YGERNE'S ANSWER
"The perfume of roses, of little red roses;
(Thou art a rose, oh, so sweet, _corazón_!)
The laugh of the water who falls in the fountain;
(Thou art the fountain of love, _corazón_!)
The brightness of stars, of little stars golden;
(_Estrella de mi vida_! My little life star!)
The shine of the moon through the magnolia tree;
I am so sad till thou come, _mi amor_!
_Dios_! It is sweet to be young and to love!
More sweet than wine . . . to be young and to love!"
There was tenderness in the voice. Each note was like the pure sound
of a little gold bell struck softly with a tiny golden hammer.
There had been determination in David Drennen's eye, in his carriage,
in his stride which swiftly bore him onward through the early night
from his own dugout toward the old Frenchman's store. Not fifty steps
from Marquette's he stopped abruptly, listening to the soft singing.
It was not so dark that he could not make out the slender, exquisite
form of the young Mexican. Ramon Garcia, wrapped about in his long
coat like a cavalier in a graceful cloak, his face lifted a little, his
head bared, was close to a certain window of Père Marquette's. Drennen
knew whose window.
With no conscious desire to eavesdrop, merely stopped by an unforeseen
contingency, Drennen stood still. Garcia, his eyes upon a line of
light under the window shade, did not see him. It was hardly more than
an instant that Drennen stood there, watching; but the little drama was
enacted before he moved on.
Slowly, while the last notes were fainting away plaintively, the window
was raised. Drennen saw Ygerne Bellaire, half in light, half in
shadow. She leaned out. She was laughing softly. Garcia, his bow
carrying to the ground his hat which in the dim light appeared to
Drennen's fancy to wear the black plume which would not have been
misplaced there, came closer to the window. Upon the girl's face was a
gaiety Drennen had not seen there until now; her lips curved to it, her
eyes danced with it. She had a little meadow flower in her hand;
Drennen wondered if she had been eagerly selecting it from a cluster of
its fellows while Garcia sang.
"You are not real, señor," she said lightly. "I wonder if you know
that?"
"It is you . . ." he began, his voice charged with the music about
which the man's soul was builded.
"No, no," she laughed. "You are not real. You have just wandered out
of an old romance like a ghost; when the sun comes up you'll have to
creep back between dusty covers of a book a hundred years old."
He put out a hand towards hers on the window sill.
"Give me the little flower," he pleaded, southern lover-wise. "I shall
never let it go away from its place on my heart, though I fear," and
his hand crept a little closer, "that my heart will burst with the joy
of it!"
The little meadow flower went from her fingers to his.
"A flower for your song, señor. A poor little flower which should have
golden petals."
"Living," he murmured, no heights or depths of sentiment seeming beyond
him, "it shall always be with me, a joy so sweet that it almost kills.
Dead, I shall be happy just to wear it."
She laughed as he caught her hand and kissed it. The window closed
softly, the shade was drawn down, and Ramon Garcia, hat still in one
hand, the flower in the other, passed down the street, still singing in
a gentle undertone. Drennen turned abruptly at right angles to the way
he had come and passed out of the Settlement into the darkness under
the trees.
Swiftness and determination had gone out of his stride. Unconsciously
he allowed his feet to carry him along a well known trail which led
along the flank of the wooded slope. Once or twice he stopped. Then
again he moved on, always further, from the Settlement.
He was well again and strong. Rest and nature had done all they could
for him in a handful of long, quiet days. He was still twenty pounds
lighter than he should be normally, but he had both feet firmly set in
a smooth highway of convalescence. The mental and spiritual roadways
were not so smooth or straight.
He had seen much of Ygerne of late. He had come to know that, wise man
or fool, he loved her. They had met frequently, at Joe's, upon the
short street, in their walks up and down the river. They had not
spoken of all that had gone before and there had been as much silence
as talk between them. He continued to tell himself coolly that he knew
nothing of her, that she might be good or bad, loyal or treacherous.
But he knew that he did not hate her and that he did love her. He knew
that he was not angry because she had come into his life but that he
was glad.
He knew to-night that his whole spiritual being was made simply of two
elements: of love, which is a white flame in a man like Drennen; of
jealousy, which is a black shadow. He had been on his way to her, his
mind made up that he would not sleep without telling her of his love.
The sight of Garcia had halted him. Garcia's singing to her had
awakened a fierce anger within him; his flesh had twitched and
something had seemed to sear hot through it as Garcia's lips touched
her hand.
Now he tried to look at these matters calmly. He knew that in the fury
which had sent him at Lemarc and Sefton before Marshall Sothern had
gathered up his limp body the driving force had been jealousy. He knew
that even then, in his delirium, he wanted her all to himself.
Less than a month had passed since first he had seen her and he did not
now know what manner of woman she was. But he did know that that does
not matter. His fate had driven him into the North Woods ten years ago
that he might be here when she came; her destiny had brought her to
MacLeod's Settlement from New Orleans to him. Because the greatest of
all laws lies hidden under a clutter of little things that law is none
the less great or real. He had grown to see as a miraculous
manifestation of this law even the fact that he and Ygerne Bellaire had
been born in the same generation. . . . Stern-minded men of science,
whose creed is to doubt all things until they are proven in such wise
as an objective brain can accept them as incontrovertible, see no
miracle in the fact that a certain female moth, left alone upon a
mountain top, will draw to herself a male mate from mountainous miles
away. Even in the insect world there is a silent call which is a voice
of destiny. Omnipotence is not above concerning itself with the
embrace of two tiny, fragile-winged creatures in the darkness of the
solitudes. Surely there is an urge and yearning of human souls which
knows not distance and obstacles, which brings together man and his
mate.
These were strange, new thoughts to David Drennen and yet they came
naturally as an old knowledge set aside, half forgotten, ultimately
vividly recalled. He loved Ygerne; she must love him. Therein alone
could lie the explanation of his presence here and of hers. When he
had quitted his dugout this evening there had been more than
determination in his heart; there had been confidence.
And now? He wandered aimlessly. Determination and confidence had both
left him. Garcia had sung to her and the singing had pleased. Garcia
had made love to her in his song and she had thrown open her window.
Garcia had kissed her hand and she had given him a flower.
Deep in his troubled thoughts Drennen had stopped a third time. He was
in thick shadow and saw two figures that had followed him. He made out
that here were Lemarc and Sefton as they came on, cautiously and
silently. This thing was to be expected; these men were plucking with
greedy fingers as fortune's robe and for such as they he was one to be
watched. He saw them pass on along the trail; his still form in the
shadows was blotted out from them by the tall boles of the trees. His
eyes followed them a moment, then lost them. Already he had forgotten
them. His thoughts went back to Ygerne Bellaire, to the scene at the
window.
The moon pushed a great golden disc up over the ridge. It was at the
full and made glorious patterns of light through the forest. Little
voices of the night which he had not heard until now began to thrill
and quiver under the soft light. It was as though the North Woods were
filled with a secret, pigmy people who were moon worshippers; as though
now they greeted their goddess with an elfin chant of praise.
A strange sadness fastened itself upon the man. The beauty of the
night touched him deeply. It brought with its stillness an
unaccustomed emotion of melancholy. He was suddenly lonely. The night
was rarely perfect and yet it wanted something. It was complete yet it
was empty. The moonrise, the golden glory of stars set against the
soft bosom of the sky, brought a sense of lack of something. It
touched the soul and yet did not satisfy. It awoke a sort of soul
thirst and hunger in him. Upon him was the old yearning, the yearning
of the man for his mate, that longing experienced never so poignantly
as in a spot like this where a man is alone with the woodland.
Dimly conscious of many emotions mingled and confused, David Drennen
was keenly awake to the sweeping alteration which a few days had
effected in him. Not that he fully understood that which he
recognised. He was inclined to look upon himself as a different man;
like many a man before him whom love or hate, a great joy or a great
disaster, had appeared to make over, he was but experiencing the
sensation resultant from the emancipation of a certain portion of his
being which had existed always until now in a state of bondage, silent
and hidden.
He stood a long time, very still. So motionless that when the moon had
driven the shadows back and found him out he looked a brother to the
inanimate objects about him. But when at last he moved, while slowly,
it was without hesitation. He was going to Ygerne.
Marquette's store was closed, the doors locked. There was a light from
Ygerne's window, another light from a second window, Madden's room.
Drennen passed about the house and came to the door of the living room.
There was no light shining under the door, but he knocked. In a little
Mère Jeanne, a wrap thrown about her, came in answer.
"May I see Miss Bellaire?" he said simply. "Will you tell her that it
is important?"
Mère Jeanne looked at him shrewdly, with little hesitation made up her
mind that he came as a lover, left him at the door and went to the
girl. A moment later Ygerne entered the little living room. Drennen
stepped across the threshold.
"I wanted to talk with you," he said gravely.
The girl shot a quick, curious look at him and went to a chair.
"Will you come outside with me?" he asked quietly. "It is quite a
private matter. We can walk up and down in the moonlight, just
outside."
A moment she seemed to hesitate. Then she shook her head.
"We are alone here," she replied. "What is it?"
"It is many things, Ygerne." He closed the outside door and stood with
his back to it, his eyes very steady upon hers. A sudden pulsing of
blood coursed through him but he held himself steady, forcing his voice
to remain grave and quiet. "To begin with I want to apologise to you
for having been a brute to you since I first saw you. If you can't
find it in your heart to make any excuses for me at least you can know
that I am both sorry and ashamed of myself."
Again she shot that quick, questioning glance at him. She felt as he
had felt: "This is some new David Drennen."
"You know me pretty well," he went on. "Better than I know you, I
think. I am a man whose name has been dragged through a lot of muck
and mire. I am the son of a thief. My father was without honour. God
knows how good or how bad I am. My life for ten years has been an ugly
thing, a good deal more evil than good. If you are the sort of woman I
like to think you are, then I suppose that my presence here is little
less than an insult to you, though God knows I don't mean it to be."
He paused. She watched him as before, save that now a quick light of
understanding had come into her eyes, a faint flush to her cheeks.
Like Mère Jeanne, she had glimpsed the lover in the man--he couldn't
know that already he had told her all that he had come to say; but she
knew.
"I told you the truth the other day, Ygerne. That day when I went mad.
I love you. I'd like to be another sort of man, a better sort, coming
to tell you this. But if I were a better man I couldn't love you any
better."
Despite the surety that the words were coming they must have brought a
little shock to her. She rose swiftly, her hands coming up from her
sides until they clasped each other in front of her.
"I didn't believe in love until you came, Ygerne. I have never seen
such a thing in the life I have lived. You see, to begin with, I
thought my father loved me and that I loved him. I was mistaken. I
thought I had a friend once and again I was mistaken. But now I know
there is such a thing. I want you and you are all that I want in the
world. I want you, Ygerne, in a way I did not know a man could want
anything. Through you I have come to look at all creation in a new
way; it seems to me that there is a God. Am I talking like a madman
again? Or just like a fool? . . . I feel sometimes that I love you
because I was created for the sole purpose of loving you; that you must
love me for the same reason. There are other times when that doesn't
seem possible, when I can't conceive of your coming to me as I come to
you. But in the end I had to know, Ygerne. Am I a fool? Or do you
love me?"
He had made no movement toward her. He stood very still at the door.
He had striven with his emotion so that outwardly he mastered it. His
voice had remained calm and very steady.
"You said a moment ago," Ygerne answered him, and her voice too was
cool almost to the point of indifference, "that you had been a brute to
me. Knowing you as I do, is it likely that I should have come to love
you?"
"No," he said.
"Then why do you come to me this way, now?"
"Because I had to come. Because it is not always the likely thing
which happens. Because I have thought that we were made for each
other, you and I. Because I must know."
He waited for her answer, an answer which he feared she had already
given him. He hungered for her so that he could only wonder how he
could hold himself back from taking her up into his arms. But he
mastered himself so that the girl could not guess how hard he strove
for the mastery.
"Is love a little thing or a big thing?" she said suddenly.
"A big thing. I think it is the biggest thing in the world."
"And still, believing that, you think that I am a girl to let you treat
me as you have treated me since we first saw each other, and then to
come to you when you decide to crook your finger to me, giving you my
love? Is that it? Is that why you are here to-night?"
"Is that my answer, Ygerne?" he said, his tone more stern than it had
yet been.
"That is no answer at all, Mr. Drennen. It is a question."
His face grew a little white as he stared at her.
"I think, Ygerne, that I shall tell you good night now. And in the
morning, before you are up, I'll be gone. All my life I hope I shall
never see you again. And you can know that every day of it I'll be mad
to see you."
He bent his head to her, turning away, a dull agony in his heart. His
hand was upon the knob of the door. Then she came toward him swiftly.
Half way across the room she stopped. Suddenly her face was scarlet,
her eyes were shining at him like stars. Her beauty was a new beauty,
infinitely desirable.
"Were I the man," she said with a voice which shook with the passion in
it, "I'd not want my woman to come to me! I'd want to go to her, to
take her with my own strength, to hold her with it, to know that she
was too proud to yield even when she was burning to be taken!"
"Ygerne!" he said sharply.
There was a sort of defiance in the sudden, tensity of her erect body,
an imperiousness in the carriage of her head. Her eyes met his with
something of the same defiance in them. But in them, too, was a great
light.
Drennen came to her swiftly. His arms tightened about her, drawing her
so close that each heart felt the other striking against it. She let
him hold her so, but even yielding she seemed to resist. His lips,
seeking her red mouth, found it this time. She gave back the passion
of his kiss passionately. He felt a thrill through him like an
electric current.
"By God, Ygerne," he cried joyously, "we'll make life over now!"
Suddenly she had wrenched herself free of him.
"I didn't love you yesterday," she said pantingly, holding him back at
arm's length, her wide, half-frightened eyes upon his. "Will I love
you to-morrow? . . . You must go now; go!"
He put out his arms for her but she had run back to the door through
which she had come to him. He heard the door close, then another. She
had gone to her own room.
Caught up between heaven and hell he made his way homeward. Passing
her window he saw that it was dark. He hesitated, then moved on.
Suddenly he stopped. He had heard her singing, her voice lilting
gaily, quite as though no strong emotion had come into her life
to-night. A swift anger vaguely tinged with dread leaped into
Drennen's heart. She was humming a line of Garcia's little song:
"_Dios! It is sweet to be young and to love!_"