The Return of Peter Grimm by David Belasco (good romance books to read TXT) 📖

head away uncomfortably. He could not say such things and meet the doctor's scorching look.

"You damned young scoundrel!" bellowed McPherson in wrath. "Oh, what an act of charity if the good Lord took Willem!--And I say it with all my heart. Out of all you have--not a crumb for----"

"I want you to know that I've sweated for that money," Frederik turned on the doctor long enough to say. "I've sweated for it, and I'm going to keep it!"

"You _what_?" howled Dr. McPherson jeeringly.

"Yes," Frederik cried in the greatest excitement, all his calmness forsaking him utterly. "I've sweated for it! I went to jail for it. Every day I have been in this house has been spent in prison. I've been doing time. Do you think it didn't get on my nerves? What haven't I had to do! I've gone to bed at nine o'clock and lain there thinking how New York was just waking up at that time, and how miserably I was out of it all. Lord! I've got up at cock-crow to be in time for grace at the breakfast table. Why, didn't I take a Sunday-school class to please him?

"Lord! Didn't I hand out the infernal cornucopias at the Church's silly old Christmas tree," he went on quickly, "while he played Santa Claus? What more can a fellow do to earn his money? Don't you call that sweating? No, sir! I've danced like a damned hand-organ monkey for the pennies he left me, and I had to grin and touch my hat and make believe I liked it. Now I'm going to spend every cent for my own personal pleasure."

Once more Frederik started to go.

"Will rich men never learn wisdom?" soliloquised Dr. McPherson as he began to prepare some medicine for Willem.

"No, they won't," Frederik flung back over his shoulder. "But in every fourth generation there comes along a _wise_ fellow--a spender. Well, I'm the spender here."

He pulled out another cigarette, lighted it, and put on his hat.

"Shame on you!" cried the doctor indignantly. "Your breed ought to be exterminated!"

"Oh, no," Frederik declared. "We're as necessary as you are. We're the real wealth distributors. I wish you good-night, Doctor."

And he was gone.

Disgust was still written all over the doctor's face as he measured the medicine carefully and emptied it into a glass of water. He picked up the candelabrum in his other hand, and was just starting toward the stairs and Willem's room when Kathrien came in.

"Kathrien!" he cried in a ringing voice. "Burn up your wedding dress! We've made no mistake. I can tell you that!"

A moment more and he climbed the stairs and had disappeared into Willem's room, leaving Kathrien motionless, her face lighted with happy serenity. Then she went softly to Oom Peter's worn old desk chair, and, standing behind it, put her arms around its sides lovingly, almost protectingly--quite as if its former owner were sitting there and could feel her gentle caress.

"Oom Peter," she whispered tenderly, and her dreamy eyes grew dreamier, "Oom Peter--I know I am doing what you would have me do."


CHAPTER XXI


"ONLY ONE THING REALLY COUNTS"

And Peter Grimm, standing in the shadows, nodded happy assent to her cry. The Dead Man's ageless face was wondrous bright. It shone with a joy that made the rugged features beautiful.

His work was done. His long journey from the Unknown had not failed. The one deed of his mortal life that could have wrought ill was undone. He had atoned for a single fault and had seen the ill effects of that fault brought to nothing. He could go back with a calm mind. All was well in his earthly home.

But he was not yet wholly content. One task remained. A light task, and, to guess from his radiant face, a welcome one. And even now he was bringing to pass its completion. For his eyes turned from their loving scrutiny of Kathrien and rested on the outer door. And, as in response to an unspoken summons, footfalls were heard in the entry.

At the sound, Kathrien's drooping figure straightened. And a glow came into her tired eyes. The outer door opened and James Hartmann came in. He took an impulsive step toward the girl. Then he remembered himself. Turning aside to the rack, he hung his coat and hat on it, and asked, as to a casual acquaintance:

"Have you seen Frederik anywhere? He told me hours ago that he'd join me in the office in a few minutes. I waited, but he didn't come. Then Marta told me he had gone down to the hotel. I went over to see father, and I stopped at the hotel on my way back. They said Frederik had been there, but that he had just gone. I'm rather tired of playing hide-and-seek with him. Has he come in yet?"

"He has come in. But I think he has gone again. And--and, James, I think he will not come here again."

"What? Then the wedding won't be at the house?"

"The wedding won't be--anywhere."

"_Kathrien!_"

He stared at her, seeking to read grief, humiliation, or, at the very least, the anger engendered of a lovers' quarrel. But her face was serene, even happy. The worry was gone that had lurked behind her gentle eyes. The furrow had been smoothed from the low, white brow, and even the pathetic aura of sorrow that had clung to her as a garment since Peter Grimm's death had departed.

"Kathrien!" he repeated doubtfully, his heart thumping in an unruly fashion that well-nigh choked him.

The serene calm of the girl's face fled beneath his eager, troubled gaze.

"Frederik has gone," she said briefly. "I am not going to marry him. I broke our engagement this evening."

"And you are free--free to----?"

He checked himself, fearful to believe in the marvellous fortune that seemed to have come all at once from the Unattainable into his very grasp. And, girl-like, Kathrien was, of a sudden, panic stricken.

"It is late," she said hastily, "very late. Good-night!"

She made as though to go to her room. And James Hartmann, still full of that new fear of his own good fortune, dared not stay her.

But Peter Grimm did not hesitate.

"Katje!" pleaded the Dead Man. "Is Happiness so common that we can toy with it? Is life's greatest joy so cheap that we can thrust it aside when by a miracle it is laid at our feet? Can we afford to risk everything by putting off love when it is in our very grasp?"

The girl hesitated, paused, and seemed to busy herself with straightening some disarranged articles on the desk. The Dead Man came and stood beside her.

"He loves you, Katje," he murmured. "And only one thing really counts--Love! It is the only thing that tells, in the long run. Nothing else endures to the end. Perhaps, if you are shy now and do not let him speak, he may find courage to speak to-morrow. But perhaps he may not. And are you willing to take that chance?"

"No!" cried the girl in quick fear. "No!"

"What?" asked Hartmann, startled by the frightened denial, so meaningless to him.

"I--I didn't know I spoke," she faltered, embarrassed. "It was foolish of me. I had some strange thought. And----"

"I don't understand."

"You understand less and less every minute, James," laughed Peter Grimm. "She loves you. Are you going to let her slip through your fingers just because you haven't the courage to speak? You were brave enough early this evening when you didn't have a chance. Now that she's yours for the asking, why be tongue-tied? It was the fear of losing you that made her cry out 'No!' just now."

"Katje," demanded Hartmann, abashed at his own audacity, yet unable to keep back the words, "were you afraid I wouldn't be here in the morning to tell you I loved you? Was that why you said----?"

"How did you know?" she gasped appalled. "You read my mind."

Before she could realise the meaning of what she had said, she found herself whirled bodily from the floor and caught close in the grip of two strong arms that crushed her to a heaving breast. And Hartmann was raining kisses on her hair, her eyes, her upturned face.

"James!" she panted. "Don't! Put me down."

"Not till you say you love me," came the answer in a voice from whence all timidity had forever fled.

The tone of glad, adoring rulership thrilled her. She ceased her half-hearted struggles to free herself. Her arms, through no conscious effort of her own, crept upward until they encircled his neck.

"Say you love me!" he demanded again, in that glorious Mastery of the Loved.

"I love you," she answered obediently. "I have always loved you, I think. It's--it's very wonderful to be held like this and--and to be _glad_ not to be let go. I--I--I don't really think I wanted you to let me go, even when I told you to."

"There is something else you must say before I let you go," he demanded, drunk with his new-born power and happiness.

"Yes? I'll say it."

"Say you will marry me to-morrow."

This time, from sheer amazement, she sprang back, out of the loosened clasp of his arms.

"To-morrow?" she gasped. "Are you crazy? Why," with a little shudder, "to-morrow was to be the day I was to----"

"To marry a man you didn't love. That would have made it forever a day of shame. You owe 'to-morrow' something to atone for that. Pay its debt by marrying _me_ then."

"I--I can't," she protested. "What--what would people say?"

"Katje!" broke in the Dead Man. "When you shall have learned that 'what people say' is the most senseless bugbear in all this wide world of senseless bugbears, you will be far on the road to true greatness. You will have broken the heaviest, most galling, most idiotically _useless_ fetter that weights down humanity. Being a woman you will never be able wholly to free yourself from that same fetter. But lift its weight from your soul just this once! You were going to curse your life with a blasphemously wicked, loveless marriage to-morrow. And the world would have approved. You have a chance to atone for an attempted wrong and to win happiness for yourself and the man you love, to-morrow, by marrying James then. A few representatives of the world will hold up their hands and squawk: 'How scandalously sudden! I suppose she did it to show she didn't mind Frederik's jilting her.' And for the sake of the people who would have approved a crime and who will sneer at a good and wise deed, you are going to throw away many days of bliss, and senselessly postpone the one perfect Event of your life. Is this my wise little girl or is it some one just as stubborn and foolish as her old uncle used to be? Tell me."

"Why should we care what 'people say'?" urged Hartmann as Kathrien hesitated. "The opinions of other people wreck lots of lives. Let's be great enough and wise enough to choose our own happiness! Don't let's be stubborn like poor old Mr. Grimm, and----"

"James!" she cried in wonder. "Those are just the very things I was thinking. That's the second time in a few minutes that you have read my mind."

"Perhaps it was _you_ who were