Cardigan

I asked pardon for all wherein I had hurt her, I prayed for her trustful comradeship once more as few men pray for love from a cold mistress.

Presently she answered a question; other questions and other answers followed; she raised her tear-marred eyes and dried them with a rag of tightly fisted lace.

To soothe and gain her I told her bits of what I had been through since that last quarrel in Johnstown. I asked her if she remembered that sunset by the river, where she had spoken charms to the tiny red and black beetles, so that when they flew away the charm would one day save me from the stake.

But when I related the story of my great peril, she turned so sick and pallid that I ceased, and took her frail hands anxiously.

"What is the matter, Silver Heels?" I said. "Never have I seen you like this. Have you been ill long? What is it, little comrade?"

"Oh, I don't know – I don't know, truly," she sobbed. "It has come within the few weeks, Michael. I am so old, so tired, so strangely ill of I know not what."

"You do know," I said. "Tell me, Silver Heels."

She raised her eyes to me, then closed them. Neck and brow were reddening.

"You are not in love!" I demanded, aghast.

"Ay, sick with it," she said, slowly, with closed lids.

It was horrible, incredible! I attempted to picture Dunmore as an inspirer of love in any woman. The mere idea revolted me. What frightful spell had this shrunken nobleman cast over my little comrade that she should confess her love for him?

And all I could say was: "Oh, Silver Heels! Silver Heels! That man! It is madness!"

"What man?" she asked, opening her eyes.

"What man?" I repeated. "Do you not mean that you love Dunmore?"

She laughed a laugh that frightened me, so mirthless, so bitter, so wickedly bitter it rang in the summer air.

"Oh yes – Dunmore, if you wish – or any man – any man. I care not; I am sick, sick, sick! They have flattered and followed and sought me and importuned me – great and humble, young and old – and never a true man among them all – only things of powder and silks and painted smiles – and all wicked save one."

"And he?"

"Oh, he is a true man – the only one among them all – a true man, for he is stupid and vain and tyrannical and violent, eaten to the bone with self-assurance – and a fool to boot, Michael – a fool to boot. And as this man is, among them all, the only real man of bone and blood – why, I love him."

"Who is this man?" I asked, cautiously.

"Not Dunmore, Michael."

"Not Dunmore? And yet you wed Dunmore?"

"Because I love the other, Michael, who uses me like a pedigreed hound, scanning and planning his kennel-list to mate me with a blooded mate to his taste. Because I hate him as I love him, and shall place myself beyond his power to shame me. Because I am dying of the humiliation, Michael, and would wish to die so high in rank that even death cannot level me to him. Now, tell me who I love."

"God knows!" I said, in my amazement.

"True," she said, "God knows I love a fool."

"But who is this fellow?" I insisted. "What man dares attempt to mate you to his friends? The insolence, the presumption – why, I thought I was the only man who might do that!"

How she laughed at me as I stood perplexed and scowling and fingering the fringe on my leggings, and how her laughter cut, with its undertone ringing with tears. What on earth had changed her to a woman like this, talking a language that dealt in phrases which one heard and marked and found meant nothing, with a sting in their very emptiness?

"Very well," said I, "you shall not have Dunmore for spite of a fool unworthy of you; and as for that, you shall not have the fool either!"

"I am not likely to get him," she said.

"You could have him for the wish!" I cried, jealously. "I'd like to see the man who would not crawl from here to Johnstown to kiss your silken shoe!"

"Would you?"

"It pleases you to mock me," I said; "but I'll tell you this: If I loved you as a sweetheart I'd do it! I'll have the world know it is honoured wherever you touch it with your foot!"

"Do you mean it?" she asked, looking at me strangely.

"Mean it! Have you ever doubted it?"

The colour in her face surged to her hair.

"You speak like a lover," she said, with a catch in her breath.

"I speak like a man, proud of his kin!" said I, suspiciously, alert to repel ridicule. Lover! What did she mean by that? Had I not asked pardon for my foolishness in Johnson Hall? And must she still taunt me?

If she read my suspicions I do not know, but I think she did, for the colour died out in her face and she set her lips together as she always did when meaning mischief.

"I pray you, dear friend," she said, wearily, "concern yourself with your kin as little as I do. Bid me good-bye, now. I am tired, Michael – tired to the soul of me."

She held out her slim hand. I took it, then I bent to touch it with my lips.

"You will not wed Dunmore?" I asked.

She did not reply.

"And you will come with me to Johnstown on the morrow, Silver Heels?"

There was no answer.

"Silver Heels?"

"If you are strong enough to take me from Dunmore, take me," she said, in a dull, tired voice.

"And – and from the other – the one you love – the fool?"

"He will leave me – when you leave me," she answered.

"You mean to say this pitiful ass will follow you and me to Johnstown!" I cried, excited.

"Truly, he will!" she said, hysterically, and covered her face with her hands. But whether she was laughing or crying or doing both together I could not determine; and I stalked wrathfully away, determined to teach this same fool that his folly was neither to my taste nor fancy.

And as I passed swiftly southward through the darkening town I heard the monotonous call of the town watchman stumping his beat: