“I fear they are rather wilted,” she said with polite regret. “There
are fresher ones on your side of the fence, are there not?”
Her accent was delicious, Burton thought; soft, creamy,--like her
cheeks,--filled with odd little drawls and slurs. He hoped she would go
on. But she didn’t; she only paused and looked questioningly from the
withered spray of roses to his face. Her expression was merely one of
courteous indifference, of polite interest tinctured with reserve; yet
in the farther depths of her brown eyes a little imp of mischief danced
into sight and out again.
[Illustration]
“The roses on my side are charmingly fresh,” responded Burton, “but
the fact is I have a desire for that especial spray.”
[Illustration]
“Perhaps because stolen fruit is sweetest?” she asked maliciously.
“Not altogether for that reason,” he smiled. “There are certain
associations connected with it that endear it.”
“Indeed?” She held it gingerly by the extreme tip of the stem and
reached towards the fence. He accepted it gravely and thanked her.
“Please don’t,” she said; “I’m not sure that I am not compounding a
felony.”
“I’m convinced that you are needlessly alarmed,” he answered. “You
have only presented me with what was yours to give.”
But she shook her head. “Oh, no, not at all! I discovered you
stealing”--this with awful emphasis--“my roses, and I came to your aid
merely because I feared that if I did not you would have a sunstroke.”
“Stealing is an unpleasant word,” he said tentatively. “Couldn’t you
substitute borrowing?”
“Borrowing?” The brown eyes opened very wide. “But I don’t believe it
would be true.”
“I give you my word,” he answered earnestly, “that I will return these
to you as soon as I am done with them.”
She leaned forward and plucked a withered leaf from a bush to hide the
smile that trembled about her lips.
[Illustration]
“Have you--have you any idea when that will be?” she asked.
[Illustration]
“Indeed, yes, I can tell you to a minute!”
“Can you?”
“You shall have them back the very instant you give me some fresh ones.”
“Oh!” She was still hunting for withered leaves. “Are you going to
press them, then?”
Burton acknowledged the _touché_ with a smile.
“I had entertained hopes that you, with such a fabulous wealth of
blossoms, would be charitable to one who has none,” he replied gravely.
“Charity is only for the deserving.” She gave up her search and faced
him again. “_Thieves_ are not worthy subjects.”
“But a little charity might have the effect of reforming them. For
example, if you were to present me each morning with a rose, there
would remain no necessity for stealing.”
[Illustration]
She shook her head again. “Reform should come through repentance; that
would be merely bribery.”
“But in extreme cases,” he pleaded, “shouldn’t we consider the end
rather than the means? Now, with such a hardened, desperate criminal as
myself----”
“Perhaps you are right,” she acknowledged. “And so you have permission
to help yourself to a cluster of roses every day. You can reach them,
you see, without trouble.”
“Oh!” he said disappointedly. “But I shouldn’t want to do that; I fear
I would damage the bushes.”
“Not if you used scissors.”
He made a pretence of searching his pockets.
“I’m afraid I haven’t such a thing,” he said despondently.
“I’m sure Mrs. Phillips will lend you a pair.”
“You are taking an entirely wrong course with me,” he said sadly. “I
feel that I shall never reform without some assistance; I haven’t
enough moral courage. Now, if you would take a little interest in my
case--to the extent of one rose, just a single, solitary rose now and
then, you know--I’m sure I could lead a better life. Don’t you think
that--er--you could?”
A sheet of paper danced out to the path at her feet and she stooped and
picked it up, crumpling it in her hand.
“I’m afraid not,” she said.
She dropped the crumpled paper into her basket and moved off up the
path. Then she paused and turned.
[Illustration]
“Good-morning.” She gave a polite little inclination of her head and
Burton removed his hat.
“Good-morning,” he answered dejectedly.
She went on towards the house, humming softly. He watched until the
door had closed behind her; then he threw himself in his chair again
and looked smilingly at the faded, bedraggled cluster of tiny crimson
roses in his hand.
“She’s wonderful,” he said under his breath. “She’s a real Princess,
after all, a little five-foot-two Princess, with the most beautiful
eyes in the world and the dearest red lips and the pearliest, softest
cheeks ever woman had! She’s older than I thought; she must be
twenty-one or two. I wonder--but, no, she’s not married; she’s just a
girl--a sweet, womanly girl.”
He placed a cigarette between his lips but forgot to light it.
“Kitty,” he murmured, “Kitty, Kitty of the Roses! Never was there
a name that fitted as that does; she could have had no other name!
Maud--Alice--Mary--Lilian--Florence--none would have suited her;
Kitty was made for her! It never struck me before as being a beautiful
name--Kitty. I wonder why? It’s absolutely musical! It’s a poem, a
love-song! It’s----”
He sat up very straight and scowled at the littered table.
“Great Scott! this won’t do! These Enchanted Gardens are dangerous
places; they evidently affect the brain.”
He rescued his pen from the grass and dipped it into the ink.
“Or maybe the heart!”
[Illustration]
He drew his sheets before him and smoothed and arranged them. Then he
frowned intently. Presently he began to write:
“The crowning of these columns with the Roman Doric abacus is
quite unjustifiable and altogether incongruous to the purist.
Yet the effect in the eye of the layman is not unpleasing. It
is difficult if not impossible to account----”
He looked up from the sheet before him with exultant eyes, the pen
poised motionless in mid-air.
“I’ll swear there were dimples when she smiled!” he murmured joyously.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
V
There had been a shower in the gray of the morning; Burton remembered
hearing the brisk patter of the falling drops against the sounding
magnolia leaves while the open casement was still but an oblong of
gray-black in the surrounding darkness; and now, at nine o’clock, the
garden was still moist in the sunlight and dripping in shadow. The
Daphne-tree was gloriously fresh, the honey-flowers were drenched in
crystal drops, and the bees, moving hoveringly from spray to spray,
were in constant danger of shower-baths. Across the fence the roses
were laughing as the sun, fiercely solicitous, dried leaf and bloom.
The hedges were festooned with glistening webs of silver and spun
glass in which gems trembled and scintillated. The fallen petals,
rain-beaten, strewed beds and paths and were washed here and there into
tiny ridges of pale colors like the rim of an artist’s palette. And the
air, renewed and refreshed, was fragrant with the mingled odors of the
blossoms and moist loam.
[Illustration]
Even Burton’s table beneath the Daphne-tree showed evidences of the
recent shower, for the painted top was spotted with tiny pools in which
the greenery overhead was dimly reflected. Burton moved it into the
sunshine, tipped it until the emerald pools trickled off, and left it
there to dry while he lighted a cigarette and, between inhalations,
cast casual glances over the rose-bushes at the neighboring door.
But the door remained closed. A second cigarette followed the first.
The table was quite dry by now, but Burton seemed to have forgotten
its existence while he strolled to and fro along the path beside the
house. Once he glanced at his watch a trifle impatiently; it was
after nine-thirty. He shook his head disapprovingly; the Princess was
late. Didn’t she know, he wondered, that punctuality was a virtue in
Princesses as well as in others? Besides, it was growing very warm
and she was keeping him from his work. Then he had the grace to blush
mentally as he remembered the two pencils and the block of paper in
his coat pocket which, while they might give the appearance of labor,
were intended merely as a cloak for idleness. He rescued the table
from the sun, which already showed a disposition to blister the yellow
painted top, and laid his pad and pencils upon it with a great show of
importance. He had forgotten the chair, so he went to the back door and
requisitioned one from the kitchen. Bob, wearing a long blue-checked
apron which impeded his progress by winding its folds about his thin
shanks, appeared presently--Burton had been in Belle Harbour long
enough to cease expecting immediate results--and set a kitchen chair
before the table. Burton shook his head.
[Illustration]
“No, Robert, the other side, if you please,” he said. “Your tastes may
run towards brick walls and Daphne-trees, but mine prefer roses and
enchantment. The other side, Robert.”
[Illustration]
“Yessah, ve’y well, sah.” Bob had given up attempting to understand
Burton, and had philosophically decided to pay no heed to his vagaries
save to humor them whenever possible and so earn as many as he might
of the silver coins with which the Northerner’s pockets seemed to be
filled. He placed the chair with its back to the Daphne-tree, wiped the
seat of it with the end of his apron and grinned inquiringly.
[Illustration]
“Robert,” said Burton, “I presume that you agree with me in holding the
lack of punctuality to be one of the deadliest of the deadly sins?”
Bob scratched his head and appeared to be giving the matter serious
consideration. But as he made no reply Burton continued, accepting
silence for consent.
“It seems to me, Robert, that tardiness in plain, ordinary every-day
mortals like you and me may be forgiven; I hope so for your sake; but a
Princess--I may say _the_ Princess!--Eh? You see the difference?”
“Yessah,” said Bob explosively.
“Of course,” Burton went on, seating himself in the chair and with
difficulty getting his knees beneath the table, “of course, living in
an Enchanted Castle it may be that one is not at liberty to come and go
as we are, Robert. You follow me, I trust?”
[Illustration]
“Y-yessah!”
“Thank you. I realize that there are times when my remarks possess
a certain involution, as you might say, which persons with less
penetration than you, Robert, might find confusing. It pleases me that
you so thoroughly understand my remarks; your sympathetic attitude
arouses my gratitude. That possibly sounds to your finely-trained ear
like poetry, Robert, but I assure you that nothing of the sort was
intended. So far I have not reached the condition when poetry becomes
necessary for the expression of thought. When I do reach that phase
of the malady--for love has been not inaptly termed a malady, you’ll
remember--when I _do_, I say, your ears shall be the first to listen to
my rhymed periods; that I promise you. But--no, thanks, I beg of you!”
[Illustration]
The request seemed unnecessary, for Bob’s countenance was expressive
of other emotions than gratitude, chief of which, perhaps, was
bewilderment. He rolled his eyes towards the kitchen door, and his
settled grin--the sort of grin with which one might strive to placate a
dangerous lunatic--held a trace of uneasiness. But Burton, leaning with
his elbows on the table and levelling a drawing pencil at him, held
him captive to his will.
“Robert,” he asked, “have you ever seen a Princess?”
“N-no, sah; leastways, sah, not to know it.”
“Ah,” said Burton with a shake of his head, “that’s it! ‘Not to know
it!’ Perhaps, Robert, you have met your Princess without recognizing
her, have passed her on the street, at the market, in--Robert!”
“Sah?”
“How about cook? You don’t think that possibly--er--she might be your
Princess?”
“Who, sah? Lavinia, sah? Ah reckon yo’ makin’ fun, Mister Burton. Why,
she ain’ no Princess, sah; she’s jes’ one dem no ’count No’th Ca’lina
niggers!”
[Illustration]
Burton nodded gravely.
[Illustration]
“Perhaps you are right. Nevertheless, Robert, Princesses move in
strange disguises, I have no doubt. Unfortunately, I am unable to
acquaint you with any certain method of detecting them. Of course, if
she lives in a Castle and picks roses in an Enchanted Garden you know
at once that she is a Princess; that is simplicity itself. Also, if
she has beautiful soft brown eyes and--and dimples--” He snapped his
fingers triumphantly and Bob started in alarm. “We have it, Robert!
Rejoice!”
“Yessah, yessah!”
“That, Robert, is the secret! Dimples! Look for dimples! All
Princesses have dimples. Aren’t you awfully glad I thought of that?
When you go back, Robert, observe Lavinia closely. If she has
dimples”--he spread his hands wide--“there you are, you have found your
Princess!”
“Ah reckon th’ won’t be no dimples, Mister Burton,” said Bob
lugubriously. “Ah reckon she’ll jes’ natu’ally snatch me bald-headed,
sah, for not comin’ back an’ wipin’ de dishes.”
Burton shook his head sorrowfully.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
“You pain me, Robert. All the time you have stayed here keeping me from
my work you have been neglecting your own labors. That is not right.
Return at once to the kitchen and the Princess Lavinia. Not a word! I
refuse to listen any longer to your chatter.”
“Yessah,” said Bob eagerly. “Thank’ y’, sah. Anythin’ Ah can git you,
sah?”
“Nothing, Robert. Do not attempt to disarm my resentment; I am
disappointed in you.” Burton waved him away. When he had gone, Burton
lighted a third cigarette, stretched his arms overhead, yawned
inelegantly and--suddenly sat up very straight and attentive in the
chair.
From across the nodding roses, from an open window of the Castle,
floated again a girl’s sweet, fresh voice in song. Burton’s heart
leaped and he tried to still his breathing that he might hear the
better, the while he searched eagerly with his gaze the windows of the
house beyond the rose-garden.
“O Paradise, O Paradise, the world is growing old;
Who would not be at rest and free where love is never cold?
Where loyal hearts and true stand ever in the light,
All rapture thro’ and thro’ in God’s most holy sight?”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The words of the hymn died softly away and silence held the Castle
again, a peaceful silence that now held for Burton a new significance.
After a few moments he gathered his pencils and paper together and
arose. The hymn had recalled to his mind a fact which he had lost
sight of,--namely, that to-day was Sunday. And he knew enough of Belle
Harbour and its customs to be sure that, even should he wait there
in the garden all day long, he would not be rewarded with a glimpse
of the Princess. At the door of the house he turned and looked again
over the enchanting scene. Beyond the iron fence the roses drowsed and
nodded sleepily, the yuccas gently swung their bells, the leaves cast
flickering shadows on the red gravel paths, and the bees droned. The
magnolia had already begun to spread its mellow gloom over the garden
and from its depths a yellow-breasted songster, half seen like a speck
of molten gold between the moving leaves, gushed its soul into song.
But for the rest, silence and emptiness.
[Illustration]