The Fighting Chance

"I asked him. Kemp saw you on crutches at your window. So I asked Mr. Plank, and he said you had discarded your crutches too soon and had fallen and lamed yourself again. Are you able to walk yet?"

"Yes, of course."

"Outdoors?"

"A--no, not just yet."

"In other words, you are practically bedridden."

"No, no! I can get about the room very well."

"You couldn't go down-stairs--for an hour's drive, could you?"

"Can't manage that for awhile," he said hastily.

"Oh, the vanity of you, Stephen Siward! the vanity! Ashamed to let me see you when you are not your complete and magnificently attractive self! Silly, I shall see you! I shall drive down on the first sunny morning and sit outside in my victoria until you can't stand the temptation another instant. I'm going to do it. You cannot stop me; nobody can stop me. I desire to do it, and that is sufficient, I think, for everybody concerned. If the sun is out to-morrow, I shall be out too! … I am so tired of not seeing you! Let central listen! I don't care. I don't care what I am saying. I've endured it so long--I--There's no use! I am too tired of it, and I want to see you. … Can't we see each other without--without--thinking about things that are settled once and for all?"

"I can't," he said.

"Then you'd better learn to! Because, if you think I'm going through life without seeing you frequently you are simple! I've stood it too long at a time. I won't go through this sort of thing again! You'd better be amiable; you'd better be civil to me, or--or--nobody on earth can tell what will happen! The idea of you telling me you had lost your nerve! You've got to get it back--and help me find mine! Yes, it's gone, gone, gone! I lost it in the rain, somewhere, to-day. … Does the scent of the rain come in at your window? … Do you remember--There! I can't say it. … Good-bye. Good-bye. You must get well and I must, too. Good-bye."

The fruit of her imprudence was happiness--an excited happiness, which lasted for a day. The rain lasted, too, for another day, then turned to snow, choking the city with such a fall as had not been seen since the great blizzard--blocking avenues, barricading cross-streets, burying squares and circles and parks, and still falling, drifting, whirling like wind-whipped smoke from cornice and roof-top. The electric cars halted; even the great snow-ploughs roared impotent amid the snowy wastes; waggons floundered into cross-streets and stuck until dug out; and everywhere, in the thickening obscurity, battalions of emergency men with pick and shovel struggled with the drifts in Fifth Avenue and Broadway. Then the storm ended at daybreak.