CHAPTER TWELVE
"What do you mean?"
"We're not going back," he repeated deliberately.
"We are!" flashed Judith.
"We're not going back. We're never going back."
Judith drew back and stared at him, her hands still in his, and the boystared back with a look that matched her own in his big, deeply lit,dark eyes. White faces, with angry, dark eyes, were all that they couldsee clearly, though they were crossing a patch of road where a raggedgap in the trees let some of the moonlight through; white faces likestrangers' faces.
They were only a boy and girl jolting through the woods in the night ina rattletrap buggy behind a caricature of a horse, but what looked outof their angry eyes and spoke in their tense young voices was greaterthan the immediate issue of their quarrel, and older and wiser than theywere; as old as the world. Ancient enemies were at war once more. A manand a woman were making their age-old fight for mastery over themselvesand each other.
"Never, Judy."
"Where are we going, then?"
"What difference does it make?"
"Where?"
"To Wells. We can make it by morning. I've got the mortgage money withme."
"Your uncle's?"
"Yes. What difference does that make? That, or anything? We'd go if wehadn't any money at all. We'd have to. Oh, Judith----"
"You don't know what you're saying. Take me home. What are you laughingat?"
"You. You sounded just like them, then, giving me orders--just like yourwhole rotten crowd, but you're through with them now, and you're throughordering me about and making a fool of me. I've been afraid to say mysoul was my own. It wasn't, I guess. But we're all through with that.We're through, Judith."
"Yes, of course. Of course we're through. It's all right. Everything'sall right, Neil dear."
"Everything's all wrong, and I know whose fault it is now: it's yourfault. Maybe I only had one chance in a hundred to get on, but onechance is enough, and I was taking it. You made me ashamed to take it. Iwas ashamed to do the work that was all I could get to do, and I had myhead so full of you I couldn't do any work. Maggie's better than I am.She don't sit around with her hands folded and wait for Everard to gettired of her. And the whole town don't laugh at her. The whole towndon't know----"
"Neil, I said I was sorry. Please don't."
"You've got the smooth ways of them all, but it's too late for thatbetween us, Judy. Smooth, lying ways."
"We can't go to Wells, Neil dear. What could we do there? Think."
"I'm sick of thinking. I'd get work maybe. I don't know. I don't care.Judith----"
"We can't. Not to-night, Neil. Wait."
"I'm sick of waiting. I've got nothing to gain by it. I've done all thewaiting I could. I've stood all I could. You're the only thing I want inthe world, and I couldn't wait for you any longer if I could get youthat way--and I wouldn't get you. I'd lose you."
"Not to-night. To-morrow, if you really want me to go. To-morrow,truly."
"You're lying to me, and I'm tired of it."
"No, Neil--Neil dear."
"You're lying."
"How dare you say that! I hate you!"
"That's right. We'll talk straight now. It's time."
"I hate you. Don't touch me. You're going to take me home--youmust--and I'm never going to speak to you again. I think you're crazy.But I'm not afraid of you--I'm not afraid."
The low-keyed, hurrying voices broke off abruptly. There was no sound inthe buggy but Judith's rapid breathing, more and more like sobs, but notears came. The two faces that confronted each other were alike in thegloom, white and angry and very young; alike as the faces of enemies arewhen they measure each other's strength in silence. It was a cruel,tense little silence, but the sound that broke it was more cruel. It wasdry and hard and had nothing to do with his own conquering laugh, thatthe girl knew, but it came from the boy.
"How dare you laugh at me. I hate you!" Judith's voice came hoarse andunrecognizable.
A hand caught blindly at the reins; another hand closed over it. Thenthere was silence again in the buggy, broken by panting sounds andlittle sobs. At the end of it Judith, forced back into her corner andheld there, was really crying now, with hysterical sobs that hurt, andhot tears that hurt, too.
"Let me go," she panted. "I hate you! You've got to let me go."
"What for?"
"I'm going home. I'm going to get out and walk home."
"Ten miles?"
"I'd walk a hundred miles to get away from you."
"You'd have to walk farther to do that." The dry little laugh cutthrough the dark again, and Judith struck furiously at the arm that heldher.
"I hate you!" she sobbed.
"No."
"Oh, I do--I do----"
"I don't care." The boy's voice sounded light and dry, like his laugh."I don't care. Kiss me."
"I won't! I won't! I'll never speak to you again. I'll never forgiveyou."
"Lying to me--fooling me; taking me up and dropping me like Everard doesto women.... You're no better than he is. You're one of his crowd, butyou're through with them.... Lying to me, when you do care. You do."
"I hate you!"
"Ah, no, you don't."
Little bursts of confused speech, all they had breath for and more,disconnected, not always understood, not always articulate, but alwaysangry, came from them, with intervals of silent, panting strugglebetween. The two young creatures in the buggy were struggling in earnestnow. The struggle was clumsy, like most really significant ones; suddenand clumsy and blind. The two figures swayed aimlessly back and forth.The boy and girl were both on their feet now. The boy had dropped thereins. Both arms held the girl. Her pinioned arms fought to freethemselves.
"Judith, you don't hate me. Say it--say it."
"'_Judith, you don't hate me? Say it--say it_'"]
The two shadowy figures were like one now, but the girl's arms werefree, pushing the boy away, striking at him impotently.
"You needn't say it. I know. You had to come to-night. You couldn't stayaway. You don't hate me. You never will. You couldn't. I'm crazy aboutyou. You're the only thing that matters, if we should die the nextminute. Everything's all wrong, and it's not my fault or yours.Everything's wrong, and this is wrong, too, but I don't care and youdon't. Do you? Do you?"
"Neil, let me go. I can't breathe."
"I love you."
"Let me go."
The shadow figures swayed and then were still. The girl's arms dropped.The little, one-sided struggle was over. There was a long, tired sigh,and then silence; silence, and one shadow face bending hungrily over theother shadow face. "Judith," the boy whispered breathlessly, "do youhate me now?"
"Yes."
"Do you want me to let you go? Do you want me to take you home?"
"Yes," came the same answering whisper, the faintest and most uncertainof whispers, but two arms, gently freeing themselves, found their way tohis shoulders, two hands locked behind his head and drew it gently down,until the two shadow faces were close once more, and lips that were notshadow lips met and clung together; not shadow lips, but hungry and warmand alive--untaught but unafraid young lips, ready for kisses that areno two alike and can never come again--wonderful kisses that bloteverything out of the changing world but themselves.
"Judith"--the boy lifted his head at last, and looked down at the faceagainst his shoulder, pale and small, but with all the colour and lightand life that night had taken from the world and hidden, burningundimmed in the awakening eyes--"you don't want me to take you home? Youdon't--care what happens?"
"No."
He could hardly hear her low whisper, but her face was answer enough,even for a boy who could not know what had touched it with new beauty,but had to guess, as his own heart and the night might teach him.
"No, I don't care. I don't care."
"Judith, you do love me?"
"Yes. Oh, yes."
"You're so sweet," he whispered, "I feel a
s if I'd never kissed youbefore--or seen you before. I love you, Judith."
"Yes."
"I love you and I don't want to hurt you. You know that, don't you?"
"Yes."
"But nothing's going to take you away from me now."
"Nothing."
"I don't want to hurt you."
"I tell you, I don't care what happens. I--don't--care."
"Judith!"
Once more her hands drew him close; shy hands, groping uncertainly inthe dark, and shy lips kissed him. It was the coolest and lightest ofkisses, but it was worth all the others, if the boy knew how much itpromised--more than all her broken speech had promised, more than anyspoken words.
Judith herself did not know, but some instinct older than she was madeher whisper: "Be good to me. Will you be good to me?"
"Yes, Judith."
The boy answered her small, shaken whisper solemnly, as if he weretaking a formal and irrevocable vow, but there was no one to listen toit here, and bear witness to it as irrevocable. The girl did not answerhim. Suddenly shy, breathing quickly, and trying to laugh, she slippedout of his arms.
The boy let her go. Some time before the trailing reins had been caughtup and twisted twice round the whip socket. He had done thisinstinctively, he could not have told just when. He bent down anduntwisted them now, rather slowly and awkwardly, not looking at Judith.Then he sat down stiffly beside her.
"You're tired," he said, with new gentleness in his voice. He put an armloosely round her waist in the manner of an affectionate butinexperienced parent, and her head dropped on his shoulder. "Verytired?"
"No."
"Judith, I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry. How could I be so horrid? What made me? Did I hurt you,dear, with my hands?"
"You couldn't hurt me."
"Neil, you know what you said just now?"
"Never mind what I said."
"You said you didn't want anything to take me away from you. Well, if itdid, if anything did take me away from you--now, I'd----"
"What, dear?"
"I'd never forgive you. I couldn't. I'd despise you." This warning camein a low, uncertain voice, wasted, as countless warnings have beenwasted on wiser masculine ears than the boy's. "Look at our moon upthere. It's glad, I guess--glad about you and me. Why don't you listento me?"
"I'm thinking, Judith. I've got to think."
"You look very nice when you think. Your eyes look so big and still. Youlook--beautiful. I could really sleep now, I guess."
"All right, dear."
"But I don't want to. I'm too happy. How late is it?"
"I don't know."
"Well, it's late. We couldn't get home now before awfully late--two orsomething. And the road's so narrow here, we couldn't turn round. Wecouldn't go home if we wanted to. Could we?"
"Not very well, dear."
"I'm glad.... Neil."
"Yes."
"Are you thinking now?"
"Yes."
"You do look beautiful. I don't know just why. I never saw you look justlike this before; kind, but years older than I am, and miles away.Neil----"
"Yes, dear."
"Neil, don't think any more. Just love me.... I love you."
The Wishing Moon Page 12