K

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XXII

  "My God, Sidney, I'm asking you to marry me!"

  "I--I know that. I am asking you something else, Max."

  "I have never been in love with her."

  His voice was sulky. He had drawn the car close to a bank, and they weresitting in the shade, on the grass. It was the Sunday afternoon afterSidney's experience in the operating-room.

  "You took her out, Max, didn't you?"

  "A few times, yes. She seemed to have no friends. I was sorry for her."

  "That was all?"

  "Absolutely. Good Heavens, you've put me through a catechism in the lastten minutes!"

  "If my father were living, or even mother, I--one of them would havedone this for me, Max. I'm sorry I had to. I've been very wretched forseveral days."

  It was the first encouragement she had given him. There was no coquetryabout her aloofness. It was only that her faith in him had had a shockand was slow of reviving.

  "You are very, very lovely, Sidney. I wonder if you have any idea whatyou mean to me?"

  "You meant a great deal to me, too," she said frankly, "until a few daysago. I thought you were the greatest man I had ever known, and the best.And then--I think I'd better tell you what I overheard. I didn't try tohear. It just happened that way."

  He listened doggedly to her account of the hospital gossip, doggedly andwith a sinking sense of fear, not of the talk, but of Carlotta herself.Usually one might count on the woman's silence, her instinct forself-protection. But Carlotta was different. Damn the girl, anyhow! Shehad known from the start that the affair was a temporary one; he hadnever pretended anything else.

  There was silence for a moment after Sidney finished. Then:

  "You are not a child any longer, Sidney. You have learned a great dealin this last year. One of the things you know is that almost every manhas small affairs, many of them sometimes, before he finds the womanhe wants to marry. When he finds her, the others are all off--there'snothing to them. It's the real thing then, instead of the sham."

  "Palmer was very much in love with Christine, and yet--"

  "Palmer is a cad."

  "I don't want you to think I'm making terms. I'm not. But if this thingwent on, and I found out afterward that you--that there was anyone else,it would kill me."

  "Then you care, after all!"

  There was something boyish in his triumph, in the very gesture withwhich he held out his arms, like a child who has escaped a whipping. Hestood up and, catching her hands, drew her to her feet. "You love me,dear."

  "I'm afraid I do, Max."

  "Then I'm yours, and only yours, if you want me," he said, and took herin his arms.

  He was riotously happy, must hold her off for the joy of drawing her tohim again, must pull off her gloves and kiss her soft bare palms.

  "I love you, love you!" he cried, and bent down to bury his face in thewarm hollow of her neck.

  Sidney glowed under his caresses--was rather startled at his passion, alittle ashamed.

  "Tell me you love me a little bit. Say it."

  "I love you," said Sidney, and flushed scarlet.

  But even in his arms, with the warm sunlight on his radiant face, withhis lips to her ear, whispering the divine absurdities of passion, inthe back of her obstinate little head was the thought that, while shehad given him her first embrace, he had held other women in his arms. Itmade her passive, prevented her complete surrender.

  And after a time he resented it. "You are only letting me love you," hecomplained. "I don't believe you care, after all."

  He freed her, took a step back from her.

  "I am afraid I am jealous," she said simply. "I keep thinking of--ofCarlotta."

  "Will it help any if I swear that that is off absolutely?"

  "Don't be absurd. It is enough to have you say so."

  But he insisted on swearing, standing with one hand upraised, his eyeson her. The Sunday landscape was very still, save for the hum of busyinsect life. A mile or so away, at the foot of two hills, lay a whitefarmhouse with its barn and outbuildings. In a small room in the barna woman sat; and because it was Sunday, and she could not sew, she readher Bible.

  "--and that after this there will be only one woman for me," finishedMax, and dropped his hand. He bent over and kissed Sidney on the lips.

  At the white farmhouse, a little man stood in the doorway and surveyedthe road with eyes shaded by a shirt-sleeved arm. Behind him, in adarkened room, a barkeeper was wiping the bar with a clean cloth.

  "I guess I'll go and get my coat on, Bill," said the little man heavily."They're starting to come now. I see a machine about a mile down theroad."

  Sidney broke the news of her engagement to K. herself, the evening ofthe same day. The little house was quiet when she got out of the car atthe door. Harriet was asleep on the couch at the foot of her bed,and Christine's rooms were empty. She found Katie on the back porch,mountains of Sunday newspapers piled around her.

  "I'd about give you up," said Katie. "I was thinking, rather than seeyour ice-cream that's left from dinner melt and go to waste, I'd take itaround to the Rosenfelds."

  "Please take it to them. I'd really rather they had it."

  She stood in front of Katie, drawing off her gloves.

  "Aunt Harriet's asleep. Is--is Mr. Le Moyne around?"

  "You're gettin' prettier every day, Miss Sidney. Is that the blue suitMiss Harriet said she made for you? It's right stylish. I'd like to seethe back."

  Sidney obediently turned, and Katie admired.

  "When I think how things have turned out!" she reflected. "You in ahospital, doing God knows what for all sorts of people, and Miss Harrietmaking a suit like that and asking a hundred dollars for it, and thattony that a person doesn't dare to speak to her when she's in thedining-room. And your poor ma...well, it's all in a lifetime! No; Mr.K.'s not here. He and Mrs. Howe are gallivanting around together."

  "Katie!"

  "Well, that's what I call it. I'm not blind. Don't I hear her dressingup about four o'clock every afternoon, and, when she's all ready,sittin' in the parlor with the door open, and a book on her knee, as ifshe'd been reading all afternoon? If he doesn't stop, she's at the footof the stairs, calling up to him. 'K.,' she says, 'K., I'm waiting toask you something!' or, 'K., wouldn't you like a cup of tea?' She'salways feedin' him tea and cake, so that when he comes to table he won'teat honest victuals."

  Sidney had paused with one glove half off. Katie's tone carriedconviction. Was life making another of its queer errors, and wereChristine and K. in love with each other? K. had always been HERfriend, HER confidant. To give him up to Christine--she shook herselfimpatiently. What had come over her? Why not be glad that he had somesort of companionship?

  She went upstairs to the room that had been her mother's, and took offher hat. She wanted to be alone, to realize what had happened toher. She did not belong to herself any more. It gave her an odd, lostfeeling. She was going to be married--not very soon, but ultimately. Ayear ago her half promise to Joe had gratified her sense of romance. Shewas loved, and she had thrilled to it.

  But this was different. Marriage, that had been but a vision then,loomed large, almost menacing. She had learned the law of compensation:that for every joy one pays in suffering. Women who married went downinto the valley of death for their children. One must love and be lovedvery tenderly to pay for that. The scale must balance.

  And there were other things. Women grew old, and age was not alwayslovely. This very maternity--was it not fatal to beauty? Visions ofchild-bearing women in the hospitals, with sagging breasts and relaxedbodies, came to her. That was a part of the price.

  Harriet was stirring, across the hall. Sidney could hear her movingabout with flat, inelastic steps.

  That was the alternative. One married, happily or not as the case mightbe, and took the risk. Or one stayed single, like Harriet, growing alittle hard, exchanging slimness for leanness and austerity of figure,flat-chested, thin-voiced. One blossomed and with
ered, then, or oneshriveled up without having flowered. All at once it seemed veryterrible to her. She felt as if she had been caught in an inexorablehand that had closed about her.

  Harriet found her a little later, face down on her mother's bed, cryingas if her heart would break. She scolded her roundly.

  "You've been overworking," she said. "You've been getting thinner. Yourmeasurements for that suit showed it. I have never approved of thishospital training, and after last January--"

  She could hardly credit her senses when Sidney, still swollen withweeping, told her of her engagement.

  "But I don't understand. If you care for him and he has asked you tomarry him, why on earth are you crying your eyes out?"

  "I do care. I don't know why I cried. It just came over me, all at once,that I--It was just foolishness. I am very happy, Aunt Harriet."

  Harriet thought she understood. The girl needed her mother, and she,Harriet, was a hard, middle-aged woman and a poor substitute. She pattedSidney's moist hand.

  "I guess I understand," she said. "I'll attend to your wedding things,Sidney. We'll show this street that even Christine Lorenz can beoutdone." And, as an afterthought: "I hope Max Wilson will settle downnow. He's been none too steady."

  K. had taken Christine to see Tillie that Sunday afternoon. Palmerhad the car out--had, indeed, not been home since the morning of theprevious day. He played golf every Saturday afternoon and Sunday at theCountry Club, and invariably spent the night there. So K. and Christinewalked from the end of the trolley line, saying little, but under K.'skeen direction finding bright birds in the hedgerows, hidden fieldflowers, a dozen wonders of the country that Christine had never dreamedof.

  The interview with Tillie had been a disappointment to K. Christine,with the best and kindliest intentions, struck a wrong note. In herendeavor to cover the fact that everything in Tillie's world was wrong,she fell into the error of pretending that everything was right.

  Tillie, grotesque of figure and tragic-eyed, listened to her patiently,while K. stood, uneasy and uncomfortable, in the wide door of thehay-barn and watched automobiles turning in from the road. WhenChristine rose to leave, she confessed her failure frankly.

  "I've meant well, Tillie," she said. "I'm afraid I've said exactlywhat I shouldn't. I can only think that, no matter what is wrong, twowonderful pieces of luck have come to you. Your husband--that is, Mr.Schwitter--cares for you,--you admit that,--and you are going to have achild."

  Tillie's pale eyes filled.

  "I used to be a good woman, Mrs. Howe," she said simply. "Now I'm not.When I look in that glass at myself, and call myself what I am, I'd givea good bit to be back on the Street again."

  She found opportunity for a word with K. while Christine went ahead ofhim out of the barn.

  "I've been wanting to speak to you, Mr. Le Moyne." She lowered hervoice. "Joe Drummond's been coming out here pretty regular. Schwittersays he's drinking a little. He don't like him loafing around here: hesent him home last Sunday. What's come over the boy?"

  "I'll talk to him."

  "The barkeeper says he carries a revolver around, and talks wild. Ithought maybe Sidney Page could do something with him."

  "I think he'd not like her to know. I'll do what I can."

  K.'s face was thoughtful as he followed Christine to the road.

  Christine was very silent, on the way back to the city. More than onceK. found her eyes fixed on him, and it puzzled him. Poor Christine wasonly trying to fit him into the world she knew--a world whose men werestrong but seldom tender, who gave up their Sundays to golf, not tovisiting unhappy outcasts in the country. How masculine he was, andyet how gentle! It gave her a choking feeling in her throat. She tookadvantage of a steep bit of road to stop and stand a moment, her fingerson his shabby gray sleeve.

  It was late when they got home. Sidney was sitting on the low step,waiting for them.

  Wilson had come across at seven, impatient because he must see a casethat evening, and promising an early return. In the little hall he haddrawn her to him and kissed her, this time not on the lips, but on theforehead and on each of her white eyelids.

  "Little wife-to-be!" he had said, and was rather ashamed of his ownemotion. From across the Street, as he got into his car, he had wavedhis hand to her.

  Christine went to her room, and, with a long breath of content, K.folded up his long length on the step below Sidney.

  "Well, dear ministering angel," he said, "how goes the world?"

  "Things have been happening, K."

  He sat erect and looked at her. Perhaps because she had a woman'sinstinct for making the most of a piece of news, perhaps--more likely,indeed--because she divined that the announcement would not be entirelyagreeable, she delayed it, played with it.

  "I have gone into the operating-room."

  "Fine!"

  "The costume is ugly. I look hideous in it."

  "Doubtless."

  He smiled up at her. There was relief in his eyes, and still a question.

  "Is that all the news?"

  "There is something else, K."

  It was a moment before he spoke. He sat looking ahead, his face set.Apparently he did not wish to hear her say it; for when, after a moment,he spoke, it was to forestall her, after all.

  "I think I know what it is, Sidney."

  "You expected it, didn't you?"

  "I--it's not an entire surprise."

  "Aren't you going to wish me happiness?"

  "If my wishing could bring anything good to you, you would haveeverything in the world."

  His voice was not entirely steady, but his eyes smiled into hers.

  "Am I--are we going to lose you soon?"

  "I shall finish my training. I made that a condition."

  Then, in a burst of confidence:--

  "I know so little, K., and he knows so much! I am going to read andstudy, so that he can talk to me about his work. That's what marriageought to be, a sort of partnership. Don't you think so?"

  K. nodded. His mind refused to go forward to the unthinkable future.Instead, he was looking back--back to those days when he had hopedsometime to have a wife to talk to about his work, that beloved workthat was no longer his. And, finding it agonizing, as indeed all thoughtwas that summer night, he dwelt for a moment on that evening, a yearbefore, when in the same June moonlight, he had come up the Street andhad seen Sidney where she was now, with the tree shadows playing overher.

  Even that first evening he had been jealous.

  It had been Joe then. Now it was another and older man, daring,intelligent, unscrupulous. And this time he had lost her absolutely,lost her without a struggle to keep her. His only struggle had been withhimself, to remember that he had nothing to offer but failure.

  "Do you know," said Sidney suddenly, "that it is almost a year sincethat night you came up the Street, and I was here on the steps?"

  "That's a fact, isn't it!" He managed to get some surprise into hisvoice.

  "How Joe objected to your coming! Poor Joe!"

  "Do you ever see him?"

  "Hardly ever now. I think he hates me."

  "Why?"

  "Because--well, you know, K. Why do men always hate a woman who justhappens not to love them?"

  "I don't believe they do. It would be much better for them if theycould. As a matter of fact, there are poor devils who go through lifetrying to do that very thing, and failing."

  Sidney's eyes were on the tall house across. It was Dr. Ed's eveningoffice hour, and through the open window she could see a line of peoplewaiting their turn. They sat immobile, inert, doggedly patient, untilthe opening of the back office door promoted them all one chair towardthe consulting-room.

  "I shall be just across the Street," she said at last. "Nearer than I amat the hospital."

  "You will be much farther away. You will be married."

  "But we will still be friends, K.?"

  Her voice was anxious, a little puzzled. She was often puzzled with him.

&nbs
p; "Of course."

  But, after another silence, he astounded her. She had fallen into theway of thinking of him as always belonging to the house, even, in asense, belonging to her. And now--

  "Shall you mind very much if I tell you that I am thinking of goingaway?"

  "K.!"

  "My dear child, you do not need a roomer here any more. I have alwaysreceived infinitely more than I have paid for, even in the smallservices I have been able to render. Your Aunt Harriet is prosperous.You are away, and some day you are going to be married. Don't you see--Iam not needed?"

  "That does not mean you are not wanted."

  "I shall not go far. I'll always be near enough, so that I can seeyou"--he changed this hastily--"so that we can still meet and talkthings over. Old friends ought to be like that, not too near, but to beturned on when needed, like a tap."

  "Where will you go?"

  "The Rosenfelds are rather in straits. I thought of helping them to geta small house somewhere and of taking a room with them. It's largely amatter of furniture. If they could furnish it even plainly, it could bedone. I--haven't saved anything."

  "Do you ever think of yourself?" she cried. "Have you always gonethrough life helping people, K.? Save anything! I should think not! Youspend it all on others." She bent over and put her hand on his shoulder."It will not be home without you, K."

  To save him, he could not have spoken just then. A riot of rebellionsurged up in him, that he must let this best thing in his life go outof it. To go empty of heart through the rest of his days, while his veryarms ached to hold her! And she was so near--just above, with her handon his shoulder, her wistful face so close that, without moving, hecould have brushed her hair.

  "You have not wished me happiness, K. Do you remember, when I was goingto the hospital and you gave me the little watch--do you remember whatyou said?"

  "Yes"--huskily.

  "Will you say it again?"

  "But that was good-bye."

  "Isn't this, in a way? You are going to leave us, and I--say it, K."

  "Good-bye, dear, and--God bless you."