"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 God 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, banal 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 interspaces 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 lusty cocks 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.