But Bardek was in full flow: “With him, with the good Allen, you would celebr-r-ate; eh, mein Liebschen, ma fleur du bois? Marriage? Ho! Zat is easy to do—it take five, six week; or it take five, six minute—but to celebr-r-ate, it must last all the life! There are many peoples who have had just marriage, with confetti, and bands and dancing and much wine, but zey will never, never celebr-r-ate! Ho! It would be comic to see zem even to try! Comic? It would be pain!... For to celebr-r-ate, it is to be two peoples wit’ body and bone and blood of one—See!—ze blood it go up my arm, and through my aor-r-ta, and presto! it is humming along zis little woman’s pink ear and making the eyes to dance! And ze daughter of ze peddling mother must in dose times rise to be ze queen of all ze wor-r-ld—regina dei gratia et potentissima et pulchrissima!... Look at her, mein Liebschen. To you she is, I know not what strange child of Europa—”
“She is beautiful!” murmured Gorgas.
“Ah! I make you see a little wit’ my eyes,” his voice grew tender; “but you do not know. Even you, my Gorgas, are as nothing to her. You are good—mais oui!—but I would not walk wit’ you one, two, t’ree step when she crook the finger and smile, ‘Come!’”
All this was very wonderful to Gorgas, this most intimate revelation of the deep privacy of domestic happiness; and because she believed that it was the true state of all right marriages, she reveled in its beauty; and then she shivered at the stark reality that was hers. For her there would be no “celebrations.”
But she would not give way again. “That’s all very pretty and poetic, Bardek,” she sat up straight, and seemed to fling off the romantic spell which the Bohemian had set vibrating. “I’m better now. Had a good cry out there,” she jabbed a hand toward the orchard. “Lonesome, I guess. Came in here to get cheered up—and you did it! Sure did!” She searched the room with wondering eyes, as if trying to comprehend how a hut like this could be so charged with happiness. “But I’m different, Bardek.” That was her own answer to the survey she had just made. “I wanted something ... and wanted it ... more—well! why talk about it—” With a great effort she controlled a quavering voice. “I am not to have it—that’s all.”
Bardek watched her with deep sympathy. All the time, he stroked the head of the gypsy girl at his knee, and seemed to agree with Gorgas. But to himself he said, as he admitted later, “She must suffer first, because it is the demand of love that we suffer; in no other way can we give it its true value; and then she will believe better when she has plumbed the depths of doubt.”
She got a grip on herself and went on: “I must not fool myself any longer.... It is madness.... I’d soon be fit for nothing.... Leopold is all right. I’ve known him all my life. He likes me, and, in a way, I like him. We have had great times together. I’ll get over the shock of his liking me in the way—in the way he does.... Got sort of used to it already. I told him I’d let him know. He’s waiting. He said I didn’t know myself ... that I’d come to him ... ‘like the tides rise and follow the irresistible moon,’ he said.... I guess he was right.... He knows a lot about me! It seems a little bit unfair, but I suppose— Suppose, nothing!” She got herself up suddenly from the comfortable floor, and, at the motion, seemed to bring her resolutions together. “I can’t stand this any longer,” she turned to Bardek. “Leopold it is and must be—I’d better get used to it—and all I’ve got to do is to walk down that road twenty steps and whistle.”
She moved resolutely toward the door. “There is one way to settle it once and for all,” she said, “a sure way to end all the suffering which comes of uncertainty—and it is better,” she insisted, “to stop forever the doubt and the pain.”
“Twenty paces down the road,” thought Bardek. “Why, then it would be all over for the little Gorgas, and settled for life—like two puffs of a cigarette!”
Her hand was on the knob before Bardek called softly to her.