The Love that ne’er can wane.”
The soft, young contralto voice floating out from the old house on Montgomery Street, mingled with the breath of roses that spread possessively over the veranda. A ripple of sparkling chords, like wind passing over water, died away in a delicate and plaintive minor cadence. A light footstep moved within the house. The voice, now not more than a clear murmur, hummed in the hallway. Something told the listener and lurker on the sidewalk that it were advisable he should be on his way. To be caught staring, gawking and explanation-less, before the Wondrous Maiden’s domicile is not the happiest method of producing a favorable impression upon the Wondrous Maiden, which latter was become the immediate and predominant purpose of young Mr. Jeremy Robson’s existence.
He passed on. After a score or more of paces he began to lag and waver. Yet an undue hesitancy of spirit had never been reckonable as among young Mr. Robson’s major failings. He had come along Montgomery Street, which is a free public thoroughfare wherein any and all may pass, without let or hindrance, upon their lawful occasions, a youth upright and secure of himself. Nothing more formidable had marked his itinerary than a singularly sweet young voice, singing to an unknown measure the words of Mr. Andrew Lang’s haunting and wistful lyric. Yet young Mr. Robson became instantly aware of strange symptoms within himself. His pulse was markedly uneven. His eyes were affected by a spasmodic inclination which all but twisted his neck about in the opposite direction to that of his reluctant steps. His mind was a kingdom divided against itself.
Arrived at the corner he found himself racked by conflicting muscular intentions and inhibitions. He turned into Nicklin Avenue, leading downtown to his proper occupation, and almost immediately executed a right-about-face. He returned to the corner, and rebounded from the impact of an unreasoning and unmanning fear. Again he retraced his steps and halted. His feet gave him the painful impression of a divided allegiance, and he recognized and resented the invalidity of the poet’s praise of those supposedly useful members:
“I only have to steer ’em, and
They ride me everywheres.”
In the midst of his confusion he became hotly aware of the surprised scrutiny of a small boy with a dog.
“Lost somethin’?” inquired the small boy, scornfully.
Jeremy Robson started. Was the urchin possessed of the spirit of divination? Certainly young Mr. Robson had lost his nerve. That much he confessed to himself. The small boy’s dog divined the fact also. He made a charge upon the wavering youth with the evident intention of chasing him up a tree. To be flouted in the open day by a cur of highly impeachable antecedents was a little too much!
“Get out!” commanded Jeremy Robson, in a tone which left no room for doubt.
The small boy and his dog retired hastily. Their intended victim, somewhat reconstituted in soul by the victory, clinched his final decision, not indeed without a sinking of the breath, and with a firm tread and an unwavering eye (as he had once written of an unfortunate going to his execution) again plunged into the imminent, deadly breach of Montgomery Street, and headed for the old house amid the roses. He reckoned that she would be just about on the porch now. If she weren’t, he would go on past and make for the office, and try again on the morrow. If she were—well, he had recovered command of at least three matured and plausible lies to explain his presence. Then he saw her, and the lies forsook and left him stranded with nothing better than the truth to tell, if the issue rose.
She was standing at the top of the five veranda steps. An errant wind weaving among the roses above her, let through swift glints of sunlight, which played upon her face and hair with fairy touches. There was a dreamy and wistful smile, as in lingering memory of the music she had sung, upon her lips. Her face, broad at the temples and narrowing down to a small, self-willed chin, was modeled nearer upon the sensitive and changeful lines of the triangle than upon the cold and classic oval. Above it the splendid mass of tawny hair was hardly kept respectably within bounds by the prisoning devices of net and band. She was slender, and firm-set, and straight with the soft and strong lines of young, untainted health and vigor. By the warm hues, and the lithe poise of her, she was a creature bred in the happy usages of sunlight and free winds and the open spaces. Again he felt in her that subtle, disturbing, starry quality that makes for dreams.
In her hand she swung a broad sun-hat. Reluctantly she lifted her arms to set it on her head. The pulses of Jeremy Robson made a bound of hopefulness. Evidently she was coming out upon the street. Her eyes were lifted and he wondered that he could ever have thought them gray, so flooded were they with hazel lights as they met the radiance, sifting down through the trees. She turned them upon him and a slow recognition grew in them. Opening the gate, she stood waiting. He lifted his hat as he approached.
“Good-morning,” she greeted him in that voice which, with its indefinable distinction of accent, had thrilled in his memory, since he had first heard her speak.
He returned her greeting, calling her by name.
“It is The Record you write for, is it not?” she asked.
“Yes. But they don’t print all I write.”
“So I infer,” she returned with grave and intent eyes.
“Were you disappointed?”
“A little.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I supposed that you had made up your mind that it was not worth writing after all.”
“It was worth writing.”
“But not worth printing?”
“Worth printing, too. But the editors were afraid of offending the Germans. So they killed it.”
“Did you write it in that way?”
“What way?”
“To offend the Germans.”
“No. I wrote it to show that there was a place for Americanism even in a German meeting.”
“I am glad you did that,” she said quietly.
“You’ve a right to be. You’re responsible. For the way I wrote it, I mean. You gave me the notion.”
“I am glad of that, too. But I am sorrier than ever that I did not see your article.”
“Perhaps I’ll show it to you some day.”
She nodded, without asking him how or where. Marcia Ames was one of those individuals who wait unquestioningly and accept generously. “It is quite a coincidence my meeting you here,” she said. “For I wished to ask you about the article.”
Behold the path now made plain for the lurker and retracer of steps! No need even for those well-formulated lies; he could simply accept the theory of coincidence. And, most unaccountably, he found that he couldn’t. Perhaps he could have, had he not looked into her eyes just then. That steady, limpid, candid, confident regard of hers forbade even a petty and harmless deceit of convenience. Once for all Jeremy Robson knew that whatever might be between them in future, there would at least be truth. And with a sharp pang, felt the foreboding that the truth might yet hurt him to the limit of his capacity for pain.
“No,” he denied. “No coincidence.”
“Not?” she asked, surprised.
“I’ve passed here every day for the last ten days.”
“Do you live on this block?”
“No. In the other end of town, up near the University.”
“Then you would not pass here to go to The Record office.”
“Your geography is unimpeachable.”
“Is it a riddle? I am not at all clever at them.”
“It’s a confession. I’ve been coming this way day after day for a particular purpose.”
“What was it?”
“To see you again.”
“What did you wish to see me about?”
“Nothing. Nothing in particular.”
“Just to see me? That is very nice of you.” She studied him with her direct and serene regard. But a small and willful dimple materialized on the brown curve of her cheek, and a little one-sided smile went up to meet it. “Not as a reporter this time?”
“Not in t
he least. A reporter may be just an ordinary human being, off duty, you know.”
“Are you just an ordinary human being?”
“Very much so. Don’t I strike you that way?” His tone was one of exaggerated anxiety.
The girl studied him with impersonal interest, quite free from embarrassment. Magnus Laurens has credited him with good looks. In the usual sense, Miss Ames decided, confirming her first opinion, he was not entitled to this credit. He was rather rugged of build and face, with mobile lips, boyish and pleasant eyes, an obstinate jaw which looked as if it might set to courage and endurance or perhaps to sullenness, and the expression and bearing of one vividly and intelligently curious about the life-scheme of which he was a part. The girl noted, with approval, his dress: quietly harmonious in every detail yet without suggesting the finicky habit; a style which would have been unremarkable in New York or London, but which stood out with a pleasant distinction among the more casual and careless garb of the Middle West.
“I really had not given it much thought,” she answered, having completed her scrutiny. “Your methods seem rather out of the ordinary.”
“Are you a million years old?” he asked abruptly.
If his intention was to startle her, it failed signally. “Surely that is a very personal question. I am not—quite. Why do you ask?”
“Because you look so like a kid and yet you’ve got the nerve—no, not nerve—the confidence and manner of your own great-grandmother. It’s very confusing,” complained young Mr. Robson, leaning dejectedly upon the gate.
“Perhaps it arrives from my having been brought up abroad and much among older people,” she surmised, with one of her slightly un-English turns of phrase. “One reason for my coming here to the University is to accustom myself to your American ways.”
“‘Your’ American ways?”
“Our American ways,” she amended sweetly. “Oh, I am all American in my heart!” The gay and willful little dimple again materialized on her cheek. “Still, one cannot remain indefinitely leaning over a gate in conversation, however thrilling, with a young man whose name one does not even know, can one?” she pointed out.
“You don’t know my name?” Young Mr. Robson looked distinctly annoyed. “Mr. Laurens presented me. Don’t you remember?”
“But you were only a reporter who was going to write something about me, then.” With an emphasis on the final word, slight, indeed, yet amply sufficient to make amends.
Her caller brightened perceptibly. “Surname Robson. Given name, Jeremy. Jem, when you get to know me better.”
She opened her eyes very wide to take in this idea.
“You expect that we are going to know each other so well as that?”
“We certainly are if I can bring it about. Don’t you think I’ve made a good start?”
“At least a quick one. What is your next step?”
“That’s what’s worrying me a little.”
“But so progressing a young man as you, with so much perseverance,” she taunted, “surely if you planned to see me once, you would plan how to see me again. Perhaps, though, you do not wish to see me again soon,” she added, with an adorable mock-melancholy droop of the alluring lips.
“You’ll never win any guessing contests on that form, Miss Ames,” he assured her, shaking his head solemnly. “But you’re right enough about my having a plan. The question is, will it work.”
“Try it.”
“Here goes. You’re trying for the Varsity golf team, aren’t you?”
“I intend to, if I improve enough.”
“Are you pretty good?”
“I am steady. Only twice I have been as high as one hundred. But my short approaches are bad.”
“I can help ’em.”
“Can you? Are you a good player?”
“Fair. But I’ll tell you what I am. I’m a good coach. We never lost an intercollegiate at Kirk in the three years I captained the team.”
“And you offer to coach me? It is very kind of you.”
“Wait. It may not be so simple as all that.”
“Shall you exact terms?” she smiled.
“This depends on how much you are in earnest about making the team.”
“Very much.”
“Enough to get up at five in the morning and play a round?”
“Why such an unearthly hour?”
“It’s about the only time I can be sure of. Don’t forget I’m a hard-working reporter.”
“I thought you wished me to forget it, only a moment ago,” she teased.
“I want you to remember that I’m a man,” he retorted, “besides being a reporter. And that you and I are going to be friends.” He looked her fairly in the eyes. “At least,” he added quietly.
The baffling lights in her eyes deepened as she met his gaze, unwaveringly. “I believe that we are—at least,” she said. “When shall we begin?”
“We have begun.”
“The golf, I mean.”
“Tomorrow.”
She laughed outright. “You lose no time.”
“I don’t know that I have any to lose. I don’t know how long you’re to be here.”
“Nor do I,” she answered with a sudden gravity. “Very well; tomorrow. I will meet you at the club house as 5.45. Oh! I forgot. My golf shoes are at Eli Wade’s. You remember; the ‘Boot & Shoe Surgeon’?”
“I’ll get them this afternoon, and bring them with me.”
“’Lo, Miss Marcy!”
The interruption, in a cheerful sing-song, came behind Jeremy. He turned to face the small boy and the dog of his earlier encounter.
“Good-morning, Buddy,” returned the girl.
“I’ve come to weed the sparr’grass.”
“Yes: we have been expecting you.”
“I stopped by home to get you these.” He brought out a fistful of deep-hearted pansies, bound in a pink string.
The girl took them, gave him a little, quick pat of the hand which he accepted with a flush of mingled adoration and embarrassment, and pinned them at her throat.
“This is Mr. Burton Higman,” she said. “Mr. Jeremy Robson. To his friends, Jem, and Mr. Higman to his friends, Buddy.”
Mr. Higman regarded Mr. Robson with a consideration in which there was more of suspicion than friendliness.
“Where ‘dje gittim?” he demanded of Miss Ames.
“I did not get him. He came,” explained the girl.
“Yep. I seen him before he got here. He was down on the corner, actin’ queer.”
“Hold on, now, Buddy,” protested the other, looking pained. “Don’t take away a man’s character.”
Miss Ames motioned him to silence, and turned an eye of lively anticipation upon the urchin.
“What was he doing?”
“Snake-turns. Walk down Nicklin Avenya; turn. Walk up to the corner; turn again. Stop at the corner; talk to a tree. Walk down Nicklin Avenya again; turn oncet more. Stand still. I watcht him.”
“What did he do then?” asked the girl, enjoying the discomfiture of her caller.
The narrator rubbed one foot over the other and considered. “Sweat,” he stated conscientiously. “Look at his collar.”
Mr. Robson’s involuntary hand and Miss Ames’ involuntary gaze met upon the article of apparel indicated. It melted under the double pressure.
“Walked back up to Montgomery Street,” continued the conscientious chronicler enjoyably. “Stopped. Cussed the tree. Sweat some more. Turned down Bank—”
“That will do, Buddy. You should be a detective.” Mr. Burton Higman blushed in glory. The girl turned to the accused. “Is all this true?”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Any mitigating circumstances?”
“I was screwing up my courage to face an ordeal.”
“What’s an ordeal?” demanded the watchful Mr. Higman.
“I am,” replied Miss Ames.
“Yep: I’m on,” observed her youthful admirer, enlightened. “M
r. Wade on the School Board made us a talk Sat’day, about ordeals. Said each of us should adopt a high ordeal and stick to it. If you’re one, and I got to do it, I choose to adopt you.”
“Buddy,” said his rival.
“Yep?”
“Will you sell out your claim for a dime?”
“No, sir!”
“For a quarter?”
“Nope.”
“For a dol—”
“Quit! No fair!” protested Mr. Higman in a voice of poignant agony.
“You’re right. It isn’t fair. Shake, old boy.” Young Mr. Robson gravely shook young Burton Higman by the hand. “Between you and me, only honorable and knightly rivalry. We’ll go fishing someday and talk over high ordeals and other matters close to the heart.”
“And at present Buddy and I will map out the attack upon the asparagus,” said the girl.
She turned away, with a smile of dismissal for her informal caller.
As he took himself off, Marcia Ames turned to her other admirer. “Well, Buddy. What do you think of him?”
“He’s a nut,” was the prompt and uncompromising decision.
“So bad? If it is bad. What is a nut?”
“Plumb crazy.”
“You think so? Perhaps, a little.”
“Plumb!” persisted the other jealously. But the innate and responsive fair-mindedness of youth prompted him to add: “But say! When he kinda smiles that way at ye, it’s all off. There’s nothin’ to it. It gets you. Ain’t it true?” inquired Buddy earnestly.
The unanalytical Buddy was flattered, thrilled, and faintly puzzled by the instant response to this speech when, laughing, his goddess caught him in a quick, warm little hug. He didn’t wholly understand why she did it.
For that matter, neither did she.
4
“Golf boots?” said Eli Wade, Boot & Shoe Surgeon. “Fer the young lady at Miss Pritchard’s? Right here.” He held them up to his own admiration. “A foot that’s right,” said the Boot & Shoe surgeon. “Right and light. Honest wear on them boots. Even as a die. No sloppy, slovenly running down at one side of the heel. The wearer of them boots carries her weight square an’ level, she does. She stands straight, an’ looks you straight in the eye. Why didn’t she come for ’em herself, same as she brung ’em? Not ailin’, is she?”
Common Cause Page 6
