in buyers,” she said.
“An artist who marries is a fool--and worse,” said he sourly. “If
he’s happily married his imagination is smothered to death. If he’s
unhappily married it’s stabbed to death.”
She listened sweetly and patiently. “The subject of marriage is on my
mind to-day,” said she with confiding and childlike innocence.
“It usually is on the minds of young girls,” said he, big and frowning.
“But my--my affairs are near the crisis,” proceeded she. “And one
reason I came through the rain was that I wanted your advice.”
He shook his big frame, making the water fly as from the fur of a
great, shaggy dog that has been in swimming. “I don’t give advice,”
said he ungraciously. “When you give advice you make yourself
responsible for the consequences. Besides, I don’t know enough about
you to be able to judge.”
Her look up at him was the essence of implicit trust. “You know more
about me than anyone in the world--more than I know myself.”
He laughed shortly. “I know nothing about you. Girls are not in my
line.”
Her pretty face, the prettier for the dreariness all round, now took on
an expression of hurt feelings. “What’s the matter, Chang?” she asked
gently. “You’re not a bit friendly to-day.”
His face could not but soften before this sweet appeal. He said in a
kindlier tone: “I think you ought to go home. I’m sure you’ll catch
cold.”
She looked immensely relieved. “Oh, that’s why you’re cross, is
it?” said she gayly. “Don’t worry about me, Chang. I’m as dry and
snug as can be. Now, do be kind to me. I don’t see how I’m going to
marry Pete--that is, this man. He’s a nice fellow--good-looking--has
everything I want--but-- Ye gods! He’s such a rotter!”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a man--or woman, for there are lots and lots of female
rotters--it’s a person who--well, you always know just what they are
going to do before they do it, and just what they’re going to say
before they say it.”
“That sounds like good marrying material. You know, you don’t want
surprises in married life.”
“Chang, how _can_ I live through it?” she cried despondently.
“You say you’ve got lots of tastes, all expensive. So--marry him.”
“He’s really very good-looking,” pursued Rix, watching him out of the
corners of her eyes. “And he dresses beautifully--has everything just
right. There isn’t a thing against him--except--” And there she halted,
as if she were not quite certain whether after all there was a positive
objection to the man.
“Except--what?” inquired he, impatient at the long pause at the most
exciting point in the recital.
She secretly delighted in the success of her ruse. But she said
plaintively: “Oh, you’re not interested. You’re not listening.”
“I’m sure you’re catching a hideous cold. Of all the absurd, silly
performances----”
“Now, don’t lecture on health. I simply can’t stand it. As I was about
to say when you interrupted me----”
“I didn’t interrupt you,” protested he.
“Not paying attention is interrupting,” said she. “Anyhow, you’re
interrupting now. What I want to say is, the only thing against him is
that I don’t love him.”
This seemed to cheer the big, dark, young man. With a certain gayety he
replied: “But you soon will. You’ve been well brought up, haven’t you?
Well, that means you are--just girl--ready to be whatever your husband
chooses to make of you.”
“That’s true of most girls, Chang”--he winced each time she gave him
that name--“but it isn’t true of me--at least, not any more. You’ve put
all sorts of ideas into my head.”
He started back in dismay before her accusing, reproachful face, so
sad, so serious. “_I?_ Put ideas into your head? Why, you were buzzing
and boiling with ’em the first time I saw you.”
“But they didn’t amount to anything until you----”
“That’s like a woman!” he exclaimed indignantly. “Trying to shift
responsibility to some one else.”
“But you have a tremendous influence over me.”
“Rubbish! Have I ever tried to get influence over you?”
“I don’t know how you got it,” was her maddeningly feminine evasion.
He gave a kind of snort. “Next thing you’ll be accusing me of advising
you not to marry this rich man you’re engaged to.”
“Not quite engaged,” corrected she. “He wants me to be. And,” she went
on with meek obstinacy, “while you didn’t advise me against it in so
many words----”
“Now, Rix,” he almost shouted, pointing his finger at her, “you stop
right there!”
“Please, Chang--come in out of the rain. And don’t talk so loud; it
makes me nervous. I’m almost hysterical as it is.”
He looked at her in terror. All that would be needed completely to
upset him would be for her to have hysterics. He moved nearer her,
went on in a soothing, persuasive tone: “I advised you to marry him. I
showed you it’s the only thing for you to do.”
“And such talk was unworthy of you,” said she, like a rebuking angel.
“You didn’t really mean it. You know _you_ wouldn’t stoop to do such a
thing yourself.”
His frank countenance had quite a wild look, so agitated and confused
was he by her swift twistings and turnings, so alarmed was he as he
felt the awful danger approaching. “We’re not talking about me. We’re
talking about you and your affairs--or, rather, _you_ are talking about
them. Keep _me_ out of this.”
“But how can I?” argued she gently, looking admiringly up at him.
“You’ve become the big influence in my life. If I had known you earlier
I’d have been very different. Even now I feel as if a great change were
coming over me----”
“It’s the cold you’re catching,” interrupted he, in desperate attempt
to be jocose and create a diversion. “You must go straight home.”
“Chang,” she said, laying her hand on his arm, “if you were rich,
instead of poor, would you talk to me like this?”
“Now, Rix--stop that nonsense.”
“Don’t, Chang,” she pleaded. “You realize, just as well as I do, that
we’ve made a frightful mistake.”
He did not venture an answer.
“You knew it as soon as you saw me this morning--didn’t you?” continued
she. “Yes, I saw it in your eyes. I felt it in your----”
He suddenly seized her by both shoulders, looked into her eyes
searchingly. “This isn’t a bit like you, Rix. What are you up to?”
She simply gazed at him--a gaze he found it hard to withstand; yet he
could not shift his charmed eyes.
“You’re trying to lead me on. Why?” he demanded.
“Because we love each other, Chang,” she said as simply and sweetly as
a child.
He laughed gently. “What a romancer you are! Fortunately, I’m a man. I
don’t take advantage of a baby.”
“I’m twenty-two.”
“And as ignorant of the world as a baby,” declared he, like grandfather
to grandchild.
“I know what I want when I see it, just as well as you do, Chang,”
she replied steadily. “Better--because you’re making me do all the
talking--which isn’t gentlemanly of you.” Her eyes filled with
tears--and very lovely they looked--like dew-drenched violets. “If it
wasn’t that you’re holding back simply because you’re poor I’d not
forgive you so easily.”
He dropped his hands from her shoulders, turned away abruptly. He
strode to the edge of the lake and debated with himself. When he came
back to her he was serene though grave. At sight of his expression,
which she had eagerly awaited, she shivered. “Rix,” he said--and all
the fine frankness and simplicity of his nature were in his eyes and
his voice--“it’s lucky for you that I’ve lived a little, or we might
be dragging each other into a fearful mess. You think you’ve fallen in
love--don’t you?”
“I know it, Chang,” she answered, undaunted.
“Well, I know you haven’t fallen in love with me. You’ve simply fallen
in love with love. Your imagination has been giddied by this little
adventure that seems so romantic to you. And the day’ll come when
you’ll thank me for having had the sense to understand you and to
understand that my own strong liking for you isn’t love, either.”
“It’s what _I_ call love,” said she, a solemn, wistful look in the
eyes she fixed on him. “Don’t you miss me and think of me all the
time when we aren’t together--just as I do? Don’t you come earlier
and earlier--just as I do? Didn’t you fight against coming in the
rain to-day, just as I did? Weren’t you dreadfully afraid you’d be
disappointed, just as I was? And didn’t you simply _have_ to come----”
He suddenly lost his temper. “This is too exasperating!” he cried.
“I’ve done wrong to let you come here. I was innocent enough in it----”
“You couldn’t have kept me away,” she interrupted with a kind
of childish glee. “The mischief was done the first day--over the
chocolate. Wasn’t it, Chang?--honestly, wasn’t it?”
“You’re a nice little girl, but----”
She cut him off again: “If you knew how I fought that evening and night
and all the next day and night--and how early I started out to find
you. Had you begun to hunt for me?”
“No,” said he, more curt than convincing.
“Then what were you thinking about--that first morning down by the
waterfall?”
He flushed guiltily. Very poor, indeed, at all kinds of deception was
Chang--except, possibly, self-deception.
“I watched you for half an hour. You were sketching a face,
Chang--instead of the waterfall. Whose face was it?”
“Yours,” he admitted, as if the matter were of no consequence. With a
smile of patient indulgence he went on: “Oh, if you’d had experience!
But you haven’t. That’s why you’re carrying on like this. Now, listen
to me, child----”
“I like Rix better,” she interposed.
“No matter,” he said, with a gesture of impatient brushing away. “I
don’t love you. I won’t marry you. And you’ve got to stop proposing to
me. I never heard of such vanity! What would people think of you?”
“You’ve taught me not to mind what people think. You said you
despised----”
“No matter what I said! What will you think of yourself? What will _I_
think of you?”
“Why, that I love you,” said she sweetly.
He looked hopelessly at her, threw out his arms in a gesture of
despair. “A baby--just a baby. Go home and grow up!” he cried, and
strode swiftly away with a great swashing of the skirts of his
long coat and a great swishing of the disturbed undergrowth of the
wilderness.
III
A LESSON IN WOMAN
Toward four the next afternoon Wade, at the studio, heard a knock on
the door. He recognized it so promptly that one might almost have
suspected he had been expecting it--or, would hoping for it be a more
exactly accurate phrase? By way of answer he tiptoed across the floor,
rested his full weight against the door, as there was no bolt, indeed
no fastening of any kind but the unused outside bar and padlock. If
that assault was to be repelled he must rely wholly upon his own
unaided strength. He was not content with resting his weight; he braced
himself and pushed.
The knock came again--right between his shoulder-blades with only the
inch plank between.
It was as if those pretty knuckles of hers were tapping him on the
back, on the spinal cord, which, as everyone knows, immediately
radiates sensation to all parts of even such a huge body as was
Chang’s. He grew quite pale, then an absurdly boyish red. He muttered
something that sounded like “damn fool”--and it certainly must have
been addressed to himself.
The knock came the third time, quickly--a triumphant knock, seeming to
say, “So you’re in there, are you? Well, surrender at once!”
He wondered how she had found out, for he certainly had made no sound
she could have heard. With the fourth and most vigorous knock he
discovered the secret. He noted that his body against the door made
the knock sound differently. He hastily lifted himself away, put his
hands against the door high up above where she, merely a person of
medium height, and woman’s medium height at that, could reach. When she
knocked again he felt absurd. For the sound, hollow once more, must
reveal to her that there was indeed some change of conditions within,
proving beyond doubt the presence of some intelligent--or, at least,
brain-using--being.
His poor opinion of himself and his fear of her sagacity were forthwith
justified. “It’s only I,” she called. “So you can open.”
The impudence! As if he were eager to see her, would instantly open
for her! Why, she was positively brazen, this sweet, innocent young
girl. No--that was unjust. Just because she was innocent she did these
outlandish, outrageous things. Yet how could a girl of twenty-two, out
four years, extremely intelligent--how could she be thus unaware of
what was proper and modest for a young woman dealing with a bachelor?
How could she venture upon--no, not merely venture upon, but boldly
tackle, grapple with--the subject which the maiden should never so much
as hint until the man has forced it upon her? “I don’t understand it,”
he muttered. “She’s some queer mixture of craft and innocence. And
where the one begins and the other ends I’m blessed if I know. There’s
some mystery in this. She’s got some notion--some false notion--or
something--Heaven knows what. All I know is, she’s got to stop hounding
me--and she’s not going to get in.”
As if she had heard these angry but cautious undertones she said: “Now,
Chang, don’t be a silly. I know you’re against the other side of the
door. I could tell by the way the knocks sounded. Besides, I’ve just
peeped through the crack underneath and I saw your big feet.”
Then he did feel like an ass! Caught holding a door, like a
ten-year-old boy--he, a great, huge, grown man, no less than thirty-two
years old! Still, of the two absurd courses open to him--to let her
in and to continue to bar her out--the less absurd was the latter.
To face her with a red and sheepish countenance--to face her mocking
smile--that was not to be thought of.
“Don’t be afraid, Chang,” she scoffed. “I haven’t got a clergyman with
me.”
“Run along home, you foolish child,” he cried. “I’m busy and mustn’t be
interrupted.”
“I must see you--for just a minute,” she pleaded--the kind of pleading
that is command. “Don’t be so vain. Don’t take yourself so seriously.”
That voice of hers--it sounded sanely humorous. And he certainly was
putting himself in the position of having egotistically believed to the
uttermost her remarks of yesterday, which were probably nothing but a
fantastic mood. But he simply could not open that door and face her
plump off. He made three or four steps away from it on tiptoe, then
walked heavily, calling out in a tone of gruff indifference: “Come
on! But don’t forget I’m busy.” Luckily he happened to glance at the
picture; he had just time hastily to fling a drape over it. He went to
the fireplace and busied himself with the fire--for the day after the
heavy rain was of an almost winter coolness. He heard the door open and
close.
“Your manners are simply shocking,” came in her voice.
He turned round to face her. No, she was not in the least abashed, as
one would have expected her to be on seeing him for the first time
after her proposal. What did it mean? What was in that industrious,
agile mind? She was much better dressed than she had been as his
model. She was wearing a most becoming gray gown with a small, gray
walking hat to match. Yes, she looked prettier, more ladylike, but--
“How do you like my new suit?” asked she.
“Very good,” replied he. “But while you’ve gained something, you’ve
lost more.”
“I know it,” admitted she. “I saw it the instant I looked at myself in
the glass, and I’ve felt it all the way here. I’ve lost what you like
best in me. That is, I’ve not exactly lost it, but covered it up. But
it’s still here.” This last in a tone gay with enjoyment in teasing him.
He stood with his back to the fire, and waited. She came slowly toward
him, halting at every second step. Her smile was mysterious--and
disquieting. It was a mocking smile, yet behind it there lurked--what?
_What_ was the mystery of that proposal?
“Well, I suppose you’ll be satisfied now,” said she. “I’m engaged.”
“I don’t care anything about it,” declared he. “Let’s talk of something
else.”
They were facing each other now, not many steps apart; and the sight
of her, in such high good humor, made it simply impossible for him to
remain grumpy, or to pretend that he was. She went on: “I did it this
morning--instead of coming to pose for you. I hope I didn’t put you
out too much. I couldn’t think of any way to send you word.”
“I wasn’t there,” said he. “I can finish the picture up here.”
“Then you don’t need me any more?” inquired she. And the little hands
she was stretching out to the blaze dropped pathetically to her side
and up went her face to gaze into his mournfully.
“I’ve done with models in America!” said he, laughing--not in very
mirthful fashion, however.
Her eyes--they were innocent to-day--remained serious. “I don’t see why
you were upset by what I said,” observed she reflectively, warming her
palms. “You can’t have had much experience with women or you’d not have
been.”
It was a notable proof of Chang’s fundamental simplicity of character
that this usually sure thrust at masculine vanity did not reach him,
though he was only thirty-two. “You’re not a woman,” replied he.
“You’re a girl--a child--a stray from the nursery.”
She shook her head. “No, I’m a woman. You’ve made me a woman.”
“There you go again!” cried he. “Blaming me!”
“Thanking you!” corrected she gently. “But please don’t get excited
about--yesterday. How can we be friends if you begin to fuss and fume
every time you think of it? Really, I didn’t do anything out of the
ordinary.”
He dropped into a chair and laughed heartily.
“I simply proposed to you,” said she.
“So you think it is ordinary for a girl to propose to a man--and to
insist on it, in spite of his protests? Well--maybe it is--in America.”
“I don’t know,” said she reflectively. “I never did it before.”
“Really?”
“No,” she answered him unsmilingly. “But I’m sure I’ll do it again--if
I feel like it.”
“I wouldn’t--if I were you. The next man might misunderstand.”
“_You_ didn’t?” The gray eyes were not interrogative, but affirmative.
“Certainly not. I’m not so vain; and, besides, I knew you.”
“That had a great deal to do with it--I mean, the fact that we knew
each other so well. I shouldn’t, of course, do such a thing to a
perfect stranger.” There was no suggestion of irony, of any kind of
humor, in her voice. But he felt uneasy. She proceeded tranquilly: “I
suppose any girl would--in the same circumstances--any sensible girl.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” confessed he. What did she mean by “in
the same circumstances”? There seemed a chance to penetrate into the
mystery, but he would venture no questions. He contented himself with
repeating: “No, I never heard of it.”
“Naturally,” observed she. “A girl wouldn’t tell it afterwards--and
the man couldn’t--if he were a gentleman. I’m sure if anyone ever asks
me whether I ever proposed to a man I’ll say no. And, in a way, it is
true. Really, you were the one that proposed to me.” She nodded slowly.
“Really, it was you.”
“I?” he exclaimed in derision.
“Yes, you,” she affirmed, meeting his gaze gravely.
His eyes wavered; he confusedly sought and lit a cigarette.
“Of course,” pursued she, “I never could have done such a thing if I
hadn’t known it would be--agreeable.”
That word agreeable struck him as being a peculiarly happy choice. He
chuckled. Her smile showed that she herself regarded it as a rhetorical
triumph. “You’ll have a chocolate--won’t you?” said he.
“Thank you,” she accepted, with eager gratitude. “Won’t you let me make
it?”
He was already busy. “I can’t have you mussing in my closet,” he
laughed. “Though, Heaven knows, I feel as if you were at home here.” It
slipped out, before he realized what he was saying. He hoped she had
not heard.
But she had. “That’s it!” cried she. “_Don’t_ we feel at home and at
ease with each other! I never felt that way with anybody in my life
before. And I’ve an instinct that you never did, either--never so much
so.... What’s the matter?”
He had turned in the closet doorway, was gazing gloomily at her, and,
being so big and so dark, his gloom was indeed somber--suggested
the darkness of an enchanted forest. “After all my resolutions!” he
exclaimed, with bitterness of self-reproach. He shut the closet. “No
chocolate,” he said firmly. “You must go home and let me work.”
“Why, what are you afraid of?” cried she, an angry light in her eyes.
“You told me yesterday you wouldn’t have me. And now I’m engaged.”
“You must go.”
She stamped her foot, and in poise of head, in curve of brow and lip
showed for the first time the imperiousness she had told him about. “If
I didn’t like you so well!” she cried. “Do be sensible. You’re always
calling me a baby. It’s you that are the baby.”
“I think so, myself,” said he, the more quietly but also the more
strongly for her threatening outburst of temper. “Listen to me, Rix.
This nonsense has got to stop. We’re going to keep away from each
other. We’re not in love--and we’re not going to put ourselves in the
way of temptation.” He looked reproachfully at her. “Why in thunder
did you have to go and spoil everything with that chatter of yours
yesterday? We were getting along beautifully, and the idea of you as a
girl in the ordinary sense never had entered my head.”
“You didn’t understand yourself,” said she. “Women are wiser about
those things than men--the most foolish women than the wisest men.
Besides, if you knew the circumstances as I know them, you’d not attach
so much importance to what was perfectly natural.”
He puzzled for an instant with this second mysterious reference to the
“circumstance,” dismissed it. “Anyhow, the milk’s spilled,” said he
with determination. “And you must go and not come back.”
“But now that I’m engaged----”
“Engaged be hanged!” exclaimed he violently. “I’m not as stupid as you
think. Can’t I see that you’re up to the same tricks as yesterday? What
do you mean by it? What’s going on in the back of your head? No--never
mind. I don’t want to know. I want you to go.”
She sat on the long, low bench and began to cry. “You’re brutal to
me,” she sobbed. “Here I went and got engaged just to oblige you and so
that we could be friends. And now you won’t be friends!”
He fretted about, glancing angrily at her from time to time until he
could endure her unhappiness no longer. He rushed for the closet and
began rattling the pots and dishes. “You are making an ass of me!” he
cried. “I never heard of such a woman! No matter what I say or do, you
put me in the wrong.... Dry those tears and I’ll give you chocolate.
But, mind you, this is the last time.”
She removed the traces of grief with celerity and cheerfulness. She
beamed on him. “I simply won’t let us not be friends,” said she. “I
never had a friend before. I couldn’t get along without you. You teach
me so much, and give me such good advice.”
“Which you take,” said he, grumpily ironical.
“All of it that’s good,” replied she. “You wouldn’t want me to take the
bad advice, would you, Chang? No, certainly you wouldn’t.”
In the end he let her help him make the chocolate, guided her as she
investigated the secrets of the closet--the easels and paints, the
canvases and drawing paper. And she laughed at his pair of big, old
slippers, and insisted on trying on a working coat full of holes and
smelling fiercely of stale tobacco. Before he realized what was
going on he was submitting joyously while she combed his hair in a
new way--“one that’ll bring out the artist in you.” And then they had
a picnic before the fire, and neither said a single word that would
not have sounded foolish from the lips of twelve years old--foolish,
mind you, not silly; there’s a world of difference between foolish and
silly, between folly and flatness. They had a hilariously good time,
like the two attractive grown-up children that they were--both brimming
with the joy of life, both eager for laughter as only intelligent,
imaginative people with no blight of solemn-ass false dignity upon them
are. And how thoroughly congenial they were! He did not awaken until
she cried: “Good gracious! What time is it? Six o’clock? I must go this
minute.”
“Don’t hurry. I’ll take you home,” said he. Then, with sudden virtue,
“You know, this is to be the last.”
She shook her head, laughing. “Oh, no. I’ll be down at the lake, as
usual, to-morrow morning.”
“I’ll not be there.”
“Then I’ll come on here.”
“Now, Rix, that isn’t square.”
“Square? To whom?”
“To me--to yourself--to that chap you’re engaged to.”
“Are you afraid of falling in love with me?”