"No, no--_please_ don"t--please stand up again. Sit over there,--I can think better."
"Think quickly. This is Sat.u.r.day, and to-morrow is their busy day. They may not sit up late to-night."
She arose with a little shrug of desperation that proclaimed her to be in the power of a mad man. She looked at her face in the oval mirror, wiping her eyes and making little pa.s.ses and pats at her disordered hair. He went over to her.
"No, no--please go over there again. Sit down a moment--let me think.
I"ll talk to you presently."
There was silence for five minutes. He watched her, while she narrowed her eyes in deep thought.
Then he looked at his watch.
"I can give you an hour, if you"ve anything to say before it"s done--not longer."
She drew a long breath.
"Mr. Bines, are you mad? Can"t you be rational?"
"I haven"t been irrational, I give you my word, not once since I came here."
He looked at her steadily. All at once he saw her face go crimson. She turned her eyes from his with an effort.
"I"m going back to Montana in the morning. I want you to marry me to-night--I won"t even wait one more day--one more hour. I know it"s a thing you never dreamt of--marrying a poor man. You"ll look at it as the most disgraceful act of folly you could possibly commit, and so will every one else here--but you"ll _do_ it. To-morrow at this time you"ll be half-way to Chicago with me."
"Mr. Bines,--I"m perfectly reasonable and serious--I mean it--are you quite sure you didn"t lose your wits when you lost your money?"
"It _may_ be considered a witless thing to marry a girl who would marry for money--but never mind _that_--I"m used to taking chances."
She glanced up at him, curiously.
"You know I"m to marry Mr. Shepler the tenth of next month."
"Your grammar is faulty--tense is wrong--You should say "I _was_ to have married Mr. Shepler." I"m fastidious about those little things, I confess."
"How can you jest?"
"I can"t. Don"t think this is any joke. _He"ll_ find out."
"Who will find out,--what, pray?"
"He will. He"s already said he was afraid there might have been some nonsense between you and me, because we talked that evening at the Oldakers". He told my grandfather he wasn"t at all sure of you until that day I lost my money."
"Oh, I see--and of course you"d like your revenge--carrying me off from him just to hurt him."
"If you say that I"ll hold you in my arms again." He started toward her. "I"ve loved you _so_, I tell you--all the time--all the time."
"Or perhaps it"s a brutal revenge on me,--after thinking I"d only marry for money."
"I"ve loved you always, I tell you."
He came up to her, more gently now, and took up her hand to kiss it. He saw the ring.
"Take his ring off!"
She looked up at him with an amused little smile, but did not move. He reached for the hand, and she put it behind her.
"Take it off," he said, harshly.
He forced her hand out, took off the ring with its gleaming stone, none too gently, and laid it on the table behind him. Then he covered the hand with kisses.
"Now it"s my hand. Perhaps there was a little of both those feelings you accuse me of--perhaps I _did_ want to triumph over both you and Shepler--and the other people who said you"d never marry for anything but money--but do you think I"d have had either one of those desires if I hadn"t loved you? Do you think I"d have cared how many Sheplers you married if I hadn"t loved you so, night and day?--always turning to you in spite of everything,--loving you always, under everything--always, I tell you."
"Under what--what "everything"?"
"When I was sure you had no heart--that you couldn"t care for any man except a rich man--that you would marry only for money."
"You thought that?"
"Of course I thought it."
"What has changed you?"
"Nothing. I"m going to change it now by proving differently. I shall take you against your will--but I shall make you love me--in the end. I know you--you"re a woman, in spite of yourself!"
"You were entirely right about me. I would even have married you because of the money--"
"Tell me what it is you"re holding back--don"t wait."
"Let me think--don"t talk, please!"
She sat a long time silent, motionless, her eyes fixed ahead. At length she stirred herself to speak.
"You were right about me, partly--and partly wrong. I don"t think I can make you understand. I"ve always wanted so much from life--so much more than it seemed possible to have. The only thing for a girl in my position and circ.u.mstances was to make what is called a good marriage.
I wanted what that would bring, too. I was torn between the desires--or rather the natural instincts and the trained desires. I had ideals about loving and being loved, and I had the material ideals of my experience in this world out here.
"I was untrue to each by turns. Here--I want to show you something."
She took up a book with closely written pages.
"I came here to-night--I won"t conceal from you that I thought of you when I came. It was my last time here, and you had gone, I supposed.
Among other things I had out this old diary to burn, and I had found this, written on my eighteenth birthday, when I came out--the fond, romantic, secret ideal of a foolish girl--listen:
"The Soul of Love wed the Soul of Truth and their daughter, Joy, was born: who was immortal and in whom they lived for ever!"
"You see--that was the sort of moonshine I started in to live. Two or three times I was a grievous disappointment to my people, and once or twice, perhaps, I was disappointed myself. I was never quite sure what I wanted. But if you think I was consistently mercenary you are mistaken. I shall tell you something more--something no one knows.
There was a man I met while that ideal was still strong and beautiful to me--but after I"d come to see that here, in this life, it was not easily to be kept. He was older than I, experienced with women--a lover of women, I came to understand in time. I was a novelty to him, a fresh recreation--he enjoyed all those romantic ideals of mine. I thought then he loved me, and I worshipped him. He was married, but constantly said he was about to leave his wife, so she would divorce him. I promised to come to him when it was done. He had married for money and he would have been poor again. I didn"t mind in the least. I tell you this to show you that I could have loved a poor man, not only well enough to marry him, but to break with the traditions, and brave the scandal of going to him in that common way. With all I felt for him I should have been more than satisfied. But I came in time to see that he was not as earnest as I had been. He wasn"t capable of feeling what I felt. He was more cowardly than I--or rather, I was more reckless than he. I suspected it a long time; I became convinced of it a year ago and a little over. He became hateful to me. I had wasted my love. Then he became funny. But--you see--I am not altogether what you believed me.
Wait a bit longer, please.