CHAPTER V—THE MORNING OF LOVE

TO his dying day Gaston will never forget that ride to her home with Sallie Worth by his side. It was a perfect May day. The leaves on the trees were just grown and flashed in their green satin under the Southern sun, and every flower seemed in full bloom.

A great joy filled his heart with a sense of divine restfulness. He was unusually silent. And then she said something that made him open his eyes in new wonder.

“Don’t drive so fast Ben, and go around the longest way, I’m enjoying this.” She paused and a mischievous look came into her eyes as she saw his expression. “I’ve got the lion here by my side. I want to show all the girls in town that I’m the only one here to-day. It isn’t often I’ve a great man tied down fast like this.”

“Why did you spoil the first part of that pretty speech with the last?” he said with a frown.

“It was only your vanity that made me pause.”

“Could you read me like that?”

“Of course, all men are vain, much vainer than women.” Again there was a long silence.

They had reached the outskirts of the city now and were driving slowly through the deep shadows of a great forest.

“What beautiful trees!” he exclaimed.

“They are fine. Do you love big trees?”

“Yes, they always seem to me to have a soul. It used to make me almost cry to watch them fall beneath Nelse’s axe. I’d never have the heart to clear a piece of woods if I owned it.”

“I’m so glad to hear you say that. Papa laughed at me when I said something of the sort when he wanted to cut these woods. He left them just to please me. They belong to our place. They hide the house till you get right up to the gate, but I love them.”

Again he looked into her eyes and was silent.

“Now, I come to think of it, you’re the only girl I’ve met to-day who hasn’t mentioned my speech. That’s strange.”

“How do you know that I’m not saving up something very pretty to say to you later about it?”

“Tell me now.”

“No, you’ve spoiled it by your vanity in asking.” She said this looking away carelessly.

“Then I ’ll interpret your silence as the highest compliment you can pay me. When words fail we are deeply moved.”

“Vanity of vanity, all is vanity saith the preacher!” she exclaimed lifting her pretty hands.

They turned through a high arched iron gateway, across which was written in gold letters, “Oakwood.”

On a gently rising hill on the banks of the Catawba river rose a splendid old Southern mansion, its big Greek columns gleaming through the green trees like polished ivory. A wide porch ran across the full width of the house behind the big pillars, and smaller columns supported the full sweep of a great balcony above. The house was built of brick with Portland cement finish, and the whole painted in two shades of old ivory, with moss-green roof and dark rich Pompeian red brick foundations. With its green background of magnolia trees it seemed like a huge block of solid ivory flashing in splendour from its throne on the hill. The drive wound down a little dale, around a great circle filled with shrubbery and flowers and up to the pillared porte-cochere.

“Oh! what a beautiful home!” Gaston exclaimed with feeling.

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” she said with delight. “I love every brick in its walls, every tree and flower and blade of grass.”

“I’ve always dreamed of a home like that. Those big columns seem to link one to the past and add dignity and meaning to life.”

“Then you can understand how I love it, when I was born here and every nook and corner has its love message for me from the past that I have lived, as well as its wider meaning which you see.”

“The old South built beautiful homes, didn’t they? And that was one of the finest things about the proud old days,” he said.

“Yes, and the new South of which you spoke to-day will not forget this heritage of the old, when it comes to itself and shakes off its long suffering and poverty!”

Strange to hear that sort of a speech from a girl who loves society, dances divinely and dresses to kill. He thought of the words of his foster mother with a pang. He hoped she was joking about those things. But he had a strong suspicion from the consciousness of power with which she had tried once or twice to tease him that they were going to prove fatally true.

“Mother tells me you were in Baltimore, in that swell girls’ school on North Charles Street when I was a student at the University?”

“Yes, and we gave reception after reception to the Hopkins men and you never once honoured us with your presence.”

“But I didn’t know you were there, Miss Sallie.”

“Of course not. If you had, I wouldn’t speak to you now. They said you were a recluse. That you never went into society and didn’t speak to a woman for four years.”

“How did you hear that?”

“Bob St. Clare told me after I came home by way of apology for your bad manners in so shamefully neglecting a young woman from your own state.”

“I ’ll make amends, now.”

“Oh! I’m not suffering from loneliness as I did then. You know Bob put us up to inviting you to deliver the address. He said you were the only orator in North Carolina.”

“Bob’s the best friend I ever had. We entered college together at fifteen, and became inseparable friends.”

He helped her from the carriage and she ran lightly up the high stoop.

“Now come here and look at the view of the river before Papa comes and begins to talk about the tremendous water power in the falls.”

He followed her to the end of the long porch overlooking the river. Behind the house the hill abruptly plunged downward to the waters’ edge in a mountainous cliff. The river wound around this cliff past the house, emerging into a valley where it described a graceful curve almost doubling on itself and rolled softly away amid green overhanging willows and towering sycamores till lost in the distance toward the blue spurs of King’s Mountain.

“A glorious view!” said Gaston, looking long and lovingly at the silver surface of the river.

“Do you love the water, Mr. Gaston?”

“Passionately. I was born among the hills, but the first time I saw the ocean sweeping over five miles of sand reefs and breaking in white thundering spray at my feet, I stood there on a sand dune on our wild coast and gazed entranced for an hour without moving. Of all the things God ever made on this earth I love the waters of the sea, and all moving water suggests it to me. That river says, I must hurry to the sea!”

“It is strange we should have such similar tastes, she said seriously. But it did not seem strange to him. Somehow he expected to find her agree with every whim and fancy of his nature.

“Now we will find Mama. She is such an invalid she rarely goes out. Papa will be home any minute.”

“We are glad to welcome you Mr. Gaston,” said her mother in a kindly manner. “I’m sure you’ve enjoyed the drive this beautiful day if Sallie hasn’t been trying to tease you. The boys say she’s very tiresome at times.”

“Why Mama, I’m surprised at you. The idea of such a thing! There’s not a word of truth in it, is there, Mr. Gaston?”

“Certainly not, Miss Sallie. I ’ll testify, Mrs. Worth, that your daughter has been simply charming.”

She ran to meet her father at the door. There was the sound of a hearty kiss, a little whispering, and the General stepped briskly into the parlour where she had left her guest.

“Pleased to welcome you to our home, young man. They say down town that you made the greatest speech ever heard in Independence. Sorry I missed it. We ’ll have you to dinner anyway. I knew your brave father in the army. And now I come, to think of it, I saw you once when you were a boy. I was struck with your resemblance to your father then, as now. You showed me the way down to Tom Camp’s house. Don’t you remember?”

“Certainly General, but I didn’t flatter myself that you would recall it.”

“I never forget a face. I hope you have been enjoying yourself?”

“More than I can express, sir.”

“I ’ll join you bye and bye,” said the General, taking leave.

“Now isn’t he a dear old Papa?” she said demurely.

“He certainly knows how to make a timid young man feel at home.”

“Are you timid?”

“Hadn’t you noticed it?”

“Well, hardly.” She shook her head and closed her eyes in the most tantalising way. “To see the cool insolence of conscious power with which you looked that great crowd in the face when you arose on that platform, I shouldn’t say I was struck with your timidity.”

“I was really trembling from head to foot.”

“I wonder how you would look if really cool!”

“Honestly, Miss Sallie, I never speak to any crowd without the intensest nervous excitement. I may put on a brave front, but it’s all on the surface.”

“I can’t believe it,” she said shaking her head.

She looked at his serious face a moment and was silent.

“It’s queer how we run out of something to say, isn’t it?” she asked at length.

“I hadn’t thought of it.”

“Come up to the observatory and I’ll show you Lord Cornwallis’ look-out when he had his headquarters here during the Revolution.”

She lifted her soft white skirts and led the way up the winding mahogany stairs into the observatory from which the surrounding country could be seen for miles.

“Here Lord Cornwallis waited in vain for Colonel Ferguson to join him with his regiment from King’s Mountain.”

“Where my great-grandfather was drawing around him his cordon of death with his fierce mountain men!” interrupted Gaston.

“Was your great-grandfather in that battle?”

“Yes, it was fought on his land, and his two-story log house with the rifle holes cut in the chimney jambs still stands.”

“Then we will shake hands again,” she cried with enthusiasm, “for we are both children of the Revolution!”

Gaston took her beautiful hand in his and held it lingeringly. Never in all his life had the mere touch of a human hand thrilled him with such strange power, How long he held it he could not tell but it was with a sort of hurt surprise he felt her gently withdraw it at last.

They had reached the parlour again, and he slowly fell into an easy chair.

“Do you dance, Miss Sallie?”

“Why yes, don’t you dance?”

“Never tried in my life.”

“Don’t you approve of dancing?”

“I never had time to think about it. It always seemed silly to me.”

“It’s great fun.”

“I’d take lessons if you would agree to teach me, and I could dance with you all the time, and keep all the other fellows away.”

“Well, I must say that’s doing fairly well for a timid young man’s first day’s acquaintance. What will you say when you once become fully self-possessed?” She lifted her high arched eyebrows and looked at him with those blue eyes full of tantalising fun until he had to look down at the floor to keep from saying more than he dared. When he looked up again he changed the subject.

“Miss Sallie, I feel like I’ve known you ever since I was born.” She blushed and made no reply.

Dinner was announced, and Gaston was amazed to see Allan McLeod enter chattering familiarly with the General. He seemed on the most intimate terms with the family and his eye lingered fondly on Sallie’s face in a way that somehow Gaston resented as an impertinence.

“I didn’t even know you were acquainted with the Hon. Allan McLeod, Miss Sallie,” said Gaston as they entered the parlour alone.

“Yes, he was a sort of ward of Papa’s when he was a boy. Papa hates his politics, but he has always been in and out almost like one of the family since I can remember. I think he’s’ a fascinating man, don’t you?”

“I do, but I don’t like him.”

“Well, he’s a great friend of mine, you mustn’t quarrel.”

Gaston went to the hotel with his brain in a whirl wondering just what she meant. It was nearly twelve o’clock before he left the General’s house. How he had passed these eleven hours he could not imagine. They seemed like eleven minutes in one way. In another he seemed to have lived a lifetime that day.

“By George, she’s an angel!” he kept saying over and over to himself as he climbed to his room forgetting the elevator.