When Virginia came into the room his sharpened sensibilities quivered with the surprise of a new atmosphere. She glided in with quietest motion; her presence reached him like a penetrating perfume. She was heavy-laden with mystery, warmth, softness; smouldering fires breathed from her. Conscience, duty, suitability seemed nothing but ugly names.
He had come to conquer a reasoning adversary, and found as little need to argue as if she were some creamy flower glowing white in the gleam of a summer moon. An older man would have mistrusted so sudden a change.
With the unshattered joy of youth, Jack swept along on the tide, unquestioningly seizing the golden happiness she gave him with such lavish hand. After a time he could speak to her, tender, half playful, lost in a new world, a new heaven.
"Please, tell me, am I dreaming, or is that the very dress you wore the day we first walked in the country?"
"The very dress, the very linen shirt and tie."
Her low, vibrating voice had a strange sound, as if it followed the rhythm of unheard music.
"And that makes me think. Jack, can't we pass this day doing pleasant things, things we have done before? This is a day, just one in our whole lives; there can never be another like it. Let us go into the country and look down over the valley"
"Yes! Yes!" he broke in eagerly. "We'll wander about the woods all day, and to-night come back to town—yes! and dine at Bertrand's, and sit at the same table. Oh Virginia! how did you ever imagine I could live without you?"
"All that is over now. Let's forget it," she pleaded softly. "To-day we are going to think neither of past nor future. Time for that later. To-day we are going to live like blessed creatures who can never know thought or care. Promise me, dear, no plans to-day, nothing but slow, happy minutes, minutes slipping through our fingers, without heed for the next hour. Oh Jack, I'm so tired of the old life!"
"And a little glad of the new ?" he asked shyly.
The soft color rose in her white face, her eyes fell before his. "Do you need to ask that?" she whispered.
The country was mellow with the heartrending sweetness of early autumn. Here and there in a sugar-maple a cluster of yellow leaves hinted at the change that was to come in hill and valley, of sap buried in roots deep under frozen earth, of blighted, tender leaves, of perished beauty. As yet all was sound, good, and full of life, but death lurked in the air.
They walked by orchards where under gnarled apple-trees rude
