ANTHONY passed the few, intervening days to the excursion on the
Wingohocking in a state of rapt absorption: his brain sounded with
every tone of Eliza's voice; she smiled at him, in riding garb, over
that delicate trail of freckles; he saw her in the misty, amber dress of
the dance; in white, illusively lit by the candles against the shadowy
veranda. Now, for the first time, day that had succeeded haphazard
to day, without relation or plan, were strung together, bound into an
intelligible whole, by the thread of romance. He must get a firm grip
upon reality, construct a solid existence out of the unsubstantial
elements of his living; but, in his new felicity, he was unable to
direct his thoughts to details inevitably sordid; he was lost in the
miracle of Eliza Dreen's mere presence; material considerations might,
must, be deferred a short while longer.
A stainless afternoon sky overspread finally the group gathered about
covered willow baskets on the green bank of the stream. Behind them the
meadow swept level, turning back the flood of the sun with a blaze of
aureate flowers, to a silver band of birch; the upstream reach, wrinkled
and dark, was lost between tangles of wild grapes; below, with a smooth,
virid rush, the water poured and broke over rocky shallows.
Anthony launched his canoe from a point of crystalline sand, and,
holding it against the hank, gazed covertly at Eliza. She was once more
in white, with a broad apple-green ribband about her waist: she stood
above him, slenderly poised against the sky; and she was so rare, he
thought, so ethereal, that she seemed capable of floating off into
the blue. Then he bent, hastily rearranging a cushion, for she was
descending toward him. He stepped skilfully after her into the craft,
and they drifted silently over the surface of the stream. A thrust of
the paddle, in a swirl of white bubbles, turned them about, and they
advanced steadily against the sliding current.
The still, watery facsimile of the banks were broken into liquid blots
of emerald and bronze by the bow of the canoe. The air rose coldly from
the surface to Anthony's face; from the meadows on either hand came the
light, dry fragrance of newly cut hay; before them trees, meeting above,
formed a sombrous reach, barred with dusty gold shafts of sunlight that
sank into the clear depths. He heard behind the distant dip of paddles,
and floating voices, worlds removed.
Eliza trailed her hand in the water. An idyllic silence folded them
which he was loath to break.... He had rolled up his sleeves, and the
muscles of his forearms swelled rhythmically under the clear, brown
skin.
“You are preposterously strong,” she approved. His elation, however,
collapsed at the condition following. “But strength is simply brutality
until it's wisely directed. Mazzini and not Napoleon was my ideal in
history.” Who, he wondered unhappily, was Mazzini? “I hated school,” he
told her briefly; “I don't believe I have ever read a book through; I'd
rather paddle about--with _you_.”
“But you have read deep in the book of nature,” she reassured him; “only
a very favorite few open those pages. You are such a child,” she added
obliquely, “appallingly unsophisticated: that's what's nicest about you,
really.” That form of laudation left him cold, and he drove the canoe
with a vicious rush against the reflections. “A dear child,” she added,
without materially increasing his pleasure.
“Words are rot!” he exploded suddenly; “they can't say any of the
important things. I could talk a year to you without telling you what
I feel--here,” he laid a hand momentarily on his spare, powerful chest;
“it's all mixed up, like lead and fire; or that feeling when ice cream
goes to your head. You see,” he ended moodily, “all rot.”
“It's very picturesque... and apparently painful. Words aren't necessary
for the truly important things, Anthony.”
“Then you know--what I think of you; you know... how everything else has
moved away and left only you; you know a hundred things, all important,
all about yourself.”
She set an uncertain smile against the rush of his words. The stream
narrowed between high banks drawn against the sheer deeps of sky; the
water flowed swiftly, with a sustained whisper at the edges, and, for
a silent space, he paddled vigorously. Then a profound, glassy pool
opened, sodded bluely to the shores, with low, silvery clumps of willows
casting sooty shadows across the verd water; and, with a sharp twist,
he beached the canoe with a soft shock upon the shelving pebbles. As
he held the craft steady he felt the light, thrilling impact of Eliza's
palm as she sprang ashore.
The others followed rapidly. The canoes were drawn out of the water, and
preparations for supper commenced. Eliza and Ellie Ball, accompanied by
a youth with a pail, proceeded to a nearby farmhouse in quest of milk.
Anthony lingered at the water's edge, ignoring the appeal for firewood.
The glow of the westering sun faded from the air, and the reflection
of the fire lighted behind him danced ruddy op the grass. At intervals
small fish splashed invisibly, and a kingfisher cried downstream. Then
he heard his sister's voice, and a familiar and moving perfume hovered
in his nostrils. He turned and saw Eliza with her arms full of white
lilacs. Her loveliness left him breathless, mingled with the low sun it
blinded him. She seemed all made of misty bloom--a fragrant spirit
of ineffable flowers. The scent of the lilacs stirred profound,
inarticulate emotions within him, like the poignant impression left by a
forgotten dream of shivering delight.
He scorned the fare soon spread on the clothed sod, burning his throat
stoically with a cup of unsweetened coffee. Eliza sat beyond the
charring remains of the fire sinking from cherry-red embers to
impalpable white ash. He observed with secret satisfaction that she
too ate little: an appetite on her part, he felt, would have been a
calamity.
'The meadows and distant woods were vague against the primrose west,
the cyanite curtain of the east, when the baskets were assembled for the
return. Anthony delayed over the arrangement of his craft until Eliza
and himself were last in the floating procession. Dense shadows,
drooping from the trees, filled the banks; overhead the sky was clear
green. They swept silently forward with the current, a rare dip of the
paddle. Eliza's countenance was just palely visible. The lilacs lay in a
pallid heap at their feet. On either hand the world floated back darkly
like an immaterial void through which an ebon stream bore them beyond
the stars.
At a bend he reached up and caught hold of an overhanging branch, and
they swung into a shallow backwater. A deep shelf of stone lay under the
face of the bank, closed in by a network of wildgrape stems. “This is
where I sometimes stay at night,” he told her; “no one knows but you.”