"M-moral?"
"Unquestionably!" she said indignantly.
"Are you sure?"
"I am."
"How do you know?"
"I have means of information which I am not at liberty to disclose. Who is this speaking?"
"William Smith of Minnow Hollow."
"Are you going to take Mr. Marque to Minnow Hollow?"
"I may."
"You can"t. Mr. Willett employs him."
"Suppose I offer him better wages----"
"He is perfectly satisfied here."
"But I----"
"No! Mr. Marque does not care to leave Caranay."
"But----"
"I am sorry. It is useless to even suggest it to him. Good-bye!"
With cheeks flushed and a slightly worried expression she resumed her sewing through the golden stillness of the afternoon. Now and then the clank of wagon wheels crossing the metals caused her to glance swiftly into her mirror to see what was going on behind her. And at last she saw Marque drive up, cross the track, then, giving the reins to the boy who sat beside him, turn and walk directly toward the station. And her heart gave a bound.
For the first time he came directly to her window; she saw and heard him, knew he was waiting behind the mignonette and heliotrope, and went on serenely sewing.
"Miss Eden?"
She waited another moment--time enough to place her sewing leisurely on the table. Then, very slowly she turned in her chair and looked at him out of her dark lilac-hued eyes.
He heard himself saying, as in a dream: "Is there a telegram for me?"
And, as her delicate lifted brows questioned him: "I am John Marque," he said.
She picked up the telegram which lay on her table and handed it to him.
"Thank you," he said. After he had gone she realised that she had not spoken.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
XII.
WHENEVER he went to Moss Centre with the wagon he telephoned and telegraphed to himself, and about a month after he had begun this idiot performance he ventured to speak to her.
It occurred late in July, just before sunset. He had placed his rod, lighted his pipe, and seated himself on the platform"s edge, when, all of a sudden, and without any apparent reason, a dizzy sort of recklessness seized him, and he got up and walked over to her window.
"Good evening," he said.
She looked around leisurely.
"Good evening," she said in a low voice.
"I was wondering," he went on, scared almost to death, "whether you would mind if I spoke to you?"
After a few seconds she said: "Well? Have you decided?"
Badly frightened, he managed to find voice enough to express his continued uncertainty.
"Why did you care to speak to me?" she asked.
"I--we--you----" and he stuck fast.
"Had you anything to say to me?" she asked in a lower--and he thought a gentler--voice.
"I"ve a lot to say to you," he said, finding his voice again.
"Really? What about?"
He looked at her so appealingly, so miserably, that the faintest possible smile touched her lips.
"Can I do anything for you, Mr. Marque?"
"If--if you"d only let me speak to you----"
"But I am letting you."
"I mean--to-morrow, too----"
"To-morrow? To-morrow is a very, very long way off. It is somewhere beyond those eastern hills--but a very, very long way off!--as far as the East is from the West. No; I know nothing about to-morrow, so how can I promise anything to anybody?"
"Will your promise cover to-day?"
"Yes... . The sun has nearly set, Mr. Marque."
"Then perhaps when to-morrow is to-day you will be able to promise----"
"Perhaps. Have you caught any fish?"
After a moment he said: "How did you know I was fishing? You didn"t turn to look."
She said coolly: "How did you know I didn"t?"
"You never do."
She said nothing.
At her window, elbows on the sill, the blossoms in her window-box brushing his sunburnt face, he stood, legs crossed, pipe in hand, the sunset wind stirring the curly hair at his temples.
"Did you hear the bird this evening?" he asked.
"Yes. Isn"t he a perfect darling!"
Her sudden unbending was so gracious, so sweet that, bewildered, he remained silent for a while, recovering his breath. And finally: "I never knew whether or not you noticed his singing," he said.
"How could you suppose any woman indifferent to such music?" she asked indignantly. She was beginning to realise how her silence had starved her all these months, and the sheer happiness of speech was exciting her. Into her face came a faint glow like a reflection from the pink clouds above the West.
"That little bird," she said, "sings me awake every morning. I can hear his happy, delicious song above the rushing chorus of dawn from every thicket. He dominates the cheery confusion by the clear, crystalline purity of his voice."
It scarcely surprised him to find himself conversing with a cultivated woman--scarcely found it unexpected that, in her, speech matched beauty, making for him a charming and slightly bewildering harmony.
Her slim hands lay in her lap sometimes; sometimes, restless, they touched her bright hair or caressed the polished instruments on the table before her. But, happy miracle! her face and body remained turned toward him where he stood leaning on her window-sill.
"There is a fish nibbling your hook, I think," she said.
He regarded his bobbing cork vaguely, then went across the track and secured the plump perch. At intervals during their conversation he caught three more.
"Now," she said, "I think I had better say good-night."
"Would you let me give you my fish?"
She replied, hesitating: "I will let you give me two if you really wish to."
"Will you bring a pan?"
"No," she said hastily; "just leave them under my window when you go."
Neither spoke again for a few moments, until he said with an effort: "I have wanted to talk to you ever since I first saw you. Do you mind my saying so?"
She shook her head uncertainly.
He lingered a moment longer, then took his leave. Far away into the dusk she watched him until the trees across the bridge hid him. Then the faint smile died on her lips and in her eyes; her mouth drooped a little; she rested one hand on the table, rose with a slight effort, and lowered the shade. Listening intently, and hearing no sound, she bent over and groped on the floor for something. Then she straightened herself to her full height and, leaning on her rubber-tipped cane, walked to the door.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
XIII.
HE came every day; and every day, at sundown, she sat sewing by the window behind her heliotrope and mignonette waiting.
Sometimes he caught perch and dace and chub, and she accepted half, never more. Sometimes he caught nothing; and then her clear, humorous eyes bantered him, and sometimes she even rallied him. For it had come to pa.s.s in these sunset moments that she was learning to permit herself a friendliness and a confidence for him which was very pleasant to her while it lasted, but, after he had gone, left her with soft lips drooping and gaze remote.
Because matters with her, with them both, she feared, were not tending in the right direction. It was not well for her to see him every day--well enough for him, perhaps, but not for her.
Some day--some sunset evening, with the West flecked gold and the zenith stained with pink, and the pink-throated bird singing of Paradise, and the brook talking in golden tones to its pebbles--some such moment at the end of day she would end all of their days for them both--all of their days for all time.
But not just yet; she had been silent so long, waiting, hoping, trusting, biding her time, that to her his voice and her own at eventide was a happiness yet too new to destroy.
That evening, as he stood at her window, the barrier of mignonette fragrant between them, he said rather abruptly: "Are you ill?"
"No," she said startled.
"Oh, I am relieved."
"Why did you ask?"
"Because every Tuesday I have seen the doctor from Moss Centre come in here."
In flushed silence she turned to her table and, folding her hands, gazed steadily at nothing.
Marque looked at her, then looked away. The big, handsome young physician from Moss Centre had been worrying him for a long while now, but he repeated, half to himself: "I am very much relieved. I was becoming a little anxious--he came so regularly."
"He is a friend," she said, not looking at him.
He forced a smile. "Well, then, there is no reason for me to worry about you."
"There never was any reason--was there?"
"No, no reason."
"You don"t say it cheerfully, Mr. Marque. You speak as though it might have been a pleasure for you to worry over my general health and welfare."
"I think of little else," he said.
There was a silence. Between them, along the barrier of heliotrope and mignonette, the little dusk moths came hovering on misty wings; the sun had set, but the zenith was bright crimson. Perhaps it was the reflection from that high radiance that seemed to tint her face with a softer carmine.
She looked out into the West across the stream, thinking now that for them both the end of things was drawing very near. And, to meet fate half way with serenity--nay, to greet destiny while still far off, with a smile, she unconsciously straightened in her chair and lifted her proud little head.