Part 29 (1/2)

”Don't think of me!” Imogen breathed out on a note of pain. ”It's not of myself I'm thinking, not of my humiliation and despair--but of him!--of him!--Is it _right_ that I should submit? _Ought_ a project like ours to be abandoned for such a reason?”

Again Sir Basil was silent for some moments, considering the narrow white hands. ”Perhaps she'll come round,--think better of it.”

”Ah!--” it was now on a note of deep, of tremulous hope that she breathed it out, looking into his eyes with the profound, searching look so moving to him; ”Ah!--it's there, it's there, that you could help me. She would never yield to me. She might to you.”

”Oh, I don't think that likely,” Sir Basil protested, the flush darkening.

”Yes, yes,” said Imogen, leaning toward him above his clasp of her hand.

”Yes, if anything is likely that is so. If hope is anywhere, it's there.

Don't you see, in her eyes I stand for _him_. To yield to me would be like yielding to him, would be his triumph. That's what she can't forgive in me--that I do stand for him, that I live by all that she rejected. She would never yield to me,--but she might yield _for_ you.”

”Shall I speak to her about it?” Sir Basil asked abruptly, after another moment in which Imogen's hand grasped his tightly, its soft, warm fingers more potent in appeal than even her eyes had been. And now, again, she leaned toward him, her eyes inundating him with radiant trust and grat.i.tude, her hands drawing his hand to her breast and holding it there, so clasped.

”Will you?--Oh, will you?--dear Sir Basil.”

Sir Basil stammered a little. ”I'll have a try--It's hard on you, I think.

I don't see why you shouldn't have your heart's desire. It's an awfully queer thing to do,--but, for your sake, I'll have a try--put it to her, you know.”

”Ah, I _knew_ that you were big,” said Imogen.

He looked at her, his hand between her hands. The flowering laurel was behind her head. The pine-forest murmured about them. The sky was blue above them, and the deep blue of the distance lay at their feet. Suddenly, as they looked into each other's eyes, it dawned in the consciousness of both that something was happening.

It was to Sir Basil that it was happening. Imogen's was but the consciousness of his experience. Such a thing could hardly happen to Imogen. Neither her senses, nor her emotions, nor her imagination played any dominant part in her nature. She was incapable of falling in love in the helpless, headlong, human fas.h.i.+on that the term implies. But though such feeling lacked, the perception of it in others was swift, and while she leaned to Sir Basil in the sunlight, while she clasped his hand to her breast, while their eyes dwelt deeply on each other, she seemed to hear, like a rising chime of wonder and delight, the ringing of herald bells that sang: ”Mine--mine--mine--if I choose to take him.”

Wonderful indeed it was to feel this influx of certain power. Sunlight, like that about them, seemed to rise, slowly, softly, within her, like the upwelling of a spring of joy.

It was happening, it had happened to him, his eyes told her that; but whether he knew as she did she doubted and, for the beautiful moment, it added a last touch of charm to her exultation to know that, while she was sure, she could leave that light veil of his wonder s.h.i.+mmering between them.

With the vision of the unveiling her mind leaped to the thought of her mother and of Jack, and with that thought came a swift pulse of vengeful gladness. So she would make answer to them both--the scorner--the rejector.

Not for a moment must she listen to the voices of petty doubts and pities.

This love, that lay like a bauble in her mother's hand--an unfit ornament for her years--would s.h.i.+ne on her own head like a diadem. Unasked, undreamed of, it had turned to her; it was her highest duty to keep and wear it. It was far, far more than her duty to herself; it was her duty to this man, finished, mature, yet full of unawakened possibility; it was her duty to that large, vague world that his life touched, a world where her young faiths and vigors would bring a light such as her mother's gay little taper could never spread. These thoughts, and others, flashed through Imogen's mind, with the swiftness and exact.i.tude of a drowning vision. Yet, after the long moment of vivid realization, it was at its height that a qualm, a sinking overtook her. The gift had come; of that she was sure. But its triumphant displayal might be delayed--nay, might be jeopardized. Some perverse loyalty in his nature, some terrified decisiveness of action on her mother's part, and the golden reality might even be made to crumble.

For one moment, as the qualm seized her, she saw herself--and the thought was like a flying flame that scorched her lips as it pa.s.sed--she saw herself sweeping aside the veil, sinking upon his breast, with tears that would reveal him to himself and her to him.

But it was impossible for Imogen to yield open-eyed to temptation that could not be sanctified. Her strong sense of personal dignity held her from the impulse, and a quick recognition, too, that it might lower her starry alt.i.tude in his eyes. She must stand still, stand perfectly still, and he would come to her. She could protect him from her mother's clinging--this she recognized as a strange yet an insistent duty--but between him and her there must not be a shadow, an ambiguity.

The radiance of the renunciation, the resolve, was in her face as she gently released his hand, gently rose, standing smiling, with a strange, rapt smile, above him.

Sir Basil rose, too, silent, and looking hard at her. She guessed at the turmoil, the wonder of his honest soul, his fear lest she did guess it, and, with the fear, the irrepressible hope that, in some sense, it was echoed.

”My dear, dear friend,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder, as though with the gesture she dubbed him her knight, ”my more than friend--shall it be elder brother?--I believe that you will be able to help me and my father. And if you fail--my grat.i.tude to you will be none the less great. I can't tell you how I trust you, how I care for you.”

From his face she looked up at the sky above them; and in the sunlight her innocent, uplifted smile made her like a heavenly child. ”Isn't it wonderful?--beautiful?--” she said, almost conquering her inner fear by the seeming what she wished to be. ”Look up, Sir Basil!--Doesn't it seem to heal everything,--to glorify everything,--to promise everything?”

He looked up at the sky, still speechless. Her face, her smile--the sky above it--did it not heal, glorify, promise in its innocence? If a great thing claims one suddenly, must not the lesser things inevitably go?--Could one hold them?--Ought one to try to hold them? There was tumult in poor Sir Basil's soul, the tumult of partings and meetings.

But when everything culminated in the longing to seize this heavenly child--this heavenly woman--to seize and kiss her--a st.u.r.dy sense of honesty warned him that not so could he, with honor, go forward. He must see his way more clearly than that. Strange that he had been so blind, till now, of where all ways, since his coming to Vermont, had been leading him.

He could see them now, plainly enough.

Taking Imogen's hand once more, he pressed it, dropped it, looked into her eyes and said, as they turned to the descent: ”That was swearing eternal friends.h.i.+p, wasn't it!”