The Glory of the Conquered Part 8

"And it was happy?" he asked tenderly. "Just as happy as you wanted it to be?"

"So happy that I hate to see it go. It was--just right."

"Weren't any of the others happy, dear?"--he was stroking her hair, thinking that it too had caught little touches of the fire-light.

"None of the others were perfect. Of course, last year was our first one together, and"--a shudder ran through her.

"I know, dear," he hastened; "I know that wasn't a perfect day."

"Before that," she went on, after a minute of looking a long way into the fire, "something always happened. My birthday seemed ill-fated. That was why I wanted a happy one so much--to make up for all the others. This day began right by the work going so splendidly. Is there anything much more satisfying than the feeling which comes at the close of a good day's work? It puts you on such good terms with yourself, convinces you that you have a perfect right to be alive. Then this afternoon I read some things which I had read long ago and didn't understand then as I do now.

You see, there was a great deal I didn't know before I loved you, Karl; and books are just human enough to want to be met half way."

"Like men," he commented, meeting her then a trifle more than half way.

"Yes, they have to be petted and fussed over, just like men. Now, Karl, are you listening or are you not?"

He a.s.sured her that he was listening.

"Then, this afternoon, Georgia came out and we went for a row on the lagoon in Jackson Park. Did you happen to look out and see how beautiful it was this afternoon, Karl? I wish you would do that once in a while.

Germs and cells and things aren't so very aesthetic, you know, and I don't like to have you miss things. I was thinking about you as we pa.s.sed the university. It seemed such a big, wonderful place, and I love to think of what it is your work really means. I _am_ so proud of you, Karl!"

"And was it nice down there?" he asked, just to bring her back to her story of the day.

"So beautiful! You and I must go often now that the spring evenings have come. There is one place where you come out from a bridge, and can see the German building, left from the World's Fair, across a great sweep of lights and shadows. People who want to go to Europe and can't, should go down there and look at that. It's so old-worldish.

"Then Georgia and I had a fine talk,"--after another warm, happy silence.

"Georgia never was so nice. She was telling me all about a man. I shouldn't wonder; but I mustn't tell even you--not yet. Then I came home and here were the beautiful flowers from Dr. Parkman. Karl--you _did_ tell him! Honest now--you did--and it was awful. Why didn't you put it in the university paper so that all the students could send me things? That nice boy, Harry Wyman, wrote a poem about me--'To the Lovely Lady'--now you needn't laugh! And oh, I don't know, but it all seemed so beautiful and right when I came home this afternoon. I love our house more and more. I love those funny k.n.o.bs on the doors, and this library seems just _us_! I was so happy I couldn't keep from singing, and you know I can't sing at all. Then _you_ came home! You had the box out in your hand--I saw it clear across the street. You were smiling just like a boy. I shall never forget how you looked as you gave me the ring. I think, after all, that look was my _real_ birthday gift.--Now, Karl, don't you _know_ you shouldn't have bought such a ring? But, oh!--I, _am_ so happy, sweetheart."

He kissed her. His heart was very full. There was nothing he could say, so he kissed her again and laid his cheek upon her hair.

He knew she was growing sleepy. Sleep was coming to her as it does to the child who has had its long, happy day. But like the child, she would not give up until the last. It was true, he was sure, that she was loath to let the day go.

"The play to-night was very nice," she said, rousing a little, "but so short-sighted."

"Short-sighted, liebchen? How?"

"So many things in literature stop short when the people are married. I think that's such an immature point of view--just as if that were the end of the story. And when they write stories about married people they usually have them terribly unhappy about having to live together, and wishing they could live with some one else. It seems to me they leave out the best part."

"The best part, I suppose, meaning us?"

"Yes!"

"But, dear, if you and I were written up, just as we are, we'd be called two idiots."

"Would we?"--her head was caressing his coat.

"Have you ever thought how a stenographic or phonographic report of some of our conversations would sound?"

"Beautiful," she murmured.

"Crazy!" he insisted.

"Perhaps the world didn't mean people to be so happy as we are,"--her words stumbled drowsily.

"The world isn't as good to many people as it is to us. Oh, sweetheart--why,"--he held her closely but very tenderly, for he knew she was going to sleep--"why are we so happy?"

"Because I'm the--lovely--lady,"--it came from just outside the land of dreams.

It was sweet to have her go to sleep in his arms like this. He trembled with the joy of holding her, looking at her face with eyes of tenderest love, rejoicing in her, worshipping her. He went over the things she had said, his whole being mellowed, divinely exultant, at thought of her going to sleep just because she was tired from her day of happiness. Long ago his mother had taught him to pray, and he prayed now that he might keep her always as she was to-day, that he might guard her ever as she had that sense now of being guarded, that her only weariness might come as this had come, because she was so happy. How beautiful she was as she slept! The Lovely Lady--that boy had said it right, after all. And she was his!--his treasure--his joy--his sweetest thing in life! He had heard a discussion over at the university a few days before about the equality of man and woman. How foolish that seemed in this divine moment! G.o.d in His great far-sightedness had given to the world a masculine and a feminine soul. How insane to talk of their being alike, when the highest happiness in life came through their being so entirely different! And she was his! Other men could send her flowers--write poems about her loveliness--but she was his, all his. His to love and cherish and protect--to work for--live for!

He kissed her, and her eyes opened. "Poor little girl's so tired; but she'll have to wake up enough to go to bed."

She smiled, murmured something that sounded like "Happy day," and went to sleep again.

The fire had died low. He sat there a minute longer dreaming before it, thanking G.o.d for a home, for work and love and happiness. Then he picked Ernestine up in his arms as one would pick up the little child too tired to walk to bed. "Oh, liebchen," he breathed in tender pa.s.sion, as she nestled close to him,--"ich liebe dich!"

CHAPTER XII

A WARNING AND A PREMONITION

It put him very much out of patience to have his eyes bothering him just when he was so anxious to work. What in the world was the matter with them, he wondered, as he directed a couple of students on some work they were helping him with. It seemed that yesterday afternoon he had taken a new start; now he was eager to work things out while he felt like this.

This was a very inopportune time for a cold, or whatever it was, to settle in his eyes. Perhaps the lights at the theatre last night, and then the wind coming home--but he smiled an intimate little smile with himself at thought of last night and forgot all about that sandy feeling in his eyes.

During the morning it almost pa.s.sed away. When he thought of it at all, it was only to be thankful it was not amounting to anything, for he was anxious to do a good day's work. He would hate it if anything were to happen to his eyes and he had to wear gla.s.ses! He had never had the slightest trouble with them; in fact they had served him so well that he never gave them any thought. The idea came now of how impossible it would be to do anything without them. His work depended entirely on seeing things right; it was the appearance of things in their different stages which told the story.

Dr. Hubers had a queer little trick with his eyes; the students who worked with him had often noticed it. He had a way of resting his finger in the corner of his eye when thinking. Sometimes it would rest in one eye for awhile, and then if he became a little restless, moved under a new thought, he would slip his finger meditatively over his nose to the corner of the other eye. It did not signify anything in particular, merely an unconscious mannerism. Some men pull their hair, others gnaw their under lip, and with him it was a queer little way of rubbing his finger in his eye.

It was Sat.u.r.day, and that was always a good day for him as he could give all of his time to the laboratory. He was especially anxious to have things go well this morning, as he wanted to stop at two o'clock and go down to one of Dr. Parkman's operations. That end of it was very important and this was to be an especially good operation.

He was thinking about Dr. Parkman on the way down;--of the man's splendid surgery. It was a real joy to see him work. He did big things so very easily and quietly; not at all as though they were overwhelming him. Poor Parkman--things should have gone differently with him. If it had been almost any other man, it would have mattered less, but it seemed a matter of a lifetime with Parkman. He could understand that better now than he once had. To have found Ernestine and then--then to have found she was _not_ Ernestine! But of course in the case of Ernestine that could not be. Now if Parkman had only found an Ernestine--but then he couldn't very well, for there was only one! Since the first of time, there had been only one--and she was his! He fell to dreaming of how she had looked last night in the fire-light, and almost forgot the station at which he was to get off.

He was in very jubilant mood when they went down to Dr. Parkman's office after the operation. It had verified some of his own conclusions; seemed fairly to stand as an endors.e.m.e.nt of what he held. He had never felt more sure of himself, had never seen his way more clearly. It was a great thing to have facts bear one out, to see made real what one had believed to be true. He went over it all with Parkman, putting his case clearly, convincingly, his points standing out true and una.s.sailable; throwing away all the irrelevant, picking out unerringly, the little kernel of truth;--a big mind this, a mind qualified to cope with big problems. Dr.

Parkman had never seen so clearly as he did to-day how absolutely his friend possessed those peculiar qualities the work demanded. He had never felt more sure of Karl's power; and power did not cover it--not quite.

"Something in your eye?" he asked when, just as Karl was about to leave, he seemed to be bothered with his eye, and was rubbing it a little.

"I don't know. It's felt off and on all day as though something was the matter with them both."

"Want me to take a look at them?"

"Oh no--no, it's nothing."

"By the way, you have a bad trick with your eyes. I've noticed it several times lately and intended to tell you about it. You have a way of rubbing them;--not rubbing them exactly, but pressing your finger in them. I'd quit that if I were you. If you must put your finger somewhere, put it on your nose. A man dealing with the stuff you do can't be too careful."