第99章

The crickets and the frogs vied with each other to fill the silence with sound.The moon was up and had laid a silver carpet under the trees.Fireflies flashed their little lights among the undergrowth like fairies signalling.

Joan had sent her S.O.S.into the air and with supreme confidence that it would reach Martin wherever he might be, left the window, went to the pew in which Gilbert had arranged the cushions and sat down...Martin had grown tired of waiting for her.She had lost him.But twice before he had answered her call, and he would come.

She knew it.Martin was like that.He was reliable.And even if he held her in contempt now, he had loved her once.Oh, what it must have cost him to leave her room that night--it seemed so long ago--she had clung to being a kid and had conceived it to be her right to stay on the girlhood side of the bridge.To be able to live those days over again--how different she would be.

Without permitting Gilbert to guess what she was doing, she must humor him and gain time.She gave thanks to God that he was in this gentle, exalted mood, and was treating her with a sort of reverence.

Behind the danger and the terror of it all she recognized the wonder of his love.

"Gilbert," she said softly.

"Well, my little spring girl?"

"Come and sit here, where I can see you.""You have only to tell me what I'm to do," he said and obeyed at once.

How different from the old affected Gilbert--this quiet man with the burning eyes who sat with his elbows on his knees and his back bent towards her and the light of one of the lanterns on his handsome face.She had played with a soul as well as with a heart, and also, it appeared, with a brain.How fatal had been her effect upon men--Martin out of armor and Gilbert on the wrong side of the thin dividing line.Men's love--it was too big and good a thing to have played with, if she had only stopped to think, or some one had been wise and kind enough to tell her.Who cares? These two men cared and so did she, bitterly, terribly, everlastingly.

Would Martin hear--oh, would he hear? Martin, Martin!

There was a long, strange silence.

"Well, my little Joan?"

"Well, Gilbert?"

He picked up her hand and put his lips to it."Still thinking?" he asked, with a curious catch in his voice.

"Yes, Gilbert, give me time."

He gave back her hand."The night is ours," he said, but there was pain in his eyes.

And there they sat, these two, within an arm's reach, on the edge of the abyss.And for a little while there was silence--broken only by the crickets and the frogs and the turning of many leaves by the puffs of a sudden breeze.

Was she never going to hear the breaking of twigs and the light tread outside the window? Martin, Martin.

And then Gilbert began to speak."I can see a long way to-night, Joan," he said, in a low voice."I can see all the way back to the days when I was a small boy--years away.It's a long stretch.""Yes, Gilbert," said Joan.(Martin, Martin, did you hear?)"It's not good for a boy to have no father, my sweet.No discipline, no strong hand, no man to imitate, no inspiration, no one to try and keep step with.I see that now.I suffered from all that.""Did you, Gilbert?" Oh, when would the twigs break and the light step come? Martin, Martin.

"A spoilt boy, a mother's darling, unthrashed, unled.What a cub at school with too much money! What a conceited ass at college, buying deference and friends.I see myself with amazement taking to life with an air of having done it all, phrase-making and paying deference to nothing but my excellent profile.God, to have those years over again! We'd both do things differently given another chance, eh, Joan?""Yes, Gilbert." He wasn't coming.He wasn't coming.Martin, Martin.

She strained her ears to catch the sound of breaking twigs.The crickets and the frogs had the silence to themselves.She got up and went to the window, with Gilbert at her elbow.She felt that he was instantly on his feet.Martin's face was not pressed against the screen.He had heard.She knew that he had heard, because she was always able to make him hear.But he didn't care.When he had come before it was for nothing.She had lost him.She was un-Martined.

She was utterly without help.She must give up.What was the good of making a fight for it now that Martin cared so little as to turn a deaf ear to her call? He had even forgotten that he had loved her once.Death was welcome then.Yes, welcome.But there was one way to make some sort of retribution--just one.She would remain true to Martin.

Gilbert touched her on the arm."Come, Joan," he said."The night's running away.Is it so hard to decide?"But against her will Nature, to whom life is so precious, put words into her mouth."I want you to try and understand something more about me," she said eagerly.

"The time has gone for arguing," he replied, stiffening a little.