Part 19 (1/2)

Lynde nodded his head approvingly, and the doctor went on--

”I shall leave you together after a while, and then you must manage it.

At present he is in no state to deny Ruth anything; he would give her a lover just as he would buy her a pair of ear-rings. His joy over her escape from death--it was a fearfully narrow escape, let me tell you--has left him powerless. Moreover, her illness, in which there has not been a symptom of the old trouble, has rea.s.sured him on a most painful point. In short, everything is remarkably smooth for you. I think that's Denham's step now in the hall,” added Dr. Pendegrast hurriedly. ”You can say what you please to him of Ruth; but mind you, my dear boy, not a word at this juncture about the Queen of Sheba--she's dethroned, you know!”

XI

FROM CHAMOUNI TO GENEVA

One morning in September, a month after all this, three persons, a lady and two gentlemen, stood on the upper step of the Couronne hotel, waving farewell with their handkerchiefs to a carriage which had just started from the door and was gayly taking the road to St.

Gervais-les-Bains, on the way to Geneva.

A cool purple light stretched along the valley and reached up the mountain side to where the eternal snows begin. The crown of Mont Blanc, m.u.f.fled in its scarf of cloud, was invisible. The old monarch was in that disdainful mood which sometimes lasts him for months together. From those perilous heights came down a breath that chilled the air and tempered the suns.h.i.+ne falling upon Chamouni, now silent and deserted, for the season was well-nigh over. With the birds, their brothers, the summer tourists had flown southward at the rustling of the first autumnal leaf. Here and there a guide leaned idly against a post in front of one of the empty hotels. There was no other indication of life in the main street save the little group we have mentioned watching the departing carriage.

This carriage, a maroon body set upon red and black wheels, was drawn by four white horses and driven by the marquis. The doctor had prescribed white horses, and he took great credit to himself that morning as he stood on the hotel steps beside Mr. and Mrs. Denham, who followed the retreating vehicle rather thoughtfully with their eyes until it turned a corner of the narrow street and was lost to them.

As the horses slackened their speed at an ascending piece of ground outside the town, Lynde took Ruth's hand. The color of health had rea.s.serted itself in her cheeks, but her eyes had not lost a certain depth of l.u.s.tre which they had learned during her illness. The happy light in them illumined her face as she turned towards him.

”I don't believe a word of it!” cried Lynde. ”It is just a dream, a cheating page out of a fairy-book. These horses are simply four white mice transformed. An hour ago, perhaps, this carriage was a pumpkin lying on the hearth of the hotel kitchen. The coachman is a good fairy in thin disguise of overcoat and false mustache. I am doubtful of even you. The whole thing is a delusion. It won't last, it can't last!

Presently the wicked gnome that must needs dwell in a stalact.i.te cavern somewhere hereabouts will start up and break the enchantment.”

”It will never be broken so long as you love me,” said Ruth softly. She smiled at Lynde's fancy, though his words had by no means badly expressed her own sense of doubt in respect to the reality of it all.

Here the driver leaned forward, skilfully touching the ear of the off-leader with the tip of his lash, and the carriage rolled away in the blue September weather. And here our story ends--at the very point, if we understand it, where life began for those two.

MY COUSIN THE COLONEL

I

Mrs. Wesley frequently embarra.s.ses me by remarking in the presence of other persons--our intimate friends, of course--”Wesley, you are not brilliant, but you are good.”

From Mrs. Wesley's outlook, which is that of a very high ideal, there is nothing uncomplimentary in the remark, nothing so intended, but I must confess that I have sometimes felt as if I were paying a rather large price for character. Yet when I reflect on my cousin the colonel, and my own action in the matter, I am ready with grat.i.tude to accept Mrs. Wesley's estimate of me, for if I am not good, I am not anything.

Perhaps it is an instance of my lack of brilliancy that I am willing to relate certain facts which strongly tend to substantiate this. My purpose, however, is not to prove either my goodness or my dulness, but to leave some record, even if slight and imperfect, of my only relative. When a family is reduced like ours to a single relative, it is well to make the most of him. One should celebrate him annually, as it were.

One morning in the latter part of May, a few weeks after the close of the war of the rebellion, as I was hurrying down Sixth Avenue in pursuit of a heedless horse-car, I ran against a young person whose shabbiness of aspect was all that impressed itself upon me in the instant of collision. At a second glance I saw that this person was clad in the uniform of a Confederate soldier--an officer's uniform originally, for there were signs that certain insignia of rank had been removed from the cuffs and collar of the threadbare coat. He wore a wide-brimmed felt hat of a military fas.h.i.+on, decorated with a tarnished gilt cord, the two ends of which, terminating in acorns, hung down over his nose. His b.u.t.ternut trousers were tucked into the tops of a pair of high cavalry boots, of such primitive workmans.h.i.+p as to suggest the possibility that the wearer had made them himself. In fact, his whole appearance had an impromptu air about it. The young man eyed me gloomily for half a minute; then a light came into his countenance.

”Wesley--Tom Wesley!” he exclaimed. ”Dear old boy!”

To be sure I was Thomas Wesley, and, under conceivable circ.u.mstances, dear old boy; but who on earth was he?

”You don't know me?” he said, laying a hand on each of my shoulders, and leaning back as he contemplated me with a large smile in antic.i.p.atory enjoyment of my surprise and pleasure when I should come to know him. ”I am George W. Flagg, and long may I wave!”

My cousin Flagg! It was no wonder that I did not recognize him.