第23章

Twenty years old! Susan's tears scalded her eyes.Only a little older than her cousin Ruth was now--Ruth who often seemed to her, and to everybody, younger than herself."And she was good--Iknow she was good!" thought Susan."_He_ was bad, and the people who took his part against her were bad.But _she_ was good!"She started as Sam's voice, gay and light, sounded directly behind her."What are you doing in a graveyard?" cried he.

"How did you find me?" she asked, paling and flushing and paling again.

"I've been following you ever since you left home."He might have added that he did not try to overtake her until they were where people would be least likely to see.

"Whose graves are those?" he went on, cutting across a plot and stepping on several graves to join her.

She was gazing at her mothers simple headstone.His glance followed hers, he read.

"Oh--beg pardon," he said confusedly."I didn't see."She turned her serious gaze from the headstone to his face, which her young imagination transfigured."You know--about her?"she asked.

"I--I--I've heard," he confessed."But--Susie, it doesn't amount to anything.It happened a long time ago--and everybody's forgotten--and----" His stammering falsehoods died away before her steady look."How did you find out?""Someone just told me," replied she."And they said you'd never respect or marry a girl who had no father.No--don't deny--please! I didn't believe it--not after what we had said to each other."Sam, red and shifting uneasily, could not even keep his downcast eyes upon the same spot of ground.

"You see," she went on, sweet and grave, "they don't understand what love means--do they?""I guess not," muttered he, completely unnerved.

Why, how seriously the girl had taken him and his words--such a few words and not at all definite! No, he decided, it was the kiss.He had heard of girls so innocent that they thought a kiss meant the same as being married.He got himself together as well as he could and looked at her.

"But, Susie," he said, "you're too young for anything definite--and I'm not halfway through college.""I understand," said she."But you need not be afraid I'll change."She was so sweet, so magnetic, so compelling that in spite of the frowns of prudence he seized her hand.At her touch he flung prudence to the winds."I love you," he cried; and putting his arm around her, he tried to kiss her.She gently but strongly repulsed him."Why not, dear?" he pleaded."You love me--don't you?""Yes," she replied, her honest eyes shining upon his."But we must wait until we're married.I don't care so much for the others, but I'd not want Uncle George to feel I had disgraced him.""Why, there's no harm in a kiss," pleaded he.

"Kissing you is--different," she replied."It's--it's--marriage."He understood her innocence that frankly assumed marriage where a sophisticated girl would, in the guilt of designing thoughts, have shrunk in shame from however vaguely suggesting such a thing.He realized to the full his peril."I'm a damn fool," he said to himself, "to hang about her.But somehow I can't help it--I can't!" And the truth was, he loved her as much as a boy of his age is capable of loving, and he would have gone on and married her but for the snobbishness smeared on him by the provincialism of the small town and burned in by the toadyism of his fashionable college set.As he looked at her he saw beauty beyond any he had ever seen elsewhere and a sweetness and honesty that made him ashamed before her."No, I couldn't harm her," he told himself."I'm not such a dog as that.But there's no harm in loving her and kissing her and making her as happy as it's right to be.""Don't be mean, Susan," he begged, tears in his eyes."If you love me, you'll let me kiss you."And she yielded, and the shock of the kiss set both to trembling.It appealed to his vanity, it heightened his own agitations to see how pale she had grown and how her rounded bosom rose and fell in the wild tumult of her emotions."Oh, Ican't do without seeing you," she cried."And Aunt Fanny has forbidden me.""I thought so!" exclaimed he."I did what I could last night to throw them off the track.If Ruth had only known what I was thinking about all the time.Where were you?""Upstairs--on the balcony."

"I felt it," he declared."And when she sang love songs I could hardly keep from rushing up to you.Susie, we _must_ see each other.""I can come here, almost any day."

"But people'd soon find out--and they'd say all sorts of things.

And your uncle and aunt would hear."

There was no disputing anything so obvious.

"Couldn't you come down tonight, after the others are in bed and the house is quiet?" he suggested.

She hesitated before the deception, though she felt that her family had forfeited the right to control her.But love, being the supreme necessity, conquered."For a few minutes," she conceded.

She had been absorbed; but his eyes, kept alert by his conventional soul, had seen several people at a distance observing without seeming to do so."We must separate," he now said."You see, Susie, we mustn't be gossiped about.You know how determined they are to keep us apart.""Yes--yes," she eagerly agreed."Will you go first, or shall I?""You go--the way you came.I'll jump the brook down where it's narrow and cut across and into our place by the back way.What time tonight?""Arthur's coming," reflected Susie aloud."Ruth'll not let him stay late.She'll be sleepy and will go straight to bed.About half past ten.If I'm not on the front veranda--no, the side veranda--by eleven, you'll know something has prevented.""But you'll surely come?"

"I'll come." And it both thrilled and alarmed him to see how much in earnest she was.But he looked love into her loving eyes and went away, too intoxicated to care whither this adventure was leading him.

At dinner she felt she was no longer a part of this family.Were they not all pitying and looking down on her in their hearts?