Spring, that stole upon the mountains with an evanescent fragrance, and
unfolding of delicate greens and shy opening blossoms, swept into the
city with a blaze of life and color, with a joyous outpouring of people
and bedizening of shop-windows; and nowhere else was its influence so
marked as on the Avenue. Motor vehicles crowded from curb to curb,
held back or permitted to sweep onward by the uplifted hands of mighty
creatures in uniform, horseback and afoot, imperturbably calm, lords
and rulers and receivers of tribute; the sidewalks swarmed with people,
lines of men and women swinging northward and southward, some buoyantly
conscious of new-fashioned raiment, their eyes apparently unaware of
the jostling crowd, some with tiny dogs under their arms, some looking
at the passing faces, or bowing to people in motor cars, a few glancing
into the brilliant windows of the shops, a few chatting and laughing
with companions.
Benson Flood, returned from Virginia the day before, was one of those
who, marching northward, looked searchingly into the faces of the
people he passed, and frequently glanced into the automobiles on his
right. No one in all that army was more aware than he of the vivid
beauty of the moving scene. For three years he had watched the Avenue
burst into life and color under the recurring influence of Spring; but
he had lost none of the keenness of his first perception of it, none of
his delight in its unique splendor, none of the thrill of having
achieved the right to be a part of it.
Achievement, indeed, was what Benson Flood stood for. Beginning life
in a Western town, his subsequent history was one of those spectacular
dramas common enough in American progress, yet always thrilling in
their exhibition of daring and courage, in their apparent forcing of
opportunity, their making and taking of chances, their final conquest
of power and wealth. Flood's career differed from many another only in
two particulars: as early as the age of forty he had reached that point
where he could afford to lay aside his more public pursuits; and at the
same time, perhaps because he had grown no older in the cult, the mere
accumulation of wealth ceased to be the first object in life for him.
He was the offspring of one of the curious mixtures of race that
distinguish America; and doubtless from some ancestor of an older
civilization he inherited a taste and longing for that to which, in his
youth and early manhood, he had been an absolute stranger. When he
left his West behind him, he faced towards those gentler things which,
in his fine imagination and the perception trained by the exigencies of
his career, he felt to be more desirable than anything he had yet
attained to. Certainly they had become to him, untasted though they
were at the time, of greater importance. He valued his experiences,
his labors, his millions; but they were not enough. However
unaccustomed to it he might be, he knew very definitely what he now
wanted; and a winter in New York, with a year or two in Europe, had put
him in a fair way of adding the fulfillment of his later ambition to
his earlier achievements. A race-winning yacht, a few introductions
among people who welcome the owners of mines and large fortunes, these
gave a social background which, with the excellent foundation of his
millions, served very well in New York, and taught him much about those
things which he was now so sure of wanting. It was not strange that he
believed them to be summed up, embodied, realized to the utmost, in one
woman.
He was looking for her as he walked up the Avenue on this April
afternoon; she loved its life and color and change, and was apt to pass
over some part of it as often as she could. So Flood watched the
passing women for the face that could so magically quicken his pulses.
Many sought his recognition, yet he was oblivious of their number,
ignoring the various half-invitations that were tentatively made
him--the leaning forward of one in a limousine, the slight pause or
lingering look of another.
His thoughts were still full of his journey, and Spring on the Avenue
only brought up memories--so lately realities--of the breath of the
woods, the wind in the tree-tops, the brown and green of fields so
lately seen; and Flood had reached that state of mind where all that
was sweet in memory, all that was beautiful in the present, all that he
desired from the future, only reminded him of the one woman.
Several times, through the crowd, he thought he saw her, and went more
quickly forward; but as often he fell back, disappointed. Suddenly, in
answer to a firm grasp on his arm, he turned.
"Ah, Marshall!" he said, not too enthusiastically.
"I say, Benny, is it a wager? You're stalking up the Avenue without a
word or a look for anybody, trampling on people, mowing them down by
the thousand like a Juggernaut from the West! That's how I traced you,
by the bodies strewn in your path."
Flood was always amused by Pendleton's nonsense; yet now he smiled and
said nothing. To-day it was not Pendleton he wanted to see. The other
seemed to divine this.
"You don't seem very sociable," he remarked. "Did your lone trip to
Virginia give you a confirmed taste for solitude?"
Again Flood smiled; he could no more resist Pendleton's aimless chatter
than a large dog can resist the playfulness of a small one. His
side-long glance had to go downwards to meet Marshall's.
"Quite the contrary," he said. "I've bought the old Gore place in
Berkeley and now I want to fill it up with guests. I count on you to
help me out, Marshall."
"Right you are! Come up to Mrs. Maxwell's with me, and we'll get dear
Cecilia to help us out, too!"
Flood's face suddenly hardened a little. It was an unconscious trick
of his under the stress of any sudden emotion; in effect, it was as if
a hand had passed over his features, leaving them expressionless. Many
a game had he won, mastered many a situation, by means of it.
He paused perceptibly before he answered Pendleton. Then he said, "I
shall have to leave that to you!"
"You're too modest, Benny," Pendleton said, shaking his head.
"Remember your taxes, man, not to mention your bank account, and don't
let dear Cecilia awe you."
It was presently made evident enough that the dear Cecilia in question
held nothing of awe for Pendleton himself; for they were no sooner in
the rather austere little drawing room than he bent over Mrs. Maxwell,
and, quite deliberately ignoring the five or six earlier comers,
whispered in her ear:
"Get rid of the crowd, Cecilia; we've great news for you!"
Mrs. Maxwell was apparently oblivious of his whisper, for she made
herself more charming than ever to the other men; yet presently, almost
before Flood was aware of it, the others were gone, and she was saying:
"Well, Marshall? You always bring your little budget with you, don't
you? What is it now?"
"If you're going to be, nasty, Cecilia, I won't tell you!"
Flood, who had not so far progressed as to become accustomed to such
badinage, looked uneasily from Pendleton to their hostess; but Mrs.
Maxwell seated herself beside him on the sofa, and calmly smiled.
Apparently she was going to ignore Pendleton for the moment. "I am
always so glad when I can have my tea comfortably, without having to
look after a roomful of people," she said. "You don't take it, I know,
Mr. Flood, and Marshall can look out for himself. What do you think of
this pink lustre cup, Mr. Flood? It's Rosamund's latest acquisition."
Flood had, after all, learned much in his three years. He bent forward
to examine the cup, while Mrs. Maxwell turned its iridescent beauty
towards the light.
"It is adorable," he said. "Is Miss Randall hunting for more to-day?"
Again his face had quickly become expressionless, but neither of the
others were aware of it, and his question was doomed to remain
unanswered.
Pendleton could no longer withhold his news. "Benny's just back from
Virginia, Cecilia," he said. "He's bought Oakleigh."
"I think it's West Virginia, and it's just a little farm, you know,"
Flood said, weakly; but his geography was entirely immaterial to the
others.
"Oakleigh? The Gore place?"
Flood still found it amazing that so many people knew so many other
people; his lately made acquaintances in New York always seemed to know
all about his lately made acquaintances in Florida or Virginia or the
Berkshires, or, for that matter, in Europe. It was another of the
things to which he had not yet become accustomed.
"And he wants you and me to help him fill it up with people," Pendleton
went on, with the frankness for which he was famous.
Mrs. Maxwell looked quickly over her tea-cup at Flood, raising her
eyebrows ever so slightly. For once Flood could not control his
expression; his face flushed deeply as he leaned towards her.
"If you only would!" he begged. "I thought--I scarcely dared to
hope--that perhaps if--if Miss Randall came along, too, you might
consent to play hostess for a lone man?"
Cecilia was a practiced campaigner, as she had had need to be during
the dreary years before she had Rosamund's money to count upon;
instantly she recalled the place Flood could afford to call a "little
farm," Oakleigh, white-pillared and stately, with its kennels and
stables and conservatories. She could not imagine why he had chosen
her unless it were thanks to Pendleton; yet, to be hostess of Oakleigh,
even for a week or two, distinctly appealed to her. It would be
possible enough, if she were to go as Rosamund's chaperon. Even Flood
had seen that; and if it were left to her to fill its rooms with
guests, how many debts might she not cancel! The opportunity was
wonderful, a gift from Heaven; but could she count upon Rosamund?
Would Rosamund go? There was a lack of complacency in Rosamund that
her sister frequently found trying; she wondered how far she might dare
to commit her to accepting Flood's invitation. Yet daring and Cecilia
were not strangers, and the opportunity was unique.
"I am not sure of Rosamund's dates," she said.
Flood hesitated; but Pendleton, too, had been thinking about the
splendor of Oakleigh.
"Oh, but Benny has no dates for Oakleigh yet!" he said. "So you may
set your own time, Cecilia. Isn't that so, Benny?"
"If you only will," Flood besought her.
After all, Cecilia thought, there was nothing Rosamund could do, if she
definitely promised for her!
"Then I think June will be quite perfect," she said, and said it none
too soon; for the door was suddenly framing the vision of Flood's
desire.
For an instant she seemed almost to sway in the doorway, as if she had
come to the utmost limit of strength; she was paler than he had ever
seen her, and, he thought, more lovely. He could never behold her
without an immediate sense of abasement. Her beauty was of that
indefinable sort which touches the heart and imagination rather than
storms the senses. Men did not look upon her as at some beautiful
creature on exhibition; always they looked, to be sure, but straightway
the masculine appraisement of their gaze changed to the look one
bestows upon some high and lovely thing. Her face had that fullness
through the temples that Murillo loved; her eyes, hazel or brown or
gray, changing in color with the responsive widening of the pupils,
were rather far apart, deeply set, warm with interest when she looked
directly at you; dark hair, ruddily brown, that broke into curl
whenever a strand escaped, framed her face closely, and was always worn
more simply than fashion demanded. She was tall enough to play a man's
games well, and the impression that she gave was one of vigor and
alertness, almost of impatience. This was the first time Flood had
seen her tired.
And, as always when he saw her, it swept over him that she was, alone
and above all others, the woman he wanted. She was beautiful, but it
was not her beauty, not her social eminence, certainly not her wealth,
nor anything that she might be said to represent, that constituted her
appeal for him. There was that in her which he had not met elsewhere
in his countrywomen, though frequently enough in France and England, a
simplicity, a calmness, a dignity, which he interpreted as a
consciousness that she needed no pretense, no further struggle or
ambition to be other than just what she was. And what she was, was
what he very much wanted. For him, she was the bright sum of all
desire, the embodiment of everything rare and fine, which he now craved
all the more because they had been denied him in his earlier years.
Months before, since the first time he saw her, he had known that, and
accepted it as an inspiration, as he had accepted and lived upon the
fine flashes of imagination that had led him on to fortune in those
western days, when imagination and courage had been his stock in trade;
it was only the ultimate, and by far the most important, of those!
But Miss Randall was certainly unaware that she aroused in anyone in
her drawing-room stronger feelings than the mild ones which usually
accompany afternoon tea. After an instant's survey from the doorway,
she came into the room, trying to smile through her fatigue.
"Mercy, Rosamund! You look like a ghost! Have you been walking
yourself to death again?" her sister asked.
Flood's greeting was only a silent bow and a touch of her offered hand,
but Pendleton was never speechless.
"I say, Rose," he cried, "Flood's just been inviting us all down to
Virginia for June, and dear Cecilia has accepted! Can you stand the
joy of having me to talk to for a whole month, Rosamund?"
At a quick spark in her sister's eyes, Cecilia bent towards her and
spoke somewhat hastily. "Mr. Flood has bought Oakleigh, the Gore
place. Isn't it nice of him to ask us down there, first of all?"
Although to her sister her look seemed to hold many things, to Flood's
infatuated eyes the girl seemed suddenly more tired, harassed, or
troubled; and with another of his flashes of intuition he would not
give her a chance to reply. He began to tell them about his lone
journey, talking very well, quite sure of his facts and with a large
enthusiasm, and in spite of herself Rosamund became more and more
interested. She even smiled a little at his account of the mountain
doctor's old mare and her wisdom; she even found herself willing to
hear more about the doctor!
"But, I assure you," Flood went on, "it wouldn't have taken anyone long
to discover that he was not the usual country doctor. There is
something about the man that would attract the attention of the world,
if he lived on a pillar or were buried beneath the sands of Arizona.
Personality, I suppose, unless you're willing to look the fact in the
face and admit that a certain force emanates from greatness,
wherever----"
"Oh, say!" Pendleton protested; and Flood laughed, rather shamefacedly,
as a man laughs when he is discovered reading a learned book or quoting
a classic.
But Miss Randall would not have that. "Please don't mind him, Mr.
Flood; I want to hear the rest of it."
Again Flood was taken unawares, and his face flushed; but he went on to
describe the evening before the doctor's fire, the four days he had
remained, a willing guest, the drives about the mountains in the
doctor's buggy--lest his own car should startle the shy mountain people.
"And since I've got back, I've been finding out about him. You know
how it is--meet a chap you never heard of before, and straightway find
out that a dozen people you know have known him for years.
"Last night I met Doctor Hiram Wilson in the club; he said it was the
first time he'd had a chance to run in for months, yet he happened to
be the first man I saw there. I was telling him something about this
chap, and found he knew all about him. 'Keenest young investigator I
ever knew,' he said, 'and came near working himself to death. How is
he now?' He seemed mighty glad when I told him I could not have
suspected that Ogilvie had ever been ill. Then he called Professor
Grayson over, to repeat what I'd just told him; and I wish you could
have seen old Grayson's face. He was delighted, but he could really
tell more about Ogilvie than I could. It seems that Ogilvie was under
him for a time, but had really gone far beyond him; then he made
himself ill by working day and night in his laboratory, and some of his
medical friends packed him off to those mountains to get well. He was
too far gone to protest, I guess; but before he was well enough to come
back, he was so interested in the people there that he was willing to
stay. Now the big fellows have fallen into the way of sending patients
down to Bluemont, in the summer, to be near him; and he consults
everywhere all over the country. They told me last night that his
investigations and experiments on the nervous system would do more to
save the vision than----"
But Miss Randall, at the word, exclaimed, and with parted lips and
brightening eyes leaned towards him. Flood stopped, amazed.
"Vision! His work is for vision? For the eyes?" she cried.
"His experimental work. Of course, in the mountains----"
But Mrs. Maxwell was tired of Flood's enthusiasm. "Dear me! She is
going to tell him about Eleanor! Take pity on me, Marshall, and help
me to escape!" she exclaimed, jumping up.
But her sister was far too deeply interested to be aware of their
withdrawing towards the window. "Oh, Mr. Flood, is he really
successful? Can he really help?"
"I am told, and I believe, that he is a great man, Miss Randall. But
surely----"
For the first time the weary look had left her face. "Mr. Flood, if
you can help me! I have a friend, the dearest friend I have in the
world, who believes she is going to be blind. I don't believe it! I
will not! And yet, it would not be remarkable--she has been through so
much, so much! Oh, I cannot bear to think of it!"
Her hands were clasped on her knees, and she bent her head over them to
hide the tears in her eyes.
"You have been with her this afternoon?" Flood surmised.
"We have spent the afternoon at an oculist's," she said. "I have
begged her for weeks, for weeks, to let me take her--but she is so
proud, oh, so foolishly proud--and to-day--to-day--Oh, it is unbearably
cruel!"
She arose, and stood half turned from him, to hide her emotion, swaying
a little; and intensely as he had wanted many things, Flood had never
wanted anything so keenly as to comfort her--to comfort her by taking
her in his arms, if he could, but above all, by any means, to comfort
her. Hitherto it had seemed impossible, in his modesty, to make her
realize his existence apart from the multitude; he welcomed this
heaven-sent opportunity. Quite suddenly, in his need, he found his
faith in Ogilvie increased a hundredfold; but he was too much concerned
to perceive the humor of it.
"Oh, but--" he cried, "but I should never in the world accept one man's
opinion as final! And I assure you, Ogilvie is called in consultation
by Blake, Wilson, Whitred. I should certainly have her see him!"
She seated herself again, wearily. "Ah, she is so proud! It is only
when she sees I am fairly breaking my heart over her that she will let
me do anything."
"Then she is not--she has not----?"
"Oh, as for what she has and what she is, those are quite two different
things, Mr. Flood! She is the dearest and loveliest and bravest
creature in the world. She is more than I could possibly tell you. I
have adored her ever since she was one of the big girls in the school
where I was a tiny one. My father and mother were abroad, and Cecilia
was up here in the North, with her father's people, and then married;
and I was left in Georgia at school, oh, such a lonely little mite!
Eleanor was everything in the world to me--big sister, little mother,
friend--everything! Then she married, and my father died abroad and
dear Mamma took me over with her. Eleanor and I wrote to each other,
and I was godmother for her little boy; but Mamma and I were in France
until--until Mamma died, three years ago; and it was only last year,
when I came to live with Cecilia, that I found my Eleanor again."
Unconsciously she was revealing to Flood more of her life than he had
known before; he was afraid to interrupt by so much as a question. His
face had again taken on the expressionless mask which so well covered
his emotion or interest.
"I had never realized it, Mr. Flood; but all the while I was having
everything, my precious Eleanor was poor, very poor. She had no
relatives near enough to count, and her guardian sent her to school
with what little money she had. I'm afraid it did not teach her very
well how to support herself! She married the year she left school; she
has never spoken of him at all, but I don't believe her husband
was--was all she had believed. When he died, she brought little Bob to
New York.
"I heard dear old Mrs. Harley say, only a day or two ago, that there
are thousands of Southern girls, dear, sweet girls who have never done
any work at all, who come to New York every year to try to earn a
living. Sometimes they think they can sing, sometimes they want to
become artists, sometimes they just come; and Eleanor was one of them.
Only, with her, it was worse, for she had Bob.
"I don't know how they got along. I was in Europe, and she would only
write when I had sent Bob something. I never dreamed that people,
people of my own sort, my own friends even, might be hungry, and not
have money enough to buy anything to eat."
"You ought not to know it now," Flood said. But she only shook her
head.
"I believe Eleanor has been hungry. And if you could only see her--she
is so lovely, as lovely as a white lily!"
"Oh, but surely, Miss Randall, she could have got help! There are no
end of places----"
"Yes. But a woman like Eleanor can't seek just any kind of help, you
know, and--well, as darling Mrs. Harley says, charity doesn't help
much, when it is only charity. Even from me, Eleanor says she cannot.
"When I came to New York to live with Cecilia, I went at once to see
her. She let me do all I could for little Bob, but it was too late.
He died. And now she will not let me do anything for her. I ask her
what good my money is to me, if she will not let me use it as I want
to! She would not even let me take her to an oculist until she saw
that I was just breaking my heart over her! And now----"
Again her head was bent over her clasped hands; again she was too
moved, for the moment, to speak. Flood seized his opportunity.
"Believe me, it can be arranged," he said. "You have taken me into
your confidence--you will let me--advise, won't you?" She looked up
eagerly, and he went quickly on. "See your friend, Mrs.----"
"Mrs. Reeves."
"See your friend, Mrs. Reeves, and tell her about Ogilvie. Tell her
that he is looking for someone--a lady--to help with his work down in
those mountains. Prepare her to accept his offer. I will telegraph
him."
She looked at him blankly. "But--would it be true? I don't think I
understand!"
He smiled reassuringly. "It would not be true that I am going to
Europe to-morrow--but we could make it true! If we get her away from
the city, and near Ogilvie, we can leave everything else to him. He's
really a good deal of a man, you know."
Rosamund sprang to her feet. "Cecilia," she said, across the room, to
her sister, "I am going back to Eleanor's."