Peter Clark MacFarlane

“ She began immediately to distrust herself and to wonder if she should ever have the heart to deal that stroke. In case she had not the strength to deal it, the stream of consequences stretching out in perspective threw her into a panic. A sense of guilt increased this panic, for if she had not betrayed what should have been regarded as a sacred confidence of a lover, Clarence Rowley could never have sent the telegram. ”

“ Honestly, Adeline, I never had so much respect for myself in all my life.”
“What a lie!” scorned Adeline most irreverently. “It's just that idiot liability of mine getting you in a jam where you don't know how to help yourself, you poor, little squab!”
“It's for a great man who means so much to the world,” persisted Dorothy, rising to a strain of exaltation.
“That's the poorest excuse for matrimony I ever heard,” retorted Adeline. “You don't marry an institution, child; you marry a man.”
They heard Mrs. Anderson calling. ”

“ But Adeline was thoughtful, doubtful even, toying with her coffee spoon and wearing a puzzled air. Suddenly she straightened up with an expression of having solved the mystery.
“Happy?” she scorned, with a contemptuous glance and a jerk of her decidedly blond head. “The girl is just breaking her heart! Happy! The poor child! You have ruined her life.”
“I? I ruined her young life?” demanded Clarence in injured tones, and sat with astonished, suddenly sobered features. ”

“ Outwardly Dorothy managed to be merry. She laughed at his jokes and even made some. She prattled superficially of many things; whatever popped into her mind she immediately popped out again. That was the only way, for she must keep going or, like the gyroscope, she would lose her balance and fall off the wire. She asked him to tell her about the viaduct, about the desert and the desert mountains, and in detail about the cabin in which they would spend their honeymoon. ”

“ She could say: “Come upstairs, Bruce! Mother will want to see you.” But then it must seem that she should ask his mother and brother to come up also, when the explanation would be more impossible still. No, no; she must get by herself, away from him, away from the spell of his masterliness, and think out what to do, and then do it quickly, resolutely, relentlessly, even.
But as Dorothy went up in the elevator a kind of conscience seemed to get hold of her. ”

“ At this interrogation the mother's own features assumed an expression of bewilderment until her son's hearty laughter rang out.
“Marry! You little joker! Yes,” he crowed hilariously. “We are going to be married.” Then the mother laughed too, and Dorothy, not wishing to appear slow, joined in as at her own humor.
But another form was lingering there behind Bruce, and this time a masculine one.
“My brother Lawrence!” her lover announced, and presented a man obviously half a dozen years older than himself, equally tall and good looking, but with a more serious countenance. ”

“ And Adeline, having promised confidence, had that same afternoon divulged the sacred secret to her fat and rollicking husband, Clarence, although with this saving grace in the betrayal, that it was done in Dorothy's presence, while she was having tea with them at Techau's Tavern as their guest. Clarence, who knew Bruce, had endeavored to tantalize by recounting stories of the rapid strides the young engineer was making in his profession in Los Angeles, together with elaborations on the large number of marriageable orange-grove beauties who had set their eyes and hearts upon him. ”

“ But now it was Bruce who had sent the telegram. The girl read the message again and smiled. She felt a woman's sense of pride in the knowledge that she had drawn a strong man from his orbit. But there was more in the circumstance for her than that. It made her heart warm toward Bruce to know that he could be bent from the perpendicular at all. One thing that had kept her back from marrying him was a kind of fear of his dominant moral strength. ”

“ I am just delirious with joy.”
“You look it, you dear!” declared Adeline, and, lifting the girl's head, kissed her face; then forced it to submit to a very searching scrutiny. To escape this, Dorothy turned upon Clarence with: “Oh, I am so grateful to you for sending that telegram. It was just what was needed to bring things to—to a head!”
The moon face of Mr. Rowley widened and glowed like a sunset, and he glanced at his wife in triumph. “Ha, ha, ha!” he brayed “Bruce came in a hurry, hey? Oh, he was Johnny-on-the-spot, all right. Some speed, I'll say. Set you on fire, too. ”

“ And yet Dorothy Anderson was rather a colorless girl, one would have thought, for any man to have been quite so mad about, especially this rising young engineer. Bruce Porter was tall, strong, dark; he was aggressive and resolute, positive in every attribute of character where Dorothy, seemed to be so nearly neutral or negative. ”

“ She had not looked upon him as a husband-to-be when last they parted, and she had to reappraise him now—the sturdy frame, the dark-olive skin, bronzed by desert tan, the distinctive, regular features with the hump of energy on the nose, the wide, strong mouth, and the large, brilliant eyes; the whole man full of fire, but a controlled fire. ”

“ SORRY, Bruce; sorry as anything, but I cannot see it any other way,” the girl said regretfully, and gave the young man a direct glance out of troubled eyes. “Thee times now we've been engaged, isn't it?” she asked hopelessly. “And when it comes to facing the—the—what's beyond, I just can't go any farther.”
“But you will,” persisted the young man dauntlessly. “You do love me, only you haven't found it out yet. Dorothy! I can't stick around here forever, you know that. I've got to be on about the other business of life—of our lives ”

“ What do a thousand bridges matter when a woman's happiness is concerned? Bravery? Why, if ever you saw bravery in your life, it's this—this dear little thing going on for—for a principle, I suppose you'd call it. ”

“ And, of course, it was just this dizzy moment when the sweetly solicitous mother, so anxious to compliment the bride-to-be by explaining what her son's dashing to her at this time had meant, added to the conscience-stricken girl's sense of responsibility by remarking:
“It was very dangerous, leaving the bridge to-day.”
“The bridge?” asked Dorothy, vaguely clutching at any new idea.
“Yes, Bruce's new bridge to carry a viaduct over a mountain chasm. They are joining the spans to-morrow. It is the most difficult and delicate operation of all. ”

“ She hasn't got the heart to humiliate him before his brother and mother. She's just so big she won't risk shattering his nerve for to-morrow by turning him down.”
The eyes of Clarence Rowley opened wide and revealed themselves as very blue and impressed. “If that's it,” he breathed, “by gravy, she is big! Why, Ad, it's wonderful. My hat's off, too, to Bruce Porter for coming after her at a time like this. Gosh! You can't call him a logarithm! No ice in his shoes! The man's impulsive! He's brave!”
“Oh, just like you to think of the man,” flashed his wife scornfully. “What does the man matter? ”

“ This, to the complete astoundment of all, was the voice of the bridegroom, freighted with a painful emotion.
“She—doesn't love me,” he stammered, his voice breaking upon the words. “She has promised what she can't perform. She has been tricked into a false position.” Hoarse and gray, he put her gently but definitely away from him, then struggled on, addressing himself first to the minister and then to the company: “I couldn't believe at first—that any man could play so cruel a joke as has been played to-day. ”

“ A certain consternation expressed itself upon the mother's face.
Dorothy essayed an explanation about the bridge which must have been tolerably coherent, for Mrs. Anderson, after listening thoughtfully, decided, as she slipped her arms around the girl:
“It's sudden, child, but it wouldn't be any easier to give you up, I suppose, if I'd had six months to get ready for it. Yes; you can be married here. Oh, I am so glad you got such a good man and one you know you love!” ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1924, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 99 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”