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Page 37
But this meeting with Lloyd and the intense excitement of those few
moments by the canal had quite driven from Bennett's mind the fact that
he had _not_ forwarded his present address either to Ferriss or to his
doctor. He had so intended that morning, but all the faculties of his
mind were suddenly concentrated upon another issue. For the moment he
believed that he had actually written to Dr. Pitts, as he had planned,
and when he thought of his intended message at all, thought of it as an
accomplished fact. The matter did not occur to him again.
As he walked by Lloyd's side, listening to her and talking to her,
snapping the whip the while, or flicking the heads from the mullein
stalks by the roadside with its lash, he was thinking how best he might
say to her what he had come from the City to say. To lead up to his
subject, to guide the conversation, to prepare the right psychological
moment skilfully and without apparent effort, were maneuvers in the game
that Bennett ignored and despised. He knew only that he loved her, that
she was there at his side, that the object of all his desires and hopes
was within his reach. Straight as a homing pigeon he went to his goal.
"Miss Searight," he began, his harsh, bass voice pitched even lower than
usual, "what do you think I am down here for? This is not the only part
of the world where I could recuperate, I suppose, and as for spending
God's day in chipping at stones, like a professor of a young ladies'
seminary"--he hurled the hammer from him into the bushes--"that for
geology! Now we can talk. You know very well that I love you, and I
believe that you love me. I have come down here to ask you to marry me."
Lloyd might have done any one of a dozen things--might have answered in
any one of a dozen ways. But what she did do, what she did say, took
Bennett completely by surprise. A little coldly and very calmly she
answered:
"You believe--you say you believe that I--" she broke off, then began
again: "It is not right for you to say that to me. I have never led you
to believe that I cared for you. Whatever our relations are to be, let
us have that understood at once."
Bennett uttered an impatient exclamation "I am not good at fencing and
quibbling," he declared. "I tell you that I love you with all my heart.
I tell you that I want you to be my wife, and I tell you that I know you
do love me. You are not like other women; why should you coquette with
me? Good God! Are you not big enough to be above such things? I know you
are. Of all the people in the world we two ought to be above pretence,
ought to understand each other. If I did not know you cared for me I
would not have spoken."
"I don't understand you," she answered. "I think we had better talk of
other things this morning."
"I came down here to talk of just this and nothing else," he declared.
"Very well, then," she said, squaring her shoulders with a quick, brisk
movement, "we will talk of it. You say we two should understand each
other. Let us come to the bottom of things at once. I despise quibbling
and fencing as much, perhaps, as you. Tell me how have I ever led you to
believe that I cared for you?"
"At a time when our last hope was gone," answered Bennett, meeting her
eyes, "when I was very near to death and thought that I should go to my
God within the day, I was made happier than I think I ever was in my
life before by finding out that I was dear to you--that you loved me."
Lloyd searched his face with a look of surprise and bewilderment.
"I do not understand you," she repeated.
"Oh!" exclaimed Bennett with sudden vehemence, "you could say it to
Ferriss; why can't you say it to me?"
"To Mr. Ferriss?"
"You could tell _him_ that you cared."
"I--tell Mr. Ferriss--that I cared for you?" She began to smile. "You
are a little absurd, Mr. Bennett."
"And I cannot see why you should deny it now. Or if anything has caused
you to change your mind--to be sorry for what you said, why should I not
know it? Even a petty thief may be heard in his own defence. I loved you
because I believed you to be a woman, a great, strong, noble, man's
woman, above little things, above the little, niggling, contemptible
devices of the drawing-room. I loved you because the great things of the
world interested you, because you had no place in your life for petty
graces, petty affectations, petty deceits and shams and insincerities.
If you did not love me, why did you say so? If you do love me now, why
should you not admit it? Do you think you can play with me? Do you think
you can coquette with me? If you were small enough to stoop to such
means, do you think I am small enough to submit to them? I have known
Ferriss too well. I know him to be incapable of such falsity as you
would charge him with. To have told such a lie, such an uncalled-for,
useless, gratuitous lie, is a thing he could not have done. You must
have told him that you cared. Why aren't you--you of all women--brave
enough, strong enough, big enough to stand by your words?"
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