Winthrop had been at Waynewood a week――a week of which one day had
been so like the next that Winthrop remembered them all with impartial
haziness and content. It was delightful to have nothing more startling
to look forward to than a quail-shoot, a dinner at Sunnyside, or a game
of whist in town; to have each day as alike in mellowness and sunshine
as they were similar in events, pass softly across the garden, from
shadow to shadow, the while he watched its passage with tranquilly
smiling eyes and inert body from the seat under the magnolia or a chair
on the quiet porch.
The past became the flimsiest of ghosts, the future a mere insignificant
speck on the far horizon. What mattered it that once his heart had
ached? That he was practically penniless? That somewhere men were
hurrying and striving for wealth? The sky was hazily blue, the sunlight
was wine of gold, the southern breeze was the soothing touch of a soft
and fragrant hand that bade him rest and sleep, for there was no
yesterday and no morrow, and the taste of lotus was sweet in his mouth.
The mornings danced brightly past to the lilt of bird song; the
afternoons paced more leisurely, crossing the tangled garden with
measured, somnolent tread so quiet that not a leaf stirred, not a bird
chirped in the enfolding silence; the evenings grew from purple haze,
fragrant with wood-smoke, to blue-black clarity set with a million
silver stars whose soft radiance bathed the still world with tender
light. Such days and such nights have a spell, and Winthrop was bound.
And Holly? Fate, although she was still unsuspecting of the fact,
had toppled the stone into the stream and the ripples were already
widening. Winthrop’s coming had been an event. Holly had her friends,
girls of her own age, who came to Waynewood to see her and whom she
visited in town, and young men in the early twenties who walked or
drove out in the evenings, when their duties in the stores and offices
were over, and made very chivalrous and distant love to her in the
parlor. But for all that many of the days had been long with only
Aunt India, who was not exactly chatty, and the servants to talk to.
But now it was different. This charming and delightfully inexplicable
Northerner was fair prey. He was never too busy to listen to her;
in fact, he was seldom busy at all, unless sitting, sometimes with
a closed book in one’s lap, and gazing peacefully into space may be
termed being busy. They had quite exciting mornings together very
often, exciting, at least, for Holly, when she unburdened herself of
a wealth of reflections and conclusions and when he listened with the
most agreeable attention in the world and always said just the right
thing to tempt her tongue to more brilliant ardor.
And then in the afternoons, while Aunt India slept and Holly couldn’t,
just because the blood ran far too fast in her young veins, there
were less stimulating but very comforting talks in the shade of the
porch. And sometimes they walked, but,――for Holly had inherited
the characteristic disinclination for overindulgence in that form
of exercise,――not very frequently. Holly would have indorsed the
proverb――Persian, isn’t it?――which says, in part, that it is easier to
sit than to stand and easier to lie down than to sit. And Winthrop at
this period would have agreed with her. Judged by Northern standards,
Holly might have been deemed lazy. But we must remember that Holly came
of people who had never felt the necessity of physical exertion, since
there had always been slaves at hand to perform the slightest task, and
for whom the climate had prohibited any inclination in that direction.
Holly’s laziness was that of a kitten, which seldom goes out to walk
for pleasure but which will romp until its breath is gone or stalk a
sparrow for an hour untiringly.
By the end of the first week she and Winthrop had become the very good
friends they had agreed to be. They had reached the point where it was
no longer necessary to preface their conversation with an introduction.
Now when Holly had anything to say――and she usually did――she plunged
right in without any preliminary shivers. As this morning when,
having given out the supplies for the day to Aunt Venus, she joined
Winthrop under the magnolia, settling her back against the trunk and
clasping her hands about her knees, “I reckon there are two sides to
everything,” she said, with the air of one who is announcing the result
of long study.
Winthrop, who had arisen at her approach and remained standing until
she had seated herself, settled back again and smiled encouragingly.
He liked to hear her talk, liked the soft coo of her voice, liked the
things she said, liked, besides, to watch the play of expression on her
face.
“Father always said that the Yankees had no right to interfere with
the South and that it wasn’t war with them, it was just homicide.
Homicide’s where you kill someone else, isn’t it? I always get it mixed
up with suicide.”
Winthrop nodded.
“That’s what he used to say, and I’m sure he believed it or he’d never
have said it. But maybe he was mistaken. Was he, do you think?”
“He might have been a trifle biased,” said Winthrop.