ON the afternoon of the day preceding that of the quail-hunt, Willard had brought a thick portfolio of sketches from his room for Lucie to examine.
"You need not look at them now," he said, sitting down by her on a long settle under a tree near the house. "You may keep the book, and run through it at your leisure. I want you to talk with me at present."
"I can listen," she said; "but I fear I have nothing interesting to say."
"You might answer questions."
"Not hard ones," she said, shaking her head, and smiling archly like a little girl.
"Oh ! I could not think of troubling you with any thing difficult," he said. "To begin with, I should like to know something about Col. Vance."
For a minute she was silent; then, "Papa could tell you," she simply said.
Willard looked steadily at her. Her profile was as calm and sweet as if nothing had been said. Was this art? He could not tell. After all, it might be that she cared nothing for Vance. He had been chafing a day or two over the discovery, as he thought, of a lover- like relation between them. It may be asked why he cared. If the question had been asked of him, he would not have answered. He knew that he was delighted with her, that she impressed him differently from other beautiful girls; that she was delightfully enigmatical; that she was just what his father had described a Southern girl as being, and much more; but he was cool-headed enough to decide that he was not in love. All the same a strangely tender feeling crept over him, as he looked at her: this he was deliciously conscious of. He had never felt precisely the same thing before. It was not passion, he was sure of it. He recalled his foolish suddenness of giving way to something of this sort at the veranda-steps on their return from the cemetery the other evening, and how adroitly he had avoided being caught. He tried to put this and that together, and, in a way, to analyze his condition. The result was elusive.
"No doubt your father could tell me," he said presently; "but what if I would rather have it from you? And, besides, I don't care about hearing of Col. Vance's political standing and prospects, his financial condition, or his war-record."
She turned her eyes, those deep, sweet, dangerous gray eyes, full upon him, and their spell caught him. He knew much of the world, he had been everywhere, he had schooled himself to resist and to conquer eyes. Now, however, all his training failed him, and in a moment he was lost. He said something foolish, of course. A young man always does under such pressure. His wits forsake him utterly; and he blindly reaches out after the ill-defined object of his momentary desire,— reaches out as a child reaches after fire or the moon. Be it said to his lasting credit, Willard was no trifler. He worshipped beauty in a light, airy way, and was by nature and education led to posture before it; but he was sincere. If his actions were often too forthright, they never were any thing but innocent. When Lucie thus inquiringly looked at him, she said, —
"I cannot quite understand you." "You must understand me," he said, in his low, musical way. "There is something I so much want to know." He leaned toward her; but his eyes were downcast, and he showed no emotion. She stooped to pick up a small bit of blank paper which had slipped from the portfolio. The scarlet flower fell from her throat to the ground. He snatched it very quickly. Their heads were very close together as they stooped thus. The omnipresent mocking-bird was singing in the tree above them. A heavy braid of the girl's black hair dropped forward and downward past her cheek, and lay for a second close to Willard's lips. A strange perfume, such as Baudelaire meant to describe in La Chevelure, not of any flower, but sweeter and daintier, as if from the petals of her girlhood's bloom, floated round him.
"I should like to know," he all but whispered, "how much you think of him. Do you love him?"
She straightened herself quickly, but did not answer. As though she had not heard his words, she said, —
"You are going out shooting to-morrow?"
"Yes: who told you?" he replied quickly.
She smiled, and Willard thought her lips grew brighter. After a little she said, —
"I heard papa and Col. Vance speaking of it over their pipes and wine." Then she glanced up, and added, "What do gentlemen find so fascinating in killing birds?"
"I don't know — don't know," responded Willard, slowly recovering as from a spell.
Lucie did not open the portfolio until the next day, when a great quiet was hanging about the old house. Her father had gone down town, her aunt was sewing on the back veranda, her brother was out at the plantation-quarters; Willard was, of course, quail-shooting.
She went to her favorite seat at the root of a broad-armed oak, and spread the book upon her lap. Many of the sketches were mere pencil-notes of places, persons, and things, hurriedly caught here and there in his travels; but there were a number of them done in neutral washes, in crayon and in pastel, the last-mentioned presenting some strikingly good effects.
Lucie, as she sat slowly turning the leaves, was herself a picture, richly brilliant and Southern, coming out fine and strong against the gray background of the huge tree-bole. She wore a silver-colored lawn, with white and scarlet ruffles at the neck and wrists. A dark red rose shone in her hair. Her almost brown complexion, her soft dark eyes, her long black lashes and straight brow, her red lips and pink-touched cheeks, gave just the colors and glows of the semi-tropic. Her slender, rather long, high-arched feet were incased in genuine kid shoes, showing the scarlet broidered stockings between the many straps, as was the prevalent fashion. She was slowly going through the portfolio, leaf by leaf, her face showing almost childish delight. In fact, she never before had enjoyed such a treat. Art-education was neglected, almost wholly, in the South before the war; since then there has been no chance to make amends. Hence the lack of poets and other artists in a region where nature is itself a great, passionate, dramatic poem, a vast kaleidoscope of dazzling pictures. So absorbed was she, the approach of an old limping negress was not noticed until a well-known voice exclaimed, —
"De lor', chile! wha' yo' git dem poorties?"
"Good-morning, auntie Liza," said Lucie, looking up into the fat but much-wrinkled face of the former slave. "How are you feeling this morning?"
"Oh ! tol'ble, thank you, chile. My ole back'll never git well, I s'pose; but de good Lor' app'ints our days, chile. But wha' yo' git dem poorties?"
"They are Mr. Willard's. I am only looking at them."
"Powerful nice man, dat Mr. Willard, he sho'ly is. Did he make dem?"
"Yes, auntie."
"Bress my soul, now, ain't dey nice! Jes' look at dat now! An' dat! Don't you wish Mars' Vance could make poorties like dem, honey?"
"Maybe he can, auntie Liza: you don't know."
"Nary time, chile, nary time. De gentlem in de Souf don't come up to de gentlem in de Norf in sich things."
"Now, auntie Liza!" said Lucie in a deprecating tone, "you ought to be ashamed to take sides against your own folks."
The old negress leaned on a staff she carried, put her left hand on the small of her back, and, after a preliminary moan or two, replied, —
"Now, honey, ye make fun ob ole Liza. I's not takin' no sides agin my folks. We's allus been quality, chile, an' you knows it; but de folks up Norf dey's smart, dey is. Dey looks on de freedom side ob de question."
"Now, now!" cried Lucie with mock severity, "you are running off into politics."
"Well, chile, s'pose I is, den what? Ain't I eighty-nine year ole? Don't I know what's what? S'pose I got no gumption? You needn't laugh: I knows you, bress yo' sweet soul. But as I was a-sayin', dey's a big diff'- ence 'tween de gentlem ob de Norf and de gentlem ob de Souf. 'Course I lubs de Souf gentlem de bes' in a fam'ly way; but de gentlem ob de Norf he's de bes' sot on de freedom question, an' he see more plainer de situation ob de colored folks, he does. Now, f'r instance, Mr. Willard, — he meet me, an' he say ' Good-mornin', madam,' same like I was white. But Mars' Vance, he say, ' Howdy, Liza,' jes' like I wasn't free nor nuffin'. I takes notice ob de difference; an' I says to myself, ' Liza, dis is too plain: de gentlem f'om de Norf is de smartest, he sho'ly is.'"
Lucie had not kept the run of the old woman's talk. Her mind was busy with the sketches. At length she came to one which fairly startled her. It was a girl with long gold-yellow hair, and amber ayes, standing with one fair hand resting on the shaggy head of a dog, the other hand clasping a white lily. The drapery of the figure was old-gold, and its attitude and facial expression gave the idea of pleased expectancy. It was a sketch of rare power and beauty, done somewhat in the style of Whistler, a study in brown and gold, evidently taken from a model of most striking loveliness. Lucie gazed at it in silence, actually trembling in rapt admiration of its strange sweetness and splendor.
"Hoop - ee - too !" exclaimed auntie Liza: "dat's 'is sweetheart, sho's yo' born, chile. She's mighty poorty too."
"Oh, no, auntie! it isn't his — it isn't his — that is, it isn't any one at all. It's just a fancy picture, you know," Lucie hastened to say, still holding it out before her, and still trembling.
"Neber you fool yo'self, honey: de business is too plain. No gentlem gwine to tote dat picter roun' 'dout he lub de gal. It'd be agin natur' mos'ly, an' you know dat's a fac'."
"He may have sketched it from one of the London beauties he so often speaks about," Lucie said to herself, giving no ear to auntie Liza's prattle.
"Took it f'om his sweetheart, dat's what he did; and she mus' be de poortiest gal alibe, she sho'ly must."
Lucie could not take her eyes off the beautiful form and fascinating face. Deep feelings were stirring in her. She murmured, —
"He has been used to meeting and talking with girls like that. How poor and plain and ugly I must look!"
"Not a bit ob dat, chile: you neber looked ugly to nobody. Mr. Willard no fool. He done tuck in all yo' bearin's; an' ef you wusn't done 'gaged to Mars' Vance, he go for ter take yo' in out'n de wet 'mejetly, he sho'ly would. He's smart, chile, he is, fur a fac'."
"Who said I was engaged to Col. Vance, auntie?" said Lucie quickly.
"Well, ain't ye?" cried old Liza, almost spitefully.
Lucie did not reply. She reluctantly put the sketch in its place, and closed the portfolio. She had had a peep into a new world, and the spell of its fascination was upon her. She looked up at the dull, brown-gray walls of the old homestead, and all around at the unkempt trees and shrubs. For the first time, something like a realization of the narrowness and poverty of her life fell into her heart, and sank to the bottom like lead. For a long time she sat in a drooping posture, with an intense look of longing in her eyes.
