Blue-Bird Weather Part 9

"I would--if I knew how. I don't know how," she said wistfully. "My heart is so full--already--of your goodness--I--and then this dream I have dreamed--that a man like you should come here and say this to me----"

"Is it in you to love me?"

"I'll try--if you'll tell me what to do--how to show it--to understand----"

He drew her closer, unresisting, and looked deep into her young eyes, and kissed them, and then her lips, till they grew warmer and her breath came fragrant and uneven.

"Can you love me?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Are you sure?"

"Y-yes."

For a moment's exquisite silence she rested her flushed face against his shoulder, then lifted it, averted, and stepped aside, out of the circle of his arms. Head lowered, she stood there, motionless in the starlight, arms hanging straight; then, as he came to her, she lifted her proud little head and laid both her hands in his.

"Of those things," she said, "that a woman should be to the man she loves, and say to that man, I am ignorant. Even how to speak to you--now--I do not know. It is all a dream to me--except that, in my heart, I know that I do love you. But I think that was so from the beginning, and after you have gone away I should have realized it some day."

"You darling!" he whispered. Again she surrendered to him, exquisite in her ignorance, pa.s.sive at first, then tremulously responsive. And at last her head drooped and fell on his shoulder, and he held her for a little longer, then released her.

Trembling, she crept up the stairway to her room, treading lightly along the dark entry, dazed, fatigued, with the wonder of it all. Then, as she laid her hand on the k.n.o.b of her bedroom door, the door of her father's room opened abruptly.

"Molly?"

"Yes, dear," she answered vaguely.

He stood staring at her on the threshold, fully dressed, and she looked back at him, her eyes slightly confused by the light.

"Where have you been?" he said.

"With Mr. Marche."

"Where?"

"To the dory--and back."

"What did he say to you, child?"

She came silently across the threshold and put her arms around his neck; and the man lost every atom of his color.

"What did he say?" he repeated harshly.

"That he loves me."

"What!"

"It is true, father."

The man held her at arm's length roughly. "Good G.o.d!" he groaned, "how long has this been going on?"

"Only to-night. What do you mean, father?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'He tells you that he--he is in love with you?'"]

"He tells you that he--he is in love with you? With _you_?" repeated Herold unsteadily.

"Yes. It is true, too."

"You mean he asked you to marry him!"

"Yes. And I said I would."

"_You_ love _him_!"

The man's pallor frightened her silent. Then he dropped her arms, which he had been clutching, and stood staring at nothing, gnawing at his colorless lips.

The girl watched him with dawning terror and finally ventured to speak.

"Dear, what is the matter? Are you displeased with me? Do you think that he is not a man I should care for? You don't know him, dear. You have only to see him, to speak with him, hear his voice, look into his eyes----"

"Good G.o.d!" groaned Herold, closing his sunken eyes. Then, almost feeling his way out and along the dark pa.s.sageway, he descended the stairs, heavily.

Marche, cleaning his gun in the sitting-room, looked up in surprise, then rose, laying aside stock, fore-end, and barrel, as Herold came into the room. The next instant, stepping nearer, he stared into Herold's face in silence. And so they met and confronted each other after many years.

"Are _you_ Herold?" said the young man, in a low voice.

"That is my name--now."

"_You_ have been in my employment--for five years?"

"Yes. Judge Gilkins gave me the chance. I could not suppose that the club would ever become your property."

The younger man's face hardened. "But when it did become my property, why had you the indecency to stay?"

"Where else could I go?"

"You had the whole world to--operate in."

Herold's thin face flushed. "It was fitter that I should work for you,"

he said. "I have served you faithfully for five years."

"And unfaithfully for ten! Wasn't it enough that Vyse and I let you go without prosecuting you? Wasn't it enough that we pocketed our loss for your wife's sake?"

He checked himself in a flash of memory, turned, and looked at the picture on the wall. Now he knew, now he understood why his former a.s.sociate's handwriting had seemed familiar after all these years.

And suddenly he remembered that this man was Jim's father--and the father of the young girl he was in love with; and the shock drove every drop of blood out of his heart and cheeks. Ghastly, staring, he stood confronting Herold; and the latter, leaning heavily, shoulder against the wall, stared back at him.

"I could have gone on working for you," he said, "trying to save enough to make rest.i.tution--some day. I _have_ already saved part of it. Look at me--look at my children--at the way we live, and you'll understand how I have saved. But I _have_ saved part of what I took. I'll give you that much before you go--before I go, too."