第46章

Here was this greatest mystery, the man of money and affairs sitting beside her, appealing to her.Behold, he had ease and comfort, his strength was great, his position high, his clothing rich, and yet he was appealing to her.She could formulate no thought which would be just and right.She troubled herself no more upon the matter.She only basked in the warmth of his feeling, which was as a grateful blaze to one who is cold.

Hurstwood glowed with his own intensity, and the heat of his passion was already melting the wax of his companion's scruples.

"You think," he said, "I am happy; that I ought not to complain?

If you were to meet all day with people who care absolutely nothing about you, if you went day after day to a place where there was nothing but show and indifference, if there was not one person in all those you knew to whom you could appeal for sympathy or talk to with pleasure, perhaps you would be unhappy too.

He was striking a chord now which found sympathetic response in her own situation.She knew what it was to meet with people who were indifferent, to walk alone amid so many who cared absolutely nothing about you.Had not she? Was not she at this very moment quite alone? Who was there among all whom she knew to whom she could appeal for sympathy? Not one.She was left to herself to brood and wonder.

"I could be content," went on Hurstwood, "if I had you to love me.If I had you to go to; you for a companion.As it is, I

simply move about from place to place without any satisfaction.

Time hangs heavily on my hands.Before you came I did nothing but idle and drift into anything that offered itself.Since you came--well, I've had you to think about."

The old illusion that here was some one who needed her aid began to grow in Carrie's mind.She truly pitied this sad, lonely figure.To think that all his fine state should be so barren for want of her; that he needed to make such an appeal when she herself was lonely and without anchor.Surely, this was too bad.

"I am not very bad," he said, apologetically, as if he owed it to her to explain on this score."You think, probably, that I roam around, and get into all sorts of evil? I have been rather reckless, but I could easily come out of that.I need you to draw me back, if my life ever amounts to anything."

Carrie looked at him with the tenderness which virtue ever feels in its hope of reclaiming vice.How could such a man need reclaiming? His errors, what were they, that she could correct?

Small they must be, where all was so fine.At worst, they were gilded affairs, and with what leniency are gilded errors viewed.

He put himself in such a lonely light that she was deeply moved.

"Is it that way?" she mused.

He slipped his arm about her waist, and she could not find the heart to draw away.With his free hand he seized upon her fingers.A breath of soft spring wind went bounding over the road, rolling some brown twigs of the previous autumn before it.

The horse paced leisurely on, unguided.

"Tell me," he said, softly, "that you love me."

Her eyes fell consciously.

"Own to it, dear," he said, feelingly; "you do, don't you?"

She made no answer, but he felt his victory.

"Tell me," he said, richly, drawing her so close that their lips were near together.He pressed her hand warmly, and then released it to touch her cheek.

"You do?" he said, pressing his lips to her own.

For answer, her lips replied.

"Now," he said, joyously, his fine eyes ablaze, "you're my own girl, aren't you?"

By way of further conclusion, her head lay softly upon his shoulder.