A Fool There Was Part 16

A FAIRY STORY.

Toward the child of his friend, and of his friend's wife, Blake felt not as men in his place would have felt. The love that he had for the dainty little thing of gold-brown hair, and gold-brown cheeks, and straight, st.u.r.dy little legs was the love of a man for his own. It seemed to him, almost, that she was flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood, bone of his bone. It was the "almost" that hurt; for she was the child of the woman he loved, and of another man....

To love the wife of another man is a bitter thing--a bitter thing. To love with dishonor is not hard; but to love with honor were hard indeed.

To go away, so loving, were to render more easy to bear the thing that must be borne. To stay--to see day by day the happiness that lieth beyond hope, were to stand in h.e.l.l and gaze at heaven. And this were most bitter, most hard, of all. Yet this was what Blake had done. This was what Blake would do; and it was what he expected to keep on doing until there was no such thing as time and the souls of all men were dead. He did it because all that lay for him in life lay there, even though not the tiniest bit of it could he claim for his own. And he was a man of heart, as well as of head, and honor.

Perhaps it was because he had loved the woman who was the wife of his friend, since the day when she was as her daughter was now; that his love for the little one that was of her transcended all else in his being--all else save the one thing that he never mentioned, not even to himself. SHE had been like that; a dainty, pretty, loving, simple, naive, st.u.r.dy, rugged little thing, with wind-blown hair, and sun-tanned cheeks and legs--soft, gentle, infinitely appealing, generous, loving. In the little one that was of her, he saw her again, violet-eyed, glowing with the glorious abundance of vigor, building wondrous castles of blue beach clay, counting the soaring gulls against the soft blue of summer skies, wandering, laughingly, through daisy fields, rolling, a whirling little tumult of lace and ribbons and wildly-waving bare legs down the stacks of fragrant hay. She had been like that. Small wonder that on her child he lavished all the choked tenderness that cried, sometimes, so, so piteously for outlet.

And as for the child--'way, down deep in her little heart, she had builded of the infinity of her love, three sky-reaching heaps, each one bigger, and more wonderful than the other. One of these she gave to her mother; one to her daddy; and one to "Mr. Tom." And she deemed herself not undutiful, nor lacking in filial amity, for so doing.

Kathryn had followed her sister into the house. Left alone with Blake, Muriel ran swiftly to him, bounding to his knee, and clasping around his neck strong little arms.

"Mr. Tom," she cried, "you haven't told me a story for most a year!"

He held her to him.

"Haven't I, little partner?" he inquired, with infinite tenderness.

"Well, that's a grave omission, isn't it? I'll tell you one now." As she sank down contentedly in his lap, and settled her outspreading little skirt primly about her: "What shall it be about?"

"A fairy story," she suggested. "A fairy story about a little girl."

He sat for a moment, in thought; at length he began:

"Well, once upon a time, there was a little girl--a fairy princess."

"Was she pretty?"

"Beautiful. Beautiful as she was good, good as she was beautiful. She was a wonderful, wonderful princess. There was a fairy prince, too," he went on, "a handsome, das.h.i.+ng--a prince that everyone loved and admired and honored."

She nodded, seriously.

"Yes," she said. "Go on."

"Now in the part of the country--it was called the Land of the Great Unrest--there lived a gnome who was a friend of the prince and princess.

Do you know what a gnome is?"

Little brows were bent deep in mental flagellation. Then, at length, very eruditely, she ventured:

"No'm is when you say no to a lady, isn't it?"

He laughed, a little; then, seriously:

"That's a different kind of a gnome. The kind of a gnome I mean is a fat man, with long, thin legs and a big, round body and a funny face."

"Oh, now I know!" she cried. "There's a picture of one in the book that you gave me for my birthday. Only this one had whiskers and a funny cap-- like a cornucopia."

He nodded.

"That's the fellow," he agreed. "That's the kind I mean--only all of them don't have whiskers; and some of them wear yachting caps, or panamas, or most anything.... Well, the prince and the princess loved one another, and they got married."

"That was nice."

"Yes," he added; "for them. But it wasn't for the gnome. You see, the gnome loved the princess, too."

"Did she know it?"

He shook his head. "No one knew it but the gnome," he returned. "And the prince and princess were very happy. Then a little princess came to live with them, and they were happier yet."

"A little princess like me?" she queried, interestedly.

"Very much like you," he a.s.sented.

"And what did the gnome do?"

"Why," he replied, "the gnome just went away and lived in a hole in the ground, all alone."

"Didn't he ever come out?"

"Yes; he used to come out sometimes to tell fairy stories to little girls. But he had to go back again, all alone."

She sighed most dismally and said:

"Poor, old gnome."

"Poor, old gnome," he repeated.

"And then--?" she prompted.

"That's all."

"Isn't there any more?"

"No."

She gazed up at him, disappointedly.

"I don't think that's a very nice story," she declared.

"Don't you?" he said; "I'm sorry, little partner. I didn't mean to tell you that story. I--"

He ceased speaking. Elinor was beside him. He rose to his feet, hastily, confused. It was no little thing that he had told; it was a thing that he had never meant to tell. It had come to his lips, as a parable; because of the way he felt toward the child that was not his; because to her it would never have meant anything; and because of the things inside that had struggled for outlet so long. He wondered if she had heard, and hearing, had understood.... He could not tell....

She spoke to Muriel.

"Run in to Mawkins, dear," she instructed. Then, as the child, obedient, scampered from the room, she turned to Blake, thrusting toward him a letter, and concluded:

"Read that."