Through stained glass Part 39

At the same hour Leighton was saying good-by to H lne. He had not really come to say good-by. He had come to thank her for her sacrifice, for the things he knew she had said to Lew. He did not try to thank her in words. A boyish glance, an awkward movement, a laugh that broke--these things said more to H lne than words.

"So you've got six months' grace," said H lne, when Leighton had told her how things stood. "Glen, do you remember this: 'All erotic love is a progression. There is no amatory affection that can stand the strain of a separation of six months in conjunction with six thousand miles. All the standard tales of _grande pa.s.sion_ and absence are--'"

"'Legendary hypotheses based on a neurotic foundation,'" finished Leighton. "Yes, I remember that theory of mine. I'm building on it."

"I thought you were," said H lne. "Don't build too confidently. Lew has a strain of constancy in him. It's quite unconscious, but it's there.

Just add my theory to yours."

"What's your theory?" asked Leighton.

"My theory," said H lne, "is that little girl Natalie. I don't suppose she's little now."

Leighton frowned.

"Do you know where Natalie is living? She's _there_." His brow clouded with thoughts of the scene of his bitter love.

H lne understood.

"I know. I thought so," she said.

"I'll send Lewis to her."

"No, Glen," said H lne softly, "you'll take him to her."

When all was ready for the start, Nelton appeared before Leighton.

"Please, sir," he said, "I've taken the liberty of packing my bags, too, thank, you, sir. I thought, sir, since you're both going, the flat might be locked up."

"Well," said Leighton, "I suppose it might for once. Where are you off to?"

"Why, with you, sir. If you don't mind, sir, I'd like to see this America."

Leighton smiled.

"Come along, by all means, Nelton," he said. "Go ahead with the baggage, and see that Master Lewis and I get a compartment to ourselves. Here's half a crown."

Leighton and Lewis were not traveling with the rush of the traffic. It was too early in the year. While the boat was not crowded, it was by no means deserted. It had just that number of pa.s.sengers on board which an old traveler would like to stipulate for on buying his ticket; enough to keep the saloons from hollow echoes, and not enough to block even a single deck.

"Are these all Americans?" asked Lewis on their third day out.

Leighton glanced rapidly up and down the deck.

"No," he said, "there's hardly a typical American in the lot. Wrong time of year. You see there are more men than women. That's a sure sign this isn't an American pleasure-boat. There are a good many English on board, the traveling kind. They're going over to 'do' America before the heat comes on. What Americans you see are tainted."

"What's a tainted American?" asked Lewis.

"I'm a tainted American, and you are," said Leighton. "A tainted American is one who has lived so long abroad that he goes to America on business."

CHAPTER XLII

The house that Aunt Jed had left to Natalie stood on the lip of a vast basin. From its veranda one looked down into a peaceful cup of life. The variegated green of the valley proclaimed to the wandering eye,

"All sorts are here that all the earth yields!

Variety without end."

There was a patchwork of fields bordered with gray stone walls, of stray bits of pasture, of fallow meadow and glint of running water, of woodland, orchard, and the habitations of man made still by distance.

Aunt Jed's house was not on the highway. The highway was miles off, and cut the far side of the basin in a long, straight slant. On that gash of white one could see occasional tiny motor-cars hurrying up and down like toys on a taut string. Only one motor, a pioneer car, had struggled up the road that led past Natalie's door, and immediately after, that detour had been marked as impa.s.sable on all the best maps.

In fact, the road up to Aunt Jed's looked more like a river-bed than a road. It had a gully and many "thank-you-ma'ams." It was plentifully sown with pebbles as big as your head and hard as flint, which gave t.i.t for tat to every wheel that struck them. Every time Mrs. Leighton ventured in Natalie's cart--and it was seldom indeed except to go to church--she would say, "We really must have this road fixed."

But Natalie would only laugh and say,

"Not a bit of it. I like it that way."

Natalie had bought for a song a little mare named Gipsy. n.o.body, man or woman, could drive Gip; she just went. Whoever rode, held on and prayed for her to stop. Gip hated that road down into the valley. If she could have gone from top to bottom in one jump, she would have done it. As it was, she did the next best thing. What made you love Gip was that she came up the hill almost as fast as she went down.

Soon after Gip became Natalie's, she awoke to find herself famous from an attempt to pa.s.s over and through a stalled motor-car. After that the farmers used to keep an eye out for her, especially on Sundays, and give her the whole road when they saw her coming. Ann Leighton said it was undignified to go to church like that, to which Natalie replied:

"Think what it's doing for your color, Mother. Besides, think of church.

You must admit that church here has gone a bit tough. I really couldn't stand it except sandwiched between two slices of Gip."

Aunt Jed's house--n.o.body ever called it anything else--was typical of the old New England style, except that a broad veranda had been added to the length of the front by the generation that had outraged custom and reduced the best parlor and the front door to everyday uses. This must have happened many years before Natalie's advent, for a monster climbing rose of hardy disposition had more than half covered the veranda before she came.

The house itself was of clapboards painted white, and stood four square; its small-paned windows, flanked with green shutters, blinking toward the west. It had a very prim air, said to have been absorbed from Aunt Jed, and seemed to be eternally trying to draw back its skirts from contact with the interloping veranda and the rose-tree, which, toward the end of the flowering season, certainly gave it a mussed appearance.

At such times, if the great front door was left open on a warm day, the house took on a look of open-mouthed horror, which immediately relapsed to primness once the door was closed.

Natalie was the discoverer of this evidence of personality. Sitting under the two giant elms that were the sole ornament of the soft old lawn, she suddenly caught the look on the face of the house, and called out:

"Mother, come here! Come quickly!" as though the look couldn't possibly last through Mrs. Leighton's leisurely approach.

"What is it, dear?" asked Mrs. Leighton.

"Why, the house!" said Natalie. "Look at it. It's horrified at something. I think it must be the mess the roses have made. Can't you see what it's saying? It's saying, 'Well, I never!'"

Mrs. Leighton laughed.

"It does look sort of funny," she said.

Just then old mammy put her gray head out of the door to hear what the talk was about. She wore gla.s.ses, as becoming to her age, but peered over them when she wanted to see anything.

"What youans larffin' abeout?" she demanded.