XXIV: UNDERSTANDING
Had she heard the conversation which preceded that bold action, Mrs.Mills would have been still more impressed. Determination is the naturalfoe of diplomacy. Warned by one single, furtive glance that Lee intendedto make off, Gordon plunged at one smash through her fence of reserve.
"Do you intend to keep that engagement?"
Coming from a young man whom one hated so vindictively that one could"just kill any other girl that tried to take him," the question was wellcalculated to arrest attention. Neither was its force lessened by thefact that it was _his_, not _hers_--perish the thought!--outrageousconduct which had caused said engagement!
The audacity of it caused her first to gasp, then draw rein and stare athim in utter surprise; finally to ride slowly on while preparing ananswer that should not only wither him, there, in the saddle, but alsohide the tumult of fright and pleasure in her own breast.
Her glance said, "You certainly have got your gall with you!" But heranswer was much more dignified, "By what right do you ask?"
"The right of a man who loves you."
It was a fine stroke; established at once his freedom to meddle with heraffairs. His right in the premises would have been upheld in any ancientcourt of love. Though she tried to conceal it from herself, it was soconceded by one girl's fluttering heart. As a matter of fact, she hadbeen aching for a week to hear him say it; yet, with that naturalcruelty which is displayed alike by cats and maids in torturing mice andmen, she proceeded to deny it.
"Yes?" she raised cool brows. "Judging by what I saw in the canon--itmust be recent."
She looked for him to wither, but--the fellow refused! He did not evenflinch. On the contrary, he just looked at her with shining earnestness;sat his saddle so trim, erect, irritatingly handsome, that she couldn'thelp taking notice. No, he was not to be side-tracked by such lightsubterfuge! He swept it away with masculine bluntness.
"I thought so myself--but now I know. It was all so strange, wonderful,picturesque, this new life, that I was blinded. I knew that I liked you,but never paused to analyze my feelings, and it wasn't till you shotthat announcement at me a week ago that I awoke--awoke to the fact thatall of it, the beauty, romance, centered on you. Since then, the lifeand light have faded, leaving it drab and drear."
This was not all. Laying it down, as it were, for his major premise, hebuilt thereon, worked, and enlarged, and embroidered while she playedwith the coils of her _riata_. As an oratorical effort, it could notcompare with fire and passion, melodious swing of Ramon's rhythmicalSpanish. But what it lacked in eloquence it made up in sincere, vibrantfeeling. The stronger for its reserves, it was just such a talk anyhonest young Anglo-Saxon might make to his lady-love. And if judged byits effects, it must be regarded as successful, for long before hefinished two large tears made small splashes on her pommel.
"When--when did you find this out?"
She had intended it to be light, if not satirical; but the littlehesitation, helped out by a sympathetic quiver, basely betrayed herhunger for more.
Be certain she got it--in detail, not a thing left out. With a touch ofpoetry, now, he told of his marvelous discovery on the morning they hadridden over to the widow's together that the sunlight proceeded from herhair; also the freshness of the morning, roll of tawny plains, breath ofthe chaparral, all that was beautiful in creation.
There was also some mention of the hair in connection with a certainJava forest, with passing reference to the Chinese Wall and a voyage hehad intended to make up the great Asian rivers. Not having personalexperience in their navigation, said references were rather vague, buther imagination abundantly supplied the requisite flora and fauna frommagazine articles and pictures. Porcelain towers, orchids, giant palms;deep jungle temples; the crowded boat life of the Yangtse-Kiang, junksand sampans with their cargoes of saffron-faced, slant-eyed Celestials,men, women, and children--especially children--her imagination improvedon the lovely dreams she had so cruelly disrupted. He concluded withthat:
"And you smashed it--all to smithereens."
For a while she rode in silence. Apprehension and fright had given placeto sorrow that contended tumultuously with delight for possession of hersoul. "I'm sorry," she spoke at last. "_So_ sorry, but--you provokedit."
"Why! How?"
He was reminded, of course, that he "lost interest in girls after theygrew up." She added, a little vindictively, "And _you_ didn't flirt withMrs. Mills?"
"Only in self-defense. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,isn't it?"
But she denied this bit of ancient wisdom. "No, it isn't! And--and you_kissed_ that dreadful girl! I--oh, I could have _killed_ you!"
"Why?"
She was looking at him now, and the compound of bright anger, pleadingand defiance, regret, love, hope, and despair that alternately flashedand swam in the wet eyes gave sufficient answer. It was then he pluckedher from the saddle; crushed her to him with force that squeezed out,for the moment, the anger, regret, despair, left only love and hope.
Ensued the usual delirious moment when poor mortals conquer time andeternity, set at naught the black riddle of existence. Her face buriedin his shoulder, his in her hair, they clung to each other while hishorse moved slowly forward and hers went careering on over the nextearth roll.
Elsewhere on this globe some three thousand millions of souls werecoming and going on the ordinary business of life at trade, barter;feasting or fasting; mourning or making merry; dying, some hundreds ofthem, every second, to make way for a new spawn of life. Beyond the blueloom of the mountains men were robbing and murdering, hunting oneanother like beasts of the jungle in the name of this or that "cause";committing frightful infamies in the sacred name of love. Swaying hitherand thither, that tide of lust and carnage might sweep at any momentover these sunlit plains.
Yet, blind to it all, oblivious of the past and future, conscious onlyof the present that had bloomed in sudden glory, sufficient tothemselves as the first man and woman in Eden, they rode forward lost inan illumined dream.
It lasted, that wonderful, bright ecstasy, until, turning up her face,he made to kiss her. Then, by a thought of Ramon, was she abruptlyrecalled to unpleasant realities. She laid a determined, if gentle, handover his mouth.
"You mustn't."
"Why?"
"You forget--I am still engaged."
"Why--so you are!" Laughing, he tried to dodge her hand, but desistedwhen he saw she was in earnest. "You surely don't intend--"
"No, indeed!" She read his thought. "I had believed, at first, that Iought. But Mrs. Mills showed me how unfair it would be to marry Ramonwhile--"
"Say it."
"While I loved _you_."
For a girl who had just restated her engagement to another man, shebehaved most disgracefully during a long silence that was broken only bythe measured tread of the horse. Snuggling in closer, she re-enteredthat illumined dream, and made no attempt to check the kisses heshowered on the soft palm of the restraining hand. It was, no doubt,some realization of her misbehavior that caused her to sit up,presently, and pull it away.
"This won't do. For the present we'll have to behave like ordinarypersons."
"But your horse is gone," he protested when she gently put away his arm."You can't walk."
"No, but I can ride behind you in the Mexican fashion. Stop, while Ichange."
He would have preferred it as it was, but when, after mounting behindhim, she slid her arm about his waist, he had to concede the Mexicanhabit its own delights. It was surely nice of her to allow him to coverher hand.
"The young people," she explained, "are not allowed to do this--onlyhusbands and wives."
"Poor young people!" he pitied. "But, on the whole, quite right. Itwould never do to have them cavorting over the country like this; toomuch of a strain on the conventions. Indeed, I think we ought to conformourselves at once."
"How?" Just as if she hadn't known what he meant.
"Let's ride into San Carlos, get a
license from the jefe and be marriedat once?"
The bold proposal drew only a soft laugh. "To think that, up to a weekago, he didn't even see me--except as part of the scenery. No, amigo,till to-morrow we are to be ordinary persons. Then I shall go and tellRamon."
"And if he refuses?"
"I shall break it myself."
It was in his mind to say that she could not go alone. But he rememberedthat Ramon would probably arrive at Los Arboles before she started. Heturned again to the delightful present.
"And after that?"
A little pressure at his waist made answer.
Reaching behind, he drew her other arm forward till her hands clasped infront, then squeezed his own elbows down tight over hers. Thus,oblivious once more of the toiling billions, revolutionists beyond themountain's loom, they rode forward again in that illumined dream, twofoolish, happy souls at loose in the spheres.
Over the Border: A Novel Page 24