Rose MacLeod Part 72

"I can't seem to talk to you," said Osmond abruptly, also smiling a little, in his whimsical way. "You are such a fine lady."

She glanced down at her dress, and hated it.

"I don't know why I put this on, except, perhaps, I didn't want you to despise me for what I am going to say."

"Despise you!"

She choked a little and dared it.

"You haven't been to the playhouse lately."

"No."

"Why?"

"Have you been there yourself?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I couldn't."

"Well, I couldn't, either."

"Why?" cried the girl pa.s.sionately. "Why has everything got to change?

Why should you tell me you would be there always and then never come again? Why?"

Osmond regarded her in what seemed a sad well-wishing.

"Youth can't last," he said. "That was youth. We are grown up now."

Tears gathered in her eyes. The finality of his tone seemed to be consigning her to fruitless days without the joy of dreams.

"Well," he added, "it doesn't matter. You are going away."

"You said once I should take the key of the playhouse with me."

He smiled humorously, as at a child who must, if it is possible, be allowed some pleasure in the game.

"Take it, playmate," he said.

The color ran over her face. She sparkled at him.

"Oh, now you've said it!" she entreated. "You've called me by my name.

Now we can go back."

Osmond still smiled at her. He shook his head.

"You are very willful," he remarked.

"That's right. Abuse me. I like it, playmate."

But he could abuse her no more. Fancy in him was dead or dumb. He was tired of thinking, tired of his own life, with its special problems. A deep gravity came over her own face also. When she spoke, it was with a high dignity and seriousness.

"Osmond," she said, "I sent for you because I want to give you something before I go away. I can't bear to go. I can't bear to leave this place and grannie--and you. Sometimes I think I shall die of homesickness over there, even in the few weeks I stay, to think what may happen to you before I see you again. So I want to give it to you."

She was under some stress he did not understand, yet speaking with a determined quiet.

"What is it?" he asked gently.

She had no words left, only the two she had thought of for days and days until it had seemed to her he must hear her heart beating them out. She held her hands together in her lap, and spoke clearly, though it frightened her:--

"My love, Osmond, my love."

He had turned his look away from her, and feeling the aloofness of that, she fell to trembling. When he began to speak, she stopped him. It seemed to her that he was bringing rejection of her gift, and she could not bear it.

"No," she said, "don't say it."

But he did speak, in that grave, moved tone:--

"That is dear of you. I shall always keep your present, just as grannie will keep your love for her. It's very precious."

Hope and will went out of her. She put her clasped hands on the chair in front of her, and bent her head upon them, trembling.

"What is it?" she said at last, "what is it that has come between us? Is it what you told me once in the playhouse? that you were going to give your life away when you chose?"

He laughed a little, sadly, to himself.

"How long ago that seems!" he mused. "No, it was a different thing I meant then."

"What was it? Tell me, Osmond."

"I can tell you now, for I shall never do it. It smells of madness to me, now I see what living demands of us. It was only,--well, my body hadn't done me much service in the ways I should have liked."

"Tell me, Osmond!"

"I meant to give it, living, to some scientist, to experiment on. To a doctor, if I could find one that would meet me as I wanted to be met, to work on,--with drugs, with germs,--the things they do to dogs, you know."

She forgot how he had held himself aloof from her, or that some grain of pride might well have met his coldness. She was kneeling beside him, her hands about his neck, her head upon his breast.

"No, Osmond, no," she sobbed. "It would kill me."

The man sat still. Then he spoke, and his voice was hard as iron.

"It will never happen, I tell you."

"To have you tortured," she was sobbing. "To have them hurt you--your hands, your dear hands--"