CHAPTER VIII

It was certainly a sunny enough day, and the Elbe glistened invitingly. Wooton had been up earlier than was usual for him and had taken a walk out into the level country; when he came into the hallway of the Bellevue he was in the best of spirits. Miss Ware came down the stairway, presently, her parasol in rest over her left arm, and her gloves still in process of being buttoned. She smiled down at him radiantly.

"I haven't kept you waiting, have I?" she cried.

"Not a moment," he answered, adding, with a smile, "strange to say. You young ladies usually do! But--do you notice how kind the clerk of the weather is?"

"Delightful!" They went slowly down toward the wharf where the little steamer was puffing lazily in the rising heat.

"Your mother is well?" He asked the I question as solicitously as if he were the family physician.

"Quite well. The fact is," she added with a comic effort to seem melancholy, "I'm afraid she'll be so well soon that she'll want to go back to the States."

"Ah, so you don't want to go just yet?"

"Oh, I haven't half seen it all, you know! Still,--" she sighed gently and looked out beyond the real horizon, "it will be nice to be home again."

Wooton brought a couple of steamer chairs and placed them on the deck-space that was well in the shadow of the awning. The sun was beginning to grow almost unpleasantly strong. Presently, with a minute or so of wriggling away from the wharf, of backing and sidling, the little steamer got proper headway and proceeded slowly on its way up the river. The central portion of the town was soon passed; green garden-spaces, and houses shut in by cherry-trees, gave way to low-lying meadows and hills rising up in the distance. The perpetual "shug-shug-shug" of the engines, and the hushed whispering of the river as the steamer bows cut through the water were almost the only sounds that broke the quiet. There was not a cloud in the sky. Swallows darted arrow-like through the air.

Wooton had pushed his hat back from his forehead and sat with half-closed eyes. He was silent. Miss Ware, looking at him shyly, wondered what he was thinking about; told herself once more that he was the handsomest man she had ever seen, and then sent her clear gaze riverward again. What Wooton was thinking at that moment was that he would give many things if in his spirit there were still that simplicity that would ask of life no more feverish pleasures than those he was now enjoying--the pleasures of peace and quiet. To be able to sit thus, with half-closed eyes, as it were, and let the wind of the world always blow merely a gentle breath across one's face!--perhaps, after all, that was the road to happiness. On the other hand, the thousand and one experiences; missed, the opportunities wasted! Surely it was impossible to appreciate the sweets of good had one not first tasted of the fruit of knowledge of evil! But supposing one so got the taste of the bitter apple into one's mouth that thereafter all things tasted bitter and the good, especially, created only nausea? For that was his own state. Well, in that case--he smiled to himself in his silence--there was nothing to be done but enjoy, enjoy to think of the once easily reached contentment as of a dream that is dead, and to strive so ceaselessly to blow the embers of the fires of pleasure that they would at least keep smouldering until all the vessel was ashes. The pleasures of the moment--those were the things to seize! The moment was the thing to enjoy; the morrow might not come.

He turned to look at the girl beside him, who had by this time resigned herself with something of quiet amusement to his silence, and now sat, veilless, her lips slightly open to the breeze, her face unspeakably fair-seeming with its rosy flush and its look of eager, expectant enjoyment. He told himself that, as far as this moment at least went, it left little to be desired; to sit beside so sweety a girl as Dorothy Ware was surely pleasure enough. And then he thought somewhat grimly that he himself was, unfortunately, impregnable to the infection of such simple joys.

"A penny!" he spoke softly, as if not to wake her too brusquely from a rêverie.

"Oh," she cried, with a little start, and, turning toward him, "they are not worth so much, really! I was thinking of Mr. Lancaster. He used to be so terribly ambitious; you know. Didn't you say you knew of him, in town?"

Wooton realized that he must needs be diplomatic. He called it diplomacy; some persons might have rudely termed it mendacity. The two are commonly confounded.

"Yes," he replied, "some artists that I knew used to mention his name occasionally." He paused an instant or two and then continued, impassively, "I seem to remember hearing someone say that he was engaged to some very rich girl."

Dorothy Ware smiled sadly. "I supposed he would be," she said, simply. She felt angry at herself for not feeling the news more deeply; yet it hardly seemed to touch her at all; it was just as if she had heard that one of her girl friends had married. She recalled Dick's impassioned, if soberly worded, farewell; she remembered her own words; she wondered how it was possible that the passing months could have changed her so that now she seemed almost indifferent as to young Lancaster's fortunes or misfortunes.

Wooton's exclamation of "Ah, there's Schandau!" broke in upon the train of her self-questioning thoughts. They walked over to the rail of the boat together, and looked out to where the roofs of summer-villas and hotels came peeping through the wooded banks of the river. As they stood thus she felt his right hand just touching her own left. Somehow, the blood came rushing into her face, and she took her hand away under pretense of fastening up her veil.

From the landing-stage they walked up to one of the hotels, where Wooton ordered a light repast. Miss Ware was in excellent spirits. The beauty of the day and the picturesqueness of the place, with its cozy villas tucked away against the hillside, its leafy lanes and its mountain shadows, filled her with the elixir of happiness. She chatted and laughed incessantly. She asked Wooton if they couldn't go for a walk into the woods. Walk, of course! No, she didn't want to drive; that was too much like poking along the boulevards at home in the States. She wanted to stroll up little foot-paths, into the heart of the wood, and gather flowers, and have the birds whistle to her! Didn't he remember that she was a country girl? She hadn't been in a real wood since she left Lincolnville, and did he suppose she was going to enjoy this one by halves?

They walked out along the white, dusty _chaussee_ until it reached the denser part of the hill-forest; then they struck off into a by-path. In the shadow of the pines it was cool and refreshing; the scent of pines filled the air. In the thick undergrowth there were occasional clumps of blue-berries. Dorothy Ware picked them eagerly, laughing carelessly when she stained her gloves with the juice. She plucked flowers in abundance, and had Wooton carry them. They strayed heedlessly into the forest, hardly noting whether they followed the path or not. They found themselves, presently, in the lee of a huge rock that some long-silent volcanic upheaval must once have thrust through the earth's shell. Close to the earth this rock was narrower than at its summit; under its sloping base there was a cavity all covered with moss. Overhead the pines shut out the sky.

A trifle tired with her walk, Miss Ware hailed the sight of this spot with unfeigned gladness. Wooton spread his top-coat for her. Sitting there, in the silence made voiceful by the rustling of the pines, Wooton felt his heart beat faster than it had in years. She was pretty, this girl; her voice was so caressing, and her presence and manner such a charm! Young enough, too, to be taught many things. He watched her, as she sat there, binding the flowers with the stems of long grasses, stray curls playing about her cheeks, and her mouth snowing the slight down on the upper lip, and, for an instant, there came to him a feeling of pity. It is possible, perhaps, that the serpent occasionally pauses to admire the pigeon's plumage.

"I wonder," he began, softly, "whether you know Hugh McCulloch's 'Scent o' Pines'? No? I think you will like it:

"Love shall I liken thee unto the rose That is so sweet? Nay, since for a single day she grows, Then scattered lies upon the garden-rows Beneath our feet.

"But to the perfume shed when forests nod, When noonday shines; That lulls us as we tread the wood-land sod, Eternal as the eternal peace of God-- The scent of pines."

He quoted the verses musically. He gave the words all the sincerity that never found its way into his actions. He was one of those men who read a thing better than the man that wrote it, because they know better the art of simulating an emotion that he knows only how to feel.

"A pretty idea," she admitted. They talked on ramblingly, lightly. Overhead the sun was sinking into the west. A wind had sprung up from the southwest, and in the north-west banks of clouds had gathered, thick and threatening. Occasional flashes of lightning darted across the cloud-space. A thunderstorm was evidently approaching, proceeding stubbornly against the wind. The sun dipped behind the clouds, that rose higher, presently over-casting all the heavens. Light gusts of wind went puffing through the forest, scattering leaves and whirling twigs.

Suddenly, with a crash and a roar, the mountain storm broke over the forest. Almost on the stroke of the first flash of lightning came the thunder; then as if the clouds had been bulls charging in the arena, the furious concussion was followed by the gush of the blood of heaven. The rain came down in lances that struck the earth and bounded up again. About the heads of the pines the wind roared and wailed.

Coming upon them so suddenly, this riot of the elements made the two young people sitting there in the lee of the rock, start to their feet in dismay. A momentary gleam came into Wooton's eyes; whether it was anger or joy only himself could have told. All about them the storm was playing its tremendous tarantelle; the whole earth seemed to shake with the repeated cannonades of the thunderous artillery of the heavens, and through the darkness that had fallen the lightning sent such vivid streaks of light as only made the succeeding gloom more dismal. It was to tempt fate to venture out of the shelter the rock was giving. Instinctively the girl shrank a little toward Wooton. She looked at him appealingly. "It's dreadful," she said, "it--it hurts my eyes so! And--the steamer! Mamma will think--" She stopped and covered her eyes with her hands just as another flash seared its way into the forest.

Wooton stood still, biting his underlip nervously. "I--I'm afraid it's all my fault," he said, "I ought to have known it was getting late. And these storms come up so quickly here in the mountains. We can't stir from here. The storm is playing right around this wood. It means waiting." He saw her shivering slightly. Bending down, he picked up his top-coat, and put it gently about her shoulders. "You'll catch cold," he warned, in a tender voice.

She said nothing; but he could see gratitude in her eyes. Something seemed to draw her toward him. At each glaring flash she shrank nearer to him. He was looking tensely at her, his hand against a ledge of rock, lest the gusts of wind should swing him out into the open.

A crash that seemed to deafen all hearing for several instants; a flying mass of splintered wood, torn from a suddenly stricken tree that fell straight across the opening of their shelter; a light so white that it hurt the eyes; and a trembling under foot that shook the very ground these two storm-stayed ones stood. In the instant that followed the crash Wooton felt the girl beside him lean heavily towards him; her eyes were closed; she had fainted. Keeping her tightly in his arms, a queer smile played about the corners of his mouth. "It was ordained!" His thoughts uttered themselves almost unconsciously. Holding her so, with the thunder still rolling its chariot wheels all about the reverberate rocks, he kissed her.

The wind veered about, sending the rain spatteringly into their faces. Wooton unfastened the girl's veil, and took her hat off, very gently and carefully. The rain splashed into her face, streaming over the brow and the heavy lashes.

Slowly the lashes lifted; her breast moved in a tremulous breath. As comprehension of her position came to her awakening faculties she seemed to shudder a little, to attempt withdrawal; then her eyes sought his, and something found there seemed to soothe; she sighed again and sank more closely into his embrace. And now fires went coursing through the man; he pressed the girl's slight body to him fiercely, and kissing her upon both eyes, whispered into the rosy shell of her ear, "Dorothy--I love you!"

The storm still played relentlessly about them. The rain came further and further into the shelter-hole. But these two, lip to lip, and breath to breath, gave no heed save to the promptings of their own emotions. The elements might rend the rocks; but hearts they could not scar! The girl felt herself irresistibly drawn by this man. Something in him had always attracted her wonderfully--something she had never sought to explain, scarcely heeding it for any length of time. But now that chance had, as it seemed, thrown the magnet and the steel so closely together, she felt this hidden, mysterious force more mightily than ever; it seemed to her that in his kisses all the earth might melt away and become nothing. Moments when she feared him, when he inspired her with something not unlike anger, were succeeded by moments when she felt that he had put an arrow into her heart which to withdraw meant unutterable anguish; but which to bury more deeply meant the bitterest and sweetest of the bitter-sweets of love.

While the storm raged on and over the mountain, these two sat there where whatsoever forest-gods of love there be had drawn their magic circle. Reeling over the mountain top like a drunken man, the storm passed on along the river-banks, waking up echoes in the Bastei, and flying, presently, into Austria. Its muttered curses grew fainter and fainter, gradually to be swallowed up altogether in the swaying of the pines and the streaming of the rain.

Then, presently, the pines began to lift their heads again, to shake themselves as if in angry impatience, so that the rain dropped heavily, and after the flying column of darkness, light came in once more from the west. The sun was still above the horizon. Turning the rain-drops into opals that glistened with the rain-bow hues, the sunshine streamed over the forest. The afternoon, that had seen such a terrible battle of the elements, was to die in peace, and light, and sweetness.

They walked together to an eminence that was almost bared of trees. Below them the forest swept in every direction like a field of dark grass. The sun sent its last rays ricochetting over the waves of green to where they stood, silently. Another instant, and the great bronzed body was below the line of hills that made the horizon; only the salmon-colored streaks that stained the lower strata of the western sky remained to tell the tale of the sun-god's day. The air grew slightly chill.

With that first forerunner of the fall of night, there came into the dream that Dorothy Ware had moved in, the chilling thought of--certain facts. They had most assuredly missed the boat back to Dresden. Would there be another when they reached Schandau? Could they get home by carriage?

Wooton could only shrug his shoulders in despair. He did not know. He had counted only on the two hours--the hour of the departure from Dresden and the return from Schandau; the storm had upset all his plans. He was utterly at sea; he could say nothing until they reached Schandau and made inquiries. Would she not let the thought drop until then. Was there not the sweet present?

As they walked through the forest, picking their way as best they could, without a compass, and uncertain whether their direction was the right one or the wrong one, night falling surely and swiftly, Wooton held his arm about the young girl's waist, lest she stumble or slip. She looked up at him smilingly and trustingly, yet tremulous at the behest of that mysterious something that drove her to accept his caresses instead of spurning them, that made her quiver at his touch, like a wind-kissed aspen, and had her still the storm within her by giving it a storm to fight.

The darkness became denser. Their feet stumbled, and trees were hardly distinguishable in the blackness. Had there been no other thought save that considering their condition and surroundings, the girl, at least, would have been trembling in fear and and uncertainty. As it was, each loophole for a doubt was closed up by a kiss.

A streak of white came suddenly in view, and they found themselves upon the chaussee once more. But in which direction lay Schandau? Overhead the the stars were shining, but neither of these two could use the night heavens as a chart.

Behind them came the dull rumble of wheels. Around a turn of the road came carriage-lights. As they flashed close upon them, Wooton spoke to the driver.

"Sie fahren nach Schandau? nicht wahr?"

The driver assented, without stopping. At the sound of the questioner's voice, one of the occupants of the carriage had leaned window-ward.

It was Miss Tremont, of Boston. In the glare of the lanterns she had caught the faces plainly.

She leaned back to the cushions, smiling slightly.