The Hearts Kingdom | Page 3

weed, do you?" I asked with actual rage
rising again above the tears as I literally dashed the cream into his cup
and deluged the boiling coffee down upon it so that a scalding splatter
peppered my hand. "I never want to see or hear or speak to or about
him. I'll build a trellis as high as his church, run evergreen honeysuckle
on it and go my way in an opposite direction from his. I'll--" Just here I
observed consternation spread over Dabney's black face, then
communicate itself to father's distressed countenance as he glanced out
the window. Quickly he pushed his morning julep behind the jar of
roses in the center of the table, while Dabney flung a napkin over the
silver pitcher with frost on its sides and mint nodding over its brim.
And then, as I was about to pour my own coffee and launch forth on
another tirade on the subject of my neighbor, I heard a rich tenor voice
singing just outside the window in the garden beside the steps that led
down from the long windows in the dining room to the old flagstone
walk. Nickols and I had searched through volumes of dusty antique
prints to see just how we wanted that walk to lead out to the sunken
garden beyond the tall old poplars. I also saw the handle of a rake or

hoe in action across the window landscape and heard unmistakable
sounds of vigorous gardening.
I rose to my feet with battle in my eyes and then stopped perfectly still
and listened--unwillingly but compelled.
"Drink to me only with thine eyes And I will pledge with mine,"
were the words that floated in at the window on the fragrant morning
sunbeams, in a voice of the most penetrating tenderness I had ever felt
break against my heartstrings.
"I--I--he sometimes demolishes a--a few weeds," father faltered, while
Dabney ducked his cotton-wool old head and slipped out of the door.
"You allow him to work in my--garden--and--" I faltered, just
recovering from the impact of the words of my favorite song of songs
hurled at me by the unseen enemy, when I was interrupted by his
appearance in the open door and we stood facing each other.
I am a woman who has very decided tastes about the biological man. I
know just how I want the creatures to look, and I haven't much interest
in one that isn't at least of the type of my preferred kind. Because I am
very tall and broad and deep-bosomed and vivid and high colored, and
have strong white teeth that crunch up about as much food in the
twenty-four hours as most field hands consume, and altogether I am
very much like one of the most vigorous of Sorolla's paintings, that is
the probable pathological reason I have always preferred an evolved
Whistler masculine nocturne that retreats to the limits of my
comprehension and then beckons me to follow. All other men I have
grouped beyond the border of my feminine nature and sought to waste
no thought upon them. It was a shock to come, suddenly, in my own
breakfast room, face to face with a type of man I had never before met.
The enemy was astonishingly large and lithe and distinctly resembled
one of the big gold-colored lions that live in the wilds of the Harpeth
Mountains out beyond Paradise Ridge. His head, with its tawny thatch
that ought to have waved majestically but which was sleek and
decorous to the point of worldliness, was poised on his neck and

shoulders with a singularly strong line that showed through a silk soft
collar, held together by an exquisitely worldly amethyst silk scarf
which, it was a shock to see, matched glints from eyes back under his
heavy gold brows with what appeared to be extreme sophistication.
After the shock of the tie the loose gray London worsted coat and
trousers made only a passing impression; and from my involuntary
summary of the whole surprising man, which had taken less than an
instant, my dazed brain came back and was held and concentrated by
the beauty of the smile that flooded out over me in welcome after my
father's hurried introduction.
"The Reverend Mr. Gregory Goodloe--my daughter Charlotte," father
announced, as he rose and waved in my direction a hand that was
cordial to the point of bravado.
"I'm so glad you came in time to see your crocuses and anemones, Miss
Powers," the Jaguar said as he took my hand in his. "Dabney has let me
help him hand-weed them and they are a glory, aren't they?" While he
spoke he still held my hand and I was still too dazed to regain
possession of it. Father saved the situation.
"Sit down,