Why should a heart have been there, In the way of a fair woman's foot?
E. B. Browning.
The house was asleep. The white corridor was filled with blue reflections of the sky, from the French window open at its north end; but the blind of the south window opposite glowed golden, and streaks of sunlight slipped in, slanting up the wall. The house was asleep, every one was asleep except the sun, who had just risen to his beneficent work, rejoicing as a giant to run his course. Denis's kitten (he had saved her from some boys who wanted to drown her in the river) poked her small black inquiring nose round the glass door, and scampered in to play with the vine-leaf shadows dancing on the wall. She patted them with velvet paw, crouched with tail lashing for a spring, reared up and fell over sideways and scuffled round and round on her back, clawing and biting her own tail.
 
There Gardiner saw her when he too came in from the balcony, walking in his socks and carrying his wading boots. He scooped her up in one hand and bore her down the corridor to Denis's room. No one answering his tap, he walked in. A small white chamber, facing west; the curtain drawn back from the open lattice, and Denis lying asleep beneath. Everything about him was sternly neat. His clothes were folded on a chair, his boots stood side by side, his Bible and Prayer Book lay on the window-ledge at the bed's head. The wind had blown back the cover, and Gardiner stooped to read the inscription. "Denis Arthur Merion-Smith, from his Affectionate Father, March 4,[Pg 51] 1897"—the date of his confirmation. Underneath, the reference 1 Tim. v. 22. Gardiner with unscrupulous curiosity turned the pages till he found the verse, underscored: "Keep thyself pure." He stood looking at his friend's unconscious face with something of envy. He was never in doubt as to the relative worth of himself and Denis.
 
"Mrrreow!" said the kitten, suddenly biting and kicking in earnest. Gardiner dropped her on the sleeper, and laughed to see his violent start.
 
"Come on fishing, lazy brute!"
 
"What, now?" asked Denis, rubbing his eyes and soothing the kitten at the same time.
 
"Yes, now, pronto, this instant. I've wasted the prime of the morning already, because I knew I shouldn't be able to drag you out of your bed before."
 
"All right, I'm on," said Denis with disarming amiability. Gardiner left him feeding the kitten with biscuits, and went down to his larders, which he knew as well as any careful housewife. He secured some of yesterday's croissants, butter in a china pot, sliced ham, half-a-dozen shrimp patties, a pocketful of pears; he boiled up coffee on an electric stove to fill his flask, and was ready to join Denis in the courtyard.
 
Just after four: the morning blue and gold and breathless still. They came into the road which runs embanked along the heights of Rochehaut, and paused at the parapet. Deep the cleft of the valley, rich in forests, dropping sheer to the river—and what a river! The Semois, on a map, looks like a dislocated corkscrew; she twists and she turns, tying herself into S's and W's, running impartially north, south, east, and west among her maze of hills. Here at the foot of the cliffs of Rochehaut she sweeps a long loop at the beholder, inclosing in her slender silver arms a long, long narrow peninsula of hills which swell up to end in a rounded baby mountain immediately below. This is Frahan. The ends of the loop run far away out of sight among the hills, incurving so that you would swear they must meet somewhere in the chaos of dim peaks on the horizon. The sun from behind the watchers was faintly gilding the velvety[Pg 52] gray-green crest of the peninsula, and the tiny church of Frahan, on its flank, gleamed like an ivory toy; but the river cleft was still deep in hyacinthine shadows, veiled in the gauzes of the mists, drenched with the gray-silver of the dews.
 
The fishermen found a winding path which led them to the river, and turned down-stream, fishing and wading. Of all the lovely daughters of the Meuse the Semois is the loveliest. The Lesse, issuing cold and mysterious from the caverns of Han, has been insulted by a railway; the Amblève is gloomy with dark bowlders and wild monotonous hills; the turbulent Ourthe, beautiful among the mountains in the ravine of Sy, is elsewhere spoilt by quarries and by tourists. But the Semois is never gloomy; she seems to hold the sunshine in her golden sands. You may follow her wrigglings for a whole morning and see no road, no tilth, no sign of human handiwork save the very primitive cart track which conducts you impartially beside the water and through it.
 
A slab of rock, embedded in the turf, served as their breakfast-table. A wall of limestone rose behind, graced with ferns and mosses and the delicate carmine leaflets of the wild geranium. Fallen bowlders shelved half across the stream, which surged round them in a ruff, or slid past like thin crystal. What richness of color everywhere! They could see the river dancing towards them down the green and smiling valley, bluer than the sky, a-sparkle with diamonds, beset with flowers—forget-me-nots, the tender lilac crocus of the autumn, yellow lilies on a pool where the Semois condescended for a moment to lie still. The woods were green as sycamores in May. A kingfisher swept by, tropically brilliant. On the purple mint at the water's edge a great butterfly sat poised, pivoting round the flower-head, stiffly opening and closing its gorgeous, downy wings of scarlet, black, and white.
 
"Talk to me of your beastly England!" said Gardiner, flat on his back in the grass. "A man can breathe here. Look at those trees—none of your spindly copses with the sky showing through on the other side, but good solid cut-and-come-again [Pg 53]forest, for leagues on end! I could say my prayers to a forest."
 
"It's good fishin'," said Denis, more intent on his catch than on the scenery. The Ourthe may brag of its salmon, but the Semois has noble trout. "Better than it was at Grasmere."
 
"Oh, Grasmere...."
 
Gardiner's face was not expressive, but his voice told Denis that he was back among scenes which by common consent they had not mentioned before, and which Denis had no wish ever to mention again. He saw what he had brought on himself, and blessed his blundering tongue. Sure enough, after some pause the younger man asked:
 
"Did you ever hear any more of Mrs. Trent after I left?"
 
"A little, from Scott," Denis unwillingly admitted.
 
"From Scott? Did he write to you, then?"
 
"No, I saw him."
 
"Where? In town?"
 
"At Westby."
 
"You saw Scott at Westby?"
 
"I spent a week-end with him there last November," said Denis stiffly. "He asked me when we were at Easedale. He's a nice little chap. I like him."
 
"Well, I'm hanged!" said Gardiner, settling back his head, which he had lifted to stare at his friend. "You talk too much about your own affairs, Denis, that's what's the matter with you. Go on. What did he tell you about Mrs. Trent?"
 
"He said she'd not made at all a good recovery; after leavin' Easedale she'd to go to a nursing home in town, and from there she sent him down a cross and candlesticks for the prison chapel. Scott was quite set up about it, he's a ritualistic little chap; and I suppose they were handsome enough if you like such things, I don't—"
 
"My good Denis, what have I to do with crosses and candlesticks? Did he say she said anything about me?"
 
"He did," said Denis, more unwillingly than ever. "He said she asked for your address."
 
[Pg 54]
 
"Oh, confound—! Did he give it?"
 
"He had to. He said it was no use refusin', as she'd easily have got it out of any one else."
 
"He said that, did he? Confound him too! I seem to have left several loose ends over this affair. Was that all he told you?"
 
"Yes. After she wrote with the things he heard no more."
 
"I wonder why she wanted my address," said Gardiner, frowning. "Well, I suppose it must be all right—after all this time."
 
He pulled at his pipe in silence. Happening to glance at Denis, he surprised that look of distaste and repugnance which he had never seen on his friend's face before Easedale. Gardiner was not fond of owning himself in the wrong; few men are, and he less than most. But he spoke out now on impulse.
 
"Look here, Denis, I know very well I ought to have owned up. I knew it at the time, but I was too beastly scared!—and that's the plain truth. It was the idea of prison; for the moment it knocked all the stuffing out of me—you needn't think I admire myself. And to drag you into it as well—oh, it was a rotten business!"
 
"You didn't drag me, I dragged myself," said Denis quickly. "If anybiddy was to blame, it was I."
 
"You! You'll be telling me you killed him next. No, it's my own funeral—and I've been such a concentrated ass over it, that's what gets me! If I'd told the truth at once, there would have been practically no bother, I'm certain of it. I could have done it then; afterwards, at the inquest, when I wanted to, it was too late. I couldn't tell the tale without its point; and I couldn't tell that particular point when that unhappy little thing had lost both her husband and her kid. No, I don't consider myself to shine in this affair, either in morals or intelligence."
 
"It was I began it," said Denis obstinately.
 
Gardiner shrugged his shoulders; what was the use of contradiction? Denis was mending a fly; and by the happy[Pg 55] clearing of his face it was plain that he was also busy mending his ideal and setting it back on its pedestal with an added glory. There is no surer way of earning a man's esteem than by begging his pardon. All Gardiner's faults were hidden under this new coat of gilding. "You're an incurable idealist, my good Denis," he said to himself, watching the process of rehabilitation. "You idealize me on the one hand, and that inoffensive but very ordinary little cousin of yours on the other. Lord send you never find us out, for you'll break your knees badly when you do!" The undeserved good opinion of a friend makes a thorny bed. Yet, though Gardiner did not see it, he was moving towards the fulfillment of his friend's conception of his character. That is the worst of idealists—they shame us into acting up to their ideas!
 
Denis was a devout fisherman. As soon as he had finished the fly he started off again, wading round the bend out of sight. Gardiner, who fished only because any sport was better than none, stayed where he was. Minutes passed. He was nearly asleep when some one hailed him. At first he thought it was Denis, and took no notice; but the voice becoming insistent, he opened one eye, and immediately sprang up. It was Miss O'Connor, on the other side of the river.
 
She made a trumpet of her hands and shouted some question, but the Semois drowned her words. Gardiner was wearing the orthodox Ardennes waders, which begin as boots and continue as shiny waterproof breeches right up to the waist, so it was nothing for him to splash across to the farther shore. (It may be mentioned that Denis stuck obstinately to his English boots, which came scarcely higher than his knee; with the result that he got very wet, for the Semois came considerably higher than his knee.)
 
Dorothea was wearing a short tweed skirt with leather buttons; square-toed, solid brown brogues; a white shirt, a tan belt, and a brown tie to match. She was hatless, and her hair, smooth, parted, and rippling over her ears, was glossy as a Frenchwoman's. Her face, which had lost its[Pg 56] fragility, was softly, evenly brown; her lips, a veritable cupid's bow, were cherry-red. They were drawn straight as she looked at Gardiner, and her manner was distant.
 
"I took you for a woodcutter, or I should not have disturbed you," she said. "I wished to ask if there is a way back along the river."
 
"Well, there is," said Gardiner, looking down at the ruts under their feet, "and you're on it. If you follow this track, it will bring you straight to Rochehaut."
 
"But it goes through the water."
 
"It does."
 
"Must I go through the water, then?"
 
"Unless you like to make a bee-line up through the forest to Botassart. It's nearly perpendicular, and miles out of your way."
 
"Very inconvenient," said Dorothea displeasedly. "Why isn't there a ferry?"
 
"Well, you see this track isn't much used, except by the timber wagons. It won't be above your knees, if you'll allow me to show you the way; this is a regular ford. But perhaps you'd rather I retired round the bend?"
 
"That will not be necessary," she said, more frigidly than ever, and without more ado went behind a bush to take off her shoes and stockings. Gardiner thought her very pretty and rather ridiculous, and wondered if he were called on to see her home. He decided that he was not. It occurred to him that by all the laws of romance he ought to carry her across; but he decided again that nature had not cut him out for the part. No true hero should be half-an-inch shorter than the heroine; and certainly none has ever been known to drop a lady in the middle of a river.
 
Dorothea appeared barefoot, and motioned him imperiously to lead the way. They stepped into the clear, shallow water, scattering a cloud of tiny fishes. As they advanced, Dorothea's skirts bunched up higher and higher. If Gardiner had not kept his eyes delicately averted, he might have had a glimpse, and more than a glimpse, of certain tweed garments that were not a part of her skirt. The[Pg 57] Semois, though shallow, is very swift. Midway across the golden pebbles were succeeded by slabs of gray-green rock, tressed with weed. Gardiner heard a small exclamation, and turned just in time to save his companion from measuring her length in the river. His arm went round the slim figure, so soft and pliant, with no more sentiment than if it had been a boy. But she—her color flamed as she was thrown against him; she dropped her skirts and clutched his arm to push him away.
 
"Steady!" said Gardiner, "or you'll have us both over. These stones are as slippery as glass."
 
"I—trod on something sharp," said Dorothea in a strangled voice. She stood there with her skirts in the water, still holding him off with both hands.
 
"Hurt yourself?"
 
She shook her head.
 
"Sure? Will you take my arm for a bit?" said Gardiner, puzzled by her unaccountable emotion.
 
She shook her head again, and stumbled after him to the shore. There she sat down on the stone which had been their table, to put on her shoes and stockings while he collected his possessions. He gave her plenty of time, as he thought, yet when he turned she was still sitting there, with one foot bare on the grass. Across the instep, blanched alabaster white by the water, ran a crimson gash.
 
"Hullo! you have damaged yourself," said Gardiner. "You ought to have something between that and the stocking, if you'll allow me to say so. Got a handkerchief?"
 
"I've lost it," she said without looking up.
 
"Have mine, then." He held it out; she made no movement. "May I do it for you?"
 
After a brief incomprehensible hesitation, she murmured: "Please." More and more puzzled, Gardiner knelt down and took her foot in his hand. It was a bad cut, but not very bad; some women would have made nothing of it; he was glad she belonged to the more feminine type. He washed away the gravel and fixed a neat bandage, Dorothea sitting passive. But he could feel that she was conscious[Pg 58] of him; and he became acutely conscious of her. When it was done, she murmured something which might have been supposed to be thanks, slipped half her foot into her shoe and stood up.
 
"You'll never get home at that rate. Let me help you," said Gardiner, watching her attempt to shuffle along.
 
"I—I think I can manage. Is it far?"
 
"Twenty minutes' walk, and shocking bad going."
 
"I shall be taking you out of your way."
 
"Not a bit of it. It's time I got back too."
 
"But your friend—I saw him fishing up the stream."
 
"Oh, he's old enough to play by himself," said Gardiner easily, his keenness growing in proportion to her reluctance. (It may be said that Denis, when he returned, spent half-an-hour hunting for his friend before he decided to follow him home. Thus does Love elbow Friendship out of the way.) "Don't you want me to help you?" he added bluntly. "Do you object to me personally? Shall I cut on home and send your maid?"
 
"Oh, no, no," said Dorothea hurriedly, and thereupon took his arm. Gardiner had what he wanted, and a little more; heavens! what was the matter with the girl? She was shaking all over, an electric battery of emotion; the strong current of her trouble and indecision thrilled him in every nerve. More than that, he was left in no doubt that he himself was the cause of her agitation.
 
There was nothing of the ascetic in Gardiner; he was warm-blooded and inflammable, as he had already found to his cost. Since he could not get away from his temperament, he got round it, by avoiding women, and by keeping any necessary intercourse free from the first beginnings of sentiment. As his will was stronger than his passions, except when they got out of hand and were running away, this plan had worked well. But he could not avoid Dorothea; and when she slipped her hand through his arm she undid the work of years, and stirred ashes into flame. Passion, unlike love, is a sudden growth, and it was passion he felt: that inexplicable force which draws men and women [Pg 59]together, often in defiance of every natural taste and sentiment. The situation was alluring. Dorothea was not merely a pretty girl, she was a personage, as she had very soon made known in the hotel; a star far away in the sky above Gardiner's head. Yet the touch of his hand set her shaking like a reed. Gardiner was not coxcomb enough to imagine that she had fallen in love with his fine eyes; but he was prepared to stake his soul that for some undiscoverable reason she was half afraid of him. What man could resist that lure?
 
It was not a long journey to the Bellevue, but it was eventful; for things move fast in the campaigns of the heart. Gardiner did not capitulate without a struggle. "You ass, you don't want an affair of this sort on your hands, particularly not with one of your own boarders," he told himself. "You preposterous ass, go slow!" And paid as much heed as men in such circumstances usually do to their own wisdom. "I can resist everything except temptation"—the phrase flitted ruefully through his mind. He was trying hard to convince himself that Dorothea's tremors were not necessarily flattering, when they came out of the woods into the road, in view of the hotel.
 
Dorothea stood still.
 
"I—I think I'd rather manage the rest alone, if you don't mind."
 
Gardiner started, dropped her arm, stepped back out of sight among the trees.
 
"Of course. You naturally would. I ought to have understood before."
 
"Oh, I didn't mean that!"
 
"Oh, I think you did. It would hardly do, would it?"
 
"Oh, no, no, no!" cried Dorothea. She hesitated; he could see her visibly struggling with herself; then she raised her head. Whatever quinine of common-sense he might administer to himself, there was no possibility of mistaking the expression in those pansy-brown eyes. She might have wavered before; she had made up her mind now.
 
"I didn't mean that," she said. "I never thought of such[Pg 60] a thing. It was only that—that—people do talk, if they see things—and suppose you asked me to go for a walk with you again—"
 
"Do you mean that if I did, you would?"
 
He got no answer. Lettice had just come out to the gates of the hotel to taste the morning sun, with the kitten squirming on her shoulder; and at sight of her Miss O'Connor ran away.