The Cost Part 28

She shrugged her shoulders. "I've always suspected the men who asked me. They were--" She did not finish what she feared might be an unwise, repelling remark in the circ.u.mstances.

"They were after your money," he finished for her.

She nodded. "They were Europeans," she explained. "Europeans want money when they marry."

"That's another of the curses of riches," he said judicially. "And if you marry a rich man over here, you may be pretty sure he'll marry you for your money. I've observed that rich men attach an exaggerated importance to money, always."

"I'd prefer to marry a poor man," she hastened to answer, her heart beating faster--certainly his warning against rich suitors must have been designed to help his own cause with her.

"Yes, that might be better," he agreed. "But you would have to be careful after you were married or he might fancy you were using your money to tyrannize over him. I've noticed that the poor husbands of rich women are supersensitive--often for cause."

"Oh, I'd give it all to him. He could do what he pleased with it. I'd not care so long as we were happy."

Scarborough liked the spirit of this, liked her look as she said it.

"That's very generous--very like you," he replied warmly. "But I don't think it would be at all wise. You'd be in a dangerous position. You might spoil him--great wealth is a great danger, and when it's suddenly acquired, and so easily-- No, you'd better put your wealth aside and only use so much of it as will make your income equal to his--if you can stand living economically."

"I could stand anything with or from any one I cared for." Gladys was eager for the conversation to turn from the general to the particular.

She went on, forcing her voice to hide her interest: "And you, why don't you cure your blues?"

"Oh, I shall," he replied carelessly. "But not with your medicine.

Every one to his own prescription."

"And what's yours for yourself?" said Gladys, feeling tired and nervous from the strain of this delayed happiness.

"Mine?" He laughed. "My dreams."

"You are a strange combination, aren't you? In one way you're so very practical--with your politics and all that. And in another way--I suspect you of being sentimental--almost romantic."

"You've plucked out the heart of my mystery. My real name is non Quixote de Saint X."

"And has your Dulcinea red hands and a flat nose and freckles like the lady of Toboso?" Gladys' hands were white, her nose notably fine, her skin transparently clear.

"Being Don Quixote, I don't know it if she has."

"And you prefer to worship afar, and to send her news of your triumphs instead of going to her yourself?"

"I dare not go." He was looking away, far away. "There are wicked enchanters. I'm powerless. She alone can break their spells."

They walked in silence, her heart beating so loudly that she thought he must be hearing it, must be hearing what it was saying. Yes--she must break the spells. But how--but how? What must she say to make him see? Did he expect her to ask him to marry her? She had heard that rich women often were forced to make this concession to the pride of the men they wished to marry. On the other hand, was there ever a man less likely than Scarborough to let any obstacle stand between him and what he wanted?

The first huge drops of a summer rain pattered in big, round stains, brown upon the white of the road. He glanced up--a cloud was rolling from beyond the cliffs, was swiftly curtaining the blue.

"Come," he commanded, and they darted into the underbrush, he guiding her by her arm. A short dash among the trees and bushes and they were at the base of the bluff, were shielded by a shelf of rock.

"It'll be over soon," he a.s.sured her. "But you must stand close or you'll be drenched."

A clap of thunder deafened them as a flame and a force enswathed the sycamore tree a few yards away, blowing off its bark, scattering its branches, making it all in an instant a blackened and blasted wreck.

Gladys gave a low scream of terror, fell against him, hid her face in his shoulder. She was trembling violently. He put his arm round her--if he had not supported her she would have fallen. She leaned against him, clinging to him, so that he felt the beat of her heart, the swell and fall of her bosom, felt the rush of her young blood through her veins, felt the thrill from her smooth, delicate, olive skin. And he, too, was trembling--shaken in all his nerves.

"Don't be afraid," he said--in his voice he unconsciously betrayed the impulse that was fighting for possession of him.

She drew herself closer to him with a long, tremulous sigh.

"I'm a coward," she murmured. "I'm shaking so that I can't stand."

She tried to draw herself away--or did she only make pretense to him and to herself that she was trying?--then relaxed again into his arms.

The thunder cracked and crashed; the lightnings leaped in streaks and in sheets; the waters gushed from the torn clouds and obscured the light like a heavy veil. She looked up at him in the dimness--she, too, was drunk with the delirium of the storms raging without and within them. His brain swam giddily. The points of gold in her dark eyes were drawing him like so many powerful magnets. Their lips met and he caught her up in his arms. And for a moment all the fire of his intensely masculine nature, so long repressed, raged over her lips, her eyes, her hair, her cheeks, her chin.

A moment she lay, happy as a petrel, beaten by a tempest; a moment her thirsty heart drank in the ecstasy of the lightnings through her lips and skin and hair.

She opened her eyes to find out why there was a sudden calm. She saw him staring with set, white face through the rain-veil. His arms still held her, but where they had been like the clasp of life itself, they were now dead as the arms of a statue. A feeling of cold chilled her skin, trickled icily in and in. She released herself--he did not oppose her.

"It seems to me I'll never be able to look you--or myself--in the face again," he said at last.

"I didn't know it was in me to--to take advantage of a woman's helplessness."

"I wanted you to do what you did," she said simply.

He shook his head. "You are generous," he answered. "But I deserve nothing but your contempt."

"I wanted you to do it," she repeated. She was under the spell of her love and of his touch. She was clutching to save what she could, was desperately hoping it might not be so little as she feared. "I had the--the same impulse that you had." She looked at him timidly, with a pleading smile. "And please don't say you're sorry you did it, even if you feel so. You'll think me very bold--I know it isn't proper for young women to make such admissions. But--don't reproach yourself--please!"

If she could have looked into his mind as he stood there, crushed and degraded in his own eyes, she would have been a little consoled--for, in defiance of his self-scorn and self-hate, his nerves were tingling with the memory of that delirium, and his brain was throbbing with the surge of impulses long dormant, now imperious. But she was not even looking toward him--for, through her sense of shame, of wounded pride, her love was clamoring to her to cry out: "Take me in your arms again!

I care not on what terms, only take me and hold me and kiss me."

The rain presently ceased as abruptly as it had begun and they returned under the dripping leaves to the highroad. She glanced anxiously at him as they walked toward the town, but he did not speak. She saw that if the silence was to be broken, she must break it.

"What can I say to convince you?" she asked, as if not he but she were the offender.

He did not answer.

"Won't you look at me, please?"

He looked, the color mounting in his cheeks, his eyes unsteady.

"Now, tell me you'll not make me suffer because you fancy you've wronged me. Isn't it ungallant of you to act this way after I've humiliated myself to confess I didn't mind?"

"Thank you," he said humbly, and looked away.

"You won't have it that I was in the least responsible?" She was teasing him now--he was plainly unaware of the meaning of her yielding.

"He's so modest," she thought, and went on: "You won't permit me to flatter myself I was a temptation too strong even for your iron heart, Don Quixote?"

He flushed scarlet, and the suspicion, the realization of the truth set her eyes to flashing.

"It's before another woman he's abasing himself," she thought, "not before me. He isn't even thinking of me." When she spoke her tone was cold and sneering: "I hope she will forgive you. She certainly would if she could know what a paladin you are."

He winced, but did not answer. At the road up the bluffs she paused and there was an embarra.s.sed silence. Then he poured out abrupt sentences: