Hard had been their path to freedom. In his first high courage, Matthew had pictured themselves walking through that door and into the light; a powerful step, a word of defiance against the indignant, astonished, angry wave of the world. Yet in truth they had walked out with hands clasped and faces down, and he never knew what words he said or tried to say. Phrases struck upon their ears.
“—knifed his race—a common bawd—a five-minute infatuation—primitive passion—”
Across the endless length of the parlor they had toiled, and down by the blazing dinner table; out far, far out into the narrowing hall; they had brushed by people who shrank away from them. Coatless, hatless, they had walked into the cold and shivering storm. And then somehow they were warm again. Then happiness had fallen softly upon them. Hand in hand they walked singing through the rain.
“Where are we going, Matthew?” she had whispered long hours later, as her tired feet faltered.
And he lifted her in his arms and raised his face to the water and answered:
“We are going down the King’s highway to Beauty and Freedom and Love. I can hear life growing down there in the earth and pulling beneath the hard sidewalks and white bones of the dead. Listen, God’s darling, to the singing of the rain; hear the dawn coming afar and see the white wings of the mist, how they beat about us.”
And so they had come home and slept in his attic nest.
Slowly Matthew lifted himself, arranged the golden glory of the Chinese rug again around her, tucking in her little feet and drawing it close at the side. Noiselessly he slipped to the fireplace and made the golden flames hiss and sputter and swirl up to the sun-drenched sky, and then he came back and stretched himself beside her, slipping, as she slept on, her head upon the curve of his elbow and looking down upon her face.
It was a magnificent face. Something had come and something had gone since the day when he saw it first. Something had gone of that incomprehensible beauty of color, infinite fineness of texture, richness of curve, loveliness of feature, which made her then to his eyes the loveliest thing in the world. But in its place there lay upon her peaceful, sleeping countenance a certain strength and nobility; a certain decision and calm, that was like beauty swept with life, like sunshine softened with mist. The heavy coils of purple hair had been cut away, and yet the hair still lay thick and strong upon her forehead.
Suddenly he wanted to see her eyes, the eyes that he had never forgotten since first he looked into them, eyes that were pools at once of mystery and revelation, misty with half-sensed desire, and calm with power. He wanted to see her eyes again and see them at once with the high consciousness of birth that belonged to the Princess of the Lützower Ufer and with that look of surrender and selfless love that he had caught in the little room behind the parlor. He wanted again desperately to see those eyes which said all these things; yet he lay very still lest for a single moment he should disturb her. And then he looked down, and her eyes were looking up to him. Slowly and happily she smiled.
“Krishna,” she murmured. His mind went racing back through the shadows and he whispered back, “Radha.” And again they slept.
When Kautilya awoke again, there was a slow music stealing in from the inner room. It was the andante from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, infinite in tenderness, triumph, and beauty; and it came from afar so that no scratch of the phonograph or creak of mechanism spoiled its sweet melody. She sat up suddenly with a little cry of joy, throwing aside the great Chinese rug and swathing herself in the silk of the white mandarin’s robe that lay ready for her. With this music in her ears she found the bathroom with its tub of steaming water and with its completeness, half plaintive with neglect.
A half hour later she found new silken things in the dressing-room. The rug lay upon the floor, and the old worn easy-chair was drawn before the fire. Beside the flaming dance of the fire was a low, white Turkish taboret; toward it Matthew came, clad in an old green bathrobe which hung carelessly along his tall body. There was a tarboosh with faded tassel upon his head. The hot coffee steamed on the salver, with toast and butter and cream. There was an orange in halves and a little yellow rosebud. She laughed in the sheer delight of it all, and held him long and close before they turned to their eating. The morning sun poured in.
The music was changed to that largo of Dvorák built on the echoing pain of the Negro folksong, which is printed on the other side of the Victor record. Matthew would not let her stir, and after a while from the kitchen came a brave splashing of dishes and a song. He came back soon, bringing an old volume of poems. Without a word, only a long look, they nestled in the chair near the fire and read. And so the day passed half wordless with beauty and sound, full of color and content, until the sunlight went crimson and blue upon the walls and the fire shadows danced again.
“There are so many things I
