Ellen Glasgow - The Sheltered Life

"So would I. I'd do more than anything. If there were anything to be done, do you think I'd sit here chewing this cigar like—like an idiot?"

She wondered what reply he expected. Or, since he was talking to relieve his mind, perhaps he did not wish her to speak. "I might be anybody," she thought. "I might be one of the nurses, if one of the nurses had time to listen. It's strange that men have nerves too. I never knew it before. But I don't care. He is more attractive, even if he isn't dark, than any boy I know. Yes, I do like older men best."

"There was never a woman to compare with her," George was saying almost roughly, as if he were contradicting somebody or something. "I've seen plenty of women, but I've never known one that could compare with her."

"That's what Grandfather says. He thinks she would have been as famous as Mrs. Langtry if she had lived out in the world."

"Well, but for me, she might have been famous." He smoked in short puffs, with a frown that was half whimsical, half savage, as if he enjoyed hurting himself. "I'm not worth her little finger. I don't need anybody to tell me I'm not worth her little finger. The trouble with me," he added fiercely, "is that I have no endurance. I can summon up as much courage as any man; but I can't stand things."

She nodded. "I know. I believe I'm like that myself."

A laugh broke from him, and his face cleared. "What can you know about it at your age? You are scarcely more than a child. But," his features darkened again, "I don't need anybody to tell me I'm not worthy of her."

"You will never make her believe that."

His features twitched with that odd expression of helpless injury. "I don't know. Nobody will ever find out what she believes. I'd give my right arm to spare her this; but the truth is I'm not good enough. I've never been good enough to lace her shoes. You will always remember this, won't you? No matter what anybody says, remember I told you I wasn't worthy to lace her shoes."

"Yes, I'll remember." Her small, flushed face, with its shallow profile, was as sweet and empty as a wild rose; but she was thinking without softness, "I wonder if he is misunderstood too? Perhaps she has never really understood him."

"It must be wonderful to be as beautiful as she was." Not until the words had crossed her lips did she realize that she had spoken in the past tense. Well, maybe he hadn't noticed it. He seemed to be occupied with his own thoughts. "Grandfather says that nature has lost the art of making queenly women."

"Yes, they seem smaller now, whether they are or not. You're a mere wisp." For the first time he looked at her searchingly, and a blush stained her face while his glance, so sad and indifferent a moment before, swept from the scalloped waves of soft, pale hair under the brim of her hat to her slender ankles arching trimly from the silver buckles on her suède slippers. "Yes, you're a wisp, and you look soft; but you're not. All that softness of youth is only a glaze. Touch it, and you'll find that it is as hard as—as glass underneath."

"I'm not," she replied angrily. "I'm not hard." But when his voice roughened to harshness, a quiver of pleasure shot through her nerves. Why, she wondered, should she like the roughness of his tone better than gentleness? "But I'm not," she repeated, hoping that he would contradict her imperatively and make the sudden change, the quiver of pleasure, begin all over again.

"You are. I can tell by looking at you. All that dewiness is just a film. You are like every other girl in the world. No matter what happens so long as it doesn't happen to you." Suffering had faded from his expression, and his features were charged with vitality. Even the dark smudges of pain had vanished.

Reaching up, she broke off some rusty leaves from the ivy and tossed them into his face. How surprising life was, how thrilling! Yes, she was positive now that she liked older men best. She liked them when they were not shy and awkward like boys, but imperative and tender and rough altogether.

"I'm not hard," she tossed at him with the leaves of ivy. "You don't know. You don't know everything."

"I know you."

"You don't."

"I do." The old gay challenge to life shone in his eyes, as if he had found a brief escape from the anxiety that consumed him.

"I don't see how you know so much. I never told you." What did his look mean? Did it mean everything? Did it mean nothing?

"There are things you know without being told. I know something else about you. I know John Welch likes you too much."

She shook her head. "Well, I don't like him. I could never, never," she insisted audaciously, "fall in love with a fair man."

He threw back his head with a laugh, and the amusement sounded so natural that she glanced nervously at the hospital. Had he forgotten, she wondered, where they were? No, of course not, he could scarcely have forgotten his troubles so soon.

"I'll bet you anything you like—I'll wager a box of marshmallows that you fall in love first of all with a fair man."

"I don't like marshmallows," she rejoined, with dignity.

"Well, chocolates, then. I wager a box of chocolates against—against--"

"Against what?"

"I'm trying to think. Whatever you please, because I'm sure to win. Suppose we say a kiss. That won't cost you anything. I shouldn't like to make you sacrifice a pair of silk stockings."

Though she laughed disdainfully, she felt a tremor of expectation, of imaginary adventure, and the thought darted through her mind, "Oh, I'm so happy! I have never been so happy before!"

"That's the easiest thing for little girls, isn't it?" he asked in the teasing tone with which her elders used to annoy her when she was a child.

"But I don't like kissing," she replied severely. "It is silly." Through the ivy, she still watched the light on the blown grasses and clover, and it seemed to her that this light was both without and within, that it was as living as music.

"You don't, eh? Well, you used to when you were small." His voice sounded rough again, almost as if he were angry, and he was staring hard straight away from her at the walls of the hospital.

"I used to like marshmallows too." Provoked because he would not look at her, she rose to her feet and flicked at his hand with the fringe of her small beaded bag. "It isn't polite not to look at the person you're talking to."

"You don't like it, eh?" he repeated in that queer brusque tone, while he slipped his arm about her and drew her to his side. For an instant he was so close that she felt his hardness and strength, as if he had turned to a figure of bone and muscle. Even his lips were hard and rough as they pressed into hers, and not only her resistance but her very flesh seemed to dissolve. After a single shuddering beat, her heart quivered into a stillness that was more terrifying than violence. "Everything has stopped," she thought desperately. "I can't see. I can't even see." Then, as she reached out and caught hold of the bench for support, she heard an inner voice saying triumphantly over the dark waves in her mind, "I never knew kissing was like this. I never knew anything was like this."

Drawing away, he said carelessly, in a voice that trembled slightly, "It's time we were going in. You're a nice little girl; but you must remember you're only a little girl. This isn't the first time I've kissed you."

Yes, it was true, he had kissed her before, but never like this. Oh, never, never, like this. If only she might stay here, within the safe shelter of the ivy, and sink down on the bench until the vehemence had subsided. She felt suddenly limp, boneless; her will had oozed out of her.

"We'd better go back. Your grandfather may be waiting," he added hurriedly, and she saw that he was impatient to return to the hospital. Perhaps it was only the fading light that made him appear different. Could he have forgotten so soon? How soon did men forget after they kissed you?