1
at dawn felix awoke with a sense of loneliness. the vague consciousness which had remained with him even in sleep of a beautiful and beloved body at his side, was gone; and the hand that he reached out in troubled half-sleep had found no warm and reassuring presence. for an instant it seemed as though the night had been only a dream. he felt a vast desolation, a profound fear. it was as if not this one night only had been taken from him, but the thousand nights and days which lay implicit in it—the lifetime of sweetness and intimacy which it had begun.
startled awake by the pain of this loneliness, he looked about him. rose-ann was not there. the bed was still warm where she had lain, the pillow kept the impression of her head, but she was gone. the white light of the dawn lighted the room, the fire was dying in the grate, a cool little wind swept in through an open window, and one of the leaves of the long french window that opened on the balcony stood ajar. rose-ann’s clothing lay folded on a chair at the foot of the bed.
his reason told him that rose-ann had slipped out to the balcony to breathe the morning air. but he was still filled with the terror of that waking moment. moved by an unreasoning fear, he leaped from the bed and ran to the french window. outside the world was white. on the balcony, in the deep snow, were the imprints of her little naked feet. still agitated, he followed those footprints where they led around the corner of the house. and then he stopped, and gazed.
she was there, standing unclothed and rosy in the morning 135wind, in the light of the dawn, leaning over the railing of the porch.
“rose-ann!” he called sharply.
she turned. “good-morning, old sleepy-head!” she cried. “you were dozing so peacefully that i didn’t have the heart to wake you up. isn’t it lovely!” and she waved a hand toward the ice-bound lake that stretched out to the east like an arctic wilderness, tinged with the rose of dawn.
“what are you doing out here?” he demanded, commencing to shiver.
“i was thinking of taking a snow-bath!” she said. “i’ve always wanted to and never have. look where the snow has drifted up here against the house. wouldn’t it be wonderful just to drop off into that snow bank! come, let’s do it!” she took his hand and led him to the edge of the porch, which was here only a few feet above the ground, with the snow piled up to its very edge.
“but how would we get out of that snow-bank once we had got in!” he expostulated. it was a crazy idea, and he had no intention of letting her carry it out.
“oh, don’t let’s stand here and argue about it,” she said impatiently, “and get cold. i’m going to, anyway!” and before he could stop her she had climbed the railing and leaped down into the snow-bank.... he realized that he must do the same. there was no choice! and in an instant he had leaped down beside her, down crunching through soft feathery snow that stung the skin deliciously and made the blood hot in his veins—and an instant later, laughing, they were fighting their way out and stumbling up the steps to the balcony and into the house.
“towels!” cried rose-ann, racing to the bathroom and back and flinging him one. “now wasn’t that worth doing!”
“and no doubt very entertaining to the neighbours,” felix grumbled—secretly rejoicing in their spectacular feat. it really seemed to him a splendidly pagan thing to have done.
“our only neighbour for miles is mrs. cowan,” said rose-ann, “and she’s over somewhere the other way. 136besides, for once in my life i’m going to do the things i want to do without stopping to think of other people first. now, felix, can you build a fire? if you can’t, i can!”
“of course i can build a fire,” said felix. “the real question is, can you cook an egg? because if you can’t, i can.” he was a little nettled at her having taken the lead in the snow-bath, and he did not intend to let her carry off any more honours of leadership. “if clive has not deceived and betrayed us,” he continued, “you ought to be able to find eggs and things in the kitchen.”
“all right,” she said obediently; and finished with the simple task of dressing, in an old skirt and a smock, but not without a look at herself in the glass, she started off to the kitchen.
felix looked at the fire. it needed rebuilding, and he would have to chop some more kindling. he went down to the woodshed, and energetically chopped up one stick. then he paused, laid down the hatchet, and commenced to whistle a plaintive, melancholy, tuneless tune. he picked up his hatchet, ran his thumb over the edge, and laid it down again.
he was not thinking about chopping kindling. he was thinking about rose-ann, there in the kitchen only a few feet away. what was she doing? he could see her in imagination, ransacking clive’s cupboards. he wished he could see her in reality. he started to his feet impulsively, and then sat down again.
he was annoyed with himself. couldn’t he be separated from her for a few minutes without wanting to tag after her? she would be surprised, and perhaps annoyed, by his coming in. she would ask, “have you got the fire built? well then, for heaven’s sake, go and build it, and leave me alone to get you some breakfast!”
he could not confess to her how utterly indispensable her presence had become to him.... yesterday they had been two different and separate persons—but they were so no longer. a quaint churchly phrase leaped into his mind, a phrase that had never seemed real before: “these twain 137shall be made one flesh.” he knew its truth now. last night they had lain and talked for hours of the things they were going to do—together. together! their life henceforth had pictured itself to them as something enjoyed always in common. they had not thought, last night, of ever being apart again. but of course they would be apart—a great deal of the time. and doubtless it was as well to begin now. there was no sense whatever to this feeling of loneliness. he was going to have the rest of a lifetime with rose-ann, and he certainly ought to be able to go off and chop a little wood without her. no, he must not go to the kitchen to see what she was doing! he must subdue this weakness—this absurd feeling of helpless loneliness when he left her for a moment.
he raised his hatchet and brought it down sharply on the stick of wood. the door opened, and there stood rose-ann, with an apron on, her cheeks flushed.
“hello!” he said, and laid down the hatchet.
“i just came to see what you were doing,” she said.
“chopping a little kindling, that’s all,” he said.
“oh,” she said. she continued to look at him with interest.
he took up the hatchet again, and split the stick with a few efficient strokes. she looked about, up-ended a short log, and sat down, her hands in her lap. felix chopped another stick, and another, with a sense of great peace and contentment. chopping kindling had become very interesting. he chopped on, under her gaze. he did not need to look up at her. she was there with him; that was sufficient. he went on chopping.
“don’t you think that’s enough kindling now, felix?” she asked at last, hesitantly.
he looked at the pile. he had chopped an awful lot! “i thought i might as well cut enough to last for a while,” he explained.
“a good idea,” she agreed. “and we might as well take a lot upstairs while we’re about it. i’ll take some, if you’ll load me.” she held out her arms, and he piled them full, then loaded his own, and they went up together.
138she knelt beside him, watching, while he laid the fire. he felt somewhat insecure in his knowledge of fire-making, and he tried to remember just how clive had done it the day before. but he felt nothing critical in rose-ann’s watching; and apparently he remembered well, for the fire behaved quite as it should. he waited until the proper moment, put on the cannel coal, and drew the fire-screen in front of the fireplace.
rose-ann stood up. “now we’ll go and get breakfast,” she said.
in the kitchen, she turned to him. “do you like omelettes?” she asked.
“i love them,” he said.
“with peas and things in? there’s a can of little peas here.” she searched in a drawer and found a can-opener.
“here, let me,” said felix authoritatively, and took it from her.
she surrendered it, and bent to another drawer, bringing out another apron.
“must wear,” she said, and tied it around him.
the touch of her fingers was too much. he turned and took her in his arms, and found himself tightly bound in hers, and kissed the eager lips uplifted to his.
“oh, felix!” she cried in a weak, smothered voice. “felix, lover!”
“and now,” she said at last, smiling happily and rousing herself from their dream, “we really must get breakfast!”
2
after breakfast, which was prolonged for hours by talk and cigarettes and endless cups of coffee, they “bundled up” and took a long walk, through the deep snow, stumbling and laughing like children, and as indefatigable as children. first they went down to the lake, that snowy waste strewn with high-piled ice-hummocks, and with the blue of water showing strangely here and there. then they turned their backs on it, and walked toward the west, where the black branches of trees made delicate patterns against the sky. 139they were as if aware of the kinship of their love to the life of the earth, and seeking outdoors that magical sympathy of natural living things which no roof-tree, however hospitable, can furnish to lovers. this great white expanse, with no green thing visible anywhere, with not even the friendly touch of the ground underfoot, might have seemed to hold out no invitation to their love. it was an earth sunken in winter-sleep, apparently unconscious of their presence, vastly indifferent to their demand. and yet they loved it, and it gave them something which they craved.
utterly exhausted, they reached home at last, with the sunset flaming behind the black branches. they were ravenously hungry. but they faced the prospect of clearing up after last night’s feast, a task blithely postponed that morning, before they would have dishes enough to eat from. of course, they might have had mrs. cowan come in; but they preferred their magic isolation. changed into dry garments, they set to work washing dishes—not without a friendly quarrel over which one should wash and which one wipe them.
“maybe you think a man doesn’t know how to wash dishes,” felix said belligerently.
“no,” said rose-ann, “but i think a woman might have the privilege of washing dishes in her own house.... felix, i wish this were our own house! i shall hate to go back to town after this.... but don’t let’s think about that now. all right, selfish, you can wash the dishes!”
the thought frightened felix a little. a house of their own! a house in the country! how beautiful, and yet how—but no, nothing seemed impossible now.... they could plan for it, and work for it, and at last have it, together....
3
“read me some poetry, felix,” said rose-ann, after dinner, as they lay drowsily, in a great warm nest of cushions, in front of the fire in the room upstairs.
he stirred himself, and then relaxed. rose-ann’s head 140was nestled in the hollow under his shoulder, and her red-gold hair, unbound, flowed across her bosom and touched his caressing hand. he was altogether too happily situated at this moment to want to go downstairs and look for a book of poems. besides, why need he?
“and frosts are slain and flowers begotten.”
he began. she closed her eyes, and from her quiet breathing one might have thought her asleep. but once when he faltered, forgetting the words, rose-ann murmured them softly:
“and frosts are slain and flowers begotten.”
he took it up, in his voice of subdued chanting:
“and in green underwood and cover
blossom by blossom the spring begins....”
and so to the end.
“say me some more,” she breathed. “like that. anything with woods or flowers in it.”
he began quoting, mischievously filling in words to make up the rhythm where he forgot the original:
“iris all hues, roses and jessamine....
in shadier bower.... (i forget! but here it was)
with flowers, garlands and sweet-smelling herbs
espoused eve decked first her nuptial bed....
yes eve! in naked beauty more adorned,
more lovely than pandora. (so milton says!)
“i can’t remember just how it goes, but there are some lovely things in that old puritan’s blood-and-thunder epic....
“these, lulled by nightingales, embracing slept,
and on their naked limbs the flowery roof
showered roses. (she’s asleep!)”
outside, unseen, the moon emerged from behind racing clouds, and lighted with its pale radiance the great stretch of winter-bound lake and desolate shore along which they had wandered that day seeking some response in its vast 141indifference; and its rays touched and silvered the roof-tree of the little house on the edge of a ravine, within whose doors, by the grace of the english poets, it was april. blossom by blossom, about their couch, the spring began, and upon their naked limbs showered roses.
“no.” said rose-ann, “i’m not asleep!”
he laughed tenderly. “no, not now. but you have been for half an hour. i’ve been watching you sleep. you do it beautifully!”
“have i really?” she stretched herself, like a kitten upon awaking from a nap. “well, i’m awake now, and i want some more poetry. something sad this time.”
“more poetry? what a glutton you are!”
“but i like poetry, felix. it’s real to me—as real as our love.”
“but why sad poetry?” he teased.
“i don’t know. i suppose it’s because i’m so happy.”
“i know,” said felix, and out of the storehouse of his memory he brought one after another the stories of old unhappy love, impossible love, love that goes toward death. it was as if the contrast of these tragic fantasies was needed to make poignant the sweet and easy fulfilment of their own love—as if some chill breath from the grave must intervene between their caresses lest they seem too tame.
“the mountain ways one summer
saw life and joy go past,
when we who were so lonely
went hand in hand at last.
“and overhead the pine-woods
their purple shadows cast,
when the tall twilight laid us
hot mouth to mouth at last.
“o hills, beneath your slumber,
or pines, beneath your blast,
make room for your two children—
cold cheek to cheek at last!”
142“no,” murmured rose-ann, lifting her head and putting her warm cheek against his own, a cheek wet with sudden tears. “not cold cheek to cheek, felix!”
tears sprung from that sweet sadness which only happy youth dares indulge—the wilful and daring melancholy of young love, turning aside from its joys to think of death....
rose-ann dried her eyes cheerfully. “i wanted to cry,” she said. “and now that i have, i feel better. give me a cigarette!”
