Crimson Roses (23 page)

Marion’s heart swelled with wonder at the miracle of the music. No player or players, no singer or instrument, had ever affected her quite as this great man did.

She listened with her soul in her eyes as the master fingers struck the keys and the instrument responded as if it were glad of the hand that touched it. The music seemed to drip from his fingertips like liquid jewels, flashing as they fell. The young, untaught girl drank it in most eagerly, forgetting everything besides; and the man who had brought her forgot to listen in watching her intense delight. The great master of the keys might be at his best, and at another time this man would have rejoiced in it, but today the music was but a lovely setting for his love, which shone like priceless pearls amidst it all.

After the program was over, they called the pianist back, seven, eight times; and each time he played again as if he could not bear to deny them the gift to which they had accorded so great applause. When at last he was gone, the reluctant audience came down to earth again and began to pick up their belongings. Marion turned to her companion with a radiant face and a sigh of ecstasy.

“Oh, it has been like being in heaven for a little while and hearing someone who had learned of God.”

“Perhaps he has,” said Lyman reverently. “It seems as if no other man could so nearly reach our ideals of the heavenly music.”

“I shall remember it always,” said the girl, her eyes shining like two stars.

Then suddenly, as they passed from the hall into the thronged street, she realized that it was over, and her task-time had come.

She must tell him. But all the simple speech she had fashioned took flight and left her trembling so that she tottered as she went down the wide stone steps to the pavement; Lyman put out his hand and steadied her courteously.

“You have no call to hurry home, have you?” he said. “Suppose we go somewhere and have dinner together. I always like to talk it out after hearing a concert like that, and I want to know your impressions.”

“That would be beautiful,” she said wistfully. “But I oughtn’t to. I must go right home, I think.”

Because he had very much set his heart upon this little dinner together, and would be greatly disappointed not to have it, he urged her.

“Oh, why? Is someone expecting you? Have you promised?”

“Oh, no!” she answered quickly. “No, there is no one, but—”

“But what? Can’t you give me this little pleasure? I had quite counted on it, you see—but perhaps I should have told you beforehand. Of course, if it isn’t convenient—”

“Oh, no!” she said desperately. “It’s not anything like that, and it’s very kind of you to ask me and to say it would be a pleasure to you; but—”

“Well, it
would
be a pleasure, a great, big pleasure,” he said pointedly; and she felt that there was something more than ordinary feeling behind the words. Then she plunged blindly in.

“It’s just that I felt that I have been having too good a time lately, and I must stop it, or I shall be spoiled. You see, I’m not used to many good times, and I might get very much discontented with my life.” She stumbled along, hardly knowing what she was saying, and he smiled indulgently down into her face and drew her arm gently within his own in a protecting way as they came to the street-crossing, guiding her skillfully between the crowding, impatient cars that were huddled in the street.

“I’d like a chance to spoil you a little,” he said, and his voice was very tender. The glance of his eyes even in the electric glow of the street made her heart stand still, as if she looked into a mighty joy upon which she must herself shut the door.

“Oh, but you don’t understand!” she said desperately. “It’s very kind and nice, and it’s been so beautiful, but I ought to have told you before. I ought not to have let you think—” She paused, unable to find words, and another congested street-crossing interrupted their conversation for a moment. She never noticed that he was guiding her steps toward the region of the better class of downtown tearooms and restaurants. She was not familiar with these places and would never have thought of it if she had noticed.

“Let me think what, please?” he asked gravely when they were safe on the other side of the street. His own heart was beating hard now. Was she going to tell him that she had a beau somewhere struggling to earn enough for her support and that she could not accept his attentions any longer? His hand trembled as he laid it upon her little gloved one that rested on his arm so lightly.

“I have let you think I’m just like those other girls you know.”

“Oh, you’re mistaken about that,” he answered quickly. “I never thought you were like them. Thank God you are not. If you had been, I should not have cared to have your company. You knew that the first night at the church reception.”

“Oh that is not it, either,” she said desperately. It seemed so very hard to make him understand. And she felt a great sob swelling up through her throat. What should she do when it arrived?

“Look here,” he said, and his voice was very peremptory, “tell me this.” He paused at the corner and detained her a little out of the crowd of passers. “Just tell me this one thing. Do you belong to someone else? Is there any reason why it is not right for you to go with me tonight?”

“Oh no,” she gasped, almost laughing, “there isn’t anyone at all. I don’t belong to anyone in the whole wide world anymore, and there’s nobody who belongs to me except my brother Tom and his family; but they have each other, and they haven’t time to think about me. I certainly am making a terrible mess of telling you, and you will think I am very stupid to make so much out of it all; only I’ve enjoyed it so much, and I knew I ought to explain it for your sake.”

“There!” said Lyman, laughing joyously and drawing her onward again. “There; don’t say another word about it till we’ve had something to eat. If there isn’t anyone else, I’m sure what you have to say won’t matter in the least. Anyway, it can wait until we’re out of the crowd.”

He guided her carefully through the maze of people hurrying away from business or pleasure to their homes and dinners. All the time his strong, firm hand was held close over her little, trembling one, steadying and seeming to want to comfort and reassure her. And in a moment more he led her into a great, brilliant room lined with palms and set with little tables where snowy linen, glittering glass and silver, and delicate china glowed under the warm light of rosy candle shades. Low-voiced men and women were seated here and there conversing while a sweet-stringed orchestra, concealed somewhere not too nearby, sent forth delicious sounds like some sweet, subtle perfume filling the air.

He seated her at one of the little tables in a far corner, where a screen of palm half hid them from the room and yet revealed its beauties to them. She felt as if she were suddenly plunged into a wonderful fairyland where she had no right to be, yet could not get away. Delight and distress were struggling for the mastery in her face, and the pretty color came and went, making her more vividly beautiful than he had ever seen her yet. He looked at her with deep satisfaction and admiration as he hung up his coat and seated himself opposite to her.

“I wonder what you like,” he said, smiling. “May I try and see if I can please you?”

“Oh, anything!” she said, embarrassed. What would he think of her way of ordering, always looking at the figures in the right-hand column of the menu first to pick out the cheapest foods and then choosing from those?

With the ease of one accustomed, Lyman took up the menu, and, running down the list, in a low voice rapidly mentioned what he wanted to the deferential waiter, who seemed to understand at once and vanished, leaving them alone.

“Now,” said Lyman, “if you will feel better to tell me at once, I will listen. What is it that you thought I ought to know?” His kindly eyes were upon her, and the color flamed into her cheeks until they rivaled the roses on her chest.

“I think you ought to know that I am a very poor girl who has to earn my own living—and—” She paused for more words.

“I surmised as much,” said he. “Did you think I was mercenary, that I had to choose my friends from among wealthy people only?”

“Oh, no,” she said in great distress. “You do not understand yet! I am not only poor, but I am uneducated. I have had very few opportunities. I have never been to college. All those other girls have.”

He laughed.

“Why, I have been to college myself, and I’m not so sure that I’m much better off for it, either. The fact is, I fooled much of my time away in college and learned more outside afterward. I hadn’t learned what college was for before I went, perhaps. As for those other girls, I doubt if Isabel Cresson is the wiser for her college course. I myself heard her tell a woman, a friend of mine, that all she went for was to get into the sororities. She could not possibly have enjoyed that music as you did this afternoon.”

But Marion was struggling with her task. How could she overcome his great kindness and make plain to him what she meant?

“Thank you,” she said gently, “but there is something she has that I have not, and that must always be a great lack in the eyes of everybody. She comes of a fine old family, and she has culture and refinement behind her. She is used to going among people. She knows how to move and speak and act. My father was a plain mechanic. He worked in the Houghton Locomotive Works. We were not so very poor while he lived, because he earned good wages. He meant to give me a good education. That was what he wanted above everything else, but he died before he was able to accomplish it. He was only a mechanic, but he was a good man and a dear father—”

“I know,” said Lyman gently. “He had the accident from which he died through doing a kindness for another man who was in trouble. I have stood beside his own machine at Houghton’s and heard the foreman tell the whole story. He described the scene when your father was found hurt and they were about to take him home. He said there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. He said that for days afterward the men kept coming to him and telling him of little things that Mr. Warren had done for them. Some told how he’d followed them into a saloon and persuaded them to come out, how he’d stayed with them and walked out of his way night after night to go home with them and get them safely by temptation till they were strong enough to go alone. Some told how he’d stayed after hours and done their work when their wives or children were sick and they needed to be away from the shop; and one man told how your father divided his pay with him for weeks when he was getting over an operation and could work only half-time.

“You are mistaken, Miss Warren; your father was a gentleman, and yours was a royal family if there ever was one. Do you know how Miss Cresson’s father died? It was in a drunken row in some fine banquet hall; and before he died he had killed another man. Perhaps she is not so much to blame for being what she is with such a father, but tell me, which is the fine old family, yours or hers? I should prefer yours.”

Chapter 14

T
he tears had come now in spite of all Marion’s struggles, though they were happy tears, and she tried to hurry them away with smiles.

“Oh,” she said, “how beautiful of you, how beautiful to say that about my dear father! I knew he was all that and a great deal more, too, but I thought—I thought you would not count—”

“You thought that I was a snob,” he said, smiling.

“Oh no!” she said aghast. “Oh no! I never thought that.”

“Yes, yes, you did. There’s no use in denying it. You thought because I had enjoyed advantages that had not been yours that I would count those advantages greater than all other noble things in earth, and that I would despise you when I knew that you had been without them. Isn’t that so?”

“No, not that exactly,” she said with a troubled look. “It was just that I thought you did not know, and that, when you found out, you would think I had not been honest with you to let you put yourself in that light before people. Isabel Cresson and all those girls know who I am. They probably thought it very strange of you to sit and talk with me when they were nearby, and when they knew that I was such an insignificant little thing. It was not that I did not think you noble enough to be kind to me, even if you did know about me; but I was not one you would be likely to pick out for a friend, I knew, and I felt that I must make you understand it at once. It has troubled me all week that I did not tell you last Saturday evening, but I did so want to go today—just this once more before—before …” She stopped in dismay and knew not what to say.

“Before what?” he asked, watching her with gentle indulgence in his eyes.

“Why, before it ended,” she finished bravely with scarlet cheeks.

“Then you thought I would drop you as soon as I knew?”

“Why, I supposed … that would be the end,” she answered lamely.

“Answer me truly, and look right in my eyes,” he insisted teasingly. “Did you really think I would drop you as soon as I knew? Please look up while you answer. You can’t possibly deceive yourself into saying the wrong thing while you’re looking at me, you know.”

She raised her eyes in beautiful embarrassment to his and wavered under his steady gaze.

“I thought…you…
ought
to.”

“You thought I
ought
?” he laughed merrily. “Ah! Now, then, the question just once more; and please, if you don’t mind, look up again for a minute. Did you
really
think I would drop you?”

“I—” There was a long pause, and then her eyes dropped in deep embarrassment. “I do not … know,” she finished.

“Ah! Then you will admit just a little doubt of my criminality?” Her troubled eyes gave him one beautiful look of reproach, and then her long lashes drooped on her crimson cheeks.

“Forgive me!” he said quickly. “I did not mean to tease you. I am sorry. I only wanted to be sure whether you thought me that kind of a fellow or not. Now let me assure you that I do not intend to drop you in the least. If there’s any dropping, it will have to be done by you and not me. By the way, have you any idea where I first saw you?”