It, and Other Stories Part 17

McAllen--now Mrs. Jimmie Greenleaf--had sufficed. He would walk to the altar any day with Miss Tennant, but he would not dance.

"You have so many secrets with yourself," he complained, "and I'm so very reasonable."

"True, Billy," said Miss Tennant. "But if I put up with your secrets, you should put up with mine."

"I have none," said he, "unless you are rudely referring to the fact that I gave my wife such grounds for divorce as every gentleman must be prepared to give to a lady who has tired of him. I might have contracted a pleasant liaison; but I didn't. I merely drove up and down Piccadilly with a notorious woman until the courts were sufficiently scandalized.

You know that."

"But is it nothing," she said, "to have me feel this way toward you?"

And she leaned and rested her lovely cheek against his.

"At least, Dolly," said he, more gently, "announce our engagement, and marry me inside of six months. I've been patient for eighteen. It would have been easy if you had given a good reason...."

"My reason," said she, "will be in Aiken to-morrow."

"You speak with such a.s.surance," said he, smiling, "that I feel sure your reason is not travelling by the Southern. And you'll tell me the reason to-morrow?"

She shook her head.

"Not to-morrow, Billy--now."

He made no comment, fearing that she might seize upon any as a pretext for putting him off. But he slipped an arm around her waist.

"Tighter if you like," she said. "I don't mind. My reason, Billy, is a young man. Don't let your arm slacken that way. I don't see any one or anything beyond you in any direction in this world. You know that.

There is nothing in the expression 'a young man' to turn you suddenly cold toward me. Don't be a goose.... Not so tight." They laughed happily. "I will even tell you his name," she resumed--"David Larkin; and I was a little gone on him, and he was over ears with me. You weren't in Aiken the year he was. Well, he misbehaved something dreadful, Billy; betted himself into a deep, deep hole, and tried to float himself out. I took him in hand, loaned him money, and took his solemn word that he would not even make love until he had paid me back.

There was no real understanding between us, only----"

"Only?" McAllen was troubled.

"Only I think he couldn't have changed suddenly from a little fool into a man if _he_ hadn't felt that there was an understanding. And his letters, one every week, confirm that; though he's very careful, because of his promise, not to make love in them.... You see, he's been working his head off--there's no way out of it, Billy--for me.... If you hadn't crossed my humble path I think I should have possessed enough sentiment for David to have been--the reward."

"But there _was_ no understanding."

"No. Not in so many words. But at the last talk we had together he was humble and pathetic and rather manly, and I did a very foolish thing."

"What?"

"Oh," she said with a blush, "I sat still."

"Let me blot it out," said McAllen, drawing her very close.

"But I can only remember up to seven," said she, "and I am afraid that nothing can blot them out as far as David is concerned. He will come to-morrow as sure that I have been faithful to him as that he has been faithful to me.... It's all very dreadful.... He will pay me back the money, and the interest; and then I shall give him back the promises that he gave, and then he will make love to me...."

She sighed, and said that the thought of the pickle she had got herself into made her temples ache. McAllen kissed them for her.

"But why," he said, "when you got to care for me, didn't you let this young man learn gradually in your letters to him that--that it was all off?"

"I was afraid, don't you see," said she, "that if the incentive was suddenly taken away from him--he might go to pieces. And I was fond of him, and I am proud to think that he has made good for my sake, and the letters.... Oh, Billy, it's a dreadful mess. My letters to him have been rather warm, I am afraid."

"d.a.m.n!" said McAllen.

"d.a.m.n!" said Miss Tennant.

"If he would have gone to pieces before this," said McAllen, "why not now?--after you tell him, I mean."

"Why not?" said she dismally. "But if he does, Billy, I can only be dreadfully sorry. I'm certainly not going to wreck our happiness just to keep him on the war-path."

"But you'll not be weak, Dolly?"

"How!--weak?"

"He'll be very sad and miserable--you won't be carried away? You won't, upon the impulse of the moment, feel that it is your duty to go on saving him?... If that should happen, Dolly, _I_ should go to pieces."

"Must I tell him," she said, "that I never really cared? He will think me such a--a liar. And I'm not a liar, Billy, am I? I'm just unlucky."

"I don't believe," said he tenderly, "that you ever told a story in your whole sweet life."

"Oh," she cried, "I _do_ love you when you say things like that to me.... Let's not talk about horrid things any more, and mistakes, and bugbears.... If we're going to show up at the golf club tea.... It's Mrs. Carrol's to-day and we promised her to come."

"Oh," said McAllen, "we need not start for ten minutes.... When will you marry me?"

"In May," she said.

"_Good_ girl," said he.

"Billy," she said presently, "it was _all_ the first Mrs. Billy's fault--wasn't it?"

"No, dear," said he, "it wasn't. It's never all of anybody's fault. Do you care?"

"No."

"Are you afraid?"

"No."

"Do you love me?"

"Yes."

"How much?"

"So much," and she made the gesture that a baby makes when you ask, "How big's the baby?"

"What's your name?"

"Dolly."

"Whose girl are you?"