Arms and the Woman

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Arms and the Woman

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MacGrath
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Title: Arms and the Woman
Author: Harold MacGrath

Release Date: December 19, 2005 [eBook #17359]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARMS AND
THE WOMAN***
E-text prepared by Al Haines

ARMS AND THE WOMAN
A Romance
by
HAROLD MacGRATH

New York Doubleday Page & Company 1905 Copyright, 1899, by S. S.
Mcclure Co. Copyright, 1899, by Doubleday and Mcclure Co.

To her, that is to say, to the hand that rocked the cradle.

ARMS AND THE WOMAN
CHAPTER I
The first time I met her I was a reporter in the embryonic state and she
was a girl in short dresses. It was in a garden, surrounded by high red
brick walls which were half hidden by clusters of green vines, and at
the base of which nestled earth-beds, radiant with roses and poppies
and peonies and bushes of lavender lilacs, all spilling their delicate
ambrosia on the mild air of passing May. I stood, straw hat in hand,
wondering if I had not stumbled into some sweet prison of flowers
which, having run disobedient ways in the past, had been placed here
by Flora, and forever denied their native meadows and wildernesses.
And this vision of fresh youth in my path, perhaps she was some
guardian nymph. I was only twenty-two--a most impressionable age.
Her hair was like that rare October brown, half dun, half gold; her eyes
were cool and restful, like the brown pools one sees in the heart of the
forests, and her lips and cheeks cozened the warm vermilion of the rose
which lay ever so lightly on the bosom of her white dress. Close at
hand was a table upon which stood a pitcher of lemonade. She was
holding in her hand an empty glass. As my eyes encountered her calm,

inquiring gaze, my courage fled precipitately, likewise the object of my
errand. There was a pause; diffidence and embarrassment on my side,
placidity on hers.
"Well, sir?" said she, in a voice the tone of which implied that she
could readily understand her presence in the garden, but not mine.
As I remember it, I was suddenly seized with a great thirst.
"I should like a glass of your lemonade," I answered, bravely laying
down the only piece of money I possessed.
Her stern lips parted in a smile, and my courage came back cautiously,
that is to say, by degrees. She filled a glass for me, and as I gulped it
down I could almost detect the flavor of lemon and sugar.
"It is very good," I volunteered, passing back the glass. I held out my
hand, smiling.
"There isn't any change," coolly.
I flushed painfully. It was fully four miles to Newspaper Row. I was
conscious of a sullen pride. Presently the object of my errand returned.
Somewhat down the path I saw a gentleman reclining in a canvas
swing.
"Is that Mr. Wentworth?" I asked.
"Yes. Do you wish to speak to him? Uncle Bob, here is a gentleman
who desires to speak to you."
I approached. "Mr. Wentworth," I began, cracking the straw in my hat,
"my name is John Winthrop. I am a reporter. I have called to see if it is
true that you have declined the Italian portfolio."
"It is true," he replied kindly. "There are any number of reasons for my
declining it, but I cannot make them public. Is that all?"
"Yes, sir; thank you;" and I backed away.

"Are you a reporter?" asked the girl, as I was about to pass by her.
"Yes, I am."
"Do you draw pictures?"
"No, I do not."
"Do you write novels?"
"No," with a nervous laugh.
There is nothing like the process of interrogation to make one person
lose interest in another.
"Oh; I thought perhaps you did," she said, and turned her back to me.
I passed through the darkened halls of the house and into the street.
I never expected to see her again, but it was otherwise ordained. We
came together three years later at Block Island. She was eighteen now,
gathering the rosy flowers of her first season. She remembered the
incident in the garden, and we laughed over it. A few dances, two or
three evenings on the verandas, watching the sea, moon-lit, as it
sprawled among the rocks below