Part 14 (2/2)
He rose and went to her, standing before her, obedient and waiting.
She reached up and took his face between her hands, and pulled his face gently downward until the faces of the two were close together. She looked into his eyes.
”I merely called you up, sir,” she said, ”to impart a certain piece of information. I am in love with you.”
CHAPTER XXII.
TWO FOOLS STILL.
When a woman, who is all there is in the world to a man, falls into the deliciously generous mood of abandonment, and is revealing what is in her heart, the man, I understand from various excellent authorities, gets about as near heaven as he may ever do in the flesh. And Harlson formed no exception to the rule. The small personage on the limb of the fallen tree owned him as absolutely and completely as ever Cleopatra owned a slave, or Elizabeth a servitor.
”I don't know what to say,” he murmured. ”There aren't any words--but--you understand.”
She pulled his face still closer and kissed him on the lips, though blus.h.i.+ng as she did so, for this young woman had fancies regarding lips and regarding kisses which should be entertained by a greater number of the women of the land. Then she told him to lie upon the sand again; that she wanted to look at him. And he obeyed, machine-like.
She was in a fantastic mood a.s.suredly. She watched him, her cheek resting upon one little hand for a long time, a thoughtful look upon her face. Then she broke out impetuously:
”How smooth and clean your face is! Do you--do you go to--you know what I mean. Do you go to a barber every day?”
He answered that he shaved himself.
”Is it very hard?” she asked.
”Well, that depends.”
She studied once more for a long time, then spoke again, on this occasion blus.h.i.+ng furiously:
”Grant, dear, I want to _do_ things for you always. I want to take care of you. It seems to me that, some time, I might learn, you know.
It seems to me that some time I might almost”--with a little gasp--”shave you.”
He wanted to gather her up in his arms and smother and caress her, after that climax of tender admission, but she waved her hand as she saw him rising. He fell back then upon his ign.o.ble habit of talking vast science to her.
”My dear, that dream may, I hope, be realized. I'd rather have my face slashed by you than be shaved by the most careful, conscientious and silent barber in all Christendom, but shaving is a matter of much gravity. It is not the removal of the beard which tests the intellect; it is the sharpening of the razors.”
”How is that, sir?”
”All razors are feminine, and things of moods. The razor you sharpen to-day may not be sharp, though manipulated upon hone or strap with all persistence and all skill. The razor you sharpen to-morrow may be far more tractable. Furthermore, the razor which is comparatively dull to-day may be sharp to-morrow, without further treatment.”
She said that, in her opinion, that was nonsense, and that he was trying to impose upon a friendless girl, because the topic was one of which men would, ordinarily, have a monopoly, and regarding which they would a.s.sume all wisdom, and, perhaps, make jests.
”I am in earnest,” he said. ”Razors have moods, and are known to sulk.
But science has solved the conundrum of their antics. It has been discovered that whetting changes the location of the molecules of metal, that there is frequently left what is not a perfect edge after the supposed sharpening, but that, given time, the molecules will readjust themselves, and the edge return. My dear, you are now, or at least should be, a woman rarely learned in one great mystery. Is there no reward for merit?”
She scorned reply to such a screed, but slid down from her perch with the remark that she had ”et hearty.” A man who had eaten near them in a restaurant had used the expression, and they had both promptly adopted it.
He rose, went to her side, and leaned over, and inhaled the perfume of her hair.
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