And then having reached the end of impossibilities, he stood up and shook himself.
"I'm a fool," he said to the flames, shortly, and went to bed, to lie awake, wondering whether Mazie Wetherell had reached that chapter of his book where he had written of love, deeply, reverently, with a foreknowledge of what it might mean to him some day. It was that chapter which had assured the success of his novel. Would it move her, as it had moved him when he reread it? That was what love ought to be--a thing fine, tender, touching the stars! That was what love might be to him, to Mazie Wetherell, what it could never be to Otto Brand.
At breakfast the next morning he found Mrs. Brand worrying about her waitress.
"I guess she couldn't get back, and I've got a big day's work."
"I'll go and look her up," Van Alen offered; but he found that he was not to go alone, for Otto was waiting for him at the gate.
"I ain't got nothin' else to do," the boy said; "everything is held up by the rain."
It was when they came to the little stream that Van Alen had forded the night before that they saw Mazie Wetherell.
"I can't get across," she called from the other side.
The bridge, which had been covered when Van Alen passed, was now washed away, and the foaming brown waters overflowed the banks.
"I'll carry you over," Otto called, and straightway he waded through the stream, and the water came above his high boots to his hips.
He lifted her in his strong arms and brought her back, with her bright hair fluttering against his lips, and Van Alen, raging impotently, stood and watched him.
It seemed to him that Otto's air was almost insultingly triumphant as he set the girl on her feet and smiled down at her. And as she smiled back, Van Alen turned on his heel and left them.
Presently he heard her running after him lightly over the sodden ground.
And when she reached his side she said: "Your book was wonderful."
Her eyes flashed a question, then blazed. "There, you've come back to it," she said. "What makes you?"
"Silly," she said; "any man could carry me across the stream--but only you could write that chapter in the middle of the book."
"Like it?" she asked. "I read it once, and then I read it again--on my knees."