The Triflers Part 58

Yes, safe from every one but herself. However, Monsieur Soucin could not be expected to read a lady's innermost thoughts. Indeed, it would scarcely have been gallant so to do.

"And now you wish to be rid of us," said Monte as he rose.

"Monsieur should not be unkind," sighed Soucin. "It is a necessity and not a wish."

"You have done as well as you could," Monte rea.s.sured him. "We shall probably rise early and be on our way before the soldiers, so--"

Monte slipped into his hand a gold-piece. It was too much from one point of view, and yet from another it was little enough. Soucin had unwittingly made an arrangement for which Monte could not pay in money.

"And my share?" inquired Marjory.

"One louis d'or," answered Monte unblushingly.

She fumbled in her bag and brought it out--the last she had. And Monte, in his reckless joy, handed that over also to Soucin. The man was too bewildered to do more than bow as he might before a prince and princess.

Monte led her up the incline through the heavy-leaved olive trees to her couch against the wall. It had been made up as neatly as in any hotel, with plenty of blankets and a pillow for her head.

"If you wish to retire at once," he said, "I'll go back to my side of the wall."

She hesitated. The wall was man-high and so thick that once he was behind it she would feel terribly alone.

"Or better still," he suggested, "you lie down and let me sit and smoke here. I 'll be quiet."

It was a temptation she would have resisted had she not been so tired physically. As it was, half numbed with fatigue, she removed her hat and lay down between the blankets.

Monte slipped on his sweater with the black "H" and took a place against the wall at Marjory's feet.

"All comfy?" he asked.

"It's impossible to feel altogether comfortable when you're selfish,"

Marjory declared.

He took a thoughtful puff of his cigarette.

"I think you're right about that," he answered. "Only in this case there's no reason in the world for you to feel like that, because I'm comfortable too."

"Honestly?"

"Cross my heart. I'd rather be here than in the finest bed in Paris."

"You're so good," she murmured.

With all her muscles relaxed, and with him there, she felt as if she were floating in the clouds.

"It's strange you've always had that notion, because I 'm not especially good," he replied. "Do you want to go to sleep, or may I talk a while longer?"

"Please to talk."

"Of course," he ran on meditatively, "something depends upon what you mean by being good. I used to think it was merely being decent. I've been that. It happened to be easy. But being good, as I see it now, is being good when it isn't easy--and then something more."

She was listening with bated breath, because he was voicing her own thoughts.

"It's being good to others besides yourself," he continued.

"Forgetting yourself for them--when that is n't easy."

"Yes, it's that," she said.

"I don't want to boast," he said; "but, in a way, I come nearer being good at this moment, than ever before in my life."

"You mean because it's tiresome for you to sit there?"

"Because it's hard for me to sit here when I'd like to be kneeling by your side, kissing your hand, your forehead, your lips," he answered pa.s.sionately.

She started to her elbow.

"I shan't move," he a.s.sured her. "But it is n't easy to sit here like a b.u.mp on a log with everything you're starving for within arm's reach."

"Monte!" she gasped. "Perhaps you'd better not talk."

"If it were only as easy to stop thinking!"

"Why don't one's thoughts mind?" she cried. "When they are told what's right, why don't they come right?"

"G.o.d knows," he answered. "I sit here and tell myself that if you don't love me I should let it go at that, and think the way I did before the solemn little pastor in Paris got so serious over what wasn't meant to be serious. I've tried, little woman. I tried hard when I left you with Peter. I could n't do it then, and I can't do it now. I hear over and over again the words the little minister spoke, and they grow more wonderful and fine every day. I think he must have known then that I loved you or he would not have uttered them."

The leaves in the olive trees rustled beneath the stars.

"Dear wife," he cried, "when are you coming to me?"

He did not move. She saw his broad shoulders against the wall. She saw his arms folded over his chest as if to keep them tight. She saw his clenched lips.

"G.o.d help me to keep silent," she prayed.

"When are you coming?" he repeated wearily. "Will it be one year or two years or three years?"

She moistened her lips. He seemed to speak as though it were only a matter of time--as though it were he who was being punished and it was only a question of how long. She sank back with her eyes upon the stars darting shafts of white light through the purple.

"And what am I going to do while I'm waiting?" he went on, as though to himself.

Grimly she forced out the words:--

"You--you must n't wait. There 's nothing to wait for."

She saw his arms tighten; saw his lips grow hard.

"Nothing?" he exclaimed. "Don't make me believe that, because--then there would n't be anything."

She grew suddenly afraid.