it ended in their remaining ten gala days. flood telegraphed for the implements of winter sports, and got them the next day. they opened them on the brow of the hill, and pendleton, who took it upon himself to be master of ceremonies, "dared" rosamund to lead off on the skis.
"what for is vey long sticks?" tim asked. and when he saw miss rose walk off on them he shrieked, and hid his face in eleanor's skirts.
the entire household had come to look on. matt and sue stood at the corner of the cottage, he leaning on a snow-shovel to keep him in countenance, aunt sue with one apron over her turbaned head and her hands rolled up in another. grace, as white as the snow itself, sat bundled up in rugs on a sunny corner of the piazza; ogilvie had seen to that.
eleanor and rosamund were in scarlet caps and long blanket coats. when pendleton had fastened on her skis, rosamund threw aside the coat, and stood, a figure of white against the vaster white, save for the red of her cap and the warm brightness of her hair and face.
she had known many alpine winters, and was as much at home on skis and snowshoes as in a ball-room.
she turned away from the interested little group to look across the unbroken slope gleaming in sunlight that kissed it to a rosy glow in places, in others turned its frozen crystals to a myriad sparkling points of light. in the hollows and under the shadow of drifts and pines the snow looked blue. she knew where the fields lay, now under their blanket, patterned by fences in the summer. the road wound off to the left, then down, down——
it was only a step or two to the crest of the hill; the leap would be glorious! she turned a laughing glance over her shoulder; eleanor, ogilvie, flood, were watching her intently.
"i dare you!" pendleton cried again; and she was off, off in one splendid rush and leap, a leap that carried her out and down, far down.
again timmy shrieked, and yetta fell on her knees. eleanor's face flushed in admiration, and pendleton called out,
"good girl! never knew you to take a dare!"
it was a phase of her new to the two men who loved her. ogilvie had seen her in many situations, flood in more; each believed that he knew the full excellence of her, yet, oddly enough, neither had thought of her as this wild, boyish, graceful creature of the out-of-doors. the sudden discovery of it came as a shock to both; for both were by nature men of the open, notwithstanding the fact of flood's accumulated millions and ogilvie's eminence in the laboratory. now, in their surprise, they stood above, on the edge of the slope, and watched her, each thrilling, each showing his emotion in his own way.
flood, in his surprise, had called out, then thrust one clenched fist into the other palm with a resounding smack; but in a moment his face took on its expressionless mask—expressionless save for the gleam from the half-closed eyes.
ogilvie had made no sound; he stood perfectly still, with out-thrust under lip, the corners of his eyes wrinkling to a smile; his face wore something of the indulgent, restrained look of a mother when she sees an adored child perform some wonder, yet refrains from praise of that which is so intimately her own; his first move was to run his fingers through his hair.
the two stood there as if spellbound until rosamund reached the valley and waved up to them. then flood and ogilvie turned, and met each other's eyes. there was something of a shock; instantly each looked away again, with an unspoken feeling of apology, as if he had looked upon a disclosure that was not meant for him.
neither analyzed what he had seen; until that moment neither had suspected that the thought of rosamund might be living in the heart and desire of the other. instantly each put the suspicion aside, as if it were an unworthy one; yet, through the hours that followed, it persisted in returning again and again. each man acknowledged that if it were true of himself, it might well be true of his friend; but each tried to assure himself of its impossibility, even while admitting that, if it were true, there could have been nothing of unfairness on the part of the other.
from their first meeting on the mountain-top flood and ogilvie had intuitively liked each other. through a knowledge of varied types of men, they had learned to look beneath the surface; each recognized in the other many qualities to respect. men are by nature hero-worshipers, from the time that they look with covetous admiration on the policeman's brass buttons and the motorman's thrilling power, through the period when they worship the home league's star pitcher and third-base-man, the captain of their college foot-ball eleven, and on to their political enthusiasms. there is far more of pure hero-worship in the friendships of men than the world gives them credit for. flood and ogilvie had met on a mountain-top, and on a height their friendship was to remain. each saw in the other "a splendid fellow"; neither would have admitted in his friend the least shadow of baseness. so, after the unforeseen disclosure of that look, each man felt generously on his honor to appear unaware of any possible feeling on the part of his friend toward rosamund, even going so far, in his heart and hopes, as to deny that such might exist.
but while this ardent liking existed between flood and ogilvie, there was something far different between each of them and pendleton.
pendleton liked flood. he liked him for the virile strength of his personality, as well as for his possessions; he knew him only in his hours of leisure, and might not have liked him so well, nor at all, if he had known him only when he was engrossed in business. but toward ogilvie he could not disguise an antagonism which would have shown itself openly if he had been more courageous, and which as it was, appeared in countless small spitefulnesses.
to the man who does nothing there are no creatures less interesting than those whose every moment is taken up with affairs. between the deliberate idler and the man of absorbing occupation there can be nothing in common; indeed, there often arises more or less antipathy. the business man is apt to retain a hearty disrespect for the idler; to him, the man of leisure must always appear an anomaly, an excrescence, a parasite of civilization. and even when the worker has developed toward the plane of the connoisseur, the collector, the lover of sports and arts, he seldom does more than tolerate the man who has begun where he finds himself only toward the end of an active career.
yet flood found marshall amusing and likable enough. he was perfectly aware of pendleton's qualities of the sycophant, the flatterer, the gatherer of crumbs from the rich man's table. he thought of them rather pityingly as a natural outgrowth of the life of that class in which pendleton was so much at his ease, and regarded them leniently because he believed that there was also to be found in that class so much that was desirable, so much that he himself coveted. he was willing to accept its evil with its good, its defects with its excellence; if it had brought forth a pendleton, it had also borne the perfect flower that was rosamund.
but to ogilvie pendleton was altogether an abomination; he could see no good in him; his very palms itched to smite him!
they were fortunate in their weather. it seemed as if nature, satisfied with her latest marvel, were holding her breath. every day of their ten was brilliantly clear and cold and windless. their voices rang far across the white silence of valley and mountain in that hushed atmosphere. the frozen snow crunched even under timmy's little trudging feet; and the mountain people apparently felt that it was useless to lurk among the spruces when every step they took told where they would be hidden. they came from far and wide to stare at the strange antics of the "foreigners," and grinned at rosamund, more friendly than they had ever been before.
pap drove mother cary across the valley to look on at the sports; rosamund called her attention to the new friendliness of the other spectators. the old woman smiled rather grimly. "land! no wonder!" she said. "nobody could suspicion those young fellers were spies, cuttin' up sech capers as them, sliding down hill head foremost on their stummicks, an' prancin' around on slappers. i never saw such goin's on, myself—and john ogilvie one of 'em!"
they laughingly compared notes afterward, and decided that mother cary had been quite scandalized by their "capers;" ogilvie admitted that she had been very severe toward him the day after her drive across the valley.
but for themselves they were glorious hours. rosamund threw aside the burden of care that had enveloped her during the past weeks, and became as merry as a child, more gay and joyous, than ogilvie had ever seen her. she skimmed down the slopes on her toboggan with tim holding on behind her, his curls blowing out in the onrush of their swift descent; and she would carry him back up the hill again, "pick-a-back," to show him how strong a horse she was. she could outdistance them all on skis, but ogilvie proved himself the best on snowshoes—thanks to his boyhood in northern vermont, although flood, who had faced many a blizzard on the plains, was not far behind him.
on the last day of the joyful ten flood had gone with rosamund on snowshoes across the valley to carry something to mrs. allen. snow had fallen during the night, and every bough of pine and spruce and fir had its burden of downy white. the two paused, when they had come past father cary's wood-lot, to look down upon the valley.
they stood for a moment or so without speech. flood looked from the snow-covered fields to the face beside him, as if to compare one loveliness with another; then he drew a deep breath.
"well," he said, as they went on again, "i'm sorry to be leaving all this!"
for a moment she did not reply; she looked up at him once or twice, and he divined that she had something to say which she did not quite dare to put into words. they had become very good friends, thanks to the freedom of the out-of-door life of the past days. he laughed.
"go on, please! don't mind saying it! i haven't any feelings!"
"oh," she protested, laughing, "i was not dreaming of hurting your feelings! i was only thinking how—how curious it is that you should—should care so much for what you are going back to."
but he did, nevertheless, show himself a little hurt at that. "why shouldn't i like it?" he asked. "do i seem such a savage?"
"oh, precisely not!" her mood was kind. "you are not a savage. you are very nice—i'm very glad i've found out how nice you are. but that's just what makes me wonder, you see, how you can like it!"
"like being nice?"
"no—of course not! like what you're going back to. new york. cecilia! oh—all of that—you know what i mean, don't you?"
"why," he said, a little puzzled, "i'm afraid i don't see anything wrong with it—with your 'all of that!' do you think i ought to?"
"oh, it isn't so much what is wrong with it. it's only that it doesn't satisfy—does it? it is chaff—husks—a bubble—it has no substance."
he considered it for a moment. then he submitted: "has this?"
"well, at least this has substance. it isn't empty."
"isn't it?" he asked. "do you know, i should just have reversed that opinion. i should have said there was a good deal more in the life you've deserted this winter than in the life you're choosing to live here!"
she laughed. "perhaps i've reverted! or perhaps we are in different phases of evolution! you have reached your—we'll call it your new york—and i have passed through it and come on to something better. or if that sounds impolite we'll say that i have reached it and tumbled down again!"
"oh, there's no impoliteness in the truth! you are generations, infinite ages, ahead of me!"
she made no answer to his humility, and for a while neither spoke again. their talk was, of necessity, largely broken by intervals when all their attention was needed for the task in hand. the light snow made the going uncertain; they were taking the shorter way home, along the upper slopes, instead of crossing the valley, and they had, more or less, alternately to feel their way and to rush swiftly on across possible dangers.
at the crest of the last slope rosamund paused, and they turned to look back at the way they had come. flood watched her with eyes of devotion, as she stood there with her head thrown a little upwards, breathing deeply, her face warm with her delight in the beauty of the scene before her.
"how lovely it is!" she said, in the vibrating tone that always thrilled him.
"yes, it is lovely," he said, "but only for a time. it is too much like the real thing!"
"isn't it the real thing?" she asked, surprised.
he laughed, and shook himself a little. "i mean the real thing that i used to know, the drifts on the plains, sleet in the face, the numbness in your feet that tells you they're frozen—that's the real thing! believe me!"
she looked up at him, interested. "and you have really felt that?"
"oh, yes," he said. "i've felt it—but it's a long time ago. i'm glad it is, too. a very little of it satisfies. nowadays my real thing is—well, what you called a while ago, new york, though that's only a manner of speaking, you know."
"yes, i know. we've talked back in a circle! i am still wondering why you like it as you do!"
they had crossed their last hummock, and had come to the place not far from the brown house where matt now spread rugs and cushions every morning; but no one was there to greet them. far down the long slope of white they could see eleanor and tim, moving slowly over the crust; yetta was already at home on snowshoes, and her crimson-clad figure was skimming over the snow-covered fields. apparently she was playing a game of ball with pendleton—something they had invented for themselves; ogilvie, also on snowshoes, was with them.
rosamund sent a clear valkyrie call down to them. they all looked up, and waved. ogilvie moved closer to pendleton's side, and the game of ball went on.
rosamund threw herself down on one of the blankets, and flood took his place beside her. she still wore her snowshoes, and sat with her knees drawn up, her arms clasped about them, boy fashion. she was watching the others at their game down below, but flood looked no farther than her face.
suddenly she became intensely aware of the man beside her; she could not tell how the change came, or whether there were a change at all, except in her intense consciousness of him. she did not turn to look at him; she did not so much as tremble from her position; but slowly, as if the blood were retreating to her heart, her face grew white.
flood saw the change in her face, and knew that he was the cause of it. his heart beat triumphantly faster.
"why did you say that you wonder at my liking—new york?" he asked.
she tried, vainly, to speak.
"you know what it represents, to me. it's something better than i ever had before. it's friends, it's music, and art, and the whirl on the avenue. it is 'up and on'—and—rosamund, don't you know what it is above all else? it is you."
he had meant to say a great deal, when this moment should have arrived; he had often wondered just how it would come, when he should find courage where they two should be. he had tried to teach himself the words he thought would be most sure to move her, words that would best disclose the fullness of his faith and his desire; yet now that the moment for speaking was upon him he reverted to the man that was his inmost self, forgetting his practiced phrases, not speaking the words he had rehearsed, but telling his longing in short, rushing sentences of pleading, voicing to her silence the cry of the strong soul to its chosen mate, the appeal, even the demand, of the man who had won a high place to the woman who could lead him up to even greater altitudes of the spirit. he pleaded as a man who has much to offer, but who is yet begging for the crowning gift. unconsciously he disclosed his own greatness of soul, while making her understand that he held her supreme, beyond all that was beautiful, above all that was high.
before he was done speaking, her head had bent itself until her face was on her knees. never had she felt herself so unworthy; never had her humility been so great. yet when he paused, she did not answer; even for his last strong appeal she had no word. he had shown her the depths of his heart, and hers was shaken to its own depths. but yield she could not, turn to him she could not. it was as if two great elemental forces met, and clashed, and refused to combine. she could not altogether repudiate his appeal, yet she must be true to the stronger one which held possession of her heart.
as he watched her in a silence that seemed still to vibrate with the strength of his words, she raised her head to look at the figures now coming toward them up the long slope. suddenly she saw that ogilvie stopped short, and, apparently at some word from pendleton, looked up toward herself and flood. he took a hesitating step or two, came on at a wave from pendleton; then he turned away, leaving the others to return without him.
some silent message had come up the mountain to her; rosamund had found her answer to poor flood. the others were out of sight for the moment behind a low growth of pine; only ogilvie was visible as he made his way along the other ridge, taking his steps heavily, seeming suddenly to have become weary.
rosamund watched him for a moment; then she turned her white face, pitiful with the knowledge of the hurt that she must give him, toward flood. he must have read something there, for, startled, he bent a little closer; then, following her look, he glanced from her to ogilvie, and back again. her eyes did not waver from him, and when they had to answer the question in his, the paleness left her face, and a great wave of color flooded it. he held his breath, and his unspoken question must have become imperative; for she nodded, her parted lips refusing to form words. then, withdrawing her look, she hid her face in her arms.
neither of them ever realized that she spoke no word at all. her reply had been too well-defined to need speech. flood understood.
