Читать книгу Patience Sparhawk and Her Times - Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton - Страница 12

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That night Patience did not go to her tower, but wandered over the dark fields, a drooping forlorn little figure in the crawling shadows. She felt dull and tired and disheartened. By nine o’clock she was asleep. She awoke as fresh as the morning. When Mr. Foord returned from San Francisco in the afternoon he found her curled in the easy-chair by his fire. She started guiltily as he entered, then tossed her head defiantly, let Byron slide to the floor, and went forward to kiss him.

As he was about to take the chair she had occupied he espied the fallen volume. He lifted it hastily.

“What is this?” he demanded.

Patience blushed furiously, but set her lips with an expression he understood.

“It’s Byron, and I’m going to read it all. I’ve read a lot.”

He shifted the book from one hand to the other for a moment, his face much perturbed. Finally he laid it on the table, merely remarking: “Sooner or later, sooner or later.”

Patience offered him a piece of the candy he had brought her; but he preferred his pipe, and she perched herself on the arm of his chair and ate half the contents of her box without pause. She had not yet learned the subtle delights of the epicure, and to enjoy until capacity was exhausted was typical of her enthusiastic temperament. When she could no longer look upon the candy without a shudder she climbed to the old gentleman’s shoulder and scratched his bald pate with her ragged nails. It was her emphatic way of expressing gratitude, and beloved by Mr. Foord above pipe and enchilada.

Patience took Byron home with her that evening, Mr. Foord merely shrugging his shoulders. After supper she read until dark, then hid the book under the bed and went over to the tower. She ran up the twisted stair, and astonished the owl by clasping him in her arms and kissing him passionately. He manifested his disapproval by biting at her shoulder fiercely. She shrieked and boxed his ears smartly. He flapped his large wings wildly. A battle royal was imminent in that sacred tower where once the silver bells had called the holy men to prayer. But Patience suddenly broke into a laugh and sank on her knees by the window, while Solomon retreated to the wall, and regarded her with a round unwinking stare, brooding over problems which he did not in the least understand.

Patience brooded also, but her lids drooped, and she barely saw the beauty of ocean and rock and spray. The moon was not yet up, and the half revealed intoning sea was full of mystery.

She was conscious that her mood was not quite what it had been during her last visit. All of that was there—but more. She felt higher above the earth than ever before, but more conscious of its magnetism. Something hummed along her nerves and stirred in her veins. Her musings shaped to definite form, inasmuch as they assumed the semblance of man. Inevitably Byron was exhumed for duty; and if his restless soul were prowling space and Carmel Valley, his famous humour, desuetous in Eternity, must have echoed in the dull ears of roaming shapes.

Beside the white face of the child was the solemn and hebraic visage of the owl. Some outworn chord of Solomon’s youth may have been stirred by his friend’s tumultuous greeting, for he had stepped, with the dignity of his years, to her side, and stood regarding, with introspective stare, the reflection of the rising moon.

Patience did not see him. She was gazing upon Byron, whose moody passionate face was distinctly visible among the stars. Alas! her vision was suddenly obscured by a hideous black object. A bat flew straight at Carmel tower. Patience sprang to her feet, tossed her skirt over her head, and fled down the stair. The owl stepped to the stair’s head and gazed into the winding darkness, his eyes full of unutterable nothing.