The Man on the Box Part 41

"No one. I guessed it."

And he might have denied all knowledge of it!

"Won't you--won't you let it be as it is? I have never done anything worth while before, and this has made me happy. Won't you let me do this? Only you need know. I am going away on Monday, and it will be years before I see Washington again. No one need ever know."

"It is impossible!"

"Why?"

She looked away. In her mind's eye she could see this man leading a troop through a snow-storm. How the wind roared! How the snow whirled and eddied about them, or suddenly blotted them from sight! But, on and on, resolutely, courageously, hopefully, he led them on to safety....

He was speaking, and the picture dissolved.

"Won't you let it remain just as it is?" he pleaded.

Her head moved negatively, and once more she extended the note. He took it and slowly tore it into shreds. With it he was tearing up the dream and tossing it down the winds.

"The money will be placed to your credit at the bank on Monday. We can not accept such a gift from any one. You would not, I know. But always shall I treasure the impulse. It will give me courage in the future--when I am fighting alone."

"What are you going to do?"

"I? I am going to appear before the public,"--with a.s.sumed lightness; "I and my violin."

He struck his hands together. "The stage?"--horrified.

"I must live,"--calmly.

"But a servant to public caprice? It ought not to be! I realize that I can not force you to accept my gift, but this I shall do: I shall buy in the horses and give them back to you."

"You mustn't. I shall have no place to put them. Oh!"--with a gesture full of despair and unshed tears, "why have you done all this? Why this mean masquerade, this submitting to the humiliations I have contrived for you, this act of generosity? Why?"

Perhaps she knew the answers to her own questions, but, womanlike, wanted to be told.

And at that moment, though I am not sure, I believe Warburton's guarding angel gave him some secret advice.

"You ask me why I have played the fool in the motley?"--finding the strength of his voice. "Why I have submitted in silence to your just humiliations? Why I have acted what you term generously? Do you mean to tell me that you have not guessed the riddle?"

She turned her delicate head aside and switched the gra.s.ses with her riding-crop.

"Well,"--flinging aside his cap, which he had been holding in his hand, "I will tell you. I wanted to be near you. I wanted to be, what you made me, your servant. It is the one great happiness that I have known.

I have done all these things because--because, G.o.d help me, I love you!

Yes, I love you, with every beat of my heart!"--lifting his head proudly. Upon his face love had put the hallowed seal. "Do not turn your head away, for my love is honest. I ask nothing, nothing; I expect nothing. I know that it is hopeless. What woman could love a man who has made himself ridiculous in her eyes, as I have made myself in yours?"--bitterly.

"No, not ridiculous; never that!" she interrupted, her face still averted.

He strode toward her hastily, and for a moment her heart almost ceased to beat. But all he did was to kneel at her feet and kiss the hem of her riding-skirt. He rose hurriedly.

"G.o.d bless you, and good-by!" He knew that if he remained he would lose all control, crush her madly in his arms, and hurt her lips with his despairing kisses. He had not gone a dozen paces, when he heard her call pathetically. He stopped.

"Mr. Warburton, surely you are not going to leave me here alone with the horses?"

"Pardon me, I did not think! I am confused!" he blundered.

"You are modest, too." Why is it that, at the moment a man succ.u.mbs to his embarra.s.sment, a woman rises above hers? "Come nearer,"--a command which he obeyed with some hesitation. "You have been a groom, a butler, all for the purpose of telling me that you love me. Listen. Love is like a pillar based upon a dream: one by one we lay the stones of beauty, of courage, of faith, of honor, of steadfastness. We wake, and how the beautiful pillar tumbles about our ears! What right have you to build up your pillar upon a dream of me? What do you know of the real woman--for I have all the faults and vanities of the s.e.x; what do you know of me? How do you know that I am not selfish? that I am constant?

that I am worthy a man's loving?"

"Love is not like Justice, with a pair of scales to weigh this or that.

I do not ask _why_ I love you; the knowledge is all I need. And you are _not_ selfish, inconstant, and G.o.d knows that you are worth loving. As I said, I ask for nothing."

"On the other hand," she continued, as if she had not heard his interpolation, "I know you thoroughly. I have had evidence of your courage, your steadfastness, your unselfishness. Do not misunderstand me. I am proud that you love me. This love of yours, which asks for no reward, only the right to confess, ought to make any good woman happy, whether she loved or not. And you would have gone away without telling me, even!"

"Yes." He dug into the earth with his riding-boot. If only she knew how she was crucifying him!

"Why were you going away without telling me?"

He was dumb.

Her arms and eyes, uplifted, appealed to heaven. "What shall I say? How shall I make him understand?" she murmured. "You love me, and you ask for nothing? Is it because in spirit my father has committed a crime?"--growing tall and darting a proud glance at him.

"Good heaven, do not believe that!" he cried,

"What _am_ I to believe?"--tapping the ground with her boot so that the spur jingled.

A pause.

"Mr. Warburton, do you know what a woman loves in a man? I will tell you the secret. She loves courage, constancy, and honor, purpose that surmounts obstacles; she loves pursuit; she loves the hour of surrender. Every woman builds a castle of romance and waits for Prince Charming to enter, and once he does, there must be a game of hide and seek. Perhaps I have built my castle of romance, too. I wait for Prince Charming, and--a man comes, dressed as a groom. There has been a game of hide and seek, but somehow he has tripped. Will you not ask me if I love you?"

"No, no! I understand. I do not want your grat.i.tude. You are meeting generosity with generosity. I do not want your grat.i.tude."--brokenly.

"I want your love, every thought of your mind, every beat of your heart. Can you give me these, honestly?"

She drew off a glove. Her hand became lost in her bosom. When she drew it forth she extended it, palm upward. Upon it lay a faded, withered rose. Once more she turned her face away.

He was at her side, and the hand and rose were crushed between his two hands.

"Can you give what I ask? Your love, your thoughts, your heart-beats?"

It was her turn to remain dumb.

"Can you?" He drew her toward him perhaps roughly, being unconscious of his strength and the nervous energy which the sight of the rose had called into being.

"Can we give those things which are--already--given?"

Only Warburton and the angels, or rather the angels and Warburton, to get at the chronological order of things, heard her, so low had grown her voice.

You may tell any kind of secret to a horse; the animal will never betray you. Warburton would never tell me what followed; and I am too sensible to hang around the horses in hopes of catching them in the act of talking over the affair among themselves. But I can easily imagine this bit of equine dialogue:

_Jane_: Did you ever see such foolishness?

_d.i.c.k_: Never! And with all this good gra.s.s about!