I noticed his kindliness almost before I noticed him, just as, I think, he noticed my loneliness almost before he noticed me. He opened doors for me when I went in or out; he served me with things if he happened to be there at tea; he dropped into a chair beside me when I was the only member of a group whom no one spoke to. If Gladys was of the company I was of it too, with a nominal footing but a virtual exclusion. The men in the Rossiter circle were of the four hundred and ninety-nine to whom I wasn't attractive; the women were all civil—from a distance. Occasionally some nice old lady would ask me where I came from and if I liked my work, or talk to me of new educational methods in a way which, with my bringing up, was to me as so much Greek; but I never got any other sign of friendliness. Only this short, stockily built young fellow, with the small, blue eyes, ever recognized me as a human being with the average yearning for human intercourse.
During the winter in New York he never went further than that. I remembered Mrs. Rossiter's recommendation and "let him alone." I knew how to do it. He was not the first man I had ever had to deal with, even if no one had asked me to marry him. I accepted his small, kindly acts with that shade of discretion which defined the distance between us. As far as I could observe, he himself had no disposition to cross the lines I set—not till we moved to Newport.
There was a fortnight between our going there and his—a fortnight which seemed to work a change in him. The Hugh Brokenshire I met on one of my first rambles along the cliffs was not the Hugh Brokenshire I had last seen in Fifth Avenue. Perhaps I was not the same myself. In the new surroundings I had missed him—a little. I will not say that his absence had meant an aching void to me; but where I had had a friend, now I had none—since I was unable to count Larry Strangways. Had it not been for this solitude I should have been less receptive to his comings when he suddenly began to pursue me.
Pursuit is the only word I can use. I found him everywhere, quiet, deliberate, persistent. If he had been ten or even five years older I could have taken his advances without uneasiness. But he was only twenty-six and a dependent. He had no work; apart from his allowance from his father he had no means. And yet when, on the day before my chronicle begins, he stole upon me as I sat in a sheltered nook below the cliffs to which I was fond of retreating when I had time—when he stole upon me there, and kissed me and kissed me and kissed me, I couldn't help confessing that I loved him.
I must leave to some woman who has had to fend for herself the task of telling what it means when a man comes to offer her his heart and his protection. It goes without saying that it means more to her than to the sheltered woman, for it means things different and more wonderful. It is the expected unexpected come to pass; it is the impossible achieved. It is not only success; it is success with an aureole of glory.
I suppose I must be parasitical by nature, for I never have conceived of life as other than dependent on some man who would love me and take care of me. Even when no such man appeared and I was forced out to earn my bread, I looked upon the need as temporary only. In the loneliest of times at Mrs. Rossiter's, at periods when I didn't see a man for weeks, the hero never seemed farther away than just behind the scenes. I confess to minutes when I thought he tarried unnecessarily long; I confess to terrified questionings as to what would happen were he never to come at all; I confess to solitary watches of the night in company with fears and tears; but I cannot confess to anything more than a low burning of that lamp of hope which never went out entirely.
When, therefore, Hugh Brokenshire offered me what he had to offer me I felt for a few minutes—ten, fifteen, twenty perhaps—that sense of the fruition of the being which I am sure comes to us but rarely in this life, and perhaps is a foretaste of eternity. I was like a creature that has long been struggling up to some higher state—and has reached it.
I am ashamed to say, too, that my first consciousness came in pictures to which the dear young man himself was only incidental. Two scenes in particular that for ten years past had been only a little below the threshold of my consciousness came out boldly, like developed photographs. I was the center of both. In one I saw a dainty little dining-room, where the table was laid. The damask was beautiful; the silver rich; the glasses crystalline. Wearing an inexpensive but extremely chic little gown, I was seating the guests. The other picture was more dim, but only in the sense that the room was deliciously darkened. It had white furnishings, a little white cot, and toys. In its very center was a bassinet, and I was leaning over it, wearing a delicate lace peignoir.
Ought I to blush to say that while Hugh stammered out his impassioned declarations I was seeing these two tableaux emerging from the state of only half-acknowledged dreams into real possibility? I dare say. I merely affirm that it was so. Since the dominant craving of my nature was to have a home and a baby, I saw the baby and the home before I could realize a husband or a father, or bring my mind to the definite proposals faltered by poor Hugh.
But I did bring my mind to them, with the result of which I have already given a sufficient indication. Even in admitting that I loved him I thrust and parried and postponed. The whole idea was too big for me to grapple with on the spur of a sudden moment. I suggested his talking the matter over with his father chiefly to gain time.
But to rest in his arms had only a subordinate connection with the great issue I had to face. It was a joy in itself. It was a pledge of the future, even if I were never to take anything but the pledge. After my shifts and struggles and anxieties I could feel the satisfaction of knowing it was in my power to let them all roll off. If I were never to do it, if I were to go back to my uncertainties, this minute would mitigate the trial in advance. I might fight for existence during all the rest of my life, and yet I should still have the bliss of remembering that some one was willing to fight for me.
He released me at last, since there might be people in Newport as indifferent to weather as ourselves.
"What happened?" he asked then, with an eagerness which almost choked the question in its utterance. "Was it awful?"
I was too nearly hysterical to enter on anything like a recital. "It might have been worse," I half laughed and half sobbed, trying to recover my breath and dry my eyes.
His spirit seemed to leap at the answer. "Do you mean to say you got concessions from him—or anything like that?"
I couldn't help clinging to the edge of his raincoat. "Did you expect me to?"
"I didn't know but what, when he saw you—"
"Oh, but he didn't see me. That was part of the difficulty. He looked where I was—but he didn't find anything there."
He laughed, with a hint of disappointment. "I know what you mean; but you mustn't be surprised. He'll see you yet." He clasped me again. "I didn't see you at first, little girl; I swear I didn't. You're like that. A fellow must look at you twice before he knows that you're there; but when he begins to take notice—" I struggled out of his embrace, while he continued: "It's the same with all the great things—with pictures and mountains and cathedrals, and so on. Often thought about it when we've been abroad. See something once and pass it by. Next time you look at it a little. Third time it begins to grow on you. Fourth time you've found a wonder. You're a wonder, little Alix, do you know it?"
"Oh no, I'm not. I must warn you, Hugh darling, that I'm very prosaic and practical and ordinary. You mustn't put me on a pedestal—"
"Put you on a pedestal? You were born on a pedestal. You're the woman I've seen in hopes and dreams—"
We began to walk on, coming to a little hollow that dipped near enough to the shore to allow of our scrambling over the rocks to where we could sit down among them. As we were here below the thickest belt of the fog line, I could see him in a way that had been impossible on the bluff.
If he was good-looking it was only in the handsome-ugly sense. Mrs. Rossiter often said he was the one member of the family who inherited from the Brews of Boston, a statement I could verify from the first Mrs. Brokenshire's portrait by Carolus-Duran. Hugh's features were not ill-formed so much as they were out of proportion to each other, becoming thus a mere jumble