第106章

After a time she said very humbly: "I want to beg your pardon for misunderstanding you and causing you so much suffering.I was very stupid, and didn't see why you could not do as I wanted you to.""That is nothing to forgive.I acted like a fool.""I have known about you," she went on."It has all come out in the Telegram.It has been very exciting.Poor boy, you look tired."He straightened himself suddenly."I have forgotten,--actually forgotten," he cried a little bitterly."Why, I am a pauper, a bankrupt, I---""Harry," she interrupted gently, but very firmly, "you must not say what you were going to say.I cannot allow it.Money came between us before.It must not do so again.Am I not right, dear?"She smiled at him with the lips of a child and the eyes of a woman.

"Yes," he agreed after a struggle, "you are right.But now I must begin all over again.It will be a long time before I shall be able to claim you.I have my way to make.""Yes," said she diplomatically.

"But you!" he cried suddenly."The papers remind me.How about that Morton?""What about him?" asked the girl, astonished."He is very happily engaged."Thorpe's face slowly filled with blood.

"You'll break the engagement at once," he commanded a little harshly.

"Why should I break the engagement?" demanded Hilda, eying him with some alarm.

"I should think it was obvious enough."

"But it isn't," she insisted."Why?"

Thorpe was silent--as he always had been in emergencies, and as he was destined always to be.His was not a nature of expression, but of action.A crisis always brought him, like a bull-dog, silently to the grip.

Hilda watched him puzzled, with bright eyes, like a squirrel.Her quick brain glanced here and there among the possibilities, seeking the explanation.Already she knew better than to demand it of him.

"You actually don't think he's engaged to ME!" she burst out finally.

"Isn't he?" asked Thorpe.

"Why no, stupid! He's engaged to Elizabeth Carpenter, Wallace's sister.Now WHERE did you get that silly idea?""I saw it in the paper."

"And you believe all you see! Why didn't you ask Wallace--but of course you wouldn't! Harry, you are the most incoherent dumb old brute I ever saw! I could shake you! Why don't you say something occasionally when it's needed, instead of sitting dumb as a sphinx and getting into all sorts of trouble? But you never will.I know you.You dear old bear! You NEED a wife to interpret things for you.You speak a different language from most people." She said this between laughing and crying; between a sense of the ridiculous uselessness of withholding a single timely word, and a tender pathetic intuition of the suffering such a nature must endure.In the prospect of the future she saw her use.It gladdened her and filled her with a serene happiness possible only to those who feel themselves a necessary and integral part in the lives of the ones they love.Dimly she perceived this truth.Dimly beyond it she glimpsed that other great truth of nature, that the human being is rarely completely efficient alone, that in obedience to his greater use he must take to himself a mate before he can succeed.

Suddenly she jumped to her feet with an exclamation.

"Oh, Harry! I'd forgotten utterly!" she cried in laughing consternation."I have a luncheon here at half-past one! It's almost that now.I must run and dress.Just look at me; just LOOK! YOU did that!""I'll wait here until the confounded thing is over," said Thorpe.

"Oh, no, you won't," replied Hilda decidedly."You are going down town right now and get something to put on.Then you are coming back here to stay."Thorpe glanced in surprise at his driver's clothes, and his spiked boots.

"Heavens and earth!" he exclaimed, "I should think so! How am I to get out without ruining the floor?"Hilda laughed and drew aside the portiere.

"Don't you think you have done that pretty well already?" she asked.

"There, don't look so solemn.We're not going to be sorry for a single thing we've done today, are we?" She stood close to him holding the lapels of his jacket in either hand, searching his face wistfully with her fathomless dusky eyes.

"No, sweetheart, we are not," replied Thorpe soberly.

Chapter LIX

Surely it is useless to follow the sequel in detail, to tell how Hilda persuaded Thorpe to take her money.She aroused skillfully his fighting blood, induced him to use one fortune to rescue another.

To a woman such as she this was not a very difficult task in the long run.A few scruples of pride; that was all.

"Do not consider its being mine," she answered to his objections.

"Remember the lesson we learned so bitterly.Nothing can be greater than love, not even our poor ideals.You have my love; do not disappoint me by refusing so little a thing as my money.""I hate to do it," he replied; "it doesn't look right.""You must," she insisted."I will not take the position of rich wife to a poor man; it is humiliating to both.I will not marry you until you have made your success.""That is right," said Thorpe heartily.

"Well, then, are you going to be so selfish as to keep me waiting while you make an entirely new start, when a little help on my part will bring your plans to completion?"She saw the shadow of assent in his eyes.

"How much do you need?" she asked swiftly.

"I must take up the notes," he explained."I must pay the men.Imay need something on the stock market.If I go in on this thing, I'm going in for keeps.I'll get after those fellows who have been swindling Wallace.Say a hundred thousand dollars.""Why, it's nothing," she cried.

"I'm glad you think so," he replied grimly.

She ran to her dainty escritoire, where she scribbled eagerly for a few moments.

"There," she cried, her eyes shining, "there is my check book all signed in blank.I'll see that the money is there."Thorpe took the book, staring at it with sightless eyes.Hilda, perched on the arm of his chair, watched his face closely, as later became her habit of interpretation.

"What is it?" she asked.