"John," said she, "there isn't a gray hair in it. Come on, what are you waiting for?"

Eddring had turned, and was fumbling at a drawer in his desk. He raised a face flushed and conscious-looking. "The fact is, mother, I've got a new necktie right here, and--and I want to put it on."

CHAPTER X

MISS LADY OF THE STAIR

"I have always told you, Lady," said Mrs. Ellison, "how a girl who hasn't any fortune can best achieve things. Of course, it's a question of a man. When she has found the man, it rests with her. She must let herself out and yet keep herself in hand. Emotion, but not too much, and at the right time--that's the scheme for a girl who wants to succeed."

"How you preach, mamma!" said Miss Lady, petulantly. "You are always talking to me about the men. As if I cared a straw!"

"You ought to care, Lady. Men! Why, there's nothing in the world for a woman except the men."

Miss Lady said nothing, but went on adjusting a pin which she took from among several others held in her mouth. At length she patted down her gown, and frowned with a sigh of satisfaction, as she looked down over her long and adequate curves. Discovering a wrinkle in the skirt of her gown, she smoothed it out deftly with both hands.

"There are not very many gentlemen to bother about down at the Big House now, mamma," said she; "at least, not since Mr. Decherd left.

But then, he's coming back. Did you know that?"

Mrs. Ellison's face showed a swift gleam of satisfaction. "I hope he will," said she. "But, after all, we must sometime go somewhere else.

Now, New Orleans, or New York perhaps. You are almost pretty sometimes, Lady. We could do things with you, in the right place."

Miss Lady stamped her foot upon the floor in sudden fury. "Mamma,"

cried she, "when you talk this way I fairly hate you!"

"You talk like all the foolish Ellisons," said the other, slowly.

"Now, I could tell you things, when the time came. But, meantime, you forget that you and I have absolutely no resources."

"Excepting me!" This with white scorn.

"Excepting you." This with frank cynicism.

Miss Lady controlled herself with difficulty. "At least," said she, "we have a home with Colonel Blount. He has always said he wanted us to stay, and that he couldn't do without us. Now"--and she laughed gaily--"if Colonel Blount didn't have a red mustache, I might marry him, mightn't I?"

"Be done with such talk," said Mrs. Ellison, sharply, "You'd much better think about Mr. Decherd. And yet,"--she frowned and nervously bit her finger-tips as she turned away. Miss Lady made no answer except to go over again to stand before the mirror, where she executed certain further pattings and smoothings of her apparel.

The two were occupied, in these somewhat dingy quarters in the hotel, in preparing for their sallying out upon a shopping expedition in the city, an event of a certain interest to plantation dwellers. Mrs.

Ellison paused in her own operations to extract from a hand-bag a flask, wherefrom she helped herself to a generous draft. Miss Lady caught the flask from her.

"You disgust me, mamma," said she. "How often have I told you!"

"You were not quick enough, my dear," said Mrs. Ellison, calmly.

"Now, I was saying that you were born for lace and satins. Promise me, Lady, no matter what happens, that if you ever get them, you will give me a few things for myself, won't you? Sometimes--sometimes I am not certain." She smiled as she spoke. There might have been politic overture, or beseeching, or threat, or deadly sarcasm in her speech.

Miss Lady could not tell; and it had taken, indeed, a keen student to define the real meaning of the enigmatical face of Alice Ellison, woman not yet forty, ease-loving, sensuous, yet for this time almost timorous.

"Now, a good, liberal man," began Mrs. Ellison presently, however, "is the best ambition for any young woman. For some reasons, we might do better than remain at the Big House longer. We will see, my dear, we'll see." And so they stepped out into the hall.

It was a vision when Miss Lady came down the stair. Young men who saw her removed their hats, and old men thanked G.o.d that the day of miracles was not gone; so fair was Miss Lady as, with head high, and body slow and stately beyond her years, and foot light and firm, she came down the little stairway, and glorified it with youth and the spirit of the morning.

Miss Lady had indeed, within the last few months, rapidly grown up into compellingly beautiful young womanhood. Much of the girlishness was gone and the firmer roundness of full femininity had taken its place. Her neck, a column of white above its frill of laces, rose strong and fine. Her hair, unlighted by the sun, was dark and full of velvet shadows. Her eyes, with long lashes softly falling, offered the shadows and the mysteries of the dawn. Her figure asked small aid, and, needing none, carried, and was not made by, the well-cut gown of light silken weave, dotted here and there with small red fleur-de-lis. A maze of long scarlet ribbons hung from Miss Lady's waist, after a fashion of her own, and for purposes perhaps remotely connected with a tiny fan which now appeared, and now again was lost.

A cool, sweet ripeness was reflected in the spot of color here and there upon the fawn-colored wide brim of the hat, upon the smooth cheek, on the lips of the short and high curved mouth. As she walked, there was heard the whispering rustle of the Feminine; that sound indefinable, which creeps upon man's unwitting senses and enslaves him, he knows not how or when or why.

Well enough all this served to set in tumult the pulses of at least one who saw Miss Lady, fresh as a little white cloud, warm as a tiny spot of yellow sunlight, cool and mysterious as the morning, thus framed as a picture on the stair.

John Eddring and his mother, unannounced by reason of the slothfulness of a negro messenger, sat in the hotel waiting-room, which served as the "ladies' parlor," opening out near the foot of the stairway. And so it chanced that they saw Miss Lady and her companion as they descended. It seemed to Eddring that this vision on the stair was the most beautiful thing in all the world. He was smitten at once dumb and motionless. He felt his mother's hand on his arm.

"John," said she, "did you see that girl? She was _perfectly_ beautiful!" The touch aroused him. She saw it all written in his face.

"She?" he murmured. "Miss Lady!" and presently sprang after, to return a moment later with the two ere they had left the hall.

Whereupon followed all manner of helpless, hopeless, ba.n.a.l and inadequate commonplaces, out of which Eddring blankly remembered only that the visit of Miss Lady to the city was to terminate that evening, at the departure of the down train. And so, after all, little remained for him but a present parting, though all his soul cried out for speech with Miss Lady alone, for the sight of her face only. It was as though within the moment all the energies of his life had been directed into a new channel, whose insufficient walls were threatened with destruction by the flooding torrent. The primeval man arose, exulting, sure; and so, in a moment, John Eddring knew why the world was made, and by what tremendous enginery of imperious desire it is driven on its way. Work, riches, art, music, architecture, the vast industrialism of an age, all this thing called progress--all, all were for this alone, this thing of love! The atmosphere about him thrilled, vibrant with this message of the universe. The inters.p.a.ces of all things seemed lambent, and therein fixed centrally was this ineffaceable and ineffable picture. He gazed, and as he gazed there came to him but one thought: For ever.

"John," said Mrs. Eddring, when they were again alone, "that's a sweet girl, a _very_ sweet girl. Did you notice how she thanked me--as being the elder lady, you know--for our call? I think--"

Eddring started, only half-hearing her.

"But that lady, her mother," went on Mrs. Eddring, "I can't tell, yet for some reason I do not fully understand her. But--" and here she gained conviction, "you need not tell_ me!_ There is _family_ somewhere back of that girl, my son. She's good enough. She's--"

"Good enough!" cried John Eddring. "Good enough! What do you mean?"

"Ah, my boy," said Mrs. Eddring, sighing, "I know. I presume, I hope, that you feel quite as the general did, when I was a girl. Sometimes I have thought the world was changing in such matters. I shall want to see this young lady again, and often. We must inquire--but here I am, talking with you, when of course you must be back at your work.

I'll leave you now."

"Work!" cried John Eddring. "Work!"

CHAPTER XI.

COLONEL CALVIN BLOUNT'S PROPOSAL.

The mild winter of the Delta region wore itself gradually away, and now again the sun was high in the mid-arc of the sky, glowing so warm that the earth, rich and teeming, seemed once more to quiver under its ardor. The sloth of ease and comfort was in the air. The big bees droned among the flowers at the lattice, and out in the glaring sunlight the l.u.s.ty c.o.c.ks led their bands betimes, crowing each his loud defiance. In the pastures, under the wide-armed oaks, the cattle and horses stood dozing. Life on the old plantation seemed, after all, to have set on again much in its former quiet channels. If within the year there had been insubordination, violence, death hereabout, the scene no longer showed it. The Delta, less than a quarter white, more than three-quarters black, was once more at rest, and waiting.

This was the scene over which Miss Lady looked out one day as she sat in a big rocking-chair in the shade, in a favorite spot of the wide gallery, feeling dreamily, if not definitely, the spirit of the idle landscape which lay shimmering in the sun. Her gaze gained directness and comprehension at last.

This, thought Miss Lady, was the world! It was all the world for her.

This, so far as she could see, was to be her fate--to sit and look out over the wide reaches of the cotton fields, to hear the negroes sing their melodies, to watch the lazy life of an inland farm. This was to be the boundary of her world, this white and black rim of the forest hedging all about. This lattice was to shut in her life for ever. She might meet no white woman but her mother, no white man.

Things were not quite clear to Miss Lady's mind to-day. She sank back in the chair, and all the world again seemed vague, confused, shimmering, like this scene over which she gazed. She sighed, her foot tapping at the gallery floor. Sometimes it seemed to Miss Lady that she must break out into cries of impatience, that she must fly, that she must indeed seek out a wider world. What was that world, she wondered, the world out there beyond the rim of the ancient forest that hedged her in? What did it hold for a girl? Was there life in it? Was there love in it? Was there answer in it?

The old bear-dog, Hec, came around the corner of the house from his napping in the shade, and sat looking up in adoration at his divinity, inquiring mutely whether that divinity would permit a common warrior like himself to come and kiss her hand. She saw him finally and extended one hand idly; at which Hec dropped his ears, wagged his tail uncertainly, and came on slowly up the stair. He nozzled his head tentatively against her knee; and so, receiving sanction, went into delighted waggings, licking tenderly the soft white hand which stroked his head.

"Oh, Hec, dear old Hec," said Miss Lady, "I am _so_ lonesome!" And Hec, understanding vaguely that all was not quite well with his divinity, uplifted his voice in deep regret. "I am so _lonesome,_"

repeated Miss Lady, softly, to herself.

A step on the gallery caused her to turn. Colonel Blount crossed the length of the gallery and paused at her side. "Miss Lady," said he, "you just literally honey my b'ah-dogs up so all the time, that after a while I'll be ashamed to call the pack my own. I'm almost afraid now to take them out hunting, for fear some of them will get hurt; and you always make such a fuss about it."