these details. I take pleasure now in remembering that, despite the fact
that I had lived in Paris, among its thrilling boulevards and monuments,
and had seen some stagey Swiss villages and dramatic little French
towns, this little cluster of houses known as Latonia, on a dusty pike
in Kentucky, only a few miles from my own home,--this village which
never a tourist would have gone to see,--was to me in that droning,
incredibly quiet afternoon a very piece of romance; the air itself,--I
beg you to have patience with me, for really, I tell you only the
truth,--the very air itself being 'ambient' for me; the green fields
'amburbial'; the white clouds, so nearly at rest in the blue sky, 'huge
symbols of a high romance'; the silver poplars and elms not less than
'immemorial'; and the old hotel a thing made of dreams, haunted with
green and shaded memories of before-the-war days, across whose veranda
might have stepped at any moment, before my unastonished eyes, the
actors in some noble human drama.
I remember, too, that my eye found some dusty marigolds, their blooms
leaning through a low paling fence of one of the houses. My eye must
have passed over many a marigold before that; I probably never saw one
until then. I remember noting their singularity and softness of color,
so individual and particular compared with the more customary reds and
yellows of commoner flowers, so far more memorable and desirable and
foreign; a part they seemed, too, of the quietness and strangeness and
romance in the midst of which I found myself.
The 'bus driver was making ready to leave.
The lame war veteran,--for I still take him to have been such,--having
got as far as the gate of the Latonia Hotel, was met by a long,
lazy-legged darkey coming down the walk, carrying two traveling
satchels. Noticeably new-looking they were, and handsome, for that part
of the world. He had one under his arm, the other dangling from the same
hand, which left his other hand free to manipulate a long piece of
ribbon-grass which he was chewing lazily. The veteran held the gate
open, the weight of his body leaning against it.
'Going away, are they?'
'Yassuh.'
There emerged from the hotel at this moment a man and a woman.
The darkey crossed the road and put the two satchels in the 'bus--and
stood with his hand on the handle of the door, holding it wide open,
waiting.
II
I watched the two strangers as they approached. When they reached the
'bus the man assisted the woman, in a somewhat formal yet indifferent
way. She entered and took her seat nearly diagonally opposite to me. The
man plunged his hand in his pocket, brought out a coin, and put it in
the darkey’s hand, and stooping, for he was tall, entered the 'bus after
her. It swayed a little perilously with his weight, and rocked quite a
bit before he finally comfortably seated himself directly across from
me.
The driver meanwhile had swung himself up on the high driver’s seat. He
opened the peep-hole and looked down, then gathered the reins, and
clucked to his horses, and the 'bus drove off.
If the town had interested me before, I forgot it now--forgot it quite
in the attention, direct and indirect, which I gave to my fellow
passengers.
The man was faultlessly dressed. Such clothes were not customary in that
corner of the world. The neat derby, the band of which he was even now
wiping with a lavender-edged silk handkerchief, was a thing foreign to
those parts at that season, cheap straw hats being rather the rule. The
tips of the fingers of a pair of new tan gloves were to be seen just
looking out from the left breast-pocket of his well-buttoned light gray
suit. I could see that he wore a white vest, and his shirt had a little
hair-line of purple in it. His hands were large and very white and well
kept, the fingers close fitted together. On one of them a conspicuous
Mexican opal smouldered in a massive, very dark gold setting.
I have no words, even to this day, to describe the woman who sat a foot
or two from him and to whom he addressed his remarks in an indifferently
possessive manner.
She was slight; her hair was of a light brown, her eyes of a distinct
orange color. Her face sloped delicately from the forehead, which was
low enough to be beautiful, and high enough to suggest nobility of
thought, down to the lovely line of chin. Her throat was slender and
very white, rising from a turned-down Puritan collar. A Puritan cloak of
dust-colored linen, with strappings of orange, fell away under the
collar in soft and cool lines. Her brown veil had at its edge a line of
orange color also. The brown was a shade lighter than her hair; the
orange a shade darker than her eyes. The veil carried with it I cannot
say what manner of ethereal graciousness, and fell into a wave or
floating line of loveliness as she turned her head. Once, as we dipped
into a shaded hollow and across a running stream, a little breeze of
coolness came in at the windows. The veil, lifted by it, floated and
clung like a living thing to her throat and lips, until her delicate
hand put it away gently.
I watched her, very fascinated. She was a creature of another world.
That she and the horse-radish woman could live on the same planet spoke
volumes for the infinite scale of life.
At first these two new passengers spoke hardly at all. Once the man bent
his massive figure to get a better look at the landscape from the window
opposite him, and called the attention of his companion to some point in
it.
'There! As I recollect it, the property is not unlike that, Louise. It
rolls that way, I mean; and Felton’s line comes into it just as that
snake fence comes across there. It is on the other side that the vein of
coal is said to begin.'
Though she gave a courteous hearing, I had the impression that she was
not really interested.
She watched the country with a kind of well-bred inattentive glance. For
myself I could not take my eyes off her. I watched her with that hunger
for beauty which is native to the heart of a child. Above all I watched
her eyes. The strange, unusual color of them was in itself a kind of
romance. She gave one the impression of being a woman unique; something
rare and choice, not to be found again or elsewhere.
Once she turned her head and met my full gaze. I was embarrassed, but I
need not have been. She set the matter right by addressing me with a
gentle courtesy.
'Do you live out here?'
I shook my head. I meant to reply more fully in a moment when I had
recovered myself; but the man spoke.
'Never heard of Thomas Felton, I suppose, did you? Used to live once in
Owen County not far from here.'
I shook my head again and formed the word 'No.'
The woman gave him a gentle glance; nothing reproving, but he took it in
the manner of reproof.
'Well, I did not know but she might have,' he explained. Then he settled
back a little. 'Maybe some one else will get in later who does know. I
thought them confoundedly stupid at the hotel. Didn’t seem anxious to
give any information either. Nobody knows anything in a place like
that.'
There was silence again. The fields at one side of the road climbed now,
here and there. Low pastures rose to be foothills. Around one of these
hills a rocky road appeared sloping down to the pike. Up the road, at a
little distance, was a rustic archway like an entrance to a private
property. Waiting by the side of the road, stood a figure strange to me,
in the garb of some monastic order.
The woman did not notice him. Her glance was far off at the horizon at
the other side. The man did. He regarded the stranger with a stolid bold
curiosity. Then some idea of his own occurred to him, suddenly. As the
'bus stopped to take on this new passenger, the heavy man rose, to take
advantage of its steadiness, no doubt, and stooping so as not to knock
his derby against the ceiling of the vehicle, tapped imperatively on the
lid of the little peep-hole, and when it was raised, spoke to the
driver.
'This road leading up at the side here doesn’t happen to be the Chorley
road, does it, that leads into Felton’s woods? They said there was a
road at the foot of a hill that led into some timber lands belonging to
a man named Felton.'
The driver did not understand. The question had to be repeated. While
the man repeated it, the Franciscan--though I am not entirely sure he
was of that order--opened the door of the 'bus. The woman turned her
head now. I saw her orange-colored eyes grow wide and large as they
noted him. With habitually bent head and regarding none of us, he
entered. As he seated himself in the corner, he looked up, however, and
his eyes met hers. I saw him start really violently. His color, which
was a dark olive, with a too bright crimson under it at the cheek-bones,
became suddenly ashy.
There was just that one look between them. The next instant she had
turned to the other, returning from his questions with the driver. He
had not seen the look that I had noted.
The Franciscan now drew his eyes away from the woman’s face, fumbled in
the skirt of his habit, and brought out a prayer-book which he opened
with fingers that shook.
The heavy man seated himself, exactly opposite the woman, and beside me
and within touch of the Franciscan. He addressed the woman.
'I just thought that that might be Chorley’s road. They said it ran up a
slope. It wasn’t, though. I thought I’d like to get a sight of the
timber. We may try to make him throw that in, in payment.'
He glanced around at the Franciscan, whose eyes were now entirely on his
book; took him in, as it were; then let his glance glide off out one of
the windows. After a sufficient time, a kind of courteous pause, he
leaned forward a little, raised his derby the least bit, and said,
'Excuse me, but I suppose you live here?'
The Franciscan looked up, but answered nothing. The color came surging
back suddenly into his face, which was haggard. There was a noncommittal
look in his eyes, as though his lips were to say, 'I beg your pardon.'
'I supposed you lived here,' the other said, 'and I thought you might
just happen to know a man named Felton. He came originally from Owen
County. We are on here from New York. We are strangers and we know
nothing of this country. You don’t happen to know'--
The Franciscan gave a gentle smile, raised one slim hand, which yet
trembled visibly--a fine deprecating gesture.
'Pardon, m 'sieu!'
'Oh, I see.' The other touched his hat with a little motion of
withdrawal and clumsy apology. 'I see. I didn’t know you were French. I
don’t speak French myself. Wish I did! Excuse me. Excuse me.'
Here was an occasion! The adventure was turning squarely toward me. I
knew French; I was proud of it and eager to offer my services. I could
perfectly well act as translator, interpreter for these two. Moreover,
it would give me that greatly to be desired thing, the attention of this
beautiful woman. Yet I did not dare all this at once. I would wait a
moment. How should I break into the conversation? A child of fifteen,
however oldish, is shy. Would it be proper for me to say, 'Excuse me,
but--?'
As I was thinking of it with a kind of tumult of pride and shyness, the
man turned to the woman.
'Look here, Louise; that’s a fact! You speak French! Ask him if he knows
Thomas Felton’s property. Tell him it’s Felton who lived over in Owen
County and used to be a wealthy man.'
She turned her clear eyes to the Franciscan and spoke in a pure Parisian
French.
'This man, my husband, wishes me to ask if you know a Thomas Felton who
has property out here in this direction.' In the same tone exactly, she
added, 'Do not let him suspect that you know me.'
'Let him think'--the reply came in pure French also--'that I speak no
English. In this way you and I can converse together.'
Her wonderful orange-colored eyes quivered the least bit as she drew
them away from the Franciscan and met the waiting eyes of her husband.
She spoke with perfect composure, however.
'He says he believes there was such a man hereabout some years ago.'
Her husband turned quickly as if he himself would further address the
Franciscan; then, recollecting that he knew no French, he appealed to
her again.
'Now Louise, look here. Try to get it straight. As I told you, there are
two men of that name, a nephew and an uncle. It’s the uncle I want to
get hold of. He is the man who owns the property we want. Ask this man
how old this Felton is, this man he knows; I can tell by that.'
She turned again to the Franciscan, and spoke again in French. Indeed
they spoke nothing else but that sweet and flowing language, a knowledge
of which put me, without my will, in league with them.
'How do you happen to be here?' she questioned.
'I joined the order after I left you,' he said. 'That is, they simply
allow me to live with them, chiefly on account of my name, I think;
that, and, I think, as an act of mercy. As a kind of lay brother--it is
simple. But, this man--he is your husband?'
'Yes, I have been married to him eight months.'
'In God’s name!' he said, but in a perfectly even conversational tone.
'And you have suffered. Of course you have suffered.'
They used throughout their conversation, as I have not indicated here,
because it sounds forced in English, the familiar and gentle tutoiement,
the thee-and-thouing of the French.
The husband, understanding nothing of what they said, was watching the
two with interest; his small eyes were eager in his heavy face; he was
waiting for his answer.
'Do not let us talk too long,' the Franciscan said, and turned with a
faintly courteous smile, as though to include the heavy man in the
conversation. 'Ask me some more questions,' he said to the woman; 'get
him to ask some more questions, I mean. In that way we shall have a
little time to talk together.'
She addressed her husband.
'He is not quite sure. He thinks, however, the man he has in mind has a
gray beard.'
Her husband drew his large flat fingers down his heavy chin twice, as if
stroking an imaginary beard of his own, thoughtfully; his eyes narrowed
even more, very speculatively.
'I see, I see! Well now, like as not it’s the same one.' Then he put his
hands on his knees and leaned forward as though really addressing
himself to the business. 'Look here, Louise, you ask him if this man he
knows ever had anything to do with a railway--a railway out West and
coal lands out there.'
'You must give me time. Let me see! How does one say all that? My French
is not so fluent as it once was. I shall have to get at it in a
roundabout way. Have patience.'
'Take your time,' he said, leaning back, 'only get at it if you can.
It’s important.'
She turned now to the Franciscan. But it was he rather who addressed
her.
'But what are you going to do about this horrible marriage?'
'Nothing, nothing at all.'
'But, good God, it is desecration! It is like defiling the bread and
wine of communion. Does this man kiss you?'
'He owns the better part of two railroads,' she said, with a kind of
pitiful look in her eyes. 'He is here now to push to the wall--if he
can--a man already overtaken by mischance and misfortune.'
'Why do you evade?' said the other. 'He does of course touch you, he
owns you, along with the better part of two railroads. He fondles you at
his pleasure. I would not have thought it possible. Not you; not you.'
'You forget,' she said, and still her voice kept the strangely even
tone. 'My sister was ill, dying, I thought. I could give her everything
by this means. I did give her everything. She is better now, as well as
she will ever be. She could not bear poverty; it was killing her. She
never could. She is better.'
'But at what horrible, what hellish cost!' he replied. 'She was selfish
always, and complaining; one of the useless ones; and moreover, answer
me, does one buy a cracked pitcher, doomed to be broken at any rate,
with the most exquisite pearl in the world, priceless above ten sultans'
ransoms? Were it not so horrible it would be ridiculous. Does one, I ask
you, do a thing like that?'
She turned to her husband.
'He says he believes the man you ask about was once engaged in a large
coal-mining deal in the West.'
'Yes,' said the heavy man eagerly, leaning forward again to listen to
what he could not understand, but with as keen attention as though he
comprehended fully.
'Wait and I will ask him more.'
Again she turned to the other.
'But you, you also have bought unworthy things at fearful cost?'
'What? In God’s name, what have I bought? I who renounced everything,
who have nothing left in this world but the memory of your face and the
certainty of death?'
'You bought for yourself the approval of what you may choose to call
your conscience,' she said in the same almost monotonous, even voice.
'You bought freedom from the world’s censure, freedom from what the
world would have said had you married me.'
He flung out a trembling hand. I thought it would have betrayed him.
'That! Will you bring up that old mad folly of yours? Would you hope to
persuade me it was not my duty to renounce you? They told me I could not
possibly get well. You see for yourself. You see now how I am changed. I
shall last now, perhaps, six months. You had nothing. I had nothing.
What would have become of you, not to speak of all the horror? It was
clearly my duty. I leave it to any man.'
'Yes; always that. The opinion of others,' she said, but even still
without emotion. 'I do not care for the opinion of a worldful. I accept
the fact that you could not get well. I tell you it does not matter. It
was for each other God made us; without any regard to circumstance.'
'A woman’s reason is not reason,' he said. 'Any man would tell you it
was my duty to give you up. The world is not made as you would have it.'
'Listen,' she said. (She interrupted herself to glance with a smile at
her husband, and said to him in English, 'I am trying to explain to him.
He is a little dull. He does not understand.') 'Listen'--she spoke again
to the other. 'Be reasonable. See it as it is. Do not cheat yourself
into thinking this horrible failure of ours was a virtue. Review the
facts with me and face them. These are they: we compromised with life,
and in a cowardly fashion. I married, to buy my sister health, because I
had not the courage to see her suffer. You renounced me and went away,
so that you might have a certain peace of mind, and because you had not
the courage to go counter to tradition and the world’s approval. What
would the world have said--a man as ill as you were, to accept the life
and devotion of a woman? It was that that tormented and swayed you. You
left me, and went away to escape that. We both bought a certain worldly
peace of mind, and a kind of conventional self-approval. And with what?
With what did we buy these trifling things? What price did we pay for
them? We bought them with the entire wealth and treasure God had given
us--the most precious in his treasuries, beside which kings' ransoms are
as nothing. We bought these trifles, these worthless baubles, with the
priceless love we had for each other. He gave it to us in such ample
measure, you remember. And what did we do with it? What have we to show
for it now? In God’s world are there to be found, do you think, two such
spendthrifts?'
'There! It is your old way,' he replied. 'You speak always in figures,
like a poet. It is misleading. Deal only with the facts. I leave them to
any one. I was to die of a lingering illness. I had no money. I had only
a wealth of horrors to drag you through. A slow death it was to be. You
would have had two years of that.'
'Two years,' she repeated. 'I have been married eight months; and I
think those eight months have been twice eight years. And two years, two
years together, you and I! But oh, if it had been one year only; if we
had had but one year together! Only one year!' There was a kind of
pleading in her voice. 'Only one year! It is as if one were to say "only
springtime"--"only love,"--"only heaven,"--"only God!"'
'What does he say?' said her husband. Perhaps he was curious at the tone
of her voice; or merely impatient at the length of their conversation.
'Tell him anything,' said the other, 'We must converse at any cost.
Tell him anything you like; only do not cease to speak to me.'
She turned to her husband.
'He is quite interesting. He thinks he used to know this man when he was
a child; that his father had some dealings with him in that very coal
affair in Illinois. Let me question him a little more. I will tell you
by and by. We must not seem to be too curious. Do not interrupt me; just
let me lead him on. It may take a few moments.'
The other began now, without waiting for her to take up the
conversation.
'But I tell you, you do not see the thing as it is. It would have been a
criminal thing for a man doomed as I was, to link his life with a woman
like you, frail, exquisite, young, beautiful, the very rose of the
world. Is it permissible for a man to drag a woman with him to the
scaffold, even for love? I leave it to any man.'
'Yes, to any man,'--her reply was quick on his,--'but you dare not leave
it to a woman. Any man would tell you it is not permissible that one
about to die should lay his hand in that of the woman he loves. And any
man would grant you, that if the woman is his wife,--if that tradition
has bound them,--then it is his right and her duty that they should
share fatality, even though they have not the high calling of love. If
this man who is my husband were stricken, you, even you, would expect
me--'
The sentence broke and she left it as though there could be no need of
making the truth plainer. Instead, she folded her hands tensely.
'But, oh, let us not argue. We have squandered God’s treasure, you and
I. We have squandered it for the sake of convention, for old precedents,
for men’s opinions; just as this man, my husband, buys railway shares
and mining properties at the fearful price of his honor, his human
kindness, his soul. You despise him and shrink from him. Truly, I
cannot, except when he lays his hand upon me; for we are no better than
he. That is the horrible part of it. We are all three spendthrifts, the
three of us, here in this little space. But oh, what new folly! Only
think of our spending these precious, precious moments in argument!
Shall we never have done being wasteful!'
He fell in with her thought immediately.
'You love me still, then.'
'Yes, always.'
'Yet I have not the right, even now, to so much as touch your hand.'
'No; yet my hand lies in yours by the hour. These are things one cannot
keep from God.'
'Do you know,'--his voice was even,--'I cannot help wondering if the
little girl over there in the corner just might possibly understand.'
'No; I think not,' she said gently; 'besides, if she did, it would not
matter.'
'No, perhaps not. I think she would say nothing. I notice that her eyes
are shaped somewhat like yours. Some day some man will love her also.'
'Yes, without doubt. But it is of ourselves I would talk. If there is a
heaven, there, there, you shall some day possess me!'
Her husband broke in now:--
'Are you finding out anything?'
'Yes, quite a little!' She smiled palely, then turned back to the other.
'How can you lie to him like that?' he said. 'And I also.'
'We waste time,' she urged. 'A carriage meets us at the next town. From
there he and I are to drive over to the adjoining county. You and I have
only a few moments more left at the most in this world together.'
'Yes.' His fingers interlaced tightly, resting in his lap. 'Let us not
argue any more. You remember the night by the river, O my beloved?'
'As though it were the only night in the world.'
'I remember that at first I dared not even be near you; I sat on the
bank a little away from you,' he continued; 'but by and by the moon came
up and all around us was stillness and beauty; the sheep slept in the
pasture; the hills were all cool with the light of the moon; I have not
forgotten; I can never forget--I dared just to lay the tips of my
fingers on the hem of your gown. You did not notice that. It was as
though I had dared lay my hand on the garment of God, but sweeter,
sweeter even than that.'
'Oh yes, I saw. I saw and felt. And it was exactly as if by that token
God had chosen me among women, as he chose the Virgin; only, he chose me
there in the moonlight, not for glory and suffering as he chose her, but
just for love. He chose and called me for that. I was to love you; was
chosen by that touch to love you; only you, among a thousand; only you
in all the world of many men. And then, just then, the nightingale, like
some little feathered angel of annunciation, broke into song in the
trees near by.'
'Yes; and to me it was as if white fire were all about you--as about
some altar; and I was afraid to touch you. I dared not. You were too
beautiful, too glorious. The night was too still, too holy. And then, at
last, I reached out my hand and dared, as if one were to try a miracle.
I laid it on yours. And still I lived. And then, the whole scenery of
earth and heaven shifted, after that--as you know. You leaned and kissed
me. Everything was changed forever.'
'Yes; I know. After that there was nothing but the night and the
silence, and thou and I. Even the nightingale did not sing.'
'Yes.'
'And since that night there has been no one else in the world but only
thou and I. Other people, do they not seem like shadows, myriads of
shadows, like the inconsiderable leaves of a forest that shall fade and
fall and be renewed--but only leaves and shadows?'