The Web of the Golden Spider Part 2

"Our first bit of luck," he whispered. "They _have_ gone for the summer!"

They moved less cautiously now, but not until they reached the dining room and saw the covered chairs and drawn curtains did they feel fully a.s.sured. He thrust aside the portieres and noted that the blinds were closed and the windows boarded. They could move quite safely now.

The mere sense of being under cover--of no longer feeling the beat of the rain upon them--was in itself a soul-satisfying relief. But there was still the dank cold of their soggy clothes against the body. They must have heat; and he moved on to the living rooms above. He pushed open a door and found himself in a large room of heavy oak, not draped like the others. He might have hesitated had it not been for the sight of a large fireplace directly facing him. When he saw that it was piled high with wood and coal ready to be lighted, he would have braved an army to reach it. Crossing the room, he thrust his candle into the kindling. The flames, as though surprised at being summoned, hesitated a second and then leaped hungrily to their meal. Wilson thrust his cold hands almost into the fire itself as he crouched over it.

"Come here," he called over his shoulder. "Get some of this quickly."

She huddled close to him and together they let their cold bodies drink in the warm air. It tingled at their fingers, smarted into their faces, and stung their chests.

"Nearer! Nearer!" he urged her. "Let it burn into you."

Their garments sent out clouds of steam and sweated pools to the tiles at their feet; but still they bathed in the heat insatiably. He piled on wood until the flames crackled out of sight in the chimney and flared into the room. He took her by the shoulders and turned her round and round before it as one roasts a goose. He took her two hands and rubbed them briskly till they smarted; she laughed deliciously the while, and the color on her cheeks deepened. But in spite of all this they couldn't get very far below the surface. He noticed the dripping fringe of her skirts and her water-logged shoes.

"This will never do," he said. "You've got to get dry--clear to your bones. Somehow a woman doesn't look right--wet. She gets so very wet--like a kitten. I'm going foraging now. You keep turning round and round."

"Till I'm brown on the outside?"

"Till I come back and see if you're done."

She followed him with her eyes as he went out, and in less than five minutes she heard him calling for her. She hurried to the next room and found him bending over a tumbled heap of fluffy things which he had gingerly picked from the bureau drawers.

"Help yourself," he commanded, with a wave of his hand.

"But--I oughtn't to take these things!"

"My girl," he answered in an even voice that seemed to steady her, "when it's either these or pneumonia--it's these. I'll leave you the candle."

"But you----"

"I'll find something."

He went out. She stood bewildered in the midst of the dimly revealed luxury about her. The candle threw feeble rays into the dark corners of the big room, over the four-posted oak bed covered with its daintily monogrammed spread, over the heavy hangings at the windows, and the bright pictures on the walls. She caught a glimpse of closets, of a graceful dressing table, and finally saw her reflection in the long mirror which reached to the floor.

She held the candle over her head and stared at herself. She cut but a sorry figure in her own eyes in the midst of such spotless richness as now surrounded her. She shivered a little as her own damp clothes pressed clammily against her skin. Then with a flush she turned again to the garments rifled from their perfumed hiding places. They looked very white and crisp. She hesitated but a second.

"She'll forgive," she whispered, and threw off her dripping waist. The clothes, almost without exception, fitted her remarkably well. She found herself dressing leisurely, enjoying to the fullest the feel of the rich goods. She shook her hair free, dried it as best she could, and took some pains to put it up nicely. It was long and glossy black, but not inclined to curl. It coiled about her head in silken strands of dark richness.

She demurred at first at the silk dress which he had tossed upon the bed, but she could find no other. It was of a golden yellow, dainty and foreign in its design. It fitted snugly to her slim figure as though it had been made for her. She stood off at a little distance and studied herself in the mirror. She was a girl who had an instinct for dress which had never been satisfied; a girl who could give, as well as take, an air from her garments. She admired herself quite as frankly as though it had been some other person who, with head uptilted and teeth flashing in a contented smile, challenged her from the clear surface of the mirror, looking as though she had just stepped through the wall into the room. The cold, the wet, and for a moment even the hunger vanished, so that as she glanced back at her comfortable reflection it seemed as if it were all just a dream of cold and wet and hunger. With silk soothing her skin, with the crisp purity of spotless linen rustling about her, with the faultless gown falling in rich splendor about her feet, she felt so much a part of these new surroundings that it was as though she melted into them--blended her own personality with the unstinted luxury about her.

But her foot scuffled against a wet stocking lying as limp as water gra.s.s, which recalled her to herself and the man who had led the way to this. A wave of pity swept over her as she wondered if he had found dry things for himself. She must hurry back and see that he was comfortable. She felt a certain pride that the beaded slippers she had found in the closet fitted her a bit loosely. With the candle held far out from her in one hand and the other lifting her dress from the floor, she rustled along the hall to the study, pausing there to speak his name.

"All ready?" he shouted.

He strode from a door to the left, but stopped in the middle of the room to study her as she stood framed in the doorway--a picture for Whistler. With pretty art and a woman's instinctive desire to please, she had placed the candle on a chair and a.s.sumed something of a pose.

The mellow candle-light deepened the raven black of her hair, softened the tint of her gown until it appeared of almost transparent fineness.

It melted the folds of the heavy crimson draperies by her side into one with the dark behind her. She had shyly dropped her eyes, but in the excitement of the moment she quickly raised them again. They sparkled with merriment at sight of his lean frame draped in a lounging robe of Oriental ornateness. It was of silk and embellished with gold-spun figures.

"It was either this," he apologized, "or a dress suit. If I had seen you first, I should have chosen the latter. I ought to dress for dinner, I suppose, even if there isn't any."

"You look as though you ought to make a dinner come out of those sleeves, just as the magicians make rabbits and gold-fish."

"And you," he returned, "look as though you ought to be able to get a dinner by merely summoning the butler."

He offered her his arm with exaggerated gallantry and escorted her to a chair by the fire. She seated herself and, thrusting out her toes towards the flames, gave herself up for a moment to the drowsy warmth.

He shoved a large leather chair into place to the left and, facing her, enjoyed to himself the sensation of playing host to her hostess in this beautiful house. She looked up at him.

"I suppose you wonder what brought me out there?"

"In a general way--yes," he answered frankly. "But I don't wish you to feel under any obligation to tell me. I see you as you sit there,--that is enough."

"There is so little else," she replied. She hesitated, then added, "That is, that anyone seems to understand."

"You really had no place to which you could go for the night?"

"No. I am an utter stranger here. I came up this morning from Newburyport--that's about forty miles. I lost my purse and my ticket, so you see I was quite helpless. I was afraid to ask anyone for help, and then--I hoped every minute that I might find my father."

"But I thought you knew no one here?"

"I don't. If Dad is here, it is quite by chance."

She looked again into his blue eyes and then back to the fire.

"It is wonderful how you came to me," she said.

"I saw you twice before."

"Once," she said, "was just beyond the Gardens."

"You noticed me?"

"Yes."

She leaned forward.

"Yes," she repeated, "I noticed you because of all the faces I had looked into since morning yours was the first I felt I could trust."

"Thank you."

"And now," she continued, "I feel as though you might even understand better than the others what my errand here to Boston was." She paused again, adding, "I should hate to have you think me silly."

She studied his face eagerly. His eyes showed interest; his mouth a.s.sured her of sympathy.

"Go on," he bade her.

To him she was like someone he had known before--like one of those vague women he used to see between the stars. Within even these last few minutes he had gotten over the strangeness of her being here. He did not think of this building as a house, of this room as part of a home; it was just a cave opening from the roadside into which they had fled to escape the rain.

It seemed difficult for her to begin. Now that she had determined to tell him she was anxious for him to see clearly.