"Oh, I must go!" she pleaded. Tears were glistening in her long dark lashes. The sight of them maddened him. "Do you--Susie?" he pleaded.
"I"m--I"m--very young," she stammered.
"Yes--yes--I know," he a.s.sented eagerly. "But not too young to love, Susie? No. Because you do--don"t you?"
The moonlit world seemed a fairyland. "Yes," she said softly. "I guess so. I must go. I must."
And moved beyond her power to control herself, she broke from his detaining hand and fled into the house. She darted up to her room, paused in the middle of the floor, her hands clasped over her wildly beating heart. When she could move she threw open the shutters and went out on the balcony. She leaned against the window frame and gazed up at the stars, instinctively seeking the companionship of the infinite. Curiously enough, she thought little about Sam. She was awed and wonderstruck before the strange mysterious event within her, the opening up, the flowering of her soul. These vast emotions, where did they come from? What were they? Why did she long to burst into laughter, to burst into tears? Why did she do neither, but simply stand motionless, with the stars blazing and reeling in the sky and her heart beating like mad and her blood surging and ebbing? Was this--love? Yes--it must be love. Oh, how wonderful love was--and how sad--and how happy beyond all laughter--and how sweet! She felt an enormous tenderness for everybody and for everything, for all the world--an overwhelming sense of beauty and goodness. Her lips were moving. She was amazed to find she was repeating the one prayer she knew, the one Aunt f.a.n.n.y had taught her in babyhood. Why should she find herself praying?
Love--love love! She was a woman and she loved! So this was what it meant to be a woman; it meant to love!
She was roused by the sound of Ruth saying good night to someone at the gate, invisible because of the intervening foliage. Why, it must be dreadfully late. The Dipper had moved away round to the south, and the heat of the day was all gone, and the air was full of the cool, scented breath of leaves and flowers and gra.s.s. Ruth"s lights shone out upon the balcony. Susan turned to slip into her own room. But Ruth heard, called out peevishly:
"Who"s there?"
"Only me," cried Susan.
She longed to go in and embrace Ruth, and kiss her. She would have liked to ask Ruth to let her sleep with her, but she felt Ruth wouldn"t understand.
"What are you doing out there?" demanded Ruth. "It"s "way after one."
"Oh--dear--I must go to bed," cried Susan. Ruth"s voice somehow seemed to be knocking and tumbling her new dream-world.
"What time did Sam Wright leave here?" asked Ruth.
She was standing in her window now. Susan saw that her face looked tired and worn, almost homely.
"At ten," she replied. "Uncle George knocked on the banister."
"Are you sure it was ten?" said Ruth sharply.
"I guess so. Yes--it was ten. Why?"
"Oh--nothing."
"Was he at Sinclairs"?"
"He came as it was over. He and Lottie brought me home." Ruth was eyeing her cousin evilly. "How did you two get on?"
Susan flushed from head to foot. "Oh--so-so," she answered, in an uncertain voice.
"I don"t know why he didn"t come to Sinclairs"," snapped Ruth.
Susan flushed again--a delicious warmth from head to foot. She knew why. So he, too, had been dreaming alone. Love! Love!
"What are you smiling at?" cried Ruth crossly.
"Was I smiling?. . . Do you want me to help you undress?"
"No," was the curt answer. "Good night."
"Please let me unhook it, at least," urged Susan, following Ruth into her room.
Ruth submitted.
"Did you have a good time?" asked Susan.
"Of course," snapped Ruth. "What made you think I didn"t?"
"Don"t be a silly, dear. I didn"t think so."
"I had an awful time--awful!"
Ruth began to sob, turned fiercely on Susan. "Leave me alone!"
she cried. "I hate to have you touch me." The dress was, of course, entirely unfastened in the back.
"You had a quarrel with Arthur?" asked Susan with sympathy. "But you know he can"t keep away from you. Tomorrow----"
"Be careful, Susan, how you let Sam Wright hang around you,"
cried Ruth, with blazing eyes and trembling lips. "You be careful--that"s all I"ve got to say."
"Why, what do you mean?" asked Susan wonderingly.
"Be careful! He"d never think for a minute of marrying you."
The words meant nothing to Susan; but the tone stabbed into her heart. "Why not?" she said.
Ruth looked at her cousin, hung her head in shame. "Go--go!" she begged. "Please go. I"m a bad girl--bad--_bad_! Go!" And, crying hysterically, she pushed amazed Susan through the connecting door, closed and bolted it.
CHAPTER IV
WHEN f.a.n.n.y Warham was young her mother--compelled by her father--roused--"routed out"--the children at half-past six on week days and at seven on Sundays for prayers and breakfast, no matter what time they had gone to bed the night before. The horror of this made such an impression upon her that she never permitted Ruth and Susan to be awakened; always they slept until they had "had their sleep out." Regularity was no doubt an excellent thing for health and for moral discipline; but the best rule could be carried to foolish extremes. Until the last year Mrs. Warham had made her two girls live a life of the strictest simplicity and regularity, with the result that they were the most amazingly, soundly, healthy girls in Sutherland.
And the regimen still held, except when they had company in the evening or went out--and Mrs. Warham saw to it that there was not too much of that sort of thing. In all her life thus far Susan had never slept less than ten hours, rarely less than twelve.
It lacked less than a minute of ten o"clock the morning after Sam"s call when Susan"s eyes opened upon her simple, pale-gray bedroom, neat and fresh. She looked sleepily at the little clock on the night stand.
"Mercy me!" she cried. And her bare feet were on the floor and she was stretching her lithe young body, weak from the relaxation of her profound sleep.
She heard someone stirring in Ruth"s room; instantly Ruth"s remark, "He"d never think for a minute of marrying you," popped into her head. It still meant nothing to her. She could not have explained why it came back or why she fell to puzzling over it as if it held some mysterious meaning. Perhaps the reason was that from early childhood there had been acc.u.mulating in some dusky chamber of her mind stray happenings and remarks, all baring upon the unsuspected secret of her birth and the unsuspected strangeness of her position in the world where everyone else was definitely placed and ticketed. She was wondering about Ruth"s queer hysterical outburst, evidently the result of a quarrel with Arthur Sinclair. "I guess Ruth cares more for him than she lets on," thought she. This love that had come to her so suddenly and miraculously made her alert for signs of love elsewhere.
She went to the bolted connecting door; she could not remember when it had ever been bolted before, and she felt forlorn and shut out. "Ruth!" she called.
"Is that you?"
A brief silence, then a faint "Yes."