He did not see her alone again for two days, although he was with her
constantly, and they had long talks apart. There were seven clever men
at Casa Norte this time; all of the women were bright, or more, and
the days and nights were very gay. They rode and drove and sailed and
picnicked, and sang and played tennis and told stories, and there was
much good conversation. Clive wrote a brief note daily to Mary Gordon,
but gave up his thoughts recklessly to Helena Belmont. She showed to
full advantage as hostess: thoughtful, suggestive, womanly, unselfish.
Her mind, as revealed in their long conversations, captivated him.
Her grace appealed more keenly to his senses than her beauty, which
sometimes, as she talked, wholly disappeared, broken by a personality
so strong and so variable as to play havoc with its harmonies.
On the third morning he met her in the pink-and-green wilderness of the
rose-garden. The dew glittered on every leaf and petal, for the sun
was hardly over the mountain. The guests had been ordered early to bed
the night before, that they might rise early and go on a picnic in a
distant part of the forest. Rollins was buttoning his shirt before an
open window and singing a duet with Mrs. Tower, who had her head out of
another window. Helena wore a pink-and-white organdie frock and a large
hat lined with pink. She was gathering a cluster of roses for her belt.
As Clive joined her she plucked a bud and pinned it on his cheviot
shirt: he wore no coat; the men only dressed for dinner.
Clive’s broad shoulders were between the house and Helena. He pressed
his hand suddenly over hers, flattening the bud.
“You’ve stuck me,” she said, pouting. “These roses are full of thorns.”
“I think I’d better go.”
She gave him a glance of mingled alarm, anger and appeal.
“You will not go!”
She turned her hand about and clasped it over his.
“What is the use? I’m afraid I’m getting in too deep. What common sense
I have left tells me to get out while there is time.”
She tightened her clasp. “But you won’t go?” she said imperiously.
“No, I shall not go. If I did I shouldn’t stay.”
Helena threw back her head, her woman’s keen delight in power over man
as strong for the moment as her gladness in Clive’s touch and presence.
After breakfast Miss Belmont and her guests drove for two hours through
the forest, scarcely seeing the sun, then camped in a cañon by a
running stream. The cañon was narrow at the bottom but widened above,
and seemed to have gathered all the sunshine of the day. Its sides were
a tangle of fragrant chaparral, wild roses, purple lilac, and red lily,
the delicate green of young trees, the metallic green and red of the
madroño. On high were the stark redwoods.
Some of the men went frankly to sleep after luncheon. The others and
several of the girls fished ardently.
“Come,” said Helena to Clive, “there is a trail over there, and I want
to see what is on top.”
“It will be a hard pull.”
“Don’t you want to come? Very well, I’ll go alone. Hang my hat on that
tree.”
She sprang lightly from stone to stone across the stream.
He followed her up the steep side of the cañon, through brush so
dense that they were quickly out of sight, and through a bewildering
fragrance. At the top they were in the dark forest again, and pushed
along as best they could. They found themselves among the straggling
outposts of an under-forest of fronds. A few redwoods spread their
spiked arms above it, but the sun touched many a rustling fan. The
heights beyond lifted away irregularly, in steeps and galleries and
higher levels, a gracious blue mist softening the austerity of the
crowding trees. A creek roared softly above the low rhythmic murmur of
the forest. Even these slight sounds seemed to intrude on the great
primeval silence.
“What is it?” asked Helena, “the peculiar influence of these redwood
forests? I have been in other forests in many parts of the world, and
I have never known anything like this. It lifts one up, makes one
feel capable of anything, and yet gives one a terrible longing and
loneliness--when one is alone.”
“It is partly spiritual, partly sensual. The forest seems to hold in
essence the two principles of the universe. Do you want to go in among
these ferns? They are pretty thick, but I can hold them back for you.”
“Yes, I want to see what is in there.”
They pushed in among the fronds, which grew taller as they penetrated.
Soon Clive had no need to hold the leaves apart for his companion; they
spread out a foot and more above their heads. The place, a young forest
of slender columns, was filled with green light. Small feathery ferns
nodded in a little breeze. The creek seemed to murmur above them. Clive
turned and looked at Helena. Her face was glorified. He took her in
his arms and kissed her. She did not shrink from him, and they clung
together.
After a few moments she moved her head back and looked up at him. His
eyes were not laughing.
“There is something I want to say,” she said. “A woman doesn’t usually
say it until she is asked. I love you. I want you to know that I
couldn’t kiss you like that if I did not.”
“I believe that you love me,” he said.
“Did you guess the reason I did not kiss you the other night? I had
intended to, but it suddenly came to me that you did not love me
enough, that you were merely in love with me; and I could not give
myself like that. I intended to wait longer than this. But I forgot.”
She hesitated a moment--the color left her face. “Do you love me?” she
asked.
“Yes,” he said, “I love you.”
She went back to his arms, but even while she learned the lesson that
some women learn once only, and then possessingly and finally, she
realized that she had not the courage to speak of Mary Gordon. She had
intended, the moment she was sure of him, to command him to break his
engagement at once; but her arrogant will found itself supple before
the strong fibre of the man, and shrank from the encounter. They walked
on after a time, until they came to a stone, where they sat down. She
put her hands about his face. The motion was a little awkward, but she
was a woman who would grow very lavish with caresses.
“Why do you look so serious?” she asked. “You looked so different a
moment ago.”
“The situation is serious,” he said briefly. “But don’t let us talk
about it; we have twelve more days.”
She threw her head back against his shoulder and looked up into the
feathery roof. A ray of light wandered in and touched her face. “I
am so happy,” she said, “I don’t care what to-morrow brings. I have
thought and thought of being with you like this and now I am and
it is enough. I ought to be serious--I know what you are thinking
of--but it doesn’t matter; nothing but this matters. I never took life
seriously--except in a sort of abstract mental way occasionally--until
a week ago, and I doubt if I could keep it up.”
“You could keep it up. You don’t know yourself.”
“Once I got dreadfully bored and took care of a sick poor woman who
lived in a cabin near a place where I was staying. Her husband was away
in the mines, and she had no one to look after her but neighbors as
poor as herself. I sat up with her and worked over her as if she were
my sister. I was frightfully interested, and so proud of myself. Then
one morning--I think it was the fifth--I was sitting by the window
about four o’clock, looking at the view, which was beautiful--a rolling
country covered with closely trimmed grape-vines, and miles and miles
beyond a range of blue mountains. It was so quiet. Eternity must be
like that quiet of four in the morning. And gradually as I looked, the
most sickening disgust crept over me for the life I had led the past
four days, an utter collapse of my philanthropy. I wanted to go away
and be frivolous. I was hideously bored. I hated the sick woman, her
poverty and everything serious in life. I stole away and sent back a
servant to stop until I could get a trained nurse. I never went near
the woman again.”
He pressed her to him with passionate sympathy. “Poor child,” he said,
“you have lived only in the shallows. I wish you always might.”
But she was too happy to heed anything but the strength of his embrace.
“You don’t know yourself,” he said, “not the least little bit.”
“I know a lot more than you think, and I know how I can love you.”
“You hardly know that. You have merely a vague far away notion. All
your woman’s lore is borrowed, and you are only half awake. Your mind,
your mental conception of things, has outrun everything else. If the
other part ever caught up you would be a wonderful woman.”
Something in his tone made her take her will between her teeth.
“You will teach me,” she said imperiously, “as long as we are both
alive.”
“Yes, if I am a scoundrel. But don’t let us talk about that now,
please. I will be happy, too. Come, let us get out of this. It is damp
and we will get rheumatism, which is not romantic. Let us go home and
sit in your boudoir. I feel as if I should like to be surrounded by the
conventionalities of life for a time. One feels too primitive in this
forest.”