on buying his ticket; enough to keep the saloons from hollow echoes, and not enough to block even a single deck.
"Are these all Americans?" asked Lewis on their third day out.
Leighton glanced rapidly up and down the deck.
"No," he said, "there's hardly a typical American in the lot. Wrong time of year. You see there are more men than women. That's a sure sign this isn't an American pleasure-boat. There are a good many English on board, the traveling kind. They're going over to 'do' America before the heat comes on. What Americans you see are tainted."
"What's a tainted American?" asked Lewis.
"I'm a tainted American, and you are," said Leighton. "A tainted American is one who has lived so long abroad that he goes to America on business."
The house that Aunt Jed had left to Natalie stood on the lip of a vast basin. From its veranda one looked down into a peaceful cup of life. The variegated green of the valley proclaimed to the wandering eye,
"All sorts are here that all the earth yields!Variety without end."
There was a patchwork of fields bordered with gray stone walls, of stray bits of pasture, of fallow meadow and glint of running water, of woodland, orchard, and the habitations of man made still by distance.
Aunt Jed's house was not on the highway. The highway was miles off, and cut the far side of the basin in a long, straight slant. On that gash of white one could see occasional tiny motor-cars hurrying up and down like toys on a taut string. Only one motor, a pioneer car, had struggled up the road that led past Natalie's door, and immediately after, that detour had been marked as impassable on all the best maps.
In fact, the road up to Aunt Jed's looked more like a river-bed than a road. It had a gully and many "thank-you-ma'ams." It was plentifully sown with pebbles as big as your head and hard as flint, which gave tit for tat to every wheel that struck them. Every time Mrs. Leighton ventured in Natalie's cart—and it was seldom indeed except to go to church—she would say, "We really must have this road fixed."
But Natalie would only laugh and say,
"Not a bit of it. I like it that way."
Natalie had bought for a song a little mare named Gipsy. Nobody, man or woman, could drive Gip; she just went. Whoever rode, held on and prayed for her to stop. Gip hated that road down into the valley. If she could have gone from top to bottom in one jump, she would have done it. As it was, she did the next best thing. What made you love Gip was that she came up the hill almost as fast as she went down.
Soon after Gip became Natalie's, she awoke to find herself famous from an attempt to pass over and through a stalled motor-car. After that the farmers used to keep an eye out for her, especially on Sundays, and give her the whole road when they saw her coming. Ann Leighton said it was undignified to go to church like that, to which Natalie replied:
"Think what it's doing for your color, Mother. Besides, think of church. You must admit that church here has gone a bit tough. I really couldn't stand it except sandwiched between two slices of Gip."
Aunt Jed's house—nobody ever called it anything else—was typical of the old New England style, except that a broad veranda had been added to the length of the front by the generation that had outraged custom and reduced the best parlor and the front door to everyday uses. This must have happened many years before Natalie's advent, for a monster climbing rose of hardy disposition had more than half covered the veranda before she came.
The house itself was of clapboards painted white, and stood four square; its small-paned windows, flanked with green shutters, blinking toward the west. It had a very prim air, said to have been absorbed from Aunt Jed, and seemed to be eternally trying to draw back its skirts from contact with the interloping veranda and the rose-tree, which, toward the end of the flowering season, certainly gave it a mussed appearance. At such times, if the great front door was left open on a warm day, the house took on a look of open-mouthed horror, which immediately relapsed to primness once the door was closed.
Natalie was the discoverer of this evidence of personality. Sitting under the two giant elms that were the sole ornament of the soft old lawn, she suddenly caught the look on the face of the house, and called out:
"Mother, come here! Come quickly!" as though the look couldn't possibly last through Mrs. Leighton's leisurely approach.
"What is it, dear?" asked Mrs. Leighton.
"Why, the house!" said Natalie. "Look at it. It's horrified at something. I think it must be the mess the roses have made. Can't you see what it's saying? It's saying, 'Well, I never!'"
Mrs. Leighton laughed.
"It does look sort of funny," she said.
Just then old mammy put her gray head out of the door to hear what the talk was about. She wore glasses, as becoming to her age, but peered over them when she wanted to see anything.
"What youans larffin' abeout?" she demanded.
"We're laughing at the house," cried Natalie. "It's got its mouth open and the funniest look on its face. Come and see."
"Mo' nonsense," grunted mammy and slammed the door.
Then it was that the house seemed to withdraw suddenly into the primness of virginal white paint.
"That's what it wanted," cried Natalie, excitedly—"just to get its mouth shut. O Mother, isn't it an olddear?"
Stub Hollow had looked upon the new arrivals at Aunt Jed's as summer people until they began to frequent Stub Hollow's first and only Presbyterian church. Natalie, who like all people of charm, was many years younger inside than she was out, immediately perceived that the introduction of mammy in her best Sunday turban into that congregation would do a great deal toward destroying its comatose atmosphere. Like many another New England village church, Stub Hollow's needed a jar and needed it badly. But it wasn't the church that got the jar.
Upon the introduction of Gip into the family circle, it was conceded that there was no longer any reason why mammy should resign the benefits of communal worship. Consequently, with many a grunt,—for good food and better air had well nigh doubled her proportions,—mammy climbed from the veranda to the back seat of the cart and filled it. For a moment it seemed doubtful whether mammy or Gip would hold the ground, but Gip finally won out by clawing rapidly at the pebbly road and getting the advantage of the down grade.
Neither Natalie nor Mrs. Leighton ever knew just where it was they lost mammy, but it couldn't have been far from the gate; for just as they were dipping into the wood half-way down the hill, Mrs. Leighton happened to glance back, missed mammy, and saw her stocky form waddling across the lawn toward the back of the house. Mrs. Leighton was also young inside. She said nothing.
When finally they drew up, with the assistance of three broad-shouldered swains, at the church, Natalie looked back and gasped,
"Mammy! Mother, where's mammy?"
"You don't suppose she could have got off to pick flowers, do you?" asked Mrs. Leighton, softly.
"Why,Mother!" cried Natalie. "Do you know that mammy may bekilled?We'll have to go straight back."
"No, we won't," said Mrs. Leighton, flushing at her levity before the very portals of the church. "She's all right. I looked back, and saw her crossing the lawn."
"Even so," said Natalie, severely, "I'm surprised atyou." Then she laughed.
Church seemed very long that day, but at last they were out in the sunshine again and Gip was given her full head. No sooner had Zeke, the hired man, seized the bit than Natalie sprang from the cart and rushed to the kitchen. She found mammy going placidly about her business.
"Doan' yo' talk to me, chile," she burst out at sight of Natalie. "Doan' yo' dast talk to me!"
Natalie threw her arms about her.
"You poor mammy," she murmured. "Aren't you hurt?"
"Hurt!" snorted mammy. "Yo' mammy mought 'a' been killed ef she didn' carry her cushions along wif 'er pu'sson."
Six miles away from Aunt Jed's, on the top of a hill overlooking the Housatonic Valley, stood the Leighton homestead, a fine old-fashioned house, now unoccupied save for a care-taking farmer and his wife, who farmed the Leighton acres on shares. The homestead belonged to Lewis's father, and in the natural course of events was destined to become Lewis's property.
Great was the excitement at Homestead Farm when a telegram arrived announcing the imminent arrival of owner and son.
"Land sakes! William," gasped Mrs. Tuck, "in two days! You'll hev to send 'em a telegram tellin' 'em it can't be done nohow. I told you my conscience was a-prickin' me over the spring cleanin'. Seems like Providence was a-jostlin' my elbow all these days, and I was jest too ornery to pay heed."
"In two days, it says," repeated William; "and we can't send no telegram because there ain't no address."
Tuck and his wife had no children. They occupied the kitchen for a living-room and the big bedroom over it at night. The main part of the house was shut up. The hired hands occupied rooms in the barn that had once been the quarters of a numerous stable force, for the Leightons had always gone in for horses, as two or three long-standing trotting records at neighboring county fairs gave evidence.
Mrs. Tuck was not long in facing the inevitable. First of all she commandeered all the labor on the farm; then she sent a call for aid to a couple of neighbors. Within an hour all the green shutters had swung wide on their creaking hinges, and the window-sashes were up. Out of the open windows poured some dust and a great deal of commotion. Before night the big house was spick and span from garret to cellar.
"Does seem to me," said Mrs. Tuck, as she placed a very scrappy supper before William, "like dust is as human as guinea pigs. Where you say it can't get in, it jest breeds."
"Now you sit down and take it easy, Mrs. Tuck," said William, who had married late in life and never got on familiar terms with his wife. "I reckon them men-folks ain't so took with reddin' up as you think they be."
"Oh, I know," said the tired, but by no means exhausted, Mrs. Tuck, "I ain't forgettin' their innards, ef thet's what you're thinkin' of. You just tell Silas to kill four broilers, an' I'll clean 'em to-night. Thet'll give me a start, and to-morow I c'n do a few dozen pies. Ihevgot some mince-meat, thank goodness! an' you c'n get me in some of them early apples in the morning. Seems like I'm not going to sleep a wink for thinkin'."
Lewis and Leighton did not motor from New York to the Homestead Farm, as ten years later they might have done. Motors, while common, were still in that stage of development which made them a frequent source of revenue to the farmer with a stout team of horses. Consequently it was by train that they arrived at Leighton's home station—a station that had grown out of all recognition since last he had seen it.
However, he himself had not grown out of recognition. A lank figure of a man, red-cheeked, white-bearded, slouch-hatted, and in his shirt-sleeves, stepped forward and held out a horny hand.
"Well, Glen, how be ye? Sure am glad to see ye back."
"Me, too," said Leighton, grinning and flushing with pleasure. "Come here, Lew. Shake hands with Mr. Tuck."
"Well, I swan!" chuckled William as he crushed Lewis's knuckles. "Guess you don't recollec' ridin' on my knee, young feller?"
"No, I don't," said Lewis, and smiled into the old man's moist blue eyes.
"And who he this?" asked William, turning toward Nelton.
"That? Oh, that's Nelton," said Lewis.
"Glad to meet ye, Mr. Nelton. Put it thar!" said William, holding out a vast hand.
For an instant Nelton paused, then, with set teeth and the air of one who comes to grips with an electric battery, he laid his fingers in Mr. Tuck's grasp. "Huh!" remarked William, "ye ain't got much grip. Wait tell we've stuffed ye with buttermilk 'n' pies 'n' victuals 'n' things."
Nelton said not a word, but cast an agonized look at Leighton, who came to his aid.
"Now, William, what have you brought down?"
"Well, Glen, there's me an' the kerryall for the folks, an' Silas here with the spring-wagon for the trunks."
"Good," said Leighton. "Here, Silas, take these checks and look afterMr. Nelton. Lew and I will go in the carryall."
"Fancy your governor a-pullin' of my leg!" murmured Nelton, presumably to Lewis, but apparently to space. "Why don't 'e tell this old josser as I'm a menial, and be done with it."
Old William started, stared at Nelton, then at Leighton. He walked off toward the carryall, scratching his head.
"What is it?" he asked Lewis, in a loud whisper.
"That's dad's valet," said Lewis, grinning.
"Valley, is it?" said William, glancing over one shoulder. "Nice, lush bit o' green, to look at him. What does he do?"
"Looks after dad. Waits on him, helps him dress, and packs his bags for him."
William stopped in his tracks and turned on Leighton.
"Glen," he said, "I don't know ez you c'n stand to ride in the old kerryall. I ain't brought no sofy pillows, ner even a fire-screen to keep the sun from sp'ilin' yer complexion."
Leighton smiled, but said nothing. They had reached the carryall, an old hickory structure sadly in need of paint. Hitched to it were two rangy bays. The harness was a piece of ingenious patchwork, fitted with hames instead of collars. Leighton stepped into the back seat, and Lewis followed. William unhitched the horses and climbed into the cramped front seat. When he had settled down, his knees seemed to be peering over the dash-board. "Gid ap!" he cried, and the bays started off slowly across the bridge.
The road to the homestead followed down the river for three miles before it took to the hills. No sooner had the carryall made the turn into the River Road than the bays sprang forward so suddenly that Lewis's hat flew off backward, and for a moment he thought his head had followed.
"Heh!" he called, "I've lost my hat!"
"Never mind your hat, Son," shouted William. "Silas'll pick it up."
The bays evidently thought he was shouting at them. They let their enormous stride out another link. The carryall plowed through the dust, rattled over pebbles, and, where the road ran damp under overhanging trees, shot four streams of mud from its flying wheels. Old William chewed steadily at the cud of tobacco he had kept tucked in his cheek during the interview at the station. His long arms were stretched full length along the taut reins. If he had only had hand-holds on them, he would have been quite content. As it was, he was grinning.
"Gee, Dad!" gasped Lewis, "d'you know those horses are stilltrotting!"
Leighton leaned forward.
"Got a match, William?" he shouted above the creak and rattle of the carryall.
"Heh?" yelled William.
The bays let out another link.
"Got a match?" repeated Leighton. "I want to smoke."
William waved his beard at his left-hand pocket.
As they struck a bit of quiet, soft road, Leighton called:
"Why don't you let 'em out? You've gone and left your whip at home. How are we going to get up the hill?"
The grin faded from Old William's face. "Gid ap!" he roared, and then the bays showed what they could really do in the way of hurrying for the doctor. The old carryall leaped a thank-you-ma'am clean. When it struck, the hickory wheels bent to the storm, but did not break. Instead, they shot their load into the air. A low-hanging branch swooped down and swept the canopy, supports and all, off the carryall. William never looked back.
Lewis clung to the back of the front seat.
"D-d-dad," he stuttered, "p-please don't say anything more to him! D-d'you know they'restilltrotting?"
At last the bays swung off upon the steep Hill Road, and slowed down to a fast, pulling walk. Old William dropped the reins on the dash-board, made a telling shot with tobacco juice at a sunflower three yards off, and turned to have a chat.
"Glen," he said, "I reckon, after all, there's times when you c'n do without sofy pillows."
"Why, William," said Leighton, still pale with fright, "If I'd had a pillow, I'd have gone fast asleep." Then he smiled. "Some of the old stock?"
William nodded.
"I don't mind tellin' you I ain't drove like thet sence the day me'n you—"
"Never mind since when, William," broke in Leighton, sharply. "How'sMrs. Tuck?"
"Is that the house?" asked Lewis, as they mounted the brow of the hill.
Leighton nodded.
Across a wide expanse of green that was hardly smooth enough to be called a lawn gleamed the stately homestead. It was of deep-red brick, trimmed with white. It stood amid a grove of giant sugar-maples. The maples blended with the green shutters of the house, and made it seem part and parcel of the grove. Upon its front no veranda had dared encroach, but at one side could be seen a vine-covered stoop that might have been called a veranda had it not been dwarfed to insignificance by the size of the house. The front door, which alone in that country-side boasted two leaves, was wide open, and on the steps leading up to it, resplendent in fresh gingham, stood Mrs. Tuck.
With some difficulty William persuaded the bays to turn into the long-unused drive that swept up to the front door. Leighton sprang out.
"Hallo, Mrs. Tuck!" he cried. "How are you?"
"How do you do? I'm very pleased to see you back, Mr. Leighton," said Mrs. Tuck, who read the best ten-cent literature and could talk "real perlite" for five minutes at a stretch. "Come right along in. You'll find all the rooms redded up—I mean—"
"Yes, yes," laughed Leighton, "I know what you mean all right. I haven't even forgotten the smell of hot mince pies. Lew, don't you notice a sort of culinary incense——'
"Land sakes! them pies is a-burnin'!" shrieked Mrs. Tuck as she turned and ran.
William offered to show the way to the bedrooms, but Leighton refused.
"No," he said, "we'll come around and help you put up the team. No use washing up till we get our things."
Silas, with the spring-wagon, duly appeared. On top of the baggage, legs in air, was the discarded canopy of the carryall. Beside Silas sat Nelton. He was trembling all over. In his lap he held Lewis's hat. His bulging eyes were fastened on it.
"There they be," grunted Silas. "Told you they was all right. William be a keerful driver."
Nelton raised his eyes slowly. They lit, with wonder.
"Mr. Leighton," he cried, "Master Lewis, are you safe?'
"Quite safe, Nelton," said Leighton. "Why?"
Nelton mutely held out Lew's hat and jerked his head back at the wrecked canopy.
"Oh, yes," said Leighton, nodding; "we dropped those. Thank you for picking them up. Take the bags up-stairs."
"Lew," said Leighton, as they were washing, "did you use to have dinner at night at Nadir or supper?"
"Supper," said Lewis.
"Well," said Leighton, "that's what you'll get today—at six o'clock, and don't you be frightened when you see it. It has been said of the Scotch that the most wonderful thing about them is that they can live on oats. The mystery of the brawn and muscle of New England is no less wrapped up in pies. But don't hesitate. Pitch in. There's something about this air that turns a nightly mixture of mince-pies, pumpkin-pies, custard-pies, lemon-pies, and apple-pies, with cheese, into a substance as heavenly light as fresh-fallen manna. It is a tradition, wisely fostered by the farmers, that the only thing that can bring nightmare and the colic to a stomach in New England are green apples and stolen melons."
Lewis was in good appetite, as was Leighton. They ate heartily of many things besides pies, went to bed at nine, and would have slept the round of the clock had not a great gong—a bit of steel rail hung on a wire—and all the multitudinous noises of farm headquarters broken out in one simultaneous chorus at half-past five in a glorious morning.
Noisy geese and noisier cocks, whinnying horses and lowing cattle, the rattle of milk-tins, the squeak of the well-boom, the clank of mowing-machines, the swish of a passing brush-harrow, and, finally, the clamoring gong, were too much for Nelton. Lewis, on his way to look for a bath, caught him stuffing what he called "cotton an' wool" into his ears.
"Tork about the streets of Lunnon, Master Lewis," he said. "I calls this country lifedeafenin'."
Lewis had wanted to telegraph to Natalie, but Leighton had stopped him.
"You've waited too long for that," he had said. "You have apparently neglected Natalie and Mrs. Leighton. When people think they've been neglected, never give them a chance to think up what they're going to say to you. Just fall on them."
As soon as they had breakfasted, Leighton took Lewis to the top of the hill at the back of the homestead. It was a high hill. It commanded a long stretch of the Housatonic Valley to the east, and toward the west and north it overlooked two ridges, with the dips between, before the eye came up against the barrier of the Berkshire range.
Lewis drew a long breath of the cold, morning air.
"It's beautiful, Dad," he said.
"Beautiful!" repeated Leighton, his eyes sweeping slowly and wistfully across the scene. "Boy, God has made no lovelier land."
Then he turned to the west and pointed across to the second ridge. "Do you see that gleam of white that stands quite alone?"
"Yes, I think I see what you mean," said Lewis. "'Way down, just below it, you can see the tip of a church steeple."
"So you can," said Leighton. "Well, that gleam of white is Aunt Jed's.Make for it. That's where you'll find Natalie."
"Is it?" said Lewis, straightening, and with a flush of excitement in his cheeks. "Aren't you coming, too?"
"No," said Leighton; "not to-day. We won't expect you back before supper. Tell Mrs. Leighton that I'll be over soon to see her and thank her."
Lewis started off with an eager stride, only to learn that Aunt Jed's was farther away than it looked. He found a road and followed it through the valley and up the first ridge, then seeing that the road meandered off to the right into a village, he struck off across the fields straight for the distant house.
He had passed through the moist bottoms and come upon a tract of rock-strewn pasture land when he saw before him the figure of a girl. Her back was to him. A great, rough straw hat hid her head. She wore a white blouse and a close-fitting blue skirt. She was tall and supple, but she walked slowly, with her eyes on the ground. In one hand she carried a little tin pail.
Lewis came up behind her.
"What are you looking for?" he asked.
The girl started and turned. Lewis stepped forward. They stood and stared at each other. The little tin pail slipped from the girl's hand.
"Strawberries," she stammered. "I was looking for strawberries." Then she added so low that he scarcely heard her, "Lew?"
"Nat!" cried Lewis. "ItisNat!"
Natalie swayed toward him. He caught her by the arms. She looked at him and tried to smile, but instead she crumpled into a heap on a rock and cried—cried as though her heart would break.
Lewis sat down beside her and put one arm around her.
"Why, Nat, aren't you glad to see me? Nat, don't cry! Aren't you gladI've come?"
Natalie nodded her head hard, but did not try to speak. Not till she had quite finished crying did she look up. Then her tear-stained face broke into a radiant smile.
"That's—that's why I'm crying," she gasped; "because I'm so glad."
So there they sat together and talked about what? About strawberries. Lewis said that he had walked miles across the fields, and seen heaps of blossoms but no berries. He didn't think the wild ones had berries. Which, Natalie said, was nonsense. Of course they had berries, only it was too early. She had found three that were pinkish. She pointed to them where they had rolled from the little tin pail. Lewis picked one up and examined it.
"You're right," he said gravely, "it's a strawberry."
Then silence fell upon them—a long silence, and at the end Lewis said:
"Nat, do you remember at Nadir the guavas—when, you'd come out to whereI was with the goats?"
Natalie nodded, a starry look in her far-away eyes.
"Nat," said Lew, "tell me about it—about Nadir—about—about everything. About how you went back to Consolation Cottage."
Natalie flashed a look at him.
"How did you know we had been back to Consolation Cottage?"
"Why, I went there," said Lewis. "It isn't three months since I went there."
"Did you, Lew?" said Natalie, her face brightening. "Did you go just to look for us?"
"Of course," said Lewis. "Now tell me."
"No," said Natalie, with a shake of her head, "you first."
In the innocence of that first hour Lewis told Natalie all. He even told her of Folly, as though Folly, like all else, was something they could share between them. Natalie did not wince. There are blows that just sting—the sharp, quick blows that make us cry out, and then wonder why we cried, so quickly does the pain pass. They are nothing beside the blows that slowly fall and crush and keep their pain back till the overwhelming last.
People wonder at the cruel punishment a battered man can take and never cry out, at the calm that fills the moment of life after the mortal wound, and at the steady, quiet gaze of big game stricken unto death. They do not know that when the blood of man or beast is up, when the heart thunders fast in conflict or in the chase, there is no pain. A man can get so excited over some trifle that a bullet will plow through his flesh without his noticing it. Pain comes afterward. Pain is always an awakening.
Natalie was excited at the sudden presence of Lew and at the wonder of his tale. In that galaxy of words that painted to her a climbing fairy movement of growth and achievement the single fact of Folly shot through her and away, but the wound stayed. For the moment she did not know that she was stricken, nor did Lewis guess. And so it happened that that whole day passed like a flash of happy light.
Natalie, in her wisdom, had gone ahead to warn Mrs. Leighton and mammy of Lewis's coming. Even so, when the two women took him into their long embrace, he knew by the throbbing of their hearts how deeply joy can shake foundations that have stood firm against the heaviest shocks of grief.
Gip and the cart, with Natalie at the helm, whisked Lewis back to the homestead. What memories of galloping ponies and a far, wide world that ride awakened they did not speak in words, but the light that was in their faces when at the homestead gate they said good night was the light that shines for children walking hand in hand in the morning land of faith.
Natalie could not eat that night. She slipped away early to bed—to the little, old-fashioned bed that had been Aunt Jed's. It, too, was a four-poster; but so pompous a name overweighted its daintiness. So light were its trimmings in white, so snowy the mounds of its pillows and the narrow reach of its counterpane, that it seemed more like a nesting-place for untainted dreams than the sensible, stocky little bed it was.
Natalie went to bed and to sleep, but scarcely had the last gleam faded from the western sky when she awoke. A sudden terror seized her. The pillow beneath her cheek was wet. Upon her heart a great weight pressed down and down. For a moment she rebelled. She had gone to sleep in the lap of her happiest day. How could she wake to grief? A single word tapped at her brain: Folly, Folly. And then she knew—she knew the wound her happy day had left; and wide-eyed, fighting for breath, her arms outstretched, she felt the slow birth of the pain that lives and lives and grows with life.
Natalie cried easily for happiness, and so the tears that she could spare to grief were few. Not for nothing had she been born to the note of joy. Through all her life, so troubled, so thinly spread with pleasures, she had clung to her inheritance. Often had her mind questioned her heart: "What is there in this empty day? Why do you laugh? Why do you sing?" And ever her heart had answered, "I laugh and sing because, if not to-day, then to-morrow, the full day cometh."
But to-night her inheritance seemed a little and a cruel thing. Wide-eyed she prayed for the tears that would not come. Dry were her eyes, dry was her throat, and dry the pressing weight upon her heart. Hours passed, and then she put forth her strength. She slipped from the bed and walked with groping hands toward the open window. In the semi-darkness she moved like a tall, pale light. Down her back and across her bosom her hair fell like a caressing shadow. Her white feet made no sound.
She reached the window and knelt, her arms folded upon the low sill. She tossed the hair from before her face and looked out upon the still night. How far were the stars to-night—as cold and far as on that night of long ago when she had stood on the top of the highest hill and called to the desert for Lew!
She stayed at the window for a long time, and found meager comfort at last in the thought that Lewis could not have guessed. How could he have guessed what she herself had not known? She arose and went back to bed. Then she lay thinking and planning a course that should keep not only Lewis but also Mrs. Leighton and mammy blind to the wound she bore. And while she was in the midst of planning, sleep came and made good its ancient right to lock hands with tired youth.
Leighton was crestfallen to see in what high spirits Lew had come back from his first day with Natalie. He lost faith at once in H lne's cure. Then, as they went to bed, he clutched at a straw.
"Lew," he asked, "did you tell your pal everything?"
"Everything I could think of in the time," said Lewis, smiling. "One day isn't much when you've got half of two lives to go over. Of course there were things we forgot. We'll have them to tell to-morrow."
"Was Folly one of the things you forgot?"
"No," answered Lewis and paused, a puzzled look on his brow. He was wondering why he had remembered Folly. To-night she seemed very far away. Then he threw back his head and looked at his father. "Why did you ask that?"
Leighton did not answer for a moment. Finally he said:
"Because it's the one thing you hadn't a right to keep to yourself. I'm glad you saw that. Always start square with a woman. If you do,—afterward,—she'll forgive you anything."
Lewis went to bed with the puzzled look still on his face. It was not because he hadseenanything that he had told of Folly. He had told of her simply as a part of chronology—something that couldn't be skipped without leaving a gap. Now he wondered, if he had had time to think, would he have told? He had scarcely put the question to himself when sleep blotted out thought.
On the next day Leighton had the bays hitched to what was left of the carryall, and with Silas and Lewis drove over to Aunt Jed's to pay his respects to Mrs. Leighton. Natalie and Lew went off for a ramble in the hills. Mammy bustled about her kitchen dreaming out a dream of an early dinner for the company, and murmuring instructions to Ephy, a pale little slip of a woman whom the household, seeking to help, had installed as helper. Mrs. Leighton stayed with Leighton out under the elms. They talked little, but they said much.
It was still early in the day when Leighton said:
"I shall call you Ann. You must call me Glen."
"Of course," answered Mrs. Leighton, and then wondered why it was "of course." "I suppose," she said aloud, "it's 'of course' because of Lew. I feel as though I were sitting here years ahead, talking to Lew when his head will be turning gray."
"Don't!" cried Leighton. "Don't say that! Lew travels a different road."
Mrs. Leighton looked up, surprised at his tone.
"Perhaps you don't see what we can see. Perhaps you don't know what you have done for Lew."
"I have done nothing for Lew," said Leighton, quickly. "If anything has been done for Lew, it was done in the years when I was far from him in body, in mind, and in spirit. Lew would have been himself without me. It is doubtful whether he would have been himself without you. I—I don't forget that."
At four o'clock Leighton sent for Silas.
"Take the team home, Silas," he said. "We're going to walk. Come along,Lew."
"It's awfully early, Dad," said Lew, with a protesting glance at the high sun.
"The next to the last thing a man learns in social finesse," said Leighton, "and the very last rule that reaches the brain of woman, is to say good-by while it's still a shock to one's hosts."
"And it's still a shock to-day," said Mrs. Leighton, smiling. "But you mustn't quarrel with what your father's said, Lew," she added. "He's given you the key to the heart of 'Come again!'"
"As if Lew would ever need that!" cried Natalie.
Soon after leaving the house, Leighton struck off to the right and up. His step was not springy. His head hung low on his breast, and his fingers gripped nervously at the light stick he carried. He did not speak, and Lewis knew enough not to break that silence. They crossed a field, Leighton walking slightly ahead. He did not have to look up to lead the way.
Presently they came into a lane. It dipped off to the left, into the valley. It was bordered by low, gray stone walls. On its right hung a thick wood of second-growth trees—a New England wood, various beyond the variety of any other forest on earth. It breathed a mingled essence of faint odors. The fronds of the trees reached over and embowered the lane.
On the left the view was open to the valley by reason of a pasture. The low stone wall was topped by a snaky fence of split rails. They were so old, so gray, that they, too, seemed of stone. Beyond them sloped the meager pasture-land; brown, almost barren even in the youth of the year. It was strewn with flat, outcropping rocks. Here and there rose a mighty oak. A splotch of green marked a spring. Below the spring one saw the pale blush of laurel in early June.
Leighton stopped and prodded the road with his stick. Lewis looked down. He saw that his father's hand was trembling. His eyes wandered to a big stone that peeped from the loam in the very track of any passing wheel. The stone was covered with moss—old moss. It was a long time since wheels had passed that way.
Leighton walked on a few steps, and then paused again, his eyes fixed on a spot at the right of the lane where the old wall had tumbled and brought with it a tangled mass of fox-grape vine. He left the roadway and sat on the lower wall, his back against a rail. He motioned to Lewis to sit down too.
"I have brought you here," said Leighton and stopped. His voice had been so low that Lewis had understood not a word. "I have brought you here," said Leighton again, and this time clearly, "to tell you about your mother."
Lewis restrained himself from looking at his father's face.
"Your mother's name," went on Leighton, "was Jeanette O'Reilly. She was a milk-maid. That is, she didn't have to milk the cows, but she took charge of the milk when it came into the creamery and did to and with it all the things that women do with milk. I only knew your mother when she was seventeen. No one seemed to know where Jeanette came from. Perhaps Aunt Jed knew. I think she did, but she never told. I never asked. To me Jeanette came straight from the hand of God.
"I have known many beautiful women, but since Jeanette, the beauty of women has not spoken to the soul of me. There is a beauty—and it was hers—that cries out, just as a still and glorious morning cries out, to the open windows of the soul. To me Jeanette was all sighing, sobbing beauty. Beauty did not rest upon her; it glowed through her. She alone was the prism through which my eyes could look upon the Promised Land. I knew it, and so—I told my father.
"I was only a boy, not yet of age. My father never hesitated. All the power that law and tradition allowed he brought to bear. He forbade me to visit Aunt Jed's or to see Jeanette again. He gave me to understand that the years held no hope for me—that on the day I broke his command I would cut myself off from him and home. To clinch things, he sent me away to college a month early, and put me under a tutor.
"There is a love that forgets all else—that forgets honor. I forged a letter to the authorities and signed my father's name to it. It told them to send me back at once—that my mother was ill. I came back to these hills, but not home. Far back in the woods here William Tuck had a hut. He was a wood-cutter. He lived alone. He owed nothing to any man. Many a time we had shot and fished together. I came back to William.
"This lane doesn't lead to Aunt Jed's. This land never belonged to her. Here we used to meet, Jeanette and I. You see the mass of fox-grape over yonder? In that day the wall hadn't tumbled. It stood straight and firm. The fox-grape sprang from it and climbed in a great veil over the young trees. Behind that wall, in the cool dusk of the grapevine, we used to sit and laugh inside when a rare buggy or a wagon went by."
Leighton drew a long breath.
"I used to lie with my head in Jeanette's lap because it was the only way I could see her eyes. Her lashes were so long that when she raised them it was like the slow flutter of the wings of a butterfly at rest. She did not raise them often. She kept them down—almost against the soft round of her cheek—because—because, she said, she could dream better that way.
"How shall I tell you about her hair? I used to reach up and pull at it until it tumbled. And then, because Jeanette's hair never laughed except when it was the playmate of light, I used to drag her to her feet, across the wall, across the lane, down there to the flat rock just above the spring.
"There we would sit, side by side, and every once in a while look fearfully around, so public seemed that open space. But all we ever saw for our pains was a squirrel or perhaps a woodchuck looking around fearfully, too. Jeanette would sit with her hands braced behind her, her tumbled hair splashing down over her shoulders and down her back. The setting sun would come skipping over the hills and play in her hair, and Jeanette's hair would laugh—laugh out loud. And I—I would bury my face in it, as you bury your face in flowers, and wonder at the unshed tears that smarted in my eyes."
Leighton stopped to sigh. It was a quivering sigh that made Lewis want to put out his hand and touch his father, but he was afraid to move. Leighton went on.
"Look well about you, boy. No wheel has jarred this silence for many a year—not since I bought the land you see and closed the road. Man seldom comes here now,—only children in the fall of the year when the chestnuts are ripe. Jeanette liked children. She was never anything but a child herself. Look well about you, I say, for these still woods and fields, with God's free air blowing over them,—they were your cradle, the cradle of your being.
"It was Jeanette that made me go back to college when college opened, but months later it was William that sent for me when Jeanette was too weak to stop him. The term was almost over. Through all the winter I had never mentioned Jeanette to the folks at home, hoping that my father would let me come home for the summer and wander these hills unwatched. Now William wrote. I couldn't make out each individual word, but the sum of what he tried to tell flew to my heart.
"Jeanette had disappeared from Aunt Jed's three months before. They had not found her, for they had watched for her only where I was. She had gone to William's little house. She had been hidden away there. While she was well enough, she had not let him send for me. There was panic in William's letter, for he wrote that he would meet the first train by which I could come, and every other train thereafter.
"You heard William say the other day that he had never driven like that since—and there I stopped him. It was since the day I came back to Jeanette he was going to say. We didn't mind the horses breaking that day. Where the going was good, they ran because they felt like it; where it was bad, they ran because I made them. I asked William if he had a doctor, and he said he had. He had done more than that: he had married Mrs. Tuck to look after Jeanette.
"We stopped in the village for the parson. I was going to blurt out the truth to him, but William was wiser. He told him that some one was dying. So we got the old man between us, and I drove while William held him. He would have jumped out. He thought we were mad."
Leighton paused as he thought grimly over that ride. Then he went on:
"The last thing my father paid for out of his own pocket on my account was that team of horses from the livery stable. They got to William's all right, but they were broken—broken past repair. Poor beasts! Even so we were only just in time. The old parson married me to Jeanette. I would have killed him if he had hesitated. I didn't have to tell him so; he saw it.
"For one blessed moment Jeanette forgot pain and locked her arms about my neck. Then they pushed me out, and William and the parson with me. Mrs. Tuck and the doctor stayed in there. You were born." Leighton gripped his hands hard on his stick. "What—what was it the old Woman—the fortune-teller—said?"
"'Child of love art thou,'" repeated Lewis, in a voice lower than his father's. "'At thy birth was thy mother rent asunder, for thou wert conceived too near the heart.'"
Leighton trembled as though with the ague. He nodded his head, already low sunk upon his breast.
"It was that—just that," he whispered. "They called us in, the old preacher and me. Jeanette stayed just for a moment, her hand in mine, her eyes in mine, and then—she was gone. The old parson cried like a child. I wondered why he cried. Suddenly I knew, and my curses rose above his prayers. I sprang for William's rifle in the corner, and before they could stop me, I shot you.
"Boy, I shot to kill; but the best shot at a hundred yards will miss every time at a hundred inches. The bullet just grazed your shoulder, and at the sting of it you began to gasp and presently to cry. Tears afterward the doctor told me you would never have lived to draw a single breath if it hadn't been for that shot. The shock of it was what started your heart, your lungs. They had tried slapping, and it hadn't done any good."
Leighton paused again, before he went on in a dull voice.
"After that I can tell you what happened only from hearsay. Aunt Jed came and took you and what was left of Jeanette, your mother. Sometime you must stop in the churchyard down yonder under the steeple and look for a little slab that tells nothing—nothing except that Jeanette died a wife before the law and—and much beloved before God.
"They kept me at William's for days until I was in my right mind. The day they took me home was the day father paid for the horses—the day he died. I don't know if he would have forgiven me if he had lived. I never saw him again alive, after he knew. I've often wondered. I would give a lot to know, even to-day, that he would have forgiven. But life is like that. Death strikes and leaves us blind—blind to some vital spring of love, could we but find it and touch it."
Lewis was young. Just to hear the burden that had lain so long upon his father's heart was too much for him. Not for nothing had Leighton lived beside his boy. There, under the still trees, their souls reached out and touched. Lewis dropped his head and arms upon his father's knees and sobbed. He felt as though his whole heart was welling up in tears.
Leighton's hand fell caressingly upon him. He did not speak until his boy had finished crying, then he said:
"I've told you all this because you alone in all the world have a right to know, a right to know your full inheritance—the inheritance of a child of love."
Leighton paused.
"I never saw you again," he went on, "until that day when we met down there at the ends of the earth. Aunt Jed had sent you down there to hide you from me. Before she died she told me where you were and sent me to you. She needn't have told me to go after you.
"As you go on and meet a wider world, you will hear strange things of your father. Believe them all, and then, if you can, still remember. Don't waste love. That's a prayer and a charge. I've wasted a lot of life and self, but never a jot of love. Now go, boy. Tell them I've stayed behind for supper."
Lewis did not hurry. When he reached the homestead, it was already late. Mrs. Tuck had kept their supper hot for them. When she saw Lewis come in alone, she rushed up to him with eager questions of his father. Lewis looked with new eyes upon her kindly anxious face.
"It's all right," he said. "Dad stayed behind. He doesn't want any supper."
Mrs. Tuck looked shrewdly at him, and then turned away.
"It ain't never all right," she said half to herself, "when a man full-grown don't want his supper."
Lewis saw nothing more of his father that night. He tried to keep awake, but it was long after sleep had conquered him that Leighton came in. And during the days that followed he saw less and less of his father. Early in the morning Leighton would be up. He would eat, and then wander about the place listlessly with his cigar. His head hanging, he would wander farther and farther from the house until, almost without volition, he would suddenly strike off in a straight line across the hills.
Lewis would have noticed the desertion more had it not been for Natalie. Natalie claimed and held all his days. Together they walked and drove till Lewis had learned all the highways and byways that Natalie had long since discovered. She liked the byways best, and twice she drove through crowding brush to the foot of the lane that was barred.
"I've often come here," she said, "and I've even tried to pull those bars down, but they're solider than they look. I'm not strong enough. Will you help me some day? I want to follow that dear old mossy lane to its end, if it has one. It looks as if it led straight into the land of dreams."
"It probably does," said Lewis. "I'll never help you pull down those bars, because, if you've got any heart, you can look at them and see that whoever put them up owns that land of dreams, and there's no land of dreams with room for more than two people, and they must be holding hands."
"You've made me not want to go in there," said Natalie as she turned Gip around. "How could you see it like that? You're not a woman."
Lewis did not answer, but when, two days later, they were out after strawberries, and Natalie led him through a wood in the valley to the foot of the pasture with the oaks and the spring, Lewis stopped her.
"Don't let's go up there, Nan," he said. "That's part of somebody else's land of dreams. Dad's tip there somewhere, I'm sure."
Natalie looked at him, and he saw in her eyes that she knew all that he had not told in words.