第37章

Men who are doing the work of the world.I believe in women as I believe in Christ.But I don't believe they were made--any more than Christ was--to cultivate--beyond a certain point--their own souls, and refine their own minds, and live in a sort of warmed-over, dilettante, stained-glass world of seclusion and exclusion.No, sir, that won't do for the United States and the men who are making them the greatest nation of the world.The men have got all the get-up-and-get they want, but they need the women to point them straight, and to show them how to lead that other kind of life that isn't all grind.Since I've known you, Miss Dearborn, I've just begun to wake up to the fact that there _is_ that other kind, but I can't lead that life without you.There's _no_ kind of life that's worth anything to me now that don't include you.

I don't need to tell you that I want you to marry me.

You know that by now, I guess, without any words from me.I love you, and I love you as a man, not as a boy, seriously and earnestly.I can give you no idea _how_seriously, _how_ earnestly.I want you to be my wife.

Laura, my dear girl, I _know_ I could make you happy.""It isn't," answered Laura slowly, perceiving as he paused that he expected her to say something," much a question of that.""What is it, then? I won't make a scene.Don't you love me? Don't you think, my girl, you could ever love me?"Laura hesitated a long moment.She had taken the rose from her shoulder, and plucking the petals one by one, put them delicately between her teeth.From the other end of the room came the clamorous exhortations of Monsieur Gerardy.Mrs.Cressler and the Gretry girl watched the progress of the rehearsal attentively from the doorway of the dining-room.Aunt Wess' and Mr.

Cressler were discussing psychic research and seances, on the sofa on the other side of the room.After a while Laura spoke.

"It isn't that either," she said, choosing her words carefully.

"What is it, then?"

"I don't know--exactly.For one thing, I don't think I_want_ to be married, Mr.Jadwin--to anybody.""I would wait for you."

"Or to be engaged."

"But the day must come, sooner or later, when you must be both engaged and married.You _must_ ask yourself _some time_ if you love the man who wishes to be your husband.Why not ask yourself now?""I do," she answered."I do ask myself.I have asked myself.""Well, what do you decide?"

"That I don't know."

"Don't you think you would love me in time? Laura, I am sure you would.I would _make_ you.""I don't know.I suppose that is a stupid answer.But it is, if I am to be honest, and I am trying very hard to be honest--with you and with myself--the only one Ihave.I am happy just as I am.I like you and Mr.

Cressler and Mr.Corthell--everybody.But, Mr.

Jadwin"--she looked him full in the face, her dark eyes full of gravity--"with a woman it is so serious--to be married.More so than any man ever understood.And, oh, one must be so sure, so sure.And I am not sure now.I am not sure now.Even if I were sure of you, Icould not say I was sure of myself.Now and then Itell myself, and even poor, dear Aunt Wess', that Ishall never love anybody, that I shall never marry.

But I should be bitterly sorry if I thought that was true.It is one of the greatest happinesses to which Ilook forward, that some day I shall love some one with all my heart and soul, and shall be a true wife, and find my husband's love for me the sweetest thing in my life.But I am sure that that day has not come yet.""And when it does come," he urged, "may I be the first to know?"She smiled a little gravely.

"Ah," she answered, "I would not know myself that that day had come until I woke to the fact that I loved the man who had asked me to be his wife, and then it might be too late--for you.""But now, at least," he persisted, "you love no one.""Now," she repeated, "I love--no one."

"And I may take such encouragement in that as I can?"And then, suddenly, capriciously even, Laura, an inexplicable spirit of inconsistency besetting her, was a very different woman from the one who an instant before had spoken so gravely of the seriousness of marriage.She hesitated a moment before answering Jadwin, her head on one side, looking at the rose leaf between her fingers.In a low voice she said at last:

"If you like."

But before Jadwin could reply, Cressler and Aunt Wess'

who had been telling each other of their "experiences,"of their "premonitions," of the unaccountable things that had happened to them, at length included the others in their conversation.

"J.," remarked Cressler, "did anything funny ever happen to _you_--warnings, presentiments, that sort of thing? Mrs.Wessels and I have been talking spiritualism.Laura, have _you_ ever had any 'experiences'?"She shook her head.

"No, no.I am too material, I am afraid.""How about you, 'J.'?"

"Nothing much, except that I believe in 'luck'--a little.The other day I flipped a coin in Gretry's office.If it fell heads I was to sell wheat short, and somehow I knew all the time that the coin would fall heads--and so it did.""And you made a great deal of money," said Laura."Iknow.Mr.Court was telling me.That was splendid.""That was deplorable, Laura," said Cressler, gravely.

"I hope some day," he continued, "we can all of us get hold of this man and make him solemnly promise never to gamble in wheat again."Laura stared.To her mind the word "gambling" had always been suspect.It had a bad sound; it seemed to be associated with depravity of the baser sort.

"Gambling!" she murmured.

"They call it buying and selling," he went on, "down there in La Salle Street.But it is simply betting.