Robert Kimberly

"When you have forgotten that you have adestination the road opens on a lovely pineto.You cross it to a casino on the eastern edge andthere is the lake, two hundred feet below andstretching away into the Alps.

"Above the casino you lose yourself amongcedars, chestnuts, magnolias, and there are littlegorges with clumps of wild laurel. Figs andpomegranates begin beyond the gorge. Thearbors are hidden by oleander trees and terracesof camellias rise to the belvedere-the tree yousee just beside it there is a magnolia.

"Back of this lies the garden, laid out in theold Italian style, and crowning a point far abovethe lake stands the house. The view is a promiseof paradise-you have the lake, the mountains, the lowlands, the walnut groves, yellow campaniles, buff villas, and Alpine sunsets."

"You paint a lovely picture."

"But incomplete; to-night you are free to tellme when I can take you. Make it an early day,Alice. The moment we are married, we start.We will land at any little port along the Rivierathat strikes your fancy, have a car to meetus, and drive thence by easy stages to the lake.From the moment we touch at Gibraltar youwill fall in love with everything anew; there isonly one Mediterranean-one Italy, cara miaben. Let us go in. I want you to sing my song."

They walked into the house and to the dimlylighted music room. There they sat downtogether on the piano bench and she sang for him,"Caro Mio Ben."

CHAPTER XXXV

Not every day brought unalloyed happiness.Moments of depression asserted themselveswith Alice and, if tolerated, led to periods ofdespondency. She found herself seeking ahappiness that seemed to elude her.

Even her depression, banished by recreation, leftbehind something of a painful subconsciousnesslike the uneasy subsidence of a physical pain.Activity thus became a part of her daily routineand she gained a reputation for lively spirits.

Kimberly, whose perception was not often atfault, puzzled over the strain of gayety that seemedto disclose a new phase in Alice's nature. Once, after a gay day at Sea Ridge, he surprised her athome in the evening and found her too depressedto dissemble.

"Now," he said, taking both her hands, "youare going to tell me what the matter is."

"Robert, nothing is the matter."

"Something is the matter," he persisted. "Tellme what it is."

"It is less than nothing. Just a miserablespectre that haunts me sometimes. And when Ifeel in that way, I think I am still his wife. Nowyou are vexed with me."

"Not for an instant, darling; only perplexed.Your worries are mine and we must work outsome relief for them, that is all. And when thingsworry me you will help me do away with myspectres, won't you?"

He soothed and quieted her, not by ridiculeand harshness but by sympathy and understanding, and her love for him, which had found a timidfoothold in the frailest response of her womanlyreserve, now sent its roots deep into her nature.

It was nothing to her that he was great in theworld's eyes; that in itself would have repelledher-she knew what the world would say of herambition in marrying him. But he grew in hereyes because he grew in her heart as she came torealize more and more his solicitude for herhappiness-the only happiness, he told her, in whichhe ever should find his own.

"I know how it will end, Robert." Theywere parting after a moment the most intensethey had ever allowed themselves together. Shewas putting away his unwilling arms, as shelooked in the darkness of the garden up intohis face.

"How will it end?" he asked.

"In my loving you as much as you love me."

Winter passed and the spring was again uponthem before they realized it. In the entertainingaround the lake they had been fêted until it wasa relief to run away from it all, as they often did.To escape the park-like regularity of their owndomains, they sought for their riding or drivingthe neglected country below the village.Sometimes on their horses they would explore thebackwoods roads and attempt swampy lanes wherefrogs and cowslips disputed their entry and boggypools menaced escape.

Alice, hatless and flushed with laughter and thewind, would lead the way into abandonedwood-paths and sometimes they found one that ledthrough a forest waste to a hidden pond wherethe sun, unseen of men, mirrored itself in glassywaters and dogwood reddened the margin wheretheir horses drank.

In the woods, if she offered a race, Kimberlycould never catch Alice no matter what his mount.She loved to thread a reckless way among saplingtrees, heedless of branches that caught her neckand kissed her cheeks as she hurried on-ridinggave them delightful hours.

They were coming into the village one Maymorning after a long cross-country run when theyencountered a procession of young girls movingacross the road from the parish school to thechurch and singing as they went. The churchitself was en fête. Country folk gathered alongthe road-side and clustered about the church doorwhere a priest in surplice waited the coming procession.

Kimberly and Alice, breathing their horses, halted. Dressed in white, like child brides, thelittle maidens advanced in the sunshine, their eyescast down in recollection and moving together inawkward, measured step. From their wrists hungrosaries. In their clasped hands they carriedprayer-books and white flowers, and white veilshung from the rose wreaths on their foreheads.

"How pretty!" exclaimed Kimberly as thechildren came nearer.

"Robert," asked Alice suddenly, "what day is this?"

"Thursday, isn't it?"

"It is Ascension Thursday."

The church-bells began to ring clamorously andthe little girls, walking slowly, ceased their song.The lovers waited. Childhood, hushed withexpectancy and moving in the unconscious appealof its own innocence, was passing them.

The line met by the young priest reached theopen door. Kimberly noted the wistful look inAlice's eyes as the little band entered the church.She watched until the last child disappeared andwhen she spoke to her horse her eyes were wet.Her companion was too tactful to venture aquestion. They rode until his silence told her hewas aware of her agitation and she turned to him.

"Do you know," she said, slowly searching hiseyes, "that you are awfully good?"

"If I am," he responded, "it is a discovery.And the honor, I fear, is wholly yours."

"It is something," she smiled, her voice verysweet, "to have lived to give that news to the world."

They rode again in silence. She felt it would beeasier if he were to question her, but it was onlyafter some time that he said: "Tell me what thelittle procession was about."

"I am ashamed to have acted in this way. Butthis was the day of my First Communion,Ascension Thursday. It was only a coincidence thatI should see a First Communion class this morning."

"What is First Communion?"

"Oh, don't you know?" There was a sadnessin the tone. "You don't, of course, you dearpagan. It is you who should have been the Christianand I a pagan. You would never have fallen away."

"You only think you have fallen away, Alice.You haven't. Sometimes you seem to act as ifyou had fallen from some high estate. You havenot; don't think it. You are good enough to bea saint-do you give me credit for no insight? Itell you, you haven't fallen away from yourreligion. If you had, you would be quite at ease, and you are very ill at ease over it. Alice," heturned about in his saddle, "you would be happierif our marriage could be approved by your church."

"It never can be."

"I have led a number of forlorn hopes in myday. I am going to try this one. I have madeup my mind to see your archbishop-I havespoken with Francis about it. I am going tofind out, if nothing more, exactly where we stand."

CHAPTER XXXVI

In response to a request from Kimberly,Hamilton came out to spend the night at TheTowers. Dolly was leaving just as the doctorarrived. She beckoned him to her car.

"You are to save the sixteenth for us, doctor; don't forget to tell Mrs. Hamilton," she said."We have persuaded Robert to give a lawn fête forGrace and Larrie and we want you. Then, too-butthis is a secret-Robert's own wedding occurstwo weeks later. That will be private, of course,so the affair on the sixteenth will include all of ourfriends, and we want you to be sure to be here."

When the doctor sat down with Kimberly inthe library after dinner, the latter spoke of hiscoming marriage. "You know," he said briefly,as the doctor took a book from the table, "I amgoing to make Mrs. MacBirney my wife."

"I do. I rejoice in it. You know what Ithink of her."

"She has at last set the date and we are to bemarried on the thirtieth of June. It will be veryquiet, of course. And, by the way, save thesixteenth of June for us, doctor."

"Mrs. De Castro has told me. We shall beglad to come out."

"You, I know, do not approve of marriages madethrough divorce," continued Kimberly, bluntly.

"No, nor do you," returned the doctor. "Notas a general proposition. In this case, frankly, Ilook on it as the most fortunate thing that hashappened in the Kimberly family since your ownmother married into it."