XIV. FRESH AIR IN A GREENHOUSE
At five the next day I rang the Ellerslys' bell, was taken through thedrawing-room into that same library. The curtains over the double doorwaybetween the two rooms were almost drawn. She presently entered from thehall. I admired the picture she made in the doorway--her big hat, herembroidered dress of white cloth, and that small, sweet, cold face of hers.And as I looked, I knew that nothing, nothing--no, not even her wish, hercommand--could stop me from trying to make her my own. That resolve musthave shown in my face--it or the passion that inspired it--for she pausedand paled.
"What is it?" I asked. "Are you afraid of me?"
She came forward proudly, a fine scorn in her eyes. "No," she said. "But ifyou knew, you might be afraid of me."
"I am," I confessed. "I am afraid of you because you inspire in me afeeling that is beyond my control. I've committed many follies in mylife--I have moods in which it amuses me to defy fate. But those follieshave always been of my own willing. You"--I laughed--"you are a folly forme. But one that compels me."
She smiled--not discouragingly--and seated herself on a tiny sofa in thecorner, a curiously impregnable intrenchment, as I noted--for my impulsewas to carry her by storm. I was astonished at my own audacity; I waswondering where my fear of her had gone, my awe of her superior finenessand breeding. "Mama will be down in a few minutes," she said.
"I didn't come to see your mother," replied I. "I came to see you."
She flushed, then froze--and I thought I had once more "got upon" hernerves with my rude directness. How eagerly sensitive our nerves are to badimpressions of one we don't like, and how coarsely insensible to badimpressions of one we do like!
"I see I've offended again, as usual," said I. "You attach so muchimportance to petty little dancing-master tricks and caperings. Youlive--always have lived--in an artificial atmosphere. Real things act onyou like fresh air on a hothouse flower."
"You are--fresh air?" she inquired, with laughing sarcasm.
"I am that," retorted I. "And good for you--as you'll find when you getused to me."
I heard voices in the next room--her mother's and some man's. We waiteduntil it was evident we were not to be disturbed. As I realized that factand surmised its meaning, I looked triumphantly at her. She drew furtherback into her corner, and the almost stern firmness of her contour told meshe had set her teeth.
"I see you are nerving yourself," said I with a laugh. "You are perfectlycertain I am going to propose to you."
She flamed scarlet and half-started up.
"Your mother--in the next room--expects it, too," I went on, laughing evenmore disagreeably. "Your parents need money--they have decided to sell you,their only large income-producing asset. And I am willing to buy. What doyou say?"
I was blocking her way out of the room. She was standing, her breath comingfast, her eyes blazing. "You are--_frightful_!" she exclaimed in a lowvoice.
"Because I am frank, because I am honest? Because I want to put things ona sound basis? I suppose, if I came lying and pretending, and let you lieand pretend, and let your parents and Sam lie and pretend, you would findme--almost tolerable. Well, I'm not that kind. When there's no especialreason one way or the other, I'm willing to smirk and grimace and dodderand drivel, like the rest of your friends, those ladies and gentlemen. Butwhen there's business to be transacted, I am business-like. Let's not beginwith your thinking you are deceiving me, and so hating me and despising meand trying to keep up the deception. Let's begin right."
She was listening; she was no longer longing to fly from the room; she wascurious. I knew I had scored.
"In any event," I continued, "you would have married for money. You've beenbrought up to it, like all these girls of your set. You'd be miserablewithout luxury. If you had your choice between love without luxury andluxury without love, it'd be as easy to foretell which you'd do as toforetell how a starving poet would choose between a loaf of bread and avolume of poems. You may love love; but you love life--your kind oflife--better!"
She lowered her head. "It is true," she said. "It is low and vile, but itis true."
"Your parents need money--" I began.
She stopped me with a gesture. "Don't blame them," she pleaded. "I am moreguilty than they."
I was proud of her as she made that confession. "You have the making of areal woman in you," said I. "I should have wanted you even if you hadn't.But what I now see makes what I thought a folly of mine look more likewisdom."
"I must warn you," she said, and now she was looking directly at me, "Ishall never love you."
"Never is a long time," replied I. "I'm old enough to be cynical aboutprophecy."
"I shall never love you," she repeated. "For many reasons you wouldn'tunderstand. For one you will understand."
"I understand the 'many reasons' you say are beyond me," said I. "For,dear young lady, under this coarse exterior I assure you there's hiddena rather sharp outlook on human nature--and--well, nerves that respondto the faintest changes in you as do mine can't be altogether withoutsensitiveness. What's the other reason--_the_ reason? That you thinkyou love some one else?"
"Thank you for saying it for me," she replied.
You can't imagine how pleased I was at having earned her gratitude, evenin so little a matter. "I have thought of that," said I. "It is of noconsequence."
"But you don't understand," she pleaded earnestly.
"On the contrary, I understand perfectly," I assured her. "And the reason Iam not disturbed is--you are here, you are not with him."
She lowered her head so that I had no view of her face.
"You and he do not marry," I went on, "because you are both poor?"
"No," she replied.
"Because he does not care for you?"
"No--not that," she said.
"Because you thought he hadn't enough for two?"
A long pause, then--very faintly: "No--not that."
"Then it must be because he hasn't as much money as he'd like, and mustfind a girl who'll bring him--what he _most_ wants."
She was silent.
"That is, while he loves you dearly, he loves money more. And he's willingto see you go to another man, be the wife of another man, be--everything toanother man." I laughed. "I'll take my chances against love of that sort."
"You don't understand," she murmured. "You don't realize--there are manythings that mean nothing to you and that mean--oh, so much to peoplebrought up as we are."
"Nonsense!" said I. "What do you mean by 'we'? Nature has been bringingus up for a thousand thousand years. A few years of silly false trainingdoesn't undo her work. If you and he had cared for each other, you wouldn'tbe here, apologizing for his selfish vanity."
"No matter about him," she cried impatiently, lifting her head haughtily."The point is, I love him--and always shall. I warn you."
"And I take you at my own risk?"
Her look answered "Yes!"
"Well,"--and I took her hand--"then, we are engaged."
Her whole body grew tense, and her hand chilled as it lay in mine."Don't--please don't," I said gently. "I'm not so bad as all that. If youwill be as generous with me as I shall be with you, neither of us will everregret this."
There were tears on her cheeks as I slowly released her hand.
"I shall ask nothing of you that you are not ready freely to give," I said.
Impulsively she stood and put out her hand, and the eyes she lifted to minewere shining and friendly. I caught her in my arms and kissed her--not oncebut many times. And it was not until the chill of her ice-like face hadcooled me that I released her, drew back red and ashamed and stammeringapologies. But her impulse of friendliness had been killed; she once more,as I saw only too plainly, felt for me that sense of repulsion, felt forherself that sense of self-degradation.
"I _can not_ marry you!" she muttered.
"You can--and will--and must," I cried, infuriated by her look.
There was a long silence. I could eas
ily guess what was being fought out inher mind. At last she slowly drew herself up. "I can not refuse," she said,and her eyes sparkled with defiance that had hate in it. "You have thepower to compel me. Use it, like the brute you refuse to let me forget thatyou are." She looked so young, so beautiful, so angry--and so tempting.
"So I shall!" I answered. "Children have to be taught what is good forthem. Call in your mother, and we'll tell her the news."
Instead, she went into the next room. I followed, saw Mrs. Ellersly seatedat the tea-table in the corner farthest from the library where her daughterand I had been negotiating. She was reading a letter, holding her lorgnonup to her painted eyes.
"Won't you give us tea, mother?" said Anita, on her surface not a trace ofthe cyclone that must still have been raging hi her.
"Congratulate me, Mrs. Ellersly," said I. "Your daughter has consented tomarry me."
Instead of speaking, Mrs. Ellersly began to cry--real tears. And for amoment I thought there was a real heart inside of her somewhere. But whenshe spoke, that delusion vanished.
"You must forgive me, Mr. Blacklock," she said in her hard, smooth, politicvoice. "It is the shock of realizing I'm about to lose my daughter." AndI knew that her tears were from joy and relief--Anita had "come up to thescratch;" the hideous menace of "genteel poverty" had been averted.
"Do give us tea, mama," said Anita. Her cold, sarcastic tone cut my nervesand her mother's like a razor blade. I looked sharply at her, and wonderedwhether I was not making a bargain vastly different from that my passionwas picturing.