Katrine Part 11

"Why should I, Katrine? I have all the money I can possibly want. Life is short. I come of a family who tire of living quickly. Say, for instance, I live until I'm sixty. I probably sha'n't, you know, but we'll say so for argument. One-third of the time I sleep, which reduces the real living to forty years. Until the time of fifteen one doesn't count, anyway. That gives me but twenty-five years of life. Now, I ask you"--he threw back his head as he spoke, his face charming with a humorous smile, an illuminated eye--"now, I ask you, if you would be so hard-hearted as to desire me--with but twenty-five years at my disposal, remember--to spend them in a treadmill of work when I might be spending them under the pines and the beeches with you, Katrine--_with you_!"

She had clasped her knees, making of herself a magnetic bunch of color and lovableness, and she let her eyes rest in his a moment before she spoke. "Don't talk that way, will you? I like to think of you always as a great man--a man of action, a man who helps."

They regarded each other steadily for a full minute before he said:

"It has begun."

"What?" she asked, mystified.

"That mental treatment you spoke of some time ago. You are having a terrible effect on me, Katrine, and I find it extremely uncomfortable,"

he added, laughing.

VIII

FRANK YIELDS TO TEMPTATION

During the time of the house-party at Ravenel, Katrine gave vent to the natural rebellion against her position but once. Dermott was away on some business in New York; the daily letter from Dr. Johnston concerning her father's condition had not arrived; and she had seen the gay people from Ravenel coach past her as she sat alone on the Chestnut Ridge.

For nearly a week she had been sleeping badly, awakening every hour or two through the night with something--something that could not be put aside--pressing upon her soul.

Huddled in a sad little heap, in her white gown by the side of the bed, one unbearable night she stretched her arms along the coverlet, sobbing out to the everlasting silence the questionings as to what she had done to be so neglected and set apart.

"What has been in my life but shame--shame which was not mine?" she cried, as the horror of life with her drunken father came back to her.

"Why are some given everything," she demanded, "and I nothing? Where is G.o.d's justice? What have I done; oh, what have I done?"

Out in the wooded silence a bird began to sing a mournful melody. Of the greatness of night he sang, and dead morns, and dropping stars; of dear forgotten things and loves that might have been, that may not be; of pa.s.sion and unfulfilled desires, and through the pines the song entered her heart like a response. She listened, not as a girl listening to a bird, but as one artist listens to another with a rapture of appreciation. And the music comforted her. And later, in the midst of great sorrow, she saw intended significance in the occurrence.

"It was an answer," she said, "to remind me that there will always be that solace. Give me, oh G.o.d," she prayed, "power to make of all my sorrow music for the world!"

The day following her midnight protest she heard from Nora and old Caesar that the guests at Ravenel had gone; heard as well that "old Miss and Ma.r.s.e Frank were goin' shortly"; heard it with a stirring at her heart of physical pain to which she had grown used.

On the evening of this day, a warm June evening, she expected him to come, and dressed as though there were an engagement between them to spend the evening together. In a thin white gown, low in the neck, with a kerchief of filmy lace knotted in front, sleeves that fell away at the elbow, with faint, pink roses at her breast, her black hair turned high in a curly knot, she stood in the old rose-garden when he came.

He wore a light overcoat over his evening dress, and stood hatless by the boxwood arch looking across at her.

"Katrine," he said, "little Katrine, I have come back to you."

His face was illumined as he spoke her name. The peculiar ability to express more than he felt was always his, but at the instant he felt more than he was able to express.

"I am glad," she answered, not moving toward him nor offering to shake hands. It seemed enough that he was there.

"They have gone at last," he said; adding, piously: "Thank G.o.d!"

"You did not have a good time?" she asked.

"I did not."

"I am sorry," she said, baffling him by the serenity of her tone.

"There were two or three occasions which stand out with a peculiarly horrible distinctness. One was the time we had an all-day picnic at Bears' Den. Porter Brawley suggested it, and I hope he will suffer for it in eternity. It rained."

Katrine laughed.

"And there was an evening when we had charades, for which n.o.body had the least gift or training. It was the evening you were to come to us. Why didn't you, Katrine?"

"I was not well," she answered. "But I shouldn't have come if I'd been well, Mr. Ravenel."

She seemed to him so perfect, such an utterly desirable being, as she sat with roses in her hand and the moonlight s.h.i.+ning on her flower-like face.

Neither noted the silence which fell between them, a silence which spoke more than language could have done, for language had become, between them, an unnecessary thing.

There was still no spoken word as they walked side by side along the path which led to the house. At the turn into the wider way there was a tall pine-tree, the boughs beginning high from the ground, the turf beneath them covered with brown pine-needles. There was a bench here, upon which they had often sat together. In the moonlight this place under the tree was in a soft, warm glow. As they drew near it Frank spoke in a voice scarcely above a whisper. "Sit here, just for a minute?"

It seemed as though they were alone together in the world. In the moonlit gloom under the pine they stood, near, nearer, and at length he put his arm around her gently, not drawing her toward him, only letting it lie around her waist, as though they had a right to be there, heart to heart, in the stillness of the night. Standing thus, he felt her tremble, noted her quickened breath, and the rise and fall of her breast and shoulders because of his caress.

Although they could not see each other in the gloom, she knew his lips sought hers. By an indefinable instinct she turned from him twice before their lips met in a long kiss of pa.s.sion and content. They kissed each other again before he drew her down beside him on the garden bench in the flower-scented dusk.

"You care?" she asked, in a whisper, her breath on his cheek.

"More than I thought I could care for anything in life," he answered.

It was after ten when Nora's shrill voice recalled them to themselves.

Standing together, she asked, as she bade him good-night: "You--are--going--away?"

For answer he clasped her slim white hands behind his throat and drew her toward him.

"What do you think?" he said, his lips kissing hers in the speaking of the words.

"I hope you will not go."

"I shall not." And then: "Oh, for a few days, perhaps, to take mother to Bar Harbor; but I shall come back. And we'll have the whole long summer together, you and I; you and I," he repeated. "Good-night. Kiss me, Katrine!"

"Good-night," she said, raising her lips to his; and then, almost as though it were a benediction, she added: "G.o.d keep you always just as you are, beloved." And as he had done many times before, Francis Ravenel felt powerless before this girl who gave all, asking nothing in return.

IX

THE TRUTH