HER FIRST CAMPAIGN
"Karen," she heard him say, in a constrained and unfamiliar voice, "I
love you."
If he thought he was still speaking to the same girl whose soft and
fragrant lips he had touched a moment before, he was mistaken. He spoke
too late. The girl had vanished with her girlhood.
And now it was with a very different sort of being he had to do--with a
woman whose mind had quickened under shock; whose latent emotions had
been made conscious; whose spirit, awakened by a crisis, was already
armoured and in arms. Aroused, alert, every instinct awake, proud of a
new and radiant knowledge, new motives germinated, new impulses
possessed her; a new and delicious wisdom thrilled her. She was ready,
and she realized it.
"Karen?"
She heard him perfectly. Deep within her something was laughing. There
was no hurry. She knew it.
"Karen?" he said, very humbly.
Conscious of the change within herself, still a little surprised and
excited by it, and by a vaguely exquisite sensation of impending
adventure, of perils charmingly indefinite, of the newness of it all,
deep, deep within her she felt the certainty, the tranquillity, the
sweet intoxication of power. Power! She knew she was using it now. She
knew she was exercising it on this man. And, for a second, the grasp of
the new weapon almost frightened her. For it was her first campaign. And
she had not yet reconnoitered the adversary or fully developed his
strength and position. Man, as an adversary, was still unknown to her.
"Karen?" he ventured, rather anxiously.
Instantly she lost a large portion of her fear of him. Oh! but she had a
long, long reckoning to settle yet with him. She cast a swift glance
backward, but already her girlhood was gone--gone with its simplicity,
its quaint perplexities, its dear ignorance, its pathos, its
helplessness before experience, its naïveté, its faith.
It had gone, slipped away, exhaled in a deep, unconscious sigh. And
suddenly she flushed hotly, remembering his lips. Truly, truly there was
a long reckoning still to come.... But there seemed to be no hurry.
Still leaning against the tree, she fumbled for her handkerchief,
touched her eyes with it leisurely, then, still turning her back to him,
she lifted her hands to her hair.
For a first campaign she was doing very well.
Her thick, burnished hair was not in any desperate disorder, but she
touched it here and there, patted, tucked, caressed it with light, swift
fingers, delicately precise as the exploring antennæ of a butterfly.
"Give me my answer, Karen," he urged, in a low voice, stepping nearer.
Instantly she moved lightly aside to avoid him--just a short step--her
back still turned, her hands framing her bright hair. Presently she
looked around with a slight laugh, which seemed to say: "Have you
noticed my new wings? If I choose to use them, I become unattainable.
Take care, my friend!"
The expression of her face checked him; her eyes were still starry from
tears. The dewy loveliness of them, the soft shyness born of knowledge,
the new charm of her left him silent and surprised. He had supposed that
she was rather low in her mind. Also he became aware that something
about her familiar to him had gone, that he was confronted by something
in her hitherto unsuspected and undetected--something subtly experienced
and unexpectedly mature. But that a new intelligence, made radiant by
the consciousness of power, had suddenly developed and enveloped this
young girl, and was now confronting him he did not comprehend at first.
And yet, in her attitude, in the poise of the small head, in the slight
laugh parting her lips, in every line of her supple figure, every
contour, every movement, he was aware of a surety, a self-confidence, a
sort of serene authority utterly unfamiliar to him in her personality.
Gone was the wistfulness, the simplicity, the indecision of immaturity,
the almost primitive candour that knows no art. Here was complexity
looking out of eyes he scarcely knew, baffling him with a beauty
indescribable.
"Karen--dear?" he said unsteadily, "have you nothing to say to me?"
There was laughter and curiosity in her eyes, and a hint of mockery.
"Yes," she said, "I have a great deal to say to you. In the first place
we must not be silly any more----"
"_Silly!_"
She seemed surprised at his emphatic interruption.
"Yes, silly," she repeated serenely; "foolish, inconsequential. I admit
I made a goose of myself, but that is no excuse for you to do it, too.
You are older and more experienced and _so_ much wiser----"
"Karen!"
"Yes?" she said innocently.
"What has happened to you?" he asked, disturbed and bewildered.
She opened her eyes at that:
"Nothing has happened, has it? Is my gown torn?"--bending over to survey
her skirt and waist--"Oh, I forgot that the famous robbery occurred
without violence----"
He reddened: "I don't understand you, Karen. Why do you fence this way
with me? Why do you speak this way to me? What has suddenly changed
you--totally altered you--altered your attitude toward me, your point of
view, your disposition--your very character apparently----"
"My character?" she repeated with a gay little laugh which seemed to him
irresponsible, and confused him exceedingly.
"No," he said, troubled, "that couldn't change so suddenly. But I never
before saw this side of your character. I didn't know it existed--never
supposed--dreamed----"
"Speaking of dreams," she interrupted with calm irrelevance, "I never
told you that I finally did cross that frontier. Shall I tell you about
it while we are walking back?"
"If you choose," he said, almost sullenly.
"Don't you care to hear about my dream? As I made a pillow of you during
the process, I really think you are entitled to hear about it--" She
broke off with a quick, involuntary laugh: "Why do you look hurt,
Kervyn?"
At that he became serious to the verge of gloom.
"Come," she said sweetly, slipping her hand through his arm, "I want to
tell you how I crossed that wonderful frontier----"
"I told you," he said gravely, "that I love you. Am I not entitled to an
answer?"
"Entitled, Kervyn? I don't know to how many things you are _en_-titled.
All I know is that you are titled--several times--aren't you?"
He reddened and bit his lip.
"Because," she went on gaily, "you served your time in the Guides. That
is a very natural deduction, isn't it?"
He said nothing; he was very seriously upset. His stern mouth and
darkened face betrayed it. And deep in Karen's heart the little imps of
laughter danced to its mischievous beating.
After they had walked through the forest for a while in silence, she
halted and withdrew her arm.
"You know," she said, "we are not nearly well enough acquainted for you
to be moody and unamiable."
"I did not mean to be either," he said. "What is it that has come
between us, Karen?"
"Why, nothing I hope," she said fervently.
"I hope so, too.... You have been different since--" He hesitated, and
she turned her head carelessly and looked back at the little brook they
had crossed. When her blush had cooled she resumed her leisurely walk
and glanced up at him inquiringly:
"Since _when_ have you thought me different?"
"Since we--_kissed_----"
"Please, Kervyn! Not _we_. I think it was you who performed that very
childish rite."
"Is that the way you regarded it?"
"Didn't you?"
"No."
"You didn't take it seriously!" she exclaimed with an enchanting laugh.
"Did you really? I'm so dreadfully sorry!"
The dark flush on his face frightened her. It was her first campaign and
she was easily alarmed. But she was wise enough to say nothing.
"Yes," he said with an effort, "I did take it very seriously. And I took
you seriously, too. I don't understand your new attitude toward
me--toward life itself. Until today I had never seen any lightness in
you, any mockery----"
"Lightness? You saw plenty in me. I was not very difficult, was I?--on
the train? Not very reticent about my views concerning friendship and my
fears concerning--love. Why should you be surprised at the frivolity of
such a girl? It has taken so many years for me to learn to laugh.
Nineteen, I think. Won't you let me laugh a little, now that I know
how?"
"Have I any influence at all with you?" he asked. "I thought I had."
"I thought so, too," she mused, innocently.
"What has happened to destroy it?"
"Why, nothing, Kervyn!" opening her eyes.
"Does any of my influence with you remain?"
"Loads of it. Oceans! Bushels!"
"Do you care for me?"
"Of course! The silly question."
"Seriously?"
"Yes, but I don't wish to weep because I care for you."
"Could you learn to love me?"
"Learn? I don't know," she mused aloud, apparently much interested in
the novelty of the suggestion. "I learn some things easily; mathematics
I never could learn. _Why_ are you scowling, Kervyn?"
"Could you ever love me?" he persisted, doggedly.
"I don't know. Do you desire to pay your court to me?"
"I--yes----"
"You appear to be uncertain. It seems to me that a man ought to know
whether or not he desires to pay his addresses to a girl."
"Can't you be serious, Karen!"
"Indeed I can. You ought to know it, too. I was serious enough over you,
once. I followed you about so faithfully and persistently that even when
you took a nap I did it too----"
"Karen, do you love me?"
"I don't know."
"Will you try?"
"I'm always willing to try anything--once."
"Then suppose you try marrying me, once!" he said, bluntly.
"But oughtn't a girl to be in love before she tries that? Besides,
before I am quite free to converse with you on that subject I must
converse with someone else."
"What!"
"Had you forgotten?"
"Do you mean the----"
"Yes," she said hastily--"you _do_ remember. _That_ is a prior
engagement."
"Engagement!"
"An engagement to converse on the subject of engagements. I told you
about it--in the days of my communicative innocence."
He was patient because he had to be.
"After you have made your answer clear to him, may I ask you again?"
"Ask me what?"
"To marry me."
"Wouldn't that permission depend upon what answer I may give _him_?"
"Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, "is there any doubt about your answer to
him?"
She lifted her eyebrows: "You are entirely too confident. Must I first
ask your permission to fulfill my obligations and then accomplish them
in a manner that suits your views? It sounds a little like dictation,
Kervyn."
He walked beside her, cogitating in gloom and silence. Was this the girl
he had known? Was this the same ungrateful and capricious creature upon
whom he had bestowed his protection, his personal interest, his anxious
thoughts?
That he had fallen in love with her had surprised him, but it did not
apparently surprise her. Had she instinctively foreseen what was going
to happen to him? Had she deliberately watched the process with wise and
feminine curiosity, coolly keeping her own skirts clear?
And the more he cogitated, the deeper and more complex appeared to him
her intuitive and merciless knowledge of man.
Never had he beheld such lightning change in a woman. It couldn't be a
change; all this calm self-possession, all the cool badinage, all this
gaiety, this laughing malice, this serene capacity for appraising man
and his motives must have existed in her--hidden, not latent; concealed,
not embryotic!
He was illogical and perfectly masculine.
She was only a young girl, awakened, and making her first campaign.