Читать книгу The Way of the Strong - Cullum Ridgwell - Страница 13

Had Monica only known it her weakness lay in the very strength of that loyalty which held her to her promise to her dead sister. She was far too honest to deal successfully in affairs which demanded the smallest shadow of subterfuge. At the best she could only hope to lie blunderingly, and to blunder in falsehood leads to sure disaster.

So she had no real understanding of that which lay before her, the endless troubles she was preparing for herself and those belonging to her. The pity of it. One could almost imagine the Angel of Truth wringing his hands, and weeping for the mistaken honesty which clung to a quixotic promise given eighteen years ago to a dying woman.

It was a nervous, troubled woman who started at the clang of the bell at her outer door. She turned with terrified eyes to the silver clock which stood on her bureau. It was four o'clock. Four o'clock to the minute; and instinctively her hands went up to her hair, and nimble fingers lightly patted it.

For a moment she stood irresolutely staring before her. She seemed in desperate doubt, as though laboring under desire to greet her visitor, while instinctively fearing the outcome of his visit. The next moment her silken skirts rustled as she hurriedly passed out to her front door.

Alexander Hendrie followed her into the sitting-room, and promptly its femininity gave way to the atmosphere which his personality seemed to shed upon all that encountered it.

It was not an essentially refined personality, it was too rugged, too grimly natural, too suggestive of Nature in her harsher moments to possess any of the softer refinements of life. A bald, broken crag set in the midst of a flower garden of perfect order would rob its surroundings of its delicate charm and trifling beauties. So it was with the man, Hendrie, in the essentially feminine room which was Monica's care. He dwarfed the refinements of it with a magnetic claim for his own rugged picturesqueness.

He was a man of something over six feet in height. There was not an ounce of superfluous flesh upon his muscular, erect form, which was clad in the simple fashion of a well-tailored man who takes but little interest in his clothes. But these things were almost lost sight of in the absorbing interest of his rather plain face.

An artist painting the picture of a Viking of old would have reveled in such a face, and such a wealth of waving fair hair. He would have caught the look of confidence, the atmosphere of victory which lay in every detail of the strong mold in which his features were cast.

It was a face full of faults, yet it was such a combination of strength and mentality that no eye trained to the study of physiognomy could have resisted it. The lines in it were pronounced. Yet every line was a definite indication of the power behind it. There was a contemplative light shining in the keen gray eyes which told of perfect control of all emotions; there was a definite indentation between the fair, ample brows, which suggested a power of concentration. The nose was broad and pronounced, with curiously sensitive nostrils. The cheekbones were lean and broad. The mouth was broad, too, but firmly closed, and quite free from the least suggestion of animal sensuality. Yet it was a hard face; not hard in the sense of cruelty, it was hard in its definite, almost relentless purpose.

Monica realized something of all this as she brought a large rocker forward for his use; and her heart failed her as she remembered the mission that had brought him to her apartment.

"You're pretty comfortable here, Monica," he said, glancing round with a faintly approving smile, as he dropped into the rocker.

The woman followed his glance with a responsive smile.

"Thanks to you," she said readily, without noting one detail of the tastefully arranged furnishings which had brought forth his comment.

The man's brows went up in swift inquiry.

"How?"

Monica sat down. She was glad of the support, but her manner was perfectly easy.

"The generous salary you pay me – of course."

Hendrie shook his head.

"I never pay generous salaries. Those who receive my salaries earn them."

Monica laughed. Slowly confidence was returning.

"That's so like you," she said. "I wonder if I earn $5000 a year. I have often worked twice as hard for half the sum."

"Quite so. But what was the work? From my point of view you earn the money, and perhaps more, by carrying the confidence I always know I can place in you. But, say, don't let's discuss the economy of commerce. Guess I came here on a different errand."

Monica averted her gaze. She looked out of the window she was facing.

"Yes," she said, with a sudden return of all her old apprehensions.

The man leaned forward in his chair. His hands were clasped together, and his forearms pressed heavily on his knees. There was a faint flush on his cheeks, and the usual contemplative light had passed from his eyes, leaving them alight with a growing fire of passion.

"Tell me," he cried suddenly, a deep note in his voice. "Have you anything to say to me? Anything about our talk the other night?"

Monica kept her eyes averted. She was summoning all her courage, that she might the more successfully bruise and beat down her own love for this man.

She shook her head without daring to face him. She knew, she felt the heat of passion shining in his gray eyes.

"It – it – can't be," she said, stumbling fatally.

She waited, hardly knowing what to expect. As the man remained silent the beatings of her heart seemed to have suddenly become so loud that she thought he must surely hear them; and hearing them, would understand the cowardice she was laboring under.

Had she dared to look at him she must have seen the marked change her refusal had brought about. The same passionate fire was in his eyes, there was the same flush upon his cheeks. But there was an added something that was quite different from these things, something which she might have recognized, for she had witnessed it many times before in her intercourse with him. It was the fighting spirit of the man slowly rising, the light of battle gathering.

He smiled, and his smile was strangely tender in a man of his known character.

"Is that all?" he asked at last. "Is that your – final word?"

"Yes," she almost gasped, and desperately faced him.

Then she abruptly rose from her seat and moved toward the window. She had seen more in his eyes than she could face, and still remain true to her decision.

"But's – it's insufficient, Mon."

The man rose from his chair and followed her. He came near, and stood close behind her. She could feel his warm breath on the soft flesh which was left bare by the low neck of her costume. She trembled, and stood helplessly dreading lest he should recognize the trembling. Then she heard his low voice speaking, and her whole soul responded to the fire that lay behind his words.

"I love you, Mon. I love you so that I cannot, will not give you up. I love you so that all else in my life goes for nothing. All my life I've reveled in the constant joy of anticipation of the success I have achieved. All my life I have centered my whole soul on these things, and trained brain and body for a titanic struggle to the top of the financial ladder. And now, what is it, if – if I can't win you, too? Mon, it's simply nothing. Can't you understand what I feel when I say that? More than all the wealth and position I've dreamed of all my life I want you – you. What is it? Why? Tell me why it – can't be."

But Monica could not tell him. She knew she could not; and she knew that she could not go on listening to the strong man's pleadings without yielding.

Suddenly, in something like desperation, she turned and faced him.

"I tried to make it plain to you the other night," she cried, with a complaint that made her voice almost harsh. "I tried to tell you then that I could not marry you. But you wouldn't listen to me. You laughed my refusal aside. You told me you would not give me up. I can only reiterate what I tried to tell you then. Why – why urge me when I say I – I cannot marry you?"

"Cannot?"

"Yes – cannot, cannot!"

In desperation Monica added emphasis to her negative.

"There can only be one reason for 'cannot,'" said Hendrie, with an abrupt return to calmness. "Are you married? Have you a husband living?"

The woman's denial flashed out without thought.

"I am not married. I never have been married."

In a moment she realized the danger of so precipitate a denial. The man's face lit more ardently than ever, and he drew closer.

"Then you must take that word back, and say you – 'will not.' But you can't say that," he smiled gently. "Why should you? Yes, I know you don't dislike me. You've always seen me as I am. I'm no different. Say, Mon, I'm not here to bully you into marrying me. I'm here to plead with you. I who have never in my life pleaded to man or woman. I want you to give me that which I know no money can ever buy, no position can ever claim. I want your love. I want it because I love you, and without you nothing is worth while."

He was very near her now. He was so near that Monica dared not move. She could only stand helplessly gazing out of the window. As she remained silent he urged her again, placing one powerful hand gently upon her shoulder.

"Tell me, do you dislike the hard, unscrupulous financier that men are only too ready to villify?" he asked, with a gentle smile of confidence. "Do you?" His hand moved till it dropped to the woman's soft, rounded upper arm.

"Mon," he continued, "I want you so much. Tell me you don't – dislike me."

Monica's courage was swiftly ebbing. The task she had set herself was too hard for her. She was too simply human to withstand the approach of this great love. The touch of the man's hand, so gentle, so almost reverent, had sent the blood coursing through her veins in a hot, passionate tide. All her love for him surged uppermost, and drove her headlong to a reckless denial.