Daphne: An Autumn Pastoral Part 11

"Daphne," he said presently, "you have told me much about this man, but you have not told me that you love him. You do not speak of him as a woman speaks of the man who makes her world for her. You defend him, you explain him, you plead his cause, and it must be that you are pleading it with yourself, for I have brought no charge, that you must defend him to me. Do you love him?"

She did not answer.

"Look at me!" he insisted. Her troubled eyes turned toward his, but dared not stay, and the lashes fell again.

"Do not commit the crime of marrying a man you do not love," he pleaded.

"But," said the girl slowly, "even if I gave him up I might not care for you."

"Dear," he said softly, "you do love me. Is it not so?"

She shook her head, but her face belied her.

"I have waited, waited for you," he pleaded, in that low tone to which her being vibrated as to masterful music, "so many lifetimes! I have found you out at last!"

"How long?" she asked willfully.

"Aeons," he answered. "Since the foundation of the world. I have waited, and now that I have found you, I will not let you go. I will not let you go!"

She looked at him with wide-opened eyes: a solemn fear possessed her.

Was it Bertuccio's story of yesterday that filled her with foreboding?

Hardly. Rather it seemed a pleasant thought that he and she should feel the bark of one of these great trees closing round them, and should have so beautiful a screen of brown bark and green moss to hide their love from all the world. No, no fear could touch the thought of any destiny with him: she was afraid only of herself.

"You are putting a mere nothing between us," the voice went on. "You are pretending that there is an obstacle when there is none, really."

"Only another man's happiness," murmured the girl.

"I doubt if he knows what happiness is," said Apollo. "Forgive me, but will he not be as happy with his altar candles and his chants without you? Does he not care more for the abstract cause for which he is working than for you? Hasn't he missed the simple meaning of human life, and can anything teach it to him?"

"How did you know?" asked Daphne, startled.

"The G.o.ds should divine some things that are not told! Besides, I know the man," he answered, smiling, but Daphne did not hear. She had leaned back and closed her eyes. The warm, sweet air, with its odor of earth, wooed her; the little breeze that made so faint a rustle in the ilex leaves touched her cheek like quick, fluttering kisses. The rhythmical drops from the fountain seemed falling to the music of an old order of things, some simple, elemental way of loving that made harmony through all life. Could love, that had meant only duty, have anything to do with this great joy in mere being, which turned the world to gold?

"I must, I must win you," came the voice again, and it was like a cry.

"Loving with more than human love, I will not be denied!"

She opened her eyes and watched him: the whole, firmly-knit frame in the brown golf-suit was quivering.

"It has never turned out well," she said lightly, "when the sons of the G.o.ds married with the daughters of men."

Perhaps he would have rebuked her for the jest, but he saw her face.

"I offer you all that man or G.o.d can offer," he said, standing before her. "I offer you the devotion of a whole life. Will you take it?"

"I will not break my promise," said the girl, rising. Her eyes were level with his. She found such power in them that she cried out against it in sudden anger.

"Why do you tempt me so? Why do you come and trouble my mind and take away my peace? Who are you? What are you?"

"If you want a human name for me"--he answered.

She raised her hand swiftly to stop him. "No, don't!" she said. "I do not want to know. Don't tell me anything, for the mystery is part of the beauty of you."

A shaft of golden sunlight pierced the ilex shade and smote her forehead as she stood there.

"Apollo, the sun G.o.d," she said, smiling, as she turned and left him alone.

CHAPTER XIV

Overhead was a sky of soft, dusky blue, broken by the clear light of the stars: all about were the familiar walks of the villa garden, mysterious now in the darkness, and seeming to lead into infinite s.p.a.ce. The lines of aloe, fig, and palm stood like shadows guarding a world of mystery. Daphne, wandering alone in the garden at midnight, half exultant, half afraid, stepped noiselessly along the pebbled walks with a feeling that that world was about to open for her. Ahead, through an arch where the thick foliage of the ilexes had been cut to leave the way clear for the pa.s.ser-by, a single golden planet shone low in the west, and the garden path led to it.

Daphne had been unable to sleep, for sleeplessness had become a habit during the past week. Whether she was too happy or too unhappy she could not tell: she only knew that she was restless and smothering for air and s.p.a.ce. Hastily dressing, she had stolen on tiptoe down the broad stairway by the running water and out into the night, carrying a tiny Greek lamp with a single flame, clear, as only the flame of olive oil can be. She had put the lamp down in the doorway, and it was burning there now, a beacon to guide her footsteps when she wanted to return. Meanwhile, the air was cool on throat and forehead and on her open palms: she had no wish to go in.

Here was a fountain whose jets of water, blown high from the mouths of merry dolphins, fell in spray in a great stone basin where mermaids waited for the shower to touch bare shoulders and bended heads. The murmur of the water, mingled with the murmur of unseen live things, and the melody of night touched the girl's discordant thoughts to music.

Of what avail, after all, was her fierce struggle for duty? Here were soft shadows, and great s.p.a.ces, and friendly stars.

Of course her lover-G.o.d, Apollo, was gone. She had known the other day when she left him on the hill that she would not see him again, for the look of his face had told her that. Of course, it was better so. Now, everything would go on as had been intended. Anna would come home; after this visit was over, there would be New York again, and Eustace.

Yes, she was brave to share his duty with him, and the years would not be long. And always these autumn days would be s.h.i.+ning through the dark hours of her life, these perfect days of suns.h.i.+ne without shadow.

Of their experiences she need not even tell, for she was not sure that it had actually been real. She would keep it as a sacred memory that was half a dream.

She was walking now by the rows of tall chrysanthemums, and she reached out her fingers to touch them, for she could almost feel their deep yellow through her finger-tips. It was like taking counsel of them, and they, like all nature, were wise. Cypress and acacia and palm stood about like strong comforters; help came from the tangled vines upon the garden wall, from the matted periwinkle on the ground at her feet, and the sweet late roses blossoming in the dark.

Yes, he was gone, and the beauty and the power of him had vanished. It was better so, she kept saying to herself, her thoughts, no matter where they wandered, coming persistently back, as if the idea, so obviously true, needed proving after all. The only thing was, she would have liked to see him just once more to show him how invincible she was. He had taken her by surprise that day upon the hill, and had seen what she had not meant to tell. Now, if she could confront him once, absolutely unshaken, could tell him her decision, give him words of dismissal in a voice that had no tremor in it, as her voice had had the other day, that would be a satisfactory and triumphant parting for one who had come badly off. Her shoulder burned yet where he had kissed it, and yet she was not angry. He must have known that day how little she was vexed. If she could only see him once again, she said wistfully to herself, to show him how angry she was, all would be well.

Daphne had wandered to the great stone gate that led out upon the highway, and was leaning her forehead against a moss-grown post, when she heard a sudden noise. Then the voice of San Pietro Martire broke the stillness of the night, and Daphne, listening, thought she heard a faint sound of bleating. Hermes was calling her, and Hermes was in danger. Up the long avenue she ran toward the house, and, seizing the tiny lamp at the doorway, sped up the slope toward the inclosure where the two animals grazed, the flame making a trail of light like that of a firefly moving swiftly in the darkness. The bray rang out again, but there was no second sound of bleating. Inside the pasture gate she found the donkey anxiously sniffing at something that lay in the gra.s.s.

Down on her knees went Daphne, for there lay Hermes stretched out on his side, with traces of blood at his white throat.

The girl put down her lamp and lifted him in her arms. Some cowardly dog had done this thing, and had run away on seeing her, or hearing her unfasten the gate. She put one finger on the woolly bosom, but the heart was not beating. The lamb's awkward legs were stretched out quite stiffly, and his eyes were beginning to glaze. Two tears dropped on the fat white side; then Daphne bent and kissed him. Looking up, she saw San Pietro gazing on with the usual grief of his face intensified. It was as if he understood that the place at his back where the lamb had cuddled every night must go cold henceforward.

"We must bury him, San Pietro," said Daphne presently. "Come help me find a place."

She put the lambkin gently down upon the ground, and, rising, started, with one arm over San Pietro's neck, to find a burial place for the dead. The donkey followed willingly, for he permitted himself to love his lady with a controlled but genuine affection; and together they searched by the light of the firefly lamp. At last Daphne halted by a diminutive cypress, perhaps two feet high, and announced that she was content.

The tool-house was not far away. Investigating, she found, as she had hoped, that the door was not locked. Arming herself with a hoe she came back, and, under the light of southern stars, dug a little grave in the soft, dark earth, easily loosened in its crumbling richness.

Then she took the lamp and searched in the deep thick gra.s.s for flowers, coming back with a ma.s.s of pink-tipped daisies gathered in her skirt. The sight of the brown earth set her to thinking: there ought to be some kind of shroud. Near the tool-house grew a laurel tree, she remembered, and from that she stripped a handful of green, glossy leaves, to spread upon the bottom of the grave. This done, she bore the body of Hermes to his resting-place, and strewed the corpse with pink daisies.

"Should he have Christian or heathen burial?" she asked, smiling. "This seems to be a place where the two faiths meet. I think neither. He must just be given back to Mother Nature."

She heaped the sod over him with her own hands, and fitted neatly together some bits of turf. Then she took up her lamp to go. San Pietro, tired of ceremony, was grazing in the little circle of light.

"To-morrow," said Daphne, as she went down the hill, "he will be eating gra.s.s from Hermes' grave."

CHAPTER XV

The shadow of branching palms fell on the Signorina's hair and hands as she sat at work near the fountain in the garden weaving a great wreath of wild cyclamen and of fern gathered from the hillside. a.s.sunta was watching her anxiously, her hands resting on her hips.