“You _must_ listen! I will not place you in my debt. But you have placed
me in yours. You must be fair to me. You must let me help you by paying
my debt to you. I promise you I will do more than that. But oh, you must
be fair to me!”
She would not look at me. I had her right forearm and hand in the grip
of my hot, trembling hands. Her left elbow rested on the iron railing of
the balcony, her chin on her hand. And her eyes roved off over the roofs
of the Chinese houses, over the walls and trees of the Legation Quarter,
off southward toward the temple of Heaven that stood somewhere there
behind the trees and the starlit sky above it.
More and more my thoughts were slipping out of control. I struggled to
hold them, but could not. I had never in my life felt like this.
“You must not let the fact that I love you confuse your sense of
justice,” I went on, quite as if she and I had long known and admitted
my love for her. “That is another matter altogether. Except in this--I
know now that as long as I live I shall want to help you. This is quite
beyond your control, or mine. It simply happens to be so. And it does
seem to me that since it is so, you can at least let me help you to the
extent that is practically and impersonally fair.”
It was curious how the mere utterance of those three words, “I love
you,” cleared my mind. It explained everything. It relieved me by
extricating me from all uncertainty of thought and feeling. It thrilled
me, deeply and solemnly. I wanted to say it over and over and over. I
wanted to take her into my arms and whisper it into one ear and then
into the other. I wanted to whisper it to the stars up there, the stars
that have heard so much. I wanted to go over to the big hotel in the
Quarter, where there would be bright lights and tourists and gilded
military folk and gay ladies, and say it so that all might hear and
share the thrill of it.
My talk dwindled out. What part had more argument in _this?_ My grip on
her arm relaxed; I held only to her unresponsive hand, and leaned on the
railing beside her.
For a long, long time we were still there. Then, finally she withdrew
her hand.
I looked at her and saw that her eyes were shining, and there were tears
on her cheek.
“Oh,” she murmured, “why--why--could n't we have gone on!”
“You don't mean that we can't go on!” said I.
She looked full at me, and inclined her head. To-day she has had more
color, her face has not had so much of the worn, tired look. But now, by
the half-light that fell on her from the window, I saw that it had all
returned. She was very sad, very tired.
“You have spoken.” she said, “of money--and of love. Oh, I wish you had
n't!”
Then she must have read my feelings on my face, for she put her hand on
my arm and added--
“I did not mean to hurt you. It has been beautiful. You don't know--even
you, you don't know. You almost made life mean something again. Nothing
that I could ever do would pay you back for that. It made me almost
happy--just to be useful. All my life I have wanted to be that. And they
have made a toy of me. Or they have wanted me to do something I could
n't do. You have helped me to do what I can do.”
“It _has_ been beautiful,” I thought. Or perhaps I said it aloud, for
she inclined her head again.
“It has been like a dream,” she said. “I know it could n't be so, but
oh, how I have clung to it! I have blundered so with my life... but this
seemed real.”
“It is real,” said I.
She looked away.
Again for a time we stood silently there, and looked out over the
curving tile roofs.
And again I felt that she was slipping away from me. It was good that I
had spoken my love.
That would stay in her thoughts. Perhaps it would grow there. Perhaps
the magic that was stirring wonderfully in my heart would touch and
stir her heart. I knew at that moment that I loved her more than all the
world--more than my work, more than my life. I knew, with exultation,
that I was plunging out into uncharted ways, where lives are as often
wrecked as not. And I did not care. I was glad.
Her shoulder brushed mine, as we leaned side by side on the railing.
There was sheer intoxication in that contact. I raised my arm, fairly
holding my breath, and put it about her shoulders. I caught her two
hands, there by her chin. I saw lights, trees, sky in a swirl of happy
things. A voice was thrilling in my heart. I gripped her tightly, and
tried to kiss her. But she struggled. She tried to push me away. She
fought me.
And then, as I staggered back, the tears came from my own eyes, blinding
me.
She ran back into my room, and stood there.
I followed. “It was in my heart to do it!” I was saying, like a fool.
“It was in my heart to do it!”
She dropped on a chair, very limp and white. She motioned me to take
another.
“You must not be like the others,” she was saying, in a desperate,
choking voice--“you must not! I can't bear it!”
I could not think. “I am not,” I replied, low--“I am not. I love you.
You shall see.”
This was getting us nowhere. Her eyes were dry now, and oh, so sad and
tired. She was slowly shaking her head at me.
“You are killing--everything!” she said. But she said it gently.
I could not speak, I only looked at her--looked and looked. Then I went
over to the phonograph and worked aimlessly over it. I think I wound it
up.
She still sat there, her hands limp in her lap.
Finally she said, in a low voice that was y et steady--“I wish I could
love you.”
“You can,” I muttered. “You shall!”
She slowly shook her head. “No,” she breathed.
“But you must,” I went on. “It is the only thing now. It is the one way
out for you and me.”
This had some effect on her. She pursed her lips, and thought.
But after a little she shook her head again, and made that listless
gesture of her left hand that she had made that first day, when I broke
into her room.
“Something has died in me,” she said. “I don't believe I can ever love a
man again.”
She rose, and moved toward her own room. On the sill she paused, and
picked at the flaking paint of the door frame.
“I do not believe it is the only way out,” she said. “You will get over
it, of course.” Then, at the shake of my head, she corrected--“At least,
you will have your work, and the feeling that you are getting somewhere
with your life. I should think that would be the one great thing, after
all. And I shall at least know that I am not hurting another life.
I hurt everybody, that cares for me. If I could--love you, I should
undoubtedly hurt you.”
“Wait,” said I, “we will go on with our work, at least--in the morning.”
She pursed her lips again. “I don't know,” she replied, as if she were
thinking aloud, “whether that is possible.”
“It must be possible!”
She shook her head. “You will have to let me think about that.”
Then she closed the door, and was gone.
I had meant to give her my life. I had only succeeded in taking away
from her that part of it that had been helpful to her.
I find it difficult to reconstruct the hour that followed. I remember
standing a long while by the window. Once I went to her door, just so
that I might hear her moving about her room. But as I stood there it
seemed like an intrusion, and I came away.
Many, many things that I might have said to her came rushing to my
thoughts. I wanted to say them now. I wanted to go right into her room
and say them.
All the time my heart was beating very rapidly, and my blood was hot.
Love, it seems, is like a fever. I never knew this before. I have always
thought it a weakness when I have seen what men call love apparently
devastating a life. Now I see that I must correct this judgment. For
love is a force that operates beyond the jurisdiction of reason or will.
I begin to think that I must expect less assistance from my own reason
than heretofore.
That long, wild hour of my solitude somehow passed. It occurred to me to
go outdoors. I picked up my hat and stick. Then, irresolute, I moved to
the window and looked out over the city.
While I stood there Sir Robert came up the stairs. I heard his ponderous
step, more hurried than usual, come along the corridor. There was a
silence while, I knew, he was fumbling for his key. Then a jingling, and
the sound of his door opening.
I think that an old man is the structure his younger self has built. How
badly this man has built. Myself, often when tempted to do this or that,
I have thought--“Will it make toward a sweet old age?”
He had talked to me cynically of love, had Sir Robert, only a few hours
ago. What would he say now if he knew the immensity of the forces he had
stirred and brought to the surface of my consciousness. I smiled as
I thought that perhaps I owe much to that old man. I almost wanted to
thank him.
So I stood there by the window, thinking many things. And the April air
was sweet.
After a little time I started for my walk, my second walk this day under
stress of great emotion. But in the course of the few hours intervening
I had crossed a line. The man who was now about to step lightly down the
stairs and stroll out through the shabby office of the hotel was a new
man, one who had never before gone down those stairs or out through that
office.
I lingered a moment by her door. I could hear her light step. And she
was humming--oh, so softly! Humming another song by her favorite, Franz.
It was the dainty, exquisite--=
```“Madchen mit dem roten Mündchen.”=
It seemed to me that there was a new brightness in her voice.