THE hotel was lost; the silence, the peace of nature, unbroken. A
drowsy flutter of wings stilled in a hedge. The moon sailed behind a
cloud that drooped low upon the earth, and great, slow drops of rain
fell to a continuous and far reverberation. They struck coolly upon
Anthony's face, pattered among the grass, dropped with minute explosions
of dust upon the road. The shower passed, the cloud dissolved, and the
crystal flood of light fell once more into the cup of the valley.
It spread like a balm over Anthony: Hartmann, Mrs. Dallam, the weeping
face of Mrs. Kuhn, were like painted figures in a distasteful act upon
which he had turned his back, from which he had gone forth into the
supreme spectacle of the spheres, the presence of Eliza Dreen. Every
atom thrilled with the thought of her. “Oh, my very dear,” he whispered
to the sleeping birds, the dead, white disk of the moon: “I will come
back to you... good.”
After the rain the night was like a damp, sweet veil upon his face;
the few stars above him were blurred as though seen through tears; the
horizon burned in a circle of flickering, ruddy light. He took up his
way once more over the soft folds of the road; now, accustomed to the
dark, he could distinguish the smooth pebbles by the way, separate, grey
blades of grass. He walked buoyantly, tirelessly, weaving on the loom
of the dim miles mingled visions of future and past, dominated by the
serene presence of Eliza.
He felt in a pocket the wallet containing his ticket to California and
the generous sum added by his father. There must be no more delay in
arriving at his western destination! His excursion with Hartmann had
been a grave error; he saw it clearly now, one of those faults--so
fatally easy for him to commit--which, if his life was to spell success,
if he was to come finally into his heritage of joy, he must scrupulously
avoid. In the future he would drive directly, safely, toward his goal;
he would become part of that orderly pattern of life plotted in streets
and staid occupations: at the end of day he would return to his small,
carefully-tended garden to weed and water, and sit with Eliza on his
portico--a respectable, an authentic, member of society. On Sunday
morning they would go to the Episcopal Church, they would join the
sober, festivally-garbed procession moving toward the faint thunder of
the organ. And, at dinner, he would carve the roast. Thus, quietly,
they would grow old, grey, together. They would have a number of
children--all girls, he decided.
Imperceptibly the morning was born about him, faint shadows grew under
the hedges, the sweet, querulous note of a robin sounded from the
sparkling sod. A wind stirred, as immaculate, as dewly fresh, as though
it were the first breath blown upon a new world of virginal and lyric
beauty. The molten gold of the sun welled out of the east and spilled
over the wooded hills and meadows; the violet mists drawn over the
swales and streams dissolved; Anthony met a boy driving cows to pasture.