第49章

Dr. Mulbridge did not wait for the time he had fixed for his return. He may have judged that her tendency against him would strengthen by delay, or he may have yielded to his own impatience in coming the next day. He asked for Grace with his wonted abruptness, and waited for her coming in the little parlor of the hotel, walking up and down the floor, with his shaggy head bent forward, and his big hands clasped behind him.

As she hovered at the door before entering, she could watch him while he walked the whole room's length away, and she felt a pang at sight of him.

If she could have believed that he loved her, she could not have faced him, but must have turned and run away; and even as it was she grieved for him. Such a man would not have made up his mind to this step without a deep motive, if not a deep feeling. Her heart had been softened so that she could not think of frustrating his ambition, if it were no better than that, without pity. One man had made her feel very kindly toward all other men; she wished in the tender confusion of the moment that she need not reject her importunate suitor, whose importunity even she could not resent.

He caught sight of her as soon as he made his turn at the end of the room, and with a quick "Ah, Ah!" he hastened to meet her, with the smile in which there was certainly something attractive. "You see I've come back a day sooner than I promised. I haven't the sort of turnout you've been used to, but I want you to drive with me." "I can't drive with you, Dr. Mulbridge," she faltered.

"Well, walk, then. I should prefer to walk."

"You must excuse me," she answered, and remained standing before him.

"Sit down," he bade her, and pushed up a chair towards her. His audacity, if it had been a finer courage, would have been splendid, and as it was she helplessly obeyed him, as if she were his patient, and must do so. "If I were superstitious I should say that you receive me ominously," he said, fixing his gray eyes keenly upon her.

"I do!" she forced herself to reply. "I wish you had not come."

"That's explicit, at any rate. Have you thought it over?"

"No; I had no need to do that, I had fully resolved when I spoke yesterday. Dr. Mulbridge, why didn't you spare me this? It's unkind of you to insist, after what I said. You know that I must hate to repeat it. I do value you so highly in some ways that I blame you for obliging me to hurt you--if it does hurt--by telling you again that I don't love you."

He drew in a long breath, and set his teeth hard upon his lip. "You may depend upon its hurting," he said, "but I was glad to risk the pain, whatever it was, for the chance of getting you to reconsider. I presume I'm not the conventional wooer. I'm too old for it, and I'm too blunt and plain a man. I've been thirty-five years making up my mind to ask you to marry me. You're the first woman, and you shall be the last. You couldn't suppose I was going to give you up for one no?"

"You had better."

"Not for twenty! I can understand very well how you never thought of me in this way; but there's no reason why you shouldn't. Come, it's a matter that we can reason about, like anything else."

"No. I told you, it's something we can't reason about. Or yes, it is.

I will reason with you. You say that you love me?"

"Yes."

"If you did n't love me, you would n't ask me to marry you?"

"No."

"Then how can you expect me to marry you without loving you?"

"I don't. All that I ask is that you won't refuse me. I know that you can love me."

"No, no, never!"

"And I only want you to take time to try."

"I don't wish to try. If you persist, I must leave the room. We had better part. I was foolish to see you. But I thought--I was sorry--I hoped to make it less unkind to you."

"In spite of yourself, you were relenting."

"Not at all!"

"But if you pitied me, you did care for me a little?"

"You know that I had the highest respect for you as a physician. I tell you that you were my ideal in that way, and I will tell you that if"--she stopped, and he continued for her.

"If you had not resolved to give it up, you might have done what I asked."

"I did not say that," she answered indignantly.

"But why do you give it up?"

"Because I am not equal to it."

"How do you know it? Who told you?"

"You have told me,--by every look and act of yours,--and I'm grateful to you for it."

"And if I told you now by word that you were fit for it."

"I shouldn't believe you."

"You would n't believe my word?" She did not answer. "I see," he said presently, "that you doubt me somehow as a man. What is it you think of me?"

"You wouldn't like to know."

"Oh, yes, I should."

"Well, I will tell you. I think you are a tyrant, and that you want a slave, not a wife. You wish to be obeyed. You despise women. I don't mean their minds,--they 're despicable enough, in most cases, as men's are,--but their nature."

"This is news to me," he said, laughing. "I never knew that I despised women's nature."

"It's true, whether you knew it or not."

"Do I despise you?"

"You would, if you saw that I was afraid of you: Oh, why do you force me to say such things? Why don't you spare me--spare yourself?"

"In this cause I couldn't spare myself. I can't bear to give you up!

I'm what I am, whatever you say; but with you, I could be whatever you would. I could show you that you are wrong if you gave me the chance.

I know that I could make you happy. Listen to me a moment."

"It's useless."

"No! If you have taken the trouble to read me in this way, there must have been a time when you might have cared."

"There never was any such time. I read you from the first."

"I will go away," he said, after a pause, in which she had risen, and began a retreat towards the door. "But I will not--I cannot--give you up. I will see you again."

"No, sir. You shall not see me again. I will not submit to it. I will not be persecuted." She was trembling, and she knew that he saw her tremor.

"Well," he said, with a smile that recognized her trepidation, "I will not persecute you. I'll renounce these pretensions. But I'll ask you to see me once more, as a friend,--an acquaintance."

"I will not see you again."