"Poor Roscoe!" she said to herself. "It is very hard for him. But he carries his difficulties n.o.bly. He is a son to be proud of." And she wept a little.
Diantha slipped her hand in his offered arm--he clasped it warmly with his, and they walked along together.
"You won"t come in and see mother and the girls?"
"No, thank you; not this time. I must get home and get supper.
Besides, I"d rather see just you."
He felt it a pity that there were so many houses along the road here, but squeezed her hand, anyhow.
She looked at him keenly. "Headache?" she asked.
"Yes; it"s nothing; it"s gone already."
"Worry?" she asked.
"Yes, I suppose it is," he answered. "But I ought not to worry. I"ve got a good home, a good mother, good sisters, and--you!" And he took advantage of a high hedge and an empty lot on either side of them.
Diantha returned his kiss affectionately enough, but seemed preoccupied, and walked in silence till he asked her what she was thinking about.
"About you, of course," she answered, brightly. "There are things I want to say; and yet--I ought not to."
"You can say anything on earth to me," he answered.
"You are twenty-four," she began, musingly.
"Admitted at once."
"And I"m twenty-one and a half."
"That"s no such awful revelation, surely!"
"And we"ve been engaged ever since my birthday," the girl pursued.
"All these are facts, dearest."
"Now, Ross, will you be perfectly frank with me? May I ask you an--an impertinent question?"
"You may ask me any question you like; it couldn"t be impertinent."
"You"ll be scandalised, I know--but--well, here goes. What would you think if Madeline--or any of the girls--should go away to work?"
He looked at her lovingly, but with a little smile on his firm mouth.
"I shouldn"t allow it," he said.
"O--allow it? I asked you what you"d think."
"I should think it was a disgrace to the family, and a direct reproach to me," be answered. "But it"s no use talking about that. None of the girls have any such foolish notion. And I wouldn"t permit it if they had."
Diantha smiled. "I suppose you never would permit your wife to work?"
"My widow might have to--not my wife." He held his fine head a trifle higher, and her hand ached for a moment.
"Wouldn"t you let me work--to help you, Ross?"
"My dearest girl, you"ve got something far harder than that to do for me, and that"s wait."
His face darkened again, and he pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead.
"Sometimes I feel as if I ought not to hold you at all!" he burst out, bitterly. "You ought to be free to marry a better man."
"There aren"t any!" said Diantha, shaking her head slowly from side to side. "And if there were--millions--I wouldn"t marry any of "em. I love _you,"_ she firmly concluded.
"Then we"ll just _wait,"_ said he, setting his teeth on the word, as if he would crush it. "It won"t be hard with you to help. You"re better worth it than Rachael and Leah together." They walked a few steps silently.
"But how about science?" she asked him.
"I don"t let myself think of it. I"ll take that up later. We"re young enough, both of us, to wait for our happiness."
"And have you any idea--we might as well face the worst--how many years do you think that will be, dearest?"
He was a little annoyed at her persistence. Also, though he would not admit the thought, it did not seem quite the thing for her to ask. A woman should not seek too definite a period of waiting. She ought to trust--to just wait on general principles.
"I can face a thing better if I know just what I"m facing," said the girl, quietly, "and I"d wait for you, if I had to, all my life. Will it be twenty years, do you think?"
He looked relieved. "Why, no, indeed, darling. It oughtn"t to be at the outside more than five. Or six," he added, honest though reluctant.
"You see, father had no time to settle anything; there were outstanding accounts, and the funeral expenses, and the mortgages. But the business is good; and I can carry it; I can build it up." He shook his broad shoulders determinedly. "I should think it might be within five, perhaps even less. Good things happen sometimes--such as you, my heart"s delight."
They were at her gate now, and she stood a little while to say good-night. A step inside there was a seat, walled in by evergreen, roofed over by the wide acacia boughs. Many a long good-night had they exchanged there, under the large, brilliant California moon. They sat there, silent, now.
Diantha"s heart was full of love for him, and pride and confidence in him; but it was full of other feelings, too, which he could not fathom.
His trouble was clearer to her than to him; as heavy to bear. To her mind, trained in all the minutiae of domestic economy, the Warden family lived in careless wastefulness. That five women--for Dora was older than she had been when she began to do housework--should require servants, seemed to this New England-born girl mere laziness and pride.
That two voting women over twenty should prefer being supported by their brother to supporting themselves, she condemned even more sharply.
Moreover, she felt well a.s.sured that with a different family to "support," Mr. Warden would never have broken down so suddenly and irrecoverably. Even that funeral--her face hardened as she thought of the conspicuous "lot," the continual flowers, the monument (not wholly paid for yet, that monument, though this she did not know)--all that expenditure to do honor to the man they had worked to death (thus brutally Diantha put it) was probably enough to put off their happiness for a whole year.
She rose at last, her hand still held in his. "I"m sorry, but I"ve got to get supper, dear," she said, "and you must go. Good-night for the present; you"ll be round by and by?"
"Yes, for a little while, after we close up," said he, and took himself off, not too suddenly, walking straight and proud while her eves were on him, throwing her a kiss from the corner; but his step lagging and his headache settling down upon him again as he neared the large house with the cupola.
Diantha watched him out of sight, turned and marched up the path to her own door, her lips set tight, her well-shaped head as straightly held as his. "It"s a shame, a cruel, burning shame!" she told herself rebelliously. "A man of his ability. Why, he could do anything, in his own work! And he loved it so!
"To keep a grocery store--
""And nothing to show for all that splendid effort!
"They don"t do a thing? They just _live_--and "keep house!" All those women!
"Six years? Likely to be sixty! But I"m not going to wait!"