LOVE'S INSOLENCE
The easy impudence, the loving insolence, the large, feudal lord air of
proprietorship, of the man who has just come into possession of the one
woman is sometimes a development beyond belief. Reprehensible,
certainly.
Stafford had not slept much. All night he had lain awake, trying to
realize what it was that had come to him, the beneficence of Providence,
the magnitude of what earth has sometimes to give. It was only with dawn
that he slept at all, and his dreams were good. As for her, the Far Away
Lady, who shall tell what thoughts or dreams were hers?
He came into the dining car that morning, refreshed and exalted, and
overlooking and sweeping as an eagle in his first morning swing from his
eyrie. He was splendidly intolerable, this triumphant lover who had
recovered his equipoise and was himself of the years ago. Any lofty
simile would do for him. He came stalking in like a king to a
coronation, with but one redeeming feature to the look upon his face,
an expression which resembled gratitude. And who was it that entered the
car a moment or two after he had seated himself at the breakfast table?
Could this flush-faced, slender creature, bright and almost challenging
of eye, be the Far Away Lady, she of the sad and dreamy look! It was
she, certainly. Dr. Love, you are a wonder! All the other physicians of
the world, all the health resorts of the world, can neither advise nor
have effect toward swift recuperation in comparison with you unhampered!
They are but as vapors, or as the things which are not.
The greetings of the morning were exchanged--it was nearly noon, by the
way, for they had lain long at Denver--the breakfast was ordered and
then he leaned back and looked in her face, smilingly: "Where shall we
live?" he asked blandly, as if it were but a resumed conversation. "Have
you fallen in love with lotus-eating in Southern California, or are
there other regions, still?"
Did my lady lately, so "sober, steadfast and demure," blanche or start
at this daring, overbearing opening? Not she. She may have blushed a
little, but well she knew the ways of her whimsical, perplexing lover.
Her eyes flashed back at his with the tender, quizzical look in them and
she laughed. Then a soberer expression came, and she spoke earnestly and
thoughtfully:
"I have heard homesick people, living among the oranges, speak longingly
of a place they called 'God's country.' I think we should make our home
somewhere in 'God's country,' do you not?"
"Yes, dear," he exclaimed delightedly, "but where and what is 'God's
country?' We hear about it, but its boundaries seem undefined. I take it
that each individual has his or her ideal. I am confident, though, that
ours are the same. Is not that so?"
"To me," she spoke bravely, "'God's country' is, first of all, where you
are, and," she added reverently, "of course God is everywhere."
"Bless you," he said, "but, go on. Let us consider what we two think the
essentials for our own 'God's country.'"
"It must be a country where the grass grows, where sod, turf,
close-woven grass, cover the ground," she answered promptly. "The raw,
unkempt plains and hills of the arid regions are not for us, nor is the
stormless life of the land of oranges and grapes. We want, first of
all, the good green sod, and, next, trees, waving, luxuriant elms and
oaks and ash and beech and all their kindred, and their vines as well,
wild grapes and ivy and bitter-sweet."
He smiled. "You have begun with the command in Genesis, instructing the
Earth to bear, and so on, but I should go one step back in the epic of
Creation and say, let us live by the waters where they are 'gathered
together unto one place.' We must have a great body of water near us
and, we must have rain."
"Yes, in summer, rain; in winter, snow. I want the four seasons."
"I don't know where we are to find four, that is an absolutely complete
four," he said. "We can rarely boast a spring in its entirety. It seems
to exist only in the dreams of the poets, or in England. I saw a real
spring in England. But there are some pretty fair imitations of it, I'll
admit, in many of our states, notably, for instance, in Michigan and
Wisconsin." Adroit, time-serving man!
"Well, we can get along without an elaborate spring," she laughed, "if
we can have a June, a real June, once a year."
And so they considered deliciously until it was decided that "God's
country" for them, implied a green country in summer and a white country
in winter, with vast water near, if possible, and that from Maine to the
Western Mountains it existed, all without prejudice to other "God's
countries" for other mortals elsewhere born.
Straightforward, reckless, trusting confidence, was it not, this
conversation between the man and woman thus rejoined, but he was of the
sort who do things, and she was a woman given fully. Besides--though in
a world which ended--they had dreamed before.
This matter of great importance settled, there was silence for a time.
He looked upon her with devouring eyes. At last he broke forth:
"Now I want to draw my breath, but find it difficult. I am going to lean
back and study you and try to think of the world as it has rearranged
itself. I have not grasped it all yet. It is odd; it is great! I have
you and you can't get away from me now! It is wonderful, this sudden
possession, the possession rightly, even in all the conventional, in all
that the weakling centuries dictate. No wonder that I am dazed. Ever as
the world revolves, come new revelations of thought and of all
existence. I dreamed that I knew things, but I didn't.
"What are you going to do about it, dearie? My heart is like a kettle in
which everything is boiling, and it is foaming over the top with love
for you. Can you not help me? What are you going to put into the kettle
to stop this unseemly boiling? I don't want you to pour in cold water,
or take the kettle off, or put the fire out. Oh, well, let 'er boil! I
am afraid, my dear, that you will have to take care of me most of the
time. I'm irresponsible.
"Let us talk about something practical, my dear woman," he rambled on.
"You look at me with your great eyes, and you know what the inevitable
is. You know that you and I must face the world and all its dragons
together after this. What fun it will be! Have you any suggestions to
make? By the way, I like the trick of the top of your garments, the
arrangement about your throat. You have tact and taste, and sense, my
dear, yet you lack a mountain of judgment and discretion. You have
intrusted yourself to me, reckless person! Now, cut loose and tell me
something. I think that expression 'cut loose' is one of the best of all
our Americanisms. Tell me something."
What could the woman say? She was puzzled over this wild,
fumbling-thoughted lover, with his commingled gleams of fact and fancy.
But ever to the more admirable of the sexes comes divination. There came
into this gentle woman's mind a sudden radiance of comprehension. She
knew what he was seeking. He wanted her, with all the selfishness of
love, to be foolish with him. And this is what she said:
"I don't know. I only know what I think of his heart and soul, of the
resources and qualities of one man in the world and that I am but the
dependent woman--and I am most content, dear."
Then she became more venturesome and spoke more definitely and
practically, as she knew he wished her to. She looked him squarely in
the eyes:
"Make that place for us across the lake, the place of which we dreamed.
Never mind now about the town house. That will take care of itself, but
the dream place, the 'Shack,' will not. When you were working with your
coolies in another hemisphere I hope and believe you had your dreams
about me, hopeless as they may have seemed. I want to tell you, great
heart, that men do not dream all the dreams. Is it unwomanly, is it not
just to you and as it should be that I should say to you now that the
woman in America"--and her voice was tremulous--"was dreaming quite as
constantly and sadly as the man upon the Russian steppes."
She was looking at him steadfastly and in her eyes were tears and the
light which gleams only when the dearest of all fires is burning, a
light reflected and intensified, if that were possible, in the eyes of
him who was leaning silently forward and hardly breathing. She had
gratified his wish. She had "cut loose."
They looked out upon the Kansas prairie, across which the train was
scurrying. There were occasional houses, far apart, but the notable
objects of the landscape were gaunt windmills which in midsummer drew
water for the herds of cattle which even at this season could be seen
huddled, more or less comfortably, here and there. The wind had swept
bare great patches of pasture land and some of the cattle were browsing
contentedly upon the dried grass left in autumn. There were many herds
of them but the simile of "cattle on a thousand hills" did not apply,
for there were no hills. The travelers looked out upon what was but an
illimitable white blanket, with dots upon it. They looked upon a great
country, but it was not for them.
They left the dining car and visited the Cassowary, where were still
assembled a number of the group for whom through the days of
imprisonment the luxurious sleeper had been a gathering-place, but they
did not linger there. They sought the sleeping-car of the Far Away Lady
where they lingered until night fell, for what they had said to each
other was only the beginning. They had much to tell, and when Stafford
slept that night there came to him no vexing or distempered dreams. He
had come to a full realization of his new world and all its points of
compass. To this strong, almost turbulent character a great peace and
content had come. Though he was lying in the berth of a sleeping car
there were in his ears, vague and incomplete words of the hackneyed but
pleasant benediction:
"Sleep sweet within this quiet room, * * * whoe'er thou
art, * * * no mournful yesterdays * * * disturb thy heart."