The Conflict Part 34

"Why should you be?" she went on. "But ever since you opened my eyes and set me to thinking, I can do nothing but think about the things you have said to me, and long to come to you and ask you questions and hear more."

Victor was staring hard into the wall of foliage. His face was set.

She thought she had never seen anything so resolute, so repelling as the curve of his long jaw bone.

"I'll go now," she said, making a pretended move toward rising.

"I've no right to annoy you."

He stood up abruptly, without looking at her. "Yes, you'd better go,"

he said curtly.

She quivered--and it was with a pang of genuine pain.

His gaze was not so far from her as it seemed. For he must have noted her expression, since he said hurriedly: "I beg your pardon. It isn't that I mean to be rude. I--I--it is best that I do not see you."

She sank back in the chair with a sigh. "And I--I know that I ought to keep away from you. But--I can't. It's too strong for me."

He looked at her slowly. "I have made up my mind to put you out of my head," he said. "And I shall."

"Don't!" she cried. "Victor--don't!"

He sat again, rested his forearms upon the table, leaned toward her.

"Look at me," he said.

She slowly lifted her gaze to his, met it steadily. "I thought so, Victor," she said tenderly. "I knew I couldn't care so much unless you cared at least a little ."

"Do I?" said he. "I don't know. I doubt if either of us is in love with the other. Certainly, you are not the sort of woman I could love--deeply love. What I feel for you is the sort of thing that pa.s.ses. It is violent while it lasts, but it pa.s.ses."

"I don't care!" cried she recklessly. "Whatever it is I want it!"

He shook his head resolutely. "No," he said. "You don't want it, and I don't want it. I know the kind of life you've mapped out for yourself--as far as women of your cla.s.s map out anything. It's the only kind of life possible to you. And it's of a kind with which I could, and would, have nothing to do."

"Why do you say that?" protested she. "You could make of me what you pleased."

"No," said he. "I couldn't make a suit of overalls out of a length of silk. Anyhow, I have made up my life with love and marriage left out.

They are excellent things for some people, for most people. But not for me. I must be free, absolutely free. Free to think only of the cause I've enlisted in, free to do what it commands."

"And I?" she said with tremendous life. "What is to become of me, Victor?"

He laughed quietly. "You are going to keep away from me--find some one else to amuse your leisure. That's what's going to become of you, Jane Hastings."

She winced and quivered again. "That--hurts," she said.

"Your vanity? Yes. I suppose it does. But those wounds are healthful--when the person is as sensible as you are."

"You think I am not capable of caring! You think I am vain and shallow and idle. You refuse me all right to live, simply because I happen to live in surroundings you don't approve of."

"I'm not such an egotistical a.s.s as to imagine a woman of your sort could be genuinely in love with a man of my sort," replied he. "So, I'll see to it that we keep away from each other. I don't wish to be tempted to do you mischief."

She looked at him inquiringly.

But he did not explain. He said: "And you are going now. And we shall not meet again except by accident."

She gave a sigh of hopelessness. "I suppose I have lowered myself in your eyes by being so frank--by showing and speaking what I felt," she said mournfully.

"Not in the least," rejoined he. "A man who is anybody or has anything soon gets used to frankness in women. I could hardly have gotten past thirty, in a more or less conspicuous position, without having had some experience.... and without learning not to attach too much importance to--to frankness in women."

She winced again. "You wouldn't say those things if you knew how they hurt," she said. "If I didn't care for you, could I sit here and let you laugh at me?"

"Yes, you could," answered he. "Hoping somehow or other to turn the laugh upon me later on. But really I was not laughing at you. And you can spare yourself the effort of convincing me that you're sincere."

He was frankly laughing at her now. "You don't understand the situation--not at all. You fancy that I am hanging back because I am overwhelmed or shy or timid. I a.s.sure you I've never been shy or timid about anything I wanted. If I wanted you--I'd--TAKE you."

She caught her breath and shrank. Looking at him as he said that, calmly and confidently, she, for the first time, was in love--and was afraid. Back to her came Selma's warnings: "One may not trifle with love. A woman conquers only by surrender."

"But, as I said to you a while ago," he went on, "I don't want you--or any woman. I've no time for marriage--no time for a flirtation. And though you tempt me strongly, I like you too well to--to treat you as you invite."

Jane sat motionless, stunned by the sudden turning of the tables.

She who had come to conquer--to amuse herself, to evoke a strong, hopeless pa.s.sion that would give her a delightful sense of warmth as she stood safely by its bright flames--she had been conquered.

She belonged to this man; all he had to do was to claim her.

In a low voice, sweet and sincere beyond any that had ever come from her lips before, she said:

"Anything, Victor--anything--but don't send me away."

And he, seeing and hearing, lost his boasted self-control. "Go--go," he cried harshly. "If you don't go----" He came round the table, seizing her as she rose, kissed her upon the lips, upon the eyes. "You are lovely--lovely!" he murmured. "And I who can't have flowers on my table or in sight when I've got anything serious to do--I love your perfume and your color and the wonderful softness of you----"

He pushed her away. "Now--will you go?" he cried.

His eyes were flashing. And she was trembling from head to foot.

She was gazing at him with a fascinated expression. "I understand what you meant when you warned me to go," she said. "I didn't believe it, but it was so."

"Go--I tell you!" he ordered.

"It's too late," said she. "You can't send me away now--for you have kissed me. If I'm in your power, you're in my power, too."

Moved by the same impulse both looked up the arbor toward the rear door of the house. There stood Selma Gordon, regarding them with an expression of anger as wild as the blood of the steppes that flowed in her veins. Victor, with what composure he could master, put out his hand in farewell to Jane. He had been too absorbed in the emotions raging between him and her to note Selma's expression. But Jane, the woman, had seen. As she shook hands with Victor, she said neither high nor low:

"Selma knows that I care. I told her the night of the riot."

"Good-by," said Victor in a tone she thought it wise not to dispute.

"I'll be in the woods above the park at ten tomorrow," she said in an undertone. Then to Selma, unsmilingly: "You're not interrupting. I'm going." Selma advanced. The two girls looked frank hostility into each other's eyes. Jane did not try to shake hands with her. With a nod and a forced smile of conventional friendliness upon her lips, she pa.s.sed her and went through the house and into the street.

She lingered at the gate, opening and closing it in a most leisurely fashion--a significantly different exit from her furtive and ashamed entrance. Love and revolt were running high and hot in her veins. She longed openly to defy the world--her world.