The Tracy diamonds

by Mary Jane Holmes

CHAPTER XI.
ALICE AND CRAIG.

Craig had been sitting on the piazza a long time waiting for somebody to come, but the somebody waited for had not appeared and he was growing rather impatient and wondering what kept her. Twice Mark Hilton had walked the length of the piazza,—an unusual proceeding for him at that hour in the morning when his duties confined him in the office. Once as he was passing Craig he stopped abruptly and asked, “Have you seen her?”

Craig felt intuitively whom he meant and answered, “No, have you?”

“Only very indistinctly in the rain,” Mark replied, and walked on wondering at the unrest which possessed him and had made him quite as wakeful the previous night as Craig had been.

He knew it was Helen whom he had carried through the rain, for he heard her mother speak her name. He had not seen her face, but the way her arms had clung around his neck, as if afraid he would let her fall, and the pressure of her hand on his as he put her down, had been like an electric shock which he still felt, calling himself a fool many times to be upset by the touch of a hand and the clasp of a girl’s arms around his neck. It was a new experience for him, as he had never paid much attention to the ladies. No one who saw him ever suspected the morbid vein in his nature which made him dwell secretly upon a past in which he had no part and with which few ever connected him. He had felt it to an unusual degree that afternoon when he stood by ’Tina’s grave, the shadow of which was always with him when his laugh was the lightest and his manner the proudest. He couldn’t forget it, and fancied that other people remembered it, as he did. To the guests at the hotel he was polite and kind and attentive, but never familiar with them, especially if they were ladies, who were sure to hear the story and gossip about it. He had thought a good deal about the Tracys, who represented a different class from those who usually frequented the hotel. They were the extreme fashionables, who would probably think of him as a kind of servant to do their bidding. His attention to them in the rain was what he would have given to any ladies, and he was not prepared for the way in which Helen had received it. She certainly had pressed his hand and clasped his neck as her mother had not done, and she was just as conscious of the act as he was. This he did not know. It was an accident, he believed, and she would never give him another thought, while he should subside into his place as the hotel clerk and watch and admire her at a distance. This was his decision as he left Craig and went to speak to a gentleman who had come from the train and was inquiring the way to a farmhouse among the hills of West Ridgefield.

Left to himself Craig looked at his watch and then picked up Browning, which he usually had with him. He had joined a Browning club in Boston, partly because it was the thing to do, and partly because he really liked the poet and enjoyed trying to find out what he meant, if anything. He had taken up the Story of Sordello for his summer work, resolved to make himself master of its obscurities and astonish the club in the autumn with his knowledge. But reading Sordello alone, with no one to suggest or disagree, was uphill business, and he had only accomplished the first book. This he had read three times and was debating whether to give it a fourth trial, or to attack Book second, when he heard the sound of a footstep and a young girl came round the corner singing softly,

“Oh the glorious summer morning

With its dewy grass and flowers,”

“Only there are no flowers here,” she added. Then seeing Craig she stopped suddenly and said, “I beg your pardon; I didn’t know any one was here.”

She was tall and slender, with a willowy grace in every motion. Her complexion was pale, but betokened perfect health and vitality. Her light brown hair was twisted into a flat knot low in her neck where it was making frantic efforts to escape in little wisps of curls. Her eyes were large and blue and clear as a child’s. Her mouth was rather wide, but very sweet in its expression when she smiled. Her dress was a simple muslin of lavender and white, and at her throat and belt she wore a half-opened lily which she had gathered on the river and which seemed to harmonize so well with her pure complexion and general appearance. Some such idea was in Craig’s mind as he rose quickly and said to her, “You are not intruding at all. I come here because it is so quiet and I like the outlook across the fields to the woods, but I have no right to monopolize the place. Be seated, won’t you?”