One Way of Love (Lee)/Chapter 21

had found Conway waiting for him at the breakwater. They paced up and down, watching the path of light across the water.

The poet broke the silence. “You don't know her.” The tone was defensive.

Derring smiled a little. “Tell me.”

The poet waited. He threw out his hand with a quick gesture. “She is everything! When I am with her, I can think—feel—be. I am fluid. She makes me free.”

When he paused the water, lapping at the breakwater, sounded softly. The moonlight lay about them.

Derring's face, in the light, held a rapt look. “That is love,” he said.

The other looked at him. “You mean it is really in me—that she—Lucille—gives nothing?” His hand made the quick gesture again. “You don't understand.”

“Tell me,” said Derring.

“She makes me see things—not what she says. She doesn't say poetical things”

“Or do them?” suggested Derring.

The poet gave a short laugh. “She has an athletic school for girls—a training-school. I think that's really what they object to,” he added,—“my friends.”

“Do they?”

“Everyone—unless it's you.”

“No—I don't object.”

The poet turned to him eagerly. “You have seen her?”

“The other night—at the play.”

“She is glorious!” His eyes questioned Derring's face.

“Perhaps. She reminded me of someone”

“I know—George Sand?”

“Yes.”

“She is like her.”

“Yes.”

There was a long silence between them. The breeze from the Lake had freshened. Little ripples scudded in the moonlight. Faint clouds drifted above them.

“I should not mind being Chopin,” said the poet. His eyes were on the Lake.

“No.”

“He had his life. His heart was freed.”

“Yes—and broke.”

“I know. I can't say it—yet. But somehow I feel it. He had all that life could give—even death—because of love.”

“And because he held it,” said Derring.

The other started. “You advise me”

Derring shook his head, smiling. “Don't put it on me. You know—better than I can. I only know that without love there is nothing. It is what life means—love—great or small. Out of the heart of it we came and to it we shall return. The heart must love if it would live. If a man turns from it, puts it away, is afraid of it—loses it” He stopped suddenly. A picture of the wood-road flashed before him and Seth Kinney's bent figure, short and stolid. That was what had happened to Seth. He had shut his heart. He ceased to live.

In a few words Derring sketched the story of Seth's life. “That's what I mean,” he said. “He let love go. His life shrivelled.”

The poet's eyes glowed. “I shall hold it,” he said quietly, “and if she fails me”

“You will still have love.”

“Yes.”

“You will love some one—something'

“Like Shelley?” The poet stole a smile at him, half-humorous.

“Like Shelley, if you will,” said Derring, “or like Dante. The true sip and the fickle drink at the same spring. All that is good in Shelley came from his fickleness. It is the soul that is dissolved—freed by love—that makes glad the world. When love goes, the soul grows hard, compact—useless—except to fight with.”

“Except to fight with?” said the poet. “I am no fighter.”

They had turned again and were walking to the north. Clouds obscured the moon. The dusk was faintly luminous. Far up the distant road a pair of crimson eyes glowed through it, from an approaching vehicle.

With one accord they turned to watch the Lake. A summer storm was gathering. Lightning played here and there, in open flashes, on the dark water. Deep mutters of thunder followed it challengingly. The wind had lulled. A silence held the air, fluttering with light. Upon it, in the distance, sounded the faint purr of the crimson-eyed vehicle. It resolved itself into the puffing approach of an automobile. For a moment the moon strove to reassert itself. A silver shimmer came in the darkness. The striking of the clock boomed through it. They counted the strokes.

“Ten o'clock,” said Derring. “They will be waiting for us.”

“Just a minute,” pleaded the poet.

The hush of darkness gathered itself. Through it sounded swift, whirring puffs of the automobile—louder and nearer—with hurrying, clanging bell.

Derring glanced over his shoulder. They were racing with the storm. Then he saw. The thing was past control—rushing upon them madly. It had left the roadway. It whirred swiftly. The face of the chauffeur glared, fixed and white. With a swift turn of his arm Derring seized the poet. He thrust him—straight across the path of the thing—out of danger. He lay, face down, his arms still outspread to save his friend.

The rain fell in torrents when they lifted him. It fell on his upturned face and relaxed hands. The face, beneath the rain, was strangely sweet, as if a hand of love had touched it.