Part 10

The sweet, hot air of the day, cooling, was turned to dew outside; something of the same kind seemed taking place within herself--and the dew was tears. Why had she been so curiously uplifted that day, so at rest concerning every point in life, so sure of one thing at least? Nothing was changed, yet she saw no reason now for blessing this summer, golden hour for hour, and looking to it for the greatest, serenest happiness. Damon? What was Damon to her, or she to Damon? He had never in so many words made love to her, and she had never felt the first pang of wonder or disappointment at this. They had walked, rowed, ridden together. What of it? They should do these things again a hundred times, probably. What of that? What had she been dreaming, erewhile? Or was this the dream, this bad one? Something splendid and shining and purple had gone gray.

While continuing mechanically to play, she looked through the open window into the summer night. It was rightfully her moon, that honeyed bright moon outside; her balm-breathing night; it was her silver sea yonder out of sight; they were her odorous pine-needle paths in the sighing grove--and she was robbed of them. And the sense of it gave her a seething in the heart, the like of which sensation she had never dreamed existed: as if a painful separation of all the atoms in it one from the other, as well as the stern conviction of being--oh, the novel idea!--a fool.

"I won't have it!" she muttered, emphatically, without knowing definitely what she meant, and struck an angry discord.

Through her playing reached her suddenly that merry harness-jingle of the afternoon, approaching, passing, fading away.

"There they go--to the beach for the second time to-day--to look at the ocean by light of the moon."

When in little less than an hour she heard the breaking again, on the quiet air, of the fatuous silvery jingle, she let her playing fall to a mere musical murmur, and listened, acutely, burning all the while with shame.

"Go slowly, Humphrey," she caught, in a rich, sweet voice; "I want to listen to the music."

"She plays really wonderfully. I have never heard playing I preferred to hers," came in a well-known deeper voice, at which Chloris's cheeks waxed hotter still. She pressed her foot on the pedal and shut herself within a wall of dinning, buzzing sound.

When she had lifted it, and risen, the road was empty, the night silent, but for the crickets and the distant surf, as the grave.

* * * * *

Several days passed, each bringing Chloris its very natural request from Damon that she would go with him to pay her respects to the new neighbors; but with a perversity that surprised herself more livelily than him, she daily found a bad reason for putting off the duty. This hindered the progress of the idyl; for Damon had a delicate conscience where these strangers were concerned; he would not see them bored in a latitude whose honor, as an earlier inhabitant, he appeared to have at heart.

And presently the atmosphere of the whole country-side seemed qualified by the presence of this Cytherea. It seemed to Chloris one could not escape the effect of her, without taking to the deepest of the woods. She was like an unstopped jar of some powerful essence; the little country world was redolent of her.

Before the time Chloris had at last rigidly fixed for a formal visit came a message from Cytherea inviting her. Hard as she sought to discover a reason for misliking the dainty note, she could find none; it was irreproachable, and Chloris dressed herself for the occasion with a divided mind, the preponderant part of which was finally comfort: she should at least grapple now with a reality.

She came to Cytherea's house at evening under Damon's escort. As one approached it among the trees it looked rather more like one's idea of an Eastern temple than a sea-coast cottage. The veranda was behung with colored paper moons, glowing subduedly among the vines; soft light streamed through lace from the changed interior.

Excitement took Chloris from herself. Now the great adversary was welcoming her; and Chloris, at the touch of a warm, soft hand, said to herself, "What bugbear have I been frightening myself with?" and found ease and ability to converse, and release from that sense of disadvantage that had ridden her helpless heart like a nightmare.

This atmosphere of the great world that went with Cytherea, how awakening, how satisfying after all, to the mind! Not the smallness of envy, thought Chloris, should keep her from giving it its due, or getting her benefit from it. In the distance and abstract she had hated it; but entered into, seen close, how unconscious, how inoffensive, nay, genial, it proved! What a great good, too, this wealth that permitted such distinction in luxury! Country girl as she was, it seemed to Chloris she was breathing her native air.

At Cytherea's prayer she sat down at the piano, and to her own surprise played better than usual. When she had done, she begged the hostess to play. She forgot how she had declared that Cytherea's face showed no soul for music.

She was surprised to hear the lady say, "I play hardly at all." She sincerely now could not believe it.

"Ah, well!" laughed Cytherea; and good-naturedly she pushed a chair to the piano, and appeared preparing to begin.

Chloris looked on in some wonder. Cytherea seated herself half away from the keyboard, one nonchalant arm over the back of her chair, her curly forehead on her hand; and, the first to smile at her own affectation, played an elaborate waltz, very languidly, with her left hand.

Impossible for the eyes to leave her a moment while she performed her pretty trick; and ably enough she performed it, with an adorable cream-white hand.

Chloris seemed to be slowly returning to consciousness. What perfection was here! Nature had given this creature everything. Criticism of her could only pass current under the stamp of envy. That gracious dark beauty, that warm radiance! And sparkle, and charm--with winningness, dignity, rarity, variousness!

Chloris looked over at Damon; and the image of his fascinated face, as, a fond forgotten smile on his lips, he followed with his dark dog-eyes each movement of Cytherea's, affected her as a drop of poison let into her blood. She seemed to herself growing aged and haggard, even as she sat there, the dancing measure beating on her ear. Her hands lay cold in the lap of her best gown--modest made-over gown of pale purplish silk that she wore with a lace bertha of past fashion, once her poor mother's. "What is the use of trying to contend with a thing like that?" her heart asked, dully.

An acuter pain pierced it when, the waltz played out, the laugh following it laughed out, and conversation resumed, she realized the faintest possible shade of disregard in Cytherea for the observations made by Damon. Cytherea prized her, Chloris's, utterances distinctly more; her, she seemed, from all her manner, to be honoring; him, for some reason, she held a trifle cheap. This seemed to Chloris just a little more unendurable than all the rest. And the dear boy, who, totally ignorant of the effect he produced, was in such high spirits, was so anxious to please, so cheerfully making a mantle in the mud of himself for the beauty to tread upon.

At last it was over; Chloris lay in her own bed in the pale summer darkness, and felt she was the heart of the created world, and this pain man's old inheritance; it seemed the very essence of her being which was distilled slowly from her eyes.

* * * * *

On the day following, Chloris punctually sought Cytherea, for appreciation must be shown the cordiality of the beauty. That was a question apart from others: one is just and polite before anything else. A person overhearing the chatting and laughing of that afternoon in Cytherea's room would have thought certainly he listened to a pair of heart friends. The greater expense of admiration between the two women seemed of a truth to be borne by Cytherea. Chloris must look herself mentally over in astonishment at this value set on her by so great a judge. After the examination she felt foolish and humble. She felt profoundly how, all being different, she too could have worshipped Cytherea.

And now she must be concerned in every sort of rural festivity organized by Damon for Cytherea's amusement; she must see the rival's first effect of being mildly bored by Damon's whole-souled dedication turn into an effect of indulgence, daily tinged with increased liking; for who in nature could fail to do final justice to one so simple, so sincere as Damon--Damon, with his dear, clear, curiously gentle Roman face and curly hair?

"The heat does not seem to agree with you this summer, child," one of the aunts concluded her kindly meant scrutiny of Chloris's face; and the girl's heart tightened with affright.

She stood that day before the glass, and, leaning her elbows on the bureau, seriously examined the tinted shadow. "All is of no use," she said. "The more I care, the more I must look like that. Does it not seem a little strange that the more one loves the less lovely one should become? And a little hard, too, perhaps, oh, you, my God, with all respect, who have arranged these little matters?" And tired, discouraged Chloris began weakly to laugh aloud, though she was alone; and watched the grimacing of her own reflection with a sort of brutal contemptuousness. "Oh, you sickening object!" she exclaimed, and hid the delicate, nervous, tell-tale face in her hands. "This cannot go on!" she raved. "Human flesh cannot endure it--and I cannot alter it. All must soon see how it is with me. I can barely keep a hold on my temper now. I must get away. Damon shall court her; she shall bloom and smile at her ease for him. Welcome to each other--both! I shall be where I cannot see it. I refused to visit Fidele in her mountain home. I had a use already--God help me!--for every hour of the summer. I will write to say I repent. Then Damon, Cytherea, sing duets out in the canoe by moonlight; find clover-leaves for each other. I shall be scouring the mountain in search of healing herbs, and I do not doubt but, God helping, I shall find them. It is not in nature that a torture like this should last!"

And Chloris, when next she appeared before the public eye, looked almost triumphant. And when her leave had been taken of all, and the swift air of change was blowing against her brow, her heart felt so strangely sound and quiet that she almost laughed, asking herself, "Why am I going away? I am recovered merely at the notion of it. Had I but known, I could have remained like a little heroine, and stood it out."

But the hours passing broke down and carried off more and more all the gallant props of pride and resolution, and at last Chloris sat in the galloping car, a drooping runaway, who looked steadily out of the window, and saw the flying scene through tears. Contemptible, countrified Chloris, with her freckles and inferior clothes, and so ordinary notions of conduct and taste, running away from comparison with the peerless Cytherea; taking her envy and weakness out of sight till she got strength to disguise them.

Now the scenery, which she had not been seeing, became more lonely and wild; the first low hills, heavy and slow in the general nimbleness of things, shifted themselves with an amiable clumsiness till they had closed in Chloris with her train; waking her suddenly, with a faintly happy sense of diversion from immediate suffering, to the feeling of being a child again visiting strange countries. Then wheeled and tumbled themselves about and came to meet her the little hills' big brothers, the mountains, with velvety sides, and rocky, rosy summits. A weight for no reason seemed to melt away from Chloris's chest as she looked up at them, and thought of living among them now for many a day--the distinguished, sage, cool, sturdily benevolent ones, so high above, so far from, the world she knew, down on the hot-colored, populous plain.

Here she was at last, where she must alight; in a high, pure, crystal-clear atmosphere, at a little lost place, wildly green to eyes used to the sun-burned shore, forgotten of all the world but this train that remembered it for a second twice a day.

And here was Fidele! It seemed to Chloris she had not half known, until this moment, how fond she was of Fidele. Tears sprang to her eyes on meeting the familiar eyes, and she embraced her old school friend with an impulse of overflowing gratitude. She felt like a storm-beaten lamb come to some sort of shelter at last.

After the first moment's frantic clutch the two friends stood apart, holding hands, and looking each other fondly and frankly over, with wide, moved smiles. Fidele, seeing Chloris's eyes, wondered why tears had not come to her, too; and compared her own nature unfavorably with her friend's rich nature; and at this thought of her friend's deep, sweet nature, behold! tears were come in her affectionate eyes, too. Then both girls fell to giggling like schoolgirls, from mere association of this meeting with other meetings; and in a moment were talking lightly and inconsecutively, in an involuntary imitation of old days; and Fidele had taken her friend's arm tightly under her own, intertwined their fingers, and was dragging her along at a hop-and-skip pace.

"What a godsend you are to me!" she exclaimed, rapturously. "There is not a soul in this forsaken place to whom one can talk like a Christian. Oh, but we are slow! Oh, but we are primitive! Oh, but we are simple!--"

"What air it is!" Chloris breathed, profoundly. "How sweet! I never dreamed such green!--My dear, this is Paradise!"

"The air is good enough. The grass is certainly green. But oh, the people are green too! But now you are here, we will change all this, dear. What a holiday! You will inspire us. We will rise up, and look into our closets, and fetch out wherewith to make a good impression on the stranger. You bring the very air of civilization with you in your clothes and hair. Where did you get it, Chlo--the general air, you know? How ravishingly you do your hair! And that little hat! Now, who in the world but you would have a hat like that? Oh, you rare darling! Do you know you are greatly improved? You are thinner, but it suits you. You always were a beauty, you know. Yes, you were! But you have acquired so much besides--such an interesting air--yes, you have!--so much expression. No one could see you without--gospel truth, Chlo! But, yes--I will--I will hold my tongue. Did you bring your music at least, for there is a piano, such as it is. Thank Heaven! You shall make their capture with song. They shall grovel. You know, dear, I am not really so silly as I seem; your arriving has turned my head. I always did adore you, but it is even better than I remembered."

Chloris that night, alone at last, tried to readjust herself, to get back through this new experience her self of yesterday. The morning of her starting from home, but sixteen hours removed, seemed withdrawn into a much remoter past; a screen of glittering, crumbling, changing color was arisen between herself and it. She interrogated her breast curiously for that pain lately grown so familiar, forgotten for the first time only in these last hours; her breast did not answer by at once producing it. She goaded it tentatively with a sharp memory or two; it responded sluggishly--a divinely restful torpor was possessing it. She knelt by the window, and looked out at the still, strong, black mountains; instinctively she wafted profound thanks to their rude majesties. Far, far away in her dream at this moment, in an infinitely small, sun-warmed, murmuring plain, moved two tiny figures: the great Damon, who erewhile filled the entire horizon of her life, and the great Cytherea, who interposed her fair shape between her and the sun, shutting off the light of life--two tiny black figures, in a far-off, sunshiny place it fatigued her to think of. Only the mountains were big and important; and this cool, rough bedchamber was fifteen by twelve; only Fidele and herself and the people seen for the first time this evening were life-size and real.

Stretching her tired limbs in the bed, that had nothing to-night in common with the rack, feeling natural sleep creep over her as it had long not done, she remembered with a vague joy that she was young; she divined a time ahead--perhaps not so far ahead either--when life would become possible again.

She felt as if cosily tucked in and kept warm by the sense of Fidele's affectionate appreciation, and the evident admiration of her friends, called in even on this first evening to greet her. It was good. It restored one's lost self-confidence.

The last thought Chloris was conscious of was not for Damon this once, but Demetrius. (Demetrius, I said. The reader here revolts. Chloris, Cytherea, a Chloe apparently still to come, and Fidele, Damon, Demetrius! Are these names to pass off on the discriminating reader in a tale that has nothing to do with the times of Theocritus or Addison? I confess it, I would have deceived. The persons in this story knew themselves by none of the names I have set down. They had been given at the font, and had by chance and inheritance come into, names that represented them far less well. Who can assume to fitly name a babe in arms? With a pure purpose I rechristened them. If you could know what, for instance, was the real name of Cytherea--But enough.)

On the next morning arises Chloris, constating with thankfulness that no more than the night before is her heart bleeding at every pore. Filled with a venerable feminine desire to still increase the favorable impression she is sure she has made on the inhabitants of this high hamlet, she does her hair more than ever engagingly, puts on her crispest white gown with the lavender ribbons, and her broad straw hat with roses--the hat Damon had praised in the early part of the season. Something stirs in her sleeping bosom at the remembrance; she pauses in her task of pinning it on; the green-gray eyes with the brown spots grow fixed upon a vision, small as if seen through the wrong end of the opera-glass: On a shining shore, two little figures setting out in a sail-boat--only two, for the cousin has pleaded the disagreeable effect on her of the motion of the sea. Chloris sits down discouraged, feeling the blood drop from her face, and her heart present her with as finished a pain as ever. "It really matters so very little," she murmurs, firmly restraining from wringing her hands; "I only--only should like to know how long this kind of thing may be supposed to last!"

Chloris and Fidele loiter about the garden full of morning sunshine, snipping off wet sweet-peas and roses, and reminding each other of things. Then, to please Chloris, they go for a stroll. Chloris is eager for a little climb. Heated and pleasantly tired, they come to the top of an eminence and sit down under the only clump of trees, in company of the unbudging horned cows, who know their claim is good, for they got there first. Fidele, leaning against a tree-trunk, fans herself more and more fitfully with her hat, and presently slumbers. Chloris, with her head in Fidele's lap, can never weary of looking off over the faint-hued valley which the shadows of clouds softly overstray. In this delicious bodily relaxation after hill-climbing in the sun, strange peace inundates her soul, and she entertains a superstition that it is flowing out to her from the mountains, and lies luxuriously, letting herself be done good to. "They know the secret of peace," she muses in her manner of a girl. "They cannot speak, but the effect of their knowledge radiates from them, and reaches us. The end of all--of all is peace. All works towards it incessantly, as one sees nature do towards harmony. Through these battles, to peace. Why can one not remember it down on the plain?" Now a cloud obscures the sun that gropes through it with long golden fingers; Chloris, dreaming, ponders half wistfully what it would be to remain here always, begin life anew, never return where one had suffered so much, and was surely so little missed!

On their way home the girls meet Demetrius in his chaise, on his rounds. He reins in, and leans out of the leathern hood; with arms alink the girls stand in the white road below, in a great bath of light. They converse a moment; Chloris's lifted face, with the stamp on it still of her high thinking on the hill-top, is like a flushed pearl under her rose-laden hat.

"You must let me show you the country," says Demetrius, before driving on.

When he is gone, Chloris and Fidele naturally fall to talking of him.

"How is it," says Chloris, "that a man so superior has attained his age and is merely a doctor in a place like this?"

"My dear, we have our ailments like the rest. You don't grudge us a good doctor? He was born here, and after a good number of years down in the haunts of men came back in a natural sort of way. His father left him property up here. He is not ambitious; he has an abundance of money. He practises more or less for the love of it, and something to do. He is our most presentable man, and I want you to appreciate our good points in him. He adores music; the piano I spoke of is his. He has invited us up there; as soon as you feel inclined we will go."

When, in a few days, Chloris consented to go, one-half the curious population went with her, to hear her play.

The stiff farm-house parlor, closed nine-tenths of the year, had been made to breathe out its musty ice-house atmosphere; lighted and garnished and filled with guests, it scarcely recognized itself.

Demetrius leaned on the instrument while Chloris played, his untrimmed head dreamily drooping, his eyes half closed, like a lazy cat's in the sunshine, when a hand is stroking it the right way. When she had finished, and all lifted their hands and praised and questioned her, he turned away with a sigh, saying nothing; and yet both knew that the truest music-lover of all was he; and when she played again it was chiefly with the thought of him as an audience.

"What an air of intelligence your hands have when you play," he said, later. "But it is the same when you are crocheting, or just drumming on the chair-arm. They look as if they could talk, and utter such wise and witty things."

A very friendly understanding was almost at once established between them; after which, he being such a sensible, direct, humorous man, well on towards middle age, and Fidele urging it, it seemed but proper to accept the offered seat in his chaise and see the country to the best advantage.

They travelled many leagues behind his mare; they reached many points of vantage from which to look off at the view. Their conversation was half laughter; yet Chloris felt a serene security in the awe she knew she inspired.

In the country doctor's company, such was his effect on her and hers on him, Chloris felt always sweetly young, and unusually well-dressed, unusually beautiful and brilliant--as well as experienced in the ways of the world, and possessed of a strong and complicated character. With all this, something of an impostor.