Part 55

"I love you--love both of you," says she. "I'd die for you any minute," says she. "I'd try to cut my heart out for either of you now--if it come to that. I tried it now, tonight. I tried it for an hour--two hours. I didn't know what it meant before."

"He ast you, Bonnie?" says I.

"Yes, yes," says she. "The poor boy! I like him so much--I pity him."

"My Gawd! Bonnie, you haven't refused him?" say I. "You haven't done that? You haven't broke the pore fellow's heart?" says I. "Why did you----"

"Why did you!" says she after me. "I told you he made it plain to me."

"What was it he made plain, Bonnie?" says I. "I suppose he, now, made some sort of love? It ain't for me to talk of that."

"Yes, yes!" She says it out sharp and high. "He did. I know now what it means to be a woman and in love. I never knew that before. But it wasn't--it wasn't for him! He held me--I was a woman--and it wasn't for him. How can I love---- What can I do? Why, I love you all, Curly--I love you all! I love Tom in one way; and I'm sorry, because he's good. But that isn't being a woman. It wasn't for him--it wasn't for him!"

She was sort of whispering by now.

"So he went right away?" says I.

She nodded.

"Maybe I've broken his heart. I've broken yours and my father's and my own--all because I couldn't help being a woman. And I'm the unhappiest woman in all the world. I want to die! I don't know what to do. I want to be square and I don't know how."

"Bonnie," says I after a while, slow, "I know all about it now. You've been plumb crazy and you're crazy now. You've kept on remembering that low-down sneak next door. You've turned down a high-toned gentleman like Tom--and you done it for what? You ain't acted on the square, Bonnie Bell Wright," says I. "It ain't needful for me to tell all I know about him now. I could tell you plenty more."

"No," says she, and she was crying now; "it was an evil thing of me ever to listen to him. I've done wrong," says she. "But what must I do?" says she, "Must I lie all my life? I can't do that."

"Well, some women are able to--just a little," says I. "Maybe you'd get over that business of that man next door if you was married and had a few kids of your own running around. You'd be happy with Tom. We'd all be happy. You'd forget--of course you'd forget. Women are built that way," says I. "I reckon I know!"

"Curly----" And, though she looked just like she always had, young and white and beautiful, and fit only to be loved by anybody, her face had something in it that made her look old, real old, like one of them statutes in our front yard.

She was twenty-three, and pretty as anything ever made in marble--and white as anything in marble; but she looked a thousand years old as she stood there then. There was something in her face that seemed to come down from 'way back in the past. She was--well, I reckon she was what she said--a woman!

"Curly," says she, "some women may be able to forget. It's the easiest way--maybe most of them do it. The average woman lives that way. But I can't, Curly; I can't--it isn't in my blood. Women like me have got to follow their own hearts, Curly--no matter what it means.

"I tried with all my heart to lie to Tom tonight. I even told him I wouldn't answer now--even told him to come back again after while; but I knew all the time I couldn't lie forever. I knew I could love some man--a man--but it wasn't for him. I'm like my father and like my mother, Curly. Do you want to crush the life out of me? Do you want to make me do something we'd all regret as long as ever we lived?"

She stopped talking then; but, sort of swinging around, she went on:

"It's been but a little while, Curly," says she. "It's been but such a little time! I don't know whether I can get over it--I don't know whether I can forget. But, oh, Curly, for one hour let me open my heart--for just this time let me be a woman!... But it wasn't for him!"

And now she was whispering again.

"I'm a thief, Curly!" says she after a while. "I've stolen your life and dad's. I've taken all you gave me. I don't deserve it."

"Oh, yes, you do," says I; "you deserved all we done for you. We loved you, Honey, and we do now."

"But you can't any more, Curly," says she. "I've been a thief. I've stolen your lives--from you two big, splendid men. But, oh! give me my hour--the one hour out of all my life.

"I stole from him too--from Tom," says she. "I've taken from him what I didn't pay for and can't. I never can. At least I can't until I've had--my hour.

"A woman has to face things all her life, Curly," says she; "and always she says: 'Well, let it be!' She takes her losses, Curly, and sometimes she forgets. But if she ever forgets what is in my heart tonight--if she forgets that--then life is never worth while to her again. There's nothing to do then--it's all a sham and a fraud. If that's what life means I don't want to live any more."

"Bonnie," says I, "you mustn't talk that way." I sort of drew her down on my knee now, and pushed her hair back and looked at her. "Listen at you--you that used to be up in the morning so early and hoorahing all through the ranch--your cheeks red with the sun, and your hair blowing, and your eyes like a deer's! Why, nothing but life was in the world for you then--nothing but just being alive."

"I wasn't a woman then, Curly," says she. "I didn't know."