The Pace That Kills: A Chronicle

"Good-night, Mrs. Metuchen, and the pleasantest of dreams." But the matron, with a wave of her glove, had disappeared, and Justine returned.

"At least you will not go until the afternoon?"

"Since you wish it, I will not."

She had stretched out her hand, but Roland, affecting not to notice it, raised his hat and turned away. Presently, and although, in spite of many a vice, he was little given to drink, he found himself at the bar superintending the blending of gin, of lemon-peel, and of soda; and as he swallowed it and put the goblet down he seemed so satisfied that the barkeeper, with the affectionate familiarity of his class, nodded and smiled.

"It takes a Remsen Cooler to do the trick, don't it?" he said.

And Roland, assenting remotely, left the bar and sought his room.

The next morning, as through different groups he sought for matron and for maid, he had a crop under his arm and in his hand a paper.

"I have been settling my bill," he announced.

"But are you going?" exclaimed Mrs. Metuchen.

"I can hardly take up a permanent residence here, can I?" he replied.

"Oh, Justine," the old lady cried, and clutched the girl by the arm, "persuade him not to." And fixing him with her glittering eyes, she added, "If you go, sir, you leave an Aiken void."

The jest passed him unnoticed. He felt that something had been said which called for applause, for Mrs. Metuchen was laughing immoderately. But his eyes were in Justine's as were hers in his.

"You will ride, will you not? I see you have your habit on." And with that, Justine assenting, he led her down the steps and aided her to the saddle.

There are numberless tentative things in life, and among them an amble through green, deserted lanes, where only birds and flowers are, has witcheries of its own. However perturbed the spirit may have been, there is that in the glow of the morning and the gait of a horse that can make it wholly serene. The traveller from Sicily will, if you let him, tell of hours so fair that even the bandits are coerced. Man cannot always be centred in self; and when to the influence of nature is added the companionship of one whose presence allures, the charm is complete. And Roland, to whom such things hitherto had been as accessories, this morning felt their spell. The roomy squalor of the village had been passed long since. They had entered a road where the trees arched and nearly hid the sky, but through the branches an eager sunlight found its way. Now and then in a clearing they would happen on some shabby, silent house, the garden gay with the tender pink of blossoming peach; and at times, from behind a log or straight from the earth, a diminutive negro would start like a kobold in a dream and offer, in an abashed, uncertain way, a bunch of white violets in exchange for coin. And once an old man, trudging along, saluted them with a fine parabola of hat and hand; and once they encountered a slatternly negress, very fat and pompous, seated behind a donkey she could have carried in her arms. But practically the road was deserted, fragrant, and still.

And now, as they rode on, interchanging only haphazard remarks, Roland swung himself from his horse, and, plucking a spray of arbutus, handed it to the girl.

"Take it," he said; "it is all I have."

His horse had wandered on a step and was nibbing at the grass, and, as he stood looking up at her, for the first time it occurred to him that she was fair. However a girl may seem in a ball-room, if she ever looks well she looks best in the saddle; and Justine, in spite of his criticism, did not sit her horse badly. Her gray habit, the high white collar and open vest, brought out the snuff-color of her eyes and hair. Her cheeks, too, this morning must have recovered some of the flush they had lost, or else the sun had been using its palette, for in them was the hue of the flower he had gathered and held.

She took it and inserted the stem in the lapel of her coat.

"Are you going?" she asked.

"What would you think of me if I remained?"

"What would I? I would think – "

As she hesitated she turned. He could see now it was not the sun alone that had been at work upon her face.

"Let me tell. You would think that a man with two arms for sole income has no right to linger in the neighborhood of a girl such as you. That is what you would think, what anyone would think; and while I care little enough about the existence which I lead in the minds of other people, yet I do care for your esteem. If I stay, I lose it. I should lose, too, my own; let me keep them both and go."

"I do not yet see why?"

"You don't!" The answer was so abrupt in tone that you would have said he was irritated at her remark, judging it unnecessary and ill-timed. "You don't!" he repeated. "Go back a bit, and perhaps you will remember that after I saw you at your house I did not come back again."

"I do indeed remember."

"The next day I saw you in the Park; I was careful not to return."

"But what have I done? You said last night – "

"Why do you question? You know it is because I love you."

"Then you shall not go."

"I must."

"You shall not, I say."

"And I shall take with me the knowledge that the one woman I have loved is the one woman I have been forced to leave."

"Roland Mistrial, how can you bear the name you do and yet be so unjust? If you leave me now it is because you care more for yourself than you ever could for me. It is not on my account you go: it is because you fear the world. There were heroes once that faced it."

"Yes, and there were Circes then, as now."

As he made that trite reply his face relaxed, and into it came an expression of such abandonment that the girl could see the day was won.

"Tell me – you will not go?"

Roland caught her hand in his, and, drawing back the gauntlet of kid, he kissed her on the wrist. "I will never leave you now," he answered; "Only promise you will not regret."

"Regret!" She smiled at the speech – or was it a smile? Her lips had moved, but it was as though they had done so in answer to some prompting of her soul. "Regret! Do you remember you asked me what I would think if you remained? Well, I thought, if you did, there were dreams which do come true."

At this avowal she was so radiant yet so troubled that Roland detained her hand. "She really loves," he mused; "and so do I." And it may be, the forest aiding, that, in the answering pressure which he gave, such heart as he had went out and mingled with her own.

"Between us now," he murmured, "it is for all of time."

"Roland, how I waited for you!"

Again her lips moved and she seemed to smile, but now her eyes were no longer in his, they were fixed on some vista visible only to herself. She looked rapt, but she looked startled as well. When a girl first stands face to face with love it allures and it frightens too.

Roland dropped her hand; he caught his horse and mounted it. In a moment he was at her side again.

"Justine!"

And the girl turning to him let her fresh lips meet and rest upon his own. Slowly he disengaged the arm with which he had steadied himself on her waist.

"If I lose you now – " he began.

"There can be no question of losing," she interrupted. "Have we not come into our own?"

"But others may dispute our right. There is your cousin, to whom I thought you were engaged; and there is your father."

"Oh, as for Guy – " and she made a gesture. "Father, it is true, may object; but let him. I am satisfied; in the end he will be satisfied also. Why, only the other day I wrote him you were here."