“If Jason came, the Dragon might appear.”
“I remember reading somewhere that the Dragon was less to be feared than Medea’s eyes. But this fleece seems to have lost most of its gold. There is only a little gold embroidery.”
“It shows where the gold is hidden.”
“It’s you that are concealing something now, Miss Trednoke. How can a woollen garment be a talisman?”
“The secret might be woven into it, perhaps,” replied Miriam, passing her fingers caressingly over the soft tunic. “Then, when the right person puts it on, it would——But you don’t believe in these things.”
“I don’t know: you don’t give me a chance. But who is the right person? The thing seems rather small. I’m sure I couldn’t get it on.”
“It can fit only the one it was made for,” said Miriam, gravely. “And if you wanted to find the gold, you would trust to your science, rather than to this.”
“Well, gold-hunting is not in my line, at present. Every nugget has been paid for more than once, before it is found. Besides, there is something better than gold in Southern California,—something worth any labor to get.”
“What is it?” asked Miriam, turning her tranquil regard upon him.
Harvey Freeman had never been deficient in audacity. But, standing in the dark radiance of this maiden’s eyes, his self-assurance dwindled, and he could not bring himself to say to her what he would have said to any other pretty woman he had ever met. For he felt that great pride and passion were concealed beneath that tranquil surface: it was a nature that might give everything to love, and would never pardon any frivolous parody thereof. Freeman had been acquainted with Miriam scarcely two days, but he had already begun to perceive the main indications of a character which a lifetime might not be long enough wholly to explore. Marriage had never been among the enterprises he had, in the course of his career, proposed to himself: he did not propose it now: yet he dared not risk the utterance of a word that would lead Miriam to look at him with an offended or contemptuous glance. It was not that she was, from the merely physical point of view, transcendently beautiful. His first impression of her, indeed, had been that she was merely an unusually good example of a type by no means rare in that region. But ere long he became sensible of a spiritual quality in her which lifted her to a level far above that which can be attained by mere harmony of features and proportions. Beneath the outward aspect lay a profound depth of being, glimpses of which were occasionally discernible through her eyes, in the tones of her voice, in her smile, in unconscious movements of her hands and limbs. Demonstrative she could never be; but she could, at will, feel with tropical intensity, and act with the swiftness and energy of a fanatic.