Part 15 (2/2)
The secretary, s.h.i.+vering in the knife-like wind slipping down from the bald peaks, had not long to wait. By the time his eyes were fitted to the darkness he heard a man coming up the track, the snow crunching frostily under his steady stride. Jastrow ducked under the platform and gained a viewpoint on the other side of the car. The crunching footfalls had ceased, and a man was swinging himself up to the forward step of the Rosemary. At the instant a voice just above the spy's head called softly, ”Mr. Winton!” and the new-comer dropped back into the snow and came tramping to the rear.
It was an awkward moment for Jastrow; but he made s.h.i.+ft to dodge again, and so to be out of the way when the engineer drew himself up and climbed the hand-rail to stand beside his summoner.
The secretary saw him take her hand and heard her exclamation, half indignant, wholly reproachful:
”You had my note: I told you not to come!”
”So you did, and yet you were expecting me,” he a.s.serted. He was still holding her hand, and she could not--or did not--withdraw it.
”Was I, indeed!” There was a touch of the old-time raillery in the words, but it was gone when she added: ”Oh, why will you keep on coming and coming when you know so well what it means to you and your work?”
”I think you know the answer to that better than anyone,” he rejoined, his voice matching hers for earnestness. ”It is because I love you; because I could not stay away if I should try. Forgive me, dear; I did not mean to speak so soon. But you said in your note that you would be leaving Argentine immediately--that I should not see you again: so I had to come. Won't you give me a word, Virginia?--a waiting word, if it must be that?”
Jastrow held his breath, hope dying within him and sullen ferocity crouching for the spring if her answer should urge it on. But when she spoke the secretary's anger cooled and he breathed again.
”No: a thousand times, no!” she burst out pa.s.sionately; and Winton staggered as if the suddenly-freed hand had dealt him a blow.
X. SPIKED SWITCHES
For a little time after Virginia's pa.s.sionate rejection of him Winton stood abashed and confounded. Weighed in the balance of the after-thought, his sudden and unpremeditated declaration could plead little excuse in encouragement. And yet she had been exceedingly kind to him.
”I have no right to expect a better answer,” he said finally, when he could trust himself to speak. ”But I am like other men: I should like to know why.”
”You can ask that?” she retorted. ”You say you have no right: what have you done to expect a better answer?”
He shrugged. ”Nothing, I suppose. But you knew that before.”
”I only know what you have shown me during the past three weeks, and it has proved that you are what Mr. Adams said you were--though he was only jesting.”
”And that is?”
”A _faineant_, a dilettante; a man with all the G.o.d-given ability to do as he will and to succeed, and yet who will not take the trouble to persevere.”
Winton smiled, a grim little smile.
”You are not quite like any other woman I have ever known--not like any other in the world, I believe. Your sisters, most of them, would take it as the sincerest homage that a man should neglect his work for his love. Do you care so much for success, then?”
”For the thing itself--nothing, less than nothing. But--but one may care a little for the man who wins or loses.”
He tried to take her hand again, tried and failed.
”Virginia!--is that my word of hope?”
”No. Will you never see the commonplace effrontery of it, Mr. Winton?
Day after day you have come here, idling away the precious hours that meant everything to you, and now you come once again to offer me a share in what you have lost. Is that your idea of chivalry, of true manhood?”
Again the grim smile came and went.
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