"But it seems real mean to keep him, after I"ve had him all the afternoon. I must give him to you."
"I hope he wouldn"t be so ungallant as to be given, and leave you to go home alone," I said. "That is not the way we treat strangers in Tuskamuck."
"Oh, you mustn"t call me a stranger," Miss West responded, twisting her head to look up into George"s face. "I"m really in love with the place, and I should admire to live here all the rest of my life."
To this I had nothing to say. George had not spoken a word. I could not look at him, but I moved on now. I felt that I must get away from this girl, with her strange Western speech, and her familiar manner.
"Good-by," I said. "Mother will want me, and I mustn"t linger any longer."
I managed to smile until I had left them, but the tears would come as I hurried up the hill toward home. Oh, how can I bear it!
January 23. The happiness of George is the thing which should be considered. In any case I am helpless. I can only wait, in woman"s fashion. Even if I were convinced he would be happier and better with me,--and how can I tell that?--what is there I could do? My duty is by mother"s sick-bed, and even if my pride would let me struggle for the possession of any man, I am not free to try even that degrading conflict. I should know, moreover, that any man saved in spite of himself would be apt to look back with regret to the woman he was saved from. Jean Ingelow"s "Letter L" is not often repeated in life, I am afraid. Still, if one could be sure that it is a danger and he were saved, this might be borne. If it were surely for his good to think less of me, I might bear it somehow, hard as it would be. But my hands are tied. There is nothing for me but waiting.
January 24. George met Kathie last night as she was coming here, and sent word that he had to drive over to Canton. I thought it odd for him to send me such a message instead of coming himself, for he had not seen me since I met him in the street with Miss West. To-day Aunt Naomi came in, and the moment I saw her I knew that she had something to say that it would not be pleasant to hear.
"What"s George Weston taking that West girl over to Canton for?" she asked.
It was like a stab in the back, but I tried not to flinch.
"Why shouldn"t he take her?" I responded.
Aunt Naomi gave a characteristic sniff, and wagged her foot violently.
"If he wants to, perhaps he should," she answered enigmatically.
The subject dropped there, but I wonder a little why she put it that way.
January 26. Our engagement is broken. George is gone, and the memory of six years, he says, had better be wiped out.
January 27. I could not tell Mother to-day. By the time I got my courage up it was afternoon, and I feared lest she should be too excited to sleep to-night. To-morrow morning she must know.
II
FEBRUARY
February 1. I wonder sometimes if human pride is not stronger than human affection. Certainly it seems sometimes that we feel the wound to vanity more than the blow to love. I suppose that the truth is that the little p.r.i.c.k stings where the blow numbs. For the moment it seemed to me to-night as if I felt more the sudden knowledge that the village knows of my broken engagement than I did the suffering of the fact; but I shall have forgotten this to-morrow, and the real grief will be left.
Miss Charlotte, tall and gaunt, came in just at twilight. She brought a lovely moss-rose bud.
"Why, Miss Charlotte," I said, "you have never cut the one bud off your moss-rose! I thought that was as dear to you as the apple of your eye."
"It was," she answered with her gayest air. "That"s why I brought it."
"Mother will be delighted," I said; "that is, if she can forgive you for picking it."
"It isn"t for your mother," Miss Charlotte said, with a sudden softening of her voice; "it is for you. I"m an old woman, you know, and I"ve whims. It"s my whim for you to have the bud because I"ve watched it growing, and loved it almost as if it were my own baby."
Then I knew that she had heard of the broken engagement. The sense of the village gossip, the idea of being talked over at the sewing-circle, came to me so vividly and so dreadfully that for a moment I could hardly get my breath. Then I remembered the sweetness of Miss Charlotte"s act, and I went to her and kissed her. The poor old dear had tears in her eyes, but she said nothing. She understood, I am sure, that I could not talk, but that I had seen what she meant me to see, her sympathy and her love. We sat down before the fire in the gathering dusk, and talked of indifferent things. She praised Peter"s beauty, although the ungrateful Peter refused to stay in her lap, and would not be gracious under her caresses. She did not remain long, and she was gay after her fashion.
Miss Charlotte is apt to cover real feeling with a decent veil of facetiousness.
"Now I must go home and get my party ready," she said, rising with characteristic suddenness.
"Are you going to have a party?" I asked in some surprise.
"I have one every night, my dear," she returned, with her explosive laugh. "All the Kendall ghosts come. It isn"t very gay, but it"s very select."
She hurried away, and left me more touched than I should have wished her to see.
February 2. It was well for me that Miss Charlotte"s visit prepared me last night, for to-day Kathie broke in upon me with the most childish frankness.
"Miss Ruth," she burst out, "ain"t you going to marry George Weston?"
"No, my dear," I answered; "but you mustn"t say "ain"t.""
""Aren"t," then. But I thought you promised years and years ago."
"Kathie, dear," said I, "this isn"t a thing that you may talk about. You are too young to understand, and it is vulgar to talk to people about their private affairs unless they begin."
"But it"s no wronger than"--
"There"s no such word as "wronger," Kathie."
"No worse than to break one"s word, is it?"
"When two persons make an agreement they have a right to unmake it if they change their minds; and that is not breaking their word. How do the skates work?"
"All right," Kathie answered; "but father said that you and George Weston"--
"Kathie," I said as firmly as I could, "I have told you before that you must not repeat what your father says."
"It isn"t wrong," she returned rather defiantly.
I was surprised at her manner, but I suppose that she is always fighting with her conscience about right and wrong, so the mere idea makes her aggressive.
"I am not so sure," I told her, trying to turn the whole matter off with a laugh. "I don"t think it"s very moral to be ill bred. Do you?"
"Why, Father says manners don"t matter if the heart is right."
"This is only another way of saying that if the heart is right the manners will be right. If you in your heart consider whether your father would wish you to tell me what he did not say for my ears, you will not be likely to say it."