Jr. Thomas Dixon

“ She answered in slow, even tones:
“I can't live with you, Jim.”
The blue flames beneath the drooping eyelids were leaping now in the yellow glare of the candle's rays. The muscles of his body were knotted. His voice came from his throat a low growl.
“Do you know who you're fooling with?”
The blood of a clean life flamed in her cheeks and nerved her with reckless daring. Her figure stiffened and her voice rang with defiant scorn:
“Yes. I know at last—a thief who would drag his own mother down to hell with him!”
Not a muscle of his powerful body moved; his face was a stolid mask. ”

“ I've been eatin' out of your hand since the minute I laid my eyes on you in that big room. I'm all yours. You can do anything you want with me. For God's sake, tell me that you like me a little.”
The blood slowly mounted to her cheeks in red waves of tremulous emotion.
“I like you very much,” she said in low tones.
He seized her hand and held it in a desperate grip.
“I love you, Kiddo,” he went on passionately. “You don't mind me calling you Kiddo? You're so dainty and pretty and sweet, and that dimple keeps coming in your cheek, it just seems like that's the word—you don't mind?” ”

“ This appreciation Mary Adams possessed by inheritance from her student father who devoured books with an insatiate hunger. Nowhere in all New York's labyrinth did she feel as perfectly at home as in this reading-room. The quiet which reigned without apparent sign or warning seemed to belong to the atmosphere of the place. It was unthinkable that any man or woman should be rude or thoughtless enough to break it by a loud word.
This room was hers day or night, winter or summer, always heated and lighted, and a hundred swift, silent servants at hand to do her bidding. ”

“ The sobbing in the little room was the only sound that came from one of the grimmest battle-fields from which the soul of a woman ever emerged alive.
To the first rush of cowardly tears Mary had yielded utterly. She had fallen across the high-puffed feather mattress of the bed, shivering in humble gratitude at her escape from the horror of blindness. The grip of his claw-like fingers on her throat came back to her now in sickening waves. The blood was still trickling from the wound which his nails had made when she tore them loose in her first mad fight for breath. ”

“ In a sudden rush of desperate pity for herself and the man to whom she was bound, she dropped on her knees by his side, slipped her arms about his neck and clung to him, sobbing.
“Oh, Jim, Jim, man,” she whispered hoarsely. “I can't see you sink into hell like this! Have you no real love in your heart for the woman who has given all? Have mercy on me! Have mercy! You can't mean the hideous things you've just said! You've been crazed by your losses. You're just a boy yet. Life is all before you. You're only twenty-four. ”

“ She lifted the sleeping kitten and whispered passionately:
“Am I a silly fool, Kitty? Am I?”
The tears came at last. She lay back on the pillows and let them pour down her cheeks without protest or effort at self-control. Every nerve of her strong, healthy body ached for the love and companionship of men which she had denied herself with an iron will. At nineteen it had been easy. The sheer animal joy in life had been enough. With the growth of each year the ache within had become more and more insistent. ”

“ God was not dead because the world was modern and we had steam and electricity. The routine of school was no longer dull. Around each commonplace child hung a halo of romance. They were love-children today. She wove a dream of tenderness, of chivalry, and heroic deeds about them all. She searched each face for some line of beauty caught in the vision of her own baby who had looked into her heart from the mists of eternity. ”

“ For a week we'll forget New York.”
They sat down on the sand-dune behind the tent and watched the waters flash in the silvery light, the world and its fevered life forgotten.
“You're the only thing real tonight, Jim!” she sighed.
“And you're the world for me, Kiddo!”
She waked at dawn, with a queer feeling of awe at the weird, gray light which filtered through the cotton walls. A sense of oneness with Nature and the beat of Her eternal heart filled her soul. ”

“ Jim muttered.
He stopped the car and listened for the sounds of life about a house.
A vast, brooding silence filled the world. A wolf howled from the edge of a distant crag somewhere overhead.
“For God's sake!” Jim shivered. “What was that?”
“Only a mountain wolf crying for company.”
“Wolves up here?” he asked in surprise.
“A few—harmless, timid, lonesome fellows. It makes me sorry for them when I hear one.”
“Great country! I like it!” Jim responded.
Again she wondered why. What a queer mixture of strength and mystery—this man she had married! ”

“ The extraordinary care he was giving the machine was a plain avowal of his deep regard for her comfort and happiness. She had been in one or two moderately moving cars driven by careful chauffeurs through Central Park. She had always felt on those trips with Jane Anderson like a poor relation from the country imposing on a rich friend.
This trip was all her own. The car and its master were there solely for her happiness. Her slightest whim was law for both. It was sweet, this sense of power. She began to lift her body with a touch of pride. ”

“ There's something uncanny in the sensuous droop of his heavy eyelids and the glitter of his steel-blue eyes. There's something incongruous in his whole personality. I was afraid of him the moment I saw him.”
Mary broke into hysterical laughter.
“And if my five senses and my intuitions contradict yours? Who is to decide? If I loved him on sight——If I looked into his eyes and saw the soul of my mate? If their cold fires thrill me with inexpressible passion? If I see in his massive neck and jaw the strength of an irresistible manhood, the power to win success and to command the world? ”

“ The spinning lines of towering buildings on Broadway passed as mists in a dream.
As the velvet feet of the car touched the great bridge she lazily opened her eyes for a moment and gazed through the lace-work of steel at the broad sweep of the magnificent harbor. The dark blue hills of Staten Island framed the picture.
He was right. She had never seen New York before. Never before had its immense panorama been swept within two hours. Never before had she realized its dimensions. She had always felt stunned and crushed in the effort to conceive it. Today she had wings. ”

“ Jim was sleeping heavily. She would not wake him until the glory of the sunrise was at its height. She loved to watch the changing lights and shadows in sky and valley and on distant mountain peaks as the light slowly filtered over the eastern hills.
She had recovered from the depression of the last days of their camp. The journey back into the world had improved Jim's manners. There could be no doubt about his ambitions. His determination to be a millionaire was the lever she now meant to work in raising his social aspirations.
Why should she feel depressed? ”

“ Her fancy was busy weaving about each throbbing tonneau and limousine a story of love. Not a wheel was turning in all that long line of shining vehicles that didn't carry a woman or was hurrying to do a woman's bidding.
Her hero was coming, too, somewhere in the crowd with his gloved hand on one of those wheels. She could feel his breath on her cheek as he handed her into the seat by his side and then the sudden leap of the car into space and away on the wings of lightning into the future! ”

“ Ella moved about the room with soft tread, watching Jim with sullen, concentrated gaze when he was not looking.
The lovers sat on the couch beside the window, holding each other's hands and watching in silence the hurrying crowds pass below. Now that his panic was over, Jim began to breathe more freely, and the time swiftly passed.
As the shadows slowly fell, they rang the bell at the parson's house beside the church, and his good wife ushered them into the parlor. The little Craddocks crowded in—six of them, two girls and four boys, their ages ranging from five to nineteen. ”

“ She lay very still, her eyes closed, her face a scarlet flame. She was frightened at the swift realization of its overwhelming reality. The touch of his hand thrilled to the last fiber and nerve of her body. Her own trembling fingers clung to him with desperate longing tenderness. She roused herself with an effort and drew away.
“That's enough now. I must have a little common-sense. Let's go——”
He clung to her hand.
“You'll let me come to see you, tomorrow night?”
“Yes——”
“And the next night—and every night this week—what's the difference? There's nobody to say no, is there?” ”

“ Every day at four o'clock the car was waiting at her door. The drab interior of the school-room had lost its terror. No annoyance could break the spell that reigned within. Her patience was inexhaustible, her temper serene.
Walking with swift step down the Avenue to her home she wondered vaguely how she could have been lonely in all the music and the wonder of New York's marvelous life. The windows of the stores were already crowded with Christmas cheer, and busy thousands passed through their doors. Each man or woman was a swift messenger of love. ”

“ Jim suddenly seized the Doctor's hand.
“Say, you can't fool me—you're a good one, Doc. You've been a friend to me and you've got to help now—you've just got to. You're the only one on earth who can. You've a great big heart and you can't go back on a fellow that's down and out. Give me a chance! You will—won't you?”
The hot fingers gripped the Doctor's hand with pleading tenderness. ”

“ She had meant to have him dash down to Long Beach and place the ring on her finger seated on that same bright sand-dune overlooking the sea. Instead, they must stay indoors. Jim was not at his best indoors. She loved him behind the wheel with his hand on the pulse of that racer. The machine seemed a part of his being. He breathed his spirit into its steel heart, and together they swept her on and on over billowy clouds through the gates of Heaven. ”

“ Oh, Kiddo, you've got to love me a little—I've never been loved by a human soul in all my life. The first thing I remember was hidin' under a stoop from a brute who beat me every night. I ran away and slept in barrels and crawled into coal shutes till I was big enough to earn a livin' sellin' papers. For years I never knew what it meant to have enough to eat. I just scratched and fought my way through the streets like a little hungry wolf till I got in a blacksmith's shop down on South Street and learned to handle tools. ”

“ Jim drew his watch again, mopped his brow, and gazed at Mary's serene face with wonder.
“Say, Kiddo, you're immense—you're as cool as a cucumber!”
“Of course. Why not? It's my day of joy and perfect peace—the day I've dreamed of since the dawn of maidenhood. I'm marrying the man of my choice—the one man God made for me of all men on earth. ”