The Short Cut Read online

  CHAPTER VII

  THE GLADNESS THAT SINGS

  "Well?" laughingly. "Don't you know me?"

  Wayne Shandon, riding idly down a lane through the pines, had comeclose before he saw her sitting with her back to a tree, her camera andempty lunch basket lying beside her. He had left Big Bill and had comeon alone, passing around the head of the lake and following the trailwhich Little Saxon's flying hoofs had made in the fresh sod. Now, aswith a quick hand upon Lady Lightfoot's reins he came to a stop, hevery promptly forgot all about Little Saxon.

  The girl, leaving Gypsy tethered beyond a grove of firs, had found uponthe skirt of a densely wooded slope a spot that was like a corner of awoodland fairyland, dim and dusky and sweet scented. The noontide waswarm with the rippling sunlight above, a down-filtering ray touched herbare head and dropped flecks of gold in her braided hair.

  Shandon, motionless for a little, did not speak nor did his expressionchange except that it grew more frankly filled with admiration, withsheer wonder at her loveliness.

  "Really," she bantered, still laughingly, not to be confused by her oldplayfellow's look. "I'm neither ghost, goblin nor evil spirit, noranything worse than just a girl, you know!"

  "Are you . . . just a girl?" He raised his hand slowly, lifting hishat. But not yet did he smile back into her smiling eyes. She hadnever seen him so grave. "I don't know. You are not the same girl Iused to know."

  "Why, Wayne," she retorted merrily. "It's only a year. You weren'texpecting wrinkles already, were you?"

  The steadiness of his gaze made her wonder. His eyes clung to hers fora long moment, left them to travel swiftly up and down the sweet youngbody that was no longer the body of "just a girl," noted howwonderfully the promise of girlhood had been fulfilled in buddingwomanhood, came back to her hair and throat and smiling mouth, restedagain upon her eyes.

  "You are not the same Wanda I used to know," he insisted soberly,shaking his head at her. "Not the Wanda I used to play with at school,to hunt birds' nests with, to steal apples for, to fight other boysfor. Who are you, you wonderful thing?"

  "The same Wanda," she told him merrily. "And, if you please, not a_thing_ at all."

  "Do you remember," he went on quietly, still gently serious, "the daywhen I whipped little Willie Thorp for you?"

  "Yes," she answered lightly, yet not remembering all that heremembered. "Of course. You--"

  "You came and put both little fat, warm, sun-burned arms round me andkissed me then, Wanda. Would you kiss me now?"

  "You should have said that last night," she dimpled up at him. Shethought she knew him too well to take him seriously when he droppedinto one of his bantering moods, just trying perhaps to see if he coulddrive a little flush of confusion into her cheeks. "I was so glad tosee you, I might have forgotten I had grown up. That we have grownup," she said.

  "I wish I had," he said abruptly, flinging his head up with the oldgesture she remembered so well. "Wanda, you are the most wonderfulgirl-woman in the world! What has happened to you? What have you doneto yourself? What have you done to your eyes? Do you know, Miss WandaLeland--are you a little witch and do you do it on purpose?--that thosetwo eyes of yours can make madness in a man's soul?"

  "Flatterer!" she countered brightly. "Have you been a whole yearmaking pretty speeches, and must you keep it up now because you've gotinto the habit and since the pretty ladles of your travels are not hereand I am? Aren't you a little bit ashamed of yourself? Aren't youafraid that you will create havoc by putting a lot of foolish ideasinto a country girl's head?"

  He laughed at last, becoming suddenly the same old Red Reckless that hehad always been, and swung down lightly from the saddle. Dropping LadyLightfoot's reins to the ground he came to where Wanda sat and havingstood over her a moment looking down into the clear eyes which wereturned frankly up to him he made himself comfortable at her feet,stretching luxuriously in the warm grass.

  "It's great to be back, Wanda," he said musingly, with a deep sigh ofcontent. "You are going to squander a little of your precious time onme, aren't you? I've been deucedly energetic all morning; now I'm justbrimful of sunshine and laziness. So lazy that I want just to smokeand watch you and listen while you talk. You will have a whole lot totell me about all the things you've been doing while I was away."

  "I want just to smoke and watch you and listen while youtalk."]

  She gathered her knees into her clasped hands and smiled down upon theflaming red hair. Before he made his cigarette she found herselfanswering his questions, telling about her life during his absence.

  As she talked she saw his face only now and then when he turned alittle to laugh up at her over some trifle that amused him. The storyof this year of her life as she told it was a simple, homely littletale, a quiet pastoral of happy content. It had to do largely withherself and her work, with her failures and successes. But shementioned both Garth and Sledge Hume.

  "Hume?" said Shandon, looking up quickly, this time with no laughter inhis eyes. "Have you seen much of that man, Wanda?"

  "A good deal. He and father and Garth seem to have some kind ofbusiness together. Why?"

  "Because I don't like him," he told her emphatically. "I don't like tohave you know a man like that."

  She did not mention Hume again. She admitted frankly that she herselfdisliked the man although she had tried to think well of him because hewas a friend of her father. Running on with the account of her winteradventures, and laughing at the memory of an incident that had beenserious enough at the time, she told him how she had imperilled herlife in heedless pursuit of the snow-shoe rabbit. Her mood, gay forthe moment, was the sort to make light of things which had merely casta shadow and gone; it was as though from the very presence of Wayne shehad accepted his theory of life, the ability to live keenly, richly inthe present, to be oblivious with sealed eyes to the future, carelesswith deaf ears to the mutterings of the past. She was talking freely,spontaneously, laughing from the very joy of life and the morning andanother joy which she did not analyse, looking down at the sunlightcaught flaring in his hair. And he, vastly contented, listened andlaughed with her.

  Then, in the midst of the recital of her last winter's mishap which shestrove to make as unimportant as she now considered it, she looked downat Wayne Shandon and suddenly broke off in the middle of a word. Hehad dropped his cigarette, the hand that she could see had shut tightinto a whitened fist, the colour of a second ago had seeped out of hisbronzed cheek. As she stopped, wondering, he sprang to his feet andtowered over her.

  "Wanda!" he cried, and his voice was as unfamiliar in her ears as theview of his drawn face in her eyes.

  "Wayne!" she said curiously, staring at him, startled and a littleafraid of she knew not what. "Wayne! What is it?"

  "What is it?" Shandon's voice had dropped lower, was so hoarse that itdid not seem Wayne Shandon's voice at all. "It is just this--"

  He broke off as sharply as she had done and moving swiftly as thoughdriven by some great compelling force which dominated him he stoopedand swept her up into his arms. She felt the tightening muscles as hedrew her close, closer to him; felt a little tremor running through hiswhole body; heard the beating of his heart; was drawn nearer to himthan she had ever been drawn to a man in her life; realised for thefirst time in a flutter of many sweeping emotions how superbly big andpowerful the man was, how almost god-like in the beauty of his muscularmanhood . . . and then she knew nothing but the wonderful fact that hehad kissed her full upon her quivering red mouth.

  "My God, Wanda, how I love you!" he exclaimed with sudden wild,unleashed vehemence. "Do you hear me?" He was holding her a littleaway from him, his arms still shaking about her shoulders, his voicefrightening her with the vibrant fierceness that had leaped into it,the love in his eyes glowing like fire. "I love you so that I'd gothrough Hell to have you, to have you for mine, all mine! So that Imight fight a man for daring to look at you, that I might kill a manfor harming yo
u! Wanda, girl, I tell you that I love you! Do youunderstand? Do you know what that means? What love means? When a manloves a woman as I do?"

  Always a man of impulse, a man who through years of habit had grown toact swiftly in little things and big things alike, Wayne Shandon flunginto impassioned words the emotions which swept through his soul andbrain. The sight of Wanda Leland, grown into the sweet, pure beauty ofearly womanhood, had stirred him to the depths. Her casual mention ofother men, Garth, and Sledge Hume, had displeased him so vaguely thathe had not fully understood or cared why. And then the light allusionto the danger of death in which she had stood had been the spark in thepowder train of his love, his words exploded from the seethingconsciousness newly awakened, fires long smouldering unsuspected in hisheart burst forth in a mighty conflagration of emotion.

  Throughout his whole being there was a strange, new, throbbingbuoyancy, the gladness that sings, the joy that sparkles. The elixirof life had been set suddenly before him. He did not taste and put itaway as some men do; he did not sip sparingly and temperately; but hedrank deeply and swiftly so that the wine of love tingled through hisblood, made his brain reel and his heart grow hot. It intoxicated hissoul and his senses with a rare, glorious intoxication.

  He tossed his head back, holding her still a little further from him,and looked into her eyes. His own had changed now, changed utterly intheir eloquent speech. They had been fierce, now they grew wonderfullytender. They had been clear and bright and eager; and now they weremisty. The first flame of love had leaped through his blood; now aninfinite yearning, as gentle as tears, rose from his heart. Love hadclamoured, now love was whispering. Love had been insistent; now itpleaded. It had been masterful; now it knelt.

  "You love me--_like that_?"

  The tumult in the man's soul had awakened conflicting emotions underthe troubled, tremulous breasts. She looked at him with wide, cleareyes, wondering. A miracle, the old, eternal, primal miracle, hadentered her life. She had looked down, laughingly, on a careless boy;she had been gripped mightily in the arms of a being new to her, a manwho loved. From the clear blue of her life's sky there had leaped outa flash of lightning that filled the universe with its light and heat.They had been two gay loitering children; now she saw the man shaken inthe gust of his passion.

  "You love me--_like that_?"

  "God forgive me, yes!"

  His voice was steady now but low, scarcely louder than her awedwhisper. He dropped his arms, letting them fall lingeringly, andstooping a little, touched her forehead with his lips.

  "And," he said with a reverence which stirred her more than his rudeembrace had done, "I love you like this, dear."

  More often than not the story of one's life is a smooth running tale,the day's page turning gently, going on with the unfinished sentence ofyesterday, the end of each little chapter guessed before it has beenread. But there are times when the leaves no longer turn slowly butare caught in a sudden gust that sends them fluttering like dead leavesin a September gale; when life no longer loiters, but leaps when theunseen end of the chapter is a mystery, when the letters on the pageare shining gold or fiery red.

  Such a time had come into Wanda Leland's life. In one swift moment shehad risen to a pinnacle, she had looked down upon the level lowlandsfrom the heights. The monotony of the commonplace receded and waslost; the aspect of life upon which she looked was wonderful and new.There had been a change within her. She was no longer the Wanda Lelandshe had been a moment ago, the Wanda Leland she had been throughout theyears of her life. Nor would she ever be exactly that same WandaLeland again.

  Revelation had been lightning, two-tongued. It showed her herself; itexplained, it touched with light, it made distinct the shadowy thingsthat had long lain in her breast. And it showed her Wayne Shandon asshe had never seen him.

  For years they had been playfellows, frank, almost boyish, both ofthem. Now her heart was beating wildly from the very touch of him.Had she always loved him? Had he always loved her? Was thiswonderful, new thing, love, without beginning as it surely was withoutend?

  She looked wonderingly into his eyes. Her own, like his, were clear,bright one moment, starry with a dimness as of unshed tears the next.Tenderness, like a mist, filled them.

  "I love you, Wayne," she said, her voice low, trembling just a little,but clear. "I want you all mine as you want me. So that if you wentup to Heaven or down to Hell I could go with you."

  "Wanda!" he said. "_Wanda_."

  She smiled a little at him and put out her two hands.