Part 36 (2/2)

Although Amalia's convent training had greatly restricted her knowledge of literature other than religious, her later years of intimate companions.h.i.+p with her father, and her mother's truly remarkable knowledge of the cla.s.sics and fearless investigation of the modern thought of her day, had enlarged Amalia's horizon; while her own vivid imagination and her native geniality caused her to lighten always her mother's more somber thought with a delicate and gracious play of fancy that was at once fascinating and delightful. This, and Harry's determination to live to the utmost in these weeks of respite, made him at times almost gay.

Most of all he reveled in Amalia's music. Certain melodies that she said her father had made he loved especially, and sometimes she would accompany them with a plaintive chant, half singing and half recitation, of the sonnet which had inspired them, and which had been woven through them. It was at these times that Larry listened with his elbows on his knees and his eyes fixed on the fire, and Harry with his eyes on Amalia's face, while the cabin became to him glorified with a light, no longer from the flames, but with a radiance like that which surrounded Dante's Beatrice in Paradise.

Amalia loved to please Larry Kildene. For this reason, knowing the joy he would take in it, and also because she loved color and light and joy, and the giving of joy, she took the gorgeous silk he had brought her, and made it up in a fas.h.i.+on of her own. Down in the cities, she knew, women were wearing their gowns spread out over wide hoops, but she made the dress as she knew they were worn at the time Larry had lived among women and had seen them most.

The bodice she fitted closely and shaped into a long point in front, and the skirt she gathered and allowed to fall in long folds to her feet. The sleeves she fitted only to her elbows, and gathered in them deep lace of her own making--lace to dream about, and the creation of which was one of those choice things she had learned of the good sisters at the convent. About her neck she put a bertha, kerchiefwise, and pinned it with a brooch of curiously wrought gold. Larry, ”the discreet and circ.u.mspect liar,” thought of the emerald brooch she had brought him to sell for her, and knowing how it would glow and blend among the changing tints of the silk, he fetched it to her, explaining that he could not sell it, and that the bracelet had covered all she had asked him to purchase for her, and some to spare.

She thanked him, and fastened it in her bodice, and handed the other to her mother. ”There, mamma, when we have make you the dress Sir Kildene have brought you, you must wear this, for it is beautiful with the black. Then we will have a fete. And for the fete, Sir Kildene, you must wear the very fine new clothes you have buy, and Mr. 'Arry will carry on him the fine new clothing, and so will we be all attire most splendid. I will make for you all the music you like the best, and mamma will speak then the great poems she have learned by head, and Sir Kildene will tell the story he can relate so well of strange happenings. Oh, it will be a fine, good concert we will make here--and you, Mr. 'Arry, what will you do?”

”I'll do the refreshments. I'll roast corn and make coffee. I'll be audience and call for more.”

”Ah, yes! Encore! Encore! The artists must always be very much praised--very much--so have I heard, to make them content. It is Sir Kildene who will be the great artist, and you must cry 'Encore,' and honor him greatly with such calls. Then will we have the pleasure to hear many stories from him. Ah, I like to hear them.”

It was a strange life for Harry King, this odd mixture of finest culture and high-bred delicacy of manner, with what appeared to be a total absence of self-seeking and a simple enjoyment of everyday work.

He found Amalia one morning on her knees scrubbing the cabin floor, and for the moment it shocked him. When they were out on the plains camping and living as best they could, he felt it to be the natural consequence of their necessities when he saw her was.h.i.+ng their clothes and making the best of their difficulties by doing hard things with her own hands, but now that they were living in a civilized way, he could not bear to see her, or her mother, doing the rough work. Amalia only laughed at him. ”See how fine we make all things. If I will not serve for making clean the house, why am I? Is not?”

”It doesn't make any difference what you do, you are always beautiful.”

”Ah, Mr. 'Arry, you must say those compliments only in the French. It is no language, the English, for those fine eloquences.”

”No, I don't seem to be able to say anything I mean, in French. It's always a sort of make-believe talk with me. Our whole life here seems a sort of dream,--as if we were living in some wonderful bubble that will suddenly burst one day, and leave us floating alone in s.p.a.ce, with nothing anywhere to rest on.”

”No, no, you are mistake. Here is this floor, very real, and dirt on it to be washed away,--from your boots, also very real, is not? Go away, Mr. 'Arry, but come to-night in your fine clothing, for we have our fete. Mamma has finish her beautiful new dress, and we will be gay. Is good to be sometimes joyful, is not? We have here no care, only to make happy together, and if we cannot do that, all is somber.”

And that evening indeed, Amalia had her ”fete.” Larry told his best stories, and Harry was persuaded to tell them a little of his life as a soldier, and to sing a camp song. More than this he would not do, but he brought out something he had been reserving with pride, a few little nuggets of gold. During the weeks he had worked he had found little, until the last few days, but happening to strike a vein of ore, richer than any Larry had ever found, the two men were greatly elated, and had determined to interest the women by melting some of it out of the quartz in which it was bedded, and turning out for each a golden bullet in Larry's mold.

They heaped hard wood in the fireplace and the cabin was lighted most gloriously. While they waited for the red coals to melt the gold, Amalia took her violin and played and sang. It was nearly time for the rigor of the winter to abate, but still a high wind was blowing, and the fine snow was piling and drifting about the cabin, and even sifting through the c.h.i.n.ks around the window and door, but the storm only made the brightness and warmth within more delightful.

When Larry drew his crucible from the coals and poured the tiny glowing stream into his molds, Amalia cried out with joy. ”How that is beautiful! How wonderful to dig such beauty from the dark ground down in the black earth! Ah, mamma, look!”

Then Larry pounded each one flat like a coin, and drilled through a small hole, making thus, for each, a souvenir of the s.h.i.+ning metal.

”This is from Harry's first mining,” he said, ”and it represents good, hard labor. He's picked out a lot of worthless dirt and stone to find this.”

Amalia held the little disk in her hand and smiled upon it. ”I love so this little precious thing. Now, Mr. 'Arry, what shall I play for you?

It is yours to ask--for me, to play; it is all I have.”

”That sonnet you played me yesterday. The last line is, '”Quelle est donc cette femme?” et ne comprenda pas.'”

”The music of that is not my father's best--but you ask it, yes.” Then she began, first playing after her own heart little dancing airs, gay and fantastic, and at last slid into a plaintive strain, and recited the accompaniment of rhythmic words.

”Mon ame a son secret, ma vie a son mystere: Un amour eternel en un moment concu.

Le mal est sans espoir, aussi j'ai du le taire Et celle qui l'a fait n'en a jamais rien su.”

One minor note came and went and came again, through the melody, until the last tones fell on that note and were held suspended in a tremulous plaint.

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