Chapter IX: Approaching the Rapids

The evening was iridescent with gold, azure and lilac. The sun was low in the west, and the high, irregularly formed mountains looked as if they had been shapes of mauve laid softly against the luminous sky. They did not seem solid, but fairy-like, elusive, like the mystic forms which glide before crystal-gazers, ready to vanish as silently as they appear. The evening itself was unreal--too beautiful, too delicately coloured, too spiritual to belong to this world. It seemed as if it must be a fragment of time, dropped by accident from some wonderful starry sphere and allowed to rest on earth for a little while before it should be gathered to the place where it belonged.

Miss Dearn was sitting on a long, low chair on the balcony, her dainty, cool hands lying idly in her lap, while she gazed into the soft illumined spaces.

By one of the high wooden pillars stood Rees, regarding her with unmistakable admiration in his disconcerting grey eyes.

“Iris, you have no idea what pleasure you gave Mr. Green by going to see him,” he was saying; “they were as excited as two children just now when I was there--and their delight at your gift--dressing-gown, wasn’t it?--you should have heard them! The poor old man has never had such a beautiful article in his life before--it really was a handsome present, and it will give him no end of pleasure to wear it.”

The girl flushed happily; it was sweet to give the Greens pleasure, and sweeter still to have pleased the man she loved.

“And I hear you have promised to go and see them again and read to the poor old fellow--it is just splendid of you, Iris! You don’t know how much it means to them; they live such dull, monotonous lives, and to see you--” the admiration in his eyes deepened--“would be new life to them--a vision from another world!”

“But it was such a little thing to do; I sent to Melbourne for the garment--those things are generally useful to invalids, and when it came I thought I should like to take it to them myself. I am so glad they were pleased. I should like to go and see some more of them, if you think they would care for it.”

“They would adore it!” he said, his face aglow with the pride he felt in her. “Iris, you are wonderful, perfectly wonderful!”

She raised her soft, snowy chin, and a dewy beauty shone in her eyes as she lifted them to his. “Justin, if there is any good in me it is only there because of--you.”

He glanced at her incredulously. “What do you mean?”

“Why, just what I say. I have lived a horribly selfish life, and I did not even know it was selfish till I met you; but your beautiful example showed me what my life might be--ought to be.”

All at once he looked away from her and his head was bent as if she had heaped some shame upon him. “Don’t talk like that--I can’t bear it,” he said in tones tinged with pain.

“Why not? It is the truth: your splendid example showed me what life was meant to be.”

“Iris, don’t!”

“Now I am going to try and make up for lost time. Besides,” she added with a brave little smile, “I must begin to train for the future.”

“What are you going to do in the future?” he asked, turning to her again.

“I am going to live with Amy and----”

“Yes, and what?”

“Try and live as you do,” she replied under her breath.

“As I do--how do you mean?”

“Try and help everybody bear burdens, ride about and visit the poor, sit up with the sick people, and----”

He had come close to her chair now. “Iris,” he said, his voice shaking a little, “you are too touchingly sweet. But I am not living that kind of beautiful life--I have to work for my living, and I only just do little odds and ends for the people about.”

“Well, that is just what I mean to do--little odds and ends for everybody within reach; only, as I don’t have to work, I shall have all day to do it, and all night, too, if need be.”

“Why are you going to do that instead of going back to your old happy life?”

“It was not happy--it did not satisfy; but I did not know how to live any other till you showed me.”

“And will this new plan make you happy in the future, do you think?”

Her eyes dropped before his searching gaze. “I don’t know about happy,” she said with a half-stifled sigh.

“Then why not go back to your home? You could live just as beautiful a life there.”

“No,” she said steadily, “I couldn’t--not there; I should be dragged into the whirlpool of pleasure and excitement again. Perhaps, if you had been there and showed me--” she raised her head delicately--“but I could not do it otherwise. Besides----”

“Yes?”

“How could I bear to live in pleasure and ease when--when--you have to work so hard, and all the while living for others, as you do?”

He drew a quick, sharp breath as if she had hurt him. “I have a good reason for working hard,” he said brokenly. “And most of my life, alas! I have lived without giving a thought to others.”

“But you are not living like that to-day.”

“Perhaps I am trying to atone for the past.”

The haunted look in his eyes touched her deeply. From several remarks he had made she knew his past caused him sorrow; he was grieving over it now. She wanted to comfort him, so she said: “If your past has been a stepping-stone to the present, it has been useful.”

He moved away from her and stood by the pillar again, his face shadowed with sadness.

She rose and went to him quickly, her eyes pools of sapphire splendour looking tenderly into his. “Don’t be sad about it--dear.” The last word was a mere breath, but he heard it and she saw him start a little. Then all at once he leant back against the pillar and closed his eyes. Presently he opened them and looked at her, and there was such an anguish of longing in their sad, grey depths that it made her turn pale and suddenly grip the wooden railing for support.

“I am sorry,” he murmured apologetically. “I should not have let you see that.”

“I thought--I thought--we had agreed----” she whispered, struggling for composure.

“Yes,” he replied, “you have been so good to me, and I am afraid I have taken great advantage of your generosity. All the same I must not presume too much--it would not be fair to you.”

“Don’t use the word ‘presume’--it could never be a case of that between us--I have given you the right.”

“Still, I am not sure that I should be justified in taking it.”

“You mean--you should not show me your--feelings?”

“Yes.”

“You are afraid of hurting--my life?”

“Yes.”

“Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that silence may sometimes hurt more than----” She checked herself abruptly.

The sun had sunk below the rim of the distant hills. The evening was not so ethereal now. It had intensified, become more real, more a thing of earth. It was still beautiful, but its beauty was the solid beauty of reality; even the great spaces brooding over the purple jagged mountains pulsated now with a vivid, vital glow.

Rees suddenly straightened. “Iris,” he said in very strained tones, “tell me truly; be quite frank with me--has my silence _hurt_ you?”

“Yes--at times,” she answered very quietly.

“And--and--would you like me to--speak?”

She drew back in terror. “No, please don’t,” she said quickly. “I can’t imagine what possessed me to say such a dreadful thing.”

There was fear and distress in every word.

“But--I asked you.”

“Yes, but I told you first--that---- Oh, it was awful of me!”

Rees came a little closer. “No, it was not awful,” he said in tones slightly stern. “After I have said so much, showed you as much as I have, it is your right to know all, Iris.” He came closer still and she felt his nearness keenly. “If my silence has hurt you, I will make a clean breast of everything. I will tell you about my feelings, my--past--all. I have been longing to tell you--all! how--I--feel--burning to tell you, but for your sake I have kept silent. Yet if it will make it easier for you I will tell you all, at once.”

“No, no, no,” she cried, with touching appeal in her voice. “Don’t you see I could not let you tell me--now. You were right to keep silent and it was terrible of me to say what I did; but at times it has all seemed so strange and I could not understand why--and I----”

“You wanted me to be more frank with you--to speak freely?”

“Yes,” she faltered, and the soft corners of her mouth looked a little unsteady.

“What a brute I have been not to have thought of that!” he muttered under his breath. “But come down into the garden and I will make full amends; we cannot talk here, we may be interrupted at any moment--come!” He laid his hand over her trembling one still gripping the railing, and his strong fingers untwined her slender ones from the wood. “Come,” he repeated in a tense, low voice.

“No, no,” protested the girl; “it must not be. You were right; what you did was best.”

“Don’t you want to hear what I have to say?”

In the gathering dusk she felt the burning question in his eyes demanding an absolutely honest reply.

“Yes,” she said tremblingly, “of course I want to hear it--how can I help it, Justin? All the same,” she added regretfully, “I cannot.”

“Yes, you can, if I insist on telling you.”

“But you will not insist; it would be too cruel--for I should feel so awful afterwards, because I had made you do it. It would be as bad as--or perhaps even worse than what happened that afternoon--in--the cave. Don’t you remember how terribly ashamed I was afterwards? You don’t know what tortures I went through over it!”

His fingers upon her own tightened. “You poor darling,” he murmured very gently, “shall I ever forget? It was awful to see your distress.”

“Well, I should feel much worse if--if--I made you tell me--this.”

“But you wouldn’t have made me.”

“Yes, I should, for if I had not said what I did, you would never have thought of telling me.”

“Not thought of telling you! Iris, how little you understand--why, I think of little else. I am always having to stifle the yearning to pour it all out to you, and sometimes I feel it will suffocate me to keep it in much longer!” As he spoke he drew her hand against his breast.

“You poor dear boy,” she said, looking up at him with sudden tenderness.

She felt him draw a deep, quivering sigh. “Oh, Iris, it is too wonderful to have you talking to me like that! Do say it again!” he entreated.

“You poor dear boy,” she repeated, colouring slightly.

“Come down into the garden,” he pleaded, every word weighted with yearning.

“No, not to-night--I dare not.”

“Why not?”

“Because--because--I----”

“Iris, how I wish you could put aside that shyness and just talk quite freely to me.”

“Oh, Justin, I do try, only--those--deeper things--make me feel so--strange--they frighten me.”

“Don’t they draw you, too?”

“Yes,” she breathed with sweet candour, “that is the worst of it: they draw me so strongly that I cannot resist them.”

“I thought you had already come to the conclusion that it was useless to try.”

“Yet I _must_ try.”

“Why must you?”

“Because--oh, Justin, surely you know.”

“Please tell me.”

“Because--” her voice dropped so low that he had to bend his head till it almost touched her face in order to hear it--“because--you do.”

“Iris,” he began unsteadily, “I resisted only--for your sake.”

“Yes, I know,” she murmured faintly.

A pause followed which held a terrible suction, drawing each towards the other with an almost physical power.

“But, Iris,” he said with strained accents, “I don’t know how much longer I shall be able to keep this up--I cannot keep on--always. I am afraid some day I may give way--the strain is awful.”

“Justin,” she whispered, laying her hand gently on his arm, “I can’t bear you to suffer----”

He took her hand in his and his grip on it tightened so suddenly, so fiercely, that the pain brought a moan to her lips.

He loosened his hold instantly and raised the fragile, hurt thing in deep contrition to his face. “How cruel it was to hurt that soft little hand which rested so confidingly in mine,” and he pressed it fondly against his cheek.

Its cool, satin smoothness calmed him.

“Iris,” he said in a different voice, after a pause, “do you know, there is a spot where I am always taking you in my dreams--it is an old, deserted garden far up the road towards the hills, away from all habitation. Miss Smith and her parents used to live there before they came here. The garden is a wilderness. It has flowers and fruit-trees all mixed together, and every night when I put my head on the pillow I walk there with you under the old gnarled apple-trees. Some evening will you let me take you to that sacred spot and tell you all, there? Will you come with me and make some of my dreams real? You don’t know how I should revel in having you all to myself for a little while in that enchanted spot--oh, Iris, give me a few hours--let us walk under the old trees, sit under the bower of roses--all alone just for one happy evening!”

She drew a quick, fluttering breath. “Justin,” she said, with a soft lustre in her blue, velvet eyes, “you make it so entrancing I can’t resist--I want to be there--with you. But I must go in now. Amy will wonder where I am,” she added a little reluctantly.

“You will let me take you to that garden--very soon?”

“Yes.”

He had released her hand, now she held it out to him again. “Good-night,” she whispered.

“Good-night,” he murmured, raising her hand to his lips and pressing a long, lingering kiss upon it.

Then he opened the door for her to enter the hall.

She halted a second on the threshold. The light from the corridor fell full upon her exquisitely gowned form with its superb shoulders, slim white throat and the delicately poised head. It turned her light brown hair to gleaming gold and revealed the vivid beauty of the radiant, upturned face.

Her deep blue eyes shadowed by their long, thick lashes lifted for a moment to his, and there was a melting tenderness in their dazzling splendour as she said in a very low voice: “Justin, I am going to dream about that garden to-night.”

Before he could answer she was walking swiftly down the hall.