Part 2 (2/2)

During one of their frequent rests she had asked him quietly, her eyes filled with a soft, calculative haze: ”How much are you good for, Lawrence?”

He had answered: ”Till we find water.” She had laughed a little at that, and it had sounded unpleasant to him.

Now she said again: ”You don't face facts, do you?” He made no answer.

She continued: ”It's strange how we humans are always so overdetermined.

One ought to know by the time he is grown that he is a puppet in the hands of circ.u.mstance. Now I go on hoping that you can carry me out to life and my husband, and you plod determinedly on as if you were really able to do it. Of course, you may, but it is entirely dependent upon outside things.”

He was too tired to answer, even to think. Besides, that was exactly his view of the situation.

”You see,” she went on, ”here we are, two distinct groups of living cells, each loving life and wanting it. Our pasts have been very different, our futures would have been; but here we are. I am resentful, because you are blind, because you are not stronger, because I cannot walk. You are probably resenting the same things. Perhaps you resent my saying what I do. You want me to rea.s.sure you and to promise success. If I did, you would know in your real mind that I was lying to you for the sake of getting you to do more. Yet both of us would feel happier if I could do it. I can't.”

He stood up and took her in his arms without a word.

”We are going a few yards farther,” she laughed. ”Well, if ever any animal deserved life, you do.”

He bit his lip and climbed on up the hill. In his mind he was saying over and over: ”Just a mere intellect, nothing more. That's all she is.”

Yet in his arms she felt very feminine. The sense of her body so close to him seemed strangely out of keeping with her talk.

He remembered a few other women of her type; he wondered what the end of their daily a.s.sociation would be. Then gradually his thinking ceased to be clear. His thirst more and more wove itself into his consciousness until his mind was a blurred fantasmagoria, in which, repeating itself over and over in the midst of strange ideas, would come the flas.h.i.+ng sound of unattainable water. He did not talk, he did not think. Through the trees he wound his way with the grim determination of a beast fighting against death.

The sun pa.s.sed its zenith and sank slowly. It grew cooler in the forest through which he lurched, but he was hardly aware of it. Claire, too, was rapidly losing control over herself. She had ceased to talk, save to utter dull, monosyllabic commands to him. The pain from her ankle and her own thirst were blending into a dizzying maze of torture.

As darkness settled over the forest, she grew afraid. Ordinarily it would have been a delight to her, here among the trees, but now the shadowing night filled her with ideas of horror. She forgot her theories, and clung to him so that he was the more hampered. She grew afraid lest he should drop her, lest he should give up the fight, and with that came an overwhelming desire to urge him on. She thought of wild tales that she might tell to spur his faltering strength. At first she resisted, then as her desire for life grew within her, she began to lie to him. ”It isn't far, just a little way to water,” she whispered.

He struggled unsteadily forward. They had pa.s.sed the top of the ridge and were descending the other side. He was scarcely aware of his own motion. He did not hear her directions, and stumbled against the trees.

When her ankle struck a bough, she realized in a flash of pain that he was not listening to her. Then she felt him sinking down.

Gripping his shoulder, she shouted: ”Go on! Water ahead!” He heard her, his mouth opened, and he gathered himself up to stumble a few steps farther through the darkness. They seemed to be deep in a wooded ravine.

He staggered again and fell.

She was thrown violently forward, and flung out a hand to save herself.

As she lay there, half-dazed, suddenly she felt her fingers grow cold and wet. Water! A small stream, no larger than that from a hydrant, was trickling over the rock.

Dragging herself to it, she drank greedily. She dipped her hands in it.

She laughed joyously and splashed. For a few minutes she played like a child. Then she remembered Lawrence.

Lifting her hands full of water, she threw it on his face. His mouth was open, and a few drops fell upon his black tongue. She threw another handful, then took her skirt and, wetting it, wrung it into his mouth.

He twisted over on his side and muttered: ”Water.”

She gave him more, and as he sat up, she said eagerly: ”Here, Lawrence, here.”

Taking his hand, she pulled him toward the stream. He drank ravenously, plunging his face and hands into the little line of water, making queer noises over it.

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