LOVE REJECTED
Pat had just been clipped. And never was there a horse nearer
perfection! Shorn of all hair, his splendid physique, now in fullest
maturity, stood out clean-cut and fascinating.
In weight he might have tipped the scales at ten hundred pounds. In
color his skin, which now showed clearly, was a shade darker than that
of the elephant, but it showed the richness of velvet. His body through
the trunk was round and symmetrical; his haunches were wide without
projection of the hip-bones; and his limbs, the stifle and lower thigh,
were long and strong and fully developed. Added to these, he was high in
the withers, the line of back and neck curving perfectly; his shoulders
were deep and oblique; and his long, thick fore arm, knotty with bulging
sinews, told of powerful muscles. And finally, his knees across the pan
were wide, the cannon-bone below thin and short, the pasterns long and
sloping, and the hoofs round and dark and neatly set on. While over
all--over the small, bony head, beautiful neck and shoulders--over the
entire body, clear down to the hoofs--ran a network of veins like those
on the back of a leaf, only more irregular--veins which stood out as
though the skin were but thin parchment through which the blood might
burst. A rare horse, rare in any country, doubly rare in this land of
the small Spanish product, was the rating given to Pat by men trained to
judge value at sight. And so widespread did this appraisal become, along
trail, beside camp-fire, in bunk-house, that it was known throughout the
length and breadth of the Territory, and beyond the Territory, that
Judge Richards was the owner of a horse the like of which never had been
seen south of the Pecos.
For several days after the clipping, Helen did not choose to ride. So
Pat was permitted the doubtful pleasure of loafing about in the
inclosure. Then one morning, when the winter day was unusually warm, he
awoke to a great clatter of hoofs outside the corral. Directly he saw a
party of young people, men and girls under the chaperonage of a comely
matron, dismounting in high spirits. As the party swung down he saw his
mistress appear from the house, attired in her riding-habit, and,
understanding the object of all this, since these parties had become
frequent in the past two months, he pressed close to the fence, anxious
to be off. The Mexican bridled and saddled him; his mistress and the
others mounted; soon all clattered out upon the river-trail.
The day was beautiful, and Helen, riding, as usual, beside Stephen, both
in the rear, enjoyed the morning keenly. Overhead, out of a shimmering
azure sky, the sun beamed mildly down, penetrating the chill of the
morning, yet leaving enough tang to bring a bloom to their cheeks. On
their left the river, high with melted snows from the north, moved in
slow eddies near the shore, quicker eddies away from the shore, steady
and swift flow in the middle--a changing, fascinating panorama. There
fell a long silence before she turned to the young man beside her.
"Well, Mr. Native," she began, smiling, "I hope you don't mean to bury
yourself this morning! For more than a month you have had very little to
say to me. I don't like it, because I can't understand it, and so I
won't have it!" Then she became serious. "Whatever is the matter,
Stephen?"
Pat, walking slowly beside the unfriendly horse, was attentive. He heard
his mistress's voice, and somehow knew she was troubled. Then directly
he had positive proof of this, for she suddenly began to stroke his neck
and shoulders. Always she did this when thoughtful, but though he
strained his ears for further sounds of her voice, he did not hear her.
What he did hear presently was the voice of the young man, and having
learned long before to discriminate between different shades of the
human voice, he knew from its low and tense quality that the topic was a
vital one. He listened sharply, heedful of any least change of
intonation that might be interpreted as a climax. But instead he was
relieved presently to hear the voice of his mistress again, breaking in
upon the low, constrained tones of the young man.
Pat held his ears steadily back. He noted that her voice was well under
control, and she appeared to be answering the young man. Also, it was
quite evident that she was not accepting his argument, whatever it was.
Yet her voice took on many delicate changes. Sometimes he heard a note
of pleading; again, mild exasperation; and once a falling inflection
which hinted at sadness. So it continued, his mistress talking as he had
never heard her talk before, until the group ahead drew rein and
wheeled, indicating their intention of returning. Then once more the
voice of his mistress changed suddenly and became light, even gay,
leaving Pat, as he himself was turned around, a very much mystified
horse.
Yet this gaiety did not last. When they were well on their way back
toward the ranch, with the sun higher and brighter in the heavens, and
the trail correspondingly whiter and more dazzling to the eye, he found
himself listening to grave tones again--the voice of the young man. He
talked steadily now, his flow of words always tense, though occasionally
interrupted by the other with a quiet rejoinder. Then suddenly he ceased
altogether, and Pat, acutely conscious of the silence which descended
upon them, was relieved when it was broken by sounds of laughter ahead.
Still the pair above him did not speak. Each appeared to be adrift on a
sea of thought the like of which he had never known. And it continued,
this ominous silence, and became heavier, until he saw the ranch loom up
ahead. Then he felt his mistress urge him into a canter that she might
join the others for the parting. But when the party broke up, as it did
with much good feeling, and he found himself turned loose to one side,
with his mistress and the young man walking into the shade of a
cottonwood, he found himself forced, since he now was out of range of
their voices, to forego any further listening, keenly against his
desires. So he gave it all up as a bad job.
"Stephen," began Helen, seating herself upon a hummock of earth, "I am
sorry--sorry beyond words--that it has turned out this way! I must admit
that I like you--like you very much! But--but I am afraid it is not the
sort of liking you ask."
He was seated beside her, reclining upon one elbow, absently thrusting
the tip of his riding-whip into a tuft of grass. And now again, as
before that morning, he told her of his very great love for her, his
deep voice vibrant with emotion, grimly acknowledging himself as
unworthy of her, yet asking with rare simplicity that she take him
anyway, take him in spite of his unworthiness, declaring it as his
belief she would find him in time worthy--that he would try to make
himself worthy--_would_ make himself worthy--would overcome those
faults which evidently--though she had not as yet told him what they
were--made him impossible in her eyes. Then suddenly he asked her to
tell him precisely what these faults were. He knew that he had many and
could only blame himself for them. But which of them did she find
chiefly objectionable? He was pitiable in his pleading.
But Helen shook her head. "I--I can't tell you, Stephen," she declared,
her voice breaking. "It--it is too much to ask of--of any girl."
He rose, turning toward the distant mountains, bright and smiling in
their noonday splendor. As his eyes dwelt upon them in brooding silence,
Helen gained her feet. And, aware of her great part in this
wretchedness, she took his hand very gently in her own. Subtly conscious
of the touch, realizing the tumult in his soul, she found herself
suddenly alive to a feeling within her deeper than mere pity and
sympathy. It was the anguish preceding tears. Quickly withdrawing her
hand, she turned and fled to the house. Inside, she slowly approached a
window. He was leading Pat into the corral; and, watching him unsaddle
and unbridle her horse, her treasure, she awoke to something else within
her, a strange swelling of her heart, different from anything she had
ever known. It was like ownership; it was a something as of maternal
pride, a something new to her which she could not fathom. She turned
away. When she looked out again, her eyes dry and burning, he was riding
slowly along the trail toward town.
It was the beginning of the end. Winter passed, with horses abandoned
for the delights, swift-following, of dinner and dance and house party.
These affairs made deep inroads upon Helen's time, and so Pat was left
pretty much to his own reflections.
Yet he managed to fill the days to his satisfaction. Standing in the
stable, he loved to watch the snow-capped mountains, and the tiny white
clouds scudding around them, and the mellow radiance of golden sunlight
streaming over them. Also, gazing out of the little square window, he
spent long periods in viewing the hard brown of the nearer mesaland--the
dips and dunes and thread-like arroyos, with an occasional horseman
crawling between. Or else, when he found himself yearning for his
mistress, he would turn eyes upon the house, and with lazy speculation
regard its sun-flecked windows, tightly shut doors, and smoking
chimneys, in the hope that she might step forth. Then came more mild
weather when he would spend long hours outside the stable, in his corner
in the corral, there to renew his silent vigil over nature and the house
from this vantage. Thus he filled his days, and found them not so long
as formerly in his babyhood, when each hour was fraught with so many
little things that demanded his closest interest and attention.
Nights found him early at rest. But not all nights. Nights there were
when the house would be lighted from cellar to garret, when spectral
forms would move in and out of doors, and when shadows would flicker
across drawn shades. Such nights were always his nights, for he would
hear sounds of merriment, and voices lifted in song, and above the
voices, tinkling toward him on the crisp air, the music of a piano. Such
nights were his nights, for he knew that his mistress was happy, and he
would force open the stable door, step out under the cold stars, and
take up his stand in his corner, there to rest his head upon the topmost
board and turn steady eyes upon the scene of merriment until the last
guest had departed.
Always on these nights, with wintry chills coursing down his legs or
rollicking along his spine, he found himself wanting to be a part of
this gaiety, wanting to enter the house, where he instinctively knew it
was warm and comfortable, where he might nuzzle the whole gathering for
sugar and apples. But this he could not do. He could only turn longing
eyes upon the cottage and stand there until, all too soon, sounds of
doors opening and closing, together with voices in cheery farewell, told
him that the party was at an end. Then he would see mysterious forms
flitting across to the trail, and lights in the house whisking out one
by one, until the cottage gradually became engulfed in darkness. Then,
but not till then, would he turn away from his corner, walk back slowly
into the stable, and, because of the open door, which he could open but
never close, suffer intensely from the cold throughout the long night.
One such occasion, when the round moon hung poised in the blue-black
dome of heaven, and he was standing as usual in his corner, with eyes
upon the brilliantly lighted house, he became suddenly aware of two
people descending the rear porch and making slowly toward him. At first
he did not recognize his own mistress and the young man who had been her
almost constant companion since that memorable fright on the mesa eight
months before. But as they drew closer, and he came to know the slender
form in white, he sounded a soft whinny of greeting and pressed eagerly
close to the fence. The pair came near, very near; but neither of them
paid the least attention to him--a fact which troubled him deeply. And
directly his mistress spoke, but, as she was addressing herself to the
young man, this troubled him even more. But he could listen, and listen
he did.
"Stephen," she was saying, "you _must_ accept my answer as final.
For you must know, Stephen," she went on, quietly, "that I have not
changed toward you. My answer to-night, and my answer to-morrow night,
and my answer for ever, in so far as I can see, will be what it was last
autumn. I am more than sorry that this is so. But it is so,
nevertheless." She was firm, though Pat, knowing her well, knew that it
required all the force of her trembling soul to give firmness to her
words.
Stephen felt something of this as he stood beside her in grim meekness.
With his hungry eyes upon her, he felt the despair of one sunk to utter
depths, of a man mentally and physically broken. For he loved this girl.
And it was this love, God-given, that made him persist. In the spell of
this love he realized that he was but a weak agent, uttering demands
given him to utter, and unable, through a force as mighty as Nature
herself, to do otherwise. Yet though he was utterly torn apart, he was
able, despite this mighty demand within him, to understand her
viewpoint. He had understood it from the first. But the craving within
would not let him accept it.
"I suppose," he rejoined, "that the one decent course for me would be to
drop all this. But somehow I can't. I love you that way, Helen! Don't
you understand? I cannot let go! I seem to be forced repeatedly to
make--make a boor of myself!" There was a moment's silence. "Yet I have
resisted it," he went on. "I have fought it--fought it with all the
power I have! But I--I somehow--cannot let go!"
Helen said nothing. She herself was coming to realize fully the depths
of this man's passion. She knew--knew as few women have known--that here
was a man who wanted her; but she knew also, and she was sorry to know
it, that she could not conscientiously give herself to him. She
regretted it not alone for his sake, but for her own as well. She liked
him, liked him better than any other man she had ever known. But she
knew that she could not marry him, and believed in her heart that her
reasons for refusing him were just reasons. But she remained silent,
true to her decision.
When Stephen spoke again it was not to plead with her; he seemed at last
to have accepted her refusal for all time. But he asked her reason for
absolutely refusing him--not that it mattered much now, since he faced
the inevitable, but thought the knowledge might in future guide and
strengthen him. He talked rapidly, hinting at beliefs and idolatries,
comparing West with East, and East with West, while he stood motionless,
one hand upon the fence--earnest, sincere, strong in his request. When
he had uttered his last sad word, Helen found herself, as she searched
his drawn profile pityingly, no more able to deny him an answer than at
the time of their first chance meeting she could have controlled the
fate which had brought it about.
"Stephen," she burst out, "I will tell you--though I don't want to tell
you--remember! And if in the telling," she hurried on, "I prove rather
too candid--please stop me! You will, won't you?"
He nodded listlessly.
"To begin with," she began, quietly, dreading her task, "we as a people
are selfish. We are isolated here--are far from the center of
things--but only certain things. We are quite our own center in certain
other ways. But we are selfish as regards advancement, and being selfish
in this way--being what we are and where we are--we live solely for that
advancement--for the privilege of doing what we will, and of knowing! It
is the first law of the country down here--of my people! We have aims
and aspirations and courage all peculiar to ourselves. And when we meet
your type, as I met you, we come--(Now, stop me when I get too
severe!)--we come to know our own values a little better--to respect
ourselves, perhaps--though perhaps, too, I shouldn't say it--a little
more. Not that you lack virtues, you Easterners, but they differ from
ours--and probably only in kind. And exactly what your type is you
yourself have made plain to me during our many little trips together in
the saddle. And--and now I fear I must become even more personal," she
broke off. "And I am very sorry that I must. Though I know you will
forgive me. You will, won't you?" And she looked up at him wistfully.
"You thought it might benefit you to know. This is only my opinion.
Others may not see it this way. But I am giving it for what it is, and I
am giving it only because you asked it and have asked it repeatedly."
He roused himself. "Go on," he said, with evident forced lightness. "I
see your viewpoint perfectly."
"Well," she resumed, hurriedly, "you lack ambition--a real ambition. You
have ridden horses, played tennis, idled about clubs. You were a coddled
and petted child, a pampered and spoiled youth. You attended a dozen
schools, and, to use your own language, were 'canned' out of all of
them. Which about sums up your activities. You have idled your time
away, and you give every promise of continuing. I regret that I must say
that, but I regret more deeply that it is true. You have many admirable
qualities. You have the greatest of all qualities--power for sincere
love. But in the qualities which make one acceptable down here--Wait!
I'll change that. In the qualities which would make one acceptable to me
you are lacking to a very considerable degree. And it is just there that
you fill me with the greatest doubt--doubt so grave, indeed, that I
cannot--and I use the verb advisedly--cannot permit myself to like you
in the way you want me to like you."
Again he bestirred himself. "What is that, please? What is that
quality?"
"I have tried to tell you," she rejoined, patiently. "It is a really
worth-while ambition. You lack the desire to do something, the desire to
be something--a desire that ought to have been yours, should have been
yours, years ago--the thing part and parcel of our blood down here. It
may take shape in any one of a hundred different things--business
ventures; personal prospectings; pursuit of art, science; raising
cattle--anything, Stephen! But something, something which will develop a
real value, both to yourself and to your fellow-man. We have it. We have
inherited it. We got it from our grandfathers--our great-grandfathers,
in a few cases--men who wanted to know--to learn--to learn by doing. It
is a powerful force. It must be a powerful force, it must have been
strong within them, for it dragged them out of the comforts of
civilization and led them into the desert. But they found what they
sought; and in finding what they sought they found themselves also. And
what they found--"
"Was something which, having drawn them forward to the frontier, filled
them with dislike for those who remained behind?"
"If you wish to put it that way--yes." Her answer was straight and
clean-cut.
"But what of those who remained behind?" asked Stephen, alert now.
"Surely the quality was there! It must be there yet! Those of the
old-timers who remained behind must have stayed simply because of
circumstances. Good men often curb the adventurous spirit out of sheer
conscientious regard for others who--"
"It is you, Stephen!" interrupted Helen, quietly. "It is you, yourself.
All Easterners are not like you, I well know. Yet you and your type are
found in all parts of the East."
Stephen stood for a long moment, his eyes fixed on the mystic skyline.
Then he turned to her as if about to speak. But there was only the
silent message of his longing eyes. Finally he turned away and, as if
unconsciously, fell to stroking the horse.
He had nothing to say, and he knew it. The girl was right, and he knew
that. She had pointed out to him only what others at different times had
mildly tried to make him see. He was a rich young man, or would be after
a death or two in his family. But that in itself was no excuse for his
inertia. Many had told him that. But he had never taken it seriously. It
had remained for the little woman beside him to make him fully realize
it. She alone had driven it home so that it hurt. Yet between this girl
and the others who had taken him mildly to task there was the difference
between day and darkness. For he loved this girl, and if she would not
marry him for reasons which he knew he could remedy, then it was up to
him to accept her criticism, which was perhaps a challenge, and go forth
and do something and be something, and reveal his love to her through
that effort. What it would be he did not know. He did know he must get
out of the town--get out of the Territory, if needs be--but he must go
somewhere in this country of worthy aspiration and live as he knew she
would have him live, do something, be something, something that for its
very worth to her as well as to all mankind would awaken her ready
response. Such a move he realized, as he stood beside her, would be as
decent in him as she in her criticism had been eloquently truthful. The
vigor, the relentless certainty, with which she had pointed out his
weakness--no one before had had the courage to deal with him like this.
And reviewing it all, and then casting grimly forward into his future,
he suddenly awoke, as he gently stroked this mettled horse, to a strange
likeness between the spirit of horse and mistress. He turned to Helen.
"You are very much alike," he declared--"you and your horse." Then he
paused as if in thought. "The spirit of the desert," he went on,
absently, "shows itself through all the phases of its life."
Helen brightened "I am glad you think that of us, Stephen," she
answered, as if relieved by this unexpected turn. "Pat is truly of the
desert. He was born and bred in this land of _amole_ and cactus."
"And you?" he asked.
"I also," she replied, gravely. "I too was born and bred in this land of
_amole_ and cactus." Suddenly she turned her head. "I am afraid
they are looking for us."
They returned to the house. Helen's guests were preparing to depart.
There was much high humor, and when the last but one was gone, and this
one, Stephen, standing on the porch with hat in hand, Helen found that
for the moment she had forgotten her distress. At sight of him, however,
it all returned to her, and she faced him with earnest solicitude.
"Tell me, Stephen," she burst out, "that you forgive me my unkind words,
and that you will try to forget them. But whether you succeed in that or
not, Stephen," she hastily added, her voice breaking, "tell me that you
will continue to be friendly. We want you, all of us--I want you! I have
enjoyed our rides together so much! They have meant much to me, and I
hope they have been enjoyable to you. So let us go on, on this accepted
basis, and be friends. Tell me you will, Stephen!"
He was silent a long time. Then he told her of his hastily made plans.
He was going away from town, of course. He could not remain, under the
circumstances. Yet where he was going he didn't know. He would go
farther West, probably--go somewhere and try to make good--try to do
something worth while, to be something worth while. Saying which, he
then thanked her fervently for everything--for her society, for her
frank criticism, for having awakened him to an understanding of himself.
Helen stood speechless. She had not anticipated this, that he would go
away, that he would leave her. A deep-surging bitterness gripped her,
and for a moment she almost relented. But only for a moment. The spell
passed, and she looked at him with frank, level eyes.
"I am sorry to hear that, Stephen," she declared, quietly. "We want you
with us--all of us. But--but tell me," she concluded, finding the words
coming with difficulty--"tell me that you feel no--no antagonism toward
me, Stephen, because I can't--can't love you as you want me to love you,
and that you understand that--that in deciding as I have I--I only
wanted to be true--true to both of us!"
For answer he seized both her hands in his. He gazed straight down into
her eyes. "I love you, Helen," he murmured, and then slowly released her
fingers.
He left her so quietly that she hardly knew that he was gone. A step on
the trail aroused her, and, lifting her eyes, she saw him striding away
with shoulders back and head erect, as if awakened to a new manhood. And
watching him go, as she felt, for the last time, she could no more
control a sob than he at the moment could turn back. For a while she
followed him with wistful eyes, then, finding sudden need for
consolation, she hurried off the porch and across to the corral. Pat was
there to receive her, and she flung her arms around his neck and gave
way to sudden tears.
"Pat," she sobbed, "I--perhaps I do love him! Perhaps I have done wrong!
I--I--" She interrupted herself. "What shall I do, Pat?" she burst out,
bitterly. "Oh, what shall I do?"
Pat could not advise her. But he remained very still, supporting her
weight with dumb patience, until she turned away, going slowly back into
the house. Then he pressed close into his corner and sounded a shrill,
protracted nicker.
That was all.
He saw the door close. He waited, pursuing his old habit, for all the
lights to go out. And directly they began to disappear, one by one,
first in the lower half of the house, then in the upper half, until all
save one were extinguished. This one, as he knew from long experience,
was in the room of his mistress. But though he waited and watched till
the moon slanted behind the western hills, and the stars to the east
dimmed and faded, and the gray of dawn stole across the sky above the
mountains--though he waited and watched till his legs ached from long
standing, and his eyes smarted from their steady vigil, and the Mexican
appeared yawning from the depths of the stable, and from over toward
town rose sounds of worldly activity--yet the light in her room burned
on. Then the Mexican drove him into the stable. But not even now did he
abandon his vigil. He entered his box-stall, with its tiny square
window, and fixed his troubled gaze again upon the house. The sky was
bright with coming day. From somewhere arose the crow of a rooster. Out
on the river trail a team plodded slowly to market.
But the light in the room was still burning.