Diana leaned her elbow on the worn arm of his chair and nestled her chin in her hand, watching him. After all, what manner of man was he?
The storm, still raging in all its fury, shook the house to its foundation; a deafening crash of thunder seemed to demolish all other sounds. She glanced covertly about the little room, seeking some explanation there. A village shopkeeper who was by nature a poet and a mystic, and of whom men spoke as a politician—there was a paradox. Something like amusement touched the edge of her thought, but she tried for the first time to understand. The room was small and lined on two sides with rough bookshelves made of unstained pine, yet there was a picturesqueness in the medley of old books, grouped carelessly about them. There were a few old worn leather chairs and the lounge, a faded rug, a table littered with papers and pens around the shaded lamp, beside which lay his pipe. His dog, Shot, a yellow nondescript, lay across the threshold, nose between paws, watching her suspiciously. The place was homely yet severe, clean but disorderly, and the strangest touch of all was the big loose bunch of apple-blossoms in an old earthen jar in the corner, the pink and white of the fragile blooms contrasting charmingly with the dull tintings of the earthenware, and bringing the fragrance of spring into the little room. Their grouping, and the corner in which he had placed them, where the light just caught the beauty of the delicate petals, arrested Diana’s thought.
“You are an artist,� she remarked approvingly; “or else—was it an accident?�
He followed her glance and smiled, and she noticed that, in spite of the rugged strength and homeliness of his face, his rare smile had almost the sweetness of a woman’s. “Not altogether accident,� he said, “but the falling of the light which seems to lift them out of the shadows behind them. Isn’t it fair that I should have something beautiful in this shabby place?�
Diana colored; had he noticed her survey and again thought her discourteous? She could say nothing to refute its shabbiness and, for the moment, her usual tact deserted her. She sat looking at the apple-blossoms in silence while he rose from his place as fire-feeder, and, going to the kitchen, came back with a cup of hot tea.
“You had better drink this,� he advised quietly; “I’m afraid you’ll take cold. I hope the tea will be right; you see I am ‘the cook and the captain too.’�
She took the cup, obediently again, and feeling like a naughty child. “It is excellent,� she said, tasting it; “I didn’t know a mere man could make such good tea.�
He laughed. “Once or twice, you know, men have led a forlorn hope. I sometimes feel like that when I attack the domestic mysteries.�
“Courage has its own rewards—even in tea, then!� she retorted, wondering if all the men who lived thus alone knew how to do so many things for themselves? In her experience it had been the other way. Colonel Royall was as helpless as a baby and needed almost as much care, and Jacob Eaton had a scornful disregard of domestic details, only demanding his own comforts, and expecting that his adoring mother would provide them without annoying him with even the ways and means. It occurred to Diana that, perhaps, it was the wide difference in social position, that gentlemen might be helpless in matters where the humbler denizens of the earth had to be accomplished; that, in short, Caleb Trench must make his own tea or go without, while Jacob Eaton could pay for the making of an indefinite succession of cups of tea. Yet, was this man entirely out of her class? Diana tasted the tea, with a critical appreciation of its admirable qualities, and quietly viewed the tea-maker. He was seated again now in the old armchair by the table, and she observed the strong lines of his long-fingered muscular hands, the pose and firmness of the unquestionably intellectual head. There was nothing commonplace, nothing unrefined in his aspect, yet all her training went to place between them an immeasurable social chasm. She regarded him curiously, as one might regard the habitant of another and an inferior hemisphere, and he was poignantly aware of her mental attitude. Neither spoke for a while, and nothing was audible in the room but the crash and uproar of the storm without. In contrast, the light and shelter of the little place seemed like a flower-scented refuge from pandemonium. Diana looked over her teacup at the silent man, who seemed less ill at ease than she was.
“I think you are a stranger here, Mr. Trench,� she said, in her soft voice; “at least, we who have been here twenty years call every one else a stranger and a sojourner in the land.�