"A flame! Her clear soul's essence slips,
To steep for aye with mine, from her fast-whitening lips!"
Several days passed before these two who, hand in hand, had looked death
in the face, and felt his chill breath freezing up the current of their
lives, again saw one another. Graham, after twenty-four hours, was able
to be about, looking pale and ill. The congestive chill which had
overcome him was the result of his having plunged into the sea while
very much over-heated. The water at San Real, and indeed all along the
Pacific coast, is very much colder than at the Eastern watering places
of a corresponding latitude, where the genial influence of the Gulf
Stream is felt. His vigorous constitution quickly threw off the effects
of the terrible experience; but three long days and nights wore
themselves out before Millicent's light step sounded on the stairs.
Mrs. Shallop and Barbara were sitting alone at the luncheon table, when
the latter caught the sound of the well-known footfall; she hastily left
the room, and running up the stairs passed her arm about the feeble
girl, supporting her into the room.
"Why did you not tell me that you were coming? Do you think it prudent,
dear?"
"Yes, I wanted to come, and the doctor said I should do whatever I
fancied," she answered a little fretfully; then she smiled, with that
flashing of the eyes that always won her pardon for any little sin. It
was a strange coincidence, Barbara thought, that Millicent should have
come downstairs for the first time on the morning when Graham had gone
to San Francisco. It was his first absence since the beginning of their
visit. Why should she avoid meeting the man whose life she had saved at
the risk of her own? Graham had every day begged to see her, but
Millicent had not felt equal to the interview. Barbara was genuinely
puzzled; but then Barbara was often puzzled by Millicent. During the
days just past her gentle care and nursing had brought her much nearer
to Millicent than she had been before. In those long mornings when
Barbara, in a full, deep voice, read to her from her favorite books,
Millicent had time to think more about her new friend; and the more she
thought about her the better she liked the sweet, sound, womanly nature,
with its domestic instincts, and maternal care of all creatures sick or
sorry. One morning, as the invalid lay upon her couch, while Barbara's
gentle hands plaited her long hair in thick strands, she said, somewhat
abruptly,--
"Barbara, why have you not married?"
"What an odd question!"
"If you knew what a charming wife you would make, you would think the
question a most natural one. I suppose you have been in love?"
"I suppose so," jestingly.
"Bah! talk seriously for a moment with me. Why do you not marry Ferrara?
The poor fellow is perfectly pathetic in his devotion to you. You know,
Barbara, that matrimony would suit you delightfully; there is nothing so
becoming to a woman of your type as the background of a home of her own.
There you would shine like Jessica's candle in this naughty world."
"I have never thought about it in the way of a background."
"Of course you never did; but, Barbara, do you think you could fall in
love again?"
"Who knows?"
"Then I know that you have never been in love at all, _ma belle_--oh, I
forgot, and have broken my vow to speak English pure and simple. Well,
never mind, now we will talk about my broth, for I am very hungry. I
feel like little Rosalba in the 'Rose and the Ring,' when she went about
crying, 'Dutess Tountess, my royal highness vely hungy.'"
Long confidences had followed this conversation; and Millicent listened
to Barbara's account of a childish romance with that deep interest which
women all feel in the heart experiences of their sisters. Such sympathy
is born in the feminine breast before the power of loving awakes there,
and dies not when experience has brought nothing to it but grief and
bitterness. The veriest chit of a girl of ten will read a love-story if
she be allowed, while her brothers are inventing ingenious instruments
for the torture of cats and nurses. The deafest grandam will listen
with keen interest to her favorite grand-daughter's confession of love,
and will be careful not to chill young hopes with her own sad memories.
All those who have loved truly, with that love which outlasts grief,
death, and human passion, which smiles at the cruelest neglect, which,
like the love of the Most High, passeth all understanding, have sympathy
and kindly interest for those who are in love. That "all the world
loves a lover," is the truest of all sayings.
As soon as they were alone, Millicent told Barbara that she was anxious
to return to the Ranch the following day. Since her first meeting with
John Graham, her life had danced away through bright hours passed in his
company, in remembering past interviews, in looking forward to future
meetings. In the long days when she lay weak and helpless, slowly
recovering from the terrible drain on forces, nervous and muscular, she
had thought long and deeply; and now that she was well, she did not wish
to meet Graham, and avoided his presence. She realized, as she had not
done before, that she deeply and irrevocably loved this man, whose name
six months ago had been unknown to her. Whether this understanding of
what was in her own heart came upon her in one broad flash of quickened
intelligence, when she lay half swallowed up by the jaws of death, still
clasping him with feeble hands, or if, in the quiet hours of
introspection which followed that awful moment, she gradually learned
the truth, it would be hard to say, but that she now knew it, was
indubitable. The fact that the man she loved should be indebted to her
for his life was a distasteful one. Not through gratitude did she wish
to attract him; the very thought of it was galling to her. She loved
him, and longed, with the deepest power in her soul, to arouse in his
breast that answering passion, which, like a deep bass chord, mingles
with the sweet treble song of woman's love, their harmony making the one
perfect note to which the keystone of the universe trembles
sympathetically. Sweet as was the thought that her strength had
sufficed for them both, she mourned the chance which had made her hand
the rescuing one. Love that springs from gratitude or from pity is
earth-born and earth-bound; she would have none of it; it was as if she
had a claim upon him for that gift, which if not freely given is
valueless. So, with a shyness new to her, she avoided meeting Graham;
and the night of his return she sought her room again and did not appear
until the following morning. If Graham did not know all, he was ready
enough to understand that she avoided his thanks.
Mrs. Shallop passed the last evening of her guests' visit sitting with
Miss Almsford, answering her many eager questions of the strange, wild
days when law and order were not in the broad golden land. It seemed
almost incredible to Millicent, and yet she felt it to be true, that the
wife of the mining king regretted the past days of poverty and
simplicity. The hard-earned crust, shared with a husband whose every
thought was known to her, had tasted sweeter than the luxuries of a
table at which she often sat alone, or with a partner absorbed in
thoughts and enterprises in which she had no part. Her children had
then been entirely hers; now they were far distant,--the boy at an
English college, the girl in a French conventual school, whence they
would both return grown too clever and proud to care for her
simple-hearted companionship. What mattered it that she had toiled day
and night to buy them food and clothing, had worn out her poor body and
dulled her simple mind with anxious overstrain and grinding labor? Would
they thank her for it now? When, a year before, she had visited these
adored children, she had felt the distance between them and herself. If
her son had not been ashamed of his poor mother, it was only because his
heart was not quite weaned from hers. The girl was gentle and kind; but
the pitying care with which she brought her conversation to the level of
her mother's understanding was all too obvious to the sensitive woman,
whose nervous strength had been shattered in the hard fight which she
had made all those years ago, to keep the breath of life in their little
bodies. Half her life had been passed at the wash-tub, half in the
drawing-room; the transition had been too sudden for a person of her
temperament. The soapsuds, which used to flash the splintered rays of
light from her hands, were more appropriate to them than the diamonds
with which they now glittered. Poor woman, the extremes of fortune were
both known to her.
Though their visit had been a delightful one, Millicent was anxious to
return to the Ranch; she longed for the quiet, refined atmosphere of the
place, with its simple comforts, doubly attractive after this experience
of the luxurious but inappropriate house of Mr. Patrick Shallop. There
is a certain fitness in things; and the ex-miner, living in the palace
of the railroad king, was less at home than England's monarch could have
been in the cowherd's hovel. Millicent felt the social _malaise_ which
arises from the incongruity of persons with their surroundings. Graham,
interested in his portrait, which was coming on famously, was not easily
affected by a personal atmosphere to which he was indifferent; while
Barbara and Ferrara, used to a similar condition of things, accepted it
without question.
The morning of the last day of their visit dawned bright and clear; and
Millicent, standing on the terrace, thought the wide view had never
seemed so beautiful before. She was taking farewell of that sea which
had so nearly swallowed her young life with all its hopes and fears. The
waves murmured with a gentle sound, as if quite oblivious of their late
rapacity. She went out into the thick pine woods behind the house, and
stood for the last time among the great redwoods, which to her were so
wonderful, and which everybody else accepted as a matter of course. A
well-known footstep behind her on the dry leaves caused the slight pink
tinge which the morning breeze had brought to her cheek to fade
suddenly; the blood seemed rushing from every vein back to its source,
and her heart stopped its pulsations for a moment. She did not turn her
head, but stood quite silent, waiting for Graham's first word. When he
was at her side, she felt her hand suddenly caught in a warm pressure
which sent the blood rushing through the arteries again, tingling
painfully in every fibre of her body, and loosening the cold silence of
the heart, which beat out a quick answer to the words of greeting. They
were but few and very earnest, the words of a brave man glad to be
beholden to so fair a woman for his life. Was it gratitude that made
his voice tremble, that lighted his grave eyes with a smile?
She answered him sweetly and seriously, with a steady voice and calm
eyes, though the rose-flush flooded and ebbed from her cheek and brow.
The man did not trouble himself to analyze the feelings which gave rise
to the fleeting blushes; he was too full of his own enthusiasm to notice
how it affected its object. He spoke as he felt and thought of the
woman standing there so full of life and beauty,--only in the light of
his relation to her. He knew how he felt towards her, and told her so
with admiring frankness; of her feelings towards himself he never
stopped to think. His was an egotistic nature, as are those of all
strong men whose personality stamps the age in which they live. Weaker
men and women receive the imprint of their time; only the few strong
ones leave their images impressed when the soft clay of the present is
transmitted into the unmalleable granite of the past.
They walked together for a time, Graham full of anxious inquiry for her
health, and Millicent happy in his anxiety. When the artist learned of
the proposed departure, he strongly opposed it, urging a longer stay.
When he found that the young ladies had decided to leave San Real, he
announced his intention of accompanying them. Mrs. Shallop shortly
afterward joined the pair and handed Millicent a newspaper, at which the
girl looked quite indifferently until her eyes caught her own name in
large letters at the head of a column. She quickly read the article,
which proved to be a highly sensational account of the rescue of Graham.
A FIGHT WITH DEATH!--Heroism of a Young Girl!--John Graham rescued from
Drowning by Beautiful Millicent Almsford!--The Personal Appearance of
the Heroine!--Early History of the Lucky Man!
These headings preceded the two-column article at which Graham laughed
contemptuously, and which drew hot tears from Millicent's eyes. She had
never before seen her own name in print, and the freedom with which the
Anglo-Saxon press deals with the affairs of ladies who have no claim on
the public interest was unknown to her. She only felt that her name was
being spoken by people who never had heard of her; that the most sacred
and awful hour of her life was revealed to the world; and that the event
of which she had hardly spoken, and of which she barely dared to think,
was now familiar to thousands of indifferent readers. The news had in
fact been telegraphed to one of the large New York papers, and in the
course of a week filtered down through the smaller organs of that city
to the suburban press, and was read and forgotten by the careless public
throughout the length and breadth of this enlightened land. To Mrs.
Shallop and Barbara, accustomed to the vagaries of American journalism,
the state of mind into which Millicent was thrown by the article in the
San Francisco "Roarer," was entirely surprising. It was without doubt
annoying, but they had both become so accustomed to seeing their own
names and those of their friends in the columns of the daily journals,
that Millicent's horror and indignation seemed disproportionate to the
cause. This utter disrespect of the privacy of life which is the right
of all men and women leading peaceable lives, breaking no law of the
civil or social statutes, is the crying sin of modern journalism. When
they are charged with this, the journals very tritely retort that
"social news" pays better than any other class of matter; that its
insertion is more often prized and sought after by the individuals
mentioned than resented by them; that much of the personal news is
actually furnished by the individuals whom it most concerns; and that
they but supply the demand of their readers. It would be well for them
to remember that to pander to the public taste is not the highest object
open to journalism; to elevate that taste were a task more deserving of
commendation, and less unworthy of good printer's ink and paper.
The next mail brought two letters for Millicent; one from a well-known
photographer asking her for an early sitting, and begging that he might
have the sole privilege of photographing her. The other communication
was a civil letter from the editor of a weekly journal, asking for a
slight autobiographical sketch from the hand of the heroine of San Real.
In the course of the morning a reporter from the California "Bugle," a
rival sheet, arrived and requested an interview with Miss Almsford and
Mr. Graham, from which to compile an article on "The Rescuer and the
Rescued." Millicent's eyes flashed angrily when the import of the small
printed visiting-card bearing the name of this nineteenth-century
inquisitor was explained to her. She was heard to murmur, beneath her
breath, some Italian words highly inimical to the smart young person who
was taking the opportunity to examine Mrs. Shallop's drawing-room with
an eye to future "notes." She was astonished when Graham quietly
lighted a cigarette, and asking that the gentleman might be shown into
the smoking-room, joined him there.
"Why does he not beat him?" she cried. "If I were a man I should thrust
him from the house."
"And be held up to the public as a brutal assassin?" laughed Barbara.
"No, no, my dear, let Mr. Graham alone; he knows best how to manage the
visitor. It never does to insult those gentlemen; they are dangerous
enemies, and have the public's ear into which to pour all their
grievances. Our friend will draw the fire on himself, I fancy, in order
to spare you. News the news-fiend must have; he will make it himself if
it be not provided for him. Poor thing! he must live, after all, as
well as you or I. It is not his fault that he is obliged to interview
people; it must be a very disagreeable profession."
Thus kindly and with wide sympathy did Barbara Deering judge all men and
women; ay, and reporters too, together with babies, Chinamen, and other
unfortunate works of God. Graham returned in a quarter of an hour,
having appeased his visitor with the aid of a good cigar and a champagne
cocktail, compounded by the careful hand of the solemn-faced butler.
Millicent was still flushed and excited, all Barbara's arguments having
failed to soothe her nerves. Graham, with one sentence, banished the
angry dint from her white forehead and brought a smile back to her face.
The hour of the last good-bys had arrived; and the guests took leave of
their kind hostess, with promises to repeat their visit before long.
Little Mrs. Shallop really cried at parting with Millicent, to whom she
had become greatly attached. She sighed as the carriage disappeared
from view, bearing its freight of young people with their vivid lives
and strong interests. When she went back to her great lonely
drawing-room, with its splendid furnishings, she realized what a fitting
frame it had made for the two pretty young guests, and how unsuitable it
was to her simple tastes. The house was dreary without their joyous
voices and quick footsteps.
Just after sundown the travellers reached the San Rosario station, where
Hal was awaiting them in the great red-painted wagon. The two sturdy
mules were supplemented by old Sphinx harnessed before them, making what
is known as a spiked team.
"Hail! the conquering Heroine comes! sound the trumpets, beat the
drums!" cried the irrepressible young rancher. "How is our most heroic
Princess, and will she deign to enter the triumphal car which her humble
slave has prepared for her?"
They all laughed; but, through all the lively nonsense which he reeled
off to them on the way to the house, Millicent felt that he had been
really moved by what had occurred. The grip which he gave her hand
spoke a volume of approval; and the loud clap on the shoulder with which
he greeted Graham expressed more than a dozen sentences of rhetorical
eloquence could have done. The antics of the unicorn team were
extremely diverting; and these, with the absurdities which Hal
perpetrated at every step of the road, brought the quartette to the
house door "in a state of merriment bordering on idiocy," as he
expressed it. Mrs. Deering, with her sweet motherly greeting, made
their return seem a home-coming to Millicent and Graham, as well as to
Barbara, the tall daughter of the house. Her hospitality was so
genuinely of the heart that the recipient of it was made to feel that it
was simply his due, and that his presence was as great a favor to the
hostess as her kindness was to him.
Graham was warmly urged to stay over night, but he resisted the
temptation of remaining. Neither Millicent's voice nor Millicent's eyes
had supplemented the invitation.
As they paced the path together, her hand lying on his arm, Graham told
Mrs. Deering, in a low voice, of all that had happened since their
departure,--of the pleasant days with their excursions; of the new
impressions made on Millicent by all that she saw; of the friends whom
he had met, remembering all the kind messages which had been sent to the
gentle _chatelaine_ of San Rosario; of Barbara's sweetness and Mrs.
Shallop's hospitality; of the progress he had made on the portrait of
his hostess; of the thousand-and-one little items of news so welcome to
people leading a life of quiet isolation. Then in graver tones he spoke
of his great peril and Millicent's bravery, of the strange thoughts
which had crossed his mind in that last moment of consciousness, how her
face as well as his mother's had been revealed to him as in a vision.
All this was listened to with that perfect sympathy that is always ready
to receive confidences, and which forbears to claim them when they are
not spontaneously given. Blessed among women are these rare ones to
whom motherless sons can confide every hope and disappointment, sure of
a quick sympathy, and in whom the mighty instinct of maternity is not
satisfied in ministering to their own flesh and blood, but springs forth
to succor all who are suffering for the gentle mother love.
It was late when these two said good-night, and Graham went to find the
others to take farewell. Barbara and Hal were singing duets. They had
neither of them seen Millicent, and fancied that she must have gone to
her room. With a sense of cold disappointment and injury the young man
left the house. As he passed by the corner of the piazza he fancied he
saw a figure standing close in the shadow of an angle. He stopped; the
figure remained motionless; through the heavy drapery of the vines he
could not tell whether it was a person or merely a shadow.
"Who is it?" he asked in a low voice. No answer came, but through the
stillness of the night he thought he heard the sound of a quick-drawn
breath. Putting the honeysuckle aside he stepped on the piazza, and
found that his eyes had not deceived him. Millicent stood beneath the
rose vines. When she saw that she was discovered she spoke with a light
laugh:
"I did not want you to see me, for I have been unsociable this evening,
and hoped you would all think I had gone to bed."
"Is it not damp for you to be sitting out-of-doors?" he asked, with a
voice grown deep and tender.
"Oh, no! I am quite used to it. What a wonderful night! I think I
never saw the stars so brilliant."
The girl seated herself on the edge of the piazza, Graham placing a
cushion under her feet and taking his place at her side. It was a
perfectly still evening, the only sound being the far-away tinkle of a
sheep bell. There was a moment of dangerous silence, which Millicent
broke a little nervously, speaking of Italy, of Mrs. Shallop and their
late visit, of Hal's irresistible wit, of any one of the subjects which
danced through her brain. She was afraid to be silent, and feared yet
longed for what might be said if she left too long a pause. The spell
which kept Graham at her side when he should have been half way to his
lonely tower, began to assert itself over the woman, always the last to
yield. The man had long since abandoned himself to that mysterious
state of being in which every nerve of brain and every pulse of heart
yearns for sympathy and reaches out toward its counterpart. At last she
was silent, the last commonplace dying half spoken on her trembling
lips. Silence now in all the land; only the sound of heart-beats which
each felt must reach the other's ears. Stars more tender than those of
heaven shone close to Graham through the blue-black night; a breath
sweeter than the wind stirring the honeysuckle touched his cheek. At
length that silence, more musical than sweetest harmony, was broken by a
low, deep voice.
"May I kiss you?" said the voice.
What was the faint sound which the night wind wafted to his ear? Was it
the whirring of the humming birds whose nest hung close by? Was it the
far-off silver ripple of the brooklet, or the cadence of the distant
sheep-bell? Was it that sweeter sound than note of mating bird, of
falling water, or of faint bell-chime,--was it a loving woman's "Yes"?