The Man Thou Gavest Part 29

"I'll do my best." Kendall pa.s.sed his hand through his hair; it seemed to relieve the tension.

"Brace, can a man truly love many times? Perhaps not many--but twice--truly?"

"Yes--he can!" Brace a.s.serted boldly. "I've been in love a dozen times myself. I always put it to the coffee-urn test--that settles it."

"Brace, I am in earnest. Do not joke."

"Joke? Good Lord! I tell you, Lyn, I am in _deadly_ earnest--deadlier than you know. When a man puts his love three hundred and sixty-five times a year, in fancy, behind his coffee-urn, he gets his bearings."

"You've never grown up, Brace, and I feel as old--as old as both your grandmothers. I do not mean--puppy-love; I mean the love that cuts deep in a man's soul. Can it cut twice?"

"If it couldn't, it would be good-bye to the future of the race!" And now Kendall had the world's weary knowledge in his eyes.

"A woman--cannot understand that, Lyn. She must trust if she loves."

"Yes." The universal language of men struck Lynda like a strange tongue. Had she been living all her life, she wondered, like a foreigner--understanding merely by signs? And now that she was close--was confronting a situation that vitally affected her future--must she, like other women, trust, trust?

"But what has all this to do with Con?" Kendall's voice roused Lynda sharply.

"Why--everything," she said in her simple, frank way, "he--he is offering me a second love, Brace."

For a moment Kendall thought his sister was resorting to sarcasm or frivolity. But one look at her unsmiling face and shadow-touched eyes convinced him.

"You hardly are the woman to whom dregs should be offered," he said slowly, and then, "But Con! Good Lord!"

"Brace, now I am speaking the woman's language, perhaps you may not be able to understand me, but I know Con is not offering me dregs--I do not think he has any dregs in his nature; he is offering me the best, the truest love of his life. I know it! I know it! The love that would bring my greatest joy and his best good and--yet I am afraid!"

Kendall went over and stood close beside his sister again.

"You know that?" he asked, "and still are afraid? Why?"

The clear eyes looked up pathetically. "Because Con may not know, and I may not be able to make him know--make him--forget!"

There was a moment's silence. Kendall was never to forget the magnolia tree in its gorgeous, pink bloom; the droop of his strong, fine sister!

Sharply he recalled the night long ago when Truedale groaned and threw his letters on the fire.

"Lyn, I hardly dare ask this, knowing you as I do--you are not the sort to compromise with honour selfishly or idiotically--but, Lyn, the--the other love, it was not--an evil thing?"

The tears sprang to Lynda's eyes and she flung her arms around her brother's neck and holding him so whispered:

"No! no! At least I can understand that. It was the--the most beautiful and tender tragedy. That is the trouble. It was so--wonderful, that I fear no man can ever quite forget and take the new love without a backward look. And oh! Brace, I must have--my own! Men cannot always understand women when they say this. They think, when we say we want our own lives, that it means lives running counter to theirs. This is not so. We want, we must choose--but the best of us want the common life that draws close to the heart of things; we want to go with our men and along their way. Our way and theirs are the _same_ way, when love is big enough."

"Lyn--there isn't a man on G.o.d's earth worthy of--you!"

"Brace, look at me--answer true. Am I such that a man could really want me?"

He looked long at her. Bravely he strove to forget the blood tie that held them. He regarded her from the viewpoint that another man might have. Then he said:

"Yes. As G.o.d hears me, Lyn--yes!"

She dropped her head upon his shoulder and wept as if grief instead of joy were sweeping over her. Presently she raised her tear-wet face and said:

"I'm going to marry Con, dear, as soon as he wants me. I hate to say this, Brace, but it is a little as if Conning had come home to me from an honourable war--a bit mutilated. I must try to get used to him and I will! I will!"

Kendall held her to him close. "Lyn, I never knew until this moment how much I have to humbly thank G.o.d for. Oh! if men only could see ahead, young fellows I mean, they would not come to a woman--mutilated. I haven't much to offer, heaven knows, but--well, Lyn, I can offer a clear record to some woman--some day!"

All that day Lynda thought of the future. Sitting in her workshop with the toy-like emblems of her craft at hand she thought and thought. It seemed to her, struggling alone, that men and women, after all, walked through life--largely apart. They had built bridges with love and necessity and over them they crossed to touch each other for a s.p.a.ce, but oh! how she longed for a common highway where she and Con could walk always together! She wanted this so much, so much!

At five o'clock she telephoned to Truedale. She knew he generally went to his apartment at that hour.

"I--I want to see you, Con," she said.

"Yes, Lyn. Where?"

She felt the answer meant much, so she paused.

"After dinner, Con, and come right up to--to my workshop."

"I will be there--early."

Lynda was never more her merry old self than she was at dinner; but she was genuinely relieved when Brace told her he was going out.

"What are you going to do, Lyn?" he asked.

"Why--go up to my workshop. I've neglected things horribly, lately."

"I thought that night work was taboo?"

"I rarely work at night, Brace. And you--where are you going?"

"Up to Morrell's."

Lynda raised her eyebrows.

"Mrs. Morrell's sister has come from the West, Lyn. She's very interesting. She's _voted_, and it hasn't hurt her."

"Why should it? And"--Lynda came around the table and paused as she was about to go out of the room "I wonder if she could pa.s.s the coffee-urn test, on a pinch?"

Kendall coloured vividly. "I've been thinking more of my end of the table since I saw her than I ever have before in my life. It isn't all coffee-urn, Lyn."

"Indeed it isn't! I must see this little womanly Lochinvar at once. Is she pretty--pretty as Mrs. John?"

"Why--I don't know. I haven't thought. She's so different from--every one. She's little but makes you think big. She's always saying things you remember afterward, but she doesn't talk much. She's--she's got light hair and blue eyes!" This triumphantly.

"And I hope she--dresses well?" This with a twinkle, for Kendall was keen about the details of a woman's dress.

"She must, or I would have noticed." Then, upon reflection, "or perhaps I wouldn't."

"Well, good-night, Brace, and--give Mrs. John my love. Poor dear! she came up to ask me yesterday if I could make a small room _look_ s.p.a.cious! You see, John likes to have everything cluttered--close to his touch. She wants him to have his way and at the same time she wants to breathe, too. Her West is in her blood."