THE BISHOP'S DAUGHTER
The bishop's house was situated about half a mile from the college on
Birdseye Avenue, the principal residence street of Warwick. A forest
aisle and city thoroughfare combined, this vista of ancient elms
suggested the inspiration of those Gothic cathedrals of the Old World
from whose associations and influence the Puritans had fled away.
During their transit beneath this splendid nave, Cardington entertained
his companion with an account of the house they were to visit, its
history and architectural pretensions. In sharp distinction to the
prevalent style of building, the episcopal residence suggested a Tudor
palace. Its pointed windows, its dentilated battlements, its miniature
turrets, would have been impressive on a larger scale, in stone, but
being of wood, in a reduced proportion, they appeared an inadequate
plagiarism, which not even the extensive grounds could shield from
criticism. Seen at night-time, however, the counterfeit was far less
glaring. The form, rather than the material, attracted the eye; the
ecclesiastical windows glimmering among the trees, the antique lantern
in the vestibule, which concealed behind its powdered glass a modern
electric bulb, the turrets, dimly discerned by the light from the
avenue, combined to make an appeal to the historical imagination.
To Leigh, seeing the house thus for the first time, it appeared a
peculiarly appropriate habitat for Bishop Wycliffe; for he was one that
carried the stamp of his profession in his very bearing, and in every
lineament of his face. It was more difficult to imagine a young and
charming woman housed in such a place, but his first glimpse of the
bishop's daughter showed him that her Pagan beauty was emphasized
rather than lessened by contrast with her surroundings.
She was sitting in the drawing-room to the left of the entrance hall,
bending over a book. If she heard the entrance of her visitors into
the hall, she made no sign, but kept her eyes bent upon her novel, the
left-hand side of which, supported on her knee, had grown to the
thickness of half an inch. Only a few pages remained unread, half
lifted on the other side, above which her ivory paper knife hung
suspended. Clothed in a yellow gown and sitting in a flood of yellow
light that radiated from the shaded lamp beside her, she presented an
extraordinarily vivid picture against the brown panelling of the wall.
Even in repose one divined the suppressed energy of the figure, a
quality indicated by the almost imperceptible movement of the small
slipper that peeped beyond the border of her gown, and by the gentle
heaving of the lace at her throat. Yet there was something in the
graceful abandon of her attitude reminiscent of the women of the South.
So struck was Leigh by this picture, and by the fact that his hope of
meeting again the goddess of the maple walk was about to be realized,
that Cardington was well on his way up the stairs before he hurried in
pursuit. Unawake himself to modern art tendencies, he felt, without
conscious reflection or comparison, the old-fashioned appearance of the
house. The severe, dark paper on the wall, the steel engravings that
had hung for years untouched, were evidently as the bishop's wife, or
as one belonging to a still earlier generation, had placed them. They
proclaimed a reverence for old associations, or the indifference of an
unmarried daughter to the artistic possibilities of a house that was
not of her own choosing.
The room into which they entered appeared to be the bishop's own, or a
guest chamber. At least, there was no suggestion of the feminine in
the furniture, or in the ecclesiastical pictures that adorned the
walls. Even the military brushes on the bureau possessed an episcopal
dignity of size and weight, and the two tall candles in their massive
silver candlesticks glimmered like altar lights.
"There's plenty of atmosphere in this place," Leigh remarked, as he
stood before the mirror and applied the brushes to his hair, which,
because of its thickness, was invariably disordered by the lifting of
his hat. "I mean atmosphere in the modern fictional sense. It seems
to me I saw a duplicate of that four-posted monstrosity of a bed at the
Exposition this summer."
"I love to come in contact with the fresh, unprejudiced view of the
West," Cardington returned. "I've no doubt you are calculating the
number of microbes that ancient piece of furniture could accommodate,
and thinking that a brass bedstead would be much more sanitary."
"You do me injustice," Leigh retorted good-humouredly. "Even
scientists have their unprofessional moments. I was just reminded of a
story I once read of a bed of that kind with a movable canopy that came
down in the night and smothered the occupant."
"Excellent," said Cardington. "The thing was worked, as I remember,
from the room above, and was used by the robber host to persuade his
guests to part peaceably with their valuables. But I fear that you are
going to show an irreverent attitude of mind toward the local
divinities."
"And what may they be?"
"Two in particular, an alliterative couple, Family and Furniture."
"Why not add Folly to the number?" Leigh suggested.
"An instinct of self-preservation should prevent such an addition.
That might be as injudicious as it would have been for some bright
young man in ancient Egypt, five thousand years before the Christian
era, to express a doubt concerning the divinity of the sacred bull.
The correctness of his conjecture would not have saved him from a
horrible death at the hands of the faithful." And he began to lead the
way downstairs.
As they entered the drawing-room, Miss Wycliffe closed her book with
satisfied emphasis and rose to meet them. The bishop was there also,
standing in the background and waiting his turn. His eyes were on his
daughter rather than on his guests, with a pride that was evident at
even a casual glance. Again Leigh encountered that look which had so
deeply attracted him. Her eyes were very dark, and almost misty in
their warm light, as if she were somewhat dazed by long perusal of the
printed page. She possessed also that mark of feminine beauty so
prized by the ancients, a low forehead, and there was a suggestion of
the classic in the arrangement of her hair. He found her smile
peculiarly winning, and was conscious of the responsiveness of her
fingers, so different from the limp passivity of many a feminine
greeting. Though not more given to self-importance than the average
young man, he was somehow aware that she too remembered their first
casual encounter. Her failure to mention it now served only to invest
it with the greater significance.
"Miss Felicity," Cardington began, when they had become seated, "I
suspect that you were racing against time, endeavouring, in fact, to
finish that book before our arrival should interrupt you."
"You would not have been welcome a moment sooner," she admitted.
"Felicity is a deep student in shallow literature," the bishop put in
epigrammatically.
"As if Zola were ever shallow," she said. "I'll leave it with Mr.
Leigh."
"You can search me for an opinion," he replied; and in the breezy
colloquialism of the expression, no less than in a certain vividness of
manner, his isolation from the others became apparent. "My French
reading is mostly confined to astronomical monographs."
"Miss Felicity," Cardington interposed, with an elaborate and
old-fashioned gallantry that became him, "Mr. Leigh is a student of
stars, and therefore he is more concerned with the reader than with the
book. If you will persist in shining upon him so dazzlingly, you
cannot be surprised if he turns an unseeing eye upon any object you may
present for his inspection. Now, since I have basked longer in your
light, I may perhaps--allow me." He reached for the book and began to
turn over the leaves. She watched his growing absorption with
indulgent amusement, and the comradeship of the two omnivorous readers
was evident. Cardington was frankly reading, oblivious of his hosts, a
liberty which indicated his familiar standing in that house.
"I have a weakness for polymathists of the old school," the bishop
remarked, harking back to his guest's confession of narrower interests,
"of which class I may say that Professor Cardington is almost the only
example within my range of observation. I have noticed that Latin is
becoming as strange to the average graduate as Eliot's Indian Bible."
"But Latin does n't help the modern world to build railroads, or
battleships, or motor cars," Leigh suggested, by way of presenting the
opposite view.
"Always the argument of utility," the bishop returned, with mournful
resignation. "But how have modern inventions added to the beauty or
the dignity of human life? Man is mastered and slain by his own
inventions, and a skyscraper reduces him to the proportions of an ant."
"I am tempted to mention cathedrals as having rather a dwarfing effect
upon their builders," Leigh said.
"I should hope so! Better to be dwarfed by the magnificence of a
temple of the Lord than by the hideous hugeness of a temple of trade."
The bishop's dry smile indicated that he had scored.
His antagonist laughed outright, with a keen appreciation of the fact
that his comparison had given the bishop the very opportunity he
desired. It seemed that circumstances rather than conviction had
forced him into his present championship of the useful. Miss
Wycliffe's appeal had brought out the confession of a special interest,
which had stamped him unduly. In addition, the section of the country
from which he came was against him. The bishop was not without his
prejudices, and was disposed to father all the materialistic spirit of
the age upon his guest, whether or no. He had noted that lapse into
slang, and his attitude had become like that of the loiterers in the
hall of Caiaphas, the high priest. Had his thought become vocal, it
would have run like a garbled version of their triumphant charge
against St. Peter: "Thou art a Westerner, and thy speech bewrayeth
thee."
His daughter had been a mere observer of the little tilt she had
unwittingly precipitated, and now, as she saw the younger champion go
down so gaily, she was moved by his spirit to sympathetic participation.
"It seems to me, father," she interposed, "that you and Mr. Leigh are
like the two knights who came to blows over the colour of a shield that
was white on one side and black on the other."
"You are quite right, my dear," he replied gracefully, "and as I see
that dinner is served, I will take this opportunity to dismount from my
hobby for a little refreshment."
"You must let me take this book with me when I go," Cardington begged,
rising from its perusal with evident reluctance.
"It must lie on Mrs. Parr's table for a month first," she replied. "I
promised to let her pretend to read it."
"I call that a wicked speech," he reproved. "Where is that charity
which your father has striven to inculcate in your heart?"
She slipped the book into a large Satsuma vase, with a sidelong glance
at Leigh. Cardington accepted the act with a meek acquiescence that
rested comically upon him and proclaimed his chains.
Had Leigh been asked subsequently to give a description of the dishes
of which he partook that evening, he would have made a sorry showing,
for he was conscious only of his hostess, and intoxicated by a
divination of her consciousness of him. Cardington and the bishop were
the chief talkers, and as the conversation presently turned to purely
local affairs, of which Leigh had as yet scant knowledge, he was rather
pleased than otherwise to become a listener and observer. In this
divided attitude of mind his observation was chiefly engaged. He noted
particularly the string of gold beads which Miss Wycliffe wore, and
their reflection against her throat reminded him of a children's game,
which consisted in holding a buttercup beneath the chin of a companion.
Distracted by the furtive contemplation of such minutiae, he gradually
became aware of the fact that the talk between Cardington and the
bishop had lost the tone of suavity that characterized its beginning.
"No other engagement shall interfere with my voting on that day," the
bishop declared, with grim emphasis. "We must dispose of this fellow's
pretensions once for all. It is preposterous that a professional
baseball player and street-car conductor should aspire to become mayor
of Warwick. An orator? Nonsense! Just a paltry gift of the gab.
Balaam's is n't the only ass whose mouth the Lord in his inscrutable
wisdom has seen fit to open."
Leigh suddenly awoke to the fact that a situation had developed during
his absorption, and that both men were looking at Miss Wycliffe, the
bishop defiantly, Cardington with an odd expression of concern. That
she was affected by her father's announcement and manner was evidenced
in the gleam of cold resentment with which she met his look, but in a
moment the light was gone, leaving her eyes as mysterious as a deep
pool in the woods at twilight.
"Now, bishop," Cardington protested, "I was merely trying to express
the fact that there is a certain facility in this young Emmet's
utterances which belongs to his nation. Perhaps we ought to appreciate
our opportunity to watch here in Warwick the development of a second
Edmund Burke."
It was Miss Wycliffe herself who gave Leigh the clue, and so apparently
spontaneous was her amusement as she turned to him that he began to
doubt his first impression of a far different emotion.
"This house is divided against itself," she explained, "into two
political camps. I must try to convert you to my Democratic point of
view, for just at present I am outnumbered two to one."
"Not two to one," Cardington objected. "Say rather that the forces are
drawn up in the proportion of one and a half to one and a half. I
stand in the ambiguous position of the peacemaker, inclining now this
way, now that, and receiving in turn the whacks of each contestant. I
have been compelled to accept on faith the reward that Scripture
promises to such as myself, for it has not yet materialized to any
appreciable extent."
"There 's more truth than poetry in that," she answered, laughing.
"Poor Mr. Cardington's olive branch has proved a boomerang to himself,
I fear."
It pleased the bishop to be blandly diverted by these sallies, though
it was evident that his mind had set so strongly in one direction as to
require an effort on his part to turn it aside. However, he was not
one to exhibit a family difference before a stranger, when once
recalled to his senses, and the topic that had elicited these few
scintillations of feeling was dropped by common consent.
Presently Miss Wycliffe drew Leigh on to talk of astronomy, of the Lick
Observatory, of California, its climate, its products, and its people,
subjects upon which he alone of the company possessed knowledge at
first hand. He was impressed by his auditors' ignorance of all that
country which lies west of the Mississippi, and a realisation of the
bishop's sceptical attitude aroused him to partisan enthusiasm. Their
conception of the West was as inadequate as the average Englishman's
conception of America. Some few people they had known who had gone out
to California for their health, and in a general way they appreciated
the fact that the fruits and flowers of the coast were of peculiar size
and beauty; but, after all, the place seemed to them more a colony of
the United States than an integral part of the country, a place of such
decidedly inferior interest to Europe that any time in the dim future
would do for its inspection.
"Miss Wycliffe," he ended, "your interest has betrayed me into making a
bore of myself."
"On the contrary," she returned, "I shall take the very first
opportunity of going out to California. I shall be ashamed to go to
Switzerland again without the Sierras as a background of comparison.
And in the mean time I intend to begin the study of astronomy. I
thought it would be jolly to bring up a party some evening to look
through the telescope."
"By all means!" he cried.
"I have yet to see the day," said Cardington, "when Miss Felicity will
do me the honour of begging the loan of a Latin grammar."
"I call that ungrateful," she returned. "Did n't I tramp all over the
Roman Forum with you one boiling afternoon, while you explained that we
had n't strayed into a stone quarry, as I had supposed?"
"So you did," he admitted. "That was a pleasant little archaeological
_giro_, and you showed yourself upon that occasion to be an audience of
great endurance."
This was only one indication Leigh had received of mutual experiences
and interests between the two, yet, bewitched though he was, the
discovery aroused no uneasiness within him. It was not only that he
mentally exaggerated his colleague's age. His source of comfort was
deeper, and lay in Miss Wycliffe's attitude of comradeship toward her
old friend. It seemed that such an attitude must preclude romance, at
least on her part. No man situated as he was could have avoided the
speculation that now absorbed him in regard to the possible rivalry of
another. In the end he decided that Cardington's gaze, when it
lingered upon his hostess, betrayed reminiscence rather than hope.
It chanced that the dinner was followed by a wedding, one of those
forlorn ceremonies sometimes performed in the houses of the clergy
between those who seem to have no kin or friends or home of their own.
The bishop summoned his guests as witnesses, and as Leigh took the seat
which Miss Wycliffe made for him beside her, he was struck by the
impression which this not unusual incident appeared to make upon her
mind. She sat with her chin resting upon the palm of her hand, in
absorbed, almost pained, contemplation, as if the actual scene were
merely the starting-point of a long journey of the imagination.
In fact, there was nothing intrinsically interesting in the couple
before them. They possessed not even the picturesqueness of speech and
costume which belongs to the plebeian orders of older civilizations.
These were the people that seemed to justify Schopenhauer's cynical
contention concerning the economy of Nature, who invests youth with
just enough transient beauty to ensure the perpetuation of the race,
making men and women serve her purpose under the delusion that they are
free agents and ministers to their own pleasure. Here were no pomp and
circumstance to interpose their false colours before the sordid vista
of the future. It lay glaringly before the imagination of the
onlookers; and to avoid depths of spiritual depression, they had need
to remind themselves of the happy blindness of those that moved their
pity.
Leigh might perhaps have indulged in far other thoughts had the wedding
been of a different character, or had he perceived any suggestion of a
romantic mood in the woman at his side. Quick to feel an atmosphere,
he found that he had caught from her a sombre view. How deeply she
thought or felt he could only guess, but hers was a personality that
suggested depth, and the far sadness of her gaze shut the door between
them which he had supposed about to open wider. The bishop turned
unexpectedly.
"The groom has forgotten the ring," he said to his daughter. "Will you
lend him yours?"
She glanced quickly at her hands, and a delicate colour crept into her
face.
"I must have left it in my room," she answered. She made no motion to
go for it, and, turning from her with a hint of impatience, he drew his
seal ring from his finger.
The incident, slight as it was, assumed unusual significance in the
minds of the spectators, and gave the ceremony a tone akin to comedy.
Perhaps they enjoyed the bishop's impatience, the sight of the
episcopal ring upon the girl's finger; or it may be that these things
reminded them of the portentous solemnity into which they had sunk.
Miss Wycliffe especially seemed to welcome the diversion, and showed an
ebullient vivacity when she offered her congratulations, which Leigh
had not previously observed in her.
It was the bishop, however, and not his daughter, who saved the
situation for the embarrassed couple he had just made man and wife. It
was he who ordered wine and cake, and drank their happiness with a
genuine humanity that took no reckoning of class in life's common
experiences. This was the quality that had won him love when, as a
clergyman, the homelier duties of his profession had claimed more of
his time. Even those not of his own communion often came to him for
such services as the present, with a feeling that he gave dignity and
reality to the ceremony. Observing the luminous kindliness of his
smile, one might well infer that he was reminded of the marriage at
Cana of Galileo, and that he desired to make this incident as bright a
spot as possible in two lives which would doubtless know more of
burden-bearing than of joy. Nor was he content with this attention
alone. Chancing to remember the carnations that had stood on the table
at dinner, he brought them with his own hands, wiping the long stems
with his handkerchief before presenting them to the bride.
When they were gone, his glance fell upon an envelope which the groom
had left unnoticed on the piano.
"Look at this," he said, drawing forth a two-dollar bill. "Why didn't
I see him do that in time? At least, I am grateful that he did n't
attempt to pay me at parting, while in the act of shaking hands." His
eyes twinkled deeply. "You have no idea what a shock it is to feel a
crisp bill crinkling in your palm at such a moment. But come,
gentlemen. Our post-prandial smoke has been too long postponed."
"Why not leave Mr. Leigh to smoke his cigarette with me?" Miss Wycliffe
suggested. "We have n't yet had a chance to become acquainted."
This proposition, which filled the young man with surprise and
exhilaration, seemed nothing unusual to the other two, and they went
off without remark, perhaps not unwilling to have an opportunity to
chat alone.
Miss Wycliffe took the chair in which Leigh had seen her at his
entering. She held no fancy work in her hands, but toyed gracefully
with the ivory cimeter which had separated the leaves of her novel. He
was reminded of the episode of the ring by observing that she wore no
jewelry except the string of gold beads, and wondered whether she had a
philosophical contempt for such adornment. If it were a matter of
taste, as indeed it must be, her instinct, he felt, was singularly
correct, for such adventitious aids could add nothing to her beauty.
They were rather the final dependence of wrinkled dowagers. As he
watched her through the smoke of his cigarette, chatting still of the
wedding, he was aware that she appeared conscious of the voices whose
intonations rose and fell beyond the study door. Presently the sound
was varied by a hearty laugh.
"I 've no doubt they have gone back to politics," she remarked. Her
words recalled the conversation at the table, which he had by this time
forgotten.
"This is a good opportunity to carry out your promise to convert me to
your point of view," he answered, "and I am quite prepared to be
converted. Being a Mugwump, the mere name of a party holds no
superstitious sway over my imagination. Still, my support, like your
own, must be purely sentimental, for I have no vote in Warwick. I have
heard just enough to arouse my curiosity and interest. Who is this Mr.
Burke?"
"Emmet," she corrected. "Mr. Cardington would have his jest in
comparing him with Burke. You noticed, perhaps, that they were more or
less baiting me?"
"I suspected something like it."
"Mr. Emmet is a _protégé_ of mine," she explained frankly, "who is
trying to break the power of the Republican ring that has ruled Warwick
since the war.
"I see," he nodded. "One of those struggles against municipal
corruption that are such a hopeful sign of the times. It seems strange
that in the management of our cities alone our form of government has
been a failure. But we have lighted upon a hobby of mine, and I must
n't begin to ride it."
"Then you will be interested in the situation," she returned.
It was presently evident that her own interest was not that of a
student of the science of government, though he was impressed by her
knowledge of local political conditions. The situation was indeed
typical: entrenched power on the one hand, and on the other a desire to
"turn the rascals out." The singularity lay in the fact that Miss
Wycliffe, in spite of the prejudice and influence of her father, was
siding against her own class. Leigh listened with growing interest and
wonder to her charges of snobbishness and corruption against the
Republican clique.
"You certainly love fair play," he remarked admiringly. "Such an
impersonal attitude is wont to be claimed by men as their own peculiar
possession."
Her smile disclaimed exceptional credit.
"I 'm not a bit impersonal, I assure you. I can't abide Judge Swigart,
or his political lieutenant, Anthony Cobbens, a turkey gobbler and a
wretched little weasel, even though we are the best of friends."
"I see," he said, greatly diverted by her admission. Her eyes fell
beneath his too discriminating gaze, but she raised them again with the
impersonal calmness of an experienced woman.
"Besides, as I said before, Mr. Emmet is a _protégé_ of mine. I have
even loaned him books, and am quite bent upon seeing his education
result in making him mayor."
"Good work!" he cried. "I should like to lend a hand myself."
"Why don't you?" she asked.
"How can I?" he retorted. "Shall I go out and stump the town?"
"I 'll tell you," she said, bending forward and fixing him with a look
of discovery. "What Mr. Emmet needs more than anything else is a
friend out of his own class, some one like yourself, who could correct
his perspective a little. How shall I explain it? He seems in danger
of becoming a demagogue, and of resting his case on an appeal to
class-hatred."
Leigh had not supposed that his semi-jocular wish would be taken so
literally, but he soon discovered that she gave it its face value. She
went on with growing earnestness.
"There is to be a joint debate between him and Judge Swigart in about a
fortnight, and I 'm afraid that Mr. Emmet will injure his cause by
overstatement, by that very bitterness I mentioned. If he could
confine himself to the facts, he might win the support of many who are
ready to follow a safe leader, but would be antagonized by a hint of
socialism."
"Do you mean that I could accomplish all this in such a short time?" he
asked. "To be perfectly frank, the prospect of the task dismays me.
He 'd be sure to resent the attempt."
"Not he," she answered with conviction. "He 'd be grateful for such
support as yours. He 's really an awfully nice fellow, and I think you
'd find him rather interesting."
"I don't doubt it for a minute," he assured her. "But how am I to make
his acquaintance in the first place?"
She considered the question awhile. "Just tell him I thought you would
like to know each other. That would make it perfectly easy and
natural."
Leigh could not fail to see that this method was the best, if the thing
were to be done at all. She could not bring them together socially,
and a note of introduction would be too formal. Doubtless the man
looked up to her as his patroness, and would accept anything from her
with something of feudal loyalty.
"I might meet him casually,--on purpose,--and if we happened to like
each other and began to talk about politics"-- The sentence dwindled
into a dubious smile.
"Do," she urged. "I really think you could influence him for good."
Leigh was less sure of it, and the other two men returned before he had
committed himself to a plan that seemed, even when seen under her
influence, to be little short of quixotic.
During the walk home he tried Cardington on the subject of Emmet, but
found him uncommunicative, almost brusque, in his reticence. Leigh
suspected that the subject might be a sore one with him, and that he
thoroughly disapproved of Miss Wycliffe's odd charity. When a talker
is silent, his silence has the tactile quality of Egyptian darkness,
and so it now appeared in Cardington. Concerning Miss Wycliffe herself
they made no comment, doubtless because they were thinking of her so
intently. Leigh reviewed every moment he had passed in her company,
recalling each look and word. He was impressed now, more than he had
been at the time, with the intensity of her interest in the election,
and it occurred to him that to do as she desired, or at least to
attempt it, would establish a claim upon her regard. This was his
opportunity. If he desired to win her favour, he must regard her wish
as mandatory. How much he desired to win it he did not try to conceal
from himself.
His frankness extended even farther. When he recalled that it was the
bishop and not his daughter who had shown humanity at the wedding, he
was impressed by her curious insensibility. It seemed to him
peculiarly feminine to take an interest in such a scene, and most of
the women he knew would have looked on with tremulous sympathy. Was
this mere instinctive selfishness on her part? If he vaguely condemned
her attitude in this matter, he appreciated her father's conduct the
more by contrast. Somehow he guessed that the bishop did not
altogether like him, but he felt that no matter what the future might
bring forth in their relationship, he could never forget that charming
episode. The bishop was a true aristocrat, he reflected, more inclined
to be haughty to his equals than to his inferiors. Doubtless Emmet,
had he been content with that station of life in which it had pleased
God to place him, would have found no more affable acquaintance than
Bishop Wycliffe.
The bishop presented no insoluble riddle to Leigh's mind. On the
contrary, he had met his type before and knew it well; but with Miss
Wycliffe the case was different. He recognized now the reason of
Cardington's inability to describe her, for a categorical account of
her features, or of what is commonly called her "good points," would
have left the essential quality untouched. Yet this quality was the
woman herself, and had fired Leigh's blood with a fever of longing that
made him reckless of his judgment. In fact, he was not now absorbed in
judging, but in realizing, the woman with whom he had fallen in love.
If she had appealed to him at any one moment more than at another, it
was when she took him into her confidence with that sidelong look, as
she slipped the novel into the large vase. Then, as at other times
during the evening, but then more particularly, she had betrayed her
consciousness of him as a young man, of herself as a woman and a
beauty. He saw that she had no desire to talk with him on the
impersonal plane of the mind, that she welcomed, rather than feared,
the discovery of her femininity, even in her political interests. She
might say this or that, as the fancy took her, but she knew it made no
difference to an admirer what she said. Her peculiar fascination lay
in a consciousness of sex which is the explanation of the power to win
men that distinguishes one woman above the many, to their envy and
mystification.
Leigh was too attractive a man to have been allowed to reach his
present age entirely ignorant of the psychology of women, though
comparative poverty and laborious studies had limited his education in
this direction, and left him unspoiled. He knew enough to realize the
secret of Miss Wycliffe's charm, and to reflect consciously upon it in
connection with himself. Mere beauty, he knew, would have left him
cold, if it had not stirred within him the resentment aroused by a
promise unfulfilled; intellectual gifts alone would have wearied and
antagonised; evident virtue would have seemed humdrum and uninspiring.
It was this delicious appeal of the woman to the man that had won him.
He was yet to learn that this quality is not seldom accompanied by the
most baffling counter-current, that holds its natural movement in
apparent suspension. Why had a woman so imperially endowed remained so
long unmarried? It was not that she looked her age, which he felt to
be little less than his own, but that she implied it by her lack of
inexperience. It was not that eight or nine and twenty made a spinster
from the modern point of view, but that to reach that age unmarried she
must have resisted many a suit. Had he lived longer in New England, he
would have known more women of this kind, women who hide the passionate
heart of a Helen beneath the austere life of a Diana, hoarding their
gifts of love as a miser hoards his gold, partly because of cruel
necessity, partly influenced by the impulse to deny inherited from
Puritan ancestors.
Suddenly he became aware that Cardington had been talking again, and
that he had shown indifferent courtesy as a listener. He roused
himself to attention, and detected at once the unusual flavour of his
companion's remarks, from which all jest had gone, showing instead a
poetical and reminiscent mood.
"The silhouettes of the trees which the electric light throws upon the
walk," he was saying, "remind me of a wonderful moonlight night I once
spent at Assisi. I was younger then than I am now, and it was my first
journey in that land of enchantment. I travelled as lightly as one of
the apostles, with staff and scrip, so to speak, and having resisted
the efforts of the cabman at the station to rob me, I started to walk
up to the city alone. I understand they have a trolley line now,--just
imagine the profanation of a trolley line in the ancient city of St.
Francis!--but at the time of which I speak, the atmosphere of the
Middle Ages still hung over the place unbroken.
"The city lay above the valley, white-walled and silent. I remember
touching with my stick what appeared to be a streak of moonlight that
had filtered through the branches of a tree, when a beautiful little
serpent uncoiled himself and slipped away into the shadows. Well, the
distance was greater than I had supposed, and the hour was late, so
that by the time I reached the city gate, I found it closed for the
night. There was nothing to do but to sit down and wait for morning.
I found a large, flat rock which seemed still to hold some of the heat
of the sun, and looked out over the surrounding country. Just think of
my situation! There I was, a young man fresh from America, full of the
most extravagant romance, sitting alone in the moonlight before the
gate of a mediaeval walled city, and a city, too, so rich with
traditions that I grew dazed in trying to recall them. It may be that
the moon became hypnotic in its influence, for I lay down and stared up
at it like one bewitched.
"I don't know how long a time passed in this manner before I was
aroused by the appearance of an old peasant around the corner of my
rock, bending under a huge bundle of faggots. I addressed myself to
him in the best Italian I could then command, and asked whether it were
possible to enter the city--_entrare la città_. He rung a bell by
pulling a rope that hung down over the wall, and we went in together.
Now, you know, I would have remained there all night without even
looking for such an obvious way of arousing the gatekeeper."
"Yes," he continued, in answer to an appreciative comment from his
listener, "you would have enjoyed it,--any one with a soul would have
enjoyed it. And further adventures were in store for me in that
ancient town. I remember particularly a girl who waited on the table
at my _albergo_ and accompanied me at times on my tours of inspection.
From her I learned more of the history of the place, and upon her I
practised most diligently my Italian. There was one mystery to which
she would come back again and again. If I was an American, and poor,
how did it happen that I was not an artist? She would turn her lovely
eyes upon me twenty times a day and ask me this question. A charming
experience, was it not? Long afterward I met an American professor on
one of the boats in Holland, and when we compared notes on our travels,
I discovered that he remembered that girl, too, and her eyes. Just
think of the number of romantic young travellers upon whom she had
turned them in that appealing way of hers!"
As his companion listened to this recital, he was impressed not so much
by the story itself as by the essential happiness of the narrator.
Here was a nature as untrammelled as the wind, that delighted to roam
from land to land. Local interests, people, events, might hold him for
a time, but presently he would be gone in search of new adventures. If
he loved Felicity Wycliffe, Leigh reflected, it was only as a wanderer
loves.
Cardington was laughing in his peculiar fashion. "You will say that my
little story has a disappointing sequel; but, after all, perhaps it is
less commonplace as it is. She will remain enshrined in my memory, and
in the memory of those other travellers, as we saw her then, always
young and beautiful, and always turning upon us those lovely, enquiring
eyes. And, by the way, it is strange, is it not, that Miss Wycliffe
should have eyes similar to those of my young guide in Assisi? As far
as I know, she is of pure New England ancestry, and one does not meet
very often in this climate a glance that suggests nocturnal mystery.
No, no. The women here are different, as a rule. I remember her
mother; she was something like, but in less perfection."
Leigh, fearing that he might perhaps say too much, said nothing at all
by way of comment. Cardington's phrase, "nocturnal mystery," was a
reminder of the scene through which he had passed thus far unheeding,
and suggested its kinship with the woman of his thoughts. The vista
seemed to stretch away interminably, disclosing unexpected glimpses of
colour where the boughs displayed their changing leaves within the
radius of an electric light. Between the lights the darkness gathered
with the greater intensity because of the clouds which had now
traversed the whole expanse of the sky and bidden the stars from view.
He was conscious also of the ceaseless murmuring of the wind in the
leaves, like many voices whispering in an unknown tongue.