The Bride of the Mistletoe | Page 6

itself to accompany the score of gray whiter--and flitted on
billowy wings to a juniper at the corner of the house, its turret against
the long javelins of the North.
Amid the stillness of Nature outside and the house-silence of a love
guarding him within, the man worked on.
A little clock ticked independently on the old-fashioned Parian marble
mantelpiece. Prints were propped against its sides and face, illustrating
the use of trees about ancient tombs and temples. Out of this
photographic grove of dead things the uncaring clock threw out upon
the air a living three--the fateful three that had been measured for each
tomb and temple in its own land and time.
A knock, regretful but positive, was heard, and the door opening into
the hall was quietly pushed open. A glow lit up the student's face
though he did not stop writing; and his voice, while it gave a welcome,
unconsciously expressed regret at being disturbed:
"Come in."
"I am in!"
He lifted his heavy figure with instant courtesy--rather obsolete
now--and bowing to one side, sat down again.
"So I see," he said, dipping his pen into his ink.
"Since you did not turn around, you would better have said 'So I hear.'
It is three o'clock."
"So I hear."
"You said you would be ready."

"I am ready."
"You said you would be done."
"I am done--nearly done."
"How nearly?"
"By to-morrow--to-morrow afternoon before dark. I have reached the
end, but now it is hard to stop, hard to let go."
His tone gave first place, primary consideration, to his work. The
silence in the room suddenly became charged. When the voice was
heard again, there was constraint in it:
"There is something to be done this afternoon before dark, something I
have a share in. Having a share, I am interested. Being interested, I am
prompt. Being prompt, I am here."
He waved his hand over the written sheets before him--those cold Alps
of learning; and asked reproachfully:
"Are you not interested in all this, O you of little faith?"
"How can I say, O me of little knowledge!"
As the words impulsively escaped, he heard a quick movement behind
him. He widened out his heavy arms upon his manuscript and looked
back over his shoulder at her and laughed. And still smiling and
holding his pen between his fingers, he turned and faced her. She had
advanced into the middle of the room and had stopped at the chair on
which he had thrown his overcoat and hat. She had picked up the hat
and stood turning it and pushing its soft material back into shape for his
head--without looking at him.
The northern light of the winter afternoon, entering through the looped
crimson-damask curtains, fell sidewise upon the woman of the picture.
Years had passed since the picture had been made. There were changes

in her; she looked younger. She had effaced the ravages of a sadder
period of her life as human voyagers upon reaching quiet port repair the
damages of wandering and storm. Even the look of motherhood, of the
two motherhoods, which so characterized her in the photograph, had
disappeared for the present. Seeing her now for the first time, one
would have said that her whole mood and bearing made a single
declaration: she was neither wife nor mother; she was a woman in love
with life's youth--with youth--youth; in love with the things that youth
alone could ever secure to her.
The carriage of her beautiful head, brave and buoyant, brought before
you a vision of growing things in nature as they move towards their
summer yet far away. There still was youth in the round white throat
above the collar of green velvet--woodland green--darker than the
green of the cloth she wore. You were glad she had chosen that color
because she was going for a walk with him; and green would enchain
the eye out on the sere ground and under the stripped trees. The
flecklessness of her long gloves drew your thoughts to winter rather--to
its one beauteous gift dropped from soiled clouds. A slender toque
brought out the keenness in the oval of her face. From it rose one
backward-sweeping feather of green shaded to coral at the tip; and
there your fancy may have cared to see lingering the last radiance of
whiter-sunset skies.
He kept his seat with his back to the manuscript from which he had
repulsed her; and his eyes swept loyally over her as she waited. Though
she could scarcely trust herself to speak, still less could she endure the
silence. With her face turned toward the windows opening on the lawn,
she stretched out her arm toward him and softly shook his hat at him.
"The sun sets--you remember how