The Empty Sack Part 13

"You had no right to say anything of the kind."

"I know I hadn't, but I took a chance. Won't you take a chance, too, Jennie? It would mean the beginning of the end of all your troubles. In the long run, if not in the short run, I could take them off your hands."

That she should be dead to this argument was not in human nature. Her basic conception of a man was of one who would relieve her of her burdens. Helplessness was a large part of her appeal. That marriage meant being taken care of imparted, according to her thinking, its chief common sense to the inst.i.tution. She shrank from marrying _just_ to be taken care of; but if there was no other way, and if in this way she could bring to the family the stupendous Collingham connection in lieu of her six a week.... She made up her mind to temporize.

"What makes you in such an awful hurry? We could do it any other day-"

"Did you ever see a sick man who wasn't in an awful hurry to get well?"

"You're not as bad as all that."

"Listen, Jennie," he said, with an ardor enhanced by her hints at relenting; "listen, and I'll tell you what I am. I'm like a chap that's been cut in two, who only lives because he knows the other half will be joined to him again."

"That's all very well; but where's the other half?"

"Here." He touched her lightly on the arm. "You're the other half of me, Jennie; I'm the other half of you."

She laughed ruefully.

"That's news to me."

"I thought it might be. That's why I'm telling you. You don't suppose any other fellow could be to you what I'd be, do you?"

"I don't know what you'd be to me because I've so many other things to think of first."

"What sort of things?"

"What your folks would say, for one."

He replied, with a shade of embarra.s.sment: "They'd say some pretty mean things, to begin with."

"And to end with?"

"They'd give in. They'd have to. Families always do when you only leave them Hobson's choice."

She dropped into the studio idiom.

"That wouldn't be all pie for me, would it?"

"Is anything ever all pie? You've got to work for your living in this old world if you want to eat. I'm ready to work for this, Jennie. I'm ready to move mountains for it, and, by G.o.d! I'm going to move them! But do you know why?"

She said, shyly, "I suppose because you like me."

"I don't know whether I do or not. That's not what I think about first."

Though they had not yet reached the line of taxicabs, he paused to make an explanation. "Suppose you were inventing a machine and had got it pretty well fitted together, only that you couldn't make it work. And suppose, one day, you found the very part that was missing-the thing that would make it run. You'd know you'd have to have that one thing, wouldn't you? You'd have to have it-or your life wouldn't be worth while."

"I never heard any other man talk like that."

"Listen, Jennie. There are men and men. They'll go into two big bunches.

To one kind women are like whisky-some better than others, but all good.

If they can't have Mary, Susan'll do, and when they're tired of Susan they'll run after Ann. That's one kind of fellow, and he's in the great majority. They're polygamous by nature, those chaps. I suppose the Lord made them so. Anyhow, as far as I can see-and I've seen pretty far-they can't help themselves." He drew a long breath. "Then there's another kind."

If Jennie listened with attention, it was not because she was interested in him, but in Hubert Wray. Hubert had more than once said things of the same kind. He had declared male constancy to be outside the possibilities of flesh and blood, and, with her preference for cave men, Jennie had agreed with him. That is, she had agreed with him as to everyone but himself. Others could take their pleasure where and as they found it; but she could not conceive of any man loving her, or of herself loving any man, unless it was for life. On the subject of constancy or inconstancy, this was her sole reservation.

"You'll think me an awful chump, Jennie, but I'm that other kind."

She threw him a sidelong glance of some perplexity.

"You mean the kind that-"

"I'm not polygamous," he declared, as one who confessed a criminal tendency. "There it is, laid out flat. I'm-" He hesitated before using the term lest she might not understand it. "There's a word for my kind,"

he went on, tenderly. "It's monogamous."

She made a little sound of dismay at the strangeness, it almost seemed the indecency, of the syllables.

"Yes; I thought you might never have heard it," he pursued, in the same tender strain, "but it means the opposite of polygamous. A polygamous guy wants to marry all the wives he can make love to. A one-wife chap like me asks for nothing so much as to be true to the girl he loves. I'm that kind, Jennie."

To his amazement, and somewhat to his joy, he saw a tear trickle down her cheek. It was a tear of regret that Hubert couldn't have expressed himself like this, but Bob thought her touched by his appeal. It encouraged him to continue with accentuated warmth.

"You've heard of what they call the battle of the s.e.xes, haven't you?"

She thought she had.

"Well, that's what it comes from chiefly-the crowds of polygamous men and the small number of polygamous women; or else it's the crowds of monogamous women and the small number of monogamous men. Out of every hundred men, about ninety are polygamous, and ten want only one woman for a lifetime. Out of every hundred women, ninety are satisfied to love one man, and the other ten are rovers. Don't you see what a bad fit it makes?"

"Yes; but how do you know I'm not one of the rovers?"

"You couldn't be, Jennie. Even if I thought you might be, I'd be willing to take a chance. And the reason I've spun this rigmarole to you is because, if you don't take me, it'll be ten to one that you'll fall into the hands of one of the gay ninety who'll make your life a h.e.l.l. I'd hate that. G.o.d! how I should hate it! Even if I didn't care anything about you, I should want to marry you, just to save you from some fancy man who'd think no more of breaking your heart than he would of smashing an egg-sh.e.l.l."

As they walked on toward the row of public conveyances, he explained himself further. On Monday next he might sail for South America. But he couldn't do this leaving everything at loose ends between them. If she married him, he could go off with an easy mind, and they could keep their secret till his return. In the meanwhile he would be able to supply her with a little cash, not much, he was afraid, as dad kept so tight a rubber band round the pocketbook. It would, however, be something, and he would know that she could give up her work at the studio without danger of starving to death.

"And you might as well do it first as last, Jennie," he summed up, "because I mean that you shall do it sometime."

"And suppose," she objected, "that you came back from South America in six months' time-and were sorry. Where should I be then?"

He argued that this was impossible. A monogamous man always knew his mate as a monogamous bird knew his. It was instinct that told them both, and instinct never went wrong.

They reached the row of taxis, and, in spite of the queer looks of the pa.s.sers-by, he took her by the hand.

"Come, Jennie, come!"

But she hung back.

"Oh, Bob, how can I? All of a sudden like this!"

"It might as well be all of a sudden as any other way, since you're my woman and I'm your man."

"But I don't believe it."