cried Mary, re-entering her room.
"You must let me go, Madge," said Mr. Muir, firmly. "I may have to interpose my authority."
"Yes, do come, for Heaven"s sake!" said Graydon.
"Very well," laughed Madge. "If I once get on, you and the horse may both find it hard to get me off. Where are the horses?" she asked, upon reaching the door.
"You must yield one point and mount near the stable," said Graydon, resolutely.
"Oh, certainly, I"ll yield everything except my ride."
Madge"s horse stood pawing the ground, showing how obdurate and untamable was his spirit. She exclaimed at the beauty of the saddle and its housings, and said, "Thank you, Graydon," so charmingly that he anathematized himself for giving her a brute instead of a horse. "I should have satisfied myself better about him," he thought, "and have looked further."
In a moment she had the animal by the head, and was patting his neck, while he turned an eye of fire down upon her, and showed no relenting in his chafed and excited mood. Graydon meanwhile examined everything carefully, and saw that the bridle had a powerful curb.
"Well," said he, ruefully, "if you will, you will."
"Yes; in no other way can I satisfy you," was her quiet reply.
"Let us get away, then; spectators are gathering. You should be able to hold him with this rein. Come."
She put her foot in his hand, and was mounted in a second, the reins well in hand. The horse reared, but a sharp downward pull to the right brought him to his feet again. Then he plunged and kicked, but she sat as if a part of him, meanwhile speaking to him in firm, gentle tones.
His next unexpected freak was to run backward in a way that sent the neighboring group flying. Instantly Madge gave him a stinging blow over the hind quarters, and he fairly sprang into the air.
"Get off, Madge," cried Mr. Muir, authoritatively, but the horse was speeding down the road toward the house, and Graydon, who had looked on breathlessly, followed. Before they reached the hotel she had brought him up with the powerful curb, and prancing, curvetting, straining side-wise first in one direction, then in the other, meanwhile trembling half with anger, half with terror, the mastered brute pa.s.sed the piazza with its admiring groups. Graydon was at her side. He did not see Miss Wildmere frowning with vexation and envy, or Arnault"s complacent observance. With sternly compressed lips and steady eye he watched Madge, that, whatever emergency occurred, he might do all that was possible. The young girl herself was a presence not soon to be forgotten. Her lips were slightly parted, her eye glowing with a joyous sense of power, and her pose, flexible to the eccentric motions of the horse, grace itself. They pa.s.sed on down the winding carriage-drive, out upon the main street, and then she turned, waved her handkerchief to Mr. Muir, and with her companion galloped away.
Several of Mr. Muir"s acquaintances came forward, offering congratulations, which he accepted with his quiet smile, and then went up to rea.s.sure his wife, who, in spite of her words to the contrary, had kept her eyes fastened upon Madge as long as she was in sight.
"Well," she exclaimed, "did you ever see anything equal to that?"
"No," said her husband, "but I have seen nothing wonderful or unnatural; she did not do a thing that she had not been trained and taught to do, and all her acts were familiar by much usage."
"I think she"s a prodigy," exclaimed Mrs. Muir.
"Nothing of the kind. She is a handsome girl, with good abilities, who has had the sense to make the most and best of herself instead of dawdling."
After an easy gallop of a mile, in which Madge showed complete power to keep her horse from breaking into a mad run, she drew rein and looked at Graydon with a smile. He took off his hat and bowed, laughingly.
"Oh, Graydon," she said, "it was nice of you to let me have my own way!"
"I didn"t do it very graciously. I have seldom been more worried in my life."
"I"m glad you were a little worried," she said. "It recalls your look and tone at the time of our parting, when you said, "Oh, Madge, do get well and strong!" Haven"t I complied with your wish?"
"Had my wish anything to do with your compliance?"
"Why not?"
"What an idiot I"ve been! I fear I have been misjudging you absurdly.
I"ve had no end of ridiculous thoughts and theories about you."
"Indeed! Apparently I had slight place in your thoughts at all, but I made great allowances for a man in your condition."
"That was kind, but you were mistaken. Why, Madge, we were almost brought up together, and I couldn"t reconcile the past and the present. The years you spent in the far West, and their result, are more wonderful than a fairytale. I wish you would tell me about them."
"I will. Friends should be reasonably frank. What"s more, I wish to show you how natural and probable the result, as you call it, has been. Your wondering perplexity vexes me. You know what I was when we parted."
"No, I don"t believe I do, or you couldn"t be what you are now."
"Well, I can tell you: I had weak lungs, a weak body, and a weak, uncultured mind. I was weak in all respects, but I discovered that I had a will, and I had sense enough, as Henry says, to know that if I was ever going to be more than a ghost it was time I set about it. I knew of Mrs. Wayland"s restoration to health in the climate of Santa Barbara, and I determined to try it myself. I couldn"t have had better friends or advantages than the place afforded. But oh, Graydon, I was so weak and used up when I reached there that I could scarcely do more than breathe. But I had made up my mind either to get well or to die.
I rested for days, until I could make a beginning, and then, one step at a time, as it were, I went forward. Take two things that you have seen me do, for example. One can bathe in the sea at Santa Barbara almost throughout the year. At first I was as timid as a child, and scarcely dared to wet my feet; but Mr. Wayland was a sensible instructor, and led me step by step. The water was usually still, and I gradually acquired the absolute confidence of one who can swim, and swims almost every day. So with a horse. I could hardly sit on one that was standing still, I was so weak and frightened; but with muscle and health came stronger nerves and higher courage. After a few months I thought nothing of a ten-mile gallop on the beach or out to the canons. I took up music in the same way, and had a thoroughly good teacher. He did the best he could for me, which wasn"t so very much. I never could become a scientist in anything, but I was determined to be no sham within my limitations. I have tried to do some things as well as I could and let the rest go. Now you see how easily I can explain myself, and I only seem wonderful because of contrast with what I was."
"But where do I come in?" he asked, eagerly.
"Did you not say, "Please get well and strong?" I thought it would gratify you and Mary and Henry. You used to call me a ghost, and I did not want to be a ghost any longer. I saw that you enjoyed your vigorous life fully, and felt that I might enjoy life also; and as I grew strong I did enjoy everything more and more. Two things besides, and I can say, "All present or accounted for." Mr. Wayland is a student, and has a splendid library. He coached me--that was your old college jargon--on books, and Mrs. Wayland coached me on society. So here I am, weighing a hundred and twenty pounds, more or less, and ready for another gallop;" and away she went, the embodiment of beautiful life.
"One more question, Madge," he said, as they slackened pace again.
"Why wouldn"t you write to me oftener?"
"I don"t like to write letters. Mine to Mary were scarcely more than notes. Ask her. Are you satisfied now? Am I a sphinx--a conundrum--any longer?"
"No; and at last I am more than content that you are not little Madge."
"Why, this is famous, as Dr. Sommers says. When was a man ever known to change his mind before?"
"I"ve changed mine so often of late that I"m fairly dizzy. You are setting me straight at last."
Madge laughed outright, and after a moment said, "Now account for yourself. What places did you visit abroad?"
He began to tell her, and she to ask questions that surprised him, showing that she had some idea of even the topography and color of the region, and a better knowledge of the history and antiquities than himself. At last he expressed his wonder. "What nonsense!" she exclaimed. "You don"t remember the little I did write you. As I said before, did you not at my request--very kindly and liberally, too, Graydon--send me books about the places you expected to see? A child could have read them and so have gained the information that surprises you."
They talked on, one thing leading to another, until he had a conscious glow of mental excitement. She knew so much that he knew, only in a different way, and her thoughts came rippling forth in piquant, musical words. Her eyes were so often full of laughter that he saw that she was happy, and he remembered after their return that she had not said an ill-natured word about any one. It was another of their old-time, breezy talks, only larger, fuller, complete with her rich womanhood. He found himself alive in every fibre of his body and faculty of his mind.
As they turned homeward the evening shadows were gathering, and at last the dusky twilight pa.s.sed into a soft radiance under the rays of the full-orbed moon.
"Oh, don"t let us hasten home," pleaded poor Madge, who felt that this might be her only chance to throw about him the gossamer threads which would draw the cord and cable that could bind him to her. "What is supper to the witchery of such a night as this?"
"What would anything be to the witchery of such a girl as this, if one were not fortified?" he thought. "This is not the comradeship of a good fellow, as she promised. It is the society of a charming woman, who is feminine in even her thoughts and modes of expression--who is often strangely, bewilderingly beautiful in this changing light. When we pa.s.s under the shadow of a tree her eyes shine like stars; when the rays of the moon are full upon her face it is almost as pure and white as when it was illumined by the electric flash. Did I not love another woman, I could easily imagine myself learning to love her. Confound it! I wish Stella had more of Madge"s simple loftiness of character.
She would compel different business methods in her father. She would work for him, suffer for him, but would not play diplomat. I like that Arnault business to-night less than ever."
Mr. and Mrs. Muir were anxiously awaiting them on the piazza as they trotted smartly up the avenue. "It"s all right," cried Graydon.
"The horse has learned to know his mistress, and will give no more trouble."
"I wish you had as much sense," growled Muir, in his mustache; then added, aloud, "Come to supper. Mary could not eat anything till a.s.sured of your safety."
"Yes, Henry, I won"t keep you waiting a moment, but go in with my habit on. I suppose the rest are all through, and I"m as ravenous as a wolf."
They were soon having the merriest little supper, full of laughing reminiscence, and Henry rubbed his hands under the table as he thought, "Arnault is off mooning with the speculator, and Graydon doesn"t look as if the green-eyed monster had much of a grip upon him."