Geoffrey Strong Part 8

The girl was silent. Presently--"I wonder whether it is worth while to get well after a fashion!" she said. "I wonder if it's worth while to go on living and never be able to do anything. I suppose I shall find out."

"You!" said the young doctor. "You will be entirely well in a year, Miss Blyth; I'd be willing to wager it."

Vesta shook her head.

"No!" she said. "The spring is broken. There is nothing _real_ the matter with me, I know that well enough. It's nothing but nerves--and heart, and mind; nothing but the whole of my life broken and thrown aside."

She spoke bitterly, and Geoffrey felt a pang of compa.s.sion. She was so young, and so pretty--beautiful was the word, rather. It seemed too cruel. If only she would not say anything more about it! How _could_ she? was it because he was a physician? He would go and be a costermonger if that--

"You see," she went on, slowly; "I cared so tremendously. I had thought of nothing else for years, dreamed of nothing else. All there was of me went into it. And then, then--when this came; when he told me--I--it was pretty hard."

The quiver in her voice was controlled instantly, but it was almost worse than the sobs. Geoffrey broke out, fiercely:

"I don't know whether this man is more a beast or a devil; but I know that he is not fit to live, and I wish I--"

Vesta looked up at him in surprise. His face was crimson; his angry eyes looked beyond her, above her, anywhere except at her.

"I don't know what you mean!" she said. "He was neither. He was kind, oh, very kind. He did it as tenderly as possible. I shall always be grateful--" the quiver came again, and she stopped.

"Oh!" cried Geoffrey. He drove his paddle savagely into the water, and the canoe leaped forward. What were women made of? why, _why_ must he be subjected to this?

The silence that followed was almost worse than the speech. Finally he stole a glance at his companion, and saw her face still faintly rosy--it must be mostly the light--and set in a sadness that had no touch of resentment in it.

"Perhaps you don't like my talking about it," she said, after awhile.

Geoffrey uttered an inarticulate murmur, but found no words.

"The aunties don't. Aunt Phoebe gets angry, and Aunt Vesta tearful and embarra.s.sed. But--well, I could not stay at home. Everything there reminded me--I thought if I came here, where no such ideas ever entered, I might begin--not to forget, but to resign myself a little, after a time. But--I found you here. No, let me speak!" She raised her hand, as Geoffrey tried to interrupt.

"I have to make you understand--if I can--why I was rude and odious and ungrateful when I first came, for I was all those things, and I am not naturally so, I truly don't think I am. But, don't you see?--to come right upon some one who was having all that I had lost, enjoying all I had hoped to enjoy, and caring--well, perhaps as much as I cared, but still in a different way, a man's way, taking it all as a matter of course, where I would have taken it on my knees--"

"You must let me speak now, Miss Blyth," said Geoffrey Strong. He spoke loud and quickly, to drown the noise in his ears.

"I cannot let you--go on--under such a total misapprehension. I could not in a lifetime say how sorry I am for your cruel trouble. It makes me rage; I'd like to--never mind that now! but you are wholly mistaken in thinking that anything of the kind has ever come into my own life. I don't know how you received the impression, but you must believe me when I say I have never had any--any such affair, nor the shadow of one. It isn't my line. I not only never have had, but probably never shall have--" he was hurrying out word upon word, hoping to get it over and done with once and for ever. But letting his eyes drop for an instant to the girl's face, he saw on it a look of such unutterable amazement that he stopped short in his headlong speech.

They gazed at each other from alien worlds. At length--"Doctor Strong,"

said Vesta, and the words dropped slowly, one by one, "what do you mean?"

Geoffrey was silent. If she did not know what he meant, he certainly did not.

"What do you mean?" she repeated. "I do not understand one word of what you are saying."

Geoffrey tried hard to keep his temper. "You were speaking of your--disappointment," he said, stiffly. "You seemed to take it for granted that I--was engaged in some affair of a similar nature, and I felt bound to undeceive you. I have never been what is called in love in my life."

The bewilderment lingered in Vesta's eyes for an instant; then a light came into them. The sunset rushed in one crimson wave over face and neck and brow; she fell back on her pillows, quivering from head to foot. Was she going to cry again?

She was laughing! silently at first, trying hard to control herself; but now her laughter broke forth in spite of her, and peal after peal rang out, wild and sweet, helpless in its intensity.

Geoffrey sat paralysed a moment; then the professional instinct awoke.

"Hysteria! another manifestation, that is all. I must stop it."

He leaned forward.

"Miss Blyth!"

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the girl. "Oh, dear, oh, dear! what shall I do?

ha, ha, ha, ha! oh, what shall I do?"

"Stop!" said Geoffrey Strong. "Do you hear me? stop!"

"Oh, yes, I hear you--but--it is so funny! oh, it _is_ so funny! ha, ha, ha! what shall I do?"

"What shall _I_ do?" said Geoffrey to himself. "She'll have the canoe over in another minute." He crept toward the girl, and seized her wrists in a firm grip.

"Be still!" he said. "I shall hold you until you are quiet. Be--still!

no more! be still!"

"You--hurt me!" whispered the girl. The wild laughter had died away, but she was still shaking, and the tears were running down her cheeks.

"I mean to hurt you. I shall hurt you more, if you are not quiet. As soon as you are quiet I will let you go. Be--still--still--there!"

He loosed her hands, and took up the paddle again. This kind of thing was very exhausting; he was quivering himself, quite perceptibly. Now why? nerves of sympathy?

He paddled on in silence; the sun went down, and the afterglow spread and brightened along the sky. He hardly thought of his companion, his whole mind bent on suppressing the turmoil that was going on in himself.

He started at the sound of her voice; it was faint, but perfectly controlled.

"Doctor Strong!"

"Miss Blyth!"

"You--thought--I had had a disappointment in love?"

"I did!"

"You are mistaken. You misunderstood my aunt, or me, or both. I have never, any more than you--"

Her voice grew stronger, and she sat upright.

"It was so _very_ funny--no, I am not going off again--but I think there was some excuse for me this time. You certainly are having every opportunity of studying my case, Doctor Strong. The truth is--oh, I supposed it had been made clear to you; how could I suppose anything else? It was my career, my life, that I had to give up, not--not a man.

You say you have never been what is called in love; Doctor Strong, no more have I!"

There was silence, and now it was in Geoffrey's face that the tide rose. Such a burning tide it was, he fancied he heard the blood hiss as it curled round the roots of his hair. He noted this as curious, and remembered that in hanging or drowning it was the trifles that stamped themselves upon the mind. Also, it appeared that he was hollow, with nothing but emptiness where should have been his vital parts.

"Shall I say anything?" he asked, presently. "There isn't anything to say, is there, except to beg your pardon? would you like to hear that I am a fool? But you know that already. Your aunt--things were said that were curiously misleading--not that that is any excuse--Do you want me to go into detail, or may I drown myself quietly?"

"Oh! don't," said Vesta, smiling. "I could not possibly paddle myself home, and I should infallibly upset the canoe in trying to rescue you."

"You would not try!" said Geoffrey, gloomily. "It would not be human if you tried."