"I 'low," she reported, "He'll shake His head in a minute."
'Twas a tender way to break ill news.
"Ay," she sighed, opening her eyes. "He've gone an' done it. I knowed
it. He've said I hadn't better not. I'm wonderful sorry you've t' lack
the kiss, Dannie. I'm wonderful sorry, Dannie," she repeated, in a
little quiver of pity, "for _you_!"
She was pitiful: there's no forgetting that compassion, its tearful
concern and wistfulness. I was bewildered. More wishful beseeching
must surely have softened a Deity with a sunburned nose and a double
chin! Indeed, I was bewildered by this fantasy of weeping and
nonsense. For the little break in her voice and the veil of tears upon
her eyes I cannot account. 'Twas the way she had as a maid: and
concerning this I have found it folly to speculate. Of the boundaries
of sincerity and pretence within her heart I have no knowledge. There
was no pretence (I think); 'twas all reality--the feigning and the
feeling--for Judith walked in a confusion of the truths of life with
visions. There came a time--a moment in our lives--when there was no
feigning. 'Twas a kiss besought; and 'twas kiss or not, as between a
man and a maid, with no Almighty in tweed knickerbockers conveniently
at hand to shoulder the blame. Ah, well, Judith! the golden,
mote-laden shaft which transfigured your childish loveliness into
angelic glory, the encompassing shadows, the stirring of the day
without, the winds of blue weather blowing upon the hills, are
beauties faded long ago, the young denial a pain almost forgot. The
path we trod thereafter, Judith, is a memory, too: the days and nights
of all the years since in the streaming sunlight of that afternoon the
lad that was I looked upon you to find the shadowy chambers of your
eyes all misty with compassion.
* * * * *
"Dannie," she ventured, softly, "you're able t' take it."
"Ay--but will not."
"You're wonderful strong, Dannie, an' I'm but a maid."
"I'll wrest no kisses," said I, with a twitch of scorn, "from maids."
She smiled. 'Twas a passing burst of rapture, which, vanishing, left
her wan and aged beyond her years.
"No," she whispered, but not to me, "he'd _not_ do that. He'd not--do
that! An' I'd care little enough for the Dannie Callaway that would."
"You cares little enough as 'tis," said I. "You cares nothing at all.
You cares not a jot."
She smiled again: but now as a wilful, flirting maid. "As for carin'
for _you_, Dannie," she mused, dissembling candor, "I _do_--an' I
don't."
The unholy spell that a maid may weave! The shameless trickery of
this!
"I'll tell you," she added, "the morrow."
And she would keep me in torture!
"There'll be no to-morrow for we," I flashed, in a passion. "You cares
nothing for Dannie Callaway. 'Tis my foot," I cried, stamping in rage
and resentment. "'Tis my twisted foot. I'm nothin' but a cripple!"
She cried out at this.
"A limpin' cripple," I groaned, "t' be laughed at by all the maids o'
Twist Tickle!"
She began now softly to weep. I moved towards the ladder--with the
will to abandon her.
"Dannie," she called, "take the kiss."