Part 29

"I'm not scornful," he returned. "I'm merely interested."

"You're fortunate," she smiled, "to be so easily interested."

"We're out of the world here, you know, and unfamiliar varieties of the trunk species make me feel much as Crusoe did when he came upon a human footprint in the sand."

"I wonder," mused Mrs. Lee, "how he really did feel. It must have been dramatic beyond all words."

She sat down on the window-seat in the hall and leaned back against the casement of the open window. The warm Spring wind, laden with the sweet scent of growing things, played caressingly about her neck and carried to Alden a subtle fragrance of another sort. Her turquoise-blue silk kimono, delicately embroidered in gold, was open at the throat and fastened at the waist with a heavy golden cord. Below, it opened over a white petticoat that was a mass of filmy lace ruffles. Her tiny feet peeped out beneath the lace, clad in pale blue silk stockings and fascinating Chinese slippers that turned up at the toes.

From above came discordant rumblings and eloquent, but smothered remarks on the general subject of trunks. Mrs. Lee laughed. "They're trying to make the wardrobe-trunk stand up on the wrong end, and it won't."

"How do you know that's it?"

"Because I've heard the same noises and the same general trend of conversation all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back again. The farther west you go, the more accomplished the men are in the art of profanity."

"Is it an art? I thought it came naturally."

"It does, to some, but you have no idea what study and constant practice can do in developing a natural gift."

The sunlight illumined her hair into a mass of spun gold that sparkled and gleamed and shone. It made golden lights in her brown eyes, caressed the ivory softness of her skin, and deepened the scarlet of her lips.

"Listen," she said. "Isn't it awful?"

"No," returned Alden, "it isn't. In fact, I don't know of any sound I'd rather hear than your trunks being put into our attic."

A faint suggestion of a dimple appeared at the corner of her mouth, then vanished. "Well done," she said. "You have atoned nobly for your dismay the night I came, when you found I'd brought a trunk."

"I wish you wouldn't," he replied, awkwardly. "It wasn't that."

"Such a small trunk," she went on, mercilessly. "Just a plain little steamer trunk that you can put under a bed. The kind you can ask a cabman to take down to the cab for you. A little trunk that a woman can almost carry herself! Only room for one gown, one hat, and a few toilet articles!"

The golden lights in her eyes were dancing and her hair shimmered in the sun. Alden sat down at the farthest end of the window-seat and looked out upon the vineyard, faintly green, now, with the new leaves. The two men descended from the attic and went down the back stairs.

"How did Robinson Crusoe feel when he saw the footprint?" he asked, determined to get away from the unlucky subject of trunks.

"I don't know," Edith answered, "for I wasn't there. He must have been surprised and frightened and pleased all at once. How interesting it must be to have something happen to you that never happened to anybody before!"

"But it's all happened before," he objected. "Is there anything new under the sun?"

"It's been new, at one time or another. We're always too late, that's all. Somebody ate the first oyster and somebody went to sleep first and somebody wore the first false hair.

"No," she continued, with a rose-pink flush mantling her face, "I don't. If I did, I wouldn't mind saying so, but Nature gave me quantities of it, so why should I borrow more? Besides, I don't believe there is any more like it, so I couldn't, anyway."

"No," he returned, thoughtfully, "I don't believe there is any more like it, either. Your wish to be first in something is surely gratified, for there never was such hair as yours and never will be again."

"Mother's was like it."

He shook his head. "No, it wasn't. I never saw your mother, but I know better than that."

"Ask your mother. There she is now."

Madame appeared at the head of the stairs, on the way to her room, to dress for luncheon. She paused to smile at the two who sat on the window-seat, then would have gone straight on had not Edith called to her.

"Mrs. Marsh! Isn't my hair exactly like my mother's?"