The happy little winds of June, loitering among the lilacs, heard; and they came and blew her bright hair across her eyes, puff after puff of perfumed balm, and stirred the delicate stuff that clung to her, and she felt their caress on her bare feet.
"I mean to go and wade in that river," she said to her maid. "Dress me very quickly."
But when she was dressed the desire for childish things had passed away, and she raised her grave eyes to the reflected eyes in the mirror, studying them in silence.
"After all," she said, aloud, "I am young enough to have found happiness--if they had let me.... The sunshine is full of it, out-doors.... I could have found it.... I was not meant for men.... Still ... it is all in the future yet. I will learn not to be afraid."
She made a little effort to smile at herself in the mirror, but her courage could not carry her as far as that. So, with a quick, quaint gesture of adieu, she turned and walked rapidly out into the hallway.
Miss Garcide was in bed, sneezing patiently. "I won't be out for weeks," said the poor lady, "so you will have to amuse yourself alone."
Miss Castle kissed her and went away lightly down the polished stairs to the great hall.
The steward came up to wish her good-morning, and to place the resources of the club at her disposal.
"I don't know," she said, hesitating at the veranda door; "I think a sun-bath is all I care for. You may hang a hammock under the maples, if you will. I suppose," she added, "that I am quite alone at the club?"
"One gentleman arrived this morning," said the steward--"Mr. Crawford."
She looked back, poised lightly in the doorway through which the morning sunshine poured. All the color had left her face. "Mr. Crawford," she said, in a dull voice.
"He has gone out after trout," continued the steward, briskly; "he is a rare rod, ma'am, is Mr. Crawford. He caught the eight-pound fish--perhaps you noticed it on the panel in the billiard-room."
Miss Castle came into the hall again, and stepped over to the register. Under her signature, "Miss Castle and maid," she saw "J. Crawford, New York." The ink was still blue and faint.
She turned and walked out into the sunshine.
The future was no longer a gray, menacing future; it had become suddenly the terrifying present, and its shadow fell sharply around her in the sunshine.