Rudyard Kipling - The Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated)

Tarvin dropped back, and ranged his horse beside Kate's. Carmathan, with whom he was in friendly relation, gave place to him instantly, and rode forward to join the others in advance.

She lifted her speaking eyes as he drew rein beside her, and begged him silently to save them both the continuance of a hopeless contest; but Tarvin's jaw was set, and he would not have listened to an angel's voice.

'I tire you by talking of this thing, Kate. I know it. But I've got to talk of it. I've got to save you.'

'Don't try any more, Nick,' she answered gently. 'Please don't. It's my salvation to go. It is the one thing I want to do. It seems to me sometimes, when I think of it, that it was perhaps the thing I was sent into the world to do. We are all sent into the world to do something, don't you think so, Nick, even if it's ever so tiny and humble and no account? I've got to do it, Nick. Make it easy for me.'

'I'll be--hammered if I will! I'll make it hard. That's what I'm here for. Every one else yields to that vicious little will of yours. Your father and mother let you do what you like. They don't begin to know what you are running your precious head into. I can't replace it. Can you? That makes me positive. It also makes me ugly.'

Kate laughed.

'It does make you ugly, Nick. But I don't mind. I think I like it that you should care. If I could stay at home for any one, I'd do it for you. Believe that, won't you?'

'Oh, I'll believe, and thank you into the bargain. But what good will it do me? I don't want belief. I want you.'

'I know, Nick. I know. But India wants me more--or not me, but what I can do, and what women like me can do. There's a cry from Macedonia, "Come over and help us!" While I hear that cry I can find no pleasure in any other good. I could be your wife, Nick. That's easy. But with that in my ears I should be in torture every moment.'

'That's rough on me,' suggested Tarvin, glancing ruefully at the cliffs above them.

'Oh no. It has nothing to do with you.'

'Yes,' returned he, shutting his lips, 'that's just it.'

She could not help smiling a little again at his face.

'I will never marry any one else, if it helps you any to know that, Nick,' she said, with a sudden tenderness in her voice.

'But you won't marry me?'

'No,' she said quietly, firmly, simply.

He meditated this answer a moment in bitterness. They were riding at a walk, and he let the reins drop on his pony's neck as he said, 'Oh, well. Don't matter about me. It isn't all selfishness, dear. I do want you to stay for my own sake, I want you for my very own, I want you always beside me, I want you--want you; but it isn't for that I. ask you to stay. It's because I can't think of you throwing yourself into the dangers and horrors of that life alone, unprotected, a girl. I can't think of it and sleep nights. I daren't think of it. The thing's monstrous. It's hideous. It's absurd. You won't do it!'

'I must not think of myself,' she answered in a shaken voice. 'I must think of them.'

'But I must think of you. And you shan't bribe me, you shan't tempt me, to think of any one else. You take it all too hard. Dearest girl,' he entreated, lowering his voice, 'are you in charge of the misery of the earth? There is misery elsewhere, too, and pain. Can you stop it? You've got to live with the sound of the suffering of millions in your ears all your life, whatever you do. We're all in for that. We can't get away from it. We pay that price for daring to be happy for one little second.'

'I know, I know. I'm not trying to save myself. I'm not trying to stifle the sound.'

'No, but you are trying to stop it, and you can't. It's like trying to scoop up the ocean with a dipper. You can't do it. But you can spoil your life in trying; and if you've got a scheme by which you can come back and have a spoiled life over again, I know some one who hasn't. O Kate, I don't ask anything for myself--or, at least, I only ask everything--but do think of that a moment sometimes when you are putting your arms around the earth, and trying to lift it up in your soft little hands--you are spoiling more lives than your own. Great Scot, Kate, if you are looking for some misery to set right, you needn't go off this road. Begin on me.'

She shook her head sadly. 'I must begin where I see my duty, Nick. I don't say that I shall make much impression on the dreadful sum of human trouble, and I don't say it is for every body to do what I'm going to try to do; but it's right for me. I know that, and that's all any of us can know. Oh, to be sure that people are a little better--if only a little better--because you have lived,' she exclaimed, the look of exaltation coming into her eyes; 'to know that you have lessened by the slightest bit the sorrow and suffering that must go on all the same, would be good. Even you must feel that, Nick,' she said, gently laying her hand on his arm as they rode.

Tarvin compressed his lips. 'Oh yes, I feel it,' he said desperately.

'But you feel something else. So do I.'

'Then feel it more. Feel it enough to trust yourself to me. I'll find a future for you. You shall bless everybody with your goodness. Do you think I should like you without it? And you shall begin by blessing me.'

'I can't! I can't!' she cried in distress.

'You can't do anything else. You must come to me at last. Do you think I could live if I didn't think that? But I want to save you all that lies between. I don't want you to be driven into my arms, little girl. I want you to come--and come now.'

For answer to this she only bowed her head on the sleeve of her riding-habit, and began to cry softly. Nick's fingers closed on the hand with which she nervously clutched the pommel of her saddle.

'You can't, dear?'

The brown head was shaken vehemently. Tarvin ground his teeth.

'All right; don't mind:'

He took her yielding hand into his, speaking gently, as he would have spoken to a child in distress. In the silent moment that lengthened between them Tarvin gave it up--not Kate, not his love, not his changeless resolve to have her for his own, but just the question of her going to India. She could go if she liked. There would be two of them.

When they reached the Hot Springs he took an immediate opportunity to engage the willing Mrs. Mutrie in talk, and to lead her aside, while Sheriff showed the president the water steaming out of the ground, the baths, and the proposed site of a giant hotel. Kate, willing to hide her red eyes from Mrs. Mutrie's sharp gaze, remained with her father.

When Tarvin had led the president's wife to the side of the stream that went plunging down past the Springs to find a tomb at last in the canon below, he stopped short in the shelter of a clump of cottonwoods.

'Do you really want that necklace?' he asked her abruptly.

She laughed again, gurglingly, amusedly, this time, with the little air of spectacle which she could not help lending to all she did.

'Want it?' she repeated. 'Of course I want it. I want the moon, too.'

Tarvin laid a silencing hand upon her arm.

'You shall have this,' he said positively.

She ceased laughing, and grew almost pale at his earnestness.

'What do you mean?' she asked quickly.

'It would please you? You would be glad of it?' he asked. 'What would you do to get it?'

'Go back to Omaha on my hands and knees,' she answered with equal earnestness. 'Crawl to India.'

'All right,' returned Tarvin vigorously. 'That settles it. Listen! I want the Three C.'s to come to Topaz. You want this. Can we trade?'

'But you can never----'

'No matter; I'll attend to my part. Can you do yours?'

'You mean----' she began.

'Yes,' nodded her companion decisively; 'I do. Can you fix it?'

Tarvin, fiercely repressed and controlled, stood before her with clenched teeth, and hands that drove the nails into his palms, awaiting her answer.