第34章 LOSS,OR GAIN?(7)

"My father had a fortune from my mother.When he died he left me to the care of my two uncles,and gave all his money to endow chairs in universities.He thought a woman could marry money,and that he was doing mankind a service in this endowment.

Maybe he was,but I've always rebelled against being dependent.

I've always wanted my own.Uncle Joshua thinks I am frivolous,and he has told Uncle Lloyd that it's just my love of spending and extravagant notions that makes me rebel against conditions.

It is n't.It's the sense of being robbed,as it were.

It was n't right and honest toward me,even in a great cause,to leave me dependent.Uncle Lloyd would never have done it.

I hope he does n't think I'm as bad as Uncle Joshua does.

You won't mind my telling you this,nor think me ungrateful to my relatives for their care of me.Nobody quite understands me but you."The time had come for them to join the jolly picnic crowd in the Corral.She would go back to Vincent Burgess in a little while,and this glorious day would be only a memory.

And yet,down in the pretty glen,Victor had held her hands and kissed her red lips.And she had been glad down there.

The void in his life seemed blacker than the blackness behind the cavern.

"Elinor,"he asked,suddenly,"are you bound by any promise--has Professor Burgess--?"He hesitated.

"No,"she answered,turning her face away.

"Pardon my rudeness.You know I am not well-bred,"he said,gently.

"Victor Burleigh,you ill-bred,of all the gentle,manly fellows in Sunrise!You know you are not."A great hope leaped to life now,as Vic recalled the query,"If Victor Burleigh had his corners knocked off and was sandpapered down and had money?"--and of Elinor's blushing confession that it would make a difference she could not help if these things were.

The corners were knocked off now,and Dean Fenneben had gently but persistently applied the sandpaper.The money must be henceforth the one condition.

"Elinor."Vic's voice was sweet as low bars of music.

"Oh,Victor,there's something I can't prevent."She was thinking of Uncle Joshua,whose money had supported her all these years and of her obligation to heed his wishes.

It was all settled for her now.And all the while Victor was thinking of his own limited means as the rock that was wrecking him with her.

For all his life afterward he never forgot the sorrow of that moment.

He looked into Elinor's face,and all the longing,all the heart-hunger of the days gone by,and of the days to come seemed to lie in those wide-open eyes shaded by long black lashes.

"Elinor,my father's cruel murder and my mother dying alone were one kind of grief.My fight with those deadly poison things to rescue little Bug was another kind.My days of hardship and poverty on the claim,with only Bug and me in that desolate loneliness,was still another.

But none of these seem a sorrow beside what I must face henceforth.

And yet I have one joy mine now.You did care down in the glen.

May I keep that one gracious joy--mine always?""You have always won in every game.You will in this struggle.

Don't forget the name your mother gave you."Her eyes were luminous with tears."We must go down to the Corral now.

Tomorrow will make things all right.I shall be proud of you and your success everywhere,for you will succeed.""I may not be worthy of victory,"he said,sadly.

"You have never been unworthy.Don't be now."She smiled bravely.

They turned from the west prairie and the sunset,and slowly they passed out of its passing radiance down to the darkening spaces of the old Kickapoo Corral.

And the day with its gladness and sorrow,whether for loss or gain,slipped into the shadowy beauty of an April twilight.