Her all thumbs, her with and loneliness, wanting to go to him but she would be misunderstood, Kitty up the and them into the tobacco pouch, which she into Cutty's hands. What she had was not the of a brain. There was some clear for the in Hawksley's tones. What these of colour that the owner not look upon them without being in this manner?
“Take them into the study,” Kitty.
“Wait!” Hawksley. “I give one of the to you, Cutty. They came out of hell—if you want to it! The other is for Miss Conover, with Mister Hawksley's compliments.” He was looking at Kitty now, his drawn, his bloodshot. “Don't be apprehensive. They only to men. With one in your you will be happy after, as the saying goes. Oh, they are mine to give; mine by right of inheritance. God I paid for them!”
“If I said Mister—” Kitty, her brain confused, her clumsy.
“You haven't forgiven!” he interrupted. “A like you, to last night against me! Mister—after what we two have together! Why didn't you me there to die?”
Cutty that the had itself into two characters; he had been to the scenes. He toward his study door, and as he he that Gethsemane was not an but a condition of the mind. He the on his desk, it ironically, and sat down. His, one of them—one of those was his! He his and rested his upon them. He was very tired.
Kitty missed him only when she the snap.
She was alone with Hawksley; and all her terror returned. Not to touch him, not to him; to at him like a thing!
“I do forgive—Johnny! But your world and my world—”
“Those stains! The you!”
“What? Where?”—bewildered.
“The blood on your waist!”
Kitty looked down. “That is not my blood, Johnny. It is yours.”
“Mine?” Johnny. Something in the way she said it. “Mine?”—trying to solve the riddle.
“Yes. It is where your rested when—I you were dead.”
The of misery, of oppression, of terror, all away miraculously, only the flower of glory. She would be his if he wanted her.
Silence.
“Kitty, I came out of a dark world—to you. I loved you the moment I entered your that night. But I did not know it. I loved you the night you the wallet. Still I did not understand. It was when I the door and you had gone that I understood. Loved you with all my heart, with all that old Stefani had out of and clay. If you my to your heart, if that is my blood there—Do you, can you a little?”
“I can and do very much, Johnny.”
Her voice to his ears was like the G of the Amati. “Will you go with me?”
“Anywhere. But you are a of some great Russian house, Johnny, and I am nobody.”
“What am I, Kitty? Less than nobody—a outcast, with only you and Cutty. An American! Well, when I'm that it will be different; I'll be somebody. God me if I do not give it loyalty, this new country!... Never call me anything but Johnny.”
“Johnny.” Anywhere, he her to be.
“I'm a child, Kitty. I want to up—if I can—to be an American, something like that old yonder.”
Cutty! Johnny wanted to be something like Cutty. Johnny would have to up to be his own true self; for nobody be like Cutty. He was as high and away from the man as this was from hers. Would he her attitude? Could she say anything until it would be too late for him to interfere? She was this man's woman. She would have her of happiness, come ill, come good, if it Cutty, she loved in another fashion. But for Johnny through that she might have known, married Cutty, and been happy. Happy until one or the other died; gloriously, furiously, but happy; each other than Johnny and she would each other. The woman's lot. But to give her heart, her mind, her in a of emotions, surrender, to know for once the of exaltation—to love!
All this with a dozen them. Kitty had not from the of the tea cart, and he had not opened his arms. She had herself with abandon; for the present that satisfied her instincts. As for him, he was not sure this might not be a dream, and one false move might her to vanish.
“Johnny, who is Olga?” The question was irrepressible. Perhaps it was the last of her. All of him or none of him. There must be no other woman intervening.
Hawksley in his chair. His hands closed and his their brightness. “Johnny?” Kitty ran the tea cart. “What is it?” She the chair, alarmed, for the had returned to his face. “What did they do to you there?” She one of his hands in hers.
“In my at night!” he said, into space. “I away from my pursuers, but I not away from my dreams! Torches and boots!... They on her; and I, up there in the with those in my hands! Ah, if I hadn't gone for them, if I hadn't of the their sale would bring! There would have been time then, Kitty. I had all the other in the pouch. Horses were for us to on, to help us; but I of the drums. A more comforts—with in the doors!
“I didn't tell her where I was going. When I came it was to see her die! They saw me, and yelled. I ran away. I hadn't the to go there and die with her! She I was in that pit. She there to die with me and died horribly, alone! Ah, if I only it out, forget! Olga, my sister, Kitty, the last one of my I love. And I ran away like a yellow dog, like a yellow dog! I don't know where her is, and I not it if I did! I not Stefani; tell him I had Olga go under Karlov's heels, and then ran away!... Day by day to those against my heart!”
Nothing is more terrible to a woman than the of a man weeping. For she that he was brave. The of the emeralds; a little more for himself and sister if they were permitted to escape. Not a instinct, not a one; a normal to them against an unknown future, and he had to it impulsively, without to Olga where he was going.
“Johnny, Johnny, you mustn't!” She up, his and him. “You mustn't! God understands, and Olga. Oh, you mustn't like that! You are my to pieces!”
“I ran away like a yellow dog! I didn't go there and die with her!”
“You didn't away to-night when you offered your life for my liberty. Johnny, you mustn't!”
Under her the to die away and soon into little gasps. He was weak and from his injuries; otherwise he would not have way like this, to her what she had not before, that in every man, and he may be, there is a little child.
“It has been me up, Kitty.”
“I know, I know! It is you have a full of things, Johnny. God you from with Olga He I needed you.”
“You will me, that I did this thing?”
Marry him! A door to some opened, and she not see for a little while. Marry him! What a she was to think that he would want her otherwise! Johnny Two-Hawks, in of the Metropolitan Opera House, to a man's cup!
“Yes, Johnny. Now, were. For us there is nothing but to-morrows. Out there, in the great country—where as well as may themselves—we'll start all over again. You will be the and I'll be the wench. As in the beginning, so it will always be hereafter, I'll cook your and eggs.”
She his chair and pushed it toward a window, it and her against his hand.
“Let us look at the stars, Johnny. They know.” Kuroki, having with coffee and sandwiches, paused on the threshold, gazed, right about face, and returned to the kitchen.
By and by Kitty looked up into Hawksley's face. He was asleep. She got up carefully, the top of his head—the old wound—and to Cutty's door. She must tell dear old Cutty of the that was going to be hers. She opened the study door, but did not enter at once. Asleep on his arms. Why, he hadn't opened that Ali Baba's bag! Tired out—done in, as Johnny Two-Hawks called it in his English fashion. She waited; but as he did not she approached with noiseless step. The light full upon his head. How he was! A over her that this tender, should have missed what her mother had known—now she herself—requited love. To have in the world without that was to have nothing. She would not wake him; she would let him sleep until Captain Harrison came. Lightly she touched the with her and from the study.
“Oh, Molly, Molly!” Cutty into his fingers.
And so they were married, in the apartment, at the top of the world, on a May night thick with stars. It was not a wedding; it was a marriage. The world it was none of the world's business. Who was Kitty Conover? A nobody. Who was John Hawksley? Something to be.
Out of the into the calm; which is something of a reversal. Generally in love is in the approach to the marriage contract; the come afterward. It was therefore logical that Kitty and her lover should be happy, as they had the of test and fire beforehand.
The people were to for the West soon after the supper for three. At midnight Cutty's ship would be the bay. Did Kitty regret, a little, the rice and old shoes, the and cake, so dear to the female of the species? She did not. Did she think occasionally of the of the title that was hers? She did. To her mind Mrs. John Hawksley was above and anything in that Bible of autocracy—the Almanach de Gotha.
After supper Cutty in the old Amati.
“Play,” he said, his pipe.
So Hawksley played—played as he had played and as he would play again. We sometimes, but we there. But he was not playing to Cutty. Slate-blue eyes, two books with pages, the of this wife of his. He had come through. The had been accomplished. Love.
Kitty and smiled, the doors of her wide to this magic message. Love.
Cutty on, with his closed. He it, too. Love.
“Well,” he said, sighing, “I see out there in Montana. The round-up will be different. The Pied Fiddler of Bar-K will in the and fiddle, and the will come in, two by two—and a jackrabbits!” He laughed. “John, the Amati is yours conditionally. If after one year it is not it yours automatically. My wedding present. Remember, next winter, if God wills, you'll come and visit me.”
“As if we forget!” Kitty, Cutty, who the stoically. “I'll be needing clothes, and Johnny will have to have his cut. Oh, Cutty, I'm so happy!”
“Time we started for the choo-choo. Time-tables have no souls. But, Lord, what a we've had!”
“Well, rather!”—from Hawksley.
“Bo, to me. Out there you must that 'bally' and 'ripping' and 'rather' are insults. Gee-whiz! but I'd like a look-see when you say to your rough-and-readies: 'Bally weather. What?' They'll shoot you up.”
More banter; which none of the three, as each the other perfectly. The hour of was at hand, and they were their courage.
“Funny old top,” was Hawksley's as they the train gate. “Three months gone we were strangers.”
“And now—” Cutty.
“With of steel!” Kitty. “You must write, Cutty, and Johnny and I will be prompt.”
“You'll one from the Azores.”
“Train going west!”
“Good luck, children!” Cutty pressed Hawksley's hand and at Kitty's cheek. “Shan't go through with you to the car. Kuroki is waiting. Good-bye!”
The the luggage, and Hawksley and his them through the gate. Because he was tall Cutty see them until they the bumper. Funny old world, for a fact. Next time they met the would be healed—Hawksley's and old Cutty's heart. Queer how he his fifty-two. He to one of the that had passed by: One did not age if one ran with the familiar pack. But for an old-timer to along for a with youth! That was it—the of these two had his into a hat.
“Poor dear old Cutty!” said Kitty.
“Old thoroughbred!” said Hawksley.
And there you were, to the where the family the kaleidoscope, the sea-shell, and the album. His children, though; from now on he would have that in life. The infant—Molly's girl—taking a when she might have a tiara! And that boy, from the of to the of Bar-K. An American citizen. It was more than funny, this old top; it was mad.
Well, he had one of the drums. It in his wallet. Another thing, he not work up a of the old enthusiasm. It was only a green stone. One of the examples of the known, and he not up the of and it. Possibly he was no longer detached; the had entered his own life and touched it with tragedy. For it was to be fifty-two and to it. Thus he took out the he his in. Besides, it was a of magic mirror; he saw always his own villainy. He was not the man he had once been.
But what was the line there? The were making way for someone. Kitty, and to the gate! She did not pause until she in of him, breathless.
“Forget something?” he asked, awkwardly.
“Uh-hm!” Suddenly she her arms his and him. “If only the three of us be always together! Take of yourself. Johnny and I need you.” Then she his hand, gave it a pressure, and was off again. Cutty there, in her direction. Old Stefani Gregor; sacrifice. By and by he of something warm and hard in his palm. He looked down.
A green stone, green as the of a Mecca pilgrim, green as the of a black in the thicket. He the into a pocket and for his pipe—always his crutch. He it and out of the station into the night—chuckling sardonically. For the second time the to him: Of all his he would into the Beyond—a chuckle.
Molly, then Kitty; but the of were his!
