The Girl From His Town

  CHAPTER XXIII--IN THE SUNSET GLOW

  He lived through a week of bliss and of torture. One minute she promisedto marry him, give up the stage, go around the world on a yacht, whoseluxuries, Dan planned, should rival any boat ever built, or they wouldmotor across Asia and see, one by one, the various coral strands and thegolden sands of the East. He could not find terms to express how hewould spend upon her this fortune of his, which, for the first time,began to have value in his eyes. Money had been lavished on her, stillshe seemed dazzled. Then she would push it all away from her indisgust--tell him she was sick of everything--that she didn't want any newjewels or any new clothes, and that she never wanted to see the stageagain or any place again; that there was nowhere she wanted to go,nothing she wanted to see--that he must get some fresh girl to whom hecould show life, not one whom he must try to make forget it. Then,again, she would say that she loved the stage and her art--wouldn't giveit up for any one in the world--that it was fatal to marry anactress--that it was mad for him to think of marrying her, anyway--thatshe didn't want to marry any one and be tied down--that she wanted to beher own mistress and free.

  He found her a creature of a thousand whims and caprices, quick to cry,quick to laugh, divine in everything she did. He never knew what shewould want him to do next, or how her mood would change, and after oneof their happiest hours, when she had been like a girl with him, shewould burst into tears, beg him to leave the room, telling him that shewas tired--tired--tired, and wanted to go to sleep and never to wake upagain. Between them was the figure of Poniotowsky, though neither spokeof him. She appeared to have forgotten him. Dan would rather have cutout his tongue than to speak his name, and yet he was there in the mindof each. During the fortnight Dan spent thousands of pounds on her,bought her jewels which she alternately raved over or but half lookedat. He had made his arrangements with Galorey peacefully, coolly andbetween the two men it had been understood that the world should thinkthe engagement broken by the duchess, and Dan's attention to Letty Lane,already the subject of much comment, already conspicuous, was enough tojustify any woman in taking offense.

  One day, the pearl of warm May days, when England even in springtimetouches summer, Blair was so happy as to persuade his sweetheart to gowith him for a little row on the river. The young fellow waited for herin the boat he had secured, and she, motoring out with Higgins, hadappeared, running down to the edge of the water like a girl, gay as achild let out from school, in a simple frock, in a marvelously fetchinghat, white gloves, white parasol, white shoes, and as Dan helped herinto the boat, pushed it out, pushed away with her on the crest of thesun-flecked waters, spring was in his heart, and he found the momentalmost too great to bear.

  The actress had been a girl with him all day, giving herself to hismoods, doing what he liked without demur, talking of their mutual past,telling him one amusing story after another, proving herself an idealcompanion, fresh, varied, reposeful; and no one to have seen Letty Lanewith the boy on that afternoon would have dreamed that she ever hadknown another love. They had moored their boat down near Maidenhead, andhe had helped her up the bank to the little inn, where tea had been madefor them, and served to him by her own beautiful white hands. He hadcalled for strawberries, and, like a shepherd in a pastoral, had fedthem to her, and as they lingered the sunset came creeping steadily inthrough the windows where they sat.

  As they neither called for their account nor to have the tea thingstaken away, after a while the woman stealthily opened the door and,unknown, looked at one of the prettiest pictures ever within her walls.Letty Lane sat on the window-seat, her golden head, her white formagainst the glow, and the boy by her side had his arms around her, andher head was on his breast. They were both young. They might have beenwhite birds blown in there, nesting in the humble inn, and the woman ofthe house, who had not heard the waters of the Thames flow softly fornothing, judged them gently and sighed with pleasure as she shut thedoor.

  Here at Maidenhead Dan had left his boat and the motor took them back.Nothing spoiled his bliss that day, and he said her name a thousandtimes that night in his dreams. Jealousies--and, when he would lethimself think, they were not one, they were many--faded away. The dutiesthat a life with her would involve did not disturb him. For many a longyear, come what might, be what would, he would recall the glowing ofthat sunset reflected under the inn windows, the singing of the thrushesand the flash of the white dress and the fine little white shoes whichhe had held in the palm of his ardent hand, which he had kissed, as hetold her with all his heart that she should rest her tired feet forever.

  There grew in him that day a reverence for her, determined as he was tobring into her life by his wealth and devotion everything of good. Hisloving plans for her forming in his brain somewhat chaotic and very muchfevered, brought him nearer than he had ever been before to the pictureof his mother. His father it wasn't easy for Dan to think of inconnection with the actress. He didn't dare to dwell on the subject, buthe had never known his mother, and that pale ideal he could create as hewould. In thinking of her he saw only tenderness for Letty Lane--onlylove; and in his room the night after the row on the river, the nightafter the long idyl in the sunset-room of the inn, something like aprayer came to his young lips, and, when its short form was finished, asmile brought it to an end as he remembered the line in Letty Lane's ownopera:

  "She will teach you how to pray in an Eastern form of prayer."

  The ring he had given the Duchess of Breakwater had been her own choice,a ruby. He had asked her, through Galorey, to keep it and to wear itlater, when she could think of him kindly, in an ornament of some kindor another. The duchess had not refused. The ring he bought for LettyLane, although there was no engagement announced between them, was thelargest, purest diamond he could _with decency_ ask her to put on herhand! It sparkled like a great drop of clear water from some fountain ona magic continent. In another shop strands of pink coral set throughwith diamonds caught his fancy and he bought her yards of them, ropes ofthem, smiling to think how his boyhood's dreams were come true.

  He never saw Ruggles except at meals, hardly spoke to the poor man atall, and the boy's absorbed face, his state of mind, made the older manfeel like death. He repeated to himself that he was too late--too late,and usually wound up his reflections by ejaculating:

  "Gosh almighty, I'm glad I haven't got a son!"