Her eyes narrowed, and she looked into my face with sudden gravity. "I wonder if you do understand?" she answered. Slowly a half-wistful smile crept into the corners of her mouth, and she shook her head. "No, you don"t; you don"t at all."
Then her old laugh came bubbling up. "I suspect Mrs. Pillig is more of an authority on pies than propriety," she said in a cautious voice, "and, besides, I"m going away to-morrow, and, besides, I don"t care anyway. Lead on."
We went up the uncarpeted front stairs, into the square upper hall which was lighted by an east window over the front door. I showed her first the spare room on the northeast corner, which connected with the bath, and then the second front chamber opposite, which was not yet furnished even with a bed. Then we entered my chamber, where the western sun was streaming in. She stood in the door a second, looking about, and then advanced and surveyed the bed.
"The bedclothes aren"t tucked in right," she said.
"I know it," I answered sadly. "I have to fix them myself every night.
Mrs. Pillig is better on pies."
The girl leaned over and remade my monastic white cot, giving the pillow a final pat to smooth it. Then she inspected the shingles and old photographs on the walls, turning from an undergraduate picture of me, in a group, to scan my face, and shaking her head.
"What"s the matter?" I asked. "Don"t tell me I"m getting bald."
"No, not bald," she answered, "but your eyes don"t see visions as they did then."
I looked at her, startled a little. "What makes you say that?" I asked.
"Forgive me," she replied quickly. "I meant nothing."
"You meant what you said," I answered, moving close to her, "and it is true. It is true of all men, and all women, in a way--of all save the chosen few who are the poets and seers. "Shades of the prison house begin to close"--you know that shadow, too, I guess. I have no picture of you when you were younger. No--you are still the poet; you see aqueducts of roses. So you think I"m prosy now!"
"I didn"t say that," she answered, very low.
"One vision I"ve seen," I went on, "one vision, lately. It was--it was----"
I broke abruptly off, remembering suddenly my resolve.
"Come," said I, "and I"ll show you Mrs. Pillig"s quarters."
She followed in silence, and peeped with me into the chambers in the ell, smiling a little as she saw Peter"s clothes scattered on the floor and bed. Then, still in silence, and with the golden light of afternoon streaming across the slopes of my farm, we entered the pines by the woodshed, and followed the new path along by the potato field and the pasture wall, pausing here and there to gather the first wild rose buds, and turning down through the cloister at the south.
As we slipped into the corner of the tamarack swamp my heart was beating high, my pulses racing with the recollection of all the tense moments in that grove ahead, since first I met her there. I know not with what feelings she entered. It was plain now even to me that she was masking them in a mood of lightness. She danced ahead over the new plank walk, and laughed back at me over her shoulder as she disappeared into the pines. A second later I found her sitting on the stone I had placed by the pool.
She looked up out of the corners of her eyes. "I should think this would be a good place to wade," she said.
"So it might," said I. "Do you want to try it?"
"Do you want to run along to the turn by the road and wait?" The eyes still mocked me.
"No," said I.
She shook her head sadly. "And I did so want to wade," she sighed.
"Really?" I asked.
"Really, yes. I won"t have a chance again for--oh, never, maybe."
"Then of course I"ll go ahead." I stepped over the brook, out of sight. A moment later I heard a soft splashing of the water, and a voice called, "I"m only six now. Oh, it"s such fun--and so cold!"
I made no reply. In fancy I could see her white feet in the water, her face tipped up in the shadows, her eyes large with delight. How sweet she was, how desirable! I stood lost in a rosy reverie, when suddenly I felt her beside me, and turned to meet her smile.
"How you like the brook," I said.
"How I love it!" she exclaimed. "Don"t think me silly, but it really says secret things to me."
"Such secrets as the stream told to Rossetti?" I asked.
She looked away. "I said secret things," she answered.
We moved on, around the bend by the road where the little picture of far hills came into view, and back into the dusk of the thickest pines.
At the second crossing of the brook, I took her hand to steady her over the slippery stones, and when we were across, the mood and memories of the place had their way with us, and our hands did not unclasp. We walked on so together to the spot where we first had met, and where first the thrush had sounded for us his elfin clarion. There we stopped and listened, but there was no sound save the whisper of the pines.
"The pines sound like soft midnight surf on the sh.o.r.e," she whispered.
"I want the thrush," I whispered back. "I want the thrush!"
"Yes," she said, raising her eyes to mine, "oh, yes!"
And then, as we waited, our eyes meeting, suddenly he sang, far off across the tamaracks, one perfect call, and silence again. Her face was a glimmering radiance in the dusk. Her hand was warm in mine. Slowly my face sank toward hers, and our lips met--met for an instant when we were not masters of ourselves, when the bird song and the whispering pines wrought their pagan spell upon us.
Another instant, and she stood away from me, one hand over her mouth, one hand on her panting breast, and fright in her eyes. Then, as suddenly, she laughed. It was hardly a nervous laugh. It welled up with the familiar gurgle from her throat.
"John Upton," she said, "you are a bad man. That wasn"t what the thrush said at all."
"I misunderstood," said I, recovering more slowly, and astounded by her mood.
"I"ll not reproach you, since I, a philologist, misunderstood for a second myself," she responded. "Hark!"
There was a sudden sound of steps and crackling twigs in the grove behind us, and Buster emerged up the path, hot on our scent. He made a dab with his tongue at my hand, and then fell upon Miss Goodwin. She sank to her knees and began to caress him, very quickly, so that I could not see her face.
"Stella," said I, "Buster has made a friend of you. That"s always a great compliment from a dog."
She kept her face buried in his neck an instant longer, and then her eyes lifted to mine. "Yes--John," she said. "And now I must go home to pack my trunk."
"Let me drive you to the station in the morning," said I, as we emerged from the grove, in this sudden strange, calm intimacy, when no word had been spoken, and I, at least, was quite in the dark as to her feelings.
She shook her head. "No, I go too early for you. You--you mustn"t try to see me."
For just a second her voice wavered. She stopped for a last look at Twin Fires. "Nice house, nice garden, nice brook," she said, and added, with a little smile, "nice rose trellis." Then we walked up the road, and at Bert"s door she put out her hand.
"Good-bye," she said.
"Good-bye," I answered.
Her eyes looked frankly into mine. There was nothing there but smiling friendship. The fingers did not tremble in my grasp.
"I shall write," said I, controlling my voice with difficulty, "and send you pictures of the garden."