The Hundredth Chance. Ethel M. Dell
stretched out one steady finger and laid it on her arm. "Don't take fright at nothing!" he said, in an admonitory tone. "If you're going to shy at this, I reckon you'll kick up your heels, and bolt at my next suggestion."
She drew herself away from his touch, standing very erect. "Perhaps you would be wiser not to make it," she said.
"Very likely," agreed Jake. "But--as you object to my mentioning things to your brother first--I don't see how you can refuse to listen."
This was unanswerable. She bit her lip. "I am listening," she said.
"And the answer is 'No,' whatever it is," rejoined Jake, with a whimsical note in his soft voice. "Say, Miss Brian, play fair!"
She felt somewhat softened in spite of herself. "I have said I will listen," she said.
"With an unbiassed mind?" he said.
"Of course." She spoke impatiently; she wanted to get the interview over, and she more and more resented his attitude towards her. There was something of the superior male about him that grated on her nerves.
"All right," said Jake. "I'll go ahead. If you will condescend to come up to my place on Sunday, I will show you a man--one of our jockeys--who was injured in just the same way that your brother is injured, and who is now as sound as I am. He was operated upon by an American doctor called Capper--one of the biggest surgeons in the world. It was a bit of an experiment, but it succeeded. Now what has been done once can be done again. I chance to know Capper, and he is coming to London next spring. He makes a speciality of spinal trouble. Won't you let him try his hand on Bunny? There would be a certain amount of risk of course. But wouldn't it be worth it? Say, wouldn't it be worth it, to see that boy on his legs, living his life as it was meant to be lived instead of dragging out a wretched existence that hardly deserves to be called life at all?"
He stopped abruptly, as if realizing that he had suffered his eagerness to carry him away. But to Maud who had begun to listen in icy aloofness that same eagerness was as the kindling of a fire in a place of utter desolation.
For the moment she forgot to be cold. "Oh, if it were only possible!" she said. "If it only could be!"
"Why can't it be?" said Jake.
She came back with something of a shock to the consciousness of his personality. She drew back from the warmth that he had made her feel.
"Because," she said frigidly, "doctors--great surgeons--don't perform big operations for nothing."
"I don't think Capper would charge an out-of-the-way amount if he did it for me," said Jake.
"Perhaps not." Maud spoke in the dead tone of finality.
He leaned slightly towards her. "Say, Miss Brian, aren't you rather easily disheartened? Wouldn't your people scrape together something for such a purpose?"
"No," she said.
"Are you quite sure?" he urged. "Won't you even ask 'em?"
She turned from him. "It's no good asking," she said, her voice low and reluctant. "The only relation we possess who might help won't even answer when I write to him."
"Why don't you go and see him?" said Jake. "Put the thing before him! He couldn't refuse."
She shook her head. "It wouldn't be any good," she said, with dreary conviction. "Besides, I couldn't get to Liverpool and back in a day, and I couldn't leave Bunny for longer. And--in any case--I know--I know it wouldn't be any good," she ended, with half-angry vehemence.
"I wish the little chap were my brother," said Jake.
Maud was silent. Somehow her vehemence had upset her; she had an outrageous desire to cry.
Jake was silent too for a few seconds; then abruptly he squared his shoulders and spoke with aggressive decision. "Miss Brian, a good friend is nearer than a dozen beastly relations. With your permission--I'll see this thing through."
"Oh no, no!" she said quickly. "No, no!"
"For the boy's sake!" he said.
"No!" she said again.
There fell a sudden silence. Then, in an odd voice Jake said, "Bunny told me--only to-day--with pride--that there was nothing in the world that you wouldn't do for him."
She made a sharp movement of protest. "I can't take--what I could never repay," she said, speaking almost below her breath. "Neither shall Bunny."
"There are more ways than one of paying a debt," said Jake.
He looked almost formidable standing there in the twilight with his legs well apart and unabashed resolution in every line of his sturdy figure.
She faced him with a sinking sense of her own inferior strength. His self-assertion seemed to weigh her down. She felt puny and insignificant before it. As usual she sought refuge in stately aloofness. She had no other weapon, and at least it covered the beating of her heart.
"I am afraid I don't understand you," she said.
"Shall I explain?" said Jake; and then, as she was silent: "Can't you see I'm making a bid for your friendship?"
She froze at the effrontery of the words.
"Oh yes," said Jake. "I quite understand. I'm only tolerated for Bunny's sake. Isn't that so? You're too proud to associate with a clod like me. But for all that--though you'll never look at me--I'm not afraid to let you know that I've taken a fancy to you. You've never contemplated such a fool idea as marriage with me, I know: but you go home and contemplate it right now! Ask yourself if you wouldn't find a husband like me less nauseating than a step-father like Giles Sheppard! Ask yourself if the little chap wouldn't stand a better chance all round if you brought him along to me! I reckon we'd make his life easier between us even if Capper couldn't make him walk. He's too heavy a burden for you to carry alone, my girl. You weren't created for such a burden as that. Let me lend a hand! I give you my solemn oath I'll be good to you both!"
A tremor of passion ran through his last words, and his voice took a deeper note. Maud, upright and quivering, felt the force of the man like the blast of a tearing gale carrying all before it. She would have left him at the commencement of his speech, but he blocked the way. She stood imprisoned in a corner of the shelter, steadying herself against the woodwork, while the full strength of his individuality surged around her. She felt physically exhausted, as though she had been trying to stand against a tremendous wind.
Several seconds throbbed away ere she could trust herself to speak without faltering. Then: "Please let me pass!" she said.
He stood back instantly and she was conscious of a lessening of that mysterious influence which had so overwhelmed her.
"Are you angry--or what?" he said.
She gathered her strength, and stepped forth, though she was trembling from head to foot.
"Yes, I am angry," she said, forcing her voice to a certain measure of calmness notwithstanding. "I have never been so insulted in my life!"
"Insulted!" He echoed the word in unfeigned astonishment; then, as she would have left him, put a detaining hand upon her arm. "Say, Miss Brian! Since when has a proposal of marriage constituted an insult in your estimation?"
He spoke with something of a drawl, but it compelled attention. She stopped, resisting the desire to shake herself free from his touch.
"A proposal of marriage from you could be nothing else," she said very bitterly. "You take advantage of my position, but you know full well that we are not equals."
"Oh yes, I know that," he said. "But--is any man your equal?"
"I meant socially of course," she said, beginning to recover her composure and her dignity.
"I see." Jake's voice was very level. "And that is why you are upset--angry?"
"It is a very sufficient reason," she said.
"Yes, but is it--as things now are? There is another point of view to that problem. If you had been leading