Their acquaintance had evidently advanced since that anxious evening
when she had urged upon Bram the intelligence of the duel between Hyde
and Neil Semple; for Bram gave her the flowers without embarrassment,
and she buried her sweet face in their sweet petals, and then lifted it
with a smile at once grateful and confidential. Then they began to talk
of Katherine.
"She was so beautiful and so kind," said Miriam; "just a week since
she passed here, with some violets in her hand; and, when she saw me,
she ran up the steps, and said, 'I have brought them for you;' and she
clasped my fingers, and looked so pleasantly in my face. If I had a
sister, Bram, I think she would smile at me in the same way."
"Very grateful to you was Katharine. All you did about the duel, I told
her. She knows her husband had not been alive to-day, but for you. O
Miriam, if you had not spoken!"
"I should have had the stain of blood on my conscience. I did right to
speak. My grandfather said to me, 'You did quite right, my dear.'"
Then Bram told her all the little things that had grieved him, and they
talked as dear companions might talk; only, beneath all the common words
of daily life, there was some subtile sweetness that made their voices
low and their glances shy and tremulous.
It was not more than an hour ere Cohen came home. He looked quickly at
the young people, and then stood by Bram, and began to talk courteously
of passing events. Miriam leaned, listening, against a magnificent
"apostle's cabinet" in black oak--one of those famous ones made in
Nuremburg in the fifteenth century, with locks and hinges of
hammered-steel work, and finely chased handles of the same material.
Against its carved and pillared background her dark drapery fell in
almost unnoticed grace; but her fair face and small hands, with the mass
of white narcissus in them, had a singular and alluring beauty. She
affected Bram as something sweetly supernatural might have done. It was
an effort for him to answer Cohen; he felt as if it would be impossible
for him to go away.
But the clock struck the hour, and the shop boy began to put up the
shutters; and the old man walked to the door, taking Bram with him. Then
Miriam, smiling her farewell, passed like a shadow into the darker
shadows beyond; and Bram went home, wondering to find that she had cast
out of his heart hatred, malice, fretful worry, and all
uncharitableness. How could he blend them with thoughts of her? and how
could he forget the slim, dark-robed figure, or the lovely face against
the old black kas, crowned with its twelve sombre figures, or the
white slender hands holding the white fragrant flowers?