The Desert of Wheat Part 37

Lenore felt the blushes in her cheeks and was glad Dorn did not look at her. He seemed locked in somber thought. As she touched him and bade him come he gave a start; then he followed her into the hall. Lenore closed her father's door, and the instant she stood alone with Dorn a wonderful calmness came to her.

"Miss Anderson, I'd rather not--not meet your mother and sisters to-night," said Dorn. "I'm upset. Won't it be all right to wait till to-morrow?"

"Surely. But I think they've gone to bed," replied Lenore, as she glanced into the dark sitting-room. "So they have.... Come, let us go into the parlor."

Lenore turned on the shaded lights in the beautiful room. How inexplicable was the feeling of being alone with him, yet utterly free of the torment that had possessed her before! She seemed to have divined an almost insurmountable obstacle in Dorn's will. She did not have her father's a.s.surance. It made her tremble to realize her responsibility --that her father's earnest wishes and her future of love or woe depended entirely upon what she said and did. But she felt that indeed she had become a woman. And it would take a woman's wit and charm and love to change this tragic boy.

"Miss--Anderson," he began, brokenly, with restraint let down, "your father--doesn't understand. I've _got_ to go.... And even if I am spared--I couldn't ever come back.... To work for him--all the time in love with you--I couldn't stand it.... He's so good. I know I could care for him, too.... Oh, I thought I was bitterly resigned--hard--inhuman.

But all this makes it--so--so much worse."

He sat down heavily, and, completely unnerved, he covered his face with his hands. His shoulders heaved and short, strangled sobs broke from him.

Lenore had to overcome a rush of tenderness. It was all she could do to keep from dropping to her knees beside him and slipping her arms around his neck. In her agitation she could not decide whether that would be womanly or not; only, she must make no mistakes. A hot, sweet flush went over her when she thought that always as a last resort she could reveal her secret and use her power. What would he do when he discovered she loved him?

"Kurt, I understand," she said, softly, and put a hand on his shoulder.

And she stood thus beside him, sadly troubled, vaguely divining that her presence was helpful, until he recovered his composure. As he raised his head and wiped tears from his eyes he made no excuses for his weakness, nor did he show any shame.

"Miss Anderson--" he began.

"Please call me Lenore. I feel so--so stiff when you are formal. My friends call me Lenore," she said.

"You mean--you consider me your friend?" he queried.

"Indeed I do," she replied, smiling.

"I--I'm afraid I misunderstood your asking me to visit you," he said. "I thank you. I'm proud and glad that you call me your friend. It will be splendid to remember--when I am over there."

"I wonder if we could talk of anything except trouble and war," replied Lenore, plaintively. "If we can't, then let's look at the bright side."

"Is there a bright side?" he asked, with his sad smile.

"Every cloud, you know.... For instance, if you go to war--"

"Not if. I _am_ going," he interrupted.

"Oh, so you say," returned Lenore, softly. And she felt deep in her the inception of a tremendous feminine antagonism. It stirred along her pulse. "Have your own way, then. But _I_ say, _if_ you go, think how fine it will be for me to get letters from you at the front--and to write you!"

"You'd like to hear from me?... You would answer?" he asked, breathlessly.

"a.s.suredly. And I'll knit socks for you."

"You're--very good," he said, with strong feeling.

Lenore again saw his eyes dim. How strangely sensitive he was! If he exaggerated such a little kindness as she had suggested, if he responded to it with such emotion, what would he do when the great and marvelous truth of her love was flung in his face? The very thought made Lenore weak.

"You'll go to training-camp," went on Lenore, "and because of your wonderful physique and your intelligence you will get a commission. Then you'll go to--France." Lenore faltered a little in her imagined prospect. "You'll be in the thick of the great battles. You'll give and take. You'll kill some of those--those--Germans. You'll be wounded and you'll be promoted.... Then the Allies will win. Uncle Sam's grand army will have saved the world.... Glorious!... You'll come back--home to us--to take the place dad offered you.... There! that is the bright side."

Indeed, the brightness seemed reflected in Dorn's face.

"I never dreamed you could be like this," he said, wonderingly.

"Like what?"

"I don't know just what I mean. Only you're different from my--my fancies. Not cold or--or proud."

"You're beginning to get acquainted with me, that's all. After you've been here awhile--"

"Please don't make it so hard for me," he interrupted, appealingly. "I can't stay."

"Don't you want to?" she asked.

"Yes. And I will stay a couple of days. But no longer. It'll be hard enough to go then."

"Perhaps I--we'll make it so hard for you that you can't go."

Then he gazed piercingly at her, as if realizing a will opposed to his, a conviction not in sympathy with his.

"You're going to keep this up--this trying to change my mind?"

"I surely am," she replied, both wistfully and wilfully.

"Why? I should think you'd respect my sense of duty."

"Your duty is more here than at the front. The government man said so.

My father believes it. So do I.... You have some other--other thing you think duty."

"I hate Germans!" he burst out, with a dark and terrible flash.

"Who does not?" she flashed back at him, and she rose, feeling as if drawn by a powerful current. She realized then that she must be prepared any moment to be overwhelmed by the inevitable climax of this meeting.

But she prayed for a little more time. She fought her emotions.

She saw him tremble. "Lenore, I'd better run off in the night," he said.

Instinctively, with swift, soft violence, she grasped his hands. Perhaps the moment had come. She was not afraid, but the suddenness of her extremity left her witless.

"You would not!... That would be unkind--not like you at all.... To run off without giving me a chance--without good-by!... Promise me you will not."

"I promise," he replied, wearily, as if nonplussed by her att.i.tude. "You said you understood me. But I can't understand you."

She released his hands and turned away. "I promise--that you shall understand--very soon."

"You feel sorry for me. You pity me. You think I'll only be cannon-fodder for the Germans. You want to be nice, kind, sweet to me--to send me away with better thoughts.... Isn't that what you think?"

He was impatient, almost angry. His glance blazed at her. All about him, his tragic face, his sadness, his defeat, his struggle to hold on to his manliness and to keep his faith in n.o.bler thoughts--these challenged Lenore's compa.s.sion, her love, and her woman's combative spirit to save and to keep her own. She quivered again on the brink of betraying herself. And it was panic alone that held her back.

"Kurt--I think--presently I'll give you the surprise of your life," she replied, and summoned a smile.

How obtuse he was! How blind! Perhaps the stress of his emotion, the terrible sense of his fate, left him no keenness, no outward penetration. He answered her smile, as if she were a child whose determined kindness made him both happy and sad.