"Had it not been for him," she reflected, as she sat there gazing out over the river, "I might not be here, this minute. Caught as I was, on the very brink of the precipice, I should almost certainly have slipped and fallen over, in my dazed condition, when I tried to get up. If I'd been alone, if he hadn't found me just when he did—!"
She shuddered at thought of what must almost inevitably have happened, and covered her face with both hands. Her cheeks burned; she knew emotion such as not once had Waldron's kiss ever been able to arouse in her. The memory of how she, half-unconscious, had lain in that stranger's arms, so powerful and tense; had been carried by him, as though she had been a child; had felt his breath upon her face and the quick, vigorous beating of his heart—all this, and more, dwelt in her soul, nor could she banish it.
Gratitude? Yes, and more. For the first time in her two-and-twenty years, Catherine had sensed the power, the virility of a real man—not of the make-believe, manicured and tailored parasites of her own class—and something elemental in her, some urge of primitive womanhood, grappled her to that memory and, all against her will, caused her to live and re-live those moments, time and time again, as the most strange and vital of her life.
Yet, it was not this physical call alone, in her, that had awakened her being. The man's eyes, and mouth and hair, true, all remained with her as a subtly compelling lure; his strength and straight directness seemed to conquer her and draw her to him; but beyond all this, something in his speech, in his ideas and the strange reticence that had so puzzled her, kept him even more constantly in her wondering thoughts.
"A workingman," she murmured to herself, in uncomprehending revery, "he said he was a workingman—and he knew that I was very, very rich. He knew my father would have rewarded him magnificently, given him money, work, anything he might have asked. And yet, and yet—he would not even tell his name. And he refused to know mine! He didn't want to know! His pride—why, in all my life, among all the proud, rich people that I've known, I've never found such pride as that!"
She reflected what would have happened had any man of the usual type rescued her, even a man of wealth and position. Of course, thought she, that man would have made himself known and would have called on her, ostensibly to inquire after her condition, yet really to ingratiate himself. At this reflection she shuddered again.
"Ugh!" she whispered. "He'd have tried to take liberties, any other man would. He'd have presumed on the accident—he'd have been—oh, everything that that man was not, and could never be!"
Now her thoughts wandered to the brief talk they two had had there in the old sugar-house. Every word of it seemed graven on her memory. Disconnected bits of what he had told her, seemed to float before her mental vision—: "I? Oh, I'm just an out-of-work—don't ask me who I am; and I won't ask who you are. We're of different worlds, I guess—don't question me; I'd rather you wouldn't. Am I happy? Yes, in a way, or shall be, when I've done what I mean to do!"
Such were some of his phrases that kept coming back to her, as she sat there in that luxurious and beautiful room, her book lying unread in her lap, the scent of flowers everywhere, and, merely for her taking, all the world's treasures hers to command. Strange man, indeed, and stranger speech, to her! Never had she been thus spoken to. His every word and thought and point of view, commonplace enough, perhaps, seemed peculiarly stimulating to her, and wakened eager curiosity, and would not let her live in peace, as heretofore.
"He said he was a Socialist, too," she murmured, "whatever that may be. But he—he didn't look it! On the contrary, he looked remarkably clean and intelligent. And the words he used were the words of an educated man. Far better vocabulary than Waldron's, for example; and as for poor little Van Slyke, and that set, why this man's mind seems to have towered above them as the Palisades tower above the river!