It ended in their remaining ten gala days. Flood telegraphed for the
implements of winter sports, and got them the next day. They opened
them on the brow of the hill, and Pendleton, who took it upon himself
to be master of ceremonies, "dared" Rosamund to lead off on the skis.
"What for is vey long sticks?" Tim asked. And when he saw Miss Rose
walk off on them he shrieked, and hid his face in Eleanor's skirts.
The entire household had come to look on. Matt and Sue stood at the
corner of the cottage, he leaning on a snow-shovel to keep him in
countenance, Aunt Sue with one apron over her turbaned head and her
hands rolled up in another. Grace, as white as the snow itself, sat
bundled up in rugs on a sunny corner of the piazza; Ogilvie had seen to
that.
Eleanor and Rosamund were in scarlet caps and long blanket coats. When
Pendleton had fastened on her skis, Rosamund threw aside the coat, and
stood, a figure of white against the vaster white, save for the red of
her cap and the warm brightness of her hair and face.
She had known many Alpine winters, and was as much at home on skis and
snowshoes as in a ball-room.
She turned away from the interested little group to look across the
unbroken slope gleaming in sunlight that kissed it to a rosy glow in
places, in others turned its frozen crystals to a myriad sparkling
points of light. In the hollows and under the shadow of drifts and
pines the snow looked blue. She knew where the fields lay, now under
their blanket, patterned by fences in the summer. The road wound off
to the left, then down, down----
It was only a step or two to the crest of the hill; the leap would be
glorious! She turned a laughing glance over her shoulder; Eleanor,
Ogilvie, Flood, were watching her intently.
"I dare you!" Pendleton cried again; and she was off, off in one
splendid rush and leap, a leap that carried her out and down, far down.
Again Timmy shrieked, and Yetta fell on her knees. Eleanor's face
flushed in admiration, and Pendleton called out,
"Good girl! Never knew you to take a dare!"
It was a phase of her new to the two men who loved her. Ogilvie had
seen her in many situations, Flood in more; each believed that he knew
the full excellence of her, yet, oddly enough, neither had thought of
her as this wild, boyish, graceful creature of the out-of-doors. The
sudden discovery of it came as a shock to both; for both were by nature
men of the open, notwithstanding the fact of Flood's accumulated
millions and Ogilvie's eminence in the laboratory. Now, in their
surprise, they stood above, on the edge of the slope, and watched her,
each thrilling, each showing his emotion in his own way.
Flood, in his surprise, had called out, then thrust one clenched fist
into the other palm with a resounding smack; but in a moment his face
took on its expressionless mask--expressionless save for the gleam from
the half-closed eyes.
Ogilvie had made no sound; he stood perfectly still, with out-thrust
under lip, the corners of his eyes wrinkling to a smile; his face wore
something of the indulgent, restrained look of a mother when she sees
an adored child perform some wonder, yet refrains from praise of that
which is so intimately her own; his first move was to run his fingers
through his hair.
The two stood there as if spellbound until Rosamund reached the valley
and waved up to them. Then Flood and Ogilvie turned, and met each
other's eyes. There was something of a shock; instantly each looked
away again, with an unspoken feeling of apology, as if he had looked
upon a disclosure that was not meant for him.
Neither analyzed what he had seen; until that moment neither had
suspected that the thought of Rosamund might be living in the heart and
desire of the other. Instantly each put the suspicion aside, as if it
were an unworthy one; yet, through the hours that followed, it
persisted in returning again and again. Each man acknowledged that if
it were true of himself, it might well be true of his friend; but each
tried to assure himself of its impossibility, even while admitting
that, if it were true, there could have been nothing of unfairness on
the part of the other.
From their first meeting on the mountain-top Flood and Ogilvie had
intuitively liked each other. Through a knowledge of varied types of
men, they had learned to look beneath the surface; each recognized in
the other many qualities to respect. Men are by nature
hero-worshipers, from the time that they look with covetous admiration
on the policeman's brass buttons and the motorman's thrilling power,
through the period when they worship the home league's star pitcher and
third-base-man, the captain of their college foot-ball eleven, and on
to their political enthusiasms. There is far more of pure hero-worship
in the friendships of men than the world gives them credit for. Flood
and Ogilvie had met on a mountain-top, and on a height their friendship
was to remain. Each saw in the other "a splendid fellow"; neither
would have admitted in his friend the least shadow of baseness. So,
after the unforeseen disclosure of that look, each man felt generously
on his honor to appear unaware of any possible feeling on the part of
his friend toward Rosamund, even going so far, in his heart and hopes,
as to deny that such might exist.
But while this ardent liking existed between Flood and Ogilvie, there
was something far different between each of them and Pendleton.
Pendleton liked Flood. He liked him for the virile strength of his
personality, as well as for his possessions; he knew him only in his
hours of leisure, and might not have liked him so well, nor at all, if
he had known him only when he was engrossed in business. But toward
Ogilvie he could not disguise an antagonism which would have shown
itself openly if he had been more courageous, and which as it was,
appeared in countless small spitefulnesses.
To the man who does nothing there are no creatures less interesting
than those whose every moment is taken up with affairs. Between the
deliberate idler and the man of absorbing occupation there can be
nothing in common; indeed, there often arises more or less antipathy.
The business man is apt to retain a hearty disrespect for the idler; to
him, the man of leisure must always appear an anomaly, an excrescence,
a parasite of civilization. And even when the worker has developed
toward the plane of the connoisseur, the collector, the lover of sports
and arts, he seldom does more than tolerate the man who has begun where
he finds himself only toward the end of an active career.
Yet Flood found Marshall amusing and likable enough. He was perfectly
aware of Pendleton's qualities of the sycophant, the flatterer, the
gatherer of crumbs from the rich man's table. He thought of them
rather pityingly as a natural outgrowth of the life of that class in
which Pendleton was so much at his ease, and regarded them leniently
because he believed that there was also to be found in that class so
much that was desirable, so much that he himself coveted. He was
willing to accept its evil with its good, its defects with its
excellence; if it had brought forth a Pendleton, it had also borne the
perfect flower that was Rosamund.
But to Ogilvie Pendleton was altogether an abomination; he could see no
good in him; his very palms itched to smite him!
They were fortunate in their weather. It seemed as if nature,
satisfied with her latest marvel, were holding her breath. Every day
of their ten was brilliantly clear and cold and windless. Their voices
rang far across the white silence of valley and mountain in that hushed
atmosphere. The frozen snow crunched even under Timmy's little
trudging feet; and the mountain people apparently felt that it was
useless to lurk among the spruces when every step they took told where
they would be hidden. They came from far and wide to stare at the
strange antics of the "foreigners," and grinned at Rosamund, more
friendly than they had ever been before.
Pap drove Mother Cary across the valley to look on at the sports;
Rosamund called her attention to the new friendliness of the other
spectators. The old woman smiled rather grimly. "Land! No wonder!"
she said. "Nobody could suspicion those young fellers were spies,
cuttin' up sech capers as them, sliding down hill head foremost on
their stummicks, an' prancin' around on slappers. I never saw such
goin's on, myself--and John Ogilvie one of 'em!"
They laughingly compared notes afterward, and decided that Mother Cary
had been quite scandalized by their "capers;" Ogilvie admitted that she
had been very severe toward him the day after her drive across the
valley.
But for themselves they were glorious hours. Rosamund threw aside the
burden of care that had enveloped her during the past weeks, and became
as merry as a child, more gay and joyous, than Ogilvie had ever seen
her. She skimmed down the slopes on her toboggan with Tim holding on
behind her, his curls blowing out in the onrush of their swift descent;
and she would carry him back up the hill again, "pick-a-back," to show
him how strong a horse she was. She could outdistance them all on
skis, but Ogilvie proved himself the best on snowshoes--thanks to his
boyhood in northern Vermont, although Flood, who had faced many a
blizzard on the plains, was not far behind him.
On the last day of the joyful ten Flood had gone with Rosamund on
snowshoes across the valley to carry something to Mrs. Allen. Snow had
fallen during the night, and every bough of pine and spruce and fir had
its burden of downy white. The two paused, when they had come past
Father Cary's wood-lot, to look down upon the valley.
They stood for a moment or so without speech. Flood looked from the
snow-covered fields to the face beside him, as if to compare one
loveliness with another; then he drew a deep breath.
"Well," he said, as they went on again, "I'm sorry to be leaving all
this!"
For a moment she did not reply; she looked up at him once or twice, and
he divined that she had something to say which she did not quite dare
to put into words. They had become very good friends, thanks to the
freedom of the out-of-door life of the past days. He laughed.
"Go on, please! Don't mind saying it! I haven't any feelings!"
"Oh," she protested, laughing, "I was not dreaming of hurting your
feelings! I was only thinking how--how curious it is that you
should--should care so much for what you are going back to."
But he did, nevertheless, show himself a little hurt at that. "Why
shouldn't I like it?" he asked. "Do I seem such a savage?"
"Oh, precisely not!" Her mood was kind. "You are not a savage. You
are very nice--I'm very glad I've found out how nice you are. But
that's just what makes me wonder, you see, how you can like it!"
"Like being nice?"
"No--of course not! Like what you're going back to. New York.
Cecilia! Oh--all of that--you know what I mean, don't you?"
"Why," he said, a little puzzled, "I'm afraid I don't see anything
wrong with it--with your 'all of that!' Do you think I ought to?"
"Oh, it isn't so much what is wrong with it. It's only that it doesn't
satisfy--does it? It is chaff--husks--a bubble--it has no substance."