ARROWS OF DESIRE
"Here is the new rose," said Echo. "Its name is the Laurant Carle."
Cameron Craig looked--at her, not at the blossom. She was in simple
white and as she stood there in the perfumed garden, vivid, elemental,
tuned to the wonder and passion of living, her slim figure outlined
against the dark green shrubbery and her face and gold-bronze hair
touched with the slanting sunlight, she seemed herself some great,
rare, golden flower in a silver sheath. Lines he had somewhere read
sprang into his mind:
"Bring me my bow of burning gold,
Bring me my arrows of desire,"
and, contained man that he was, he caught his breath at the sudden leap
in him of the thing that had been covered and hidden there so long,
something fine and keen as flame, that set his habitually cool blood
beating under his eyelids.
"It was not the rose," he said. "I had another reason in asking you to
come here."
"Yes?" Her voice was evenly inquiring.
"It was to ask you if you will marry me."
She took a quick step backward; a look of amaze had sprung to her face.
"I?" she exclaimed. "You want me to--_marry_ you?"
"Yes. Is there anything strange in that?"
She looked away. In all her thoughts of the man before her there had
not lurked this possibility. She had been bred among youth who,
whatever their other vices, maintained a chivalric ideal of womankind
which excluded fast-and-loose conduct; and the whispers that clung
about Cameron Craig--set, as they were, over against his force and
undeniably brilliant attainments--had lent her opinion of him a certain
cold contempt. And now here he was--he of all men!--saying this to
her! And it was no hasty impulse: she read that in the steady,
confident eyes, the hard, heavy jaw, the steadfast, deep-lined face.
She felt his waiting gaze. "No," she answered, slowly. "Perhaps it is
not strange. It is only that the unexpected seems so." She looked at
him curiously. "Why did you ask me--to-day?"
"The opportunity came," he said. "It must have, sooner or later."
"So you have intended for some time to say this to me?"
"Since I first met you, a year ago," he answered. "You have two things
that I want--as I have their complements."
She considered this a moment. "Forgive me," she said then, "but I am a
very curious person--as well, it seems, as a very blind one. Would you
mind telling me what are those two qualities that you imagine I
possess, which you value so highly?"
"Breeding, first," he replied, "and all that it implies. You represent
a stock."
She nodded gravely. "And the other desideratum?"
"Beauty. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."
"And--the complements of these things, that you possess?"
"Money," he answered. "And the power it gives--the accessories which a
woman like you must have if she would really live. I think you don't
doubt that my wife shall have these things."
She shook her head. "Not in the least. Indeed, I am sure she will.
But you see, Mr. Craig, I happen to be not at all the sort of person
you think I am--the kind you wish to marry."
"I'll risk that!" he flung her.
"The proof is that you ask me--as you have. The things you have to
offer seem overwhelmingly attractive to you, no doubt, but I'm afraid
they mean much less to me." He could not see the look that was in her
face now, for her head was turned away. "I have no longing for money.
I could be contented in a mountain lean-to, with morning-glories
instead of an orchid conservatory. I could cook my own meals on a
gas-stove and live in one room over a hardware store--with the man I
loved. I don't care particularly for what you call 'place' either. I
could be happy enough on a prairie--with the man I loved. But love
must be there, Mr. Craig."
"Do you doubt my love for you?" he asked.
"You had not cited it," she rejoined, calmly. "You spoke of money
first--"
"Because I have lived long enough to know that it is the paramount
requisite in most women's eyes."
"Your estimate of me by the mass was flattering," she said with gentle
satire. "Have you been so busy making this wonderful money of yours
that you think it can take the place of everything?"
He made an abrupt, almost angered, gesture. "Surely you know money
means--has meant--nothing to me!" he exclaimed. "I am rich, yes. I
dare say I could buy and sell almost any one you know. But it was
never the main thing. It was _winning_ that counted. It was the game,
and money was only the counters. I played to win and I have won. And
wealth was a stepping-stone to other things."
His voice had subtly altered and he drew closer to her where she stood,
moveless and straight against the dark foliage, her gaze averted.
"Then--I met you! I have known many women, but they have been nothing,
less than nothing, to me! Business has been the only thing that really
counted. But since I met you, the whole world has been changing for
me. Even my work isn't the main thing to me any more. The main thing
is _you_!"
She lifted her eyes, wide with the swift sense of the
unexpected--touched now with an odd, disquieting prescience. His voice
was no longer the cold, even voice of the Cameron Craig she had known.
There was passion in it. She saw his big hand tremble.
"There has never been a day or hour since then when I have not wanted
you! You have entered into my blood and my brain, and the want of you
has coloured all I have thought and done! If this is love, then I love
you--Echo, Echo!"
She shrank perceptibly at the name on his lips. "Stop!" she said.
"The love you talk of must be mutual. I do not--care for you in that
way. I never could!"
"That makes no difference to me!" he protested. "I know what I want--I
always have. And I want you."
"No," she said. "It is not the real _me_ that you want, but we can
pass that by. The important fact is that you have offered your last
price and the bid is declined."
He looked at her with a sudden flash in his eyes. "Do I deserve that?"
He had grown pale to the lips.
"Yes, you do. I have told you that I should never love you. Yet that
means less than nothing to you. You have apparently not considered my
possible love as a requisite in the case. It is 'breeding' you want,
and beauty--and for that you make your offer. You propose purchase,
not exchange, Mr. Craig. Well, I am not for sale!"
He flushed to his hair a dark, heavy red. He appeared to be
controlling himself by a fierce effort. "Don't answer me now," he
said. "Let me speak to you again later."
"I have answered you," she replied, "once and for all. You will please
consider it final."
[Illustration: "I have answered you," she replied, "once and for all.
You will please consider it final"]
A whirl of what seemed almost rage shook him; with a single stride he
reached her and seized both her hands. "Is there--another man?" There
was what startled her now in the harsh, hard voice.
She stiffened. "Well," she said, "--and if there is?"
At the chill quiet of her voice all the vicious strength and
intolerance of the man blazed out. "You are right!" he said savagely.
"It could make no difference to me! I will not take your answer--do
you understand? In time you will give me a different one. I have
waited for other things and I have had them in the end. I can wait for
you!"
He released her hands--so violently that she fell back a step. Then,
while she stood regarding him in shocked and indignant amaze, summoning
all her forces to meet this fury that had both astonished and repelled
her, his face swiftly changed. The flush of anger ebbed, the flash
died in his eyes.
Once again his accustomed self, with the steady, confident eyes and
swing of shoulder, he drew aside to let her pass and followed her along
the box-bordered path to the piazza.
As they entered the blue-parlour, a lady very smart in black-and-white,
and a sailor-hat whose girlish brim youthened her mature beauty, rose
from her seat with Mrs. Allen and Nancy Langham, Echo's house-guest, a
slight, glowing girl of nineteen, with eyes like marigolds in shade.
"Well, Echo," she said, "I thought you never _would_ appear. I just
ran in to remind you that you and Nancy promised to come to my dinner
to-night at the 'Farm.' I've asked some of the youngsters out for a
little dance afterward." She smiled a brilliant recognition to the
heavy figure behind her.
"Mr. Craig!" she exclaimed. "So you are in town! How nice it would be
of you to come too. Or do you find country-club gaieties too stale and
unprofitable?"
He bowed over her hand. "My dear Mrs. Spottiswoode!" he said. "This
is my lucky day! I shall be more than delighted!"