The Cow Puncher Part 28

"I know, Dave." She had to hold herself in check lest the tenderness that welled within her, and would shape words of endearing sympathy in her mind, should find utterance in speech. "I know, Dave," she said.

"The next thing then is to make sure in your own mind whether you ever really loved Irene Hardy."

He sprang to his feet. "Loved Irene!" he exclaimed, and she was in a turmoil of fear and hope that he would approach her. But he paced his own side of the room.

"Edith," he said, "there is no way of explaining this. You can't understand. I know you have given yourself up to a life of service, and I honour you very much, and all that, but there are some things you won't be able to understand. You can't understand just how much I loved Irene."

"I think I can," she answered, quietly. "You have kept your love faithful and single for a dozen years, and I--I think I can understand.

But that isn't why I asked. Because if you loved Irene a week ago you love her to-night."

"Have you never known of love being turned to hate?"

"No. Other impulses may be, but not love. Love can no more turn to hate than sunlight can turn to darkness. Believe me, Dave, if you hate Irene now you never loved her. Listen:

"'Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, _endureth_ all things!'"

"Not all things, Edith; not all things."

"It says _all_ things."

Dave was silent for some time. When he spoke again she caught a different sound in his voice; a tone as though his soul in those few moments had gone through a life-time of experience.

"Edith," he said, "when you repeated those words I knew you had something that I have not. I knew it, not by the words, but by the way you said them. You made me feel that you were not setting a higher standard for me than you would accept for yourself. You made me _know_ that in your own life, if you loved, you would be ready to endure all things. Tell me, Edith, how may this thing be done?"

She trembled with delight at the new tone in his voice, for she knew that in that hour Dave had crossed a boundary of his life and entered into a new and richer field of existence. She knew that for him life would never again be the empty, flippant, selfish, irresponsible thing which in the past he had called life. He was already beginning to taste of that wine of compensation provided for those who pa.s.s through the valley of sorrow.

"In your case," she said, "the course is simple. It is just a case of forgiving."

He gazed for a time into the street, while thoughts of bitterness and revenge fought for domination of his mind. "Edith," he said at length, "must I--forgive?"

"I do not say you must," she answered. "I merely say if you are wise you will. Forgiveness is the balm of our moral life, by which we keep the wounds of the soul from festering and poisoning the spirit.

Nothing, it seems to me, is so much misunderstood as forgiveness. The popular idea is that the whole benefit of forgiveness is to the person who is forgiven. Really, there is a very much greater benefit to the person who forgives. The one who is forgiven may merely escape punishment, but the one who forgives experiences a positive spiritual expansion. Believe me, Dave, it is the only philosophy which rings true under the most critical tests; which is absolutely dependable in every emergency."

"Is that Christianity?" he ventured.

"It is one side of Christianity. The other side is service. If you are willing to forgive and ready to serve I don't think you need worry much over the details of your creed. Creeds, after all, are not expressed in words, but in lives. When you know how a man lives you know what he believes--always."

"Suppose I forgive--what then?"

"Service. You are needed right now, Dave--forgive my frankness--your country needs you right now. You have the qualities which make you extremely valuable. You must dismiss this grievance from your mind, at least dismiss your resentment over it, and then place yourself at the disposal of your country. The way is so clear that it cannot be misunderstood."

"That is what I had been thinking of," he said. "At least that part about serving my country, although I don't think my motives were as high as you would make them. But the war can't last. It'll be all over before I can take a hand. Civilization has gone too far for such a thing as this to last. It is unbelievable."

"I'm not so sure," she answered, gravely. "Of course, I know nothing about Germany. But I do know something about our own people. I know how selfish and individualistic and sordid and money-grabbing we have been; how slothful and incompetent and self-satisfied we have been, and I fear it will take a long war and sacrifices and tragedies altogether beyond our present imagination to make us unselfish and public-spirited and clean and generous; it will take the strain and emergency of war to make us vigorous and efficient; it will take the sting of many defeats to impose that humility which will be the beginning of our regeneration. I am not worrying about the defeat of Germany. If our civilization is better than that of Germany we shall win, ultimately, and if our civilization is worse than that of Germany we shall be defeated, ultimately,--and we shall deserve to be defeated. But I rather think that neither of these alternatives will be the result. I rather think that the test of war will show that there are elements in German civilization which are better than ours, and elements in our civilization which are better than theirs, and that the good elements will survive and form the basis of a new civilization better than either."

"If that is so," Dave replied, "if this war is but the working out of immutable law which proposes to put all the elements of civilization to the supreme test and retain only those which are justifiable by that test, why should I--or any one else--fight? And," he added as an after-thought, "what about that principle of forgiveness?"

"We must fight," she answered, "because it is the law that we must fight; because it is only by fighting that we can justify the principles for which we fight. If we hold our principles as being not worth fighting for the new civilization will throw those principles in the discard. And that, too, covers the question of forgiveness.

Forgiveness, in fact, does not enter into the consideration at all. We must fight, not because we hate Germany, but because we love certain principles which Germany is endeavouring to overthrow. The impulse must be love, not hate."

She had turned and faced him while she spoke, and he felt himself strangely carried away by the earnestness and fervour of her argument.

What a wonderful woman she was! How she had stripped the issue of the detail and circ.u.mstance which was confusing even statesmen, and laid it before him in positive terms which he could find no argument to dispute! And how in his hour of distress, when he stood on the verge of utter recklessness and indifference, she had infused into him a strange and new ambition--an ambition which deepened and enriched every phase of life, and yet which held life itself less worthy than its own attainment! And as he looked at her he again thought of Irene, and suddenly he felt himself engulfed in a great tenderness, and he knew that even yet----

"What am I to do?" he said. "I am willing to accept your philosophy.

I admit that mine has broken down, and I am willing to try yours. What am I to do?"

In the darkness of her own shadow she set her teeth for that answer.

It was to be the crowning act of her self-renunciation, and it strained every fibre of her resolution. She could not allow him to stay where he was, even in uniform. The danger was two-fold. In a moment of weakness he would probably shoot Conward, and in a moment of weakness she would probably disclose her love. And if Dave should ever marry her he must win her first.

"You had better go overseas and enlist in England," she told him calmly, although her nails were biting her palms. "You will get quicker action that way. And when you come back you must see Irene, and you must learn from your own heart whether you really loved her or not. And if you find you did not, then--then you will be free to--to--to think of some other woman."

"I am afraid I shall never care to think of any other woman," he answered. "Except you. But some way you're different. I don't think of you as a woman, you know; not really, in a way. I can't explain it, Edith, but you're something more--something better than all that."

"I a.s.sure you I am very much a woman--"

But he had sprung to his feet. "Edith, I can never thank you enough for what you have said to me to-night. You have put some spirit back into my body. I am going to follow your advice. There's a train east in two hours and I'm going on it. Fortunately my property, or most of it, has dissolved the way it came. I must pack a few things, and have a bath and shave and dress."

She moved toward him with extended hand. "Good-bye, Dave," she said.

He held her hand fast in his. "Good-bye, Edith. I can never forget--I can never repay--all you have been. It may sound foolish to you after all I have said, but I sometimes wonder if--if I had not met Irene--if----" He paused and went hot with embarra.s.sment. What would she think of him? An hour ago he had been ready to kill or be killed in grief over his frustrated love, and already he was practically making love to her. Had he brought her to his rooms for this? What a hypocrite he was!

"Forgive me, Edith," he said, as he released her. "I am not quite myself. . . . I hold you in very high respect as one of G.o.d's good women. Good-bye."

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

When Irene Hardy pursued Dave from the house the roar of his motor car was already drowned in the hum of the city streets. Hatless she ran the length of a full block; then, realizing the futility of such a chase, returned with almost equal haste to her home. She burst in and discovered Conward holding a bottle of smelling salts to the nose of her mother, who had sufficiently recovered to sit upright in her chair.

"What is the meaning of this?" she demanded of Conward. "Why did he threaten to shoot, and why did he leave as he did? You know; tell me."

"I am sure I wish I could tell you," said Conward, with all his accustomed suavity. In truth Conward, having somewhat recovered from his fright, was in rather good spirits. Things had gone better than he had dared to hope. Elden was eliminated, for the present at any rate, and now was the time to win Irene. Not just now, perhaps, but soon, when the shock of her interrupted pa.s.sion turned her to him for companionship.

She stood before him, flushed and vibrating, and with flashing eyes.

"You're lying, Conward," she said, deliberately. "First you lied to him and now you lie to me. There can be no other explanation. Where is that gun? He said I would know what to do with it."

"I have it," said Conward, partly carried off his feet by her violence.

"I will keep it until you are a little more reasonable, and, perhaps, a little more respectful."

"Irene," said Mrs. Hardy, sharply, "what way is that to speak to Mr.

Conward? You are out of your head, child. Such a scene, Mr. Conward.

Such a scene in my house! That cow _puncher_! I always knew it would come out some time. It is breeding that tells, Mr. Conward. Oh, if the papers should learn of this!"

"That's all you think of," Irene retorted. "A scene, and the papers.

You don't trouble to even wonder what was the occasion of the scene.

You and this--this _biped_, are at the bottom of it. You have been planning to force me along a course I will not go, and you have done something, something horrible--I don't know what--to cause Dave to act as he did. But I'm going to know. I'm going to find out. You're afraid of the papers. I'm not. I'll give the whole story to them to-morrow. I'll tell that you insulted him, Conward, and how you stood there, a grinning, gaping coward under the muzzle of his gun. How I wish I had a photograph of it," she exclaimed, with a little hysterical laugh. "It would look fine on the front page." She broke into peals of laughter and rushed up the stairs.

In the morning she was very sober and pale, and marks of distress and sleeplessness were furrowed in her face. She greeted her mother with cold civility, and left her breakfast untouched. She gave part of her morning to Charlie; it was saving balm to her to have some one upon whom she could pour affection. Then she went to the telephone. She called Dave's office; nothing was known of Mr. Elden; he had been working there last night; he was not down yet. She called his apartments; there was no answer. Then, with a bright thought, she called the garage. Mr. Elden's car was out; had not been in at all during the night. Then she tried a new number.