PAGE 17
The Looker-On
by
He lifted her to a chair with no fuss of words, and knelt beside her, stroking her hair, comforting her, with something of a woman’s tenderness.
Molly suffered him passively, and the first wild agony of her trouble spent itself unrestrained on his shoulder. Then she grew calmer, and presently begged him in a whisper to read the message which Charlie had left behind him.
For a moment Fisher hesitated; then, as she repeated her desire, he took up the scrawl and deliberately read it through. It had evidently been written immediately after his interview with the writer.
“Dear Molly,” the note said, “It’s all right with Fisher, so don’t you worry yourself! I clear out to-morrow, so that there may be no awkwardness, but we haven’t quarrelled, he and I. Forget all about this business! It’s been a mistake from start to finish. I ought to have known that I was only fit to be a looker-on when I fell at the first fence. You put your money on Fisher and you’ll never lose a halfpenny! I’m nothing but a humble spectator, and I wish you–and him also–the best of luck. If I might be permitted, to offer a little, serious, fatherly advice, it would be this:
“Don’t let yourself get dazzled by the outside shine of any man’s actions! A man isn’t necessarily a hero because he doesn’t run away. It is the true-hearted, steady-going chaps like Fisher who keep the world wagging. They are the solid material. The others are only a sort of trimming stuck on for effect and torn off when the time comes for something new. So marry the man you love, Molly, and forget that anyone else ever made a fool of himself for your sweet sake!
“Your friend for ever,
“Charlie.”
Thus ended, with a simplicity sublime, the few words of fatherly advice which as a legacy this boy had left behind him.
Fisher laid the note reverently aside and spoke with a great gentleness.
“Tell me, dear,” he said, “will it make it any easier for you if I go away? If so–you have only to say so.”
The words cost him greater resolution than any he had ever uttered. Yet he said them without apparent effort.
Molly did not answer him for many seconds. Her head drooped a little lower.
“I have been–dazzled,” she said at last, and there was a piteous quiver in her voice. “I do not know if I shall ever make you understand.”
“You need never attempt it, Molly,” he answered very steadily. “I make no claim upon you. Simply, I am yours to keep or to throw away. Which are you going to do?”
He paused for her answer. But she made none. Only in her trouble it seemed to him that she clung to his support.
He drew her a little closer to him.
“Molly,” he said very tenderly, “do you want me, child? Shall I stay?”
And at length she answered him, realising that it was to this man, hero or no hero, she had given her heart.
“Yes, stay, Gerald!” she whispered earnestly. “I want you.”
* * *
Perhaps he understood her better than she thought. Perhaps Charlie’s last words to him had taught him a wisdom to which he had not otherwise attained. Or perhaps his love was large enough to cover and hide all that might be lacking in that which she offered to him.
But at least neither then nor later did he ever seek to know how deeply the glamour of another man’s heroism had pierced her heart. She tried to whisper an explanation, but he hushed the words unuttered.
“It is all right, child,” he said. “I am satisfied. It is only the lookers-on who are allowed to see all the cards. I think when we meet him again he will tell us that we played them right.”
There was a deep quiver in his voice as he spoke, but there was no lack of confidence in his words. Looking upwards, Molly saw that his eyes were full of tears.