A Breath of Prairie and other stories Part 40

"Were you the fraction of a man," she voiced slowly, icily, "you would have stopped short of--this."

She made a motion of her hand, so slight one could scarce see it, and without a word he stepped aside. She turned toward me and, instinctively, I bent in courtesy, my eyes on the floor and a great tumult in my heart. She hesitated at pa.s.sing me; without looking up I knew it; then, slowly, moved away down the corridor.

I advanced inside, closing the door behind me and snapping the lock.

Neither of us said a word; no word was needed. The fighting-blood of each was up, and on each the square jaw that marked us both was set hard. I stepped up within a yard of him and looked him square in the eye. I pray G.o.d I may never be so angry again.

"What explanation have you to offer?" I asked.

His eye never wavered, though the blood left his face and lip; even then I admired his nerve. When he spoke his voice was even and natural.

"Nothing," he sneered. "You have lost; that's all."

Quick as thought, I threw back the taunt.

"Lost the woman, yes, thank G.o.d; the book, never. I came for that, not for her. I demand that you turn over the copy."

Again the cool smile and the steady voice.

"You're a trifle late. I haven't a sheet; it is all gone."

"You lie!" I flung the hot words fair in his teeth.

A smile, mocking, maddening, formed upon his face.

"I told you before you had lost. The book is copyrighted"--a pause, while the smile broadened--"copyrighted in my name, and sold."

The instinct of battle, primitive, uncontrollable, came over me and the room turned dark. I fought it, until my hands grew greasy from the wounds where the nails bit my palms, then I lost control; of what follows all is confused.

I dimly see myself leaping at him like a wild animal; I feel the tightening of the big neck muscles as my fingers closed on his throat; I feel a soft breath of night air as we neared the open window; then in my hands a sudden lightness, and in my ears a cry of terror.

I awoke at a pounding on the door. It seemed hours later, though it must have been but seconds. I arose--and was alone. The window was wide open; in the street below, a crowd was gathering on the run, while a policeman's shrill whistle rang out on the night. A hundred faces were turned toward me as I looked down and I dimly wondered thereat.

The knocking on the door became more insistent. I turned the lock, slowly, and a woman rushed into the room. Something about her seemed familiar to me. I pa.s.sed my hand over my forehead--but it was useless.

I bowed low and started to walk out, but she seized me by the arm, calling my name, pleadingly. Her soft brown hair was all loose and hanging, and her big eyes swimming; her whole body trembled so that she could scarcely speak.

The grip of the white hand on my arm tightened.

"Oh! You must not go," she cried; "you cannot."

I tried gently to shake her off, but she clung more closely than before.

"You must let me explain," she wailed. "I call G.o.d to witness, I was not to blame." She drew a case from the bosom of her dress.

"Here are those stones; I never wore them. I wanted to, G.o.d knows, but I couldn't. Take them, I beg of you." She thrust the case into my pocket. "He made me take them, you understand; made me do everything from the first. I loved him once, long ago, and since then I couldn't get away. I can't explain." She was pleading as I never heard woman plead before. "Forgive me--tell me you forgive me--speak to me." The grip on my arm loosened and her voice dropped.

"Oh! G.o.d, to have brought this on you when I loved you!"

The words sounded in my ears, but made no impression. It all seemed very, very strange. Why should she say such things to me? She must be mistaken--must take me for another.

I broke away from her grasp, and groped staggeringly toward the door.

A weariness intense was upon me and I wanted to be home alone. As I moved away, I heard behind me a swift step as though she would follow, and my name called softly, then another movement, away.

Mechanically I turned at the sound, and saw her profile standing clear in the open window-frame. Realization came to me with a mighty rush, and with a cry that was a great sob I sprang toward her.

Suddenly the window became clear again, and through the blackness that formed about me I dimly heard a great wail of horror arise from the street below.

There was no other entry save the hasty scrawl in pencil.

THE TOUCH HUMAN

"Good-night." A lingering of finger tips that touched, as by accident; a bared head; the regular tap of shoes on cement, as a man walked down the path.

"Good-night--and G.o.d bless thee," he repeated softly, tenderly, under his breath, that none but he might hear: words of faith spoken reverently, and by one who believes not in the G.o.d known of the herd.

"Good-night--and G.o.d bless thee," whispered the woman slowly; and the south wind, murmuring northward, took the words and carried them gently away as sacred things.

The woman stood thinking, dreaming, her color mounting, her eyes dimming, as she read deep the mystery of her own heart.

They had sat side by side the entire evening, and had talked of life and of its hidden things; or else had remained silent in the unspoken converse that is even sweeter to those who understand each other.

She had said of a mutual friend: "He is a man I admire; he has an ideal."

"A thing but few of earth possess."

"No; I think you are wrong. I believe all people have ideals. They must; life would not be life without."

"You mean object rather than ideal. Does not an ideal mean something beautiful--something beyond--something we'd give our all for? Not our working hours alone, but our hours of pleasure and our times of thought. An ideal is an intangible thing--having much of the supernatural in its make-up; 'tis a fetish for which we'd sacrifice life--or the strongest pa.s.sion of life,--love."

"Is this an ideal, though? Could anything be beautiful to us after we'd sacrificed much of life, and all of love in its attainment? Is not everything that is opposed to love also opposed to the ideal? Is not an ideal, when all is told, nothing but a great love--the great personal love of each individual?"

He turned to the woman, and there was that in his face which caused her eyes to drop, and her breath to come more quickly.

"I don't know. I'm miserable, and lonely, and tired. I've thought I had an ideal, and I followed it, working for it faithfully and for it alone. I've shown it to myself, glowing, splendid, when I became weary and ready to yield. I've sacrificed, in attempting its attainment, youth and pleasure--self, continually. Still, I'm afar off--and still the light beckons me on. I work day after day, and night after night, as ever; but the faith within me is growing weaker. Might not the ideal I worshipped after all be an earth-born thing, an ambition whose brightness is not of pure gold, but of tinsel? That which I have sought, speaks always to me so loudly that there may be no mistake in hearing.

"'I am thy G.o.d,' it says; 'worship me--and me alone.

Sacrifice--sacrifice--sacrifice--thyself--thy love. Thus shalt thou attain me.'

"One day I stopped my work to think; hid myself solitary that I might question. 'What shall I have when I attain thee?' I asked.

"'Fame--fame--the plaudits of the people--a pedestal apart.'

"'Yes,' whispered my soul to me, 'and a great envy always surrounding; a great fight always to hold thy small pedestal secure.'