The Window-Gazer | Page 9

There was left only laughter.
When this was over he felt better. Withdrawing the towel and wiping the tears of strangled mirth from his eyes he looked around him. The sylvan bathroom was indeed a charming place. Great rocks, all smooth and brown with velvet moss, curved gently down to form a basin into which fell the water from the tiny stream whose musical flowing had called to him through his window. Around, and somewhat back beneath tall sentinel trees, crept the bushes and bracken of the mountain; but, above, the foliage opened and the sun shone in, turning the brown-green water of the pool to gold. With a sigh of pure delight the laughter-weary professor stepped into its cool brightness--and with a gasp of something very different, stepped quickly out again. But, quick as he was, the liquid ice of that green-gold pool was quicker. It ran through his tortured nerve like mounting fire--"Oh-- oh--damn!" said the professor heartily.
The sweat stood out on his forehead before he had rubbed and warmed the outraged limb into some semblance of quietude again. The pool seemed no longer lovely. Very gingerly he completed such ablutions as were strictly necessary and then, very cold, very stiff and very, very empty he turned back toward the house.
This time, instead of passing through the small vegetable garden behind the kitchen, he skirted the clearing, coming out into the wide, open space in front of the cottage. On one side of him, and behind, spread the mountain woods but before him and to the right the larger trees were down. There was a vista--for the first time since he had sat upon a keg in the fog he forgot him-self and his foolishness, his hunger, his aching nerves, his smarting pride, everything! The beauty before him filled his heart and mind, leaving not a cranny anywhere for lesser things. Blue sea, blue sky, blue mountains, blue smoke that rose in misty spirals as from a thousand fairy fires and, nearer, the sun-warmed, dew-drenched green--green of the earth, green of the trees, green of the graceful, sweeping curves of wooded point and bay. Far away, on peaks half hidden, snow still lay--a whiteness so ethereal that the gazer caught his breath.
And with it all there was the scent of something--something so fresh, so penetrating, so infinitely sweet--what could it be?
"Ambrosia!" said Benis Spence, unconscious that he spoke aloud.
"Balm of Gilead," said a practical voice beside him. "It smells like that in the bud, you know."
"Does it?" The professor's tone was dreamy. "Honey and wine--that's what it's like--honey and wine in the wilderness! You didn't tell me it would be like this," he added, turning abruptly to his companion of the night before.
"How could I tell what it would be like--to you?" asked the girl. "It's different for everyone. I've known people stand here and think of nothing but their breakfast."
At the word "breakfast" (which had temporarily slipped from his vocabulary) the famished professor wheeled so quickly that his knee twisted. Miss Farr smiled, her cool and too-understanding smile.
"There's something to eat," she said. "Come in."
She did not wait for him but walked off quickly. The professor followed more slowly. The path, even the front path, was rough (he had noticed that last night); but the cottage, seen now with the glamour of its outlook still in his eyes, seemed not quite so impossible as he had thought. The grace of early spring lay upon it and all around. True, it was small and unpainted and in bad repair, but its smallness and its brownness seemed not out of keeping with the mountain-side. Its narrow veranda was railed by unbarked branches from the cedars. Its walls were rough and weather-beaten, its few windows, broad and low. The door was open and led directly into the living room whence his hostess had preceded him.
The marvellous scent of the morning was everywhere. The room, as he went in, seemed full of it. Not such a bad room, either, not nearly so comfortless as he had thought last night. There was a fireplace, for instance, a real fireplace of cobble-stones, for use, not ornament; a long table stood in the middle of the room, an old fashioned sofa sprawled beneath one of the windows. There was a dresser at one end with open shelves for china and, at the other, a book-case, also open, filled with old and miscellaneous books. . . .
And, best and most encouraging of all, there was breakfast on the table.
"I told Li Ho to give you eggs," said Miss Farr. "It is the one thing we can be sure of having fresh. Do you like eggs?"
The professor liked eggs. He had never liked eggs so well before, except once in Flanders--he looked up to thank his hostess,