The Wayfarers Part 14

Now, how sweet you do look, to be sure!"

Dosia did "look sweet," and as comfortable and soft as a kitten. The light-blue kimono of outing flannel,-of which she had been half ashamed when the maid unpacked it,-though cheap, was becoming; her loosened hair fell over the blended pillows and the rosy coverlet. The wood fire at which she gazed crackled and sent out the pungent, aromatic smell of Southern pine, which mingled with the perfume of a bunch of violets on the table near the golden sherry in its crystal gla.s.s, and the plate of white and reddish grapes. There was the unaccustomed stillness of a large, well-appointed house, where the walls were deadened to sound, and the floors had thick-piled rugs upon them, and the servants walked with soft-shod feet. Such luxurious well-being had never been Dosia's before.

This was like being in a fairy palace, where you had only to clap your hands to get anything you wished for. And the most charming thing about the fairy palace was that there you always met the prince.

This girl was so const.i.tuted that, except in the first flush of excitement incident to her entrance into this new sphere, she must have always some heart-warm thought, some little inner pleasure of her own, to make the larger one serve. Dosia knew now that she was to meet the true prince. This was the house he visited; all this outer circle of comfort was but the prelude to love-that mysterious and intangible love that made you happy ever after. She was glad that she had kept hold of that hand, and had not let herself be drawn away by lesser ties. Her day-dream was to bewitch and dazzle him, to compel him to her attraction; a dozen situations, based on that first idea of his recognition of her in some n.o.ble deed, occupied her happy mind; in all moments of extra exaltation she brought out the thought and played with it and hugged it to her. She had yet to learn how few things happen as we imagine them.

In the midst of her half-drowsy musings, the door behind her burst open; suddenly a big collie-dog bounded in. He was licking her cheeks, when a sharp whistle called him back, and the door was instantly closed again.

Dosia knew that the dog was Lawson's. She sprang up and locked the door, but her dream had vanished. She had a tingling consciousness that she was to meet Lawson at dinner. She made up her mind to be very dignified and cool toward him; she rehea.r.s.ed the manner in which her eyelashes would fall, the politely bored expression of her forced attention, the casual tips of her fingers as they touched his in the conventional handshake of greeting-all of which would emphasize the fact that he had now no particular interest for her, if, indeed, he had ever had any.

But, after all, he was not at dinner, which was a relief, and yet a disappointment: when you have sharpened your weapons, it is only natural to want to use them. Lawson did not appear the next day, nor the next.

Once she heard him coming in very late at night, and in the morning he had gone before she breakfasted. A couple of times in the late afternoon, when the dog came trotting ahead through the hall, she had slipped aside, breathless, as from some peril escaped. It was the third day after her arrival that he suddenly made his appearance in the drawing-room, where she was seated by the piano, looking over a pile of music. Mrs. Leverich was out driving, but had thought the air too damp for Dosia.

She tried to accomplish the indifferent handshake she had prefigured, and could have flagellated herself for the color that she felt enveloping her from brow to throat under his cool, appraising eyes, as he bent over the piano as if to help her with her search.

"What do you wish to find?" he asked in a businesslike way. "Perhaps I can a.s.sist you."

"Thank you, it isn't necessary."

She held her head at an unresponsive angle involuntarily, so that she might not see his face, which had struck her as unexpectedly younger and better-looking than hitherto.

"I see that my sister has fitted up a little music-room for you. Have you done much practicing there yet?"

"Some."

"You are not homesick in your new quarters?"

"No."

"Let me hold that portfolio for you." He interposed a dexterous hand.

"Oh, don't thank me-you see, if you drop it, courtesy will oblige me to pick up all the music. This is the first time we've met since you have been in the house; I've been so patient that I deserve more than to have little cold, hard monosyllables thrown at me."

"Patient!"

"Haven't I seen you slip out of the way when you thought I was coming?

I'm accustomed to the phenomenon." The lightness of his tone did not hide the bitter strain under it. "Really, I'm not lacking in perception.

I wished to give you time to get inured to the sad fact that I live here; and you need not have changed the time for your lessons last week, for I have no regular time for my daily exodus at present. If you _will_ keep your head so persistently turned away, you might as well utilize the position. Play me something."

"No, you play for me," returned Dosia, glad of the chance to divert his attention from her.

"I might play 'Greeting,' since I'm not going to get any."

He seated himself on the piano-bench she vacated, and played a few strains absently; there was that in the low, sweet chords among which his fingers strayed that could not but enchain. She forgot her aloofness to listen. Presently he said:

"Who is my rival?"

"What do you mean?" She started up, and stood with both arms resting on the lower end of the grand piano, staring at him.

"I could not think that blush was for me-that beautiful color that stole over you when I came in. It couldn't be for me, when you have avoided me so pointedly. So I concluded, of course, that it was either the reflection from that brick wall out there, or was called forth by the thought of my rival."

"I will not say that it was the brick wall," said Dosia, yielding to the light, heady spirit he always roused in her, with, also, the little under-knowledge of her secret dream.

"Then I will not say it was the rival," said Lawson. He added in a lower tone: "And I wouldn't give it up to any rival; I saw it-it was mine."

"You claim a great deal," returned Dosia, wishing that she had the strength of mind to go and leave him, yet loath to lose a moment of this converse.

He shook his head as he answered gently: "No, you are mistaken there; I claim nothing. I have no rights-only privileges. I hope it's going to be my privilege to have a little of your charming society in the next few days. I shall be at home, perforce; I've lost my position."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" said Dosia, with her quick sympathy. He raised one hand deprecatingly, while the other still weaved in and out in a pianissimo accompaniment.

"Sorry? For me? Oh, that's not the thing to say, at all. You should condemn my inability to keep the place."

"Why do you talk like this?" asked Dosia, with a pained feeling.

"Why do you run when you see me coming?" He flashed a quizzical glance at her.

"I don't," she began to say, but her words trailed off into an inarticulate murmur.

He had played a chord or two more to her silence before he stopped to lean forward and say:

"Why did you avoid me on the train? You need not trouble yourself to answer. Some kind person had warned you against being too polite to me-and you took the warning like a good little girl. It has been borne in upon me quite a number of times that I do not exactly command respect in this community. I a.s.sure you that I know my place."

"But, oh, why don't you _make_ people respect you?" cried Dosia. "Why don't you make them? If you really try-oh, if I were a man, I wouldn't sit quietly and say such things. You can do anything if you really try."

"Can you?" He smiled with indulgence at her copy-book wisdom. "Well, perhaps you can, if there's sufficient impetus to the effort. There really isn't with me. When I was a boy-you'll tire yourself if you stand up any longer. Come and sit over here by the fire."

She followed half mechanically to the sofa on which he arranged the cushions for her, seating himself in the other corner, where he leaned forward, looking, not at her, but at the fire. His personality was so strong that each inch that lessened the distance between her and that lithe, sinewy figure and the dark Oriental face brought a corresponding thrill of magnetism to Dosia-a subtle excitement which drew her into its spell. The confusion which had clouded her at first was gone; she felt luminously clear, in preparation for some great moment of confidence, in which her mission would be to help and sustain. She broke the silence presently to say, with a sweet and halting diffidence, through which her earnestness showed:

"I want you to tell me. You began to say-I want to know about when you were a boy."

"When I was a boy I made a wrong start. Heaven knows, it wasn't my fault! I was good enough before that-religiously inclined!" He leaned forward and struck a log with one of the fire-irons, sending a shower of sparks flying upward. "Where do you think I learned half the bad I know?

At a camp-meeting! But I won't go back to the past-it's a mistake.

Only, I came here literally 'on suspicion.'"

"Yes," said Dosia, with her clear spirit-voice; "and you tried to work up from under it."

Lawson dropped his chin into his hands, looking moodily ahead. "I'm afraid not always. Sometimes the contrary."

"Oh, oh," breathed Dosia, in a whisper.

"If you want me to tell you the truth-! Your relatives are quite right in ordering you to avoid me. There has never been anybody, you see, to really care whether I kept straight or not."

"Your sister?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: _He played a chord or two more to her silence_]

Lawson shrugged his shoulders. "It would, of course, be pleasanter for Myra if she hadn't me on her mind, and Leverich has done his best, I suppose. I'm not groaning-just telling you the bare facts. Living 'on suspicion' is demoralizing in the long run, that's all; one lives down to an opinion as well as up to it, you know. There's never been anyone, since I was a child, to really believe in me, so there's n.o.body to be disappointed."

"_I_ will believe in you," said Dosia, with the vibrating tone of her emotion. Her clear eyes looked at his as if to convey strength and warmth and all that was uplifting straight to his heart.