LOVE
When Dicky strolled in at eight, his old immaculate, nonchalant self,
it was hard for her to believe that he was the same man she had seen
a few hours before smudge-covered and in greasy overalls. As she came
forward excitedly to greet him, her big eyes were full of questions.
“Tell me,” she said eagerly, “from the beginning.”
His own eyes took fire at the beauty of her. In all the years he had
known her he had never seen her look fairer. She was all she had ever
been at her best and something more. It was that something more that
puzzled him. It was as though all her superficial charms had suddenly
grown deeper—as though her eyes, always deep, had now become like
one of those bottomless lakes in the mountains, and her lips, always
tender, had taken on the infinite tenderness of a mother. He had come
prepared to put all the past behind him, and he found it intensified.
“I’d rather forget it all—with you,” he answered.
“Why?” she asked directly.
The reason was that he felt a man ought never to come to her except
with tales of success—with reports of good fortune. A lady does not
care to hear from her knight of reversals. And yet as he looked into
those new depths he found it difficult to express this in any way that
would not hurt her.
“It isn’t pleasant reading,” he replied awkwardly.
“You are ashamed?” she asked in astonishment.
“No,” replied Dicky quickly. “Not that.”
“Then tell me.”
He sat down opposite her and leaned forward with his hands clasped over
his knees. He wanted to make the recital as brief as possible.
“After all, it’s an old story,” he said. “Dad took a turn at the market
and got cleaned out. It was necessary to cash in everything to pay up.
That left us broke so we moved to a flat in Brooklyn and I took a job
with the new firm to learn the business. Now tell me about yourself.
How did you happen to drift in there?”
“I came in with Mr. Devons. Don’t you remember him?”
Dicky squinted his eyes a moment.
“Seems to me I saw him somewhere once.”
“He was at the house. He is the man I—I almost ran over.”
“Good Lord, is that the fellow?”
“He is the man for whom I borrowed the money. Why, he’s a partner of
yours, Dicky.”
He looked puzzled.
“A partner of mine?”
“When I took the money I agreed to make you a silent partner. So you’re
a partner of mine and a partner of his. You and I have between us a
one-third interest.”
Dicky rose to his feet.
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” he exclaimed. “Then I’ll be able to pay back
that five thousand to dad!”
“You went to him for it?”
“I had no other place to go.”
“You can pay back that and a great deal more besides. Why, Mark says—”
“Mark?” he interrupted.
The color came to her cheeks.
“Mr. Devons,” she explained. “He expects to make his fortune on his
share.”
“Then dad ought to make half a fortune,” he nodded.
“Only it’s really yours.”
“Mine? I’d have a nerve to claim it. Why, it was all on account of me
that he got into the hole.”
He had said too much and realized it the next second when she pressed
him to go on.
“Somehow,” he faltered ahead,—“somehow dad thinks a lot of me. I’m sort
of a weakness of his. One day I got to telling of something I wanted
a whole lot—something I wanted more than I’d ever wanted anything. So
what does he do but try to get it for me. He figured it would take
several million, and had it all worked out on a pad how he could get
that. Only he didn’t get it. Instead the other fellows got all he had.
I guess it’s up to me now to return what I can.”
“Was what you wanted—as valuable as all that?”
“If dad had made all he set out to make and then doubled that, what I
wanted would have been worth it and more if I could have got it,” he
answered earnestly.
“But what—”
“The chance has passed, anyway,” he concluded. “But I want to get back
to him and tell him about this. He’s worried and that interferes with
his golf.”
Apparently he had recovered his old good-humor.
“You ought to see dad playing golf,” he smiled. “He has taken off
fifteen pounds already. It’s doing him a world of good, but I couldn’t
see how I was going to manage it much longer on twelve dollars a week.
But if he’s going to get dividends—why, he thought I lost that five
thousand the first week!”
“And you?”
“I thought so, too,” he admitted.
“You—you didn’t have much confidence in me, Dicky.”
“Not as a business woman,” he confessed. “And here you come out ahead
of the whole crowd of us.”
He met her eyes a moment.
“Joan,” he trembled, “if you go ahead and reveal any more talents or
anything, I won’t be able to stand it.”
“Stand what?” she demanded.
“You. Just your wonderful self. You make a man dizzy.”
“But, Dicky—” she began gently.
He turned away from her.
“Good-night,” he said abruptly. “I must go.”
It’s a pity that he did not look once again into the depths of those
eyes, for there was something in them at that moment it would have done
his soul good to see.
And it remained there as she sat on alone long after he had gone. As
the realization of what it was seeped to the very heart of her, it
quickened her pulse and glorified her face until she felt as though
suddenly she had stepped out of the shade into the full beat of the
living sun. For a little while she gave herself up to the sheer magic
warmth of it without daring to look about—without daring to give it a
name. So one awakens sometimes in the month of May, scarcely venturing
to awaken fully lest the celestial chorus of bird songs and blossom
fragrance and the springtime radiance of golden light vanish. But
insistently the word she tried to suppress—the word that expressed
it all—worked its way through her consciousness to her lips, until
finally, very gently, she whispered it. Such a tiny word it was to mean
so much. Such a soft, tender word it was to harbor such creative power.
Love! One could pronounce it between heart-beats on the tag end of a
breath. A sigh took more effort. And yet, when once pronounced, how
it sent her blood to racing—how it put her in touch with the stars in
their firmament, how it made her one with the eternal verities of life,
even of death!
She rose and faced him where he had been. With her head back and her
two arms stretching out unconsciously, she whispered, “Dicky!”
That was all she said, and yet it meant as much as that other word. The
two words meant the same. Love was one word and Dicky was the other.
And they meant the same thing. They stood for the same thing. They were
synonymous.
But as soon as she admitted this her cheeks turned a flaming scarlet
and she looked about as though afraid of being seen. She raised one
hand to her lips as though cautioning them to be careful. Because in a
way she had no right to utter his name as she had. He had said nothing
of love. He had come at her bidding and hurried away as soon as he
could. Once, a few months back, he had spoken, but she had silenced
him. Much had happened since then. Much had happened to them both.
Her thoughts went back to Dicky as he had lifted his face all smudged
when she came upon him in the factory. He was in greasy overalls. He
was so disguised that one would have thought she could not recognize
him, and yet it was at that moment she seemed to pierce externals to
the heart of him. With only his eyes to look into, she had looked so
far into them that she had come upon the man himself. Once before she
had glimpsed this man—when uncovered in the snow he had stood by the
door of the limousine and sworn her allegiance. The two men were the
same. The man who had been with her this evening was the same.
So the burn left her cheeks and she raised her head again.
To herself she said:
“Dicky, I can’t help it. Dicky, I—I love you.”
It was a pity he was not there to hear.