Роберт Чамберс - Who Goes There!

"I think so."

"May I tell you that I love you?"

"Yes, please."

His clasped hands tightened on his knees; he said in a low unsteady voice: "All my heart is yours, Karen—all there is in me of love and loyalty, honour and devotion, is yours. Into my mind there is no thought that comes which is not devoted to you or influenced by my adoration of you. I love you—every word you utter, every breath you draw, every thought you think I love. The most wonderful thing in the world would be that you should love me; the greatest miracle that you might marry me. Dare I hope for you, Karen?"

"Yes—please."

"That you will grow to really love me?"

"Yes."

"With all your heart?"

"I think so."

In the tremulous silence she turned again and looked at him, bending very low over her work.

"Will you be gentle with me, Kervyn?"

"Dearest―"

"I mean—considerate—at first…. There is a great deal I don't know about men—and being in love with one of them…. Brought up as I have been, I could not understand that you should take me—in your arms…. I was not angry—not even ashamed…. Only, never having thought of it—and taking it for granted that, among people of your caste and mine, to touch a man's lips was an act—of betrothal—perhaps of marriage―"

"Dearest, it was !"

"Yes, I understand now. But for a while I felt—strangely—overwhelmed…. You can understand—having no mother—and suddenly face to face with—you―"

She leaned her cheek against the back of the chair and rested so, her small white hands folded over her sewing.

"I have yet to see Baron Kurt," she said half to herself. "I shall say to him that I care for you. After that—when you come back, and if you wish me to marry you—ask me."

He stood up: "How near may I come to you, Karen?"

"Not very near—just now."

"Near enough to kiss your finger–tip."

"Yes, please."

Without turning her head she extended her arm; his lips touched lightly the fragrant skin, and she pressed her fingers a trifle closer—a second only—then her arm fell to her lap.

"After dinner," she said, "I shall show you the roses in the garden."

"They are no sweeter than your hand, Karen."

She smiled, her flushed cheek still resting against the cushions.

"It is very wonderful, very gentle after all," she murmured to herself.

"What, Karen?"

"I meant love," she said, dreamily.

Dinner was ended. Darrel lay on a lounge in the sitting–room, a victim against his will to romance. Beside him on a low footstool sat Valentine, reading aloud to him when she thought he ought to be read to, fussing with his pillows when she chose to fuss, taking his cigarette from his lips and inserting a thermometer at intervals, and always calmly indifferent to his protests or to her mother's laughter.

For she had heard somewhere that a wild boar's teeth poisoned like a lion's mauling; and the sudden revelation of a hero under the shattered shell of modesty and self–depreciation which so long obscured the romantic qualities in this young man determined her to make him continue to play a rôle which every girl adores—the rôle of the stricken brave.

Never again could Darrel explain to her how timidity, caution, and a native and unfeigned stupidity invariably characterized his behaviour at psychological moments.

For Guild had told her all about this young man's cool resourcefulness and almost nerveless courage during those hair–raising days in Sonora when the great Yo Espero ranch was besieged, and every American prisoner taken was always reported "Shot in attempting to escape."

She had never even known that Darrel had been in Mexico until Guild told her about their joint mining enterprise and how, under a spineless Administration, disaster had wiped out their property, and had nearly done the same for them.

"Mother," said the girl, "I think I'll look at his shin again."

"Nonsense!" protested Darrel, struggling to sit up, and being checked by a soft but firm little hand flat against his chest.

"I don't want to have my shin looked at," he repeated helplessly.

"Mother, I am going to change the dressing. Will you help?"

"For the love of Mike―"

"Be quiet, Harry!"

"Then make Guild go out of the room! He's laughing at me now!"

Karen was laughing, too, and now she turned to Guild: "Come," she said, smilingly; "we are not welcome here. Also I do want you to see the rose garden by star–light." And to Mrs. Courland, naïvely: "May we please be excused to see your lovely garden?"

The pretty young matron smiled and nodded, busy with the box of first–aid bandages for which Valentine was now waiting.

So Karen and Guild went out together into the star–light, across the terrace and lawns and down along a dim avenue of beeches.

The night was aromatic with the clean sweet odour of the forest; a few leaves had fallen, merely a tracery of delicate burnt–gold under foot.

Karen turned to the right between tall clipped hedges.

Mossy steps of stone terminated the alley and led down into an old sunken garden with wall and pool and ghostly benches of stone, and its thousands of roses perfuming the still air.

They were all there, the heavenly company, dimly tinted in crimson, pink, and gold—Rose de Provence, Gloire de Dijon, Damask, Turkish, Cloth of Gold—exquisite ghosts of their ardent selves—immobile phantoms, mystic, celestial, under the high lustre of the stars.

Mirror–dark, the round pool's glass reflected a silvery inlay of the constellations; tall trees bordered the wall, solemn, unstirring, as though ranged there for some midnight rite. The thin and throbbing repetition of hidden insects were the only sounds in that still and scented place.

They leaned upon the balustrade of stone and looked down into the garden for a while. She stirred first, turning a little way toward him. And together they descended the steps and walked to the pool's rim.

Once, while they stood there, she moved away from his side and strolled away among the roses, roaming at random, pausing here and there to bend and touch with her face some newly opened bud.

Slender and shadowy she lingered among the unclosing miracles of rose and gold, straying, loitering, wandering on, until again she found herself beside the pool of mirror black—and beside her lover.

"Your magic garden is all you promised," he said in a low voice—"very wonderful, very youthful in its ancient setting of tree and silvered stone. And now the young enchantress is here among her own; and the spell of her fills all the world."

"Do you mean me?"

"You, Karen, matchless enchantress, sorceress incomparable who has touched with her wand the old–familiar world and made of it a paradise."

"Because I said I loved you—a little—has it become a paradise? You know I only said ' a little .'"

"I remember."

"Of course," she added with a slight sigh, "it has become more, now, since I first said that to you. I shouldn't call it 'a little,' now; I should call it―" She hesitated.

"Much?"

She seemed doubtful. "Yes, I think it is becoming 'much'—little by little."

"May I kiss—your hand?"

"Yes, please."

"And clasp your waist—very lightly— this way?"

"In sign of betrothal?"

"Yes."

She looked up at him out of the stillest, purest eyes he had ever beheld.

"You know best, Kervyn, what we may do."

"I know," he said, drawing her nearer.

After a moment she rested her cheek against his shoulder.

Standing so beside the pool, breathing the incense of the roses, she thought of the dream, and the gay challenge, "Who goes there?" She was beginning to suspect the answer, now. It was Love who had halted her on that flower–set frontier; the password, which she had not known then, was "Love." Love had laughed at her but had granted her right of way across that border into the Land of Dreams. And now, unchallenged, save by her own heart, she had come once more to the borderland of flowers.