The Essential Booth Tarkington Collection. Booth Tarkington
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shock of seeing anything so exquisite where he had expected to see nothing at all. For she was exquisite--horrid as have been the uses of the word, its best and truest belong to her; she was that and much more, from the ivory ferrule of the parasol she carried, to the light and slender footprint she left in the dust of the road. Joe knew at once that nothing like her had ever before been seen in Canaan.
He had little knowledge of the millinery arts, and he needed none to see the harmony--harmony like that of the day he had discovered a little while ago. Her dress and hat and gloves and parasol showed a pale lavender overtint like that which he had seen overspreading the western slope. (Afterward, he discovered that the gloves she wore that day were gray, and that her hat was for the most part white.) The charm of fabric and tint belonging to what she wore was no shame to her, not being of primal importance beyond herself; it was but the expression of her daintiness and the adjunct of it. She was tall, but if Joe could have spoken or thought of her as "slender," he would have been capable of calling her lips "red," in which case he would not have been Joe, and would have been as far from the truth as her lips were from red, or as her supreme delicateness was from mere slenderness.
Under the summer hat her very dark hair swept back over her temples with something near trimness in the extent to which it was withheld from being fluffy. It may be that this approach to trimness, which was, after all, only a sort of coquetry with trimness, is the true key to the mystery of the vision of the lady who appeared to Joe. Let us say that she suppressed everything that went beyond grace; that the hint of floridity was abhorrent to her. "Trim" is as clumsy as "slender"; she had escaped from the trimness of girlhood as wholly as she had gone through its coltishness. "Exquisite." Let us go back to Joe's own blurred first thought of her and be content with that!
She was to pass him--so he thought--and as she drew nearer, his breath came faster.
"REMEMBER! ACROSS MAIN STREET BRIDGE AT NOON!" Was THIS the fay of whom the voice had warned him? With that, there befell him the mystery of last night. He did not remember, but it was as if he lived again, dimly, the highest hour of happiness in a life a thousand years ago; perfume and music, roses, nightingales and plucked harp-strings. Yes; something wonderful was happening to him.
She had stopped directly in front of him; stopped and stood looking at him with her clear eyes. He did not lift his own to hers; he had long experience of the averted gaze of women; but it was not only that; a great shyness beset him. He had risen and removed his hat, trying (ineffectually) not to clear his throat; his every-day sense urging upon him that she was a stranger in Canaan who had lost her way--the preposterousness of any one's losing the way in Canaan not just now appealing to his every--day sense.
"Can I--can I--" he stammered, blushing miserably, meaning to finish with "direct you," or "show you the way."
Then he looked at her again and saw what seemed to him the strangest sight of his life. The lady's eyes had filled with tears--filled and overfilled. "I'll sit here on the log with you," she said. And her voice was the voice which he had heard saying, "REMEMBER! ACROSS MAIN STREET BRIDGE AT NOON!"
"WHAT!" he gasped.
"You don't need to dust it!" she went on, tremulously. And even then he did not know who she was.
XI
WHEN HALF-GODS GO
There was a silence, for if the dazzled young man could have spoken at all, He could have found nothing to say; and, perhaps, the lady would not trust her own voice just then. His eyes had fallen again; he was too dazed, and, in truth, too panic-stricken, now, to look at her, though if he had been quite sure that she was part of a wonderful dream he might have dared. She was seated beside him, and had handed him her parasol in a little way which seemed to imply that of course he had reached for it, so that it was to be seen how used she was to have all tiny things done for her, though this was not then of his tremulous observing. He did perceive, however, that he was to furl the dainty thing; he pressed the catch, and let down the top timidly, as if fearing to break or tear it; and, as it closed, held near his face, he caught a very faint, sweet, spicy emanation from it like wild roses and cinnamon.
He did not know her; but his timidity and a strange little choke in his throat, the sudden fright which had seized upon him, were not caused by embarrassment. He had no thought that she was one he had known but could not, for the moment, recall; there was nothing of the awkwardness of that; no, he was overpowered by the miracle of this meeting. And yet, white with marvelling, he felt it to be so much more touchingly a great happiness than he had ever known that at first it was inexpressibly sad.
At last he heard her voice again, shaking a little, as she said:
"I am glad you remembered."
"Remembered what?" he faltered.
"Then you don't?" she cried. "And yet you came."
"Came here, do you mean?"
"Yes--now, at noon."
"Ah!" he half whispered, unable to speak aloud. "Was it you who said--who said, 'Remember! Across--across--"'
"'Across Main Street bridge at noon!'" she finished for him, gently. "Yes."
He took a deep breath in the wonder of it. "Where was it you said that?" he asked, slowly. "Was it last night?"
"Don't you even know that you came to meet me?"
"_I_--came to--to meet--you!"
She gave a little pitying cry, very near a sob, seeing his utter bewilderment.
"It was like the strangest dream in the world," she said. "You were at the station when I came, last night. You don't remember at all?"
His eyes downcast, his face burning hotly, he could only shake his head.
"Yes," she continued. "I thought no one would be there, for I had not written to say what train I should take, but when I stepped down from the platform, you were standing there; though you didn't see me at first, not until I had called your name and ran to you. You said, 'I've come to meet you,' but you said it queerly, I thought. And then you called a carriage for me; but you seemed so strange you couldn't tell how you knew that I was coming, and--and then I--I understood you weren't yourself. You were very quiet, but I knew, I knew! So I made you get into the carriage--and--and--"
She faltered to a stop, and with that, shame itself brought him courage; he turned and faced her. She had lifted her handkerchief to her eyes, but at his movement she dropped it, and it was not so much the delicate loveliness of her face that he saw then as the tears upon her cheeks.
"Ah, poor boy!" she cried. "I knew! I knew!"
"You--you took me home?"
"You told me where you lived," she answered. "Yes, I took you home."
"I don't understand," he stammered, huskily. "I don't understand!"
She leaned toward him slightly, looking at him with great intentness.
"You didn't know me last night," she said. "Do you know me now?"
For answer he could only stare at her, dumfounded. He lifted an unsteady hand toward her appealingly. But the manner of the lady, as she saw the truth, underwent an April change. She drew back lightly; he was favored with the most delicious, low laugh he had ever heard, and, by some magic whisk which she accomplished, there was no sign of tears about her.
"Ah! I'm glad you're the same, Joe!" she said. "You never would or could pretend very well. I'm glad you're the same, and I'm glad I've changed, though that isn't why you have forgotten me. You've forgotten me because you never thought of me. Perhaps I should not have known you if you had changed a great deal--as I have!"
He started, leaning back from her.
"Ah!" she laughed. "That's it! That funny little twist of the head