The Open Question Part 93

"Oh, nothing could stop you."

She laughed.

"Don't be so hopeless. You see, I've studied the subject of old age. The reason it isn't more valued is because it's taken too modestly. I suppose it's difficult not to be modest if you're ninety. But no old person should be unselfish or patient. That's fatal. You see the success our own grandmother has made."

Without turning round, Ethan began to laugh, too.

"A woman must be gentle and amiable (if she can manage it) while she's young. It's becoming in the young," she said, piously; then, with a cheerful gleam, "but all old women should be defiant--yes, they should study a dictatorial style, and make the young ones toe the mark. It's the only way. Oh, I'll be an aged Tartar, and, you'll see, they'll all say, 'A person of remarkable character is old Mrs.--' H'm!"

She stopped short, and he turned round smiling and glowering at her, and then back again to the window.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, looking over his shoulder.

"What? That poor devil over there? Yes, I've been watching him."

"I don't see-- Oh, yes, the cripple. Ethan, Ethan, what _is_ one to do with you!"

She dropped on the sofa with a face of comic despair.

"Do with me?"

"Yes--if every time you look out of the window you see a 'devil' of some sort."

He laughed, and then:

"But you said 'Oh!' and I thought--"

"I said 'Oh!' because the rain's stopped and the sun's trying to s.h.i.+ne.

And all you can see is a cripple dragging his leg through the mud! Come along"--she jumped up--"the rain's ruined the roads, but it hasn't hurt the river, and we'll go for a row. It's going to be beautiful."

She dragged him off without ceremony.

As they pa.s.sed by the Wharton House, "There's Otway," said Ethan, looking up at a group of men at the entrance.

Mr. Otway came down the steps and shook hands.

"This is a surprise!" he said to Val. "Come in and see Julia. She has no idea you're here."

"Oh, thank you, not this evening. We're going on the river, and it gets dark so soon. I didn't know Julia was coming."

"Neither did I," laughed the indulgent father, "until this morning.

Well, come in to-morrow. Good-bye!"

They got a boat, and by half-past four were speeding up-stream to Ethan's steady stroke.

"It'll be a simply glorious evening. We shall have a flaming sunset, you'll see!"

"Yes. The rain has washed the world till it s.h.i.+nes."

They talked very little at first.

"I don't think we ought to go beyond the Gray Pool," said Val, regretfully.

"Where's that?"

"About a mile on."

"Oh, we can get farther than that."

"Well, they don't know where I am, you see, after all, and it's nice by the Gray Pool, where the trees bend down. You could rest there."

"Do I look as if I wanted to rest?"

"Can't say you do."

"You've never told me what brought you here all of a sudden."

"I wanted to find out something."

"Well, have you succeeded?"

He smiled at her in that sudden way of his that made her heart contract.

She couldn't speak directly, but her silence seemed to her to say too much. She rushed nervously for the light veil of words.

"I was afraid my life was growing poorer than I had imagined. If you were going out of it, I knew I must go and find something to fill up the empty place."

"Going out of it?" He scrutinized her keenly. "Where should I go?"

"Oh, there are so many people and things beckoning to you. How could I tell? I was afraid you'd gone into some world where I couldn't follow--"

"So you came after me?" he smiled tenderly.

"Some world," she said, getting a little red, "where you didn't want me."

"I _always_ want you--" he stopped short, drew his forward-bending figure up, and pulled hard at the oars. "But as to my world, you'd hate it if you found yourself at close quarters with it. I give you the best side of it in my letters."

"I've told you I don't want only the best."

"What do you want?"

"All."

The brave, yet shamefaced look left nothing doubtful; but he affected to think she spoke only of letters.

"If I wrote you 'all,' I'd make a pessimist of you in no time."

"Would it be things about--about other women that would make me--"

"Chiefly about men; most of all, about the things that are stronger than men."