The pioneer

Rion Gracey called on June as the Colonel had suggested, called again the week after, and in a short time formed a habit of dropping in every Sunday evening. He generally found the Colonel there, and in the first stages of reopening the friendship the elder man had been very convenient in relieving the meetings of the constraint which was bound to hover over them. But as the spring Sundays passed and the constraint wore away, Rion did not so thoroughly appreciate the presence of his friend. With surprise at his own subtility—for the mining man was of those who go forcefully over obstacles, not around them—he discovered what evenings the Colonel did not dine with June and began to make his appearance then.

He generally found her alone. She had made no effort to enlarge her acquaintance, and after the wedding her father was constantly in San Francisco or at more congenial haunts in the town. It raised agitating hopes in Rion to see that she was openly and unaffectedly glad to see him. There was a confidence, a something of trust and reliance in her manner that—for him—had not been there before. He thought she had never been so winning as she was on these lonely evenings, when her face lighted at the sight of him, and her smile was full of a soft welcome, touched with girlish shyness.

Women like to think that the beloved member of their sex plays so filling and absorbing a part in the life of the enslaved man, that all other matters are crowded from his mind. The interests of business dwindle to the vanishing point, the claims of friendship have no place in a heart out of which all else has been pushed. Love, while it lasts, holds him in a spell, and then, if only then, the woman is a reigning goddess.

Rion Gracey was not of this order of man. He had loved June since his meeting with her at Foleys, but he had led a life so full of work and business, so preoccupied with a man’s large affairs, that there were periods of weeks when he never thought of her. Yet she had been and was the only woman he had ever truly cared for and ardently desired. Before his meeting with her women had been merely incidents in his onward career. When, during the summer at Foleys, he had come to know her, he had realized how different was the place she would have taken in his life from the transitory interests which were all he had so far known. Then, for the first time, he understood what a genuine passion means to a genuine man.

When she had refused to marry him he had left her sore and angry. But the crowded life in which he was so prominent a figure soon filled with vital interests every moment of his days. His wound was not healed, but he forgot its ache. He rigorously pushed the thought of her from his mind. She was not for him, and to think of her was weakness. Then he heard a rumor that Barclay was an admirer of hers, and he shut his mouth and tried harder than ever not to think.

But time passed and June did not marry. Jerry, given his freedom, married Mercedes. Rion, a man to whom small gossip was dull, a thing to give no heed to as one walked forward, heard none of the talk of Jerry’s change of heart. It filtered slowly into Virginia, which was across the mountains in another state, and occupied in a big way with big matters. Even Barney Sullivan, who was well primed with San Francisco gossip after Mitty’s return from visits, “down below,” did not mention to his chief anything of Miss Allen and Jerry Barclay.

When he heard she was coming to Virginia the love-obsession that the woman likes to believe in, came near taking possession of him. For a day or two he was shaken out of the current of his every-day life and found it hard to attend to his work. The thought of seeing her again filled this self-contained and masterful man with tremors such as a girl might feel at the coming of her lover. The first time he saw her on C Street he found it difficult to collect his thoughts for hours afterward.

The change in her, the loss of what good looks she had once possessed, did not diminish or alter his feeling. If he had been asked if he thought her pretty he would have honestly said he did not know, he had never thought about it. He did not know how old she was, nor could he cite any special points of beauty that his eye, as a lover, had noted. Her only physical attribute that had impressed him was her smallness, and this he had noticed because in walking with her, her head only came to a little above his shoulder, and he was sometimes forced to bend down to hear her.

He had been wondering what to do when the Colonel asked him to call. Unless the suggestion had come from some one in authority he never would have dared to go, for he was a lover at once proud and shy, not of the kind who batter and browbeat a woman into acquiescence. Her first meeting with him, dominated as it was by mutual embarrassment, at least showed him that she was not displeased to see him. Since then the meetings had been frequent, her pleasure at his coming open for any one to see, and Rion’s hopes, in the beginning but faint, had waxed high and exultant.

To June, he and the Colonel were the only two figures of an intimate interest in her life. He seemed to fill its emptiness, to cheer its isolation. She looked forward to his coming, hardly knowing why, except that a sense of comfort and strength came with him. He was often in her thoughts, and she found herself storing up small incidents in her daily life to tell him, for no reason but that his unspoken sympathy was pleasant. She felt the consciousness—so sweet to women—that all which concerned her was of moment to him. Now and then the Colonel’s past assertions that the girl who married Rion Gracey would be happy, rose in her mind. She began to understand that it might be so, and what it would mean, this strong man’s love and protection guarding a woman against the storm and struggle of the world, with which she personally was so unfitted to cope.

One evening, a month after the wedding, he found her sitting on the balcony reading. It had been warm weather for a day or two and the windows and doors of the lower floor were thrown open, showing the receding vista of dimly-lighted rooms and passages. She was dressed in white and had a book he had given her lying open across her knees. As the gate clicked to his opening hand she started and looked down, then leaned forward, her face flushing, her lips parting with a smile of greeting. It was a look that might have planted hope in any man’s heart.

“I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said, gazing down on him as he ascended. “I was just wondering if you would. When you want a thing very much it never seems to happen. But now you’ve happened, so I never can say that again.”

“Yes, I’ve happened,” he answered with the phlegmatic air with which he hid his shyness. “Are you all alone again?”

“Yes, quite alone. But I’ve been reading the book you gave me and it’s made me forget all about it. I’ve nearly finished it. It’s a splendid book.”

“I’ll get you another to-morrow,” he said, leaning with his back against the railing and looking at her with a fond intentness of which he was unconscious. She was pretty to-night in her white dress and with her cheeks flushed with pleasure at his coming. Rion, who did not notice looks, noticed this, and it stirred his heart.

“Let’s go in,” he said. “There’s a sort of chill in the air. You mustn’t catch cold. If you got sick you’d have to be sent down to San Francisco. There’s no proper person here to take care of you.”

She rose and stood in front of him, half turned to go.

“Wouldn’t that be dreadful!” she said with careless lightness. “I wouldn’t go. Uncle Jim would have to give up his work on the Cresta Plata and take care of me.”

“We wouldn’t want you to go,” he answered, as he followed her into the hall. “Anyway, I’d want to keep you here.”

She did not appear to notice the change of pronoun, nor the fact that his voice had dropped on the last sentence. With her white dress sweeping spectrally before him he followed her into the dim parlor.

Something in the intimacy of the still, soft dusk, and the sudden wakening into imperious dominance of his feeling for her, made him move away from her and about the room. Through the open door of the dining-room he saw the white square of the table glimmering in the twilight, with one place set, the crumpled napkin on the cloth, the single wine glass, its lower half dark with wine, a scattering of crimson cherries dotting the glaze of a plate.

“Did you dine alone, too?” he asked.

“Yes, father’s dining in town to-night and you or Black Dan sent the Colonel into Empire till to-morrow.”

She looked round at him over her shoulder, the lighted match in her hand sending a glow over her face, which was half-plaintive, half-laughing.

“It’s very mean of you to send the Colonel away on nights when he dines with me.”

“Well, honestly, I never thought about it,” stammered Rion, trying to look contrite, but glad in his heart that the Colonel was, for this evening at least, well out of the way. “And, anyway, it was Dan who sent him. He thinks there are certain things nobody can do as well as Parrish.”

“Of course he’s right about that,” she answered. “But he ought to remember that one of the things the Colonel does best is to be company for me.”

The gas was lit and she was adjusting the shade of a lamp on a side table. As she spoke she looked over the bright chimney at him, with the smile that held in it so much of melancholy.

“It’s pretty dreary for you here, isn’t it?” he said.

Her lips suddenly trembled and she bit the under one. For a moment her control was shaken, and to hide it she bent over the lamp, pretending to arrange the wick. The pause was heavy till she said in her usual tone:

“Well, lately it has been rather lonely. It’s hard to get used to Rosamund’s not being here.”

She crossed the room to the sofa and sat down in the corner of it, Rion taking a chair near her. As she patted her skirt into satisfactory folds, she said, her eyes fixed on her arranging hand,

“It takes a person a long time to get used to some one they care for going so far off. I sometimes wonder if they ever do.”

He looked at her, murmuring some casual response, his mind not on his words. Against the sheer white of her dress a locket she wore suspended round her neck by a narrow black velvet, caught and lost the light as her breast rose and fell. He was conscious of its regular gleam, of the darkness of her hand against the white folds of her skirt, of the slim smallness of her figure reclining in the angle of the sofa.

Another pause fell between them, this time uncomfortable with a sense of extreme constraint; June’s hand ceased moving and joined its companion in her lap. She raised her eyes timidly and met his, intent, motionless, fixed deeply upon her. The locket rose brightly into the light on a sharply caught breath.

“Why did Black Dan send the Colonel into Empire?” she faltered.

“Do you remember what I asked you more than two years ago in San Francisco?” was his answer.

She tried to temporize and said nervously,

“Two years back is a long way to remember.”

“I asked you to marry me, and you said no. Do you remember?”

She nodded.

“I’m going to ask you the same thing again.”

“Oh, Rion!” she murmured in an imploring undertone.

“I can only say the same things I said then. I’m not a smooth talker, like some of the men you’ve known. I want you for my wife, and I’ll do everything I can to make you happy. That’s about the whole thing.”

She rose with some broken words he did not catch and passed round behind the sofa, where she stood, her hand resting on the back, her face averted. He rose, too, but made no attempt to approach her.

“I don’t know much about women,” he continued. “I don’t know how to talk to them. You’re the only one of them I’ve ever felt this way to; and I’m pretty sure I’ll never feel so to any other. I love you. I’ve tried to stop it and I can’t. It’s stronger than I am.”

She made no reply, and after waiting a moment, he said, his voice slightly hoarse:

“Well, say something to me.”

“I don’t know what to say,” she murmured, her face turned away.

He made a step toward the sofa, and as she heard him, she drew back as if frightened. He stopped instantly, regarding her with a sudden frowning fixity of suspicion and anger.

“Don’t you care for me, June?” he said.

“Yes, yes, of course—so much, so much more than I used to. But, Rion—”

She turned and looked at him, one of her hands raised as if to ward him off. He started forward to seize the hand, but she quickly drew it back and clasped it round the locket.

“Not that way,” she faltered, “not the way you want.”

“Are you going to say no to me again?”

“Oh, Rion!” she pleaded.

“Do you care for me? Answer. Don’t beat about the bush.”

“I care for you immensely. I’ve always cared for you, but lately it’s been something quite different, something much deeper. You’ve been so kind to me.”

“Never mind about my kindness, do you love me?”

“I—but—no—not—” she stammered a series of disconnected words, and came to a stop.

He took a step nearer to her and said in an authoritative voice, “Answer me. Will you be my wife?”

“I can’t,” she said, in the lowest tone he could hear.

“You can’t? Then it’s no again?”

“It’s not exactly no. Or if it is, it’s not the same kind of no it was before.”

“What do you mean by that? There’s only one kind of no in a matter like this.”

“Well, this is a different kind. It must be a different kind. It mustn’t be a no that makes us strangers as it did before.”

He gave a suppressed exclamation, angry and violent, and turned to the table for his hat.

“A man’s not a fool or a child,” he said, “to be spoken to like that.”

She followed his movements, saw him stretch his hand for the hat, and cried,

“Oh, don’t go—don’t go this way—don’t be angry with me—let me explain.”

He turned and looked at her with a face grown cold and hard.

“What is there to explain? I want you to be my wife. You don’t want to. That’s the whole matter.”

“Oh, no it isn’t. It’s not like it was the other time. I didn’t care then, but I do now, more than you think, much more. Everything’s different. I can’t bear to have you go. I can’t bear to lose you.”

“Is that the reason you’ve looked so pleased whenever I came? Was that the reason you told me just now that you wanted me to come so much you didn’t think I would? I’ve been a fool, no doubt, but it seems to me that a smarter man than I might have thought you meant it.”

She flushed deeply, up to her hair.

“I did mean it,” she said in a low voice.

Hope sprang to his face and he came close to her:

“Then if you meant it, say you love me, say you’ll marry me. That’s the only thing I want you to say to me.”

She shrank away again and without waiting for her answer, he turned—the light gone from his face—and reached for his hat.

“Don’t go; don’t go,” she begged. “There are things I want to say to you,”—but this time he did not let false hopes beguile him.

“Good-by,” he said gruffly, and walked to the door.

As he passed her she slipped round the sofa and came after him:

“It mustn’t be good-by. Say good night. I won’t let you say good-by.”

“It’s good-by this time, young woman,” he said grimly. “Good-by for keeps.”

She laid her hand on his arm and that stopped him. With an air of enforced patience he stood, his face turned from her, waiting. For a moment she did not speak, and he said:

“Come, what is it? If it’s that I’m to dangle round as I’ve been doing for the past two months, let’s not waste time over that; I’m not that kind of a man. There’s too much for me to do to waste my time and thoughts hanging round a girl who’s only fooling with me.”

“I was not fooling,” she said humbly; “I meant it all.”

“Evidently we didn’t both mean the same thing.”

“No, but now that we understand, don’t go off this way saying it’s to be good-by for keeps. I shall be so lonely without you. I trust in you so. I lean on you—”

“Lean on the Colonel,” he interrupted, almost brutally. “He’s a more reliable staff than I am.”

“But we can still be friends,” she urged, not appearing to notice his harshness.

“No, we’ll not be friends.”

Looking down at her he forgot his sternness and his voice grew suddenly roughened with feelings he could not disguise.

“I can’t be your friend, June Allen. There may be men who can be the friend of the women they feel to as I do to you, but I’m not that kind. I can be your husband, only that. There’s to be no play at friendship where I’m concerned, no taking your hand to shake when I want to take you in my arms and keep you there, where no other man in the world can lay his finger on you or think of you as something he can try to win. You must belong to me, want to belong to me, come to me of your own free will, or else we must be strangers.”

He took her hand, lifted it from his arm and with a short “Good-by” turned and left the room.

June stood under the chandelier listening to his retreating footsteps as they passed along the hall and then down the outside stairs. She remained motionless, looking down, her ear strained to catch the diminishing footfalls as they reached the end of the steps and were deadened in the dust of the street. He was leaving her never to come back, disappearing from her life and the place he had of late taken in it, into the night and the distance. As she listened her heart momently grew heavier, the sense of empty desertion about her became suddenly overwhelming.

“Everybody I care for is going away from me,” she whispered to herself. “Soon there won’t be anybody left.”