maria greene would not let vernon attend to her tickets; she said it was a matter of principle with her; but late in the afternoon, when they had had luncheon, and she had got the tickets herself, she did accept his invitation to drive. the afternoon had justified all the morning’s promise of a fine spring day, and as they left the edges of the town and turned into the road that stretched away over the low undulations of ground they call hills in illinois, and lost itself mysteriously in the country far beyond, miss greene became enthusiastic.
“isn’t it glorious!” she cried. “and to think that when i left chicago last night it was still winter!” she shuddered, as if she would shake off the memory of the city’s ugliness. her face was flushed and she inhaled the sweet air eagerly.
“to be in the country once more!” she went on.
“did you ever live in the country?” vernon asked.
“once,” she said, and then after a grave pause she added: “a long time ago.”
the road they had turned into was as soft and as smooth as velvet now that the spring had released it from the thrall of winter’s mud. it led beside a golf links, and the new greens were already dotted with golfers, who played with the zest they had accumulated in the forbidding winter months. they showed their enthusiasm by playing bare-armed, as if already it were the height of summer.
as the buggy rolled noiselessly along, vernon and miss greene were silent; the spell of the spring was on them. to their right rolled the prairies, that never can become mere fields, however much they be tilled or fenced. the brown earth, with its tinge of young green here and there, or its newly ploughed clods glistening and steaming in the sun, rolled away like the sea. far off, standing out black and forbidding against the horizon, they could see the ugly buildings of a coal shaft; behind, above the trees that grew for the city’s shade, the convent lifted its tower, and above all, the gray dome of the state house reared itself, dominating the whole scene. the air shimmered in the haze of spring. birds were chirping in the hedges; now and then a meadow-lark sprang into the air and fled, crying out its strange staccato song as it skimmed the surface of the prairies. vernon idly snapped the whip as he drove along; neither of them seemed to care to speak. suddenly they heard a distant, heavy thud. the earth trembled slightly.
“what’s that?” said miss greene, in some alarm. “it couldn’t have been thunder.”
“no,” said vernon, “it was the miners, blasting.”
“where?”
“down in the ground underneath us.”
she gave him a strange look which he did not comprehend. then she turned and glanced quickly at the black breakers of the coal shaft, half a mile away; then at the golf-players.
“do the mines run under this ground?” she asked, sweeping her hand about and including the links in her gesture.
“yes, all over here, or rather under here,” vernon said. he was proud of his knowledge of the locality. he thought it argued well that a legislator should be informed on all questions. maria thought a moment, then she said:
“the golfers above, the miners below.”
vernon looked at her in surprise. the pleasure of the spring had gone out of her eyes.
“drive on, please,” she said.
“there’s no danger,” said vernon reassuringly, clucking at his horse, and the beast flung up its head in a spasmodic burst of speed, as livery-stable horses will. the horse did not have to trot very far to bear them away from the crack of the golf-balls and the dull subterranean echoes of the miners’ blasts, but vernon felt that a cloud had floated all at once over this first spring day. the woman sitting there beside him seemed to withdraw herself to an infinite distance.
“you love the country?” he asked, feeling the need of speech.
“yes,” she said, but she went no farther.
“and you once lived there?”
“yes,” she said again, but she vouchsafed no more. vernon found a deep curiosity springing within him; he longed to know more about this young woman who in all outward ways seemed to be just like the women he knew, and yet was so essentially different from them. but though he tried, he could not move her to speak of her own life or its affairs. at the last he said boldly:
“tell me, how did you come to be a lawyer?”
miss greene turned to meet his inquisitive gaze.
“how did you?” she asked.
vernon cracked his whip at the road.
“well—” he stammered. “i don’t know; i had to do something.”
“so did i,” she replied.
vernon cut the lazy horse with the whip, and the horse jerked the buggy as it made its professional feint at trotting.
“i did not care to lead a useless life,” he said. “i wanted to do something—to have some part in the world’s work. the law seemed to be a respectable profession and i felt that maybe i could do some good in politics. i don’t think the men of my class take as much interest in politics as they should. and then, i’d like to make my own living.”
“i have to make mine,” said maria greene.
“but you never thought of teaching, or nursing, or—well—painting or music, or that sort of thing, did you?”
“no,” she replied; “did you?”
vernon laughed at an absurdity that needed no answering comment, and then he hastened on:
“of course, you know i think it fine that you should have done as you have. you must have met with discouragements.”
she laughed, and vernon did not note the bitterness there was concealed in the laugh; to him it seemed intended to express only that polite deprecation demanded in the treatment of a personal situation.
“i can sympathize with you there,” said vernon, though miss greene had not admitted the need of sympathy. perhaps it was vernon’s own need of sympathy, or his feeling of the need of it, that made him confess that his own family and friends had never sympathized with him, especially with what he called his work in politics; he felt, at any rate, that he had struck the right note at last, and he went on to assure her how unusual it was to meet a woman who understood public questions as well as she understood them. and it may have been his curiosity that led him to inquire:
“how did your people feel about your taking up the law?”
miss greene said that she did not know how her people felt, and vernon again had that baffled sense of her evading him.
“i’ve felt pretty much alone in my work,” he said. “the women i know won’t talk with me about it; they won’t even read the newspapers. and i’ve tried so hard to interest them in it!”
vernon sighed, and he waited for miss greene to sigh with him. he did not look at her, but he could feel her presence there close beside him. her gloved hands lay quietly in her lap; she was gazing out over the prairies. the light winds were faintly stirring her hair, and the beauty of it, its warm red tones brought out by the burnishing sun, suddenly overwhelmed him. he stirred and his breath came hard.
“do you know,” he said, in a new confidence, “that this has been a great day for me? to meet you, and to know you as i think i do know you now! this morning, when i was speaking, i felt that with you to help me, i could do great things.”
miss greene drew in her lips, as if to compress their fullness; she moved away on the seat, and raised her hand uneasily and thrust it under her veil to put back a tress of hair that had strayed from its fastening. vernon saw the flush of her white cheeks come and go. her eyebrows were drawn together wistfully, and in her blue eyes, that looked far away through the meshes of her dotted veil, there was a little cloud of trouble. she caught her lip delicately between the edges of her teeth. vernon leaned slightly forward as if he would peer into her face. for him the day had grown suddenly hot, the spring had developed on the instant the oppressive heat of summer. he felt its fire; he could see its intensity vibrating in the air all about him, and he had a sense as of all the summer’s voices droning in unison. the reins drooped from his listless fingers; the horse moped along as it pleased.
“i have always felt it, vaguely,” vernon went on, his voice dropping to a low tone, “and this morning it was suddenly revealed to me—”
miss greene raised her hand as if to draw it across her brow; her veil stopped her.
“let’s not talk about that now,” she pleaded. “let’s enjoy the air and the country. i don’t have them often.” her hand fell to her lap. the color had gone out of her cheeks. and vernon suddenly felt that the summer had gone out of the air; a cold wind was blowing as over soiled patches of snow left in shaded depressions of the fields; the earth was brown and bare; the birds were silent. he jerked the horse smartly, and it gave an angry toss of its head, as it broke into its tentative trot.
“i do wish you could know the women i know,” said vernon, obviously breaking a silence. he spoke in an entirely different voice. “i meant to put it the other way. i meant that i wish they could know you, and i mean that they shall. you would be a revelation to them.”
miss greene smiled, though her face was now careworn, almost old.
“right along the line of our constitutional amendment, now,” he said, with a briskness, “do you think the women will become interested?”
“the women of your acquaintance, or of mine?” asked miss greene.
“you’re guying,” said vernon, and when miss greene seriously protested, vernon said he meant all the women, as politicians pretend to mean all the people, when they mean only the party.
“i’m afraid not,” she said. “they could have the ballot to-morrow if they’d only ask for it. the trouble is they don’t want it.”
“well, we must educate them,” said vernon. “i have great hopes that the women whom i know will be aroused by what we are doing.”
“i have no doubt they will,” said miss greene. there was something enigmatical in her words, and vernon glanced uneasily at her again.
“how do you mean?” he asked.
“you’ll learn when you see the newspapers to-morrow,” said miss greene.
“do you think they’ll have it in full?” asked vernon. he was all alert, and his eyes sparkled in a new interest.
“on the first page,” she replied, with conviction. “have they your picture?”
“i don’t know,” vernon replied. “they can get it, though,” he added, thoughtfully.
“they keep the portraits of all distinguished public men on hand,” miss greene said, with a certain reassurance in her tone.
“oh, well, i hope they’ll not print it,” said vernon, as if just then recalling what was expected of a distinguished public man under such circumstances.
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“that’s one of the penalties of being in public life,” she answered with a curious smile.
“a penalty the ladies will be glad to pay when our reform is accomplished; isn’t that so?” said vernon, seeking relief in a light bantering tone.
“i thought we were not going to talk politics,” she said, turning and looking at him. she adjusted her hat and held herself resolutely erect.
the sun was going down behind the prairies, the afternoon was almost gone; as they watched the sunset, miss greene broke the silence.
“it’s a familiar sight,” she said, and vernon thought that he had a clue at last. she must know the prairies.
“it is just like a sunset at sea,” she added.
when they had driven back to the town and vernon had left her at the hotel, he turned to drive to the livery stable.
“by george!” he said, suddenly, speaking to himself. “i haven’t read amelia’s letter!”
he fumbled in his coat pocket.
