Meantime the little blind god was working a combination of his own. One
stinging wintry evening, when the wind was whistling from the northwest
and a cold wave of most approved and vicious pattern had swooped down on
Chicago, when the pavements were coated with ice and the populace with
extra garments, and the visible features of pedestrians were
unbecomingly red, a tall, soldierly-looking man, garbed in furs, was
patrolling an up-town street and keeping anxious watch across the way.
He had not promised not to look at her, at all events, and the thought
of the fragile form he loved, shivering, possibly, in that bitter blast,
had lured him from the Lambert to within sight of the Wellses' door-way.
The yellow green of the wintry west was fading, the lamps were
flickering in the gale, and the electric globes, swinging at the corner,
threw black, shifting shadows across the pavement. The captain gazed
wistfully up at a certain window across the way. She was not yet home,
for all there was darkness. Then he peered along the sidewalk towards
the avenue. A social function of some kind was going on, and a number of
carriages were drawn up at the curb near a great stone house that faced
the broader and more fashionable thoroughfare to the east, or else were
moving slowly up and down, their coachmen thrashing vigorously with
their arms to restore circulation in their numbed fingers. Forrest
recognized the once familiar brougham of the Allisons', and conjectured
that Florence, with her now desperately devoted Hubbard, was among the
guests. At the eastward end of the street all was light and bustle,
clattering hoofs and slamming carriage-doors. All to the west was gloom
and silence; yet out of that darkness was he looking for the light, the
one light, that could bring even momentary gladness to his eyes. He knew
that on certain evenings it was her habit to stop and see how Mart's
little brood was faring, and their new home was on a back street not
four blocks distant. She was later than usual this evening; wondering
why, he tramped westward towards the corner. He heard the swift hoofs of
horses coming behind him, and the smooth roll of carriage-wheels. He saw
sudden commotion and excitement among some children issuing from a
baker's shop at the corner, and heard their shrill, eager voices, then
the clang of gongs, the louder thunder of galloping hoofs, and the
ponderous bounding bulk of a fire-engine as it came tearing down the
cross street. Like a rushing volcano it dashed southward, leaving a
trail of sparks and smoke, and then there was sudden warning cry. Some
of the children, unmindful of anything except the engine, had sprung
upon the crossing to see it go by, just as the carriage came spinning
out from behind them. The coachman shouted, hauled at his reins, and did
his best, but the little ones heard only the thunder in front, and in an
instant, though almost sliding on their powerful haunches, John
Allison's beautiful bays dashed through the frightened group, yet not
before the alert soldier, with one spring, landed in their midst,
brushing them aside, and then, with one shrieking little maid in his
arms, went down on the icy pavement in the midst of a tangle of lashing
hoofs and struggling, affrighted horses. How he got out he could not
say. A giant policeman was tugging at his shoulder; ready-handed men
were at the horses' heads, and, breathless, he stood erect, conscious of
something wrong in one side, but mainly anxious about the child. She was
picked up, stunned and senseless, and in the white glare of the electric
lamp he recognized the features of Mart Wallen's four-year old Kitty. A
sympathetic crowd had gathered. A young man poked a silk-hatted head
from the carriage-window, and, with a face nearly the color of the Queen
chrysanthemum in the lapel of his coat, besought Parks to hang on to his
horses. A surly voice in the crowd said, "Damn your horses, and you
too! If it hadn't been for this gentleman you'd have killed a dozen of
these kids." Forrest's head was beginning to swim, but he took the limp
little burden on his left shoulder. "Let me have her," he said. "I know
where to take her. Bring a doctor to Mr. Wells's at once, please." And
as he turned away he caught one glimpse of a fair, anxious face peering
out across Mr. Hubbard's elegantly draped shoulder, and found that he
could not raise his hand to his fur cap. "All right, Miss Allison," he
smiled to her reassuringly. "Drive on." And then some one helped him in
to Wells's parlor, and Mrs. Wells came fluttering down, all sympathy and
welcome. Her deft, womanly hands stripped off the cheap hood and coat of
the little sufferer; other friendly, sympathetic souls came in to help;
and then, feeling oddly faint and queer, Forrest quietly stole away.
Closing the glazed hall door behind him, he paused a moment in the
vestibule, finding himself face to face with a slender form at sight of
which even then his heart gave one great bound. Instinctively one arm
was outstretched in longing, in greeting, and then at sight of him the
form recoiled, and, cold as the biting wind that swept his cheek, he
heard the brief sentence, "You have broken your word."
Bowing his head, conscious of rapidly increasing dizziness, raging at
the thought of breaking down before her, yet smarting under the lash of
her undeserved rebuke, he pushed blindly by and went forth into the
night. The street was rocking like the steamer of the summer twice gone
by as it pitched through the "roaring forties." He remembered trying to
make his way back towards that corner--where the horses went down--there
were friends there--and that big policeman--he'd help. The lamp-post
leaned over and tapped him hard on top of the head. He tried to grapple
it, but the right arm would not answer. Then his feet shot out from
under him on the icy pavement, and the curb flew up and struck him a
violent blow at the base of the skull.
Ten minutes later, as Jeannette Wallen was rejoicing over the returning
consciousness of a sorely bumped but otherwise unharmed little maid, and
hugging that precious niece to her heart, while the doctor administered
a soothing draught, and Mrs. Wells was pulling off the pygmy shoes and
stocking, the servant admitted an abashed citizen who faltered at the
parlor door and mumbled, "Say, doctor, that gen'l'm'n that saved that
little girl must 'a' got badly hurt. He's lyin' out here down the
street--senseless----"
That was all Jeannette heard. Who caught little Kate was a question the
distracted aunt never asked until many a long day after. Nobody caught
_her_ until, a dozen doors away, under the gas-light, in the midst of a
little knot of neighbors, a battered, bleeding head was lifted from a
rough coat-sleeve, and, folded in the slender, clasping arms of a
kneeling girl, was pillowed on the pure heart where the baby curls were
nestling but a moment before.
Fractured ribs and collar-bones yield not unreadily to treatment; even
fractured skulls have been known to mend; and in a week, though dazed
and bewildered, Captain Forrest was convalescing. Cranston and other
fellows from the fort were in frequent attendance. The army surgeon from
head-quarters had been unflagging, and Colonel Kenyon himself was at the
railway station when the "Limited" arrived from New York, bringing a
much-alarmed mother and sister, who relieved, if they did not entirely
replace, certain other nurses at the patient's bedside. Upon their
arrival, after three days and nights of vigil, Miss Wallen disappeared.
She betook herself to Miss Bonner's refuge far down town, and just what
Mrs. Forrest could have heard from the Cranstons, from her son's
commanding officer, and from the fluent lips of Mrs. Wells, the reader
may best conjecture, for it is a recorded fact that no sooner was her
son out of all danger and well on the road to recovery than two ladies
drove to the south side to seek this modest abode of working-girls and
to call in person on Jeannette.
That afternoon came Cary Allison to visit his old friend the captain.
Day after day had the boy been there to inquire, and it was good to see
his rejoicing in the mending of the stalwart patient and refreshing to
hear his comments on affairs domestic. Flo and her spoons just made him
sick, he said, and the idea of having a Stoughton bottle like that for a
brother-in-law was disgusting. "Why couldn't _he_ have jumped out and
lent a helping hand, instead of sneaking inside the coach and crying at
Parks? Hubbard's a muff! I tell Flo he belongs to the family the squash
was named for, and I call him Squash, too, and so does pa, though he's
glad enough to rope him in to buying more stocks, I notice." It was
plain that in Cary's eyes sister Titania had found her Bottom and was
enamoured of an ass. Brother-like, he had made her wince many and many a
time, and now it was Forrest's turn.
"Say, cap, I do wish you'd come around and cheer the governor up a bit.
He's been warped all out of shape since the strike, and seems to feel
all broke up over home matters, too. He won't stay there at all. The
last thing he did was to drive around to Wallen's and offer him a
first-class clerkship, and now he's rowing with Wells because he won't
let on what's become of your typewriter."
His typewriter? The girl he loved with all the strength of his being,
honored and revered and longed to make his wife,--and the world could
speak of her in that loose, pragmatical, possessive, chattel-like way.
His typewriter! No more his than any man's who gave her employment. No
longer his, in fact, since he was virtually forbidden her presence. He
who had offered her his hand and name and love was actually of less
account in the arrangement of her daily life than any one of the
thousands who trod the pavement under her office windows, for they could
offer work. Forrest threw himself back upon his pillow, buried his face
in his arms, groaned aloud as the innocent youth went gayly forth into
the wintry sunshine, and the doctor and the household of anxious women
wondered what had happened to set back their impatient patient. Could it
be, suggested that social prophet, his sister, that he was, after all,
really interested in Florence Allison and chagrined at the news of her
engagement, now formally announced? Might it not be, after all, that, as
she had originally suggested, his apparent infatuation for Jeannette
Wallen was mere sentiment, quixotism, proximity, and that he would
speedily recover could they only get him away awhile? Surely it was
worth the trial. His mother's health was suffering in the rigors of a
Chicago winter. They had spent three months in St. Augustine each winter
for years past, and but for Floyd should be there now.
It was arranged somehow. He was passive, submissive, indifferent. He
knew nothing of the one wild moment of Jenny's break-down. He had never
been allowed one hint of where his blessed head had been pillowed that
bitter November night. The girl had pledged her friend to absolute
secrecy. Removed on his convalescence from Wells's roof to his mother's
rooms at The Virginia, Forrest saw no more of his hostess for several
days. Then, with a three months' leave on surgeon's certificate, he was
driven, under his mother's wing, to bid her adieu, and that night they
were off for Florida.
"I'll never forgive him as long as I live," said Mrs. Wells. "He never
gave me a chance to tell what--I can't tell you, Mrs. Cranston, but you
_know_; and those two proud women have just got him between them now,
and they'll never let him out of their leading-strings again."
"You don't know him," said Mrs. Cranston. "He'll break the strings and
be back, or he isn't worth another thought of a girl like her."
But Jenny was not so certain. Never yet had she had opportunity to unsay
the cutting words with which she had met him that bitter night. Time and
again in her heart of hearts had she planned how those unsaying words
should be said, and said just as soon as ever he came, but he came
rather soon and suddenly.
They were great Christmas farers at Wellses'. With no children of their
own, the sweet holiday season would have lost its sweetest charm but
that Jenny was again with them. They rigged up a lovely Christmas-tree
for Mart's babies, and summoned in sundry little waifs from the
neighborhood, and had games and romps and laughter and merry voices.
Later in the week there was a dinner at which the Cranstons and some
fort friends appeared; there was a mistletoe bough that night and not a
little coquetry and merriment, for Wells had invited the library girls
and numerous young men to be present, and the customs of Old England
were reproduced with characteristic American exaggeration. That
mistletoe bough remained suspended from its chandelier, a reminder of
the joys of the old year, even after '95 came knocking at the door, and
in some odd way a little sprig thereof was found one evening to be
clinging to the top of a cabinet photograph of Mr. Forrest which stood
on the mantel shelf.
It was a sharp, cold January evening, and Jenny Wallen's soft cheek was
glowing, and her eyes sparkling, as she tripped lightly up the stone
steps, let herself into the warm hall-way, and peered into the parlor.
No one was there. A bright coal fire blazed in the open grate. The
pretty room looked cosy and inviting. The library beyond--"Wells's
particular"--was dark. Mrs. Wells, said the maid, from the head of the
kitchen stairs, had been home, but was gone over to the Lambert to meet
Mr. Wells. So Jenny was alone. Some women lose courage at such times.
She seemed to gain it. Drawing off her gloves and throwing aside the
heavy cloak, she stood there in front of the blaze, her eyes fixed upon
that unconscious portrait, her hands extended over the flames. What
speaking eyes the girl had! What would be the words the soft, rosy lips
were framing? With all her soul she was gazing straight into that
unresponsive, soldierly, handsome face. With all her heart she was
murmuring some inarticulate appeal, lavishing some womanly caresses upon
the dumb and senseless picture. Then the little hands were upraised, and
the next instant, frame and all, the shadow was nestled just where the
substance had lain, clasped in those encircling arms, long weeks before.
A moment or two it was held there, the sweet face bending over, the soft
lips murmuring, crooning to it as a mother might to a precious child,
and then it was raised still more, until those lips were pressed upon it
long, long, long and fervently.
Then down went everything with a crash.
In striving to explain matters and set himself right in the eyes of his
lady-love some hours later, Captain Forrest protested that he had had no
intention whatever of spying upon, much less of startling her. They had
speedily discovered at St. Augustine that it was useless trying to bring
back this wayward son and brother, a man of thirty-five, to live without
the heart so unmistakably in the keeping of the girl he'd left behind.
"I have written to her--all you could ask, Floyd, my son," were at last
the mother's words. "Go, and God bless you." And three days later he
surprised Mrs. Wells. "I've just got to go out," said she, after a
while, "and you've simply got to stay here. I'll leave directions that
I'm out to everybody, and----" Then did that designing matron pick up
his furs and deposit them--and him--in the library. "You're to stay
here, mind, till I get back."
"But you didn't," interposed his hearer, reproachfully, at this
juncture. "You burst in there like a--like a tiger, and scared me out of
my seven senses."
"That was entirely your fault. I was merely trying to escape from the
house. You see when I left Florida you were living, as I supposed, at
Miss Bonner's, and as soon as you came in it was my cue to leave, in
view of the ferocity of your remarks the last time we met here."
"Knowing how I must regret that, you need not have been so precipitate.
It was what I think you gentlemen call a 'stand-off,'" said she, with a
pretty grimace at the slang, "but--do you always take the roundabout way
to reach the door?" Miss Wallen's lips were twitching with suppressed
delight, and Captain Forrest was watching them with ill-suppressed
emotion. He rallied promptly, however.
"Rarely, but in this case I flew--to pick up the picture you had
dropped."
"Oh, the maid would have done that. She was promptly on hand."
"Yes, too promptly. So promptly as to inspire the belief that she
suspected something was on foot when you--when I---- By the way, what
became of that sprig of potato-vine, or chickweed, or something, that
was on top of the frame? Mrs. Wells missed it as soon as she came in."
"It fell into the grate, I presume; but it wasn't chickweed. There's
more of it if Mrs. Wells needs it," she added, nodding to the pendent
spray beneath the chandelier. "It doesn't signify."
"Oh, I thought it did--at least I hoped so. Mistletoe generally does."
"Not when mistaken for potato-vine," she answered, yet her eyes were
smiling at him.
"Jeannette," he said, impulsively, his deep voice trembling, as he stood
close before her and strove to seize the little hand that was toying at
her white, round throat, "mother's letter must surely be with you by
morning. It is very hard to keep my faith and plead no more until she
has pleaded for me. Must I wait? Will Miss Bonner bring it to you at
once?"
"I--hardly think so."
"Then may I not go to-night, if need be, and get it? It was addressed,
you know, to her care."
"Yes, so I observed."
"Jenny! Then you have it? You have read what she says? Oh, my darling!
Then----"
And what imploring love was in those soft, brown eyes of his! What
tenderness and longing and passion in the outstretched arms! She looked
shyly up at him, trembling in spite of herself, but not yet yielding.
"You know I've had no time to more than glance at it," she said. "I had
hoped to read it this evening, but, you see, visitors came in. I must
read it all carefully to-morrow."
"Ah," he said, "you have me at your mercy. You wrung those promises from
me, and now----" She backed away from him a bit, he looked so fiercely
reproachful, but he followed. She upheld her hands in warning, and he
strove to seize them, but they evaded him.
"You are proud, stern, unyielding," he said at last, and turned half
helplessly away, then caught sight of the feathery spray now almost over
her bonny, curly head. "If it were _only_ Christmas time again! I'd
claim the privilege of the mistletoe."
The room was very still a moment. She stood there with bounding,
throbbing heart, her swimming eyes fixed on his strong, soldierly face,
so powerful in its pleading, so helpless through his pledge. She saw
that he would not break his promise, yet that her lightest word, her
faintest signal, would unchain him. She saw even in the sterner lines
about his forehead something of the look of utter weariness and defeat
that hovered there the night they bore the senseless burden within those
very doors, and in one great wave of tenderness, of answering love and
joy and longing, the woman in her triumphed at last.
[Illustration: "Is it potent--only at Christmas?"]
Only like a whisper, so soft, so tremulous was her voice, the needed
words were spoken:
"Is it potent--only at Christmas?"
But he heard, and sprang to her and caught her in his arms. Little
heroine though she was, what a tame surrender after all!
THE END.
_THE LOTOS LIBRARY_.
Illustrated. 16mo. Polished buckram.
75 cents per volume.
By ELIZABETH PHIPPS TRAIN.
A SOCIAL HIGHWAYMAN.
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PROFESSIONAL BEAUTY.
By HARRIET RIDDLE DAVIS.
IN SIGHT OF THE GODDESS.
A Tale of Washington Life.
By ROBERT BUCHANAN.
A MARRIAGE BY CAPTURE.
A Romance of To-Day.
By JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
THE GOLDEN FLEECE.
BY CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A.
A TAME SURRENDER. A Story of the Chicago Strike.