The Story of Saville/Part 7
VII.
But the next day came, and with it Saville too breathless and happy to speak,
And lie felt the vibrant blood in her hand, and he guessed it was red in her cheek,
And he said that he dared not reproach her—it was not his right—and then poured
Upon her head meek and devoted such vials of wrath as are stored
In a thunderbolt, wild over leaping the bounds that convention hath set,
And Saville stood exultant and smiling to see how a man could forget
All hindrances puny, external, and show forth the soul of him yet.
But she stifled her smiling and gently spoke, and there was a subtle change
In her tone and manner, a humbleness, subservient, flattering, strange,
As when a poor peasant, gambolling rude, freely will shout and sing
For a chance companion, but soon is hushed, learning he rides with The King!
“I am sorry—yet glad—but sorry the most! I never, I think, should have dared
To believe that my coming was aught to you,—I deemed that you would not have cared,—
I might have ribboned a note to the bench,—but alas! you could not read,—
And did you really linger till dark? and did you miss me indeed?
But I—I was threading the tangled maze of the city’s ravenous whirl,
And I gazed for an hour upon ‘Rupert’s Trust,’—and you, O friend! you are Kyrle!”
He mused, how small is the woman soul, how timid and trustless and frail,
Curious ever of pedigree and trivial confirming detail,
While he had not even requested her name, contented as yet but to dream
Of her as a dim mist-maiden, a goddess, gem-girdled, supreme,—
But it passed, this scornfulness fleeting, and the air seemed to dimple and dirl
Eolian-tender, mandolin-sweet, at the magical words, “You are Kyrle,”
Simple, sufficient, as if she had said in a homaging, honey-fraught tone,
“You are Cæsar,—unmastered, unrivalled,—our planet doth own
No man for your fellow,—Enough! You are even so Kyrle and alone!”
Ah, well! he had hoped that the world one day would thus acknowledge his power,
Would wreath his temples with immortelles, would cast at his feet the dower
That genius merits and sometimes wins; but alas! not e’en for an hour
Had he been the idol; the waxen bud had blackened and failed of a flower.
And now he inquired as a father might of a distant and darling child
Of the veriest trifles; he knew how hard they were to be reconciled,
The needs of a picture like “Rupert’s Trust,” and the mirk of a dusty shop,—
Was it decently hung? did the light fall true from a shaded jet at the top?
And Oh! was it verily great? did it hold the vital, the God-given spark
That had been his latest glimpse upon earth, that still struck white through the dark?
Was the flame still lambently blazing and clear, the gold from the dross to refine,
Of force to pierce and to purify men, and change then from panthers and swine?
Could a man step out of his daily round and that passionate picture scan,
And not go forth to the greed and the grind a cleaner and better man?
Had she heard as she gazed the Spirits of Good singing their deathless song,
Had she felt it were better to starve and rot than swerve to the smallest wrong?
But Saville was mute; it seemed for a space as if she scarce could have heard,
She who was ever so prompt to utter a sparkling felicitous word,
And he guessed she was weeping, and soon she breathed in a tear-veiled tremulous tone,
“I only prayed: O God! Give back his vision and take my own!”
And Kyrle laughed out, ’twas so sweet to win compassion divine as this,
Laughed like a boy, and reached his arms over the viewless abyss,
And the black was cleft by a lightning stroke and their souls were fused in a kiss.
