Harold Macgrath

Arms and the Woman Harold Macgrath

The first time I met her I was a reporter in the embryonic state and she was a girl in shortdresses. It was in a garden, surrounded by high red brick walls which were half hidden byclusters of green vines, and at the base of which nestled earth-beds, radiant with roses andpoppies and peonies and bushes of lavender lilacs, all spilling their delicate ambrosia onthe mild air of passing May. I stood, straw hat in hand, wondering if I had not stumbled intosome sweet prison of flowers which, having run disobedient ways in the past, had beenplaced here by Flora, and forever denied their native meadows and wildernesses. And thisvision of fresh youth in my path, perhaps she was some guardian nymph. I was onlytwenty-two-a most impressionable age. Her hair was like that rare October brown, halfdun, half gold; her eyes were cool and restful, like the brown pools one sees in the heart ofthe forests, and her lips and cheeks cozened the warm vermilion of the rose which lay everso lightly on the bosom of her white dress. Close at hand was a table upon which stood apitcher of lemonade. She was holding in her hand an empty glass. As my eyes encounteredher calm, inquiring gaze, my courage fled precipitately, likewise the object of my errand. There was a pause; diffidence and embarrassment on my side, placidity on hers."Well, sir?" said she, in a voice the tone of which implied that she could readily understandher presence in the garden, but not mine. As I remember it, I was suddenly seized with a great thirst."I should like a glass of your lemonade," I answered, bravely laying down the only piece ofmoney I possessed. Her stern lips parted in a smile, and my courage came back cautiously, that is to say, bydegrees. She filled a glass for me, and as I gulped it down I could almost detect the flavor oflemon and sugar.