With a rankling soul, the mountaineer left New York. He wrote Sally a
brief note, telling her that he was going to cross the ocean, but his
hurt pride forbade his pleading for her confidence, or adding, "I love
you." He plunged into the art life of the "other side of the Seine,"
and worked voraciously. He was trying to learn much--and to forget much.
One sunny afternoon, when Samson had been in the Quartier Latin
for eight or nine months, the concièrge of his lodgings handed
him, as he passed through the cour, an envelope addressed in the hand
of Adrienne Lescott. He thrust it into his pocket for a later reading
and hurried on to the atelier where he was to have a criticism
that day. When the day's work was over, he was leaning on the
embankment wall at the Quai de Grand St. Augustin, gazing idly
at the fruit and flower stands that patched the pavement with color and
at the gray walls of the Louvre across the Seine, His hand went into
his pocket, and came out with the note. As he read it, he felt a glow
of pleasurable surprise, and, wheeling, he retraced his steps briskly
to his lodgings, where he began to pack. Adrienne had written that she
and her mother and Wilfred Horton were sailing for Naples, and
commanded him, unless he were too busy, to meet their steamer. Within
two hours, he was bound for Lucerne to cross the Italian frontier by
the slate-blue waters of Lake Maggiore.
A few weeks later Samson and Adrienne were standing together by
moonlight in the ruins of the Coliseum. The junketing about Italy had
been charming, and now, in that circle of sepia softness and broken
columns, he looked at her, and suddenly asked himself: "Just what does she mean to you?"
If he had never asked himself that question before, he knew now that
it must some day be answered. Friendship had been a good and seemingly
a sufficient definition. Now, he was not so sure that it could remain so.
Then, his thoughts went back to a cabin in the hills and a girl in
calico. He heard a voice like the voice of a song-bird saying through
tears: "I couldn't live without ye, Samson.... I jest couldn't do hit!"
For a moment, he was sick of his life. It seemed that there stood
before him, in that place of historic wraiths and memories, a girl, her
eyes sad, but loyal and without reproof. For an instant, he could see a
scene of centuries ago. A barbarian and captive girl stood in the
arena, looking up with ignorant, but unflinching, eyes; and a man sat
in the marble tiers looking down. The benches were draped with
embroidered rugs and gold and scarlet hangings; the air was heavy with
incense--and blood. About him sat men and women of Rome's culture,
freshly perfumed from the baths. The slender figure in the dust of the
circus alone was a creature without artifice. And, as she looked up,
she recognized the man in the box, the man who had once been a
barbarian, too, and she turned her eyes to the iron gates of the cages
whence came the roar of the beasts, and waited the ordeal. And the face
was the face of Sally.