The Way of the Strong Part 20

"How?"

Monica sat down. She was glad of the support, but her manner was perfectly easy.

"The generous salary you pay me--of course."

Hendrie shook his head.

"I never pay generous salaries. Those who receive my salaries earn them."

Monica laughed. Slowly confidence was returning.

"That's so like you," she said. "I wonder if I earn $5000 a year. I have often worked twice as hard for half the sum."

"Quite so. But what was the work? From my point of view you earn the money, and perhaps more, by carrying the confidence I always know I can place in you. But, say, don't let's discuss the economy of commerce.

Guess I came here on a different errand."

Monica averted her gaze. She looked out of the window she was facing.

"Yes," she said, with a sudden return of all her old apprehensions.

The man leaned forward in his chair. His hands were clasped together, and his forearms pressed heavily on his knees. There was a faint flush on his cheeks, and the usual contemplative light had pa.s.sed from his eyes, leaving them alight with a growing fire of pa.s.sion.

"Tell me," he cried suddenly, a deep note in his voice. "Have you anything to say to me? Anything about our talk the other night?"

Monica kept her eyes averted. She was summoning all her courage, that she might the more successfully bruise and beat down her own love for this man.

She shook her head without daring to face him. She knew, she felt the heat of pa.s.sion shining in his gray eyes.

"It--it--can't be," she said, stumbling fatally.

She waited, hardly knowing what to expect. As the man remained silent the beatings of her heart seemed to have suddenly become so loud that she thought he must surely hear them; and hearing them, would understand the cowardice she was laboring under.

Had she dared to look at him she must have seen the marked change her refusal had brought about. The same pa.s.sionate fire was in his eyes, there was the same flush upon his cheeks. But there was an added something that was quite different from these things, something which she might have recognized, for she had witnessed it many times before in her intercourse with him. It was the fighting spirit of the man slowly rising, the light of battle gathering.

He smiled, and his smile was strangely tender in a man of his known character.

"Is that all?" he asked at last. "Is that your--final word?"

"Yes," she almost gasped, and desperately faced him.

Then she abruptly rose from her seat and moved toward the window. She had seen more in his eyes than she could face, and still remain true to her decision.

"But's--it's insufficient, Mon."

The man rose from his chair and followed her. He came near, and stood close behind her. She could feel his warm breath on the soft flesh which was left bare by the low neck of her costume. She trembled, and stood helplessly dreading lest he should recognize the trembling. Then she heard his low voice speaking, and her whole soul responded to the fire that lay behind his words.

"I love you, Mon. I love you so that I cannot, will not give you up. I love you so that all else in my life goes for nothing. All my life I've reveled in the constant joy of antic.i.p.ation of the success I have achieved. All my life I have centered my whole soul on these things, and trained brain and body for a t.i.tanic struggle to the top of the financial ladder. And now, what is it, if--if I can't win you, too?

Mon, it's simply nothing. Can't you understand what I feel when I say that? More than all the wealth and position I've dreamed of all my life I want you--you. What is it? Why? Tell me why it--can't be."

But Monica could not tell him. She knew she could not; and she knew that she could not go on listening to the strong man's pleadings without yielding.

Suddenly, in something like desperation, she turned and faced him.

"I tried to make it plain to you the other night," she cried, with a complaint that made her voice almost harsh. "I tried to tell you then that I could not marry you. But you wouldn't listen to me. You laughed my refusal aside. You told me you would not give me up. I can only reiterate what I tried to tell you then. Why--why urge me when I say I--I cannot marry you?"

"Cannot?"

"Yes--cannot, cannot!"

In desperation Monica added emphasis to her negative.

"There can only be one reason for 'cannot,'" said Hendrie, with an abrupt return to calmness. "Are you married? Have you a husband living?"

The woman's denial flashed out without thought.

"I am not married. I never have been married."

In a moment she realized the danger of so precipitate a denial. The man's face lit more ardently than ever, and he drew closer.

"Then you must take that word back, and say you--'will not.' But you can't say that," he smiled gently. "Why should you? Yes, I know you don't dislike me. You've always seen me as I am. I'm no different. Say, Mon, I'm not here to bully you into marrying me. I'm here to plead with you. I who have never in my life pleaded to man or woman. I want you to give me that which I know no money can ever buy, no position can ever claim. I want your love. I want it because I love you, and without you nothing is worth while."

He was very near her now. He was so near that Monica dared not move.

She could only stand helplessly gazing out of the window. As she remained silent he urged her again, placing one powerful hand gently upon her shoulder.

"Tell me, do you dislike the hard, unscrupulous financier that men are only too ready to villify?" he asked, with a gentle smile of confidence. "Do you?" His hand moved till it dropped to the woman's soft, rounded upper arm.

"Mon," he continued, "I want you so much. Tell me you don't--dislike me."

Monica's courage was swiftly ebbing. The task she had set herself was too hard for her. She was too simply human to withstand the approach of this great love. The touch of the man's hand, so gentle, so almost reverent, had sent the blood coursing through her veins in a hot, pa.s.sionate tide. All her love for him surged uppermost, and drove her headlong to a reckless denial.

"No," she cried, in a low voice. "How could I dislike you? What does it matter to me what men say of you? You have been the essence of goodness to me--oh!"

The exclamation came without fear, without resentment. It was the suddenness of it all. In a moment she lay crushed in the man's powerful arms; his tall figure towered over her, and his plain face looked ardently down into hers while he poured out a pa.s.sionate torrent of words into her willing ears.

"Then I'll take no refusal," he cried, with a ring of triumph and joy in his deep voice. "Look up, Mon, look up, my dear, and tell me that you don't love me. Look up, and tell me with your eyes looking right into mine, and I'll believe you, and let you go. Look up, my darling, and tell me. You can't--you can't. Say--it's useless to try. Quit it, Mon, quit it. You love me, I know. I feel it here, right here in my heart, here, Mon, here," he cried triumphantly. "Right where your beautiful head is resting."

He moved one hand from about her, and deliberately lifted her face so that he could gaze down upon the eyes hidden beneath the deeply fringed lids.

"Come, Mon," he cried tenderly. "Speak up. Say, I can't just hear you.

I want to hear you say you don't love me, you hate me for this. No?

Then you must kiss me."

He bent his head, and drew her face up to his. And an exquisite joy flooded Monica's heart as he rained burning kisses upon her lips, her eyes, her hair.

So they remained for many minutes. He, speaking words which were ample caresses, she, listening like one in a wonderful, heavenly dream.

But at last she stirred in his arms, and finally released herself.

Then, with flushed face and bowed head, she flung herself upon the ottoman beside her with something almost like a sob.