Brent clenched his teeth. In years his own outlook was across the sprouting fields of life, but to his hope of winning Jane he could gaze only back along the path of yellow leaves. He realized how truly this was of his own doing, and unsparingly laid the blame at its rightful place. With whatever sincerity he might curse his follies, with whatever fierce pleasure he would strangle them for her sake, their abandonment now could not weld that link which would have united the chains of their destinies. Too late! The utter hopelessness of this made him groan aloud, as he had the first night they met in the circle of cedars; then, from a false and poisonous pride; now, from humility and a man's honest grief.
The sound of wheels brought him back to the time and place. He looked up, shaking off the spell; but his hands were tightly shut, as if he might be gripping the last tatters of abandoned hope. With a quick gesture he made as though to wrap them close about him, and then smiled at the realism into which his earnestness was leading.
Jane was standing on the porch, waiting; and a darky had brought around Brent's own horse and buggy. Some time before this, loud calls from the house and faintly returned answers from the creek had apprized him of Bip's shameless truancy; but he was fully expecting the mountaineer to go with them until this very minute when he saw what character of vehicle stood before the house. He arose and crossed to her, casually asking:
Two lights crossed the lenses of her eyes, but no timer could have caught them.
"Where?" she asked. "Who knows? He's so utterly oblivious to everything, living in an age so long before the Christian era, that it would be a paradox to take him into a latter-day church."
While speaking she had come down the steps. He helped her in and settled himself comfortably beside her.
"Did you notice how he flew from the dinner table straight back to his books?" she asked, as they turned out of the gate. "When I looked over his shoulder a while ago he was with Cicero again. He adores Cicero!"
"I'm beginning to like old Cis myself," Brent forced a grin and let the horse out a step. "Never knew he could be such a good friend till now. Crawfish and Cicero!--henceforth my amulets!"