"It"s--it"s about a lover."
She blushed.
"Do you mind?"
"You _are_ the limit! Of course I don"t!"
"It"s about a lady, too."
"Naturally."
"And love--rash, precipitate, unwarranted, unrequited, and fatal love."
"I can stand it if you can," she said with the faintest glimmer of malice in her smile.
"All right. The t.i.tle is: "_Oh, Love! Oh, Why?_""
"A perfectly good t.i.tle," she said gravely. "I alway says "why?" to Love."
So he bowed to her and began very seriously:
"Oh, Lover in haste, beware of Fate!
Wait for a moment while I relate A harrowing tragedy up to date Of innate Hate.
"A maiden rocked on her rocking-chair; Her store-curls stirred in the summer air; An amorous Fly espied her there, So rare and fair.
"Before she knew where she was at, He"d kissed the maiden where she sat, And she batted him one which slapped him flat Ker-spat! Like that!
"Oh, Life! Oh, Death! Oh, swat-in-the-eye!
Beyond the Bournes of the By-and-By, Spattered the soul of that amorous Fly.
Oh, Love! Oh, Why?"
She pretended to be overcome by the tragic pathos of the poem:
"I cannot bear it," she protested; "I can"t endure the realism of that spattered soul. Why not let her wave him away and have him plunge headlong onto a sheet of fly-paper and die a buzzing martyr?"
Then, swift as a weather-vane swinging from north to south her mood changed once more and softened; and her fingers again began idling among the keys, striking vague harmonies.
He came across the room and stood looking down over her shoulder; and after a moment her hands ceased stirring, fell inert on the keys.
A single red shaft of light slanted on the wall. It faded out to pink, lingered; and then the gray evening shadows covered it. The world outside was very still; the room was stiller, save for her heart, which only she could hear, rapid, persistent, beating the reveille.
She heard it and sat motionless; every nerve in her was sounding the alarm; every breath repeated the prophecy; and she did not stir, even when his arm encircled her. Her head, fallen partly back, rested a moment against his shoulder: she met his light caress with unresponsive lips and eyes that looked up blindly into his.
Then her face burned scarlet and she sprang up, retreating as he caught her slender hand:
"No!--please. Let me go! This is too serious--even if we did not mean it----"
"You know I mean it," he said simply.
"You must not! You understand why!... And don"t--again! I am not--I do not choose to--to allow--endure--such--things----"
He still held her by one hand and she stood twisting at it and looking at him with cheeks still crimson and eyes still a little dazed.
"Please!" she repeated--and "please!" And she came toward him a step, and laid her other hand over the one that still held hers.
"Won"t you be kind to me?" she said under her breath. "Be kind to me--and let me go."
"Am I unkind?"
"Yes--yes! You know--you know how it is with me! Let me go my way.... I _am_ going anyhow!" she added fiercely; "you can"t check me--not for one moment!"
"Check you from what, Strelsa?"
"From--what I want out of life!--tranquillity, ease, security, happiness----"
"Happiness?"
"Yes--yes! It _will_ be that! I don"t need anything except what I shall have. I don"t want anything else. Can"t you understand? Do you think women feel as--as men do? Do you think the kind of love that men experience is also experienced by women? I don"t want it; I don"t require it! I"ve--I"ve always had a contempt for it--and I have still.... Anyway I have offered you the best that is in me to offer any man--friendship. That is the nearest I can come to love. Why can"t you take it--and let me alone! What is it to you if I marry and find security and comfort and quiet and protection, as long as I give you my friendship--as long as I never swerve in it--as long as I hold you first among my friends--first among men if you wish! More I cannot offer you--I will not! Now let me go!"
"Your _other_ self, fighting me," he said, half to himself.
"No, _I_ am! What do you mean by my other self! There _is_ no other----"
"Its lips rested on mine for a moment!"
She blushed scarlet:
"Is _that_ what you mean!--the stupid, unworthy, material self----"
"The trinity is incomplete without it."
She wrenched her hand free, and stood staring at him breathing unevenly as though frightened.
After a moment he began to pace the floor, hands dropped into his coat pockets, his teeth worrying his under lip:
"I"m not going to give you up," he said. "I love you. Whatever is lacking in you makes no difference to me. My being poor and your being poor makes no difference either. I simply don"t care--I don"t even care what you think about it. Because I know that we will be worth it to each other--whether you think so or not. And you evidently don"t, but I can"t help that. If I"m any good I"ll make you think as I do----"
He swung on his heel and came straight up to her, took her in his arms and kissed her, then, releasing her, turned toward the window, his brows slightly knitted.
Through the panes poured the sunset flood, bathing him from head to foot in ruddy light. He stared into the red West and the muscles tightened under his cheeks.
"_Can"t_ you care?" he said, half to himself.
She stood dumb, still cold and rigid with repulsion from the swift and almost brutal contact. That time nothing in her had responded. Vaguely she felt that what had been there was now dead--that she never could respond again; that, from the lesser emotions, she was clean and free forever.
"_Can"t_ you care for a man who loves you, Strelsa?" he said again, turning toward her.