"See there!" he said, as the tribe set him down, "You have frightened the
populace." And Tom Meredith stopped shouting long enough to answer, "It's
my little cousin, overcome with emotion. She's been counting the hours
till you came--been hearing of you from me and others for a good while;
and hasn't been able to talk or think of anything else. She's only
fifteen, and the crucial moment is too much for her--the Great Harkless
has arrived, and she has fled."
He remembered other incidents of his greatness, of the glory that now
struck him as rarely comical; be hoped he hadn't taken it too seriously
then, in the flush of his youth. Maybe, after all, he had been a, big-
headed boy, but he must have bottled up his conceit tightly enough, or the
other boys would have detected it and abhorred him. He was inclined to
believe that he had not been very much set up by the pomp they made for
him. At all events, that day at Winter Harbor had been beautiful, full of
the laughter of friends and music; for there was a musicale at the Casino
in the afternoon.
But the present hour grew on him as he leaned on the pasture bars, and
suddenly his memories sped; and the voice that was singing Schubert's
serenade across the way touched him with the urgent, personal appeal that
a present beauty always had for him. It was a soprano; and without
tremolo, yet came to his ear with a certain tremulous sweetness; it was
soft and slender, but the listener knew it could be lifted with fullness
and power if the singer would. It spoke only of the song, yet the listener
thought of the singer. Under the moon thoughts run into dreams, and he
dreamed that the owner of the voice, she who quoted "The Walrus and the
Carpenter" on Fisbee's notes, was one to laugh with you and weep with you;
yet her laughter would be tempered with sorrow, and her tears with
laughter.
When the song was ended, he struck the rail he leaned upon a sharp blow
with his open hand. There swept over him a feeling that he had stood
precisely where he stood now, on such a night, a thousand years ago, had
heard that voice and that song, had listened and been moved by the song,
and the night, just as he was moved now.
He had long known himself for a sentimentalist; he had almost given up
trying to cure himself. And he knew himself for a born lover; he had
always been in love with some one. In his earlier youth his affections had
been so constantly inconstant that he finally came to settle with his
self-respect by recognizing in himself a fine constancy that worshipped
one woman always--it was only the shifting image of her that changed!
Somewhere (he dreamed, whimsically indulgent of the fancy; yet mocking
himself for it) there was a girl whom he had never seen, who waited till
he should come. She was Everything. Until he found her, he could not help
adoring others who possessed little pieces and suggestions of her--her
brilliancy, her courage, her short upper lip, "like a curled roseleaf," or
her dear voice, or her pure profile. He had no recollection of any lady
who had quite her eyes.