The Bad Man Part 10

"You went away from Maine without my knowing--without even coming to say good-bye. Was that fair, was that the thing for a man like you to do?"

How he wished she had not brought up these burning memories!

"I was broke, and I--" he managed to explain.

Lucia knew what he must be feeling now. She got up and went over to his side; she did not dare place her hand in his. Never must there be again that electric current between them. "But you're all right now, aren't you, Gil?"

He seemed abstracted, suddenly lost in another world. "Huh?" he uttered.

Then, as if coming to himself, "Oh, my, yes! I'm doing splendidly now, Lucia!"

"I'm so glad, Gil. But you haven't answered my question yet."

"About my not coming to say good-bye?"

She nodded.

"It was pride, I suppose," he went on.

"Very foolish pride. And life is so short. You hurt me a great deal."

"I'm sorry. What more can one say? If I--"

"I thought I had done something to offend you," she said, standing very still, and looking far beyond him now, as though viewing their whole unhappy past. "And it's worried me even until this very day. I didn't do anything to offend you, did I, Gil?"

"You? You, Lucia?" he cried. "You couldn't do anything to offend me. Surely you must know that." He said it as a man says such things to the one woman he loves.

"It was only pride?" she was anxious to know again. "Because you were poor!

Gil! Did you think so little of me as that?" There was a half-sob in her voice.

"I hoped to pick a fortune off a tree somewhere, and come back and surprise you with it. I was going to buy an automobile--one of those low ones as long as a Pullman car--and fill it with roses, and come dashing up to your front door and take you for a ride through the hills. It was to be autumn.

I had even that fixed," he laughed. "Oh, I had everything thought out! And you were going to be so proud of me!... But I couldn't find a fortune-tree anywhere...." He looked away, embarra.s.sed. He hadn't meant to tell her this.

"Gil!" she cried.

"I guess they don't grow any more. At least, not in this part of the country." He rose, a bit wearily, and walked over to the mantel-piece.

"What did you do, Gil?" she asked, her eyes following him.

"Well, I was a time-keeper on a railroad and weigh-boss in a coal mine.

After that I punched cows until I got uncle to come here. Then the war started, and--that's all."

Then she asked what a woman always asks.

"Why didn't you ever write to me, Gil?"

"I was waiting for some good news to tell you. I felt you would consider me a failure--a rank failure. I couldn't have stood that. Women don't know how proud men are about that."

"Maybe we don't--and maybe we do, Gil." She went closer to him. "Why don't you marry?" she dared to inquire.

He was startled. "Marry?" he repeated.

"Yes; you need someone to take care of you--someone to look after your daily needs--every man does."

"I guess there's no doubt about that. But it ought to be a guardian in my case; or maybe a keeper." She could see that he was stalling for time, and trying to laugh off a topic that was serious indeed to him.

"We're such old friends, Gil," she said, looking at his handsome face. "I don't like to go--to think of you always, like this--alone."

"I still have uncle," he reminded her.

"Oh, don't joke, Gil! You need a woman--a wife--someone to mother you."

"All those?"

Why couldn't he be serious for a moment? She asked him that.

"I don't dare to, Lucia." His voice was low.

She was a bit puzzled. "Why?"

"Because the minute you begin to take life seriously, it takes _you_ that way, and then--"

"But don't you see what it would mean to you, dear Gil? To have someone always here; to kiss you when you go; to greet you when you come back; to laugh with you when you are glad; and comfort you when things go wrong. To give you the sympathy, the understanding that a man finds only in a woman's heart. Don't you see, Gil?"

"Yes, of course I see," he said, his head bowed a little.

"Then why don't you, Gil? She'd make you very happy--a woman like that. I want you to understand."

"Don't you suppose I do? Don't you suppose I've always understood, ever since--"

"Ever since when, Gil? Then you have known such a woman?"

He moved his head.

"You have!... And you cared for her?"

He nodded again.

"You loved her?" she hurried on.

His voice was hoa.r.s.e. "Yes." The monosyllable got out somehow.

"You still love her. I know it, I can see it. Who is she, Gil? I want to know."

"Don't you know?" he asked, and looked her straight in the eyes.

Before she could answer, there were footsteps outside, and Pell could be heard whistling. He rushed in now, the bag still clutched in his hand. At once he sensed something strange in their att.i.tude, and he eyed both of them shrewdly, covertly, briefly. Not a word was uttered. He threw the bag on the table, as though he had noticed nothing, and in the most matter-of-fact tone said,

"Say, how about dinner?"