idealization of love; Nellie was that black lover’s ideal of all that was lovely, and she was dead. Is the orchestra ready—and the choir? Yes, shut the door; we are for art’s sake only, not for the applause of the cold world in the car.” [74] Afterward, when he was angry over his own folly, his own blind, dogged, trustfulness against all the odds of evidence, Rupert Winter laid his weakness to that hour; to a woman’s sweet, untrained, tender voice singing the simple melodies of his youth. They sang one song after another while the sun sank lower and stained the western sky. Through the snow-sheds they could catch glimpses of a wild and strange nature; austere, yet not repelling; vistas of foot-hills bathed in the evening glow; rank on rank of firs, tall, straight, beautiful, not wind-tortured and maimed, like the woeful dwarfs of Colorado; and wonderful snow-capped mountain peaks, with violet shadows and glinting streaks of silver. Snow everywhere: on the hillsides; on the close thatch of the firs; on the ice-locked rivers; snow freshly fallen, softly tinted, infinitely, awesomely pure. [75]Presently they came out into a lumber country where the mills huddled in the hollows, over the streams. Huge fires were blazing on the river-banks. Their tawny red glare dyed the snow for a long distance, making entrancing tints of rose and yellow; and the dark green of the pines, against this background, looked strangely fresh. And then, without warning, they plunged into the dimness of another long wooden tunnel and emerged into lovely spring. The trees were in leaf, and not alone the trees; the undulating swells of pasture land and roadside by the mountains were covered with a tender verdure; and there were innumerable vines and low glossy shrubs with faintly colored flowers. [75] “This is like the South,” said Miss Smith. Archie was devouring the scene. “Doesn’t it just somehow make you feel as if you couldn’t breathe, Miss Janet?” said he. “Are you troubled with the high altitude?” asked Millicent anxiously; “I have prepared a little vial of spirits of ammonia; I’ll fetch it for you.” The colonel had some ado to rescue Archie; but he was aided by the porter, who was now passing through the car proclaiming: “You all have[76] seen Dutch Flat Mr. Bret Hahte wrote ’bout; nex’ station is Shady Run; and eve’ybody look and see the greates’ scenic ’traction of dis or any odder railroad, Cape Hohn!”
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