In the Service of Love [pp. 60-64]

Overland Monthly
I want you. You are so beautiful andand keen."
"Like an edged tool-so?"
"Yes."
"That would cut the hand that holds it
-so?"
"Yes. But I want to hold you. I want
to hold your hands-I want to!" He
bent nearer. His face grew paler and flabbier, and the smile looked ghastly on his
loose lips.
Luria did not shrink. She looked at
him inquisitively. She was absolutely
without fear, as a goddess might have been.
She even leaned a little toward him.
"And after you were given my hands
to hold-what then?"
"I should want to touch your hair."
"Touch it?"
"Yes, stroke it. 0, God!"
Luria smiled. "What an animal you
are. And you dare call on Deity to pity
you with such passion as that. It is as I
thought. There is no love here on the desert. The hard vise of poverty has crushed
your very souls. Heavens! the tragedy of
it!"
"I love you!" he groaned.
"No; it's passion-the one cheap indulgence your senses are allowed. You
covet a woman's hands and hair and lips,
and she gives them to you, and you loathe
her. And after a while you forget to do
even that, and the machinery of life grinds
you under. How do I know? I've seen it
in the children's faces. And yet man was
created in His image!"
"I'd give my life for you!" he murmured.
"No," she said; "you would not. It's
the part of love to sacrifice. Passion only
demands. You might have spared yourself and me. Your telling me all this is
worse than useless. You know-you must
know, that there is no place in my life for
you."
"I know," he said.
Luria regarded him calmly. His thirsty
eyes never left her hands, where they lay,
white, beautiful, quiet, in her lap.
"Good Lord!" he whispered, "give
them to me! Let me touch them-holdc
them-it can't hurt you. It can't hurt
you," he repeated brokenly, "and it'll
make a poor devil happy. Let me touch
them-your hands!"
Luria lifted them with sudden intensity
and laid them on his arm.
"Must I tell you?" she cried. "I love!
They are not mine to give."
His eyes sought hers and he started
back. The happiness in them seemed to
craze him.
"Curse you!" he hissed. "You love?
You love? You have ruined my life t
Murderess! I could kill you-turn your
eyes away! Why did you ever come? "
"I will tell you," she said, with her unfaltering eyes, love-filled, and terrible,
upon him. "It was for my love's sake.
In six months I shall be dead. The doctors have said so. Did you ever notice
that? " She pointed to the blotch of crimson on her cheek. "I want to be ready
to die. I want-"
She paused and frowned. His face had
taken on the unlovely pallor of a corpse.
His lips moved, but no sound came forth.
His hands were stretched out imploringly.
"Don't pity me," she said. "It jars.
It's like a false chord struck by blunt
fingers into my own sweetest harmony.
And my life has been so harmonious! Di.
you know," she went on dreamily, with her
eyes tracing the shadowy and distant
windings of Lost River, "I shall pass in
music-he has promised it. I know exactly how it will seem. I have lived it
through so often. First a drowsiness, then
ecstasy, then oblivion. It will be sweet to
die." Her voice trailed off, her lips parted,
and her eyes took on their look of lethargy
and calm.
The sun had approached its setting.
There was an ominous sound beside her,
and a rattlesnake, enraged to find its path
obstructed, reared its head to strike.
Pete sprang forward to grasp it, and its
fangs were buried in his hand.
Luria, vaguely disturbed, rose and
walked slowly toward the house.
At a little distance Pete followed her.
The night came on apace.
64