She broke in, panting. She wouldn"t have spoken crudely or abruptly if there had been any other way. But the chance was there. In another minute it might be too late. "Yes; but when I said that about Claude--"
She didn"t know how to go on. He encouraged her. "Yes, Rosie?"
She wrung her hands. "Oh, don"t you _see_? When I said that about Claude--I didn"t--I didn"t know--"
He hastened to relieve her distress. "You didn"t know I cared for you?"
"No!" The word came out with another long wail.
He looked at her curiously. "But what"s that got to do with it?"
Her eyes implored him piteously, while she beat the palm of one hand against the back of the other. It was terrible that he couldn"t see what she meant--and the moments slipping away!
"It wouldn"t have made you love Claude any the less, would it?"
She had to say something. If she didn"t he would never understand. "Not love, perhaps; but--"
The sudden coldness in his voice terrified her again--but differently.
"But what, Rosie?"
She cried out, as if the words rent her. "But Claude has no--_money_."
"And I have. Is that it?"
It was no use to deny it. She nodded dumbly. Besides, she counted on his possession of common sense, though his use of it was slow.
He raised himself from his att.i.tude of leaning on the desk. It was his turn to take shelter amid the dark foliage behind him. He couldn"t bear to let the lamplight fall too fully on his face. "Is it this, Rosie," he asked, with an air of bewilderment, "that you"d marry me because I have--the money?"
It seemed to Rosie that the question gave her reasonable cause for exasperation. She was almost sobbing as she said: "Well, I can"t marry Claude _without_ money. He can"t marry me." A ray was thrown into her little soul when she gasped in addition, "And there"s father and mother and Matt!"
Thor"s expression lost some of its bewilderment because it deepened to sternness. "But Claude means to marry you, doesn"t he?"
She cried out again, with that strange effect of the words rending her.
"I don"t--_know_."
He had a moment of wild fear lest his father had been right, after all.
"You don"t know? Then--what"s your relation to each other?"
"I don"t know that, either. Claude won"t tell me." She crossed her hands on her bosom as she said, desperately, "I sometimes think he doesn"t mean anything at all."
The terror of the instant pa.s.sed. "Oh yes, he does, Rosie. I"ll see to that."
"Do you mean that you"ll make him marry me?"
He smiled pitifully. "There"ll be no making, Rosie. You leave it to me."
He turned from her not merely because the last word had been spoken, but through fear lest something might be breaking within himself. On regaining the white roadway he thought he saw Jasper Fay in the shadow of the house, but he was too deeply stricken to speak to him. He went up the hill and farther from the village. It was not yet eight o"clock, but time had ceased to have measurement. He went up the hill to be alone in that solitude which was all that for the moment he could endure. He climbed higher than the houses and the snow-covered gardens; his back was toward the moon and the glow above the city. The prospect of reaching the summit gave something for his strong body to strain forward to.
The ridge, when he got to it, was treeless, wind-swept, and moon-swept.
It was a great white altar, victimless and bare. He felt devastated, weak. It was a relief, bodily and mental, to sink to his knees--to fall--to lie at his length. He pressed his hot face into the cool, consoling whiteness, as a man might let himself weep on a pillow. His arms were outstretched beyond his head. His fingers pierced beneath the snow till they touched the tender, nestling mosses. All round him there was silveriness and silence, and overhead the moon.
CHAPTER XIV
Descending the hill, Thor saw a light in his uncle Sim"s stable, and knew that Delia was being settled for the night. Uncle Sim still lived in the ramshackle house to which his father--old Dr. Masterman, as elderly people in the village called him--had taken his young wife, who had been Miss Lucy Dawes. In this house both Sim and Archie Masterman were born. It was the plainest of dwellings, painted by wind and weather to a dovelike silver-gray. Here lived Uncle Sim, cared for in the domestic sense by a lady somewhat older and more eccentric than himself, known to the younger Mastermans as Cousin Amy Dawes.
Thor avoided the house and Cousin Amy Dawes, going directly to the stable. By the time he had reached the door Uncle Sim was shutting it.
In the light of a lantern standing in the snow the naked elms round about loomed weirdly. The greetings were brief.
"h.e.l.lo, Uncle Sim!"
"h.e.l.lo, Thor!"
Thor made an effort to reduce the emotional tremor of his voice to the required minimum. "Father"s been telling me about Claude and Rosie Fay."
Uncle Sim turned the key in the lock with a loud grating. "Father had to do it, did he? Thought you might have caught on to that by yourself. One of the reasons I sent you into the Fay family."
"Did you know it then?--already?"
"Didn"t _know_ it. Couldn"t help putting two and two together."
"You see everything, Uncle Sim."
Uncle Sim stooped to pick up the lantern. "See everything that"s under my nose. Thought you could, too."
"This hasn"t been under my nose."
"Oh, well! There are noses and noses. A donkey has one kind and a dog has another."
Thor was not a finished actor, but he was doing his best to play a part.
"Well, what do you think now?"
"What do I think now? I don"t think anything--about other people"s business."
"I think we ought to do something," Thor declared, with energy.
"All right. Every one to his mind. Only it"s great fun to let other people settle their own affairs."
"Settle their own affairs--and suffer."
"Yes, and suffer. Suffering doesn"t hurt any one."
"Do you mean to say, Uncle Sim, that I should sit still and do nothing while the people I care for most in the world are in all sorts of trouble that I could get them out of?"
"That little baggage, Rosie Fay, isn"t one of the people you care for most in the world, I presume?"