Laine looked at his watch. Twenty minutes past twelve. Christmas
was over. Two days after were over also, and in the morning most of
the guests were going away.
From the basket by the hearth he threw a fresh log on the smoldering
fire, lifted it with his foot farther back on the hot ashes, drew the
old-fashioned arm-chair closer to the fender, and, turning down the
light from the lamp on the pie-crust table near the mantel, sat down
and lighted a fresh cigar.
It had been very beautiful, very wonderful, this Christmas in the
country. Its memories would go with him through life, and yet he
must go away and say no word of what he had meant to say to Claudia.
Very definitely he had understood, from the day of his arrival, that
to tell her of his love would be a violation of a code to which the
directness of his nature had given little thought in the reaction of
feeling which had possessed him when he read her note. He was a
guest by invitation, and to speak now would be beyond pardon. In his
heart was no room for humor, and yet a comic side of the situation in
which he found himself was undeniable. The contrast it afforded to
former opportunities was absurdly sharp and determined, and the irony
of the little god's way of doing things was irritatingly manifest.
If in Claudia's heart was knowledge of the secret in his, she masked
it well. Warmly cordial, coolly impersonal, frankly unconscious,
she had never avoided him, and still had so managed that they were
never alone together. Hands clasped loosely, he leaned forward and
stared into the heart of the blazing logs. Of course she knew. All
women know when they are loved. No. The log fell apart, and its
burning flame glowed rich and red. She had not known, or she would
not have asked him to Elmwood. Merely as she would ask any other
lonely man in whom she felt a kindly interest, she had asked him,
and, thus far, her home was the love of her life. In a thousand ways
he had felt it, seen it, understood it; and the man who would take
her from it must awaken within her that which as yet was still asleep.
The days just past had been miserably happy. Before others light
laughter and gay speech. In his heart surrender and suppliance, and
before him always the necessity of silence until he could come again,
and he must go that he might come again.
One by one, pictures of recent experiences passed before him,
experiences of simple, happy, homelike living; and things he had
almost forgotten to believe in seemed real and true once more. A new
sense of values, a new understanding of the essentials of life, had
been born again; and something growing cold and cynical had warmed
and softened.
In the big hall he had helped the others put up the fragrant spruce
pine-tree which reached to the ceiling, helped to dress it midst
jolly chatter and joyous confusion, helped to hide the innumerable
presents for the morrow's findings; and on Christmas morning had as
eagerly dumped the contents of his stocking as had Jack and Janet, or
the men who had come from busy city lives to be boys again, or as
Claudia herself, who could not see with what her own was filled, for
the constant demand that she should come here and there, and see this
and that, or do what no one else was able to.
Slipping down farther in his chair, Laine put his feet on the fender
and with half-shut eyes saw other pictures in the fire. The gray
dawn of Christmas morning came again, and he seemed to hear the
clear, childish voice below his window. Half asleep, he had stirred
and wondered what it was, then sat up to listen. The quaint words of
the old carols he knew well, but never had he heard them sung as
Gabriel was singing them. Shrill and sweet in the crisp, cold air,
the voice sounded first as if far away and then very near, and he
knew the boy was walking up and down below each window that all might
hear alike.
As Joseph was a-walking
He heard the angels sing,
This night there shall be born
Our heavenly King.
Here and there, in a verse from one carol joined almost in the same
breath to another he went from:
God rest you, merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay.
Remember Christ, our Saviour,
Was born on Christmas Day.
to
We are not daily beggars,
That beg from door to door,
But we are neighbor's children
Whom you have seen before.
He had smiled at the mixture of verses and jumped up, for Jim had
come in to light the fire, and from his broadly grinning face
"Christmas Gif" was radiating, if from his lips, in obedience to
orders, their utterance was withheld. On his door a half-hour later
came the pounding of childish fists, and Janet's lisping voice was
calling sturdily:
"Oh, Mither Laine, Santa Clauth hath come and your stocking ith
down-stairs. Pleath, thir, hurry! Mother said I could kiss you a
happy Chrithmath if you were drethed."
Hand in hand they had gone into the dining-room, with its lavishly
spread table and mantel-hung stockings, and the chorus of hearty
greetings and warm hand-shaking had made his heart beat like a boy's.
The day had passed quickly. The gay breakfast; the unwrapping of
bundles; the sleigh-ride to church, where the service was not so long
as was the seemingly social meeting afterward; the bountiful dinner
with its table laden as in days of old rather than in the modern
fashion of elegant emptiness; the short afternoon--it was all soon
over, and the evening had gone even more rapidly.
The crackling logs and dancing flames in the huge old-fashioned
fireplace in the hall, the tree with its myriad of lighted candles,
the many guests from county's end to county's end, the delicious
supper and foaming egg-nog, and, last of all, the Virginia reel
danced in the vast parlors and led by Colonel Bushrod Ball and Madam
Beverly, who had not missed a Christmas night at Elmwood since she
was a bride some sixty years ago, made a memory to last through life,
a memory more than beautiful if-- He drew in a deep breath. There
should be no "if."
Through the days and the evenings of the days that followed there had
been no word alone with Claudia, however. She had taken him to see
the Prossers, but Jack and Janet had gone with them, and out-of-doors
and indoors there was always some one else. Was this done purposely?
He leaned forward and threw a couple of logs on the fire. The room
was cold. As the wood caught and the names curled around the rough
bark, the big tester bed, with its carved posts and valance of white
muslin, threw long shadows across the room, and in their brass
candlesticks the candle-light flared fitfully from the mantel,
touching lightly the bowl of holly with its scarlet berries, and
throwing pale gleams of color on the polished panels of the old
mahogany wardrobe on the opposite wall. For a moment he watched the
play of fire and candle, then got up and began to walk backward and
forward the length of the uncarpeted floor. Writing was a poor
weapon with which to win a woman's heart. Rather would he tell her
of his love, ask her to be his wife, and, if she would marry him,
compel her to say when; but he could not come as quickly as he could
write. He must go away that he might tell her what no longer was to
be withheld. Indecision had ever been unendurable, and uncertainty
was not in him to stand. Without her, life would be--again he looked
in the fire--without her, life would not be life.