What Will People Say? Part 34

"Of course they are. That's why everybody wants to be rich."

"But the rich aren't contented."

"Oh, contented! n.o.body's contented except the blind, and hopeless invalids. Contentment is a question of being a sport. There's a lot of good losers that will grin if they have to walk home in the rain from the races, and there are a lot of what they call 'b.u.m sports' that throw their winnings on the ground because the odds weren't longer. But don't tell me that there's any special joy in being poor. If I had to be poor, I suppose I'd put the best face I could on it. That happens to be my nature. It's the good sports making the best of poverty that cause so much talk; but all the poor and middlers that I've met have hated it and envied the rich.

"You see, the rich can buy everything the poor have, but the poor can buy hardly anything the rich have. Sometimes my father goes out in the field on his farm and tosses hay, or beds down the horses, or chops dead trees. Sometimes he likes to have just a bowl of milk and some crackers for his supper. But when he wants something else he can have it--at least, he always has been able to--up to now."

A little s.h.i.+ver agitated her like a flaw of wind running along a calm lake.

"It's cold and damp in here," she said. "Let's get out in the suns.h.i.+ne and quit talking poverty. We're neither of us poor--yet."

She rose and moved out to the kitchen porch, and, round the house, up a sweep of stairs to the main terrace.

"Look," she cried, "isn't it wonderful? Isn't it worth while? It costs thousands of dollars just to make that lawn smooth, and thousands more for the marble bal.u.s.trades, and the fountains are a fortune, and the sunken garden--the poor can't have a glimpse of it! They don't know it exists. Even Mr. Enslee's cook hardly knows it's here; he doesn't permit any of the servants except the house staff to come out front. Isn't it a shame? But don't you love it? Isn't it heavenly under your feet? My eyes fly over it like birds. It's splendid to have tea out here in the summer, and wear long sweeping gowns and picture-hats, and have delicious things brought to you on the finest of china. Oh, I never was meant for a poor man's daughter. Even if I feed the chickens or pat the cattle, I like to do it as Marie Antoinette did at the Pet.i.t Trianon just for a contrast--an _hors d'oeuvre_."

Forbes thought of the bird of paradise and the sea-gull again, and he doubted the value of his cage again. They sauntered across the lawn and up the stairs. He took her arm to help her, but she shook her head.

"Please! Now, tell me all about yourself."

"There's nothing to tell."

"There must be. I've a right to hear it. Think of it, you've kissed me once, and I didn't fight. I let you. Good Lord, I nearly kissed you!"

His arms rushed toward her; but she frowned. "Don't make me go back. I was saying, you've kissed me, and we've had a terrible escapade in a strange kitchen, and I hardly know your first name. So you're a soldier." He nodded. "West Point?" He nodded. "Did you ever get in a real fight?" He nodded. "Where?"

"Cuba. Philippines."

"You were in the Spanish War? Really! I didn't know you were so old."

"I wasn't so old then. I'm very ancient now."

She mused aloud: "They say a husband should be ten years older than his wife."

The implication enraptured him. It showed that she was at least toying with the thought. "Then there's no hope for me. I'm far too old for you."

"But I'm very ancient," she said. "I ought to have been married years ago."

"I'm sorry I kept you waiting so long. There's no need for further delay."

"Are you proposing again? The man's a regular phonograph with only one old broken record! So you've been in battles and battles. Were you afraid?"

"Afterward. I suppose it's because I'm slow and stupid: but I don't usually get scared till the trouble's over. Then I'm sick as a dog and as frightened as a girl."

"That's something like me. Only I get terribly scared of little things that don't count. A mouse or a spider or anything crawly--ugh! is that a caterpillar?"

She shrank back against him in a palsy of repugnance at about an inch of moving fuzz on a rhododendron. He held her with one hand, and with the other broke off the twig and cast the vermin into s.p.a.ce. She put his arm away, and said:

"You are brave!"

"St. George and the dragon," he smiled.

"In those battles of yours," she resumed, "were you ever by any chance wounded or killed or anything?"

"I was never killed entirely," he answered, "but I stopped a few bits of lead."

She shuddered and caught his arm with a rush of sympathy none the less fierce for being belated.

"Wounded! You were wounded?"

He put his hand on hers where it lay on his sleeve. "Yes, you blessed thing. Does it make any difference to you?"

She drew her hand away gently. "I hate to think of--of anybody getting hurt. Did it hurt--to be wounded?"

"Afterward. I didn't notice it much at the time--except when I was shot in the mouth."

"Good Lord, how?"

"I was yelling something to my sergeant, and a bullet went right in and out here." He put his finger on his cheek.

"Great heavens! I thought it was a dimple. I rather liked it."

"Then I'm glad I got it."

She writhed with pain for his sake.

"Did it hurt--hideously?"

"Not half as much as the two pellets I got in my side. They probed for them till I made them stop, partly because I wasn't enjoying it and partly because probing kills more than cartridges."

"How did they get them out, then?"

"They didn't."

She stared at him wild-eyed.

"You don't mean to say that you're standing there with a couple of bullets in you? Why, you're positively uncanny."

"I'm sorry, if it disturbs you."

"Oh, please! You're wonderful. But aren't you afraid they'll kill you--turn green or something?"

"They're neatly surrounded by now with aseptic sacs, the surgeon tells me. I'd forgotten all about them till you reminded me."

"And they never pain you?"

"The only wound I'm suffering now is from the arrow of this sharp-shooter."

They were standing in the little temple, between them a little marble rascal with a bow and arrow. Persis put her hand to her heart. He mistook the gesture and asked, with sudden zest:

"He didn't hit you, too, did he?"