Charles Winthrop saw only the beautiful face of Dawn Van Rensselaer.
All the rest were but a setting for her. He seemed to know instantly as
he looked that there was no other girl in the world like this. He knew
not who she might be, but he looked at her as if his spirit were calling
to hers across the meadow-land that separated them. Then suddenly, half
poised as she was, in the very midst of her song, Dawn became aware of
his presence and stopped. She met his gaze, and, without her own
volition, it seemed, her eyes were shining and smiling to meet his
smile. It was just a fleeting instant that they gazed thus, and then
the joy went out of the girl’s face, and a frightened look took its
place. She had seen the other man standing beside him, and he was
frowning.
Harrington Winthrop had caught the look on his brother’s face, and its
answer in the face of the girl upon whom he had set his seal of
possession, and an unreasoning anger had taken possession of him. This
girl had looked at Charles as Harrington had never been able to make her
look at him, not even since she had in a tacit way consented to marry
him.
"This is foolish child’s play!" he said in a vexed tone to his brother.
"Let us go back to the house and wait until she has returned."
"Oh, no, let us stay!" said Charles. "This is beautiful! Exquisite! At
least, if you must go, let me stay. I wish to see the finish."
"I wish you to go," said Harrington, and there was something in his
brother’s voice that reminded Charles of the days when he used to be
ordered back from following on a fishing or swimming expedition. He
looked at his brother’s angry face, and then back to the beautiful girl
on the hillside. But the light had gone out of her eyes. The song had
died on her lips. There was no sparkling smile now. Instead, there was
an angry, steel-like flash in the eyes. She held the fluttering scarf
in front of her now, in long loose folds covering her feet and ankles,
and as the two men turned and gazed at her her head went up proudly,
even as the queen of the air might have raised her head. One hand went
up in quick command, pointing straight at the two young men, and in
quite the phrase of the play she had been acting she spoke:
"Hence, strange spirits!" she cried. "Hence! Begone! Ye have no right
amongst us, being unbidden. ’Go, I tell ye! Go, or I, the queen of the
air, will bring evil upon ye! Go, ye have angered me!"
Dawn had made Shakespeare so much her constant companion that the
language came easily to her. She picked up phrases here and there and
strung them together without hesitation. Her anger helped her on, and
her splendid command of herself had a strange effect upon her audience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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