The Seventh Noon Part 15

"Like everything else when carried to an extreme--a paradox. Freedom is slavery--to something, to someone."

"Then you are a slave?" she laughed.

"As I thought freedom, I am the freest man on earth to-day."

"You speak that like a king."

"Or a slave."

She puzzled over this a moment as she tried to keep up with him. He had suddenly increased his pace.

"Even on your vacation, you could n't be absolutely free, could you? I feel responsible for that," she apologized.

"You need n't, for you have given me this bit of road. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

So he turned her away from the subject and breathed more easily. She had both loosed him and shackled him. What a procession of golden days she made him see, if only as a mirage. Freedom? If only he could return to that little office and drudge for her unceasingly--toil and hack and hew at stubborn fortune merely in the consciousness that she was somewhere in the world, that would be freedom. He knew it now as she walked close beside him like a beautiful dream. There was no use longer in parrying or feinting. The brush of her sleeve made him dizzy; the sound of her voice set the whole world to music. How trivial seemed the barriers which had loomed so formidable before him a day ago. Given the opportunities he had thrown away and he would hew a path to her as straight as a prairie railroad bed. He would do this, remaining true to his old dreams and to better dreams. He would face New York and tear a road through the very centre of it. He would ram every steel-tipped ideal to its black heart. And all the inspiration he needed to give him this power was the knowledge that somewhere in one of its million crannies, this fragile half formed woman was there, seeing the sky with her silver gray eyes.

"I 'm afraid you are going too fast," she panted.

He stopped himself and found her with cheeks flushed in her effort to keep up with him.

"Pardon me," he exclaimed, "I did n't realize. I was going pretty fast. Let's sit down and rest a minute."

"It is n't necessary if you will only slow down a little."

"I will." He smiled. "My thoughts were going even faster than my legs. We 'll rest a little, anyhow."

They seated themselves beneath a roadside pine which had sprinkled the ground with redolent brown needles. He wiped his hot forehead. The undulating green fields throbbed before his excited eyes, as in midsummer when they glimmer from the heat rays. He burrowed his tightened fists to the cooler soil below the brown carpet.

"I guess you are glad to sit down a moment yourself," she suggested, noting his forced deep breathing. "Your efforts with Ben tired you more than you thought."

"I 'd like to have that chance over again--now."

His tense long body looked like Force incarnate. She caught her breath quickly.

"I 'm glad you have n't," she gasped.

She had the feeling that he could have picked up the boy and hurled him like a bit of wood into the road. She was not frightened. She liked to see him in such a mood. It gave her, somehow, a big sense of safety. It swept away all those haunting fears which had so long been always present in the background of her consciousness. It did this in as impersonal a way as the sun scatters shadows.

"The trouble is," he was saying, "that we don't often get a chance to try things--the big things--twice. The fairer way would seem to be to allow this, for we have to fail once in order to learn."

"You are generalizing?" she asked tentatively.

"I am sentimentalizing," he answered abruptly, suddenly coming to himself. He was more personal than he had any right to be. It did no good to become maudlin over what was irrevocably decided. The Present.

He must cling to that one idea. Let him drink in the suns.h.i.+ne while it lasted; let him absorb as much of her as he could without taking one t.i.ttle from her.

His phrase had piqued her curiosity once more. She would like to know the inner meaning of his impatient eyes, the explanation of why his lips closed with such spasmodic firmness. There was something tantalizing in this reserve which he seemed to try so hard to maintain.

She would like to deserve his confidences. He aroused her sympathy--a shy desire to be tender to him just because in his rugged strength there seemed to be nothing else but this for which he could need a woman. But as he glanced up she colored at the presumption of her thoughts.

"I think," he said, "that if you are rested we had better start again."

She rose at once and took her place by his side for the last stretch of free road that lay between her and the city.

At the station there was no sign of the fugitive. She objected instantly to Donaldson's suggestion that she go on while he wait over the night in the hope that Arsdale might turn up here for the first train in the morning.

"You have already sacrificed enough of your time to me and mine," she protested. "I will not listen to it."

And if she had been before her mirror doubtless the lady there would have pressed her to another explanation.

He submitted reluctantly, a new doubt springing to his eyes. But she was firm and so they boarded the train once more for home. She used the word "home," and Donaldson found himself responding to it with a thrill as though he himself were included. The word had lost its meaning to him since his freshman year at college.

They were back behind the hedge in so short a time that the day scarcely appeared real. She left him a moment in the hall while she ran upstairs to see Marie. The latter was still in bed, and at sight of her young mistress had a sharp question upon her lips.

"Cherie," she demanded, "why did not Ben go with you?"

"Ben?" faltered the girl.

"He was downstairs an hour after you left and would not come in to see me."

"Ben was here?"

"I shouted to him and he answered me. But his voice sounded bad. Is it well with him?"

"He may be here now. I will run down and see."

She flew down the stairs and into his room. It was empty. She rushed into her own room. It had been rifled. Every drawer was open, and it took but a glance to see that her few jewels were missing. She panted back to Marie.

"You are sure it was he who was here?"

"Do you think I do not know his voice after all these years?"

The old woman put out her hand and seized the girl's arm.

"Again?" she demanded.

"Yes! Yes! Oh, Marie, what does it all mean?"

"Ta, ta, cherie. Rest your head here."

She drew the young woman down beside her.

"You went out there all alone. You are brave, but you should not have done that. You should have taken me with you. See, now, I shall get well. I shall arise at once. I never knew the black horses to fail me."

Marie struggled to her elbow and threw off the clothes. But Elaine covered her up tight again, forcing her to lie still.

"Stay here quietly until I come back," she insisted. "I shall not be gone but a minute."

She hurried to her own room, trying to understand what the meaning of this impossible situation might be. Ben was here and Ben was in the bungalow and--there was the purse. There was the chance, of course, that Marie was mistaken, but Marie did not make such mistakes as this.