Cape of Storms Part 9

Coming upon them so suddenly, this riot of the elements made the two young people sitting there in the lee of the rock, start to their feet in dismay. A momentary gleam came into Wooton's eyes; whether it was anger or joy only himself could have told. All about them the storm was playing its tremendous tarantelle; the whole earth seemed to shake with the repeated cannonades of the thunderous artillery of the heavens, and through the darkness that had fallen the lightning sent such vivid streaks of light as only made the succeeding gloom more dismal. It was to tempt fate to venture out of the shelter the rock was giving.

Instinctively the girl shrank a little toward Wooton. She looked at him appealingly. "It's dreadful," she said, "it--it hurts my eyes so!

And--the steamer! Mamma will think--" She stopped and covered her eyes with her hands just as another flash seared its way into the forest.

Wooton stood still, biting his underlip nervously. "I--I'm afraid it's all my fault," he said, "I ought to have known it was getting late. And these storms come up so quickly here in the mountains. We can't stir from here. The storm is playing right around this wood. It means waiting." He saw her s.h.i.+vering slightly. Bending down, he picked up his top-coat, and put it gently about her shoulders. "You'll catch cold," he warned, in a tender voice.

She said nothing; but he could see grat.i.tude in her eyes. Something seemed to draw her toward him. At each glaring flash she shrank nearer to him. He was looking tensely at her, his hand against a ledge of rock, lest the gusts of wind should swing him out into the open.

A crash that seemed to deafen all hearing for several instants; a flying ma.s.s of splintered wood, torn from a suddenly stricken tree that fell straight across the opening of their shelter; a light so white that it hurt the eyes; and a trembling under foot that shook the very ground these two storm-stayed ones stood. In the instant that followed the crash Wooton felt the girl beside him lean heavily towards him; her eyes were closed; she had fainted. Keeping her tightly in his arms, a queer smile played about the corners of his mouth. "It was ordained!" His thoughts uttered themselves almost unconsciously. Holding her so, with the thunder still rolling its chariot wheels all about the reverberate rocks, he kissed her.

The wind veered about, sending the rain spatteringly into their faces.

Wooton unfastened the girl's veil, and took her hat off, very gently and carefully. The rain splashed into her face, streaming over the brow and the heavy lashes.

Slowly the lashes lifted; her breast moved in a tremulous breath. As comprehension of her position came to her awakening faculties she seemed to shudder a little, to attempt withdrawal; then her eyes sought his, and something found there seemed to soothe; she sighed again and sank more closely into his embrace. And now fires went coursing through the man; he pressed the girl's slight body to him fiercely, and kissing her upon both eyes, whispered into the rosy sh.e.l.l of her ear, "Dorothy--I love you!"

The storm still played relentlessly about them. The rain came further and further into the shelter-hole. But these two, lip to lip, and breath to breath, gave no heed save to the promptings of their own emotions.

The elements might rend the rocks; but hearts they could not scar! The girl felt herself irresistibly drawn by this man. Something in him had always attracted her wonderfully--something she had never sought to explain, scarcely heeding it for any length of time. But now that chance had, as it seemed, thrown the magnet and the steel so closely together, she felt this hidden, mysterious force more mightily than ever; it seemed to her that in his kisses all the earth might melt away and become nothing. Moments when she feared him, when he inspired her with something not unlike anger, were succeeded by moments when she felt that he had put an arrow into her heart which to withdraw meant unutterable anguish; but which to bury more deeply meant the bitterest and sweetest of the bitter-sweets of love.

While the storm raged on and over the mountain, these two sat there where whatsoever forest-G.o.ds of love there be had drawn their magic circle. Reeling over the mountain top like a drunken man, the storm pa.s.sed on along the river-banks, waking up echoes in the Bastei, and flying, presently, into Austria. Its muttered curses grew fainter and fainter, gradually to be swallowed up altogether in the swaying of the pines and the streaming of the rain.

Then, presently, the pines began to lift their heads again, to shake themselves as if in angry impatience, so that the rain dropped heavily, and after the flying column of darkness, light came in once more from the west. The sun was still above the horizon. Turning the rain-drops into opals that glistened with the rain-bow hues, the suns.h.i.+ne streamed over the forest. The afternoon, that had seen such a terrible battle of the elements, was to die in peace, and light, and sweetness.

They walked together to an eminence that was almost bared of trees.

Below them the forest swept in every direction like a field of dark gra.s.s. The sun sent its last rays ricochetting over the waves of green to where they stood, silently. Another instant, and the great bronzed body was below the line of hills that made the horizon; only the salmon-colored streaks that stained the lower strata of the western sky remained to tell the tale of the sun-G.o.d's day. The air grew slightly chill.

With that first forerunner of the fall of night, there came into the dream that Dorothy Ware had moved in, the chilling thought of--certain facts. They had most a.s.suredly missed the boat back to Dresden. Would there be another when they reached Schandau? Could they get home by carriage?

Wooton could only shrug his shoulders in despair. He did not know. He had counted only on the two hours--the hour of the departure from Dresden and the return from Schandau; the storm had upset all his plans.

He was utterly at sea; he could say nothing until they reached Schandau and made inquiries. Would she not let the thought drop until then. Was there not the sweet present?

As they walked through the forest, picking their way as best they could, without a compa.s.s, and uncertain whether their direction was the right one or the wrong one, night falling surely and swiftly, Wooton held his arm about the young girl's waist, lest she stumble or slip. She looked up at him smilingly and trustingly, yet tremulous at the behest of that mysterious something that drove her to accept his caresses instead of spurning them, that made her quiver at his touch, like a wind-kissed aspen, and had her still the storm within her by giving it a storm to fight.

The darkness became denser. Their feet stumbled, and trees were hardly distinguishable in the blackness. Had there been no other thought save that considering their condition and surroundings, the girl, at least, would have been trembling in fear and and uncertainty. As it was, each loophole for a doubt was closed up by a kiss.

A streak of white came suddenly in view, and they found themselves upon the chaussee once more. But in which direction lay Schandau? Overhead the the stars were s.h.i.+ning, but neither of these two could use the night heavens as a chart.

Behind them came the dull rumble of wheels. Around a turn of the road came carriage-lights. As they flashed close upon them, Wooton spoke to the driver.

"Sie fahren nach Schandau? nicht wahr?"

The driver a.s.sented, without stopping. At the sound of the questioner's voice, one of the occupants of the carriage had leaned window-ward.

It was Miss Tremont, of Boston. In the glare of the lanterns she had caught the faces plainly.

She leaned back to the cus.h.i.+ons, smiling slightly.

CHAPTER IX

"It's dark as an inferno, and the stairs make a man's back ache," said Laurence Stanley dismally to himself, as he climbed up to the Philistine Club, "but," as he caught his breath again and consequently began to feel more cheerful, "it's comfortable when you get there."

Which was distinctly true. The furniture, the carpets, the hangings in the s.p.a.cious, rambling old rooms were all ancient and worn, but comfort was as common to them all as was age. When you came in and slid down into the s.h.i.+ny leather cavern of an arm chair you felt that you were at home. At least, the men who were members did. They were a queer lot, these members. Just what they had in common, no man might say; there were artists, and writers, and musicians, and men-about-town. To outsiders it seemed as if a certain sort of cleverness was the open sesame to the members.h.i.+p rolls. In the matter of name, it was doubtless, the effect of a stroke of humor that came to one of the founders.

Perhaps, for the very reason that most of the members were men of the sort that one instinctively knew to be modern, and broad and untramelled by dogmas or doctrines, the club had been named the Philistine Club. It was no longer in its first youth. The walls were behung with the portraits of former presidents--portraits that were all alike in their effect of displaying an execrable sort of painting; it was evident that in its selection of painters in ordinary the club had lived strictly up to its name. The building that housed the club was an old one, on one of the busiest business thoroughfares in the city. It was very convenient, as the hard-working fellows among the members phrased it; in a minute you could drop out of the rush and roar of the street-traffic into the quiet gloom of the club, a lounge, and a book.

Stanley had not been in the dark corner that he usually affected very long before Vanstruther came in, his beard more pointed than ever. He dropped limply into a chair, put his feet on one of the whist tables, and said, as he lit a cigar: "Do you know this is about the time of year that I realize that this town is a hole? I repeat it--a hole! A hole, moreover, with the bottom out. I tell you there's not a soul in town just now."

"Most true," a.s.sented Stanley, "for neither you nor I have anything that deserves the name."

"Bos.h.!.+ What I mean is that the place is a howling desert. Everybody is still at the seash.o.r.e, or the mountains, or the mineral springs. Newport or the White Mountains, or Manitou, or Mackinac Island--there's where every self-respecting person is at this time; not in this old sweat-box.

Why, it's a positive fact that there are no pretty girls at all on the avenue these days; or, if there are any, you can tell at a glance that they're from Podunk or Egypt."

"In other words, there is a scarcity of 'Mrs. Tomnoddy received yesterday,' and 'there will be a meeting of the Contributors' Club at Mrs. Mausoleum's on Friday.' People who like to see their names in the daily papers are out of town, so the society journalist waileth; is it not so? It all comes down to bread and b.u.t.ter in this country. Just as soon as we get away from bread and b.u.t.ter, we'll be greater idiots than the others ever knew how to be." He waved a hand carelessly to some remote s.p.a.ce in which he inferred the continent of Europe.

"That's all very well," rejoined the other, "you are always great on magniloquent generalizations, but you never trouble about the concrete things. I'm up a tree for copy, day in, day out, and I groan just once, and what do you do? You moralize loftily. But do you help me with a real bit of news? Not a bit of it."

"Well, you know," Stanley said, lazily, "I'm the last man in the world to come to for items of news concerning _le monde ou l'on s'amuse_. But if you want something a notch or two lower--say about the grade of members of this club. Do you notice that Dante Belden's sofa is empty today?"

The journalist looked around to the other side of the room where an old black leather lounge stood. It was the sofa that had long since become the special property, in the eyes of the other members, of the artist, Dante Gabriel Belden. He used to sleep there a great deal; and he used to dream also. Occasionally he waxed talkative, and then there usually grew up around him a circle of chairs. In such conclave, there pa.s.sed anecdotes that were delightful, criticisms that were incisive, and, in total, nothing that was altogether stupid.

"Where is he?" asked Vanstruther.

"Where is who?" It was Marsboro, the _Chronicle's_ artist, that had sauntered over.

"Belden."

"Married," said Stanley, laconically.

"The devil!" exclaimed Vanstruther, putting his cigar down on the window-ledge.

"Not the same," was the quiet reply. "Although--" and Stanley paused to smile--"it might be interesting to trace the relations.h.i.+p."

"Oh, talk straight talk for a minute, can't you! I never knew the man was thinking of it."

"Nor did I. Well, we're all friends of his, and men don't think any less of each other in a case of this kind, so I'll tell you the story. In my opinion, it's a clear case of 'Tomlinson, of Berkley Square'. However, that's open to individual interpretation. Belden has succ.u.mbed to a lifelong pa.s.sion for Henri Murger?"

Marsboro swore audibly. "I don't see," he said, "that you're any plainer than you were! What's all that got to do with the man's marriage?"

"Everything! Everything--the way I look at it, at least. You know as well as I do, how saturated he is with admiration for those delightful escapades of the Quartier Latin that Murger makes such pretty stories of. Well--he has acted up to them. The trouble is that this is not the Quartier Latin, and that sort of thing is a trifle awkward when you make a Christian ceremony of it. Here are the facts: Belden and myself were coming home from the theatre a good while ago, when we came to a couple that were decidedly in liquor. The man had been out to dinner, or a dance or somewhere; he had his dress clothes on, and his white s.h.i.+rt was still immaculate. His silk hat was on straight enough. His walk was the only thing that betrayed him. He had his arm around the girl. When we pa.s.sed them, or began to, we could hear that the girl was crying. Her boots were shabby and the skirt that trailed over them was badly fringed at the bottom; above the waist she had on such sham finery and her face, once pretty, had such a stale, hunted look, as told plainly to what cla.s.s she belonged. The cla.s.s that is no cla.s.s at all, and yet that has always been. "I'm afraid of you--you've been drinking--let me go," she was crying out. Belden stopped at once. The man put his arm more tightly about her waist, and tried, drunkenly, to kiss her. The girl wrenched herself almost away from him. She screamed out, "Let loose of me, you beast!" Then she began to moan a little. That settled Belden. He walked in front of the man in the white s.h.i.+rt-front, and told him to let the woman go. The man said he would see him d.a.m.ned first. The words had hardly tortured their stuttering way from the drunken man's mouth, before Belden gave him a blow between the eyes that sent the fellow to the sidewalk. He lay there cursing, drunkenly. Belden asked the woman, quietly, where she lived. She looked at him and laughed. Laughed aloud!

I've seen most things, in my time, but that woman's laugh, and the look on her face are about the most grewsome things I remember. She laughed, you know as if someone had just told her that he would like to walk down to h.e.l.l with her. She laughed in that high, unnatural key, in which only women of that sort can laugh; it was a laugh that had in it the scorn of the Devil for his toy, man. There was in it a memory of a time when she might have unblus.h.i.+ngly answered that question of 'Where do you live?'

There was in it something like pity for this innocent who asked her that question in good faith, or seemed to. Then she steadied herself against a lamp-post, and said, with the whine coming back into her voice, 'What d'ye want to know for?' 'I'll see that you get there all right,' said Belden. The woman laughed again. She took her hand away from the lamp-post, and began an effort to walk on without replying; but in an instant she swayed, and, had not Belden jumped toward her and put an arm about her shoulders, would have fallen.

"She cursed feebly. 'Tell me where you live?' Belden persevered. His voice was harsher and almost a command. She stammered out more sneering evasions; then she flung out the name of the dismal street where she had such residence as that sort ever has. What do you suppose that man Belden did? Hailed a cab, put the woman in, and got in after her. Simply shouted a hasty goodnight to me, and drove off. Well,--that's where it all began." Stanley stopped, got up, and walked over to the wall, pressing a b.u.t.ton that showed there.

"But you don't mean to say--" began one of the others, with wonder and incredulity in his tone.

"Oh, yes, I do, though. Russell, take the orders, will you? What'll you men drink--or smoke? I've been talking, and my throat's dry."