Under the Law

by Edwina Stanton Babcock

The tall man looked at her, his expression changing slightly. Then as he glanced at the hand she had not offered him, "I—I have been talking with your father," he said quietly.

Sard tried to smile back, tried to smile in greeting, sympathy, but her heart pounded. She was instinct for flight, a thing suddenly confronted with strangeness, facing someone who was—too eager! Slight as the hesitation was, the man saw it. He did not move except with great gentleness to draw her to a chair. He stood speaking tranquilly, with a curious authority Sard had never seen before. It made her thrill. "I have been talking to Judge Bogart," this triumphant man in white flannels said easily; "he gave me permission to see you. I have told him about myself; you see," he smiled, "I have found out who I am! Sard, aren't you glad? Don't you care?"

"You have found out—who you are?" said the girl thickly, childishly. Her gaucherie was painful to her and evident and very dear to the man perceiving it. The deep fire-blue eyes rested on hers a moment. An indefinable softness crept into them, replacing that look of confidence and power. The tall frame bent a little toward her, and she was aware as of a curious tenseness of resolution—a self-control such as she had felt that night in the little fruit orchard. Colter, who looked at her with understanding, knew that for the moment his chiefest hold on Sard was gone. Drinking her down with a thirst born of his knowledge of her, yet this triumphant man before her realized that now that he no longer had need of her compassion she had as yet no other kind of passion for him! The dark days being over, Martin Ledyard, the scientific adventurer, whose name was famous all over the world, was standing irresolute, abashed, not able, it seemed, to win back the bright look of pity from the brook-clear eyes, the little maternal cadence in a girl's voice. He saw her disturbed, at bay.

If, however, he felt taken aback, disappointed, there was no hint of it. He looked at her with unutterable tenderness, the kind of look Sard had never before seen on a man's face. "I see," he said simply, "you don't care for me—so much—in my triumph. You think that now I do not need you, Sard? Not need you, my Happiness? Sard," she quivered at her name on his lips, "are you sorry you saved me, sorry I came—back?"

She shook her head. She had risen. It was like them both that they should take it standing, trying to be square with each other, striving to get to the thing that lay between them. The Judge, passing through the hall, on an uneasy excited walk, coughed gruffly. Hearing this cough, with a strange feeling of unreality, Sard tried to realize what had happened. There was her father outside, not caring that she was with this man. Why—then—then—the Judge knew then that she had read true!

"You say you have talked with Father?" A wild wave of relief tore through the girl; she tried once more to lift her eyes to the face, reading the wistful look dwelling on it, loving it, yet coming no nearer to it. Ah, there would be no more Gorgon "practical life" now. She had seen true, she had known, known—and with a curious effort the girl tried to look smilingly and frankly back at this man. On "Colter's" own face there was left only a trace of the old baffled sadness; new triumph tore through her, "Colter" had won out, won out! As in a dream, she listened to his voice.

"I hoped you and I might care for all the 'under-dogs' in the world—together."

Then after another short silence:

"You remember the night in the little fruit orchard? I think you cared for me then, and I," the man's voice faltered, "I adored you. You remember other times, I think," he said gently, "that you did care and I wanted you to know that that was what cured me, brought things back. I didn't frighten you then, did I, Sard? You put your hand in mine, but," hesitatingly, "I seem to frighten you now; you wouldn't come to me now?"

She stood pulling at the amber chain, and after a moment "Colter" also touched the chain. He followed her hand on the golden rope. It seemed to them both that something rather terrible might happen. To Sard, it was as if in this pause some wonderful gate might close, some beautiful thing might pass out, never to return. But the woman that rose up in the girl asserting with vehemence her right to this man frightened that other untried creature, the Winged Victory of freedom and innocent impulses. Things had changed!