Part 23 (1/2)
A WOMAN AND A WARNING.
On the evening of Howard's arrival at Newport, Mrs. Carnarvon was having a few people in to dine. He had just time to dress and so saw no one until he descended to the reception room.
”You are to take in Marian,” said his hostess, going with him to where Miss Trevor was sitting, her back to the door and her attention apparently absorbed by the man facing her.
”Here's Mr. Howard, Marian,” Mrs. Carnarvon interrupted. ”Come with me, Willie. Your lady is over here and we're going in directly.”
Marian saw that Howard was looking at her in the straight, frank fas.h.i.+on she remembered and liked so well. ”I've come for you,” he said.
”Yes, you are to take me in,” she evaded, her look even lamer than her words.
”You know what I mean.” He was smiling, his heart in his eyes, as if the dozen people were not about them.
”I see you have not changed,” she laughed, answering his look in kind.
”Changed? I'm revolutionized. I was blind and now I see. I was paralyzed and behold, I walk. I was weak and lo, I am strong--strong enough for two, if necessary.”
”Now, hasn't it occurred to you that I might possibly have something to say about my own fate?”
”You? Why, you had everything to say. I reasoned it all out with you.
You simply can't add anything to the case I made you make out for yourself when I talked it over with you. I made you protest very vigorously.”
”Well, what did I say--that is, what did you make me say?”
”You said you were engaged--pledged to another--that you could not draw back without dishonour. And I answered that no engagement could bind you to become the wife of a man you did not love; that no moral code could hold you to such a sin; that no code of honour could command you to permit a man to degrade himself and you. Then you pleaded that you were not sure you liked my kind of a life, that you feared you wanted wealth and a great establishment and social leaders.h.i.+p and--and all that.”
”Did I?” Marian said with exaggerated astonishment.
”You did indeed. You were perfectly open with me. You let me see all that part of you which we try to keep concealed and fancy we are concealing--all that one really feels and wishes and thinks as distinguished from what one fancies he ought to feel and wish and think.”
”I wonder that you cared, after a glance behind that curtain.”
”Oh, but I like what is behind that curtain best of all. The very human things are there. They make me feel so at home.”
Dinner was announced and it was not until the second course that he had a chance to resume. Then he began as if there had been no interval:
”You said--”
Marian laughed and looked at him--a flash of her luminous blue-green eyes--and was looking away again with her usual expression. ”You needn't tell me the rest. It doesn't matter what I said. I've had you with me wherever I went. You never doubted my--my caring, did you?”
”No. I couldn't doubt you. If you were the sort of woman a man could doubt, you wouldn't be the sort of woman I could love. And you know it isn't vanity that makes me sure. I often wonder how you happened to care for such a--but I must not attack any one whom you like so well. No, I knew you cared by the same instinct that makes you know that I care for you.”
”But why did you come?”
”Because I have won a position for myself, have enough to enable us to live without eternally fretting over money-matters. I feel that I have the right to come. And then I could not be interested to live on, without you; and I'm willing to face, willing to have you face, whatever may come to us through me. I know that you and I together----”
”Not now--don't--please.” Marian was pale and she was obviously under a great strain. ”You see, you knew all about this. But I didn't until you looked at me when Jessie brought you. It makes me--happy--I am so happy.
But I must--I can't control myself here.” She leaned over as if her napkin had slipped to the floor. ”I love you,” she murmured.