In their rides they had one day stumbled upon a long-lost and long-forgotten road through the woods, which she had claimed as their own by right of discovery, and, no matter to what point they set forth each day, they always returned by it. Their way through the woods stretched for miles. It was concealed in a forest of stunted oaks and black pines, with no sign of human habitation, save here and there a clearing now long neglected and alive only with goldenrod. Trunks of trees, moss-grown and crumbling beneath the touch of the ponies' hoofs, lay in their path, and above it the branches of a younger generation had clasped hands. At their approach squirrels raced for shelter, woodcock and partridge shot deeper into the network of vines and saplings, and the click of the steel as the ponies tossed their bits, and their own whispers, alone disturbed the silence.
"It is an enchanted road," said the girl; "or maybe we are enchanted.""Not I," cried the young man loyally. "I was never so sane, never so sure, never so happy in knowing just what I wanted! If only you could be as sure!"One day she came to him in high excitement with a book of verse.
"He has written a poem," she cried, "about our own woods, about our lost road! Listen" she commanded, and she read to him:
"'They shut the road through the woods Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again, And now you would never know There was once a road through the woods Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath, And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees That, where the ringdove broods, And the badgers roll at ease, There was once a road through the woods.
"'Yet, if you enter the woods Of a summer evening late, When the night air cools on the trout-ringed pools Where the otter whistles his mate (They fear not men in the woods Because they see so few), You will hear the beat of a horse's feet, And the swish of a skirt in the dew, Steadily cantering through The misty solitudes, As though they perfectly knew The old lost road through the woods. . . .
But there is no road through the woods.'"
"I don't like that at all," cried the soldierman. "It's too--too sad--it doesn't give you any encouragement. The way it ends, Imean: 'But there is no road through the woods.' Of course there's a road! For us there always will be. I'm going to make sure. I'm going to buy those woods, and keep the lost road where we can always find it.""I don't think," said the girl, "that he means a real road.""I know what he means," cried the lover, "and he's wrong! There is a road, and you and I have found it, and we are going to follow it for always."The girl shook her head, but her eyes were smiling happily.
The "season" at Agawamsett closed with the tennis tournament, and it was generally conceded fit and proper, from every point of view, that in mixed doubles Lee and Miss Gardner should be partners. Young Stedman, the Boston artist, was the only one who made objection. Up in the sail-loft that he had turned into a studio he was painting a portrait of the lovely Miss Gardner, and he protested that the three days' tournament would sadly interrupt his work. And Frances, who was very much interested in the portrait, was inclined to agree.
But Lee beat down her objections. He was not at all interested in the portrait. He disapproved of it entirely. For the sittings robbed him of Frances during the better part of each morning, and he urged that when he must so soon leave her, between the man who wanted her portrait and the man who wanted her, it would be kind to give her time to the latter.
"But I had no idea," protested Frances, "he would take so long.
He told me he'd finish it in three sittings. But he's so critical of his own work that he goes over it again and again. He says that I am a most difficult subject, but that I inspire him. And he says, if I will only give him time, he believes this will be the best thing he has done.""That's an awful thought," said the cavalry officer.
"You don't like him," reproved Miss Gardner. "He is always very polite to you.""He's polite to everybody," said Lee; "that's why I don't like him. He's not a real artist. He's a courtier. God gave him a talent, and he makes a mean use of it. Uses it to flatter people.
He's like these long-haired violinists who play anything you ask them to in the lobster palaces."Miss Gardner looked away from him. Her color was high and her eyes very bright.
"I think," she said steadily, "that Mr. Stedman is a great artist, and some day all the world will think so, too!"Lee made no answer. Not because he disagreed with her estimate of Mr. Stedman's genius-he made no pretense of being an art critic--but because her vehement admiration had filled him with sudden panic. He was not jealous. For that he was far too humble.
Indeed, he thought himself so utterly unworthy of Frances Gardner that the fact that to him she might prefer some one else was in no way a surprise. He only knew that if she should prefer some one else not all his troop horses nor all his men could put Humpty Dumpty back again.
But if, in regard to Mr. Stedman, Miss Gardner had for a moment been at odds with the man who loved her, she made up for it the day following on the tennis court. There she was in accord with him in heart, soul, and body, and her sharp "Well played, partner!" thrilled him like one of his own bugle calls. For two days against visiting and local teams they fought their way through the tournament, and the struggle with her at his side filled Lee with a great happiness. Not that the championship of Agawamsett counted greatly to one exiled for three years to live among the Moros. He wanted to win because she wanted to win.
But his happiness came in doing something in common with her, in helping her and in having her help him, in being, if only in play, if only for three days, her "partner."After they won they walked home together, each swinging a fat, heavy loving-cup. On each was engraved:
"Mixed doubles, Agawamsett, 1910."
Lee held his up so that the setting sun flashed on the silver.