"But you can see things from mine without any difficulty!"
"It isn"t fair, is it?" Her tone was that of the comrade, now. "But you know women are credited with a sort of instinct--even intuition--that leads them safely where men"s reasoning can"t always follow."
"It never leads them astray, by any chance?"
"Yes, I think it does sometimes," she owned frankly. "But it"s as well for the woman to be on her guard, isn"t it? Because, sometimes, you know, she loses her head. And when that happens--"
"All is lost? Or does a man"s reasoning, slower and not so infallible, but sometimes based on greater knowledge, step in and save the day?"
"It often does. But, in this case--well, it"s not just a case of reasoning, is it?"
"The case of my falling in love with a girl I"ve only known--slightly--for four months? It has seemed to me all along it was just that. It"s been a case of the head sanctioning the heart--and you probably know it"s not always that way with a young man"s experiences.
Every ideal I"ve ever known--and I"ve had a few, though you might not think it--every good thought and purpose, have been stimulated by my contact with the people of your father"s house. And since I have met you some new ideals have been born. They have become very dear to me, those new ideals, Miss Roberta, though they"ve had only a short time to grow.
It hurts to have you treat me as if you thought me incapable of them."
"I"m sorry," she said simply, and her hands gave his a little quick pressure which meant apology and regret. His heart warmed a very little, for he had been sure she was capable of great generosity if appealed to in the right way. But justice and generosity were not all he craved, and he could see quite clearly that they were all he was likely to get from her as yet.
"You think," he said, pursuing his advantage, "we know too little of each other to be even friends. You are confident my tastes and pleasures are entirely different from yours; especially that my notions of real work are so different that we could never measure things with the same footrule."
He looked down at her searchingly.
She nodded. "Something like that," she admitted. "But that doesn"t mean that either tastes or notions in either case are necessarily unworthy, only that they are different."
"I wonder if they are? What if we should try to find out? I"m going to stick pretty closely to Eastman this winter, but of course I shall be in town more or less. May I come to see you, now and then, if I promise not to become bothersome?"
It was her turn to look up searchingly at him. If he had expected the usual answer to such a request, he began, before she spoke, to realize that it was by no means a foregone conclusion that he should receive usual answers from her to any questioning whatsoever. But her reply surprised him more than he had ever been surprised by any girl in his life.
"Mr. Kendrick," said she slowly, "I wish that you need not see me again till--suppose we say Midsummer Day,[A] the twenty-fourth of June, you know."
[Footnote A: Midsummer comes at the time of the summer solstice, about June 21st, but Midsummer Day, the Feast of St. John the Baptist, is the 24th of June.]
He stared at her. "If you put it that way," he began stiffly, "you certainly need not--"
"But I didn"t put it that way. I said I wished that you need not see me.
That is quite different from wishing I need not see you. I don"t mind seeing you in the least--"
"That"s good of you!"
"Don"t be angry. I"m going to be quite frank with you--"
"I"m prepared for that. I can"t remember that you"ve ever been anything else."
"Please listen to me, Mr. Kendrick. When I say that I wish you would not see me--"
"You said "need not.""
"I shall have to put it "would not" to make you understand. When I say I wish you would not see me until Midsummer I am saying the very kindest thing I can. Just now you are under the impression--hallucination--that you want to see much of me. To prove that you are mistaken I"m going to ask this of you--not to have anything whatever to do with me until at least Midsummer. If you carry out my wish you will find out for yourself what I mean--and will thank me for my wisdom."
"It"s a wish, is it? It sounds to me more like a decree."
"It"s not a decree. I"ll not refuse to see you if you come. But if you will do as I ask I shall appreciate it more than I can tell you."
"It is certainly one of the cleverest schemes of getting rid of a fellow I ever heard. Hang it all! do you expect me not to understand that you are simply letting me down easy? It"s not in reason to suppose that you"re forbidding all other men the house. I beg your pardon; I know that"s none of my business; but it"s not in human nature to keep from saying it, because of course that"s bound to be the thing that cuts. If you were going into a convent, and all other fellows were cooling their heels outside with me, I could stand it."
"My dear Mr. Kendrick, you can stand it in any case. You"re going to put all this out of mind and work at building up this business here in Eastman with Mr. Benson. You will find it a much more interesting game than the old one of--"
"Of what? Running after every pretty girl? For of course that"s what you think I"ve done."
She did not answer that. He said something under his breath, and his hands tightened on hers savagely. They were rounding the last bend but one in the river, and the bonfire was close at hand.
"Can"t you understand," he ground out, "that every other thought and feeling and experience I"ve ever had melts away before this? You can put me under ban for a year if you like; but if at the end of that time you"re not married to another man you"ll find me at your elbow. I told you I"d make you respect me; I"ll do more, I"ll make you listen to me.
And--if I promise not to come where you have to look at me till Midsummer, till the twenty-fourth of June--heaven knows why you pick out that day--I"ll not promise not to make you think of me!"
"Oh, but that"s part of what I mean. You mustn"t send me letters and books and flowers--"
"Oh--thunder!"
"Because those things will help to keep this idea before your mind. I want you to forget me, Mr. Kendrick--do you realize that?--forget me absolutely all the rest of the winter and spring. By that time--"
"I"ll wonder who you are when we do meet, I suppose?"
"Exactly. You--"
"All right. I agree to the terms. No letters, no books, no--ye G.o.ds! if I could only send the flowers now! Who would expect to win a girl without orchids? You do, you certainly do, rate me with the light-minded, don"t you? Music also is proscribed, of course; that"s the one other offering allowed at the shrine of the fair one. All right--all right--I"ll vanish, like a fairy prince in a child"s story. But before I go I--"
With a dig of his steel-shod heel he brought himself and Roberta to a standstill. He bent over her till his face was rather close to hers. She looked back at him without fear, though she both saw and felt the tenseness with which he was making his farewell speech.
"Before I go, I say, I"m going to tell you that if you were any other girl on the old footstool I"d have one kiss from you before I let go of you if I knew it meant I"d never have another. I could take it--"
She did not shrink from him by a hair"s breadth, but he felt her suddenly tremble as if with the cold.
"--but I want you to know that I"m going to wait for it till--Midsummer Day. Then"--he bent still closer--"you will give it to me yourself. I"m saying this foolhardy sort of thing to give you something to remember all these months--I"ve got to. You"ll have so many other people saying things to you when I can"t that I"ve got to startle you in order to make an impression that will stick. That one will, won"t it?"
A reluctant smile touched her lips. "It"s quite possible that it may,"
she conceded. "It probably would, whoever had the audacity to say it.
But--to know a fate that threatens is to be forewarned.
And--fortunately--a girl can always run away."
"You can"t run so far that I can"t follow. Meanwhile, tell me just one thing--"
"I"ll tell you nothing more. We"ve been gone for ages now--there come the others--please start on."
"Good-bye, dear," said he, under his breath. "Good-bye--till Midsummer.
But then--"
"No, no, you must _not_ say it--or think it."
"I"m going to think it, and so are you. I defy you to forget it. You may see that lawyer Westcott every day, and no matter what you"re saying to him, every once in a while will bob up the thought--Midsummer Day!"