The crickets and the frogs vied with each other to fill the silence
with sound. The moon was up and had laid a silver carpet under the
trees. Fireflies flashed their little lights among the undergrowth like
fairies signalling.
Joan had sent her S. O. S. into the air and with supreme confidence
that it would reach Martin wherever he might be, left the window, went
to the pew in which Gilbert had arranged the cushions and sat down...
Martin had grown tired of waiting for her. She had lost him. But twice
before he had answered her call, and he would come. She knew it. Martin
was like that. He was reliable. And even if he held her in contempt
now, he had loved her once. Oh, what it must have cost him to leave her
room that night--it seemed so long ago--she had clung to being a kid
and had conceived it to be her right to stay on the girlhood side of
the bridge. To be able to live those days over again--how different she
would be.
Without permitting Gilbert to guess what she was doing, she must humor
him and gain time. She gave thanks to God that he was in this gentle,
exalted mood, and was treating her with a sort of reverence. Behind the
danger and the terror of it all she recognized the wonder of his love.
"Gilbert," she said softly.
"Well, my little spring girl?"
"Come and sit here, where I can see you."
"You have only to tell me what I'm to do," he said and obeyed at once.
How different from the old affected Gilbert--this quiet man with the
burning eyes who sat with his elbows on his knees and his back bent
towards her and the light of one of the lanterns on his handsome face.
She had played with a soul as well as with a heart, and also, it
appeared, with a brain. How fatal had been her effect upon men--Martin
out of armor and Gilbert on the wrong side of the thin dividing line.
Men's love--it was too big and good a thing to have played with, if she
had only stopped to think, or some one had been wise and kind enough to
tell her. Who cares? These two men cared and so did she, bitterly,
terribly, everlastingly.
Would Martin hear--oh, would he hear? Martin, Martin!
There was a long, strange silence.
"Well, my little Joan?"
"Well, Gilbert?"
He picked up her hand and put his lips to it. "Still thinking?" he
asked, with a curious catch in his voice.
"Yes, Gilbert, give me time."
He gave back her hand. "The night is ours," he said, but there was pain
in his eyes.
And there they sat, these two, within an arm's reach, on the edge of
the abyss. And for a little while there was silence--broken only by the
crickets and the frogs and the turning of many leaves by the puffs of a
sudden breeze.
Was she never going to hear the breaking of twigs and the light tread
outside the window? Martin, Martin.
And then Gilbert began to speak. "I can see a long way to-night, Joan,"
he said, in a low voice. "I can see all the way back to the days when I
was a small boy--years away. It's a long stretch."
"Yes, Gilbert," said Joan. (Martin, Martin, did you hear?)
"It's not good for a boy to have no father, my sweet. No discipline, no
strong hand, no man to imitate, no inspiration, no one to try and keep
step with. I see that now. I suffered from all that."
"Did you, Gilbert?" Oh, when would the twigs break and the light step
come? Martin, Martin.
"A spoilt boy, a mother's darling, unthrashed, unled. What a cub at
school with too much money! What a conceited ass at college, buying
deference and friends. I see myself with amazement taking to life with
an air of having done it all, phrase-making and paying deference to
nothing but my excellent profile. God, to have those years over again!
We'd both do things differently given another chance, eh, Joan?"
"Yes, Gilbert." He wasn't coming. He wasn't coming. Martin, Martin.
She strained her ears to catch the sound of breaking twigs. The
crickets and the frogs had the silence to themselves. She got up and
went to the window, with Gilbert at her elbow. She felt that he was
instantly on his feet. Martin's face was not pressed against the
screen. He had heard. She knew that he had heard, because she was
always able to make him hear. But he didn't care. When he had come
before it was for nothing. She had lost him. She was un-Martined. She
was utterly without help. She must give up. What was the good of making
a fight for it now that Martin cared so little as to turn a deaf ear to
her call? He had even forgotten that he had loved her once. Death was
welcome then. Yes, welcome. But there was one way to make some sort of
retribution--just one. She would remain true to Martin.
Gilbert touched her on the arm. "Come, Joan," he said. "The night's
running away. Is it so hard to decide?"
But against her will Nature, to whom life is so precious, put words
into her mouth. "I want you to try and understand something more about
me," she said eagerly.
"The time has gone for arguing," he replied, stiffening a little.
"I'm not going to argue," she went on quickly, surprised at herself,
deserted as she was. "I only want you to think a little more deeply
about all this."
He drew his hand across his forehead. "Think? I've thought until my
brain's hot, like an overheated engine."
She leaned forward. Spring was fighting her battle. "I'm not worth a
love like yours," she said. "I'm too young, too unserious. I'm not half
the woman that Alice is."
"You came to me in spirit that night in Paris. I placed yuu in my
heart. I've waited all these years."
"Yes, but there's Alice--no, don't turn away. Let me say what's in my
mind. This is a matter of life or death, you said."