I was deeply moved, and a conviction that for me there might still be something true and fine raced into my mind. And was followed by a whole host of gentle and unselfish and pitying thoughts, as to a tree at evening flocks of starlings come to roost.
"Hilda," I said, "if there is no power of loving in me, but only of fancying, still you have said that fancy feeds on propinquity. I have no right to say that I love you; no right to promise that I ever will.
It"s not your sweet pretty face that"s moving me now. It"s your power of loving--your power of loving me--your constancy--your trust--your courage in saying that these things shall not go begging--if I say they shall not. What I thought another had, what I thought I had, only you have. I dare not make promises. I dare not boast. But caring the way you care, if you think you can make anything out of me--say so."
She thought for a while, her eyes lowered, her lips parted in a peaceful sort of smile. Then she said; "It"ll be good to have heard all that."
"It"ll be better to have tried," I said.
"Not if you don"t want me _at all_."
"But I do."
"Well," she said, looking up now, and a valiant ring in her sweet English voice: "If I wanted to say no, I couldn"t. If I thought I ought to say no, I wouldn"t. But I don"t think I ought to. I think when the Lord G.o.d put what"s in my heart in it, he meant for there to be _something_ for me at the end of torment. So I say yes. For I"ve knelt on cold floors and hot floors to pray G.o.d that some day I could give myself to the man I love."
"And that shall be when you are married to him. . . . Don"t look so frightened . . . it"s got to be like that. Give a man a chance to make good. Do you think I"m such a fool as to throw away the love you"ve got for me? . . . We"ll try this nursing game together, but not at the front, where the bullets are. I want us to live and to have our chance, you yours and I mine--taken together. Don"t you see that I am speaking with every ounce of sincerity there is in me? I _couldn"t_ take such love as yours and not make good. That"s in my heart. I couldn"t, I couldn"t. Isn"t it in my face, too--isn"t it?"
She did not answer at first, only looked in my face, her eyes flooding.
Then she said: "I don"t see your face any more--only a kind of glory."
We ran slowly back to the city, slowly, and very peacefully. Now and again we talked a little, and argued a little.
"But," she said, "it will ruin your life if you marry a servant. So please, please don"t! What would I do when I knew I"d hurt you?"
"There"s no life to ruin, Hilda. What"s been is just dust and ashes.
You and I--we"ll live for each other, and we"ll try to help where help"s needed. It will be fine for me to have helped, after all these foolish years--when I did only harm, and only half-hearted harm at that."
"It would be so different if only--if only----"
"If only I loved you?" I freed one hand from the steering wheel and put my arm around her. "But you feel tenderness?"
"I feel tenderness."
I pressed her close to my side.
"Was I ever unkind to you?"
"Never."
"Tenderness and kindness--that"s something to go on."
She turned her head and kissed the hand that pressed against her shoulder. It was the slightest, gentlest, softest kiss, and a lump rose in my throat.
"If the angels could see me now," she said, "and know what was in my heart, they"d die of envy."
"And what"s in your heart, Hilda?"
"You," she said.
The house where she was staying had an inner and an outer door. In the obscurity between these two we stood for a little while at parting, and kissed each other.
And as soon thereafter as could be, we were quietly married.
When I began to put down this story about the Fultons, I was still head over heels in love with Lucy, and I did not know how it was all going to end. And I don"t know now. I began to write before Hilda became a definite figure in my life, to write in order to pa.s.s the time. And so I wrote until I realized that I had failed Lucy, and began to hope that she had failed me. Even then I expected to live the same old fleeting life of a b.u.t.terfly bachelor to the end. Then I began to think that out of the thing I was writing, there was beginning to rise a kind of lesson, a preachment. It seemed to me that I was going through an experience that others would do well to know about.
Can a man live down the shame of scorching another man"s happiness, after finding that the cause which drove him to do so, has lost its power to impel? I am not ashamed of having loved Lucy; I am ashamed of not having loved her enough. Thank G.o.d no greater harm was done to Fulton than was done. He has his Lucy, what there is left of her, his children, and a greater financial success than ever he hoped for. And he has had his triumph over me. He must have told her, in some of his bad moments, just what kind of a man I was--a waster, a male flirt, a man who had the impulse to raise the devil, but lacked the courage, and the character. And she knows now, after her short period of over-powering love for me and belief in me, that he was right. That is his triumph. I think he is too good a gentleman to rub it in.
My father and mother accepted Hilda with the sweetest good grace. She was not what they had hoped for; she was not what they had expected or feared. To my father it seemed, he was good enough to say so, that I had played the man. And he could not, he said, help loving any woman, whether she came from the roof of the world or its cellar, who had loved his son so faithfully and so long.
And the rings on Hilda"s finger, and the pride in her new estate, and the pretty clothes that my mother helped her to buy worked a wondrous change in her. People couldn"t help looking after her, she was so pretty, so graceful, and had so much faith and worship in her eyes.
We had put off our date of sailing a little, so that my friends might see that I was not ashamed of what I had done, but that I gloried in it, and that my parents showed a face of approval to the world. Those days of postponement were, I think, the best days of my life. A treasure had been given into my guardianship, and it seemed to me that I was going to be worthy of the trust.
Then, the very day before we were to sail, I met Lucy face to face in the street; and began to tremble a little. She held out both hands; she was always so natural and frank.
"So you"ve done it!" she exclaimed; "I think she"s sweet, and so good-looking."
Then the smile faded from her lips, and she made the praying eyes at me, and I knew that I had only to be with her a moment to love her.
"Of course," she said, "it"s all right our meeting and speaking _now_."
"Of course," I said, and they sounded lame words, lamely spoken.
"Do you believe in post-mortems?" she asked.
"No," I said, "but I like them."
"We--Oh, it"s lucky we had parents and guardians, isn"t it? When did you come to the end of your rope?"
I could only shake my head.
"Was it when you--heard about me?"
"I like post-mortems, but I don"t approve of them."
So she abandoned the post-mortem.
"Tell me," she said, "why you married her? Was she an old flame?"
"No, Lucy--a new flame."
"I hope you will be very, very happy," she said.
"But you doubt it."
"Why shouldn"t I?"
"Why indeed?"