He took her hand, and their eyes met. Until now it had not occurred to
him that she, too, had changed. Her expression even was different; three
years earlier she had been living earnestly, intensely--she had felt
the unequal burdens of the world and had plunged fearlessly into vast
problems, but now she seemed more impersonal, more detached.
“Sit down,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “I will speak to mother.”
There were more greetings to be gone through. They sat about the fire
for awhile; and Halloran had to give an account of himself, and had to
listen to Mrs. Davies's open approval of him. She had heard of him now
and then; she had known from the first that he would get on; she was
downright proud of him, in fact. This was something of an ordeal, and he
felt relieved when she withdrew and left Margaret with him.
The two stood for a moment looking into the fire; then she nodded toward
the Morris chair and he dropped into it. She sat down on the other side
of the table and propped up her chin on her two hands. For a moment they
sat looking at each other. Finally they both smiled.
“Well,” she observed, “we've been growing up, haven't we?”
So she had remarked it, too.
“Yes, I guess we have,” he replied. “Rather more than I had thought.”
“You didn't expect to find me the same girl you left here, did you?”
Halloran gazed moodily into the fire.
“I don't know. I couldn't say just what I did expect.”
“But it's different, anyway, isn't it?”
He nodded.
“And now you don't like it because you think we shall have to begin all
over again getting acquainted?”
He nodded again. Then, looking up, he was assured by her friendly smile.
She slowly shook her head at him.
“That isn't quite fair,” she went on. “Here I have been staying right at
home and doing the same things all these three years. If I have grown a
little older, I couldn't help it very well. But you have grown to be
a business man with ever so many interests, and I suppose you are very
successful--anyway, you have changed so much I hardly knew you. How long
are you going to be here?”
“Until Monday or Tuesday.”
“You must come to dinner to-morrow, then. You'd better come planning to
spend the rest of the day.”
“Thanks, I will. How is George?”
Her face grew serious. “He has been giving me a good deal of trouble
lately. I don't know what to make of him. He lost his home, you know--or
maybe you don't. Have you heard the story?”
“No.”
“It is a strange one. To begin with, his sister Elizabeth eloped with
Mr. Le Duc.”
“Not Apples?”
[Illustration: 0159]
“Yes; they were married in St. Joe, and she went on the stage with him.
Jimmie McGinnis is with them, too. They call themselves the three Le
Ducs, I believe. And Mrs. Craig lost her position. The Le Ducs are in
Chicago now, at a cheap theatre, and Mrs. Craig is living with them;
but they refused to take George, too. They seem to grudge her even the
little they do. So George was turned out into the street and got into
bad company, and now he's in jail. I don't think it's as bad as it
sounds. His companions are a good deal older, and Mr. Babcock, who has
been looking after him, says he will undoubtedly be released. I almost
wrote you about it a little while ago.”
“I wish you had.”
“Well,” she hesitated, “I didn't know--it has been so long.” She
looked up. “To tell the truth, I didn't know whether you were still
interested.”
He rose and went over to the mantel. The fire was low and he heaped it
up with the largest sticks in the wood-box; then dropping on one knee he
took up the bellows and had it roaring in a moment.
“I like a big fire,” he said, over his shoulder.
She nodded and let her eyes rest on him as he worked over the fire. Yes,
he was a good deal older; his frame had filled out and settled; and in
his manner, too, some of the rough edges had been rubbed down--a fact
she whimsically regretted. She got up now and pushed the big chair
up beside the fire and sat across from him. For a time they said
nothing--he sitting on a stool at one side of the hearth, she in the
chair at the other; he applying the bellows in a moody, desultory way,
she leaning back watching first him and then the leaping flames. Finally
he said, letting the bellows swing between his knees, still keeping his
eyes on the fire:
“Margaret!”
She started a little and a quick, almost shy glance shot from her eyes;
but he seemed wholly unconscious that he had never directly called
her by that name before. He swung the bellows slowly to and fro like a
pendulum.
“What made you think I wouldn't be interested?”
“Why--I don't know that I meant exactly that------”
He went on, still without looking up: “Was it anything in what I wrote
before?”
Yes, there had been some writing before--when he was first at Wauchung,
and she, eager for her little protégé in the city, had kept him informed
of George's progress and had relied on his counsel. And now, as he
brought that correspondence up in his mind, and remembered how it had
bothered him, how he had avoided every personal reference and had made
it easy always for her to stop when she chose, and how she finally had
stopped--when he had these facts before him, he was thankful that the
fire could partly explain his colour.
“I'm afraid I wasn't a very satisfactory correspondent,” he added, “but
those weren't very satisfactory days. I was sailing pretty close then--I
had some college expenses to pay back, and I was learning the business,
and altogether I didn't see much fun in living. If you have thought of
me since as the same sort of fellow I was then, I don't blame you for
not wanting to write.”
He looked up at her for a reply; but she only smiled a little and slowly
shook her head.
And so they talked on, these two, for a long time; they drifted on into
a dreamy, personal mood--into a land where only common interests could
get a footing, where there was no clock--nothing but the red flames, and
the dim rows of books, and the hushed house, and themselves. They forgot
to-night those three years of divergence--forgot that there was one
set of facts centring about the Michigan lumberman and another about
Margaret. To Halloran all of life had slipped away except that dreamy
figure in the Morris chair, with the late red glow of the fire on her
face and on her hair. Her eyes were half closed, and she turned them
toward him now and then without moving her head. A smile hovered on her
face--now on her lips, if he spoke to her--at other times flitting about
her eyes. Her hands lay motionless on the arms of 'the chair. To both of
them it was a rich glad time, so glad that it could best be explained
by silence, tempered only at intervals by low voices; so rich that it
poured its warmth into their very souls and quieted them, and gave them
to know that such high moments are rare, that they must be conserved and
guarded, must be lived through reverently.
He looked at her shyly at first, with stolen glances, until in some
silent way she gave him her permission; and then he looked long, not
from his eyes alone, but from the new self within him which had risen
almost to equality with that other self of hers. He knew this now--knew
it to be gloriously true; and he felt a defiance of all life, of all
the pressing facts and things that had crowded into his existence, a
defiance, a consciousness of self that thrilled him with its reality.
For the first time in his life he knew that those solid things were not
real. And his soul was awed and humbled.
And she looked at him--shyly always, yet conscious of what she was too
honest to deny. And the occasional pressure of her sensitive mouth, the
twitch of her eyelid as the light wavered over it, were not needed to
show him that she, too, was wholly given up to the reality--that
her life was gathered up to-night, with his, into one full hour of
happiness.
Into this Arden came the distant whistle of a locomotive. Her eyes
sought his, and at the expression they found there she shook her head.
“That is going the other way,” she said softly.
“I'm sorry”--he looked at his watch--“I have just time for the last
train.”
He rose and stood a moment looking at the fire. Then he came over and
leaned on the back of the chair and reached down and raised her hand in
his. She almost shivered at his touch, but he held it firmly; and after
a moment, in which the blood seemed to leave her face, her fingers
closed on his and clasped them tightly.
And then he forgot all about the last train. He knew that the impulse
that he had feared so long had at last mastered him, and he was wildly,
exultantly glad. He slipped down on the broad arm of the chair and held
her hand on his knee, and looked down at her hair; whilst she, still
with that occasional compression of the lips, gazed into the fire. For
her, too, everything had slipped into oblivion--everything but the red,
red glow of the dying fire and the clasp of his hand in hers and the
touch of his other hand on her hair. There was nothing else in the
world for her to-night; and her happiness was so poignant that she
felt herself swept blindly along with him, past all the obstacles of
convention, of small misunderstandings, of outside interests, on up to
heights that had never before during her quiet lifetime even entered her
imagination. At moments her fingers would tighten on his and strange,
happy tears would fill her eyes, to be kept back only by an effort. Once
she could not keep them back; and he looked down and saw them on her
cheek, and she did not care. Tears were trivial, now that her soul was
laid bare to him.
At another time she spoke so softly that he could not hear, and he bent
down his head.
“You are not going to try to get back to the city?” she repeated, in a
voice from which all strength, all the body had gone.
“No--I'm going down to the hotel.”
Her clasp tightened again by way of reply.
And so the wild, sweet message came to this man and this young woman. It
told them how deeply those earlier years of friendship had entered
their natures; it let them know how much stronger it was than will or
habit--how it had chained their two lives so firmly together that only a
few moments had been needed to-night to show it plainly to them both. A
look of the eye, a tone in the voice, and it was done. From that moment
their lives had changed; and where-ever the new current might lead them,
whatever might be waiting in the dim, luminous years beyond, the new
fact must control their thoughts. The old days were gone; the new had
begun.
Was it strange that he should think of this, that the meaning of it all
should flash through his mind; whilst she, with her sensitive nature
wholly bound up in this moment, should be thinking of nothing, should be
conscious of nothing, save that he was here? Was this strange? Her eyes
were still fixed on the embers; she seemed unable to raise them to his.
In all her life she had never before given up. Her impulses had never
before swept her reason from its seat and held her, trembling and
amazed, in their grip. It was new and wonderful to her.
“Margaret,” he said, in the low voice that expressed the most, “dare I
look at my watch?” She smiled and tightly held his hand.
“No?”
She shook her head.
He caught up a lock of her hair and held it against the light. It
glistened like fine-spun gold. He leaned down and pressed it to his
lips; and again he felt that tightening of her fingers, that slight
shiver passing through her. He bent forward and saw that the tears had
escaped again. “Margaret,” he whispered, “look up.”
Her eyes lifted a little, then dropped. He waited and then whispered
again, “Look up, dear.” Slowly she raised them until they met his
fairly, and their two souls were gazing straight, each to each. Her
fingers tightened and tightened; she was trembling. And at last he
caught her wildly with both his arms and drew her against him and kissed
her forehead, her eyes, her mouth. And her tears fell without restraint.
“Dear girl,” he whispered, his mouth close to her ear, “Dear girl, you
love me--I know you love me. I have waited--it is a long while that I
have waited--but all the waiting is over now. Tell me that it is all
over--that we are going to begin our lives--our life--new again. Tell me
that we are going to be happy.”
There was a moment during which she struggled to free herself. “Don't,
oh, don't!” she cried brokenly. “Please stop, John!” And he, hurt and
wondering, released her, and stood up, watching her stupidly as she fell
back in the chair and covered her eyes.
Poor Halloran! He had been supposing that he understood her--that
he really could see a little way into that complex nature. And the
discovery that he was still far on the outside of her personality
brought a cruel shock. He could not know that while his thoughts had
rambled ahead, constructing their life, hers had been absorbed in the
happiness of that one golden hour. He could not understand how his
words, and the realization of what this evening meant to them both,
had burst upon her with a force that frightened her. He could not be
expected to know what a struggle had come with this first open thought
of giving herself up to a man--what questions it raised, what problems
of wholly reconstructing a life; how the great question loomed before
her in dimensions that seemed almost tragic. He could not understand
this; and so, when he finally spoke, it was with a touch of quiet
dignity:
“Margaret,” he said, “I have asked you to be my wife.” There was a more
and more appealing quality in his voice as he went on. “I have asked you
to be my wife. Can't you give me your answer?”
She shook her head without uncovering her eyes.
“Shall I come for it to-morrow, then, Margaret? I think I have told you
everything. You know that I love you. I can't live without you--I dread
even to think of waiting. It means so much to me, Margaret, so very
much, that I don't know----”
He paused, for his voice was beginning to shake a little. Still she was
silent.
“Have you”--it was getting difficult to speak--“have you nothing to tell
me?”
“Oh, John,” she managed to say, “I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!”
“Is--is that all, Margaret?”
“You must not come to-morrow--I can't let you.”
“A week, then, Margaret?--a--a month?”
“I don't know--you must not stay.”
He waited a little, then walked slowly to the hall. When he had his coat
nearly on she came to the doorway. He waited again, hat in hand.
“Good--good-night,” she said.
“Is that------”
She shook her head nervously, hurriedly, and he opened the door and went
out.
And when he had gone, when his last step had died away in the still air,
she sank down on the stairs and sobbed, trembling in the power of this
passion. What had she done! What had she done! Her thoughts ranged
madly. She thought of the three years of divergence; of his habits, of
hers; of all the things, great and trivial, that bore on the question;
she tried to remember what had happened this night, and could not. She
only knew that this strange power had mastered her; and she was afraid
of it and of him.