In the Midst of Alarms, Robert Barr [read e book txt] 📗

husband than I. If that is the case, allow me to say you are entirely wrong. If your wife was sensitive, you would kill her with your gloomy fits. I wouldn't go off in the woods and sulk, anyhow."

"If you are referring to me, I will further inform you that I had either to go off in the woods or knock you down. I chose the less of two evils."

"Think you could do it, I suppose? Renny, you're conceited. You're not the first man who has made such a mistake, and found he was barking up the wrong tree when it was too late for anything but bandages and arnica."

"I have tried to show you how I feel regarding this matter. I might have known I should not succeed. We will end the discussion, if you please."

"Oh, no. The discussion is just beginning. Now, Renny, I'll tell you what you need. You need a good, sensible wife worse than any man I know. It is not yet too late to save you, but it soon will be. You will, before long, grow a crust on you like a snail, or a lobster, or any other cold-blooded animal that gets a shell on itself. Then nothing can be done for you. Now, let me save you, Renny, before it is too late. Here is my proposition: You choose one of those girls and marry her. I'll take the other. I'm not as unselfish as I may seem in this, for your choice will save me the worry of making up my own mind. According to your talk, either of the girls is too good for you, and for once I entirely agree with you. But let that pass. Now, which one is it to be?"

"Good God! man, do you think I am going to bargain with you about my future wife?"

"That's right, Renny. I like to hear you swear. It shows you are not yet the prig you would have folks believe. There's still hope for you, professor. Now, I'll go further with you. Although I cannot make up my mind just what to do myself, I can tell instantly which is the girl for you, and thus we solve both problems at one stroke. You need a wife who will take you in hand. You need one who will not put up with your tantrums, who will be cheerful, and who will make a man of you. Kitty Bartlett is the girl. She will tyrannize over you, just as her mother does over the old man. She will keep house to the queen's taste, and delight in getting you good things to eat. Why, everything is as plain as a pikestaff. That shows the benefit of talking over a thing. You marry Kitty, and I'll marry Margaret. Come, let's shake hands over it." Yates held up his right hand, ready to slap it down on the open palm of the professor, but there was no response. Yates' hand came down to his side again, but he had not yet lost the enthusiasm of his proposal. The more he thought of it the more fitting it seemed.

"Margaret is such a sensible, quiet, level-headed girl that, if I am as flippant as you say, she will be just the wife for me. There are depths in my character, Renmark, that you have not suspected."

"Oh, you're deep."

"I admit it. Well, a good, sober-minded woman would develop the best that is in me. Now, what do you say, Renny?"

"I say nothing. I am going into the woods again, dark as it is."

"Ah, well," said Yates with a sigh, "there's no doing anything with you or for you. I've tried my best; that is one consolation. Don't go away. I'll let fate decide. Here goes for a toss-up."

And Yates drew a silver half dollar from his pocket. "Heads for Margaret!" he cried. Renmark clinched his fist, took a step forward, then checked himself, remembering that this was his last night with the man who had at least once been his friend.

Yates merrily spun the coin in the air, caught it in one hand, and slapped the other over it.

"Now for the turning point in the lives of two innocent beings." He raised the covering hand, and peered at the coin in the gathering gloom. "Heads it is. Margaret Howard becomes Mrs. Richard Yates. Congratulate me, professor."

Renmark stood motionless as a statue, an object lesson in self-control. Yates set his hat more jauntily on his head, and slipped the epoch- making coin into his trousers pocket.

"Good-by, old man," he said. "I'll see you later, and tell you all the particulars."

Without waiting for the answer, for which he probably knew there would have been little use in delaying, Yates walked to the fence and sprang over it, with one hand on the top rail. Renmark stood still for some minutes, then, quietly gathering underbrush and sticks large and small, lighted a fire, and sat down on a log, with his head in his hands.


CHAPTER XXII.

Yates walked merrily down the road, whistling "Gayly the troubadour." Perhaps there is no moment in a man's life when he feels the joy of being alive more keenly than when he goes to propose to a girl of whose favorable answer he is reasonably sure--unless it be the moment he walks away an accepted lover. There is a magic about a June night, with its soft, velvety darkness and its sweet, mild air laden with the perfumes of wood and field. The enchantment of the hour threw its spell over the young man, and he resolved to live a better life, and be worthy of the girl he had chosen, or, rather, that fate had chosen for him. He paused a moment, leaning over the fence near the Howard homestead, for he had not yet settled in his own mind the details of the meeting. He would not go in, for in that case he knew he would have to talk, perhaps for hours, with everyone but the person he wished to meet. If he announced himself and asked to see Margaret alone, his doing so would embarrass her at the very beginning. Yates was naturally too much of a diplomat to begin awkwardly. As he stood there, wishing chance would bring her out of the house, there appeared a light in the door-window of the room where he knew the convalescent boy lay. Margaret's shadow formed a silhouette on the blind. Yates caught up a handful of sand, and flung it lightly against the pane. Its soft patter evidently attracted the attention of the girl, for, after a moment's pause, the window opened carefully, while Margaret stepped quickly out and closed it, quietly standing there.

"Margaret," whispered Yates hardly above his breath.

The girl advanced toward the fence.

"Is that _you_?" she whispered in return, with an accent on the last word that thrilled her listener. The accent told plainly as speech that the word represented the one man on earth to her.

"Yes," answered Yates, springing over the fence and approaching her.

"Oh!" cried Margaret, starting back, then checking herself, with a catch in her voice. "You--you startled me--Mr. Yates."

"Not Mr. Yates any more, Margaret, but Dick. Margaret, I wanted to see you alone. You know why I have come." He tried to grasp both her hands, but she put them resolutely behind her, seemingly wishing to retreat, yet standing her ground.

"Margaret, you must have seen long ago how it is with me. I love you, Margaret, loyally and truly. It seems as if I had loved you all my life. I certainly have since the first day I saw you."

"Oh, Mr. Yates, you must not talk to me like this."

"My darling, how else _can_ I talk to you? It cannot be a surprise to you, Margaret. You must have known it long ago."

"I did not, indeed I did not--if you really mean it."

"Mean it? I never meant anything as I mean this. It is everything to me, and nothing else is anything. I have knocked about the world a good deal, I admit, but I never was in love before--never knew what love was until I met you. I tell you that----"

"Please, please, Mr. Yates, do not say anything more. If it is really true, I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I hope nothing I have said or done has made you believe that--that--Oh, I do not know what to say! I never thought you could be in earnest about anything."

"You surely cannot have so misjudged me, Margaret. Others have, but I did not expect it of you. You are far and away better than I am. No one knows that so well as I. I do not pretend to be worthy of you, but I will be a devoted husband to you. Any man who gets the love of a good woman," continued Yates earnestly, plagiarizing Renmark, "gets more than he deserves; but surely such love as mine is not given merely to be scornfully trampled underfoot."

"I do not treat your--you scornfully. I am only sorry if what you say is true."

"Why do you say _if_ it is true? Don't you know it is true?"

"Then I am very sorry--very, _very_ sorry, and I hope it is through no fault of mine. But you will soon forget me. When you return to New York----"

"Margaret," said the young man bitterly, "I shall never forget you. Think what you are doing before it is too late. Think how much this means to me. If you finally refuse me, you will wreck my life. I am the sort of man that a woman can make or mar. Do not, I beg of you, ruin the life of the man who loves you."

"I am not a missionary," cried Margaret with sudden anger. "If your life is to be wrecked, it will be through your own foolishness, and not from any act of mine. I think it cowardly of you to say that I am to be held responsible. I have no wish to influence your future one way or another."

"Not for good, Margaret?" asked Yates with tender reproach.

"No. A man whose good or bad conduct depends on anyone but himself is not my ideal of a man."

"Tell me what your ideal is, so that I may try to attain it."

Margaret was silent.

"You think it will be useless for me to try?"

"As far as I am concerned, yes."

"Margaret, I want to ask you one more question. I have no right to, but I beg you to answer me. Are you in love with anyone else?"

"No!" cried Margaret hotly. "How dare you ask me such a question?"

"Oh, it is not a crime--that is, being in love with someone else is not. I'll tell you why I dare ask. I swear, by all the gods, that I shall win you--if not this year, then next; and if not next, then the year after. I was a coward to talk as I did; but I love you more now than I did even then. All I want to know is that you are not in love with another man.

"I think you are very cruel in persisting as you do, when you have had your answer. I say no. Never! never! never!--this year nor any other year. Is not that enough?"

"Not for me. A woman's 'no' may ultimately mean 'yes.'"

"That is true,