CHAPTER V
FOR ALWAYS
In the little room upstairs, where less than an hour before she haddressed in happy excitement, Kate tore off the paper flowers and wildrose pods. She threw them in a heap on the floor--the cherished mitts,the bunting dress--while she sobbed in a child's abandonment, with thetears running unchecked down her cheeks. The music floating up thestairway and through the transom, the scuffling sound of sliding feet,added to her grief. She had wanted, oh, how she had wanted to dance!
The thought that Hughie had suffered humiliation because of her waslittle short of torture. But he had not deserted her--he had stuck--evenin her misery she gloried in that--and how handsome he had looked! Why,there was not a man in the room that could compare with him! Hisclothes, the way he had borne himself, the something different about himwhich she could not analyze. It was a woman's pride that shone in herswollen red-lidded eyes as she told herself this, while she pinned onher shabby Stetson in trembling haste, buckled the spurs on her bootsand snatched up her ugly mackinaw.
Hugh was waiting for her in the office below.
The horses were tied to the hitching rack. Kate gulped down the lumpthat rose in her throat as she swung into the saddle. The orchestra wasplaying the "Blue Danube," and she especially loved that waltz. Thestrains followed them up the street, and tears she could not keep backfell on the horse's mane as she drooped a little over the saddlehorn.
She looked down through dimmed eyes upon the lights streaming from thewindows of the Prouty House, as they climbed the steep pitch to thebench above town, and the alluring brightness increased the achingheaviness of her heart, for she felt that she was leaving all theyrepresented behind her forever. She knew she never could find thecourage to risk going through such an ordeal again.
A childhood without playmates had created a longing for companionshipthat was pathetic in its eagerness, and the yearning had not beenmodified by the isolation and monotony of her present life. To dance, tobe merry, to have the opportunity to please, seemed the most importantthing in the world to the girl and now she seemed to realize, inmutinous despair, that through no fault of her own she was going to becheated of that which was her right--of that which was every girl'sright--to have the pleasures which belonged to her years.
Kate's standards were the standards of the old west and of the mountainsand plains, which take only personal worth into account, so she did notyet comprehend clearly what it was all about. She herself had donenothing to merit such treatment from people whose names she did not evenknow. She rode for a long time without speaking, trying, in her tragicbewilderment, to puzzle it out.
The silence was in painful contrast to the high spirits in which theyhad ridden into town. Then, they had found so much to talk about, somuch to anticipate--and it had all turned out to be so different, so farremoved from anything they had dreamed. Each shrank from being the firstto broach the subject of their humiliating retreat.
The moon came up after a while, full and mellow, and the night aircooled Kate's flaming cheeks. The familiar stars, too, soothed her likethe presence of old friends, but, more than anything, the accustomedmotion of her horse, as it took its running walk, helped to restore hermental poise.
At the top of a hill both drew rein automatically. Walking down steepdescents to save their horses and themselves was an understood thingbetween them. At the bottom they still trudged on, leading their horsesand exchanging only an occasional word upon some subject far removedfrom their real thoughts. It was Kate who finally said with seemingirrelevance:
"Uncle Joe brought home two collie puppies once--fat, roly-poly littlethings that didn't do anything but play and eat, and they were--oh, soinnocent! They were into everything, and always under foot, afraid ofnothing or nobody, because they never had been hurt.
"One night a storm came up--a cold rain that was almost snow. They raninto my tent and settled themselves on my pillow all shivering and wet.In squirming around to make a nest for themselves they pulled my hair.It made me cross. I was half asleep and I slapped them.
"They paid no attention to it at first--they couldn't believe I meantit, so they kept on trying to cuddle up to me to get warm. I slappedthem harder. They whimpered, but still they couldn't realize that Imeant to hurt them. Finally, I struck them--hard--again and again--untilthey howled with pain. They understood finally that they were notwanted--and they went crying and whimpering out into the rain.
"It awakened me, thinking what I had done, how they had come to me soinnocent--taking kindness as a matter of course because they never hadknown anything else, and I had been the first to hurt them. I was thefirst to spoil their confidence in others--and themselves. I couldn'tsleep for thinking of it, and finally I got up, and, to punish myself,went out barefooted into the storm and brought them back. They forgaveme and soon settled down, but they never were quite the same, for theyhad learned what pain was and what it meant to be afraid.
"When I went there to-night I was like those puppies, just as green andconfident--just as sure of everybody's kindness."
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Katie," he replied in a low tone.
"I don't mean to whine," she went on, "but you see I wasn't expectingit, and, like the puppies, it took me a long time to understand. Ithought at first it was my dress--that I looked--funny, somehow; but yousaid it wasn't that, so I thought maybe it was because we were 'insheep,' but so is Neifkins, and nobody treated them as they did me."
"The upstarts!" savagely. "I'll never forgive myself for taking youthere!"
She protested quickly:
"You're not to blame. How could you know? You meant to do something nicefor me, Hughie."
He winced at that. It would have required more courage than he had tohave told her at the moment the exact truth.
He held the horses back and stopped suddenly.
"Katie," turning to her, "I'd do anything in the world to make amendsfor what happened to-night. Isn't there some way--something I can do foryou? Anything at all," he pleaded. "Just tell me--no matter what itis--you've only to let me know."
She looked at him with grateful eyes, but shook her head.
"No, Hughie, there's nothing you can do for me." She caught her breathsharply and added, "Ex--except to go on liking me. It would break myheart if you went back on me, too."
"Kate!"
"If you didn't like me any more--" She choked and the swift tears filledher eyes.
"Like you!" impetuously. "I'd do more than like you if I never had seenyou before to-night!" He dropped the bridle reins and laid a hand oneither shoulder, holding her at arms' length. "Your eyes are like stars!And your mouth looks so--sweet! And your hair is so soft and pretty whenthe wind blows it across your forehead and face like that! I wish youcould see yourself. You're beautiful in the moonlight, Kate!"
"Beautiful?" incredulously. Then she laughed happily, "Why, I'm not evenpretty, Hughie."
"And what's more," he declared, "you're a wonderful girl--different--afellow never gets tired of being with you."
"You are making up to me for what happened to-night! I nearly forget itwhen you tell me things like that."
"I didn't know how much I did care until they hurt you. I could havekilled somebody if it wouldn't have made things worse for you."
"As much as that?" She looked at him wistfully. "You care as much asthat? You see," she added slowly, "nobody's ever taken my part exceptUncle Joe--not even my mother; and it seems--queer to think that anybodyelse likes me well enough to fight for me."
The unconscious pathos went straight to the boy's chivalrous heart.
"Oh, Honey!" he cried impulsively, and taking her hand in both of his heheld it tight against his breast.
Her eyes grew luminous at the word and the caress.
"Honey!" she repeated in a wondering whisper. "I like that."
Her lids lowered before the new and strange expression in his face.
"You've always seemed so independent and self-reliant, like anotherfellow, somehow. I di
dn't know you were so sweet. I'm just finding youout."
She looked at him before replying, but he trembled before the soft lightshining in her eyes.
He stood for a moment uncertainly, fighting for his self-control, then,casting off restraint, he threw his arms about her, crying passionately:
"I love you! I love you, Katie! There's nobody like you in the wholeworld. Kiss me--Sweet!"
She drew back startled, looking into his eyes. Her own seemed to meltunder what she saw there, and she slowly lifted her lips. When she couldspeak--
"You'll love me for always, Hughie?"
"For always," huskily. "For ever and ever, Katie."