“The town will say I’m lazy. Lorraine McDowell does all the work at the parsonage and visits the poor families besides.”
“That’s very fine in Lorraine, but she isn’t my Thurley. You just couldn’t pin yourself down to routine, could you?” He looked at her admiringly. “The best you can do is to pin the other chap down to it—like you did me. It is you who made me study and make good; I was a spoiled kid with more money than was good for me and no one with a grain of faith as to my future. They were holding their breath until I’d get into a scrape and they could go at me without gloves. Well, I didn’t, unless they call loving Thurley Precore and being engaged to her a scrape! Of course they’ve patted me on the shoulder now and said decent things, but I’m twenty-two and a man, and they can’t do otherwise. I guess you said about all there was to say when you told me, ‘The best vault in which to keep your fortune is a good education.’”
Thurley leaned over to kiss him on the forehead. “You’re a wonder,” she whispered, “but, really, wouldn’t Lorraine make you happier?”
His face clouded with an injured expression. “Why drag in Lorraine? She’d like to drag herself in,” he admitted candidly, “and I guess every one knows it, but you don’t fall in love to suit the other fellow—and I don’t love Lorraine.”
“She’s so pretty and frail, and you’re such a big, strong gypsy lad,” mused Thurley, pulling sprays of feathery grass idly, “and I’m such a big, strong gypsy lass that we’re not contrasts. We’re too much alike, Dan; too selfish in the same way. Every one is bound to be selfish in some way or other, but when you both hit the same trail, it usually ends in a crash ... please, wait until I finish. Then we’re too fond of having our own ways. I’d like it if you became Daniel Precore instead of my becoming Thurley Birge; yes, I truly would. I don’t want to promise to love, honor and obey any one—not a bit of it. I want to do what I dreamed of as a child—those dreams kept me alive, Dan. I want to sing, not in the town, but in New York, London, Paris. I’ve read of girls from the country who made good, and I can sing, Dan! It is not silly for me to say it. Besides, there is little else I can do!”
“I know it,” he said in a muffled tone, “but why not sing just for me? I’ll always listen.”
“That’s the trouble. I want to sing for thousands of strangers; I want to be famous, Dan, and yet, I want you for my pal. Don’t you see that it doesn’t go together as it should? For me to stay here as your wife, and for me to travel all over the world and be on the stage—and all that would go with it. I wouldn’t be your wife unless I was sure to be the right wife. Dear old boy, you shrug your shoulders every time I try to explain it. But I’m different from Lorraine and the other girls. I’m selfish and generous all in one, quick tempered and patient by turns. I hate to fuss about details. Domesticity drives me mad, poor Granny Pilrig can tell you! I’d sit up half the night to learn a song or read a book, and then I’d want to be hideously lazy the next morning. Sometimes I feel as if I were floating in the air, flying with absolutely divine ease and bliss just because of something deep inside myself—I haven’t the faintest idea what it is. I can sing on hilltops and laugh in the grayest of drizzles. Everything can be in glorious purples and golden colors. And when the sun is actually bright and every one is congratulating every one on the weather, I find myself old, tired, black within. I want to cry, scream, go away from every one and neither speak nor move. That’s what they call temperament, I understand, and you, Dan boy,” Thurley’s lovable mouth curved into smiles, “you could never say that is a good basis for a happy marriage—particularly to a gentleman with a ‘Swedish appetite’ and one who likes to be amused when he comes home tired out from a bargain sale of kitchen oilcloth!”
“Well, what is the basis for a happy marriage? Mrs. Hawkins says ‘young folks should set down and talk about what they each like to eat before the engagement is announced!’ I guess we can pass that up.”
“Did you know what Mrs. Hawkins said about me, as being a good wife for you? It’s funny! She told Granny and Granny told me. She said, ‘I bet Thurley would dust the divil out of her cut glass and rustle into her georgette crêpes to get to a singing bee; but cook that boy a square meal, darn a sock, stand a bit of the Birge temper—never!’”