"Who told you of that?" he asked in surprise.
"Dal. She was here yesterday. She will come in spite of me."
"So will I," interposed Lane.
She shook her head. "No, it"s different for a man.... I"ve missed the girls. No one but Dal ever comes. I thought Margie would be true to me--no matter what had befallen.... Dal comes, and oh, Daren, she is good. She helps me so.... She told me what you did at Fanchon"s party."
"She did! Well, what"s your verdict?" he queried, grimly. "That break queered me in Middleville."
"I agree with what Doctor Wallace said to his congregation," returned Mel.
As Lane met the blue fire of her eyes he experienced another singularly deep and profound thrill, as if the very depths of him had been stirred. He seemed to have suddenly discovered Mel Iden.
"Doctor Wallace did back me up," said Lane, with a smile. "But no one else did."
"Don"t be so sure of that. Harsh conditions require harsh measures.
Dal said you killed the camel-walk dance in Middleville."
"It surely was a disgusting sight," returned Lane, with a grimace.
"Mel, I just saw red that night."
"Daren," she asked wistfully, following her own train of thought, "do you know that most of the girls consider me an outcast? Fanchon rides past me with her head up in the air. Helen Wrapp cuts me. Margie looks to see if her mother is watching when she bows to me. Isn"t it strange, Daren, how things turn out? Maybe my old friends are right.
But I don"t _feel_ that I am what they think I am.... I would do what I did--over and over."
Her eyes darkened under his gaze, and a slow crimson tide stained her white face.
"I understand you, Mel," he said, swiftly. "You must forgive me that I didn"t understand at once.... And I think you are infinitely better, finer, purer than these selfsame girls who scorn you."
"Daren! You--understand?" she faltered.
And just as swiftly he told her the revelation that thinking had brought to him.
When he had finished she looked at him for a long while. "Yes, Daren,"
she finally said, "you understand, and you have made me understand. I always felt"--and her hand went to her heart--"but my mind did not grasp.... Oh, Daren, how I thank you!" and she held her hands out to him.
Lane grasped the outstretched hands, and loosed the leaping thought her words and action created.
"Mel, let me give your boy a father--a name."
No blow could have made her shrink so palpably. It pa.s.sed--that shame.
Her lips parted, and other emotions claimed her.
"Daren--you would--marry me?" she gasped.
"I am asking you to be my wife for your child"s sake," he replied.
Her head bowed. She sank against him, trembling. Her hands clung tightly to his. Lane divined something of her agitation from the feel of her slender form. And then again that deep and profound thrill ran over him. It was followed by an instinct to wrap her in his arms, to hold her, to share her trouble and to protect her.
Strong reserve force suddenly came to Mel. She drew away from Lane, still quivering, but composed.
"Daren, all my life I"ll thank you and bless you for that offer," she said, very low. "But, of course it is impossible."
She disengaged her hands, and, turning away, looked out of the window.
Lane rather weakly sat down. What had come over him? His blood seemed bursting in his veins. Then he gazed round the dingy little parlor and at this girl of twenty, whose beauty did not harmonize with her surroundings. Fair-haired, white-faced, violet-eyed, she emanated tragedy. He watched her profile, clear cut as a cameo, fine brow, straight nose, sensitive lips, strong chin. She was biting those tremulous lips. And when she turned again to him they were red. The short-bowed upper lip, full and sweet, the lower, with its sensitive droop at the corner, eloquent of sorrow--all at once Lane realized he wanted to kiss that mouth more than he had ever wanted anything. The moment was sudden and terrible, for it meant love--love such as he had never known.
"Daren," she said, turning, "tell me how you got the _Croix de Guerre_."
By the look of her and the hand that moved toward his breast, Lane felt his power over her. He began his story and it was as if he heard some one else talking. When he had finished, she asked, "The French Army honored you, why not the American?"
"It was never reported."
"How strange! Who was your officer?"
"You"ll laugh when you hear," he replied, without hint of laugh himself. "Heavens, how things come about! My officer was from Middleville."
"Daren! Who?" she asked, quickly, her eyes darkening with thought.
"Captain Vane Thesel."
How singular to Lane the fact she did not laugh! She only stared. Then it seemed part of her warmth and glow, her subtle response to his emotion, slowly receded. He felt what he could not see.
"Oh! He. Vane Thesel," she said, without wonder or surprise or displeasure, or any expression Lane antic.i.p.ated.
Her strange detachment stirred a hideous thought--could Thesel have been.... But Lane killed the culmination of that thought. Not, however, before dark, fiery jealousy touched him with fangs new to his endurance.
To drive it away, Lane launched into more narrative of the war. And as he talked he gradually forgot himself. It might be hateful to rake up the burning threads of memory for the curious and the soulless, but to tell Mel Iden it was a keen, strange delight. He watched the changes of her expression. He learned to bring out the horror, sadness, glory that abided in her heart. And at last he cut himself off abruptly: "But I must save something for another day."
That broke the spell.
"No, you must never come back."
He picked up his hat and his stick.
"Mel, would you shut the door in my face?"
"No, Daren--but I"ll not open it," she replied resolutely.
"Why?"
"You must not come."
"For my sake--or yours?"
"Both our sakes."
He backed out on the little porch, and looked at her as she stood there. Beyond him, indeed, were his emotions then. Sad as she seemed, he wanted to make her suffer more--an inexplicable and shameful desire.
"Mel, you and I are alike," he said.