Part 17

"Because she is a woman," said Cherry earnestly. "Oh, Magnus, help even the silly people, if you can. I've been thinking so much lately of the dear Lord's words: 'Ye are the salt of the earth.' Don't you know how salt gives strength and character to even things tasteless and ready to spoil?"

Magnus bent down, reverently touching his lips to the hand he held.

"It's a pledge," he said. "I'll let Miss Flirt alone; help her, if I can. But Cerise, I only said _thought_. And I have not thought it any more since I have seen you again. You are certainly that salt, for me."

"How did the class supper go off?" Cherry inquired, changing the subject. "You were full of it when you wrote last."

"It went off," said Magnus soberly. "The crowd was there. And some of the crowd were too full of it afterwards. Don't speak about that; I'd like to forget it."

She looked at him a little wonderingly, with that grave, earnest look which was so innocent of evil, but said no more. Magnus watched her for a minute, then gently laid back in her lap the hand he had been holding, and turned half away.

"You want to hear about it," he said, "and you shall; it is best you should. Cherry, you know cadets are forbidden strong drink, in any shape, while they are at the Post?"

She nodded.

"Well, before furlough and before graduation, there is always a vote taken by each class,--'wet or dry,' for the class supper; shall they have wine--or shall they not? I have heard of one class who fought it through for temperance, and won. With, of course, a minority protest; but so really a minority that the other was counted as the class vote; and their names should be gold-starred in every register. Our class had no such proud distinction, nor the late first; and the usual results followed."

"But Magnus!" The girl's colour changed so that he could not bear to look at her.

"Yes?" he said, with a deep breath. "Ask any questions you like."

"I cannot ask!" she cried in distress. "These men whom you praise so highly, who are so pleasant, so brilliant----"

"Were under a cloud that night, some of them," said Magnus gravely. "They did not fall under the table, Cherry, but they did try to get upon it and harangue the world from thence. It took pretty forcible persuasions to keep some of them down."

"Alas!" Cherry said, in a tone of sorrow and pity that might have gone to anybody's heart, her sweet eyes brimming over. "Oh, Magnus, what did the minority do?"

Magnus glanced up at her.

"Stood to their votes, some of them," he said; "and some did not. And of those last, Cherry, I was one."

"_You_, Magnus?" The words came with such a cry that the young man felt as if he had been struck. Not another word followed, but he could see that she was trembling from head to foot.

"Do not mistake me," he said gently. "I did not disgrace myself in any open way, but I did take more than was good for me. For the first, and for the last time, the Lord being my witness and my help."

And now something in his words scattered the last show of Cherry's self-control. She exclaimed once more:

"Oh, Magnus!"

But then her head went down in her hands, and she cried as bitterly as only those women who rarely cry at all can do--silently, uncontrollably, shaken like a young willow by this sudden flood which had burst its bounds. Cherry could not stay the tears, could not look up nor speak.

And Magnus on his part ventured neither word nor touch, and after a minute or two no look. The sight of the dear head, bowed so low in its distress, was more than he could bear. He turned away, with a sort of groan, thinking of that miserable night with unmeasured scorn of himself. Not that he had by any means gone the length of many another man; no one had been obliged to call him to order or see him home. But he knew that both dignity and manhood had been tampered with, and the scorn was deep. Not even a poor storm flag out that night!

Would Cherry ever speak to him again?

And now he turned towards her once more. One long curly brown tress had slipped from the comb, and lay waving down at his side. Magnus looked at it, touched it softly, then turned away again.

There came a sound of steps and voices, and, too quick to be hindered, Cherry sprang to her feet and darted away; and Magnus was taken possession of by his two young sisters, one on either side.

"What are you doing?" said Violet gaily. "Composing a sonnet to the summer girl's eyebrows?"

"They are not always her own. What are _you_ about, chicks? wandering round at this time of night."

"We came to help you get home," said Rose. "Or to find out if you were coming."

"Because, if you are not, one pint of flannel cakes for breakfast will be enough," said Violet. "Where is Cherry?"

"I do not know."

"Oh, you took her home, and got moonstruck on the way back," said Rose.

"Struck with something. It was more like Ithuriel's spear," said Magnus absently.

"But what were you at, sure enough?"

"Getting photographs of myself in the moonlight."

"Snap-shots?" Rose asked, laughing at him.

"Just that. You are good little girls to look me up. Come, let us go."

And with a sort of bitter-sweet sense of holding fast what he had, Magnus put his arm round each, and so led them down the hill, their young voices making merry, the girlish arms locked round him, fast and true.

This did not lay his thoughts, however. Should _he_ ever mar the joy of these gay tones? ever make the innocent eyes look down in shame, for him? Thoughts, questions, purposes, surged through the young cadet's head as he walked along, and Magnus would fain have gone straight to the silence of his own room. But they had waited prayers for him, and of course he must take his place.

There are moods, however, in which no prayers but one's own will do; and though Magnus did hear his mother's voice, and the chapter she read, he could never have told a word of it afterwards. He got away as soon as he could, and went upstairs; went to his own room and locked the door, and fell on his knees; it seemed to him as if only so could he even think out anything clearly.

How had it all come about? The wild transport of the last few days had confused everything.

He remembered now that one and another had counselled him not to go, to cut the class supper, and so save money, risk, and name. "I'll have nothing to do with the whole thing," Twinkle had said. And he could see the staunch, quiet face of some who were there and yet stood to their vote. Why had not he?

It was not real cowardice, Magnus said to himself. He had thought the word, and yet the bravery called for had not been so much that of standing a taunt or refusing a persuasion; the men had not said so very much to him. Perhaps, indeed, more open attack might have roused more open resistance. But he had lacked that utterly "valiant for the truth" heart, which for love of the cause, and seeing the fight at hand, flings out the unpopular banner and stands beside it.

As in those dreadful days of the New York riots, when all the servants in a certain house declared their sympathy with the rioters and against the flag. And the dear mistress of the house, alone there, and with no one to back her, ran out the biggest "Old Glory" she could find, from her very most conspicuous window, and kept it floating.

Just there, Magnus felt, had been his fault, ever since he went to the Academy; his religion had been too little an open, positive thing; had not gone forth enough from its own intrenchments. He had rarely ever tried to make himself a power for good. There had been back and forth progress and impulses (if I may so put it), but not steady, daily growth; not joyful, burning zeal for Christ and his cause. So, in the wild excitement of that day and night, he had forgotten everything but that he was off on furlough. Now it had come to this.

Had he lost Cherry? He could not tell. But he would be worthy of her, whether or not. If the joy of his life was gone, and sometimes Magnus felt that it was, yet honour and truth remained. "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

Nay, he would neither "lose himself," nor be "cast away." Thoughts passed into earnest, pleading prayer, into new consecration vows; and when the next fair dawn came stealing over the shadowed world, Cadet Charlemagne Kindred had folded away his storm flag, and nailed his noblest colours to the mast, and bid them fly!

XXXIII

BUILDING THEREON

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing Ever made by the Hand above? A woman's heart and a woman's life, And a woman's wonderful love?

You have written my lesson of duty out; Manlike have you questioned me: Now stand at the bar of my woman's soul, While I shall question thee.

--MRS. BROWNING.

But with that point settled, and a stand taken which Magnus knew would now, by the grace of God, be held till death; there came also a restless impatience to see Cherry again and know the worst--if worst it was to be. And so, when Mrs. Kindred bade him go up the hill after breakfast and see how Mr. Erskine fared after his walk, Magnus went off with the most eager alacrity.

He found the two over their reading, as on that first day. Mr. Erskine greeted him very warmly, Cherry gave a little cold, trembling hand, and no look at all.

"We were almost through our passage," Mr. Erskine said. "Will you sit down, my boy, and wait five minutes before we begin to talk?"

Magnus said truly that he should like very much to listen, and if Cherry opened her lips to say no, she thought better of it, and went straight on with her reading.

But it was with extreme difficulty; the voice shook and fell; more than once she stopped short for breath to go on, and at last, midway in a verse, the words faltered, broke, and after a moment's brave struggle, Cherry hid her face on her father's breast.

"My poor little girl!" he said soothingly, kissing the bowed head. "She is not herself, Magnus, this morning. Got up with a headache and a white face. I was quite troubled about her. And in some moods the words and imagery of the Bible search out all one's weak spots."

"I do not understand Greek, sir," said Magnus briefly.

"Oh, you do not? Then I should not have made you listen. I beg pardon. This was it,--a grand passage:

"'And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him; and they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.'"

"But you should not break down there, love. _That_ is all victory."

"She was thinking of those who have not won it, sir," said Magnus.

"Perhaps--dear heart!" said her father. "Well, my boy, never do you be one of those. Fight the good fight, even on the smallest field. 'As a good soldier of Jesus Christ.'"

"I mean it, sir," Magnus answered gravely. "Mr. Erskine, what that girl needs is fresh air. If you will send her off for a good walk with me, I'll find a place in the woods where she can leave her headache. Do you want her to sputter Greek to you any longer?"

"'Sputter Greek!'" Mr. Erskine repeated. "Well, that certainly displays your knowledge of the language. Yes, go, love. I think Magnus is right."

"I know he is, this time," said that young man confidently. "I wish I could stay with you, Mr. Erskine, while she is gone, but then you see she wouldn't go. I'll stay as long as you like when we come back."

"I don't doubt it," said his friend, smiling. "I know you of old. 'Sputter Greek,' indeed! My Cherry, who has such a specially fine accent. I think she is very good to go with you at all."

"Cherry never thinks of herself, sir," said Magnus. "If you ask her this minute, she will tell you she has thought only of me, ever since I came in."

A quick, assenting colour leaped into the pale cheeks for a moment, as Cherry tied on her hat, but she said nothing; and Mr. Erskine was too well used to the chaffing between the two to do more than laugh at it.

So they went out into the perfect June day, slowly along amid hedgerows and flowers, bees, butterflies, and birds, to the edge of the shadowy woodland. For some reason of his own, Magnus had put on the grey that morning, and now as they went on, Cherry could not but notice and admire the free, regular step, and the easy exactness of the tall shadow that kept pace with her own. But he said nothing, nor did she, and once, glancing up at him from under her hat, she noted the deep quiet of his face--very, very grave, yet with a fine, clear steadfastness that seemed to herald victory from henceforth. A man's face now, a boy's no longer.

Absorbed as he appeared to be, Magnus must have been also watching her, for he caught the look.

"Yes?" he said. "What were you going to ask? Sit down, Cerise; here is a good place for you."

But he did not put himself at her feet, as yesterday, nor even close at her side, but on a grey rock a little way off; then threw his cap down on the grass, and sat watching her anxiously.

"What is it?" he said again. "Speak out all that is in your dear heart. You could not offend me, and hurts from you will only do me good."

Probably the "all" in Cherry's heart was a good deal, just then; for at first she could bring nothing out.

"I am not sure that I was going to say anything," she answered with effort.

"Well, you looked at me," said Magnus. "What was that for? To see what sort of a wild animal I had turned into since last night?"

"No, no! Oh, Magnus don't talk so. People may look at each other, I suppose."

"I suppose they may--and I have been looking at you. Cherry, have you been crying over me all night? Because, if you have, I might as well go and drown myself at once."

Cherry remarked logically that she did not see how that would help matters.

"They used to say you never cried," Magnus said reproachfully.

"Most women keep a few tears for special occasions," said Cherry, trying to speak lightly.

"Well, you have squandered your whole stock on me," said Magnus; "you don't look as if there could be one tear left. I'm not worth it, Cherry. Such a coward, such a careless fellow; yielding to temptation, and with only bravery enough left to own it. I wonder you should cry over _him_."

Plainly, the fountain had not yet run dry, for the girl looked at him with her eyes full.

"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, "why do you talk so? You break my heart."

"Well, you are breaking mine," said Magnus; "so we're quits."

"What have I done?" Cherry faltered.

"Thrown me off like a bad package. You didn't look at me when I came in, you hardly spoke to me. I suppose I deserve it, but that does not generally make things much easier."

"Just now you found fault with me for looking at you."

"Found fault, did I?" said Magnus. "I wonder you dare say such a thing to me."

"Well, remarked upon it, then," Cherry corrected herself.

"A man is pretty apt to remark upon the first gleam of anything like sunlight he has seen for twelve hours."

"Those twelve hours having come off chiefly in the night."

"Stop chopping logic with me! If I get cross there is no telling what I may do. Cherry, why don't you say out all the dreadful things at once, and have them off your mind?"

"But, I thought it was to cure my _head_ you brought me here?"

"You did not think any such thing. You knew I had to have it out with you, some time, and now you will not let me do it. Never even gave me your hand when I came in, but just a little piece of ice."

"You are quite wild this morning," Cherry said, with the feeling that detachments were coming up faster than she could manage them.

"Men are apt to be, when they are waiting to be shot and the guns don't go off."

"But how do I hinder your having a talk?"

"It takes two to make a bargain, doesn't it? Oh, yes, I can talk on by myself, Saturdays and Sundays, and all the week, and tell the truth straight through. How lovely Cherry looks this morning! The first night I came back I found she had grown handsomer than I ever thought any woman could be, and I think so still. And there's not a girl in all the world that is half so good. And I never cared two straws for anybody else--and never shall. Never could, for that matter. And I've been a fool, and a poltroon, and anything else you like; and so she has thrown me off, and has no use for me any more. And it makes me just mad to sit here and think that I have lost her. And some day I shall get her wedding cards, with the name of some nice man who never tied his shoestrings in a hurry."

"Magnus, why, Magnus!" Cherry said, astonishment sending every other feeling to the rear. "What is the matter with you?"

"That."

"What has come over you?"

"This."

"But we cannot have our talk on such terms," said Cherry, catching her breath a little.

"They're the only terms we shall ever talk on again," said Magnus. "We always chose each other out, from the time we could walk; and I knew I loved you with all my heart when I went away. But the minute I saw you again, that first night, I knew that I never should--never could--love anybody else. Not if I lived to be nine hundred and ninety-nine, and you got in love with forty other men."

Cherry could not help laughing, in spite of herself, for sheer nervousness.

"I think that would cure you," she said.

"No, it wouldn't. I ought to know, after fighting the thing through all night."

"But, Magnus, we used to be just brother and sister," Cherry said very low.

"No, we didn't. Maybe you think so. We're not that now, anyway, and never shall be again. That was why I poured out the whole thing to you last night, and made you sick. I wanted you to know everything there was to tell. Just how weak and wicked and mean I could be. I knew I didn't deserve to hold your hand this morning, and that was the very reason I wanted it so much."

"But, Magnus," Cherry said, the bright drops welling up again, "that 'could' is in the past."

"With the Lord's help, yes!" he answered. "I will live a pure life and a true life, even if I must live it alone. Your arrow did its work."

"Mine?" the girl cried. "Oh, Magnus, was I so unkind?"

"So kind. But I was pierced through, all the same."

"I did not mean it," she said, the tears dropping down. "Oh, Magnus, I did not mean it!"

"Well, you had better mean it," he said; "good enough for me. If there were more girls like you in the world there'd be more better men. Why, half of the women you see almost put the stuff down your throat. Give it to you so sweetened and spiced and fussed up that you don't know what you're taking. And when it's once in your mouth, it's pretty hard not to swallow it."

"Very hard, I should think," said Cherry. "It looks easier to refuse it altogether."

"For you, I dare say; but things are not always exactly what they look, for other people. However, I am going to try it. So if you ever happen to read in the papers of a hopelessly insane cadet, you'll know who it is."

Again the girl's eyes filled, though a bit of a smile came too.

"Magnus," she said, "I think you are called to be a leader."

"Looks like it."

"But I mean, really. How many other fellows, do you think, may take heart to follow, if you will but show the way?"

"So you said before. How many? I don't know; perhaps some. Oh, there are men enough there now who never touch anything stronger than water. And I never did, till that unlucky night. But I've been in lately, somehow, with the other crowd."

"Crowds are unsafe places," Cherry said with a sigh.

"Well, don't waste any long breaths on me," Magnus said. "Why do you?"

The girl's lips parted in that same pathetic smile, but then they began to quiver, trembling so that she could not speak.

"I wonder at you," Magnus repeated. "Why don't you tell me all your mind, and bid me go? What do _you_ want of such a Derelict?"

"Magnus, you are very hard to me."

"I? Hard to you?" Magnus repeated, at her feet now. "To you? My beauty, and treasure, and heart's delight? The girl I love best in all the world, and the only one I ever can love better than everything else. I, hard to _you_? The girl I left behind me, with my heart in her keeping. And now she sits there, despising me. Cherry, I never was anything but true to you; never. I have fooled with other girls, but I did not care a red cent for the whole lot."

"No--" Cherry said, drawing a long, long sigh. "Oh Magnus! you were not true to yourself."

"Never mind me," Magnus answered unreasonably. "I don't want you for a missionary. If I've got to have one, call in some old wrinkled specimen that will not distract my mind. If you don't care anything about me except to get me creditably out of the world, why, say so. I have told you all the worst things about myself. And if you are willing to work it as we always did; I carrying you over the hard places, and you brushing the mud off with your own little hands--you can say that, too."

"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, "there must not be any mud."

"There must not be, and there isn't going to be; but what if there was? We can't have the marriage service made over just for us two, I suppose. I mean it shall be for better and better, every day I live--but you've got to _take_ me 'for better, for worse.'"

I fancy few men have any faint notion what it is to a woman to have her image of perfection marred; perhaps men less often set up ideals, unless in the line of beauty; and that is altogether a lower erection. To see "fragile" written on your tower of strength, and the hero marked "human," in unmistakable letters, is a very, very sharp lesson. A good one, though; the sooner that form of idolatry ceases the better; letting the woman down--or up--to her proper station of helpmeet. Cherry's heart was ringing yet with the ache and the sorrow, her eyes dazed with this sudden mortal light let in upon the world of dreams and imaginations.

Her love was not changed, she knew that; as it had gone out to the hero, so still it went out to the man, and would, while her life lasted. No question to settle there. But now another was stirring in the girl's heart, coming on a sudden uncalled for, unwelcome--and the old words of the apostle confronted her:

"And the wife see that she reverence her husband."

Could she do that? For suppose--

Cherry could not put the thought in actual black and white, even to herself, but none the less she heard it speak. He had been tempted once--what if it happened again, or again?

And now the girl lifted her head and looked at him, as if to spell out the answer; never guessing how she looked. Wistful, questioning, eager; a look so pathetic in its love and sorrow that Magnus had all he could do to sit still and bear it. But then Cherry turned away again, and dropping her face in her hands cried and sobbed as if she had never cried before.

"That means, you give me up," Magnus said, struggling with himself. "You have no use for me any more; and I may go to Jericho or the moon, as I like best. Well, it is natural, I suppose. What could you want with anyone who had even once given way? I shall never blame you, Cherry. But, stop crying, dear heart! It's hard lines for a man to be killed two ways at once. Cherry--stop! Do you hear?"

With a great effort the girl controlled herself, and looked up, pushing the tears to right and left; drawing one of those long clearing-wind breaths of which women seem to have the prerogative. A breath at once of loss and of courage, coming from the depths of pain, but telling of courage and hope; that sort of sigh which has many a time been followed by a shout of victory.