WISE MISS TOUSY
CHAPTER XIV
Wise Miss Tousy
Upon first reading Dic's letter, Rita was stunned by its contents; but within a day or two her thoughts and emotions began to arrange themselves, and out of order came conclusion. The first conclusion was a surprise to her: she did not love Dic as she had supposed. A scornful indifference seemed to occupy the place in her heart that for years had been Dic's. With that indifference came a sense of change. Dic was not the Dic she had known and loved. He was another person; and to this feeling of strangeness was added one of scorn. This new Dic was a man unworthy of any pure girl's love; and although her composite emotion was streaked with excruciating pain, as a whole it was decidedly against him, and she felt that she wished never to see him again. She began a letter to him, but did not care to finish it, and returned the ring without comment, that being the only answer he deserved. Pages of scorn could not have brought to Dic a keener realization of the certainty and enormity of his loss. He returned the ring to Billy Little.
"I thank you for it, Billy, though it has brought grief to me as it did to you. I do not blame the ring; my loss is my own fault; but it is strange that the history of the ring should repeat itself. It almost makes one superstitious."
"Egad! no one else shall suffer by it," said Billy, opening the huge iron stove and throwing the ring into the fire.
Dic's loss was so heavy that it mollified Billy's anger, which for several days had been keen against his young friend. Billy's own pain and grief also had a softening effect upon his anger; for with Dic out of the way, Rita Bays, he thought, would soon become Mrs. Roger Williams, and that thought was torture to the bachelor heart.
Rita, bearing the name of his first and only sweetheart, had entered the heart of this man's second youth; and in the person of Dic he was wooing her and fighting the good fight of love against heavy odds. Dic, upon receiving the ring, was ready to surrender; but Billy well knew that many a battle had been won after defeat, and was determined not to throw down his arms.
Thinking over his situation, Dic became convinced that since Rita was lost to him, he was in honor bound to marry Sukey Yates. Life would be a desert waste, but there was no one to thank for the future Sahara but himself, and the self-inflicted sand and thirst must be endured. The thought of marrying Sukey Yates at first caused him almost to hate her; but after he had pondered the subject three or four days, familiarity bred contempt of its terrors. Once having accepted the unalterable, he was at least rid of the pain of suspense. He tried to make himself believe that his pain was not so keen as he had expected it would be; and by shutting out of his mind all thoughts of Rita, he partially succeeded.
Sunday afternoon Dic saw Sukey at church and rode home with her, resting that evening upon her ciphering log. He had determined to tell her that he would marry her; but despite his desire to end the suspense, he could not bring himself to speak the words. He allowed her to believe, by inference, what she chose, and she, though still in great doubt, felt that the important question was almost settled in her favor.
During the interim of four or five days Billy Little secretly called upon Miss Tousy, and incidentally dropped in to see Rita.
After discussing matters of health and weather, Billy said: "Rita, you must not be too hard on Dic. He was not to blame. Sukey is a veritable little Eve, and—"
"Billy Little, I am sorry to hear you place the blame on Sukey. I suppose Dic tells you she was to blame."
"By Jove! I've made a nice mess of it," muttered Billy. "No, Dic blames himself entirely, but I know whereof I speak. That girl is in love with him, and has set this trap to steal him from you and get him for herself. She has been trying for a long time to entrap him, and you are helping her. Dic is a true, pure man, who has been enticed into error and suffers for it. You had better die unmarried than to lose him."
"I hope to die unmarried, and I pray that I may die soon," returned Rita with a deep, sad sigh.
"No, you'll not die unmarried. You will marry Williams," said Billy, looking earnestly into her eyes.
"I shall not."
"If you wish to throw Dic over and marry Williams, you should openly avow it, and not seize this misfortune of Dic's as an excuse."
"Oh, Billy Little, you don't think me capable of that, do you?" answered Rita, reproachfully.
"Do you give me your word you will not marry Williams?" asked Billy, eagerly.
"Yes, I give you my word I will not marry him, if—if I can help it," she answered, and poor Billy collapsed. He took his handkerchief from his pocket to dry the perspiration on his face, although the room was cold, and Rita drew forth her handkerchief to dry her tears.
"Dic loves you, Rita. He is one man out of ten thousand. He is honest, true, and pure-minded. He has sinned, I know; but he has repented. One sin doesn't make a sinner, and repentance is the market price of mercy. I know a great deal of this world, my girl, and of its men and women, and I tell you Dic is as fine a character as I know. I don't know a man that is his equal. Don't let this one fault condemn him and yourself to wretchedness."
"I shall not be wretched," she replied, the picture of woe, "for I don't—don't care for him. I'm surprised, Billy Little, that I do not, and I think less of myself. There must be something wrong about me. I must be wicked when my—my love can turn so easily to indifference. But I do not care for him. He is nothing to me any more. You may be sure I speak the truth and—and although I am glad to have you here, I don't want you to remain if you continue to speak of—of him."
The situation certainly was confusing, and Billy, in a revery, resorted to Maxwelton's braes as a brain clarifier. Soon wild thoughts came to his mind, and wilder hopes arose in his bachelor heart. This girl, whom he had loved for, lo, these many years, was now free of heart and hand. Could it be possible there was hope for him? Pat with this strange thought spoke Rita:—
"You say he is a splendid man, pure and true and honest; but you know, Billy Little, that measured by the standard of your life, he is not. I used to think he was like you, that you had made him like yourself, and I did love him, Billy Little. I did love him. But there is no one like you. You are now my only friend." Tears came to her eyes, and she leaned toward Billy, gently taking his hand between her soft palms. Tumult caused the poor bachelor heart to lose self-control, and out of its fulness to speak:—
"You would not marry me?" he asked. The words were meant as a question, but fortunately Rita understood them as a mere statement of a patent fact, spoken jestingly, so she answered with a laugh:—
"No, of course not. I could not marry you, Billy Little. But I wish you were young; then, do you know, I would make you propose to me. You should not have been born so soon, Billy Little. But if I can't have you for my husband, I'll have you for my second father, and you shall not desert me."
Her jest quickly drove the wild hopes out of the bachelor heart, and Billy trembled when he thought of what he had tried to say. He left the house much agitated, and returned to see Miss Tousy. After a consultation with that lady covering an hour, he went to the tavern and took the stage for home.
Next day, in the midst of Dic's struggles for peace, and at a time when he had almost determined to marry Sukey Yates, a letter came from Miss Tousy, asking him to go to see her. While waiting for the stage, Dic exhibited Miss Tousy's letter, and Billy feigned surprise.
Two or three days previous to the writing of Miss Tousy's letter, Rita had told that sympathetic young lady the story of the trouble with Dic. The confidence was given one afternoon in Miss Tousy's cosey little parlor.
"When is your friend Mr. Bright coming to see you?" asked Miss Tousy. "You are welcome to meet him here if you cannot receive him at home."
"He will not come again at all," answered Rita, closely scanning her hands folded on her lap.
"Why?" asked her friend, in much concern, "has your mother at last forced you to give him up?"
"No, mother knows nothing of it yet—nothing at all. I simply sent his ring back and don't want to—to see him again. Never."
"My dear girl, you are crazy," exclaimed Miss Tousy. "You don't know what you are doing—unless you have grown fond of Mr. Williams; but I can't believe that is true. No girl would think twice of him when so splendid a fellow as Dic—Mr. Bright—was—"
"No, indeed," interrupted Rita, "that can never be true. I would never care for any man as I cared for—for him. But I care for him no longer. It is all over between—between—it is all over."
From the hard expression of the girl's face one might easily have supposed she was speaking the truth; there was no trace of emotion.
"But, Rita! This will never do!" insisted Miss Tousy. "You don't know yourself. You are taking a step that will wreck your happiness. You should also consider him."
"You don't know what he has done," answered Rita, still looking down at her folded hands.
"I don't care what he has done. You did not make yourself love him, and you cannot throw off your love. You may for a time convince yourself that you are indifferent, but you are simply lying to yourself, my dear girl, and you had better lie to any one else—the consequences will be less serious. Never deceive yourself, Rita. That is a deception you can't maintain. You may perhaps deceive all the rest of the world so long as you live—many a person has done it—but yourself—hopeless, Rita, perfectly hopeless."
"I'm not deceiving myself," answered the wilful girl. "You don't know what he has done."
"I don't care," retorted Miss Tousy warmly. "If he were my lover, I—I tell you, Rita Bays, I'd forgive him. I'd keep him. He is one out of a thousand—so big and handsome; so honest, strong, and true."
"But he's not true; that's the trouble," answered Rita, angrily, although there had been a soft, tell-tale radiance in her eyes when Miss Tousy praised him.
"Ah, he has been inveigled into smiling upon another girl," asked Miss Tousy, laughing and taking Rita's hand. "That is the penalty you must pay for having so splendid a lover. Of course other girls will want him. I should like to have him myself—and, Rita, there are lots of girls bold enough or weak enough to seek him outright. You mustn't see those little things. Frequently the best use a woman can make of her eyes is to shut them."
In place of shutting her eyes, Rita began to weep, and Miss Tousy continued:—
"This man loves you and no other, my sweet one. That's the great thing, after all. No girl can steal his heart from you—of that you may be sure."
"But I say you don't know," sobbed Rita. "I will tell you." And she did tell her, stumbling, sobbing, and blushing through the narrative of Dic's unforgivable perfidy.
Miss Tousy whistled in surprise. After a moment of revery she said: "She is trying to steal him, Rita, and she is as bad as she can be. If you will give me your promise that you will never tell, I'll tell you something Sue Davidson told me." Rita promised. "Not long since your brother Tom called on Sue and left his great-coat in the hall. Sue's young sister got to rummaging in Tom's great-coat pockets, for candy, I suppose, and found a letter from this same Sukey Yates to Tom. Sue told me about the letter. It breathed the most passionate love, and implored Tom to save her from the ruin he had wrought. So you see, Dic is not to blame." She paused, expecting her listener to agree with her; but Rita sighed and murmured:—
"He is not excusable because others have been wicked."
"But I tell you I wouldn't let that little wretch steal him from me," insisted Miss Tousy. "That's what she's trying to do, and you're helping her. When she was here I saw plainly that she was infatuated with him, and was bound to win him at any price—at any cost. She had no eyes nor dimples for any one else when he was by; yet he did not notice her—did not see her smiles and dimples. Don't tell me he cares for her. He had eyes for no one but you. Haven't you seen how other girls act toward him? Didn't you notice how Sue Davidson went at him every chance she got?"
"No," answered Rita, still studying her folded hands, and regardless of her tear-stained face.
"I think Sue is the prettiest girl in town, excepting you," continued Miss Tousy, "and if she could not attract him, it would be hopeless for any one else to try."
"Nonsense," murmured Rita, referring to that part of Miss Tousy's remark which applied to herself.
"No, it isn't nonsense, Rita. You are the prettiest girl I ever saw—but no matter. She is pretty enough for me to hate her. She is the sort of pretty girl that all women hate and fear. She obtrudes her prettiness—keeps her attractions always en évidence, as the French say. She moistens her lips to make them tempting, and twitches the right side of her face to work that dimple of hers. She is so attractive that she is not usually driven to seek a man openly; but Dic—I mean Mr. Bright—did not even see her smiles. Every one else did; and I will wager anything you like she has written love-notes to him—real love-notes. He would, of course, be too honorable to tell. He's not the sort of man who would kiss and tell—he is the sort women trust with their favors—but I'll wager I'm right about Sue Davidson." She was right, though Dic's modesty had not permitted him to see Miss D.'s notes in the light Miss Tousy saw them.
"He is not the man," continued Miss Tousy, "to blame a girl for a fault of that sort, even in his own mind, and he would not explain at a woman's expense to save his life. With a man of his sort, the girl is to blame nine times out of ten. I wouldn't give a fippenny bit for a man no other girl wanted. There is a large class of women you don't know yet, Rita. You are too young. The world has a batch of mawkish theories about them, but there are also a few very cold facts kept in the dark,—lodge secrets among the sex. Dic is modest, and modesty in an attractive man is dangerous—the most dangerous thing in the world, Rita. Deliver me from a shy, attractive man, unless he cares a great deal for me. Shyness in a man is apt to make a girl bold."
"It did not make me bold," said Rita, with a touch of fire.
"Not in the least?" asked Miss Tousy, leaning over the girl's lap, looking up into her face and laughing. "Now come, Rita, confess; you're as modest as a girl has any good reason to be, but tell me, didn't you—didn't you do your part? Now confess."
"Well, I may have been a little bold, I admit, a very little—just at—you know, just at one time. I had to be a little—just a little—you see—you know, outspoken, or—you know what I mean. He might not have—oh, you understand how such things happen."
The hands in the lap were growing very interesting during these remarks, and the tear-stained cheeks were very hot and red.
"Yes, yes, dear," said Miss Tousy, leaning forward and kissing the hot cheeks, "yes, yes, sweet one. I know one just has to help them a bit; but that is not boldness, that is charity."
"Since I think about it, perhaps I was," murmured Rita. "I know I have often turned hot all over because of several things I did; but I cared so much for him. I was so young and ignorant. That was over two years ago. I cared so much for him and was all bewildered. Nothing seemed real to me during several months of that time. Part of the time it seemed I was in a nightmare, and again, it was like being in heaven. A poor girl is not a responsible being at such times. She doesn't know what she does nor what she wants; but it's all over now. I ... don't ... care anything ... about ... him now. It's all over." Such a mournful little voice you never heard, and such a mournful little face you never saw. Still, it was all over.
Miss Tousy softly kissed her and said: "Well, well, we'll straighten it all out. There, don't cry, sweet one." But Rita did cry, and found comfort in resting her head on Miss Tousy's sympathetic bosom.
The letter Sue Davidson had found altered Rita's feeling toward Sukey; but it left untouched Dic's sin against herself, and she insisted that she did not care for him, and never, never would forgive. With all her gentleness she had strong nerves, and her spirit, when aroused, was too high to brook patiently the insult Dic had put upon her. Miss Tousy's words had not moved her from her position. Dic was no longer Dic. He was another person, and she could love no man but Dic. She had loved him all her life, and she could love none other. With such poor sophistry did she try to convince herself that she was indifferent. At times she succeeded beyond her most sanguine hope, and tried to drive conviction home by a song. But the song always changed to tears, the tears to anger, anger to sophistry, and all in turn to a dull pain at the heart, making her almost wish she were dead.
"Miss Tousy softly kissed her and said, ... 'There, don't cry, sweet one.'"
Meanwhile the affairs of Fisher and Fox were becoming more and more involved. Crops had failed, and collections could not be made. Williams, under alleged imperative orders from Boston, was pressing for money or security. Tom had "overdrawn" his account in Williams's office; and, with the penitentiary staring him in the face, was clamoring for money to make good the overdraft. At home he used the words "overdraft" and "overdrawn" in confessing the situation. Williams, when speaking to Tom of the shortage, had used the words "embezzlement" and "thief."
Rita's illness had prevented Williams's visits; but when she recovered, he began calling, though he was ominously sullen in his courtship, and his passion for the girl looked very much like a mania.
One evening at supper table, Tom said: "Father, I must have five hundred dollars. I have overdrawn my account with Williams, and I'll lose my place if it is not paid. I must have it. Can't you help me?"
"What on earth have you been doing with the money?" asked Tom, Sr. "I have paid your tailor bills and your other bills to a sufficient amount, in all conscience, and what could you have done with the money you got from Williams and your salary?"
Tom tried to explain, and soon the Chief Justice joined in: "La, father, there are so many temptations in town for young men, and our Tom is so popular. Money goes fast, doesn't it, Tom? The boy can't tell what went with it. Poor Tom! If your father was half a man, he'd get the money for you; that's what he would. If your sister was not the most wicked, selfish girl alive, she could settle all our troubles. Mr. Williams would not press his brother-in-law or his wife's father. I have toiled and suffered and worked for that girl all my life, and so has her father, and so have you, Tom. We have all toiled and suffered and worked for her, and now she's too ungrateful to help us. Oh, 'sharper than a serpent's tooth,' as the Immortal Bard of Avon truly says."
Rita began to cry and rose from her chair, intending to leave the room, but her mother detained her.
"Sit down!" she commanded. "At least you shall hear of the trouble you bring upon us. I have been thinking of a plan, and maybe you can help us carry it out if you want to do anything to help your father and brother. As for myself, I don't care. I am always willing to suffer and endure. 'Blessed are they that suffer, for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.'"
Tom pricked up his ears, Tom, Sr., put down his knife and fork to listen, and Rita again took her seat at table.
"Billy Little has plenty of money," continued Mrs. Margarita, addressing her daughter. "The old skinflint has refused to lend it to your father or Tom, but perhaps he'll not refuse you if you ask him. I believe the old fool is in love with you. What they all want with you I can't see, but if you'll write to him—"
"Oh, I can't, mother, I can't," cried Rita, in a flood of tears.
I will not drag the reader through another scene of heart failure and maternal raving. Rita, poor girl, at last surrendered, and, amid tears of humiliation, wrote to Billy Little, telling of her father's distress, her mother's commands, and her own grief because she was compelled to apply to him. "You need not fear loss of your money, my friend," she wrote, honestly believing that she told the truth. "You will soon be repaid. Mr. Williams is demanding money from my father and Uncle Jim, and I dislike, for many reasons well known to you, to be under obligations to him. If you can, without inconvenience to yourself, lend this money, it will help father greatly just at this time, and will perhaps save me from a certain frightful importunity. The money will be repaid to you after harvest, when collections become easier. If I did not honestly believe so, even my mother's commands would not induce me to write this letter."
Rita fully believed the money would be paid; but Billy knew that if he made the loan, he would be throwing his money away forever.
After making good Dic's loss of twenty-six hundred dollars,—which sum, you may remember, went to Bays,—Little had remaining in his strong-box notes to the amount of two thousand dollars, which, together with his small stock of goods and two or three hundred dollars in cash, constituted the total sum of his worldly wealth. He had reached a point in life where he plainly saw old age staring him in the face—an ugly stare which few can return with equanimity. The small bundle of notes was all that stood between him and want when that time should come "sans everything." But Williams was staring Rita in the face, and if the little hoard could save her, she was welcome to it.
Billy's sleep the night after he received Rita's letter was meagre and disturbed, but next morning he took his notes and his poor little remainder of cash and went to Indianapolis. He discounted the notes, as he had done in Dic's case, and with the proceeds he went to the store of Fisher and Bays. Fisher was present when Billy entered the private office and announced his readiness to supply the firm with twenty-three hundred dollars on their note of hand. The money, of course, being borrowed by the firm, went to the firm account, and was at once applied by Fisher upon one of the many Williams notes. Therefore Tom's "overdrafts" remained in statu quo; likewise the penitentiary.
The payment of Billy Little's twenty-three hundred dollars upon the Williams debt did not help matters in the least. The notes owed by the firm of Fisher and Bays to the Williams house aggregated nearly fourteen thousand dollars, and Billy's poor little all did not stem the tide of importunity one day, although it left him penniless. The thought of his poverty was of course painful to Billy, but he rode home that evening without seeing Rita, happy and exultant in the mistaken belief that he had helped to save her from the grasp of Williams.
That same evening at supper Tom, Sr., told of Billy Little's loan, and there was at once an outburst of wrath from mother and son because part of the money had not been applied to Tom's "overdraft."
"The pitiful sum of twenty-three hundred dollars!" cried Tom. "The old skinflint might as well have kept his money for all the good it will do us. Do you think that will keep Williams from suing us?" In Tom's remarks Mrs. Bays concurred, saying that she "always knew he was a mean old miser."
Rita tried to speak in her friend's defence, but the others furiously silenced her, so she broke down entirely, covered her face with her hands, and wept bitterly. She went through the after-supper work amid blinding tears, and when she had finished she sought her room. Without undressing she lay down on the bed, sobbing till the morning light shone in at her window. Before she had lost Dic her heart could fly from every trouble and find sweet comfort in thoughts of him; but now there was no refuge. She was alone in the world, save for Billy Little. She loved her father, but she knew he was weak. She loved Tom, but she could not help despising him. She loved her mother, but she feared her, and knew there was no comfort or consolation for her in that hard heart. Billy had not come to see her when he brought the money, and she feared she had offended him by asking for it.
Such was the situation when Dic received Miss Tousy's letter inviting him to call upon her.
Miss Tousy greeted Dic kindly when he presented himself at her door, and led him to the same cosey front parlor wherein Rita had imparted the story of her woes and of Dic's faithlessness. She left her guest in the parlor a moment or two, while she despatched a note to a friend in town. When she returned she said:—
"I'm sorry to hear of the trouble between you and Rita, and am determined it shall be made up at once."
"I fear that is impossible, Miss Tousy," returned Dic, sadly. "She will never forgive me. I should not were I in her place. I do not expect it and am not worth it."
"But she will forgive you; she will not be able to hold out against you five minutes if you crowd her. Trust my word. I know more about girls than you do; but, above all, I know Rita."
Miss Tousy watched him as he stood before her, hanging his head, a very handsome picture of abject humility. After a moment of silence Dic answered:—
"Miss Tousy, the truth is, I have lost all self-respect, and know that I am both a fool and a—a criminal. Rita will not, cannot, and ought not to forgive me. I am entirely unworthy of her. She is gentle and tender as she can be; but she has more spirit than you would suspect. I have seen her under the most trying circumstances, and with all her gentleness she is very strong. I have lost her and must give her up."
"You'll be no such fool," cried Miss Tousy; "but some one is knocking at the front door. Be seated, please." She opened the front hall door, kissed "some one" who had knocked, and said to "some one":—
"Step into the parlor, please. I will be with you soon." Then she closed the parlor door and basely fled.
Dic sprang to his feet, and Rita, turning backward toward the door, stood trembling, her hand on the knob.
"Don't go, Rita," said Dic, huskily. "I did not know you were coming here. I give you my word, I did not set a trap for you. Miss Tousy will tell you I had no thought of seeing you here. I wanted to see you, but I would not try to entrap you. I intended going to your house openly that you might refuse to see me if you wished; but since you are here, please—oh, Rita, for God's sake, stay and hear me. I am almost crazed by what I have suffered, though I deserve it all, all. You don't know what I have to say." She partly opened the door; but he stepped quickly to her side, shut the door, and spoke almost angrily:—
"You shall hear me, and after I have spoken, if you wish, you may go, but not until then."
He unclasped her hand from the knob, and, using more of his great strength than he knew, led her to a chair and brought another for himself.
The touch of command in Dic's manner sent a strange thrill to the girl's heart, and she learned in one brief moment that all her sophistry had been in vain; that her love was not dead, and could not be killed. That knowledge, however, did not change her resolution not to forgive him. You see, there was a touch of the Chief Justice in the girl.
"I want you to hear me, Rita, and, if you can, I want you to forgive me, and then I want you to forget me," said Dic.
The words "forget me" were not what she had expected to hear. She had supposed he would make a plea for forgiveness and beg to be taken back; but the words "forget me," seeming to lead in another direction, surprised her. With all her resolutions she was not prepared to forget. She lifted her eyes for a fleeting glance, and could not help thinking that the memory of his face had been much less effective than its presence. The tones of his voice, too, were stronger and sweeter at close range than she had remembered. In short, Dic by her side and Dic twenty-five miles away were two different propositions —the former a very dangerous and irresistible one, indeed. Still, she would not forgive him. She could not and would not forget him; but she would shut her eyes to the handsome face, she would close her ears to the deep, strong voice, she would harden her heart to his ardent love, and, alas! to her own. She insisted to herself that she no longer loved him, and never, never would.
Every word that Sukey had ever spoken concerning Dic, every meeting of which she knew that had ever taken place between him and the dimpler,—in fact, all the trivial events that had happened between her lover and the girl who was trying to steal him from her, including the occurrence at Scott's social,—came vividly back to Rita at that moment with exaggerated meaning, and told her she had for years been a poor, trusting dupe. She would listen to Dic because he was the stronger and could compel her to remain in the room; but when he should finish, she would go and would never speak to Miss Tousy again.
"This is a terrible calamity I have brought upon us," said Dic, speaking with difficulty and constraint. "It is like blindness or madness, and means wretchedness for life to you and me."
Still the unexpected direction, thought Rita, but she answered out of her firm resolve:—
"I shall not be wretched, for I do not—don't care. The time was when I did care very, very much; but now I—" She did not finish the sentence, and her conscience reproached her, for she knew she was uttering a big, black lie.
Dic had expected scorn, and had thought he would be able to bear it without flinching. He had fortified himself days before by driving all hope out of his heart, but (as we say and feel when our dear ones die) he was not prepared, even though he well knew what was coming. Her words stunned him for a moment, but he soon pulled himself together, and his unselfish love brought a feeling akin to relief: a poor, dry sort of joy, because he had learned that she did not suffer the pain that was torturing him. No mean part of his pain was because of Rita's suffering. If she did not suffer, he could endure the penalty of his sin with greater fortitude. This slight relief came to him, not because his love was weak, but because his unselfishness was strong.
"If I could really believe that you do not care," he said, struggling with a torturing lump in his throat, "if I could surely know that you do not suffer the pain I feel, I might endure it—God in heaven! I suppose I might endure it. But when I think that I have brought suffering to you, I am almost wild."
The girl's hands were folded demurely upon her lap, and she was gazing down at them. She lifted her eyes for an instant, and there was an unwonted hardness in them as she answered: "You need not waste any sympathy on me. I don't want it."
"Is it really true, Rita," he asked, "that you no longer care for me? Was your love a mere garment you could throw off at will?" He paused, but Rita making no reply, he continued: "It wounds my vanity to learn that I so greatly overestimated your love for me, and I can hardly believe that you speak the truth, but—but I hope—I almost hope you do. Every sense of honor I possess tells me I must accept the wages of my sin and marry Sukey Yates, even though—"
Suddenly a change came over the scene. The girl who had been so passive and cold at once became active and very warm. She sprang to her feet, panting with excitement. Resolutions and righteous indignation were scattered to the four winds by the tremendous shock of his words. Sukey at last had stolen him. That thought seemed to be burning itself into the very heart of her consciousness.
"You—you marry Sukey Yates!" she cried, breathing heavily and leaning toward Dic, one hand resting on the arm of his chair, "you marry her?" The question was almost a wail.
"But if you no longer care there can be no reason why I should not," said Dic, hardly knowing in the whirl of his surprise what he was saying.
Rita thought of the letter to Tom, and all the sympathetic instincts of her nature sprang up to protect Dic, and to save him from Sukey's wicked designs.
"Oh," she cried, falling back into her chair, "you surely did not believe me!"
"And you do care?" asked Dic, almost stunned by her sudden change of front. Rita's conduct had always been so sedate and sensible that he did not suppose she was possessed of ordinary feminine weaknesses.
"Oh, Dic," she replied, "I never thought you would desert me." Inconsistency may also be a jewel.
Dic concluded he was an incarnate mistake. Whichever way he turned, he seemed to be wrong.
"I desert you?" he exclaimed. "But you returned my ring and did not even answer my letter, and now your scorn—"
"What else could you expect?" asked the girl, in a passionate flow of tears.
"I don't know what I expected, but I certainly did not expect this," answered Dic, musing on the blessed fault of inconsistency that dwells in every normal woman's breast. "I did not expect this, or I should have acted differently toward her after you returned the ring. I would not have—I—I—God help me!" and he buried his face in his hands.
"You would not have done what, Dic? Tell me all." Her heart came to him in his trouble. He had sinned, but he was suffering, and that she could not bear.
The low, soft tones of her voice soothed him, and he answered: "I would not have allowed her to believe I intended marrying her. I did not tell her in words that I would, but—I can't tell you. I can't speak." He saw Rita's face turn pale, and though his words almost choked him, he continued, "I suppose I must pay the penalty of my sin."
He gently put the girl from him, and went to the window, where he leaned, gazing into the street. She also rose, and stood waiting for him to speak. After a long pause she called his name,—
"Dic!"
When he turned she was holding out her arms to him, and the next moment they were round his neck.
After a blank hour of almost total silence in the parlor, Miss Tousy came to the door and knocked. She had listened at the door several times during the hour; but, hearing no enlightening words or sounds, she had retreated in good order.
Allowing a moment to elapse after knocking, Miss Tousy called:—
"Are you still there?"
Rita had been very still there, and was vividly conscious of the fact when Miss Tousy knocked. Going to the door, Rita opened it, saying:—
"Yes, we are still here. I'm ashamed to have kept you out so long." She looked her shame and blushed most convincingly.
Upon hearing the knock, Dic hurried over to the window, and when Miss Tousy entered he deluded himself into the belief that his attitude of careless repose would induce her to conclude he had been standing there all the afternoon. But Miss Tousy, in common with all other young ladies, had innate knowledge upon such subjects, and possibly also a little experience—she was twenty-five, mind you—; so she was amused rather than deceived.
"Well?" she asked, and paused for answer.
"Yes," answered Rita.
They understood each other, if we do not, for Miss Tousy kissed Rita and then boldly went to Dic and deliberately kissed him. Thereupon Rita cried, "Oh!" Dic blushed, and all three laughed.
"But I'll leave you to yourselves again," said accommodating Miss Tousy. "I know you want to be alone."
"Oh, we are through," answered Rita, blushing, and Dic reluctantly assented. Miss Tousy laughed and asked:—
"Through what?"
Then there was more blushing and more laughing, and Rita replied, "Just through—that's all."
"Well, I congratulate you," said Miss Tousy, taking Rita's hand, "and am very happy that I have been the means of bringing you together again. Take the advice of one who is older than you," continued Miss Tousy, the old and the wise, "and never, never again allow anything to separate you. Love is the sweetest blossom of life, whose gentle wings will always cover you with the aromatic harmony of an everlasting sunlight." Rita thought the metaphor beautiful, and Dic was too interested to be critical. Then Rita and Miss Tousy, without any reason at all, began to weep, and Dic felt as uncomfortable as the tears of two women could make him.