Part 15 (1/2)
I'll cross the street a dozen times a day to shake hands with him.
Yes, sir, I'll make him wish that I owed him.”
”He sent you this,” said Lyman, handing over the five dollars.
Warren's eyes flew wide open with astonishment. ”Sent it to me?”
”Yes, he wants two hundred copies of our next edition. One hundred to discharge the old debt, and the five dollars is to pay for the other hundred.”
”Lyman, you rubbed the lamp. Don't rub it again right away. Let me hold this thing a minute.”
”You may hold it until the express company takes it away from you.”
”Hush, don't make a noise. You'll wake me up. Let me dream.”
”She was there,” said Lyman, after a brief silence.
”A dreamer listening to a dream,” Warren vacantly replied.
”I had quite a talk with her. She is not a doll. She's a woman with a soul and a mind.”
”You are gone,” said Warren, wrapping the bank note about his finger.
”No, I'm not gone. I am decidedly here, and I am going to stay here to protect her.”
He related the talk that had pa.s.sed between the young woman and himself. He told even of his gaze at the stars and his theatric declaration to stand as her protector. But he did not tell that she had caught his hand. In that act there was something sacred to him.
”As I said before, you're all right,” declared Warren. ”No one but a great man could have done what you have done tonight. Why, that old fellow was a jewel, and was not revealed until you brushed the dust off him. Two hundred copies? He shall have them, together with a write-up that will make this town's hair stand on end. And, by the way, don't you think you had better get at it while it's fresh?”
”Don't you fear. It will never fade, my boy. It is in my mind to stay.”
”Look here, don't let that joke turn on you,” said Warren. ”It would be serious if you should fall in love with her.”
”Yes, but I won't.”
”Were you ever caught by a woman?”
”Not very hard; were you?”
”Rather,” Warren answered; ”I loved a girl several years ago, while I was running a paper over at Beech k.n.o.b. Yes, sir, and I reckon I loved her as hard as a woman was ever loved. I thought about her every day.
And I believe she cared for me.”
”It's of no use to ask you why you didn't marry her. Money, I suppose.”
”That's it, Lyman; money. You see, her old man was rather well fixed, and one day when he was in the office I borrowed ten dollars of him.
Then I couldn't go to the house, you see, and before I could pay it back the girl was married. Lost one of the best girls this country ever produced just because I couldn't raise ten dollars to pay her father. I guess Brother McElwin wishes now that he had let you have the hundred. It would have given him a hold on you.”
”It would have given him a club,” said Lyman. ”A man could s.n.a.t.c.h out a hundred dollar debt and run me off the bluff. 'Lover's Leap,'” he added to himself, smiling. Warren looked up and saw the smile, but he had not caught the words.
”It's too serious a matter to grin over,” he remarked, sadly, but with a bright eye turned toward the cigars that lay upon the pile of newspapers. ”It's a curse to be poor,” he said, with solemnity, though his eye was delighted.