第9章
A DUMONT TRIUMPH.
But in the first week of her second month Pauline's interest in her surroundings vanished.She was corresponding with Jennie Atwater and Jennie began to write of Dumont--he had returned to Saint X; Caroline Sylvester, of Cleveland, was visiting his mother; it was all but certain that Jack and Caroline would marry."Her people want it," Jennie went on--she pretended to believe that Jack and Pauline had given each the other up--"and Jack's father is determined on it.They're together morning, noon and evening.She's really very swell, though _I_ don't think she's such a raving beauty." Following this came the Saint X News-Bulletin with a broad hint that the engagement was about to be announced.
"It's ridiculously false," said Pauline to herself; but she tossed for hours each night, trying to soothe the sick pain in her heart.And while she scouted the possibility of losing him, she was for the first time entertaining it--a cloud in the great horizon of her faith in the future; a small cloud, but black and bold against the blue.And she had no suspicion that he had returned from Chicago deliberately to raise that cloud.
A few days later another letter from Jennie, full of gossip about Jack and Caroline, a News-Bulletin with a long article about Caroline, ending with an even broader hint of her approaching marriage--and Dumont sent Pauline a note from the hotel in Villeneuve, five miles from Battle Field: "I must see you.Do not deny me.It means everything to both of us--what I want to say to you." And he asked her to meet him in the little park in Battle Field on the bank of the river where no one but the factory hands and their families ever went, and they only in the evenings.The hour he fixed was ten the next morning, and she "cut" ancient history and was there.As he advanced to meet her she thought she had never before appreciated how handsome he was, how distinguished-looking--perfectly her ideal of what a man should be, especially in that important, and at Battle Field neglected, matter, dress.
She was without practice in indirection, but she successfully hid her jealousy and her fears, though his manner was making their taunts and threats desperately real.He seemed depressed and gloomy; he would not look at her; he shook hands with her almost coldly, though they had not seen each other for weeks, had not talked together for months.She felt faint, and her thoughts were like flocks of circling, croaking crows.
"Polly," he began, when they were in the secluded corner of the park, "father wants me to get married.He's in a rage at your father for treating me so harshly.He wants me to marry a girl who's visiting us.He's always at me about it, making all sorts of promises and threats.Her father's in the same business that we are, and----"He glanced at her to note the effect of his words.She had drawn her tall figure to its full height, and her cheeks were flushed and her eyes curiously bright.He had stabbed straight and deep into the heart of her weakness, but also into the heart of her pride.
The only effect of his thrust that was visible to him put him in a panic."Don't--PLEASE don't look that way, Polly," he went on hastily."You don't see what I'm driving at yet.I didn't mean that I'd marry her, or think of it.There isn't anybody but you.There couldn't be, you know that.""Why did you tell me, then?" she asked haughtily.
"Because--I had to begin somewhere.Polly, I'm going away, going abroad.And I'm not to see you for--for I don't know how long--and--we must be married!"She looked at him in a daze.
"We can cross on the ferry at half-past ten," he went on.
"You see that house--the white one?" He pointed to the other bank of the river where a white cottage shrank among the trees not far from a little church."Mr.Barker lives there--you must have heard of him.He's married scores and hundreds of couples from this side.And we can be back here at half-past eleven--twelve at the latest."She shook her head expressed, not determination, only doubt.
"I can't, Jack," she said."They----"
"Then you aren't certain you're ever going to marry me," he interrupted bitterly."You don't mean what you promised me.
You care more for them than you do for me.You don't really care for me at all.""You don't believe that," she protested, her eyes and her mind on the little white cottage."You couldn't--you know me too well.""Then there's no reason why we shouldn't get married.Don't we belong to each other now? Why should we refuse to stand up and say so?"That seemed unanswerable--a perfect excuse for doing what she wished to do.For the little white cottage fascinated her--how she did long to be sure of him! And she felt so free, so absolutely her own mistress in these new surroundings, where no one attempted to exercise authority over another.