It was the second night after Henley's return to Chester. He was alone
at the farm-house. It was a desolate place now, despite his constant
self-assurance that he was accustomed, in his travels, to depend upon
his own resources for company and entertainment, and would now find
nothing lacking. He was in the kitchen cooking his supper in the same
crude way he had cooked his meals in the Western mining-camps where he
had once prospected.
He took down a rasher of bacon from a hook on a rafter, and with his big
pocket-knife deftly cut some thin slices into a frying-pan on the smoky
stove, and into the hot grease he broke some fresh eggs which he had
purloined from a hen's nest in the stable-loft. He had a loaf of baker's
bread, and he made some coffee of exactly the strength he liked. These
things ready, he took them to the big, empty dining-room, resting the
smoking frying-pan on an inverted plate on the clothless table. He sat
down and ate and drank, but somehow not with his usual relish, for there
was upon him a heavy sense of isolation from his kind. In spite of his
effort to regard his condition in a philosophical light, he found
himself unaccountably depressed. After all his youthful dreams of the
domestic happiness which was to round out his life, it had ended in
this. He could, he knew, go to live on the big plantation his wife had
inherited, but it would be at the cost of the pride of manhood which had
been his mainstay so far. She was acting out the part which had fallen
to her, and what was there to justify him in altering his plans--in
giving up the mode of life which had become a part of himself? Marriage,
such as his had become, through no fault of his own, was an acknowledged
failure.
Lighting his pipe, he blew out the lamp and sought the cooler air of the
front porch. There was something depressing, rather than helpful, in the
profound stillness of the night, the expanse of the star-filled heavens,
the shadowy outlines of the foot-hills of the invisible mountains
beyond. He heard his horses pawing in their stalls, old Wrinkle's pig
grunting in its pen; the chickens roosting in a cherry-tree hard by
chirped and flapped their wings as they jostled one another on the
boughs; all nature seemed normal and at peace save himself. What was
wrong? How could it go on? Where was it to end?
Presently his attention was drawn to a figure advancing along the front
fence to the gate. The latch was lifted; it was opened, and the figure,
with a light, confident tread, began to cross the grass toward him. It
was Dixie Hart, and he rose from his chair and went to the steps, a
throbbing sense of relief upon him.
She laughed softly, with a slight ring of affectation in her voice, as
she paused with her foot on the lowest step. "You must excuse me,
Alfred," she said. "I ought not to have come. I ought to have waited
till to-morrow, but I'm getting to be a regular slave to Joe. He was
worrying over you, and I was afraid he wouldn't go to sleep at all
unless--unless I set his mind at rest. Children are so funny."
"What's wrong with the little chap?" Henley came down the steps and
stood beside her. There was an inverted flour-barrel on the ground near
her, and Dixie sat upon it, and swung her feet back and forth for a
little while without seeming to have heard his question. He repeated
it, bending toward her the better to see her face in the starlight.
"Oh, I hardly know how--how to say it." She was studying his face with a
strange, hungry eagerness, which he failed to fathom. "Children are so
odd, Alfred, and have so many fancies that they conjure up themselves. I
reckon he's heard Ma and Aunt Mandy talking about--well, about the big
piece of luck that has come to you all. You know women that have never
had a windfall in any shape through their whole lives naturally make a
lot of the good-fortune that comes to a neighbor, and little Joe has
just set and listened to it all till--well, I reckon even you've changed
from--from his plain friend to--well, something like a king in royal
robes."
"The little goose! Besides--" But Henley's resources furnished no
further comment.
"He actually cried over _one_ thing," Dixie went on, avoiding Henley's
helpless stare. "It was when Aunt Mandy said that, while maybe you and
your wife had not been _quite_ as thick as--as some couples are, that
now, in all her wealth and splendor, you'd be like every other _natural_
man, and be more attentive and--and--even loving."
"How ridiculous!" Henley exclaimed. "Why, Dixie, that money and place
ain't anything to me. It comes to _her_, not to me, and, while I'm glad,
of course, for her sake, still--"
"Joe cried," Dixie broke in, with a cold, resentful shrug. "You see,
Alfred, he felt bad because Aunt Mandy hinted that you'd have to live
over there now, and move away from this farm. You see, as she told
Joe--I wasn't there--I don't listen to their silly gabble, anyway--but,
you see, Alfred, when the little fellow gets an idea like this in his
head and keeps hammering and hammering on it, there ain't nothing to do
but try to pacify him--as Aunt Mandy told Joe, your interests are so
whopping big over there that you will naturally have to be on hand to
look after 'em. Your wife--Mrs. Henley hain't got your head for
business, and it will be your bounden duty to help her run things. Of
course, you _do_ love money. A man would be unnatural that didn't, in
this day and time, when it is the main thing all humanity is out after.
And--and--" Her voice broke. She coughed and glanced aside.
"I'm not going over there, Dixie," he said, firmly. "I'm going to stick
right here, and do the best I can. Folks may talk some about me and
Hettie not living together, but I can't put up with all that rigmarole
over there. It would kill me."
"Aunt Mandy said you might say that at _first_." Dixie steadied her
voice. "She told Joe so in my hearing. She said it kinder nettled _some_
proud men to have it said they was beholden to their wives, but she
said--_she told Joe_--that the proudest man would give in to a situation
like that sooner or later. That's why the boy felt so bad, I reckon.
He's sure you are going to leave this measly little hole, and that he'll
never lay eyes on you again. I've tried to pacify him; but what can I
do? I wouldn't advise you to--to do a thing against your best interests,
either. You've made a good deal of money, and, like most men, you know
its value. As Aunt Mandy told Joe, in case of your wife's death you'd
get it all--that is, if you kept on the right side of her and indulged
her whims. It seems queer, Alfred, to be standing here in my plain dress
before a man as rich and high up in the world as you are."
"Dixie, listen to me!" Henley tried to take her hand, but she drew it
from his clasp stiffly and stared sharply into his face. "Dixie, you
said, not many days back, that me and you understood one another
perfectly, and that nothing would ever change our feelings. I can't
make out what you are driving at in all this roundabout palaver, but I
know I'm just pine-blank as I was, heart and soul and body. Going over
there made me miserable. I never spent such a day in my life. In all
that red-tape splendor and high doings I wanted my old ways and nothing
else."
"You'll get used to it," the girl said. "Aunt Mandy told Joe, you
remember, that you wouldn't like it at first, like any proud man, but
that the feeling would wear off. She says your wife ain't a bad-looking
woman, and that, in fine clothes and with fine things about her, she
will be different from what she was here. Money is power, Alfred; it
will have its way in this world. A man might sorter _fancy_ he couldn't
get along with a woman on his own level, but let her rise high above
him, and he won't be exactly in the same boat. He'll naturally think
more about her, and, in thinking more about her, and trying harder to
please her, his old love will be revived--that is, _if it ever died_.
Who could tell? I couldn't."
"Look here, Dixie, listen to me!" Henley's voice shook with subdued
passion. "I've never felt like it was exactly honorable, fixed like I
am, to tell you--to talk out plain to you about--about how I feel toward
you, but you are nagging me on to it. I can't help it. Right now it is
burning me up inside. I love you more than a man ever loved a woman. You
are in my mind day and night. Standing here before me now you seem as
far-off and precious as an angel of light. I want you. I want you from
the very bottom dregs of my suffering soul. She asked me to move over
there, and when she did it the thought of getting farther away from you
made me actually sick. I'd rather live here on a crust of bread than to
rule a nation away from you. I may as well confess it. I don't love her.
I couldn't in a thousand years. She killed the love I once had. She was
slowly killing it by her strange ways while you was growing into my
heart by your sweet, brave, unselfish life. Now, I've said all I can. I
have no hope of ever having you all for my own, but I can love you--I
can worship you, and no earthly power can prevent me."
Even in the starlight he could see the color rising in her face and the
shimmer of delight in her eyes. She laid her hand on his tense,
throbbing arm. "I see," she said, a sweet cadence in her voice. "I've
had all my scare for nothing. Oh, Alfred, I've been nigh crazy. I
doubted you. All the talk about your wife's wonderful luck went clean
against my better judgment. I kept telling myself that you was different
from ordinary men, but, somehow, it wouldn't stick. I may as well tell
the truth. That's why I come here to-night. I've been unable to sleep--I
was going crazy. You are mine, Alfred, all mine--ain't you?"
He felt her throbbing fingers on his wrist and saw her shoulders rise
convulsively. An overpowering force within him urged him to clasp her to
himself. He opened his arms, but she deftly caught his hands and held
them tightly. "No, no," she said, firmly, "not that--not that! Folks say
men and women fixed like we are can't love one another without doing
wrong; but they can. The strong ones can, and we are strong, Alfred. Our
love is sweet enough as it is. It is of heaven; let's keep it right. You
might think you'd respect me if I let you hold me in your arms--here at
your own house, with your wife away, but you wouldn't--down in your
secret soul you'd feel that I was--was tainted."
"Forgive me, Dixie, darling," he cried. "My blood's in my head; I'm
dazed and dazzled by you, little girl; but you know best. I wouldn't do
a thing you didn't approve of for all the world."
She released his hands with a little, satisfied laugh, and stepped back
toward the gate. "Well, I got what I wanted," she said, frankly. "I've
been more in the clutch of Old Harry since you went over there than I
ever was in all my born days. All day yesterday and to-day I've brooded
and brooded and had evil thoughts, till--well, I'd have gone plumb out
o' my mind if I hadn't come straight to you. I may as well tell the
truth; I don't want a lie, even a little, tiny one, to smut the
confidence between us. Alfred, Joe wasn't worrying so--so _very_ much. I
was attending to that job. What I said about him was to pump you dry and
make you ease my mind. I feel better. I can sleep now. Oh,
Alfred--Alfred--good-night!"
He threw out his hands impulsively, but she had evaded them, and, with
lowered head, was scudding across the grass toward the light in the
cottage.