第69章

Preoccupied at first, her mind burdened with vague anxieties, she nevertheless could not fail to be aroused and stimulated by the sparkle and effervescence of the perfect morning, and the cold, pure glitter of Lake Michigan, green with an intense mineral hue, dotted with whitecaps, and flashing under the morning sky.Lincoln Park was deserted and still; a blue haze shrouded the distant masses of leafless trees, where the gardeners were burning the heaps of leaves.Under her the thoroughbred moved with an ease and a freedom that were superb, throwing back one sharp ear at her lightest word; his rippling mane caressed her hand and forearm, and as she looked down upon his shoulder she could see the long, slender muscles, working smoothly, beneath the satin sheen of the skin.At the water works she turned into the long, straight road that leads to North Lake, and touched Crusader with the crop, checking him slightly at the same time.With a little toss of his head he broke from a trot into a canter, and then, as she leaned forward in the saddle, into his long, even gallop.There was no one to see;she would not be conspicuous, so Laura gave the horse his head, and in another moment he was carrying her with a swiftness that brought the water to her eyes, and that sent her hair flying from her face.She had him completely under control.A touch upon the bit, she knew, would suffice to bring him to a stand-still.

She knew him to be without fear and without nerves, knew that his every instinct made for her safety, and that this morning's gallop was as much a pleasure to him as to his rider.Beneath her and around her the roadway and landscape flew; the cold air sang in her ears and whipped a faint colour to her pale cheeks; in her deep brown eyes a frosty sparkle came and went, and throughout all her slender figure the blood raced spanking and careering in a full, strong tide of health and gaiety.

She made a circle around North Lake, and came back by way of the Linne monument and the Palm House, Crusader ambling quietly by now, the groom trotting stolidly in the rear.Throughout all her ride she had seen no one but the park gardeners and the single grey-coated, mounted policeman whom she met each time she rode, and who always touched his helmet to her as she cantered past.Possibly she had grown a little careless in looking out for pedestrians at the crossings, for as she turned eastward at the La Salle statue, she all but collided with a gentleman who was traversing the road at the same time.

She brought her horse to a standstill with a little start of apprehension, and started again as she saw that the gentleman was Sheldon Corthell.

"Well," she cried, taken all aback, unable to think of formalities, and relapsing all at once into the young girl of Barrington, Massachusetts, "well, I never--of all the people."But, no doubt, she had been more in his mind than he in hers, and a meeting with her was for him an eventuality not at all remote.There was more of pleasure than of embarrassment in that first look in which he recognised the wife of Curtis Jadwin.

The artist had changed no whit in the four years since last she had seen him.He seemed as young as ever;there was the same "elegance" to his figure; his hands were just as long and slim as ever; his black beard was no less finely pointed, and the mustaches were brushed away from his lips in the same French style that she remembered he used to affect.He was, as always, carefully dressed.He wore a suit of tweeds of a foreign cut, but no overcoat, a cloth cap of greenish plaid was upon his head, his hands were gloved in dogskin, and under his arm he carried a slender cane of varnished brown bamboo.The only unconventionality in his dress was the cravat, a great bow of black silk that overflowed the lapels of his coat.

But she had no more than time to register a swift impression of the details, when he came quickly forward, one hand extended, the other holding his cap.

"I cannot tell you how glad I am," he exclaimed.

It was the old Corthell beyond doubting or denial.Not a single inflection of his low-pitched, gently modulated voice was wanting; not a single infinitesimal mannerism was changed, even to the little tilting of the chin when he spoke, or the quick winking of the eyelids, or the smile that narrowed the corners of the eyes themselves, or the trick of perfect repose of his whole body.Even his handkerchief, as always, since first she had known him, was tucked into his sleeve at the wrist.

"And so you are back again," she cried."And when, and how?""And so--yes--so I am back again," he repeated, as they shook hands."Only day before yesterday, and quite surreptitiously.No one knows yet that I am here.Icrept in--or my train did--under the cover of night.Ihave come straight from Tuscany."

"From Tuscany?"

"----and gardens and marble pergolas."

"Now why any one should leave Tuscan gardens and--and all that kind of thing for a winter in Chicago, Icannot see," she said.

"It is a little puzzling," he answered."But I fancy that my gardens and pergolas and all the rest had come to seem to me a little--as the French would put it--_malle._ I began to long for a touch of our hard, harsh city again.Harshness has its place, I think, if it is only to cut one's teeth on."Laura looked down at him, smiling.

"I should have thought you had cut yours long ago," she said.