—”
At this he lighted a cigarette to soothe his excited feelings, and there was silence for some time. Then the girls came down. We could hear their light chatter. Lettie entered the room. He jumped up and surveyed her. She was dressed in soft, creamy, silken stuff; her neck was quite bare; her hair was, as Marie promised, fascinating; she was laughing nervously. She grew warm, like a blossom in the sunshine, in the glow of his admiration. He went forward and kissed her.
“You are splendid!” he said.
She only laughed for answer. He drew her away to the great arm-chair, and made her sit in it beside him. She was indulgent and he radiant. He took her hand and looked at it, and at his ring which she wore.
“It looks all right!” he murmured.
“Anything would,” she replied.
“What do you mean — sapphires and diamonds — for I don’t know?”
“Nor do I. Blue for hope, because Speranza in ‘Fairy Queen’ had a blue gown — and diamonds for — the crystalline clearness of my nature.”
“Its glitter and hardness, you mean. — You are a hard little mistress. But why hope?”
“Why? — No reason whatever, like most things. No, that’s not right. Hope! Oh — blindfolded — hugging a silly harp with no strings. I wonder why she didn’t drop her harp framework over the edge of the globe, and take the handkerchief off her eyes, and have a look round! But of course she was a woman — and a man’s woman. Do you know I believe most women can sneak a look down their noses from underneath the handkerchief of hope they’ve tied over their eyes. They could take the whole muffler off — but they don’t do it, the dears.”
“I don’t believe you know what you’re talking about, and I’m sure I don’t. Sapphires reminded me of your eyes — and isn’t it ‘Blue that kept the faith’? I remember something about it.”
“Here,” said she, pulling off the ring, “you ought to wear it yourself, Faithful One, to keep me in constant mind.”
“Keep it on, keep it on. It holds you faster than that fair damsel tied to a tree in Millais’s picture — I believe it’s Millais.”
She sat shaking with laughter.
“What a comparison! Who’ll be the brave knight to rescue me — discreetly — from behind?”
“Ah,” he answered, “it doesn’t matter. You don’t want rescuing, do you?”
“Not yet,” she replied, teasing him.
They continued to talk half nonsense, making themselves eloquent by quick looks and gestures, and communion of warm closeness. The ironical tones went out of Lettie’s voice, and they made love.
Marie drew me away into the dining-room, to leave them alone.
Marie is a charming little maid, whose appearance is neatness, whose face is confident little goodness. Her hair is dark, and lies low upon her neck in wavy coils. She does not affect the fashion in coiffure, and generally is a little behind the fashion in dress. Indeed she is a half-opened bud of a matron, conservative, full of proprieties, and of gentle indulgence. She now smiled at me with a warm delight in the romance upon which she had just shed her grace, but her demureness allowed nothing to be said. She glanced round the room, and out of the window, and observed:
“I always love Woodside, it is restful — there is something about it — oh — assuring — really — it comforts me — I’ve been reading Maxim Gorky.”
“You shouldn’t,” said I.
“Dadda reads them — but I don’t like them — I shall read no more. I like Woodside — it makes you feel — really at home — it soothes one like the old wood does. It seems right — life is proper here — not ulcery —”
“Just healthy living flesh,” said I.
“No, I don’t mean that, because one feels — oh, as if the world were old and good, not old and bad.”
“Young, and undisciplined, and mad,” said I.
“No — but here, you, and Lettie, and Leslie, and me — it is so nice for us, and it seems so natural and good. Woodside is so old, and so sweet and serene — it does reassure one.”
“Yes,” said I, “we just live, nothing abnormal, nothing cruel and extravagant — just natural — like doves in a dovecote.”
“Oh! — doves! — they are so — so mushy.”
“They are dear little birds, doves. You look like one yourself, with the black band round your neck. You a turtle-dove, and Lettie a wood-pigeon.”
“Lettie is splendid, isn’t she? What a swing she has — what a mastery! I wish I had her strength — she just marches straight through in the right way — I think she’s fine.”
I laughed to see her so enthusiastic in her admiration of my sister. Marie is such a gentle, serious little soul. She went to the window. I kissed her, and pulled two berries off the mistletoe. I made her a nest in the heavy curtains, and she sat there looking out on the snow.
“It is lovely,” she said reflectively. “People must be ill when they write like Maxim Gorky.”
“They live in town,” said I.
“Yes — but then look at Hardy — life seems so terrible — it isn’t, is it?”
“If you don’t feel it, it isn’t — if you don’t see it. I don’t see it for myself.”
“It’s lovely enough for heaven.”
“Eskimo’s heaven perhaps. And we’re the angels, eh? And I’m an archangel.”
“No, you’re a vain, frivolous man. Is that —? What is that moving through the trees?”
“Somebody coming,” said I.
It was a big, burly fellow moving curiously through the bushes.
“Doesn’t he walk funnily?” exclaimed Marie. He did. When he came near enough we saw he was straddled upon Indian snow-shoes. Marie peeped, and laughed, and peeped, and hid again in the curtains laughing. He was very red, and looked very hot, as he hauled the great meshes, shuffling over the snow; his body rolled most comically. I went to the door and admitted him, while Marie stood stroking her face with her hands to smooth away the traces of her laughter.
He grasped my hand in a very large and heavy glove, with which he then wiped his perspiring brow.
“Well, Beardsall, old man,” he said, “and how’s things? God, I’m not ‘alf hot! Fine idea though —” He showed me his snow-shoes.
“Ripping! ain’t they? I’ve come like an Indian brave —”
He rolled his “r’s”, and lengthened out his “ah’s” tremendously —“brra-ave”.
“Couldn’t
