The voice of Miss Marilla roused him like a homely, pleasant sound about the house of a morning when one has had an unhappy dream; and he lifted his head, and, soldier-like, dropped into the old habit of hiding his emotions.
Her kindly face somehow comforted him, and the thought of dinner was a welcome one. The ugly tragedy of his life seemed to melt away for the moment, as if it could not stand the light of the setting sun and her wholesome presence. There was an appeal in her eyes that reached him; and somehow he didn’t feel like turning down her naïve, childlike proposition. Besides, he was used to being cared for because he was a soldier, and why not once more now when everything else had gone so rotten? It was an adventure, anyway, and what was there left for him but adventure? he asked himself with a little bitter sneer.
But, when she mentioned a girl, that was a different thing! Girls were all treacherous. It was a new conviction with him; but it had gone deep, so deep that it had extended not only to a certain girl or class of girls, but to all girls everywhere. He had become a woman-hater. He wanted nothing more to do with any of them. And yet at that moment his tired, disappointed, hurt man’s soul was really crying out for the woman of the universe to comfort him, to explain to him this awful circumstance that had come to all his bright dreams. A mother, that was what he thought he wanted; and Miss Marilla looked as if she might make a nice mother. So he turned like a tired little hungry boy, and followed her, at least until she said “girl.” Then he almost turned and fled.
Yet, while Miss Marilla coaxed and explained about Mary Amber, he stood facing again the lovely vision of the girl he had left behind at the beginning of the long, long trail, and whose picture he had just trampled underfoot on this end of the trail, which it now seemed to him would wind on forever alone for him. As he paused on Miss Marilla’s immaculate front steps, he was preparing himself to face the enemy of his life in the form of woman. The one thing really that made him go into that house and meekly submit to be Miss Marilla’s guest was that his soul had risen to battle. He would fight Girl in the concrete! She should be his enemy from henceforth. And this strange, unknown girl, who hated men and thought them conceited and selfish, this cold, inhuman creature, was likely false-hearted too, like the one he had loved and who had not loved him. He would show her what he thought of such girls, of all girls; what all men who knew anything about it thought of all girls! And, thus reasoning, he followed Miss Marilla into the pleasant oilcloth-covered hall, and up the front stairs to the spare room, where she smilingly showed him the towels and brushes prepared for his comfort, and left him, calling cheerily back that dinner would be on the table as soon as he was ready to come down.
All the time he was bathing his tired, dirty face and cold, rough hands in the warm, sweet-scented soap-suds, and wiping them on the fragrant towel, even while he stood in front of the mirror all polished to reflect the visage of Lieutenant Richard H. Chadwick, and brushed his close-cropped curls till there was not a hint of wave left in them, he was hardening himself to meet Girl in the concrete and get back a return for what she had done to his life.
Then, with a last final polish of the brush and a flick of the whisk-broom over his discouraged-looking uniform, he set his lips grimly, and went down-stairs, taking the precaution to fold his cap and put it into his pocket, for he might want to escape at any minute, and it was best to be prepared.
CHAPTER III
Mary Amber was bearing in the great platter of golden-brown turkey when he first saw her, and had not heard him come down. She was entirely off her guard, with a sweet, serious intentness upon her work and a stray wisp of gold hair set afloat across the kitchen-flushed cheek. She looked so sweet and serviceable and true, with her lips parted in the pleasure of the final completion of her task, that the soldier was taken by surprise and thrown entirely off his guard. Was this the false-hearted creature he had come to fight?