Desire was seated upon a moss-covered rock, hugging her knees and
gazing out to sea. It was her favorite attitude and, according to
Professor Spence, a very dangerous one, especially in connection with a
moss-covered rock. He would have liked to point out this obvious fact
but that would have been fussy--and fussy the professor was firmly
determined not to be. Aunt Caroline was fussy. The best he could do was
to select another rock, not so slippery, and to provide an object
lesson as to the proper way of sitting upon it. Unfortunately, Desire
was not looking. They had come a little way "up trail"--at least Desire
had said it was a little way, and her companion was too proud of his
recovered powers of locomotion to express unkind doubt of the
adjective. There had been no rainy days for a week. The air was
sun-soaked, and salt-soaked, and somewhere there was a wind. But not
here. Here some high rock angle shut it out and left them to the drowsy
calm of wakening Summer. Below them lay the blue-green gulf,
white-flecked and gently heaving; above them bent a sky which only
Italy could rival--and if Miss Farr with her hands clasped round her
knees were to move ever so little, either way, there was nothing to
prevent her from falling off the face of the mountain. The professor
tried not to let this reflection spoil his enjoyment of the view. He
reminded him-self that she was probably much safer than she looked. And
he remembered Aunt Caroline. Still--
"Don't you think you might sit a little farther back?" he suggested
carelessly.
"Why?"
"I can't talk to the back of your head."
"Talk!" dreamily, "do you really have to talk?"
Naturally the professor was silent.
"That's rude, I suppose," said Desire, suddenly swinging round (a feat
which brought Spence's heart into his mouth). "I don't seem to acquire
the social graces very rapidly, do I?"
"I thought," the professor's tone was somewhat stiff, "that we came up
here for the express purpose of talking."
"Y-es. You did express some such purpose. But--must we? It won't do any
good, you know."
"I don't know. And it will do good. One can't get anywhere without
proper discussion."
The girl sighed. "Very well--let's discuss. You begin."
"My month," said Spence firmly, "is almost up. I shall have to move
along on Friday."
"On Friday?" If he had intended to startle her, he had certainly
succeeded. "Was--was the arrangement only for a month?" she asked in a
lowered voice.
"The arrangement was to continue for as long as I wished. But only one
month's payment was made in advance. With Friday, Dr. Farr's obligation
toward me ends. He is not likely to extend it."
She sat so still that he forgot how slippery the moss was and thought
only of the growing shadow on her face.
"But, the work!" she murmured. "We are only just beginning. I wish--oh,
I shall miss it dreadfully."
"'It,'" said Spence, "is not a personal pronoun."
"I shall miss you, too, of course."
"Well, be careful not to overemphasize it."
Her grey eyes looked frankly and straightly into his. Their clear
depths held a rueful smile. "You are conceited enough already," she
said, "but if it will make you feel any better, I don't mind admitting
that I shall miss you far, far more than you deserve."
"Spoken like a lady!" said Spence warmly. "And now let us consider my
side of it. After the month that I have spent here--do you really think
that I intend to go away--like that?"
"There is only one way of going, isn't there?"
"Not at all. There are various ways. Ways which are quite, quite
different."
"You have thought of some other--some quite different way?"
"Yes. But I daren't tell it to you while you sit on that slippery rock.
It is a somewhat startling way and you might--er--manifest emotion. I
should prefer to have you manifest it in a less dangerous place."
Desire's very young laugh rippled out. "Fussy!" she said. But
nevertheless she climbed down and sat demurely upon stones in the
hollow. There was an unfamiliar light in her waiting eyes, the light of
interest and of hope.
Spence, rather to his consternation, realized that it was up to him to
justify that hope. And he wasn't at all sure ... however, he had to
go through with it, ... There was a fighting chance, anyway.
"Let's think about the work for a moment," he began nervously. "That
work, my book, you know, is simply going all to pot if you can't keep
on with it. You can see yourself what it means to have a competent
secretary. And you like the work. You've just admitted that you like
it."
He saw the light begin to fade from her eyes. She shook her head.
"If you are going to suggest that I go with you as your secretary," she
said with her old bluntness, "it is useless. I have tried that way out.
I won't try it again." Her lips grew stern and her eyes dark with some
too bitter memory.
"I honestly don't see what Dr. Farr could do," said Spence tentatively.
"You would," said Dr. Farr's daughter with decision.
"And anyway," proceeding hastily, "that wasn't what I was thinking of.
I knew that you would refuse to go as my secretary. I ask you to go as
my wife."
Desire rose.
"Is this where I am expected to manifest emotion?" she asked dryly.
"Yes. And you're doing it! I knew you would. Women are utterly
unreasoning. You won't even listen to what I have to say."
The girl moved slowly away.
"And I can't get up without help," he added querulously.
Desire stopped. "You can," she said.
"I can't. Not after that dreadful climb."
"Then I shall wait until you are ready. But we do not need to continue
this conversation."
The professor sighed. "This," he said, "is what comes of taking a woman
at her word."
"What?"
"I might have known," he went on guilefully, "that you didn't really
mean it. No young girl would."
"Mean what?"
"That you had no room in your scheme of things for ordinary marriage.
Of course you were talking nonsense. I beg your pardon."
"Will you kindly explain what you mean!"
"I will if you will sit down so that I may talk to you on my own level.
You see, your determination not to marry struck me very much at the
time because it voiced my own--er--determination also. I said to
myself, 'Here are two people sufficiently original to wish to escape
the common lot.' I thought about it a great deal. And then an idea
came. It was, I admit, the inspiration of a moment. But it grew. It
certainly grew."
Desire sat down again and folded her hands over her knees.
"I will listen."
"It is very simple," he hastened to explain. "Simplicity is, I think,
the keynote of all true inspiration. An idea comes, and we are filled
with amazement that we have so long ignored the obvious. Take our case.
Here are we two, strongly of one mind and wanting the same thing. A
perfectly feasible way of getting that thing occurs to me. Yet when I
suggest this way you jump up and rush away."
"I haven't rushed yet."
"No. But you were going to. And all because you cannot be logical. No
woman can."
His listener brushed this away with a gesture of impatience.
"I can prove it," went on the wily one. "You object to marriage, yet
you covet the freedom marriage gives. Now what is the logical result of
that? The logical result is fear--fear that some day you may want
freedom so badly that you will marry in order to get it."
"It is not--I won't."
"I knew you would not admit it. But it is true all the same. The other
night when you said 'marriage is hideous,' I saw fear in your eyes.
There is fear in your eyes now."
The girl dropped her eyes and raised them again instantly. Her slanting
eyebrows frowned.
"Nevertheless," she said, "I shall not marry."
"But you will, as an honest person, admit the other part of the
proposition--that you want something at least of what marriage can
give?"
"Yes."
"Well then--that states your case. Now let me state mine. I, too, have
an insuperable objection to marriage. My--er--disinclination is
probably more soundly based than yours, since it is built upon a wider
view of life. But I, too, want certain things which marriage might
bring. I want a home. Not too homey a home, in the strictly domestic
sense (Aunt Caroline is strictly domestic) but a--a congenial home. I
want the advice and help of a clever woman together with the sense of
permanence and security which, in our imperfect state of civilization,
is made possible only by marriage. And I, too, have my secret fear. I
am afraid that some day I may be driven--in short, I am afraid of Aunt
Caroline."
Desire's inquiring eyebrows lifted.
"A man--afraid of his aunt?"
"Yes," gloomily, "it is men who are afraid of aunts. It is not at all
funny," he added as her eyes relaxed, "if you knew Aunt Caroline you
wouldn't think so. She is determined to have me married and she has a
long life of successful effort behind her. One failure is nothing to an
aunt. She is always quite certain that the next venture will turn out
well. And it usually does. In brief, I am thirty-five and I go in
terror of the unknown. If I do not marry soon to please myself, I shall
end by marrying to please someone else. Do you follow me?"
"Make it plainer," ordered Desire soberly. "Make it absolutely plain."
"I will. My proposition is, in its truest and strictest sense, a
marriage of convenience. Marriage, it appears, can give us both what we
want, a formal ceremony will legalize your position as my secretary and
free you entirely from the interference of your father. It will permit
you to accept freely my protection and everything else which I have.
Your way will be open to the things you spoke of the other night,
freedom, leisure, money, travel, books. The only thing we are shutting
out is the thing you say you have no use for--love. But perhaps you did
not mean--"
"I did."
"Then, logically, my proposal is sound."
"Am I to take all these things, and give nothing?"
"Not at all. You give me the things I want most, freedom, security, the
grace of companionship, and collaboration in my work, so long as your
interest in it continues. I will be a safely married man and you--you
will be a window-gazer no longer. There is only one point"--the
speaker's gaze turned from her and wandered out to sea--"I can be sure
of what I can bring into your life," his voice was almost stern, "but I
warn you to be very sure of what you will be shutting out."
"You mean?"
"Children," said Spence crisply.
"I do not care for children."
The professor's soberness vanished. "Oh--what a whopper!" he exclaimed.
"I mean, I do not want children of my own."
"But supposing you were to develop a desire for them later on?"
She nodded thoughtfully.
"I might," she acknowledged. "But in my case it would be merely the
outcropping of a feminine instinct, easily suppressed. I am not at all
afraid of it. Look at all the women who are perfectly happy without
children."
"Hum!" said the professor. "I am looking at them. But I find them
unconvincing. There are a few, however, of whom what you say is true.
You may be one of them. How about Sami?"
"Sami? Oh, Sami is different. He is more like a mountain imp than a
child. I don't think Sami would seem real anywhere but here. If anyone
were to try to transplant him he might vanish altogether. Poor little
chap--how terribly he would miss me!" finished Desire artlessly.
She had accepted the possibility, then! Spence's heart gave a leap and
was promptly reproved for leaping. This was not, he reminded himself,
an affair of the heart at all. It was a coldly-thought-out, hard-headed
business proposition. Such a proposition as his father's son might
fittingly conceive. The thing to do now was to stride on briskly and
avoid sentiment.
"Then as we seem to agree upon the essentials," he said, "there remains
only one concrete difficulty, your father. He would object to marriage
as to other things, I suppose?"
"Yes, but we should have to ignore that."
"You wouldn't mind?" somewhat doubtfully.
"No. I have always known that a break would come some day. It isn't as
if he really cared. Or as if I cared. I don't. If I should decide that
there is an honest chance for freedom, a chance which I can take and
keep my self-respect, I am conscious of no duty that need restrain me."
Spence said nothing, and after a moment she went on.
"Why should I pretend--as he pretends? I loath it! Day after day, even
when there is no one to see, he keeps up that horrible semblance of
affection. And all the time he hates me. I see it in his eyes. And once
or twice--" She hesitated and then went rapidly on without finishing
her sentence. "There is some reason why it is to his advantage to keep
me with him. But it imposes no obligation upon me. I do not even know
what it is."
"Perhaps Li Ho may know?"
"Li Ho does know. Li Ho knows everything. But when I asked him he said,
'Honorable boss much lonely--heap scared of devil maybe.' Li Ho always
refers to devils when he doesn't wish to tell anything."
"I've noticed that. He's a queer devil himself. Would he stay on, do
you think?"
"Yes. And that's odd, too. In some way Li Ho is father's man. It's as
if he owned him. There must be a story which explains it. But no one
will ever hear it. Li Ho keeps his secrets."
Spence nodded. "Yes. Li Ho and his kind are the product of forces we
only guess at. I asked a man who had spent twenty years in China if he
had learned to understand the Oriental mind. He said he had learned
more than that, he had learned that the Oriental mind is beyond
understanding. But--aren't we getting away from our subject? Let's
begin all over again. Miss Farr, I have the honor to ask your hand in
marriage."
She was silent for so long a time that the professor had opportunity to
think of many things. And, as he thought, his heart went down--and
down. She would refuse. He knew it. The clean edge of her mind would
cut through all his tangle of words right to the core of the real
issue, And the core of the real issue was not as sound as it would need
to be to satisfy her demands. For in that core still lay a possibility,
the possibility of love. He had not eliminated love. Many a man has
loved after thirty-five. Many a girl who has sworn--but no, she would
not admit this possibility in her own case. It was only in his case
that she would recognize it. She would see the weak spot there.... She
would refuse. He could feel refusal gathering in her heart. And his own
heart beat hotly in his throat. For if this failed, what other way was
left? Yet to go and leave her here, alone in that rotting cottage on
the hill.... the prey of any ghastly fate.... no, it couldn't be done.
He must convince her. He must.
"My friend," said Desire (he loved her odd, old-fashioned way of
calling him "my friend"), "I admit that you have tempted me. But--I
can't. It wouldn't be fair. It is easy to feel sure for one's self but
it's another thing to be sure for others. A marriage of that kind would
not satisfy you. You say your outlook is wider than mine and of course
it is. But I have seen more than you think. Even men who are
tremendously interested in their work, like you, want--other things.
They want what they call love, even if to them it always sinks to
second place, if indeed it means nothing more than distraction. And
love would mean more than that to you. I have an instinct which tells
me that, in your case, love will come. You must be free to take it."
It was final. He felt its finality, and more than ever he swore that it
should not be so. There must be an argument somewhere--wait!
"Supposing," said Spence haltingly, "Supposing.... supposing I am not
free now? Supposing love has come--and gone?"
He was not a good liar. But his very ineptitude helped him here. It
tangled the words on his tongue, it brought a convincing dew upon his
forehead. "I'd rather not talk about it," he finished. "But you see
what I mean."
"Yes. I hadn't thought of that. It might make a difference. I should
want to be very sure. If there were any chance--"
"There is no chance. Positively none. That experience, which you say
you feel was a necessary experience in my case, is over and done with.
It cannot recur. I am not the man to--to--" he was really unable to go
on. But she finished it for him.
"To love twice," said Desire, looking out over the sea. "Yes I can
understand that--what did you say?"
"I think I may be able to walk now," said the professor.