"I am a fool! I should have known. Come!" said David.
He drew her from the chair and led her across the lawn, supporting her.
At her door: "May sleep be to you like the sound of running water,"
murmured David.
And when the door was closed he went hastily back to Connor.
_CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX_
"What have I done? What have I done?" he kept moaning. "She is in pain.
I have hurt her."
"Sit down," said Connor, deeply amused.
It had been a curious revelation to him, this open talk of a man who was falling in love. He remembered the way he had proposed to a girl, once: "Say, Betty, don"t you think you and me would hit it off pretty well, speaking permanently?"
This flaunting language was wholly ludicrous to Connor. It was book-stuff.
David had obeyed him with childlike docility, and sat now like a pupil about to be corrected by the master.
"That point is this," explained Connor gravely. "You have the wrong idea. As far as I can make out, you like Ruth?"
"It is a weak word. Bah! It is not enough."
"But it"s enough to tell her. You see, men outside of the Garden don"t talk to a girl the way you do, and it embarra.s.ses her to have you talk about her all the time."
"Is it true?" murmured the penitent David. "Then what should I have said?"
"Well--er--you might have said--that the flower went pretty well in her hair, and let it go at that."
"But it was more, more, more! Benjamin, my brother, these hands of mine picked that very flower. And I see that it has pleased her. She had taken it up and placed it in her hair. It changes her. My flower brings her close to me. It means that we have found a thing which pleases us both. Just as you and I, Benjamin, are drawn together by the love of one horse. So that flower in her hair is a great sign. I dwell upon it. It is like a golden moon rising in a black night. It lights my way to her.
Words rush up from my heart, but cannot express what I mean!"
"Let it go! Let it go!" said Connor hastily, brushing his way through this outflow of verbiage, like a man bothered with gnats. "I gather what you mean. But the point is that about nine-tenths of what you think you"d better not say. If you want to talk--well, talk about yourself.
That"s what I most generally do with a girl. They like to hear a man say what he"s done."
"Myself!" said David heavily. "Talk of a dead stump when there is a great tree beside it? Well, I see that I have much to learn."
"You certainly have," said Connor with much meaning. "I"d hate to turn you loose in Manhattan."
"In what?"
"Never mind. But here"s another thing. You know that she"ll have to leave pretty soon?"
The meaning slowly filtered into David"s mind.
"Benjamin," he said slowly, "you are wise in many ways, with horses and with women, it seems. But that is a fool"s talk. Let me hear no more of it. Leave me? Why should she leave me?"
Triumph warmed the heart of Connor.
"Because a girl can"t ramble off into the mountains and put up in a valley where there are nothing but men. It isn"t done."
"Why not?"
"Isn"t good form."
"I fail to understand."
"My dear fellow, she"d be compromised for life if it were known that she had lived here with us."
David shook his head blankly.
"In one word," said Connor, striving to make his point, "she"d be pointed out by other women and by men. They"d never have anything to do with her. They"d say things that would make her ashamed, hurt her, you know."
Understanding and wrath gathered in David"s face.
"To such a man--to such a dog of a man--I would talk with my hands!"
"I think you would," nodded Connor, not a little impressed. "But you might not be around to hear the talk."
"But women surely live with men. There are wives--"
"Ah! Man and wife--all very well!"
"Then it is simple. I marry her and then I keep her here forever."
"Perhaps. But will she marry you?"
"Why not?"
"Well, does she love you?"
"True." He stood up. "I"ll ask her."
"For Heaven"s sake, no! Sit down! You mustn"t rush at a woman like this the first day you know her. Give her time. Let me tell you when!"
"Benjamin, my dear brother, you are wise and I am a fool!"
"You"ll do in time. Let me coach you, that"s all, and you"ll come on famously. I can tell you this: that I think she likes you very well already."
"Your words are like a shower of light, a fragrant wind. Benjamin, I am hot with happiness! When may I speak to her?"
"I don"t know. She may have guessed something out of what you said to-night." He swallowed a smile. "You might speak to her about this marriage to-morrow."
"It will be hard; but I shall wait."