Red and Black

by Grace S. Richmond

He looked into her face, and met her eyes—and gave her back her radiant smile. And then, suddenly, he didn’t feel at all like smiling. Rather, his heart began to sink at thought of the separation so near at hand.

“Come, please,” he said, “let’s sit down over here in the shade, though you look just now as if you belonged nowhere but in the brightest sunshine. I want to talk it all out. And this is our hour.”

He found a seat for her where she could lean against a smooth rock. Then he took his own place, just below her and a little farther back, so that as they both looked out to sea he could study her side face—if she did not turn it too far away. It was rather clever of him, and highly characteristic, if he had known it, of the male mind when making its arrangements for a critical interview. Jane might easily have defeated him in it, but she did not. Perhaps she knew that to talk as freely as he seemed to want to talk he must have a little the advantage of her as to the chance for observation.

“I don’t know why it is,” he began, slowly, and with astonishing directness, much as he was accustomed to do everything, “but it seems to me that the only way I can possibly make clear to you something you must know, is just simply to state it—and ask your help. I’ve thought of every other way, and I find I don’t know how to use them. I haven’t been brought up to feel my way, I have to cut a straight path. So—I’m going to tell you that—I find it very hard not to ask you to marry me, because I never wanted to do anything as I want to do that. I think it is your right to know that I want to do it—and why I—can’t.”

There was an instant’s silence, while Jane gazed steadily out to sea, her side face, as he looked hard and anxiously at it, that of one who had received no shock of surprise or sorrow. Instead, a shadow of a smile slowly curved the corners of her sweet, characterful mouth.

“Thank you, Robert Black,” she said, without turning toward him at all. “Whatever else I have or don’t have, in life, I shall always have that to remember—that you wanted me. But of course I know, quite as well as you do, that you are not for me—nor I for you. I have understood that perfectly, all along. You really didn’t have to tell me. But—I can’t help being glad you did.”

And now, indeed, there fell a silence. Where was the “talk” Black had thought he was to have, carefully unfolding to her the reasons—or rather the great reason—why he couldn’t ask her for herself, but only for her lasting friendship—for this was what he meant to ask for, in full measure. Was it all said, in those few words? It seemed so—and more than said. There was nothing to explain—she understood, and accepted his decision. That was all there was of it. Was it?

As he sat there, staring out at the incoming waves, each seeming to wash a little higher on the beach than the last, her simple words all at once took on new meaning. Why was she glad he had told her? Why should she say that she had that to remember?—as if it were something very precious to remember? No real woman could be so glad as that just to hear a man say he wanted her—even though he could not have her—unless—— Yes, there was revelation in those words of hers—even quiet, straightforward confession, such as his straightforwardness called for. He had virtually told her that he loved her, though he had carefully refrained from using the phrase which is wont to unlock the doors of restraint. Well, in return, she had virtually told him—yes, hadn’t she?—else why should she be glad of his words to remember?

The thought shook him, as he had never dreamed he could be shaken. He had believed he could keep firm hold of himself throughout this interview, in which he was to tell a woman that in asking for nothing but her friendship he was withholding the greater asking only because he must. But now that he knew—or thought he knew—that she cared, too—— Suddenly he drew a great breath of pain and longing, and folded his arms upon his knees which were drawn up before him, and laid his head down upon them.

After a minute Jane spoke: “Don’t mind—too much,” she said, and the sound of her low voice thrilled him through and through. “It’s a great deal just to know that the biggest thing there is has come to one, even though one can’t have it to keep. And yet, in a way, one can have it to keep. I have something to take with me to France now—that I couldn’t have hoped to have. Perhaps you have something, too. I am trying to give it to you, without actually saying it—just as you have given it to me without actually saying it. I think that’s only fair. And I want you to know that I do perfectly understand why you can’t say more. You can no more ask me to marry you than—I could marry you, if you did ask me. For I couldn’t—Robert Black—even though——”