WHITE ROSES.
Robert Milburn, bent at his desk, his fair head in his hands, was
bewildered, angry, in despair.
“Can this be true?” he asked himself. “Is there a possibility of truth
in it?”
The air of the gray room grew close, oppressive to the spirit, and
at the darkening window he arose from the desk. He put on his long
rain-coat, and with a hollow, ominous sound, the door closed behind him
and he left the house.
As along he went, Robert caught sight of the bony face of an American
millionaire and a beautiful woman in furs, behind the rain-streaked
panes of a flashing carriage. On the other side he observed a gigantic
iron building from which streams of shop-people poured down every
street homeward; these ghastly weary human machines made a pale
concourse through the sleet.
Further on his way a girl stood waiting for some one on the curb. He
looked at her, dark hair curled on her white neck, her attire poor and
common; but she was pretty, with her dark eyes. A reckless, plebeian
little piece of earth, shivering, her hands bare and rough, the sleet
whipping her face, on the side of which was a discoloration--the result
of a blow, perchance. Then he turned his eyes from her who had drawn
them.
The arc light above him hung like a dreadful white-bellied insect
hovering on two long black wings, and he saw a woman in sleet-soaked
rags, bent almost double under a load of sticks collected for firewood.
Her hair hung thin and gray in elf-locks, her red eyelids had lost
their lashes so that the eyes appeared as those of a bird of prey.
The wizened hands clutching the cord which bound the sticks seemed
like talons. She importuned a passer-by for help, and, being denied,
she cursed him; and Robert watched the wretched creature crawl away
homeward--back to the slums.
These were manifestations of the life of thousands in metropolitan
history. Robert shook himself, shuddering, as though aroused from a
trance.
He had started out to go anywhere or nowhere, but the next hour found
him in the presence of Cherokee, and she was saying:
“How awfully fond you are of giving pleasant surprises.”
“I am amazed at myself for coming such a night, and that too without
your permission.”
“We are always glad to see you, but Fred and I had contemplated braving
the weather to go to hear Paderewski,” she said, sweetly.
“Then don’t let me detain you, I beg of you,” he answered, with
profound regret.
“Oh, that’s all right, we have an hour or more, I am all ready, so you
stay and go in as we do.”
“No, I will not go with you, but will stay awhile, since you are kind
enough to permit me.” And he laughed, a little mournfully.
“Cherokee, I have come for two reasons--to tell you that I am going
home to Maryland to see a sick mother, and to tell you----” He paused,
hesitating, a great bitterness welled up in his breast; a firmness came
about his mouth and he went on:
“It is folly for you to persuade yourself that you could accommodate
your future life to sacrifice, poverty--this is all wrong. When we look
it coldly in the face it is a fact, and we may dispute facts but it is
difficult to alter them.”
There was no response from her except the clasping of the hand he held
over his fingers for a moment.
“I had no right that you should wait for me through years, for
your young life is filled with possibilities. I, alone, make them
impossible, and I must remove that factor.”
“Robert! Robert! What does all this mean?” Her breathless soul hung
trembling on his answer.
“It means that I am going to give you back your liberty.”
“And you?” she gasped.
“I will do the best I can with my life. Please God, you shall never be
ashamed to remember that you once fancied that you could have cared for
me.”
And then he could trust himself no further; the trembling fingers, the
soft perfume he knew so well in the air, and the surging realization
that the end was at hand, made him weak with longing.
Cherokee was at first shocked and stunned at what he was saying? For a
moment the womanly conclusion that he no longer cared for her seemed
the only impression, but she put it from her as being unworthy of them
both.
Her manner was dignified, yet tender, as she began:
“Robert, I suppose you have not spoken without consideration, and if
you think I would be a burden to you, it is best to go on without me.”
She ended with a deep-drawn breath.
“That sound was not a sob,” she said bravely, “I only lost my breath
and caught it hard again.”
“Yes, Cherokee, I am going without you, going out of your life. Good
bye.”
“You cannot go out of it,” she answered, “but good bye.”
“Good bye,” he repeated, which should only mean, “God bless you.”
There was a flutter of pulses, and Robert walked away with head upheld,
dry-eyed, to face the world. Unfaltering, she let him go, the while she
had more than a suspicion of the lips whose false speaking had wrought
her such woe.
When he reached his room he unlocked the drawer, produced from it a
card, and looked long and tenderly upon the face he saw. He bent over
and kissed the unresponsive lips. This was his requiem in memory of a
worthier life. Then lighting a match he set it afire, and watched it
burn to a shadowy cinder, which mounted feebly in the air for a moment,
making a gray background against whose dullness stood out, in its round
finished beauty, the life he had lost--echoing with a true woman’s
beautiful soul.
As the ashes whitened at his feet, he thought, “Thus the old life is
effaced, I will go into the new.”
The midnight train took him out of town, and Cherokee was weeping over
a basket of white roses which had come just at evening.