"Promise!"
"Perhaps," and she left him.
The blood was throbbing in his temples as he went back to his trees. He had admired her beauty from the time he had first noticed her, three months before, moving about his home. What must her father have been to have given her such poise, such a delicate throat, such a pure white skin! And her charm did not end with her face or her carriage. Her speech was that of the white girl, not of the Negro—careful speech, learned, as it happened, of her northern teachers. He had not encountered her often these summer months, for she was Miss Patty's personal servant and spent her days in his aunt's upper rooms or on the gallery; but he never saw her that he did not want to speak with her, to see the light come to her questioning face. She seemed to him in every way a lady. What was she doing living in a black woman's home?
The mid-day meal at the great house was stirred from its usual quiet by a discussion of the visitor who was expected by the evening boat. The Merryvales had never taken boarders, but from time to time they had staying with them what the English call "paying guests." Every winter, two or three northerners, visitors from the year before or carefully introduced by former visitors, came to Merryvale and made a substantial payment for the privilege of living in the old house. Usually these guests were elderly ladies, either unmarried or with busy husbands who could not take the time to accompany them, and they lived quietly on the place; taking little walks, knitting, playing cards, and occasionally going by boat to the city for a day's shopping. Miss Patty depended on them for her entertainment more, perhaps, than she was ready to admit. They taught her a new game of solitaire or a new way of making a baby's sack, and they listened, with every appearance of attention, to her innumerable tales about her family. To-day's arrival was a Miss Witherspoon, a friend of one of their pleasantest Boston guests, and everything was being planned for her comfort.
"Put my best linen on the bed, Hertha," Miss Patty said as she came upstairs after her mid-day meal, "and you can take your sewing to the gallery while I have my nap."
Hertha did as she was bidden, and, the guest-room in perfect order, went out upon the shady corner of the upper porch. A wind was blowing from the river, tossing the gray moss of the live-oaks, and brushing against her fingers the thin lace she was trying to sew upon a dress. It called her to play, pushed the little curls in her eyes, and spilled the spool of thread upon the floor. She laughed to herself as she picked it up, and then sat, her work in her lap, looking wistfully out into the swaying moss and the green leaves.
So the gods and goddesses played at ball. Which god was he? Apollo, of course, the god of the sunlight, the gold gleaming in his ruddy hair. What good times they must have had in those old days when no one seemed to be busy, when you might run through the meadows singing as you went, when no one minded if you danced in the moonlight and played in the morning. Why should you not do such simple, happy things!
She took up her needle again, and of a sudden thought of Tom going away alone. The remembrance of the boy's face held her to her task.
Along the lane came an automobile, its horn tooting as it bumped over the uneven road. Hertha started, and putting down her work watched to see the car stop in front of the Merryvale door. It was most unusual to have guests arrive in this fashion and at this hour. The men were not about; Pomona, the cook, was unequal to receiving such a visitor, so though it was not her specified task, Hertha, mindful for the good ordering of the house, went to the door.
Descending from the automobile was an alert-looking lady, neither young nor old, in a plain, good-fitting, tailor-made suit and small hat, with the business-like air of one who has done much traveling and is accustomed to finding herself in new surroundings.