Part 13 (1/2)
”It's going to make you a lot of trouble,--two guests in the house, for an indefinite period. You see, I'm just waking up to what I'm asking of you. It's precisely like my impetuosity to create a situation I can't retreat from, and then wonder at my own nerve. Will it bother you very much?”
”It's what we're here for, isn't it?” She smiled at him as he turned and put both arms around her, kneeling beside her in the shadow of the vines.
”It's certainly what you are here for, and I am your partner, or I'm not much of a wife.”
”Bless you, you darling; you surely are. And such a partner! If Leaver had one like you--he wouldn't be where he is. But he can't have you,”
he repeated, and held her closer. ”I couldn't see you reading to him and walking with him, and being a friend to him,--I couldn't see it, that's all, no matter how much good you might do him. Queer--I didn't know that was in me--that feeling. Macauley calls me a Turk. I guess that's what I am. It's a primitive sort of instinct, scoffed at in these days when half the married women are playing with fire in the shape of other women's husbands. But I hate that sort of thing--have always hated it. I'm a Turk, all right. Do you mind?”
”No, I don't think I mind,” she answered softly. ”But I want your perfect trust, Red.”
”You have it, oh, you have it, love. No possible question of that. And I don't mean that I'm not willing to have Leaver get what he can of your dearness, as he's bound to feel it, in our home. But this comrade business, which I feel he's so much in need of,--that's what he can't have from you. And if he stayed on, and there was no other woman about, why, quite naturally--”
He stopped. Then, as she was silent, ”You won't misunderstand me, little wife?” he begged. ”I've seen so much of the other thing, you know. Can I be--enough for you?”
”Quite enough, Red.”
After a minute he went back to the thing which absorbed him. ”I can see you haven't much confidence in my plan for Amy's helping him?”
She hesitated. ”You spoke just now of playing with fire. You don't feel that in throwing two people so closely together you are risking something?”
He considered it. ”My idea is that Amy will administer her comrades.h.i.+p as she would her medicines. She is the most conscientious girl alive; she won't give him a drop too much.”
”Not a drop too much for his good, perhaps. But what about hers, dear?
When he is himself Dr. Leaver can be a wonderfully interesting and compelling man, you know. It would be a pity for her to grow to care for him, if--I don't suppose it is at all possible to expect him to care seriously for her,--do you?”
”Well, I shouldn't have said so a month ago. But I'm just beginning to realize a new side to Amy Mathewson. I don't suppose I ever saw her--to look at her--out of her uniform, before that night when you dressed her up. By George, along with the clothes she seemed to put on a new skin!”
”Uniforms are disguising things,” Ellen admitted, ”and Amy is a lady, born and bred, in her uniform and out of it. But it's not much use speculating on what will happen, when the arrangements are already made.
We must just do our best for Dr. Leaver, and hope that no harm will come to either of them.”
”None will--under your roof,” her husband a.s.serted confidently.
CHAPTER VII
POINTS OF VIEW
”A lady downstairs to see you, Mrs. Burns.” Cynthia presented a card.
It was early morning. Ellen had just seen her husband off in the Green Imp, and was busy at various housewifely tasks. She took the card in some surprise, for morning calls were not much in vogue in this small town. But when she read the name--”Miss Ruston”--she gave a little cry of delight, and ran downstairs as one goes to welcome a long absent friend.
A graceful figure, radiant with health and good looks, dressed in the trimmest and simplest of travelling attire, yet with a gay and saucy air about her somewhere, quite difficult to locate, rose as Ellen came in.
Dark eyes flashed, lips smiled happily, and a pair of arms opened wide.
Ellen found herself caught and held in a warm embrace, which she returned with a corresponding ardour.
”Why, Charlotte, dear!” she cried. ”Where did you come from? And why didn't you let me know?”
”Straight from home, Len, darling. And I didn't let you know because I didn't know myself till I was here. Oh, do let me look at you! How dear, how dear you are! I had almost forgotten anybody could be so lovely.”