Tramping on Life Part 109

"I feel quite humble ... I don't want you to see my face when I talk."

She drew my head against her knees. Threw one arm as if protectingly over my shoulder.

"There. Are you comfortable, boy?"

"Yes. Are you?"

"Quite ... don't be ashamed ... I know much about life that you do not know ... tell me all."

So I told her all about myself ... my ambition ... my struggles ... my morbidity ... my lack of experience with girls and women....

"And I must have experience soon ... it's obsessing me ... it can't last this way much longer ... I shall go mad."

And I rehea.r.s.ed to her a desperate resolve I had made ... to find a woman of the streets, in New York, when I went in, the ensuing week ...

and force myself, no matter how I loathed it--

I buried my head in her lap and sobbed hysterically.

Then I apologised--"forgive me if I have been too frank!"

"I am a radical woman ... Penton and I both believe in the theory of free love, though we happen to be married ... what you have told me is all sweet and natural to me ... only--you must not do what you say you'll do--in New York!--"

"I must, or--" and I paused, to go on in a lower, embarra.s.sed voice ...

"Do--do you know what else I thought of--dreamed of--?

"In Paris--I understand--men live with women as a matter of course--

"You see--" I was hot with shame to the very ears, "you see--there, you know,--I thought if I went there I would find some pretty little French girl that I would take to live with me ... in some romantic attic in the Montmartre district ... and we would be happy together ... and I would be grateful, so grateful, to her!"

"Why you're the Saint Francis of the Radicals," Hildreth exclaimed.

"Please don't make fun of me ... I suppose you think me very foolish."

"Foolish?... No, I think you have a very beautiful soul. I wish every man had a soul like that."

She took my head in her hands and kissed me on the brow.

"Hildreth, only tell me what I am to do?"

"I do not know ... theoretically I believe in freedom in s.e.x ... I wish to G.o.d I could help you."

"Why can't you?"

"Hush, you do not know what you're asking!"

"By the living Christ, I only know that I would crawl after you, and kiss your holiest feet before all the world, if you helped me."

"Now I understand what Lecky meant when he spoke of the sacrificial office of a certain type of women ... I only wish ... but come, we must go."

I was on my feet beside her, as she rose.

"Yes, we had better go home," I spoke quietly, though my heart pumped as if I had taken strychnine.

I put my arms about her, to steady her going, for she stumbled.

"Why, Hildreth, dearest woman, you're trembling all over, what's the matter?... have I--I frightened you with my wild talk?"

"Never mind ... no, take your arm away ... Let me walk alone a minute and I'll be all right ... I'll be all right in a minute ... it's just turned a trifle chilly, that's all."

"Hus.h.!.+" going down the path by the big house, Hildreth stopped, hesitated. "I'm--I'm not going to the little cottage to-night."

"Then I'll say good-night!"

"No, come on in and we'll sneak out to the kitchen and find something to eat ... aren't you hungry?"

"A little bit. But I'm afraid we might wake Ruth and Darrie up."

We tip-toed in. Hildreth searching for the matches, knocked the wash-basin to the floor. We stood hushed like mice.

"Who's down there?" asked Darrie's voice, with a dash of hysteria in it ... of hysteria and fright.

"d.a.m.n it, there's Darrie waked up."

"Such a clatter would wake anyone up!"

_"Who's there, I say!"_

"It's only me, Darrie ... I got hungry in the night and came up to the house to s.n.a.t.c.h a bite to eat."

"Oh ... I'm coming down to join you, then."

We saw Darrie standing at the top of the stairs, her eyes luminous and wide with emotion.

She stood, rosy-bodied, in her night-dress, which was transparent in the light of the lamp she carried....

"Johnnie's here, too!" warned Hildreth.

"Oh!" cried Darrie, and turned back, to re-appear in her kimono.

"I'm sorry we waked you up. But I knocked that infernal basin down off the sink."

"You didn't wake me. I was awake already. I haven't slept a wink."

"Neither have we!" I responded.

"What?" Darrie asked me in so startled, impulsive a manner that Hildreth and I laughed ... and she laughed a little, too ... and then grew grave again....