CHAPTER XXVI

It was late in September, when she asked Arthur Weston to tell her how she could help "those awful women,"—as she called the poor creatures she had seen in jail. He had motored out to Lakeville for a cup of tea, and while they waited for the kettle to boil, they wandered off along the shore of the lake, and found a little inlet walled with willows, where they could sit on the beach and see nothing but the wrinkling flash of waves and a serene stretch of sky. They sat there, talking idly, and watching the willow leaves turn all their silvery backs to a hesitating breeze.

Weston listened silently to her plans for "getting busy" with prison reform—when she suddenly broke off:

"I don't see that the vote will do much."

He gave her an astonished look. "What! This from you?"

She nodded. "Of course I'm for suffrage, first, last, and all the time! But I'm sort of discouraged about what we can accomplish. Life is so big." The old cocksureness was gone. The pathos of common sense in Freddy made him wince. "But I've got to do something," she ended. "Miss Eliza told me I was selfish."

[Pg 281]

"Look here! I won't let Cousin Eliza call you names! I reserve that for myself."

She laughed. "You've done it, often enough."

Arthur Weston tickled the sleeping Zip and whistled.

"What do you suppose Laura told me the other day?" Fred said. "She said that 'no woman really knew what life meant unless she had a baby.' She said having a baby was like coming out of prison—because 'self' is a prison. Rather tall talk for little Laura, wasn't it?"

"Any of the great human experiences are keys to our prison-house," he said.

"True enough," she agreed; then, abruptly, her own great experience spoke: "Isn't it queer? I rather dislike Howard."

"It's unreasonable. He's the same old Howard—a mighty decent chap."

"He's not—what I supposed he was."

"Well, that's your fault, not his. You dressed him up in your ideas; when he got into his own clothes, you didn't like him. Howard never pretended to be anything he wasn't."

"Yes! Yes, he did!" she said, with sudden agitation. "He used to—listen to me."

"Good heavens, don't hold that up against him! Don't I listen to you?"

"Oh, but you never let me think you agree with me! I always know you don't."

"He agrees far more than I do."

"No," she said, with a somber look. "He just let me talk. He didn't care. The things that were real to me[Pg 282] weren't real to him. His real things were—what's happening now. The baby, and Laura. Is it so with all of you? Don't you ever care with your minds?"

He stopped tickling Zip, and looked out over the lake with narrowing eyes; after a while he said, gently:

"I think the caring with the mind comes second. When a man falls in love, the mind has nothing to do with it. Sometimes it reinforces the heart, so to speak; when that happens, you have the perfect marriage—which isn't awfully common. It's apt to be just the heart; which gets pretty dull after a while. But just the head is arid."

"He would have found just my head,—arid?" she pondered.

He looked straight at her, and said, quietly: "I think he would."

There was a long pause.

"Was it head, or heart, with you?" she said.

"It's both," he said.

She gave him a puzzled look: "Why, you don't mean that you care for that horrid Kate, still?"

He smiled, and looked off over the water.

"You are very stupid, Fred."

She was plainly perplexed. "I don't understand?"

"That's why I say you are stupid."

His face was turned away from her; he was breaking a dead twig into inch-long pieces, and carefully arranging them in a precise fagot on his knee; she saw, with a little shock of surprise, that his fingers were trembling.

"Why, Arthur!" she began,—and stopped short, the color rising slowly to her forehead. He gave her a quick look.

[Pg 283]

"Why!" she said again, faintly, "you don't mean—? you're not—?"

He laughed, opening his hands in a gesture of amused and hopeless assent. "I am," he said, and flung the tiny fagot out on the water.

Fred dropped her chin on her fists and watched the twigs dancing off over the waves. They were both silent; then she said, frowning, and pausing a little between her words as if trying to take in their full meaning:—"You are in love with me."

"Has it just struck you?"

"How could it strike me—that you would care for a girl like me!"

"Considering your intelligence, you are astonishingly obtuse, at times. I couldn't care for any other kind of girl. Or for any girl, except you!"

"Miss Eliza said something that made me wonder if.... But I couldn't believe it. I thought that sort of thing was over for you. I never dreamed of—"

"Oh, well! don't dream of it now. Of course it doesn't make a particle of difference. I didn't mean to speak of it; it sort of broke loose," he ended, in rueful confession.

Fred was silent.

Arthur Weston, hiding the tremor that was tingling all through him, began to talk easily, of anything—Zip, the weather, whether Miss Carter could be induced to reconsider her annual resignation; "It would be very hard on Mrs. Payton to lose her," he said.

"Well," Frederica said, slowly, "I don't see any reason why I shouldn't marry you."

[Pg 284]

He caught his breath; then struck his hand on hers.

"You're a good sport! I take back my accusation that you weren't. I could name several reasons why you shouldn't marry me."

"Name them."

"Fred, look here; this is a serious business with me. I can't talk about it."

"I want to talk about it. I'd like to know your reasons."

"To begin with—age."

She nodded. "In years you are older. But I'm not young any more."

The water stung in his eyes; she was right—she was not "young" now. "The next reason," he went on, without looking at her, "is that you are not in love with me."

She thought that over: "But I am fond of you."

"That won't do for marriage."

"It's more than just fondness with you?" she asked, doubtfully.

He caught her hand, kissed it, and flung it from him. "Come!" he said, harshly, "let's go home!" He rose, but she did not move.

"Do you love me?" she insisted, looking up at him.

He was silent. When he spoke his voice was rough with suffering. "I love you as much ... as I can. But it's not worth the taking. I know that. I wouldn't ask you to take it. You ought to have—fire and gold! I spent my gold ten years ago; and the fire burned itself out. Don't talk about it. I feel like lead, sometimes, compared with you. But I'm not adamant."

She got on her feet, and stood looking out over the[Pg 285] lake. For a long while neither of them spoke. Then she said: "Arthur, I'm not in love with anybody else. I can't imagine, now, how I ever thought I was!"

"You will be in love with somebody else one of these days."

She shook her head. "No; that's all over. There is no fire and gold in me, either. Something—was killed, I think."

"It will come to life."

She gave a little gasp: "No. It's dead. But what is left is—well, it isn't bad, what's left. Sometimes," she said, with sudden sweet gaiety, "sometimes I think it's better than what Howard and Laura have!"

"No, it isn't," he said, sadly.

"I wonder," she pondered, "if I could have been ... like Laura? She hasn't a thought except for the baby and Howard. They are the center of Life to her;—which is all right, I suppose. But they are its circumference, too; which seems to me dreadfully cramping. I never could be like that."

He smiled, in spite of himself. "Nature is a pretty big thing, Fred; when you hold your own child in your arms—" he stopped short. "Life is bigger than theories," he said, in a low voice.

She nodded: "I know what you mean. But I never could be a fool, Arthur."

"I think," he said, and again something in his voice made her catch her breath; "I think you could be,—at moments."

"Better not count on it," she said; "but if you want[Pg 286] me, in spite of my 'arid' head,—you can take me! Of course, just for a minute, when I wrung it from you that you—cared, I was rather stunned, because I didn't believe Miss Eliza knew. But on the whole, I think—I'd like it." She smiled at him, and her eyes brimmed with affection. "You see, we're friends; and you never bore me. Howard would have bored me awfully. So—I will marry you, Arthur."

He was silent. "Rather hard," she said, mischievously, "to have to offer myself tw—"

"Stop!" he said; "don't say things like that!"

"Well, then—" she began; but he lifted a silencing hand:

"My dear, my dear, I love you too much to marry you."

"Why, then," she said, simply, "you love me, it seems to me, enough to marry me. Don't you see?"

He looked at her with hungry eyes. "I think I am man enough to save you from myself," he said; "but don't—don't tempt me too far!"...