He had seized upon his half-brotherhood with her as he had never developed exactly the same relationship with David. Indeed, so consummately wise had been this child’s—for David thought of her as scarcely more than a child—this child’s handling of the situation, that within a week of the change Tom’s tone had actually taken on the half-proud, half-chiding note of an adoring elder brother, and David had seen in his eyes the pleased recognition of the fact that at least no one else was, or could be, Gabrielle’s “family” but himself.
Tom’s condition appearing to be supremely unsatisfactory, there had immediately been talk of southern California or Florida for the winter. For Sylvia, who was strangely shaken, quiet, and unlike herself even when physically well again, it seemed a wise solution, too. Gabrielle was of course to accompany her brother, and David must follow as soon as all their complicated affairs permitted.
Saying good-bye to the little black-clad group, when he had escorted them as far as Chicago, David had returned somewhat sadly to his duties as doubly, trebly an executor, his canvases, and the lonely painting of the first snows. And after that the months had somehow slipped by in a very chain of delays and complications: upon the only occasion when David had actually been packed and ready to start for the West, a telegram from his closest friend, Jim Rucker, or rather from Jim’s wife, in Canada, relative to an accident, illness, and the need of his help, had taken him far up into the Winnipeg woods instead.
Had the three Flemings been in La Crescenta, high and dry above ocean and the valleys of southern California, where they had at first quite established themselves, with a piano and a garden and a telephone, David might have joined them during the second summer. But by this time Tom was entirely well again, perfectly able to live in the East, winter and summer if he liked, “but catch me doing it,” wrote Tom, in his large sprawling hand, and the travellers had gone into Mexico.
“Do for Heaven’s sake be careful, Gay,” David had written anxiously. “You appear to be the brains of the expedition. You may get into hot water down there!”
“Sylvia, on the contrary, is the brains of the expedition, as you so elegantly phrase it,” Gabrielle had answered, cheerfully, “and as to getting into trouble—no such luck!”
Then they were in San Francisco again, and David, with a muffled hammering going on steadily in his heart when he thought of seeing Gay again, had been expectant of a wire saying that any day might find them turning eastward. But no, for Tom had caught sight of all the huddled masts in the San Francisco harbour, the mysterious thrilling hulls that say “Marseilles” and “Sydney” and “Rio de Janeiro,” and he had been all for Australia—all for South America—had compromised finally upon Panama.
That was two months ago. Now, perhaps still feeling that the late New England spring would be chilly, they were apparently off for Guatemala and Honduras.
David could school his heart the better to patience because he had no hope. No hope even in her obscure little friendless days really of winning Gabrielle, and less hope now. His attitude toward all women, as he himself sometimes vaguely sensed, was one of an awed simplicity; they seemed miraculous to David, they interested him strangely and deeply, as beings whose lightest word had a mysterious significance.
If he had once loved Sylvia dearly, loyally, admiringly—and he knew that for almost all her life he had—then what he felt toward Gabrielle was entirely different. There was no peace in it, no sanity, no pleasure. It burned, an uncomfortable and incessant pain, behind every other thought; it penetrated into every tiniest event and act of his life.