Jason: A Romance

by Justus Miles Forman

So all the broad enclosure was a scene of heedless neglect, a riot of unrestrained and wanton growth, where should have been decorous and orderly beauty. It was a sight to bring tears to a gardener's eyes, but it had a certain untamed charm of its own, for all that. The very riot of it, the wanton prodigality of untouched natural growth, produced an effect that was by no means all disagreeable.

An odd and whimsical thought came into Ste. Marie's mind that thus must have looked the garden and park round the castle of the sleeping beauty when the prince came to wake her.

But sleeping beauties and unkempt grounds went from him in a flash when he became aware of a sound which was like the sound of voices. Instinctively he drew farther back into the shelter of his aromatic screen. His eyes swept the space below him from right to left, and could see no one. So he sat very still, save for the thunderous beat of a heart which seemed to him like drum-beats when soldiers are marching, and he listened--"all ears," as the phrase goes.

The sound was in truth a sound of voices. He was presently assured of that, but for some time he could not make out from which direction it came. And so he was the more startled when quite suddenly there appeared from behind a row of tall shrubs two young people moving slowly together up the untrimmed turf in the direction of the house.

The two young people were Mlle. Coira O'Hara and Arthur Benham, and upon the brow of this latter youth there was no sign of dungeon pallor, upon his free-moving limbs no ball and chain. There was no apparent reason why he should not hasten back to the eager arms in the rue de l'Université if he chose to--unless, indeed, his undissembling attitude toward Mlle. Coira O'Hara might serve as a reason. The young man followed at her heel with much the manner and somewhat the appearance of a small dog humbly conscious of unworthiness, but hopeful nevertheless of an occasional kind word or pat on the head.

The world wheeled multi-colored and kaleidoscopic before Ste. Marie's eyes, and in his ears there was a rushing of great winds, but he set his teeth and clung with all the strength he had to the tree which sheltered him. His first feeling, after that initial giddiness, was anger, sheer anger, a bewildered and astonished fury. He had thought to find this poor youth in captivity, pining through prison bars for the home and the loved ones and the familiar life from which he had been ruthlessly torn. Yet here he was strolling in a suburban garden with a lady--free, free as air, or so he seemed. Ste. Marie thought of the grim and sorrowful old man in Paris who was sinking untimely into his grave because his grandson did not return to him; he thought of that timid soul--more shadow than woman--the boy's mother; he thought of Helen Benham's tragic eyes, and he could have beaten young Arthur half to death in that moment in the righteous rage that stormed within him.

But he turned his eyes from this wretched youth to the girl who walked beside, a little in advance, and the rage died in him swiftly.

After all, was she not one to make any boy--or any man--forget duty, home, friends, everything?

Rather oddly his mind flashed back to the morning and to the words of the little photographer, Bernstein. Perhaps the Jew had put it as well as any man could: