The Red Mouse Part 20

"Positive." And there was a world of determination in the way he said it.

"Then why bother about my consent?" A flicker of a smile hovered around her lips.

"Why do you persist in refusing me?"

Shirley flushed. She seemed amused and serious, in turn. Finally she looked up at him quizzically for a moment, then asked:--

"Do you really want to know?"

He did not answer the question, but ventured:--

"Is it because of Thorne? Is he my successful rival?"

Shirley looked perturbed. She was struggling for expression.

"No, it's not because of Thorne. I wish it were ..." And after a moment: "Do you still want to know?"

"Yes. I've got to know, Shirley." And he waited for her words as though his life hinged upon them.

"Will you be very quiet and stay right where you are if I tell you?"

"I promise," raising his right hand half playfully.

"Well, then, it's because--I love you," she said easily.

Murgatroyd sprang toward her, the colour rising in his face, fire flashing from his eye.

"Shirley!"

The girl quickly waved him back.

"It's because I love you or believe that I do that I shall never marry you. I mean it," she hastened to add, for the faintest shade of doubt had appeared on his face.

"But why?" he faltered, turning his eyes inquisitively on her.

Shirley sighed unconsciously.

"It is time that I made myself plain, understood to you. Not because you're ent.i.tled to an explanation, but because, well, because I like you just a bit----"

Again Murgatroyd took a step forward; but with laughter still lingering in her eyes, the girl made a pretty little movement of her wrist and motioned toward his chair. Instantly he stopped, catching his breath in sheer admiration of her beauty. He was dimly conscious of putting his hands behind his back; it seemed the only means of preventing them from touching her. But now as he gazed upon her, he saw that there was something behind those laughing eyes. A serious look was on her face.

She seemed suddenly to have changed. The thousand and one little mannerisms that were so large a part of the girl's attractiveness were all there, but the voice was no longer the mirthful voice of the Shirley that he knew and loved. She spoke as though in a trance:--

"Can you understand me when I say that I have got to have something more than love? I am too practical, Billy, to fool myself--or you! Perhaps I'm cursed with the instincts of my kind--of the American girl. Oh, let me tell you how it is!" she exclaimed impulsively. "All my life I've been surrounded by men who were failures. My grandfather was a failure; my father was a failure; and my brothers are failures. They have tainted my happiness--don't misunderstand me--I love them, but I can't look up to them."

Murgatroyd nodded appreciatively. He believed that he should feel the same way about these men.

"But--you don't want money?" he protested. "You're too much the right sort of an American girl for that."

"No, not exactly money; but the man who appeals to me is one who can surmount all obstacles," she answered with grave tenderness; "who has success running in his veins." Not a shade of her former gravity now showed on the speaker's face; it lighted as if a flame of enthusiasm had escaped from the temple of her soul. She paused for a moment and lifted her head, and in the transporting gaze that seemed to pa.s.s beyond him and was lost into s.p.a.ce, for the first time the man read and understood the girl's nature.

"Have you ever lain awake at night, Billy, ever curled up on a window-seat in the daytime and planned your future?" She did not wait for an answer, but kept on: "I have; and in these dreams of mine I would always take my place by the side of my great knight errant, helping him to become greater--the damsel riding on the pillion of my lord's war-horse as he goes to war. At times he has been a diplomatist, a jurist, a law-maker; and I have always lent him strength. When I marry, Billy, my husband's work will be my work; his struggles, my struggles; but the man must have greatness running through his veins."

Murgatroyd smiled sheepishly. He had his full proportion of conceit, and he did not quite relish this.

"Then I haven't figured often in the limelight of your dreams?"

"If only you had, Billy, but you haven't, much as I have tried my best to fit my knight's armour on you and place you on his war-horse. Now can't you see what it would mean if we tried the experiment of marriage?

Marriage would not make me happy; it would be misery----"

"Misery?" he s.n.a.t.c.hed the word from her lips.

"Yes, misery for you," she finished. "Can the girl who must have money make a poor man happy, much as she may love him? Can the b.u.t.terfly make a bookworm happy, much as she may love him? A woman with social ambitions loves a man with none; can she make him happy? No! And while I am none of these, yet, somehow, I've got to fulfil my destiny; and I'm not going to chafe, anger and everlastingly offend the man who doesn't belong--doesn't fit in with my ideas!"

"But I do fit in, as you phrase it," Murgatroyd maintained. "Haven't I ambition? And am I not a fighter?--You'd think so if you knew the devil of a fight I am having right now with my own organisation--with Cradlebaugh's; and I'm going to win!"

Shirley smiled faintly at his almost boyish earnestness, but she shook her head.

"You are too much of a reformer, too much of a crank--no, I'm sorry to tell you so, but in my inmost soul I believe you will fail. You're built that way! I don't know why, but men of influence have weighed you in the balance and found you wanting. William Murgatroyd, politically you're dead--that's what they tell me. There's no future for you; you have ruthlessly antagonised every valuable interest needlessly. That's not success!"

Murgatroyd's face paled; his hand trembled as he raised it in protest.

"But the people--the people believe in me?"

Shirley smiled again in spite of herself.

"You haven't an ounce of diplomacy in your whole body!"

"Not if you call obeying orders from Peter Broderick, diplomacy."

Still the girl was merciless.

"You hit from the shoulder wildly; it lands on and hurts your opponent, but it kills you. You're only honest, Billy, nothing else."

Murgatroyd swung about nervously and glanced out of the window as he cried:--

"Only honest! Doesn't that count with you--doesn't it signify?"

"It's easy enough to be honest, but it is great to make your honesty save and not destroy you. To get these men behind you instead of opposed to you; to make your organisation do what you want it to do; to rise upon its shoulders because you make it lift you up--Ah!..."

"But, Shirley," interposed Murgatroyd, "can't you see that the man who stands up for a principle cannot fail?"

"What have you done so far?" she kept on persistently. "You're prosecutor of the pleas, your first, last and only office. Am I right?"

"I'm afraid you are," he answered dully. "In a way what you say is the truth. Politically I shall die--" Murgatroyd shuddered as he spoke--"unless I can force this issue to a finish while my office lasts."

"And then?" Her manner in putting the question nettled him.

"Well, then I suppose I shall live and die poor. But at least I shall die honest," he added.