The Clarion

CHAPTER III

ES­MÉ

Hal saw her first, vivid against the life­less gray of the ce­ment wall, as he turned away from the Pierce car. A lit­tle apart from the hu­man cur­rent she stood, still and ex­pec­tant. As if to point her out as the cho­sen of gods and men, the quest­ing sun, burst­ing in tri­umph through a cloud-​rift, sent a long shaft of gold to en­com­pass and ir­ra­di­ate her. To the end, whether with aching heart or glad, Hal was to see her thus, in flash­ing, re­cur­rent vi­sions; a slight, poised fig­ure, all gra­cious curves and ten­der con­so­nances, with a clus­ter of the trail­ing ar­bu­tus, that first-​love of the springtide, cling­ing at her breast. The breeze bore to him the faint, wild, ap­peal­ing fra­grance which is the very breath and soul of the blos­som's fairy-​pink.

Half-​turn­ing, she had leaned a lit­tle, as a flow­er leans, to the warmth of the sun­light, up­lift­ing her face for its kiss. She was not beau­ti­ful in any sense of reg­ular­ity of out­line or per­fec­tion of fea­ture, so much as love­ly, with the lus­trous love­li­ness which de­fi­ant­ly over­rides the lapse of line and pro­por­tion, and im­pe­ri­ous­ly de­mands the homage of ev­ery man born of wom­an. Chill anal­ysis might have judged the mouth, with its del­icate, hu­mor­ous quirk at the cor­ners, too large; the chin too broad, for all its adorable ba­by dim­ple; the line of the nose too abrupt, the wider con­tours lack­ing some­thing of clas­sic ex­ac­ti­tude. But the chillest anal­ysis must have warmed to en­thu­si­asm at the eyes; wide-​set, lev­el, and of a tawny hazel, with strange, wine-​brown lights in their depths, to match the brown­ish-​gold­en sheen of the hair, where the sun glint­ed from it. As it were a high­er pow­er of her phys­ical splen­dor, there em­anat­ed from the girl an in­ten­si­ty and ra­di­ance of joy in be­ing alive and love­ly.

In­vol­un­tar­ily Hal Sur­taine paused as he ap­proached her. Her glance fell up­on him, not with the im­per­son­al re­gard be­stowed up­on a ca­su­al pass­er-​by, but with an in­tent and bright­en­ing in­ter­est,--the thrill of the chase, had he but known it,--and passed be­yond him again. But in that brief mo­ment, the con­vic­tion was borne in up­on him that some­time, some­where, he had looked in­to those eyes be­fore. Puz­zled and ea­ger he still stared, un­til, with a slight flush, she moved for­ward and passed him. At the head of the stairs he saw her greet a strong­ly built, griz­zled man; and then be­came aware of his fa­ther beck­on­ing to him from the au­to­mo­bile.

“Be­witched, Hal?” said Dr. Sur­taine as his son came to him.

“Was I star­ing very out­ra­geous­ly, sir?”

“Why, you cer­tain­ly looked in­ter­est­ed,” re­turned the old­er man, laugh­ing. “But I don't think you need apol­ogize to the young la­dy. She's used to at­ten­tion. Rather lives on it, I guess.”

The tone jarred on Hal. “I had a queer, mo­men­tary feel­ing that I'd seen her be­fore,” he said.

“Don't you re­call where?”

“No,” said Hal, star­tled. “_Do_ I know her?”

“Ap­par­ent­ly not,” taunt­ed the oth­er good-​hu­mored­ly. “You should know. Hers is gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered a face not dif­fi­cult to re­mem­ber.”

“Im­pos­si­ble to for­get!”

“In that case it must be that you haven't seen her be­fore. But you will again. And, then look out, Boy-​ee. Dan­ger ahead!”

“How's that, sir?”

“You'll see for your­self when you meet her. Half of the boys in town are crazy over her. She eats 'em alive. Can't you tell the man-​killer type when you see it?”

“Oh, that's all in the game, isn't it?” re­turned Hal light­ly. “So long as she plays fair. And she looks like a girl of breed­ing and stan­dards.”

“All of that. Es­mé El­liot is a la­dy, so far as that goes. But--well, I'm not go­ing to prej­udice you. Here she comes now.”

“Who is it with her?”

“Her un­cle, Dr. El­liot. He doesn't al­to­geth­er ap­prove of us--me, I mean.”

Un­cle and niece were com­ing di­rect­ly to­ward them now, and Hal watched her ap­proach with a thrill of de­light in her mo­tion. It was a study in har­monies. She moved like a cloud be­fore the wind; like a ship up­on the high seas; like the swirl of swift wa­ters above hid­den depths. As the pair passed to their car, which stood next to Dr. Sur­taine's, the girl glanced up and nod­ded, with a bril­liant smile, to the doc­tor, who re­turned to the salu­ta­tion an ex­tra-​gal­lant bow.

“You seem to be friends,” com­ment­ed Hal, some­what amused.

“That was more for you than for me. But the fair Es­mé can al­ways spare one of those smiles for any­thing that wears trousers.”

Hal moved un­easi­ly. He felt a sense of dis­cord. As he cast about for a top­ic to shift to, the El­liot car rolled ahead slow­ly, and once more he caught the woodsy per­fume of the pink bloom. Strange­ly and sat­is­fy­ing­ly to his quick­ened per­cep­tions, it seemed to ex­press the qual­ity of the wear­er. De­spite her bear­ing of world­ly self-​as­sur­ance, de­spite the at­mo­sphere of mod­ish­ness about her, there was in her charm some­thing wild and vivid, ver­nal and re­mote, like the ar­bu­tus which, alone among flow­ers, keeps its life-​se­cret vir­gin and in­vi­olate, re­sist­ing all en­deav­ors to make it bloom ex­cept in its own way and in its own cho­sen places.