Ruth’s nature had been filled, and filled without danger or
penalty. This rough sailor-fellow had been the instrument, and,
though Ruth did not love him, he had made her conscious of her
womanhood.
Martin Eden
110
“His hand trembles,” Ruth was confessing, her face, for shame’s
sake, still buried. “It is most amusing and ridiculous, but I feel
sorry for him, too. And when his hands are too trembly, and his
eyes too shiny, why, I lecture him about his life and the wrong way
he is going about it to mend it. But he worships me, I know. His
eyes and his hands do not lie. And it makes me feel grown-up, the
thought of it, the very thought of it; and I feel that I am
possessed of something that is by rights my own – that makes me
like the other girls – and – and young women. And, then, too, I
knew that I was not like them before, and I knew that it worried
you. You thought you did not let me know that dear worry of yours,
but I did, and I wanted to – ‘to make good,’ as Martin Eden says.”
It was a holy hour for mother and daughter, and their eyes were wet
as they talked on in the twilight, Ruth all white innocence and
frankness, her mother sympathetic, receptive, yet calmly explaining
and guiding.
“He is four years younger than you,” she said. “He has no place in
the world. He has neither position nor salary. He is impractical.
Loving you, he should, in the name of common sense, be doing
something that would give him the right to marry, instead of
paltering around with those stories of his and with childish
dreams. Martin Eden, I am afraid, will never grow up. He does not
take to responsibility and a man’s work in the world like your
father did, or like all our friends, Mr. Butler for one. Martin
Eden, I am afraid, will never be a money-earner. And this world is
so ordered that money is necessary to happiness – oh, no, not these
swollen fortunes, but enough of money to permit of common comfort
and decency. He – he has never spoken?”
“He has not breathed a word. He has not attempted to; but if he
did, I would not let him, because, you see, I do not love him.”
“I am glad of that. I should not care to see my daughter, my one
daughter, who is so clean and pure, love a man like him. There are
noble men in the world who are clean and true and manly. Wait for
them. You will find one some day, and you will love him and be
loved by him, and you will be happy with him as your father and I
have been happy with each other. And there is one thing you must
always carry in mind – ”
“Yes, mother.”
Mrs. Morse’s voice was low and sweet as she said, “And that is the
children.”
“I – have thought about them,” Ruth confessed, remembering the
wanton thoughts that had vexed her in the past, her face again red
with maiden shame that she should be telling such things.
“And it is that, the children, that makes Mr. Eden impossible,”
Mrs. Morse went on incisively. “Their heritage must be clean, and
he is, I am afraid, not clean. Your father has told me of sailors’
lives, and – and you understand.”
Ruth pressed her mother’s hand in assent, feeling that she really
Martin Eden
111
did understand, though her conception was of something vague,
remote, and terrible that was beyond the scope of imagination.
“You know I do nothing without telling you,” she began. ” – Only,
sometimes you must ask me, like this time. I wanted to tell you,
but I did not know how. It is false modesty, I know it is that,
but you can make it easy for me. Sometimes, like this time, you
must ask me, you must give me a chance.”
“Why, mother, you are a woman, too!” she cried exultantly, as they
stood up, catching her mother’s hands and standing erect, facing
her in the twilight, conscious of a strangely sweet equality
between them. “I should never have thought of you in that way if
we had not had this talk. I had to learn that I was a woman to
know that you were one, too.”
“We are women together,” her mother said, drawing her to her and
kissing her. “We are women together,” she repeated, as they went
out of the room, their arms around each other’s waists, their
hearts swelling with a new sense of companionship.
“Our little girl has become a woman,” Mrs. Morse said proudly to
her husband an hour later.
“That means,” he said, after a long look at his wife, “that means
she is in love.”
“No, but that she is loved,” was the smiling rejoinder. “The
experiment has succeeded. She is awakened at last.”
“Then we’ll have to get rid of him.” Mr. Morse spoke briskly, in
matter-of-fact, businesslike tones.
But his wife shook her head. “It will not be necessary. Ruth says
he is going to sea in a few days. When he comes back, she will not
be here. We will send her to Aunt Clara’s. And, besides, a year
in the East, with the change in climate, people, ideas, and
everything, is just the thing she needs.”
CHAPTER XX
The desire to write was stirring in Martin once more. Stories and
poems were springing into spontaneous creation in his brain, and he
made notes of them against the future time when he would give them
expression. But he did not write. This was his little vacation;
he had resolved to devote it to rest and love, and in both matters
he prospered. He was soon spilling over with vitality, and each
day he saw Ruth, at the moment of meeting, she experienced the old
shock of his strength and health.
“Be careful,” her mother warned her once again. “I am afraid you
are seeing too much of Martin Eden.”
Martin Eden
112
But Ruth laughed from security. She was sure of herself, and in a
few days he would be off to sea. Then, by the time he returned,
she would be away on her visit East. There was a magic, however,
in the strength and health of Martin. He, too, had been told of
her contemplated Eastern trip, and he felt the need for haste. Yet
he did not know how to make love to a girl like Ruth. Then, too,
he was handicapped by the possession of a great fund of experience
with girls and women who had been absolutely different from her.
They had known about love and life and flirtation, while she knew
nothing about such things. Her prodigious innocence appalled him,
freezing on his lips all ardors of speech, and convincing him, in
spite of himself, of his own unworthiness. Also he was handicapped
in another way. He had himself never been in love before. He had
liked women in that turgid past of his, and been fascinated by some
of them, but he had not known what it was to love them. He had
whistled in a masterful, careless way, and they had come to him.
They had been diversions, incidents, part of the game men play, but
a small part at most. And now, and for the first time, he was a
suppliant, tender and timid and doubting. He did not know the way
of love, nor its speech, while he was frightened at his loved one’s
clear innocence.
In the course of getting acquainted with a varied world, whirling
on through the ever changing phases of it, he had learned a rule of
conduct which was to the effect that when one played a strange
game, he should let the other fellow play first. This had stood
him in good stead a thousand times and trained him as an observer
as well. He knew how to watch the thing that was strange, and to
wait for a weakness, for a place of entrance, to divulge itself.
It was like sparring for an opening in fist-fighting. And when
such an opening came, he knew by long experience to play for it and
to play hard.
So he waited with Ruth and watched, desiring to speak his love but
not daring. He was afraid of shocking her, and he was not sure of
himself. Had he but known it, he was following the right course
with her. Love came into the world before articulate speech, and
in its own early youth it had learned ways and means that it had
never forgotten. It was in this old, primitive way that Martin
wooed Ruth. He did not know he was doing it at first, though later
he divined it. The touch of his hand on hers was vastly more