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Options-Part15_O.Henry(1862-1910)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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and the first faint star showed above the pines, the hermit got the



can of baking-powder from his cupboard. He still smiled behind his

beard.



There was a slight rustle in the doorway. There stood Edith Carr,

with all the added beauty and stateliness and noble bearing that ten



years had brought her.

She was never one to chatter. She looked at the hermit with her



large, thinking, dark eyes. The hermit stood still, surprised into a

pose as motionless as her own. Only his subconscious sense of the



fitness of things caused him to turn the baking-powder can slowly in

his hands until its red label was hidden against his bosom.



"I am stopping at the inn," said Edith, in low but clear tones. "I

heard of you there. I told myself that I must see you. I want to ask



your forgiveness. I sold my happiness for money. There were others

to be provided for--but that does not excuse me. I just wanted to see



you and ask your forgiveness. You have lived here ten years, they

tell me, cherishing my memory! I was blind, Hampton. I could not see



then that all the money in the world cannot weigh in the scales

against a faithful heart. If--but it is too late now, of course."



Her assertion was a question clothed as best it could be in a loving

woman's pride. But through the thin disguise the hermit saw easily



that his lady had come back to him--if he chose. He had won a golden

crown--if it pleased him to take it. The reward of his decade of



faithfulness was ready for his hand--if he desired to stretch it

forth.



For the space of one minute the old enchantment shone upon him with a

reflected radiance. And then by turns he felt the manly sensations of



indignation at having been discarded, and of repugnance at having

been--as it were--sought again. And last of all--how strange that it



should have come at last!--the pale-blue vision of the beautifulest of

the Trenholme sisters illuminated his mind's eye and left him without



a waver.

"It is too late," he said, in deep tones, pressing the baking-powder



can against his heart.

Once she turned after she had gone slowly twenty yards down the path.



The hermit had begun to twist the lid off his can, but he hid it again

under his sacking robe. He could see her great eyes shining sadly



through the twilight; but he stood inflexible in the doorway of his

shack and made no sign.



Just as the moon rose on Thursday evening the hermit was seized by the

world-madness.



Up from the inn, fainter than the horns of elf-land, came now and then

a few bars of music played by the casino band. The Hudson was



broadened by the night into an illimitable sea--those lights, dimly

seen on its opposite shore, were not beacons for prosaic trolley-



lines, but low-set stars millions of miles away. The waters in front

of the inn were gay with fireflies--or were they motor-boats, smelling



of gasoline and oil? Once the hermit had known these things and had

sported with Amaryllis in the shade of the red-and-white-striped



awnings. But for ten years he had turned a heedless ear to these far-

off echoes of a frivolous world. But to-night there was something



wrong.

The casino band was playing a waltz--a waltz. What a fool he had been



to tear deliberately ten years of his life from the calendar of

existence for one who had given him up for the false joys that wealth-



-"tum ti tum ti tum ti"--how did that waltz go? But those years had

not been sacrificed--had they not brought him the star and pearl of



all the world, the youngest and beautifulest of--

"But do not come on Thursday evening," she had insisted. Perhaps by



now she would be moving slowly and gracefully to the strains of that

waltz, held closely by West-Pointers or city commuters, while he, who



had read in her eyes things that had recompensed him for ten lost

years of life, moped like some wild animal in its mountain den. Why



should--"

"Damn it," said the hermit, suddenly, "I'll do it!"



He threw down his Marcus Aurelius and threw off his gunny-sack toga.

he dragged a dust-covered trunk from a corner of the cave, and with



difficulty wrenched open its lid.

Candles he had in plenty, and the cave was soon aglow. Clothes--ten



years old in cut--scissors, razors, hats, shoes, all his discarded

attire and belongings, were dragged ruthlessly from their renunciatory



rest and strewn about in painful disorder.

A pair of scissors soon reduced his beard sufficiently for the dulled



razors to perform approximately their office. Cutting his own hair

was beyond the hermit's skill. So he only combed and brushed it



backward as smoothly as he could. Charity forbids us to consider the

heartburnings and exertions of one so long removed from haberdashery






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