She did not say to him the ordinary, obvious things a woman says when
she meets a man. She held his hand for an instant and looked at him.
"When I saw the bridge you built at Indian Ford," she told him, "I was
afraid to meet you. Afraid I might be disappointed in what you were.
You might have been a chunky, merry man who treats his genius as a
favorite, halloing to it when needed, proud of it, patronizingly
modest. Or you might have been an angular, unsure man, jealous of his
talent's fame, comparing it as one compares horses. But you are just
you, Simon Lovat, and your bridge is you, and you are your bridge. I
'm blessed to see you this day."
As he watched her he seemed to be watching not a woman but some fine
spirit that struck a silver note in its movement. Like a silver flame
in the dusk she appeared to him. There was so much spirit to her that
nothing else really mattered. The strain of Highland mysticism in him
gave him an uncanny power of seeing people as they were, not as they
seemed to the outward eye. He could look at a certain man and say to
himself with certainty, "At death that man dies," or at some
sweet-faced woman, repressed, waiting, and know, "At death this woman's
life begins." He saw Cecily Stanford and said: "This woman endures
forever. She lives now and she will live always."
And then from the spirit within his eyes went to the body without, as
one might look first at some gracious womanhood and be all eyes for her
presence, forgetting for the nonce the queenly satins that clothed it.
He saw her hair, like a blue cloud. Her eyes he knew. He saw the
skilful symmetry of face, a little, longish face with lips half open,
eagerly. He sensed the littleness of her figure, the long, firm line
from knee to ankle, the small bosom, the loveliness of arms. He saw
the firm, sensitive hands.
And yet she might have been nothing to him but a gracious memory, as of
some splendid day, but that she was whole-heartedly interested in and
understood the importance of bridges. Some generous arch, or some line
of a writer's might have turned her heart that way once, and set her on
that broad masonic road the charm of which endures a lifetime. A book
may trouble or a picture inspire one, but those are of the spirit. But
a bridge is of spirit and body. One sees the architect, one sees the
art, one sees the courage and grandeur and beauty. A history of
bridges is a history of the world, of its wars, its commerce, its
progress. And the thoughts about it are without end.
And she could speak of all that to him. She understood the mystic
errand of the builder of bridges, which is to be the servant of unborn
men. Old wisdom that had been lost was reborn in her. She could feel
why the heads of a great religion should call themselves proudly
sovereign pontiffs--pontiff, _pontifex_, builder of bridges. She could
understand the reverence that stirred in Highlanders when they crossed
a bridge and removed their bonnets. "God bless the builder of the
bridge!" their prayer went.
She could understand the ideals of an ancient age, when a community of
monks called themselves the Pontist Brothers, the _Frères Pontifes_.
Modest, white-robed, they built bridges of great fame, they operated
ferry-boats, they fed and housed pilgrims. But their greatest care was
the building and upkeep of bridges. Before Pius II suppressed them,
they built the Pont Saint-Esprit over the Rhone, one of the largest
stone bridges in the world; a thousand meters long, it is, with
twenty-six great arches. Surely their spirits guard it still!
She could understand the arrogant cry of the Roman architect when he
finished the great Alcantare over the Tagus. "_Pontem perpetui
mansurum in saecula mundi_," Lacer smiled. "It shall see the end of
the world." The Saracen trampled and Charles V rebuilt it.
Wellington's troops blew it up, and the Carlists fought on its Titanic
arches. All these causes are forgotten now. But the bridge, the
bridge remains.
And because she understood these things, she understood Simon Lovat,
and got close to his heart, which none had ever been near.
V
Lovat told her his fear that never again would great stone bridges be
built. The days of beauty in bridges were past, like the days of
chivalry. Long steel suspension bridges, with their infinity of metal
triangles, or marvels of carpentry, such as the Portage Bridge over the
Genesee. But never again would they build bridges such as the Romans
did, like the dreadful Pont du Gard at Nîmes.
"They will, Simon," she told him. "You will build like that."
"Never, Cecily. Never again!"
"Yes, Simon. I know."
"All those days are gone, Cecily."
"Not for you." The conviction would shine from her eyes. "I know it
here--" she touched her head--"and here--" she touched her bosom.
And he was persuaded somehow that she was right, though his head told
him she could not be, for cement and steel are cheaper and quicker, and
only cheapness and rapidity obtain now that people no longer dream of
to-morrow. And the soldier's honor and the sailor's courage, and the
writer's fire and the builder's genius--yes, and the dreams of great
merchants, too, Lovat grimaced--are curbed and roweled by the
huckster's purse. Impossible! But somehow because she believed it,
the thought took form and substance in his heart, that one day he would
build a great bridge--of stone.
How they came so close to each other, neither knew. It was just as
natural as a tree growing out of the green ground. They came so close
that they could be silent, each with the other, for a long time, each
knowing, feeling what the other thought. Then they would smile at each
other with a strange seriousness....
One afternoon, in the December dusk, his heart opened suddenly, and
all, all the horror of his early years came rushing like a flood from a
broken dam. Why he told her he didn't know. He didn't believe it
possible to tell any one. Yet here he was, standing by the window of
the drawing-room, looking out at the street glistening with fog, while
she sat huddled in a great arm-chair by the log fire. And out of his
lips in harsh staccato sentences came the sordidness of his infant
days....
"... We were pleased when we found it. And Joan took it under a shawl
and went out. But we had forgotten that the pawnbroker closed at six.
So there was nothing to eat until he should open in the morning.... We
all cried...."
He was interrupted by her terrible fit of sobbing. Suddenly he came
out of his tragic vision.
"I 'm sorry I should have horrified you," he said, aghast. "I don't
know what came over me to tell such things. I 'll go."
But she was in his arms, weeping bitterly. "To think that you and I
should have been in the same city! And I had everything, and you
nothing. You hungry! Cold! Oh, Simon! Simon!" Though they were as
close as this, as close as birds in a nest are, yet there had never
been between them any talk of marriage, any talk of life other than
they were leading that week. He knew he loved her tremendously, but
fear of refusal and Scots pride because he was poor kept the question
in his heart. And she, because she was modest as she was brave, never
said anything, though she knew, she knew...
At last the miracle happened. Two South American commonwealths, with
the hearts of children and the bravery of men, decided to span the
Andes with an immense bridge. They saw only peaceful progress in front
of them, not war. The bridge was to be of stone, because stone was
plentiful and labor cheap, and to bring steel up the mountain gorge
would be a wasteful undertaking. First a German architect was to have
the work, for they had the foothold there, and then an Englishman
stepped in confidently. But old Gamaliel Stanford had his friends in
New York, heads of great fruit companies and immense
agricultural-machinery syndicates, and banks powerful as nations. So
Simon Lovat was chosen.
When he and Cecily were told, he was dumb. She said nothing, but her
shining eyes spoke, and she sat and watched the proud throw of his head
as he thought of arches as powerful as the Romans', of great spans one
hundred and fifty feet in width, of voussoirs weighing each eighty tons
of stone. Suddenly he knew her eyes were showering him with joy and
confidence, and he put out his hand fearfully.
"When this is done, Cecily--" he was red as a school-boy--"would
you--could you--will you marry me?"
"Whom else could I marry, dearest one?" she answered simply.