The next morning, Paul Zalenska rose early. He had not slept well. He
was troubled with conflicting emotions, conflicting memories. The wonder
and sorrow of it all had been too much even for his youth and health to
endure. His mother had won so much from life, he thought--and he so
little! He thought of Opal--indeed, when was she ever absent from his
thoughts, waking or sleeping?--and the memory of his loss made him
frantic. Opal--his darling! And _they_ might have been just as happy as
his mother and father had been, but they had let their happiness slip
from them! What fools! Oh, what fools they had been! Not to have risked
anything--everything--for their happiness! And where was she now? In
Paris, in her husband's arms, no doubt, where he could hold her to him,
and caress her and kiss her at his own sweet will! God! It was
intolerable, unthinkable! And he--Paul, her lover--lying there alone,
who would have died a thousand deaths, if that were possible, to save
her from such a fate!
At last he forced the thought of his own loss from him, and thought
again of his mother. Ah, but her death had been opportune! How glorious
to die when life and love had reached their zenith! in the fullness of
joy to take one's farewell of the world!
And in the long watches of that wakeful night, he formed the resolution
that he put into effect at the first hint of dawn. He would spend one
entire day in solitude. He would traverse step by step the primrose
paths of his mother's idyllic dream; he would visit every scene, every
nook, she and her lover had immortalized in their memories; he would see
it all, feel it all--yes, _live_ it all, and become so impregnated with
its witchery that it would shed lustre and glory upon all the bleak
years to come. So well had she told her story, so perfect had been its
word-painting, he was sure that he would recognize every scene.
He explored the ivy-terrace leading to his mother's room, he walked up
and down under the lime trees, and he sat on the bench still in position
under the ivy hanging from the balustrade, and looked up wistfully at
the windows of the rooms that had been hers. Then he engaged a launch
and crossed the lake, and was not satisfied until he had found among the
young beeches on the other side what he felt must have been the exact
spot where his mother had peeped through the leaves upon her ardent
lover, before she knew him. And he roamed about among the trees, feeling
a subtle sense of satisfaction in being in the same places that they had
been who gave him being, as though the spirits of their two natures must
still haunt the spot and leave some trace of their presence even yet. He
followed each of the three paths until he had decided to his own
satisfaction by which one his mother had escaped from her pursuer, that
day, and he laughed a buoyant, boyish laugh at the image it suggested of
Verdayne, the misogynist--his stately, staid old Father Paul--actually
"running after a woman!" Truly the Boy was putting aside his own sorrow
and discontent to-day. He was living in the past, identifying himself
with every phase of it, living in imagination the life of these two so
dear to him, and rejoicing in their joy. Life had certainly been one
sweet song to them, for a brief space, a duet in Paradise, broken
up--alas for the Boy!--before it had become the trio it should have
developed into, by every law of Nature.
He sought the little village that they had visited before him, and
lunched at the same little hotel. He drove out to the little farmhouse
where the lovers had had their first revelation of him--their baby--and
he wept over the loss of the glorious mother she would have been to him.
He even climbed the mountain and looked with her eyes out over the
landscape. He was young and strong, and he determined to let nothing
escape him--to let no sense of fatigue deter him--but to crowd the day
full of memories of her.
The Boy, as his mother had been before him, was enraptured by all that
he saw. The beauty of the snow-capped mountains against the blue of the
sky and the golden glamour of the sunshine appealed to him keenly, and
he watched the reflection of it all in the crystal lake in a trance of
delight.
"Ah," he thought, "had they deliberately searched the world over for a
fitting setting for their idyl, they could not have selected a retreat
more perfect than this. It was made for lovers who love as they did."
And at last, under the witchery of the star-studded skies, wearied and
hungry, but filled and thrilled with the fragrance and glory of the
memories of the mother whom his young heart idealized, he left the
launch at the landing by the terrace steps and started blithely for the
little restaurant, dreaming, always dreaming, not of the future--but of
the past.
For him, alas, the future held no promise!