CHAPTER X

THE EAGLE’S NEST

FROM the moment Field’s final proposal had cleared her mind, Ellen West never faltered in her purpose. She knew exactly what she was going to do and set about it.

Her plan demanded a certain amount of fencing with Manning, which was not to her liking, but it couldn’t be helped. To let him know her real purpose would be a fatal mistake.

It required all her tact to prevent an explosion the day he arrived. He bounded into her room as if shot out of a catapult. He had all but swept her into his arms before she could stop him.

“It’s all settled, dearest,” he cried, “isn’t it?”

“Not exactly,” she faltered.

“Then what did your letter mean?”

“Just what it said.”

“It said everything.”

“No, it didn’t. But I meant every word of it. I can’t live without you and I don’t intend to try. You must come to my way of thinking or I must come to yours--in the end--don’t you see?”

“I see that you must come to my way because there is no other when a decent fellow loves a true woman.”

“We’ll grant all that for a moment, but while we decide who shall yield on this all-important issue, why quarrel? I refuse to quarrel. I love you. I must see you and I will if I hunt you down in your office and sit on your doorstep in the twilight--do you hear?”

He smiled boyishly.

“Then I’ll have my way in the end.”

“If you can, all right; stop sulking now and be a good boy. Come to see me--laugh and talk and work with me as you did once. While we fight it out, surely we can be good friends, can’t we?”

“Of course!”

He grasped her outstretched hand and held it firmly.

“But I’ve no rights as an accepted lover under such conditions,” he went on. “It wouldn’t be fair. I refuse to take advantage of your foolish ideals. I’m not your accepted lover until you promise to marry me. We’re just good friends and pals--you understand my scruples?”

“Certainly,” she answered, with a flush. “I haven’t asked you to play the rôle of fiancé, have I?”

He lifted his finger.

“You said we wouldn’t quarrel.”

“Nor will I,” she agreed. “Friends and pals it shall be for evermore----”

“Until you’re mine!” he responded gravely.

For a month not a day passed without his hour of conference in the morning and his evening in her library or on the roof. Theatres, concerts, receptions--all were tabooed. His salary had been doubled and his responsibilities were increasingly grave. She bent every energy of her intelligence to the guidance of his work. Her intuitions were uncanny in their accuracy and he studied her with increasing admiration as a creative genius entirely apart from his growing love.

His personal attitude he held within the strictest bonds of conventional friendship. He made a solemn vow never to kiss her again or take her in his arms until she promised to marry him. It was a point of honor. He held it with Spartan sternness. She knew the process of his reasoning and accepted his stubborn insistence on the old code as part of his fundamental character.

She felt the daily resistless growth of his fascination. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. He could hold his hands and put down the impulse to kiss her lips, which she communicated to his sensitive mind with deliberate alluring suggestion, but he could not control the tell-tale look out of his eyes. Again and again she caught him looking at her with a longing that was agony. And she knew that she was winning the battle with his iron will.

At last his longing was more than he could endure in silence. He seized her hand with trembling violence.

“You can’t go on torturing me like this, my sweetheart. We say we’re friends. We know we’re not. You can’t keep this fight up against every impulse of body and soul----”

“I’m not keeping it up!” she interrupted.

“Of course, you are,” he protested. “I’ll marry you to-night----”

“I’ll give all to-night and scorn the chains of slaves!”

“But you can’t live to yourself or die to yourself. We live in the world and we’re part of it. Your creed is anarchy.”

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” she interrupted; “we’ll run up for the week-end to see a friend of mine in a quaint log cottage in the mountains. Close to the heart of nature, we’ll face this thing for two whole days and fight it to a finish one way or the other--what do you say?”

His face brightened at the prospect and then clouded.

“I can’t get off the paper.”

“I’ll get you off.”

“Then it’s a go.”

Without delay she pulled the strings with the managing editor and secured Manning’s release for the two days, Saturday and Sunday. He also consented to waive the Friday afternoon preceding. She had taken no chance of refusal at the office. A brief telephone call direct to Brown had turned the trick.

The two days intervening, Wednesday and Thursday, she spent in preparations. She devoted the entire time to the coming event. She was too busy for a meeting with her lover.

To his urgent plea for a chat or a walk or a ride in the little roadster there was but one answer:

“I can’t, man. I’m too busy training for the coming bout with you. I’ll see you Friday afternoon at exactly four o’clock at my place on the avenue. Don’t be late a second.”

“I’ll be waiting on the doorstep!” was the cheerful response.

At exactly two minutes before the appointed hour she swept against the curb in the trim little car. He threw his grip in and sprang to the seat.

“You’re all ready?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“No baggage?” he enquired.

“My friend has everything I’ll need. I’m at home up there.”

The car swept down the avenue, turned into West Twenty-third Street and in a minute swung into Eighth Avenue.

“Which way?” he asked.

“The Weehawken Ferry to the Palisades and the road to Bear Mountain.”

“Bear Mountain--that sounds good!” he said, snuggling against her a little in spite of his Spartan resolutions to maintain the strict basis of friendship.

Ellen turned a radiant smile on his face that fairly blinded him. The ease with which she handled the car in the crowded streets of New York was a constant surprise. The machine seemed a part of her very heart-beat. Machinery was something he had never tried to understand. He had no desire to monkey with it. He regarded a woman who dared to handle it as a sort of super-woman. He was not surprised at Ellen. It seemed the natural thing for the self-reliant leader of the modern crusade to put her hand on the throat of an automobile and run it as she pleased.

He submitted himself to her authority as a chauffeur without question and in perfect confidence. He was sure that she knew exactly what she was doing. But when it came to submission to her leadership in life in the big issue of a home--well--that was another question. He renewed his resolutions to boss that job in his own way.

The beauty of the woodland roads along the Palisades and over the Jersey hills and valleys was a constant surprise to his keenly awakened senses.

“I had no idea this country was so beautiful!” he exclaimed with delight.

“It’s more beautiful to-day, I think,” she said demurely, “than ever before.”

“I wonder why!” he laughed.

He thoroughly enjoyed the wonderful drive. The long stretches of smooth road overlooking the Hudson with its silver mirror reflecting the dark green hills and mountains sent the blood tingling to his finger-tips.

And the soft touch of the woman he loved close beside him was the magic that gave new meaning to it all. He had viewed beautiful scenery before. Never had it affected his spirits like this. He half closed his eyes. The throb of the engine seemed the beat of the heart of a great eagle. They were flying in space with the quiet beautiful world stretching in silver and green below!

Beyond Nyack the hills grew into mountains and the quiet beauty into rugged grandeur. A great awe filled his heart.

His hand moved toward hers involuntarily. He stopped himself in time. It was certainly no place for spooning when your girl held the wheel of a little racer making forty miles an hour over a dangerous mountain road.

Besides, it would have been a terrible break in his resolutions. She would have had the laugh on him, to say nothing of the sharp rebuke he would have gotten for imperilling two lives.

He straightened himself and frowned. He began to foresee danger in this high altitude. He wondered what sort of cottage it was, how many people in it, how many servants, and what their chances would be for the long talks of which he had been dreaming. It would certainly be a mess if they should be so petted and coddled as star guests that they could have no time to be alone.

He glanced at Ellen’s flushed face and saw a smile playing about the corners of the sensitive mouth. He was reassured. She had too much common sense to lead him into a crowd of chattering idiots. He threw off his fears and his heart began to sing its old love-song with a new sense of triumph.

They swept suddenly into a beautiful park, swarming with thousands of merrymakers.

A steamer had just tied up at the pier and three thousand people were pouring from its side and streaming up the steep hill.

“For the love o’ Mike,” he cried, “have we slipped a cog and run into Coney Island?”

“Heaven forbid,” was the laughing reply. “This is Bear Mountain. New York is just beginning to know about it.”

“What in heaven’s name is it--a beer-garden?”

“No, my ignorant youth from the country; it’s a great Inter-State Park, comprising thousands of acres of wild mountains, rivers, lakes and endless reaches of wooded hills.”

The car stopped at the signal of a traffic officer to let a crowd cross the road. They were a jolly lot--lovers, lovers, lovers, endless processions of lovers. Some were holding hands, some were shy, some laughing, some in the depths of their first quarrel--but over all the spirit of joy brooded.

Manning caught the contagion. It went to his Head like wine. He laughed in spite of himself.

“Shall we stop and take a spin on that lake over there?” he asked.

“No; we haven’t time. It’s a long pull up our mountain.”

Something about the way she spoke the words “long pull” caught his imagination and fired it with happiness. It would be wonderful to take a long pull away from the crowded world into the deep shaded gorges of the mountains with the woman he loved! He began to picture the narrow mountain road.

In half an hour they were on it and he smiled at the inadequacy of his effort to imagine half its charm. Up and up and up the narrow thread wound beside the deep gorges and over the crests of the lower ranges and up again, always up, to greater heights.

She swung the car right or left at each cross road without a moment’s pause.

“You’ve been here before?” he observed.

“I’ve walked it a dozen times.”

“Alone?”

“Once or twice.”

He sighed and wondered who was with her the other times. A very disconcerting sweetheart, this new, wilful, headstrong, self-poised modern woman! He couldn’t help wondering for just a moment how far she had allowed men of Field’s type to go with her. He dismissed the ugly thought with indignation. It was absurd. The woman by his side was as pure as the breath of this mountain air. No matter how foul the atmosphere of the great city in which she lived, about her always was the living charm of a clean heart.

He began to feel the exhilaration of the high altitude in quickened pulse. It sent the blood to his brain in waves of boyish joy.

He crossed his arms to keep from touching her.

“I’m foolishly happy,” he observed with a grin.

“I knew you would be,” she replied.

“Nobody seems to live up here,” he remarked as they turned another ridge and swept the inspiring panorama of three ranges. “We haven’t seen a human in five miles.”

“That’s why it’s worth the climb.”

“And only two automobile tracks on the road that I can make out.”

“There isn’t much travel on this trail,” she admitted.

“It would be a joke if your friends should be away.”

“Would you mind much?” she inquired archly.

He hesitated.

“Only for your sake.”

“You surely couldn’t think that I would mind.”

“It would be against your religion, wouldn’t it?”

“I should feel disgraced if I were upset by a little thing like that--if my love-man were with me.”

The last words were spoken in a lazy tenderness that found his heart.

“Hush--you make me forget my resolutions.”

“So soon?”

“Yes. If I don’t do better than this I can see my finish in the two days’ fight we’ve planned.”

She fixed him with a tender look, and he turned to the scenery for relief. She knew that he didn’t mean quite that. She knew that the iron will still slumbered beneath his light banter and yet she sang for joy that he had even toyed with the idea of surrender. He had played with it--otherwise such a remark would have been impossible.

She swung the little car straight to the right and flew down a long, straight stretch of road leading directly toward the river. Through vistas of overhanging boughs he caught the flash of its waters in the distance.

The car suddenly curved into an open space on the cliff and shot into a garage perched on the rocks between two trees. He could see that the rear windows looked out into space. Beyond it lay the sheer precipice of the mountain-side and the wide reach of the Hudson.

“We’re here!” she cried joyously.

“Where on earth’s the house?” he inquired anxiously.

“We’ll find it all right,” she answered, “unless a slight earthquake has shaken it off into the river during the night.”

His curiosity was excited. The stillness of the place was uncanny. It seemed a thousand miles from a human, habitation--not a sign of a cat or a dog, or a chicken about it.

“Come on!” she cried.

He followed her down a narrow path between huge boulders, beneath giant trees for two hundred yards and crossed a laughing brook. The pathway followed the edge of the stream for two hundred yards more and suddenly stopped before a log cottage built squarely across the brook.

He stood entranced.

“Isn’t it beautiful!” he exclaimed. “It hangs on the very edge of the cliff, too. And the brook makes a bridal-veil falls as it dashes into foam over the rugged ledge!”

“Yes; listen,” she whispered, “you can hear its weird music.”

He stood still for a moment and held his breath. The music of the tiny falls came faint and low like an echo chorus to the babble of the brook over the rocks at their feet. A slight mist rose white and ghost-like from below.

“It’s a fairyland,” he breathed.

“Come in,” she said simply. “My friends are on a visit to some neighbors. They didn’t expect us so soon. I came an hour earlier on purpose to have it all alone with you in your first impressions.”

The door was unlocked and they entered the spacious living-room. At one end stood a huge fireplace built of boulders. Toward the cliff, overlooking the river, three large windows were cut, with a couch seat projecting into space. It was piled with pillows and from its inviting perch entrancing views stretched in three directions--across the river to the hills beyond--up the river’s edge, over which hung still higher, darker mountain peaks, and down the river through endless, sunlit stretches of water and white, gleaming villages along its banks.

He sat down in the window and gazed in awe.

“It’s wonderful!” he exclaimed at last.

“Drink it in,” she responded cheerfully, “while I get something to eat.”

“Good; I’m starved!”

“Make yourself at home,” she called from the kitchen. “Clark, the president of my company, used to pay the taxes on this place, but I own it. They don’t stay here enough to know what it’s like.”

Through the rapture of his soul, bewitched by the wonderful view, he caught enough of her chatter to know that all was well, and he could dream undisturbed for a brief while. He abandoned himself to the spell. He looked at the inscription over the big stuffed eagle perched on a bough above the mantel--“_The Eagle’s Nest_.” He felt himself an eagle resting for a moment high up on the overhanging cliff. A new sense of freedom and power welled within him. The call of elemental things throbbed in his veins. He felt for the first time his kinship to the wild, free world whose inheritance still beat in his blood.

The sun was setting in a riot of gorgeous colors reflected in the great silver mirror below. He was surprised to see the gleam of red and yellow in the tall tree-tops. It couldn’t be possible the leaves were turning thus early in September. He looked closely and found it was true. He felt the first tingling breath of fall in the air.

He turned instinctively toward the fireplace and found to his amazement that a glowing blaze of logs had begun to brighten the room. The table was set before the fireplace and he smelled a hot dinner. He looked in surprise again. How long had he been dreaming?

He sprang to his feet. The people had probably come and entered by the kitchen door.

“Ellen!” he called.

“Yes, dear!” came the cheerful answer from the kitchen.

“Can’t I help you?”

“Yes. Find your room--the first door on the left, next to mine, and wash your face and hands for dinner. Hurry up, like a good boy, now. It’s all ready.”

He hurried into the tiny bedroom. The furniture held him in spite of his desire to make haste. The bed was built of peeled logs. The bureau and chiffonier and every piece of the same. The effect was charming. He imagined himself a clumsy young eagle rummaging about in a nest of dry sticks somewhere in the clouds.

Everything about the place seemed to aggravate the sense of boyish exhilaration which he felt with increasing intensity.

“It’s the high air, of course,” he mused, “but I’ll swear I’m a little drunk.”

To his surprise he found running water in the set wash-basin and two faucets, hot and cold, and each of them in perfect order. Of course it was easy to pipe it from the hill above and the fire in the kitchen range accounted for the flow of hot water.

He changed his collar and cravat and brushed his suit with care. The folks had come. Of this he had no doubt. He would meet them at dinner. They were certainly a quiet couple. He couldn’t wonder at that. Human beings could not live in such air and not be born again.

As he emerged into the living-room, prepared to receive the formal announcement of his name to the host and hostess, he stopped speechless at the vision which greeted him.

Ellen was just entering with the tea tray. A more bewitching picture never met his eye. She had removed her corsets and slipped into a dark, blood-red negligee trimmed in black fur. The snow-white neck and shoulders framed in low V-shape setting flashed a living ivory. Her cheeks were red. Her eyes sparkled with mischievous happiness. Ringlets of waving brown hair hung about her face in tantalizing beauty.

“I sincerely trust,” she cried, “that you duly appreciate the honor I am paying to mere man by playing the humble rôle of cook to his majesty!”

He stared, transfixed in amazement.

She busied herself with the tray, placed the service for two, and hurried back into the kitchen for the dinner. His eyes followed her with eager admiration. She walked with a sinuous grace that was bewitching. Never had he realized the stunning beauty of her superb figure as in the simple drapery of this blood-red, fur-trimmed robe.

He was still dazed by the vision when she reappeared with the loaded tray, her eyes laughing at his embarrassment.

“His majesty displeased?” she inquired.

“I’m dumb,” he gasped; “dumbfounded, keeled over, completely knocked out!”

“Say not so, dear boy, say not so!” she laughed. “I pride myself on my cooking. On one point, at least, I’m the incarnation of your old-fashioned housewife. I will say that the man who marries me will get a good cook. You should collapse after the meal, not before.”

“What on earth will these people think when they pop in and find that we’re running the whole place to suit ourselves?”

“And what care we? I told you that Clark used to pay the taxes, but I own it--didn’t I?”

He glanced uneasily at the door.

She placed an armchair at the table and drew another opposite.

“Dinner is served, your majesty!”

She made the daintiest bow, Japanese fashion, and spread her arms in mock obedience.

“I’ll wake up in a minute!” he sighed.

“Please don’t.”

They sat down and looked into each other’s faces in silence, smiling. His expression of boyish humor slowly deepened into tender appeal.

“Dear love-woman,” he began slowly, “you don’t know how this picture overwhelms me. It’s the dream of my soul--the sweet intimacy of this life within the prison of four walls with you! Can’t you see it my way, dearest?”

“Perhaps I do--only with clearer eyes and deeper insight into realities,” she responded gravely. “You like this rustic furniture, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Because it suggests the freedom of an eagle’s nest in the tree-top. I like it, too. Were we married, every piece of furniture in our establishment would be so many links in the chain that bind two slaves to eternal servitude.”

“I’d kiss the chain which bound you to me and me to you for life.”

“I think you’ve said that once before--and you mean it now. You’d think so until you feel the chains begin to gall the bruised flesh. Can’t you understand, dear man, that a woman who has once felt the throb of a conscious free soul cannot allow herself to be classed as your property, your home, your ox, your ass?”

An impulsive answer moved his lips, but the words died unspoken. She was so radiantly beautiful it was a sacrilege to cross her.

“I’m hungry,” he complained.

She smiled triumphantly and poured his tea. Through the long wonderful hour at the table no word of argument broke the spell. They talked of trifles--the mountains, the hills, the majestic river, the peace and quiet of the eagle’s nest.

She watched his face intently, and wondered what tumult was raging within and at what point the storm would break. That a storm was brewing she could feel with increasing intensity. She caught it in the little nervous twitching about the corners of his mouth and a new fire that glowed in the depths of his eyes.

She was not surprised at his sudden move at the end of the meal. He rose abruptly and paced the floor, his hands gripped behind his back. He paused and looked through the open window at the shimmering surface of the river, lighted now by the rising moon. A cricket chirped in the chimney-corner. A breeze stole through the screen door from the south laden with the odor of flowers.

He stood for five minutes without moving a muscle. She watched him with increasing uneasiness, rose and slowly moved to his side.

“Of what are you dreaming, my love-man?” she whispered.

His eyes remained fixed on the moonlit river.

“Of you.”

A warm soft hand found his and held it close.

He looked into her eyes intently.

“Your friends are not coming,” he said.

“No.”

“You knew they were not?”

“I knew.”

“You think it’s all quite fair?”

“They say that all is fair in love and war--were you thinking of yourself or of me?”

“Of both--of you first.”

“I am of age.”

“I doubt if I am responsible to-night.”

“I am.”

“Whose cabin is this?” he asked suddenly.

“Mine. I bought it last week.”

She felt his hand close on hers in a grip of cruel strength. She strangled a little cry of pain.

She lifted her head in a movement of pride and spoke with even deliberation.

“Our position here to-night is an advance in morality--not a lapse. We seek the reality, not the shadow. We scorn the letter of an outgrown ritualism. The murmur of the brook beneath our cabin is our wedding march----”

She paused and the soft music of the waters stole through the silence.

“The mist of the fall is my bridal veil----”

She felt his trembling arm slowly circle her waist. He drew her close and their lips met.