"Take me with you."
So quietly had the crisis come that he scarcely realized it. For a measured s.p.a.ce of heart-beats he gazed into the fireplace. As he stared, she slipped to the arm of his chair. He felt the alluring warmth of her body against his shoulder. Then he would have turned to search her eyes, but, divining him, she denied, pressing her cheek close against his own.
"No; no! Don"t look at me," she breathed.
"You don"t know what you mean," he whispered.
"I do! I"m not a child. Take me with you."
"It means ruin for you."
"Ruin! That"s a word! Words don"t frighten me."
"They do me. They"re the most terrible things in the world."
She laughed at that. "Is it the word you"re afraid of, or is it me?"
she challenged. "I"m not asking you anything. I don"t want you to marry me. Oh!" she cried with a sinking break of the voice, "do you think I"m _bad_?"
Freeing himself, he caught her face between his hands.
"Are you--have you been "bad," as you call it?"
"I don"t blame you for asking--after what I"ve said. But I haven"t."
"And now?"
"Now, I care. I never cared before. It was that, I suppose, kept me straight. Don"t you care for me--a little, Hal?"
He rose and strode to the window. When he turned from his long look out into the burgeoning spring she was standing silent, expectant. Like stone she stood as he came back, but her arms went up to receive him.
Her lips melted into his, and the fire of her face flashed through every vein.
"And afterward?" he said hoa.r.s.ely.
There was triumph in her answering laughter, pa.s.sion-shaken though it was.
"Then you"ll take me with you."
"But afterward?" he repeated.
Lingeringly she released herself. "Let that take care of itself. I don"t care for afterward. We"re free, you and I. What"s to hinder us from doing as we please? Who"s going to be any the worse for it? Oh, I told you I was lawless. It"s the Hardscrabbler blood in me, I guess."
Deep in Hal"s memory a response to that name stirred.
"Somewhere," he said, "I have run across a Hardscrabbler before."
"Me. But you"ve forgotten."
"Have I? Let me see. It was in the old days when Dad and I were traveling. You were the child with the wonderful red hair, the night I was hurt. _Were_ you?"
"And next day I tried to bite you because you wanted to play with a prettier little girl in beautiful clothes."
Esme! The electric spark of thought leaped the long s.p.a.ce of years from the child, Esme, to the girl, in the vain love of whom he had eaten his heart hollow. For the moment, pa.s.sion for the vivid woman-creature before him had dulled that profounder feeling almost to obliteration.
Perhaps--so the thought came to him--he might find forgetfulness, anodyne in Milly Neal"s arms. But what of Milly, taken on such poor terms?
The bitter love within him gave answer. Not loyalty to Esme Elliot whom he knew unworthy, but to Milly herself, bound him to honor and restraint; so strangely does the human soul make its dim and perilous way through the maze of motives. Even though the girl, now questing his face with puzzled, frightened eyes, asked nothing but to belong to him; demanded no bond of fealty or troth, held him free as she held herself free, content with the immediate happiness of a relation that, must end in sorrow for one or the other, yet he could not take what she so prodigally, so gallantly proffered, with the image of another woman smiling through his every thought. That, indeed, were to be unworthy, not of Esme, not of himself, but of Milly.
He made a step toward her, and her glad hands went out to him again.
Very gently he took them; very gently he bent and kissed her cheek.
"That"s for good-bye," he said. The voice in which he spoke seemed alien to his ears, so calm it was, so at variance with his inner turmoil.
"You won"t take me with you?"
"No."
"You promised."
"I know." He was not concerned now with verbal differentiations. Truly, he had promised, wordlessly though it had been. "But I can"t."
"You don"t care?" she said piteously.
"I care very much. If I cared less--"
"There"s some other woman."
"Yes."
Flame leaped in her eyes. "I hope she poisons your life."
"I hope I haven"t poisoned yours," he returned, lamely enough.
"Oh, I"ll manage to live on," she gibed. "I guess there are other men in the world besides you."
"Don"t make it too hard, Milly."
"You"re pitying me! Don"t you dare pity me!" A sob rose, and burst from her. Then abruptly she seized command over herself. "What does it all matter?" she said. "Go away now and let me change my clothes."
"Are they dry?"
"I don"t care whether they"re dry or not. I don"t care what becomes of me now." All the sullen revolt of generations of lawlessness was vocal in her words. "You wait and see!"
Somehow Hal got out of the room, his mind awhirl, to await her downstairs. In a few moments she came, and with eyes somberly averted got into the runabout without a word. As they swung into the road, they met McGuire Ellis and Wayne, who bowed with a look of irrepressible surprise. During the ride homeward Hal made several essays at conversation. But the girl sat frozen in a white silence. Only when they pulled up at her door did she speak.
"I"m going to try to forget this," she said in a dry, hard voice. "You do the same. I won"t quit my job unless you want me to."
"Don"t," said Hal.
"But you won"t be bothered with seeing me any more. I"ll send you Maggie Breen"s letter and the story. I guess I understand a little better now how she felt when she took the poison."