第48章

"You are to blame, then!" she cried. "If I were a man, I should not let such a thing wear upon me for a moment"

"Oh, I dare say I shall live through it," he answered, with the national whimsicality that comes to our aid in most emergencies.

A little pang went through her heart, but she retorted, "I would n't go to Europe to escape it, nor up the Nile. I would stay and fight it where I was." "Stay?" He seemed to have caught hopefully at the word.

"I thought you were stronger. If you give up in this way how can you expect me"--She stopped; she hardly knew what she had intended to say; she feared that he knew.

But he only said: "I'm sorry. I didn't intend to trouble you with the sight of me. I had a plan for getting over the cliff without letting you know, and having Maynard come down to me there."

"And did you really mean," she cried piteously, "to go away without trying to see me again?"

"Yes," he owned simply. "I thought I might catch a glimpse of you, but I did n't expect to speak to you."

"Did you hate me so badly as that? What had I done to you?"

"Done?" He gave a sorrowful laugh; and added, with an absent air, "Yes, it's really like doing something to me! And sometimes it seems as if you had done it purposely."

"You know I did n't! Now, then," she cried, "you have insulted me, and you never did that before. You were very good and noble and generous, and would n't let me blame myself for anything. I wanted always to remember that of you; for I did n't believe that any man could be so magnanimous. But it seems that you don't care to have me respect you!"

"Respect?" he repeated, in the same vague way. "No, I should n't care about that unless it was included in the other. But you know whether I have accused you of anything, or whether I have insulted you. I won't excuse myself. I think that ought to be insulting to your common sense."

"Then why should you have wished to avoid seeing me to-day? Was it to spare yourself?" she demanded, quite incoherently now. "Or did you think I should not be equal to the meeting?"

"I don't know what to say to you," answered the young man. "I think I must be crazy." He halted, and looked at her in complete bewilderment.

"I don't understand you at all."

"I wished to see you very much. I wanted your advice, as--as--a friend."

He shook his head. "Yes! you shall be my friend, in this at least. I can claim it--demand it. You had no right to--to--make me--trust you so much, and--and then--desert me."

"Oh, very well," he answered. "If any advice of mine--But I couldn't go through that sacrilegious farce of being near you and not"--She waited breathlessly, a condensed eternity, for him to go on; but he stopped at that word, and added: "How can I advise you?"

The disappointment was so cruel that the tears came into her eyes and ran down her face, which she averted from him. When she could control herself she said, "I have an opportunity of going on in my profession now, in a way that makes me sure of success."

"I am very glad on your account. You must be glad to realize"

"No, no!" she retorted wildly. "I am not glad!"

"I thought you"--"But there are conditions! He says he will go with me anywhere, and we can practise our profession together, and I can carry out all my plans.

But first--first--he wants me to--marry him!"

"Who?"

"Don't you know? Dr. Mulbridge!"

"That--I beg your pardon. I've no right to call him names." The young fellow halted, and looked at her downcast face. "Well, do you want me to tell you to take him? That is too much. I did n't know you were cruel."

"You make me cruel! You leave me to be cruel!"

"I leave you to be cruel?"

"Oh, don't play upon my words, if you won't ask me what I answered!"

"How can I ask that? I have no right to know."

"But you shall know!" she cried. "I told him that I had no plans.

I have given them all up because--because I'm too weak for them, and because I abhor him, and because--But it was n't enough. He would not take what I said for answer, and he is coming again for an answer."

"Coming again?"

"Yes. He is a man who believes that women may change, for reason or no reason; and"--"You--you mean to take him when he comes back?" gasped the young man.

"Never! Not if he came a thousand times!"

"Then what is it you want me to advise you about?" he faltered.

"Nothing!" she answered, with freezing hauteur. She suddenly put up her arms across her eyes, with the beautiful, artless action of a shame-smitten child, and left her young figure in bewildering relief. "Oh, don't you see that I love you?"

"Could n't you understand,--couldn't you see what I meant?" she asked again that night, as they lost themselves on the long stretch of the moonlit beach. With his arm close about that lovely shape they would have seemed but one person to the inattentive observer, as they paced along in the white splendor.

"I couldn't risk anything. I had spoken, once for all. I always thought that for a man to offer himself twice was indelicate and unfair. I could never have done it."

"That's very sweet in you," she said; and perhaps she would have praised in the same terms the precisely opposite sentiment. "It's some comfort," she added, with a deep-fetched sigh, "to think I had to speak."

He laughed. "You didn't find it so easy to make love!"

"Oh, NOTHING is easy that men have to do!" she answered, with passionate earnestness.

There are moments of extreme concession, of magnanimous admission, that come but once in a lifetime.