A Mountain Woman | Page 4

that one has a right to feel annoyed. But, honestly, I am not
ungenerous, and I am going to do him a favor. I shall write, and urge
him not to bring his wife here. A primitive woman, with the north star
in her hair, would look well down there in the Casino eating a
pineapple ice, wouldn't she? It's all very well to have a soul, you know;
but it won't keep you from looking like a guy among women who have
good dressmakers. I shudder at the thought of what the poor thing will
suffer if he brings her here."
Jessica wrote, as she said she would; but, for all that, a fortnight later
she was walking down the wharf with the "mountain woman," and I
was sauntering beside Leroy. At dinner Jessica gave me no chance to
talk with our friend's wife, and I only caught the quiet contralto tones of
her voice now and then contrasting with Jessica's vivacious soprano. A
drizzling rain came up from the east with nightfall. Little groups of
shivering men and women sat about in the parlors at the card-tables,
and one blond woman sang love songs. The Brainards were tired with
their journey, and left us early. When they were gone, Jessica burst into

eulogy.
"That is the first woman," she declared, "I ever met who would make a
fit heroine for a book."
"Then you will not feel under obligations to educate her, as you
insinuated the other day?"
"Educate her! I only hope she will help me to unlearn some of the
things I know. I never saw such simplicity. It is antique!"
"You're sure it's not mere vacuity?" "Victor! How can you? But you
haven't talked with her. You must to-morrow. Good-night." She
gathered up her trail- ing skirts and started down the corridor. Suddenly
she turned back. "For Heaven's sake!" she whispered, in an awed tone,
"I never even noticed what she had on!"
The next morning early we made up a riding party, and I rode with Mrs.
Brainard. She was as tall as I, and sat in her saddle as if quite
unconscious of her animal. The road stretched hard and inviting under
our horses' feet. The wind smelled salt. The sky was ragged with gray
masses of cloud scudding across the blue. I was beginning to glow with
exhilaration, when suddenly my companion drew in her horse.
"If you do not mind, we will go back," she said.
Her tone was dejected. I thought she was tired.
"Oh, no!" she protested, when I apolo- gized for my thoughtlessness in
bringing her so far. "I'm not tired. I can ride all day. Where I come
from, we have to ride if we want to go anywhere; but here there seems
to be no particular place to -- to reach."
"Are you so utilitarian?" I asked, laugh- ingly. "Must you always have
some reason for everything you do? I do so many things just for the
mere pleasure of doing them, I'm afraid you will have a very poor
opinion of me."

"That is not what I mean," she said, flushing, and turning her large gray
eyes on me. "You must not think I have a reason for everything I do."
She was very earnest, and it was evident that she was unacquainted
with the art of making conversation. "But what I mean," she went on,
"is that there is no place -- no end -- to reach." She looked back over
her shoulder toward the west, where the trees marked the sky line, and
an expression of loss and dissatisfaction came over her face. "You see,"
she said, apolo- getically, "I'm used to different things -- to the
mountains. I have never been where I could not see them before in my
life."
"Ah, I see! I suppose it is odd to look up and find them not there."
"It's like being lost, this not having any- thing around you. At least, I
mean," she continued slowly, as if her thought could not easily put
itself in words, -- "I mean it seems as if a part of the world had been
taken down. It makes you feel lonesome, as if you were living after the
world had begun to die."
"You'll get used to it in a few days. It seems very beautiful to me here.
And then you will have so much life to divert you."
"Life? But there is always that every- where."
"I mean men and women."
"Oh! Still, I am not used to them. I think I might be not -- not very
happy with them. They might think me queer. I think I would like to
show your sister the mountains."
"She has seen them often."
"Oh, she told me.