When Mr. Ferguson said good night, David, apparently unable to find the
book he had promised to take in to Elizabeth, made no effort to help
his mother in her usual small nightly tasks of blowing out the lamps,
tidying the table, folding up a newspaper or two. This was not like
David, but Mrs. Richie was too absorbed to notice her son's absorption.
Just as she was starting up-stairs, he burst out: "Materna--"
"Yes? What is it?"
He gave her a keenly searching look; then drew a breath of relief, and
kissed her. "Nothing," he said.
But later, as he lay on his back in bed, his hands clasped behind his
head, his pipe between his teeth, David was distinctly angry. "Of
course she doesn't care a hang for him," he reflected; "I could see
that; but I swear I'll go to Philadelphia right off." Before he slept
he had made up his mind that was the best thing to do. That old man,
gray and granite-faced, and silent, "that old codger," said the
disrespectful cub of twenty-six, "should take advantage of friendship
to be a nuisance,--confound him!" said David. "The idea of his daring
to make love to her! I wanted to show him the door." As for his mother,
even if she didn't "care a hang," he was half shocked, half hurt; he
felt, as all young creatures do, a curious repulsion at the idea of
love-making between people no longer young. It hurt his delicacy, it
almost hurt his sense of reverence for his mother, to think that she
had been obliged to listen to any words of love. "It's offensive," he
said angrily; "yes; we'll clear out! We'll go to Philadelphia the first
of March, instead of April."
The next morning he suggested his plan to his mother. "Could you pack
up in three weeks, Materna?" he said; "I think I'd like to get you
settled before I go to the hospital." Mrs. Richie's instant acceptance
of the change of date made him more annoyed than ever. "He has worried
her!" he thought angrily; "I wonder how long this thing has been going
on?" But he said nothing to her. Nor did he mean to explain to
Elizabeth just why he must shorten their last few weeks of being
together. It would not be fair to his mother to explain, he said to
himself;--he did not think of any unfairness to the "old codger." He
was, however, a little uneasy at the prospect of breaking the fact of
this earlier departure to Elizabeth without an explanation. Elizabeth
might be hurt; she might say that he didn't want to stay with her. "She
knows better!" he said to himself, grinning. The honest truth was, and
he faced it with placidity, that if things were not explained to
Elizabeth, she might get huffy,--this was David's word; but David knew
how to check that "huffiness"!
They were to walk together that afternoon, and he manoeuvered for a few
exquisite minutes alone before they went out. At first the moments were
not very exquisite.
"Well! What happened to you last night? I thought you were going to
bring me that book!"
"I couldn't. I had to stay at home."
"Why?"
"Well; Materna wanted me."
Elizabeth murmured a small, cold "Oh." Then she said, "Why didn't you
send the book in by Uncle?"
"I didn't think of it," David said candidly.
Elizabeth's dimple straightened. "It would have been polite to have
sent me a message."
"I took it for granted you'd know I was detained."
"You take too much for--" she began, but before she could utter the
sharp words that trembled on her lips, he caught her in his arms and
kissed her; instantly the little flame of temper was blown out.
"That's the worst of walking," David said, as she let him draw her down
on the sofa beside him; "I can't kiss you on the street."
"Heavens, I should hope not!" she said. Then, forgetting what she
thought was his forgetfulness, she relaxed within his arms, sighing
with bliss. "'Oh, isn't it joyful,--joyful,--joyful--'" she hummed
softly. "I do love to have you put your arms around me, David! Isn't it
wonderful to love each other the way we do? I feel so sorry for other
girls, because they aren't engaged to you; poor things! Do you suppose
anybody in the world was ever as happy as I am?"
"_You?_" said David, scornfully; "you don't count at all, compared to
me!" Then they both laughed for the sheer foolishness of that
"joyfulness," which was so often on Elizabeth's lips. But David sighed.
"Three years is a devilish long time to wait."
"Maybe it will be only two!" she whispered, her soft lips against his
ear. But this was one of David's practical and responsible moments, so
he said grimly, "Not much hope of that."
Elizabeth, agreeing sadly, got up to straighten her hat before the
mirror over the mantelpiece. "It's hideously long. Oh, if I were only a
rich girl!"
"Thank Heaven you are not!" he said, with such sudden cold incisiveness
that she turned round and looked at him. "Do you think I'd marry a rich
woman, and let her support me?"
"I don't see why she shouldn't, if she loved you," Elizabeth said
calmly; "I don't see that it matters which has the money, the man or
the girl."
"I see," David said; "I've always felt that way--even about mother.
Materna has wanted to help me out lots of times, and I wouldn't let
her. I could kick myself now when I think how often I have to put my
hand in her pocket."
"I think," cried Elizabeth, "a man might love a girl enough to live on
her money!"
"I don't," David said, soberly.
"Well," said Elizabeth, "don't worry. I haven't a cent, so you can't
put your hand in my pocket! Come, we must start. I want to go and see
Nannie for a minute, and Cherry-pie says I must be in before dark,
because I have a cold."
"I like sitting here best," David confessed, but pulled himself up from
the sofa, and in another minute Miss White, peering from an upper
window, saw them walking off. "Made for each other!" said Cherry-pie,
nibbling with happiness.
They had almost reached Nannie's before David said that--that he was
afraid he would have to go away a month before he had planned. When he
was most in earnest, his usual brevity of speech fell into a curtness
that might have seemed, to one who did not know him, indifference.
Elizabeth did know him, but even to her the ensuing explanation, which
did not explain, was, through his very anxiety not to offend her,
provokingly laconic.
"But you don't go on duty at the hospital until April," she said hotly.
"Why do you leave Mercer the first of March?"
"Materna wants time to get settled."
"Mrs. Richie told me only yesterday that she was going to a hotel,"
Elizabeth said; "she said she wasn't going to look for a house until
the fall, because she will be at the seashore this summer. It certainly
doesn't take a month to find a hotel."
"Well, the fact is, there are reasons why it isn't pleasant for Materna
to be in Mercer just now."
"Not pleasant to be in Mercer! What on earth do you mean?"
"I'm afraid I can't tell you. It's her affair."
"Oh, I didn't mean to intrude," Elizabeth said coldly.
"Now, Elizabeth," he protested, "that isn't a nice thing to say."
"Do you think _you've_ been saying nice things? I am perfectly certain
that you would never hesitate to tell your mother any of my reasons for
doing things!"
"Elizabeth, I wouldn't leave Mercer a minute before the first of April,
if I wasn't sure it was best for Materna. You know that."
"Oh, go!" she said; "go, and have all the secrets you want. _I_ don't
care."
"Elizabeth, be reasonable; I--"
But she had left him; they had reached the Maitland house, and, pushing
aside his outstretched hand, she opened the iron gate herself, slammed
it viciously, and ran up the curving steps to the door. As she waited
for Harris to answer her ring, she looked back: "I think you are
reasonable enough for both of us; please don't let me ever interfere
with your plans!" She paused a minute in the hall, listening for a
following step;--it did not come. "Well, if he's cross he can stay
outside!" she told herself, and burst into the parlor. "Nannie!" she
began,--"Oh, I beg your pardon!" she said. Blair was standing on the
hearth-rug, talking vehemently to his sister; at the sound of the
opening door he wheeled around and saw her, glowing, wounded, and
amazingly handsome. "Elizabeth!" he said, staring at her. And he kept
on staring while they shook hands. They were a handsome pair, the tall,
dark, well-set-up man, and the girl almost as tall as he, with brown,
gilt-flecked hair blowing about a vivid face which had the color, in
the sharp February afternoon, of a blush-rose.
"Where's David?" Nannie said.
[Illustration: 'I THINK YOU ARE REASONABLE ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF US']
"I left him at the gate. He's coming in in a minute," Elizabeth said;
and turned to Blair: "I didn't know you had come home."
Blair explained that he was only in Mercer for a day. "I'm in a hole,"
he said drolly, "and I've come home to have Nannie get me out."
"Nannie is always ready to get people out of holes;" Elizabeth said,
but her voice was vague. She was listening for David's step, her cheeks
beginning to burn with mortification, at his delay.
"Where _is_ David?" Nannie demanded, returning from a fruitless search
for him in the hall.
"He's a lucky dog," Blair said, looking at the charming, angry face
with open and friendly admiration.
Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know about his luck. By the
way, he is going to Philadelphia the first of March, Nannie," she said
carelessly.
"I thought he didn't have to go until April?" Nannie sympathized.
"So did I. Perhaps he'll tell you why he has changed his mind. He
hasn't deigned to give me his reasons yet."
And Blair, watching her, said to himself, "Same old Elizabeth!" He
began to talk to her in his gay, teasing way, but she was not
listening; suddenly she interrupted him, saying that she must go home.
"I thought David was coming in, but I suppose he's walking up and down,
waiting for me."
"If he doesn't know which side his bread is buttered, I'll walk home
with you," Blair said; "and Nancy dear, while I'm gone, you see Mother
and do your best, won't you?"
"Yes," poor Nannie sighed, "but I do wish--"
Blair did not wait to hear what she wished; he had eyes only for this
self-absorbed young creature who would not listen when he spoke to her.
At the gate she hesitated, looked hurriedly about her, up and down the
squalid street; she did not answer, did not apparently hear, some
question that he asked. Blair glanced up and down the street, too.
"David doesn't appreciate his opportunities," he said.
Elizabeth's lip tightened, and she flung up her head; the rose in her
cheeks was drowned in scarlet. She came out of her absorption, and
began to sparkle at her companion; she teased him, but not too much;
she flattered him, very delicately; she fell into half-sentimental
reminiscences that made him laugh, then stabbed him gently with an
indifferent word that showed how entirely she had forgotten him. And
all the time her eyes were absent, and the straight line in her cheek
held the dimple a prisoner. Blair, who had begun with a sort of
good-natured, rather condescending amusement at his old playmate, found
himself, to his surprise, on his mettle.
"Don't go home yet," he said; "let's take a walk."
"I'd love to!"
"Mercer seems to be just as hideous as ever," Blair said; "suppose we
go across the river, and get away from it?"
She agreed lightly: "Horrid place." At the corner, she flashed a glance
down the side street; David was not to be seen.
"Will David practise here, when he is ready to put out his shingle?"
"I'm sure I don't know. I can't keep track of David's plans."
"He is just as good as ever, I suppose?" Blair said, and watched her
delicate lip droop.
"Better, if anything." And in the dusk, as they sauntered over the old
bridge, she flung out gibe after gibe at her lover. Her cheeks grew
hotter and hotter; it was like tearing her own flesh. The shame of it!
The rapture of it! It hurt her so that the tears stood in her eyes; so
she did it again, and yet again. "I don't pretend to live up to David,"
she said.
Blair, with a laugh, confessed that he had long ago given up any such
ambition himself. On the bridge they stopped, and Blair looked back at
the town lying close to the water. In the evening dusk lights were
pricking out all along the shore; the waste-lands beyond the furnaces
were vague with night mists, faintly amethyst in the east, bronze and
black over the city. Here and there in the brown distances flames would
suddenly burst out from unseen stacks, then sink, and the shadows close
again.
"I wish I could paint it," Blair said dreamily; "Mercer from the
bridge, at twilight, is really beautiful."
"I like the bridge," Elizabeth said, "for sentimental reasons. (Now,"
she added to herself, "now, I am a bad woman; to speak of _that_ to
another man is vile.) David and I," she said, significantly,--and
laughed.
Even Blair was startled at the crudeness of the allusion. "I didn't
suppose David ever condescended to be spoony," he said, and at the same
instant, to his absolute amazement, she caught his arm and pulled his
hand from the railing.
"Don't touch that place!" she cried; Blair, amused and cynical, laughed
under his breath.
"I see; this is the hallowed spot where you made our friend a happy
man?"
"We'll turn back now, please," Elizabeth said, suddenly trembling. She
had reached the climax of her anger, and the reaction was like the
shock of dropping from a dizzy height. During the walk home she
scarcely spoke. When he left her at her uncle's door, she was almost
rude. "Goodnight. No; I'm busy. I'd rather you didn't come in." In her
own room, without waiting to take off her things, she ran to her desk;
she did not even pause to sit down, but bent over, and wrote, sobbing
under her breath:
"DAVID: I am just as false as I can be. I ridiculed you to Blair. I
lied and lied and lied--because I was angry. I hated you for a little
while. I am low, and vulgar, and a blasphemer. _I told him about the
bridge._ You see how vile I am? But don't--don't give me up, David.
Only--understand just how base I am, and then, if you possibly can,
keep on loving me. E.
"P. S. I am not worth loving."
* * * * *
When David read that poor little letter, his face quivered for an
instant, then he smiled. "Materna," he said--they were sitting at
supper; "Materna, she certainly is perfect!"
His mother laughed, and put out her hand. But he shook his head. "Not
even you!" he said.
When he went to see Elizabeth that evening, he found her curiously
broken. "David, how could I do it? I made _fun_ of you! Do you
understand? Yes; I truly did. Oh, how vile I am! And I knew I was vile
all the time; that's the queer part of it. But I piled it on! And all
the time it seemed as if I was just bleeding to death inside. But I
kept on doing it. I loved being false. I loved to blacken myself." She
drew away from him, shivering. "No; don't touch me; don't kiss me; I am
not worthy. Oh, David, throw me over! Don't marry me, I am not fit--"
And as he caught her in his arms, she said, her voice smothered against
his breast, "You see, you didn't come in at Nannie's. And it looked as
if--as if you didn't care. It was humiliating, David. And last night
you didn't bring me the book, or even send any message; and that was
sort of careless. Yes, I really think you were a little horrid, David.
So I was hurt, I suppose, to start with; and you know, when I am
hurt--Oh, yes; it was silly; but--"
He kissed her again, and laughed. "It was silly, dear."
"Well, but listen: I am not excusing myself for this afternoon, but I
do want you to understand how it started. I was provoked at your not
explaining to me why you go away a whole month earlier than you need; I
think any girl would be a little provoked, David. And then, on top of
it, you let Blair and Nannie see that you didn't care to walk home with
me, and--"
"But good gracious!" said David, amused and tender, "I thought you
didn't want me! And it would have been rather absurd to hang round, if
I wasn't wanted."
"Oh," she cried, sharply, lifting her wet face from his breast, "don't
you see? _I want you to be absurd!_ Can't you understand how a girl
feels?" She stopped, and sighed. "After all, why should you show Nannie
and Blair that you care? Why should you wait? I am not worth caring
for, or waiting for, anywhere, any time! Oh, David, my temper--my
dreadful temper!"
He lifted her trembling hand and kissed the scar on her left wrist
silently.
"I ought not to see you to-night, just to punish myself," she said
brokenly. "You don't know how crazy I was when I was talking to Blair.
I was _crazy!_ Oh, why, when I was a child, didn't they make me control
my temper? I suppose I'm like--my mother," she ended in a whisper. "And
I can't change, now; I'm too old."
David smiled. "You are terribly old," he said. Like everybody else,
save Mrs. Richie, David accepted Elizabeth's temper as a matter of
course. "She doesn't mean anything by it," her little world had always
said; and put up with the inconvenience of her furies, with the
patience of people who were themselves incapable of the irrationalities
of temper. "Oh, you are a hardened sinner," David mocked.
"You do forgive me?" she whispered.
At that he was grave. "There is nothing I wouldn't forgive, Elizabeth."
"But I have stabbed you?"
"Yes; a little; but I am yours to stab."
Her eyes filled. "Oh, it is so wonderful, that you go on loving me,
David!"
"You go on loving me," he rallied her; "in spite of my dullness and
slowness, and all that."
But Elizabeth was not listening. "Sometimes it frightens me to get so
angry," she said, with a somber look. "It was just the same when I was
a little girl; do you remember the time I cut off my hair? I think you
had hurt my feelings; I forget now what you had done. I was always
having my feelings hurt! Of course I was awfully silly. It was a relief
then to spoil my body, by cutting off my hair. This afternoon it was a
relief to put mud on my soul."
He looked at her, trying to find words tender enough to heal the wounds
she had torn in her own heart; not finding them, he was silent.
"Oh, we must face it," she said; "_you_ must face it. I am not a good
girl; I am not the kind of girl you ought to marry, I'm perfectly sure
your mother thinks so. She thinks a person with a temper can't love
people."
"I'll not go away in March!" David interrupted her passionately;--of
course it might be pleasanter for Materna to get away from old
Ferguson; but what is a man's mother, compared with his girl!
Elizabeth's pain was intolerable to him. "I won't leave you a day
before I have to!"
For a moment her wet eyes smiled. "Indeed you shall; I may be
wicked--oh, I am! but I am not really an idiot. Only, David, _don't_
take things so for granted, dear; and don't be so awfully sensible,
David."