Everything visible for fifty miles had been stained bright with the hues of the changing season, only to be softened by the clinging mist, which seemed to hush as well as to veil.
From three kitchens,—Louise’s, Mrs. Brown’s, and the workmen’s encampment,—white ribbons of smoke rose straight up as though to reinforce the pale, exhausted clouds. Grendel, Miriam’s retriever, was standing in the wet grass, one paw held up and tail motionless as though awaiting confirmation of a hint of jack-rabbits. An acrid odour gave body to the air: an odour whose ingredients included the damp earth, the bark of the firs, the bunches of rust-colored berries, the leather of the saddle, and the warm vitality of the horse. Once there was a sound of whinnying from the slopes beneath, and once a distant sound of splashing,—Keble or Dare at his morning plunge in the lake.
How splendid to be a man, with a man’s vigorous instincts! Even the pipes they smoked at night were condonable, when you thought of the strong teeth that clenched their stems, the strong fingers that twisted the stems out during the cleaning process, and the earnestness that went into the filling and lighting, the contented bodily collapse, as of giants refreshed, that followed the first puff.
Splendid to be a man, certainly. But how much more wonderful to be at the disposal of some clean, earnest, boyish creature who would be comfortingly gigantic when one felt helpless, enticingly indolent when one felt strong. As for being a victim to a capacity for tenderness which one had no right to indulge,—that was simply unfair.
The sound of loose planks disturbed by running feet came up to her on the motionless air. It was Keble, in sandals and dressing gown, returning from the boat-slip to the cottage. She leaned forward and patted her horse.
Near the foot of the winding road she drew rein again. Grendel had dashed ahead to play practical jokes on a colony of hens. Joe was chopping wood. Mona was moving tins in the dairy. Annie Brown was at the pump, getting water on her “pinny”. Some one was whistling. Grendel barked at the top of his lungs and came bounding back through the grass. The sun was beginning to turn the mountain peaks into brass and bronze. The flat pallid clouds were trailing away. A flush of blue crept over the sky.
Miriam’s throat ached with the kind of happiness that is transformed at birth into pain. She remembered the remark she had made to Louise on first descending this road: “You very lucky woman!”
Half an hour later, at the breakfast table, she was struck by the pallor of Louise’s cheeks, which normally glowed. Louise was chatting with a show of good spirits that failed to hoodwink her. She broke open an egg with a slight feeling of vexation, for it was nerve-racking to be faced daily with a human puzzle. She was more than willing to be sorry for Louise, but one couldn’t quite be sorry until one knew why.
A moment later their eyes met. Louise gave her a characteristically friendly smile, and suddenly Miriam guessed. She was assailed by a nameless envy, a nameless resentment, sincere compassion, then, by a strange relief that left her almost comically weak.
When breakfast was finished and the men were out of the room she went to Louise, grasped her by the shoulders, looked into her eyes with kindly inquiry, then, having been assured, said, “My dear, why didn’t you tell me? Or rather, how could I have failed to see!”