The Conflict | Page 4

his face came into plain view. A refined, handsome face, dark and serious. He had dark-brown eyes--and Miss Hastings did not like brown eyes in a man. She thought that men should have gray or blue or greenish eyes, and if they were cruel in their love of power she liked it the better.
``Hello, Dave,'' she cried in a pleasant, friendly voice. She was posed--in the most unconscious of attitudes-- upon a rustic bench so that her extraordinary figure was revealed at its most attractive.
The young man halted before her, his breath coming quickly--not altogether from the exertion of his steep and rapid climb. ``Jen, I'm mad about you,'' he said, his brown eyes soft and luminous with passion. ``I've done nothing but think about you in the week you've been back. I didn't sleep last night, and I've come up here as early as I dared to tell you--to ask you to marry me.''
He did not see the triumph she felt, the joy in having subdued another of these insolently superior males. Her eyes were discreetly veiled; her delightful mouth was arranged to express sadness.
``I thought I was an ambition incarnate,'' continued the young man, unwittingly adding to her delight by detailing how brilliant her conquest was. ``I've never cared a rap about women--until I saw you. I was all for politics--for trying to do something to make my fellow men the better for my having lived. Now--it's all gone. I want you, Jen. Nothing else matters.''
As he paused, gazing at her in speechless longing, she lifted her eyes--simply a glance. With a stifled cry he darted forward, dropped beside her on the bench and tried to enfold her in his arms. The veins stood out in his forehead; the expression of his eyes was terrifying.
She shrank, sprang up. His baffled hands had not even touched her. ``David Hull!'' she cried, and the indignation and the repulsion in her tone and in her manner were not simulated, though her artfulness hastened to make real use of them. She loved to rouse men to frenzy. She knew that the sight of their frenzy would chill her--would fill her with an emotion that would enable her to remain mistress of the situation.
At sight of her aversion his eyes sank. ``Forgive me,'' he muttered. ``You make me--CRAZY.''
``I!'' she cried, laughing in angry derision. ``What have I ever done to encourage you to be--impertinent?''
``Nothing,'' he admitted. ``That is, nothing but just being yourself.''
``I can't help that, can I?''
``No,'' said he, adding doggedly: ``But neither can men help going crazy about you.''
She looked at him sitting there at once penitent and impenitent; and her mind went back to the thoughts that had engaged it before he came into view. Marriage-- to marry one of these men, with their coarse physical ideas of women, with their pitiful weakness before an emotion that seemed to her to have no charm whatever. And these were the creatures who ruled the world and compelled women to be their playthings and mere appendages! Well--no doubt it was the women's own fault, for were they not a poor, spiritless lot, trembling with fright lest they should not find a man to lean on and then, having found the man, settling down into fat and stupid vacuity or playing the cat at the silly game of social position? But not Jane Hastings! Her bosom heaved and her eyes blazed scorn as she looked at this person who had dared think the touch of his coarse hands would be welcome. Welcome!
``And I have been thinking what a delightful friendship ours was,'' said she, disgustedly. ``And all the time, your talk about your ambition--the speeches you were going to make--the offices you were going to hold-- the good you were going to do in purifying politics-- it was all a blind!''
``All a blind,'' admitted he. ``From the first night that you came to our house to dinner--Jen, I'll never forget that dress you wore--or the way you looked in it.''
Miss Jane had thought extremely well of that toilet herself. She had heard how impervious this David Hull, the best catch in the town, was to feminine charm; and she had gone prepared to give battle. But she said dejectedly, ``You don't know what a shock you've given me.''
``Yes, I do,'' cried he. ``I'm ashamed of myself. But --I love you, Jen! Can't you learn to love me?''
``I hadn't even thought of you in that way,'' said she. ``I haven't bothered my head about marriage. Of course, most girls have to think about it, because they must get some one to support them----''
``I wish to God you were one of that sort,'' interrupted he. ``Then I could have some hope.''
``Hope of what,'' said she disdainfully. ``You don't mean that you'd marry a girl who