to make you acquainted by sight with young chloris: she was a tall girl, a trifle meagre in outline, but not disagreeably so; she had light reddish-brown hair, and a sprinkling of freckles on a peachy skin, and those eyes with dead-leaf spots in them; altogether an air of openness and intelligent goodness that had quickly thrown the newly introduced off the question—was she pretty? but she was pretty, too, at her hours.
on this day she had shut out the sun by means of the green venetian blinds, and her room, like a submerged crystal chamber, was full of a watery light; she herself, white clothed, made a fair green-shadowy nymph in the dim green atmosphere.
this was her first hour of complete con[205]scious content. so rich was she in content that she had set herself to perusing a volume of the driest essays, a present for a diligent girl graduate.
this sense of life unfolding like a normal flower and becoming the perfection of a rose was too much for the grateful heart to contemplate at its ease; some great demonstration towards god must follow on such contemplation. and chloris in her security putting it off until bedtime, sat reading about the discipline of the will, the happy blood all the while keeping up in her veins a pleasant undercurrent babbling of other matters. two hours more and the summer sun would be reaching its glorious haven, the cool flow in with the darkness, and time take up again that sweet scanning of the lines of her idyl....
after reading the same passage some seven times, chloris let her book lie a moment in her lap. how marvellous, how simple, how natural, how exquisite! truly like the coming up of a flower. first, they were children together, fair-dealing, un[206]quarrelsome playmates; then, schoolboy and schoolgirl, always good unsentimental friends; and finally, time, passing over them, slowly turned them to lovers; for this, no question, was whither they were tending: quiet, undemonstrative, unjealous, faithful, devoted lovers, presently married people, and by and by, god pleasing, tenants of one same grave. and this sweetness in the heart, this best of all earthly goods, god granted it to the humblest of his creatures! why, then, were so many dissatisfied with this dear earth? why were some on it interested in the discipline of the will? ah, this summer, so endearingly begun, to be ended so—and chloris, in a confusion of bliss, almost as if to give herself a countenance towards herself, took up her book again, finding moonlight and wild azaleas and whippoorwills between the lines, a dappled, singing shingle, a golden beach, velvet winds from over sea.
the sunshine crept off the window-square; a sadness instantly invaded the room; chloris jumped up to open the blinds. time to[207] dress! then she did her hair as painstakingly as ably, put on a just-ironed white gown with a violet figure, and stood at the glass weighing the question of a velvet band around the neck. a fateful sound already was dawning on the distance outside, but she did not as yet hear it. too hot! she tossed the velvet ribbon in the top bureau-drawer so unconcernedly as if not, at that moment, the parc? had been tangling the skein of her life, and wondered idly if any one describing her would call her pretty. she thought, in conscience, not; but of a charming appearance, she hoped any one would.
at this point penetrated to her brain a sound of voices out on the road beyond the lawn and the hedge. she looked between the curtains.
two ladies, unknown to her, were slowly sauntering past in the direction of the beach; one, near middle age, in a darkish gown; the other, young, in light colors of a distinctly fashionable tone; this latter carried over her shoulder a very large, fluffy, and, as it showed[208] even at this distance, inexpressibly costly parasol. she turned her face a moment on the ancient vine-overclambered country-house, from one window of which peeped chloris, looked it up and down and across, and turned away, making, chloris supposed, some comment upon it to her companion.
when they had disappeared from sight, chloris, still at the window, musing on that face seen a moment, heard a leisurely jingling, and saw pass at a walking pace an empty shining carriage, drawn by two superb bays, driven by a man in livery.
"it must be their turn-out," she concluded her wondering. "who can they be but the people that were to move into the beauregard cottage?"
then, as there was time to spare before tea, she sat down in the window. shortly, was a lively jingling, a trampling, and the shining carriage bowled swiftly by on its way back from the beach; on its cushions, two ladies under a broad lacy parasol; a mighty cloud of dust running after it, never to over-take.
[209]
almost at the same moment chloris saw him, half the subject of her idyl, coming across the lawn.
she went to meet him.
"who are the arrivals?" she asked at once.
and here was pronounced, for the first time before chloris, the name of cytherea.
"cytherea, damon? who is cytherea? where does she come from? do you know her?"
"very slightly," answered the young man; "i have met her in town. she had told me she thought of coming here for the summer, but i supposed it was conversation. i had completely forgotten, until i saw her this afternoon. she is entranced with everything! you can never see our poky little old place in its true light: you must get a description of it from her, chloris. she will find it deadly dull before the end of a week; but for the moment she imagines quiet to be all she wants. she has been working like a slave at doing the proper thing in town."
"she has brought her style with her, i see."
[210]
"they are inseparable. she arrived yesterday on the late train, and you should see the change already in the beauregard."
"you have been there, then?"
"just a moment. they called to me from the veranda. they were having tea. fancy their bringing down a grand-piano!"
"does she play much?"
"i don't know. very probably. she looks as if she might."
"oh, no, damon! there you mistake. she looks as if she mightn't. she is very pretty, but i will vouch for it she can't play—"
"perhaps the cousin is the pianist. we shall see. i said you would call on them this evening."
"i, damon? the instant they arrive? why did you say that? why should i call before they have had time to breathe?"
"do you mind? i am so sorry. they asked me to come, and i half promised. it is likely to be somewhat slow for them here if we stand on ceremony. you will like them, i am sure."
[211]
"you are sure? no doubt i shall. but to-night seems rather—instantaneous, if you don't mind. you will excuse me to them, and i will wait till they get a little more settled."
"settled! they have brought down an army of servants. the house looks as if they had lived in it for a month."
"make what excuse for me you please, then."
"you won't come, chloris?"
"i think not. not this evening. go by yourself, and tell me all the great changes to-morrow. she will be much better pleased to see you than me, anyway."
"why do you say that?"
"her face, my dear boy! she can't play the piano, to speak of, and she greatly prefers men to women."
"perhaps you do her an injustice—"
"have i said anything disparaging? i signalled two virtues, i think. you don't really mind my not going, damon? i had intended to write letters this evening, and mend table-cloths and read to father."
[212]
when, shortly after tea, damon had gone, chloris tried to return herself into a truthful person by reading an hour to her father, and adding a dozen stitches to a delicate darn, and writing a note, which, when finished, she tore up. in order, as far as possible, with her conscience, she seated herself at the piano, a poor, tin-voiced instrument, tired of the sea-air. no one so well as chloris, accustomed to its senile vagaries, could make the worn thing discourse music; her greatest successes on it were old-time compositions written in the day of spinet and harpsichord, minuets with a sprinkling of grace-notes, things not sonorous or profound. to-night, playing for no one's praise, she plunged haphazard into the melodies most sympathetic at the moment, stormy and subtle, melancholy and intricate and modern. it was chloris's one proud gift, this effectiveness at the piano.
her father and his elderly sisters took themselves off to bed on the stroke of ten. chloris remained on the adjustable stool, relieved at their going. she took up her[213] playing again, without trying now to keep her eyes dry.
the sweet, hot air of the day, cooling, was turned to dew outside; something of the same kind seemed taking place within herself—and the dew was tears. why had she been so curiously uplifted that day, so at rest concerning every point in life, so sure of one thing at least? nothing was changed, yet she saw no reason now for blessing this summer, golden hour for hour, and looking to it for the greatest, serenest happiness. damon? what was damon to her, or she to damon? he had never in so many words made love to her, and she had never felt the first pang of wonder or disappointment at this. they had walked, rowed, ridden together. what of it? they should do these things again a hundred times, probably. what of that? what had she been dreaming, erewhile? or was this the dream, this bad one? something splendid and shining and purple had gone gray.
while continuing mechanically to play, she looked through the open window into[214] the summer night. it was rightfully her moon, that honeyed bright moon outside; her balm-breathing night; it was her silver sea yonder out of sight; they were her odorous pine-needle paths in the sighing grove—and she was robbed of them. and the sense of it gave her a seething in the heart, the like of which sensation she had never dreamed existed: as if a painful separation of all the atoms in it one from the other, as well as the stern conviction of being—oh, the novel idea!—a fool.
"i won't have it!" she muttered, emphatically, without knowing definitely what she meant, and struck an angry discord.
through her playing reached her suddenly that merry harness-jingle of the afternoon, approaching, passing, fading away.
"there they go—to the beach for the second time to-day—to look at the ocean by light of the moon."
when in little less than an hour she heard the breaking again, on the quiet air, of the fatuous silvery jingle, she let her playing fall to a mere musical murmur, and lis[215]tened, acutely, burning all the while with shame.
"go slowly, humphrey," she caught, in a rich, sweet voice; "i want to listen to the music."
"she plays really wonderfully. i have never heard playing i preferred to hers," came in a well-known deeper voice, at which chloris's cheeks waxed hotter still. she pressed her foot on the pedal and shut herself within a wall of dinning, buzzing sound.
when she had lifted it, and risen, the road was empty, the night silent, but for the crickets and the distant surf, as the grave.
several days passed, each bringing chloris its very natural request from damon that she would go with him to pay her respects to the new neighbors; but with a perversity that surprised herself more livelily than him, she daily found a bad reason for putting off the duty. this hindered the progress of the idyl; for damon had a delicate conscience where these strangers were concerned; he[216] would not see them bored in a latitude whose honor, as an earlier inhabitant, he appeared to have at heart.
and presently the atmosphere of the whole country-side seemed qualified by the presence of this cytherea. it seemed to chloris one could not escape the effect of her, without taking to the deepest of the woods. she was like an unstopped jar of some powerful essence; the little country world was redolent of her.
before the time chloris had at last rigidly fixed for a formal visit came a message from cytherea inviting her. hard as she sought to discover a reason for misliking the dainty note, she could find none; it was irreproachable, and chloris dressed herself for the occasion with a divided mind, the preponderant part of which was finally comfort: she should at least grapple now with a reality.
she came to cytherea's house at evening under damon's escort. as one approached it among the trees it looked rather more like one's idea of an eastern temple than a sea-coast cottage. the veranda was behung[217] with colored paper moons, glowing subduedly among the vines; soft light streamed through lace from the changed interior.
excitement took chloris from herself. now the great adversary was welcoming her; and chloris, at the touch of a warm, soft hand, said to herself, "what bugbear have i been frightening myself with?" and found ease and ability to converse, and release from that sense of disadvantage that had ridden her helpless heart like a nightmare.
this atmosphere of the great world that went with cytherea, how awakening, how satisfying after all, to the mind! not the smallness of envy, thought chloris, should keep her from giving it its due, or getting her benefit from it. in the distance and abstract she had hated it; but entered into, seen close, how unconscious, how inoffensive, nay, genial, it proved! what a great good, too, this wealth that permitted such distinction in luxury! country girl as she was, it seemed to chloris she was breathing her native air.
[218]
at cytherea's prayer she sat down at the piano, and to her own surprise played better than usual. when she had done, she begged the hostess to play. she forgot how she had declared that cytherea's face showed no soul for music.
she was surprised to hear the lady say, "i play hardly at all." she sincerely now could not believe it.
"ah, well!" laughed cytherea; and good-naturedly she pushed a chair to the piano, and appeared preparing to begin.
chloris looked on in some wonder. cytherea seated herself half away from the keyboard, one nonchalant arm over the back of her chair, her curly forehead on her hand; and, the first to smile at her own affectation, played an elaborate waltz, very languidly, with her left hand.
impossible for the eyes to leave her a moment while she performed her pretty trick; and ably enough she performed it, with an adorable cream-white hand.
chloris seemed to be slowly returning to consciousness. what perfection was here![219] nature had given this creature everything. criticism of her could only pass current under the stamp of envy. that gracious dark beauty, that warm radiance! and sparkle, and charm—with winningness, dignity, rarity, variousness!
chloris looked over at damon; and the image of his fascinated face, as, a fond forgotten smile on his lips, he followed with his dark dog-eyes each movement of cytherea's, affected her as a drop of poison let into her blood. she seemed to herself growing aged and haggard, even as she sat there, the dancing measure beating on her ear. her hands lay cold in the lap of her best gown—modest made-over gown of pale purplish silk that she wore with a lace bertha of past fashion, once her poor mother's. "what is the use of trying to contend with a thing like that?" her heart asked, dully.
an acuter pain pierced it when, the waltz played out, the laugh following it laughed out, and conversation resumed, she realized the faintest possible shade of disregard in cytherea for the observations made by[220] damon. cytherea prized her, chloris's, utterances distinctly more; her, she seemed, from all her manner, to be honoring; him, for some reason, she held a trifle cheap. this seemed to chloris just a little more unendurable than all the rest. and the dear boy, who, totally ignorant of the effect he produced, was in such high spirits, was so anxious to please, so cheerfully making a mantle in the mud of himself for the beauty to tread upon.
at last it was over; chloris lay in her own bed in the pale summer darkness, and felt she was the heart of the created world, and this pain man's old inheritance; it seemed the very essence of her being which was distilled slowly from her eyes.
on the day following, chloris punctually sought cytherea, for appreciation must be shown the cordiality of the beauty. that was a question apart from others: one is just and polite before anything else. a person overhearing the chatting and laughing of that afternoon in cytherea's room[221] would have thought certainly he listened to a pair of heart friends. the greater expense of admiration between the two women seemed of a truth to be borne by cytherea. chloris must look herself mentally over in astonishment at this value set on her by so great a judge. after the examination she felt foolish and humble. she felt profoundly how, all being different, she too could have worshipped cytherea.
and now she must be concerned in every sort of rural festivity organized by damon for cytherea's amusement; she must see the rival's first effect of being mildly bored by damon's whole-souled dedication turn into an effect of indulgence, daily tinged with increased liking; for who in nature could fail to do final justice to one so simple, so sincere as damon—damon, with his dear, clear, curiously gentle roman face and curly hair?
"the heat does not seem to agree with you this summer, child," one of the aunts concluded her kindly meant scrutiny of chloris's face; and the girl's heart tightened with affright.
[222]
she stood that day before the glass, and, leaning her elbows on the bureau, seriously examined the tinted shadow. "all is of no use," she said. "the more i care, the more i must look like that. does it not seem a little strange that the more one loves the less lovely one should become? and a little hard, too, perhaps, oh, you, my god, with all respect, who have arranged these little matters?" and tired, discouraged chloris began weakly to laugh aloud, though she was alone; and watched the grimacing of her own reflection with a sort of brutal contemptuousness. "oh, you sickening object!" she exclaimed, and hid the delicate, nervous, tell-tale face in her hands. "this cannot go on!" she raved. "human flesh cannot endure it—and i cannot alter it. all must soon see how it is with me. i can barely keep a hold on my temper now. i must get away. damon shall court her; she shall bloom and smile at her ease for him. welcome to each other—both! i shall be where i cannot see it. i refused to visit fidele in her mountain home. i had a[223] use already—god help me!—for every hour of the summer. i will write to say i repent. then damon, cytherea, sing duets out in the canoe by moonlight; find clover-leaves for each other. i shall be scouring the mountain in search of healing herbs, and i do not doubt but, god helping, i shall find them. it is not in nature that a torture like this should last!"
and chloris, when next she appeared before the public eye, looked almost triumphant. and when her leave had been taken of all, and the swift air of change was blowing against her brow, her heart felt so strangely sound and quiet that she almost laughed, asking herself, "why am i going away? i am recovered merely at the notion of it. had i but known, i could have remained like a little heroine, and stood it out."
but the hours passing broke down and carried off more and more all the gallant props of pride and resolution, and at last chloris sat in the galloping car, a drooping runaway, who looked steadily out of the window, and saw the flying scene through tears.[224] contemptible, countrified chloris, with her freckles and inferior clothes, and so ordinary notions of conduct and taste, running away from comparison with the peerless cytherea; taking her envy and weakness out of sight till she got strength to disguise them.
now the scenery, which she had not been seeing, became more lonely and wild; the first low hills, heavy and slow in the general nimbleness of things, shifted themselves with an amiable clumsiness till they had closed in chloris with her train; waking her suddenly, with a faintly happy sense of diversion from immediate suffering, to the feeling of being a child again visiting strange countries. then wheeled and tumbled themselves about and came to meet her the little hills' big brothers, the mountains, with velvety sides, and rocky, rosy summits. a weight for no reason seemed to melt away from chloris's chest as she looked up at them, and thought of living among them now for many a day—the distinguished, sage, cool, sturdily benevolent ones, so high above, so[225] far from, the world she knew, down on the hot-colored, populous plain.
here she was at last, where she must alight; in a high, pure, crystal-clear atmosphere, at a little lost place, wildly green to eyes used to the sun-burned shore, forgotten of all the world but this train that remembered it for a second twice a day.
and here was fidele! it seemed to chloris she had not half known, until this moment, how fond she was of fidele. tears sprang to her eyes on meeting the familiar eyes, and she embraced her old school friend with an impulse of overflowing gratitude. she felt like a storm-beaten lamb come to some sort of shelter at last.
after the first moment's frantic clutch the two friends stood apart, holding hands, and looking each other fondly and frankly over, with wide, moved smiles. fidele, seeing chloris's eyes, wondered why tears had not come to her, too; and compared her own nature unfavorably with her friend's rich nature; and at this thought of her friend's deep, sweet nature, behold! tears[226] were come in her affectionate eyes, too. then both girls fell to giggling like schoolgirls, from mere association of this meeting with other meetings; and in a moment were talking lightly and inconsecutively, in an involuntary imitation of old days; and fidele had taken her friend's arm tightly under her own, intertwined their fingers, and was dragging her along at a hop-and-skip pace.
"what a godsend you are to me!" she exclaimed, rapturously. "there is not a soul in this forsaken place to whom one can talk like a christian. oh, but we are slow! oh, but we are primitive! oh, but we are simple!—"
"what air it is!" chloris breathed, profoundly. "how sweet! i never dreamed such green!—my dear, this is paradise!"
"the air is good enough. the grass is certainly green. but oh, the people are green too! but now you are here, we will change all this, dear. what a holiday! you will inspire us. we will rise up, and look into our closets, and fetch out where[227]with to make a good impression on the stranger. you bring the very air of civilization with you in your clothes and hair. where did you get it, chlo—the general air, you know? how ravishingly you do your hair! and that little hat! now, who in the world but you would have a hat like that? oh, you rare darling! do you know you are greatly improved? you are thinner, but it suits you. you always were a beauty, you know. yes, you were! but you have acquired so much besides—such an interesting air—yes, you have!—so much expression. no one could see you without—gospel truth, chlo! but, yes—i will—i will hold my tongue. did you bring your music at least, for there is a piano, such as it is. thank heaven! you shall make their capture with song. they shall grovel. you know, dear, i am not really so silly as i seem; your arriving has turned my head. i always did adore you, but it is even better than i remembered."
chloris that night, alone at last, tried to readjust herself, to get back through this[228] new experience her self of yesterday. the morning of her starting from home, but sixteen hours removed, seemed withdrawn into a much remoter past; a screen of glittering, crumbling, changing color was arisen between herself and it. she interrogated her breast curiously for that pain lately grown so familiar, forgotten for the first time only in these last hours; her breast did not answer by at once producing it. she goaded it tentatively with a sharp memory or two; it responded sluggishly—a divinely restful torpor was possessing it. she knelt by the window, and looked out at the still, strong, black mountains; instinctively she wafted profound thanks to their rude majesties. far, far away in her dream at this moment, in an infinitely small, sun-warmed, murmuring plain, moved two tiny figures: the great damon, who erewhile filled the entire horizon of her life, and the great cytherea, who interposed her fair shape between her and the sun, shutting off the light of life—two tiny black figures, in a far-off, sunshiny place it fatigued her to think of. only the moun[229]tains were big and important; and this cool, rough bedchamber was fifteen by twelve; only fidele and herself and the people seen for the first time this evening were life-size and real.
stretching her tired limbs in the bed, that had nothing to-night in common with the rack, feeling natural sleep creep over her as it had long not done, she remembered with a vague joy that she was young; she divined a time ahead—perhaps not so far ahead either—when life would become possible again.
she felt as if cosily tucked in and kept warm by the sense of fidele's affectionate appreciation, and the evident admiration of her friends, called in even on this first evening to greet her. it was good. it restored one's lost self-confidence.
the last thought chloris was conscious of was not for damon this once, but demetrius. (demetrius, i said. the reader here revolts. chloris, cytherea, a chloe apparently still to come, and fidele, damon, demetrius! are these names to pass off on the discriminating[230] reader in a tale that has nothing to do with the times of theocritus or addison? i confess it, i would have deceived. the persons in this story knew themselves by none of the names i have set down. they had been given at the font, and had by chance and inheritance come into, names that represented them far less well. who can assume to fitly name a babe in arms? with a pure purpose i rechristened them. if you could know what, for instance, was the real name of cytherea—but enough.)
on the next morning arises chloris, constating with thankfulness that no more than the night before is her heart bleeding at every pore. filled with a venerable feminine desire to still increase the favorable impression she is sure she has made on the inhabitants of this high hamlet, she does her hair more than ever engagingly, puts on her crispest white gown with the lavender ribbons, and her broad straw hat with roses—the hat damon had praised in the early part of the season. something stirs in her sleeping bosom at the remembrance; she pauses[231] in her task of pinning it on; the green-gray eyes with the brown spots grow fixed upon a vision, small as if seen through the wrong end of the opera-glass: on a shining shore, two little figures setting out in a sail-boat—only two, for the cousin has pleaded the disagreeable effect on her of the motion of the sea. chloris sits down discouraged, feeling the blood drop from her face, and her heart present her with as finished a pain as ever. "it really matters so very little," she murmurs, firmly restraining from wringing her hands; "i only—only should like to know how long this kind of thing may be supposed to last!"
chloris and fidele loiter about the garden full of morning sunshine, snipping off wet sweet-peas and roses, and reminding each other of things. then, to please chloris, they go for a stroll. chloris is eager for a little climb. heated and pleasantly tired, they come to the top of an eminence and sit down under the only clump of trees, in company of the unbudging horned cows, who know their claim is good, for they[232] got there first. fidele, leaning against a tree-trunk, fans herself more and more fitfully with her hat, and presently slumbers. chloris, with her head in fidele's lap, can never weary of looking off over the faint-hued valley which the shadows of clouds softly overstray. in this delicious bodily relaxation after hill-climbing in the sun, strange peace inundates her soul, and she entertains a superstition that it is flowing out to her from the mountains, and lies luxuriously, letting herself be done good to. "they know the secret of peace," she muses in her manner of a girl. "they cannot speak, but the effect of their knowledge radiates from them, and reaches us. the end of all—of all is peace. all works towards it incessantly, as one sees nature do towards harmony. through these battles, to peace. why can one not remember it down on the plain?" now a cloud obscures the sun that gropes through it with long golden fingers; chloris, dreaming, ponders half wistfully what it would be to remain here always, begin life anew, never return where one[233] had suffered so much, and was surely so little missed!
on their way home the girls meet demetrius in his chaise, on his rounds. he reins in, and leans out of the leathern hood; with arms alink the girls stand in the white road below, in a great bath of light. they converse a moment; chloris's lifted face, with the stamp on it still of her high thinking on the hill-top, is like a flushed pearl under her rose-laden hat.
"you must let me show you the country," says demetrius, before driving on.
when he is gone, chloris and fidele naturally fall to talking of him.
"how is it," says chloris, "that a man so superior has attained his age and is merely a doctor in a place like this?"
"my dear, we have our ailments like the rest. you don't grudge us a good doctor? he was born here, and after a good number of years down in the haunts of men came back in a natural sort of way. his father left him property up here. he is not ambitious; he has an abundance of money. he[234] practises more or less for the love of it, and something to do. he is our most presentable man, and i want you to appreciate our good points in him. he adores music; the piano i spoke of is his. he has invited us up there; as soon as you feel inclined we will go."
when, in a few days, chloris consented to go, one-half the curious population went with her, to hear her play.
the stiff farm-house parlor, closed nine-tenths of the year, had been made to breathe out its musty ice-house atmosphere; lighted and garnished and filled with guests, it scarcely recognized itself.
demetrius leaned on the instrument while chloris played, his untrimmed head dreamily drooping, his eyes half closed, like a lazy cat's in the sunshine, when a hand is stroking it the right way. when she had finished, and all lifted their hands and praised and questioned her, he turned away with a sigh, saying nothing; and yet both knew that the truest music-lover of all was he; and when she played again it was chiefly with the thought of him as an audience.
[235]
"what an air of intelligence your hands have when you play," he said, later. "but it is the same when you are crocheting, or just drumming on the chair-arm. they look as if they could talk, and utter such wise and witty things."
a very friendly understanding was almost at once established between them; after which, he being such a sensible, direct, humorous man, well on towards middle age, and fidele urging it, it seemed but proper to accept the offered seat in his chaise and see the country to the best advantage.
they travelled many leagues behind his mare; they reached many points of vantage from which to look off at the view. their conversation was half laughter; yet chloris felt a serene security in the awe she knew she inspired.
in the country doctor's company, such was his effect on her and hers on him, chloris felt always sweetly young, and unusually well-dressed, unusually beautiful and brilliant—as well as experienced in the ways of the world, and possessed of a strong and compli[236]cated character. with all this, something of an impostor.
after many rides, many conversations, the light about demetrius was insensibly changed, and offered him under a different aspect. what genuine kindliness in his rather heavy yet well-featured face! what a good, sane, comprehensive intelligence under his shaggy hair! and under his country-made waistcoat a heart suspected to be tender and faithful! if he had done little, risen little, circumstances were more to blame than will; and it pierced through his mockery of himself sometimes that he was not all satisfied now with his condition; ambition that had slumbered gave signs of waking. and he was still young enough to mould his fate to a different shape.
chloris, regarding him, as she told herself, merely in the light of a specimen in which to study human nature, concluded that the woman who intrusted her happiness to demetrius, at least in the event of her being a superior creature, would be in the main a very fortunate one. nothing to fear in this[237] man from inconstancy; no account to make with the inflammable imagination of youth; the gracious, condescending woman would get unbounded gratitude from his humility for every little favor shown. her life would be so peaceful, so guarded from all trouble that care can keep at bay, so surrounded with delicate consideration.
so the herds-grass purpled and was mown; the mustard yellowed, and its yellow vanished; and the apple began to redden. then demetrius, with a little help from everybody, gave a party—a party the like of which had not been given in the sleepy place since his sister's marriage a dozen years before; but this chloris from afar, as fidele had foretold, was inspiring the natives.
and undoubtedly she was the queen of the party. to see her was to know as much. she wore a grand gown of pale purplish silk, with a real lace bertha (the talk of the place for nine days after), and white flowers pricked into the shiny structure of her hair.
there was hired music, and dancing on the waxed kitchen-floor, and an opportunity[238] never surpassed in the annals of the neighborhood to get enough of good things to eat.
towards the end, when one-half the simple revellers were gone, and the musicians were silenced with feeding, and the night air breathed in at the open windows with a feel of great lateness in it, came a petition to chloris to play a piece on the piano.
after various laughing negatives, yielding, chloris, whose eyes were lightsome and dancing to-night, pushed away the stool, and, substituting for it a chair, sat a little sideways in this, with one arm over the back; and, a curious little smile playing on her lips, propped her ruffled head with its wilted flowers on her right hand; and, while the country innocents exchanged wondering glances, with her nimble left hand, amply sufficient to the task alone, began playing a waltz—a sweet, dreamy waltz.
when they were at last home, and fidele, half undressed, had come in to chat a moment with her friend, she asked, "did you enjoy yourself, dearie?"
"immensely!" said chloris. "how nice[239] they all are to me! what dear, kind things they are! by the way, though, there was something i wanted to ask. who is that dark-haired, plump young woman, with black bugle eyes, and a skin like red-and-white paper—quite passable-looking, if she did not look so sulky?"
"what did she wear?"
"something pretentious but unbecoming. it had a lot of bead-trimming. now, speaking of how nice every one and everything was, i except that girl's manner. she was positively rude. i did not know how to take it. i have met her before, with all the others, and passed her on the road, bowing my best; but we have never more than exchanged a word or two, so i can have done nothing to offend her."
fidele was laughing.
"who is she?" asked chloris.
"that is chloe," replied fidele.
"chloe?"
"you mustn't mind her rudeness, dearie. she is really a good sort of creature. but she is no doubt sorely tried."
[240]
"what tries her? why do you laugh?"
"demetrius! he was a shade partial to her before you came—not enough to cause comment in any place but this. and, even here, not enough to lay himself open to blame. it is a pity, though, that she can't keep her feelings hidden, and must vent her spite on you. silly thing! i have no patience with that kind of girl."
chloris's fingers became absent among the hair they were braiding. she looked into the lamp-flame with a vacant expression.
fidele plied the brush in her tangled locks, and went on chatting.
suddenly chloris, who for some time had not spoken, laughed.
"what is it, dear?" asked fidele, looking up at her friend, where she stood still staring in the lamp-flame. "have i said anything funny?"
"no, it was nothing you said. i was thinking—my mind travelled from one thing to another—you know how it jumps about—and i had to laugh, before i knew, at a stupid old circumstance—"
[241]
"what circumstance?"
"oh, nothing, dear—a thing we learned in school, in french, a fable—never mind!"
"a fable! my dear chloris, how interesting! what fable?"
"i can't quote it. i have forgotten my french. it was about a hare—a hare who ran away in terror of a bull, and in his flight came to a swamp where the frogs were just as much afraid of him. wouldn't it be interesting to know the rest? what the hare did, whether he put on his fiercest outside, and tried to make the frogs quake in their little wet boots?"
"what nonsense, you dear idiot! ask demetrius! he will give his best consideration to the frog question, and be impressed with its profoundness, while chloe wears bead trimming and grows sage-color. good-night, dear. i am dreadfully sleepy."
"i mean you shall take me to call on chloe some day soon. now that i see her face with a different idea of her, it is a nice face! poor child! i could never settle down contentedly under the notion that some one[242] disliked me; could you? even a dog! i have had such a happy, peaceful time here, in this dear little place, i want every one to feel kindly towards me when i leave."
"you speak as if i were going to let you go, chloris."
"oh, my dearest, i don't want to talk of it. i have put off talking of it, day after day, yet you must know that i can only stay a very little longer. think of it! i came for a month, and i have stayed—how long is it? and father must be getting lonesome; and he so seldom writes, and then tells me little or nothing. and everything must be needing me—"
"you extraordinary girl!" exclaimed fidele, now very wide awake; "i swear i absolutely do not understand you! what do you mean? first you seem—you seem—and then—and then suddenly—"
fidele could not get out her words, for chloris's hand was across her lips.
"hush!" she pleaded, quite earnestly. "say nothing about it! when a thing has been spoken it seems to exist! you don't[243] understand—i don't understand either. who is consistent? who knows what he wants? who knows ever what he is doing? how many creatures we crush just walking across the grass! a path opens ahead, we take it blindly, not knowing whither it leads. with good reason we say we grope in the dark. let us have the grace, then, when a moment's illumination is granted us, to go by its light. you don't know what i mean; i scarcely know myself. but don't try to keep me, dear! remain at my side every minute that is left of my stay here; see me to the train without the shadow of an adventure—and i will love you all my life!"
and a few days later the train that had brought chloris picked her up again, all flushed with fidele's last kisses, and flew with her homeward.
she looked out of the window with other eyes than those she had first turned upon the mountains. yet tears were in them, too, as she said, "good-bye, dears! your little sister leaves you, made quite well again. but never will she cease to love you. you[244] shall be always in her dreams. and she will come back one day. when god sends her sorrows she will take refuge again with you."
all through the first hours of being rushed along across the brilliant fading land, that she looked at, scarcely seeing, she retained a sense of exaltation. she seemed to herself as a sword after the proofs of furnace and ice-brook. she could have laughed to think of the philosopher that was going home in place of the pallid victim of an almost pathological sensibility.
the mountains were dwindling to little hills; the latter-year sun was too barely bright: a crude earth-color and a sombre green took place of the angelic vague green and blue and pink of the dewier, earlier period. the plain was opening with its more trivial detail. chloris's mind descended to its level, and projected itself with a limited emotion into the circumstances of the approaching home-coming. she felt prepared to endure whatever awaited her with grace and dignity; she felt sure, indeed, that she[245] should feel very little. "i have learned the secret of life," she said to herself; "i have weighed and measured everything."
at this same moment an elderly gentleman who had a daughter was thinking how touchingly young and inexperienced his fellow-traveller looked; in his old heart he felt sorry for her, somehow, for being so young.
"i have weighed and measured everything," she said. "god is real, god lasts, and the love of him. human passion passes away. one might almost say that it does not exist. it is like a physical pain: it tortures, you try to locate it, you fix your mind upon the presumed seat of it—it is not there, there is no pain; and presently, when you are well, you cannot call up a remembrance of the sensation. i feel fitted to write a book on this subject. i thought i could never endure my life without damon—dear, dear damon! yet i live and am improved in health. and, blinded by i shall never be able to explain what mist, i was beginning to adapt my mind to the thought[246] of life with demetrius, whom i pictured out of all proportion happy and grateful to me. why more grateful than another? thank god i was delivered from committing such a blunder! ah, if i could teach chloe all that i have learned! but she does not need it; she gets what she wants, for beyond a doubt demetrius in time goes back to her. i—i am armed now at every point. i have a defence against every circumstance. the secret is: nothing matters, but god above. and, knowing this, i mean to be very sweet to all at home, more thoughtful of every one, more generous of all myself—"
she was running between familiar orchards and fields; the image of reaching home became very present, and a sweetness pervaded her rising excitement at the thought of touching so soon the home-hands. the mountains were thrown back to the horizon of her mind. between the sandy hummocks, beyond the level salt meadows which she had left green and found russet, she caught glimpses of a great sapphire line. she began looking eagerly for the farm-house that meant she[247] was within a minute of her journey's end. it flashed past. she gathered up her things; she came out on the platform, and with a joyous heart looked for her father's gray face and his hand extended to help her down.
he was not there, and she got off the train alone, half-conscious of a dog-cart not far, with a horse behaving as a horse should not at the locomotive. the superbly indifferent iron monster puffed off, dragging after it its train; the indignant horse quieted down. she heard her name called; the voice was the man's in the dog-cart, it was damon's. the philosopher hurried towards him with an insanely beating heart, an uplifted, greeting, beaming face.
he helped her in, and his trickle of answers met her stream of questions, and her stream of answers his trickle of questions, as they jogged, tilting along between the dusty roadsides. the warm flood of her home-coming sensations subsided a little, and she turned to look at him, to take a fond inventory of his face—dear old faithful friend, so kind to fetch her himself! her heart tightened.[248] what was gone wrong with damon?—damon, whom she had been picturing so happy, and was just rousing her spirit to question casually concerning cytherea. even at that moment they were approaching her dwelling, when the question, if she could make her voice right, not too indifferent, nor yet too interested, would seem so in place.
the grass on the lawn was long and uneven, constellated with twinkling autumn dandelions; the windows were shuttered, the veranda was empty, the chimney smokeless; a forgotten hammock rope, blackened and twisted by the rain, swung from a branch in front of the deserted house, thumping faintly against the tree-trunk. chloris turned her lengthened face towards damon; he lifted to hers a pair of very miserable eyes, and said, in an unresonant voice, "you should have got back in time for the cattle-fair. it was better than usual this year. cookson's little mare took a prize."
"you don't mean it!" faltered chloris, and looking straight ahead set her lips hard,[249] to keep down an impetuous flood of hatred for cytherea.
she saw the propriety of continuing to talk; but she could not keep her mind on it. damon's powers of conversation, too, had failed him. he kept a stolid face to the horse's head; and they drove in silence to her door, where, alighting, she was swallowed in a sea of affectionate fatherly and auntly embraces.
"i may stay to tea, mayn't i?" asked damon, dully, from his corner, where he seemed sitting in the cold.
chloris gave him a place beside herself, and treated him like a sick, beloved child; but so tactfully, he could know only that it soothed.
she let him lie on the sofa, afterwards, while she played, and the others slept in the upper chambers.
she played with upturned face, pale and gentle and full of understanding; her eyebrows lifted, her eyes very large and kind. she would have thought that damon slept, but that now and again he sighed.
[250]
when at last she stopped to look for something among her music, to go on with, he got up and came to the piano-side. "i am so glad you have got back," he said, from all his heart; "you are such a brick. good lord, how i have missed you—"
he turned away and went aimlessly to the window, and stood looking out. "i suppose it is time i went," he said. "but i hate to go home! i don't know what is come to me, i can't sleep these nights."
chloris had gone to the window, too, and stood beside him, her indulgent young face, that wore a world-old expression, turned on the dimly glimmering white petunia-beds outside.
"would you—won't you come out for a little stroll, chloris? run for your shawl, there is a dear girl, and let us go over to the beach. it isn't really late, and i am so restless, and i don't want to go alone, and it is so stuffy in my room at home."
chloris, without a word of demur, took her wrap and followed him. they walked side by side in silence; the sense they must[251] have in common of the beauty of the night might at first take lieu of conversation; when that sense must be outworn, they still thought their thoughts in silence. chloris knew the relief it is not to pretend; damon thought only of himself in this hour.
it was she, after a while, that led—tall, slender figure a step ahead of him, walking swiftly, with a sort of intrepidity. with his head a little bowed, his hands behind him, he followed.
she led him to the beach, and without regard for time or fitness of things, farther and farther along the smooth sands, away from home; then, by a long loop, back to the homeward road, as if with the determination to tire him out. she herself was conscious of no fatigue. she felt like a spirit; her uplifted eyes seemed so expanded that they could take in all the radiant firmament.
at last, as if awaking, he stopped and vaguely looked about, saying, "i am ready to drop! good lord, how far have you been taking me? let us sit down a moment and rest."
[252]
they were not far from home, on the edge of a familiar pine-grove that ran down to the lapping inland sea. she sank on the dry pine-needles; he dropped beside her, and, tearing off his cap, unquestioningly laid his head in her lap.
"does it ache?" she asked, softly.
"yes," he murmured. "rub it."
she passed her hand with a measured motion across his forehead, pushing up the heavy hair. she felt his face for an instant press closer to her knees; volumes of gratitude seemed expressed in the impulsive movement. she continued her stroking with a quiet, sisterly hand, her swelling heart suddenly choking her. she had him back, that she knew beyond a doubt. broken, disillusioned, his heart seared by the image of another, he was hers, as he lay there thinking of that other. hers to help, to heal, to make love her as much as she loved him. and a flood of human passion, the sensation she had decided—god forgive her!—disposed of forever, surged in her. her eyes brimmed over with happy tears. why[253] should there be any feeling of bitterness mixed in a feeling so sweet? why should the hurt to one's vanity be remembered in such a situation? why not be finally glad to give more than one received, offer something whole for something broken, bless beyond all desert? no—no—that other could never have loved him so! fate had meant well by him in putting her out of reach; this sorrow of his should pass away and be as if it had never been. chloris felt in herself such inexhaustible wells of tenderness and patience, she knew hers was the good title; she knew she could be sufficient—make damon forget. her heart sang a song of praise and victory, while her hand smoothed his forehead with the fancy that it brushed away the image of cytherea, fatal line by line.
ineffable fatigue drew her down from high serene thoughts to thoughts nearer earth. she ached; waves of unnatural sensation swept through her, but she would not move. the weight of his dear head was better than ease.
[254]
while she took patience till he should be ready to rise and go sensibly home to bed, a whimsical image formed in her brain: herself, and to one side of her, a little higher, cytherea, and to the other, a little lower, chloe—and beyond chloe, in the descending line, some poor woman, not pretty or winning at all, to whom chloe must appear a half-divinity; and above cytherea, in the ascending line, another fairer than she, for, when all was said, there must be in this world women even fairer than the great cytherea, of whom she, perchance, lying awake in her queenly bed, would think with anguish, confessing herself helpless to struggle. poor cytherea, then, in her turn! chloris framed a sincere wish for her continued happiness, and that in the event of despised love god should grant her to become a philosopher. and her imagination went on feebly, whimsically, weaving. still another fairer still creature above cytherea's victress—still another at the other end, to whom the envier of chloe should be an object of envy—and so on, till the chain seemed to extend from the seraphs[255] down to the last of the most degraded race, and take a slightly humorous aspect. "it pleases the powers to be merry," thought chloris, and was conscious of no irreverence in the conceit.
"wake up, chloris!" came damon's voice, sounding more as it had used to sound, before he was so grown-up, and had untoward things happen to him in his sentiments.
"i have not been asleep!" she said, sheepishly, "except below my knees."
"i won't contradict you, but when i struck a light you were nodding and smiling away to yourself like a little china mandarin. have you any idea of the time it is? well, i won't enlighten you. what a crazy thing we have been doing! come, dear, let me help you up. i hope to heaven you haven't taken cold. hello, can't you walk straight? what a brute i am! take my arm—"
and laughing weakly and wearily, they set out staggering across the dim stubble-field that separated them from home.
"dear old chloris!" damon murmured,[256] pressing her arm to his side. "best girl in the universe! you can never think what a comfort it is to have you home again. i feel more like myself. i think that to-night i shall sleep."
