Flying over miles and miles of the summer land, heaped with the red tangled sweets of clover fields, belted with white starry mayweed, blue with marshy growth of wild flag, with hazy lines of far-off hills, fading into purple depths of distance, and near low ones lying green and calm close beside them, with brown clear brooks, famous trout streams, after the New England fashion, went running across their way, the old home pride leaped up in George's eyes and voice, and even Moore forgot his weariness, and talked with a flash of the old, careless spirit.
The hack that brought them to their destination left them, deep in the summer night, at the foot of the long avenue of elms—going up which, with slow steps, on a sudden the house broke on them, ablaze with lights, athrob with music, whereat there was a renewal of explosive utterances, and the captain led his friend to the rear of the house to insure a quiet entrance.
From the dark piazza, where he waited while George summoned some one to receive them, he caught, through the long, open casement, the vista of the parlors, with their glitter and confusion of light drapery and glimpses of bright faces and light forms, and softened hum of voices, as the dancers circled with the music. And through it all, straight down toward him, floating in one of the weird Strauss waltzes, came the princess, swathed in something white, airy, wide-falling. The same dark, unflushed face, the same wide, far-looking eyes, and fixed mouth, the same silky falling hair, but cut short now, and floating back as she moved. It was only for a moment: the perfumed darkness that seemed to throb with a sudden life of its own, the great, slow, summer stars above him, the wailing, passionate music that came trembling out among the heavy dew-wet foliage, the dark, calm earth about him, and the light and color and giddy motion that filled the gleaming square before him, struck in on his senses with staggering force; and then she swayed out of his sight, and Mrs. Morris came forward with words of cheer and welcome.
That night, lying sleepless after the music was hushed and the wheels had done rolling away from the door, as if material enough for all fever fancies had not been given, backward and forward through the corridor a woman's garments trailed with light rustle, and a low voice hummed brokenly the waltz he had heard. Ceasing by and by in a murmur of girls' voices, and the old-remembered air, sung softly:
'For men must work and women must weep,
Though storms be sudden and waters deep.'
After that many days went by unmarked. His wound, aggravated by fatigue, racked him with renewed pain; and when that was over, vitality was at too low an ebb for anything but the most passive quiet. Before listless, unnoting eyes drifted the crystal mornings, the golden hours steeped deep in summer languors, the miracles of sun-settings and star-filled holy nights. From his window he saw and heard always the ocean, blue and calm, lapping the shore with dreamy ripple in bright days—driving ghostly swirls of spray and fog clown the beach in stormy, gray ones. The house itself seemed set in the deepest haunt of summertime. Great trees, draped in the fullest growth of the year, rippled waves of green high about it. All day long the leaf sounds and leaf shadows came drifting in at the windows. Perfectest hush and quiet wrapped its occasional faint strains of music, or chime of voices came up to him, but did not break the silence. A place for a well soul to find its full stature, for a tired or sick one to gather again its lost forces. And by slow degrees the life held at first with so feeble a grasp came back to him.
By and by there came a day when, from his balcony, he witnessed a departure, full of girls' profuse adieux, and then the hush of vacancy fell on the wide halls and airy rooms of the great house. That evening, with slow steps, he came down the staircase. In the twilight of the parlors showed dimly outlined a drift of woman's drapery, and the piano was murmuring inarticulately. Outside, on the broad stone doorstep, showed another drift, resolving itself into the muslins of Miss Nelly Morris, springing up with glad words of welcome as his unsteady frame came into view. Before half the protracted and vehement hand shaking was over, Moore turned at a soft rustle behind him, and Nelly found her introduction forestalled. Moore hoped, with his courtliest reverence, that Miss Berkeley had not forgotten him.
She made two noiseless steps forward, and put out a small, brown band. He took it in his left, with a smiling glance of apology at the sling-fettered right arm. It was not often that Miss Berkeley's broad lids found it worth their while to raise themselves for such a wide, clear look as they allowed with the clasp. And then Nelly broke in:
'Then you two people know each other. Grand! And I've been wondering these two weeks what to do with you! Why didn't you tell me, Leu?'
'How was I to identify Mr. Moore with 'George's friend from the army'? Mr. Moore remembers he was on debatable ground last summer.'