The Garden of Eden Part 37

"Sure. Like a riot in a florist's shop. But don't let this David take you off guard with his rooms full of flowers and full of silence."

"Silence?"

"Haven't I told you about his Room of Silence? That's one of his queer dodges. That room; you see? When anything bothers him he goes over and sits down in there, because--do you know what he thinks sits with him?"

"Well?"

"G.o.d!"

She was between a smile and a gasp.

"Yep, that's David," grinned Connor. "Just plain nut."

"What's inside?"

"I don't know. Maybe flowers."

"Let's find out."

He caught her arm quickly.

"Not in a thousand years!" He changed color at the thought and glanced guiltily around. "That would be the smash of everything. Why, he turned over the whole Garden of Eden to me. I can go anywhere, but not a step inside that room. It's his Holy Ground, you see! Maybe it's where he keeps his jack. And I've a hunch that he has a slough of it tucked away somewhere."

She raised her hand as an idea came to her half way through this speech.

"Listen! I have an idea that the clew to all of David's mystery is in that room!"

"Drop that idea, Ruth," he ordered gruffly. "You've seen David on one rampage, but it's nothing to what would happen if you so much as peeked into that place. When the servants pa.s.s that door they take off their hats--watch 'em the next time you have a chance. You won't make a slip about that room?"

"No." But she added: "I'd give my soul--for one look!"

Dinner that night under the stars with the whispering of the fountain beside them was a ceremony which Connor never forgot. The moon rose late and in the meantime the sky was heavy and dark with sheeted patchwork of clouds, with the stars showing here and there. The wind blew in gusts.

A wave began with a whisper on the hill, came with a light rushing across the patio, and then diminished quickly among the trees down the terraces. Rough, iron-framed lanterns gave the light and showed the arcade stepping away on either side and growing dim toward the entrance.

That uncertain illumination made the crude pillars seem to have only the irregularity of vast antiquity, stable ma.s.ses of stone. Where the circle of lantern-light overlapped rose the fountain, a pale spray forever dissolving in the upper shadow. Connor himself was more or less used to these things, but he became newly aware of them as the girl sent quick, eager glances here and there.

She had placed a single one of the great yellow blossoms in her hair and it changed her shrewdly. It brought out the delicate coloring of her skin, and to the darkness of her eyes it lent a tint of violet. Plainly she enjoyed the scene with its newness. David, of course, was the spice to everything, and his capitulation was complete; he kept the girl always on an uneasy balance between happiness and laughter. And Connor trembled for fear the mirth would show through. But each change of her expression appeared to delight David more than the last.

Under his deft knife the choicest white meat came away from the breast of a chicken and he heaped it at once on the plate of Ruth. Then he dropped his chin upon his great brown fist and watched with silent delight while she ate. It embarra.s.sed her; but her flush had a tinge of pleasure in it, as Connor very well knew.

"Look!" said David, speaking softly as though Ruth would not hear him.

"How pleasant it is, to be three together. When we were two, one talked and the other grew weary--was it not so? But now we are complete. One speaks, one listens, and the other judges. I have been alone. The Garden of Eden has been to me a prison, at many times. And now there is nothing wanting. And why? There were many men before. We were not lacking in numbers. Yet there was an emptiness, and now comes one small creature, as delicate as a colt of three months, this being of smiles and curious glances, this small voice, this woman--and at once the gap is filled. Is it not strange?"

He cast himself back in his chair, as though he wished to throw her into perspective with her surroundings, and all the time he was staring as though she were an image, a picture, and not a thing of flesh and blood.

Connor himself was on the verge of a smile, but when he saw the face of Ruth Manning his mirth disappeared in a chill of terror. She was struggling and struggling in vain against a rising tide of laughter, laughter in the face of David Eden and his sensitive pride.

It came, it broke through all bonds, and now it was bubbling from her lips. As one who awaits the falling of a blow, Connor glanced furtively at the host, and again he was startled.

There was not a shade of evil temper in the face of David. He leaned forward, indeed, with a surge of the great shoulders, but it was as one who listens to an entrancing music. And when she ceased, abruptly, he sighed.

"Speak to me," he commanded.

She murmured a faint reply.

"Again," said David, half closing his eyes. And Connor nodded a frantic encouragement to her.

"But what shall I say?"

"For the meaning of what you say," said David, "I have no care, but only for the sound. Have you heard dripping in a well, a sound like water filling a bottle and never reaching the top? It keeps you listening for an hour, perhaps, always a soft sound, but always rising toward a climax? Or a drowsy day when the wind hardly moves and the whistling of a bird comes now and then out of the trees, cool and contented? Or you pa.s.s a meadow of flowers in the warm sun and hear the ground murmur of the bees, and you think at once of the wax films of the honeycomb, and the clear golden honey? All those things I heard and saw when you spoke."

"Plain nut!" said Connor, framing the words with silent lips.

But though her eyes rested on him, apparently she did not see his face.

She looked back at Connor with a wistful little half-smile.

At once David cast out both his hands toward hers.

"Ah, you are strange, new, delightful!" He stopped abruptly. Then: "Does it make you happy to hear me say these things?"

"Why do you ask me that?" she said curiously.

"Because it fills me with unspeakable happiness to say them. If I am silent and only think then I am not so pleased. When I see Glani standing on the hilltop I feel his speed in the slope of his muscles, the flaunt of his tail, the pride of his head; but when I gallop him, and the wind of his galloping strikes my face--ha, that is a joy! So it is speaking with you. When I see you I say within: 'She is beautiful!'

But when I speak it aloud your lips tremble a little toward a smile, your eyes darken with pleasure, and then my heart rises into my throat and I wish to speak again and again and again to find new things to say, to say old things in new words. So that I may watch the changes in your face. Do you understand? But now you blush. Is that a sign of anger?"

"It is a sign that no other men have ever talked to me in this manner."

"Then other men are fools. What I say is true. I feel it ring in me, that it is the truth. Benjamin, my brother, is it not so? Ha!"

She was raising the wine-cup; he checked her with his eager, extended hand.

"See, Benjamin, how this mysterious thing is done, this raising of the hand. _We_ raise the cup to drink. An ugly thing--let it be done and forgotten. But when _she_ lifts the cup it is a thing to be remembered; how her fingers curve and the weight of the cup presses into them, and how her wrist droops."

She lowered the cup hastily and put her hand before her face.

"I see," said Connor dryly.

"Bah!" cried the master of the Garden. "You do not see. But you, Ruth, are you angry? Are you shamed?"

He drew down her hands, frowning with intense anxiety. Her face was crimson.

"No," she said faintly.

"He says that he sees, but he does not see," went on David. "He is blind, this Benjamin of mine. I show him my n.o.blest grove of the eucalyptus trees, each tree as tall as a hill, as proud as a king, as beautiful as a thought that springs up from the earth. I show him these glorious trees. What does he say? 'You could build a whole town out of that wood!' Bah! Is that seeing? No, he is blind! Such a man would give you hard work to do. But I say to you, Ruth, that to be beautiful is to be wise, and industrious, and good. Surely you are to me like the rising of the sun--my heart leaps up! And you are like the coming of the night making the world beautiful and mysterious. For behind your eyes and behind your words, out of the sound of your voice and your glances, I guess at new things, strange things, hidden things. Treasures which cannot be held in the hands. Should you grow as old as Elijah, withered, meager as a gra.s.shopper, the treasures would still be there. I, who have seen them, can never forget them!"

Once more she covered her eyes with her hand, and David started up from his chair.

"What have I done?" he asked faintly of Connor. He hurried around the table to her. "Look up! How have I harmed you?"

"I am only tired," she said.