The Desired Woman Part 46

"Yes, he is staying with me," Saunders answered. "He is over there under the arbor."

"Well, I'll look 'im up," Leach answered. "Me 'n' him has struck up a sort of friends.h.i.+p. I tie to a fellow in trouble quicker than at any other time, and he has certainly had his share. He wants to make a change, he tells me--thinks of going off somewhere for a while. I've asked him to go to California with me, and he's thinking it over. Say, you know him pretty well; do you reckon he will go?"

"I hardly think so--_now_," Saunders replied. "He may have thought of it at one time, but he is likely to remain here."

"Well, I'll talk to him anyway," Leach said. "Ah, I see a fellow on the platform with a cornet. I reckon the fun is about to begin. Do you know, I enjoy outdoor singing more than anything else under the sun. It seems to be the way the Lord has of giving folks a chance to let themselves out."

He turned away, a rapt expression on his poetic face, and Saunders moved back among the horses. He caught sight of Dolly's profile against the boughs of the arbor beyond her. Taking a step to one side, he brought Mostyn's face into view. Mostyn was now all attention, sitting erect and peering between two heads in front of him, staring at Dolly, his tense lips parted.

The first contesting choir began singing, and the stragglers about the grounds drew to the edge of the arbor and stood listening attentively.

When it was over there was applause. Then a young man, the superintendent of a Sunday-school beyond the mountains, made a brief address. After this there was more singing, and so the morning pa.s.sed.

At noon it was announced from the platform that, as the singing contest was over and the award of the banner would not be made by the judges till the afternoon, lunch would now be served. Thereupon the audience rose to its feet and began to surge outward. There was much scrambling for baskets and hunts for suitable spots about the grounds for spreading table-cloths. Saunders, as had long been his custom, had prepared food for all who could be induced to accept his hospitality, and he now had his hands full directing his servants and inviting friends to join him.

While he was thus engaged he happened to see Mostyn alone in the edge of the bustling crowd, and he strode across to him.

"Don't forget you are to eat with me," he said. "They will have it ready in a few minutes."

He thought that Mostyn's eyes wavered. He was sure his lips quivered slightly when he answered.

"I have promised some one else." Saunders failed to see the call for such slow indirectness of response to an ordinary request. Indeed, a touch of color lay in Mostyn's cheeks. "John Webb came to me just now and said that Dolly--or perhaps it may have been her mother--in fact, I'm sure that it must have been Mrs. Drake---"

"Oh, I see, _they've_ asked you!" Saunders broke in. "Well, I'll have to let you off. You may be sure you'll get something nice. They can beat my cook getting up a spread. Well, I'll meet you later. I see Leach over there by himself. I'll run over and get him on my list."

Saunders tried to jest. "They say he lives on wild berries, and nuts, and anything else he can pick up. I guess he won't find fault with my lunch."

Saunders was the host of fifty or more men, women, and children. He was doing his best to see that all were provided for, and yet he had an eye for a certain group under a beech on a near-by hillside. His heart sank, for he saw Mostyn seated on the ground at Dolly's side. He saw something later that sent a cold shock hurtling through him. He saw the group after lunch rise from the cloth and gradually scatter, leaving Dolly and Mostyn standing at the foot of the hill. A moment later they were walking off, side by side, toward a spring in a shaded dell not far away. The drooping boughs of the willow trees shut them out of sight. Saunders, with a hopeless griping of the heart, went about directing his servants and helping some belated guests to get what they wished to eat. He heard himself joking, replying to jokes, and smiling with lips which felt stiff.

The remains of the food had been taken up and replaced in the big baskets when he saw Dolly and Mostyn strolling back from the spring.

Mostyn held her sunshade over her, his arm touching hers. The distance was too great for Saunders to see their faces distinctly, but he would have sworn that both reflected joy and peace.

"Oh, G.o.d, is it actually to be?" he groaned, inwardly. "_Ought_ it to be? Here am I, eager to gratify her every wish, while he can give her only the dry, crushed remains of his manhood, a bare sc.r.a.p of his past affluence. He scorned the sweetest flower of womanhood that ever bloomed, and now crawls through his own mire to pluck it. It isn't right--it isn't right! G.o.d knows it isn't right to her; leaving me and my hopes out altogether--it isn't right to _her!_"

Cold from head to foot, Saunders retreated out of sight behind a clump of bushes. Figuratively, he raised his hands to the impotent sky and dumbly cried within himself:

"Oh, G.o.d, give me strength to bear it like a man! I was wrong in hoping. She is his; she loves him. She loves him. I am an outsider. I now know why I never dared tell her of my love--my adoration! It was the still, inner voice of warning telling me to keep in my proper place."

Presently he saw Dolly alone near the arbor, and, remembering his engagement with her, he went to her.

"I have come to see if you would care to go now," he began. "I believe there is only some irregular singing and speech-making to follow."

"I am free," she said. "My part of the work is over. I refuse to touch the stiff keys of that organ again to-day. My wrists are sore, and my ankles ache. But I've been thinking over that ride, Jarvis. I want to go, of course, but--Jarvis, I hope you are not oversensitive. In fact, I know you are not, and will understand when I say that somehow--don't you know?--somehow, I don't like to leave this particular afternoon, when there is so much to be done here. There are several boys and girls who are anxious to sing and be heard, and some of my young men friends are to speak. We might take our ride some other day."

"I understand, Dolly," he said, forcing a smile. He told himself that this last hint ended all. She and Mostyn were reconciled, and she wanted him to understand the situation. They were quite alone. No one was near enough to hear their voices. Suddenly an overpowering impulse possessed him. Why should he beat about the bush? All was lost, but she should at least receive the tribute of his love and despair. There could be no harm in telling her how he felt. His forced smile died on his lips. His eyes met hers.

"There was something I was going to tell you," he began, firmly. "All these years I've been holding it back, but I can't any longer. Dolly, you must have known that--"

"Stop, Jarvis!" she broke in, laying her hand on his arm. "I know what you are going to say, but don't! Some day I'll explain, but not now--not now!"

"Well, you know what I mean." he gulped, "and that is enough. You must have seen--must have understood all along."

"Don't--don't be angry with me," she pleaded. "You will understand it all fully some day. I may be an odd sort of girl, but I can't help it--I am simply what I am."

"I think I understand now," he said, "and I wish you all happiness in the world."

The singing under the arbor had begun, and with a helpless, even startled look in her eyes she moved automatically in that direction.

"I don't think you do, fully," she faltered. "I'm sure you don't. Men never quite understand women in such delicate matters."

She left him; and, finding himself alone, he crossed the sward and sat down in a group of farmers who were discussing crops and planting.

CHAPTER XXII

That evening after supper Saunders and Mostyn were on the veranda smoking together. The exchange of remarks was formal, even forced and awkward. Presently Saunders said: "I saw Leach looking for you at the arbor. Did you run across him?"

"Yes," Mostyn puffed, and Saunders heard him heave a sigh. "I had quite a talk with him. I can't fully account for it, but I like the man very much. It may be his optimism or wonderful faith. I know that he has a very soothing effect on me. The truth is, I have promised to go to California with him."

"Oh!" Saunders leaned against the bal.u.s.trade, steadily scrutinizing the face of his guest. "He told me something about his proposition, but I thought that perhaps you would not be likely to go--not now, anyway."

"Oh yes, I shall go at once. I must go somewhere, and with him I'd have the benefit of a companion."

"But, of course," Saunders flung out, tentatively, "you will not remain away long?"

"I can't say for sure that I shall _ever_ come back," Mostyn said, sadly. "Of course, I can't say positively as to that, but there is nothing--absolutely nothing to hold me here now."

The eyes of the two met in a steady stare.

"You can't mean _that_--I'm sure you can't!" Saunders faltered.

Mostyn seemed about to speak, but a tremor of rising emotion checked him. He smoked for a moment in silence; then, with a steadier voice, he began:

"I must be more frank with you, Jarvis," he said. "You have been a true friend to me, and I don't want to keep anything from you at all.

Besides, this concerns you directly. To tell you this I may be betraying confidence, but even that, somehow, seems right. Saunders, to-day at that meeting as I sat there--" Mostyn's voice began to shake again, and he cleared his throat before going on. "As I sat there looking at--at the purest, sweetest face G.o.d ever made I began to _hope._ I confess it. I began to hope that G.o.d might intend to give me one other chance at earthly happiness. I even fancied that He might purposely have led me back here out of my awful darkness into light. I might not have dared to go so far, but she had her uncle invite me to lunch, and as I sat by her side the very benediction of Heaven seemed to fall on her and me and all the rest. It made me bold. I was out of my head. I was intoxicated by it all. Don't you see, I began to think, late as it is--shamed as I am before the world--I began to think that I might again take some sort of root among men and be worthy of--of the only woman I ever really loved? She and I walked off together. Her consenting to go gave me fresh courage. I determined to speak. I determined to throw my soiled soul at her spotless feet. I did."

"Don't say any more; I know the rest," Saunders said, under his breath.

"I congratulate you. I congratulate you with all my heart." He held out his hand, but Mostyn warded it off, his cigar cutting red zigzag lines in the darkness.

"Congratulate me? My G.o.d, _you_ congratulate _me_. Are you blind? Have you been blind all this time? She not only spurned my love, but in a blaze of righteous indignation she told me she loved you. She said she loved, adored, reverenced--_wors.h.i.+ped_ you. She seemed to look on my hopes as some sort of insult to her womanhood. She didn't want _you_ to know of her love, she said, but she wanted _me_ to know it. She seems to feel--she seems to think that in all your kindness to her and n.o.bleness you deserve a wife who has never fancied another, even in girlhood. She told me that her feeling for me was only the idle whim of a child, and that she pitied me as a weak and stumbling creature. She put it that way, with blazing eyes, and she put it right. I _am_ weak--I've always been weak; and to-day, in trying to win her from you, I did the weakest act of my life. I confess it. You have the right to strike me in the face. I knew you loved her. I knew she had become your very life, and yet in my despair and d.a.m.nable vanity I wanted to take her from you. I am trying to get right, but I fell before that dazzling temptation. In telling you of her love now I am tearing my soul from my body, but I want to atone--I want to atone--as far as possible."

Saunders turned his transformed face away. He said nothing, and the two stood in dead silence for a moment. Suddenly Saunders put out a throbbing hand and laid it on Mostyn's shoulder.

"I thank you; I thank you," he said, huskily. "You must excuse me this evening. I hope you can pa.s.s the time some way. I am going to her, Mostyn. I can't wait another minute. I must see her to-night!"