willard's landlady smiled sympathetically across the narrow breakfast-table. "i guess you've got to stay in this mornin', mr. willard," she said. "it's a good deal too raw and cold for you to be out around, paintin', to-day."
willard nodded. "quite right, mrs. storrs," he returned, and he smiled at his landlady's daughter, who sat opposite. but she did not smile at him. she continued her silent meal, looking for the most part at her plate, and replying to direct questions only by monosyllables.
she must be nineteen or twenty, he decided, but her slender, curveless figure might have been that of a girl several years younger. her face was absolutely without character to the casual glance—pale, slightly freckled, lighted by grey-green, half-closed eyes, and framed in light brown hair. her lips were thin, and her rare smile did not dis[32]close her teeth. even her direct look, when he compelled it, was quite uninterested.
her mother chattered with volubility of a woman left much alone, and glad of an appreciative listener, but the girl had not, of her own accord, spoken a word during his week's stay. he wondered as he thought of it why he had not noticed it before, and decided that her silence was not obtrusive, but only the outcome of her colourless personality—like the silence of the prim new england house itself.
he groaned inwardly. "what in time can i do? nothing to read within five miles: my last cigar gone yesterday: this beastly weather driving me to melancholia! if she weren't such a stick—heavens! i never knew a girl could be so thin!"
the girl in question rose and began clearing the table. her mother bustled out of the room, and left willard in the old-fashioned arm-chair by the window, almost interested, as he wondered what the girl would do or say now. after five minutes of silence he realised the strange impression, or rather the lack of impression, she made on him. he was[33] hardly conscious of a woman's presence. the intangible atmosphere of femininity that wraps around a tête-à-tête with even the most unattractive woman was wholly lacking. she seemed simply a more or less intelligent human being.
given greatly to analysis, he grew interested. why was this? she was not wanting intellectually, he was sure. such remarks as she had made in answer to his own were not noticeable for stupidity or even stolidity of thought. he broke the silence.
"what do you do with yourself, these days?" he suggested. "i don't see you about at all. are you reading, or walking about these fascinating maine beaches?"
she did not even look up at him as she replied. "i don't know as i do very much of anything. i'm not very fond of reading—at least, not these books."
remembering the "pilgrim's progress," "book of martyrs," "mrs. heman's poems," and the "adventures of rev. james hogan, missionary to the heathen of africa," that adorned the[34] marble-topped table in the parlour, he shuddered sympathetically.
"but i walk a good deal," she volunteered. "i've been all over that ledge you're painting."
"isn't it beautiful?" he said. "it reminds me of a poem i read somewhere about the beauty of appledore—that's on this coast somewhere, too, isn't it? you'd appreciate the poem, i'm sure—do you care for poetry?"
she piled the dishes on a tray, and carried it through the door before he had time to take it from her.
"no," she replied over her shoulder, "no, i don't care for it. it seems so—so smooth and shiny, somehow."
"smooth? shiny?" he smiled as she came back, "i don't see."
her high, rather indifferent voice fell in a slight embarrassment, as she explained: "oh, i mean the rhymes and the verses—they're so even and like a clock ticking."
he took from his pocket a little red book. "let me read you this," he said eagerly, "and see if[35] you think it smooth and shiny. you must have heard and seen what this man tries to tell."
she stood awkwardly by the table, her scant, shapeless dress accentuating the straight lines of her slim figure, her hands clasped loosely before her, her face turned toward the window, which rattled now and then at the gusts of the rising wind. willard held the little book easily between thumb and finger, and read in clear, pleasant tones, looking at her occasionally with interest:
"fresh from his fastnesses, wholesome and spacious,
the north wind, the mad huntsman, halloos on his white hounds
over the gray, roaring reaches and ridges,
the forest of ocean, the chase of the world.
hark to the peal of the pack in full cry,
as he thongs them before him, swarming voluminous,
weltering, wide-wallowing, till in a ruining
chaos of energy, hurled on their quarry,
they crash into foam!"
"there! is that smooth and shiny?" he demanded. she had moved nearer, to catch more certainly his least intonation.
[36]
her hands twisted nervously, and to his surprise she smiled with unmistakable pleasure.
"oh, no!" she half whispered, eyeing the book in his hand wistfully. "oh, no! that makes me feel different. i—i love the wind."
"what's that?" mrs. storrs entered quickly. "now, sarah, you just stop that nonsense! mr. willard, has she been tellin' you any foolishness?"
"miss storrs had only told me that she liked the wind," he replied, hoping that the woman would go, and let him develop at leisure what promised to be a most interesting situation. she had really very pretty, even teeth, and when she smiled her lips curved pleasantly.
but mrs. storrs was not to be evaded. she had evidently a grievance to set forth, and looking reproachfully at her daughter, continued:
"ever since sarah was five or six years old she's had that crazy likin' for the wind. 'tain't natural, i say, and when the gales that we hev up here strike us, the least anybody can do 's to stay in the house and thank providence they've got a house to stay[37] in! why, mr. willard, you'd never think it to look at her, for she's a real quiet girl—too quiet, seems to me, sometimes, when i'm just put to it for somebody to be social with—but in thet big gale of eighty-eight she was out all night in it, and me and her father—that was before mr. storrs died—nearly crazy with fearin' she was lost for good. and when she was six years old, she got up from her crib and went out on the beach in her little nightgown, and nothin' else, and it's a miracle she didn't die of pneumonia, if not of bein' blown to death."
mrs. storrs stopped for breath, and willard glanced at the girl, wondering if she would appear disconcerted or angry at such unlooked-for revelation of her eccentricity; but her face had settled into its usual impassive lines, and she dusted the chairs serenely, turning now and then to look fixedly through the window at the swaying elm whose boughs leaned to the ground under the still rising wind.
her mother was evidently relieving the strain of an enforced silence, and sitting stiffly in her[38] chair, as one not accustomed to the luxury of idle conversation, she continued:
"and even now, when she's old enough to know better, you'd think, she acts possessed. any wind-storm 'll set her off, but when the spring gales come, she'll just roam 'round the house, back and forth, staring out of doors, and me as nervous as a cat all the while. just because i won't let her go out she acts like a child. why, last year i had to go out and drag her in by main force; i was nearly blown off the cliff gettin' her home. and she was singin', calm, as if she was in her bed like any decent person! it's the most unnatural thing i ever heard of! now, sarah storrs," as the girl was slipping from the room, "you remember you promised me not to go out this year after supper, if the wind was high. you mind, now! it's comin' up an awful blow."
the girl turned abruptly. "i never promised you that, mother," she said quickly. "i said i wouldn't if i could help it, and if i can't help it, i can't, and that's all there is to it." the door[39] closed behind her, and shortly afterwards willard left mrs. storrs in possession of the room.
the day affected him strangely. the steady low moan of the wind was by this time very noticeable. it was not cold, only clear and rather keen, and the scurrying grey clouds looked chillier than one found the air on going out. the boom of the surf carried a sinister threat with it, and the birds drove helplessly with the wind-current, as if escaping some dreaded thing behind them.
indoors, the state of affairs was not much better: mrs. storrs looked injured; her sister, a lady of uncertain years and temper, talked of sudden deaths, and the probability of premature burial, pointed by the relation of actual occurrences of that nature; sarah was not to be seen. at last he could bear idleness no longer, and opening the dusty melodeon, tried to drown the dreary minor music of the wind by some cheerful selection from the hymn-book mrs. storrs brought him, having a vague idea that secular music was out of keeping with the character of that instrument. after a few moments' aimless fingering the keys he found[40] himself pedalling a laborious accompaniment to the "dead march" from saul, and closed the wheezy little organ in despair.
the long day dragged somehow by, and at supper sarah appeared, if anything, whiter and more uninteresting than ever, only to retire immediately when the meal was over.
"i might's well tell you, mr. willard, that you c'n give up all hope of paintin' any more this week," announced mrs. storrs, as the door closed behind her daughter. "this wind's good for a week, i guess. i'm sorry to have you go, but i shouldn't feel honest not to tell you." mentally vowing to leave the next morning, willard thanked her, and explained that the study was far enough advanced to be completed at his studio in the city, and that he had intended leaving very shortly.
