Joyce of the North Woods | Page 6

have expected from her disturbed silence. His
growing courage took a step back, but his passion rushed forward

proportionately.
The witch-light danced in the steady glance she turned upon him; she
threw her head back and her slim throat showed white and smooth in
the lamp's glow.
"Suppose he did hold my hand and--and kiss me, Jude Lauzoon, you'd
like to do the same yourself, now wouldn't you?"
She was ignorantly testing her weak, woman's weapon on the man's
metal.
Jude felt the mist rising in his eyes that once before that day had hid
this girl and Gaston from his sight. Like a mad mockery, too, Lola's
lark song sounded above the rush of blood that made him giddy. He got
to his feet and staggered around the table. He held to it, not so much to
steady himself as to guide him, but as he neared the girl the blindness
passed, and the tormenting song stopped--he stood in an awful silence,
and a white, hot light.
"Yes, by God, I do want to, and if yer that kind I'll take--my share and
chance along with the rest of 'em."
It was his own voice, loud and brutal, that smote the better part of him
that stood afar and alone; a something quite different from the beast
who spoke, and which felt a mad interest in wondering how she would
take the words.
"You go and sit down over there!"
No clash of steel or dash of icy water could have had the effect those
quiet words had, combined with the immovable calm out of which they
came.
The instinct of frightened womanhood was alive. If she could not down
the beast in the man by unflinching show of courage--she was lost.
They eyed each other for an instant--then Jude backed away and

dropped into the chair across the table.
Still, like animal and tamer they measured each other from the safer
distance. Presently the girl spoke, laying all the blame upon him for the
fright and suffering.
"What right have you, Jude Lauzoon, to come here insulting me?"
"What right had you," he blurted out, "to make me think you was
that--that sort?"
"I didn't make you think it--you thought it because you--wanted to
think it--it was in you."
The beast was quelled now, and a stifled sob rose to the boyish throat.
"I--I didn't want to think it--God knows I didn't, Joyce, it was that that
drove me mad."
"Can a man only think bad when he sees what he doesn't understand?"
Revulsion of feeling was making Joyce desperate. While her new
power brought her a delirious joy, it also, she was beginning to
understand, brought a terror she had never conceived before. She
wished the house were nearer the other human habitations.
"If you're that kind, Jude, you had better take yourself to the Black Cat;
you'll find plenty of your liking down there."
Jude was visibly cowering now.
"Why did he kiss you?" he pleaded.
"Suppose I gave him the right?"
"Then what am I to think? Have you given him the right? Does he want
the right? I mean the right first--and last?" Jude was gaining ground,
but neither he nor the girl to whom he spoke realized it yet. Joyce drew
back.

"What is that to you?" she murmured hanging her head. For the
moment she was safe--but she felt cornered.
Jude again bent toward her over his hands clenched close.
"It means everything," he panted, "and you know it. I've always liked
you best of anything on earth--ever since I went to school, to please
you, over to Hillcrest; ever since I tried to keep from the Black Cat,
because you asked me to. I've gone following after you kinder
heedless-like till--till he gave me a blow twixt the eyes, with his
hand-holding and kissing. It drove me crazy. I never thought of any one
else with you--least of all John Gaston and you. He didn't seem your
kind--I don't know why, but he didn't. Howsomever, if it's all
right--God knows I ain't in it--that's all."
A hoot of an owl outside made Joyce start nervously. She was unstrung
and superstitious--the fun of the game died in her, and she felt weak
and nauseated. She spoke as if she wanted to finish the matter and have
done with it forever.
"Well, I didn't give him the right. He didn't want it. I guess it was all
foolish--everything is foolish. When he found out how I liked books,
and how I wanted to know about things, he just naturally was kind and
he let me go to his shack to read. Sometimes he was there, sometimes
he wasn't. He just thought about me as if I was a little girl--Maggie
Falstar used to go sometimes--he told