CHAPTER XXIV
ONLY ABOUT DREAMS
The wide windows of the heavy interurban car were open and the air of the summer night beat in gratefully upon him. Morris felt increasingly at peace with himself and all the world. His thoughts leaped agilely from peak to peak of possibility and achievement. He would be a lawyer; he would continue, as he had begun, a serious student of his profession. And there was Zelda! The thought of her was very sweet,—it had never been so sweet as it was to-night, and her name repeated itself over and over again in his memory. There was no vista of the future through which he did not see her. In all the world there was no one like her,—no one comparable to her. He recited his lover’s alphabet of her charms and graces—the deep melody of her voice, the baffling mystery of her dark eyes; her ease of speech and grace of manner; the slender fingers of her eloquent hands. And a year ago he had known not one of these things, not one!
His hat was suddenly tipped forward over his eyes by some one who had entered the car at the last stop before the long straight run into the country.
“Hail, Demetrius, master of all the arts, and faithful priest at the altar of Hymen, move over and let a fellow pilgrim sit down!”
It was Balcomb, with his unfailing high spirits and undeniable claim upon the attention.
“Hello, Jack! What are you up to?” demanded Morris, with inner reluctance, making room for Balcomb beside him.
“What am I up to? Well, I like that! I guess this road is a common carrier all right, all right; and I bet a dollar we’re headed for the same happy port.”
Balcomb was dressed, as usual, in the latest style. His straw hat with its blue ribbon and his two-button double-breasted sack-coat were in the latest mode. He carried an overcoat of covert cloth on his arm and was further burdened with a parcel, wrapped in paper of bird’s-egg blue and tied with silver string.
“Sweets for the sweet! Carrying coals to Newcastle,—honey to the beehive! Ah me! I nearly broke my neck making that car. I shall lodge a complaint with the company to-morrow. I honestly think I have lost a lung. I had to stop to see a customer of mine who’s staying at the Imperial. Business and pleasure, all in one shot. I paid for these priceless confections, though,—sold a chunk of stock in my new flat company to an ancient jay from Bartholomew County.”
“How’s that flat scheme coming on?”
“Like a runaway trolley on a down grade. It’s going to be a high persimmon all right.”
“I don’t doubt it; but you’d better be cautious. Flats are being much overdone.”
“I haven’t applied for a guardian, my son. My wagon’s hitched to the more prosperous planets. You remember what old Prexy used to say at college,—‘Hitch your wagon to a star, but keep your feet on solid earth.’ I only use part of that advice,—the first half, I may say. The earth is only good at so much per front foot. Read your answer in the stars,—that’s my motto. And to make sure things don’t get crowded, I say with Walt Whitman, ‘I would not have the constellations any nearer.’ No, by gum!”
“I’m glad to see that you still pump the well of English undefiled. It’s commendable in you.”
“Thanks, my brother. In sign of greeting, I raise high the perpendicular hand. That’s Walt, you remember. But say, you look a little grumpy this evening. You don’t show the spirit of a man who is going cheerfully to tell his love, but rather the air of one who lets concealment, like the worm in the peach, make free lunch of his damask cheek.”
Leighton always hated himself for laughing at Balcomb, whose loquacity was so cheap that it was pathetic. Everything Balcomb knew he used constantly. At the college to which he referred in terms of raillery or contempt he had picked the nearest and gaudiest flowers; but he wore them all in an amazing bouquet that did not fail to impress many of his acquaintances as the real bloom of learning. Leighton was not at all glad to see Balcomb to-night. His friend’s eternal freshness palled upon him. But it did not occur to Balcomb that Leighton might not be delighted to have him for a traveling companion. He thought his conversation was shortening the distance for Leighton. Balcomb had been making social history fast. He had, in his own phrase, “butted in”; and since the performance of Deceivers Ever, he had been included in most of the gatherings of the Dramatic Club circle.
“I say, old man,” he began abruptly, as the car skimmed through a strip of woodland, “just between old college friends, what’s your game, anyhow? Which is it?”
“Which is what?” demanded Leighton, who had been enjoying a moment with his own thoughts, while Balcomb stared out upon the darkling landscape.
“Which girl, I mean? There are two out here.”
Leighton took off his hat and laughed.
“I haven’t decided yet,” he said presently, with an irony that was quite lost on Balcomb. “I’m a good fellow, though, and I’ll take the one you leave.”
“Miss Dameron’s certainly a peach dumpling, all right. But say, the little cousin’s a gem of purest ray serene. She ain’t so stand-offish, some way, as her cousin; she jollies easier.”
“I think I’ve noticed that;”—and the irony this time was meant for himself.
“They say olives are a cultivated taste,” persisted Balcomb; “but lawsy, I knew right away that girl was a good thing. And, my God! to think that she has to teach a lot of grimy little muckers how to cook. There’s something wrong in the divine economy, as Prexy used to say, when such a thing is possible.”
“It is too bad, isn’t it? But I don’t think you need be sorry for her.”
“Hell, no! She’s as proud as Lucifer. Here’s our stop.”
The two men jumped out into the highway and started for the Dameron farm.
Olive
“I think a man ought to marry early,” Balcomb announced, as they tramped along the road. “There’s nothing like a woman and a home to put snap into a man,” he continued nobly. “A man fools away a whole lot of money in his bachelor days. Doing social stunts is expensive. Have you any idea what my carriage bill was last March? Eighty-four dollars! I honestly believe it would pay me to own a hack. But, I say, the man who will drag a girl to the theater in a street car is fit for treason, stratagems and the stone pile. It ain’t enough to put ’em on four wheels when it’s snowing; no, I make a specialty of hacks under the starry hosts of heaven, and eke the pale and haughty moon. There’s no better way than that to get solid with a girl. There are some that put their faith in bonbons and a new novel now and then; but there isn’t a girl in Mariona to-night that wouldn’t rather go to see a good show in comfort than do anything else under the sun. Damn that June-bug! it nearly choked the life out of me. I say, about hacks, don’t give it away, but I’ve just got a transfer company pass,—Wilson, the president, and I are pretty thick, and I do a little quiet work for the company occasionally. I helped ’em beat the vehicle tax before the council last winter, and I have an annual now that gives me power of life and death over all the company’s rolling stock night and day. And you bet I won’t use it or anything!”
Leighton’s silence did not disturb Balcomb; he talked for the joy it gave him. They reached the Dameron gate and followed the winding path toward the veranda.
“Ahoy, O bower of beauty!” Balcomb called cheerily when they were within hailing distance of the veranda. “Friends draw near bringing tidings.”
On the veranda, as Balcomb’s voice smote upon the air, two girls fell on each other’s necks in mock ecstasy of grief.
“They’re there, all right,” announced Balcomb.
“If you yell at them again, they’ll undoubtedly bolt,” said Leighton, whose thoughts since they had left the car had been far away from Balcomb’s babble.
“If you’re not afraid of the June-bugs, we’ll stay here,” said Zelda, when she and Olive had shaken hands with the men.
“There’s nothing better; it’s the center of the universe right here,” Balcomb declared. “I brought some poison for the June-bugs with me. I will place it on yonder rail, lest we forget, lest we forget.”
This was Balcomb’s happy idea of minimizing the value of his gift. He was relieved to find that Pollock was not there, and as it was past the usual calling hour in the latitude and longitude of Mariona, the army officer was not likely to appear. Ever since the unpleasant incident on the stairway at the Athenæum building, Balcomb had been in the undignified attitude of dodging Captain Pollock, though he had said, during Pollock’s absence from town, exceedingly cruel things about the officer.
Mr. Dameron came out and shook hands with the young men, addressing a few words to each. Balcomb had called upon him repeatedly in reference to the purchase of the tract of land on the creek, but without encouragement. Dameron had just been wondering how he could communicate with the promoter without seeking him directly, and this call gave him an opportunity.
“By the way, Mr. Balcomb,” said the old man, pleasantly, “sometime when you are passing, I’d be glad if you’d call at my office. There’s a matter of mutual interest that I’d like to speak to you about. A beautiful night, gentlemen. Very much cooler here than in the city, as you may have noticed.” And he went down the steps and out upon the highway for his usual evening walk.
“A remarkable man, your father, Miss Dameron. He’s quite the ideal business man of the old school,” said Balcomb. “We youngsters are quicker on the trigger, but our aim isn’t so sure. No siree; your father is an ideal business man.”
He had spoken impressively. He would, in his own language, “make himself solid” when he had a chance. Leighton was talking to Olive, and Balcomb set about entertaining Zelda, with whom he had seldom enjoyed a tête-à-tête.
“This is one of my ideas,—to own a farm. It’s in the blood, I guess. My people were all farmers,—not, I hope, in the sense of our slang usage,—ahem!—but tillers of the soil. I don’t know that any of my people ever came out of the green, green wood to buy the green, green goods—you know how those old ballads run—we studied ’em at college—but I guess I’d be pretty hard to catch. Yes, a country place is the right thing. You must have a hundred acres here. Well, old Bill Thompson couldn’t swing it. He went crazy on fancy cattle and blew his money on ’em hard. A man’s got to make his pile in town before he can go in for fancy stock. You know what Senator Proctor, of Vermont, said to his guests,—a lot of swells from Washington. ‘Champagne or milk,’ he said at table, at his farm up in the Green Mountain state. ‘Champagne or milk, take your choice, gentlemen; one costs me just as much as the other.’ I have a number of city friends who sport country places,—estates, I ought to say, and they tell me a farm eats up money like a strawstacker. But the idea is immense. Getting back to nature,—that’s me all over.”
He ran on monotonously. He was anxious to make an impression at once without relinquishing the floor.
“I suppose you and Miss Merriam do a lot of reading out here. What are the books one ought to talk about?”
“We don’t read much—except the cook-books,” replied Zelda.
“Ha! ha! That is rich,—from the great Miss Dameron, too. I like that! I suppose as a matter of fact you really spend every morning with the classics.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but our mornings are spent with cook-books. My cousin is writing a cook-book and we’re reading all the old ones to be sure hers is all new. It’s delightfully exciting.”
“Wouldn’t that jar one? I say, I want to speak right now for an autograph copy of the first edition of that book.”
“Olive will be delighted,” said Zelda. “It’s designed, you know, for the very young.”
“Oh, I say, but that flew up and hit me! Did you hear that, Morris? I wish you would persuade Miss Dameron to spare my life. She’s trying her sharpest ax on me!”
“How unnecessary!” observed Morris, “and what a waste of the ax.”
“There it goes again. Everybody has it in for me! Oh, well! My time will come!”
It came in an unexpected way. Captain Pollock was riding up the driveway. He was on very good terms at The Beeches, and had been told that while there were lights there was a hope of finding some one at home.
“Here comes another messenger bearing tidings,” said Balcomb, in his most cheerful note. “I hope it isn’t bad news.”
“No; it’s Captain Pollock. That horse of his is a beauty, isn’t it? I wish he would trade with me,” answered Zelda.
“Horse-trading is a science, better let it alone,” declared Balcomb.
He jumped up, fumbling for his watch, which he could not see in the dark of the veranda, but he made a pretense of looking at it.
“Leighton, if we’re going to catch that nine-fifty car we’ve got to hustle. I have to see a man at the Imperial before he goes to bed. Good night, Miss Dameron; good night, Miss Merriam. Not going, Leighton? All right, I’ll see you later.”
He walked to the other end of the veranda, found his hat and coat, and bowed himself to the steps, keeping up a running fire of talk to the last. Pollock was tying his horse to a post at the side of the driveway, but Balcomb hurried past him without speaking.
Leighton groaned inwardly at the sight of Pollock, whom he liked well enough ordinarily. He did not understand the reason for Balcomb’s hurried flight, so that the humor of the situation did not strike him.
“You may have Mr. Balcomb’s seat there by the railing, if you like,” said Zelda to Pollock.
“You do me too much honor,” said the officer, as he shook hands with Leighton.
“Oh, I don’t know!” and Olive’s imitation of Balcomb’s intonation was so true to life that they all laughed.
“I don’t see why any one should laugh,” said Zelda.
“I’m sure I don’t,” declared Pollock. He put back his arm against the railing, knocking down the box of candy that Balcomb had left behind him.
“Ah, I beg everybody’s pardon!”
“You should beg Mr. Balcomb’s pardon. He contributed that to our evening’s enjoyment.”
“How nice of him! It seems to be intact. I suppose I may as well prepare it for circulation.”
“Mr. Balcomb’s feelings might be hurt if he came back,” suggested Zelda.
“He won’t come back; I’ll wager another box he won’t,” replied the officer, blandly, as he fumbled with the string. “Miss Dameron, permit me,—I’m sure they’re delicious. Chocolates, I fancy, from the bouquet,—and, Miss Merriam, you will not decline. Mr. Leighton, a little candy now and then is relished by the wisest men. I propose Mr. Balcomb’s health, to be eaten sitting and in silence.”
“It isn’t polite to treat the gift of a parting guest in that way,” protested Olive. “I’m surprised at you, Captain Pollock.”
“My manners are something execrable. I beg all your pardons. Now, as we have been refreshed through Mr. Balcomb’s generosity, I move that we take advantage of the fine night—the moon is just getting over the trees—to take a little walk up the highway. Please don’t say no!”
“The idea has merit,” affirmed Leighton, with cheerful alacrity.
“There are no Indians,” said Pollock, as the young women hesitated.
“If you’re sure,” said Zelda, “we’ll risk it.”
The girls gathered up their light wraps and they all set off down the driveway.
“If you will be good, Miss Dameron, you may feed one of Mr. Balcomb’s chocolates to my charger,” said Pollock, gravely.
“Unkind, most unkind! I’ll do nothing of the sort.”
When a man is in love, he becomes a master of harmless deceit and subterfuge. Morris Leighton had sought Zelda Dameron to-night with a great hope in his heart. He did not intend to miss a chance to talk to her alone, if he could help it. He had taken her wrap from her, and purposely dropped it; and he seemed to have difficulty in finding it, although it was a white thing that one could not miss in the moonlight, unless one were blind. But Zelda paused when they reached Pollock’s horse, which whinnied and put out its nose to her in a friendly way.
“He used to bite at me when I first knew him; but he’s getting quite friendly,” said Zelda; and she patted the animal’s pretty neck and bent and took the forefoot that he raised for a hand-shake. Leighton’s spirit sank at the suggestion of an apparent comradeship between Pollock and Zelda. She was on good terms with his horse even; and Morris Leighton had no horse! Army men always delighted women; a civilian really had little chance against a soldier. But Morris’s spirit rose as Pollock and Olive walked away together.
“It’s too bad that Mr. Balcomb hurried away so. He must be a busy man.”
“I suppose he is,” said Leighton.
“You and he are great friends, aren’t you?”
“We have been acquainted a long time,” replied Morris, guardedly.
“Oh!” murmured Zelda, in a note that carried contrition so deep that Leighton laughed.
“I didn’t mean what you thought I did. We were in college together; and there’s a tradition that college friendships are lasting ones. The fact is that Jack and I don’t see much of each other.”
As they reached the road, which lay white in the moonlight, Ezra Dameron came toward them, walking slowly, hat in hand, and the two watched him—his queer shuffling walk, his head bent, his gray hair touched with the silver of the moonlight.
“Won’t you come with us, father?” said Zelda, as they met in the road.
“No; no, thank you, Zee. I have had my little constitutional. Don’t go too far,—there may be malaria abroad.”
Leighton looked furtively at Zelda. She had greeted her father kindly, happily; but there was something repellent in Ezra Dameron. Leighton never felt it more than to-night. That such a girl should have a father so wretched seemed impossible; but the thought quickened his love for her. There was something fine in her conduct toward her father; her unfailing gentleness and patience with him had impressed Leighton from the time of her home-coming. She made a point of speaking of him often and always with respect. Leighton was well aware that no one else, with the single exception of Michael Carr, ever spoke of Ezra Dameron in anything but derision. Rodney Merriam never mentioned him at all, which was doubtless the safer way.
Farther along the road Pollock and Olive were tentatively singing a popular song of the hour.
“Sing it all,—don’t pick at it that way,” called Zelda.
“Sing it yourself, if you don’t like it,” came back the answer from Olive.
“There is only one song that I should care to hear to-night,” said Leighton, after a moment of silence.
“Only one,—when there are such worlds of songs? Nothing will do me but a symphony played out there in the corn-field,—hidden away so you couldn’t see the fiddles or the kettle-drum man.”
“That’s a large order. I should be content with less,—or more!”
“The one song,—what would you command?”
“It’s the only song that ever meant a great deal to me.”
“Oh, I know! One of Herr Schmidt’s from his great operatic triumph of last winter. Your taste is only fair, then.”
“It goes back a little farther than that. It’s Träume,—Tristan and Isolde, wasn’t it? Do you remember?”
“I have heard it sung, beautifully, in Berlin,” she said evasively.
“I never did. But I heard you sing it once, and it has haunted me.”
“Music sometimes has a way of doing that; but not Wagner usually. You must be one of his disciples. I wonder if I remember how that song goes.”
She ran over a few bars of it lightly.
“Is that the one?” she asked. “Yes; it is about dreams.”
“That is the one I meant. It is the most wonderful thing in the world!”
“I never thought very much about the words. The words of German songs are often very foolish.”
“After they’re translated. Which means that they oughtn’t to be translated. But I’ll admit that my German’s about all gone, except the words of this song.”
“Your hold on the language must be pretty slight then,”—and she laughed carelessly.
“My hold on everything is slight,—except for the song.”
“That’s very curious,” she said, in matter-of-fact tones, “if you never heard it but once. And it’s only about dreams anyhow!”
“Yes, it’s only about dreams—a dream; but it’s the sweetest dream in the world, it means—”
“A dream!” and she laughed again, but it was a mirthless little laugh.
He paused and looked out over the moonlit corn-field; his heart was beating fast. She felt for a moment that she must turn and fly from him; but he started forward again and she followed.
“It is more than a dream. I am building upon it as though it were a veritable rock.”
“A dream—to build the real upon? The architects of fate don’t like that plan, do they?”
“They have to like it,—for happy people are doing it every day, and a good many people escape calamity.”
“It hadn’t struck me so; there seem to be a good many unhappy people in the world.”
She spoke a little forlornly, and then, before he could take advantage of her tone, “But I suppose it’s unprofitable to discuss such things. And as your friend Mr. Balcomb says, ‘I have no kick coming.’ Slang is very expressive, isn’t it?”
“But we must hold to our dreams,” he said soberly.
“I suppose we must, even though they are things of air that only lead us astray. I didn’t think you were sentimental. I’m afraid I can’t sympathize exactly, for sentiment was left out of me utterly;” and she hated herself for the bravado with which she spoke.
“I can’t believe that! Every one has it. I’m a thoroughly practical person, and yet I have my dreams,—my dream!”
Olive and Pollock were singing again. They were far in advance and their voices stole softly upon the night.
Zelda stopped to listen. Her heart was in a tumult of happiness and wonder. The splendor of the moonlight upon the fields about them, the gloomy shadow of the woodland beyond, the man beside her hesitating, yet ready to tell her of his love. There stole across her spirit the tremulous awe of a girl to whom love has come for the first time as it can never come again.
Leighton drew close to her.
“Zelda,” he said, “Zelda!”
“No. Oh, no! You must not!” she cried.
“I love you, Zelda!” he said.
“No; you must not say it!” And there was a sob that caught her throat.
“You are the dream. It is too sweet; I can not lose it,—I must not.”
Olive and Pollock called to them ironically.
“Answer them, please,” she said, and Leighton spoke to them.
Zelda put her hand to her throat with a quick gesture, then dropped it.
“You have talked of dreams and love,” she said hurriedly, but with a lingering note of contempt on the last word that stung him as though she had struck him in the face.
“Dreams and love,” she repeated. “I wonder what love is!”
She laughed suddenly with a bitterness that he remembered for many a day.
“We’re coming,” she called, and hastened away toward her cousin and Pollock who waited, idling and trying their voices, and chaffing each other over their failure to carry a tune.
“We have gone far enough, Olive,” she said. “Let us go back now.”
They began retracing their steps, Zelda walking beside Pollock, to whom she talked with unusual vivacity. She did not speak to Leighton again until the two young men said good night at the veranda.
“What did you treat him that way for?” demanded Olive, facing Zelda in the hall as soon as the door closed.
“What are you talking about, ma petite cousine? The moon must have—”
“It wasn’t the moon! You said something unkind to Mr. Leighton. He walked back to the house with me without saying a word. You shouldn’t treat a man that way, even if you are my cousin,—a fine, splendid fellow like Morris Leighton!”
“You foolish, sentimental young thing, what on earth has got into you? Mr. Leighton talked to me about Wagner,—I think it was Wagner, and he didn’t interest me a bit. I’m going to bed.”
She went to her room and closed and locked the door. Then she drew back the curtains and looked out upon the night. Through an opening in the trees she saw Pollock and Leighton standing together in the highway outside the gate. Pollock had walked out leading his horse and he stood for greater ease in talking to Leighton. The men were clearly outlined, for it was as light as day. Suddenly they shook hands; then they lifted their hats to each other. Pollock mounted his horse and rode off rapidly countryward, and Leighton turned toward the interurban station.
It was Leighton’s solitary figure that Zelda’s eyes followed. She saw him pause just at the edge of a strip of woodland, glance toward the house, and then walk slowly away, while her eyes still rested on the spot where she had seen him last.
It was a sweet thing to know that Morris Leighton loved her. She had felt that it would come sometime; it was one of the inevitable things; and his reference to her singing, to the dream, had thrilled her with an exquisite delight. Any woman might be proud of a love like his; yet she had treated it lightly, almost insolently; and a good woman might not lightly thrust aside the love of a good man!
She was still gazing with unseeing eyes upon the moonlit world when Olive came to the door, tried it and found it locked.
“Wait a minute!” called Zelda, and she crossed the room and opened the door.
“Please, Cousin Zee, I came to beg forgiveness. I didn’t mean to scold you,—about anything!”
Zelda drew her in, and put her arms about her.
“There’s no one as fine and dear as you in all the world, Olive. I’m sorry I spoke to you as I did. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything. And I was wrong! I am always wrong; I’m made wrong, that’s what’s the matter with me!”
And her dark eyes peered pitifully into Olive’s blue ones.
“Please don’t think I would meddle in your affairs, Zee. I was just sorry for Mr. Leighton, that’s all. He’s so fine and strong and good,—and he seemed so dejected, or I thought he did.”
“Oh, it’s the goodness; it’s the goodness that I hate!” cried Zelda. “Please go,—I don’t know what I mean,” and she thrust Olive into the hall and closed the door.