II
“My little dear Ruth,” Lucilla wrote, “we're coming on the most important mission to America. Namely, to see you. Yes, and haven't I a bagful of news for your Royal Highness!
“We sail by the Cedric on the fifteenth of April, Harry can't leave until then. To confess the truth, he is in Altronde. Civillo,—of course you've seen it by the papers,—Civillo is gone to a greater Principality, Bertram is King.
“I want to see you—oh! And Ruth, I burn with curiosity to look on that New England of yours. Harry, I'm convinced, is prepared to settle there. He says, so pathetically, that at his time of life he feels the need of planting cabbages and that the Upper Gardener at Pontycroft gives notice when he tries to. He's heard that in New England gardeners are kind, don't mind a bit; they just let you plant, right down; are affable; make you settle right down and become one of 'em. But Harry says, too, he pines at first hand to solve the inwardness of a land destined to dominate us all.
“Ruth, between you and me, in confidence, if America is to be the future of Europe—well—then I'm glad I shall be dead.
“But between you and me, my dear, what Henry Pontycroft wants is not so much to plant cabbages neither is it to study politics... What he truly-truly wants is a glimpse of the Young Person. He's missed you! Ah! I have news. Your devoted, Lucilla.”
Over this flippant missive Ruth grew hot, then cold, then faint. And she sat, for a long moment in a state of emotional upheaval, of senseless vacuity—the while her head whirled and her heart went thump, thump, thump! It was an entire quarter of an hour before this commotion subsided, and left her with soft flutterings at her throat.
“They're coming, they're coming, they're coming! He's coming... I shall hear his voice, I shall see him. Oh, what has happened? Is it possible that he's free? Oh, my God, my God, help me to wait,” she cried. She began to cry and to sob like a little child. She craved, wanted, longed for, unendurably, overwhelmingly, that he should take her in his arms, caress and fondle her, and, like a veritable little girl pat her cheek and soothe her, let her unburden her woes, let her lie, her head in his breast, while he said to her, “There, little child, there, don't cry.” And it was in Pontycroft's voice that the words fell upon her ears, and it was on Harry Pontycroft's breast that she dried her eyes. And they were Pontycroft's eyes into which her eyes smiled, when, presently, mocking him through her tears, but in oh, such heaven of bliss! she repeated the trite refrain of the tritest, the most foolish of Ballads.
“In God's hands!” said Ruth; she dried her eyes. “Like everything else....”
She put her hat and jacket on and went for a walk. When she reached the house an hour later, she had found her peace, and though her eyes were singularly bright and her manner curiously vivacious, this contributed the more to her success of the evening at the Bolingbrokes'.
“Ruth—” Mrs. Bolingbroke rushed at her, enfolded her in an impetuous hug, “you're delicious! Stay in Washington. Stay in Washington for ever—”
“Come to Barracks Hill with me,” answered the young lady. “I must be flitting almost at once.”
“No, no, no....” protested Mrs. Bolingbroke. But it was peaceably arranged at last that the Bolingbrokes, having a congé at Easter, should come, then, to Barracks Hill.
And so, on the fifteenth day of March, Ruth bade farewell to Washington and travelled back to Oldbridge.