FOR ALWAYS
In the little room upstairs, where less than an hour before she had
dressed in happy excitement, Kate tore off the paper flowers and wild
rose pods. She threw them in a heap on the floor--the cherished mitts,
the bunting dress--while she sobbed in a child's abandonment, with the
tears running unchecked down her cheeks. The music floating up the
stairway and through the transom, the scuffling sound of sliding feet,
added to her grief. She had wanted, oh, how she had wanted to dance!
The thought that Hughie had suffered humiliation because of her was
little short of torture. But he had not deserted her--he had stuck--even
in her misery she gloried in that--and how handsome he had looked! Why,
there was not a man in the room that could compare with him! His
clothes, the way he had borne himself, the something different about him
which she could not analyze. It was a woman's pride that shone in her
swollen red-lidded eyes as she told herself this, while she pinned on
her shabby Stetson in trembling haste, buckled the spurs on her boots
and snatched up her ugly mackinaw.
Hugh was waiting for her in the office below.
The horses were tied to the hitching rack. Kate gulped down the lump
that rose in her throat as she swung into the saddle. The orchestra was
playing the "Blue Danube," and she especially loved that waltz. The
strains followed them up the street, and tears she could not keep back
fell on the horse's mane as she drooped a little over the saddlehorn.
She looked down through dimmed eyes upon the lights streaming from the
windows of the Prouty House, as they climbed the steep pitch to the
bench above town, and the alluring brightness increased the aching
heaviness of her heart, for she felt that she was leaving all they
represented behind her forever. She knew she never could find the
courage to risk going through such an ordeal again.
A childhood without playmates had created a longing for companionship
that was pathetic in its eagerness, and the yearning had not been
modified by the isolation and monotony of her present life. To dance, to
be merry, to have the opportunity to please, seemed the most important
thing in the world to the girl and now she seemed to realize, in
mutinous despair, that through no fault of her own she was going to be
cheated of that which was her right--of that which was every girl's
right--to have the pleasures which belonged to her years.
Kate's standards were the standards of the old west and of the mountains
and plains, which take only personal worth into account, so she did not
yet comprehend clearly what it was all about. She herself had done
nothing to merit such treatment from people whose names she did not even
know. She rode for a long time without speaking, trying, in her tragic
bewilderment, to puzzle it out.
The silence was in painful contrast to the high spirits in which they
had ridden into town. Then, they had found so much to talk about, so
much to anticipate--and it had all turned out to be so different, so far
removed from anything they had dreamed. Each shrank from being the first
to broach the subject of their humiliating retreat.
The moon came up after a while, full and mellow, and the night air
cooled Kate's flaming cheeks. The familiar stars, too, soothed her like
the presence of old friends, but, more than anything, the accustomed
motion of her horse, as it took its running walk, helped to restore her
mental poise.
At the top of a hill both drew rein automatically. Walking down steep
descents to save their horses and themselves was an understood thing
between them. At the bottom they still trudged on, leading their horses
and exchanging only an occasional word upon some subject far removed
from their real thoughts. It was Kate who finally said with seeming
irrelevance:
"Uncle Joe brought home two collie puppies once--fat, roly-poly little
things that didn't do anything but play and eat, and they were--oh, so
innocent! They were into everything, and always under foot, afraid of
nothing or nobody, because they never had been hurt.
"One night a storm came up--a cold rain that was almost snow. They ran
into my tent and settled themselves on my pillow all shivering and wet.
In squirming around to make a nest for themselves they pulled my hair.
It made me cross. I was half asleep and I slapped them.
"They paid no attention to it at first--they couldn't believe I meant
it, so they kept on trying to cuddle up to me to get warm. I slapped
them harder. They whimpered, but still they couldn't realize that I
meant to hurt them. Finally, I struck them--hard--again and again--until
they howled with pain. They understood finally that they were not
wanted--and they went crying and whimpering out into the rain.
"It awakened me, thinking what I had done, how they had come to me so
innocent--taking kindness as a matter of course because they never had
known anything else, and I had been the first to hurt them. I was the
first to spoil their confidence in others--and themselves. I couldn't
sleep for thinking of it, and finally I got up, and, to punish myself,
went out barefooted into the storm and brought them back. They forgave
me and soon settled down, but they never were quite the same, for they
had learned what pain was and what it meant to be afraid.
"When I went there to-night I was like those puppies, just as green and
confident--just as sure of everybody's kindness."
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Katie," he replied in a low tone.
"I don't mean to whine," she went on, "but you see I wasn't expecting
it, and, like the puppies, it took me a long time to understand. I
thought at first it was my dress--that I looked--funny, somehow; but you
said it wasn't that, so I thought maybe it was because we were 'in
sheep,' but so is Neifkins, and nobody treated them as they did me."
"The upstarts!" savagely. "I'll never forgive myself for taking you
there!"
She protested quickly:
"You're not to blame. How could you know? You meant to do something nice
for me, Hughie."
He winced at that. It would have required more courage than he had to
have told her at the moment the exact truth.
He held the horses back and stopped suddenly.
"Katie," turning to her, "I'd do anything in the world to make amends
for what happened to-night. Isn't there some way--something I can do for
you? Anything at all," he pleaded. "Just tell me--no matter what it
is--you've only to let me know."
She looked at him with grateful eyes, but shook her head.
"No, Hughie, there's nothing you can do for me." She caught her breath
sharply and added, "Ex--except to go on liking me. It would break my
heart if you went back on me, too."
"Kate!"
"If you didn't like me any more--" She choked and the swift tears filled
her eyes.
"Like you!" impetuously. "I'd do more than like you if I never had seen
you before to-night!" He dropped the bridle reins and laid a hand on
either shoulder, holding her at arms' length. "Your eyes are like stars!
And your mouth looks so--sweet! And your hair is so soft and pretty when
the wind blows it across your forehead and face like that! I wish you
could see yourself. You're beautiful in the moonlight, Kate!"
"Beautiful?" incredulously. Then she laughed happily, "Why, I'm not even
pretty, Hughie."
"And what's more," he declared, "you're a wonderful girl--different--a
fellow never gets tired of being with you."
"You are making up to me for what happened to-night! I nearly forget it
when you tell me things like that."
"I didn't know how much I did care until they hurt you. I could have
killed somebody if it wouldn't have made things worse for you."
"As much as that?" She looked at him wistfully. "You care as much as
that? You see," she added slowly, "nobody's ever taken my part except
Uncle Joe--not even my mother; and it seems--queer to think that anybody
else likes me well enough to fight for me."
The unconscious pathos went straight to the boy's chivalrous heart.
"Oh, Honey!" he cried impulsively, and taking her hand in both of his he
held it tight against his breast.
Her eyes grew luminous at the word and the caress.
"Honey!" she repeated in a wondering whisper. "I like that."
Her lids lowered before the new and strange expression in his face.
"You've always seemed so independent and self-reliant, like another
fellow, somehow. I didn't know you were so sweet. I'm just finding you
out."
She looked at him before replying, but he trembled before the soft light
shining in her eyes.
He stood for a moment uncertainly, fighting for his self-control, then,
casting off restraint, he threw his arms about her, crying passionately:
"I love you! I love you, Katie! There's nobody like you in the whole
world. Kiss me--Sweet!"
She drew back startled, looking into his eyes. Her own seemed to melt
under what she saw there, and she slowly lifted her lips. When she could
speak--
"You'll love me for always, Hughie?"
"For always," huskily. "For ever and ever, Katie."