“No–no, Tom. You sit there–I’ll have this swing,” and she slipped into a porch swing and finally he sat down.
“Now, Tom,” she said, “I have given you everything to-night. I am entirely at your mercy; I want you to be as good to me as I have been to you.”
“But, Margaret,” he protested, “is this being good to me, to keep me a prisoner in this chair while you–”
“Tom,” she answered, “there is no one in the house. I’ve just called Henry up by long distance telephone at the Secretary of State’s office in the capitol building. I’ve called him up every hour since he got there this afternoon, to make him remember his promise to me. He hasn’t taken a thing on this trip–I’m sure; I can tell by his voice, for one thing.” The man started to speak. She stopped him: “Now listen, Tom. He’ll have that charter for the Captain’s company within half an hour and will start home on the midnight train. That will give us just an hour together–all alone, Tom, undisturbed.”
She stopped and he sprang toward her, but she fended him off, and gave him a pained look and went on as he sank moaning into his chair: “Tom, dear, how should we spend the first whole hour we have ever had in our lives alone together? I have read and re-read your beautiful letters, dear. Oh, I know some of them by heart. I am yours, Tom–all yours. Now, dear,” he made a motion to rise, “come here by my chair, I want to touch you. But–that’s all.”
They sat close together, and the woman went on: “There are so many things I want to say, Tom, to-night. I wonder if I can think of any of them. It is all so beautiful. Isn’t it?” she asked softly, and felt his answer in every nerve in his body, though his lips did not speak. It was the woman who broke the silence. “Time is slipping by, Tom. I know what’s in your mind, and you know what’s in mine. Where will this thing end? It can’t go on this way. It must end 211now, to-night–this very night, Tom, dear, or we must know where we are coming out. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Margaret,” replied the man. He gripped his arm about her, and continued passionately, “And I’m ready.” In a long minute of ecstasy they were dumb. He went on, “You have good cause–lots of cause–every one knows that. But I–I’ll make it somehow–Oh, I can make it.” He set his teeth fiercely, and repeated, “Oh, I’ll make it, Margaret.”
The night sounds filled their deaf ears, and the pressure of their hands–all so new and strange–filled them with joy, but the joy was shattered by a step upon the sidewalk, and until it died away they were breathless. Then they sat closer together and the woman whispered:
“‘And I’d turn my back upon things eternal
To lie on your breast a little while.’”
A noise in the house, perhaps of the cat moving through the room behind them, startled them again. The man shook and the woman held her breath; then they both smiled. “Tom–Tom–don’t you see how guilty we are? We mustn’t repeat this; this is our hour, but we must understand each other here and now.” The man did not reply. He who had taken recklessly and ruthlessly all of his life had come to a place where he must give to take. His fortunes were tied up in his answer, so he replied: “Margaret, you know the situation–down town?”