One Sat.u.r.day afternoon, Yetta came in joyous and found him stretched out on the lounge.

"What do you think, Isadore? When the ghost walked to-day, every pay envelope was full. What do you think of that? It was a revolution. Mary Ames didn't have a chance to cry, and Levine couldn't find anything to grumble about. They were both unhappy."

"I don't see why I worked so hard to get well," he said wearily. "You're getting along better without me than when I was there."

"I hope you're ashamed of yourself," she said, taking off her hat and sitting down beside him. "I bring you home some good news and that's all the thanks I get."

Isadore blinked his eyes hard, but in spite of himself two great tears escaped down his cheeks.

"What's the matter, old fellow?" Yetta asked in dismay.

"Oh, nothing. Only I'm so foolishly weak still. Of course I'm glad. Only it's easy to get discouraged." The tears escaped all control. "It's dreary coming back to life."

Above all other advice, Dr. Liebovitz had insisted that Isadore should not be excited. But Yetta forgot all about that. She knelt down on the floor beside him.

"Isadore, when you were very sick, you talked a good deal in your sleep.

Do you know who you talked about?"

"You."

"Is it just the same as ever, Isadore?"

"_Far immer und ewig_," he said slowly.

Yetta had always shared her father's dislike for Yiddish, but somehow his dropping back into their mother-tongue seemed to her like a caress.

"I guess that," he went on in the same language, "is what makes it seem so dreary to me--the lone-someness."

"Hush, Isadore," she said breathlessly. "You musn't talk like that. The Pauldings are going to Europe this summer. They told me you could go up to their camp, if there was any one to take care of you.--I'll go with you--we won't either of us be lonely any more--Oh Dear Heart.--Oh, it isn't anything to cry about--just because I've made up my mind to marry you. Dr. Liebovitz will give me an awful scolding if he finds you taking on so."

A Christian Socialist minister married them, by a ceremony of his own concoction. It was quite as fantastic as his creed--but at least it was legal. As soon as Dr. Liebovitz would allow Isadore to be moved, they set out for the mountains.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

YETTA FINDS HERSELF

The first days in the woods were distressing for Yetta. The strain of the journey had prostrated Isadore; she was afraid he was going to have a serious relapse. But he slept off the fatigue--fourteen and eighteen hours a day at first. And he soon regained his appet.i.te. They got fresh milk and eggs and garden truck from a near-by farmer, and three times a week a man came in a boat with other provisions from the town at the foot of the lake. Isadore began to put on flesh and very gradually to regain his strength.

When the first worry was over, Yetta entered into a period of perfect peace. The conviction which had grown on her gradually--unnoticed at first--that she "really loved" Isadore, solidified. She had counted on finding it pleasant to take care of him; she had found it so in the city, it proved unexpectedly sweet here in the woods. In New York she had been only an accident; a dozen others could have nursed him just as well. Here she was all he had. Here too she could give all her time to him. He was as helpless as a baby at first, and submitted docilely to her loving tyranny. She had never "kept house" for any one before. In the kitchen of the little cabin--walking about on tiptoe, so as not to disturb his health-bringing sleep--she found a very real delight in the new experience of cooking a meal for her man, in washing and mending his clothes.

Even more pleasant to her was the utter intimacy which their isolation forced on them. Whenever he was awake, they talked--of everything under the sun, except _The Clarion_. They had agreed to forget that. After a couple of weeks, when he had grown a little stronger, she read to him.

She found it embarra.s.sing at first, almost as if it were immodest. She had never read aloud before. The joy of books had been something entirely individual. She was unaccustomed to launch out on the adventure of a new point of view in company. But after the first diffidence had worn off, it proved an undreamed-of delight. Now and again one or the other would interrupt the reading to think out loud. "Let's hear that again," he would say. Or, "I must read that pa.s.sage over. Isn't it fine?" she would break out.

Almost all of Isadore's reading had been historical or scientific. He had no idea of grace in writing. "Force" and "Truth" were the only literary qualities he recognized. Meredith, who had been one of Yetta's favorites rather weakened under his incisive criticism. Zola's "Labor"

they both liked. Poetry generally went wrong. Swinburne, whose luxurious music hypnotized Yetta past all comprehension of what he was talking about, disgusted Isadore--until Yetta came to "The lie on the lips of the priests and the blood on the hands of the Kings."

"That's good business," Isadore said. "Why didn't he stick to that style?"

It was the other way round with Henley. He fared better at first.

Isadore liked the hospital verses. But when they came to "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul," Isadore revolted.

"Do you really suppose he believed that rot?"

"Of course," Yetta said. "Don't you?"

"Not for a minute. You've been the master of my fate these last few years."

Naturally Yetta forgave him for disagreeing with Henley.

But there was a cloud in the sky--even these delicious, peaceful days.

Yetta vaguely dreaded the time when Isadore would be quite well. She was no longer the unsophisticated girl who had promised to live with Harry Klein without knowing what it meant. She knew it was impossible to continue this pleasant relationship of nurse and patient. Sooner or later he would revolt from his role--he would want something quite different from nursing.

Contrary to her custom Yetta did not face this situation frankly. She tried to avoid thinking of it. When it forced itself on her, she told herself, "Of course I want children." Almost every time she had heard this business of maternity referred to, its painful side had been emphasized. She had heard a great deal about the "heroism of motherhood." Her att.i.tude towards the s.e.xual side of marriage was very like her att.i.tude to the dentist. And no matter how firmly we have decided to go to the dentist, we are a bit reluctant about starting.

Yetta did what she could to postpone the duty she had firmly decided to perform stoically and gamely.

She really thought about this matter surprisingly little. All she had read in the poets about the joys of pa.s.sionate love she thought of as romantic, and she was in full reaction against romance. In real life she had never encountered any one who even remotely resembled Helose or Francesca or Melisande or the Queen Isolde. The married women she knew, the mothers of children, did not give any sign of such dizzying emotions.

The reality of love she had decided was a spiritual matter. The night Isadore had kissed her in the dark of the office, she had been too frightened to appreciate it as a caress. He had never stirred her emotions as Walter had. She was not afraid to think of them both at the same time any more. She calmly knew that her love for Isadore was the more real. But still she could not look forward to his complete recovery without a slight tremor.

When Isadore seemed on the point of talking about this, she adroitly changed the subject. She always came to his room to kiss him "good night," and the first thing in the morning after she was dressed she came to his bedside and kissed him "good morning." But although she was naturally demonstrative, she carefully avoided any disturbing caresses.

As Isadore gained strength the crisis inevitably approached. One moonlight night, out on the Lake in their guide boat, Isadore, who had been lazily rowing, rested on his oars.

"Yetta," he said. "Sometimes I have a horrible thought--I wonder if you really love me."

Yetta, stretched out on the cushions in the stern-sheets, had been perfectly happy--at least as happy as she knew how to be--before he spoke. She knew at once what he meant, and it troubled her.

"Why, what do you mean?" she said, to gain time.

"I wonder if you know what it means--what love means--to a man?"

"I know what it means to a well man," she said.

Isadore began rowing again. Of course Yetta did not know what love means to a well man. She knew that she did not know. She was shocked at herself for the spirit of hostility which had shown in her answer.

"Isadore," she said in a few minutes, "dearest, I love you very, very much. Aren't you content? It seems so sweet to me, just to be together like this. Aren't you content?"

Isadore--like many men of his race--was instinctively wise in regard to women. He did not have to think over his reply.

"No," he said laconically.

He rowed on in silence for several minutes. He did not understand, but he sensed, Yetta's trouble. She was trembling on the threshold of the Great Mystery. When he spoke again, it was to calm and rea.s.sure her.

Ash.o.r.e, they sat for a long time in the moonlight, hand in hand. He did nothing to frighten her, and she felt flooded by his tenderness.