"She spoke of taking me," Lena said, "but changed her mind, and left me to help take care of the house."
She too had questions to ask, but instinctively she shrunk from disturbing the deep content of the present moment. The road they travelled was not the one Leigh had taken that October afternoon when he made his bicycle trip to Hillside, but a parallel way about half a mile to the south. As they neared the other side of the valley, Emmet took a cross-cut back to the northern road and passed her house, without knowing that the place at which she glanced in passing was her home. She had no desire to tell him, for it seemed mean and homely in her eyes. She saw her father's silhouette on the curtain, his corncob pipe in his mouth, and while she would have liked to exhibit her lover to her family, she was ashamed of their rustic ways and feared the impression they might make upon the mayor of Warwick.
The village of Hillside was typical of the country. In summer time a stream dropping down from the hills turned the wheels of a large paper mill. There was a general store, a post-office, a white, wooden Congregational church with four Corinthian pillars, and an inn dating from Colonial days, as its swinging sign-board, adorned with the blurred image of a Revolutionary soldier, bore witness. This inn, "The Old Continental," had recovered from its moribund condition with the advent of the automobile, and was often the scene of gay supper parties from Warwick. It had received a new coat of yellow paint and a new roof, but the Society for the Preservation of Colonial Landmarks had decreed that the figure of the soldier on the sign-board should remain untouched by the brush. Thus the uniform that had once shone so spick and span in streaks of buff and blue would better recall the ragged regimentals of the well-known poem.
The distance from Warwick was ten miles, but it still lacked something of six o'clock when Emmet drove into the stable, blanketed his mare, and lifted his companion from the sleigh. He led her through a side door and into a small room that had formerly been the kitchen. Here, in a huge brick fireplace, blazing logs threw out a dancing light that glinted on the polished mahogany table and quaint chairs, and disclosed the dark red walls and brown beams, as well as several highly coloured English coaching scenes.
Lena seated herself close to the blaze, and glanced up at the sooty arch above her head with small appreciation of the historic memories of the place, of the archaeological interest inherent in the swinging crane and twisted andirons. It did not occur to her, as it would have occurred to many visitors, to open the doors of the baking-ovens at the side and to peer within. If she thought at all of these things, it was merely to realise their inconvenience, and to be reminded of the similar room in her own home.
And yet, though she did not know it, she was eligible to membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution. Her ancestors had taken their muskets from just such chimney places to go forth and fight the British. Only, they had never kept their family records, their descendants had never climbed high in the world; and now one of them was sitting in her own appropriate environment, suggesting in her sweet face, her curling hair and slender figure, in the very cape thrown over the back of the chair, the familiar picture of Priscilla.
It was Emmet, an American of only one generation, who reminded her of the legend that Washington had stopped there overnight on his way to take command of the army in Cambridge; but she was too deeply absorbed in thinking how handsome he was and how much he seemed the mayor to listen with attention to his remarks. She took his intellectual interests for granted, and accepted as a matter of course his larger knowledge of a history that was his merely by adoption. Love was her mental theme and the sum of all her interests, not academic speculations concerning the effect upon America of the great Irish immigration of the last century, of which indeed she had never even heard.
She had not observed his quick, keen glance at the stalls of the stable, nor noted his relief when he found them empty. They two had the house entirely to themselves, but the larger dining-room, seen through the open door, suggested guests, for the tables were set and the lights turned low.
"Yes, sir," the waiter answered in reply to his question, "there's a party due here at six-thirty from Warwick. Mr. Cobbens is bringing 'em out."
"Then hurry up," Emmet commanded. "Bring us something hot, and be quick about it."