Temple Bailey

“ Might not a man offer her that which was finer than gold, greater than material success? Might not a man offer her a life which had to do with life and love—might he not share with her this opportunity to make this garden in the sand-hills bloom?
And now, while the mocking-birds sang madly, Roger Poole saw Mary—here beside him on the porch on a morning like this, with the lilacs waving perfumed plumes of mauve and white, with the birds flashing in blue and scarlet and gold from pine to magnolia, and from magnolia back to pine—with the sky unclouded, the air fresh and sweet. ”

“ He had given himself in a crusade which had been born of high idealism and a sense of brotherhood. Day after day, night after night, his plane had hung, poised like an eagle, above the enemy. He had been one of the young gods who had set their strength and courage against the greed and grossness of gray-coated hordes.
And these dreams must live—the dreams of the young gods—as the dreams of the old gods had endured. Because men had died to make others free, freedom must be the song on the lips of all men.
He thought of Randy's story. ”

“ I I had not known Tom Randolph a week before I was aware that life was not real to him. All his world was a stage, with himself as chief player. He dramatized everything—actions, emotions, income. Thus he made poverty picturesque, love a thing of the stars, the day's work a tragedy, or, if the professors proved kind, a comedy. He ate and drank, as it were, to music, combed his hair and blacked his boots in the glare of footlights; made exits and entrances of a kind unknown to men like myself who lacked his sense of the histrionic. ”

“ There had been so many women he might have married. Lovelier women than Jane, wittier, more distinguished, richer—of more assured social standing. He could have had the pick of them, yet not one of them had he wanted. Here was little Jane Barnes, bobbed hair, boyish, slender, quaint in her cheap clothes, and he could see no one else at the head of his table, no one else by his side in the big car, no one else to share the glamorous days of honeymoon, and the life which was to follow. ”

“ Oh, dear girl, come back to me. I must have you in my life. Otherwise it will be a thwarted life—and a lonely one. For whether you marry me or not, I will not marry Betty. I do not love her, and she shall not spend her days as the unloved wife of one whose thoughts are all with a wonder-woman up in the hills. ”

“ Rugs with a sheen like the bloom of a peach—alabaster in curved and carved bowls and vases, old prints in dull gilt frames—furniture following the lines of Florentine elaborateness—his eyes took in all the color and glow, though he rarely stopped for a closer view.
In front of one broad window, however, he hesitated. The opening of the door had spilled into the frosty air of this alien city the scent of the Orient—the fragrance of incense—of spicy perfumed woods.
In the window a jade god sat high on a teakwood pedestal. A string of scarlet beads lighted a shadowy corner. ”

“ Love—in these times, Derry—isn't building a nest—and singing songs in the tree tops on a May morning; it goes beyond just the man and the woman; it even goes beyond the child. It goes as far as the future of mankind. What the future of the world will be depends not so much on how much you love Jean or she loves you, or on how much I loved and was loved, but on how much that love will mean to the world. ”

“ Roger walked, too, in the country. In other lands, or at least so their poets have it, November is the month of chill and dreariness. But to the city on the Potomac it comes with soft pink morning mists and toward sunset, with amethystine vistas. And if, beyond the city, the fields are frosted, it is frost of a feathery whiteness which melts in the glory of a warmer noon. And if the trees are bare, there is yet pale yellow under foot and pale rose, where the leaves wait for the winter winds which shall whirl them later in a mad dance like brown butterflies. ”

“ She met Randolph on equal ground. They soared together—mixed love of country with love of lovers. They rose at dawn to worship the sun, they walked forth at twilight to adore together the crescent moon.
And all the while war was at the gates; we could hear the boom of big guns. The spring drive was on and the Germans were coming back.
I shall never forget the night that Randolph and I were ordered to the front. Mademoiselle had come in with her hands full of violets. Randolph, meeting her for the first time after a busy day, took her hands and the frail blossoms in his eager clasp. ”

“ But to-day was not yesterday, and George was not the man of those dreams. Yet, why not? There was the quick laughter, with its new ring of sincerity, the sparkling eyes, the Apollo head.
"Marry me, Becky."
Beyond the pool which reflected the little star was the dark outline of the box hedge, and beyond the hedge, the rise of the hill showed dark against the dull silver of the sky—a shadow seemed to rise suddenly in that dim brightness, the tall thin shadow of a man with a clear-cut profile, and a high-held head!
Becky drew a sharp breath—then faced Dalton squarely. "I am going to marry Randy." ”

“ Jane changed to a loose straight frock of orange cotton, and without a hat, feeling actual physical freedom in the breaking of her bonds, she swung along the path to the little grove. It was aromatic with the warm scent of the pines, and there was a cool shade in the heart of it. Jane had brought a bag of stockings to mend, and sat down to her homely task, smiling a little as she thought of the contrast between this afternoon and yesterday, when she had sat on the rim of the fountain and watched Adelaide and the peacock. She had no feeling of rancor against Adelaide. ”

“ It happened, therefore, that Anne had read much of poetry and history, and the lives of famous people, to say nothing of fairy-tales and legends, so that in the companionship of her books and pets, she had missed little in spite of her poverty and solitary life.
"How good it is to be at home," she said, as the sunlight, creeping around the room, shone on the green cover of a much-thumbed book of French fairy-tales, and then slanted off to touch the edge of a blue and gold Tennyson; "how good it is to be at home." ”

“ Suddenly there broke upon the stillness the sound of a great buzzing, as of some mammoth bee.
"What is it?" asked Diana, standing in the doorway.
"Look, oh, look," cried Sophie, and then they saw above them, darting like a dragon-fly through the golden haze, a magic ship of the air.
"I wonder who's flying," said Diana, as they watched it go up and up until it was a mere speck against the blue. "They are daring folk, these flying men—yet there are men more daring. ”

“ Cartwright went and stood beside her, towering far above her. For the first time in his life there came to him the feeling of the remoteness of the good woman. There had been girls who had smiled, girls who had blushed, girls who had protested, but no girl like this one with the dreamy, rapt face, that inspired in him a feeling of reverence.
He knew it was time to stop, but the passion of conquest was upon him. He bent his head down, close to hers. "Do you love me?" he breathed, and knew that, if he had been a true man, he would have stated his own feeling first. ”

“ They both laughed, and the Poet kissed Phyllida—the second kiss, which could never be as wonderful as the first, but which was wonderful enough in all conscience. But when the Poet had left Phyllida and walked the city streets alone, he was burdened by the feeling that he ought not to let her run away with him. For the Poet, with the thinning of his locks on his temples had grown wise, and he knew that while one may put into verses all the moon-lighted fancies that one pleases, one must live life as it really is. ”

“ If their meeting had been in Sherwood forest, he would have known her at once for a good comrade; if he had met her in the Garden of Biaucaire, he would have known her at once for more than that. But, being neither a hero of ballad nor of old romance, he knew only that here was a girl different from the silken ladies who had ascended the stairs. Here was an air almost of frank boyishness, a smile of pleasant friendliness, with just enough of flushing cheek to show womanliness and warm blood. ”

“ They looked down on men and women in Roman chariots, men on horseback, women on horseback, on elephants, on camels—painted ladies in howdahs, painted ladies in sedan chairs—Cleopatra, Pompadour—history reduced to pantomime, color imposed upon color, glitter upon glitter, the beat of the tom-tom, the crash of the band, the thin piping, as the white-turbaned snake-charmer showed in the press of the crowd.
Christopher's eyes went to Anne. She was leaning forward, one hand clasping the silver beads. He would have given much to know what was in her mind. How little she was and how young. ”

“ It was a rather imposing fountain, with a Neptune in bronze riding a sea-horse, with nymphs on dolphins in attendance. Neptune poured water from a shell which he held in his hand, and the dolphins spouted great streams. The splash of the water was a grateful sound in the stillness of the hot night, and the mist which the slight breeze blew towards a bed of tuberoses seemed to bring out their heavy fragrance. Always afterwards when Becky thought of that night, there would come to her again that heavy scent and the splash of streaming water. ”

“ So with the desire to preserve a record of these marvellous moments which were crowding into her life, she chose a perfectly new book to be devoted to Derry. And on the first page she pasted, not the faded violet from the basket which had come to her yesterday—oh, day of days!—not the dance program on which Derry's name was most magically scrawled, nor the spring of heather, nor a handful of rose leaves from the offering of the morning—no, the very first thing that went into Jean's memory book was a frayed silken tassel that had been cut from a rose-colored curtain! ”

“ The thing which has always made you, in my eyes, a great man as well as a great surgeon has been the fact that you have seemed to understand that you were working with Infinite Love toward the completion of a perfect plan; you have seemed to understand that life is good as long as it is lived wisely and well; that death is good when it ends suffering and sorrow. These things you have seen and known—I want you always to see and know them."
"If any one could make me see and know them it is you, Diana." ”

“ To little country Anne, Judy seemed like a being from another world; she had never seen anything like the white hat with its wreath of violets, the straight white linen frock, the white cloth coat, and the low ribbon-tied shoes, and the unconscious air with which all these beautiful things were worn filled her with wonder. Why, a new ribbon on her own hat always set her happy heart a-flutter! ”

“ But I am going to try to keep the sadness out of my scribbles to you, only now and then it will creep in, and you must forgive it, because you see it isn't easy to think that we are all here who loved him, and he, who loved so much to be with us, is somewhere—oh, where is he, Roger Poole, in that vast infinity which stretches out and out, beyond the sea, beyond the sky, into eternity?
All day I have been lying in my deck chair, and have let the world go by. It is clear and cool, and the sea rises up like a wall of sapphire. Last night we seemed to plough through a field of gold. ”

“ As soon as the music stopped they would be filled with dancers seeking the coolness of the outer air. He stood looking up, and suddenly, as if the stage had been set, Becky stepped out on the balcony straight in front of him, and stood under the yellow lantern. The light was dim, but it gave to her white skin, to her lace frock, to the pink fan, a faint golden glow. She might have been transmuted from flesh into some fine metal. ”

“ I do not think that it tugged at the heart of Elise. Her heart was not like that. It was a stay-at-home heart. A workaday-world heart. Elise would never under any circumstance have gone forth with a vagabond on a wild night.
But here was Ursula doing it every day. On the evening of the first dress-rehearsal she wore clothes that showed her sense of fitness. As if in casting off conventional restraints, she renounced conventional attire; she came down to her lover wrapped in a cloak of the deep-purple bloom of the heather of the moor, and there was a pheasant's feather in her cap. ”

“ You are everywhere, Mistress Anne, not as I last saw you at Rose Acres in silken attire, but fluttering before me in your frock of many flounces, carrying your star of a lantern through the twilight on your way to Diogenes, scolding me on the stairs——! What days, what hours! And always you were the little school-teacher, showing your wayward scholars what to do with life! ”

“ Well, there's this to think of now, Derry, now that you are a man—that life isn't white and black, it isn't sheep and goats—it isn't just good people and bad people with a great wall between. Life is gray and amethyst, it is a touch of dinginess on the fleece of the whole flock, and the men and women whom you meet will be those whose great faults are balanced by great virtues and whose little meannesses are contradicted by unexpected generosities. ”

“ There had been the early start, the meeting of the queer boy at the crossroads—the boy with the lazy air and the alert eyes; the crowding of the big carriage with two rather dowdy little country girls, one of whom was, in Judy's opinion, exceedingly pert, and the other exasperatingly placid; the laughter and the light-heartedness, the beauty of the blossoming spring world, the restfulness of the dim forest aisles, the excitement of the arrival on the banks of the stream, and the arrangement of the camp for the day. ”

“ Mary said with a catch in her voice, "you mustn't be so humble—it's enough to spoil any man."
"Not Barry," Leila said; "he loves me because I am so loving."
Oh, wisdom of the little heart. There might be men who could love for the sake of conquest; there might be men who could meet coldness with ardor, and affection with indifference. Barry was not one of these. The sacred fire which burned in the heart of his sweet mistress had lighted the flame in his own. It was Leila's love as well as Leila that he wanted. ”

“ THE RED CANDLE
It was so cold that the world seemed as stiff and stark as a poet's hell. A little moon was frozen against a pallid sky. The old dark houses with their towers and gables wore the rigid look of iron edifices. The saint over the church door at the corner had an icicle on his nose. Even the street lights shone faint and benumbed through clouded glass.
Ostrander, with his blood like ice within his veins, yearned for a Scriptural purgatory with red fire and flame. To be warm would be heaven. ”

“ Jean came down early with her knitting, and sat on the deep-rose Davenport. The curtains were not drawn. There was always the chance of a sunset view. Julia was to turn on the light when she brought in the tea.
There was the whir of a bell, the murmur of voices. Jean sat tense. Then as her caller entered, she got somewhat shakily on her feet.
But the man in the door was not Derry Drake!
In his intrusive and impertinent green, pinched-in as to waist, and puffed-out as to trousers, his cheeks red with the cold, his brown eyes bright with eagerness, Ralph Witherspoon stood on the threshold. ”

“ He had been rather stiffly posed on a bed of artificial moss, but nothing could spoil the beauty of him—the white of his plumage, the elegance of his lines. He was one of a dying race—the descendants of the men who had once killed for food had killed later to gratify the vanity of women who must have swans down to set off their beauty, puffs to powder their noses. No more did great flocks wing an exalted flight, high in the heavens, or rest like a blanket of snow on river banks. The old kings were dead—the glassy eyes of the Trumpeter looked out upon a world which knew his kind no more. ”

“ Not any one, Anne—not a single soul—"
"But you are so clever," said little Anne.
"But people don't love you just because you are clever, and it isn't clever people that make others the happiest," and Judy dropped her book and gazed deep into the flames as if seeking there an answer to the problems of life.
"People love you, Judy."
"Sometimes they do, and some people—but my awful temper, Anne," and
Judy sighed.
"You don't flare up half as much as you used." Anne's tone was consoling. ”

“ Why, life was a Great Adventure, and she had forgotten!
And now she began to look about her—to find, if she could, some ray to illumine her workaday world.
She found it in the friendliness and companionship of her office comrades—good comrades they were—fighting the battle of drudgery shoulder to shoulder, sharing the fortunes of the road, needing, some of them, the uplift of her courage, giving some of them more than they asked.
As Mary grew into their lives, she grew away somewhat from her old crowd. ”