Part 7

"And why should you assume that every careless reply I make is a carefully thought out attack on you?" I retorted. "Don't you think your vanity makes you morbid?"

"You know perfectly well that it isn't vanity that makes me think you especially dislike me," said he.

"But I don't," I answered. "I confess I did at first, but not since I've come to know you better."

"Why did you dislike me at first?" he asked. "You began on me with almost the first moment of our acquaintance."

"That's true--I did," I admitted. "I had a reason for it--didn't Nadeshda tell you what it was?"

He looked frightened.

"Be frank, if you want me to be frank," said I.

"I never for an instant believed what she said," he replied abjectly. Then after a warning look from me, he added--"_Really_ believed it, I mean."

"And what was it that you didn't really believe?" I demanded.

He looked at me boldly. "Nadeshda and one or two others told me that you and your friends had arranged it for me to marry you. But, of course, I knew it wasn't so."

"But it was so," I replied. "You were one of the considerations that determined my friends in trying to get me my place."

"Well--and why didn't you take me when I finally fell into the trap?"

I let him see I was laughing at him.

He scowled--his cowlick did look so funny that I longed to pull it. "Simply couldn't stand me--not even for the sake of what I brought," he said. And then he gave me a straight, searching look. "I wonder why I don't hate you," he went on. "I wonder why I am such an ass as to care for you. Yes--even if I knew you didn't care for me, still I'd want you. Can a man make a more degrading confession than that?"

"But why?" said I, very careful not to let him see how eagerly I longed to hear him say _the_ words again. "Why should you want--me?"

He gave a very unpleasant laugh. "If you think I'm going to sit here and exhibit my feelings for your amusement you're going to be disappointed. It's none of your business _why_. Certainly not because I find anything sweet or amiable or even kind in you."

"That's rude," said I.

"It was intended to be," said he.

"Please--let's not quarrel now," said I coldly. "It gives me the headache to quarrel during dinner."

And he answered between his set teeth, "To quarrel with you--anywhere--gives me--the heartache, Gus."

I had no answer for that, nor should I have had the voice to utter it if I had had it. And then Mr. Bartlett began prosing to me about the Greeley-Grant campaign. And when the men came to join the women after dinner Cyrus went away almost immediately.

I am _so_ happy to-night.

March 5. Cyrus came to me in my office to-day--as I had expected. But instead of looking woebegone and abject, he was radiant. He shut the door behind him. "_You_--guilty of cowardice," he began. "It isn't strange that I never suspected it."

"What do you mean?" I asked, not putting down my pen.

He came over and took it out of my fingers, then he took my fingers and kissed them, one by one. I was so astounded--and something else--that I made not the slightest resistance. "It's useless for you to cry out," he said, "for I've got the outer door well guarded."

I started up aflame with indignation. "Who--whom--" I began.

"Ma," he replied.

"Oh!" I exclaimed, looking round with a wild idea of making a dart for liberty.

"Ma," he repeated, "and it's not of the slightest use for you to try to side-step. You're cornered." He had both my hands now and was looking at me at arm's length. "So you are afraid to marry me for fear people--your friends--will say that--I walked right into the trap?"

I hung my head and couldn't keep from trembling, I was so ashamed.

"And if it wasn't for that you'd accept my 'proposition'--now--wouldn't you?"

"I would not," I replied, wrenching myself away with an effort that put my hair topsy-turvy--it always does try to come down if I make a sudden movement, and I washed it only yesterday.

"What gorgeous hair you have!" he said. "Sometimes I've caught a glimpse of it just as I was entering a room--and I've had to retreat and compose myself to make a fresh try."

"You've been talking to your mother!" I exclaimed--I'd been casting about for an explanation of all this sudden shrewdness of his in ways feminine.

"I have," said he. "It's as important to her as to me that you don't escape."

"And she told you that I was in love with _you_!" I tried to put a little--not too much--scorn into the "you."

"She did," he answered. "Do you deny that it's true?"

"I have told you I would never accept your 'proposition,'" was my answer.

"So you did," said he. "Then you mean that you're going to sacrifice my mother's happiness and mine, simply because you're afraid of being accused of mercenary motives?"

"I shall never accept your 'proposition,'" I repeated, with a faint smile that was a plain hint.

He came very close to me and looked down into my face. "What do you mean by that?" he demanded. And then he must have remembered what his proposition was--a strictly business arrangement on both sides. For, with a sort of gasp of relief, he took me in his arms. I do love the combination of strength and tenderness in a man. He had looked and talked and been so strong up to that instant. Then he was _so_ tender--I could hardly keep back the tears.

"Wouldn't you like me to tell mother?" he asked. "She's just in the next room--and--"

I nodded and said, "I never should have caught you if it hadn't been for her."

"Nor I you," said he. And he put me in a chair and opened the door. I somehow couldn't look up, though I knew she was there.

"I don't know whether to laugh or cry," said "ma" Burke. "So I guess I'll just do both." And then she seated herself and was as good as her word.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Text in italics is surrounded with underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Social Secretary, by David Graham Phillips