The Choir Invisible [57]
window could no longer betray his face. All at once his voice broke through the darkness, so unlike itself that she started:
"When did you give him this promise? I have no right to ask . . . when did you give him this promise?"
She answered as if by no will of her own:"The night of the ball--as we were going home."
She waited until she felt that she should sink to the ground.
Then he spoke again as if rather to himself than to her, and with the deepest sorrow and pity for them both:
"If I had gone with you that night--if I had gone with you that night--and had asked you--you would have married me."
Her lips began to quiver and all that was in her to break down before him--to yearn for him. In a voice neither could scarce hear she said:
"I will marry you yet!"
She listened. She waited, Out of the darkness she could distinguish not the rustle of a movement, not a breath of sound; and at last cowering back into herself with shame, she buried her face in her hands.
Then she was aware that he had come forward and was standing over her. He bent his head down so close that his lids touched her hair--so close that his warm breath was on her forehead--and she felt rather than knew him saying to himself, not to her:
"Good-bye!"
He passed like a tall spirit out of the door, and she heard his footsteps die away along the path--die slowly away as of one who goes never to return.
XV
A JEST may be the smallest pebble that was ever dropped into the sunny mid-ocean of the mind; but sooner or later it sinks to a hard bottom, sooner or later sends it ripples toward the shores where the caves of the fatal passions yawn and roar for wreckage. It is the Comedy of speech that forever dwells as Tragedy's fondest sister, sharing with her the same unmarked domain; for the two are but identical forces of the mind in gentle and in ungentle action as one atmosphere holds within itself unseparated the zephyr and the storm.
The following afternoon O'Bannon was ambling back to town--slowly and awkwardly, he being a poor rider and dreading a horse's back as he would have avoided its kick. He was returning from the paper mill at Georgetown whither he had been sent by Mr. Bradford with an order for a further supply of sheets. The errand had not been a congenial one; and he was thinking now as often before that he would welcome any chance of leaving the editor's service. What he had always coveted since his coming into the wilderness was the young master's school; for the Irish teacher, afterwards so well known a figure in the West, was even at this time beginning to bend his mercurial steps across the mountains. Out of his covetousness had sprung perhaps his enmity toward the master, whom he further despised for his Scotch blood, and in time had grown to dislike from motives of jealousy, and last of all to hate for his simple purity. Many a man nurses a grudge of this kind against his human brother and will take pains to punish him accordingly; for success in virtue is as hard for certain natures to witness as success in anything else will irritate those whose nerveless or impatient or ill-directed grasp it has wisely eluded.
On all accounts therefore it had fallen well to his purpose to make the schoolmaster the dupe of a disagreeable jest. The jest had had unexpectedly serious consequences: it had brought about the complete discomfiture of John in his love affair; it had caused the trouble behind the troubled face with which he had looked out upon every one during his illness.
The two young men had never met since; but the one was under a cloud; the other was refulgent with his petty triumph; and he had set his face all the more toward any further aggressiveness that occasion should bring happily to his hand.
The mere road might have shamed him into manlier reflections. It was one of the forest highways of the majestic bison opened ages before into what must have been to them Nature's most gorgeous kingdom, her fairest, most magical Babylon: with hanging gardens of verdure
"When did you give him this promise? I have no right to ask . . . when did you give him this promise?"
She answered as if by no will of her own:"The night of the ball--as we were going home."
She waited until she felt that she should sink to the ground.
Then he spoke again as if rather to himself than to her, and with the deepest sorrow and pity for them both:
"If I had gone with you that night--if I had gone with you that night--and had asked you--you would have married me."
Her lips began to quiver and all that was in her to break down before him--to yearn for him. In a voice neither could scarce hear she said:
"I will marry you yet!"
She listened. She waited, Out of the darkness she could distinguish not the rustle of a movement, not a breath of sound; and at last cowering back into herself with shame, she buried her face in her hands.
Then she was aware that he had come forward and was standing over her. He bent his head down so close that his lids touched her hair--so close that his warm breath was on her forehead--and she felt rather than knew him saying to himself, not to her:
"Good-bye!"
He passed like a tall spirit out of the door, and she heard his footsteps die away along the path--die slowly away as of one who goes never to return.
XV
A JEST may be the smallest pebble that was ever dropped into the sunny mid-ocean of the mind; but sooner or later it sinks to a hard bottom, sooner or later sends it ripples toward the shores where the caves of the fatal passions yawn and roar for wreckage. It is the Comedy of speech that forever dwells as Tragedy's fondest sister, sharing with her the same unmarked domain; for the two are but identical forces of the mind in gentle and in ungentle action as one atmosphere holds within itself unseparated the zephyr and the storm.
The following afternoon O'Bannon was ambling back to town--slowly and awkwardly, he being a poor rider and dreading a horse's back as he would have avoided its kick. He was returning from the paper mill at Georgetown whither he had been sent by Mr. Bradford with an order for a further supply of sheets. The errand had not been a congenial one; and he was thinking now as often before that he would welcome any chance of leaving the editor's service. What he had always coveted since his coming into the wilderness was the young master's school; for the Irish teacher, afterwards so well known a figure in the West, was even at this time beginning to bend his mercurial steps across the mountains. Out of his covetousness had sprung perhaps his enmity toward the master, whom he further despised for his Scotch blood, and in time had grown to dislike from motives of jealousy, and last of all to hate for his simple purity. Many a man nurses a grudge of this kind against his human brother and will take pains to punish him accordingly; for success in virtue is as hard for certain natures to witness as success in anything else will irritate those whose nerveless or impatient or ill-directed grasp it has wisely eluded.
On all accounts therefore it had fallen well to his purpose to make the schoolmaster the dupe of a disagreeable jest. The jest had had unexpectedly serious consequences: it had brought about the complete discomfiture of John in his love affair; it had caused the trouble behind the troubled face with which he had looked out upon every one during his illness.
The two young men had never met since; but the one was under a cloud; the other was refulgent with his petty triumph; and he had set his face all the more toward any further aggressiveness that occasion should bring happily to his hand.
The mere road might have shamed him into manlier reflections. It was one of the forest highways of the majestic bison opened ages before into what must have been to them Nature's most gorgeous kingdom, her fairest, most magical Babylon: with hanging gardens of verdure