CHAPTER XL.
Some Rude Behaviour, of Which Only a Western Man Could Be Guilty
He walked quickly back. At the doorway she gave him her hand, which he took in silence. "Why—Mr. Bines!—you wouldn't have surprised me last night. To-night I pictured you on your way West."
Her gown was of dull blue dimity. She still wore her hat, an arch of straw over her face, with ripe red cherries nodding upon it as she moved. He closed the door behind him.
"Do come in. I've been having a solitary rummage among old things. It is my last night here. We're leaving for the country to-morrow, you know."
She stood by the table, the light from a shaded lamp making her colour glow.
Now she noted that he had not spoken. She turned quickly to him as if to question.
He took a swift little step toward her, still without speaking. She stepped back with a sudden instinct of fright.
He took two quick steps forward and grasped one of her wrists. He spoke in cool, even tones, but the words came fast:
"I've come to marry you to-night; to take you away with me to that Western country. You may not like the life. You may grieve to death for all I know—but you're going. I won't plead, I won't beg, but I am going to take you."
She had begun to pull away in alarm when he seized her wrist. His grasp did not bruise, it did not seem to be tight; but the hand that held it was immovable.
"Mr. Bines, you forget yourself. Really, this is—"
"Don't waste time. You can say all that needs to be said—I'll give you time for that before we start—but don't waste the time saying all those useless things. Don't waste time telling me I'm crazy. Perhaps I am. We can settle that later."
"Mr. Bines—how absurd! Oh! let me go! You're hurting my wrist! Oh!—don't—don't—don't! Oh!"
When he felt the slender wrist trying to writhe from his grasp he had closed upon it more tightly, and thrusting his other arm quickly behind her, had drawn her closely to him. Her cries and pleadings were being smothered down on his breast. Her struggles met only the unbending, pitiless resistance of steel.
"Don't waste time, I tell you—can't you understand? Be sensible,—talk if you must—only talk sense."
"Let me go at once—I demand it—quick—oh!"
"Take this hat off!"
He forced the wrist he had been holding down between them, so that she could not free the hand, and, with his own hand thus freed, he drew out the two long hat-pins and flung the hat with its storm-tossed cherries across the room. Still holding her tightly, he put the free hand on her brow and thrust her head back, so that she was forced to look up at him.
"Let me see you—I want to see your eyes—they're my eyes now."
Her head strained against his hand to be down again, and all her strength was exerted to be away. She found she could not move in any direction.
"Oh, you're hurting my neck. What shall I do? I can't scream—think what it would mean!—you're hurting my neck!"
"You are hurting your own neck—stop it!"
He kissed her face, softly, her cheeks, her eyes, her chin.
"I've loved you so—don't—what's the use? Be sensible. My arms have starved for you so—do you think they're going to loosen now? Avice Milbrey—Avice Milbrey—Avice Milbrey!"
His arms tightened about her as he said the name over and over.
"That's poetry—it's all the poetry there is in the world. It's a verse I say over in the night. You can't understand it yet—it's too deep for you. It means I must have you—and the next verse means that you must have me—a poor man—be a poor man's wife—and all the other verses—millions of them—mean that I'll never give you up—and there's a lot more verses for you to write, when you understand—meaning that you'll never give me up—and there's one in the beginning means I'm going to carry you out and marry you to-night—now, do you understand?—right off—this very night!"
"Oh! Oh! this is so terrible! Oh, it's so awful!"
Her voice broke, and he felt her body quiver with sobs. Her face was pitifully convulsed, and tears welled in her eyes.
"Let me go—let—me—go!"
He released her head, but still held her closely to him. Her sobs had become uncontrollable.
"Here—" he reached for the little lace-edged handkerchief that lay beside her long gloves and her purse, on the table.
She took it mechanically.
"Please—oh, please let me go—I beg you." She managed it with difficulty between the convulsions that were rending her.
He put his lips down upon the soft hair.
"I won't—do you understand that? Stop talking nonsense."
He thought there would be no end to the sobs.
"Have it out, dear—there's plenty of time."
Once she seemed to have stopped the tears. He turned her face up to his own again, and softly kissed her wet eyes. Her full lips were parted before him, but he did not kiss them. The sobs came again.
"There—there!—it will soon be over."
At last she ceased to cry from sheer exhaustion, and when, with his hand under her chin, he forced up her head again, she looked at him a full minute and then closed her eyes.
He kissed their lids.
There came from time to time the involuntary quick little indrawings of breath,—the aftermath of her weeping.
He held her so for a time, while neither spoke. She had become too weak to struggle.
"My arms have starved for you so," he murmured. She gave no sign.
"Come over here." He led her, unresisting, around to the couch at the other side of the table.
"Sit here, and we'll talk it over sensibly, before you get ready."
When he released her, she started quickly up toward the door that led into the hall.
"Don't do that—please don't be foolish."
He locked the door, and put the key in his pocket. Then he went over to the big folding-doors, and satisfied himself they were locked from the other side. He went back and stood in front of her. She had watched him with dumb terror in her face.
"Now we can talk—but there isn't much to be said. How soon can you be ready?"
"You are crazy!"
"Possibly—believe what you like."
"How did you ever dare? Oh, how awful!"
"If you haven't passed that stage, I'll hold you again."
"No, no—please don't—please stand up again. Sit over there,—I can think better."
"Think quickly. This is Saturday, and to-morrow is their busy day. They may not sit up late to-night."
She arose with a little shrug of desperation that proclaimed her to be in the power of a mad man. She looked at her face in the oval mirror, wiping her eyes and making little passes and pats at her disordered hair. He went over to her.
"No, no—please go over there again. Sit down a moment—let me think. I'll talk to you presently."
There was silence for five minutes. He watched her, while she narrowed her eyes in deep thought.
Then he looked at his watch.
"I can give you an hour, if you've anything to say before it's done—not longer."
She drew a long breath.
"Mr. Bines, are you mad? Can't you be rational?"
"I haven't been irrational, I give you my word, not once since I came here."
He looked at her steadily. All at once he saw her face go crimson. She turned her eyes from his with an effort.
"I'm going back to Montana in the morning. I want you to marry me to-night—I won't even wait one more day—one more hour. I know it's a thing you never dreamt of—marrying a poor man. You'll look at it as the most disgraceful act of folly you could possibly commit, and so will every one else here—but you'll do it. To-morrow at this time you'll be half-way to Chicago with me."
"Mr. Bines,—I'm perfectly reasonable and serious—I mean it—are you quite sure you didn't lose your wits when you lost your money?"
"It may be considered a witless thing to marry a girl who would marry for money—but never mind that—I'm used to taking chances."
She glanced up at him, curiously.
"You know I'm to marry Mr. Shepler the tenth of next month."
"Your grammar is faulty—tense is wrong—You should say 'I was to have married Mr. Shepler.' I'm fastidious about those little things, I confess."
"How can you jest?"
"I can't. Don't think this is any joke. He'll find out."
"Who will find out,—what, pray?"
"He will. He's already said he was afraid there might have been some nonsense between you and me, because we talked that evening at the Oldakers'. He told my grandfather he wasn't at all sure of you until that day I lost my money."
"Oh, I see—and of course you'd like your revenge—carrying me off from him just to hurt him."
"If you say that I'll hold you in my arms again." He started toward her. "I've loved you so, I tell you—all the time—all the time."
"Or perhaps it's a brutal revenge on me,—after thinking I'd only marry for money."
"I've loved you always, I tell you."
He came up to her, more gently now, and took up her hand to kiss it. He saw the ring.
"Take his ring off!"
She looked up at him with an amused little smile, but did not move. He reached for the hand, and she put it behind her.
"Take it off," he said, harshly.
He forced her hand out, took off the ring with its gleaming stone, none too gently, and laid it on the table behind him. Then he covered the hand with kisses.
"Now it's my hand. Perhaps there was a little of both those feelings you accuse me of—perhaps I did want to triumph over both you and Shepler—and the other people who said you'd never marry for anything but money—but do you think I'd have had either one of those desires if I hadn't loved you? Do you think I'd have cared how many Sheplers you married if I hadn't loved you so, night and day?—always turning to you in spite of everything,—loving you always, under everything—always, I tell you."
"Under what—what 'everything'?"
"When I was sure you had no heart—that you couldn't care for any man except a rich man—that you would marry only for money."
"You thought that?"
"Of course I thought it."
"What has changed you?"
"Nothing. I'm going to change it now by proving differently. I shall take you against your will—but I shall make you love me—in the end. I know you—you're a woman, in spite of yourself!"
"You were entirely right about me. I would even have married you because of the money—"
"Tell me what it is you're holding back—don't wait."
"Let me think—don't talk, please!"
She sat a long time silent, motionless, her eyes fixed ahead. At length she stirred herself to speak.
"You were right about me, partly—and partly wrong. I don't think I can make you understand. I've always wanted so much from life—so much more than it seemed possible to have. The only thing for a girl in my position and circumstances was to make what is called a good marriage. I wanted what that would bring, too. I was torn between the desires—or rather the natural instincts and the trained desires. I had ideals about loving and being loved, and I had the material ideals of my experience in this world out here.
"I was untrue to each by turns. Here—I want to show you something."
She took up a book with closely written pages.
"I came here to-night—I won't conceal from you that I thought of you when I came. It was my last time here, and you had gone, I supposed. Among other things I had out this old diary to burn, and I had found this, written on my eighteenth birthday, when I came out—the fond, romantic, secret ideal of a foolish girl—listen:
"The Soul of Love wed the Soul of Truth and their daughter, Joy, was born: who was immortal and in whom they lived for ever!'
"You see—that was the sort of moonshine I started in to live. Two or three times I was a grievous disappointment to my people, and once or twice, perhaps, I was disappointed myself. I was never quite sure what I wanted. But if you think I was consistently mercenary you are mistaken. "I shall tell you something more—something no one knows. There was a man I met while that ideal was still strong and beautiful to me—but after I'd come to see that here, in this life, it was not easily to be kept. He was older than I, experienced with women—a lover of women, I came to understand in time. I was a novelty to him, a fresh recreation—he enjoyed all those romantic ideals of mine. I thought then he loved me, and I worshipped him. He was married, but constantly said he was about to leave his wife, so she would divorce him. I promised to come to him when it was done. He had married for money and he would have been poor again. I didn't mind in the least. I tell you this to show you that I could have loved a poor man, not only well enough to marry him, but to break with the traditions, and brave the scandal of going to him in that common way. With all I felt for him I should have been more than satisfied. But I came in time to see that he was not as earnest as I had been. He wasn't capable of feeling what I felt. He was more cowardly than I—or rather, I was more reckless than he. I suspected it a long time; I became convinced of it a year ago and a little over. He became hateful to me. I had wasted my love. Then he became funny. But—you see—I am not altogether what you believed me. Wait a bit longer, please.
"Then I gave up, almost—and later, I gave up entirely. And when my brother was about to marry that woman, and Mr. Shepler asked me to marry him, I consented. It seemed an easy way to end it all. I'd quit fondling ideals. And you had told me I must do anything I could to keep Fred from marrying that woman—my people came to say the same thing—and so—"
"If he had married her—if they were married now—then you would feel free to marry me?"
"You would still be the absurdest man in New York—but we can't discuss that. He isn't going to marry her."
"But he has married her—"
"What do you mean?"
"I supposed you knew—Oldaker told me as I left the hotel. He and your father were witnesses. The marriage took place this afternoon at the Arlingham."
"You're not deceiving me?"
"Come, come!—girl!"
"Oh, pardon me! please! Of course I didn't mean it—but you stunned me. And papa said nothing to me about it before he left. The money must have been too great a temptation to him and to Fred. She has just made some enormous amount in copper stock or something."
"I know, she had better advice than I had. I'd like to reward the man who gave it to her."
"And I was sure you were going to marry that other woman."
"How could you think so?"
"Of course I'm not the least bit jealous—it isn't my disposition; but I did think Florence Akemit wasn't the woman to make you happy—of course I liked her immensely—and there were reports going about—everybody seemed so sure—and you were with her so much. Oh, how I did hate her!"
"I tell you she is a joke and always was."
"It's funny—that's exactly what I told Aunt Cornelia about that—that man."
"Let's stop joking, then."
"How absurd you are—with my plans all made and the day set—"
There was a knock at the door. He went over and unlocked it. Jarvis was there.
"Mr. Shepler, Miss Avice."
They looked at each other.
"Jarvis, shut that door and wait outside."
"Yes, Mr. Bines."
"You can't see him."
"But I must,—we're engaged, don't you understand?—of course I must!"
"I tell you I won't let you. Can't you understand that I'm not talking idly?"
She tried to evade him and reach the door, but she was caught again in his arms—held close to him.
"If you like he shall come in now. But he's not going to take you away from me, as he did in that jeweller's the other night—and you can't see him at all except as you are now."
She struggled to be free.
"Oh, you're so brutal!"
"I haven't begun yet—"
He drew her toward the door.
"Oh, not that—don't open it—I'll tell him—yes, I will!"
"I'm taking no more chances, and the time is short."
Still holding her closely with one arm, he opened the door. The man stared impassively above their heads—a graven image of unconsciousness.
"Jarvis."
"Yes, sir."
"Miss Milbrey wishes you to say to Mr. Shepler that she is engaged—"
"That I'm ill," she interrupted, still making little struggles to twist from his grasp, her head still bent down.
"That she is engaged with Mr. Bines, Jarvis, and can't see him. Say it that way—'Miss Milbrey is engaged with Mr. Bines, and can't see you.'".
"Yes, sir!"
He remained standing motionless, as he had been, his eyes still fixed above them. But the eyes of Jarvis, from long training, did hot require to be bent upon those things they needed to observe. They saw something now that was at least two feet below their range.
The girl made a little move with her right arm, which was imprisoned fast between them, and which some intuition led her captor not to restrain. The firm little hand worked its way slowly up, went creepingly over his shoulder and bent tightly about his neck.
"Yes, sir," repeated Jarvis, without the quiver of an eyelid, and went.
He closed the door with his free hand, and they stood as they were until they heard the noise of the front door closing and the soft retreating footsteps of the butler.
"Oh, you were mean—mean—to shame me so," and floods of tears came again.
"I hated to do it, but I had to; it was a critical moment. And you couldn't have made up your mind without it."
She sobbed weakly in his arms, but her own arm was still tight about his neck. He felt it for the first time.
"But I had made up my mind—I did make it up while we talked."
They were back on the couch. He held her close and she no longer resisted, but nestled in his arms with quick little sighs, as if relieved from a great strain. He kissed her forehead and hair as she dried her eyes.
"Now, rest a little. Then we shall go."
"I've so much to tell you. That day at the jeweller's—well, what could I do but take one poor last little look of you—to keep?"
"Tell me if you care for me."
"Oh, I do, I do, I do care for you. I have—ever since that day we walked in the woods. I do, I do!"
She threw her head back and gave him her lips.
She was crying again and trying to talk.
"I did care for you, and that day I thought you were going to say something, but you didn't—you were so distant and troubled, and seemed not even to like me—though I felt sure you loved me. I had thought you were going to tell me, and I'd have accepted—yes, for the money—though I liked you so much. Why, when I first met you in that mine and thought you were a workman, I'm not sure I wouldn't have married you if you had asked me. But it was different again when I found out about you. And that day in the woods I thought something had come between us. Only after dinner you seemed kinder, and I knew at once you thought better of me, and might even seek me—I knew it in the way a woman knows things she doesn't know at all. I went into the library with a candle to look into the mirror, almost sure you were going to come. Then I heard your steps and I was so glad—but it wasn't you-I'd been mistaken again-you still disliked me. I was so disappointed and hurt and heartsick, and he kissed me and soothed me. And after that directly I saw through him, and I knew I truly did love you just as I'd wanted to love the man who would be my husband—only all that nonsense about money that had been dinned into me so long kept me from seeing it at first. But I was sure you didn't care for me when they talked so about you, and that—you never did care for her, did you—you couldn't have cared for her, could you?—and yet, after that night, I'd such a queer little feeling as if you had come for me, and had seen—"
"Surely a gentleman never sees anything he wasn't meant to see."
"I'm so glad—I should have been so ashamed—"
They were still a moment, while he stroked her hair.
"They'll be turning in early to-night, having to get up to-morrow and preach sermons—what a dreary place heaven must be compared with this!"
She sat up quickly.
"Oh, I'd forgotten. How awful it is. Isn't it awful?"
"It will soon be over."
"But think of my people, and what's expected of me—think of Mr. Shepler."
"Shepler's doing some hard thinking for himself by this time."
"Really, you're a dreadful person—"
There was a knock.
"The cabman outside, sir, says how long is he to wait, sir?"
"Tell him to wait all night if I don't come; tell him if he moves off that spot I'll have his license taken away. Tell him I'm the mayor's brother."
"Yes, sir."
"And, Jarvis, who's in the house besides you?"
"Miss Briggs, the maid, sir—but she's just ready to go out, sir."
"Stop her—say Miss Milbrey wishes to ask a favour of her; and Jarvis."
"Yes, sir!"
"Go put on that neat black street coat of yours that fits you so beautifully in the back, and a purple cravat, and your shiny hat, and wait for us with Briggs. We shall want you in a moment."
"Yes, Mr. Bines."
She looked at him wonderingly.
"We need two witnesses, you know. I learned that from Oldaker just now."
"But do give me a moment, everything is all so whirling and hazy."
"Yes, I know—like the solar system in its nebulous state. Well, hurry and make those worlds take shape. I can give you sixty seconds to find that I'm the North Star. Ach! I have the Doctor von Herzlich been ge-speaking with—come, come! What's the use of any more delay? I've wasted nearly three hours here now, dilly-dallying along. But then, a woman never does know her own mind.
"Put a thing before her—all as plain as the multiplication table—and she must use up just so much good time telling a man that he's crazy—and shedding tears because he won't admit that two times two are thirty-seven." She was silent and motionless for another five minutes, thinking intently. "Come, time's up."
She arose.
"I'm ready. I shall marry you, if you think I'm the woman to help you in that big, new life of yours. They meant me not to know about Fred's marriage until afterward."
He kissed her.
"I feel so rested and quiet now, as if I'd taken down a big old gate and let the peace rush in on me. I'm sure it's right. I'm sure I can help you."
She picked up her hat and gloves.
"Now I'll go bathe my eyes and fix my hair."
"I can't let you out of my sight, yet. I'm incredulous. Perhaps in seventy-five or eighty years—"
"I thought you were so sure."
"While I can reach you, yes."
She gave a low, delicious little laugh. She reached both arms up around him, pulled down his head and kissed him.
"There—boy!"
She took up the hat again.
"I'll be down in a moment."
"I'll be up in three, if you're not."
When she had gone he picked up an envelope and put a bill inside.
"Jarvis," he called.
The butler came up from below, dressed for the street.
"Jarvis, put this envelope in the inside of that excellent black coat of yours and hand it—afterward—to the gentleman we're going to do business with."
"Yes, Mr. Bines."
"And put your cravat down in the back, Jarvis—it makes you look excited the way it is now."
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir!"
"Is Briggs ready?" "She's waiting, sir."
"Go out and get in the carriage, both of you."
"Yes, sir!"
He stood in the hallway waiting for her. It was a quarter-past ten. In another moment she rustled softly down to him.
"I'm trusting so much to you, and you're trusting so much to me. It's such a rash step!"
"Must I—"
"No, I'm going. Couldn't we stop and take Aunt Cornelia?"
"Aunt Cornelia won't have a chance to worry about this until it's all over. We'll stop there then, if you like."
"We'll try Doctor Prendle, then. He's almost sure to be in."
"It won't make any difference if he isn't. We'll find one. Those horses are rested. They can go all night if they must."
"I have Grandmother Loekermann's wedding-ring—of course you didn't fetch one. Trust a man to forget anything of importance."
His grasp of her hand during the ride did not relax.