"Of course," Priscilla leaned back in her deep-cushioned chair and
laughed from sheer delight, "I was a better girl in my former life
than I ever had any idea of, or I wouldn't have been given this----"
She and Margaret Moffatt were sitting on the piazza of a little Swiss
inn. Below them lay a tiny lake as blue and as clear as a rare gem; round
about them towered snowy peaks, protectingly. All that was past--was
past! There did not seem to be any future; the present was sufficient.
"I think you must have been rather a good child, back there," Margaret
Moffatt said, looking steadfastly at the girl near her; "and, anyway, you
ought to have a rich reward for your hair if for no other reason."
"A recompense, you mean?"
"Heavens! no! I was thinking, as I often do when I see the lights in your
hair, that for making people so cheerful and contented nothing is too
good for you. I'm extremely fond of you, Priscilla Glynn! It's only when
you put on your cap and apron manner that I recall--unpleasant things.
Just tuck them out of sight and let us forget everything but--this!
Isn't it divine?"
"It's--yes, it is divine, Miss Moffatt."
"Now then! Along with the cap and apron, please pack away Miss Moffatt
and Miss Glynn. Let us be Priscilla and Margaret. This is a whim of mine,
but I have a fancy for knowing what kind of _girls_ we are. No one can
tamper with us here. Dear old Mousey never gets above a dead level, or
below it. Practically we are alone and detached. Let us play--girls!
Nice, chummy girls. Do you know, I never had a friend in my life who
wasn't labelled and scheduled? I was sent to school where just such and
such girls were sent--girls proper for me to know. Often they were not,
but that was not considered so long as they wore their labels. It wasn't
deemed necessary for me, or my kind, to go to college: our lines of
action were chosen for us. Certain labelled men were presented; always
labels, labels! Even when I was running about with my label on I used to
have mad moments of longing to snatch all the hideous things off--my own
as well as others--and find out the truth! And here we are, you and I! I
do not want to know anything about you; I want to find out for myself, in
my own way. I want you to forget that I ever wore a tag. Did you ever
have a girl chum?"
"I think I know, now," Priscilla said quietly, "why this particular
little heaven was given to me. I never, in all my life, had a girl
friend. Think of that! I did not realize what I was missing until I--came
into your life. Actually, I never had a girl or woman friend in the sense
you mean. I was a lonely, weird little child; and then I--I came to the
training school; and the girls there did not like me--I was still
weird----"
"Now, Priscilla, I do not want to know anything more about you! I intend
to find you out for myself. Come, there's a boat down there, big enough
for you and me. Do you row?"
"Yes, and paddle."
"You lived near the water! Ha! ha!"
"And you do--not row, Margaret?"
"No."
"Then you have never lived at all. You must learn to use oars and a
paddle. It's when you have your own hand on the power that makes you
go--that you live."
Margaret Moffatt turned and looked at Priscilla.
"You say, haphazard, the most Orphic things. There are times when I can
imagine you before some shrine making an offering and chanting all sorts
of uncanny rites. Of course it is when one has her hand on her own
tiller, and is heading for what she wants, that she begins to--live. I
declare, I haven't felt so young in--twenty years! I'm twenty-five,
Priscilla. My father considers me on the danger-line. Poor daddy!"
"I'm----"
"I do not want to know your age, Priscilla. Mythological characters are
ageless."
Those were the days when Priscilla Glenn and Margaret Moffatt found their
youth. Safeguarded by the faithful old housekeeper, who, happily, could
understand and sympathize, they played the hours away like children.
"We'll travel by and by," promised Margaret. "It's rather selfish for me
to hold you here when all the world would be fresh to you."
"I take root easily," Priscilla returned, "and I'm like a plant we have
in my old home. My roots spread, and time is needed to strengthen them;
suddenly I shoot up and--flower. The little Canadian blossom doesn't seem
to justify the strong, spreading roots. I hope you will not find me
disappointing, Margaret."
Margaret Moffatt smiled happily.
"Just to think," she said, "that my real self and your real self
were waiting for us here behind the white hills! All along, through
generations and generations, they have been acquainted and have loved and
trusted each other, and then we, the unreal selves, came! Sometimes I
wonder"--Margaret looked dreamy--"what they think of us, just between
themselves? I am sure your true self must be prouder of you than mine can
be of me, for, with everything at my command, what am I? While you--oh,
Priscilla, how you have made everything tell!"
But Priscilla shook her head.
"Still," Margaret went on, "things were not at my command. They were all
there, but pigeon-holed and controlled. Such and such things were for
nice little girls like me! After a time I got to believe that, and it was
only when, one day, I touched something not intended for me that my soul
woke up. Priscilla, did you ever feel your soul?"
"Yes."
"Isn't it wonderful? It makes you see clearly your--your----"
"Ideal?" suggested Priscilla.
"Yes; the thing you want to be; the thing that seems best to _you_
without the interpretation of others. It stands unclouded and holy; and
nothing else matters."
"And you never forget--never!"
"No. Your eyes may be blinded for a moment, but you do not forget--ever!"
They were out on the gemlike lake now, and Priscilla was sternly
instructing Margaret how to handle an oar.
"It will never go the way you want it to," Margaret protested, making an
ineffectual dab at the water.
"When it does you will know the bliss! Get a little below the surface,
and have faith in yourself."
And that was the day that Priscilla caught a new light on Margaret's
character. They landed at a tiny village across the lake and wandered
about, Margaret talking easily to the people in their own tongue,
Priscilla straining to follow by watching faces and gestures. While they
stood so, discussing the price of some corals, a little child came close
to them and slipped a deliciously dimpled, but very dirty little hand in
Margaret's. At the touch the girl started, turned first crimson and then
pale, and looked down. Suddenly her eyes deepened and glowed.
"The darling!" she whispered, and bent to catch what the child was
saying. Presently she looked up, tears dimming her eyes, and said to
Priscilla, "She says a new baby came to their house last night. She
wanted to tell--me!"
"And ten already have been there," broke in a brown-faced native woman.
"But she is glad, and she wanted _me_ to know! Come, my sweet, tell me
more about the baby, and then we will go and see it."
They sat down under a clump of trees, and the dirty little maid nestled
close to Margaret, while with uplifted head and unabashed confidence she
told of the mystery.
Priscilla watched Margaret Moffatt's face. She was almost awed by the
change that had come over it. The aloofness and pride which often marked
it had disappeared as if by magic; the tenderness, passionate in its
intentness, cast upon the little child, moved her to wonder and
admiration. Later they went to the poor hovel and bent beside the humble
bed on which the mother and child lay. Then it was that Priscilla played
her part and made comfortable and grateful the overburdened creature,
worn and weak from suffering.
"'Twas the good God who sent you," murmured she.
"'Twas your little maid," smiled Margaret, tucking a roll of bills under
the hard, lumpy pillow. "Take time to love the babies--leave other
things--but love them and enjoy them."
"Yes, my lady."
On the way back in the boat Margaret was very silent for a time as she
watched Priscilla row; finally she said:
"Did it surprise you--my show of feeling for the--the child?"
"It was very beautiful. I did not know you cared so much for children,
and this one was so--dirty."
"But so real! You see I have never had real children in my life. The
kinds passed out to nice girls like me were sad travesties. Since I saw
the darling of to-day I've been wondering--do not laugh, Priscilla--but
I've been wondering what poor, cheated little morsel of humanity, in the
unreal world, would find herself in that eleventh miracle of the wretched
hovel? And what an art yours is, dear Priscilla! How you soothed away the
suffering by your touch. I loved you better as I realized how that
training of yours knows neither high nor low when it seeks to heal."
Priscilla thought of the operation on Margaret Moffatt's father, and her
quick colour rose.
"And I loved you better when I saw how your humanity knows neither high
nor low--just love!"
"Only toward little children. I cannot explain it, but when I touch the
babies, their littleness and helplessness make me weak and trembling
before--well, before the strength comes in a mighty wave. There is a
physical sensation, a thrill, that comes with the first contact, and when
they trust me, as that darling did this morning, I feel as if--God had
singled me out! Only lately have I begun to understand what this means
in me. It is one reason why I came away. I had to think it out. I
suppose"--she paused and looked steadily at Priscilla--"I suppose the
maternal has always been a master passion in me, and I've rebelled at
being an only child; at having no children but the--specialized kind.
I have been hungry for so many things I am realizing now."
"In my training I have seen--what you mean. All sorts drift in--to pay
the price of love or the penalty of passion, as Doctor Ledyard used to
express it; but"--and Priscilla's eyes grew darker--"I used to find--a
nurse gets so much closer, you know, than a doctor can--I found that
sometimes it was the penalty of love and the price of passion. Those
sad young creatures, with only blind instinct to uphold them, were
so--divinely human, and paid so superbly. When it comes to the hour of
a life for a life, one thing alone matters, I am afraid, and it is the
thing _you_ mean, Margaret."
"Yes. And what a horrible puzzle it all is. The thing I mean should be
always there--always. The world's wrong when it is not."
Suddenly Priscilla, sending the light boat forward by the impulse of her
last stroke, said, as if it were quite in line with all that had gone
before:
"There's Doctor Travers on the wharf!"
He heard her, and called back:
"Quite unintentionally, I assure you. I was waiting for the boat to take
me across. I've been wandering about, sleeping where I could. I simply
find myself--here!"
At this both girls laughed merrily.
"This is the place of Found Personalities," Margaret Moffatt said,
jumping lightly to the wharf. "Perhaps you'll come to the inn and have
luncheon with us--that is, if you are sure Doctor Ledyard did not send
you here to spy on me."
"I haven't seen him since I left America. My mother is with me; she's in
a crack of the hills in Italy. She wanted to be alone. Doctor Ledyard
will join us later."
"Then come to the house. They serve meals on a dangerously poised balcony
over the lake; we curb our appetites for fear our weight may be the one
thing the structure cannot stand. Our old housekeeper waits upon us, but
is in no wise responsible for the food which is often very bad and
lacking in nourishment."
"You seem to thrive on it." Travers looked at the two before him. "I
wonder just what it is this air and place have done to you?"
"Tell him, Priscilla."
"Oh, like you, Doctor Travers, we simply found ourselves--here! That's
all."
Travers did not leave the inn that night, nor for many days thereafter.
"Doctor Ledyard will join my mother and me early in August," he
explained; "until then I'm a floating proposition. I wish you'd let me
stay on a while, Miss Moffatt, right here. I want to analyze the food, it
puzzles me. Why just this kind of conglomeration should achieve such
results is interesting. I've gained five pounds in six days."
"And lost ten years," Margaret broke in. "I never thought of you as
young, Doctor Travers; professional men never do seem youthful; but
_here_ you're rather a good sort."
And Travers remained, much to the delight of the old housekeeper, who,
with a nurse and a doctor in command, cast all responsibility aside.
"Young Miss looks well," she confided to the proprietor's wife, who,
fortunately, could understand a word or so of English; "but folks is like
weather: the fairer they seem, the nearer a storm. When a day or a person
looks uncommonly fair--a weather breeder, says I, and generally, nine
times out of ten, I'm right. My young lady is too changed to be
comfortable. It's either a breaking up, or----" But here a shout for
"Mousey," silenced further prophecy.
The days ran along without cloud or shadow. Quite naturally, perhaps,
Priscilla began to think that a drama of life was being enacted in the
quiet, detached village. They three were always together, always enjoying
the same things, but certainly no man, so she thought, could be with
Margaret Moffatt long without falling at her feet. Gradually to Priscilla
Glenn this girl stood for all that was fine and perfect. In her she saw
all women as women should be. With the adoration she was so ready to give
to that which appealed to her, Priscilla lavished the wealth of her
affection upon Margaret Moffatt. Surely it was because of Margaret that
Doctor Travers stayed on, and became the life of the party. To be sure he
was tact itself in making Priscilla feel at ease; but that only confirmed
her in her belief that he wanted to please Margaret to the uttermost.
Often Priscilla recalled, with keener appreciation, John Boswell's
description of Anton Farwell's conception of friendship. In like manner
Margaret Moffatt claimed for her companion all that justly belonged to
herself. Dispassionately, vicariously, Priscilla learned to know and
admire the man who undoubtedly in time would win her one friend. It was
all beautiful and natural, and in the lovely detachment it grew and grew.
The long walks and drives, the rows upon the lake by sunlight and
moonlight, all conspired to perfect the comradeship. They read together,
sang together--very poorly to be sure--and once, just to vary the charm,
they travelled to a nearby town and danced at a village fête. An odd
thing happened there. Owing to high spirits and a sense of
unconventionality, they entered into the sports with abandon. Travers
even begged a reel with a pretty Swiss maiden, and led her proudly away,
much to Margaret's and Priscilla's delight. Later, the men and women of
the place came forward, and, entering a little ring formed by admiring
friends, performed, separately, the native dances.
Travers watched Priscilla with a puzzled look in his eyes. She trembled
with excitement; seemed hypnotized by the exhibition, much of which was
delightfully graceful and picturesque. Then, suddenly, to the surprise of
every one, she took advantage of a moment's pause and ran into the ring.
"Whatever possesses her?" whispered Margaret to Travers; "she looks
bewitched. See! she is--dancing!"
Travers watched the tall, slim figure in the thin white gown over
which a light scarf, of transparent crimson, floated as the evening
breeze and the girl's motions freed it. At first Priscilla took her steps
falteringly, her head bent as if trying to recall the measure and rhythm;
then with more confidence she swung into the lovely pose and action. With
uplifted eyes and smiling lips, seeming to see something hidden from
others, she bent and glided, curtesied and tripped, this way and that.
The lookers-on were wild with delight. The beauty of the thing itself,
the willingness of the foreigners to join in the sport, aroused the
temperamental enthusiasm, and the clapping and cheering filled the hall
with noise. Suddenly the musicians dropped their instruments. They were
but human, and, since they could not keep in time with this new and
amazing dance, they drew near to admire.
"Play!" pleaded Priscilla, past heeding the sensation she was creating.
"The best is yet to come!"
Carried out of himself, entering now wholly into the adventure, Travers
caught up a violin near him and sent the bow over the strings with a
master touch. He hardly knew what he played; he was himself, carried away
on a wave of enchantment.
"Ah!"
The word escaped Priscilla like a cry of glad response.
"Now!"
They two, the musician and the dancer, seemed alone in the open space.
The flashing eyes, the cheering voices, the clapping hands, even Margaret
Moffatt, pale, puzzled, yet charmed, were obliterated. It was spring time
in the Place Beyond the Winds, and the dance of adoration was in full
swing, while the old tune, never out of time with the graceful, whirling
form, played on and on. And then--the ring melted away, the lights grew
dim, and Priscilla stood still.
"I'm--I'm tired," faltered she. A hand was laid upon her arm, some one
guided her out of the heated, breathless room; they were alone, she and
he, under wide-spreading trees, and a particularly lovely star was
pulsing overhead.
"You are crying!" Travers's voice was low and tense. "Why?"
"It--it was the music! It was like something I had heard, and--and I was
so tired. I was very foolish. Can you, can Margaret, forgive me?"
"Forgive you? Why, you were--I dare not tell you what you were! Here, sit
down. Do not tremble so! Tell me, where did you learn to dance as you
do?"
Priscilla had dropped upon the rough rustic seat; she did not seem to
notice the hand that rested upon her clasped ones under the thin scarf.
She no longer cried, but the tears shone on her long lashes.
"I--I never learned. It--it is I, myself. I thought I had grown into
something else, but--I shall always be the same--when I let myself go."
"Let yourself go? Good heavens! Why not let yourself go--forever?"
Travers's voice shook. "You have brought joy and youth to us all--to me,
who never had youth. What--who are you?" he laughed boyishly. She sat
rigidly erect and turned her sad eyes upon him.
"I'm Priscilla Glynn--a nurse! And you? Oh! you are Doctor Travers! Can
you not see my beautiful, happy, happy life is ended--must end? Margaret,
you, everything this joyous summer has made me--forget. Soon I am going
back--where there is no dancing!"
"And--cease to be yourself?"
"Yes. But I shall always remember. Not many have had the wonderful
glimpse I have had--not many."
"I--I will not let you go back! You belong in the light; in love and the
giving of love. You have given me a glimpse of myself--as I should be. I
have stayed in this magic place without a past and a future--for your
sake! I see it now. I love----"
"Oh! please, please stop. We are both mad, and when to-morrow comes and
the day after, and the day after that, we will both be sorry, and, oh! I
want all my life to--to--be glad because of this night."
"You shall--remember it--all your life as--your happiest night, if I can
make it so!"
His face was bent close to hers. For the first time Travers was
overpowered by the charm of woman, and all the pent passion and love of
his life broke bonds like a wild, primeval thing that education and
conventions had never touched.
"I--I want you! I want you without knowing any more than if you and I had
been born anew in this wonderful life. Look at me! You believe I can
offer you--the one perfect gift a man should offer a woman?"
She looked long and tenderly in his eyes. She was--going to leave him;
she could afford the truth. She was brave now.
"Yes," she whispered.
"And I know you to be--what I want. Isn't that enough? Can we not trust
each--for the rest?"
"Yes, if the white hills could shut us forever from the other things."
"Other things?"
"Yes, the things of to-morrow. Duty, the demands that lie--over the
Alps."
"I--renounce them all!"
"But they will not renounce us!"
Travers felt her slipping from him. A man whose youth has been denied, as
his had, is a puppet in Fate's hands when youth makes its claims.
"I--mean to have you! Do you hear me? I mean to have you."
And just then Margaret Moffatt drew near. Calmly, smilingly, she came
like one playing her part in a perfectly arranged drama.
"You are here? Ready for home? Wasn't it sublime and exactly as it should
be? We are so nice and friendly with our real selves."
There was no surprise; no suggestion of disapproval. The world in which
they were all playing could have only direct and simple processes. But,
having lived in a past world where her perceptions had been made keen and
vital, Margaret Moffatt understood what she saw. She had noticed every
letting down and abandonment of Travers since he had joined them. She was
too wise not to know the effect of such a woman as Priscilla upon such a
man; such a denied and almost puritanical man as Travers. She knew his
story from her father. An artistic triumph was hers that night. The
splendid elements of primitive justice had been set in motion, and almost
gleefully she wondered what they would do with Richard Travers and
Priscilla Glynn.
For herself? Well, she had put herself to the test and had come out
clear-visioned and glad to a point of dangerous excitement. Only two or
three mighty things mattered, if one were to gain in the marvellous game.
She meant to hold to them and let the rest go!
But Travers had not passed through Ledyard's school and come out
untouched. After leaving Priscilla, silent and white, he had gone to his
room and flung himself down upon a low couch by the window. Then his old
self took him in hand while he stubbornly resisted every attack that
reason, as trained by Ledyard, made upon him.
"Think of--your mother! What has she not done and suffered that you might
stand before the world--a free man? And your profession; your future!
They are all your mother holds to for her peace and joy. And I? Well, I
do not claim anything for myself; but you know the game as well as I. If
you toss to the winds all that has been gained for you, professionally
and socially, you are done for! Your renunciation and restraint, what
have they amounted to, unless you accept them as stepping-stones and
go--on?"
And then Travers clenched his hands and had his say.
In that moment his own mother rose clear and radiant beside him and made
her appeal. She pleaded for justice, but she showed mercy. He must not
forget or forego anything that had been gained for him; but he was her
child, the child of her love--unasking, unfettered love--and the passion
that was throbbing in him was pure and instinctive; he must not deny it
or the rest would be shucks! Non-essentials must not hamper him. Alone,
unsought, a strange and compelling force had made him captive. All that
others, and himself, had achieved for him must make holy this simple but
all-powerful desire.
Then she faded, that poor, little, half-forgotten mother! But she left,
like the fragrance of rare flowers that had been taken from the dim,
moon-lighted room, a memory of happiness and sweetness and content.