CHAPTER XXVIII

The only dream that Forbes knew that night--or remembered, at least--was

a dream of his latest garrison, and the same bugle humming like the

single nagging morning fly that frets a sleeper awake. It was warily

intoning its old "I can't get 'em up, I can't get 'em up, I can't get

'em up in the morning."

He leaped from his bed, and was astonished to find himself standing in a

strange room with an open window facing an unknown landscape. He screwed

his fists into his eyes boyishly before he realized his whereabouts.

At night he had seen his room in vast shadows clouded about a meek

candle. The window had shown him only a blur of gloom against a sky of

star-dust.

Now he found himself in a sumptuously furnished chamber, whose window

framed a scene of royally ordered beauty--a great lawn as level and

almost as spacious as a parade-ground, and bordered with a marble

balustrade that seemed to run on forever regardless of expense. Marble

statues and bronzes and fountains were here and there. And up a noble

hill a stairway, as beautiful as a sea-gull's wings, soared to a parked

space where a little marble temple sheltered an image which he judged to

be Cupid's.

Beyond the big hill reared aloft a primeval forest which the sunrise

wind was shaking. The tips of the topmost trees were crimsoned, as if

roses had bloomed at last on pines. The climbing sun had just reached

them, its rays climbing down the hill as itself climbed the east.

Forbes crept back to bed, but only to reproach himself with sloth. He

could not afford to miss a sunrise such as this would be. There would be

occasions enough for sleep; but he was going to leave the Enslee Eden

this very day forever. The flaming sword of gold would keep him from

re-entering the Paradise he had got into as a boy crawls under a circus

tent.

He flung himself from the alien linen and mahogany, and, hastening into

the bathroom, stepped into the tub, drew the circular curtain around him

quietly not to waken his neighbor, Ten Eyck, and turned the little

wheels marked "shower" and "needle" and "cold," and received the

responding rains. There was no question that they were cold.

But the reaction was a jubilee in every artery, and he dressed with

eagerness for whatever the day might bring. He opened his door softly

and went down the twilight of the stairway like an escaping thief. The

servantless tenants had neglected to bolt and chain the outside door. He

swung it back and stepped out.

He glanced with admiring awe at the dew-pebbled lawn, the colonnades,

and the cloisters, but hastened to the eastern side to watch the day

breaking over the sky-lines of Westchester. The scene was Alpine with

the Alps removed, and the green herds of foothills left. Across a

marble-walled pool stood a family of birches, and held the red sun

prisoner in a web of green leaves and white boughs. The light that shot

through them played upon shrubs and trees and walks arranged according

to the highest canons of the landscaping art, taking nature's scenario

and dramatizing it.

One imperial group of lilac-trees seemed to hold torches up for the sun

to kindle. They blazed with purple flame.

Forbes thought: "Those are the lilacs Enslee loves and owns. This is

Enslee's heaven. That is Enslee's sun. And she is Enslee's, too." Then,

with all the bravery and optimism the dawn could lavish, he felt: "Well,

she belongs here; I don't. She needs these things. I can't get 'em for

her. So it's good-by, Persis, and no harm done."

He was sure that Enslee would never know of the kiss he had stolen from

Enslee's property. And he was sure that Enslee would never miss a

certain lilac cluster whose grace and color especially caught Forbes'

fancy. He plucked it. Just as it snapped in his hand and flung a

fragrant dew upon his face he heard another slight sound above. He

glanced up.

The vision he saw smote him with beauty like a thunderbolt, and knocked

him Saul-wise backward off the high horse of jaunty resolution into a

new religion.

At an upper window, a few paces from where Forbes stood, Persis leaned

out like another blessed damosel looking downward at the sun. It kindled

her eyes as it kindled the lilacs, and she frowned a little against it.

She did not see Forbes as her drowsy gaze swept the hills. She was not

there, however, to adore the dawn. It had troubled her sleep, and she

wanted to shut it out. Her hands were tugging drowsily at one of the

blinds, but it was held by a catch in the wall. She must lean far out to

release it.

The very homeliness of her motive and the act made her the more

appealing to Forbes. A creamy nightcap of lace and bow-knots was all

askew on her tousled hair, and a long loop of it slid down into her

bosom as she bent far forward. She had not paused even to throw on a

shawl, and her nightgown was so vaporous a drapery that it hardly

mattered where it clung or lapsed.

Forbes blushed for her, but gazed entranced while she fumbled at the

lock till it yielded. Then she reached out for the other shutter and

stared forth into the sun, stared between her white arms, outstretched

like the wings of an angel at a window in the sky.

Now Forbes knew that he loved her irretrievably. He would storm the

clouds to win her. He could afford a home with a pair of shutters, and

she could close them against the sun and be as snug as a cuckoo in a

clock.

After all, she was no bird of paradise, no sea-gull. She was just a

fascinating sleepy-head pouting at the morning for interfering with her

dreams.

He was so resolved upon winning her that he counted her already his,

and, with a gesture like throwing up his cap, flung the lilacs he held

straight at her. They missed her, but they caught her eye, and she

followed them down to where he darted to catch them for another cast.

When he looked up again the blinds were shut. He was alone in the world,

his lilacs and his heart barred out and rejected. She had retreated to

Enslee's stronghold and shuttered herself in.

Forbes turned away to exile in a world of gloom. He heard a little sound

above, and whirled quickly. The shutters were opening again. He saw her

eyes. She was frowning fiercely; but that was because of the sharp sun,

for her lips were smiling and she was whispering something.

He hurried to the spot beneath her window. He saw that her hair had been

stuffed back into her nightcap. She was muffled to the ears in a heavy

bathrobe, so shapeless and opaque that its big sleeves hid her very

hands. But she smiled through like an Eskimo angel. And she was

whispering in Eskimese.

He could not understand her, and she could not hear his whisper. They

were afraid to waken the house with louder talk. So he beckoned to her

to come down. She shook her head. He insisted with ardent gesticulation

at the beauty of the scene. She shook her head so violently that her cap

fell off. She clutched at it, and her hair fell all about her. He caught

the cap as it drifted down like a tired butterfly. She brushed her hair

back and pleaded for the cap. He shook his head and tossed her the

lilacs. She refused to take them, and put out her hands for the cap. He

beckoned her again to come down, and she frowned ferociously. Then, at

length, she smiled and nodded and turned away.

He waited, afraid to walk because the gravel crunched alarmingly. He

could see the gardener's cottage down the hill, and he was glad that no

one was stirring there; not a thread of smoke spun from the chimney.

After he had waited for a tiny eternity he heard her snap her fingers,

and looked up to find her fully dressed, all kempt and shiny-faced and

precise. She held out beseeching palms for her cap, but he pocketed it

and commanded her to descend. She left the window with a look of angry

amusement, and he knew that she was yielding to his orders.

It was his first command, and she had obeyed it.