第100章 CHAPTER XXI(4)

"She is on the ocean,"said Philip."She went because she knew she was wholly in the wrong.She had nothing to say,or she would have remained.""That sounds plausible,"reasoned Elnora,"but it is pretty difficult to find a woman in an affair that involves her heart with nothing at all to say.I fancy if I could meet her,she would say several things.I should love to hear them.If I could talk with her three minutes,Icould tell what answer to make you."

"Don't you believe me,Elnora?"

"Unquestioningly,"answered Elnora."But I would believe her also.If only I could meet her I soon would know.""I don't see how that is to be accomplished,"said Philip,"but I am perfectly willing.There is no reason why you should not meet her,except that she probably would lose her temper and insult you.""Not to any extent,"said Elnora calmly."I have a tongue of my own,while I am not without some small sense of personal values."Philip glanced at her and began to laugh.Very different of facial formation and colouring,Elnora at times closely resembled her mother.She joined in his laugh ruefully.

"The point is this,"she said."Some one is going to be hurt,most dreadfully.If the decision as to whom it shall be rests with me,I must know it is the right one.

Of course,no one ever hinted it to you,but you are a very attractive man,Philip.You are mighty good to look at,and you have a trained,refined mind,that makes you most interesting.For years Edith Carr has felt that you were hers.Now,how is she going to change?I have been thinking--thinking deep and long,Phil.If I were in her place,I simply could not give you up,unless you had made yourself unworthy of love.Undoubtedly,you never seemed so desirable to her as just now,when she is told she can't have you.What I think is that she will come to claim you yet.""You overlook the fact that it is not in a woman's power to throw away a man and pick him up at pleasure,"said Philip with some warmth."She publicly and repeatedly cast me off.I accepted her decision as publicly as it was made.You have done all your thinking from a wrong viewpoint.You seem to have an idea that it lies with you to decide what I shall do,that if you say the word,I shall return to Edith.Put that thought out of your head!Now,and for all time to come,she is a matter of indifference to me.She killed all feeling in my heart for her so completely that I do not even dread meeting her.

"If I hated her,or was angry with her,I could not be sure the feeling would not die.As it is,she has deadened me into a creature of indifference.So you just revise your viewpoint a little,Elnora.Cease thinking it is for you to decide what I shall do,and that I will obey you.

I make my own decisions in reference to any woman,save you.

The question you are to decide is whether I may remain here,associating with you as I did last summer;but with the difference that it is understood that I am free;that it is my intention to care for you all I please,to make you return my feeling for you if I can.There is just one question for you to decide,and it is not triangular.

It is between us.May I remain?May I love you?

Will you give me the chance to prove what I think of you?""You speak very plainly,"said Elnora.

"This is the time to speak plainly,"said Philip Ammon.

"There is no use in allowing you to go on threshing out a problem which does not exist.If you do not want me here,say so and I will go.Of course,I warn you before I start,that I will come back.I won't yield without the stiffest fight it is in me to make.But drop thinking it lies in your power to send me back to Edith Carr.

If she were the last woman in the world,and I the last man,I'd jump off the planet before I would give her further opportunity to exercise her temper on me.Narrow this to us,Elnora.Will you take the place she vacated?

Will you take the heart she threw away?I'd give my right hand and not flinch,if I could offer you my life,free from any contact with hers,but that is not possible.I can't undo things which are done.