He came and took her hands in his, and gently touched her cheek with his lips. She stared at him dumbly.

"It's all right, sweetheart," he whispered. "It's all right." And she closed her eyes, and it seemed as if to breathe was all she could do.

"Come, dearest," he said. "Let us go out."

And half in a daze she put on her hat and coat, and they went out on the street. He took her arm to steady her.

"Well?" she asked.

"It's all right, dearest," he said.

"You got my letter?"

"Yes, I got it. And it was a wonderful letter. It couldn't have been better."

"Ah!"

"And there's no more to be said. There's no refusing such a challenge.

You shall come with me."

"But Thyrsis! Do you _want_ me to come?"

"Yes," he said, "I want you."

And he felt a tremor pa.s.s through her arm. He pressed it tightly to his side. "I love you!" he whispered.

"Ah Thyrsis!" she exclaimed. "How you have tortured me!"

"Hush, dear!" he replied. "Let's not think of that. It's all past now.

We are going on! You have proven your grit. You are wonderful!"

They went into the park, and sat upon a bench in the sun.

"I've finished the book!" he said. "And in a couple more days it'll be copied. I've a letter of introduction to a publisher, and he wrote me he'd read it at once."

"It seems like a dream to me," she whispered.

"We won't have to wait long after that," he said. "Everything will be clear before us."

"And what will you do in the meantime?" she asked.

"Mother wants me to stay with her," he said. "I've only got ten dollars left. But I'll get some from the publisher."

"Are you sure you can?" she asked.

"Oh, Corydon!" he cried, "you've no idea how wonderful it is--the book, I mean. You'll be amazed! It kept growing on me all the time--I got new visions of it. That was why it took me so long. I didn't dare to appreciate it, while I was doing it--I had to keep myself at work, you know; but now that it's done, I can realize it. And oh, it's a book the world will heed!"

"When can I see it, Thyrsis?"

"As soon as it's copied--the ma.n.u.script is all a scrawl. But you know the minstrel's song at the end? My Gethsemane, I called it! I found a new form for it--it's all in free verse. I didn't mean it to be that way, but it just wrote itself; it broke through the bars and ran away with me. Oh, it marches like the thunder!"

He pulled some papers from his coat-pocket. "I was going over it on the train this morning," he said. "Listen!"

He read her the song, thrilling anew with the joy of its effect upon her. "Oh, Thyrsis!" she cried, in awe. "That is marvellous! Marvellous!

How could you do it?"

And yet, for all the delight she expressed, Thyrsis was conscious of a chill of disappointment, of a doubt lurking in the background of his mind. It was inevitable, in the nature of things--how could the book mean to any human creature what it had meant to him? Seven long months he had toiled with it, he had been through the agonies of a child-birth for it. And another person would read it all in one day!--It was the old, old agony of the artist, who can communicate so small a part of what has been in his soul.

Section 2. He wanted to talk about his book, but Corydon wanted to talk about him. She had waited so long, and suffered so much--and now at last he was here! "Oh, Thyrsis!" she cried. "There's just no use in my trying--I can't do anything at all without you!"

"You won't have to do it any more," he said. "We shall not part again."

"And you are sure you want me? You have no more doubts?"

"How could I have any doubts--after that letter. Ah, that was a brave letter, Corydon! It made me think of you as some old Viking's daughter!

That is the way to go at the task!"

"And then I may feel certain!" she said.

"You may stop thinking all about it," he replied. "We'll waste no more of our time--we'll put it aside and get to work."

They spent the day wandering about in the park and talking over their plans. "I suppose it'll be all right now that I'm with you," said Thyrsis. "I mean, there's no great hurry about getting married."

"Oh, no!" she answered. "We dare not think of that, until you have money."

"How I wish we didn't have to get married!" he exclaimed.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because-why should we have to get anybody else's permission to live our lives? I've thought about it a good deal, and it's a slave-custom, and it makes me ashamed of myself."

"But don't you believe in marriage, dear?"

"I do, and I don't. I believe that a man who exposes a woman to the possibility of having a child, ought to guarantee to support the woman for a time, and to support the child. That's obvious enough--no one but a scoundrel would want to avoid it. But marriage means so much more than that! You bind yourself to stay together, whether love continues or whether it stops; you can't part, except on some terms that other people set down. You have to make all sorts of promises you don't intend to keep, and to go through forms you don't believe in, and it seems to me a cowardly thing to do."

"But what else can one do?" asked Corydon.

"It's quite obvious what _we_ could do. We don't intend to be husband and wife; and so we could simply go away and go on with our work."

"But think of our parents, Thyrsis!"

"Yes, I know--I've thought of them. But if every one thought of his parents, how would the world ever move?"

"But, dearest!" exclaimed Corydon, "if we didn't marry, they'd simply go out of their senses!"

"I know. But then, they might threaten to go out of their senses if we _did_ marry? And would that work also?"

"We must be sensible," said the girl. "It means so much to them, and so little to us."