"Are you afraid? Let me stay."
"Oh, no, no. His mother is sleeping, and I shall have your book."
She did not ask him in, and so he went away at once, beating his way
back in the wind and rain, fording a little stream where the low
foot-bridge was covered, reaching home soaking wet, but afire with
dreams.
Otto Brand was waiting for him, a little curious as to what had taken
him out so late, but, getting no satisfaction, he followed Van Alen
up-stairs, and built a fire for him in the big bedroom. And presently,
in the light of the leaping flames, the roses on the canopy of the bed
glowed pink.
"Ain't you goin' to sleep in the bed?" Otto asked, as he watched Van
Alen arrange the covers on the couch.
"No," said Van Alen shortly, "the honor is too great. It might keep me
awake."
"My feet would hang over," Otto said. "Funny thing, wasn't it, for a man
to make a will like that?"
"I suppose every man has a right to do as he pleases," Van Alen
responded coldly. He was not inclined to discuss the eccentricities of
his little old ancestor with this young giant.
"Of course," Otto agreed, and his next remark was called forth by Van
Alen's pale blue pajamas.
"Well, those are new on me."
Van Alen explained that in the city they were worn, and that silk was
cool, but while he talked he was possessed by a kind of fury. For the
first time the delicate garments, the luxurious toilet articles packed
in his bag, seemed foppish, unnecessary, things for a woman. With all of
them, he could not compete with this fair young god, who used a rough
towel and a tin basin on the kitchen bench.
"Maybe I'd better go," the boy offered. "You'll want to go to bed."
But Van Alen held him. "I always smoke first," he said, and, wrapped in
his dressing-gown, he flung himself into a chair on the opposite side of
the fireplace.
And after a time he brought the conversation around to Mazie Wetherell.
He found the boy rather sure of his success with her.
"All women are alike," he said; "you've just got to keep after them long
enough."
To Van Alen the idea of this hulking youngster as a suitor for such a
woman seemed preposterous. He was not fit to touch the hem of her
garment. He was unmannerly, uneducated; he was not of her class--and
even as he analyzed, the boy stood up, perfect in his strong young
manhood.
"I've never had much trouble making women like me," he said; "and I
ain't goin' to give up, just because she thinks she's better than the
rest round about here."
He went away, and Van Alen stared long into the fire, until the flames
left a heart of opal among the ashes.
He had not been unsuccessful with women himself. Many of them had liked
him, and might have loved him if he had cared to make them. But until
he met Mazie Wetherell he had not cared.
Desperately he wished for some trial of courage where he might be
matched against Otto Brand. He grew melodramatic in his imaginings, and
saw himself at a fire, fighting the flames to reach Mazie, while Otto
Brand shrank back. He stood in the path of runaway horses, and Otto
showed the white feather. He nursed her through the plague, and Otto
fled fearfully from the disease.
And then having reached the end of impossibilities, he stood up and
shook himself.
"I'm a fool," he said to the flames, shortly, and went to bed, to lie
awake, wondering whether Mazie Wetherell had reached that chapter of his
book where he had written of love, deeply, reverently, with a
foreknowledge of what it might mean to him some day. It was that chapter
which had assured the success of his novel. Would it move her, as it had
moved him when he reread it? That was what love ought to be--a thing
fine, tender, touching the stars! That was what love might be to him, to
Mazie Wetherell, what it could never be to Otto Brand.
At breakfast the next morning he found Mrs. Brand worrying about her
waitress.
"I guess she couldn't get back, and I've got a big day's work."
"I'll go and look her up," Van Alen offered; but he found that he was
not to go alone, for Otto was waiting for him at the gate.
"I ain't got nothin' else to do," the boy said; "everything is held up
by the rain."
It was when they came to the little stream that Van Alen had forded the
night before that they saw Mazie Wetherell.
"I can't get across," she called from the other side.
The bridge, which had been covered when Van Alen passed, was now washed
away, and the foaming brown waters overflowed the banks.
"I'll carry you over," Otto called, and straightway he waded through the
stream, and the water came above his high boots to his hips.
He lifted her in his strong arms and brought her back, with her bright
hair fluttering against his lips, and Van Alen, raging impotently, stood
and watched him.
It seemed to him that Otto's air was almost insultingly triumphant as he
set the girl on her feet and smiled down at her. And as she smiled back,
Van Alen turned on his heel and left them.
Presently he heard her running after him lightly over the sodden ground.