Part 49 (1/2)

”He never loved me,” she said to Griggs as the days went by and brought her nothing from her father. ”I used to think so, when I was a mere child, but I am sure of it now. You are the only human being that ever loved me.”

She was pale that day, and her white hand sought his as she spoke, with a quiver of the lip.

”I am glad of it,” he answered. ”I shall not divide you with any one.”

So their life went on, somewhat monotonously after the first few weeks.

Griggs worked hard and earned more money than formerly, but he discovered very soon that it would be all he could do to support Gloria in bare comfort. He would not allow her to use her own money for anything which was to be in common, or in which he had any share whatever.

”You must spend it on yourself,” he said. ”I will not touch it. I will not accept anything you buy with it--not so much as a box of cigarettes.

You must spend it on your clothes or on jewels.”

”You are unkind,” she answered. ”You know how much pleasure it would give me to help you.”

”Yes. I know. You cannot understand, but you must try. Men never do that sort of thing.”

And, as usual, he dominated her, and she dropped the subject, inwardly pleased with him, and knowing that he was right.

His strength fascinated her, and she admired his manliness of heart and feeling as she had never admired any qualities in any one during her life. But he did not amuse her, even as much as she had been amused by Reanda. He was melancholic, earnest, hard working, not inclined to repeat lightly the words of love once spoken in moments of pa.s.sion. He meant, perhaps, to show her how he loved her by what he would do for her sake, rather than tell her of it over and over again. And he worked as he had never worked before, hour after hour, day after day, sitting at his writing-table almost from morning till night. Besides his correspondence, he was now writing a book, from which he hoped great things--for her. It was a novel, and he read her day by day the pages he wrote. She talked over with him what he had written, and her imagination and dramatic intelligence, forever grasping at situations of emotion for herself and others, suggested many variations upon his plan.

”It is my book,” she often said, when they had been talking all the evening.

It was her book, and it was a failure, because it was hers and not his.

Her imagination was disorderly, to borrow a foreign phrase, and she was altogether without any sense of proportion in what she imagined. He did not, indeed, look upon her as intellectually perfect, though for him she was otherwise unapproachably superior to every other woman in the world.

But he loved her so wholly and unselfishly that he could not bear to disappoint her by not making use of her suggestions. When she was telling him of some scene she had imagined, her voice and manner, too, were so thoroughly dramatic that he was persuaded of the real value of the matter. Divested of her individuality and transferred in his rather mechanically over-correct language to the black and white of pen and ink, the result was disappointing, even when he read it to her. He knew that it was, and wasted time in trying to improve what was bad from the beginning. She saw that he failed, and she felt that he was not a man of genius. Her vanity suffered because her ideas did not look well on his paper.

Before he had finished the ma.n.u.script, she had lost her interest in it.

Feeling that she had, and seeing it in her face, he exerted his strength of will in the attempt to bring back the expression of surprise and delight which the earlier readings had called up, but he felt that he was working uphill and against heavy odds. Nevertheless he completed the work, and spent much time in fancied improvement of its details. At a later period in his life he wrote three successful books in the time he had bestowed upon his first failure, but he wrote them alone.

Gloria's face brightened when he told her that it was done. She took the ma.n.u.script and read over parts of it to herself, smiling a little from time to time, for she knew that he was watching her. She did not read it all.

”Dedicate it to me,” she said, holding out one hand to find his, while she settled the pages on her knees with the other.

”Of course,” he answered, and he wrote a few words of dedication to her on a sheet of paper.

He sent it to a publisher in London whom he knew. It was returned with some wholesome advice, and Gloria's vanity suffered another blow, both in the failure of the book which contained so many of her ideas and in the failure of the man to be successful, for in her previous life she had not been accustomed to failure of any sort.

”I am afraid I am only a newspaper man, after all,” said Paul Griggs, quietly. ”You will have to be satisfied with me as I am. But I will try again.”

”No,” answered Gloria, more coldly than she usually spoke. ”When you find that you cannot do a thing naturally, leave it alone. It is of no use to force talent in one direction when it wants to go in another.”

She sighed softly, and busied herself with some work. Griggs felt that he was a failure, and he felt lonely, too, for a moment, and went to his own room to put away the rejected ma.n.u.script in a safe place. It was not his nature to destroy it angrily, as some men might have done at his age.

When he came back to the door of the sitting-room he heard her singing, as she often did when she was alone. But to-day she was singing an old song which he had not heard for a long time, and which reminded him painfully of that other house in which she had lived and of that other man whom she never saw, but who was still her husband.

He entered the room rather suddenly, after having paused a moment outside, with his hand on the door.

”Please do not sing that song!” he said quickly, as he entered.