CHAPTER XIII
LOVERS--MORE OF THE OLD STORY
"Tessie, why are you angry with me?"
"Angry?"
His question answered by another, answered to the accompaniment ofelevated eyebrows and a pretty little expression of surprise--after themanner of her sex.
"Well--yes. You are--aren't you?"
"Was never better tempered in my life."
"I rather wish that you would get ill tempered."
"Why?"
"Because--because then you are nicer. Nicer to me.
"Nicer, Mr. Danvers?"
"Mr. Danvers!"
"Well, that is your name, is it not?"
"Oh, certainly, Miss Depew."
The girl laughed nervously.
They were walking across the fields from the milking shed, the girlcarrying the cream for supper.
"You are laughing now," he said.
"You said once you liked to hear me laugh."
"Oh, I mean you are laughing at me. Don't feel sufficient interest inme, I suppose? Please don't say it; I will take it you mean that."
"I think you are very horrid this afternoon."
"I feel so. My feelings are oozing up to the surface, I suppose. And Imeant to----"
"To what?"
"Oh, it--it does not matter."
"You talk in--well, I can't understand you."
"Like a man awakening from a sleep. Wits have been wool gathering. Ihave been dreaming. Accept my apologies, Miss Depew."
"Miss Depew! How dreadfully formal you have grown."
"Blizzard came along, and froze me all up."
"Poor fellow!"
"I am glad you have some sort of feeling for me--if it is only pity."
"Oh, I always sympathize with--with people who are all frozen up."
"I suppose it is no use asking you for a plain answer to a plainquestion?"
"Why not?"
"Well--you are a woman."
"Is that a compliment for my sex, or is it marked 'personal'?"
"Tessie----"
"That's better; you are thawing."
"Tessie!"
"You have called me twice, and I am listening all the time."
"I don't know how to say what I want to say."
"How curious! You are usually so--well, never at a loss for words."
"You chill me."
"Poor fellow! Going into the Arctic regions again?"
"I am going away from the farm--to the Arctic regions, or to the devil,I don't much care where."
She started when he said he was going away, and caught her underlipbetween her teeth, and held it there.
It prevented its trembling. Presently she said:
"I thought you were going to stay--quite a while."
"So did I."
"Why are you going, then?"
"Driven away."
"Really."
She was herself again by now. A conscious smile played round her lips asshe inquired:
"Who's the driver?"
"Tessie Depew."
It did not surprise her a bit; she had guessed what was coming. But shesimply said again:
"Really!"
And he found it most aggravating. She had said "really" in thatsurprised tone so often that he began to hate the word.
He swished the heads of the tall grass with the stick he wascarrying--the beheading operation was a relief to his feelings.
She watched him from beneath her long lashes, and there was a curveround her lips all the time--she couldn't help a smile.
"I thought at one time, Tessie----"
"Yes?"
"Thought you--well, I was a fool for thinking so, wasn't I?"
"Really can't tell what you did think," she answered demurely. "I amsure I should be a conspicuous failure as a thought reader."
"Last night I went to bed the happiest man in America."
"So?"
"Yes. I am a poor devil of a wandering sort of sheep, and a woman's kindwords have come on my ears so seldom----"
"Yes."
"That they influence me when they come."
"Women," she spoke with assumed carelessness, "have been kind to you,then?"
"You were kind to me last night, Tessie."
"Really! What did I say?"
"Not so much what you said, but the way you said it. Tessie, don't driveme mad. You know--you do--now, don't you--that I love you?"
Of course she knew it, but she was not going to admit it. She lookedquite surprised, as if such an idea had never occurred to her.
She was a true woman--an actress to the tips of her fingers, when thesubject of the play was love. He went on:
"I led an idle sort of life, Tessie, in the old country, and I came outhere to turn over a new leaf. I have turned it over, and fastened downthe old one.
"I am not worth a red cent--whatever that is--now, but I have faith inmyself, and I believe that presently, if hard work and persistence raisea man on the ladder, I'll be able to climb up. I never expected for amoment that you would climb with me; I would not be such a selfish bruteas to ask you to. But there was something I had intended to askyou--only--only----"
"What was it?"
"Your kindness made me think of it. I told you that I went to bed lastnight the happiest man in all America. But I didn't tell you I slept.
"I did not. I lay thinking--thinking all the time of you. I thought Iwould begin that climb with such a heart, with such an eagerness, withsuch a will, because I would have you for an incentive."
"Well?"
"I thought that last night, because you behaved to me like a--like anangel. And I determined to ask you to-day to--to--that's why I came outto the sheds to meet you."
"What were you--what were you going to ask me?"
"To wait for me, Tessie. To wait a year or two till I was up the tree abit with a nest I could invite you to share with me. I love you, Tessie,love you with all my heart and soul.
"I suppose I ought to have told you all this differently; then you wouldhave liked me all the better for it. But I am not experienced in loveaffairs, Tessie. You are the first woman I have ever really loved--thefirst I have ever told so."
She did not, somehow, seem dissatisfied with his manner of telling it,and the concluding sentence was as wise a one as he could have framed.
They were walking very slowly now, and if the girl did not say much, shethought the more. Nice, pleasant, happy thoughts, and they made hersweet to the man who had inspired them.
"The plain question I wanted a plain answer to, Tessie, was: Was I afool last night? Was I ass enough to misunderstand you? Did my vanitymake me think you cared for me? Tessie, Tessie, do you love me?"
"You said a plain question, Gerald."
She had her eyes fixed on the ground as she spoke. "But I have countedfour questions all in that one breath."
"Tessie, darling, answer me."
"What, all four?"
She had raised her mischievous eyes to his, and fixed them on him insuch a way that his heart leaped.
"Tessie!"
"Supposing I answer one?"
"Tessie?"
"The--last--one."
"Yes, yes, yes."
"That is my answer."
"What?"
"Yes."
He caught her in his arms then, and--well, Blossom standing in themiddle of the meadow chewing her cud paused in that operation in sheerastonishment.