"Do you know what you remind me of when you stand that way?" I asked.
"No," She looked away now, laughing lightly--though it was more subtly than suddenly done. "What?"
"Of a fairy that"s flown from a b.u.t.terfly moon, just alighting at my threshold and asking to come in."
"Wouldn"t a fairy be unseemly forward to come to a young man"s threshold and ask admittance?"
"Not admittance, but admission--to my dreams, where nothing is real but you and beauty."
"Dreams are for the old, the young shall see visions!--isn"t there a quotation like that?" she asked, smiling.
"You"re not playing fair," I laughed--for I was afraid not to laugh, wanting desperately to say that I was seeing the vision now that would be my dream forever!
"I"ll play fair if I know the rules," she also laughed. "You haven"t told them to me!"
"We"ll make them up as we go along!"
"But what are we going to play?"
"Make-believe," I eagerly cried. "That we"re exploring our Secret world where we"ll come after,"--there was no laugh in my voice now--"you"ve gone to Azuria, and I"m here alone."
She gave my face a quick, searching look.
"And we only have to pa.s.s between these two big trees?" she asked, half lightly, half timidly.
"Only through that gateway, and we"re in our world!"
"Why should I go, I wonder?" The question was whispered, almost unconsciously, and catching the tone of it I also whispered:
"To plant a memory, Doloria, that will grow and bloom as long as we live; where each of us may come--when we"re lonely."
What forces, intangible, supernal, were at work here no man can tell.
Philosophers stumble, fools blunder, and the truth dances on ahead through Life"s woodland of mysteries--one instant revealing itself in a golden shaft of sunlight, hiding the next with smothered laughter in the black shadow of a fern, while seekers after it tramp past in grumbling blindness.
At this moment our wood seemed rich with mystic presage. Pleadingly my hands went out to her, and trustfully she put hers into them. Slowly I backed between the two big trees, our eyes held as two charmed beings.
Everything about me called to her, everything in her urged compliance; and I knew, as did she, that something strange was happening. Yet when I halted she did not falter, but came on, bravely, sweetly, into my arms.
That she should have done this was as inevitable as it was gloriously true. We could no more have continued to stroll side by side through our Oasis, commenting on the seasons, sometimes rapturous over a sunset or the call of a bird, than we could have rubbed a lamp and brought the _Whim_ sailing to us over the sea of gra.s.s. Static existences only prevail with static people, and there was too much surgingly dynamic about this twenty year old girl to have encouraged it here. I say, too, with candor that any man of twenty-six whose blood is red is--with the great out-of-doors abetting--not insulated for or against currents.
Throw these two alone in a primitive world where their tent is the sky, and a spark must eventually jump across the gradually lessening distance. It is thus that wild things mate--and their mating is incorruptible.
But now as my arms tightened and my face leaned to hers, she gave a half fearful cry and sprang tremblingly back, pressing both hands to her breast, breathing quickly and staring at me with wide eyes.
"Chancellor," she gasped, "this is madness, don"t you know it?"
The quick alarm in her voice sobered me and I answered "Yes," for there was nothing else to say. And a moment later when, in an even tone and at a conventional distance, she suggested: "Shall we go on to the fort?" I did not reply, but walked mutely at her side.
Our contact had been too instantaneous for me to collect myself at once, and I wondered how she was managing to do so--or if she were bluffing.
For this sudden serene-mindedness she now displayed was quite too enigmatic for my comprehension.
"We planted the memory that will be mine forever," I whispered, trying to see her face which she kept partially hid by keeping half a step ahead of me. "I"ll never forget our----"
"Oh," she cried, on the verge of tears, I thought, "don"t ever speak to me of it again--ever!"
"It"s nothing we ought to regret--it wasn"t your fault," I persisted,----
"That"s just it--it was my fault, it was," she interrupted pa.s.sionately, and somehow her hand found mine and pressed it. Was there ever any one more square? "I knew we were going to--do that, and I didn"t try to stop it. You"ll think that I"m--I"m----"
"The most glorious girl who ever lived," I cried, taking full possession of her hand now.
"Won"t you please be honest?" she asked, quite seriously. "I am; and I give you my word I"d never have done it if it hadn"t seemed so real--I mean, our planting the memory."
She turned then, and to my relief she was half smiling. For an instant the longing to hold her again showed in my face, but she stopped me with a look. This time it was done with the intention of stopping me, and I stopped. Yet the smile had not left her face as she said, in a tone of sweet confidence:
"Let"s be above-the-board-honest with each other in all things, Jack; it makes for long friendships, Echochee says--and there"s nothing finer, anyhow, than to freely admit a mistake. So it wasn"t your fault any more than mine; we"ve both been very naughty spirits, and we mustn"t be again." She paused, adding: "After all, I suppose it does make our secret world just a little----"
I waited, and when she did not continue, asked:
"A little what?"
Still she hesitated.
"Be honest," I warned.
She smiled again, looking at me frankly.
"Well, a little sweeter, to feel that we"re equally to blame; that that"s why we can"t ever go there again."
"Eden up-to-date?" I laughed.
"Y-yes, I suppose so; and the flaming sword has smote us, so we have to be circ.u.mspect forever and ever."
"But Eve wasn"t! The flaming sword didn"t phaze her a minute!"
"I"ve had lots of time to improve on Eve," she replied archly.
"That"s G.o.d"s truth," I cried.
A rippling laugh burst from her lips--a ringing, happy laugh that was heard, I swear, in listening heaven. She seemed obsessed by a strange excitement--perhaps like my own, that sprang from a deep, inordinate sense of pleasure.
We were getting on toward the fort, walking inside the edge of our Oasis near that place where the fallen palms lay in a confused tangle. I had her hand and was helping her over this network of logs when she suddenly sprang before me with dazzling quickness; facing outward, and holding back her arms to keep me in check.
It was an act instinctive of protection, yet scarcely had I time to wonder at it when a whining, crackling sound, that might have come from anywhere, dashed past our heads. Men who have heard a high-power bullet splitting the air do not forget the sound, which is as quickly recognized a second time as the rattling of a diamond-back.
Immediately following it came the crack of a rifle, and guided by this I saw, above the prairie gra.s.s four hundred yards away, the head and shoulders of a man. At that instant he fired again.