The Beauty and the Bolshevist Part 10

"I don't," he answered. "I hate it--I hate all violence. We--labor, I mean--didn't initiate this, but when men won't see, when they have power and won't stop abusing it, there is only one way to make--"

"Why, Ben," said Crystal, "you're just a pacifist in other people's quarrels, but as militaristic as can be in your own. I'm not a pacifist, but I'm a better one than you, because I don't believe in emphasizing any difference between human beings. That's why I want a League of Nations. I hate gangs--all women really do. Little girls don't form gangs like little boys. Every settlement worker knows that.

I won't have you say that I belong to the other group. I won't be cla.s.sified. I'm a human being--and I intend to behave as such."

Since she had left him she had been immersed again in her old life--her old friends--and the result had been to make her wonder if her experience with Ben had been as wonderful as it had seemed. When she stopped for him she had been almost prepared to find that the wild joy of their meetings had been something accidental and temporary, and that only a stimulating and pleasant friendship was left. But as soon as she saw that he really regarded their differences seriously, all her own prudence and doubt melted away. She knew she was ready to make any sacrifices for him, and in view of that all talk of obstacles was folly.

She stopped the car on the point of the island, with the open sea on one hand, the harbor on the other. In front of them the lightship was moving with a slow, majestic roll, and to the right was the long festoon of Narragansett lights, and as they stopped the lighted bulk of the New York boat appeared, making its way toward Point Judith.

His prolonged silence began to frighten her.

"Ben," she said, "do you seriously mean that you believe friendship between us is impossible?"

"Friendship, nothing," answered Moreton. "I love you."

He said it as if it had always been understood between them, as of course it had, but the instant he said it, he gave her a quick, appealing look to see how she would take so startling an a.s.sertion.

If Crystal had poured out just what was in her mind at that second she would have answered: "Of course you do. I've known that longer than you have. And can't you see that if I had had any doubt about its being true, I'd have taken steps to make it true? But, as I really did not doubt it, I've been able to be quite pa.s.sive and leave it mostly to you, which I so much prefer."

But rigorous candor is rarely attained, and Crystal did not say this. In fact, for a few seconds she did not say anything, but merely allowed her eyes to shine upon him, with the inevitable result that at the end of precisely six seconds of their benevolent invitation he took her in his arms and kissed her. It was a very unprotected point, and several cars were standing not too far away, but Crystal, who had an excellent sense of proportion, made no objection whatever. She was being proved right in two important particulars--first, that she was a human being, and second, that there was no barrier between them.

She was very generous about it. She did not say, "Where's your barrier now?" or anything like that; she simply said nothing, and the barrier pa.s.sed out of the conversation and was no more seen.

Very soon, alleging that she must get home at the time at which she usually did get home from dinners, she took him back; but she soothed him with the promise of an uninterrupted day to follow.

Time--the mere knowledge of unbroken hours ahead--is a boon which real love cannot do without. Minor feelings may flourish on s.n.a.t.c.hed interviews and stolen meetings, but love demands--and usually gets--protected leisure. The next day these lovers had it. They spent the morning, when Mr. Cord was known to be playing golf, at the Cords' house, and then when Mr. Cord telephoned that he was staying to luncheon at the club, if Crystal did not object (and Crystal did not), she and Ben arranged a picnic--at least Tomes did, and they went off about one o'clock in the blue car. They went to a pool in the rocks that Crystal had always known about, with high walls around it, and here, with a curtain of foam between them and the sea, for the waves were rising, they ate lunch, as much alone as on a desert island.

It was here that Ben asked her to marry him, or, to be accurate, it was here that they first began talking about their life together, and whether Nora would become reconciled to another woman about the flat.

The nearest approach to a definite proposal was Ben's saying:

"You would not mind my saying something about all this to your father before I go this evening, would you?"

And Crystal replied: "Poor father! It will be a blow, I'm afraid."

"Well," said Ben, "he told me himself that he liked me better than David."

"That's not saying much."

At this Ben laughed lightly.

He might have had his wrong-headed notions about barriers, but he was not so un-American as to regard a father as an obstacle.

"But, oh, Crystal," he added, "suppose you find you do hate being poor. It is a bore in some ways."

Crystal, who had been tucking away the complicated dishes of her luncheon basket, looked at Ben and lightly sucked one finger to which some raspberry jam from Tomes's supernal sandwiches had adhered.

"I sha'n't mind it a bit, Ben," she said, "and for a good reason--because I'm terribly conceited." He did not understand at all, and she went on: "I believe I shall be just as much of a person--perhaps more--without money. The women who really mind being poor are the humble-minded ones, who think that they are made by their clothes and their lovely houses and their maids and their sables. When they lose them they lose all their personality, and of course that terrifies them. I don't think I shall lose mine. Does it shock you to know that I think such a lot of myself?"

It appeared it did not shock him at all.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Suppose you find you do hate being poor?"]

When they reached the house she established him in the drawing-room and went off to find her father.

She was a true woman, by which is meant now and always that she preferred to allow a man to digest his dinner before she tried to bring him to a rational opinion. But in this case her hands were tied.

The Cords dined at eight--or sometimes a little later, and Ben's boat left for New York at half past nine, so that it would be utterly impossible to postpone the discussion of her future until after dinner. It had to be done at once.

Crystal ran up and knocked at his bedroom door. Loud splashings from the adjoining bathroom were all the answer she got. She sat down on the stairs and waited. Those are the moments that try men's and even women's souls. For the first time her enterprise seemed to her a little reckless. For an instant she had the surprising experience of recognizing the fact that Ben was a total stranger. She looked at the gray-stone stairway on which she was sitting and thought that her life had been as safe and sheltered as a cloister, and now, steered by this total stranger, she proposed to launch herself on an uncharted course of change. And to this program she was to bring her father's consent--for she knew very well that if she couldn't, Ben wouldn't be able to--in the comparatively short time between now and dinner. Then, the splashing having ceased, the sound of bureau drawers succeeded, and Crystal sprang up and knocked again.

"That you, Peters?" said an unencouraging voice. (Peters was Mr.

Cord's valet.)

"No, dear, it's I," said Crystal.

"Oh, come in," said Mr. Cord. He was standing in the middle of the room in his shirt sleeves and gloomily contemplating the shirt he wore. "What's this laundress, anyhow? A Bolshevist or a pastry-cook?"

he said. "Did you ever see anything like this shirt?"

Crystal approached and studied the shirt. It appeared to her to be perfectly done up, but she said: "Yes, dear, how terrible! I'll pack her off to-morrow, but you always look all right whatever you wear; that's some comfort." She saw that even this hadn't done much good, and, going to the heart of the problem, she asked, "How did your golf go?"

Mr. Cord's gloom gathered as he answered, with resignation, "Oh, all right."

His manner was exactly similar to Ben's in his recent moment of depression, and not unlike McKellar's when he had explained what he suffered under the good Lord's weather.

"Is Eddie's game any better?" asked Crystal, feeling her way.

"No," cried her father, contemptuously. "He's rotten, but I'm worse.

And golf-clubs, Crystal! No one can make a club any more. Have you noticed that? But the truth of the matter is, I'm getting too old to play golf." And Mr. Cord sat down with a good but unconscious imitation of a broken old man.

Of course Crystal swept this away. She scolded him a little, pointed out his recent prowess, and spoke slightingly of all younger athletes, but she really had not time to do the job thoroughly, for the thought of Ben, sitting so anxious in the drawing-room alone, hurried her on.

"Anyhow, dear," she said, "I've come to talk to you about something terribly important. What would you say, father, if I told you I was engaged?"

Mr. Cord was so startled that he said, what was rare for him, the first thing that came into his head:

"Not to Eddie?"

The true diplomatist, we have been told, simply takes advantage of chance, and Crystal was diplomatic. "And suppose it is?" she replied.

"I should refuse my consent," replied her father.

Crystal looked hurt. "Is there anything against Eddie," she asked, "except his golf?"

"Yes," answered her father, "there are two of the most serious things in the world against him--first, that he doesn't amount to anything; and second, that you don't love him."

"No," Crystal admitted, "I don't, but then--love--father, isn't love rather a serious undertaking nowadays? Is it a particularly helpful adjunct to marriage? Look at poor Eugenia. Isn't it really more sensible to marry a nice man who can support one, and then if in time one does fall in love with another man--"

"Never let me hear you talk like that again, Crystal," said her father, with a severity and vigor he seldom showed outside of board meetings. "It's only your ignorance of life that saves you from being actually revolting. I'm an old man and not sentimental, you'll grant, but, take my word for it, love is the only hope of pulling off marriage successfully, and even then it's not easy. As for Eugenia, I think she's made a fool of herself and is going to be unhappy, but I'd rather do what she has done than what you're contemplating. At least she cared for that fellow--"

"I'm glad you feel like that, darling," said Crystal, "because it isn't Eddie I'm engaged to, but Ben Moreton. He's waiting downstairs now."