Part 20 (1/2)

”'Fore Gad,” the Earl capped his quotation, ”if the heathen man could stop his ears with wax against the singing woman of the sea, then do you the like with your fingers against the trollop of the forest.”

”Faith, time seals them firmlier than wax. You and I may sit snug now with never a quicker heart-beat for all her lures. Yet I seem to remember,--once a long while ago when we old fellows were somewhat sprier,--I, too, seem to remember this Spring-magic.”

”Indeed,” observed the Earl, seating himself ponderously, ”if you refer to a certain inclination at that period of the year toward the likeliest wench in the neighborhood, so do I. 'Tis an obvious provision of nature, I take it, to secure the perpetuation of the species. Spring comes, and she sets us all a-mating--humanity, partridges, poultry, pigs, every blessed one of us she sets a-mating. Propagation, Jack--propagation is necessary, d'ye see; because,” the Earl conclusively demanded, ”what on earth would become of us if we didn't propagate?”

”The argument is unanswerable,” the Duke conceded. ”Yet I miss it,--this Spring magic that no longer sets the blood of us staid fellows a-fret.”

”And I,” said Lord Brudenel, ”do not. It got me into the deuce of a sc.r.a.pe more than once.”

”Yours is the sensible view, no doubt....Yet I miss it. Ah, it is not only the wenches and the red lips of old years,--it is not only that at this season la.s.ses' hearts grow tender. There are some verses--” The Duke quoted, with a half-guilty air:

”Now I loiter, and dream to the branches swaying In furtive conference,--high overhead-- Atingle with rumors that Winter is sped And over his ruins a world goes Maying.

”Somewhere--impressively,--people are saying Intelligent things (which their grandmothers said), While I loiter, and dream to the branches swaying In furtive conference, high overhead.”

”Verses!” The Earl snorted. ”At your age!”

”Here the hand of April, unwashed from slaying Earth's fallen tyrant--for Winter is dead,-- Uncloses anemones, staining them red: And her daffodils guard me in squads,--displaying Intrepid lances lest wisdom tread Where I loiter and dream to the branches' swaying--

”Well, Harry, and to-day I cannot do so any longer. That is what I most miss,--the ability to lie a-sprawl in the spring gra.s.s and dream out an uncharted world,--a dream so vivid that, beside it, reality grew tenuous, and the actual world became one of childhood's shrug-provoking bugbears dimly remembered.”

”I do not understand poetry,” the Earl apologetically observed. ”It appears to me unreasonable to advance a statement simply because it happens to rhyme with a statement you have previously made. And that is what all you poets do. Why, this is very remarkable,” said Lord Brudenel, with a change of tone; ”yonder is young Humphrey Degge with Marian. I had thought him in bed at Tunbridge. Did I not hear something of an affair with a house-breaker--?”

Then the Earl gave an exclamation, for in full view of them Lord Humphrey Degge was kissing Lord Brudenel's daughter.

”Oh, the devil!” said the Earl. ”Oh, the insolent young ape!”

”Nay,” said the Duke, restraining him; ”not particularly insolent, Harry.

If you will observe more closely you will see that Marian does not exactly object to his caresses--quite the contrary, I would say, I told you that you should not permit Spring about the premises.”

The Earl wheeled in an extreme of astonishment. ”Come, come, sir! she is your betrothed wife! Do you not intend to kill the fellow?”

”My faith, why?” said his Grace of Ormskirk, with a shrug. ”As for betrothals, do you not see that she is already very happily paired?”

In answer Brudenel raised his hands toward heaven, in just the contention of despair and rage appropriate to parental affection when an excellent match is imperilled by a chit's idiocy.

Marian and Lord Humphrey Degge were mounting from the sc.r.a.p of forest that juts from Pevis Hill, like a spur from a man's heel, between Agard Court and Halvergate. Their progress was not conspicuous for celerity. Now they had attained to the tiny, elm-shadowed plateau beyond the yew-hedge, and there Marian paused. Two daffodils had fallen from the great green-and-yellow cl.u.s.ter in her left hand. Humphrey Degge lifted them, and then raised to his mouth the slender fingers that reached toward the flowers. The man's pallor, you would have said, was not altogether due to his recent wound.

She stood looking up at him, smiling a little timidly, her teeth glinting through parted lips, her eyes star-fire, her cheeks blazoning gules in his honor; she seemed not to breathe at all. A faint twinge woke in the Duke of Ormskirk's heart. Most women smiled upon him, but they smiled beneath furtive eyes, sometimes beneath rapacious eyes, and many smiled with reddened lips which strove, uneasily, to provoke a rental; how long was it he wondered, simply, since any woman had smiled as Marian smiled now, for him?

”I think it is a dream,” said Marian.

From the vantage of the yew-hedge, ”I would to Heaven I could think so, too,” observed her father.

III

The younger people had pa.s.sed out of sight. But from the rear of the hedge came to the Duke and Lord Brudenel, staring blankly at each other across the paper-littered table, a sort of duet. First tenor, then contralto, then tenor again,--and so on, with many long intervals of silence, during which you heard the plas.h.i.+ng of the fountain, grown doubly audible, and, it might be, the sharp, plaintive cry of a bird intensified by the stillness.

”I think it is a dream,” said Marian....