“Yes, we'd have to come back here if we didn't. We've got to join the company Monday night, you know, at South Bend.”
They crossed over the Rush Street bridge and took the early steamer for St. Joseph. From now on they should have no difficulty. There was a reverend person in St. Joseph who was always glad to marry foolish young men and foolish young girls, for a consideration. And this reverend one, in the evening's rest after a day given to guiding his flock heavenward, could surely find a few moments in which to make these two one. They could be sure of finding discretion here, sure that no awkward questions would be asked, that no permission from unreasonable parents would be hinted at; sure, in brief, that the good divine would be entirely at their service, would wish them Godspeed on the up-road or the down-road or any conceivable road—for a consideration.
The weeks went spinning by. Both sides were losing so heavily that the fight was becoming grim. On the one hand, Bigelow, with his unreasonable directors to keep in line, was closing in relentlessly on the Wauchung interests; on the other hand, Higginson & Company were holding on with an endurance that puzzled Mr. Bigelow.
And it was at this time, when affairs were leaping along toward a crisis, that Doctor Brown of Wauchung took a hand by ordering Mr. Higginson to bed. Nothing but a complete rest could save him from a breakdown, said the Doctor—news which brought Mrs. Higginson down with nervous exhaustion, which set Mamie's wits a-fluttering, which complicated matters somewhat for Halloran. The longer Halloran studied the business, the longer he pored over statements of profits and statements of losses that could not be brought together, the plainer became the facts.. Ideas were floating in his head, ideas so nearly what he wanted that he knew it would be only a question of time before he could catch one or the other of them and bring it down into the world of reality—ideas that were later to be brought to bear, perhaps, on Bigelow and his combination; but meanwhile his course was clear. The logical next step was to shut down the mills.
He dared not think of all the details in connection with such a step, of what it would mean to Mr. Higginson, to the hundreds of men who had grown up in the work, or to what few other business interests there were in Wauchung; the mere consideration of the moral issue involved led into such a maze of pros and cons that he resolutely set it aside and kept his mind fixed on the business facts. If this step were not taken, the heavy expense of maintenance would swamp Higginson & Company and everybody connected with them so deep that all the king's horses could not drag them out; by shutting down, on the other hand, he could prolong the fight. The trust would be free to continue selling at a loss; but Higginson & Company would be enabled to leave their timber growing in the forest until prices should reach normal again.
As Mr. Higginson's whole fortune was in the business, his income was now next to nothing; but Halloran believed he could hold out six months or so longer. On the other hand, he did not think Bigelow could last so long at the head of a losing venture. Indeed, if for one moment of those tense days he had lost his belief that Bigelow could be beaten, Halloran would have dropped out of this story on this page.
One evening Doctor Brown received a call from the Manager.
“Now, Doctor,” said Halloran, when they were seated in the office, “what can you tell me about Mr. Higginson? Is he better?”
The physician shook his head. “No—no better.”
“You consider his case serious?”
“Yes,”—gravely—“it is serious.”
“I will tell you, Doctor—for you must understand it before you can answer me—that the business is in a situation that demands his attention if he is able to give it—even for five minutes.”
Doctor Brown shook his head again.
“Could I not lay a decision before him, Doctor, if I make it as clear and simple as possible?”
“No; a decision would be the last thing to bother him with.”
Halloran sat thinking. This was difficult—very difficult, indeed. Shutting down another man's mills without his knowledge was not the sort of thing he liked to do. The physician spoke again:
“His mind must have a rest, Mr. Halloran; that is the only way we can save him.”
This was final, and Halloran went out to return to his room and pore again over accounts and statements, to think again of Bigelow, to grope again for those ideas that seemed so nearly what he wanted. For another week he watched the expense account mounting up; then one day he sent for Crosman to come to his office.
“Mr. Crosman,” he said, “the mills will shut down Saturday night. Will you please see that the men are notified?”
Crosman looked at Halloran for a moment to make sure that he understood; then with a puzzled expression he left the room. Later in the day he met Halloran in the yard.
“Am I——— Do you want me to leave Saturday?” he asked, his voice full of emotion.
“No,” the Manager replied shortly, “you stay; I want you.”
That evening Halloran was at work in his room when Crosman came in.
“I just happened around at Higginson's,” he said, evidently somewhat embarrassed, “and Mamie said that her father wants to see you.”
“When—now?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
Halloran pushed aside his work with a thoughtful face. Presently he said:
“If you are going back that way, I'll walk along with you.”
The door was opened by Mamie herself.
“Oh, Mr. Halloran,” she cried, “I don't know what to say. Father isn't well at all—he's so nervous and excitable. Doctor Brown told me this morning not to let him see you at all, but he says he must see you—he made me send Harry as soon as he got here. I haven't known what to do.”
Halloran heard her through, then he went directly up-stairs. Mr. Higginson's room was dimly lighted, and it was a moment before his eyes could distinguish clearly; but when he finally made out the thin figure propped up on the bed he was shocked at the change the sickness had wrought.
“Sit down,” Mr. Higginson was saying. “Tell me what this means.” His voice was tremulous with feeling. “What is this they have been telling me about closing the mills?”
“It is true. I have arranged to shut down Saturday night.”
“True, is it?” The lean old figure stirred on its pillows; the thin fingers closed tightly on a fold of the bedclothes. “Do you know what you are saying, man?”
“We can't afford to pay men for doing nothing, Mr. Higginson.”
“Do you realize what this means?” The old man raised himself on his elbow; he found it difficult to control his voice. “Do you know that I brought those men here, that I have supported some of them for thirty years? Do you think they can be cast off to starve? Why didn't you come to me with this? What do you mean by settling it out of hand?”
“I haven't been allowed to see you.”
“Not been allowed! Is this a conspiracy? There's some meaning to this, Halloran. I insist upon knowing it. Do you mean that I have got to the end? Have we lost?” The last few words were spoken with a sudden return to calmness; but his eyes were shining.
“No, not at all. I think we shall win.”
“You think!—for God's sake, Halloran, speak out and have it over with. What's the matter—what has happened?”
Halloran came over and sat on the edge of the bed where he could talk in a quiet voice; “We have not lost, Mr. Higginson, and what's more, we aren't going to lose. Bigelow's people have got to keep on selling below cost until something happens. We certainly couldn't go on running full- handed without a cent of income. By shutting down we can hold out longer than they can. It's hard on the men, but it is hard on the rest of us, too. It's the only way we can meet them.”
Even a sick man could see the soundness of this. And somehow the presence of his manager, with his air of health and confidence, went a long ways toward restoring, for the moment, the balance of Mr. Higginson's mind. He fell back on the pillows, unstrung after his excitement, but somewhat relieved.
Halloran said good-night and went downstairs. Mamie heard his step and, leaving Crosman in the sitting-room, she met him in the hall.
“I meant to tell you not to come down yet,” she said with lowered eyes. “Ma said that she wanted to see you when you came in. I'll go ahead if you don't mind.”
He followed her to another upstairs room, where he found Mrs. Higginson on a couch, dressed in the daintiest of lace-trimmed dressing-sacks. She looked up when he entered and motioned wearily to a chair.
“It is kind of you to come,” she said. “Mamie, dear, won't you get me my heavy shawl?”
Mamie, understanding, left the room and did not hurry back.
“I want to talk with you about our dear girl,” began Mrs. Higginson. “Of course, if the worst should happen—you understand———-” Here her emotion overcame her for a moment. “You can understand what a shock it has been to me. Mr. H. had not told me of the trouble, and the news that he had failed came like a thunderbolt. I don't mind for myself—but if anything should happen—if the worst—I could go so much—so much easier—if I knew that Mamie was provided for. You will be good to her, John? You will forgive me for calling you John? It is the way Mr. H. always spoke of you at home———” She was obliged to pause again. “I am afraid he will never c—call you John again.”
Her handkerchief went up to her eyes; and Halloran sat back and looked hard at a picture of the first Higginson mill, in oils, that hung over the mantel.
“I suppose we shall have to sell the house,” she went on, rallying. “You will know best about that, John. I am sure you will act for the best, and save what you can for our little girl. You will be good to her—I am sure you will. She has learned to admire you very much. And when we are—when we are no longer—and the house is gone——”
“Nothing of that sort will be necessary,” broke in Halloran, glad to relieve her mind and the gloom at the same time. “The house needn't be sold. I think we shall have the mills running again before so very long.”
He saw, as he spoke, that his words struck a discordant note. She looked at him incredulously.
“It isn't so bad as it sounds————” He meant to make it better, but, failing, stopped.
“Do you mean that we have been given this shock for nothing?” she asked, with returning strength.
The only way out was retreat. He rose, saying, “I hope to have good news for you soon,” and bowed a good-night.
He found Mamie sitting on the stairs in the dark with the shawl across her lap. She got up with a little sob and stood back against the rail for him to pass.
“Cheer up, Miss Higginson,” he said in a low voice, “It isn't a failure at all. We are getting on as well as we could expect.”
She put both hands on the railing to steady herself and looked up at him in amazement.
“You don't mean that!” she whispered, “what you said?”
He nodded. “You needn't bother about it at all. Everything is all right.”
She Still doubted. “But the mills?”
“The mills will be running soon.”
“Oh, really?” she said, almost wonderingly. “Really?”
The sobs were coming again. She caught his hand in both of hers and held it tightly. “Then there isn't any failure—and you are going to save our home for us?”
This was frying-pan to fire. Halloran answered hastily:
“It won't be necessary to save it. We shall be all right again soon.”
His matter-of-fact tone brought her to herself. She released his hand and, suddenly plunged into confusion, hurried upstairs.
On his way out Halloran paused in the hall. Through the wide doorway he could see Crosman, out in the sitting-room, striding around with his hands in his pockets.
“Good-night, Crosman,” he ventured.
But the other would not hear him; and Halloran, feeling as if he had been put through a wringer, went out.
The next morning—it chanced to be a Friday—Crosman came over to Halloran's desk.
“Have you a couple of minutes?” he asked.
“Surely. More than I want. Sit down.”
Crosman did not take the offered chair, but leaned on the desk.
“Miss Higginson spoke to me last night,” he said, with visible effort, “about the family expenses. She thinks they ought to reduce them all around, but you, she says, are the only one that knows about it. I suggested that she talk it over with you herself; but she didn't want to, for some reason.”
Halloran swung back in his chair.
“I don't know how well you understand this business, Crosman. It simply amounts to this: The combine people are selling lumber below cost to run us out of business, and we have shut down to let them go ahead until they're sick of it. When the price rises we'll start up again. Of course all this makes a big difference in Mr. Higginson's income. I suppose there's no use trying to make that plain to women, but if you can do anything to clear the air you'd better go talk to them. Anyhow, don't let them make any difference in their living. We mustn't do anything that will scare people; the Higginson credit is good, and it's our business to keep it good.”
He meditated a moment and then looked up and said abruptly:
“Look here, Crosman, you can do me a favour if you want to. Mr. Higginson's sickness seems to have left me in charge of his family finances. Now suppose you take the whole business off my hands. You know both Mrs. Higginson and Miss Higginson better than I do; and I think it would be a good deal easier for them to talk things over with you than with me. You can let me know if anything special comes up and I'll help you work it out. How does that strike you?”
“All right,” he managed finally to get out. “I'll try it.”
“I don't believe this giving away lumber can last much longer,” said Halloran.
Something about those phrases that had been floating in Halloran's mind for weeks, “giving away lumber,” “selling at a loss,” “selling to our customers,” stuck in his thoughts now. He sat there, leaning back in his swivel-chair gazing at the rows of pigeon-holes—Crosman still leaning on the desk—while his mind sailed off to Pewaukoe; he saw again the great yards of the Bigelow Company crowded full of lumber—the mills droning ceaselessly, the scores of men swarming over the work, the steamer hurrying the cargo—and he thought again “all this is to be sold below cost to our customers.”
Then Halloran's chair came down with a bang and his open hand slapped the desk. He had got it. The idea that had evaded him all these weeks was finally run to cover, was bagged securely. And the simplicity of it all, the feeling of utter imbecility in having failed to see it before, left him limp. But he recovered.
“Crosman,” he said, “I'm going to Chicago to-night and may not get back before the first of the week. You look out for things here, will you?”
The assistant was growing hardened to surprises. He merely nodded now, with a curious expression.
Halloran had got it. And for a moment he could only say to himself, over and over: “What a fool! What a fool!” He could only think of that tremendous output of lumber thrown on the market for a song. “Selling to our customers, eh,” he thought; “selling to our customers!”
“Crosman,” he said, when he felt that he was on his legs again, “we're going to buy lumber.”
Crosman did not grasp it at first.
“We're going to buy lumber—all we can get,” Halloran repeated; “and I'm going down to get the money.”
It was sinking into Crosman's head—slowly he was gripping it, this idea of Halloran's. Higgin-son & Company were going to buy lumber, were going to buy it below cost—great quantities of it—to buy it secretly, in many places, under many names, at half the normal price; they would sell it later at or above normal. Then at last Crosman looked at Halloran and grinned—broadly, happily. And Halloran said to himself again: “What a fool! Oh, what a fool!”
There was much to be done that day. Crosman must have full instructions for prompt action; the moment Halloran's message should come up from Chicago he must cross the lake to Milwaukee, and from there command the Wisconsin shore. Halloran himself would set the Chicago end of the line in motion. Scattered here and there around the lake were men who had occasionally handled business for Higginson & Company. These were to be retained, wherever possible, and set to buying in Trust lumber. Everything must be done secretly; every opportunity must be seized. There would be storage to arrange for in a dozen cities, and insurance; there were a score and odd contingencies to be foreseen and provided against, a maximum price to be agreed on for each necessary step. But the figuring and the talking had an end; and when Halloran finally jumped on the night train and was rolled off toward Chicago he felt that Bigelow's flank was as good as turned.
There was one bank in Chicago with which Mr. Higginson had been doing business for twenty years. Thither Halloran went, shook hands with the cashier and laid bare the situation. The cashier already knew a good deal about the fight, and was interested to fill up the gaps in his information.
“What is it you plan to do, Mr. Halloran?” he asked when they had talked over the situation.
“We are going to buy lumber.”
The cashier inclined his head to show that he understood perfectly.
“We can buy it now for one or two dollars less than it costs us to get it out of our own woods,” Halloran added.
This interested the cashier very much indeed. Higginson & Company were good, all the way through; and their manager seemed to have a keen business sense. Mr. Higginson's sickness entered his calculations; but still the investment was sound. The amount must be discussed and one or two details mentioned. But it was after a very few minutes of talk that the cashier said:
“We shall be very glad to let you have the money, Mr. Halloran.”
The arrangements were soon made. Then Hal-loran said good-morning and went down to the telegraph office in the basement of the building. And as this short message hummed over the wires to Crosman, “Go ahead. Halloran,” he walked out into the street to begin the battle. All idleness was over now for Halloran—all merely defensive work, all waiting for results. From now on it was to be straight-out fighting; and he knew that the best man would win.
Before that Saturday afternoon was far advanced Halloran's agents were at work. Their instructions were simple. “Buy all the one-inch and two-inch stuff you can get, pine and hemlock, in regular lengths and widths,” was what he had said, in starting them out; and before evening orders had been placed in Chicago alone for nearly a million feet. The work would be pushed still further on Monday and Tuesday. Every company in the “combine” would be given an opportunity to sell heavily.
Farther up Lake Michigan Crosman was working with equal energy. It was a chance for Crosman, an opportunity to show his metal, and he realized it. There had been some pulling at odds in the office, and the assistant had perhaps been inclined to misunderstand Halloran in more ways than one; but all that was now swept away, and the enthusiasm of vigorous work was in him.
For the first time since the fight began he fully understood it; he had been made to see that there was a possibility of winning. And when Halloran's message reached him that morning and he realized that no regular steamer would cross the lake before evening, he hurried a tug into commission, and with Captain Craig and MacGregor to get him over he made the passage to Milwaukee in less than seven hours. Late as it was when he arrived, he not only organized the work for Monday, but succeeded in placing the first few orders.
And so it fell out that the reduction in price, made solely to ruin Higginson, was suddenly and unexpectedly turned to his advantage. The busy companies that were scattered about the northern shores of the lake did not know this yet—did not dream that they were crowding extra shifts of men into their mills to help out Higginson, that the logs floating down a score of rivers in both peninsulas were to be cut for Higginson, that the steamers loading at a score of wharves were running for Higginson, that the long list of lake towns from which had arisen the heavy demand for lumber were buying for Higginson. They did not know these things, and Halloran did not mean that they should know them.
Perhaps it was the knowledge of all this, and the natural elation after such a day's work, that between them took Halloran's actions out of his own hands that Saturday evening. There were times when he was likely to surprise himself; this seemed to be one of them. During these past three years he had been in Chicago a number of times, but always only to transact his business and go directly back to Wauchung, always heeding that stubborn quality somewhere within him that had had so much to do with pulling him up from nothing and pushing him on in the world, that had kept him out of foolishness on at least one important occasion. He had managed, until now, to side with the stubborn quality against a certain impulse that had occasionally given him trouble, but to-night the impulse caught him off his guard. There were a good many things he might have done—there were even one or two details of the fight still to be studied out—but the impulse, once securely planted in authority, swept aside every other thought. And so, after dinner, Halloran caught a train for Evanston.
An odd feeling took possession of him when he found himself once more, after three years, on the scene of his struggles. It did not seem so long ago. That he had greatly changed he knew; since the days of furnace-tending, and study, and work as a surfman, and all the other interests that had crowded those earlier years, he had thrown himself out into the world. He had come to know something of the joy of directing men and events, of playing a positive part in the life about him. He had come to love the fighting, to love the play of fact upon fact and mind upon mind. During the last year he had begun to understand the feeling of the trained swimmer when he plunges into deep water. There was the exhilaration, not only of keeping afloat where weak men sink, but of laying a course and following it, sure of his strength and endurance. While this change was taking place in him he had been inclined to forget that these three years were, after all, but a ninth or tenth part of his life so far, and that the other nine-tenths were also a fact. But to-night, as he walked up toward the Ridge where the big houses stood, he felt that he was taking up his old life where he had laid it down that day when he took the boat for Wauchung. And somehow he was not so sure of himself as he had been when he said good-morning to the cashier.
He was almost relieved to find that Miss Davies and her mother had stepped across the way. They would be back soon, he was told; so he went in, left his hat and coat in the hall, and walked in through the parlour to the long sitting-room, where there were rows upon rows of books and a round-edged table covered with other books and with magazines, and a great fireplace with a wood fire burning to take the edge off the evening air.
He sat down in the Morris chair by the table and picked up a book—he had not had time to read much of late years. But after a moment of turning the pages the book was lowered to his knees and his eyes looked over it at the fire. There had been a time when he had laid that fire regularly every morning, and now to be sitting here, suddenly conscious that his life had taken a new direction, that he was older, and that his clothes were better—that he was, in fact, another person altogether—was odd and haunting, was almost disconcerting.
He heard the front door open. There was a rustle out in the hall, and voices. He let his head fall against the back of his chair and turned his face toward the parlour door. He hardly knew what to make of himself; he was almost afraid he had emotions. Certainly a peculiar disturbance was going on somewhere within him, such a disturbance as hardly could be looked for within the manager of a lumber company. He did not like it at all. He wondered why she was so long about coming in. Perhaps she would go on upstairs, not knowing he was there; and that would be awkward. Altogether, it was probably a good thing that Halloran had come out to Evanston before the new life had succeeded in withdrawing him finally from the old, before the proportion of one-tenth to nine-tenths had been evened up and he had wholly changed into Michigan lumber—a very good thing indeed.
She came in through the hall doorway and paused surprised. He felt himself rising and standing with his back to the table and the light. She came slowly forward, inclining her head a little to get the light out of her eyes so that she could see his face. The disturbance, now increasing in that strange new part of him, out of all proportion to the occasion, called his attention to her reserve, to the something—was it pride?—that had disturbed him in other days; it taunted him with her firm carriage, her fine, thoughtful face; it reminded him of her real superiority, the superiority that comes only from pride in right living; and so Halloran, the vigorous, the elated, at the moment of greeting an old friend in her own house, was so far from equal to the situation that for the life of him he could think of nothing but certain raw facts in his own bringing-up, or fighting-up, whichever it might be called. And not a word did he say—simply waited.
She came a few steps nearer and hesitated. Then, after an instant, her whole expression changed. Her eyes lighted up with gladness so real that even he could not misread it; and she came rapidly forward with outstretched hand.
“Why, John Halloran,” she cried; “where did you come from?”
He took her hand, and their eyes met. Until now it had not occurred to him that she, too, had changed. Her expression even was different; three years earlier she had been living earnestly, intensely—she had felt the unequal burdens of the world and had plunged fearlessly into vast problems, but now she seemed more impersonal, more detached.
“Sit down,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “I will speak to mother.”
There were more greetings to be gone through. They sat about the fire for awhile; and Halloran had to give an account of himself, and had to listen to Mrs. Davies's open approval of him. She had heard of him now and then; she had known from the first that he would get on; she was downright proud of him, in fact. This was something of an ordeal, and he felt relieved when she withdrew and left Margaret with him.
The two stood for a moment looking into the fire; then she nodded toward the Morris chair and he dropped into it. She sat down on the other side of the table and propped up her chin on her two hands. For a moment they sat looking at each other. Finally they both smiled.
“Well,” she observed, “we've been growing up, haven't we?”
So she had remarked it, too.
“Yes, I guess we have,” he replied. “Rather more than I had thought.”
“You didn't expect to find me the same girl you left here, did you?”
Halloran gazed moodily into the fire.
“I don't know. I couldn't say just what I did expect.”
“But it's different, anyway, isn't it?”
He nodded.
“And now you don't like it because you think we shall have to begin all over again getting acquainted?”
He nodded again. Then, looking up, he was assured by her friendly smile. She slowly shook her head at him.
“That isn't quite fair,” she went on. “Here I have been staying right at home and doing the same things all these three years. If I have grown a little older, I couldn't help it very well. But you have grown to be a business man with ever so many interests, and I suppose you are very successful—anyway, you have changed so much I hardly knew you. How long are you going to be here?”
“Until Monday or Tuesday.”
“You must come to dinner to-morrow, then. You'd better come planning to spend the rest of the day.”
“Thanks, I will. How is George?”
Her face grew serious. “He has been giving me a good deal of trouble lately. I don't know what to make of him. He lost his home, you know—or maybe you don't. Have you heard the story?”
“No.”
“It is a strange one. To begin with, his sister Elizabeth eloped with Mr. Le Duc.”
“Not Apples?”
“Yes; they were married in St. Joe, and she went on the stage with him. Jimmie McGinnis is with them, too. They call themselves the three Le Ducs, I believe. And Mrs. Craig lost her position. The Le Ducs are in Chicago now, at a cheap theatre, and Mrs. Craig is living with them; but they refused to take George, too. They seem to grudge her even the little they do. So George was turned out into the street and got into bad company, and now he's in jail. I don't think it's as bad as it sounds. His companions are a good deal older, and Mr. Babcock, who has been looking after him, says he will undoubtedly be released. I almost wrote you about it a little while ago.”
“I wish you had.”
“Well,” she hesitated, “I didn't know—it has been so long.” She looked up. “To tell the truth, I didn't know whether you were still interested.”
He rose and went over to the mantel. The fire was low and he heaped it up with the largest sticks in the wood-box; then dropping on one knee he took up the bellows and had it roaring in a moment.
“I like a big fire,” he said, over his shoulder.
She nodded and let her eyes rest on him as he worked over the fire. Yes, he was a good deal older; his frame had filled out and settled; and in his manner, too, some of the rough edges had been rubbed down—a fact she whimsically regretted. She got up now and pushed the big chair up beside the fire and sat across from him. For a time they said nothing—he sitting on a stool at one side of the hearth, she in the chair at the other; he applying the bellows in a moody, desultory way, she leaning back watching first him and then the leaping flames. Finally he said, letting the bellows swing between his knees, still keeping his eyes on the fire:
“Margaret!”
She started a little and a quick, almost shy glance shot from her eyes; but he seemed wholly unconscious that he had never directly called her by that name before. He swung the bellows slowly to and fro like a pendulum.
“What made you think I wouldn't be interested?”
“Why—I don't know that I meant exactly that———”
He went on, still without looking up: “Was it anything in what I wrote before?”
Yes, there had been some writing before—when he was first at Wauchung, and she, eager for her little protégé in the city, had kept him informed of George's progress and had relied on his counsel. And now, as he brought that correspondence up in his mind, and remembered how it had bothered him, how he had avoided every personal reference and had made it easy always for her to stop when she chose, and how she finally had stopped—when he had these facts before him, he was thankful that the fire could partly explain his colour.
“I'm afraid I wasn't a very satisfactory correspondent,” he added, “but those weren't very satisfactory days. I was sailing pretty close then—I had some college expenses to pay back, and I was learning the business, and altogether I didn't see much fun in living. If you have thought of me since as the same sort of fellow I was then, I don't blame you for not wanting to write.”
He looked up at her for a reply; but she only smiled a little and slowly shook her head.
And so they talked on, these two, for a long time; they drifted on into a dreamy, personal mood—into a land where only common interests could get a footing, where there was no clock—nothing but the red flames, and the dim rows of books, and the hushed house, and themselves. They forgot to-night those three years of divergence—forgot that there was one set of facts centring about the Michigan lumberman and another about Margaret. To Halloran all of life had slipped away except that dreamy figure in the Morris chair, with the late red glow of the fire on her face and on her hair. Her eyes were half closed, and she turned them toward him now and then without moving her head. A smile hovered on her face—now on her lips, if he spoke to her—at other times flitting about her eyes. Her hands lay motionless on the arms of 'the chair. To both of them it was a rich glad time, so glad that it could best be explained by silence, tempered only at intervals by low voices; so rich that it poured its warmth into their very souls and quieted them, and gave them to know that such high moments are rare, that they must be conserved and guarded, must be lived through reverently.
He looked at her shyly at first, with stolen glances, until in some silent way she gave him her permission; and then he looked long, not from his eyes alone, but from the new self within him which had risen almost to equality with that other self of hers. He knew this now—knew it to be gloriously true; and he felt a defiance of all life, of all the pressing facts and things that had crowded into his existence, a defiance, a consciousness of self that thrilled him with its reality. For the first time in his life he knew that those solid things were not real. And his soul was awed and humbled.
And she looked at him—shyly always, yet conscious of what she was too honest to deny. And the occasional pressure of her sensitive mouth, the twitch of her eyelid as the light wavered over it, were not needed to show him that she, too, was wholly given up to the reality—that her life was gathered up to-night, with his, into one full hour of happiness.
Into this Arden came the distant whistle of a locomotive. Her eyes sought his, and at the expression they found there she shook her head.
“That is going the other way,” she said softly.
“I'm sorry”—he looked at his watch—“I have just time for the last train.”
He rose and stood a moment looking at the fire. Then he came over and leaned on the back of the chair and reached down and raised her hand in his. She almost shivered at his touch, but he held it firmly; and after a moment, in which the blood seemed to leave her face, her fingers closed on his and clasped them tightly.
And then he forgot all about the last train. He knew that the impulse that he had feared so long had at last mastered him, and he was wildly, exultantly glad. He slipped down on the broad arm of the chair and held her hand on his knee, and looked down at her hair; whilst she, still with that occasional compression of the lips, gazed into the fire. For her, too, everything had slipped into oblivion—everything but the red, red glow of the dying fire and the clasp of his hand in hers and the touch of his other hand on her hair. There was nothing else in the world for her to-night; and her happiness was so poignant that she felt herself swept blindly along with him, past all the obstacles of convention, of small misunderstandings, of outside interests, on up to heights that had never before during her quiet lifetime even entered her imagination. At moments her fingers would tighten on his and strange, happy tears would fill her eyes, to be kept back only by an effort. Once she could not keep them back; and he looked down and saw them on her cheek, and she did not care. Tears were trivial, now that her soul was laid bare to him.
At another time she spoke so softly that he could not hear, and he bent down his head.
“You are not going to try to get back to the city?” she repeated, in a voice from which all strength, all the body had gone.
“No—I'm going down to the hotel.”
Her clasp tightened again by way of reply.
And so the wild, sweet message came to this man and this young woman. It told them how deeply those earlier years of friendship had entered their natures; it let them know how much stronger it was than will or habit—how it had chained their two lives so firmly together that only a few moments had been needed to-night to show it plainly to them both. A look of the eye, a tone in the voice, and it was done. From that moment their lives had changed; and where-ever the new current might lead them, whatever might be waiting in the dim, luminous years beyond, the new fact must control their thoughts. The old days were gone; the new had begun.
Was it strange that he should think of this, that the meaning of it all should flash through his mind; whilst she, with her sensitive nature wholly bound up in this moment, should be thinking of nothing, should be conscious of nothing, save that he was here? Was this strange? Her eyes were still fixed on the embers; she seemed unable to raise them to his. In all her life she had never before given up. Her impulses had never before swept her reason from its seat and held her, trembling and amazed, in their grip. It was new and wonderful to her.
“Margaret,” he said, in the low voice that expressed the most, “dare I look at my watch?” She smiled and tightly held his hand.
“No?”
She shook her head.
He caught up a lock of her hair and held it against the light. It glistened like fine-spun gold. He leaned down and pressed it to his lips; and again he felt that tightening of her fingers, that slight shiver passing through her. He bent forward and saw that the tears had escaped again. “Margaret,” he whispered, “look up.”
Her eyes lifted a little, then dropped. He waited and then whispered again, “Look up, dear.” Slowly she raised them until they met his fairly, and their two souls were gazing straight, each to each. Her fingers tightened and tightened; she was trembling. And at last he caught her wildly with both his arms and drew her against him and kissed her forehead, her eyes, her mouth. And her tears fell without restraint.
“Dear girl,” he whispered, his mouth close to her ear, “Dear girl, you love me—I know you love me. I have waited—it is a long while that I have waited—but all the waiting is over now. Tell me that it is all over—that we are going to begin our lives—our life—new again. Tell me that we are going to be happy.”
There was a moment during which she struggled to free herself. “Don't, oh, don't!” she cried brokenly. “Please stop, John!” And he, hurt and wondering, released her, and stood up, watching her stupidly as she fell back in the chair and covered her eyes.
Poor Halloran! He had been supposing that he understood her—that he really could see a little way into that complex nature. And the discovery that he was still far on the outside of her personality brought a cruel shock. He could not know that while his thoughts had rambled ahead, constructing their life, hers had been absorbed in the happiness of that one golden hour. He could not understand how his words, and the realization of what this evening meant to them both, had burst upon her with a force that frightened her. He could not be expected to know what a struggle had come with this first open thought of giving herself up to a man—what questions it raised, what problems of wholly reconstructing a life; how the great question loomed before her in dimensions that seemed almost tragic. He could not understand this; and so, when he finally spoke, it was with a touch of quiet dignity:
“Margaret,” he said, “I have asked you to be my wife.” There was a more and more appealing quality in his voice as he went on. “I have asked you to be my wife. Can't you give me your answer?”
She shook her head without uncovering her eyes.
“Shall I come for it to-morrow, then, Margaret? I think I have told you everything. You know that I love you. I can't live without you—I dread even to think of waiting. It means so much to me, Margaret, so very much, that I don't know——”
He paused, for his voice was beginning to shake a little. Still she was silent.
“Have you”—it was getting difficult to speak—“have you nothing to tell me?”
“Oh, John,” she managed to say, “I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!”
“Is—is that all, Margaret?”
“You must not come to-morrow—I can't let you.”
“A week, then, Margaret?—a—a month?”
“I don't know—you must not stay.”
He waited a little, then walked slowly to the hall. When he had his coat nearly on she came to the doorway. He waited again, hat in hand.
“Good—good-night,” she said.
“Is that———”
She shook her head nervously, hurriedly, and he opened the door and went out.
And when he had gone, when his last step had died away in the still air, she sank down on the stairs and sobbed, trembling in the power of this passion. What had she done! What had she done! Her thoughts ranged madly. She thought of the three years of divergence; of his habits, of hers; of all the things, great and trivial, that bore on the question; she tried to remember what had happened this night, and could not. She only knew that this strange power had mastered her; and she was afraid of it and of him.