Grace and Trenton watched the car turn the long bend toward the highway
and hurried back to the fire of hickory logs that crackled merrily in
the living-room fireplace.
“Now for tea!” said Grace. “I ate a huge dinner but our tramp’s given
me a new appetite.”
She sat down before the tray while he stood by the hearth, resting his
elbow on the mantel-shelf, watching her. Jerry asked if he should turn
on the lights.
“Thank you, no, Jerry;” Grace answered. “The fire gives light enough.
No; don’t trouble about dinner. You might give us some sandwiches with
our tea.”
There was a broad smile on Trenton’s face as he took his cup and sat
down near her.
“What’s the joke, Ward?” she asked. She was now finding it easy to call
him Ward.
“It’s not a joke; I was just admiring your manner of addressing Jerry.
It was quite perfect. He was greatly impressed by it.”
“Oh, was that it! What did you expect me to do--snap at him?”
“No; I was only thinking how charming you’d be as the lady of a great
house. Your slaves would worship you. Jerry caught the idea too; I
never saw him bow so low.”
“Jerry’s adorable,” she murmured, her eyes flashing her appreciation
of Trenton’s compliment. “But, really I must look awful; my hair’s in
a mess. I’ll run upstairs and give it a smoothing as soon as we’ve had
tea.”
“Please don’t! I like it that way. The dark frame for your face adds a
charm that’s bewildering!”
“What did Tommy mean about Cummings?” she asked presently. “Isn’t the
Cummings business prospering?”
“Tommy must know what he’s talking about. He never quite loses his head
even when he’s drunk. These are anxious times and it’s quite possible
that Cummings is hard up. Tommy can afford to feel easy because he’s
well off even without his manufacturing business. I’ve got to do
something about Tommy, though,” he went on thoughtfully. “His New
York doctor told me he’ll have to stop his monkey shines or something
unpleasant will happen to him. While I’m here I’m going to try to get
him to submit to treatment. But he’s not easy to manage--frankly says
he prefers a short life and a merry one. We’ve got to save Tommy if we
can.”
He smiled a little sadly. Grace liked the way he talked of Kemp and
listened attentively while he gave many instances of Tommy’s kindness
and generosity.
“About your father’s improvements on the motor,” Trenton continued,
“I’ll go into that while I’m here. From the claims of the new patents
it would appear that he’s got something of real value; but we’ll have
to give them a try-out. We can do that at Kemp’s shop. Of course Tommy
will be anxious to get the new ideas if they’re practical.”
“Even a small success just now will mean so much to father,” said
Grace. “He was greatly excited by your letter and had to be convinced
that you weren’t acting for Cummings. He pretends to mother that there
was nothing unfair in Cummings’s treatment of him, but deep down in his
heart he’s terribly bitter.”
A fire makes for intimacy and their concord was now so complete that
silence had all the felicity of speech. The perfect expression of
love may be conveyed in a glance and from time to time their eyes met
in communications too precious for words. After these mute periods
the talk would ripple on again unhurriedly as though they were the
inheritors of immeasurable time.
In moments of animation when her dark eyes flashed and she smilingly
invited his response she disclosed new and beguiling charms. In its
disorder her hair emphasized what Irene was fond of calling Grace’s
gypsy look.
The tea disposed of, she sent away the tray and as his cigarette case
was empty she filled it from a box Jerry found for her.
“It seems funny to be using other people’s things this way,” she
remarked. “It’s like finding a house in perfect running order on a
desert island.”
“You don’t know what a joy it is to be waited on in this fashion.”
He looked up at her fondly as she stood beside him. When she returned
the case he drew her upon his knees, took her hand and scrutinized it
closely. He pressed a kiss upon the palm and closed his fingers upon it.
“How long will you keep it?” he asked.
“The hand?” she asked provokingly.
“No; what I’ve just put into it!”
“Oh, I don’t need to keep that, do I? Won’t there be some more?”
“Millions!” he replied and clasped her tight.
“Your hands are finely shaped and interesting, Ward. Oh, you have a
double life line! You’ll never die! The Mount of Apollo is wonderfully
developed--don’t you see it, right there? Of _course_ that’s what that
is. It’s plain enough why music affects you so. You really might have
been an artist of some kind yourself.”
This called for an argument in the course of which she got illuminative
glimpses of him as a boy who was always interested in machinery. He
had been predestined to the calling he had chosen but confessed that
sometimes he wished that he had tried his hand at executive work.
“I may do it yet,” he said. “I have opportunities occasionally, which
I’m probably foolish to let pass, to take hold of big concerns. But
I’ve liked my freedom to roam. It’s helped solve my problem to be able
to wander.”
“Yes, I understand, dear,” she said softly, stroking his hair. She
knew that by his problem he meant his wife. Though she had accepted
as sincere his explanation of his relations with Mrs. Trenton, she
resented in spite of herself even this remote reference to the woman
whom she had never seen but had constantly tried to visualize.
“I might even move to Indianapolis one of these days,” he was saying.
“I have a standing offer from Tommy to come and help him run his plant.
I tell him it’s his game to wish his job on me so he can have more time
to play. And Tommy doesn’t need that!”
She drew from his waistcoat pocket the locket that had so aroused her
curiosity at their first meeting.
“What’s in this, Ward?” she asked, holding up the round gold trinket.
“Oh, _that_!” he said, frowning at it.
“Don’t look so cross! Must I tease you to show me what’s inside?”
As she dangled it at arm’s length he encouraged the idea that its
contents were secret by snatching it away.
“It’s the darkest of mysteries. What will you give me for a peep?”
“I might give you one kiss,” she said, deliberating, “if I like what’s
inside.”
“Oh, I must have three!”
“Agreed. But don’t show me if you don’t want to.”
“Well, it’s a great concession, a privilege reserved only for royalty.”
He opened the locket guardedly, so turning it as to conceal the inner
surfaces.
“Just a moment, please. Do you stand by the bargain?”
“Absolutely.”
He gave it to her, laughing at her disappointment at finding it empty.
“Fraud!” she exclaimed. “How long has it been empty?”
“Do you really want to know?” he asked, suddenly grave.
“Yes; but not if you’d rather not tell me.”
“I can’t give the exact date, but you can approximate it for yourself.
Do you remember the first time I wrote you--from St. Louis? It seems
aeons ago!”
“Yes; I’ll never forget that.”
“Well, that night I took out and destroyed a little photograph I’d
carried there for a good many years. I’ll leave you to guess why I
didn’t care for it any more.”
“Your wife’s picture?”
“Yes; I bought the locket right after we were engaged and the picture
had been there until I took it out that night in St. Louis.”
“Tell me more about how you came to take it out,” she asked with the
insistence of a child demanding the continuation of a story. “Didn’t
it have any kind of meaning for you any more,--not even little
associations--memories--you wouldn’t lose?”
“No; it was as though something had died in me and utterly ceased to
be. I was wondering about a lot of things that night. After I had
written to you I wrote a letter to Mrs. Trenton. She had said from time
to time that if I ever found myself interested in another woman not
to be afraid to tell her. I don’t know how seriously she meant that.
Odd as it may seem, I don’t _know_ Mrs. Trenton! I used to think I did
but that was sheer conceit on my part. As long as she had made that
suggestion--about telling her if I met a woman who really appealed to
me more than she did--I thought I’d tell her about you. Oh, I didn’t
tell your name nor where you live!” he exclaimed seeing the look of
consternation on Grace’s face. “My agreement with her was half a joke;
in later years I’ve never quite known when to take her seriously.
I suppose I wrote her more to feel her out as to whether she might
not have reached the point where it would be a good thing to quit
altogether.”
“Well,” Grace asked, “what did she say?”
“Oh, so far her only answer has been a magnificent silence! The
philosophers agree, don’t they, that a woman doesn’t always mean what
she says? But a silence is even more baffling. What would you say about
it?”
“A little ominous--perhaps----”
“Contempt, disdain, indifference? Maybe she’s just awaiting further
advices, as we say in business.”
“Possibly she never got the letter.”
“That’s conceivable; she’s a fast traveler; the mails have hard work to
catch up with her.”
“You don’t really know whether she got the letter or what she would
have written if she received it. Maybe she’s just waiting for a chance
to talk to you about it.”
“Well, in any event we needn’t worry about it,” said Trenton with a
shrug. She rose and drew up a low rocker and sat beside him, facing the
fire.
“I’d like to have seen your letter,” said Grace, musingly.
“I told her you kissed me. Like a brave man I put the responsibility on
you!”
“Oh, that wasn’t fair!” she cried hastily. “It would be sure to give
her a bad impression of me.”
“I think I intimated that it was only such a kiss as a daughter might
bestow upon a father she didn’t think so badly of! I shall always be
glad that our first kiss was like that; we’ve traveled a long way since
then.”
“Every step has been so dear,” she said contentedly. “I think I could
never forget one single thing. I don’t believe I’ve forgotten a word
you’ve ever said to me. And when you were away I lived our times all
over again. And I like to imagine that we talk to each other by our own
private wireless even when you are miles away. I think I can imagine
just what you would say and how you would look when you said it. Oh,--”
she bent forward quickly and grasped his hand in both of hers; her lips
quivered and there was a mist in her eyes. “Oh!--I wish I didn’t love
you so _much_!”
“Has it occurred to you,” he asked, “that we’re alone away out here in
the woods?”
“I don’t feel a bit lonesome; I’d never be afraid anywhere with you!”
The fire had burned low and she watched admiringly his manner of
replenishing it. He used the shovel to push back the ashes and bring
the embers together in a neat bed, in the center of which he dropped
a fresh log with calculated accuracy. It was his scientific mind, she
reflected, habituated to careful planning even in unimportant things.
He stood for a moment inspecting his work; moved the log a trifle;
watched attentively the effect of the change, and as the dry loose bark
broke into flame brushed the hearth neatly and smiled into her eyes as
he found her at his side.
“You do everything just right! I love to see you use your hands,” she
said. “They’re so strong and skillful.”
“I ought to know something about fires; I’ve made enough of them. As
a young fellow I did a lot of jobs that took me into remote places,
surveying and construction gangs; and I’ve camped a bit--hunting and
fishing. I might even say that I can make coffee and fry bacon without
utterly destroying their food values.”
She established him before the fire in the most comfortable chair in
the room and sat at his feet. With her arms folded upon his knees to
make a resting place for her head she listened with the rapt attention
a child gives to a beguiling chronicler as he told how he was lost for
three days in the Canadian wilds, and of a flight by canoe on a stormy
night to fetch a doctor for one of his party who had fallen ill. He had
given her from the first a sense of far horizons, and tonight her fancy
perfected every picture his narratives suggested of hills and woodlands
and streams. They constituted a new background against which she saw in
him an heroic figure equal to any demand that might be made upon his
strength and courage.
“One of these days,” he went on, “We must do the Canadian Rockies
together; and then I’d like to take you to some places I know in
Maine--just guides and canoes and _us_; and I want to do India before
I die, but not without you. You’re in all my future! I want to live a
long time to enjoy life with you. Does that appall you?”
She was gazing wide-eyed into the fire, her dark eyes the harbor of
dreams, and he laughed and bent forward to touch her cheek and break
the spell that bound her.
“I should love it _all_, dear!” she said with a happy sigh. “To be with
you, to share everything with you! Oh, that would be more happiness
than I could bear!”
“You do love me; tell me, dear, once more, that you do!”
“More than all this earth and the stars! More than all the other
universes beyond this one!” she cried, laughing at her extravagance.
He raised his hand and bade her listen.
“I thought the wind changed awhile ago. The weather spirit’s abroad.
Let’s have a look.”
He threw on the porch lights and opened the front door. It was snowing
hard; the porch steps and driveway were already covered, and the
nearest trees had been transformed into ghostly sentinels. She clapped
her hands in delight at the beauty of it.
“It makes me think of ‘Snow Bound,’” she said when they had gone
back to the fire. “I used to know some of that poem. Little Grace
will now recite for you!” She assumed the attitude of a school girl
recitationist and repeated, gesturing awkwardly:
“‘What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire’s ruddy glow.’
I’m talented; you can see that! What if we should be snowed in?”
“What if we should!” he answered. “Tommy always carries a full larder
and we wouldn’t starve to death.”
With her hands clasped before her she gazed down at the flames. He
drew his arm about her waist and the room was silent save for the cosy
murmur of the fire.
“Why not stay here all night? Jerry hasn’t left and he’ll spend the
night if I ask him and give us breakfast. I suppose you have to go to
the store tomorrow?”
“Yes,--” the assent was to one or all of his questions as he might
choose to interpret it.
“We can go in of course, early in the morning. I have a nine o’clock
engagement myself.”
“They’ll be expecting me at home,” she said, pondering deeply, “but if
I could telephone from here----”
“I think Tommy’s connected direct with the city exchange. Jerry can
tell us.”
He rang for Jerry, who confirmed his impression as to the telephone
connection.
Trenton detained the boy to ask for more logs while Grace went to the
pantry to telephone.
“Were you going into town tonight, Jerry?”
“No, Mr. Trenton; too complete snowing. I very well stay all night.”
“The runabout’s in order, is it?”
“Yezzah.”
“Miss Durland and I are spending the night. If you could give us
breakfast, Jerry?”
“With much ease, Mr. Trenton.”
Trenton lit a cigarette and smoked meditatively while Jerry noiselessly
filled the wood box. Grace reappeared as Jerry stood awaiting further
instructions.
“Oh, Grace, what time shall we say for breakfast?” Trenton asked
casually.
“I must be at the store at eight-thirty,” she answered from the door.
“Then breakfast at seven? We’d better allow a little extra time in case
the snow keeps up. Seven it is, Jerry.”
The boy left them and could be heard moving about upstairs. A clock
struck ten and Trenton exclaimed at the hour.
“I’d have guessed it wasn’t more than eight! The hours do jump along
when the heart’s light. Any difficulty about not going in?”
“No; not at all. Every one was out but father and I merely said I was
at the house of a girl friend and would spend the night there.”
She walked to a table and began inspecting the books that were arranged
upon it in careful order. It might have seemed that she wished to avoid
meeting his eyes immediately. He hesitated a moment then crossed to her
quickly.
“It’s always interesting to see what books you find in a country
house,” he said. “But it’s a mistake to judge the owner by the
literature you find lying about; it’s usually the discards of the
guests. At the place where I caused so much disappointment by not
dying----”
“Oh, please don’t say it, even as a joke, Ward!” she pleaded, dropping
a book she had opened and laying her hands on his arm.
“Well, I won’t then! I was jealous of that book. You were so absorbed I
almost felt that I was alone in the room. And I was horribly oppressed
by the general vacancy, emptiness, voidness! Now my vanity is touched
to find that you hadn’t really gone away and left me; you’re very much
here!”
“You’re so foolish!” she said. “What were the books you found in your
room at that place where you were ill?”
“Oh, they were on the occult and had been left behind by some
enthusiastic spook hunter. After that hour when I so plainly saw you
right there by my bed I studied those books carefully. I wanted to
explain the transformation of a very plain nurse in spectacles into the
most beautiful girl in the world!”
“And,--did you explain it?”
“Yes; but not from the books!”
“How was it then?”
“My heart did the explaining. I knew I loved _you_! That’s the answer
to all my questions.”
“You do love me, Ward, really and truly?”
“Yes, dear,” and then with head lifted he added as though repeating a
pledge from some ritual: “With all my heart, with all my soul, with
every hope of happiness I have for the future, I love you!”
He took her in his arms and held her so that he could look down into
her eyes.
“I want to be everything to you; I want to fill your heart so that you
will turn to me in every need. I want you, all or nothing!”
Her lips parted tremulously, inviting his kiss. She felt singularly
secure and content in his arms.
“All or nothing?” she repeated in a low whisper.
“Yes! There was no escape for us from the beginning,” he said slowly.
“It’s been like a drawing of the tide that no man’s hand could stay.”
They walked slowly to the hearth, his hands thrust deep into his coat
pockets. He eyed the fire critically and rearranged the half-burnt logs.
“Guess I’d better put this up as a precaution,” he remarked lifting the
wire screen that stood against the wall and laying it against the arch
under the mantel. “Run along, dear. I’ll see to the locking up.”
He went into the hall and snapped on the lights and kissed his hand to
her as she started up the steep, old-fashioned stair. The lights were
turned on in all the rooms and humming softly she wandered through
them, pausing finally in one in which a suitcase lay open on a chair,
evidently placed there by Jerry. She recognized it as Irene’s, kept at
The Shack for occasions when she spent the night there.
Below, Trenton was testing the fastening of the doors. She lifted her
head, listening intently as she heard his step.