Meg, of Valencia Part 8

Meg did not see Robert for a week after that memorable walk. The days of his absence were not sweetened by the comments of her aunt. "I knew he would grow tired of being pursued. Men are not won that way," was the remark, with variations, which greeted the girl every day of the seven during which she did not have the saving grace of Robert's presence to help her endure the torture.

All that was broad and sweet in her nature rejected the imprecations, but what there was of suspicion, engendered by the loveless home life she had led, listened to her tormentor.

It was not surprising, therefore, that she became irritable and nervous. It was in this mood that Robert found her, when, after his week of battle, he again walked up the narrow, flower-bordered path. It seemed to him that he had never really been there before. Just as Meg, after the great revelation, had appeared in a new light, so now did her surroundings.

There was a certain tender gravity in his face as he offered her his hand, which she purposely ignored. He flushed at this, but being familiar with her somewhat p.r.i.c.kly disposition, saw nothing significant in her refusal to shake hands with him. "How is Aunt Amelia?" he asked idly, as he seated himself.

"As ravishingly disagreeable as usual, thank you," was the somewhat snappy retort.

"Has your supply of kerosene oil run out? You don't seem to have been lighting the piano-lamp lately, with the music-box accompaniment."

She almost smiled, but thought better of it, and replied, "My ambition in that line has been nearly killed for lack of encouragement. Candles and a jew's-harp are about as near as I can approach to my shaded lights and soft music."

After a pause she said: "I'm sorry she's not here just now. It will grieve her to learn that she has missed a gentleman caller. They are not standing in line any longer, so she can't afford to lose one."

"I did not come to see your aunt."

Meg ignored his remark, and kept on: "She heard this morning of a new skin balm, and she has torn madly down town to procure it. She will be in rare good-humor when she returns. She always is after buying something to enhance her beauty."

Robert was watching her face with intense interest as she talked, and made no reply.

"It's something _all_ the time," she complained; "either her face is smeared with grease, or thick with some chalky mixture which gives her a clown-like appearance, or else,-oh, the worst of all, the very limit, was the rubber mask! While she wore that I used to lock my door at night for fear she would come in my room for something, and scare me into spasms!"

As she talked a severe expression came into Robert's face. "Margie!" he remonstrated.

It was the first time he had used the dear name by which her mother had called her, in spite of his threat to do so, and though she felt the reproof of his tone, she thrilled when he spoke it. "Do you know," he began, "that your comments on your aunt are, to say the least in poor taste?"

She flushed deeply, but there was defiance in her voice and in the tilt of her head. "Why don't you say outright that I am a vulgar, ill-bred, common little thing?" she demanded.

"Because I don't think it."

"Oh, yes, you do," she retorted angrily. "I just wish you had to live with Aunt Amelia! It might shake a little of the priggishness out of you! You don't seem to understand that I would go mad if I couldn't take it out in ridiculing her."

His face softened, but before he could speak, she said in a hard, expressionless tone, entirely devoid of the pa.s.sion which had just marked her utterances: "You will be leaving soon to enter your monastery. I suppose it is proper to wish you _bon voyage_, as one does people about to embark upon a long journey."

His face went from red to white, and he studied his shoes, as though trying to make up his mind to speak. Then he said slowly and hesitatingly, "Let us not talk of that now. What are you reading?" and reaching over, he lifted the book from the bench beside her where she had dropped it on his approach.

"Nothing which would interest you," she said tartly; "just the story of a son's devotion to his mother."

"What do you mean by that?" he demanded sternly.

"Oh, nothing at all," was the light reply; "you are more interested, are you not, in foot-washing, shaven heads and cowls?"

He rose instantly, his face dark with pa.s.sion, but as he talked, it cleared, till in the end it was serene and calm. "I understand you now.

You take this means, this cruel means of wounding me, so that I would know of your indifference. I have been having a mighty battle with myself, as between my church and my love for you. And, though I should blush to own it, my love won."

He paused a brief second. She, too, was standing, and she was trembling with emotion, but he did not observe it, nor that her lips were quivering. "I came here to-day to ask you to marry me. I was willing to forego the vows I was about to take, for which I have been preparing all my life."

He took a step nearer, and looked down at her. "Margie, I love you so!

I did not know such a thing existed as this fire which has permeated my entire being! It will be my curse in my chosen life, because I will never be able to concentrate my mind on the work before me. Your face will be always between me and my duty. I could almost hate you for shattering all the hopes and aspirations of a lifetime!"

He waited for some sign that she heard him, but she stood like a piece of marble. "Yet perhaps had you loved me, and we had married, I would neither be happy, nor cause you to be. So, though you are dearer to me than all the world, dearer than the cloistered life I thought would be all-sufficing, I thank you for not returning my love."

Wheeling abruptly, he walked down the path to the gate.

"Oh," she whispered to herself, wringing her hands together, "he thanks me for not loving him!"

CHAPTER XIII.

"Thus repuls'd, our final hope Is flat despair."

During the week that Robert was trying to choose his path for life, Mrs. Malloy watched him with anxious, loving eyes, conscious of his struggle, herself elated and depressed according to the moods his face reflected.

On the morning of the day he called on Meg, he had gone to his mother, and nestling at her feet as had been his habit since his early childhood, had leaned his head against her knee. She laid her hand caressingly on his head, as though inviting him to speak.

With averted eyes, and a manner he strove to make careless, he said, "Dear Mother mine, would you despise me for a weak, shilly-shally sort of creature if-" he hesitated a moment,-"if I should, after all, alter the plan of my life and not go into the monastery?"

Her face was transfigured, but she answered calmly, realizing fully that it was delicate ground upon which they were treading: "Of course I would not, dear. Whatever is for your happiness is that which I desire.

And no one, not even a mother, can decide for you."

He reached up, and pulling her hand down, kissed it reverently. And then she said softly: "While my boy was little I guided him through the shoals, avoiding the rocks, and I longed,-oh, _how_ I longed to be always at the helm, to keep his boat in the still, deep waters. But I realized that it would be no kindness to have him depend on me alone for guidance. I would grow old,-my hand would lose its cunning, my eyes their keenness of vision,-or I would have to leave him altogether-"

He kissed her hand again, in protest. "Old age and death have nothing in common with my young mother," he whispered.

She smiled sadly as she shook her head. "Nevertheless, one must always be prepared. At any rate, I taught you how to steer your own boat, my boy."

"Then you desert the ship, do you, O most wise woman?" he asked gayly.

"I but abdicate the captaincy," she replied in the same strain.

When he left the house to make his call, there was something in his bearing which would have convinced his mother, even without their previous conversation, that his decision was made and that he went to put his life in the hands of the one woman in the world she would have chosen for him. Her heart was light, for she had no doubt as to the outcome.

Mr. Spencer came in singing, "Hail to the chief who in triumph advances," and then, seeing his sister, he stopped abruptly and said, "I told you so."

"You think he has gone to put his fate 'to the test, to win or lose it all?'"

"Did you see the set of his shoulders as he left the house?" demanded her brother, and then, without waiting for a reply, he continued: "You can't fool me. I know the signs of the zodiac. It's the full of the moon, that part of the month when it gets into a fellow's blood, and he forgets everything except that here is the one being he loves. Why, Stella, I'd have been infected with that same fever every full moon for forty years, if I hadn't been vaccinated."

Mrs. Malloy laughed heartily, and then he said, more earnestly: "Robert will be a lucky man to win that girl. I've known her for so long, and have been so fond of her, that nothing but my age prevents my stepping in now and interfering with Robert. The first time I ever saw her," he continued reminiscently, "she was a mere child, a quaint red-headed little thing, with a world of tragedy in her big eyes. That was a few months after she had lost her father. She had replied to a question of her aunt's, simply 'yes,'-and Mrs. Weston was striving to make her say 'yes, ma'am.'"

"Which won?" Mrs. Malloy asked idly.

"I don't know. The last I saw of them they were walking down the street, Mrs. Weston dragging her along and saying, 'You _won't_ say "Yes, ma'am," to me! Well, I'll teach you some manners if you live with me!' But as I have never since heard Meg say 'Yes, ma'am,' I have an idea that she won the day."

When Robert returned, he sought his mother and said briefly: "Another hand than mine has turned the boat back into the still waters of the monastery. My novitiate begins in six weeks. Let us leave here in a few days, that we may spend the remainder of the time alone together."