"Oh, just improvising," Cora tossed off, carelessly, with a deprecatory ripple of laughter. "It's purely with the mood, you see. I can't make myself do things. No; I fancy I shall not play again today."

There was a moment's silence.

"Shan't I fasten that in your b.u.t.tonhole for you," said Cora.

"You see how patiently I've been awaiting the offer!"

There was another little silence; and the listener was able to construct a picture (possibly in part from an active memory) of Cora's delicate hands uplifted to the gentleman's lapel and Cora's eyes for a moment likewise uplifted.

"Yes, one has moods," she said, dreamily. "I am _all_ moods. I think you are too, Mr. Corliss. You _look_ moody. Aren't you?"

A horrible grin might have been seen to disfigure the shadow in the corner just within the doorway.

CHAPTER THREE

It was cooler outdoors, after dinner, in the dusk of that evening; nevertheless three members of the Madison family denied themselves the breeze, and, as by a tacitly recognized and habitual house-rule, so disposed themselves as to afford the most agreeable isolation for the younger daughter and the guest, who occupied wicker chairs upon the porch. The mother and father sat beneath a hot, gas droplight in the small "library"; Mrs. Madison with an evening newspaper, her husband with "King Solomon's Mines"; and Laura, after crisply declining an urgent request from Hedrick to play, had disappeared upstairs. The inimical lad alone was inspired for the ungrateful role of duenna.

He sat upon the topmost of the porch steps with the air of being permanently implanted; leaning forward, elbows on knees, cheeks on palms, in a treacherous affectation of profound reverie; and his back (all of him that was plainly visible in the hall light) tauntingly close to a delicate foot which would, G.o.d wot!

willingly have launched him into the darkness beyond. It was his dreadful pleasure to understand wholly the itching of that shapely silk and satin foot.

The gas-light from the hall laid a broad orange path to the steps--Cora and her companion sat just beyond it, his whiteness gray, and she a pale ethereality in the shadow. She wore an evening gown that revealed a vague lilac through white, and shimmered upon her like a vapour. She was very quiet; and there was a wan sweetness about her, an exhalation of wistfulness. Cora, in the evening, was more like a rose than ever. She was fragrant in the dusk. The spell she cast was an Undine's: it was not to be thought so exquisite a thing as she could last. And who may know how she managed to say what she did in the silence and darkness?

For it was said--without words, without touch, even without a look--as plainly as if she had spoken or written the message: "If I am a rose, I am one to be worn and borne away. Are you the man?"

With the fall of night, the street they faced had become still, save for an infrequent squawk of irritation on the part of one of the pa.s.sing automobiles, gadding for the most part silently, like fireflies. But after a time a strolling trio of negroes came singing along the sidewalk.

"In the evening, by the moonlight, you could hear those banjos ringing; In the evening, by the moonlight, you could hear those darkies singing.

How the ole folks would injoy it; they would sit all night an' lis-sun, As we sang I-I-N the evening BY-Y-Y the moonlight.'

"Ah, _that_ takes me back!" exclaimed Corliss. "That's as it used to be. I might be a boy again."

"And I suppose this old house has many memories for you?" said Cora, softly.

"Not very many. My, old-maid aunt didn't like me overmuch, I believe; and I wasn't here often. My mother and I lived far down the street. A big apartment-house stands there now, I noticed as I was walking out here this afternoon--the 'Verema,' it is called, absurdly enough!"

"Ray Vilas lives there," volunteered Hedrick, not altering his position.

"Vilas?" said the visitor politely, with a casual recollection that the name had been once or twice emphasized by the youth at dinner. "I don't remember Vilas among the old names here."

"It wasn't, I guess," said Hedrick. "Ray Vilas has only been here about two years. He came from Kentucky."

"A great friend of yours, I suppose."

"He ain't a boy," said Hedrick, and returned to silence without further explanation.

"How cool and kind the stars are to-night," said Cora, very gently.

She leaned forward from her chair, extending a white arm along the iron railing of the porch; bending toward Corliss, and speaking toward him and away from Hedrick in as low a voice as possible, probably entertaining a reasonable hope of not being overheard.

"I love things that are cool and kind," she said. "I love things that are cool and strong. I love iron." She moved her arm caressingly upon the railing. "I love its cool, smooth touch. Any strong life must have iron in it. I like iron in men."

She leaned a very little closer to him.

"Have you iron in you, Mr. Corliss?" she asked.

At these words the frayed edge of Hedrick's broad white collar was lifted perceptibly from his coat, as if by a shudder pa.s.sing over the back and shoulders beneath.

"If I have not," answered Corliss in a low voice, "I will have--now!"

"Tell me about yourself," she said.

"Dear lady," he began--and it was an effective beginning, for a sigh of pleasure parted her lips as he spoke--"there is nothing interesting to tell. I have spent a very commonplace life."

"I think not. You shouldn't call any life commonplace that has escaped _this_!" The lovely voice was all the richer for the pain that shook it now. "This monotony, this unending desert of ashes, this death in life!"

"This town, you mean?"

"This prison, I mean! Everything. Tell me what lies outside of it.

You can."

"What makes you think I can?"

"I don't need to answer that. You understand perfectly."

Valentine Corliss drew in his breath with a sound murmurous of delight, and for a time they did not speak.

"Yes," he said, finally, "I think I do."

"There are meetings in the desert," he went on, slowly. "A lonely traveller finds another at a spring, sometimes."

"And sometimes they find that they speak the same language?"

His answer came, almost in a whisper:

"'Even as you and I.'"

"'Even as you and I,'" she echoed, even more faintly.

"Yes."

Cora breathed rapidly in the silence that followed; she had every appearance of a woman deeply and mysteriously stirred. Her companion watched her keenly in the dusk, and whatever the reciprocal symptoms of emotion he may have exhibited, they were far from tumultuous, bearing more likeness to the quiet satisfaction of a good card-player taking what may prove to be a decisive trick.

After a time she leaned back in her chair again, and began to fan herself slowly.

"You have lived in the Orient, haven't you, Mr. Corliss?" she said in an ordinary tone.

"Not lived. I've been East once or twice. I spend a greater part of the year at Posilipo."