II
Twilight veiled this valley of new dreams, and across the way the hills were purple shadows. Bunny said, “There’s just one thing worrying me about our plan now: I’m afraid there’s going to be a scandal.”
“How do you mean?”
“You and me being together all the time, and going off and being missing at night.”
“Oh, Bunny, what nonsense!”
“No, really, I’m worried. I told Peter Nagle we’d have to conform to bourgeois standards, and we’re beginning wrong. My Aunt Emma is a bourgeois standard, and she would never approve of this, and neither would your mother. We ought to go and get married.”
“Oh, Bunny!” She was staring at him, but it was too dark to reveal any possible twinkle in his eyes. “Are you joking?”
“Rachel,” he said, “will you take that much trouble to preserve the good name of our institution?”
He came a step nearer, and she stammered, “Bunny, you don’t—you don’t mean that!”
“I don’t see any other way—really.”
“Bunny—no!”
“Why not?”
“Because—you don’t want to marry a Jewess!”
“Good Lord!”
“Don’t misunderstand me, I’m proud of my race. But all your friends would think it was a mistake.”
“My friends, Rachel? Who the devil are my friends—except in the radical movement? And where would the radical movement be without the Jews?”
“But, Bunny—your sister!”
“My sister is not my friend. Neither did she ask me to pick out her husband.”
Rachel stood, twisting her fingers together nervously. “Bunny, do you really—you aren’t just speaking on an impulse?”
“Well, I suppose it’s an impulse. I seem to have to blurt it out. But it’s an impulse I’ve had a good many times.”
“And you won’t be sorry?”
He laughed. “It depends upon your answer.”
“Stop joking, please—you frighten me. I can’t afford to let you make a mistake. It’s so dreadfully serious!”
“But why take it that way?”
“I can’t help it; you don’t know how a woman feels. I don’t want you to do something out of a generous impulse, and then you’d feel bound, and you wouldn’t be happy. You oughtn’t to marry a girl out of the sweat-shops.”
“Good God, Rachel, my father was a mule-driver.”
“Yes, but you’re Anglo-Saxon; away back somewhere your ancestors were proud of themselves. You ought to marry a tall, fair woman that will stay beautiful all her life, and look right in a drawing-room. Jewish women bear two or three children, and then they get fat, and you wouldn’t like me.”
He burst out laughing. “I have attended the weddings of some of those tall, fair Anglo-Saxon women; and the priest pronounces, very solemnly, ‘Into this holy estate the two persons now present come now to be joined. If any man can show just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace.’ ”
“Bunny,” she pleaded, “I’m trying to face the facts!”
“Well, dear, if you must be solemn—it happens that I never loved a fair woman. The two I picked out to live with were dark, the same as you. It must be nature’s effort to mix things. I suppose you know about Vee Tracy?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Vee had the looks all right, and she’ll keep them—she makes a business of it. But you see, it didn’t do me any good, she threw me over for a Roumanian prince.”
“Why, Bunny?”
“Because I wouldn’t give up the radical movement.”
“Oh, how I hated that woman!”
There was a note of melodrama in Rachel’s usually serene voice, and Bunny was curious. “You did hate her?”
“I could have choked her!”
“Because she struck you?”
“No! Because I knew she was trying to take you out of the movement; and I thought for sure she would. She had everything I didn’t have.”
Bunny was thinking—by golly, it was queer! Vee had known it—and he hadn’t! Oh, these women! Aloud he said, politely, “No, she didn’t have quite everything.”
“What is there that I have, Bunny? What do I mean to you?”
“I’ll tell you—I’m so tired of being quarreled with. You can’t have any idea—my whole life, since I began to think for myself, has been one wrangle with the people who loved me, or thought they had a right to direct me. You can’t imagine what a sense of peace I get when I think of being with you; it’s like settling down into nice soft cushions. I’ve hesitated about it, because of course I’m not very proud of the Vee Tracy episode, and I didn’t know if you’d take a man second-hand—or third-hand it really is, because there was a girl while I was in high school. I’m telling you my drawbacks, to balance your getting fat!”
“Bunny, I don’t care about the other women—they will always be after you, of course. I was heartsick about Miss Tracy, because I knew she was a selfish woman, and I was afraid you’d find it out too late, and be wrecked. At least, I told myself that was it—I suppose the truth is I was just green with jealousy.”
“Why, Rachel! You mean that you love me?”
“As if any woman could help loving you! The question is, do you love me?”
“I do—yes, truly!”
“But Bunny—” there was a little catch in her voice. “You don’t show it!”
So then he realized that he had been wasting a lot of time! He had to take only one more step, and put his arms about her, and there she was, sobbing on his shoulder, as if her heart would break. “Oh, Bunny, Bunny! Can I believe it?”
So to make her believe it, he began to kiss her. She had been such a sedate and proper little lady, such a manager in the office and all that, he had been in awe of her; but now he made the discovery that she was exactly like the other women who had been in love with him; as soon as she was sure that she might let herself go, that it was not some blunder, or some crazy dream—why, there she was, clinging to him in a sort of daze of happiness, half laughing, half weeping. As he kissed her, there was mingled in his emotion the memory of how brave she had been, and how loyal, and how honest; yes, it was worth while making a girl like that happy! To mingle love with those other emotions, that appeared to be safe! And she was just as passionate as either Eunice or Vee had been, not a particle more sedate or reticent! “Oh, Bunny, I love you so! I love you so!” She whispered it in the darkness, and her embraces said more than her words.
“Dear Rachel!” he said, with a happy little laugh. “If you feel that way, let’s go find a preacher or a justice of the peace.”
She answered, “Foolish Bunny! I want to know that you love me, and that I’m free to love you. What do I care about preachers or justices?”
So then he caught her tighter, and their lips met in a long kiss. If she tried to voice any more doubts, he would stop the sounds, he would find a way to convince her! And what better place for their love than this mysterious grove, the scene of their future labors? Yes, they would have to buy this ranch now, regardless of soil deficiencies! It would be a haunted place; in after years, while the young folks had their games and pageants in this grove, Bunny and Rachel would look on with a secret thrill. Had it not been in ancient oak-groves that mystic rites had been celebrated, and pledges made, and holy powers invoked!