i
"but, my dear—but laura, you don't stop to think!" exclaimed a certain young man to a certain young woman, at a somewhat interesting and important moment of their lives. "you certainly do not mean to say—to tell me—to tell me! why—!"
he ceased, a gasp in his throat at the unbelievable effrontery of the woman who faced him in this situation. all he had asked of her was to marry him. and she had hesitated. it was a thing incredible!
it was mr. rawn, our hero. it could have been almost no one else who could have sustained precisely this attitude at precisely such a time. it was not despair, disappointment, anger, chagrin, pique, regret or resentment that marked his tones, but surprise, astonishment! yes, it must have been john rawn.
as to the young woman herself, who now turned a somewhat pale face to one side as she left her hand in his, she might have been any one of many thousand others in that city. her hair was brown, her features regular enough, her complexion nondescript, her garb non-committal. not a person of ancient lineage, you would have said, or of much education in the world's ways, or of much worldly goods—these things do not always come to a saleswoman of twenty-five, whose salary is six dollars a week. yet her face had in it now a very sweet sort of womanliness, her mouth a tender droop to it. her eyes shone with that look which comes to a woman's eyes when first she hears the declaration of man's love—the most glorious and most tragic moment in all a woman's life.
the fates ordain which of these it shall be—glory or tragedy. laura johnson could not tell, cry in her soul as she might for some forecast shadow from the land of fates to show, visibly, upon the subconscious screen hidden in a girl's heart, the figure of the truth. all this was different from what she had pictured it to be. she had thought that love would come in some tender yet imperious way, that she would know some sudden wave of content and trust and assuredness. there was on her plain, severe face, now a wistfulness that almost glorified it after all. for, indeed, our human loving is most dignified and glorious in what it desires love to be.
he leaned again toward her, insistent, frowning, imperious. this was as she had planned. what, then, lacked? if she had sought for some strong man to sweep her from her calm, why was she now so calm? she asked this swiftly, vaguely, wonderingly, demanding to be told by these same fates which had implanted doubt in her heart, whether this was all that she might ever hope, whether this insufficient fashion was the way in which it came to all women—had come, always, to all the women of the world.
"you surely do not stop to consider," he renewed. "why, look at me!"
she did look at him, turning about, pushing him away from her that she might, in that one moment of a woman's privilege, look at the being demanding of her her own life. what she saw was not an ill-looking young man of twenty-nine, of rather heavy features, rather a frowning brow, a somewhat prominent light eye, a somewhat pendulous lower lip, abundant darkish hair, abundant confidence in himself. he was tallish, well built, strong, seemed somewhat of a man, yes. and he loved her. at least he had said he did.
laura johnson did stop to consider. she considered the face which she saw in the glass beyond his shoulder—her own face, not strikingly handsome. "i might be any one of a hundred girls," she said to herself. "i might be any one of those other hundreds who might be sought out instead of myself," said she. "a girl of my looks and place in life is not apt to have hundreds of opportunities. and i am tired, and puzzled. and i want a home. i want to stop worrying for myself. i would rather worry for some one else. i want to be—" there she paused.
she wanted to be a wife, loved, cherished, supported, comforted and protected. that was what she wanted, though the young of the female sex do not know what they want or why they want it. and certainly she could choose only among the opportunities offered her. this was her first opportunity. it might be her last. besides all of this, she was a woman. she had always obeyed men all her life, at home, in her daily labors, everywhere. and this man was so insistent, so assured, so confident that this was the right and inevitable course for her—why, he said it again and again—that surely—so she reasoned—she must be crazed not to see that this was the appointed time, that this was the appointed man.
she sighed a trifle as she laid aside the garment of her girlhood, which had kept her sweet and clean for five and twenty years. she folded both her worn and rather bony hands, put them both in his, and said, with a little smile that ought to have wrung his heart, "well, john, if—if it must be!"
he did not catch the little sob in her voice. he never knew, either then or at any other time in his life, what it was that lacked in her voice, her face, in her heart, indeed. he never knew, then or at any other time, what a woman is, what she covets, longs for, craves, desires, demands, requires passionately, prizes agonizingly to the last, the very last. he did not waste time to query over these unimportant things. he drew her to him with rude care, kissed her fair and full, and then rose.
"well, then, i'm sure we're going to do well together, laura, dear."
she did not answer, but sat waiting, longing eagerly for something she lacked, she knew not what.
john rawn looked at his watch, turned for his hat, and remarked, "i'll be here to-morrow night, dear, at half-past seven. right after supper."
ii
our hero, john rawn, had grown up much as he was planned to be. since we have been liberal in regard to his genesis before he arrived in the little texas town, let us be niggardly as to his exodus therefrom, for that is less in importance. it may be seen that he has grown, through what commonplace conditions let us not ask. as he himself never stopped to think, after his arrival in st. louis to seek his fortune, whether or not his parents still were living, we ourselves need ask no more than he. since he by now had well-nigh forgotten the scenes of his youth, so may we forget them. he had come to this northern city to seek his fortune. here was a part of it, as he coolly reasoned. what is especially worth noting is that he still mentioned his evening meal as supper—and not as dinner.
these twain, about to be one flesh, as witness their sober speech, both ate supper, and not dinner, and had done so most of their lives. they came out of middle class circumstances, very similar in each case. their lives had been much similar. they both had come to the city to seek their fortunes. she had found hers behind a dry-goods counter, he his—temporarily and in sufferance, of course—as an ill-paid clerk in a railway office. they met now and then as they passed out for luncheon, met betimes at evening as they started home. for a time they met also in the same boarding place, where they had rooms not far apart. it was perhaps propinquity that did it. when this thought came to laura johnson, with her first realization that perhaps this young man was making love to her, or was apt to do so, she changed her boarding place at once, actuated by some indefinable feeling of delicacy. she wanted to see if there were no better reason for love-making than that of mere propinquity. but he had followed; and she was pleased at that, almost to the point of ascribing to herself some charm which she herself had not suspected. he came again and again, daily, each night after supper, as he had said, in fact. she did not deny that she had made all pleasant for him to the best of her ability. and now he was going to come again, after the next supper; only in a different r?le, that of her accepted suitor.
iii
that was almost all there was about it. what would you expect of two ill-paid clerks, twenty-nine and twenty-five years of age? what might they have to hope for, more than for each other? why should the ambition of either leap beyond what was there present, in its own comprehensible world? why should they not keep on meeting day after day, after supper?
romance is by no means a necessary thing. the truly necessary thing is supper. john rawn knew this.
