You laughed gayly. "I want you to know, sir," you a.s.serted, with a pretense of defiance, "that I don"t believe in love, because I have never found any that was wholly free from self-indulgence or self-interest. And I still think"--
Just then Mrs. Blodgett joined us, and inquired, "Have you told Rudolph, Maizie?"
"Yes."
"I went to see how you were the moment I heard of your illness," she said, with a certain challenge in her voice, "and I found that book lying on your desk just where you stopped writing from weakness. I read it, and I took it to Maizie."
"It was kismet, I suppose," was all I could say, too happy to think of criticism, and instantly her manner changed and she wiped her eyes.
"I had to do it," she sobbed.
"You have been too good to me," I answered, rising and taking her hand.
"There, there," she continued, steadying herself. "I didn"t come out to behave like this, but to tell you to go to bed at once. I"m going to your room to see that everything is right for our invalid, but don"t you delay a minute after I"m gone," and she disappeared through the doorway.
I turned to you and held out my hand, bidding you, "Good-night, Maizie,"
and you took it, and replied, "Good-night, Don." Then suddenly you leaned forward, and, kissing my forehead, added, "G.o.d keep you safe for me, my darling."
I took you in my arms, and gave you back your kiss twofold, while saying, "Good-night, my love."
XXVI
A man does not willingly spread on paper the sweetest and tenderest moments of his life. When half crazed with grief and illness I might express my suffering, much as, in physical pain, some groan aloud; but the deepest happiness is silent, for it is too great to be told. And lest, my dears, you think me even less manly than I am, I choose to add here the reason for my writing the last few pages of this story of my love, that if you ever read it you may know the motive which made me tell what till to-night I have kept locked in my heart.
This evening the dearest woman in the world came to me, as I sat at my desk in the old library, and asked, "Are you busy, Donald?"
"I am reading the one hundred and forty-seventh complimentary review of my History of the Moors, and I am so sick of sweets that your interruption comes as an unalloyed pleasure."
"Am I bitter or acid?" she asked, leaning over my shoulder and arranging my hair, which is one of her ways of pleasing me.
"You are my exact opposite," I said gravely.
"How uncomplimentary you are!" she cried, with a pretense of anger in her voice.
"An historian must tell the truth now and then, for variety"s sake."
"Then tell me if you are too engaged to spare me a minute. Any other time will do."
"You are seriously mistaken, because no other time will do. And nothing about me is ever engaged, as regards you, except my affections, and they are permanently so."
"I"ve come to ask a great favor of you."
"Out of the question; but you may tell me what it is."
"Ah, Donald, say you will grant it before I tell you?"
"Concealment bespeaks a guilty conscience."
"But sometimes you are so funny and obstinate about things!"
"That is what Mr. Whitely used to say."
"Don"t mention that wretch"s name to me! To think of that miserable little Western college making him an LL. D. because of your book!"
"Never mind, Maizie; here"s a letter I received an hour ago from Jastrow, which tells me the University of Leipzig is going to give me a degree."
"That he should steal your fame!"
"My Moor is five times the chap my Turk was."
"But you might have had both!"
"And gone without you? Don"t fret over it, my darling."
"I can"t help"--
She always ends this vein by abusing herself, which I wouldn"t allow another human being to do, and which I don"t like to hear, so I interrupted: "Jastrow says he"ll come over in March to visit us, and threatens to bring the ma.n.u.script of his whole seventeen volumes, for me to take a final look at it before he sends it to press."
"The dear old thing!" she said tenderly. "I love him so for what he was to you that I believe I shall welcome him with a kiss."
"Why make the rest of his life unhappy?"
"Is that the way it affects you?"
"Woman is born illogical, and even the cleverest of her s.e.x cannot entirely overcome the taint. After you give me a kiss I bear in mind that I am to have another, and that makes me very happy. But if you kiss Jastrow, the poor fellow will go back to Germany and pine away into his grave. Even his fifty-two dialects will not satisfy him after your l.a.b.i.al."
"Oh, you silly!" she exclaimed; but, my dears, I think she is really, in her secret heart, fond of silliness, for she leaned over and--There, I"ll stop being what she called me.
"We"ll give him a great reception," she continued, "and have every one worth knowing to meet him."
"He is the shyest of beings."
"How books and learning do refine men!" she said.
"I am afraid they do make weaklings of us."
"Will you never get over the idea that you are weak?" she cried; for it is one of her pet superst.i.tions that I am not.
"You"ll frighten me out of it if you speak like that."
"You are--well--that is really what I came to ask for. Just to please your own wife, you will, Donald, won"t you?"
"The distinction between "will" and "won"t" is clearly set forth in a somewhat well-known song concerning a spider and a fly."
"Oh, you bad boy!"