Columbine

“ One is surprised to find the graceful Columbine, defying the storms, with its roots carefully fastened in the deep crevasses of the rocks of rugged mountains and protruding its nodding flowers above some steep ledge where human foot has never trod. ”

“ Columbine set down the tray again with a hint of exasperation. "You're just like a child," she said severely. "A great, overgrown boy, that's what you are!"
"All right," said Rufus, propping himself against the door-post.
"It's not all right. It's time you grew up." Columbine picked up the full glass, and, carrying it daintily, advanced upon him. ”

“ By the ruddy glow of the fire she saw a man's broad-chested figure, she saw the gleam of tawny hair above a thick bull-neck. He was bending slightly over the fire at her entrance, but, hearing her, he turned. And in that moment every numbed nerve in Columbine's body was pierced into quivering life.
She stood as one transfixed, and he stood motionless also in the flickering light of the flames, gazing at her with eyes of awful blue that were as burning spirit. But he spoke not a word—not a word. How could a dead man speak? ”

“ Graceful in form and charming in color, put together with extreme delicacy on slender, flexible, fragile stems and adorned with a leaf approaching that of the fern in delicacy and lace-like beauty, the columbine is one of the most delightful of flowers. Always associated with folly, we love it none the less for that, for there are times [Pg 143] when we enjoy Harlequin and Columbine among our flowers,—and these fantastic and frivolous columbines dancing so gaily in the breeze always fill us with delight. ”

“ The flower of the columbine is a unique and interesting form. The sepals look like petals and the petals are veritable horns of plenty filled with nectar at the closed ends for the swarms of bees which gather about. The sweets are produced by the blossoms on a generous scale, and to a columbine bed in full bloom the bees come, big and little, noisy and silent—all giddy with the feast. There is no use trying to drive them away for they will not go. ”

“ Columbine had heard it before.
"Pronto, it's only a wolf," she soothed him.
The peal was loud, rather harsh at first, then softened to a mourn, wild, lonely, haunting. A pack of coyotes barked in angry answer, a sharp, staccato, yelping chorus, the more piercing notes biting on the cold night air. These mountain mourns and yelps were music to Columbine. She rode on down the trail in the gathering darkness, less afraid of the night and its wild denizens than of what awaited her at White Slides Ranch.
CHAPTER II
Darkness settled down like a black mantle over the valley. ”

“ Look you here, Columbine! You're too honest to care for a beast like that. Why—though I pulled him out of the quicksand and saved him from the sea—I'd have wrung his neck if he'd stayed another day. I would that. ”

“ The scarlet columbine is another of my favourite flowers; it is bright red, with yellow linings to the tubes. The nectaries are more elongated than the garden columbines, and form a sort of mural crown, surmounted with little balls at the tips. A tall graceful plant, with its brilliant waving blossoms, is this columbine; it grows both in the sunshine and the shade, not perhaps in deep shady woods, but where the under brush has been removed by the running of the fire or the axe of the chopper; it seems even to flourish in poor stony soils, and may be found near every dwelling. ”

“ He snapped his fingers at the moonlight with a gesture half-humorous, yet half-defiant. "It is life," he said, "and the irony of life. Don't be too generous, my queen of the sea! Give me what I ask—of your graciousness! But—don't offer me more! Perhaps I might take it, and then—"
He turned with the words, as if the sentence were ended, and Columbine went with him, bewildered but too deeply fascinated to feel any serious misgiving. ”

“ PIERROT: That's so. Give me a hand there, Columbine.
[PIERROT and COLUMBINE pull down the table cover in such a way that the two bodies are hidden from the house, then merrily set their bowls back on the table, draw up their chairs, and begin the play exactly as before.]
COLUMBINE: Pierrot, a macaroon,—I cannot live without a macaroon!
PIERROT: My only love, You are so intense! ... Is it Tuesday, Columbine?— I'll kiss you if it's Tuesday. ”

“ Then she came back to earth, and saddened and veiled and darkened her voice as she sang the verse for the third time; and it was a great and sombre tragedy, too deep for any more tears; and somehow or other poor Columbine, forlorn and betrayed and dying, out in the cold at midnight—sinking down to hell, perhaps—was making her last frantic appeal! It was no longer Pierrot and Columbine—it was Marguerite—it was Faust! It was the most terrible and pathetic of all possible human tragedies, but expressed with no dramatic or histrionic exaggeration of any sort ”

“ Pierrot (weeping) : You don’t understand, poor thing, that Harlequin’s dying.
Columbine: Dying? You horrid thing! Or have you put poison in our glasses? No, no (contemptuously) ; men like you aren’t capable of that.
Pierrot (all in tears) : Poor Harlequin, your minutes are numbered!
Columbine: What’s he say? What’s he making up?
Harlequin (turning to the clock) : Yes, Columbine, it’s true. It’s time for you to know it. I feel plainly that I shall soon die.
Columbine: Harlequin! Beloved!
Harlequin: Don’t cry, Columbine! I shall go away with a smile on my lips. ”

“ She waited for him on the edge of the pool. There was laughter in her eyes, laughter and the sublime daring of innocence.
He reached her. They stood together on the same flat rock. He bent to her, in his eyes the burning worship of beauty.
"Columbine!" he said. "Witch! Enchantress! Queen!"
The red blood raced into her face. Her eyes shone into his with a sudden glory—the glory of the awaking soul. But the woman-instinct in her checked the first quick impulse of surrender. ”

“ It is a bob rustic indeed, but it veils Columbine very slightly. She is like one of the flowers of Keats, "all tiptoe for a flight." Into the room with the arch-valet and the very tired, elegant modish man she has come like the scent of mignonette through the window. His lordship's mind stirs even under its counterpane of cards and dice and buttered claret and snuff and fripperies, and one might think he heard the echo of a thrush's song sung when he was a boy (Unbelievable thought) , and climbed trees. ”

“ Inspiring were the feats achieved by the Clown, wild were the transformations and substitutions effected by the trim and ubiquitous Harlequin. But what Jenny loved most were the fairy entrances of Columbine, as, like a pink feather, she danced before the footlights and in and out of the shops. Oh, to be a Columbine, she thought, to dance in silver and pink down Hagworth Street with a thousand eyes to admire her, a thousand hands to acclaim the beautiful vision. ”

“ Columbine herself did not trust to appearances. She had learnt the way from Adam as a child learns a lesson by heart. He had taught her to know the danger-spot by the shape of the cliffs above it.
After a very brief pause to take her bearings, she moved forward with absolute assurance. Knight accompanied her with unquestioning confidence. His faith in his own luck was as profound as his faith in the girl at his side. And the tumult in his veins that night was such as to make him insensible of danger. The roar of the rising tide exhilarated him. ”

“ How shall I paint the rapture that I have hardly yet dared to contemplate? Columbine!"
His voice suddenly pleaded, and as though in answer she laid her hand in his. But she did not raise her eyes. She palpitated from head to foot like a captured bird.
"You are not—afraid?" he whispered.
"I don't know," she whispered back. "Not of you—not of you!"
"Ah!" he said. "We are caught in the same net. There is nothing terrible in that. The same magic is working in us both. Let it work, dear! We understand each other. Why should there be anything to fear?" ”

“ For some time they made good progress and then the light wind dropped and Columbine rolled about in a glassy calm. The swell ran in long undulations that shone with reflected light, and there was no shade, for they lowered all sail to save the canvas from burning and chafing. The sun pierced the awning, and it was intolerably hot. ”

“ Yes, yes, Harlequin in our time is almost a fossil. Well, fair lady, enough obstinacy. (Music. Death dances.) Columbine, Pierrot, open your eyes, open them quickly! Look how merry we are! (Harlequin makes Columbine sit down beside him on the bed. Death places her hand on his shoulder. To Death.) Wait, my dear lady, wait. Let me take leave of the world as the world does! One more, only one more kiss, Columbine! Pierrot, where have you got to, you coward? ”

“ Neither had any tie belonging to the past; [32] or, more exactly, Columbine had none, and he, for the time being, at least, had no past. His helplessness and the mystery enshrouding him would have appealed to the heart of any woman, and Columbine had no distractions to fill her life and crowd out this ever-deepening interest. Of Mr. Tom, her beauty and freshness, her simplicity, which was so far removed from insipidity, her innocence, which never suggested ignorance, won the respect and admiration long before he was conscious that love, too, was growing in his heart. ”

“ Such a man of the world! But when you can dress in vermilion and purple and gold and wear the biggest cloak and the largest sword that ever was and twist your moustache as outrageously as you please, what's easier than to fascinate such a child as Columbine? She curtseys to him as he bows to her. She beckons to her husband to join them. But he, lost now in the landscape, now in his reopened book, waves only a distant greeting, and will not budge. The Man of the World smiles a most worldly smile, and soon he and pretty Columbine are strolling towards the house ”

“ Meanwhile Columbine from her window had seen the laborers, and, in a moment realizing the danger, she flew to the library.
“Father,” she cried, “the salt marshes have been burning all day, and the fire is almost up to the garden.”
“Good heavens, Columbine, how impetuous you are! You have quite driven out of my head what became of the second son of—”
“But, father,” she interrupted, impatiently, “do you realize that if you sit here pothering [47] about second sons the house may be burned over our heads?” ”

“ Rufus met the thrust without the faintest hint of feeling.
"What you think," he said, in his weighty fashion, "has nothing to do with me. What you do is all that matters. And I tell you straight"—a blue flame suddenly leapt up like a volcanic light in the sombre eyes—"that no man that hasn't honest intentions by her is going to make love to Columbine."
"Great Jove!" mocked Knight, with his careless laugh. ”

“ Maybe the chap won't be so keen himself when he knows he can't have Columbine to go with him. Find that out first!"
Mrs. Peck looked at him with an approving smile. "Lor', Rufus! You've got some sense," she said. "But I wonder how Columbine will take it if I says anything to Mr. Knight behind her back."
Adam chuckled. "Columbine in a tantrum is one of the best sights I know," he remarked.
"Ah! She don't visit her tantrums on you," rejoined his wife. "You can afford to smile." ”

“ They could not suspect, in the dashing young buck, fashionably dressed, and driving his own equipage, their former comrade, the painted beau, with old peaked hat and long, flimsy, sky-blue coat. My heart yearned with kindness towards Columbine, and I was glad to see her establishment a thriving one. As soon as the harness was adjusted, I tossed a small purse of gold into her ample bosom; and then, pretending give my horses a hearty cut of the whip, I made the lash curl with a whistling about the sleek sides of ancient Harlequin. ”

“ Knight watched him, wondering if any thoughts were stirring in the slow brain behind that massive forehead. Columbine had declared that the man was an oaf, and he felt inclined to agree with her. And yet there was something in the intensity of the fellow's eyes that held his attention, the possibility of the actual existence of an unknown element that did not fit into that conception of him. They were not the eyes of a mere animal. There was no vagueness in their utter stillness. Rather had they the look of a man who waits. ”

“ Then they open out gracefully, and discover the Columbine of Part the First with a lot of young men— (Oh!) ,—all seated together in the basin of the fountain. The young men in masks— (Aha!—now I see why this is called a Masque!—Now I am happy, whether Queen Elizabeth would have liked it or not!) —come out of the fountain, quite dry, rather unpolitely leaving poor Columbine still in the basin under the dripping water. ”

“ Wade, watching Columbine ride down the slope on her homeward way, did some of the hardest thinking he had yet been called upon to do. It was not necessary to acquaint Wilson Moore with the deeper and more subtle motives that had begun to actuate him. It would not utterly break the cowboy's spirit to live in suspense. Columbine was safe for the present. He had insured her against fatality. Time was all he needed. Possibility of an actual consummation of her marriage to Jack Belllounds did not lodge for an instant in Wade's consciousness. ”