The Complete Works of Stephen Crane Read Online Free PDF Page B

fingers with chilling convention. She said something which he understood to be “Good-afternoon.” He started as if the woman before him had suddenly drawn a knife. “Marjory,” he cried, “what is the matter?” They walked together toward a window. The girl looked at him in polite enquiry. “Why?” she said. “Do I seem strange?” There was a moment’s silence while he gazed into her eyes, eyes full of innocence and tranquillity. At last she tapped her foot upon the floor in expression of mild impatience. “People do not like to be asked what is the matter when there is nothing the matter. What do you mean?”
    Coleman’s face had gradually hardened. “Well, what is wrong?” he demanded, abruptly. “What has happened? What is it, Marjory?”
    She raised her glance in a perfect reality of wonder. “What is wrong? What has happened? How absurd! Why nothing, of course.” She gazed out of the window. “Look,” she added, brightly, “the students are rolling somebody in a drift. Oh, the poor man!”
    Coleman, now wearing a bewildered air, made some pretense of being occupied with the scene. “Yes,” he said, ironically. “Very interesting, indeed.”
    “Oh,” said Marjory, suddenly, “I forgot to tell you. Father is going to take mother and me to Greece this winter with him and the class.”
    Coleman replied at once. “Ah, indeed? That will be jolly.”
    “Yes. Won’t it be charming?”
    “I don’t doubt it,” he replied. His composure may have displeased her, for she glanced at him furtively and in a way that denoted surprise, perhaps.
    “Oh, of course,” she said, in a glad voice. “It will be more fun. We expect to have a fine time. There is such a nice lot of boys going. Sometimes father chooses these dreadfully studious ones. But this time he acts as if he knew precisely how to make up a party.”
    He reached for her hand and grasped it vise-like. “Marjory,” he breathed, passionately, “don’t treat me so. Don’t treat me—”
    She wrenched her hand from him in regal indignation. “One or two rings make it uncomfortable for the hand that is grasped by an angry gentleman.” She held her fingers and gazed as if she expected to find them mere debris. “I am sorry that you are not interested in the students rolling that man in the snow. It is the greatest scene our quiet life can afford.”
    He was regarding her as a judge faces a lying culprit. “I know,” he said, after a pause. “Somebody has been telling you some stories. You have been hearing something about me.”
    “Some stories?” she enquired. “Some stories about you? What do you mean? Do you mean that I remember stories I may happen to hear about people?”
    There was another pause and then Coleman’s face flared red. He beat his hand violently upon a table. “Good God, Marjory! Don’t make a fool of me. Don’t make this kind of a fool of me, at any rate.
    Tell me what you mean. Explain—”
    She laughed at him. “Explain? Really, your vocabulary is getting extensive, but it is dreadfully awkward to ask people to explain when there is nothing to explain.”
    He glanced at her, “I know as well as you do that your father is taking you to Greece in order to get rid of me.”
    “And do people have to go to Greece in order to get rid of you?” she asked, civilly. “I think you are getting excited.”
    “Marjory,” he began, stormily.
    She raised her hand. “Hush,” she said, “there is somebody coming.” A bell had rung. A maid entered the room. “Mr. Coke,” she said. Marjory nodded. In the interval of waiting, Coleman gave the girl a glance that mingled despair with rage and pride. Then Coke burst with half-tamed rapture into the room. “Oh, Miss Wainwright,” he almost shouted, “I can’t tell you how glad I am. I just heard to-day you were going. Imagine it. It will be more — oh, how are you Coleman, how are you?”
    Marjory welcomed the new-comer with a cordiality that might not have thrilled