Sunlight Patch Part 16

"Well, why not?" he looked up suddenly. "If pleasure's my G.o.d, whose business is it?"

"Pride's," she softly answered. "It's the business of Pride, that makes all male human beings men. Girls know, without having to reason, that a man who is lacking in pride is lacking in self respect, and is unworthy of himself; which means he is unworthy of anyone else. That may not be very clear, but it's what I mean. If Dale, now, had the surveying of your road, we could feel certain of it; or if you had more self control like him--though I suppose he was born with it!"

He frowned, and she saw his teeth press hard upon his lower lip. Perhaps that was why she added:

"See what a dependable man he is going to be!--what strength of character!"

He looked away. Realizing how impossible it would be for her to say this about himself, a feeling of rebellion began to stir against the mountaineer. But he indignantly choked it with a ruthless hand, knowing that her comparison, not Dale, must be held responsible. Then for a moment he took a swift glance into the future, wondering how long it might be before he could come abreast of this mountaineer's supposed dependability--and, perhaps, pa.s.s on ahead of it! But Brent was not in the habit of gazing future-ward, and he could not hold the focus for long at a time. Now, quietly, he spoke to her, though without interest:

"I'm afraid your three little observations are illogical. In the first place, self control is not a proof of dependability; in the second place, Dale has no more self control than a kitten in a fit; and in the third place, people are not born with self control. Is there anything else you'd like to talk about?"

She flushed, but looked across at him smilingly:

"I want to talk about that!"

"Then let's get rid of Dale first. If I read the signs, you've got in that chap a creature of limitless self indulgence. He's crazy to learn, and I've no doubt that already he is studying like a steam engine; but when he wants to do other things he'll do 'em with the same zeal. I gather from the Colonel that he doesn't give a rap for anybody or anything just so he gets to a book. Self control? He doesn't know any more about it than water coming down a rain pipe!"

"Don't you think the desire to study is commendable?"

"Certainly, but it requires no self control. He studies just as he would scratch his hand if it itched. I should call it natural, rather than commendable; or fortunate, if you choose. Jane," he now looked her fully and seriously in the eyes, "there are lots of people who go through life with tense lines about their mouths, saying nothing, never getting into devilment, and the world tiptoes behind them whispering: 'What wonderful self control!' It's all rot! Self control is a thing we unconsciously cultivate from the moment our minds begin to coordinate.

It's like building a dam across our hidden river of tendency; and a hit or miss sort of structure it is, too. In one man the current of this tendency may be like a trickling stream, and a handful of materials are enough to keep it in check. In another, it may be a raging torrent, and he may slave night and day, gathering stone and sand, and sealing them with his very blood. But suppose in the end the torrent gets away from him! He fails, you say. Yet is he weaker after that herculean task than the other chap who dammed up his stream of tendency with the side of his boot? He publicly goes under,--yes! But may he not still be finer than his two-by-four brother whose temperament ran only from the ice-box to family prayers and back to the ice-box? I want to tell you," he concluded in the same low, even voice, "that in the Big Summing Up, the Celestial Clearing House will show many a poor gutter-runner more ent.i.tled to wear medals for having made a game fight for respectability than some of his anemic superiors who all their days walked slowly, and were called by their fellows examples of great character. Don't be too quick to size up a chap's pace, Lady Jane, until you know how red his blood is, and how much weight he's carrying. I must go now!"

While he had been speaking, the moon, full and mellow, climbed high above the house and shed a mere suggestion of light--a sort of luminous radiance--into the thickly sheltered circle. He stood up quickly with the air of one who had said too much, reached for a cigarette, and then for a match which he could not at once find. She saw that his face was very white and drawn in this ghost-like gloaming.

"I wish you wouldn't," she hesitated. "I like to talk to you tonight."

He turned and looked down at her, as she added:

"You're a curious make-up;--and have some really fine things in you!"

"That starts out well," he laughed, lighting the cigarette and sinking back on the bench.

"Do you ever ask women's permission before smoking?" she asked, a shade offended by the persistent way he ignored her in this regard.

"I didn't think it was quite necessary out doors;--and you might say no!"

"Then you haven't the diplomacy of a true Kentucky gentleman. I'll tell you what one of the most true and gallant of them once told me, and he would be an example for you to follow--in more than one particular. He was over ninety years old, and smoking a pipe--a dear old pipe he was seldom without--when I came up to him. Holding it toward me, he said: 'I shall not ask if I may smoke in your presence! A long time ago that request once met with a denial, so thereafter I merely implored the ladies' permission to burn a little incense to their lovely charms. Nor do I recall,' he smiled, 'one single refusal in the seventy-five years which have pa.s.sed since then!' This," Jane added, her voice tender with the memory, "was General Simon Bolivar Buckner."

"Well, you've cut a notch too high for me," he answered seriously.

"Those few 'fine things' you just accused me of are nothing more than fireflies flashing in a skull compared to that grand old man. How d'you like the simile, by the way? Pretty good, isn't it?"

"A striking picture of you, Brent! I would recognize it anywhere!"

A ripple of good humor played about her mouth which made her dangerously attractive, and, oddly enough, this was caused by that look of seriousness she had seen in him--a look which she had not the slightest doubt portrayed some mental suffering. To anyone else she would have held out her hand and said: "Let me help--I know I can!" But now she could only feel somehow glad to find that he was big enough, and fine enough to suffer. She had not suspected it, and it threw a new light about him. It sent, too, a riot of something pleasant tingling through her blood--as she had felt sometimes at the lookout point above her father's cabin, where she watched for spies while he "mashed" the corn, and the white moonshine dripped, dripped from the rusty worm of his home-made still; when, crouched beneath the stars, her quick ears had caught some faint, suspicious sounds. Ruinous though they might turn out to be, she used to love those tingle-giving sounds. The same sort of thrill now reached past the culture-clothed sentinels around her heart and gave it an honest shake for old time's sake. Slowly she began to smile, and, seeing this, he moodily asked:

"Why are you smiling?"

"I don't know, Brent. I just want to smile, that's all." Then she arose, murmured good night, and went out.

But the branches were still swaying where she had pa.s.sed when he heard a quick cry of surprise.

"Brent!"

He was beside her in a second, looking over her outstretched arm that pointed toward the thickest portion of the grounds.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I don't know," she whispered. "Someone must have been here, and ran in there!"

He dashed after whatever it was, plunging through the shrubbery and threshing about for several minutes. Once she thought she heard a low cry, or voice, and for awhile he was so quiet that she grew more uneasy; but again the crackling sounds proclaimed him to be on the search, and finally he emerged.

"It's nothing," he said, coming up. "Maybe a dog."

"It couldn't have been a dog. Let's go to the house--it makes me creepy!"

They turned, crossing the little patches of moonlight filtered through the trees upon the violet sprinkled ground. It was a wonderfully seductive spot on a night like this! The mellow tinkle of the piano, arising from Ann's nimble touch, floated out to them;--they might have been walking in an enchanted fairy-land but for the turmoil about his heart and the unrest in her own. Impulsively she faced him:

"What do you think that could have been?"

He was taken unawares, and had of course no suspicion of her cause for nervousness.

"Brent," she said again, "I must know who was there!"

He stood humbly before her with his head bowed. When he spoke his voice was absolutely sincere.

"I can't tell you, Jane."

This magnified her fears, for she thought he was trying mercifully to spare her.

"You must tell me," she urged, betraying her terror by grasping his arm.

In his own preoccupation he did not notice this. "You must tell me," she was pleading. "Oh, Brent, if we are ever to be friends, here, tell me!

There's a vital reason why I must know at once!"

"But, Jane, I can't," he earnestly replied to her. "It was someone to see me!"

"You are cruel to try to spare me this way," she gasped, and the tears in her voice turned him to a being of great tenderness. "Can't you see I'm desperate?--that your evasions are torturing me? Who was that man?"

"Man?" he stared at her. "It wasn't a man!"

"Oh," she said, loosing his arm and stepping back with a half earnest, half hysterical little laugh. "Oh," she repeated, "I--you must forgive me! I thought it was someone--I thought it might be someone who touched me very closely, Brent!"

He stood looking down at her. How could he know she had been fearful of Potter?

"It seems," he slowly mused, "that we've nearly stumbled on each other's secrets. I didn't suspect you were waiting for anyone, or I shouldn't have stayed."

"But I wasn't," she quickly retorted.

"Certainly," he drily agreed with her. "Very stupid of me to suggest it."