Whiteoaks of Jalna/Chapter 27
There followed a succession of perfect September days, so alike in their unclouded sunshine—a sunshine which was without the energy, for all its warmth, to produce additional growth—that it seemed possible they might continue for ever without visibly changing the landscape. Michaelmas daisies, loosestrife, with here and there a clump of fringed gentian, continued to cast a bluish veil beside the paths and stream. In the garden nasturtiums, dahlias, campanula, phlox, and snapdragons continued to put forth flowers. The heavy bumblebee agitating these blossoms might well think: "I shall suck honey here for ever." The cow in the pasture, which this year had never turned brown, might well think: "There will be no end to this moist grass." The old people at Jalna might well think: "We shall not grow older and die, but shall live on for ever." Even Alayne, collecting her belongings in Fiddler's Hut, did so as in a dream. It seemed impossible that she should be going away, that life held the potentialities of change for her.
The action of the life to which she was returning seemed desirable to her. She could picture the things which she would do on her return with perfect precision, yet when she pictured herself as doing them it was not herself she saw, but a mere shadow. She thought: "There is no real place for me on earth. I was not made for happiness. I am as unreal to myself as a person in a play—less real, for I could laugh at them or weep for them, but I can only stare stupidly at myself and think how unreal I am."
She wondered whether the things with which the Hut had been so overfurnished would be left there. She had grown used to them, and they no longer seemed grotesque in the low-ceilinged rooms. She went about collecting the few things she wished to take away with her, and wondered what were Eden's thoughts as he lay on the sofa reading, now and then giving her a swift look across the page.
An odd embarrassment had arisen between them. He no longer had need of her care; their relationship was meaningless. They were like two travellers, forced by the exigencies of the journey into a juxtaposition from which each would be glad to escape. If he came in tired, he no longer demanded her sympathy, but sought to conceal his weariness. She no longer tried to prevent his doing things which she thought would be bad for his health. His restlessness was a source of irritation to her, while her reserve, and what he thought her stolidity, made her presence weigh upon him.
Yet on this, the second day before her departure, a mood of pensiveness had come upon Eden. He felt a somewhat sentimental desire to leave a memory, not too troubled, of himself with her. He would have liked to justify by some simple, yet how impossible, act their presence together in these last weeks. They avoided each other's eyes.
Eden, to override his embarrassment, began to read aloud scraps from his book:
"'My idiot guide was on his way back to Aldea Gallega. . . . And I mounted a sorry mule, without bridle or stirrups, which I guided by a species of halter. I spurred down the hill of Elvas to the plain . . . but I soon found that I had no need to quicken the beast which bore me, for, though covered with sores, wall-eyed, and with a kind of halt in its gait, it cantered along like the wind.'"
Alayne was about to empty a vase holding some faded late roses. She stopped before him, drew out one of them, and slid it down the page on to his hand.
He took it up and held it to his face.
"Still sweet," he murmured. "A queer kind of stifling sweetness. But it's beautiful. Why are dying roses the most beautiful? For they are—I'm sure they are."
She did not answer, but carried the flowers to the doorstep and threw them out on the grass. When she returned he was reading sonorously:
"'We soon took a turn to the left, toward a bridge of many arches across the Guadiana. . . . Its banks were white with linen which the washerwomen had spread out to dry in the sun, which was shining brightly; I heard their singing at a great distance, and the theme seemed to be the praises of the river where they were toiling, for as I approached I could distinguish "Guadiana, Guadiana," which reverberated far and wide, pronounced by the clear and strong voices in chorus of many a dark-cheeked maid and matron.'"
She went into his room and reappeared carrying his laundry bag. She took it to the kitchen, and he heard her talking to the Scotch maid. She returned and put a slip of paper into his hand.
"Your laundry list," she said. "You had better look it over when it comes back. They're very careless."
He crushed the neatly written list in his hand.
"Why, oh, why," he said, "can't my washing be done on the bank of a river by a singing dark-cheeked maid or matron? Why was I pitchforked into this prosaic life?"
"I dare say it can," she returned absently, "if you go far enough. . . . I don't know why, I am sure."
She began to take things from the desk. From her writing folio she turned out some Canadian stamps.
"Here are stamps I shan't need. On the blotter."
"Oh, all right. Thanks."
He looked at her half-quizzically, half-reproachfully, then impulsively got up and went to the desk. He smoothed out the laundry list, then, licking the stamps one by one, he stuck them in a fantastic border round the edge. He discovered a drawing-pin and pinned the paper to the wall.
"A memorial," he said, tragically.
She did not hear him. She was gone into her room.
He followed her to the door and stood looking in. She had changed into a thinner dress; her cheeks were flushed.
"Do you know," he said, "you are the most matter-of-fact being I have ever known?"
She turned toward him with raised brows. "Am I? I suppose so, compared to you."
"No other woman living," he returned, "could keep such orderly habits with such a disturbed mind." And his eyes added: "For your mind is horribly disturbed, you can't deny it!"
"I guess it was my training. If you could have known my parents and our way of living! Everything in such perfect order. Even our ideas pigeonholed."
"It's deeper than that. It's in your New England blood. It's a protective spirit guarding you, eh?"
"Possibly. Otherwise I might have gone mad among you."
"Never! Nothing would send you off your head. In spite of your scholastic forebears, I seem to see in you the spirit of some grim-lipped sea captain. His hands on the wheel, consulting the barometer, making entries in the log, while the blooming tempest raged and the bally mast broke and the blinking timbers shivered and the perishing rudder got out of commission. I can hear him saying to the mate: 'Have you made out the laundry list?'—while the heavens split! And taking time to stick a stamp on the brow of the cabin-boy so that his body might be identified when it was washed ashore."
Alayne began to laugh.
"How ridiculous you are!" she said.
"Tell me the truth, don't you feel that old fellow's chill blood in your veins?"
"I feel it boiling sometimes. My great-great-grandfather was a Dutch sea captain."
"Splendid! I knew you had something like that somewhere. Now if only he had been a Spanish sea captain, how we might have got on together!"
She made no response, but began to take things from a bureau drawer and lay them carefully in the tray of her trunk.
"I wish I could help you," he said, almost plaintively. "Do something for you."
"There's nothing you can do." She checked an impulse to say: "Except to leave me alone."
"I wonder if you will be angry with me if I ask you something."
She gave an unhappy little laugh. "I don't think so. I feel too tired for temper."
"Oh, I say!" His tone was contrite. "I've bothered you all the time you've been packing."
"It's not that. It always upsets me to go journeys. What did you want to ask?"
"Turn round and face me."
Alayne turned round. "Well?"
"Would you have come here to nurse me if Renny had not been here?"
The flush on her cheeks spread to her forehead. But she was not angry. The shock of what he had asked was too deep for that.
"Certainly, I should."
A look, antagonistic but shrewdly understanding, passed between them.
He said: "I believe you, though I'd rather not. I'd like to think that it was your love for him that dragged you here, against your reason. I hate to think that you did such a tremendous thing for me alone. Yet, in spite of what you say, you can't quite make me believe that you would have come back here if you had never loved Renny. The place itself must have had a fascination for you. I believe places keep some essence of the emotions that have been experienced in them, don't you? Do you think the Hut will ever be the same again after this summer? Alayne, I honestly believe that Jalna drew you back, whether you realize it or not."
She muttered: "How can you be sure that Renny and I care for each other? You talk as though we had had an affair!"
"When we came to Jalna after we were married, I saw that Renny had made a disturbing impression on you. Before many months had passed, I saw that you were trying desperately to beat down your love for him, and that he was trying just as hard to control his feeling for you."
Under his scrutiny she lost her air of reticence. She pressed her hand to her throat. She had woefully failed, then, in her first effort to conceal her love for Renny. Eden had watched this smouldering passion with an appraising eye from the beginning!
She asked brokenly: "Did that make a difference to you? Knowing so long ago that I loved Renny? I thought you had only guessed it, later—believed that I had turned to him when I found you didn't care any more"
He answered mercilessly: "Yes, it did make a difference. I felt an outsider."
"Then," she gasped, "I am to blame for everything! For Pheasant"
"No, no. It would have come, sooner or later. It's not in me to be faithful to any woman."
She persisted doggedly: "I am to blame for everything."
He came into the room and touched her with an almost childlike gesture.
"Alayne, don't look like that. You're so—it's stupid of you. You can't help what you are. Any more than I can help what I am. My dear, I suspect that we are much more alike than you would let yourself believe. The great difference between us is that you analyze yourself while I analyze others. It's better fun. . . . Alayne, look up"
She looked at him sombrely.
"The whole trouble has been," he said, "that you were a thousand times too good for me!"
She turned away from him and returned blindly to the arranging of her trunk.
He said: "I told old Renny one day that you'd go through hell for a sight of his red head."
"Oh! and what did he say?" Her voice was without expression. Eden should not bait her again.
"I forget. But of course he liked it."
She turned and faced him. "Eden, will you please leave me to pack in peace? You know that I have promised to spend the evening with your aunt and uncles. I have no time to waste. Are you coming?"
"No, you will be happier without me. Give them my love. Will Renny be there?"
"I don't know." How cruel he was! Why could he not let her be? How she would rejoice to be far away from all this in another twenty-four hours!
When he had returned to the living-room, he hung about miserably. He hated himself for having upset her. If he had! Perhaps it was the thought of going away that made her look like that. And he had meant to say something beautiful to her at the last! The whole situation was ludicrous. The sooner this impossible atmosphere was dispelled the better. . . . Did he hear a sob from the other room? Lord, he hoped not! That would be horrible. He stood and listened. No, it was all right. She was only clearing her throat. He fidgeted about till she came out, ready to go. She looked pale, calm, her hair beautifully cared for, as always. She had a pathetic air of serenity, as though the final word had been said, as though she were now beyond the reach of emotion. He saw that she had indeed been crying.
The sun had sunk below the treetops and had left them almost instantly in a well of greenish shadow. There was no afterglow, scarcely any twilight. After the rich radiance of the sun came shadow and chill. It was like the passing of their love, he thought, and mocked at himself for being sentimental.
"Alayne" he said.
"Yes?"
"Oh, nothing—I forgot what I was going to say." He followed her to the door. "You must have someone bring you home. It will be very dark."
She hesitated on the flat stone before the door. She turned suddenly to him, smiling.
"Home!" she repeated. "It was rather nice of you to say that."
He came out, took her hand and raised it to his lips. "Good-bye, Alayne!"
The crows were returning to their nests from some distant field. She heard their approach beyond the orchards, first as the humming of a vast hive of bees which, as it drew nearer, swelled into a metallic volume that drowned all other sound. The air rocked with their shouts. Separate cries of those in advance became audible, raucous commands, wild shouts, vehement assertions, shrill denials—every brazen, black-feathered throat gave forth an urgent cry. They passed above the orchard, against the yellowish sky, hundreds of them, seeking the pine wood. Some battled with the air to overtake those ahead; some swam steadily with forceful movements of the wings, while others drifted with a kind of rowdy grace.
As Alayne followed the orchard path beneath them she wondered if it were possible that in a few hours she would have left all this behind and returned to a life so alien.
There was no mistake about the welcome from those at Jalna. Piers and Pheasant were in Montreal. Renny, although the old people said they expected him, did not appear at supper. The summer had gone like a dream, Nicholas said. A strange, sad dream, Ernest added. Augusta tried to persuade Alayne to go to England with her instead of returning to New York. Augusta dreaded travelling alone, she dreaded returning to her lonely house, and Alayne had never seen England! Why could she not come? Alayne felt a momentary impulse to accept the invitation. Why not go across the ocean and see if she could find forgetfulness there? But how could she forget with one of that family beside her, with constant references being made to the others? No, she could not do it. Better cut loose from them entirely, and for ever. Finch played for her during the evening and she was filled with delight by the improvement in him, pride that it had been she who had persuaded Renny to have him taught. The air in the drawing-room, though subdued, was genial. It was full of a melancholy gentleness. Wakefield was allowed to take the jade and ivory curios from their cabinet to show them to Alayne, and afterward arrange them on the floor to his own satisfaction.
Alayne had never spent such an evening at Jalna. Something in it hurt her, made her feel more acutely the impending parting. And yet the old people were cheerful. They had been pleased by a call from Mrs. Leigh. "A pretty woman, egad!" from Nicholas. "Very modern and yet so sweet, so eager to please!" from Ernest. "She was for going to hunt you out at the Hut—you and Eden—but I told her you were out. I thought it best," from Augusta.
Wakefield curled up beside Alayne on the sofa. He took off her rings and adorned his own small fingers with them. But when he went to replace them she shut her hand against the wedding ring.
"I am not going to wear it any more," she said, in a low tone.
"But what shall I do with it?"
"I don't know. Ask Aunt Augusta."
"What shall I do with this, Aunt?" He twirled the ring on his finger.
Augusta replied, with dignity: "Put it in the cabinet with the curios."
"The very thing!" He flew to the cabinet. "Look, everybody! I've put it on the neck of the tiny white elephant. It's a jolly little collar for him."
Alayne watched him, with a smile half-humorous, half-bitter. So that was the end of that! A jolly little collar for a white elephant. And the glad thrill that she had felt when it had been placed on her finger. She fidgeted on the sofa. She had waited past her time in the hope that Renny would return. Why was he avoiding her? Was he afraid? But why should he be, when it was her last night at Jalna? All day she had hugged the anticipation of the walk back to the Hut at night. For surely he would take her back through the darkness! What he might say to her on the way had been the subject of fevered speculation all day. She had dressed herself, done her hair, with the thought that as he saw her that night, so would she remain in his memory. And he had taken himself away somewhere, rather than spend the evening in the room with her!
Augusta was murmuring something about a horse—Renny—he had been so sorry—his apologies.
"Yes? Oh, it is too bad, of course. Say good-bye to him for me."
"Oh, he will see you again," said Ernest. "He's driving you into town himself to-morrow."
No peace for her. The feverish speculations, the aching thoughts, would begin all over again.
She said: "Tell him not to trouble. Finch will drive me in, won't you, Finch?"
"I'd like it awfully."
"What do you suppose, Alayne?" cried Wake. "I've never been on a visit."
"What a shame! Will you visit me some time? I'd love to have you." She pressed him to her, on the sofa, and whispered: "Tell me, where is Renny?"
He whispered back: "In the stables, I know, because he sent Wright to the kitchen for something, and I was there."
Finch was to see her back to the Hut. He ran upstairs for his electric torch.
Alayne was enfolded in the arms of Augusta, Nicholas, and Ernest.
Ernest said: "How shall we ever repay you for what you have done for Eden?"
Nicholas growled: "How shall we ever make up to her for what he has done? Turned her life topsy-turvy."
Augusta said, holding her close: "If you change your mind about coming to England with me, just let me know. I'll make you very welcome."
"I advise you not to," said Nicholas. "She'll freeze you in that house of hers."
"Indeed I shan't! I know how to make people comfortable if anyone does. It was I who arranged the cottage for her, though Mama took all the credit." From her was exhaled a subdued odour of the black clothes she wore, and of a hair pomade with the perfume of a bygone day.
Finch and Alayne were out in the darkness, the beam from the electric torch thrown before her. Cold, sweet scents rose from the flower-beds. The grass was dripping with dew.
"Let us go through the pine wood," she said. She had thought to return that way with Renny.
They spoke little as they went along the bridle path beneath the pines. Her mind was engaged with its own unhappy thoughts. Finch's was filled with the sadness of life, its reaching out, its gropings in the dark, its partings. It was cold under the trees. From a cluster of hazels came the troubled talking of small birds passing the night there on their migration to the South.
Finch flashed the light among the branches, hoping to discover the small things perching. His attention was diverted to a more distant sound, as of footsteps moving among the pines.
"What are you listening to?" whispered Alayne.
"I thought I heard a twig break. Someone in there. Wait a second." He left her and ran softly padding toward the sound.
She strained her ears to listen, her eyes following the moving beam of the electric torch. The sound of Finch's padding steps ceased. The light was blotted out. She was in black silence except for the infinitesimally delicate song of a single locust on a leaf near her. She was frightened.
She called sharply: "Finch! What are you doing?"
"Here! It was nothing."
The torch flashed again; he trotted back to her. "One of the men hanging about." He thought: "Why was Renny hiding in the wood? Why didn't he turn up at the house? If looks could kill, I'd be a dead man! Gosh, he looked like Gran!"
The Hut lay in darkness, save for starlight sifting among the trees. A tenuous mist hung among their trunks, weighted with chill autumnal odours, dying leaves, fungus growths such as wood mushroom and Indian pipe, and the exhalations of deep virgin soil.
Alayne opened the door. Dark and cold inside. Eden had gone to bed early. He might have left the lamp burning and put wood on the fire! Finch flashed the light into the interior. She found a match and lighted two candles on the table. Her face in the candlelight looked white and drawn. A great pity for her welled up in the boy's heart. She seemed to him the loneliest being he knew. He glanced at the closed door of Eden's room. Was Eden awake, he wondered.
Alayne said: "Wait a minute, Finch. I must get that book I want you to read." She went into her room. "Goodness, what a muddle I have here!"
"Oh, thanks! But don't trouble now." The laundry list decorated with postage stamps caught his eye. What the dickens? He peered at it, puzzled. Some of Eden's foolery, he'd bet. The stamps not used ones either. If they went away and left that pinned to the wall, he'd come and get the stamps.
When she returned, after what seemed a long while to Finch, what little colour she had had in her face had been drained from it. She laid the book on the table.
"There," she said in a strained voice, "I hope you will like it." She went on, with an odd contraction of her mouth, "I have just had a note from Eden." He saw then that she had crumpled a piece of paper in her hand.
"Oh," he said, stupidly, his jaw dropping, "what's he writing a note about?"
She pushed it into his hand. "Read it."
He read:
Finch read the letter through with so distraught an expression that Alayne burst into hysterical laughter.
"Oh, Finch, don't!" she gasped. "You look so funny, I can't bear it!"
"I don't see anything funny about it," he said. "I think it's terrible."
"Of course it's terrible. That's what makes it so funny. That, and your expression!" She leaned against the wall, her hand pressed to her side, half laughing, half crying.
He strode toward Eden's room and flung open the door. It was in a state of disorder such as Eden alone could achieve. Alayne came and stood beside Finch, looking into the room. He could feel that she was shaking from head to foot. He put his arm about her.
"Dear Alayne, don't tremble so! I'm afraid you'll be ill."
"I'm all right. Only I'm very tired, and Eden's way of doing things is so unexpected!"
"I'll say it is! I'm the one that ought to know. He didn't tell me he was going to take a girl with him when he borrowed the money."
She was bewildered. "Borrowed the money? What money?"
"The money for the year in France. I raised it for him. But for heaven's sake don't tell Renny of it or I'll get into a frightful row!"
She ceased trembling, her face set. "He borrowed money from you—to go to France?"
He assented, not without self-importance.
"But, Finch, Renny was paying for a winter in California!"
"I know. But Eden didn't want to go to California. He wanted a year in France. He must have it because of something he's going to write. I can't explain. You understand how it is. You left your work and came here to nurse him because of his poetry. It makes you feel that what he is doesn't really matter. You and I feel the same about art, I think. I hope you don't think I'm a fool." He was very red in the face.
She must not hurt his feelings by deprecating his act. Ah, but Eden would never pay him the money back! She put a hand on each of his cheeks, and kissed him.
"It was a beautiful thing to do, Finch! I'll not tell a soul. . . . Strange how he uses us, and then leaves us standing staring at the spot where he has been."
She took the letter from Finch and read it again. The colour returned to her face in a flood.
"I wish I hadn't let you read it. Because of—things he said. You must forget them. He's so—ruthless."
Finch grunted acquiescence. Of course. That about Renny and her. Still . . . he stared into the deserted nest from whence the singer had flown. How desolate! How lonely it was here! No place for a woman.
He broke out: "You can't stop here to-night! You must come back with me."
"I am not afraid."
"It's not that. It's the gruesomeness. I couldn't stick it myself. I'll not leave you."
"I would rather be here."
"No. It won't do! Please come. Aunt will like to have you. There's your old room waiting."
She consented. They returned.
There were lights upstairs now, but a light still burned in the drawing-room, and from it came the sound of the piano. Nicholas was playing.
From the hall they could see his grey leonine head and heavy shoulders bent above the keyboard. Alayne remembered with a pang that she had not asked him to play that evening, though she had urged Finch.
He was playing Mendelssohn's "Consolation." When had one heard Mendelssohn! His terrier sat drooping before the fire waiting for him to come to bed.
Finch whispered: "Shall you tell him?"
"Yes. Wait till he has finished."
They stood motionless together. When the last notes had died, Alayne went to his side. He remained looking at his hands for a little, then slowly raised his eyes to her face.
Startled by her reappearance, he exclaimed: "Alayne, my dear! What is wrong?"
"Don't be alarmed," she said. "It's nothing serious. It's only that Eden has gone away a little sooner than I expected. He left a note at the Hut for me. Finch wouldn't let me stay there alone—so I'm back, you see." Her head drooped; she twisted her fingers together. Her voice was scarcely audible as she added: "He took Minny Ware with him."
Nicholas's large eyes glared up at her. "The deuce he did! The scoundrel! He ought to be flogged. My poor little girl" He heaved himself around on the piano seat and put his arm about her waist. "This is the return he makes you for all your kindness! He's nothing but a young wastrel! Does Renny know of this?"
"I haven't seen Renny." She was filled with shame at the thought of Renny. Now she did not want to see him. She would leave this house and never return to it again.
Augusta was calling from upstairs: "Did I hear Alayne's voice? What is wrong, Nicholas?"
Full of excitement, he limped vigorously to the foot of the stairs.
"Gussie!" He had not given her this diminutive for years. "Come along down, Gussie! Here's a pretty kettle of fish. Young Eden has run off with that hussy Minny!"
He turned to Alayne and Finch, who had followed him into the hall. "Do you know where they've gone?"
Finch was getting excited, too. "To France!" he shouted, as though his uncle were deaf.
Augusta began to descend the stairs, dressed in petticoat and camisole, a tail of hair down her back. If ever she had looked offended, she looked offended now.
"Nick, you don't mean to tell me!"
Ernest appeared at the top of the stairs in nightshirt and dressing-gown, the cat Sasha rubbing herself against his legs.
"What's this new trouble?" he demanded.
Augusta on the stairs, midway between the brothers, answered: "Some scrape of Eden's. I'm afraid that Ware girl has been leading him into mischief. Nicholas does get so excited."
Just as they drew together at the bottom of the stairs, and Nicholas was demanding to see Eden's letter, and Augusta was declaring that she had always expected something like this, and Ernest was saying what a blessing it was that Mama had not lived to see this night, and Nicholas was retorting that no one enjoyed a to-do better than Mama, quick steps were heard in the porch and the door was opened by Renny.
Before he had seen her, Alayne fled down the hall. She could not face him there before the others. She would escape to her room and not see him before morning.
She heard his question: "What's up?" She heard Nicholas put the situation pithily before him. He made no audible comment, but she could picture his expression, how the rust-red eyebrows would fly up, the brown eyes blaze. Then she heard Augusta's voice.
"Alayne is here, poor girl. She is staying the night. Why, where has she gone? Alayne, dear, Renny is here!"
She did not answer. The door of Grandmother's room stood open; she stepped inside and drew it to after her. She was startled to find the night-light burning. By its faint radiance the room was revealed to her in an atmosphere of sombre melancholy; the tarnished gilt flourishes on the wallpaper, the deep wing chair before the empty grate, the heavy curtains with their fringe and tassels, the old painted bedstead, on the headboard of which perched, above the fantastically pictured flowers and fruit, Boney, his head under his wing.
The room seemed conscious of this intrusion. It had absorbed, during the years of old Adeline's occupancy, enough of human emotions to give it food for brooding while its walls stood. Every article there bore the imprint of that trenchant personality. Now, dimly revealed by the night-light, these inanimate objects had the power to recreate her presence. The bed was no longer smooth and cold, but rumpled and warm from the weight of that heavy, vigorous old body. Alayne thought: "If I had come into her room like this, how she would have held out her arms, and grasped me, and begged, 'Kiss me. . . . Kiss me, quick!'"
Alayne stood by the bed, listening. Had they gone upstairs again, or into the drawing-room to talk? She could hear voices, but Renny's voice, which carried so distinctly, was not audible. The impetus given to her passion for him by her surroundings, by his sudden appearance, made her heart beat painfully. She steadied herself by her hand on the footboard.
He was coming.
Involuntarily she moved toward the door, as though to bar it against him. But he was there before her. He pushed it open and came inside. In the clouded radiance of the night-light, against the background of a heavy maroon curtain, she saw the face she loved. The face she called up in the night, the face that haunted her by day. There he stood—she could put out her hand and touch him. He lived in her, and the urge toward him would not be denied. But what did she really know of him? What was really his conception of love and happiness? She did not know. He was an enigma to her to which the only answer was the cry of her heart.
He said, scanning her face: "Shall you divorce him, now?"
She breathed: "Yes."
"And marry me?"
"Yes."
Her eyes fell; she was afraid of their nearness. Against it she raised the barrier of a question.
"Why did you not come to-night?"
"I couldn't," he answered, "because I knew they had gone."
"You knew Eden and Minny had gone?"
"Yes." He gave a short, strained laugh. "I was riding. The gates at the crossing dropped as I got there. It was just light enough for me to make out their two figures on the platform. They were carrying bags. And when the train passed I saw him again at a window." His grimness was dispersed by the sudden arch grin so amazingly like old Adeline's. "He saw me and waved his hand!"
"And that is why you didn't come in to supper?"
He nodded.
"But why?"
"I can't tell. I simply couldn't—knowing that."
In sudden pain, she asked: "And you weren't going to tell me? You were going to let me go back to the Hut and find out for myself?"
"I suppose."
"But how cruel of you!"
He did not answer; his eyes were on the little pearl-white hollow of her throat.
Now her eyes searched the dark depths of his. Was he really cruel, or only shy as a wild animal is shy, afraid of things he does not understand? She remembered the sound of someone moving in the pine wood, of Finch's odd look when he returned from searching.
"Were you in the woods? Was it you Finch and I heard, then?"
Again he did not answer, but this time he came and put his head against hers, and whispered: "Don't ask me questions. Love me."
She felt the fire of his kiss on her neck. She clung to him, her forehead pressed against his shoulder. They could find no words, but their hearts, pressed close, talked together in the language of the surging tides, the winds that bend the branches to their will, the rain that penetrates the deep warmth of the earth.