第140章

The twilight deepened to dusk,to darkness.The storm,having spent the intensity of its passion in those first moments of heavy downpour and wind,had relaxed to a gentle rain that pattered on the roof,and from the stream came recurringly the dirge of the frogs.All I could see of Nancy was the dim outline of her head and shoulders:she seemed fantastically to be escaping me,to be fading,to be going;in sudden desperation I dropped on my knees beside her,and I felt her hands straying with a light yet agonized touch,over my head.

"Do you think I haven't suffered,too?that I don't suffer?"I heard her ask.

Some betraying note for which I had hitherto waited in vain must have pierced to my consciousness,yet the quiver of joy and the swift,convulsive movement that followed it seemed one.Her strong,lithe body was straining in my arms,her lips returning my kisses....Clinging to her hands,I strove to summon my faculties of realization;and I began to speak in broken,endearing sentences.

"It's stronger than we are--stronger than anything else in the world,"she said.

"But you're not sorry?"I asked.

"I don't want to think--I don't care,"she replied."I only know that Ilove you.I wonder if you will ever know how much!"The moments lengthened into hours,and she gently reminded me that it was late.The lights in the little farmhouses near by had long been extinguished.I pleaded to linger;I wanted her,more of her,all of her with a fierce desire that drowned rational thought,and I feared that something might still come between us,and cheat me of her.

"No,no,"she cried,with fear in her voice."We shall have to think it out very carefully--what we must do.We can't afford to make any mistakes.""We'll talk it all over to-morrow,"I said.

With a last,reluctant embrace I finally left her,walked blindly to where the motor car was standing,and started the engine.I looked back.

Outlined in the light of the doorway I saw her figure in what seemed an attitude of supplication....

I drove cityward through the rain,mechanically taking the familiar turns in the road,barely missing a man in a buggy at a four-corners.He shouted after me,but the world to which he belonged didn't exist.Ilived again those moments that had followed Nancy's surrender,seeking to recall and fix in my mind every word that had escaped from her lips--the trivial things that to lovers are so fraught with meaning.I lived it all over again,as I say,but the reflection of it,though intensely emotional,differed from the reality in that now I was somewhat able to regard the thing,to regard myself,objectively;to define certain feelings that had flitted in filmy fashion through my consciousness,delicate shadows I recognized at the time as related to sadness.When she had so amazingly yielded,the thought for which my mind had been vaguely groping was that the woman who lay there in my arms,obscured by the darkness,was not Nancy at all!It was as if this one precious woman I had so desperately pursued had,in the capture,lost her identity,had mysteriously become just woman,in all her significance,yes,and helplessness.The particular had merged (inevitably,I might have known)into the general:the temporary had become the lasting,with a chain of consequences vaguely implied that even in my joy gave me pause.For the first time in my life I had a glimpse of what marriage might mean,--marriage in a greater sense than I had ever conceived it,a sort of cosmic sense,implying obligations transcending promises and contracts,calling for greatness of soul of a kind I had not hitherto imagined.Was there in me a grain of doubt of my ability to respond to such a high call?I began to perceive that such a union as we contemplated involved more obligations than one not opposed to traditional views of morality.

I fortified myself,however,--if indeed I really needed fortification in a mood prevailingly triumphant and exalted,--with the thought that this love was different,the real thing,the love of maturity steeped in the ideals of youth.Here was a love for which I must be prepared to renounce other things on which I set a high value;prepared,in case the world,for some reason,should not look upon us with kindliness.It was curious that such reflections as these should have been delayed until after the achievement of my absorbing desire,more curious that they should have followed so closely on the heels of it.The affair had shifted suddenly from a basis of adventure,of uncertainty;to one of fact,of commitment;I am exaggerating my concern in order to define it;I was able to persuade myself without much difficulty that these little,cloudy currents in the stream of my joy were due to a natural reaction from the tremendous strain of the past weeks,mere morbid fancies.

When at length I reached my room at the Club I sat looking out at the rain falling on the shining pavements under the arc-lights.Though waves of heat caused by some sudden recollection or impatient longing still ran through my body,a saner joy of anticipation was succeeding emotional tumult,and I reflected that Nancy had been right in insisting that we walk circumspectly in spite of passion.After all,I had outwitted circumstance,I had gained the prize,I could afford to wait a little.

We should talk it over to-morrow,--no,to-day.The luminous face of the city hall clock reminded me that midnight was long past....