Fate Knocks at the Door: A Novel

by Will Levington Comfort

"That's very pretty," she said, and turned a glance into his eyes…. The same cool deeps were there, though his face held a singular happiness. She wondered if it were because she had not forbade him to speak. Did he think she was ready, and that her heart was free?

There was no one on the sloping hill-road, either to the right or left, and only the colts in the meadows. A good free thing—this elimination of human beings—though at this height, they stood in the very eye of the country-side. The chestnut mare was cropping the young grass by the edge of the highway, but there were matters for Clarendon to understand—far distances and movements not for human eyes. The colts racing up and down the hill-fence were beneath his notice. The great arched neck was lifted for far gazing and listening, and that which came to his foreign senses, caused him to snort softly from time to time….

Beth rode without hat. Her arms were bare to the elbows; her gray silk waist open at the throat. She stretched out her arms, and the sunlight, cut by the high elm boughs, fell upon her like a robe, woven of shimmerings. She seemed to want her full portion of vitality from the great upbuilding day.

"It's strong medicine—this high noon of June," she said. "One feels like unfolding as flowers do."

And then came over him—over all his senses—something flower-like in scent, yet having to do with no particular flower. It dilated his nostrils, but more than that, all his senses awoke to the strange charm of it…. The distance between them was gone that instant. Though it may have endured for ages and ages, it was gone. He had overtaken her…. A haunting influence; and yet of magic authority! Was it the perfume of the lotos and the bees? It was more than that. It was the sublimate of all his bewitchings—chaste mountains, dawns, the morning glow upon great heights, the flock of flying swans red with daybreak; more still, all the petals of the Adelaide passion restored in one drop of fragrance, and lifted, a different fragrance, the essence of a miracle! This was the perfume that came from her life, from her arms and throat and red mouth….

It was new out of the years. All his strangely guarded strength arose suddenly animate. A forgotten self had come back to him, all fresh and princely out of long enchantment…. And there she stood with face averted awaiting this Return!… This was the mysterious prince who had wrought in darkness so long, the source of his dreams of woman's greatness, the energy that had driven and held him true to his ideals, the structure into which his spiritual life had been builded (was this the world's mighty illusion possessing him?), and now the prince had come, asking for his own…. And she was there, stretching out her arms.

Mighty forces awoke from sleep. They were not of his mind, but deep resolutions of all his life, forces of her own inspiring which she must gladly, gloriously obey. Was it not her love token, this electric power, as truly as his mind's ardor and his spiritual reverence?… The miracle of her life's fragrance held him…. Even desire was beautiful in a love like this. All nature trembles for the issue, when love such as his perceives the ripe red fruit of a woman's lips…. But better far not to know it at all, than to know the half.

* * * * *

And Beth was thinking of the cool depths in his eyes a moment before, and of his words, "asking nothing."… "Why asks he nothing of me?… Because I am old and cold."… Some terrific magnetism filled her suddenly, as if she had drawn vitality from great spaces of sunlight, and some flaming thing from the huge hot strength of Clarendon…. And now the goading devil whispered:

"With another he would not ask, he would take! Only you—you do not attract great passions. The source of such attraction is gone from you. Mental interests and spiritual ideals are your sphere!… Second-rate women whistle and the giants come! They know the lovers in men. You know the sedate mental gardeners and the tepid priests. How you worship that still, cool gazing in the eyes of men! Books and pictures are quite enough—for your adventures in passion. In them, you meet your great lovers—of other women. You are Beth Truba of street and studio. You can send lovers away. You can make them afraid of your tongue, strip them of all ardor with your nineteenth century bigotry…. You have so many years to waste. Empty arms are so light and cool, their veins are never scorched; they never dry with age!… Oh, red-haired Beth Truba, all the spaces of sky are laughing at you! To-morrow or next day, by the ocean, another woman will start the flames in those cool eyes of his, and feel them singing around her!… Why do you let him go? Only a nineteenth century mind with the ideas of a slave woman would let him go!… Keep him with you. Show your power. Create the giant. By no means is that the least of woman's work!"