“Why, child, I do not know! Each day I say to myself I cannot bear another.”
“It’ll be the same wherever you are.”
“Perhaps so, Wanza,” I sighed. And then because I knew the tears were on her cheeks, I sprang to my feet, saying: “This may be our last day in the woods together, who knows? Come, let us try to forget—let us make the best of what we have.”
Wanza rose. She came close to me. When our eyes met she gave a cry: “If you go you may never come back!”
“Never fear. I have no home but Cedar Dale,” I replied, and I am afraid my voice was bitter. And when she put her hand on my arm I shook it off and would have strode away, but again as in the woods on the occasion of our gipsying I saw her face close to my own, and caught my breath in marvel. No, there was never such a girl-face! Such an elf-face! I stooped suddenly and framed the face with my hands. What were her wonderful eyes saying, back of all the tears, all the mystery? Why—when I was in love with Haidee—did they draw me like a lodestar? Why now and then did she stir me in this strange fashion till I gazed and gazed, and needs must curb my will to keep from taking her in my arms and crushing her against my heart?
I had never faced the question. I did not care to face it now. I put it away for some future time, feeling vaguely that it remained to be reckoned with.
“I have no home but Cedar Dale,” I repeated.
“And I am glad of that,” she whispered.
She pressed nearer to me, and I released her face, and drew her slowly within the circle of my arms. But when I held her so, when the floating hair meshes were just beneath my chin, and her face brushed my sleeve, I steadied myself.
“Wanza,” I said, “I am almost glad, too, that I have no other home. When I think of the good friends I have here—you and your father and Father O’Shan—I realize that I am ungrateful to despise my humble place among you. Keep it for me, little girl, and I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back better equipped for the future among you. If it must be without Joey—” I hesitated and bit my lip—“without Joey,” I continued more firmly, “I shall at least try to earn your respect by holding up my head, and forging on to some goal. I shall attain to something at last, I hope. And I hope I shall be able to serve my neighbors in many ways, and make myself needed in the community.”