Part 44 (2/2)
”Well, then, I'll soon solve for you my poor little riddle. Miss Mildred, you know that I have loved you ever since you waked up an awkwad, lazy, country fellow into the wish to be a man.”
His words were plain enough now, surely, but she was no longer frightened, for he spoke in such a kindly natural voice that she looked him straight in the eyes, with a delicate bloom in her face, and replied:
”I didn't wish to mislead you, Mr. Atwood, and I wouldn't trifle with you.”
”You have been truth and honesty itself.”
”No, I've not,” she answered impetuously; ”I cherished an unreasoning prejudice against you, and--and--I disliked you, though why, I can't see now, and n.o.bly you have triumphed over both prejudice and dislike.”
”It will ever be the proudest triumph of my life; but, Miss Mildred, you do not love me in the least, and I fear you never will.”
”I am so sorry, so very sorry,” she faltered, with a crimson face and downcast eyes.
”I am, too; but that which I want to say to you is, that you are not to blame, and I don't blame you. I could not love a girl simply because she wanted me to, were such a thing possible, and why should I demand of you what I couldn't do myself? All I asked in the first place--don't you remember it in the old front walk at home?--was friends.h.i.+p. Let us go back to that. Let me become your simple, honest friend, and help you in every way within my power.
Don't let me frighten you any more with the dread of high tragedy.
Now you've had all the declaration you ever need fear. I won't break loose or explode under any provocation. I can't help my love, and you must not punish me for it, nor make yourself miserable about it, as if it were a powder magazine which a kind word or look might touch off. I want to put your heart to rest, for you have enough to bear now, Heaven knows; I want you to feel safe with me--as free from fear and annoyance as Belle is. I won't presume or be sentimental.”
”Oh, my perverse, perverse heart!” wailed Mildred. ”I could tear it out of my breast and throw it away in disgust. I want to love--it would be a poor return for all that you are and have done for me--but it is of no use. I will not deceive one so true as you are, by even a trace of falseness. You deserve the love of the best woman in the world, and some day you'll find her---”
”I have found her,” he put in quietly.
”No, no, no!” she cried pa.s.sionately; ”but I am as nature made me, and I can't seem to help myself. How strange it seems that I can say from the depths of my soul I could die for you, and yet that I can't do just the one thing you deserve a thousand times! But, Roger, I will be the most devoted sister that ever a man had.”
”No,” he said, smiling, ”that won't answer at all. That wouldn't be honest, as far as I am concerned. Belle is my sister, but you can never be. I know you don't love me now, and, as I've said, perhaps you never can, but I'm too persistent in my nature to give up the hope. Time may bring changes, and I've got years of up-hill work before I can think of marrying. You are in a self-sacrificing mood now. I saw it in your eyes and manner last night--I see it now.
Mildred, I could take a very great advantage of you if I chose.”
”Indeed you could. You don't know how generous you are. You have conquered me, overwhelmed me by your kindness, and I couldn't say No to anything in your nature to ask.”
For a moment he looked sorely tempted, and then he said brusquely, ”I'll put a spoke in that wheel. I'd give all the world for this little hand, but I won't take it until your heart goes with it. So there!”
The young girl sighed deeply. ”You are right,” she murmured, ”when you give so much I can give so little.”
”That is not what I was thinking of. As a woman you have sacred rights, and I should despise myself if I tried to buy you with kindness, or take advantage of your grat.i.tude. I'll admit, too, since we are to have no dark corners in this talk, that I would rather be loved as I know you can love. I'd rather have an honest friends.h.i.+p than a forced affection, even though the force was only in the girl's will and wishes. I was reading Maud Muller the other night, and no woman shall ever say of her life's happiness, that but for me 'it might have been.'”
”I don't think any woman could ever say that of you.”
”Mildred, you showed me your heart last night, and it has a will stronger than your will, and it shall have its way.”
The girl again sighed. ”Roger,” she said, ”one reason why I so shrank from you in the past was that you read my thoughts. You have more than a woman's intuition.”
”No,” he said, laughing a little grimly, ”I'm not a bit feminine in my nature. My explanation may seem absurd to you, but it's true, I think. I am exceedingly fond of hunting, and I so trained my eyes that if a leaf stirred or a bird moved a wing I saw it. When you waked me up, and I determined to seek my fortunes out in the world, I carried with me the same quickness of eye. I do not let much that is to be seen escape me, and on a face like yours thoughts usually leave some trace.”
”You didn't learn to be a gentleman, in the best sense of the word, in the woods,” she said, with a smile.
”No, you and your mother taught me that, and I may add, your father, for when I first saw him he had the perfection of manners.” He might also have referred to Vinton Arnold, whom he had studied so carefully, but he could not bring himself to speak of one whom in his heart he knew to be the chief barrier between them, for he was well aware that it was Mildred's involuntary fidelity to her first love that made his suit so dubious. At his reference to her father Mildred's eyes had filled at once, and he continued gently, ”We understand each other now, do we not? You won't be afraid of me any more, and will let me help you all to brighter days?”
She put both of her hands in his, and said earnestly, ”No, I will never be afraid of you again, but I only half understand you yet, for I did not know that there was a man in the world so n.o.ble, so generous, so honest. You have banished every trace of constraint, and I'll do everything you say.”
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