“The woman who is like the deep, red wine—once in a lifetime we meet her. No need for her to laugh with us, to coquette, even to speak. Her personality is an alluring hue. She gives off a fragrance of soul that drowns gross thought. Without words she promises all emotions—life. She, like the wine, needs only to be.
“I do not give you Wine, Woman and Song; nothing so new as that. I sing, friends, an older song—the woman, man’s wine!”
Silence held the little group as Holt ceased to speak. With his left hand he patted the bald spot upon his head, as if doubtful of the wisdom of having broached his “beautiful perception.” Then, slowly, his smile reappeared, as though from frank pleasure over a creditable performance. With lifted glass he turned to their host.
Dolores also turned.
But John Cabot did not meet their gaze—either her own or that of his friend. And he did not speak. He was, however, the first to drain his Burgundy.
The girl wondered at the gleam in his eyes. Never had she seen him look that way before. It seemed soon for even so excellent a potion to have had effect.
CHAPTER XIV
Falltime was well gone for the year. Yet in the rigors of winter a flower came to bloom in the heart of Dolores Trent. Petal-soft had opened the peace of her to-day. Warm-hued glowed the hope of to-morrow. As though none such ever had pricked her mind were the thorn-fears of yesterday.
She first consciously viewed the miracle on a sharply bright afternoon when she and young Jack had crossed the Avenue for one of the strolls in Central Park which she was teaching him to enjoy. The fact that she had reached content glinted into her realization from off the sunlight. The green grass surviving the patches of snow, the birds darting hither and yon on their unaccountable errands, the branches swaying tractably to the breeze—each sight and sound about them accented the harmony with Nature of her changed mood. Hitherto, memories of her past had spoiled the present with dread of what the future might be. To-day the past was crowded into its proper position as the mere background of her life. So full of enjoyment was the present that she seemed almost—almost to have reached the future.
And her mental state seemed to have blessed her charge like a benediction. No longer did the cripple’s features twist into snarls at sight of more agile children at play. To his precocious mind had been submitted the law of compensation. Constantly reminding himself that there was meant to be no perfect earthly state, he compared nurse-maids and mothers unfavorably with his governess-pal; buttoned his coat thoughtfully when he passed a youngster in rags who could run; tilted his head farther to one side when a rheumy-eyed wreck of a father on a bench pointed the contrast with that of his god-man, his “John Cabot.”