Part 53 (1/2)
”A friend, yes. Oh, I've been so unhappy about it all--so _miserably_ wretched.”
Her voice broke and she seemed upon the point of tears.
”Why did you, Marcia? Why did you?” he repeated.
”I--I--” She appeared to break down and weep and Jerry's voice took on a tone of distress.
”Don't, Marcia, please!”
”I--I'm trying not to--but--” and she wept anew.
”Come,” said Jerry's voice. ”Sit here a moment. I'm sure it can all be explained. It makes me very unhappy to see you so miserable.”
They moved nearer and she sat upon the very rock beneath which I lay among the mouldy leaves; so near that I could have reached out and touched the girl's silken ankle with my fingers. Jerry, I think, still stood.
”I don't want to--to make you unhappy,” she said in a moment. ”And it was all my fault, but I just couldn't--couldn't stand it, Jerry.”
”Stand what?”
A pause and then in m.u.f.fled tones.
”Don't you know? Don't you really understand?”
”No. I--”
”I was mad,” she whispered, ”mad with jealousy of Una. She was your first love, your first--”
”Marcia! You mustn't. It's absurd.”
”No, no,” she protested. ”I know. Ever since I first learned that she had--had been in here with you, I--I haven't been able to get her out of mind--I may have appeared to, but I'm not one who forgets things easily; and to meet her at the cabin, the very place where I thought I should--should have you all to myself--it was too much. Jerry. I couldn't stand it. Something--something in me rebelled. I grew cold all over and hard against all the world, even you.”
”But this was foolish of you. Una, a friend. Surely there was no harm in my seeing her here?”
”It was foolish,” there was a slight change in the intonation of her voice here, ”but I know the world so much better than you, Jerry.
Girls are so designing, so--so untrustworthy.”
”You don't know Una if you say that,” said Jerry loyally.
”Perhaps I don't. I don't wish to think badly of anyone you call a friend but Una is so--er--so independent--so accustomed to moving with queer people--” She paused a moment again to give her insinuation weight. ”I don't know,” she sighed. ”I thought all sorts of horrible things about you.”
”Horrible! How? Why?”
”Oh, Jerry. Think for a moment. It was natural in me, wasn't it? If I hadn't been jealous of you I couldn't have loved you very much, could I?”
”But horrible thoughts! I don't understand. You might think that there was something between Una and me if you chose to be suspicious, but to think unpleasant things of her, I can't see--”
”You're making it very difficult for me--you're so strange,” she murmured. ”Isn't it something that I've lowered my pride to the earth in coming here to you? That I've given up Chan? That I'm pleading to you for forgiveness?”
”It is, of course. I do forgive you,” he murmured
”Oh, Jerry, if you knew how I had longed to hear you say that--if you knew!”