第39章

He kept trying to realize that this lady of wonder was Ariel Tabor, but he could not; he could not connect the shabby Ariel, whom he had treated as one boy treats another, with this young woman of the world.He had always been embarrassed, himself, and ashamed of her, when anything she did made him remember that, after all, she was a girl;as, on the day he ran away, when she kissed a lock of his hair escaping from the bandage.With that recollection, even his ears grew red: it did not seem probable that it would ever happen again! The next instant he heard himself calling her "Miss Tabor."At this she seemed amused."You ought to have called me that, years ago," she said, "for all you knew me!""I did know her--YOU, I mean!" he answered.

"I used to know nearly everything you were going to say before you said it.It seems strange now--""Yes," she interrupted."It does seem strange now!""Somehow," he went on, "I doubt if now I'd know.""Somehow," she echoed, with fine gravity, "Idoubt it, too."Although he had so dim a perception of the staring and whispering which greeted and followed them, Ariel, of course, was thoroughly aware of it, though the only sign she gave was the slight blush, which very soon disappeared.That people turned to look at her may have been not altogether a novelty:

a girl who had learned to appear unconscious of the Continental stare, the following gaze of the boulevards, the frank glasses of the Costanza in Rome, was not ill equipped to face Main Street, Canaan, even as it was to-day.

Under the sycamores, before they started, they had not talked a great deal; there had been long silences: almost all her questions concerning the period of his runaway absence; she appeared to know and to understand everything which had happened since his return to the town.He had not, in his turn, reached the point where he would begin to question her; he was too breathless in his consciousness of the marvellous present hour.She had told him of the death of Roger Tabor, the year before."Poor man," she said, gently, "he lived to see `how the other fellows did it' at last, and everybody liked him.He was very happy over there."After a little while she had said that it was growing close upon lunch-time; she must be going back.

"Then--then--good-bye," he replied, ruefully.

"Why?"

"I'm afraid you don't understand.It wouldn't do for you to be seen with me.Perhaps, though, you do understand.Wasn't that why you asked me to meet you out here beyond the bridge?"In answer she looked at him full and straight for three seconds, then threw back her head and closed her eyes tight with laughter.Without a word she took the parasol from him, opened it herself, placed the smooth white coral handle of it in his hand, and lightly took his arm.There was no further demur on the part of the young man.He did not know where she was going; he did not ask.

Soon after Norbert turned to follow them, they came to the shady part of the street, where the town in summer was like a grove.Detachments from the procession had already, here and there, turned in at the various gates.Nobody, however, appeared to have gone in-doors, except for fans, armed with which immediately to return to rockers upon the shaded verandas.As Miss Tabor and Joe went by, the rocking-chairs stopped; the fans poised, motionless; and perspiring old gentlemen, wiping their necks, paused in arrested attitudes.

Once Ariel smiled politely, not at Mr.Louden, and inclined her head twice, with the result that the latter, after thinking for a time of how gracefully she did it and how pretty the top of her hat was, became gradually conscious of a meaning in her action: that she had bowed to some one across the street.He lifted his hat, about four minutes late, and discovered Mamie Pike and Eugene, upon the opposite pavement, walking home from church together.Joe changed color.

There, just over the way, was she who had been, in his first youth, the fairy child, the little princess playing in the palace yard, and always afterward his lady of dreams, his fair unreachable moon! And Joe, seeing her to-day, changed color; that was all!