As a bell in a chime Sets its twin-note a-ringing, As one poet"s rhyme Wakes another to singing, So once she has smiled All your thoughts are beguiled, And flowers and song from your childhood are bringing.
Each grace is a jewel Would ransom the town; Her speech has no cruel, Her praise is renown; "Tis in her as though Beauty, Resigning to Duty The scepter, had still kept the purple and crown.
--_Robert Underwood Johnson_.
The next morning at eight o"clock I sent a note to Miss Pat, asking if she and the other ladies of her house would not take breakfast with me at nine; and she replied, on her quaint visiting-card, in an old-fashioned hand, that she and Helen would be glad to come, but that Sister Margaret begged to be excused. It had been in my mind from the first to ask them to dine at Glenarm, and now I wished to see this girl, to test, weigh, study her, as soon as possible after her meeting with Gillespie. I wished to see how she would bear herself before her aunt and me with that dark transaction on her conscience. The idea pleased me, and when I saw the two women coming through the school garden I met them at the gate.
Breakfast seems to be, in common experience, the most difficult meal of the day, and yet that hour hangs in memory still as one of the brightest I ever spent. The table was set on the terrace, and its white napery, the best Glenarm silver and crystal, and a bowl of red roses still dewy from the night, all blended coolly with the morning.
As the strawberries were pa.s.sed I felt that the little table had brought us together in a new intimacy. It was delightful to sit face to face with Miss Pat, and not less agreeable to have at my right hand this bewildering girl, whose eyes laughed at me when I sought shame in their depths. Miss Pat poured the coffee, and when I took my cup I felt that it carried benediction with it. I was glad to see her so at peace with the world, and her heart was not older, I could have sworn, than the roses before her.
"I shall refuse to leave when my time is up!" she declared. "Do you think you could spend a winter here, Helen?"
"I should love it!" the girl replied. "It would be perfectly splendid to watch the seasons march across the lake. We can both enroll ourselves at St. Agatha"s as post-graduate students, and take a special course in weather here."
"If I didn"t sometimes hear trains pa.s.sing Annandale in the night, I should forget that there"s a great busy world off there somewhere,"
said Miss Pat. "I am ashamed of myself for having been so long discovering this spot. Except one journey to California, I was never west of Philadelphia until I came here."
The world was satisfactory as it stood; and I was aware of no reason why it should move on. The chime of the chapel tower drifted to us drowsily, as though anxious to accommodate itself to the mood of a day that began business by shattering the hour-gla.s.s. The mist that hung over the water rose lazily, and disclosed the lake agleam in the full sunlight. Though Miss Pat was content to linger, Helen, I thought, appeared restless; she rose and walked to the edge of the terrace, the better to scan the lake, while Miss Pat and I talked on. Miss Pat"s gift of detachment was remarkable; if we had been looking down from a balcony upon the Grand Ca.n.a.l, or breakfasting in an Italian garden, she could not have been more at ease; nor did she refer even remotely to the odd business that had brought her to the lake. She was, to be explicit, describing in her delightful low voice, and in sentences vivid with spirit and color, a visit she had once paid to a n.o.ble Italian family at their country seat. As Helen wandered out of hearing I thought Miss Pat would surely seize the opportunity to speak of the girl"s father, at least to ask whether I had heard of him further; but she avoided all mention of her troubles.
Helen stood by the line of scarlet geraniums that marked the bal.u.s.trade, at a point whence the best view of the lake was obtainable--her hands clasped behind her, her head turned slightly.
"There is no one quite like her!" exclaimed Miss Pat.
"She is beautiful!" I acquiesced.
Miss Pat talked on quickly, as though our silence might cause Helen to turn and thus deprive us of the picture.
"Should you like to look over the house?" I asked a little later, when Helen had come back to the table. "It is said to be one of the finest houses in interior America, and there are some good pictures."
"We should be very glad," said Miss Pat; and Helen murmured a.s.sent.
"But we must not stay too long, Aunt Pat. Mr. Donovan has his own affairs. We must not tax his generosity too far."
"And we are going to send some letters off to-day. If it isn"t asking too much, I should like to drive to the village later," said Miss Pat.
"Yes; and I should like a paper of pins and a new magazine," said Helen, a little, a very little eagerness in her tone.
"Certainly. The stable is at your disposal, and our entire marine."
"But we must see the Glenarm pictures first," said Miss Pat, and we went at once into the great cool house, coming at last to the gallery on the third floor.
"Whistler!" Miss Pat exclaimed in delight before the famous _Lady in the Gray Cloak_. "I thought that picture was owned in England."
"It was; but old Mr. Glenarm had to have it. That Meissonier is supposed to be in Paris, but you see it"s here."
"It"s wonderful!" said Miss Pat. She returned to the Whistler and studied it with rapt attention, and I stood by, enjoying her pleasure.
One of the housemaids had followed us to the gallery and opened the French windows giving upon a balcony, from which the lake lay like a fold of blue silk beyond the wood. Helen had pa.s.sed on while Miss Pat hung upon the Whistler.
"How beautifully those draperies are suggested, Helen. That is one of the best of all his things."
But Helen was not beside her, as she had thought. There were several recesses in the room, and I thought the girl had stepped into one of these, but just then I saw her shadow outside.
"Miss Holbrook is on the balcony," I said.
"Oh, very well. We must go," she replied quietly, but lingered before the picture.
I left Miss Pat and crossed the room to the balcony. As I approached one of the doors I saw Helen, standing tiptoe for greater height, slowly raise and lower her handkerchief thrice, as though signaling to some one on the water.
I laughed outright as I stepped beside her.
"It"s better to be a picture than to look at one, Miss Holbrook! Allow me!"
In her confusion she had dropped her handkerchief, and when I returned it she slipped it into her cuff with a murmur of thanks. A flash of anger lighted her eyes and she colored slightly; but she was composed in an instant. And, looking off beyond the water-tower, I was not surprised to see the _Stiletto_ quite near our sh.o.r.e, her white sails filling lazily in the scant wind. A tiny flag flashed recognition and answer of the girl"s signal, and was hauled down at once.
We were both silent as we watched it; then I turned to the girl, who bent her head a moment, tucking the handkerchief a trifle more securely into her sleeve. She smiled quizzically, with a compression of the lips.
"The view here is fine, isn"t it?"
We regarded each other with entire good humor. I heard Miss Pat within, slowly crossing the bare floor of the gallery.
"You are incomparable!" I exclaimed. "Verily, a daughter of Ja.n.u.s has come among us!"
"The best pictures are outdoors, after all," commented Miss Pat; and after a further ramble about the house they returned to St. Agatha"s, whence we were to drive together to Annandale in half an hour.
I went to the stone water-tower and scanned the movements of the _Stiletto_ with a gla.s.s while I waited. The sloop was tacking slowly away toward Annandale, her skipper managing his sheet with an expert hand. It may have been the ugly business in which the pretty toy was engaged, or it may have been the lazy deliberation of her oblique progress over the water, but I felt then and afterward that there was something sinister in every line of the _Stiletto_. The more I deliberated the less certain I became of anything that pertained to the Holbrooks; and I tested my memory by repeating the alphabet and counting ten, to make sure that my wits were still equal to such exercises.
We drove into Annandale without incident and with no apparent timidity on Miss Pat"s part. Helen was all amiability and cheer. I turned perforce to address her now and then, and was ashamed to find that the lurking smile about her lips, and a challenging light in her eyes, woke no resentment in me. The directness of her gaze was in itself disconcerting; there was no heavy-lidded insolence about her: her manner suggested a mischievous child who hides your stick and with feigned interest aids your search for it in impossible places.
I left Miss Pat and Helen at the general store while I sought the hardware merchant with a list of trifles required for Glenarm. I was detained some time longer than I had expected, and in leaving I stood for a moment on the platform before the shop, gossiping with the merchant of village affairs. I glanced down the street to see if the ladies had appeared, and observed at the same time my team and wagon standing at the curb in charge of the driver, just as I had left them.
While I still talked to the merchant, Helen came out of the general store, glanced hurriedly up and down the street, and crossed quickly to the post-office, which lay opposite. I watched her as I made my adieux to the shopkeeper, and just then I witnessed something that interested me at once. Within the open door of the post-office the Italian sailor lounged idly. Helen carried a number of letters in her hand, and as she entered the post-office--I was sure my eyes played me no trick--deftly, almost imperceptibly, an envelope pa.s.sed from her hand to the Italian"s. He stood immovable, as he had been, while the girl pa.s.sed on into the office. She reappeared at once, recrossed the street and met her aunt at the door of the general store. I rejoined them, and as we all met by the waiting trap the Italian left the post-office and strolled slowly away toward the lake.
I was not sure whether Miss Pat saw him. If she did she made no sign, but began describing with much amus.e.m.e.nt an odd countryman she had seen in the shop.
"You mailed our letters, did you, Helen? Then I believe we have quite finished, Mr. Donovan. I like your little village; I"m disposed to love everything about this beautiful lake."
"Yes; even the town hall, where the Old Georgia Minstrels seem to have appeared for one night only, some time last December, is a shrine worthy of pilgrimages," remarked Helen. "And postage stamps cost no more here than in Stamford. I had really expected that they would be a trifle dearer."
I laughed rather more than was required, for those wonderful eyes of hers were filled with something akin to honest fun. She was proud of herself, and was even flushed the least bit with her success.
As we pa.s.sed the village pier I saw the _Stiletto_ lying at the edge of the inlet that made a miniature harbor for the village, and, rowing swiftly toward it, his oars flashing brightly, was the Italian, still plainly in sight. Whether Miss Pat saw the boat and ignored it, or failed to see, I did not know, for when I turned she was studying the cover of a magazine that lay in her lap. Helen fell to talking vivaciously of the contrasts between American and English landscape; and so we drove back to St. Agatha"s.
Thereafter, for the matter of ten days, nothing happened. I brought the ladies of St. Agatha"s often to Glenarm, and we went forth together constantly by land and water without interruption. They received and despatched letters, and nothing marred the quiet order of their lives.
The _Stiletto_ vanished from my horizon, and lay, so Ijima learned for me, within the farther lake. Henry Holbrook had, I made no doubt, gone away with the draft Helen had secured from Gillespie, and of Gillespie himself I heard nothing.
As for Helen, I found it easy to forgive, and I grew eloquently defensive whenever my heart accused her. Her moods were as changing as those of the lake, and, like it, knew swift-gathering, pa.s.sionate storms. Helen of the stars was not Helen of the vivid sunlight. The mystery of night vanished in her zest for the day, and I felt that her spirit strove against mine in all our contests with paddle and racquet, or in our long gallops into the heart of the sunset. She had fashioned for the night a dream-world in which she moved like a whimsical shadow, but by day the fire of the sun flashed in her blood.
We established between ourselves a comradeship that was for me delightfully perilous, but which--so she intimated one day, as though in warning--was only an armed neutrality. We were playing tennis in the Glenarm court at the time, and she smashed the ball back to me viciously.