CHAPTER XI
“Our school opens Monday, doesn’t it, Marie?” asked Moran.
She turned her black eyes on him and allowed them to rest a moment before replying. Jim Ashe was aware of the somber glow of them.
“Yes,” she said, shortly.
Moran chuckled. “You’re tickled to death over it, aren’t you?”
The glow of her eyes became a flame—such a flame as might eat its way through plates of steel. Jim Ashe would have drawn back from such a fire disconcerted; Moran was unable to meet it with his eyes, but he was not disconcerted. Instead, it seemed to give him satisfaction. He chuckled again.
“Well,” he said, jovially, “you know you can leave it when you want to.”
Jim was startled; looked quickly at Marie. The flame lay dead in her eyes; she seemed merely tired, very tired. Moran spoke again, this time to Ashe and the widow.
“I’ve offered her a place in my office back in town,” he said. “I guess she don’t hate Diversity as bad as she says she does, or she’d take it. But the offer holds good, Marie. Any time. Any time.”
The widow ruffled her feathers.
“Marie’s goin’ to stay right where she is. Maybe Diversity hain’t a suburb of heaven; maybe teachin’ school’s a long ways from strummin’ a harp in Paradise; but Marie’s got too much sense to go flutterin’ off like a blind owl in the sunshine, not knowin’ what she’s like to bump her head against.”
Marie turned slowly on the widow.
“When the time comes to choose I’ll choose,” she said, speaking, it seemed, not to the widow, but to herself.
The widow looked puzzled; even Moran seemed not to understand; but Jim understood. In the light of his first meeting with Marie on the knoll he comprehended the significance of her words, the rashness, the worldly wisdom of them. Hers would be no blindfold journey. If she spread her wings for flight it would be with eyes wide and seeing; it would be on a calculated course, and the cost would be itemized. He saw that she read Moran better than he had done, and in the light of her knowledge the page of Moran’s soul became more legible to him. Before Moran had been an adversary--no chivalric adversary; now he felt a cold hatred for the man, a personal, throbbing hatred coupled with a stinging, physical aversion. From that moment Moran became a snake to be scotched.
“There’s a lot less choosin’ in this world than folks think there is,” said the widow. “Folks spends a heap of time separatin’ in their minds what they’re goin’ to do from what they hain’t—gen’ally choosin’ the pleasant and throwin’ out the disagreeable. But when they git along toward the end of things and look back at the figgerin’ they done, they mostly find that the good they chose wasn’t the good they got, and the bad they chose not to have was the very thing that pestered them. Most folks meets up with about so much good and bad, about so much joy and so much trouble; but the joys hain’t the ones they looked forward to and the troubles hain’t the ones they feared.”
Moran smiled and shook his head.
“I can’t agree with you, Mrs. Stickney. We get what we plan for. Set your mind on a thing and then plan and wait and work toward it every chance you get. Don’t give it up. Keep your mind on it. Don’t let a chance slip to move nearer to it. What I want—if I want it bad enough—that thing I get.”
Suddenly Marie spoke—to Jim.
“What’s your opinion, Mr. Ashe?” she said.
“I? As old Sir Roger de Coverley said, ‘There’s much to be said on both sides.’” Jim had no desire to be drawn into argument with Moran.
Her lip curled. “We used to have a Congressman here who was called Mid-channel Charlie because his attitude toward every question was like yours now. He was never Congressman but once.”
“Well, then,” said Jim, perceiving that for some reason she really desired his opinion, “I believe that if you don’t choose and work to get the thing you have chosen, you miss one of life’s finest games. I do agree with Mrs. Stickney that if you drift along and take what comes the chances are that good and ill will run a fairly even race. I agree with Mr. Moran that the man who visualizes his desire and sets it up before him as a lighthouse—and then rows his boat to it with all the strength of his oars—stands at least a moderate chance of getting there. But for me, I do not believe a man should be too set on a desire, that he should steer a course for his lighthouse regardless of everything else. If I have a plan of life it is to row for my lighthouse, but not to miss the scenery along the way. My boat may carry me past something better than my lighthouse. If I should suddenly find myself floating over an oyster-bed I should stop to hunt pearls. I believe that as a man pushes forward to his desire he should stand ready to pounce on the treasure that chance or circumstance floats in his way; he should be ready to repel the evil he fears, but he should keep his ammunition dry and his weapons loaded for trouble he doesn’t in the least foresee—which is not likely to happen, but which sometimes does happen. I believe that a plan to arrive at one’s choice should be modified by the happening of every moment, and that one should be ready to abandon his boat, abandon his lighthouse, to dive over the side after the chance-sent mass of floating ambergris.”
“Yes. Yes, that’s it. The moment determines. The mood of the moment determines,” said Marie.
“And,” said Jim, carried onward by the flow of his thought, “meetings with other voyagers determine. One’s course is sure to cross the courses of others. At some point those moving at right angles to each other may meet bow to bow, when there will result collision, or else one or both the travelers must modify their courses for a time. It may even be that the adventure of one traveler will cause the other to abandon his quest and follow. If you’re going to look ahead, Miss Ducharme, and plan and choose, you must not forget to estimate the chances of contact with other planners and choosers, nor the modifications contact may cause.”
Moran shrugged his shoulders, his jaw set.
“If another man’s path crosses mine, or his boat gets in the way of mine, I let him look out for himself or be run down,” he said, crisply.
“In such collisions,” said the widow, “I’ve knowed both boats to be sunk.”
Jim felt Marie’s black eyes upon him, but he did not look at her. She was studying him, appraising him. He was conscious of it, yet endeavored to appear unconscious. He felt she was more inclined toward friendliness with him than ever before, and because he perceived that she needed friendship—not because of any leaning toward her—he feared to show even by a glance that he was aware of a better understanding between them. It would be so easy to frighten her away.
Moran pushed back his chair.
“I must catch my train, Mrs. Stickney. I always enjoy my suppers with you. They remind me of suppers I used to eat at grandmother’s farm.”
“It’s a good thing for men to git reminded of their grandmothers once in a while,” she answered, cryptically.
“You’re coming to see me to the door, Marie?” Moran said. It seemed to Jim more a command than a question. Marie obeyed, and the man and girl left the room.
Jim emptied his coffee-cup, which was not a thing to do quickly when the widow had made the coffee. Indeed not! One sipped and tasted and stopped betweenwhiles to think on the aroma of it. Presently Jim set down his empty cup.
“More?” asked the widow.
“Thank you, no.”
Jim moved back his chair. He was frowning at the tablecloth abstractedly.
“Hum!” said the widow. It was a very significant, expressive hum, an eloquent hum, but, withal, a hum that needed further elucidation before it became wholly and perfectly clear.
“The difference between girls,” she said, “is that most of them is just ordinarily foolish.”
“And the difference between men,” said Jim, “is that some of them are like Michael Moran.”
“I calc’late from that,” she said, “that your heart don’t flow out to him in love and admiration.”
“It’s men like him that make murder a virtue.”
“Hum!” said the widow. “I’ll say this for you, you don’t leave folks fumblin’ round to understand your meanin’.”
“I said exactly what I meant. Mrs. Stickney, Miss Ducharme is in a dangerous humor. I can’t make her out. Probably it is because I’m too young. But you ought to understand her—whether she means some of the reckless things she says. I believe she does. She has intelligence and a will, which makes the condition more dangerous. She talks about choosing her course when Diversity becomes unbearable. Michael Moran is planning to be present when that time comes. Possibly his plans include making Diversity unbearable. At any rate, he plans and plans, and because he is what he is, because she knows he is what he is, he offers her an opportunity of escape. He offers her what she thinks is an opportunity to choose. But it won’t be any such thing. When she chooses—if ever she does choose—to go to him, it will be because he has planned it and forced the choice.”
“Hum!” said the widow again, eying him with eyes that age had not robbed of their brightness. “Hum!”
This was no startling contribution to the conversation. But the exclamation “Hum!” uttered by an old woman who has buried two husbands and kept boarders is not to be despised. There is more wisdom in such a monosyllable than in all the pages of the valedictory of a girl emerging from college—which is generally credited with being an erudite message. Two husbands and a succession of boarders may teach things that even professors of sociology have not had called to their attention.
“She’s so infernally alone,” said Jim.
Marie stepped into the dining-room again—one might almost say pounced. Her eyes glittered, her hands were clenched.
“I am infernally alone. Oh, I heard! I heard what you said before that, I listened. What business have you to discuss me and my affairs? I suppose it’s your meddlesome notion to help me. I don’t want help; I don’t need help; and what help could you give? What do you know about me—or about life? What do you know about a woman? I will not be discussed by either of you. I have the right to order my own life—to make it good or bad as I want to—and it’s nobody’s business. Do you think I don’t know Michael Moran? I tell you I see into the farthest corner of his soul. I’m not demanding happiness. I doubt if happiness is the best thing life has to give. But I do demand to live. Nobody can compel me to rot. What if I do suffer? What if there is pain and suffering and remorse? That is part of life. It is living. And you would meddle! I tell you again that I see what I am doing; that I am not deceived; that I have weighed consequences. If the time comes when Michael Moran is the stepping-stone I need, I shall use him. Nobody can prevent it—”
“I calc’late there’s somebody might prevent it, Marie,” said the widow, quietly, “and I calc’late there’s somethin’ would fill you up with a kind of regret you ain’t anticipatin’ if it was to happen afterward.”
“Who?” demanded Marie, passionately. “And what?”
“The man you loved might stop you—and comin’ to love a man afterward might bring that kind of remorse that would make dyin’ better ’n livin’.”
Marie stared at the widow, then after one might slowly have counted a dozen she sank into a chair and gazed fixedly downward. Nobody spoke, Jim felt extremely uncomfortable.
Presently Marie lifted her eyes, first to Jim, then to the widow.
“Yes,” she said, “that is possible. I could love, but it would be better that I shouldn’t. Better for him. If I loved it would be no pretty bill-and-coo. It would be love. I should give much, but demand much. I do not think it would be comfortable to be loved by me. If I loved it would be the one great concern of my life. I should have room for nothing else. I have studied myself. And if he did not love me as I loved him I should make him unhappy, for I do not believe men like to be bothered by too much love. I should make him hate me. I should be no sweet domestic animal to greet him with a kiss, and fetch him his slippers, and sit by placidly while he read his paper. Men like comfort and coddling. There would be no comfort with me. I should be jealous—jealous even of the food that gave him pleasure. What man wants such a love! What happiness can come from it? Would you want to be loved that way?” She turned abruptly to Jim.
“I do not believe one can love too much. I don’t believe you know what love is, Miss Ducharme. If love is what I believe, it is not fierce, not a fire that burns beyond control. I think it is gentle; I think love forgives; I think real love manifests itself not by clawing and scratching its object, but by spending itself to procure his happiness—or her happiness. I believe the true love of a man for his wife, or of a woman for her husband, has much in it of the love of father or mother for their child. I do not think love threatens; it shelters. No, Miss Ducharme, the thing you have been talking about is not love at all. I don’t know what it is, but love it is not.”
She looked at him wide-eyed, startled, curious.
“When you love,” he said, “you will see that I am right.”
“I should like to believe you, Mr. Ashe,” she said. “It would be sweet—sweet. But you are wrong. How could you know? Have you loved?”
“No.”
Mrs. Stickney spoke, her old eyes twinkling.
“It don’t seem scarcely possible,” she said, “but I’ve been in love. It was some number of years ago, but I hain’t forgot all about it yet. Shouldn’t be s’prised if there was times when I remembered it right well. So I’m speakin’ from experience. When I was in love ’twa’n’t exactly like either one of them things you’ve been describin’. I’ll go so far’s to say that both of you’ll know consid’able more about it after you’ve ketched it.”
Jim felt a sense of relief. There had been a strain; the moments that had passed were tense moments. Possibly Marie, too, was relieved. At any rate, she stood up, and as she walked toward the door she spoke icily:
“Bear in mind, please, Mr. Ashe, that I and my affairs are not to be discussed, nor have you a right to interfere in whatever happens.”
“Miss Ducharme, I have that right. If I see a man ill-treat a dog, I have the right to protect that dog—more than that, it is my duty. How much more is it a man’s right and duty to interfere in behalf of a woman who is in danger!”
“Duty!” exclaimed Miss Ducharme.