The Lions Mouse | Page 5

that it didn't contain blank paper? But Sands had got beyond this stage. If he were a fool, he asked to be nothing better.
"Is that friend you talk of more than a friend?"
"No, only a person I trusted for reasons I can't tell you."
"I see. And you don't know what will become of you since he's failed you, and you're turned adrift in a strange town?"
"I don't know at all. I feel stunned--as if it didn't matter."
"It does matter to a girl like you, left alone without friends in a big city where you're a stranger. Have you money?"
"I had enough and more than enough for my journey here, enough to pay you back for all you've done. I expected to get more money, and to be looked after in Chicago. Perhaps I can find work."
"Do you think after all that's passed I can go coolly on my way leaving you alone in Chicago? I may be a fool, but I have another proposal to make." He paused.
She looked up as if startled.
"What do you say to marrying me and going on to New York as my wife?"
For a minute he thought she was going to faint. She seemed suddenly to become limp. She swayed a little on her feet, and he caught her arm.
"You're tired out, standing so long," he exclaimed.
"No, it's not that. Forgive me. It was almost too much, finding out the height of your goodness. Yet, 'height' is the word!"
"You'll marry me, then!" he cried.
"No," the girl answered, "I thank you with my whole heart, but I can't."
"Why ... why?" he stammered. "Unless you're married already."
"I'm not married. No man has ever been anything to me. I swear that to you! But I can't tell you any more about myself."
Roger did not speak for a minute. At last he said:
"See here, you and I have got to talk. We can't do that where we are, with people jostling us this way and that. There's one thing certain. However this ends, I'm not going to leave you alone in Chicago. We've got plenty of time. Will you let me take you to a quiet restaurant? We can thrash matters out across the table."
"Very well," she agreed.
Roger knew Chicago. When he had arranged to have his luggage put in safe keeping, he got a taxi and took the girl to a dull but good place, sure to be practically empty at that hour. They sat down at a table in a corner, and Sands ordered an oyster stew.
"Do you dislike me?" he began his catechism. "Could you like me enough to think of me as a husband, if we'd met in a conventional, society sort of way?"
"Yes, I could. I do want you to know that. You've been so splendid to me."
"So far so good, but I haven't been splendid. I've fallen in love with you. I haven't been in love before ... that is, not since I was twenty. I've never had time...."
"You haven't taken much time in doing it now!" She gave a queer little laugh with a sob in it.
"I've learned the lesson that time isn't the thing needed. I want you more than I ever wanted anything in my life, and I'll take you ... as you stand."
"You haven't stopped to think ... to count the cost," she said. "Imagine what it would be for a man like you to have a wife he knew nothing about, just a single figure cut off its background, in a picture he'd never seen. People would ask: 'Who was she?' and there'd be no answer."
"They'd not ask me that," said Roger obstinately. "And I wouldn't care what they asked each other. I'm not a society man, though I might enjoy putting my wife on the top floor. And I can do that with you if I choose! You say I'm a man of importance. I'm important enough anyhow to take the wife I want, and to put her where I want her to be."
"Yes, perhaps. But it wouldn't be only for a little while that I'd not be allowed to tell you about myself. It would be for always. You couldn't love me enough to be happy in spite of that."
"I could be happy," Roger insisted, "if you'd love me."
"I'd adore you! But...."
"Then there isn't any 'but'. I don't say I shouldn't like to know all about my wife and her people and her past. Still, I'd rather have you with a future and no past than any other woman with both. I can't do without you, and I'm going to have you ... now, to-day, as soon as I can buy a license and get a parson to make us man and wife."
"But if you should regret it?"
"I never will be sorry, if you'll do what