THE next day Col. Vance and Cauthorne called together at La Rue place. They found Lucie and Willard on two of the rustic seats near the house, evidently well content to be thus whiling away the delightful afternoon. In fact, Willard had been in an artistic mood, and had begged the privilege of doing what he termed arranging an æsthetic symphony with Lucie as the central idea. He draped the seat first in the tender green-gray Spanish moss.
"Now lean half-wearily back," he said. Then he placed a blue footstool in the foreground, and flung a scarlet mantilla over the arm of the seat. Her white dress and dull-red ribbons completed the combination.
"You work up charmingly in a picture," he said, stepping back a few paces, and looking at her with half-closed eyes.
The sensation of being thus sincerely appreciated in a new way was to Lucie a most fascinating thing. She had felt it several times since Willard had been in the household.
"Wait a moment," he said. He went to his room, and came back with a small oval fan, gray, with scarlet border, and a white lily for its centre. "Hold that."
She took it. A little glow had gathered in her cheeks. Her lips were like a babe's in their tenderness and brilliancy. Her dark gray eyes were deeper and darker than ever.
Another thought struck him. He fetched from the grand parlor an old, curious guitar, and leaned it against her chair.
"That rounds up the thought," he exclaimed, clasping his hands, and smiling like a big, pleased boy.
"Now don't move till I have done a sketch of you," he added, hastily taking up some drawing materials and arranging them. His palette seemed mostly laid already. He fell rapidly to work, as one who knows just how to utilize every second of a precious space of time. With a fine-pointed pencil he traced in the whole; then, from the little blotches of moist water-colors on his palette, he began laying on the colors, taking water from a wide-mouthed phial.
Lucie sat there in a sort of dream, and she looked like the embodiment of the most glorious dream that ever came to man.
It was a miniature drawing he was making. He was a brilliant and rapid workman. Incredibly soon he had done.
The sketch-book lay open at his feet, and the palette was drying beside it, when Vance and Cauthorne arrived. He was in the midst of a monologue, meant to explain to her the difference between Northern and Southern girls, as he viewed them.
"Now, you," he was saying, "are a perfect type of the ultra beautiful, ultra Southern girl."
She was about to reply when they saw the young men coming up the walk between the oaks.
Willard shook hands with his friends, and was about to resume his seat, when a look of Vance's led him to stoop quickly, gather up the painting materials and the sketch, and carry them away to his room. At the time he did not think of analyzing the stare of surprise which he had seen in Vance's face. It impressed him with force, however; and when he returned he could not help noticing a constraint and stiffness not at all usual.
Lucie seemed unaware of this, and was in excellent spirits, talking more, and with more than her accustomed freedom.
"Mr. Willard has been using me as a part of a harmony," she said, with one of her rare, sweet smiles, "and has tried to explain to my untutored mind the elements of a symphony in colors, or something of the sort. He hurried the examples away when you came, however, and I suspect it was a failure."
"No," exclaimed Willard, "not a failure. It is the most perfect sketch I ever made. It is a symphony of the purest order."
Col. Vance looked at him steadily and quietly while he was speaking, an indescribable smile on his finely-formed mouth.
"May I see it?" he demanded, in a voice strangely flat and unmusical.
"Oh! some time, perhaps," said Willard lightly, "when I am in an exhibiting mood."
"I will see it now, if you please," said Vance.
Lucie darted a startled look at him as he spoke. Neither Cauthorne nor Willard noticed it. The latter filliped an old acorn with his thumb, and said, —
"I am too lazy to be troubled now. Any other time in the world."
"I saw you sketching last night."
Willard looked up quickly, coloring just perceptibly. Vance's tone was not to be mistaken. Nor was Willard's look.
Lucie took up the guitar, and swept its strings with her fingers. She rapidly tuned it.
"I am going to sing a song," she said. A great white smile flared over her face. Col. Vance got up, and turned himself about a time or two. He looked up into the trees. He snapped his thumb and fingers together audibly. He took a few quick steps back and forth. Then, "Excuse me," he said, slipping out his watch, and glancing at it, "I had forgotten. I've a matter of importance. I will explain when I can. Good-afternoon."
He strode rapidly away. Lucie fingered the strings of the guitar a little. One of them snapped in two with a great clang. She looked up as if in despair.
"So ends the symphony," gayly exclaimed Cauthorne, in the innocence of his ignorance.
Willard took the guitar, and began to examine to see if the string would admit of tying. He mended the break in silence, and handed the instrument back to Lucie. For a mere point of time their eyes met, and the light of their common thought flashed between them.
"There is a little song," said Cauthorne, "which charmed me the other evening. Two gentlemen sang it in the hotel-parlor. It is called 'The Tallahassee Girl,' or something of the sort."
"A silly ditty, but rather sweet. I will sing it for you," said Lucie, rapidly running the mended string up to the proper pitch. Her hands were very steady.
Willard looked curiously at her, his admiration deepening with every breath.
She dashed into the lively prelude, and at length began singing. Her voice could not be called cultivated; but it was a soprano of wonderful power and sweetness, and there was a feeling in it which transformed the ditty into a song. Before it was ended Willard had passed a crisis in his life. He had asked himself the question, Do I love her? and immediately, with a leap of his heart, had answered, I do!
Cauthorne staid a long while, keeping Lucie playing most of the time. He enjoyed every moment to the full; and, when at last he got up to go, he lingered.
"I want to come often: may I?" he said, holding out his hand to bid her good-by in the good Southern fashion.
As soon as he was gone, Lucie sank back in the seat, pale, almost overcome. Now, indeed, she made a wonderful picture, caught in those gay colors.
Willard waited for her to speak. He pretended not to notice her excitement. It was not long she remained silent. Suddenly raising her head, —
"Col. Vance is very angry," she said; "and I fear you will have trouble. I know you will."
"What is the matter with the man?" demanded Willard very composedly.
"I really cannot tell, but I think it was the picture. He was in a white rage as soon as he saw it," she said. "Was there any thing very — was there any thing at all wrong about it in any way? Tell me, tell me!" she cried in a sudden paroxysm of emotion.
"Upon my sacred honor, no!" answered Willard.
She rose, pressed her palms against her temples, and turned to go into the house. She faltered, looked back at him, and said, —
"I must have time to think. Excuse me."
He did not try to detain her. To him all this grand emotion, while it was dramatic and picturesque, seemed almost ludicrously disproportioned to its cause. He had forgotten where he was. Not even the long moss, the magnolias, the mocking-birds, and the guitar could call to his mind the fact that he was in the old, hot, imperious, semi-mediæval South. He was, however, imperfectly aware of an impending quarrel with Col. Vance, and of all the disagreeable things which might connect themselves with it. Viewed from his standpoint, it merely took the turn of a disagreement, a misunderstanding, a coolness, nothing further. Fighting was no part of the age in which Willard lived. He had never viewed a personal encounter as a possibility on his plane. Such a thing was far below his horizon. He correctly suspected that Vance had construed his action, in hurrying the sketch away to. his room, to mean that he intended to keep it. But his æsthetic nature could discover no impropriety, no suggestion of harm, no shadow of insult, in such an act or intention. He did mean to keep the sketch. Another thought outlined itself in his mind, upon which he felt a scruple. No doubt Vance had suddenly begun to suspect that he intended to try and win away Lucie. This presented a moral question fully within his grasp. Ought he to do this if he could? He stopped, be it said to his credit, right in the whirl of the rosy mist of the sweet, powerful passion, and asked the question of himself. His heart was silent. His conscience formulated no intelligible answer. A spell closed around him. The breeze whispered on, the perfumes crept on, the mocking-birds sang on. He looked abstractedly at the guitar, the blue footstool, the festooned seat, the scarlet mantilla, a tiny glove. The sky above, the earth beneath, and all the space between them were filled with the influence of Lucie La Rue. He reached his arms toward the empty seat, and murmured, "You are mine, sweet Lucie, mine!"
He was not aware that she was close beside him, until she said, —
"Mr. Willard."
