Claire Part 38

He gripped her tightly against him and his hands tightened.

"Claire," he said, "a man never knows what there is in his nature till a woman like you whispers in his ear. You make me afraid at what I feel within me."

"I know," she said. "I'm afraid, too, of what there is in you, but just the same I'm going to be the happiest woman in the world."

"I hope so," he said. "But you will have to defend yourself against selfishness."

"I have to do that already," she laughed, "but I don't mind. I can, and that is the main thing. Besides, when you really want anything very much, you have a way of forcing me to want it, too, my master-lover!"

He laughed joyously. "Claire," he said, "if we ever do go to smash, you and I, there will have been a glorious day and a glorious house to smash with. It won't be a petty breaking of toy dishes!"

"No," she whispered, "it will be the breaking of life's foundations."

She slipped from his arms and into her room. Philip was coming in.

Lawrence sat down in a chair and Philip threw himself on his bed in silence.

He was caught in the inevitable result of his beliefs. He had argued with Lawrence because he was troubled. His whole being was filled with a great fear. Remembering how Lawrence and Claire had acted lately, he had been thrown into a fever of jealous rage. He was utterly beyond his depth now, and he was silent because to speak would have meant to break into accusation. His imagination had pictured Claire in Lawrence's arms while he was gone; if he had actually known the truth it would have been less agonizing than the picture.

He lay there filled with his own thoughts and dreading the moment when Lawrence would come and lie down beside him. Behind her curtain he heard Claire moving about, humming a little song, and it added to his torture.

He turned restlessly on his bed and groaned.

Lawrence raised his head. He, too, was dreaming of Claire, but his imaginings, vividly alluring in their appeal, were filled with the content of happiness. Claire was his. That was certain, and those sweet dreams should be fulfilled again and again in his life, with a growing depth that would make them the more beautiful. What a creature of wonder she was--and she was his--his, to love, to enjoy, to master, and to work for. Yes, and to work with. He would find her the needed impulse and idea to form his great work. She would make him the creative artist, the sculptor that he felt he had the power to be.

Philip muttered something, and Lawrence turned toward him.

"Feeling bad?" he asked genially.

Philip did not answer.

"You aren't ill, are you?" Lawrence's voice was full of real concern. He was thinking that it would be bad if they had to stay here a while longer.

"No. Only in spirit. I will be all right to-morrow."

Philip turned over, and Lawrence sat down again to dream.

For a long time he remained there, meditating, and at last he arose to go to bed. Philip was asleep and breathing heavily. Claire was moving a little. Lawrence stopped to listen. The curtain parted, her arms slipped around his neck, and silently there in the darkness she kissed him pa.s.sionately, eagerly. He held her tightly, her soft, warm figure thrilling him with joy.

Philip turned restlessly, and she hastily drew back, stealing a last swift kiss. Lawrence walked toward his bed. He heard a low, stifling little laugh, then all was still in the cabin. Claire had laughed for very joy at her love. He smiled tenderly. Dear little woman, she was indeed a wealth untold to him. What a life theirs would be after they got away from Philip!

Poor Philip, his would indeed be a sad fate, with his ideals here to worry him after they were gone. Well, he wasn't the sort that one could help. Let him work out his own destiny. Lawrence lay down comfortably, and sending a thousand dear thoughts flying across the silent room, he fell asleep while he smiled at his own romancing.

CHAPTER XX.

THE LAW OF LIFE.

The last morning at the cabin was bright and sunny, with the warm mystery of the day promising an infinity of strength for the future. All three of them felt it and were carried along in dreams of antic.i.p.ated relief. Breakfast over, Philip helped Lawrence and Claire get their packs ready. When everything was done, he said cheerily: "I will be gone less than an hour in getting that farthest trap--I am going to make quick speed--and then we will be off."

They laughed with the joy that was filling their hearts.

"Don't be longer than you can help, Philip," Claire admonished, and Lawrence added: "Every minute that divides us from our life ahead seems an eternity."

Claire smiled at the dear thoughts his words provoked.

"Good," said Philip in the doorway. "I'll hurry." And he was gone.

Claire and Lawrence stood in the doorway while Philip went singing down the lake sh.o.r.e. Her eyes filled with a warm light, and she slipped her hand into Lawrence's.

"At this moment, dear," she said, "I feel only pity for him. He is going to be hurt."

"Who wouldn't be, dearest, at losing you?"

"Always flattering," she teased. They stood arm in arm, leaning against the door-casing.

"Claire," he said, "let's take a last walk around our estate. The place where I first found the real, you will always be beautiful to me. I'm less blind this morning than I've been in my life."

"Of course you are," she said gaily. "You've acquired two good eyes."

"And two dear hands and a very wonderful personality that makes me doubly able," he said softly.

They wandered out across the plateau in the direction from which they had first entered it. Their conversation was broken and often meaningless, but eminently pleasing to them both.

"Dear heart," Claire mused softly, "you don't know what that poor, freezing, underfed woman in your naked arms felt when she heard you muttering that you needed her, as you stumbled down this ravine."

"How did she feel?"

Claire was dreaming back, and she wanted to tell him, but she found her emotions too complex and too rapid for expression.

"And then when you added that it was to use her as a subject for a stone image," laughed Claire, "she was furious with you, and yet she was very sure that she didn't want you to care about her in any other way."

"Then perhaps I am making a mistake," he jested.

"Perhaps, my dearest, but I am so glad of it that I don't care if you are."

He caught her in his arms. They were very near the great point in lovers' lives when emotions always tend to break all restraint. She clung to him pa.s.sionately, her lips yielding and holding his in a rapture of love. Together they swayed toward a great tree and sat down.

When they returned to the cabin, they were surprised to find Philip still gone. With the whimsicality of lovers, they dismissed him from their thoughts and sat down in the armchair together, laughing and talking of the past. Their conversation ran gradually into a clearly defined discussion in which both minds were compelled to think quickly, and they found new joy in their love. Even now, when their whole minds were swayed by emotion, they were able to think, to talk, and to be alive to everything in the world of intellect.

Art, religion, and life, all in a grand mix-chaotic tangle. Lawrence was talking for the joy of his thought to the woman who he knew would enjoy it.

"You see, Claire," he said after a long discussion, "in the religious instinct we find very little besides a fear of the unknown. What else there is in it is the more valuable part, and it is this lesser section that we can develop and use to advantage."

"What is this lesser section?" she asked.

"The vital desire to create for our G.o.d's sake. If we could build that into its real place, stimulated as it is by the overwhelming appreciation of beauty in nature, we could establish something far more worth while than a mere deceiving of men about their own kind, their faults, and their relations."