Port O' Gold
Page 35
Poor child! How she had loved life in her strangely vivid moods! And howshe had brooded upon its injustice in her alternating tempers ofdepression! He remembered now Aleta's mention of a love affair thatturned out badly. Aleta had gone down to hearten her friend from thesedolors. And he recalled, with a desperate, tearing remorse, acasual-enough remark of Norah's: "You always cheer me up, Frank, whenyou come to see me."
He recalled, as well, her comment, months before, that she would awakefrom her dream in one way or another. Well, she had fulfilled herpromise. God grant, he thought passionately, that the awakening had beenin a happier world.
At six o'clock he went to Aleta's apartment. She had not yet arrived butpresently she came. He saw that she had been crying. She couldscarcely speak.
"Frank, let us walk somewhere," she said. "I can't go upstairs; it's toofull of memories. And I can't sit still. I've got to keep moving--fast."
They strode off together, taking a favorite walk through the Presidiotoward the Beach. From a hill-top they saw the Exposition buildingsrising from what once had been a slough.
Aleta paused and looked down.
"It's easier to bear--up here," she spoke in an odd, weary monotone, asif she were thinking aloud. "This morning ... I think, if Norah had leftanything in the bottle ... I'd have taken it, too."
"Why did she do it?" Frank asked quickly.
Aleta faced him. "Norah loved a man ... he wasn't worthy. She could seeno hope. I wished, Frank, that you might have been there yesterday. Youused to cheer her so!"
"Don't!" he cried out sharply.
The Exposition progressed marvelously. Often Frank and Aleta climbedthe winding Presidio ascent and gazed upon its growing wonders.
"Beauty will come out of it all," she said one day. "Out of our travailand sorrow and sin. I wish that Norah was here. She loved beauty so!"
"Perhaps she is here.... Who knows?"
She looked at him startled. He was staring off across the Expositionsite, toward the Golden Gate, where a great ship, all its sails spread,swam mysteriously luminous with the sunset.
"It's beautiful," he said, a catch in his voice. "It's like life ...coming home in the end ... after long strivings with tempest and wave. Iwonder--" he turned to her slowly, "Aleta, will it be like thatwith us?"
"Home!" she spoke the word tenderly. "I wonder what it's like ... I'venever known."
He drew his breath sharply. "Aleta--will you marry me?"
Her eyes filled but she did not answer. Presently she shook her head.
He looked at her dumbly, questioning. "You don't love me, Frank," shesaid at last.
He could not answer her. His eyes were on the ground. A hundred thoughtscame to his mind; thoughts of an almost overwhelming tenderness;thoughts of reverence for her; of affection, comradeship. But they werenot the right thoughts. They were not what she wanted.
Presently they turned and went toward the town together.
* * * * *
A Fairyland of gardens and lagoons sprung into existence. Great artistslabored with a kind of beauty-madness in its making. Nine years afterSan Francisco lay in ashes its doors opened to the world. From Ruins hadgrown a Great Dream, one so beautiful and strong, it seemed unreal.
Aleta and Frank went often. To them the Exposition was a rhapsody ofsilent music and they seldom broke its harmonies with speech.
Frank had not recurred to the question he had asked on Presidio Hill.But out of it had come an unspoken compact, a comradeship of spirit thatwas very sweet.
They stood one day on the margin of Fine Arts Lagoon, gazing down at themarvelous reflections of the great dome and its pillared colonnade."Frank," the girl said almost in a whisper, "I believe that Love isGod's heart, beating, beating ... through the Whole of Life." He turnedand saw that her eyes were radiant. "And I think that when we feel itsrhythm in us, it's like a call. A call to--"
"What?" he asked abashed.
"Service.... Frank," she faced him questioningly, half fearful. "You'llforgive me, won't you? I--I'm going away."
She expected protest, exclamation. Instead he asked her, very quietly:"To Europe, Aleta? The Red Cross?"
"Yes," she said, surprised. "How did you know?"
"I--I'm going, myself. As a stretcher bearer."
"Then--" her eyes were stars, "you've felt it, too?"
He nodded.
* * * * *
On the deck of an outbound steamer stood two figures. The sky was gray.Drifts of fog hung plume-like over Alcatraz, veiled the Exposition domesand turrets in a mystic glory. Sometimes it was like a great whitenothingness; then, as if by magic, Color, Forms and Beauty leaped forthlike some startling vision from a Land of Make Believe.
The woman at the stern-rail stretched forth her arms. "Goodbye," herwords were like a song, a song of heartbreak, mixed with exultation."Goodbye, Oh my City of Dreams!"
"We will come back," said the man shakily. "We will come with new peacein our hearts."
"Perhaps," she replied, "but it will not matter. San Francisco will goon, big, generous, unafraid in its sins and virtues. Oh, Frank, I loveit, don't you? I want it to be the greatest city in the world!"
He made no answer but he caught her hand and pressed it. The fog camedown about them like a mantle and shut them in.