They turned into the road before he spoke again.
"So this is your "coolly"?"
"No, this is our valley. The coolly is over there where you see that cloud shadow sliding down."
He looked about slowly at the hills and fields.
"It"s very fine; much finer than Oconomowoc and Geneva."
"We like it ... papa and I."
They were both talking around the bush, as the saying goes, but he finally said:
"I was very glad to receive your telegram. Am I to take it as an affirmative answer?"
She said with effort:
"I wanted you to see how poor and humble we all are before--before I--"
He studied her profile. Her lips quivered, and a tear glistened through the veil.
"On my part," he said, "I regretted that I did not further set forth my general cussedness and undesirability.--How well you drive!" he said, by way of relieving the stress of the moment.
He took command now, and there were no more tender allusions. He sniffed the smell of the gra.s.s and the way-side trees, and remarked upon the cattle, and inquired the names of several birds whose notes reached across the field.
"Do you know, I"m no wild lover of the country, and I don"t admire the country people unreservedly. There are exceptions, of course--but my experience with them has not been such as to make them heroic sufferers, as the new school of fiction sets "em forth. They are squalid enough and poor enough, heaven knows, but it is the squalor of piracy--they do as well as I should under the same circ.u.mstances, no doubt."
Rose looked at him narrowly, as if to find his real thought. He stopped abruptly at her glance.
"I beg your pardon for boring you; but these disagreeable phases of my character should be known to you. I"m full of whims and notions, you"ll find."
She looked away and a moment later said: "There is our farm; that house in the grove is ours."
"Cattle I hate, so I hope your father will not expect me to be interested in stock."
This was the first time he had mentioned her father, and it moved her unaccountably. It would be so dreadful if he should not understand her father. His perverse att.i.tude toward her and toward the country had brought her from exalted singleness of emotion down to a complexity of questionings and forebodings.
As they whirled in the yard Mason saw a new house of the ambitious pork-pie order, standing in a fairly well-kept sward, with a background of barns, corncribs, pigsties and beehives. A well-to-do farmstead of the more fortunate sort, and the thought that the man coming out of the barn to meet them was to be his father-in-law struck him like a gust of barnyard air. Really could it be that he had made this decision?
As the man came nearer he appeared a strong-armed, gentle-faced farmer of sixty. His eyes were timid, almost appealing. His throat was brown and wrinkled as leather. His chin beard was a faded yellow-grey, and his hands were n.o.bbed and crooked in the fingers. He peered at Mason through dimmed eyes.
"Father," said Rose, and her voice trembled a little, "this is Mr.
Mason."
John Dutcher put up his hand heartily.
"How do you do, sir?" His timid smile touched Mason, but there was something else in the man which made him return the hand-clasp.
"I am glad to see you, Mr. Dutcher," he said, and his tone was so genuine it brought a gush of tears to the daughter"s eyes. Her lover understood her father after all.
"Won"t you "light out, sir?" continued John with elaborate hospitality.
"Well, yes, I think I will," said Mason, and Rose"s spirits shook off their cowls.
Suddenly she heard every bird singing, the thrush in the poplar top, the catbirds in the willows, the robin on the lawn; the sun flooded the world with magical splendor. It was morning in the world and morning in her life, and her lover was walking up the path by her side.
It was splendid beyond belief to show him to his room, to bring him water and towels and to say from the doorway, with a smile:
"Breakfast is ready!"
The picture that she made lingered pleasantly on Mason"s interior eye.
She was so supple of form and so radiant of color, and so palpitant with timid joy.
She sat alone at the table when he came out. She explained as she showed him his seat, "Father and my aunt had breakfast long ago."
Mrs. Diehl brought the coffee in and bowed awkwardly to Mason. The whole thing seemed like a scene in a play to him. It was charming, all the same, to sit alone at the table with such a girl; it was just the least bit exciting. His hands shook a little, he noticed.
As he took his cup of coffee from her he said whimsically:
"I expect to wake up soon."
"Does it seem like a dream to you too?"
"Well, it isn"t my everyday life, I must confess."
To her he seemed handsomer and more refined than in the city. He seemed simpler, too, though he was still complex enough to keep her wondering.
The slope of his shoulders and the poise of his head were splendid to her. It could not be possible that he was here to see her; to be served by her; to spend the days with her; to be her husband if she should say so.
And yet she retained her dignity. She did not grow silly nor hysterical as a lesser woman might have done. She was tremulous with happiness and wonder, but she sat before him mistress of her hands and voice. Her very laughter pleased him; if she had giggled--heavens, if she had giggled!
John also went busily, apparently calmly, about his work. Mason was pleased at that; it showed astonishing reserve in the man.
Again that keen, sweet feeling of companionship--wifehood--came to Rose as they walked out side by side into the parlor. He had come to her; that was the marvelous thing! She was doing wifely things for him; it was all more intimate, more splendid than she thought!
They sat down in the best room and faced each other. It was their most potential moment. Breakfast was eaten and the day was before them, and an understanding was necessary.
"Now, I can"t allow you to be hasty," Mason said. "I"ll tell you what I think you had better do; defer your answer until two weeks from today, when I shall return to the city. That will give us time to talk the matter over, and it will give you time to repent."
A little shadow fell over her and the sunlight was not quite so brilliant. The incomprehensible nature of the man came to her again, and he seemed old, old as a granite crag, beyond song, beyond love, beyond hope.
Then he smiled: "Well, now, I"m ready to go see the world; any caves, any rocking boulders, any water tower?"
She took up the cue for gaiety: "No, but I might take you to see the cemetery, that is an appropriate Sunday walk; all the young people walk there."
"The cemetery! I"m a believer in crematories. I"ll tell you what we"ll do. After you"ve hung out the wash-boiler to dry we"ll go down under the trees, and I"ll listen to some of your verse. Now, that is a tremendous concession on my part. I hope you value it to the full."
"I do, indeed."