"You're having a chill," he said. "I wish you would take my coat. You don't want to get sick."

She shook her head and chattered, "No, no."

"Then you'd better get out and walk up and down this bridge awhile.

There's not even a lap-robe here."

"I should like to walk, I think."

She stepped out, aided by his hand, a strong hand, and warm about her icy fingers. Her knees were weak, and he set her elbow in the hollow of his arm and guided her. They walked like the blind leading the blind through a sea of pitch. The only glimmer was the little scratches of light pinked in the dead sky by a few stars.

"'It's beautiful overhead, if you're going that way,'" Davidge quoted.

He set out briskly, but Marie Louise hung back timidly.

"Not so fast! I can't see a thing."

"That's the best time to keep moving."

"But aren't you afraid to push on when you can't see where you're going?" she demanded.

"Who can ever tell where he's going? The sunlight is no guaranty.

We're all bats in the daytime and not cats at night. The main thing is to sail on and on and on."

She caught a little of his recklessness--suffered him to hurry her to and fro through the inky air till she was panting for breath and tired. Then they groped to the rail and peered vainly down at the brook, which, like an unbroken child, was heard and not seen. They leaned their elbows on the rail and stared into the m.u.f.fling gloom.

"I think I'll have another of your cigarettes," he said.

"So will I," said she.

There was a cozy fireside moment as they took their lights from the same match. When he threw the match overboard he said:

"Like a human life, eh? A little spark between dark and dark."

He was surprised at stumbling into rhyme, and apologized. But she said:

"Do you know, I rather like that. It reminds me of a poem about a rain-storm--Russell Lowell's, I fancy; it told of a flock of sheep scampering down a dusty road and clattering across a bridge and back to the dust again. He said it was like human life, 'a little noise between two silences.'"

"H'm!" was the best Davidge could do. But the agony of the brevity of existence seized them both by the hearts, and their hearts throbbed and bled like birds crushed in the claws of hawks. Their hearts had such capabilities of joy, such songs in them, such love and longing, such delight in beauty--and beauty was so beautiful, so frequent, so thrilling! Yet they could spend but a glance, a sigh, a regret, a grat.i.tude, and then their eyes were out, their ears still, their lips cold, their hearts dust. The ache of it was beyond bearing.

"Let's walk. I'm cold again," she whispered.

He felt that she needed the sense of hurry, and he went so fast that she had to run to keep up with him. There seemed to be some comfort in the privilege of motion for its own sake; motion was life; motion was G.o.dhood; motion was escape from the run-down clock of death.

Back and forth they kept their promenade, till her body refused to answer the whips of restlessness. Her brain began to shut up shop. It would do no more thinking this night.

She stumbled toward the taxicab. Davidge lifted her in, and she sank down, completely done. She fell asleep.

Davidge took his place in the cab and wondered lazily at the quaint adventure. He was only slightly concerned with wondering at the cause of her uneasiness. He was used to minding his own business.

She slept so well that when the groping search-light of a coming automobile began to slash the night and the rubber wheels boomed across the bridge she did not waken. If the taxi-driver heard its sound, he preferred to pretend not to. The pa.s.sengers in the pa.s.sing car must have been surprised, but they took their wonderment with them. We so often imagine mischief when there is innocence and _vice versa_; for opportunity is just as likely to create distaste as interest and the lack of it to instigate enterprise.

Davidge drowsed and smiled contentedly in the dark and did not know that he was not awake until at some later time he was half aroused by the meteoric glow and whiz of another automobile. It had gone before he was quite awake, and he sank back into sleep.

Before he knew it, many black hours had slid by and daylight was come; the rosy fingers of light were moving about, recreating the world to vision, sketching a landscape hazily on a black canvas, then stippling in the colors, and finishing, swiftly but gradually, the details to an inconceivable minuteness of definition, giving each leaf its own sharp contour and every rock its every facet. From the brook below a mistlike cigarette smoke exhaled. The sky was crimson, then pink, then amber, then blue.

Birds began to twitter, to fashion little crystal stanzas, and to hurl themselves about the valley as if catapults propelled them. One songster perched on the iron rail of the bridge and practised a vocal lesson, c.o.c.king his head from side to side and seeming to approve his own skill.

A furred caterpillar resumed his march across the Appian Way, making of each crack between boards a great abyss to be bridged cautiously with his own body. The day's work was begun, while Davidge drowsed and smiled contentedly at the side of the strange, sleeping woman as if they had been married for years.

CHAPTER IV

The sky was filled with morning when a noise startled Davidge out of nullity. He was amazed to find a strange woman asleep at his elbow. He remembered her suddenly.

With a clatter of wheels and cans and hoofs a milkman's wagon and team came out of the hills. Davidge stepped down from the car and stopped the loud-voiced, wide-mouthed driver with a gesture. He spoke in a low voice which the milkman did not copy. The taxi-driver woke to the extent of one eye and a horrible yawn, while Davidge explained his plight.

"Gasolene gave out, hey?" said the milkman.

"It certainly did," said Davidge, "and I'd be very much obliged if you'd get me some more."

"Wa-all, I'm purty busy."

"I'll pay you anything you ask."

The milkman was modest in his ambitions.

"How'd two dollars strike ye?"

"Five would be better if you hurried."

This looked suspicious, but the milkman consented.

"Wa-all, all right, but what would I fetch the gasolene in?"

"One of your milk-cans."

"They're all fuller melk."

"I'll buy one, milk and all."

"Wa-all, I reckon I'll hev to oblige you."

"Here's five dollars on account. There'll be five more when you get back."

"Wa-all, all ri-ight. Get along there, Jawn Henry."