So the house was reached--it was a dark and stern-looking little abode at this hour, with its windows unlighted, though usually the cheeriest on the square. Brown threw open the door and Bim sprang to meet him--turning aside, however, at sight of the strangers. Only a few embers glowed on the hearth, and the room was in darkness.
Brown closed the door behind them all. "Stand still, please," he said, "while I light up."
He threw some kindlings from a basket upon the fire, and they leaped into flame before he could light the lamp on his table. The room became a pleasant place at once, as any room must in fire- and lamp-light, so that it contain such few essentials of living as did Brown's--the red-cushioned chair by the hearth, the books and magazines upon the table, the two fine portraits on the wall.
"Now, please make yourselves comfortable," Brown urged, indicating the austere little bedroom his friends remembered. "And if you'll do that I'll go at the joyous task of getting you some supper."
"You must let us help you," Mrs. Brainard offered.
"Never! What could you do, either of you, in a bachelor's kitchen?"
"But we want to see the bachelor at work there."
"Your presence might upset me," he called back, laughing, as he hurried away.
Two minutes later, after an inspection of his larder, he was rushing up the street to the corner grocery, having escaped by way of the back door. If any of his friends of this quarter had happened to meet him under one of the scanty street lamps, they might have noted that the dark face, in these days usually so sober, to-night was alight with eagerness. Donald Brown's eyes were glowing, there was a touch of clear, excited colour on his cheek. His lips were all but smiling as he strode along. One hand was already in his pocket, feeling critically of the probable contents of the purse he longed to empty, to make a little feast for his so-welcome guests.
Arrived at Jim Burke's small store, the customer scanned the place anxiously, and it seemed to him that its supplies had never been so meagre. He succeeded in buying his lettuce, however, and a bottle of salad oil, and, remembering a can of asparagus tips on his own shelves, congratulated himself upon the attainment of his salad. Some eggs which the grocer swore were above reproach, and some small bakery cakes, completed the possibilities of the place for quick consumption. Brown ran back to the house again, his arms full of parcels, his mind struggling with the incredible fact that under his roof was housed, if only for an hour or two, the one being whom he would give all but his soul to keep.
Entering his kitchen by its outer door he stopped short upon the threshold. A figure in a white blouse, blue serge skirt, and little white, beruffled apron, was arranging his table. The table had been drawn into the middle of the room, his simple supplies of linen and silver had been discovered, and the preparations were nearly complete. In the middle of the table in a glass bowl was a huge bunch of violets, come from he could not have guessed where, even if he had given any thought to the attempt.
But he gave no thought to anything but the figure before him. If Helena Forrest, in the silks and laces of her usual evening attire, had been always one of extraordinary charm, in her present dress and setting she was infinitely more enchanting to the man who stood regarding her with his heart leaping into his throat. The whole picture she presented was one of such engaging domesticity that no bachelor who had suffered the loneliness this one had known so many months could fail to appreciate it. He dropped his parcels and came forward. Mrs. Brainard was not in the room, and the door was closed between the kitchen and the living-room--by accident, or intention? The pulses in his temples were suddenly beating hard.
Helena did not turn. She stood by the table, trifling with some little detail of spoon or napkin, and her down-bent profile was presented to Brown's gaze. As he stared at it a sudden vivid wave of colour swept over her cheek, such an evidence of inner feeling as he had seldom observed in her before, who usually had herself so well in hand.
He came close and stood looking down at that rich-hued cheek, the soft waves of her dusky hair drooping toward it.
"What does this mean?" he said, unsteadily and very low. "This can't be just to make me go mad with longing. For that's what I shall do if I look long at you like this, here in my home--
you looking as if--as if--you belonged here!"
He saw her hand tremble as it touched the violets in the bowl, arranging them. It was a very beautiful hand, as he well knew, and he saw with fresh wonder that there were no rings upon it, where rare and costly ones were wont to be.
There was silence for an instant before her reply. Then she turned and looked up, full into his face.
"May I belong here?" she said, very gently.
"Do you want to?"
"Yes."
"You are willing to leave it all--for me?"
"Yes."
"Ought I to let you?" His questions had been rapid, breathless, his eyes were searching hers deeply. He was very near, but he had not put out a hand to touch her. Yet no woman, seeing him as he stood there, could feel herself the one who wooed, even though she led him on.
She looked away for an instant, while her lips broke into a little smile of wonder at his control of himself. No need to tell her how she drew him--she knew it with every fibre of her. Then she let him have her eyes again.
"Do you think you can help letting me?" she said, and lifted her face with that adorable, irresistible movement which tells its own story of its own desire.
"No!" His voice shook. "Thank God, I don't have to try any longer."
It was no passive creature he took then into his eager arms, it was one who raised her own with the rush of self-abandonment which made his joy complete. Long as he had loved her he had not dreamed of her as ever giving herself to any lover so splendidly. If he had dreamed--he realized with a strange feeling at the heart--he could never have withstood....
It was to be hoped that Mrs. Brainard, in the other room, had found a book upon the table which interested her or, hungry for food as she had professed herself to be, she must inevitably have found the time pass slowly before she was summoned to her promised supper.
Out in the old, dark, oak-walled kitchen, Brown was still putting questions. He had placed his lady in a chair, and he sat on a little old-fashioned "cricket" before her, one that he had found in the house when he came and had carefully preserved for its oddity. It brought him just where he could look up into her eyes. One of her hands was in both his; he lifted it now and then to his lips as he talked. The packages of eggs and lettuce and bakery cakes stood untouched and forgotten on the table. If Helena remembered to be hungry, it was not worth the spoiling of this hour to demand to be fed.
"Can I possibly make you comfortable here?" was one of his questions.
"Don't you think I look as if I might help you make us both comfortable?" was her answer.
Brown looked at the plain little white blouse, at the simple blue serge skirt, then on down to the foot which showed below the hem of the skirt.
"Is this the sort of shoe that working-women wear?" he inquired skeptically.
Helena laughed. "Neither Mrs. Brainard nor I could bring ourselves to that," she owned. "And since you and I are only to play at being poor--"
"We can afford to keep you in fine shoe feather? Yes, I think we can. But you are going to miss a world of things you are used to, my queen--and not only a world of things--the world itself."
"I know. But--I tried living in my world without you--and I failed."
He made an inarticulate exclamation, expressive of great joy, and followed it with the age-old demand: "Tell me when you became willing to come to mine."
"The night you were in town."
"What? Not at Atchison's dinner?"
"Yes. I would have come with you then. I would have come with you from the singing of that song."
"But you--you let me think you wanted me to come back!"
"I am only human. I wanted you to come back. But--I wanted you to refuse to come! If you hadn't refused--"
"Yes--"
"You wouldn't have towered as high for me as you do now. I might have loved you, but--perhaps--I shouldn't have--adored you!"
The last words came in a whisper, and again the wonderful colour poured itself over her face. Brown, at the sight, bent his head upon her hand, and she put her other hand upon his heavy hair and gently caressed it. When he lifted his head his eyes were wet.
"Oh, but I don't deserve that," he murmured brokenly, and put up his arms and drew her down to him. Soon he spoke with solemnity.
"Darling, you are not making this great sacrifice wholly for me? You love--the One I try to serve? You will be glad to serve Him, too, with me?"
"Yes, Donald. But I love Him, I think, through you. I hope to reach your heights some day, but you will have to lead me there."
They remembered Mrs. Brainard at last, and they remembered that Helena, also, had had nothing at all to eat since the hour for afternoon tea. Brown flung open the door into his living-room, his face aglow, and stood laughing at the sight of Mrs. Brainard's posture in his red rocking-chair. As if exhausted by the tortures of fatigue and starvation she lay back in an attitude of utter abandonment to her fate, and only the gleam of her eyes and the smile on her lips belied the dejection of her pose. "It's a shame!" he cried, coming to her side. "Or would be if--you hadn't aided and abetted it all."
"Are you happy, Donald dear?" asked the lady, sitting up and reaching up both hands to him. "Ah, yes; I only need to look at you!"
"So happy I don't know what I'm doing, you kind, wise friend."
"Wise? I wonder if I am. What will they all say to me, I wonder, when they know the part I've played? Never mind! Is Helena happy, too? I hope so, for the poor girl has been through the depths, bless her!"
"Come and see!" And with his arm about her, Donald led her out into the kitchen.
Helena came forward. "Dearest lady, will you stay and have supper with us?" said she with quite the air of the proud young housewife, and Brown laughed in his delight.
"Had I better stay?" inquired Mrs. Brainard, laughing with the man at her side, while both regarded the figure before them with eyes which missed no note in the appeal of her presence in that place.
"Oh, yes, indeed. We've plenty and to spare. Donald paid a visit to the corner grocery not long ago, and we've new-laid eggs, and radishes and all. Do stay!"
"I think I will." And Mrs. Brainard took the radiant face between her soft, white, ringless hands and kissed it as a mother might.
In no time at all the hour had come for the visitors to go to their train. In spite of their protests Brown would have a cab come for them, though it took him some minutes to get one in a quarter of the city where such luxury was rare.
"Time enough for self-denial," said he as he took his place facing them. "Let me play I'm a man of affluence again--just for to-night."
"I'm afraid, Don, you'll always be tempted to call cabs for your wife," Mrs. Brainard said, and suppressed a bit of a sigh; for, after all, she knew what the future must cost them both, and she herself would miss them sadly from her world.
But it was Helena who silenced her. "When he walks, I'll walk," said she. "Haven't I been in training for a year--even though I didn't know why I was training?"
"I think we've both been in training for the year," said Brown. "Even though we didn't know--God knew--and when He trains--then the end is sure!"
When he had put them in their car, and had taken leave of them with a look which he found it hard to tear away, plain and unpretentious travellers though they were that night, he went striding back through the April midnight to the little old house the Englishman had built so long ago.
As he let himself in, Bim came tearing to meet him. The firelight was still bright upon the hearth, and Brown sat down before it, leaning forward to look into the glowing coals with eyes which saw there splendid things. The dog came close and laid his head on Brown's knee and received the absent-minded but friendly caress he longed for. Also, with the need for speech, Bim's master told him something of what he was thinking.
"The look of her, Bim, boy, in those simple clothes--why, she was never half so beautiful in the most costly things she ever wore. And she's mine--mine! She's coming here--next month, Bim, to be my wife! Can you believe it? I can't--not more than half. And yet, when I remember--remember--
"And it seemed hard to me, Bim--all this year--my life here. I thought I was an exile--I, with this coming to me!
O God--but You are good to me--good! How I will work--how we will work--
we--"
He got up, presently, and as he stood on the hearth-rug, about to leave it for his bed, a whimsical, wonderful thought struck him.
"I'll never have to borrow little Norah Kelcey any more, for the want of something to get my arms about. Instead--some day--perhaps--
O God, but You are good!"
* * * * *