Part 17 (1/2)
”Sure,” answered Billy, ”that would amount to--how many have you of your own?”
”Four,” answered Dic.
”Then you'll want to buy sixteen--four hundred dollars. Here is the money,” and he handed him a canvas shot-bag containing the gold.
”Now, Billy Little,” said Dic, ”I want to give you my note for this money, bearing the highest rate of interest.”
”All right,” responded our backwoods usurer, ”I'll charge you twelve per cent. I do love a good interest. There is no Antonio about me. I'll lend no money gratis and bring down the rate of usance. Not I.”
The note signed, Dic looked upon himself as an important factor in the commercial world, and felt his obligation less because of the high rate of interest he was paying.
The young man at once began looking for horses, and within three days had purchased sixteen ”beauties,” as Billy Little called them, which, with his own, made up the number he was to take. His adventurous New York trip raised him greatly in the estimation of Mrs. Bays. It brought her to realize that he was a man, and it won, in a degree, her reluctant respect. The ride over the mountains through rain and mud and countless dangers was an adventure worthy to inspire respect. The return would be easier than the eastward journey. Dic would return from New York to Pittsburg by ca.n.a.l boat and stage. From Pittsburg, if the river should be open, he would go to Madison by the Ohio boats. From Madison he would come north to Columbus on the mail stage, and at Columbus he would be within twenty-five miles of home.
As I have told you, Mrs. Bays grew to respect Dic; and being willing to surrender, save for the shame of defeat, she honestly kept the terms of her armistice. Thus Rita and Dic enjoyed the sycamore divan by the river's edge without interference.
On the night before his departure he gave Rita the ring, saying, ”This time it is for keeps.”
”I hope so,” returned the girl, with a touch of doubt in her hesitating words.
He spoke buoyantly of his trip and of the great things that were sure to come out of it, and again Rita softly hoped so; but intimated in a gentle, complaining tone of voice that something told her trouble would come from the expedition. She felt that she was being treated badly, though, being such a weak, selfish, unworthy person,--so she had been taught by her mother to believe,--she deserved nothing better. Dic laughed at her fears, and told her she was the one altogether perfect human being. Although by insistence he brought her to admit that he was right in both propositions, he failed to convince her in either, and she spoke little, save in eloquent sighs, during the remainder of the evening.
After the eventful night of Scott's social, Rita's surrender of self had grown in its sweetness hour by hour; and although Dic's love had also deepened, as his confidence grew apace he a.s.sumed an air of patronage toward the girl which she noticed, but which she considered quite the proper thing in all respects.
There was no abatement of his affection this last evening together, but she was sorry to see him so joyful at leaving her. Their situation was simply a repet.i.tion of the world-wide condition: the man with many motives and ambitions, the woman with one--love.
After Dic had, for the twentieth time, said he must be going, the girl whispered:--
”I fear you will carry away with you the memory of a dull evening, but I could not talk, I could not. Oh, Dic--” Thereupon she began to weep, and Dic, though pained, found a certain selfish joy in comforting her, compared to which the conversation of Madame de Stael herself would have been poor and commonplace. Then came the gate, a sweet face wet with tears, and good-by and good-by and good-by.
Dic went home joyful. Rita went to her room weeping. It pained him to leave her, but it grieved her far more deeply, and she began then to pay the penalty of her great crime in being a woman.
Do not from the foregoing remark conclude that Dic was selfish in his lack of pain at parting from Rita. He also lacked her fears. Did the fear exist in her and not in him because her love was greater or because she was more timid? Had her abject surrender made him over-confident?
When a woman gives as Rita did she should know her man, else she is in danger. If he happens to be a great, n.o.ble soul, she makes her heaven and his then and there. If he is a selfish brute, she will find another place of which we all stand in wholesome dread.
A CHRISTMAS HEARTH LOG
CHAPTER VIII
A CHRISTMAS HEARTH LOG
On the morning of Dic's departure, Billy Little advised him to invest the proceeds of his expedition in goods at New York, and to s.h.i.+p them to Madison.
”You see,” said Billy, ”you will make your profit going and coming, and you will have a nice lump of gold when you return. Gold means Rita, and Rita means happiness and ploughing.”
”Not ploughing, Billy Little,” interrupted Dic.
”We'll see what we will see,” replied Billy. ”Here is a list of goods I advise you to buy, and the name of a man who will sell them to you at proper prices. You can trust him. He wouldn't cheat even a friend.
Good-by, Dic. Write to me. Of course you will write to Rita?”
”Indeed I shall,” replied Dic in a tone expressive of the fact that he was a fine, true fellow, and would perform that pleasant duty with satisfaction to himself and great happiness to the girl. You see, Dic's great New York journey had caused him to feel his importance a bit.