HE did not see her alone again for two days, although he was with her constantly, and they had long talks apart. There were seven clever men at Casa Norte this time; all of the women were bright, or more, and the days and nights were very gay. They rode and drove and sailed and picnicked, and sang and played tennis and told stories, and there was much good conversation. Clive wrote a brief note daily to Mary Gordon, but gave up his thoughts recklessly to Helena Belmont. She showed to full advantage as hostess: thoughtful, suggestive, womanly, unselfish. Her mind, as revealed in their long conversations, captivated him. Her grace appealed more keenly to his senses than her beauty, which sometimes, as she talked, wholly disappeared, broken by a personality so strong and so variable as to play havoc with its harmonies.
On the third morning he met her in the pink-and-green wilderness of the rose-garden. The dew glittered on every leaf and petal, for the sun was hardly over the mountain. The guests had been ordered early to bed the night before, that they might rise early and go on a picnic in a distant part of the forest. Rollins was buttoning his shirt before an open window and singing a duet with Mrs. Tower, who had her head out of another window. Helena wore a pink-and-white organdie frock and a large hat lined with pink. She was gathering a cluster of roses for her belt. As Clive joined her she plucked a bud and pinned it on his cheviot shirt: he wore no coat; the men only dressed for dinner.
Clive’s broad shoulders were between the house and Helena. He pressed his hand suddenly over hers, flattening the bud.
“You’ve stuck me,” she said, pouting. “These roses are full of thorns.”
“I think I’d better go.”
She gave him a glance of mingled alarm, anger and appeal.
“You will not go!”
She turned her hand about and clasped it over his.
“What is the use? I’m afraid I’m getting in too deep. What common sense I have left tells me to get out while there is time.”
She tightened her clasp. “But you won’t go?” she said imperiously.
“No, I shall not go. If I did I shouldn’t stay.”
Helena threw back her head, her woman’s keen delight in power over man as strong for the moment as her gladness in Clive’s touch and presence.
After breakfast Miss Belmont and her guests drove for two hours through the forest, scarcely seeing the sun, then camped in a cañon by a running stream. The cañon was narrow at the bottom but widened above, and seemed to have gathered all the sunshine of the day. Its sides were a tangle of fragrant chaparral, wild roses, purple lilac, and red lily, the delicate green of young trees, the metallic green and red of the madroño. On high were the stark redwoods.
Some of the men went frankly to sleep after luncheon. The others and several of the girls fished ardently.
“Come,” said Helena to Clive, “there is a trail over there, and I want to see what is on top.”
“It will be a hard pull.”
“Don’t you want to come? Very well, I’ll go alone. Hang my hat on that tree.”
She sprang lightly from stone to stone across the stream.
He followed her up the steep side of the cañon, through brush so dense that they were quickly out of sight, and through a bewildering fragrance. At the top they were in the dark forest again, and pushed along as best they could. They found themselves among the straggling outposts of an under-forest of fronds. A few redwoods spread their spiked arms above it, but the sun touched many a rustling fan. The heights beyond lifted away irregularly, in steeps and galleries and higher levels, a gracious blue mist softening the austerity of the crowding trees. A creek roared softly above the low rhythmic murmur of the forest. Even these slight sounds seemed to intrude on the great primeval silence.
“What is it?” asked Helena, “the peculiar influence of these redwood forests? I have been in other forests in many parts of the world, and I have never known anything like this. It lifts one up, makes one feel capable of anything, and yet gives one a terrible longing and loneliness—when one is alone.”
“It is partly spiritual, partly sensual. The forest seems to hold in essence the two principles of the universe. Do you want to go in among these ferns? They are pretty thick, but I can hold them back for you.”
“Yes, I want to see what is in there.”
They pushed in among the fronds, which grew taller as they penetrated. Soon Clive had no need to hold the leaves apart for his companion; they spread out a foot and more above their heads. The place, a young forest of slender columns, was filled with green light. Small feathery ferns nodded in a little breeze. The creek seemed to murmur above them. Clive turned and looked at Helena. Her face was glorified. He took her in his arms and kissed her. She did not shrink from him, and they clung together.
After a few moments she moved her head back and looked up at him. His eyes were not laughing.
“There is something I want to say,” she said. “A woman doesn’t usually say it until she is asked. I love you. I want you to know that I couldn’t kiss you like that if I did not.”
“I believe that you love me,” he said.
“Did you guess the reason I did not kiss you the other night? I had intended to, but it suddenly came to me that you did not love me enough, that you were merely in love with me; and I could not give myself like that. I intended to wait longer than this. But I forgot.” She hesitated a moment—the color left her face. “Do you love me?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, “I love you.”
She went back to his arms, but even while she learned the lesson that some women learn once only, and then possessingly and finally, she realized that she had not the courage to speak of Mary Gordon. She had intended, the moment she was sure of him, to command him to break his engagement at once; but her arrogant will found itself supple before the strong fibre of the man, and shrank from the encounter. They walked on after a time, until they came to a stone, where they sat down. She put her hands about his face. The motion was a little awkward, but she was a woman who would grow very lavish with caresses.
“Why do you look so serious?” she asked. “You looked so different a moment ago.”
“The situation is serious,” he said briefly. “But don’t let us talk about it; we have twelve more days.”
She threw her head back against his shoulder and looked up into the feathery roof. A ray of light wandered in and touched her face. “I am so happy,” she said, “I don’t care what to-morrow brings. I have thought and thought of being with you like this and now I am and it is enough. I ought to be serious—I know what you are thinking of—but it doesn’t matter; nothing but this matters. I never took life seriously—except in a sort of abstract mental way occasionally—until a week ago, and I doubt if I could keep it up.”
“You could keep it up. You don’t know yourself.”
“Once I got dreadfully bored and took care of a sick poor woman who lived in a cabin near a place where I was staying. Her husband was away in the mines, and she had no one to look after her but neighbors as poor as herself. I sat up with her and worked over her as if she were my sister. I was frightfully interested, and so proud of myself. Then one morning—I think it was the fifth—I was sitting by the window about four o’clock, looking at the view, which was beautiful—a rolling country covered with closely trimmed grape-vines, and miles and miles beyond a range of blue mountains. It was so quiet. Eternity must be like that quiet of four in the morning. And gradually as I looked, the most sickening disgust crept over me for the life I had led the past four days, an utter collapse of my philanthropy. I wanted to go away and be frivolous. I was hideously bored. I hated the sick woman, her poverty and everything serious in life. I stole away and sent back a servant to stop until I could get a trained nurse. I never went near the woman again.”
He pressed her to him with passionate sympathy. “Poor child,” he said, “you have lived only in the shallows. I wish you always might.”
But she was too happy to heed anything but the strength of his embrace.
“You don’t know yourself,” he said, “not the least little bit.”
“I know a lot more than you think, and I know how I can love you.”
“You hardly know that. You have merely a vague far away notion. All your woman’s lore is borrowed, and you are only half awake. Your mind, your mental conception of things, has outrun everything else. If the other part ever caught up you would be a wonderful woman.”
Something in his tone made her take her will between her teeth.
“You will teach me,” she said imperiously, “as long as we are both alive.”
“Yes, if I am a scoundrel. But don’t let us talk about that now, please. I will be happy, too. Come, let us get out of this. It is damp and we will get rheumatism, which is not romantic. Let us go home and sit in your boudoir. I feel as if I should like to be surrounded by the conventionalities of life for a time. One feels too primitive in this forest.”