IV
“I don’t understand you,” said Ladislaw, in a deeply injured voice. “You’ll trust your whole life to me, and yet—”
The little wood was dark and unfamiliar, and he found it very disagreeable to hurry along at the pace she set.
“And yet you behave—” he went on.
“I’m not trusting my whole life to you,” replied Ethel vehemently. “I’d be sorry to think there was nothing better than that to trust in!”
“That’s not quite the way to talk to the man you’re going to marry, is it?” he asked. “I’ve always tried my best to do what you wanted. I don’t see why you shouldn’t trust me.”
“I don’t see, either, Lad,” Ethel answered, with her discounting frankness. “Only somehow you seem so—so dreadfully strange to me. I never understand you. I know you must be fond of me, or you wouldn’t have asked me to marry you; and I know it’s a sensible, practical idea if we’re going on tour. But I can’t—I can’t—” She choked down a sob. “I can’t feel—friendly—with you!”
“I don’t want you to. I want you to love me.”
“But they ought to go together!” she cried. “I’m awfully grateful to you, and I love to hear you sing, but I’m afraid! Oh, it’s not fair to you, because I know I’ll never feel like that!”
“You will some day,” he answered, with a patience that frightened her still more.
“I’ve got to be honest with you, Lad. I’m sure I shall never feel so. It’s only because I want this chance so much—so much that I’d do almost anything to get it. I know that if I can once sing in public, I shall be all right, and—”
He laughed softly.
“It doesn’t go so fast,” he said. “Nothing does. You will have what every one else has—two failures for each triumph, two pains for every joy. You will have hard work, discouragement, anxiety, and a good many other troubles you’ve never thought of. That’s why I ask you to marry me, because you need some one to protect you. If you don’t love me, very well! I’ll love you twice as much, to make up for it.”
His hand fell lightly on her shoulder. She sprang aside hastily.
That did not offend him. He never seemed to be offended or impatient. He was always reasonable, kind, sympathetic; and yet, instead of being pleased or touched by this, Ethel found it disquieting and mysterious.
His polite endurance of her changing humors was more like that of indifference than that of love. Of course, he did love her. He must, and she was a very fortunate girl to have found, at the very beginning of her career, a man who loved her and who could and would help her so greatly.
This first venture was in itself a thing[Pg 127] very displeasing to her. It was a vaudeville act of his own devising, in which, with several changes of costume, they would sing snatches from the most popular operas, all woven together to make a silly story. She tried to look beyond that, to the great triumphs of the future. She tried to feel that these triumphs would be ample compensation for the monstrous sacrifice she was making of her life.
Once in a while, in a brief flash, she half realized what she was doing. The memory of her mother came back to her—that gentle and quiet woman who had held so steadfastly to her own ideals.
No matter how ardent her desire for perfection in her beloved art, no matter how splendid her ambition, Ethel could not be rid of a secret and bitter sense of guilt. It was wrong—she knew it—it was wrong and unworthy to marry Ladislaw.
“But why?” she demanded of herself. “I don’t care anything about love, and men, and things like that. Ladislaw knows it, and if he doesn’t care, why should I? Anyhow, it’s too late now. I’ve promised, and I’m going to keep my word. Mother would want me to do that. Oh, but if mother had been here, she would have understood! She would never have let me get into such a dreadful, miserable, heartbreaking situation! If she could come now, just for one little minute, just to say one word—”
But there was no one there except Ladislaw. The lights of the railway station gleamed before them, and he drew close to her.
“Give me one kiss, Ethel!” he said, very low.
She hated his voice, she hated to have him so near her, she hated herself. The little wood seemed like a black and sinister forest.
“No!” she said brusquely, as she had often spoken to him before.
This time he was not patient and humble. He caught her arm, and tried to draw her to him.
“You shan’t treat me like a dog!” he muttered.
In growing alarm, she stared at him in the dark, and she fancied she saw his white teeth revealed by a wolfish grin. With a violent wrench, she freed herself. With the swiftness of terror, she ran out of that haunted wood into the safe, bright road before the station.
As she stood there, flushed and panting, trying to consider the situation, he came leisurely up to her.
“You can’t go back now—not after that telegram you sent your aunt,” he said. “There’s nowhere for you to go, except with me. You haven’t even your ticket or your purse. You gave them to me to keep—and I mean to keep them!”
“I don’t care—I’ll walk,” she retorted, in a trembling voice.
“Walk where?” he inquired. “You told your aunt you were going away to get married. You’ll have hard work explaining that you changed your mind; and you’ll have hard work getting home at all without a penny. Come! Here’s the train. Don’t be a little fool!”
The long, mournful hoot of the approaching engine came to her ears.
“Oh, give me my purse!” she cried in terror and despair. “Oh, please! Oh, please, Ladislaw!”
“I won’t,” he said. “If you won’t come with me, I’ll leave you here alone. You’ll be sorry, Ethel. You’ll lose your chance to be a singer, and you’ll lose more than that. Your aunt won’t take this very well.”
She looked around in anguish. The ticket office was closed for the night, and there were only strangers on the platform. All about that little lighted oasis were the woods and fields and tiny distant houses, filled with more strangers.