Part 35 (1/2)

”I think I have demonstrated the fact you mention,” he replied calmly.

Florence Baker clasped her hands together. ”Yes, your persistency is admirable,” she said.

Ben Blair caught the word. ”Persistency,” he remarked, ”seems the only recourse when past friends.h.i.+p and common courtesy are ignored.”

Florence made no reply, and going forward Ben placed a chair deferentially. ”It seems necessary for me to reverse the position of host and guest,” he said. ”Won't you be seated?”

The girl did not stir.

”I hardly think it necessary,” she answered.

”Florence,” Ben Blair's great chin lifted meaningly, ”I will not be offended whatever you may do. I have something I wish to say to you.

Please sit down.”

The girl hesitated, and almost against her will looked the man fairly in the eyes, while her own blazed. Once more she felt his dominance controlling her, felt as she did when, in what seemed the very long ago, he had spread his blanket for her upon the prairie earth.

She sat down.

Ben drew up another chair and sat facing her. ”Why,” he was leaning a bit forward, his elbow on his knee, ”why, Florence Baker, have you done everything in your power to prevent my seeing you? What have I done of late, what have I ever done, to deserve this treatment from you?”

The girl evaded his eyes. ”It is not usually considered necessary for a lady to give her reasons for not wis.h.i.+ng to see a gentleman,” she parried. The handkerchief in her lap was being rolled unconsciously into a tight little ball. ”The fact itself is sufficient.”

Ben's free hand closed on the chair-arm with a mighty grip. ”I beg your pardon,” he said, ”but I cannot agree with you. There's a certain amount of courtesy due between a woman and a man, as there is between man and man. It is my right to repeat the question.”

The girl felt the cord drawing tighter, felt that in the end she would bend to his will.

”And should I refuse?” she asked.

”You won't refuse.”

The girl's eyes returned to his. Even now she wondered that they did so, that try as she might she could not deny him. His dominance over her was well-nigh absolute. Yet she was not angry. An instinct that she had felt before possessed her; the longing of the weaker for the stronger--the impulse to give him what he wished. Her whole womanhood went out to him, with an entire confidence that she would never give to another human being. Naturally, he was her mate; naturally,--but she was not natural.

She hesitated as she had done once before, a mult.i.tude of conflicting desires and ambitions seething in her brain. If she could but eliminate the artificial in her nature, the desire for the empty things of the world, then--But she could not yet give them up, and he could never be made to care for them with her. She was nearer now to giving them up, to giving up everything for his sake, than when she had sat alone with him out on the prairie. She realized this with an added complexity of emotion; but even yet, even yet--

A minute pa.s.sed in silence, a minute of which the girl was unconscious.

It was Ben Blair's voice repeating his first question that recalled her.

This time she did not hesitate.

”I think you know the reason as well as I do. If we were mere friends or acquaintances I would be only too glad to see you; but we are not, and never can be merely friends. We have got to be either more or less.” The voice, brave so far, dropped. A mist came over the brown eyes. ”And we can't be more,” she added.

The man's grip on the chair-arm loosened. He bent his face farther forward. ”Miss Baker,” he exclaimed. ”Florence!”

Interrupting, almost imploring, the girl drew back. ”Don't! Please don't!” she pleaded; then, as she saw the futility of words, with the old girlish motion her face dropped into her hands. ”Oh, I knew it would mean this if I saw you!” she wailed. ”You see for yourself we cannot be mere friends!”

The man did not stir, but his eyes changed color and seemed to grow darker. ”No,” he said, ”we cannot be mere friends; I care for you too much for that. And I cannot be silent when I came away off here to see you. I would never respect myself again if I were. You can do what you please, say what you please, and I'll not resent it--because it is you.

I will love you as long as I live. I am not ashamed of this, because it is you I love, Florence Baker.” He paused, looking tenderly at the girl's bowed head.

”Florence,” he went on gently, ”you don't know what you are to me, or what your having left me means. I often go over to your old ranch of a night and sit there alone, thinking of you, dreaming of you. Sometimes it is all so vivid that I almost feel that you are near, and before I know it I speak your name. Then I realize you are not there, and I feel so lonely that I wish I were dead. I think of to-morrow, and the next day, and the next--the thousands of days that I'll have to live through without you--and I wonder how I am going to do it.”