MARCH
The doubts and the joys of the future broke upon Guy with so wide and commingled a vision, that before the others got home and even before Janet came in with tea, he hurried away from that nursery, where over the half-stilled echoes of childhood he had heard the sigh of Pauline's assent. The practical side of what he had done could be confronted to-morrow, and with a presage of hopelessness the word might have lain heavily upon his mind, if on the instant of sinking it had not been radiantly winged with the realization of the indestructible spirit that would henceforth animate all the to-morrows of time. No day could now droop for him, whatever the difficulties it brought, whatever the hazards, when he had Pauline and Pauline's heart; and like disregarded moments the years of their life went tumbling down into eternity, as the meaning of that sighed-out assent broke upon his conscience with fresh glory.
"You'll tell your mother to-night?" he asked. "I think Margaret will know when she sees your shining eyes."
"Are my eyes shining?"
"Ah, don't you know they are, when you look into mine?"
Guy could have proclaimed that he and she were stars flashing to one another across a stupendous night; but there were no similes that did not seem tawdry when he threw them round Pauline.
"Child, child, beloved child!" he whispered; and his voice faltered for the pitiful inadequacy of anything that he could call her. What words existed, with whatever tenderness uttered, with whatever passion consecrated by old lovers, that would not still be words, when they were used for Pauline? Guy watched for a moment the cheek that was closer to his lips write in crimson the story of her love. He wished he could tell his love for her with even the hueless apograph of such a signal; and yet, since anything he said was only worthy of utterance in so far as she by this ebb and flow of response made it worthy, why should he trouble that cheek which, sentient now as a rose of the sun, hushed all but wonder?
"Good-by!"
He bent over and touched her hand with his lips. Then the Rectory stairs had borne him down like a feather; the Rectory door had assumed a kind of humanity, so that the handle seemed to relinquish his grasp with an affectionate unwillingness. Out in the drive, where the purple trees were washed by the February dusk, he stood perplexed at himself because in a wild kiss he had not crushed Pauline to his heart. Had it been from some scruple of honor in case her father and mother should not countenance his love? Had it sprung out of some impulse to postpone for a while a joy that must be the sharpest he would ever know? Or was it that in the past he had often kissed too lightly, so that now, when he really loved, he could not imagine the kiss unpassionate and fierce that would seal her immortally to love, yet leave her still a child?
As he paused in that golden February dusk, Guy rejoiced he had told his love in such an awe of her girlhood; and when from the nursery window Pauline blew one kiss and vanished like a fay at mortal trespassing, he floated homeward upon the airy salute, weighing no more than a seed of dandelion to his own sense of being. Upon his way he observed nothing, neither passer-by nor carts in the muddy roads. As he crossed the bridge the roar of the water into the mill-pond was inaudible, nor did he hear his melodious garden ways. And when Miss Peasey came to his room with the lamp, he could not realize for a moment who she was or what she was talking about. The hour or two before dinner went by as one tranced minute; in a dream he went down to dinner; in a dream he began to carve; in a dream the knife remained motionless in the joint, so that Miss Peasey coming to inquire after his appetite thought it was stuck in a skewer. Up-stairs in the library again, he dreamed the evening away; and when the lamp hummed slowly and oilily to extinction he still sat on, till at last the fire perished, and from complete darkness he roused himself and went to bed.