The Window-Gazer Part 25

She wondered, too, about the rancher's wife going home to Scotland for the first time since her marriage. What did it feel like to be going home--to a real home with a mother and brothers and sisters? What did it feel like to be taking two dark-haired, bright-eyed babies, as like as twins and with only a year between them, for the fond approval of grand-parents across the seas? ... The rancher's wife looked as if she enjoyed it. But women will pretend anything.

Desire's eyes s.h.i.+fted to the inevitable honeymoon couple who were going to Winnipeg to visit "his" people. The bride was almost painfully smart, but she was pretty and "he" adored her. Her mouth was small and red. It fascinated Desire. She could not keep her eyes off it. It was like--well, it was the kind of mouth men seemed to admire. She tried honestly to admire it her-self, but the more she tried the less admirable she found it. She wondered if Benis--

"What do you think of the bride?" she murmured, under cover of a magazine.

"Where?" said Benis, in an unnecessarily loud voice, laying down his paper.

"S-ss.h.!.+ Over there. The girl in green."

"Pretty little thing," said Benis. His tone lacked conviction.

"Lovely eyes, don't you think? Nice hair and such a darling nose. But her mouth--isn't her mouth rather small?"

"Regular 'prunes and prisms,'" agreed Benis.

"It is very red, though."

"Lipstick, probably."

"But I thought you liked small, red mouths."

"Hate 'em," said Benis, who had a shockingly bad memory.

Desire went to bed thoughtful. "I suppose," she thought as she lay listening to the swinging train, "men like certain things because they belong to certain people and not because they like them really at all."

This was not very lucid but it seemed to satisfy Desire for she stopped thinking and went to sleep.

Morning found them on the top of the world. Desire was up and out long before the mists had lifted. She watched the wonder of their going, she saw the coming of the sun. She drew in, with great deep breaths, the high, sweet air. The cream of her skin glowed softly with the tang of it.

"Quite lovely!" said a voice behind her, and Desire turned to find her solitude shared by the young old lady from Golden.

"Your complexion, I mean, my dear," said she, sitting down comfortably in the folds of a fur coat. "I never use adjectives about the mountains. It would seem impertinent. How old are you?"

Desire gave her age smiling. "Charming age," nodded the old lady.

"Youth is a wonderful thing. See that you keep it."

"Like you?" said Desire, her smile brightening.

The old lady looked pleased.

"Quite so," she said. "Never allow yourself to believe that silly folly about a woman being as old as she looks. As if a mirror had more mind than the person looking in it! I remember very well waking up on the morning of my thirtieth birthday and thinking, 'I am thirty. I am growing old.' But, thank heaven, I had a mind. I soon put a stop to that. 'Not a day older will I grow!' I said. And I never have. What's a mind for, if not to make use of?"

Desire looked a little awed at an audacity which defied time.

"Don't misunderstand me," went on her companion. "I don't mean that I tried to look young. I was young. I am young still."

"Yes," said Desire. "I see what you mean. But--wasn't it lonely?"

The old lady patted her arm with an approving hand.

"Clever child!" she said. "Yes, of course it was lonely. But one can't have everything. Pick out what you want most and cling to it. Let the rest go. It's a good philosophy."

"Isn't it selfish?"

"Youth is always selfish," complacently. "I feel quite complimented now when anyone calls me a selfish creature. You are a bride, aren't you?"

Desire blushed beautifully. But one couldn't resent so frank an interest.

"Yes," she said.

"That thin, dark man is your husband? The one with the chin?"

"He has a chin," doubtfully. "Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, he is my husband."

"Odd you never noticed his chin before," commented the old lady. "Well, look out! That man has reserves. Who is the other one?"

"A friend."

The old lady shook a well-kept finger.

"Inconvenient things, friends!" said she. "Far better without them."

"Haven't you any?"

"Not one. They went on. All old fogies now." Her air of boredom was unfeigned.

"But you have your daughter."

"Too old!" The youthful eyes twinkled maliciously. "Now you, my dear, would be nearer my age. For you have youth within as well as without.

Keep it. It's all there is worth having."

Desire smiled. But the words lingered. She had never valued her youth.

She had been impatient of it. And now to be told that it was all there was worth having! It was the creed of selfishness. And yet--had life already given her one of her greatest treasures and had she come near to missing the meaning of the gift?

At breakfast she observed her husband's chin so narrowly that he became uneasy, wondering if he had forgotten to shave. She looked at John's chin, too, with reflective eyes. Undoubtedly it was much inferior.

The train had conquered the mountains now and was plunging down upon their farther side. Soon they were in the foot-hills and then nothing but a flas.h.i.+ng streak across an endless, endless tableland of wheat.

Desire, who had never seen the prairie, smiled whimsically.

"It is like coming from the world's cathedral to the world's breakfast-table!" said she.

Aunt Caroline snorted. For her part, she said, she found train breakfasts much the same anywhere except near the Great Lakes, where one might expect better fish.

It grew very hot. The effortless speed of the train rolled up the blazing miles and threw them behind, league on league. The sun set and rose on a level sky. The babies of the rancher's wife grew tired and sticky. They were almost too much for their equally tired mother, so half of them sat on Desire's lap most of the time. Desire's half seemed to bounce a great deal and gave bubbly kisses, but the rings around its fat wrist and the pink dimples in its fingers were well worth while keeping clean and cool just to look at. It was true, as Desire reminded herself, that she did not care for children, but anyone might find a round, fat one with cooey laughs a pleasant thing to play with! She did it mostly when Benis was in the smoker with John.

At Winnipeg the honeymoon couple left them and the old lady from Golden, much to her disgust, was also compelled to stay over for a day because her middle-aged daughter was train-sick. Other and less interesting faces took their places.

Desire watched them hopefully but the only one who seemed appealing was a st.u.r.dy prairie school teacher going "home." Desire liked the school teacher. She was so solid, so sure of herself, so wrapped up in and satisfied with something which she called "education." She asked Desire where she had been educated. Desire did not seem to know. "Just anywhere," she said, "when father felt like it and had time. And I taught myself shorthand."