Lonesome Land by B. M. Bower (reading strategies book .TXT) 📖

It was while Polycarp was after the wood, and while she was sitting upon the edge of the porch, listlessly arranging and rearranging a handful of long-stemmed blossoms, that Kent galloped down the hill and up to the gate. She saw him coming and set her teeth hard together. She did not want to see Kent just then; she did not want to see anybody.

Kent, however, wanted to see her. It seemed to him at least a month since he had had a glimpse of her, though it was no more than half that time. He watched her covertly while he came up the path. His mind, all the way over from the Wishbone, had been very clear and very decided. He had a certain thing to tell her, and a certain thing to do; he had thought it all out during the nights when he could not sleep and the days when men called him surly, and there was no going back, no reconsideration of the matter. He had been telling himself that, over and over, ever since the house came into view and he saw her sitting there on the porch. She would probably want to argue, and perhaps she would try to persuade him, but it would be absolutely useless; absolutely.

“Well, hello!” he cried, with more than his usual buoyancy of manner—because he knew he must hurt her later on. “Hello, Madam Authoress. Why this haughty air? This stuckupiness? Shall I get a ladder and climb up where you can hear me say howdy?” He took off his hat and slapped her gently upon the top of her head with it. “Come out of the fog!”

“Oh—I wish you wouldn't!” She glanced up at him so briefly that he caught only a flicker of her yellow-brown eyes, and went on fumbling her flowers. Kent stood and looked down at her for a moment.

“Mad?” he inquired cheerfully. “Say, you look awfully savage. On the dead, you do. What do you care if they sent it back? You had all the fun of writing it—and you know it's a dandy. Please smile. Pretty please!” he wheedled. It was not the first time he had discovered her in a despondent mood, nor the first time he had bantered and badgered her out of her gloom. Presently it dawned upon him that this was more serious; he had never seen her quite so colorless or so completely without spirit.

“Sick, pal?” he asked gently, sitting down beside her.

“No-o—I suppose not.” Val bit her lips, as soon as she had spoken, to check their quivering.

“Well, what is it? I wish you'd tell me. I came over here full of something I had to tell you—but I can't, now; not while you're like this.” He watched her yearningly.

“Oh, I can't tell you. It's nothing.” Val jerked a sweet-pea viciously from its stem, pressed her hand against her mouth, and turned reluctantly toward him. “What was it you came to tell me?”

He watched her narrowly. “I'll gamble you're down in the mouth about something hubby has said or done. You needn't tell me—but I just want to ask you if you think it's worth while? You needn't tell me that, either. You know blamed well it ain't. He can't deal you any more misery than you let him hand out; you want to keep that in mind.”

Another blossom was demolished. “What was it you came to tell me?” she repeated steadily, though she did not look at him.

“Oh, nothing much. I'm going to leave the country, is all.”

“Kent!” After a minute she forced another word out. “Why?”

Kent regarded her somberly. “You better think twice before you ask me that,” he warned; “because I ain't much good at beating all around the bush. If you ask me again, I'll tell you—and I'm liable to tell you without any frills.” He drew a hard breath. “So I'd advise you not to ask,” he finished, half challengingly.

Val placed a pale lavender blossom against a creamy white one, and held the two up for inspection.

“When are you going?” she asked evenly.

“I don't know exactly—in a day or so. Saturday, maybe.”

She hesitated over the flowers in her lap, and selected a pink one, which she tried with the white and the lavender.

“And—why are you going?” she asked him deliberately.

Kent stared at her fixedly. A faint, pink flush was creeping into her cheeks. He watched it deepen, and knew that his silence was filling her with uneasiness. He wondered how much she guessed of what he was going to say, and how much it would mean to her.

“All right—I'll tell you why, fast enough.” His tone was grim. “I'm going to leave the country because I can't stay any longer—not while you're in it.”

“Why—Kent!” She seemed inexpressibly shocked.

“I don't know,” he went on relentlessly, “what you think a man's made of, anyhow. And I don't know what you think of this pal business; I know what I think: It's a mighty good way to drive a man crazy. I've had about all of it I can stand, if you want to know.”

“I'm sorry, if you don't—if you can't be friends any longer,” she said, and he winced to see how her eyes filled with tears. “But, of course, if you can't—if it bores you—”

Kent seized her arm, a bit roughly, “Have I got to come right out and tell you, in plain English, that I—that it's because I'm so deep in love with you I can't. If you only knew what it's cost me this last year—to play the game and not play it too hard! What do you think a man's made of? Do you think a man can care for a woman, like I care for you, and—Do you think he wants to be just pals? And stand back and watch some drunken brute abuse her—and never—Here!” His voice grew testier. “Don't do that—don't! I didn't want to hurt you—God knows I didn't want to hurt you!” He threw his seem around her shoulders and pulled her toward him.

“Don't—pal, I'm a brute, I guess, like all the rest of the male humans. I don't mean to be—it's the way I'm made. When a woman means so much to me that I can't think of anything else, day or night, and get to counting days and scheming to see her—why—being friends—like we've been—is like giving a man a teaspoon of milk and water when he's starving to death, and thinking that oughta do. But I shouldn't have let it hurt you. I tried to stand for it, little woman. These were times when I just had to fight myself not to take you up in my arms and carry you of and keep you. You must admit,” he argued, smiling rather wanly, “that, considering how I've felt about it, I've done pretty tolerable well up till now. You don't—you never will know how much it's cost. Why, my nerves are getting so raw I can't stand anything any more. That's why I'm going. I don't want to hang around till I do something—foolish.”

He took his arm away from her shoulders and moved farther off; he was not sure how far he might trust himself.

“If I thought you cared—or if there was anything I could do for you,” he ventured, after a moment, “why, it would be different. But—”