Quick Action Part 8

"When will you be able to afford it?"

Neither were embarra.s.sed; he looked thoughtfully into the fire; and for a while she watched him in his brown study.

"Will it be soon?" she asked, under her breath.

"No, dear."

That time a full minute intervened before either realised how he had answered. And both remained exceedingly still until she said calmly:

"I thought you were the very ideal embodiment of personal liberty. And now I find that wretched and petty and ign.o.ble circ.u.mstances fetter even such a man as you are. It--it is--is heartbreaking."

"It won't last forever," he said, controlling his voice.

"But the years are going--the best years, Mr. Jones. And your life's work beckons you. And you are equipped for it, and you can not take it!"

"Some day----" But he could say no more then, with her hand tightening in his.

"To--to rise superior to circ.u.mstances--that is G.o.d-like, isn't it?" she said.

"Yes." He laughed. "But on six hundred dollars a year a man can't rise very high above circ.u.mstances."

The shock left her silent. Any gown of hers cost more than that. Then the awfulness of it all rose before her in its true and hideous proportions. And there was nothing for her to do about it, nothing, absolutely nothing, except to endure the degradation of her wealth and remember that the merest t.i.the of it could have made this man beside her immortally famous--if, perhaps, no more wonderful than he already was in her eyes.

Was there no way to aid him? She could look for ichneumon flies in the morning. And on the morning after that. And the next morning she would say good-bye and go away forever--out of this enchanted forest, out of his life, back to the _Chihuahua_, and to her guests who ate often and digested all day long--back to her father, her mother--back to Stirrups----

He felt her hand close on his convulsively, and turned to encounter her flushed and determined face.

"You like me, don't you?" she said.

"Yes." After a moment he said: "Yes--absolutely."

"Do you like me enough to--to let me help you in your research work--to be patient enough to teach me a little until I catch up with you?... So we can go on together?... I know I am presumptuous--perhaps importunate--but I thought--somehow--if you did like me well enough--it would be--very agreeable----"

"It would be!... And I--like you enough for--anything. But you could not remain here----"

"I don't mean here."

"Where, then?"

"Where?" She looked vaguely about her in the firelight. "Why, everywhere. Wherever you go to make your researches."

"Dear, I would go to Ceylon if I could."

"I also," she said.

He turned a little pale, looking at her in silence. She said calmly: "What would you do in Ceylon?"

"Study the unknown life-histories of the rarer Ornithoptera."

She knew no more than a kitten what he meant. But she wanted to know, and, moreover, was perfectly capable of comprehending.

"Whatever you desire to study," she said, "would prove delightful to me.... If you want me. Do you?"

"Want you!" Then he bit his lip.

"Don't you? Tell me frankly if you don't. But I think, somehow, you would not make a mistake if you did want me. I really am intelligent. I didn't know it until I talked with you. Now, I know it. But I have never been able to give expression to it or cultivate it.... And, somehow, I know I would not be a drag on you--if you would teach me a little in the beginning."

He said: "What can I teach _you_, Cecil? Not the heavenly frankness that you already use so sweetly. Not the smiling and serene n.o.bility which carries your head so daintily and so fearlessly. Not the calm purity of thought, nor the serene goodness of mind that has graciously included a poor devil like me in your broad and generous sympathies----"

"Please!" she faltered, flus.h.i.+ng. "I am not what you say--though to hear you say such things is a great happiness--a pleasure--very intense--and wonderful--and new. But I am nothing, _nothing_--unless I should become useful to you. I _could_ amount to something--with--you----" She checked herself; looked at him as though a trifle frightened. "Unless," she added with an effort, "you are in love with somebody else. I didn't think of that. _Are_ you?"

"No," he said. "Are you?"

"No.... I have never been in love.... This is the nearest I have come to it."

"And I."

She smiled faintly.

"If we----"

"Oh, yes," he said, calmly, "if we are to pa.s.s the balance of our existence in combined research, it would be rather necessary for us to marry."

"Do you mind?"

"On the contrary. Do you?"

"Not in the least. Do you really mean it? It wouldn't be disagreeable, would it? You are above marrying for mere sentiment, aren't you?

Because, somehow, I seem to know you like me.... And it would be death for me--a mental death--to go back now to--to Stirrups----"

"Where?"

"To--why do you ask? Couldn't you take me on faith?"

He said, unsteadily: "If you rose up out of the silvery lagoon, just born from the starlight and the mist, I would take you."

"You--you are a poet, too," she faltered. "You seem to be about everything desirable."

"I'm only a man very, very deep in--love."

"In love!... I thought----"

"Ah, but you need think no more. You _know_ now, Cecil."

She remained silent, thinking for a long while. Then, very quietly:

"Yes, I know.... It is that way with me also. For I no sooner find my liberty than I lose it--in the same moment--to you. We must never again be separated.... Do you feel as I do?"