Part 6 (2/2)

”You remember that delicious day at Castel Gandolfo?--on the terrace of the Villa Barberini? And the expedition to Horace's farm? You recollect the little girl there--the daughter of the Dutch Minister? She's married an American--a very good fellow. They've bought an old villa on Monte Mario.”

And so on, and so on. The dear Italian names rolled out, and the speaker grew more and more animated and agreeable.

Only, unfortunately, Elizabeth's attention failed him. A motor car had been lent them in the hospitable Canadian way; and as they sped through and about the city, up the business streets, round the park, and the residential suburb rising along the a.s.siniboine, as they plunged through seas of black mud to look at the little old-fas.h.i.+oned Cathedral of St.

John, with its graveyard recalling the earliest days of the settlement, Lady Merton gradually ceased even to pretend to listen to her companion.

”They have found some extremely jolly things lately at Porto D'Anzio--a fine torso--quite Greek.”

”Have they?” said Elizabeth, absently--”Have they?--And to think that in 1870, just a year or two before my father and mother married, there was nothing here but an outpost in the wilderness!--a few scores of people!

One just _hears_ this country grow.” She turned pensively away from the tombstone of an old Scottish settler in the shady graveyard of St. John.

”Ah! but what will it grow to?” said Delaine, drily. ”Is Winnipeg going to be interesting?--is it going to _matter_?”

”Come and look at the Emigration Offices,” laughed Elizabeth for answer.

And he found himself dragged through room after room of the great building, and standing by while Elizabeth, guided by an official who seemed to hide a more than Franciscan brotherliness under the aspects of a canny Scot, and helped by an interpreter, made her way into the groups of home-seekers crowding round the clerks and counters of the lower room--English, Americans, Swedes, Dutchmen, Galicians, French Canadians.

Some men, indeed, who were actually hanging over maps, listening to the directions and information of the officials, were far too busy to talk to tourists, but there were others who had finished their business, or were still waiting their turn, and among them, as also among the women, the little English lady found many willing to talk to her.

And what courage, what vivacity she threw into the business! Delaine, who had seen her till now as a person whose natural reserve was rather displayed than concealed by her light agreeable manner, who had often indeed had cause to wonder where and what might be the real woman, followed her from group to group in a silent astonishment. Between these people--belonging to the primitive earth-life--and herself, there seemed to be some sudden intuitive sympathy which bewildered him; whether she talked to some Yankee farmer from the Dakotas, long-limbed, lantern-jawed, all the moisture dried out of him by hot summers, hard winters, and long toil, who had come over the border with a pocket full of money, the proceeds of prairie-farming in a republic, to sink it all joyfully in a new venture under another flag; or to some broad-shouldered English youth from her own north country; or to some hunted Russian from the Steppes, in whose eyes had begun to dawn the first lights of liberty; or to the dark-faced Italians and Frenchmen, to whom she chattered in their own tongues.

An Indian reserve of good land had just been thrown open to settlers.

The room was thronged. But Elizabeth was afraid of no one; and no one repulsed her. The high official who took them through, lingered over the process, busy as the morning was, all for the _beaux yeux_ of Elizabeth; and they left him pondering by what legerdemain he could possibly so manipulate his engagements that afternoon as to join Lady Merton's tea-party.

”Well, that was quite interesting!” said Delaine as they emerged.

Elizabeth, however, would certainly have detected the perfunctoriness of the tone, and the hypocrisy of the speech, had she had any thoughts to spare.

But her face showed her absorbed.

”Isn't it _amazing_!” Her tone was quiet, her eyes on the ground.

”Yet, after all, the world has seen a good many emigrations in its day!”

remarked Delaine, not without irritation.

She lifted her eyes.

”Ah--but nothing like this! One hears of how the young nations came down and peopled the Roman Empire. But that lasted so long. One person--with one life--could only see a bit of it. And here one sees it _all_--all, at once!--as a great march--the march of a new people to its home. Fifty years ago, wolves and bears, and buffaloes--twelve years ago even, the great movement had not begun--and now, every week, a new town!--the new nation spreading, spreading over the open land, irresistibly, silently; no one setting bounds to it, no one knowing what will come of it!”

She checked herself. Her voice had been subdued, but there was a tremor in it. Delaine caught her up, rather helplessly.

”Ah! isn't that the point? What will come of it? Numbers and size aren't everything. Where is it all tending?”

She looked up at him, still exalted, still flushed, and said softly, as though she could not help it, ”'On to the bound of the waste--on to the City of G.o.d!'”

He gazed at her in discomfort. Here was an Elizabeth Merton he had yet to know. No trace of her in the ordinary life of an English country house!

”You _are_ Canadian!” he said with a smile.

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