I love you so much I'd gladly suffer to save you pain or sorrow. But there are no thrills; it's just steady, sober, common sense that I should love you, and I do. Why can't you be satisfied with what I can give, David?"
"Because it's husks and ashes," said the Harvester grimly. "You drive me to desperation, Ruth. I am almost wild for your love, but what you offer me is plain, straight affection, nothing more. There isn't a trace of the feeling that should exist between man and wife in it.
Some men might be satisfied to be your husband, and be regarded as a father or brother. I am not. The red bird didn't want a sister, Ruth, he was asking for a mate.
So am I. That's as plain as I know how to put it.
There is some way to awaken you into a living, loving woman, and, please God, I'll find it yet, but I'm slow about it; there's no question of that. Never you mind!
Don't worry! Some of these days I have faith to believe it will sweep you as a tide sweeps the shore, and then Ihope God will be good enough to let me be where you will land in my arms."
The Girl sat looking at him between narrowed lids.
Suddenly she took his head between her hands, drew his face to hers and deliberately kissed him. Then she drew away and searched his eyes.
"There!" she challenged. "What is the matter with that?"
The Harvester's colour slowly faded to a sickly white.
"Ruth, you try me almost beyond human endurance," he said. " `What's the matter with that?' " He arose, stepped back, folded his arms, and stared at her. " `What's the matter with that?' " he repeated. "Never was I so sorely tempted in all my life as I am now to lie to you, and say there is nothing, and take you in my arms and try to awaken you to what I mean by love. But suppose I do----and fail! Then comes the agony of slow endurance for me, and the possibility that any day you may meet the man who can arouse in you the feelings Icannot. That would mean my oath broken, and my heart as well; while soon you would dislike me beyond tolerance, even. I dare not risk it! The matter is, that was the loving caress of a ten-year-old girl to a big brother she admired. That's all! Not much, but a mighty big defect when it is offered a strong man as fuel on which to feed consuming passion."
"Consuming passion," repeated the Girl. "David you never lie, and you never exaggerate. Do you honestly mean that there is something----oh, there is!
I can see it! You are really suffering, and if I come to you, and try my best to comfort you, you'll only call it baby affection that you don't want. David, what am I going to do?"
"You are going to the cabin," said the Harvester, "and cook us a big supper. I am dreadfully hungry. I'll be along presently. Don't worry, Ruth, you are all right! That kiss was lovely. Tell me that you are not angry with me."
Her eyes were wet as she smiled at him.
"If there is a bigger brute than a man anywhere on the footstool, I should like to meet it," said the Harvester, "and see what it appears like. Go along, honey; I'll be there as soon as I load."
He drove to the dry-house, washed and spread his reaping on the big trays, fed the stock, dressed in the white clothing and entered the kitchen. That the Girl had been crying was obvious, but he overlooked it, helped with the work, and then they took a boat ride.
When they returned he proposed that she should select her favourite likeness of her mother, and the next time he went to the city he would take it with his, and order the enlargements he had planned. To save carrying a lighted lamp into the closet he brought her little trunk to the living-room, where she opened it and hunted the pictures. There were several, and all of them were of a young, elegantly dressed woman of great beauty. The Harvester studied them long.
"Who was she, Ruth?" he asked at last.
"I don't know, and I have no desire to learn."
"Can you explain how the girl here represented came to marry a brother of Henry Jameson?"
"Yes. I was past twelve when my father came the last time, and I remember him distinctly. If Uncle Henry were properly clothed, he is not a bad man in appearance, unless he is very angry. He can use proper language, if he chooses. My father was the best in him, refined and intensified. He was much taller, very good looking, and he dressed and spoke well. They were born and grew to manhood in the East, and came out here at the same time. Where Uncle Henry is a trickster and a trader in stock, my father went a step higher, and tricked and traded in men----and women! Mother told me this much once. He saw her somewhere and admired her. He learned who she was, went to her father's law office and pretended he was representing some great business in the West, until he was welcomed as a promising client. He hung around and when she came in one day her father was forced to introduce them.
The remainder is the same world-old story----a good looking, glib-tongued man, plying every art known to an expert, on an innocent girl."
"Is he dead, Ruth?"
"We thought so. We hoped so."
"Your mother did not feel that her people might be suffering for her as she was for them?"
"Not after she appealed to them twice and received no reply."
"Perhaps they tried to find her. Maybe she has a father or mother who is longing for word from her now.
Are you very sure you are right in not wanting to know?"
"She never gave me a hint from which I could tell who or where they were. In so gentle a woman as my mother that only could mean she did not want them to know of her. Neither do I. This is the photograph I prefer; please use it."
"I'll put back the trunk in the morning, when I can see better," said the Harvester.
The Girl closed it, and soon went to bed. But there was no sleep for the man. He went into the night, and for hours he paced the driveway in racking thought.
Then he sat on the step and looked at Belshazzar before him.
