CHAPTER XXIX

B

I

ARRY'S conversation with Olga left her more

apprehensive than ever. Everything the girl

had secured since she could remember had been by fighting for it, so the present necessity for struggle, unhappy as it made her, did not seem unnatural. For a time circumstances appeared to be conspiring in her favor... Richard's illness gave her an opportunity for companionship which could never have come otherwise; the intimacy which developed from their association showed her a side of his character which was so thoroughly democratic that she felt herself on a social equality with him; the loss of his fortune would force him in reality to become a working man. He treated her with a courtesy and consideration which no one else had ever shown her, and she knew he liked her. The occasional kiss no longer made her live in her friend's world, but brought Richard into hers. The caresses seeped into her blood until they possessed a significance far beyond the measure of friendship for which they had stood at first. To Olga, it was a certainty that Richard's sweetheart who lived in the wonderful house would never marry a man who worked . . . and except for her the girl feared no rival.

The restoration of Richard's inheritance, the news of which spread over Norcross like wild-fire, placed him again in a world in which she had no part. This she realized fully, but after the delirious happiness of her day-dream she was slow to acknowledge an unpleasant fact. Barry's flat statement that she must abandon all thought of having her dream come true was so close to her unexpressed conviction that it hurt her, and when she was hurt she knew no other reaction than to fight.

II

It was in this mood that Richard found her in the late afternoon of the day following his acquittal, when he returned to the flat to gather together his belongings. Her greeting lacked the usual abandon, her face expressed an unspoken reproach. Richard looked at her in surprise.

"Aren't you glad to see me, Olga?" he asked.

"I am not sure," she replied guardedly. "I think you have forgotten me."

"Nonsense!" he cried. "What has happened to make my little nurse unhappy?"

"Why have you not come here sooner?"

"You know how many things I've had to do since I have been free," he explained.

"I never had too many things to do when you needed me."

"Come," Richard said, putting out his arm to draw her to him; "let me make you understand."

To his surprise, Olga refused to respond as usual

to his advances. She drew back and held herself with

a new dignity.

"Because I showed you that I loved you, while the Stewart lady was making up her mind, I made myself so cheap that now you think nothing of me. You kiss me, you hold me in your arms, you say pleasant things to me, and you go to her. You can play with me no longer, Mr. Richard Norton. I can love better than the Stewart lady, and I can hate better too. Perhaps you care no more for my hate than you care for my love!"

Richard was amazed at the girl's vehemence. Her words hurt him less than the wounded expression in her face. The tears glistening in her eyes and the quiver in her lips belied her repellent attitude, and her hymn of hate was sung to music vibrant with affection. Nothing could have disclosed with such final conviction the fact that this wild daughter of Nature had given her heart to him with absolute abandon, and in spite of his forewarning from Lola and from that day at the jail this knowledge came as a blow. Even when Olga previously mentioned marriage, he could not take it seriously. Their stations in life were so far separated that even the possibility had never occurred to him. He had made himself believe that she accepted what he said to her. Now it was only too clear that the affection he had unwittingly awakened in this savage little breast was real, and demanded recognition. He had already wounded this devoted comrade of his by his belated understanding. Now he became aware that

the wound must be made deeper before she could share the understanding with him.

It was a sobered Richard who drew the chairs closer together, and motioned her to sit down. With a protest in every movement she seated herself.

"I have been very much at fault, Olga," he said quietly. "I can't blame myself enough. When you told me your pretty conceit . . . that a kiss was wine sipped by two friends . . . I accepted it, and that was a cowardly thing to do."

"That was long ago. I told you that much had happened since."

"I know I have no excuse for not realizing sooner that no matter what else we may call a kiss, it is a spark which is only too certain to start a conflagration in one heart or the other which may leave desolation in its wake. To me our kisses have always been the wine which you and I have sipped in friendship and in friendship only. I felt sure of myself. I thought I was sure of you, but I should have known that it was too much to expect. It was a sweet moment, Olga, when I first held your fiery little body in my arms, but I knew then as I know now that I should never have yielded to the temptation. We have been happy together, and it hurts me to see you unhappy now Forgive me, Olga."

"I can forgive you, but that does not give you back to me," she cried. "You have made me love you, and now you tell me not to do so any more. It is an easy thing to say, but I am not strong enough to do it. You have brought to life something in me which I did not

know I had. I may try to kill it, but if I succeed it will kill me, too, it is so great a part of me."

"What can I do?" Richard demanded, but the question was to himself rather than to Olga. "If I was going to marry Lola I might understand your feeling as you do; as it is, I shall not marry any one . . I can

not even if I would."

"Oh, that talk about a wife interfering with your work! You only think it will! Every great man who ever did a great work was married . . . and it was usually the wife who made him great while he took all the glory!"

"You may be right, Olga, but I have to act as it seems wise to me Lola understands..." "But you see I do not, and that makes it different. She understands because she is not sure yet that she loves you I do not understand because I know that I do love you."

"I have a great work ahead of me," Richard repeated helplessly. "If I am to make a success of it, I must give to it my undivided thought and effort."

"You will not be able to do that anyway, for you cannot help thinking of me even if we are not together." "Let the thoughts be happy ones, Olga! My life must be with men with employers who fail to appreciate their obligations, with workmen who fail to see their opportunities. Can't you understand there is no place for a woman in my life?"

"But I am a working-woman," she insisted tenaciously, "and I could help you. I can see that the Stewart lady has no place in your life, but I can also see