“Gabriel, what ails you?”
Her eyes were very bright and eager, and there was a kind of half-fear on her face.
“Nothing,” he said. “I am only a little faint.”
She opened the heavy oak door, beckoned him across the hall, and led him into a large, shadowy room, lighted by three mullioned windows towards the west. Wainscoting covered the walls. The floor was of parqueterie carpeted with several old rugs. Antique china, interspersed with bowls of anemones, red and blue, filled the carved mantel-shelf. The grate was black and cumbersome, the hearth inlaid with tiles of a dark-green color. In the centre of the room a round mahogany table bore a great blue bowl ablaze with marsh marigolds. Heavy damask red curtains were half drawn across the window recesses. Joan flung one back, opened a casement frame, pointed Gabriel to the cushioned window-seat.
“Rest there, dear; I must go and find my father.”
The man leaned back against the panelling with a saddened sense of peace. The antique yet fragrant flavor of the room floated upon him, redolent of the past. There was infinite magic in the girl’s gentle masterfulness, and her words had set his heart hurrying. If this old house was only his own home, and Joan his wife, golden emblem of womanhood moving like sunlight in dark places! He played with the phantasm as a poet dallies with a splendid dream.
When Joan came back to him she came like the damsel of vision, gracious and adorable. She had loosed her hair upon her shoulders; there were red wind-flowers in the bosom of her creamy blouse; a belt of silver-work topped the smooth sweep of her olive-green skirt. Yet there was a tired look upon her face, as though she were keeping something hid within her heart. She sat down on a little tapestry-covered sofa, with her face towards the window.
“My father is asleep,” she said, with a pensive stare. “He is growing very weak and feeble. I have another woman to help me. I think she was hewn out of granite. Are you better now?”
“Yes,” he said, leaning back against the wainscoting and watching her face with a melancholy pride. “It is very restful here; I breathe the air that moves about you, and am at peace. You, too, look tired.”
Her face clouded suddenly, and there was a pathetic regret upon her lips that would have been piteous had not her gray eyes shone so bravely.