IN WHICH MUCH ADDED LIGHT IS SHED UPON MISS BERYL DRANE, BUT ONLY A
GLIMMER UPON MY PROBLEM
"This is a beautiful day."
Such was my exceedingly original and extremely interesting greeting to
Beryl Drane this morning. I arrived at the house at eight o'clock,
found, as I thought, no one astir, and was preparing to knock when I
discovered the young lady diligently clipping roses from a hedge near
the back. It is not often that I descend to sheer banality, but I can
offer no excuse for my opening remark as I came up over the grass behind
her. She was a little startled. She turned quickly with a short "Oh!"
and looked at me curiously. Somehow I did not like the look. It was
possessive, in a way; intimate, as though we shared a secret, or
something like that. She was dressed in a polka dot brown gingham, and
had on an old bonnet whose projecting hood softened those lines which
seemed to shriek of the things which made them. A low collar encircled
her firm neck snugly. She wore leather half mitts, had a pair of shears
in one hand, and from the elbow of her other arm hung a wicker basket
over half filled with voluptuously red, dew-bright roses. She regarded
me with that subtly smiling, upward glance which coquettes have, and in
that morning air, with the flowers, under the shielding bonnet, she was
pretty. She was too adroit to overdo the pose. It lasted scarcely two
ticks from a grandfather's clock, then she smiled frankly, deftly looped
the shears on a finger of her left hand, and held out her arm.
"I'm _so_ glad to see you!" she said, winningly, and for the soul of me
I could not help but feel my heart grow warmer in response to her tone.
Ah, little sibyl! You have conjured more than one man's mind into deadly
rashness, but you have paid, little moth with the soot-spotted wings!
"Are you?" I replied, surprisedly, as I grasped her grippy, slender hand
and uncovered.
"Sure!... Don't you suppose Hebron is a trifle monotonous to me after
the fleshpots of Egypt?"
"I had thought you would be--not angry, but displeased and disgusted
with me that I had not come sooner."
"Oh! I have learned to make allowances for men!" she retorted, airily,
with a toss of her head and a half pout; "and I'd have no respect for a
man who'd have to be kicked away from a woman's feet. I've seen that
kind. I supposed you would come when it suited your inclination."
She deliberately turned to the hedge again and tiptoed to grasp a
heavy-headed bloom which seemed to have dropped asleep, drugged by its
own perfume. She could not reach it.
"Let me," I said, and stepping forward, caught the thorn-set spray and
pulled it toward her. The action made a little shower of water drops to
patter on her upturned face, and a single rich-hued petal became
displaced, drifted gently down, and actually lodged in the crevice of
her slightly parted lips. Both laughed at the incident, for it was
unusual.
"You shall have this one," she said, when she had clipped it, "from me."
I felt foolish, in a way, as she came close to me, fumbling here and
there about her waist and the bosom of her dress.
"Have you a pin?" she queried, archly, and before I could answer her
swift white fingers were searching the lapels of my coat. "Here's one,"
she added, on the instant, and tugged it out.
Then she secured that rose to my coat, standing so close to me that the
bottom of her spreading skirt brushed my legs.
"You are very forgiving and very kind," I assured her, "and I thank you
for the favor. I'm sure I do not deserve it."
"Do men ever deserve what they receive from women?" was her startling
reply, and she did not look me in the eyes then, but instead fingered
the jumble of Jaqueminots in the basket with head averted. Surely this
niece of the Rev. Jean Dupre's who had journeyed to Hebron to rest was
not conventional. Equally true it was that she possessed an unusual
degree of intelligence, and was accustomed to speaking her mind.
I hesitated briefly. Not that I was in doubt what to say, but among us
men of the South that old chivalry toward women which is always stubborn
and often reasonless, still struggles mightily. And it is a goodly
thing, forsooth, this same chivalry; but truth is better.
"I think so," was my steady answer, and I held my eyes ready to meet
hers, but she did not move her head. Only the white fingertips with
their whiter nails yet burrowed among the fragrant mass of green and
red.
"You do?... How can you say that? Uncle says it, too--but he's a
priest."
"I say it because I think it true. I'm sure you would not have me tell a
lie merely to please you. Your viewpoint must be restricted,
circumscribed, for I know you are in earnest. The question is really too
comprehensive to actually admit of a specific answer. Many women give
all and get nothing; many men give all and get nothing. Many give and
receive on an equable basis, and they are the ones who are happy. It
depends simply upon one's experience or observation how he answers your
question. My life leads me to believe in all sincerity men will do their
part fuller and far more justly than a woman will. Perhaps yours has
convinced you that just the reverse is true.... But for mercy's sake,
let's not drift into a sociological argument this morning."
"By no means. I just wanted to know what you thought.... Now I must
apologize for keeping you. You have come to see uncle?"
She started toward the house as though to call him, but I caught her arm
and she halted.
"I came to see you, primarily. First, to assure myself that you had
really quite recovered from drowning--I have asked of you down at the
store--and second, to discuss a mighty secret with you."
"You have really--asked about me?" she returned with lifted eyebrows.
"You knew when you left that day I would recover, thanks to your skill.
Was not that enough?"
I felt annoyed. It appeared as if she was trying to make me confess a
deeper interest than I truly owned.
"A common sense of decency would have impelled me to assure myself you
were suffering no bad after effects," I replied.
"Oh, that was it?" she responded, I thought a bit coolly. Then--"You
mentioned a secret. How on earth could a secret exist in this
lonesome-ridden place? But of course I'm all curiosity now to hear it.
Let's go to the summerhouse. Uncle rises late, and is now in the midst
of his breakfast."
She moved toward a conical shaped piece of greenery, and I put myself at
her side. It proved to be some trellis work built in the form of a
square, with a peaked top, the whole completely covered by some
luxuriant vine. Even the doorway was so thickly hung that we had to draw
the festoons aside to enter. Within the light was tempered to a
gray-green tone. A hammock was swung across the center of the place, and
on all sides except the entrance one were placed benches. Miss Drane set
her basket down and promptly dropped into the hammock, where she twisted
about into a comfortable attitude. She apparently took no notice of the
fact that her dress had become drawn up six or eight inches above her
shapely ankles, but quietly loosened the strings under her chin and cast
the bonnet on the floor, then threw her arms above her head, laced her
fingers, and turned to me with a smile which was half humorous and half
pathetic.
"Now I'm fixed. Settle yourself the best you can, and let's hear the
mystery."
"May I smoke?" I asked, dodging under one of the ropes, and coming
around so that I might sit facing her.
"Certainly."
"A pipe?"
"Oh, yes! I'm thoroughly smoke-cured."
I dropped upon a bench and drew forth my materials, while she lay and
eyed me with her inscrutable stare.
"You're a funny man!" she declared, presently, her flexible lips
twisting into an odd smile.