However, just as he was putting it down, a snow-flake, one of a hundred, all pressing for the same point, flew past him, and alighted on the green velvet tabouret.
It was nothing,—only a snow-flake,—and another time, Fred would have thought nothing of it. But in the novel awakening of his faculties, even a snow-flake had a new interest. With intense eagerness he watched the movement of the little thing,—and yet, feeling that he might be on forbidden ground, he had the presence of mind to seem not to see or hear. If inanimate Nature were once to suspect his new insight, what a bustle there would be! He almost closed his eyes, and lay still, where he could watch and yet seem asleep. His prudence and caution were well rewarded.
The snow-flake was, as he suspected, as much alive as the wind; and that was singing, shouting, dying away in ecstasies, at this very moment.
He glanced at her. Lithe, sparkling, graceful, she gathered her soft drapery about her, and stood poised delicately on one foot, while she looked around the apartment in which she found herself. Fred could see that she was moulded more beautifully than the Graces,—by so much more as Nature is fairer than all Art,—and that she had an inward pure coldness, beside which Diana's was only stone. Yet it was not indifference, like that of the wild huntress,—not an incapacity to feel, but only that her time had not come; when it should, she would melt as well as another. Now she stood still and calm. She did not once look at him. She had seen human beings before,—plenty of them. Something else attracted her,—thrilled her, evidently; for the faintest rose-color suffused her beautiful form; she changed her attitude, and bent forward her graceful head.
Something about "warming his hands by thinking on the frosty Caucasus" passed through Fred's mind, and some law of association impelled him to look at the fire. It was queer enough, that, as many times as he had looked at that fire by the hour together, he had never before noticed its shape or expression. Only last night, he had watched it, dancing and flickering just as it did now, and never once suspected the truth!
Mailed figures! Yes, plenty of them,—golden-helmeted and sworded like the seraphim! A glorious band, gathering, twining, shooting past each other,—jousting, tilting,—with blazing banners, and a field broader than that of the "Cloth of Gold"; for this reached to and mingled with the clouds—yea, tinted them with flame-color and roses,—and garlanded the earth with crimson blossoms that nestled among her forests on the far-off horizon. What a wide field, indeed! And how far might these blazes and flames go, when once they set out? To the stars, perhaps. Fred did not see what should stop them. The atmosphere might, possibly. He must study that out.
Meanwhile how strangely far he could see! What a power it was! What a new interest it gave to Nature! Nature, he must confess, had always seemed rather flat to him, on the whole. He had always liked the imitations better than the original,—pictures better than people,—busts better than philosophers. But now the case is altered. He has got what his friend Norris calls "glorification-spectacles." Now he can have perpetual amusement. Why, it is vastly better than Asmodeus peeping in at the tops of houses. By the same token, snow-flakes are more interesting than humanity.
Speaking of snow-flakes, what does he see, but that she is evidently yielding to the soft enchantment of the nearest flame-god,—drawn thither by resistless affinity, and melting, in his burning arms, to the most delicate vapor! Snow-flake no more, yet not absorbed nor lost! Rather taking her true place, transported from the earth-tempests to a warmer and higher sphere of action.
That might be, but not yet. In their new vaporous condition, in which both had lost some of their prominent qualities, they had acquired new relations, perhaps new duties. At all events, they did not at once ascend to their kindred ether,—but swam, glided, floated, above and around, and finally separated. Watching them keenly, Fred could distinctly see that the sometime snow-flake left her sphere and came gradually towards himself. As the vaporous shape floated nearer, it also grew larger, so that, although Fred could not have said certainly that the size was human, it relieved him from the impression of any fairy or elf or sprite. No, it was nothing of that sort. It was just the gentlest, calmest, serenest face and form in the world,—with the same look of pure sweetness he had noticed on her first entrance,—with a peculiar surprised look in her wide-open eyes, that he had seen but in one human face. As well tell the truth,—the face, expression, and all, were as like Annie Peyton's, as her portrait, drawn in water-colors, could possibly have been.
The shape sat down by him,—her vaporous garment still folding softly around her, and her clear, open eyes fixed on him. There was no need of speech, for he read her face as if written by Heaven's own hand; and the coarse and selfish philosophy which had sufficed partially to stun and confuse Minnie fled at the presence of the spirit. Not a word still from the calm, sweet face. It looked on him with pity and surprise. Then all the ideas and convictions that throng on the mind warped, but not lost, pressed on him. He hid his face in the sofa-cushions.