By the Light of the Soul Part 68

"I came in here," said Evelyn, "because I wanted to see you after you came home. Do you mind?"

"No, darling, of course I don't mind," replied Maria.

She displayed Evelyn's presents, and the girl examined them eagerly.

Maria thought she seemed disappointed even with her own gift of the brooch which she had expected would so delight her.

"Is that all?" Evelyn said.

"All?" laughed Maria. "Why, you little, greedy thing, what do you expect?"

To her astonishment Evelyn began suddenly to cry. She sobbed as if her heart would break, and would not tell her sister why she was so grieved. Finally, Maria having undressed and got into bed, her sister clung closely to her, still sobbing.

"Evelyn, darling, what is it?" whispered Maria.

"You'll laugh at me."

"No, I won't, honest, precious."

"Honest?"

"Yes, honest, dear."

"Were those all the presents I had?"

"Yes, of course, I brought you all you had, dear."

Evelyn murmured something inarticulate against Maria's breast.

"What is it, dear, sister didn't hear?"

"I hung a book on the tree for him," choked Evelyn, "and I thought maybe--I thought--"

"Thought what?"

"I thought maybe he would--"

"Who would?"

"I thought maybe Mr. Lee would give me something," sobbed Evelyn.

Maria lay still.

Evelyn nestled closer. "Oh," she whispered, "I love him so! I can't help it. I can't. I love him so, sister!"

Chapter x.x.xIII

There was a second's hush after Evelyn had said that. It seemed to Maria that her heart stood still. A sort of incredulity, as of the monstrous and the super-human seized her. She felt as one who had survived a railroad accident might feel looking down upon his own dismembered body in which life still quivered. She could not seem to actually sense what Evelyn had said, although the words still rang in her ears. Presently, Evelyn spoke again in her smothered, weeping voice. "Do you think I am so very dreadful, so--immodest, to care so much about a man who has never said he cared about me?"

"He has never said anything?" asked Maria, and her voice sounded strange in her own ears.

"No, never one word that I could make anything of, but he has looked at me, he has, honest, sister." Evelyn burst into fresh sobs.

Then Maria roused herself. She patted the little, soft, dark head.

"Why, Evelyn, precious," she said, "you are imagining all this. You can't care so much about a man whom you have seen so little. You have let your mind dwell on it, and you imagine it. You don't care. You can't, really. You wait, and by-and-by you will find out that you care a good deal more for somebody else."

But then Evelyn raised herself and looked down at her sister in the dark, and there was a ring in her voice which Maria had never before heard. "Not care," she said--"not care! I will stand everything but that. Maria, don't you dare tell me I don't care!"

"But you don't know him at all, dear."

"I know him better than anybody else in the whole world," said Evelyn, still in the same strained voice. "The very minute I saw him I loved him, and then it seemed as if a great bright light made him plain to me. I do love him, Maria. Don't you ever dare say I don't.

That is the only thing that makes me feel that I am not ashamed to live, the knowing that I do love him. I should be dreadful if I didn't love him--really love him, I mean, with the love that lasts.

Do you suppose that if I only felt about him as some of the other girls do, that I would have told you? I _do_ love him!"

"What makes you so sure?"

"What makes me so sure? Why, everything. I know there is not another man in the whole world for me that can possibly equal him, and then--I feel as if my whole life were full of him. I can't seem to remember much before he came. When I look back, it is like looking into the dark, and I can't imagine the world being at all without him."

"Would you be willing to be very poor, to go without pretty things if you--married him, to live in a house like the Ramsey's on the other side of the river, not to have enough to eat and drink and wear?"

"I would have enough to eat and drink and wear. I would have as much as a queen if I had him," cried Evelyn. "What do you think I care about pretty things, or even food and life itself, when it comes to anything like this? Live in a house like the Ramsey's! I would live in a cave. I would live on the street, and I should never know it was not a palace. Maria, you do know that I love him, don't you?"

"Yes, I know that you think you do."

"No, say I do."

"Yes, I know you do," Maria said.

Then Evelyn lay down again, and wept quietly.

"Yes, I love him," she moaned, "but he does not love me. You don't think he does, do you? I know you don't."

Maria said nothing. She was sure that he did not.

"No, he does not. I see you know it," Evelyn sobbed, "and all I cared about going to the Christmas-tree and wearing my new gown was on account of him, and I sent a beautiful book. I thought I could do that. All the girls in the senior cla.s.s gave him something, and I have been saving up every cent, and he never gave me anything, not even a box of candy or flowers. Do you think he gave any of the other girls anything, Maria?"

"I don't think so."

"I can't help hoping he did not. And I don't believe it is so very wicked, because I know that none of the other girls can possibly love him as much as I do. But, Maria--"

"Well?"

"I do love him enough not to complain if he really loved some other girl, and she was good, and would make him happy. I would go down on my knees to her to love him. I would, Maria, honest." Evelyn was almost hysterical. Maria soothed her, and evaded as well as she was able her repeated little, piteous questions as to whether she thought Mr. Lee could ever care for her. "I know I am pretty," Evelyn said naively. "I really think I must be prettier than any other girl in school. I have heard so, and I really think so myself, but being pretty means so little when it comes to anything like this with a man like him. He might love Addie Hemingway instead of me, so far as looks were concerned, but I don't think Addie would make him very happy--do you, Maria?"

"No, dear. I am quite sure he will never think of her. Now try and be quiet and go to sleep."