Neith Boyce

“ Cecilia had very little vanity. She had not pictured Tom as pining away for her. It was no shock to her mind to think that he could be consoled. Her marriage had seemed to put him infinitely far off from her. She seemed to herself much older and he younger than ever. She thought wistfully of his youth, and of the naturalness of his falling in love with Bertha—a girl in the bloom and sparkle of her spring.
Yes, it was natural enough—but it ought not to happen, for all that. Tom had nothing, Bertha had nothing. It would be exactly in character for them to marry on nothing. ”

“ They ascended the long flight of steps leading to one of the avenues of the park, and at the top paused to look back.
“How amusing it is—all that!” cried the girl, sweeping with a light gesture the brilliant square, the bright-blue river, the compact darker masses of the town climbing up the hill.
Her face was lit with pleasure. The very spirit of careless youth, of radiant ease, she looked, and with a keen allurement, a poignant, troubling grace. Louis looked upon her with admiration as light and gay as her own mood. Griffith gazed at her, touched and thrilled. ”

“ Fiora sank to her knees and remained for some moments motionless, gazing out into the garden. In the dusk, deepened by the shadow of encircling trees, nothing was visible save narrow paths strewn with opal-colored sea-shells glimmering amid fresh turf, and roses blooming in masses along these walks and hiding the wall under their heavy leaves, thick with flowers like pale flames. Silence—except for the applauding whisper of the trees and the plash of water. There was no one in the garden.
Taking courage, the intruder pushed her way out from under the boughs of the fig-tree. ”

“ Teresa looked about the room as though in a dream. The close air, the smell of beer, the throng of brutal faces, the drunken, lascivious eyes, the rough words caught here and there, made up an impression of naked sordidness so complete as to pass reality. The movements of the one waiter fascinated her. He was a young man, slim and powerfully built, with a face almost handsome, which had the same absolute hardness and immobility that marked the prize-fighter's. He moved quickly amongst the crowd, with a business-like, lordly air, his eyes everywhere at once. ”

“ For if any wandering spirit, coveting, yet not daring to enter the garden, had strayed near to the confining wall, it must have heard the solemn chant of the Church's exorcism directed against all powers unholy; it must have beheld a slow procession of monks make the circuit of the shell-strewn paths, sprinkling the ground with holy-water to purify it from the contaminating touch of a woman's foot. And if, spirit or woman, it were still undeterred, there was Angelo's music at evening—like another flaming sword at the gate of this Eveless Eden! ”

“ Some days later Richard Lowell came to see her. She opened the door to her old-time lover, led him into the dim parlor, seated him on the horse-hair sofa, and conversed with him for half an hour about the weather and the changes in the village. Mira was outwardly the cooler of the two, though secretly she was trembling with excitement. Lowell stumbled over his commonplaces, looking at her in bewilderment. She appeared little older than the girl of nineteen he had left. She was still as exquisite as one of the roses in her garden, to which he had always compared her. ”

“ It may have been due to the interest and charm which Kenyon was able to infuse into his share of the correspondence that the two met again not as acquaintances, but as friends at least. For he wrote with his soul in his finger-tips, alive and alert to seek out that other soul to which all his hope addressed itself. Almost from the very first meeting of all, he had acknowledged to himself—this philosophic dreamer of forty—that henceforth life held something for him beyond philosophy, or dreams, or love as he had known it, or, perhaps, art even, the master and crucible of all. ”

“ The day of Katharine's wedding was a long blaze of sunlight under which the valley seemed to brown visibly and the mountains to deepen their metallic purples. But at five o'clock the sea-breeze began to stir the tops of the eucalyptus trees and when the sun dropped in a red haze the air cooled suddenly. All through the night the stored heat of the earth would be distilling in a heavy dew, gathering on every surface, every leaf and blossom.
At eleven o'clock, when the big house stood empty and dark, two middle-aged persons were defying rheumatism under the pepper-tree behind the cottage. ”

“ They were on the veranda, after a late breakfast, and Philip was stretched out in a wicker steamer-chair, smoking. Near him sat Hilda, with her back to an opening in the green bamboo blinds, so that beyond her he saw the deep blue of sea and sky, with white-tipped waves tumbling gloriously in and tiny clouds sailing before a strong breeze. That background of morning blue made a wonderful setting for Hilda. She was dressed in crisp, white duck, with a broad, light felt hat set carelessly on her black hair, and she looked as strong and full of physical life as the sea itself. ”

“ Maxine laughed suddenly and got up, stretching her arms over her head.
"How trivial you make it seem!"
"Well, it is trivial. Don't you know It's the little things that count and pile up and finally crush you? Can you imagine living with a person who keeps you constantly in a state of exasperation and quarrels? It's like having a pin eternally jabbing you. Life narrows down into just the question of getting rid of that pin."
"I'm sorry," said Maxine, in her slow, grave voice.
Mrs. Saville, moving restlessly about, stopped below a shelf crowded with things in plaster and clay. ”

“ She was very fond of Hector, and a quarrel with him cast the hues of mourning over the whole world—and he knew it—well he knew it! And how very unkind, how cruel and inconsiderate of him, to quarrel with her at this moment, when he was perfectly aware what an important day was before her, and how their disagreements upset her! How absurd to talk of women being personal and too much swayed by their emotions, when men were a thousand times more egotistic and irrational! ”

“ Love is understanding between man and woman! It is the only understanding there is, the only sight, the only speech! It is the wedding of souls, it is the most divine thing on earth, it is the most beautiful thing in life, it is life itself! Oh, Laurence!
He pours out a flood of words, hot from his heart. He does not think whether she understands. He knows she understands. The tears run down his face.
And she? She turns pale, she shrinks into herself, her eyelids fall over her eyes. She does not answer him. In silence, she reaches for her little basket and packs it. She puts on her hat. ”

“ In Richard Travis's mind the old, old grievance gnawed with its familiar pain; and a sharper, a more bitter sting of grief was added now. For now it was all over; now, at last, hope must be given up. And not till now had he realized how he had really hoped, all along, for George; how he had built the future on him, even though he knew he was building on sand. For George was all he had; the only person he had any love for, the only person who could serve his natural pride. ”

“ And sometimes when I am sailing the Lorelei—for I own her now, and Jim has never sailed with me since, and I haven't found anybody quite to take his place—when I am sailing the Lorelei in the teeth of a roaring gale, wet through and shivering, I think of Jim, paddling his canoe on the lazy reaches of a sheltered river—for Jim lives a thousand miles from salt water, and in his vacations he takes Edith on long canoeing trips; sometimes they take the baby and a waterproof tent—I think of Jim then, with the old affection, with regret, but without bitterness. ”

“ Her voice broke. She turned away and dropped into a low chair before the unlit fire. Mallock, immobile, looked at her graceful figure in its long black satin dress, at the black coils on her bowed head, the line of her averted cheek. His face for the moment expressed only indifference and hardness—the armor that his excessively sensitive amour-propre instinctively seized upon against attack.
There was a long silence. At last Anne shivered and moved. She rang the bell at the side of the fireplace, and gave some orders to the butler in a colorless voice. ”

“ The wind howled over us, it seemed as though the waves were beating on the thin wooden walls. It was like being afloat, there was no feeling of solid earth under us, here on this spit of sand in the midst of the tempestuous sea.
If Lorna liked storms, she must be having her fill now, I thought. If she liked the spectacle of human suffering and the feeling of her own power, she must be having her fill. ”

“ For, go where one will, even into the farthest recesses of the hills, one cannot get away from the civilization of art; there nature, however solitary, is never wild. The mountain tops seem to have been shaped to a purpose, the little gray-brown villages are set so exactly right between the deep green of the chestnut forest and the liquid sky. Their simple forms are interesting and grow ever finer and richer as one descends into the Lucchese plain, reaching a real beauty at Barga and picturesque Ghivezzano of the towers, and culminating in classic Lucca. ”

“ The foliage of the acacia trembled as though a bird had taken wing. The bench was vacant, flowers strewed the ground before it, the presence had vanished. Her white feet or a breath of air had borne her away. The diapason of the organ drowned the sound her flight might have made; and the trees bent as though to bury in shadow her possible path. Emanuel made a long step forward.
"Woman or spirit, she is gone!" he cried, and stooped to see what trace of her those scattered roses might show. Anselmo grasped his companion's sleeve. ”

“ Tom walked all the way back to his New York boarding-house, unconscious of the stinging cold, on fire with the hot surging of his anger. He vowed to himself that Cecilia should not destroy his relation with Bertha, almost his only pleasure; that if it were true, or ever should be, that Bertha cared for him, he would not be bullied into giving her up, and that he would find out if she did care. She was a dear, charming girl; she was capable of liking a man for himself alone. If she cared enough, they might marry, even if they were poor at first. ”

“ Martin went back and picked up his tools, and stood a moment contemplating the canvas. His eyes gleamed. He said to himself that it was good—the best thing he had ever done. One or two more days would finish it. And it should be seen in the world!
Then his face changed again and darkened. He was realizing anew his limitations. With years of hard work he might attain technical excellence of a sort, though never technical mastery. He might become a clever painter—he would never be a great artist. The creative impulse remained with him only an impulse—uncertain, fitful. ”

“ With all his fatigue, hurry and perturbation of mind, George found this home atmosphere sweet. The old-fashioned simplicity of his people, the parochial monotony of their lives, even the house itself, full of cumbrous, ugly furniture and incredibly bad bric-à-brac—all the things that had bored and bothered him when he was living at home, now seemed unaccountably pleasant. He began to wish that he could stay on for a quiet visit there; at the same time he knew that he could not rest until he had got over the dreaded interview with Alicia, and was free to go back to Isabel. ”

“ He died; and Teresa's grief was passionate beyond the comprehension perhaps of any man. Basil, though sad himself, and full of sympathy for her suffering, could not understand its full extent. To him the child had never really lived; it was hardly more than an abstract expression of the terrible will to live of the unborn universe; an atom of the ever-pulsing energy which forced its way into the world, causing suffering and woe—all for a life of two days. But to Teresa the baby was a complete being, and she sorrowed for him as though she had wronged him herself of his life. ”

“ And the trees in the monks' garden seemed to bend and listen and to beckon while they shook all over with malicious glee.
Scurrying over the ground beyond, with bare, dusty feet, appeared a group of creatures pulling each other by extended arms or brown garments which seemed a part of the earth, or by their braids of strong, black hair. Writhing in this rough play they flung themselves against the wall. A pale-faced girl in a scarlet blouse, like a cactus-flower bursting from its dull sheath, threw up her arms into the dense, dark foliage of an overhanging fig-tree and dragged down the bough. ”

“ Despite her years and the stoutness which the lines of her well-cut gown did not succeed in concealing, she still possessed a certain attraction—the charm of a woman secure of herself, accustomed to please.
Kenyon withdrew his eyes from her with an effort due less to this charm than to the faint-floating ghost of a recollection which teased him with its persistent intangibility. He dragged out from behind the Moorish screen a large canvas, and with some difficulty, due to its unwieldly size, got it across the room and put it into the gilt frame destined for it when complete. ”

“ It was a white gown with lilac sprigs, made with the full skirts and sleeves of a bygone fashion. She put it on, fastened the belt of lilac ribbon, which still fitted exactly, and, standing again before the mirror, loosened slightly the bands of her beautiful wavy hair and pulled it into little curls about her face. It was a vision of youth which looked back at her from the glass. Not a thread of gray showed in the hair; in the kind light the fine lines about the eyes were invisible. The skin had the dead whiteness of things kept from the sun. ”

“ Teresa looked at him, fascinated. He set a new world about her. The strange possibilities of life—the fact that all one's life—might have been different—might even be different—rushed upon her in a dizzying flood. Her world seemed suddenly to become unreal, pale—she lost her grasp upon it, in the feeling that another choice had been possible. And something deep in her answered to Crayven's emotion—a deep correspondence of temperament, some sort of inevitable affinity. ”

“ It is a white dress with a scarlet belt, and she has a white hat, a thin Tuscan straw, with red poppies on it. Her lips are scarlet like the poppies, her eyes are warm like the sunlight on the grass. She is intoxicating.
And he? A poet, in love, in springtime, with his love trembling on his lips, with his heart so full that it brims over at his eyes; Griffith the Simple, who has never been in love before, and never will be again. Some people are like that.
They eat their luncheon on the grass. She has taken off her hat and her hair catches the sunlight. He lies at her feet and looks at her. ”

“ Under the branches of the acacia the shadow sat still in deeper shadow; save that the rays of the moon fell upon two slim, naked feet, which the short grass could not cover. It had taken, then, the form of a woman, that the garden and its tradition might be doubly desecrated! Anselmo's indignation was not fierce enough to nerve his soul, weakened by mystic terrors. ”

“ You don't really like people as much as you pretend to!"
"I like some people as much as I pretend to," said Basil amiably. "And I like people really more than work, if that's what you mean. I enjoy talking to you, for example, much more than painting your portrait—only, you see, you wanted the portrait painted."
"Oh, I know. I tell you, I never saw you so much alive—the mental part of you so completely awake—as in that last half hour, when you'd forgotten all about me! Your talk with me is only play, by comparison—it's like a cigarette or a cup of tea." ”

“ Griffith leaned across the table, and his pent-up feeling burst forth in a swift torrent of speech:
“Laurence, you are the most charming thing I ever saw! Your eyes are the color of the shallows of a brook, full of sunlight! Your hair is a mesh of copper, bronze, and gold, and my heart is caught in that net. Laurence, you are adorable! You are like a white rose, with a heart of rose color. ”

“ Basil's tired face, showing deep lines of nervous and physical strain, changed, too, as he looked at the picture of Teresa and the baby—her profile, with the long braid across the cheek, her ivory-white gleaming shoulders and breast, her dark lashes drooping as she gazed at the child with a quizzical smile in which emotion stirred—physical pleasure and perhaps a spiritual tenderness.
"You don't know how beautiful you are," said Basil, in a low, rapt tone. ”

“ Teresa thought: He is dying, though perhaps he does not know it. He is thinking of her because she was the great emotion of his life, and he feels that he is going to find her again. Perhaps he will find her. But then what will become of poor Agatha, who has cooked for him these many years—and what will she do when she gets to heaven and looks for him? He is her husband, too. But he's forgotten her, and her children, and even Basil—and he remembers only the woman with the copper hair that he loved thirty years ago—and has loved ever since. ”

“ It dissolved all things into dream. One seemed to feel the world swinging through space, wild, primeval, obedient only to a single law which crushed the individual will to dust. Danger! Danger to one's small individuality, to one's little world, opposing this vast, impersonal, indifferent force!
The blood came to Teresa's face. At the touch of Crayven's lips on her hand she did not move, but the sound of his voice—he murmured her name—sent her to her feet with a leap. ”

“ Basil said that he liked her friendship with Fairfax; it was in line with all his ideas. He said once: "It's more exciting to drive a restive team than a quiet one; only you must look out they don't get away." His own interest in his wife seemed to increase. It had lost the quiet of the first year; it was more like the perpetual unrest of courtship. Her successes, her gaiety, intensified the appeal of her beauty to him. He seemed, too, to be less sure of her, and this pleased Teresa, and added to the light excitement of their life. ”

“ Under the shadow of the black hat her eyes looked back at her with a strange melancholy and uneasiness. After a moment her face looked to her like that of a stranger, some woman oppressed and sad, and this impression frightened her. She turned away abruptly, and began with a little tool to model the faun's thick neck and shaggy shoulder. He seemed a trivial creature, as she handled him; Basil's cartoon, reflected in the mirror, appeared to her meaningless and absurd. The air of the studio, of the building, of the whole city, seemed stale and oppressive. ”

“ Teresa thought that the poet must certainly have heard some of these remarks, but he seemed absorbed in explaining to Alice and to Mr. Kerr, a gentleman of uncertain age and inexpressive countenance, something which required a great many gestures of unmanicured hands. She saw that Basil was having a good time with Mary Addams; he was laughing a good deal, drinking a good deal of excellent Burgundy; his eyes had the attentive and warm look called out by any woman he liked. There was more life and vigour in his handsome head than in all the others combined. ”

“ After lunch they found a warm nook by the side of a rock in an old apple orchard. Before them were only silent fields and woods and the smooth blue Sound. The apple trees were in bloom, a mist of pink spread over the hillside, and white petals drifted down on the grass with every soft breath of wind. Teresa sat on the ground, leaning against the rock. Basil lay with his head in her lap, and his grey hat over his eyes. ”

“ Why shouldn't we have the amusement of contemplating the world and people as they really are? It's the most instructive spectacle possible. I can never be thankful enough that I married a man who isn't afraid of reality, for me any more than for himself. You would shut your wife up in a toy paradise, with everything upholstered in rose-colour."
"There are a whole lot of things I know that my wife would never know, you may depend on that," Fairfax responded with emphasis. "What nonsense, imagining that a man's view of life and a woman's can ever be the same!" ”

“ There's nothing beautiful about a need—unless one happens to have the response to it. It's absurd to be hungry, at my time of life. Don't you find me very absurd?"
"I find you very—appealing."
"Oh," he murmured. "It's hard to be absurd twice over."
"Oh, it's life that's absurd. There's such horrid waste in it," said Teresa, almost angrily. "I don't see why one shouldn't love where one likes."
"Because love's like hunger. When it's satisfied you're not hungry any more, that's all. ”