“Madge, I’m going to tell you something else.”
“I’m sure I’m delighted to hear whatever you’ve got to tell me—along this line. It’s perfectly splendid!”
“Madge, I’m going to tell you something because I’ve got to tell you. Madge—I love you!” He said this last in a whisper.
It was silent in the apartment for a moment after that. The manner of the fellow’s declaration was different. This was not the hoyden who had tried to compromise her. His eyelid didn’t flop, either. Madge noticed that.
“I love you, Madge,” the man went on before she could frame a suitable reply. “I’ve always loved you. I loved you from the moment I set eyes on you that day I banged into your bedroom, although I didn’t know it was love—not then. You’ve always had a peculiar influence over me, Madge. I’ve been a rotter. I’ve done things for which I can’t look myself in the mirror—to say nothing of you. But—well, if a chap can be sorry, then I’m sorry. I’m trying to show I’m sorry by straightening out. I’ve met other girls and I’ve raised blue hell with them. But they’ve been incidents in my life; they’ve come and they’ve gone. You haven’t come and gone, Madge. Always you have held the same place in my feelings and emotions. You’ve seemed steady, sure, something just a little above me, waiting for me to come through clean. I say I love you, Madge. I’ve come down here to tell you so. I had to tell you. I wanted you to know and understand.”
“You’re paying me a great compliment, Gordon,” the woman managed to articulate at last. “But—but—I can’t marry you, Gord. Somehow—I can’t.”
“I’m not asking you to marry me, not yet, Madge. In a lot of ways I’m my same old self. But I want you to know that I’m working for something, even if it’s only your regard and esteem and respect, Madge. That’s been the big trouble with me, all my life. I’ve never had an incentive—any goal ahead to win. From as far back as I can remember, there’s been no occasion for me to work and win anything. Everything came easy—or rather, it was at hand for me to sample by simply reaching out and taking it, even other girls and women, Madge. You’ve been the only thing that’s been denied me; that piqued me because I couldn’t have you by bawling for you or ‘rushing’ you. Pop and mother let me have all the money I wanted from the day I could reach up over a counter and hand some one silver coins. Nothing was ever too good for me. I got a rotten idea of my own importance. And I’ve known I had it for a long, long time. There’s a lot of it left yet. But I’ve reached the place where I’m tired of having everything handed to me. Honest-to-God, Madge! The world and everything in it was beginning to go stale. I’d explored everything I’d seen to explore; I’d had everything I caterwauled for; people had gone and come the moment I set up a tantrum or showed fight. And life was going stale, I say. It was the same old thing, over and over and over. I might have a better motor-car or a prettier woman. But still it would only be an automobile and a—a—some one to play with. I looked into the future and saw nothing different until the day I dropped. And then Pop banged me in good shape one night in the library. He used a razor strop—yes, he did. I’m tall as he is, and I thought I could lick my weight in anything human that lived, male or female. But he showed me I couldn’t. We made an awful mess. But he trimmed me properly and sat on my chest. When he’d shown he could do it, he started talking to me. Among other things, he made me promise I’d come down here at the first opportunity and humbly ask your forgiveness. I vowed for a time I wouldn’t. But I found a new thrill and a new interest in work and I wondered if I wasn’t cheating myself by not playing the gentleman—with you—with—everybody. I don’t mean as a policy,” the fellow added hastily. “I mean because it was what I ought to do. And so I’ve come, Madge. I’ve got to be back on the job Monday morning, but I want to go back feeling I’ve got a new interest in life—something worth while. That’s the whole story in a nutshell, Madge. And I’m telling you frankly I love you and—I’m sorry—terribly sorry!”
What could she do? What could she say? Her reply sounded trite and inadequate.
“That’s manly of you, Gordon. And—well, I’m going to tell you exactly what I told your father—if you prove the stuff that’s latent in you, you stand as good a chance of winning my friendship permanently—and maybe more—as any man I know now or ever will know. In fact, you’ve got a bit of advantage, because I know you will have overcome more handicaps.”
“Madge, is there any one else who——”