CHAPTER XVII.
THOUGHTS.
During the long days, the June days, of her convalescence, Catherinefound herself involuntarily reverting, more often than she couldunderstand, to thoughts of the inscrutable and unknown man who had inall probability saved her life.
"Had it not been for him," she reflected, as she sat there gazing outover the river, "I might not be here, this minute. Caught as I was, onthe very brink of the precipice, I should almost certainly have slippedand fallen over, in my dazed condition, when I tried to get up. If I'dbeen alone, if he hadn't found me just when he did--!"
She shuddered at thought of what must almost inevitably have happened,and covered her face with both hands. Her cheeks burned; she knewemotion such as not once had Waldron's kiss ever been able to arouse inher. The memory of how she, half-unconscious, had lain in thatstranger's arms, so powerful and tense; had been carried by him, asthough she had been a child; had felt his breath upon her face and thequick, vigorous beating of his heart--all this, and more, dwelt in hersoul, nor could she banish it.
Gratitude? Yes, and more. For the first time in her two-and-twentyyears, Catherine had sensed the power, the virility of a real man--notof the make-believe, manicured and tailored parasites of her ownclass--and something elemental in her, some urge of primitive womanhood,grappled her to that memory and, all against her will, caused her tolive and re-live those moments, time and time again, as the most strangeand vital of her life.
Yet, it was not this physical call alone, in her, that had awakened herbeing. The man's eyes, and mouth and hair, true, all remained with heras a subtly compelling lure; his strength and straight directness seemedto conquer her and draw her to him; but beyond all this, something inhis speech, in his ideas and the strange reticence that had so puzzledher, kept him even more constantly in her wondering thoughts.
"A workingman," she murmured to herself, in uncomprehending revery, "hesaid he was a workingman--and he knew that I was very, very rich. Heknew my father would have rewarded him magnificently, given him money,work, anything he might have asked. And yet, and yet--he would not eventell his name. And he refused to know mine! He didn't want to know! Hispride--why, in all my life, among all the proud, rich people that I'veknown, I've never found such pride as that!"
She reflected what would have happened had any man of the usual typerescued her, even a man of wealth and position. Of course, thought she,that man would have made himself known and would have called on her,ostensibly to inquire after her condition, yet really to ingratiatehimself. At this reflection she shuddered again.
"Ugh!" she whispered. "He'd have tried to take liberties, any other manwould. He'd have presumed on the accident--he'd have been--oh,everything that _that_ man was not, and could never be!"
Now her thoughts wandered to the brief talk they two had had there inthe old sugar-house. Every word of it seemed graven on her memory.Disconnected bits of what he had told her, seemed to float before hermental vision--: "I? Oh, I'm just an out-of-work--don't ask me who I am;and I won't ask who _you_ are. We're of different worlds, I guess--don'tquestion me; I'd rather you wouldn't. Am I happy? Yes, in a way, orshall be, when I've done what I mean to do!"
Such were some of his phrases that kept coming back to her, as she satthere in that luxurious and beautiful room, her book lying unread in herlap, the scent of flowers everywhere, and, merely for her taking, allthe world's treasures hers to command. Strange man, indeed, and strangerspeech, to her! Never had she been thus spoken to. His every word andthought and point of view, commonplace enough, perhaps, seemedpeculiarly stimulating to her, and wakened eager curiosity, and wouldnot let her live in peace, as heretofore.
"He said he was a Socialist, too," she murmured, "whatever that may be.But he--he didn't _look_ it! On the contrary, he looked remarkably cleanand intelligent. And the words he used were the words of an educatedman. Far better vocabulary than Waldron's, for example; and as for poorlittle Van Slyke, and that set, why this man's mind seems to havetowered above them as the Palisades tower above the river!
"Happy? Rich? He said he was both--and all he had was eighteen dollarsand his two big hands! Just fancy that, will you? He might as well havesaid eighteen cents; it would have been about as much! And I--what didI tell him? I told him I, with all my money and everything, was vacant,empty, futile! Just those words. And--God help me, I--I am!"
Suddenly, she felt her eyes were wet. What was the reason? Herself sheknew not. All she knew was that with her beautiful and queenly headbowed on the arm of her Japanese silk morning gown, as its loose sleeveslay along the edge of the Chippendale table, she was crying like achild.
Crying bitterly; and yet in a kind of new, strange joy. Crying withtears so bitter-sweet that she, herself, could not half understand them;could not fathom the deeper meaning that lay hidden there.
"If!" she whispered to her heart. "If only I were of his class, or he ofmine!"
And Gabriel, what of him?
As he swung north and westward, day by day, on the long hike towardNiagara, the memory of the girl went with him, and hour by hour bore himcompany.
He was not forgetting. Could he forget? Strive as he might, to thrusther out of his heart and soul, she still indwelt there.
Not all his philosophy, nor all his realization that this woman he hadsaved, this woman who had lain in his two arms and mingled her breathwith his, belonged to another and an alien class, could banish her.
And as he strode along, swinging his knotted stick at the daisies andpondering on all that might have been and now could never be, a sudden,passionate longing burst over him, as a long sea-roller, hurled againsta cliff, flings upward in vast tourbillions of spume.
Raising his face to the summer sky, his bare head high with emotion andhis eyes wide with the thought of strange possibilities that shook andintoxicated him, he cried:
"Oh--would God she were an orphan and an outcast! Would God she had nopenny in this world to call her own!"
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