Chapter 6

But Pats was not asleep. He soon opened his eyes and gazed dreamily upward among the branches overhead, then moved his eyes in her direction. For an easier study of the inviting creature not two yards away, he partially raised himself on an elbow. The contemplation of this lady he had found at all times entrancing; but now, from her unconscious carelessness and freedom she became of absorbing interest. Her dignity was asleep, as it were: her caution forgotten. With captivated eyes he drank in the graceful outlines of her figure beneath the white dress, the gentle movement of the chest, the limp hands on the pine-needles. Some of the pride and reserve of the clean-cut, patrician face--of which he stood in awe--had melted away in slumber.

Maybe the murmur of the pines with the drowsy, languorous breeze relaxed his conscience; at all events the contours of the upturned lips were irresistible. Silently he rolled over once--the soft carpet of pine-needles abetting the manoeuvre--until his face was at right angles to her own, and very near. Then cautiously and slowly he pressed his lips to hers. This contact brought a thrill of ecstasy--an intoxication to his senses. But the joy was brief.

More quickly than his startled wits could follow she had pushed away his face and risen to her feet. Erect, with burning cheeks, she looked down into his startled eyes with an expression that brought him sharply to his senses. It was a look of amazement, of incredulity, of contempt--of everything in short that he had hoped never to encounter in her face again. For a moment she stood regarding him, her breast heaving, a stray lock of hair across a hot cheek, the most distant, the most exalted, and the most beautiful figure he had ever seen. Then, without a word, she walked away. Across the open, sunlit space his eyes followed her, until, through the doorway of the cottage, she disappeared.

For a moment he remained as he was, upon the ground, half reclining, staring blankly at the doorway. Then, slowly, he lowered himself and lay at full length along the ground, his face in his hands.

Of the flight of time he had no knowledge: but, at last, when he rose to his feet he appeared older. He was paler. His eyes were duller. About the mouth had come lines which seemed to indicate a painful resolution. But to the shrunken legs he had summoned a sufficient force to carry him, without wavering, to the cottage door. He entered and dropped, as a man uncertain of his strength, into the nearest chair--the one beside the doorway. Solomon, who had followed at his heels, looked up inquiringly into the emaciated face. Its extraordinary melancholy may have alarmed him. But Pats paid no attention to his dog. He looked at Elinor who was ironing, at the heavy table--the dining-table--in the centre of the room. Her sleeves were rolled back to the elbow; her head bent slightly over as she worked.

The afternoon sun flooded the space in his vicinity and reached far along the floor, touching the skirt of her dress. Behind her the old tapestry with the two marble busts formed a stately background. To the new arrivals she paid no attention.

After a short rest to recover his breath, and his strength, Pats cleared his throat:

"Miss Marshall, you will never know, for I could not begin to tell you--how sorry--how, how ashamed I am for having done--what I did. I don't ask you to forgive me. If you were my sister and another man did it, I should--" He leaned back, at a loss for words.

"I don't say it was the claret. I don't try to excuse myself in any way. But one thing I ask you to believe: that I did not realize what I was doing."

He arose and stood with his hand on the back of the chair. As he went on his voice grew less steady. "Why, I look upon you as something sacred; you are so much finer, higher, better than other people. In a way I feel toward you as toward my mother's memory; and that is a holy thing. I could as soon insult one as the other. And I realize and shall never forget all that you have done for me."

In a voice over which he seemed to be losing control, he went on, more rapidly:

"And it's more than all that--it's more than gratitude and respect. I--" For an instant he hesitated, then his words came hotly, with a reckless haste. "I love you as I never thought of loving any human being. It began when I first saw you on the wharf. You don't know what it means. Why, I could lay down my life for you--a thousand times--and joyfully."

From Elinor these words met with no outward recognition. She went quietly on with her ironing.

Pats drew a deep breath, sank into his chair and muttered, in a lower tone, "I never meant to tell you that. Now I--I--have done it."

During the pause that followed these last words she said, quietly, without looking up:

"I knew it already."

He straightened up. "Knew what already?"

She lifted a collar she was ironing and examined it, but made no reply.

"You knew what already?" he repeated. "That I was in love with you?"

She nodded, still regarding the collar.

"Impossible!"

She laid the collar beside other collars already ironed and took up another; but he heard no answer.

"How did you know?" he asked. "From what?"

"From various things."

"What things?"

There was no reply.

"From things I did?"

She nodded, rather solemnly, and her face, what he could see of it--seemed very serious. Pats was watching her intently, and exclaimed, in surprise:

"That is very curious, for I kept it to myself!"

"Any woman would have known."

Pats leaned back, and frowned. A torturing thought possessed him. In an anxious tone he said: "I hope I did not talk much when I had the fever."

As she made no reply he studied the back of her head for some responsive motion. But none came.

"Did I?" he demanded.

"Yes."

A look of terror came into his face and his voice grew fainter as he asked: "Did I talk about you?"

"Freely."

With trembling fingers he felt for his handkerchief and drew it across his brow. "Did I say things that--that--I should be ashamed of?"

She nodded.

Pats sunk lower in his chair and closed his eyes. Judging from the lines in his cadaverous face the last three minutes had added years to his age.

"Would you mind telling me," he asked in a deferential voice, so low that it barely reached her, "whether they were impertinent and ungentlemanly--or--or--what?"

"Everything."

His lips were dry, and on his face came a look of anguish--of unspeakable shame. There was a pause, broken only by the faint sound of the flatiron.

"Then I really talked about you--at one time?"

She nodded.

"More than once?"

"For days together."

Pats closed his eyes in pain, and there was a silence. Then he opened them: "Would you mind telling me some of the things I said?"

"I could not remember."

"Have you forgotten _all_?"

"No--but I prefer not repeating them."

On Pats's face the look of shame deepened. In a very low voice he said: "Please remember that I was not myself."

"I make allowance for that."

"Excuse my asking, but if I was out of my head and irresponsible, what could I have said to make you believe that I was--in love with you?"

"You protested so violently that you were not."

With unspeakable horror and humiliation Pats began to realize the awful possibilities of that divulgence of his most secret thoughts. A cold chill crept up his spine. He looked down at the floor, from fear that she might glance in his direction and meet his eyes. Solomon, who felt there was trouble in the air, came nearer and placed his cold wet snout against the clinched hands of his master; but the hands were unresponsive.

At last, the stricken man mustered courage enough to stammer in a constrained voice:

"It is not from curiosity I ask it, but would you mind telling me--giving me at least some idea of what I said?"

Elinor carefully deposited a neatly folded handkerchief upon a little pile of other handkerchiefs. Then, looking down at the table and not at Pats, she said calmly, as she continued her work:

"You said I was a pious hypocrite--coldblooded and heartless--and a fool. You repeated a great many times that I was superior, pretentious, and 'everlastingly stuck on myself,'--I think that was the expression. Of course, I cannot repeat your own words. They were forcible, but exceedingly profane."

"Oh!"

"You kept mentioning three other men who could have me for all you cared."

Pats felt himself blushing. He frowned, grew hot, and bit his lip. Mingled with his mortification came an impotent rage. He felt that behind her contempt she was laughing at him. As there was a pause, he muttered bitterly:

"Go on."

But she continued silently with her ironing.

"Please go on. Tell me more; the worst. I should like to know it."

Raising one of the handkerchiefs higher for a closer examination, she added: "You sang comic songs, inserting my name, and with language I supposed no gentlemen could use."

Pats gasped. His cheeks tingled. In shame he closed his eyes. The ticking of the old clock behind the door seemed to hammer his degradation still deeper into his aching soul. As his wandering, miserable gaze encountered the marble face of the Marshal of France he thought the old soldier was watching him in contemptuous enjoyment.

But Elinor went on quietly with her ironing.

Suddenly into his feverish brain there came a thought, heaven-born, inspiring. It lifted him to his feet. With a firm stride he approached the table. No legs could have done it better. He stood beside her, but she turned her back as she went on with the ironing. His expression was of a man exalted, yet anxious; and he spoke in a low but unruly voice.

"You say you have known I was in love with you ever since the fever?"

She nodded slightly, without looking up.

"And yet you have been very--kind, and not--not annoyed or offended. Perhaps after all, you--you--oh, please turn around!"

But she did not turn, so he stepped around in front. Into her cheeks had come a sudden color, and in her eyes he saw the light that lifts a lover to the highest heaven.

It was Pat's cry of joy and his impulsive and somewhat violent embrace of this lady that awakened the dog reposing by the door. Looking in the direction of the voice Solomon seemed to see but a single figure. This was a natural mistake. In another moment, however, he realized that extraordinary things were happening,--that these two distinct and separate beings with a single outline signified some momentous change in human life. Whether from an over-mastering sympathy, from envy, delicacy, or disgust, Solomon looked the other way. Then, thoughtfully, with drooping head, he walked slowly out and left the lovers to themselves.

X

TRAPPING A QUAIL

Happy were the days that followed. Pats, uplifted with his own joy, became a lavish dispenser of cheerfulness and folly. Elinor, with unclouded eyes and a warmer color in her cheeks, seemed to have drifted into the Harbor of Serenity. Both were at peace with creation.

In pleasant weather they strolled among the pines, worked in the little garden behind the house, fished, played upon the beach, or explored the neighborhood. When it rained, which was seldom, they cleaned up the house, read books and old letters, ransacking trunks and drawers trying to discover the secret of the departed owner. But in vain. The departed owner had been careful to leave no clew to his identity or of his reason for abiding there. They did find, however, between the leaves of a book, a little chart of the point done by his own hand apparently, and beneath it was written

La Pointe de Lory.

So they felt they had learned the name of the place, but whether it was the official name or one given by the old gentleman for his private use they could not discover.

"There is a town of St. Lory in the south of France," said Pats. "I knew a man who came from there. Perhaps our host was from that vicinity."

The days went by and no sail appeared. This, however, was of slight importance. In fact, during that first ecstatic period, nothing was important,--that is, nothing like a ship. It was during this period they forgot to keep tally of time, and they either lost or gained a day, they knew not which--nor cared.

All days were good, whatever the weather. Time never dragged. With a companion of another temperament Elinor could easily have passed moments of depression. For a girl in her position there certainly was abundant material for regret. But the courage and the unwavering cheerfulness of Pats were contagious. He and melancholy were never partners. A discovery, however, was made one morning on the little beach that, for a moment at least, filled Elinor with misgivings.

Midway along this beach they found a bucket, rolling about on the sand, driven here and there by the incoming waves.

"That is worth saving," and Pats, watching his opportunity, followed up a receding breaker and procured the prize. It resembled a fire-bucket; and there were white letters around the centre. Elinor ran up and stood beside him, and, as he held it aloft, turning it slowly about to follow the words, both read aloud:

"Of--the--North--Maid."

"Maid of the North!" exclaimed Elinor, grasping Pats by the arm. "Oh, I hope nothing has happened to her!"

"Probably not. More likely some sailor lost it overboard." Then, looking up and down the beach, "There is no wreckage of any kind. If she had blown up or struck a rock there would surely be something more than one water-bucket to come ashore and tell us. I guess she is all right."

"But how exciting! It seems like meeting an old friend."

She held it in her own hands. "Poor thing! You did look so melancholy swashing about on this lonely beach."

When they returned to the house they carried the bucket with them.

Pats had his own misgivings, however. One or two other objects he had discerned floating on the water farther out, too far away to distinguish what they were. And the fact that no search had been made for Elinor was in itself disquieting. But as his chief aim at present was to bring contentment to the girl beside him, he carefully refrained from any betrayal of these doubts. Nothing else, however, that might cause alarm was washed ashore.

And Pats, all this time, was growing fat. His increasing plumpness was perceptible from day to day, and it proved a constant source of mirth to his companion. One morning he appeared in a pair of checkered trousers purchased in South Africa during his skeleton period. They seemed on the verge of exploding from the outward pressure of the legs within. Elinor made no effort to suppress her merriment. She called him "Fatsy." And to the dog, who regarded the trousers with his usual solemnity, she remarked:

"O, Solomon! See him grow fat! Our erstwhile skinny, Diaphanous Pat."

But with "Fatsy's" flesh came increase of strength, and he proved a hard worker. As soon as he was strong enough he began to build the raft by which they hoped to cross the river. But progress was slow for his endurance had limits, and he could work but an hour or two each day. Their plan was to paddle across the river on this raft as they floated down. Owing to the swiftness of the current they built the raft nearly a mile farther up the stream. With the walk to and fro, which also taxed the builder's strength, the month of July brought little progress. One afternoon, they sauntered home, the broad, swift, silent river on their right, the sun just above the trees on the opposite bank. Close at hand, on their own side of the river the nearest pines stood forth in strong relief against the mysterious depths behind. Near the river's bank long shadows from these towering trunks lay in purple bars across the smooth, brown carpet. It was about half-way home that the man, with an air of weariness, seated himself upon a fallen tree. Elinor regarded him with an anxious face.

"Patsy, you have done too much again." As he looked up, she saw in his eyes an expression she had learned to associate with levity and foolishness. "Be serious. You are very tired, now aren't you?"

"Just pleasantly tired. But if I were suddenly kissed by a popular belle it would give me new strength."

When, a moment later, he arose, fresh life and vigor seemed certainly to have been acquired. Catching her by the waist, he hummed a waltz and away they floated, over the pine-needles, he in gray and she in white, like wingless spirits of the wood. When the waltz had ended and they were walking hand in hand, and a little out of breath, the lady remarked:

"When I am frivolous in these woods I feel very wicked. They are so silent and reserved themselves, so solemn and so very high-minded that it seems a desecration."

"All wrong," said Pats. "This is a temple built for lovers: shady, spacious, and jammed full of mystery--and safe."

"But it's the spaciousness and mystery that make it so like a temple and suggest serious thoughts."

"Not to a healthy mind. Oh, no! This gloom is here for a purpose. Pious thoughts should seek the light, but lovers need obscurity. They always have and they always will."

A few steps farther on he stopped and faced her, still holding her hand: "If you will feed the hens to-night, bring in the wood and wash the dishes, you may embrace me once again--now, right here."

She snatched away her head. He sprang forward to catch her--but she was away, beyond his reach. She ran on ahead and Pats, after a short pursuit, gave up the chase, for his fallible legs were still unfit for speed. With a mocking laugh and a wave of the hand she hastened on toward the cottage. Following more leisurely he watched the graceful figure in the white dress hurrying on before him until it was lost among the pines.

Just at the edge of the woods, not a hundred feet from the house, he stopped. Standing behind a tree so that Elinor, if she came to the door, could not see him, he whistled three notes. These notes, clear and full, were in imitation of a quail. And he did it exceedingly well. The imitation was masterly.

But no one appeared at the cottage door, and after a short silence he repeated the call.

"Perfect!"

Pats started and turned about.

"A very clever hoax!"

And as Elinor stepped forth from behind a neighboring tree, there was a look in her eyes that caused the skilful deceiver to bow his head. With a slight movement of the hands, the palms turned outward, as if in surrender, he offered a mute appeal for mercy.

"So you are that quail!" And slowly up and down she moved her head as if realizing with reluctance the bitterness of the discovery. "What fun you must have had in fooling me so often and so easily! And the many times that I have hurried to that door and waited to hear it again! What was my offence that you should pay me back in such a fashion?"

"Oh, don't put it that way! Don't speak like that!"

"And my sentiment about it! My saying that I loved the sound because it took me back to my own home in Massachusetts--all that must have been very amusing."

"Listen. Let me explain."

"And to keep on making me ridiculous, day after day, when I was on the verge of collapse from pure exhaustion--yes, it showed a nice feeling."

"Elinor, you are very unjust. Let me tell you just how it happened. The first morning that I could walk as far as this, you left me here at this very spot, and you went back to the house. I was told to whistle if I wanted anything. You remember?"

Almost perceptibly and with contempt she nodded.

"Well, when I did whistle, I whistled in that way--like a quail. You thought it was a real quail and you didn't come out. When finally you helped me back you spoke of hearing a quail, and of how much pleasure it gave you. You hoped he would not go away." And he smiled humbly, as he added: "And you made me promise not to shoot him."

She merely turned her eyes away, over the river, toward the sunset.

"And I thought then that if it gave you so much pleasure, why not keep on with it? The Lord knows the favors a helpless invalid can bestow are few enough! And the Lord also knows that I have no accomplishments. I cannot sing, or play, or recite poetry. At that time I could not even start a fire or bring in water. In fact, my sole accomplishment was to imitate a bird. 'Tis a humble gift, but I resolved to make the most of it."

She stood facing him, about a dozen feet away, a striking figure, with the light from the setting sun on her white dress, the dark recesses of the wood for a background. Into her face came no signs of relenting. But he detected in her eyebrows a slight movement as if to maintain a frown, and he ventured nearer, slowly, as a dog just punished manoeuvres for forgiveness. Removing his straw hat he knelt before her, his eyes upon the ground.

"I confess to a guilty feeling every time I did it. I knew a day of reckoning would come. But I was postponing it. I am ashamed, really ashamed; but on my honor my motive was good. Please be merciful."

"Are you serious?--or trying to be funny, and not really caring much about it?"

"I am serious; very serious."

"Do you realize what a contemptible trick it was--how mean-spirited and ungrateful?"

Lower still sank his head. "I do."

"And you promise never to deceive me again?"

"I swear it."

"You value my good opinion, I suppose."

"I would rather die than lose it!"

"Well, you have lost it, and forever."

From the bowed head came a groan. At this point Solomon approached the kneeling figure and placed his nose inquiringly against the criminal's ear. And the criminal involuntarily shrank from the cold contact. At this the lady smiled, but unobserved by the kneeling man.

"Are you sincerely and thoroughly ashamed?"

"Yumps."

"What?"

"Yes, oh, yes!"

"I don't like your manner."

"Please like it. I am honest now. I shall always be good."

"You couldn't. It isn't in you."

"There is going to be a mighty effort."

"Get up!"

He obeyed. As their eyes met, he smiled, but with a frown she pointed toward the cottage. "Turn around and walk humbly with your head down. You are not to speak until spoken to. And you are to be in disgrace for three days."

"Oh! Three days?"

"Go ahead."

And again he obeyed.

Elinor was firm. For three days the disgrace endured. But it was not of a nature to demolish hope or even to retard digestion. And Solomon, who was a keen observer, displayed no unusual sympathy, and evidently failed to realize that his master was in any serious trouble.

On pleasant evenings Pats and Elinor often went to the beach below and sat upon the rocks, always attended by Solomon, the only chaperon at hand. Here they were nearer the water. And one evening they found much happiness in watching a big, round moon as it rose from the surface of the Gulf. The silence, the shimmer of the moonlight on the waters--all tended to draw lovers closer together. Already the heads of these two people were so near that the faintest tone sufficed. And they murmured many things--things strictly between themselves, that would appear of an appalling foolishness if repeated here--or anywhere. They also talked on serious subjects; subjects so transcendentally serious as to be of interest only by night. Like all other lovers they exchanged confidences. Once, when Pats was speaking of his family she suddenly withdrew her hand. "By the way, there is something to be explained. Tell me about that interview with your father."

"Which interview?"

"The disgraceful, murderous one."

Pats reflected. "There were several."

"Oh, Patsy! Are you so bad as that?"

"As what?"

"But you did not mean to do him injury, did you?"

"_I_ do _him_ injury?" he inquired, in a mild surprise. "Why, what are you driving at, Elinor?"

"I mean the quarrel in the arbor."

"And what happened?"

"You know very well."

"Indeed I do! But there were several quarrels. Which one do you mean?"

"I mean the one when you were violent--and murderous."

"But I wasn't."

"Yes, you were. I know all about it."