The Story of Julia Page Part 25

Then a quiet-looking, middle-aged woman came out, and Mark and Julia went upstairs with her, in a little elevator.

The woman turned a key in a door, and led them into a charmingly bright front apartment of four good-sized rooms and a shining bathroom. There was a bedroom with curly-maple furniture, a dining-room with a hanging lamp of art gla.s.s on a bra.s.s chain, and Mission oak table and chairs, a kitchen delightfully convenient and completely equipped, and a little drawing-room, with a gas log, a bookshelf, a good rug, a little desk, and some rocking chairs and small tables. The sun shone in through fresh net curtains, and the high windows commanded a bright view of city roofs and a glimpse of the bay.

Julia began to feel nervous and uncomfortable. She did not understand at all what Mark meant by this, but it was impossible to doubt, from his beaming face, that some plan involving her was afoot. He couldn't have furnished this apartment in the hope--?

"Whose place _is_ this, Mark?" she asked, trying to laugh naturally.

"Do you like it?" Mark countered, his eyes dancing.

"Like it? It's simply sweet, of course! But whose is it?"

"Well, now listen," Mark explained. "It's Joe Kirk's furniture; he's just been married, you know. He and his wife had just got back from their honeymoon when Joe got an offer of a fine job in New York. He asked me to see if I couldn't find a tenant for this--two years' lease to run--just as it stands; no raise in rent. And the rent's fifty-five?"

he called to the woman in the next room.

"Fifty, Mr. Rosenthal," she answered impa.s.sively.

"Fifty!" Mark exulted. "Think of getting all this for fifty! Ah, Julia"--he came close to her as she stood staring down from the window, and lowered his voice--"will you, darling? Will you? You like it, don't you? Will you marry me, dearest, and make a little home here with me?"

"Oh, Mark!" Julia stammered, a nervous smile twitching her lips.

"Well, why won't you, Ju? Do you doubt that I love you? Answer me that!"

"Why, no--no, I don't, of course." Julia moved a little away.

"Don't go over there; she'll hear us! And you love me, don't you, Ju?"

"But not that way I don't, Mark," Julia said childishly.

"Oh, 'not that way'--that's all rubbish--that's the way girls talk; that's just an expression they have! Listen! Do you doubt that I'll always, _always_ love you?"

"Oh, no, Mark, of course not!" Julia admitted. "But I don't want to marry any one--"

"Well, what do you want? Haven't I loved you since you were a little girl?"

"Yes, I know--of course you have! Only"--Julia gave him a desperate smile--"only I can't discuss such things here," she pleaded, "with that woman so near!"

"You're right!" Mark said, with military promptness, and as one who loves to receive his lady's orders. "We'll go out. Only--I wanted you to see it!"

And as they went out he must stop to show her the admirably deep drawers of the little sideboard and the ingenious arrangement by which the gas was electrically lighted.

They thanked the woman, and began the long ride back to the settlement house, for Julia never left Miss Toland long alone. In the Sacramento Street car they both had to stand, but Mark found seats without difficulty on the dummy of the Fillmore Street car, and laying his arm along the back of Julia's seat, swung about so that his face was very close to hers. A world of wistful tenderness filled his voice as he said again:

"Well, darling, what do you think of it?"

Poor Mark! Perhaps if he had asked her only a week earlier, his lady might have given him a kinder answer. But Julia was walking in a golden dream to-day, a dream peopled only by herself and one other, and she hardly noticed his emotion. She fixed her blue eyes vaguely on the black eyes so near, and smiled a little.

"Oh, answer me, Julia!" Mark said impatiently. And a second later he asked alertly: "Where'd you get the violets?"

"Oh--somebody," Julia temporized. Pink flooded her cheeks.

"Who?" said Mark, very calm.

"Oh, Mark, what a tone! n.o.body you know!" Julia laughed.

"Is he in love with you?" Mark asked fiercely.

"Oh, don't be so silly! No, of course he's not."

"Tell me who he is!" Mark commanded grimly.

"Now, look here, Mark," Julia said sternly, "you stop that nonsense, or you can get straight off this car, and I'll go home alone! And don't you sulk, either, for it's too ridiculous, and I won't have it!"

Mark succ.u.mbed instantly.

"It's because I love you so," he said humbly. There was a little silence, then Julia, watching the Sunday streets, said suddenly:

"Look, Mark, look at the _size_ of that hat!"

Mark, disdaining to turn his eyes for the fraction of a moment from her face, said reproachfully:

"Are you going to answer me, Julia?"

"How do you mean?" Julia said nervously.

"You know what I mean," Mark answered, with an impatient nod.

"No, I don't," Julia said, with a little laugh.

"Now, you look-a-here, Julia--you look-a-here," Mark began, almost angrily. "I am going to ask you to marry me! You've fooled about it, and you've laughed about it, and I've got a right to _know_! I think about it all the time; I lie awake at night and think about it. I"--his voice softened suddenly--"I love you awfully, Julia," he said. And then, with a sort of concentrated pa.s.sion that rather frightened the girl, he added, "So I'm going to ask you once more. I want you to answer me, d'ye see?"

The car sped on, clanged across Market Street, turned into the Mission.

Julia had grown a little pale. She gave Mark a fleeting glance, looked away, and finally brought her eyes back to him again.

"I wish you wouldn't take things so _seriously_, Mark," she began uneasily. "You're always forcing me to say things--and I don't want to--I don't want to get married _at all_--"

"Nonsense!" said Mark harshly.

"It's not nonsense!" Julia protested, glad to feel her anger rising.

Mark saw her heightened colour, and misread it.

"Yes," he said sneeringly. "That's all very well, but I'll bet you'd feel pretty badly if I never came near you again--if I let the whole thing drop!"

"Oh, Mark," said Julia fervently, "if you only _would_--I don't mean that!" she interrupted herself, compunction seizing her at the look of mortal hurt on his face. "But I mean--if you only didn't love me! You see, I'm perfectly happy, Mark, I've got what I want. And if Miss Toland takes me abroad with her next year, why, it'll mean more to me than _any_ marriage could, don't you see that? You know what my childhood was, Mark; my mother didn't love my father--" And as a sudden memory of the old life rose to confront her, Julia's tone became firm; she felt a certain sureness. "Married people ought to love each other, Mark," she said positively. "I _know_ that. And I won't--I _never_ will marry a man I don't love. If everything goes wrong, after that, you have only yourself to blame. And so many times it goes wrong, Mark! I should be unhappy, I should keep wondering if I wouldn't be happier going my own way--wondering if I wouldn't have--have gotten farther--do you understand me?"

This was a long speech for Julia, and during it Mark had twisted about, and pulled his hat over his face. Now, in a voice curiously dead and hard, he asked briefly:

"Gotten farther--_where_?"

"I don't know," said Julia candidly. "But the more I read, and the more I think, the more it seems to me that anyone can be anything in this world; there's some queer rule that makes you rise if you want to rise, if only you don't compromise! The reason so many people _don't_ ultimately get what they want is because they stop trying for it, and take something else!"