Once possessed with the thought of change, Dangerfield wished to
be off at once. He had lived so keenly in the region of sensations
these last months, that only sensations new and unmastered could
answer the craving of the artist, which had found a rebirth in the
new life of the senses. The green unanimity of the July woods and
the brazen expanse of the heated sky tormented his eye. He felt a
longing for the region of the sea, whose moods have alone infinite
variety, ever stirring, changing and changeless.
The next night, prepared for departure with the morning, they sat
on the steps of their camp, hand in hand.
“When I’ve made up my mind to go, I can’t bear to wait,” he said,
all at once. “Are you like that?”
She shook her head.
“I love to stick to the things I know,” she said softly.
The day had gone down in stillness and lassitude; the night hung
over them from the hollow bowl of the sky. Above the sharpened
silhouette of Catamount, crouching against the horizon, the sinking
bulb of the moon, like some molten mass, seemed burning sullenly.
By some odd effect of rising mists, the red reflection fell on the
glassed lake in a single glowing tongue of flame. But, even as
they watched, a stirring in the air brought a rippling, spreading
dance of moonbeams across the waters to their feet. A few leaves
whispered above their heads.
“Hot to-morrow,” he said.
“Yes.”
Neither heard the inconsequential words with which they veiled
their thoughts. He was profoundly penetrated by the weirdness of
the spectacle before him, feeling in himself, too, a consuming
heat to burn up places and experiences, a need of emotion and
progress. She looked in awe, sensing something ominous in the
witchcraft of the sky, something personal to her and the coming
months.
“It makes you sad to leave here,” he said presently.
“Yes; I’m that way,” she said apologetically. “Every tree here is a
friend.”
“We have been happy--rarely happy.” She took his hand and laid it
against her cheek. “Whatever I do, you will have done it, Inga,”
he said, with a note of emotion. “And there were moments--yes,
even at the time we were pledging ourselves to each other, even
in the train afterward when we could not talk to each other, you
remember--when I wondered how it would turn out--if, at first, it
would not be a struggle between us. Curious what thoughts come to
you at the queerest times! I suppose you were thinking something
like that too.”
“I was wondering,” she said evasively.
“You have never seen the sea?” he said irrelevantly.
“Never, never, except as a small child, and I can’t remember well.”
“You will be swept away by it,” he said, his imagination on what
was coming.
“I have loved it here,” she said, in a low voice; “I could stay
here forever.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely.”
“And I--I have been happy--happier than in all my life--and yet I’m
impatient to be away, as though I had taken everything out of it
that was to be taken.”
“Yes; you are like that,” she said slowly, and she nodded to
herself. “It is right you should be.”
“I feel that’s what’s going to send me ahead.”
“Yes; it will do that.”
“Look, there’s the moon going down behind Catamount!” he said. She
drew closer to him, her head on his shoulder. He laughed a teasing
laugh. “Soon it’ll be black, and then a little dryad of the night
will no longer be afraid to show what she feels.”
“Yes, yes,” she cried, closing her arms about him suddenly, and
as his lips met hers, he found her all trembling, and warm and
agitated.