He was an exile and penniless. He had no identity. He could reveal himself only to be falsely suspected of a vile robbery in a position of great trust; any lapse of caution would consign him to years of unjust imprisonment in a felon’s cell. He was the very sport of a cruel fate. He had naught left of all the lavish earthly endowments with which he had begun life save his own estimate of his own sense of honor. But this was still precious to him. Bereft as he was, he was still a gentleman at heart. He claimed that,—he demanded of himself his own recognition as such. Never again, he determined, as he began to walk slowly along the road once more, never again should expert sophistries tempt him. He would not argue his equality with her, his birth, his education, the social position of his people. It was enough to reflect that if she knew all she would shrink from him. He would not again seek refuge in the impossibility that his identity could be discovered as a guest at the ball. He would not plead as a set-off against the deception how innocent its intention, how transient, how venial a thing it was. And lest in his loneliness,—for since the atmosphere of his old world had once more inflated his lungs he was as isolated in the Sims household, he found its air as hard to breathe, as if he were in an exhausted receiver,—in his despair, in the hardship of his lot, in the deep misery of the first true, earnest, and utterly hopeless love of his life, some fever of wild enterprise should rise like a delirium in his brain, and confuse his sense of right and wrong, and palsy his capacity for resistance, and counsel disguise, and destroy his reverent appreciation of what was due to her, he would put it beyond his power ever to masquerade in the likeness of his own self and the status of his own true position in the world; he would render it necessary that he should always appear before her in the absolutely false and contemptible rôle of a country boor, an uncouth, unlettered clown.
At the paradox of this conclusion he burst into a grim laugh; then—for he would no longer meddle with these subtle distinctions of right and wrong, where, in the metamorphoses of deduction, the false became true, and interchangeably the true was false—he began to run, and in the strong vivacity of his pride in his physical prowess he was able to reflect that better time was seldom made by an amateur, unless for a short spurt, than the pace he kept all the way to the Sims cabin. He would not let himself think while in the roof-room he rolled the jaunty suit into a bundle. He set his teeth and breathed hard as he recognized a certain pleasure which his finger-tips derived from the very touch of the soft, fine texture of the cloth, and realized how tenuous was the quality of his resolution, how quick he must needs be to carry into effect the conclusions of his sober judgment, lest he waver anew. He was out again and a mile away before he began to debate the disposition which it would be best to make of the bundle under his arm. He recalled with a momentary regret Mrs. Sims’s kitchen fire, over which doubtless Euphemia was now bending, busy with the johnny-cake for the evening meal. He dismissed the thought on the instant. The feminine ideas of economy would never suffer the destruction of so much good all-wool gear, whatever its rescue might cost in the future. Moreover, it would be inexplicable. He could get a spade and bury the bundle,—and dig it up, too, the next time this mad, unworthy temptation should assail him. He could throw it into the river,—and fish it out again.
Suddenly he remembered the lime-kiln. The greater portion of its product had been used long ago, but the residue still lay unslaked in the dry cavern, and more than once, in passing, he had noted the great boulder rolled to the aperture and securely closing it against the entrance of air and moisture. The place was in the immediate vicinity, and somehow, although he had been here often since, the predominant impression in his mind, when he reached the jutting promontory of rock and gazed down at the sea of foliage in the Cove, that surely had once known the ebb and flow of tides other than the spring bourgeonings and the autumn desiccations, was the reminiscence of that early time in Etowah Cove when he had stood here in the white glare from the lime-kiln and watched that strange anamorphosis of the lime-burner’s face through the shimmering medium of the uprising heat. He seemed to see it again,—all unaware that now, in its normal proportions, that face looked down upon him from the height of the cliff above, although its fright, its surprise, its crafty intimations, its malevolence, distorted it hardly less than the strange effects of the writhing currents of heat and air in that dark night so long ago.
The young man hesitated once more. He had a certain conscientious reverence for property and order; it was with a distinct wrench of volition that he would destroy aught of even small value. But as he seated himself on the ledge, shaking out the natty black-and-red blazer, he recognized the melody that was mechanically murmuring through his lips,—again, still again, the measures of a waltz, that waltz through whose enchanted rhythms he had fancied that he and she might dreamily drift together. He sprang to his feet in a panic. With one mighty effort he flung the great boulder aside. Hastily he dropped the garments with the shoes, belt, and long blue hose, into the cavern, and with a staff stirred the depths of the lime till it rose above them. More than once he was fain to step back from the scorching air and the smarting white powder that came in puffs from the interior.
“That’s enough,” he muttered mockingly after a moment, as he stood with his muscles relaxed, sick with the sentiment of the renunciation of the world which the demolition of the sophisticated garb included in its significance. “I cannot undertake to dance with any fine lady in this toggery now; she’d think I had come straight from hell. And,” with a swift change of countenance, “so I have!—so I have!”
Then, with his habitual carefulness where any commercial interest, however small, was concerned, he roused himself, wrenched the great boulder back into its place, noting here and there a crevice, and filling it with smaller stones and earth that no air might gain admission; and, with one final close scrutiny of the entrance, he took his way into the dense laurel and the gathering dusk, all unaware of the peering, suspicious, frightened face and angry eyes that watched him from the summit of the cliff above.
The discipline of life had certain subduing effects on Lucien Royce. He felt very much tamed when next he took a seat upon the bench placed aside in the corner of the bowling-alley, to affect to watch the game, but in truth to give his humble despair what added pain it might deem pleasure and clutch as solace, by the sight of her smiles won by happier men, the sound of her voice, the meagre realities of the day to supplement the lavish and fantastic visions of his dreams. He had reached the point where expectation fails. He looked only for the eventless routine of the alley,—the hour of amusement for the others, the lingering separation, the silence of the deserted building, and the living on the recollection of a glance of the eye, a turn of the head, a displaced tendril of hair, softly curling, until to-morrow, or the next day, or the next, should give him the precious privilege of making such observations for the sustenance of his soul through another interval of absence. Suddenly, his heart, dully beating on through these dreary days, began to throb wildly, and he gazed with quickening interest at the scene before him: the long narrow shell of a building with the frequent windows where the green leaves looked in, the brown unplastered walls, the dark rafters rising into the shadowy roof, and the crossing of the great beams into which records of phenomenal successions of ten strikes had been cut by the vaunting winners of matches, with their names and the dates of the event, the year of the Lord methodically affixed, as if these deeds were such as were to be cherished by posterity. Down the smooth and shining alley a ball was rolling. Miss Gertrude Fordyce, wearing a sheer green-and-white dress of simple lawn and a broad hat trimmed with ferns, was standing at the head of the alley, about to receive her second ball from the hands of a blond young cavalier in white flannels. Royce had seen him often since the morning when he had observed him giving his valuable advice as to the erection of the stage in the ballroom, and knew that he was Millden Seymour, just admitted to the bar, with a reputation for talent, an intelligent face, and a smooth and polished bonhomie of manner; he was given to witty sayings, and was a little too intent upon the one he was exploiting at this moment to notice that the pins at the further end of the alley had not been set up, the hotel functionary detailed for that duty not having arrived. Miss Fordyce hesitated, with the ball in her hand, in momentary embarrassment, the color in her cheeks and a laugh in her eyes.
Royce sprang up, and running lightly down by the side of the alley placed the pins in readiness to receive her second ball; then stood soberly aside, his hat in his hand, as if to watch the execution of the missile.
“How very polite!” said one of the chaperons over her knitting to another. “I often notice that young man. He seems to take so much interest in the game.”
This trifling dévoir, however, which Royce had not hesitated to offer to a lady, savored of servility in its appropriation by a man. Nevertheless, he was far too discreet, too well aware of what was due to Miss Fordyce, to allow the attention to seem a personal tribute from him. He silently cursed his officiousness, notwithstanding, as he bent down to set the tenpins in place for the second player, who happened to be the smart young cavalier. Only with an effort Royce conserved his blithe air and a certain amiable alacrity as through a round or two of the game he continued to set up the pins; but when the flustered and hurried bell-boy whose duty he had performed came panting in, Royce could have broken the recreant’s head with right good will, and would not restrain a tendency to relapse into his old gait and pose, which had no savor of meekness, as he sauntered up the side of the alley to his former seat beside the mountaineers, who had gazed stolidly at his performance.