The first pale star peeped down the gorge. Above, to illimitable
heights reached the Alps, snow-white above, shadowy around, and black
in the depths of the gorge.
A young and stalwart man, clad in the garb of a chamois hunter, passed
up the path. His face was bronzed with sun and wind, his eye was frank
and clear, his step agile and firm. He was singing fragments of a
Bavarian hunting song, and in his hand he held a white blossom of the
edelweiss he had plucked from the cliff. Suddenly he paused, and the
song broke, and dropped from his lips. A girl, costumed as the Swiss
peasants are, crossed the path along one that bisected his, carrying a
small stone pitcher full of water. Her hair was of the lightest gold
and hung far below her trim waist in a heavy braid. Her eyes shone
through the gathering twilight, and her lips, slightly parted, showed
a faint gleam of the whitest teeth.
As if impelled by a common impulse, the hunter and the maiden paused,
each with their eyes fixed upon the other. Then the man advanced, and
doffing his feathered hat, bowed low and spake some words in the
German language. The maiden answered, speaking haltingly and low.
Then a door opened in a cottage almost hidden among the trees, and a
babble of voices was heard. The maiden's cheeks turned crimson, and
she started to go, but as she went, she turned her eyes and looked at
the hunter still. He took a step after her, and stretched out his hand
as if to stay her. She tore a bunch of blue gentians from her bosom
and threw them towards him. He caught them as they fell, then ran
lightly and gave into her hand the edelweiss bloom that he carried.
She thrust it into her bosom, then ran like a mountain sprite into the
cottage, where the voices were.
The hunter stopped for a while, then went his way more slowly up the
mountain path, and he sang no more. As he went he pressed the flowers
frequently to his lips.
* * * * *
The wedding was to be one of the showiest, and the society of the
metropolis was almost begging for invitations.
The groom-elect brought the ancient lineage of the Van Winklers and a
position at the top notch of society for his portion. The bride
brought a beauty that was flawless, and five million dollars. The
arrangement had been made in a businesslike manner. There had been no
question of love. He had been courteous, and politely attentive, and
she had acquiesced listlessly. They had first met at a fashionable
summer resort. The family of the Van Winklers and the money of the
Vances were about to unite.
The wedding was to be at high noon.
Pelham Van Winkler had had a fire built in the ancient tiled fireplace
of one of his rooms, although the weather was warm. He sat on the edge
of a writing table, and tossed handfuls of square-shaped letters, some
tied with ribbons, into the fire. He smiled a little ironically as
they flamed up, or as here and there among them he would find a
withered flower, a scented glove or a lock of beribboned hair.
The last sacrifice to the flames was a dried and pressed cluster of
blue gentians.
Van Winkler sighed, and the smile left his face. He recalled the
twilight scene among the Alps mountains, where he was wandering with
three or four companions on a summer tour, gay and careless, and
dressed in the picturesque garb of chamois hunters. He recalled the
picture of a lovely peasant girl with eyes that held him with a charm
of power, crossing the mountain road, and pausing for a moment to toss
him the bunch of gentian flowers. Had he not been a Van Winkler and
owed a duty to the name, he would have sought her out and married her,
for her image had never left his eyes or his heart since that twilight
eve. But society and the family name claimed him, and today, at high
noon, he was to marry Miss Vance, the daughter of the millionaire iron
founder.
Pelham Van Winkler tossed the bunch of blue gentians into the fire and
rang for his valet.
* * * * *
Miss Augusta Vance had flown from the irritating presence of fussy
female friends and hysterical relatives to her boudoir for a few
moments' quiet. She had no letters to burn; no past to bury. Her
mother was in an ecstasy of delight, for the family millions had
brought them places in the front row of Vanity Fair.
Her marriage to Pelham Van Winkler was to be at high noon. Miss Vance
fell suddenly into a dreamy reverie. She recalled a trip she had taken
with her family a year before, to Europe, and her mind dwelt
lingeringly upon a week they had spent among the foothills of the Alps
in the cottage of a Swiss mountaineer. One evening at twilight she had
gone with a pitcher across the road and filled it from a spring. She
had fancied to put on that day the peasant costume of Babette, the
daughter of their host. It had become her well, with her long braid of
light-gold hair and blue eyes. A hunter had crossed the road as she
was returning--an Alpine chamois hunter, strong, stalwart, bronzed and
free. She had looked up and caught his eyes, and his held hers. She
went on, and still those magnetic eyes claimed her own. The door of
the cottage had opened and voices called. She started and obeyed the
impulse to tear a bunch of gentians from her bosom and throw them to
him. He had caught them, and springing forward gave her an edelweiss
flower. Not since that evening had the image of that chamois hunter
left her. Surely fate had led him to her, and he seemed a man among
men. But Miss Augusta Vance, with a dowry of five millions, could not
commit the folly of thinking of a common hunter of the Alps mountains.
Miss Vance arose and opened a gold locket that lay upon her dressing
case. She took from it a faded edelweiss flower and slowly crumpled it
to dust between her fingers. Then she rang for her maid, as the church
bells began to chime outside for the marriage.
(_Houston Daily Post_, Sunday morning, May 17, 1896.)