Kildares of Storm Part 37

she said, "I believe old Reverend Flip is going to be a bishop one of these days."

"Really?" he murmured, kissing her. It seemed an unlikely moment for the discussion of the clergyman, admirable as the fellow was.

But Jacqueline had no sense of the fitness of things. She said between one kiss and another, "Philip's so awfully _good_, you know."

Channing released her, "I daresay," he remarked with some dryness.

"Being good is his profession, of course."

CHAPTER XXVII

It was a sore and weary author who at length, having postponed the inevitable as long as possible, crept into the bunk where his host and the two sons slept audibly, with Benoix beside them. The latter stirred a little, and greeted the newcomer.

"That you, Channing? This is the real thing in democracy, at last!" he murmured drowsily, and slept again as soundly as the others.

But Channing, though every aching muscle cried aloud for oblivion, could not sleep. He tossed and turned, listened to the heavy breathing of the men beside him, listened to lighter sounds from the far end of the cabin where Jacqueline was also tasting true democracy in company with the two mountain women. He had lingered outside the door until the three women came in from the lean-to where they had prepared for the night, Jacqueline a tall sprite between her squat, thick-bodied companions, a heavy rope of bronze hair over each shoulder, small feet showing bare and white beneath the severe robe of gray flannel which was the nearest approach to a negligee known to Mrs. Kildare's daughters. The atmosphere of Storm did not lend itself to the art of the negligee.

Moonlight shone full upon her, and Channing, watching with quickened heart-beat, saw her lips move as she gave a quick, shy glance toward the bunk where he was supposed to be already sleeping.

"She's telling me good night, the darling!" he thought, quite correctly, and blew her an unseen kiss.

There were times of late when the author almost forgot to a.n.a.lyze his own sensations. The Overmind that observed and registered for future reference had grown a trifle careless. Occasionally Channing felt, and acted, quite like an ordinary young man in love.

Now he lay quite still, that he might hear that low breathing across the room, trying to distinguish Jacqueline's from the rest. He had taken the precaution to open both doors of the cabin wide, after his hosts were safely asleep, letting in the moonlight and a little breeze that smelled keenly of pine woods. Now and then a faint bird-note broke the hush, or the mournful quaver of a screech-owl. The situation was not without picturesque piquancy for a collector of impressions.

Beside him, Benoix and the other man slept with the abandon of tired animals, and the sound of their sleeping somewhat disturbed the poetry of the night. On the whole, however, he preferred them sleeping to waking. He sent his thoughts, on tiptoe, as it were, across the room.

How exquisite she was, with her slim bare feet, and the hint of a chaste little ruffle showing at throat and wrist! Those drowsy, dewy eyes--the fluttering pulse in her soft throat--her clinging lips, which kissed as unconsciously as a child's until suddenly they were edged with fire....

Channing's thoughts became so insistent that perhaps they wakened her.

There was a slight stirring in the bunk across the room, a slender gray shape appeared on the edge of it, feeling about on the floor for shoes.

Still barefoot, with shoes in her hand, Jacqueline crept to the door.

Channing, all his fatigues forgotten, very carefully extricated himself from among the slumberers and followed. He congratulated himself upon the fact that his preparations for the night had been extremely sketchy, had in fact consisted merely in removing his coat and riding-boots. Once safe outside the cabin, he pulled on the boots, smoothed his hair with his fingers, knotted the handkerchief more becomingly about his throat, and went in pursuit of Jacqueline.

He had not far to go. She was sitting on the top rail of the nearest fence, her back toward him, framed in the center of the setting moon.

She turned as he came upon her with a startled gasp:

"O-oh! You, Mr. Channing!"

One of the sweetest things about the girl to Channing was the queer little tender respect with which she always treated him. Even in their most intimate moments, he was still the great man, the superior order of being. She could not possibly have called him "Percival." Though he chided her for this att.i.tude of respect, it did not displease him.

"I could not sleep in there," she explained, rather breathlessly, "so I came out to see the last of the moon. Of course I must go in again at once."

"Must you? Why, I wonder? I couldn't sleep either. Let's stay where we are!"

She asked, blus.h.i.+ng: "But would that be quite proper?"

This first hint of conventionality in the girl surprised and rather touched him. He saw that she was quite painfully aware of the prim little wrapper, the unbound hair, the bare feet thrust into her shoes.

"Why, you little gray nun! Outdoors is quite as 'proper' as indoors--rather more so, in fact. It's the onlooker that makes things proper or improper, and here there are no onlookers.--This is all too wonderful to waste in sleeping!"

It was wonderful. The girl drew a breath of keen, cold ozone into her lungs.

"Isn't it queer," she said with a chuckle, "that mountains smell so sweet and mountaineers--don't? Ugh! fancy living in that stuffy cabin!

All very well to sleep there once or twice for a lark, but to live there--!" She rubbed her bare ankles together unhappily. "Mr. Channing, do you suppose they were mosquitoes--?"

"Ss.h.!.+" he said. "I hold with the ancient belief that 'nothing exists until it is named.' There'll be several more nights of those bunks, you know.--If you find log-cabins open to suspicion, you ought to try the picturesque thatched-roof cots of Mother England! These mountaineers cling to the old traditions."

They laughed together, her slight barrier of shyness gone down in the intimacy of sharing a common peril.

"But were you ever so close to the moon, before?" she asked dreamily.

"It is right face to face with us now. I believe we could step off into it."

"As if it were a great golden door, opening into--who knows where?--Suppose we try, Jacqueline? If we follow this ravine at our feet, it will lead us to the edge of the mountain, and so to the threshold of the moon, without a doubt. Only we must hurry if we are to get there before the door closes."

She shook her head. "Too late! Long before we reached the end of the ravine the moon would be gone, and then it would be dark as a pocket."

"Pooh! Who's afraid of the dark?" scoffed the city dweller in his ignorance.

"It wouldn't be safe," she said seriously. "We'd never be able to find our way back in the dark. Of course, if we had a lantern--" She dimpled up at him suddenly. "Do you know, there is a lantern hanging just inside the cabin door. I saw it."

Channing tiptoed back and secured the lantern, his heart thumping rather hard, not entirely for fear of discovery. They had come at last to the moment that had been in both their minds since the start of the journey, beneath all their gaiety and laughter--that final desired solitude of the heights.

They descended into the shallow ravine--a mere fissure it was in the surface of the mountain--crossing as they went an almost perpendicular cornfield of which Jacqueline made mental note as a landmark. They spoke in whispers, as if fearing to disturb the immemorial silence of the hills. Here and there a bird woke at their pa.s.sing, and called a sleepy note of warning to its mate. Leaves rustled to the touch of the wind that is never still in high places. Near at hand sounded a sudden eerie cry, and Jacqueline drew close to Channing with a shudder.

"Suppose we meet a wildcat, or a bear, or something? What would we do?"

"Run," he said laconically; but he put a protective arm about her, which was perhaps what Jacqueline needed. It is usually in the presence of Man that Woman allows herself the luxury of timidity.

Soon they ceased to talk at all. He held her very close as they walked, and sometimes they stood for long moments without moving, embraced. No talk of Philip or other extraneous matters came between their kisses now. The young trees with which the ravine was filled hedged them in close and secret, a friendly guard; and Channing wished to abandon the expedition to the moon, being well content where he was. But Jacqueline, impelled by some blind instinct, urged him on toward the open, where a rim of gold, growing less and ever less, still showed between the interlacing branches.

Underbrush impeded them, tore at her skirts and her bare ankles, till Channing picked her up in his arms and carried her; not easily, for he was little taller than herself, but very willingly. So with his warm and fragrant burden, he emerged upon the edge of the mountain. At their feet was a sheer drop of many hundred feet into a canon, where a stream whispered, with the reflection of tumbled stars in its bosom. All about lay a wide prospect of lesser hills, covered with a mantle of soft and feathery verdure that stirred very lightly, as if the mountains were breathing in sleep. As they gazed, the rim of the moon sank slowly, slowly, till there was nothing left but starlight.

Jacqueline murmured, "Isn't it lucky we brought the lantern? Let's light it now." Her voice was rather tremulous.

"Why, sweetest?" He seated himself in the fragrant pine-needles, and drew her down beside him. "Look, little girl, how high we are above earth; out of men's knowledge, all the world asleep. We might be G.o.ds on high Olympus. 'You and I alone in Heaven dancing'"--he finished softly that most beautiful pa.s.sage out of "Marpessa."

But the Overmind chose that moment to return to duty. It suggested to Channing that he sounded a trifle histrionic, a trifle as though low music were about to be played by the orchestra. He caught himself murmuring inwardly, "What a setting! What a perfect setting!"

"For what?" inquired the Overmind, not at all in disapproval but with a sort of impersonal interest.

Just then the gifted Mr. Channing would have traded temperaments with the dullest lout that ever lost his head over a woman.

His self-consciousness reacted upon Jacqueline. All her earlier shyness returned. She drew the prim little wrapper down over her ankles, and sat quite stiffly erect, submitting to his embrace, but no longer returning it.

"I think we'd better be going back now," she said. "Suppose Philip were to wake up and miss us?"