VI
Like many another chance explorer from New York, Norman was surprised todiscover that, within a few minutes of leaving the railway station, hiscab was moving through a not unattractive city. He expected to find theHallowells in a tenement in some more or less squalid street overhungwith railway smoke and bedaubed with railway grime. He was delightedwhen the driver assured him that there was no mistake, that thecomfortable little cottage across the width of the sidewalk and a smallfront yard was the sought-for destination.
"Wait, please," he said to the cabman. "Or, if you like, you can go tothat corner saloon down there. I'll know where to find you." And he gavehim half a dollar.
The cabman hesitated between two theories of this conduct--whether itwas the generosity it seemed or was a ruse to "side step" payment.He--or his thirst--decided for the decency of human nature; he droveconfidingly away. Norman went up the tiny stoop and rang. The sound of apiano, in the room on the ground floor where there was light, abruptlyceased. The door opened and Miss Hallowell stood before him. She wasthroughout a different person from the girl of the office. She hadchanged to a tight-fitting pale-blue linen dress made all in one piece.Norman could now have not an instant's doubt about the genuineness, thebewitching actuality, of her beauty. The wonder was how she couldcontrive to conceal so much of it for the purposes of business. It was apeculiar kind of beauty--not the radiant kind, but that which shineswith a soft glow and gives him who sees it the delightful sense of beingits original and sole discoverer. An artistic eye--or an eye thatdiscriminates in and responds to feminine loveliness--would have beencaptivated, as it searched in vain for flaw.
If Norman anticipated that she would be nervous before the task ofreceiving in her humbleness so distinguished a visitor, he must havebeen straightway disappointed. Whether from a natural lack of that senseof social differences which is developed to the most pitifulsnobbishness in New York or from her youth and inexperience, shereceived him as if he had been one of the neighbors dropping in aftersupper. And it was Norman who was ill at ease. Nothing is moredisconcerting to a man accustomed to be received with due respect to hisimportance than to find himself put upon the common human level andcompelled to "make good" all over again from the beginning. He felt--heknew--that he was an humble candidate for her favor--a candidate withthe chances perhaps against him.
The tiny parlor had little in it beside the upright piano because therewas no space. But the paper, the carpet and curtains, the few pieces offurniture, showed no evidence of bad taste, of painful failure at theeffort to "make a front." He was in the home of poor people, but theywere obviously people who made a highly satisfactory best of theirpoverty. And in the midst of it all the girl shone like the one eveningstar in the mystic opalescence of twilight.
"We weren't sure you were coming," said she. "I'll call father. . . .No, I'll take you back to his workshop. He's easier to get acquaintedwith there."
"Won't you play something for me first? Or--perhaps you sing?"
"A very little," she admitted. "Not worth hearing."
"I'm sure I'd like it. I want to get used to my surroundings before Itackle the--the biology."
Without either hesitation or shyness, she seated herself at the piano."I'll sing the song I've just learned." And she began. Norman moved tothe chair that gave him a view of her in profile. For the next fiveminutes he was witness to one of those rare, altogether charming visionsthat linger in the memory in freshness and fragrance until memory itselffades away. She sat very straight at the piano, and the position broughtout all the long lines of her figure--the long, round white neck andthroat, the long back and bosom, the long arms and legs--a series oflovely curves. It has been scientifically demonstrated that pale blue ispre-eminently the sex color. It certainly was pre-eminently _her_ color,setting off each and every one of her charms and suggesting theroundness and softness and whiteness her drapery concealed. She was oneof those rare beings whose every pose is instinct with grace. And hervoice--It was small, rather high, at times almost shrill. But in everynote of its register there sounded a mysterious, melancholy-sweet callto the responding nerves of man.
Before she got halfway through the song Norman was fighting against thesame mad impulse that had all but overwhelmed him as he watched her inthe afternoon. And when her last note rose, swelled, slowly faded intosilence, it seemed to him that had she kept on for one note more hewould have disclosed to her amazed eyes the insanity raging within him.
She turned on the piano stool, her hands dropped listlessly in her lap."Aren't those words beautiful?" she said in a dreamy voice. She was notlooking at him. Evidently she was hardly aware of his presence.
He had not heard a word. He was in no mood for mere words. "I've neverliked anything so well," he said. And he lowered his eyes that she mightnot see what they must be revealing.
She rose. He made a gesture of protest. "Won't you sing another?" heasked.
"Not after that," she said. "It's the best I know. It has put me out ofthe mood for the ordinary songs."
"You are a dreamer--aren't you?"
"That's my real life," replied she. "I go through the other part just toget to the dreams."
"What do you dream?"
She laughed carelessly. "Oh, you'd not be interested. It would seemfoolish to you."
"You're mistaken there," cried he. "The only thing that ever hasinterested me in life is dreams--and making them come true."
"But not _my_ kind of dreams. The only kind I like are the ones thatcouldn't possibly come true."
"There isn't any dream that can't be made to come true."
She looked at him eagerly. "You think so?"
"The wildest ones are often the easiest." He had a moving voice himself,and it had been known to affect listening ears hypnotically when he wasdeeply in earnest, was possessed by one of those desires that conquermen of will and then make them irresistible instruments. "What is yourdream?--happiness? . . . love?"
She gazed past him with swimming eyes, with a glance that seemed like abrave bright bird exploring infinity. "Yes," she said under her breath."But it could never--never come true. It's too perfect."
"Don't doubt," he said, in a tone that fitted her mood as the rhythm ofthe cradle fits the gentle breathing of the sleeping child. "Don't everdoubt. And the dream will come true."
"You have been in love?" she said, under the spell of his look and tone.
He nodded slowly. "I am," he replied, and he was under the spell of herbeauty.
"Is it--wonderful?"
"Like nothing else on earth. Everything else seems--poor andcheap--beside it."
He drew a step nearer. "But you couldn't love--not yet," he said. "Youhaven't had the experience. You will have to learn."
"You don't know me," she cried. "I have been teaching myself ever sinceI was a little girl. I've thought of nothing else most of the time.Oh--" she clasped her white hands against her small bosom--"if I everhave the chance, how much I shall give!"
"I know it! I know it!" he replied. "You will make some man happier thanever man was before." His infatuation did not blind him to the fact thatshe cared nothing about him, looked on him in the most unpersonal way.But that knowledge seemed only to inflame him the more, to lash him onto the folly of an ill-timed declaration. "I have felt how much you willgive--how much you will love--I've felt it from the second time I sawyou--perhaps from the first. I've never seen any woman who interested meas you do--who drew me as you do--against my ambition--against my will.I--I----"
He had been fighting against the words that would come in spite of him.He halted now because the food of emotion suffocated speech. He stoodbefore her, ghastly pale and trembling. She did not draw back. Sheseemed compelled by his will, by the force of his passion, to stay whereshe was. But in her eyes was a fascinated terror--a fear of him--of thepassion that dominated him, a passion like the devils that made men gashthemselves and leap from precipices into the sea. To unaccustomed eyesthe first sight of passion is always te
rrifying and is usuallyrepellent. One must learn to adventure the big wave, the great hissing,towering billow that conceals behind its menace the wild rapture ofinfinite longing realized.
"I have frightened you?" he said.
"Yes," was her whispered reply.
"But it is your dream come true."
She shrank back--not in aversion, but gently. "No--it isn't my dream,"she replied.
"You don't realize it yet, but you will."
She shook her head positively. "I couldn't ever think of you in thatway."
He did not need to ask why. She had already explained when they weretalking of Tetlow. There was a finality in her tone that filled him withdespair. It was his turn to look at her in terror. What power this slimdelicate girl had over him! What a price she could exact if she butknew! Knew? Why, he had told her--was telling her in look and tone andgesture--was giving himself frankly into captivity--was prostrate,inviting her to trample. His only hope of escape lay in herinexperience--that she would not realize. In the insanities of passion,as in some other forms of dementia, there is always left a streak ofreason--of that craft which leads us to try to get what we want ascheaply as possible. Men, all but beside themselves with love, willbargain over the terms, if they be of the bargaining kind by nature.Norman was not a haggler. But common prudence was telling him how unwisehis conduct was, how he was inviting the defeat of his own purposes.
He waved his hand impatiently. "We'll see, my dear," he said with alight good-humored laugh. "I mustn't forget that I came to see yourfather."
She looked at him doubtfully. She did not understand--did not quitelike--this abrupt change of mood. It suggested to her simplicity a lackof seriousness, of sincerity. "Do you really wish to see my father?" sheinquired.
"Why else should I come away over to Jersey City? Couldn't I have talkedwith you at the office?"
This seemed convincing. She continued to study his face for light uponthe real character of this strange new sort of man. He regarded her witha friendly humorous twinkle in his eyes. "Then I'll take you to him,"she said at length. She was by no means satisfied, but she could notdiscover why she was dissatisfied.
"I can't possibly do you any harm," he urged, with raillery.
"No, I think not," replied she gravely. "But you mustn't say thosethings!"
"Why not?" Into his eyes came their strongest, most penetrating look. "Iwant you. And I don't intend to give you up. It isn't my habit to giveup. So, sooner or later I get what I go after."
"You make me--afraid," she said nervously.
"Of what?" laughed he. "Not of me, certainly. Then it must be ofyourself. You are afraid you will end by wanting me to want you."
"No--not that," declared she, confused by his quick cleverness ofspeech. "I don't know what I'm afraid of."
"Then let's go to your father. . . . You'll not tell Tetlow what I'vesaid?"
"No." And once more her simple negation gave him a sense of her absolutetruthfulness.
"Or that I've been here?"
She looked astonished. "Why not?"
"Oh--office reasons. It wouldn't do for the others to know."
She reflected on this. "I don't understand," was the result of herthinking. "But I'll do as you ask. Only, you must not come again."
"Why not? If they knew at the office, they'd simply talk--unpleasantly."
"Yes," she admitted hesitatingly after reflecting. "So you mustn't comeagain. I don't like some kinds of secrets."
"But your father will know," he urged. "Isn't that enough for--forpropriety?"
"I can't explain. I don't understand, myself. I do a lot of things byinstinct." She, standing with her hands behind her back and with clear,childlike eyes gravely upon him, looked puzzled but resolved. "And myinstinct tells me not to do anything secret about you."
This answer made him wonder whether after all he might not be toopositive in his derisive disbelief in women's instincts. He laughed."Well--now for your father."
The workshop proved to be an annex to the rear, reached by a passageleading past a cosy little dining room and a kitchen where the order andthe shine of cleanness were notable even to masculine eyes. "You arewell taken care of," he said to her--she was preceding him to show theway.
"We take care of ourselves," replied she. "I get breakfast before Ileave and supper after I come home. Father has a cold lunch in themiddle of the day, when he eats at all--which isn't often. And onSaturday afternoons and Sundays I do the heavy work."
"You _are_ a busy lady!"
"Oh, not so very busy. Father is a crank about system and order. He hastaught me to plan everything and work by the plans."
For the first time Norman had a glimmer of real interest in meeting herfather. For in those remarks of hers he recognized at once the raresuperior man--the man who works by plan, where the masses of mankindeither drift helplessly or are propelled by some superior force behindthem without which they would be, not the civilized beings they seem,but even as the savage in the dugout or as the beast of the field. Thegirl opened a door; a bright light streamed into the dim hallway.
"Father!" she called. "Here's Mr. Norman."
Norman saw, beyond the exquisite profile of the girl's head and figure,a lean tallish old man, dark and gray, whose expression proclaimed himat first glance no more in touch with the affairs of active life in theworld than had he been an inhabitant of Mars.
Mr. Hallowell gave his caller a polite glance and handshake--evidence ofmerest surface interest in him, of amiable patience with an intruder.Norman saw in the neatness of his clothing and linen further proof ofthe girl's loving care. For no such abstracted personality as this wouldever bother about such things for himself. These details, however,detained Norman only for a moment. In the presence of Hallowell it wasimpossible not to concentrate upon him.
As we grow older what we are inside, the kind of thoughts we admit asour intimates, appears ever more strongly in the countenance. This hadoften struck Norman, observing the men of importance about him, notinghow as they aged the look of respectability, of intellectualdistinction, became a thinner and ever thinner veneer over theselfishness and greediness, the vanity and sensuality and falsehood. Butnever before had he been so deeply impressed by its truth. EvidentlyHallowell during most of his fifty-five or sixty years had lived thepurely intellectual life. The result was a look of spiritual beauty, thelook of the soul living in the high mountain, with serenity and vastviews constantly before it. Such a face fills with awe the ordinaryfollower of the petty life of the world if he have the brains to know orto suspect the ultimate truth about existence. It filled Norman withawe. He hastily turned his eyes upon the girl--and once more into hisface came the resolute, intense, white-hot expression of a man doggedlyset upon an earthy purpose.
There was an embarrassed silence. Then the girl said, "Show him theworms, father."
Mr. Hallowell smiled. "My little girl thinks no one has seen that sortof thing," said he. "I can't make her believe it is one of thecommonplaces."
"You've never had anyone here more ignorant than I, sir," said Norman."The only claim on your courtesy I can make is that I'm interested andthat I perhaps know enough in a general way to appreciate."
Hallowell waved his hand toward a row of large glass bottles on one ofthe many shelves built against the rough walls of the room. "Here theyare," said he. "It's the familiar illustration of how life may becontrolled."
"I don't understand," said Norman, eying the bottled worms curiously.
"Oh, it's simply the demonstration that life is a mere chemicalprocess----"
Norman had ceased to listen. The girl was moving toward the door bywhich they had entered--was in the doorway--was gone! He stood in anattitude of attention; Hallowell talked on and on, passing from onething to another, forgetting his caller and himself, thinking only ofthe subject, the beloved science, that has brought into the modern worlda type of men like those who haunted the deserts and mountain caves inthe days when Rome was falling to pieces. With t
hose saintly hermits ofthe Dark Ages religion was the all-absorbing subject. And seeking theirown salvation was the goal upon which their ardent eyes were necessarilybent. With these modern devotees, science--the search for the truthabout the world in which they live--is their religion; and their goalis the redemption of the world. They are resolved--step by step, eachworker contributing his mite of discovery--to transform the world from ahell of discomfort and pain and death to a heaven where men and women,free and enlightened and perhaps immortal, shall live in happiness. Theyeven dream that perhaps this race of gods shall learn to construct themeans to take them to another and younger planet, when this Earth hasbecome too old and too cold and too nakedly clad in atmosphere properlyto sustain life.
From time to time Norman caught a few words of what Hallowellsaid--words that made him respect the intelligence that had utteredthem. But he neither cared nor dared to listen. He refused to bedeflected from his one purpose. When he was as old as Hallowell, itwould be time to think of these matters. When he had snatched the thingshe needed, it would be time to take the generous, wide, philosopher viewof life. But not yet. He was still young; he could--and he would!--drinkof the sparkling heady life of the senses, typefied now for him in thisgirl. How her loveliness flamed in his blood--flamed as fiercely when hecould not see the actual, tangible charms as when they were radiatingtheir fire into his eyes and through his skin! First he must live thatglorious life of youth, of nerves aquiver with ecstasy. Also, he mustshut out the things of the intellect--must live in brain as well as inbody the animal life--in brain the life of cunning and strategy. For theintellectual life would make it impossible to pursue such ignoblethings. First, material success and material happiness. Then, in its owntime, this intellectual life to which such men as Hallowell ever beckon,from their heights, such men as Norman, deep in the wallow that seems tothem unworthy of them, even as they roll in it.
As soon as there came a convenient pause in Hallowell's talk, Normansaid, "And you devote your whole life to these things?"
Hallowell's countenance lost its fine glow of enthusiasm. "I have tomake a living. I do chemical analyses for doctors and druggists. Thattakes most of my time."
"But you can dispatch those things quickly."
Hallowell shook his head. "There's only one way to do things. My clientstrust me. I can't shirk."
Norman smiled. He admired this simplicity. But it amused him, too; in aworld of shirking and shuffling, not to speak of downright dishonesty,it struck the humorous note of the incongruous. He said:
"But if you could give all your time you would get on faster."
"Yes--if I had the time--_and_ the money. To make the search exhaustivewould take money--five or six thousand a year, at the least. A greatdeal more than I shall ever have."
"Have you tried to interest capitalists?"
Hallowell smiled ironically. "There is much talk about capitalists andcapital opening up things. But I have yet to learn of an instance oftheir touching anything until they were absolutely sure of largeprofits. Their failed enterprises are not miscarriage of noble purposebut mistaken judgment, judgment blinded by hope and greed."
"I see that a philosopher can know life without living it," said Norman."But couldn't you put your scheme in such a way that some capitalistwould be led to hope?"
"I'd have to tell them the truth. Possibly I might discover somethingwith commercial value, but I couldn't promise. I don't think it islikely."
Norman's eyes were on the door. His thoughts were reaching out to thedistant and faint sound of a piano. "Just what do you propose to searchfor?" inquired he.
He tried to listen, because it was necessary that he have some knowledgeof Hallowell's plans. But he could not fix his attention. After a fewmoments he glanced at his watch, interrupted with, "I think I understandenough for the present. I've stayed longer than I intended. I must gonow. When I come again I may perhaps have some plan to propose."
"Plan?" exclaimed Hallowell, his eyes lighting up.
"I'm not sure--not at all sure," hastily added Norman. "I don't wish togive you false hopes. The matter is extremely difficult. But I'll try.I've small hope of success, but I'll try."
"My daughter didn't explain to me," said the scientist. "She simply saidone of the gentlemen for whom she worked was coming to look at my place.I thought it was mere curiosity."
"So it was, Mr. Hallowell," said Norman. "But I have been interested. Idon't as yet see what can be done. I'm only saying that I'll think itover."
"I understand," said Hallowell. He was trying to seem calm andindifferent. But his voice had the tremulous note of excitement in itand his hands fumbled nervously, touching evidence of the agitatedgropings of his mind in the faint, perhaps illusory, light of anew-sprung hope. "Yes, I understand perfectly. Still--it is pleasant tothink about such a thing, even if there's no chance of it. I am veryfond of dreaming. That has been my life, you know."
Norman colored, moved uneasily. The fineness of this man's charactermade him uncomfortable. He could pity Hallowell as a misguided failure.He could dilate himself as prosperous, successful, much the moreimposing and important figure in the contrast. Yet there was somehow apoint of view at which, if one looked carefully, his own sort of manshriveled and the Hallowell sort towered.
"I _must_ be going," Norman said. "No--don't come with me. I know the way.I've interrupted you long enough." And he put out his hand and, by thoselittle clevernesses of manner which he understood so well, made itimpossible for Hallowell to go with him to Dorothy.
He was glad when he shut the door between him and her father. He pausedin the hall to dispel the vague, self-debasing discomfort--and listeningto _her_ voice as she sang helped wonderfully. There is no more tryingtest of a personality than to be estimated by the voice alone. That testproduces many strange and startling results. Again and again itcompletely reverses our judgment of the personality, either destroys orenhances its charm. The voice of this girl, floating out upon the quietof the cottage--the voice, soft and sweet, full of the virginal passionof dreams unmarred by experience--It was while listening to her voice,as he stood there in the dimly lighted hall, that Frederick Normanpassed under the spell in all its potency. In taking an anaestheticthere is the stage when we reach out for its soothing effects; thencomes the stage when we half desire, half fear; then a stage in whichfear is dominant, and we struggle to retain our control of the senses.Last comes the stage when we feel the full power of the drug and relaxand yield or are beaten down into quiet. Her voice drew him into thefinal stage, was the blow of the overwhelming wave's crest that crushedhim into submission.
She glanced toward the door. He was leaning there, an ominous calm inhis pale, resolute face. She gazed at him with widening eyes. And herlook was the look of helplessness before a force that may, indeed must,be struggled against, but with the foregone certainty of defeat.
A gleam of triumph shone in his eyes. Then his expression changed to onemore conventional. "I stopped a moment to listen, on my way out," saidhe.
Her expression changed also. The instinctive, probably unconsciousresponse to his look faded into the sweet smile, serious rather thanmerry, that was her habitual greeting. "Mr. Tetlow didn't get away fromfather so soon."
"I stayed longer than I intended. I found it even more interesting thanI had expected. . . . Would you be glad if your father could be free todo as he likes and not be worried about anything?"
"That is one of my dreams."
"Well, it's certainly one that might come true. . . . And you--It's ashame that you should have to do so much drudgery--both here and in NewYork."
"Oh, I don't mind about myself. It's all I'm fit for. I haven't anytalent--except for dreaming."
"And for making--_some_ man's dreams come true."
Her gaze dropped. And as she hid herself she looked once more almost asinsignificant and colorless as he had once believed her to be.
"What are you thinking about?"
She shook her head slowly without r
aising her eyes or emerging from thedeep recess of her reserve.
"You are a mystery to me. I can't decide whether you are very innocentor very--concealing."
She glanced inquiringly at him. "I don't understand," she said.
He smiled. "No more do I. I've seen so much of faking--in women as wellas in men--that it's hard for me to believe anyone is genuine."
"Do you think I am trying to deceive you? About what?"
He made an impatient gesture--impatience with his credulity where shewas concerned. "No matter. I want to make you happy--because I want youto make me happy."
Her eyes became as grave as a wondering child's. "You are laughing atme," she said.
"Why do you say that?"
"Because I could not make you happy."
"Why not?"
"What could a serious man like you find in me?"
His intense, burning gaze held hers. "Some time I will tell you."
She shut herself within herself like a flower folding away its beautyand leaving exposed only the underside of its petals. It was impossibleto say whether she understood or was merely obeying an instinct.
He watched her a moment in silence. Then he said:
"I am mad about you--mad. You _must_ understand. I can think only of you.I am insane with jealousy of you. I want you--I must have you."
He would have seized her in his arms, but the look of sheer amazementshe gave him protected her where no protest or struggle would. "You?"she said. "Did you really mean it? I thought you were just talking."
"Can't you see that I mean it?"
"Yes--you look as if you did. But I can't believe it. I could neverthink of you in that way."
Once more that frank statement of indifference infuriated him. He _must_compel her to feel--he must give that indifference the lie--and at once!He caught her in his arms. He rained kisses upon her pale face. She madenot the least resistance, but seemed dazed. "I will teach you to loveme," he cried, drunk now with the wine of her lips, with the perfume ofher exquisite youth. "I will make you happy. We shall be mad withhappiness."
She gently freed herself. "I don't believe I could ever think of you inthat way."
"Yes, darling--you will. You can't help loving where you are loved soutterly."
She gazed at him wonderingly--the puzzled wonder of a child."You--love--me?" she said slowly.
"Call it what you like. I am mad about you. I have forgotteneverything--pride--position--things you can't imagine--and I care fornothing but you."
And again he was kissing her with the soft fury of fire; and again shewas submitting with the passive, dazed expression that seemed to add tohis passion. To make her feel! To make her respond! He, whom so manywomen had loved--women of position, of fame for beauty, of socialdistinction or distinction as singers, players--women of society andwomen of talent all kinds of worth-while women--they had cared, had runafter him, had given freely all he had asked and more. And thisgirl--nobody at all--she had nothing for him.
He held her away from him, cried angrily: "What is the matter with you?What is the matter with me?"
"I don't understand," she said. "I wish you wouldn't kiss me so much."
He released her, laughed satirically. "Oh--you are playing a game. Imight have known."
"I don't understand," said she. "A while ago you said you loved me. Nowyou act as if you didn't like me at all." And she smiled gayly at him,pouting her lips a little. Once more her beauty was shining. It made hisnerves quiver to see the color in her pure white skin where he hadkissed her.
"I don't care whether it is a game or not," he cried. And he was aboutto seize her again, when she repulsed him. He crushed her resistance,held her tight in his arms.
"You frighten me," she murmured. "You--hurt me."
He released her. "What do you want?" he cried. "Don't you care at all?"
"Oh, yes. I like you--very much. I have from the first time I saw you.But you seem older--and more serious."
"Never mind about that. We are going to love each other--and I am goingto make you and your father happy."
"If you make father happy I will do anything for you. I don't wantanything myself--but he is getting old and sometimes his despair isterrible." There were tears in her voice--tears and the most touchingtenderness. "He has some great secret that he wants to discover, and heis afraid he will die without having had the chance."
"You will love me if I make your father happy?"
He knew it was the question of a fool, but he so longed to hear from herlips some word to give him hope that he could not help asking it. Shesaid:
"Love you as--as you seem to love me? Not that same way. I don't feelthat way toward you. But I will love you in my own way."
He observed her with penetrating eyes. Was this speech of hers innocenceor calculation? He could get no clue to the truth. He saw nothing butinnocence; the teaching of experience warned him to believe in nothingbut guile. He hid his doubt and chagrin behind a mocking smile. "As youplease," said he. "I will do my part. Then--we'll see. . . . Do you careabout anyone else--in _my_ way of loving, I mean?"
It was again the question of an infatuated fool, and put in aninfatuated fool's way. For, if she were a "deep one," how could he hopeto get the truth? But her answer reassured him. "No," she said--hersimple, direct negation that had a convincing power he had never seenequaled.
"If I ever knew of another man's touching you," he said, "I'd feel likestrangling him." He laughed at himself. "Not that I should strangle him.That sort of thing isn't done any more. But I'd do something devilish."
"But I haven't promised not to kiss anyone else," she said. "Why shouldI? I don't love you."
He looked at her strangely. "But you're going to love me," he said.
She shrank within herself again. She looked at him with uneasy eyes."You won't kiss me any more until I tell you that I do love you?" sheasked with the gravity and pathos and helplessness of a child.
"Don't you want to learn to love me?--to learn to love?"
She was silent--a silence that maddened him.
"Don't be afraid to speak," he said irritably. "What are you thinking?"
"That I don't want you to kiss me--and that I do want father to behappy."
Was this guile? Was it innocence? He put his arms round her. "Look atme," he said.
She gazed at him frankly.
"You like me?"
"Yes."
"Why don't you want me to kiss you?"
"I don't know. It makes me--dislike you."
He released her. She laid her hand on his arm eagerly. "Please--" sheimplored. "I don't mean to hurt you. I wouldn't offend you for anything.Only--when you ask me a question--mustn't I tell you the truth?"
"Always," he said, believing in her, in spite of the warnings of cynicalworldliness. "I don't know whether you are sincere or not--as yet. Sofor the present I'll give you the benefit of the doubt." He stood backand looked at her from head to foot. "You are beautiful!--perfect," hesaid in a low voice. He laughed. "I'll resist the temptation to kiss youagain. I must go now. About your father--I'll see what can be done."
She stood with her hands behind her back, looking up at him with anexpression he could not fathom. Suddenly she advanced, put up her lipsand said gravely,
"Won't you kiss me?"
He eyed her quizzically. "Oh--you've changed your mind?"
She shook her head.
"Then why do you ask me to kiss you?"
"Because of what you said about father."
He laughed and kissed her. And then she, too, laughed. He said, "Not formy own sake--not a little bit?"
"Oh, yes," she cried, "when you kiss me that way. I like to be kissed. Iam very affectionate."
He laughed again. "You _are_ a queer one. If it's a game, it's a good one.Is it a game?"
"I don't know," said she gayly. "Good night. This is dreadfully late forme."
"Good night," he said, and they shook hands. "Do you like me better--orless?"
"Bet
ter," was her prompt, apparently honest reply.
"Curiously enough, I'm beginning to _like_ you," said he. "Now don't askme what I mean by that. If you don't know already, you'll not find outfrom me."
"Oh, but I do know," cried she. "The way you kissed me--that was onething. The way you feel toward me now--that's a different thing. Isn'tit so?"
"Exactly. I see we are going to get on."
"Yes, indeed."
They shook hands again in friendliest fashion, and she opened the frontdoor for him. And her farewell smile was bright and happy.