Vereker’s voice, gently vibrant and sunny, sounded near by, and a deep groan from Eaden just visible, collapsed in one of the small green chairs.
“I’ve got to go now,” said Daphne, relinquishing her second roll and sliding to the floor. Covering the small space with her little quick-march, she pulled up in front of Eaden and stood surveying, hands behind back, feet a little apart, head thrust forward. Napoleon in a pinafore.
“You’re dead beat, that’s what you are.”
“Daphne, I am. I’m a broken man. Don’t pound me. But you may stroke me if you like.”
On a table at his side stood a large brown bear on ski, his gift to her, bought on his way home from the old woman at the corner and that now they were surveying together. She had approached it with two little eager steps and pulled up just short with her arms at her sides, volubly talking just out of hearing but to his delight who heard and watched her. Between her sallies she sought his face, to bring him to contemplate and agree. Did it please her? She had not yet handled it. Could anything please her? The giver and the giving were calling forth her best, that moved him and Vereker as men are moved at the sight of life in eager operation, spontaneous as they never seem to be, commanding and leading them. Vereker was amused. Eaden disarmed and delighted, protective of a splendour. Suddenly she seized the bear in her arms and held it while she talked and put it carefully down and looked back at it as she turned with her little quick-march to someone calling from the house.
“It’s all right, Daphne.” Eaden’s voice eager, free of its drawl, crying out in pity and wrath. He had leapt from his chair and was gathering and fixing together the detached parts, bear and ski and pole found by Daphne returned, lying as if broken upon the table at his side. She stood speechless, a little forlorn child red-cheeked and tearful in dismay. A little way off stood the Skerry youth with his grin.
V
What had brought this wakening so near to the edge of night? The mountains were still wan against a cold sky, whitening the morning twilight with their snow.
How long to wait, with sleep gone that left no borderland of drowsiness, until the coming of their gold?
And in a moment she had seen forever the ruby gleaming impossibly from the topmost peak: stillness of joy held still for breathless watching of the dark ruby set suddenly like a signal upon the desolate high crag.
It could not last, would soon be plain sunlight.
Already it was swelling, growing brighter, clearing to crimson. In a moment it became a star with piercing rays that spread and slowly tilted over the upper snow a flood of rose.
Each morning this miracle of light had happened before her sleeping eyes. It might not again find her awake. But it had found her awake, carried her away in a moment of pure delight that surely was absolution? And when presently the rose had turned to the familiar gold creeping down to the valley it was more than the gold of yesterday. In watching its birth she had regained the first day’s sense of endless time. Today was set in advance to the rhythm of endless light.
Today was an unfathomable loop within the time that remained before the end of Eaden’s visit, his short allowance that added, by being set within it, to her own longer portion. His coming had brought the earlier time to an end; made it a past, expanding in the distance. And beyond his far-off departure was a group of days with features yet unseen. Looking back upon that distant past it seemed impossible that the crest of her first week was not yet reached.
Yet the few days that seemed so many had already fallen into a shape. Morning blessedness of leisure smiled down upon by the mountains again tawny in their sunlight, witnessed to by every part of the house wandered through; rich sense of strength unspent; joy of mere going out again into the wide scene, into the embrace of the crystal air; the first breath of its piny scent, of the scent of snow and presently the dry various scents confined within the little street, messengers of strange life being lived close at hand; the morning dive into the baking warmth of the post-office to find amongst the English vehement at their pigeonholes the sharpest sense of being out in the world of the free; then the great event, the wild flight down to the valley’s sudden stillness.
The afternoon with Guerini; but, after yesterday, there might be no afternoon with Guerini: freedom instead, for fresh discovery until teatime, on the promontory in the midst of unpredictable groupings. Sunset and afterglow, high day moving away without torment or regret; the mountains, turning to a darkness in the sky; telling only of the sure approach of the deep bright world of evening.
The gold-lit evening feast was still momentous, still under the spell of the setting, the silent host who kept the party always new.
And it was in part the setting, the feeling of being out of the world and irresponsible, that last night had kept Eaden a docile listener. He had heard a little of the truth, at least something to balance the misrepresentations of socialism in the Tory press. But he had heard in a dream, outside life. Sitting on the stairs, huge in his meek correctness of evening dress. There was, to be sure, in face of Vereker’s determination, nothing else for him to do. But it was with one consent that they had all three subsided on the wide stairs, secure from the intrusions that menaced the little salon.
And it was only for a moment she had
