The fire-light threw grotesque shadows on the walls. Ruth and Louis in the library made no movement to ring for lights; it was quite cosey as it was.
They had both drawn near the crackling wood-blaze, Ruth in a low rocker, Arnold in Mr. Levice's broad easy-chair.
"I surely thought you intended going to the concert this evening, Louis," she said, looking across at him. "I fancy Mamma expected you to accompany her."
"What! Voluntarily put myself into the cold when there is a fire blazing right here? Ah, no. At any rate, your mother is all right with the Lewises, and I am all right with you."
"I give you a guarantee I shall not bite; you look altogether too hard for my cannibalistic propensities."
"It is something not to be accounted soft. I think a redundancy of flesh overflows in trickling sentimentality. My worst enemy could not accuse me of either fault."
"But your best friend would not mind a little thaw now and then. One of the girls confided to me today that walking on and over-waxed floor was nothing to attempting an equal footing in conversation with you."
"I am sorry I am such a slippery customer. Does not the fire burn your face? Shall I hand you a screen?"
"No; I like to toast."
"But your complexion might char; move your chair a little forward."
"In two minutes I intend to have lights and to bring my work down. Will it make you tired to watch me?"
"Exceedingly. I prefer your undivided attention; it is not often we are alone, Ruth."
She looked up slightly startled; he seldom made personal remarks. Her pulses began to flutter with the premonition that reference to a tacitly buried secret was going to be made.
"We have been going out and receiving a good deal lately, though somehow I don't feel festive, with Father away in freezing New York. Mamma would gladly have stayed at home to-night if Jennie had not insisted."
"You think so? I fancy she was a very willing captive; she intimated as much to me."
"How?"
"Not in words, but her eyes were interesting reading: first, capitulation to Jennie, then, in rapid succession, inspiration, command, entreaty, a challenge and retreat, all directed at me. Possibly this eloquence was lost upon you."
"Entirely. What was your interpretation?"
"Ah, that was confidential. Perhaps I even endowed her with these thoughts, knowing her desires were in touch with my own."
"It is wanton cruelty to arouse a woman's curiosity and leave it unsatisfied."
"It is not cruelty; it is cowardice."
She gazed at him in wonder. His apple-blossom cheeks wore a rosier glow than usual. He seized a log from the box, threw it on the blaze that illumined their faces, grasped the poker, and leaning forward in his chair let it grow hot as he held it to the flames. His glasses fell off, dangling from the cord; and as he adjusted them, he caught the curious, half-amused smile on Ruth's attentive face. He gave the fire a sharp raking and addressed her, gazing into the leaping flames.
"I was wondering why, after all, you could not be happy as my wife."
A numbness as of death overspread her.
"I think I could make you happy, Ruth."
In the pregnant silence that followed he looked up, and meeting her sad, reproachful eyes, laid down the poker softly but resolutely; there was method in the action.
"In fact, I know I could make you happy."
"Louis, have you forgotten?" she cried in sharp pain.
"I have forgotten nothing," he replied incisively. "Listen to me, Ruth.
It is because I remember that I ask you. Give me the right to care for you, and you will be happier than you can ever be in these circumstances."
"You do not know what you ask, Louis. Even if I could, you would never be satisfied."
"Try me, Ruth," he entreated.
She raised herself from her easy, reclining position, and regarded him earnestly.
"What you desire," she said in a restrained manner, "would be little short of a crime for me. What manner of wife should I be to you when my every thought is given to another?"
His face put on the set look of one who has shut his teeth hard together.
"I anticipated this repulse," he said after a pause; "so what you have just assured me of does not affect my wish or my resolution to continue my plea."
"Would you marry a woman who feels herself as closely bound to another, or the memory of another, as if the marriage rite had been actually performed?
Oh, Louis, how could you force me to these disclosures?"
"I am seeking no disclosure, but it is impossible for me to continue silent now."
"Why?"
"Why? Because I love you."
They sat so close together he might have touched her by putting out his hand, but he remained perfectly still, only the pale excitement of long repression speaking from his face; but she shrank back at his words and raised her hand as if about to receive a blow.
"Do not be alarmed," he continued, noticing the action; "my love cannot hurt you, or it would have killed you long ago."
"Oh, Louis," she murmured, "forgive me; I never thought you cared so much."
"How should you? I am not a man to wear my heart upon my sleeve. I think I have always loved you; but living as familiarly as we have lived, seeing you whenever I wished, the thought that some day this might end never occurred to me. It was only when the possibility of some other man's claiming your love and taking you from me presented itself, that my heart rose up in arms against it, --and then I asked you to be my wife."
"Yes," she replied, raising her pale face; "and I refused. The same cause that moved me then, and to which you submitted without protest, rules me now, and you know it."
"No; I do not know it. What then might have had a possible issue is now done with--or do I err?"
Her mouth trembled piteously, but no tears came as she lowered her head.
"Then listen to me. You may think me a poor sort of a fellow even to wish you to marry me when you assure me that you love another. That means that you do not love me as a husband should be loved, but it does not prove that you never could love me so."
"It proves just that."
