The Odd Women Part 46

'No; anything but naturally.'

Rhoda said nothing. He waited a moment, then moved to a seat much nearer hers. Her face hardened, and he saw her fingers lock together.

'Where a man is in love, solitude seems to him the most unnatural of conditions.'

'Please don't make me your confidante, Mr. Barfoot,' Rhoda with well-a.s.sumed pleasantry. 'I have no taste for that kind of thing.'

'But I can't help doing so. It is you that I am in love with.'

'I am very sorry to hear it. Happily, the sentiment will not long trouble you.'

He read in her eyes and on her lips a profound agitation. She glanced about the room, and, before he could again speak, had risen to ring the bell.

'You always take coffee, I think?'

Without troubling to give any a.s.sent, he moved apart and turned over some books on the table. For full five minutes there was silence. The coffee was brought; he tasted it and put his cup down. Seeing that Rhoda had, as it were, entrenched herself behind the beverage, and would continue to sip at is as long as might be necessary, he went and stood in front of her.

'Miss Nunn, I am more serious than you will give me credit for being.

The sentiment, as you call it, has troubled me for some time, and will last.'

Her refuge failed her. The cup she was holding began to shake a little.

'Please let me put it aside for you.'

Rhoda allowed him to do so, and then locked her fingers.

'I am so much in love with you that I can't keep away from this house more than a few days at a time. Of course you have known it; I haven't tried to disguise why I came here so often. It's so seldom that I see you alone; and now that fortune is kind to me I must speak as best I can. I won't make myself ridiculous in your eyes--if I can help it. You despise the love-making of ballrooms and garden parties; so do I, most heartily. Let me speak like a man who has few illusions to overcome. I want you for the companion of my life; I don't see very well how I am to do without you. You know, I think, that I have only a moderate competence; it's enough to live upon without miseries, that's all one can say. Probably I shall never be richer, for I can't promise to exert myself to earn money; I wish to live for other things. You can picture the kind of life I want you to share. You know me well enough to understand that my wife--if we use the old word--would be as free to live in her own way as I to live in mine. All the same, it is love that I am asking for. Think how you may about man and woman, you know that there is such a thing as love between them, and that the love of a man and a woman who can think intelligently may be the best thing life has to offer them.'

He could not see her eyes, but she was smiling in a forced way, with her lips close set.

'As you insisted on speaking,' she said at length, 'I had no choice but to listen. It is usual, I think--if one may trust the novels--for a woman to return thanks when an offer of this kind has been made to her.

So--thank you very much, Mr. Barfoot.'

Everard seized a little chair that was close by, planted it beside Rhoda's, there seated himself and took possession of one of her hands.

It was done so rapidly and vehemently that Rhoda started back, her expression changing from sportive mockery to all but alarm.

'I will have no such thanks,' he uttered in a low voice, much moved, a smile making him look strangely stern. 'You shall understand what it means when a man says that he loves you. I have come to think your face so beautiful that I am in torment with the desire to press my lips upon yours. Don't be afraid that I shall be brutal enough to do it without your consent; my respect for you is stronger even than my pa.s.sion. When I first saw you, I thought you interesting because of your evident intelligence--nothing more; indeed you were not a woman to me. Now you are the one woman in the world; no other can draw my eyes from you.

Touch me with your fingers and I shall tremble--that is what my love means.'

She was colourless; her lips, just parted, quivered as the breath panted between them. She did not try to withdraw her hand.

'Can you love me in return?' Everard went on, his face still nearer.

'Am I anything like this to _you_? Have the courage you boast of. Speak to me as one human being to another, plain, honest words.'

'I don't love you in the least. And if I did I would never share your life.'

The voice was very unlike her familiar tones. It seemed to hurt her to speak.

'The reason.--Because you have no faith in me?'

'I can't say whether I have or not. I know absolutely nothing of your life. But I have my work, and no one shall ever persuade me to abandon it.'

'Your work? How do you understand it? What is its importance to you?'

'Oh, and you pretend to know me so well that you wish me to be your companion at every moment!'

She laughed mockingly, and tried to draw away her hand, for it was burnt by the heat of his. Barfoot held her firmly.

'What _is_ your work? Copying with a type-machine, and teaching others to do the same--isn't that it?'

'The work by which I earn money, yes. But if it were no more than that--'

'Explain, then.'

Pa.s.sion was overmastering him as he watched the fine scorn in her eyes.

He raised her hand to his lips.

'No!' Rhoda exclaimed with sudden wrath. 'Your respect--oh, I appreciate your respect!'

She wrenched herself from his grasp, and went apart. Barfoot rose, gazing at her with admiration.

'It is better I should be at a distance from you,' he said. 'I want to know your mind, and not to be made insensate.'

'Wouldn't it be better still if you left me?' Rhoda suggested, mistress of herself again.

'If you really wish it.' He remembered the circ.u.mstances and spoke submissively. 'Yet the fog gives me such a good excuse for begging your indulgence. The chances are I should only lose myself in an inferno.'

'Doesn't it strike you that you take an advantage of me, as you did once before? I make no pretence of equalling you in muscular strength, yet you try to hold me by force.'

He divined in her pleasure akin to his own, the delight of conflict.

Otherwise, she would never have spoken thus.

'Yes, it is true. Love revives the barbarian; it wouldn't mean much if it didn't. In this one respect I suppose no man, however civilized, would wish the woman he loves to be his equal. Marriage by capture can't quite be done away with. You say you have not the least love for me; if you had, should I like you to confess it instantly? A man must plead and woo; but there are different ways. I can't kneel before you and exclaim about my miserable unworthiness--for I am not unworthy of you. I shall never call you queen and G.o.ddess--unless in delirium, and I think I should soon weary of the woman who put her head under my foot. Just because I am stronger than you, and have stronger pa.s.sions, I take that advantage--try to overcome, as I may, the womanly resistance which is one of your charms.

'How useless, then, for us to talk. If you are determined to remind me again and again that your strength puts me at your mercy--'

'Oh, not that! I will come no nearer to you. Sit down, and tell me what I asked.'

Rhoda hesitated, but at length took the chair by which she was standing.

'You are resolved never to marry?'

'I never shall,' Rhoda replied firmly.

'But suppose marriage in no way interfered with your work?'

'It would interfere hopelessly with the best part of my life. I thought you understood this. What would become of the encouragement I am able to offer our girls?'