Fair to Look Upon Part 9

But love, the G.o.d of G.o.ds, strung the invisible wires of mental telegraphy between our hearts, and over the mystic, unseen lines our thoughts, bright as hope, dark as sin, lighter than the thistle down, heavily charged with the electricity of doubt and trust, faith and fear, love and longing, flew noiselessly back and forth through the stillness and drew us unconsciously together; and so it happened that he stood upon the doorstep and pulled the bell.

There was always a triumphant peal to his ring that seemed to say to my heart, "Lo, the conquering hero comes." And now that vital organ bounded gladly in my breast, then stood still; my pulses throbbed with delight and triumph. Ten minutes before I would have thrown the world away, if it had been mine, for one smile from his lips, but now--I seized my pencil and wrote rapidly on the tablet on my knee as he entered the hall, came into the room, and stood beside me, then with a little start I looked up and exclaimed in feigned surprise:

"You here?"

"I think I am," he said, "but if you want me to, I'll look in the mirror to make sure." And then we both laughed, for 'tis so easy to laugh when one is happy and all the world is gay.

"Well," said he, sitting down beside me, clasping my hand in his as lovers sometimes do, and taking up the conversation where it had been dropped weeks and weeks before, "they say you can buy a good cooking stove for forty dollars--and I've had my salary raised ten dollars a month."

Then I smiled and he said abruptly:

"When are you going to marry me?"

"I haven't completed my study of the Bible yet, and I don't think I could be submissive, and----"

"Oh, fiddlesticks!" he exclaimed, impolitely interrupting me, "I don't want you to be submissive; I just want you to love me and--and--boss me," he added, in the very depth of repentance.

"But you demanded obedience," I insisted.

"I was foolish then," he said softly, "but absence from you and silence has taught me wisdom. When I left you and you made no sign, sent no word of recall, left the dread quiet unbroken, I told myself that you cared nothing for me, and I tried desperately to fall in love with some other girl, but they were all 'flat, stale and unprofitable'

compared to you. There was no light in their eyes, no roses on their cheeks, no pleasure in their presence, no rapture in their touch--and--Oh, hang it! you know I can't talk, but I love you, and as long as cooking stoves and marriage licenses are so cheap and ministers are so plenty what's the matter with having a wedding to-morrow?"

And I said--but never mind what I said.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (And I said--)]