save the light from the shaded lamp on the library-table and the glow of the dancing flames on the hearth, the room was in shadow.
mary cary had drawn the curtains, straightened chairs and books, rearranged the flowers, refilled the inkstand on her open desk, brushed the bits of charred wood under the logs on the andirons, turned on every light, and then, seeing nothing else to do that would permit of movement, had taken her seat near the table.
john maxwell, standing by the mantelpiece, watched her with eyes half amused, half impatient, but with no comment, and for some minutes neither had spoken. when she was seated, however, a magazine in her lap, he walked around the room and turned off all lights except that of the lamp; then came back and took the chair opposite hers.
"this is such an interesting number," she said, opening the magazine and shuffling its pages as if they were cards. "i suppose you have seen it?"
"no. i haven't seen it." he leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees, his eyes holding her steadily. "don't you think, mary, this foolishness between us has gone on long enough?"
"what foolishness?" she put the magazine on the table and tapped it with her fingers, looking away from him and into the leaping flames. "has there been any foolishness between us? i didn't know it."
"what would you call it?"
"i wouldn't—" she took up her handkerchief and examined the initial on it with critical intentness—"i wouldn't call it anything. we are very good friends."
"are we?"
"i've always thought so. if i'm mistaken—" she bit her lip nervously. "at least we used to be. but friendship is so insecure. that of years is killed in a moment and—"
"a thousand evidences forgotten if there be one imaginary failure, one seeming neglect. but i'm not speaking of friendship."
a step behind made him turn, and as hedwig came in he got up and took the telegram she handed him with only half-concealed irritation. mary cary, too, stood up, and as hedwig left the room the bit of yellow paper was handed her.
"so mr. bartlett is coming himself," she said, reading and handing the paper back. "that is much the best. i thought he was too busy. does miss gibbie know?"
"not yet." the telegram was put in his pocket. "whether she wants to or not, miss gibbie will have to let yorkburg know who its friend is. i don't doubt she meant well. to do things as nobody else does them is to her irresistible. but how a woman of her sense and understanding of human nature could fail to see the complications of a situation in which secrecy and mystery were elemental parts is beyond my comprehension."
"but that's because you're a man." she nodded toward him with something of the old bantering air. she and i were just women, and women don't see clearly—like men. after mistakes are out on the table, even a woman can see them, but it takes a man to see them before they are made. of course, it was a queer way of doing things, but it was her way. everybody is queer."
"i don't deny it."
"and if she didn't want her left hand to know what the right was doing, why tell it? everybody has a pet something they take literally in the bible. miss gibbie likes the sixth chapter of matthew. a great many people seem never to have read it."
"and a great many people who try to practically apply the teachings of their master are called cranks and crazy. until human nature is born again, human tongues will talk and human noses sniff and human ears listen for what is ugly and unkind. the partnership into which you and miss gibbie entered was all right in purpose and intent, but you forgot in your calculations the perversities of the people you were trying to help. people will pardon anything sooner than a secret."
"i suppose i will have to tell how tree hill was given me, and about the bonds and the fifty thousand dollars and the baths and the tired and sick people sent away. how do you suppose it can be told—in the way she will mind least, i mean?"
john, leaning against his end of the mantel, looked at the girl at hers, and laughed in her troubled eyes.
"the decision will hardly rest with us. mr. bartlett comes to-morrow to meet mr. moon and several other gentlemen invited for the purpose. the money deposited with his company to be used for yorkburg in coming years will be staggering to mr. walstein. miss gibbie is a wizard in some things, and in business a genius, yet of this little scheme she made a mess and put you in a—how to let yorkburg know who its unknown friend is will be settled by mrs. mcdougal, i imagine. i had a little talk with her this morning. she has understood all the time who was putting up the money, but she had sense enough to keep her understanding to herself. i told her she could let it out. she flew home for eggs, and there'll be few of her customers who won't have a visit from her to-day. you won't have to tell the name of yorkburg's friend."
for a moment there was silence. then abruptly he crossed over to her, took her hands in his, and held them with an intensity that hurt.
"mary! mary!" in his arms he gathered her, crushed her, lifted her face to his and kissed it, kissed her lips, her eyes, her hair. "we will come back for christmas, but we are to be married at once."
she struggled to draw away, but his strong arms held her until breath came unsteadily; then, as again she tried to free herself, he held her off, gripping her hands.
"is there nothing to tell me, mary?"
"to tell you?" the long lashes shielding the awakened eyes quivered.
he bent closer to hear her. "what do you want me to tell you?"
"that you—love me." his faced whitened. "for my much love is there not even a little, mary?"
she shook her head, her eyes still upon the rug. then she looked up. "i never love—a little. for your much love i have— oh, john, john, don't leave me any more! don't leave me here alone!"
"i suppose"—she punched the cushion on the sofa beside her into first one shape and then another—"i suppose there must always be something we wish there wasn't. i don't like your world. i don't want to marry in it. it's so queer how things get mixed up and twisted in life. i believe in the old-fashioned things, and do not want that which the men and women of your world want. what would mere externals mean if your heart was not happy, or if one's life was spent on parade with no one to care for you—just for yourself."
"in this particular case"—he smiled in the brilliant, anxious eyes—"there is some one to care for you—just for yourself."
"i know, but—" she drew away. "i can't talk if— you really mustn't, john! i think i'd better sit in that chair."
"i think you hadn't. go on. but what?"
"i don't like your kind of life. i mean the kind the people you know lead. when i used to visit geraldine french i was always finding points of likeness in it to my early training. we had to do so many things we didn't want to, just because other people did them. everything was cut according to a pattern. i don't like rules and regulations. i like yorkburg. here love counts."
"love counts everywhere. unfortunately, it's the rules and regulations that don't count in many worlds. custom controls, i admit. but it's because love counts i need you, mary. all of us get tired of it, the cap and bells, the sham and show, and underneath we know are eternal verities we pretend to forget. eternal verities don't let you forget. don't you see what you have done? you have made me understand what life could mean. in what you call my world are many who do not seem to know. there is something very terribly needing to be done there."
"what is there needing to be done?"
"to marry for love— oh, i don't mean there is no marrying for love." he laughed in the shocked, wide-opened eyes. "i mean there is nothing so deceptive as love's counterfeit, and other considerations masquerade under it unguessed, perhaps. many men and women are, doubtless, honest in thinking when they marry that they love each other, but if they live long enough a large proportion find out their mistake."
"oh no! i don't believe it! i know too many happy marriages to believe a thing like that. the trouble is—"
he looked in the protesting eyes. "the trouble is what?"
"that people imagine what they start with will last through life. as if love alone stood still, did not grow more or become less. i do not wonder at the unhappy marriages. i wonder there are not more of them."
"more of them? were i to count the enviably happy couples i know there would barely be a dozen."
"a dozen?" she turned toward him in pretended unbelief. "in you world, do you know a dozen?"
"in you world, do you know more?"
"many more."
"could you name them? not the outwardly, the seemingly happy ones, but those who are happier with each other under any circumstances than they would be apart under any conditions. do you know many married people who come under this head?"
for a moment she did not answer, then turned to him questioning, troubled eyes. "why do you ask such things, john? our ideals of happiness may not be those of others. i know many happily married people. i've always believed in love, am always going to believe in it, and if unhappiness follows many marriages it is because there is not love enough. happiness is such a tender thing!" she drew her hands away and clasped them tightly. "one should so carefully guard it, and instead—"
his eyes were missing no throb of the heart that sent recurring waves of color to her quivering face. "instead?"
"it is taken as a right, rather than an award. and then there is weeping or storming or sneering when it is lost."
"then we shall take it"—he lifted her hand to his lips—"as the award of life, and guard it. it needs guarding. in any world its hold is insecure."
presently she again looked up and smoothed her hair. "but, john"— she shook her head doubtfully—"i shall be such a shock to your friends. i want, don't you see, to be free, to do what i want to do, not what i should be a code of custom. the martha of me would break forth when most she should be quiet, and keep you always uneasy. i never know what martha is going to say to do."
"that's why i love martha! it's so wearing to always know what a person is going to say and do. if you were just all mary—" he laughed, measuring her hand against his and looking carefully at its third finger. "you'll be a joy, my mary martha, and the more shocks you give the better for us." he took out a note-book and opened it. "what day is this? saturday—let me see. thanksgiving is on the twenty-sixth. you will want to be here, i suppose?"
"i certainly will!" she sat suddenly upright.
"and you want to be back for christmas?"
"i certainly do. what are you talking about?" her face crimsoned.
"you don't suppose i'm really going—"
"i don't suppose anything about it. the matter is no longer in your hands. three weeks from to-day will be the second of december. that will give us time, say, for a bit of bermuda and back here for the holidays. mary cary"—he took her hands in his—"three weeks from to-day you are to marry me."
"but miss gibbie! we can't leave her here by herself. couldn't she go, too? she'd love bermuda. don't you think, john, she could go, too?"
"i think not!" john's nod was decisive. "i prefer taking this trip with just my wife."
mary leaned back on the sofa as if swept by a sudden realization.
"i don't know what we've been thinking about. to go away and leave
miss gibbie like this would—"
"make her indeed and in truth the friend of yorkburg. to win its love she must give more than money. you have done much for her, opened her eyes to much, and she is beginning to understand. she has had a hard fight. to conquer herself, to give you up has meant—"
"oh, john, john!" with a half-sob her hands went out to him. "for us the days ahead seem glad and beautiful. for her—to leave her, to leave my people, my little orphans, would be more than selfish. i can't, john, i can't!"
he bent over and gathered her close to his heart, laughed unsteadily in the face he lifted to his. "you have no choice, my dear. you are mine now. forever mine!"
