"In case I am not able to go out on the same train with you, this is the route to the farm," he said.
He could scarcely be courteous. He was in a rage of indignation. Not, of course, that it mattered to him whether Jane married this or any other man whom she loved. She was only an acquaintance—more perhaps—his little friend. She must marry: he had thought of that often; and she would love—with a strength and fidelity beyond that of any woman he had ever known. He had often thought of that too. When the time came—years hence, perhaps—he would consult with her father as to the man. They must be satisfied that he would make her happy—they two. It must be a careful, cautious, slow matter. He might surely claim so much of a guardianship over her! He had studied her character very carefully, and appreciated it as a rare and delicate one; and he was very fond of the captain—very fond of the captain. But as for the plan of marriage—Mr. Neckart understood his own disgust at the judge, and accounted for it naturally. He had but little of the ordinary chivalric belief in woman's modesty and purity. Much knowledge of female lobbyists and literary tramps and champagne-tippling belles had shaken his faith, probably.
"But this girl is the most innocent, sincerest thing God ever made," he said. "She is clean in thought and body and word."
In those long days on the Maine coast, or by the sea-wall at St. Augustine, or crossing the interminable mountain-ranges or alkali deserts, he had had time to read this candid soul page by page: her clear skin and liquid eyes were not more transparent than her thoughts. All through that day's work a young noble figure moved like a shadow—a woman with the brave blue eyes, the ruddy lips, the grand unconsciousness of the great women of her race. The blood of Aslauga and Ingeborg was in her veins. So strong was this feeling upon him, that always, when he was making ready to meet her, he bathed and arrayed himself as if he was going to take part in the rites of a church or some sacred place. "'So white, so fair, so sweet was she!'" he sang softly to himself. And guzzling Rhodes, with his oily laugh and fat hands, meant to show her off, exhibit her fine points to this Admirable Crichton of morality, and persuade him to marry her! Was there any danger that she would love or marry him? She was undoubtedly dull in perception of character: had she not always made a demigod of the silly old captain? The finest vessels were always first to break themselves to pieces against some earthen pitcher.
He made haste to take an early afternoon train. He would see his friends again before Rhodes arrived.
CHAPTER VII.
The Hemlock Farm, the captain's new possession, was a great untrimmed tract of farm and woodland on the Hudson, with a rough-hewn stone house, open-windowed and wide-doored, uncivilized and picturesque, set down hospitably in the midst of it. Mr. Neckart, striking across the fields from the little station, caught glimpses through the forest for a mile or two of its walls and heavy chimneys stained with smoke and lichen. They seemed to grow out of the ground as naturally as the oaks and gray beeches.
It was a damp, cool day in June. Ragged patches of clouds were driven down across the tree-tops; the dark blue of the sky had yet a tinge of moist yellow in it after the night's rains; the wind was wet as it blew now and then gustily in Neckart's face. He jumped across a brush hedge overgrown with smilax and blackberry vines, and passed in under the hemlocks. They were dark and still. Outside, the sunshine flashed sometimes, pale and watery, and the blackberries in the hedge were getting rid of their white blossoms and reddening their green knobs, and a wild tiger-lily here and there blazed its answer to the summer; but the old hemlocks, just as Neckart knew them when a boy, kept silence and nodded thoughtfully together, meditating over their ancient secret. He walked more slowly. How long was it since he had left the office or sat in the club-room at breakfast with Rhodes's puffy face and unsavory talk?
Why, even the hedge with its sleepy hum of bees and yellow butterflies seemed to be of the world, worldly here. He left it far behind. The aisles of the wood grew higher and more solemn, and slowly filled with pale-green light. The wind and rain last night had not reached these solitudes, yet he climbed over fallen trunks rank with soaked emerald moss and branching fungus yellow or red as coral. A lizard with bulging eyes of jet darted across his foot: now came the whir of a partridge from under the dead leaves, now the veery cut the air with its fine silver pipe.
Neckart stood still and drew long slow breaths. The life of the woods was like sleep to him; the air was marrowy, stimulating; he could feel himself growing quiet and stronger in it. A moment later he drew his breath deeper.