"It is rather a belated request, Mr. Jelnik. Besides, you haven"t told me why you want to marry me," said I, sedately.
"You are well aware that I love you, Sophy. And I think you care for me in return. Why did you turn that coin when it meant "Go," and bid me, instead, "Stay"? Was it because you cared, Sophy?"
"Yes, Mr. Jelnik: it was because I cared. I cared enough to tell a--a lie. And--I shall say yes to your other question, Mr. Jelnik."
But he shook his head. "Ah, no, my dear! You"d be called upon to make too many sacrifices. I couldn"t bear that!"
"A man needn"t be worried about the sacrifices a woman makes for him when she knows he loves her."
"Not in normal circ.u.mstances; not when he can give as much as he takes."
"Hynds House," I said, "is costing me a steep and bitter price, Mr.
Jelnik!"
"Do I not also pay?" he asked fiercely.
"Oh, you have your pride!" said I, wearily; "Hynds pride!"
"A poor enough possession, Sophy, but all that remains to me," he said gently. "Is it a light thing for Nicholas Jelnik to say to the woman he loves, "I cannot marry you: I am a beggar"? Is it such a small sacrifice to give you up, Sophy?"
"It would appear so."
"You crucify me!" he said, in a choking voice. "Good G.o.d, don"t you understand that I love you?"
"I don"t understand anything, except that you are going away from me. And I have waited for you all my life," I said.
"And I for you! and I for you!" he said pa.s.sionately. "Don"t make it too hard for me, Sophy!"
"If you go away from me," I gasped, "I think I shall die.
Nicholas--I can"t bear it! It was easier for me when I thought you loved somebody else. But now that I know you love _me_" and I paused.
He took a step forward, but stopped. His arms fell to his sides.
"Not as a beggar!" he said. "Not as a beggar! Never that, for Nicholas Jelnik! I love you too much for that, Sophy. I love you not only for yourself, but for my own best self, too, my dearest."
For a moment he stood there, regarding me fixedly. It was a long look, of suffering, of love, of pride, of unyielding resolve. Then he lifted my hand to his lips, bowed, and left me.
I sat staring over the garden. I wondered if, somewhere on the other side of things, Great-Aunt Sophronisba wasn"t snickering.
CHAPTER XX
HARBOR
"My faith, but I"m glad you"re entirely well again, Sophy!" wrote The Author, in his small, fine, hypercritical script. "You make the world a pleasanter place by being alive in it. People like you should inculcate in themselves the fixed and unalterable habit of being alive. They should firmly refuse to be anything else. I call this to your attention, in the hope that you will see your bounden duty and do it.
"When I thought you were going to quit, I ran away. That was a calamity I could not stand by and witness, without disaster.
However, Jelnik stayed!
"Your nurse (I do not like Miss Ransome, though I respect, admire, and fear her. Her emotions are carbolized, her heart is sterilized, her personality has the mathematical perfection of something turned out by a super-machine: like, say, the last word in machine-guns.
None of the divine imperfection of your hand-wrought, artist-stuff there! I forgive her for existing, because she is intelligent and useful, two things that, without lying like a Christian and a gentleman, one may not say of many women, and seldom of one woman at the same time), your nurse gave me a highly interesting, impersonal, scientific account of what happened after my flight. Her testimony was all the more valuable in that she was, as she said, only "psychologically interested." She reminded me that Empedocles is said to have recalled a young woman from death by the same means, i.e., the insistent repet.i.tion of her name; which proved to Miss Ransome that the poor old ancients had "antic.i.p.ated, though of course unscientifically, some of the principles of modern psychology." _Eheu!_
"It proved something else to me, Sophy--that I had too willingly underestimated Mr. Nicholas Jelnik. There is very much more to that young man than I like to admit.
"He would have made such a perfect villain: I could have made a work of art of him, as a villain! And now I can"t, because he isn"t. This chagrins me. It upsets my notions of the fitness of things. More yet: he loves you, Sophy, more than I do, or ever could.
"Does this astound you? Come and let us reason together: the spirit moves me to speak out in meeting.
"You are the only woman I have ever been willing to marry. That I should wish to marry you astonished me far, far more than it did you. At the same time it delighted me by its very unexpectedness. It gave me a brand-new emotion, and brand-new emotions aren"t every-day affairs, let me tell you! You brought something nave, unusual, fresh, perplexing, into a bored existence. And then you refused to spoil it! That added to the quality of the unusualness. The ninety and nine would have subjected me to the acid test of matrimony, with the later and inevitable alimony. The saving hundredth sees to it that I shall keep my illusions! O rare dear wise Sophy! How shall I repay you?
"For I shall be able to indulge in day-dreams now. I shall not grow old cynically. There _are_ unselfish, true-hearted, valiant women.
There _are_ women who will not marry men for position, name, fame, power, money; no, nor for anything but love. How do I know? Because you don"t love me, my dear. But you do love Nicholas Jelnik. You had not come back from the gates of death else, Sophy.
"Marry him. You will bring him the quiet strength and sureness he needs. A temperamental man, a finely organized, highly gifted, sensitive, and intellectual man needs just such affection as yours, as unshakable as the sun, as faithful as the fixed stars. That you should love him almost makes me believe in the direct intervention of divine Providence in his behalf. My own innate and troublesome decency forces me to add that he is worth it. He has altogether _too_ much, confound him!
"Do you know that while you lay ill, he came and told me about the finding of Jessamine Hynds, showed me her statement, told me, in short, the whole story? I was consumed with envy, malice, and all uncharitableness; to think that such a thing should or could happen right under my nose, and I all unwitting! And you, too, Sophy, went through such an experience! I"d give a year of my life to have been with you.
"When Jelnik had finished, and I"d caught my breath, I apologized for having been a dam" nuisance. He explained, delicately, soothingly, with exquisite politeness, that literary folks of consequence _have_ to be dam" nuisances at times. It"s the price they pay.
"And now let me speak to you, my little Sophy, as your loving and loyal friend: _Hold fast to Jelnik._ I knew his father. The position he occupied wasn"t exactly royal, but the elect addressed him as "thou." And you have learned somewhat of the Hyndses. In consequence, your Jelnik is a mixture of South-Carolina-Viennese-Hynds-Jelnik pride, beside which Satan"s is as mild, meek, and innocuous as a properly raised Anglican curate. Don"t meet his pride with pride.
Meet it with _you_, Sophy. Most of us have been loved in our time, but how few of us have been permitted really to love! That you have in full measure this heavenliest of all powers, is your hope and his.
"There are times I"m almost sorry you didn"t love _me_, Sophy. I should then have pa.s.sed my days in a state of pleasant bewilderment, trying to figure out how the deuce it happened. Or should I, though?
H"m! I might have gotten used to being married to you, and that would have spelled boredom. The thought makes me shudder.
"Johnson and I are coming down for Leetchy"s wedding, of course.
That pink-and-white piece of Irishry will rule Geddes to perfection.
There"s the steel under the velvet, the cat"s claws under that satin paw of hers--more power to it! I have two prints and a piece of Cloisonne for her that I am sorely tempted to keep for myself. I have more than once bought things to give to friends, and then found myself unable to do so. I shouldn"t be able to give these to anybody but one of the ladies of Hynds House.
"Johnson mopes. The youngest Meade girl, she with the dimples, the pink cheeks, the fluffy hair, and the fluffier brains, is the cause.
He sighs for everything and everybody. For Mary Magdalen"s batter cakes. For the Black family. For the Kissing Cow, and for Beautiful Dog. Hynds House is a fatal place!
"So we are coming back to it, as soon as we may. I kiss your hand, Madame, and beg you to understand that so long as we two live you are never going to be able, for any considerable length of time, to get rid of, Your affectionate friend, THE AUTHOR."
I was able to read between the lines, and my heart warmed to The Author. At the same time the letter saddened me, in so far as it referred to Mr. Jelnik.
Refuse to let him go? But I couldn"t keep him. I knew now that he had to go, that it was the best thing, the only thing. Doctor Geddes helped me to see that. The doctor tried, at first, to keep his cousin in Hyndsville. Why shouldn"t Nicholas go into partnership with him? Why shouldn"t Nicholas share everything the open-hearted, open-handed doctor had?
Mr. Jelnik smiled, thanked him, and put the offer by. And I knew he was right.
It had been a rainy day and was now one of those afternoons that have the rawness of autumn, though summer is still present. It was so chilly that a fire burned in the library fireplace, before which I was sitting. The wind was from the northeast, and the trees and bushes slanted before it. Potty Black and I had the library all to our alone-selves, for Alicia was spending the day with Mary Meade, one of her bridesmaids.
The wedding was less than six weeks off, and preparations were under way. It was to be a home wedding, the first to take place in Hynds House since Richard"s day, and somehow that lent the occasion the rose color of romance. It was thus a part of Hynds House history, something Hyndsville couldn"t take lightly. Alicia"s wedding was a town affair, in which everybody was delightfully interested.