he was standing by the rail on the upper deck of the steamer, beside a man with whom he appeared to be in conversation. she had no difficulty, after all, in recognizing him. barry was still the tallish, brown-moustached, quiet-eyed man who had so generously exerted himself to make her brief stay in arizona agreeable.
she saw him first, the advantage giving her time to look away again before his eyes discovered her. just why she should want to look away was in the nature of a mystery; yet avert her eyes she certainly did, as she might have done in the case of a stranger whose presence had casually attracted her notice. the feeling that, despite what had passed between them under the discreet propulsion of government postage, she did not really know this man, returned stronger than ever. she smiled a little—she had to—at her own manifest perversity; and flushed vaguely, too.
as soon as lynndal barry discovered miss needham down on the dock his face lighted, and he grasped the arm of the man standing beside him.
"there she is!" he cried.
[pg 102]
his companion looked, but was a moment or two trying to decide which of the several very possible young ladies standing about near the freight house might prove to be she. to facilitate the other's search, barry pointed. and louise, observing the gesture out of the corner of an eye, coloured and turned still more away, maintaining, after all, though she had been just on the point of abandoning it, the pretense that she had not yet seen the man to welcome whom she had risen so early and come so far.
somehow, a wrong note had been struck. even the rev. needham—and his views on culture were widely known—had often cautioned his girls against pointing at persons or things in public. lynndal ought not to have pointed. yes, it was a wrong note—and a wrong note just at the most critical time. of course in poising this action of his, louise, it is quite patent, now failed to consider one thing; she failed, because perversely and momentarily she was out of mood, to consider that a young man who has travelled hundreds of miles to see a young lady he expects to marry would rather naturally be so carried away at the first sight of her that manners wouldn't count for the full weight of their every-day prestige. great events sanction great exceptions. but louise, now, was not prepared to make the requisite allowances. she had thought that her heart was swept clean; but it wasn't. what demon was it which had lured her into thinking so long[pg 103] about richard and leslie and—and all the others while she waited for the boat to come in?
yes, to her it really seemed that a wrong note had been struck. miss needham found herself in an oddly cool and critical mood—certainly not the mood she had anticipated. the next moment it softened; a feeling of shy warmth stole upon her. still, she half wished that she had decided, after all, not to come to frankfort, but had been content to await him quietly at home. that would have given her, if nothing else, a certain reserve of dignity, which she felt now was somehow sacrificed. did not her being here on the wharf to meet him make her appear too eager? would it not have been much better to come forward gracefully out of a romantic nowhere, perhaps even after keeping him waiting a few minutes? then, at least, she needn't have undergone the minor humiliation—wasn't it almost that?—of being pointed at. she pressed the book under her arm. suddenly she thought of richard and his exquisite manners....
lynndal was waving his hat now, trying desperately to attract her attention. the captain of the vessel was making rather a poor landing, and the sharp little reverse and forward signals in the engine-room kept sounding repeatedly. a strip of water still lay between the ship and the wharf, though crew huskies stood ready to heave out the gang-plank as soon as it became possible to establish shore connections. louise interested herself in the rougher[pg 104] activities aboard ship, and did not yet raise her eyes to the man who now stood almost directly above her. she felt conscious of a sum of stares in her direction. all the girls on the wharf had taken full note of the pointed finger and the waving hat. each knew—and some, perhaps, not without regret—that these demonstrations did not apply to her. a quick inventory of wharf possibilities had convinced all present that it must be miss needham who was the impetuously favoured individual. he had seemed to look quite squarely at her, and she alone had not bestowed on his pains the gaze of unfortunately lacking acquaintance.
at length one of the younger girls, standing near her, touched louise's arm. "some one's trying to catch your eye," she said. and she nodded up toward barry.
he observed the girl's action and called down: "louise, dear, here i am—up here!"
and then it was that she relented, at last—thrilled a little—raised her face coyly to him, and smiled.
no, she would not appear too eager. let him not think he was winning her too cheaply. "did you have a pleasant trip across?" she asked.
just the faintest shade of disappointment crossed his face. "oh, yes," he replied. "smooth as glass. how are you, dear?"
she merely nodded. the historical novel slipped out from under her arm and fell to the ground. she stooped hurriedly and picked it up.
[pg 105]
"my, it's good to see you!" he communicated through a hubbub which really made it difficult to be heard.
but she was again prevented, or spared, a reply, by having to step quickly aside as the gang-plank was run out. the ship was at last securely moored. barry's grey-haired companion called his attention to this fact, and then the two men seized their bags and hurried down.
louise stepped aside to wait; realized an augmenting sense of strangeness and quandary—her heart in a kind of flutter. she felt now hot, now cold. an odd, frantic resolve raced through her brain: "he mustn't kiss me!" and yet—for there was a conflicting after-flash—to have him make no attempt would constitute the very essence itself of pique! in the midst of this rather extraordinary mood, louise recoiled, as it were, and shook herself. she called her mental turmoil silly and maudlin; she even called it wicked. then lynndal came, and the terrible moment passed, leaving her banners waving. emphatically it had been in his mind to kiss her; any one could plainly see that; the act itself, however (for he must not feel too sure), she forestalled by a very delicate but at the same time unmistakable gesture of repulsion, unto which he bowed with a graceful disappointment that, for the time being, very materially lightened the prospect. she had won in the first skirmish; and the knowledge of victory, the delicious sense of power in her it[pg 106] seemed to emphasize, put her in an easier, more cheerful frame of mind.
instead of kissing lynndal, she held out her hand to him with shy cordiality. she fancied, in a whimsical flash, that she was meeting him all over again, for the first time. a subtle sense of romance in this new aspect of their relationship quickened her heart....
barry's shipboard companion was still at his side. or rather not quite at his side, either, but holding discreetly back—even courteously discovering a sudden optical interest in another quarter of the compass. from this thoughtful detachment he was recalled and introduced as mr. barrett o'donnell.
miss needham was delighted to make his acquaintance—miss needham would have welcomed, just then, an acquaintance with the man in the moon, no matter how outlandish he might prove. for the moment, if in a way delightful, was also complex and curiously taut. o'donnell jollied things up. his was a ready tongue, with, now and then, just a whisper of irish; his smile was droll and cheering, though perhaps rather too facile—too facile, that is (for it was perfectly sincere), to be ever quite enveloping. louise walked between them, and the three made their way to the railroad station, where the locomotive of a "resort special" was puffing quite prodigiously, and pretending, after the manner of locomotives, to be ever on the verge of pulling right out, mindless of schedule.
[pg 107]
miss needham skipped with hectic and perverse coquetry. she stimulated herself anew upon the assurance that it was great fun having a lover to meet. and it was really fine, for another thing, to be able so perfectly to dominate the scene, disposing all according to her whim—best of all, to have another man right there on the spot to behold these palpable wonders! she remembered, with a tiny obscure pang, how she had wished richard might be present to see what amazing progress she had made. richard she could not have; but fortune provided a substitute in the unsuspecting person of jolly mr. o'donnell.
louise's mood of almost saucy pleasure was sufficiently generous to overflow in barry's favour, else the poor man would surely have shivered himself to death ere this. she smiled up at him with more artlessness than really consorted with her triumph.
"hilda was afraid you might not come," she chatted pleasantly, flirting a little with the corners of her mouth.
"she was?"
"yes, she was dreadfully worried—you know how children are. she'll be awfully relieved when she sees you."
"but you," he asked, half jestingly and half in faint earnest, "—you weren't afraid?"
"i? oh, no!" she laughed along with the denial. "not i."
[pg 108]
the locomotive was coughing and wheezing and snorting, with an air of absurd importance. all at once there was a tremendous exhaust which sent steam geysering in considerable volume to either side. they were so close that the roar brought a tightening to the girl's throat. barry touched her arm, gently insinuating her out of the path of the steam's dominion. she felt the momentary pressure of his fingers. and through the hiss and dizzy vibration in the air it was as though he were saying to her: "you are mine, all mine! you are mine forever and ever! you can belong henceforth to no one but me!" she trembled and felt faint. her heart was beset with goblins and ghosts....
when they had settled for the diminutive journey, louise was more than ever glad of mr. o'donnell's presence. but now it was no longer so much that he might behold the brilliance of her autocracy as that she might lean upon him while striving to adjust herself to the almost alarming situation barry's arrival had precipitated. and o'donnell, for his own part, was not a little flattered at being so deluged with attention from a pretty woman—especially since she had a real, live lover sitting right beside her! the lover himself took everything in a perfectly philosophical manner. naturally she didn't want to reveal her heart to the wide world, his comfortable acquiescence seemed to say. she was reserving all that for him alone. and in the meantime it was very decent and intelligent of her to be nice to his[pg 109] friend. as a matter of fact, miss needham's conduct wasn't by any means so sheer and vivid as the complex which produced it; she was not behaving nearly so strangely as she felt.
the journey back to beulah, disproportionately lengthy if measured on the dial of one's watch, was under way. all the coaches were packed with resorters plying off in search of adventure—adventure which, in its most substantial form, could they but know it, they were to discover inside those mysterious covered baskets stowed away under seats and, sometimes rather precariously, on the metal racks overhead. for eating is, after all, the great adventure in middle western resort life. one might perhaps hesitate about putting it ahead of canoes in the moonlight, and that indispensable adjunct of every resort that ever was, the lovers' lane. but whereas the latter phenomena appeal to only a single age or mood of society, the adventure of filling the stomach appeals to everyone alike, old and young, mighty and humble. so far as the present excursionists were concerned, the furtive covers were soon flapping; and the air grew tropical with the persuasive aroma of bananas.
louise sat beside her lover in the midst of these not unfamiliar scenes; and the outcome of her half agreeable, half harrowing mental complex was a slightly hysterical gaiety. so long as mr. o'donnell was with them, she felt secure. but why was this? why was it she suddenly dreaded the thought of[pg 110] finding herself for the first time alone with lynndal? phantoms swarmed. in her letters she had given him every promise. yet now he was with her again, she dared not let herself go. phantoms of old delight; phantoms, too, projected into the scope of an imagined future.... the words she had seemed to hear while the steam brought that queer stuffiness to her throat, still echoed troublingly: "you are mine, all mine! you can belong henceforth to no one—but to me!" her mind was all charged with a brooding unrest. externally she sparkled and was blithe; but within lurked a vague fever of apprehension....
things like this may conceivably be going on in almost any one's mind at almost any time; but they are never shown. we are adepts when it comes to guarding our guilty struggles.
the train was winding its way through dismal swamp country. stark trunks of trees, stripped of verdure, with the life in them long extinct, stood knee-deep in brackish water. though the day was quite bright, an impenetrable veil of melancholy lay over the swamplands—a gloom never lifted, which seemed the child of silence and stagnation. the sad blight of the landscape seeped into her heart. she was twisting her life this way and that, absorbed, as usual, in the mystery of her own fascinating if at present rather menaced ego.
lynndal barry and his companion, chatting, seemed unaware of the girl's momentary absorption;[pg 111] her curious, almost breathless, detachment. although detached, she was nevertheless looking at barry with serious, half-seeing eyes. and all at once she found herself thinking of him respectfully, even tenderly. there was something conspicuously ordered and kindly and calm about him. she seemed, abruptly, conscious of a great patience in this man who had come to her out of the west; had scarcely discovered in his letters how essentially mature he was. but the next moment this vaguely annoyed her. she seemed to miss in him the thrill of fire and passion which her nature craved. he seemed to be relaxed upon the snug hearth-rug of life—yes, in slippers! barry was, actually, not much above thirty; but his seemed to her now a poise unwelcome. she fingered the book in her lap with nervous, groping fingers; even shuddered a little as she gazed off across the swamp.
barry, however, seemed aware of none of the girl's emotional fluxes. why should he be? how could he be? barry didn't even in the least suspect that she had any such things as emotional fluxes in her make-up; nor, for that matter, was it likely he would quite know an emotional flux if he should meet it. this must not, however, be taken to signify that barry wasn't sensitive, for he was. and he had a way, too, of biding his time, which sometimes deceived people into thinking him invulnerable to the finer antennæ of feelings. however, though his ear was not entirely deaf to the unstrummed music of[pg 112] life, he did not as yet suspect—or if so, not more than just glancingly—that there was to be a flaw in his eager little romance.
"oh, yes, it will surprise her completely, of course," o'donnell was saying.
"you haven't written at all, then?"
"you see, i've only just learned she was back from tahulamaji. i learned about it in town. i may say i learned of it only yesterday!"
"it's queer, isn't it," remarked barry, with almost a flash of imagination, "we should have happened to come up on the same steamer?"
and then, being just a delightful, sane, normal individual, o'donnell said what had to be said—what is always said when talk reaches such a point: he said that the world was small.
louise came back to them with an effort. the train was beginning to draw up out of the swamp region, and on to a plain better adapted to rural uses. the sunshine lay very bright upon the grass. an emotion of hope stirred in her heart. everything was bound to turn out for the best—her best, she thought. of course it would! she felt all at once radiantly, boundlessly happy. and she forgot the words in the steam, when his fingers had touched her arm.
the subject of this miraculous meeting of barry and o'donnell still animated a conversation which she entered with almost desperate eagerness.
[pg 113]
"you weren't acquainted before you met on the boat?"
"never laid eyes on each other," laughed the irishman. "we began talking about dry-farming in the gentlemen's lounge, and from that, gradually...."
"the fact is," put in barry, who wanted to see what little mystery there was cleared up as quickly as possible, "we found we were both on our way to—"
"—to besiege ladies living under the same roof!" concluded the other's readier tongue.
barry coloured a bit at the bluntness, but rather with pleasure than embarrassment.
"i guess i don't quite understand," remarked louise a little coolly.
"well, you see, the fact is we're very old friends, miss whitcom and i—"
"aunt marjie!"
"yes—marjie...." he repeated the name slowly, and with the sly relish of one who is not quite sure whether he would dare perpetrate such an indulgence in the presence of the adored herself.
"why, how perfectly romantic!" cried louise. and she ceased entirely, for the moment, to be concerned about the puzzling and rather tangled romance of her own life.
"you say you haven't seen each other for years?"
"five years," he nodded.
[pg 114]
"oh, how surprised she will be! i do certainly want to be there when she first sees you!"
for of course it went without saying that they were lovers. only fancy! well—as much had been said outright. he was coming to besiege aunt marjie, just as lynndal....
her heart clouded a little with the mist of perplexity which seemed, now, to have begun settling the moment she heard leslie's step outside on the hillside at dawn....
but o'donnell went on nonchalantly enough: "oh, but there'll be nothing remarkable at all. miss whitcom, if you'll pardon my speaking quite freely of your relative, has the most extraordinary control. perhaps you've noticed it. i can tell you just what she'll do. she'll talk about the new wall paper in the throne room of the queen of tahulamaji's palace. or else it will be still some perfectly commonplace remark about a tiresome old swimming medal. but exclamations in the true sense? no, there won't be any, miss needham, i assure you."
oh, eros! here, sitting all perplexed beside the man she has promised to marry—all besieged by ghosts of her past loves, and the ghost of one scarce passed as yet—is a woman. and yonder in a cottage, covering the unlucky shortage of pancakes with mundane chuckles, is another woman who has been pursued for twenty years by one dauntless lover, and who, when he comes, will talk about the paper on the wall.
[pg 115]
the journey drew to a screeching and bumping close; the brakes whistled, and the locomotive fell a-panting most lustily, as though to proclaim that it had done a mighty thing indeed in hauling a few laden coaches a dozen miles across the swamp-lands.
the intrepid pathfinder lay at the dock, waiting. all beulah had turned out, it really seemed, to welcome the train; and now all beulah swarmed down to bid those who would embark farewell.
there was the mayor—or so one fancied; and there were aldermen—could not one fairly see them sitting in solemn council? there was the methodist minister in his half-clerical week-day togs; there were all the old men of the town, and all the old ladies; all the boys and girls and babies; together with just as many others as could possibly be spared from conducting the business of the town. the dock was quite crowded. yet louise and her two companions were the only passengers the pathfinder was to bear away.
there always seemed something vaguely symbolic about these important departures of the pathfinder. the townsfolk seemed to gaze off with a kind of wistful regret—yes, from the mayor down to the tiniest babe. it always was so: as though the pathfinder were bound for free, large spaces of ocean; for ports in europe, or the indies. and the townspeople could only assemble on the shore and silently watch this ship's glorious westward flight. so life went.
many are called, but few are chosen!
