CHAPTER XVII
I had often told Eleanore of Joe. She had asked me about him many times. "It's queer," she had said, "what a hold he must have had on you. I feel sure he's just the kind of a person I wouldn't like and who wouldn't like me. I don't think he's really your kind either, and yet he has a hold on you still. Yes, he has, I can feel he has."
And to-night when I told her that I had been with him,
"What did he want of you?" she asked.
"He wants me to drop everything," I answered. And I tried to give her some idea of what he had said.
But as I talked, the thought came suddenly into my mind that here at last was the very time to settle my life one way or the other, to ask her if she would be my wife. I grew excited and confused, my voice sounding unnatural to my ears. And as I talked on about Joe, my heart pounding, I could barely keep the thoughts in line.
"And I don't want what he wants," I ended desperately. "That nor anything like it. I want just what I've been getting—just this kind of work and life. And I want you—for life, I mean—if you can ever feel like that."
Eleanore said nothing. In an instant the world and everything in it had narrowed to the two of us. The intensity was unbearable. I rose abruptly and turned away. I felt suddenly far out of my depth. Confusedly and furiously I felt that I had bungled things, that here was something in life so strange I could do nothing with it. What a young fool I was to have thought she could ever care for a fellow like me! I felt she must be smiling. Despairingly I turned to see.
And Eleanore was smiling—in a way that steadied me in a flash. For her smile was so plainly a quick, strong effort to steady herself.
"I'm glad you want me like that," she said, in a voice that did not sound like hers. "I don't believe in hiding things.... I'm—very happy." She looked down at her hands in her lap and they slowly locked together. "But of course it means our whole lives, you see—and we mustn't hurry or make a mistake. Now that we know—this much—we can talk about it quite openly—about each other and what we want—what kinds of lives—what we believe in—whether we'd be best for each other. It's what we ought to talk about—a good many times—it may be weeks."