“You walk from the station—a mile—in this going?” began Bayard, laughing.
“No;” she shook her head. “I waded. But I got here. The coach had nine inside and five on top. It hasn’t come yet. I promised Father I’d be here, you see.”
Bayard’s quick eye observed that Miss Carruth was in dinner dress; her gown was silk, and purple, and fitted her remarkably well; she had a sumptuous figure; he reflected that she had taken the time and trouble to dress for these three theologues as she would have done for a dinner in town. He saw that she gave one swift glance at the man in the flannel shirt, who was absorbed in the Professor’s story about the ordination of somebody who was rejected on the doctrine of probation.
But after that she looked at the student’s head, which was good. Upon the details of his costume no eye in the drawing-room rested that evening, again. That student went out from Cesarea Seminary to be a man of influence and intellect; his name became a distinguished one, and in his prime society welcomed him proudly. But if the Professor’s family had been given the catalogue and the Inquisition to identify him, it may be questioned whether thumbscrews would have wrung his name from them. It being one of the opportunities of Christianity that it may make cultivated gentlemen out of poor and ignorant boys, Cesarea ladies take pride in their share of the process.
At tea—for Cesarea still held to her country tradition of an early dinner—Bayard found himself seated opposite the Professor’s daughter. The one C sat beside her, and she graciously proceeded to bewitch that gentleman wholly out of his wits, and half out of his theology. Bayard heard her talking about St. Augustine. She called him an interesting monomaniac.
The table was served in the manner to which Bayard was used, and was abundantly lighted by candles softly shaded in yellow. In the pleasant shimmer, in her rich dress, with the lace at her throat and wrists, she seemed, by pretty force of contrast with the prevailing tone of the village, the symbol of beauty, ease, and luxury. Bayard thought how preëminent she looked beside that fellow in the shirt. He could not help wondering if she would seem as imposing in Beacon Street. After a little study of the subject he concluded that it would not make much difference. She was not precisely a beautiful woman, but she was certainly a woman of beauty. What was she? Blonde? She had too much vigor. But—yes. Her hair was as yellow as the gold lining of rich silverware. She was one of the bright, deep orange blondes; all her coloring was warm and brilliant. Only her eyes struck him as inadequate; languid, indifferent, and not concerned with her life. She gave the unusual effect of dark eyes with bright hair.
While he was thinking about her in the interludes of such chat as he could maintain with her mother, who had asked him twice whether he graduated this year, Miss Carruth turned unexpectedly and addressed him. The remark which she made was not original; it was something about the concerts: Did he not go in often? She had not asked the one C if he attended the Symphony Concerts. But Mrs. Carruth now inquired of that gentleman if he liked the last preparatory lecture. The Professor was engaging the attention of the other B. And Bayard and Helen Carruth fell to conversing, undisturbed, across the pleasant table.
He felt at home despite himself, in that easy atmosphere, in that yellow light. The natural sense of luxury crept around him softly. He thought of his northwest room over there, rocking in the gale, and of the big dish of apples at the club table. He thought of the self-denials and deprivations, little and large, which had accompanied his life at Cesarea; he tried to remember why he had chosen to do this or suffered that.
His ascetic ideals swam and blurred a little before the personality of this warm, rich, human girl. There was something even in the circumstance of eating quail on toast, and sipping chocolate from a Dresden cup in an antique Dutch spoon, which was disturbing to the devout imagination—in Cesarea.
Over his sensitive face his high, grave look passed suddenly, like the reflection thrown from some unseen, passing light.