Lawson rode with Frances home. The whole field followed. Never had he
seen a madder frolic. For many a beast and many a rider crowding the
country road, the noon sun shining down on them hotly, he had learned a
wholesome respect. Some stiff jumping and hot riding he had seen on
those rough mountain fields, and he was inordinately proud of himself
for so holding his own and proud of the spirit of the girl by whose side
he rode.
They went straight to the stables. Mr. Carver stood speechless at the
remnant of the turnout he had sent to the professor's home early in the
morning.
"Mr. Carver," announced Frances coolly, as she slipped from Starlight's
back, "the trap is up the road, just this side of the fork. I wish you
would send for it."
"What's the matter?"
"One wheel missing, that's all," as if that were a slight affair. "And
Mr. Carver," coaxingly, "just have it fixed as soon as you can, and
don't say too much about it. It's not a bad break, just one wheel!"
"Bless my soul!" Mr. Carver, with an innate love of beauty, gazed
admiringly at flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, "Of course, of course!
Come into the office; let me brush your dress for you, it will never do
to go home that way." The cloth skirt was covered with long black hairs
from the rug.
"Starlight run away?" he asked, as they stood in the little office,
while he was busily whisking her skirt.
"Oh, no!" Frances was looking through the open door at Lawson as he went
down the stable aisle, his horse's bridle across his arm. He was walking
with quick, confident step, shoulders well back, head carried high. She
watched him out of sight.
"How did it happen?" asked Mr. Carver.
Frances told it as briefly as she could, winding up with her triumphant
boast, "But I was first at the finish."
"Good Lord!" laughed her delighted listener. "What will your father
say?"
Frances looked around at the open littered desk, the ink-crusted pen and
splashed blotter and loose papers, at the thin oak partition of the
walls covered with calendars and sporting prints. She was sobered. "I
don't know," she said suddenly; "I am going to see. Good-by, thank you!"
She hurried out, she had just missed her car. She waited at the corner
impatiently. It was long past the noon, the long string of carriages
which had filled the street at an earlier hour was gone, the shops up
and down looked deserted, some belated driver drove briskly past, an
empty buggy or two waited here and there; the autumn sun blazed on
houses and pavement.
"Were you going to leave me?" The tone was distinctly resentful.
"Why--" It nearly slipped her lips that, having started alone, she
expected to return alone; and though she caught the words before their
utterance, the look of her thought showed so plainly on her face that
the young man read it easily enough.
"We are at least going the same way," he said stiffly.
"Yes," said Frances weakly, making for the car which was at last in
sight.
He assisted her in and seated himself by her side; and though the car
was deserted save for motorman and conductor, he found he had nothing to
say, nor had she either.
They rode silently up the street, over the high bridge spanning the
railroad, between the twin guardians of the University's
approach--Chancellor's and Anderson's--out to the University gates. But
it was not in Lawson to be silent, a winsome young woman by his side,
along any such road as the white, winding way under the scarlet maples
and russet oaks, through the grounds to her father's door.
"What do you do on Sunday?" he began tentatively.
"Sunday! That's the busiest day in the week. We go to Sunday school,
church--that's in the morning; school again in the afternoon at the
mission; then we go for a walk, father and I."
"You never go driving Sunday?"
"Driving! that's one thing father is emphatic about; he will never allow
Starlight out of the stables on Sunday."
Lawson set his teeth. He had no thought of Starlight when he spoke of
driving next day, and was half angered that she was so unconscious of
his meaning.
"And in the evening?" he asked, for the sake of saying something.
"We go to church again."
He saw plainly there was not a moment for him unless it was made, and
that the young woman had no thought of making it.
"Then I shall not see you for a day or two." Glimpses about quadrangle
or doorway he counted as nothing. "Good-by!" He held out his hand with
elaborate courtesy.
Frances laid her own, heavily gloved in his for an instant and looked
him frankly in the eyes. "Good-by!" she said. "What a ride it was,
but--" a little sigh was on her lips as she opened the heavy door.
Susan, watching for the young woman's approach, keeping her dinner warm
and warming her own wrath as well, saw the leave-taking.
"Hm! hm!" grunted the old negress, "what Miss Frances doing comin' home
dis way, dat man 'long her too?"
The Faculty might be cosmopolitan; Susan was Virginian to the backbone.
"An' he a fur-away-er," which was Susan's term for people from anywhere
except her own State. "An' he a fur-away-er," she muttered, as she
betook herself to the kitchen.
Frances marched straight to the study, where the professor always
lingered a short space after his dinner, and told her tale briefly. She
expected many words. The professor, like many another man in an
emergency, had none. His daughter was worse scared than if he had
stormed. When he did speak she felt she had no idea what he would say.
Would he forbid her riding altogether?
She went to her dinner, but he laid down his book and looked long at the
glowing coals, then got up and went his way. She was his motherless
daughter, sweet, true, beloved. A girl must have some fad, he supposed.
Sweethearts, or horses? He chose the latter. He never dreamed of both.
V
But there was a possibility of both. There was vein of sentiment through
the bed-rock of Lawson's worldliness which had shown brightly once or
twice, had been broken off suddenly, and which, had it been worked by
skilful hands, would have yielded rich returns. When he had come east,
along with the powerful reasons for his doing so had flickered now and
then the glimmer of his traditions of a Virginia girl. He thought in a
nebulous fashion that she should be slight, dark-eyed, dark-haired,
fascinating as a woman only can be, and flirtatious as a kitten. He had
met one or two of the pictured type. But from the moment when he had
stepped from his own room far up the corridor one day and seen a tall,
supple, well-built young woman with clear cheek and ruffled hair and
serene gray eyes, holding her long white gown from the worn brick-way
and walking with careless grace towards him, he had decided instantly
that this was the woman of whom he had thought, and had begun to cluster
his traditions about her. None would fit. If there was a grain of
coquetry about Frances it slumbered; so did some other deeper feelings.
He had watched, striven, for a flash of her eyes or a flush on her
cheek; he had seen it, but it had been careless companionship which
evoked it. And his thoughts, striving to fit her to a place she would
not fill, clung about her more and more. There would be no hour for him
on Sunday; it only irked him. He remembered the women he had met who
were nearer the ideal of his illusions. He sought them.
Frances finding at last, and most unexpectedly, a free hour, and scarce
knowing what to do with it, wandered aimlessly about the house. It was
so much her custom to be abroad with her father and watching the sunset
over the mountain tops, that now, when he was kept by an old friend, she
could not content herself. She would have her walk alone.
The pageantry of the autumn days was veiled. The wind was whistling
about the chimney-tops and bending the half bared branches of maple and
oak; far away the soft gray clouds closed about the high mountain
crests, shutting the vision in narrow horizons. Many of the students
were loitering about corridor or cottage as she sped away from all along
the road winding to the mountain top crowned by the observatory. Here,
beyond the immediate environments of the many buildings, a short road
across the fields led to the football grounds, where the high fence and
higher stand of seats loomed weather-beaten, deserted; there, on the
other side of the wide highway, rolled the golf links over the hillside,
the winds moaning above them fitfully and rustling the dead vines on
fence and roadside, and the scarlet fronds of sumac, and whirling the
dead leaves about her feet and tossing the oak-branches overhead.
She was at the edge of the wood which ran to the mountain top. A double
arch of oaks met overhead. Beyond these, where the grove was cleared
for a space, was the resting place of the University's dead. Her father
went often through the gates, but it always smote her like a blow, the
sight of those grass-grown swells and gleaming marbles and white sweet
roses; and in the midst the great shaft, with many names about its base
of those who, when there was need, had marched from the bright dreams of
their college life to the grim deeds of war--had marched, many of them,
to rest in some obscure corner of their state or of others, but to be
remembered each one in that list of those who had dared and done and
paid the one and everlasting price of their beliefs.
Where the path under the arching oaks ended, and in sight of the white
palings and clustering shafts, Frances paused. Just here she and her
father had stood on many an afternoon while the sun, crimsoning the sky
above the mountains, hung scarlet banners over the valley dipping sheer
between them and the Ragged Mountains, dyeing in crimson and purple and
clear green the heavens, against which were sharply silhouetted the
crests, red and rocky, or clothed to the top with the verdure of the
pine or showing the gorgeous hues of autumn. Now the heavens shut them
in closely, even the far brilliant forest showed cold against their dull
leaden grays; on the other hand, beyond the links where the land rolled
and dipped and climbed again upward, showed the chimney-tops of houses,
the smoke-wreaths close about them telling of warmth and cheer. It was
the day and hour for fireside comfort. Frances turned homeward.
So loud had been the moaning of the wind in leaf and tree that she had
heard no other sound. Now as she turned she saw a smart buggy driving
rapidly towards her, almost abreast of her.
The top was thrown back. A girl whom she had known as one knows some
neighbors all the years of her life was in it. Her slim figure showed
exquisitely against the linings of the carriage, her rich furs framed a
face delicate and spirited as a miniature, her wide hat and long black
plumes brought out every shifting hue of her golden hair and rosy
cheeks. She was known in Richmond and New York as a beauty; she was
known in Charlottesville as a "students' belle." A man like her
attendant was a godsend to her, already wearied, as she was, of too
easily pleasing. She leaned toward him impressively. It was Lawson. His
face was ruddy and his eyes alight. His bays were trotting gloriously.
The girl he was driving was more than interesting, she was daring. He
looked deep into her eyes. The girl's bow to some one startled him. He
turned to give Frances an astonished glance as she came around the
slight curve into sight. But Frances had seen the picture and its
atmosphere. It was not love, and that she did not know, but it wore its
guise charmingly.
Frances heard the moaning of the winds across the links and it held a
deeper note, a note of desolation, fading glories, and swift-coming
night.
The library looked doubly cheerful when she was within doors. The coals
in the grate were glowing red, the heavy curtains of the windows were
partly drawn showing but a breadth of white lace between and through
its film a glimpse of the darkening quadrangle. There was a savory smell
of coffee kitchenward, as Susan came in.
"Yo' pa done sont a message," she said, "he done 'phoned up he gwine
stay to de hotel for suppah." Susan had been induced to overcome her
deadly fear of the telephone more by her shame at seeing "Marse Robert
and Miss Frances" exposed at any time to a danger she dared not touch
than by any other feeling, and had learned the mastery of the machine.
"Yuh'll hab to hab yo' suppah by yo'sef. I'se fryin' yuh some ham now."