The Definite Object Part 41

"I--I know," she went on quickly, "I'm sure you haven't always had to live in such--such places as Mulligan's. I know you don't belong here as I do. Is it necessity has driven you to live here or only--curiosity?"

"Well--er--perhaps a little of both," he admitted.

"Then you're not obliged to sell peanuts for a living?"

"'Obliged' is scarcely the word, perhaps; let us call it a peanut penchant, a hobby, a--"

"You are not quite so--poverty-stricken as you pretend?" Her voice was very soft and gentle, but she kept her head averted, also her foot was tapping nervously in its worn shoe.

"Oh, as to money," he answered, "I have enough for my simple needs, but in every other sense I am a miserable pauper. You see, there are some things no money can buy, and they are generally the best things of life."

"And so," said she, interrupting him gently, "you come here to Mulligan's, you deceive every one into thinking you are very poor, you make a pretence of selling peanuts and push a barrow through the streets--why?"

"First, because pus.h.i.+ng a barrow is--er--very healthy exercise."

"Yes, Mr. Geoffrey?" she said in the same soft voice.

"And second," he continued, wis.h.i.+ng he could see her face, "second, because I find it--er, well--highly amusing."

"Amusing!" she cried, turning suddenly, her eyes very bright and her cheeks hot and anger-flushed. "Amusing!" she repeated, "ah, yes--that's just it--it's all only a joke to you, to be done with when it grows tiresome. But my life here--our life is very real--ah, terribly real, and has been--sordid sometimes. What is only sport to you for a little while is deadly earnest to me; you are only playing at poverty, but I must live it--"

"And thirdly," he continued gently, "because I love you, Hermione!"

"Love me!" she repeated, shaking her head. "Ah, no, no--your world is not my world nor ever could be."

"Why, then, your world shall be mine."

"Yes, but for how long?" she demanded feverishly. "I wonder how long you could endure this world of mine? I have had to work and slave all my life, but you--look at your hands, so white and well-cared for--yours are not the hands of a worker!"

"No, I'm afraid they're not!" he admitted a little ruefully.

"Now look at mine--see my fingers all roughened by my needle."

"Such busy, capable hands!" said he, drawing a pace nearer, "hands always working for others, so strong to help the distressed. I love and honour them more just because of those work-roughened fingers." As he spoke he reached out very suddenly, and clasping those slender hands, stooped and kissed them reverently. Now, glancing up, he beheld her red lips quivering while her eyes were suffused all at once, as, drooping her head, she strove to loose his hold.

"Let me go!" she whispered, "I--I--ah, let me go!"

"Hermione," he breathed, "oh, Hermione, how beautiful you are!" But at this she cried out almost as if he had struck her and, wrenching her hands free, covered her face.

"Oh, G.o.d!--are all men the same?"

"Hermione," he stammered, "Hermione--what do you mean?"

"I mean," she answered, proud head up-flung, "there were always plenty of men to tell me that--when I was an office scrubwoman. Well?" she demanded fiercely, stung by something in his look, "what did you think I'd been? When a girl is left alone with a baby brother to care for, she can't wait and pick and choose work that is nice and ladylike; she must take what comes along or starve--so I worked. I used to scrub floors and stairs in an office building. I was very young then, and Arthur hardly more than a baby, and it was either that or starvation or--" she flushed painfully, but her blue eyes met his regard unflinchingly; "anyway, I--preferred to be a scrubwoman. So now you know what I mean by your world not being my world, and I--I guess you see how--how impossible it all is."

For a long moment was a silence wherein she stood turned from him, her trembling fingers busily folding and refolding a pleat in her ap.r.o.n while he stared down blindly at the floor.

"So you preferred the slavery of scrubbing floors, did you, Hermione?"

he said at last.

"Of course!" she answered, without turning or lifting her heavy head.

"And that," said he, his voice as placid, as serenely unhurried as usual, "and that is; just why all things are going to be possible to us--yes, even turning my wasted years to profit. Oh, my Hermione, help me to be worthy of you--teach me what a glorious thing life may be--"

"I?" she said wonderingly, her drooping head still averted, "but I am--"

"Just the one woman I want to be my own for ever and always, more--far more than I have ever wanted anything in my life."

"But," she whispered, "I am only--"

"The best, the n.o.blest I have ever known."

"But a--scrubwoman!"

"With dimples in her elbows, Hermione!" In one stride he was beside her, and she, because of his light tone, must turn at last to glance up at him half-fearfully; but those grey eyes were grave and reverent, the hands stretched out to her were strangely unsteady, and when he spoke again, his voice was placid no longer.

"Dear," he said, leaning toward her, "from the very first I've been dying to have you in my arms, but now I--I dare not touch you unless you--will it so. Ah, don't--don't turn from me; let me have my answer--look up, Hermione!"

Slowly she obeyed, and beholding the shy languor of her eyes, the sweet hurry of her breathing, and all the sighing, trembling loveliness of her, he set his arms about her, drawing her close; and she, yielding to those compelling arms, gave herself to the pa.s.sion of his embrace. And so he kissed her, her warm, soft-quivering mouth, her eyes, her silken hair, until she sighed and struggled in his clasp.

"My hair," she whispered, "see--it's all coming down!"

"Well, let it--I'd love to see it so, Hermione."

"Should you? Why then--let me go," she pleaded.

Reluctantly he loosed her, and standing well beyond his reach, she shook her shapely head, and down, down fell the heavy coils, past shoulder and waist and hip, rippling in s.h.i.+ning splendour to her knees. Then, while he gazed spellbound by her loveliness she laughed a little unsteadily, and flus.h.i.+ng beneath his look, turned and fled from him to the door; when he would have followed she stayed him.

"Please," she said, tender-voiced, "I want to be alone--it is all so wonderful, I want to be alone and--think."

"I may see you again to-night, Hermione? Dear--I must."

"Why, if you must," she said, "how can I--prevent you?"

Then, all at once, her cool, soft arms were about his neck, had drawn him down to meet her kiss, and--he was alone with the pastry board, the rolling-pin and the flour-dredger--but he saw them all through a golden glory, and when he somehow found himself out upon the dingy landing, the glory was all about him still.

CHAPTER XVII

HOW GEOFFREY RAVENSLEE MADE A DEAL IN REAL ESTATE

The morning sun blazed down, and Tenth Avenue was full of noise and dust and heat; children screamed and played and fought together, carts rumbled past, distant street cars clanged their bells, the sidewalks were full of the stir and bustle of Sat.u.r.day; but Ravenslee went his way heedless of all this, even of the heat, for before his eyes was the vision of a maid's shy loveliness, and he thrilled anew at the memory of two warm lips. Thus he strode unheeding through the jostling throng at a speed very different from his ordinary lounging gait. Very soon he came to a small drug-store, weather-beaten and grimy of exterior but very bright within, where everything seemed in a perpetual state of glitter, from the mult.i.tudinous array of bottles and gla.s.sware upon the shelves to the taps and k.n.o.bs of the soda fountain. Yet nowhere was there anything quite so bright as the shrewd, twinkling eyes of the little grey-haired man who greeted Ravenslee with a cheery nod.

"Hot enough?" he enquired.

"Quite!" answered Ravenslee.