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Garden of Eden

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<h2>CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX</h2> "What have I done? What have I done?" he kept moaning. "She is in pain. I have hurt her." "Sit down," said Connor, deeply amused. It had been a curious revelation to him, this open talk of a man who was falling in love. He remembered the way he had proposed to a girl, once: "Say, Betty, don't you think you and me would hit it off pretty well, speaking permanently?" This flaunting language was wholly ludicrous to Connor. It was book-stuff. David had obeyed him with childlike docility, and sat now like a pupil about to be corrected by the master. "That point is this," explained Connor gravely. "You have the wrong idea. As far as I can make out, you like Ruth?" "It is a weak word. Bah! It is not enough." "But it's enough to tell her. You see, men outside of the Garden don't talk to a girl the way you do, and it embarrasses her to have you talk about her all the time." "Is it true?" murmured the penitent David. "Then what should I have said?" "Well—er—you might have said—that the flower went pretty well in her hair, and let it go at that." "But it was more, more, more! Benjamin, my brother, these hands of mine picked that very flower. And I see that it has pleased her. She had taken it up and placed it in her hair. It changes her. My flower brings her close to me. It means that we have found a thing which pleases us both. Just as you and I, Benjamin, are drawn together by the love of one horse. So that flower in her hair is a great sign. I dwell upon it. It is like a golden moon rising in a black night. It lights my way to her. Words rush up from my heart, but cannot express what I mean!" "Let it go! Let it go!" said Connor hastily, brushing his way through this outflow of verbiage, like a man bothered with gnats. "I gather what you mean. But the point is that about nine-tenths of what you think you'd better not say. If you want to talk—well, talk about yourself. That's what I most generally do with a girl. They like to hear a man say what he's done." "Myself!" said David heavily. "Talk of a dead stump when there is a great tree beside it? Well, I see that I have much to learn." "You certainly have," said Connor with much meaning. "I'd hate to turn you loose in Manhattan." "In what?" "Never mind. But here's another thing. You know that she'll have to leave pretty soon?" The meaning slowly filtered into David's mind. "Benjamin," he said slowly, "you are wise in many ways, with horses and with women, it seems. But that is a fool's talk. Let me hear no more of it. Leave me? Why should she leave me?" Triumph warmed the heart of Connor. "Because a girl can't ramble off into the mountains and put up in a valley where there are nothing but men. It isn't done." "Why not?" "Isn't good form." "I fail to understand." "My dear fellow, she'd be compromised for life if it were known that she had lived here with us." David shook his head blankly. "In one word," said Connor, striving to make his point, "she'd be pointed out by other women and by men. They'd never have anything to do with her. They'd say things that would make her ashamed, hurt her, you know." Understanding and wrath gathered in David's face. "To such a man—to such a dog of a man—I would talk with my hands!" "I think you would," nodded Connor, not a little impressed. "But you might not be around to hear the talk." "But women surely live with men. There are wives—" "Ah! Man and wife—all very well!" "Then it is simple. I marry her and then I keep her here forever." "Perhaps. But will she marry you?" "Why not?" "Well, does she love you?" "True." He stood up. "I'll ask her." "For Heaven's sake, no! Sit down! You mustn't rush at a woman like this the first day you know her. Give her time. Let me tell you when!" "Benjamin, my dear brother, you are wise and I am a fool!" "You'll do in time. Let me coach you, that's all, and you'll come on famously. I can tell you this: that I think she likes you very well already." "Your words are like a shower of light, a fragrant wind. Benjamin, I am hot with happiness! When may I speak to her?" "I don't know. She may have guessed something out of what you said to-night." He swallowed a smile. "You might speak to her about this marriage to-morrow." "It will be hard; but I shall wait." "And then you'll have to go out of the Garden with her to get married." "Out of the Garden? Never! Why should we?" "Why, you'll need a minister, you know, to marry you." "True. Then I shall send for one." "But he might not want to make this long journey for the sake of one marriage ceremony." "There are ways, perhaps, of persuading him to come," said David, making a grim gesture. "No force or you ruin everything." "I shall be ruled by you, brother. It seems I have little knowledge." "Go easy always and you'll come out all right. Give her plenty of time. A woman always needs a lot of time to make up her mind, and even then she's generally wrong." "What do you mean by that?" "No matter. She'll probably want to go back to her home for a while." "Leave me?" "Not necessarily. But you, when a man gets engaged, it's sometimes a couple of years between the time a woman promises to marry him and the day of the ceremony." "Do they wait so long, and live apart?" "A thousand miles, maybe." "Then you men beyond the mountains are made of iron!" "Do you have to be away from her? Why not go along with her when she goes home?" "Surely, Benjamin, you know that a law forbids it!" "You make your own laws in important things like this." "It cannot be." And so the matter rested when Connor left his host and went to bed. He had been careful not to press the point. So unbelievably much ground had been covered in the first few hours that he was dizzy with success. It seemed ages since that Ruth had come running to him in the patio in terror of her life. From that moment how much had been done! Closing his eyes as he lay on his bed, he went back over each incident to see if a false step had been made. As far as he could see, there had not been a single unsound measure undertaken. The first stroke had been the masterpiece. Out of a danger which had threatened instant destruction of their plan she had won complete victory by her facing of David, and when she put her hand in his as a sign of weakness, Connor could see that she had made David her slave. As the scene came back vividly before his eyes he could not resist an impulse to murmur aloud to the dark: "Brave girl!" She had grown upon him marvelously in that single half-day. The ability to rise to a great situation was something which he admired above all things in man or woman. It was his own peculiar power—to judge a man or a horse in a glance, and dare to venture a fortune on chance. Indeed, it was hardly a wonder that David Eden or any other man should have fallen in love with her in that one half-day. She was changed beyond recognition from the pale girl who sat at the telegraph key in Lukin and listened to the babble of the world. Now she was out in that world, acting on the stage and proving herself worthy of a rôle. He rehearsed her acts. And finally he found himself flushing hotly at the memory of her mingled pleasure and shame and embarrassment as David of Eden had poured out his amazing flow of compliments. At this point Connor sat up suddenly and violently in his bed. "Steady, Ben!" he cautioned himself. "Watch your step!" <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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