Then the piano began, played dreamily, irregularly, with slender, single threads of tune, and frequent pauses, as if the preoccupied mind let the listless fingers fall away from the keys. They gathered up finally all the broken strains into a low, slow-moving harmony. Through it Moore heard the soft lap of waves, the slow rock of Pacific tidal swells, flowing and ebbing and flowing again through flaming noons, about half-submerged bits of world, palm-shaded, sun-drenched, or swaying white with moonlight under purple midnights, holy with the clear burning stars: heard the gurgle and ripple of falling streams, deepening into the wide flow of mighty rivers, bearing in their calm sweep the secrets of a zone—of ice-choked springs, of the dead stillness of Northern forests, and the overgrowth, and passionate life of endless summers.
The red and white combatants now held truce over a queen check, while the players sat silent, listening.
Suddenly, through the murmur and rhythmic flow of water sounds, struck shrill and sharp the opening strains of a march—not such marches as mark time for dainty figures crowding ballroom floors, but triumphant, cruel, proud, with throbbing drum-beat—steadying the tramp of weary feet over red battle fields. Its unswerving hurry, its terrible, calm excitement, brought before his vision long blue lines—the fixed faces sterner than death, with steady eyes and quickened breath—the nervous clutch of muskets, as the rattle of small arms and boom of cannon came nearer and nearer, the fluttering silken banners, the calm sunshine, and sweet May breath—and the quick, questioning note of a meadow lark dropped down through the silence of the advancing column. As the maddening music stormed and beat about him, his heart throbbed audibly, and the rushing currents of his fiery Southern blood sounded in his ears. Honor, prudence, resolution, everything was swept away in the lava tide of excitement. Before him he saw the crown of his life. All heaven and all earth should not stop him short of it. He rose and began crossing the room, with heavy, resolute tread. In the dimness, the player was hardly visible; he would assure himself of her mortality at least. A sudden, fierce hunger for sight and touch thrilled him.
Midway he stopped. The music dropped with a shock from its fiery enthusiasm. Was it only an echo, or an army of ghosts crossing a dim field, long since fought over—the steady tramp, tramp, the pendulum of time? Unutterably wailing, pitiful, it sent plaintive, piercing cries up to the calm, dead heavens. All the fearful sights he had seen rose before him. Upturned lay faces calm in death as in a child's sleep, with all camp roughnesses swept away in that still whiteness; strong men's, with that terrible scowl of battle or the distortion of agonized death on them—mangled and crushed forms—all the wreck of a fought battle, terrible in its suggestive pathos. It sank away into the minor of water voices, soft, monotonous, agonizing in its utter passivity, a brilliant arpeggio flashed up the keys like a shower of gold, and Miss Berkeley rose with white face and trembling breath, and Nelly was alone in the room, sobbing nervously in her armchair.
The storm passed that night, with great swayings of trees, and dash of broad raindrops, and piled up broken masses of fleecy white clouds, tossed about by the rough, exultant September wind. Bright days followed, mellowing with each one to sunnier, calmer perfection. Moore passed them in his own room. That night had torn away all the disguises that he had put upon his heart. He knew now that he loved this woman—knew it with such a bitter sense of humiliation as such proud spirits writhe under when honor turns traitor and betrays them to the enemy. 'Lead us not into temptation.' If it meant anything in the old habit of child's prayer which clung to him yet, it meant that he should put himself out of its way, since he had proved himself too weak to meet it. His inborn honesty let him build no excuses for his failure. He saw, and acknowledged with a flush of scorn and curling lip, his own treachery to himself in his hour of need. That he had not committed himself—that his self-betrayal was only known to self—was no merit of his—simply a circumstance. And circumstances seemed mighty in their influence upon him, he thought, with a feeling of deepest contempt. All pride and self-reliance were taken out of him. Absence, at least, would be a safeguard, since it would render harmless such impulses as those of that night. However much he might sin in yearning, she; should never know, never be exposed to the risk of being drawn into his guilt and pain. He had come at last to the place where all the old delicate pride was merged in the one anxious fear that she should suffer. He would go away the next day; he would not see her again—never see her voluntarily—putting away fiercely the sudden pang of yearning: not that he came at once to such a conclusion.
Honor, pride, self-respect, having failed him once, were not easily recalled to their allegiance. His was no feeble nature, to sin and repent in an hour. He fought over every inch of his way, and came out at last conqueror, but scarred and weary and very weak in heart, and distrustful of himself.
They had gone to ride that afternoon—he had seen them drive away. He would go down and make the necessary arrangements for his departure. And so it happened that he stood an hour before sunset in the parlor. A sudden heart sickness drove the blood from his lips with the wrench of remembrance. It did not strengthen him to meet her, cool and royal, in filmy purple, putting out her hand with frank friendliness, and with a new quaver of interest in her voice. Those fatal magnolias: all the outside world seemed pressing nearer these two strangers in a strange land.
'How pale you are! You have been ill again.'
'No,' he said, almost harshly. 'You like tiger lilies,' lifting a stem crowded with the flaming whirls.
'Like them? yes—don't you? As I like the fiery, deafening drum-roll and screaming fife, and silver, sweet bugle-calls. Think where they found these wide, free curves of outline—that flaming contrast of color. Indian skies have rounded over them, Indian suns poured their fervor into their hearts. In the depth of forest jungles the velvet-coated tiger has shaken off their petals—glittering, deadly cobras crushed them in their slow coils; gorgeous-winged birds and insects swept them in their flight.'