"Yes?"

Dorothy turned away from the river and looked at him a trifle reproachfully. "You must be awfully fond of those people," she said, trying to smile.

Wooton shrugged his shoulders carelessly.

"No," he replied, "I can't say that exactly. But Mrs. Tremont really insisted on my going; she said she had never been there before, and thought that as I knew the ropes of the place, it would be a small thing for me to play pilot for them for a while. What was I to do?" He looked at Dorothy appealingly.

Mrs. Ware was pushing a stray wisp of hair from her cheek.

"In Boston, Dorothy," she said, "I guess Mrs. Tremont is quite a society leader." She said it as if that was an a.s.sertion of crushing significance, intended to quiet any possible questionings as to why any young man should think it necessary to comply with the wishes of so great a personage.

"What if she is?" was Dorothy's quick reply; "that doesn't make her any better, does it? I don't see how you can go around with them so much, that's all, Mr. Wooton."

"Oh," he laughed, "I a.s.sure you I don't like them so very much myself; but I don't dislike them. And I hate to offend people. They asked me to go!"

They drank their coffee, and watched the twilight settling down. They talked lightly, and laughed a good deal.

"Miss Ware," Wooton asked presently, "you've never been down to Schandau, have you?"

"No. Is it worth while?"

"Immensely! You ought to make the trip."

"Oh, I simply can't begin to get mamma to move from this town. She's perfectly enchanted with it, somehow." She looked at her mother, and patted her on the arm. Mrs. Ware said nothing, only smiled back at her daughter, who went on, "but I'd like it mightily."

"I wish you'd let me show you the place," Wooton persevered. He looked over at Mrs. Ware in a hesitating way. "Perhaps--if Mrs. Ware would rather not stir from the hotel--there would be no objection to Miss Ware making the trip with me? The place is really pretty; the royal residence there is one of the sights. It's only half an hour or so by the steamer.

You'd hardly notice our absence; I think she'd enjoy it." He wondered a little whether they would look at him in frigid horror, or take it as a proposition quite in accord with the conventions they were accustomed to. He knew perfectly well that most of the people he knew in the East would have considered him insane if he had ventured such a proposal; but, in regard to these people, and this girl in particular, he remembered that a friend of his had once used a phrase that had struck him at the time as rather good, and that was, perhaps, applicable. The man had declared, half in a spirit of banter, half in chivalrous defense, that the girl of the West paraphrased the old motto to read: "_Sans peur, sans reproche et sans chaperon_."

To his relief, Mrs. Ware's answer was merely a smile at her daughter, and a "You'll have to see what Dorothy thinks about it, I guess. It's her picnic. If she wares to go--." She left the sentence unfinished, as if to convey the impression that under the circ.u.mstances mentioned her own preference would be allowed lapse.

"I think," said Dorothy, with a little clasping together of her hands, "that it would be simply delightful! You wouldn't worry, would you, mamma? There are always so many waiters around and--dear, dear, I talk just as if we were going this very minute!" She looked gratefully at Wooton. Somehow or other, he felt himself blushing. He caught himself regretting the fact that he was no longer as genuine as this girl was.

"I think it's simply perfect of you to ask me," she went on, "I'm sure I'll enjoy it ever so much."

"Then," he said, airily, "we'll consider that settled. It's very good of you to say you'll go, I'm sure. Suppose we say Wednesday?"

CHAPTER VIII

It was certainly a sunny enough day, and the Elbe glistened invitingly.

Wooton had been up earlier than was usual for him and had taken a walk out into the level country; when he came into the hallway of the Bellevue he was in the best of spirits. Miss Ware came down the stairway, presently, her parasol in rest over her left arm, and her gloves still in process of being b.u.t.toned. She smiled down at him radiantly.

"I haven't kept you waiting, have I?" she cried.

"Not a moment," he answered, adding, with a smile, "strange to say. You young ladies usually do! But--do you notice how kind the clerk of the weather is?"

"Delightful!" They went slowly down toward the wharf where the little steamer was puffing lazily in the rising heat.

"Your mother is well?" He asked the I question as solicitously as if he were the family physician.

"Quite well. The fact is," she added with a comic effort to seem melancholy, "I'm afraid she'll be so well soon that she'll want to go back to the States."

"Ah, so you don't want to go just yet?"

"Oh, I haven't half seen it all, you know! Still,--" she sighed gently and looked out beyond the real horizon, "it will be nice to be home again."

Wooton brought a couple of steamer chairs and placed them on the deck-s.p.a.ce that was well in the shadow of the awning. The sun was beginning to grow almost unpleasantly strong. Presently, with a minute or so of wriggling away from the wharf, of backing and sidling, the little steamer got proper headway and proceeded slowly on its way up the river. The central portion of the town was soon pa.s.sed; green garden-s.p.a.ces, and houses shut in by cherry-trees, gave way to low-lying meadows and hills rising up in the distance. The perpetual "shug-shug-shug" of the engines, and the hushed whispering of the river as the steamer bows cut through the water were almost the only sounds that broke the quiet. There was not a cloud in the sky. Swallows darted arrow-like through the air.

Wooton had pushed his hat back from his forehead and sat with half-closed eyes. He was silent. Miss Ware, looking at him shyly, wondered what he was thinking about; told herself once more that he was the handsomest man she had ever seen, and then sent her clear gaze riverward again. What Wooton was thinking at that moment was that he would give many things if in his spirit there were still that simplicity that would ask of life no more feverish pleasures than those he was now enjoying--the pleasures of peace and quiet. To be able to sit thus, with half-closed eyes, as it were, and let the wind of the world always blow merely a gentle breath across one's face!--perhaps, after all, that was the road to happiness. On the other hand, the thousand and one experiences; missed, the opportunities wasted! Surely it was impossible to appreciate the sweets of good had one not first tasted of the fruit of knowledge of evil! But supposing one so got the taste of the bitter apple into one's mouth that thereafter all things tasted bitter and the good, especially, created only nausea? For that was his own state. Well, in that case--he smiled to himself in his silence--there was nothing to be done but enjoy, enjoy to think of the once easily reached contentment as of a dream that is dead, and to strive so ceaselessly to blow the embers of the fires of pleasure that they would at least keep smouldering until all the vessel was ashes. The pleasures of the moment--those were the things to seize! The moment was the thing to enjoy; the morrow might not come.

He turned to look at the girl beside him, who had by this time resigned herself with something of quiet amus.e.m.e.nt to his silence, and now sat, veilless, her lips slightly open to the breeze, her face unspeakably fair-seeming with its rosy flush and its look of eager, expectant enjoyment. He told himself that, as far as this moment at least went, it left little to be desired; to sit beside so sweety a girl as Dorothy Ware was surely pleasure enough. And then he thought somewhat grimly that he himself was, unfortunately, impregnable to the infection of such simple joys.

"A penny!" he spoke softly, as if not to wake her too brusquely from a reverie.

"Oh," she cried, with a little start, and, turning toward him, "they are not worth so much, really! I was thinking of Mr. Lancaster. He used to be so terribly ambitious; you know. Didn't you say you knew of him, in town?"

Wooton realized that he must needs be diplomatic. He called it diplomacy; some persons might have rudely termed it mendacity. The two are commonly confounded.

"Yes," he replied, "some artists that I knew used to mention his name occasionally." He paused an instant or two and then continued, impa.s.sively, "I seem to remember hearing someone say that he was engaged to some very rich girl."

Dorothy Ware smiled sadly. "I supposed he would be," she said, simply.

She felt angry at herself for not feeling the news more deeply; yet it hardly seemed to touch her at all; it was just as if she had heard that one of her girl friends had married. She recalled d.i.c.k's impa.s.sioned, if soberly worded, farewell; she remembered her own words; she wondered how it was possible that the pa.s.sing months could have changed her so that now she seemed almost indifferent as to young Lancaster's fortunes or misfortunes.

Wooton's exclamation of "Ah, there's Schandau!" broke in upon the train of her self-questioning thoughts. They walked over to the rail of the boat together, and looked out to where the roofs of summer-villas and hotels came peeping through the wooded banks of the river. As they stood thus she felt his right hand just touching her own left. Somehow, the blood came rushing into her face, and she took her hand away under pretense of fastening up her veil.

From the landing-stage they walked up to one of the hotels, where Wooton ordered a light repast. Miss Ware was in excellent spirits. The beauty of the day and the picturesqueness of the place, with its cozy villas tucked away against the hillside, its leafy lanes and its mountain shadows, filled her with the elixir of happiness. She chatted and laughed incessantly. She asked Wooton if they couldn't go for a walk into the woods. Walk, of course! No, she didn't want to drive; that was too much like poking along the boulevards at home in the States. She wanted to stroll up little foot-paths, into the heart of the wood, and gather flowers, and have the birds whistle to her! Didn't he remember that she was a country girl? She hadn't been in a real wood since she left Lincolnville, and did he suppose she was going to enjoy this one by halves?

They walked out along the white, dusty _chaussee_ until it reached the denser part of the hill-forest; then they struck off into a by-path. In the shadow of the pines it was cool and refreshing; the scent of pines filled the air. In the thick undergrowth there were occasional clumps of blue-berries. Dorothy Ware picked them eagerly, laughing carelessly when she stained her gloves with the juice. She plucked flowers in abundance, and had Wooton carry them. They strayed heedlessly into the forest, hardly noting whether they followed the path or not. They found themselves, presently, in the lee of a huge rock that some long-silent volcanic upheaval must once have thrust through the earth's sh.e.l.l. Close to the earth this rock was narrower than at its summit; under its sloping base there was a cavity all covered with moss. Overhead the pines shut out the sky.

A trifle tired with her walk, Miss Ware hailed the sight of this spot with unfeigned gladness. Wooton spread his top-coat for her. Sitting there, in the silence made voiceful by the rustling of the pines, Wooton felt his heart beat faster than it had in years. She was pretty, this girl; her voice was so caressing, and her presence and manner such a charm! Young enough, too, to be taught many things. He watched her, as she sat there, binding the flowers with the stems of long gra.s.ses, stray curls playing about her cheeks, and her mouth snowing the slight down on the upper lip, and, for an instant, there came to him a feeling of pity.

It is possible, perhaps, that the serpent occasionally pauses to admire the pigeon's plumage.

"I wonder," he began, softly, "whether you know Hugh McCulloch's 'Scent o' Pines'? No? I think you will like it:

"Love shall I liken thee unto the rose That is so sweet?

Nay, since for a single day she grows, Then scattered lies upon the garden-rows Beneath our feet.

"But to the perfume shed when forests nod, When noonday shines; That lulls us as we tread the wood-land sod, Eternal as the eternal peace of G.o.d-- The scent of pines."

He quoted the verses musically. He gave the words all the sincerity that never found its way into his actions. He was one of those men who read a thing better than the man that wrote it, because they know better the art of simulating an emotion that he knows only how to feel.

"A pretty idea," she admitted. They talked on ramblingly, lightly.

Overhead the sun was sinking into the west. A wind had sprung up from the southwest, and in the north-west banks of clouds had gathered, thick and threatening. Occasional flashes of lightning darted across the cloud-s.p.a.ce. A thunderstorm was evidently approaching, proceeding stubbornly against the wind. The sun dipped behind the clouds, that rose higher, presently over-casting all the heavens. Light gusts of wind went puffing through the forest, scattering leaves and whirling twigs.

Suddenly, with a crash and a roar, the mountain storm broke over the forest. Almost on the stroke of the first flash of lightning came the thunder; then as if the clouds had been bulls charging in the arena, the furious concussion was followed by the gush of the blood of heaven. The rain came down in lances that struck the earth and bounded up again.

About the heads of the pines the wind roared and wailed.