Florence affected low candle-lights, glowing through softly tinted
shades, of pale-green, blue, old-rose, pink; for such low lights set
each coiled tress of her golden hair a-dancing--and Florence knew this.
The hangings in the little round room where she received her guests were
deeper than the shades, and the tapestry of the semi-circular
window-seat was red. It was in the arc of this that Florence was wont to
sit--the star amidst her satellites.
It was one's privilege to smoke in the little room, and somehow the odor
of the burned tobacco did not get into the draperies; nor filter through
the _portières_ into the hall beyond; and the air of the _boudoir_ was
always cool and fresh and sweet.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday--every night--and Sunday most of all--there
were loungers on that window-seat, their faces half in shadow. It was
hard at such times to take one's eyes off Florence, sitting in the arc,
the soft light of old-rose moving across her cheek, creeping around her
white throat, leaping in her twisted hair, quivering in her blue, soft
eyes.
When she smiled, one thought in verse--if one were that sort--or,
perhaps, muttered, "Gad!" shiveringly under the breath.
Well may you--or I--shake our heads now and smile, albeit a bit sadly;
but then it was different. We have learned much, too much perhaps, and
the once keen edge of joy is dulled. But then we were young. Youth was
our inheritance and we spent it, flung it away, you say, as we knelt
before the Shrine of Beauty set up in a little round room where low
lights glimmered among deep shaded draperies.
We realized that it was a serious matter--a deadly serious matter; just
as did a score or more of our fellows on the campus in whose hearts, as
well, flared the flame of the fine young love that we were feeling in
our own.
For you--and I--loved Florence.
Dear little room! Dearest, dearest Florence! Many are the men who never
learned; in whose hearts your image is enshrined to-night. And few are
they who ever learned and really knew you, dear.
Some few thought they did and called you a "College Widow," because they
could remember a certain tall, dark-browed senior who danced ten times
with you at the Jay Hop of '87. Others were convinced through them; but
these were mostly freshmen upon whom you had not sought to work your
magic. How far wrong they were! Yet even you, Florence, I am thinking,
were wont, at least in blue moments, to take yourself at the scant
valuation these few saw fit to place upon you.
But in the end you, even, saw and understood.
I am glad, my dear, that I may tell the story. And if those who read it
here shall call it fiction, you, and Jim, and I, at least, shall know it
for the truth.
And then, when I have done, and you have put aside the book, to hide
your eyes from him who holds you fonder far than you can know, remember,
dear, the glory of it and be glad.
I
It was June.
The rain had been plentiful and the green things of earth rioted
joyously in their silent life. In the trees were many birds that sang
all day long, and in the night the moon was pale and the shadows were
ghostly and the air was sweet with roses that hung in pink profusion
from the trellis.
The grass was soft beneath the quick, light tread of the lads; and the
laughter of the summer-time was in the eyes of all the maids.
Many the gay straw-rides to the Lake; frequent and long the walks
through leafy lanes, down which the footfalls echoed; sweet the vigils
on the broad stone steps distributed about the campus with so much
regard for youthful lovers.
Too warm for dancing; too languorous for study, that June was made only
for swains and sweethearts.
At least Jack Houston thought as much, and casting an eye about the town
it chanced to fall upon fair Florence. Older than he by half-a-dozen
years--older still in the experience of her art--her blue eyes captured
him, the sheen of her soft hair, coiled high upon her head, dazzled him;
and the night of the day they met he forgot--quite forgot--that
half-a-dozen boon companions awaited him in a dingy, hot room down-town,
among whom he was to have been the ruling spirit--a party of vain
misguided youths of his own class, any one of whom he could drink under
the table at a sitting, and nearly all of whom he had.
The next night, however, he was of the party and led the roistering and
drank longer, harder than the rest, until--in the little hours of the
new day--sodden, unsteady, he found his way to his room, where he flung
himself heavily upon his bed to sleep until the noonday sun mercifully
cast a beam across his heavy eyes and wakened him.
This life he had led for two years and now his face had lines; his eyes
lacked lustre; his hand trembled when he rolled his cigarettes, but his
brain was keener, his intelligence subtler, than ever. The wick of his
mental lamp was submerged in alcohol and the light it gave seemed
brighter for it. There were those who shook their heads when his name
was mentioned; while others only laughed and called it the way of youth
unrestrained.
There was only one who seemed to see the end--Crowley--Houston's
room-mate, nearest pal--as unlike him as white is unlike black, and
therefore, perhaps, more fondly loving. It was because he loved him as
he did that Crowley saw--saw the end as clearly as he saw the printed
page before his eyes, and shuddered at the sight. He saw a brilliant
mind dethroned; a splendid body ruined; a father killed with grief--and
seeing, thus, he was glad that Houston's mother had passed away while he
was yet a little, brown-eyed, red-cheeked boy.
His misgivings heavy upon his heart, he spoke of them to Florence. At
first, her eyes glinted a cold harsh light, but as he talked on and on,
fervently, passionately, that light went out, and another came that
burned brighter, as he cried:
"Oh, can't something be done? _Something?_"
They walked on a way in silence, and then she said, quietly, as was her
manner, always: "Do you think I could help?"
He seized her hand and she looked up into his eyes, smiling.
"Oh, if you could!" he cried; and then: "Would you try?" But before she
could answer he flung down her hand saying: "But no, you couldn't; what
was I thinking of!"
They were walking by the river to the east, where, on the right, the
hill rose sheer--a tangle of vivid green--from the heart of which a
spring leapt and tinkled over smooth, white pebbles, to lose itself
again in the earth below, bubbling noisily.
At his expression, or, more at the tone he employed in its utterance,
she shrank from him, and then, regardless of her steps, sped half-way up
the hill, beside the spring course. There she flung herself upon a mossy
plot, face down.
Crowley called to her from the road, but she did not answer; he went to
her, and stooping touched her shoulder. Her whole body, prone before
him, quivered. She was crying.
He talked to her a long time, there in the woodland, silence about them
save for the calls of the birds.
She turned her wet eyes upon his face.
"Oh, to think every one doubts me!" she murmured. "You laughed at me
when I asked you if I could help--you think I'm only a toy-like girl--a
sort of great cat to be fondled always."
She seized a stick, broke it impetuously across her knee and rose before
him.
"I will help!" she cried, "I will--and you'll see what I'll do!"
Afterward--long afterward--he remembered her, as she was that
moment--her golden hair tumbling upon her shoulders; her eyes blazing,
her glorious figure erect, her white hands clenched at her sides.
So it was Crowley--Jim Crowley the penitent, yet the sceptical--who
brought them together, just as it was Crowley who waited, who counted
the days, who watched.