PAGE 24
His Own People
by
“I am not worthy,” he began, choked suddenly, then finished–“to breathe the same air!”
“That’s quite right,” Lady Mount-Rhyswicke assured him. “Think what you’d think of her if she’d got herself into the same sort of scrape by doin’ the things you’ve been doin’! And remember that if you ever feel impatient with her, or have any temptations to superiority in times to come. And yet”–for the moment she spoke earnestly–“you go back to your little girl, but don’t you tell her a word of this. You couldn’t even tell her that meetin’ you has helped me, because she wouldn’t understand.”
“Nor do I. I can’t.”
“Oh, it’s simple. I saw that if I was gettin’ down to where I was robbin’ babies and orphans….” The cab halted. “Here’s your corner. I told him only to go round the block and come back. Good-by. I’m off for Amalfi. It’s a good place to rest.”
He got out dazedly, and the driver cracked his whip over the little horse; but Mellin lifted a detaining hand.
“A spet,” called Lady Mount-Rhyswicke to the driver. “What is it, Mr. Mellin?”
“I can’t–I can’t look you in the face,” he stammered, his attitude perfectly corroborative of his words. “I would–oh, I would kneel in the dust here before you–“
“Some of the poetry you told me you write?”
“I’ve never written any poetry,” he said, not looking up. “Perhaps I can–now. What I want to say is–I’m so ashamed of it–I don’t know how to get the words out, but I must. I may never see you again, and I must. I ‘m sorry–please try to forgive me–I wasn’t myself when I did it–“
“Blurt it out; that’s the best way.”
“I’m sorry,” he floundered–“I’m sorry I kissed you.”
She laughed her tired laugh and said in her tired voice the last words he was ever destined to hear from her:
“Oh, I don’t mind, if you don’t. It was so innocent, it was what decided me.”
One of the hundreds of good saints that belong to Rome must have overheard her and pitied the young man, for it is ascribable only to some such special act of mercy that Mellin understood (and he did) exactly what she meant.