The summer day was drawing to a close. The shadows of the trees were
long upon the grass, the sun was sinking through a sky wistful and
delicate, faint rose and yellow.
There was a blessed quiet all through the house. Serena and her
friends had certainly intended to be back for tea, but they had not
come. They never could do what they meant to do. Obstacles
intervened, and they were not well equipped for dealing with
obstacles. It took so little to stop them, to bar a road, to turn
them off toward a new destination. They had not come back, and
Geraldine was having her tea alone in the library, reading a book as
she sipped it.
That was how Sambo first saw her, sitting, very straight, in a
high-backed chair, with the last light of the sunset on her clear,
pale face. He said later that she had put him in mind of a Madonna,
and there were not many women he knew who could do that. He stood in
the doorway, staring at her, for quite a long time—so long that he
never afterward forgot how she looked then, so still, so lovely, so
aloof.
For a moment he was almost afraid to disturb her.
But the fear of disturbing other persons had not yet greatly
influenced young Samuel Randall. He was a conqueror, nonchalant and
superb. He took whatever things pleased him in this world. Slender,
almost slight, with his fine features, his mournful dark eyes, he
had a poetic and touching look about him; but it belied him. He was
not poetic. He was greedy, and willful, and reckless.
He wanted to talk to this lovely image, so in he went.
“This a gentle hint?” he asked.
Geraldine put down her book and looked at him.
“I said I was coming to-day,” he went on, “and they’re all out. That
mean I’m not wanted?”
And he smiled his charming, arrogant smile, for he knew so well that
he was always wanted.
“Mrs. Page meant to be home by five,” said Geraldine, with no smile
at all. “Something must have delayed her.”
“Then you’ll give me a cup of tea, won’t you? I’m Randall, you
know.”
She said yes, none too cordially, and rang the bell for fresh tea.
He sat down opposite her, slouching in his chair, his handsome head
thrown back, his dark eyes watching her.
“I’m Mrs. Page’s secretary,” she explained with cold formality.
“Lucky, lucky Mrs. Page!” said he.
A faint color rose in her cheeks. She resented his attitude, his
easy and careless manner, his appraising glance, and he read the
resentment in her face.
“Prudish!” he thought.
This did not annoy him. He liked this tall, dark, unsmiling girl
just as she was, a charming novelty; but he would have to change his
tactics.
“You were reading, weren’t you?” he said respectfully. “I hope I
didn’t interrupt you.”
“No, Mr. Randall,” she answered.
Then, suddenly, his undisciplined soul was filled with a sort of
envy for this untroubled and superior creature who read books.
“I try to read,” he said. “I wish to Heaven I could; but it’s too
late now.”
“I don’t see how it could ever be too late to read,” said Geraldine,
with a trace of scorn.
He had straightened up in his chair. He was no longer staring at
her, but at the unlighted cigarette that he was rolling between his
fingers.
“The thing is,” he said, “I’ve been spoiled. People listen to
me—any damned nonsense I spout—and I’ve got out of the way of
listening myself. Now, you see, when I take up a book that’s worth
reading, I feel as if the writer fellow had got me into a corner,
and was trying to lay down the law; so I want to contradict him, and
I chuck the blamed thing across the room.”
He spoke earnestly, and he was in earnest. It was his great charm
that he was always sincere. He was not inventing things to say to
this girl. He was simply selecting from his restless, curious mind
those things which he thought would interest her. He was succeeding,
too—he saw that.
Geraldine did not speak, because to her reserved and proud spirit it
was impossible to speak easily to a stranger; but she thought over
his words with an odd sensation of distress. She felt sorry for the
conquering Sambo.
He had picked up her book, and was turning the pages. It was a copy
of “The Hound of Heaven,” which her father had given her long ago.
“Poetry!” he said. “Queer sort of stuff!”
Then he read aloud:
“I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind—”
He stopped, and for a moment he sat silent. The light was fading out
of the sky now, and in the dusk his face looked white and strained.
The echo of his strong young voice seemed still to drift through the
shadowy room.
Looking at him, Geraldine had an extraordinary fancy, almost a
vision, of his terribly defiant soul fleeing, swift and laughing, to
its own destruction. She was filled with an austere compassion and
wonder. It was as if, in an instant, and without a word spoken, he
had told her all the long tale of his wasted years.
“Sometimes,” he said, “the prey gets away from Him!”
“No!” said Geraldine steadily. “No—never!”
He struck a match, and by the flame that sprang out, vivid in the
gray dusk, she had a glimpse of his face, with eyes half closed,
proud and sorrowful; and he was changed in her sight forever. She
saw him, not as a puppet in a shameful drama, but as a fellow
creature with a soul.
“You know,” he said, “I’ve got lost!”
The match went out, and the room seemed very dark now. Geraldine
wanted to speak, to tell him something, but she could not remember,
afterward, what incredible words had come to her mind. They were
never to be spoken, however, for just at that moment Serena came
home.