"I can't," she called back. Didn't he have the nerve!

"Why can't you?" the skeptical question came from halfway up the stairs.

"I saw you on the side-porch, just as I came up."

Nelly cast about for an excuse. Of course you had to have some _reason_ for saying you couldn't see a neighbor who came in. She had an inspiration. "I'm washing my hair," she called back, taking out the hair-pins hastily, as she spoke. The great coils came tumbling down on her shoulders. She soused them in the water pitcher, and went to the door, opening it a crack, tipping her head forward so that the water streamed on the floor. "Can't you ask Mother Powers for whatever it is?"

she said impatiently. She wished as she spoke that she could ever speak right out sharp and scratchy the way other people did. She was too easy, that was the trouble.

"Well," said Frank, astonished, "you be, for a fact."

He went back down the stairs, and Nelly shut the door. She was hot all over with impatience about that b.u.t.ter. When it wasn't one thing to keep her from her work, it was another. Her hair all wet now. And such a job to dry it!

She heard voices in the kitchen, and the screen-door open. Thank goodness, Frank was going away! Oh my! Maybe he was going to the village! He could bring some of the pink mercerized cotton on his way back. He might as well be of _some_ use in the world. She thrust her head out of the window. "Frank, Frank, wait a minute!" she called. She ran back to her work-basket, cut a length from a spool of thread, wound it around a bit of paper, and went again to the window. "Say, Frank, get me two spools of cotton to match that, will you, at Warner and Hardy's."

He rode his horse past the big pine, under her window, and stood up in the stirrups, looking up boldly at her, her hair in thick wet curls about her face. "I'd do anything for you!" he said jokingly, catching at the paper she threw down to him.

She slammed the window down hard. How provoking he was! But anyhow she would have enough thread to feather-st.i.tch that hem. She'd got that much out of him. The thought made up to her for some of the annoyance of the morning. She put a towel around her shoulders under her wet hair, and waited till he was actually out of sight around the bend of the road. It seemed to her that she saw something stir in the long gra.s.s in the meadow there. Could the woodchucks be getting so close to the house as that? She'd have to tie Towser up by her lettuce, nights, if they were.

Gracious, there it was thundering, off behind the Rocks! She'd have to hustle, if she got the b.u.t.ter done before the storm came. When Frank had really disappeared, she ran downstairs, and rushed out to her churn. She felt of it anxiously, her face clearing to note that it seemed no warmer than when she had left it. Maybe it was all right still. She began to plunge the dasher up and down. Well, it had gone back some, she could tell by the feel, but not so much, she guessed, but what she could make it come all right.

As she churned, she thought again of Frank Warner. This was the limit!

He got so on her nerves, she declared to herself she didn't care if he _never_ danced with her again. She wished she had more s.p.u.n.k, like some girls, and could just send him packing. But she never could think of any sharp things to say to folks, in time. She was too easy, she knew that, always had been. Look how long she had put up with Mrs. Hewitt's snooping around. And then in the end she had got cold feet and had had to sick 'Gene on to her, to tell her they didn't want her sitting around all the time and sponging off them at meal-times.

But somehow she didn't want to ask 'Gene to speak to Frank that way. She was afraid somehow it would get 'Gene excited. Mostly he was so still, and then all of a sudden he'd flare up and she never could see a thing to make him then more than any time. The best thing to do with Gene was to keep him quiet, just as much as she could, not do anything to get him started. That was why she never went close up to him or put her arms around his neck of her own accord. She'd _like_ to pet him and make over him, the way she did over the children, but it always seemed to get him so stirred up and everything. Men were funny, anyhow! She often had thought how nice it would be if 'Gene could only be another woman. They could have such good times together.

Why, here was 'Gene himself come in from cultivating corn right in the middle of the morning. Maybe he wanted a drink. He came up on the porch, without looking at her and went into the house. How heavy he walked. But then he always did. That was the trouble with his dancing. You had to step light, to be a good dancer.

There was a crack of thunder again, nearer than the first one. She heard him ask his mother, "Frank Warner been here?"

And Mother Powers say, "Yes, he come in to ask if we could loan him our compa.s.s. He's going to go up tomorrow in the Eagle Rock woods to run out the line between the Warner and the Benson woodlots. The Warners have sold the popple on theirs to the Crittenden mill, and Frank says the blazes are all barked over, they're so old."

Oh goody! thought Nelly, there the b.u.t.ter was, come all at once. The b.u.t.termilk was splashing like water. Yes, even there around the hole you could see the little yellow specks. Well, she needn't have got so provoked, after all. That was fine. Now she could get at that sprigged dress for Addie, after all, this afternoon.

'Gene came out on the porch again. She looked at him and smiled. She felt very happy and relieved that the b.u.t.ter had come so that she could finish working it over before noon.

'Gene glowered at her smiling face and at her hair curling and shining all down her back. How cross he looked! Oh bother! Excited too. Well, what could the matter be, _now_? She should think any man would be satisfied to come in, right in the middle of the morning like that, without any warning, and find his house as spick and span as a pin, and the b.u.t.ter churned and half the day's work out of the way. She'd like to know what more he wanted? Who else could do any better? Oh bother! How queer men were!

Yes, it would really be lots nicer if there were only women and children in the world. Gracious! how that lightning made her jump! The storm had got there quicker'n she'd thought. But the b.u.t.ter had come, so it was all right.

PART III

CHAPTER XVIII

BEFORE THE DAWN

July 21.

Neale had lain so long with his eyes on the place where the window ought to be, that finally he was half persuaded he could see it, a faintly paler square against the black of the room. Very soon dawn would come in that window, and another day would begin.

At the thought the muscles of his forearms contracted, drawing his fingers into rigidly clenched fists, and for a moment he did not breathe.

Then he conquered it again; threw off the worst of the pain that had sprung upon him when he had wakened suddenly, hours before, with the fear at last there before him, visible in the darkness.

What was this like? Where before had he endured this eternity of waiting? Yes, it was in France, the night when they waited for the attack to break, every man haggard with the tension, from dark till just before dawn.

He lay still, feeling Marise's breathing faintly stirring the bed.

There in France it had been a strain almost beyond human power to keep from rushing out of the trenches with bayonets fixed, to meet the threatened danger, to beat it back, to conquer it, or to die and escape the suspense. Now there was the same strain. He had the weapons in his hands, weapons of pa.s.sion, and indignation and entreaty and reproach, against which Marise would not stand for a moment.

But there in France that would have meant possibly an insignificant local success and the greater victory all along the line imperiled. And here that was true again. There hadn't been anything to do then but wait. There was nothing to do now but wait.

Yes, but it was harder to wait now! There in France they had at least known that finally the suspense would end in the fury of combat. They would have the chance to resist, to conquer, to impose their will. And now there was no active part for him. He must wait on, and hold back his hand from the attack which would give him the appearance of victory, and which would mean everlasting defeat for him, for Marise, the death and ruin of what they had tried to be for each other, to build up out of their life together.

What did he mean by that? Wasn't he fooling himself with words, with priggish phrases? It was so easy to do that. And he was so mortally fatigued with this struggle in the dark. He had been thinking about it so deeply, so desperately, ever since he had faced it there, squarely, those endless black hours ago. He might have lost his way.

Now, once more, slowly, step by step, once more over the terrible road that led him here. Perhaps there was another way he had overlooked.

Perhaps this time it would lead him to something less intolerable. Quiet now, steady, all that he had of courage and honesty and knowledge of Marise, and of life, and of himself, put to work.

His brain began again to plod up the treadmill it had labored on for so many black hours. He set himself to get it clear in his own mind, forcing those fierce, burning thoughts of his into words, as if he had been speaking aloud. "Now, now here I am. What must I do? What ought I to do? There must be some answer if I can only think clearly, feel aright. _What is it that I want?_"

The answer burst from him, as though in a cry of torture from his brain, his body, his pa.s.sion, his soul, "_I want Marise!_"

And at this expression of overmastering desire, memory flooded his mind with a stream of unforgotten pictures of their life together; Marise facing him at the breakfast table; Marise walking with him in the autumn woods; Marise with Paul a baby in her arms; Marise, almost unknown then, the flame-like divinity of her soul only guessed-at, looking into his eyes as the Campagna faded into darkness below them. "What was it she asked me then? Whether I knew the way across the dark plain? I was a confident young fool then. I was sure I could find the way, _with her_.

I've been thinking all these years that we were finding it, step by step ... till now. And now, what is it I am afraid of? I'm afraid she finds herself cramped, wants a fuller existence, regrets ... no, that's dodging. There's no use lying to myself. I'm afraid that Marise is in love with Vincent Marsh. Good G.o.d! no! It can't be that ... not Marise!

This is all nonsense. This is something left over from sleep and a bad dream. I must wake up. I must wake up and find it not true."

He lay perfectly still, his fists clenched tight, perspiration standing out on his rigid body. Then sternly he forced his mind to go forward again, step by step.

"I suppose it's possible. Other women have. There's a lot in her that must be starved here. I may not be enough for her. She was so young then. She has grown so greatly. What right have I to try to hold her if she is tired of it all, needs something else?"

He hesitated, shrinking back as from fire, from the answer he knew he must give. At last he forced it out, "I haven't any right. I don't want her to stay if she wants to go. I want Marise. But even more I want her to be happy."

The thought, with all its implications, terrified him like a death-sentence, but he repeated it grimly, pressing it home fiercely, "I want her to be happy."

He realized where this thought would lead him, and in a panic wildly fought against going on. He had tried to hold himself resolute and steady, but he was nothing now save a flame of resentment. "Happy! She won't be happy that way! She can't love that man! She's being carried away by that d.a.m.nable sensibility of hers. It would be the most hideous, insane mistake. What am I thinking of ... all these _words_! What I must do is to keep her from ruining her life."

On the heels of this outcry, there glided in insinuatingly a soft-spoken crowd of tempting, seductive possibilities. Marise was so sensitive, so impressionable, so easily moved, so defenseless when her emotions were aroused. Hadn't he the right, the duty, he who knew her better than anyone else, to protect her against herself? Wasn't he deceiving himself by fantastic notions? It would be so easy to act the ardent, pa.s.sionate young lover again ... but when had he ever "acted" anything for Marise!

No matter, no matter, this was life or death; what was a lie when life and death hung in the balance? He could play on her devotion to the children, throw all the weight of his personality, work on her emotions.

That was what people did to gain their point. Everybody did it. And he could win if he did. He could hold her.

Like the solemn tolling of a great bell there rang, through all this hurried, despairing clutching at the endurable and lesser, a call to the great and intolerable. The immensity of his love for Marise loomed up, far greater than he; and before that sacred thing he hung his head, and felt his heart breaking.