When Miss Cassillis heard the gun, it sounded very far away. But it
irritated as well as scared her. She pushed the canoe energetically
through a screen of foliage overhanging the bank of the lagoon, it being
merely her immediate instinct to hide herself.
To her surprise and pleasure, she discovered herself in a narrow, deep
lead, which had been entirely concealed by the leaves, and which wound
away through an illimitable vista of reeds, widening as she paddled
forward, until it seemed like a glassy river bordered by live-oak,
water-oak, pine, and palmetto, curving out into a flat and endless land
of forests.
Here was liberty at last! No pursuit need now be feared, for the
entrance to this paradise which she had forced by a chance impulse
could never be suspected by parent or fiance.
A little breeze blew her hair and loosened it; silently her paddle
dipped, swept astern in a swirl of bubbles, flashed dripping, and dipped
again.
Ahead of her a snake-bird slipped from a dead branch into the water; a
cormorant perched on the whitened skeleton of a mango, made hideous
efforts to swallow a mullet before her approach disorganized his
manoeuvres.
So silently the canoe stole along that the fat alligators, dozing in the
saw-grass, dozed on until she stirred them purposely with a low tap of
her paddle against the thwarts; then they rose, great lumbering bodies
propped high on squatty legs, waddled swiftly to the bank's edge, and
slid headlong into the water.
Everywhere dragon-flies glittered over the saw-grass; wild ducks with
golden eyes and heads like balls of brown plush swam leisurely out of
the way; a few mallard, pretending to be frightened, splashed and
clattered into flight, the sunlight jewelling the emerald heads of the
drakes.
"Wonderful, wonderful," her heart was singing to itself, while her
enchanted eyes missed nothing--neither the feebly flying and strangely
shaped, velvety black butterflies, the narrow wings of which were
striped with violent yellow; nor the metallic blue and crestless jays
that sat on saplings, watching her; nor the pelicans fishing with
nature's orange and iridescent net in the shallows; nor the tall,
slate-blue birds that marched in dignified retreat through the sedge,
picking up their stilt-like legs with the precision of German
foot-soldiers on parade.
These and other phenomena made her drop her paddle at intervals and clap
her hands softly in an ecstasy beyond mere exclamation. How restfully
green was the world; how limpid the water; how royally blue the heavens!
Listening, she could hear the soft stirring of palmetto fronds in the
forests; the celestial song of a little bird that sat on a sparkle-berry
bush, its delicate long-curved bill tilted skyward. Then the deep note
of splendour flashed across the scheme of sound and colour as a crimson
cardinal alighted near her, crest erect.
But more wonderful than all was that at last, after eighteen years, she
was utterly alone; and liberty was showering its inestimable gifts upon
her in breathless prodigality--liberty to see with her own eyes and
judge with her own senses; liberty to linger capriciously amid mental
fancies, to move on impulsively to others; liberty to reflect unurged
and unrestricted; liberty to choose, to reject, to ignore.
[Illustration: "They inspected each other, apparently bereft of the
power of speech."]
Now and then a brilliant swimming snake filled her with interest and
curiosity. Once, on a flat, low bush, she saw a dull, heavy,
blunt-bodied serpent lying asleep in the sun like an old and swollen
section of rubber hose. But when she ventured to touch the bush with her
paddle, the snake reared high and yawned at her with jaws which seemed
to be lined in white satin. Which fortunately made her uneasy, and she
meddled no more with the Little Death of the southern swamps.
She was now passing very close to the edge of the "hammock," where
palmettos overhung the water; and as the cool, dim woodlands seemed to
invite her, she looked about her leisurely for an agreeable landing
place. There were plenty to choose from; and she selected a little sandy
point under a red cedar tree, drove her canoe upon it, and calmly
stepped ashore. And found herself looking into the countenance of Jones.
For a full minute they inspected each other, apparently bereft of the
power of speech.
She said, finally: "About a year ago last February, did you happen to
walk down Fifth Avenue--very busily? Did you?"
It took him an appreciable time to concentrate for mental retrospection.
"Yes," he said, "I did."
"You were going down town, weren't you?"
"Yes."
"On business?"
"Yes," he said, bewildered.
"I wonder," she said timidly, "if you would tell me what that business
was? Do you mind? Because, really, I don't mean to be impertinent."
He made an effort to reflect. It was difficult to reflect and to keep
his eyes on her but also it is impolite to converse with anybody and
look elsewhere. This he had been taught at his mother's knee--and
sometimes over it.
"My business down town," he said very slowly, "was with an officer of
the Smithsonian Institution who had come on from Washington to see
something which I had brought with me from Florida."
"Would you mind telling me what it was you brought with you from
Florida?" she asked wistfully.
"No. It was malaria."
"What!"
"It was malaria," he repeated politely.
"I--I don't see how you could--could show it to him," she murmured,
perplexed.
"Well, I'll tell you how I showed it to him. I made a little incision in
my skin with a lancet; he made a smear or two----"
"A--what?"
"A smear--he put a few drops of my blood on some glass plates."
"Why?"
"To examine them under the microscope."
"Why?"
"So that he might determine what particular kind of malaria I had
brought back with me."
"Did he find out?" she asked, deeply interested.
"Yes," said Jones, displaying mild symptoms of enthusiasm, "he
discovered that I was fairly swarming with a perfectly new and
undescribed species of bacillus. That bacillus," he added, with modest
diffidence, "is now named after me."
She looked at him very earnestly, dropped her blue eyes, raised them
again after a moment:
"It must be--pleasant--to give one's name to a bacillus."
"It is an agreeable and exciting privilege. When I look into the culture
tubes I feel an intimate relationship with those bacilli which I have
never felt for any human being."
"You--you are a----" she hesitated, with a slight but charming colour in
her cheeks, "a naturalist, I presume?" And she added hastily, "No doubt
you are a famous one, and my question must sound ignorant and absurd to
you. But as I do not know your name----"
"It is Jones," he said gloomily, "--and I am not famous."
"Mine is Cecil Cassillis; and neither am I," she said. "But I thought
when naturalists gave their names to butterflies and microbes that
everything concerned immediately became celebrated."
Jones smiled; and she thought his expression very attractive.
"No," he said, "fame crowns the man who, celebrated only for his wealth,
names hotels, tug-boats, and art galleries after himself. Thus are
Immortals made."
She laughed, standing there gracefully as a boy, her hands resting on
her narrow hips. She laughed again. A tug-boat, a hotel, and a cigar
were named after her father.
"Fame is an extraordinary thing," she said. "But liberty is still more
wonderful, isn't it?"
"Liberty is only comparative," he said, smiling. "There is really no
such thing as absolute freedom."
"_You_ have all the freedom you desire, haven't you?"
"Well--I enjoy the only approach to absolute liberty I ever heard of."
"What kind of liberty is that?"
"Freedom to think as I please, no matter what I'm obliged to do."
"But you do what you please, too, don't you?"
"Oh, no!" he said smiling. "The man was never born who did what he
pleased."
"Why not? You choose your own work, don't you?"
"Yes. But once the liberty of choice is exercised, freedom ends. I
choose my profession. There my liberty ends, because instantly I am
enslaved by the conditions which make my choice a profession."
She was deeply interested. A mossy log lay near them; she seated herself
to listen, her elbow on her knee, and her chin cupped in her hand. But
Jones became silent.
"Were you not in that funny little boat that passed the inlet about
three hours ago?" she asked.
"The _Orange Puppy_? Yes."
"What an odd name for a boat--the _Orange Puppy_!"
"An orange puppy," he explained, "is the name given in the Florida
orange groves to the caterpillar of a large swallow-tail butterfly,
which feeds on orange leaves. The butterfly it turns into is known to
entomologists as _Papilio cresphontes_ and _Papilio thoas_. The latter
is a misnomer."
She gazed upon this young man in undisguised admiration.
"Once," she said, "when I was nine years old, I ran away from a
governess and two trained nurses. They found me with both hands full of
muddy pollywogs. It has nothing to do with what you are saying, but I
thought I'd tell you."
He insisted that the episode she recalled was most interesting and
unusual, considered purely as a human document.
"Would you tell me what you are doing down here in these forests?" she
asked, "--as we are discussing human documents."
"Yes," he said. "I am investigating several thousand small caterpillars
which are feeding on the scrub-palmetto."
"Is that your _business_?"
"Exactly. If you will remain very still for a moment and listen very
intently you can hear the noise which these caterpillars make while
they are eating."
She thought of the _Chihuahua_, and it occurred to her that she had
rather tired of seeing things eat. However, except in Europe, she had
never _heard_ things eat. So she listened.
He said: "These caterpillars are in their third moult--that is, they
have changed their skin three times since emerging from the egg--and are
now busily chewing the immature fruit of the scrub-palmetto. You can
hear them very plainly."
She sat silent, spellbound; and presently in the woodland stillness, all
around her she heard the delicate and continuous sound--the steady,
sustained noise of thousands of tiny jaws, all crunching, all busily
working together. And when she realized what the elfin rustle really
meant, she turned her delighted and grateful eyes on Jones. And the
beauty of them made him exceedingly thoughtful.
"Will you explain to me," she whispered, "why you are studying these
caterpillars, Mr. Jones?"
"Because they are spreading out over the forests. Until recently this
particular species of caterpillar, and the pretty little moth into which
it ultimately turns, were entirely confined to a narrow strip of
jungle, only a few miles long, lying on the Halifax River. Nowhere else
in all the world could these little creatures be found. But recently
they have been reported from the Dead Lake country. So the Smithsonian
Institution sent me down here to study them, and find out whither they
were spreading, and whether any natural parasitic enemies had yet
appeared to check them."
She gazed at him, fascinated.
"Have any appeared?" she asked, under her breath.
"I have not yet found a single creature that preys upon them."
"Isn't it a very arduous and difficult task to watch these thousands of
little caterpillars all day long?"
"It is quite impossible for me to do it thoroughly all alone."
"Would you like to have me help you?" she asked innocently.
Which rather bowled him over, but he said:
"I'd b-b-be d-d-delighted--only you haven't time, have you?"
"I have three days. I've brought a tent, you see, and everything
necessary--rugs, magazines, blankets, toilet articles, bon-bons,
books--everything, in fact, to last three days.... I wonder how that
tent is put up. Do you know?"
He went over to the canoe and gazed at the tent.
"I think I could pitch it for you," he said.
"Oh, thanks so much! May I help you? I think I'll put it here on this
pretty stretch of white sand by the water's edge."
"I'm afraid that wouldn't do," he said, gravely.
"Why?"
"Because the lagoon is tidal. You'd be awash sooner or later."
"I see. Well, then, anywhere in the woods will do----"
"Not _anywhere_," he said, smiling. "High water leaves few dry places in
this forest; in fact--I'm afraid that my shack is perched on the only
spot which is absolutely dry at all times. It is a shell mound--the only
one in the Dead Lake region."
"Isn't there room for my tent beside yours?" she asked, a trifle
anxiously.
"Y-es," he said, in a voice as matter of fact as her own. "How many will
there be in your party?"
"In my _party_! Why, only myself," she said, with smiling animation.
"Oh, I see!" But he didn't.
They lugged the tent back among the trees to the low shell mound, where
in the centre of a ring of pines and evergreen oaks his open-faced shack
stood, thatched with palmetto fans. She gazed upon the wash drying on
the line, upon a brace of dead ducks hanging from the eaves, upon the
smoky kettle and the ashes of the fire. Purest delight sparkled in her
blue eyes.
Erecting her silk tent with practiced hands, he said carelessly:
"In case you cared to send any word to the yacht----"
"Did I say that I came from the yacht?" she asked; and her straight
eyebrows bent a trifle inward.
"Didn't you?"
"Will you promise me something, Mr. Jones?"
The things he was prepared to promise her choked him for a second, but
when he regained control of his vocal powers he said, very pleasantly,
that he would gladly promise her anything.
"Then don't ask me where I came from. Let me stay three days. Then I'll
go very quietly away, and never trouble you again. Is it a promise?"
"Yes," he said, not looking at her. His face had become very serious;
she noticed it--and how well his head was set on his shoulders, and how
his clipped hair was burned to the color of crisp hay.
"You were Harvard, of course," she said, unthinkingly.
"Yes." He mentioned the year.
"Not crew?"
"No."
"Baseball?"
"'Varsity pitcher," he nodded, surprised.
"Then this is the third time I've seen you.... I wonder what it is about
you----" She remained silent, watching him burying her water bottles in
the cool marl.
When all was in order, he smiled, made her a little formal bow, and
evinced a disposition to retire and leave her in possession.
"I thought we were going to work at once!" she said uneasily. "I am
quite ready." And, as he did not seem to comprehend, "I was going to
help you to examine the little caterpillars, one by one; and the minute
I saw anything trying to bite them I was going to call you. Didn't you
understand?" she added wistfully.
"That will be fine!" he said, with an enthusiasm very poorly
controlled.
"You will show me where the little creatures are hiding, won't you?"
"Indeed I will! Here they are, all about us!" He made a sweeping gesture
over the low undergrowth of scrub-palmetto; and the next moment:
"I see them!" she exclaimed, delighted. "Oh, what funny, scrubby, busy
little creatures! They are everywhere--_everywhere_! Why, there seem to
be thousands and thousands of them! And all are eating the tiny green
bunches of fruit!"
They bent together over a group of feeding larvae; he handed her a pocket
microscope like his own; and, enchanted, she studied the tiny things
while he briefly described their various stages of development from the
little eggs to the pretty, pearl-tinted moth so charmingly striped with
delicate, brown lines--a rare prize in the cabinet of any collector.
V
Through the golden forest light of afternoon, they moved from shrub to
shrub; and he taught her to be on the watch for any possible foes of the
neat and busy little caterpillars, warning her to watch for birds,
spiders, beetles, ichneumon flies, possibly squirrels or even hornets.
She nodded her comprehension; he went one way, she the other. For nearly
ten minutes they remained separated, and it seemed ages to one of them
anyway.
But the caterpillars appeared to be immune. Nothing whatever interfered
with them; wandering beetles left them unmolested; no birds even noticed
them; no gauzy-winged and parasitic flies investigated them.
"Mr. Jones!" she called.
He was at her side in an instant.
"I only wanted to know where you were," she said happily.
The sun hung red over the lagoon when they sauntered back to camp. She
went into her tent with a cheerful nod to him, which said:
"I've had a splendid time, and I'll rejoin you in a few moments."
When she emerged in fresh white flannels, she found him writing in a
blank-book.
"I wonder if I might see?" she said. "If it's scientific, I mean."
"It is, entirely."
So she seated herself on the ground beside him, and read over his
shoulder the entries he was making in his field book concerning the
day's doings. When he had finished his entry, she said:
"You have not mentioned my coming to you, and how we looked for
ichneumon flies together."
"I----" He was silent.
She added timidly: "I know I count for absolutely nothing in the
important experiences of a naturalist, but--I did look very hard for
ichneumon flies. Couldn't you write in your field book that I tried very
hard to help you?"
He wrote gravely:
"Miss Cassillis most generously volunteered her invaluable aid, and
spared no effort to discover any possible foe that might prove to be
parasitic upon these larvae. But so far without success."
"Thank you," she said, in a very low voice. And after a short silence:
"It was not mere vanity, Mr. Jones. Do you understand?"
"I know it was not vanity, even if I do not entirely understand."
"Shall I tell you?"
"Please."
"It was the first thing that I have ever been permitted to do all by
myself. It meant so much to me.... And I wished to have a little record
of it--even if you think it is of no scientific importance."
"It is of more importance than----" But he managed to stop himself,
slightly startled. She had lifted her head from the pages of the field
book to look at him. When his voice failed, and while the red burned
brilliantly in his ears, she resumed her perusal of his journal,
gravely. After a while, though she turned the pages as if she were
really reading, he concluded that her mind was elsewhere. It was.
Presently he rose, mended the fire, filled the kettle, and unhooked the
brace of wild ducks from the eaves where they swung, and marched off
with them toward the water.
When he returned, the ducks were plucked and split for broiling. He
found her seated as he had left her, dreaming awake, idle hands folded
on the pages of his open field book.
For dinner they had broiled mallard, coffee, ash-cakes, and bon-bons.
After it she smoked a cigarette with him.
Later she informed him that it was her first, and that she liked it, and
requested another.
"Don't," he said, smiling.
"Why?"
"It spoils a girl's voice, ultimately."
"But it's very agreeable."
"Will you promise not to?" he asked, lightly.
Suddenly her blue eyes became serious.
"Yes," she said, "if you wish."
The woods grew darker. Far across the lagoon a tiger-owl woke up and
began to yelp like a half-strangled hobgoblin.
She sat silent for a little while, then very quietly and frankly put her
hand on Jones's. It was shaking.
"I am afraid of that sound," she said calmly.
"It is only a big owl," he reassured her, retaining her hand.
"Is that what it is? How _very_ dark the woods are! I had no idea that
there could be such utter darkness. I am not sure that I care for it."
"There is nothing to harm you in these woods."
"No bears and wolves and panthers?"
"There are a few--and all very anxious to keep away from anything
human."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely."
"Do you mind if I leave my hand where it is?"
It appeared that he had no insurmountable objections.
After the seventh tiger-owl had awakened and the inky blackness quivered
with the witch-like shouting and hellish tumult, he felt her shoulder
pressing against his. And bending to look into her face saw that all the
colour in it had fled.
"You mustn't be frightened," he said earnestly.
"But I am. I'm sorry.... I'll try to accustom myself to it.... The
darkness is a--a trifle terrifying--isn't it?"
"It's beautiful, too," he said, looking up at the firelit foliage
overhead. She looked up also, her slender throat glimmering rosy in the
embers' glare. After a moment she nodded:
"It _is_ wonderful.... If I only had a little time to accustom myself to
it I am sure I should love it.... Oh! What was that very loud splash
out there in the dark?"
"A big fish playing in the lagoon; or perhaps wild ducks feeding."
After a few minutes he felt her soft hand tighten within his.
"It sounds as though some great creature were prowling around our fire,"
she whispered. "Do you hear its stealthy tread?"
"Noises in the forest are exaggerated," he said carelessly. "It may be a
squirrel or some little furry creature out hunting for his supper.
Please don't be afraid."
"Then it _isn't_ a bear?"
"No, dear," he said, so naturally and unthinkingly that for a full
second neither realised the awful break of Delancy Jones.
When they did they said nothing about it. But it was some time before
speech was resumed. She was the first to recover. Perhaps the
demoralisation was largely his. It usually is that way.
She said: "This has been the most perfect day of my entire life. I'm
even glad I am a little scared. It is delicious to be a trifle afraid.
But I'm not, now--very much.... Is there any established hour for
bedtime in the woods?"
"Inclination sounds the hour."
"Isn't that wonderful!" she sighed, her eyes on the fire. "Inclination
rules in the forest.... And here I am."
The firelight on her copper-tinted hair masked her lovely eyes in a soft
shadow. Her shoulder stirred rhythmically as she breathed.
"And here you live all alone," she mused, half to herself.... "I once
saw you pitch a game against Yale.... And the next time I saw you
walking very busily down Fifth Avenue.... And now--you are--here....
That is wonderful.... Everything seems to be wonderful in this place....
Wh-what _is_ that flapping noise, please?"
"Two herons fighting in the sedge."
"You know everything.... That is the most wonderful of all. And yet you
say you are not famous?"
"Nobody ever heard of me outside the Smithsonian."
"But--you _must_ become famous. To-morrow I shall look very hard for an
ichneumon fly for you----"
"But your discovery will make _you_ famous, Miss Cassillis----"
"Why--why, it's for _you_ that I am going to search so hard! Did you
suppose I would dream of claiming any of the glory!"
He said, striving to speak coolly:
"It is very generous and sweet of you.... And, after all, I hardly
suppose that you need any added lustre or any additional happiness in a
life which must be so full, so complete, and so care-free."
She was silent for a while, then:
"Is _your_ life then so full of care, Mr. Jones?"
"Oh, no," he said; "I get on somehow."
"Tell me," she insisted.
"What am I to tell you?"
"Why it is that your life is care-ridden."
"But it isn't----"
"Tell me!"
He said, gaily enough: "To labour for others is sometimes a little
irksome.... I am not discontented.... Only, if I had means--if I had
barely sufficient--there are so many fascinating and exciting lines of
independent research to follow--to make a name in----" He broke off with
a light laugh, leaned forward and laid another log on the fire.
"You can not afford it?" she asked, in a low voice; and for the moment
astonishment ruled her to discover that this very perfect specimen of
intelligent and gifted manhood was struggling under such an amazingly
trifling disadvantage. Only from reading and from hearsay had she been
even vaguely acquainted with the existence of poverty.
"No," he said pleasantly, "I can not yet afford myself the happiness of
independent research."
"When will you be able to afford it?"
Neither were embarrassed; he looked thoughtfully into the fire; and for
a while she watched him in his brown study.
"Will it be soon?" she asked, under her breath.
"No, dear."
That time a full minute intervened before either realised how he had
answered. And both remained exceedingly still until she said calmly:
"I thought you were the very ideal embodiment of personal liberty. And
now I find that wretched and petty and ignoble circumstances fetter even
such a man as you are. It--it is--is heartbreaking."
"It won't last forever," he said, controlling his voice.
"But the years are going--the best years, Mr. Jones. And your life's
work beckons you. And you are equipped for it, and you can not take it!"
"Some day----" But he could say no more then, with her hand tightening
in his.
"To--to rise superior to circumstances--that is god-like, isn't it?" she
said.
"Yes." He laughed. "But on six hundred dollars a year a man can't rise
very high above circumstances."
The shock left her silent. Any gown of hers cost more than that. Then
the awfulness of it all rose before her in its true and hideous
proportions. And there was nothing for her to do about it, nothing,
absolutely nothing, except to endure the degradation of her wealth and
remember that the merest tithe of it could have made this man beside her
immortally famous--if, perhaps, no more wonderful than he already was in
her eyes.
Was there no way to aid him? She could look for ichneumon flies in the
morning. And on the morning after that. And the next morning she would
say good-bye and go away forever--out of this enchanted forest, out of
his life, back to the _Chihuahua_, and to her guests who ate often and
digested all day long--back to her father, her mother--back to
Stirrups----
He felt her hand close on his convulsively, and turned to encounter her
flushed and determined face.
"You like me, don't you?" she said.
"Yes." After a moment he said: "Yes--absolutely."
"Do you like me enough to--to let me help you in your research work--to
be patient enough to teach me a little until I catch up with you?... So
we can go on together?... I know I am presumptuous--perhaps
importunate--but I thought--somehow--if you did like me well enough--it
would be--very agreeable----"
"It would be!... And I--like you enough for--anything. But you could not
remain here----"
"I don't mean here."
"Where, then?"
"Where?" She looked vaguely about her in the firelight. "Why,
everywhere. Wherever you go to make your researches."
"Dear, I would go to Ceylon if I could."
"I also," she said.
He turned a little pale, looking at her in silence. She said calmly:
"What would you do in Ceylon?"
"Study the unknown life-histories of the rarer Ornithoptera."
She knew no more than a kitten what he meant. But she wanted to know,
and, moreover, was perfectly capable of comprehending.
"Whatever you desire to study," she said, "would prove delightful to
me.... If you want me. Do you?"
"Want you!" Then he bit his lip.
"Don't you? Tell me frankly if you don't. But I think, somehow, you
would not make a mistake if you did want me. I really am intelligent. I
didn't know it until I talked with you. Now, I know it. But I have never
been able to give expression to it or cultivate it.... And, somehow, I
know I would not be a drag on you--if you would teach me a little in the
beginning."
He said: "What can I teach _you_, Cecil? Not the heavenly frankness that
you already use so sweetly. Not the smiling and serene nobility which
carries your head so daintily and so fearlessly. Not the calm purity of
thought, nor the serene goodness of mind that has graciously included a
poor devil like me in your broad and generous sympathies----"
"Please!" she faltered, flushing. "I am not what you say--though to hear
you say such things is a great happiness--a pleasure--very intense--and
wonderful--and new. But I am nothing, _nothing_--unless I should become
useful to you. I _could_ amount to something--with--you----" She checked
herself; looked at him as though a trifle frightened. "Unless," she
added with an effort, "you are in love with somebody else. I didn't
think of that. _Are_ you?"
"No," he said. "Are you?"
"No.... I have never been in love.... This is the nearest I have come to
it."
"And I."
She smiled faintly.
"If we----"
"Oh, yes," he said, calmly, "if we are to pass the balance of our
existence in combined research, it would be rather necessary for us to
marry."
"Do you mind?"
"On the contrary. Do you?"
"Not in the least. Do you really mean it? It wouldn't be disagreeable,
would it? You are above marrying for mere sentiment, aren't you?
Because, somehow, I seem to know you like me.... And it would be death
for me--a mental death--to go back now to--to Stirrups----"
"Where?"
"To--why do you ask? Couldn't you take me on faith?"
He said, unsteadily: "If you rose up out of the silvery lagoon, just
born from the starlight and the mist, I would take you."
"You--you are a poet, too," she faltered. "You seem to be about
everything desirable."
"I'm only a man very, very deep in--love."
"In love!... I thought----"
"Ah, but you need think no more. You _know_ now, Cecil."
She remained silent, thinking for a long while. Then, very quietly:
"Yes, I know.... It is that way with me also. For I no sooner find my
liberty than I lose it--in the same moment--to you. We must never again
be separated.... Do you feel as I do?"
"Absolutely.... But it must be so."
"Why?" she asked, troubled.
"For one thing, I shall have to work harder now."
"Why?"
"Don't you know we can not marry on what I have?"
"Oh! Is _that_ the reason?" She laughed, sprang lightly to her feet,
stood looking down at him. He got up, slowly.
"I bring you," she said, "six hundred dollars a year. And a _little_
more. Which sweeps away that obstacle. Doesn't it?"
"I could not ask you to live on that----"
"I can live on what you live on! I should wish to. It would make me
utterly and supremely happy."
Her flushed, young face confronted his as she took a short, eager step
toward him.
"I am not making love to you," she said, "--at least, I don't think I
am. All I desire is to help--to give you myself--my youth, energy,
ambition, intelligence--and what I have--which is of no use to me unless
it is useful to you. Won't you take these things from me?"
"Do you give me your heart, too, Cecil?"
She smiled faintly, knowing now that she had already given it. She did
not answer, but her under lip trembled, and she caught it between her
teeth as he took her hands and kissed them in silence.