The Land of Content. Edith Barnard Delano
not cancel! The opportunity was wonderful, a gift from Heaven; but could she count upon Rosamund? Would Rosamund go? There was a lack of complacency in Rosamund that her sister frequently found trying; she wondered how far she might dare to commit her to accepting Flood's invitation. Yet daring and Cecilia were not strangers, and the opportunity was unique.
"I am not sure of Rosamund's dates," she said.
Flood hesitated; but Pendleton, too, had been thinking about the splendor of Oakleigh.
"Oh, but Benny has no dates for Oakleigh yet!" he said. "So you may set your own time, Cecilia. Isn't that so, Benny?"
"If you only will," Flood besought her.
After all, Cecilia thought, there was nothing Rosamund could do, if she definitely promised for her!
"Then I think June will be quite perfect," she said, and said it none too soon; for the door was suddenly framing the vision of Flood's desire.
For an instant she seemed almost to sway in the doorway, as if she had come to the utmost limit of strength; she was paler than he had ever seen her, and, he thought, more lovely. He could never behold her without an immediate sense of abasement. Her beauty was of that indefinable sort which touches the heart and imagination rather than storms the senses. Men did not look upon her as at some beautiful creature on exhibition; always they looked, to be sure, but straightway the masculine appraisement of their gaze changed to the look one bestows upon some high and lovely thing. Her face had that fullness through the temples that Murillo loved; her eyes, hazel or brown or gray, changing in color with the responsive widening of the pupils, were rather far apart, deeply set, warm with interest when she looked directly at you; dark hair, ruddily brown, that broke into curl whenever a strand escaped, framed her face closely, and was always worn more simply than fashion demanded. She was tall enough to play a man's games well, and the impression that she gave was one of vigor and alertness, almost of impatience. This was the first time Flood had seen her tired.
And, as always when he saw her, it swept over him that she was, alone and above all others, the woman he wanted. She was beautiful, but it was not her beauty, not her social eminence, certainly not her wealth, nor anything that she might be said to represent, that constituted her appeal for him. There was that in her which he had not met elsewhere in his countrywomen, though frequently enough in France and England, a simplicity, a calmness, a dignity, which he interpreted as a consciousness that she needed no pretense, no further struggle or ambition to be other than just what she was. And what she was, was what he very much wanted. For him, she was the bright sum of all desire, the embodiment of everything rare and fine, which he now craved all the more because they had been denied him in his earlier years. Months before, since the first time he saw her, he had known that, and accepted it as an inspiration, as he had accepted and lived upon the fine flashes of imagination that had led him on to fortune in those western days, when imagination and courage had been his stock in trade; it was only the ultimate, and by far the most important, of those!
But Miss Randall was certainly unaware that she aroused in anyone in her drawing-room stronger feelings than the mild ones which usually accompany afternoon tea. After an instant's survey from the doorway, she came into the room, trying to smile through her fatigue.
"Mercy, Rosamund! You look like a ghost! Have you been walking yourself to death again?" her sister asked.
Flood's greeting was only a silent bow and a touch of her offered hand, but Pendleton was never speechless.
"I say, Rose," he cried, "Flood's just been inviting us all down to Virginia for June, and dear Cecilia has accepted! Can you stand the joy of having me to talk to for a whole month, Rosamund?"
At a quick spark in her sister's eyes, Cecilia bent towards her and spoke somewhat hastily. "Mr. Flood has bought Oakleigh, the Gore place. Isn't it nice of him to ask us down there, first of all?"
Although to her sister her look seemed to hold many things, to Flood's infatuated eyes the girl seemed suddenly more tired, harassed, or troubled; and with another of his flashes of intuition he would not give her a chance to reply. He began to tell them about his lone journey, talking very well, quite sure of his facts and with a large enthusiasm, and in spite of herself Rosamund became more and more interested. She even smiled a little at his account of the mountain doctor's old mare and her wisdom; she even found herself willing to hear more about the doctor!
"But, I assure you," Flood went on, "it wouldn't have taken anyone long to discover that he was not the usual country doctor. There is something about the man that would attract the attention of the world, if he lived on a pillar or were buried beneath the sands of Arizona. Personality, I suppose, unless you're willing to look the fact in the face and admit that a certain force emanates from greatness, wherever——"
"Oh, say!" Pendleton protested; and Flood laughed, rather shamefacedly, as a man laughs when he is discovered reading a learned book or quoting a classic.
But Miss Randall would not have that. "Please don't mind him, Mr. Flood; I want to hear the rest of it."
Again Flood was taken unawares, and his face flushed; but he went on to describe the evening before the doctor's fire, the four days he had remained, a willing guest, the drives about the mountains in the doctor's buggy—lest his own car should startle the shy mountain people.
"And since I've got back, I've been finding out about him. You know how it is—meet a chap you never heard of before, and straightway find out that a dozen people you know have known him for years.
"Last night I met Doctor Hiram Wilson in the club; he said it was the first time he'd had a chance to run in for months, yet he happened to be the first man I saw there. I was telling him something about this chap, and found he knew all about him. 'Keenest young investigator I ever knew,' he said, 'and came near working himself to death. How is he now?' He seemed mighty glad when I told him I could not have suspected that Ogilvie had ever been ill. Then he called Professor Grayson over, to repeat what I'd just told him; and I wish you could have seen old Grayson's face. He was delighted, but he could really tell more about Ogilvie than I could. It seems that Ogilvie was under him for a time, but had really gone far beyond him; then he made himself ill by working day and night in his laboratory, and some of his medical friends packed him off to those mountains to get well. He was too far gone to protest, I guess; but before he was well enough to come back, he was so interested in the people there that he was willing to stay. Now the big fellows have fallen into the way of sending patients down to Bluemont, in the summer, to be near him; and he consults everywhere all over the country. They told me last night that his investigations and experiments on the nervous system would do more to save the vision than——"
But Miss Randall, at the word, exclaimed, and with parted lips and brightening eyes leaned towards him. Flood stopped, amazed.
"Vision! His work is for vision? For the eyes?" she cried.
"His experimental work. Of course, in the mountains——"
But Mrs. Maxwell was tired of Flood's enthusiasm. "Dear me! She is going to tell him about Eleanor! Take pity on me, Marshall, and help me to escape!" she exclaimed, jumping up.
But her sister was far too deeply interested to be aware of their withdrawing towards the window. "Oh, Mr. Flood, is he really successful? Can he really help?"
"I am told, and I believe, that he is a great man, Miss Randall. But surely——"
For the first time the weary look had left her face. "Mr. Flood, if you can help me! I have a friend, the dearest friend I have in the world, who believes she is going to be blind. I don't believe it! I will not! And yet, it would not be remarkable—she has been through so much, so much! Oh, I cannot bear to think of it!"
Her hands were clasped on her knees, and she bent her head over them to hide the tears in her eyes.
"You have been with her this afternoon?" Flood surmised.
"We have spent the afternoon at an oculist's," she said. "I have begged her for weeks, for weeks, to let me take her—but she is so proud, oh, so foolishly proud—and to-day—to-day—Oh,