The Gentleman from Indiana - Page 41/212

"But they worked in a company once."

"Never for seven miles. Four miles was their radius. Five would see them

all dead."

She struck the bench again. "Oh, you laugh at me! You make a joke of your

own life and death, and laugh at everything! Have five years of Plattville

taught you to do that?"

"I laugh only at taking the poor Cross-Roaders too seriously. I don't

laugh at your running into fire to help a fellow-mortal."

"I knew there wasn't any risk. I knew he had to stop to load before he

shot again."

"He did shoot again. If I had known you before to-night--I--" His tone

changed and he spoke gravely. "I am at your feet in worship of your

philanthropy. It's so much finer to risk your life for a stranger than for

a friend."

"That is rather a man's point of view, isn't it?"

"You risked yours for a man you had never seen before."

"Oh, no! I saw you at the lecture; I heard you introduce the Honorable Mr.

Halloway."

"Then I don't understand your wishing to save me."

She smiled unwillingly, and turned her gray eyes upon him with troubled

sunniness, and, under the kindness of her regard, he set a watch upon his

lips, though he knew it might not avail him. He had driveled along

respectably so far, he thought, but he had the sentimental longings of

years, starved of expression, culminating in his heart. She continued to

look at him, wistfully, searchingly, gently. Then her eyes traveled over

his big frame from his shoes (a patch of moonlight fell on them; they were

dusty; he drew them under the bench with a shudder) to his broad shoulders

(he shook the stoop out of them). She stretched her small hands toward him

in contrast, and broke into the most delicious low laughter in the world.

At this sound he knew the watch on his lips was worthless. It was a

question of minutes till he should present himself to her eyes as a

sentimental and susceptible imbecile. He knew it. He was in wild spirits.

"Could you realize that one of your dangers might be a shaking?" she

cried. "Is your seriousness a lost art?" Her laughter ceased suddenly.

"Ah, no. I understand. Thiers said the French laugh always, in order not

to weep. I haven't lived here five years. I should laugh too, if I were

you."

"Look at the moon," he responded. "We Plattvillains own that with the best

of metropolitans, and, for my part, I see more of it here. You do not

appreciate us. We have large landscapes in the heart of the city, and

what other capital possesses advantages like that? Next winter the railway

station is to have a new stove for the waiting-room. Heaven itself is one

of our suburbs--it is so close that all one has to do is to die. You

insist upon my being French, you see, and I know you are fond of nonsense.

How did you happen to put 'The Walrus and the Carpenter' at the bottom of

a page of Fisbee's notes?"