As the group came abreast of our couple they stopped to exchange a few words, then went on. When they had passed out of hearing the woman sat with a sphinx-like stare in her eyes, looking steadily at the spot where the bright head had nodded to her as it passed.
“Like a wildflower on a stalk,” she murmured softly, narrowing her eyes as if to fix the vision, “like a tall tiger-lily.”
Her companion’s face darkened perceptibly. “What do you mean? What do you see?” he asked.
“The vision of Youth and Beauty,” she answered in the tone of a sleepwalker, “and the glory and triumph of it—the immortality of it—its splendid indifference to its ruined temples, and all its humble worshipers. Do you know,” turning suddenly to him with a sharp change in face and voice, “what I would be wicked enough to do, if I could?”
He smiled tolerantly: “You, wicked? Dear one, you couldn’t be wicked.”
“Oh, but I could! If there were any way to fix Davy’s head forever, just as he passed us now—forever, so that all the world might keep it and see it for all time, I would cut it off with this hand! Yes, I would.” Her eyes glittered mercilessly.
He shook his head smiling: “You wouldn’t kill a bug, let alone Davy.”
“I tell you I would. Do you remember when Nathaniel died? I felt bad enough, but do you know the week before when he was so very sick, I went out one day to a beautiful glen we used to visit together. They had been improving it! they had improved it so much that the water is all dying out of the creek; the little boats that used to float like pond lilies lie all helpless in the mud, and hardly a ribbon of water goes over the fall, and the old giant trees are withering. Oh, it hurt me so to think the glory of a thousand years was vanishing before my eyes and I couldn’t hold it. And suddenly the question came into my head: ‘If you had the power would you save Nathaniel’s life or bring back the water to the glen?’ And I didn’t hesitate a minute. I said, ‘Let Nathaniel die and all my best loved ones and I myself, but bring back the glory of the glen!’ ”
“When I think,” she went on turning away and becoming dreamy again, “of all the beauty that is gone that I can never see, that is lost forever—the beauty that had to alter and die—it stifles me with the pain of it. Why must it all die?”
He looked at her wonderingly. “It seems to me,” he said slowly, “that beauty worship is almost a disease with you. I wouldn’t like to care so much for mere outsides.”
“We never long for the thing we are rich in,” she answered in a dry, changed voice. Nevertheless his face lighted, it was pleasant to be rich in the thing she worshiped. He had gradually drawn near her feet and now suddenly bent forward and kissed them passionately. “Don’t,” she cried sharply, “it’s too much like self-abasement. And besides—”
His face was white and quivering, his voice choked. “Well—what besides—”
“The time will come when you will wish you had reserved that kiss for some other foot. Someone to whom it will all be new, who will shudder with the joy of it, who will meet you halfway, who will believe all that you say, and say like things in fullness of heart. And I perhaps will see you, and know that in your heart you are sorry you gave something to me that you would have ungiven if you could.”
He buried his face in his hands. “You do not love me at all,” he said. “You do not believe me.”
A curious softness came into the answer: “Oh, yes, dear, I believe you. Years ago I believed myself when I said the same sort of thing. But I told you I am getting old. I can not unmake what the years have made, nor bring back what they have stolen. I love you for your face,” the words had a sting in them, “and for your soul too. And I am glad to be loved by you. But, do you know what I am thinking?”
He did not answer.
“I am thinking that as I sit here, beloved by you and others who are young and beautiful—it is no lie—in a—well, in a triumph I have not sought, but which I am human enough to be glad of, envied no doubt by those young girls—I am thinking how the remorseless feet of Youth will tramp on me soon, and carry you away. And”—very slowly—“in my day of pain, you will not be near, nor the others. I shall be alone; age and pain are unlovely.”
“You won’t let me come near you,” he said wildly. “I would do anything for you. I always want to do things for you to spare you, and you never let me. When you are in pain you will push me away.”
A fairly exultant glitter flashed in her face. “Yes,”
