"Out with it, Stella."
"She says she won't see you."
"Won't see me! Is that just what she said?"
The maiden hesitated. As a friend of both and strictly neutral, her
position was awkward.
"Why--yes."
"Just what did she say, Stella?"
"She said, give him back his flowers and his note and tell him not to
come again."
This was clear to the dullest lover. And the words cut deeper still
as he saw in the face of the sharp eyed ambassadress an impressible
gleam of pity--or exultation--he could not tell which. Cyrus blushed
like a girl. For a moment his drowsy eyes gazed blindly at Stella,
then at the flowers and the note as if trying to realize what had
happened. The effort was painful. The flowers seemed to be jubilant in
their gayety, and jeering at him. He had believed, until this moment,
that he was prepared for the worst. He had also believed, from his
knowledge of women in history and fiction that they changed their minds
with ease--in short, that honest lovers never need despair. This blow
seemed to paralyze his senses. But Pride came to his rescue. It made
him realize the degradation of appearing a fool before Stella. So,
collecting his scattered wits he raised his head and smiled upon the
waiting maiden. There was a quivering of the lip, however, as he said
in a manner laboriously offhand--and, of course, unsuccessful:
"Oh, well, I must try again. Thank you, Stella. Good-by."
As he reached the gate she saw him toss the flowers to the ground.
His state of mind as he walked blindly along the village street,
beneath the arching elms, could not be described in articulate
language. Sorrow, anger, humiliation, all struggled for control.
Resignation was not among them. So Ruth was really in earnest. If she
hated and despised him, why live? This tumult within, while it numbed
his senses--and might lead to tragedy--provided mirth for others.
Just in front of the store a group of children ran across his path.
They were followed, slowly, by a large Newfoundland dog, a well-known
character in the village. He officiated, as is customary among dogs,
as guardian and boon companion to children, all of whom he loved. His
name was Major. He belonged to little Jason Howard, but he was on terms
of intimacy with every child in Longfields. Major happened to stroll
across the sidewalk just in front of Cyrus. The discarded lover, blind
to outward things, collided with him. Always a gentleman and never
forgetting his manners, Cyrus stopped, and--Ruth being the only thing
in his mind--he raised his cap and bowed politely.
"I beg your pardon. It was my fault. Excuse me."
And all with a sober face. The children laughed, supposing Cyrus was
being funny for their amusement. But never in his life had Cyrus felt
less like being funny. Soberly he walked away not even hearing their
laughter.
After this interview with Major he at once relapsed into the Cañon
of Despair. For his was the agony of a man of honor who feels he has
committed a disgraceful act, and has lost, for all time, the respect
and good opinion of the being whose affection he valued above all other
things.
It seemed but a moment after leaving Major that he found himself
standing before two women and saying "how do you do"--or something
equally significant. With a mighty effort to ignore the past--and the
future--he recognized the two elderly maidens as Miss Fidelia Allen and
Miss Anita Clement. They had stopped and were passing the time of day
with him. He realized, blindly, that Miss Clement had opened a book and
was telling him about it. Miss Clement had the faculty of expressing
a barren idea in a wealth of language. So, while the listener's
drowsy--and now dreaming--eyes rested on the speaker's lips he was
seeing, not Miss Clement's face, but a face more threatening, yet of
greater interest. As to the effect of Miss Clement's well chosen words
on the listener's far away mind, the sound from her lips might have
been the murmuring of pines. And as for The Only Woman in the world,
if other women had changed their minds why not this one? He recalled
the look in her eyes when----
"Do tell us what you think of it--just how you feel about it, Cyrus?"
As the wild horse of the prairies is suddenly jerked to earth by a
lasso, so came back Cyrus.
"Oh--oh--very well, indeed, thank you. Never better."
"I meant about this new thought from the Orient. Just how deeply it
impresses you. Just where, among the great thinkers, you would place
Rub-a Shah Lagore."
"That's it exactly! Rubbish galore! Couldn't express it better.
Somebody described all that stuff as transcendental flim-flam."
And he smiled his most winning smile--a smile of sympathy, of fine
intelligence and a lively interest in the conversation.
But Miss Clement stiffened a little, and frowned. "Do you feel that
way?"
"Possibly you don't know Rub-a Shah Lagore," said Miss Fidelia, more
gently.
"Know him? Oh, yes," said Cyrus. "I know him. That is, I think I met
him. Was it in Cambridge?"
"I doubt it," said Miss Clement, "as he died about fifteen hundred."
"Fifteen hundred!" Cyrus smiled, nodded and tried to appear at ease.
"Still I may have met him in a previous incarnation."
Then, apropos of incarnations, Miss Clement discoursed on the Oriental
mind, on matters psychic, philosophic, mystic and occult. And as she
talked, and drifted hither and thither on a sea of words, Cyrus floated
off in his own direction, and was recalling once again the look in
Ruth's eyes--that mingling of anger and contempt when Miss Clement
again suddenly brought him back to the village street.
"Don't you think so yourself?"
Cyrus pulled himself together. "Er--well--perhaps I don't quite
understand you."
"Do you know of any richer period in human thought? Any greater age?"
"Any greater age? No, certainly not. You mean fifteen hundred years?
It certainly beats all records. That is, of course, all human records.
Elephants, parrots and turtles, I believe, live to a green old age, but
nothing like----"
Just what happened after that Cyrus did not remember. He found himself
walking home with clear memories of Ruth, intermingled with blurred
but painful impressions of two maiden ladies, frowning in surprise and
annoyance as they said good-by and turned away.
Of one thing only was he certain: that in the utterance of senseless
words he had surpassed all previous records, ancient or modern.
[Illustration]