第61章

"But it isn't that--I'm sure it isn't.No, it has something to do with me.It means either that he doesn't care for me or that--that he does care and is fighting against it.Oh, I don't know what to think." Then, after a pause: "How I hate being a woman! If I were a man I could find out the truth--settle it one way or the other.But I must sit dumb and wait, and wait, and wait! You don't know how I love him," she said brokenly, burying her face in the ends of the soft white shawl that was flung about her bare shoulders."I can't help it--he's the best--he makes all the others look and talk like cheap imitations.He's the best, and a woman can't help wanting the best."Pauline rose and leaned against the railing--she could evade the truth no longer.Gladys was in love with Scarborough, was at last caught in her own toils, would go on entangling herself deeper and deeper, abandoning herself more and more to a hopeless love, unless--"What would you do, Pauline?" pleaded Gladys."There must be some reason why he doesn't speak.It isn't fair to me--it isn't fair! I could stand anything--even giving him up--better than this uncertainty.It's--it's breaking my heart--I who thought Ididn't have a heart."

"No, it isn't fair," said Pauline, to herself rather than to Gladys.

"I suppose you don't sympathize with me," Gladys went on."Iknow you don't like him.I've noticed how strained and distant you are toward each other.And you seem to avoid each other.

And he'll never talk of you to me.Did you have some sort of misunderstanding at college?""Yes," said Pauline, slowly."A--a misunderstanding.""And you both remember it, after all these years?""Yes," said Pauline.

"How relentless you are," said Gladys, "and how tenacious!"But she was too intent upon her own affairs to pursue a subject which seemed to lead away from them.Presently she rose.

"I'll be ashamed of having confessed when I see you in daylight.

But I don't care.I shan't be sorry.I feel a little better.

After all, why should I be ashamed of any one knowing I care for him?" And she sighed, laughed, went into the house, whistling softly--sad, depressed, but hopeful, feeling deep down that she surely must win where she had never known what it was to lose.

Pauline looked after her."No, it isn't fair," she repeated.

She stayed on the veranda, walking slowly to and fro not to make up her mind, for she had done that while Gladys was confessing, but to decide how she could best accomplish what she saw she must now no longer delay.It was not until two hours later that she went up to bed.

When Gladys came down at nine the next morning Pauline had just gone out--"I think, Miss Gladys, she told the coachman to drive to her father's," said the butler.

Gladys set out alone.Instead of keeping to the paths and the woods along the edge of the bluff she descended to the valley and the river road.She walked rapidly, her face glowing, her eyes sparkling--she was quick to respond to impressions through the senses, and to-day she felt so well physically that it reacted upon her mind and forced her spirits up.At the turn beyond Deer Creek bridge she met Scarborough suddenly.He, too, was afoot and alone, and his greeting was interpreted to her hopes by her spirits.

"May I turn and walk with you?" he asked.

"I'm finding myself disagreeable company today.""You did look dull," she said, as they set out together, "dull as a love-sick German.But I supposed it was your executive pose.""I was thinking that I'll be old before I know it." His old-young face was shadowed for an instant."Old--that's an unpleasant thought, isn't it?""Unpleasant for a man," said Gladys, with a laugh, light as youth's dread of age."For a woman, ghastly! Old and alone--either one's dreadful enough.But--the two together! Ioften think of them.Don't laugh at me--really I do.Don't you?""If you keep to that, our walk'll be a dismal failure.It's a road I never take--if I can help it.""You don't look as though you were ever gloomy." Gladys glanced up at him admiringly."I should have said you were one person the blue devils wouldn't dare attack.""Yes, but they do.And sometimes they throw me.""And trample you?"

"And trample me," he answered absently.

"That's because you're alone too much," she said with a look of tactful sympathy.

"Precisely," he replied."But how am I to prevent that?""Marry, of course," she retorted, smiling gaily up at him, letting her heart just peep from her eyes.

"Thank you! And it sounds so easy! May I ask why you've refused to take your own medicine--you who say you are so often blue?"She shrugged her shoulders."I've always suspected the men who asked me.They were--" She did not finish what she feared might be an unwise, repelling remark in the circumstances.

"They were after your money," he finished for her.

She nodded."They were Europeans," she explained."Europeans want money when they marry.""That's another of the curses of riches," he said judicially.

"And if you marry a rich man over here, you may be pretty sure he'll marry you for your money.I've observed that rich men attach an exaggerated importance to money, always.""I'd prefer to marry a poor man," she hastened to answer, her heart beating faster--certainly his warning against rich suitors must have been designed to help his own cause with her.

"Yes, that might be better," he agreed."But you would have to be careful after you were married or he might fancy you were using your money to tyrannize over him.I've noticed that the poor husbands of rich women are supersensitive--often for cause.""Oh, I'd give it all to him.He could do what he pleased with it.I'd not care so long as we were happy."Scarborough liked the spirit of this, liked her look as she said it.

"That's very generous--very like you," he replied warmly.