“No,” he said; his face was expressionless.
“Then that’s all right. So you see how it is; we don’t quite know what we may do in this city. At first we were delighted to see so many attractive men, and we wanted to speak to some of them who seemed to want to speak to us, but my father put a stop to that — but it’s absurd to think all those men might be robbers, isn’t it?”
“Very.” There was not an atom of intelligence left in his face.
“So that’s all right, then. Let me see, what was I saying? Oh, yes, I know! So four of my sisters were married, and we four remaining are being civilized.... But, oh — I wish I could be in the country for a little while! I’m so homesick for the meadows and brooks and my pajamas and my bare feet in sandals again.... And people seem to know so little in New York, and nobody understands us when we make little jests in Greek, or Latin, or Arabic, and nobody seems to have been very well educated and accomplished, so we feel strange at times.”
“D — d — do you do all those things?”
“What things?”
“M — make jests in Arabic?”
“Why, yes. Don’t you?”
“No. What else do you do?”
“Why, not many things.”
“Music?”
“Oh, of course.”
“Piano?”
“Yes, piano, violin, harp, guitar, zither — all that sort of thing.... Don’t you?”
“No. What else?”
“Why — just various things, ride, swim, fence, box — I box pretty well — all those things — —”
“Science, too?”
“Rudiments. Of course I couldn’t, for example, discourse with authority upon the heteropterous mictidæ or tell you in what genus or genera the prothorax and femora are digitate; or whether climatic and polymorphic forms of certain diurnal lepidoptera occur within certain boreal limits. I have only a vague and superficial knowledge of any science, you see.”
“I see,” he said gravely.
She leaned forward thoughtfully, her pretty hands loosely interlaced upon her knee.
“Now,” she said, “tell me about this danger that such a girl as I must guard against.”
“There is no danger,” he said slowly.
“But they told me — —”
“Let them tell you what it is, then.”
“No; you tell me?”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because — I simply can’t.”
“Are you ashamed to?”
“Perhaps—” He lifted his boxed sketching-kit by the strap, swung it, then set it carefully upon the ground: “Perhaps it is because I am ashamed to admit that there could be any danger to any woman in this world of men.”
She looked at him so seriously that he straightened up and began to laugh. But she did not forget anything he had said, and she began her questions at once:
“Why should you not walk with me?”
“I’ll take that back,” he said, still laughing; “there is every reason why I should walk with you.”
“Oh!... But you said — —”
“All I meant was not for you, but for the ordinary sort of girl. Now, the ordinary, every-day, garden girl does not concern you — —”
“Yes, she does! Why am I not like her?”
“Don’t attempt to be — —”
“Am I different — very different?”
“Superbly different!” The flush came to his face with the impulsive words.
She considered him in silence, then: “Should I have been offended because you came into the Park to find me? And why did you? Do you find me interesting?”
“So interesting,” he said, “that I don’t know what I shall do when you go away.”
Another pause; she was deeply absorbed with her own thoughts. He watched her, the color still in his face, and in his eyes a growing fascination.
“I’m not out,” she said, resting her chin on one gloved hand, “so we’re not likely to meet at any of those jolly things you go to. What do you think we’d better do? — because they’ve all warned me against doing just what you and I have done.”
“Speaking without knowing each other?” he asked guiltily.
“Yes.... But I did it first to you. Still, when I tell them about it, they won’t let you come to visit me. I tried it once. I was in a car, and such an attractive man looked at me as though he wanted to speak, and so when I got out of the car he got out, and I thought he seemed rather timid, so I asked him where Tiffany’s was. I really didn’t know, either. So we had such a jolly walk together up Fifth Avenue, and when I said good-by he was so anxious to see me again, and I told him where I lived. But — do you know? — when I explained about it at home they acted so strangely, and they never would tell me whether or not he ever came.”
“Then you intend to tell them all about — us?”
“Of course. I’ve disobeyed them.”
“And — and I am never to see you again?”
“Oh, I’m very disobedient,” she said innocently. “If I wanted to see you I’d do it.”
“But do you?”
“I — I am not sure. Do you want to see me?”
His answer was stammered and almost incoherent. That, and the color in his face and the something in his eyes, interested her.
“Do you really find me so attractive?” she asked, looking him directly in the eyes. “You must answer me quickly; see how dark it is growing! I must go. Tell me, do you like me?”
“I never cared so much for — for any woman —— .”
She dimpled with delight and lay back regarding him under level, unembarrassed brows.
“That is very pleasant,” she said. “I’ve often wished that a man — of your kind — would say that to me. I do wish we could be together a great deal, because you like me so much already and I truly do find you agreeable.... Say it to me again — about how much you like me.”
“I — I — there is no woman — none I ever saw so — so interesting.... I mean more than that.”
“Say it then.”
“Say what I mean?”
“Yes.”
“I am afraid — —”
“Afraid? Of what?”
“Of offending you — —”
“Is it an offense to me to tell me how much you like me? How can it offend me?”
“But — it is incredible! You won’t believe — —”
“Believe what?”
“That in so short a time I — I could care for you so much — —”
“But I shall believe you. I know how I feel toward you. And every time you speak to me I feel more so.”
“Feel more so?” he stammered.
“Yes, I experience more delight in what you say. Do you think I am insensible to the way you look at me?”
“You — you mean—” He simply could not find words.
She leaned back, watching him with sweet composure; then laughed a little and said: “Do you suppose that you and I are going to fall in love with one another?”
In the purpling dusk the perfume of wistaria grew sweeter and sweeter.
“I’ve done it already—” His voice shook and failed; a thrush, invisible in shadowy depths, made soft, low sounds.
“You love me — already?” she exclaimed under her breath.
“Love you! I — I — there are no words—” The thrush stirred the sprayed foliage and called once, then again, restless for the moon.
Her eyes wandered over him thoughtfully: “So that is love.... I didn’t know.... I supposed it could be nothing pleasanter than friendship, although they say it is.... But how could it be? There is nothing pleasanter than friendship.... I am perfectly delighted that you love me. Shall we marry some day, do you think?”
He strove to speak, but her frankness stunned him.
“I meant to tell you that I am engaged,” she observed. “Does that matter?”
“Engaged!” He found his tongue quickly en
ough then; and she, surprised, interested, and in nowise dissenting, listened to his eloquent views upon the matter of Mr. Frawley, whom she, during the lucid intervals of his silence, curtly described.
“Do you know,” she said with great relief, “that I always felt that way about love, because I never knew anything about it except from the symptoms of Mr. Frawley? So when they told me that love and friendship were different, I supposed it must be so, and I had no high opinion of love ... until you made it so agreeable. Now I — I prefer it to anything else.... I could sit here with you all day, listening to you. Tell me some more.”
XVI
e did. She listened, sometimes intently interested, absorbed, sometimes leaning back dreamily, her eyes partly veiled under silken lashes, her mouth curved with the vaguest of smiles.
He spoke as a man who awakes with a start — not very clearly at first, then with feverish coherence, at times with recklessness almost eloquent. Still only half awakened himself, still scarcely convinced, scarcely credulous that this miracle of an hour had been wrought in him, here under the sky and setting sun and new-born leaves, he spoke not only to her but of her to himself, formulating in words the rhythm his pulses were beating, interpreting this surging tide which thundered in his heart, clamoring out the fact — the fact — the fact that he loved! — that love was on him like the grip of Fate — on him so suddenly, so surely, so inexorably, that, stricken as he was, the clutch only amazed and numbed him.
He spoke, striving to teach himself that the incredible was credible, the impossible possible — that it was done! done! done! and that he loved a woman in an hour because, in an hour, he had read her innocence as one reads through crystal, and his eyes were opened for the first time upon loveliness unspoiled, sweetness untainted, truth uncompromised.
“Do you know,” she said, “that, as you speak, you make me care for you so much more than I supposed a girl could care for a man?”
“Can you love me?”
“Oh, I do already! I don’t mean mere love. It is something — something that I never knew about before. Everything about you is so — so exactly what I care for — your voice, your head, the way you think, the way you look at me. I never thought of men as I am thinking about you.... I want you to belong to me — all alone.... I want to see how you look when you are angry, or worried, or tired. I want you to think of me when you are perplexed and unhappy and ill. Will you? You must! There is nobody else, is there? If you do truly love me?”
“Nobody but you.”
“That is what I desire.... I want to live with you — I promise I won’t talk about art — even your art, which I might learn to care for. All I want is to really live and have your troubles to meet and overcome them because I will not permit anything to harm you.... I will love you enough for that.... I — do you love other women?”
“Good God, no!”
“And you shall not!” She leaned closer, looking him through and through. “I will be what you love! I will be what you desire most in all the world. I will be to you everything you wish, in every way, always, ever, and forever and ever.... Will you marry me?”
“Will you?”
“Yes.”
She suddenly stripped off her glove, wrenched a ring set with brilliants from the third finger of her left hand, and, rising, threw it, straight as a young boy throws, far out into deepening twilight. It was the end of Mr. Frawley; he, too, had not only become a by-product but a good-by product. Yet his modest demands had merely required a tear a year! Perhaps he had not asked enough. Love pardons the selfish.
She was laughing, a trifle excited, as she turned to face him where he had risen. But, at the touch of his hand on hers, the laughter died at a breath, and she stood, her limp hand clasped in his, silent, expressionless, save for the tremor of her mouth.
“I — I must go,” she said, shrinking from him.
He did not understand, thrilled as he was by the contact, but he let her soft hand fall away from his.
Then with a half sob she caught her own fingers to her lips and kissed them where the pressure of his hand burned her white flesh — kissed them, looking at him.
“You — you find a child — you leave a woman,” she said unsteadily. “Do you understand how I love you — for that?”
He caught her in his arms.
“No — not yet — not my mouth!” she pleaded, holding him back; “I love you too much — already too much. Wait! Oh, will you wait?... And let me wait — make me wait?... I — I begin to understand some things I did not know an hour ago.”
In the dusk he could scarcely see her as she swayed, yielding, her arms tightening about his neck in the first kiss she had ever given or forgiven in all her life.
And through the swimming tumult of their senses the thrush’s song rang like a cry. The moon had risen.
XVII
ounting the deadened stairway noiselessly to her sister’s room, groping for the door in the dark of the landing, she called: “Iole!” And again: “Iole! Come to me! It is I!”
The door swung noiselessly; a dim form stole forward, wide-eyed and white in the electric light.
Then down at her sister’s feet dropped Aphrodite, and laid a burning face against her silken knees. And, “Oh, Iole, Iole,” she whispered, “Iole, Iole, Iole! There is danger, as you say — there is, and I understand it ... now.... But I love him so — I — I have been so happy — so happy! Tell me what I have done ... and how wrong it is! Oh, Iole, Iole! What have I done!”
“Done, child! What in the name of all the gods have you done?”
“Loved him — in the names of all the gods! Oh, Iole! Iole! Iole!”
“ —— The thrush singing in darkness; the voice of spring calling, calling me to his arms! Oh, Iole, Iole! — these, and my soul and his, alone under the pagan moon! alone, save for the old gods whispering in the dusk — —”
“ —— And listening, I heard the feathery tattoo of wings close by — the wings of Eros all aquiver like a soft moth trembling ere it flies! Peril divine! I understood it then. And, stirring in darkness, sweet as the melody of unseen streams, I heard the old gods laughing.... Then I knew.”
“Is that all, little sister?”
“Almost all.”
“What more?”
And when, at length, the trembling tale was told, Iole caught her in her white arms, looked at her steadily, then kissed her again and again.
“If he is all you say — this miracle — I — I think I can make them understand,” she whispered. “Where is he?”
“D-down-stairs — at b-bay! Hark! You can hear George swearing! Oh, Iole, don’t let him!”
In the silence from the drawing-room below came the solid sobs of the poet:
“P-pup! P-p-penniless pup!”
“He must not say that!” cried Aphrodite fiercely. “Can’t you make father and George understand that he has nearly six hundred dollars in the bank?”
“I will try,” said Iole tenderly. “Come!”
And with one arm around Aphrodite she descended the great stairway, where, on the lower landing, immensely interested, sat Chlorippe, Philodice and Dione, observant, fairly aquiver with intelligence.
“Oh, that young man is catching it!” remarked Dione, looking up as Iole passed, her arm close around her sister’s waist. “George has said ‘dammit’ seven times and father is rocking — not in a rocking-chair — just rocking and expressing his inmost thoughts. And Mr. Briggs pretends to scowl and mutters: ‘Hook him over the ropes, George. ‘E ain’t got no friends!’ Take a peep, Iole. You can just see them if you lean over and hang on to the banisters — —”
But Iole brushed by her younger sisters, Aphrodite close beside her, and, entering the great receiving-hall, stood still, her clear eyes focused upon her husband’s back.
“George!”
Mr. Wayne stiffened and wheeled; Mr. Briggs sidled hastily toward the doorway, crabwise; the poet choked back the word, “Phup!” and gazed at his tall daughter
with apprehension and protruding lips.
“Iole,” began Wayne, “this is no place for you! Aphrodite! let that fellow alone, I say!”
Iole turned, following with calm eyes the progress of her sister toward a tall young man who stood by the window, a red flush staining his strained face.
The tense muscles in jaw and cheek relaxed as Aphrodite laid one hand on his arm; the poet, whose pursed lips were overloaded, expelled a passionate “Phupp!” and the young man’s eyes narrowed again at the shot.
Then silence lengthened to a waiting menace, and even the three sisters on the stairs succumbed to the oppressive stillness. And all the while Iole stood like a white Greek goddess under the glory of her hair, looking full into the eyes of the tall stranger.
A minute passed; a glimmer dawned to a smile and trembled in the azure of Iole’s eyes; she slowly lifted her arms, white hands outstretched, looking steadily at the stranger.
He came, tense, erect; Iole’s cool hands dropped in his. And, turning to the others with a light on her face that almost blinded him, she said, laughing: “Do you not understand? Aphrodite brings us the rarest gift in the world in this tall young brother! Look! Touch him! We have never seen his like before for all the wisdom of wise years. For he is one of few — and men are many, and artists legion — this honorable miracle, this sane and wholesome wonder! this trinity, Lover, Artist, and Man!”
And, turning again, she looked him wistfully, wonderingly, in the eyes.
THE END
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 261
