The Lighted Way Part 21

"Arnie, you mustn't think of it," she begged. "He would never forgive me--never. The first time I asked him what was going on there, I thought that he would have struck me."

"Would you like me to go in and see next time he is out?"

She shivered.

"Not for the world," she replied. "Besides, you couldn't. He has fixed on a Yale lock himself. No one could open the door."

"You have never seen what he prints?"

"Never," she replied. "He knows that I hate the sight of those pamphlets. He never shows them to me. He had a man to see him the other night--the strangest-looking man I ever saw--and they talked in whispers for hours. I saw the man's face when he went out. It was white and evil. And, Arnold, it was the face of a man steeped in sin to the lips. I wish I hadn't seen it," she went on, drearily. "It haunts me."

He did his best to rea.s.sure her.

"Little Ruth," he said, "you have been up here too long without a holiday. Wait till Sat.u.r.day afternoon, when I draw my new salary for the first time. I shall hire a taxicab. We will have it open and drive out into the country."

Her face lit up for a moment. Her beautiful eyes were soft, although a few seconds later they were swimming with tears.

"Do you think you will want to go when Sat.u.r.day afternoon comes?"

she asked. "Don't you think, perhaps, that your new friends may invite you to go and see them? I am so jealous of your new friends, Arnold."

He drew her a little closer to him. There was something very pathetic in her complete dependence upon him, a few months ago a stranger. They had both been waifs, brought together by a wave of common adversity. Her intense weakness had made the same appeal to him as his youth and strength to her. There was almost a lump in his throat as he answered her.

"You aren't really feeling like that, Ruth?" he begged. "Don't! My new friends are part of the new life. You wouldn't have me cling to the old any longer than I can help? Why, you and I together have sat here hour after hour and prayed for a change, prayed for the mystic treasure that might come to us from those ships of chance. Dear, if mine comes first, it brings good for you, too. You can't believe that I should forget?"

For the first time in his life he bent over and kissed her upon the lips. She suffered his caress not only without resistance but for a single moment her arms clasped his neck pa.s.sionately. Then she drew away abruptly.

"I don't know what I'm doing!" she panted. "You mustn't kiss me like that! You mustn't, Arnold!"

She began to cry, but before he could attempt to console her she dashed the tears away.

"Oh, we're impossible, both of us!" she declared. "But then, a poor creature like me must always be impossible. It isn't quite kind of fate, is it, to give any one a woman's heart and a woman's loneliness, and the poor frame of a hopeless invalid."

"You're not a hopeless invalid," he a.s.sured her, earnestly. "No one would ever know, to look at you as you sit there, that there was anything whatever the matter. Don't you remember our money-box for the doctor? Even that will come, Ruth. The day will come, I am sure, when we shall carry you off to Vienna, or one of those great cities, and the cure will be quite easy. I believe in it, really."

She sighed.

"I used to love to hear you talk about it," she said, "but, somehow, now it seems so far off. I don't even know that I want to be like other women. There is only one thing I do want and that is to keep you."

"That," he declared, fervently, "you are sure of. Remember, Ruth, that awful black month and what we suffered together. And you knew nothing about me. I just found you sitting on the stairs with your broken stick, waiting for some one to come and help you."

She nodded.

"And you picked me up and carried me into your room," she reminded him. "You didn't have to stop and take breath as Isaac has to."

"Why, no," he admitted, "I couldn't say you were heavy, dear. Some day or other, though," he added, "you will be. Don't lose your faith, Ruth. Don't let either of us leave off looking for the ships."

She smiled.

"Very well," she said, letting her hand fall once more softly into his, "I think that I am very foolish. I think that yours has come already, dear, and I am worse than foolish, I am selfish, because I once hoped that they might come together; that you and I might sit here, Arnold, hand in hand, and watch them with great red sails, and piles and piles of gold and beautiful things, with our names written on so big that we could read them even here from the window."

She burst into a peal of laughter.

"Oh, those children's days! What an escape they, were for us in the black times! Do you know that we once actually told one another fairy stories?"

"Not only that but we believed in them," he insisted. "I am perfectly certain that the night you found my star, and it seemed to us to keep on getting bigger and bigger while we looked at it, that from that night things have been getting better with me."

"At least," she declared, abruptly, "I am not going to spoil your dinner by keeping you here talking nonsense. Carry me back, please, Arnold. You must hurry up now and change your clothes. And, dear, you had better not come in and wish me good-night. Isaac went out this morning in one of his savage tempers, and he may be back at any moment. Carry me back now, and have a beautiful evening. To-morrow you must tell me all about it."

He obeyed her. She was really only a trifle to lift, as light as air. She clung to him longingly, even to the last minute.

"And now, please, you are to kiss my forehead," she said, "and run away."

"Your forehead only?" he asked, bending over her.

"My forehead only, please," she begged gravely. "The other doesn't go with our fairy stories, dear. I want to go on believing in the fairy stories...."

Arnold had little enough time to dress, and he descended the stone steps towards the street at something like a run. Half-way down, however, he pulled up abruptly to avoid running into two men. One was Isaac. His worn, white face, with hooked nose and jet-black eyes, made him a noticeable figure even in the twilight. The other man was so m.u.f.fled up as to be unrecognizable. Arnold stopped short.

"Glad you're home, Isaac," he said pleasantly. "I have just been talking to Ruth. I thought she seemed rather queer."

Isaac looked at him coldly from head to foot. Arnold was wearing his only and ordinary overcoat, but his varnished shoes and white tie betrayed him.

"So you're wearing your cursed livery again!" he sneered. "You're going to beg your bone from the rich man's plate."

Arnold laughed at him.

"Always the same, Isaac," he declared. "Never mind about me. You look after your niece and take her out, if you can, somewhere. I am going to give her a drive on Sat.u.r.day."

"Are you?" Isaac said calmly. "I doubt it. Drives and carriages are not for the like of us poor sc.u.m."

His companion nudged him impatiently. Isaac moved away. Arnold turned after him.

"You won't deny the right of a man to spend what he earns in the way he likes best?" he asked. "I've had a rise in my salary, and I am going to spend a part of it taking Ruth out."

Isaac laughed scornfully.

"A rise in your salary!" he muttered. "You poor slave! Did you go and kiss your master's foot when he gave it to you?"

"I didn't," Arnold declared. "To tell you the truth, I believe it would have annoyed him. He hasn't any sense of humor, you see. Good night, Isaac. If you're writing one of those shattering articles to-night, remember that Ruth can hear you, and don't keep her awake too late."

Arnold walked on. Suddenly his attention was arrested. Isaac was leaning over the banister of the landing above.

"Stop!"

Arnold paused for a moment.

"What is it?" he asked.

Isaac came swiftly down. He brushed his cloth hat further back on his head as though it obscured his vision. With both hands he gripped Arnold's arm.