"Where?"
"To Wells. We can make it by morning. I"ve got the mortgage money with me."
"Your uncle"s?"
"Yes. What difference does that make? That, or anything? We"d go if we hadn"t any money at all. We"d have to. Oh, Judith----"
"You don"t know what you"re saying. Take me home. What are you laughing at?"
"You. You sounded just like them, then, giving me orders--just like your whole rotten crowd, but you"re through with them now, and you"re through ordering me about and making a fool of me. I"ve been afraid to say my soul was my own. It wasn"t, I guess. But we"re all through with that.
We"re through, Judith."
"Yes, of course. Of course we"re through. It"s all right. Everything"s all right, Neil dear."
"Everything"s all wrong, and I know whose fault it is now: it"s your fault. Maybe I only had one chance in a hundred to get on, but one chance is enough, and I was taking it. You made me ashamed to take it. I was ashamed to do the work that was all I could get to do, and I had my head so full of you I couldn"t do any work. Maggie"s better than I am.
She don"t sit around with her hands folded and wait for Everard to get tired of her. And the whole town don"t laugh at her. The whole town don"t know----"
"Neil, I said I was sorry. Please don"t."
"You"ve got the smooth ways of them all, but it"s too late for that between us, Judy. Smooth, lying ways."
"We can"t go to Wells, Neil dear. What could we do there? Think."
"I"m sick of thinking. I"d get work maybe. I don"t know. I don"t care.
Judith----"
"We can"t. Not to-night, Neil. Wait."
"I"m sick of waiting. I"ve got nothing to gain by it. I"ve done all the waiting I could. I"ve stood all I could. You"re the only thing I want in the world, and I couldn"t wait for you any longer if I could get you that way--and I wouldn"t get you. I"d lose you."
"Not to-night. To-morrow, if you really want me to go. To-morrow, truly."
"You"re lying to me, and I"m tired of it."
"No, Neil--Neil dear."
"You"re lying."
"How dare you say that! I hate you!"
"That"s right. We"ll talk straight now. It"s time."
"I hate you. Don"t touch me. You"re going to take me home--you must--and I"m never going to speak to you again. I think you"re crazy.
But I"m not afraid of you--I"m not afraid."
The low-keyed, hurrying voices broke off abruptly. There was no sound in the buggy but Judith"s rapid breathing, more and more like sobs, but no tears came. The two faces that confronted each other were alike in the gloom, white and angry and very young; alike as the faces of enemies are when they measure each other"s strength in silence. It was a cruel, tense little silence, but the sound that broke it was more cruel. It was dry and hard and had nothing to do with his own conquering laugh, that the girl knew, but it came from the boy.
"How dare you laugh at me. I hate you!" Judith"s voice came hoa.r.s.e and unrecognizable.
A hand caught blindly at the reins; another hand closed over it. Then there was silence again in the buggy, broken by panting sounds and little sobs. At the end of it Judith, forced back into her corner and held there, was really crying now, with hysterical sobs that hurt, and hot tears that hurt, too.
"Let me go," she panted. "I hate you! You"ve got to let me go."
"What for?"
"I"m going home. I"m going to get out and walk home."
"Ten miles?"
"I"d walk a hundred miles to get away from you."
"You"d have to walk farther to do that." The dry little laugh cut through the dark again, and Judith struck furiously at the arm that held her.
"I hate you!" she sobbed.
"No."
"Oh, I do--I do----"
"I don"t care." The boy"s voice sounded light and dry, like his laugh.
"I don"t care. Kiss me."
"I won"t! I won"t! I"ll never speak to you again. I"ll never forgive you."
"Lying to me--fooling me; taking me up and dropping me like Everard does to women.... You"re no better than he is. You"re one of his crowd, but you"re through with them.... Lying to me, when you do care. You do."
"I hate you!"
"Ah, no, you don"t."
Little bursts of confused speech, all they had breath for and more, disconnected, not always understood, not always articulate, but always angry, came from them, with intervals of silent, panting struggle between. The two young creatures in the buggy were struggling in earnest now. The struggle was clumsy, like most really significant ones; sudden and clumsy and blind. The two figures swayed aimlessly back and forth.
The boy and girl were both on their feet now. The boy had dropped the reins. Both arms held the girl. Her pinioned arms fought to free themselves.
"Judith, you don"t hate me. Say it--say it."
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""_Judith, you don"t hate me? Say it--say it_""]
The two shadowy figures were like one now, but the girl"s arms were free, pushing the boy away, striking at him impotently.
"You needn"t say it. I know. You had to come to-night. You couldn"t stay away. You don"t hate me. You never will. You couldn"t. I"m crazy about you. You"re the only thing that matters, if we should die the next minute. Everything"s all wrong, and it"s not my fault or yours.
Everything"s wrong, and this is wrong, too, but I don"t care and you don"t. Do you? Do you?"
"Neil, let me go. I can"t breathe."
"I love you."
"Let me go."
The shadow figures swayed and then were still. The girl"s arms dropped.