"But I do," she said. "I want to see you the man you can be."
"Then—marry me," he cried.
Her eyes looked gentle friendship; her passionate lips curled in scorn. "I might marry the sort of man you could be," she said, "but I never could marry a man so weak that, without me to bolster him up, he'd become a stool-pigeon."
And she turned and walked away.
V.
A few days later, after she had taken her daily two hours' walk, Selma went into the secluded part of Washington Park and spent the rest of the morning writing. Her walk was her habitual time for thinking out her plans for the day. And when it was writing that she had to do, and the weather was fine, that particular hillside with its splendid shade so restful for the eyes and so stimulating to the mind became her work-shop. She thought that she was helped as much by the colors of grass and foliage as by the softened light and the tranquil view out over hills and valleys.
When she had finished her article she consulted the little nickel watch she carried in her bag and discovered that it was only one o'clock. She had counted on getting through at three or half past. Two hours gained. How could she best use them. The part of the Park where she was sitting was separated from the Hastings grounds only by the winding highroad making its last reach for the top of the hill. She decided that she would go to see Jane Hastings—would try to make tactful progress in her project of helping Jane and David Hull by marrying them to each other. Once she had hit upon this project her interest in both of them had equally increased. Yes, these gained two hours was an opportunity not to be neglected.
She put her papers into her shopping bag and went straight up the steep hill. She arrived at the top, at the edge of the lawn before Jane's house, with somewhat heightened color and brightened eyes, but with no quickening of the breath. Her slim, solid little body had all the qualities of endurance of those wiry ponies that come from the regions her face and walk and the careless grace of her hair so delightfully suggested. As she advanced toward the house she saw a gay company assembled on the wide veranda. Jane was giving a farewell luncheon for her visitors, had asked almost a dozen of the most presentable girls in the town. It was a very fashionable affair, and everyone had dressed for it in the best she had to wear at that time of day.
Selma saw the company while there was still time for her to draw back and descend into the woods. But she knew little about conventionalities, and she cared not at all about them. She had come to see Jane; she conducted herself precisely as she would have expected any one to act who came to see her at any time. She marched straight across the lawn. The hostess, the fashionable visitors, the fashionable guests soon centered upon the extraordinary figure moving toward them under that blazing sun. The figure was extraordinary not for dress—the dress was plain and unconspicuous—but for that expression of the free and the untamed, the lack of self-consciousness so rarely seen except in children and animals. Jane rushed to the steps to welcome her, seized her extended hands and kissed her with as much enthusiasm as she kissed Jane. There was sincerity in this greeting of Jane's; but there was pose, also. Here was one of those chances to do the unconventional, the democratic thing.