The Land of Promise Part 44

"I guess I was pretty ignorant about women," his began pacing up and down the floor as he talked. "I guess I didn't know how strong a woman could be. You was always givin' way; you done everything I told you.

And, all the time, you was keeping something back from me that I couldn't get at. Whenever I thought I was goin' to put my hand on you--zip! You was away again. I guess I found I'd only caught hold of a shadow."

"I don't know what more you expected. I didn't know you wanted anything more!"

"I guess I wanted love," he said in a tone so low that she barely caught it.

He stood over by the table, looking down on her from his great height.

His face was flushed, but his eyes were steady and unashamed.

"You!"

She looked at him in absolute consternation. Her breath came in hurried gasps. But her heart sang in her breast and the little pathetic droop of her mouth disappeared. Her telltale eyes dropped on her work. Not yet, not yet; she was greedy to hear more.

"I know you now less well than when you'd been only a week up to Ed's."

He resumed his pacing up and down. "I guess I've lost the trail. I'm just beating round, floundering in the bush."

"I never knew you wanted love," she said softly.

"I guess I didn't know it until just lately, either."

"I suppose parting's always rather painful," she said with just the beginning of a little smile creeping round the corners of her lips.

"If you go back--_when_ you go back," he corrected himself, "to the old country, I guess--I guess you'll never want to come back."

"Perhaps you'll come over to England yourself, one of these days. If you only have a couple of good years, you could easily shut up the place and run over for the winter," she said shyly.

"I guess that would be a dangerous experiment. You'll be a lady in England. I guess I'd still be only the hired man."

"You'd be my husband."

"N-o-o-o," he said, with a shake of the head. "I guess I wouldn't chance it."

She tried another way. She was sure of her happiness now; she could play with it a little longer.

"You'll write to me now and then, and tell me how you're getting on, won't you?"

"Will you care to know?" he asked quickly.

"Why, yes, of course I shall."

"Well," he said, throwing back his head proudly, "I'll write and tell you if I'm making good. If I ain't, I guess I shan't feel much like writing."

"But you _will_ make good, Frank. I know you well enough for that."

"Do you?" His tone was grateful.

"I have learned to--to respect you during these months we've lived together. You have taught me a great deal. All sorts of qualities which I used to think of great value seem unimportant to me now. I have changed my ideas about many things."

"We have each learned something, I guess," he said generously.

Nora gave him a grateful glance. He stood for a moment at the far end of the room and watched her roll up the socks she had just darned. How neat and deft she was. After all, there _was_ something in being a lady, as Mrs. Sharp had said. Neither she nor Gertie, both capable women, could do things in quite the same way that Nora did.

Oh, why had she come into his life at all! She had given him the taste for knowledge, for better things of all sorts; and now she was going away, going away forever. He had no illusions about her ever returning.

Not she, once she had escaped from a life she hated. Had she not just said as much when she said that the shack had seemed like a prison to her?

And now, in place of going on in the old way that had always seemed good enough to him before he knew anything better, mulling about, getting his own meals, with only one thought, one ambition in the world--the success of his crops and the acquisition of more land that he might some day in the dim future have a few thousands laid by--he would always be wanting something he could never get without her: more knowledge of the things that made life fuller and wider and broader, the things that she prized and had known from her childhood.

It was cruel and unfair of her to have awakened the desire in him only to abandon him. To have held the cup of knowledge to his lips for one brief instant and then leave him to go through life with his thirst unslaked! Not that she was intentionally cruel. No, he thought he knew all of her little faults of temper and of pride by this. Her heart was too kindly to let her wound him knowingly, witness her tenderness to poor Mrs. Sharp only this afternoon. But it hurt, none the less. She had said that she had not known he wanted love. How should she have guessed it?

But the real thing that tortured him most was the fact that he wanted her, her, her. She had been his, his woman. No other woman in this broad earth could take her place.

A little sound like a groan escaped him.

"You'll think of me sometimes, my girl, won't you?" he said huskily.

"I don't suppose I shall be able to help it." She smiled at him over her shoulder, as she crossed the room to restore her basket to its place.

"I was an ignorant, uneducated man. I didn't know how to treat you properly. I wanted to make you happy, but I didn't seem to know just how to do it."

"You've never been unkind to me, Frank. You've been very patient with me!"

"I guess you'll be happier away from me, though. And I'll be able to think that you're warm and comfortable and at home, and that you've plenty to eat."

"Do you think that's all I want?" she suddenly flashed at him.

He gave her a quick glance and looked away immediately.

"I couldn't expect you to stay on here, not when you've got a chance of going back to the old country. This life is all new to you. You know that one."

"Oh, yes, I know it: I should think I did!" She gave a little mirthless laugh, and went over to her chair again.

"At eight o'clock every morning a maid will bring me tea and hot water.

And I shall get up, and I shall have breakfast. And, presently, I shall interview the cook, and I shall order luncheon and dinner. And I shall brush the coats of Mrs. Hubbard's little dogs and take them for a walk on the common. All the paths on the common are asphalted, so that elderly gentlemen and lady's companions shan't get their feet wet."

"Gee, what a life!"

She hardly gave him time for his exclamation. As she went on, mirth, scorn, hatred and dismay came into her voice, but she was unconscious of it. For the moment, everything else was forgotten but the vivid picture which memory conjured up for her and which she so graphically described.

"And then, I shall come in and lunch, and after luncheon I shall go for a drive: one day we will turn to the right and one day we will turn to the left. And then I shall have tea. And then I shall go out again on the neat asphalt paths to give the dogs another walk. And then I shall change my dress and come down to dinner. And after dinner I shall play bezique with my employer; only I must take care not to beat her, because she doesn't like being beaten. And at ten o'clock I shall go to bed."

A wave of stifling recollection choked her for a moment so that she could not go on. Presently she had herself once more in hand.

"At eight o'clock next morning a maid will bring in my tea and hot water, and the day will begin again. Each day will be like every other day. And, can you believe it, there are hundreds of women in England, strong and capable, with red blood in their veins, who would be eager to get this place which is offered to me. Almost a lady--and thirty-five pounds a year!"

She did not look toward him, or she would have seen a look of wonder, of comprehension and of hope pa.s.s in turn over his face.

"It seems a bit different from the life you've had here," he said, looking out through the open doorway as if to point his meaning.

"And you," she said, turning her eyes upon him, "you will be clearing the scrub, cutting down trees, plowing the land, sowing and reaping.