The Secret Power | Page 6

with a kind of sob in her voice--"It is all talk with you--talk which I cannot understand! I don't WANT to understand!--I am only a poor, ignorant girl. I cannot talk--but I can love! Ah yes, I can love! You say there is no such thing as love! What is it then, when one prays every night and morning for a man?--when one would work one's fingers to the bone for him?--when one would die to keep him from sickness and harm? What do you call it?"
He smiled.
"Self-delusion, Manella! The beautiful self-delusion of every nature-bred woman when her fancy is attracted by a particular sort of man. She makes an ideal of him in her mind and imagines him to be a god, when he is nothing but a devil!"
Something sinister and cruel in his look startled her,--she made the sign of the cross on her bosom.
"A devil?" she murmured--"a devil--?"
"Ah, now you are frightened!" he said, with a flash of amusement in his eyes--"You are a good Catholic, and you believe in devils. So you make the sign of the cross as a protection. That's right! That's the way to defend yourself from my evil influence! Wise Manella!"
The light mockery of his tone roused her pride,--that pride which had been suppressed in her by the force of a passionate emotion she could not restrain. She lifted her head and regarded him with an air of sorrow and scorn.
"After all, I think you must be a wicked man!" she said--"You have no heart! You are not worthy to be loved!"
"Quite true, Manella! You've hit the bull's eye in the very middle three times! I am a wicked man,--I have no heart,--I'm not worthy to be loved. No I'm not. I should find it a bore!"
"Bore?" she echoed--"What is that?"
"What is that? It is itself, Manella! 'Bore' is just 'bore.' It means tiredness--worn-out-ness--a state in which you wish yourself in a hot bath or a cold one, so that nobody can come near you. To be 'loved' would finish me off in a month!"
Her big eyes opened more widely than their wont in piteous perplexity.
"But how?" she asked.
"How? Why, just as you have put it,--to be prayed for night and morning,--to be worked for and waited on till fingers turned to bones,--to be guarded from sickness and harm,--heavens!--think of it! No more adventures in life,--no more freedom!--just love, love, love, which would not be love at all but the chains of a miserable wretch in prison!"
She flushed an angry crimson.
"Who is it that would chain you?" she demanded, "Not I! You could do as you liked with me--you know it!--and when you go away from this place, you could leave me and forget me,--I should never trouble you or remind you that I lived!! I should have had my happiness,--enough for my day!"
The pathos in her voice moved him though he was not easily moved. On a sudden impulse he put an arm about her, drew her to him and kissed her. She trembled at his caress, while he smiled at her emotion.
"A kiss is nothing, Manella!" he said--"We kiss children as I kiss you! You are a child,--a child-woman. Physically you are a Juno,-- mentally you are an infant! By and by you will grow up,--and you will be glad I did no more than kiss you! It's getting late,--you must go home."
He released her and put her gently away from him. Then, as he saw her eyes still uplifted questioningly to his face, he laughed.
"Upon my word!" he exclaimed--"I am making a nice fool of myself! Actually wasting time on a woman. Go home, Manella, go home! If you are wise you won't stop here another minute! See now! You are full of curiosity--all women are! You want to know why I stay up here in this hill cabin by myself instead of staying at the 'Plaza.' You think I'm a rich Englishman. I'm not. No Englishman is ever rich,-- not up to his own desires. He wants the earth and all that therein is--does the Englishman, and of course he can't have it. He rather grudges America her large slice of rich plum-pudding territory, forgetting that he could have had it himself for the price of tea. But I don't grudge anybody anything--America is welcome to the whole bulk as far as I'm concerned--Britain ditto,--let them both eat and be filled. All I want is to be left alone. Do you hear that, Manella? To be left alone! Particularly by women. That's one reason why I came here. This cabin is supposed to be a sort of tuberculosis 'shelter,' where a patient in hopeless condition comes with a special nurse to die. I don't want a nurse, and I'm not going to die. Tubercles don't touch me--they don't