The Bondboy Part 37

He clasped it, and welcomed her with joy that he could not have simulated any more than he could have hidden. There was a tremor in his voice; a hot sweep of blood flamed in his face like a confession of his secret soul.

"I never saw you look so tall," said he slowly, measuring her with adoring eyes.

"Maybe it's the dress," said she, looking herself over with a little expressive sweep of the hands, as if to put all the blame on that innocent nun-gray gown, if there was blame to be borne.

She wore a little bunch of mignonette upon her breast, just at the point where the slas.h.i.+ng of her bodice ended, and the gray gave way to a wedge of virginal white, as if her sempstress had started to lay bare her heart. The flowers quivered as from some internal agitation, nestling their pale gold spikes against their lovely bed.

"I don't know that it's the dress," said he, "but you do look taller than usual, it seems to me."

She laughed, as if she found humor in his solemn repet.i.tion of such a trivial discovery.

"Well, I can't help being tall," she said. "How tall would you have a lady grow? How tall do you think one ought to be?"

"'As high as my heart,'" said Joe, remembering _Orlando's_ words.

The color deepened in her cheeks; she caught her breath with a little "Oh!"

She wondered what sprout of blue-blooded and true-blooded n.o.bility in Shelbyville there was capable of turning a reply like that without straining for it more than that pale cavalier with his worn clothing hanging loose upon his bony frame. When she ventured to lift her eyes to his face, she found him grasping a bar of the cell door with one hand, as if he would tear it from its frame. His gaze was fixed upon the high window, he did not turn. She felt that he was struggling with himself that moment, but whether to drive to speech or to withhold it, she could not tell.

"I wish I could go out there and run about five miles this morning," he sighed.

She gave him sigh for sigh, feeling that something was lost. He had not striven with himself merely to say that. But from there they went on to talk of his coming trial, and to expose the mutual hope that no further excuse would be advanced for its continuance. He seemed to be certain that the trial would see an end of his difficulty, and she trembled to contemplate any other outcome.

So they stood and talked, and her face was glowing and her eyes were bright.

"Your cheeks are as red as bitter-sweet," said he.

"There was frost last night," she laughed, "and the cool wind makes my face burn."

"I know just how it feels," said he, looking again toward the window with pathetic wistfulness, the hunger of old longings in his eyes.

"It will not be long now until you are free," she said in low voice of sympathy.

He was still looking at the brown branches of the bare elm, now palely touched with the cloud-filtered autumn sun.

"I know where there's lots of it," said he, as if to himself, "out in the hills. It loves to ramble over scrub-oak in the open places where there's plenty of sun. I used to pick armloads of it the last year I went to school and carry it to the teacher. She liked to decorate the room with it."

He turned to her with apologetic appeal, as if to excuse himself for having wandered away from her in his thoughts.

"I put it over the mantel," she nodded; "it lasts all winter."

"The wahoo's red now, too," said he. "Do you care for it?"

"It doesn't last as long as bitter-sweet," said she.

"Bitter-sweet," said he reflectively, looking down into the shadows which hung to the flagstones of the floor. Then he raised his eyes to hers and surprised them br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears, for her heart was aching for him in a reflection of his own lonely pain.

"It is emblematic of life," said he, reaching his hand out through the bars to her, as if to beg her not to grieve over the clouds of a day; "you know there are lots of comparisons and verses and sayings about it in that relation. It seems to me that I've always had more of the bitter than the sweet--but it will all come out right in time."

She touched his hand.

"Do you like mignonette?" she asked. "I've brought you some."

"I love it!" said he with boyish impetuosity. "I had a bed of it last--no, I mean the summer before last--before I was--before I went to work for Isom."

She took the flowers from her bosom and placed them in his hand. The scent of them was in his nostrils, stirring memories of his old days of simple poverty, of days in the free fields. Again he turned his face toward the window, the little flowers clutched in his hand. His breast heaved as if he fought in the deep waters of his soul against some ign.o.ble weakness.

She moved a little nearer, and reached timidly through the bars with the breathless quiet of one who offers a caress to a sleeper. Her finger-tips touched his arm.

"Joe," said she, as if appealing in pity to him for permission to share his agony.

He lifted the flowers to his lips and kissed the stems where her hand had clasped them; then bowed his head, his strong shoulders against the bars.

"Joe!" Her voice was a whisper in his ear, more than pity in it, so it seemed to him in the revelation of that moment; more than entreaty, more than consolation.

Her hand was on his arm; he turned to her, shaking the fallen locks of his wild hair back from his brow. Then her hand was in his, and there was a warm mist, as of summer clouds, before his eyes. Her face was before him, and near--so near. Not red like the bitter-sweet, but pale as the winter dawn. Her eyes were wide, her chin was lifted, and he was straining her to him with the jail door bars against his breast.

Love comes that way, and death; and the blow of sorrow; and the wrench of life's last bitter pang. Only life is slow; tedious and laggard with its burdens and its gleams.

He remembered in a moment; the pressure of the bars against his breast recalled him to his sad estate. He released her hand and fell back a step from her, a sharp cry on his lips as if he had seen her crushed and mangled just beyond his reach.

"I didn't mean to do that, Alice; I didn't mean to do that!" said he, dropping to his knees before her as if struck down by a stunning blow.

He bowed his head in contrite humiliation.

"I forgot where I was, Alice; I forgot!"

There was no displeasure in her face as she stood panting before the barred door, her hands to her heaving breast, her head thrown back. Her lips were parted; there was a light of exaltation in her eyes, as of one who has felt the benediction of a great and lasting joy. She put her hand through the bars again, and touched his bowed head.

"Don't do that, Joe," said she.

The sheriff's key sounded in the lock of the corridor gate.

"Time's up," he called.

"All right; I'm coming," Alice returned.

Joe stood, weak and trembling. He felt as if he had, in the heat of some great pa.s.sion, rashly risked life, and more than life; that he had only now dragged his battered body back to the narrow, precarious ledge from which he had leaped, and that safety was not his.

"I must go now," said she, soft and low and in steady voice. "Good-bye."

She gave him her hand, and he clung to it like a nestling fastening upon the last branch interposing between it and destruction.

"I forgot where I was," said he weakly, his shaken mind incapable of comprehending things as they were, his abas.e.m.e.nt over the breach that he had committed being so profound. She withdrew her hand. When it was gone out of his, he remembered how warm it was with the tide of her young body, and how soft for his own work-roughened fingers to meet and enfold.

"I must go now," said she again. Her feet sounded in the corridor as she ran away. A little way along she stopped. She was beyond his sight, but her voice sounded near him when she called back "Good-bye!"

She had not gone in anger nor displeasure, thought he, getting hand of his confused senses after a while, standing as she had left him, the flowers in his hand. Strangely exulting, strangely thrilling, mounting a moment like an eagle, plunging down now like a stone, Joe walked his cell.