CHAPTER XXX--SODAWATER FOUNTAIN GIRL
His next sensation was that a warm stream flowed about his heart.
"My life's blood," he could dimly think, "my heart's blood." Redder thancoral, more precious, more costly than any gift his millions could havebought her. "I've spent it for the girl I love." The stream pervadedhim, caressed him, folded his limbs about, became an enchanted sea onwhich he floated, and its color changed from crimson to coral pale, andthen to white, and became a cold, cold polar sea--and he lay on it like afrozen man, whose exploration had been in vain, and above himGreenland's icy mountains rose like emerald, on every side.
That is it--"Greenland's icy mountains." How she sang it--down--down. Hervoice fell on him like magic balm. He was a little boy in church,sitting small and shy in the pew. The tune was deep and low and heavenlysweet. What a pretty mouth the soda-fountain girl had--like coral; andher eyes like gray seas. The flies buzzed, they droned so loudly that hecouldn't hear her. Ah, that was terrible--_he couldn't hear her_.
No--no, it wouldn't do. He must hear the hymn out before he died.Buzz--buzz--drone--drone. Way down he almost heard the soft note. It wasecstasy. Sky--high up--too faint. Ah, Sodawater FountainGirl--sing--sing--with all your heart so that it may reach his ears andcharm him to those strands toward which he floats.
* * * * *
The expression of anguish on the young fellow's face was soheartbreaking that the doctor, his ear at Dan's lips, tried to learnwhat thing his poor, fading mind longed for.
From the bed's foot, where he stood, Dan's chauffeur came to hisgentleman's side, and nodded:
"Right, sir, right, sir--I'll fetch Miss Lane--I'll 'ave 'er 'ere,sir--keep up, Mr. Blair."
* * * * *
He was going barefoot, a boy still following the plow through themountain fields. Miles and miles stretched away before him of dark,loamy land. He saw the plow tear up the waving furrows, tossing theearth in sprinkling lines. He heard the shrill note of the phoebe bird,and looking heavenward saw it darting into the pale sky.
"What a dandy shot!" he thought. "What a bully shot!"
Prince Poniotowsky had made a good shot....
Ah, there was the smell of the hayfields--no--violets that sweetly laidtheir petals on his lips and face. He was back again in church, lyingprone before an altar. If she would only sing, he would rise again--thathe knew--and her coral shoes would not dance over his grave.
He opened his eyes wide and looked into Letty Lane's. She bent over him,crying.
"Sing," he whispered.
She didn't understand.
"Sodawater Fountain Girl--if you only knew how ... the flies buzzed, andhow the droning was a living pain...."
She said to Ruggles: "He wants something so heartbreakingly--what can wedo?" She saw his hands stir rhythmically on the counterpane--he didn'tlook to her more than ten years old.... What a cruel thing--he was a boyjust of age--a boy--
Ruggles remembered the nights he had spent before the footlights of theGaiety, and that the pale woman trembling there weeping was a greatsinger.
"I guess he wants to hear you sing."
She kneeled down by him; she trembled so she couldn't stand.
The others, the doctor and Ruggles, the waiters and porters gathered inthe hall, heard. No one of them understood the Gaiety girl's Englishwords.
"From Greenland's icy mountains, From India's coral strands ..."
They were merciful and let him listen in peace. Through the blur in hisbrain, over the beat of his young ardent heart, above the short breathsthe notes reached his failing senses, and lifted him--lifted him. Therewasn't a very long distance between his boyhood and his twenty-two yearsto go, and he was not so weak but that he could travel so far.
He sat there by his father again--and heard. The flies buzzed, and hedidn't mind them. The smell of the fields came in through the windowsand the Sodawater Fountain Girl sang--and sang; and as she sang her facegrew holy to his eyes--radiant with a beauty he had not dreamed a woman'sface could wear. Above the choir rail she stood and sang peerlessly, andthe church began to fade and fade, and still she stood there in a shaftof light, and her face was like an angel's, and she held her arms out tohim as the waters rose to his lips. She bent and lifted him--lifted himhigh upon the strands....