Nobody attempted to analyze the mental processes by which she had been brought around. It was enough that she had come to accept the situation. The black shadow of discord, which had overhung the household so long, was gone, and mother and daughters joined in a sigh of grateful relief.
It must have been nearly midnight when Reuben rose finally to go. There had been so much to talk about, and time had flown so softly, buoyantly along, that the evening seemed to him only to have begun, and he felt that he fain would have had it go on forever. These delicious hours that were past had been one sweet sustained conspiracy to do him honor, to minister to his pleasure. No word or smile or deferential glance of attention had been wanting to make complete the homage with which the family had chosen to envelop him. The sense of tender domestic intimacy had surcharged the very air he breathed. It had not even been necessary to keep the ball of talk in motion: so well and truly did they know one another, that silences had come as natural rests—silences more eloquent than spoken words could be of mutual liking and trust. The outside world had shrunk to nothingness. Here within this charmed circle of softened light was home. All that the whole universe contained for him of beauty, of romance, of reverential desire, of happiness, here within touch it was centred. And it was all, all his!
The farewells that found their way into phrases left scarcely a mark upon his memory. There had been cordial, softly significant words of smiling leave-taking with Ethel and her mother, and then, divinely prompted by the spirit which ruled this blessed hour, they had gone away, and he stood alone in the hallway with the woman he worshipped. He held her hand in his, and there was no need for speech.
Slowly, devoutly, he bowed his head over this white hand, and pressed his lips upon it. There were tears in his eyes when he stood erect again, and through them he saw with dim rapture the marvel of an angel’s face, pale, yet glowing in the half light, lovely beyond all mortal dreams; and on this face there shone a smile, tender, languorous, trembling with the supreme ecstasy of a soul.
Were words spoken? Reuben could hardly have told as he walked away down the path to the street. “Bless you! bless you!” was what the song-birds carolled in his brain; but whether the music was an echo of what he had said, did not make itself clear.
He was scarcely conscious of the physical element of walking in his progress. Rather it seemed to him that his whole being was afloat in the ether, wafted forward by the halcyon winds of a beneficent destiny. Was there ever such unthinkable bliss before in all the vast span of the universe?
The snowfall had long since ceased, and the clouds were gone. The air was colder, and the broad sky was brilliant with the clear starlight of winter. To the lover’s eyes, the great planets were nearer, strangely nearer, than they had ever been before, and the undying fire with which they burned was the same that glowed in his own heart. His senses linked themselves to the grand procession of the skies. The triumphant onward glide of the earth itself within this colossal scheme of movement was apparent to him, and seemed but a part of his own resistless, glorified onward sweep. Oh, this—this was life!
At the same hour a heavy and lumpish man made his way homeward by a neighboring street, tramping with difficulty through the hardening snow which lay thick upon the walks. There was nothing buoyant in his stride, and he never once lifted his eyes to observe the luminous panorama spread overhead. With his hands plunged deep into his pockets, and his cane under his arm, he trudged moodily along, his shoulders rounded and his brows bent in a frown.
An acquaintance going in the other direction called out cheerily as he passed, “Hello, General! Pretty tough walking, isn’t it?” and had only an inarticulate grunt for an answer.