Over the shallow tufa basin of the great fountain on the hill Daphne
stood gazing into the water. She had sought the deep shadow of the
ilex trees, for the afternoon was warm, an almost angry summer heat
having followed yesterday's coolness. Her yellow gown gleamed like
light against the dull brown of the stone and the dark moss-touched
trunks of the trees. Whether she was looking at the tufts of fern and
of grass that grew in the wet basin, or whether she was studying her
own beauty reflected there, no one could tell, not even Apollo, who had
been watching her for some time.
Into his eyes as he looked leaped a light like the flame of the
sunshine beyond the shadows on the hill; swiftly he stepped forward and
kissed the girl's shoulder where the thin yellow stuff of her dress
showed the outward curve to the arm. She turned and faced him, without
a word. There was no need of speech: anger battled with unconfessed
joy in her changing face.
"How dare you?" she said presently, when she had won her lips to curves
of scorn. "The manners of the gods seem strange to mortals."
"I love you," he answered simply.
Then there was no sound save that of the water, dropping over the edge
of the great basin to the soft grass beneath.
"Can't you forgive me?" he asked humbly. "I am profoundly sorry; only,
my temptation was superhuman."
"I had thought that you were that, too," said the girl in a whisper.
"There is no excuse, I know; there is only a reason. I love you,
little girl. I love your questioning eyes, and your firm mouth, and
your smooth brown hair"--
"Stop!" begged Daphne, putting out her hands. "You must not say such
things to me, for I am not free to hear them. I must go away," and she
turned toward home. But he grasped one of the outstretched hands and
drew her to the stone bench near the fountain, and then seated himself
near her side.
"Now tell me what you mean," he said quietly.
"I mean," she answered, with her eyes cast down, "that two years ago I
promised to love some one else. I must not even hear what you are
trying to say to me."
"I think, Miss Willis," he said gently, "that you should have told me
this before."
"How could I?" begged the girl. "When could I have done it? Why should
I?"
"I do not know," he answered wearily; "only, perhaps it might have
spared me some shade of human anguish."
"Human?" asked Daphne, almost smiling.
"No, no, no," he interrupted, not hearing her. "It would not have done
any good, for I have loved you from the first minute when I saw your
blue drapery flutter in your flight from me. Some deeper sense than
mortals have told me that every footstep was falling on my sleeping
heart and waking it to life. You were not running away; in some divine
sense you were coming toward me. Daphne, Daphne, I cannot let you go!"
The look in the girl's startled eyes was his only answer. By the side
of this sun-browned face, in its beauty and its power, rose before her
a vision of Eustace Denton, pale, full-lipped, with an ardor for
nothingness in his remote blue eyes. How could she have known, in
those old days before her revelation came, that faces like this were on
the earth: how could she have dreamed that glory of life like this was
possible?
In the great strain of the moment they both grew calm and Daphne told
him her story, as much of it as she thought it wise for him to know.
Her later sense of misgiving, the breaking of the engagement, the
penitence that had led to a renewal of the bonds, she concealed from
him; but he learned of the days of study and of quiet work in the
shaded corners of her father's library, and of those gayer days and
evenings when the figure of the young ascetic had seemed to the girl to
have a peculiar saving grace, standing in stern contrast to the social
background of her life.
He thanked her, when she had finished, and he watched her, with her
background of misty blue distance, sitting where the shadow of the
ilexes brought out the color of her scarlet lips and deep gray eyes.
"Daphne," he said presently, "you have told me much about this man, but
you have not told me that you love him. You do not speak of him as a
woman speaks of the man who makes her world for her. You defend him,
you explain him, you plead his cause, and it must be that you are
pleading it with yourself, for I have brought no charge, that you must
defend him to me. Do you love him?"
She did not answer.
"Look at me!" he insisted. Her troubled eyes turned toward his, but
dared not stay, and the lashes fell again.
"Do not commit the crime of marrying a man you do not love," he pleaded.
"But," said the girl slowly, "even if I gave him up I might not care
for you."
"Dear," he said softly, "you do love me. Is it not so?"
She shook her head, but her face belied her.
"I have waited, waited for you," he pleaded, in that low tone to which
her being vibrated as to masterful music, "so many lifetimes! I have
found you out at last!"
"How long?" she asked willfully.
"Aeons," he answered. "Since the foundation of the world. I have
waited, and now that I have found you, I will not let you go. I will
not let you go!"
She looked at him with wide-opened eyes: a solemn fear possessed her.
Was it Bertuccio's story of yesterday that filled her with foreboding?
Hardly. Rather it seemed a pleasant thought that he and she should
feel the bark of one of these great trees closing round them, and
should have so beautiful a screen of brown bark and green moss to hide
their love from all the world. No, no fear could touch the thought of
any destiny with him: she was afraid only of herself.
"You are putting a mere nothing between us," the voice went on. "You
are pretending that there is an obstacle when there is none, really."
"Only another man's happiness," murmured the girl.
"I doubt if he knows what happiness is," said Apollo. "Forgive me, but
will he not be as happy with his altar candles and his chants without
you? Does he not care more for the abstract cause for which he is
working than for you? Hasn't he missed the simple meaning of human
life, and can anything teach it to him?"
"How did you know?" asked Daphne, startled.
"The gods should divine some things that are not told! Besides, I know
the man," he answered, smiling, but Daphne did not hear. She had leaned
back and closed her eyes. The warm, sweet air, with its odor of earth,
wooed her; the little breeze that made so faint a rustle in the ilex
leaves touched her cheek like quick, fluttering kisses. The rhythmical
drops from the fountain seemed falling to the music of an old order of
things, some simple, elemental way of loving that made harmony through
all life. Could love, that had meant only duty, have anything to do
with this great joy in mere being, which turned the world to gold?
"I must, I must win you," came the voice again, and it was like a cry.
"Loving with more than human love, I will not be denied!"
She opened her eyes and watched him: the whole, firmly-knit frame in
the brown golf-suit was quivering.
"It has never turned out well," she said lightly, "when the sons of the
gods married with the daughters of men."
Perhaps he would have rebuked her for the jest, but he saw her face.
"I offer you all that man or god can offer," he said, standing before
her. "I offer you the devotion of a whole life. Will you take it?"
"I will not break my promise," said the girl, rising. Her eyes were
level with his. She found such power in them that she cried out
against it in sudden anger.
"Why do you tempt me so? Why do you come and trouble my mind and take
away my peace? Who are you? What are you?"
"If you want a human name for me"--he answered.
She raised her hand swiftly to stop him. "No, don't!" she said. "I do
not want to know. Don't tell me anything, for the mystery is part of
the beauty of you."
A shaft of golden sunlight pierced the ilex shade and smote her
forehead as she stood there.
"Apollo, the sun god," she said, smiling, as she turned and left him
alone.