He still wore the grotesque ready-made clothes. The
high collar, galling to him as a bridle to an unbroken cayuse, had made
a red circle about his throat; yet of it and of them he was oblivious.
Very, very young he looked at this time; fairly boyish. There was a
colour in his beardless cheeks higher than the bronze of his race. The
black eyes were soft as a child's, trusting as a child's. In the career
of every human being there comes a time supreme, a climax, a period of
exaltation to which memory will ever after recur, which serves as a
standard of happiness absolute; and in the career of How Landor the hour
had struck. This he knew; and yet, knowing, he could scarcely credit the
truth. His cup of happiness was full, full to overflowing; yet he was
almost afraid to put it to his lips for fear it would vanish, lest it
should prove a myth.
Thus he sat there, this Indian man with whom fate was jesting,
worshipping with a faith and love more intense than a Christian for his
God; yet, with instinctive reticence, worshipping with closed lips. Thus
the minutes passed; minutes of silence wherein he should have been
eloquent, minutes that held an opportunity that would never be his
again. Smiling, ironic, fate the satirist looked on at her handiwork,
watched to the end; and then, observing that _finale_, laughed--and with
the voice of Elizabeth Landor.
"Don't work at it any more, How," derided destiny.
Pages:
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200