THE CHASE
Peter had discovered the means of providing for Beth's musical
education. Upon inquiry he had found that McGuire hardly knew Beth
except as a dependent relative of Mrs. Bergen, who came in sometimes to
help her aunt with the cleaning--usually before McGuire came down from
New York. Their little home was not on his visiting list.
He delayed telling McGuire. There was plenty of time and there was no
doubt of his employer's doing the right thing by the daughter of the
murdered man. Meanwhile, having completed his plans for the estate, he
had suggested that McGuire go off for a trip somewhere to rest and
recover his poise. Peter had promised his allegiance to McGuire when
Hawk Kennedy returned, but he knew that he would have to fight fire with
fire. For Hawk had proved himself both skillful and dangerous, and would
struggle desperately to get what he thought was his own. It was his last
chance to make a big stake--to be independent for the rest of his life.
He was tasting luxury now and wouldn't give up without a fight to the
death. Something must be thought of--some plan to outwit him, to
circumvent the schemes which would come out of his visit of
investigation to the copper country.
Peter had said nothing to Beth or to Mrs. Cameron of what he had
discovered. He was under no oath of secrecy to the old man, but he
realized that while Hawk Kennedy held the "confession" McGuire was in a
predicament which would only be made more difficult if the facts got
abroad. And so Peter had gone about his work silently, aware that the
burden of McGuire's troubles had been suddenly shifted to his own
shoulders. He spent most of his days at the lumber camp and now had
every detail of the business at his fingers' ends. Timbers had been
hauled to the appointed sites and under his direction the fire towers
were now half way to completion.
He had found Shad Wells down at the mills, morose, sullen and disposed
to question his authority, but McGuire had visited the bunk-house one
night before he went away, and it was soon discovered that Peter and no
other was the boss of the job. Peter for reasons of his own retained
Shad, much to that gentleman's surprise, as foreman of the lumbering
gang, but Peter wasn't at all satisfied with conditions as he had found
them at the lumber camp and mills and, as he discovered later, the
continuance of Shad in the foreman's job was a mistake. If Peter had
hoped by this act of conciliation to heal Shad's wounds and bring about
a spirit of useful cooeperation with the man, he soon found that the very
reverse of this had been accomplished. The lumbermen were an
unregenerate lot, some of them "pineys," a few Italians, but most of
them the refuse of the factories and shipyards, spoiled by the fatal
"cost plus" contracts of war time. All of these facts Peter learned
slowly, aware of an undercurrent moving against him and yet entirely
dependent upon this labor--which was the best, indeed the only labor, to
be had. He made some improvements in the bunk-house for their comfort,
increased the supply of food and posted notices that all complaints of
whatever nature would be promptly investigated. But day after day new
stories came to him of shirking, of dissatisfaction and continued
trouble-making.
This labor trouble was no new thing at Black Rock, and had existed
practically since the beginning of the work on the lumber contract six
months before Peter had been employed. But it was not long before Peter
discovered through Jesse Brown, whose confidence he had gained, that
there were agitators in the camp, undoubtedly receiving their
inspiration and pay from sources inimical to all capital in the abstract
and to all order and decency at Black Rock in the concrete, who were
fomenting the unrest and dissatisfaction among the men. In order to
investigate the difficulties personally Peter went down to the camp and
lived there for a time, bunking with the men and listening to their
stories, winning some of them to his side and tracing as far as he could
the troubles to their sources, two men named Flynn and Jacobi. He
discharged these two men and sent them out of the camp over Wells's
protest. But even then he had a sense of failure. The trouble was deeper
than was manifest upon the surface. No mere raise in wages would clear
it away. It was born of the world's sickness, with which the men from
the cities had been inoculated.
One night while he sat in the bunk-house smoking a pipe and talking with
Jesse Brown, Shad Wells suddenly appeared in the doorway, framed against
the darkness. Shad's gaze and Peter's met--then Peter's glance turned to
Shad's companion. As this man saw Peter he turned his head and went down
the length of the bunk-house. Peter got up at once, followed him and
faced him. The man now wore a dark beard, but there was no mistake. It
was the fellow of the black mustache--the stranger whom Peter had seen
in the Pennsylvania Station in New York, the same man he had caught
prowling some weeks ago around his cabin in the darkness.
Peter stared at him for a moment but the man would not meet his gaze.
"Who are you?" asked Peter at last. And then, as he made no reply,
"What were you doing prowling around my cabin up by the creek?"
The stranger shook his head from side to side.
"No understan'," he muttered.
At this point, Shad Wells, who had followed with Jesse Brown, came in
between them.
"That's right, Nichols," he growled. "No understan'--He's a 'guinea.'"
To Wells all men were "guineas" who didn't speak his own language.
"Italian? Are you? French? Spanish? Slovak?"
Each time the man shook his head. And then, with an inspiration, Peter
shot at him a quick phrase in Russian. But the man gave no sign of
comprehension.
"Who put this man on?" asked Peter, turning to Wells.
"I did," said the native sullenly.
"Why?" said Peter, growing warmer. "Didn't I tell you that in future I
would hire all the men myself?"
"We're short-handed, since you fired two of the best axmen we got----"
"You disobeyed orders----"
"_Orders_--Hell!"
"All right. We'll see who's running this camp, you or me. To-morrow
morning Jesse Brown starts as foreman here. Understand?"
Shad's eyes shot fire, then smoldered and went out as he turned with a
sneering laugh and walked away.
"As for you," said Peter to the stranger, who stood uncertainly, "you go
to the office in the morning and get your envelope." Then repeated the
sentence in Russian. "If you don't understand--find somebody who does."
That the stranger had understood Peter's demeanor if not his language
was evident, for in the morning he had vanished.
After that clearing of the air things went somewhat better at the camp.
Jesse Brown, though not aggressive, was steady and honest and had a
certain weight with the Jerseymen. As to the others, there was doubt as
to whether anything would have satisfied them. For the present, at
least, it was a question of getting on as well as possible with the
means at hand. There was a limit to Peter's weekly pay roll and other
men were not to be had. Besides, Peter had promised McGuire to keep the
sawmills busy. He knew that when he had come to Black Rock the work on
the lumber contract had already fallen behind the schedule, and that
only by the greatest perseverance could he make up the time already
lost.
As he rode back to his cabin on the afternoon after his encounter with
Shad Wells and the stranger with the black mustache, he found himself
quite satisfied with regard to his summary dismissal of them both. On
Beth's account he had hesitated to depose Shad. He knew that before he
had come to Black Rock they had been friends as well as distant
relatives, and Beth in her frequent meetings with Peter had expressed
the hope that Shad would "come around." Peter had given him every
chance, even while he had known that the Jerseyman was working against
both McGuire's and Peter's interests. Flynn and Jacobi, the men Peter
had sent away, were radicals and agitators. Flynn had a police record
that did not bear close inspection, and Jacobi was an anarchist out and
out. Before Peter had come to Black Rock they had abused Shad's
credulity and after the fight at the Cabin, he had been their willing
tool in interrupting the completion of the contract. For of course Shad
had hoped that if Peter couldn't get the lumber out when promised,
McGuire would put the blame on the new superintendent and let him go.
That was Shad's idea. If he had ever been decent enough to warrant
Beth's friendship, his jealousy had warped his judgment. Peter was no
longer sorry for Shad Wells. He had brought all his troubles on
himself.
As to the stranger with the black mustache, that was a more serious
matter. Every circumstance--the recognition in New York, the skill with
which the man had traced him to Black Rock, the craft with which he had
watched Peter and his success in finally getting into the camp and
gaining Shad's confidence, made a certainty in Peter's mind that the
stranger had some object in remaining near Peter and keeping him under
observation. And what other object than a political one? The trail he
had followed had begun with the look of recognition in the Pennsylvania
Station in New York. And where could that look of recognition have
sprung from unless he had identified Peter Nichols as the Grand Duke
Peter Nicholaevitch? It seemed incredible, but there could be no other
explanation. The man had seen him somewhere--perhaps in Russia--perhaps
in Paris or London, or perhaps had only identified him by his portraits
which had been published frequently in the Continental magazines and
newspapers. But that he had really identified him there could not be the
slightest doubt and Peter's hope that he would have been able to lose
his identity in the continent of America and become merged into a
different civilization where he could work out the personal problem of
existence in his own time, by his own efforts and in his own way, seemed
destined to failure.
If the stranger knew that Peter was in New Jersey there was no doubt
that there were others who knew it also, those who employed him--those
in whose interests he was working. Who? The same madmen who had done
Nicholas to death and had killed one by one the misguided Empress, Olga,
Tania, the poor little Czarevitch and the rest.... Did they consider
him, Peter Nichols, lumber-jack extraordinary, as a possible future
claimant to the throne of Russia? Peter smiled grimly. They were
"straining at a gnat while swallowing the camel." And if they feared
him, why didn't they strike? The stranger had already had ample
opportunity to murder him if he had been so disposed, could still do it
during Peter's daily rides back and forth from the Cabin to the camp and
to the Upper Reserve.
All of these thoughts percolated slowly, as a result of the sudden
inspiration at the bunk-house which had liberated a new train of ideas,
beginning with the identification of the Russian characteristics of the
new lumberman, which were more clearly defined under the beard and
workman's shirt than under the rather modish gray slouch hat and
American clothing in which Peter had seen him earlier. And Peter had
merely let the man go. He had no proof of the fellow's purposes, and if
he had even discovered exactly what those purposes were, there was no
recourse for Peter but to ask for the protection of Washington, and this
he had no desire to do.
If the man suspected from the quickly spoken Russian sentence that Peter
now guessed his mission, he had given no sign of it. But that meant
nothing. The fellow was clever. He was doubtless awaiting instructions.
And unless Peter took his case to the Department of Justice he could
neither expect any protection nor hope for any security other than his
own alertness.
At the Cabin Beth was waiting for him. These hours of music and Beth
were now as much a part of Peter's day as his breakfast or his dinner.
And he had only failed her when the pressure of his responsibilities was
too great to permit of his return to the Cabin. The hour most convenient
for him was that at the close of the day, and though weary or
discouraged, Peter always came to the end of this agreeable hour rested
and refreshed, and with a sense of something definitely achieved. For
whatever the days brought forth of trouble and disappointment, down at
the logging camp or the mills, here was Beth waiting for him, full of
enthusiasm and self-confidence, a tangible evidence of success.
The diligence with which she applied his instructions, the ease with
which she advanced from one step to another, showed her endowed with an
intelligence even beyond his early expectations. She was singing simple
ballads now, English and French, and already evinced a sense of
interpretation which showed the dormant artist. He tried at first, of
course, to eliminate all striving for effect, content to gain the purity
of tone for which he was striving, but she soared beyond him sometimes,
her soul defying limitations, liberated into an empyrean of song. If
anything, she advanced too rapidly, and Peter's greatest task was to
restrain her optimism and self-confidence by imposing the drudgery of
fundamental principles. And when he found that she was practicing too
long, he set her limits of half-hour periods beyond which she must not
go. But she was young and strong and only once had he noted the
slightest symptom of wear and tear on her vocal chords, when he had
closed the piano and prohibited the home work for forty-eight hours.
As to their personal relations, Peter had already noticed a difference
in his own conduct toward Beth, and in hers toward him,--a shade of
restraint in Beth's conversation when not on the topic of music, which
contrasted rather strangely with the candor of their first meetings.
Peter couldn't help smiling at his memories, for now Beth seemed to be
upon her good behavior, repaying him for her earlier contempt with a
kind of awe at his attainments. He caught her sometimes in unguarded
moments looking at him curiously, as though in wonder at a mystery which
could not be explained. And to tell the truth, Peter wondered a little,
too, at his complete absorption in the task he had set himself. He tried
to believe that it was only the music that impelled him, only the joy of
an accomplished musician in the discovery of a budding artist, but he
knew that it was something more than these. For reducing the theorem to
different terms, he was obliged to confess that if the girl had been any
one but Beth, no matter how promising her voice, he must have been bored
to extinction. No. He had to admit that it was Beth that interested him,
Beth the primitive, Beth the mettlesome, Beth the demure. For if now
demure she was never dull. The peculiarity of their situation--of their
own choosing--lent a spice to the relationship which made each of them
aware that the other was young and desirable--and that the world was
very far away.
However far Beth's thoughts may have carried her in the contemplation of
the personal pulchritude of her music master (somewhat enhanced by the
extirpation of the Hellion triplet in her own behalf) it was Peter
Nicholaevitch who made the task of Peter Nichols difficult. It was the
Grand Duke Peter who wanted to take this peasant woman in his arms and
teach her what other peasant girls had been taught by Grand Dukes since
the beginning of the autocratic system of which he had been a part--but
it was Peter Nichols who restrained him. Peter Nicholaevitch feared
nothing, knew no restraint, lived only for the hour--for the moment.
Peter Nichols was a coward--or a gentleman--he was not quite certain
which.
When Peter entered the Cabin on the evening after the appointment of
Jesse Brown as foreman at the lumber camp, Beth could not help noticing
the clouds of worry that hung over Peter's brows.
"You're tired," she said. "Is anything wrong at the camp?"
But he only shook his head and sat down at the piano. And when she
questioned him again he evaded her and went on with the lesson. Music
always rested him, and the sound of her voice soothed. It was the
"Elegie" of Massenet that he had given her, foolishly perhaps, a
difficult thing at so early a stage, because of its purity and
simplicity, and he had made her learn the words of the French--like a
parrot--written them out phonetically, because the French words were
beautiful and the English, as written, abominable. And now she sang it
to him softly, as he had taught her, again and again, while he corrected
her phrasing, suggesting subtle meanings in his accompaniment which she
was not slow to comprehend.
"I didn't know that music could mean so much," she sighed as she sank
into a chair with a sense of failure, when the lesson was ended. "I
always thought that music just meant happiness. But it means sorrow
too."
"Not to those who hear you sing, Beth," said Peter with a smile, as he
lighted and smoked a corncob pipe, a new vice he had discovered at the
camp. Already the clouds were gone from his forehead.
"No! Do you really think that, Mr. Nichols?" she asked joyously.
She had never been persuaded to call him by his Christian name, though
Peter would have liked it. The "Mr." was the tribute of pupil to master,
born also of a subtler instinct of which Peter was aware.
"Yes," he replied generously, "you'll sing that very well in time----"
"When I've suffered?" she asked quickly.
He glanced up from the music in his hand, surprised at her intuition.
"I don't like to tell you so----"
"But I think I understand. Nobody can sing what she doesn't feel--what
she hasn't felt. Oh, I know," she broke off suddenly. "I can sing songs
of the woods--the water--the pretty things like you've been givin' me.
But the deep things--sorrow, pain, regret--like this--I'm not 'up' to
them."
Peter sat beside her, puffing contentedly.
"Don't worry," he muttered. "Your voice will ripen."
"And will I ripen too?"
He laughed. "I don't want you ever to be any different from what you
are."
She was thoughtful a moment, for Peter had always taken pains to be
sparing in personalities which had nothing to do with her voice.
"But I don't want always to be what I am," she protested, "just growin'
close to the ground like a pumpkin or a squash."
He laughed. "You might do worse."
"But not much. Oh, I know. You're teachin' me to think--and to feel--so
that I can make other people do the same--the way you've done to me. But
it don't make me any too happy to think of bein' a--a squash again."
"Perhaps you won't have to be," said Peter quietly.
"And the factory--I've got to make some money next winter. I can't use
any of Aunt Tillie's savin's. But when I know what I _might_ be doin',
it's not any too easy to think of goin' back _there_!"
"Perhaps you won't have to go," said Peter again.
Her eyes glanced at him quickly, looked away, then returned to his face
curiously.
"I don't just understand what you mean."
"I mean," said Peter, "that we'll try to find the means to keep you out
of the glass factory--to keep on with the music."
"But how----? I can't be dependent on----" She paused with a glance at
him. And then quickly, with her characteristic frankness that always
probed straight to her point, "You mean that _you_ will pay my way?"
"Merely that I'm going to find the money--somehow."
But she shook her head violently. "Oh, no, I couldn't let you do that,
Mr. Nichols. I couldn't think of it."
"But you've got to go on, Beth. I've made up my mind to that. You'll go
pretty fast. It won't be long before you'll know all that I can teach
you. And then I'm going to put you under the best teacher of this method
in New York. In a year or so you'll be earning your own way----"
"But I can't let you do this for me. You're doin' too much as it is--too
much that I can't pay back."
"We won't talk of money. You've given me a lot of enjoyment. That's my
pay."
"But this other--this studyin' in New York. No, I couldn't let you do
that. I couldn't--I can't take a cent from you or from any man--woman
either, for that matter. I'll find some way--workin' nights. But I'm not
goin' back," she added almost fiercely between her teeth, "not to the
way I was before. I won't. I can't."
"Good. That's the way great careers are made. I don't intend that you
shall. I'm going to make a great singer of you, Beth."
She colored with joy.
"Are you, Mr. Nichols? Are you? Oh, I want to make good--indeed I do--to
learn French and Italian----" And then, with a sharp sigh, "O Lord, if
wishes were horses----!" She was silent again, regarding him wistfully.
"Don't think I'm not grateful. I'm afraid you might. I _am_ grateful.
But--sometimes I wonder what you're doin' it all for, Mr. Nichols. And
whether----"
As she paused again Peter finished for her.
"Whether it wouldn't have been better if I hadn't let you just
remain--er," he grinned, "a peach, let's say? Well, I'll tell you,
Beth," he went on, laying his pipe aside, "I came here, without a
friend, to a strange job in a strange country. I found you. Or rather
_you_ found _me_--lost like a babe in the woods. You made fun of me.
Nobody had ever done that before in my life, but I rather liked it. I
liked your voice too. You were worth helping, you see. And then along
came Shad. I couldn't have him ordering you about, you know--not the way
he did it--if he hadn't any claim on you. So you see, I had a sense of
responsibility for you after that----About you, too----," he added, as
though thinking aloud.
His words trailed off into silence while Beth waited for him to explain
about his sense of responsibility. She wasn't altogether accustomed to
have anybody responsible for her. But as he didn't go on, she spoke.
"You mean that you--that I--that Shad forced me on you?"
"Bless your heart, child--no."
"Then what _did_ you mean?" she insisted.
Peter thought he had a definite idea in his mind about what he felt as
to their relationship. It was altruistic he knew, gentle he was sure,
educational he was positive. But half sleepily he spoke, unaware that
what he said might sound differently to one of Beth's independent mind.
"I mean," he said, "that I wanted to look after you--that I wanted our
friendship to be what it has proved to be--without the flaw of
sentiment. I wouldn't spoil a single hour by any thought of yours or
mine that led us away from the music."
And then, while her brain worked rapidly over this calm negation of his,
"But you can't be unaware, Beth, that you're very lovely."
Now "sentiment" is a word over which woman has a monopoly. It is her
property. She understands its many uses as no mere man can ever hope to
do. The man who tosses it carelessly into the midst of a delicate
situation is courting trouble. Beth perked up her head like a startled
fawn. What did he mean? All that was feminine in her was up in arms, nor
did she lay them down in surrender at his last phrase, spoken with such
an unflattering air of commonplace.
Suddenly she startled Peter with a rippling laugh which made him sit up
blinking at her. "Are you apologizin' for not makin' love to me?" she
questioned impertinently. "Say--that's funny." And she went off into
another disconcerting peal of laughter.
But it wasn't funny for Peter, who was now made aware that she had
turned his mind inside out upon the table between them, so to speak,
that she might throw dust in the wheels. And so he only gasped and
stared at her--startlingly convinced that in matters of sentiment the
cleverest man is no match for even the dullest woman and Beth could
hardly be considered in this category. At the challenge of his half
expressed thought the demureness and sobriety of the lesson hour had
fallen from her like a doffed cloak.
Peter protested blandly.
"You don't understand what----"
But she broke in swiftly. "Maybe you were afraid I might be fallin' in
love with _you_," she twitted him, and burst into laughter again.
"I--I had no such expectation," said Peter, stiffening, sure that his
dignity was a poor thing.
"Or maybe----," she went on joyfully, "maybe you were afraid _you_ might
be fallin' in love with _me_." And then as she rose and gathered up her
music, tantalizingly, "What _did_ you mean, Mr. Nichols?"
He saw that he was losing ground with every word she uttered, but his
sense of humor conquered.
"You little pixie!" he cried, dashing for her, with a laugh. "Where have
you hidden this streak of impudence all these weeks?" But she eluded
him nimbly, running around the table and out of the door before he could
catch up with her.
He halted at the doorsill and called to her. She emerged cautiously from
behind a bush and made a face at him.
"Beth! Come back!" he entreated. "I've got something to say to you."
"What?" she asked, temporizing.
"I want to talk to you--seriously."
"Good Lord--seriously! You're not goin' to--to take the risk of--of
havin' me 'vamp' you, are you?"
"Yes. I'll risk that," he grinned.
But she only broke off a leaf and nibbled at it contemplatively. "Maybe
_I_ won't risk it. 'I don't want to spoil a single hour,'" she repeated,
mocking his dignity, 'by any thought of yours or mine that would lead us
away from the music.' Maybe _I'm_ in danger." And then, "You know
_you're_ not so bad lookin' yourself, Mr. Nichols!"
"Stop teasing, Beth."
"I won't."
"I'll make you." He moved a step toward her.
"Maybe I hadn't better come any more," she said quizzically.
"Beth!"
"Suppose I _was_ learnin' to love you a little," she went on ironically,
"with you scared I might be--and not knowin' how to get out of it.
Wouldn't that be terrible! For me, I mean. 'She loved and lost, in seven
reels.'"
She was treading on precarious ground, and she must have seen her danger
in Peter's face, for as he came toward her she turned and ran down the
path, laughing at him. Peter followed in full stride but she ran like a
deer and by the time he had reached the creek she was already halfway
over the log-jam below the pool. Her laugh still derided him and now,
eager to punish her, he leaped after her. But so intent he was on
keeping her in sight upon the farther bank that his foot slipped on a
tree trunk and he went into the water. A gay peal of laughter echoed in
his ears. And he caught a last glimpse of her light frock as it vanished
into the underbrush. But he scrambled up the bank after her and darted
along the path--lost her in the dusk, and then deep in the woods at one
side saw her flitting from tree to tree away from him. But Peter's blood
was now warm with the chase--and it was the blood of Peter Nicholaevitch
too. Forgotten were the studious hours of patience and toil. Here was a
girl who challenged his asceticism--a beautiful young female animal who
dared to mock at his self-restraint. She thought that she could get
away. But he gained on her. She had stopped laughing at him now.
"Beth! You little devil!" he cried breathlessly, as he caught her. "You
little devil, I'll teach you to laugh at me."
"Let me go----"
"No----"
He held her in his arms while she struggled vainly to release herself.
Her flushed face was now a little frightened and her large blue eyes
stared in dismay at what she saw in his face.
"Let me go?" she whispered. "I didn't mean it----"
But he only held her closer while she struggled, as he kissed her--on
the brows, the chin, the cheeks, and as she relaxed in sheer
weakness--full on the lips--again--again.
"Do you think I haven't been trying to keep my hands off you all these
weeks?" he whispered. "Do you think I haven't wanted you--to teach you
what women were meant for? It's for this, Beth--and this. Do you think
I haven't seen how lovely you are? Do you think I'm a saint--an
anchorite? Well, I'm not. I'll make you love me--love me----"
Something in the reckless tones of his voice--in his very words aroused
her to new struggles. "Oh, let me go," she gasped. "I don't love you. I
won't. Let me go."
"You shall!"
"No. Let me loose or I--I'll despise you----"
"Beth!"
"I mean it. Let me go."
If a moment ago when she was relaxed in his arms he had thought that he
had won her, he had no such notion now, for with a final effort of her
strong young arms, she thrust away from him and stood panting and
disordered, staring at him as though at one she had never seen before.
"Oh--how I hate you!"
"Beth!"
"I mean it. You--you----," she turned away from him, staring at the torn
music on the ground as at a symbol of her disillusionment. Peter saw her
look, felt the meaning of it, tried to recall the words he had said to
her and failed--but sure that they were a true reflection of what had
been in his heart. He had wanted her--then--nothing else had
mattered--not duty or his set resolve....
"You mocked at me, Beth," he muttered. "I couldn't stand that----"
"And is _this_ the way you punish me? Ah, if you'd only--if you'd
only----"
And then with another glance at the torn music, she leaned against the
trunk of a tree, sobbing violently.
"Beth----" he whispered, gently, "don't----"
"Go away. Oh, go. Go!"
"I can't. I won't. What did you want me to say to you? That I love you?
I do, Beth--I do," he whispered. It was Peter Nichols, not Peter
Nicholaevitch, who was whispering now.
"Was this what your teachin' meant?" she flashed at him bitterly. "Was
this what you meant when you wanted to pay my way in New York? Oh, how
you shame me! Go! Go away from me, please."
"Please don't," he whispered. "You don't understand. I never meant that.
I--I love you, Beth. I can't bear to see you cry."
She made a valiant effort to control her heaving shoulders. And then,
"Oh, you--you've spoiled it all. S-spoiled it all, and it was so
beautiful."
Had he? Her words sobered him. No, that couldn't be. He cursed his
momentary madness, struggling for words to comfort her, but he had known
that she had seen the look in his eyes, felt the roughness of his
embrace. Love? The love that she had sung to him was not of these. He
wanted now to touch her again--gently, to lift up her flushed face, wet
like a flower with the fresh dew of her tears, and tell her what love
was. But he didn't dare--he couldn't, after what he had said to her. And
still she wept over her broken toys--the music--the singing--for they
had mattered the most. Very childlike she seemed, very tender and
pathetic.
"Beth," he said at last, touching her fingers gently. "Nothing is
changed, Beth. It can't be changed, dear. We've got to go on. It means
so much to--to us both."
But she paid no attention to the touch of his fingers and turned away,
leaving the music at her feet, an act in itself significant.
"Let me go home. Please. Alone. I--I've got to think."
She did not look at him, but Peter obeyed her. There was nothing else
to do. There was something in the clear depths of her eyes that had
daunted him. And he had meant her harm. Had he? He didn't know. He
passed his hand slowly across his eyes and then stood watching her until
she had disappeared among the trees. When she had gone he picked up the
torn music. It was Massenet's "Elegie."
O doux printemps d'autrefois....
Tout est fletrie.
The lines of the torn pieces came together. Spring withered! The joyous
songs of birds--silenced! Beth's song? He smiled. No, that couldn't be.
He folded the music up and strode off slowly, muttering to himself.