"Oh, Hugo! don't be so ungenerous," she said. "Don't be so--so----"
She hesitated, apparently unable to continue.
"Ungenerous or not," I said, "damn the words, Teresa, this isn't a
time to weigh words. It isn't in flesh and blood to come back. I
can't come back. Put yourself in my place."
"Some day you'll thank me," she said.
"Very possibly," I returned. "Nobody knows what may not happen.
It's conceivable, of course, I might go down on my bended knees,
but really, from the way I feel at this moment, I do not think
it's likely."
"You want to punish me for liking you," she said.
"Teresa," I said, "I have told you already that you are right. You
insist on saving me from a humiliating position. I respect your
courage and your straightforwardness. You remind me of an ancient
Spartan having it out with a silly ass of a stranger who took
advantage of her parents' good-nature. I am as little vain, I
think, as any man, and as free from pettiness and idiotic pride--
but you mustn't ask the impossible. You mustn't expect the whipped
dog to come back. When I go it will be for ever."
"Then go," she said, and looked me straight in the eyes.
"I have only one thing to ask," I said. "Smooth it over to your
father and mother. I am very fond of your father and mother,
Teresa; I don't want them to think I've acted badly, or that I
have ceased to care for them. Tell them the necessary lies, you
know."
"I will tell them," she said.
"Then good-bye," I said, rising. "I suppose I am acting like a
baby to feel so sore. But I am hurt."
"Good-bye, Hugo," she said.
I went to the door and down the stairs. She followed and stood
looking after me the length of the hall as I slowly put on my hat
and coat. That was the last I saw of her, in the shadow of a palm,
her girlish figure outlined against the black behind. I walked
into the street with a heart like lead, and for the first time in
my life I began to feel I was growing old.
I have been from my youth up an easy-going man, a drifter, a
dawdler, always willing to put off work for play. But for once I
pulled myself together, looked things in the face, and put my back
to the wheel. I was determined to repay that nine hundred dollars,
if I had to cut every dinner-party for the rest of the season. I
was determined to repay it, if I had to work as I had never worked
before. My first move was to change my address. I didn't want
Uncle Gingersnaps ferreting me out, and Mrs. Grossensteck weeping
on my shoulder. My next was to cancel my whole engagement book. My
third, to turn over my wares and to rack my head for new ideas.
I had had a long-standing order from Granger's Weekly for a
novelette. I had always hated novelettes, as one had to wait so
long for one's money and then get so little; but in the humour I
then found myself I plunged into the fray, if not with enthusiasm,
at least with a dogged perseverance that was almost as good.
Granger's Weekly liked triviality and dialogue, a lot of fuss
about nothing and a happy ending. I gave it to them in a heaping
measure. Dixie's Monthly, from which I had a short-story order,
set dialect above rubies. I didn't know any dialect, but I
borrowed a year's file and learned it like a lesson. They wrote
and asked me for another on the strength of "The Courting of
Amandar Jane." The Permeator was keen on Kipling and water, and I
gave it to them--especially the water. Like all Southern families
the Dundonalds had once had their day. I had travelled everywhere
when I was a boy, and so I accordingly refreshed my dim memories
with some modern travellers and wrote a short series for The
Little Gentleman; "The Boy in the Carpathians," "The Boy in Old
Louisiana," "A Boy in the Tyrol," "A Boy in London," "A Boy in
Paris," "A Boy at the Louvre," "A Boy in Corsica," "A Boy in the
Reconstruction." I reeled off about twenty of them and sold them
to advantage.
It was a terribly dreary task, and I had moments of revolt when I
stamped up and down my little flat and felt like throwing my
resolution to the winds. But I stuck tight to the ink-bottle and
fought the thing through. My novelette, strange to say, was good.
Written against time and against inclination, it has always been
regarded since as the best thing I ever did, and when published in
book form outran three editions.
I made a thundering lot of money--for me, I mean, and in
comparison to my usual income--seldom under five hundred dollars a
month and often more. In eleven weeks I had repaid Grossensteck
and had a credit in the bank. Nine hundred dollars has always
remained to me as a unit of value, a sum of agonising significance
not lightly to be spoken of, the fruits of hellish industry and
self-denial. All this while I had had never a word from the
Grossenstecks. At least they wrote to me often--telephoned--
telegraphed--and my box at the club was choked with their letters.
But I did not open a single one of them, though I found a pleasure
in turning them over and over, and wondering as to what was within
them. There were several in Teresa's fine hand, and these
interested me most of all and tantalised me unspeakably. There was
one of hers, cunningly addressed to me in a stranger's writing
that I opened inadvertently; but I at once perceived the trick and
had the strength of mind to throw it in the fire unread.
Perhaps you will wonder at my childishness. Sometimes I wondered
at it myself. But the wound still smarted, and something stronger
than I seemed to withhold me from again breaking the ice. Besides,
those long lonely days, and those nights, almost as long in the
retrospect, when I lay sleepless on my bed, had shown me I had
been drifting into another peril no less dangerous than
dependence. I had been thinking too much of the girl for my own
good, and our separation had brought me to a sudden realisation of
how deeply I was beginning to care for her. I hated her, too, the
pitiless wretch, so there was a double reason for me not to go
back.
One night as I had dressed to dine out and stepped into the
street, looking up at the snow that hid the stars and silenced
one's footsteps on the pavement, a woman emerged from the gloom,
and before I knew what she was doing, had caught my arm. I shook
her off, thinking her a beggar or something worse, and would have
passed on my way had she not again struggled to detain me. I
stopped, and was on the point of roughly ordering her to let me
go, when I looked down into her veiled face and saw that it was
Teresa Grossensteck.
"Hugo!" she said. "Hugo!"