"Ah!" exclaimed Jo, bitterly, unable to restrain his jealousy, "it is Clem who stands between us!"
"_Clem_ who stands between us!" echoed Cyn, astounded for the second time that day.
"There--now I have lowered myself in your estimation; I am but a blundering fool, Cyn. You see I am selfish in my love; and I have not yet become sentimental enough to be willing to see another fellow win what is all the world to me!"
Cyn"s face grew red as was the sky when the sun had gone down.
"Do you mean to insinuate that I am in love with Clem?" she asked, angrily.
"I would not insinuate it for all the world, if you are not," was Jo"s eager reply; "I am not experienced in love matters, but I am quite sure he loves you--and he is very handsome," he added ruefully.
"What a dreadful combination of circ.u.mstances!" cried Cyn, distractedly.
"But, pshaw! It"s impossible!"
"Impossible? No, indeed! Why, it was by being so jealous of him that I first awoke to the fact that I was in love with you myself. Besides, every one has noticed his fondness for you."
"They have?" vehemently, and smiting the rock where she sat with her hand, as she spoke. "But this is truly awful!"
"Then you do not care for him?" questioned Jo, joyfully.
"Care for him?" repeated Cyn, irritably. "Of course I care for him! Is it not my pet scheme that he should marry Nattie? Certainly it is, and has been from the first! And now, if he has gone and fallen in love with _me_, a nice predicament we will all be in. But you must be mistaken! I cannot believe him capable of such a thing! The only reason I have to fear it is that I would not have credited it of _you_ yesterday!"
"But you see I do love you. You believe I do, do you not, Cyn?" asked Jo, too eager to press his own suit to give much thought to Nattie and Clem. "Why will you not try and love me, as you do not love Clem? Am I so homely as to be repulsive to you?"
"Homely? Nonsense!" replied Cyn, momentarily putting aside her newest anxiety for the previous one, "now I come to think of it, I had rather marry you than any man I know!"
"Would you? Would you really?" seizing her hand hopefully. "Then why will you not?"
Cyn allowed her hand to remain in his as she said slowly and impressively,
"I cannot marry. That is entirely out of the question for me. Of my life, love can form no part!"
"But I thought you believed in love?" said Jo, looking perplexed, but clinging to her hand as a sort of anchor.
"I do. I believe it is the best happiness of life. But it cannot be for me. Why, I will tell you. I owe this much in return for what you have given me; what I prize even though I am compelled to refuse it. What stands between us is the memory of a love--gone forever."
"What!" exclaimed Jo, astounded in his turn. "You do not mean to say that you--that you--_you_, the gayest of the gay--that _you_--" Jo stopped, unable to proceed.
"You hardly expected to find me in the _role_ of the victim of a broken heart, did you?" questioned Cyn, with a half-sad, half-humorous smile.
"I admit I do not exactly answer to the average description, and my heart is not broken--there is only a blank in it--something dead that can never live again. Once I loved a man with all my heart"--Jo sighed--"with all the illusion of youth, and he loved me. The difference between his love and mine was, that mine was forever, and his was for a day."
"Impossible!" interrupted Jo. "No man who once loved you could ever change."
"He happened to be one of the kind who _could_. I never really knew the cause--it might have been another woman. You know there always _is_ another woman."
"Or another man," added Jo gloomily.
"Yes," a.s.sented Cyn, and continued. "He was one of the kind, I think now, who are incapable of appreciating a woman"s love, and consequently unworthy of it. But unfortunately, I did not know this, and wasted mine on him. So he and love, went out of my life forever. But," with a proud raising of her head, "I would not be weak enough to allow all my life to be ruined because one part of it was wrecked; with so much gone, there still remained something, and of that I made the most. This is why my art is everything to me, and why I cannot marry you."
"But it seems to me unreasonable, that because you loved one man who was unworthy, you should refuse the love of another who would try very hard to make you forget that first sad experience," argued Jo. "Give me what you have left, Cyn! If it be but dead ashes, I will thank G.o.d for the gift, and perhaps, at some future day, in response to my devotion, even from those ashes shall arise another love, so strong, so intense, that, in comparison, the old shall be but as some half-forgotten trouble of childhood, whose remembrance cannot awaken even a pa.s.sing pain."
The fervor of an honest affection made Jo truly eloquent, and his true blue eyes met the dark ones of Cyn, glowing with earnestness and love, and for a moment she looked at him and hesitated. Then she arose, saying resolutely,
"No! Jo! no! Do not tempt me! The experiment would be too dangerous! To give you a warmed-over affection in return for your whole heart, would only be misery for us both--more misery than I am bringing to you now. I respect and esteem you, as I said before--we will be friends--comrades--always--no more!"
As she spoke, she extended her hand to him, in farewell to all his hopes.
And so understanding he clasped it, a sadness on his face she had never seen there before.
"As you will, Cyn," he replied, brokenly, "but I shall love you--forever!"
As he spoke, from below came the cry,
"Cyn Jo! where are you? we are going!"
"Coming!" Cyn"s clear voice answered back.
"One moment," Jo said, detaining her, "may I--may I kiss you once, Cyn?
Once, and for the last time?"
There were tears in Cyn"s eyes. She bent her handsome head, their lips met, then, without a word, they went on together to join those who awaited them.
And it was thus Fate decreed for these two.
Love brings the most intense sorrows, the keenest joys of life. But there must always be some lives, into which comes only the sadness, and none of the bliss, of loving.
CHAPTER XVI.
O. K.
Leaving Clem, on their arrival at the hotel, to bear the burden of the green stuff they had brought from the woods, Cyn, with a trace of melancholy on her sunny face, followed Nattie to her room. For Cyn"s joyous picnic, with its gay beginning, had ended sadly enough for her.
"I want to ask you something," Cyn said, with frank directness, as she carefully closed the door behind them. "And that is, are you, can you be foolish enough to imagine, that Clem and I are in love with each other?"
The small basket Nattie held in her hand fell to the floor, at this unexpected question. Had Cyn drawn forth a bowie-knife, and playfully clipped off her nose, she could not have been more astounded.
"If you can possibly reduce your eyes to their ordinary size, and give me a candid yes or no, I will be obliged," Cyn said, rather petulantly, after waiting in vain for an answer. The events of the day had sorely tried her usually even temper.
A little tremulously, while a burning flush covered her face, Nattie answered her,
"I--I have heard it intimated!"
"You have heard it intimated! That means yes, to my question," said Cyn; then sinking despairingly on the lounge, she added, "here is a crisis of which I never dreamed!"