Part 8 (2/2)
Millicent was still flushed and excited, all Barbara's arguments having failed to soothe her nerves. Graham, with one sentence, banished the angry dint from her white forehead and brought a smile back to her face.
The hour of the last good-bys had arrived; and the guests took leave of their kind hostess, with promises to repeat their visit before long.
Little Mrs. Shallop really cried at parting with Millicent, to whom she had become greatly attached. She sighed as the carriage disappeared from view, bearing its freight of young people with their vivid lives and strong interests. When she went back to her great lonely drawing-room, with its splendid furnis.h.i.+ngs, she realized what a fitting frame it had made for the two pretty young guests, and how unsuitable it was to her simple tastes. The house was dreary without their joyous voices and quick footsteps.
Just after sundown the travellers reached the San Rosario station, where Hal was awaiting them in the great red-painted wagon. The two st.u.r.dy mules were supplemented by old Sphinx harnessed before them, making what is known as a spiked team.
”Hail! the conquering Heroine comes! sound the trumpets, beat the drums!” cried the irrepressible young rancher. ”How is our most heroic Princess, and will she deign to enter the triumphal car which her humble slave has prepared for her?”
They all laughed; but, through all the lively nonsense which he reeled off to them on the way to the house, Millicent felt that he had been really moved by what had occurred. The grip which he gave her hand spoke a volume of approval; and the loud clap on the shoulder with which he greeted Graham expressed more than a dozen sentences of rhetorical eloquence could have done. The antics of the unicorn team were extremely diverting; and these, with the absurdities which Hal perpetrated at every step of the road, brought the quartette to the house door ”in a state of merriment bordering on idiocy,” as he expressed it. Mrs. Deering, with her sweet motherly greeting, made their return seem a home-coming to Millicent and Graham, as well as to Barbara, the tall daughter of the house. Her hospitality was so genuinely of the heart that the recipient of it was made to feel that it was simply his due, and that his presence was as great a favor to the hostess as her kindness was to him.
Graham was warmly urged to stay over night, but he resisted the temptation of remaining. Neither Millicent's voice nor Millicent's eyes had supplemented the invitation.
As they paced the path together, her hand lying on his arm, Graham told Mrs. Deering, in a low voice, of all that had happened since their departure,--of the pleasant days with their excursions; of the new impressions made on Millicent by all that she saw; of the friends whom he had met, remembering all the kind messages which had been sent to the gentle _chatelaine_ of San Rosario; of Barbara's sweetness and Mrs.
Shallop's hospitality; of the progress he had made on the portrait of his hostess; of the thousand-and-one little items of news so welcome to people leading a life of quiet isolation. Then in graver tones he spoke of his great peril and Millicent's bravery, of the strange thoughts which had crossed his mind in that last moment of consciousness, how her face as well as his mother's had been revealed to him as in a vision.
All this was listened to with that perfect sympathy that is always ready to receive confidences, and which forbears to claim them when they are not spontaneously given. Blessed among women are these rare ones to whom motherless sons can confide every hope and disappointment, sure of a quick sympathy, and in whom the mighty instinct of maternity is not satisfied in ministering to their own flesh and blood, but springs forth to succor all who are suffering for the gentle mother love.
It was late when these two said good-night, and Graham went to find the others to take farewell. Barbara and Hal were singing duets. They had neither of them seen Millicent, and fancied that she must have gone to her room. With a sense of cold disappointment and injury the young man left the house. As he pa.s.sed by the corner of the piazza he fancied he saw a figure standing close in the shadow of an angle. He stopped; the figure remained motionless; through the heavy drapery of the vines he could not tell whether it was a person or merely a shadow.
”Who is it?” he asked in a low voice. No answer came, but through the stillness of the night he thought he heard the sound of a quick-drawn breath. Putting the honeysuckle aside he stepped on the piazza, and found that his eyes had not deceived him. Millicent stood beneath the rose vines. When she saw that she was discovered she spoke with a light laugh:
”I did not want you to see me, for I have been unsociable this evening, and hoped you would all think I had gone to bed.”
”Is it not damp for you to be sitting out-of-doors?” he asked, with a voice grown deep and tender.
”Oh, no! I am quite used to it. What a wonderful night! I think I never saw the stars so brilliant.”
The girl seated herself on the edge of the piazza, Graham placing a cus.h.i.+on under her feet and taking his place at her side. It was a perfectly still evening, the only sound being the far-away tinkle of a sheep bell. There was a moment of dangerous silence, which Millicent broke a little nervously, speaking of Italy, of Mrs. Shallop and their late visit, of Hal's irresistible wit, of any one of the subjects which danced through her brain. She was afraid to be silent, and feared yet longed for what might be said if she left too long a pause. The spell which kept Graham at her side when he should have been half way to his lonely tower, began to a.s.sert itself over the woman, always the last to yield. The man had long since abandoned himself to that mysterious state of being in which every nerve of brain and every pulse of heart yearns for sympathy and reaches out toward its counterpart. At last she was silent, the last commonplace dying half spoken on her trembling lips. Silence now in all the land; only the sound of heart-beats which each felt must reach the other's ears. Stars more tender than those of heaven shone close to Graham through the blue-black night; a breath sweeter than the wind stirring the honeysuckle touched his cheek. At length that silence, more musical than sweetest harmony, was broken by a low, deep voice.
”May I kiss you?” said the voice.
What was the faint sound which the night wind wafted to his ear? Was it the whirring of the humming birds whose nest hung close by? Was it the far-off silver ripple of the brooklet, or the cadence of the distant sheep-bell? Was it that sweeter sound than note of mating bird, of falling water, or of faint bell-chime,--was it a loving woman's ”Yes”?
CHAPTER VIII.
”Oui, les premiers baisers, oui, les premiers serments Que deux etres mortels echangerent sur terre Ce fut au pied d' un arbre effeuille par les vents, Sur un roc en poussiere.”
When he awoke the next morning, John Graham gave a deep sigh. His dreams had been so sweet that no reality could equal their happiness.
As he sat on the edge of his narrow bed disentangling what was real from what was dream-born in his thoughts, his eye fell upon the knot of roses which he had taken from Millicent's hair the night before, and had clasped to his lips as he fell asleep. They were faded now, but they still gave out a strong perfume. His cheek had been wounded by a thorn, but he kissed the wilted posies, for all that, placed the little bouquet tenderly in an exquisite Venetian vase, and then bounded down the stairway of his tower and across the narrow s.p.a.ce which led to a clear deep pool where a crystal stream fell in a white cataract to a rocky basin. The foam-bubbles danced joyously in the clear dark waters, and the plas.h.i.+ng of the fall had a sound of a sweet deep voice which had grown very dear to him. A mossy bank, shaded by two drooping trees, sloped to the edge of this natural bath, refres.h.i.+ng enough to have tempted Diana from the chase. As Graham plunged into the cool waters he shouted out a verse of a song he had learned long ago. Attracted by the sound of his voice, French John laid down his axe beside the young tree he was about to fell, and came down to the pool where Graham was vigorously tossing about the bright water. The old wood-cutter looked at the young man as if the sight did him good. He responded to the uproarious greeting which the artist shouted to him, by his usual silent nod of the head. Had words been worth their weight in diamond dust, the old soldier could not have been more chary of wasting them, but the look in his faded blue eyes was gentle and full of admiration. He had had a son of whom he had lost all trace since its infancy. If the boy had lived he would have been about Graham's age, and it was the man's fancy that he would have resembled his patron. He imagined he could trace in the splendidly modelled arms and legs and the strong, perfectly proportioned torso of the bather the shape into which the baby contours he remembered so well must have developed. Graham had by this time gained the green turf and stood shaking the water out of his thick hair, drawing quick panting breaths, meanwhile, and springing about to warm himself, with the grace and strength of a leopard. The old Frenchman gave a deep sigh as he looked at him.
”Yes; Hector certainly must resemble this young man,” he murmured, as he wetted his hard hands, and, grasping the handle of his axe, smote heavily at the stem of a young pine-tree. Graham rapidly made his toilet in the open air. The plunge in the clear cold water had rather stimulated than expended the electric, nervous force which ran through his veins, quickening the life-blood in its flow. He felt ten years younger since yesterday morning. His thirty years and the gravity they had brought to him had shrunk to twenty. As he looked up at his tower he sang aloud a s.n.a.t.c.h of an old song which had been often on his lips in those happy, careless days in the _Rue d' Enfer_,--words which he had painted over the tiny grate in the cramped apartment under the leads, where he had suffered from heat all summer, and s.h.i.+vered all winter:
Dans un grenier qu' on est bien A vingt ans, a vingt ans!
He would have liked to dance. Had his years in truth been but twenty, he would have yielded to the temptation. He would gladly have thrown his arms about the old Frenchman, for lack of another confidant, and have told him the cause of his happiness. But, after all, this reflex of youth could not entirely melt the reserve of manhood from him; he wore his thirty years lightly indeed, but could not shake them off.
”Give me your axe, John; I know something of your woodman's craft; let me show you how easily I can fell this young tree.”
<script>