The Treasure of Hidden Valley. Emerson Willis George
due course smitten by her charms. How badly smitten he only now fully realized when, after nearly a year of absence, he found himself once again tête-à-tête with her in the old familiar drawing-room of her home.
There had been an hour of pleasant desultory conversation, the exchange of reminiscences and of little sympathetic confidences, a subtly growing tension in the situation which she had somewhat abruptly broken by going to the piano and dashing off a brilliant Hungarian rhapsody.
“And so you are determined to go West?” she inquired as she rose to select from the cabinet another sheet of music.
“Yes,” replied Roderick, “I’m going far West. I am going after a fortune.”
“How courageous you are,” she replied, glancing at him over her shoulder with merry, twinkling eyes, as if she were proud of his ambition.
“Stella,” said Roderick, as she returned to the piano, where he was now standing.
“Yes?” said she, looking up encouragingly.
“Why; you see, Stella – you don’t mind me telling you – well, Stella, if I find the lost gold mine – ”
“If you find what?” she exclaimed.
“Oh, I mean,” said Roderick in confusion, “I mean if I find a fortune. Don’t you know, if I get rich out in that western country – ”
“And I hope and believe you will,” broke in Stella, vivaciously.
“Yes – I say, if I do succeed, may I come back for you – yes, marry you, and will you go out there with me to live?”
“Oh, Roderick, are you jesting now? You are just one of these mischievous college boys trying to touch the heart of the little college widow.” She laughed gaily at him, as if full of disbelief.
“No,” protested Roderick, “I am sincere.”
Stella Rain looked at him a moment in admiration. He was tall and strong – a veritable athlete. His face was oval and yet there was a square-jawed effect in its moulding. His eyes were dark and luminous and frank, and wore a look of matureness, of determined purpose, she had never seen there before. Finally she asked: “Do you know, Roderick, how old I am?”
As Roderick looked at her he saw there was plaintive regret in her dark sincere eyes. There was no merry-come-on in them now; at last she was serious.
“Why, no,” said Roderick, “I don’t know how old you are and I don’t care. I only know that you appeal to me more than any other woman I have ever met, and all the boys like, you, and I love you, and I want you for my wife.”
“Sit down here by my side,” said Stella. “Let me talk to you in great frankness.”
Roderick seated himself by her side and reaching over took one of her hands in his. He fondled it with appreciation – it was small, delicate and tapering.
“Roderick,” she said, “my heart was given to a college boy when I was only eighteen years old. He went away to his home in an eastern state, and then he forgot me and married the girl he had gone to school with as a little boy – during the red apple period of their lives. It pleased his family better and perhaps it was better; and it will not please your family, Roderick, if you marry me.”
“My family be hanged,” said Roderick with emphasis. “I have just had a quarrel with my uncle, Allen Miller, and I am alone in the world. I have no family. If you become my wife, why, we’ll – . we’ll be a family to ourselves.”
Stella smiled sadly and said: “You enthusiastic boy. How old are you, Roderick?”
“I am twenty-four and getting older every day.” They both laughed and Stella sighed and said: “Oh, dear, how the years are running against us – I mean running against me. No, no,” she said, half to herself, “it never can be – it is impossible.”
“What,” said Roderick, rising to his feet, and at the same moment she also stood before him – “What’s impossible? Is it impossible for you to love me?”
“No, not that,” said Stella, and he noticed tears in her eyes. “No, Roderick,” and she stood before him holding both his hands in hers – “Listen,” she said, “listen!”
“I am all attention,” said Roderick.
“I will tell you how it will all end – we will never marry.”
“Well, I say we shall marry,” said Roderick. “If you will have me – if you love me – for I love you better than all else on earth.” He started to take her in his arms and she raised her hand remonstratingly, and said: “Wait! Here is what I mean,” and she looked up at him helplessly. “I mean,” – she was speaking slowly – “I mean that you believe today, this hour, this minute that you want me for your wife.”
“I certainly do,” insisted Roderick, emphatically.
“Yes, but wait – wait until I finish. I will promise to be your wife, Roderick – yes, I will promise – if you come for me I will marry you. But, oh, Roderick,” – and there were tears this time in her voice as well as in her eyes – “You will never come back – you will meet others not so old as I am, for I am very, very old, and tonight I feel that I would give worlds and worlds if they were mine to give, were I young once again. Of course, in your youthful generosity you don’t know what the disparagement of age means between husband and wife, when the husband is younger. A man may be a score of years older than a woman and all will be well – if they grow old together. It is God’s way. But if a woman is eight or ten years older than her husband, it is all different. No, Roderick, don’t take me in your arms, don’t even kiss me until I bid you good-by when you start for that gold’ mine of yours” – and as she said this she tried to laugh in her old way.
“You seem to think,” said Roderick in a half-vexed, determined tone, “that I don’t know my own mind – that I do not know my own heart. Why, do you know, Stella, I have never loved any other girl nor ever had even a love affair?”
She looked at him quickly and said: “Roderick, that’s just the trouble – you do not know – you cannot make a comparison, nor you won’t know until the other girl comes along. And then, then,” she said wearily, “I shall be weighed in the balance and found wanting, because – oh, Roderick, I am so old, and I am so sorry – ” and she turned away and hid her face in her hands. “I believe in you and I could love you with all my strength and soul. I am willing – listen Roderick,” she put up her hands protectingly, “don’t be impatient – I am willing to believe that you will be constant – that you will come back – I am willing to promise to be your wife.”
“You make me the happiest man in the world,” exclaimed Roderick, crushing her to him with a sense of possession.
“But there is one promise I am going to ask you to make,” she said.
“Yes, yes,” said he, “I will promise anything.”
“Well, it is this: If the other girl should come along, don’t fail to follow the inclination of your heart, for I could not be your wife and believe that the image of another woman was kept sacredly hidden away in the deep recesses of your soul. Do you understand?” There was something in her words – something in the way she spoke them – something in the thought, that struck Roderick as love itself, and it pleased him, because love is unselfish. Then he remembered that as yet he was penniless – it stung him. However, the world was before him and he must carve out a future and a fortune. It might take years, and in the meantime what of Stella Rain, who was even now deploring her many years? She would be getting older, and her chances, perhaps, for finding a home and settling down with a husband would be less and less.
But he knew there was no such thought of selfishness on her part – her very unselfishness appealed to him strongly and added a touch of chivalry to his determination.
Stella Rain sank into a cushioned chair and rested her chin upon one hand while, reaching to the piano keys with the other, she thrummed them softly. Roderick walked back and forth slowly before her in deep meditation. At last he