III
Walter Grannan, who was conversing with some of his fellow-members at the club, which was situated on a corner near the cathedral, was now coming hastily forward towards her, just as she had alighted from her brougham and ordered it not to await her, saying, she would walk home.
“It is very fortunate—at least for me,” he said. “I did so want to see you.”
“I am going away to-morrow, and—of course it’s about the horse,” she said, pleasantly.
He smiled as he noted the charm of her face. “I am to hope; then, that you will accept her?”
“Oh, but I just can’t,” she said, “while I must thank you so much for asking me.”
In a moment she was sorry almost that she had said it. His expression touched her; and, though she could not satisfy herself why she should care—what were the expressions of men’s faces to her?—still, the twit was there. She felt it keenly as she now gazed steadfastly ahead, as they walked slowly and silently along in the direction of the marble church.
“I also am decided to go away to-morrow,” she said, at length, in a quiet tone.
Nothing was said in reply.
The great spire of the cathedral towered above her. The tones of the organ came throbbing from within. A funeral cortege entered. There was a coffin, piled high with wreaths of flowers. There the same dread pomp and circumstance of death that was attendant upon her husband. She shuddered as she turned aside her head.
Yes! Yes! She would go—go to-morrow. She must go! In her nervousness her handkerchief dropped from her hand.
As Grannan bent forward to pick it up, he observed a single white flower that had fallen from the wreaths piled upon the coffin, and gathered this in his hand also. He started to offer it to her; but, observing the thoughtful, troubled look upon her face, refrained. They had now stopped; and, a moment later when in a fit of abstraction he was attempting to pinion the flower to the lapel of his coat, she involuntarily seized his hand.
“What is it?” he asked.
Her face crimsoned as she instantly withdrew her hand, and struggled for composure. “Why—er, it’s bad luck,” she exclaimed.
“What’s bad luck?” asked he, with that peculiar tone of voice indicating that there was no answer for his query.
“Oh, nothing; silliness, mere nonsense,” she said, betraying signs of her agitation which Grannan, however, failed to discover. “And now,” she continued, “I must say good-bye, for you are going away, you say, and I must thank you, oh, I can’t say how much, for your offer of the beautiful horse.”
“And, do you really mean that you will not accept my gift?” he said, slowly.
She bit her lip and bent her eyes downward, while she moved the point of her shoe restlessly upon the stone paving.
“O, I might manage,” she at length began, hesitatingly, “if only to gratify your whim, to keep it, for a while; but—”
“You see,” he interrupted, “I wanted you to have something to remind—”
“Good-bye,” she repeated, smiling as she gave him her hand. “So you really go away to-morrow?”
“At once,” he said, gravely, as he pressed the hand she was now withdrawing from his own, and turned away.
She paused within the vestibuled entrance of the cathedral in what proved to be a vain endeavor to calm the turbulency of her feelings. The fingers of her gloved hand were still deadened by the pressure from which she had just released them. Her eyes had even mastered her will, and now sought with the intensity of eagerness, the dim outlines of a figure that was now lost amid the throng, now faintly visible, with its downcast head and slowly receding step. At last it vanished.
The unsteady, subdued, solemn tones of the great organ within again rolled tumultuously upon her. She stood struggling, as it were, with the overwhelming waves of sound. Both her eyes and memory seemed now to focus upon a receding past.
The dead face of her husband drifted from out the vacancy, so real that she started, stopped, then started again, slowly descending the steps.
She turned her face homeward. Unconscious of the tide of restless passers-by, and of the noise that roared imprisoned by the walls of the high buildings on either side of the street, she turned abstractedly from the square, lost in the depths of her meditations.
She was thinking of her husband. Thinking of a day on the race-course; the day upon which she had first met him. Of how she had then dreamed of his wonderful personality, and afterwards learned how easily and completely it had swayed her own. Of how untiring, faultlessly devotional had been his constant care for her, and of how precisely perfect and pleasureable had been their married life.
She grew desperate now, and upbraided herself distressingly to think that already he should have become to her “nothing more vital than a memory.”
Yes, after all, she would go. She would go to the scene where she had first met him, to San Francisco; her husband’s stable of horses was now there.
As she entered leisurely the door of her home, and was met by her maid in the hall, who relieved her of her wraps, she made known her intention of leaving on the morrow, and gave instructions to her to have everything in readiness for their departure. She then went from the rear porch of the house in the direction of the coachman’s quarters, to notify Thomas to make preparations desired. This, she had persuaded herself, was her real reason for going to the locality set apart for the horses; but, was it?
No sooner had Thomas been found than the very first question asked him was pertaining to the welfare of his charge. A few moments later, it was she who was gently caressing the milk-white, deer-head of the mare, with her soft hands, now stroking the shiny neck, now encircling it within her arms, while the warm breath from the pink nostrils fanned at intervals her fair brow, sending a-whirl some truant lock of her wavy hair.
“Thomas,” she now said, turning a face full of inquiry upon the coachman, who had stood with a look of amazement, gazing upon the manifest interest and affection of the young mistress, “what is her name?”
“Well, ma’am,” he replied, assuming the air now of one who feels the importance of being the proud possessor of some rare bit of information, “ever since she played in the paddock, three years ago now, by her mother’s side, and the master would come and take her little head in his hands, just as you have, ma’am, and pinch her cheeks, and laugh at her odd pranks, he called her Cassandra.”
“Cassandra!” she repeated. “Then he must have loved her?”
“Oh, indeed he did, ma’am, she was his favorite, and the trainer knew it, too.”
“Thomas, we start for San Francisco in the morning. You are to go, and have in your especial care, Cassandra. When you have arrived there deliver her again into the hands of the trainer, with instructions that the best of attention be shown her.”
“Thanky, ma’am,” said Thomas. “I’m proud of my charge, ma’am, indeed I am, for she’s a plum picture.”