The Lilac Girl Part 16

"Your saying that makes it look farther off than ever," responded Wade, with a wry smile.

"My saying that? But why?" she asked in surprise.

"Because," he answered, after a moment's silence, "if you knew what it is I want, I don't think you'd want me to have it, and that you don't know proves that I'm a long way off from it."

"It sounds like a riddle," said Eve, perplexedly. "Please, Mr. Herrick, what is the answer?"

Wade clenched his hands in his pockets and looked very straight ahead up the road.

"You," he said.

"_Me?_" The sunshade was raised for an instant. "_Oh!_" The sunshade dropped. They walked on in silence for a few paces. Then said Wade, with a stolen glance at the white silken barrier:

"I hope I haven't offended you, Miss Walton. I had no more intention of saying anything like that when we started out than--than the man in the moon. But it's true, and you might as well know it now as any other time. You're what I want, more than I've ever wanted anything before or ever shall again, and you're what I'm very much afraid I won't get. I'm not quite an idiot, after all. I know mighty well that--that I'm not the sort of fellow you'd fall in love with, barring a miracle. But maybe I'm trusting to the miracle. Anyhow, I'm cheeky enough to hope that--that you may get to like me enough to marry me some day. Do you think you ever could?"

"But--oh, I don't know what to say," cried Eve, softly. "I haven't thought--!"

"Of course not," interrupted Wade, cheerfully. "Why should you? All I ask is that you think about it now--or some time when you--when you're not busy, you know. I guess I could say a whole lot about how much I love you, but you're not ready to hear that yet and I won't. If you'll just understand that you're the one girl in the whole darn--in the whole world for me, Miss Walton, we'll let it go at that for the present. You think about it. I'm not much on style and looks, and I don't know much outside of mining, but I pick up things pretty quickly and I could learn. I don't say anything about money, except that if you cared for me I'd be thankful I had plenty of it, so that I could give you most anything you wanted. You--you don't mind thinking it over, do you?"

"No," said Eve, a little unsteadily, "but--oh, I do wish you wouldn't talk as you do! You make me feel so little and worthless, and I don't like to feel that way."

"But how?" cried Wade, in distress. "I don't mean to!"

"I know you don't. That's just it. But you do. When you talk so meanly of yourself, I mean. Just as though any girl wouldn't feel proud at having--at hearing--oh, you must know what I mean!" And Eve turned a flushed, beseeching face toward him.

"Not quite, I'm afraid," Wade answered. "Anyhow, I don't want you to feel proud, Miss Walton. If any one should feel proud, it's I, to think you've let me say this to you and haven't sent me off about my business."

"Oh, please!" begged Eve, with a little vexed laugh.

"What?" he asked, perplexedly.

"Don't talk of yourself as though you were--were just nothing, and of me as though I were a princess. It's absurd! I'm only a very ordinary sort of person with ordinary faults--perhaps more than my share of them."

"You're the finest woman I ever saw, and the loveliest," replied Wade stoutly. "And if you're not for me no other woman is."

The sunshade intervened again and they walked on for some little distance in silence. Then Wade began slowly, choosing his words: "Maybe I've talked in a way to give you a wrong impression. You mustn't think that there's any--false modesty about me. I reckon I have rather too good an opinion of myself, if anything. I wouldn't want you to be disappointed in me--afterwards, you know. I reckon I've got an average amount of sense and ability. I've been pretty successful for a man of twenty-eight, and it hasn't been all luck, not by a whole lot! Maybe most folks would say I was conceited, had a swelled head. It's only when it comes to--to asking you to marry me that I get kind of down on myself. I know I'm not good enough, Miss Walton, and I own up to it. The only comforting thought is that there aren't many men who are. I'm saying this because I don't want to fool you into thinking me any more modest and humble than I am. You understand?"

"Yes, I understand," replied Eve, from under the sunshade.

"And you won't forget your promise?"

"You mean--"

"To think it over."

"No, I won't forget. But please don't hope too much, Mr. Herrick, for I can't promise anything, really! It isn't that I don't like you, for I do, but"--her voice trailed off into silence.

"I hardly dared hope for that much," said Wade, gratefully. "Of course it isn't enough, but it's something to start on."

"But liking isn't love," objected Eve, gravely.

"I know. And there was never love without liking. You don't mind if I get what comfort I can out of that, do you?"

"N-no, I suppose not," answered Eve, slowly.

"It doesn't bind you to anything, you see. Shall we turn back now? The breeze seems to have left us."

Presently he said: "There's something I want very much to ask you, but I don't know whether I have any right to."

"If there's anything I can answer, I will," said Eve.

"Then I'll ask it, and you can do as you please about answering. It's just this. Is there anyone who has--a prior claim? I mean is there any one you must consider in this, Miss Walton. Please don't say a word unless you want to."

Eve made no reply for a moment. Then, "I think I'm glad you did ask that, Mr. Herrick," she said, "for it gives me a chance to explain why I haven't answered you this morning, instead of putting it off. I am not bound in any way by any promise of mine, and yet--there is some one who--I hardly know how to put it, Mr. Herrick."

"Don't try if it is too hard. I think I understand."

"I don't believe you do, though. I'm not quite sure--it's only this; that I want to feel quite free before--I answer you. I may have to keep you waiting for awhile, perhaps a few days. May I? You won't mind?"

"I can wait for a year as long as waiting means hope," replied Wade, gravely.

"But maybe--it doesn't."

"But it does. If there was no hope, absolutely none, you'd have told me so ten minutes ago, wouldn't you?"

"I suppose so. I don't know. I mean"--she stopped and faced him, half laughing, half serious. "Oh, I don't know what I mean; you've got me all mixed up! Please, let's not talk any more about it now. Let's--let's go home!"

"Very well," said Wade, cheerfully. "I hope I haven't walked you too far."

XIII.

After supper that night Wade called on Doctor Crimmins. The Doctor occupied a small house which had many years before been used as a school. At one side the Doctor had built a little office, with an entrance from a short brick walk leading to the street. The ground-gla.s.s door held the inscription, "Josiah L. Crimmins, M.D. Office." Wade's ring brought the Doctor's housekeeper, a bent, near-sighted, mumbling old woman, who informed Wade that the Doctor was out on a call, but would be back presently. She led the way into the study, turned up the lamp and left him. The study was office and library and living-room in one, a large, untidy room with books lining two sides of it, and a third devoted to shelf on shelf of bottles and jars and boxes. Near the bottle end of the apartment the Doctor had his desk and his few appliances. At the other end was a big oak table covered with a debris of books, magazines, newspapers, tobacco cans, pipes, and general litter. There was a mingled odor, not unpleasant, of drugs and disinfectants, tobacco and leather. Wade made himself comfortable in a big padded armchair, one of those genuinely comfortable chairs which modern furnishers have thrust into oblivion, picked up a magazine at random, slapped the dust off it and filled his pipe. He was disturbed by the sound of brisk footsteps on the bricks outside. Then a key was inserted in the lock and the Doctor entered from the little lobby, bag in hand.

"Ha! Who have we here? Welcome, my dear Herrick, welcome! I hope you come as a friend and not as a patient. Quite right, sir. Keep out of the doctor's clutches as long as possible. Well, well, a warm night this."

The Doctor wiped his face with his handkerchief, wafting a strong odor of ether about the room. Then he took off his black frock-coat, hung it on a hook behind the door, and slipped into a rusty old brown velvet house-coat. After that he filled his pipe, talking the while, and, when it was lighted, said "Ha" again very loudly and contentedly, and took down a half-gallon bottle from the medicine shelves. This he placed on the table by the simple expedient of sweeping a pile of newspapers to the floor.

"Now where are those gla.s.ses, I wonder?" He looked about the room searchingly over the tops of his spectacles. "There we are." He discovered one on his desk and another on the shelf over the little sink. The latter held some liquid which he first smelled, then tasted and finally threw away. "Wonder what that was," he muttered. "Well, a little rinsing will fix it. Here we are now, Mr. Herrick. Pour your drink, sir, and I'll put the water in. Don't be afraid of it. It's as mild as milk."

"You're quite sure it isn't laudanum?" asked Wade, with a suspicious look at the big bottle.

"Bless you, no." The Doctor lowered himself into a chair with a sigh of relief and contentment. "Now tell me the news, Mr. Herrick. I haven't seen our good friends at The Cedars since yesterday."

Wade sipped from his gla.s.s, set it down, hesitated.

"The only piece of news I have, Doctor," he said, finally, "is that I asked Miss Walton to marry me this morning."