A Breath of Prairie and other stories Part 10

"I love you!" she interjected.

The man's eyebrows lifted.

"Love?" he inflected.

"Yes, love. What is love but good friends.h.i.+p--and s.e.x?"

The man was silent.

A strong white hand slid under the woman's chin and her elbow met the desk.

"I meant what you thought," she completed slowly.

"But I cannot--"

"Why?"

"It destroys all my ideas of things. Your promise to another--"

"I say he's broken his promise to me."

"But your being a woman--"

"Why do you expect more of me because I'm a woman? Haven't I feelings, rights, as well as you who are a man?" She waited until he looked up.

"I ask you again, won't you come?"

The man arose and walked slowly back and forth across the narrow room.

At length he stopped by her chair.

"I cannot."

In swift motion his companion stood up facing him.

"Don't you wish to?" she challenged.

The hand of the man dropped in outward motion of deprecation.

"The question is useless. I'm human."

"Why shouldn't we do what pleases us, then?" The voice was insistent.

"What is life for if not for pleasure?"

"Would it be pleasure, though? Wouldn't the future hold for us more of pain than of pleasure?"

"No, never." The words came with a slowness that meant finality. "Why need to-morrow or a year from now be different from to-day unless we make it so?"

"But it would change unconsciously. We'd think and hate ourselves."

"For what reason? Isn't it Nature that attracts us to each other and can Nature be wrong?"

"We can't always depend upon Nature," commented the man absently.

"That's an artificial argument, and you know it." A reprimand was in her voice. "If you can't depend upon Nature to tell you what is right, what other authority can you consult?"

"But Nature has been perverted," he evaded.

"Isn't it possible your judgment instead is at fault?"

"It can't be at fault, here." The voice was neutral as before.

"Something tells us both it would be wrong--to do--as we want to do."

Once more they sat down facing each other, the desk between them as at first.

"Artificial convention, I tell you again." In motion graceful as nature the woman extended her hand, palm upward, on the polished desk top. "How could we be other than right? What do we mean by right, anyway? Is there any judge higher than our individual selves, and don't they tell us pleasure is the chief aim of life and as such must be right?"

The muscles at the angle of the man's jaw tightened involuntarily.

"But pleasure is not the chief end of life."

"What is, then?"

"Development--evolution."

"Evolution to what?" she insisted.

"That we cannot answer as yet. Future generations must and will give answer."

"It's for this then that you deny yourself?" A shade almost of contempt was in the questioning voice.

The taunt brought no change of expression to the man's face.

"Yes."

The woman walked over to a bookcase, and, drawing out a volume, turned the pages absently. Without reading a word, she came back and looked the man squarely in the face.

"Will denying yourself help the world to evolve?"

"I think so."

"How?"

"My determination makes me a positive force. It is my Karma for good, that makes my child stronger to do things."

"But you have no child,"--swiftly.

Their eyes met again without faltering.

"I shall have--sometime."