He nodded comprehensively, bitterly.
"You will. One of the equations of the problem will be eliminated, and thus will be found the answer."
"Which?" she asked softly, heel tapping gravel.
"The unnecessary one, of course. Isn"t it always the unnecessary one?"
"You mean," she said slowly, "that you will go away?"
Garrison nodded.
"Of course," she added, after a pause, "the dark, clinging girl is waiting?"
"Of course," he bantered.
"It must be nice to be loved like that." Her eyes were wide and far away. "To have one renounce relatives, position, wealth--all, for love.
It must be very nice, indeed."
Still, Garrison was silent. He had cause to be.
"Do you think it is right, fair," continued the girl slowly, her brow wrinkled speculatively, "to break your uncle"s and aunt"s hearts for the sake of a girl? You know how they have longed for your home-coming. How much you mean to them! You are all they have. Don"t you think you are selfish--very selfish?"
"I believe the Bible says to leave all and cleave unto your wife,"
returned Garrison.
"Yes. But not your intended wife."
"But, you see, she is of the cleaving type."
"And why this hurry? Aren"t you depriving your uncle and aunt unnecessarily early?"
"But it is the only answer, as you pointed out. You then would be free."
He did not know why he was indulging in this repartee. Perhaps because the situation was so novel, so untenable. But a strange, new force was working in him that day, imparting a peculiar twist to his humor. He was hating himself. He was hopeless, cynical, bitter.
If he could have laid hands upon that eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark, he would have wrung his accomplished neck to the best of his ability.
He, Snark, must have known about this prenatal engagement. And his bitterness, his hopelessness, were all the more real, for already he knew that he cared, and cared a great deal, for this curious girl with the steady gray eyes and wealth of indefinite hair; cared more than he would confess even to himself. It seemed as if he always had cared; as if he had always been looking into the depths of those great gray eyes.
They were part of a dream, the focusing-point of the misty past--forever out of focus.
The girl had been considering his answer, and now she spoke.
"Of course," she said gravely, "you are not sincere when you say your primal reason for leaving would be in order to set me free. Of course you are not sincere."
"Is insincerity necessarily added to my numerous physical infirmities?"
he bantered.
"Not necessarily. But there is always the love to make a virtue of necessity--especially when there"s some one waiting on necessity."
"But did I say that would be my primal reason for leaving--setting you free? I thought I merely stated it as one of the following blessings attendant on virtue."
"Equivocation means that you were not sincere. Why don"t you go, then?"
"Eh?" Garrison looked up sharply at the tone of her voice.
"Why don"t you go? Hurry up! Reward the clinging girl and set me free."
"Is there such a hurry? Won"t you let me ferret out a pair of pajamas, to say nothing of good-bys?"
"How silly you are!" she said coldly, rising. "The question, then, rests entirely with you. Whenever you make up your mind to go--"
"Couldn"t we let it hang fire indefinitely? Perhaps you could learn to love me. Then there would be no need to go." Garrison smiled deliberately up into her eyes, the devil working in him.
Miss Desha returned his look steadily. "And the other girl--the clinging one?" she asked calmly.
"Oh, she could wait. If we didn"t hit it off, I could fall back on her.
I would hate to be an old bachelor."
"No; I don"t think it would be quite a success," said the girl critically. "You see, I think you are the most detestable person I ever met. I really pity the other girl. It"s better to be an old bachelor than to be a young--cad."
Garrison rose slowly.
CHAPTER VI.
"YOU"RE BILLY GARRISON."
"And what is a cad?" he asked abstractedly.
"One who shames his birth and position by his breeding."
"And no question of dishonesty enters into it?" He could not say why he asked. "It is not, then, a matter of moral ethics, but of mere--well----"
"Sensitiveness," she finished dryly. "I really think I prefer rank dishonesty, if it is offset by courtesy and good breeding. You see, I am not at all moral."
Here Mrs. Calvert made her appearance, with a book and sunshade. She was a woman whom a sunshade completed.
"I hope you two have not been quarreling," she observed. "It is too nice a day for that. I was watching the slaughter of the innocents on the tennis-court. Really, you play a wretched game, William."
"So I have been informed," replied Garrison. "It is quite a relief to have so many people agree with me for once."
"In this instance you can believe them," commented the girl. She turned to Mrs. Calvert. "Whose ravings are you going to listen to now?" she asked, taking the book Mrs. Calvert carried.
"A matter of duty," laughed the older woman. "No; it"s not a novel. It came this morning. The major wishes me to a.s.similate it and impart to him its nutritive elements--if it contains any. He is so miserably busy--doing nothing, as usual. But it is a labor of love. If we women are denied children, we must interest ourselves in other things."
"Oh!" exclaimed the girl, with interest; "it"s the years record of the track!" She was thumbing over the leaves. "I"d love to read it! May I when you"ve done? Thank you. Why, here"s Sysonby, Gold Heels, The Picket--dear old Picket! Kentucky"s pride! And here"s Sis. Remember Sis?
The Carter Handicap--"